Archive of Our Own

There’s this road. It’s about three-quarters of a mile before the turn-off to Bobby’s cabin, maybe four miles past the big elm tree that stands sentry over John and Mary Winchester’s driveway. It splits off from the main thoroughfare in a simple three-way junction, unassuming and quiet, flanked on both sides by dense forest. Dean misses it the first few times he drives past but after he finally notices it, it sticks in his head.

He’s not sure why. There’s just something about the tranquil, sun-dappled lane that calls to him. He’s taken to slowing to a crawl whenever he’s alone in the car, rolling by with the window down so he can stare unimpeded. There’s no sign to indicate where it leads, no way to divine the road’s purpose except to drive it. Dean thinks about it every time, but something always stops him. He can never quite bring himself to make the turn.

Heaven is weird, in that it’s profoundly not weird. The sun rises and sets like normal. People go about their business much as they would on earth, only happier since no one has to work a soul-crushing office job to put food on the table. There are grocery stores, but so far Dean’s never had to pay for anything. There are rainy days and endless cable TV channels. There are gas stations and bicycle lanes and cell phones. There’s a little mom-and-pop diner in town that makes really good pie.

He still gets hungry and thirsty, still needs to pee, still feels pain when he stubs his toe on the big ficus plant outside Bobby’s guest room. But those sensations don’t linger beyond the moment and they’re muted somehow, like they’re reaching him through a layer of thick foam, just glancing off his edges before they fade.

He and Bobby eat dinner down at the Roadhouse most nights with the Harvelles and Ash, usually Rufus, often John and Mary, and whoever else happens to make it on any given night. It’s generally a raucous affair, with more laughter than there ever was in Dean’s before-life. He enjoys listening to all of their stories, tells a few of his own. It’s good. 

Dean spends his first month as a dead guy learning what it’s like to just be somewhere. He eats when he’s hungry, drinks when he’s thirsty, sleeps when he’s tired. He finds an electronics store in the next town over and walks out with a giant flat screen and the complete box set of Dr. Sexy, M.D. He picks up an old Western novel on a whim and reads it sprawled in a hammock out back, holding the paperback in one hand so he doesn’t have to set down his beer. He takes Baby out for endless drives, no destination in mind, just wind rushing by his face and REO Speedwagon blasting through the speakers.

He doesn’t mind that there’s a hollow, restless, gnawing feeling in his chest sometimes. Nothing is perfect, not even heaven, and this is better than Dean ever thought he’d get. Better than he deserves, probably. He’s good.

Bobby wasn’t wrong about time being different here, but it’s not the sort of different Dean expected. It’s not so much that time itself has changed; minutes are still minutes and hours are still hours. The days don’t feel any longer or shorter than they should. But Dean’s perception of time has shifted; there’s a sense of eternity in the back of his mind now that wasn’t there before. Compared to that, the span of one man’s earthly life seems like a tiny thing. 

He misses Sam, of course he does, but not in a way that’s all-consuming or even particularly painful. It feels like when he used to leave for a week or two on a solo hunt. There’s a space in his life that Sam usually fills and his absence is noticeable, but temporary.

He misses Jack, too, but it’s different. Jack’s presence is everywhere, all around him, all the time, which makes it hard to really feel his absence.

And then there’s… the other missing piece. An entirely different hole in his world. This one feels sharper and more perilous, like if he tries to look directly at that void it might swallow him whole. Like the fucking Empty -

No.

Dean isn’t ready to examine it yet. It feels like a fresher wound, one with the potential to bleed too much if he starts to pick at it now. Best to let it heal over a bit first.

So Dean eats pie and takes naps and has dinner with his family. He goes on long drives and watches TV and sometimes, occasionally, fills Bobby’s huge clawfoot bathtub with steaming water and sinks into it with one of his paperback Westerns. He’s all ready with a “shut the fuck up, a man’s entitled to a soak once he’s dead,” but Bobby doesn’t even give him shit for it. The next time Dean goes in there he finds scented bubble bath and a fucking neck pillow.

Whatever. Time passes the same way it always has and yet not the same, harder to keep track, and so Dean isn’t sure how long he’s been in Heaven when he goes out for a drive one afternoon and just… keeps driving. It’s spur of the moment, completely unplanned, but Dean feels this need to move and can’t see any reason why he shouldn’t. 

It’s full dark when he pulls over on a deserted stretch of road, no idea where he is, and calls Bobby.

“Let me guess,” Bobby says in lieu of a greeting. He sounds gruff and annoyed in that way that Bobby always does, but Dean can read him easier than any cowboy novel and there’s nothing but resigned amusement under the words. “You’re calling to tell me you ain’t comin’ back.”

“I mean, not never,” Dean reasons, climbing out of the car to stretch his legs. “I’m just gonna drive for a bit, I guess. See where I end up. I want to see this world that Jack and Cas built.” 

If he stumbles a little over Cas’s name, Bobby doesn’t mention it. “Sure, kid. I get that.” Dean hears the distinctive creak of Bobby’s fridge door and then the pop-hiss-clink of a bottle cap. “Do me a favor though, all right? Don’t do anything stupid.”

Dean makes a scoffing noise in his throat. “Like what? In case you didn’t notice, we’re already dead.”

“I don’t fuckin’ know, but if anyone can find trouble in this place, it’s one o’ you idjits.”

Dean huffs, watching the bugs dart around in the glow of Baby’s headlights. He can’t really argue with Bobby’s assessment, but he’s not looking for trouble. He’s just… looking. For what, he doesn’t know yet. He’ll know it when he finds it.

“Promise I won’t burn down heaven,” he says. “Tell Mom I’ll call her soon. And Bobby? Thanks. I mean it, for fuckin’ everything.”

“Dean,” Bobby says after a beat, voice low and serious. “It was the honor of my damn life. And, I suppose, my death. Now go drive your car and let me rest in peace.”

“Yeah, alright old man. See you.”

“Don’t be a stranger.”

Bobby hangs up after that and Dean gets back into the Impala, drives through the night. 

He ends up stopping - fittingly, Dean thinks later - in Heaven’s version of Grand Junction, Colorado. 

He hadn’t come here on purpose, hadn’t had any kind of destination in mind at all, actually, but Dean’s subconscious is a conniving little fucker so here he is. 

It’s been, what, fifteen years? Since he and Sammy took down that wendigo, and the town looks somehow both more and less modern than Dean remembers. It’s all trendy cafes and antique stores and hipster taprooms in old buildings, tree-lined streets and sidewalks dotted with wacky sculpture art. He remembers they’d stopped to eat here after that hunt, but he can’t recall exactly where so he picks a place at random and orders a breakfast sandwich from a waiter with bright blue eyes and a wide smile. 

“Sure thing hon, won’t be long,” the guy - Daniel, according to the little silver name tag pinned to his lapel - tells Dean before he bounds off toward the kitchen with the air of someone who genuinely loves his job. Dean can’t imagine choosing to spend his afterlife working in the food service industry but he supposes everyone has their calling. 

The place isn’t overly crowded but there are a few occupied tables; a prim looking couple who look like they should be in a black and white movie, a group of young guys in outdoor gear probably on their way up to go hiking (Dean has a fleeting, irrational urge to tell them to avoid Black Water Ridge), and what sounds like a small group ensconced in one of the booths on the back wall that Dean can’t see into from where he’s sitting. 

Eating in heaven is pretty goddamn awesome. Not that Dean is exactly a connoisseur of fine dining - shit, he’s eaten some truly disgusting things in his time - but at least by Dean’s standards, it’s good. In this case, the bread is soft and fresh, the bacon crispy but not overcooked, and the eggs are soft but not too runny, exactly the way he likes them. 

“Good job on the food in this place,” Dean mutters without thinking, and then pretends to himself that he isn’t talking to anyone in particular. Just a general observation, that’s all.

His cheerful server comes back to collect his plate and offer him more coffee, which Dean politely declines and asks for the check out of habit.

“Oh, you’re a newbie!” Clearly delighted, Daniel’s voice rises in both volume and pitch, the smile lines at the corners of his eyes deepening. A few of the other diners look over with curiosity.

“Yeah, I’m… still getting the lay of the land, I guess.” Dean shrugs, and the guy gives him a once over that Dean can only categorize as interested. He feels himself flush and looks down at the table, mostly embarrassed about being embarrassed, but Daniel just gives him a knowing smirk and a pat on the head.

“You’ll get there, honey,” he says kindly, then disappears back into the kitchen with Dean’s empty plate. 

Dean stands, ready to leave, but a different voice says “excuse me,” and Dean looks up to see a woman - mid-twenties, attractive, brunette… familiar? - walking toward him from the back booth.

“You’re Dean. Dean Winchester. Right?” She studies him carefully, a wondering sort of look on her face.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s me. And you’re… Haley?” He remembers now. He feels like he’s lived five lifetimes since then, but he remembers.

“Haley Collins,” she says, and throws her arms around him. 

Startled, Dean pats her awkwardly on the back, eyes darting around the room. He notices the two guys in the booth watching them with interest, hands linked on the tabletop, and feels a jolt of recognition. He’s never met them in person, doesn’t remember their names, but he knows who they are. He knows how they died. To Dean, these two men staring at him were photographs in a casefile, once upon a time. One of the many Dean couldn’t save.

Hayley lets go of him, stepping away with an abashed smile. “Sorry,” she says, “it’s just. You saved my life.”

“Clearly not very well,” Dean says, then winces inwardly. His brain to mouth filter is shit. 

Luckily, Haley doesn’t take offense. She laughs, shaking her head. “I mean, the first time. Not… you know.” She shrugs. “Car accident. But before that, you saved my life. After that I got married and had a baby, and…” she trails off. The expression that flickers over her face is sad, but only for a moment. 

Dean might be a ‘newbie’, but he’s been here long enough to know what that is, that look that says it’s okay, they’ll be here soon enough. He feels that expression on his own face whenever he thinks about Sam.

“If you hadn’t saved me that day,” Haley continues after a beat, “my little girl wouldn’t be alive.” She looks at him, eyes widening. “And Tommy, he has three kids. Two boys and a girl. Ben has two girls, Charlotte and Emily. None of them would exist if you and your brother hadn’t been there.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean ducks his head, caught off guard. What is he supposed to say to that? He’s not very good at these conversations. Sam was always better at the emotional stuff. All in a day’s work?

Haley doesn't seem to need a response; she shakes her head with a smile, kisses his cheek, and says: “thank you, Dean. I had a good life because of you.” 

Dean goes back to his car with a feeling in his chest he can’t quite identify and a long, long route sketched out on the back of a napkin. He’s not driving aimlessly anymore.

He makes his way up to Alliance, Nebraska, where the antichrist Jesse Turner had lived, and checks out the replica of Stonehenge made out of cars. He goes east from there to Bedford, Iowa, where he and Sam had hunted that siren, and finds pure joy in the roar of revved engines and the grind of metal on metal at the county fair demolition derby. South to Little Rock, Arkansas, where prison Nurse Ratched had tried to kill him all those years ago. This time instead of a salt-and-burn he watches a couple of elephants play soccer at the zoo.

He visits Maple Springs, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania, and Dearborn, Michigan. Greenwood, Mississippi. Raleigh, North Carolina. He eats his weight in sugar from the Candy Emporium in Red Lodge, Montana, which he’d forgone the first time he was there in favor of taking out a vamp nest.

Every new experience is like a counterbalance. Seeing these places without the blood and the death and the carnage, it’s a kind of catharsis. Dean had taken something from all of these towns, something small and dark and destructive, and he’d carried those pieces around with him like malignant souvenirs. He’s putting them all back, one by one.

People find him, sometimes. Lee Chambers, at a bar in Dodge City. Billy Whitman, at a lacrosse game in Iowa, which Dean ended up at accidentally because he’d been following the smell of hotdogs. Alicia Banes, somehow, in a tiny little backwater tavern outside Rock River, Wyoming. 

People he helped, people who helped him, people he failed. Some conversations are more difficult than others, but Dean always leaves feeling lighter.

 
There’s no true rhyme or reason to Dean’s route. It’s not about speed or efficiency; he’s just going where he thinks he needs to go. 

It takes him a while to work his way around to Lebanon.

The bunker is exactly how he left it, right down to the remnants of his last bacon and egg breakfast that he never got around to clearing up. “You know, that’s actually kinda creepy,” he says to… no one in particular.

He washes the dishes, dries them, puts them away. Wanders into his bedroom and folds away his clothes, throws out the empty beer bottles, packs away Miracle’s bowls with a pang in his chest. Sam better be taking damn good care of his dog.

He’s not sure what’s with this sudden urge to tidy, except that maybe he’s trying to fix something that doesn’t quite feel right. Doesn’t feel wrong, exactly, either, just… it doesn’t feel like home here. It feels like being in a photograph. It’s familiar, nostalgic, beloved… but stagnant.

He keeps cleaning anyway, something in him wanting to make sure everything is in its rightful place before he leaves. He owes that much. It’s a show of respect - a thank you, even - to the building that was his home. So he scrubs the kitchen surfaces, reshelves the books in the library, rolls up the maps in the war room. Venturing in deeper, he finds that a lot of the darker stuff they kept here is missing. Which makes sense, Dean guesses. Cursed shit probably can’t exist in heaven. That’s kind of the point.

He doesn’t go into the storage room where -

He leaves that room alone, and Sam’s bedroom, but the rest of the place is sparkling by the time Dean’s done with it. He wears himself out enough that he goes to bed in his old room and sleeps for near ten hours.

He wakes up disoriented, decides coffee is needed, and finds a woman in his kitchen.

She’s tall, with blond hair to her waist, and she’s wearing chain mail. There’s a double-edged silver broadsword propped against the table at her side. Dean’s certain he’s never seen her before but she’s rocking back on one of their dining chairs with her feet up on the table, drinking coffee out of a mug with a string of zeros and ones on it and looking very much at home.

It’s really a testament to how far Dean’s come that instead of going for a weapon he just thinks 'at least she brewed the coffee.'

“Hi, Dean,” she says expectantly, and there’s something about her… her eyes maybe, or the way she smiles. Dean can’t place it, but there’s something. 

“Okay,” Dean says, crossing over to the percolator to pour himself a mug. “Sure. I’m just gonna get some coffee and you can tell me who you are and what you want and how you got in here, and we’ll go from there.”

“What… oh, damn.” She launches herself off the chair with a frustrated noise, boots thunking on the ground. “I can’t believe I forgot about the mother frakking cosplay.” 

Dean blinks, and Charlie Bradbury is in his kitchen.

When Dean is able to move - or breathe, or think - again, the first thing he says is “how did you…?” which isn’t anywhere near the top of the list of things he wants - needs - to say to her, but. It’s what he can manage right now. He needs a minute.

“Oh, the -” Charlie waves her arms around her face in a wild gesture. “The whole Lady of Rohan look? Yeah, that’s easy. What, you thought I couldn’t hack heaven? Please.”

Dean narrowly manages to avoid stepping on the shards of his broken coffee mug when he takes the five steps needed to hug her.

“Fuck,” he says. His voice comes out rough and mostly lost in her hair, but she must hear him because she squeezes him tighter and nods against his shoulder. 

“It’s really good to see you,” she says, and Dean has to swallow down a lump in his throat before he can answer. There’s so much he needs to say.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Charlie, I never should have -”

“Yeah, no,” she says in that tone she uses to mean Dean you’re being a dumbass. She pulls back a little so he has to meet her eyes. “That’s stupid and we’re not doing it. Now tell me what’s next on your Great American Road Trip 2.0, Heaven Edition. I’m coming with you. You’re my new assignment.”

Charlie, it turns out, has been tracking him since he bit it in Ohio. She’s a ‘transition counselor’ now, whatever that is. Charlie won’t elaborate except to say “think of me as your personal Yoda,” which isn’t all that helpful. 

 She tells him all of this about an hour into the drive between Lebanon and Greenville, feet kicked up on the dash while she eats through Dean’s stash of peanut M&Ms and watches the scenery race by Baby’s window. Dean’s so fucking happy to have her with him.

“So you clocked me the minute I got here?” Dean says, leaning over to steal a handful of his own candy from Charlie’s purloined bag.

Charlie nods, swallowing. “I’ve been waiting for you. People find each other when they’re ready, it’s like a whole thing here,” she says, answering the question Dean was really asking. 

That tracks, actually. Dean’s been running into a lot of people, lately, and that checks out. He nods. “And now you’re here to, what, head-shrink me?”

“Please,” Charlie snorts, giving Dean a look. “Your level of trauma is way above my pay grade, dude. I’m just here to ask you some questions.”

“Like…?”

Charlie narrows her eyes, studying him, then shrugs. “Not yet,” she says finally, and throws a piece of candy at his head.

Dean grins, returns the shrug, eats the candy, and genuinely doesn’t care about the mystery if it means Charlie’s sticking with him for a while. He cranks up the radio and they duet Foreigner and Led Zeppelin all the way to Illinois.

They’re sprawled out on the lush grass of a public park in Greenville, eating tacos from a nearby truck, when Dean gets the first of what he learns will be three questions. It’s not what he expects.

“What are you?” Charlie asks him, easy and casual like she’s asking the time, or some other innocuous thing that actually makes sense.

“Uh… what?” Dean gives her a confused look.

She doesn’t repeat herself, just watches him, patient.

“That’s your question? What am I?” 

The look Charlie gives him says ‘well?’, and Dean shrugs. He’s never been good with riddles. “A hunter,” he says, because it’s obviously a trick question but Dean doesn’t know the trick, so he might as well just go with what’s true.

“Okay.” Charlie nods and goes back to eating her taco.

“Wait, that’s it? That’s the right answer?” Man, he hopes the next two are this easy.

“Oh, no,” Charlie says, smiling. “Not remotely. But it’s your answer, so it’s enough for now.”

Dean shrugs. He learned pretty quick that Charlie can’t be pushed on this shit, and he’s more than happy to let it go. They spend the rest of the afternoon throwing a frisbee to a massive German Shepherd named Tiger while his owner, whose name is Ethel, compliments them periodically on what a lovely couple they make. She doesn’t seem to notice Dean laughing and Charlie making gagging noises every time, which is kind of hilarious.

It’s a good day.

She asks him again in Kentucky, and then twice in Indiana: “What are you?”

“I’m a hunter, Charlie,” Dean answers every time. Charlie seems to accept this. It’s weird, but whatever. Dean is used to weird.

They swing through various towns in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and at each stop the same question: “What are you, Dean?”

“A hunter, Charlie.” He doesn’t know what answer she’s looking for. Dean’s never been anything else.

She asks in D.C., and Delaware, and Massachusetts. They go skiing in Maine, and Charlie looks down at Dean sprawled on his ass at the bottom of the beginner slope and says: “What are you?”

“Not good at skiing,” he says. “Let’s get lunch, I’m starving.”

In Connecticut, she says, “Dean. What are you?” and Dean says “I was a hunter,” trying it out, because maybe that’s it, maybe the point is that he hasn’t let go or some shit like that. But no, she just gives him the same enigmatic smile and they move on like always. He figures when he gets the answer he’ll know, so that can’t be it.

He doesn’t get it in Mississippi or Oklahoma or Nevada. Charlie doesn’t even bother asking the question in Portland; Dean thinks she’s starting to feel sorry for him.

He figures it out, finally, at a Gas-N-Sip halfway between Seattle and Spokane. He’d like to pretend he doesn’t know what triggered the epiphany, but. Human dignity, he thinks as he fills up the tank, the image of Cas - it’s Steve now, and you surprised me - in his vest and name badge bubbling up unbidden. 

It’s the first time he’s let himself think about Cas since he got here. It suddenly seems like a monumental task to smother the memory back down under his subconscious, so he lets it play out in his mind while he loads up on snacks. 

Now I’m a sales associate… 

There’s a real dignity in what I do…

He’s quiet for a moment when he gets back in the car, staring at his own hands on the steering wheel. “I’m human,” he says quietly. “I’m a person. That’s what I am.”

“Dean,” Charlie breathes. “Yes.”

Dean nods and starts the engine. There must be something truly fucked up in him, he thinks, that something as small and simple as acknowledging that he’s a goddamn human being could be so profound. 

Later, when they’ve stopped for the night and Charlie is asleep in the room next door, he falls to his knees on the motel carpet and whispers, “Cas.”

He doesn’t know if he means it to be a prayer or if he just wants to hear it, to feel the name in his mouth again. 

Charlie asks her next question while he’s dangling two hundred feet in the air in a glass box over a raging waterfall, because that’s just the kind of sadistic person she is.

In fairness to Charlie, it was Dean’s idea to ride the cable car over the Spokane Falls. Because that’s the whole point of this, right? New experiences. It didn’t occur to him that his fear of flying might also translate to a fucking gondola ride. For fuck’s sake, Dean is already dead, how is this even still an issue?

“This is supposed to be fun, Dean,” Charlie snickers as Dean white-knuckles the seat and tries not to look out of any of the windows. Which is difficult since the whole thing is windows.

“You said you can hack heaven, right?” Dean says through gritted teeth. “Can you do something with this?”

“Hmm,” Charlie considers. “Answer a question and I’ll consider it.”

“Seriously?”

Charlie props her feet up on the seat beside him and nods. “Why are you here, Dean?”

“Because I’m trying to do new things. Normal people things,” Dean says quickly. He wants off this fucking ride already. “Instead of always looking for something to kill. But I’m willing to make an exception if you don’t get us the fuck out of this box, Charlie.”

“I’m already dead,” Charlie shrugs with an infuriating smirk. “And I didn’t mean here here, I meant heaven. Why are you here?”

Oh. 

Dean thinks about making a flippant comment about bloodsuckers and rebar, but he doesn’t have it in him right now. And besides, he knows the answer to this one. He’s done this part already. 

Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. 

“Because I deserve to be here,” he says firmly. It feels good to say it.

I cared about the whole world because of you.

“Sammy and I, we never got to see the good parts of the world,” Dean continues, because he’s realizing now that there’s power in saying this stuff out loud, and he wants to. “We only ever got the depraved shit. But we kept fighting for it anyway, and yeah, we did some fucked up things, made some mistakes, but we did the best we could and helped a lot of people. I deserve to be here.”

Charlie stares at him. “Okay, well,” she says after a long pause, her voice thick. “I’ll be honest, I thought that would take longer.”

Dean chuckles a little. “Yeah, well, I’m cribbing off someone else’s notes. Can you get us out of here now?”

“Um, no,” Charlie winces. “I can’t actually hack this thing; I was just trying to distract you.”

They’re on the road when Charlie gives him the last question. Dean is driving one-handed with an arm out the window, enjoying the rush of warm night air over his skin, when he realizes he has no idea where he’s going.

He has Charlie pull out the beat-up old map from the glove compartment, but there’s nowhere left. Dean has been to every single town he and Sam ever hunted in. He likes some of them better than others, but he’s found good in every one.

That’s when Charlie folds up the map, stashes it away, and says quietly, “what do you want, Dean?”

It’s not a question Dean has ever seriously given much thought. 

He doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t seem to expect him to. She curls up in the passenger seat and goes to sleep, and doesn’t wake when Dean pulls the Impala over to the side of the road and gets out. He sits down with his back to Baby’s wheel, craning his neck to take in the sky full of stars, and thinks about it.

What does he want? 

The question doesn’t scare him like it would have, once. Dean’s maybe been working on it for a while, he thinks. 

There’s this thing, this something, that he shoved way down deep a long time ago and kept there, buried. And he just kept piling more crap on top of it. Darkness, and violence, and blood. All the slaughter, brutality, betrayal. The guilt and the self-hatred that went along with it. The knowledge that he didn’t deserve to have anything good, that no part of him was worthy.

The thing is, Dean’s been removing all those pieces of shrapnel from himself. One town at a time. And without all that weight, the something can’t stay buried. He’s been unearthing it this whole time.

The trick, he thinks, is to stop running away from it.

The trick is to let it hurt.

Charlie finds him eventually, her face blurred through his unshed tears so he can’t read her expression. She crouches, taking his hands, and says, “Dean. What do you want?”

“Home,” Dean answers. Which is close, and not untrue, but. 

He shakes his head, tries again. “Him,” he says, and the sound that rips its way up and out of his throat is a fragile, broken, distinctly human thing. 

Charlie holds onto him, and there’s pain in the wrenching, full-body sobs that wrack him all over, but it’s more than that. Dean finally understands what Cas meant about happiness existing in the speaking of it, because there’s joy there, too.

Dean sleeps. He doesn’t know where Charlie is driving them, doesn’t much care. He’s exhausted. So he sleeps, and dreams of a sun-dappled, tree-lined road, and when he wakes they’re back at the bunker.

They sit at the table and eat burgers and fries, and Charlie talks to him all about trauma. About how heaven doesn’t heal it, because to take it away would be to change a person, to take away a part of them without their consent, and that’s not free will. So heaven takes away the roadblocks to healing, makes it easier, but people have to choose it. And then she kisses him on the head and says she’s going home to her wife, and to call her when he finds his home, whatever that means.

Dean sleeps a bit more, tidies up again, then gets back in the Impala. He doesn’t even know where to start looking for Cas, but Bobby might. And Bobby’s is the closest thing he has to a home right now anyway, so he points Baby in that direction and drives with all the windows down, Zeppelin cranked up full blast so he can hear the music over the wind.

There’s this road. It’s about three-quarters of a mile before the turn-off to Bobby’s cabin, and Dean almost takes it on two wheels in his scramble to round the bend.

It’s dusty and winding, only a thin sliver of sky visible overhead through the canopy of trees on both sides. There’s a narrow concrete bridge over a wide river, and then more trees on the other side. Dean steps on the gas, impatient to get wherever he’s going, but he feels lighter and calmer with every mile. After a minute or two the trees thin out, the forest fading into rolling hills and fields, and Dean sees the house.

It’s awesome. A big, sprawling farmhouse, old but well-kept, all wood and stone and huge picture windows. 

Home, Dean thinks.

He leaves Baby on the far side of the circular driveway and makes his way around the small garden in its center, gravel crunching under his boots. He can smell the fresh earth from a sapling tree newly planted there. The air smells good here.

There’s a skittering noise from inside the house and something small and furry barrels out, launching itself at Dean with an excited yip.

Oh, god. Dean hugs the dog to his chest and falls to his knees, unheeding of the sharp gravel, and says “hey, buddy,” voice breaking a bit in the middle.

He buries his face in soft fur and holds on for a minute.

Miracle is warm and real in his arms and he almost doesn’t want to let go, except… Except. 

He stands, setting the dog down at his feet, and brushes off his jeans. “Where is he, huh? He in there?” He gestures toward the house and the dog races off inside.

Dean wonders, just for a second, why Miracle would come here and not to Dean, but he gets it. His dog is a smart one; he came home. Dean did too, it just took him longer.

He closes his eyes, taking a breath, and when he opens them… oh.

Dean had thought he knew what it would feel like, to see Cas again, but he couldn’t have conjured up this feeling in his wildest imagination.

“Hello, Dean.” 

He’s standing on the porch, bright, midday sun illuminating his face, watching Dean with a soft smile. He’s not wearing a coat or a tie and his sleeves are rolled up to just below his elbows, but otherwise he looks exactly as he did the last time Dean saw him. Dean’s breath catches in momentary fear, half expecting Cas to disappear, for something to come and claim him, take him away from Dean again. But no. Not this time. Not anymore. He’s here now.

“Cas.”

It’s the length of one heartbeat to get to him, but it feels like the longest stretch of time, that second between here and there. Like it holds all the years between them, all those seconds of wanting and needing and not having. 

They can have, now. Dean buries his face in Cas’s throat, feels Cas’s arms come up around him, and he doesn’t know how long they stand there but Dean feels his breath go slow and even, everything in his head goes quiet and still, the whole rest of the universe floats away. 

Eventually, Dean gathers the wherewithal to nudge Cas’s face up with his own and kiss him, soft and slow and finally. Cas hums against his mouth, deepening it, and there’s a supernova expanding out from the middle of Dean’s chest. The kiss is a living thing, real and perfect and vital; he doesn’t know how they’ll ever stop now, how he’ll ever have enough of this.

“Come inside,” Cas murmurs against his mouth, one hand cradling his face and the other tugging at his jacket, pulling him in the direction of the front door. Dean would follow him anywhere - anywhere - so he’s more than willing to let Cas lead him home.

Dean’s world narrows down to fragments, snapshots of sensory input, too overloaded to process more than one thing at a time.

There’s the sight of his own fingers, clumsy on Cas’s buttons.

Hands in his hair, pulling him in, yes-more-please-now.

Cas’s low, low voice in his ear when he says “touch me, Dean. Please.”

And then there’s the wild-eyed look on Cas’s face, and the tortured growl that spills from the back of his throat when Dean lays him down, presses their bodies together in a slow, deliberate slide of skin on skin. 

“Fuck, Cas,” Dean breathes, awe-struck, cupping a hand around the back of Cas’s head to bring their mouths back together. “You feel…” He doesn’t get to finish the thought; Cas whimpers and presses up into him, skin-hungry, kissing him deep and insistent and demanding.

Dean rocks their hips together, starting up a rhythm, slow and purposeful and not enough and god, so good. He loses all track of time until Cas makes a desperate, heaving, guttural noise and starts to writhe underneath him, wordlessly pleading with Dean to go faster, harder, give him more.

He feels blunt nails raking at his back and feeds a groan into Cas’s mouth, chases it with his tongue. He doesn’t understand how he ever lived without this. It feels fundamental, like Dean will stop existing if Cas stops touching him. 

He pulls back just far enough to suck in a breath, close enough still that their lips brush when he speaks. “Gonna need your hands on me for the rest of eternity, Cas.”

“Yes.” Cas lets out a fractured whine and nods his agreement, frantic, panting, hands clutching at Dean’s back, his shoulders, his hair. “Please.” Then he grasps Dean’s hips and flips them, slams Dean down onto the bed and fucking holds him there. 

Dean hears himself cry out, a broken, fragile, keening sound that crawls its way up from somewhere deep in his chest. He pushes up just to feel Cas’s weight on him, the pulsing, live-wire shock of it. Cas pushes back, grinding down against him, and pleasure sparks through his nervous system like an electric current.

“Fuck,” Dean gasps, “Cas, yes, fuck.” He grips Cas’s hips hard enough to bruise, rolling his body up to meet the frenzied rhythm Cas sets for them. “Jesus, you feel so good.”

“Dean,” Cas sobs, his voice higher pitched than Dean’s ever heard it. Cas pushes himself up on one arm, holding himself up over Dean for better leverage, and god, what a picture. He looks wrecked. He’s so close. Dean wants to see him go over that edge, wants to push him there. 

He lifts a trembling hand to cradle Cas’s face, traces the line of Cas’s cheekbone with his thumb. “Open your eyes, sweetheart,” he breathes, and Cas mewls softly, struggling to comply. 

“Yeah, that’s it,” Dean encourages, looking into those blue, blue eyes. “Always want to see you.” He gets a hand between them, watches as those eyes go wide and unfocused. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous. Let go for me, Cas.”

He strokes him once, twice, three times and Cas goes flying, collapses onto Dean and just fucking shatters in his arms. It’s the most beautiful thing Dean’s ever seen. His last coherent thought, before he buries his face in Cas’s neck and follows him over, is that every dark thing in Dean’s life was worth it to end up here.

“We are going to do that a lot,” Cas says, punctuating the statement with a blissed-out sigh. He burrows into Dean’s chest, nuzzling his face there like a cat about to start purring. Dean chuckles. Cas, it turns out, gets adorably high on sex endorphins.

Not that Dean’s not flying pretty high himself right now. He feels bonelessly content, unmoored in the best way. Free.

“As much as you want, Cas,” Dean tells him on a laugh, weaving fingers through his hair. “I got time.”

Cas lifts his head, propping his chin on Dean’s chest to study his face. Dean watches him back, and the familiarity of it - because fuck, they’ve always stared at each other like this - washes over him like a desert shower. It’s such a relief, not having to pretend this look is anything but what it is.

“You like it here,” Cas says finally, deep voice a rumbling vibration through Dean’s chest. 

Dean huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, no shit, Cas,” he says, giving Cas’s body an appreciative once-over, making a show of it.

Cas rolls his eyes. “Not the bed, Dean. Heaven. You seem… happy, here.” Cas smiles at him, soft and fond, but there’s something a little unsure in the set of his brow. Dean doesn’t want him to be unsure, not about anything, not ever again.

“I am,” he says fervently, and it strikes him, as he says the words, how much he means them. 

Cas’s eyes go bright and he buries his face back in Dean’s chest. “That’s all I wanted,” he says, the words coming out thick and a little jagged. “I built it for you. Me and Jack, we built it for humanity, but.” He pauses, and Dean cups his hands gently around Cas’s head, tilting it up, wanting to see him. 

“I built it for you,” Cas whispers. His eyes are wet when they meet Dean’s, and oh, Dean’s heart cracks at the love there.

“Jesus, Cas,” he breathes, thumbing away Cas’s tears even as his own spill over. “I can’t believe I get to have this.” He tugs Cas up so he can kiss him. “I love you,” he says, and he’s not sure if the gasping, frayed little noise that follows comes from him or Cas.

“Say it again,” Cas pleads, and Dean does. He says it again, and again, pressing the words to Cas’s mouth, his cheek, his brow, his temple, his ear. He gathers Cas in, wrapping him up, and doesn’t let go for a very long time.

Eventually - and it could be days later, Dean genuinely doesn’t know - they get out of bed long enough for Cas to show him the rest of the house.

It’s bright and airy and beautiful. Polished wooden floors and high ceilings, comfortable-looking antique furniture, big windows letting in the light. 

“I planted a chestnut tree, yesterday,” Cas says, pointing out through one of the huge windows in the living room. 

“Yeah, I saw that,” Dean tells him. He wraps his arms around Cas’s waist, pulling Cas back against him. He hasn’t quite figured out how to not be touching Cas at all times, but Dean will work on it. Probably. At some point.

“It will set down deep roots,” Cas says quietly, relaxing back in Dean’s hold. “And birds will come and live in it.” He shrugs. “I don’t know; I just liked the thought.”

Dean rests his chin on Cas’s shoulder. “Me too,” he says, and he can see it, what that big old tree will look like in their driveway one day, marking the passage of time.

Cas smiles, cranes his head back to kiss Dean’s temple. “Come on,” he says, “tour’s not done.”

Dean hadn’t noticed yesterday - he’d been a little preoccupied at the time - but there are framed photographs running the whole length of one wall in the entrance. Dean and Sam with John and Mary, crowded around the kitchen table at the bunker. Sam and Jack, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders, mugging for the camera. Sam and Dean in the Impala, grinning over the front seat. 

A few of the frames are empty, just blank placeholders, and Dean points to one and raises an eyebrow, questioning.

“I wanted to leave space,” Cas explains. “For new memories.”

Because of course he did. Fuck but Dean loves him.

There’s a massive fireplace in the library, and a bunch of guest rooms upstairs. A barn out back with honest to god chickens in it. A porch swing where they find Miracle snoozing in the late afternoon sun. 

Dean loses the thread of Cas’s commentary after a while, distracted by the easy way he moves, how good his forearms look with his sleeves rolled up like that, the way his hair is still mussed from Dean’s hands in it.

He tries to pay attention, he really does. But by the time the tour comes full circle, winding back around to the bedroom - their bedroom, holy shit - Dean’s pretty much a lost cause. He couldn’t reliably recall anything that’s been said in the last five minutes. The sight of the bed - their bed - sheets rumpled, pillows every which way, duvet trailing on the floor...

Need rises up in him like the tide, an insistent, demanding urge to be closer. His fingers itch to touch.

Some of it must register on his face because Cas stops talking abruptly. Then the angelic fucker raises an eyebrow, looks Dean up and down, and smirks at him like a dare.

Dean tackles him to the mattress, and they both go down laughing.

Dean stands in a patch of sunlight in the living room, watching idly through the window while Cas waters his baby tree out front, and dial’s Bobby’s number. 

Bobby answers the phone the same way he always does when Dean calls to check in from the road: “where are you now, idjit?”

Dean huffs out a little breath of laughter. “Home,” he says. “I’m home, Bobby.”

There’s a long pause, the squeak of Bobby’s chair as he sits down. “Well shit,” he says. “That’s real good, son. You close by?”

“Couple minutes,” Dean grins. “I was on my way to your place and… got a little sidetracked.” That’s one way to put it, Dean thinks. Outside the window Miracle is darting about in the water spray from Cas’s hose, snapping at the droplets.

“Glad to hear it,” says Bobby’s gruff voice in his ear. “You should come by the Roadhouse, see everyone.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees easily. He’s been at the farm about a week now, but he doesn’t know how long he was gone before that. It’s so easy to lose track of time here. “Maybe we’ll come by tomorrow,” he says.

“We?”

Dean nods, though Bobby can’t see him. “Yeah. I - um.” He blinks. It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell Bobby. Or anyone, for that matter. He just… doesn’t quite know how to word it. He probably should have figured that out before he made the call.

“Yeah, okay,” Bobby says with a scoff. “Don’t hurt yourself. Tell that angel o’ yours he did all right. See you tomorrow, kid.”

Charlie picks up on the second ring and Dean says, grinning, “hey, ask me the first one again.”

She snorts, but says dutifully, “What are you, Dean?”

“I’m a motherfuckin’ farmer, Charlie.”

Dean always did like to make Charlie laugh. “No you’re not,” she says around her giggles.

“Hey, I resent that. I milked a cow this morning.”

“No you didn’t,” Charlie says confidently, and yeah, okay. Charlie always knows when Dean is bullshitting.

“Okay fine,” he concedes, “Cas did it. But I was there. And I live on a farm now.”

They have two dairy cows, as it turns out. Cas probably told him about it during one of the sections of the tour where Dean wasn’t paying attention, because he didn’t discover this news until he woke up stupidly early this morning and went to find out where the fuck Cas was. 

Dean has been inwardly laughing about it ever since. He doesn’t know why he finds it so funny, exactly, except the idea of Dean Winchester, hunter extraordinaire, turned cow farmer.

He has no intention of ever milking the cow, of course, but he is of the firm belief that owning the cow is enough. “I have cows, Charlie. That definitely makes me a farmer.”

“It really doesn’t, bud,” Charlie laughs. “But you sound happy.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “It’s pretty awesome.”

He means to call his mom next but there’s a commotion at the front door and the dog tears through, mud flying everywhere, Cas on his tail and yelling at him to “stop! Miracle! Get back here!” 

Dean doubles over, hands on his knees, and is still laughing when Cas comes back into the room and says, deadpan and with great dignity, “your dog requires a bath.”

“Oh, now he’s my dog,” Dean chuckles, but follows Cas out into the yard. He manages to wrestle Miracle under the hose and they scrub the mud out of his fur, ignoring the reproachful look he levels at them; Dean is sure it’s one part betrayed and two parts plotting revenge. 

Dean is already drenched when Cas turns the hose on him, so it doesn’t make a lot of difference to Dean’s general level of saturation. Still, it’s the principle of the thing. Cas puts up a good fight, but Dean is still better at hand-to-hand. He wrenches the hose away and shoves it down the back of Cas’s button-down, cackling uncontrollably when Cas starts yelling what he assumes are withering insults in Enochian. 

They dry out in the sun, sprawled on the grass in their underwear while Miracle races around them in wild, dizzying circles. Dean watches him with a fond smile. 

“How long’s he been here, anyway?” he asks Cas, curious.

“He showed up about a year ago. I sense his death had a natural cause. He was sick, and I’m sure Sam did everything he could, but.” Cas shrugs, moves closer so he can lean his head on Dean’s shoulder, still watching their dog tear around the yard. 

“When he showed up here,” Cas says after a beat, “that’s when I knew you’d come.”

It stabs at Dean’s heart, that that was a thing Cas ever had cause to doubt. He turns his head, burying his face in Cas’s damp hair.

“God, Cas. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry it took me so fucking long.” 

Cas lifts his head to look at Dean, eyes wide. “Dean,” he says, and takes Dean’s face in his hands. “You have nothing to apologize to me for. I love you. And I’m so proud of you.”

Dean pulls him in, kisses his mouth, his cheek, his temple. “I love you so fucking much, Cas,” he says.

If happiness is in the saying it, Dean doesn't know what this feeling is. Saying it, and having it, and living it… happiness is a laughably small word for this.

The blank spaces in the entrance hall fill up with new photographs. 

There’s one of Mary, John and Bobby, clustered under Cas’s chestnut tree in the driveway, now grown tall and strong. Beside it, there’s a picture of Charlie sitting on the thickest of the tree’s boughs, legs dangling, Dean a blur of motion beneath her as he tries to jump high enough to catch one of her feet. 

Another shows Dean and Cas and Miracle at the beach, the dog shaking salty seawater all over them. There’s Ellen and Jo, grinning from behind the bar at the Roadhouse. Dean, reluctantly milking a cow. Cas, grinning as he points to the angel at the top of the Christmas tree, its silver sparkly gown and wings half covered by a tan trench coat Dean got from Build-a-Bear. 

New memories, good ones, so many of them they could never all fit on the wall.

Dean isn’t expecting it when it happens. 

The house is full of people, as it always is for what has come to be known as Cas and Dean’s Bimonthly B.Y.O. Everyone’s Invited.  He’s perched on the kitchen island, watching Kevin and Charlie as they invent increasingly elaborate cocktails and laughing at the faces they make whenever they taste one.

Cas is out back grilling steaks with Mary, or was, except then he comes barreling through the kitchen with the keys to Baby in his hand and says “Dean,” in that voice, the serious one. Dean hops down off the counter and follows him outside. 

“Cas, what -” he starts, but there’s a sound like a thunderclap, only it’s just in his head, and Dean knows.

Cas presses the keys into his hand. “Go,” he says, smiling now, and Dean just blinks at him, wide-eyed.

“Go where? I don’t know where -” 

“Just drive,” Cas says. “You’ll know. He’ll find you.” 

People find each other when they’re ready, Charlie had said to him all those years ago. 

Okay.

Okay, he’s got this. He climbs into the Impala. Baby’ll get him where he needs to go.

He figures he’ll just head towards Bobby’s, or maybe the Roadhouse. He only makes it as far as the bridge. 

He rolls Baby to a stop, searching. No Sam yet, but this is the place, Dean can feel it, so he gets out of the car to wait. Sam will be here.

It’s a nice spot for a reunion. Dean remembers the first time he came over this bridge, when all he wanted was to get to the other end of the lane, no time to stop and appreciate the beauty of this vista that Cas created for them. He appreciates it now, runs a hand along the bridge rail, huffs out an amused breath at the thought that Sammy would choose to meet him here, on Dean’s road, the one that he was so afraid to drive for so long.

There’s a strange feeling in his chest, like the air right before a storm. Dean doesn’t know what it means until it fades and his brother is there in its place.

“Hey, Sammy.”

He looks good. Settled. Much more so than Dean when he first got here.

“Dean,” Sam says, a bittersweet smile curling the corners of his mouth. Dean remembers that feeling, the lingering sadness of saying goodbye. 

Dean hugs him tight, doesn’t know the words to tell him everything’s okay, it’s good, you’re gonna be so happy here. So he tugs Sam over to the railing, trying to show him. Look. It’s beautiful, Sam, look.

He finds words, eventually, says, “tell me about after.” Sam does, tells Dean all about the life he lived, how he got married, got divorced, had a kid in between, named him after Dean. 

“Which,” Sam tells him with a wry smile, “might have been a mistake, because as hard as I tried to keep him out of the life, he’s stubborn as a fuckin’ mule.”

Dean laughs at that, then sobers. “He ended up in the family business then?”

“Yeah. He’s good at it, too.”

“Course,” Dean scoffs. “He’s a Dean Winchester.”

“Yeah,” Sam chuckles, shaking his head. “He’s okay. It’s... I don’t know, different now. Not sunshine and rainbows, but not like…” Sam waves his arms, a gesture meant to encompass all of that, because what word do you use to describe the shit they went through? 

“He’s okay,” Sam says again, and there’s a wistful smile as he looks out over the river, quiet.

Dean nods. “He’ll be along,” he says, echoing the words Bobby gave him back when he was in Sam’s shoes. “Time up here, it’s different.”

Sam nods, accepting. “Yeah,” he says, looking around with interest. He’s going to get his shit together so much faster than Dean did, Dean can already tell. 

Which is nothing new; Sammy always was smarter than him. 

“Okay, so what happens now? You live on this bridge, or…?

“Close enough.” Dean grins, pointing back up the road. “We got a big old farmhouse about two miles that way.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “We?”

Oh, right, Dean thinks. Sometimes he forgets what a fucking idiot he was when he was alive, forgets that he and Cas haven’t always been what they are now.

Dean doesn’t say anything, just looks at Sam with an expression somewhere between serene and smug. He doesn’t need to say anything; Sam knows. Sam always did. 

 A gleeful smirk makes its way gradually over Sam’s face, the corners of his eyes crinkling up with mirth. “Took you long enough.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean claps him on the back, pushes him in the direction of the Impala. “Come on. He’ll be wondering where we are. Everyone’s waiting to see you.”

Dean drives slow on the way back to the house, letting Sam take everything in, get his bearings. It’s been a while, but he remembers what it was like, the jarring transition from alive to this.

Halfway up, where the trees start to thin out and transition into rolling farmland, Sam points out Dean’s window, leaning over to peer out with fascination. 

“Where does that road lead?”

The thing is, Dean has never really noticed that road before. He thinks it’s been there the whole time, but he’s never paid any attention to it. He does now, slowing the car even further to get a better look. 

It looks like a nice scenic drive, smooth and tranquil. Dean has no urge to make that turn, but the road itself doesn’t feel unwelcoming. It’s just… not his. It’s Sam’s road. Dean grins, wonders who’s waiting at the end of it.

“I don’t know, Sammy,” Dean tells him. “Maybe we’ll check it out someday.” 

Sam will get there. When he’s ready. Dean keeps driving, pretending not to notice the way Sam cranes his neck around to keep watching until the lane is out of sight.

Cas must have filled everyone in because there’s a crowd of people in front of the house when Dean pulls up. He glances over at Sam, wondering if it might be a bit overwhelming right off the bat, but Sam just looks excited.

Mary makes it over to them first, embracing Sam with tears in her eyes. Then John is there, and Bobby, Jo and Ellen both hugging him at once, Miracle going up on his hind legs to try to lick Sam’s face, Charlie, and Kevin, and then it’s a free-for-all, everyone crowding in at once, talking over one another, Sam’s bright laughter ringing out from the middle of the congregation.

Jesus, what a day.

Dean makes his way up onto the porch where Cas is smiling like the sun, watching, content to hang back out of the fray and wait his turn. Dean pulls him close, arms around his waist, lifting him off his feet a little just to hear that laugh. It’s the best sound there is.

Winding his arms around Dean’s neck, Cas closes his eyes, rests their foreheads together, a warm exhalation of breath ghosting over Dean’s cheek.

“What are you sighin’ about, sunshine?” 

Cas shrugs, still smiling. “Just happy,” he says. There’s nothing better than that, not in the entire fucking universe. Dean kisses him soft and slow, keeps kissing him until an amused voice behind him says “when you two are done…?”

Fuck it’s good to have him back. 

Cas huffs a laugh against Dean’s mouth and pulls away. “Hello, Sam,” he says, grinning, and lets Sam wrap him up in a bear hug.

Two hours later, Charlie and Kevin have almost perfected their latest cocktail invention - made with orange juice, Tequila and pomegranate, which is basically a Tequila Sunrise but Dean doesn’t have the heart to tell them - when Charlie gets a weird look on her face and then grins, glancing over at Sam.

Sam hasn’t said or done anything to warrant that look - he and Cas have just been rattling on about nerdy shit to each other for an hour - but Dean thinks maybe he knows what’s up. You’re my new assignment, she’d said to him once upon a time.

Charlie catches him looking and winks, moving to the sink to wash the pomegranate juice off her hands, and Dean wanders over to the couch where there’s some sort of discussion about theology going on.

“Hey Sammy,” Dean says, grabbing Cas’s hand to pull him up, flush against Dean’s side. “Give me back my angel. I think Charlie’s got some questions for you.”