Come Back to Me: Coda for 12×23

spearywritesstuff:

You can also read it HERE on Ao3.

And what if he just stayed there forever, knees slowly becoming one with the earth? He could only glance at him and then look away. He couldn’t focus on him too much or it would be real. He couldn’t touch him, because that would be a proof too physical of all that he lost, all that he never even gained.

So Dean tipped his head back and stared into the vast expanse of the stars and prayed. He had no clear recipient in mind as the words formed in his head, half nonsense, half clear begging. It slowly became Chuck to whom he prayed, but he never let himself believe that God was listening to anything anymore.

And when it was clear that Chuck wasn’t listening he opened up his mind to a vast universe of possibilities. Cas was worth much. Dean regretted not getting to tell him just how much. He closed off his mind to those thoughts and choked back a sob that threatened to escape. 

He turned his eyes from the heavens and all the help that wasn’t there. He finally looked down at him, at Cas. He stared at his eyes that were closed, his face so still, too still. He felt his own body doubling over. Dean clutched at his stomach and pressed his head to Cas’ chest. He breathed in and out in ragged breaths. He reached up with first one hand then another. 

He clutched at Cas’ shirt, torn and bloodied from his near escape. He clung to him and tried to imagine pulling him back to his body as if he could picture it so well, that it would actually be so. He kissed into the fabric but if asked he’d not even recognize it as such. It was just a press of his body, his lips to a body cold and dead. It wasn’t a kiss as much as it was giving up and letting the weight of all things pull him down.

Dean’s mouth formed words. Some were Cas and others were No and Come Back. he knew it wasn’t a choice to be reversed. He knew it wasn’t Cas’ mess to fix. It was a universe of wrong that took Cas away, just as it always did and ever would. And where would he go now? Dean wondered. Where would Cas be if not alive and here with them?

He is an angel, and they don’t get their own special heaven or a spot of torture in hell. They just stop. They just cease to be. Dean sat back up and stared down at him, at his half open palm that lay on the dirt at his side. Dean began processing all of his thoughts on where angels go when they die in an effort toward figuring out how best to follow him, bring him home. 

The shift was stark. He knelt in despair. He rose back up to his knees with a different resolve filling him. He took Cas’ hand in his. He let his mind roam down paths and possibilities. He would save him. This was not the end. It couldn’t be. 

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye caught him. He glanced to it. “Jack!” Sam called out to the movement which was there and gone before Dean could do a thing. Jack was a blur out over the water, leaving behind a golden trail of light in his wake. Sam stopped at the shore unable to follow him. 

Sam came back to Dean’s side. Dean stayed focused on the light. A solution was forming. He didn’t care about Jack in this moment, but he sent out a quick prayer, saying Thank you, because just the thought of him, the vision of his golden light was enough to get him thinking right. His hand rubbed over the leg of his pants, over the wound recently healed. “Sam, help me move him in the house.”

“Sure thing, Dean.” Sam looked like he was going to cry, but he stooped to lift him anyway. 

“We’re bringing him back. He’s not gone. We’re bringing him back.” Dean stalked away from them to the car, figuring on meeting them inside when he had what he needed.

Keep reading