#also yeah minor similarities to a drabble I wrote this summer

[one-more-offbeat-anthem]

after the credits

to thirteen years of cas and of the greatest love story ever told...an empty rescue fic for y’all :) 2.3k,  read on ao3 here

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After a while, Castiel gets tired of watching. He’s practically dreaming all the time, but he’s so tired.

Eternal sleep is not restful.

He can’t leave the Empty, but he manages to mold it, with his mind, into a theater. He went to one once, with Dean, and there are probably nicer theaters, like those for plays and operas, but this movie theater is right for him. If he concentrates, he can almost smell burnt, buttery popcorn and spilled soda and old carpet, and Dean right next to him, aftershave and car oil and whiskey.

Almost.

The scenes unfold in a memorable order, because they’re Cas’s own memories. At first, he tried to jump in, alter the scene, but he’s powerless. So, like clockwork, he watches. He’s saving Dean in hell. He’s being stabbed in the chest by the same man he raised. He’s asking Dean to get answers from Alastair and then almost getting the grace pressed out of him. He’s slamming his palm onto a bloody sigil. He’s--

Everything, all of his twelve years on earth, pass by, over and over and over again.

Right now, it’s an early scene, not far into the cycle. It’s not one of his favorites, because he can see the expression on his face, remembers exactly how he felt. Remembers that he he was feeling at all.

“That was a pretty awkward kiss, huh?”

Cas turns sharply at the sound of Dean’s voice. Of course, Dean does talk in this scene, before he kisses Anna. But this Dean is sitting next to him, frowning at the screen.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Cas says.

“I know.”

Chances are this is just the Empty trying to mess with him. Last week a random trashcan showed up in his theater. Or maybe it was last year, or a millenia ago, or five minutes from now. Time is weird.

They keep watching in silence. On the screen, in the memory, Cas’s head jerks away from the sight of Dean and Anna kissing. The scene flips then, to a park at night, Anna right in front of Cas, no Dean in sight.

“For the first time, I feel...” Memory-Cas says.

“It gets worse,” Anna warns.

“So your first feeling….” Dean starts.

“It was something.” Cas can’t look at him. The scene on-screen changes.

Dean, to his merit, doesn’t press.

The memories progress through the year they spent trying to stop the apocalypse, the year that ended with Sam diving into the pit and Dean going off to Lisa’s. Then through Cas starting to work with Crowley, a conversation that happened right behind Dean without his knowledge.

On-screen, Cas is watching Dean rake leaves. The expression on his face is nearly mournful. After a moment, Crowley steps into view.

“Ah, Castiel. Angel of Thursday. Just not your day, is it?” Crowley says.

“What are you doing here?” Memory-Cas asks.

“I want you to help me help ourselves.”

“Speak plain.”

Crowley smirks. “I want to discuss a simple business transaction. That’s all.”

“You want to make a deal? With me? I’m an Angel, you ass. ”

The scene flips again.

“Is there a way to pause this?” Dean asks.

Cas shakes his head. “It just does this, on a loop. I can’t sleep. The Empty won’t let me.” He puts a hand on the armrest between them. “I forced the theater up, to make it better.”

“It looks a lot like that theater we went to once.”

“I know.” Cas stares at Dean for a moment, looks away.

Many of these scenes are things Dean knows of. Cas works with Crowley, gets locked in a ring of fire, feels his chest seize up as Dean looks back for a moment. Watches the Leviathans lead him to a lake. They meet again on porch steps, Cas unable to remember who he is but still able to figure out that Dean is important. Cas gets his memories back, takes on Sam’s hell trauma. They go to Purgatory, Cas stays behind. It’s like clockwork.

Until.

“I don’t remember that,” Dean says slowly, watching himself die on the screen. “You never--you’ve never killed me.”

“Yes and no.” Cas knows what’s coming next--he’s going to kill Dean thousands of times. Each one is the same, with Cas in tears as these copies, mock-ups of Dean struggle, beg and plead, tell him not to. Each time, Naomi makes him do it again.

Until, finally, he doesn’t hesitate.

And she says he’s ready.

As they watch that scene in the crypt unfold, with the real Dean at Cas’s mercy, Dean leans forward, putting his elbows on his thighs and propping his chin in his hands. “You lied.”

“Hm?”

“You said you didn’t know what broke the connection.” Dean twists his head to look at Cas. “But you did.”

“I did,” Cas assents.

They watch Cas ride cross-country on a bus, pulling out his phone and almost calling Dean over and over again.

“Is there a way that we can see some of my memories?” Dean asks.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”.

Dean shrugs. “Well, I am here, and you figured out how to make a friggin movie theater, so I think I can do it.”

The image on the screen shudders, coalesces, breaks into a million pieces and then reforms. Dean is standing on the edge of a lake, picking up Cas’s coat, still covered in Leviathan goo. “You dumb son of a bitch,” Memory-Dean mutters, wrapping up the coat in his arms.

The scene flickers again--the coat in those same hands, moving from car to car to car, and then being passed to Cas. “I always knew you’d come back ,” Memory-Dean says. It’s a soft scene, almost, but then it flips to Dean seizing a monster’s collar in purgatory. He’s covered in blood and grime as he shoves the monster up against a tree, practically growling, “Where’s the angel?”

Even after the monster answers, Dean guts him.

It’s a cycle. The memory blurs through sleepless nights, through Dean stepping into streams to pray, prayers Cas knows well. It pushes past Cas letting go of Dean’s arm in the portal, and here’s something else new: Dean sees Cas on the side of the road, sees him outside the window while it pours down rain, sitting bolt upright at the phantom sight of Cas’s face.

“Why are you here?” Cas finally asks. This must really be Dean, after all. The Empty wouldn’t know these things, wouldn’t be able to dream them up. They’re too good, too honest.

“To bring you home.” Dean kicks the back of the seat in front of him, leans back in his own chair.

“I can’t go home.”

“You should.” The scene on screen rapidly changes--it’s Dean as he looks now, carrying a little boy on his back. The little boy is blonde, round-faced, holding onto Dean’s neck for dear life, laughing as Dean swings around.

“Is that--” No, it can’t be.

“Yep. He’s four, you know.” Dean clears his throat. “He misses you.”

“I wish I could have gotten to say good-bye.” Cas trails off.

“Come home. Then you never have to say it.”

Cas shakes his head. On the screen, Dean is reading to Jack, Jack following the words with a chubby finger. “It would be...awkward.”

“How?” Dean raises an eyebrow. “We’re family, dude. Jack misses you, Sam misses you, and Eileen’s been hanging around, and me…” Dean clamps his mouth shut.

That’s why.

“Things aren’t going to be the same. Not after…” Cas takes a deep breath. “What I said. We won’t be able to ignore it.”

“Then we won’t.”

“Dean--”

“You don’t know?” Dean’s eyebrows furrow. “You don’t know. Okay. I, uh…” The screen turns black.

“You what?” Cas is almost afraid to know.

“I didn’t want you to see this.”

The blackness unfurls into Billie’s library, Dean standing in front of her. They’re clearly in the middle of a conversation.

“What do you want me to say?” Memory-Dean asks. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. ”

“Don’t you?” Billie replies.

“I couldn’t save Mom. I couldn’t save Cas. I can’t even save a scared little kid. Sam keeps trying to fix it, but I just keep dragging him down. So I’m not going to beg. Okay, if it’s my time, it’s my time.”

“Dean--” Cas starts, but Dean just looks at the floor, like he’s trying to avoid this.

“You really believe that,” Billie says. “You wanna die.”

“When was this?” Cas asks, speaking over the rest of Billie’s statement.

“It was...right before we, uh, got the call from you. That you were back.” Dean leans his head all the way up, looks at what would be the movie theater’s ceiling, if it wasn’t in the void. “I had a bad time. I…I would show it to you. But I don’t want you to see me like that. I held it together enough to wrap your body and burn it…”

“Hunter’s funeral.”

“Only kind I know how to do.” Dean swallows, audibly. “I’m doing what I can now. Having Jack to take care of, and Eileen around, too, helps. But it’s…” He finally looks at Cas again. “Please let me take you home. Please come home with me.”

Cas would do anything for Dean Winchester. He has done anything for him before. So he will grant him this, at least the illusion, because Cas knows he can’t leave the Empty. He’s trapped here for eternity.

He takes Dean’s hand.

-----------------------------------------

There is a little boy crawling on him.

“Daddy,” the boy says, poking his face, “I know you’re awake.”

“Jack,” Dean says, from somewhere up above, “Cas is still sleeping.”

Cas blinks rapidly. “‘M not.”

“Shouldn’t’ve said that.” Dean releases Jack, and Jack fully clambers onto Cas.

“I missed you,” Jack says.

“I missed you too.” Cas holds onto him, tight. He’s so small, like he’s supposed to be. A kid. Safe.

Cas thinks he might be in Dean’s bed.

The bunker, he discovers, looks much the same. He was gone for four months, in which time Dean and Sam took care of Chuck, Jack became a kid, and Eileen became a permanent fixture. When Dean and Sam aren’t looking, she signs to Cas, “He already looks better.”

“Who, Dean?” Cas signs back.

Eileen nods. “He had a pretty bad time.”

Dean turns around then, and Eileen presses a finger to her lips.

There’s not a quiet moment for the rest of the day. Sam explains what happened--”You might be human now,” he says, and Cas replies, “I’m not tired yet.”--and Jack wants Cas to read to him and play Barbies and racecars and puppets (apparently Dean built Jack’s little puppet theater, which--).

After dinner (spaghetti and meatballs, and Dean has a Coke instead of beer, Cas notices), everyone goes off to bed, and Cas realizes he is tired, which is something to think about.

He starts to head to the room he typically stays in, but Dean seizes the top of his arm. “Nope, you’re coming with me.” Dean drags Cas down the hall towards his room.

Cas hadn’t gotten a good luck at it earlier, what with Jack climbing all over him, but he sees it now. Dean’s bed unmade, scraps of random paper littered across the dresser, a picture Cas recognizes because he and Dean are wearing cowboy hats, and now he knows how Dean was really doing right before that case in Dodge City--

There’s also a dent in the wall. That’s new.

Dean follows Cas’s gaze. “I chucked a whiskey bottle at it. Sam took the rest of my stash the next day.” Dean steps over, brushing the drywall’s cracks with his fingers. “I didn’t fix it up so I wouldn’t forget.”

I couldn’t save Cas. I can’t even save a scared little kid. Sam keeps trying to fix it, but I just keep dragging him down. So I’m not going to beg. Okay, if it’s my time, it’s my time.

“Dean,” Cas says, “Tell me in words.”

“What?” Dean turns away from the wall. “Tell you what?”

“You know.”

Dean swallows, licks his lips. “I’d say don’t ever do that again on the whole dying thing, but I said that to you once and you didn’t listen. And maybe if I say it the right way now, you’ll stay, but…” Dean slumps, sits on the bed. “You can’t leave again.”

Cas touches the wall himself before sitting next to Dean on the bed. “I’m not going to.” He isn’t sure if he’s allowed to touch Dean.

Dean touches him instead, leaning into Cas, finding one of Cas’s hands, holding it tight. He’s crying, Cas realizes. “I love you,” Dean says into their joined hands, then his chest wracks with a sob. “I was always so sure that if--” another sob, “If I said it, you’d leave. Get taken away from me.”

“I’m not going to leave,” Cas repeats.

He isn’t sure how long they sit like that, but Dean finally straightens up, lets go of Cas’s hand, wipes his eyes with the back of his own. “Pajamas,” Dean says, standing and crossing to the dresser. “We gotta get you some of your own, but…” He digs a pair of sweats out of the drawer and tosses them to Cas. “These’ll do for tonight.”

Cas doesn’t ask if he can stay. Dean doesn’t ask him to leave.

With the lights out, it’s pitch black, almost as inky as the Empty, but Cas can hear Dean breathing, so close to him. The bed is almost too small for both of them, so they’re nearly chest-to-chest. Hardly ever have they been this close. Never did Cas dare to dream it.

In the dark, under the covers, the world outside of this room, Dean kisses him. It’s flat, soft, a brush of lips, the barest ghost, but it’s enough. More than enough.

Cas is home.