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Dean does get up off the floor, eventually. He’s not sure how long it takes, but eventually the ringing in his ears recedes and he pulls together enough of his shattered pieces to move again, to do whatever the next thing is, because if he thinks more than one step ahead, he won’t be able to do anything at all.
He gets off the floor and he texts Sam to tell him he’s alive and Billie’s gone. Sam texts him back to tell him everything he already knew. It was Chuck after all - it always is - and the others are gone, their friends and family snatched away in an eye blink. Sam’s a smart kid and must have caught the “I” in “I’m alive.” His next message just says they’re headed for the bunker and for Dean to stay put. Where would even go, alone?
He gets off the floor and he heads for the library and the lore. There’s nothing there. There’s not going to be anything there or they would have found it already, but he owes Cas that much. He owes Cas, everything, really. Everything in his life that is 100 percent real and his, that he somehow claimed for himself in spite of all the cards stacked against them, he owes to Cas and he gets that now, fundamentally, with a bone-deep clarity that is settling in over the shock.
He swears he can feel the echo of the old scar on his arm underneath the bloody handprint.
He wasn’t worth it, of course; he’s never been worth a damn, but if Cas thinks he is, if Cas thinks he’s worth that level of devotion, of sacrifice, then it feels disloyal, almost arrogant to argue with it. It feels like a betrayal not to get up off the damn floor and see this through.
If Cas thought. Not thinks. They had a shot at a future, a real one, a better one than Dean ever knew or let himself hope for, but that’s over now. And when he lets himself sit with that - if he even gets a chance to when this is all over - it’s going to break him for good. But he owes Cas more than to let that happen now.
They can save the world, maybe, and maybe that makes it worth it on some level, if Dean can help make it so Sam, Jack, Charlie, the others have a future, then Cas’ sacrifice can be for something bigger, for something more than just one brittle and broken human life. It’s the least he can do. The absolute least he can do at this point is take down Chuck and save the others or die trying.
Maybe and die trying. That’s fine too.
He’s done this so many times - take the hit, absorb the shock, and keep moving. Push through the pain, bury it deep, curl his finger around the trigger or his hand around the hilt of the knife, and step back onto the battlefield. It feels different this time because it’s the last time. He knows that with the same certainty, settling in and making its home in his chest. He’s got one more fight left in him.
And that’s where Sam and Jack find him, bent over the books on the library table, bottle of whiskey at his elbow (push through the pain, bury it deep, drink until his hands stop shaking).
“Dean,” Sam says, sitting down across from him at the table. “What happened?” When Dean looks up, he recognizes the stoic and haunted look in Sam’s eyes, braced for another blow. Sam, who lost Eileen, who watched their friends snuffed out, who drove back to the bunker through an empty world already guessing what he would find. Maybe Sam is the strong one, after all.
Dean just shakes his head. “I can’t, Sammy,” he says, with only the slightest hitch to the words, and he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s keeping it together because he has to, because the only way out is through, until he meets Jack’s eyes, wide and shocky where Jack is hovering behind Sam’s chair.
“Cas?” Jack breathes out, and it’s not really a question, he has to already know too, but that’s all it takes for Dean to crumble again, and maybe there’s no way to bury this deep enough. It’s going to hover right below the surface, maybe for the rest of his life. However long that is.
He drops his head into one hand and pulls in a shuddering breath. When he’s under control enough to speak, he raises his eyes to where Jack has sat down next to Sam, eyes wet and still wide, tears not quite spilling over. Dean can’t look at him.
“He’s gone, kiddo,” he says, as gently as he can. Before this, any time before this, he’d have lashed out, angry at Jack too, for this loss, for the deal, but Cas made his choices, and Dean was the one who…
Who didn’t...
Who somehow never saw what was right in front of him. Not that Cas did either. And now Dean’s the one who has to live with it. It is tragically, cosmically unfair, but what else is new? And he owes this to Cas too, to be gentle with Jack in this moment.
“Was it Billie?” Sam asks. Dean shakes his head.
“Chuck, then?” Sam reaches out to put one hand on Dean’s forearm, and Dean lets him, takes a breath in the grounding touch. He shakes his head again. He can’t. He can’t, he’s going to lose it again, but that’s going to happen anyway, and maybe he owes them too - the truth, or some approximation of it. They were Cas’ family too.
“No,” he swallows hard against the lump in his throat and closes his eyes, “it was the Empty. It took out Billie too. She had us, and Cas knew the Empty was the only thing that could stop her.”
“But...how? The Empty can’t come to Earth.” And Sam is confused now, and still heartbroken, and there’s so much more. Dean doesn’t think he can get through this.
“It can if it’s summoned.”
“But…” Sam starts
Jack says, softly, “The deal.” And there it is.
“You knew.” When Dean looks over, Jack is just looking at him, steadfastly, but a little hesitant, tears rolling down his face. And Dean almost wishes he could tap into any of the old anger, at least that kept him moving, kept him focused but then, look at where that got all of them, and there’s nothing there anyway. It’s like something has been extinguished in his chest. There’s that roaring in his ears again, like white noise threatening to drown out the conversation. Dean drops his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Jack is saying, “he made me promise, he said it wasn’t anything we had to worry about now, he said….” and Dean holds up one hand to stop him.
“I know. I know he did. It’s not your fault.” He doesn’t know that he wants to know what else Cas said about unhappiness, and he knows why Cas took the deal, can’t blame him for doing it, not for that piece.
They’re all Winchesters, after all.
He can blame Cas, a little, for thinking what he thought, but only a little. He can blame himself more, but what’s the point of that? He owes it to Cas not to fall into the pit of self-loathing now, owes him that too, and that might be the barometer he’ll be using for everything for the rest of his life. How the hell do I be the version of me that Cas saw? How do I even begin to be worthy?
“What deal?” Sam asks, voice tight, and Dean lets Jack answer that one. He was there, after all. Jack explains haltingly, providing more context than Dean was given in those few, life-altering minutes - the Empty infiltrating Heaven, the fight. The deal. The temporary reprieve.
“But how?” Sam says, still trying to understand. “If it was about happiness in all of this, then how…” He trails off when Dean just looks at him, as steady as he can, trying not to shatter again, breathing through the knot in his chest. It doesn’t feel unlike it did when Billie was crushing his heart. Push through the pain.
Sam’s a smart kid. He knows his brother, and his best friend, and Dean sees when he gets it, or something close to it, gets enough that Dean doesn’t have to say it, and that’s...that’s good. Whatever honesty he owes them or Cas, if he had to choke out the words he loved me and it killed him or I didn’t say it back, he might just start screaming and never stop.
A flurry of emotions flicker across Sam’s face - pain, and pity, and a slow dawning horror. “Oh,” he says, with a shake to his voice, “Oh, Dean.” His fingers are still digging in tight on Dean’s arm. Dean’s watching Sam’s face closely; he sees Sam’s eyes widen slightly when he really looks and takes in the bloody handprint on Dean’s shoulder; he sees the bob of Sam’s throat as he swallows down whatever else he was going to say.
“Yeah,” Dean says, finally breaking his brother’s gaze and looking down. Yes, to everything you always thought you knew about me and about me and Cas and never asked. Yes, it was exactly that bad..
“What is it?” Jack asks, but Sam just looks at him and shakes his head and Jack falls quiet again.
Dean will let Sam answer that one, once they’re out of earshot. Sam was there for so much of it, after all.
They leave him where they found him, finally, in the library with the books, when it becomes clear he isn’t sleeping tonight. He shouldn’t leave it on Sam to comfort Jack, after everything Sam has been through, but he also can’t offer any comfort. Not tonight. Not about this.
Tomorrow they’ll do the next thing. Whatever that is - find Chuck, or let him find them.
They’ll get their friends back, because they have to. Because this can’t be how all of this ends.
And if they make it through, Dean will do next thing - whatever that is. Keep breathing. Love the people he’s got left, with whatever pieces of himself he can patch back together. He owes Cas that much.
Alone again, he drops his head back into his hands and cries.