This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race - Epilogue
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Dean, John, Bobby, YED, various Special Children
Disclaimer: Supernatural is not mine.
Warnings: kidnapping, emotional and physical trauma, profanity, twisting of canonical events, very little happy parts, minor character death
EPILOGUE
One Year Later
The forest whispered around them as the three men trekked over its leaf-strewn floor; Dean could hear it. It knew the dark magic that had been worked here this day, and it didn't like it. It didn't like it one bit.
And in some ways, Dean wanted to agree. What's dead really should stay dead, and all that jazz. He'd learned that lesson enough times over to really believe it by now.
But as had happened so much more often of late, the great John Winchester didn't care so much for the order of the universe and other such tree-hugging, shit-eating bull like that, or so he had put it the one and only time Dean had dared to bring the subject up. The universe didn't care one lick for him and what he wanted, so why should he care for it?
"I still don't see why you couldn't have done this months ago, Cas," his father grumbled. They were walking fast; Castiel had that strange silver sword that he liked so much out and at the ready, and he was leading them through the trees like he knew exactly which way to go, although Dean knew for a certainty that the fallen angel had never stepped foot in this part of the state before.
Dean didn't even remember there being a whole freaking wood out here the last time he'd been here either. But it was the right place, he knew that, somewhere deep in his bones that had been in hiding all of this last terrible year he knew it; his heart beat faster just by being here. And if he ever doubted it, could somehow manage to convince himself that the entire thing had just been one wacked out, whiskey induced bender, all he had to do was gaze out through the thick boughs to his right, and see the ancient cemetery that was still there, with the memories that would never leave him alone for as long as he lived, and he would remember.
After his little brother died with his guts splayed in his father's arms from that yellow-eyed bastard's gash to his stomach, things had only slowly gotten worse in the Winchester's world of never ending suck-fest. John had nearly gone off the deep end from rage and grief, again, and Dean had had a hard time not following him the entire way down. They had pulled it together (just barely) and were pretty well functional for most of the days on the calender (a feat which Dean still marveled over) and all in all, Dean thought they'd been doing damn well lately, considering.
And then the accident had happened.
They'd chased a lead down to a potential demon nest in Missouri that turned out to be nothing more than a burned up apartment complex and a lot of dead ends. They'd been driving back to Bobby's in South Dakota when the transport truck his them. The car was totaled, Dean had almost died, and his father had been a wreck for the better part of a week. He'd come into Dean's hospital room late one night and told him to look after himself, and the next thing Dean knew, his father was dead, had sold his soul for Dean's and was rotting away in Hell for all of eternity because he would not be burying two sons in less than a year's time, no he would not.
Months later he had come back, just as good as you please, with an honest to god angel on his shoulder who claimed that now the real apocalypse was nigh and John the one to stop it, raised from the dead for that purpose. When he'd heard that, Dean had laughed himself bloody sick for a month: just how many apocalypses did his family have to stop anyways, before the bastards decided they were finally tired of yanking the Winchester family chain?
"And as I have told you many times before, John," Castiel was saying. "I do not hold the power required for such a feat anymore. I am cut off from Heaven. But I can still lead you in the right direction."
But John Winchester wasn't finished yet. "Well why the hell are the dicks even doing it in the first place?! You can at least answer me that."
Dean watched as Castiel's jaw visibly tightened, most likely at the implication that his brothers were dicks - which, they were, but there was no need to rub the guy's nose in it.
"Zachariah is a traditionalist. He believes in ending the story the way it was written. To tell the truth, I am more surprised that he has not come down here so he can take the boy for himself. Your son has a destiny that must needs be fulfilled. And I am afraid that is the one point upon which Heaven and Hell do agree."
"Well that's just great," John snarled. "Who the hell does he think he is -"
But Castiel had stopped suddenly, one hand raised in the air in a silent gesture of warning. His head was cocked to the side as if he were listening to something very far away.
"Cas?" said Dean. "What, man? Do you hear something?" A few steps ahead of him John, oblivious, continued his furious tirade.
"I am not sure." His head snapped to meet Dean's gaze. "Wait here." There was a disturbance in the air around them, the rustle of invisible wings, as the angel vanished.
Dean stayed frozen to where Cas had left him. "Where'd he go?" John demanded as he stormed towards his son. "Where is he? Well damn him. I can find the place myself."
And then his father began stomping around the clearing, looking around trees and kicking away rocks, as Dean stood watching.
Just then the sun passed behind the tree canopy and a shadow fell across the forest floor. Dean shivered slightly as the temperature dropped and a strong breeze blew the fallen leaves up around his face. It had been late summer when they had been here last. The air had been dry and stale while they dug the hole. Now the floor was covered in a million fiery hues, and animals and heavy rain had probably already devoured or rotted the small wooden cross marker, newly made a year ago.
"Dad -" Dean called, but his father just waved a hand at him behind his back and said, "Not now, Dean." Then: "Come help me with branch."
Dean helped to pull the fallen branch out of the path, but there were just more of them beyond and they wouldn't be getting through here.
Quiet footsteps sounded behind them and Dean turned around in time to see Castiel stop upon a shallow hill. His sword was bloody, his dirty suit jacket rumpled and torn, and his navy blue tie was tossed over on shoulder. He was breathing heavily. "It's this way."
Without another word, Castiel turned away again and started walking. Dean fell into step beside his father just as John grumbled angrily beneath his breath, "Damn angels," and scoffed. But unlike John, Dean's feet felt positively light has he followed his friend into the next clearing. He didn't know why, exactly. But he knew that things would be different now ... they had to be. Because then what else had all of this been for?
But still the question remained whether it would be a good kind of different that came. While they'd been saying goodbye that night, the kids who came to their rescue talked briefly about some kind of great destiny that Sam was meant to fulfill, even if they seemed to be kind of lacking in the details. They hadn't known what Azazel's throw away comment about "one year" meant, or even who the "big guy" he'd mentioned was. Still, they had all agreed that Dean's baby brother was special, that he was chosen. Now, that to Castiel, and the rest of Angel Patrol, Dean knew exactly just what had been meant and wished fervently ever since that he never had.
When Castiel finally stopped, he was kneeling before the wooden cross, looking down at something hidden within the overgrown grass. Five feet away, to Dean's left, was a dead body, recognizable as an angel only by the shape of black ash-made wings spreading like two great shadows from its shoulders.
Eyes wide, Dean turned back to where he'd buried his brother barely a year ago. Castiel had taken a hold of something and was pulling it with him as he slowly rose. It was a hand, human, from which closely followed a wrist and then an entire arm. Finally, the ground just gave way and a whole body emerged, covered from head to toe in dirt and strips of old clothing that hung from the lithe frame like ribbon.
And then the boy was swaying in front of them, and John was swearing and crying all at the same time, and Cas had reached up to steady the boy by his shoulders even as Dean could only hold his breath and wait.
'Samuel," Castiel intoned in his solemn, rasping voice. The boy blinked. "Welcome back."
"You got the others where they needed to go?"
Dean had been watching the scene outside through the window peacefully when his father came up to stand beside him. Sam was sitting on the hood of one of Bobby's hopeless scrappers in the junkyard, watching as the sun set in a collage of pinks and yellows behind the thin canopy of trees. It had become one of his favourite past-times of late, and even three weeks later, the sight of his brother sitting out there doing something so mind-numbingly normal as watching a sunset never failed to take Dean's breath away. He had a brother, and he was alive.
John sucked in a deep breath. His father seemed to be doing better now as well, Dean reflected. The brief break from hunting had done them all some good but John especially. There were more line in his face, more gray in his hair - but most of those lines were from laughter, and his smiles came more easily and more often of late than they ever had before.
"Yup," said John. "The goodbyes were hard on him but he stayed strong, and he never wavered in his decision to stay. He's a fine kid."
"You think he'll be all right?" Dean voiced quietly.
John let out a world-weary sigh. "I guess we'll just have to see on that." He looked on with fond eyes as outside Sam picked up a large stick and flung it over his should for Bobby Singer's crotchety old guard dog to fetch. Rumsfeld chased after is happily. "Bobby says he's never seen that mutt take to anybody the way he's taken to Sam."
Dean shared his father's smile. Nearly a month had passed since they had followed Castiel to Sam's grave and over the last few weeks, Dean had learned more things about his brother than he had ever dared to dream that he could know when Sammy had first come back into their lives. Of course there had been some bumps along the way - Sam had trust issues that would put any hunter worth his salt to serious shame - but he'd also found out how his little brother was smart, and kind, and funny in the most unexpected of ways. And that he was an easy guy to love, even if he did always use up all the hot water before Dean wanted to take his showers and how he found it unashamedly amusing whenever John forgot to bring home pie from the grocer's. They'd even had Sam's old family over to Bobby's to celebrate the kid's birthday - Jake, with his foster father Sid Daniels, Ava, Andy, and Ansem. John had driven them back just this morning and Dean thought he liked them all a lot better when they weren't being brainwashed into ending the world. They made Sam happy at least.
John walked over to the front door, sticking his head out and yelling, "Sammy, dinner time!"
Dean followed him out onto the porch and waited while Sam jumped off the hood of the car and came running full speed back towards the house. He gave Dean a wide grin as he flew past, and Dean's heart gave a strange leap inside his chest at the sight. Bring on the monsters, he thought suddenly. He wasn't sure where the words had come from, but they felt right. Bring on all the damned demons of Hell. He was sporting his own grin as he joined his family at Bobby's table, and Sammy shot him a curious look while he handed Dean his plate. He could take them all on, and with a smile on his face too, as long as this was what he got to keep.
THE END
Master Post