The Final Battle Can Never Be Won
Title: The Final Battle Can Never Be Won
Author: paracaerouvoar
Rating: PG-13, maybe a little higher
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: A tiny smidge of Dean/OFC and Dean/Castiel (and I mean TINY)
Summary: No matter how hard you fight, or how far you run, you cannot escape the end, the final battle between you and death.
Warning: OC! Run for the hills! D: Um, death, deals with terminal illness.
A/N I'm tagging this under gen, even though it has pairings, just to make tagging easier.
Bobby,
I don't really know why I'm writing to you, but the nurse thinks I should. She thinks I should tell you all the things I need to say. That I should swallow my damn aversion to chick flick moments, 'cause this is it. I'm really dying. Again.
How's that for irony, huh? I survive the fucking apocalypse, and my liver gives up on me. Cholangiocarcinomas. That's what's killing me. That's what the doctor says. I call it decades of drinking to forget. Drinking to forget Dad, drinking to forget Sam drinking to forget Zoe, drinking to forget the damn apocalypse.
Another reason I don't know why I'm writing to you, I don't know if you'll ever read it. I'm looking at you as I write this, in the bed opposite me. The angels go on and on about how I was their salvation, but they just don't get it. It wasn't me. It was people like Sammy, and Chuck, and you. It was you who pushed us, you who helped you, hell, it was you who exorcised the damn antichrist!
That was the beginning of the end, I think. When Lucifer possessed Sam, we all thought it was over, that he had won. But Sammy fought. My baby brother was fighting for his soul against Satan, and I could do nothing to help. But you did. I was standing there, frozen with shock and fear and anger, and suddenly I heard all these Latin words rolling off your tongue.
But it was too late. As you forced him back down to the pit, he took Sam with him, down to the deepest level of hell. The level reserved for him, and other fallen angels. I watched my brother die for the second time in three years, and it broke me, Bobby.
You always told me that family didn't end with blood, and you stuck by me during my darkest times, the times when it was like I was trying to drink myself down to hell myself, just to be with Sammy. You dragged me back up, stuck my head in a bowl of cold water and called me an idjit.
It was you and me, for twenty years, Dean and Bobby, the most ruthless hunters this side of the moon. We had both lost too much to care about anything, much less our own safety or wellbeing. I remember turning fifty two. I was the same age as Dad was when he died. A lot happened that year, huh? We came across a lot of people, old friends, older enemies. Alistair came back, clawing his way out of hell, and so did Jo Harvelle. You remember her? Blonde? Feisty? Hell of a right hook too. I was diagnosed that year.
That started endless visits to the hospital, to specialists, from their world and ours. The shaman in Tulsa, the hoodoo priest in Manhattan, the never diminishing supply of oncologists in Chicago, San Diego, Nashville. Six months after I was diagnosed, you collapsed. Old age they said, your organs were giving out one by one.
Tears splashed onto the page in front of him as he flung his pen away, crumpling the sheet into his fist, throwing the ball of paper at the trash can sitting next to his bed. He couldn't do this. It was too freakin' hard. He'd had to live through all this once, why did he have to relive it again? Couldn't they leave him alone? Why couldn't everyone just leave him the hell alone?! He screwed his eyes together as more salty droplets escaped his eyes, dribbling down his face. 'Just leave me alone,' he cried at one of the nurses during afternoon rounds, scrubbing at his yellowed eyelids with the back of his hand. She left and he rolled onto his side, curling up in the fetal position and letting the grief and memories take him. He didn't care anymore.
--
As the weeks passed, his sight started to blur, and his coordination became worryingly absent. CAT scans and MRI's proved that the cancer had metastasized and spread to his brain. There really was no way out of this, he thought bitterly, listening to his stereo at a deafening volume. Bobby had died just last night, his heart finally losing the battle. He had no one. He was alone. The door opened with an ominous sounding creak, and he turned his bloodshot eyes towards the noise. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw there. His blurred vision focusing in on the flame red hair, the tall frame, towering over his own. The visitor approached his bed, sinking into the chair next to it, reaching out a hand to grasp Dean's arm. 'DJ?' he asked hoarsely, his voice croaky from weeks of disuse.
'It's me, Dad,' came the reply, and his almost useless eyes filled with tears.
'How'd you know I was here?' he asked. The last time they had seen each other, they hadn't parted under the best of circumstances.
'Ellen,' he replied simply. 'Dad, I'm sor-'
'You know, you look so much like your mother.' Dean interrupted. And it was true. DJ looked so much like Zoe it made his heart and his eyes hurt. He brought the hand that wasn't being held by his son up and placed it on DJ's cheek, running his shaking fingertips down the ugly scar on his face. The memories sent a twinge to his leg, where white scar tissue still lingered on his knee. When DJ was fourteen, Dean took him hunting for the first time, albeit reluctantly. He had been adamant his only son wouldn't be a part of this world, and Bobby had been adamant that he had to be. It was meant to be a simple job, a spirit working out of a McDonalds in Staten Island. The spirit had turned violent, putting Dean through a wall, shattering his kneecap before turning on DJ. It beat him up pretty good before Dean got it with the rock salt, salting and burning the decrepit skeleton. The hospital had done an amazing job of replacing Dean's kneecap, leaving him with barely a limp, but the scars would always remain, for as long as they lived.
'No, Dad, you have to let me talk. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left, I'm sorry I wasn't here when you needed me. I'm sorry for what I said, what I did. I'm so sorry, Dad.' DJ was sobbing, tears sliding down his face over Dean's hand. They cried silently together, both remembering the night DJ had left, four years ago.
--
'I'm leaving.' The words weren't a statement, more of a threat.
'You can't. You have nowhere to go.'
'Anywhere's better than here. I can't live like this. Running from state to state, motel room to crappy motel room. I have nothing keeping me here.' DJ heaved his bag into the second hand car he'd just bought, a 73 Ford Cortina.
'Not even me?' Dean shouted, getting angry.
DJ closed his eyes, breathing in. He had been dreading this, but he needed to do it, make this a clean break. He needed Dean to hate him. 'Not even you! You want to know why I really stayed, all these years, even after Mom died?'
Dean limped out to the car, putting his hand on the top of the door, stopping it from closing. 'Enlighten me,' he growled, his jade eyes flashing with anger.
'Pity,' spat DJ, his own green eyes lighting up. 'When Mom died, you had no one, and I was too young to understand, so I stayed. But I'm sixteen now, I'm old enough to take care of myself. And I'm getting out of this life. Before it kills me, like it killed Mom, and Aunt Jac. Like it's gonna kill you and Uncle Bobby.'
While Dean stood there in shock, his brain struggling to process this, DJ slammed the car door, starting the engine. 'Oh, and one more thing,' he added as an afterthought. 'No matter what you think, or what Uncle Bobby says, you killed Aunt Jak. No one else.' Satisfied he had the final word, he reversed out of the garage, having to stop as Bobby moved an old tire out of his path.
'DJ, if you leave now-' bellowed Dean, hating himself for using these words again, hating DJ for making him.
'Yeah, I know, I know, don't come back!' interrupted DJ, throwing the car into gear and accelerating forward to come level with Dean again. 'Don't worry,' he said coldly, meeting Dean's stare. 'I have no intention of ever coming back.' And with those words he left, driving out of the salvage yard and out of Dean's life.
--
Dean cleared his throat, wiping away his tears with a skeletal hand, focusing in on his son's face again, determined to memorize his image before the cancer completely destroyed his vision. A lump came to his throat as he realized just how truthful his earlier words were. From his shimmering emerald eyes and wild auburn hair, to the less noticeable things like when he laughed, in happier times, his nose crinkled in the same way as Zoe's had, and the faint pattern of freckles running across the bridge of his nose. The only indication he was a Winchester at all was his trademark, one hundred percent Dean Winchester grin, and his height, inherited directly from Dean's freakishly tall brother and uncle, standing at six foot four and six foot six respectively. At sixteen he had been inches taller than Dean and now, at twenty, he has hovering around the six foot seven mark.
Dean reached out and ruffled DJ's hair gently, before doubling over as agonizing pain jolted him back to reality. This wasn't Jerry Springer, where they could have a tearful reunion before leaving the studio for cheers. He had cancer, and he wasn't going to get better. 'Dad? Dad!' shouted DJ, panicking. The door flung open as a nurse rushed in, stethoscope flying behind her, followed by the doctor, a young dark haired guy, barely out of med school.
He moved Dean's hospital gown up, muttering a curse under his breath when he saw the large purple-red stain spreading under Dean's skin over his liver. 'We have to get him to surgery,' he said, already moving. He unhooked the IV and the various machines, snagging the oxygen tank by his bed and attaching the mask to Dean's nose and mouth. But Dean reached up a quivering hand to grab DJ by the shirt, bringing his face down close to his. 'In Bobby's safe… a letter… open it,' he croaked. 'In case I… don't make it,'
'Don't say that Dad, please don't talk like that,' DJ cried, falling back into the chair as his father was wheeled past him, directly into the elevator down to the OR. His fate was now in the hands of God, and the surgical team.
--
Dean felt the anesthetic entering his bloodstream, making him drowsy as he slipped down into the blackness of unconsciousness. But it seemed as soon as he was out, he was being brought back. But he couldn't open his eyes, couldn't move his arms, legs, anything. Was he dead? It didn't feel like heaven, and it sure as hell wasn't hell. He was interrupted from his panicky musings by a cool hand in his, and another on his forehead, soothing the burn. 'Peace, Dean Winchester,' a voice said, one that Dean knew all too well.
Cas? He thought, dismissing the notion almost immediately. He hadn't seen Cas for over two decades, why would he come back now?
Yes. That was definitely Cas' voice, but it was inside his head? What the hell, he thought, replying to Cas inside his head. It sounded crazy, even to him and hell, he caught monsters for a goddamn living!
Why are you here? Why now?
I have always been here, came the calm, emotionless reply. The past twenty years, watching you, watching over you.
OK. So you've always been here. Why are you coming out of hiding now? Is it 'cause I'm dying?
Dead, corrected Cas gently. Our Father wants to reward you.
What for?
For stopping the apocalypse. He has a place in paradise for every member of the Winchester family.
Dean's brain finally caught up with Cas. Wait, I'm dead?
There were… complications, during the surgery.
Another thought occurred to him. Every member of the Winchester family. Even Zoe?
Another reward, this time from me. Fifteen years ago, I gave Zoe the choice. Paradise, or another ten years of life before the inevitable.
Hell. It wasn't a question.
It's time. The hand in his tightened suddenly, and even from closed eyelids, he could see the light. He felt himself rising up, towards something. His veins felt like they were filling with light instead of blood and he was filled with a sense of elation.
Fifty years of hunting, and it all ended like this. Dying in an operation room from cancer. But he didn't care anymore. For the first time in a decade and a half, since Zoe died, he felt truly happy, and more importantly, he felt himself at peace with his actions over the past forty five years. He'd damn well earned his place in heaven.
Author: paracaerouvoar
Rating: PG-13, maybe a little higher
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: A tiny smidge of Dean/OFC and Dean/Castiel (and I mean TINY)
Summary: No matter how hard you fight, or how far you run, you cannot escape the end, the final battle between you and death.
Warning: OC! Run for the hills! D: Um, death, deals with terminal illness.
A/N I'm tagging this under gen, even though it has pairings, just to make tagging easier.
Bobby,
I don't really know why I'm writing to you, but the nurse thinks I should. She thinks I should tell you all the things I need to say. That I should swallow my damn aversion to chick flick moments, 'cause this is it. I'm really dying. Again.
How's that for irony, huh? I survive the fucking apocalypse, and my liver gives up on me. Cholangiocarcinomas. That's what's killing me. That's what the doctor says. I call it decades of drinking to forget. Drinking to forget Dad, drinking to forget Sam drinking to forget Zoe, drinking to forget the damn apocalypse.
Another reason I don't know why I'm writing to you, I don't know if you'll ever read it. I'm looking at you as I write this, in the bed opposite me. The angels go on and on about how I was their salvation, but they just don't get it. It wasn't me. It was people like Sammy, and Chuck, and you. It was you who pushed us, you who helped you, hell, it was you who exorcised the damn antichrist!
That was the beginning of the end, I think. When Lucifer possessed Sam, we all thought it was over, that he had won. But Sammy fought. My baby brother was fighting for his soul against Satan, and I could do nothing to help. But you did. I was standing there, frozen with shock and fear and anger, and suddenly I heard all these Latin words rolling off your tongue.
But it was too late. As you forced him back down to the pit, he took Sam with him, down to the deepest level of hell. The level reserved for him, and other fallen angels. I watched my brother die for the second time in three years, and it broke me, Bobby.
You always told me that family didn't end with blood, and you stuck by me during my darkest times, the times when it was like I was trying to drink myself down to hell myself, just to be with Sammy. You dragged me back up, stuck my head in a bowl of cold water and called me an idjit.
It was you and me, for twenty years, Dean and Bobby, the most ruthless hunters this side of the moon. We had both lost too much to care about anything, much less our own safety or wellbeing. I remember turning fifty two. I was the same age as Dad was when he died. A lot happened that year, huh? We came across a lot of people, old friends, older enemies. Alistair came back, clawing his way out of hell, and so did Jo Harvelle. You remember her? Blonde? Feisty? Hell of a right hook too. I was diagnosed that year.
That started endless visits to the hospital, to specialists, from their world and ours. The shaman in Tulsa, the hoodoo priest in Manhattan, the never diminishing supply of oncologists in Chicago, San Diego, Nashville. Six months after I was diagnosed, you collapsed. Old age they said, your organs were giving out one by one.
Tears splashed onto the page in front of him as he flung his pen away, crumpling the sheet into his fist, throwing the ball of paper at the trash can sitting next to his bed. He couldn't do this. It was too freakin' hard. He'd had to live through all this once, why did he have to relive it again? Couldn't they leave him alone? Why couldn't everyone just leave him the hell alone?! He screwed his eyes together as more salty droplets escaped his eyes, dribbling down his face. 'Just leave me alone,' he cried at one of the nurses during afternoon rounds, scrubbing at his yellowed eyelids with the back of his hand. She left and he rolled onto his side, curling up in the fetal position and letting the grief and memories take him. He didn't care anymore.
--
As the weeks passed, his sight started to blur, and his coordination became worryingly absent. CAT scans and MRI's proved that the cancer had metastasized and spread to his brain. There really was no way out of this, he thought bitterly, listening to his stereo at a deafening volume. Bobby had died just last night, his heart finally losing the battle. He had no one. He was alone. The door opened with an ominous sounding creak, and he turned his bloodshot eyes towards the noise. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw there. His blurred vision focusing in on the flame red hair, the tall frame, towering over his own. The visitor approached his bed, sinking into the chair next to it, reaching out a hand to grasp Dean's arm. 'DJ?' he asked hoarsely, his voice croaky from weeks of disuse.
'It's me, Dad,' came the reply, and his almost useless eyes filled with tears.
'How'd you know I was here?' he asked. The last time they had seen each other, they hadn't parted under the best of circumstances.
'Ellen,' he replied simply. 'Dad, I'm sor-'
'You know, you look so much like your mother.' Dean interrupted. And it was true. DJ looked so much like Zoe it made his heart and his eyes hurt. He brought the hand that wasn't being held by his son up and placed it on DJ's cheek, running his shaking fingertips down the ugly scar on his face. The memories sent a twinge to his leg, where white scar tissue still lingered on his knee. When DJ was fourteen, Dean took him hunting for the first time, albeit reluctantly. He had been adamant his only son wouldn't be a part of this world, and Bobby had been adamant that he had to be. It was meant to be a simple job, a spirit working out of a McDonalds in Staten Island. The spirit had turned violent, putting Dean through a wall, shattering his kneecap before turning on DJ. It beat him up pretty good before Dean got it with the rock salt, salting and burning the decrepit skeleton. The hospital had done an amazing job of replacing Dean's kneecap, leaving him with barely a limp, but the scars would always remain, for as long as they lived.
'No, Dad, you have to let me talk. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left, I'm sorry I wasn't here when you needed me. I'm sorry for what I said, what I did. I'm so sorry, Dad.' DJ was sobbing, tears sliding down his face over Dean's hand. They cried silently together, both remembering the night DJ had left, four years ago.
--
'I'm leaving.' The words weren't a statement, more of a threat.
'You can't. You have nowhere to go.'
'Anywhere's better than here. I can't live like this. Running from state to state, motel room to crappy motel room. I have nothing keeping me here.' DJ heaved his bag into the second hand car he'd just bought, a 73 Ford Cortina.
'Not even me?' Dean shouted, getting angry.
DJ closed his eyes, breathing in. He had been dreading this, but he needed to do it, make this a clean break. He needed Dean to hate him. 'Not even you! You want to know why I really stayed, all these years, even after Mom died?'
Dean limped out to the car, putting his hand on the top of the door, stopping it from closing. 'Enlighten me,' he growled, his jade eyes flashing with anger.
'Pity,' spat DJ, his own green eyes lighting up. 'When Mom died, you had no one, and I was too young to understand, so I stayed. But I'm sixteen now, I'm old enough to take care of myself. And I'm getting out of this life. Before it kills me, like it killed Mom, and Aunt Jac. Like it's gonna kill you and Uncle Bobby.'
While Dean stood there in shock, his brain struggling to process this, DJ slammed the car door, starting the engine. 'Oh, and one more thing,' he added as an afterthought. 'No matter what you think, or what Uncle Bobby says, you killed Aunt Jak. No one else.' Satisfied he had the final word, he reversed out of the garage, having to stop as Bobby moved an old tire out of his path.
'DJ, if you leave now-' bellowed Dean, hating himself for using these words again, hating DJ for making him.
'Yeah, I know, I know, don't come back!' interrupted DJ, throwing the car into gear and accelerating forward to come level with Dean again. 'Don't worry,' he said coldly, meeting Dean's stare. 'I have no intention of ever coming back.' And with those words he left, driving out of the salvage yard and out of Dean's life.
--
Dean cleared his throat, wiping away his tears with a skeletal hand, focusing in on his son's face again, determined to memorize his image before the cancer completely destroyed his vision. A lump came to his throat as he realized just how truthful his earlier words were. From his shimmering emerald eyes and wild auburn hair, to the less noticeable things like when he laughed, in happier times, his nose crinkled in the same way as Zoe's had, and the faint pattern of freckles running across the bridge of his nose. The only indication he was a Winchester at all was his trademark, one hundred percent Dean Winchester grin, and his height, inherited directly from Dean's freakishly tall brother and uncle, standing at six foot four and six foot six respectively. At sixteen he had been inches taller than Dean and now, at twenty, he has hovering around the six foot seven mark.
Dean reached out and ruffled DJ's hair gently, before doubling over as agonizing pain jolted him back to reality. This wasn't Jerry Springer, where they could have a tearful reunion before leaving the studio for cheers. He had cancer, and he wasn't going to get better. 'Dad? Dad!' shouted DJ, panicking. The door flung open as a nurse rushed in, stethoscope flying behind her, followed by the doctor, a young dark haired guy, barely out of med school.
He moved Dean's hospital gown up, muttering a curse under his breath when he saw the large purple-red stain spreading under Dean's skin over his liver. 'We have to get him to surgery,' he said, already moving. He unhooked the IV and the various machines, snagging the oxygen tank by his bed and attaching the mask to Dean's nose and mouth. But Dean reached up a quivering hand to grab DJ by the shirt, bringing his face down close to his. 'In Bobby's safe… a letter… open it,' he croaked. 'In case I… don't make it,'
'Don't say that Dad, please don't talk like that,' DJ cried, falling back into the chair as his father was wheeled past him, directly into the elevator down to the OR. His fate was now in the hands of God, and the surgical team.
--
Dean felt the anesthetic entering his bloodstream, making him drowsy as he slipped down into the blackness of unconsciousness. But it seemed as soon as he was out, he was being brought back. But he couldn't open his eyes, couldn't move his arms, legs, anything. Was he dead? It didn't feel like heaven, and it sure as hell wasn't hell. He was interrupted from his panicky musings by a cool hand in his, and another on his forehead, soothing the burn. 'Peace, Dean Winchester,' a voice said, one that Dean knew all too well.
Cas? He thought, dismissing the notion almost immediately. He hadn't seen Cas for over two decades, why would he come back now?
Yes. That was definitely Cas' voice, but it was inside his head? What the hell, he thought, replying to Cas inside his head. It sounded crazy, even to him and hell, he caught monsters for a goddamn living!
Why are you here? Why now?
I have always been here, came the calm, emotionless reply. The past twenty years, watching you, watching over you.
OK. So you've always been here. Why are you coming out of hiding now? Is it 'cause I'm dying?
Dead, corrected Cas gently. Our Father wants to reward you.
What for?
For stopping the apocalypse. He has a place in paradise for every member of the Winchester family.
Dean's brain finally caught up with Cas. Wait, I'm dead?
There were… complications, during the surgery.
Another thought occurred to him. Every member of the Winchester family. Even Zoe?
Another reward, this time from me. Fifteen years ago, I gave Zoe the choice. Paradise, or another ten years of life before the inevitable.
Hell. It wasn't a question.
It's time. The hand in his tightened suddenly, and even from closed eyelids, he could see the light. He felt himself rising up, towards something. His veins felt like they were filling with light instead of blood and he was filled with a sense of elation.
Fifty years of hunting, and it all ended like this. Dying in an operation room from cancer. But he didn't care anymore. For the first time in a decade and a half, since Zoe died, he felt truly happy, and more importantly, he felt himself at peace with his actions over the past forty five years. He'd damn well earned his place in heaven.