Chapter Text
“I love you,” Cas said, lancing a spear through Dean’s heart. The spear was driven deeper as black tendrils emerged from the dungeon wall, forming a twisted mimicry of angel wings. Dean could only watch, frozen, unable to say anything, as the Empty swallowed Cas.
The worst part had been the resigned, beatific smile of acceptance on Cas’ face as the blackness took him.
“I love you,” Cas’ voice rang out, and he watched Cas disappear, and disappear, and disappear—
A cold wetness lapped at his ear, shocking him awake. Dean shot up, heart racing. His sheets were plastered to his skin from sweat, tangled around his legs like tendrils of their own. He fumbled in the dark until his eyes adjusted to the sight of Miracle before him, fuzzy brows furrowed.
He let out a shaky exhale, rubbing his face.
“Hey, boy,” Dean mumbled to the dog, reaching out to pet him. His thoughts meandered as he tangled his fingers in the long fur.
“The one thing I want is something I know I can’t have.”
Why had Cas said it so… so certainly?
Sure, Dean had never said anything so blatant as “I love you,” and he clammed up whenever anyone talked about love. But prayers, admissions of need, his mood swings that hinged on whether Cas was in his life and they were on good terms or not… surely that hinted at something, right?
“I loved the whole world… because of you.”
Maybe it would’ve been better if Cas had never met him. Maybe it would’ve been better if some other angel had pulled him from Hell and returned to their duties.
“The very touch of you corrupts,” Hester had spat at him.
A nauseatingly familiar sensation, heavy in its hollowness like a black hole, filled his chest.
“You’re not hungry, Dean, because you’re already dead inside!”Famine had said.
Dean swallowed past a thick lump in his throat.
“I know the way you see yourself. You see yourself the way our enemies see you.”
No. Enough.
“You know what? Fuck this,” Dean said to Miracle, untangling himself from the sheets. Enough moping around, drowning in his own misery. Enough burying himself in cases, trying to pretend like things were normal.
That look of acceptance, like Cas was just getting what he deserved… Dean refused to let that be the last time he saw his friend. Refused to let those be his last words, without a chance to say anything in return.
He was sitting on a wealth of resources, and if there weren’t answers in the bunker, then he’d search the whole world if he had to.
He was going to get Cas back.
***
“When Nick summoned Lucifer out of the Empty, he needed some of Lucifer’s own blood… but he had to use Jack’s instead. It worked as the connection between Earth and the Empty. Do you think Claire’s blood would work? She’d have residual grace inside her, like Gadreel left in me. You could call her,” Sam posited as he leaned over all the materials, spell books, and notes they’d laid out across the library tables. He’d been just as eager to try to help Dean on his mission, having cautiously brought up Dean’s spinning out in the weeks since Jack defeated Chuck. They were supposed to be free, but it didn’t really feel like it. They kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to happen the way it always did.
Having something to focus on helped them both.
“Maybe, but I don’t want to bother her if I don’t have to. I got a better idea,” Dean said, and carefully, reverently set down the jacket that bore Cas’ bloody handprint—a painful bookmark to the handprint scar Cas left on him when they first met.
Sam swallowed as he looked at it. “It’s not fresh, but it might work. One problem, though.”
“What?”
“When Nick summoned Lucifer, the plan was for Nick to use himself as a vessel again. The Empty took Cas, body and all—what if you can’t get him out fully?”
The implication: what if Cas needs a vessel?
“It spat him out whole the first time, I don’t see why this time would be much different. But if it came down to it… I’d say yes,” Dean answered without hesitation. He’d rather have Cas, even inside his soul, than not at all.
“Do you think Cas would let you say yes?”
Ah. Probably not.
“Guess not. Well, what else do we know about the Empty? I mean, when’s the first time we even heard about it, anyway? Maybe it’s like Purgatory, or Hell, or Heaven, or even Death’s library—there’s gotta be a way we can access it from Earth.”
“I dunno. The first time I heard about the Empty was after I let the Darkness loose. I met Billie, back when she was just a reaper, and she said the next time one of us died, she was going to scatter us across the Empty.”
“Do you think that threat still stands?”
If Dean died, then maybe whatever reaper had taken Death’s mantle would hold good on her promise, even with Jack in charge.
Sam gave him an aggrieved look, as if he knew what Dean’s next impulse would be. He shook his head. “It didn’t even when Billie was still in charge, remember? Lucifer brought me back from the dead—”
“You were in another world, though, maybe each world has its own Empty; we know each world has to have its own Heaven and Hell.”
Sam slumped in thought, then sat up. “What if… what if we treat the Empty as another world? You and Cas didn’t need to access Purgatory through a reaper like I did when I was doing the trials, because Michael opened up a rift for you. A rift that we know by now how to make.”
Dean’s heart jumped. “We still have enough ingredients?”
Sam went to look at their stores, pulling out the crystal on a chain. “Anything we don’t, I can substitute with spell work using Rowena’s notes. Worst comes to worst, we take a day trip down to Hell and ask her directly.”
Day trip down to Hell. Once upon a time, he’d spent a whole year trying to figure out how not to go to Hell, and now they casually took trips to the place.
“Then let’s hit it, Sam-witch.”
***
Backpack strapped on and guns at the ready, Dean was prepared—or, as prepared as anyone could be when about to face an eldritch being. Who knew what he’d need to bargain with the Empty, but if Cas could annoy it enough to get it to spit him back out the first time, then maybe two heads were better than one.
“I’m using Cas’ blood as a guide for the rift; it shouldn’t take you too long to find Cas, as it should open near him. You’ll have twenty-four hours once the rift opens to do what you need to, but I can draw on my own magic to try to keep it open for longer than that. Just remember, I’m not Rowena; I don’t have centuries of magic under my belt. I’m human… I can’t stay awake forever.”
“I know. If the rift closes, open it back up using my hair or blood, and I’ll find my way out again.”
“With or without Cas, Dean,” Sam emphasized. “If you come back without him, we’ll regroup and try again. Don’t get yourself stuck or killed before you have that chance.”
Dean sighed. “Whatever.”
“And no deals!”
“Dude, I know, I’m not an idiot. We’re done with deals. Now, can you say the words and open the damn rift already?”
Sam pressed his lips together in frustration before holding up the Seal of Solomon and performing the spell step by step. “Koth. Munto. Nuntox.”
A thin golden line tore through the air of the bunker, shimmering as it waited.
Dean set his watch—twenty-four hours to go, maybe a little more.
“Alright. Here goes nothing,” he said, and with one last nod to Sam, he stepped through and into the darkness.