An Ordinary Death - fic

[amberdreams]

Title: An Ordinary Death
Author: Amber1960
Characters: Sam & Dean (Gen)
Rating: PG-13

Words: c850
Summary: The year is 2068 and Sam and Dean have lived a lot longer than they ever expected.

Warnings: Character deaths

 

An Ordinary Death

 

Dean had lived every day over fifty in a kind of incredulity that only got stronger as he and Sam grew older.  He’d never expected to live over forty, never mind reach half a century – yet there it was, come and gone, and now so far distant he can barely remember how it had felt to be that young.

 

He sits in silence, dry eyed, holding Sam’s hand, wondering how they’d got this far.  He knows the exact moment the Reaper (he wondered if it was Tessa) takes his brother, acknowledges it only by an involuntary tightening of his grasp round Sam’s long fingers – still slender and elegant, in spite of the slight swelling of arthritis round the knuckles.

 

Sam doesn’t return Dean’s grip, not even the slightest pressure, and the last of the Winchesters knows his baby brother has gone on ahead.  He hopes vehemently Sam will find a better version of heaven than the one that dick-angel Zachariah had shown them all those years ago.

 

So here it is. 

 

Sam Winchester, born 2^nd May 1983, died peacefully in his sleep 27^th August 2068.

 

Dean is surprised but not startled as he feels a strange disturbance in the air, a sound that isn’t really a sound at all, that signals the arrival of an angel just behind him.  He doesn’t need to turn around to know, deep in his bones, that the presence is a familiar one.  Even though it is more years than he could shake a stick at (and Dean is still good with weapons, even sticks) since he had seen the angel Bobby Singer had labelled his guardian, he would know Castiel’s presence anywhere.

 

“Hey Cas,” Dean says quietly, never turning his gaze from Sam’s pale empty face.  He thinks how his brother had aged beautifully, so even in death the fine lines of his cheekbones and the dimple in his chin make Dean’s heart swell.

 

“Nice of you to drop by, but you are a bit late to say your goodbyes.  Sam’s already gone.”

 

“I came for Sam,” Castiel says, and his voice is the same as it ever was, deep and full of solemnity.  His next words are enough to tear Dean away from Sam’s dead face.  “And he is here, with his reaper, but I wanted to escort him myself.”

 

Dean stands up and wavers for a moment, unsteady on his feet – not because he is old and frail and grieving, hell no – he’d just stood up too quickly is all.

 

“Sam’s still here?  Where?” he demands, his eyes suddenly flashing with the old green fire as he scans the shadows of the room, searching for his brother but seeing nothing but dust motes dancing golden in the low sun streaming through the open window.

 

Cas gestures vaguely to his right hand side.  “He is right next to me, Dean, ready to move on.”

Dean is already striding forward to where he thinks Sam is standing, and suddenly his eyes are blurring with the tears he had thought he would never shed and his voice breaks as he says,

 

“Sammy?”  He stretches out a hand into the air next to Cas.  “Why can’t I feel anything , Cas?  Sam is standing right here and I can’t feel him…,”  Now the tears are falling, burning hot on his cheeks but he doesn’t care.

 

Castiel gently takes Dean’s outstretched hand, lifts his other hand and pulls him round to face him.  Dean is transfixed, as he had been so often in the past, by that piercing blue gaze.  Gradually his breathing slows, his erratic heartbeat calms.  Castiel nods, releases him and Dean turns round, feeling his angel as a solid comforting warmth against his back.  A space filled that had been empty for so long.

 

Dean.

 

“Sam?”

 

Dean, calm down, you know how this works. I’m dead and this isn’t Sixth Sense – you don’t see dead people (unless they are ghosts of course).

 

“Yeah, yeah, alright Mr Knowitall.”  Dean smiles. “Showing your age there, Sammy – I mean, Sixth Sense? So last century.”

 

Cas places his hand on Dean’s shoulder, bringing his attention back.

 

“Dean.  I came for Sam, but I also came to give you a choice.  Obviously, you will die one day, sometime in the future - but if you want, I can take you now, you and Sam, together.”  Dean steps away and looks over his shoulder at Castiel, frowning in puzzlement.

 

Sam laughs.  He knows.

 

“Go with you and Sam, or what…what is the alternative?” Dean asks, genuinely bemused.  He cannot think of anything that could be more right for him to do at that moment, than to leave this world with his greatest friend and his greatest love.  For Dean Winchester, there was never a choice.

 

And with his hand in Castiel’s, Sam at his side, he now knows that whatever version of Heaven he and Sam arrive in, they will be together, because their souls were inextricably bound and that was the only way it could be Heaven at all. 

 

Anything else would be inconceivable.  Anything else would be Hell.