Inside Out

𝗜 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗡𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗕𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗲 The cell continued to ring. He should talk to Sam, let him know that he was alive. He laughed bitterly at the thought, was he really alive? He didn't feel that way. He was flesh, bones, tears and blood. But alive? No. Living had just taken on another dimension. The point is that he died so many times that he lost count, but for the first time he knew what it was to really die, this death that people talk about, death in life.

How many important people fell on the way?

His mind returned to the day of his mother's death. Even though he was not in his room that day, his father had counted on so many details, on a night of drunkenness, that he didn't even need to see with his eyes, his mind "saw" much more than he wanted.

Then the father. That father obsessed with killing the damn demon who took the life of his beloved wife. The father who raised his children to save people, hunting things, the family business. The father absent for loving too much.

And Ellen and Jo. Pamela, Bob, Kevin, Charlie. And so many others. Many…

And again the father and mother.

And Sam. Each time he lost his brother, a piece of him died together. Sam, who kept calling over and over.

- Sam, I'm fine.

- Dean! What happened? Why did it take so long to answer the phone?

- Sorry, Sammy. Are you ok?

He heard the sound of his brother swallowing the words, those few seconds hanging over them like a sharp sword. Dean knew, he always knew.

- Sammy?

- Dean, everybody's gone, everybody. Charlie, Bob and even Donna. It's just me and Jack.

The brother's voice was weak. Sam who was so dedicated to protecting everyone, even with the weight of Eileen's loss on his shoulders. He wanted to hug him. He wished he could go back in time when he carried Sam in his boyish arms and rocked him, promising to protect him from danger. "Take care of your brother, Dean" had been the main task his father had given him, and he, as a good soldier, never deviated from his mission. Taking care of Sam, protecting him, was what gave him the strength to get up every morning.

- Sammy, come home.

- Dean, is everything okay? What happened to Billie?

- Billie is dead. You and Jack, come home soon.

- Okay, Dean.

He hung up the phone and put his hands on his face again. He was not able to tell Sam the whole truth, because telling what happened was having to face reality, and he was not yet ready to say goodbye.

The silence in the dungeon choked him, but he didn't have the strength to leave. Maybe he didn't want to leave. Somewhere in his heart, a fragile flame continued to resist. He looked at the wall, hoping the black hole would regurgitate what The Empty had stolen from him.

"I annoyed an ancient cosmic being so much that he sent me back."

Dean remembered those words as if they were said yesterday. He clung to them in despair. But deep down, he knew, he knew that The Empty would not give up again.

Why didn't he tell the truth? Why?

Why did he push his feelings into some dark corner of himself, not even allowing himself to think?

Why didn't he give himself the right to believe that he could be loved, be happy?

All that fury that has weighed on his chest since childhood, that anger that he thought defined him.

"Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love."

Even now he couldn't see himself that way, because that meant he was always a coward for not having struggled to take on what he felt.

Coward. He had been a coward until the end. And now he paid the price for being afraid to say the same words he had received.

The chest pain increased. He needed to get out of there, he needed to breathe. Shivering, using the wall as a support, he stood up slowly. The first steps were unstable. He managed to reach the chair in the middle of the room, held it in search of something solid to keep him on his feet until he felt he could walk without fear of falling.

When he finally reached the door, he couldn't resist and looked back again. That flame in his chest had just gone out. The pain increased, crushing his heart.

"You changed me, Dean ... I love you."

He ran out of the room, his hand over his mouth to stifle his sob.

He didn't want to be that anymore. He no longer wanted to be the Dean who assumed all the responsibilities and suppressed any feeling that his enemies could use against him. He was tired of being strong, of trying to be invincible.

He heard Sam calling for him. He needed his brother, needed this time to reverse logic, needed Sam to take care of him, to protect him from pain.

- Sammy.

Your voice so weak, so different from your voice of thunder.

- Sammy, Sammy!

He arrived at the library without strength. His brother was near the big table in the lobby.

- Sammy, please.

Sam ran towards him, followed closely by Jack. His frightened eyes were filled with concern. There, in the center of the library, the two came face to face.

He couldn't take it anymore, everything around him spun. He saw Cass in every corner of that place. Cass hugging him when they met after Chuck and Amara left. Cass sitting next to him in one of the few moments of peace, celebrating Jack's life.

Cass, smiling through her tears, saying goodbye to never come back.

- He's gone, Sammy.

Finally, the heavy tears broke through the barrier and he fell to the floor. The weight of defeat weighed on his body. He punched his chest several times in penance.

Sam didn't know what had happened, but he suspected it had to do with Castiel's absence. He knelt in front of his brother, pulling him into his arms. He always feared that this day would come, the day when Dean would accept his own feelings, but that Cass would not be there to receive them.

- He's gone, Sammy, gone. And I didn't say. I didn't say, Sammy.

- Put it all out, Dean, don't keep it anymore.

The brother's words allowed him to be the Dean that Castiel once loved.

- CASS!

The aching cry tore at his chest.

Jack watched his parents' pain and felt powerless because there was nothing he could do. All he wanted to do was bring Cass back, but he had no more powers. He no longer had Castiel. His father had died.

The strength with which the angel's name was said in that place full of magic, had the power to transcend the walls and resonate beyond that plane. In heaven, the angels wept for the loss of yet another of them. Castiel had been a friend and also an enemy, in the end being just another puppet in the hands of God.

In hell, Rowena stopped in the middle of a lustful laugh. His eyes watered. After all, the angel also became his boy.

But it was Chuck who was pierced by that spear of pain. He, who in his arrogance despised his own creations, who played with their lives, now felt the agony with such violence that it surprised him. In her mind, Amara's voice, full of bitterness, prophesied:

- Brother, you can lie to yourself as much as you want. But the truth is that you lost your most loyal son, the one who loved you so much, the one you wickedly despised. And I know it hurts you. We feel Dean's pain. And as long as we exist, we will carry that pain as a reminder of how bad we can be.

Chuck turned his eyes to Dean and for a moment hesitated in his firm intention to destroy everything. The weight of loneliness as a reminder of your choices. Sitting on his mythical throne, he was the image of a defeated god.

In the library, Dean continues to cry hugging his brother, his face buried in Sam's chest. It was sad to see that they had switched places, Sammy was taking care of Dean as Dean had always done for him.

- Dean, you need to vent, you can't have all that feeling with you anymore.

The pain, like fire, rose in his throat and was finally released.

- Cass, you are the only one I want to have, my true happiness. Cass, I love you ...

Words can transform. Words heal.

In The Empty, where angels and demons rest, dreaming eternally of their past, Castiel, in his serene sleep, dreams of the words he wanted to hear so much. His lips curl in an affable smile, while a tear escapes his sleeping eyes.