Archive of Our Own ^beta

On a good year, they can make it.

The hardest part, as far as Sam is concerned, is that Dean will never admit that's where they're going. They have to just happen to be in the area. At the same time, he never complains or questions it when Sam starts to search the newspapers around Greenville, Illinois at the beginning of May.

She's not actually there, Dean always says. And Sam knows it, knew it the first time they had this argument, but he also knows it's the closest thing they have.

Sam's prepared himself for disappointment this year. He's fully expecting that with whatever is happening to Dean, whatever he's becoming now, he won't want to be there. That she won't matter to him. It'll be the last thing on his mind.

But if there's anything Dean can't seem to bother to care about this year, it's posturing and putting on the show that he doesn't want to be there. Maybe he's too tired to pretend.

Either way, they're on the road and heading in the right direction, and Sam's not about to question it.

It's surprising and not at the same time when Dean makes the phone call. Sam's been leaning towards the window for a long time, staring out at the sunset and trying not to think about anything. Dean probably thinks he's asleep.

“Hey,” Dean says in a low, gruff voice, and Sam almost turns over to ask what he wants.

“No, nothing bad. I just, uh...wanted to ask you something. It's not that important.”

There's a long pause before Dean sighs. “Well, yeah, it's important to me, or I wouldn't have called. But...don't feel like you have to say yes, okay?” He takes a long, deep breath.

“So, whenever we can swing it, we try to make it out to Mom's grave on Mother's Day. We're headed that way now, and...shit, I don't even know what I'm asking. I guess I wanted you to know that if you wanted to be there, you'd be welcome.”

Sam is hardly breathing now. He's gone tense, but he hopes Dean won't notice, caught up in his phone call.

“Yeah,” Dean says more softly. “I know it's not really meeting her, but it's the closest thing to it, and...God, she woulda loved you, Cas. I know she would.”

Sam can't fight the smile on his face when Dean gives Cas the address.

“Yeah, I know. It's no problem if you can't.” There's another long silence before Dean says a simple “thanks, Cas” and hangs up.

Sam closes his eyes to actually try to fall asleep this time.

“Not nice to eavesdrop, Sam.”

Well then. Sam snorts and straightens up in his seat. “I can't exactly go to another room to give you your privacy, you know. If you don't want me to hear, don't call while I'm in the car.” He glances over at Dean. “So...Cas?”

Dean shrugs. “He said he'll try. No promises. Obviously. I mean, he's busy. We're all busy.”

“Of course,” Sam says.

Of course Cas will be there.

Saturday afternoon finds them at the same flower shop they come to every time they manage to visit. Sam's usually the one to pick out the arrangement, but this time Dean's at the counter and talking before he makes it over the welcome mat.

“Her eyes were kind of a light cornflower blue,” he's saying. “What're those yellow ones? Yeah, whatever, just put some of those in.”

“Dean?” Sam says softly from behind him.

“For her hair,” Dean says over his shoulder. He sighs. “I liked watching her brush it, you know? I'd just sit on the bed watching her get ready in the morning, and her hair just...the sun hit it just right, and it was like gold.”

He won't look Sam in the eye as he says it, but he doesn't shrug it off when Sam silently squeezes his shoulder.

Dean adds white roses and lets the florist add his own finishing touches before he buys it – with actual cash, because they never buy her flowers with their fake credit cards. On the surface it's because they could be recognized, coming back to the same shop every few years, but mostly it's because they could never disrespect her memory like that.

Dean lets Sam drive on the way back to the motel, tossing him the keys over the hood in silence. He holds the vase carefully in his lap, and when they get inside he clears the table of their papers and laptops and leaves the bouquet sitting alone in the center.

When Sam falls asleep, Dean is still sitting up in his bed, staring at the flowers.

 - - -

Dean curses himself the whole way to the cemetery the next morning. What was he thinking, calling Cas? Way to go, Dean, just ask him to drop everything when he's commanding an army of angels to come watch you put flowers on your mother's grave.

She's not even actually buried here, he thinks for the thousandth time.

The best he can hope for, he decides, is that Cas won't be there and will cooperate with Dean's current plan to forget he had that moment of weakness and called him at all.

But when they pull up outside the cemetery gates, Cas is already leaning patiently against the hood of his car and watching the sun rise.

Dean's chest tightens in that strange way it only does around Cas. They get out of the car and Sam is already pulling Cas in for a hug.

Dean settles for nodding at him as he passes, reasoning that he can't hug very well while he's holding a vase of flowers, leading the way towards the grave.

Cas and Sam follow silently, the only sound the soft crunch and squeak of grass beneath their shoes.

Dean hangs back before they get to her gravestone and lets Sam go ahead of him. They'll go together afterwards, but they each need to talk to her alone first.

Dean thinks of a thousand things to say to Cas while they're waiting for Sam, and says none of them.

Thank you, he thinks. Thank you for being here. I don't deserve it. I'm not worth it. But she is.

I don't want you to leave when this is over, he thinks.

You should stay far away from me, he thinks. Everything bad that has happened to you started with me. I've ruined everything for you.

Cas looks at him sadly like he can hear him. But he promised he'd never look into Dean's thoughts without permission again, right? Can he even do that anymore? He looks so – well, tired. Should he even get tired anymore, now that he's all angelled up again?

Still, Dean stares off into the sky and tries to keep his mind empty. Tries, most of all, to ignore the gnawing hunger in his belly, a hunger that has nothing to do with food. His arm throbs hotly and his hand twitches in its grip on the vase.

“They're beautiful,” Cas says softly. Dean glances down at the flowers and swallows hard.

“Yeah, well,” Dean says. “So was she.”

Cas raises his hand briefly as though to reach for Dean, maybe to offer some measure of comfort. He sighs quietly and drops it again. Dean's not sure if he's disappointed or relieved.

They stand in silence again until Sam walks back to them. He stands next to Cas and nods to Dean to go ahead.

Dean is halfway towards the grave when he turns around, and before he can stop himself he calls out, “Cas, c'mon.”

Both Cas and Sam stare back with wide eyes.

“Are you sure?” Cas says.

No. What is he doing? “Yeah, I'm sure.”

Cas and Sam share a strange look before Cas nods and follows. He trails two steps behind Dean and remains politely behind him when they get to the grave.

Dean stares down at the stone for a long time, at a complete loss for words. He doesn't know why he asked Cas to come with him instead of waiting for all three of them to come together, only that some part of him felt that it was important that he be here right now.

His arm throbs again, the mark burning as though freshly branded. He resists the urge to drop the flowers and yank up his sleeve.

“How could I do this to her?” he says without thinking.

Cas moves a little closer. “Do what?”

“Everything. Everything I've done, everything I've turned into, I...she never wanted any of this life for us, and what I am now?” He scoffs and shakes his head. “If she even knew...”

“Dean. There is nothing you have done or could ever do that would make her stop loving you.”

“You don't know that,” Dean says through gritted teeth. “You didn't know her.”

“I didn't,” Cas agrees softly. “I wish I did. But that doesn't make it less true. There is still much to love about you, Dean. You are still a good man.”

Dean squeezes his eyes closed and opens his mouth to argue when his arm spasms and his hand clenches hard around the vase again. The glass cracks under his hand, slicing a shallow cut across his palm.

“Shit,” he hisses, the vase dropping to the ground as he clamps his other hand down over the mark, squeezing hard. His vision swims.

When the fit passes and the burning fades, he looks down to see his flowers strewn out over the ground, vase empty at his feet.

“Shit,” he mumbles. “Dammit, I can't even do this right. I can't even...”

Silently, Cas kneels down and begins gathering the flowers up.

“Don't...Cas, don't bother. I already messed it up. It's not gonna look the same.”

Cas doesn't even look up.

“They're just gonna die in a couple days anyway,” Dean grumbles. He stares down at the cut on his palm, stewing in his anger at himself, until he notices Cas digging into the ground in front of his mother's gravestone.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

“Patience,” Cas murmurs.

Dean gapes at him, trying to gather the words to convey just how very not okay what Cas is doing is.

“Please,” Cas says, eyes soft and knowing. “Trust me. Patience.”

Dean clenches his jaw tight, but says nothing else.

Cas is – he's just clawing into the dirt with his hands. He's ripping out chunks of grass and soil and tossing them aside.

“Uh, Cas,” Dean says. “You know my mom's not actually buried under there, right? And even if she were, what the hell?”

Cas pauses in his efforts and tilts his head back at Dean in confusion. “Why would I want to dig up your mother's grave?”

“Shit, I don't know, you're the one digging. What are you doing?”

“Planting them.”

Dean sighs, the anger draining out of him, and rubs his hand over his eyes. “That's...look, that's a really nice thought, but they're already cut. No roots, Cas.”

“I ask you again, Dean. Please trust me.”

And the look in his eyes is so pleading and earnest that Dean just swallows hard and drops down to his knees next to Cas to help him dig, being careful to keep the cut on his hand relatively free from dirt.

When Cas decides they've finished, he stands the flowers up carefully and Dean helps him pack soil in around them. Dean shoves up off the ground and to his feet, stepping back and brushing the dirt off of his knees. They look nice enough this way, he guesses, though they're never going to last. They would have lasted at least a few days in the water.

Cas hasn't gotten up yet, though. He's still kneeling next to the flowers, and he's pressing his hands to the ground around them.

He opens his mouth to ask, but decides it's not worth it. All Cas is going to do is tell him to be patient, again. So, whatever. He's going to be patient.

And since he's not busy trying to harass Cas about what he's doing, he's actually watching. The flowers brighten noticeably, petals perking up where they had begun to droop. The stems shudder and the bases thicken, roots visibly branching off before they bury themselves in the soft earth packed around them.

Finally, Cas seems to be satisfied. He climbs to his feet, stumbles backwards and almost falls. Dean catches him and holds him up by the waist.

“Jesus, Cas, are you okay? What the hell did you do?”

“They won't last forever,” Cas says hoarsely. “I can't promise that. But they'll live for a hundred years at the very least before they begin to wilt.”

Cas sways again and Dean curses, shifting their weight so Cas is essentially leaning back against his chest, head on Dean's shoulder. "And you wanna tell me why you look half-dead and can't stand up straight now?"

"My..." Cas sighs. "My 'batteries' are running out, you could say. This grace is...burning out."

"And you used some of it up for this?”

“Of course,” Cas says, as if it's nothing. No sacrifice at all to drain his life away for some sentimental little gesture. A spark of anger flares up in Dean's stomach, and he's not sure if it's at Cas or himself.

And then Cas turns his head and meets his eyes, and his smile is so fond despite the heavy tiredness in his eyes.

Dean looks at the flowers, then back to Cas' eyes. Cornflower blue, he thinks.

When he kisses Cas it's easy, as if they'd done it a thousand times before. Cas sighs against his mouth happily and relaxes into him.

It's not as earth-shattering as he'd imagined it would be. It changes nothing inside him. The world doesn't shift around his feet. It's just warm, and right, and he can't think of a single reason why he's never done this before.

When he pulls back to look at him, Cas' eyes are sparkling with something he can't name. Not now. It's too big, too much just yet.

So instead, he turns to look back at the flowers and clears his throat.

“Hi, Mom,” he says softly. “I'd like you to meet someone, uh...pretty important to me.  This is Cas.”

Cas smiles and closes his eyes. “Hello, Mary.”