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Death tells him he isn't allowed to live on Mars in case the rover sees him.
This is a disappointment but Dean agrees. Sam is going to have a lot of free time with him gone and keeping up with NASA bulletins is exactly the kind of nerdy crap he’s going to be all over. He will definitely notice if Dean is the first sign of life on Mars.
Besides, when they finally get a manned mission up there he doesn't really want to kill a bunch of astronauts. So Mars is out.
Eventually they decide it will be best if Dean doesn't know where he’s going.
“A moon, I think.” Death tells him, “Not Earth’s mind, one that is very far away.”
“The restaurant at the end of universe?” says Dean without humour.
Sam would be fascinated by the concept if Dean could tell him about it. An immortal being in space. The supernatural meets the scientific. Will the mark let him breath or will he simply be suffocating forever? No need to think on it now, he’ll have forever to think about it, at least until the world ends. He hopes it will hurt too much to think.
In his last minutes on Earth he wants to call Sam. The weight of his phone feels enormous, tugging the material of his pocket down just a fraction.
Maybe he doesn't have to do this.
Maybe he can stay for Sam and it can be like before.
Death is staring at him. Completely patient. Like he could wait forever. He probably has been.
No he can’t stay. There is no like before.
He can’t call Sam with his last minutes or he won’t go. Nothing has changed in all his years. He’s still trying to give Sam Christmas by stealing from the nice house up the road.
Dean realizes that he and Sam have already had their last conversation.
It sucked but it didn't end the world like their next one might.
He calls Cas and asks him to tell Sam he died. Death agreed to kill him and he’s in heaven and he’ll see him when he gets there. Even if he doesn’t buy it he’ll never find Dean where he’s going.
Cas agrees with the condition that he knows where Dean is going in case someday God comes back and he can ask him to remove the mark safely. He promises not to tell Sam and Dean believes him. He thinks Cas is probably relieved, he’s bounced back and forth between saving the Winchesters and saving the world so many times it must be nice not to be the one choosing this time.
He had assumed Cas would be more upset at the prospect of Dean going interstellar but he just seems resigned and pragmatic. Maybe he’s just the only other person who can really understand what it is to doom the world with your existence. The thought makes him feel bizarrely fond.
When he hangs up he tells Death about the conversation and assures him that Cas won’t reveal his location to Sam. Death nods and reaches out to take hold of Dean’s arm and Dean realizes this is happenig right now. He was going to leave his keys somewhere for Sam but they're coming with him now.
Death's grip is icy and every part of Dean’s body is screaming at him to pull away but he’s out of time and options and it’s way too late.
—
They arrive in space instantly. Death, pale and looming, looks oddly right against the backdrop of thousands of tiny stars. But then he’s gone and Dean is alone, choking in the vacuum of space.
It does hurt. More than anything. Too much to think except that his brain is still making him scream. The mark burns and he does not die. He takes it back. He wants to go home. He takes it all back.
—
It lasts an hour. Then it doesn't hurt any more.
—
He wakes up somewhere very strange.
It might be a hallucination, his mind has snapped in the best way possible and has created somewhere for him to be so he doesn't have endure reality.
But if it was his mind he thinks he would hallucinate other people. Here, wherever he is, he is alone.
It’s a weird mix of places, all blurred together like the Small World ride of his old haunts. Bobby’s house,the bunker, motel rooms, bars, a park. There’s one room that he swears is his from when he was really little but he doesn't know why he thinks that. It just feels like home.
—
He spends most of his time in Bobby’s house. There are cars outside to work on and the living room is full of books, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, definitely more than Bobby ever actually owned. More than Dean’s ever read. More than any hallucination of his could have written.
The TV works in the bunker and there’s booze in the bar. He can’t sleep but in the motel rooms there’s ambient noise, a fan oscillating, a highway just outside the door. It’s peaceful in its way.
He forgets for weeks that he’s alone and just bums around wondering when Sam will be home. Once he spent a month ambling from place to place trying to find him.
Well maybe it was once. His voice is sore like he’s been yelling a lot so maybe it happens a lot.
If there was anything left in the universe to be afraid of that would probably freak him out but after what he was expecting, he really did get the best case scenario of madness.
He still feels weighed down to one side, like his phone is in his pocket but whenever he reaches in it’s empty.
—
The mark remains. With no one else around it doesn’t bother him so much but when it does it boils his blood and crawls under his skin. He goes to Bobby’s house and tries to build a rocket ship out of car parts so he can go back to earth and kill them all. Even Sam. Especially Sam.
Eventually he forgets where he is again and goes to apologise to Sam, it was stupid, he can’t even remember what they were fighting about any more.
He goes looking for him and his throat gets sore. He’ll find him soon, kid’s gonna flip when Dean shows him the rocket ship he built him.
—
On some level Dean realises that Sam is probably dead by now.
Enough time has passed. He doesn’t show up where Dean is so he’s sure that this place isn't heaven. It had been a possibility. He figured he’d probably get to see his mom if it were but still, there are nice things here, cold beer, that one nice room. The whole thing reeks of angels trying to build a Dean habitat. So he had hoped it was heaven, just a little.
The Impala is parked outside of Bobby’s always. He can drive it but he usually only ends up back at Bobby’s. When he remembers Sam is dead and not here he drives as far as he can and ends up at the motel where it’s Christmas, 1991.
He can’t wait for Sam to wake up so he can see the look on his face. It’s even better than the room he thinks used to be his. It’s the best feeling ever for a while and then he goes to wake Sam and his throat gets sore.
—
After he looks for Sam he goes to the park and sits on the bench across from the jungle gym.
He feels important here. Any minute now he's going to save everyone.
Almost everyone.
Someone is sitting on the other bench but he doesn't look to see who.
—
On very rare days when Dean knows that he can’t build a rocket ship and that he lives on the moon and that Sam is dead all at once, he also knows that he is not alone out here.
Cas lives on the moon too.
If you can call it living.
He has a hand on Dean’s shoulder, weighing him down just a little bit, saving him from eternal suffocation and keeping him in his dream world forever.
When Dean knows this he’s sick with guilt because he’s so, so, relieved that Cas will never do anything else ever. But he doesn't always know.