Chapter Text
The universe, in all her infinite wisdom, knows how to bring hearts home.
On the second Thursday of March, almost six months after disappearing into thin air without so much as a goodbye, Jack comes back.
That is to say, Jack materializes in the bunker kitchen at three in the morning with the stench of ozone and Deans ears popping. One second the space across the table is empty and the next Jack is there, falling to his knees with a sickening crack, looking near delirious with distress and what Dean can only call grief, a mixture of emotions that present frantically as Jack takes in the space around him.
The glass of whiskey that Dean's just refilled shatters across the tiled floor, soaking the Persian carpet Sam had all but begged him to place on the ground months ago.
Jack starts at the loud noise, glancing up to meet his eyes. Dean blinks. Jack blinks back and Dean, dumbly, looks down at the empty space in his hand where the glass had been and then back to the figure across the kitchen, not convinced that this isn't some alcohol induced haze, his grief addled mind playing tricks on him again.
Though it's been months since he had this dream—the one where he didn't fuck up, didn't chase a kid that wanted to love him so far away, even prayer couldn't reach him.
Dean finally gets his mouth to work. "Jack?"
Jacks face crumbles, his eyes bright and golden and staring somewhere past Dean,
Dean swallows past the lump in his throat and inches closer, disbelieving. "Kid, 's that you?"
As he speaks, the tension in Jacks body smooths out like a puppet with its strings cut. Dean never thought he'd associate the word with himself and anything to do with Jack, but Jesus—the kid looks relieved to see him.
"Dean." Jack cries out and his chest begins rattling with heavy sobs that make his breath hitch. He hunches into himself and, Dean doesn't know how it happens, but one moment he's frozen, staring at Jack like he's seen a goddamn ghost and the next his bare knees are hitting the cold tile, catching the kid in his arms.
His thin frame is shaking, Dean notes, the corners of his eyes stinging.
Jacks voice is muffled in Deans shoulder. "Dean, you—" He hiccups, barreling on and refusing to inhale before he continues. "I'm sorry it was—it was, so muchI couldn't—and I left for so long—"
Dean shakes his head, hugging Jack tighter. On autopilot, his right hand comes up to softly brush through Jacks hair, shushing him gently. "It's fine, you're fine Jack," He insists. There's a pressure in his throat as he forces the words out, desperate to believe them himself. "There's nothing wrong—got nothing to apologize for—you're okay, kid."
Jacks hands dig into his ribs and back almost painfully, but Dean doesn't move to stop him, doesn't so much as twitch.
"I didn't know I—it was all so much and I swear, I tried really, really hard but…" Jack trails off, chest heaving before he sobs harder. "I'm sorry—I'm just so tired."
"You gotta take a second to breath, Jack I can't—I got no clue what the hell you're saying." Dean inhales, shaky as he blinks around the stinging in his eyes, he nods, just once to himself. "Just rest kiddo, you're gonna be okay. You can tell me later, you're gonna be just fine."
The trembling is dying down now and Jack sniffles into Deans t-shirt collar again, nodding. He doesn't even care about the mess—jesus, his kids back.
"Sorry, I—didn't know where to go…" Jack mumbles, hands finally loosening their grip as his words slur, head drooping, and his breathing slowing.
"Yeah you did, you came home, you did well, kid" Dean hums, moving them side to side softly, fingers carding through soft, golden hair. "Rest, Jack."
Some indeterminate time later, after his legs have fallen asleep and he can't ignore the strain in his back from Jacks' dead weight, Dean lifts his son off of the tile floor and carries him out of the kitchen. In the quiet of the early morning the only sound is of his own soft murmurs and the humming of the bunker. Gently, Dean deposits him on the couch in the library and pulls a heavy afghan over him.
He wipes the still drying tears on Jacks cheeks and smooths out the pained frown that looks too permanently carved into his child-like features than Dean can bear to look at.
Dean paces the length of the hallway outside the library, careful not to disturb Jack while he spirals for a second, breaths coming in fast and painful. Then, continuing down the hall, he reaches the only other occupied room in the bunker and wakes Sam up.
The door creaks open, tentative like Sam's unsure if he heard the banging against his door correctly. His face presses against the door frame as Sam tries to imitate the face of someone that can pass for a functional human being.
Dean would laugh and take a picture if his brain wasn't stuck somewhere in a limbo, trying to decide if he should cry or throw up.
Sam groans. "Dude, what the hell? It's like the ass crack of dawn—" He pauses, blinking as he actually takes Deans appearance in. His older brother hair is disheveled, theres several wet spots on his t-shirt, eerily close to what seems like tear tracks and he has the haunted face of a man who hasn't seen a ghost, but is certain he's going insane.
"Sammy." Dean manages to croak out. His voice strains against the weight of emotion lodged in his chest.
Sam is suddenly alert, blinking sleep out of his eyes and straightening to his full height. He opens the door all the way. "Woah, Dean you look like hell—what's wrong?"
Dean shakes his head. He can't say it. Can't form the words he needs to explain to Sam what's just happened, only to get back to the library and see the empty space on the couch where his kid is supposed to be sleeping, the empty space he knows is there because—
Jack isn't back, he can't be.
Not after Dean got his dad killed, not after how he treated the kid like a ticking time bomb when he should've been—
Who would ever stay back after getting treated like that? Who the hell would come back?
(Cas did, he came back every time. Even when he should've just left Dean to rot—).
Sam frowns, grabbing his shoulder. "Dean, hey—you're scaring me dude, say something."
Dean gasps. The contact somehow manages to reach past the pressure in his chest and dislodge the words, they come tumbling out of him in a rush, like his mouth knows he'll shut down if he doesn't get them out.
"In—in the library, he's—it's Jack." He points back down the hall. "It's Jack." He repeats, nearly pleading, though he's not sure what he's begging for. He hasn't felt this helpless since—
(Since black nothing and an empty dungeon.)
Thankfully Sam understands. "Holy shit." His eyebrows raise, expression morphing into shock before he pushes past Dean and takes off towards the library.
Dean swallows and follows after him, his feet dragging. His pulse is frantic, a terrified staccato trying to beat out of his chest, convinced that all he's gonna see once he reaches the library is Sam's pitying face and the empty couch, cerulean blue Afghan draped over it, no matter how desperately he wants to be wrong.
Standing in the libraries arch, what greets him is a face filled with grief and pure happiness—his baby brother is crouched low to the couch, jaw slack in awe, his hand just barely touching Jacks covered ankle.
Jack, who's still very much knocked out across the couch, real and in the library, frowning again in sleep.
Dean gasps, releasing air he didn't know he'd been holding in.
"Oh thank fuck." He says, sagging into a nearby chair out of sheer relief. Sam's knowing eyes meet his, but he doesn't comment.
"But how? I—" Sam clears his throat, lowering his voice. "I thought he said he was going to be hands-off, stay out of all of…this." Sam gestures to the vague space around them.
Dean shakes his head. "I don't know man—one minute I'm sitting in the kitchen and next minute the kids materializing out of thin air and throwing himself at me. Crying." He sighs. "I don't even have a clue what he was crying about. Just kept saying sorry to me, over and over 'till he finally tired himself out."
"Jesus, you think…?" Distantly, he thinks Sam makes a motion that's supposed to be the Winchester equivalent of 'shit hitting the fan'.
"Sam, I don't know what I think," Dean responds, dragging a hand down his face. He speaks into the palm of his hand, grateful for the way it muffles his voice as he admits, "I'm still not convinced this isn't some kind of fever dream."
Sam's silent for a moment before exhaling something shaky. "Well, I don't think we're having a joint hallucination, but crazier craps happened before…maybe I should call Eileen." He stands, patting his sweatpants pocket for his phone before realizing it's not there. He groans, clearly unhappy to leave Jack's side so soon.
"Gotta go find the damn thing, think I left it in the war room…?" Sam wonders out loud.
Dean nods. "Yeah, uh, you go do that. I'll wait here with him."
"I'll call her and be right back." Sam assures.
Dean listens to the click clack of Sam's footsteps as they move further and further away, his eyes permanently stuck to Jacks unconscious form.
It doesn't matter to Deans racing heart that he was holding Jack in his arms not a half hour ago, clinging tight to his thin frame. Doesn't matter that he knows Jacks here now, safe and breathing under the cerulean afghan that Dean bought a few months ago because it reminded him of intensely blue eyes, sweet and familiar.
He exhales slowly, lungs rattling with the bitter pressure in his chest that's been there for the past six months. A pressure that refuses to let go, slowly sinking its claws deeper and deeper into Deans chest cavity, wrapping around his lungs and heart like an old friend, ignoring his desperate attempts to draw in air.
Dean thought it would leave in the days after defeating Chuck, once Jack set everything right again. He still needs to thank the kid—apparently, setting everything right in Jacks book meant bringing back every sorry sucker that ever had the misfortune of knowing the Winchesters for long enough that Chuck killed 'em for fun.
So Bobby, Jo, Ellen, Charlie, Kevin, even goddamn Benny turned up well and alive three days after they got rid of Chuck.
Dean was too busy drowning himself in whatever liquor he'd deemed strong enough to black out with at the time, so he'd damn near had a heart attack, answering the phone at three in the morning to the sound of Bobby, spitting expletives and threats and did you damn idjits make another godforsaken deal?
He'd hung up on him out of sheer panic and then called back immediately just to get cussed the hell out again—suffice to say it was a few hours before he and Sam got to find out everyone else was back, too.
In the weeks following several teary-eyed reunions and a few hours spent trying to explain the shitshow their lives had become at the hands of Chuck, Dean figured he'd try and clean up his act.
He vowed to make some sort of effort to resemble a functioning human being, partly because he was getting sick of Sam's pitying looks he thought Dean didn't see and a little because Eileen, alongside the group of hunters they call family, who think they're far more subtle than they actually are, insisted.
Claire had been the final nail in the coffin, showing up out of nowhere to drag him out of the bunker and into town for some awkward, stilted quality bonding time. Jody knew what the hell she was doing, he'll give her that.
Despite their concerns, everyone knew well enough to avoid the hell out of why Dean was acting like a poor motherfucker, five seconds out from keeling over onto the ground and just staying there forever.
Sam though, he made the mistake of bringing up the elephant in the room once.
It was only the one time, a late night after Eileen had gone to bed and they were still planted on the couch in the Dean Cave, contemplating if another episode of the Great British Bake Off was worth it.
Sam had sighed, squaring his shoulders back the way he did when he was about to ruin the peace and quiet to tell you something difficult to hear.
"Listen, I get it man—I miss him, too. But Cas wouldn't have wanted this for you Dean, he wouldn't have wanted you to—to rot away in your room, man."
Dean had chuckled, a bitter sound wrenched from around the lump in his throat and turned on him to spit out, "Well good thing he's not here to fucking want anything then, huh?" Dean ground out. "Cause apparently, he couldn't even have the one fucking thing he wanted, Sammy.
"Dean what—"
He kept going, the pissed off storm in him raging. "And—and then the bastard decided, all on his own, that that was enough—like the goddamn coward that he was!"
Dean knew it was a lie, he'd regretted it the moment he said it but it was out there now. Ugly and bitter and final. He'd stormed off to his room after, steady tears streaming down his face at the thought of that damn trench coat, the handprint, a fucking goodbye, words not even half-formed on his tongue and how none of it was fair—
Sam didn't bring it up again.
Eileen had spent an entire week shooting him meaningful looks before Dean finally scrounged up enough dignity to offer a half-assed apology to Sam, who'd mostly been happy Dean was talking to anyone at all again.
The relief on his little brothers face, coupled with the sheer force of genuine love and concern being telegraphed his way from the rest of their family was enough to have Dean trying; he poured out every bottle of alcohol they had down the sink, got weirdly into long walks with Miracle in town and even let himself indulge in the soothing past time of cooking and baking.
Throughout all of it, he still allowed himself a single reliable coping mechanism he could safely spiral into—research.
Hours upon hours of it, Dean spent days and weeks holed up in the library and war room, skimming through books and tomes, desperate to find a mention, sentence, reference, literally anything at all about the Empty.
Given the Empty's status as a being more ancient than Chuck himself, he anticipated running into roadblock after roadblock after motherfucking roadblock, but it began to get exhausting quick. Without Jack there to provide help, things continued to move only at an infuriatingly glacial pace he did not care for.
Eventually, Dean ran out of books to read. He'd been on the cusp of resigning himself to a life filled with being left behind, his family continuing to grow and thrive and create something for themselves while he remained nothing but a thought int he rear view mirror. That thought had been daunting and miserable enough that Dean went for the one bottle of whiskey he still kept hidden in the pantry.
The bottle was last night. So Dean thinks maybe he has a little more to thank Jack about.
He'd told himself that even having Jack visit sometimes would get rid of the pressure that's been sitting on his chest for os long—as it turns out, even the reality of his son being back or any number of the people they've lost in their life, well and alive and happy isn't enough to forget how the pressure started and stayed that day in the dungeon.
He shakes his head, takes a deep breath and focuses on keeping vigil over Jack.
The small snuffling and soft snores that periodically come from the couch feel eerily familiar to motel rooms at the age of ten, keeping vigil over a completely different kid.
It's all Dean can do to shove his aching down, somewhere dark and unreachable and empty, focusing on the slow rise and fall of his kids chest.