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Dean looks back, once, as Cas unlocks the door to the little store. It’s almost involuntary, an instinct to make sure he gets inside safely. But it’s more than that, really; it’s because that blue-vested back is the last that he’ll see of Cas for quite a long time. It’s because a part of him is screaming “Don’t go, don’t go,” as though this whole thing was Cas’s fault and not his own.
Cas fumbles with the lock; Dean tries to burn the image into his mind. Then he turns his head and starts the impala and pulls out of the parking lot before the glass door even swings shut behind Cas, because if he stays any longer he won’t be able to leave.
And Dean Winchester has always prided himself on his ability to let go.
“Dean? How did it go?” Sam asks, when Dean gets back to the bunker.
“I saw Cas,” Dean blurts, unable to help himself. Fuck.
“Cas?” Sam starts forward. “Where is he?”
Dean grunts noncommittally as he slides the duffel off his shoulder and dumps it in a chair. “He’s working in a convenience store.”
Sam looks confused. “Really? How’s he doing?”
“Oh, just fine,” Dean says, throwing on a smile so forced it should be illegal. “Our angel-of-the-lord-turned-sales-associate is carving out a little spot for himself in the big bad human world. It’s what he wants, Sam, he told me,” he adds quickly, to cut off Sam’s inevitable tirade.
Sam has passed from confused to exasperated now. “Dean—“
Dean doesn’t want to hear it. He needs to leave the room, now. “That drive really took it out of me, I’m gonna turn in,” he says, even though it’s the middle of the afternoon, and walks away without waiting for acknowledgement. He can feel Sam’s annoyed huff and glare even without turning his head.
In his room, though, he feels just as confined and claustrophobic. He digs his phone out of his pocket and throws it on the bed, where it glares accusingly at him.
He takes pride in his job. He can make something for himself. He gets to choose what he wants, he doesn’t have to be part of this anymore.
Even in his head, the words sound hollow.
He’s happy there.
Lying to himself doesn’t work, not anymore. Not about this. Cas is hurting so badly that Ephram, the Hand of Mercy or whatever, sensed it and came to kill him. Cas is miserable.
But that could change, once he finds his feet. Once he figures out what he wants.
Dean knows what he wants, oh god—all Dean wants is to have Cas here with him, forever, to hold him tight and never let him go again. But he burned that bridge too thoroughly to even pretend he can rebuild it. The truth is that Cas deserves so much better than what Dean has to offer. And he might not find that as a sales associate at a gas station store in the middle of nowhere, but it’s a start. He has a shot.
And it’s a fact that what Dean wants is always second to what’s right for other people, what’s the right thing to do. Cas gets a new start, now, an entirely new life, and Dean will be damned if he drags Cas back into his own dead-end life.
Except.
Except for the rest of that night, after Cas’s failed date. Holding each other tightly in the darkness, the darkness that allowed half-whispered words that could never be spoken by day. Cas’s hair was soft against his lips, and when in the end Cas’s head slipped down to his shoulder and his breathing evened, Dean’s eyes were wet in a way he’d never admit to. But then he’d woken in the morning, stiff and sore, and Cas was already sitting in the front seat, ready to return.
It meant nothing.
Except that he can’t get Cas’s face out of his mind, his guarded, heavy expression as he lifted two fingers in farewell outside the car window.
You never told him why he had to go.
He can still feel Cas’s throaty whisper against his neck. “I’d still do it all again,” he’d said, and Dean had understood the enormity of the simple statement.
His cell phone is still giving him the evil eye. It would be so easy, too, just a tap of a button to make the call. Instead, he grabs the phone and roughly shoves it in a desk drawer before sitting heavily on his bed, head in his hands.
Later, Sam knocks on his door. Dean pretends to be asleep.
It takes him a week, in the end.
One week, and then he doesn’t call, he just gets in the car and drives. Fingers clenched tight, heart pounding, because what if he’s too late? Cas could be gone, a thousand miles away, untraceable. He could have been tracked down by angels or another reaper, and Cas is certainly able to defend himself, but no human is a match for pissed-off members of the God Squad.
Cas could be dead.
Dean drives faster, as though that would make a difference.
He arrives just in time to see Cas leave the store through a side door. He’s carrying a cardboard box and seems whole and unscathed. The rush of relief that washes over Dean is strong enough to still him where he sits, idling just inside the parking lot. Just the sight of Cas makes the blood rush back into Dean’s body, makes his lungs unclench so he can breathe.
Dean parks the conspicuous car and follows where Cas had disappeared around the back of the building. A crowded storeroom is visible though an open door: Cas is bent over a box, that ridiculous blue vest bright in the dim room.
He’s leaning against the doorframe when Cas turns around. He inhales sharply, his eyes widening as he takes in the sight of Dean.
Dean can’t keep the stupid sappy grin off his face. “Heya, Cas.”
“Dean,” Cas breathes, sharp and accusatory and wondering and relieved.
“Listen, man…” he starts, and then stops, suddenly unsure. What does one even say in this situation?
I messed things up, it was my fault, all of it, please don’t go, I’m sorry, I need you to come back, I’m so proud of you, I need you here, I need you.
I need you.
Cas is waiting, box cutters held loosely by his side. Dean looks away and then back at him, unable to keep his eyes off his face, watching Cas’s guard creep back up the longer Dean stays silent.
He blurts out his desperate offer, feels the words twist with hope and longing and love.
“Cas, do you want to come home?”
Dean has never been good with words, but he’ll be able to show Cas what he means.