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Dean finds him back in the dungeon.
His back is to the door, hands buried in his pockets. His head is angled down to the empty chair; a salute.
Dean closes the door behind him and takes a few steps forward. Cas doesn’t turn around.
“Did you even hesitate?” Dean asks.
“No,” Cas says. “I did what I had to do.”
A laugh huffs out of Dean’s chest, dry and bitter, before he can do anything to stop it. “Yeah. That’s what you always do.”
“And it was the right call, Dean.” Cas finally turns about face and meets his eye, chin up and gaze hard like steel. “You know it was. I made a decision, and you rail against me for it – why? You know it had to be done.”
“It’s not your job, Cas.”
“Of course it is. You weren’t going to do it. You can’t do it. You’re too. . .”
“What?” Dean asks, taking an angry step forward. “Naïve? Weak?”
“Good,” Cas says simply. Sadly.
Dean shakes his head. “We both know that’s bullshit.”
“It’s not,” Cas says. “But I told you, this is a war, and we both know what war demands of us.”
A shiver runs down Dean’s spine. Those words are far too familiar. “You know, all these years, you haven’t changed a bit.”
Cas laughs outright at that, harsh and biting. “You really think that?”
“Damn right.” Dean steps in again, crowding, advancing his territory. “This is you, this has always been you. Saying yes to Lucifer, takin’ on Metatron, hell –” He tries to bite it back, but the old wounds rip open easily, like they were never healed to begin with. “All the crap you pulled fighting Raphael. You were doing what you had to do. Duty, honour, call it whatever you want. But you’re always the soldier.”
The words were intended to wound, to pierce, and Cas deflates in an instant. “It’s what I am, Dean. And it’s what I need to be now.”
Dean shakes his head. “I told you, you came back because we needed you.”
“Yes. This is a war.”
Before he can stop himself, Dean throws him a look. “I think we’re done acting like that’s what I mean by that, don’t you?”
The air between them stills for a moment.
Cas eyes him warily, then straightens out his shoulders. At attention. “Well then you’re right, I haven’t changed. Look at all of those things, all of the choices I’ve made. My reasons were always the same.” He takes a breath. “I’m just not pretending otherwise anymore.”
Dean’s heart is thumping in his ears, almost deafening. “And what reasons are they, exactly?”
A small smile almost makes its way across Cas’ face. “Do I really need to say it?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, swallowing around his dry throat. “That’d be nice. For once.”
The smile disappears, if it was ever there. Instead, Cas just looks sad. “I will. When this is over.”
But Dean’s had enough this time. “It’s never over, Cas. Once this steaming pile of crap is over, then there’ll be another steaming pile of crap. And then another, and another, over and over until one or all of us is dead. For real this time.”
“I don’t believe that,” Cas says. “I can’t believe that.”
And he turns away, eyes finding Donatello’s empty chair again.
Dean extends his hand, reaching out into the no man’s land between them.
Cas looks back over – not at Dean’s face, but at his white flag.
“This is how we have to be,” he says quietly. “At least for now.”
Dean withdraws his hand, dismissed.
“Fine,” he says, then marches from the room.