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When Cas was taken by the Empty, it was at the end of all things anyway.
Chuck stood before them, the world crumbling at their backs and the Empty had to take what it could get. Cas certainly would never have said he was happy, but when he gave himself permission to grab Dean’s hand as they faced down what was sure to be The End, it was the surge of affection he felt at the answering squeeze that did him in.
The Empty pounced. In the grand scheme of the universe, they figured, happiness was probably a relative thing.
It wasn’t quite the scene they had in mind when the deal with Cas was struck, but the seconds between now and when Chuck pulled the plug on time itself were closing in and the quiet flash of peace that Cas felt at Dean’s hand in his were quite possibly the last bits of happiness anyone was ever going to feel. That at least, felt significant.
“Dean–” said Cas, as the sudden and familiar inky tug at his remaining grace brought his heart into his throat.
When the three of them had climbed this hill together- Sam, Dean, and Cas, resolute despite the fact that they probably were not going to be walking back down again- Cas never would have predicted this, of all ways, to be the way his fight ended. But maybe, he thought, happiness was like air, expanding to fill the space it was kept in. If Chuck had his way, there wasn’t much space left to fill.
Cas was done with thinking; he didn’t have time for it. He didn’t have time for words either, explanations and careful confessions were simply a luxury he could no longer afford, and as the Empty clawed their way through his very being, Cas acted on instinct. The fact that they had an audience of Sam and God Himself was no longer a going concern. Seconds with Dean were always the most precious he’d had, and if he ran out of them while trying to do this one last thing – so be it.
He tightened his grip on Dean and tugged. With the last of his everything, Cas pulled him in, took Dean’s face between his hands, and kissed him.
It was a brief thing, a quick yet certain press of lips that Cas hoped conveyed everything he would never get to say. Dean let out a startled noise before raising his hands to sit cautiously at Cas’ shoulders. There wasn’t time for anything else.
“Dean–” Cas whispered as he pulled away, meeting Dean’s wide eyes, and huh, he’d had time for words after all. The last thought he had before the world fell away was that of all the millions of words there were, he was glad to have ended on a good one.
The trench coat slipped from beneath Dean’s hands when the angel vanished, tumbling unsupported to the ground.
Dean stared horrified at the spot where Cas had been standing, his hand held awkwardly in the air in front of his face - as if in an aborted path to his lips. Sam, whose gaze up until now had been a fixed unflinching thing, broke its lock on Chuck and flicked anxiously to Dean.
Their plan on climbing this hill was only ever to serve as a distraction, and in some twisted way Dean supposed, Cas’ disappearance had really taken the whole thing up a notch.
You see, Death was only ever a title. The Death before Billy was certain in his statement that he would reap God, and even though that particular Death was no more, it didn’t make what he had said any less true. The only uncertainty about the job was when. Death would reap God, and as Jack materialized silently behind Chuck with a scythe, the when was no longer in question.
Chuck was delighted by the effect that Cas’ disappearance had on Dean.
“He’s dead, you know. Sixth’s times the charm I think,” Dean struggled to stay standing. He'd thought he'd known, of course, but it was another thing entirely to have it confirmed. Chuck rubbed his hands together as he paced, like he was giving some sort of demented author talk at the end of the world.
It wasn’t an easy thing to let Chuck ramble on, but there really was no better way to keep him distracted.
“He was right about being brought back as punishment. Or at least, he was right about everything always getting worse, I had to raise the stakes. He just kept getting more and more miserable and that kind of angst can really sell an audience on subtext. I’ve always thought that will-they-won’t-they trope was a very compelling thing, obviously, but you can never actually make good on it until the end. Where’s left for the story to go after that? Well, as you can see-“
Chuck gestured at the trench coat piled at Dean’s feet “-not very far.”
“You didn’t,” growled Dean, forgetting himself. He was keeping his eyes fixed on Chuck, and decidedly not on Jack who, while momentarily thrown by the topic of Cas, had now raised the scythe above his head.
“Who’s to say?” said Chuck, grinning.
“Not you.” replied Jack, and the scythe hit home.
There was a reason that Billy had passed Death’s title to Jack. It would take the authority found in the combination of God’s most favourite creations to bring him down, and even then, it would come at a price.
The world whited out, and Dean fell.
When he came to, Chuck was gone, the scythe was charred and broken, and Sam was holding a giggling toddler in his arms.
Jack was barely four, after all.
Dean reached out for Cas’ trench coat, got to his feet, and without a moment of hesitation headed back down the hill. He traced his fingers across his lips as he walked, remembering Cas’ urgent touch. His final act.
“Dean? Where are you going?” called Sam, busy checking a squirming Jack over for injuries.
And with the first words of his newly acquired free will, Dean replied,
“I told that asshole not to get dead again.”
He didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t know what the world looked like now, but he did know one thing. He was going to get Cas back, and for once, he was going to make for damn sure that Cas never for a second thought it was a punishment.