Work Text:
Dean clutches Cas and lets himself pretend that he’ll never let go, that neither of them will step back and end their embrace. He feels Cas practically fall into him, exhausted, and they’re each keeping the other upright, keeping the other standing. That’s how it’s always been, Dean realizes, clarity striking like a sunbeam through the gray clouds of Purgatory. They lean on each other and do not fall.
There’s not much time left, Dean knows, but he doesn’t care, because there’s time enough for this. Time enough for him to step back and run his eyes over Cas, take in the bloody gash on his head, the slump of his shoulders. The slight smile that lifts the corners of his lips as he tells Dean that the leviathan blossom got a little smushed but it’s okay. Time enough for Dean to realize that they did it, that Cas did it. That they’re going to win.
They need to leave, Dean knows this, but something has cracked inside him and needs to be let out. Maybe it’s Purgatory, maybe it’s just him, but it makes him say, “Cas, I need to say something,” and he’s ready, he wants to say it, even if he doesn’t know what the shape of the words are going to be on his tongue.
Don’t leave again, please. I can’t do this without you.
I want to be better for you.
I love you.
But Cas gives the tiniest shake of his head, cutting him off. “You don’t have to say it,” he says, and Dean feels his stomach swoop, a dizzying drop of excitement, of fear. “I heard your prayer.”
Dean’s overwhelmingly aware of how much time is left on the rift now, the seconds slipping past faster than they were just a moment ago, and he knows that makes no sense, but that’s how it is. No, he wants to say, no, I have more to tell you. I need to tell you. Please, let me say it.
He holds the words on the tip of his tongue instead, because Cas had heard him but he hasn’t forgiven Dean yet. Hasn’t said it’s okay or I understand or some other empty platitude that they both pretend fixes things. Maybe he knows what Dean wants to say, but he doesn’t want to hear it. A familiar flash of hurt rears its head in Dean’s gut, hot and angry, and it would be so easy to give into it, so easy to snarl out an expectant and? at Cas. To say something sarcastic and cutting. So easy to retreat back into that false armor and lick his metaphorical wounds.
But Cas is looking at him with an open gaze for the first time in months, not clouded with hurt or devastation or anger, and maybe Dean’s getting too old for this shit but he thinks he recognizes it for what it is: a door that’s been opened just a crack. An invitation.
So Dean swallows all the words that have been crowding up on his tongue, extinguishes the hurt that threatens to twist up his throat instead. Cas gives the barest of nods and turns, doggedly making his way back towards the rift, and Dean stares after him, face crumpling, heart racing like he’s just run three miles instead of nearly confessing his love for his best friend.
That’s what this is, Dean knows. He’s in love with Cas, has been for years at this point. And all he can hope for is that it’s not too late, that the two of them haven’t hurt each other too much for it to mean something. That they can both find the right words to move forward.
But first, they have to stop Chuck and save Sam and Eileen.
***
They don’t do it.
Sam looks at all of them with tears in his eyes and drops the orb with the spell in it, and Chuck crushes it in triumph. “Sammy lost hope,” he crows, and Dean grits his teeth.
And then Eileen leaves, and Dean gets it, but he feels the breath whoosh out of his body all the same. Because he knows what it’s going to do to Sam. Because the same thing happens to him every time Cas leaves.
He sits next to Cas at the table in the kitchen, a half-full drink in his hand, their knees bumping underneath. Dean carefully doesn’t think about the unmarred flesh of Cas’ forearm. Doesn’t think about how close they came to locking Chuck away and putting the Mark on Cas, ugly red raised flesh that would have burned and burned. Doesn’t think about how sometimes he can still feel it on his own arm, how a phantom pain had itched when Cas had left all those months ago in the face of Dean’s anger.
The pain flares again when Sam enters to apologize, in sync with the hot curl of rage that flashes through him. This was their best chance. Their only chance, as far as Dean can tell. Heat rushes through his veins, and he wants to give in, wants to let it out because he is angry, dammit, angry and scared and helpless--
And then he glances at Cas, the sharp line of his profile familiar and new all at once, and Dean…
Dean is tired of being angry. He wants to be more than that. For Sam. For Cas. For himself.
“Well, then we’ll find another way,” he says, and has to look away from the aborted flinch Sam gives, because he knows he was expecting shouting.
It makes Cas turn back to him, eyes searching, calm and blue and deep, and Dean doesn’t look away from that. He hopes Cas finds whatever he’s looking for. Hopes Cas will tell him about it, someday. That whatever it is, Cas likes it.
It seems incongruous with their current situation, but for the first time in a long time, Dean feels hope.