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After defeating literal God , Dean still isn’t satisfied. He doesn’t ask Jack to bring Cas back right away because part of him feels like he doesn’t deserve him, doesn’t deserve his love; he doesn’t want to disrupt Cas’s peace. But then, Jack leaves, turns into the rain or whatever the fuck, and he loses his chance. He tries summoning Jack a few times, but all that appears are a few golden feathers, and, one time, a nougat bar. Eventually he stops trying to reach him, and looks for another way.
He’s happy for Sam and Eileen, really, truly; but a part of him makes him grind his teeth, and even lash out at them both- it eventually drives Sam to move out of the bunker to live in an apartment with Eileen.
Dean always regrets that last fight.
He spends the first week after Sam moves out in a drunken despair, finally, truly alone with his thoughts. He doesn’t eat. He can’t sleep. He loses weight and gains eye bags, and neither ever return to normal after that.
But, even then, on his own, he searches for a way to get Cas back. It’s the only thing he can think about. The only thing he cares about for years . He studies witchcraft. He looks into the Book Of The Damned. He goes through literally all of the files in the bunker, all the boxes he and Sam never got around to unpacking before. He looks through it all, and finally, after five years of grief, he finds what he needs.
Well, he doesn’t know if it’ll work, there’s not exactly an instruction manual. But his cobbled together mix of about 13 spells and a sacrificial altar seem like the best option he’s had in half a decade. So, he tries it.
Dean takes a swig from his current bottle, draining yet another flask of whiskey, before tossing it aside and grabbing his lighter and knife. He chants, moving in a circle around his pyre, slicing his hand and dropping blood into each of the seven bowls for different spells he has laid out.
He finishes his chant as he sets fire to the offering at the center of the circle, and doesn’t feel anything at first. Then all at once there’s a sharp pain in his chest and he crumples to the ground, eyes rolling back into his head. He feels himself- well, not really himself, more like his soul, or his essence- whisking at the speed of light through the universe and beyond.
Eventually, he comes to an abrupt stop in a pitch black corner of the galaxy. Dean emits a soft glow, and isn’t really there at all, and certainly isn’t what you would call alive or in this plane of existence , but he doesn't give it any thought. He just searches for what he came for.
It takes hours- or years, he isn’t really sure time exists here- but he finally, finally sees his angel. He reaches out to him with his being, with his heart and soul and everything he has, and allows himself to sink into Castiel’s soul. He merges with him, and plants the thought, Wake up, Cas. Come home.
Castiel jolts awake, opening his eyes for the first time in five years. “Dean.” It’s his first thought, his last thought, his every thought, so he says it. Something compels him to stand, to draw his angel blade, and to slice his own throat, letting his grace pour out and filter through the air into nothingness. Then he feels a hitch in his navel as his essence is collapsed like an imploding star.
He’s traversing through galaxies, through lightyears of space and time, and eventually finds himself rocketing into consciousness in the last room he was ever in, in the bunker. He isn’t fully awake or aware, but he feels something warm leave him, and he stirs, almost falling back asleep on the cold floor. But then there’s a groan, and a desperate, hopeful, disbelieving, half-broken whisper of a whimper of “ Cas ?”
Castiel’s eyes snap open, and across the room from him, he sees Dean, unshaven, too thin, a little older, and definitely worn by the world, but still Dean nonetheless. Castiel smiles, tears coming to his eyes. He pushes himself up as Dean scrambles to a stand and rushes across the few feet between them, tacking Casitel into a hug with such force he stumbles backwards.
“Dean, how-”
But Castiel’s question is lost, as Dean finds his lips with his own. It’s a kiss of desperation, of longing, of over a decade and a half of yearning and wishing and praying to unhearing gods; it’s a kiss of tenderness yet full of passion, of things left unsaid for far, far too long.
“Cas, you stupid son of a bitch,” Dean pants, pulling back from Casitel and leaving him gasping for breath, his tongue burning with the taste of alcohol. “I love you. Of course I love you. I’ve loved you for so long, I don’t know what not loving you feels like.”
He grabs Castiel’s face between his hands, and Castiel’s heart pounds in his throat, blood rushing in his ears.
“Don’t you ever leave me again,” Dean says, voice trembling, eyes full of tears that pour down his face.
“I can’t imagine ever wanting to.” Castiel kisses Dean, then pulls him into another hug, touching their foreheads together and looking into those green, green eyes. “This is exactly where I want to be.”