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Dean can’t stop smiling but he looks earnestly at Cas and asks “how did you manage to escape anyway?”
“How do you think I got out?”
Dean scoffs but he can feel the stubborn, shit-eating grin still there. “You annoyed a cosmic entity until they threw you out.”
Cas’s smile falters and he looks down at the floor. “I wouldn’t stop talking about you.”
Sam suddenly straightens up and runs his hands through his hair. Dean’s smile has fallen and when he looks at Sam there must be something desperate on his face because Sam immediately turns to leave, saying something about checking on the structure of the bunker after it was used as the arena to defeat God himself.
Cas is still looking down, studying his hands now, shoulders always hunched a little forward. Dean’s heart is up in his ears, the sound of blood is the only thing more deafening than the silence. This moment has pulled that one to the present, blending them together across everything that happened between then and now like bleeding watercolors. An opportunity to set the moment right, to finish it.
But he still can’t speak. Can barely move. Was it possible for such a being to love him? Truly love him? There was no one else who knew Dean like Cas did. Not even Sammy understood him so well. How was it possible?
Finally Cas looks up and shifts to his other foot. There’s an embarrassed look on his face. No.
“Dean, about what I said earlier-” no. He’s going to apologize. He’s going to take it back because he doesn’t know... what doesn’t he know? “I know it wasn’t fair of me-”
“Stop.” The word is strangled and soft but Cas halts mid-word and is suddenly as still as Dean has ever seen him. And he’s looking at him dead in the eyes. Good. Cas should never feel like he has to cast his eyes downward.
Dean let’s himself have a few deep breathes. Seconds go by in utter, awkward since. Then, a word,“don’t,” more silence, then another “don’t apologize. Cas-” there’s so much heat in Dean’s body that he almost shifts to take his jacket off.
But Cas is patient. And he’s still watching every move of Dean’s soul. The exposure is terrifying and his mind is screaming that he’s in danger. Run! Fight! Hide!
“You’ve said just as much before...” his mind still refuses to relive that moment, “before then. I just wasn’t really paying attention. I just couldn’t believe it-” but he stops because this is just an excuse to make himself feel better. It was self-pitying bullshit and Dean was done with it.
“You’re worthy of being loved Cas. You’re worthy of a family, you belong with us, no matter what.”
Cas opens his mouth to speak but Dean puts a hand up and takes a step forward. “It’s not your fault that you felt that way, we’ve treated you so damn bad Cas.” There’s a pressure now in his throat, like an eight ball from a lost game lodged itself there to shut him up. He swallows and takes another step forward. If he reached out he could almost run his hand along the edge of Cas’s trench coat. His fingertips start to tingle.
What doesn’t he know? He needs to know it, he needs to hear it, but what in the hell was it?
“We go on and on about family but then we doubt and lie and stay so distanced from each other. How many times have we said that family is the only thing that matters huh? And then we abandon then, kick them out, mistrust them, underestimate them-” he’s talking so fast now because if he stops he’ll never start again. “Hell we even raise our weapons against them. We get them killed. Cas!” He takes another step and the proximity, the color of Cas’s eyes, the tears forming on the angel’s lashes, it cracks the eight ball still sitting in his throat and then he’s crying and the tears are so hot they burn. “Cas, I killed you. With silence. With harsh words. With my actions. I’ve killed you in more ways than I’ve killed myself.”
He needs to know... he needs to know that you... you-
“How long? Tell me how long.” Dean’s voice is thready, like at any moment it will leave him forever. But his heart has slowed a little because this, this he can answer back to without hesitation.
Cas takes in a breath that hitches, “Anna.”
The word rips through his skin and the pain makes him nauseous. Too long. Cas has been in this kind of pain for far too long. All those years go through Dean’s mind so hard and fast that his head starts to buzz like he might puke and then pass out.
But this, this he can say out loud. A start, at least, to telling Cas what he needs to hear. What he should’ve heard since-
“Purgatory.”
Cas blinks at him and his head tilts a little to the side. The gesture almost sends Dean to his knees. “What?”
“I should’ve told you in purgatory. My actions weren’t enough. Looking for you, not leaving without you, it wasn’t enough I should’ve just-”
Cas’s eyes were so big and his realization was too huge, gliding over his face like the warmest light, and him turning his face toward it like he’d never felt the sun on his skin before. It’s too large. Run.
“You don’t have to-” no. He was done with the self-pitying bullshit. He would never match Cas’s bravery but he would never again be such a coward.
“I love you.”
Whatever self-defeating words were forming in Cas’s mouth dropped and Dean could swear they made a dying noise in the consuming hush that followed his words.
What rushes in isn’t relief or calm or even the absence of fear. What’s flooding Dean’s veins isn’t a cool lapping at the shore but white, furious water coursing down through all the scarred rocks that will always be there. He couldn’t change that. He didn’t want to. And the urge to run, to fight, to hide from the threat of vulnerability is finally gone. Silent as the grave.
Dean looks at Cas now. He never looked away but now he’s actually in his body, in the moment, and the Angel before him is fully there. This entity that loves him. Loved him? Was he too late?
“You’ve... loved me. Since purgatory?”
The shame of his cowardice flares and he almost looks away. But the survival impulses don’t even twitch. He’ll never fight or run or hide from these feelings ever again.
“Yes,” is the only thing Dean says. His hands are the only thing that move, clenching and unclenching at his sides. He’s never wanted to touch somebody so much in his entire life.
Then Cas smiles. And fuck if it doesn’t hold every single thing Dean wants and needs. He needs him. And instead of just thinking it Dean says it, all of it, again and again like he’ll never shut the hell up about it. “I need you cas, I need you. I need you. I love you. I love you and I need you. Always-” and then Cas’s hand comes up and Dean is already moving, the gap between them suddenly gone like it was never there to begin with.
And it’s Dean who’s hands are gripping Cas’s hips and Cas’s hands making fists in Deans hair but their mouths make the barest of impressions against each other, butterflies trying to land on blades of grass in a storm. The contrast between their desperate hands and their careful lips is making it hard to breathe. Dean moves back just enough to pull in air. They’re panting against each other’s mouths, hands still kneading, bodies still grinding against the other.
“I love you Dean.” His breath gliding across Dean’s lip wrentches a sob up from his trashed, abandoned soul.
“I love you Cas. I love you.”