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He finds Cas in a green field just beyond where the edge of the forest breaks and turns to prairie. He’s just standing there, leaning his right shoulder up against a sprawling, gnarled old oak tree.
It looks like Dean is almost expected.
He pulls the Impala off the road and shuts it off. He’d turned off the music a little ways back, content to have just the sound of the wind whistle-roaring in his ears as he and Baby raced down the winding open road, but now his hands are shaking.
There are wildflowers and seeds scattered on the ground, honeybees and wild birds and all manner of life positively humming around them. It’s beautiful.
“Cas,” Dean calls, a nervous relief flooding through him.
Cas turns to look back at him, his face closed off, his mouth set in a twisted little line.
“Hello, Dean.”
He sounds sad, and turns away. Dean hurries across the last remaining stretch of gently waving grass and comes to a halt at his side.
He wants to tell him. He reaches out to take Cas by the arm, but there’s something on Cas’s face. While he’s been standing there like a statue and waiting for Dean to join him underneath the rustling canopy, a tear has made its way onto his left cheek, suspended there like a glittering little betrayal.
The confession he’d planned shrinks in Dean’s throat, tucking itself away into a hot, prickly ball of fear that settles in his heart.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?” he asks instead, trying for some of his usual laissez-faire bravado and falling miserably short.
“No, not really,” Cas says softly. He still won’t look at Dean, staring resolutely out over the field towards the horizon where the sun- or whatever celestial illusion passes for the sun in Heaven- has begun to set, casting pale red-gold tendrils spiraling out into the most perfect blue Dean’s ever seen. It reminds him of Cas. Of Cas’s eyes.
Another tear falls. Cas pays it no mind, but his lip trembles, just barely.
I gotta know. "Why are you crying, Cas?" If he even knows. The question sticks in Dean’s throat and leaves a lump in its wake. He thinks he might be crying soon, too.
"I wish I could say it was because of a perfect ending,” Cas begins softly. “I know humans wish for that, that sort of an absolution, or resolution, tying up loose ends, everyone getting what they deserve. I wish I was happy to see you, I do. But I’m not, Dean- fuck,” he swears, shaking his head. Dean’s never heard him swear like that before, not even when Billie had them cornered- and was that already so long ago?
“I need you to know what you mean to me, what you’ve always-” Cas’s voice wavers and stops.
He pauses, watching the colors dancing in the distance, and takes a breath to steady himself. "Gabriel used to say that humans were built out of the same stuff as stars, and when I look at you, I know it's true. You burned so bright. You still do. I- it aches just to be near you. But as long as I’ve known you, I have never wanted to be anywhere else. I don’t, I-” he turns and meets Dean’s gaze. His eyes take Dean’s breath and freeze it in his chest. The look on Cas’s face is staggering, the weight of his expression hitting Dean like a sledgehammer to the gut. “I know I can’t have you, but I can’t regret loving you," he whispers.
“Cas, I’m not asking you to.” Dean says, unsure and shifting his weight uneasily from foot to foot.
“No, I know you wouldn’t,” Cas says quickly. “But you deserved to live, Dean. Not to be here. Not yet.” He means it.
And that’s true. Dean knows that whatever his ending was- heroic, pointless, depressing, ridiculous- it was too soon. But what’s done is done.
“Maybe I did, Cas,” Dean admits, letting the last of his anger fall away from his heart and dissolve into the air. “But there’s no going back, and you were gone and- and I’ve never felt so alone, Cas. Now how could I want to be anywhere but here, with you?” Dean asks, taking Cas by the hand and drawing him closer before reaching up to cup his face in his hands.
Cas takes a shocked step to him and sobs out a sharp little breath when Dean’s hands touch his face, his thumbs stroking over Cas’s cheekbones and swiping away the last clinging tears. He holds onto Dean’s shoulders too tightly, his fingers tugging at the fabric, his eyes searching Dean’s in disbelief.
“Cas, I love you. Of course I love you,” Dean rushes out, his heart racing, his voice wrecked. “You can have it- you can have me.” He pulls Cas as close as can be, and he kisses him. Something in his soul seems to slot into place, a feeling of rightness taking root in a way that he has never felt before. With Cas’s lips on his, his hands in his wild hair, and Cas clutching him to his chest like a prayer, Dean feels like he’s finally home.
Somewhere nearby, there are birds singing.