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There is a clear night sky overhead. Stars pin-prick the navy blue darkness like buckshot, the scattering of twinkling lights a distant reminder of the vastness of the cosmos.
Dean breathes in the cold air, drinks in the vertigo of that unconquerable distance, that infinite space. He's spent a lot of his life looking up at night skies, through the Impala's windows, in the dull wait of stakeouts, in glimpses through the trees as he hunted something horrible. There's something about looking up like this, really looking, that always makes his chest hollow. Like he can almost understand how small he really is.
A warm hand brushes his and Dean levels his gaze back to Earth. Cas is still staring up at the sky, but his fingers lock with Dean's. There's the faint trace of a smile on Cas' mouth as he tilts his head back and sighs.
"Eons of light," Cas murmurs. "All that time I spent as just another wavelength among them." He lowers his eyes to meet Dean's and even in the dark like this, even now, Dean is stuck in that fathomless blue.
"Do you, uh… do you miss it?" Dean asks when Cas doesn't go on. They stare at each other, caught simultaneously.
Cas smiles, an expression that still feels new to Dean, a smile that is true and real and happy. It's so human. It's so deserved.
"The problem, of course, with living, really living, and having your heart in more than one place, is that you're always missing something. And what a tremendous gift that is."
Dean rolls his eyes, breaking the spell of their eye contact, and makes a derisive little huffing noise. He pulls his hand out of Cas', only to fling his arm around Cas' shoulders and pull him closer on the hood of the Impala.
"You're a sap," Dean says, ruffling the ridiculous pink bobble hat on Cas' head.
Cas only leans in, resting comfortably in the crook of Dean's shoulder.
Dean reaches for the cup of decaf he'd brought outside with him while Cas sips his hot cocoa. There is a cherry pie waiting inside when they get cold, and a Sinatra record waiting to be played. Maybe they will even stay up to dance to it.
There is a new year ahead of them. And another after that. And another. And another. And even if there isn't, even if the future isn't guaranteed to any of them, there is this moment, this choice, this warmth between them.
Dean looks up at the stars and lets himself smile, lets the angel on his shoulder nestle closer. He lets himself believe that whenever his ending comes, he will still be here: in love.