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"So we did it," Dean says, slightly exhausted. "Saved the world again."
He and Cas are sitting on a gray, weather-worn picnic table, staring out at the ocean where Dick Roman had made his last stand (and what is it with the leviathans and the goddamn water?). The beach is, of course, abandoned, the moonlight glinting off the slow swell of waves lapping over the sand.
"I believe I am the one who 'did it', as you put it."
Dean shoots him a halfhearted glare. "Okay, so you did most of the heavy lifting. But let's not forget who let the damn things out and started this whole mess in the first place."
Cas stares him down for a long moment, expression calculating. After a moment he inclines his head and looks back out at the ocean. "You have a valid point."
"See," Dean answers. "Team effort."
They're silent for a long while, staring out companionably at the ocean.
"I missed you, you know," Dean eventually says, "when you were gone."
Cas is silent. There's not much that he can say in response. He hadn't remembered Dean in order to miss him specifically, just felt the wrongness in his heart telling him something important was gone. "You'll have to fill me in on what happened while I was… not myself," he says.
Dean shoots him a look and cracks a grin. There had been a time when Cas had been so-called the guardian angel on his shoulder, watching over him and sometimes reading his mind. Dean's just glad he's not doing that this time around. "You just can't stand not knowing every second of our lives, can you?"
Cas returns his look with the hint of a wry smile. "Just the highlights then."
Dean shrugs. There's so much to choose, and he kinda hates talking about himself and the things he's been through. He kinda really, really hates it. But Cas can be persuasive - and let's not forget those mind-reading skills - and Cas already knows more about him than anyone else, ever, even Chuck and those horrible books, so Dean just figures, what's a little more? He figures he's going to be telling him it all anyway. "There was this girl. She turned out to be my kid. I may have knocked up her mom a few weeks earlier. She showed up and tried to kill me."
"That is not normal human behavior."
"Amazon," Dean responds.
"Ah." Cas doesn't ask for more, and Dean doesn't offer anything else up.
"What about you?" Dean asks after a moment's hesitation. "Think you'll be going back to your wife?"
"No," Cas answers without pausing to think about it.
"Just like that, huh? No hesitation at all."
"No. I appreciate what she did for me and having such a simple life with her was… nice as I was living it. But I'd never be able to go back. I have come to realize that my life is too wrapped up in you."
Cas' fingers slide across Dean's as he speaks, making sure Dean gets his point. Dear Lord, does he get the point, loud and clear. But getting the point has never been the problem.
Dean fidgets but doesn't remove his hand. "God Cas, how can you just come out and say those things?"
Cas meets his gaze, eyes clear and blue and startlingly honest. "It's the truth. I've never had any problem stating the truth, especially not when it comes to you."
This, Dean knows, having been on the receiving end of it time and time again. No matter how many times it happens, he never feels any less off balance, and this time is no different. It might actually be worse, in fact. Dean is not good at talking about his feeling at the best of times. A few years ago, he might have shrugged Cas' confession off, refused to talk about it or let anything else happen between them. But Cas has died and come back, not once, not twice, but three times and this last time had almost broken him. Dean doesn't think he could stand to lose him again.
So he does what he does best - gathers his courage and lets his actions do the talking. Leans forward and captures Cas' lips in a brief kiss, a bare brush of lips against lips. It's a tentative kiss, a testing the waters kind of thing - for both Cas and himself.
They both seem to pass, with flying colors no less. Cas makes this sound that sets Dean's heart racing, causes him to lean in and tilt his head to deepen the kiss, bury his hands in Cas' hair. He positively groans with pleasure when Cas' tongue finds it way into his mouth.
"Hey Cas," Dean asks a great deal of time later, absolutely breathless, "you ever seen Star Wars?"
"No," Cas answers between kisses.
"You're gonna love it," Dean says. There are so many things he wants to show him - things he'd thought up when Cas had been gone - and sitting here on the beach, with Cas warm and breathing beside him, his mouth against Dean's own, it feels like he's got all the time in the world to do so.