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Dean immediately took a fighting stance when he felt the ground materialise under his feet. The lights stopped flashing. His eyes shifted wildly. As soon as he made out a person in the room with him, he didn't hesitate to grab them and shove them against the wall, pinning them there. Still blinking the blinding afterimages of the light away, he came to see that he was holding Jack by the collar of his jacket. The boy looked at him, frightened.
"What did you do?" Dean barked at him.
"Dean, calm down, please," Jack rambled. "It wasn't me, I swear, I -"
"Don't," Dean said, staring Jack down, "lie to me."
"I'm not!" Jack exclaimed.
"Then how am I here? How am I alive?" Dean shouted. "Who else could it have been?"
"How about me, Dean?"
Upon hearing the deep, gruffy voice, Dean's face froze in shock as he let Jack's collar slip out of his hands. He turned around. He exhaled. Standing across the room from him, looking somewhat disheveled but still clearly more than human, was Castiel, angel of the Lord. In the back of his mind, Dean heard someone tell him that he should check if it was really him. If this was really Cas, and not some dirty trick in a trenchcoat.
But looking at him, Dean's eyes brimming with tears, he knew it to be him. He could feel his grace thrumming, hear the slight ringing of his true voice echoing down the hallway, and most overwhelmingly of all: he felt the butterflies swarm in his stomach every second he kept looking at the angel.
So he said nothing, not until he had taken the five steps across the room necessary to close the distance beween them and wrapped his arms as tightly around Cas as he could. Not until he breathed in his fresh earthy scent and felt his scruffy beard brush against his cheek. Not until he buried his right-hand fingers in his hair at the back of his head and put his mouth near Cas' left ear.
"I love you too."
He whispered it so softly he wasn't sure for a second if Castiel had even heard him. But then Cas tightened his grip around him and held him so dearly that he completely forgot what it was like to worry about anything at all. He could come apart at the seams right now and it wouldn't matter, because Cas would be holding him together.
"I know," Castiel said quietly, "I heard you."
Dean stirred at that, leaning back a little so he could look Cas in the face.
"You heard me?" Dean asked, as the realisation started to dawn on him. "You mean you heard me pray to you when you were...?"
"Yes," Cas said. "I heard everything you told me, Dean, every day."
"Every day?"
"Every day," Cas confirmed. "Until, of course, one day, I didn't hear anything and the silence just stretched on and on. Then I knew what must've happened."
Cas looked away from Dean's eyes and stared down at his shoes, clearly trying to steady himself, grabbing Dean's underarm a little tighter.
"Your prayers were what kept me going in the Empty. For some reason, I still wouldn't stay asleep, so I was just there, existing. Your prayers helped me remember what day it was, they gave me hope that you would be alright, they let me know that you were still-"
Cas' voice broke.
"Still alive."
He looked at Dean again. This time he dared lay his hand on his cheek, gently stroking his thumb along Dean's cheekbone.
"Once I realised what had happened when the day came that I heard nothing... I almost broke. I've never felt despair like that, not even when I was human. But, as it turns out, I managed to send out a message to Jack. He was able to trace me, and save me."
"And then you brought me back to Earth?" Dean asked quietly.
Cas nodded.
"I know how you feel about being brought back to life time and time again, but I selfishly thought we deserved at least one honest chance at growing old. Together."
Dean looked at Cas. His Cas. He couldn't tell anymore if his trembling lip meant he was about to laugh or cry. And it didn't matter, because Cas swiftly closed the gap between them and pressed warm lips against his mouth, his calloused but slender hand still on Dean's face. Dean kissed him back, pressing softly and slowly at first, then deeper, faster, hungrier. After a while, he needed to catch his breath. Panting, he stared Cas in the face.
"You're a real bastard for bringing me back from the dead, you know that?" he said, still a bit out of breath. "But I gotta admit, growing old together does have a nice ring to it."