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It is 8:14 when Dean's eyes slide open. He is immediately blinded by sunlight; he squeezes his eyes shut again quickly, letting out a small grunt of annoyance.
Dean isn't really awake. This morning is the first in years where when he wakes up—later than he generally likes to—he isn't immediately alert. And this morning is perhaps the first in his entire life where it's truly okay that he doesn't possess all of his faculties, just yet. They don't have anywhere to be, anything to do. He could lay in this bed all day, sunlight warming his now closed eyelids, face pressed half into the pillow under his head, half into the bare neck and shoulder of Cas next to him.
Dean could get used to this, if he were going to experience another morning. He's glad this is his last one, their last one. The last one.
Cas is still asleep, face smoothed out and facing toward Dean, breathing deep and even. His mouth is a little chapped, and Dean wants to kiss it, gently, the smallest touch of tongue to wet his bottom lip. Dean wants to bite on that bottom lip, just a little, right hand coming up to hold Cas' head at just the right angle. Dean wants to scrape his top teeth across the sensitive skin, grin when Cas lets out a small whine and a shudder.
But Dean also wants to have Cas be peaceful, just like this, how he never is when he's awake. Especially recently, when they decided they weren't going to try to stop the apocalypse this time, that there was no way they could even if they ran themselves into the ground.
Dean feels a pang of regret, that Castiel has to see the end of days as a human, without the comforts of his grace. Dean remembers hearing Cas' voice, for the first time in weeks after the apocalypse that never really came to pass, wrecked and broken and mottled by the static of the cell phone, urging Dean to Pontiac, Illinois. Dean remembers seeing Cas for the first time, all the air leaving his lungs in one exhale, bones suddenly turning to mud, because his angel was no longer an angel, and it was all because Dean had to save the world.
The regret spreads from the bottom of his stomach up to his chest, twists into something darker, more hurtful. His breath hitches, tears already forming in his eyes. He closes them again, burrowing further into the crook of Cas' neck, hiding his tears in the safety of Cas' soft, warm skin. Dean's ashamed of his tears, but he can't stop the shame that fuels them: why does Cas have to go through this, Cas did everything for you, he had his grace torn out for you, and you repay him with letting everything burn.
It doesn't matter that there was a flicker of relief in Cas' eyes when Dean mentioned letting it happen. It doesn't matter that Sam, though he didn't want to say it, agreed with his entire body, shoulders relaxing and face losing tension. The end of the world, this time for real, the cease of the existence of everything; it was all on Dean's shoulders, because he had the bravery—cowardice—to suggest it in the first place.
Everything they did to keep the world spinning was for nothing. And so Dean cries.
He wraps his arm around Cas' abdomen, shifting his entire body closer as he tries to keep the sobs in. He wants Cas to stay peaceful but he can't not tuck himself into the warm, soft bends of Cas' body. Dean can't help but to hold onto pretty much the only thing keeping him stable at the end of the world. The tears still fall as his shifting forces Cas' eyes to open.
"'M sorry," Dean whispers, ragged. He can't bring himself to look at Cas' face, awake and tense again with Dean crying into his shoulder. He has the image of sleeping, peaceful Cas seared into his brain, and he doesn't want Cas to feel burdened any more. Not in the last day of his existence, after centuries of being burdened by everything and everyone, especially Dean.
Cas doesn't say anything. He extricates his left arm out from under the blankets and Dean's grip, and rests it around Dean, hand twining into the hair at the nape of Dean's neck. He presses a soft, deliberate kiss to the top of Dean's head; probably meant for skin, but Dean has his face buried so deep in Castiel's neck that his temple isn't accessible.
Dean stops trying to hold in his sobs. He lets out a wretched cry and curls his fingers against Cas' back, nails digging into the flesh. The sunlight from the window accentuates the red marks Dean leaves on Cas' skin; another instance where Dean is just using Cas to his own advantage, for his own comfort.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Cas whispers, voice intense and thick and comforting.
Dean lets out a harsh laugh, looks downward, unwinds an arm to wipe at his face. "I have everything to be sorry for." His eyes focus on the lower half of their bodies, naked and curving together under the sunlight from the window and the shade of the sheets. He never wants to be without this, but he won't ever have it again, and he has no one to blame but himself. "I'm letting the world end."
"No," Cas says, more loudly and fiercely than anything spoken between them that morning. "You are recognizing your strengths and weaknesses. It is only a retreat after the victory, to avoid further bloodshed. There is no shame in that; a cessation of existence is better, more merciful, than the loss of life." As Cas speaks, he winds his hand around Dean's neck, soothing him with his light touches. Dean stops crying quite so violently; he knows there is truth in Cas' words, they were his very own reasoning when he suggested it.
The fact that Cas believes it, believes him, helps to ease his heart. The emotion constricting his chest loosens a little, retreating back into the depths of his stomach, but it's still there. He shakes his head and touches the marks he just left on Cas' back, fingertips skittering against skin in apology.
"I do not blame you or your choices, Dean," Cas says, voice cracking on Dean's name, hands clenching a little too crazily, as if he thinks Dean might dart out of the bed away from him, not listen to his words. He shivers at Dean's touch, pressing ever closer. "I love you, I will always love you."
Dean closes his swollen eyes as the tears finally pause. He still can't look at Cas' face, too raw to see even the unwavering devotion written plainly in Cas' eyes, the shape of his brows, the bend of his lips. He lifts his head back, eyes closed, and presses a soft kiss to Cas' mouth. Cas reciprocates, intense and slow, grasping and holding onto Dean's neck as though he could never let it go.
Dean whispers, ragged and full of every roll of his gut and clench of his heart, "Cas," and opens his eyes.