Chapter Text
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Everyone they loved was gone. Dean had Sam. He was endlessly, unyieldingly grateful for that. Of all the people to walk out of the fire relatively unscathed, it had to be him.
Dean wanted that ending for his baby brother since he was old enough to understand it. The picket fence dream; a wife (or husband, he saw the way Sammy looked at Brad Pitt when they watched Fight Club), no monsters under the bed.
He'd hoped Sammy would tell stories about their Uncle Dean, Uncle Cas, Auntie Rowena even. Lofty tales of how they saved the world, all their road trips. She may be retired in 16 years time, but they could still sit in Baby, put their hands on the wheel where Dean's had sat for a majority of their lives.
Sam could watch them grow up, somewhere outside of the confined bunker. They could add their initials to the desk, carved right where they belong, next to the rest of the family.
He was ready to go. Sam didn't know it, but he was ready to let him.
Then Cas came back.
It was as if he walked out of the Empty completely restored. Jack had really done a miracle on the guy. Dean, pinned to the post with blood slowly drowning his lungs, would've sworn he was having deathbed hallucinations. Castiel, swooping in like a true angel to carry him to Heaven. If he had the audacity to assume that's where he was going.
Cas, taking in what he was seeing with panic in his eyes, searched Dean's face, hands poised over his impaled torso with trepidation. The way Cas's eyes flicked between him and Sam, brief, the slightest twitch only Dean would know.
Not a plea. A question.
Dean knows Cas can heal him, Cas knows he can heal him.
Cas knows Dean had no intention of coming out alive.
He's giving him a choice.
Dean gave the slightest nod. Scared, resigned, but present.
Distantly, he realized he was being gently pulled off the post, not feeling the ridges scraping past his ribcage until he was free as the golden glow of Cas’s grace surrounded the wound. He was guided to the ground, Cas's face framed by the dim lights of the barn like a halo. He felt less and less lucid as Sam's face came into view, leaning over his other side.
Cas looked heavenly, light carving out the soft details of his face, illuminating narrowed blue eyes and lips pulled into a tight, focused line.
"Dean?" It was Cas's voice.
It seemed real enough, the low, concerned rasp he'd heard his name spoken with more times than he could count. Hands, touching his abdomen with a careful, calloused finger, prodding for any holes that weren't supposed to be there.
Dean smiled, lips quivering around the blood that dried inside his mouth. Near delirious with adrenaline, his shaking hand reached out, fingertips falling against a hard jaw peppered with stubble. He ran the pads of his fingers against it, feeling.
Sounded real, felt real.
“Cas?" He croaked, finding his throat raw. He took a deep breath in, filling his lungs with significantly less of a fight. He wheezed out something like a laugh, bitter and intensely relieved. He tried to sit up, vision beginning to clear, when Cas placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"You should lie down for a bit longer." Curt, but filled to the brim with a tenderness Dean couldn't quite process with the headache he had. As his eyes focused, he noted that Cas looked just as wrecked as Sam. Under-eyes a dark, purplish red, nose bright red and lips swollen with tears recently spilled shining on his cheeks.
Dean blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.
Cas is here, sitting in front of him. Cas was taken by the Empty to save him. Cas died six months ago. Dean drank himself into a stupor more nights a month than not. He had to sleep sometime. It was a wonder his liver was still kicking.
But Cas is here.
Warning be damned, he sat up, throwing his arms around Cas's shoulders. The angle was slightly uncomfortable, Cas kneeling and awkwardly bent over to Dean's slumped figure. But he was warm, solid, breathing beneath Dean's hands. He pressed his ear to the angel's chest, hearing the soft thump of a heartbeat under his skin. Cas's arms fell around Dean easily, holding to the back of his shirt like he'd disappear into the ether if he let go.
"Cas," Dean repeated, feeling the name on his tongue for the first time in what felt like an eternity.
"I'm here, Dean," Cas murmured against his shoulder.
Dean was so, so afraid of forgetting.
Forgetting faces, forgetting his comforting touches, forgetting the sound of his voice. It seemed, in that moment, like the best sound he'd ever heard. He didn't keep track of how much time passed until they parted, letting his clenched fists release the fabric of Cas's trench coat to let him go.
His eyes drifted to Sammy, taking in puffy brown eyes and lips twisted into a panicked, baffled smile. "Sammy," he whispered brokenly, pulling his baby brother into a tight hug by his sleeve.
Sam held him so tightly he nearly couldn't breathe, but he wouldn't let go first. He would never think about letting go first ever again.
Sam eventually released him, looking over at Cas with weary, exhausted eyes. "Cas, do you have enough juice to get us home? I..." He swallows, wincing subtly. "I can't drive right now."
Cas nodded sympathetically. "I will see to it that Baby and the young boys make it home safely." Dean, for the first time in his life, can't be bothered to question him about the car.
“This may be uncomfortable for a moment, Dean." Before he can think, they're sitting in the bunker, Cas and Sam slowly rising up from their crouched positions. Cas reached a hand down to Dean, helping him off the floor and placing a careful hand on his back when he wobbled slightly.
The three of them just stood there, staring at each other in disbelief, the events of the night settling in.
“I need a drink," Dean croaked, swinging a foot towards the kitchen weakly. "Do you?" Sam asked, careful and timid.
"Water, Sammy. Throat's killing me," he said, a wary smile pulling at his cracked lips. Sam nodded, relief washing over his face. Dean paused, turning over his shoulder, opening his mouth with no words leaving. He never was the type to ask for things, especially company, easily.
He just got Cas back. He's thrilled, obviously. He wants him around.
The last time they talked loomed heavy in his brain.
'You know ever since we met, and ever since I pulled you out of hell, knowing you has changed me.'
'I love you.'
He spent half a year unpacking that confession. Replaying it in his mind, watching the black sludge consume his best friend, his savior, and closest confidante in his miserable life helplessly. Drowning in all that guilt, smothering it in whiskey.
He'd begged Cas, in those final moments, not to do it.
Don't tell me you love me because I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to love you the way you deserve. Don't tell me that because if you love me, you are doomed.
Nothing good ever stays, because I don't deserve it.
How can he expect Cas to stay after what his love for Dean got him?
Dean closed his mouth, turned on his heel, and walked to the kitchen alone.
Dean wandered the bunker aimlessly in lieu of getting in bed. It was late, probably about one in the morning as he lounged in the kitchen, sipping on a bottle of water while he leaned against the counter.
Sam stayed in his general orbit, reading a book at the table, if what he was doing could be called that. He barely looked at the words in front of him, eyes flicking up to Dean every few minutes as if he'd disappear into thin air.
"I'm here, Sam. I'm not going anywhere," Dean said into the heavy silence. It was intended to come out teasing, light. Instead, it fell into something somber and tender, the kind of voice he only used when he was being the comforting big brother.
Sam's eyes welled with tears, as if those words had been what snapped the rubber band in his mind.
"I almost lost you, Dean. I lost Rowena, Cas, Jack... I thought I lost you too," he choked, silent tears dripping down his cheeks.
"You didn't, Sammy. I'm not leaving you. And now... Now we got Cas back too," Dean smiled, sincere as he can manage. No matter how many times he had to see it, seeing his baby brother cry always broke off a little piece of him inside. “Team Free Will. Just like it should be, and minus fuckin' Chuck."
Sam nodded, stilted, brushing the moisture from his eyes with the heels of his hands “Just... I love you, Dean. Don't... Don't do that again," Sam says feebly. Dean is now acutely aware of how strange it is to hear that outright.
He didn't say it nearly enough. He wouldn't squander that opportunity again.
“I love you too, Sammy. Can't say I plan on getting impaled again any time soon."
Sam let out a huff, a weak imitation of a laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess not." Some of the tension seems to release from his wound up shoulders. “Cas said you'll need to rest. "It's not an exact magic," or something. He didn't have a lot of time to... Prepare, I guess. None of us did,” he added weakly.
Dean nodded. "I can feel that," he groaned, popping his back and cracking his neck. "He missed a few spots. I'm gonna call it a night."
Sam nodded, shutting the book without marking where he was before setting it aside. "Me too. Come get me if you need anything," he adds, unnecessarily. Dean knows the option is always there. More than that, he knows the reassurance is more for Sam than his sake, so he nods.
“I will. Night, Sammy. Sweet dreams." Sam snorted, getting up and walking out of the kitchen with a wave.
Dean sat staring into the surface of the table like he could burn a hole through it with his eyes. The soft creak of the door broke through his haze, followed by light footsteps tapping against the floor. He reluctantly lifted his tired head, blinking muzzily at the angel standing in the doorway.
“Dean," Cas says, by way of a hello. "You should be sleeping," he adds. "So Sam tells me," Dean quipped, taking a swig of water.
"You need to rest so you can fully heal." Cas sounded like a stern mother, but it comes out as more of a plea.
"Drinking would probably screw up the healing process," Dean said bitterly. He hadn't slept without a drink in months. A massive weight was lifted from his shoulders with Cas’s return, but with it came a whole other flood of questions to keep him up at night.
"You can't sleep," Cas said, eyebrows knitted in concern as he sat down across from Dean at the table. "Would you be able to?" Dean asked weakly, searching baby blue eyes and memorizing every detail, relearning the features.
Every shallow crease, the folds above his eyes, the permanent furrow of his brow. He didn't age, yet somehow, Cas looked older. Tired. Maybe some of those lines were smiles, carving memories into the corners of his lips. Dean knew better than that, though. He had his own world-worn wrinkles to prove it.
Cas cocked his head slightly in agreement. He kept his eyes down, unable to meet Dean's eyes, a far cry from his usual consistent stare.
Dean usually felt insecure under stares, threatened by the prolonged attention. With Cas, however, it was a comfort. As if Dean consumed all of Cas's attention, dutifully watching over him like the guardian angel he swore to be. Feeling those eyes leave him was more unsettling than their constant presence.
They fell into a long silence, neither looking at the other, staring into nothing on the table. Dean spent a lot of nights sitting like this, glass of whiskey or a beer in hand, the warmth of another person absent at his side. Only the sounds of the bunker comforted him, the whirring of the fridge, the gurgling of the pipes, the white noise from the air conditioning.
It was nice to feel the presence next to him again. The soft breathing falling easily into the background noise, right where it belonged. When he looked up, Cas's eyes were fixed on him. They flitted away instantly, resting on the table once again. Dean took a deep breath.
"We missed you, Cas," he paused, considering. "I missed you." He amended. "What you did back then... With Billie. I'd be dead if not for you." He chuckled sardonically, recalling so many other times that sentence would've rang true. "A million times over, actually."
Cas cracked a soft smile, nodding as he fiddled with his thumbs. "The reverse is true as well, Dean. I would not be alive if not for you." He let out a breath, eyes suddenly looking much more exhausted than they had before.
"The world needs the Winchesters, Dean. It can survive without me." Before Dean could argue, which he absolutely intended on, Cas spoke again. "Sam needs you, Dean. If all I can be is the man," he let out a huff of laughter, some joke within himself Dean wanted to be privy to, "who saves the Winchesters, then that's what I am proud to be."
Dean's eyebrows furrowed, staring at Cas's slumped figure with his signature what the hell did you just say glare.
"That's bullshit. You've saved our asses plenty of times, but we're nothin' without you. You're family. Not just some holy savior that pops in when we're in trouble."
Cas looked up, finally, meeting Dean's eyes with a look he couldn't quite place. It would take time, recalling all of Cas's micro-expressions again. Dean used to be able to read him so easily, before the details of his face started to blur in his mind, slowly fading away.
“You stay. Whenever I called, you came. Whenever I asked, even if I didn't because I'm a stubborn son of a bitch, you stayed. You protected Sammy and Jack when I couldn't. Talked me out of my dumbest ideas."
Cas is staring, lips slightly parted, eyes wide. Dean just keeps talking, words spilling out faster than his mind can keep up. All the things he tormented himself about for six months, the things he should have said, apologies he should have made, thanks he owed.
It was all too big.
He took a deep breath, plugging off the tap before he said something he'd regret. Talking about things had never been his strong suit, self-control even less so. They’d talk about that later. Right now, he’s with his best friend, reveling in the unfamiliar peace.
“If it wasn't for you, I'd be burning in Hell, Cas," he ended, gaze fixed on the angel's face.
"I was on a mission from God," Cas argued weakly. He never was one to accept praise lightly, a habit Dean knew all too well. Dean shrugged. "Yeah, you know what you did a week later?"
Cas cocked his head in that way he always did, confused.
"You sat down on a park bench with me and told me you had doubts. Asked me to promise not to tell another soul." Dean chuckled to himself. "Not too long after that you told me you brought me into this world, you could take me out of it." It was meant as a joke, settling the discomfort welled up in Dean from all the feelings he'd just let out. Cas's face seemed to drop nonetheless.
"I never did apologize, Dean-" Dean cut him off with a wave of his hand.
"Don't, man. You didn't know me. I was being a bastard to a friggin' "Angel of the Lord." Practically begging to be smited." He paused, squinting. "Smote?"
Cas shook his head, a smile creeping back onto his face. "Smitten, I believe."
“Course you'd know that," Dean said, feeling a bit of the tension in the air release. He yawned deeply, stretching his arms above his head and stretching his back over the edge of his chair.
"I believe your body is in agreeance with Sam and I," Cas said lightly. "You should rest."
Dean sat back up in the seat, arms falling down by his sides. "Think I have to agree with you there."
Another pause, a tense air falling over the soft hum of the refrigerator.
For a split second, Dean thinks he sees a flicker in Cas's eyes. A twitch of his lip, an intake of breath, as if he's about to say something.
The angel’s lips pulled into a tight line, his weight shifting in his seat to stand. "Goodnight, Dean. I will watch over you."
Dean opted not to respond. There was too much to be said, and the exhaustion was beginning to seep into his bones while his eyes grew heavy. He stood up to walk out the door.
Something in his feet caught him in his tracks at the doorframe. Against his better judgement, he turned over his shoulder, cocking a brow. Blame it on the sleep deprivation and uncomfortably close brush with Death.
"From here?"
Cas blinked a few times, the only sign in his body language that he's taken aback. "I understand the need for personal space, Dean," he explained simply.
Dean almost wanted to scoff. As if personal space was any concern of his right now, not making certain the best friend he’d ever had disappeared into the ether again while he slept. He shifted his eyes to fix on the doorframe, feeling his face warm slightly.
"Right... Just... Y'know, having you back, man. It doesn't..." He swallows, considering. "It hasn't set in yet."
I don't want to let you out of my sight until I'm convinced it's real, he doesn't say.
Cas, thank Jack, seems to fill that in for himself. He nods, standing from the chair and following Dean to his bedroom. Dean asks him to stand outside for a few minutes so he can change, cracking the door to invite him in when he was ready.
He climbs into bed wordlessly, eyes following Cas as he sits down on the cushioned chair across the room. Dean almost speaks up, almost invites him to sit on the much more comfortable bed.
Instead, he rolls over, gratefully giving in to sleep under Cas's watchful eye, sleeping peacefully for the first time in six months.
Finally, he can breathe again.