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Cas feels his broken wings disintegrate and the divine light in his veins flicker out. He feels the connection to his few remaining brethren falter, then fail altogether. He feels the pain of torn flesh he cannot mend and lost blood he cannot replace, his cut hand trembling from the weight of it.

I love you, Cas thinks as he stares into Dean’s horrified eyes. He remembers the taste of whiskey and the scent of gunpowder, the texture of flannel, the sound of Baby’s engine in the dead of night. I love you, Dean. He prays it as ardently as any priest, in the vain hope that Dean might hear it one last time. You’re worth it all. I love you.

He feels the cold void slide over his skin as the Empty pulls him away.

His vision fades, his last sight of Dean inverse-printed on the darkness around him.

—

“I got you something.”

Dean lifts his head to stare, cross-eyed, at the pill Sam is holding between his thumb and forefinger.

“What?” Dean asks groggily. He tries to sit up, but his arms are numb and useless curled above his head, and his shoulders scream in protest. He relaxes against the table with a muffled “umph.”

“Sleeping pills,” Sam says shortly. He combs his hair away from his face with his free hand, revealing heavy scruff and shadowed eyes. “It’s been a few hours since your last drink, figure you should get some rest.”

Dean squints at him. “I was already sleeping,” he points out, his voice slurred and uneven. It wasn’t the kind of sleep he needs, he knows that, but it had been something at least, a respite from the hole that’s been gnawing him to pieces from the inside out since Cas got sucked away. Sam’s wrong about one thing, though. Dean can still feel the liquor chewing him up from the inside, and the world still tips on its axis if he moves too fast. He thinks about how if he took enough pills he could make it all stop; he could just be done, go to hell where he belongs. At least there the torment would make sense. At least there he could wheedle his way off the rack.

“Need a drink,” he says instead.

Sam grunts, then disappears. While he’s gone, Dean flexes his shoulders and wiggles his fingers, gritting his teeth through the burning tingle of blood flooding back to limbs too-long denied.

Once he’s able to sit up, he reaches for the bottle in front of him, only to realize it’s empty. He doesn’t remember drinking it, but he does remember buying it. He remembers the young clerk who’d taken his card with worry and fear in her eyes. Dean feels a prickle of shame as he remembers how he’d brushed off her concern, how he’d nearly fallen over as he stumbled out the door after. He shoves the feeling away, angry with himself and the world.

Before he can get it together to find another bottle, Sam returns.

“Water,” he says simply, planting a tall glass of clear liquid in front of Dean. “Drink it all.”

Dean makes a face and pushes the glass away, then tries to get up. Sam pins him to the chair though, his full body weight pressing into Dean’s shoulders. Dean grapples with him as best he can, fingers prodding at his face, scraping down flannel-clad arms, then finding Sam’s forearms and pinching the tendons with all his strength. It’s gotta hurt like fuck, but the asshole never wavers.

“Please, Dean,” Sam says, his voice a little strained. “I get it. I've lost important people, too, you know. I know how you’re feeling. You can’t kill yourself like this. Jack needs you. I need you. Cas needs you.”

“Cas is gone,” Dean snarls, shoving up and back with his entire body until his skull connects with Sam’s chin with a resounding clunk. His brother’s grip slips, but not enough to escape. “Cas is dead. Don’t you dare tell me a goddamn thing about what he needs.” He tries to kick the chair from between them for better leverage, but the stupid arms get in the way and his foot catches in the rungs. His whole body twists painfully and he curses at length. “Don’t you dare,” Dean repeats, but then all the fight goes out of him and he drops back into place with a strangled sob.

“We got him back before,” Sam says in an unbearably gentle tone. “Dean, we put Chuck in a friggin’ celestial cage. We can get Cas back, too.” He must have dropped to a crouch, Dean thinks dimly, because suddenly his arms are around Dean’s shoulders at a different angle, this one more comforting than controlling. “You gotta be there to help, Dean. We can’t do it without you.” He squeezes, then moves to sit at a chair nearby as if to say I trust you, don’t leave.

Dean glares at him, but he drinks the water.

–

“Her name is Kelly,” Jack says. His wife, Emily, is cradling an infant swaddled in soft, white fabric against her body, her face radiating such relief and joy that it’s almost painful to look at. “After my mother.”

“That is a wonderful homage,” Cas says, and yanks Jack into a rough hug to make up for the words that are failing him. “Congratulations,” he continues, making sure to catch Emily’s dark eyes and include her in the statement. “She’s beautiful.”

“Ems did all the work so far,” Jack says, his voice brimming with affection, enthusiasm, and pride, “but I’ll do my share of the job now.” He sits on the bed next to Emily and runs a finger over his daughter’s tiny face. “You have nothing to worry about, Kelly,” he murmurs, “we’re here.”

Cas has to turn away before he ruins the moment with an involuntary sob of joy.

“Everything okay?” Dean murmurs in his ear, both arms coming up to pull Cas into a hug. The lines on his face are deeper now, and his hair and beard are peppered with white and gray, but he’s still beautiful even in the sterile hospital lighting.

Cas lets his face rest against Dean’s chest. “More than okay,” he says. “We’re grandparents, Dean. It’s difficult to believe.”

There’s no response but a low, wicked chuckle; when Cas pulls away, he’s alone.

–

It’s pretty damn clear that Sam has no idea how to get Cas back, but Dean has to give him props for trying. Eileen and Jack give it their all, too, and while Bobby isn’t the Bobby Dean wishes he was, he’s just as good at research as the original flavor. Donna and Jody drop by sometimes, too, and even Garth and Bess venture over, kids in tow, to drop off a casserole (“Don’t worry, buckaroos, it’s a recipe from my human days,” Garth assures them in a cheerful voice). While they’re there, Dean plasters a smile on his face, trades Jim Bean for Del Sol, and tries to be hopeful for Sam’s sake.

Sometimes they all leave, though, pursuing a lead or even a normal case. No matter how Sam wheedles and pleads, however, Dean refuses to leave Lebanon. “What if he comes back?” is all he has to say; Sam caves like a house of cards in a hurricane and takes off, Jack trailing behind him like a lost puppy.

In those rare moments of solitude, Dean wanders the halls of the bunker like a ghost.

He often goes to the library and sits on the table, remembering the fateful day when everything went to shit. ‘Why does that something always seem to be you?’ he’d snapped, and watched as Cas’s shoulders slumped and his face crumpled, all the fight taken out of him with one under-handed blow. I'm sorry, Dean thinks in those moments. I’m so sorry.

Sometimes he follows the groove left by Billie’s scythe. He remembers Cas’s arm around his waist, holding him up as they half ran, half fell, to get away from sure destruction. He remembers Cas’s gasps for breath, the shock of his own heart pounding in his chest as fear and despair overcame him. He stops following the trail when he gets to the stairs, though, staring into the stale shadows with unseeing eyes. Dean doesn’t need to see what happened down there to remember it. That room will haunt his dreams until he dies.

He wants to go to Purgatory, but that isn’t possible, so his walks invariably take him to Cas’s bedroom. Sometimes he turns back there, but more often he lets himself in, closing the door behind him and leaning against it in the darkness. He inhales slowly, willing himself to smell anything, any trace that Cas had once been there. There’s nothing, but he still feels closer to Cas here than anywhere else, so he keeps coming back. Eventually he starts flipping the light on and sitting on the bed. Then he begins kneeling next to it, hands folded in front of him as he prays to the only being that has ever earned that level of devotion from him.

He never sleeps there, though. Cas never said he could.

–

Cas is in the back seat of the Impala watching Sam and Dean argue. None of them remember where the disagreement began, but it doesn’t matter. Cas knows that the brothers like to fight for the fun of it sometimes, exchanging insults and wise cracks like currency as they fly down the road to their next case. Steven Tyler croons in the background: sing with me, sing for the year; sing for the laughter, and sing for the tear. Cas hums along, pleased he knows the melody.

“Let’s get burgers,” Dean proposes, cutting the playful spat short. He twists to look at Cas with a smile on his face like none Cas has ever seen. “Milkshakes and fries, too. What do you think?” He’s in his element, carefree and happy with the world at his feet and his hands on the wheel, skin bronzed in the light of the setting sun. Cas can hardly breathe for the beauty of him.

—Dream on, dream on, dream until your dream come true—

“I would like that,” Cas says, letting his joy and love show in his voice and on his face as he’d never dared in times past. They’re allowed this now, and it’s better than he ever dared believe.

Dean’s eyes crinkle up a little more. “Sweet!” Then he turns forward and Baby’s motor revs a little louder.

The sun drops below the horizon a few minutes later and the shadows rush in, absolute in their cold darkness.

Not for you, a voice whispers.

–

“I think I found something.” Dean has no idea how long it’s been since Cas got taken, but given Claire still looks like a punk-ass kid when she spins to face the rest of the room, he supposes it can’t have been as long as it feels. “A portal, maybe.”

Dean sits up straight, spilling the book he’d been pretending to read on the ground. “What kind of portal?” he asks.

Rowena hasn’t responded to their inquiry, and their key to Death’s library no longer works. They’ve tried every kind of summoning and binding spell they can think of to talk to the new Death despite the obvious risk. Either the new boss hates them, or there is no new boss, and Dean doesn’t know which is worse. They’ve tried to reach other entities, too; hell, they’ve even tried to make contact with Amara. Despite all their research and calls, however, they haven’t found a single clue that opening a door to the Empty was possible without cosmic back up.

“The kind that gets you from here to the Empty, duh,” Claire says with a dramatic eye roll. “The only thing is…I’m not sure Castiel’s grace can come back through.” Discomfort flits across her face. “I’m not gonna pretend this isn’t hella weird for me,” she adds.

“Let me see,” Sam says into the abrupt silence.

Claire shoves the book she’d been reading toward him, then stands up and paces around the room, arms crossed over her middle. Kaia appears out of nowhere and puts her arm around Claire’s shoulders, murmuring into her ear as they walk. Dean’s throat catches at the casual display of affection and he thinks about what it might be like to do that with Cas. If the spell works, maybe he’ll get a chance.

Despite all their failures so far, it’s still far too easy to get caught up in hope.

“It might be like the portal out of Purgatory,” Sam says thoughtfully, rubbing his chin with his fingers. He reads the whole page, then turns it and reads the other side. “Remember how you got Benny out, Dean?”

“You mean one of us has to give the big ‘yes’ to Cas to get him the hell out of angel hell?” Dean asks. “What happens when he gets here though?”

“He keeps his new vessel?” Eileen suggests.

“Cas wouldn’t do that.”

“That’s what he did to my Dad,” Claire says without lifting her head from where it’s resting, back first, against Kaia’s chest.

“Yeah, but—” Dean closes his mouth with a click. It may have been over a decade ago, and he may know Cas isn’t the righteous asshole he used to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that Claire lost her father because of Cas. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a goddamn miracle that she’s there trying to help them, or that she said anything at all. She could have kept right on turning pages and none of them would have ever known she saw anything. “I’m sorry,” he says instead. It isn’t enough, but he doesn’t know what else to say.

Sam turns the page back and reads it again. “How do you think it works?” he asks Claire.

“I think he can go through the portal, but his grace can’t,” she says, and it sounds as if she’s forcing every word out against her own will. “He’ll be human when he gets here.”

“Better than nothing,” Dean starts to say, but Sam rounds on him, eyes flashing.

“No it isn’t, Dean,” Sam snaps. “If he comes back human, the essence of who Cas is will be trapped beyond his reach and tortured for eternity. He won’t be a whole person, not really. Not like he deserves to be.” He’s digging his right thumb into the palm of his left hand as he speaks and Dean abruptly gets it.

“An angel’s grace is like their soul, and Lucifer could take petty torture lessons from the Empty. Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Sammy?”

“Yes.”

There’s a brief silence, but Jack breaks it with the same cheerful simplicity that he greets most puzzles that need solving. “I think we should talk to Rowena.”

–

There are monsters around every tree and leviathans are after Cas. He fights for his life at every turn; any minute he’s going to misjudge, misstep, or underestimate, and he’ll be dead. Purgatory is a violent place, and Cas is a homing beacon for every mean, nasty creature ever created. He shouldn’t be enjoying himself.

And yet.

Dean is standing nearby, blood all over his face and a bone and obsidian blade clutched in his hand as he peers around a tree. “Nothing,” he announces, shrugging his shoulders up. “We’re good for a minute.”

Cas nods acceptance, then sits cross-legged in a bowl-shaped space left by two massive roots nearby. He’s filthy, he realizes distantly. He probably stinks–not that he can smell enough to check anymore.

Dean crosses the clearing to collapse next to him, legs pulled up in front of him and elbows resting on his knees. “You ever think about home?” Dean asks.

“No,” Cas says. In truth, it’s hard to remember anything before this place at all. He remembers killing, mostly. Killing and pain, and making the wrong decisions.

“Me neither, except for Sammy sometimes.”

They lapse into silence, but it isn’t a bad one. This is what they do when Benny takes off to find food. They sit, and they say nothing, and Cas aches for something he doesn’t know how to ask for, let alone deserve.

Dean shivers, rubbing his arms with his hands. Cas squints at him, then shrugs out of his coat. “Come here,” he says.

“What? No, you need that. I’m fine.” Dean’s eyes are wide.

“I’m an angel,” Cas reminds him. “Body temperature is irrelevant.” It takes a few more tries, but eventually Cas convinces Dean to lean against him for warmth, the dirty trench coat thrown over Dean’s body like a blanket.

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean mumbles, sounding sleepy. He relaxes, muscle by muscle, until he’s pressed against Cas’s body from shoulder to hip with one arm flung around Cas’s waist. It feels intimate; Cas carefully lifts one hand and puts it over Dean’s.

The shadows rush in, then, and Cas remembers.

Did you really think you could have this? A voice asks. Silly, hopeless angel.

–

“I told you and that angel to talk it out before you lost your chance, Dean,” Rowena says, studying her fingernails. “Yet here you are, slinking back to hell for help.”

“I didn’t know.”

Rowena looks up at Dean through her eyelashes.

“You know what? Fine. I was an idiot,” he says. “I was a scared, selfish, stupid, asshole. Okay? I’d do anything to go back and change what happened, but I can’t.” He knows he sounds belligerent, but he doesn’t have it in him to pretend to be polite.

“That’s better.” She doesn’t move though. “I’m tired of cleaning up your messes, boys. I’m the Queen of Hell, not your bloody housekeeper.”

“We aren’t asking you to face the Empty for us, Rowena,” Sam says. He takes a step forward, hands spread. “We’ll take the risk ourselves. It would just help us a lot if you would tell us what the spell does. Exactly.”

“You found a spell you want to use to thwart a being older than God, but you don’t even know what it does. Classic Winchesters. I swear, it’s a wonder you two make it out of bed without stabbing yourselves in your big, dumb faces.” Rowena shakes her head and flutters her eyelashes, then holds her hand out. “Hand it over, Samuel.”

Sam takes another step forward and gives an awkward little half bow, half shrug as he passes her a copy of the spell. “We have the ingredients,” he says, “we generally know what it does. We just need to know what will happen to Cas if he tries to go through.” He straightens, but then doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands; Dean watches with detached amusement as Sam first clasps his hands in front of him, then behind him, then settles for one in his pocket and the other hanging loose.

Rowena reads the paper, tapping her lip thoughtfully. “The bad news is that Castiel will not be able to pass through this portal intact, boys.”

Dean’s legs threaten to give out; one hand flies out, grasping wildly, and lands on the pillar nearby. Sam is at his side immediately, but Dean waves him away irritably as he gathers himself for whatever the next blow might be.

“The good news is I think you can get all of his pieces out of the Empty and reassemble them on Earth,” Rowena continues as if Dean hadn’t done a thing. She makes an expansive gesture with her arms. “Like Frankenstein’s monster!”

“How?”

–

“Breakfast?” Dean asks when Cas sticks his head around the corner. There’s sunlight streaming through the east-facing window, the leaves from the trees outside casting dappled shadows on their breakfast nook.

“Yes please,” Cas says, heartfelt, as he shambles to the table and sits down. They’ve only had this house for a few months, but it already feels like home in a way the bunker never had. Even Dean acknowledges it, though he still hides his face in the pillow after, as if it’s somehow shameful to find joy in a place of his own.

For a fraction of a second the shadows look like screaming mouths; he glances away, perturbed, and when he looks back, they’re simple blurry crescents once more.

“Has Sam called?” Cas asks.

“Yes,” Dean laughs as he flips a pancake with practiced ease. “He and Eileen got snowed in and the power went out, but they’re doing fine now. What a honeymoon.”

“At least they didn’t ‘accidentally’ book a haunted house for their honeymoon suite,” Cas says.

“Oh my God, not that again.” Dean groans dramatically and they both start laughing. Dean still swears up and down that that had been unintentional, but Cas can’t resist the urge to tease him occasionally.

Something moves at the corner of his eye and Cas turns to face it, certain, for a moment, that he had seen a figure dripping black goo. There’s nothing there, however; he squints, confused, but eventually turns back to the kitchen.

“I thought we might go to that art exhibit downtown this afternoon,” Dean says as he plates their food. His sleeves are neatly rolled up and he has a towel thrown over his shoulder. The gold ring on his finger catches in the sun. “Maybe catch a movie later on.”

“Sounds great,” Cas says.

Dean walks over to put the plate in front of Cas, then leans down to kiss him. Cas leans in eagerly, but before their lips can meet, Dean staggers and clutches at his heart, then melts away. The whole room begins to bleed, color running away until there’s nothing left at all.

“No!” The pain of remembering all he has lost is unbearable; Cas curls in on himself, sobbing.

You’re easy to play with, Castiel. Until next time.

—

Dean has seen the Empty before, yet what greets him when he steps through the portal is overwhelming in its endless darkness. Whatever Amara thinks she is, this thing has her beat. There’s an odd, frantic edge to the thought that he doesn’t like, a reminder that really, this is not a place humans should be. He can’t help feeling like he’s falling through the void, yet when he looks down his feet are flat on an invisible surface.

“We made it,” Dean whispers. “Let’s go.” Their plan isn’t much of one, all things considered, but then again, that’s how most of their misadventures go. This is the closest they’ve come to getting Cas back since he was taken, however, and Dean can’t give less of a fuck about plans in the face of that possibility.

They walk without seeing anything for what feels like an eternity. Maybe it actually is one; time passes differently in other worlds, after all. For all either of them know, they’ll knock their way back into the real world just in time for the sun to go supernova. Irony.

Eventually Sam’s legs stop moving, and he steps over to stand near Dean. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere,” he murmurs.

“We just gotta keep trying,” Dean replies, trying to pull away to take another step.

“No, I mean we’re literally not going anywhere,” Sam whispers. He reaches behind him and his fingers wrap around something invisible, but solid. For a moment, piercing light shines around his hand. Then he pulls it back and everything goes dark again. “That’s the portal, see?”

“F-uck.” Dean starts to say at full volume, then cuts himself down to a barely audible hiss. He turns in a circle, arms spread, desperate for any hint.

Where the hell are you, Cas?

One moment they’re alone; the next, Cas is sprawled on the ground at Dean’s feet.

–

Castiel flies at the head of his cohort, his grace lashing ribbons of light through the oppressive heat and smoke before him. The shrieks and moans of the damned echo in every direction. Every so often one of those unfortunate souls must catch a glimpse of his light because their cries of pain turn to pleas for salvation and their fingers grasp at him from all directions as he passes.

His blade stabs and slashes, ripping through the smoky shadows and rotten husks of demons, tossing them aside with righteous fury. He doesn’t stop moving forward, even when he realizes he is alone. He folds his wings and drops further into the gloom, his grace working hard to shove the hellish miasma away. His companions must have fallen or fled, but it doesn’t matter. Castiel has a goal. A mission he must complete at all costs.

He follows the screams deeper. Lower. Darker. The sound gradually gets louder and higher in pitch, until Castiel passes through another great plume of smoke and sees pure light shining beneath him, sure and steady despite the corruption eating at its edges. Castiel’s grace vibrates at the sight, drawn toward that beacon as inexorably as a moth to the flame that will burn it to ash.

His vessel’s feet touch rubble and he’s running, blade flashing as he fends off demon after demon. He sees human souls around him, bright sparks in the murk even after their fall, stretched out and torn on implements of torture he had never imagined before that moment. He sees knives, needles, chains, and heated rods; he sees it all, and he keeps going.

At the center of it all stands a man surrounded by a glowing nimbus. His arms are red to the elbow and his knife is long and cruel, but he drops the blade and looks up as Castiel approaches, his face open and kind. Dean Winchester, Castiel thinks. I found you. Before he can reach for Dean, Dean’s soul reaches for him. It wraps around him, through him, between him, sliding into all the empty places he hadn’t known were there. Tendrils of Castiel’s grace arch like static lightning at the touch, then settle again.

“Castiel,” Dean whispers, his voice coming from every direction and none at the same time. “Cas, I need you to wake up.”

“The whispers of hell cannot tempt me,” Castiel replies. Lucifer’s minions have tried everything on him; that they would try this last trickery is no surprise. “I am here to raise you from perdition,” he says. A shock shivers through him as his hand connects with Dean’s shoulder at last, not of healing, nor of pain, but rather of recognition. Against all reason, they know one another; Castiel is certain of it.

“How?” Castiel gasps, staring at Dean.

“You already saved me,” Dean replies, covering Castiel’s hand with his own. “You’ve saved me so many freaking times. Now it’s your turn. Wake up, Cas. Please open your eyes.”

The world shivers, shadows rushing in.

When Cas opens his eyes, Dean is kneeling over him in the darkness. He looks ethereal with glowing purple runes drawn all over his body, his freckled skin standing pale in the light-that-isn’t-light in the Empty.

“Dean?” Cas’s voice breaks mid-word and he has to clear his throat and repeat himself.

“You’re alive.” Dean’s voice hitches, the words half a sob. “Oh thank fuck, you’re alive.” He leans down and Cas’s breath catches, staring at Dean’s mouth as if in a trance. He’s so close. Dean’s lower lip is trembling; as Cas watches, Dean’s tongue darts out, swiping nervously, then disappears. “Cas, I—”

“Hate to interrupt, but we have to move soon,” another voice says. Cas’s eyes slip past Dean’s wide eyes and parted lips to where Sam is standing nearby. He is covered in runes as well, though his don’t seem nearly as dense. Curious. “The portal’s getting shaky.”

Of course. He was never really going to get away. Understanding sweeps Cas’s consciousness and he feels another piece of himself crumble to dust. You win again, he thinks, imagining the entity’s smirk as it spins its latest game. He lets himself sink back into the ground and closes his eyes. He can feel tears sliding down his temples into his hair, and can’t make himself care anymore. The entity certainly doesn’t.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice is anxious. He smells like mint.

“You are cruel.” It’s little more than a whimper, but Cas is beyond caring.

“Cas. Cas, you listen to me.” Suddenly there’s weight across Cas’s body and bare arms on either side of Cas’s head. “It ain’t all that easy to get an angel out of the Empty, but Rowena found a way.” Hands stroke over Castiel’s hair, smoothing it away from his face. “She found a way, but you gotta wake up.”

Cas makes a confused, distressed noise. Hope is so strong, but the entity has been creative in its torment before. Please. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. Something touches his forehead and warm puffs of air hit his face. They’re face to face, closer than they’ve ever been, Cas realizes. Dean’s grip is strong, the weight of him comforting. It dawns on Cas, finally, that Dean might actually be real.

“You gotta hop in my meatsuit, Cas. It’ll get your grace out of here in one piece.” Dean’s voice is low and urgent, almost desperate. “It’s the only way.”

Cas opens his eyes and stares up at Dean in shock. “You want me to possess you?” In the years Cas has known this man, he’s never considered the possibility. To even think of it would be a violation of Dean’s trust in him. Yet here in the dark, beyond the reach of gods and men, he offers it freely.

“Yes.” Dean’s face crinkles and his lips twitch up in a knowing smile, like he knows the splintered chaos he’s just made of Cas’s mind. “Get in me, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”

Sweetheart.

Home.

Cas reaches for Dean.

–

Dean barely notices when Cas joins him. He’s expecting a hurricane and pain, for control of his life to be wrested from his own hands and given to another whether he wants it or not, yet none of those things occur. All he feels is a sense of settling, sparks dancing up and down in some unreachable place within his sense of self.

Dean tries to look at Sam to get an idea of what his brother is seeing, then panics when his head and eyes won’t cooperate.

Hello, Dean. There’s a sensation like a hand brushing over his mind, and Dean feels every hair on his body stand on end. We may need my grace if the entity wakes. I would like to…drive this bus…until we are out of the Empty. If you don’t mind.

Panic wells inside Dean. Don’t put me to sleep!

Never without your consent, Cas says, and he feels unbearably sad.

Dean settles back. It’s an odd sensation, because it’s not like he can actually lounge back on a chair or anything, yet that’s the exact type of gesture it is. I trust you, he says.

There’s a long, surprised silence.

Cas?

You really do. Cas is shaken to his foundation by this information, and Dean doesn’t understand why.

Of course I do. How could he not, with all Cas has done for him? He doesn’t realize he’s going through a ‘greatest hits’ reel in his mind until he realizes the growing discomfort he’s feeling is coming from Cas….who, of course, can feel everything Dean is feeling about those memories, and appears to be embarrassed by them. Great.

“Um.”

Cas looks at Sam, so Dean looks too.

“Everything okay?”

“We are ready to go,” Cas-as-Dean says, and Jesus Christ, apparently that rock-grinding bass is just part of who he is because now it’s coming out of Dean’s throat. It feels wrong and right at the same time.

Sam’s face splits into a huge smile. “Great. Let’s get you out of here.” He crouches down, long arms scooping Cas’s still form up and cradling him against his chest, then takes one step, then two, then vanishes altogether.

Cas is about to follow when there’s a rushing sensation, time and space itself seeming to contort and compress. Cas immediately turns on his heel and Dean finds himself face to face with…himself. This version of Dean is free of runes and much younger, however. He’s wearing John’s leather jacket, in fact, and the rings and bracelets and necklaces of Dean’s youth festoon his body.

What’s wrong with his eyes? Dean asks silently.

It’s the entity, Cas replies, and though his words are calm, Dean can feel his terror.

“I knew you were dumb, but buddy, this is next level,” the other Dean says. “What did you think you would do once you got here? Grab that hot piece of angel ass and high tail it with no one the wiser?”

It’s talking to me, Dean thinks as quickly and loudly as he can. It should be weirder than it is, to think about talking like this in his own head. Maybe he’s just used to praying. I don’t think it knows you’re in here with me. Let me talk.

There’s a moment of hesitation, but then something shifts and somehow Dean knows he has the controls back. He tests the theory by scrubbing a hand over his face, then reshaping his hair.

“What can I say, I’m the king of bad ideas,” Dean drawls. “Maybe I hoped you would be feeling generous. You got Billie, after all. What’s one angel next to Death itself?” He takes a small step backward. If he gets the angle right, the portal should be a few steps behind him, assuming the entity hasn’t banished it entirely.

It came for me, Cas reminds him. Getting back to Earth isn’t a safety guarantee.

We’ll figure that out when we get there.

“I should squish you like a bug,” the entity says. There’s a pregnant pause, then it frowns and grabs at Dean’s hand, yanking it forward to stare at the runes. Its hands begin to smoke where they’re touching Dean, and it hastily lets go, cursing.

“You can’t touch me,” Dean says with a grin. It’s a welcome revelation.

“No human spell can thwart me long,” the entity snarls, and abruptly every rune on Dean’s body flares up in white heat.

Dean clenches his teeth against the pain and takes another step backward, then another. He feels his foot slip through something cool and hope flares anew.

Here’s the real test, he tells Cas. Rowena had sworn it would work, and he had no reason to doubt her, but this is the sort of stuff that always goes wrong. If he loses Cas, after all he’s been through…No. Dean can’t afford to think like that. Instead, he imagines wrapping himself around Cas in every way he knows how, gathering the immensity of the angel’s grace into one place and cradling it, protecting it, buffering it from whatever is to come. Hang on.

“See you never, you evil son of a bitch,” he snaps at the entity. Then he throws himself backward, and away.

–

It’s a simple matter for Cas to reclaim his body after they get back to the bunker and determine the Empty didn’t follow them. It isn’t a vessel in the standard sense, so no consent beyond his own is needed. Dean watches the whole time, his expression inscrutable. There are others present as well, but their interest—aside from maybe Jack’s, who is too polite to intrude right now anyway—isn’t nearly as important to Cas.

Now he’s moderately sure that he isn’t dreaming, Cas has more questions than he knows how to ask, and the possible answers fill him with equal parts dread and wild hope. He stares at Dean, intent, until everything else fades away.

“Looks like the others cleared out,” Dean comments in an oddly breathy tone.

Cas looks around and realizes they’re alone in the library, save for the accouterments of spellwork scattered across the table. He supposes he should feel embarrassed for his lack of manners, but he doesn’t have space in his head for that kind of thought right now. “So they did,” he says. “Dean—”

“I need to say something, Cas,” Dean cuts in quickly, “and I need to say it before I lose my nerve.” He grabs Cas by the upper arms and turns him until they’re facing one another, less than a foot between them.

“I want you to stay,” Dean says softly, his green eyes wide as he searches Cas’s face. “I need you in my life, do you understand? I almost drank myself to death while you were gone. Ask Sam.” Cas opens his mouth, but Dean shakes his head. “No, that’s not right—not what I’m trying to say—” he curses, visibly searching for words before he starts over.

“You don’t have to ‘just be’ to be happy, Cas. You can have it, too. I want you to.” His grip loosens, work-rough hands sliding up Cas’s arms to cup his face with incredible gentleness. “I love you.”

Cas squints at him. “Like a brother?” He asks out of an abundance of caution.

“Whatever you want,” Dean whispers. “I’m yours.”

He pulls Cas closer, his hands guiding their mouths together. Their first kiss is soft and gentle, the sweetest benediction Cas has ever received. He revels in the brush of flesh on flesh, barely breathing lest the spell shatter.

Then Cas’s teeth catch on Dean’s lip and Dean emits a ragged gasp of want. “Please,” he says, and Cas understands then, as he never has before, how carnal desire can be an irresistible temptation to even the purest of hearts.

–

Dean is in an unfamiliar room when he wakes up; when he reaches for the gun he keeps under his pillow, there’s nothing there. He starts to panic, then catches sight of the trench coat tossed haphazardly in the corner. A dumb smile splits his face in two as he turns over. They’d stumbled to Cas’s room the night before, even though Dean’s had been closer, and that’s where Dean had slept.

Cas is awake and sitting up, his back against the headboard. He has a chain looped around his hand and wrist, with a familiar glass vial hanging at the bottom, already full of blue-white grace. Cas is watching it swing back and forth as if in a trance, but doesn’t seem to be unhappy or in pain. There’s a bandaid on his throat, just below his jaw; no small mystery what he’d done to himself while Dean was asleep.

Dean could lecture Cas about making that kind of decision without consulting anyone. He could get angry, or sad, or he could pretend not to care. All of these things cross his mind one after another, but ultimately he says just one word: “Why?”

Cas looks over and smiles at him, blue eyes tired, but pleased nonetheless. “The Empty can’t take me without it. Besides, I want to be human,” he says simply. “I want you to have this.” He reaches out and puts the necklace over Dean’s head in one smooth gesture.

“Cas, I can’t,” Dean says, panic rising quickly in his gullet as his hands fly to the chain. “It’s too much.”

“I love you, and there’s no one I would trust more to keep it safe.” Cas puts his hand over the vial, pressing it into Dean’s chest.

Dean swallows hard, then nods, pushing himself up on one elbow to kiss Cas on the lips. “I love you, too.”