Hunting just wasn't the same anymore. It was just him and Sam again, driving around in his beloved Impala and saving people, but there was a huge hole in the way things were. Trying to go back to the way things were, after having known Castiel, it was almost impossible. Sam had noticed a huge difference in his brother, talking even less, not eating pie for every meal of the day, and playing, of all things, rock ballads when he thought Sam was asleep and wouldn't notice. His brother hated ballads, thinking they were just a useless side of music because music was supposed to rock your head off. He kept trying to get Dean to open up and talk about it but that was never going to happen. And Dean must thought he was blind if he thought he hadn't noticed the tan trench coat his brother carried around and wouldn't let go more than a few feet from him as he slept.
They had just gotten to a small town in the middle of nowhere Kansas and got a room for the night at its tiny motel. It was late and both brothers were tired and needed sleep. Sam fell asleep not long after getting there but Dean just continued to sit in the arm chair before the tv, watching it blankly. He couldn't bring himself to go to sleep, not even when he heard thunder and rain started hitting the windows, though he did mentally check that he had rolled the windows up on the Impala, just in case. Dean would never neglect his car. Things continued on, him just watching the tv as infomercial after infomercial played, unable to sleep, until about 3 am and there was a sudden flash of lightning that brightened up the whole motel space then a crash. His eyes flitted to the window and he stood up to go see what the lightning had hit. As he looked, all he saw was a black patch of burnt space on the concrete a few feet from the motel room. Nothing serious. Dean turned away and was heading back to the armchair to continue in his solitude when there was a knock on the door. Not one to expect anything to be simple, he was cautious as he walked to the door, ready to attack whoever it was. Slowly opening the door, it suddenly fell away from his hand the rest of the way open as he saw the person who had knocked.
Standing before Dean was Castiel, soaked to the bone from all the rain. Dean couldn't do anything but gape at him, eyes wide, as the shorter man smirked slightly. "Dean. Are you going to let me in or not?" It was probably stupid, because this Cas could be fake, but he stepped back and allowed him in all the same, shutting the door behind him. "Cas," he breathed. "You're alive." The angel was looking around the motel in curiosity as he answered. "I am. I don't exactly know why, but I think God saw that you still needed me and sent me back to you." He finally turned back to Dean, watching him silently for a moment. "Was he wrong?" Now, Dean was not a man of physical affection all that often. But, considering how things had happened between them, and here Cas was in front of him alive, he figured he was allowed a bit of a moment of insanity and suddenly moved and pulled the angel's smaller form in tight to his body and held him close, his face moving into his shoulder and breathing him in. The wetness from Castiel's clothes soaked into his but he didn't care. "He wasn't wrong. Cas. Cas." Dean's eyes were closed as tight as his arms around the other brunette. If this was a joke or a trick, he would deal with it later. Right then all he could think about was that a piece of him that had been empty since the incident was finally filled again.
Cas didn't seem to mind the tight hug and moved his arms around the hunter in return, just as tight. "I'm back. Don't worry, I'm back." They just stood like that, unable to break apart, for an unknown amount of time. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours, it didn't matter. But finally Dean thought he should let go, if for no other reason than that he felt Cas shivering from being in wet clothes. He moved back only a little and looked down at him, lips quirking up in a small smile. "Why are you so wet? Couldn't your angel powers have fixed that?" The smaller man shrugged, shaking his head. "I didn't care about the rain. Besides, you still have my coat." And that he did. The coat in question was actually in the bag that had been stationed beside Dean as he'd been sitting in the chair. He almost blushed, thinking about that fact, but he was able to control it. "Yeah. About that. You should probably have it again, now that you're back." Forcing himself to let go of Cas so he could go get the coat was hard, but he did it and walked away, coming back a moment later with the carefully folded coat in his hand, holding it out to the angel. "Here you go. I…kinda always thought you would come back. Someday." Castiel took the coat and smirked again, Dean losing his concentration as he watched. He didn't even realize that Cas was moving toward him until lips were brushing his and a breathy "thank you" was said. His eyes slid closed again as he mumbled "welcome" before dragging his angel into a full, long deserving, kiss.