This is a follow up from One Thing and Nothing, it's not necessary to have read One Thing, though it helps to have read Nothing. I half swore that I was done with this arc, but I couldn't leave it alone. This is the last though, it really is the last.

Disclaimer: As excited as I am about my convention in a week (that's it, a week) I own nothing else relating to the wonder that is Kripke's creation and as much as I like to play, that is all that I do.

Everything.

Dean Winchester has lost everything. His home, his life, his family. His lover, love, whatever. Everything that he had, everything that truly meant a damn, has been taken from him. Whether though force, his own inaction or the sheer capricious nature of a God who has walked out and left his children to squabble in the dust, Dean has lost everything that he held dear in one way or another.

Everything has been taken from Castiel. Respect, dignity, freedom, love, everything. Dean has been taken from him and all that has been left to Castiel is this guilty, bitter angry man who seems to want nothing to do with him. Who is desperate and demanding and needy in a way that Castiel's soul echoes. In a way that Castiel absorbs and redirects straight back at the man at ten times the intensity. Because Castiel needs and Castiel wants and Castiel is afraid. Afraid to lie, afraid to love and afraid to disobey.

Dean knows that he does not really deserve anything. Knows that he is selfish to want it, to wish for it, but he wants Cas back. His Cas, the one who whispered to him in the dark and made him believe in love, love in the true, never ending, eternal soul mates kind of way. Not this angel, this cold, soulless, almost lifeless creature. This Castiel who acts like he does not even understand that love exists, let alone that he had ever dared to experience it once for himself. But Dean decides that he is allowed to be a bit selfish, if only because, aside from his family, Castiel is the only thing that he has ever really, truly, wanted for himself.

Castiel knows that in this place, Dean can have almost anything that Dean wants to have. Anything as long as he does not go anywhere alone and as long as it does not involve Sam. So it pains the angel more than he wants to admit when he is forced to say no to Dean, lends an air of desperation to his voice as he continues to say it, willing Dean to see the fear that is there, the fear for Dean's life, even if the man is prepared to risk his own life, even if he cannot see the way that Castiel really feels. Still, he would say no over and over again, would allow Dean to strike him physically, to damage him, as much as he chose, until Castiel lay bleeding and broken on the floor, if only he would never hear those words fall from Dean's lips again. Those words that hurt more than Castiel had ever really thought that words could. "We're done." Castiel decides, then, that they are not done, they will never be done. Because he pulled Dean from Hell, because he gripped him tight and marked him, because he loves Dean and as much as Dean belongs to him, Castiel knows that he belongs to Dean in just the same way.

Dean Winchester has lost everything. Sure, he's alive again, but something is not right about him now, something is wrong and he is not the same anymore. He had gotten Sam back, but he can no longer truly trust his brother, his brother just brought about the apocalypse, and his friends, the rest of his family, they are still all dead and gone. Castiel... Castiel may have given Dean the chance to stop Sam but that does not mean that anything has really changed. Except that when the angel grabs them both, whisks them away from the potential clutches of Lucifer, Dean feels relief, and all that he really wants to do is grab Castiel, because his angel is not dead, grab him and kiss him until neither one has any sense left. Dean is too aware though, too aware of Sam's presence, too worried about what his brother might think.

Castiel, it would seem, is not so concerned, slamming Dean back against the wall for the second time that day, kissing him and pressing against him like he is trying to crawl inside him, trying to fuse their bodies and their souls so that they can never be parted again. Taking a moment to consider Sam's half wondering, half disgusted gasp until dismissing it entirely and focusing only on the feel of Dean, Dean, so long parted, yet united again in such a way that one would not believe they had been separated.

Dean may have lost everything, but he is rapidly coming to the conclusion that as long as he has Castiel, as long as he has Cas, nothing else can really matter. Because Sam has always been there, but there are things that Castiel can do that Sam never could.

Castiel knows that they will be hunted, knows that they will be punished and most likely killed, but with Dean in his arms he feels like he owns the world, feels like he cannot care about anything else. Because nothing else matters and all the punishment, even their likely death, will be worth it, as long as he has Dean, in this moment, nothing else will ever matter.

Reviews are little Castiels that fly above our heads and mini Deans under the bed. A small Sam in hand and a tiny John by the chair, a review that can show how much you care.

Artemis