Finally

Dean carried a lot of dates around with him.

November 2nd 1983. That was the day old yellow eyes had seen fit to burn Mary Winchester and turned the rest of her family's lives into walking car wrecks. 17th May 2007. That was the day that son of a bitch went back to hell where he belonged.

28th September 2006. 2nd December 2012. 3rd December 2013. 6th May 2015. Dad. Bobby. Kevin. Charlie.

The dates he had knocking about mostly heralded ends for Dean, days when people left him and Sam. He'd stopped counting the times him and Sam had left each other.

But September 18th actually represented something starting for a God damn change, and the end of the worst crap Dean had had to endure in is whole miserable life. Growing up as a hunter, there wasn't a whole lot left to surprise Dean in this world, but on September 18th 2008 he'd learned that angels were real. That he owed his salvation to an angel named Castiel in an old beige trench coat and cornflower blue tie.

September 18th 2015 brought with it a different kind of salvation, and saw Dean standing over the unconscious form of Castiel as he rested after him and Sam had ripped out that crap Rowena had shoved in his brain. Cas was broken, but he was always broken. He was safe and he was himself again, and Dean really couldn't give a rat's ass about anything else right then.

He sat on the edge of the bed and rested his hand on Cas' shoulder, about the spot where Dean himself had once had a handprint seared into his flesh. Cas' hand. Cas, like Sam, had left him too many times, and right then he was feeling dizzy with the knowledge that he'd once again dodged a friggin bullet.

The bunker was quiet. Sam had gone out to get supplies, so it was just the two of them, and Dean took a shuddery breath against the lump in his throat as he thought about what he wanted to finally say to Castiel, Angel of the Lord.

"Man," he growled, feeling the wetness prick at his eyes that he angrily blinked away. "Enough okay. Enough of this crap Cas. I'm tired, I'm so frickin tired and I can't…I can't keep my mouth shut anymore, alright?"

He raised his eyebrows challengingly at the sleeping Cas, and was irrationally pleased when he didn't get any protests.

"I-" he stuttered before his voice caught and he faltered. "I need you, okay? I need you around, so we can start by you stopping taking off all the damn time, capisce?" He nodded at Cas' peaceful form, happy to be laying down some new terms after all this time. "Right. Good. And I just…" He swallowed, and rubbed his fingers lightly against the cotton of Cas' white shirt. Dean had taken his tie off and undone the top couple of buttons for him when he'd dropped his heavy ass here a few hours ago, so he wouldn't choke himself, but now there was a tantalising hint of skin on show around his clavicles, and Dean squeezed his eyes shut in a frustration so deep he felt it clutching at this heart.

"You're here," he reassured himself out loud. "You're here and you're you. You've got your memories and your grace and you're the same annoying asshole that I've come to…that I…"

He was a coward. A God damn coward. He couldn't even say the friggin word out loud.

"Love."

His eyes snapped open in shock followed by a horror that slid through him like a sheet of ice. Cas had his eyes open too, their piercing blue fixed on Dean's face, the rest of his body unmoved and still cradled by the mattress and pillows and comforter.

Dean cleared his throat awkwardly. Jesus, how much had he heard? "Bout time your lazy ass woke up," he joked, trying to gloss over the moment. "What, you think some witch's whammy'll get you out of doing any real work?"

Cas didn't flinch, he just studied Dean with those friggin glacier eyes. "You were telling me you loved me, but you thought I was asleep?" he said in that gravelly voice of his. It was a question, but he made it sound like a statement like usual, the bastard.

"Of course I love you man," Dean quipped with a shrug and a smirk. "You're part of the team, so, yeah, quit tryna die on us and stuff."

Somehow, he'd managed to miss up until this point that his hand was still resting on the upper part of Cas' arm. He jerked away like he realised he was being burned, but even faster Cas' own hand shot out and seized him in an iron grip. "Don't," he said.

"Don't what?" Dean shot back defensively.

"Try and retract what you just said."

Dean swallowed, panic welling up in him. He couldn't do this. "I didn't say anything," he laughed. "You were looking all cute and vulnerable and I just thought I'd tell you to stop being a jerk whilst you couldn't fight back."

Cas' hold on his wrist remained, but he used his other hand to sit himself up and move closer to Dean.

"I believe," Cas said, looking down at their hands. "I have a confession of my own."

Dean's felt his skin erupt in goose flesh and he tried to pull away. "I wasn't confessing anything," he snapped angrily. But that just made Cas grip tighter.

"It was always about saving just one human," he said, raising his eyes, and Dean suddenly felt paralysed.

"You ran. Heaven," Dean argued firmly. "There were actual wars."

Cas merely tilted his head. "You think any of that compares?"

Nope. Dean was not dealing with this. "With what?" he spat. "Me? Are you kidding, Cas, don't be a dick okay?"

He moved his free hand with even faster speed than before, seizing the back of Dean's neck and glaring into his eyes with the ferocity of the god he once was. "You want me to stop abandoning you?" he rumbled, jaw clenched. "Then you have to stop lying. I've been patient Dean, but I'm not sure-" He grimaced and turned away, his fingers curling into the soft bristle of Dean's hair. "I'm not sure the human part of me can bear this any longer. Do you or do not love me."

Dean's inside's felt like liquid nitrogen. "I just said," he fumbled, trying to pull away. "You're family, of course-"

The hand in his hair jerked involuntarily and Dean snapped up to see the pain, the god damn tears on Castiel's face. "Do you," he forced out. "Or do you not love me the way I love you Dean Winchester?"

The lump in his throat felt like a golf ball. "How do you love me?" he managed to rasp.

"Like you're the end of creation," Cas said without any hesitation. "And I've finally found my peace."

Well he had nothing for that.

He just stared. That's how he felt? That's what this off-beat, incredulous odd-ball thought of a jackass like him? He stared some more.

He realised his face was wet, when had that happened? He blinked and tried to form some words, any words. How did he feel about Cas? What had he been stumbling over before he realised he had an audience?

"Cas," he managed eventually. "You're…everything." He dropped his forehead onto Cas' and wrapped his other hand around the other side of Cas' body. "And I'm," he tripped, but he grit his teeth and ploughed ahead. "I ain't loosing you again, okay? I'm done."

He felt Cas sigh, and his hands travelled from his neck and his wrist to his waist. "You always had me," he said in exasperation. "So how about you finally claim me?"

Dean leaned back a little and studied him fearfully. This was it, there was no going back if he did this. But then he felt like maybe he finally understood. That perhaps, there had been no going back as of that moment in the barn seven years ago. That Dean's life had changed the moment an angel had taken it upon himself to yank him from the pit and the follow him back down to Earth.

He didn't know how to explain it – he knew Cas looked like a man – he was a man – but he was more than that too. There was something inhuman inside him, and Dean didn't know what that said about his sexual preferences, but he was beginning to realise that that didn't matter. What mattered was how complete he felt whenever he managed to convince this jackass to stick around for more than five God damn minutes. But that was suddenly compounded about a thousand per cent right now, because he was finally touching Cas in a way he'd never been brave enough to before.

"You want me to claim you?" he breathed, eyes unable to raise above Cas' mouth. They were so close, Dean could feel his breath ghosting over his skin. He wanted to do something, anything, before the magic between them broke and he friggin lost it again, but he didn't seem to be able to move.

"Please," he saw Cas' lips speak. "Please Dean, I'm…I'm right here."

So he stopped thinking and worrying, and just did the most obvious thing he could think of. He closed the gap between them, and kissed Cas firmly on the mouth.

He was an idiot. How many years had he wasted when he could have been doing this? It was like being hit by lightning, or so he assumed. His whole body lit up as he melted into Cas' form, wrapping his arms around him and bringing them even closer together. He parted his lips gently, allowing Cas to deepen the kiss, drawing them in further, dragging them further down into each other. They were entwined, one whole combined, like they had always been meant to exist. There would be no Dean without Cas, and no Cas without Dean, and he was finally able to admit to himself that that wasn't a world he could live in anyway. He needed this like air.

"Cas," he breathed, his breath hitching with emotion.

But Cas shook his head and kissed him again, coaxing him down to the bed so he could cradle him in his arms. "I'm right here Dean," he said stroking his hair, their legs tangled together. "And I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

End