"NOOOO! No, no, no! Cas, you can't! Cas, don't do this, please don't do this! You can't die on me, you can't, you just can't! Come on, Cas!" Dean screamed hysterically, but it was futile. Sam and Bobby stood helpless on the sidelines, watching Dean sob, all the things he could have, should have said, flooding through him.
"Cas, please! Please, Cas, please! No, no…."
The realization materialised in Dean's mind that Cas was not coming back.
"I love you."
Bobby entered the room to see Dean still weeping on the floor. Three days, and the body hadn't even been moved.
"Dean! Dean!" Bobby screamed, but got no response. He looked up to Sam on the other side of the room.
"Boy still won't listen?"
Sam shook his head. "I tried to get him up yesterday and he pushed me down."
"He's been like this the whole time?"
"Won't eat, won't move, hasn't even stopped crying."
"Dear God…"
"How'd your job go?"
"It was nothing, real inexperienced witch, wasn't even in a coven…she was a breeze to catch."
Sam nodded in acknowledgement.
"Why? Why did you bring me back?"
"You were getting too attached, Castiel. You had a task to perform, which did not involve getting sexed up by your hunter!" replied God.
"You say that, yet you still refer to him as my hunter."
"The entire universe uses that terminology to refer to the pair of you! You seem not to understand, Castiel, that you are not a human. You cannot fall in love with a human."
"I do not understand."
"You cannot-"
"I understand the words, however, that is not possible, as I believe that I-"
"No, you don't."
"Then I'm not meant to be an angel."
God scoffed. "Do you honestly believe that his interest would remain if you were not superior, if you were not an angel, if you had no power? If all of you that remained was your aching, tortured soul?"
"Yes, I do."
"And you? Are you honestly willing to relinquish your power, to live a human life with Dean Winchester?"
"Yes. I do. I wish to return to earth as a man, and be his."
Heaven seemed to stand still as the weight of the statement settled in both of them.
Castiel was filled for a long time with searing agony and the sensation of falling. He became sure he could stand the pain no longer.
And then he crashed, and he was lying on his back. His chest was pounding within him and he remained in pain, but he managed to angle his head to his left and squint. Although it was dark he made out a set of letters, and immediately he knew what they were attached to.
KAZ.
The first three letters of the Impala's licence plate number.
A loud bang grabbed the attentions of both Sam and Bobby, but Dean barely stirred. The pair sighed, but loaded guns and slipped outside. Sam, who was the first to recognise the cause of the commotion, nearly dropped his weapon rushing over to the man stretched out on the lawn.
"Cas?"
"Sam?" Castiel realised.
"Cas, it's me!"
Sam smiled uncontrollably and gripped Cas into a tight hug, pulling him up from the ground; Bobby gasped in pure disbelief.
"How?" Bobby inquired, moving over to them. Cas pushed away from Sam, still pained from his apparent fall.
"Honestly, I'm not entirely sure…"
"Well, come on, you must've done something."
"Not a spell or anything if that's what you're asking, but I'm fairly sure I just made a deal with God."
"A deal?" Sam asked. "Like, for your soul?"
"Yes."
"But aren't you-"
"I'm not an angel anymore, Sam."
"What?"
"That was the deal. I wanted…needed to come back, but I couldn't fulfill my duties as an angel…God asked me if I was willing to live a human life just to be with-" Castiel cut himself off.
"To be with Dean," Sam finished.
"Took you boys long enough," Bobby grumbled. "He's inside, if he's still alive-"
"You don't know if he's alive?" Cas yelped.
"He's a wreck, Cas," Sam said. "I mean, really, truly destroyed right now."
Cas's face fell back into sadness. He tried to push himself up, but his arms were not strong enough.
"That's one hell of a fall," Sam contested, and helped Cas stand up; by the time they made it to the door Cas could move much more easily.
Dean noticed that his sobs were the only audible sound, and he realised that Sam and Bobby were missing. It frightened him, but he couldn't bring himself to stand. He'd wanted Cas so badly, and he hadn't even told him, and now he was gone. Dean had lost so many people before, but somehow, even losing Sam hadn't hurt like this. Probably had something to do with the fact that he'd never been in love with any of those people. Sure, he'd cared about a lot of them, but Cas…Cas had, intentionally or not, gotten him to believe all that soulmate bullshit.
"This is all my fault," he cried.
"You still think that?" came an implicit rhetorical question from behind him, in what he could have sworn was Cas's voice.
"Dean," said Sam.
"Go away!"
"Dean," said the other voice, and in a rush of anger Dean stood and turned around to shout at Sam and Bobby to leave. However, the moment he saw the figure in between them he stopped. The man had darker hair and was a bit thinner than Castiel's vessel, but the eyes - the eyes were the same. Dean dropped weakly to his knees, sobbing even harder than he had been, but in shock and joy.
"How?" Dean whimpered.
"God made me human," Cas responded.
"Just like that? He just...did?"
"If you want the details…it could be most accurately described by saying that I begged for him to, and he reluctantly capitulated."
"But why?"
"I wanted to."
"I mean, why did you want to? If you're completely human, you're-"
"A baby in a trenchcoat, I know."
"I wasn't going to say that, but…yes."
"I wanted to be here."
"Here as in, earth, or-"
"Here as in, with you," Castiel sighed, able to ascertain from Dean's eyes that he knew exactly was Cas was trying to say, especially as Dean forced a laugh.
"Right. Now why are you really here?" Dean continued, straining his voice to sound as though he was teasing.
"Stop."
"Stop what?"
"Stop this, this acting like it's impossible and unreasonable for anyone to actually care about you!"
"But it is!"
"No, Dean, it's not!"
"And besides, as a human, how will you be safe? How am I supposed to-"
"You don't have to protect me, Dean-"
"Yeah, I do! You're here now, isn't that how-"
"Dean, for once, please stop trying to protect and care for everyone else. Let me take care of you, let me...love you. I don't know much about being human, but I know how to do that."
"If that's what you came back for, you're out of luck, because I'm nobody's 'baby', okay?" Dean shouted as he stood up and stomped away, out of the house. Cas sat in place for a few seconds before he decided against letting him go this time. He pushed himself up and followed the path Dean had taken out to the front yard. Dean was leaning against the Impala, sobbing. Despite his outburst, he turned to look at Cas when he came over.
"I can't do it, Cas," he choked out, nervously pressing his back against the car and clasping his hands behind his head. "I can't go through losing you again."
"I'm not going anywhere, Dean," said Cas, gazing sadly into Dean's deep and tearful green eyes. Dean had stopped crying, but a few tears still streaked his face. Cas had a sudden urge to wipe them away, and he reached forward, cupped his hands around Dean's neck, and stroked Dean's cheeks with his thumbs; Dean shivered, and bit his lip. Barely thinking, Cas closed the gap and kissed him, softly at first, especially once he realised Dean might pull away. But Dean electrified, and finally his guard came crashing violently down. He pulled Cas closer, kissed him harder, trailed his hands down Cas' spine. Once they both had run out of breath, they walked slowly, hand in hand, back into the house and into the room ascribed for Dean, and collapsed onto the bed.
Dean fell asleep immediately, and Cas pulled off his shoes and socks and gently positioned him under the covers before getting under them himself. He'd never slept before and he didn't know where to start, so as usual he watched Dean sleep for a while, which was far more exciting than usual.
And for the first time since Cas had first watched him sleep, his lips were curled into a smile the entire night.