Dean was standing at the pick-up area for domestic flights at the Lawrence airport. Cas was finally coming home today, the day Dean had been waiting for for exactly four weeks, three days, seven hours, and twenty-two—no, now twenty-three—minutes. Cas had gone to Scotland to visit his aunt and uncle for part of the summer before their freshman year of college, and he had been ecstatic to go. Dean had been ecstatic for him. But there ended up being one fairly enormous problem with Castiel's trip, and that was that Dean realized that after only 24 hours of missing the hell out of Cas, that he was completely and totally, 4000 percent in love with him.
So now, here Dean was, waiting for Cas to get his ass off of the freaking airplane and down to the pick-up zone. Dean had convinced Cas's parents to just let him get his friend from the airport since they hadn't seen each other in so long. By the gleam in Naomi's eye as he begged, he suspected she knew exactly why he wanted to see Castiel so badly.
From the moment Dean decided to pick Cas up, he started planning. Planning all of the ways he could confess his love, sweep his best friend off his feet, make declarations of adoration and romance. He planned to make a cheesy sign, planned to wrap Cas up in the arms the moment he spotted him, planned to buy him a bouquet of wildflowers. But of course, the day in question arrived and Dean was completely flabbergasted as to what to do or say, and consequently prepared nothing.
So that's how Dean found himself standing empty-handed in the Lawrence airport with absolutely nothing to say to his best friend of twelve years.
Dean noticed another wave of people shuffling through the doors to the pick-up zone and scanned the crowd for Castiel. Dean was just about to resign himself to waiting for another flight of people to travel through when he spotted a shock of messy, dark hair and piercingly blue eyes. Cas lugged a huge suitcase behind him and carried a black backpack on his back; in one hand he held his eternally present blue water bottle. As Cas strolled toward the pick-up area, he finally spotted his friend in the crowd.
"Dean?" Dean saw rather than heard Cas say. Cas picked up his pace and hurried to Dean with a large, gummy smile.
When he was within hearing distance, Cas spoke, "I wasn't expecting to see you yet, I figured my parents would be here."
And in the end, Dean didn't have to have anything prepared for Cas, because before Dean could do anything but smile back, Cas had dropped his suitcase and water bottle and wrapped his arms around Dean's neck, pulling him down to press their lips together. Dean felt his world stop and shatter and whirl in circles, all in the length of a heartbeat. His head spun, his heart stuttered, and he's pretty sure he also passed out as he finally remembered how to kiss back and moved his lips against Castiel's.
When Cas finally pulled back and smiled at Dean, leaving his arms wrapped around Dean's neck, Dean finally knew exactly what to do, exactly what to say, and laughed at himself for panicking so much earlier.
Dean wrapped his arms tighter around Castiel's waist and smiled gently before opening his mouth.
"I love you."
Cas just smiled back and gently pulled the hair at the nape of Dean's neck.
"I love you, too"