He couldn't go back there, the pain twisting white-hot slivers lancing across and throughout his insides, blood hot and cold and slick against his skin and sticky on his clothes -

So he didn't.

Dean had already died too many times to count; his near-death experiences also accounted for a distressingly high number of out-of-body sojourns. This felt different. There was no body, no way to move, nothing to move or to see with; aware of everything around him, even behind him, though there was no him to speak of.

He floated.

Dean

No, that way was where it hurt. He couldn't go back there. He was no stranger to pain but this was more than just distressed nerve signals, this was a visceral avalanche of roiling force and he couldn't go back there.

Dean

No

New voice - touching the edges of recognition suffused him with fringes of the pain and he recoiled, like yanking a finger away from the fire when it gets too close. Even the remembered agony made him want to curl about himself, protect what was left from the lashes of the world.

That memory catalyzed a tenuous link, and try as he might to ignore it, he felt himself inexorably drawn to listen…

Dean you can't leave us you can't leave me just hold on Dean I swear I'll fix you just hold on five more minutes

Cas that's what he wants you to do it's a trap

I'm not going to let him die not like this not when my Grace is right there and I can fix him

Cas

There is no time to argue are you with me or not

Dean we'll be right back and if we're not well I guess it won't matter to anybody

And then there was nothing but the boiling upheaval of prickling heat and cold. He withdrew again.

He floated.

He didn't know for how long, if there was even time in this place that was not a place. He did not think or feel or grow tired or more alert.

He floated.

BRIGHT

He retreated.

BRIGHT

He couldn't, not back to that

BRIGHT

Dean

Please

Brighter than the sun, than a comet, brighter than all the stars of the heavens and it was in him, infusing him, down to every cell and atom and particle and quark and expanding him until he would burst with it -

Dean gasped, back arching off the sticky concrete where he lay. In and in he breathed, lungs searing with hot cramps as they filled, the air tasting of smoke and the sickly sweet twinge of burned flesh. Shapes coalesced before his eyes, great blurry mounds that snapped into focus and the first thing he saw - the first thing he recognized - was blue.

"Dean."

Never in his life had Dean heard his name uttered with such bone-wearying relief. He closed his eyes as Castiel lowered his forehead to rest against Dean's, torpid mind only just working out that the angel was weeping, his shoulders shaking with it as he pulled Dean against him.

"Cas," he croaked, and the effort it took to form the name and give it voice fatigued him. "Is it over? Did we win?"

"We won," Dean could hear Sam say, not far away, and though he sounded every bit as tired as Dean felt, that he could speak at all made Dean's heart soar. If Sam and Cas were here, they well and truly had won. "But it's not over," Sam continued.

Dean grunted. "It never is, is it?" He could still feel the light pressure of Castiel's forehead pressing against his, and he decided he liked it.

Then, with a thunderous halt in his mind, two concepts fell into their respective places. His eyes flew open. "Cas. You're - you -"

"Got my wings back." The angel lifted his head slightly, his face composed in an expression of calm regret. "They still fit pretty much like I remember them."

"But you…" He didn't need to finish it; Castiel's eyes flickered with just those words.

"I had to." His eyes fell away from Dean's. "I couldn't let you…"

"He did it for you, Dean," Sam said, and from the position from which his voice issued Dean could tell his brother was kneeling next to him now. "There wasn't another thought in his mind. He did it for you."

Dean shut his eyes again. "You have to go now."

"I - yes. I do. I have to pick up the pieces. This is all my fault, all of it, and -"

"I'll help you."

It was hard work, shifting to prop himself up on his elbows, and even though his body felt like new, it remembered what had happened to it, and felt stiff. "All this time, and I never asked what I could do to help you. It was always about me. This is me asking. What can I do?"

Castiel's lips quivered into a sad smile. "You can go back down to Earth. And you can save as many people as you can, and you can pray to me, and I'll be listening. And you can leave a light on for me. Because…once I've given the other angels something they can stand on…I'm leaving them to do as they see fit."

Dean hadn't really expected any other answer. "How long?" he asked instead.

Castiel shrugged. "Time is an illusion in Heaven. As long as it takes." He looked up; Dean's eyes followed his gaze to see he was looking at Sam. "You take care of him," he said sternly to Sam, voice trembling just slightly. "I expect him in one piece when I get back."

Sam let out an exhalation that could almost be a laugh. "I've always taken care of him. Almost as good as he's taken care of me."

Cas nodded, and with a final look into Dean's eyes, reached out with both hands to lightly tap their foreheads.

There was the dizzying rush of falling, and then Dean found himself standing, staggering against Sam, outside the bunker. The blades of grass where Cas had stood before they had departed to Heaven were still unbending. Either they had been sent back in time or, as Cas had said, time was an illusion, and they'd spent barely any of it away at all.

The blue smoke of twilight had just begun to claim the evening, and the single light above the bunker door flickered on as Dean looked aimlessly about. "So this is winning."

"Apparently," Sam agreed.

Dean shook his head, mind casting about for some feeble jest. "I should have at least gotten a kiss. The hero always gets a kiss with the surprise love interest that was under his nose the whole time. That's how winning is supposed to go."

There was a breeze behind him, and the faintest sound of wings, and he was not entirely surprised to find Castiel's hands upon his face as he turned. He let Castiel bring their faces close, lips pressing together with a life-affirming fervor that sent a thrum of electricity down Dean's spine into his fingertips. His hands went to the small of the angel's back and tangled in the hair at the back of his neck, and Castiel let one hand fall to Dean's shoulder, resting there with a warm weight. He smelled like snow and lightning and tasted of wind and thunder and too soon - though years would have been too soon - too soon Castiel pulled away.

"Later," he promised, running one thumb over Dean's cheekbone. And he was gone again.

There was silence for the space of several heartbeats, then Sam cleared his throat. "Better?" he asked.

"Yeah," Dean replied belatedly, eyes trained on the stars above them. He swallowed. "Beer?"

"Beer," Sam agreed, and, stepping in unison, they strode to the door of the bunker.