Death was certainly an uncomfortable thing, not particularly painful, just, unpleasant. His arms and legs felt too heavy to move and he desperately wanted to roll and shift whatever hellish position he'd been stuck in for what felt like eternity. There was something itchy draped over his legs, a cord or something equally as annoying tangled with his deadened arm and something crammed into his nose that felt like it was blowing up it. He grunted a bit, finally fighting with his right hand long enough to lift it toward his face, jerking a bit when the damn cord halted his progression and a sharp pain splintered through his hand. He instantly let it fall again, trying for his opposite hand and was thankful that it didn't result in the same stabbing pain. He managed to get it closer to his face, swiping fruitlessly at the thing in his nose, but something warm gripped him by the wrist and pulled his hand back.

"Dean? Dean, can you hear me?" a soft voice beside him muttered, pulling his hand back down.

He frowned a bit, fighting to get his eyes open long enough to see who the hell could have possibly been there with him. The space was dimly lit, which he was immensely thankful for, but it was so blurry he couldn't make out exactly what he was looking at. He could feel himself squinting to try and make things out, eyes trailing over where he knew his legs should be but he could only see a mass of fuzzy white. When he finally managed to turn his head in the direction the voice had come from, he was met with another blurry vision of a man sitting next to him. Long dark hair and wide eyes watching him with concern. He was still holding Dean's hand as if to keep it away from his face and he just tilted his head a bit in confusion. He looked familiar, but he was too blurry to place and it was making his head hurt trying to work it out.

"Dean, hey man, it's me," the man said warily, his voice low as if he were trying not to startle him or aggravate the pounding headache he had. Dean knew that voice anywhere, but it just didn't seem possible.

"Sammy?" The man beside him smiled bright, finally releasing his hand and Dean instantly went back to try and remove the annoying thing off of his face. Sam sighed heavily, grabbing his wrist again and pulled him away.

"No, Dean, leave that alone," he demanded, reaching up with his free hand to adjust the thing where he'd managed to swipe it loose. "It's oxygen, you need it. I know it's uncomfortable, but please leave it."

He frowned lightly, blinking several times to clear his vision, glancing down at himself. He was laying in a hospital bed, covered in a white blanket. His right hand had an IV jammed in it, which explained the previous sharp pain. There were several bandages wrapped around his forearm and they itched terribly, but he knew if he tried to scratch at them, Sam would just pull his hand back. His entire body was sore and he couldn't really remember much aside from thinking he was dead. Still, he was aware enough not to blurt that out to Sam.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice rough from what felt like weeks of not being used, his throat a little dry now that he thought about it. He swallowed roughly, Sam reaching for something out of his field of vision for a moment before he produced a cup of water and helped him to take a drink so that he didn't have to pull his hands up again. It was amazing how Sam just knew what he needed without him needing to say anything.

"You were in a car accident. They told me you must have fallen asleep driving. You lost control of the car and hit a guardrail out on the highway. It-it was bad Dean," Sam said quietly, setting the cup of water aside. "You went through the windshield, you-" Sam cut himself off, coughing lightly and reached up to rub his hand across his face. It was easy to see that it was difficult for him to talk about it and Dean had half a mind to tell him to just leave it and he would figure it out later, but he just drew in a deep breath and continued on. "You've been in a coma for a few weeks, I didn't think you were ever going to wake up and you needed a lot of blood. I gave as much as they would let me..."

Everything that Sam was telling him sounded familiar in ways he couldn't place. He'd heard that explanation before somewhere, he just couldn't remember where. Dean shifted a bit where he sat, groaning at the pain it caused and instantly decided it wasn't worth it. Every inch of him hurt and now he knew why. He reached up with his right hand, slowly this time so he wouldn't aggravate his IV and grabbed for Sam's hand. "Sammy, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened, I-"

"You're running yourself into the ground Dean! That's what happened," Sam snapped, frowning at him. "Bobby told me what you've been doing. How he comes in to open the shop and you're still there, sleeping at your desk like that's really healthy. Working all these late hours, driving home at two in the morning-what did you think was going to happen? You can't keep doing this to yourself. Damn it Dean, what do you think killed dad?"

"I have to work Sam, I have responsibilities to take care of."

"Like what, Dean? What is more important than your life?"

"The shop. You? I dunno Sammy, I didn't do it on purpose!" Dean winced suddenly when he accidentally raised his voice, sending a new wave of pain down his spine and Sam instantly pulled his hand away from him and reached up to press something on the wall. After a moment, a woman's voice echoed through a small speaker and Sam informed her that he was awake and that he was in pain. "I'm not in pain," he grumbled stubbornly, watching as Sam gave him a perfect bitch face and sat back in his chair.

"You flew through a windshield, Dean. It's completely understandable to be in pain. You're lucky, the doctors said it was some kind of miracle that your organs weren't torn to shit. Broken bones, lot of blood loss, cracked your head on the asphalt," Sam mumbled, lacing his fingers together in his lap. "You should have died and I don't know how it happened, but you survived and I'm so damn happy you did. Maybe you got a guardian angel or somethin' man."


Dean was stuck in the hospital for what felt like years. They had to run tests, deal with his broken arm and ankle, a shit ton of physical therapy and crap he didn't want to have to deal with. He refused to take the pain killers they prescribed him when they gave him terrible headaches. He could deal with a few aches and pains if it meant his head wasn't pounding at the same time. Ibuprofen worked well enough and he had that in spades at home. Sam was with him damn near every day, helping him along even through all of his bitching. Bobby and Ash stopped in often enough. Jo and Ellen. But Dean continually felt like there was someone missing. There were days when he would watch the door to his hospital room, waiting for it to open and someone he'd been missing to walk in. Still, it was always the same people, the same few nurses. And Dean just kept waiting for someone he couldn't even remember.

It took nearly three months for his bones to heal well enough to get around on his own and start driving again. Since he couldn't really even remember the wreck, it didn't bother him to get back behind the wheel of his baby. Bobby and Ash had worked non-stop to restore the front end of the car and windshield where it had been nearly demolished in the wreck and quite honestly, Dean couldn't tell the difference. At first he didn't even bother going back to work, leaving everything in Bobby's hands while he recovered. He never really went anywhere except the store or sometimes the diner. He'd stopped in the Roadhouse a few times just to talk to Ellen, but other than that, he stayed home. Sam was hanging around like a stale fart, afraid that if he left before Dean was well enough that he would just fall right back into his old routine at work.

"Dean, where you off to?" Sam asked, shoving his clothes into his suitcase as he prepared to leave the next morning. Dean was starting to get restless lingering around the house, anxiously watching the front door for reasons he couldn't quite explain and didn't even try to talk to Sam about. The last thing he needed was for Sam to think that he was waiting for some imaginary person that didn't even exist. He couldn't remember a single solid detail about the person, there was just a lingering emptiness in his chest that he desperately wanted to get rid of and he had a good feeling that finding the person was the only thing that was going to fix it.

"Just gonna drive around a bit, maybe stop in the shop, see how Bobby is doing. I'll be back in like, an hour. That alright?" he asked, entirely serious when he asked if it was alright. If Sam didn't want him going, he'd stay just to spare him the worry. He'd nearly gotten himself killed and that had put enough stress on the guy and he wasn't about to add to that anymore.

"Yeah, just, take it easy?"

"Yeah Sammy, I got it. If I get hung up anywhere, I'll call."

Sam let him go without much fussing, it was midday on a Sunday, not much traffic out and about and Dean could drive around slowly without really having to worry about anyone. Since his accident, Dean hadn't been on the highway where he crashed once. He took his time and drove slowly, knowing that there was something out there that was important, even if he didn't know what it was right off the bat. He thought that maybe driving along down it would jog his memory somehow, searching each stretch of the railing as he drove past to see exactly where it had all happened. Sure it had been cleaned up months ago, but there was a distinctly new patch of metal along one of the strips of guardrail around the midway point on the highway about the side of the front end of his Impala.

Dean pulled off onto the shoulder and parked the car, stepping out slowly and made his way over to the railing, running his hand along the shiny silver metal with a frown. He couldn't remember crashing at all, but he could remember everything right up until leaving work the night they told him it happened. The time between that and waking up was all a blur and he was trying so hard to piece it back together. Nothing about the crash sight really stood out to him, so much time had passed that there was hardly any evidence there was even a wreck there in the first place. Dean sighed heavily, turning to face the highway and leaning back against the railing. For days he'd been trying to remember the forgotten person that had seemed to vanish completely from his life, picking out small details here and there. Dark hair, blue eyes that didn't quite seem natural, something about a car. There was a good chance that he was just remembering some person that had brought their car into the shop some time before his accident, but it seemed more significant than that. More important.

He stood there for longer than he cared to think about, turning over every detail in his head until he came up with some off the wall scenario of a busted radiator hose on a rental car, a blue Toyota of all things, something that had been such an easy fix and had lead to something else entirely. He could remember the mans face very faintly, but his name was lost to him. Dean couldn't even remember why he had been so important in the first place, but he kept trying to figure it out. It was some detail that he was missing and it literally caused his chest to hurt. That was something else he'd never been able to tell Sam about. Mysterious chest pains over a man that probably didn't exist wasn't really a good thing to go telling your baby brother after nearly biting it. But that didn't stop him from thinking about him. It would keep him up nights, laying there trying to figure out who the hell he was missing.

"This is really damn frustrating, y'know?" he sighed, talking to no one in particular. He hoped no one happened past on the highway while he was standing there talking to himself like a crazy person. "I know I'm not nuts, I know you're real and I just-I can't remember your damn name. You gotta give me somethin' here man. Anything?"

He hadn't really been expecting a response, standing there on the empty highway in the middle of the day, talking to empty space. Maybe the wreck had fucked with his brain more than he'd originally thought? Maybe the mystery man really didn't exist and he'd just made it all up in his mind to help him cope. It certainly didn't feel like that, but what else could it have been? Shaking his head, he turned and headed back toward his car, cramming his hands into his pockets as he went, kicking at the gravel aimlessly. It wasn't until he neared the front end of the car that he felt a soft breeze ruffle that back of his hair, a fluttering sound he could only describe as wings piercing the silence around him and Dean just froze. Everything seemed to stop, time itself halting as he struggled to find his breath, turning ever so slowly back toward the guardrail. He knew him without even seeing his face, the man standing there in the space Dean had just occupied with that silly tan trench coat on and dark windswept hair. He was inspecting the rail, running his hands over the patched metal slowly, as if he needed to remember every little detail of it for later. Dean just stood there gawking at him for the longest time, unable to find words that wouldn't ruin the moment. He was afraid if he spoke, the man would vanish. That he would fade into nothingness and he would be left alone again.

"Hello, Dean," the man said evenly. That tone of his still as sharp and precise as he remembered it and it made Dean's heart ache at the sound of it. All at once the memories came flooding back, the time that they had spent together lining itself up in his mind, one crisp image at a time. The broken down Toyota, the bar, breakfast, sharing a bed, the shower. All of it right down to his last few moments in the hospital when he'd assured Dean that dying was like going to sleep. Except, Dean hadn't died, he'd woken up. "I understand how confusing this must be for you, to be here after everything, but I couldn't go through with it. I couldn't watch you die."

He finally turned to look at him, his face just as perfect as Dean remembered it, all dark scruff and blue eyes. He took a staggered step back toward him, pulling his hands from his pockets and reached out toward him a bit, his body trembling. Either he'd died and gone to Heaven, or the angel was real and he had somehow managed to save him from death even though he'd said that he couldn't. That there would be consequences. He watched the angel closely as he meandered closer to the front end of Dean's car, running his fingers along the sleek black finish where it had once been dented and mangled.

"Cas, you-" Dean muttered, taking a step closer. "I thought you said-how?"

"I couldn't do it, let you go. It was selfish of me, I've denied you paradise for a great many more years, but I could not watch you die. I healed the majority of your wounds against orders, fixed as much internal damage as I could so that the hospital could take care of the remainder. Altered memories. I did whatever it took to give you your life back. You are a good man, Dean. You did not deserve your fate. And I hope that you will not waste this second chance you've been given."

"Altered memories? Is that why I couldn't remember you at first? You tried to erase yourself from my memories?"

"Tried, being the operative word, Dean. I tried to erase myself, but it appears you remembered me none the less. I thought it would be best if you didn't remember what could have been..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he snapped suddenly, the angel tilting his head at him slightly as if he didn't understand the sudden sharpness in his tone. "You're doing that "I'm leaving" kinda talk again, don't give me that bullshit. You're here now, you wouldn't be if you didn't want to be here. And you can't tell me you came down here just to say goodbye, don't do that shit."

"Dean, I am an angel...," Castiel said softly, pulling his hand away from the Impala and tucked it into the pocket on his coat. "I was not meant to walk among men. I've been suspended from all my duties because of this, because of you. And before you feel bad about it, I want you to know that I knew the repercussions before hand and I gave your life back gladly. I would have accepted being stripped of my wings for the chance to piece you back together and see you smile again. The world is a better place with you in it, Dean. You have affected so many lives around you in a positive light. They would have been lost without you. Sam especially. And to know that I gave them back the best gift they could ever be given, I am more than happy to accept my punishment in light of that."

"So, that's it? You just slap a bandaid on me and turn me loose? What am I supposed to do now?"

Castiel sighed heavily, his chest heaving with the action and he had the damn nerve to shrug. Dean just stared over at him in disbelief. After everything that had happened, all he could manage was a shrug?

"Live? Be happy? Move on with your life and do so safely? Whatever it is that you want to do, do it Dean. Do not waste your time driving your body into the ground over something as simple as a job. I know what you can find a better balance between work and relaxation-"

"No, shut up!" Dean growled, stepping into Castiel's personal space and was amazed to find he didn't flinch back. He was an immovable wall. Now that Dean knew the truth of what he was, it was easy to see it in way he held himself. Sturdy and strong, pure power and light bundled into a beautiful package and Dean should have had the sense to be afraid of him, but he couldn't find it in him. He was more afraid of losing him than anything else. "There is no living, no happy, no doing what I want-not if it means you leaving. None of that exists without you, ya hear me? None of it. If living means I have to give you up, then I don't want it. Take it back, put me back in the coma. Let me live there with you, because this-" He drummed his hand on his chest over his heart to make a point. "-this wouldn't exist without you. So take it back, put me back...just don't go."

Castiel swallowed harshly, casting his eyes downward for a moment as if he couldn't bear to look at him and Dean nearly reached out to jerk his face back up. How could he just expect Dean to forget about everything that had happened between them? No matter how hard Castiel tried to erase himself, parts of him still lingered. The love and tenderness between them. The way the angel had been literally starved for attention and Dean had promised to give him what he deserved if he'd let him. He'd meant every word he said in the little fantasy world Castiel had created for them inside his head, every single word and being alive again didn't change the way he felt. How hollow he felt when he woke up alone in bed. How alone he felt when he would check his phone to find nothing there, not a single message or call. How he would randomly open the front door and expect to see someone walking toward him with that lopsided smile and bright eyes. How he longed for something he couldn't place. It had all been Castiel and it was still there. Engrained in his very heart, etched into his bones. Love, pure and simple and wonderful and if it took dying to keep it, he would take it gladly.

"You would give up your life, in order to keep me?" Castiel asked seriously and Dean nodded without hesitation. "Sam, your job, your friends? All of it, for one angel?"

"I love Sam, I love him more than my own life, but he is a strong kid. I have never, never, done something for me. It's always been about him and making sure he was taken care of. Well, now he's grown, he takes care of himself. I'd miss him, I won't lie and say I wouldn't, but goddamn it, Cas," he rambled, lifting his hands to cup Castiel's face, brushing his thumbs lightly over his cheekbones and reveling in the way his eyes fluttered closed. "I have never cared about someone the way I care about you and I am not letting that go. Even if it kills me."

"What would you have me do?" Castiel asked softly, his eyes opening slowly. "Kill you? How could you ask that of me after everything I've gone through to ensure you live?"

"Then stay, stay here," Dean demanded, refusing to back down. "If you won't take me Heaven with you, then stay here with me."

"Dean I can't-"

"Can't, or won't?"

His eyes narrowed a bit, a small flash of hurt crossing his expression and he reached up to grab Dean by the wrists pulling his hands away from his face almost forcefully. He took a small step away from Dean, squaring his shoulders and in that very moment it was all clear. The reason Castiel had gone through so much trouble to try and erase him from Dean's mind, why he'd given him back his life without the angel in it. He didn't even need to say the words for Dean to know what his answer was going to be. "I won't."

Well, that changed everything. Dean flinched back from him as if he'd struck him, dropping his arms to his sides in defeat. What else could he do? What else could he possibly say? If Castiel wouldn't stay with him, there was nothing else to be said. He took another step back, nodding his head lightly and turned to leave. Castiel stood there at the front end of the car, watching him stoically as he opened the driver-side door and slid behind the wheel, wasting no time starting the car and backed up slowly before he checked his mirrors and pulled out onto the empty highway, making a u-turn and headed straight back for his house. He hadn't been gone nearly as long as he'd told Sam he would be, his brother watching him cautiously as he stormed back into the house and shut himself up in his bedroom. Dean was just as confused as he had been when he left the house, except now it was accompanied by a searing grief. He didn't understand anything, why Castiel has chosen to save him-took pride in it even-why he had appeared to him on the highway if he was going to leave him alone just as he had been before. I won't.


Dean couldn't lie and say that he was glad to see Sam go. His brother had his own life to live and he'd stayed with him long enough, helping him get back on his feet after everything in his life had been turned on it's head. The house was empty again, darker than he remembered it ever being as he sat alone night after night on the couch watching crappy TV, a cold beer in his hand. He still caught himself glancing around, searching for someone he knew would never be there again. He still woke late in the night, pawing at the empty half of his bed, searching for something that he'd lost. There was a horrible emptiness to everything that he did and before long, he couldn't even be bothered to drag himself out of the house. Bobby and Ash would call about things in the shop and he would instruct them over the phone, but that was the extent of it. He thought about just handing everything over to Bobby and being done with it. Going back would be a reminder he didn't need. Maybe he would move to a new house, one where he didn't have to daydream about Castiel walking down the hallway or washing dishes at his sink. But he knew that it really wouldn't matter where he went, it wouldn't make it any better.

Days passed slowly and he longed for the times when he would lose days, where everything would speed past and he couldn't remember much of the previous days. So that when he woke up in the morning, he couldn't remember sulking around the house all day or staring into the darkness of his room like Castiel was just going to appear like a ghost. He would have given anything to not remember the angel at all, that his memory really could have been altered, but he was apparently denied that luxury. Castiel had tried to erase himself and it hadn't worked, he was stuck inside Dean's head and there was nothing he could do to get rid of him. So, night after night, he just lay there in bed, staring at the ceiling in silence, waiting for something to give. He kept twisting his fingers in his sheets and relaxing them, over and over again. It made his arm ache a bit where the break had been re-set and he wondered if maybe skipping out of physical therapy early wasn't such a good thing in the long run.

"I don't get this," Dean muttered into the darkness, blinking his eyes rapidly to relieve the stinging where he'd stared too long at the ceiling. "What I did wrong. Can you just tell me that? Why go through all the trouble...if this was how we were gonna end up."

It was the first time he'd spoken out loud about Castiel since the incident on the side of highway. He didn't think that he had a right to after everything that had happened. Castiel had told him that he wouldn't stay with him, like it was something beneath him and maybe it was. He'd gotten in trouble for getting as close to Dean as he was and he'd broken major rules by healing him enough to allow him to live. For all he knew, Castiel was in some seriously deep shit. That he wouldn't stay with Dean because it would only make things worse for himself and for the life of him, he couldn't be angry at the angel. Everything he felt, it wasn't so much anger as it was abandonment. He'd thought that Castiel wanted him, all of the words they'd shared, it certainly pointed to that fact, but now that didn't seem to be the case. It was like he was done slumming it with Dean and he was going back to his golden palace in the sky where he belonged. Angels were higher beings, certainly not meant to walk among men.

Dean turned on his side, clenching his eyes closed and tried again to purge his mind of the memory of his face. Those perpetually chapped looking lips that were somehow still soft, his dark hair that you would assume would be coarse yet it felt like silk under his fingers. Each muscle and inch of beautifully tanned skin. The taste of him. He kept trying to wash it all away and it never worked. It just made him yearn for him more and all Dean could do was curl up in a ball and sob silently to himself. All alone in his tiny little house with no one to console him. He wasn't sure how long he laid there, but he must have fallen asleep at some point. He woke with a start, jerking upright in the bed, feeling like something was wrong. His bedroom door was wide open, something he hadn't let happen since waking up after his accident, it just made him nervous to have a door wide open anymore. Frowning, he pushed the blankets off of himself and swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up slowly. He really wasn't afraid that someone had broken into his house and was possibly going to murder him, he just shuffled through the open door and out into the main part of the house slowly, glancing around until he spotted the figure of a man standing in the middle of his kitchen. Dean stared at him for a long time, the angel watching him just as intently as he stood there with his hands in the pockets of his trench coat.

"It may have been brought to my attention...," Castiel said quietly, keeping eye contact as he spoke. "That I am an idiot."

Dean just frowned over at him, shifting his weight between his feet as he turned to face the kitchen fully. "Yeah? Who told you that?" he asked hesitantly, wanting to ask so many more questions, but he decided it was best to go with whatever the angel was talking about in hopes of getting a real answer out of him eventually.

"Myself." Dean scoffed lightly at the absurdity of it, crossing his arms over his chest just to have something to do. He wasn't sure what Castiel was referring to when he basically called himself an idiot. Was he talking about the whole leaving Dean high and dry or allowing him to live? Because allowing him to live and turning around and denying him the happiness he wanted while he was alive was kind of a stupid move, he should have just let him die and gotten if over with. "No, Dean. Giving you life would never be stupid."

"Get outta my head!" Dean snapped, glaring over at him angrily and he swore he saw Castiel actually flinch. "You can't just pick shit outta people's heads."

"I apologize Dean, I do not mean to," Castiel muttered, shifting his eyes to floor as if he were ashamed of himself. "It's just-you project pain very loudly. That is the reason I am here."

"Oh, well, that make perfect sense," Dean growled, tossing his hands in the air. "So sorry I pulled you down off your fuckin' cloud. I'll try to keep the sounds of utter heartbreak to a minimum from now on."

Dean turned on his heel to head back toward his bedroom figuring he was either dreaming or that he needed to just go back to sleep because he couldn't deal with whatever game Castiel was playing at, except he slammed into something solid, almost causing him to stagger backward. Castiel's hands caught him by his biceps, holding him firmly but not painfully and he just gawked at him in confusion, unable to piece together how he'd moved from the middle of his kitchen to the hallway that quickly. Dean instantly tried to wrench himself out of the angel's hold but his might as well have been trying to move a brick wall with his bare hands. Castiel was stronger than Dean had ever given him credit for and he was staring at Dean in a way that made his knees want to give out.

"Please, do not do this-" he pleaded, his gaze turning somber. "You must understand-"

"You keep sayin' that-'I must understand'-well here's a fuckin' news flash, Cas, I don't understand! I don't understand any of this bullshit and you just keep poppin' up like that makes it any better. I can't-"

"Can't, or won't?"

Dean just gawked at him in disbelief, wondering where the hell he got the nerve to try and pull that shit on him after what he'd done. He jerked against his hold again, strong enough to apparently force the angel to tighten his grip and he winced a bit at the sharp pain it caused in his re-set arm. Castiel seemed to realize he'd caused him physical pain, releasing his damaged arm like it was on fire, but still managed to hold him steadily enough with his other hand.

"I can't," Dean demanded, staring at him sadly. "I can't take this. Barely making it through the day, the confusion. Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it, or-or something, Cas. I can't anymore. This shit isn't living."

"Dean, you've done nothing wrong-"

"Then why! Why won't you just stay here with me? I had to do something wrong for you to not want me anymore!"

Castiel set his lips into a thin line, jerking Dean forward so forcefully that when he slammed into the angel's chest he nearly had the wind knocked out of him. He could feel Castiel's arms wrap around him tightly, just enough to keep him from getting free without crushing him. They stood there for a long time, Castiel just holding him and Dean wasn't sure what to do with himself. He just stared over his shoulder into the dark hallway, trying to keep himself from breaking down right then and there. His heart was thudding pathetically in his chest and it reminded him of dying again, how the heart monitor had began to slow down until there was nothing left.

"I told you that I was an idiot, will you please listen to my reasoning?" Castiel whispered against his ear and Dean nodded despite himself. "I told you that I would not stay here with you and I meant it. I assumed that it was the best course of action, for you to be with your own kind. I thought that if I stayed, it would only cause complications in your life. I am not human Dean, I do not understand most of your human customs or contraptions. I did not wish to place that burden on you after all of the stress you have already suffered. I thought that you would be able to move on and I...was an idiot. You did not pull me away from any cloud, I have not left earth since you woke up in the hospital. I have been here this entire time, watching over you. It took me nearly five seconds after you left me on the side of the highway to realize that I was wrong..."

"Then why didn't you come back sooner? It's been days-"

"You were quiet. In pain, yes, but quiet. I did not think you would want to see me again after I hurt you so badly. And tonight, when you called out to me, I could not stay hidden any longer. I wanted to explain myself, to give you the answers you deserve. I will never stop wanting you, Dean. Please believe me when I tell you that."

Dean had been standing there like a rigid plank in Castiel's arms as the angel spoke, trying his best not to break down, but it was obvious that he wasn't going to be able to keep that up. He could feel his knees start to tremble, his hands shaking as he slowly reached up to grab Castiel's coat, twisting his fingers into the coarse fabric and pulled him as close as he possibly could. Dean buried his face into the side of his neck, clenching his eyes closed and just breathing him in. That scent that was purely Castiel, something he would never be able to get enough of as long as he drew breath.

"Stay with me," he sobbed, clinging to him like his life depended on it. "Don't leave me alone again."

"Never, I will never leave you alone again Dean. Hell could not pull me away."