Dean waited. He wasn't sure what he was waiting for, but he anticipated it. That innate, impatient, irrational... hopeful part of him remained expectant despite everything they had lost already. But they had recovered it. They had won, people were awakening; the world was saved. That was his goal all along, his reason to fight: winning. Surviving. Executing tasks in a mechanical fashion. He had said it himself: hunting, saving. Cas…
He swallowed. Cas had been wrong; Dean was the soldier. Unfeeling, forbidden to feel. He wasn't… He wasn't what Cas believed him to be.
He was no hero, he wasn't worthy of being one. He was… a fighter. As wounded and bloody as only one could be. A pawn.
And yet he wouldn't change a thing, as long as his family was alive.
His family…
He stared at the wall; it seemed so normal, so irrelevant. A surge of rage flooded him at its sight.
The anger felt different this time. He was used to being angry, it was part of him. Angry at Heaven, at Hell, at the world, at his mom, at his dad, at Sam, at Jack, at himself, even at Cas, but this time… Cas couldn't truly love him if he had said good-bye. What had that been, giving up? Renouncing? It almost made him laugh. He was used to people renouncing to him, too.
People who claimed to love him, who Dean loved back, but this was… This was abandonment.
It was lying and hiding, and it was stupid, just like the mere notion of loving Dean!
Cas was an idiot, but so was Dean; in what position was he to judge?
He wanted Cas to come back and tell him exactly that, he wanted Cas to tell him what a hypocrite he was being for being angry at Cas for loving someone. Yes, Dean was a hypocrite. He was a hypocrite, and a dick, and an ass-butt, and he wanted Cas to come back and call him all those things.
Well, maybe not call him, that wasn't what Cas would do, but look at Dean with that squinted stare that somehow passed as confused, and serious, and judging, depending on the mood. He wanted Cas to come back and be fed up at Dean for being a jackass. He wanted Cas to come back and just… breathe.
Breathe, blink, stand there, just come back.
Dean begged for it.
He let himself fall against the wall, he was tired of uselessly smacking it.
"Castiel…" the name left his lips with a spark of vitality that seemed unwilling to disappear, his hot breathe crashed against the cool concrete.
"Castiel," he repeated.
"If I have to, I'll say your name every day for the rest of my life, until you answer my prayers. Until anyone does. And I will beg on my knees for anyone that hears me bring you back, I don't care who it'll be. Wherever you are, I'll find you, and I'll drag you back here because you don't get to say you love me and then die. You don't get to leave me talking alone when I say it back. You don't get to…"
His teeth dug in his lip until he tasted blood, but he didn't perceive the pain; there was too much coursing through him for such a faint sensation to quiet it.
"Please, come back," he whispered, his voice drowned and wobbly by the tears, "I'm praying you to come back. I'm pleading; I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll tell you that you're right, that I am all those things that you see in me. And I won't be lying because when you're here… I believe. You are the one thing – the one angel, the one seraph – in who I believe. You changed me; you showed me what faith is, what it feels like. You don't get to take it away from me. I'll say whatever you want me to say, I'll say that I love you over and over again, because it's true!"
He breathed.
"Castiel… I love you."
He pushed himself away from the wall. The Shadow wouldn't come, The Empty wouldn't open. Cas wouldn't return. He was being an idiot by expecting that he did.
This time he did laugh, so hard and dry it was nearly an exhalation. He had always been an idiot.
His steps echoed softly through the room in his way out. And then halted abruptly. There was a strange awareness and a sudden presence, a groggy rustle got to his ears and he turned to a deformed, immaterial cave.
The Empty.
He had to cover his eyes next, a blinding white light, familiar in its warmth and dryness came out of it. Everything felt like a quiet explosion, the room was intact, but there was a loud power fitting into it.
It stopped as soon as it came. Dean opened his eyes in a yelp, panting, shaking.
He blinked. And blinked another two times.
Cas was standing in front of the wall that had opened to take him away the first time, seeming as confused as Dean. He looked… good. Normal. Recognizable.
Dean could do nothing but stare.
His eyes were fine, he wasn't blinded anymore, but he could swear Cas was glowing with a beyond human yet gentle beam. It wasn't mystical, it wasn't his grace, it was… it was only Cas' skin, his presence. His life.
It illumed Dean.
A short, honest and dear smile broke through Cas' face. "Hello, Dean."
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