There's a degree of difficulty in dealing with me

But love? True love? That isn’t something Dean’s felt before. Of course when he realized what it was, it was too late. He was too late.

I love you, Cas. Of course I love you. And yet, Cas died without ever hearing those words back.

After hearing “hello, Dean” countless times the words repeating — screaming — in his brain aren’t those... it’s “goodbye, Dean”. It hurts... more than he can ever explain to Sam — to anyone.

Even hearing that God’s taken everyone else, Dean’s too hollow to care. He’d trade them all. Every last one. For Cas.

Maybe that makes him a bad “hero”. Maybe it means he isn’t the man Cas believed him to be but it doesn’t matter. Cas believed it. And Dean realizes all too late that that is enough.

Cas... is enough.

Child: grandma what does this have to do with the 2020 election

Me:

He’d take that death…

He’d take her and Chuck and Amara, and every other monster he’d ever faced, he’d take them all on at once. He’d face them down right here and now if it meant that he could go back to the moment before Castiel said goodbye. The moment just before, the moment when the angel was happiest; and Dean—in the midst of all his heartache and dread, God help him, he was at his happiest too, because that little bit of darkness inside him, the bit that never went away no matter how many wars they won, or how many beers he drank, or women he slept with or delicious meals he ate … the moment that Castiel smiled through his tears, the moment he told Dean everything he needed to hear, and everything he never knew he wanted to hear, that was the moment that that darkness finally disappeared, and Dean had never felt so relieved in all his life. He had never known what it was like to be truly weightless and unburdened; but then … he blinked, and it was nothing but darkness again. A dark cloak followed by a dark ooze, followed by the dark gasp and suffocating grasp of death and nothingness all swallowing each other up in one sickening gulp, leaving him alone to be swallowed whole by the knowledge that what he’d been looking for all his life, was right there in front of him—and the moment he finally realized it, it was gone.

Cas was gone.

Sam’s calling.

Cas is gone.

The world is ending.

Cas is gone.

He wants to scream… but Cas is gone, so what’s the point? What’s the point in anything anymore?

Cas is gone, and Dean feels himself going too.

Sam calls again.

Dean drops his head into his hands.

“Cas?” he whispers.

No answer.

No answer because Cas was the answer, he was his answer—to everything. “Cas” Dean sobs, shaking heavy and cold against the dungeon floor. “Cas … Ca …” he breaks.

All these years— through all the wars, with all the loss and pain and torture, he thought he knew what it was to be truly broken.

“Cas!”

He thought he knew … he thought …