we will always end up here

“You changed me, Dean.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, though he doesn’t even know what he’s saying. “Thanks for that.”

In one fluid motion he slams the blade into the heart of his target. It slides in with no resistance, only stopping when it’s buried to the hilt, as far as it can go, but it has no effect.

Dean looks up into a stranger’s face that’s so familiar he could pick it out of a crowd of a million people. Eyes so vibrantly blue he wants to drown in them. A self-satisfied smirk that makes him want to punch the guy’s face, even as a phantom pain of broken knuckles bursts over the back of his hand.

The ringing in Dean’s ears increases in pitch and volume and he staggers back from the sound, holding his head in his hands.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

“Cas?” Dean whispers, finally feeling in control of his voice.

The stranger – his best friend – pauses at that, and his head tilts to one side as he pulls the blade free from his chest and drops it to the ground with a loud clang.

Dean barely registers Bobby taking a swing, and the easy way he goes down after a quick touch of his forehead, because it feels like if he lets go of his head it might explode.

“Cas?” Dean says again, looking into the face of a man that he both doesn’t know and knows better than anybody. There’s an almost ghostly reflection overlaid onto him, except this version looks older, with deep crinkles in the corners of his eyes, and he’s both crying and smiling. It makes Dean’s chest ache fiercely.

Don’t go. Don’t leave me. I love you too! Why can’t I say it!

Like an elastic band snapping into place, the ground suddenly feels solid under Dean’s feet and the ringing sound vanishes, leaving him finally clearheaded. He gasps in a desperate breath and for the first time realises where he is.

It can’t be…

It’s the barn where they met.

Shards of glass from the broken lights are scattered across the floor, glittering in the shadows, sigils and protective charms have been hastily painted along the walls, and there he stands amongst it all, drowning in his trench coat – Castiel, Angel of the Lord.

The last thing Dean remembers is sitting on the cold, hard floor of the dungeon, choking on his own sobs, while his heart shattered inside his chest.

How…

Cas’s eyes narrow as he stares intensely at him, and his eyebrows scrunch together. “Your soul… it’s older than your body… that’s not possible,” he rumbles. “Are you time travel-”

He’s cut off as Dean lunges at him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and burying his face into the crook of his neck. He smells so strongly of ozone that it makes Dean’s sinuses hurt. But he’s here. It’s Cas. He’s alive.

Dean laughs wildly, afraid that he’ll cry if he doesn’t let out some of the energy crackling inside him. “Maybe!” he almost yells into Cas’s coat collar. “Fuck, maybe I’m time travelling, maybe I’m dreaming, maybe I died on that fucking dungeon floor, but you were- and I just-” He thinks of Cas’s contented smile as he was sucked into the black void of the Empty and holds on even tighter.

Cas feels like a living statue beneath him, but the pulse in his neck kicks up a notch just before he throws Dean off and steps backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste.

It had always been that way with Cas – the cracks in his façade, the imperfections, the humanity. Even now, even when he’s as perfect a soldier as he can be, there were always cracks.

“You should-” Cas starts, straightening up to his full height, and clearly trying to shake off how much this interaction is clearly not going how he planned.

“Show you some respect? Buddy, you don’t know how much of my respect you have. God, I never even told you. I should have told you. You thought-” Dean says, barely coherent, running a hand through his hair, “-you thought you were always the player that could be swept off the board and nobody would care. Well, I care! You son of a bitch!”

Cas stares at him like he can’t understand a word he’s saying, which is fair, he supposes, he’s not making much sense.

How can he be back here again, with all his memories intact?

Dean stares hard at the younger Castiel and the fierceness of his love almost takes his breath away. It doesn’t matter that Cas doesn’t know him yet, it doesn’t matter that he’s still loyal to Heaven right now, it doesn’t even matter that Dean still has no idea how he got back here – none of that matters.

If this is his second chance to do better by Cas, to stop him from dying, or from taking in the Leviathan, from losing his mind helping Sam, being a vessel for Lucifer, making that stupid deal with the Empty… If this is his chance to tell him how much he’s loved, to know how much he’s loved – Dean’ll take it.

Cas’s eyes widen.

Dean doesn’t know if he’s reading his mind or looking at his soul, but whatever Cas sees has him flee in a flurry of wingbeats. Gone.

Even that feels achingly familiar, and Dean has to laugh again, trying to convince himself that the tears he rubs away fiercely with his arm are just from laughing too hard.

If he’s really in the past it means he’s got a second chance to stop the impending apocalypse and keep Sam from the Cage too.

He’s going to have his cake and eat it, dammit.