Every time he lost Cas, Dean thought it would have to hurt less this time, because he’d already done this. He’d grieved Cas over and over. He’d done this exact same routine of drinking the grief into submission over and over; shouldn’t it get at least a little bit easier with practice?

Nah, of course not. Because this time -

Dean’s jaw clenched so hard he thought his teeth might fracture, but he pried it open to throw back the rest of his glass. 

The words, all those words that Cas had said and Dean hadn’t, were tucked into a box in the center of his chest, some of them laid within with the utmost care, some stomped down until the lid would close. Dean had been putting his shit in boxes for decades, it was how he survived, but this - this was no ordinary box, and matter of fact, it really wouldn’t stay tightly shut.

I love you.

The words echoed through Dean’s head again as he reverently traced his fingers across the A.

He wanted to doubt what that meant, question what kind of love an angel might feel, dissect and analyze every word Cas had said until he could rationalize and explain them all away into shapes that could fit inside Dean’s fucked-up head. But twisting and reasoning what Cas had done for him, said to him, into something small enough that Dean could deserve it, would disrespect the sacrifice Cas had made. 

Another glass of whiskey, more steady swallows putting it away. 

For the hundredth time already, Dean wondered what he would have said if he’d just had time to say something. He’d tried, he’d opened his mouth, but the words were like fucking boulders lodged in his throat, impossible to get out. If he could’ve just had a few fucking minutes to think -

The glass smacked down on the table too loudly in the silence.

Silence. Everything had been so silent since Cas said Goodbye, Dean, since he’d looked into the Empty’s oily black jaws with that beatific smile on his face. Cas had died smiling. And Dean wanted to rage, to scream, to tear through the bunker breaking things, because Cas deserved better, he deserved so much fucking better than being happy over the likes of Dean. Cas deserved to be happy because he was loved; loved by someone who could actually say the words without choking.

Dean’s breath was hitching wetly in his throat as he lifted the next dose of alcohol to his lips. He was making good progress on the bottle - maybe drinking it just a little too fast, actually, but these were extenuating fucking circumstances if ever there were any.

There’s happiness in just saying it. Dean thought about that idea, and for one brief, ugly second he envied Cas. The way he’d just… said everything, it had seemed so... easy. Like so much weight had fallen off him through the catharsis of giving the words over to the air. Like it was… freeing.

Dean opened his eyes to watch his fingertip trace the sharp curves of the S, and he thought.

He was just drunk enough that it sounded like a good idea. After all, it worked last time.

The scrape of the chair legs was like a scream in the quiet, but Dean barely noticed. He just let his clumsy limbs slide down onto the floor, folding onto his knees and leaning his forehead on the cool wood of the table’s edge.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean whispered. “You got your ears on?”

The drink was still in his hand, so he took another swallow. 

“I don’t - fuck, I don’t know if you can hear me in there. Maybe you’re asleep, or maybe you just - can’t, in there, but.” Dean’s throat closed up for a long second, before he was able to unstick his voice with a coarse growl. “You stupid son of a bitch. How could you just -”

No, fuck. He couldn’t - Cas deserved better than that.

Dean’s eyes squeezed shut, and he gave a hard shake of his head. He tossed back the rest of the whiskey, then let the glass go skittering across the floor so he could press both trembling hands flat to his thighs. What… what he would have said, if he’d had the chance.

“You think - you think you haven’t changed me, man? You and Sammy, you’re the only two things I’ve ever had faith in. You pulled me out of hell, you saved me, and - and you never stopped. Every time you come back, it’s like -” 

Dean was gasping with the dizzying rush of honesty, with the cracking of a wall in his chest and the flood of words pouring out from it. Like a plug had been pulled, and now he couldn’t have stopped if he’d tried. 

“You said that good things happen, but - it was you, Cas. You were the good thing that happened to me. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Not - not what you do or - or the wins you get us, but just you. Just you, being here, saves me. I was just -” His hands curled into useless fists. “I was a fuckin’ coward. I wanted to tell you so many times, but I could never get the words out. And then it was always too late.” 

Dean gave a ragged, humorless laugh, and grabbed the bottle for a desperate swig.

“I’m sorry,” Dean groaned, wrecked, “I’m so sorry. I should have said something so long ago. I should have…” Dean shook his head.

“But.” An aching swallow scraped down his throat. “You’ve come back for me so many times, Cas. Just one more time, please. Just give me one more chance to say it back. I won’t waste it this time, I promise. Just.”

Dean’s eyes squeezed shut, spurring a pair of tears to finally slide down his face. “Please, Cas. Come back to me one more time.”

The rest - he couldn’t say the rest to an empty room, and besides, he was crying too hard again to get any more words out. Dean had been right, it was freeing to just say it, to say it, but it was like the freedom of blood running loose from slit wrists. 

Dean slumped to the side, his numb legs sliding out from under him, and you know what, fuck the science of getting drunk. He brought the whiskey bottle to his lips and tipped it all the way back.

***

“Jack!”

He’d almost let the kid walk away, because - because it was fucking weird, alright. The spawn of Satan that Dean and Sam and Cas had raised as their own son was God now, and sure Dean was glad to have somebody with a good heart wearing that title, but - look, it was just weird. He didn’t know what kind of God’s-dad special privileges he had in asking for things.

But he couldn’t just say nothing.

Jack paused, half-turned back, waiting.

Dean swallowed. “Cas,” he said roughly, working to breathe around the terrifying hope in his chest. “Can you bring him back?”

There was a whole universe in the moment that Jack simply stood there, but then the kid just smiled.

Dean opened his mouth to ask “What the fuck does that mean,” but Jack had disappeared in a golden glow before he could get the words out. 

***

As Dean pulled up in front of the bunker, he kept his eyes staring resolutely straight ahead. 

Because he - he could see a smudge of tan in his peripheral vision, and hope was a raw, starving mouth under his breastbone. If he looked and it - it was real, then he’d -

Dean wasn’t sure how long he sat there, motionless, white-knuckling the steering wheel, but eventually Sam cleared his throat. He said something about calling Eileen, then fled the scene as gracefully as someone the size of an elk was capable.

That beige shape moved, came closer, and it was blurry now not just because Dean was refusing to look in that direction, but because his eyes were filling with tears.

Dean looked.

For one long, heartstopping minute, he just looked. Just let himself see Cas standing there in one whole piece, his arms awkwardly hanging by his sides and a dumb, anxious smile on his face as he looked back.

All of Dean’s stillness shattered, and he was scrambling to open the door, to bail out on legs that tried to buckle, stumbling onto his feet and not caring at all what he looked like, how desperate and needy he was. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered except Cas standing there alive and whole in the sunlight.

Dean froze again, both his hands clutching the Impala’s doorframe, because what if Cas hadn’t heard him? What if -

Like he knew, Cas dipped his head in a single nod.

That nod seemed to flip a switch, unlock a deadbolt, and Dean was moving. His feet were crossing the distance between them with quick, forceful strides, and Cas was smiling at him, a big, goofy, gummy smile that had Dean’s heart pounding like a fist on a door. 

It wasn’t destiny or fate or inevitability that brought Dean’s hands up to cradle Cas’s face; it was a choice. It was the first thing Dean Winchester ever got to do with the knowledge that he had free will, that what he was doing was real. 

The second thing he did was cover Cas’s mouth with his own.

As first kisses went, it was maybe a little too frantic, clumsy, like they weren’t sure if they were trying to make out or eat each other alive, and they were both kind of crying. Dean was clawing at Cas’s trenchcoat and Cas was trying to say “Dean” but he wouldn’t give up enough room for it to happen. Their teeth bumped together and their rhythm didn’t quite match, but -

But none of that mattered, because now they had the chance to figure it out. There was nothing biting at their heels, threatening to tear them apart at any second, so they could take as long as they needed to get it exactly right. This wasn’t the only, it was just the first.

And besides, it was still the best kiss of Dean’s life.

One hand wrapped around the back of Cas’s neck, Dean just - just kissed him for one infinite moment, eyes screwed shut and lips molded to the soft warmth of Cas’s mouth. He wanted to say everything with touch, a language he spoke so much more fluently than anything verbal, but that - no, he’d begged for one more chance, and he couldn’t chicken out this time. Not when he knew that Cas actually wanted to hear it.

Dean pulled back, finally, and - fuck, right, he kind of needed to breathe. They were both panting, staring at each other openly, holding on so tight there wasn’t a speck of air between their bodies and wouldn’t be anytime soon.

Looking at Cas’s face, so close and real and fucking beautiful… suddenly, it was easy.

“I love you too,” Dean breathed out, the same time as Cas said, “I’m human.”

“What?” they both said.

Dean blinked, and watched Cas’s throat work with a swallow. “You’re…?”

“Human,” Cas said again, though his voice was rougher this time. “I - I asked Jack to do it. I thought, maybe…”

The hope in Cas’s eyes was enough to break Dean’s heart all over again.

“You’re such a dumbass,” Dean rasped, “for ever thinking you can’t have me.”

Cas laughed, he smiled brighter than Dean had ever seen before, and if there were tears on his face, well, it wasn’t like Dean’s eyes were dry either. He looked so happy, and Dean still couldn’t believe that happiness was because of him, but he was done pushing Cas away. He was done being silent.

Smiling, oh hell, he was smiling so wide and he couldn’t stop, Dean dropped his head forward until their brows leaned together in peace.

If he could make Cas happy, then maybe Dean could let himself be happy too.

***

Dean’s alarm woke him up at the usual time, and he groaned but didn’t bother hitting the snooze before dragging himself up. It wasn’t like he was getting up at six or anything, it was only nine, but lately Dean’s body seemed to be trying to make up for a few decades’ worth of sleep deprivation. 

The dead guy robe was waiting, thrown over the back of a nearby chair, and Dean slipped it on while sticking his feet into his fluffy slippers. Sam had called him creepy for taking the robe with him when they moved out of the bunker, told him to just buy something new, but Dean liked it, okay. And Dean was trying to get used to having things he liked.

He had bought some new things for the house, though, like the coffee maker that could be programmed to turn itself on and have the coffee already waiting when you woke up. It was awesome. 

Dean still liked to make breakfast the old-fashioned way, usually, but he always went and got the coffee first thing. Shuffling to the kitchen before he was even really awake, pouring the coffee, and shuffling back to the bedroom was how Dean’s days started now.

And like he did every morning, Dean set the coffee on the nightstand and then carefully sank onto the edge of the bed.

He liked to just sit here and watch for a minute. Turnabout was fair play and all that, yeah?

Cas’s face was buried in his pillow, the blanket drawn up so high that only a tuft of dark hair was visible, but Dean was kind of crazy about seeing that unruly mess of hair in his bed every morning. 

Their bed. Dean was also still getting used to believing that Cas was staying here, really staying here, that Cas’s name was on the paperwork for their home and the Roadhouse right next to Dean’s. Not that it was his real name, because the Kansas municipal government didn’t accept paperwork written in Enochian, but hell, Dean thought that Cas Winchester was just as good. Probably better.

Sure enough, like clockwork, the lump under the covers stirred and grunted an inquisitive noise after about thirty seconds of coffee perfuming the air. Dean smiled as a squinty face peered over the edge of the blanket.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Dean murmured, reaching up to run his fingers through that riotous bedhead now that he wouldn’t get snapped at for it. His other hand grabbed Cas’s coffee mug and brought it within easy reach. Cas had decided he like mornings even less his second time around as human.

The former angel made a sound that could have, conceivably, been Morning as he sat up on one elbow and eagerly accepted the coffee with a loud slurp. Dean smiled wider, laughed softly, and leaned in to press his lips into that tousled mess of hair. 

Yeah, Dean was whipped, he acted like a mortifyingly smitten fool a solid eighty percent of the time, but it was like the sleep deprivation thing. He had years to make up for.

Dean made sure, now, that it was the last thing Cas heard before he went to sleep and the first thing he heard when he woke up. Made sure that he said it, for his own sake, over and over again, hoping that one day it might start to feel like enough times, wondering if it would ever stop feeling like the first time.