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Cas’ name was on his lips when Dean’s eyes flew open and his room came into dark focus. He couldn’t breathe. No, he felt like he couldn’t breathe. His chest was constricting rapidly and he knew he was hyperventilating but he couldn’t get his lungs to work right.
“Cas” kept gasping out of him, ragged and desperate and feeling like a prayer.
It was too dark in his room. He wondered if this is what it felt like for Cas when the empty came for him, shrouding him in black tar. Did Cas choke on it? Did it feel like the air was being sucked from the room? Did he regret loving Dean once he was surrounded by nothing for eternity?
The door to his room flew open, blinding light from the hall slicing through Dean’s unadjusted eyes. He squinted at the figure in the doorway as it moved toward him. Dean knew he should reach for a knife, a gun, fucking something, but he was still half in the throes of the nightmare and too out of it to defend himself.
It was like a dam broke. Dean drew in his first real gulp of air as if it had been blown into his chest by an outside force. A hand landed on his shoulder, the touch grounding in a familiar way that Dean couldn’t help but lean into, and he was too tired to keep pretending he didn’t want to.
“Cas,” he said, this time filled with relief and not bleeding desperation.
Dean still couldn’t believe it. It was really Jack’s doing, mostly, Dean just sacrificed his coat to the cause. But the kid had managed to once again drag Cas back out of the empty and return him whole with a shiny new pair of wings to boot.
“Sorry,” he managed to say, voice hoarse— it felt scrubbed raw. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Dean didn’t actually know what Cas got up to at night while he and Sam slept. He honestly thought Cas just sat in a chair and stared at the wall until they woke up, but he knew that wasn’t true. Cas wasn’t a robot.
“Still. Sorry.” It was an apology for so many other things.
I’m sorry you have to deal with me like this.
I’m sorry you think you learned something from me about humanity or whatever, but I’m not who you think I am.
I’m sorry you loved me so much that it killed you.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Cas insisted. “Are you okay?”
Dean shrugged, suddenly self conscious. Embarrassment crept up his neck, tinting his cheeks pink. “‘M fine.”
Cas looked at him in that way he had. The one that told Dean to cut the crap. They’d known each other too long to waste time pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t.
“You were calling out for me,” Cas said.
The warmth of his palm was still seeping through Dean’s shirt, touching a long-faded handprint that seemed to want to rise to the surface again from the contact. Dean wished it would.
“Yeah,” Dean agreed instead of denying it.
“You sounded upset,” Cas prompted.
So, he was going to drag it out of Dean. Hiding was no longer an option between them and Cas was clearly hell-bent on making sure Dean had no sand to bury his head under.
“Yeah,” Dean said again. He never said he was going to make this easy.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“You’re here and not dead so there’s nothin’ to talk about,” Dean replied.
Cas’ hand finally dropped from his shoulder. The cold he left behind burned somewhere deep in Dean’s core; his soul.
“Yes,” he said, but he sounded distant.
Dean wanted to reach for him. He’d been aching for it since Cas came back over a month ago, their reunion hug hadn’t been enough. Dean had also rejected Cas a week later when they’d had their one and only talk about what had happened. Dean didn’t deserve to want anything from him after that.
He was probably the stupidest person on the planet. Cas wanted to be with him. Cas loved him and Dean had thrown it back in his face even though he knew he loved him back.
He loved Cas so much it hurt. The stinging kind of hurt, not the good hurt, not the press of a finger into a bruise to feel the ache as it healed or the satisfaction of picking off a scab just to watch it bleed. No, it was the kind of hurt that felt like a brand. White-hot lightning and the spark of a live wire; swollen and unattractive and something that Dean never wanted to let see the light of day.
Cas didn’t deserve Dean’s love if it hurt.
Dean had been through many painful ordeals in his lifetime, being a hellhound’s chew toy hurt a heck of a lot less than whatever the fuck he was feeling for Cas. Some days he was sure he would choke on it, tonight had come pretty close.
Cas took a step away from the bed, straightening up as if he just realized how close they were. “Well, if you’re okay I should let you sleep.”
There must have been something on Dean’s face because Cas actually paused, head tilting to the side, assessing him. “Unless you want the company.”
Hell yeah Dean wanted the company. Contrary to popular belief, Dean fucking hated being alone. Don’t get him wrong, he loved his room and his own space, but he was fucking lonely. He’d never admit that out loud, but these days with Sam off with Eileen most nights and it being just him and Cas in the bunker yet somehow miles apart, Dean felt like he was being hollowed out.
“Nah man, don’t wanna keep you from your book reading or whatever it is you’re up to.”
“I wasn’t up to anything,” Cas replied, still looking at Dean as if he could stare at him long enough and Dean would come apart like a jigsaw puzzle that could be put back together in a way that made sense. “If you’d like me to stay, I will.”
Dean couldn’t ask for it. His mouth wouldn’t form the words, but his body betrayed him. He nodded.
Cas didn’t say a word he simply closed the door and then sat down in Dean’s desk chair. He was too far away but Dean wasn’t about to beg the angel into his bed.
It felt like old times, being watched over. Cas’ presence was comforting. Still, Dean struggled to fall back asleep. The image of Cas being swallowed whole flashed behind his eyelids every time he tried to settle down. His questions came back with the vision and he finally couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Did it hurt?” he asked into the dark.
“Did what hurt?” Cas replied. And Dean couldn’t see him but he was sure the angel had tipped his head to the side, his brow forming that crease that Dean had grown fond of as he squinted his eyes in confusion.
“Dying,” Dean breathed out.
“The recent one.” He couldn’t even let himself think about talking about the other times he’d lost Cas. He still saw Lucifer’s blade piercing his chest sometimes, just another nightmare to join the rest.
There was a rustling of fabric and then the bed dipped as Cas sat down. A moment later the lamp turned on and the room was flooded with light, illuminating Cas in what Dean could only describe as a halo. He looked ethereal; beautiful.
Cas smiled softly at him, blue eyes boring into him with earnest intention. “No, it didn’t hurt.”
Dean’s first instinct was to confront Cas’ lie. But Cas was looking at him in the same way he had on that day, with nothing but pure honesty, and Dean couldn’t pick a fight. He was so tired of fighting, especially with Cas.
“What was it like there?” Dean had to know. All Cas had ever told him before was that it was nothing, but what did nothing mean?
Cas seemed to think about it for a moment, gaze flitting over Dean’s face as he did so. “It was the absence of everything,” he said. “No warmth, no cold, no light… no love.”
Again, Dean wanted to pull Cas to him, to gather him up and never let him go. “That sounds awful.”
“It was, but I was content knowing you were safe.”
“And you don’t regret it?”
“Dean, the only regrets I have are over how many times I’ve hurt you. I would fly through hell again for you without a second thought.” Cas sighed, pained. “I know you don’t return my affections, but you should know that I think I loved you even then, even before I saw you in hell.”
A tear slipped down Dean’s cheek. “How could you love me after you saw what I did there?”
Cas’ hand came up to his face, his thumb wiping the tear away. “You were so beautiful, the only light in that dark place, beaten and bloody, yes, but Dean… you were shining. I remember thinking that of course it was you, if anyone could stop it you could. I didn’t know then that I would fall, but I think I knew that if you called for me I would answer.” Cas’ hand fell away and the ache inside Dean flared up.
It would be so easy to tell him how he felt. He could have everything he ever wanted, but who was he to claim an angel for himself? Heaven and Earth were never meant to touch like that. Dean would end up corrupting Cas even more and he didn’t deserve that. Cas deserved someone better.
“I’m sorry.” Another apology, another cop out, another plea for forgiveness.
“You lost everything ‘cause of me, Cas. Your family, your standing with the angels, your home. It was all my fault.”
Cas shook his head. “No, Dean. I made choices–”
“Because of me!” And then, quieter, “You said it yourself. It was all because of me.”
“No,” Cas said, firm and with conviction.
Dean faced him head on. “Come on, you’re really telling me if you didn’t rescue me from hell that you wouldn’t still be up there?”
“I was always defective,” Cas replied evenly. “Chuck said it himself.”
“Chuck’s a dick. You’re–” perfect “–awesome.”
Cas blushed, not a lot, just enough for Dean to feel the warmth radiate back on him. It felt like a victory. “Before you, I didn’t have anything to fight for. You were the only thing they couldn’t take from me. I always found my way back to who I really was because of you. You’re my compass, and without you I’m lost.”
“Oh.” Say it. Say it. Say it. “Uh, I get that.”
Dean nodded. “Yeah, I mean… when you’re not here it feels like…I don’t know. I can’t breathe.”
Cas stared at him. It was nothing new, Cas stared at him a lot, but this time it was like he might understand what Dean wasn’t saying. “Dean…”
Dean knew his chin was wobbling, that tears were half a second away from spilling from his waterline, but he needed Cas to know how much he meant to him. The words rolled up his throat and settled on his tongue. “I–” Coward.
Dean scoffed, frustrated. “It’s not. Cas you— you have to know—”
“I do.” Dean was wrong, Cas didn’t understand. He was being kind and trying to save Dean the trouble of rejecting him twice.
“No, Cas. I have to say this. I have to, ‘cause you think I don’t love you and you’re wrong.”
Cas froze, eyes widening. “What?”
Dean could do it, he’d basically already done it so it should be easy now. “You’re everything to me, Cas, and I need you to get that because I can’t stand another minute of you thinking you somehow don’t deserve me. It’s the other way around by a fucking thousand miles.”
“Dean, I don’t… what are you saying?”
It was now or never. “I love you.”
Dean watched hope spark in Cas’ eyes and then die within seconds. “I know,” he said. The unspoken but not how I love you hung in the air.
Dean couldn’t take it anymore. He reached for Cas and pulled him in for a kiss. Cas let out a startled noise but Dean didn’t give him long enough to really kiss back before he was pulling away. “I love you,” he said, eyes searching blue. “Do you get it now?”
Cas looked so beautiful, his lips wet, his hair spiky from Dean’s fingers, and his pupils blown wide. “I don’t understand. You said–”
“I was being an idiot. I thought I was protecting you.”
“Dean, I don’t need protecting, least of all from you.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t deserve someone trying. I can’t take losing you again, Cas. I thought it would be easier if we were just friends, but it’s not. I’m fucking dying here.”
Cas leaned in this time, a soft press of lips and a hand cradling the back of his neck. “I’m very interested in keeping you alive,” Cas said against his mouth. Cas moved to press a kiss to his cheek, his neck, his jaw, and Dean bared himself to him, hardly daring to move. “Breathe,” Cas commanded.
Dean exhaled just enough to get out one word, “Cas.” Dean drank him in, drunk on oxygen, drunk on Cas.
Cas’ pulse jumped under Dean’s hand when he moved it to hold Cas’ neck. It was thready, and loud, and so so alive.
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