Dean is shocked when he feels the nail pierce him so deeply. Pain blossoms, a shocked groan escapes. Sam makes eye contact as he whirls, his opponent dead on the ground behind him. Horror immediately mirrors between the brothers eyes as Sam rushes over, scrambling to help. But he’s already seen. It’s too late. They both know it. Brothers clench onto each other wordlessly with ragged breaths. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Then the last thing they expected to hear: the soft, familiar beat of an angel’s wings.

Standing there in the trench coat and backwards tie, a pained and vastly worried look on his familiar face: Castiel. He’s already moving forward, and without being told Sam stands aside. Dean wheezes out Cas’s name weakly even as the angel who raised him from Perdition takes him by both arms and silently communicates worlds. Dean holds onto Cas, too. With a painful pull and loud exclamation of pain, Dean lets himself be pulled off the nail he was impaled on. Even as he collapses into the angel, he feels the wound evaporate, the pain vanish. And breathlessly, Dean grabs Cas and pulls back to look at him, stunned. How can he be back?

There’s tears in Cas’s eyes, a tender smile on his face. So much between them is unsaid and unknown. And screw it all, Dean denied this to himself a thousand times, but after losing Cas that last time and remaining haunted by an ‘I love you’ he’d been too cowardly to respond to... he’s done fighting it. He can’t live like that anymore. But he doesn’t exactly know how to word himself. “Didn’t get a chance to say it back,” he finally manages softly, hoping for now, it’s enough. Understanding ripples across Cas’s face—emotion grows. He puts a careful hand onto Dean’s face. There’s no mistaking the tenderness in the touch, a tenderness that brings tears to Dean’s eyes too. I love you too. It was never part of the plan, but hell. That’s his life, isn’t it? Maybe some things sneak up on you in a good way.

And despite everything—his fear of being judged, his brother nearby, his fragile self-view... Dean Winchester has no other choice than to follow the feelings that are clamboring so loudly at him. Slow and cautious, making sure Cas is receptive, he leans in with a racing heart and fears of being rejected. But he should have known better. The angel looks absolutely stunned in the best of ways, readily meeting him halfway. It’s a kiss that has been years overdue. Simple, soft, lingering. It says more than Dean can at the moment.

Standing back with a surprised but touched look, Sam Winchester watches a moment that was so dark and hopeless shift to something beautiful and full of promise.