Chapter Text
“Why does this sound like a goodbye?”
Boom.
The sound of the door being rammed reverberates between them.
“Because it is.”
Something shifts, in the way Cas looks at him. It’s fond, and knowing, and unbearable.
No, no, no—
"I love you."
"Don't do this, Cas," Dean tries, and now they are both crying.
Cas smiles at him, beatific, takes a deep breath before he huffs it all out in one big, shaky exhale. He’s shining, from the inside, brighter than the sun and so happy, so happy.
Boom.
A portal shifts and slurps itself into existence.
Cas’ words ring in Dean’s ears. When I experienced a moment of true happiness, the Empty would be summoned and it would take me forever.
The door slams open and Billie is right there, murderous intent clear in her every move as she approaches them.
This is all happening too fast, all at once, and how is Dean supposed to find an answer, find something meaningful to say when all he has left are precious seconds?
There's a tearful but proud smile on Cas' lips as he grips Dean's shoulder and says, "Goodbye, Dean," as if these are the last words Dean is supposed to hear from him. Heavy, poignant, definitive.
After all of… everything he just told Dean?
After all of that he's just going to skip town? When Dean hasn't even unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth to give him a proper reply?
Oh, hell, no.
Dean jostles himself out of his daze to make a split-second decision. Digs his heels in, loops his right arm around Cas' middle and tackles him like this is a rugby game; dislodges him completely as dark, gooey tentacle-y extensions shoot out of the portal and over their heads.
They stumble and fall and watch as Billie is wrapped up in black ooze. The portal pulses as it swallows her, and then it vanishes.
The door, its lock in pieces, splinters everywhere, creaks where it teeters on its bottom hinge. There's some kind of static in the air.
After all the noise, the swish and wet slurps of the portal, Billie slamming against the door, again and again, the rumble of Cas’ voice, so warm and full of adoration — after all of that, the silence of the room is deafening, their breathing the only sound cutting through.
Cas sits on the floor, his back against one of the shelves, one knee propped up, and stares at Dean with wide eyes.
Billie is gone.
The portal is gone.
They are safe.
Just like that?
Dean can’t meet Cas’ eyes. They are too blue.
"Now what?" he asks, on his knees in front of Cas, still breathless, wiping tears from his cheeks as he looks around, waiting for the Empty to notice its mistake and return to snatch Cas away from him, after all.
Please, please, don’t, don’t — let me — please don’t take him , he mutters, silently, to himself, to nobody, his lips barely moving.
Closes his eyes, waits for the portal to reappear, can’t bear to watch it open again.
It doesn't.
Panic rises in Dean’s chest, dark and all-consuming, like he didn’t realize what the portal meant before and it only slams into him now, with the force of an eight-wheeler with a demon at the steering wheel.
Cas isn’t supposed to be here. Cas is supposed to be gone, along with Billie, and Dean — he would’ve been sitting here, all alone, knowing he’s… knowing about Cas’ feelings, and without a chance in the world to respond. Silent, and silenced.
But Cas isn’t gone. Cas is sitting right in front of Dean, shell-shocked and nervous and unsure. Waiting to still be taken by the Empty.
And despite a few long, long moments of Dean staring at him, drinking him in, looking his fill, nothing happens.
After a minute or so, Dean allows himself to breathe again.
"That was too easy," he states, while Cas is apparently still stunned into silence. Shit, this was a close call, like, way too close.
“Dean,” Cas says, on the exhale, like a broken prayer of disbelief.
Yeah, this didn’t exactly go down how Cas planned, did it?
And yet Cas doesn’t seem as elated as he should be, in Dean’s opinion.
Really, what did he expect to happen? Was Cas seriously just going to sacrifice himself, leave Dean all alone, to deal with that, to deal with a… Jesus. Dean can’t even think. After dropping the big L-word. Where would that have left him? A broken mess, all alone. Again.
Frankly, he’s watched Cas walk into lakes, get stabbed by demons, reapers, Lucifer, or finger-snapped out of the realm of the living one too many times.
“Don’t you ‘Dean’ me, you self-sacrificing asshole,” Dean snaps at him, all righteous fury now. “What the fuck was that, huh? What were you up to, just dump this onto me and then… just leave? How many times do I need to tell you? Don’t ever do that to me again.”
He knows it’s a defense mechanism. His anger usually is. Shit, but he has no idea how to deal with any of it.
The most loving person I will ever know. Your anger, that’s not who you are.
Even now, is he scolding Cas — for love? What sense would that make?
None, probably.
Dean can’t think. Can’t think, can’t think. Clutches his temples with both hands, runs his hands through his hair. Sees the bloody handprint on his shoulder and dies a little inside, all over again.
“Okay, Dean,” Cas answers softly, still smiling. It’s not the beatific smile from before, it’s smaller now, shakier. “But the Empty…”
“... if the Empty shows up here, you gotta promise me. We’ll fight it. Tooth and nail. Fuck the Empty, we’ve dealt with it before, we can do it again. We’ll find a way out of that deal you made. You’re not… I can’t…” Dean throws his hands up, gets to his feet on aching, popping knees. Reaches out a hand to offer to Cas.
The blood smeared across his palm reminds Dean of the old Spaghetti Western movies he loved so much as a kid; it makes him think of blood brothers and knows that doesn’t do him and Cas justice. They are a lot: brothers in arms, yes, but also family, thicker than blood, bestest of friends. They are each other's weakness, they are the best pressure point any of their foes can use against them. They were all of that before today, but now…
Now, things are different.
Cas gets up, his hand warm where it clutches Dean’s, his fingers huge and capable and strong. He doesn’t let go even when he is back on his feet. Dean makes sure to catch his eyes this time. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little voice that sounds suspiciously like Sam tells him to ‘fucking communicate for once, Dean.’
Cas has been honest with him, brutally so in his own way, so the least Dean can do is offer him the same courtesy.
Except he can’t.
There’s a knee-jerk reaction on the tip of his tongue, words trying to tumble out of his mouth, words he’s said so often, words he’s been telling himself. Something gentle that would let Cas down easy and break his heart.
So he can’t.
It’s just… a lot. Too much. At least, at this point in time.
“Cas,” Dean starts, instead, firm and reassuring. This, he’s absolutely sure of, but he’s also said it before, so the impact is pallid, uneventful. “I can’t do this without you,” he says around a lighthearted chuckle, “whatever Chuck is planning and everything after that.”
Because there will be an after, there has to be. No matter what it will look like.
Cas’ eyes get big and shiny once again, and he’s still trembling. “Okay, Dean,” he repeats.
Shouldn’t Cas be disappointed? Disappointed that Dean hasn’t fallen into his arms, kissed the air right out of his lungs? Isn’t that what everyone hopes when they declare their feelings?
Dean’s lips are tingling, and he wonders.
What is it that Cas has now, after this, that makes him so happy?
Happiness isn’t in the having. It’s in just being, it’s in just saying it.
That part, Dean didn’t get. The best part is when things fall into place, isn’t it? When you connect with someone, physically. Kissing, touching, sex.
And, oh, Dean’s stomach does a weird somersault at that.
And then his phone rings, with Sam’s name on it. Cas jumps a bit, startled by the noise of the phone humming away in Dean’s pocket.
“They’re gone,” Sam says when Dean picks up, “all of them.”
Dean’s stomach plummets, and the high his brain was buzzing on comes to a sudden, unexpected stop. Cursing under his breath, Dean rubs his hand over his face. “What about Jack?” he asks, pacing around the devil’s trap on the floor.
"He's here. Dean, I don't think Chuck can control him.”
“And… Donna? Charlie?”
Sam is quiet, and Dean can hear him gulping down something unstable, something that shakes him to his bones.
“Fucking Chuck,” Dean mutters, lets the anger well up because he can’t suppress it, not at this point. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. He comes to a stand next to Cas, tilts his head up to stare at the barren concrete ceiling.
“Are you okay?" Sam asks.
Dean breathes, looks at Cas, next to him, eyes so blue and standing so close and not in the Empty and loving him, so openly, that it's like a vice around Dean's heart. He feels exposed and open and see-through and seen. "Yeah. All good."
“What about Billie?”
“Ah, she’s dealt with. Gone. Long story, tell you later. Meet you in Hastings?”
***
“Well, well, well. Now look at that. A present from Clarence?” The Empty drums its fingertips, still in the demon Meg’s borrowed vessel, onto the armrest of its throne. It flicks its fingers, and Billie’s mind powers down, retreating back into her subconscious.
“If that is supposed to be an apology or some kind of sacrifice, you gotta do better, angel.”
Someone hisses, someone moans in their sleep, and there’s a yell, from a place both near and far in this plane of existence.
It’s still so loud, and the sleepers wake in waves. It’s exhausting. And it’s all that nephilim’s fault. Well, by proxy. But at least the wayward reaper who sent him here in the first place, the reaper who tried to play Death, is here now. It’s an odd, unfinished sense of satisfaction.
“Fine,” the Empty snarls. “I do enjoy a bit of poetic justice. I’ll accept your gift, for now.”
That one angel, the one with the blue eyes and the French accent, is particularly vocal and annoying today. The Empty screams, power surges wafting into the realm, beyond a human’s hearing capacity, and manages to knock out a few struggling minds.
Somewhere along its inner wall of consciousness, the Empty watches Castiel, the angel, the one who fell and rebelled and fell again, and all for one man. He’s lucky that it’s entertaining, in a way, to see his dramatic confession fall flat, his perfect moment of true happiness ruined by the missing reciprocation.
“Don’t think I won’t get you one day, Castiel.”
But for the moment, the Empty will sit back and enjoy watching Castiel squirm and suffer through Dean’s non-reaction.
***
Outside, the sun is blinding after all this time in the bunker and in Billie’s library.
Dean drives, because that’s what he knows to do. The road is empty; Baby purrs along the highway. The few cars they see are parked at the side or down in a ditch. Not a single soul is in sight.
“I don’t even see birds,” he notes. “What the hell?”
“No, they are gone. As are the insects,” Cas agrees, squinting into the sun. “He took all life from the planet. The frogs, the rabbits. He even took the bees. Do you know what that means?”
“That he took the bees?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, no, what does that mean?”
Cas’ look is annoyed in a fond way, but he explains patiently, “Bees are vital for the Earth’s ecosystem. Without pollination, there won’t be any fruit growing on the trees any more, for example.”
“What, you’re telling me… no apples? No pie?”
Cas tips his head to the side. “No food, eventually.”
“So you’re saying the planet is doomed?” Dean sums up. “Because of the bees?”
“Among other reasons, yes,” Cas says, looking at his hands, fingers intertwined between his knees. For someone as stoic as him, that’s the equivalent of a nervous tic.
“How long do we have?”
“Let’s not find out.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Dean sighs, so tired of the fourteenth apocalypse in as many years. “Let’s fix it.”
They’ve got half an hour on the road left until they reach Hastings, Minnesota — until they meet up with Sam and Jack.
Dean knows that there’s a lot left unsaid between them and hell will freeze over before he discusses that in front of Sam. Or the kid.
Time to face the music.
“Cas, about what you said…” Dean starts, glances over at the passenger seat.
Cas perks up. “Yes?”
Oh. Oh no. Dean can take a good guess why Cas is reacting like this. He’s hoping, still hoping, irrationally hoping, to hear it back. He’s hoping for Dean to say, ‘hey, me too’. He has to be, right?
Just imagining it makes Dean’s mouth snap shut and his heart stutter in his chest. The implication, the consequences, with the threat of the Empty still lingering, it’s too much.
“You said that…” Deep breaths, Winchester, deep breaths. “When you experienced true happiness, then the Empty would take you?”
“Yes. It was going to take me right then.”
“But it didn’t. Why? We were just off to the side.”
Cas shrugs. “Maybe we got lucky, maybe it took Billie by mistake or on purpose, who knows.”
“That means the deal’s still in play, though. Has to be, right? So the Empty will be back. When you’re happy.”
There’s a soft smile, playing around Cas’ lips, tentative and tenacious. “I am happy.”
Dean’s lungs are suddenly too full with the swarm of butterflies taking up residence in there.
Deep breaths.
“Aside from everything else that happened, of course,” Cas adds, sobering, gesturing to the empty road, empty sky, empty everything, watching Dean from the corner of his eye.
“Of course,” Dean winces as he evades a car that crashed into a lamp post in Northfield. “But why doesn’t the Empty come get you, now? If you’re happy.”
“I don’t know. The deal still stands, like you said, so you have a point. It still might.”
Dean runs his hand across his mouth. He knew, of course he knew, but somehow, he hoped for a loophole to open itself to interpretation. But Cas agreeing? “Fuck. And then what?” Leaving me, after all, to deal with all that?
“Then I’ll stay in the Empty, as per my deal. Which I made, knowing the consequences, knowing I would be taken. That’s why I told you what I told you; if those were the last words I would ever get to say to you, I had to make them count.” His voice is unsteady, and he sighs.
“Cas,” Dean begins, loses his train of thought again. Selfish asshole, one part of his brain complains, while the other part is a fuzzy, purring little thing, thriving on the attention like a cat bathing in the sun on a warm spring morning. “You told me…” You loved me. “That you have all these…” Feelings for me. Dean gestures, helplessly. “What you think of me!”
He can’t even say it.
With a groan, Dean focuses back on the road. Thank fuck it’s empty, or else Dean would’ve wrapped the car around a tree twenty miles back, with how often he’s looking at Cas. The sun does his profile all kinds of favors.
“And I stand by that.”
“I don’t get it!” Dean blurts out. “What part of that makes you happy? I couldn’t even respond, I don’t even know what to… Cas. Fuck. How does that make you happy?”
The expression on Cas’ face is so unbearably, undeniably enamored that it pulls the rug right out from under Dean’s feet.
“It’s simple,” Cas says, “I don’t need to hide anymore. I can live my truth, knowing that you know.”
But isn’t unrequited love the worst? Dean wants to shout. To be with someone you can’t have. Then again, that’s what Cas has been living with, for years. For more than a decade, maybe. And if he looks closer, he can see the tremble in Cas’ fingertips.
Dean realizes it, right then and there. “You didn’t expect to have to deal with the fallout,” he mutters. “Like, at all.”
“I’d have to lie, to say I did.” Cas hums, scratches the back of his neck.
“Yet, here we are.” Because Dean tackled Cas across the room to evade the goo.
What did Billie say?
You are human disorder incarnate.
She’s not wrong there.
“Here we are,” Cas agrees, voice heavy with gravitas.
Silence spreads, not even broken by a tape spinning in the tape deck; the world is quiet, like it’s holding its breath, and Dean can relate.
Two dots, two very important dots, clash and connect in Dean’s brain. “And I can’t,” he says.
“Can’t what?”
“I mean. I couldn’t. If I…” he waves a hand from Cas to himself and back. “Even if I wanted to, you know, tell you, uh. What you told me. That’d make you truly happy, right?”
“Like you cannot imagine,” Cas says, the cadence of his words flowing down Dean’s spine in a way that makes goosebumps rise on his arms.
Dean thinks of Cas’ tear-filled, smiling eyes, shining, glowing with the power of having bared his heart to Dean. Thinks of the lump in his throat, the cork bottling up all the feelings inside of himself, thinks of the immense pressure in that situation, how he almost felt himself overflowing. Feeling everything, all at once and all too much, rendering himself speechless.
Trust me, I can.
Dean shakes off the thought. “And if you’re truly happy, the Empty will come.”
“Yes.” It’s flat, almost deadpan. Like Dean is stating something that Cas has known for…
Oh. He has known for years.
What a weight to bear.
He sounds small, defeated, when he adds, “But I know I can’t have it, so that’s not something you need to worry about.”
“That’s not—” Dean breaks off, fingers clenching around the steering wheel. Not the point, but it’s also not the point that this isn’t the point. “Point is, I need you here. We need you. Sam and Jack, we need you here. We need to stop Chuck.”
“And I can’t get myself taken by the Empty before that,” Cas agrees, nodding.
“Exactly,” Dean says. “And you can’t be taken before we have a plan to deal with your deal. We need to get you out of that.”
There’s no time for romance in a hunter’s life, and if you find it, it’s one more weakness to be exploited by the bad guys. It has always been that way, and it will always stay that way.
It’s also tearing him apart.
It’s a minor miracle that Sam found Eileen and was able to save her once, and that’s why it’s even more cruel that she’s been taken from him, yet again, as if the first time wasn’t cruel enough.
Again, Dean can relate.
Fucking Chuck.
“Why are you so adamant about breaking that deal?” Cas wants to know.
Because there’s no point in fighting for a world without you in it.
Dean huffs. “Because you deserve to be happy, dumbass.” The insult comes easy as breathing, as easy as the reasoning itself. There’s layers to it, though. Because they all deserve to be happy, dammit, because whenever Dean pictures himself happy, it’s with—
Cas looks at him for a long time. “You know what would make me happy.”
“I do.”
“You know who I love.”
“I do,” Dean says, breathless once more. There’s no arguing about him deserving to be on the receiving end of those feelings, not with Cas. Not after everything he told Dean in the bunker.
He has no idea what Cas is getting at, though.
“So if we break the deal…”
“When we break the deal,” Dean corrects him. “When, not if.”
“Then… Dean.”
“Hmm.”
Cas waits in silence, until Dean looks over and meets his eyes, before he says it. “I love you.”
“Jesus, fuck, Cas,” Dean rasps, turning back to the road, swerving slightly. “You can’t just say these things.”
“Oh, I can.” Giddy with it, Cas turns to look out the windshield, almost cocky.
Yeah, he can, and he kinda earned it, too.
For a second, Dean waits for the portal to appear, black goo swirling in a tornado to pick them up and throw them both into nothingness.
It doesn’t.
Maybe the floor will open up and swallow them.
But that doesn’t happen, either.
“Okay,” Dean blinks at Cas, his blue eyes beautiful and wide and shining. “Okay.”
His heart pitter-patters, and clenches, and stops, and when Cas averts his eyes, Dean realizes two things.
He knew Cas loved him, has known it for a while now, subconsciously and consciously. There’s no way in heaven or hell or anything in-between he would have ever touched the subject with a ten-foot pole. But he knew. Over the years, the evidence has piled up, and Dean chose to ignore all the little hints, all the lingering stares, all the bad guys pointing out Cas’ actions for what they were.
The closest they came to touching the subject was in purgatory. Always purgatory.
So it’s a good thing Dean’s a coward who can’t say it back. He’s always been someone who showed his feelings via actions instead of going around telling people shit. But even that has come to bite him in the ass, this time.
Dean can’t make Cas happy, or he’ll lose him.