Cas stares at Dean. Blinks. Stares. Blinks again. Tears drip onto the cold floor, leaving tracks down both his cheeks.
“No,” Cas says, “no, you can’t.”
The undulating pile of black goo emerging from the portal behind him stops. Death’s knocks on the door echo into nothingness. The dungeon’s stale air is stifling. It’s as if the room has become a void, a vacuum, a place free of both time and space.
Dean finally says it — it’s his last chance— and Cas says no?
Cas’s hand— still bleeding, still warm— tightens around Dean’s shoulder. “You can’t. You can’t because then— “
“What?” Dean gestures to the stationary mass of Empty tentacles halfway out the portal, looking like some kind of demented sculpture, and scoffs. “It’d make you truly happy?”
And it’s not fair to say. Dean knows it’s not fair to say but Dean’s mad, Dean’s furious, because Cas had planned to leave him. Again.
Sometimes Dean forgets he’s not the only being capable of anger.
“How dare you.” Cas seethes. He hisses his words. His fingers dig into Dean’s flesh through his outer layers. Cas is strong. Sometimes Dean forgets that, too, with how gentle he can be. “How dare you say that. After all this time. After—“
Cas cuts off and pulls away from Dean. Dean’s shoulder tingles. He already misses the touch.
Cas walks away from Dean but he doesn’t have far to go. There’s Death to the left of him and the Empty to the right. He’s stuck in the middle with Dean.
Racking his hands through his hair, the air around Cas crackles in light blue shocks of grace. He’s not just angry. He’s pissed.
Because Dean said he loves him.
Well, that’s one way to keep Cas from leaving.
Dean laughs— shouldering shaking, chest heaving, hands on his knees— because what else is he supposed to do?
Cas’s head snaps up. “What?”
Straightening his posture, Dean wipes the corners of his eyes dry. “This is all one big cosmic joke, isn’t it?” At Cas’s head tilt, Dean continues, “I finally say the three little words and I ruin your perfect moment of happiness.”
Cas rolls his eyes then throws up his hands. “Well, you weren’t supposed to reply!”
This time, Dean stares at Cas. Blinks. Stares. Blinks again. He opens his mouth with a gasp. “You were just gonna say that and— and die. You were gonna leave me here!”
Cas purses his lips and looks down at his shoes.
“You bastard,” Dean says.
“I’m the bastard?” Cas closes the scant distance between them, close enough that Dean can see the lines of anger pulling down Cas’s dry lips, feels the heat of his breath when he spits, “You let me spend a decade destroying my reputation among heaven, left me to— to—“ He stutters his way to a full word. “Pine for you all this time and now you want to call me the bastard?”
Dean reaches out, grabs Cas by the coat lapels, and catches a glimpse of red in his peripheral vision. He looks down at his shoulder and sees the shape of a bloody handprint, stark against the green canvas coat.
Dean meets Cas’s eyes and he’s looking at him— really looking at him— with a mixture of hope, love, frustration, adoration and anger and fuck Dean loves him.
“I guess we’re a couple of bastards, then,” Dean whispers.
“In love,” Cas adds, his voice near silent, breathless.
Dean holds Cas’s face between his hands, strokes his thumb over Cas’s lower lip. “Yeah. A couple of bastards in love.”
When Dean kisses Cas, time starts again. The dungeon door cracks and splinters and Death comes calling. The dark shadows swirl through the portal, long tendrils groping forward.
Cas pays no attention to the chaos around them. He watches Dean.
“This fight is not over,” Dean says.
Dean takes Cas’s hand and, together, they run.
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