Destiel, kinda 15x18 coda, gratuitous fluff. Clowning hours are OPEN, people.
It feels like it happens in slow motion.
Cas has stumbled to his feet, touching his chest and trenchcoat like he’s confused by their tangibility. He turns just in time for Jack to tackle-hug him, and for Sam to lope over and wrap his freakishly long arms around them both. Dean thinks they’re laughing, but it’s hard to tell over the rushing in his ears. He feels like he’s walking through molasses.
There are so many things he wants to say, but the words get caught in his throat like an inconvenient, gay traffic jam and it’s all he can do to put one foot in front of the other. Sam and Jack drift away. Cas turns.
And then it’s just the two of them.
Cas looks—alive, which is really all that matters. Same blue eyes, same wild dark hair, same clothes. He’s wearing this beaming smile that’s fading in his mouth but staying in his eyes, despite the fact that his shoulders start to tense. He is deliberately, inhumanely still. He’s nervous, Dean realizes.
Dean’s thought about this a lot. Years. He’s lost sleep over it; not only his own confession, but the idea of… them together; how that would work, what it’d look like. It’s been a source of anxiety and comfort and desire, and now that everything’s over, now that he gets to have his big friggin’ moment, everything he’s ever imagined flies out the goddamn window.
Dean moves before he understands what he’s doing, crushing Castiel to his chest, arms tight around his shoulders, squeezing squeezing if only to convince himself that this is real, he’s here, he’s alive, he’s here. It takes a breath for Cas to hug back, but he does, seemingly content to stay there forever which—sure, but no, because Dean reaches up with one stupid, shaking hand to cradle the back of Cas’s skull, and then he pulls away with just enough space to look into those dumb, gorgeous, blue eyes and—
Sure, there’s the first one; hard and dry and desperate. Clinging. But then there’s another, and another, and he’s calling Cas an asshole and an idiot and saying shit like don’t you ever do that again. And they keep kissing, because now that Dean’s started, he can’t stop; he wants to kiss this man until he gets fucking stubble burn and then kiss him some more. Wants to take him out on a date. Wants to take him to bed.
“How could you—after everything—”
Cas twists his fingers into Dean’s overshirt.
Cas nods against his mouth.
And then Dean’s gay traffic jam becomes decidedly un-stuck.
He wrenches away, hands pressing to Cas’s chest when he tries to follow. He’s gorgeous like this; disheveled and flushed to hell, and Dean spares a moment to be embarrassed for them both when Cas drifts forward again like he just can’t help himself. Dean’s fingers press against his reddened lips. “You’re oblivious,” he breathes. His hand moves to trace the line of his brow, the apple of his cheek. Cas watches him raptly, caught somewhere between elation and awe. Dean thumbs the bolt of his jaw. “You need to pay better attention.”
Cas clutches at his wrist. “Dean—”
“How could you ever think I don’t love you?”
Cas flounders, mouthing moving like a fish out of water. “I-I’ll endeavor to do better in the future,” he says. Swallows thickly. Watches as Dean drifts close and brushes their mouths together in an impression of a kiss, something vulnerable and delicate and fucking terrifying.
“…Good,” Dean says. “I—I’ll do that, too.”
