janie_tangerine | cowt 11 sett 7 M4: hell is living without you (dean/castiel, pg13)

“Cas?”

No answer, of course.

Dean stands on the side of the highway, shaking his head, wondering what the hell he’s even thinking here. What’s even the point? They won. Chuck is defeated, the world is restored, Jack is gone where he belongs, he supposes, maybe, supposedly, but he trusts him to do well, he does, and his brother is in the bunker making up for lost time with Eileen who came back, good that she came back, and —

And Cas hasn’t.

“Cas, fuck’s sake,” he rasps, throwing his beer bottle to the side of the road, not even caring about where it lands, “I can’t do this the fourth time. I can’t. No one — no one told you you could do it. Who gave you the fucking right?”

No answer.

Sure.

It’s not like the Empty would just — spit him back now, would it, not when he — why the fuck can’t they stop making deals over and over and over again?

He hates it. He hates it, and —

“You didn’t even leave me time to answer, you bastard,” he keeps on — he’s drunk and Sam has his damned happiness back and he got his own taken from him in front of his fucking eyes, he thinks he has a right to it. “And you just dumped it all on me without — without — couldn’t you have fucking said,” he sobs, biting down on his lip, his hands clasped in between his knees.

“I’d have —” He sobs again, shakes his head, goes on. “Were you such a fucking coward that you couldn’t tell me before? Then again, why would you. I don’t know if I could have told you first.”

He sighs, shrugs again, wraps his jacket tighter around himself.

“I’d have said me too,” he whispers, feeling like someone grabbed his heart in a squeeze and pulled and tore it out of his chest, nothing ever hurt this fucking bad, not Hell, not torturing people, nothing ever, nothing ever did as much as this, his stomach contorting on itself in pain, his throat tightening, his eyes burning and burning and burning, because he had — he had — god, he hadn’t known he could have Cas like that and knowing it was right within his grasp and now he’s gone and he can’t even go and get him out himself because how the fuck he’s going to the Empty now, how could he, it’s just out of it, and —

“You fucking bastard,” he sobs again, “if you had gone to Hell, I’d have fucking followed you there. If I knew how to follow you there, I would. I wanted to follow you, when you went. And you didn’t even let me. You didn’t even fucking let me, and if — if Jack ever shows up again I will do it. I’m going to follow you there and stay if I can’t bring you back. It’s not like Sam needs me here anyway, and I need you, and —”

“You don’t have to.”

Dean jerks, halfway sure he made that voice up.

He can’t —

He turns to his left, his hands shaking, hoping against hope he’s not so fucking drunk he made him up —

“Cas?” He blurts, eyes widening.

“Yes,” Cas replies, smiling a bit sheepishly, taking a step further, “Jack got me out,” he says, that voice like velvet gravel sliding all over Dean like the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, “and I heard you, and he said to just go before you did anything stupid, and — I’d have gone even if he said he needed me up there.”

“He — he did?”

“He did,” he says, moving closer, and when his hand touches Dean’s cheek it’s warm, and —

“Me, too,” Dean blurts, his hand covering Cas’s immediately, not wanting to lose time or fuck this up, oh no he’s not going to do it again, he’s not going to let him disappear again if he doesn’t say it, “I love you, too,” and the way Cas’s eyes light up when he says it, he feels like that hold on his heart has gone and left him free, and —

“It’s everything I ever wanted to hear,” Cas blurts, and then he’s grabbing his face and pulling him down —

And Dean had never imagined their first kiss, when he dared to, to be on the side of the highway like this, somewhere half-forgotten near the bunker but he doesn’t even know where he is, he just drove until he couldn’t anymore, but —

But maybe it’s appropriate, and he had wanted to do it when Cas showed up back in the day and Dean told him —

He told him —

He groans into the kiss, slipping his tongue inside Cas’s mouth, feeling him moan into his mouth and moaning back, his heart beating so fucking fast, and —

“Don’t ever change,” he blurts again, seeing Cas’s eyes soften in the moonlight, “but never do that shit to me again, okay? I can’t lose you the fifth time. I can’t, I —”

“You won’t,” Cas says, “and they’d have to obliterate me to make me leave.,” he says, and then —

And then they’re kissing again and Dean cannot give a damn about anything else.

He’s there.

He has his happiness back.

He’s not going to let it go.

End.