Work Text:
"Cas. No matter what happens, don't forget I love you."
Desperation tinged his voice, Dean continued, palm warm on the back of the seraph's neck, thumb resting light on an erratic pulse.
"I will always come back to you. Come Hell, high water or fucking apocalypse world angels trying to destroy our world." Foreheads touching, the hunter breathed a promise across Cas' mouth, "Gisg na graph fam gisg un don fam fam na gonna drux graph."
Cas, choked on a sob, crushed his lips to Dean's, hands shaking where they grasp at him, tried to convey a decade of love, longing, and hope, in their first kiss.
Long moments they clutched each other, traded breaths, low words of affection, until eventually one released the other.
Dean, tears held back by sheer will and determination, bussed his mouth over Cas, left to find Michael.
Alone, the seraph collapses on Dean's bed, wrapped in one of his ratty old flannels and favorite black shirt, gave himself over to the grief.
Later that night, sat on the war room's steps, willed the phone to ring, for Dean to come home, Jack and Sam to be safe. To have his family, whole and complete, by his side.
When the phone vibrated, startled out of his musings, Cas fumbled, came close to dropping it, before his thumb knocked the Answer button. "Yes? Hello? Dean?"
Internal wince at the hint of desperation in his tone, the seraph raced towards the garage, Baby's keys looped securely about his thumb.
"Cas?"
The way Sam said his name.."Sam? No, he didn't.." In a rare show of emotion, Cas slumped to the wall by Baby, phone resting on his chest, while Sam explained how Michael killed Lucifer, only to betray them all.
"Cas? You there?"
Somehow, he roused himself enough to respond, slide into the driver's seat, Baby purring under his touch. "I'm here Sam, where again?" Took note of the address, checked it against the map app on his phone, when Sam's words caught his attention.
"Cas..his last words were, 'Let Cas know the stars shine forever.' know what that means?"
The confusion in the hunter's voice made Cas huff a wet laugh, grip the wheel hard enough it gave an ominous crrak. "It's private, Sam, but thank you. See you and Jack in a few hours, alright?"
Cas disconnected the call before Sam could hear the edge of hysteria in his voice, stared resolutely at the road eaten by Baby's wheels.
From the very beginning, when he'd first rescued Dean in Hell, laid a hand on the hunter..this was their destiny.
A decade they'd orbited each, Dean the sun to Cas' moon, their bond always making them gravitate towards the other.
A tear slipped down his cheek, caught on the side of his mouth, where he licked it clean.
The phantom taste of Dean's lips on his came on so quick, Cas barely had time to pull Baby to the side of the road and throw her in park, before deep, heart wrenching isobs wracked his whole body, fists on his shoulders, still clothed in Dean's shirts.
Castiel let the anguish, sorrow, chances wasted, to wash over and through him, screamed the injustice, unthinkingly, over angel radio.
Let who remain feel his pain!! Know just how far he'd fallen!!
Years!!
Years he'd been loyal to heaven!! Returned, only to be tortured, cast down, abandoned, wiped, used, and for what?! An imagined sin that had barely come to pass!!
Castiel railed against any and everything, from the lost ten years, that conspired to keep him and Dean apart, from Uriel to Lucifer, finally defeated, but not without taking Dean away.
Tears exhausted, the seraph threw Baby into drive.
Miles away, his family waited. He needed to bring them home..