#the fucking poetic irony of cas returning to dean in the same barn they first met in

[caslikescoffeeandfreckles]

The Heart Will Lead You Home

A very late spn finale fix-it fic based on an addition to this Tumblr post! Word Count: 1.9k Read on Ao3

There was no stopping the way Dean’s heartbeat stuttered when he saw Ohio on the map, the wound still too fresh. Every press of his foot to the gas pedal felt like stepping on his own neck as they cruised along the highway, cornfields turning to soybeans turning to green galaxies of fireflies at night. He thinks he likes these stars better; the blue ones just hurt.

When they cross from Indiana to Ohio the stuttering becomes an ache, like the valves have shut down and the arteries are cut off. He keeps his breaths short and measured, careful, while his hands white knuckle the steering wheel and he presses a little heavier on the gas. It costs him a breath, that foot still on his neck. But he keeps driving. 

The case is a weird one and Dean hasn’t been paying enough attention to explain how he ends up driving out in the middle of nowhere by himself. He can’t even tell you what town they’ve been in the past few days, just knows that there was a lead Sam needed to follow, leaving Dean to cruise down dark country roads that shouldn’t feel so achingly familiar and his chest shouldn’t feel so painfully full and empty all at once. 

But Dean’s not an idiot. He does know these roads and he knows what waits up ahead. He keeps telling himself it doesn’t mean anything. This isn’t some kind of sign, his heart choking and coughing and lurching like a car on its last wheel with every stretch of mile. 

At the sight of the barn he almost turns around. The aching in his chest is seeping into his bones, it feels like they’re breaking from the inside out, like there’s something swelling inside his chest cavity and pushing bone through tissue and skin. 

The barn looks almost exactly the same as last time, the old wood boards grayed and weathered and hanging from the frame with just a few nails and the grace of God - or Jack now, he supposes.

It takes Dean a good thirty minutes to make himself get out of the car. And it hurts. Every movement hurts down to the flex of his knuckles, each foot fall against the hard dirt path. 

Dean stands outside the door, his hand raised to pull it open but unable to follow through. 

Cas isn’t going to be there, he tells himself. Stop being an idiot. Because he has to make sure any lingering tendrils of hope are gone. For whatever is left of his sanity, he just has to. 

He doesn't realize until he’s already opened the door that he hasn’t drawn a weapon. There’s a dark growling voice in the back of head calling him a damn idiot, but it’s not as loud as it used to be. It’s been fading over the years but ever since - ever since… well, it’s been pretty radio silent in the last few weeks.

 It turns out there’s no need for a weapon anyway. The barn is empty save for some abandoned farm equipment and hell’s entire population of spiders. The ground crunches beneath him and Dean looks down to find broken glass everywhere. There are scorch marks on the walls. The air is stale, untouched for years. The last time Dean had been in here it had smelled like lightning. 

With that thought the pain becomes unbearable and Dean shatters like the glass beneath his feet. His hands reach out without thinking, seeking something to grab, to hold onto, but he can’t find anything. He can’t see, can’t hear, all of his senses drowned under the wave of agony ravaging his chest. 

He’s dying. Dean just knows it somehow. But he doesn’t want to fight it this time. The desire isn’t even there. He doesn’t know when that had left him, maybe the night the Empty claimed Cas with a confession of love still wet on his lips, maybe in that void of loneliness once Cas was gone and Dean had sat decimated on the cold floor for hours trying to understand what the fuck had just happened and why he hadn’t been able to say something back, maybe just before Dean had walked through the barn door. Whenever it had gone, it had clearly gone with the angel and Dean didn’t miss it. Didn’t have a reason to anymore.

He’s not going to be there either, Dean hears the last bit of his self-loathing whisper, like one last punishment because even in death, Dean Winchester can’t let himself have peace. 

I know, Dean thinks. He knows Cas is gone, somewhere no one can ever reach him. He’s done the research. But how can you document the existence of something that represents Nothing? That is Nothing but the absence of everything in all of time and space? But he wishes Cas could be on the other side. Even with all hope gone, he still wishes it was possible if only to give Cas the one thing both of them thought they could never have. Because Cas deserved that much. Cas deserved more than the world had ever been able to offer. 

Castiel… Cas… I-

“Hello Dean.”

Dean’s heart stops and his eyes fly open.

He’s here, just feet away, in the same oversized suit and dirty trenchcoat. He’s here.

“H-how,” Dean starts, his mouth too dry. “I don’t- C-Cas how…” 

Cas doesn’t move except to blink. “I think we have Jack to thank for this.” His voice is a deep and gravelly as the day they met and it’s like a soothing balm over Dean’s aching body, chasing all the hurt away like his grace has all these years. 

“He found you,” Dean says because he needs to hear it again. “H-he found you.” Jack did what Dean couldn’t. The pain that has been raging inside Dean is gone, replaced with a weight of gratitude for the kid. 

Cas nods like it’s that simple. “It took a while, but yes. Jack is very… determined. I think he gets it from his father.” The corners of Cas’s mouth soften into a small smile.

Dean doesn’t know how he finds the energy to blush but he feels the heat seep into his cheeks all the same. He has a million questions and another million things he wants to do with his hands right now but they’re safer in his pockets. There are too many words rushing around his brain and none of them feel right, none of them feel like enough. “Did you- what you said,” he tries, desperate to know but not sure exactly what he wants to know first, “when you- did you… mean it?”

A shadow crosses Cas’s face and Dean immediately regrets asking. “You still doubt me?”

“No, no,” Dean hurries to say. Cas hasn’t moved but he feels further away and that alone makes Dean’s chest hurt again. “I know- I know you meant it, Cas. I mean, I-I watched you…” get ripped away again. Cas had said he loved Dean and been swallowed into nothing. It left little to be misunderstood. It was just that… “You’re an angel, Cas,” Dean says, his voice sounding weak even to himself. “You’re like a million years old and - and I’m - you’ve never… is it the same kind of…?”

“You think I do not understand love the same way that you do,” Cas says, voice clipped and dry. It cuts like a blow and Dean can’t help but flinch. But he nods. Cas watches him carefully before nodding himself. “You are right. I am an angel, I was not designed to experience emotions aside from love and loyalty to my creator.”

Dean is deflating before Cas finishes his sentence. 

“And yet… since the moment I first touched you in hell, there has been no being or entity I have trusted more without question,” Cas continues and Dean meets his eyes, confused and dangerously hopeful. “There has been no one I desired to follow to the ends of the Earth as I have desired to follow you. I do not love you the way humans love. Because I fell in love with your soul before any other part of you.” Cas’s arms rise to cross over his chest and there’s a faraway look in his eyes. “I have seen inside of you, Dean, I have seen the core of who you are and carried the roots of you in my arms. I held your soul against my chest and felt the greatest warmth I have known in my entire existence. I felt the true depth of your compassion and love, deeper than any ocean God could ever craft. And I knew before I rebuilt your body that a part of me would always belong to you, and no other thought has ever brought me such peace.” 

When Cas’s eyes refocus they snap to Dean and his next words sink past every barrier of defense Dean has left. “I don’t love you in the same way as a human. I love you more than you could ever truly fathom, Dean. But I know that it is love because you taught me how to recognize the signs. You defined love for me. And even though you don’t feel the same, I am-”

“But I do.” The words jump from Dean’s throat before he can think them through but there’s no way in hell he’s going to miss another opportunity. He’s lost Cas too many damn times to waste a single minute. “I do, Cas. I- I can’t see your soul or whatever but I - you’re the only - Cas, I don’t want to breathe when you aren’t here.” He feels feral as he speaks, ready to jump out of his own skin, and honestly isn’t sure if he’s saying actual words. But the movements of his tongue and lips feel right so he keeps going. “Everytime you leave or get taken away it just gets harder and harder and I don’t- I can’t do it again.”

Cas is watching him with careful eyes, but Dean can see the hope blazing just under the surface. “So what do you want, Dean?”

“You,” Dean says and takes a step forward. “Us. I want us.” 

The hope bleeds through into the blue and Cas’s eyes shine like the stars Dean’s been avoiding. “Is that all?”

Dean shakes his head. There’s a new life unraveling in his head as he takes another step closer to Cas. A life far away from hunting, with a cozy little home with enough yard space for a vegetable garden, a garage to shield Baby when they aren’t filling her trunk with suitcases instead of weapons and driving to the ocean just because. A life with kids and familiar faces at the supermarket and big family dinners with friends on Friday evenings. And Cas. Every minute of every day there is Cas. The only constant, the only necessity. “I have a list,” he admits and takes another step. “But you come first.”

Cas is close enough to touch now and so Dean does. His hands fall on Cas’s waist and slide around his back to pull the angel forward and Cas comes with no resistance. He falls into Dean’s chest like a missing puzzle piece, his arms wrapping around Dean’s shoulders and clutching tight.

“You have me, Cas,” Dean whispers into his angel’s ears. It’s a moot point by now but he thinks they both deserve the reassurance. “You’ve always had me.”

“I want to go home,” Cas says, his voice soft but still sending a rumble through Dean’s body.

Dean clings even tighter. “Then let’s go make one.”