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Dean sighed internally and readied himself for the next minute of conversation. This was gonna suck.
“Okay, all right. You know what? I get it. You've got faith. That's — hey, good for you. I'm sure it makes things easier.” Dean goes to sit down on the other side of the pew while he reassures Sam. He steels himself for the next part, the part that’s bound to rip open the scar on his own heart.
“I'll tell you who else had faith like that — Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me.” Dean delivers it bluntly, like a dull knife but it’s still sharp, still makes a cut in his scab and probably in Sam’s.
Sam had looked at him sharply and Dean could see the tears in his little brother’s eyes that refused to fall. He hoped they didn’t, he wouldn’t handle it well.
“You never told me that.” Sam replied.
Dean internally readied himself for the blow he was about to deliver. He knew he was right. Not in the way their dad would always think he was just by virtue, but with proof to back it up. Or rather the lack of.
“Well, what's to tell? She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her. There's no higher power, there's no God. I mean, there's just chaos, and violence, and random unpredictable evil th– that comes out of nowhere, and rips you to shreds. You want me to believe in this stuff? I'm going to need to see some hard proof. You got any?”
A beat. Time paused.
An angel walked up to the Winchesters.
___
Cas woke up to colored sunlight on his face.
He didn’t know how he got here. Maybe the Empty had thrown him into a gilded cage. Maybe the Universe had intervened. Maybe it was one last punishment for falling. Regardless of the reason, it was quickly made apparent why. He was to stand as an unacknowledged witness to the start of a story that would end in black for him but also in love.
He lingered in the shadows, watching the scene lay out. The hurt that bled out into the words as the brothers exchanged heavy words. The two brothers had been through too much already and the worst was yet to come. Time ground to a halt after the righteous man’s demand for proof. He hesitantly walked towards the front of the church, stopping in front of the unseeing eyes of his family. He took his time.
Cas looked briefly at Sam, thinking of how young and hopeful the younger Winchester looked. He wanted to tell Sam to take care of Dean for him. He wanted a lot of things. He turned his attention to Dean. Cas took in Dean Winchester steadily. He took care in his gaze, tracing over Dean’s face, lingering on his eyes. He glanced at Dean’s unmarked, unclaimed shoulder before going back to his eyes.
“The proof loves you,” he tells the frozen statue.
Cas did.
Unflinchingly. Unceasingly.
He loved Dean Winchester, every part of him, good and bad and beautiful and ugly. He loved Dean’s obsession with cowboys and his passion for horror movies. He loved Dean’s inability to turn down pie, of any kind, but cherry was largely the favorite. He loved Dean’s loud love for his family, though he often pushed it down. He loved how Dean would smile and how it only reached his eyes when he meant it. Castiel loved Dean Winchester. It was a fact of the universe.
“The proof has fought, with blade and fist, for you. The proof has happily bled for you,” the words echoed in the chapel.
He felt that a crooked smile had creeped onto his face, but he didn’t push it away. At his core, that’s who Cas was. He was happy to bleed for the Winchesters. Anytime and anyplace. They were his. His to love and his to protect. His family. His angelic brothers and sisters had never understood that. That Cas loved the Winchesters. The angels had understood love to be worship, which in a way it was but love is also seeing the flaws and faults and loving a person with them rather than fixing it.
“The proof has died over and over for you and even death does not separate you. The proof fell for you the moment their hand laid itself on your soul. You’re one in a million universes and the proof chose you.”
He placed his hand on Dean’s shoulder and gave it a small squeeze.
Death had tried. Death tried to take them multiple times but they kept gravitating back to each other. Kept living. This last time was Cas’s choice, no one else’s. Chuck had done nothing.
Cas wanted to do more. A part of him wanted to somehow shake Dean awake and tell him about what was to come, warn him somehow. He wanted to tell him about Mary. He wanted to tell him about their son. He wanted to tell Dean about so many little and big things that were coming. He knew he couldn’t and that he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t change it. Not for anything. He wouldn’t change a single moment with Dean Winchester. He would only add to it. He wanted to add to it. His hand slid off Dean’s jacket. He let himself take in Dean Winchester one last time.
Still beautiful. Still Dean Winchester.
Cas closed his eyes, still smiling.
---
Time snapped back into place and Dean could swear he heard a slight echo, like a pair of wings taking off.
“Well, I do. Proof that we're dealing with a spirit.”
When Dean Winchester walks out of that church in a few moments, the sound will be pushed to the back of his mind, the hunt taking over his train of thought. Briefly though, Dean will wonder if that was hard proof.
Probably not.