"It's literally seven o'clock. Why the fuck are you in bed?"

Castiel bolts upright, his heart pounding. He reaches for the gun on his bedside table and points it at the door instinctively. Dean is leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest and an amused smile on his face. Castiel sighs and puts his gun back down.

"What are you doing here?" Castiel asks.

Dean shrugs. "I was bored. Figured I hadn't seen you in a few days. Here I am."

"You can't just swing by my house whenever the fuck you feel like it," Castiel tells him.

"Why not?" he asks. "You let your redheaded friend do it." He walks over and takes a seat on Castiel's bed, his back resting against the wall. "How've you been?"

"Dude," Castiel says. "you can't just come into my house and sit down on my bed uninvited."

"I think I just proved otherwise," Dean replies. "Oh, hey, before I forget, your brothers have absolutely no idea I'm here, but if they're anything you wanted to tell them after reading their notes, I have no problem playing messenger."

"I didn't read it."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "Okay, not the answer I was expecting." He frowns. "Did you lose it? I told Jack not to fold it so many times. I'm sure your brothers wouldn't mind —"

"I chose not to read it," Castiel says. He reaches over Dean to grab the note, and he holds it in his palm. "I'm just gonna throw it out."

Dean closes Castiel's hand around the note to stop him. "If you really wanted to throw it out, you would've done it by now."

CastieI hesitates. Deep down, he'd already known that was true, but it was easier to pretend it wasn't before anyone had said it out loud.

"Why don't you want to read it?" Dean asks. He doesn't sound upset or annoyed or even just slightly inconvenienced. He almost sounds... concerned?

"I just don't," Castiel says.

"Cas..." Dean takes Castiel's hand in his own. "If I know you — and I do — I know your brothers are two of the most important people in your life. Don't you want to know what they said?"

CastieI just shakes his head.

"Why not?" Dean asks.

"Because..." Castiel swallows hard. "Because I miss them, and I'm afraid that if I start missing them any more, I might..." He doesn't need to finish that thought for Dean to know where he's going with this.

"Would that be such a bad thing?" Dean asks. "You could see your brothers again. You could watch your nephew grow up. You could be with me."

Castiel squeezes his eyes shut, but not before a single (man) tear falls. Dean is so damn predictable. CastieI knew this was his plan. He knew Dean was trying to convince him to come back — trying to convince him that he wants to come back. And the worst part is that it's almost working.

CastieI takes a deep breath. This might be the hardest thing he's had to do in years. It's almost harder than it was the first time. At least the first time, he didn't have to say it aloud. He forces himself to meet Dean's eye. "I'm not coming back."

"Why not?" Dean asks.

"Because I'm not."

"No, really, help me understand." Dean reaches over and wipes a tear from the other man's eye. "What do you have here that I wasn't giving you?"

"It's not like that," Castiel says.

"Then what is it like?" Dean asks. "I mean, Cas, I don't even know why you left. I have no idea what I did wrong —"

"You didn't do anything wrong," CastieI says quickly. "It wasn't you —"

"And don't you dare 'it's not you, it's me' me," Dean says.

CastieI sighs. "Dean..." He rests his head on the man's shoulder. "Me leaving had nothing to do with you, I promise. The hardest part of walking away was knowing I would probably never see you or my family again."

"Then why'd you do it?" Dean asks. "Everything was going so well — or, I thought it was. So why...?"

"No, no, I know," Castiel assures him. "It was great while it lasted, but, I mean, I was 22, Dean. I was a whole ass adult and I was spending my days smoking weed and having sex. I knew there had to be something more for me out there, and I was never gonna get the chance to grow up until I found it."

CastieI waits for an answer... and he waits... and he waits some more.

Eventually, he starts to realize that his answer probably isn't coming. He picks his head up off Dean's shoulder and looks at him, but Dean doesn't meet his eye. He's staring at his hands that he's clasped in his lap. For the first time since they reconnected a few weeks ago — possibly for the first time ever — he looks broken, defeated.

CastieI has spent this entire conversation — their reunion as a whole, even — thinking about how hard it is for himself. He's the one who abandoned everything he knew in pursuit of a freedom he was never truly guaranteed, and he's the one who was thrust back into it with no warning.

He'd never thought about what this must be doing to Dean. He lost his brother and his partner on the same day, and from the looks of it, if he'd ever found a replacement for Castiel, it was only temporary. He's been an obnoxiously endearing mix of cocky and flirtatious over the last few weeks. CastieI had never even questioned whether there was more going on in his brain than what his lighthearted facade let on. This conversation seems to answer that unspoken question with a very emphatic "yes."

After a long stretch of silence, Dean asks quietly, "And did you find it?"

"I did," Castiel says. "I almost thought I wouldn't — I spent a lot longer than Sam did looking for it — but I did."

Dean just nods solemnly.

"Haven't you ever felt it, too?" CastieI asks. He has to believe he has. Could that be why this is hitting him so hard? Could that be the chance Castiel didn't even know he was looking for? "Haven't you ever felt like you could be something more, something bigger?"

All Dean says is an emotionless, "No."

"You're a natural-born leader," Castiel insists. "You've never thought —"

"No, I haven't," Dean interrupts. When he meets Castiel's eye again, he doesn't look sad anymore; now he just looks frustrated. "Don't get me wrong; I'm glad you've found your calling, even if I fundamentally disagree with it in its entirety. But there is nothing I could be doing that's more important than what I'm doing right now. I've built this from the ground up and I've helped a hell of a lot of people doing it."

"You've also hurt a lot of people," Castiel reminds him. He saw a lot of shit go down in his days in the gang; he has to imagine that didn't change once he left.

"So have you," Dean says. "At least the people I've hurt deserved it."

Castiel scoffs. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Clearly, this sweet bonding moment has reached an end.

"You've locked some of my people — good people — up for years over petty shit like drug charges," Dean says. "And yes, I know you're not a narc anymore, but that doesn't make you any less complicit in the system."

"Dean —"

"I'm not done," Dean snaps. "You put people away after they commit a crime; I try to help them to stop them from turning to violent crime. The only ones getting hurt are the ones that try to hurt people first."

CastieI waits for a few moments before asking a sarcastic, "You done?"

Dean rolls his eyes. "Yes, I'm fucking done."

"Good," Castiel says. "Look, I get it. You've done a lot for them. I'm not going to pretend you haven't. But Dean..." He sighs. "You can't live your whole life for someone else. You could put someone else in charge — Mick or Ketch or Crowley or..." He makes a face. "Even Benny. There are so many people who would and could take over for you."

"Cas, I can't —"

"Think about it," Castiel insists. "Sam was my way out. Let me be yours. We can get out of here together, head to, freakin', I don't know, Canada and start fresh."

"I'm not leaving my people," Dean says. "This isn't just a job, man; they're like family. I can't leave them."

"It'll feel like that at first," Castiel says, "but then you'll move on. You'll make something new for yourself, and you and them will be just fine."

Dean runs a hand through his hair. "Look, I'm happy where I am. Now, you mean a lot to me — more than I care to admit — but not enough to convince me to leave my people. There are only three ways this could go from here: we keep meeting like this, hiding out when no one else is around; we call it off and pretend this never happened; or you can join me." He takes Castiel's hands in his. "You can come back to the fold with me. You can keep your apartment, you can keep your friends, you can keep that heap of metal you call a car, I don't care. I just want you back."

Castiel gently pulls his hands away. "Then maybe we should call this off."

"Cas..."

"Goodbye, Dean."