Cas senses something as off, but feels as if it's safe to assume that while Dean might have some post traumatic stress from being locked up for so long, it won't be near what he suffered after hell and after purgatory. He hopes.

"Tessa is here," he nods to the reaper standing not far away but keeping a respectable distance though it's obvious from her posture she wants nothing more than to run over and start mother henning all over Dean. "I convinced the other reapers that their presence here was unnecessary." He doubted that Dean would enjoy waking up to a crowd looking for instructions.

"Approximately twenty-five years I am told." He looks down, shamefully. The last time he saw Dean he was beating him to death with his hands, ready to plunge his sword through him. And then he'd left, without a word, and hadn't seen him again until moments before Dean died and he had been helpless. Things were such a mess after that but really it was too long, much too long for this to be the first conversation they've had in a century.

"I've missed you." It's said with a note of regret. He has no misconceptions that everything that has ever gone wrong between them can be traced back to that day when he had left Dean to rake his yard and followed Crowley into hell. This is still all his fault and he doubts he will ever be able to make things up.

Cas isn't sure if Dean can actually go weak in the knees, but his hands come up to his arms to support him just in case. He does it before he can really think about it, pure instinct, protecting Dean, making sure he is safe. It's like riding a bicycle, only it's accompanied by the nausea of knowing he has failed in this for far, far too long. It's something he will never forgive himself for.

It occurs to him that Dean thinks he's probably dreaming this, or imagining it. Lord knows what he's had to do to keep sane these last years. So, Castiel considers the situation a moment before doing something he doubts very much he would have done in any of Dean's imaginings. He pulls him closer and wraps his arms tightly around him hugging him as tightly as Dean had hugged him when they had been reunited in purgatory.

"You're not dreaming."

Castiel doesn't let go, only holds Dean just a little bit tighter. He can do this now, hold him with all his might and not hurt him. There is something about that, the fact that they are on fairly even footing (Dean perhaps even 'outranking' him a bit so to speak) that feels comforting and right, as if they are now somehow where they were always meant to be. The physical sensation of having Dean in his arms is even more wonderful and he is in no hurry to let go of him.

"Yes. I'm sorry, Dean. It's my fault. I should have made more of an effort to contact you long before now. I feel like I haven't had a moment to even stop in a century, but there is nothing more important to me than you. If I had tried harder, you wouldn't have been subjected to this, I know that. I should have protected you." He was always failing Dean, he didn't even dare ask forgiveness anymore. He didn't deserve it and Dean would be crazy to offer it.

He settles a little but then almost immediately tenses. Dean doesn't know where Sam is? How can Dean possibly not know where Sam is? He's Death. Isn't he supposed to know who is running heaven and hell? But then again he's fairly certain Dean doesn't know what he's been doing, what's been keeping him from him for the last century, so he supposes.

"Dean, Sam is in hell. He's been there since before you died." And of course that is probably not the best way to explain this either. "It's not a punishment. He isn't there ... against his will persay. Sam is, for lack of a better word, the devil."

Dean has misunderstood and Castiel immediately shakes his head, reaches out and places a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Dean, no. It's not what you're thinking. Your brother is not a demon. He is ... I don't think there's ever been anything like what Sam has become before. He is something new, much like myself. After he died, Crowley attempted to claim Sam's soul for hell, but found that the trials had turned Sam into something else entirely. Sam locked Crowley in the cage with Lucifer and Michael, and released Adam. He's been managing hell for lack of a better explanation Hell itself is still necessary, and he has closed it's gates for the most part - no demon is able to leave, though reapers still have access to ferry damned souls there. Sam can also leave any time he wishes and does so frequently. He's safe, he's fine, he is doing a necessary job and the world is safer and better for it. Do you understand?"

Dean's going to need time to adjust to this, he's going to need to see the situation for himself. Castiel knows this, and yet he wishes Dean could take him at his word that his brother is safe and well.

"I can no more stop Sam from doing something than I can you, Dean. You don't understand, Sam is no more a human soul now than you are. No more a human than I am an angel. We'll go see him and you can judge the situation and speak to him yourself. Please believe me when I say though that this is not a punishment for him.

If you want my honest opinion? I think it was intended as a reward."

Castiel sighs, it's that world weary sigh he gets when Dean is missing the obvious. "Death was not the only one who left this plane and left an heir in his stead."

He feels a bit uncomfortable now, having to explain this. He couldn't communicate it when it was happening because it was war in heaven like he had never seen it and when he had left to try and answer Dean's dying prayer it had almost cost him everything he had fought for.

"You ferry the souls of the dead between hell, heaven, and purgatory. Sam rules hell. And I preside over heaven."

Castiel looks at Dean and the hurt his words cause is evident on his face. It flickers across his eyes and his expression in real time because this is not the failed God that Castiel had become before, full of power without any sense of right or wrong, twisted with the souls of purgatory. No, this is Castiel, the angel who Dean taught to feel emotion, to understand the plight of the puny humans, the beauty of free will. He knows he absolutely deserves Dean's doubt, but one thing he does know is that he did not choose this for Dean and Sam.

"I was placed in charge of heaven, long after Sam took over hell. I didn't choose this for you Dean. You or Sam. As for myself ... it's not like before. Your brother would never allow that to transpire."

"I didn't do it for him, Dean. I did it because it needed to be done. I did it for you, I did it for your race. I did it to atone for the terrible things I've done. Restoring peace and order in heaven, preventing the angels from doing the kinds of things they've done for over a century now? Back when Michael was still running things? They are a danger to everyone human, demon, and most especially themselves."

He hates that he's still disappointing Dean with new things. There never seems to be an end to it and all the time he has spent longing to see Dean again only makes the knowledge that once again Dean has found fault in him devastating. He closes his eyes.

"I tried saying no once. Taking it back. I stopped, having lost the will do do anything but find you and bring you back. And then Naomi and Crowley joined forces and it was Sam who convinced me that I had had a job to do. That you wouldn't want me to let innocent people die because I was too caught up in grief and obsession to do anything but try and find you. We didn't know you were Death then. We didn't know what had become of you. It seemed the best way to save you was to finish the jobs we'd set out to do with the tablets."

It hadn't been a joyride, and it certainly hadn't been easy. It had been blood and pain and fear, and doubt. An endless struggle at the end of which Castiel had only held onto the hope that some day he would see Dean again and it would have been worth it.

"I'm not God, Dean. I'm not an angel anymore exactly, but I'm not God either. I'm not sure what I am. Something new. I was an angel, and now I've been changed. I don't think God is capable of replicating himself."

"Good, because if one is bad, two wouldn't be any better."

Dean shifts his weight from foot to foot, kicking at the dirt, at everything around him, finally simmering down just a little bit. He's not a stranger to choices that aren't choices at all - his own was one he wouldn't pick ideally, but had to deal with. He just had to suck it up and do what was necessary, and it wasn't unreasonable to think that the same happened with Cas.

"I lost both of you, you know that?" Dean tips his head up, watches Cas with his face carefully blank. "Just like that."