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."

Castiel looks up at Tessa then. This is not a conversation he wants an audience for. The reaper, who has always been much more empathetic than Castiel would have imagine reapers could be, takes a step back and drops her hands from Dean's shoulders. "I'm needed elsewhere, if you're alright Dean. If you need me, you know how to call me."

It's obvious she's hesitant to go, but she does and Castiel is grateful for that. Things with Dean have always been too intense, too close to something neither one of them has known how to address or wanted to for all it was frightening. This distance is entirely unacceptable and Castiel has felt the loss every day that Dean hasn't been beside him.

"I lost you. I watched you go and there was nothing I could do to bring you back. I tried. Over, and over again I tried."

"I know. Thanks, Tessa." Dean turns, and nods, giving her a thin smile that clearly doesn't make her feel any better, but hey, he tries. He lets her linger a moment more and then she's gone, just like that, leaving them alone in the clearing. It's too quiet - not that she was saying much before, but without her there, everything feels sharper, the sound of Cas' voice in the chill of the air, the way that the wind blows.

"Bring me --" he starts, and then realizes what he means, swallowing and closing his eyes a moment. The mental image comes to him too easily, Cas trying to bring him back to life and realizing that his powers don't work for some reason.

He tips his head back, stares at the sky a moment and then rolls his shoulders, sighing hard. "I tried. To come back, I mean."

Cas can't imagine that he didn't. He knows Dean, that he's a fighter, that he never gives up. If Dean had told him he had just accepted his fate without question that would have been a surprise.

"Eventually I found out, that you were Death, and I felt ... I'm not sure. A kind of relief, because I knew that you were not lost to me entirely. I didn't come to you right away because I couldn't, and then it went on for so long. Things have only now, after all this time, started to return to some kind of order."

Something like order, something beginning to look like order anyway. Castiel only barely just trusted heaven on it's own long enough to do this. Now that he is here he dreads going back. Looking at Dean he feels like a man who was dying of thirst who has just found water.

"Yeah. Didn't get a lot of time above ground, but I got enough."

Enough to see that the gates of Heaven and Hell weren't quite closed all the way, but they were damn close. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was one that worked and Dean was grateful for it, because every time he felt an angel go out, every single time, there was that stomach-twisting worry of what if it's Cas.

"So you and Sam-- you fixed everything, or you're workin' on it?"

"It's not perfect, but I think we have reached a point where things are stable. I'm no longer fighting for control anymore. It's a matter of cleaning up the mess left behind. Releasing you, for example. Tessa came after you were imprisoned but she was intercepted and locked down herself. Honestly I am surprised my brothers didn't just kill her but perhaps they thought they could use her as leverage. As soon as I discovered what had been done I released her, contained the guilty parties, and then came here."

It had honestly been a miracle Castiel had not lost his temper and done something regretable to his brothers but his desperation to get to Dean had overcome his anger.

"Hell is much more ordered than Heaven. They are used to shifts in control, and so many were already prepared to follow Sam."

Well, that's a reminder that he owes Tessa big, then. He'd like to lay the smackdown on to the angels who thought they were above dealing with reapers, but he had a feeling that Cas had the whole righteous anger thing down to an art. He'd almost pay to have seen that, honestly.

"Yeah, goodie for them, they got their brilliant leader." Dean rubs the back of his neck, exhaling. "Okay, so. I mean-- Death gave me the whole rundown but when's the last time that Death was free and not dealing with Lucy's temper tantrum?"

What the hell am I supposed to do?

He felt such a soft affection for Dean then, still lost, still looking to him for guidance while he was looking right back for the same. Castiel reached out and lay a hand back on Dean's shoulder, but let it slide up and cup his jaw in a light touch. He heard the real question, though not in a literal sense. Reading Dean's mind was beyond him now. But he knew the other man still, knew him well enough to know his doubts and fears. They were the same ones that Castiel held for himsef.

"You're not alone in this. We'll help each other."

Just like that, he's okay. They'll get through this. Sammy's....well. He'll hold back his judgment until he sees him and confirms he's okay, but he sounds like he's doing...good. Weird as it sounds. And then Cas, well, Cas is the same as ever, and the touch to his jaw makes his eyes close a moment, because this is real, this is real, Cas is there and whole and they're gonna have to deal with this.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay, we'll figure this out." Dean reaches up to grab Castiel's arm, curling fingers around his wrist, holding tight there a moment.

Castiel feels a strange combination of pleasure and revulsion at their current positioning. Both are gestures of affection and yet the last time they really saw each other they stood this way exactly, but with Dean on his knees in very different circumstances. Cas feels deep regret that that was the last they spoke in almost a hundred years, and yet is amazed that they can still stand here like this so full of unyeilding need of each other.

"There is something I have meant to tell you. Something I owe you." His eyes are sad, it could very well be an apology - he certainly owes one. It's not though and Castiel is sure that Dean will want to hear this even less, too little, too late, and without enough evidence to support the claim. Still, he deserves to be told, even if he won't believe it.

He doesn't miss the way this is similar, either. He might not need to sleep, but that doesn't mean that he's not tired, tired of wars going on, tired of everything that keeps happening to them, tired of the fact that none of them can seem to catch a break and it's not stopping, not even after death. Still, it's Cas. Much as Dean's pissed at everyone and everything, it's still Castiel. He squeezes the man's arm a little tighter, sliding it up to his wrist, thumbing over the bones there under his skin.

Cas always felt different than a human, before this. Like there was energy humming faint and soft under his skin, but now it's all the more tangible, like sticking his hand into a pool of static electricity until it tingles.

"Don't think I can take any more bad news today, buddy. Save it for later."

"Dean ..."

It was so like Dean to assume that all news was bad news. He'd been given ample reason to believe that way, Castiel didn't blame him at all, but then he wasn't really sure how this would be taken either as it wasn't really good exactly. He steps closer, personal space never meant much, but now it means even less.

"The last time we spoke you said something to me. It's been the only thing that's allowed me to get through the last century. I never responded properly and I had always intended to."

It's not hard to remember what he said - he can remember everything with near perfect detail these days. Dean doesn't want to, though, because it wasn't a good memory. The last time they'd talked had been a mess, and he'd rather leave that whole set of memories alone, so he shoves that back, and grimaces a little.

Cas is up in his personal space but Dean doesn't step back; it's normal, hell, it's more normal than anything else, to be honest. Dean smooths his hand down the front of Castiel's jacket, tugging with a crooked smile. "Dunno why you'd wanna dredge that up. Shit memories, Cas." Because he'd done everything but bare his soul at the angel, and it'd done nothing. Cas left, and Sam was gone soon after and the sting of it still ached years later.

Cas nods, lets his thumb drag itself down Dean's face. He's had so long to think about that, how he just left. In retrospect he realises he might never have seen Dean again and it's absolutely terrifying to him. What's worse is what it must have felt like to Dean for whom the time would have passed with a human's perception. It's surprising that Dean doesn't respond to him as if he is a stranger.

"Because I had never meant to stay away so long, because leaving you was a mistake, because I meant to respond. Everything you said that day, I have thought about it over and over again for decades and I feel the same way now that I did then: everything you said, I feel it too. I know I left and that I haven't been here. When you died and I lost you, I never hated myself more for anything than not staying that day and telling you that what you said to me was important. That it was you that broke through the conditioning Naomi had me under. I want you to know those things, and I want you to know that I am so sorry. You deserve so much more than I have offered you."