Work Text:
Not that Castiel ever doubted Dean, not for a second, not ever. But he remembers, it is the clearest memory he has of any day in his entire existence, the day it dawned on him that Dean Winchester had come to stay. It wasn’t the day that Dean slipped a ring on each other their fingers, and it wasn’t the day they said ‘I do’. It wasn’t the day Dean signed his name on the dotted line of their deed and it wasn’t the day Dean had looked at that baby girl in that room of that agency and said ‘That’s our girl’ with tears streaming down his face. It wasn’t even the day Dean had agreed without difficulty to go in Cas’s stead to the PTA meeting when Cas had been swamped with midterm grading, but that did come in as a close second.
They had been arguing, something stupid Dean had done to make Cas angry enough to shout, angry enough to speak first and think later. Dean was his usual defensive self in the argument, couldn’t see a damn thing he’d done wrong.
“Dean Winchester, so help me God, I will take that child and leave you here!” Cas had shouted. The moment the words fell from his lips, he tried to grapple them back. But that’s the thing about words. You can’t ever take them back. Cas, of course had not meant it like that. He’d only meant that he would take their daughter for a drive, to give Dean time and space to process why Cas was so angry at him.
But there was an instant sheer look of panic on Dean’s face, his face going as white as a sheet, a slight tremble in his hands.
Instantaneously Cas moved to make it right.
They’d been standing in the kitchen having their shouting match. Cas was by the stove and Dean stood beside the kitchen table. Cas knocked a chair out of the way and came right up to Dean. When his husband didn’t look down into his eyes, he grabbed his face between strong hands and forced him to look.
“Dean Winchester if you do not know by now that I would never, ever leave your side. That you are the most precious thing to me, and that our union is sacred above anything you could ever do to make me angry, then I am sorry excuse for a husband.”
The blood returned to Dean’s face and the tension in his body rolled off just as easily as it had come.
“No you aren’t Cas. I never want to hear you call yourself a sorry excuse for anything, ever again. I know,” he shakes his head, clearing it perhaps. “I know you didn’t mean, you know, you were gonna leave me. I know you never would, but…”
“But even just the thought of it, for an instant, just the mere thought of it nearly destroys you,” Cas finishes, knowingly.
Dean nods stiffly. Cas releases Dean and presses his face into Dean’s neck, snaking his arms around his waist. Dean follows his example and does the same.
“I know, Dean. I’ve felt that before. I’m so so sorry I made you feel that. It’s crippling…I know.” And Cas buries his face again.
“Cas. I can’t reassure you as eloquently as you did me, but I’m not going anywhere dude. Not ever. Got it?”
Cas only nods.
They stood there like that for a long long time, not releasing each other, not moving.
That was the day Dean and Castiel both realized that of all the things they had to fear in the world, being left was not one of them.