I want to live. I want to love. I think I am ready.

and you smile that beautiful smile

C A S

Mostly, Cas stayed asleep.

But, sometimes he would wake.

Cas doesn't know why he would wake, because sometimes he woke up alone in the quiet darkness. But other times the Shadow would come to wake him.

The times he was awake was worse than the time he spent asleep. He remembers everything from the last time he was stuck here, but this time seemed to be even worse. The Shadow was angry now. Angrier than before. The Shadow claimed that Cas was the reason he couldn't go back to sleep. But Cas has no idea how it could be his fault.

All he did was lay there. Lay there in the empty darkness. Regret and grief clouding his mind. And it was then that the torture occurred. When the angry Shadow kept him awake in the cruelest way possible.

Such as now.

«Castiel!» Cas sits up at the sound of his name, looking around to find the source. A few moments pass where he sits there, staring at the emptiness before he can see a figure in the distance. A figure approaching him. «Cas!»

With sad eyes, he follows the figure as he runs towards Cas. He can see his face now. Cas's eyes tear up, but he refuses to let them free. Then he stands in front of Cas.

Dean's eyes are the most beautiful Cas has ever seen. His bright smile like a star lighting up the empty. The man he had been in love with for so long. The man he had sacrificed everything for. The man he knew he couldn't have, but still, Cas kept loving him. Until his last breath. Standing in front of him now, Dean was as beautiful as ever.

But.

Cas could not see his soul. And his eyes. They weren't right. The Shadow never managed to get his eyes right. They were slightly the wrong shade of green. He never managed to get the pattern of freckles right either. Cas knew the pattern better than he knew his own name. So the eyes and the freckles always revealed it to be the Shadow.

The first time he had truly believed Dean had come for him. He had believed it to be his Dean.

The second time, he took to studying his eyes, because he wanted to remember those bright green stars. That's when he had noticed something was wrong. Cas knew after only a few moments of looking into his eyes. They were wrong.

The third time he saw it the moment Dean got close enough. The eyes. They were the wrong shade of green. And they did not shift in the same way the real Dean's eyes did.

Knowing this wasn't his Dean, standing in front of him, Cas also noticed that the Shadow got another thing wrong. Dean never called him by his full name when he was speaking directly to him. To Dean, Cas was always 'Cas'. And the way the Shadow said his name was wrong too.

Now, by a look in Dean's eyes, and the way he said his name, Cas knew this was, once again, the Shadow who had come back to torture Cas.

«Cas! There you are! I've been looking for you. I'm here to bring you home.» Dean took another step forward. As he came closer, Dean rested a hand on Cas's shoulder. Even his touch felt wrong.

And still. It was Dean standing there. Even if the Shadow didn't get everything right. It was still him.

Still Dean Winchester.

Still beautiful.

That was what hurt the most.

Cas took a step back, defying every instinct in his body that told him to move closer to him. But he took a step back. «It's better if you just let me sleep for an eternity. That way we could both have peace.»