[ He'd been expecting... something else. Something not so earth-moving, something that doesn't make his heart skip a beat or his breath to catch as his throat tightens. It's not the same as when their Sam had said yes, but it's close. These events that had led them to this road are so very close and intangibly wound together that it's so difficult to pull them apart now. It explains why Dean is here, why he's drunk. Why they're such a mess standing together in the hallway.

All Castiel can think are the words Lucifer had told him before he'd snapped his neck. You will always end up here. They would, they have, and it feels like someone has ripped part of him out of his chest.

Hope. Their hope. He struggles to find the words even as the sound of the bottle breaking jars him back into reality. ]

I-- [ No, no, no. He has to try. He has to say something. ] It's not going to be like last time. We have the advantage, Dean, and nothing can change that. We know.

[ How, when, why. All of it. Their experiences simply do not mean anything, and they can fix this before Sam does something worse than making a deal with the devil. It burns through him, all that anger because he doesn't want what they have sacrificed to mean absolutely nothing or be forgotten. Castiel slides his hand from Dean's arm to his wrist. ]

This is why we're here, and this is why we trust each other. [ God knows they couldn't count on their counterparts to do anything. ] We will make it right this time.