This whole story is so heartbreakingly wonderful. Your writing is beautifully spare in all the right parts, not one maudlin word or one scene over-explained. I honestly thought you were going to end it with the syringe, but the way things actually turned out is so much more bittersweet and satisfying and wonderful. I absolutely believed in Castiel's love for Dean, and in the world they both inhabited. I'm running out of superlatives. Thank you for expanding the glimpses we got in 5.4 into something uncompromisingly harsh and true without letting it be simplistically depressing.