But, Cat, what about the last five minutes then, I hear you asking, what did you think abou that? - and you'd be right and I have to say, I'm utterly and irrevocably flabbergasted at myself. Cause, I don't ship Destiel, but I don't hate Destiel. I don't see it, like at all, for myself, but I see what other people see and I think that's alright. The sandbox is vast and everyone should get to play in the corner they like best (or different corners, visiting from time to time) and sometimes canon gives us what we want and sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes creators try to walk the tightrope to have it all the ways, which is the most difficult path of all and almost never works out entirely. I appreciate the effort, the only requirement I have that no one bashes others for not concurring with their own opinion (and I know some parts of fandom are better at this than others, but, I'll be trying to put it in completely subjective terms indiviual to me now). So... that scene.
Don't know what to tell you, did I sit there and go - oh ... oh no ... oh are they going to kiss? Please don't. And ... oh... uhhh... 'what I want I can never have?' what's that supposed to mean? That does not make sense at all. And... oh... uhm, wow, Dean's face. Supremely awkard, oh my god, I'm cringing just looking at him. And... wow, Cas said, I love you, he actually said it, out loud, shippers will die from spontaneous panty combustion.
That were all thoughts that went through my head as I watched. And yet... yet, it moved me.
Like, made me care and feel for Cas in a way that I don't think I've ever connected to his character before. It felt like the most obvious and most logical conclusion of his character arc and like he's the one who's now traveled the most complete journey of all of them. And I kinda loved that?
Maybe it was over the top, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. But to me, when Cas said 'something I can never have' he wasn't talking about reciprocation of romantic love from Dean, he was talking about his humanity. Because for all that Cas has fought and clawed his way into a deep understanding of humans, to free will, to making a life for himself and choices that defy the borders of the divine order, has felt things he wasn't created to feel, he is still in his very meta-physical make-up always going to be very different. Probably as close as an angel has ever come to being and experiencing true humanity. But never actually fully human.
And when he says that he loves Dean, I find that profoundly humbling and authentic, because to me, it didn't read not as a declaration of a mere romantic love, but something infinitely more vast and complicated than that, even bigger than family or friendship or all of it combined. Cas may have forged connections with other people, learned a lot from different relationships along the way, but Dean was the focal point, the thing that made him want to start so it makes a weird kind of sense that he'd be the one Cas projects all of this on (and btw, I think he's right about Dean being ultimately motivated by love. Not always the same kind of love, and certainly not all of them healthy, which leads to disaster as much as salvation and therefore in my mind, doesn't divorce that notion from the fact that Dean is and stays deeply flawed, despite Cas idealizing him in the moment). But ultimately, his fullfillment didn't involve Dean and his participation at all, because it was about realization. About the knowledge of oneself (yep, in the very biblical sense) and the fact that in order to gain true happiness, he didn't need to have something, he just needed to be happy. And to realize that and then be able to use it to save someone you love, with no regrets, that's.. whoa, somehow really moving to me. I'm tearing up just thinking about it.
So through all the distraction and the cringe and the over the top pathos and the meta, that was... a truly beautiful moment to me.

Idek. If any of that even made sense at all. But if we could have that same thing for Sam and Dean (TOGETHER DAMNIT, CAUSE DUH) I think I would very much be alright. Please and thank you.