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It wasn’t sudden.
God didn’t just smack Dean upside the head and bam, he was in love. No, it was far more subtle.
But that did not mean that Dean’s realization was.
Dean was laying on his memory foam bed -- it remembers him, you know -- listening to Guns and Roses when it hit him harder than God ever could. He was in love with Cas. The realization wasn’t exactly taken in stride -- in fact, Dean’s eyes shot open, he sat up ramrod straight so fast that his headphones fell off, and he shouted a simple “SHIT.”
After that little outburst he swung his legs over the side of the bed and propped his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He massaged his temples and tried desperately to recall when this had happened; when he had fallen in love with the man who wasn’t really a man, until he lost his grace and became a man, but then got his grace back so was… Well, he was Cas, that was for sure. But as was said before: love was very subtle. Too subtle for Dean to pinpoint when his feelings for Castiel went from You’re an angel to You’re my angel. So after much rummaging through every second Dean had spent with Cas, having not found the moment which he would have liked to ask to kindly burn in Hell for turning his life upside down, he sighed and got up. However, when he left his room, it was not to tell anyone about his realization, but to go find a drink. For even though he had just been severely disoriented, he would die before he would tell someone.
I’m sure you can guess what happened. Dean died… again, as was the Winchester way.
He died two months after realization hit, because of a witch, and Castiel brought him back. He hadn’t even been dead for five minutes. Dean just shook it off and got back to business. He pretended nothing was different. However, the fantasies and urge to look longingly at the angel’s lips, as well as all sorts of other things that came with having unrequited love, were getting harder to control. Dean finally drew the line when he actually took a step toward Castiel when he walked in, intending to kiss him, before he stopped himself and promptly left the room with a blush spreading on his cheeks. So, he told someone. He told Sam.
Apparently Sam had known longer than Dean had, and told him to man up and just tell Cas.
“It’s not that simple, Sammy, I don’t do love!” he said in a barely contained shout. He looked at his brother desperately, silently begging for him to say that there was some way to stop feeling the urge to buy Cas some goddamn flowers for no apparent reason.
Of course, there probably were a few spells and a few artifacts and a dozen other few ‘this’es and ‘that’s, but Sam was determined to do it the hard way.
“Look, Dean, you do do love. You did it with Lisa and you can do it with Cas. All you gotta do is say you love him. It’s three words, dude. They’re even in english.”
There was no getting out of it, then. Though Dean tried to argue that it was different with Lisa somehow, it was half hearted. He had to face it: he was in love with Castiel.
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Dean had planned to say “I love you, and it’s okay that you don’t love me”. He had planned to say “You don’t ever have to worry about me making an unwanted move”. He had planned to say “This won’t change anything”. But of course, when Castiel walked into the room with confusion and curiosity tinting his features and asked what he could do for Dean, all of it just flew out the window. Instead of what he had planned to say, he said, “I love you. I love you so much and I don’t know when or how it happened but all I know is that I’d love nothing more than to hunt with you and save this stupid planet with you and and watch TV curled up with you and wake up next to you every morning and kiss you and make you smile and just cuddle with you even though I’ve never wanted to touch domesticity with a ten foot pole because you’re different for some reason and it’s okay that you don’t love me back because you’re alive and well and that honesty is good enough for me even though it isn’t.”
It all came out in a rush, like a dam had broken inside him. When he finished he just stared at Cas’s look of shock for a few seconds with an expression probably liken to that of someone who had knocked over dozens upon dozens of dominoes before the line had been finished. Then he just ran. He bolted out of the room and through various corridors until he found his bedroom. He slammed the door shut and collapsed on his bed, not moving at all and just staring at the ceiling.He didn’t move when he heard a knock on the door, nor did he react when said door was opened and Cas stood in the doorway.
He did react when Cas said “I love you too.”
At first he simply sat up slowly, searching the angel’s face for any sign of a lie. When he found none his heart felt like it might explode in his chest, and he really couldn’t blame it. It wasn’t often someone he loved told him they loved him back. He stood up and walked swiftly to the threshold, not hesitating or stopping himself as he went to kiss Castiel. When their lips collided Dean swore he would never give this up. He’d never give Cas up.
And you know Dean’s memory foam bed? It remembers Cas now, too.