The floor, Cas had discovered, could be incredibly interesting. The correlation between said interest and the degree of awkwardness was only just beginning to dawn on him, but the instinct was there already, and he glanced down as Ruby spoke. It wasn’t that he failed to appreciate what she was trying to do, reassuring him that she and Sam would ensure he was not forgotten, that Dean would remember or come to understand or fail to do both but build a friendship regardless. It was just… well, he had had his share of miracles already, hadn’t he? He had come back from the grave. Next to that, what right did he have to ask for Dean’s friendship?
“We have more important things to worry about” he concluded, a little sharply perhaps, once the long awkward pause had been quite exhausted. “Perhaps it’s better Dean remains suspicious of the angels” – no, Ruby was not the only one sensing Zachariah’s hand in all this. What was a reset Dean if not a perfect opportunity to try again, to mould him into everything the Righteous Man should have been, everything Dean left to his own devices wasn’t? A chance to make him relive every hurt, every one of Sam’s secrets and lies, every betrayal, every revelation about his own role in things. There was a time, no doubt, when Castiel himself would have thought the solution elegant, maybe even beautiful. Now it made him sick to his stomach.