15x16 coda now with added destiel, cw for Dean’s Trauma, <1k I haven’t written anything in over a year please be kind
The nightmares are back.
Dean sits upright in bed, shaking and heaving for breath. He blinks hard in the darkness of his bedroom, dispelling the horrors from beneath his eyelids and shuddering the tension from his shoulders. It grips him still, clings to the fringes of his awareness. It felt so real.
It was real. All those years ago.
He really did see a pile of bodies, pale limbs akimbo, blank eyes staring into the gloom. Tortured, agonized faces made up of wide, childish eyes and soft cheeks. Matted and dirty hair. Hair’s too long. Need to get it cut, Sammy, why’d you wear it like that anyway? Sam’s eyes, cold and lifeless. Sam’s arms, scrawny and-
Dean shakes his head. Sam isn’t a child and Sam isn’t dead. He’s right down the hall, hopefully still asleep in his bed. He’s dreaming, maybe, of a brunette and a white picket fence. The way he used to dream of the Ivy League.
He scrubs his hands over his face, his breath coming more steadily now. Sam is fine. Cas is fine, or at least he was when he texted goodnight. Jack is fine for now. For now.
Sighing, he lies back on the pillows. Fuckin’ nightmares. What is he, twelve?
He frowns. No, he was all of sixteen. Still a child in every conceivable way, still too young to have seen what he’d seen. To have had the childhood that he’d had.
“Childhood.” Ha. He smirks into the predawn stillness. He glances at the clock and decides he has time if he wants to try to sleep again.
Sam isn’t a child anymore and Sam isn’t dead. Jack is asleep in his room. Cas would call if something was wrong. Not to mention he’s a powerful angel, so.
He rolls onto his side, squishing his pillow for comfort. His family is fine. He’s-
Is he fine? Forty years old and reliving a nightmare he thought had left him ages ago? He hadn’t felt settled, hadn’t felt safe until, well, until Sonny. When Sonny sat him down in a diner and offered him a home, until someone actually cared about him not just as a babysitter and not just as a soldier, but as the young man he was trying to be. Always trying and never quite hitting the mark.
Dean rolls over, away from the darkening thoughts. The way the knife had felt in his palm. The way his knees had sunk to the carpet, the Baba Yaga’s voice in his teenaged body, this is your fault, you’re a failure, you never did anything right.
He jolts at the sound of his phone, the ring tinny in the total quiet. Squinting against the light of the screen, he holds it up and grunts something close to a question.
“Hello, Dean.”
“Cas.” He exhales it more than he says it. “The hell are you calling at this hour for?”
“I know you weren’t sleeping,” Cas replies simply. Oh. Right.
“Yeah, well. Now I’m extra awake.”
Cas makes a noise of assent, but Dean can picture the quirk of those lips which means he’s placating him.
Instead of asking him to talk, Cas does. He starts by revisiting his drive, how he’d played Dean’s cassette again and which songs he had sung along to. Next, he talks about stopping for dinner exclusively because they were advertising bacon cheeseburgers. The way Cas talks about middle America is soothing because this is someone who watched it come into being, has observed every change over the course of millennia, but is only now able to appreciate it in a specific way. In the way that he’d wanted to all along, but is only now getting the chance.
Dean knows it without Cas having to tell him. Cas will do anything to stop this world from ending because he loves it too much to let it end. Cas will also do anything to keep Jack from dying because he loves him too much to allow it. Cas doesn’t tell him where he’s going or what specific inquiries he’s making and that’s just fine. Cas is their wild card, their steadfast warrior, and the heart of their family. If anyone can find a way out of this, it’s Cas.
Sam will be chomping at the bit to help but Dean worries Billie will see through that. They’ll have to play double agents, he thinks, but they can’t show their hands. Can’t know too much, not until it’s go time. Which will be soon, if Billie’s prediction is correct, which it certainly is.
But not tonight. Not in the next few hours. For now, Dean can drift back into a peaceful sleep aided by the sound of Cas’s voice. He doesn’t realize it’s happening at first, just holds the phone to his ear and hums at the appropriate places. Cas knew exactly what he needed, of course. Gotta tell him, though, Dean thinks hazily, dangling on the precipice of sleep. Have to use words and tell Cas how important he is. Remind him.
In the morning, then.
Cas waits on the other end of the line, letting his story wind down as he feels Dean fall deeper into sleep back in the Bunker. He’s careful to infuse as much calm into his voice as possible, a proxy for his fingers at Dean’s temple, wanting nothing more than to soothe the restless and hurting soul he’s come to adore.
When he’s found the solution. When they are safe. When they are whole again. Then he’ll tell Dean everything. When there’s no more danger from Chuck. Not tonight, then.
Tonight, Dean will get a few more hours of sleep, and Cas will keep driving. He has an appointment to keep, after all.
