@fellforth from [here]
Dean tries not to stare, but his eyes keep flicking over to where Cas sits. He can tell he’s struggling with himself, and Dean wants more than anything to make all of the pain and guilt and uncertainty go away, but he’s never been good with words. All he has are his hands, and a thick blanket he’d pulled from his own bed to keep the cold away. He drapes it gently around the angel’s shoulders, pressing his hands down as if with their solid weight he can ground Cas in the moment, here and now, where everything is at least a little more okay than it had been, before. He doesn’t want to stop touching Cas. It feels like, somehow, as long as he’s got a hand on him, he can keep anything like this from happening again.
The smile Cas gives him cracks Dean’s heart. His face melts, the hard lines of worry softening into something gentler. He knows Cas hates for him to worry, but it isn’t something Dean can just let go of. His entire life has been spent worrying about one loved one or another; if he wasn’t concerned about someone, he wasn’t sure what he’d do with himself. “And you don’t have to pretend for me, Cas.” He counters, kneeling beside the angel’s chair even though his knees protest and keeping a hand on his shoulder. “I’m always going to worry, no matter what. I worry less if I trust that you’ll tell me when you need help instead of killing yourself trying to handle it on your own. You can talk to me, Cas. I know...well, what you went through wasn’t all that different from the Mark of Cain. It stays with you.”