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A Supernatural "Prophet and Loss" (Episode 14.12) coda by Jennie @deanisntfine
Inspired by and dedicated to Meg @Meg_lo_Maniacal

He’s got to admit it. It’s good to be home.

Sam’s outburst at the nursing home had shaken Dean, had left him feeling … small. Bare. Raw. Racked with guilt. 

He wanders the bunker’s tile halls now, exhausted, Michael raging in his mind.

There’ll be no rest tonight.

Dim light streams from the kitchen. As Dean enters, he finds Cas, sitting alone at the table. 

“Hey, pal,” Dean says softly, and he crosses the room to pull a couple of beers from the fridge.

“Hey,” Cas says as Dean sits across from him, handing over one of the cold bottles.

For a while, they sip in silence. For Dean, the best moments are the quiet ones, just like this, when Cas is simply there.

Whenever he’s gone, Dean feels restless, anchorless, adrift. The angel grounds him, Dean realizes now. His presence centers him, quiets the storm in his mind. He leans on him.

Unbidden, in that moment, in this kitchen, in his home, an odd thought springs to Dean’s mind: Cas lets me be weak.

“Dean,” Cas says. The anger, the hurt he'd unloaded on Dean earlier outside Donatello's room is gone. “I know you still think it’s the only way. The box. But even if it does come to that, if we can’t find another answer, I could go with you, watch over you. You wouldn’t have to do this alone.”

It would be so easy to say yes, Dean thinks. To break down, to beg him for help. Castiel. His protector.

Dean blinks as tears flood his eyes, his mind swimming, fatigue tunneling his vision. He focuses on Cas’ right hand, wrapped around the beer bottle.

Dean’s thirst for touch is automatic, instinctual, childlike. As if in a dream, or a trance, he reaches out for the angel’s hand, unfolding it, palm up. 

He murmurs, “You’ve already saved me, Cas.”

He traces the lines and planes of Cas’ palm with his thumbs. If anyone were to see them now, it’d look for all the world like Dean was trying to divine their future -- looking for answers, trying to uncover some clue, any clue, about what to do next.

But all Dean can think about is the past.

This hand, Dean thinks… Wields a gleaming silver blade.

Has dripped blood, blue slushie and black goo. Has cradled a child. 

It has pulsed with all the power of heaven. 

It has healed him -- and occasionally beaten him senseless.

This hand raised him from hell. It saved him from himself. 

With Dean’s defenses down, holding this hand, the simple feel of it filling his mind, the words tumble out.

What he owes Cas. What the angel deserves.

What’s hard to say. What was left unsaid.

The spaces between the words. The love in his heart.  

Dean folds Cas’ fingers over and grips his fist tight in both hands. Finally, he looks into the angel’s deep blue eyes.

“You saved me, Cas,” he says again. “And I don’t want to throw that away. I don’t. That’s not what this is about. I just… I can’t be the one who hurts you, OK? I can’t be the one who burns it all down.”

Pain fills the angel’s eyes as Dean gives his hand one last squeeze, rises from the table, and shuffles out of the kitchen.

No rest tonight. But maybe a little peace.