Disclaimer: 'Supernatural' and its characters are not mine.
Setting: A coda to 'The Executioner's Song' (10x14)
A/N: I've been meaning to write this for a long time. The last episode gave me the perfect place to fit it in.
After
It's a silly little thing, but it makes his tired heart pound painfully against his chest.
"Can you come with me for a sec?"
A pat on the shoulder, just for a moment leaning on him, and a casual sentence, something he's never said before. The potential for everything at the end of the line.
Cas doesn't answer, but he does follow. Dean can tell he hesitates, maybe to wordlessly communicate something with Sam. But he does follow. He always follows.
There is no question in him when Dean gestures for him to sit next to him on the bed. He just goes along. The weight of him dips the mattress in an unfamiliar way. The feel of him so close is familiar – it's family – in a way that makes his lip tremble. It's split somewhere.
He's split somewhere. He's split everywhere.
For the longest time, there is silence, as Dean's heart pounds – and who knows how many heartbeats left - and his bruised ribs feel like they might break apart under the pressure.
Cas' hands are on both sides of him, palm open against the sheets, like he's drawing something out of them, like they're holding him up. Dean keeps his hands in his lap, hunched over, hurting, hoping, fucking terrified.
"You know, I always figured, after."
A beginning, years in the making. So fucking late. His voice so barely there.
"After we somehow survive the apocalypse. After you come back from fixing heaven or whatever. After Sam is okay. When you are my friend again."
I needed you to be my friend again.
"And then you were dead. And when you came back, it was after remembering shit again. After we fix this. And then after you get your sanity back. After taking Dick and the leviathans out."
Cas is very still beside him, all quiet, attentive tension. Dean can tell he is looking at him, or trying to, but he can't. Not yet. He looks downwards, at his own hands, the blade hand clenching and unclenching.
"After I find you. After getting out of purgatory. After you stick around long enough. After I get you back to normal. After the whole thing where we've got to forgive all the shit that's happened."
It's so dim in here, but he still feels like he can see too much. When they entered, Dean didn't bother turning on the lights and Cas followed suit. He closes his eyes and the world doesn't go away one bit.
"And then I couldn't do it, because I can tell the whole world I'm never going to see you again and I won't believe it. And then it was after I find you. Again. When you're safe in the bunker with me and Sam. When we've figured out the whole human thing. And fuck. I had to throw you out instead."
Cas' hand twitches, just the little finger. The quiet thump on the sheets, the slight pressure. Before the Mark, he wouldn't have noticed a thing with his eyes closed.
"So it was after I get that angel out of Sammy and you can come back. And since then it's been after the Mark."
He takes a deep breath. It rattles inside him like a dangerous, living thing.
"But the thing is, I don't think there'll be an after."
And his hand, his stupid, murderous hand, reaches out. Blindly crawling along the sheets until he finds something soft and warm and still.
He doesn't grab his hand. He merely lets two fingers overlap. Enough for Cas to pull back. Enough for him to dismiss everything and pretend this never happened.
Because this is everything, at the end of the line. And maybe they'd both be better off with nothing.
His eyes are open again, but he can't look at Cas, at the light of him. He's not scared of rejection, not really. He's never been alone in this.
But where's the sense of beginning when there is no-…
A hand on his cheek, rough, calloused, a dangerous thing, too. The soft pressure of being made to look at him and the impossible pressure of eyes filled with sorrow older than the world, younger than everything.
The pressure of lips against lips, gentle, weeping, an ache against his split lip.
His split everything.
A breath, just between them.
"I promise you. I promise you there will be."