drabblewriter: Supernatural, Dean, "You can pray for someone even if you don't think God exists." (on LJ's comment_fic)
"God." (If there is a God?) Dean begins, his eyes closed tight, he means the word, even if his thoughts betray him. (It's the thought that counts, but for what it's worth he'll use words and actions both).
Dean is on his knees, he hears his heart beat in his ears, he hears the machines he doesn't know the name of, beeping and humming.
"Please help, Cas'..." Dean doesn't look at the hospital bed, where Cas lays helpless and pale. If he opens his eyes, he fears to see the scorch of burnt wings across white hospital sheets and white walls and the gritty grey of the floor. There would be only the body, and Cas - the angel, his friend, would be dead.
"Dean." Sam sounds pained, and Dean knows his little brother believed in God even when Dean didn't (still does not) and knows that Sam had never really understood the bond between his blood and demons, never understood how his brother - simple, loyal, a hunter - had gotten the attention of angels - of this angel in Hell: Castiel. Cas had gotten him out of Hell, by all that was holy and all that he believed there was (monsters, demons, evil) and there was not (God, angels until Cas'...) he - just this once - Dean prayed to be proven wrong.
"He hears." Cas says softly, a whisper to Dean's ears. Dean opens his eyes, knowing the wetness on his cheeks for tears, and yet a grin stretches widely across his face. His relief (if not his belief) is plain to see - and maybe, between God and Dean, it's enough to keep.