Tags: hurt/comfort, canon divergent, idiots in love
All right, we’re officially outta gauze. We talkin’ about it?”
Cas sighed. His eyes swam along the ceiling, just as they’d been doing the entire evening. Through every stitch and wrap, he wouldn’t bring ’em down. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said quietly. “It was just bad luck.”
“Uh uh. This ain’t bad luck. Bad luck is what Sammy’s gonna have if I lose you messy on a bad hunt. So how bout you go ahead and try that for me again.”
“It was just supposed to be one mimic—”
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation— You know better than that!”
“Things happen, Dean. Things outside of our control. This was that. Things happened. It was a bad lead, but I made it out. That’s what should matter right now.”
Dean shook his head, tossed an empty gauze roll, now just a cardboard skeleton, and watched it clatter against the tin garbage can. Roll away. Tip and settle on its side near the door. It felt like it’d wobbled into his gut. He fussed at a frayed string along the fresh wrap at Cas’ chest, red already weeping through the cotton. He waited. When Cas still didn’t look at him, he sloughed the whole nurse routine and slid gentle fingertips up the bruises on his neck. Kissed the rough turn of his jaw as he planted a knee on the bed and stretched over him, careful of where he put his weight. Stopping only as Cas reluctantly caught his eye. “Yeah, it does matter,” Dean agreed. “Which is why you can’t just rip your grace out and run, balls out, toward the first hunt you find. I don’t care how good you are. You shoulda told me. Or you should’ve at least told Sam.”
“Before it was a 9-1-1, Cas! Okay? Before! That wasn’t okay, and I’m pissed at you for it!”
Tears cropped up in Cas’ eyes, the deep frown in his brow waning to worry. “I know,” he relented. “I’m pissed at me too. It was stupid.”
“It was stupid—damn stupid.” Dean felt it go, the little water balloon of emotions in his chest that used to have brick sides and no air holes. It was exposed now, popped easily with Cas’ pins. “I can’t lose you, you understand? Not again. I don’t think I could come back from it.” Tears ate down his face, and Cas urgently chased them, trying to thumb them away. Like the whole world would fall with them if they got down too far.
“I’m sorry.” His voice cracked, exhaustion, maybe pain, finally winning out in his stubborn body. Or maybe he just couldn’t handle seeing Dean raw. Maybe that’s what shattered him every damn time. “It was just supposed to be one Mimic. Just one Mimic.” His own tears escaped, rolled through his temples into his hair, then onto the soft pillow behind his head, and Dean suddenly felt compelled to stop those too.
“All right, that’s enough.” He kissed Cas’ cheek, the wet trail at his temple. Dragging the tip of his nose gently alongside Cas’ again, where it belonged. It was easy sometimes to forget he was a warrior. A real one, not like Dean. He was Heaven-forged and army-trained. At one time, he was the leader of his own battalion. An angel strong enough to crack God’s hold and receptive enough to learn to love. Wise enough to understand the weight of both. And all of that was tucked into a fragile human now, healing beneath the sheets of Dean’s bed. A thought that made Dean feel unbelievably tiny and incomparably huge.
“We’re okay,” he said as he kissed Cas' mouth. Then, “You’re okay now,” because that seemed even more important. A smile finally broke away from him, running wild against the heat on Cas’ skin. “I can’t believe you got all seven vamps on your own, you showoff.”
