Cohesion
Title: Cohesion
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Word Count: 719
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel
Contains: Angst, Bittersweet-ness, Hurt/Comfort
Summary: When Cas finally gets out of Purgatory, Sam discovers that the angel's bond with his brother has grown stronger than he realized.
The morning after they pull Cas out of purgatory, Sam wakes up to find him sleeping in Dean’s bed.
When Cas had taken his first staggering step back on Earth again, Sam had honestly thought they had cracked open purgatory a second time just to watch the angel die in their arms. Blood patterned his trench coat like some horrific modern art, all gushes and spills and splatters and smears. He crumpled to the floor like gravity had won a bet, surrendering to pain and exhaustion in a motion that was obviously well practiced. The difference was that this time, the Winchesters were finally there to catch him.
Sam can still remember the first time the angel appeared to him. Sam’s first words had been a blasphemy, and the angel’s to reaffirm his status as a blood-drinking freak. Back then Cas’s coat had been pressed and neat. Yesterday Sam stripped the tattered remains off his back so that Dean could press the gashes they found there, his brother’s face rigid with the kind of fear Sam had thought he’d forgotten how to feel.
They stopped the bleeding, bound his wounds, got him into some clean clothes and waited. Cas hadn’t said a word yet, though sometimes when he looked at them his lips would mouth certain syllables that neither brother could string together. Mostly he would touch, reaching out to weakly grasp Sam’s arm or trailing numb fingers across the back of Dean’s knuckles. His eyes hardly left their faces, and the look of gratitude in them was painful to see. Sam knew it hurt Dean more than it did him. Dean was the one who left him halfway to Hell in the first place, and no matter how necessary that decision had been Sam knew he’d never forgive himself for it.
Hour by hour Cas would start to come back to them, in a word or a nod or a fleeting smile. His body seemed impossibly thin, which had Dean worried because angels shouldn’t have to eat. Theoretically they shouldn’t have to sleep either, but that hadn’t stopped Castiel from crawling onto the pillow next to Dean’s and sleeping like someone who doesn’t know how to stop, and doesn’t quite want to start figuring it out just yet.
Sam watches them now, a strange, quiet smile spreading across his lips. They don’t touch, don’t wrap any arms around each other or press their bodies together, except for a space between them where Dean’s hand splays out to brush against Cas’s fingertips. For now they seem perfectly happy to just chase each other deeper into unconsciousness. Their bodies seem to orient towards each other, in the way Dean’s head tilts slightly towards Cas’s face, or Cas’s other hand is pushed ever so slightly under the edge of Dean’s pillow. The gestures are tiny and unconscious, as natural as two drops of water pulling each other together. Sam’s mouth twists wryly. Dean and Cas “cohering” is something he really doesn’t want to be thinking about.
He sits up in bed slowly, wincing at the creak of the bed springs and the rustle of cheap motel sheets, but Crowley could have burst through the door leading a polka band in full swing and neither of them would have woken. This is the first time since Purgatory that Sam has seen Dean sleeping so soundly. This might be the first time since then he’s seen Dean sleep at all. All those nights travelling with Cas in Purgatory, catching a few desperate minutes of unconsciousness while the angel stood guard, the warmth and weight of another body the only reassurance that he’d wake up again-Sam can see how he’d come to need that. How they’d come to need each other.
He grabs his coat and walks to the door. When he comes back with a box of donuts Cas and Dean will be awake, sitting on opposite corners of the bed and trying to hide the shy smiles that keep creeping back onto their faces. Sam won’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. He’ll just smile back and offer them a donut, and they’ll laugh because happiness wasn’t something Dean was ever supposed to find. But then again, Dean had never been very good at doing what he was supposed to.