Winning
Prompts: We All Survived/Loss
Word count: 273
No warnings apply.
After everything’s over, after half of America is in ruins (but the other half is still up) and parts of Canada have become uninhabitable and the other continents are mustering up the money to feed the few million new homeless people, Sam and Dean collapse in the safe shack that Bobby’s sent them to and sleep for a few weeks.
Cas drops in sometimes and talks to Sam. He and Dean haven’t yet managed to gain back their ground, although nowadays when Cas flies away Dean wanders out and looks at the spot where he’d been and there’s something soft in the corners of his eyes.
Gabriel doesn’t come, not for a long time. Sam quietly worries that he’s gotten hurt and needs help and then, when Cas tells him that Gabriel is fine and has even stepped into Heaven again, quietly worries that he’ll never see Gabriel again.
On the first day that the sky hasn’t been too filled with dust and fog to see the stars, Sam sits outside on the porch, sprawling against the banister, waiting for Dean to get back from a grocery run. Between one blink of an eye and another Gabriel is sitting beside him.
“So this is winning,” Gabriel says, rasps out rather-- like he hasn’t spoken in a long time.
Sam shrugs, “We all survived didn’t we?” Sam and Dean were alive and Bobby was back and Cas and Jody and Gabriel and even Kevin. They were all alive.
“This is winning,” Gabriel says again, contemplatively, leaning into Sam’s chest, so he could rest comfortably and listen to Sam’s heart beat out its steady rhythm.