SPN episode codas (Destiel)

11.15 Beyond the Mat

This could take place before or after Beyond the Mat, but I imagined it happening before they went to the funeral. I wasn't going to post this but I changed my mind.

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A congealed slice of pizza cools at his elbow, and the laptop displays a digitized version of an early church document—a possible lead on another Hand of God. Dean shifts his weight onto his forearms, so he leans against the table. He holds Sam's gaze and doesn't blink.

"Did he say why?"

"We only had a few seconds," Sam says.

"Did he tell you how Lucifer got the jump on him?"

A muscle works in Sam's jaw. Dean fears he's hit a wall, but Sam answers after a breath. "He said he wanted to be useful."

Dean nods slowly, drowning that truth in a mouthful of flat beer. It goes down sour. He slumps over his lap and drains the bottle. Sam looks away. On either side of the room, the computer banks whir steadily, unaffected.

It should have been obvious the cage had altered Cas when Dean found him searching the bunker with rolled-up sleeves; when Cas came toward him, stepping an inch too close, and anchored his thumb beneath Dean's collarbone.

It should have been obvious, but it wasn't, because Cas said what Dean needed to hear: "This time you won't be alone."

It was mimicry of Castiel, exaggerated for the devil's amusement, and Dean fell for it.

He thinks of Cas's thumb pressed to his chest sometimes, when he tries to shake images of Amara. That it was the wrong hand–Lucifer's hand–makes Dean cringe.

Theirs is a legacy of touch. Castiel held him when they met, after raising him from hellfire, and Dean's hand felt the loss of Cas's fingers for weeks after escaping the edgeless gray of Purgatory. They've beaten each other, but with those same hands they've healed and soothed and forgiven. Dean held Castiel's dead face between his palms in Detroit and comforted him in a warehouse, cradling his cheek against the concrete.

There have been others: in diner booths, through doors, a hand on the elbow urging the other to stand down. These touches are casual, sometimes accidental, but no less significant.

Lucifer's had been heavy, too forward. But Dean, who knows Cas's touch better than anyone, hadn't suspected.

"Dean, we'll get him back."

Sam's constant need to remind him isn't a reassurance, but Dean doesn't tell him that. He hangs on Sam's words.

He should be annoyed that Sam is being gentle with him. Sam didn't complain about fried eggs and bacon two mornings in a row, or that Dean scrolled through a motel's cable lineup for fifteen minutes two days ago, only to shut off the TV. He merely smiled when he glimpsed a picture on Dean's phone, of Cas safe in that gray army blanket.

It's utilitarian, something a soldier might carry, and easily forgotten–except when it's cold. If Cas feels similarly, that's Dean's fault.

Sam mumbles something about dinner and gets up, and goes to the kitchen. Word by word, Dean transcribes the ancient text in modern-day syntax. The likelihood that any relic is where a thousand-year-old document claims is nil, but they can't leave a lead unexplored, even if it means suffering a transatlantic flight only to come up empty handed.

He doesn't feel hungry, despite eating scant bites today, but he accepts the bowl of vegetable stew that Sam puts in front of him. Dean spoons some into his mouth so Sam won't hover. The stew is canned; the carrots taste slightly metallic. He dips the skeleton of his pizza crust into the broth and bites off a chunk. The crust is stale but helps mask the flavor. Sam's forehead pulls into a frown, but he doesn't offer censure.

"Find anything?" he says instead, gesturing to Dean's notebook. Dean resents the hope in his voice. This is impossible. It's impossible, and yet—

Castiel would lead a crusade through hundreds of underworlds to save him, and Dean would scour Purgatory again, slaughter anything in their path until Cas wants to leave with him. Until he believes himself worthy of it. Until he allows himself to be saved.

Sam is right: They'll do this. They're the only people who can.

They'll defeat the Darkness, sever the connection that pulls Dean toward her like a game fish to an angler's hook. Make sure she's locked up where no one, not even God, can release her.

They'll beat Lucifer. Finally. Impossibly. He'll never hurt Sam again. His light will go out, and Cas will return to them.

They'll take him home. Cas will have a room and clothes of his own. They'll take him shopping. Sam will get him up-to-speed with computers, and Dean will grill Cas's favorite burgers for a month, teach him how to do an oil change, how to flip a badge.

He'll wrap Cas in that blanket, now that he's finally free from the unwanted draw to someone else, and watch hours of whatever awful show Cas picks on Netflix. They'll lie in Cas's room or in his–maybe there won't be a need for distinction.

He'll offer Cas his hand and say "I need you" until Cas doesn't need to hear it any more.