To The Beat Of The Devil's Drums [Supernatural]

Epilogue

Something's beeping. The sound is persistent, relentless, and something about it makes anxiety churn in Dean's stomach. He feels a restlessness pervading his limbs, urging him to move; to run, but he finds he doesn't have the strength.

It takes several more seconds for Dean to realise the beeping is quickening, keeping time with his heartbeat. He opens his eyes.

Immediately, he's forced to squint, the sudden intensity of the light too bright for his pupils to adjust. He sees white: white walls, white ceiling, white bedsheets. Wires and leads trail off to join monitor screens on his left. It doesn't stop his rising panic to realise he's in hospital, one thought quickly forcing its way to the front of his mind. It passes his lips as soon as it enters his head, a single gruff syllable: "Sam?"

"Dean?"

Relief sweeps over him at the sound of the voice. He turns to face the other direction, surprised to see his brother on a second bed beside his own. There's a bag of saline on a stand beside him, connected to an IV line flowing into Sam's veins. Beside it is a bag of blood. "Sam, you okay?"

It surprises Dean to see Sam looking so well. There's color in his cheeks. The scratches on his face have been cleaned up, the worst of them covered with tiny strips of gauze. He doesn't even seem to be in pain, and just that thought is enough to make Dean's own injuries fade to almost nothing.

"Yeah, I'm good. They gave me a blood transfusion, fluids, some antibiotics...I'm doing okay. What about you? Cas said you were in a bad way when he found us."

"Cas?" Confusion lingers for a heartbeat before Dean notices the figure sat in the chair by the door. He looks over at the angel, hardly knowing what to say. Cas speaks first.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean should be relieved. Grateful. Yet he can't help the anger that rises in his voice as the mounting frustration of the past two days pours out. "Where were you?"

Even Sam seems surprised by the hardness of his voice.

"Dean..." Cas rises, strides closer. "I can't tell you how sorry I am. I tried..."

"Well, you should have tried harder." Dean can't even look at him, his vision strangely misty as he stares at the ceiling. All the hell of the past two days, and Cas could have come for them, got them both out...

"There was a force preventing me from reaching you, Dean. I didn't even know where you were. I promise, as soon as I knew, I came."

It makes sense. Dean knows it does, knows he's being unfair, yet he just can't let go. "You didn't think to ask questions? Find out where we'd gone on the hunt?"

He's hardly being reasonable. He's mad at himself for doing this, but if he can't take it out on the bitch that put him through all that, he has to take it out on something.

Sam intervenes. "Dean, hey. Cas did what he could. If he hadn't found us when he did, we'd both be dead by now."

Dean's fists clench briefly, then all the fight seems to seep from him. He doesn't want to be mad at his friend. He just doesn't know how to accept this is over. "Yeah, I know." He blinks as he meets the angel's gaze, yet finds he can manage neither a "thank you" nor a "sorry". The look in Cas' eyes tells him he doesn't need to.

The monitor continues to beep.

A shaky breath is drawn into Dean's lungs as he tries to block it out, but finds he can't. He could do without the constant reminder of his beating heart. "Hey, Cas, could you turn that off?"