Destiel Fluff

Nightmare

"Cas! Please! No!"

"It is just a nightmare, Dean. Please, hear me."

Castiel tried to soothe the thrashing man beside him, but to no avail. Dean was deep in a nightmare and could not be reached.

"Cas..."

He could only watch his lover's torment, and wished that he was still an angel, that he could simply touch Dean and the fear would be stolen away. But he was human, useless and helpless. Dean whimpered and Cas' heart broke listening to such a hopeless sound escape his hunter's lips. Suddenly Dean's body contorted into the foetal position as if he needed to protect himself. Every so often he would flinch as if he had just taken a blow to the head or stomach.

"Cas!" Dean's voice was ragged from fear, and despairing. Cas didn't know why his dream self was not aiding his hunter. He was meant to be a guardian angel. But he could not even guard the one man he had ever loved from a dream. Useless. Eventually Dean stopped calling out and grew still. Cas sighed in relief and went to snuggle into his hunter's side. Dean, still sleeping, flinched at his touch and Castiel recoiled in horror. Was Dean still dreaming? Cas could think of no way to calm him and instead began to sing an old Enochian lullaby under his breath, faintly remembered from his childhood, and cautiously reached his hand towards Dean's arm. Just the tips of his fingers touched his arm, but there was no response, so Cas laid his palm on his shoulder, flush with the scar he had made when he pulled Dean out of Hell.

Castiel remembered watching Dean's soul being tortured, unable to reach through and reassure him, he'd had to scream silently as Dean was ripped apart by Hellhounds, carved with white-hot blades, suspended on meat hooks. Every night, Cas had used his power to soothe Dean's wounds and mind. Only for it to start over again the next day. Then as Dean's mind slowly began to deteriorate, he was able to see Castiel. But he assumed that Cas was just another illusion, a friend conjured up by Alistair just to be torn from him, and saw the healing as another kind of torture. After half a decade, Dean let down his guard and let Cas into his heart, and the pain they caused each other dissipated when they sat on the floor of Dean's cell and reminisced about their lives in the mortal world. During one conversation, Dean admitted that Cas had become the only thing that mattered to him and finally consented to being touched, just on the shoulder, in a neutral area. And they had spent the rest of the night curled up together, for a short time forgetting what would happen tomorrow.

Alistair found the scorched marks all over Dean, caused by the touch of an angel, and chose to use psychological torture. Dean had been in Hell for thirty years and Alistair had not managed to make the righteous man pick up a weapon and begin to torture, instead choosing to be tortured. Well, Dean would be tortured. Alistair blocked Castiel from Dean's view and told him that he had destroyed Castiel's soul. That his one comfort was gone. That Dean would spend the rest of eternity alone, in Hell. Castiel had seen the light die in Dean's eyes, and flashed to Heaven. He did not see Dean pick up a weapon and turn to a soul on the rack. He begged to be allowed to save Dean. He was refused over and over again, until finally he appealed to God himself. And to his astonishment, God agreed. By the time Castiel found Dean again, a decade had passed and he was barely recognisable, barely human. Castiel's heart shattered looking at the man he had spent so much time saving. He placed his hand on Dean's shoulder, the place that he had first touched him, and used every scrap of power he possessed to raise Dean from perdition.

When Dean was resurrected, Castiel discovered Alistair's last act of revenge. He had erased all memory of Cas from Dean's memory. Desperately screaming, Castiel tried to make Dean remember, remember what he had done for him, why he had been brought back, the love they had felt for each other, the hope in a hopeless plave. But he was using Enochian, and Dean only recoiled in pain at his true voice. When Castiel was finally allowed to contact Dean again, he saw that he did not recognise him. He had taken a vessel so that he could be around Dean without killing him. And Dean shot him. Over the next months, Castiel whispered to Dean in his dreams, telling him to remember. He stood close to him, but Dean sent him away. He willed him to remember his only comfort, his reason for hope.

Then, years later, Dean asked to speak to Cas alone. Castiel recognised the look in Dean's eyes from that night in Hell when he had confessed his love, and Castiel's heart rejoiced. He finally had his Dean back. The one man he had ever claimed as his own, without Dean's knowledge. But Dean did not remember. Not truly. He did, however, admit that he was in love with Castiel, and that was enough.

***

Dean often had nightmares, but they had seemed to abate when he began to spend the night with Cas, sharing body heat and covers. Now they only resurfaced when Dean had been drinking or fighting with Castiel, tonight he had downed glass after glass of whiskey, desperate for some sleep. Since, if it was not nightmares, it was insomnia that tormented his lover. Tonight the nightmares were back with a vengeance. This had been Dean's third nightmare of the night, and the worst, but it seemed to be over. Cas nuzzled his head into Dean's neck and Dean responded for the first time by shifting so that his arm encircled Cas.

"I love you, Cas," Dean muttered sleepily, "I'll always protect you."

"I love you too, Dean, my dear. I will always protect you as well."

For the first time Dean turned to face Cas, still asleep, with a faint smile tugging at his mouth, and his breathing deepened, finally truly at peace.

They slept together for the rest of the night, in each other's arms, legs entangled, warm, happy.