Five Years Later

Chapter Fifteen: The Panic

It was a long night the two of them spent together in the Sedan. The wintry air swirled around and into the car, sending shivers to them from under the blankets where they slept. Dean had rested his head against Cas sometime in the night, stirred from his slumber by another nightmarish vision that had struck him suddenly. He relived it now in the daylight, being the first to wake—perhaps he was simply the last to fall asleep.

They had been back on that stormy, cold morning where the wind blew through and around every little thing. Dean was standing there, ricocheted about by this phenomenon, watching Cas from a distance.

The angel's trench coat was billowing around his ankles like wings with a mind of their own, but Cas didn't seem to take notice of any of these elements besides Dean. He was screaming something and tears were streaming down his face, staining the fabric of his trench coat with his sadness.

Dean wanted to reach out and hold Cas in his arms and comfort the poor angel, but he was helpless, frozen on the edge of nothing until once again, the thunder sounded and he fell into the depths of the darkness.

When Dean started awake at some random point in the night, he found himself damp with tears that he had likely cried only minutes before his waking. In the darkness, he felt Cas murmuring something under his breath in a voice that sounded more dead than alive, and a hand was stroking his hair in an effort to calm him down.

"It's going to be okay, Dean." Cas mumbled, his breath warm against Dean's skin. Dean wasn't quite sure if the angel was fully conscious or not, but he appreciated the sentiment all the same.

***

"Good morning, Dean." Cas' voice was gruff as he stirred beneath the blankets, blinked blearily in the light of the morning. Dean had well adjusted to it now having been awake for most of the night. "Are the walkers--?"

Dean had forgotten to check, but now that Cas mentioned it, he couldn't hear their growls anymore.

"Before I check—" Dean shifted to face Cas, greeting the handsome angel with a fond smile. "Are we good, after everything last night?"

"We'll never be the same, but this is a new kind of 'good.'" Cas closed his eyes contentedly. "I like where we are. As a matter of fact, I love it. And you. Have I mentioned that recently?"

"I love you too." Dean kissed Cas' forehead and sat up, letting the blanket reside over Cas so he could peer out the window and survey their surroundings for walkers. As soon as he sat up, he regretted his decision. While there were no walkers except what was left of their presence—a various scattering of bloodied corpses across the wooded clearing—Negan and Logan were traipsing about with their collection of weapons and trophies, clearly looking for Dean and Cas. They spotted them all too quickly, and Dean's spying was short lived.

"Duck!" Dean cried. He dropped to the floor and tried to pull the blanket over both him and Cas, but Negan and Logan happened upon the car before they were able to properly hide. The doors were wrenched open on either side, leaving Dean and Cas scrambling for their lives with the only way out being toward a baseball bat wound in barbed wire or a sledgehammer soaked in fresh blood.

"What the actual hell are you two doing?" Negan was furious. All of his pent up anger that surrounded the base being burned down had now transitioned to this scene—coming upon his former prisoners together in a car surrounded by walker carcasses. "I have told you two many, many times to stay away from one another, and what do I get? The same night my home gets burned to the ground, I ask you two to come out on a patrol with me, only to get abandoned in the face of over fifty walkers. We've been out all night trying to find you two and now here you have been, snuggled up underneath that ratty ass blanket since yesterday? Do you have any idea what kind of shit I'm about to put the two of you through?"