chuckwinchester:

purgatory-jar:

chuckwinchester:

Dean/Castiel – 8k – hurt/comfort/fluff

(An art-based fic for the Patreon piece “Now we know Dean cleans Cas up regularly” – Nov 4, 2018 by @purgatory-jar/Elena.)

You know that playback thing, they do in movies? Something horrible is happening, or the main character is freaking the fuck out and they show you something they showed you earlier in the movie. A big flashing sign pointing to why someone goes wild, loses their shit, kills everyone in the room. Or starts shaking, curls up in a ball and just weeps their damn eyes out.

Trauma.

Dean’s been trained to review those flash situations in his head. But it was always like rewinding the tape and updating the playbook. Defense tactics: Trying to find out what he did wrong so he won’t get blindly attacked on the right side unexpectedly by a lefty. Offensive tactics: So he remembers exactly when a vamp drops his fangs and manages to lash forward first.

Dad trained them to do it. Never considered overexposure or repeated trauma a problem – lack of analysis was.

He had them sweep a house and ‘killed’ Sam from a corner he never checked so many times that Sam cried in frustration. And then Dad replayed every moment of his attack on Sam. Showed him how bloody and splayed and useless he would be. Showed him how getting dead would only mean Dean had nobody to cover his six and he’d be dead, too.

He explained it in gory detail. He made it horrific. He scared Sam into understanding.

Just like he’d done to Dean, when Dean started coming on hunts.

And afterward, you count your bullets. How many you have left. It teaches you to be conservative. Teaches you to aim better and need fewer shots.

Afterward, you buy a slim knife to conceal in your boot because you were just in a last-resort fight and if it weren’t for a solid iron nail wielded in a broken table leg, you wouldn’t be alive.

Afterward, you see all the deep red and purple in your face, all the blood pounded to the surface, and you learn to block better on that side.

You replay the fight, the trauma, the horror, and you learn.

That didn’t stop after Stull. He replayed Sam falling backwards, down, down, down, down again, and he didn’t learn shit. But he kept replaying it. Kept imagining a version of the day where he wasn’t so beat down. Where he could have crawled to the side of the hole and grabbed Sam’s leg.

Where he could have tripped to the side of that gaping chasm and thrown himself in, too.

He didn’t learn shit from that. But you keep replaying and changing your moves because you don’t want to be predictable and you don’t want to get rusty and you want to know when your senses or your reflexes start failing you, at this age.

Dean’s got no idea why Cas is letting him do this.

He’s using a damp washcloth to clean the wounds on his ear and his cheek and his nose. He’s letting Dean pull little crystals of glass out of his hair.

If he gave Cas six seconds alone, he’d turn around and find him fully recovered. Cas could fix himself in a blink.

But he’s sitting on the motel bed, letting Dean do this. His hands work as he blindly replays the explosion and the fight and reviews all the angles. Cas lets him do this mindlessly and without complaint.

Lets Dean clean him up.

(read more on ao3)

First of all, I cried so much at this, it’s so freaking good! This is 100% what I want from canon Deancas! 

Thank you so much for writing this piece, I´m so glad my art inspired you to write! 

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;0; I’m so glad you enjoyed it!!

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