Chapter Text
The first time Castiel reached for your trembling fingers, you sat side by side, bunker bound, in the rear of the Impala. The angel had healed you, healed all of you, and yet, as always, there existed wounds he could not see or mend with his divine grace.
In the driver’s seat, muted by guilt, Dean’s green gaze seemed fixed so far away that his white-knuckled clutch upon the steering wheel and steady pressure of his boot on the gas pedal were, more than anything else, a base manifestation of homing instinct.
Sam reclined restlessly against the passenger window, eyelids heavily shut in the elusive search of a fitful slumber forever out of his grasp.
Tears reflective of the gruesome hunt gathered in the corners of your eyes, the briny sting of innocent lives lost stained your flushed cheeks.
The dense shared silence of varying regrets hung viscous in the air between the four of you so that the simple act of breathing became a tiresome chore.
In gaining a familiarity with the nuances of human touch, Castiel understood hand holding to be a means to comfort you – the gesture a physical reminder that you were not alone. He had no way of anticipating the reverberating influence of the action on his own sense of grounding.
Numb fingers sensing the warm rough skin of his palm overlaying your hand, you twined your fingers through his, a shaky sigh rattling your chest as you wriggled across the distance between your bodies to lay your weary head on his shoulder.
Castiel drew your hand to rest upon his lap – grateful to have helped, grateful for your existence.
More and more habitually in the days, and weeks, and months following, Castiel intuitively reached out to hold your hand. Frequently, it was to reassure you, as on that first fateful occasion. Just as often, it was out of a shyly blossoming affection. Sometimes, when he felt most lost and most without purpose, it was to satisfy a nascent desire in himself to hold on to something tangible and alive in a world where too often the immaterial natures of hope and faith were not enough to fend off the darkness or the thought that he, alone, was not enough to aid in the stand against it.
Together, hand in hand, anything seemed possible.