A/N: For Mishminion on Ao3, who requested the three Winchesters taking care of a wounded and feverish Cas. Set sometime after 12x10 but probably before 12x12.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Thanks to 29Pieces for beta reading!
"Here For You"
Dean shoved his shoulder into the door to push it open, Cas staggering against him as the last dregs of his strength were rapidly waning and his bad leg was about to give out. The stairs were not going to be fun.
"Here we go, almost there," Dean encouraged, adjusting his arm around Cas's waist and trying to heft him up just an inch more so he wouldn't slump further and end up dragging them both to the floor.
"I got it," Mary said, squeezing past them and holding the door open. Dean shot her a grateful glance.
"Come on, buddy." Dean grunted as he hauled Cas through. "You can make it. No passing out until we reach the bed, capiche?"
Cas mumbled something unintelligible. Crap, he was fading fast.
"Sam!"
"Yeah," his brother called from behind, hurrying in from the garage with the plastic garbage bag containing the severed hellhound's head. He passed it to Mom so his hands would be free to come take Cas's other arm.
"You really think that thing's a priority right now?" Dean groused as he and Sam carefully navigated the stairway with Cas supported between them.
"If the Men of Letters don't have a cure for hellhound venom on file, then maybe I can try to make one," Sam responded tersely. "It's in the saliva, so I need samples…"
"Yeah, yeah," Dean cut him off. His nerdy brother was going to play supernatural scientist. Whatever.
"Don't- don't need a cure," Cas gasped out. "Venom will…will…"
"Will work its way out of your system," Dean interrupted gruffly. "So you said." Not that he thought Cas would lie about it, but the angel did have a bad track record of downplaying injuries or curses or anything that had to do with his well-being.
"Just because it won't kill you doesn't mean we shouldn't find a way to shorten the symptoms," Sam chided.
Because after they'd killed the hellhound that had bitten Cas, he had warned them about what was coming. The venom, which was apparently only toxic to angels, would make him sick, probably really sick, but he assured them he'd recover after some time. How much time, he couldn't—or wouldn't—say.
Once they finally reached the ground floor, Mom hurried around them, depositing the garbage bag on one of the study tables before moving ahead down the corridor toward the dormitories. Cas was flagging, and Dean and Sam were more dragging him at this point. By the time they got to Cas's room, Mom had flipped the covers of the bed back and laid down towels to protect the sheets from blood transfer.
"Alright, here we are," Dean said as he and Sam gently laid Cas back on the mattress. Cas's eyes were no more than slits, and he moaned as his leg was propped up on the bed. The slacks were soaked in blood around the thigh and had four large holes in the fabric. Cas might be able to fix them, though, once his mojo recovered.
"I'll grab a change of clothes," Dean said.
"I'll get the first aid," Mary echoed, following him out. She caught his arm in the hallway and lowered her voice. "How serious is this? I thought angels could heal themselves."
Dean's jaw tightened. Yeah, most of the time they could. "Cas says he'll live, he'll…live. It'll probably just be like he's come down with the flu or something," Dean said, offering her a light, reassuring smile. Sam was a genius and would come up with some kind of angel DayQuil, and Cas would be fine.
Dean hadn't realized how close his joke would be to the truth. An hour later, Cas had spiked a fever of 101 and developed a horrible, wet cough deep in his lungs that wracked his entire frame when it tried to punch its way out.
Dean braced Cas by his shoulders until a particularly nasty spell left the angel wheezing and shuddering for breath. Dean slowly eased him back against the pillow and reached for a bottle of water on the nightstand. He had to hold the bottle to Cas's lips, as the angel's hands were shaking too badly.
"Slow sips," Dean instructed.
Cas obeyed, eyes fever bright and bleary. He sagged into the pillow. "You don't have to stay, Dean," he whispered, voice hoarse from all the hacking.
"I don't have to leave," he rejoined, plopping into the chair next to the bed.
Cas sighed, but it turned into a small cough. "I've survived this once before."
Dean straightened. "What? When?"
Cas tried to give him a wry look, but it quickly morphed into a wince. "A long time ago, before Lucifer was cast down into the Cage." He paused, then added, "The first time."
"What happened?"
"There was war." Cas shifted, face screwing up in discomfort. "I fought in…many battles. Lucifer had bred packs of hounds that thirsted for angel blood. I was bitten."
Dean almost rolled his eyes at the annoyingly succinct angel. But then he frowned as he studied Cas's waxen pallor glistening with a sheen of sweat. "Was it like this, the first time?"
Cas furrowed his brow. "I actually don't remember much, after the fever took hold. The Rit Zien couldn't do anything, so I was left in an infirmary tent to wait it out." He cocked his head. "I think Anna might have tried to visit me, but that could have been a hallucination. The medics wouldn't have let her stay long anyway."
Dean flexed his hands into fists. Yeah, he definitely wasn't leaving. Cas shouldn't expect to be left alone just because he'd survive. Family was supposed to take care of each other when someone was sick or hurt, not smile and wave and walk out the door. Actually, Cas probably hadn't even gotten that much. He'd just been dumped in a tent by himself, wracked with fever dreams, and left alone to suffer. Dean wondered if Cas even knew he'd survive at the time, or if he'd spent however long in misery, thinking he was going to die. Maybe it was only afterward someone would have given him a passing comment, "oh yeah, hellhound venom isn't fatal."
Dean really hated angels sometimes.
Cas shivered, and Dean leaned forward to tug the coverlet further up over his shoulders.
"You're gonna be okay, Cas," he murmured, because even though the angel knew it in his head, Dean knew from experience that it didn't always feel that way when you were in the midst of riding out the crap. But having someone on the other side, grounding you, could make all the difference.
Mary woke from her nap around midnight. Her hours were off with all the cases she'd been out bouncing across the country on, and this most recent one had left her exhausted from the post-adrenaline crash. She'd almost lost one of her boys. Two of her boys, actually. Mary's heart had stopped in that moment when the hellhound had leaped at Sam, who had already been knocked to the ground and dazed. She'd watched through magic glasses thinking that was it, she was going to witness her baby ripped apart in front of her.
But then Castiel had come out of nowhere and thrown himself in front of Sam. His silver angel blade had flashed with reflected moonlight as he slashed down, scoring a hit that elicited a high-pitched yelp. He tried to beat back the beast, but it darted under his next swing and clamped its jaws around his thigh. The air had been rent with an angel's scream and Sam and Dean shouting his name.
Mary gave herself a rough shake. None of them had died, and while Castiel was hurt, it wasn't life threatening. The hound was dead and the case solved. That was a win.
She dragged herself from bed and headed out toward the kitchen, passing the library on her way. She frowned at the sight of Sam slouched over an open book, elbows on the table and rubbing his eyes.
"Have you been up this whole time?"
He startled, proving just how exhausted he was. "Uh, yeah." He squinted to try to read the time on his phone. "The Men of Letters didn't have anything on a cure for hellhound venom, so I'm trying to piece together one from scratch. They've done that with their own spells in the past, so I figure I should be able to, too."
Mary gave him a sympathetic look. "Sam, you should take a break, get some sleep."
He shook his head. "No, I have to find something."
She walked over to stand across the table from him. "What happened wasn't your fault."
Sam looked away, a muscle in his jaw jerking. "I know. But you don't understand. Cas has…he's been through a lot. For us, because of us. And there's been too many times we weren't there for him. We need to be here for him now."
"You are. Sam, you're doing everything you can. But you're not going to be able to help if you can't even think straight."
Sam shook his head in resistance.
Mary crossed her arms. "You're trying to work up a spell from scratch, right? Which means you need to be careful not to make a mistake. So sleep for one hour, at least. Cas needs you at your best."
He lifted a torn gaze to hers, but after a moment his shoulders deflated and he nodded. "You're right." He stood up, and Mary reached out to touch his arm as he walked around the table behind her. She ran her gaze over the books he'd left behind, wishing she could help with them. But spell work? That was never something she'd gotten into as a hunter.
She turned and headed for Castiel's room, figuring Dean hadn't bothered to get some sleep, either. Except she did find her son asleep in the chair by the angel's bed, head craned back at what was sure to be an uncomfortable angle.
Castiel was asleep as well, only it looked fitful. His facial muscles were twitching, and there were small whimpering noises emanating from his throat.
Frowning, Mary came around the other side of the bed and placed the back of her hand to the angel's forehead. He was burning up.
There was a bowl of water on the side table, but it was lukewarm. Mary took it down the hall to the bathroom and switched it out for colder water, then grabbed a fresh washcloth before returning to the room. She eased herself down on the edge of the mattress, balancing the bowl in her lap as she soaked the cloth and then wrung it out. She folded it across Cas's forehead. He moaned and leaned into it.
Her heart constricted to see him in so much misery, because yes, this timeless, ethereal being had somehow become one of her boys. Castiel, Dean, and Sam had formed a bond of brotherhood that was obvious to anyone who saw them together. And despite being an angel, from the little time Mary had spent getting to know him, she saw beneath the exterior another lost boy, just like her own. She hadn't raised her sons; she hadn't raised Castiel. But they were hers.
"Mhmp," Cas moaned, eyelids fluttering open sluggishly.
Mary gave him a small smile. "Hey." She adjusted the cloth on his brow, turning it over to the cooler side.
Castiel blinked at her blearily. "Anna?"
She frowned, having no idea who that was. "No, Cas. It's Mary."
A violent shudder wracked his frame, dislodging the cloth. Mary picked it up and soaked it in the bowl again, as the fever had leeched all the coolness from it rather quickly. She wrung it out and placed it back over his forehead. Castiel pried his eyes open to stare at her.
"I fell like you did," he rasped.
Mary furrowed her brow. "What?"
He squeezed his eyes shut. "Only I haven't stopped falling since. Please, Anna, tell me what to do."
"Shh, Cas, it's okay," she tried to soothe, but he started to toss his head back and forth.
"Ungh, Anna!"
Dean made a garbled sound, but didn't wake yet. Mary reached out to brush back a lock of Castiel's sweat-soaked hair.
"Hey Jude, don't make it bad," she started to sing softly. "Take a sad song and make it better."
Castiel began to quiet.
"Remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better." Mary sang the song she used to sing to Dean, lightly stroking her fingers over Castiel's brow as he settled into a more restful rhythm of sleep.
Mary flicked a glance at her eldest son, whose troubled features even in sleep had seemed to smooth at the sound of her voice.
"Hey Jude," she continued to sing for both her boys.
Dean was dreaming about a lazy afternoon on a fishing dock, a dream he hadn't had in a very long time, when suddenly the lapping waves turned to guttural heaves, and Dean was jerking awake to find himself not in a lawn chair, but a firmer one, and in a dimly lit, brick-walled room instead of outside in the sun.
He blinked furiously as the sounds of retching reached his ears again, and surged from his chair when he spotted Cas leaning over the side of the bed and vomiting. Mary was on the mattress next to him, legs drawn up so she was on her knees as she braced him with one arm across his shoulders and the other holding his forehead to keep him from falling off the bed.
"Cas!" Dean flicked on another light to fully illuminate the room, and pulled up short at the mess splattered on the rug. There wasn't much, as Cas's body never had any food in it to begin with, but there was some treacly black stuff that turned Dean's own stomach rancid.
"Shh," Mary was crooning as Cas gave one last dry heave before the attack seemed to stop.
"Dammit, Cas, is this normal?"
But the angel was too out of it to respond. Dean's gut tightened further at the thought of Cas in that medic's tent, puking all over himself with no one there to even help.
Dean ran a hand over his hair. "I'll, uh, get some paper towels."
"Dean," his mom interjected. "I'll clean it up. Why don't you go get some real sleep in an actual bed?"
He stared at her incredulously. "What? No. I got this. There's no reason for you to—"
"You think I didn't make it through four years of your life without having to clean up some vomit?" she rejoined. "I've got this. You, bed."
Dean's mouth moved soundlessly as he tried to think of an argument, but dammit, he was dead tired, because the words just weren't forming.
"You've been up just as long as I have," he protested weakly.
Mom leveled a stern look at him. "Actually, I've already slept. You missed it, being in here. Now go. Exhausting yourself isn't going to help Cas."
Dean's heart clenched as his gaze went to Cas's face. The angel's eyes were closed, pallor ashen, and his breaths were coming out in small wheezes. Mom eased him down onto the pillow, then scooted off the bed on the other side that was clear of sick. She came and put a hand on Dean's arm.
"Dean. I promise I'll look after him."
Maybe it was the sincerity in her promise, or the exhaustion in his bones, but Dean relented. "Come get me if he gets worse," he said.
She nodded seriously, and Dean had to tear himself away. But his mom was right. Besides, Dean had vowed that Cas wouldn't be left alone—and he wasn't.
Sam woke groggily to the annoying alarm on his phone, his body needing way more sleep than he was allotting it. But two hours was all he was going to give himself until he found a cure for hellhound poison. Though, at this rate, Cas might simply recover on his own. But Sam still wanted to find something, in case this kind of thing happened again in the future.
He went to check on Cas, and found him just as sick as earlier. Dean wasn't there, but Mom was running a damp cloth over Cas's forehead as the angel twitched and moaned in fever dreams. There was also the pungent odor of bleach in the air.
Sam's shoulders slumped. "He's not getting better."
Mom looked up, expression pinched with concern. "Not yet."
Sam moved toward the bed and lifted the covers to expose Cas's leg. They'd removed his slacks and left him in boxers so they'd have easy access to the bite wound. Sam gently peeled the tape on the corners up and removed the gauze. The puncture marks were swollen and the color of puce. They looked painful.
Wanting to help but not knowing what would actually make a difference, Sam nevertheless grabbed the antibiotic ointment and fresh bandages from the desk to change the dressing. Cas let out a distressed moan under his ministrations.
"What good is the Men of Letters and their lore if they never have anything we actually need?" Sam muttered in frustration. First with the Mark and Dean, then the Darkness, and now Cas and something as stupid and run-of-the-mill as hellhound venom.
"The sickness will pass eventually, though, right?" Mom said.
Sam scrunched his face up incredulously at her. "That's no reason to just sit back and let him suffer."
She just gave him a look, and Sam ducked his gaze, chastised.
"Sorry. I know you didn't mean it that way." He was just tired still, and he hated seeing the people he cared about hurting.
Mom's expression was nothing but understanding. "When you were a baby, you had awful colic. Nothing I did made it better. I even tried some wacky remedies." Her mouth quirked a fraction before sobering again. "There were nights when I held you and you wouldn't stop crying, and I felt like an utter failure as a mother."
Sam's heart twinged guiltily. "Mom—"
"Sometimes the only thing we can do is be there," she cut him off. "And wait it out." She turned back to Cas, turning the cool cloth over.
Sam was quiet for a moment. "I want to be able to do more," he said softly.
Mom didn't look at him, but she whispered, "Me too."
"I found a cure for a Darkness sickness that was turning people into rabid animals," he said. "While I was infected." He snorted humorlessly. "Hellhound venom should be easy."
"How'd you do it then?" Mom asked.
Sam shrugged. "Luck, I guess. Something the reaper Billie said about being unclean in the biblical sense, and I just played a hunch with holy fire…" He trailed off. Wait, if hellhounds were from Hell, then Heaven—holiness—would be the opposite.
He pivoted toward the door. "I have to go."
"Told you sleep would help," Mom called after him, and Sam spared a brief smile as he strode out into the hall. Yeah.
Dean did feel better after getting some sleep. He took a quick shower and then headed for the kitchen to put on a pot of fresh coffee. Sam was in the library still, looking completely absorbed in what he was doing. Dean brought him a mug of caffeine before taking his own back to Cas's room.
"How is he?" he asked upon walking in. His mom was reclining in the chair.
"Fever's down a little," she replied. "He stopped throwing up a couple hours ago."
Well, that was something, Dean supposed.
"He, uh, he said some things," Mary said tentatively. "During the worst of it."
Dean frowned. "Like what?"
Mom looked as though she was teetering on whether to reveal it or not, and Dean started to worry about what Cas might have said in his delirium.
"Who's Anna?"
Dean blinked. Anna? Where the heck had that come from? "She was an angel. A friend of Cas's, I think. Until she went psycho and tried to kill us. Actually, uh, you met her," he added. "We followed her back in time when she tried to kill you so me and Sam would never be born."
Mom's eyes widened a fraction as she stared at him in stupefaction.
Dean winced. "You don't remember it, though, because another angel wiped your memory."
Her gaze drifted to Cas.
"Not Cas," Dean said quickly. "Some douchebag who doesn't matter anymore."
Mom gave herself a small shake. In light of recent events, this was probably one of the more minor revelations she'd had to process and deal with.
"She was his friend," Mary said, and Dean had to pause to grasp the change in direction. "He called out for her."
A lump formed in Dean's throat. It'd been years since Anna's death, and Dean barely gave her a thought anymore. He wondered if Cas did, though. Or maybe Dean asking about the last time Cas had been bitten had brought up memories, since the angel had said Anna might have tried to visit him when he was sick before. He'd probably called out to her then, too.
Dean cleared his throat. "My turn," he said, somewhat hoarsely.
Mom gave him a wan smile and didn't protest. She rose from the chair and reached out to squeeze his arm as she passed, and Dean took her place by the bed.
Some time later, Sam came rushing in, declaring he'd found a cure.
Castiel's head felt as though it was full of cotton, and his eyelids seemed glued shut when he tried to open them. Everything ached, but he was lucid enough to wonder where he was. The soft cushion of the mattress beneath him, followed by the subtle hints of stone, dust, and aged paper confirmed the bunker. Home.
He pried his eyes open, squinting at the blurred glow that filled his vision like pinpricks. It took a few more moments before the smudges gradually coalesced into shapes, then details. Sam was sitting in a chair on his left, smiling.
"Hey."
"Hey," Castiel croaked in return, swallowing against a dry throat. He slowly tracked his gaze around the room. "How long?"
Sam reached for a glass of water on the nightstand and scooted forward to hold it to Castiel's lips so he could drink. "A day and a half."
Castiel drank greedily while his mind was slow to process the response. "Only that?" he said. "I would have expected longer."
The first time he'd been bitten, it had taken four days for the venom to work its way out of his system. Given his somewhat weakened grace after everything he'd been through in the past few years, he'd figured it would have been even longer this time.
Sam gave him a tentative smile. "I found a cure."
Castiel stared back incredulously. "Oh." He felt the corner of his mouth tug upward in awe. He should stop being so surprised at the younger Winchester's ingenuity. Or tenacity, for being so determined to try in the first place. "Thank you."
Some of the lines of tension in Sam's face seemed to smooth. "Dean's in the kitchen making soup. Your fever broke an hour ago and we thought you'd be waking up soon. And you know Dean likes to mother-hen people with food, so…I hope you can tolerate eating the molecules," Sam finished with a slight grimace.
Castiel took a moment to catalog the state of his grace. The venom had been neutralized, but he was still exhausted and weakened from the ordeal. "I…don't think my grace is strong enough to taste molecules right now," he admitted.
Sam smiled, and reached out to give his arm an encouraging pat. "Then enjoy being plied with delicious food while you recharge."
Castiel gave a hesitant smile in return. That would…be a new experience. He'd always just soldiered on after recovering from injuries.
He furrowed his brow in thought. "The past twenty-four hours are hazy, but…you all were here, taking care of me?" All he had were flashes, faces and voices as though from a dream, but all of them steady and comforting.
Sam nodded, eyes warm. "Yeah."
Castiel sank further into the mattress. Humans never ceased to amaze him in their capacity for compassion, and that he, an angel, should be the recipient of it…that touched him deeply and left him basking in the wondrous glow of love and family.
"Thank you," he whispered gratefully.
Sam squeezed his forearm. "We'll always be here for you. You know that, right?"
Castiel felt hot moisture gathering behind his eyes, though he couldn't say why, only that he was overwhelmed by their care and devotion.
"Yes," he said. He knew.