Author: Mirrordance
Title: Five Minutes
Summary: How much trouble can Dean get into without Sam watching his back for five minutes? Castiel, as their back-up, finds out the hard way.
Hi gang!
Thanks to all who read, alert-ed, favorite-d and especially all who reviewed my last fic, Open, Shut. More extensive responses should be hitting your mailboxes soon, but in the meantime, I found myself with a little bit of time lately, and thought I'd sit down and write something happy for a change, haha. Then again, maybe I just need a bit of levity, in preparation for the posting of a much-darker and long-owed fic called Heaven and Earth, which will be set in the Stanford years, where Sam goes missing during voluntary fieldwork overseas, and Dean gets on a plane! to look for him.
Anyway, in the meantime and without further ado, Five Minutes:
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Five Minutes
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"Room 115. The Sapphire Motel in Scottsd--"
Castie's grasp of the American map was turning masterful by leaps and bounds. Dean had barely finished mentioning the name of the city and the state and somehow, Castiel makes sense of where the Winchesters were and consequently, where he was meant to be.
He popped into the motel room, just inside the door, and wondered for a second if he should pop back out and knock on the door; human norms were much harder to figure out than geography. The thought escaped him quickly, as soon as he set his eyes on Dean working in the kitchen.
The hunter did not seem to know he was there or if he did, Dean was too busy to acknowledge him. Dean's shaking hands were scrambling at pots and bottles, stirring, pouring, tearing at sprigs of plants.
Cooking? Castiel thought, mildly irritated by the idea that perhaps he was summoned here on some random quirk of Dean's. He'd once been summoned to buy oregano for some dish Dean was in the mood to make while at Bobby Singer's house. Castiel's anger simmered as the sauce did, making the 'heavenly' smells wafting around the room easy to ignore. When Dean stepped out of earshot, ever-perceptive Sam said to him in an aside that Dean didn't really need the spice, but he needed to know where Castiel was and what he was doing.
"Why?" the angel had asked, suspicious and confused and feeling diminutive.
They've been through much together, this motley crew of theirs, and it wasn't so hard a stretch to believe that all they had was each other. And so Sam just looked at him pointedly like he was already supposed to know these things. The younger Winchester sighed at his lack of cognition and said, "Just stay for dinner, all right? Otherwise I'd be stuck dealing with him when he gets like this."
It was the first time Castiel had ever tasted spaghetti.
Castiel checked the judgment, however, when Dean dropped a plastic-bottle that clattered to the floor. He looked at it regretfully, muttered a curse, leaned over to pick it up, and then crumpled and went headlong straight to the floor. Castiel shot forward without anymore hesitation, catching Dean in his arms.
"Dean," Castiel called out to the semiconscious hunter, shaking him slightly. He was shivering and hot to the touch, the temperature of his skin burning through the fabric of his clothes. His gaze was distant, but he managed to keep his eyes open. Castiel shook him again, and he jerked himself back to alertness.
"P-p-personal space?" he mumbled, and it really had been a question.
"You summoned me here," Castiel reminded him, but nevertheless backed off and settled Dean to lean his back against the leg of the kitchen table. "What are we doing?"
"Antidote," Dean gasped and immediately, Castiel stood up to full height, already turning to the work Dean had left behind.
"Poison kills fast," Dean continued, "The sprig needs to go in the – yeah, you got it."
Castiel was unfamiliar with this antidote; the angel was vastly knowledgeable about many things, but then again there were 'lesser' demonic things that the army of the Lord did not bother to deal with too. He did as Dean carefully instructed: mixing this to that, specific measurements of what. It was horrendously complex and also strangely easy, with Dean's carefully-controlled tone making very specific instructions. Castiel figured this was probably where the impossibly-precise Sam Winchester picked up his steady hand in the middle of a crisis, having a teacher like his older brother.
The instructions halted, and then the windy, hitching sighs that were supposed to count for breath started. Castiel turned to Dean urgently. "Dean!"
The hunter blinked himself aware, and then continued on with the instructions as if he had never drifted. Dean spoke, and Castiel worked.
"That's it," Dean rasped, "Now we just gotta wait a minute to get that thing boiling. You'll know... know by the bubbles."
"And then what?" Castiel asked, needing a contingency in case the man lost consciousness completely in the next sixty seconds. It did not look impossible, given how pale and shaky he looked, and how heavily he leaned against the table leg like a discarded old thing, as if he would go deeper than the floor if he could.
"I got this-this cut," Dean explained, chest heaving, "Back of my right arm. And then as s-soon as it c-cools enough t-to drink, I hafta..."
"Okay," Castiel said with a nod. He's managed this far, he could do those things too.
"Okay," Dean echoed, his eyes drifting closed. He shook himself awake again though, and sometimes Castiel really marveled at his capacity to self-regulate. "Hey, uh... thanks, all right? N-no matter what happens... thanks for c-coming."
"You're welcome," Castiel said simply, because it had been the appropriate response for a 'thank you,' hadn't it? But there seemed to be other things at work here too, things beneath the surface. The 'thank you' had come with an unspoken context that he was trying to grasp, but the human subtlety was still so foreign to him sometimes that he had to pause and think about these things. He suspected the gratitude came not only because of the help per se, but because it was a help that Dean felt was... undeserved? Did the apparently-obtuse hunter not-yet realize that he'd ceased from being a simple, straightforward job to Castiel? That he'd somehow squirmed his way inside the angel's heart and become a brother-in-arms, a comrade, a friend? But who was to correct his stubbornly misled thoughts, really... Sam had been trying for decades to convince Dean he was equally appreciated and needed and that still had not come into full-fruition. A year's acquaintance against that bull-headedness was an exercise in futility.
"Where is Sam?" Castiel remembered to ask, sitting on his haunches in front of Dean as they waited.
"Went out five minutes ago on a supply run," Dean mumbled, "I didn't see I was c-cut 'til after he left. I c-called him and he'sss on hisss way b-b-back b-but I d-d-din't think he'd g-get here in time t-to--" He cut himself off, grabbed at Castiel's arm blindly as his body started to writhe in pain. The grip was crushing and desperate, but then again this was Dean clinging on to life and holding on, holding on to wait for the younger brother who'd undoubtedly begged for him to try.
Castiel gripped his hand tight in reassurance, before forcing the fingers open to release; he had to see to this mixture they were making. The desired bubbles had appeared.
"Switch the stove off," Dean gasped, "There's this d-dial, twist it t-to the right."
Castiel managed the modern appliance easily, allowed himself to marvel at the invention even as he took the pot from this 'stove' and grabbed a hand towel. He shoved the towel into the boiling mixture – his own hand included – prompting Dean to comment dizzily that he was a crazy bastard for doing that and he shouldn't be burning his vessel and-- he'd quit on the rest of the tirade, deciding instead to cry out when Castiel pressed the towel against the cut on the back of his right arm.
Castiel kept the pressure on as Dean hissed and kicked out absently, though his upper-body had tensed to complete stillness that was unobtrusive to the treatment. He relaxed slowly, limb by limb. Minutes tick by, and then Castiel grabs Dean's left hand, making him hold the towel against the cut. The angel stood up, poured the hot mixture into a cup. He resumed his post, squatting in front of Dean on the floor. He tilted his head in contemplation, and then blew at the steaming drink.
Dean blinked at him, looking slightly surprised.
"What?" Castiel asked. He'd done somethings foreign again, he supposed.
Dean's eyes narrowed as he tried to focus, figure out a reply. "N-nothing. That's j-j-just nnice of y-you. I g-guess."
"I wasn't going to pour it down your throat burning," Castiel told him plainly. Castiel put a hand at the back of Dean's neck, and then pressed the cup to his lips. Dean, not-quite out-of-it enough to fully relinquish control, held the cup too, hand over Castiel's hands as he swallowed the drink down as fast as he could, choking and gagging but determined.
Sam burst into the room finding them like that. He seemed unsurprised by Castiel's presence, asking instead - "Is he okay?"
"I think so," Castiel replied, as he lowered the cup and stepped away from Dean to make room for Sam. Sam took the opening without questioning, peering at his brother's face.
"I'm okay, Sammy," Dean assured him quietly.
Sam stared at him for a long time, Castiel realized, looking for the truth and finding it.
"Not yet," the younger Winchester corrected him, "But you will be." He turned to look up at Castiel, and those eyes were so potently earnest and imploring. Sam Winchester had his heart laid-out and bared-open quite severely sometimes, didn't he?
"Thank you for coming," he said, and the context was as heavy and unsaid as his older brother's had been, just minutes ago, except what the silence meant was different. Thank you for coming, when I couldn't.
"You're welcome."
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As Dean slept off the effects of the poison, Sam and Castiel sat down and talked shop – this sigil and that, symbols, lore. They both had that unspoken agreement of not wanting to sleep or go anywhere until their dozing third was assuredly out-of-danger. When Dean finally woke up, he was starving and generously decided to hit a burger joint, out of deference to Castiel (or maybe Jimmy's body) who had saved his life.
"I don't need to eat," Castiel argued, pointing out that the brothers might as well just pick the place they really wanted to eat in.
"No, burgers," Dean insisted, and again was unstoppable about it. They commandeered a booth and Sam slid on one side and Dean on the other. Brothers watched with unconsciously identical smirks as the angel paused midway, unsure of who to sit with, jerking one way and then the other.
Sam took pity sooner. He got up, ordered his brother to order him coffee and that he was going to the can. As he walked away, he listened to Castiel shuffling into the seat he had just abandoned.
He smiled to himself as went to the bathroom, washed his hands before they had to eat. Having an angel around – exiled as Castiel was – was reassuring in many strategic ways. He just had no idea that he would enjoy it sometimes too.
Sam dried off his hands, walked back to their booth. He slid in beside Dean, and noticed that his brother had expected him to do just that, because his coffee cup was situated next to Dean's.
"Coffee," he said blissfully, picking up his cup. Its ascent to his mouth halted mid-way, however, as Castiel's hand prevented him from drinking.
"Cas – what?" Sam asked.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Castiel said, twisting the cup a little, bringing a lipstick mark on it into Sam's view. Sam scrunched his nose. On his cup was a thick, matte-pink lipstick mark. Right on his coffee cup, set there by some random woman his obstinate brother had conned into sitting with him and who'd somehow come and gone in the barest moments he'd let Dean out of his sight.
"Dean, what the hell?" Sam asked his older brother, "I was only gone for like, five minutes!"
Dean just smiled at him. Sam turned to Castiel, almost accusingly. The angel's mouth opened and shut, opened again like he was looking for an answer of some sort. Of any sort. He came up empty.
The End.
Thanks for reading! C&C's welcome as always and 'til the next post!