Author Note: My turn to tag, and boy, did I get lucky.
Goodnight, Jerk
The stark, brilliant light that envelopes Sam and brightens the bunker matches the piercing bluish glow in Castiel's eyes. Cool relief spreads almost visibly throughout his body as his limbs tense and jerk, as the angel's grace floods the internal cracks and crevices of torn muscle and ripped skin and burst vessels, repairing the damage. The slashes in Sam's cheek burn bright white, and when the light fades away the skin beneath is stubbled but otherwise unmarred.
There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it falter in Sam's balance as he drops flattened palms to the nearest polished tabletop. Dean sees it, and knows it's not the bum knee or the knocks he took to the noggin screwing with his equilibrium, but a recognizable sense of full-body weakness that takes hold right before everything inside snaps back into place.
It's been a few years since he's been put back together with the angelic duct tape, but Dean remembers that feeling. Shredded muscle and splintered bone bonding together with an exquisite flash of pain, then the icy relief that immediately follows. Like the soothing comfort of aloe vera gel on a sunburn, but there's nothing that compares to the adrenaline rush that follows.
As his body screams an off-key symphony of agony, open wounds in his head and neck and sore muscles in his back and, hell, why not, a sharp stab in his possibly broken ribs…Dean almost gives in. Almost dumps his pride and takes a ticket and gets in the express line for the No-Pain Train.
Almost, but as he breaks the healing connection between them Cas is slumping just as much as Sam is straightening, and Dean channels all of his pain down through his fingers as they tighten around the glass of whiskey in his hand. They should have been more careful here, because the guy's nowhere near one hundred percent, and it's pretty damn selfish of them to call on what little strength the angel's managed to regain just to put their dumb, broken asses back together.
Sam nods his thanks to Cas, then turns those giant puppy dog eyes on his brother. "Okay, patient Winchester, you're up." Bright eyes, rosy cheeks, bushy tail. Energy to burn.
Asshole's gonna run ten miles before the day is done. Dean is jealous as hell because, FUCK, he hurts, but he stands his ground. Or, wobbles his ground. In any case, he makes damn sure that ground is on the other side of the cavernous room, playing keep-away with his pain and the angel's sympathy and his brother's greedy, giant-ass hands.
"Dean," Sam says sternly, foot poised to stomp but he reins it in at the last second. "You promised."
He didn't, actually, and damn if Samuel doesn't have some balls on him for pulling that. Dean empties his glass and lets the whiskey heat his belly before raising a half-assed argument of his own. "The man needs to rest, Sam."
"He's not a man, Dean, he's an angel." Sam crosses his arms. "And he wants to help you."
He's also in the room with them, and Castiel's eyes dart between the two like an embarrassed child, knowing he somehow both is and isn't the reason they're having this little stalemate. He looks pale and fragile and all but swallowed by his trench coat.
There's no blood on the angel's face, but Dean blinks, and now the blood is all he can see. Suddenly, it's not a sturdy tumbler he has in his hand but an angel blade. A scythe. A voice inside telling him to maim and kill and there's blood on both of their faces.
Dean shakes his head as he pulls away from the table and steps backward, away from the promise of relief and towards the solitude of his ongoing penance. "I'll be fine. It'll sleep off," he tells them. He can feel his heart pounding in the gaping bite mark on his neck, can feel the brush of the bunker's ventilation whispering around the yawning cut on his head, an uncomfortable and unnatural tickle beneath his scalp.
It'll sleep off, he tells himself.
"Dean."
He's not sure which of them calls to him before he spins on his heel and cuts a shaky line for what he hopes is the right hallway. It doesn't matter who spoke, and it doesn't matter that he's not sure.
Something he is sure of is that it's starting to seem like that whiskey might have been the proverbial last straw, because the drive was long and the stairs were a BITCH, but this walk to his room is looking to take him down. Dean's head spins and his gut churns, and he makes a pathetic attempt to stabilize himself with bloody fingertips pressed against the tiled corridor.
He'd had something of a head start, but Sam's a stealthy bastard when he's on top of his game, and he's at Dean's back before he hears those giant feet slapping up behind him.
Traitors, he curses his own slow-moving boots.
Sam remains close by, a hovering, hulking shadow that follows Dean down the hall, but he's there to catch, not to intervene.
It's little more than instinct that gets Dean to his room, that causes his body to stop in front of the right doorway. Only a few feet remain between the door and the bed, and he aims to let the lights from the hall guide him, mostly because he couldn't possibly be expected to know on which side of the door the light switch can be found.
Halfway there, Dean's legs make the executive decision that they've gone far enough, thank you, and he trips a bit into the end of his mattress when his right foot won't take the step forward it's been ordered to. It's easier to let gravity take the wheel than to fight the tug downward, and he rotates his body just enough to land and bounce atop the neatly tucked blanket, wrinkling and bloodying all of those meticulously folded corners.
"Perfect landing," Sam offers from the threshold, not light on the sarcasm.
Dean rolls his eyes, bringing about a stab of pain like a knife through the top of his skull, and levers up on his hands. He grits his teeth and scoots himself up toward the pillows before Sam gets it in his head that he needs to offer any sort of assistance here, leaving a snail's trail of tacky blood across the linens, from his head, his coat, his fingers. So, more like a herd of snails. Herd's not right, right? Sam would know; he'll have to ask some day.
"Dean."
He swallows, guesses he should stop thinking about snails. He focuses on the blurry Sam in the doorway. "How's Cas doin'?"
Blurry Sam makes some kind of face. Dean doesn't have the energy to interpret the emotions there. "He's fine, Dean. More than enough mojo left. He's worried about you."
"You know, you guys should get some t-shirts made or somethin.' I'm fine." It's concern on Sam's face and in his voice, and it turns out that doesn't take much interpretation. In any case, it's starting to suffocate him, a flush of uncomfortable heat, and Dean shifts stiffly and painfully in an attempt to work his arms free from his blood-streaked jacket. It's a fight he's forced to concede rather quickly, allowing his arms to flop pathetically to his sides.
"Yeah." Blurry Sam nods. "I can see that."
Dean closes his eyes and crosses his heavy and uncooperative arms over his chest. "Go to sleep, Sam."
"You said you broke part of the car with your body, Dean."
"I gotta stop tellin' you things," Dean says around a sigh. "What's your point?"
"My point is, you're not twenty-five anymore. My point is, why do you feel like you deserve to be in pain?"
A tense, chilly silence falls over the room. "That's not a point, that's a question."
"Well, I'm not leaving until you answer it."
There's a brief respite that always seems to follow one or both of them being almost dead, a window of time in which Dean gets sloppy and Sam gets brave. Leading to long talks in the car and revelations of offenses long past. If Sammy had his way, the window would never close.
It's always up to Dean, so he forces a bit of gravel into his voice when he speaks next. "Guess you'd better get comfy, then."
"Sure thing. First, you need to decide whether you're gonna drop this tough guy act and let Cas fix you up, or if you want me to stitch up that canyon in the back of your head, myself." Sam raises his eyebrows, and takes that tone he likes to think means he's in charge or something. "And not that I'm trying to influence your vote or anything, but one of those options is gonna leave you with a bald spot. For a while."
"I almost killed you, Sam," Dean says, staring up at the ceiling. "Both of you, actually."
"Well, you didn't." Still with that damn tone. "And no one is holding that over your head, man."
That's the problem, Dean wants to say. You won't, so I have to. He doesn't say anything.
"Don't you even want out of those clothes?"
"Haven't you gotten enough people out of their clothes this week?"
"That's funny, but it doesn't make you any less hurt, Dean."
Dean has his own tone, and he finally puts what little strength he has left to take it now. "You come near me and I'll come up swingin', Sam. I swear I will."
"I've got good reflexes."
"Whatever," Dean says, breathy and so, so tired. His eyelids finally droop in a way that he recognizes will be the last time for a while. Denim swishes and the wheels of the chair scrape and squeak as it's pulled away from the desk. "What are you doing?"
"Getting comfy." Sam exhales, the kind of long, exaggerated sigh that comes around a crooked smile.
"Okay, well, I'm gonna sleep now." It's an unintelligible jumble in his scrambled brain but Dean's pretty sure he says all of the words. He's also pretty sure he can sense Cas in the room now, too, or at least hovering on the threshold. And truth be told, he's looking forward to feeling nice and pain-free when he wakes up in the morning.
The mattress jostles as Sam kicks the edge with his foot. "Goodnight, jerk."
"'Night, bitch."