Ed lifted his head muzzily from his pillow, the heavy heat of the room had drug him out of sleep and now lay across his chest like an oppressive blanket. He kicked the coverlet off of the motel bed and tried to turn over, nearly rolled into Al and snorted, confused. Al pushed him away, hardly awake and rolled on his side, presenting his back to Ed. Ed sat up, rubbed his face with one hand and stared at Al. Why wasn't Al in his own bed? Ed glanced into the darkness and saw a lump in the other bed and remembered, Castiel swathed in bandages and lying face down so as not to tear the slowly healing flesh open again.

He sighed and scooted out of bed. The entire bed shifted and Al mumbled something indecipherable. Ed hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at Al, looking for the scar on the small of his back and feeling his gut twinge, before standing up.

An entire lifetime lived in motels and Ed didn't need to turn on a single light. He ran some water in the bathroom, splashed it on his face, drank some from his cupped palm. The heat was suffocating, he felt like the water would evaporate from his skin and the water did nothing to soothe it. He could almost feel the hooks in his flesh and it was all Ed could do to keep from vomiting in the sink.

Seconds turned in to minutes as Ed stood there, palms braced on the cool porcelain and trying to fight the heat as if it was something he could win against. He heard a bed creak and swallowed, tried to arrange his face in some sort of mask of deniability but it was not Al's bulk that blocked out the wan light from the room. "Ed?" Castiel's voice was hoarse, stripped raw from pain.

"Cas," Ed mumbled, running one still-wet hand over his own face. "What are you doing up, you need to heal-"

"It doesn't matter," Castiel said simply, a cool current in the ongoing furnace, cool hand against his face. "You need me more."