Castiel: "These make me . . . very happy."
"C'mon, boy, at least try and aim for the bucket," Bobby groused. "Or I'll make you clean the floor."
"I apol-" Castiel broke off, leaned over the indicated bucket and vomited half-digested meat until he had to stop for breath. Breathing was inconvenient—a new demand on him in his vessel as humanity laid hold. Then he coughed and more bile spilled over.
"And that's why we don't eat raw meat," Bobby lectured, cleaning the shotgun in his lap.
Castiel scrubbed his mouth across the back of his sleeve. "I was affected by Famine," he pointed out petulantly. "And I am still unfamiliar with some human limitations."
"Well, now you can add another one to your list. Yer lucky that you've still got the angelic metabolism or the low hundreds of hamburgers would have been worse."
Castiel looked shamefully down at the bottom of the bucket, which was a bad idea. It resulted in throwing up again. A hand patted his back once in friendly commiseration, and Castiel resolved that eating was not worth the mess and pain.
He might have resolved that last bit out loud, because the same hand smacked him upside the back of his head. "And if you'd been listening to your vessel, ya idjit, maybe things wouldn't have gotten this bad. Jimmy Novak wouldn't have been craving food, and your clothes might actually still fit. Dumbass," Bobby scowled. "Two meals a day . . . you eat 'em here or with the boys, but you eat 'em. Understand?"
Castiel opened his mouth to protest—thought better of it—and threw up again.
"And no more hamburgers."
Dean: "You gotta beam him to like Montana . . . Anywhere but here."
"C'mon, Sam. Three more freaking steps, sasquatch. Move your feet," Dean ordered.
"I'm trying," Sam gasped, his uncoordinated-legs going out from under him. Dean swore and body-checked his brother against the stairwell to keep them from going down together. "Hurry, Dean."
It helped to know that Sam was going into the panic room of his own free will, if not under his own power. Just like it helped that Sam asked to be locked up earlier. Now if only the willingness actually paid off for once in their lives . . .
"Duck, Sammy," Dean ordered as they bypassed a low pipe. Sam collapsed completely, and Dean changed his hold, grabbing Sam around the chest and dragging him the last six feet to the panic room. Sam's breathing sped up as they crossed the threshold.
"They're coming . . . Dean, they're coming!"
Dean swallowed hard, and stood up again, reaching for the door. Sam latched onto his ankle with both hands, temporarily halting him.
"Please! Don't leave me alone, Dean, please!"
"I'll be right outside, Sam," Dean promised hoarsely.
"Please!" and the grip intensified. Dean would have bruises in the morning, and Sam didn't even realize what he was doing. He just gazed up at Dean pleadingly.
"Right outside," Dean repeated, and kicked free of his brother. He slammed the door on his way out with a resounding metal clang and rested his forehead against it. The cold felt good against the cut from earlier.
"Dean! Please, Dean!"
He needed a drink. Now.
Castiel: "We should stop it."
"How is he?" Castiel asked quietly, appearing suddenly just outside the door of the panic room. He didn't want to disturb the brothers, just take an update to Bobby. Now that his vessel seemed to have regained some equilibrium, the angel wanted to make himself useful.
No one, but Dean should have heard the question, but Sam screamed the angel's shortened moniker in desperation. Castiel shuddered. It seemed to be something new by the way Dean flinched. "He knows I'm here."
"Seems like," Dean conceded and took another drink. Dean never handled being helpless well. Sam screamed their names again—Dean's first, the way it should always be, and then Castiel's, because they had come a long way from Alliance, Nebraska.
"I could go in," Castiel offered. "I could provide some measure of comfort-"
Dean turned towards him slowly, but didn't actually look at him. "It isn't safe."
"I am an angel. He cannot hurt me."
Dean raised one eyebrow slowly. "Do you really believe that?"
Castiel was silent. He would not lie to Dean Winchester. Demon-blood changed Sam, and in this state . . . yes, the younger brother may very well be capable of inflicting damage to a half-fallen angel.
Dean chuckled, rolling his head back and tipped the bottle again. "Didn't think so."
"I will not die."
"Just shut up, Cas."
Sam: "Now what about that makes sense?"
"Help. Help!"
Sam could see Ruby standing across the room, wrists slit and knife in her belly. She was bleeding freely, and Sam could see it, smell it, taste it. No. No, he'd promised Dean. He wouldn't drink it again. He was . . . was . . . detoxing. In Bobby's panic room. Ruby couldn't get in here. She wasn't real. This was just a hallucination, it had to be.
"Dean . . ." his big brother was outside. He promised. "Cas . . ." the angel wouldn't be far from Dean. Castiel was Dean's guardian angel after all.
Ruby took a step towards him, morphing into Lucifer-wearing-Jess. Wrists still slit, slashed low across the belly . . . the blood just kept flowing as the devil reached out towards him with the hand of the woman Sam loved.
Say yes.
"If you're out there, please, help!"
Just say yes, Sammy.
The hand stroked Sam's face gently, like a mother's touch. The skin burned beneath it. His face was on fire, and Lucifer leaned forward to press his lips to his forehead in Mary Winchester's form. It burned. It burned through him, and there would be nothing left.
Sam screamed.
The hallucination vanished. Sam struggled for breath. He needed . . . he needed someone real. He couldn't face this on his own. He wasn't strong enough. "Dean, help me . . . Cas," he begged.
They were there. They were all there with burning instruments of fire to purge him from the inside out, and Sam pushed himself even further into the corner closest to the door.
"Please . . . ple-e-e-e-ease!"
And he burned.
Dean: "I don't like it!"
"Get inside, dumbass," Bobby ordered from the porch.
Stricken, Dean swallowed hard against the knot in his throat, and swiped at the tears on his cheeks before they could betray them to one of the few men he truly respected.
"None of that. Throw away the bottle and get inside, boy."
How long had Bobby been listening? How much had he overheard?
"Don't make me come out after ya," Bobby growled his final warning, and Dean slowly turned back towards the house, trudging back up to the porch. Bobby stared at him levelly, and Dean waited for the verdict to fall. He was surprised when the hunter yanked the bottle from his grasp and hurled it out into the scrap yard.
The shattering glass and ring of metal finally subside.
"Feathers told me everything," Bobby informed Dean. "He's a real talker, if you know how to handle him."
Dean snorted.
"And I won't have this. This . . . self-pitying, hurt-feelings, lonely, bratty little boy when I know you better. You're Dean Winchester, John's boy!"
"My Dad . . ."
"You're better than your dad ever was, if you could just get your head outta the dirt like a bloody ostrich so as you could see it!"
Dean didn't say anything. Bobby leaned in real close, grabbing Dean's jacket and twisting to yank Dean back down to his level. "You listen to me, boy, and you listen good. You are not alone. You're Captain of Team Freewill or whatchamacallit . . . you've got your brother, you've got your angel, and you've got me." Bobby let go, and Dean stumbled back a pace. "And that's always been good enough for the Dean Winchester I knew."
Dean wanted to believe Bobby. The older hunter had never lied to them. But what if Dean wasn't the same man that Bobby thought he knew?
Sam: "Naturally."
Sam threw himself at the door again. His brother had left him. Dean promised not to leave him! "Come back, Dean! Cas, please!"
He fell back from the metal into a surface just as unforgiving. "Sam," a gravelly voice addressed him solemnly, and strong arms wrapped around his chest from behind. Sam grasped desperately, blindly, at the sleeve . . . the familiar trenchcoat sleeve.
"Cas," Sam gasped hoarsely. "Castiel, please . . ."
"Be still," the angel intoned and Sam was trapped there by arms stronger than they looked. Eventually his rapid heartbeat slowed to match the steady rhythm from Castiel's chest. Sam sinks into a rare moment on the going side of withdrawal's comes and goes.
Sam goes slack, leaning heavily on Castiel. "You shouldn't be here."
"Don't tell Dean."
Sam's ninety-nine percent positive that that's meant to be a joke. The Winchesters are rubbing off on an angel of the Lord. That is a very bad sign. "No, I mean it's dangerous."
"You called," Castiel murmured, guiding Sam back to the cot. "I came."
"It's too dangerous. I'm too dangerous."
Castiel crouched in front of Sam. It's awkward for the angel, and Sam remembers earlier with Famine, how Castiel was crouched over raw-meat. It was demeaning and humble and involuntary. So why is the same angel willingly sinking to Sam's level like it isn't humiliating and below him . . . like he's just trying to understand Sam better the way Dean . . . just why?
"Because you are my friend, Sam Winchester."
And Dean was right—having an angel read your thoughts wasn't fair. Even if he told you what you wanted to hear.