Dean spends much of his year as a fourteen-year-old the same way he's spent the last few, but certain things start to change. During the summer, he splits his time between his parents, his brother, and Castiel. He gets into trouble with friends from school but now starts flirting with girls as well. When fall comes around, he and Sam grudgingly go back to school. Dean sees Cas less while Dean and his brother start to drift apart. Dean begins to discover that he sometimes has urges to flirt with boys and even develops a two-week crush on a boy in his class before switching gears and asking a girl named Emily to be his girlfriend.
Christmas break comes around. Everything seems normal and great. For the first few days of break, Dean sits outside on the snow-dusted bridge and talks to Cas for hours while finding things to throw in the river, which will soon be frozen over. The rest of his weeks off he intends to spend with his family. This is the kind of routine he and Castiel have had for the past two Christmases: when break comes to an end, Dean and Cas will meet again and Dean will recap his Christmas, sometimes smuggling cookies or the like out of the house to give his best friend. Or in Christmas of 1992, he even gave Cas his old black CD player and headphones, since Dean had just gotten a new set.
But this Christmas is different.
This Christmas changes everything.
One week before Christmas, Sam comes down with the flu. It's stressful and annoying, but the family knows it's temporary. They take him to the doctor for some medicine, and Dean sits with John in the waiting room while Mary takes Sam back.
The wait seems to take forever. Dean feels bad for his brother, but he really just wants to go home and have dinner.
When Mary emerges, holding Sam's hand, she looks shaken. Dean's never seen his mom this way.
"John, we need to take him to a different doctor. They gave me a name, we need to take him there as soon as possible."
John stands, frowning with concern. "What is it? Why?"
Mary glances at the boys and answers quietly, "They don't think it's the flu."
It's only the day before Christmas Eve that they get Sam in to see this new doctor. This time, Dean sits in the waiting room alone while both of his parents leave with Sam. It feels like hours that he sits in that chair, flipping through magazines time after time, watching the television across the room, wishing Cas would magically appear so he could talk to him.
When it's finally over, Dean can tell there's something wrong. His parents say nothing to him as they take him and Sam back to the car to head home.
"What is it?" Dean whispers to Sam in the backseat of the Impala.
Sam shakes his head. He looks tired. "I don't know. They didn't really tell me."
On Christmas Eve, John takes Dean aside as Mary goes to talk to Sam.
"Dean, there's something you need to understand about your brother."
Dean's never seen his dad look so solemn and he just nods quietly.
"What he has isn't the flu. This morning we got a call from the doctor and we learned that Sam has..." Tears come to John's eyes—which Dean has never seen in his life—and he pauses. "Sam has leukemia, Dean."
Dean blinks. He knows he's heard the word before and he knows it's bad, but he can't remember what it is.
"That's cancer," John says as if he understands Dean's thoughts. "It's a cancer in his blood."
Dean frowns and finds himself intensely confused. Cancer? But cancer happens to other people. It's not something that happens to his family. Not Sammy. Does this mean...?
"Is Sammy gonna be okay?" Dean asks.
"Yeah," John answers. He swallows and nods. "Yeah. It's still in the early stages, they think, and they'll help us come up with a treatment plan. But it's going to be hard, Dean. It's going to be hard on all of us."
Dean's not sure what to say or how to feel or if he believes what John's just said. But he feels a little like crying, so he says nothing and hugs his dad, wondering what the hell is coming next.
Christmas slips by like any other day. The Winchester's parents try to bring a little livelihood back into the house and still give the boys their presents, but no one really feels the same. Sam starts spending most of his time in bed, constantly with a fever, sometimes with nausea or a headache. Some days he cries for minutes on end, saying his whole body hurts and won't stop.
Dean's birthday nears as Sam starts treatment. The doctors seem optimistic, saying that most children of Sam Winchester's health can be helped greatly by treatment. The survival rate of childhood leukemia is high. It's good news, but it doesn't make Dean feel a lot better. It hasn't helped the entire family from secretly being miserable.
In all this time, Dean hasn't seen Cas. He hasn't forgotten him—sometimes he looks out the window and sees him out on the road, waiting—but he just hasn't been in the mood to talk. He doesn't want to have to explain what's happening.
But one day in mid-February, his parents are gone and Sam is asleep and Dean feels lonely.
He figures it's about time he catches up with his best friend.
Castiel is on the bridge when Dean heads out.
"Dean." He sounds surprised to see him.
"Hey, Cas." Dean digs his hands into the pockets of his winter coat.
"How are you? It's been a while..." Dean thinks Cas can probably see on his face that everything isn't normal.
"I'm okay," Dean answers. He's really not. Holding in all the stress and fear he's been feeling for the past month has been hard on him. But it's his default answer, even when he never lies to Cas.
"What's wrong?" Cas asks, tilting his head to the side.
Dean steps over to the bridge railing and sits on it, his back to the frozen river. It takes him a long time to answer.
Then, "Everything."
Frowning, Cas sits beside him. "Do you...want to talk about it?"
Dean shakes his head, biting his lip. "I just thought I'd come out to, you know. Acknowledge we're still friends. Sorry I've been ignoring you."
"It's alright," Cas says sincerely, taking Dean's hand. "I understand if...if you're going through hard times right now."
Dean is surprised at how warm Cas's hand is, even in the sharply cool air. They sit for a while in silence and Dean feels like his life is pressing in on him, trying to suffocate him.
"Cas."
"Yes?"
"Sam has leukemia."
Cas shifts to face him. "What?"
Dean nods. "Yeah. He started treatment almost a month ago. It's..." He swallows. "I know it takes a while to work, but it hasn't changed anything. He's still miserable all the time and Mom and Dad are always stressed out and they forgot my birthday, which I know I totally shouldn't care about, but I...I don't know. It's just so much has changed and I—I'm so sick of it already," he says, growing angry. "I just want everything to go back to normal."
"I'm sorry," Cas says quietly.
"That doesn't change anything," Dean says, but he's not angry anymore, just resigned.
Cas looks sad, but not because of what Dean said. Just for him. He opens his arms slightly, nervously offering Dean a hug.
Dean takes it without hesitation. He's never really hugged Cas before. Everyone at school calls that gay. But this time he knows they're alone and he wouldn't really care anyway. Cas, though smaller in frame than Dean, provides a greater comfort, a bigger presence, than even his parents could.
Dean lets the hug last a long time, putting his cheek down on Cas's shoulder. He feels tears come to his eyes but he knows he's not going to cry. He never really has.
Then he pulls away and sits straight upright, looking at Cas with wide eyes. "Cas. You. You."
"What did I do?" Cas asks as if he's done something wrong.
"No, no. Cas, way back—almost a year ago—you healed me the time I fell out of that tree. You could fix Sam!"
Castiel looks hesitant. "I—I don't know, Dean, I've never really practiced with healing—"
"Come on," Dean says, grabbing Cas's hand and pulling him toward the house.
"Dean, stop."
The tone in Cas's voice makes Dean halt and turn back. "What?"
"I'll do it. I can at least try for you. But no one can know I did this, okay? Not even Sam."
"Okay, fine," Dean says immediately. "Sam's asleep, if we're quiet he'll never know you're there."
Cas nods and lets Dean lead him into the house.
Sam is asleep, as promised, looking more pale than ever. Dean stands by the bed as Cas steps up to Sam.
Hesitantly, Cas puts two fingers on Sam's forehead. After a moment with his eyes closed, he lifts his hand away and turns to Dean, nodding. "He's better." Then he starts to collapse.
Dean grabs him under the arms and helps him out of the room as Sam starts to stir.
"Cas, you okay?" Dean asks once they're downstairs and leaving the house.
Cas nods, but he looks a little faint. "I'm fine. It was just a lot to do all at once."
"Did you really do it? The cancer's gone?"
Cas nods again.
Dean stops them on the porch and leaps forward to give Cas a hug. "I love you. Thank you."
The smile on Cas's face when they part is a kind Dean has never seen on him. "You're welcome." The smile fades. "I should go."
"Okay," Dean says with a nod. "My parents are going to think this is a miracle. I wish I could tell them."
"Don't." Cas is serious. "I...I'm breaking a lot of rules doing this and even coming to see you. It can't go any further than this."
Dean raises his hands conciliatorily. "Okay. I don't understand, but...okay."
"I'm sorry, I can't really explain, I have to go."
"I should go see Sam anyway. I'll see you later, Cas. Thanks."
Dean turns back to the house and jogs upstairs to see his brother.
"Hey, Sammy."
Sam sits up. "Hi Dean."
"How d'you feel?"
"I'm good. I feel really good, actually."
"Really?" He sits on the end of Sam's bed. "Mom and Dad should be home soon, hopefully you still feel good by then. That'll make them happy."
It only takes a few weeks for the doctors to realize that Sam's leukemia is gone. John and Mary are stunned but incredibly happy. Dean pretends to be surprised, but he doesn't have to feign happiness.
This is the best thing Cas could've given him.