Chapter 2
Mending
"A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together."
― Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home
Castiel arrived outside hospital, pulling his amulet over his head. The Hand of Fatima that once belonged to Zedkiel dampened his Grace, but didn't eliminate it entirely. He hoped it would be sufficient to protect Dean from the pain his Grace now caused him. He tucked the silver symbol beneath his winter coat and flannel shirt as he passed through the automatic doors at the front.
Sam had texted him to let him know that Dean had been admitted to the hospital overnight and had a room number, which he promptly gave to the elderly man at the information desk.
"I'm sorry, young man," he said. "Visiting hours aren't for another two hours."
"Please, Sir," Castiel said, trying to remain polite when he knew that no one in that hospital could actually prevent him from seeing Dean, "my partner was brought here last night. This was the soonest I could get here."
The mention of the word "partner" hadn't inspired the sort of sympathy Castiel had been hoping for. If anything, it had made the man less inclined to work with him.
"His name is Dean Nash," he tried again. "I've been told he's on the third floor, room 305."
"Visiting hours aren't for another two hours," the man repeated sourly. "You can go and get breakfast at the Denny's and come back at eight like everyone else."
Castiel scowled at the man. "Your hate will get you nowhere in life."
"It isn't hate," the old man said. "It's the rules, but your type has problems understanding the rules and always want special exceptions made for yourself."
Before Castiel could consider smiting the man, thankfully, a young woman dressed similarly to Ramona after work had overheard him. "You must be Cas," she said with a small smile, attempting to diffuse the situation before it grew worse. "Agents Stills and Nash told us to be looking for you. You can follow me to the third floor."
They walked together to the elevators behind the now-sour-looking man at the front desk. She pressed the button with the arrow pointing up and smiled at him. "Your Dean is certainly a charmer." She gave the older man at the welcome desk another look as though checking to see if he was going to let the matter drop now that she had intervened.
"Is he unintentionally flirting with everyone in the hospital?" Castiel asked as the brass doors opened and they stepped inside.
"When he isn't talking about you," she said with a smile. "He is on morphine, and that's loosened his tongue." She then added with a conspiratory whisper, "He keeps calling you his angel."
Castiel's surprised reaction was apparently brushed off as one of embarrassment. Thankfully, Dean didn't seem to be revealing anything dangerous or too private, and everyone was assuming "angel" was a term of endearment. The nurse directed him to Dean's room while she stopped at the nurse's station. From what Castiel could catch of her conversation with the other nurses, it was to discuss the volunteer greeter downstairs and to have "something done about him."
He found the room easily. Even had it not been for the number outside, he would have recognized Sam's form as it tried to get comfortable in a chair too small for his huge size. He stepped inside to find Dean was stretched out on the hospital bed. The angel couldn't stop the images of Dean on a similar bed almost four years before after Alistair had beaten him and Castiel had been unable to stop the demon from nearly killing his charge. The memory brought a painful twisting sensation in the angel's chest.
"Cas!" Dean said, enthusiastically, raising his arms toward the door not unlike Johnny when he was asking for a hug. "Don't look so sad. I've got drugs. I'm not feeling a thing." His hands opened and closed, completing the comparison to their son.
The angel responded in a similar fashion, coming closer to the bed and wrapping his arms around Dean awkwardly, trying not to jostle his head or the wires and tubes currently connected to him. The hunter hummed as they held to one another.
"Is the amulet working?" Castiel asked in his partner's ear. "Am I hurting you?"
"Hard to tell with the morphine, but I don't think so," Dean said before kissing him on the cheek. He was not normally so tactile in public, but Castiel had no qualms in indulging him.
Behind him, a tired-looking Sam was pulling forward a vinyl and wood chair that matched the one that Sam was sitting in so that Castiel could take a seat at Dean's side. Castiel's hand found the hunter's as Sam began relaying the details of Dean's injuries. He hadn't been concussed, but his fibula and femur were each broken in one spot. He also had some bruised ribs and a few more minor cuts and bruises. Because Sam and Dean were both pretending to be FBI agents, the hospital staff had decided to keep him overnight and offered them the best care possible.
That wasn't the best care that existed, that was Castiel's healing power, but that wasn't possible until the warlock fixed his spell.
"What about Patrick?" Sam asked, washing his hands over his face in an attempt to fend off sleep.
"We got him," Castiel said. "And he has already been put to work."
"Knew you'd get him," Dean said, offering a squeeze to his hand.
"I believe the saying is 'too little, too late.'"
"You weren't there, Cas," Sam said while Dean seemed to struggle to articulate his own thoughts. "You couldn't have done anything."
"What he said." Dean kept his gaze focused on Castiel, who was beginning to feel self-conscious for the adoration in his partner's expression. It made the angel feel like more of a failure for his inability to help this man who so clearly trusted and loved him.
All Castiel could do was sit at his side, feeling useless, and keep Dean's hand in his own.
#
It took several hours, more drugs, a cast, and a specialist before Dean was given the stamp of approval to leave the hospital. He looked between his two driving options, Cas who had never driven the Impala and Sam who was visibly exhausted from staying up all night worrying about Dean. With his own cast up to his thigh on his right leg, Dean wasn't driving, and angel flight was out of the question.
Asking Azrael, if it worked, would raise all sorts of questions about what she really was. Since she'd spent millennia using the angel of death as a disguise for her other identity of Death itself, he was pretty sure Azrael wouldn't want to blow her cover for him.
"Sam, you can't drive," he said as he was being wheeled out of the hospital. "You need to get at least four hours before I'll let you behind Baby's wheel."
"I could get us as far as a hotel, get a few hours' sleep and then we could hit the road."
"I just want to get home," Dean said. He wanted to get home to their boy, after two days away, and he was also thinking that Cas was looking way too sad than he had any right to. Maybe getting to drive them home would make him feel useful. Dean might have been a little drug-addled, but he knew his partner was upset. He fished his keys out of his coat pocket, neatly avoiding the silver ring that rested with them, and tossed them to Cas. "I trust you with her."
Cas didn't perk up as much as Dean had hoped, but there was a little reverence in eyes at the fact that his partner trusted him. It was something.
Within an hour on the road, Dean had fallen asleep again, trusting Cas not to wreck Baby. Sam was back at Bobby's thanks to Angel Express, so it was just the two of them in the car. As much as he'd tried, though, Dean couldn't really be much company. He had done a bit of driving from the back seat while his partner learned the feel of the car and how she drove, but once it was obvious he had it under control, Dean quickly slipped into dreamland. It was probably for the best. Eventually, he was going to complain about how slowly the angel was driving, even though he knew it was mostly to avoid potholes and bumps in the road that would jostle his leg.
He woke up once on the drive to pop some pain meds and checked to see how Cas was doing, but nodded off almost immediately after. They were back in South Dakota when Dean woke up again, several hours later. He groggily realized they were nearly to Sioux Falls as a few of the landmarks began to look familiar. "How are you doing?" he asked Cas.
"You're up," the angel said. "Do you need more medicine?"
"I can make it to Bobby's from here," he said. He lifted his hand to rest on Cas's left shoulder, hoping to ease the tension he could see and feel the angel carrying. He could still feel the tingle of Cas's Grace, but it didn't hurt like it had before. "I'm going to ask again. How are you doing?"
"Getting a little tired and I think I may need to urinate when we return to Bobby's," Cas said. Dean snickered at how irritated the angel sounded at the idea he might have to do something as normal as taking a piss.
"Thanks for the information, but not what I meant," he said. "I've been pretty high for the last twelve or so hours, or asleep. But you've seemed pretty down about my leg." Speaking of the leg, it was making its presence known as the drugs and lethargy of sleep were fading away.
"I can't heal you," Cas said, his shoulders going tight again. "And when I tried, I actually hurt you."
"Not your fault," Dean assured him, removing his hand from the angel's shoulder so that he could readjust his leg. That turned out to be a very bad idea, and Dean ended up crying out in pain.
Cas's head whipped around to look back at Dean. "What happened? Did I hit a pothole?"
"No," Dean said as he gritted his teeth. He inhaled sharply and barked out, "Eyes on the road." Cas quickly obeyed, and Dean got to add to his pain a wave of guilt for yelling at the angel. "I tried to shift my leg, and it hurt," he finally said after he felt he could speak without snapping. "I'm sorry, Cas."
"You are in pain," Cas said. "If I can't apologize for being unable to heal you, you can't apologize for reacting to your pain."
"I've got to get better at it," Dean said, eyes stinging as his leg let out a steady throb. "You understand, but Johnny won't."
"We can explain to him that you have a boo-boo," Cas said. That word still sounded foreign in Cas's serious tone, but Johnny had learned it when he'd scraped his knee playing with Fallyn and should understand that Dean was injured, at least. He wasn't sure that the toddler would understand that people in pain can be unintentionally snappy, though, especially not a kid as sensitive as Johnny.
They reached Bobby's a few minutes later, and Dean found himself surrounded by well meaning family, all of whom he had to tell to back off before they hurt him trying to get him out of the Impala. He knew he could have counted on Bobby or Sam to help him because they all had experience helping someone—helping Dean specifically—who was injured. But he knew that by excluding Cas, he'd hurt the guy worse than he already was. Cas was already feeing useless because he couldn't heal Dean; the hunter thought it was probably better not to underscore it.
Slowly, Dean inched himself out of the car while Cas stood to the side, holding his crutches.
"Where's Johnny?" he asked once he had a crutch under each arm.
"Metatron has him," Sam said. "Balthazar and Azrael are working with Patrick on getting ingredients for the counterspell."
"Azrael's providing the motivation to get his ass in gear," Bobby said. Dean bet she was. "We've got the downstairs et up like I had it when I was in the chair. You don't want going up and down stairs for the first few weeks, if you can avoid it."
Dean thanked him as he moved slowly toward the house, trying to swing his leg as little as possible. It might have been in a cast, but that didn't mean that moving and shifting his leg didn't hurt like hell. Cas ran ahead to get the door and to stare at him with a worrying look on his face. Bobby had the good sense to give Dean space while Sam hovered. Dean was used to this sort of hovering, and it didn't put him on edge the way Cas's did, not that he'd say it aloud.
The moment he was through the door, Johnny let out a loud shout of "Dada!" Dean was hurting and tired, but that single word helped to sooth his increasingly prickly attitude. Cas turned down the blankets on what looked like a brand new bed. Dean didn't have time to question it, as Cas asked as much of the other men in the room.
"It didn't seem like a bad idea to get a bed instead of a cot," Metatron said while he held a squirming baby. "Given how the two of you like to sleep, and that this little guy won't be in a crib forever. It's the same set as he already has in his bedroom."
Dean might have liked to get the little guy a fun bed, like one shaped like a racecar or a castle, but he wasn't going to knock a gift that kept him off a cot for the next few weeks. And as far as their sleeping arrangements, it was going to be a while until Dean would be comfortable with his broken leg and sharing the small space with Cas. He'd probably give in sooner than he should, though, because Dean didn't exactly love the idea of weeks of sleeping alone. The mattress, though, it was a few thousand times better than the old one upstairs.
"It's memory foam," Metatron supplied when Dean seemed to melt into the bed.
The hunter chuckled at Cas's confused face. "It remembers me." He knew his partner was going to ask how, so he cut him off with a promise to explain later.
Metatron took a few steps closer with Johnny and set him on the floor by the bed. "Your daddy has a boo-boo," he said. The boy stared at the cast, his hand moving to touch the hard material, but stopping to look up at Dean.
"It's okay," he lightly tapped the cast. He didn't want Johnny to know he could probably knock on it without hurting Dean just in case the boy decided to test how much damage the cast could take.
Johnny placed his chubby little hand on the cast and made a hissing noise. "Boo-boo, Dada?" he asked. "Ow."
"That's right, little guy," Dean said. "Ow."
"Taddy," Johnny said, looking up at the angel. "Dada boo-boo." It became pretty clear they were going to have to let the kid hurt himself without being healed by the angel. Already, Johnny assumed the solution to an injury was his Taddy's healing powers. He just kept looking at the angel and touching Dean's leg.
"Taddy can't fix it," Dean said, running his hand through the boy's reddish hair. "And that's okay." But Cas looked like it was anything but.
#
It had been late when they got home, and it didn't take long for Johnny to fall asleep at Dean's side. Apparently, the bed remembered him as well. Castiel had been trying to stay upstairs in the living room with Dean rather than venturing downstairs to the basement where his siblings were overseeing Patrick's work. Castiel was certain if he went downstairs, he would hurt the warlock.
The angel chose, instead, to scoop his son from the bed and place him in his crib upstairs. The baby nuzzled against his neck and offered a contented sigh. While the boy's earlier urging had been a painful reminder that he couldn't help Dean, he found it surprisingly pleasing that Johnny had such trust in the angel. His son knew he could count on him, even at such a young age. Given the neglect the boy had suffered for nearly the first year of his life, Castiel counted himself grateful that Johnny was so able to put faith in him.
He tucked Johnny in with a kiss to his forehead before heading back down to take his place in the chair at Dean's side.
"I saw some boxes lining the hallway. Looked like they'd been in the attic for a while."
"Christmas decorations," Bobby said as he sat on the sofa that had been shoved to the side of the room. "I had Cas bring them down. I think there's a tree in one of them, if you don't mind aluminum."
"Wasn't quite what I'd had in mind, but it'll work," Dean said. Castiel knew what Dean had originally had in mind. He had made Castiel watch "Christmas Vacation," showing him many of the Christmas traditions, with the caveat that they would "do things right." That apparently wasn't in the cards. Already, there would be no hunt for the perfect Christmas tree, though that was probably better for the tree that would die to supply them with a "traditional" holiday.
"It even has a color wheel," Bobby said. "Thing spins and shines different colors on the tree. If it still works."
"Johnny'll love that," Dean said.
For want of something to do, Castiel began going through the boxes to find the metal tree, though none of the boxes appeared to be big enough to actually hold a tree larger than a foot or two tall. He found a dusty box marked "X-Mas" Tree in old paint on the side. He ripped through the tape at the top to find, much to his chagrin, the tree was in pieces.
He began having flashbacks to the assembly of Johnny's crib.
He carried the box back into the living room, where Dean looked close to falling asleep. Castiel had grown accustomed to the time spent resting at the hunter's side while he rested, but he knew that wasn't a possibility tonight or for the next several nights.
"I will stay down here and attempt to assemble this," Castiel said. He looked to Bobby and Sam, who both appeared to be growing tired. "Could you listen for Johnny should he wake up through the night?" He didn't tend to, but knowing his father was injured, Johnny might not rest as soundly tonight.
"Don't worry about it," Sam said, standing and patting the angel on his shoulder. "We've got it." He moved to Dean and put his large hand on the older brother's shoulder.
"Give us a shout if you need us," Bobby said before they both left Castiel and Dean.
"Don't know how much longer I can stay awake," Dean said.
"Go to sleep," Castiel said, leaning over to press his lips to Dean's forehead. "I'm going to take the amulet off so I can stay awake if you need me." He softly ran his fingers through Dean's hair and took at least some pleasure at the fact that the hunter's eyes closed, relaxed. "Goodnight, Dean."
"'Night, Cas."
Castiel set the amulet on the small table near Dean's bed and began removing the many pieces of the tree. It was going to be a long night, but he could at least keep busy.
#
Dean woke up a few times through the night, so when he saw dawn filtering through the curtains, he figured it was probably better to just stay up. Cas had been a good nursemaid, remembering to put on the amulet each time Dean woke before getting the hunter more meds, something to drink or help him to the downstairs bathroom.
He glanced over to see Cas fussing over the silver-colored tree, trying to get it exactly right. Dean had snapped at the angel once during the night for waking him up, swearing at the lack of instructions and that he'd, apparently, put it all together upside down. Dean could sympathize, but not when he was functioning on little sleep and in pain.
"Looks good," Dean said, though he kind of thought the tree was a little ridiculous. It had probably been around since Bobby was a kid, back when it wasn't a requirement or even in style for a tree to cover every square inch of the trunk. The branches all pointed up, instead of out, and it really didn't live up to Dean's image of a big, traditional Christmas, since it was a few inches shorter than Cas in his bare feet.
But it was small enough to accommodate Dean's bed, it was free, and Cas had worked all night trying to get it to look just right, including the color wheel, which was spinning on the floor beneath the tree and making the tree change colors every few seconds.
"Dean? Do you need anything?"
"Nah. I think I'm up now." He started to shift to a reclining position on the bed. "Are there any ornaments in the boxes you brought down?"
"Yes," Cas said, pointing to a box that hadn't held the tree. "I wasn't sure if you would want Johnny to help with that."
"Yeah," Dean said. "I think it'd be nice."
"I would suggest one thing," Cas said as he pulled a plastic figure from the box. "Can we buy a star for the top of the tree?" There was something rewarding seeing Cas, who had been so down lately, smile as Dean laughed at the plastic angel.
