This is fanfiction, which basically means I don't own the characters, I just borrow them to play.

No copyright infringement intended, no money made and so on.


Chapter 2

Dean distantly realized his body was screaming, it was an odd feeling to hear the own voice from a distance and as if disconnected from himself.

He was in severe agony, and he seemed to feel every ache and damage in his body by tenfold.

Cas' touch felt strange – in a bad way.

It had started as a bone deep cold that entered his head and painfully froze all in his path while it moved through his body, inspecting all the areas that were damaged, at least this process was over fast, but it left Dean alarmed of what was to come.

There was nothing of the warm and caressing touch he was used to while being healed by the angel.

This felt like a cold iron probe, moving through him and causing blistering wherever it lingered, like touching frozen metal and getting stuck on it.

Usually, when Castiel probed like this it felt like a warm breeze of mental energy moving around, but this felt like blunt fucking metal carving it's was through his body.

Then it hit a severely wounded spot and the intense agony knocked the breath out of him - he had nothing left to scream with.

He hoped to pass out soon.

Another hand was there, cupping the back of his head and this actually felt calming and soothing.

"I'm sorry Dean, I'll try to be gentle, but… this is… I'm sorry."

Dean wanted to tell him to get it over with, but all he managed was a grunt.

"Can't you make him sleep or something?" Sam's voice.

"The energy I'd need for that… I'd prefer to spend it on mending his spleen, seems more… urgent," Castiel breathed.

"Shit, got it. You need every tiny bit of that energy."

"I'll try to erase his memories of this later… once we are safe and had time to recuperate."

"Yeah, do what you can. Don't hurt yourself."

Cas just grunted in reply.

"Maybe I can… try to… soften this a bit by… - there's no words in English."

"Feel free to teach us Enochian later," Sam said to lighten the mood a bit.

"I can try to numb him with my… also no word, but I am not sure if it works. He needs to allow it and trust me."

"Grace-anesthesia. All right. He trusts you, Cas," Sam said, putting into words what Dean's dazed mind couldn't.

Dean felt a hand stroke over his head and wondered whose it was.

He grunted when a new wave of pain washed over him, tousling his mind with white hot agony.

"It might not be his conscious choice if the pain spikes."

"You'll be alright, Dean. Relax," Sam soothed.

Then suddenly Dean felt something like a knock to the forehead, it took him a moment to realize it wasn't a knuckle that did it because it did feel like a collision, but what caused the knock didn't stop at his forehead, it moved right on and into his skull.

He jerked in surprise, the sensation so very strange it made him panic a bit.

Then something tingling brushed the insides of his skull, like syrup moving to coat the bones from the inside, in its wake it left a warm glow.

He felt his eyes roll back, his body relaxed.

His mind was cradled by something but he was still conscious, still experiencing horrible pain, but the quality had somehow changed.

Then the metal ball of exploring pain seemed to return, it pressed into his rib cage, right were the majority of his broken ribs were, and then it wasn't just one probe of agony but many, and they started to pull and press and shove and tighten and…

He felt tears of distress run down his temples and embarrassment mixed with all the other discomforts.

"Dean?" Cas' voice was a hoarse grunt instead of his normal tone.

But Dean was beyond coherent speech.

A powerful jerk at the insides of his ribcage made him gasp. It felt as if the angel had made a fist and pushed the bone-fragments back out, like a dent repair on a car, pushing the metal back into place.

Dean was aware that it wasn't as painful as he expected, though it was worse enough.

The molassy comfort in his skull seemed to thicken with more pressure, it was as if another presence was there in his mind with him, trying to distract him with a soothing feeling.

The unyielding spheres of touch moved from his ribcage to his spine, followed it down and started to slice into the pain in his upper leg.

He gasped helplessly when a similar process started working his femur, he felt more bone slices move, being pushed to the places they belonged.

What felt like unyielding metal must be actually Castiel's otherworldly… fingers, channeling the grace to mend him, but also pushing things back where they belonged with sheer physical power.

This time though the thick soothing feeling followed the healing touch down his spine and seemed to pool not only in his skull but also in his sternum.

Something about this was oddly familiar.

Dean realized that probably this was how it felt when Castiel usually healed him, but did it so fast it barely registered and also his movements were not this rough. Also, the celestial entity probably sucked the pain right out of him or manipulated the neurons to stop firing or whatever while he did it.

Dean allowed himself to sink into… whatever that soothing-thing was, concentrated on it to keep himself from experiencing the actual mending process.

Now that it was happening in slow-mo he understood that healing humans was not actually just a snip and everything was fine.

Cas went through his body, looking and feeling for damage and actually used some kind of force to put things back together. It was quite a bit of work the angel did within seconds. It must have always been like this, just too fast to be consciously noticed on the receiving end.

When he relaxed back into the aspect of Castiel that was easing his agony he realized there was something off about it, although it was more a hunch than actual knowledge.

When suddenly he could feel a surprised hum from the angel he understood the - for the lack of a better word - … bond was a two way thing. He was able to feel the agony the angel was in, too.

"Dean, don't…" Castiel warned, but before he could say what exactly he shouldn't do, the soothing sensation was suddenly cut off. As if the molasses had actually been a flow and now had a straight cut edge.

When a renewed wave of grounding pain floored all his thoughts Dean gasped in surprise.

A weight seemed to press down on his chest, causing him to panic.

"Cas?... Shit, Castiel?" Sam's voice.

The weight lifted.

"Hey, hey! … Look at me… What happened?" Sam asked.

"He… hee somehow…"

Cas' words were more of a moan than actual language.

"He tapped into my… and it… kind of created a feedback loop. He found my… cloak around his pain and my… He felt my discomfort and me feeling his discomfort and his consternation and self-mortification ran down my… barrier… I'm sorry, I should've seen this coming."

Dean had a hard time understanding what was happening, the renewed horror too massive in his conscious mind.

Some time later he finally managed to blink and found Cas and his brother on their knees next to him, the angel was held upright by his brother and looked very pale, in fact close to keel over.

"Cas, you almost passed out, maybe we should continue this later…"

"No! The circulation to his foot is cut off, I need to fix this fast."

"Shit. Sorry," Dean managed to grunt, the excuse was unusual and another sign of how unwell he was.

"Don't…" Castiel leaned over him again, resting his flat hand on his forehead now and Dean was once more pulled into something that felt like a mixture of a mental encasing and a thick paste that surrounded his mind.

The second time it was far more pleasant than the first and he found his body shoved his mind into relaxing into it before he had even made the conscious decision.

Dean then realized that this was an effect he usually felt during healing, too. A bit rough and fast, but thorough and going deep with what – now that he knew the angel better – he was sure was meant as care and comfort.

Some aspect of this felt as if his mental head was tilted away from the injury so he couldn't see. It was meant to make the treatment less worse. Like what parents did when their kids had to endure medical treatment, holding them, distracting them, and keeping them from looking at the blood or the needle.

It felt good actually… and he could trust Cas enough to allow him to do this.