an:/
Have a new chapter with beautiful typos (I'm sure that they're there even though I've checked many times), and unexpected snuggly feelings between Cas and the wrong Winchester.
They aren't running away together or anything. I just had a brief moment of remembering what adorably awkward friends they are without Dean to mitigate.
Feel free to ignore the late night ramblings.
It's late and cold and I'm just happy to get one more chapter closer to the end.
Heat like a bonfire.
Heat like a dying star burned through Castiel.
He arched up with a strangled cry, fighting the hands that held him down as that unexpected heat ate through the pain like acid, hollowing him out. Leaving him clean and new and raw. It was only a small fraction of his Grace that had come home to roost- but he felt a wild joy spilling through him at the familiar feeling that settled deep into his bones.
"Cas? Oh god. Cas," Sam's grating voice prickled the raw nerves along his spine. "You've got to stay still, man. You're hurt real bad."
He got a weak grip on the hunter's arms, pushing him and his unwanted assistance away.
"This is not helping me, Sam."
"You've got a hole in you." The hunter tried to explain why he was still stubbornly keeping his hands on the Angel's fairly moist midsection, constant pressure which should have hurt but now only felt heavy and inconvenient.
"I'm attempting to fix it." Castiel insisted, finding the strength to fight Sam and his good intentions off.
Though he was unsure why his Grace had fled him in the first place, or why only part had seen fit to return, it was enough. Enough to stop the bleeding and to mask the pain. Enough that he was able to pull himself upright. He needed to get all the way up. He needed to find the girl who had cut him open, because his addled mind informed him that she would know where the rest of his Grace had gone. Much the same as he was sure that he would need the rest of his Grace if he intended to summon Belial and pull him from whatever remained of that small child.
Sam looked far beyond worried, red, wet arms held out as if to catch him should the Angel suddenly tumble backwards. "You shouldn't be moving, Cas."
Castiel ignored the advice and pressed his hands to his stomach, exploring the edges of the angry hole with his fingers, prodding at the moist bits, feeling a weird roll of nausea in response.
"Oh god. Don't poke at it."
"Where as I appreciate your prayer- I don't think it will be of much help in this situation."
The hole was fascinating to him if only because it had no business being there. The return of his Grace should have seen an end to the weak blood flow. But it didn't and Castiel couldn't help but let his fingers investigate the great, gaping wrongness.
"I think that my Grace is… most of it isn't here." He decided finally. It was the only reason he could come up with for why his body remained broken.
"Is that… normal?" Sam seemed to stumble over his words and it was obvious that his worry had lowered his intelligence if he was asking such an obvious question.
"Don't be stupid." He pressed the flats of his palms to his stomach, doing his best to put everything back where he thought it should go. The movement ended with him doubled over, shuddering as another swell of nausea rocked him. It was better than the pain, certainly more welcome, though just as unnatural for an Angel to experience.
There was not enough Grace left to balance out the humanity that riddled his broken vessel.
When he looked up he was surprised to see a slightly horrified look on the hunter's face.
"I will be fine in time." He attempted to assure the man.
Sam's expression turned pleading. "You've been dead for almost three minutes, Cas. You stopped breathing and I… have no idea how you're even- don't get up!" He grabbed at Castiel, keeping him from standing.
"Staying here is not going to help anyone."
"You'll bleed out." Sam stubbornly held on to him like an anchor.
The Angel looked critically at his red soaked shirt and the cooling puddle he had left on the floor. "I believe I already have. But what Grace I have left will keep me together for now. Even if I cannot find the rest of it, in a few weeks it should have had opportunity to… recharge? Is that what Dean would call it?"
Sam nodded. "Sure. Recharge." His hands stayed firmly around whatever part of the Angel he could keep a grip on. "But that's weeks, Cas. And this is now. Maybe you're breathing again, and there's lot that I don't know about Angels- but you can't walk around with a hole that big in your stomach. You look like a god damned autopsy."
Castiel almost argued against the blasphemy and the negative words, not that he had much practice or skill at disagreeing. The truth of the matter was that Sam almost definitely was correct in his assessment. So the Angel let himself be lowered as far as a deep recline, propping himself up on his elbows and letting gravity hold his insiders where they belonged. He considered asking Sam to sew him closed- because he knew that the young man was well versed in stitching wounds. But a better idea nagged at Castiel and as he lay there, looking up at the hunter, he thought that perhaps he was brave enough to ask.
"Sam?"
The man only nodded in acknowledgment, pressing his hands over the Angel's wound, doing what he knew how to do.
"I need to ask a favor."
Without any hesitation, Sam nodded again. "Yeah, Cas. Anything you need."
He wanted to ask to touch Sam's soul, to use that beautiful budding bit of life to jumpstart, as Dean would call it, his own Grace.
Sam would probably say yes. He was generally a helpful, giving sort of person. But Castiel suddenly found that he couldn't ask… or he didn't want to. It had only been a few hours ago that he was digging around in the man, pulling poison from him, putting him back together. For whatever good it had done, because Sam looked almost as bad now. One long leg sprawled out sideways, no shoe to cover the horribly bruised and swollen skin. He wasn't in much of a state to help anyone other than putting pressure where he needed to.
"Cas?" Sam's voice was so soft, so uncertain. It sounded nothing like him.
The Angel let his eyes close, but for the first time in hours he felt like he had control over the action. He reluctantly explained what it was that he wanted to do, carefully adding on the damage he could cause if it somehow went wrong.
"If you do, can you fix my leg?"
"Yes." Castiel opened his eyes, surprised at how eager Sam already sounded, despite the warnings.
Sam didn't really take any time to think it over, he just nodded, accepting. His face was so pale, sweat dampening his hair, blood up to his elbows. He looked worn thin and simply done, but he was still agreeing. And Castiel thought back to the soul he had brushed against that morning in the wake of the car accident.
The Winchesters were quite the matched set. Both too fierce and loyal for their own self preservation.
And perhaps that was one of the reasons that Castiel had attached himself to the brothers years ago.
Every once in a while he questioned himself and why he put up with their ungrateful, destructive natures. Then there were times like this.
"I will try and be careful." His hand slid slightly, damp with his own blood, as he settled it over Sam's chest.
The young man looked like he was bracing himself, his whole body tight with anticipation even as he grimly leaned into the touch. "How bad will this hurt?"
"Quite a bit, I imagine." Castiel apologized as he let what remained of his Grace spill up through his hand and into Sam, cautiously brushing against the man's soul, searching for a place to hold to.
Distantly he heard someone gasping, frantic, pained breaths, but such things didn't matter.
After a painfully long second his Grace rolled back into him, a great wave of everything that he was and everything that he should be. Not enough to make him whole but more than enough for him to suddenly feel the terrifying wrongness of one of his brothers close at hand. Belial was still close, the smell of him like a bad taste on the back of Castiel's tongue.
A problem that needed immediate addressing.
With just as much care as before, but with an added sense of urgency, he pulled away from Sam, letting himself fall those last few inches to the cold floor. His back rigid as he took a few slow breaths, letting everything settle.
"Are you alright, Sam?" He flinched at the loudness of his own voice, and even as he spoke he was checking himself over, fingers sliding slick across the clean new flesh of his stomach.
"Yeah." Came the lie after some hesitation.
Castiel looked up and frowned, not liking the bleached skin and wide, wet eyes of the young man.
Sam roughly cleared his throat and went to wipe at his eyes, but after a confused examination of his bloodied hands, he settled for pressing the side of his face onto his left shoulder then right. "I'm fine, Cas." He insisted. "It just- it wasn't what I expected."
"I did warn you that it would hurt." He carefully sat up, enjoying the lack of aches or pains or other horribly human feelings that had been such a large part of his afternoon up until this point. "There should be no permanent damage, though you might feel tired or unusually sad for the next few days."
Sam almost laughed, an unpleasant sound trying to masquerade itself as something better. "Sad?"
"Joy feeds your soul. I recommend finding something that you enjoy doing once this is all over. It should help." He advised, reaching for Sam's leg.
The hunter shied away for a nervous second, looking at Castiel as if he didn't trust him, which was a new expression for him.
"I can fix it." The Angel offered gently, not sure how to interpret the glance.
"Right." He visibly made himself relax. "When Dean gets back here you'll get to patch him up too."
"Dean's hurt?" Castiel's hand hesitated over the hunter's ruined ankle.
"Well, not bad enough to keep him from going off, hell bent on trying to save you."
That sounded like something that Dean would do. "But I'm fine."
"You weren't when he left to find help." Sam gave Castiel a weak, but honest smile. An odd tenderness and there was no way to tell if it was directed at the Angel or at his own brother and his predictably noble actions.
For some reason this made Castiel happy. No logic to be found anywhere in the feeling, but there it was. He mended the hunter's leg, and it was taxing on his freshly grown Grace, but he was more than willing to help. It made for an almost even exchange between them. They certainly had similar feelings of gratitude towards one another if nothing else.
"Dean's been gone for a while." Sam rubbed at his bare foot, feeling the strong bones all where they should be. Smiling to himself despite the worry in his words. "If you're ok to get up we should go find him- before he does something stupid." He added at the end, climbing to his feet with a bit of an unsteady wobble, seemingly not trusting his leg to hold his weight at first. He found his balance, and a smile before holding out a hand.
Castiel took Sam's offered help and dragged himself to his own feet. "Do you think he would do something… stupid?"
"He will. Every time you're involved." Sam guaranteed.
