A/N: Hey guy! Unfortunately, it's that busy time of year again; between the holidays/family commitments and my increased workload, I'm not sure how often or regularly I'll be able to update. This story probably has a chapter or two left. And I promise I'm working on getting through the requested Daddy Drabbles when time permits. Ordinary Human will be updated whenever I finish writing the current chapter. Sorry for the coming disruptions! I should get back on schedule after the first of the year.

Sam was seething. There was a freaking Angel sitting thirty feet away from him and Dean was upstairs continuing to get worse. Castiel the so-called Angel had been in the same spot for over three days. Either Bobby or Sam sat in the room with him because neither one was stupid enough to let an Angel be by himself. They took turns but it ended up being Sam who stayed in the room mostly just because he was so goddamn angry. He didn't understand why something so inherently good would refuse to help.

Dave refused to step within twenty yards of the creature.

"You know when you're on a plane and your ears have to pop really badly?" he described to Sam the night after they summoned the Angel. "Imagine that but a million times worse. And it's not just your ears that want to pop, it's your whole body." The Angel's aura was the same color as the light that had shone when he appeared. White but not. A thousand different colors but not. The utter energy of it made Dave want to fall to his knees and rejoice and stab himself at the same time. To balance everything out, he simply stayed out of the basement.

Which was easier said then done these days because Dean's aura was also giving him trouble. The thing was being overtaken so quickly that it made his ears ring and more often than not he left the room with a nosebleed. He spent most of his time ducking between outside and Dean's room, needing to watch over the boy but also not being able to stand all the energy in the house. It hadn't been this bad with his sisters and he wondered what made Dean Winchester so different.

xxx

"Listen, all you have to do is heal him and then we can let you go," Sam said, pushing the tray of food into the Angel Trap. Castiel was sitting in the middle, legs crossed, hands draped in his lap.

"You won't let me go. And I told you, I do not require human sustenance. My Grace will sustain me."

"I'll let you go," Sam said, sticking his hands in his pockets. The Angel refused to look up at him, just kept staring down at his hands. "As long as you fix my brother. With that Grace that you mentioned. I know you can do it." The Angel didn't deny it.

"It is not my place."

"You keep saying that," Sam said, a touch of frustration filtering into his tone. "But why not? What's going to happen if you do this?"

"Sometimes you just cannot save people," Castiel said, now staring at the door of the basement. He hadn't even tried to break out of the Angel Trap, not when Sam or Bobby was around. The cuffs and collar seemed to be working well but Sam knew that all magic had its limits. Whether it was a week or a year or ten years, the sigils in the leather would wear and fade and the Angel would be set free. They couldn't keep him here forever.

"I know," Sam said, thinking of his mother and the dozens of people he had watched die during his childhood. "But I can save Dean."

Castiel's mouth was open to respond when a scream came from above them and then Sam's name was being hollered down the stairwell.

"Saaaaam! Sam, get up here! Now!"

He didn't remember taking the stairs two at a time or hurling himself into Dean's room, bumping into the doorframe with his shoulder, spinning him off-balance. But suddenly there he was, standing in the crowded bedroom, watching his brother writhe on the bed.

Dean moved like a spineless creature, twisting and melting into the mattress only to jerk upwards, controlled by an unseen force. Bobby and Dave were attempting to hold him down but the boy kept wrenching himself out of their grasp. Then Dean's lips parted and out came a scream straight from a horror movie, a noise that pinched the nerves in Sam's ears.

"Sam!" Bobby yelled through the howl. "Get over here!" Dave moved away as Sam rushed forward, the former holding his shirt over yet another bloody nose. Dave stumbled backward to the edge of the room, sinking against the far wall and sliding down the floor with his head buried in his arms. The whiskey-and-honey colored part of Dean's aura was putting up a violent struggle but the footprint was now much larger and swallowing the healthy aura in great gulps. The gold spun away, cavorting and dancing out of reach, working tirelessly to stay bright enough to keep Dean alive. But the black mark was all encompassing and the dark was steadily eating away at the light. Dave's stomach heaved with nausea at the sight and he swallowed down a mouthful of bile, feeling it slide against his tongue and down his throat.

Inside the aura, Bobby had Dean by the shoulders and Sam was bent over his brother, sweeping a hand through his soaked hair. Every inch of Dean was drenched, he glistened like ice on a winter morning, shining and glittering even in death. Sam's hand came away coated with sticky sweat with each brush against his brother's skin.

"Dean, hey," Sam said once the scream had cut off with a terrible choking noise. Dean's eyes were open but they were unfocused and wandering, skipping over details in lieu of the big picture he was facing inside his mind. "Dean, hey, I'm right here." He squeezed Dean's hand hard enough to break his brother's fingers and it worked: for a moment the external pain pulled his brother's gaze to his face. "Hey buddy, it's okay. You're okay. It's just a dream."

For them, dreams and hallucinations had become the same.

Dean kept trying to sit up but Bobby held him down while Sam continued to soothe him.

"There you go. You're back, aren't you? I thought so. Hey now, Dean c'mon, look at me." The green eyes seemed to skitter and sway, his brow furrowed in confusion in fear. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth when he whimpered and Sam wiped it away with the edge of his sleeve. "Good morning," Sam teased, still using a light tone.

"D'd?"

"No, Dad's not here but he's coming real soon," Sam lied.

"Demon, S'mmy. Coming."

"No," Sam said, using his other sleeve to wipe the sweat from Dean's forehead. Bobby let go and when Dean didn't attempt to rise, he turned to grab a towel.

"What the hell?"

Both Winchesters and Dave jumped at Bobby's bark but for good reason. Standing in the doorway was Castiel and the Angel was watching Dean with an odd expression.

"How'd you get out?" Bobby said. Without moving his gaze from the bed, the Angel said,

"Sam left the door open." Dave shot Sam a glare while Bobby refused to take his eyes on the Angel. He wasn't sure what to do with the guy out in the open like this.

"He's dying." It wasn't a question but Sam nodded anyway, looking down at Dean. His brother's eyes were closed but his expression still troubled and tense, lips trembling. Sam wiped away more blood.

"Yes."

"Quickly."

"Yes."

Without hesitation, Castiel strode past Bobby and reached out a hand. Sam blocked it with his arm, hovering all the way over Dean's body. Dean sensed the change in Sam's position, reaching out like a blind man to fist at Sam's shirt.

"S'm?"

"You're fine," Sam said.

"Who's there?" Dean wanted to know, head turned in the Angel's direction.

"No one," Sam said, daring the Angel with a gaze to contradict him. Slowly, Castiel stretched a hand out past Sam's protective stance and touched two fingers on Dean's forehead. Instantly, the elder Winchester relaxed against his pillow, all pain and exhaustion fading from his body.

"What did you do?" Sam demanded, horrified.

"He is resting now," the Angel said. He hadn't stopped staring down at Dean, a puzzled look on his face. "A deep sleep with no pain. He will wake in a few hours time."

"You have some explaining to do," Bobby said and Dave uttered a sound of agreement.

"Perhaps," Castiel said. "But first I would like to sit with Dean Winchester."

Then he sat, just sunk into the chair that had been pushed away from the bedside and he watched the broken Winchester with continuous scrutiny.

He watched for a long time.

xxx

The Angel – Castiel, Dave remembered he was called – hadn't moved at in the six hours and twenty-seven minutes he'd been staring Dean. Not even a blink or a twitch of a finger; Dave couldn't be sure the angel was even breathing. Bobby had forced Sam out of the room when the boy refused to stop pacing at the end of Dean's bed. Castiel hadn't seemed bothered but Bobby could tell Sam was working himself into a frenzy and so he had made Sam step outside. Not just outside the bedroom but outside the house. It was a testament to the faith Bobby had in Dave that he left the doctor in charge of Dean while he took a walk around the property with Sam.

Dave, on the other hand, wasn't thrilled with babysitting duty. He was in the far corner with a bottle of wine – a relic he'd found deep inside Bobby's liquor cabinet. It was tart and bit at the underside of his tongue but he'd already swallowed most of the bottle. He let it drop with a heavy clunk to the floor, scraping at his hair in a gesture of nervousness.

"You are a rare being." When the Angel spoke, his aura sparked and expanded like a stretched rubber band. It took Dave a minute to even recognize the words that had been said, he was too busy trying to control the flash of pressure building inside his head. "Your gift is a great one."

"Yeah?" Dave muttered, pressing the heels of his hand to his forehead.

"Yes."

"Doesn't seem to be much use." If Dave had looked up he would have found that after six hours and thirty-one minutes, Castiel's attention had shifted from the prone body on the bed to the one on the floor and his eyes were narrowed and calculating.

"You chose to help Dean Winchester." A softness entered Castiel's voice when he said Dean's name, a lilt entered the two words as if he had practiced saying them over and over in front of a mirror.

"I'm not doing much good," Dave admitted, squinting open one eye to find Castiel had turned back to Dean. "He needs more help than I can give him." The Angel remained silent. "You know that, don't you?" Dave continued, dropping his hand from his face. Staring at the angel's aura was like staring at the sun: after a while the pain turned to numbness although he could focus on little else in the room. "He's going to die you know."

"I know."

"Then I guess whatever I did to help didn't matter, did it?"

"Kindness always matters," Castiel mused. "My Father taught me that." Dave had replaced Dean's nasal cannula with the oxygen mask after his last attack and it hissed out each of his breaths. Looking at the frail, pale body, Dave figured the boy had a couple days to live, maybe less. He wasn't furious like Sam or resigned like Bobby but he was frustrated that a potential cure was standing in front of him, standing in front of Dean. A cure that could have saved his sisters.

"Your father as in God?" Dave asked, sliding up the wall until he was standing. Castiel didn't answer; Dave was beginning to notice the Angel didn't answer many questions.

"Why won't you save him?" he dared to ask, taking a step then two then three across the room until he was on the other side of the bed, facing Castiel. The Angel's aura reached out to him but he pushed it away and it retreated. Dean's hardly moved at all, undisturbed by the Angel's presence.

"I've never seen a human in person before," Castiel said after a moment. "Though I have watched over and studied Dean Winchester for many years, he surprises me."

"You watched over him?" Dave said.

"His aura, for one," Castiel said, continuing on as if Dave had not spoken. "You must see it, must sense it."

"Yes," Dave relented. He knew that Dean's aura spun brighter than any other one he had seen before. It had been a shock the first time he crawled into the back of the Impala to tend to the sick boy. The sheer, untainted brilliance of it had thrown him off balance. "But I don't get it. You watch over Sam and Dean? Why?" The Angel's expression became tight and dangerous.

"No, not Sam Winchester."

"Dean, then."

"Dean Winchester is special, his brother is a problem. You must sense that as well."

"Uh," Dave said. "No?"

"I have already said too much," Castiel said, lowering the piercing blue. Dean's fever was starting to rise again and he fussed on the bed, fidgeting.

Dave heard the front door open; Sam was back.

xxx

Dean woke sometime later to the now constant pain of his aching lungs and fading aura. Foggy as he was, it took him a couple minutes of blinking to clear a path through his mind into present time. It was hard for him to separate reality from the hallucinations now and even when he swore he was awake and laying in Bobby's house, something seemed off.

"Dean." He'd know Sam's voice anywhere and he tried to detect where it was coming from, tried to figure out if this was real life or just another trick. "Dean, I'm right here." Someone was holding his hand, he could feel pressure on his skin, but the eyes he found weren't Sam's. Where was his brother?

"C'mon, Dean, wake up. You can do it." He was trying but he was so damn tired. God, was he hallucinating those blue eyes? Who was that?

"Dean."

The blue eyes weren't blinking and Dean couldn't look he away. He forced his body to move, felt someone's hands help lift him until he was half sitting, half sprawling across a pile a pillows. Someone had replaced his oxygen tubes with a mask and he felt it now, pressing against his nose uncomfortably.

"Dean, please." It took a lot more physical energy to rip his gaze away from the blue and maneuver them elsewhere. He found Sam to his right, hovering over him like usual.

"S'mmy," he said, voice muffled by the mask. He pulled it off but kept his hand resting over it as it dangled by his throat. Sam's worried look didn't alleviate but a small smile tugged at one side of his face, almost a reflex to Dean's open eyes.

"Right here," Sam said. "You were out for a while but you're okay."

"Eyes," Dean mumbled. Sam's smile slipped.

"What?" Dean swung his gaze around; the room was becoming clearer and when he reached the other side of the bed, they were still there. Still staring at him. Not blinking. Blue.

"Who…are you?" Dean breathed out because now it wasn't just two blue eyes but a man who had black hair and stubble along his jawline. A man with a tie on and a crease in his forehead as he stared at Dean.

"I am Castiel –,"

"It's okay," Sam said quickly, cutting the Angel off. "He's a friend." Castiel didn't deny this but that could have been because he was too busy watching Dean's reaction.

"You are Dean Winchester?"

"Yeah," Dean said.

"You are dying." Sam coughed loudly then as Dean's confusion transformed into utter bewilderment.

"Okay, Castiel, that's enough," Sam said.

"Sam," Dean said. "Water."

"Bobby stepped outside," Sam said. "He'll get you some when he can." Dean was about to insist that he needed because there was a tickle in his throat that was going to turn into a nasty fit if he didn't wash it down, but the man with blue eyes spoke.

"He needs water right now. I will not harm him while you are gone." Sam was torn between the grunts Dean was working on to keep the cough at bay and the instinct not to leave Dean alone in the room with such a dangerous creature.

"Sam?" Dean's questioning rasp was enough to set him into motion and Sam ducked out, practically sprinting down the hall to grab a glass.

"Who are you?" Dean asked once his brother was gone. The man hadn't even shifted the tiniest bit in his chair and his stillness was starting to creep Dean out. If he hadn't just spoken, Dean might have thought Sam had brought him a wax statue to keep him company. Dean squinted. "What's on your neck?"

"Ah," the man – Castiel – said, fingering the object with gentle strokes. "This is what you would call a collar." Dean coughed and rubbed at his chest, trying to take away the pressure and failing. "You're uncomfortable," Castiel said.

"No shit," Dean said. "You a Hunter?" Castiel blank expression disappeared for a moment and he smiled, ducking his head down in laughter. He was laughing at Dean.

Sam came back in with the water and Dean rechanneled his energy into getting the liquid down his aching throat where it sloshed in his stomach.

"Dave wants to check him over," Sam said to Castiel, who tilted his head in response but didn't seem all that bothered by the information. "You need to leave." Castiel tugged at the collar but he stood. Before he went, he reached out to Dean. The Hunter shrank back but had nowhere to go and then Castiel's cool fingertips were on his fevered forehead. Instantly, the tickle disappeared from his throat, the ache in his back eased, and the fever rose from his skin like fog off a river.

"What?" he asked, but the mysterious man walked out of the room without a word, Sam escorting him. And Dean was left with a lot of questions.