5 - Holy Healing

Dean had called Dr. Jones on the drive over. As usual, she didn't ask too many questions. That was precisely why Benny paid her to be available when his operatives needed them. She was waiting for him with a stretcher when Dean pulled up outside of her off-the-books clinic. "Ok," he called, leaping out of Baby almost as soon as she stopped. "I need you to be cool. Don't freak out, ok?"

Dr. Jones rolled her eyes. "Dean," she began, "my real job is in an emergency department. I have seen car accidents, gunshots, wounds that you could not imagine anyone would live through. So whatever your friend has going on, I can pretty much guarantee that I've already seen…" She froze, eyes bulging. "Holy mother of fuck!"

"I told you not to freak out!" Dean had his angel by the shoulders and was carefully pulling him out of Baby's back seat. The angel moaned in pain as his wings dragged. Dean winced. "Come on, doc, help me!"

Dr. Jones blinked twice before nodding and moving to assist.

Between the two of them, they managed to get the angel onto the stretcher with a minimum of pain. Dean couldn't be bothered to care about the looks Dr. Jones was giving him for holding tight to his angel's hand. "It's ok," he whispered into the angel's ear. "We're going to help you."

Dean's only response was a slight fluttering of the angel's eyes. That was enough. At least he knew the angel was starting to come around.

They wheeled the angel inside, where Dr. Jones shook her head in disbelief. "Dean Winchester," she began, "bad enough you wake me up in the middle of the night and stink up my entire clinic of insect repellent, but what am I even looking at here?" She gently traced one of the angel's long flight feathers. "This is wild. I get he's probably from a circus sideshow or something, but this kind of mutation almost has to mean he's got some internal abnormalities as well. I have no idea what I'm dealing with!"

"Yeah, um, about that," Dean began.

A loud groan interrupted him, and Dean was immediately leaning over his angel. "I'm here, angel," he soothed, clutching the angel's hand to one chest. He cautiously reached up his other hand to card through the angel's dark hair. "Can you hear me? Open your eyes, ok?"

The angel groaned again. He shifted, grimaced, and, at last, his eyes fluttered open.

Dean gazed into ocean-blue eyes that he'd been told for six years that he'd hallucinated. "Hey, angel," he whispered, awe-struck.

The blue eyes were hazed with pain, yet they focused on Dean. Chapped lips curled into a smile. "Hello, Dean."

Dean had never imagined his angel's voice. The deep, gravelly tone was a complete surprise. He smiled and tightened his grip on the angel's hand. "Don't worry," he whispered. "I'll take care of you. I promise."

Dr. Jones cleared her throat. "Ok, how about I take a look at your, um, appendage here?" she called. "It looks pretty bad. You seem to have sensation in it, but can you move it at all?"

The angel's smile faded. He looked at his broken wing in concern. The massive black feathery limb raised. It started to expand, but suddenly stopped with a yelp. "That is broken," the angel hissed.

"You have full movement in it." Dr. Jones's voice was unnaturally high. "Well! That is amazing."

The angel squinted at her in confusion. "Why wouldn't I be able to move it?"

"Because something like this belongs in a medical journal. I'm amazed I've never heard about you," she explained. "A mutation like this is rare enough, but the fact that you can feel and even move them? That's extraordinary." She'd already started ducking under the angel's wing, frowning in concentration as she examined the injury. "You're called 'The Angel' then?"

"I'm called Castiel," the angel told her. "I'm an angel of the Lord."

That brought back the doctor's usual gentle smile for her patients. "Castiel, I'm Dr. Alexis Jones. You should know, you're safe here. I don't know your story, and I don't need to. All I need to know is your medical history, as much as you want to tell me, so that I can treat you."

"I understand," Castiel said. "My vessel is in good health. My true form, I'm afraid, is beyond your comprehension."

"It was the meteor," Dean groaned. "It hit you so fast and so hard that it caught you between forms, didn't it?"

Castiel was frowning at his feathery appendage. "That sounds logical. I'm caught between my human vessel and my celestial form."

"You got hurt saving me." Dean closed his eyes, grimacing. "Castiel, I'm so, so sorry!"

Castiel tightened his hand in Dean's grip. "It's alright, Dean. It wasn't your fault."

Dr. Jones was a professional. The Cajun's network used her because she was an excellent doctor who knew how to keep her mouth shut. She lived up to her reputation now, only nodding at the incredible explanation. "Alright, then," she said. "Let's start with the basics. Can you tell me what hurts?"

To Dean's dismay, a lot of things hurt. Castiel's wing was only the most obvious. He also had an injured wrist, fortunately on his right, not the one Dean had thoughtlessly taken hold of. He was a little dazed, which Dr. Jones diagnosed as a mild concussion. The angel was able to sit up at the edge of the table for x-rays, which revealed not one, but two fractures in the long support bone of his right wing.

"The wrist is likely just a bad sprain, which I can splint. The fractures, though? I'm going to have to set those," Dr. Jones warned. "I'm not sure how to properly support them afterwards. If this was a regular limb, I'd suggest surgery for plates and screws."

"You have to operate, doc?" Dean asked anxiously, clutching Castiel's hand against his chest. He knew Dr. Jones sometimes did surgery, with some assistance from some other practitioners in Benny's network. Dean trusted her completely, but the idea of his angel needing surgery was making him feel somewhat lightheaded.

"No," she replied, much to Dean's relief. "The musculature, the nerves, and the circulation of this is so beyond standard medical training that I'm afraid to risk it. I could do serious damage. So I think the best I'll be able to do is remove the, um, feathers, set the bones, and do a half-assed cast of the upper surface, with some reinforcement in the plaster to support it." She looked apologetically at Castiel. "It won't be comfortable even after it's set, but actually setting it…?"

Castiel nodded. "I understand. Removing the feathers will be nearly as painful as setting the bone, I would imagine."

"We can knock you out?" Dean suggested without thinking. "You don't have to feel this happening."

The angel carefully withdrew his hand at that. "I do not wish to be rendered unconscious. I can bear the pain."

"We can still give you something, right doc?" Dean asked, looking pleadingly at the doctor. "Morphine, or something?"

"Of course we can," she soothed. "Would you like that? It won't knock you out, but it will make you a little groggy."

When Castiel looked doubtful, Dean took his hand. "Take something," he urged, squeezing the hand. "Please, Castiel? I won't let anything happen to you. I just hate to see you in pain."

Castiel eyed him and nodded, once again pulling his hand free. "As you wish."

"Alright, let me collect some supplies," Dr. Jones said. "Dean, will you come and help me, please?"

Something about the doctor's voice made Dean realize he wasn't being asked. Confused by the angel pulling away from him, Dean gave Castiel one last look and followed her out.

She led Dean into a supply closet, where she shut the door and turned to him. "Dean," she began, "I'm really glad you found someone special. You two make a very cute couple, but you can't just…"

"Wait, what?" Dean blinked in surprise.

The doctor rolled her eyes. "I'm not blind, Winchester. You've barely kept your hands off of this guy the entire time. Now you're suggesting I put him under so I can fix his… his…"

"Wing?"

She made a face. "I didn't want to call it that. I thought at first he was part of that sideshow with the circus a couple of towns away. But Dean? I think he actually believes he's a legitimate angel."

"That's because he is!" Dean quickly told her the whole story, explaining how Castiel had saved him from the explosion, detailing the miraculous escapes he'd had in his various jobs, and ending up with the meteor when Castiel had been injured. "I brought him here because I didn't know what else to do," he admitted. "I got a few things before I brought him here that I thought might help him, but, you know, his wing…?"

Dr. Jones's face would have won any round of high-stakes poker. She nodded. "I see."

Dean grimaced. "You don't believe a word I said, do you?"

"What I believe or don't believe doesn't matter," she said, still maintaining her perfect poker face. "What you believe is not something I am interested in debating. The fact is, whatever Castiel may or may not be, he's hurt. Now hold out your hands. We're going to need a lot of stuff."

She wasn't lying. Dean found himself loaded down with plaster rolls, cast padding, and various other supplies. "He's going to need care," the doctor warned. "Poor man's barely going to be able to take care of himself until he heals, and tomorrow, he's going to be in a lot of pain. I can give him painkillers, but he'll need help. I assume you're willing to provide it?"

"Yeah, of course," Dean replied. "I'll take him back to my place in Sioux Falls and nurse him back to health." He cleared his throat. "Of course, that means I'll have to pick up his painkillers before I get there, or someone will definitely stick their nose where it doesn't belong."

As always, she didn't ask questions. She simply nodded. "I'll write you a prescription you can fill in another town, and dispense some to hold him over until then."

"Thanks, Doc."

She nodded again. Dean expected her to head out to her patient, but she hesitated. "Dean," she began, "it's pretty obvious you have a thing for Castiel."

"What?!" Dean exclaimed. "Come on, he's an angel! You don't have 'a thing' for an angel!"

She raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Be that as it may, you're obviously attached to him. Generally, I would say your relationships are not my business. But if you really did just meet this guy in person for the first time? Then you have no idea who he really is, or what he might want."

"I know he saved me multiple times," Dean growled, suddenly feeling protective of his angel. "The least I can do is return the favor."

Dr. Jones nodded, clearly giving up the fight. "Just be careful."

Dean grinned. "Hey, it's me!"

The doctor rolled her eyes. Then she headed back out to where the angel waited.

Four hours later, Dean had a small bottle of pills in his pocket and his groggy angel safely in his cheap motel room. Thank God for poorly-lit parking lots. Between that and the black feathers of the angel's wings, Dean felt sure no one would notice anything odd. He'd had to half-carry his angel inside. The morphine had hit him hard, but at least that had helped with the pain of having the bones in his wing set. Castiel now sported a long tube of reinforced plaster along the broken bone of his left wing and a splint on his left wrist. At least the cast was black. His right wing had lost so many feathers that the irritated pink lining was showing on a significant portion of it. He looked miserable. Once he was safely inside and sitting on the hotel bed, the angel had poked forlornly at the cast, realized he couldn't easily remove it, and focused his attention to the splint on his wrist. While he didn't remove it, he was constantly pulling off and re-attaching the velcro straps, testing various degrees of tightness.

"Leave it alone, Cass," Dean instructed. "You took all of that like a champ, barely making any sound when I know it had to hurt like hell, er, pardon the expression. But if you keep messing with it, you'll have to go back. You really want to go through all of that again?"

The angel immediately dropped his hands to his lap. "Cass?" he asked.

Dean blushed. "Yeah, sorry, Castiel. I shouldn't…"

"I like it." He shifted, wincing as his wing moved.

"The morphine is wearing off," Dean noted. He dug into his pocket, pulling out the bottle of pain pills Dr. Jones had given him to tide Castiel over until Dean could fill his prescription in the morning. "Here. Take these. They'll help."

Castiel meekly accepted the offered pain medication, swallowing it down without complaint.

Dean had gone out to Baby and gotten the items he'd stolen earlier. Now he placed them with the bottle of painkillers on the nightstand next to his angel. Castiel squinted at them.

"I, um, stole these from a church," Dean admitted. "I know that's probably not the best thing to have done, but I didn't know what to do." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm kind of glad I did, though. You got hurt because you got hit while you were halfway between your physical body and your angelic one, right? Well, these," he indicated the pain pills, "are for your physical body. I thought maybe these might help the angel part?"

Castiel picked up one of the communion wafers and held it up, cocking his head and squinting curiously at it. When the blue eyes moved to regard Dean, Dean blushed. But then the angel smiled. "Thank you, Dean."

Dean felt as though the sun had just come out after a bad storm. "Hey, no problem! If you need more, you know, I can try to get them for you?"

"This should be sufficient." His eyes turned to the vial Dean had also stolen from the church.

"Holy water," Dean explained. "To, you know, wash it down, I guess?"

The angel nodded. He began to eat the wafer. His expression was thoughtful.

"What do you think?" Dean asked. "Will it help you?"

"I don't know," Castiel admitted around a mouthful of communion wafer. "It is holy, so it may help. It won't hurt."

Dean pushed the holy water into the angel's hand. "Are they, um, tasty at least?" he asked, not sure what else to say.

Castiel at least took the hint and drank, swallowing down the wafers before speaking again. "I don't know. I can't really taste them."

"You can't?!" Dean scoffed. "In that case, we're getting you something worth tasting! I know this twenty-four hour dive not far from here that makes the best bacon double cheeseburgers in the state." He indicated the angel's wing and arm. "You need to eat to heal, you know." He knelt down, looking up at his angel, who looked down at him in surprise. "I'll do whatever I have to do," he vowed. "I'll get you better, and I'll take care of you until you're back to your old self. I promise."

Castiel smiled again. "Thank you, Dean."

At that moment, Dean realized he might just gladly drive off of a cliff if Castiel asked him to. At the same time, he realized something else. Oh shit, he thought as he grabbed his keys and headed for the door. I have a thing for my angel.