THURSDAY'S CHILD

Written for alpacamybags in Spn_summergen challenge 2021

Original prompt: Jack gets hurt on a hunt, and Cas (optionally Sam and Dean as well) get overprotective. That could manifest in anger at whoever hurt him or in helicopter parenting as Jack's recovering (or both!). Dealer's choice.

xxxxx

When Castiel had taken on the role of Jack's guardian and substitute parent, he'd be the first to admit he hadn't really considered the profound responsibility that he was taking on.

He knew that raising a child was a huge commitment and he'd hoped he was prepared for that.

He'd made a solemn promise to Kelly, and the technicalities of the arrangement hadn't really entered his thoughts.

Castiel was an angel of the Lord, and as such was a humble being. But that said, he was rather proud of how he'd stepped up to the unique challenge he'd taken on.

Okay, so he hadn't exactly had to go through all the pooping and peeing and projectile vomiting stage with Jack, but he had been with Dean several times after a night out with cheap beer and bad burgers, so he was sure he could have managed had he needed to. That, and the fact that Jack was six feet tall, fully mobile, fully articulate and capable of washing, dressing and feeding himself, made Castiel's job somewhat simpler, but all in all, Castiel was rather pleased with himself.

Jack was half human, but he was also half celestial entity, and in that respect Castiel was uniquely placed to be a perfect guide for Jack as he navigated the stormy oceans of his existence.

In addition, he'd undertaken to teach Jack the vagaries of human life, how to make friends, how to integrate, how to stay safe, how to function on a daily level and how to … well, Castiel would cross that bridge when they came to it.

But all in all, Castiel thought, this whole parenting lark was much easier than everyone said it was.

And then Thursday came…

xxxxx

The Winchesters had left town on an all-week ghoul job and had tasked Castiel with staying home in the bunker to look after Jack. The boy was developing a real interest in hunting; too much of an interest for Sam and Dean's taste, so they wanted to distance him from it as much as possible.

As a result, over the week Castiel had employed several strategies to try to keep Jack's mind occupied by non-hunting matters. However, Netflix had only piqued Jack's interest in witches, ghosts and vampires, the zoo had only piqued his interest in werewolves and the bookstore downtown had only piqued his interest in research.

Castiel suddenly found himself revising his opinion on parenthood.

Thursday was the day that a beleaguered Castiel gave into Jack's demands and agreed to go and check out a strange series of random deaths and mysterious illnesses in a neighbouring town. Just 'check out', he'd emphasised; not 'hunt'. By that, he meant to find out some intel and lay the groundwork ready for when Sam and Dean got back, and Jack had eagerly agreed.

And so, Thursday was the day that Castiel and Jack did their checking out and convinced themselves a rather nasty and extremely powerful witch was at work in the town.

Thursday was the day that while they were scouting around a local graveyard they interrupted said witch at her work.

And Thursday was the day she struck; sending a blinding nova of sparks and flame from her fingertips toward them, sending both Castiel and Jack cannoning across the ground, limbs flailing as they crashed into nearby tombstones.

Castiel was first to move, and as he gingerly propped himself up on his elbow, he could see Jack lying motionless next to him. He was just about to reach out to the boy, when he looked up to the face of the witch standing over them, a twisted smirk on her pale face.

She leaned down over the two prone bodies and recited a spell.

'For one sun and moon the body burns
At breaking dawn the fever turns
One way to bring life to an end
Or else withdraw and slowly mend'

Even before she'd finished speaking, Castiel reached up to try to make a grab for her face, but as he made contact, the effect was … nothing.

She cackled as she leapt backwards and disappeared into oblivion.

Groaning deeply, Castiel rolled over to face Jack. The boy was motionless and unconscious, a bruise blossoming on his cheek which complemented the bloody nose that he was also suddenly sporting.

Castiel reached out to touch Jack's forehead but was dismayed when nothing happened. He shook his head, in an attempt to regain his scattered senses, and thought about his priorities.

His angel healing powers appeared to be temporarily out of commission, so he needed to get Jack back to the bunker, back to safety.

Picking the boy up, he stumbled back toward the car parked outside the cemetery and bundled him into the back seat.

As the car roared along the highway, Castiel's mind whirled. He berated himself furiously for giving into Jack's wishes; the boy's childish enthusiasm was irresistible, but he should have been a stronger parent. He wondered if all parents had moments of weakness like this? He should have said no.

He played the incident over and over in his mind. Why had Jack been so affected when he himself appeared largely unharmed – except for the inexplicable loss of his powers.

Finally, the witch's words played over and over in his mind.

'For one sun and moon the body burns
At breaking dawn the fever turns
One way to bring life to an end
Or else withdraw and slowly mend'

He'd reached behind him a couple of times to check Jack was doing okay, and he was concerned to note that Jack was starting to feel warm – and not in a good way.

Castiel sighed. Should he tell Sam and Dean? They'd chew his head off, and with good reason. He was supposed to be keeping Jack safe, and now here he was with the boy lying in the back of the car, broken and feverish – dying for all Cas knew.

And Castiel couldn't even heal him.

Castiel sighed as he considered that Dean had been right… without his powers, he was just a baby in a trenchcoat.

xxxxx

Back at the bunker, Castiel put Jack to bed, and set about checking out his wounds. The boy was black and blue, thanks to the unfortunate coming together with at least one tombstone, but there didn't appear to be anything too catastrophic – apart from the fact that he was unconscious. Castiel wondered if Jack's angel half had protected his more fragile human half in some small way during the whole unfortunate episode. He hoped so, there had to be one small positive to cling to… surely?

What worried Castiel more was the fever that Jack was undeniably running now.

'For one sun and moon the body burns'

He knew that there was something Supernatural going on here; and that meant it was time to talk to Sam and Dean.

Castiel took a deep breath as he picked up his phone and made the call.

If he thought the run-in with the witch had been painful…

As Castiel shut his phone off, his ears were still ringing. He hadn't realised there were so many expletives in the English language, and he'd had to point out to the Winchesters at least twice that he actually did know exactly who his father was.

But, thankfully the Winchesters' ghoul hunt had concluded successfully and they informed him that they would be making their way home. In the meantime, they left Castiel with orders not to take his eyes off Jack. Sam would research the witch, the incantation and Jack's mysterious symptoms and report back.

They had a plan. Now Jack just had to do his part and stay alive.

xxxxx

Castiel wearily scraped a hand over his face, as he looked down at Jack, still lying unresponsive in his bed. He wasn't a fool; the incantation didn't take a lot of deciphering, and although he was still waiting for the call from Sam, his dread of what tomorrow might bring weighed heavily upon him.

Jack's hand felt cold and clammy as Castiel grasped it, his grip weak, but at the same time desperately tight. He had tried healing Jack again, but with no luck. Castiel was confounded; he knew his power was there, it just didn't seem to be having any effect on Jack's condition.

He was so lost in his thoughts, he almost missed Sam's call when it came.

"It's witch blight, Cas," Sam announced economically, dispensing with any social niceties.

"Witch blight?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed; "it's nasty. It brings the person infected to the brink of death, then kills them or cures them. It's completely arbitrary – it doesn't matter if the victim is fit, weak, old, young, male, female… Fifty percent of people infected live, and fifty percent die.

It's how the witch messes with peoples' minds, makes them suffer and gets her kicks. It's freaking evil."

"And it all happens in a day or a night – one sun and moon?" Castiel prompted; "like the rhyme?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed; "so, we should know the outcome by dawn."

"That's what was going on in the town we investigated," Castiel observed.

"Yea, I guess so," Sam replied.

"Why can't I heal him?" Cas asked. "I've tried several times, and nothing works."

"I'm not sure," Sam replied; "but I think the spell either neutralises positive magic or shields against it; maybe both. I think the magic is created to stop a good witch from trying to come up with a counter-curse, or in your case, angelic magic."

"And in Jack's case, his angelic side has been weakened?"

"Yeah," Sam sighed, "but not completely, otherwise those injuries from when he hit the tombstone could have killed him. Look, we should be back before dawn. Just keep watch over him. I'll keep reading up what I can and make a few calls. I'll let you know if I find out anything new."

Castiel nodded as Sam hung up. Sam didn't hear the nod, but he didn't need to.

The whole horrible business was out of Cas's hands. There didn't appear to be a thing he could do about it. All he could do was wait it out across today and tonight and hope against hope that the dawn brought the outcome everyone desperately wanted; the outcome everyone needed.

xxxxx

Sitting on the side of the bed, Castiel held Jack's hand, trying to provide him with a trace of comfort through the fog of fevered pain. As he watched and waited, he idly traced the bones in the back of Jack's hand with his finger. He'd never noticed how slender the boy's hands were.

The tremors that racked Jack's body were strong enough to shake the entire bed. Throughout it all he fidgeted and fretted weakly, repeatedly kicking off the bedclothes that Cas patiently pulled back over him, teeth chattering painfully and bloodlessly grey lips working soundlessly as his delirious mind tried to voice his distress through the chills and burning torment that the fever wrought.

Castiel had never felt so helpless. He wished with all his absent angel powers that it was him there in the bed, burning up, bruised and broken, instead of Jack. As if acknowledging Castiel's maudlin thoughts, Jack shifted slightly, taking in a deep shuddering breath, and he didn't try to hide his smile as glassy, fever-glazed blue eyes fluttered open, staring sightlessly up toward him out of deeply sunken, charcoal grey smudges.

A solitary tear slid down the side of Jack's pallid face, and Castiel gently thumbed it away, trying to hide his own distress.

If this was to be the end of everything, Castiel didn't want to remember his charge this way. The very thought tore him apart.

He hadn't realised being a parent could be so wretchedly heartbreaking.

xxxxx

He pressed a cold, damp facecloth against Jack's flushed face; "come back to me Jack…" he whispered, squeezing a clammy shoulder that felt at once both deathly cold and burning hot.

He reflected how the witches' magic really was evil. Somehow, not knowing whether Jack would live or die was worse than knowing one way or the other. Uncertainty wasn't something Castiel's heavenly experience had equipped him to deal with, and under these circumstances, it was worse than anything Lucifer or Michael or any of his other celestial friends or foe could have done to him.

The only certainty he had right now was that if he lost Jack, he would never forgive himself.

A strong shudder tore through Jack's body and jolted Castiel out of his melancholy musings. "Be still, Jack," Castiel sighed; "rest, mend. I'll be here when you wake."

Looking down, Cas wiped a haze of tears from sore eyes, burning with fatigue, and studied Jack's boyish face; his neat, fair eyebrows, his high cheekbones, his delicate chin and every now and again a glimpse of Jack's blue-grey eyes, unfocussed and glassy with fever.

Many people commented on how Jack looked like a young Castiel. Dean, in particular, frequently joked about Castiel 'doing a bit of cloud seeding' in his youth. The truth was, Castiel had no frame of reference in this regard. He didn't know what a young Jimmy Novak looked like, but he took all the comments in good humour, even Dean's crude jokes. The fact was, he enjoyed it. He liked to think that Jack was his son; his own issue. His belief was so ingrained, he'd almost managed to convince himself.

And that only served to make this whole debacle even more distressing.

xxxxx

Through the night Castiel sat; never leaving Jack's bedside, maintaining a cooling, reassuring touch, soothing him through delirious fever-fuelled nightmares, monitoring his blazing temperature and coaxing him to drink when he appeared lucid enough to be able to do so.

Halfway through the night, Sam and Dean crashed into the bunker and joined his vigil. Any anger at Castel's recklessness appeared to have subsided. Or perhaps was being held over for a more appropriate time. Sam solemnly imparted the unwelcome news that despite his best efforts and the best efforts of several fellow hunters, he'd had no success in breaking the enchantment. Even Rowena had drawn a blank. The magic was watertight.

Dean assured Castiel that once they were over this, he was going back to find the bitch and end her. And when he did, she wouldn't have to wait until dawn to find out what would happen because he'd 'rip her fucking face off' before she had time to open her piehole.

Castiel had a tumbler of scotch pressed into his hand as the Winchesters pulled up chairs to sit beside him and join his lonely vigil.

'at breaking dawn the fever turns'

Time crept past like molasses. Castiel had lived almost since the beginning of time, but this night was longer than everything that had gone before. He sighed; Thursday was over, but part of him wished it wasn't. Friday's dawn would be when the final outcome of this fiasco was revealed, and it was terrifying to think of. As long as he was waiting, there was still hope. In a few hours' time, he would know one way or the other, and one of the two possibilities was too horrific to even contemplate.

He remembered a character in a book Dean particularly liked saying 'I could never get the hang of Thursdays'. Right now, Castiel could empathise with that character. Although, considering he was the Angel of Thursday, that was kind of awkward.

Or at least it would have been if he'd had the mind to care.

Trying to bury a creeping sense of dread, his hand found the back of Jack's neck and began to gently knead the bony prominence of his nape, as much for his own reassurance as for Jack's. He hoped against hope that he would be able to detect even the slightest drop in temperature. His heart sank when he could not.

Jack's eyes remained closed; his face still flushed with the heat of the fever.

But one thing Castiel did notice was that Jack's fretting and squirming had stilled. Was that a good thing? He didn't know. He could see that Sam and Dean had noticed it too. They were both on their feet and hovering over Jack trying to ascertain his condition.

His head bowed, and the strength he had forced himself to show throughout the last twenty-four hours began to wane. He closed his eyes, almost afraid to look.

'One way to bring life to an end'

"Please, this can't be the end," Castiel whispered under his breath; "I can't lose Jack. Not this way, not now."

xxxxx

When it happened, it happened very quickly.

"Castiel, what happened?"

Castiel's eyes snapped open, and he joined Sam and Dean in staring at Jack, propped up on one elbow in the bed, staring watery-eyed at them.

"Why are you all in my bedroom? Why does my arm hurt?" The boy looked up at the three men sitting beside his bed, his face guileless.

Castiel opened his mouth, but no words came out.

"And my face hurts, and… well, all of me hurts," Jack observed quietly; "did I do something wrong?"

Castel felt a surge of light and energy within himself; and it wasn't just the relief and elation of seeing Jack recovering. He recognised it immediately as his healing power returning.

Leaping to his feet, he scooted Sam and Dean aside and touched Jack's forehead, revelling in the feel of Jack's temperature normal again as he poured his healing power into the boy and healed the bruises and injuries he had all but forgotten about with the desperate situation that had unfolded in the meantime.

He dropped back into his seat and smiled wearily up at the bemused hunters who stood either side of him.

"Thank goodness," Sam remarked with a wistful smile.

"I need a drink," Dean groaned.

"Sam, Dean," both hunters looked around as Jack spoke; "Castiel and I did some research on a bad witch while you were away," Jack exclaimed.

"Apparently so," Dean replied.

"Castiel said you would deal with her when you got back?" Jack added.

"Oh, we intend to," Dean replied darkly, as he and Sam stepped outside the door to give Jack and Cas a little privacy.

"Good," Jack replied. "Can I help?" he added with an enthusiastic nod.

Castiel's head dropped into his hands as Dean called from the corridor; "CAS! "A WORD PLEASE…"

xxxxx

'Or else withdraw and slowly mend'

xxxxx

end