Yes, yes, yes, another bonus chapter… Actually, the second bonus chapter to be published today and it is the longest chapter yet, so, triple bonus? I'm re-watching the show, so I guess there is a risk of a few more of these bonus chapters popping up, though I haven't planned anymore for now… Hope you enjoy it :)
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Castiel stepped out of his room, about to make his way to the kitchen to find the Winchesters. He expected that they would be having breakfast at this early hour. Dean might not even be out of bed yet.
At first, all he heard was the dull echo of his own footsteps as he moved down the hallway, but suddenly the silence was broken by the echo of a forceful, rough-sounding sneeze, vibrating down the hall.
Apparently, Dean was already up. Sam was normally more controlled in expressing bodily outbursts, so Castiel assumed the sneeze must belong to the older sibling. He didn't think any more of it, as many surfaces of the bunker were still covered in decades of dust, so sneezing was not abnormal.
As he moved closer to the war room, he suddenly heard agitated voices.
"-done arguing with you. You're staying home 'til you feel better." Sam sounded exasperated.
"You can't go alone." Came a hoarse reply.
Castiel was puzzled by the words. Did Dean not feel well? As far as he knew, no one was currently hurt. Their last hunt had gone surprisingly well; helpful witnesses and competent local law enforcement resulted in a quick ending for a vicious shapeshifter.
Another powerful sneeze vibrated down the hall.
"I've already called Eileen. She'll meet me there." Sam put his bag over his shoulder and headed for the stairs.
Dean noticed Castiel in the doorway and gestured towards the Angel. "Bring Cas. He can help."
"We'll be fine!" Sam insisted, but still turned towards the Angel. "Cas, please make sure Dean stays in the bunker until he's better, okay? Tie him to his bed if you have to. Don't let him outside!"
With that, the younger hunter slammed the front door. Before Castiel could say anything, another loud sneeze resonated through the room. Then another.
"Dean? Are you alright?" Castiel frowned.
"I'm peachy." Came the nasal reply. Dean sniffed and dragged the back of his hand over his nose.
Castiel's frown deepened. "Are you sick?"
"No!" Another sniff.
"You are." Castiel concluded, both based on the symptoms and the hunter's insistent denial. "You should go to bed. Get some rest."
"Like hell." Despite the harsh words, they lacked their usual bite. Dean shivered and by reflex hugged his arms around himself to preserve some body heat.
Castiel rolled his eyes and stepped forward to grab the hunter by the arm, pulling him down the hallway. Despite Dean's half-hearted protests, Castiel kept a firm grip on him until he could push the stubborn hunter down on his bed. When Dean tried to get back up, Castiel froze him place with a piercing stare and calmly ordered; "Stay."
Dean slowly laid back down, crossing his arms in defiance.
Now, looking at the hunter up close, Castiel noticed that his eyes were shining with light fever, and his eyes and nose were red. He still shivered slightly but was apparently too stubborn to lay down under the covers. It was an odd sight. He had never seen Dean this way before. Surely, he had been sick and weakened from spells, and he had even caught a minor cold once, but this was somehow different.
And Castiel had no idea how to treat such illness. If he had been at full grace, he could have healed it, but that was not currently the case. He couldn't even heal a small, clean cut after drawing blood for a spell.
"Cas." Dean brought him out of his reverie. "Stop staring. I'll be fine. Go do whatever you wanna do and I'll just rest up, okay?"
"No." Castiel straightened up.
"No?" Dean lifted a questioning eyebrow.
"Sam told me to make sure that you stay in bed. And knowing you, you will sneak out of here as soon as you are unsupervised."
"Dude, come on…" But this time, Dean was cut off by another sneeze followed by a hoarse cough.
Determinately, Castiel grabbed the chair by the desk and emptied it for dirty clothes. He placed it by the end of the bed and sat down, ready to keep watch over the sick hunter.
"Seriously?" Dean was clearly not appreciative of the idea. "You're just gonna sit there staring at me all day?"
"If that is what it takes to keep you in bed." Castiel did not back down. He might not be at full power, but he could at least do this.
"And what about when I have to get something to eat? Not like you've learned how to cook. And what about when I have to hit the head? Gonna come hold it for me?" Despite his protests, Dean made himself more comfortable, fluffing his pillow and looking much too pleased with himself, even in his weakened state.
Castiel glared at the infuriating hunter. "I will lock you in here if necessary while getting what you need from the kitchen if you insist on disobeying my simple request of staying in bed. And if you truly need me to 'hold it for you', I will probably have to carry you to the bathroom to begin with."
Dean opened his mouth to counter what Castiel had just said, clearly angered by Castiel's attitude, but instead of feisty words, he was overcome by a coughing fit. Castiel immediately softened at the sight of the normally strong hunter brought down by a simple virus. As soon as Dean caught his breath, lying wheezing on the bed, Castiel begged him; "Dean, please. Don't fight me on this. Just let me help you get better."
Dean breathed deeply, eyeing Castiel from his exhausted state. "Fine. Whatever."
Castiel smiled and was happy that Dean finally complied, no matter how reluctantly. But as could be expected, the hunter was not an easy patient. It started small with a request for Castiel to go pick up something to drink. Fluids were important during fever, so Castiel quickly complied, picking up both water, juice, and soda to get Dean to drink as much as possible. He ignored Dean's request for something stronger to ease his aching throat.
Then Dean wanted something to eat, and since Castiel's cooking skills were non-existing, he picked up as many snacks as he could, despite not being the healthiest of food alternatives, and toasted some bread, which he served with slices of cheese. Dean loved cheese. But the hunter barely ate anything.
Luckily, Dean drank plenty, and soon he had to go relieve himself. He was told to return promptly to bed but still he detoured towards the library. Castiel quickly caught up to him and ordered him back in bed. Dean said that he just wanted something to read, so Castiel went to pick up a book from the library. However, Dean had a hard time focusing on the "stupid, jumping letters" of the book, so soon Castiel had to go find Dean's laptop instead, so the hunter could watch some TV series.
Dean's nose started running more and became stuffy, leading to Castiel going on a hunt for facial tissues, which proved to be fruitless, and instead all he could offer the hunter was a roll of toilet paper.
By then, the previous beverages had become lukewarm, and Dean asked Castiel to go get something cold. When Castiel returned, Dean was missing. He figured that he must have gone to the bathroom again, and sat down to wait, though keeping an ear focused on the hallway. After two minutes, he would have expected Dean to return. Of course, Dean could be doing other things than just peeing, but something compelled the Angel to leave his seat and walk to the bathroom.
Dean opened the door when Castiel was only two steps away. The hunter looked paler and judging from the water drops in his hair, he had splashed water on his face. "Dean, are you alright?"
"Yeah." Dean's voice sounded even rougher than earlier. "Just, er… lost my non-existing lunch…."
"Oh." Castiel searched his brain for what he should do in this situation, but before he could say anything else, Dean walked past him, back towards his bedroom. He grunted in agony when he dropped down on the bed and covered himself with the covers, an arm coming up to rest over his eyes. Castiel stood helpless in the door. "Dean. I don't know what to do."
"Just need to sleep it off, Cas." Dean didn't remove his arm from his eyes, but his breathing slowly evened out, and finally the hunter fell asleep.
While Dean slept, Cas pondered the hunter's current state. Hurt and injury unfortunately went hand-in-hand with the life of being a hunter. Castiel had lost count of the amount of injuries that he had healed or that he had seen the brothers stitch up on each other. They even stitched up Castiel at the times where he was unable to heal himself. It was unbelievable to him how the brothers could expose themselves to such pain, stitching up their own wounds with the most primitive of tools. They winced and they swore, but never whined or cried.
And despite the pain, it rarely kept the brothers from continuing on their mission. Even though they worried about the hurt party, they rarely forced the other to stay home from a hunt, knowing that even a hurt Winchester was better than the average hunter on the market.
But now Dean laid before him, letting out small, distressed whimpers in his sleep, all due to a simple illness. The hunter wrapped himself more and more in the covers, shielding himself from the fever-induced feeling of being cold.
Suddenly, he started thrashing, fighting with the sheets. Castiel stood from his seat and went to the hunter's side. Dean was whimpering almost inaudibly; "Help… Let me out… Please, let me out…"
"Dean, wake up." Dean seemed to be caught up in yet another nightmare of Hell, far from the first one that Castiel had witnessed in his time with the hunter. He shook Dean's shoulder and immediately sensed how warm the hunter was. He moved his hand to Dean's forehead. He was burning up. "Dean! I need you to wake up. Come on!"
Dean finally stopped thrashing and slowly opened his eyes. They were even more glassy than before. He let out a soft; "Cas?"
"Dean. You have a high fever. What should I do?" Castiel could not hide the desperation in his voice.
Dean took a moment to focus, but then instructed Castiel to bring some pills from the desk drawer. He greedily swallowed two of them before laying back down. Dean was covered in sweat, his hair sticking to his head. Castiel must still have looked scared, because even in his disorientated state, Dean smiled weakly at the Angel. "Don't worry, Cas. Not my first flu. Gonna be okay."
Castiel smiled back, though with much less confidence. "Of course, Dean."
He sat back in his chair, just watching the hunter breath heavily and seemingly drift in and out of sleep, as if he was too tired to stay awake but also too feverish to find peaceful sleep. Dean pushed the covers off his body to cool down. It took about half an hour before the pills seemed to start doing their job. Dean's eyes cleared a bit, and his skin lost some of the heated redness.
"Hey Cas…" Dean whispered, his voice still rough, but he seemed to breath more easily. He stared at the ceiling, avoiding looking at the Angel. "Why did you wake me up in my coffin?"
Castiel frowned at the question, seemingly coming out of nowhere. But then he remembered Dean's previous words. Begging for help to be let out. Maybe it was not only Hell itself that brought Dean distress. "When I brought you back from Hell?"
"Yeah. It was a bitch digging my way out of there, you know? Confusing as hell…" Dean broke off and seemed to get lost in thought.
Castiel swallowed. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that. I am ashamed to say that I was only following orders. We were instructed to find you in Hell, and the first one to reach you were to restore your soul to your body. When returning your soul, we sent it with the will to heal your body, using the power of your soul. A very strong incantation, even for the Host of Heaven." Castiel sighed at the memory of who he used to be. How inconsiderate it had been of him, of all of them, to not consider where Dean's body would naturally be restored. "We were surrounded by Demons. We fought our way to you and then we had to fight our way back out. By the time that we made it out, you had already crawled out of your grave and made your way to the gas station. I tried communicating with you, but you know how that went."
"Yeah. You almost blew my freaking mind, Angel, literally." Dean huffed with a smile, and Castiel returned the gesture.
"Then I went to find a vessel. While talking to Jimmy Novak, I tried communicating again, but with the same result. When Jimmy accepted to become my vessel, communication became much easier."
Dean still only looked at the ceiling. "Unless we count your lack of pop-culture references."
Dean finally turned his head, and when their eyes met, they both started snickering. It was however cut short by yet another coughing fit from Dean. That seemed to mark the end of their talk.
Soon, Dean yawned and pulled the covers around his shoulders again, gaining a more normal body temperature and needing the extra layer to stay warm. Castiel sighed. "Get some sleep, Dean."
Castiel continued to watch Dean throughout the night. Luckily, he was still enough Angel that he did not require sleep, though rest was much appreciated. Dean woke up a couple of times from coughing fits or his nose running, preventing him from breathing properly.
When Dean woke up the next morning, he seemed better than the previous night. Castiel smiled at him; "How are you feeling?"
"Better. Right now, at least. It usually gets worse during the day again." Dean yawned.
Castiel frowned. "How long will this last?"
"It will be bad for a couple of days, with fever and stuff, and probably last about a week in total. But don't think you can keep me in bed for that long!" Dean pointed a threatening finger at Cas, though it fell flat when looking so tired and sounding so gruff.
"Well, for as long as you have a fever, we will continue as we have done until now." Castiel stated, nodding his head determinately.
"Hmph…" Dean didn't argue, but just scratched his head, frowning when his fingers caught in his sweat-slick hair. He looked down his t-shirt that was in a similar state. He raised an eyebrow at the Angel and sent him a cheeky smirk. "Am I allowed to go get a quick shower, Mr. prison guard?"
Castiel smirked back. "Be back in 10, Mr. Winchester."