The road hummed beneath the Impala – a steady, reassuring song that nevertheless jarred Dean's nerves. He was wound so tight that his fingernails were posing a serious threat to the integrity of the steering wheel. This wasn't normal. Leaving his brother in the middle of a fight – that was something he just didn't do. Not ever. But right now he felt an overpowering need to find Castiel. He had to. That realisation alone was enough to scare Dean. He needed to see Cas like an addict in serious need of his next fix - his skin crawled with it.
"Dean," he heard a faint voice say.
Dean nearly swerved off the road at the unexpected sound. He didn't bother looking around, because he knew the voice had been in his head. Normally, Dean would have chewed Cas out for scaring the living bejeezus out of him while he was driving, but the angel's voice sounded so... desperate. The last time Cas had popped into his head for a visit, the angels had ripped him out of his meat-suit to prevent him from talking.
"I'm coming, Cas. Hang in there, pal," he said out loud. Without thinking, he took the next turnoff; he knew instinctively that it was a faster route. This road was narrower and in bad need of repair, but within minutes it brought him to the eastern outskirts of Cold Creek. As he merged onto the main road, he was greeted by a blue and white hospital sign with an arrow helpfully pointing the way.
He parked in the staff parking lot and half-ran to the emergency entrance. A tough-looking teenager clutching his bleeding arm was hogging the admitting nurse, and Dean practically ploughed into the guy in his haste to be seen.
"Hey! Not cool!" the bleach-blond kid yelped. He puffed his chest out, trying to look imposing and utterly failing. Dean took a quick glance at the gash in the boy's arm and figured he'd survive waiting a few more minutes.
The nurse on duty blinked up at him in surprise. Pulling out a random piece of ID and flashing it in her face, Dean got right down to business.
"I got a call that a friend of mine was brought in not long ago," he stated, hoping he didn't sound as anxious as he felt.
The nurse, whose name tag confirmed was the same Michelle he'd talked to on the phone, blinked at him a moment longer and then a light went off behind her wide doe-brown eyes. "You must be Dean," she said, proud of herself for making the connection.
"I must be," he answered with a forced smile. He was not in the mood to make small talk, no matter how perky the little brunette nurse was.
"Curtain 5, down the hall," she informed him with a sweet smile, and then turned her attention back to the ticked-off teen in front of her with an equally sweet smile.
"Thanks," Dean tossed back over his shoulder as he put the desk behind him in search of Curtain 5. The ER was crazy busy, with nurses and orderlies buzzing around and patients that were spilling out of the woodworks. It was a full moon…and, oh yeah, the Apocalypse, so really, that shouldn't have come as much of a surprise.
All of the little cubicles were curtained off, and Dean inadvertently witnessed more than one naked backside trying to find Castiel. Apparently curtain numbers were assigned randomly, because none of them were actually marked, and Cas turned out to be behind the seventh one, not the fifth, as one would assume.
Dean didn't know what he'd expected to see, but it wasn't this. Lying as limp as a ragdoll, his face ashy grey, Castiel looked tiny, insignificant and helpless. He'd been hooked up to monitors and attached to IVs, and even though they'd cleaned him up, there was still the odd speck or streak of blood marring his pale skin. His left leg was splinted and his head was wrapped in a stark, white bandage above a swollen-shut eye, but what scared Dean the most was the bared chest and the two square, red burn marks that indicated they'd had to jumpstart his heart. Dean felt the blood drain from his face and he sat down heavily at the foot of Cas' bed.
"Are you Dean?" someone asked from behind him. That someone turned out to be a hefty young Asian doctor in green scrubs clutching a bag of saline and looking supremely compassionate. Nurse Michelle must have put the word out that Dean had arrived and sent the doc to talk to him.
"Yeah, I'm Dean," he replied. "What happened? Is he gonna be okay?"
The man looked apologetically at him, which made Dean's blood freeze, fearing the worst. "My name is Doctor Clark, but before I can tell you anything, I need to ask: are you his family? I'm so sorry to have to ask, but it's hospital regulations."
Dean sighed in relief. "Cas doesn't have any family. I'm the closest thing he's got – we're…friends." And geez, when he put it that way, it sounded more than a little hinky. It seemed to do the trick, though, because the doc gave him an understanding smile and a friendly pat on the arm.
"Your 'friend' Cas was unconscious when he arrived, but the man who called the ambulance said he was attacked by a gang just outside a bar in Red River. By the time the police arrived the perps got away."
'Perps', Dean thought wryly. Did people actually talk like that? He nodded at the guy, encouraging him to continue, even though he had a pretty good idea of what really happened. Angels and demons were skirmishing, as Castiel had once put it.
"Anyway, Cas?" the doctor asked, testing the name Dean had provided; and when Dean nodded again, he continued on his trip down exposition road. "Cas lost a great deal of blood before help arrived, and his heart went into v-tach. Luckily the paramedics reached him in time. He's stable for now, but he's in need of a transfusion, and his head trauma is worrisome."
"And by worrisome you mean…"
"I mean that he needs careful observation. With head injuries as severe as this, we have to watch for signs of internal bleeding or swelling that could cause brain damage. He just returned from having a CAT scan, and I should have the results soon. Our main concern for the moment is dealing with the blood loss. All we can do right now push fluids and monitor Cas while we wait for the blood bank to scrounge up some B negative. It's been a crazy weekend, and the local bank is depleted. They're working on bringing some in from neighbouring towns."
Dean was aware that his mouth was gaping open in a very unattractive way, but he couldn't help it. This was why he'd needed to be here – he had the same blood type as Castiel's vessel. Cas must have been calling to him on some subconscious level or something so he could give him his blood.
"Sir?" the doc asked, his head tilted in concern. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Fine. Whatever," Dean replied automatically. "You said he needed B negative, right?"
Doctor Clark frowned, clearly not having anticipated Dean's question. "That's right."
"Then you can use my blood," Dean said, yanking up the sleeve of his jacket as though the doc had a needle ready for just such an occasion. "I'm B negative."
Doctor Clark's face broke out in a relieved smile. "That's the first piece of good news we've had here all day, Mr…?"
"Winchester. Dean Winchester," he answered with a smug smile; as if he was personally responsible for the coincidental blood match.
"Stay right here," Dr. Clark ordered politely and hurried off to make arrangements.
In less than ten minutes Dean had filled out the necessary paperwork and was given a cot next to Castiel's bed. He'd never given blood before – needles had never really been high up on his list of favourite things – but the nurses were making him feel like a celebrity, plying him with juice and cookies and generally treating him like a hero. He was starting to consider making this a regular thing.
After assuring yet another nurse that he was fine, Dean was left alone in the curtained off cubicle with Castiel. He turned his head to get a better view of his injured friend. He watched as his blood made the short journey through a tube to the other man's arm and imagined that he could already see some colour returning to Castiel's skin.
"Come on, you lazy-ass angel. Wake up. We've got mud monsters out there, and they're not gonna smite themselves," Dean whispered. When his jibe failed to do the trick, he added the extra threat, "don't make me come in there after you."
The next thing he knew, Dean was standing outside the Red Barn Tavern in Red River. Only it wasn't really the Red Barn, because it was daylight and there were only a handful of cars in the parking lot. A small crowd was gathered around the side of the building and as Dean approached, he saw that it wasn't so much a crowd as an angry mob of demons, and Castiel was at the centre of it. He was putting up one helluva fight, from the looks of it, but he was outnumbered and for some unknown reason, these demons were totally kicking the snot out of him. Either they were some new kind of super demon with powers that could take down one of the Heavenly Host, or Cas had lost his mojo.
Dean's memory flashed on the conversation he'd had with a resigned, pill-popping Cas from 2014. He'd said that when the other angels abandoned Earth, he slowly became mortal. Human. But that was five years from now in a future that Dean was not willing to accept as destiny, and this was no slow drain of power. This was more like the plug had been yanked out of the socket leaving the poor guy utterly defenceless.
"Dean!" Castiel shouted before going down under a maelstrom of fists.
Dean was running flat out now, swatting aside demons like they were piñatas. That was the first clue that this wasn't real. If it had been real, the demons would have torn him to shreds before he'd made a dent in their ranks. Instead, he was able to shove his way through effortlessly until he was crouching over Castiel, who was curled up in a ball on the tarmac. The demons backed off, keeping their distance from Dean as if he was toxic. It left them in a demon-free zone about fifteen feet in diameter. When it was clear that the demons no longer posed a threat, Dean focused his attention on Castiel, gently laying his hand on the angel's shoulder. He jumped at Dean's touch, curling away from what he perceived was another threat.
"Whoa, there, Cas. It's just me," said Dean.
A terrified blue eye peeked through the protective shield of trench coat-clad arms. Castiel let out a shuddering breath and some of the tension went out of his coiled frame. With a little more coaxing, Dean was able to sneak past Castiel's defences enough to see the extent of his injuries. Just as he'd noted in the emergency room, Cas' left eye was swollen shut and he was also bleeding heavily from a gash in his forehead. The one blue eye that was still functioning didn't seem to be focusing properly, and the pupil looked blown. His left leg below the knee was bent at an impossible angle, and Dean could clearly see a bright white shard of bone jutting from the bloody wreckage of Castiel's pants. And to top it all off, a thick, sticky pool of blood was slowly forming beneath him. Dean couldn't see where it was coming from, but it was bad.
"You came," Castiel stated with some amazement. A flicker of a smile briefly lit his battered face.
"Of course I came," Dean admonished. "What kind of talk is that? Now you're gonna work some of that angel-healing mojo, and we're gonna get out of here. Right?"
In answer, Cas' eye rolled up in his head and he went completely limp.
"Oh no, you don't!" Dean shouted, shaking the angel as roughly as he dared. "You are NOT leaving me stranded inside your head. You hear me? Cas? Cas!" His shouts fell on deaf ears, and as Dean looked up, he realised that they were alone. The demons were gone. The Red Barn Tavern was gone. Everything for miles around was gone except for him and the unconscious angel.