Rebound: Tenderness, Part 2
The drive felt longer than usual. Cas debated pulling over twice, the strange rise and fall of his gut pulling at him to stop, but he wanted home more than he wanted to vomit, so he pushed forward. The driveway was empty when he pulled in: Dean, of course, was at the garage. He felt all the more childish for wishing for him, and even worse when he realized Sam too, was out, working a shift at the bookstore and then, undoubtedly, doing something with Andy, who he’d been even more attached to since his friend’s brief relapse.
Even worse, he suddenly, savagely, missed Gabe, who he hadn’t spoke to since that horrible night when Sam had nearly died, his Father had been buried, his mother had rejected him, and Gabriel, the brother he loved and trusted more than any of the others, had told him to deal with it alone.
Cas was so, so sick of feeling alone.
He wanted to cry, but instead he did what he knew best-work. First, he gathered all the laundry and sorted it into piles of whites and colors, delicates and regulars. He ran those, than scrubbed down the kitchen, pausing only a few times to double-over and hold his stomach. At the worst moments, he wished for Dean: then his boyfriend would light up his phone with a text, all misspelled and sincere, and Cas would just want him all the more.
He tried to eat something, but the sight of food just made his stomach protest once more. Instead he tried some milk, which didn’t sit right, and then, in desperation, one of Sam’s red Gatorade’s. He was surprised that that stayed down, and even more that it didn’t have the bizarre flavor of Sam’s punch, and he finished one and a half before the buzzer rang in the laundry room.
Cas was moving the whites from the washer to the dryer when Dean came home, took one look at him and said “Dude, bed.”
“Dean I-”
“Bed.”
Dean brought him soup, crackers, water, fluffed his pillows, took his temperature, gave him two Tylenol, and told him if he moved for anything other than the bathroom he’d knock him on his ass.
“I mean it. Sleep.”
“Dean-”
“No arguments.”
“Not arguing. Lay down with me?”
His boyfriend smiled, toed off his shoes, and slid in behind him, slipping an arm around his stomach.
Cas bucked and cried out, tossing his arm aside.
“What?” Dean asked, sitting up.
“Sorry-m’sorry. It’s my stomach.”
“Want the heat pad?”
“No, just-” his breath hitched and he clutched at his midsection. Dean put a reassuring hand over his heart and smoothed his hair off his forehead.
“Hey, hey-look at me. It’s okay. Slow it down. I’ve got you.”
Cas nodded, eyes locked on Dean’s warm green eyes, the gentle laugh lines framing his gaze, and felt a horrid, childish weakness overwhelming him.
“I don’t feel good,” he whimpered, mortified when tears filled his eyes. Dean’s gaze just softened even further, and he lay, carefully, down beside him.
“I know you don’t, buddy,” he soothed, tucking hair behind his ear. “It’s okay. I’m gonna take care of you. Just relax.”
“I’ve taken too many days. I’m going to lose my job.”
“If that’s true, we’ll deal with it.”
“There’s no other hospital close by.”
“We’ll deal with it.”
“I’m not keeping up. My patients, medications, policies. I’ve fallen behind on everything.”
“Cas, we will deal with it.”
“I feel...very...uncontrolled.”
“Dude, you’re allowed to be sick. You’re allowed to be human. You can take time off for your Dad’s funeral, and Sammy’s health, or because you’re exhausted.” He reached out and laid a light hand over the one Cas perched over his midsection. “No one thinks less of you, bud. I promise. And if it happens that you lose your job for any reason, then I’ll make up the difference in the bills as long as I have to. We have savings; we’ll be fine.”
He was using that special, warm, reassuring voice he always used when Sam was upset: it was effective. Whatever happened, he knew Dean loved him, would help and support him, would guide him through whatever came his way.
“I love you,” he murmured, and nestled his head on Dean’s shoulder. He didn’t know why Dean had picked him, of everyone he could have, but in moments like this, he felt too lucky to care. Dean kissed his forehead.
“Relax now,” he whispered, breathing a long, deliberate breath over Cas’s skin. “You’re safe. You’re with me.”
Cas felt inexplicable tears fill his eyes, so he shut them, seeking out Dean’s hand as he did.
“I can’t do anything right,” he managed. Dean’s had found his own and took it. “I’m ruining everything.”
“You’re tired. You’re sick. You’re grieving.” Dean stroked his hair. “And you’re wrong, because you haven’t ruined a thing. You’re depressed, man, and that’s normal after what you’ve been through.”
“I don’t feel normal,” Cas confessed. “I feel alone unless you’re with me. If you’re not here...I’m just lost.”
“Well, I’m here now,” Dean kissed him on the forehead. “And I’ll move shifts, take overtime, whatever I have to, to be at the door when you get in, if that’s what you need. You just gotta tell me what you want, bud. I can make it work.”
“I don’t want to be work,” he snapped. “It’s my worst fear. That I’ll just be a job.”
“Cas, if you’re a job, than I’m a jet-setting, tech-starting, international billionaire,” Dean sighed, curling around him just perfect, just right. Cas gripped his arm and clung, hard. “You remember what I said when we got back from New York? You can’t ask why we’re there. You just gotta let us be. I could list a thousand reasons why you’re the most awesome dude on Earth, but I know you can’t believe them right now. So you just gotta trust that I have awesome taste, and wouldn’t put all I had into a useless jerk.”
“You have before.”
“Yeah well...that was then. This is now.” Dean buried his face in Cas’s hair. “You’re the only jerk I got on not one, but TWO flights for. You’re the only jerk I trusted to take care of Sammy. You’re the only jerk I bought a house with, shared my little brother with, gave up drinking with, grieved our Dads's with. So you gotta deal with me, for the long-haul, okay?”
Cas closed his eyes, but couldn’t stop a tear from escaping. His chest hitched: seconds later, his boyfriend’s hand tangled in his hair and stroked.
“I don’t feel well,” Cas admitted, his voice cracking.
“I know, hon,” Dean soothed, hand moving through his hair once more. “I gotcha. I’m going to help you through this. And I don’t just mean your tummy-ache.”
“Oh just...shutup.” Cas swallowed, clung even harder to his boyfriend’s hand.
“I’m seriously like your Geisha-boy. Y’know, Sammy’s better at this snuggle-time thing than I am. We could pimp him out. Rent-a-Giant: what do you think? Bet he’d make up your salary in a week.”
“Shu’up,” Cas chuckled, trying not to when he realized it hurt. “Shutup and hold me?”
Dean stroked his fingers through his boyfriend’s hair. “Whatever you need,” he murmured, and began to hum.
* * *
When he woke next, it was to Sam setting down a book beside him. The younger man did a double-take, then smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you.”
“It’s alright.”
“I got you David Sedaris’ new book-I figured you could use a laugh or two.”
Cas smiled and sighed into his pillow. “That’s kind, Sam.”
His friend shifted a bit. “Things have been really hard for you, lately. I just...I want to say thank you. No matter how bad you must be feeling, you always look out for me. I appreciate it.”
“I know you do.” Cas forced himself to a sitting position, accepting his friend’s anxious hands to pull him up. “How is Andy?”
“Good. He has to double-up on meetings for a bit, but even Missouri said she understood. And it’s not a real relapse, because it was a one-shot deal. Kinda like me, except he meant to do it.”
Cas sipped at the punch, than forced a smile to show Sam he appreciated it. “Is he going to meet his biological parents?”
“He wants to. He has a couple dates in the mix, but they have to go through the agency. And he’s not going without his Dad.”
“Jack is a good man.”
“It’s funny...I wonder if Andy’s Andy because that’s how hes always been, or if he took on Jack’s traits. They’re so alike, it’s hard to think they’re not blood. But then...”
Cas took another sip of punch and smiled. “Then?”
“Just...I think of Bobby, and how he’s kinda been a Dad to us, and Pastor Jim, and Dean to me, and...I get a little bit how Andy feels. I know my Dad’s behavior and genetics shaped who I am, but they did too. I don’t know.” He smiled shyly. “How are you doing? I know you’ll say you’re fine, but...we can talk about New York, if you need to. I promise I’m not super traumatized or anxious or anything.”
“I know, Sam. You’ve done wonderfully.” Cas was mortified yet again when he felt his eyes brimming. On top of everything else, his emotions seemed as off the rails as the rest of him.
“What is it?” Sam asked, perching beside him, all sweetness and sympathy.
“Just...I miss Gabe,” he admitted. “And my Father...although he was never around. Being home was so terrible, but it made me remember good things too...does that make sense?”
“Of course it does. You know I still miss my Dad’s ‘kitchen sink’ stew? And when I was really little, he’d lie down with me and sing...and he always smelled like a bar, but you know, that was nice. Even though I’m glad Dean quit drinking, sometimes I miss that smell coming off him.” Sam blushed. “Pretty screwed up, huh?”
“No. I understand.” Cas smiled, losing his grip on his tears. “I’m sorry,” he said, frantically wiping his face. “I think...I may be processing all this...a little late.”
Sam’s face had morphed from empathy to concern. “I know this is meaningless coming from me, but...you’ve got to give yourself a break. You’ve had one hit after another the past few years, and I know I’m the cause of a lot of it. You never take time off, and now you don’t even get to enjoy a glass of wine or two...and your family...” Sam laid a gentle hand on Cas’s shoulder, and it was all the elder man could do not to curl into a ball and sob.
“Sam...” he said, forcing himself back under control. “I drank some of your Gatorades.”
Sam perked up. “They’re good, aren’t they?”
“They are-I was surprised.”
“Why?”
Cas took his punch in hand and braced himself for the flavor. “You know...dye, sugar,” he lied. “Where’s Dean?”
“Making soup. Creamy tomato with rice. He always made it for me when I was sick. He says he remembers our Mom making it for him. Except I think he added the cream.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t add bacon. Or beef at least.”
“’Surprised he didn’t add bacon. Na na nuh na nuh,’” Dean mocked, entering the room with a steaming bowl and placing it carefully on Cas’s tray. “That’s the best soup you’ll ever eat, assjack. And you,” he turned to Sam, “are due a Valium.”
“They’re taking me off.”
“The hell they are.”
“Really! They think it’s time.”
“Well that doesn’t change bedtime, baby boy.”
“I was talking to Cas!”
“And now you’re getting into your PJs! I can exclaim too!”
“God you’re a jerk.”
“Ten minutes!”
Sam flipped his brother off and disappeared down the hall. Cas took a large spoonful of soup and felt a heavenly warmth flood through him. He closed his eyes, imagining his brain re-routing home away from taxis and ERs and into Dean’s cooking and Sam’s God-awful punch.
“It’s okay,” he said, opening his eyes to Dean. His boyfriend rolled his eyes and plopped a bottle of Tylenol beside him.
“That’s the best soup you’ve ever had, and you know it. Eat that, take two of those, and be in that bed when I get back.”
Cas smiled as Dean chased his brother down the hall, beginning an obvious interrogation. He lay back, soup aside, not feeling hungry, although he realized he hadn’t kept anything down all day. His stomach was already protesting the little bit he’d forced into it.
Cas closed his eyes, tried to breathe through the onset of nausea, and quickly realized he wasn’t going to be able to stave off the sickness.
Even worse-sitting up and moving toward the bathroom was obscenely difficult. His stomach, abdomen, and even his legs seemed to cramp up, and before he knew it he was on the bathroom floor, crying out “Dean!” before he lost his battle and wretched onto the tile.
“Shit, Cas,” he heard, and then his boyfriend grabbed him under the arms and hauled him the rest of the way. Cas groaned and vomited once more, his whole body sweating and shaking with effort. He heard the sink running, and then a cool washcloth was pressed to his forehead while he gasped.
“Easy does it. Let it out. You’re okay,” Dean was murmuring, rubbing soothing circles into his back.
“M’sorry,” Cas moaned, clutching pitifully at his gut.
“Shut it. Jesus, you’re burning up.”
“Jus’ a bug,” he mumbled, swaying. Dean caught him.
“I don’t know...maybe we should swing by the docs? Get your girl to take a look?”
“Anna?”
“What, you got another I don’t know of?”
“It’s just a virus. I know...” a cramp hit him, and he bucked, fumbling for Dean and finding him suddenly behind him, surrounding him, engulfing him in his arms and taking care not to touch his stomach.
“Shhhh, you’re okay,” Dean murmured. “Easy does it. I have you. Take a deep breath for me.”
Cas forced himself to concentrate, absorbing Dean’s warmth and strength into himself. His boyfriend gently dabbed off his face, his throat, and the back of his neck with the washcloth, talking softly the whole time.
“There you go. We’re good. You want to lie down again?”
Cas just nodded, accepting his boyfriend’s support to stand, carefully moving him aroud the puke he’d left in their doorway, and getting him back into bed and tucked up with the washcloth on his forehead.
“Be right back,” he promised, and Cas heard the sound of running water and clean-up. Dean was cleaning up Cas’s mess...again. It seemed that’s all the Winchesters did these days, was try and put Cas and his nightmare of a family into some order. And Cas couldn’t even do the one thing he was good at, which was work and provide for the family he loved.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, rubbing desperately at his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dean. Gabe. Sam. Mom. Dad...”
“Hey,” Dean said softly, appearing at his side. “I know you don’t want to, but I need you to try and hold some Tylenol down for me, buddy. That or hop in the shower. We gotta get that fever down.”
“I love you, Dean.”
“Shower, pills, or ambulance, Cas.”
That broke through Cas’s haze enough to agree to the pills, and, a few minutes later, a second trip to the bathroom, where Dean stripped them both and got them under a frigid spray that nonetheless brought the world back into focus a bit. Dean dried them both down, spent a few extra minutes rubbing the towel gently through Cas’s hair, got them into pajamas and back into bed.
“There you are,” Dean said, smiling and stroking his boyfriend’s forehead. “Your eyes are clearer.”
“S’just a bug,” Cas mumbled, feeling sleep pulling him under.
“I know, Dr. Quinn, but let’s keep it under 150, okay? Pretty sure your brain boils around 110.”
“You could die around 105.” The number was pretty much reflex. Dean’s hand in his hair, on his forehead and temple, felt like heaven while his body was a knotted mess of heated hell.
“Don’t talk like that.”
Cas jolted suddenly, hand going to his stomach. “Where’s Sam?”
“Down the hall, passed out.”
“I didn’t give him his Valium...”
“He’s fine, Cas. Out like a light.”
“A’love you,” he mumbled.
“At least you’re not a mean sick,” Dean kidded, then kissed him on the temple. “Sleep, okay? I gotcha.”
“Can you sing a bit?”
“I don’t sing!”
“The one with the candle in a window...I like that.”
Dean swore, mumbled, grumbled, then stroked Cas’s hair a few more times, and began a soft “you’re a candle in a window, on a cold dark winter’s night...”
* * *
Cas awoke to a gut-full of knives.
He leaned over the bed and dry-heaved, caught quickly by Dean’s hands. He spat, heaved, and realized the piercing sensation in his gut was matched by the hideous cramps in his abdomen.
This was not a bug. This was not a virus. This wasn’t even an illness. This was something very, very, very wrong inside him, and it had been simmering, and Cas had ignored all his opportunities to stave it off.
Around him, over him, he heard Dean’s ministrations turn frantic when Cas didn’t answer his questions, and it was confirmation enough. He was burning up, his gut was on fire, his midriff was cramping, and he needed help-serious, professional help.
“Dean...you’re gonna have to call an ambulance,” he said, trying to sound calm. Sweat streamed down his face and he dug his fingers into his boyfriend’s arm so hard Dean actually flinched.
“Okay,” Dean said, scooting away and circling the bed to the landline. “Talk to me. What’re you feeling?”
“Stomach...abdomen...something’s wrong. Tell them it’s a possible hernia, appendicitis, maybe a kidney stone-but a dull cramping in the stomach and abdomen consistent and worsening over a day-”
“Dude, you’re not pregnant and didn’t tell me, right?”
“Dean!”
“Gotcha. Calling.”
Cas struggled to sit up, using Dean’s shirt and arms as leverage, quickly circled by his boyfriend’s arm while Dean spoke calmly to the emergency operator.
Cas wasn’t all that surprised when he heard Sam shuffling down the hall, his long hair scrambled about and the back of his hands rubbing at his eyes. Even with Cas in pain and Sam over six feet tall, the younger Winchester in sweatpants, an oversized t-shirt, and sleepy-concern couldn’t be seen as anything less than adorable.
“Me and Cas are going to the hospital,” Dean said calmly. Sam blinked at him. “Hospital, Sammy. Cas. Me. Middle of the night. Clothes. Shoes. Please?”
Sam’s eyes widened. He looked from Dean, to Cas, to Dean once more, than nodded and bolted down the hall. Cas let out a moan, and clenched a fist over his seizing gut.
“You’re okay,” Dean soothed. “ETA ten minutes, bud. Can you walk?”
Cas struggled to sit up, felt a wretched spasm in his stomach, and doubled back onto the bed. “Can’t,” he half-sobbed.
“Alright. Easy does it,” Dean murmured. “C’mon, c’mere. I gotcha.”
Dean scooped him off the bed and into his arms in a princess carry that Cas knew he’d never hear the end of when he was well. “I hate you,” he moaned as Dean carefully steered them out the door.
“Yeah, well, buck up, Scarlett. Rhett’s saving your ass.”
“I-” the pain...Cas didn’t have words. Pain like this shouldn’t exist.
“I know,” Dean murmured, “I know, buddy.”
“Uh,” Cas moaned. Dean carefully carried him down the stairs as Cas was reduced to gasping against his boyfriend’s neck.
“I gotcha. You just hang tight, you hear? You’re gonna be fine.”
“Dean...” he hated how weak he sounded, suddenly. He was a doctor. He treated pain. He understood its science. He understood what was happening. Dean couldn’t help: no one could. What was needed was a neurological intervention. Nothing more. Dean couldn’t-
He gasped as his side seized. Dean settled them both on their couch, Cas half in his boyfriend’s lap, breathing hard as Dean stroked through his hair, dragging his fingertips along his scalp, a warm hand on his back.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, buddy. It’s gonna be okay, Cas.”
“Don’t-” Cas pleaded, heat and shame filling his cheeks as he said it.
“Not gonna leave you. Promise,” Dean murmured, kissing his temple lightly as the sound of sirens filled the night and Sam bounded down the stairs, fully dressed, backpack over his arm.
“It’s alright!” he called. “They’re on their way. Dean, I’ve got clothes for you both. I’ll follow in the car, okay? You go with Cas.” He dropped the bag at the door and crossed the room quickly, kneeling before him. “It’s okay, man. Don’t worry. I know it sucks, but it’ll be better soon. You’re gonna be fine.” Sam smiled. A siren sounded outside, and the telltale red and blue lights flashed past the front windows. “I’ll get the door,” Sam assured him, patting Cas’ arm as he raced toward the porch.
“Deep breaths,” Dean soothed, but Cas could feel him shaking. “This is nothing, okay? You’re totally fine.”
“I don’t even have a will.”
“Shutup. Shut the hell up.”
“Dean-”
“Shutup, Cas!”
The paramedics cut off his response, and, for the first time ever, Cas saw fear in Dean’s face that wasn’t directed toward Sam. Given their recent conversation about rights and money and death, and suddenly being faced with it...
Cas wasn’t ready.
“Hey bud-hang tight for me,” Dean grinned, and Cas found himself stretched out on a back-board, one he’d seen thousands of patients brought in on: patients he could save, and patients he couldn’t.
How many of them had had partners without wills? How many of them had had family issues they hadn’t resolved, big brothers they hadn’t spoken to, dead fathers they hadn’t made peace with? How many of them had heard the news from Cas, who had chalked it up to a rough afternoon and gone home, all smiles?
Cas was crying and he hated himself for it. He was supposed to be above this. He could just hear his father’s voice: we’re Morgans. We treat problems. We do not succumb to them. He’d acted exactly like brothers in this case: bucked up and ignored the warnings, believing he was above something as common as a rotten appendix, or kidney stone, or hernia. Instead of acting defensively, practicing safe medicine, he’d placed himself and his health in danger, all to prove something his father’s death had ultimately proved futile.
Carried out of his living room, down his porch stairs, and loaded into the back of an ambulance like a piece of dead meat on a slab.
This was the indignity his father had always sought to spare his children. The indignity of illness, of weakness, of death. And all his work, his legacy, was undone with Cas’s weakness.
“Hey,” Dean murmured, wiping his face clean when the paramedic turned. “You’re going to be good as new.” He lifted Cas’s hand and pressed a quick kiss to the back of it.
It was the first time Dean had ever shown him that kind of affection in public.
“M’sorry,” Cas sobbed. “I should’ve known-”
“Shhh. Quit talking. Hang tight.”
“Dean...”
“I know, hon.”
And that was another first: Dean never called him that outside their bed. And it was rare when the were in, saved for special moments when Cas was sharing something particularly painful. They loved each other, but neither one of them was inclined to drop their masculine roles by invoking pet names.
It was amazing just how soothing it was to have something so private said in public, when Cas was in such pain. It was I love you and I’m here for you and you’re not alone a million times over.
It was pure Winchester, through and through.
“When you wake up,” Dean said firmly, “this will all feel like a bad dream. And me and Sammy’ll be right there with you.”
Cas gasped as the pain hit him again. I want to wake up. I want to wake up to you and to Sam. I’m not ready to let go of our life, however little it is.
Dean’s hand found his own and squeezed, like he’d heard him. “You’re fine,” he murmured. “Look at me: you are going to be alright.”
Cas clutched his hand, not knowing how to express that he was afraid, and sad, and humiliated to be stretched out and crying and hurting and about to be stripped naked and cut into, and that he desperately didn’t want to be alone when it happened, especially in a hospital with his colleagues, but Dean just smiled, calm and loving, and stroked his hair, like he’d just woken up and rolled over and everything was fine, fine, fine.
Part 1
Even worse, he suddenly, savagely, missed Gabe, who he hadn’t spoke to since that horrible night when Sam had nearly died, his Father had been buried, his mother had rejected him, and Gabriel, the brother he loved and trusted more than any of the others, had told him to deal with it alone.
Cas was so, so sick of feeling alone.
He wanted to cry, but instead he did what he knew best-work. First, he gathered all the laundry and sorted it into piles of whites and colors, delicates and regulars. He ran those, than scrubbed down the kitchen, pausing only a few times to double-over and hold his stomach. At the worst moments, he wished for Dean: then his boyfriend would light up his phone with a text, all misspelled and sincere, and Cas would just want him all the more.
He tried to eat something, but the sight of food just made his stomach protest once more. Instead he tried some milk, which didn’t sit right, and then, in desperation, one of Sam’s red Gatorade’s. He was surprised that that stayed down, and even more that it didn’t have the bizarre flavor of Sam’s punch, and he finished one and a half before the buzzer rang in the laundry room.
Cas was moving the whites from the washer to the dryer when Dean came home, took one look at him and said “Dude, bed.”
“Dean I-”
“Bed.”
Dean brought him soup, crackers, water, fluffed his pillows, took his temperature, gave him two Tylenol, and told him if he moved for anything other than the bathroom he’d knock him on his ass.
“I mean it. Sleep.”
“Dean-”
“No arguments.”
“Not arguing. Lay down with me?”
His boyfriend smiled, toed off his shoes, and slid in behind him, slipping an arm around his stomach.
Cas bucked and cried out, tossing his arm aside.
“What?” Dean asked, sitting up.
“Sorry-m’sorry. It’s my stomach.”
“Want the heat pad?”
“No, just-” his breath hitched and he clutched at his midsection. Dean put a reassuring hand over his heart and smoothed his hair off his forehead.
“Hey, hey-look at me. It’s okay. Slow it down. I’ve got you.”
Cas nodded, eyes locked on Dean’s warm green eyes, the gentle laugh lines framing his gaze, and felt a horrid, childish weakness overwhelming him.
“I don’t feel good,” he whimpered, mortified when tears filled his eyes. Dean’s gaze just softened even further, and he lay, carefully, down beside him.
“I know you don’t, buddy,” he soothed, tucking hair behind his ear. “It’s okay. I’m gonna take care of you. Just relax.”
“I’ve taken too many days. I’m going to lose my job.”
“If that’s true, we’ll deal with it.”
“There’s no other hospital close by.”
“We’ll deal with it.”
“I’m not keeping up. My patients, medications, policies. I’ve fallen behind on everything.”
“Cas, we will deal with it.”
“I feel...very...uncontrolled.”
“Dude, you’re allowed to be sick. You’re allowed to be human. You can take time off for your Dad’s funeral, and Sammy’s health, or because you’re exhausted.” He reached out and laid a light hand over the one Cas perched over his midsection. “No one thinks less of you, bud. I promise. And if it happens that you lose your job for any reason, then I’ll make up the difference in the bills as long as I have to. We have savings; we’ll be fine.”
He was using that special, warm, reassuring voice he always used when Sam was upset: it was effective. Whatever happened, he knew Dean loved him, would help and support him, would guide him through whatever came his way.
“I love you,” he murmured, and nestled his head on Dean’s shoulder. He didn’t know why Dean had picked him, of everyone he could have, but in moments like this, he felt too lucky to care. Dean kissed his forehead.
“Relax now,” he whispered, breathing a long, deliberate breath over Cas’s skin. “You’re safe. You’re with me.”
Cas felt inexplicable tears fill his eyes, so he shut them, seeking out Dean’s hand as he did.
“I can’t do anything right,” he managed. Dean’s had found his own and took it. “I’m ruining everything.”
“You’re tired. You’re sick. You’re grieving.” Dean stroked his hair. “And you’re wrong, because you haven’t ruined a thing. You’re depressed, man, and that’s normal after what you’ve been through.”
“I don’t feel normal,” Cas confessed. “I feel alone unless you’re with me. If you’re not here...I’m just lost.”
“Well, I’m here now,” Dean kissed him on the forehead. “And I’ll move shifts, take overtime, whatever I have to, to be at the door when you get in, if that’s what you need. You just gotta tell me what you want, bud. I can make it work.”
“I don’t want to be work,” he snapped. “It’s my worst fear. That I’ll just be a job.”
“Cas, if you’re a job, than I’m a jet-setting, tech-starting, international billionaire,” Dean sighed, curling around him just perfect, just right. Cas gripped his arm and clung, hard. “You remember what I said when we got back from New York? You can’t ask why we’re there. You just gotta let us be. I could list a thousand reasons why you’re the most awesome dude on Earth, but I know you can’t believe them right now. So you just gotta trust that I have awesome taste, and wouldn’t put all I had into a useless jerk.”
“You have before.”
“Yeah well...that was then. This is now.” Dean buried his face in Cas’s hair. “You’re the only jerk I got on not one, but TWO flights for. You’re the only jerk I trusted to take care of Sammy. You’re the only jerk I bought a house with, shared my little brother with, gave up drinking with, grieved our Dads's with. So you gotta deal with me, for the long-haul, okay?”
Cas closed his eyes, but couldn’t stop a tear from escaping. His chest hitched: seconds later, his boyfriend’s hand tangled in his hair and stroked.
“I don’t feel well,” Cas admitted, his voice cracking.
“I know, hon,” Dean soothed, hand moving through his hair once more. “I gotcha. I’m going to help you through this. And I don’t just mean your tummy-ache.”
“Oh just...shutup.” Cas swallowed, clung even harder to his boyfriend’s hand.
“I’m seriously like your Geisha-boy. Y’know, Sammy’s better at this snuggle-time thing than I am. We could pimp him out. Rent-a-Giant: what do you think? Bet he’d make up your salary in a week.”
“Shu’up,” Cas chuckled, trying not to when he realized it hurt. “Shutup and hold me?”
Dean stroked his fingers through his boyfriend’s hair. “Whatever you need,” he murmured, and began to hum.
* * *
When he woke next, it was to Sam setting down a book beside him. The younger man did a double-take, then smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you.”
“It’s alright.”
“I got you David Sedaris’ new book-I figured you could use a laugh or two.”
Cas smiled and sighed into his pillow. “That’s kind, Sam.”
His friend shifted a bit. “Things have been really hard for you, lately. I just...I want to say thank you. No matter how bad you must be feeling, you always look out for me. I appreciate it.”
“I know you do.” Cas forced himself to a sitting position, accepting his friend’s anxious hands to pull him up. “How is Andy?”
“Good. He has to double-up on meetings for a bit, but even Missouri said she understood. And it’s not a real relapse, because it was a one-shot deal. Kinda like me, except he meant to do it.”
Cas sipped at the punch, than forced a smile to show Sam he appreciated it. “Is he going to meet his biological parents?”
“He wants to. He has a couple dates in the mix, but they have to go through the agency. And he’s not going without his Dad.”
“Jack is a good man.”
“It’s funny...I wonder if Andy’s Andy because that’s how hes always been, or if he took on Jack’s traits. They’re so alike, it’s hard to think they’re not blood. But then...”
Cas took another sip of punch and smiled. “Then?”
“Just...I think of Bobby, and how he’s kinda been a Dad to us, and Pastor Jim, and Dean to me, and...I get a little bit how Andy feels. I know my Dad’s behavior and genetics shaped who I am, but they did too. I don’t know.” He smiled shyly. “How are you doing? I know you’ll say you’re fine, but...we can talk about New York, if you need to. I promise I’m not super traumatized or anxious or anything.”
“I know, Sam. You’ve done wonderfully.” Cas was mortified yet again when he felt his eyes brimming. On top of everything else, his emotions seemed as off the rails as the rest of him.
“What is it?” Sam asked, perching beside him, all sweetness and sympathy.
“Just...I miss Gabe,” he admitted. “And my Father...although he was never around. Being home was so terrible, but it made me remember good things too...does that make sense?”
“Of course it does. You know I still miss my Dad’s ‘kitchen sink’ stew? And when I was really little, he’d lie down with me and sing...and he always smelled like a bar, but you know, that was nice. Even though I’m glad Dean quit drinking, sometimes I miss that smell coming off him.” Sam blushed. “Pretty screwed up, huh?”
“No. I understand.” Cas smiled, losing his grip on his tears. “I’m sorry,” he said, frantically wiping his face. “I think...I may be processing all this...a little late.”
Sam’s face had morphed from empathy to concern. “I know this is meaningless coming from me, but...you’ve got to give yourself a break. You’ve had one hit after another the past few years, and I know I’m the cause of a lot of it. You never take time off, and now you don’t even get to enjoy a glass of wine or two...and your family...” Sam laid a gentle hand on Cas’s shoulder, and it was all the elder man could do not to curl into a ball and sob.
“Sam...” he said, forcing himself back under control. “I drank some of your Gatorades.”
Sam perked up. “They’re good, aren’t they?”
“They are-I was surprised.”
“Why?”
Cas took his punch in hand and braced himself for the flavor. “You know...dye, sugar,” he lied. “Where’s Dean?”
“Making soup. Creamy tomato with rice. He always made it for me when I was sick. He says he remembers our Mom making it for him. Except I think he added the cream.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t add bacon. Or beef at least.”
“’Surprised he didn’t add bacon. Na na nuh na nuh,’” Dean mocked, entering the room with a steaming bowl and placing it carefully on Cas’s tray. “That’s the best soup you’ll ever eat, assjack. And you,” he turned to Sam, “are due a Valium.”
“They’re taking me off.”
“The hell they are.”
“Really! They think it’s time.”
“Well that doesn’t change bedtime, baby boy.”
“I was talking to Cas!”
“And now you’re getting into your PJs! I can exclaim too!”
“God you’re a jerk.”
“Ten minutes!”
Sam flipped his brother off and disappeared down the hall. Cas took a large spoonful of soup and felt a heavenly warmth flood through him. He closed his eyes, imagining his brain re-routing home away from taxis and ERs and into Dean’s cooking and Sam’s God-awful punch.
“It’s okay,” he said, opening his eyes to Dean. His boyfriend rolled his eyes and plopped a bottle of Tylenol beside him.
“That’s the best soup you’ve ever had, and you know it. Eat that, take two of those, and be in that bed when I get back.”
Cas smiled as Dean chased his brother down the hall, beginning an obvious interrogation. He lay back, soup aside, not feeling hungry, although he realized he hadn’t kept anything down all day. His stomach was already protesting the little bit he’d forced into it.
Cas closed his eyes, tried to breathe through the onset of nausea, and quickly realized he wasn’t going to be able to stave off the sickness.
Even worse-sitting up and moving toward the bathroom was obscenely difficult. His stomach, abdomen, and even his legs seemed to cramp up, and before he knew it he was on the bathroom floor, crying out “Dean!” before he lost his battle and wretched onto the tile.
“Shit, Cas,” he heard, and then his boyfriend grabbed him under the arms and hauled him the rest of the way. Cas groaned and vomited once more, his whole body sweating and shaking with effort. He heard the sink running, and then a cool washcloth was pressed to his forehead while he gasped.
“Easy does it. Let it out. You’re okay,” Dean was murmuring, rubbing soothing circles into his back.
“M’sorry,” Cas moaned, clutching pitifully at his gut.
“Shut it. Jesus, you’re burning up.”
“Jus’ a bug,” he mumbled, swaying. Dean caught him.
“I don’t know...maybe we should swing by the docs? Get your girl to take a look?”
“Anna?”
“What, you got another I don’t know of?”
“It’s just a virus. I know...” a cramp hit him, and he bucked, fumbling for Dean and finding him suddenly behind him, surrounding him, engulfing him in his arms and taking care not to touch his stomach.
“Shhhh, you’re okay,” Dean murmured. “Easy does it. I have you. Take a deep breath for me.”
Cas forced himself to concentrate, absorbing Dean’s warmth and strength into himself. His boyfriend gently dabbed off his face, his throat, and the back of his neck with the washcloth, talking softly the whole time.
“There you go. We’re good. You want to lie down again?”
Cas just nodded, accepting his boyfriend’s support to stand, carefully moving him aroud the puke he’d left in their doorway, and getting him back into bed and tucked up with the washcloth on his forehead.
“Be right back,” he promised, and Cas heard the sound of running water and clean-up. Dean was cleaning up Cas’s mess...again. It seemed that’s all the Winchesters did these days, was try and put Cas and his nightmare of a family into some order. And Cas couldn’t even do the one thing he was good at, which was work and provide for the family he loved.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, rubbing desperately at his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dean. Gabe. Sam. Mom. Dad...”
“Hey,” Dean said softly, appearing at his side. “I know you don’t want to, but I need you to try and hold some Tylenol down for me, buddy. That or hop in the shower. We gotta get that fever down.”
“I love you, Dean.”
“Shower, pills, or ambulance, Cas.”
That broke through Cas’s haze enough to agree to the pills, and, a few minutes later, a second trip to the bathroom, where Dean stripped them both and got them under a frigid spray that nonetheless brought the world back into focus a bit. Dean dried them both down, spent a few extra minutes rubbing the towel gently through Cas’s hair, got them into pajamas and back into bed.
“There you are,” Dean said, smiling and stroking his boyfriend’s forehead. “Your eyes are clearer.”
“S’just a bug,” Cas mumbled, feeling sleep pulling him under.
“I know, Dr. Quinn, but let’s keep it under 150, okay? Pretty sure your brain boils around 110.”
“You could die around 105.” The number was pretty much reflex. Dean’s hand in his hair, on his forehead and temple, felt like heaven while his body was a knotted mess of heated hell.
“Don’t talk like that.”
Cas jolted suddenly, hand going to his stomach. “Where’s Sam?”
“Down the hall, passed out.”
“I didn’t give him his Valium...”
“He’s fine, Cas. Out like a light.”
“A’love you,” he mumbled.
“At least you’re not a mean sick,” Dean kidded, then kissed him on the temple. “Sleep, okay? I gotcha.”
“Can you sing a bit?”
“I don’t sing!”
“The one with the candle in a window...I like that.”
Dean swore, mumbled, grumbled, then stroked Cas’s hair a few more times, and began a soft “you’re a candle in a window, on a cold dark winter’s night...”
* * *
Cas awoke to a gut-full of knives.
He leaned over the bed and dry-heaved, caught quickly by Dean’s hands. He spat, heaved, and realized the piercing sensation in his gut was matched by the hideous cramps in his abdomen.
This was not a bug. This was not a virus. This wasn’t even an illness. This was something very, very, very wrong inside him, and it had been simmering, and Cas had ignored all his opportunities to stave it off.
Around him, over him, he heard Dean’s ministrations turn frantic when Cas didn’t answer his questions, and it was confirmation enough. He was burning up, his gut was on fire, his midriff was cramping, and he needed help-serious, professional help.
“Dean...you’re gonna have to call an ambulance,” he said, trying to sound calm. Sweat streamed down his face and he dug his fingers into his boyfriend’s arm so hard Dean actually flinched.
“Okay,” Dean said, scooting away and circling the bed to the landline. “Talk to me. What’re you feeling?”
“Stomach...abdomen...something’s wrong. Tell them it’s a possible hernia, appendicitis, maybe a kidney stone-but a dull cramping in the stomach and abdomen consistent and worsening over a day-”
“Dude, you’re not pregnant and didn’t tell me, right?”
“Dean!”
“Gotcha. Calling.”
Cas struggled to sit up, using Dean’s shirt and arms as leverage, quickly circled by his boyfriend’s arm while Dean spoke calmly to the emergency operator.
Cas wasn’t all that surprised when he heard Sam shuffling down the hall, his long hair scrambled about and the back of his hands rubbing at his eyes. Even with Cas in pain and Sam over six feet tall, the younger Winchester in sweatpants, an oversized t-shirt, and sleepy-concern couldn’t be seen as anything less than adorable.
“Me and Cas are going to the hospital,” Dean said calmly. Sam blinked at him. “Hospital, Sammy. Cas. Me. Middle of the night. Clothes. Shoes. Please?”
Sam’s eyes widened. He looked from Dean, to Cas, to Dean once more, than nodded and bolted down the hall. Cas let out a moan, and clenched a fist over his seizing gut.
“You’re okay,” Dean soothed. “ETA ten minutes, bud. Can you walk?”
Cas struggled to sit up, felt a wretched spasm in his stomach, and doubled back onto the bed. “Can’t,” he half-sobbed.
“Alright. Easy does it,” Dean murmured. “C’mon, c’mere. I gotcha.”
Dean scooped him off the bed and into his arms in a princess carry that Cas knew he’d never hear the end of when he was well. “I hate you,” he moaned as Dean carefully steered them out the door.
“Yeah, well, buck up, Scarlett. Rhett’s saving your ass.”
“I-” the pain...Cas didn’t have words. Pain like this shouldn’t exist.
“I know,” Dean murmured, “I know, buddy.”
“Uh,” Cas moaned. Dean carefully carried him down the stairs as Cas was reduced to gasping against his boyfriend’s neck.
“I gotcha. You just hang tight, you hear? You’re gonna be fine.”
“Dean...” he hated how weak he sounded, suddenly. He was a doctor. He treated pain. He understood its science. He understood what was happening. Dean couldn’t help: no one could. What was needed was a neurological intervention. Nothing more. Dean couldn’t-
He gasped as his side seized. Dean settled them both on their couch, Cas half in his boyfriend’s lap, breathing hard as Dean stroked through his hair, dragging his fingertips along his scalp, a warm hand on his back.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, buddy. It’s gonna be okay, Cas.”
“Don’t-” Cas pleaded, heat and shame filling his cheeks as he said it.
“Not gonna leave you. Promise,” Dean murmured, kissing his temple lightly as the sound of sirens filled the night and Sam bounded down the stairs, fully dressed, backpack over his arm.
“It’s alright!” he called. “They’re on their way. Dean, I’ve got clothes for you both. I’ll follow in the car, okay? You go with Cas.” He dropped the bag at the door and crossed the room quickly, kneeling before him. “It’s okay, man. Don’t worry. I know it sucks, but it’ll be better soon. You’re gonna be fine.” Sam smiled. A siren sounded outside, and the telltale red and blue lights flashed past the front windows. “I’ll get the door,” Sam assured him, patting Cas’ arm as he raced toward the porch.
“Deep breaths,” Dean soothed, but Cas could feel him shaking. “This is nothing, okay? You’re totally fine.”
“I don’t even have a will.”
“Shutup. Shut the hell up.”
“Dean-”
“Shutup, Cas!”
The paramedics cut off his response, and, for the first time ever, Cas saw fear in Dean’s face that wasn’t directed toward Sam. Given their recent conversation about rights and money and death, and suddenly being faced with it...
Cas wasn’t ready.
“Hey bud-hang tight for me,” Dean grinned, and Cas found himself stretched out on a back-board, one he’d seen thousands of patients brought in on: patients he could save, and patients he couldn’t.
How many of them had had partners without wills? How many of them had had family issues they hadn’t resolved, big brothers they hadn’t spoken to, dead fathers they hadn’t made peace with? How many of them had heard the news from Cas, who had chalked it up to a rough afternoon and gone home, all smiles?
Cas was crying and he hated himself for it. He was supposed to be above this. He could just hear his father’s voice: we’re Morgans. We treat problems. We do not succumb to them. He’d acted exactly like brothers in this case: bucked up and ignored the warnings, believing he was above something as common as a rotten appendix, or kidney stone, or hernia. Instead of acting defensively, practicing safe medicine, he’d placed himself and his health in danger, all to prove something his father’s death had ultimately proved futile.
Carried out of his living room, down his porch stairs, and loaded into the back of an ambulance like a piece of dead meat on a slab.
This was the indignity his father had always sought to spare his children. The indignity of illness, of weakness, of death. And all his work, his legacy, was undone with Cas’s weakness.
“Hey,” Dean murmured, wiping his face clean when the paramedic turned. “You’re going to be good as new.” He lifted Cas’s hand and pressed a quick kiss to the back of it.
It was the first time Dean had ever shown him that kind of affection in public.
“M’sorry,” Cas sobbed. “I should’ve known-”
“Shhh. Quit talking. Hang tight.”
“Dean...”
“I know, hon.”
And that was another first: Dean never called him that outside their bed. And it was rare when the were in, saved for special moments when Cas was sharing something particularly painful. They loved each other, but neither one of them was inclined to drop their masculine roles by invoking pet names.
It was amazing just how soothing it was to have something so private said in public, when Cas was in such pain. It was I love you and I’m here for you and you’re not alone a million times over.
It was pure Winchester, through and through.
“When you wake up,” Dean said firmly, “this will all feel like a bad dream. And me and Sammy’ll be right there with you.”
Cas gasped as the pain hit him again. I want to wake up. I want to wake up to you and to Sam. I’m not ready to let go of our life, however little it is.
Dean’s hand found his own and squeezed, like he’d heard him. “You’re fine,” he murmured. “Look at me: you are going to be alright.”
Cas clutched his hand, not knowing how to express that he was afraid, and sad, and humiliated to be stretched out and crying and hurting and about to be stripped naked and cut into, and that he desperately didn’t want to be alone when it happened, especially in a hospital with his colleagues, but Dean just smiled, calm and loving, and stroked his hair, like he’d just woken up and rolled over and everything was fine, fine, fine.
Part 1