Where Angels Failed (Coming Down Stand-Alone)

[maychorian]

Fandom: Supernatural
Title: Where Angels Failed (Coming Down on a Sunny Day)
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Castiel, Dean, Sammy, Jimmy
Category: AU, Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen
Rating: K+/PG
Spoilers: Previous stories in 'verse. This is set between Book 1 and the first interlude.
Summary: Castiel has an ear infection. It's really bad. Dean is eleven and he doesn't know what to do.
Word Count: 11,000
Author’s Note: So I was trying to write Book 4, but then an ear infection happened and I contracted the dumb. I would try to compose sentences and phrases like "ouch, that really hurts" kept inserting themselves into the text. So I gave up and wrote this. It was a very bad infection, reminding me strongly of a horrible one I had when I was sixteen. Therefore...try to follow my reasoning here...I gave it to Cas. Also because I'm a mean writer and I wanted a Dean. Somewhere toward the end I started feeling better and it got a bit more thinky, though not really any more coherent. It took me this long to edit it up worth sharing.

I hope you enjoy. I intend to post another part of Coming Down on a Sunny Day every Friday.


Where Angels Failed

Dean let the door slam shut behind him and walked into the living room, shrugging his backpack off his shoulder with one casual move. He was halfway through pulling his jacket off when he saw the bundle of blankets on the sofa shift, a low moan emerging. Dean paused, tilting his head to stare. A tuft of dark hair sticking out one end of the blankets was the only indication that someone was underneath that shapeless pile of fabric and cotton down.

"Hey, Dean." Sammy walked out of their shared bedroom, a couple of Hot Wheels in his hands. "Be quiet, 'kay? Jimmy isn't feeling good."

Dean gave the seven-year-old a side-eye look for a moment, then went over to the sofa and poked the bundle of blankets. He was aiming for his brother's arm, but wasn't surprised when the blankets shifted away and cloudy blue eyes blinked up at him, revealing that he'd poked him right in the nose instead.

"Hello, Dean." The apparent teenager's voice was deep and powerful despite the weariness that dragged at it, carrying an intonation that Dean recognized. This was his oldest, biggest brother, struggling to repress a yawn as he stared into Dean's eyes without blinking. He was lying on his side on the sofa, his spine pressed against the back cushions as if he could burrow into them.

"Castiel?" Dean kept his voice low, even though he could hear behind him that Sammy had already returned to the other room, playing with their Hot Wheels track. "Are you okay?"

"This body is...ill."

He looked it. Castiel pulled the blankets tighter around his shoulders. His face was a patchwork of dark red and pasty white, and his eyes were glazed and far away. Dean reached out to touch his forehead, then drew back, hissing between his teeth.

"Damn it, dude. That's bad."

Castiel blinked at him. Jimmy would tell him not to curse, but Castiel either didn't care or didn't consider the issue worth fussing about it. Especially not when he was feeling like this.

"Can't you...can't you use your powers?" Dean gestured, waving one hand up and down his big brother's body. "You fixed my broken arm in, like, a second. Can't you get rid of this?"

"That would be...inadvisable." Castiel's words were slow, a little slurred, and Dean didn't like that at all. "I must save my strength for moments of true import. With your father gone hunting, I must be able to protect us if something...comes up. If I use my grace to heal this unimportant sickness, I will be unable to do anything else."

"Yeah, but you're also not going to be able to do anything if you can't even keep your eyes open."

Castiel widened his eyes, as if in defiance at the suggestion, but Dean wasn't fooled. He looked done in, and he'd be better off he was asleep right this second. Dean could make supper for himself and Sammy and watch out for most things, but what was he supposed to do for Castiel?

"I'll be fine," Castiel said, as if reading his thoughts. "You don't have to worry about me. I don't want you to worry about me."

Dean frowned. "How's Jimmy?"

Castiel pressed a hand over his mouth, holding back another yawn. "He's...fine. Asleep. I came forward as soon as this illness became bothersome. I don't want him to suffer."

As if the word had triggered something, Castiel shivered and turned his head into the rough cushions on the sofa. His cheek was already marked with corduroy lines from the fabric's pattern. A muffled moan forced its way out of Castiel's tightly pressed lips, his eyes squeezed shut, and his entire body was tense and trembling.

Dean's heart ached in immediate response, a deep throb of sympathy like a hook in his gut, pulling him toward the prostrate figure on the sofa. Poor Castiel. Poor angel. He was trying to hide it, he was trying so hard, but Dean could see exactly how bad he felt. Being sick sucked. It sucked a lot.

Dean reached out to touch his forehead again, and this time he didn't draw his hand away at the first touch of the burning skin. He rested his palm on Castiel's forehead, then on his temple and cheek. Castiel sighed, and some of the wrinkles on his face smoothed away, his body relaxing into the sofa. Dean knew how nice it felt to have someone touch you when you were burning up, and he knew that his hand must feel cool and soothing. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"How long have you been feeling this bad? Did you take any medicine?"

"The nurse sent me home from school this morning," Castiel murmured, his eyes still shut. "I took some aspirin."

"Don't we have any cold medicine in the house?"

"It's not a cold."

Dean screwed up his face, still touching Castiel's cheek, but trying to look at him with more understanding. It was true, Castiel wasn't coughing or sniffling. His voice wasn't phlegmy, and his breathing didn't sound labored. This was some other kind of illness, which Dean found disconcerting.

He knew how to deal with colds. They all got them, even Dad. Sammy had really bad ones about once a year, the kind that verged on pneumonia. Dean knew how to rub medicinal paste on a struggling chest, to fill a bowl with hot water and herbs and lean someone over it with a towel over their head to inhale the steam. He knew how to watch the clock and make sure that a sick brother or father took their syrup or pills on schedule. He knew how to steam up the bathroom and sit with someone in the hot, humid air until their breathing began to ease.

He even knew how to stitch up a gash on his dad's arm when he came back from a bad hunting trip, though Jimmy and Castiel usually took care of that sort of thing. The last couple times, they'd let him watch, knowing that he would be called upon to do this someday. Dean knew a lot about first aid, since his family insisted on doing all sorts of dangerous things and they often didn't have health insurance.

But he wasn't sure he knew how to deal with this situation, and that bothered him more deeply than he could express. He needed to know how to deal with it. He needed to know everything there was to know.

"Where do you hurt?" Dean asked. It seemed like a good first question. Castiel's forehead wrinkled, and Dean switched hands, laying his still-cool palm on his head. "Is it your stomach? Should I go get some Pepto or something?"

Castiel's wrinkles smoothed at the new touch, though tension remained in his neck and shoulders. "No." He didn't shake his head, which struck Dean as important. It must hurt him to move too much.

"Where, then? Your head?"

"Mmm."

It was as much a groan as it was an assent, and Dean drew back, looking at his brother searchingly. Then he noticed something.

"Oh my God." Dean started to reach out to touch the thing he'd seen, then hesitated. He didn't want to make it worse. "What the hell, man?"

Castiel blinked open his eyes, though they were half-lidded. "What?"

"Your ear." Dean waved a hand over it, several inches away. "It's...it's all swollen up. It must be three times as big as usual. What the hell happened?"

"Oh, that." Castiel sighed and closed his eyes.

"Yeah, that." Dean's hand balled into a fist. Rage surged in him, hot and heavy, seeking an outlet. "What happened? Did someone hit you? Give me a name, man, just give me a name and I swear..."

"No." Castiel's hand slid out from the covering of blankets and closed around Dean's wrist, stilling his agitated movements. "No, Dean, no one hit me. Calm down. There is no enemy for you to attack."

"Then what..." Dean's fist loosened and fell by his side, and he stared at that swollen ear in slack-jawed contemplation. "That's what hurts? Your freaking ear?"

Castiel blew out a breath through his nose and settled even further down into the cushions. "This mortal body is full of parts that can be hurt or sickened or infected," he said morosely, and Dean might have laughed if the situation wasn't so serious. Poor angel, came the thought again. Poor angel trapped in fragile flesh, unable to purify it as he should have been, unable to heal every hurt and chase away every illness.

"Yeah, it sucks," Dean said, the soul of sympathy. He touched Castiel's face, taking care this time to stay far away from his ear. It looked sore enough that the brush of a feather could make him scream in agony. "Ear infections are totally a thing, too. Sammy and me have both gotten them, so we know. I've never seen one so bad that it made the whole ear swell up, though."

"It's very uncomfortable," Castiel said, which coming from him was an admission of utmost torture.

"We need to get you to a doctor, dude. You need antibiotics."

Castiel shivered and pressed his cheek into the cushions. Dean recognized now that this was a gesture of terrible pain, and his heart gave another sympathetic throb. "We can't. We don't have a vehicle, and the insurance card is expired."

"There's a free clinic on Main Street. We can walk there."

"I don't want to drag you and Sammy out into the cold."

"It's fall. It's not freaking Antarctica. We can handle a little walk."

"It's too far."

"No, it's not. Dad and me jogged past it a few days ago for PT. We can make it in less than half an hour."

"It's too far for Sammy."

"No, it's not. He's got stubby little legs but they work just fine." Dean turned toward the bedroom and hollered, "Hey, Sammy! Want to go for a walk?"

"Yeah!" the kid called, and Dean turned back to Castiel, grinning.

"See? We can handle it. Now, come on, we gotta go. The clinic isn’t gonna stay open all night, and I want you to get your first dose of meds ASAP."

"Dean."

The tone of Castiel's voice stopped Dean in his tracks, and he looked down at him, eyebrows raised.

Castiel's eyes were a curious mixture of solemnity and mortification. "I'm not sure I can make it."

"Oh." Dean blinked and looked around the room, unable to meet his eyes. "Oh."

He shook himself and looked back to his brother, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin. "Of course you can make it. It's just a few blocks. Come on, buddy, you'll feel even worse if you don't get any medicine till Dad comes back. Trust me on this one."

Castiel slumped into the sofa, a full-body gesture of resignation and dread, then began the slow process of levering himself upright. "All right." His hair stuck up on one side of his head, his eyes were much too bright, and now that he'd noticed it, Dean couldn't stop staring at that swollen ear. It seemed to make his whole head look lopsided.

Castiel pulled a blanket around his shoulders, fighting off a violent fit of shivering. "All right. Let's go."

Dean nodded. "The sooner we start, the sooner we'll finish. Hold on, I'll go get Sammy ready."

Castiel sat straight up on the sofa, not even leaning back to relax while Dean went through the process of gathering Sammy's shoes and lacing them up, then finding his jacket, turning it right side out, and buttoning up all the buttons. It was as if Castiel didn't dare let himself fall out of that stance of attention or he wouldn't be able to get up again, and Dean couldn't help sending worried glances his way. The poor guy looked freaking miserable, but held himself in rigid stoicism.

With Sammy finally waiting by the door, bouncing from foot to foot, Dean moved over to the sofa and waved a hand in front of Castiel's face. "Hey, man. You ready?"

Castiel blinked and looked up at him. "Yes."

He started to climb to his feet, face twisting with the movement, and Dean winced. God, even standing up hurt him? Dean put an arm around his back and steered him toward the door, feeling him shudder. "Come on, buddy. Just a little walk. Don't think about the whole way, just the next few steps. Don't worry, you'll be fine."

He told that to himself, and Castiel, all the way to the clinic. Sammy bounced along the sidewalk at first, puffing his breath out in gouts of white steam, kicking the fallen leaves, and running ahead then back to his brothers. Eventually, the kid noticed that "Jimmy" wasn't having as much fun as he was, and he started hanging back with Dean and Castiel, hovering around them as they made their slow way down the sidewalk. Dean walked with his arm around his taller brother, and Castiel stood as straight and solid as he could, pale fingers clutching the blanket at his chest and pulling it tight around his shoulders. He took each step with deliberate, plodding care.

Running this way with his dad a couple days before, the trip had seemed quick and easy to Dean. Now, shepherding a sick, feverish angel on the same route, it seemed interminable. Castiel was following his advice, though, he could tell, eyes on the ground, only thinking of the next step, then the next, then the next.

The oldest Winchester boy wasn't acting any differently than he always did when he wasn't feeling well. Dean's big brother had always faced any kind of discomfort or illness with this same stoic attitude, his teeth set, his eyes hard and accepting of whatever fate the natural world chose to lay on him. Dean had always thought that that was how Jimmy dealt with pain. But since he'd found out about the existence of Castiel last year, he was beginning to notice whenever this stoic persona came out. Now, looking back, he saw that it had always been Castiel, not Jimmy, when there was hardship to bear. Castiel didn't let Jimmy take any of it.

It didn't stop Dean's chest from aching in sympathetic pain. If anything, it made it worse. He could get behind the idea of protecting Jimmy, too. Jimmy had always been a little more fragile than the rest of them, a little more sensitive, a little less suited for the rough life they'd landed in. Along with his desperate, all-encompassing need to keep any of this from touching Sammy, ever, in any way, Dean also regularly had to find some way to accommodate the wish to shield his big brother, too. Now he knew that that had been Jimmy, and he felt it more than ever.

So he had an ally, now, in Castiel. Castiel didn't want Jimmy to suffer. He didn't want Sammy to face monsters. He didn't want to Dean to go hungry, or have trouble in school, or be afraid when his dad was gone. Dean knew all of this. Castiel, he was beginning to understand, wanted to protect Dean almost as much as Dean wanted to protect Sammy. He respected that. He didn't agree it with it, but he respected it. And keeping Jimmy from feeling any of this awfulness was one hundred percent A-okay with Dean Winchester.

But now, watching Castiel suppress a wince every time his foot came down, the way he kept his mouth open slightly because it hurt to close it, the harsh spots of fever flush blooming across his face and deepen in the chill, Dean couldn't help but want to take this away, too. He'd only known that Castiel even existed for maybe fifteen months, and already he hated to see him hurt.

"Come on, buddy," he kept saying. "Come on, you can make it. Just a bit further. Just the end of this block. We'll be there in no time."

They finally made it to the clinic. By now Sammy was hanging off Castiel's other arm, as if that could possibly help, and Castiel had started to lean on Dean a little. The pressure was light, barely noticeable, but still made Dean grit his teeth, because it told him how much Castiel was hurting. He could feel every tiny tremor that passed through his brother, and they passed through him, too.

Dean had hoped to find the clinic empty at this point in the late afternoon, but there were several people waiting ahead of them-a young mother with a coughing toddler, an older guy who might have been homeless even though he looked pretty clean-cut, and a teenager with an infected-looking nose-piercing and a vacant look in his eyes. Dean lowered Castiel into one of the molded plastic seats, leaving Sammy to look after him, and trotted over to the sliding window to sign them in.

The kindly, grandma-looking lady on the other side peered at him over her glasses. "You have your mom or dad with you, hon?"

Dean shook his head. "It's just me and my brothers. My big brother is sick." He pointed over to where he'd left them, and she craned her head to follow the gesture.

She sat back and gave him a sympathetic look, but she was already shaking her head. "We can't treat a minor without permission from parents or guardians, honey."

Dean's hands clenched into fists on the countertop. "Dad's gone on an important trip. He'll be back tomorrow. Jimmy looks after us usually-he's sixteen, he's old enough. But he's the one that's sick now. What am I supposed to do?" He made his eyes big and pleading. It wasn't hard at all.

Her face went all melty. "Sweetie, I'm sorry. It's the law. I have to call social services if kids come in without parents-it's usually not a good thing. You understand, don't you?"

"But that's not what's going on here! Jimmy's sick, that's all." He turned back around to look at his brothers, helpless, heart beating fast.

Castiel raised his head, realizing that something was going on. He lifted a hand, calling Dean over, and Dean hurried to his side.

"Wallet," Castiel said, gesturing at his right hip pocket, and Sammy immediately dug in and pulled it out. Dean took the wallet and opened it, looking through the pockets until he found a folded-up paper and, at Castiel's nod, drew it out.

Castiel waved a hand in something like the direction of the window. "Signed. From Dad. Just in case."

Dean took the paper over to the lady without bothering even to unfold it and put it in her hand.

The lady opened the paper, taking care when some of the worn corners threatened to give way. She tilted her glasses back on her nose and lifted her chin as she scanned down the page. Dean waited, bouncing on his toes, his hands clenched on the countertop.

The lady lowered the paper and smiled at Dean. "That's just what we needed. Your daddy took good care of you. I’ll make a copy of this and give it back to you. Now, how 'bout you tell me your brother's name and what you think is wrong, and we'll have a doctor see him just as soon as we can."

Dean nodded, the relief so strong that he had to swallow a lump in his throat before he could get the words out. "Jimmy. He has an ear infection. It's real, real bad."

"Okay." She took the clipboard that had been setting right beside Dean the whole time and wrote Jimmy's name. "Why don't you go sit with your big brother, sweetie? We'll get you all taken care of, don't you worry."

Dean nodded and turned on his heel to march back over to Castiel and Sammy, a decided spring in his step. He was pretty sure it was Castiel who had had the foresight to get that paper and make Dad sign it. Castiel really was the best brother ever, and it was fitting that it was he who would benefit from his own careful planning.

It sure was a long time in coming, though. Dean always forgot how much he hated doctors' offices. Every time, he got suckered into thinking that it was going to be quick, and every time, he was wrong. It kinda made him glad that they didn't visit them all that often.

Sammy had brought a couple of Hot Wheels with him. He eventually bored of running them over the seats where they were sitting, making quiet "vroom" noises to himself, and started making laps of the room, driving them on the wainscoting. One sad corner of the room did have some toddler-age toys, most bent and discolored and looking like they had come from garage sales, but eventually Sammy got restless enough to go mess with those for awhile. (Dean saw that the coughing toddler had been using them earlier and made a mental note to make Sammy take a very, very hot shower when they got home.) Then Sammy settled in with a Highlights magazine he'd probably already read at school with a heavy sigh.

At least he could occupy himself. Dean was grateful. A couple of years ago it would have been up to him to try to entertain Sammy in this sort of situation, and it was always a painful proposition. Jimmy was good at it. He had hundreds of fairy tales and Bible stories and even just incidents he'd read in books that he could recite to Sammy when they were waiting. But Jimmy wasn't coming out to play right now.

And Dean's attention was occupied with trying to distract Castiel from his pain.

He was ashamed, later, that it took him so long to notice. He spent the first fifteen or twenty minutes of their wait watching Sammy run around the room, keeping an eye on the other occupants, and perking up whenever there was a sound beyond the door that led back to the exam rooms. When a nurse finally opened the door and looked out into the waiting room, though, it wasn't Jimmy's name she called, but the snot-nosed kid.

After straightening up and staring at the door the second it began to open, Dean slumped back in his hard plastic chair, wiggling his butt around to find a comfortable spot. He should have known it wouldn't be Jimmy that soon. The nice reception lady had said they would see Jimmy as soon as possible, but that didn't mean they got to jump ahead of the other folks. They were all desperate for medical attention, or they wouldn't have come here.

Dean pressed his head back against the drywall. He was almost as bored as Sammy, and there were two people ahead of them in line.

Then Castiel made a tiny noise, and Dean's eyes flicked over to stare at him. Castiel's lower lip was sucked into his teeth, the lines of his jaw standing out, tense and hard. Dean frowned, and then he saw that Castiel was pinching his right palm with his left index and thumb, a little corner of skin turning white between his fingernails.

Dean knew that trick. He knew it well. It might have been Jimmy or Castiel who taught it to him. The poor guy was hurting so bad he was giving himself another, sharper pain to distract himself from the first one.

"Jimmy," Dean said, bumping his shoulder against Castiel's.

Castiel started at the touch, head turning sharply toward Dean, eyes wide. He swayed in his seat with the too-fast movement, and Dean grabbed his shoulder to steady him.

"Jimmy. Hold on, buddy. Just a little while longer."

"No," Castiel said slowly, and his voice was rough and raw and almost as low as Dad's. "No. Not a little while longer. First we will wait for a doctor to see me. Then the doctor will examine this body, and probably tug at it and poke it in painful ways. Then we will receive a prescription. Then you will walk me home and will have to go find a pharmacy to fill it, probably using the last of the cash your father left for us. Then you will come back. Then I will take the first dose. And then it will be several doses, perhaps several days, before we witness any true improvement. It's not just a little while longer. It's a long while longer."

Dean sighed. "Aw, buddy." He squeezed Castiel's shoulder, hard and strong. "I know. I'm sorry. Don't think of it like that, okay? Think about just the next little while, not the whole while."

Castiel stared at him in silence for a moment. Then he nodded, once, very stiffly, and leaned his head back against the wall. His eyes slipped shut. He was still pinching his palm.

"I know..." Dean started slowly, the thoughts gradually coming together in his head. "I know you're not used... You haven't always been stuck like this. I don't know all that it means to be...what you are...but I know time works differently for you. Ought to work differently. You've always been outside it, I bet. You saw the big picture, or at least part of it. A lot more than any human ever sees."

Castiel opened his eyes. He didn't look at Dean, staring ahead at the opposite wall with his habitual blank expression. But Dean knew he was listening.

"Pastor Jim says... He says God has 'eternal perspective.' He says God doesn't care as much about the little things that worry us every day, except for how He cares about us as people and blah blah whatever. I'm not really a God-person and sometimes I don't pay attention when he talks, or when Jimmy talks. But I do get that, you know. If God's out there and watching us, which I guess He is, since you're here and all, He doesn't care about time the same way we do. He cares more about where we're going than where we've been. Am I hitting the mark, or at least somewhere close to it?"

Castiel's chin drifted up and down in a sort of nod.

Dean drew a breath, pleased to get that much of a response. He was mainly babbling just to keep Castiel's attention, but this was also something he'd spent a lot of time thinking about since he found out that Jimmy had an angel inside him. He was so, so curious about what that was like, about what Castiel saw and felt and did, what he'd been like before he came to the Winchesters. It must have been a gnarly experience.

"So, like, being stuck like this... It's hard for you, right? And not just because you can't heal yourself and you can't go off flying and all the other things you used to be able to do. You're also...you're also stuck the way we are, moving through time in a straight line. You traveled through time to get here. Before you got hurt and stuck, you must have been able to travel pretty much everywhere you wanted. And now you can't. You used to be able to fly up and see the whole parade from start to finish, and now you're part of it, can't move behind the float marching on your tail, can't move up in front of the horse's ass staring you in the face."

Dean chuckled at his own imagery. Then he sobered, realizing how awful that would be.

Castiel released a soft, low breath. "You are hitting the mark."

"I'm sorry, dude. It must suck so much to be you right now."

"Linear time is...an adjustment."

"Yeah, I bet." Dean patted his shoulder. "So take some advice from someone who's never known anything else, right? Don't stress out over the whole parade. Just do what you can to be the best drum major ever, right where you are."

Castiel turned his head and looked Dean in the eyes. "How did you become so wise?"

There was wonder in his blue eyes, and respect, and perhaps even a touch of awe. That might have been the fever, though.

Dean shrugged, smiling crookedly. "I'm just talking a lot of nonsense, buddy. I don't really know what I'm saying."

"Yes, you do." Castiel looked forward again. He eyes drifted closed, then open in a long, slow blink. His voice fell to a loving murmur. “The Righteous Man.”

Dean blinked. “What?”

Castiel shifted in his seat and pulled the blanket around his shoulders. He didn’t look at Dean. “Never mind.”

Dean rolled his eyes and sank down in his chair. He knew that phrase had something to do with the future and the bad stuff that Castiel had traveled back in time to prevent. He also figured that it had something to do with why Castiel looked at him funny sometimes, as if not quite believing he was there. As if trying to hold him where he was, small and young and safe.

Dean scuffed his toe on the drab carpet, childishly mutinous. “I’m not exactly righteous, you know.”

“You’re not exactly a man, either.” Castiel gave him an imperious eyebrow raise. “You’re eleven.”

“Wasn’t it just a minute ago you were calling me all wise and stuff?”

“They are not mutually exclusive properties.”

Dean forgot himself and laughed, then gave Castiel a punch on the arm. Castiel winced at the jolt of movement and stiffened where he sat, and Dean’s laughter died instantly.

“Oops. Sorry, man.”

“You did nothing wrong.” Still, Castiel hugged himself even tighter, the tension returning to his body, his jaw clenched and eyes distant. Dean subsided, shoulders slumping. His distraction tactic had worked, but not for long.

“Come on, buddy.” Dean nudged his elbow. “You’re gonna make it.”

Castiel grunted, but straightened up. At least he had quit pinching his palm.

The rest of the wait went on like that. Dean chattered about inconsequential things, trying to keep Castiel’s attention, and nudged him when he went glazed and distant, and called him “buddy” as often as he felt he could get away with it. They always called Castiel “Jimmy” in public, because it was too hard to explain to strangers about how the oldest Winchester boy was two people in one body and one of them was an angel and blah blah blah, etc. Even Sammy didn’t know yet, though Dean was sure he would figure it out soon enough, just like Dean had.

But today, it felt wrong to Dean to keep calling Castiel by a name that wasn’t his when he was feeling so bad. It must be a reminder, like everything else, that Castiel couldn’t be himself right now. He had to hide behind the mask of being human, even while trying to cope with the realities of having to exist as one. If there was anything Dean could do to shield Castiel from a little bit of pain, even of the existential kind, he would do it. So he called him “buddy.”

It wasn’t a word he usually used with Jimmy. Jimmy was sixteen and he was a know-it-all, and that was just kind of who he was. Jimmy had always been deeply  invested in being a real big brother to Dean, looking out for him and bossing him around. And he took the God-thing really, really seriously, which Dean could not get behind.

Dean knew that Castiel was way, way, way older than Jimmy, but it didn’t matter. Five years was a long time when you were a kid. The difference between eleven and sixteen was  insurmountable. But thousands of years, or millions or whatever, somehow that circled back around to not mattering at all. Castiel was weird and geeky and sort of unknowable, but that didn’t stop Dean from feeling like they were friends, and had been for a very long time.

Maybe it was because he and Castiel had been friends in the future or something, Dean didn’t know. But he called Castiel “buddy” and it felt right and true in a way it couldn’t with Jimmy, not right now. Maybe when Dean was twenty and Jimmy was twenty-five, it would be different.

“Is our brother still asleep?” he asked at one point. He tipped his chin toward Castiel’s head, indicating that he was talking about Jimmy, not their other brother, who was currently practicing origami with a series of health brochures.

Castiel’s frown deepened, a sharp, v-shaped wrinkle appearing between his eyes. “No.” It was almost a growl, intense with displeasure.

Dean couldn’t help laughing. It was such a bizarre response to what was an innocuous question between them. “Why the long face, bud?”

Castiel turned his head to give Dean a baleful look. He was pinching his palm again, this time in a different place. The old pinch-place was marked on both sides, dark red where his nails had pressed. “He’s annoying.”

“Well, yeah,” Dean said with an easy shrug. That was something he and Castiel could always agree on. He’d never heard Castiel say as much before, though-the pain and fever must have really lowered his defenses. “But how in particular, this time?”

“He wants me to let him come forward and bear the pain for awhile. Though I am able to protect him from the majority of it, he’s aware, in a vague way, of how bad it is. I’m telling him no. He’s…throwing a tantrum.”

Dean leaned his head back against the wall and laughed, keeping quiet so as not to draw attention from Sammy or the other waiting patients. “That’s priceless.”

“It’s annoying. I will not let him bear this, not even for a moment.”

“Yeah…but…” Dean sat straight, curious. “Can’t he take over whenever he wants, even if you don’t want him to?”

Castiel’s face softened. “That’s true. But so far he has taken care not to do that without my permission, except when he does it by accident when startled or frightened. He knows how terrifying it would be to lose control of one’s body against one’s wishes, and he is kind enough not to inflict that on me.”

“Oh.” Dean looked forward, considering that. His respect for Jimmy increased about ten times. That was not something that had ever occurred to him.

"And you don't do that to him, either?"

"No. Mutual trust is...necessary. In our situation."

"Yeah, I bet." Dean narrowed his eyes in contemplation. He'd never thought about the sort of accommodations that Jimmy and Castiel would have to make so that their weird relationship could work. But yeah, it made sense that they needed to be uncommonly kind to each other.

He looked up at Castiel's head again, staring as if he would be able to penetrate the skull and see his other big brother in there. "So...is he still throwing a tantrum?"

A magical moment then occurred-Castiel rolled his eyes. Dean grinned and filed that one away to remember later.

"Yes," Castiel said, low and disgruntled.

"Yeah?" Dean couldn't stop grinning. Castiel wasn't looking at him, and Dean did his best to keep his glee out of his voice, trying to put on an air of bored curiosity. "What's a Jimmy-tantrum like?"

"Very much like a Dean-tantrum or a Sammy-tantrum, if you most know."

"So... Slamming doors, stomping feet, yelling and crying?"

"A bit more subtle than that, but no less irritating."

"Huh."

Dean looked forward to the door. Then it opened, and a nurse stood there with a clipboard. "Jimmy?"

Castiel released a sigh that was equal parts relief and dread, and he slowly started shifting his body toward a standing position. Sammy hurried over to haul on one elbow, and Dean put his shoulder under Castiel's opposite arm, and they managed to get him to his feet with only one muffled grunt of agony. The nurse watched with patient sympathy, holding the door for them, and the three of them shuffled through.

"We can stay with Jimmy, right?" Dean asked. He made his eyes round and pleading as he stared up at her.

"Please?" Sammy was even better at it than Dean.

"Sure, boys," the nurse said, waving them toward an exam room. "Just don't get in the way, all right?"

"We won't, we promise," Sammy said with a rapid nod.

In the room, the nurse patted the exam table, and Castiel carefully sat on the crinkly paper. Sammy knelt on the chair in the corner, though Dean could see that he was sorely tempted by the spinny stool that was the doctor's proper seat. Dean opted to stand next to the table, though, a ready shoulder for Castiel to lean on if he needed to. He wouldn't get in the way, but he wouldn't step off, either.

The nurse checked Castiel's blood pressure and temperature, wincing when she took the thermometer out of his mouth and saw how high it was. She asked a few questions about where it hurt, how long it had been hurting, if he'd taken any medicine and so on, and thus Dean learned that Castiel had been hurting a lot longer than just since this morning. He folded his arms over his chest at the revelation, and all but felt Castiel cringe beside him. They were going to talk about this later, or Dean would make Dad talk to his big brothers, or something. This couldn't be allowed.

The nurse left, saying that the doctor would be in shortly, and Dean turned his entire body sideways so he could give Castiel a full-length glare. Castiel slumped on the exam table, knuckles tightening in the blanket at his chest, and deliberately did not look in his direction.

"Since...Monday?" Dean forced out. "Since right after Dad left for his trip? Really... Jimmy?” He couldn’t tear the dude a new one right away the way he wanted to, not with Sammy in the room, but oh man. This was not the end of it.

“It was my decision to wait and see if it cleared up on its own,” Castiel said, which meant that he was trying to take the heat for Jimmy on this one, too.

“Liar,” Dean said. It would be just like Jimmy to think he knew best and put himself at risk because he thought that a visit to a doctor was beneath him, or not worth the time, or something stupid like that.

Sammy screwed up his face, staring back and forth between them. “What? What are you guys talking about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean snapped, facing the door. He needed to get himself together here. But it really burned him up when his family went all martyr on him.

He couldn’t help glancing at Castiel, though. Castiel was pinching his palm again. Dammit.

Fortunately, the doctor came soon after. He was a short, youngish guy with broad shoulders and a neatly trimmed beard, more interested in looking at the chart than looking at the Winchesters. He asked most of the same questions the nurse had. Then, as Castiel had expected, he started poking and prodding. Dean could practically see the ramrod of steel appearing in Castiel’s spine when it started. His customary stoicism was even more pronounced, his eyes far, far away and very bright.

The doctor looked at Castiel’s good ear with his little instrument, “To see the baseline,” he said, then moved over to the bad ear, making a gesture for Dean to step aside. Dean stood where he was, only narrowing his eyes. The doctor raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and leaned over Dean’s shoulder to examine the bad ear.

He had to grip the outside of Castiel’s ear and pull at to even make room for the instrument. Then he looked inside and shook his head. “It’s so swollen I can’t even get a good look at what’s going on.”

“Then it’s pretty obvious, right?” Dean blurted. “It’s infected.”

The doctor stepped back and gave Dean a nod. He didn’t seem annoyed by Dean’s belligerence. “Yes, it is.”

Still, he couldn’t stop there. He touched the area around the swollen ear, starting down by Castiel’s jawline and moving up. Dean could see Castiel stiffen even further, though he’d quit pinching his palm when the doctor came in. A tremble ran over Castiel’s body when the doctor’s finger touched his temple, but he didn’t move or speak.

The doctor paused, frowning curiously. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Yes.” Castiel sounded surprised by the question.

“Well, let me know, all right? Even just an ‘ouch’ will do. I’m trying to assess the extent of the infection. This isn’t a test to see how much pain you can handle and how macho you are-I can see that you’re strong and tough.”

“Oh.”

Castiel blinked at the revelation. Dean rolled his eyes. Sammy covered his face.

“All right,” the doctor said. “Let’s try that again.”

His finger barely touched down before Castiel said, “Ouch,” in probably the flattest, most monotone voice in which that word had ever been uttered. The doctor nodded and moved down his jaw half an inch, and “Ouch,” Castiel said again.

“Okay.” The doctor stepped back. He reached for his clipboard and pen. “Do you have any allergies to penicillin or other medicine?”

Castiel seemed too exhausted to shake his head, so Dean did it for him. “Nope.”

“I’m going to prescribe antibiotics and some ear drops. Start the antibiotics as soon as you pick them up, four pills the first dose, and then two each dose the next day, then one pill four times a day. Don’t stop until they’re all gone, or the infection could come back. Instructions will be on the bottle. All right?”

Castiel blinked. Dean nodded. “I’ll make sure he does.”

The doctor smiled at him, warm and fuzzy through his beard. “I’m sure you will. You’re a good brother.”

Dean wasn’t sure how the doctor knew this, but he didn’t argue the point.

“Is there anything else we can do?” Sammy piped up, leaning forward in his chair. “Jimmy’s hurting real bad.”

“A warm compress can help. Heat up a damp washcloth in the microwave and press it over the ear for about twenty minutes.” The doctor looked at Dean. “I’m sure you can handle it.”

Dean nodded seriously. He remembered something his dad asked once when they had to go to a doctor when Dean had stepped on a nail and needed a shot. “Do you have any painkiller samples? Something good and strong?”

The doctor nodded. "I'll have the nurse bring you some with your scrips."

Dean nodded back.

The doctor gave Castiel a smile that was clearly meant to be encouraging, though the angel in the sixteen-year-old body stared at him blankly. Then he left, gently closing the door behind him.

A few minutes later, the nurse came with two pieces of paper and handed them to Dean. He studied them carefully, and was amazed that this doctor's handwriting was mostly legible. The nurse gave "Jimmy" a few instructions, which he nodded at, then opened the door to lead them out. Sammy helped Castiel down from the table and Dean walked behind them, looking at the prescriptions.

The nurse showed them the way back to the lobby. As his brothers passed out the door, she put a hand on Dean's shoulder, and he looked at her, reflexively gripping the papers tight. She smiled and held out a handful of individually wrapped pills.

"It's just Extra-Strength Tylenol, but he can have double doses for a few days, all right? Not more than three days. It can cause damage."

Dean nodded and put the pills in his jacket pocket.

"The local pharmacy on Washington Street will sell you the Amoxicillin for under ten dollars. It's a special they do to give back to the community. The ear drops are going to set you back about twenty dollars, but if you can, you really should get them."

Dean nodded again, though the gesture was not sufficient to convey the depth of his gratitude. There was nothing in her tone that said she looked down on them for being poor. She simply knew that this was something Dean would worry about it and she was doing what she could to make it better.

"Thanks," he murmured.

She smiled and squeezed his shoulder. "Your big brother will be fine. I know it's scary when folks you look up to are under the weather, but you're doing a great job with him. He's in for a rough few days, but I know with you taking care of him he'll be right as rain in no time.”

Dean bit his lip, hoping desperately that she was right. "Okay."

He followed his brothers out into the early evening autumn chill. Castiel walked with grim determination, one foot in front of the other. Sammy trotted at his side, chatting gaily about all the things he'd been reading in the magazines in the waiting room, though there was a note to his voice that told Dean that he was aware that their brother wasn't hearing much of it.

But he was doing it anyway. Sammy was a smart kid. He'd seen Dean trying to distract Castiel while they waited, and now he was doing the same. Dean thought that maybe the nurse was right. With Dean and Sammy looking out for him, how could Castiel be anything but okay?

He doubled his pace to catch up with them, and together, he and Sammy got Castiel home.

Once they got home, Dean dumped a couple of foil-wrapped pills in Castiel's hand and jogged to the kitchen for a glass of water and the the rest of the money Dad had stashed in the empty flour container on the counter. He returned to the living room to find Castiel sitting on the sofa, struggling to open one of the Extra-Strength Tylenol packets while Sammy worked on another one.

Dean rolled his eyes and gave the water to Castiel, then took the pill packets and opened them both with one tear of his teeth. Castiel made a face, but he swallowed the pills docilely enough when Dean shoved them in his hand.

"Okay, I'm going to the pharmacy." Dean was all but jogging in place, he was so eager to be off. "You gonna be okay?"

Castiel nodded, his attention far away, but Sammy looked at him doubtfully.  He'd never been left alone to take care of a sickie before.

Dean sighed, but he got it. "Look, just... Don't worry, okay?" He met Sammy's eyes as he said it. "I'll be right back."

Before he left, though, he turned on the old, wooden cupboard-like TV that occupied a third of the room. He found a sitcom he knew was part of a whole block of half-hour shows, so they'd have something mildly entertaining to watch. Then he jogged out into the street. He let the screen door slam shut behind him, bouncing on loose springs before coming to a halt.

He found the pharmacy on Washington Street, like the nurse had said. The white-coated technician behind the counter looked at him askance, but when he told his story and produced the same medical form that had worked its magic at the clinic, she nodded and stepped back into the shelves to fill the prescriptions. Usually Dean would wander around the store, just for something to do, but this time he plopped down on the metal bench by the pharmacy station, his hands in his pockets, and swung his legs back and forth while he waited. It seemed to take forever, but eventually the tech came to the counter and waved him over, holding two paper bags stapled shut and a sheet of instructions.

She talked while she gave him the medicine and took his money and ran the register, something about side effects and a number to call, and Dean nodded at the necessary points until she finally shut up and gave him a receipt. He even got some change back. Then he was out the door and jogging home, except now it was more like a sprint.

By the time he got home, the sun had almost finished setting. A few streaks of dark red and burnt orange lingered on the pavement, mingling with the fallen leaves in a way that made Dean think of the National Geographic magazine that had been on the rack at the clinic. He saw that he'd left the screen door standing ajar. Some noise and light from the TV leaked into the yard from the dumpy rental house.

Castiel and Sammy were sitting on the sofa, bathed only in light from the TV, since none of them had bothered to flip any switches when they got back from the clinic. Castiel sat upright against the cushions, his blanket hanging open loosely around his chest, and Sammy was asleep, his head on Castiel's shoulder. The glass of water rested on the arm of the sofa, half-full.

Castiel looked up at Dean's entrance and gave him a slow, welcoming nod. His face was still etched with pain, but Dean thought maybe it wasn't quite so bad now. Maybe the Tylenol had done some good.

Dean was already ripping open the paper bag as he crossed the room, not even caring if he woke Sammy. Sammy slept on, though, while Dean struggled with the childproof cap, frowned at it, held it to the light of the TV, then tried again. Castiel watched it all with the patience of an angel, then held out his hand with a listless beckon of his fingers.

Dean handed the bottle over. Castiel navigated the childproof cap with ease, then frowned at the pills inside the bottle and tipped one out into his hand. Dean rescued the glass of water from the sofa arm before it could fall.

"Four," Dean said.

Castiel looked up at him, eyebrows raised. Deep shadows stood around his eyes in the blue light. His entire body radiated fatigue. "Hmm?"

"Four pills. For the first dose." Dean pointed at the bottle.

Castiel blinked slowly. "That's a lot, isn't it?"

"We need to hit this thing hard. Here, let's swap." Dean gave him the glass of water and took the pill bottle back. He fished out four caplets and put them in Castiel's other hand. "You can swallow them one at a time if you need to. Have you eaten anything?"

Castiel followed the advice, his expression still glazed and uncomprehending, placing one pill in his mouth and then taking a sip of water. "No. It hurts to chew."

"That sucks." Dean was already headed toward the kitchen. "I'll see if we have anything soft. You don't want to take antibiotics on an empty stomach."

"Okay."

Dean eventually returned to the living room with bowls of beanie weenie. Sammy roused at the smell, blinking and pushing himself off Castiel's shoulder with a sleepy smacking of the lips. Dean put a bowl in his lap, then one in Castiel's. "Eat up, dorks. Sammy, do you have any homework?"

Sammy shook his head, noisily chomping his food. "Did it on the bus."

"'Course you did, you geek." Dean ruffled his hair, then retrieved his own bowl from the kitchen. He returned and nudged Sammy to scoot over until there was room for him on the sofa. "What's on?"

"Married with Children."

"Awesome."

"Thank you, Dean," Castiel said once they'd settled in and a commercial break came on. "Your food is always very good."

"It had better be." Dean grinned at him over Sammy's head. "Yours sucks and Dad's is barely edible."

"Still. I am grateful."

"Don't sweat it, man. Just get better."

"I fully intend to."

A couple of shows later, Sammy fell asleep again. By that time it was fully dark outside, and only the light from the kitchen competed with the light of the television. Dean poked Sammy awake, ferried him to the bedroom and dropped him into bed, then returned to the living room.

Castiel's eyes were barely open, trained on whatever cop show was playing. Dean knew the guy didn't care about TV, and at this point Dean didn't either. He crossed the room to turn it off. On the way back to the sofa, his foot bumped a paper bag from the pharmacy, dumped hours ago and forgotten.

"Oh, shit, the ear drops." Dean bent down to retrieve them. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten them. The doctor and nurse had acted like these would help right away. They had cost way more than the antibiotics, too.

Castiel stared ahead, his face dimly visible in the light from the kitchen, while Dean sat on the sofa beside him and fumbled with the packaging. This time he managed it by himself, and he pulled out the tiny bottle with a muffled noise of a triumph. "Ha! Hey, Castiel, come over here."

Castiel’s head slowly turned to look at Dean, like a door with a rusty hinge. He still had that glazed look, like he'd completely checked out. Dean guessed he couldn't blame him. but it was eerie.

"What?" Castiel's voice was barely audible.

Dean looked around, trying to figure out the logistics of this, then grabbed their only throw pillow and put it on his lap. "Come over here." He patted the pillow. "I'm gonna give you your ear drops."

"Oh." Castiel didn't question it. He lay on the sofa, his head on the pillow, swollen ear upward. Dean pulled the seal off the bottle and drew out the eyedropper lid, watching the viscous liquid drip back into the bottle.

"The instructions said three drops three times a day, but I betcha we could do more. Let me know if this helps, okay?"

"Mmm."

For a moment Dean stared down at the swollen ear. It was swollen completely shut-there was no way Castiel was hearing out of it. How was Dean supposed to get the drops in there? He didn't want to tug on the outer shell the way the doctor had. He had seen how much that hurt.

He would have to put the drops as close to the opening as he could and hope that they seeped in there or something. Dean squeezed the eye dropper as gently as he could, but Castiel still flinched minutely when the drops landed on his ear. "Did that hurt?" Dean asked.

"No. It felt...odd."

"Oh. Okay. Well, lie still and let the medicine do its stuff."

Castiel murmured an assent and was quiet. Dean closed the dropper bottle and set it aside, and then he just sat there. His head fell against the back of the sofa, too heavy to hold up. He could feel the heat radiating off Castiel's body, but it felt more cozy than uncomfortable. The windows were dark and the the light from the kitchen barely seemed to touch them. For once, even though he was practically alone with his big brothers pretty much down for the count, Dean didn't feel afraid.

"Thank you, Dean," Castiel said after a while. His voice was slurred and soft. He sounded like he was already asleep. "For everything."

"Don't sweat it."

"I wondered, you know, when I realized that I had trapped myself in the past and I would have to reach the future by traveling the long way around...by living through it, linearly, one second at a time. And when your father took us in, and I realized that I could best serve your family if I was part of it... I wondered..."

"Yeah? What did you wonder?" Dean wasn't sure if Castiel could even hear him.

Castiel went on, whether he could hear him or not, his voice soft and wandering. "When I realized that I must be a brother to you... Jimmy was less concerned about it than I was. His mother was expecting when she died, did you know that? I like that colloquialism-'expecting.' Mothers and fathers expect their children to come. Such a lovely sentiment. But yes, Jimmy was expecting to be a big brother. And then his parents died, and he lost that too."

Dean's throat ached. "I never knew that."

"Whether his sibling had turned out to be a boy or a girl, I know Jimmy would have been an excellent older brother. He annoys you, at this point in your lives, but he is truly a very good and kind person... Yes, Jimmy, I am complimenting you. Go back to sleep. Yes, you're still annoying me, as well. Sleep now. What was I saying?"

"You were making a fuss about how great Jimmy is."

"Yes, of course. How could I not? It is natural for brothers to find each other irritating at times and to want some separation. I have experienced that myself, in this body. But Jimmy is a good person, and he is quite fearless, in his way. When the two of us understood that we must become Winchesters, whatever that meant and however we would have to accomplish it, he looked at it as a great thing, a good thing. I was much more afraid than he was."

"Why?" Dean didn't know when it had started, but he was petting Castiel's head the way he would pet a bunny. It didn't seem as girly as he'd thought it would be. Castiel was his bro, and he was hurting, and his hair was, like, right there.

"My own experiences of being a brother have not been...entirely successful. And angels and humans are very different. How would I know what to do, or even how to begin? But Jimmy assured me that all would be well. I cannot say that I've been as excellent a brother as Jimmy has, but I have not failed as spectacularly as I expected to, either."

"You're a great brother," Dean said, with some heat.

"I appreciate you saying that, though I wouldn't call it precisely true. But that wasn't all I worried about."

"No?" Dean was amazed that Castiel was still awake and chattering. He kept expecting him to drop off any second. But his voice just kept going, this deep, curious murmur, as if the speech was a thread being pulled out of him, one that would not, could not stop until the spool was empty.

"I also worried about how it would affect you, to have two more brothers in your life. Your bond with Sam was always...unique. It brought even the eyes of heaven staring down in astonishment. What if Jimmy and I ruined that? What if our presence changed that for you? If we had hurt that bond in even the smallest way, it could have had grave consequences for the future."

"I don't think you have."

"Yes, that is what I didn't understand. That is what I didn't take into account."

Dean waited, but Castiel had abruptly run out of words or forgotten what he was saying. He just lay there, comfortably quiet, staring off into the distance.

After a moment, Dean couldn't take it anymore. His hand paused on Castiel's head. "What? What didn't you take into account?"

Castiel blinked. "Sorry, Dean. Jimmy was talking. He was explaining to me the word I couldn't find on my own."

He turned his head enough to look up at Dean with one eye. "I didn't understand the power of human love." Then he turned his head back and nestled into the pillow.

Dean's cheeks felt hot. "Oh." He didn't remove his hand from Castiel's head, letting it rest there on his hair.

"I hadn't understood it. I don't know if I understand it now. But what I had not known, what I had not been able to imagine, is that emotions are not finite. A unique bond is precious, true, and greatly to be desired and fervently to be protected. But the existence of that bond does not negate the possibility of more bonds being built and nurtured. Indeed, I believe it may make them even easier to form. A heart that loves with a strong, pure love is not constrained. A strong heart is without limit. It is much like the infinite value of a human soul, the greatest form of power that my heavenly father ever created."

"You're not making much sense here, Castiel. Maybe you should get some rest."

"I am resting."

"I mean, maybe you should stop talking."

"Does it trouble you to hear?" For the first time since this strange interlude had started, Castiel sounded distressed.

"I..." Dean blinked out at the darkness beyond the windows. He was surprised to realize the truth. "No, it doesn't bother me. Not from you."

From anyone else, maybe even Dad, Dean would get squirmy at the first mention of the L-word and seek an immediate escape. But somehow Castiel was too alien and ancient and bizarre for normal rules to apply. At least not at a time like this, when he was feverish and sick and babbling nonsense in the dark.

"I found these insights fascinating. I enjoy talking about them to you. Would it be all right if I continue?"

"I... Yeah, sure, dude. Have at it." Dean sighed, head falling back  on the sofa so that he was looking up at the ceiling. He started petting Castiel's head again.

"That's the word Jimmy was explaining to me. Love. I know it is a troublesome word in your culture, because it is such a broad concept and applies to many different kinds of relationships. The Greeks had it better, with their four words for the various kinds of love, and other cultures differentiate it even more. But on the whole, the word is a good one. It means feelings of connection, appreciation, affection, understanding, a desire to protect and serve and give and take comfort. It is also tangled in the concept of family, of a group bound by both love and experience who share each other's burdens and lift each other up. It is a wonderful thing, love. Perhaps it is better that this single word can apply to these many situations, all these different and manifold bonds between people. Because love is like that. It is vast and amazing. Don't you think so?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"What I had not understood, in that dark future I came from, was the love between you and Sam. It was immense and powerful, that love. It broke the bonds of both heaven and hell. Angels and demons both tried to manipulate and use it. We failed, in the end, and Lucifer only succeeded because he turned it against you and made it a chain wrapped around your brother, instead of a cord held at both ends. It was very sad. It destroyed the world.

"I saw the power of the love itself, but I did not comprehend that the power did not come from the emotion, but from the heart that felt it. From you, Dean. From your heart."

"From Sammy, too?" Dean had given up on even trying to pretend that this conversation wasn't as girly as a Lisa Frank sticker book. Now he was just curious about what Castiel was driving at.

"Yes, of course. I didn't understand that I needn't have worried. It was never a risk at all, joining your family, becoming your brother. Because love is not finite and bonds are not singular."

"Because...because my heart is strong enough to give more?"

"Yes, Dean."

The reply was simple, but it was like a nail driven deep in Dean's chest. He drew a long breath and was silent.

"I had not realized it was possible. But it is. There have been many proofs, but today was another one, and I am grateful for it. Love is not finite. It is not limited to two brothers, or three family members, or even only to those who share blood. Love is exponential. It multiplies between those who share it and fills the rooms where they live. It overflows into the town and the country and the world. Adding two more brothers to this family did not dilute anything. You are not weaker. You are stronger. Much, much stronger."

"Well, I guess that's good to hear."

"Yes." Castiel sighed. His voice was rough and raw from his long speech, but it had seemed necessary to him that he say it. "I only regret...that my other brothers did not experience the same thing. There were a thousand thousand of us. With love multiplied between so many, what might it have been like? A light to rival the sun at the center of the universe. But something went wrong. We failed to realize the potential placed within us."

"That sucks, man."

Castiel's voice strengthened for one last push, one final sprint over the finish line. There was a note of victory, of success in his voice, as he accomplished what he had set out to do. "But where angels failed, humans have succeeded. So thank you, Dean, again. Thank you for...everything."

"You're welcome, Castiel."

And then, finally, Castiel fell asleep. After a while, Dean did too.

The End

Previous: Coming Down on a Sunny Day
Next: I'll Pass as Your Comrade