Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? 1
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Jess, Gabriel
Title: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? 1
Rating: 15 or so
Genre: AU,angst, romance
Summary: Dean is diagnosed with schizophrenia when he's twenty-two years old. Now Sam looks after his big brother instead of the other way around. Dean has been in and out of homes and is currently allowed to work twenty hours a week at a counselor's office helping to run a support group for those suffering from mental illness. Their mother burned to death and their father drank himself to death. Castiel has a lot of half-siblings via an absentee father. He's raised by his single mother and becomes a doctor after watching his mother die from Diabetes complications. He becomes an E.R. doc, feeling it's his calling to relieve the suffering of others. They meet!
Author's Notes: This is inspired by watching a friend of mine with schizophrenia go through some serious ups and downs while trying to find a medication that works for him. The summary is entirely too long for my liking but necessary...I guess.
"The episodes are terrible. They make me wish I was dead or in a coma or something."
~~~
"They do not see the shackles they have placed upon themselves. They are like roots and I am a tree, and they say 'come live in the dirt like us' because they refuse to recognize they only exist to sustain me and aid me in my growth yet they lie to themselves and they can halt the growth of the tree because they have their purpose and role in life which is my growth. So I love them yet they are nothing but roots and their glory is only that they can aid in my growth that I may have flowers growing on my limbs and send forth more seeds to grow and create more roots for something greater to grow from them."
Four months. Four months of sarcasm and grins and slaps upside the head and stealing food from each others' plates and drunken reminiscing.
Sam walked around the room gathering any sharp implements he saw before picking up the cordless phone from the side table and dialing a number he wished he didn't know by heart.
"I produce my own food from sunlight and bear fruit to sustain greater beings that roots cannot even imagine exist because they only know dirt. I would kill my connections to a root knowingly or unknowingly feeding poison into me. Think of ourselves as a wholly good being, strapped down with hooks and chains, tortured by our ego for an eternity and when it awakes and is surrounded by other egos who are shocked that something real has awoken. They are full of fear and hatred because something they have tortured for so long is free and much more powerful than them so they seek nothing more than to cause it to fear and lay down so they may bind it and torture it for causing such fear in them. Turn the tables on them and show them what fear truly is."
The phone rang four times before going to voice-mail. Sam stepped into the kitchen, eyes still on the living room. "Doctor Singer..." Sam hesitated and swallowed. Dean hated the thought of being put back in the home and honestly Sam hated it too. He should be able to look after his brother if it's what they both wanted. "...I think some modifications may need to be made to Dean's medication. If there's anyway we could move up his appointment, if you or your assistant could call me back and let me know, that would be great." He hung up and bit his lip.
"It matters not whether they would be honest because I can see through their lies and do not let them know what I see because the longer they lie the more easy they become to manipulate and their lies are some of the chains that bind them still. There is one root out there I really love and want to pull from the ground and hopefully allow it to grow into a tree also. I don't know if it's possible."
Sam sighed heavily and stepped back into the room. If he wasn't going to take Dean to the hospital or the home he'd have to calm him down himself. Maybe Dean had skipped his meds today.
Sam looked sharply towards the hallway and into the bathroom. Four months without an episode, God his brother was stupid. He walked briskly to the sink and opened the medicine cabinet, pulling the bottles down. They were nearly full and were suppose to be filled again in a few days. "Son of a bitch."
There was suddenly silence from the room behind him. Sam spun around and ran the three steps he needed to take to reach the living room.
Dean was standing in the middle of the room, facing him, staring at his hands. "Sam, my hands are on fire." He laughed and looked up at his little brother. "It tickles."
The bottle was still in Sam's hand. He opened it and took a pill out and walked up to Dean. "Here, take this. It'll put the fire out."
Dean looked at the pill in Sam's hand and back to his own hands. Sam gritted his teeth. "Open your mouth." Dean did as ordered and Sam pushed the pill into his mouth. He swallowed it and opened his mouth and lifted his tongue to Sam without being asked to.
Sam gestured towards the bedroom. "You should sleep now, it's getting late." It was only about five-thirty really but Dean didn't need to know that.
"The bed will catch fire." Dean's eyes were wide and he looked on the edge of panic. "You'll burn to death like mom!"
"The bed is fire-proof, Dean. I'll be fine." Sam tugged on Dean's shoulder.
"Oh yeah." He let Sam pull him to his room. Sam told him to sit on the bed and he did. Sam bent down and undid his boots and pulled them off for him then told him to lie down and close his eyes.
His eyes slid closed and faces were in front of him. They pulled and twisted and said horrible things to him as they poked him. That's when he realized he was having an episode. This wasn't real.
Sam had given him a pill. That part had been real, he was sure of it. He just had to be patient then.
These meds were the only ones that truly seemed to work. The last ones had made him horribly depressed and the ones before that had made him angry, irritable, and, according to Sam, the world's biggest asshole. But these didn't seem to have many negative side effects. They made him a little tired but thankfully hallucination-free.
He dreamed of awful things. Sam's skin dripped from his muscles as Dean watched him burn. The blood boiled out of his veins. He burned til he was bones then jabbed at Dean and dragged jagged fingernails down Dean's chest leaving red welts that oozed blood in places.
He woke up with a gasp to see someone siting next to his bed in the dark. He jerked back before a voice spoke. "Dean! It's me! Calm down!" The light flipped on and Dean saw Jess standing inside the doorway, her finger on the switch, a cup of tea in her other hand. Sam was the shadow sitting next to his bed. He was holding a taser in one hand and the phone in the other.
He shook his head at Sam, his eyes wide. "I didn't mean to."
Sam sighed and looked back over his shoulder. "Jess."
"Yeah." She said softly before walking back out and shutting the door with a click.
Sam looked back at Dean with fury in his eyes. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"I-I just..." Dean swallowed and looked everywhere but at his brother. "I don't know."
"You know you can't do this shit, Dean! They'll take you away!"
"I didn't mean to!" Dean pushed the blanket off himself and sat up fully. He scrubbed at his hair and looked at Sam directly. Sam had tears in his eyes. He looked scared. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
They looked at each other for a moment before Sam looked away and took a breath. "That's bullshit and you know it."
"I'm trying, Sammy."
"I know."
```
"Doctor Novak!"
Castiel held the elevator door as the new nurse, who insisted on calling him by title, slid inside.
"Thanks." She grinned, showing off a full set of pearly-white, perfectly straight teeth.
He gave her his usual small smile and hoped she wouldn't start up any idle chatter.
"So, where you headed?"
Of course. "Some lawyer meeting or something." Listening to relatives blame him for their loved one's tragic death no doubt. Same as every other day.
She patted him on the should in sympathy as the doors opened. "Good luck. Maybe we could get some coffee when you're done?"
This girl had been flirting with him for the past two weeks. She was what any straight man would've called attractive. The teeth we already know about, there were also the perky breasts and buttocks, the blonde hair and blue eyes, and the love of the colour pink that one may consider when debating accepting such an offer.
"I'm gay." Castiel didn't consider any of those things, least of all her feelings, as he gave her a pointed response. He smiled slightly as the doors slid shut on her struck expression.
He rode up to the sixth floor and walked from the elevators to the heavy double doors a the end of the hall and stepped inside. The conference table had six people sitting around it. He glanced up at the clock just as the hands moved into the 6 o'clock position. The air felt a bit colder around him suddenly.
"Dr. Novak, please take a seat." The mediator gestured at the empty seat next to the hospital lawyer.
He sat down.
Two hours later he stood up and walked swiftly from the room, ignoring the crying and hysterics that followed him out the door. He hadn't killed that woman's husband. He hadn't killed that woman's child. A drunk driver was to blame. If he'd been at fault he would have admitted to it but this was just a distraught woman trying to lay blame on anyone she could. Like he didn't have enough to worry about. Like she couldn't see the blood splattered on his white coat from his ten hour shift before the meeting. And he just knew he'd be getting a well written email about not getting cleaned up for the mediation from the hospital lawyer. Gods, he needed a drink.
He rode the elevator back down to the E.R. level and tried to walk through it to the exit before being pulled back into anything.
"Novak!"
"Fuck." He mumbled. He was ten feet from the door. Should he turn around?
"Novak." The voice was by his ear now and he turned to see Richards holding a chart out to him with pursed lips. "We'll just call you back in anyway."
"Yeah, but at least I'd get a drink first." He took the chart and flipped through it while following Richards back towards the curtains. "Nail in the hand? Is my presence really required for this? A nurse would be just as capable of rectifying this situation."
"Good Lord, you sound just like my Nana. Quit whining and get him cleared."
"Five car pile-up on the interstate! Six minutes out!"
"Fuck." Cas mumbled again while Richards just grinned back at him.
"See!" He grinned.
"I hate you." Castiel deadpanned back.
Richards laughed. "Look we'll take the accident. You clear some of these smaller things out for us until we're free."
Cas rolled his eyes as the other man jogged towards triage still laughing. He returned his attention to the chart in his hand, his eyes scrolling past the basic info and settling on the medical alert section. He was going to kill Richards.
He forced himself into 'doctor mode' and pulled the curtain back, small smile firmly in place. "Mr. Winchester?"
The patient grinned up at him. "That's me."
Castiel took in his appearance. He was very handsome, a bit too pretty for Cas' taste, but nicely fit. He looked up into piercing green eyes before flicking back to the huge grin on the other's face. "You seem very happy for a man with a nail through his hand."
"Nurse gave me a shot."
Cas nodded slightly, pulled gloves on, and took a seat on the small, black, cushioned stool. "I see." He lifted Dean's hand and looked at the entry and exit wounds. "And how exactly did this occur?"
"I was putting together a book shelf." He stated proudly.
Cas looked up at him through his eyelashes. "And you decided to use a nail gun without supervision?"
The smile fell from Dean's face. "What makes you think I need supervision?"
Cas gestured to Dean's other wrist which was adorned with a leather medical alert bracelet which bore the letters SZ. Dean glanced down at it and back up at Cas sheepishly.
"It was for my brother. The bookshelf, not the bracelet." He said to Cas' look of confusion. "Although, he did get me the bracelet too." He tacked on in a small voice.
Cas nodded and concentrated on tightening the pliers. He gestured for a nurse to come over. "Hold his hand down."
"What are you-MOTHER FUCKER!"
"Hold still."
"FUCK YOU!"
"At least you've learned not to shoot yourself in the hand with a nail gun." Cas stated calmly as he dropped the nail into a dish the nurse was holding. She walked off with it as he cleaned the wound and thread a suture. Honestly he was bored with the whole thing and still really wanted that drink.
He sewed in silence for a moment before Dean spoke up again. "You hate your job don't you?"
Cas didn't answer and after a minute or two Dean got the hint. That didn't mean it made him stop talking. "You get off soon?"
Cas wiped the excess blood from the newly sewn wound and bandaged it. He turned Dean's hand over and thread a new suture before answering. "As soon as I'm through here."
"Want to get a drink?"
Cas missed a thread and cursed under his breath. "A drink?"
"Doctor's know the good bars right?"
Cas glanced up to find Dean staring at him intently, a sly smirk on his face. There was heat behind the man's eyes. He didn't mean too but his eyes flickered to the bracelet on Dean's wrist. The hand tightened into a fist under his stare and he looked back up to find Dean had turned from him, looking sour.
"Alright." Free drinks taste better right?
Dean jerked his head to look at him in surprise. "Alright?"
"Dean!"
Cas watched as Dean's eyes got comically huge and he couldn't help but smile. They both turned to see a very tall man striding towards them purposefully, a slim blonde girl followed him with a warm yet long-suffering sort of look on her face.
"Dean." The newcomer patted Dean down, checking for injuries.
"It's my hand, stupid." Dean giggled as Sam patted his stomach. "Stop that! I'm fine."
"What the hell were you doing that need nails?"
Dean flushed and glanced at Cas out of the corner of his eye but Cas was pointedly ignoring them. "Doc gave me a bookshelf. It wasn't terribly stable so I thought I'd put a few extra nails in it."
Sam looked flabbergasted. "What do you need a bookshelf for? Car magazines?"
Dean looked annoyed at that. "It wasn't for me it was for you."
"Oh."
"Yeah, Oh. Jackass."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
"Boys!" All three men jumped. Jess pulled Sam away from the bed a bit. "Sam, he's okay." She'd spoken very softly but Cas and Dean both heard anyway. Dean felt heat in his cheeks and glanced at Cas again but Cas was still ignoring them.
Cas finished the bandages and pulled his gloves off. He signed the chart and hung it on the bed. "A nurse will be by in a minute to finish up the paper work."
He turned to leave. "Hey, wait!" He turned back to Dean's confused expression and tilted his head inquisitively. "What about that drink?"
"You are currently on four separate medications which bar you from the consumption of alcohol." He turned to leave again.
"How about coffee then?"
He turned back again to see Sam and Jess trying not to smile and Dean's hope filled face. "I've been here for the past fourteen hours." Dean's face fell and it felt like he'd punched himself in the gut to see but he forced the words out. "Have a good evening, Mr. Winchester."
He walked to his car thinking how this job use to be his purpose. He sat heavily in the driver's seat and stared at the steering wheel. "I don't think that there is any level of not caring that I haven't covered this past year."
He went to turn the ignition but stopped and looked towards the E.R. entrance. He only had to wait ten minutes before the Winchester brothers stepped out. They were bickering, Jess trailing behind them with an annoyed look on her face. They walked to a black muscle car in the row behind him and piled in before speeding away, classic rock blaring from the rolled down windows.
He focused his eyesight back into his car and saw a spider crawling along the outside of the passenger window. He shook his head, started the car, and backed out of the space. Liquor, only liquor could help ease this melancholy.
He pulled into the dive bar down the block that the other doctors wouldn't be caught dead in. He took a seat at the bar and ordered a whiskey.
"Castiel?"
Cas groaned into his drink before turning. A familiar grin met his sight. "Gabriel."
Gabriel plopped down on the stool next to him and swiped his glass. "Hey, Bro, how's it going?"
Cas flagged the bartender down and ordered another glass before answering in his usual tone. "Really, really well. Can't stop smiling. The birds are singing and all that shit."
Gabriel just continued to grin at his droll half-sibling. "Just what I like to hear. So, you come here often."
"Did you really just say that?" Cas sniffed at his glass and took a tentative sip, definitely the cheap stuff.
"Look Hoss, here's the deal, friend of mine's brother died. You're the only sib I really give a shit about. Thought maybe we could do some brotherly bonding." Cas motioned to the bartender to refill his glass and Gabriel pushed on. "So, me, you, movie or, I don't know, wanna play catch or something?"
Cas looked at him with disdain. "I'd rather sit here on this stool imbibing in peace."
Gabriel mouthed 'imbibe?', "You really have to stop talking like that." Cas rolled his eyes. "You're really turning me down? Seriously?"
"Gabriel?"
"Yeah?"
Cas ignored the hopeful expression on Gabriel's face. "Shut up and drink."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Gabriel swinging his feet back and forth and chewing the inside of his cheek.
"I'm feeling closer already."
Cas sighed.
~~~
continue
let me know if you want more
also, Sam/Jess/Gabriel? anyone? anyone? bueller?
Theme Song
~~~
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Jess, Gabriel
Title: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? 1
Rating: 15 or so
Genre: AU,angst, romance
Summary: Dean is diagnosed with schizophrenia when he's twenty-two years old. Now Sam looks after his big brother instead of the other way around. Dean has been in and out of homes and is currently allowed to work twenty hours a week at a counselor's office helping to run a support group for those suffering from mental illness. Their mother burned to death and their father drank himself to death. Castiel has a lot of half-siblings via an absentee father. He's raised by his single mother and becomes a doctor after watching his mother die from Diabetes complications. He becomes an E.R. doc, feeling it's his calling to relieve the suffering of others. They meet!
Author's Notes: This is inspired by watching a friend of mine with schizophrenia go through some serious ups and downs while trying to find a medication that works for him. The summary is entirely too long for my liking but necessary...I guess.
"The episodes are terrible. They make me wish I was dead or in a coma or something."
~~~
"They do not see the shackles they have placed upon themselves. They are like roots and I am a tree, and they say 'come live in the dirt like us' because they refuse to recognize they only exist to sustain me and aid me in my growth yet they lie to themselves and they can halt the growth of the tree because they have their purpose and role in life which is my growth. So I love them yet they are nothing but roots and their glory is only that they can aid in my growth that I may have flowers growing on my limbs and send forth more seeds to grow and create more roots for something greater to grow from them."
Four months. Four months of sarcasm and grins and slaps upside the head and stealing food from each others' plates and drunken reminiscing.
Sam walked around the room gathering any sharp implements he saw before picking up the cordless phone from the side table and dialing a number he wished he didn't know by heart.
"I produce my own food from sunlight and bear fruit to sustain greater beings that roots cannot even imagine exist because they only know dirt. I would kill my connections to a root knowingly or unknowingly feeding poison into me. Think of ourselves as a wholly good being, strapped down with hooks and chains, tortured by our ego for an eternity and when it awakes and is surrounded by other egos who are shocked that something real has awoken. They are full of fear and hatred because something they have tortured for so long is free and much more powerful than them so they seek nothing more than to cause it to fear and lay down so they may bind it and torture it for causing such fear in them. Turn the tables on them and show them what fear truly is."
The phone rang four times before going to voice-mail. Sam stepped into the kitchen, eyes still on the living room. "Doctor Singer..." Sam hesitated and swallowed. Dean hated the thought of being put back in the home and honestly Sam hated it too. He should be able to look after his brother if it's what they both wanted. "...I think some modifications may need to be made to Dean's medication. If there's anyway we could move up his appointment, if you or your assistant could call me back and let me know, that would be great." He hung up and bit his lip.
"It matters not whether they would be honest because I can see through their lies and do not let them know what I see because the longer they lie the more easy they become to manipulate and their lies are some of the chains that bind them still. There is one root out there I really love and want to pull from the ground and hopefully allow it to grow into a tree also. I don't know if it's possible."
Sam sighed heavily and stepped back into the room. If he wasn't going to take Dean to the hospital or the home he'd have to calm him down himself. Maybe Dean had skipped his meds today.
Sam looked sharply towards the hallway and into the bathroom. Four months without an episode, God his brother was stupid. He walked briskly to the sink and opened the medicine cabinet, pulling the bottles down. They were nearly full and were suppose to be filled again in a few days. "Son of a bitch."
There was suddenly silence from the room behind him. Sam spun around and ran the three steps he needed to take to reach the living room.
Dean was standing in the middle of the room, facing him, staring at his hands. "Sam, my hands are on fire." He laughed and looked up at his little brother. "It tickles."
The bottle was still in Sam's hand. He opened it and took a pill out and walked up to Dean. "Here, take this. It'll put the fire out."
Dean looked at the pill in Sam's hand and back to his own hands. Sam gritted his teeth. "Open your mouth." Dean did as ordered and Sam pushed the pill into his mouth. He swallowed it and opened his mouth and lifted his tongue to Sam without being asked to.
Sam gestured towards the bedroom. "You should sleep now, it's getting late." It was only about five-thirty really but Dean didn't need to know that.
"The bed will catch fire." Dean's eyes were wide and he looked on the edge of panic. "You'll burn to death like mom!"
"The bed is fire-proof, Dean. I'll be fine." Sam tugged on Dean's shoulder.
"Oh yeah." He let Sam pull him to his room. Sam told him to sit on the bed and he did. Sam bent down and undid his boots and pulled them off for him then told him to lie down and close his eyes.
His eyes slid closed and faces were in front of him. They pulled and twisted and said horrible things to him as they poked him. That's when he realized he was having an episode. This wasn't real.
Sam had given him a pill. That part had been real, he was sure of it. He just had to be patient then.
These meds were the only ones that truly seemed to work. The last ones had made him horribly depressed and the ones before that had made him angry, irritable, and, according to Sam, the world's biggest asshole. But these didn't seem to have many negative side effects. They made him a little tired but thankfully hallucination-free.
He dreamed of awful things. Sam's skin dripped from his muscles as Dean watched him burn. The blood boiled out of his veins. He burned til he was bones then jabbed at Dean and dragged jagged fingernails down Dean's chest leaving red welts that oozed blood in places.
He woke up with a gasp to see someone siting next to his bed in the dark. He jerked back before a voice spoke. "Dean! It's me! Calm down!" The light flipped on and Dean saw Jess standing inside the doorway, her finger on the switch, a cup of tea in her other hand. Sam was the shadow sitting next to his bed. He was holding a taser in one hand and the phone in the other.
He shook his head at Sam, his eyes wide. "I didn't mean to."
Sam sighed and looked back over his shoulder. "Jess."
"Yeah." She said softly before walking back out and shutting the door with a click.
Sam looked back at Dean with fury in his eyes. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"I-I just..." Dean swallowed and looked everywhere but at his brother. "I don't know."
"You know you can't do this shit, Dean! They'll take you away!"
"I didn't mean to!" Dean pushed the blanket off himself and sat up fully. He scrubbed at his hair and looked at Sam directly. Sam had tears in his eyes. He looked scared. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
They looked at each other for a moment before Sam looked away and took a breath. "That's bullshit and you know it."
"I'm trying, Sammy."
"I know."
```
"Doctor Novak!"
Castiel held the elevator door as the new nurse, who insisted on calling him by title, slid inside.
"Thanks." She grinned, showing off a full set of pearly-white, perfectly straight teeth.
He gave her his usual small smile and hoped she wouldn't start up any idle chatter.
"So, where you headed?"
Of course. "Some lawyer meeting or something." Listening to relatives blame him for their loved one's tragic death no doubt. Same as every other day.
She patted him on the should in sympathy as the doors opened. "Good luck. Maybe we could get some coffee when you're done?"
This girl had been flirting with him for the past two weeks. She was what any straight man would've called attractive. The teeth we already know about, there were also the perky breasts and buttocks, the blonde hair and blue eyes, and the love of the colour pink that one may consider when debating accepting such an offer.
"I'm gay." Castiel didn't consider any of those things, least of all her feelings, as he gave her a pointed response. He smiled slightly as the doors slid shut on her struck expression.
He rode up to the sixth floor and walked from the elevators to the heavy double doors a the end of the hall and stepped inside. The conference table had six people sitting around it. He glanced up at the clock just as the hands moved into the 6 o'clock position. The air felt a bit colder around him suddenly.
"Dr. Novak, please take a seat." The mediator gestured at the empty seat next to the hospital lawyer.
He sat down.
Two hours later he stood up and walked swiftly from the room, ignoring the crying and hysterics that followed him out the door. He hadn't killed that woman's husband. He hadn't killed that woman's child. A drunk driver was to blame. If he'd been at fault he would have admitted to it but this was just a distraught woman trying to lay blame on anyone she could. Like he didn't have enough to worry about. Like she couldn't see the blood splattered on his white coat from his ten hour shift before the meeting. And he just knew he'd be getting a well written email about not getting cleaned up for the mediation from the hospital lawyer. Gods, he needed a drink.
He rode the elevator back down to the E.R. level and tried to walk through it to the exit before being pulled back into anything.
"Novak!"
"Fuck." He mumbled. He was ten feet from the door. Should he turn around?
"Novak." The voice was by his ear now and he turned to see Richards holding a chart out to him with pursed lips. "We'll just call you back in anyway."
"Yeah, but at least I'd get a drink first." He took the chart and flipped through it while following Richards back towards the curtains. "Nail in the hand? Is my presence really required for this? A nurse would be just as capable of rectifying this situation."
"Good Lord, you sound just like my Nana. Quit whining and get him cleared."
"Five car pile-up on the interstate! Six minutes out!"
"Fuck." Cas mumbled again while Richards just grinned back at him.
"See!" He grinned.
"I hate you." Castiel deadpanned back.
Richards laughed. "Look we'll take the accident. You clear some of these smaller things out for us until we're free."
Cas rolled his eyes as the other man jogged towards triage still laughing. He returned his attention to the chart in his hand, his eyes scrolling past the basic info and settling on the medical alert section. He was going to kill Richards.
He forced himself into 'doctor mode' and pulled the curtain back, small smile firmly in place. "Mr. Winchester?"
The patient grinned up at him. "That's me."
Castiel took in his appearance. He was very handsome, a bit too pretty for Cas' taste, but nicely fit. He looked up into piercing green eyes before flicking back to the huge grin on the other's face. "You seem very happy for a man with a nail through his hand."
"Nurse gave me a shot."
Cas nodded slightly, pulled gloves on, and took a seat on the small, black, cushioned stool. "I see." He lifted Dean's hand and looked at the entry and exit wounds. "And how exactly did this occur?"
"I was putting together a book shelf." He stated proudly.
Cas looked up at him through his eyelashes. "And you decided to use a nail gun without supervision?"
The smile fell from Dean's face. "What makes you think I need supervision?"
Cas gestured to Dean's other wrist which was adorned with a leather medical alert bracelet which bore the letters SZ. Dean glanced down at it and back up at Cas sheepishly.
"It was for my brother. The bookshelf, not the bracelet." He said to Cas' look of confusion. "Although, he did get me the bracelet too." He tacked on in a small voice.
Cas nodded and concentrated on tightening the pliers. He gestured for a nurse to come over. "Hold his hand down."
"What are you-MOTHER FUCKER!"
"Hold still."
"FUCK YOU!"
"At least you've learned not to shoot yourself in the hand with a nail gun." Cas stated calmly as he dropped the nail into a dish the nurse was holding. She walked off with it as he cleaned the wound and thread a suture. Honestly he was bored with the whole thing and still really wanted that drink.
He sewed in silence for a moment before Dean spoke up again. "You hate your job don't you?"
Cas didn't answer and after a minute or two Dean got the hint. That didn't mean it made him stop talking. "You get off soon?"
Cas wiped the excess blood from the newly sewn wound and bandaged it. He turned Dean's hand over and thread a new suture before answering. "As soon as I'm through here."
"Want to get a drink?"
Cas missed a thread and cursed under his breath. "A drink?"
"Doctor's know the good bars right?"
Cas glanced up to find Dean staring at him intently, a sly smirk on his face. There was heat behind the man's eyes. He didn't mean too but his eyes flickered to the bracelet on Dean's wrist. The hand tightened into a fist under his stare and he looked back up to find Dean had turned from him, looking sour.
"Alright." Free drinks taste better right?
Dean jerked his head to look at him in surprise. "Alright?"
"Dean!"
Cas watched as Dean's eyes got comically huge and he couldn't help but smile. They both turned to see a very tall man striding towards them purposefully, a slim blonde girl followed him with a warm yet long-suffering sort of look on her face.
"Dean." The newcomer patted Dean down, checking for injuries.
"It's my hand, stupid." Dean giggled as Sam patted his stomach. "Stop that! I'm fine."
"What the hell were you doing that need nails?"
Dean flushed and glanced at Cas out of the corner of his eye but Cas was pointedly ignoring them. "Doc gave me a bookshelf. It wasn't terribly stable so I thought I'd put a few extra nails in it."
Sam looked flabbergasted. "What do you need a bookshelf for? Car magazines?"
Dean looked annoyed at that. "It wasn't for me it was for you."
"Oh."
"Yeah, Oh. Jackass."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
"Boys!" All three men jumped. Jess pulled Sam away from the bed a bit. "Sam, he's okay." She'd spoken very softly but Cas and Dean both heard anyway. Dean felt heat in his cheeks and glanced at Cas again but Cas was still ignoring them.
Cas finished the bandages and pulled his gloves off. He signed the chart and hung it on the bed. "A nurse will be by in a minute to finish up the paper work."
He turned to leave. "Hey, wait!" He turned back to Dean's confused expression and tilted his head inquisitively. "What about that drink?"
"You are currently on four separate medications which bar you from the consumption of alcohol." He turned to leave again.
"How about coffee then?"
He turned back again to see Sam and Jess trying not to smile and Dean's hope filled face. "I've been here for the past fourteen hours." Dean's face fell and it felt like he'd punched himself in the gut to see but he forced the words out. "Have a good evening, Mr. Winchester."
He walked to his car thinking how this job use to be his purpose. He sat heavily in the driver's seat and stared at the steering wheel. "I don't think that there is any level of not caring that I haven't covered this past year."
He went to turn the ignition but stopped and looked towards the E.R. entrance. He only had to wait ten minutes before the Winchester brothers stepped out. They were bickering, Jess trailing behind them with an annoyed look on her face. They walked to a black muscle car in the row behind him and piled in before speeding away, classic rock blaring from the rolled down windows.
He focused his eyesight back into his car and saw a spider crawling along the outside of the passenger window. He shook his head, started the car, and backed out of the space. Liquor, only liquor could help ease this melancholy.
He pulled into the dive bar down the block that the other doctors wouldn't be caught dead in. He took a seat at the bar and ordered a whiskey.
"Castiel?"
Cas groaned into his drink before turning. A familiar grin met his sight. "Gabriel."
Gabriel plopped down on the stool next to him and swiped his glass. "Hey, Bro, how's it going?"
Cas flagged the bartender down and ordered another glass before answering in his usual tone. "Really, really well. Can't stop smiling. The birds are singing and all that shit."
Gabriel just continued to grin at his droll half-sibling. "Just what I like to hear. So, you come here often."
"Did you really just say that?" Cas sniffed at his glass and took a tentative sip, definitely the cheap stuff.
"Look Hoss, here's the deal, friend of mine's brother died. You're the only sib I really give a shit about. Thought maybe we could do some brotherly bonding." Cas motioned to the bartender to refill his glass and Gabriel pushed on. "So, me, you, movie or, I don't know, wanna play catch or something?"
Cas looked at him with disdain. "I'd rather sit here on this stool imbibing in peace."
Gabriel mouthed 'imbibe?', "You really have to stop talking like that." Cas rolled his eyes. "You're really turning me down? Seriously?"
"Gabriel?"
"Yeah?"
Cas ignored the hopeful expression on Gabriel's face. "Shut up and drink."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Gabriel swinging his feet back and forth and chewing the inside of his cheek.
"I'm feeling closer already."
Cas sighed.
~~~
continue
let me know if you want more
also, Sam/Jess/Gabriel? anyone? anyone? bueller?
Theme Song
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