Work Text:
“God,” Sam says, dropping to his knees, “oh, my God, Cas—”
“Fuck, ” Dean says, already flat on his stomach, arms extending down into the crevice. “Cas! Grab my hands!”
“I can’t, I— Dean,” Castiel pants and reaches, reaches, but there are a few precious inches separating their fingers and his shoes won’t catch on the slick black rock. The water that rages against the base of the cliffs is boiling into the caves in unpredictable bursts, pouring in over Castiel’s head with each new surge. His eyes are stinging with it, and his mouth is full of salt. “Dean, please—”
“She’s coming back!” Sam says, and there’s a terrifying moment where they both disappear and the rock around him seems to constrict, like the gullet of a massive animal. The water around his shoes isn’t draining away, but spilling upwards in an icy creep past his ankles to his calves, knees, thighs. It’s breathtakingly cold, and Castiel can’t get enough air to call them back.
Gunshots echo against the walls, shouts. He hears Sam say, “The knife!” and a squalling scream pierces the darkness, cuts off abruptly. The thundering sound of the waves grows louder.
Castiel wedges his back against the rocks behind him and plants his numb feet against the wall opposite, tries to shove himself up. The sharp edges dig into his spine and his palms, already raw from the climb into the caves. The water has reached his stomach and he’s breathing in shallow, shivering gasps.
“Sam, get your fucking orangutan arms down there,” Dean yells from somewhere above, and Sam skids into view again, nose bleeding onto his lips and teeth.
“Okay, okay— Cas, I’m going to need you to let go,” he says, dropping to his side. He braces one hand on the edge and leans until his chest is halfway into the crevice as well, fingers reaching out. “The water’s high enough, you can kick up until you reach me. Now!”
Castiel inhales sharply and lets himself fall back in the water. The cold is so stunning that he can’t think to kick for a moment, and sinks.
“Cas!”
A full-body spasm shakes him, and then he’s fighting to the surface, Sam’s bloody face coming into view, and Dean’s next to him.
“Grab my legs,” Sam says shortly, and Dean lurches sideways to cover him as he slides down to meet Castiel’s fumbling, near-nerveless fingers with a grip around his wrist like iron. “Got him!”
Sam lifts with a groan of effort, Castiel pushing against the rocks with his free hand and feet, and then Dean’s hands are screwed up in his coat and he’s hauling him up, over the lip, rocks scraping against his belly until Sam and Dean’s combined strength lands him in a sprawl over Dean’s body.
“Time to go!” Dean yells, already scrambling up from under him. The mouth of the cave is a foggy white, the sea that pulses underneath it pitch black. White foam spills in over dark rock so quickly that the waves don’t have time to recede. The water is tugging at the corpse Dean’s left sprawled on its back, a gaping hole under its sternum. It looks like the tide is trying to pull it out into the ocean.
“Hey, steady there,” Sam says when Castiel wobbles to his feet, arm going under his shoulders. “Looks like you hit your head on the way down.”
“What?” Castiel says through chattering teeth, sagging into him. Everything hurts, not in the least his head. “Where?”
“Christ,” Dean snaps, and gets on Castiel’s other side. Between the two of them Castiel is forced up the narrow snaking trail that brought them down through the cliffs into the cave in the first place, Sam leading, Dean bringing up the rear with his knife out and ready. There’s something bulging in the pocket of his jacket, dripping onto his jeans in dark splashes and streaks.
They emerge onto the winter clifftops, and the wind cuts Castiel’s legs out from under him. He’s barely aware of the last hundred feet between them and the Impala, and when Sam climbs into the back seat with him he realizes he must look even more injured than he feels.
“I’m fine,” he tries to mumble under the blankets Sam heaps over him. Sam only snorts, and pulls him in close to get his seatbelt on.
“There’s a reason Dad didn’t start us on sea monsters,” Dean snarls, tires spinning in the snow. No one is arguing with him, as far as Castiel can tell, but he seems to need to snarl at someone. “Shit. Fuck. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Sam says, sounding a little amused. He’s probing at Castiel’s hairline as he says it, and Castiel jerks as he brushes against something that twinges even through the muffling cold. “According to him. His head is going to need stitches, which probably means concussion watch tonight.”
“Fuck,” Dean says.
They have a room just down the road, cheap in the off-season. Dean tries to drop them off in the parking lot so he can go into town, but Sam grips his shoulder from the backseat. “Trust me, no. You look like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre extra.”
“It’s just the Bartell’s up the road, we’re gonna need—”
“Park the goddamn car, Dean.”
They park the goddamn car. Castiel has stopped shivering, Sam says, and he sounds concerned. He asks Castiel something, but it doesn’t quite seem worth opening his eyes for, even when Dean’s voice asks the question again, louder and angrier. Dean is angry at a lot of things, these days. Castiel is vaguely aware of cursing, and shoulders under his arms again, a draft of warmer air in his face, and someone pulling his sopping coat off.
He loses additional clothing after that— more than he thinks is wise, given the fact that he is almost certainly suffering from hypothermia— and he’s thinking very seriously about protesting this when his body is abruptly lifted, conveyed a short distance, and just as abruptly dropped into several inches of scalding water.
“Christ in H-heaven!” he yelps, flailing.
“Oh, you’re fine,” Dean growls, hands pulling away from the back of Castiel’s neck and under his knees. Water slops over the edge of the tub and onto the floor, which makes him growl again and yank a dusty towel off the wall. “Shut up and soak, will you?”
The bathroom door is closed, heat blasting up from a floor vent near the baseboards. Sam stands at the sink with an open duffle bag balanced on the small counter, prodding at his bloody nose and grimacing.
“Broken?”
“No,” Sam seems to decide out loud, turning his head and squinting. “Just ugly.”
“Ain’t that big a change, then,” Dean says. “Cas? What about you?”
The shivering is back, and Castiel did not miss it. He glares at Dean, teeth chattering loudly in his skull, muscles spasming, cuts and scrapes on his hands and knees stinging fiercely. He’s still wearing boxers, stolen from the top of the clean laundry bag this morning, but that’s it.
“Hot enough?” Dean asks. He dips a hand into the water near Castiel’s feet, and frowns. “Jesus, Sam, it's barely lukewarm.”
“You’re supposed to heat it up slowly,” Sam warns from the mirror as Dean cranks the left tap higher, and Castiel pulls his legs away from the burning sensation.
“Yeah, sure,” Dean says, “except his lips are still purple.”
“Too h-hot,” Castiel manages.
“See?”
“Fuck, fine.”
Eventually the heat starts to feel good, and then Castiel is reaching for the taps himself. Sam has filled the sink and pulled off his shirt, and he and Dean are taking turns scrubbing away dried blood and pouring hydrogen peroxide on the gouges on their arms and chests. Talon marks. Castiel rests his head on the side of the tub and watches them in an increasingly sleepy daze, eyes heavy and slipping closed without his conscious intent.
“Why is the floor—? Cas, for God’s sake,” Dean groans, kneeling down on the soaking wet towel and jerking the taps closed again. “Can you try not to drown for five minutes.”
“Check his eyes,” Sam says.
“Give me the flashlight, then,” Dean says, and gently tilts Castiel’s head up so he can blind him with it.
“I do not have a concussion,” Castiel says firmly, eyes squeezed shut. He feels he would know, somehow.
“Sure, you being such an expert in head injuries,” Dean says, hand still gripping Castiel’s chin. “Do angels even have heads?”
“I had three,” Castiel grumbles, trying to turn his face from the next pass of the flashlight, and Dean actually laughs.
“Yeah, well, I’m guessing none of them were the head you have now. Open ’em up, Sleeping Beauty.”
Castiel relents to being examined, if only so Dean will stop bothering him and he can finally fall asleep in the warm, warm water. Then Dean announces that even if his eyes look fine, he still needs stitches. Despite his heartfelt protests, Castiel is pulled from the tub and propped up on the toilet seat, then layered in several more musty-smelling towels. The hydrogen peroxide stings and the needle is worse. Castiel stares at the insides of his eyelids and tries to focus on something else.
“Is the creature’s heart still in your jacket pocket?” he thinks to ask.
“God-fucking-damn it to shit,” Dean says.
Hydrogen peroxide has another use, he learns. Dean pours it over the inverted pocket and dabs mournfully at the stained leather while Sam shows Castiel how to both disable a smoke detector and build a small fire in the kitchenette sink. The heart blackens slowly, giving off a smell like rotting fish and split bowels, before it abruptly collapses into ash on the aluminum foil they’ve laid under it.
“Gross,” Sam says.
“Good riddance,” Dean says, and dumps the whole thing in the garbage.
The clean laundry bag is assessed, and clothing distributed. Castiel is allotted a shirt that nearly reaches his knees, with cartoon hibiscus flowers all over the back, and the thickest pair of socks at his request. He is also given a lukewarm beer with the top already twisted off, and told to go sit on the small couch in front of the television. Dean settles in on his right, Sam on his left, the better to share the two blankets left in the bottom drawer of the entertainment center.
“Well, that could have gone a little better,” Dean says eventually. They’re watching golf, for some inexplicable reason. “Welcome to the life, I guess.”
“Thank you?” Castiel says.
“Cheers,” Sam says tiredly, and clinks his beer bottle against Castiel’s. Dean does the same, and they all take a sip. The beer buzzes weirdly against Castiel’s tongue, though not as much as soda does.
“Hey, Cas,” Sam says after a moment. When Castiel looks at him, his eyes are focused past Castiel’s head, and he’s smirking faintly. “You should keep that knee elevated, you know. Just in case it’s sprained.”
Castiel turns to look at Dean, but he just rolls his eyes and lifts his arm.
Castiel’s knees aren’t feeling particularly better or worse than the rest of him, but when Sam pats his lap he dutifully swings his legs up and over. It pushes him firmly into Dean’s side, head level with his chest, and for a moment he expects Dean to protest.
All Dean does is grunt and draw one leg up, angling himself into the corner of the couch. He lays his arm along the back. “Such a clusterfuck,“ he mutters, settling Castiel against him. “I’m demoting you to waterboy for the next foreseeable whatever.”
When Castiel wakes briefly in the night, Sam has been replaced by a small pillow. Dean is breathing deep and even, the heat of his skin bleeding through his shirt to warm Castiel’s cheek. His arm has dropped to Castiel’s back, hand laid easily over his ribs.
Castiel blinks in the darkness, suddenly wary. He plants a hand on the back of the couch and starts to ease himself up, away from Dean’s solidity and his seductive warmth. He might be very newly human, but he knows instinctively that it’s wrong, somehow, for him to be so close. Dean has told him so himself.
“Cas?” Dean asks, yawning through the question, and Castiel freezes. “You up?”
“Yes,” Castiel says carefully, tensed for reprisal.
“Get your toothbrush, then,” Dean mumbles, and rolls out from under him.
There’s no debate about whose bed Castiel will share tonight. Sam is a featureless, softly-snoring lump in the first, and once their teeth are clean Dean hooks an arm around Castiel’s neck and tows him to the second, still yawning.
“Go on,” Dean says, nudging him forward, and Castiel slowly lifts the sheets and crawls towards the opposite edge. Dean slides in behind him. When Castiel starts to settle on his side, Dean says, “Nope, stitches,” and pulls Castiel around until they face each other. “How’s the knee?”
“It’s fine,” Castiel says. Dean is so close in the darkness that Castiel’s breath is reflected back at him. He smells like detergent, and very faintly of brine.
“Good,” Dean says. “You did good, Cas.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah,” Dean says. Then, “C’mere again.”
There’s no further discussion about it. Castiel shifts closer and Dean drags him the last few inches, knee to knee, chest to chest. Their faces brush and Castiel is seized with the sudden thought that they might— accidentally, or so softly as to be denied later, hidden and unknown, here in the quiet dark—
Dean guides Castiel’s head to his shoulder again, his other hand sliding down the back of Castiel’s thigh to pull him slightly over center, so his weight rests more solidly on him.
“Small beds,” Dean whispers.
Castiel sighs into his neck, and Dean shudders a little. “Yes.”
“Grab the comforter?”
Castiel does, tucking it snugly around Dean’s shoulder. He leaves his hand there, palm and five fingers spread over his upper arm, and falls asleep with Dean’s heartbeat under his ear.