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Castiel had come to understand, in his years dealing with the Winchesters, that Dean didn’t—wouldn’t—couldn’t bear to ask for comfort. Not in the way he really wanted it. He would grin, would flirt, would come up behind Castiel and wrap his arms around him, stick his hands in Castiel’s pockets and whisper suggestively. Or, press his hips into the curve of Castiel’s behind and awkwardly slow dance with him. But Dean wouldn’t say ‘I feel like shit, would you come to bed and just hold me for a while?’.
The holding and closeness was a given after sex. But Dean had trouble admitting that sometimes the closeness was all he really wanted—especially when it was obvious he felt too ill for sex. It was lucky that Castiel didn’t always need words. He may be Changed, but he still had angelic senses. That, and he knew Dean, inside and out. Knew how sometimes Dean couldn’t say what he wanted, but had other ways of letting Cas know.
Dean wasn’t really sick. Not so much anymore, at least, since he’d had antibiotics and cough syrup for almost a week now. The nasty infection he’d been fighting off was nearly beat, but he was still lethargic and congested. Achy all over, tired, and still sick enough that he wasn’t declaring his health and running off again with a kiss and a crooked grin—which was reason enough for Castiel to be distracted all day. Not that being distracted hurt his grades at all. He could teach the professors a thing or two, in truth. But, hell, this was how humans did things, so this was how he was going to do it.
Castiel’s college experience didn’t have anything to do with textbooks and facts. He knew damned near everything already. He was doing this for the social experience, learning how to be his own person. History? That was child’s play. But the choice of joining the Theatre program, or the physics students studying alternative fuel sources. That was exciting. Talking to other people on campus, some of whom were more ‘socially awkward’ than Castiel himself, and making friends, that was the reason he was doing this. To meet new and interesting people and experience life. It made him happy.
Less so, however, when all he could think about was Dean, who had been coughing up technicolor bullshit for the last fortnight. But that was an outlier. Dean didn’t usually get sick. Not sick enough to keep him home like this, anyway. It was a distraction, but one that was understood by his peers.
“Your man’s sick, we’ll still be here next week, go take care of him!” And he’d been ushered kindly out of the student common area by his study group and into the blustery cold evening.
It was already below freezing, and the sky was heavy with clouds. By the time he’d made it to the top of the hill it was snowing, flakes the size of quarters blowing against his face and sticking in his hair. The weather app on his phone said that another four to eight inches would fall before morning. Early classes were already canceled, and if it got much worse, afternoon and evening classes would likely be canceled as well.
It wasn’t a long walk home, just two blocks south of campus. Dean was half asleep when Castiel came in, bundled in every blanket and throw they had in the apartment watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on his laptop for the fifteenth time this week.
He made the same comments every time, that all the other reindeer were so two-faced. “They only like him when he proves he’s productive!”
The plastic they’d taped over the windows rattled with every gust of wind, and their drafty two room ‘suite’ in the big yellow Victorian near campus felt like a refrigerator even with the electric heaters plugged in and pointed toward the futon in the corner.
It was times like these that Castiel kind of liked clothes. He didn’t particularly like being cold, even less so when the forecast said it was supposed to hit the negatives by dawn. “You’re still in bed?” Castiel shucked off his coat and shook it out over the foyer tile.
Dean grunted and blinked at him lazily, tissue clamped in his fist. “Resting… Doctor’s orders.”
Castiel rolled his eyes and kicked off his boots, leaving them turned upside down over the wheezing heat vent.
“Sam came by earlier… Brought soup.”
Castiel peered into the trash can and found empty cans of tomato— true to Sam’s preferences—with the red label. “You ate?”
“Uh-huh,” followed by a wet sounding cough. “It tasted salty, so I think this shit’s finally going away.”
“That’s good.” Castiel came into the room and scooped all the damp, used tissues into the trashcan. “Think you can manage to tidy up after yourself tomorrow?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Dean shifted against the bed, stretching his legs out under his mountainous pile of blankets. Sputnik growled from somewhere near his ankles. “He brought another box—this one’s got lotion, see?” He produced the box from somewhere beneath his shroud. “Maybe my nose’ll heal up now.”
Castiel stepped into the bathroom, stripped out of his wet jeans, and grabbed his pajamas from the laundry basket. He snagged a pair of wool socks Bobby had given him from the top dresser drawer on his way out again.
“It’s all dry and scratchy and sore… I tried putting chap-stick on it, but it didn’t help.”
Castiel snorted. “I hope it was your chap-stick. I don’t want your nose germs,” he yanked his sweats on.
“I used my finger, asshole.”
“You could have just used Vaseline.”
“Vaseline is just gooey… This stuff’s medicated, and it smells better.”
“If it doesn’t help, what does it matter?” he pulled a sweater from the closet and shook it out before pulling it over his head.
“Why do you always get the blue soap if it’s the same as the purple?”
“Because it’s better… Okay, I get it now.”
Dean grinned tiredly and rubbed his rough cheek on the pillow. “Cas?”
“Hmm?”
“C’mere.” He wiggled irritably. “I got ‘Year Without a Santa Claus next. You haven’t seen it. It’s a classic.”
“Can it wait until after I’ve made food? I haven’t eaten since noon.”
“Jus’ order a pizza.”
“I’m tired of pizza.”
“Chinese then.”
Castiel sighed. “If I order egg drop soup will you eat some?”
Dean made a sound in the back of his throat; part whine, part groan, part whimper.
“Or spicy chicken.”
“Chicken… maybe the spice’ll open my sinuses.”
Castiel nodded, counted out the bills from Dean’s wallet and slid under the blankets with him while he dialed and ordered their food. “Okay, we’ve got thirty-to-forty minutes.”
Dean hit play.
It started slowly—not the film, but Dean’s movements—and by the time Heat Miser was singing about how much too Much he was, Dean had tucked himself back against Castiel’s chest, all overheated skin and clogged breathing. Castiel said nothing, just slipped his right arm around Dean’s chest and propped his chin up with his left hand.
He had to admit, the song was catchy. “Gabriel would love this.”
Dean grunted and wiggled back a little more. “They’d show this on ABC every year before Christmas when I was a kid. Now it’s all this new crap.” He coughed into his fist. “Nothing beats the classics!”
Castiel pressed his palm against the front of Dean’s shirt, rubbing gentle circles in what he hoped was a soothing fashion. He pulled Dean a little closer and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You need a shower.”
“Shut-up, ‘m watchin’ cartoons.”
“This is stop animation, not a cartoon.”
Dean made a low growling, whining noise and Cas chuckled.
Dean paused the movie when Cas heard the delivery guy pull up outside, and extricated himself from the warmth under Dean’s blanket pile to fetch their food. When he came back up the stairs he found Dean sitting up on the bed pulling at the blankets. “Dog wants out.”
Cas dropped his head backward petulantly and groaned. “Can’t she just use the pee pads in the bathroom? It’s snowing again!”
“You’re the one who can talk to animals, Cas-Doolittle.”
Sputnik stretched and worked her way out from under the blankets, stretched again and shook herself, then went toward the door. Cas followed her. Maybe he’d been around Dean too long, or read too many Garfield comic strips, but he’d taken to speaking aloud when he conversed with her, even though all the dialogue she actually understood was passed through his head instead of his mouth.
“Can’t you use the pee pads?” He pointed to the bathroom.
She looked up at him and wagged her tail.
“Yes, I know you think it’s demeaning, but it’s cold outside.”
She made a rumbling noise in her chest.
“Well, I don’t have a fur coat like yours. My body gets cold… No, I’m not taking the blankets from Dean, he needs them, he’s sick.”
She snorted.
“Yes, I know there’s plenty of them, but he wants them all.”
She gave a soft ruf and stuck her tooth over her lip at him. Ears forward and alert.
“If I stand in the foyer and let you out, do you promise to come right back? I’m not going to have to come get you from the Burtons’ again am I?” He rolled his eyes. “I know you feel the need to adhere to social customs, but Jagger doesn’t need you to bark at the cat in Clementine’s window every day. Especially seven-thirty at night when it’s snowing. Only on Tuesdays and Saturdays when he goes to the park.”
Dean appeared in the doorway wrapped in a quilt, eyes bleary. He rubbed the side of his face. “Just take her out or you’ll be here arguing all night, you’re both so stubborn...” And he turned and shuffled back to bed.
Cas sighed in defeat and pointed at Sputnik’s nose. “Come right back. Three yaps, alright? It’s too cold for a full official Barking and Bagheera probably isn’t even in the window… Oh, I’m sure Jagger will understand given the circumstances.”
She gave an affirmative wuff and waited patiently until he opened the door.
Dean, meanwhile had peeled up a corner of the curtain and plastic covering the window and watched with a grin on his face as Sputnik did her business in the far-left hand corner of the little front yard. Then she wiggled through the slats in the fence, waddled across the Burton’s yard and yapped precisely three times at the cross-eyed black cat in Clementine Harper’s front window. After that, she turned in three tight circles and made her way back.
Castiel was muttering about the social customs of dogs when he and Sputnik reappeared in the apartment. He took a moment to dry her belly, paws and tail. Then changed her sweater and put the damp one over the heat vent beside his boots to dry.
“She doesn’t listen to me like that,” Dean said, dropping a crumpled tissue into the trash.
“Because she knows she can get away with anything where you’re concerned.”
Dean chuckled and pulled a face when it turned into a cough. He’d straightened the blankets on the bed, or at least tried to, and when Cas brought over the food he folded them back so he could climb in.
They settled against the headboard, Sputnik lying over Dean’s shins, and watched the rest of the movie in relative peace.
Dean ate half the spicy chicken, dueled with Castiel using his chopsticks over the last Gyoza and won half. Then fell asleep halfway through Frosty Returns curled against Castiel’s side with one leg thrown over the angel’s and Sputnik burrowing under the blankets at his back.
It was a tight fit, two grown men and a dog on a shitty little futon, but Dean was pressed as close as he could be without nudity, and Cas didn’t exactly mind. He would admit, if asked in private, that he enjoyed it when Dean felt in the need of affection like this. It felt good to be wanted, needed. It felt even better knowing that Dean was comfortable enough with him to just insinuate himself like this—partly because Castiel was of the opinion that physical affection, sexual or not, was the best thing about being mostly human. He could take or leave sex, in all honesty.
Castiel enjoyed the closeness, the openness of Dean allowing himself to be held and cuddled and coddled. And on occasion when Castiel wanted it, Dean would relish in holding, and cuddling, and coddling. Being together was all he really wanted. Neither of them were perfect and sometimes they got on one another’s nerves, but they made one another want to be better, and that was enough.
He closed the laptop and put it on the floor under the edge of the bed, turned off the lamp and settled down for the night. Outside a snowplow went down the street, casting flashing yellow and white shadows across the curtains.
“Dean, if you drool in my hair I’m leaving you.”
Dean just continued snoring.
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