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Dean let out a long sigh as he threw his weapons bag on the floor as he trudged the rest of the steps into the bunker. He was bone tired from their last hunt, and couldn’t of cared less as Sam let out a frustrated grunt at Dean’s deliberate disregard for their shared space.
“Don’t worry. I’ll pick it up tomorrow,” Dean groused over his shoulder. “Right now I need a damn shower.”
“Don’t forget to check on Cas,” Sam called as he headed in the other direction to, no doubt, take a shower and change.
Dean wanted to shoot a smart comment back to his brother that he knew damn well how to look in on Cas, even if the angel was acting a little unusual. He had chalked it up to being low on grace, which meant to Dean that he should stay out of the hunting scene until he was in tip top shape. Dean had kept in touch while they were away, much to Sam’s amusement. Dean would merely snap at his brother whenever he would insinuate anything, no matter if Sam was hitting closer to home than he cared to admit.
The seasoned hunter rounded the corner, flicking on the light of the hallway. He suddenly halted when he noticed that the light to one of the smaller libraries near his and Cas’s room was on. His exhaustion beckoned him to the bathroom, to shower and relax, and then look for the wayward angel. Something about the situation steered him towards that library, and he was useless to shy away.
With a forced sigh, Dean took to veering towards the library and pushed his way through as silently as possible. There he found Cas pacing about the room. He was dressed relatively down in a pair of sweats that belonged to Dean at some point and had grown too small. Instead of his telltale trench coat, he wore a ragged Metallica sweatshirt that had been washed so many times that the logo had been practically faded away. It was one that Dean had taken from his father and still wore regularly. Where Cas had found it, he had no idea, though he couldn’t argue that it made Cas look even smaller, swamped in the thick material with sleeves that covered his hands all the way to the tips of his fingers. He seemed unaware that Dean was behind him, muttering to himself as he continued forward into Cas’s space.
“Cas?”
Cas spun around upon hearing Dean’s voice. “Dean?” His face suddenly paled, nose scrunched as a look of ticklish misery passed over him. Dean waited somewhat patiently as Cas bowed forward, sweatshirt clad hand coming up to cover his nose and mouth. “Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Hih…TsHSH!” Cas was left blinking in surprise, nostrils pointedly flared and congestion catching in the back of his throat.
“Still can’t sneeze only once, can ya,” Dean taunted fondly.
Cas shook his head. “Dno.”
Dean frowned at how low Cas’s voice was. While it was already gravely and an octave deeper than Dean’s own, it sounded as though it had sunken even deeper. Even a harsh clearing of his throat gave him no reprieve, serving only to make Cas let out a few hollow coughs that thumped through his lungs.
“Cas,” Dean began pointedly as he took a step towards him. Before he could reach for Cas’s forehead, Cas turned completely around with both hands now clamped over his face.
“Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh!” Cas gave a brief pause, lifted his head, gave it a shake, only to return back to his steepled position. “Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! TSh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh!”
“Damn, bless you,” Dean exclaimed, half alarmed and half impressed by Cas’s fit. He would never again complain about having a fit of two or three when Cas could reach into the double digits easily.
Cas snuffled heavily and dropped his arms to his side. His eyes suddenly widened in shock when he realized what he had done as he fixed Dean with a watery stare. “I-I-I-I—“
Dean closed the distance between the two and pulled on the strings that hung loosely around Cas’s neck. “It looks good on you. Could probably do with a good wash after all this.”
“I didn’t bean to take idt,” Cas mumbled as he lifted a wrist to rub at his dripping nostrils. “I jusdt found idt and idt was warb and I wasnd’t.”
Dean waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, man. Have you taken anything?”
“Besides the sweatshirt, dno.”
Dean rolled his eyes. Sometimes he wondered how Cas was able to function when he wasn’t there. Sure, he was highly capable, but when he was as depleted as he was, his common sense tended to go first.
“I meant for the obvious cold that you have,” Dean replied.
Cas looked stunned by Dean’s comment. He twisted to glance back at the work that he had been doing, motioning to it with a weak flourish of his hand. “I was busy,” he replied, answer muttered against his chest. “Research.”
“That was your first mistake. You gotta leave that shit to Sammy. Trust me, he’s the best at that.” Dean attempted to keep his voice light as he watched Cas shift in uncomfortableness. “Seriously, dude? You gotta take something and try to sleep this off.”
“You don’t,” Cas shot back.
“You’re right. Do as I say, not as I do.” Dean managed to slid himself almost in front of Cas and lifted a hand to Cas’s forehead. There was no wave of extreme heat, to which Dean was thankful, though a nasty cold could certainly make Cas just as miserable as the flu. “How long have you been in here?”
Cas tipped his head to the side, brow furrowed as he attempted to formulate an answer. “What day is it?”
Alarm rang through Dean. Sure, he may be inclined to the same pattern, but this was Cas that he was talking about. He would always take more consideration of Cas than himself, hands down.
“The day that you need to take a break and get some sleep. Preferably after some meds and once you change,” Dean commented as he looked Cas up and down, nose wrinkling at the faint stench Cas was giving off.
Cas wrapped an arm protectively around the sweatshirt, furious at Dean for even suggesting it. Dean made a grab for the hood, but Cas ducked aside easily, sniffling to stop his nose from running.
“That thing is gross! It needs to be put in the wash, or at this point, burned.” When Cas’s eyes widened even more, Dean continued. “You’ve been snotting on it all day and that thing is older than me. I’m not letting you sleep in it too.”
“Dean,” Cas began before letting out a telling pant. This time he pulled the sweatshirt up over the lower half of his face, disappearing in a flash. “Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! Tsh! TSh! Tsh! Tsh!” Cas hesitated before pulling the sweatshirt down, fixing Dean with a dejected look with his head slightly tipped to the side, breathing hard through his mouth.
The defeat was palpable as Dean grew closer without Cas immediately shying away. This time when he reached for the bottom of the sweatshirt, Cas didn’t push him away or struggle, no matter how much he wanted to. Dean pulled the sweatshirt over his head and held it by the hood in disgust, throwing it aside to add to his own growing pile of laundry. Sam bitched and moaned whenever he tried to combine their laundry, and now that they had a whole bunker, they no longer had to combine them.
“Alright, come with me,” Dean encouraged with a hand on Cas’s back to urge him forward gently while Cas continued to cough huskily against his chest.
Dean led him out into the hallway, but when Cas attempted to veer towards his room, Dean pulled him towards his own room. Cas tried to remain rigid for a moment before complying with Dean’s movements.
“This is your room,” Cas stated obviously.
Dean rolled his eyes and continued to nudge Cas forward. “Thank you, captain obvious. I need to keep an eye on you and the best way to do that is to keep you close.” He passed by Cas and hit his shoulder against Cas’s fondly as he turned to his own bed and pulled back the covers. “C’mon, dude. Let’s get you horizontal.”
Cas didn’t fight him as Dean half urged, half nudged him to lay back on his bed. He propped up the pillows under Cas’s head so he could breathe easily, covers pulled over Cas’s shivering frame. Cas looked at him through brilliant blue eyes imploringly.
“I’m gonna grab you something to help. Sit tight.”
Cas watched as Dean disappeared from the room and started down the hallway. While he was gone, Cas shifted onto his side and burrowed deep, unable to stop the shivers that racked his small frame. He couldn’t believe that had happened, and now it was effecting Dean’s life. He had told himself that he was going to be fine by the time the brothers got home and actually contribute instead of being in the way. This was sure a lousy way of showing it.
Barely any time seemed to pass by when Dean returned, a glass of apple juice and a blister pack of pils in one hand, and a massive wooly blanket in the other. Cas was barely able to blink his eyes in understanding of what Dean had when he approached. His nose scrunched as he sniffled while Dean popped two pills free of the blister pack and attempted to hand them over to the sullen angel.
“These will make things a little more tolerable. I wish you would’ve started this earlier to have a better effect, but it is what it is.” Once Cas slipped the pills into his mouth, Dean gave him the apple juice. He knew it was Cas’s favorite besides chocolate milk, even if the dark haired man had never actually spoken those words out loud. Still, the way that he gulped down the juice without complaint, long after the pills were swallowed, was all the answer that Dean needed.
Dean set the empty glass aside and pulled up a beanbag beside the bed to sink into. It was a pure impulse buy and he never expected that he would actually need it, but now he was beyond thankful that he just had to have it when he saw it at the store. “Try and get some sleep.”
“Will you be here when I wake up,” Cas couldn’t help but croak.
Dean picked up the collar of his shirt and gave it an experimental sniff. He couldn’t help but recoil with a roll of his shoulders. “I might head out to take a shower, but I’ll be back. You’re in my room after all.”
Cas’s hazy thoughts gave way as he tried, in vain, to prop himself up. Dean shifted from his beanbag and pushed Cas back down, able to do so with little resistance as Cas’s body gave out. “Don’t do anything stupid. Rest, relax, and feel better. We need you in the field, man, not stuck in here wasting away.”
“Sorry,” Cas mumbled through a ragged cough.
“Don’t apologize, just get better. You got that?”
Cas nodded as Dean spread the giant wooly blanket over him. Instantly the shivering began to die down, allowing Cas to relax for the first time since Dean took the sweatshirt from him. Maybe now things would start to look up.
“Sleep,” Dean commanded as he sunk back into the beanbag, despite his back howling protest. “Because you damn well deserve it.”