My Supernatural Prompts Thread - [Total: 8] - (Dean, Cas; M) [Updated: 8/21/2015]

[SterlingSilver]

So I've decided to just dump all my LJ tarotgal prompt fills in one place since it's unlikely I'll continue any past a one shot~... These are kind of long for drabbles, so that's why I was just doing it here, but if this needs to be moved I understand! Thank you, and sorry for the trouble!

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A/N: Some sneezy endverse!Castiel for foxonthemoon's lovely prompt on Tarotgal's Meme! If you haven't seen up to 5x04 yet, this will be a spoiler! Also, check out the epic meme if you want to fill some really fun prompts~~ Thanks to foxonthemoon for inspiring me to write my first real Cas fic~ >w< Been wanting to, but had not good ideas haha~

Meme: http://tarotgal.live...com/905764.html

Prompt: Supernatural Gen or SlashIt's 2014 and the end of the world came and went. Bouncing between drugs and alcohol, Cas didn't realize he was sick until a few sneezes made them run for their life while they were on a tricky supply run, dab into a croats hot zone

Warnings: Swearing, references to alcohol/drug abuse

~Compromised~

He loved looking into the bottom of a bottle – pills or alcohol, it didn’t matter. Just as long as there was something inside, something left, because there wasn’t much left anywhere else. Not a lot of people, not a lot of resources, and certainly not a lot of hope. Just whatever crude and carnal pleasures you can cobble together to make it through to another day. Some mornings are easier than others. Today was not one of them.

Cas woke with a heaviness behind his eyes, throbbing with waves of achy pain. That was usual, though he wasn’t sure if it was the Scotch or the Percocet. Or the Valium. Could have been anything, really. He had stopped cataloguing the stings of the human condition and instead did what all humans did eventually – got numb to them. As he sat up on his cot, Castiel felt the shift of pressure in his sinuses and sluggishly pressed a wrist under his nose to keep it from leaking. Runny noses were common side effects of drug use, so it wasn’t the first time he had awoken with one. Even so, he still didn’t have a handkerchief or tissue around. Those were about as rare as toilet paper nowadays.

Shirt it is, he thought, and folded up the edge of his grimy night tee to wipe some of the more prominent moisture from his upper lip. The headache was particularly insistent this morning, so Cas staggered in a groggy haze toward his knapsack for his pill bag. He was probably hungover (or more likely, still drunk) from yesterday, but that was familiar. A couple dry swallows of the good stuff would have him back on the mend. His ears felt a little stopped up too, because he didn’t hear Dean come in until a heavy hand was shaking his shoulder.

“Cas,” Dean was saying. Castiel’s body was easily manipulated by the jostling, body limp like a doll, but it wasn’t doing anything for his head. He felt faintly nauseous, and let his head fall back to meet Dean’s green eyes with his dull, wide blue ones. Cas watched Dean cringe.

“Dude, come on,” he groused. “I thought I taught you years ago how to wipe your nose.”

“Yes,” Castiel agreed, this time using his arm and sniffling deeply. His ears pounded. “I remember how.”

Sighing, Dean realized that Cas wasn’t going to be entirely lucid this early in the morning. But he also knew the ex-angel had been through a lot, struggled heavily with a useless-complex, and would probably have offed himself long ago if Dean hadn’t been there to pull him along. He had done this to Castiel, and the man was his responsibility.

“Clean yourself up,” Dean said, adjusting the holster of his gun on his belt. “Supply run today.”

It took Cas twice as long as usual to get ready, and he even tossed back another pill from an unlabeled bottle already half empty to try and get some mojo going. Not the angel kind of mojo, though. That was impossible. Though if he was going to be of any use out in the hot zone, he had to be awake. He found a swatch of old fabric – probably a shred of one of Dean’s old shirts or something – tucked down into his bag and resolved to use it as a hanky. One swig of something brown and bitter in a bottle by his bed, and Castiel was ready to go.

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After Castiel started drugging and drinking so regularly, people around him stopped asking him if he was okay. He wasn’t sure why, since he hated it when people asked, but he missed the question. It reminded him that everyone still cared if he lived or died, even if it was often unnecessary. Because truly – being sadly honest – no one was okay anymore.

In the back of the jeep, Cas kept his head against the window and his gun in his lap. The usually sharp rumble of the car was dull and whirring in the back of his mind, and his nose still hadn’t stopped running. In annoyance, he had just tucked the coarse cloth against his nostrils as he sat there, letting it leak against it rather than loudly blowing his nose every few minutes. Risa was beside him, pointedly ignoring him, and Dean remained up front alone driving. Castiel must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing he knows, Risa’s slapping him awake.

“Castiel,” she growled. The ex-angel shifted uncomfortably, eyes blurring as he tried to focus. Everything was feeling so damn thick all of a sudden, and somewhat hot. Another strong pat to his cheek, and he started. “Get yourself together. Let’s go.”

Castiel, after living through a few years in a human body, understood that he was useless. Hapless. Apt to trip and break something, or ruin a plan. And he suspected that the only reason Dean let him come along on these trips was because the man felt sorry for him. No one else liked him along, he thought. All these thoughts were sterile in his head, feeling disconnected and unimportant. He shoved his make-shift hankie into his pocket

It was when Cas was reaching for the door handle of the jeep that he felt the curious tingle deep in his sinuses. Castiel remembered his first sneeze – it came immediately after a face full of sawdust in one of the supply closets, and he had panicked. Convulsed with it. Startled himself. And Dean had laughed and explained that it was just a sneeze. It was that memory that reminded him what this was now, and he was helpless to stop it.

His nostrils flared once, irritated and chapped from the crusty fabric of his nose-wiping tools, and his lungs juddered with a few pre-mature breaths, “hh- hh-!” … a terrible moment of nothing, and then a clenching, “Hiit’ishhuhh!”

His head snapped down to his chest. It was heavier than the ticklish, healthy sneeze from the sawdust a year ago. This one felt wrenched from him, and his head thundered with pain afterward, ears popping. By now Dean and Risa were waiting for him outside the jeep, so Cas scrubbed his nose on his arms and slipped out. Dean made a face as Cas slammed the door.

“Are you sweating?”

“Probably the alcohol,” Castiel commented offhandedly. Because really, it probably was. Dean sighed again – it was something he did a lot since Sam said yes – and then saddled up his gun and started walking.

They walked in the open for a while, two pairs of eyes searching avidly for threats while the third pair – blue and getting foggier by the minute – struggled to stay open against the agitating feeling of air against them. Castiel felt sleepy, and blamed his swig of liquor that morning, and possibly the pills too. He had sort of forgotten about the supply run, and had meant to be sober for it. No wonder Dean was frustrated; Cas was, once again, useless and making mistakes.

And if that wasn’t enough, the tickle in his nose came back with enough force to stagger him two steps forward. “EH’tishhuhh!!”

Dean and Risa both jumped and turned, eyes wide from the noise. It was a graveling, grating, smoky sort of sound that ended up echoing down the street. And damned if Cas wasn’t tenting his brows, flicking his nostrils, in want of another. Dean surged forward to stop him, to pinch it off or smother it or something, but wasn’t fast enough. Castiel shook himself like a doll, nearly taking himself to the pavement with the force of it.

“HII’gzzshuuu!”

“Cas, shuddup!” It was whispered with the intensity of a thousand bullets, and Castiel belatedly slapped two hands over his nose and mouth, bleary. Those had punched through him out of nowhere, and he wore the swaying expression of a man who had been kicked in the gut without anticipating it.

“Thad was unexpected,” Cas said, expression crumbling into one of discomfort as Dean snatched and hauled him toward an ally to get out of the open. Those sneezes had been devastatingly loud in the dead silence of the torn city. The supply run was already a gamble because there was a Croat hot bed really close to the storefront they needed to get to, so they really didn’t need Cas blowing their cover. It was a get-in, get-out, not a gun-and-run.

“Can you do this?” Dean demanded, staring with the heated glare that Castiel had once wielded pre-Apocalypse. The man felt his skin get a little cold in the ashy air, felt his heart sink toward his stomach. Felt the freezing claws of doubt peel at his mind.

“Of course,” Castiel said, frowning a little. In that somewhat concerned and pitiable expression, Dean could almost see a shadow of what Cas had once been – a confused, inhuman angel. What was in front of him couldn’t even be called a shadow on most days. It was more of a husk.

“Then prove it.” Dean leveled his glare toward the street instead, listening in the weighty silence for a sign that the Croats had heard them before starting forward again with Risa, who cast an angry look at Castiel before slipping into formation behind Dean. The ex-angel felt his arms trembling against the wall where Dean had pushed him, and it took more effort than it should have to get himself moving again.

There were no more altercations because Castiel’s nose behaved, though he got progressively hotter and more unsteady the longer they were out. By the time they were across the road from the storefront, he was blinking hard to see straight. Fuck, this was a bad trip. He shouldn’t have taken that third round of pills.

“—will go in to pick up supplies while Risa keeps look out,” Dean was saying, softly easing his gun out of safety. Again, the green eyes leveled to Cas. They were blind to weakness at the moment – only purpose. Dean had grown hard since 2009, and people who knew him back then struggled to remember who that guy had been. “Ready?”

Castiel nodded, not even sure what he was doing, but prepared to follow Dean’s lead. They crossed the street and slipped into the store together, Dean whispering off the list of things they needed to stuff in their bags. It was going fine, even optimistically, before Cas felt that oh-so-becoming-familiar twinge between his eyes.

His face tightened, jaw clenching; he refused to give in right now. Sure, his hands were trembling, his heart was pounding just as loud and hard as his head was, and he couldn’t stop blinking to clear his vision, but he would be damned if he sneezed at a time like this. Still, the need persisted, and he found himself snagging an unintentionally voiced breath.

“…ehh…”

Dean perked up from his crouched position by a shelf, stiffening, and then panicking when he saw the vulnerable pre-sneeze scrunch of Cas’s brows and the parting of his chapped lips. Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead in some spots. Before Dean could react, Cas threw his head down with a sneeze.

“…eh’HEH’shuhh!” It wasn’t as loud as the others, and Cas pressed an open hand against his chest, gasping with want of another. “HII’FSHHUU!!”

That second one was louder, and in the distance there was an answering scream of a Croat alerting the pack to their presence. Dean stood up and zipped his bag after stuffing the last of his items in. They had maybe half a minute to get a head start, since that cry had been a little far. He jogged to where Cas kneeled on the dirty tile, face contorted.

“EH’TZZSHUUU!...shi’d-..” Cas reached up with an arm to wipe at his running nose, looking woozy and most of all frustrated with himself. He glanced up at Dean with watery blue eyes, bright with what Dean assumed to be something drug-related. “Dean’d, I’b so sorry—”

He didn’t get a chance to finish because Dean heaved him up by his arm, slinging Cas’s bag haphazardly over his other shoulder and ran him out into the grey daylight. Just a block over was the pounding of footsteps. Fuck, that was a lot of Croats. Risa was already motioning them, yelling for them to come on, so Dean let Cas go and started to dash after her. What he wasn’t expecting was Cas to literally go knee-buckling onto the asphalt. Dean made a U-turn.

“Cas, the fuck man?!” For what felt like the millionth time that day, he snatched the guy up by his shirt and pulled him to his feet. “We have to move!” Dean searched his face for anything that would tell him what was wrong. Castiel looked pale and jittery, nose red and chapped from abuse of rubbing with dirty hands and rough fabric. Too runny for just some pill-popping. Whatever, they didn’t have time for this.

Dean kept a stern grip on Cas’s arm as he started to run, urging a stumbling Castiel to hurry the hell up. Another few seconds of struggling, and Dean would have to drop all the bags and carry the guy out, which would ruin the entire operation. Though by some miracle, Dean felt Cas’s strides strengthen behind him, and soon they were both running at a full speed toward the gate, and the car beyond. Once they snuck past the barriers, the military would probably fly in and wipe out the rest.

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They made it. It was enough to convince Dean that maybe God was still around out there somewhere – they definitely should have died back there. He was panting, shoulders aching from the bags of goods, but it felt good to be alive. Risa wore a similar smile of triumph, looking over at him occasionally with fetching looks. A good chase always got them a little excited. It was the dull thud behind them that made their grins falter, and Dean glanced back. His stomach pinched.

“Cas?” The man was on all fours, having just pushed himself up from a dead-weight tumble. He was breathing much harder than he should have been. Castiel wasn’t an Olympic runner, but he had stayed alive this long and was capable of physically defending himself. This wasn’t like him, even with pills and alcohol fluttering through his veins.

“I’b okay,” Castiel muttered, but his tone was automatic. The kinds of things Castiel says when he needs something to say, even if he’s not thinking straight. The kinds of things he says at his most high, his heavily smashed. “Tripped.”

Clumsiness wasn’t unusual with Cas, but congestion and keeling over was. The guy wasn’t making efforts to get back up again. Dean went to his side grimly, worried but no longer soft enough to show it, and slapped a hand over Castiel’s damp forehead with enough force to push the man’s gaze upward. Fuck.

“He’s burning up,” Dean announced, more to himself than to anyone else. Castiel was his responsibility, his fault if he wanted to put it darkly, and look what had become of him. Getting sick after the end of the world wasn’t advisable, and if it was something serious they might be screwed. Dean lowered his hand, settling Cas with a firm stare. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Cas shook his head, still trying to catch his breath. “I didn’d realize id, I-…ek’shhuu!...hh – hh – HII’SHUUU!”

Dean jerked back before they could spray him, realizing just how little experience Cas still had with human manners and customs. A couple coughs from irritated lungs came after, and Castiel tried to sniffle through clogged, swollen sinuses. To Dean, it looked like a nasty headcold that might just be exacerbated by physical exertion and alcohol. He hoped, anyway. Fevers were never good when the camp was struggling with antibiotic supplies. Castiel’s face twitched with another approaching sneeze, but it didn’t seem to come.

“We should get him back,” Risa said, her voice not terribly cold but still clinical. It wasn’t good to stay out in the open for long after a raid, since Croats weren’t the only thing to worry about. Dean nodded and went around Cas, lifting him up by the armpits from behind. A moment later, he was glad he did. Cas’s back expanded with a sudden, quick breath, and Dean got a nose-full of his sweaty hair as Castiel’s head tipped back. Then his whole body seized.

“EH’TISHHUUUU-ahhh…” The trailing sound of relief at the end of that sneeze told Dean he had been needing that for a while, and somehow the hunter couldn’t keep from smiling.

“Come on, buddy,” he said softly, enough so that Risa didn’t hear. “Let’s get you home.”

Edited August 21, 2015 by BlackScatter

[SpookyScarySkeleton]

Awh this fic is so sweet, well written and everything ties together perfectly. Goodjob,hope to see a second part.

[NorthernLady]

Waaaaaa Blackscatter I love you so much right now!!!!! You really made my prompt come to life EVERYTHING is perfect. The mention of how rare toilet paper is nowaway, Cas's useless-complex, Cas cluelessness but then again, the way he remembers his first sneeze, the evolution of his symptoms and the way he just falls on his hands at the end of the run Perfection!!!

And this little bit is just like candy for me. The first paragraphe :

He loved looking into the bottom of a bottle – pills or alcohol, it didn’t matter. Just as long as there was something inside, something left, because there wasn’t much left anywhere else. Not a lot of people, not a lot of resources, and certainly not a lot of hope. Just whatever crude and carnal pleasures you can cobble together to make it through to another day. Some mornings are easier than others. Today was not one of them.

I adore en entirety of your fic but the start is what got me good. This is the best start of a fic EVER. You really set the mood of the endverse.

[SterlingSilver]

Awh this fic is so sweet, well written and everything ties together perfectly. Goodjob,hope to see a second part.

Thank you for the review~! QwQ I'm glad you liked >w<

Waaaaaa Blackscatter I love you so much right now!!!!! You really made my prompt come to life

Waaa~! You are so welcome! *huggle* >w<~ You have amazing prompts~ Haven't gotten to Purgatory yet, but I've been eyeing up that prompt lately xP

I'm really, really happy you liked it~ I had so much fun writing it And your review is so sweet!

Cheers to filling all the LJ Cas prompts this year! *clinks glasses* hahaha~

Edited April 20, 2014 by BlackScatter

[Kali]

Awwww I love this!! Please continue if you can

[SterlingSilver]

A/N: Here we go! Super excited to fill one for the hostess of this lovely party (tarotgal)~ *sips Jack from teacup*

Prompt: His nose is sooooo itchy. He needs to scratch it, but he can't (maybe he's got his hands full at the moment or maybe he doesn't want to be seen rubbing his nose). So he doesn't. But the itch is still there and maybe his hair keeps tickling it or something else does or something's in the air. And it inevitably builds up into a sneeze he can't possibly restrain.

Supernatural, Gen; starring Dean and Cas

Warnings: swearing, spoilers up to season 6

~Arms Full~

Dean has been in some tight spots in life. Really, really tight. Talking so tight bondage looked loose. Between dying and going to Hell, dying and going to Heaven, fucking dying some other time he probably couldn’t remember, excuse him, he’s lost count, not to mention all the injuries he’s taken over the years just because life enjoys taking a giant steaming shit all over him just because he’s Dean Winchester—…well, he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to tight spots.

All he wanted to do was carry in a couple cases of beer. More than a couple, honestly, but he can still see over the stack so he counts it as reasonable. They’re stocking up Bobby’s house since it’s the Apocalypse, and beer’s as good as any commodity. Sam’s just left to pick up some books from the library in town – he better not wreck Baby, so help Dean – and Bobby himself is deep in the salvage yard relaxing while he strips cars. Cas, who’s hanging out a hell of a lot more recently since he’s out of juice, is discovering the wonders of Bobby’s record collection in the living room.

There’s a distinct sound of something smashing on hardwood, and Dean closes his eyes very slowly. He’s just put a foot on Bobby’s stairs, a little wobbly from the weight in his arms.

“Cas?” Dean calls. His voice reverberates painfully in the tight stairwell.

There’s a pause, then a dutiful, “Yes, Dean?”

“Break another one and Bobby’ll wear your teeth on a necklace.”

“…I understand.”

Good enough. As Dean starts clamoring up the stairs, wishing he asked Cas to give him a hand with all the pounds of beer he’s hefting, the old vinyl finally crackles into life on the player and fills the entire first floor with early Rock. Whatever. At least the music isn’t awful—…

Shit. Here’s the tight spot. Dean doesn’t know what it is – maybe the beer’s been on the shelf too long in the store and is a little dusty, or maybe Cas played with the air freshener again while everyone was out, he doesn’t know – but all of a sudden there’s an itch in his nose. Without thinking, Dean leans slightly to the side to scrub it against his shoulder (because he’s holding all this beer, dammit), but the movement rocks him off balance and he has to clench his abs to keep himself from tipping backward.

Okay, well… Dean looks around at his feet, but there’s no decent way to bend down and sit the heavy, unsteady mound of beverage in his arms on the stairs without either falling or dropping it all in the process. Maybe he should have went for the cans instead of the glass bottles.

The tickle lurches an inch up his nose, trailing fuzzy tails as it goes, and Dean’s chest catches a breath without his permission. Yep, it’s got to be the air fresheners. Nothing gets him like “Sea Breeze Dew,” or whatever new-age shit Sammy brings home to try and drown out the smell of three men and a fading angel all sharing a bathroom. Not that Cas actually goes. Why is he thinking about this. Nevermind.

Itch. Sneeze brewing. No arms. Stairs.

“Cas?” Dean calls again, voice bouncing off the walls. And somehow, the vibrations of the tight space twinge his nose a little more, and his eyes flutter. He tries to steady his footing, lips parted as he sucks in another preparatory hitch. Dammit, hold it back.

“Cas!” The idiot can’t hear him over the music. Fantastic. The second yell was louder, the reverberation more intense, and Dean nearly bites his tongue to dam back the tide of the sneeze. It’s fully developed now, pleading for him to give, but Dean’s not having it. Not with all this beer in his arms and only ten inches of step to stand on.

“Castiel!” Using the angel’s proper name gets Dean nothing but more music and a bad taste in his mouth. The name reminds him too much of the dick Cas used to be before joining Team Free Will. It also gets him an echo punch to the face, and his nose tingles with barely contained fury. He can feel it getting runny, and he sniffles just a little to hold it back, trying to climb a few stairs while his eyes are still open. It’s spasming in there, filling his nose up from the top down, and he can’t stop his eyes from closing-…

“..iyhh..” He pants it, and then hurries in a soft, “-hhh-” afterward to compensate for the lost air. No, no, fuck, no. Can’t do this-… not on the stairs. C’mon, man. Keep it together-

“..idyhh…”

Don’t close eyes, don’t—

“..hh-!.. hyehh!-…Cas-uhh!”

Rock music—

“iih-.. IIH’TISHHUUHHH!!”

Castiel hears the clattering of a body and large packaging go careening down the stairs, and hurriedly lifts the needle on the record player, abandoning it in favor of what is now a pile of his charge.

“Dean, did you fall?”

Dean sniffles thickly, flat on his back at the bottom of the stairs with shards of glass and beer surrounding him. Irritably, he sniffles again, and then trains a glare on Castiel that unsettles the angel.

“Oh, gee,” he intones, and Cas recognizes it as sarcasm. “How’dja figure that one out, genius?”

/fin~

[SpookyScarySkeleton]

I love this ;o. Awh struggling Dean. Man I love rude prompts.

[Kali]

This is awesome I love your writing!

[SterlingSilver]

DNO and Kali! Thank you for your continued comments~! <33

They're so kind and encouraging x33

[SterlingSilver]

A/N: Oh, hello lonely, attractive prompt. What’s that? You would like to be written? OMGH YES PLZ HELLO BEAUTIFUL. Love at first sight with this prompt, ya’ll~.. Thank you tarotgallll~… I’ve never written any Destiel slashy stuff before, so please forgive me if they are hopelessly out of character Q____Q

Also, I had weird trouble with the tenses in this one. I kept mixing past and present LOL. Apologies for sloppiness~… and dang this is long LOL. I ran away with this.. *hasty bows of apology*

WARNINGS: Swearing (of course), some fluffy slash business/fluff, gratuitous mess, possible spoilers up to season 6 (like, between 5.21 and 5.22)… (really need to get to 9, dangit LOL).

PROMPT: Supernatural, Sam/Cas or Dean/Cas or Sam/Dean/Cas (i.e. slashy slashness)

Sam or Dean has a cold and Cas gets SUPER clingy 'cause he's worried. Like, can't keep his hands off the guy kind of clingy. Naturally, he doesn't understand how germs work and getting sneezed on a few dozen times results in...

~The Baby Angel~

Dean can’t remember how it started. He remembers when: after the issue with Pestilence. And he remembers where: in the Impala. It began with either a runny nose or swollen sinuses, something like that, but he knows for sure the moment the nagging tickle rises to a need that he’s fucked.

A near silent inhale, and then a spluttering, “Ha’gitsshhh!” Dean’s sneezes were always wet, rough, explosive, and sudden. Sometimes he didn’t even know they were coming, let alone someone next to him. But Sam knows his brother and that was a sick Dean sneeze.

“Great,” Sam sighs. Because not only does this mean Dean is getting sick during the Apocalypse, right on the brink of Lucifer’s big show in Detroit and the plan with the cage, but this means Dean is getting sick. His big brother’s a giant mess when he’s sick, alternating between whiny man-child and overly masculine displays of denial.

“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean says. Lovely – overly macho guy it is.

“God bless you, Dean.”

Aside from being woefully late for a blessing, it scares the shit out of the brothers. Both of them jump; both of them are sheepish afterward. They forgot Dean’s human-angel is sitting on the back-seat bench, he was so quiet. His gravelly, somber tone slicing the silence chills them for a moment.

“Dammit, Cas! Don’t do that,” Dean growls, trying to calm his throbbing chest. Sam takes a couple breaths and settles his hands on his knees. While they can’t see the angel, the following pause probably means he was pulling one of his hurt, pleading expressions.

“But… I’ve been here since we started driving.” He speaks haltingly, his rough baritone scraping. “And I was offering a polite response to your sneeze. Was it…did I say it incorrectly?”

Full-mojo Angel of the Lord Castiel is somewhat douchy, aloof, and apt to disappear and reappear without warning. Drained-batteries Cas is actually a little sensitive, clueless, somewhat pissy, and clingy as all hell. Dean catches him in the review mirror, frowning down at his lap with a concentrating expression. Sam can’t see it, but knows it’s there.

“No, you said it right,” Dean says, sounding defeated. “Sorry, ‘m just—Ha’gitshhh!”

“God bless you, Dean.”

“He hasn’t done that in a while.” He’s going for humor, but there’s a heaviness in the back of his nose and throat that is signaling something sinister. Sam’s already rolling his eyes over toward his brother, unimpressed. Dean glares forward at the road. Castiel’s eyebrows furrow further.

“Your voice sounds slightly congested,” he remarks. Sam responds before Dean can offer any rebuttal.

“He’s getting sick—”

“Like hell—”

“—which is just peachy—”

“—I am. I feel fine.”

“—since Detroit is pretty close.”

“Ha’gitsshh!”

Castiel watches the two of them like spectators watch a tennis match, and his eyes narrow when Dean ducks with another uncovered sneeze. The angel sits forward a little, posture erect, and Sam can see his protect-the-Righteous-Man programming ratcheting up to high alert. Sam slumps down in his seat a little, huffing with a smirky smile. This’ll be fun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Cas, will you ged oud of by ass please?”

“I am not in your ass. I am at your heels.”

Sam hunches over his computer, pretending to surf for an interesting website while he watches the awkward tango his brother and the angel are dancing. From the moment they got out of the car and into the motel, Cas trailed Dean like a lost duckling who imprinted on an unamused passerby.

Dean tried everything to shake him—he’d gone into the bathroom and slammed the door, but Castiel just waited right outside, staring puzzled at the wood, until it opened again; Dean had opted to go out for food, but Cas had followed him to the door and cautioned him to consider his health and energy levels; once, he even tried stopping very suddenly while walking, and had stiffened with the angel bumped into his back. The whole thing was mildly entertaining until two things happened: 1) Sam got hungry, and 2) Dean got worse. This is where they are currently.

“Cas, seriously buddy, I deed ad leasd a few damb inches – iyehh…” Dean flinches as he feels the slow, prickling rise of a sneeze in the back of his nostrils. Sam glances up from his screen. When his brother actually starts hitching before sneezes, it usually means whatever virus that swung by is in for the long haul. Briefly his eyes fall to Castiel, who is now in front of Dean and up on his tip toes to get on eye-level.

Dean’s eyes are clamped shut, nose twitching a little like a rabbit’s as the sneeze torments him. His soft, “hh – hh – hh!” barely make a sound, but Sam can see it coming a mile away. And the angel, the lovable bonehead, is directly in the line of fire.

“Castiel, you might want to – ”

“HEH’giitshhhhuhh!!”

Too late. Cas stands blinking in the aftermath of a fine, warm mist. Not much really disgusts the angel, save for blasphemy or needless suffering, so a little spray of Dean’s bodily fluids hardly phases him. Sam recalls the angel once clutching a human heart in his hands with no gloves in a morgue, wiping the excess blood afterward on the edge of a plastic container to merely shave off clots. Makes sense that getting sneezed on doesn’t even get a flinch out of him. Dean, on the contrary, is affronted. Mortified, more like.

“Cas, whad the hell?!” But before he can educate the angel on any sense of hygiene or apologize, he staggers forward into the smaller man with another powerful, “HEH’GIIshhhhh!” Had Dean been a little more lucid and less of a sneezy, groggy mess, he probably would be embarrassed. His face ended up practically in Castiel’s neck.

Castiel’s poker face doesn’t fail him. There is a trench of his brows and a comically awkward moment where he keeps his arms out to the sides because he doesn’t know what to do with them. But then, much to Sam’s tickled surprise, Cas brings his arms around Dean in a rigid embrace.

“Don’t worry, Dean,” he grumbles, voice very low and flat but still radiating a confused sort of comfort. “I cannot heal you expediently, but I will do my best with my current level of—”

“Ooookay, you know what? I’m going to get food,” Sam says. He’d give the two of them some alone time. His brother’s sick, yes, but it’s looking like nothing but a head cold that some rest and soup won’t fix. At least, Sam hopes. By now Dean is trying to distangle himself from his angel’s arms, pawing at his nose all the while. It’s running in that way noses run—where no amount of arm-swiping can stem the flood. Sam purses his lips as he gathers his wallet and keys. Dean rounds on him, breaking free of Cas’s embrace.

“Sabby,” he whispers low, looking like a ruffled, cornered baby animal that’s receiving too much affection from a loving child. Sam’s eyes flick to Castiel, who still has his arms extended like he hasn’t accepted Dean’s absence yet, and then they return to Dean.

“Man, just relax,” Sam says, giving an easy grin. “You’re in good hands.”

Dean just stares, green eyes wide, as he feels the heat of Castiel’s body just behind him. Suddenly, he discovers the angel does actually breathe occasionally when he feels the luke-warm breeze on his neck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s not that Dean doesn’t…like Castiel. He’s a great friend, practically one of his best. One of his only. He just isn’t sure what to do with this level of clinginess. It had only gotten worse after Sam left because Castiel realized there wasn’t a single line in Dean’s corner of defense. Instead of behind him, now blue eyes were constantly in front of him, gazing on him with a mixture of mystification, pity, and deep concern. It was more emotion Dean had seen on his face in…well, forever.

Sam had gone off to an actual super market for something not fast-food and left Castiel in charge, equipped with the flu-kit they kept in the trunk for sick days. While relieved to have some NyQuil and gratuitous tissues, Dean was not pleased with Sam’s decisions. He had declared the angel king and handed him an arsenal. No good could come from this.

Except…

They are watching the crappy motel television, side by side on a bed with Dean showered and cuddly under the covers, and Cas with an arm around the man’s shoulders, chest pillowing his charge’s head. This isn’t normal, not by a longshot… but Sammy’s out, Cas is surprisingly warm, Dean is cold and stuffy and sniffly and tired and his nose is sore from rubbing all day and he’s really enjoying downtime without anything apocalyptic and sue him if this is a problem.

“…ehh…” Dean’s squints, trying to make out the colorful, now blurry images on the T.V. Castiel’s gaze fall down to him. “Ha’gitsshhh!”

“G –”

“HAA’gitsshhh!!”

There is a beat of silence, then, “God bless you, Dean.”

They were uncovered sneezes, hazing against Castiel’s trench coat as they spluttered forth. The first few times he sneezed, Dean tried to remember to cover his mouth, but they always came on too quickly. And now, sleepy as he is, he keeps forgetting to issue common courtesy. Sam would be bitching at him by now to start smothering them in tissues or his arm because of the germs, but Cas never commented on the mess.

Dean sniffles, humming a sort of thanks in the back of his itchy throat while he reaches across his companion’s torso, fumbling blindly for the tissue box on the other side. Having seen the man blow his nose many times before this, Castiel picks up the box and nestles it between them instead. He watched Dean scrunch his face as he blows forcefully, and Cas rubs his thumb just a little at the edge of his arm.

“Is that painful?” he asks. His blue eyes are liquid, and Dean swears Sammy trained him in the art of The Eyes. Grinning, Dean gives a dry sniff, crumbles his tissue, and tosses it on the floor.

“No. Just annoying.” His congestion is lingering, but less pronounced after the blow. The tingling from the dry, swollen membranes causes him to gasp. “hhh…AA’gitshhuhhh!”

“And that? Does that hurt?”

“Sneezing?” Dean feels himself smirk wider, amused that the angel has yet to experience any of this. Being what he is, Cas probably had not and never would know the plague that was the common cold. Never know what it felt like to have an itch in your nose.

“Yes,” Castiel confirms. Dean starts a little, having drifted off in thought.

“Oh…Nah, it’s actually kind of relieving after you – … y…HA’GISHHHUHH!”

The volume and vigor surprise both men, the bed actually shaking with the power of it. Cas peers down at Dean, eyes burning with worry, filling with intense heavenly holy fire that was so hot it was ice.

“God bless you, Dean.” He squeezes the man’s shoulder as he said it, and takes only a moment to contemplate the damp spot on his coat and tie. Dean, bleary from the sneeze, swats at the spot with a noodly arm.

“Mmb, sorry, buddy.” He sniffles, thick. Castiel plucks a few tissues and holds them out to Dean, his grip on the man a little tighter because of his concern. Dean scoffs and takes the offering, tenting them around his nose. “I’b kinda tired.”

“It’s all right,” Castiel says. His deep, crackling-gravel tone carries assurance, and Dean sinks into it. As they both adjust a little, snuggling up to an angle more suited to sleep than television, he can feel Cas’s stubbly cheek press into his hair. Dean needs to show him how to shave since his body functions are booting up from the drained mojo. This close, he can smell Cas’s musky scent – something sharp like peppermint and rain. His nostrils flare.

“Ha’gitsshhuh!... ugh, sorry—”

Castiel hushs him by slipping a soft hand over his eyes, skin of his palm just a little cool. “I’m not bothered,” he said. “Just rest.”

And so Dean does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Sam bustles through the door with an armful of groceries, he isn’t expecting to find Dean snoring against Castiel’s neck, the angel himself blinking sleepily at what looks to be an infomercial for a food processor. Blue orbs, bright but getting fuzzy, train on Sam as he shuts the door with his foot. The younger Winchester notes Cas’s tense posture, the snotty state of his trench coat, and his thumb gently caressing Dean’s temple. Those two were there, unmoving, for a long time. While it pleases him to see his brother so comfortable and sound asleep, Sam isn’t sure how to address the situation.

However, like most things Castiel, there’s not really much to address but Sam’s own surprise. The angel is perfectly comfortable, seemingly content, perhaps a little glad to see his other Winchester back safe in the motel room with sustenance.

“Hello, Sam,” he says, his rumbling bass sounding especially like a purr. Sam feels himself grinning out of the corner of his mouth while he settles down groceries. He never thought he’d hear Cas sounding so smug and proud of himself over something as ridiculous as cuddling his sick brother in bed.

“Hey, Cas. You hungry?”

“Very.”

They keep their voices light as Sam doles out a decent lunch-dinner. Since Dean is sound asleep and looking to stay that way, they quietly eat as the TV continues to drone. Sam pecks at a Greek salad he made from scratch, while he has Castiel try his first PB&J with baked barbeque chips. Cas makes a point to inform Sam the meal is not as pleasant as hamburgers, but it is satisfactory.

It is strangely satisfying to have a conversation with Castiel. It’s Sam’s first opportunity to have one at length, and about such mundane concepts too. Nothing otherworldly or apocalypse-esque. Just discussions about perceptions of taste, the general purpose of food, and occasionally Dean.

Cas keeps absently stroking the skin and hair at Dean’s temple through the entire meal, as if doing so is the only thing keeping the man asleep. But after his last bite of food, the angel presses his hand firmly to Dean’s forehead, looking down at him and furrowing his brow. Then blue eyes find Sam, practically glowing with worry.

“Sam, I think he has a fever.”

Shit, Sam thinks. He was hoping they could scoot by without anything too serious. He thieves one of those cheap, one-use thermometers out of the bulk box he had purchased, fiddling with the wrapper as he approaches Dean’s bed. When he looks up, Cas struck him with such a heart-wrenching look that Sam has to fight not to pat him on the head. Instead, he motions for Cas to move his hand so he can feel Dean’s forehead for himself. Hmm, a little on the warm side, but definitely not hot enough to be scary.

Sam takes Dean by the shoulder and gently squeezes. Better his brother be awake before they try any invasive maneuvers. “It’s probably not anything to worry about,” he says.

They both observe, one patient and the other tense, as Dean comes softly out of slumber. It’s a welcome change from all the abrupt, Holy-shit-I’m-awake kind of reactions they seem to have. Sam credits it to Castiel’s insulating, protective arm around Dean’s body, anchoring and keeping him safe. Dean blinks, muzzy, always looking like a bleary child up from a nap no matter what he does. It’s only exacerbated by his sniffly nose and fevered eyes.

“Mm, whazzat?”

Sam watches Castiel smile with only half his mouth, fond. It makes Sam smile too. Dean, fuzzy and now suspicious, glares at the two of them. “Whad?” A beat of silence passes, where Sam softens his eyes and bats his eyelashes a few times, grin expanding. And that mockery alerts Dean to his very snuggly position against Castiel’s side. He flopps like a fish on a dock.

“Son of a bitch!”

Castiel reachs out to try and steady him, paranoid he might flail himself over the side of the bed, but is only met with resistance. The attentive angel gets a strong elbow to the jaw, head snapping back with a grunt, and Dean manages to roll himself out of the sheets and onto the floor. Sam sighs. Back to Mr. Macho again.

“Fucki’g creepy! Watchin’ be sleeb, I—…Ha’gitsshhhh!...HA’gitshh!” They spray over his lap, almost with a righteous fury. Afterward he saws the side of an arm and hand under his nostrils. Sam grimaces.

“God bless you, Dean,” Castiel says, a little more tentatively now that he had been cracked in the chin for trying to be courteous earlier. Sam glances at him, and the hurt in those blue eyes doesn’t look like it came from Dean’s elbow. Dean might have caught it too, judging by the way he swallows. Sam shoves the thermometer at him.

“Check it, man,” he says. “Don’t want you fainting on us from over-exertion.”

“I don’t faint,” Dean insists. But he did as he is told, so Sam doesn’t bother fighting him. In the silence, Sam busies himself with heating up Dean’s soup. It has little chunks of beef in it, so hopefully that’s manly enough for him. Castiel, who had been laying in the same position for quite a long time, eases off the bed and stretched. It was so human of him that both brothers stare longer than was necessary. That’s when Sam notices the tanned stains on the trench coat.

“Ugh, Dean!”

Dean blinks, quirking his brows as he sits there with the thermometer between his lips.

“Did you drool all over him or something?”

Dean looks affronted, ready to lash out, but he holds his tongue in order to get the temperature reading. He’d rather forfeit talking for two more seconds than start over.

Castiel, ever the little helper, blandly picks up the slack. “Yes, while he was asleep.” Awkwardly looking down at himself, he pulls a little at the fabric so he could see it better. “Though most of these are from his sneezes while awake.”

Sam nearly gags. The thermometer chirps, and Dean wrenches it out of his mouth.

“It’s not my fault he’s too stupid dodge!”

“It is your fault for being too rude to cover!”

“It’s really not a problem,” Castiel assures, tugging the lapels of his coat to secure it back to its original position. “It does not bother me.”

“Germs, Castiel,” Sam sighs. The angel, by bare centimeters, tips his head to the left. The familiar furrow of his brow wrinkles, eyes narrowing a fraction as he contemplated this. Dean’s temperature is hovering at about 100°F, which isn’t anything to fret over. As long as they keep it below 102 or so, Sam would be happy.

“Infection, Cas,” he clarifies, tossing Dean’s thermometer into the bin. “Catching it. Exposing yourself directly to Dean like that can get you sick.”

“But I am not susceptible to human illnesses,” Castiel promises. Sam might have bought it too, if the guy didn’t have a little lingering jelly at the corner of his mouth from the sandwich and smelled like he needed to shower.

“If you need to eat and sleep,” Sam says as he steps over a sulky Dean, “then odds are you can catch a cold.”

No one takes it seriously, though. Not until they’re back on the road.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took just two days for Dean to shake off the worst of it. Much to Cas’s apparent disappointment, there was no more cuddling on the bed during drowsy afternoons. No more soft moments. Sam tried to convince Castiel that this was only because Dean was embarrassed, but most of his promises fell flat and dead when Dean pointedly avoided so much as looking at the angel. They are only miles away from Bobby’s when Sam finally decides to bring it up.

“Dean.”

“No, Sammy. Nope.”

“Dean—”

“I said no, dude. We’re not doing this. Impala is a chick-flick free zone.”

“You can’t just write him off, Dean. It’s not fair.”

“Would you keep it down?!”

They are whisper-shouting on the front bench while Castiel snores softly in the back. He had fallen asleep some a hundred miles back, forehead resting against the window, and it’s a testament to Dean’s fondness that he hadn’t nailed Cas in the head with a quarter and told him to get his greasy skin off the glass.

“He’s asleep. He can’t hear us.”

“I know,” Dean says. He can tell because of the relaxed, deep way Cas is breathing. The faint, angelic snores alerting the Winchesters that this is a state he wasn’t faking. Though there’s a heavy edge to those inhales that rubs Dean the wrong way. Sam follows Dean’s eyes in the review, turning back to stare at the slumbering pile of trench coat in the back. They had finally managed to pry it from him for a wash at the Laundromat, so it’s stain free.

Sam shifts forward again, right arm resting on the edge of the Impala’s door. “Just…be honest with him. With yourself too.” Dean grips the wheel a little tighter. Sam glances over at him. “Okay?”

“Whatever,” Dean snipes. Just what the hell is Sam trying to do, anyway? Play matchmaker? So what if they had sort of lounged next to one another on the same bed and one of them had fallen asleep? He was fevered at the time; he couldn’t be held accountable for his actions. As if to remind him of the stupid reason he and Cas cuddled in the first place, Dean’s nose flares with the dregs of his cold’s tickling fingers.

“HAA’gitsschhhh’uh!!” He jerks forward, thunking his head on the steering wheel from the force of it. Sam snickers to himself, hiding his smile by looking out his window. “Sud of a bitch.”

“Mmm.” Castiel stirs in the back, his clothes rustling against the leather of the seat. “God… bless you, Dean.” It’s a sleepy, muttered casualty, his voice thick and raspy. Dean freezes, peeking over his shoulder for a moment as Cas licks and smacks his lips, stilling again afterward.

“Awww,” Sam croons. Dean has to resist bopping him in the nose. But even so he can’t fight the smile threatening on his own lips. His angel is too damn adorable, even if he wouldn’t say it aloud.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the ride to Bobby’s, all twenty minutes of it, was a companionable silence. When they finally pulled into the car lot, the brothers were ready for a decent bed and at least a day off the road. They had a big show to gear up for, after all.

“You go ahead and haul in,” Dean says over the creak of his door opening. “I’ll get the cargo.” And if Dean deliberately ignores the obnoxiously knowing look Sam shoots him, that’s his business. He sidles around to the side of the car, easing the door open in case Cas (still asleep) starts falling out. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

But Cas doesn’t budge. Just keeps on with his cute little snores, head lulled against the back of the seat. Dean wonders absently if his neck will have a crick in it when he wakes. Wanting to hurry it along (and also because he had yet to see Castiel’s groggy good morning face), Dean taps his shoulder a few times.

“Up and at ‘em, soldier.” When that doesn’t elicit a change either, Dean grabs Cas’s shoulder and gives it a firm shake. Once is all it takes, and the sleeping angel jostles into the waking world. His blue eyes are unfocused in a way Dean hasn’t seen them before, blinky and roving as he absorbs his surroundings.

His brown hair is all mussed from sleep, and damn it if it isn’t the sweetest, most charming thing in the world. On a whim, Dean reaches and tousled it, leaving his hand there even as Cas looks up. When no one says anything, Dean quirks his brows.

“Earth to angel, you with me?”

Castiel squints up at him but Dean’s smile falls away, stitch by stitch, as Cas’s expression starts to falter. He blinks a few times in a row, spastic; his nose twitches once to the side. Dean’s eyebrows rise high up his forehead as he observes – it was like Cas wasn’t even aware of what his facial muscles were doing.

His eyes are closed, lips parted, head tipping back just a little as he wrinkles his nose. The visage was hypnotic. Dean can just barely pick up a few little hitches in Castiel’s breathing, and then he clenches with a short, light cough. Wait, was he about to…?

Suddenly Castiel’s voice pitches high with a vulnerable, gasped inhale, and then he convulses with a fittish, “eht’chhoo!”

It’s voiceless, wispy, the “oo” at the end hardly more than a rush of air as his tone swoops a dive from high to low, and it startles both of them. Dean both sees and feels how it shakes Castiel’s entire body, since his hand is still in his hair. It tickles him that an Angel of the Lord would have himself taken over by a wimpy little sneeze like that.

“You sneeze like a kitten, dude,” Dean says with a chuckle. Such is his amusement that it doesn’t hit him until Castiel chokes out a second, and a third, each one jarring him and jiggling the car.

“Eht’chhoo!...heht-.. t’chhoo!” Castiel sniffles after and sinks back against the seat, eyes closing briefly as he swallows.

“Oh, shit.” After a pause, Dean’s hand migrates to press against Castiel’s forehead, first the back then the front. Cas turns a drained, blue stare Dean’s way. The hunter can feel the angel frowning beneath his palm. “That’s a fever, buddy.”

“It is not of import.” While Castiel isn’t clogged with congestion, the muted, rusty quality to the normally sonorous timbre is enough to indicate a sore throat and swollen sinuses. It sends a cold arrow straight into Dean’s gut, and the feeling spreads up and out.

“The hell it ain’t,” Dean says as he reaches in and lugs Cas up by fistfuls of his trench. The change in position has him stumbling, and Dean feels his cheeks get hot when their chests meet. Geez, that’s all it took for him to blush like a shy seventh grader? Classy, Dean. The blush only burns deeper, branding him, when Cas pierces him with those hazy blue eyes of his. The angel stares, contemplating, swaying just slightly, and after a beat of silence he sniffles. It kickstarts Dean.

“How long?”

“It.. What?” Cas frowns up at Dean, and the hunter (not for the first time) is struck with the suspicion they got assigned the baby angel. One of Dean’s rough hands cups the back of Cas’s neck. He doesn’t like how hot it feels.

“Sick. How long have you been feeling sick?”

Cas, now that he’s awake, can’t seem to keep his eyes open for very long. They fall closed while he’s thinking, and Dean can see a crystal-point of pain work into the angel’s right temple, judging by the way he twitches that eye and cheek. Headache.

“It is hard to remember,” Cas mumbles, sounding less and less like an angelic warrior and more like a sleepy child. It was twisting muscles of pity in Dean’s chest that he didn’t know were there. “Possibly two days?”

Guilt buoys up, a floating core of lead in Dean’s stomach. Echoes of Sammy’s bitching about covering his mouth when he sneezed or coughed rebound in his head, each time a little more prickly and painful than the last. He got his angel sick. Shit. The angel in question whimpers a soft, light noise—an unwilling cough at the back of his throat—and his face tenses gradually. Dean knows what’s coming before it hits him, and has just enough time to side-step.

“Ehht’choo!” And the dry, itchy coughs that follow don’t make Dean feel any better about the situation. If Cas had been feeling bad for two days, the hunter doesn’t want to know how long the guy’s been battling a sore throat, or sinus pressure. Now that he thought about it, Castiel’s normally somber and silent disposition had increased the last few days. Quieter, less involved in their discussions, a little pale, drowsy…and really clingy, which makes Dean feel like a giant dick for not noticing earlier.

He could recall one instance, just yesterday, when Castiel had approached Dean while they were stopped at a gas station filling up. Sam was in the mini-mart, stocking up on water and Doritos (“the big bag, Sammy. And look for decent pie!”), while Dean held the gas nozzle to the tank.

“Dean?”

And now Dean realizes that was odd, since Castiel never says his name with a question mark. But Dean of yesterday, still embarrassed from all the sick-day cuddling Sam wouldn’t let go, said, “What, Cas?”

The trench coat consumed him; Castiel suddenly seemed so small, his angelic presence no longer strong enough to fill all the intimidating space between his vessel’s slight body and the big, ill-fitting clothes. Dean had been so focused on the gas, so intent not to look into those baby blue beacons, he hadn’t seen the pallor on Cas’s cheeks. The lavender impressions just under his eyes. The painful way he winced when he swallowed.

“I… I am…”

What Dean had taken at the time for a nerdy-angel moment, Dean now could see was embarrassment. Castiel, strong, powerful, useful Angel of the Lord was not felled by a cold. And would of course never admit to such a thing happening. There, at the gas station, Cas was trying very hard to confess weakness to his friend.

The mini-mart’s doors “wee-waah”ed, and out came Sam. Dean shut down whatever chick-flicky conversation had been bound to follow by hanging up the nozzle and slapping the cap back on the tank. Shuffled by the angel and flinched away from the fingers that tried to grip his shirt as he slid past. Griped for Castiel to get his feathery ass back in the Impala so they could blow that popsicle stand. Didn’t care that Castiel didn’t understand that reference.

Today, no wonder Cas thinks his health wasn’t of import. Dean wants to punch himself.

“heht’choo!” Cas’s adorably heartbreaking kitty sneezes are doing that just fine, though. Each one is a swift kick to his gut, which is already turning slow somersaults of shame. This is the dude who lifted him out of Hell. Dean owes him more than he gives him.

“All right, sneezy,” Dean finds himself saying, snaking an arm around Castiel’s waist. “Let’s get you inside, huh?”

Castiel’s compliance scares Dean. Usually the angel puts up his dukes when he’s being coddled, preferring instead to deny frailness or ignore it completely. The fact that he’s putty in Dean’s hands, occasionally tipping too far to one side as they cross the fifteen steps from the car to the door, skims Dean’s heart on ice.

“Cas, you okay?” Because if Dean doesn’t know the honest answer, he might pass out.

“Yes, Dean.”

At least he’s coherent. Good sign, good sign. Still, Dean hates this. It’s so…it’s just not the Castiel he met in that barn so long ago. Unshakable, collected, distant, stately. The Cas he has against his hip now is endearing…easily confused…probably afraid. Nothing an angel is supposed to be. Maybe that’s why he’s on Team Free Will. It’s where all the misfits go.

Sam catches them at the door wiping his hands with a dishtowel, eyes widening and then creasing into those powerful, liquid orbs of concern. Castiel should feel honored that he gets a look bestowed by the Eyes. Like it’s really that much of a feat anyway. Stub your toe hard enough, squawk about it, and Sam’ll probably give you the Eyes.

“Everything…all right?” Sam can see that someone is supporting someone, and he’s uneasy to find out why. Dean takes a breath to tell him, and then it gets stuck in his throat. He huffs a sigh. This is going to be such an “I Told You So.” Sammy, eyes more potent by the minute, prompts them with his snappy raise of brows.

Cas decides to answer for them, giving one of those telling, breathy coughs. Dean, with reflexes he can thank hunting for later, seizes the towel from Sam’s hands and holds it over Cas’s face. The following volley of sneezes is muffled into a manageable, “chhff!..chff!!...chfff!!..et’chhff!” And then a chorus of tickly-sounding coughs to back it up. While it’s pretty damn uncomfortable and embarrassing, Dean would rather hold a towel over Cas’s nose than threaten his baby brother with the same illness he had been slogging through.

Afterward, Cas reaches up and forces Dean’s hand down to free his face, exasperated. Rather than deal with a pissy angel, Dean detaches his gaze from Cas and looks at his brother.

“Cas is sick.”

“I told you so.” Dean expected this.

“Yeah, yeah, bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Either annoyed by the brothers’ banter or in a hurry to make himself as scarce as possible, Castiel teeter-totters a few steps forward and nearly buckles. Sam’s strong, long arms catch him before he can pitch himself to the floor. Cas pinches his brow, trying to pry free.

“Sam, this is unnecessary,” he says, voice like sandpaper. Sam’s eyes dial up a few notches on the dewy scale. “But thank you.” It’s clear to Dean right away that Castiel is embarrassed, dodgy and stiff like he had been in the brothel. With an even heavier hit from the DUH hammer, Dean gathers that the angel feels comfortable displaying vulnerability, if he can’t help it, in front of only one person: his charge.

As the younger Winchester allows Cas to struggle out of his arms, he flashes Dean a bitchface.

Then they swivel to look at Cas, who’s standing there pitifully red-eyed and runny-nosed, the cuffs of his trench coat concealing everything up to his fingers. His hair is more windblown than the day Dean met him, which is a memory that burns sharp. Absently, Dean brings a hand up to his shoulder—the one with the scar.

Cas sucks back a cough and jerks with one of his awkward angel sneezes, staggering. That’s as good of an excuse as any. Ignoring Sam’s school-teacher gaze, just as judgmental as a detention warden, Dean swoops in to slip a hand under Cas’s right arm.

“How about you and I,” he says, directing his angel toward the bathroom, “get comfortable?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aside from the offer sounding way more sexual than Dean intended, the venture is an overall success. He wrestles Cas into the shower, leaves some of his own clean laundry on the toilet seat, and clears the hell out to wait for him to finish. Bobby, informed of the sick-angel situation by Sam, is more annoyed about the turn of events than anything. Before the old man even grits through a single cross word, Dean’s puffing up in defense.

“It’s not like he can help it,” he gruffs from his kicked-back position in the recliner. “So don’t anybody give him any shit about it.”

Sam snorts, and Dean goes from feeling only mildly self-conscious to really fucking self-conscious. It’s a good thing he has a cold beer resting on his thigh. Beers makes everything better. Bobby regards him coolly, eyes wide with disdain.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Dean’s jaw clenches. “I’m not gonna say anything to your angel about catchin’ the sniffles.”

As if on cue, the bathroom door opens and all three men hear a faint sniffle. And then another. It was a relief the angel knew how to hold back the tide of his mucus properly, but Dean sighs when that means Castiel probably doesn’t know how to blow his nose.

“Deand?”

Again with the gravelly, bleating question mark. It clamps on Dean’s heart every time, pulling it somewhere down into his ribcage. Chewing at his bottom lip for a moment, he calls out from his place in the chair.

“In here, Cas.”

Castiel drifts in from around the corner, appearing almost shy. And fucking hell, he’s rocking the flannel plaid pants and cotton t-shirt. He dried his hair haphazardly, so it’s just stuck up in all directions, and despite the steam of the shower Cas’s voice has sunk into the pits of stuffiness.

“Whad should I do with this?” He’s holding the bath towel out like an offering, and Dean sighs as he gets up, beer now placed aside, to receive it. Only when he’s close enough does he see that his angel is shuddering like a vibrating string. Warning bells explode into a chorus inside Dean’s head.

“Whoa, what’s with the Magic Fingers impression?” he says, trying to lighten his own sinking stomach as he plasters a hand on Castiel’s forehead. It’s all dry heat. Not good. He’s about to escort Castiel to the couch and disappear into the kitchen to privately freak the hell out, but Cas tenses with one of his reluctant, panting coughs, and Dean knows that that means. “Cover it—!”

Dutifully, like the soldier that he is, Castiel lurches into the towel he’s holding in a perfect execution of what Dean had him do earlier. The hunter remembers that for all their adorableness, angel sneezes are doozies, so he plants a firm hand on Cas’s shoulder.

There’s a total of eight, yes eight, tremors into the towel, and then the angel resurfaces with a distinct light-headedness. Though just as he rises, a ninth shoulders through Cas’s weary defenses, face collapsing into a helpless grimace, and he shudders with the strength of it.

“eht’gzzzchuuu!!” It’s ripped out of him, and knees get weak from the force of it. Dean’s hands rearrange so that he has one on his friend’s chest, and the other at his lower back. Only now, with Cas in his arms, does he recognize just how small he is. The coughing is instantaneous afterwards, and the hollow sounds of them thump against Dean’s hand and into his bones.

“Damn,” Dean says. Tries to laugh. Fails. “Bless you, buddy. Here… just – … let’s sit down before you throw out a wing or something.” He all but lobs the shivering pile of angel on the couch, which Sam hurriedly vacates, and looks around for a blanket of some sort. When he’s on the verge of a panic, his moose of a baby brother clomps into the room with a comforter he’s pulled off a guestroom bed, and drapes it over Castiel. All three men regard him, Bobby looking on from the doorway of the study.

Castiel peeks out from where’s he’s been dumped, blue eyes and raven hair the only part of him visible, save for one bare foot that sticks out from the bottom corner of the blanket’s reach. He’s sprawled all right, but seems too tense to be comfortable. And who wouldn’t be? No one’s in their element. The world starts turning again when Bobby goes into the other room and begins rustling at his desk, papers shuffling, and Sam quickly finds something interesting on the ceiling to look at.

Castiel, on display and very much aware of it, isn’t meeting anyone’s eyes either. Dean watches the way he shifts, twitching and restless, and knows Castiel only gets fidgety when he’s embarrassed or uncertain about something. Still quivering under the blanket with chills, though. A couple chesty coughs boot Dean into his sick-Sammy mode, and he suddenly doesn’t care that he had spooned the guy less than a week ago. Cas is ill, and it’s Dean’s turn.

“Sammy,” he barks. Sam zips up at attention, surprised. “Thermometer?”

His Great Dane of a brother lopes off into the wilderness of Bobby’s house while Dean kneels by the couch, settling a hand on Castiel’s chest and feeling the wheezy breaths. Nothing wet, but Cas had let this go a little farther than Dean had when he was sick. And Cas hadn’t let his charge out of his sight that entire time. Paid for it too.

“How you feeling, man?” he asks, and Cas fixes him with one of those electrifying blue stares from where he peeks out under the comforter. Right as he opens his mouth to respond, Dean interrupts. “For real. Level with me.”

The gives the angel pause, eyes drifting to the floor before he squirms against the couch cushions. Dean’s hand stays on his chest, a warm presence where Castiel feels cold. “Undwell. I feel undwell.”

“No shit,” Dean scoffs, and then scouts the living room for a box of tissues. By some miracle, there’s a half-empty box wedged behind a lamp. After plucking a few, he holds them up to Cas until the angel hesitantly takes them. “You sound like it too. Go on, blow.”

Heaving a titanic breath and brow trenching with the effort, Castiel does as he is told. The only sound in what felt like the whole house is the gravel-in-blender gurgle of a stuffed nose getting emptied. Dean smirks because Cas gives the same forceful attempt of a child. Face crumbling up for the blow and then getting all blinky and sniffly after. Fucking adorable.

“I swear, dude,” Dean says as he holds the waste bin up for the garbage. “You’ve got to be the baby angel.”

After a final sniff, Castiel fixes Dean with that familiar, befuddled stare. It’s doubly effective with the pink, chafed nose. “Baby angel?”

“Yeah, like…” Dean shrugs as he tries to find alternate wording, watching those baby blue eyes slowly turn smitey. “The youngest of the flock. The greenhorn. The inexperienced rookie.” Yeah, definitely getting smitey. Riling up Cas? Best pastime. “Baby angel.”

“Dean, I am Angel—”

“—of the Lord, sure. The littlest angel of the L—”

Cas thumps a fist onto the couch, and Dean bites his lip to keep from laughing right in his face. Give the guy a cold and call him a baby apparently equivocates to perfectly adequate reason for an angelic tantrum. Though even when sick and de-mojoed, those blue pearls still carry serious ass-kickery.

“I have soldiered through countless wars, witnessed the moment of human’s creation, and have raised you from perdition!” Castiel punctuates this with another little thud of his fist on the cushions, hissy and adamant that everyone understand. It’s at this point that Dean realizes he’s hit a nerve. “I am older than you will ever hope to be, Dean Winchester – !”

There’s a pause when Cas interrupts himself with one of his I’m-about-to-sneeze coughs. Dean can see the surging need of it start to erupt across Castiel’s face: his brows twitch and trench, nose flicking to one side just once before his mouth drops open to snatch a quick, high, “ehh!”

Dean leans to the side right as he flinches. “Tchhoo!... heh’tchoo!.. ehht-!... eh-…” Cas scuffles with his false start, eyes opening just slightly to search the empty air in front of him, looking for a trigger. Without meaning to, Dean finds himself push his fingers through Cas’s hair, and that seems to do it. “EH’TCHOO!”

It’s such a violent end, Castiel bends over himself and Dean’s hand it left in the air where Cas’s head used to be. Self-conscious, the hunter shoves his hand back down to his side just as Sam comes thundering around the corner.

“Bless you!” he says, evidently surprised that such a loud noise could from the normally somber character Castiel sports. He forks over the thermometer at Dean’s request, who jams it into Cas’s mouth without waiting for permission, and then sticks around to see the reading.

The awkward silence is chock full of a lot of throat clearing, which is superb and not at all uncomfortable. Sam will flash Dean puppy eyes every so often, though Dean has no idea what they’re for. Or is at least pretending not to. Because if it’s about feelings, he’s not doing it. Not with his brother in the room anyway. When the thermometer finally beeps, it’s a blessing.

“102.9…Awesome.”

“Is it?” Cas asks. Dean tosses the thermometer onto the sofa.

“No, not really.”

“Then why did you…?”

“Sarcasm, Cas,” Sam assures with only a little bit of fond exasperation. Still, even with Cas’s cluelessness lightening the mood, the numbers don’t comfort Dean. That’s a pretty high fever for a cold; he’s hoping it’s just from strain and not some kind of more serious illness. When Sam says something about cold medicine in the bathroom cabinet, Dean moves to stand up.

And he would have gone too, if a twitch of fingers hadn’t caught his eye. Right as he moved to stand, Castiel’s nearest hand jerked. Just a little bit. Other reminders of Cas’s recent clinginess flush through Dean’s inner eye, and he squats back down beside the couch. One of his hands comes up to rest on Castiel’s forehead again, green eyes locking with blue, and Sam slips out of the living room to get the medicine without being asked.

The pressure in the room dissolves almost instantly. Dean stands again, and smirks as those blue eyes follow him with an unblinking expectancy. Begging but not begging. Still kind of pissed off about the baby thing, but too needy to hang onto it. With his knee, he bumps Castiel’s arm.

“Scoot,” he says. Cas does, and pretty soon they find themselves tangled on the couch together—Dean sitting upright on the far end, and Cas reclined with his head resting against Dean’s thighs. The silence isn’t that awkward this time because Dean fills it with the soft, feathery noises of Castiel’s hair as he shifts his fingers through the unruly locks; Cas fills it with a sniffle every now and again.

“Sorry I got you sick,” Dean says softly. He hasn’t said it all this time, and with Cas’s fevered brow against his jeans, he feels the need to say it now. And mean it. There’s a soft, hitching cough, and Dean knows what that means. Castiel tries to talk through it anyway.

“It – …ehh’tchoo!...hih’tishhhoo!” Liquidy sniffle, and Dean doesn’t mind the damp spot on his leg. “The contamination was worth the – …hii’tshhhuuu!” Castiel’s getting better at realizing when they’re coming, and understand that they come in crowds. Finally, Dean notes with some kind of misplaced glee, it’s starting to annoy the angel. Anything that annoys the angel is okay in Dean’s book. And the sneezes are cute as all hell, in the figurative sense. Not the real sense. God no.

“Worth the personal time,” Castiel finishes, sighing as he does so. Dean ruffles his hair, chuckling.

“So you’re a cuddler?” Figures Cas would be snuggly. The guy’s not a professional with body language, but Dean’s convinced that his standoffishness is caused more by his lack of proper social graces rather than actual aversion to physical contact. The evidence continues to pile up as Cas nuzzles his nose, absently and sleepily, against Dean’s lap.

“Clarify your term and I’ll answer,” he says.

“Nevermind.”

Dean can feel himself smiling, but can’t make it stop. Yeah, it was the apocalypse, his brother was probably going to become the devil and then throw himself into an eternal pit for the rest of eternity, and that was the best case scenario… but Sammy’s in another room, Dean is surprisingly soft, Cas is cold and stuffy and sniffly and tired and his nose is probably sore from rubbing all day and their really enjoying downtime and sue him if this is a problem

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s while Castiel’s dozing that Dean stumbles across a useless but priceless little gold-nugget of a document no doubt accidently left here during some heavenly exchange of information. Literally, an angel family tree. Or at least a list of approximate birth-order. Oldest at the top, youngest at the bottom.

Most of it’s in Enochian, but Dean’s seen enough of it to at least know a few symbols. There’s a combination of them at the very end of the page, the last name on the list, that causes him to grin outright. Oh, sweet mama, what a glorious piece of blackmail he has.

Dean steals a glance down at Castiel, eyes appraising: breathing through his mouth, cute snores now a little deeper, louder, the red, chapped nose, the completely out of control hair. He looks back to Sam, raising the paper up to show it off. “Well, whaddya know?”

Sam raises his eyebrows, questioning.

Dean smirks, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the sickly, sleeping mound of covers across his lap. “They really did stick us with the baby angel.”

fin~

A/N: I adore the headcannon of Castiel being the youngest angel <33. JUST. TOO. PRECIOUS. Thanks for reading, and I hope it wasn’t too long~!

[AngelEyes]

Poor sweet baby! I love it!

[NorthernLady]

Still stuck in the bus but I had to say how much I adored this fic. More gushing later!

[Sawyer]

Can't believe this has been up for days and I haven't seen it. I want to leave you a long long list like I do and I totally would if I didn't have to leave right after hitting the "post" button in a minute, but... I'll just say right now that I'm so SO jealous of how well you write these boys (especially Cas! seems so difficult to me but you're, like, a Master) and their dynamic and dialogue and the different types of sneezes and inner monologues and and and... god I wish I could say more right now BUT for my last word I'll let you know that I thought this entire thing was Actually Perfect.

[Lace Butterfly]

Now THIS is a Supernatural fanfiction! You really stuck to the Supernatural way and kept all the boys in character really well. Out of all the Supernatural fics I have read I have to say that this one is the best Castiel, Dean centred fics that I have ever read. Thank you for writing this because it is amazing and you're amazing.

[SterlingSilver]

Just wanted to give a quick "Thank you" to those who gave me such sweet compliments! QwQ

Poor sweet baby! I love it!

Aw, I'm glad~! Thank you!

I adored this fic

Northhhh~~! You're my number one Castiel fangirl buddy, so I'm so glad you liked it~! <33 Thanks for beta testing some of it for me! :DD

I'm so SO jealous of how well you write these boys (especially Cas! seems so difficult to me but you're, like, a Master) and their dynamic and dialogue and the different types of sneezes and inner monologues and and and... god I wish I could say more right now BUT for my last word I'll let you know that I thought this entire thing was Actually Perfect.

QWQ!! SEN BERET!! Ahhhh!! You write such great stories, so it's really a super compliment to hear you say all this >w<~ I'm so glad you thought Castiel was believable! He's kind of tricky to write, so it's a huge relief you thought he was well portrayed x33 Thank you so much for your kind words, and I can't wait to read some more of your stuff in the future x3

Out of all the Supernatural fics I have read I have to say that this one is the best Castiel, Dean centred fics that I have ever read. Thank you for writing this because it is amazing and you're amazing.

OMGH KAIDA~~ <33 THAT'S SO SWEET QWQ!! x333 I feel honored >////<~!! Thank you so muuuuuch~! <33 You're just as amazing~~ You've written some wonderful Supernatural stuff too <33

[NorthernLady]

Northhhh~~! You're my number one Castiel fangirl buddy, so I'm so glad you liked it~! <33 Thanks for beta testing some of it for me! :DD

Awwww thanks m'still gushing thou. and reading the fic every day. Still hard to handle all those feels I get everytimes Can't get over the Dean's carelessness and reaction when he realize he got Cas sick - plus his anticipation of Sam's reaction. Priceless. And Castiel's little coughs before sneezing Like he really doesn't know how to handle the irritation and itchy feeling in his nose before the inevitable. So... so.... argh..... no words. Gushing all over again. And this little flashback....

Dean had been so focused on the gas, so intent not to look into those baby blue beacons, he hadn’t seen the pallor on Cas’s cheeks. The lavender impressions just under his eyes. The painful way he winced when he swallowed.

“I… I am…”

Cas trying to reach to him but Dean's still a little embarrassed by his sick-day cuddle and not looking at the angel.

Too much to handle... This fic was perfect! Thank you for writing it

[PortlandLove]

...is there more? please tell me you have more stashed away somewhere!

[Sawyer]

QWQ!! SEN BERET!! Ahhhh!! You write such great stories, so it's really a super compliment to hear you say all this >w<~ I'm so glad you thought Castiel was believable! He's kind of tricky to write, so it's a huge relief you thought he was well portrayed x33 Thank you so much for your kind words, and I can't wait to read some more of your stuff in the future x3

Aw you are way too sweet to me!! Castiel is really tough because I guess over text he's portrayed a certain way and he's seen as more, I guess, cute and harmless and alien in fanon when in canon he's actually mega tough and important and so so powerful. He knows what he's doing! And you capture that so well and you have such a way with writing his dialogue without losing all of the humor and charm... idk I just have mad mad respect for your writing. You've got the balance down.

[Kali]

I AM ADDICTED TO THIS!! You are one of my favorite Supernatural fic writers. Ever. The Baby Angel was just so cute! I love how Cas was so confused and innocent

[Anilkex]

What a perfectly beautiful story! The dynamic was wonderful, the expressions real, and the whole damn thing was just amazing! I think of your Compromise story, and how heartbreaking it was to see Cas soooo sad and tired and scared, and I read this Cas and he's soooo adorable and needy and unsure. Dean was spot on in being douchey then regretful and needing to make it right.

I love your writing, and the subtle genuine way your stories flow.

[SterlingSilver]

Too much to handle... This fic was perfect! Thank you for writing it

I'm like, all happy you liked the cough-before-sneezing thing >w<~! I did it once, and was like, HM, HE SHOULD DO IT EVERY TIME~~ hahaha~

And eeeeee~!! I'm so glad it gives you feelz~! It's a proud day when a writer can properly evoke feelz~

Thank you for reading it! <3

...is there more? please tell me you have more stashed away somewhere!

Haha! I'm glad you liked~! I'll definitely be adding to this thread with other stories >w<

You've got the balance down.

*weeps happily* Bahhh! That's an amazing compliment! Thank you! It really is hard to capture him, but practice makes perfect~

I bet you would write a great Cas <33. You already write the boys like a professional! ^__^

You are one of my favorite Supernatural fic writers. Ever.

OH MY GOSH THANK YOU~! <3 THAT IS SERIOUSLY SO SWEET~! Ahhhh, that made my night >w<~~ So glad you like what I write~!

I love your writing, and the subtle genuine way your stories flow.

Anilkexxxxxx~~! You've commented on a few of my stories, and you always have such sweet, eloquent things to say >w<~ This is such a nice compliment, thank you! I can't wait to read some more of your stuff too~! <3

[SterlingSilver]

A/N: Yep. This is me responding to my own prompt. Because I am shameless. There’s sneezing at the very end, but it’s a whole lot of “I need to sneeze!” foreplay and sneezy talk until then. Sorry for the wait ;D

Also, huge props to Northern Lady, who’s already filled this prompt with an amazing story of her own! Check it out here: http://www.sneezefetishforum.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=56137

WARNINGS: a bit of mess, swearing, possible spoilers up to Season 6.

PROMPT: Castiel's had an itching in his sinuses for what seems like days, but being an angel he doesn't understand what it is. Several times he's come to the verge of something-... then, nothing. Tired of being plagued with the tickle in his nose, Cas visits Dean and Sam to get some answers. The boys manage to get him to start sneezing, but after that, they have a hard time getting the angel to stop.

Bonus: One of the boys induces Castiel directly~

Double Bonus: Castiel's sneezes break things. LOL.

~Getting There~

He didn’t know what it was, and it was irritating. Not just annoying in that it was mysterious, but that it was also truly a physical bother to his body. Castiel was struggling with much of that lately—his body being unruly. Or rather, the meat suit he was borrowing that was slowly becoming his own each and every time he died or was gravely injured. The recoveries got slower, his grace got thinner, and the body around him tighter. Suffocating. Corporeal.

It frightened him, and this was yet another irritation to the angel because that meant the feelings were touching him too. Clawing at his mind, scratching to get in and make him experience things creatures like him were never, ever supposed to. When Castiel thought about it in these terms (humanity’s words), he feared that he searched for his Father not only for aid on Earth, but aid for himself. To restore his power, to protect him from his siblings and bind him once again to his home. Properly. The sunsets Castiel would watch from the shore of a white, lonely beach somewhere in the midst of clear blue waters, or the evenings he would watch the billions of stars in the sky for some sign—… All it once, in these moments, he felt a surreal sensation of being completely alone.

However. His Father did create something called optimism, and while it is a human weapon, Castiel finds he wields it without much difficulty. There was a reason he aligned himself with the Winchesters, and that is because God’s chosen, special creations are strong. Willful. Perseverant, despite the odds against them. Many angels saw these characteristics of pests, of infections, but Castiel saw them differently. They were precious, and at times impressive. And discovering their customs in their beaten, broken world was not entirely useless. At times, the angel would call it illuminating. Still fewer times, fascinating. Very rarely, pleasurable. But all of it was of merit.

Castiel might have lost himself to the contemplation of human worth if that infuriating tingling hadn’t risen yet again to the forefront of his attention. It was a curious, constant prickling that would travel intermittently along the length of his vessel’s nose, deep inside. The angel had never felt the sensation of an “itch” before, but had witnessed the Winchester brothers scratch an arm, leg, or head on many occasions. An itch was a very, very mild pain that was usually relieved with physical stimulation, but he had never heard of a tickling on the inside.

Worse yet was the occasional pull of his breath and squinted watering of his eyes. The itch would swell to consume what felt like his sinuses and perhaps his brain, cause Castiel’s lungs to draw sharp breaths and his eyes to slowly close—…and just as he was on the precipice of what Castiel assumed would be scratching an internal itch, the feeling would recede back into a low tide of dull, buzzy tickling. A few blinks would clear the moisture and an exhale would empty the lungs. Minutes or hours would pass before it would happen again.

Three days. Three days of this nonsense. Castiel had not paid much attention when it first started; there was no pain, no true lengthy distraction, so it seemed a waste of his time to investigate. Now, though, his eternal patience was running thin and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stomach this torture. It pained him to request aid from his boys during such a tumultuous time, but there had been little evidence as to God’s whereabouts (regretfully) and a lull in cases or research. Swallowing his pride (which he recognized was an angelic fury and not a human pettiness, with a sense of relief), Castiel slipped out his cellphone and dialed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Sorry, could you explain it again?” Sam’s brows tented in a worried, puppyish expression, and Dean tried not to roll his eyes. Yes, it was a little weird their half-angel was complaining of a strange malady, but it didn’t warrant that face.

The Winchesters were at Bobby’s relaxing for once while the man was out on a milk run. The guy hadn’t trusted Dean with grocery duty, and that was probably wise. It would be beer, donuts, and burgers for the week. They were slumped on sofas and chairs while Castiel stood in the midst of the organized mess of the living room, eyes toward the sky with a long-suffering expression.

“I have told you as clearly as is possible,” Castiel assured them, eyes sharp and intent. Sam’s puppy-dog melted into a decidedly fearful expression as the celestial being irritably ran a hand through his hair in a human expression of agitation. The boys met eyes for a moment.

“There is a distressing, exasperating sensation somewhere in my head,” he said again. It wasn’t any clearer the second time, and Dean frowned. Castiel looked at them both with wide blue eyes. “I have reason to believe it is respiratory, and at times it worsens to an all-consuming, expanding pressure.”

Castiel gestured to his face haltingly, as if he wasn’t sure how to indicate it. Dean was pretty certain that was because Castiel honestly wasn’t sure. It was endearing and somewhat pitiful all in the same moment. Sam shifted in his seat, tightening his lips in an uncomfortable gesture. After a beat of silence, the young Winchester tried again.

“And it’s been going on for—”

“Three days,” Castiel confirmed, mowing over the rest of the question. His interruption surprised Dean, since their angel normally had enough patience to let them finish a sentence. If anything, they always interrupted him. Which maybe wasn’t so wise, in retrospect. Castiel’s frustration with the situation – Dean and Sam could both feel it crackling just under the surface of the room’s air – reminded them that he was not human, no matter how fast he was losing his almighty powers.

“Does it hurt?” Dean asked bluntly. Castiel turned his eyes on him, and they were as intense as watch-tower spotlights. A zing of energy went down Dean’s spine, the little hairs on his neck prickling up. He hoped they could fix this soon, because an on-the-edge Castiel was not a Castiel Dean enjoyed hanging with.

“No,” Castiel said, looking through Dean and into some realm beyond, concentrating. A second or two passed, and Dean realized the angel was analyzing the confounding state of his vessel. “Merely distracting…and generally uncomfortable.”

It was a puzzling situation, and perhaps if Cas wasn’t an angel first and foremost the problem would have been more obvious. To Dean thus far, it sounded like a headache aside from the respiratory speculation. And if not painful, then what? They were in the middle of mulling it over when Castiel’s gaze (which was penetrating Dean currently) got a little foggy. It wasn’t the I am looking into the soul of the universe look either. It was an honest to goodness spacing out.

Sam raised a brow, noticing the change. “Uh, Cas?”

Dean blinked at the angel, whose hands spasmed once before clenching into fists. Those plump, chapped lips parted just slightly, baby blue eyes narrowing to slits. Both Winchesters watched as Castiel’s chest expanded with a slow, hollow sound. Then a faster, sharper, voiceless gasp. Dean smirked without meaning to as he watched Castiel’s nose twitch as the angel pressed his lips closed again.

Then suddenly, with a gusty, growling sigh, Cas brought his hands up to his face and rubbed at his nose with an unabashed, clumsy vigor that had Sam grinning like he was watching a kitten clean it’s muzzle. Dean tried not to laugh.

“Is that what this is?” he asked. Castiel’s eyes fell on him, the sleeve of his trench-coat wedged against his nostrils. Dean continued in his grisly base, amused and also annoyed that the problem was so anticlimactic. “You have to sneeze?”

Now it was Castiel’s turn to blink, and he slid his gaze from one brother to the other. He suspected, unexpectedly, that he was now a source of entertainment. They felt the room get a little crowded when the angel flared his holy aura, defensive.

“I am unsure,” he conceded, lowering his arms even as he sniffed to get his nose to stop buzzing. “Do I?”

“Sure looks like it,” Dean said, crossing his arms as he leaned against the back of his chair. The brothers regarded their angel, appraising him, and the scrutiny actually made Castiel begin to fidget. Dean grinned. It was hard not to have some fun at the humanizing angels’ expense; if they didn’t laugh, it was just too sad.

“Feels like something’s tickling, right?” Sam asked. Castiel focused on him, training his gaze, assessing, and then nodding his agreement. The larger man reached up and gestured to the areas beneath his eyes and along the bridge of his nose. “The pressure is here?”

“Yes,” Castiel said simply, wary. He knew what a sneeze was. He wasn’t too keen on performing it. Too human for him to do. Though just as the thought crossed his mind, there was a flutter of sensation in his sinuses and he gritted his teeth. Perhaps-… it would be worth it.

“That means you need to sneeze, yeah.”

“Question is, why haven’t you?” Dean slapped his hands on his knees and stood up, finding the opportunity at hand much, much too enjoyable not to exploit. “Sounds like a job for the Winchesters!”

Sam perked up to the mischief like a deer scenting the wind, and narrowed his eyes at his brother. Dean tried to look innocent.

“Dean…”

“We can’t put the poor bastard out of his misery?” Dean demanded, waving over to Castiel who was regarding him as placidly as he always did, though with a little more interest than usual. The glacial stare of heaven’s warrior remained locked onto Dean as he emphatically said, “Stuck sneeze for three days, Sammy? No wonder he’s about to smite the entire house!”

“I no longer have those capabilities—”

“Exaggeration, Cas.”

“Ah.”

Sam held his hands palm out, trying to put a stop to this before it got out of control. “All I’m saying is this…” His eyes drifted to Castiel, who like a hawk attuned to the movements of even the slightest consequence, leveled a heavy gaze on Sam. No matter how human the angel got, that stare was soul-shaking. And something about it said, If I am not granted release from this stuck-sneeze hell, I will end you. Sam swallowed.

“Nevermind.”

Dean clapped once. “Good deal.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After realizing that Cas had to sneeze, it wasn’t so hard for the brothers to notice the relentless desire of his body to do so. The angel would catch his breath at random intervals; his expression would crinkle around the eyes and show discomfort, not pain or thoughtfulness; now that it had occurred to him that the motion was helpful, Castiel would rub at his nose often. It was kind of cute, but Dean would set himself on fire before telling anyone that.

“Castiel, look here,” Sam requested. Castiel did so, and found his eyes assaulted by a bright penlight. Aside from his pupils dilating faster than water spreads on fabric, and a few confused blinks, Castiel sat silently. Not even a hitch in his breath. Sam sighed.

“Guess it would be farfetched for you to be photic,” he remarked, switching the light off and stowing it back in a desk drawer. Neither Cas nor Dean seemed to know what he was talking about, though Castiel’s slight head-tilt was more adorable than Dean’s You’re a nerd glare.

“It means you sneeze when you see bright light,” Sam explained. Castiel still frowned, but understanding spread through his face. It only seemed the angel could not fathom that such a reflex would exist in the first place.

“Ah, yeah,” Dean said suddenly. Castiel’s swung his head around to look at Dean, posture erect and stone still. “Since you’re a shiny little choir boy, unlikely you’d be allergic to Heaven. Which is probably just a ball of light or something.”

“It is more than that, Dean,” Castiel defended, frown deepening. Then his expression grew flinchy and vulnerable. Castiel was sitting in a chair across from Sam, fighting to keep his eyes open as they started to close, and when his rumbling timbre cracked with a squeaky, “ihh,” Sam held up an arm to buffer himself.

“Cas, whoa – !”

There was a tense moment as Castiel felt the rise of sensation, closer than it had ever been before, and gasped a sudden, “EH-!” in what felt like an imminent release. But predictably the feeling withdrew deep into his sinuses again and Castiel pounded a fist on the arm of his chair. The floor, almost imperceptibly, shook.

“This is becoming vexatious,” he growled, turning burning eyes to Dean as if he were the source of this misery. As much as the Winchester didn’t want to admit it, his stomach dropped a little. His hands flashed up in an effort to placate, but before he could speak, Castiel beat him to it.

“What comes next?”

Dean balked. “Uh…what?”

Castiel rolled his eyes so hard, it looked painful, and the utter impatience of the angel both amused and irked Dean. “You obviously have other means of coaxing this finicky reflex. Produce results.”

The snappy tone was enough to rile Dean out of fear and into some obstinacy; this was a favor they were doing. The dick could at least show a little gratitude. Sam sighed, trying to be hushed about his own shortening fuse. Dean had always had more tolerance for the angel anyway. The brothers briefly locked eyes as Castiel fitfully pinch-wiped his nose. The skin was beginning to get a little pink at the edges from all the abuse, and it was curious to Dean that Castiel wasn’t healing the irritated surface. Perhaps he couldn’t. The thought seared him, but he shouldered through it.

“I got just the thing for that nose of yours, Cas,” Dean said. Castiel’s sigh was a cross between petulance and relief, but Sam didn’t like that glint in his brother’s eyes. Whatever mess he was about to make probably meant the younger brother would be cleaning it up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Dean, I…” For the first time, Castiel was beginning to doubt if he wanted to sneeze as badly as he wanted to sneeze. He was staring at a simple line of cayenne pepper sprinkled along Bobby’s crusty kitchen table, and his charge was handing him a straw.

“Just sniff it,” Dean urged. “They do it on the cartoons all the time.”

The fact that animated caricatures had wild success with this method did not assure Castiel in the least. He could already smell the heavy, burning scent of the pepper from where he stood looking down at it, but he had to admit it made his nose twitch and breath catch. Dean bumped his shoulder.

“See? Gettin’ sneezy just thinking about it.”

Sam was leaning against the doorjamb, too curious not to watch but too smart to get directly involved. Even when Castiel looked over with wide blue eyes, the man would do nothing but shrug. Looking back at the table, the angel swallowed once and then bent down. He was a servant of the Lord, of his all-powerful Father in Heaven. Snorting cayenne pepper certainly wasn’t a trial he couldn’t mount.

The corners of Dean’s mouth turned down as he nodded a few times, impressed as Cas took the entire line with one long inhale. And it would have been funny if some dark corner of his mind hadn’t whispered, like a natural. Like a professional. Right after, though, it all went spectacularly to shit.

Castiel staggered back, crying out as he cupped both hands over his nose and mouth and began to cough. He could feel each and every particle of pepper igniting tiny fires in the delicate, sensitized tissues of his nasal cavity, traveling down into his dry throat and into his lungs; it was hard to say which part of his vessel was the unhappiest. Each atom of the flesh he wore fought for his attention, burning, and vaguely he could feel moisture trickling lazily down the sides of his face. Distantly, through a haze of spicy discomfort, he heard his charges.

“Dean!”

“Shit, Sammy, how was I supposed to know it wouldn’t work?”

“Because it doesn’t in real life, you dumbass!”

The argument would have been interesting to observe, but as it stood the pain wasn’t stopping. And every attempt to sniffle the persistent leak of wetness from his nose back into his nostrils brought sizzling agony. Someone was trying to straighten up, and Castiel wrestled with feelings of vulnerability, fury, fear, and appreciation. They were Sam’s hands, strong and large on his shoulders.

“Castiel,” Sam’s voice implored. Where was Dean? “Open your eyes, man.”

“Burns,” the angel gritted out, certain the cayenne had been spiked with holy fire or something. The sensation of it was so potent, and his entire face was pouring liquid in an attempt to stifle the flames inside. Again, he coughed. Something soft was pinned against his face.

“Okay, blow out of your nose—”

The immediate order was taken without thought, and Castiel didn’t wait for the rest. Heaving a titanic breath, he blew as hard as he could into the cloud-like cotton against his face, brow trenching with the effort. The only sound in what felt like the whole house was the deep gurgle of a runny nose emptying.

When that lessoned the pain, Castiel didn’t give it a second thought. He gasped hard and then did it again with the forceful attempt of a toddler. After the second time, his head felt cool enough to open his eyes, blinking from the stickiness of tears in his eyelashes. The visage of Dean, nearly urinating himself with laugher, came into view. Castiel’s head tipped back to look up, his hair brushing against the chest of Sam Winchester.

Sam had gotten behind Cas in an endeavor to straighten him up during his pepper fit, and when the angel proved too strong to move physically, the Dean had snatched tissues and tried to bring him some kind of immediate relief. Sam had thoughtlessly pinned the Kleenex to Castiel’s nose, believing that the angel would take them himself before blowing. No dice.

Sam Winchester did not look pleased to Castiel, what with his face drawn into a mask of disgust and his hand still grimly clamping the tissues over the angel’s nose. With an icy voice, Sam instructed him. “Take it.”

Castiel did. Keeping his tainted, angelic-snotty hand away from the rest of his body, Sam skulked toward the bathroom and butted Dean with his shoulder hard enough to send the man (who was still laughing) staggering a few steps. Castiel squared his gaze on Dean. Socially he had no idea what had transpired, but had a poking feeling that Dean was mocking him.

“I pulled you oud of hell, Deand Windchesder,” Castiel informed him gravely. “A’d I cand throw you back ind.” The muddling of his speech was probably from the swelling of his sinuses – a malady Castiel had never experienced but had seen and heard from the boys when they caught a yearly cold. Dean sobered up a little, though wore a crawling smile that only grew larger the more he fought it.

“All right, all right, cut the tough guy act,” he said. When he stepped toward Castiel, the angel stepped back. Both frowning, the men both moved simultaneously a second time. Then a third. Dean fixed his angel with an almost incredulous look.

“Are you running from me?”

“I recand by origindal request,” Castiel said awkwardly, deathly serious. “Methods of producing a sndeeze are undpleasand.” There was a lingering simmer from the pepper at the back of his nose, inflamed nasal passages now in utter distress and revolt. He swallowed reflexively and absently—almost without thinking, a developed human response now—raised a hand to his nose. The feeling was coming again, cresting, but it still wasn’t enough.

The Winchester watched Castiel pant for a moment, before he suddenly stepped forward and took him by the chin. Dean felt the stubble, and Cas felt the warmth of his hand. Blue eyes got wide as the impending sneeze shrunk back from Dean’s sudden touch. There was a tense silence, no movement, before the human in the equation got a little fidgety under Castiel’s unblinking, intense gaze. The angel was still blinky from the fluttering at the back of his nose, but was otherwise alert.

“Deand-…”

“Sorry I flambéed your sinuses, Cassandra.” Dean watched Cas blink, then tilt his head just slightly. That’s when they both realized he was still holding Castiel’s chin, and Dean’s hand fell. Castiel contemplated the cool air the hand left behind. It was another set of seconds before Dean sighed, frowning. “Why the hell’s it so stubborn?”

Castiel had wondered the same thing for a while already, and rubbed at the tip of his nose irritably as he thought about it again. “Perhaps because I have dever sndeezed before.” Castiel sniffled deeply, trying to collect his congestion.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dean muttered. He glanced over his shoulder to the sound of running water—Sammy washing off his hands—and then snatched a tissue out of the box with a flick of his wrist. After twisting one corner into a probing tip, he approached Castiel again. At once he recognized the electric rise of a defensive, holy aura, and Dean felt goose bumps break over his back.

“Relax, man,” he said. “I swear this will help.”

“Your help thus far, Dean, has been unsuccessful.”

Dean could hear the unspoken, and painful, underneath the gruff growl of those words. Still, he couldn’t ignore the way Castiel’s eyes hazed, the delicate lines pinching as his brow furrowed into an expression of pure irritation – the unmistakable mask of a man about to sneeze. As expected, the angel rose the pinnacle of need and then fell down again, like a swing that won’t quite complete a revolution. The frantic, angry nose-wiping with the cuff of a trench-coat sleeve made Dean fight not to smirk outright.

“Look, I swear this won’t hurt,” he assured. Cas was dubious, glaring over the edge of his arm. Dean sighed. “Do you trust me?”

The question, after hanging in the air for a moment, acted like a wet blanket. The tension around the angel diffused and left a smoky after-taste. Pinning Dean with one of those soul-clenching stares, the like of which the hunter would never get used to, Castiel nodded in the affirmative.

“Yes, Dean.”

“Good.” He had to make his voice kind of gruff so he didn’t sound moved by it or anything. “Then hold still.”

Cas did as he was told, hands clasped behind his back and feet apart to brace for whatever Dean had in mind with the makeshift tool he had in his right hand. It was a tissue, but narrowed into a tip at one end that Dean was now extending toward Castiel’s face. The angel was careful not to jerk back when Dean’s rough, warm hand cupped his jaw again. Touch, even after all this time, was still a strange sensation to him. Millennia as particles of light makes years on earth seem like passing moments. Just as Cas felt the point of the tissue paper graze the lip of his nostril, Dean paused.

“Don’t sneeze on me, dude,” he warned. Those green eyes are certainly emphatic about it. “I mean it.”

“How will I know when it…activates?” Castiel was unsure of what verb to use for the reflex of a sneeze.

“You’ll know.”

With that out of the way, Dean gently guided the point of the tissue into the cavern of one nostril. At once, Cas felt the familiar catching sensation in his lungs as the itchy, tickling feeling ballooned in his sinuses. It stemmed naturally from the stimulus, but concentrated around the penetrating annoyance of the tissue spear. When the air prickled alive again with electrifying energy, brought on by Castiel’s irritation and gradual loss of control, Dean flinched a little and jostled the tissue. The sensitivity, like the feathers a bird brushing the petal of a flower Castiel thought, had him vocalizing a sudden, “UHH-!” deep in his throat on a fretting exhale. The gasp came too quickly, all encompassing.

“UHH’TISHHHUHHH!!” It was like thunder, or a torrent of rushing water. Something powerful, primal, and destructive. The incredible gale that ripped through the kitchen had anything on a shelf spilling off onto the floor. Amidst the roaring crashes of breakable cutlery, Dean had just enough time to process that 1) Cas has sneezed the mother of all sneezes directly in his face, and 2) He was about to do it again.

Much like dodging the swing of an axe, Dean flung himself out of range as Castiel trembled with another needy release. “EHH’TISHHUUU!!” While not quite as vigorous as the first, it still shook the entire house and had all the furniture jittering like it was scared. Dean didn’t blame it. Dean was scared shitless. Because if the angel could send Bobby’s house into earthquakes by sneezing, the Winchester didn’t want to think about (any more than he had already) what their little angel could do if he was actually trying.

Sam came galloping in, hair flopping, just as Castiel stumbled back a step and was overcome with yet another sneeze. “IHH’PISHHH!” That one seemed to shake him, and his hands were hovering near his face like he had some idea of what he should be doing with them, but wasn’t sure. The resulting gust blew all the broken china around, and had Sam clinging to the door frame.

“What the hell is happening?!”

Dean had no fucking clue. “I don’t know! He just—”

“II’PTSSHHHH!” Castiel, now four sneezes in and trying desperately to gain some control, was attempting to smother his outbursts with sheer willpower. It wasn’t going so well. Dimly, angelic mind comprehending the situation only half as quickly as usual, Castiel recognized that his vessel was employing defensive maneuvers against something external. What he hadn’t counted on was the sheer strength of the experience. He had seen Sam and Dean sneeze before, but the consuming nature of the ritual was lost on him until now.

“II’HHSHHH!.. Ishh!!.. K’ishh!Ishh!IISHH!” They were tapering into breathy spasms now, each of them drier, quieter, more kitten-like, and stirring up less of a wind. Both brothers watched the angel, neither quite brave enough to go up and help due to the devastation that was Bobby’s kitchen right now. Still, Castiel persisted –

“Ishh!HISH!Ish!ISHII!Ishhii!Ishh!...hih’tshh!” Despite not really needing to breathe, Castiel found himself fighting for it as each fit shook him, leaving his lungs empty and aching for another large inhale to fuel the next set. “Uh’tshh! Hi’shhh!Ishish!ISHH!.. ISH!.. k’rshhh!!” The persistence of the tingling at the bridge of his nose, powerful and simply maddening, alerted Castiel to the possibility his vessel was overcompensating. It had been three days since the first inkling of this need, after all. “Itsshoo!Ishhoo!TISHHOO!IshH!Ishh!ishh!ishh!!..hh..ii’kshh!”

Finally, a motionless silence befell the entire house, no one moving, each of the three of them trying to determine if it was actually over. Castiel was an absolute wreck: his hair was wild from the gusts he had stirred, his clothes all askew, his face blotched red in some places, his eyes red-rimmed and streaming tears. His nose was running something awful. He was stone still, until his expression pinched in an expression of defiance, and he whispered out one last, “ii’ksh!”

Dean ran both hands through his hair, shaking his head a little in disbelief. “Holy shit, Cas. Are you okay? Damn.”

Castiel did actually feel winded from the ordeal, swaying slightly on the spot and surveying the damage he had done to the house. He looked as though he were trying to be very sorry for it, but was still so muzzy he wasn’t sure of what to make of the litter around him. Sam, at a loss, shrugged a little.

“Bless you,” he offered. Dean tried not to laugh at all the layers of irony.

“Yes,” Castiel said finally, sniffling and then touching beneath his nose. At the wetness there, he hurriedly wiped with the edge of his sleeves, trying to clear the moisture from his face. He had the appearance of a very awkward man after an explosive allergy attack. Sam stepped forward, face pitying, and Dean swore his brother wanted to hug him or something.

“I was not anticipating such…” Castiel glanced around, words failing him. “…intensity. My apologies.”

Dean held his hands up, leaning against the door frame as he watched Sam attempt to salvage a coffee mug. Cas surveyed the bits of ceramic as if he were mourning a beloved pet. Probably felt guilty for decimating the belongings of their host – …

The front door down the hall busted open suddenly, the rustling of bags and call of, “Give me a hand, ya idjits!” alerting everyone to the arrival of the homeowner. Castiel turned wide-eyes to the archway of the kitchen, still sporting the style of a sufferer on a Clariton commercial. Dean turned to watch Bobby round the corner, smirking a little when Bobby stared blankly at the mess that used to be his kitchen. Cas was really going to get it.

But when Dean turned back to observe the ass-whooping the angel was about to receive, he found nothing but Sam stooping guiltily over the mess. No Castiel in sight. Bobby at once erupted into loud, barely contained expletives of rage, and Dean pounded a fist against the wall. Friggin angels.

“Son of a bitch!”

~fin

[PuddinPop]

Scatter, these are amazing

I love your writing style!

Plus, anyone who writes Cas fics is wonderful in my eyes xD

I really hope you have more of these. I can't wait to see anything else you have

[Sawyer]

I'm speechless, dude. Bravo. Yooouuuu are... truly incredible...

[Always-a-Ginger]

Best ending!

Lol so well done