In Good Health

Castiel was an Angel of the Lord. He's had power and grace. His true form once dwarfed the Chrysler Building and to see him while he occupied it could've melted the human mind. He has killed higher angels and raised men from hell. He, himself, has returned from oblivion so often, one might think he owned a time-share there. So, yes, it stood to reason that had he been fully himself, ridding a human, even one as exceptional as Dean Winchester, would have been be an infinitesimal task. Unfortunately, all of that is no longer true for Castiel, and so, Dean has been suffering through this particularly nasty bout of the cold (or the flu, because, really, who even knows the difference) for going on six days now. And Castiel, once the dutiful servant of the Lord, has been dutifully seeing him through it.

It had started with a quenchless, dry throat. Days ago, while Cas was quietly watching television in one of the common rooms, Dean had stumbled sleepily past him, eyebrows pinched, in search of a glass of water. Cas watched curiously as he poured himself a cold cup, took a sip, and grimaced. He roughly cleared his throat, his expression approaching sour, and tried again. Quickly, and with a sort of spiteful diligence, he finished off the glass and quietly returned to his room.

The next morning, as he plopped himself in the empty kitchen seat across from Sam, Cas noticed the quick and frequent bob of Dean's Adam's apple as he swallowed. Strange, Cas thought, since he hadn't put a thing in his mouth yet. Even stranger, his apparent lack of appetite. Over breakfast as Sam slammed back handfuls of raisined cranberries, Dean painstakingly choked down a couple of re-toasted waffles; grimacing all the way through and chasing every bite with a sip of scalding, hot coffee.

When he wouldn't stop clearing his throat, Sam looked up from his paper, eyebrow raised in question. “What?”

Dean ahemed again before answering, “What?”

“Whyd'you keep clearing your throat? What? You don't eat frozen waffles now?”

Dean's mouth pulled into a frown. His eyes rolled. Cas watched. “Actually I don't. Frozen sucks. But s'not that. Throat's buggy.”

Sam ohs and nods, returning to his newspaper and cranberrys his oatmeal before taking a spoonful. “You should try some tea and lemon,” he says.

“You should try some tea and lemon...” Dean mocks.

.

The next day, Dean's buggy throat turns full on sore and he spends the entire day purposely avoiding Sam's box of Wellness Brew that sits out on the counter. He also avoids solid food but continues to poor hot coffee and cold water down his throat in some desperate hope of relief.

The following day, his throat's no longer sore but incredibly scratchy, his nose is stuffed up to high heavens, and mucous is back-sliding behind his throat.

The day after that, his chest joins in on the mutiny and a dull ache presses behind his eye-sockets, just straddling the line of obvious pain and irritating discomfort.

By the fifth day, after a night of gobbling Nyquils Sam brought home from the convenience place, Dean can't even be bothered to make it out of bed. Instead, he spends the first half of the day buried beneath his gray wool blanket, trying to find a position that allows him to breathe at least somewhat comfortably.

At about noon, Cas knocks politely at his door – a thing Sam taught him – before letting himself in. He finds Dean at the foot of the bed, three pillows wedged underneath his chest, his neck laying at a precariously steep angle, and his face dangling inches from the mattress. He looks, Cas thinks, incredibly uncomfortable.

“Dean?” Cas asks softly, unsure if he's awake or sleeping or possibly dead. He has to say his name twice more before a muffled response final comes; if you can even call it a response, it's more of a blocked up snort paired with a subtle wiping of his nose against the nearest soft fabric.

“Dean,” he says once more, “Sam has informed me that you are ill...?”

There's another stunted snort and wet attempt at breathing. Dean also makes a sound in his throat that reminds Cas of a dentist bit he saw on Seinfeld once, like that machine that sucks up spit during a root canal.

“Sam says,” he continues, “to make sure you don't 'Oh Dee' on the cure he bought you...”

Dean can't see Cas, but even in his near unconscious state, he hears the bunny ears wrapped around O.D. and snorts again into his pillow; a bad move, on his part, because it leaves a warm, gooey mess against the sheets and the side of his face.

“M'fine,” he tries to say. Mostly it sounds as though he's trying to swallow cotton. (Admittedly, it feels that way too.) “Just need t'sleep it off.”

Cas nods thoughtfully but stays glued to the spot, staring quietly down at his bedridden friend.

“Don' hear you flappin' out, Cas,” Dean mumbles. He turns his face, pressing his snotty cheek into a clean spot on the bed, looking up at Cas through hazy lids. “M'not sleep'n n'thing off with you starin' at me.”

Cas expression is contained horror that, luckily, Dean doesn't really recognize. Dean's face is, well, a disgusting mess. And even Cas, who has seen Dean at various levels of 'his worst', is caught a little off guard. He wonders, for a moment, how blood and dirt and near-killed could look so good on this hunter, but this illness could look so...not.

His complexion is off. His eyes are puffy, red-rimmed, and caked in the corners with thick gunk. There's a trail of shiny, wet mucus smeared towards the left side of his face and his exposed cheek is covered in some form of dried, cracking bodily fluid. (There's a lot of human things Cas -and the angels in general- find disgusting, but this possibly takes the cake.)

“Dean?” he says again, keeping his feet planted where he stands but crouching a little lower to see him better. This time, worryingly, Dean doesn't respond at all.

.

After a quick phone consultation with a bemused Sam, Castiel approaches Dean's room again, this time armed with a pitcher filled with very warm (but not hot!) water and a soft rag. Sam has explained that it's just a cold but he has not been helpful in how to fix it. He keeps saying, “It'll pass,” but he won't elaborate on when or what Cas should do in the meantime. Because of this, he's had to take to the world wide web for answers.

While the kettle is on the stove and Dean sleeps fitfully, Cas gently wipes his face clean, being certain to get the tougher crevices like the space at the corner of his eyes and just under his sensitive, red nose. When Dean is as clean as he can manage, he dumps the pitcher and the rag into the kitchen sink, puts a teabag to steep, and returns to the room to collect the sheets and pillows Dean has managed to eject from the bed in his movements. He piles them neatly in a corner of the laundry room and searches for spares, finding new blankets but no excess pillows, so he makes a pit stop in his own room, pulling the clean pair off his own bed.

When he returns to Dean's, he finds him curled towards the center of the bed, shivering and frowning in his sleep. As he throws a blanket over his body and attempts to place the new pillows at his head, he realizes Dean's in a pliable place somewhere between natural consciousnesses and chemically induced sleep. In this state, he's very nearly manageable and with a few soft words and leading touches, he gets Dean right-side up again and in a position that at least looks like he's not in some terrible pain.

He leaves him at the head of the bed, tucked in under the arms with his head and neck propped safely on top of just two pillows, like Cas has seen in so many episodes of that daytime show Dean likes to watch. When he returns with the hot tea (echinacea with lemon and honey), Dean's already moved again, turned to his side with half the blankets bunched between his legs. His eyes are still closed but Cas thinks, probably, he's more awake than he was before. His breathing hasn't changed yet, it's still deep in a natural rhythm, but he's clenching and unclenching his fists like he's working his way up to consciousness.

Cas pulls the small chair from the desk in the corner and sits it up by Dean's head before taking a seat himself. “Dean...” he whispers softly, and Dean's brows furrow before he grunts a response. “Dean...” he says again, “you have to drink some of this.”

He's met by Dean's green eyes, more vibrant than they have any right to be when he's in such a bad way, but very little resistance. Dean doesn't make a move to sit up, but he does tilt his upper body a bit, so his head is laying closer to the edge of the bed.

Without thought, Cas brings the hot beverage to Dean's lips. He hisses and jerks his head back slightly, muttering the word hot before frowning, lazily annoyed, at Cas. A sheepish grin fits itself across his face before he brings the cup to his own mouth and softly blows cooler air at it's surface.

It takes just short of fifteen minutes for Dean to drain the small mug and by then, he's drifted back to sleep. Cas watches him for the remainder of the hour before quietly exiting the room and looking up other remedies.

.

It takes eight days for Dean to resemble a human person again, and even then, he's still not back to his own self. Sam stayed gone – working on a few solo hunts two states away – and so Cas (and the internet) had proudly nursed the Winchester to better health.

By the end of the ninth day, Dean's feeling well enough to try solid foods and lay out on the couch in the sitting room (though he does it in his night-pants with two blankets huddled around his body).

After Cas gets a little dry toast in him and allows him just one dose (the package says that's two pills) of the remaining cold medicine, Dean starts begging for something sweet. Cas knows he wants pie, but figures with his stomach's ease being a bit too tentative for Cas's comfort (he's already become too well acquainted with the unpleasant smell and look of Dean's bile), he decides he can try a small cup of hot chocolate and maybe a square or two of graham crackers. It's not until he's stirring the cocoa mix with the heated milk that he realizes he's feeling a bit worn and famished too.

He returns to the sitting room with two cups of hot cocoa and a small plate of crackers. He hands Dean his and watches as he wraps both hands around the warm cup, brings it to his nose, and inhales deeply (and blockage free). The smile that ensconces his face leaves Cas almost as warm as the steam rising from his own cup.

As he moves to sit on the smaller couch, he feels a cocoa-heated hand wrap gently around his wrist. Dean's soft eyes meet his and he half-smiles. He pulls his feet up, knees closer to his chest, to expose some empty space at the end of the sofa.

“You can just...” he trails off.

Without hesitation, Cas takes the offered seat and pulls Dean's socked-toes into his lap.

This is how Sam finds them a few hours later, with the lights dim, the television on low, and both bodies tucked neatly under shared blankets.