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Dean winces and grumbles, mostly because he can, because he knows Cas won't call him a pussy for it the way Sam or Bobby would. He'd really like to have his arm back, to cradle it against his ribs, but Cas doesn't seem interested in letting him loose anytime soon.

"What, Hulking out? Baby's first adrenaline rush, huh? You'll be okay, too."

"That's not what I was talking about." Cas holds Dean's arm a second longer before letting go, giving him a look of shaky relief before scooting back to his own side of the seat, starting the Impala again.

What.

"Cas. Seriously. This is not the first time I've had my ass handed to me. You've handed my ass to me. We made it out alive, that's what counts. Relax."

"You don't know those things like I do."

Castiel grips the wheel tight and pulls back onto the road.

"No. No, I guess I don't. Pretty glad about that, to be honest."

Now that he can, Dean pulls his arm close, doing what little he can to protect it from the inevitable bumps on the road.

"We'll find a way to kill 'em, Cas. I swear we will."

In the meantime, though, he'd like a burger, some pie, and a whole bottle of Jack Daniels, just for him.

The last two, they'd focused on Dean also. And all the others, tracking Dean and Sam, impersonating them. Was it really just a bid to do away with the formidable Winchesters, or was it more personal than that?

Cas pulls into a fast food joint as Dean requests, but the hunter has to lean across to order because Castiel is too lost in thought to even try and puzzle it out. He pays at the window mechanically, hands Dean the food and takes them to the next motel he can find.

One room, one bed -not sure why Dean started doing that, but at least he doesn't wake up with sore muscles anymore- and Cas has bullied Dean into the bathroom so he can take a closer look at his wounds, first aid kit opened and balanced on the toilet lid as Dean sits on the edge of the tub, Cas kneeling in front of him and cleaning a set of cuts on his neck.

Go figure, Cas is surprisingly persuasive when he wants to be. That or Dean's concussed, because Dean Winchester does not get bullied into doing anything he doesn't want to do. Ever.

But here he is, sitting on the edge of the tub, shirt off and head tilted to one side while a fallen freaking angel dabs at his neck with an alcohol soaked cotton ball. It really could have been worse, all things considered. A few cuts, a few bruises. He doesn't even need stitches! Well, okay, some of those cuts are going to scar without stitches, but he doesn't need them. Dean grumbles and hisses his way through the entire process.

"I'm telling you, I can do this myself. It's not like I can't see my neck!"

Castiel ignores the complaints with monumental patience, doesn't say a word as he cleans and bandages every wound that requires his attention. There's no point in wrapping Dean's bruised arm; he'll just have to be exceptionally careful with it in the days to come. Cas will keep an eye on him.

There's one last wound, on the back of Dean's neck just where the top of the spine leaves that knot of hard bone before sinking back into the flesh to travel up to the skull. Cas remembers putting Dean's spine back into order too, rebuilding the cartilage and realigning each vertebra.

He leans over Dean instead of asking him to turn around, swabbing over the scrape with disinfectant, his shoulder nearly touching Dean's nose.

He pays the task of patching Dean up the same attention as a doctor would brain surgery, as if one false move would send him into seizures- no, even more reverently than that. He patches Dean up as if he were praying.

Edited 2011-11-21 09:57 (UTC)

"Whoa. Cas. Little close there." Dean leans back but gives up on that idea quickly, partly because Cas follows and partly because if he moves back any further, he's gonna end up on his ass in the tub, and unless there are a lot of bubbles and pretty girls in bikinis, he's not interested.

So he stays quiet until Cas is finished with his work, just kind of observing. Well, he tries to stay quiet. Dean and silence aren't exactly friends.

"You're wigging me out a little. Come on, say something. You okay?"

'Works of art,' Castiel had called humans back when he'd first met Dean. He'd meant those words, but hadn't really grasped the full meaning before. It seemed like Castiel hadn't understood quite a bit of what he believed and said, not until he knew Dean Winchester.

Cas leans back slightly, lets his hand slide down the back of Dean's neck just long enough so that it doesn't seem like an accident before drawing away, quickly packing up the kit and leaving the bathroom for the Impala.

What.

"What the hell, Cas?"

He's known Castiel long enough to know that yeah, the guy is a little weird sometimes, but this is pushing it, even for him. A second later, Dean pushes himself upright--ow--and follows after Cas, standing in the doorway to watch him.

"You are being ten kinds of creepy right now and that is saying something, Cas, because you are one creepy son of a bitch. Good creepy, usually, but still creepy. Spill your guts. What's going on upstairs, huh?"

Castiel stows the kit and removes their duffel bags, setting them on the concrete to close the trunk. He brings their luggage inside and sidles past Dean smoothly, not even so much as brushing against his shirt.

"I think the Leviathan are focusing on you as a personal insult to me. You need to be more careful from now on."

"Finally, he speaks!"

Dean slams the door with his good arm, barely even looking at the locks when he throws them.

"Cas, they've been coming at me--and Sam and Bobby--for months. It's nothing new. The way you're acting, though, that is. You wanna explain that to me? Because I've seen you get pissed before and that was...that was pretty awesome, actually. Why don't you pull that out more often?"

"I didn't do it on purpose, Dean. It was reactive." You freakin' idiot. Cas glares at Dean and drops their duffels onto the floor next to a rickety table, crouching to rummage through his for a change of clothes. The black blood has dried sticky and crusty onto his skin and clothes and he needs to wash up.

"Right, then you need to react more. It's effective."

Dean settles onto the bed, sprawling across it. God it feels good to be horizontal. His everything hurts. Especially his arm. He yawns hugely and stretches, ignoring the twinges in his muscles and not paying a damn bit of attention to Cas.

Again, Castiel ignores Dean and heads into the bathroom for a quick scrub down. He emerges ten minutes later, freshly cleaned and robed, and sits down on the floor to lean against the bed, closing his eyes.

"Cas." Dean sounds half asleep. "Get on the damn bed."

"I feel the need to touch you to reassure myself. You think it's creepy." Cas shifts his weight, but doesn't get up. "I'll stay down here."

"Get up on the damn bed, Cas." He rolls over and scoots away, making room. "You not talking's gonna creep me out a hell of a lot more than you poking at me occasionally to make sure I'm not dead."

Well fine, if he's gonna be like that.

Cas pulls himself to his feet and climbs onto the mattress, curling up onto his side and facing Dean. He's gonna watch you fall asleep, like a creeper, just to make a point.

Oh, let him. It's not like it's the first time Dean's shared his bed with someone, though to be fair, he'd prefer it if Cas were a little more curvy than he is. Had tits instead of junk. But whatever. He's shared with Sammy before, when space was tight, money was tighter, and the weather cold. It's not that big a deal to share bed space with another dude.

Dean shifts on the mattress, trying not to jostle his bruised arm too much and trying not to think about how bad that's gonna feel come morning. Nothing to be done for it now. They'll fly under the radar for a couple days until it heals up and tackle more Leviathans after. Smiling a little at the thought of ganking more of those bastards (for certain values of ganking), Dean shuts his eyes and settles in.

"Night, Cas. Get some sleep."

"Good night, Dean."

Cas doesn't let himself sleep until he's sure Dean's gone, and it's the first night he sleeps without waking up in the middle of the night and climbing the roof toward the stars.

Some time during the night his hand makes its way over to Dean's chest to rest there, palm-down. He isn't any closer than he was; still that barely-there platonic space that Dean seemed to need to rest comfortably, but his arm rises and falls with the breaths Dean takes.

Castiel sleeps straight through the morning.

Dean has a quieter night than he's used to. Yeah, he's been pretty nightmare free in general since picking Cas up again, but he still tends to move around in his sleep a lot. Not this time. With Castiel's hand on his chest, Dean stays where he is the whole night through and well into morning.

When he wakes up, he's slept well enough that he actually feels charitable and tries to dislodge Cas without waking him, too.

It isn't difficult to do considering it's just a hand, but Cas wakes anyway and pushes himself up sleepily. His face is red and pillow-creased since he'd slept on his stomach all night long, and without even a look or a word to Dean he rolls out of bed and heads over to the coffee maker.

He'd stared creepily at Dean as he made coffee for four days. Castiel is sure he's capable of making Dean's coffee, now. It can't be that hard; water, coffee, pot, button. There.

Once that's done Castiel returns to Dean and reaches for his wrist to look at his arm.

That's very nice of Cas to do. Dean will reserve judgement on the coffee until he's actually tasted it.

Before Cas can take his arm, Dean shakes his head and gets up, aiming for the bathroom. "You gotta let me take care of business first, Cas. I am not awake enough to deal with you poking at my bruises for fun."