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Dean leaned heavily on the table, blinking rapidly to study the map Sam had spread out over the counter.
"So get this. To date, a total of eighteen people have gone missing in these locations." He tapped the map of the town.
"And if you join 'em it makes a pentagram?" Dean asked with a grin, going for a spooky voice. It wasn't hard considering the current state of his voice.
Sam gave him an unimpressed look. "No, Dean, but they do line up well with previous deaths in 1982, then 1972, then--"
"1962?" Dean asked, coughing into his wrist.
"Yeah." Sam breathed out, straightening up and crossing his arms. "Eileen and I tracked down the first disappearances to this travelling salesman. He went to all three houses, but wasn't ever seen again."
Dean nodded, the motion making his head throb to the point that he grimaced, closing his eyes for a second.
"You have a late one?" Sam asked. "I didn't take you and Cas for partiers."
"You kidding, you get a few drinks into him, especially now and he's a freak in the sheets."
"I did not need to know that." Sam scowled, rolling up the map while Dean smirked. "What's wrong with you?"
"Same way I didn't need to know how you disrespected Baby with that bar chick."
Sam groaned, dragging his hands down his face. "You didn't seem to mind at the time!"
"Yeah I was in a good mood--" Sam groaned disgustedly when Dean wiggled his eyebrows. "--and you were always less of a bitch when you'd--"
"Okay, okay." Sam rolled his eyes. "You finished? No, Dean, shut up."
Dean laughed. "You're the one stupid enough to say something like that." He broke into coughs then, truly winded by the time the fit died down. "Damn. I think I'm allergic to you."
Sam narrowed his eyes. "I wish you'd developed that problem sooner."
"See if I ever raise you from the dead again." Dean warned, polishing off the rest of his coffee. It didn't help soothe his throat at all. "Sammy you're getting a little old for puppy dog eyes."
"And for that nickname." Sam scoffed, placing a hand on Dean's forehead.
"Dude, are you actually--" Dean brushed him off. "What the hell?"
"You're sick." Sam accused.
"As if." Dean pressed a hand to his own face, feeling an alarming amount of heat. "I'm just hot, no surprises there."
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. "The more time you spend around Claire, the less funny you get, you know that right? You're fully into dad-joke territory Dean."
"I'm not apologizing for finally becoming a DIL--"
"I was wrong." Sam said over him loudly. "You're not sick, you're sick in the head." Dean erupted into another cough-giggle combination, eyes streaming as he tried to draw in air.
"Jesus." Sam declared when he was done.
Dean dragged a hand down his throat. "Oh man. Let's just get this show on the road."
"Are you insane?" Sam asked. "You're practically on your deathbed."
"I'm fine." Dean rolled his eyes. "Dude, we've hunted in worse situations."
"And the whole point is that we don't have to anymore. Eileen and I were going to take care of this ourselves anyways--"
"I'm fine." Dean interjected again, releasing the corner of the table.
"--and the only reason you even wanted to come is because you were lonely--"
"Lonely?" Dean narrowed his eyes. "They've been gone all of two days Sam."
Sam gave him a look that was crossed between exasperation, sympathy and something uniquely insufferable he did when he thought he knew better. "That's the longest you and Cas have been apart since--"
"Sam." Dean said loudly. "Shut up."
Eileen entered the house from the garage and frowned when she took them in. "Everything okay?" She asked.
"Dean's sick." Sam said, signing alongside with it and Eileen pressed her lips together sympathetically, hand rubbing over her chest.
Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm okay." He signed it back, then flipped Sam the bird. "Seriously, guys--"
"Nope." Sam said. "It's a twelve hour drive Dean, if you get worse--"
"Then just stash me in some motel room!"
"I'm not playing nursemaid because you--"
"You'll be better off here." Eileen said, finishing off Sam's sentence. "The hospital's not far and you know anyone would be fine driving you there."
Dean glared at them both. "You guys are acting like I've been given a week to live or something. I can drive myself anywhere I want."
Eileen made a face at him. "That's great. But we'll be fine without your help on this hunt, seriously, it's probably a salt 'n burn."
"You know how many hunters die on salt 'n burns?" Dean said, just to be difficult. "You could use a hand."
"Too bad it's not going to be you," Sam said, annoyed when Dean started coughing again. "Just call Cas and get him to heal you up."
"Sam." Dean dragged a hand down his-- increasingly warmer-- face. "Nobody is calling Cas. It took basically half of whatever grace he had anyway to go with Jack and I'm not calling them back two days in for no reason." He spoke louder when Sam made one of his patented bitch faces. "Now if I sneeze and blow out my lungs, or start hacking up pea soup, I'll consider it. But until then, don't you even think about bugging him and Jack. Goes for you too."
Eileen shook her head, stealing Sam's coffee. Dean winced on her behalf, there was usually some diabetes-inducing level of sugar making up half the cup.
Sam stared at him, then threw up his hands. "Fine, suffer. But you're not coming."
"Fine by me," Dean crossed his arms, still a little stung over the lonely comment. "I'm more than happy to catch up on my shows."
"Great." Sam shouldered his bag, storming off.
"Just order in." Eileen suggested. "There's a great soup place in town."
Dean narrowed his eyes and Eileen rolled her eyes.
"Let me guess, Dean Winchester doesn't drink soup."
It was the tone more than anything that annoyed him. "You've been spending way too much time around Sam, get out of my house."
Eileen laughed, waving at him before she went.
Dean waited before the door shut before he fell into the next knee-weakening coughing fit. Jesus. He blinked away stars, feeling decidedly worse with every five minutes that passed.
He was getting old, he thought, more than a little pissed about it. There was a time he'd been able to saw off a leg cast well before he should, and he was still functional.
Now look at him, honestly considering passing out rather than following Sam anyway just out of spite.
Dean stared around the empty, quiet house. Fuck.
He'd extolled the virtues of an empty house and all the fucking fun he was going to have behind Cas' back in an attempt to shove him out the door, but Dean had spent all of ten hours before he realized it was pretty fucking boring without Cas.
Which was insane, because Cas cracked a joke like he was reading it off a cue card he'd never seen before.
Dean chuckled, fine, Cas occasionally made some good fucking jokes. And yeah, Cas had a wild side that Dean had never seen coming.
Maybe he should've, considering the asylum, but which one of them hadn't been there at some point or another?
Dean stared back around the place, tapping his fingers on the table. Shit.
The hunt was supposed to be a return to old times, his brother in his car, his music-- that Cas and him squabbled over, their only shared love Led Zeppelin and that one Nickelback song Cas fucked with-- beer, the thrill of the hunt.
Instead Dean was fucking quarantined out of nowhere. He paced along the room and figured it out in a second, spotting the beer bottle by the patio chair.
Staying out when the temperature dropped enough to freeze the leaves... Dean shook his head, he should've seen this coming, he knew star-gazing would be thing to finally do him in.
Dean rubbed his temples. He went ahead and dug out some aspirin from the cabinet, swallowing them dry.
Somehow, conceding that defeat only made him feel worse.
"Fucking hell." Dean blinked heatedly, deciding to eat something. He'd skipped breakfast, which should've been a warning sign, and food usually made him feel better.
For a second, Dean stared into their pantry, still weirded out by it being full.
That had... never been a thing in the lives Sam and him had. To the point that for the first little while that he and Cas lived together, they were pulling grocery shifts practically every other day, arguing over who needed shaving cream or milk more until Sam told them to just stop buying stuff from gas stations.
And Dean's mind had nearly melted about the fact that for the first time since staying with Lisa and Braeden, they could buy in bulk.
Because they were staying there... and Jack too when he popped in, or Claire when she needed to crash between hunts.
Dean stared at the pantry, breathing out slightly. Yeah, still weird.
He hadn't been eating enough that year without Sam to consider it too much, there were too many other things on his mind, but now.
Dean wished he'd gone on the hunt, one benefit of the job was that introspection was rare.
He slammed the skillet onto the stove, fishing out his lighter to set it off when it just clicked.
The sudden heat made Dean wince.
He rubbed his eyes, deciding that the best he could do was some grilled cheese. Drink some of Jack's orange juice maybe instead of beer.
Dean cracked his neck, rapidly losing the desire to make anything at all.
He turned off the stove, pacing back over to the fridge and getting out the orange juice.
Dean smiled a little at the amount left. Usually Jack, who had about the same mileage as Baby did, went through a bottle every other day or so. Castiel complained about international orange shortages and famine and whatnot the last time it came up, and Jack solemnly swore that as God, he'd ensure that there were always plentiful orange harvests, which nearly made Dean choke at the time.
Dean debated drinking straight out of the bottle, but even if only God or a mildly disgraced angel were casualties, he wasn't cursing anyone with whatever monster plague he'd picked up.
Dean grinned a little, nearly sloshing himself with orange juice as he tried to imagine Jack sick.
What was that saying? France sneezes and Europe gets a cold? If Jack sneezed did that mean--
Dean sputtered out orange juice, unreasonably amused by it and embarrassingly, he forgot for a second that Cas was well out of cell range before he'd tugged out his phone.
Dean could always pray to him to one-sidedly share his thoughts, but it was less funny when it wasn't something impossibly stupid or dirty.
And worst case scenario Cas could pop back here, abandoning whatever location he and Jack had wound up in now.
Dean stowed his phone back into his pocket, trying to imagine Cas sick. The few times the guy got injured seriously, he'd been mopey, annoying, even less chatty than he normally was. Dean shook his head, Cas would be the worst patient of all time.
But probably adorable.
Dean contemplated the silence again, miserable as he realized Sam might've been right. He'd just spent a good hour or two ruminating over Cas like some fucking housewife.
He clapped his hands together, resisting the urge to start talking to himself to fill the uncomfortable silence.
Goddamn it, someone would think he'd never been left alone for a second, the way he was acting.
Dean went to the garage first, but it turned out to be a waste of time. Baby was in pristine condition, he'd fixed her up lately after teaching Jack to drive downtown had resulted in more than a few dings.
He put all the tools that inevitably found themselves out of order back, tossed out one or two beer bottles that just decorated the place. Dean nodded when he stepped back, glad that he'd spent-- thirteen minutes.
Dean groaned. That's it?
He snapped his fingers. Wasn't anything in the world a drive couldn't cure.
"Son of a bitch." Dean muttered under his breath when he opened the garage and felt the cold bite of air. Ten more minutes went by while he put on another seven layers, somehow still shivering under it all as he got into his car.
"Just me and you again, Baby." Dean declared, patting her dash as he reversed out. Driving through town would just be annoying right now, so he ignored it all, making a course out of the city.
He almost reached for some music, but thought better of it. There was enough of a fucking party in his head already.
Besides. Nothing beat the sound of his car, driving smoothly down one of the endless, sloping backroads.
Dean coughed painfully into elbow, keeping his eyes on the roads, which were mercifully empty this time of day. "Fucking hell." He declared, head throbbing viciously, his throat wrecked.
It was tempting, nearly too tempting to just park somewhere and grab a quick nap. But Dean powered his way home, blasting ACDC and Guns 'n Roses to keep his eyes open.
Stupid. Dean decided once he clambered out of the car. He felt about fifty times worse than he had this morning.
Dean shuddered after he finished coughing, sitting down on the stairs. Fucking hell, he chided himself, get over it.
He didn't think he'd be getting warm again, teeth chattering while he rubbed his arms.
Shower. Dean decided, grabbing the railing and miserably hauling himself up. There had been a ridiculous number of times he'd shaken himself out of the beginnings of the cold or flu or whatever in a motel shower.
He just needed to gargle some mouthwash, wash it out of his system.
"Then I'll be good as new." Dean mumbled to no one in particular, blinking painfully as he swallowed.
The warmth of the shower managed to put a dent in the shaking and Dean breathed out, tilting his head up.
Wasn't this familiar? All he needed was some injury he was supposed to be keeping dry, maybe a little stress about impending doom and he could be back in any one of the two hundred mornings he'd spent pulling himself out of a funk or bed rest.
Dean dragged a hand down his face, deciding he didn't need to create-- he grinned-- an international water shortage as he turned it off.
Quickly, before the curative effects of the fucking phenomenal showerhead he'd installed wore off, Dean twisted his ring back on, and put on some real clothes, not pyjamas or a robe, that would just be admitting defeat. He ended up in another three shirts and some pair of well-worn jeans.
He gargled frantically, hoping it'd cure his throat, which could've been raw and bleeding for the way it hurt. The water that went down the drain was slightly bloody and Dean raised his eyebrows at his reflection.
"You look like someone just walked over your grave." Dean rasped, grinning weakly despite it. His headache, and the full brunt of the tuberculosis or whatever, started up again.
Dean stared at their bed, more than a little miserable at this point. And it wasn't like there was anyone around to judge him for the stupid pang in his chest.
Dean scrubbed at his eyes furiously; he always got leaky when he thought too long about this.
About the house, the one he'd built the way he remembered his favourite parts of Bobby's. About Sam being happy, which hadn't looked likely since-- hell, since the fucking beginning and the Djinn vision. And Jack and him fixing shit, and Cas--
Cas.
Dean choked back the sob, furious with himself, but also too tired to care. Goddamn it.
So maybe he had let Cas leave on purpose, just to prove that he could, that Dean trusted him to make it back.
Come back home this time, instead of dicking him around in Purgatory, or dying--
Dean closed his eyes, unable to hold in the strangled sound he made, unnaturally loud in the quiet.
Dread rose up in his throat, because this was just like it, wasn't it?
Sure there wasn't a Devil's trap and the sunlight was still making it in through the window, but--
Dean struggled to breathe properly, breathing hitching with each sob.
It had taken a year after Cas' confession and resurrection before Dean let him say anything remotely like it again. Dean said it nonstop, an I love you at every fucking mile marker they crossed, over and over as he did anything he could to make up for lost time.
Dean stuttered through forty, maybe four hundred explanations of how much he meant it, even though Cas believed him before he even said it back the first time.
Cas put up with it all, eyes crinkling affectionately when Dean compared him to various loves like pie and Baby and Sam were benchmarks. Dealt with Dean fumbling to say anything as remotely meaningful as what Cas had--
Dean breathed out, head resting on his knees as he dug his fingers into his hair.
He'd been so convinced that every chance was the last chance, but still, he'd been terrified he'd lose it all again if Cas made it through some sappy statement.
So Cas found other ridiculous ways to do it.
Dean shook silently, breaths kind of pathetic, if he dwelled on it.
He let himself breakdown over it for five more minutes, not that he was keeping time, curled up at the base of one of the walls. Once it stopped, his head throbbed even worse, breathing compromised by how stuffy he was now.
Dean rested his head back against the wall, trying to breathe in and out, empty tissue box in his lap.
Man. He'd been this sick just a few times in his life, and each time was just as much of a shitshow.
Dean could faintly remember his mom's cure to this, when he'd woken her up one night, wracked with chills and barely able to breathe.
Steam, from a pan boiling on the stove.
Dean grabbed hold of the wall, getting up slowly, but it still made his head spin.
He managed to make it down the stairs without another near-death incident, hands shaking after white knuckling the railing the whole way down.
Dean managed to fish out another pan, sneezing repeatedly as he filled it with water.
Get it together, Dean scoffed, when even the weight of the pan was an inconvenience to drag over to the stove.
His phone buzzed. More messages from Sam, he assumed. Guy had been dialling since Dean's drive, all through the shower, but Dean didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being right.
But then, Dean though feverishly as he turned on the stove. Sam could get worried enough to do something about it. Send over someone to check on him.
Fuck.
Dean tugged out his phone, squinting down at the messages.
He ignored Sam's messages briefly to thumb open the last message Cas had sent when the cell connection worked out.
A selfie of him and Jack, outside some temple somewhere.
Jack looked enthralled, delighted as always. Dean loved that about him, that little things, big things, more or less anything that existed could make Jack pleased.
Cas looked good.
Dean huffed slightly, zooming in a little on his husband. He'd dispensed with the tie at least, really letting his hair down (which Cas had not understood at all over the phone).
Cas looked relaxed, the colours around them making his eyes pop even more, the smile soft and genuine.
Dean smiled, nearly stowing his phone before he remembered he needed to be replying to Sam.
Sam had sent an impressive number of threats and annoyed one-liners.
Dean cleared his throat. Eye roll emoji (one of Claire's favourites), I'm fine Samantha.
He sent it, then decided he needed a suitable cover story.
Busy with movie marathon.
Dean hummed, satisfied. He decided to move to the table as the water took it's sweet time boiling, sinking deeply into a chair.
Bullshit. Sam replied. You're dying.
Lucky guess. That was a good third of their lives.
Dean rolled his eyes. All good. He insisted. Got the soup Eileen recommended.
Sam was calling and Dean groaned, picking it up.
"Really? You thought I'd buy that?"
"A lie is a very poor way to say hello." Dean agreed, grinning. His voice was hoarse.
"Oh--" Sam swore under his breath. "Dean, seriously, I'll call--"
"No." Dean protested, resting his head on the table. God that felt good. "Sam, seriously, I just need to sleep it off."
"Go sleep then."
"I might've if you hadn't called." Dean griped for no reason, staggering up when he heard the water bubbling.
"What-- are you cooking something?" Sam demanded.
Dean snorted. "Just some water."
Sam's voice was nothing short of irritated. "It takes a phone call Dean, or-- or just a button on an app to get soup--"
Dean nearly dropped the phone into the pan as he laughed. "No, Sammy, it's the--" He nearly said thing mom used to do before he caught himself. "Steam." Dean managed to ground out, inhaling it deeply. "Helps with the-- sinuses."
Sam exhaled.
"How's the case going?"
"We're not even there yet. Roads have been slick." Sam grouched.
"Admit it, you wish I was driving." Dean leaned back, wiping his face and turning off the stove.
"Oh yeah," Sam scoffed. "Then we could haunt someplace too."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Eileen is a saint for putting up with you."
"I'm not the one who won't call my husba--"
"Dude." Dean cut him off. "You're like a broken record. I mean it, I'm fine."
"You sound like you've been gargling knives Dean."
"Shit, that was supposed to be a surprise for your birthday."
"What?"
"You know, since we still can't get any clowns--" Dean's perfectly set up joke, that he would've found just as funny when his brain wasn't being fried, was interrupted by another bout of coughing. "Sam, just focus on the case. I'm going to bed. If you need someone to play FBI, you're gonna need to rely on Garth." He snorted at the idea.
"Dean--"
"I promise, if I'm not better when I wake up, I'll go see a doctor, okay?" Dean dragged a hand down his face, suddenly unwilling to even bother making it up the stairs. He snagged one of the blankets on the edge of his couch, able to feel his pulse in his ears and throat, each swallow painful.
"Okay." Sam said. "I'll call you when we get there."
"Sounds good." Dean ended the call, tossing his phone onto their coffee table. He eyed the books there, some of them volumes on monsters that Sam, him and a couple other hunters had been getting published.
Anything could fly under fiction nowadays, and while they weren't bestsellers, they combined the sum total of what Dean and Sam knew from Bobby, Dad and Samuel. Dean felt a familiar surge of guilt.
They barely hunted anymore. They consulted, or went if it was really important or Garth pleaded.
He was done. Dean frowned. Life hadn't ended in blood like he'd always predicted. The way--
Dean breathed out heavily, too tired to think about this anymore.
It was the sickness, he thought again, as slight tears burned his eyes. Or just the fact that he was thinking about people. And that he was alone, and didn't want to be.
Dean set himself back into the pillow, pulled into a fevered sleep in minutes.
Cas blinked his eyes open when he returned to it, smiling automatically when he saw the big old farm house that he and Dean had managed to rebuild. It had taken months, but Cas felt sometimes like he knew where every nail in the place went.
And he wouldn't want it any other way. He turned his key in, amused a little that Jack had been slightly off in sending him back.
But God wasn't really supposed to make mistakes, was he? Cas smiled tightly at that thought. He was spending a great deal of time recently convincing Jack it was okay to make mistakes. That even his hero, Dean Winchester, made mistakes.
Like not calling him the second he got seriously ill.
Cas was a little startled at how quiet and dark the house was, nearly going upstairs before he heard a slight shuffle from the living room.
He narrowed his eyes as he turned the corner, sighing deeply when he spotted Dean on the couch.
He looked terrible. Forehead beaded with sweat, dark shadows under his eyes, pale and worn.
Cas went over to him immediately, practically able to sense the heat from a distance. "Dean." He said under his breath, eternally grateful for Sam.
In a second he was cradling his face, feeling his grace seep into Dean.
Dean's breathing evened out nearly instantly and Cas sighed, relieved and a little depleted.
His grace ran on pretty low amounts these days, and Cas was torn between being grateful he got to experience being human with Dean, and grateful he could still do this. It had been his only consolation in really dark times, that he was still able to take away some of Dean's pain.
Cas chewed on a lip, gently shifting Dean so he could hold him, climbing onto the couch. He didn't want to wake him by risking the stairs.
Dean had once told him, about the future Zachariah had tossed them into, both of them a little amused as they agreed, they'd probably been fucking by that point. Though Cas mockingly brought up that Dean had referred to him as a best friend and brother for the better part of a decade.
"So who knows if you were brave enough for that."
"You don't get to talk about brave, Mr.Deathbed Confession."
Cas had stilled but Dean just smiled, both of them buried under the blankets, as far from then as they could get.
"I still said I love you." Cas protested.
"To everyone." Dean had said, rolling his eyes. "Nice save, buddy."
Cas shook his head, returning to why he went down that path in the first place, glancing down at Dean. He couldn't imagine not being able to fix Dean with a touch. Couldn't imagine how future him had felt, not knowing if Dean would survive the suicide missions of keeping the camp going.
Cas breathed out, relieved again that they could do this. Just relax and get sick. Own some farm house, grow old--
"Cas?" Dean mumbled, voice exhausted.
And Cas couldn't help but smile when Dean frowned at him slightly, the relief still obvious in his features.
"What are--"
"Shh. Go to sleep," Cas ran a hand through his hair, kissing his temple. "I'm here."
"I love you." Dean slurred and Cas laughed softly.
"I love you too." He murmured and Dean made a soft noise, twisting further into his lap before he drifted off again.
Cas leaned to grab the second blanket, covering Dean further and settling into the couch cushions.
It brought back memories, watching over Dean while he slept.
But Cas wouldn't trade a single one for anything, no matter how painful some of them were.
He was just glad they had the rest of their lives to make more.