Lend Me a Home

AUTHOR: weepingrace

SUMMARY:

Dean is hurt after a hunt and Castiel comes to the rescue. Or tries to, really; it isn't easy, him being human and all that jazz, lacking every kind of angel mojo.

[Set in S9 – canon divergence: Sam survived without Ezekiel's help and Cas is a human living in the bunker with them. Also Kevin lives, yay. Just this once, everybody lives.]

A/N:

In which casfeather gave me a prompt and I did my best to fill! Hope you like it!

Original Prompt: So basically DEAN is hurt after a hunt and then CAs comes in anD HELPS HEAL his wounds (oh cas doesn't have his angel mojo, this is when he's human) and dean tells him what to do and cas is freaking out cause dean is hurt and then dean just kisses him because cas if cute when hes worked up and then sam walks in and is like " I FUCKING KNEW IT YOU TWO" sorry i got exctied and my caps lock escaped my controll

DISCLAIMER: Supernatural is seriously not mine, yo. It still belongs to CW, surprise surprise.

It wasn't even that bad.

(No, honestly; it wasn't. After more than two decades of this, it somehow had become the same old. The Winchester brothers had endured far worse than a knife in the thigh. Sure, there was bound to be blood everywhere once anyone actually pulled out the knife, but Dean was able to drive back to the bunker without so much as flinching once.
For their standards, is simply was 'same old, same old'.)

However, that didn't necessarily mean that Dean would have been able to deal with that one alone. Sure, he would have managed to apply some sterile saline by himself, would have managed perfectly to stitch himself up, no matter how much that would have hurt. He would have gladly done it, too – never mind how masochistic that sounded. It was not meant like that.

What he meant was this: if he had a choice between trusting someone else with his leg or doing it himself, he'd rather do it himself unless it was family treating him.

Fact was, though, that he simply couldn't do it alone. The problem, indeed, was that the knife stuck firmly in his upper leg. While Dean knew that – from a medical point of view – it was a rather boring stab (one or two centimetres missing any important arteries or muscle structures, simply slicing the outer skin and flesh of his thigh), he also was aware that it would bleed some and that he'd need to apply pressure. And God, he definitely knew how difficult it could be to try to remove the weapon while simultaneously trying to stop the bleeding; nearly impossible, it was.

Due to that – and the fact that Sam was off to some creepy old library to 'research' (Dean would bet his ass that Sam was just, like, smelling the old books around there or something; his brother was weird like that around 'antique' books, especially if the language was so old that even Latin seemed young in comparison) – there wasn't much of a choice, really.

"Yo, Kev." Dean called in greeting upon entering the living room – or what Sam and Kevin had dubbed it, the 'library'. Though, there was a couch and a TV in there, so it was a living room to Dean anyhow.

"Hey, Dean," The reply came easy; then Kevin looked up to properly glance at Dean. After that, he froze and stared. "What the Hell."

"Oh that? 'Tis a mere flesh wound." Simple as that, he shrugged it off, then proceeded to grin brightly due to his Monty Python reference. "You know how it is. You finish them off, and they desperately try to harm you right before dying. Then, you can't pull the knife out because it'd bleed like crazy and so you drive home, the knife stuck in your leg, ruining one of your favourite jeans."

"Yes, right. Let's pretend that's normal." Kevin said, rolling his eyes in annoyed resignation. Though, that much must be said, there had been times when Kevin Tran had fainted due to wounds not half as bad; so at this point, Kevin most likely subconsciously considered this more normal than he wanted to let himself believe.

"Yeah, let's," Absentmindedly, Dean opened a bottle of beer, sitting down in the arm chair opposite of Kevin. "Do me a favour, Kev?"

"Sure, you're the wounded one. Do you want me to try to patch this up?"

"No," Dean declined, shaking his head to accompany the statement. It wasn't that he didn't trust Kevin, period. Rather, he remembered all the times Cas had patched him up before – he figured Cas was less likely to lose his cool. And it was about time that Cas learnt how to do stitches, anyways. "But fetch Cas for me, will you? Thanks, man."

"Alright. Be right back."

"Kevin? What is going on?" Cas inquired, looking up from his book in confusion.

A confusion that quickly turned into concern, and then horror as Kevin proceeded to say the following:

"It's Dean. Needs your help. He's got a knife stuck in his leg."

Quite comfortably – that is to say, as comfortable as it could possibly get after someone had rammed a knife into your one leg – Dean had arranged himself on the couch. He did so carefully, of course, as to not provoke further infections and rubs concerning the wound.

Honestly? The worst thing about wounds was never quite the immediate damage, no. Worst was when one was careless enough to infect the wound beyond what was absolutely necessary. Now, you can try to imagine how often and how much dirt particles had found their way into a Winchester's body over the course of time.

Hint: It was probably more than what you imagine at this moment.

He must have been a rather gory sight, Dean figured, eyes trained on his thigh almost in reverence. This knife stuck horribly deep for a desperate last attempt of a dying monster, so respect is quite due this once. However, even though it was not too gory in the old-fashioned 'wow that thing shredded your flesh dude' sense, it was still horrid for someone not used to sights like this. There'd be quite some blood, also, Dean figured, once he pulled it out. While he might have attempted to save these jeans had it only been the blood he lost till now, he knew for certain that he wouldn't be able to wash them enough to get out however much came after.

"Can't be healthy," Dean mumbled sceptically, probing the knife with his finger, then flinching at the jolt of pain. "Isn't healthy. Alright, I get it."

"Reaching the point of talking to yourself, huh?" Kevin inquired, tone joking. Still, even he had concern written all-over his face now as he regarded the leg with a slight frown on his features. "Doesn't look to good, to be honest. How are you even still conscious?"

"I'm a tenacious jerk, I reckon. Also, used to it by now. I doubt anyone's blood or wound would make me faint, to be honest," For a moment, Dean grinned at Kevin while the prophet rolled his eyes. "Where's Cas anyway?"

As Kevin was about to answer, Cas practically threw the door open, clutching a black box – the one were the brothers stored their bandages, band aids (the pink ones with princesses on it, Dean had purchased them just for Sam), sterile saline, needles, medicine, other things they needed to treat the regular flesh wound and the type of thing you could nick from hospitals without drawing too much attention – in his hands, knuckles turning white due to the tight hold he had on it.

"I'm here," Cas said, sounding somewhat concerned. The look on his face, though, screamed panic. "What happened, Dean?"

It was almost funny to watch Cas' face undergo drastic changes of colour, growing paler and paler every heartbeat. And Dean, jerk that he was, almost made a 'fifty shades of white'-joke, another reference Cas would (hopefully) never quite understand.

Nevertheless, even Dean knew that he couldn't mess with Cas in this particular fashion, not while he was so panic-stricken and horrified.

"Cas, hi. As you can see, I was on a hunt. Stuff happened and now I have this flesh wound, obviously." He explained nonchalantly, hoping that some of his own calm would have a positive influence on Cas' hysterical mood. "So I figured it'd be great if you could patch me up."

"Dean, I cannot 'mojo you' anymore, and you know it! I am no Angel, and without my Grace, I can be of no assistance whatsoever." His eyes were fixed upon Dean's leg, apparently unable to stray for even one second.

"Yeah, well, I don't want you to mojo me, I want you to patch me up. Literally," When Castiel only kept staring, Dean elaborated. "With a needle. Duh."

"No, I could not possibly do that –"

"You know how to disinfect wounds?"

"I do, naturally, but –"

"Awesome. Leave us alone, Kev, I'm sure there's more important stuff to do around here than watch us bicker all night."

Kevin wanted to say that he might as well take care of Dean's wound, but the other's glare was enough to imply that Dean really couldn't care less about what Kevin might as well do or not do. In fact, it made Kevin quite certain that nothing would have been able to change Dean's mind about this, not even bleeding out.

Utter silence fell upon the room until Kevin had closed the door shut behind him, worry etched onto his features – but also a high degree of certainty, since he knew Dean would not trust anyone with this unless they had earned that trust fair and square.

"…" Cas bit his lip, looking uncertain. He also knew well enough, though, that Dean wouldn't change his mind any time soon. "We could always simply wait for Sam to return –"

"Yeah, how about no. I may have been patient and enduring till now. But I'm betting Sam needs another hour or something, and I'm not so much in for that kind of waiting," Upon seeing Cas' frown and the hesitating and reluctant stance, Dean added another argument. "Plus, this kind of hurts and I don't know about you but I'd rather not see myself hurt any longer. Probably not very healthy."

Even though he still looked highly uncomfortable, Cas relented and made his way over to where Dean was placed on the couch. He sat down on the ground next to Dean's thigh, clutching the utensils box firmly in his hands.

"Okay. Awesome. So you start with the knife," As Cas stared at him, Dean elaborated. "Yeah, I usually do stuff like that without anyone's help. But this wound's pretty deep so I'd rather do it with some assistance. We need a tourniquet, ours is black I think."

Still not entirely convinced that this was much of a good idea, Cas searched the bag for the tourniquet.

"That's the one. Just place that a few inches above the wound… Like that, yeah, and just wrap it around tightly. And now, you'll grab that blood-stopper compression and press it against the wound once I remove the knife. Meanwhile, I'll take this," With a firm hand, he gripped the knife. Dean's entire expression morphed into one of pain for a mere second before he was able to take control again, eyebrows drawn together tightly and mouth set in a firm line. As Cas hesitated, Dean urged him to continue. "It's supposed to hurt, Cas. Just – ugh – go for it."

As he had removed the knife completely, blood was gushing out of it with leisure – due to the tourniquet – but still more steadily than Dean would have hoped. Carefully, Cas pressed the compression against it, soaking up some blood.

"You need to press a little firmer, Cas, and hold it until the blood flow eases," Dean instructed, apparently not suffering any pain. However, his hand clutched the knife handle vigorously until his knuckles turned wide; and that clearly told a different story. "And stop making that face, it's going to be okay, you're doing great."

"Mh." Cas replied, not looking convinced at all.

For a few minutes, neither said a thing, Cas staring intently at his hands, trying hard not to shift a millimetre, Dean staring at Cas, more than just a little bemused at his relatively new and still secret (because how do you break those news to everyone else while Heaven is quite literally crashing down upon the planet? Exactly.) boyfriend's behaviour. Cas had seen Dean in states so much worse, why would he react that badly this time around?

Dean guessed that for Cas, this was the first time he felt useless when it came to aiding Dean. Which he wasn't, at all. Actually, Cas was doing great, now that his hands weren't shaking as much, now that he had adjusted to the situation a little.

"Cas? You can stop. We need to take off the tourniquet and disinfect the wound. It shouldn't bleed too strong now." Reluctant, Cas moved his hands away, frowning at the blood that had tainted the compression.

Dean, intent as ever, swiftly removed the tourniquet and mentioned, "By the way, these things should never stay on for longer than fifteen minutes 'cause that'd be bad for the blood circulation, obviously."

"Okay, great, disinfection now. We need a 60cc syringe and a 18-gauge needle – Alright, alright, don't look at me like that, I'll get them myself, just remember what they look like. Sammy usually labels everything with marker so it's not too hard to find anyway… And the sterile saline," As Cas stared at him in horror, Dean chuckled. "My God, how worried are you? Calm down, Cas. You can't screw me up more than I already did!"

"Dean." Cas said, looking a little put off because of the comment.

"I know, I know. Not putting myself down in your presence. You know, it's kinda cute you getting all worried and worked up about me…" For a moment, Dean just smirked at Cas, forgetting all about the leg and disinfecting and whatever else had been on his agenda. "You also look terribly cute when you're blushing like this…"

Dean leant forward carefully, taking a gentle hold of Cas' face, closing the distance between them.

It was nice to kiss Cas like this; not rushed or frantic but slowly, steadily, simply to appreciate how much Cas cared. Gently, Dean's tongue explored Cas' mouth, playfully coaxing Cas' tongue to answer his every request. Softly, Cas moaned, lost himself a little in the kiss, forgetting his worries for a mere moment. Smiling, Dean was about to let go, to suggest they finish up so they could cuddle a little, relish in what they had in each other.

However, before Dean could break their kiss, Sam entered the room and just stared at them.

"Oh, Sammy, uhm, hi, what are you doing here already?" Dean implored, trying to smile nonchalantly while Cas mumbled something that vaguely sounded like 'Hello, Sam'.

"Kev called me about you being wounded, so I came back and …" Instead of continuing, Sam asked, "Where you guys making out just now?"

Then, before either of them could say a word, Sam suddenly grinned and exclaimed, "I knew it! I fucking knew it! Ha, Kev owes me 50$ know, he thought you'd need another few months, but I knew it'd happen rather sooner than later."

"Even though I'll regret asking this… How did you know what exactly?" Dean inquired, looking a little dazed.

"Well, you've been dancing around each other for a while, so… Matter of time, really. But that's not so much important right now. I heard you took a knife to the leg?" Gesturing towards it, Dean nodded and Sam sighed. "Just our luck. What now?"

"Come on over and help us with the disinfection. You can also show Cas how to stitch a person up."

"That's a good idea, actually. Do we still have 3'0 nylon? I think that'd be best for the leg," Sam said, patting Cas' shoulder as he saw the worry etched onto his features. "Calm down, Cas, that's going to be as good as new in two weeks, tops."

"Now, pay attention, Cas. Stuff like that's important for every hunter. And you do want to become a proper one, right?"

Cas nodded in determination, eyes trained on Sam's skilled hands. Dean smiled at his now not-so-secret boyfriend and hunter-to-be.

I'm proud of you, he thought with a smile, reminding himself to tell Cas just that once Sam had left.