what you dont do

Title: What You Don't Do

Author: Ginny Winchester

Fandom: Supernatural

Characters, Pairing: Dean/Castiel

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Slash

Spoilers: Season 5

Summary: I'm working on a multi-chapter fic right now, and this is part of it, but it can be a one-shot too, so until I'm done with the whole fic, I'm gonna post parts of it. Basically I'm including all of S5, starting with Free To Be You And Me (5x03), everything that happened on and off-screen, according to my imagination of course. The story of Dean & Cas, with an alternative ending of S5. But I'm more of a Team Free Will girl, so I'm including Sam on lots of occasions. The fic below does not have him, but most of the other chapters do. This fic right here is set after 5x22, but as I said, it ended differently.

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Cas' head is on Dean's out-stretched arm, and Dean buries his face in the angel's hair. The fact that Cas smells like after-rain air, fresh and soothing and different, never ceases to amaze him.

He is almost asleep when he feels something warm and wet on his arm below Cas' head, and when he listens, he notices Cas' breathing is strange, it's uneven, a weird combination of small gasps and long sighs.

Dean lifts his head off his pillow. "What's wrong?" he whispers.

Cas shivers but forces himself to stay still. "Nothing, I'm okay. Go back to sleep. You need to rest." At least he tries to sound confident, Dean thinks.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

Dean lays his head back down, but has no intention of sleeping. He closes his eyes and breathes slowly. That is until he feels Cas shift and then the angel sits up and turns away from Dean, careful not to wake him. Dean opens his eyes. It's dark, but he can tell that Cas' shoulders are hunched and they seem to be trembling slightly.

"I knew it" he says, scooting over, sitting up behind the angel, his chest against Cas' back and he puts his hands on Cas' shoulders, rubbing gently. But Cas hisses in pain the moment Dean's skin comes into contact with his back. "What is it?" Dean asks, pushing himself away. Cas doesn't answer, and Dean is about to ask again when he feels something wet on his chest, and he smells blood. "What the—" that's as far as he gets before he switches the lamp on the nightstand on, and looks down at himself, then up at Cas' back.

There are two cuts on Cas' shoulder blades, each about 4 inch long, and bleeding. Dean stares at them for one long moment, but then he suddenly knows…

That must be… where… oh, god…

"Fuck, you're bleeding" he says and even he can hear how his voice is shaking. He gets out of bed, and two minutes later he returns from the bathroom with a first-aid kit. "Just, uh… stay still, okay? I'm gonna take care of these. It's gonna hurt, but you have to stay still. Can you do that?" Cas turns his head a little, only turning back half-way, but Dean can see his profile and the tiny nod he gives, and it's enough.

Dean cleans the wounds, tries to be as careful and fast as he possibly can, because he knows the disinfectant hurts like hell. Once he's done, he places bandages over them and fixes them with band-aids. "There" he says quietly. "That should hold for a while."

He puts the first-aid kit on the nightstand and switches the lamp off. Cas only has time to glance over his shoulder before Dean is there, right in front of him, kneeling between his legs, and suddenly there are strong arms around him, one hand on his back, carefully placed between his shoulder blades, the other on the back of his head, petting, caressing, soothing.

He wants to return the gesture but then Dean pulls back, both hands on Cas' face, forcing the angel to look him in the eye.

"You listen to me now, you stupid son of a bitch. When you're hurt, physically or emotionally or in any other way, you open your mouth and you talk to me. If it's the middle of the night, you wake me up. What you don't do is cry and then lie to me and say everything's fine. Did you really think I was gonna buy that? If so, then it's a tad offensive." Dean allows himself a small smirk and sees Cas' lips curve up for a second, but when he releases him, the angel hangs his head and all Dean hears is a sob. "Jesus" Dean mutters before sliding his arms around Cas again, starting to get really worried. "What is it? Cas? Tell me." He practically begs but this is the least of his concerns right now.

Cas just burrows into Dean, his arms coming up to Dean's back, clinging to him, and crying even harder. All he can manage between quiet sobs is "Dean… It hurts so much… so much…". Then he swallows and tries to breathe properly but fails.

And this is when Dean begins to think that the cuts may be the only part of the real scars that he can actually see, so the real pain must be much more than what a couple of cuts can cause. They both knew this was going to happen eventually, but still, it pains Dean to see Cas cry, because Cas wouldn't cry if the feeling wasn't truly excruciating, and because he can't do anything about it. He can't make it better. He can't help.

He tries anyway.

It's ten minutes or so before Cas' breathing starts to slow down and he seems to have calmed down just a little. He takes a deep breath.

"Dean… you're rocking us back and forth…" he whispers.

And Dean realizes it's true. He never even noticed doing it.

"Sorry" he says. "Must have been functioning on instinct. If it's—"

"I like it" Cas says, barely audible.

"I used to do this when Sam was a kid, to calm him down after a bad dream. I'm glad it still works." He huffs a laugh, then fetches a tissue from the nightstand and hands it to Cas with a quiet "Here".

Cas takes the tissue, wipes his nose and his eyes, then looks up at Dean. "Thank you."

"You're welcome" Dean says softly. "But no more silent suffering. Okay?"

And the s in Cas' answering "Yes" is swallowed by Dean as he presses their lips together.