#szlez

Looking at the wound, maybe Castiel was right—maybe he does need a hospital after all. Small caliber or not, Castiel bleeds like a faucet, and only after a good thirty minutes of continuous pressure and towels and numerous prayers to a god that may or may not exist, does Dean manage to stem the flow. After that—after that, he has no clue what to do.

“My—my old man got shot once,” Dean mentions after he returns from the motel parking lot, a first aid kit in hand. Castiel sits on the edge of his bed, shirtless, with blood staining the left half of his torso and down the leg of his slacks. Dean doesn’t look at him—tries hard to not look at him, but he can’t help but admire his build, the firmness of his core and biceps, his forearms. Two nickel-sized scars decorate his opposite shoulder, barely an inch between them and silvered from age. He aches to touch them, to see what they might feel like under the pad of his thumb.

Whether or not Castiel notices him staring, he doesn’t let it show. “How did it happen?”

Right, words. “He—someone was hunting on our land, once, least that’s what he said. I was a kid.” Dean sits on Castiel’s bad side and urges him to lift his legs onto the mattress and turn. With shaking hands, he pops open the kit in his lap, the contents half used, but still with enough gauze and bandages to make do for the time being. “Walked in, sat down at the table, wouldn't let my mom touch him. Said he could take care of it himself.” Blood drips; Dean dries the wound with a red-stained rag. “Almost lost his damn leg.”

Castiel hums, then sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Dean takes a few packages of gauze and a small tub of petroleum jelly from the box, setting the box aside. “You gonna let me in on your charade, now?”

Castiel straightens up, tensing under Dean’s hand as Dean covers the wound in a thin sheen of wax. “You should’ve taken me to the hospital.”

“I told you, no.” Dean barely holds back from jamming the gauze onto Castiel’s shoulder out of spite. Hurting him won’t solve his problems, and probably won’t get him any answers any faster. “Whoever shot you could be at any hospital in the city, waiting to finish the job. And if you’re dead, who’m I gonna bitch at?”

Low, Castiel lets out a noise Dean could almost call a laugh. “You’ll hate me.”

“Not telling me’s gonna make me hate you more.” He tapes down the gauze with two Band-aids and, the rest of his tools in hand, crawls around Castiel, coming to sit in front of him. Visibly reluctant, Castiel shifts around, letting Dean have access to the exit wound marring his shoulder, red and swollen and slightly larger than the entry hole. Dabbing away the excess blood, he asks, “You sure it doesn’t hurt?”

“It does,” Castiel says, biting back a whine, “but I’ve been shot before.” He wrings his hands in his lap, his knuckles white and scarred.

“Still doesn’t mean it don’t hurt.” Dean looks down at their thighs and the darker black of Castiel’s slacks, now crusting with blood. Should’ve gotten him to take his pants off. “Spill, now.”