So this was from a prompt at the LJ community spn_hurtcomfort h/c Christmas meme.

Title: Why Your Joyous Strains Prolong

Prompt: From the lovely and talented pkwench: Dean, Dean - can even be Dean/Dean if you like - another Five Years prompt. Past Dean catches a stray bullet close to Christmas, the wound gets infected, and Past!Deano gets increasingly feverish and frail. As it happens, all he wants for Xmas is his brother back, which he can't have. Future!Dean only has himself to give ... and one of Sam's hoodies that he's very carefully (and likely secretively) carried around with him for the last few years. Future Dean is perhaps uncomfortable with the sentimentality of it all, Christmas is no doubt pointless at this stage of things, and all of that, but ... what the heck.

Spoilers: All episodes up to 5.4, "The End." MASSIVE SPOILER WARNINGS. You have been warned. AU(ish) after that.
Disclaimer: I had 'em for a while, but they finally chewed through the restraints this morning. Next time, no leather.
Usual waffly authorial disclaimer: Still unbeta'd, definitely spur-of-the-moment, written at an ungodly hour of the morning. I'm amazed I managed complete sentences.
Extra warning: Character death. (Sort of)

Part 1

"Cas! Castiel! We need some help over here!"

Dean jumps out of the driver's seat of the flatbed truck, doesn't even bother to open the door, runs to the back of the truck, hoists himself up to where Dean is lying, wrapped in a filthy blanket, hand clamped to his side over an equally filthy rag which is rapidly filling with blood. He can hear the commotion starting up behind him, the clamour of voices telling him help is on the way. At least being the leader of this group has its advantages, one of them being instant obedience from his troops.

"Hey, you still with me?" he squeezes his shoulder, checking for response time.

Dean nods, glassy-eyed, shivering in the cold, breath fogging in the air. "Yeah. 'M good."

"Good. Don't you die on me, now, dude. You die, I have no idea if I keep on ticking. So, no chances, you got me?"

"You're all heart." Dean lifts a hand. "Give a guy a hand up?"

Dean pulls him up, leverages him off the bed of the truck, slings his arm over his shoulder just as Risa arrives in time to grab his other arm. The blanket and the rag slip to the ground, forgotten, and they half-drag him to the cabin, where Castiel is already emptying out the first aid kit, laying out supplies.

"Lay him over there," he jerks his chin toward a cot to one side of the room. "What happened?"

"Recon went bad," Dean says curtly. "Once minute we're checking out the archives, the next the whole building's crawling with croats."

"Either of you infected?"

Dean shakes his head. "No. We lost Andrews. Had to shoot him before we cleared the front door. It wasn't so bad until we ran into the National Guard, being all they could be, which wasn't much. They got rid of the croats —what was left of 'em, anyway— but they weren't too discriminating about where they were aiming."

"Hey, I'm right here," Dean winces as Risa lowers him onto the cot. "Your bedside manner sucks."

"I can't believe I was such a wuss before," Dean rolls his eyes. "You want me to hold your hand, or what?"

"Bite me," Dean bites back a groan as the movement pulls on his injury, blood welling up between his fingers.

"Shove over," Cas hip-checks Dean unceremoniously to the side, pulls up a chair by the bed. "Where'd they get you?" he asks, cutting away Dean's shirt with a pair of scissors.

"Where does it look like?" Dean is gritting his teeth. "Three guesses, and the first two don't count. Damn. I liked that shirt."

"Jackass," Cas probes gently at the wound, grimaces in sympathy as Dean can't quite suppress a moan. "Bullet's still in there. It'll have to come out."

"Jesus."

"Yeah, sorry."

"Not your fault, Cas. Can you do it?"

Dean rolls his eyes, stalks over to the table, straddles a chair, arms folded over his chest. "You two girls need a minute?"

"You try being gut-shot and see how well you take it," Dean grunts. "Cas?"

"I can do it."

"How high are you?"

"Pretty sober, all things considered. It's not like you have much of a choice. It's either the feckless former angel or else your quasi-psychopathic future twin. Who do you want?"

"As a surgeon? Do I get to choose door number three?"

"Nope."

"Then you. No offence," he adds, looking at Dean.

"None taken. I'm a butcher, no secret there."

Dean coughs, tastes copper in his mouth. "There any coffee left?"

"Emergency rations, why? You certainly shouldn't have any."

"Not... for me... you." The room is spinning, and Dean grips the sheets tighter. "No operating... 'less you're sober." He feels rather than sees Castiel's hand on his forehead, solid and reassuring, finally lets the darkness that's been threatening take him.

Part 2

Dean hovers, paces anxiously as Castiel obligingly polishes off a pot of coffee, boils water to sterilize his equipment, takes his goddamned time about getting ready. He didn't see Risa leave, he notes, wonders when she slipped away. He's pretty sure she and Dean have been sleeping together —turns out they do have a connection after all. He glances over at Dean, unconscious on the cot, skin clammy, his breathing erratic. He looks like he's dying, and for the first time in years Dean is afraid, doesn't know what's going to happen to him if Dean dies. Doesn't know if it'll be worse if he disappears right along with him, or if he stays behind and has to keep going inexorably toward the end of the line.

"You going to do this anytime this century?"

Cas rolls his eyes. "Easy, bucko. We've got a pressure bandage on, and I'll get to him as soon as I can. Not my fault you dragged him out there to get shot. I thought that you'd know by now that trusting Zachariah to keep him safe is a bad plan. Actually, trusting Zachariah to be anything other than a traitorous bastard is a bad plan."

"Can we skip the I-told-you-so's and just get on with it? I got enough of those from S—" he breaks of, bites his tongue, slams the heel of his palm into the nearest available wall. "Just get that bullet out, would you?"

"You break that hand on purpose, I'm not patching it up again." Castiel carefully pulls his instruments out of the water, sets them up on a tray. "You going to help me, or what?" He sets about cleaning the area around the wound —such a small puncture, really, it looks like nothing— with rubbing alcohol and clean cotton swab from the first aid kit.

Dean is by his side in a flash. "What do you need me to do?"

"Grab the bottle of chloroform, put a few drops on a cloth. Follow the instructions on the label, and I mean that. If it looks like he's coming to, put him back under. I suppose it's a mercy he's already unconscious: this is going to hurt." Cas bites his lip. "You've got to be more careful with him, Dean."

Dean rolls his eyes. "I know you've got a hell of an angel-crush going on there, Cas, but come on. Pull it together."

"Fuck you. You're just jealous because I like him better than you."

"We're the same person."

"He doesn't torture people."

"I don't torture people."

"He doesn't torture demons, either."

"Are we really going to start arguing about that again?"

"No. Just telling you why I like him better. Hold his shoulders for me."

"I liked you better when you didn't swear, Cas."

"I liked you better when you weren't a sociopath." The tone is mild, not even reproving. Dean knows he deserves so much more from Cas. Especially from Cas.

"Touché. Jesus!" Dean bucks on the cot as Castiel probes at the wound with a pair of pliers, working his way toward the bullet, and Dean leans all his weight on his chest, trying to keep him still. "Easy, soldier. Don't move while we're trying to dig bullets out of you, okay?"

"Now would be a good time to use that chloroform before he makes me puncture something else!" Castiel snaps, trying to keep his hands steady.

"Right, sorry."

He pulls out the bottle, tries to decipher the handwritten instructions on the label. "Cas, your writing is like an autistic third grader's."

"A little busy here. Surgery first, recriminations later."

Dean sags back onto the cot after a liberal application of chloroform, and Cas bites his lip, brow furrowed in concentration. The look reminds Dean of how he used to be, before he turned mostly human: the tilt of the head, the intense look of someone trying to understand something fundamentally alien. It's a look Cas used to give him all the time, as though he was an enigma to be pondered, to be rolled over and over in his hands like a semi-precious stone catching the light. Castiel never looks at him like that anymore. A few minutes later there's the clang of metal on metal as Cas drops the bullet into a small bowl, then sets about trying to irrigate the wound and stem the bleeding before stitching it closed.

"All right, that's it. That's pretty much all I can do. The rest is up to him. We're going to have to watch him for the next couple of days, pray that infection doesn't set in."

"Pray?"

"Poor choice of words. We've got next to nothing to help him. No antibiotics, no painkillers, and alcohol would do more harm than good at this point."

"Nothing in your stash?"

"Nothing that wouldn't kill him outright, the state he's in." Cas pushes himself to his feet. "Speaking of which, I'm going to go wash up, and find my stash. I have a whole bunch of pharmaceuticals with someone else's name on them to consume. Come get me if things get bad."

Part 3

Dean parks himself in a chair next to the cot, pulls out his pack of cigarettes and is about to light one when it occurs to him that smoking in the same room as a post-op patient is probably not the best idea he's ever had. He swears under his breath, tucks the pack back into his breast pocket, glares at Dean because he really, but really needs a smoke. He settles for pacing instead, leaving the chair behind, spends the next few hours mapping out every square inch of floor with his boots, fidgeting and twitchy.

After a couple of hours Dean stirs, moans under his breath. Dean kneels next to him, puts a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, you with me?"

His eyes flutter open, don't quite focus. "Wh' h'ppened?"

"You took a bullet." Dean holds a plastic bottle of water to his lips, props up his head. "Small sips."

Dean manages to swallow a few mouthfuls, coughs, chokes, dribbles the rest down his chin. "God, that hurts."

"We're pretty much out of painkillers. Sorry."

"Yeah, I know." Dean lets his eyes close. "Cas get the bullet out?"

"You remember that?"

"Hard to forget a guy digging around in your stomach with a set of goddamned forceps. Why's it so cold?" Dean is shivering, goosebumps forming on his flesh.

"It's December. I'll get you a blanket." Dean strips one of the spare beds, finds another blanket in a closet. It's musty-smelling and kind of dusty, but he puts it on top of the clean one, and it does the trick. "Better?"

Dean nods. "Yeah. 's good, thanks." He lets his eyes close again, sinks back into a sleep that looks perilously close to unconsciousness, and leaves Dean to his own thoughts, none of which are particularly comforting.

Castiel comes to check on them a few hours later, sticks a thermometer in Dean's mouth, frowns at the results.

"Not good?"

"Not really."

"Cas?" Dean stirs, coughs, tries to push himself upright until Castiel gently shoves him back onto the cot.

"Take it easy. You've got a fever, we don't want you making this worse if we can help it." He turns to Dean. "We're going to have to keep him cool the old-fashioned way. I don't suppose we have any ice?"

Dean snorts. "There's snow, but I don't think I would want any of that stuff near a wound. Who knows what kind of shit is in the water now?"

"Tap water it is, then. I'll find some clean cloths."

Dean has to admit that Cas, despite being high on several different drugs, is pretty good at this whole taking-care-of-the-sick thing. It's likely why he doubles as an unofficial medic around these parts, although they don't like to broadcast the information. Once people know you have someone who can treat wounds, there are line-ups a mile long, attracting croats and stirring up trouble even when they're not attracting croats. He soaks a cloth in the basin of cold water Dean finds for him, starts wiping his patient's face, working his way down over his shoulders and chest. Lather, rinse, repeat. Dean is still shivering, out of it from the pain, which is a mercy, Dean thinks. Better to be unconscious. He stops pacing after a while when he suddenly identifies the sound that's been nagging at the back of his mind for the past little while: Castiel's voice, singing under his breath.

"Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o'er the plains. And the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strains..."

"Cas, are you singing?"

Castiel shrugs, keeps working. "It's Christmas, Dean."

"It is? Jesus."

"Literally."

"'s Christmas?" Dean opens his eyes, raises a shaking hand to rest on Castiel's arm. "Hey, Cas... d'you ever find God?"

Castiel blinks, looks back at Dean, who just shrugs, gives him an I've-got-nothing-this-is-your-department look. "Why do you ask?"

Dean motions vaguely with one hand. "I don't have my amulet. He... I don't have my amulet, either. Last I checked, you had it, were going to use it to look for God. So... inquiring minds wanna know."

"I'm not going to answer that, Dean." He keeps applying water, works in smooth, gentle strokes, as though he can somehow just wipe the whole mess away; pain, fever, bullet wound, all of it.

"Take that as a no, then."

"What did you think?" Dean snorts. "God checked out a long time ago."

"'m sorry, Cas."

Castiel lets out a small huff that could be laughter or despair. "Me too."

Part 4

The fever gets worse after that, and Castiel finally bails. Dean was expecting him to cave earlier, to be honest. He hasn't exactly been dealing well with the whole being-human thing, and other people's suffering brings out the very worst of his drugged-out hippy tendencies. So Dean is left holding the bag, or rather the basin, watching the sun come up on Christmas Day. Not that it's not a day just like any other. Christmas has even less meaning now than it did before, and that wasn't very much. Christmas has always sucked, as far as Dean's concerned.

Dean moans, thrashes weakly on the cot, and Dean does his best to hold him down, but fighting yourself is never as easy as it looks on TV, when you're made to confront the part of yourself you don't like. The problem here, he thinks, is that he's not looking at the part of himself he doesn't like, it's the other way around. When Dean opens his eyes he forces more water into him, doesn't like the sound of his breathing, wonders how bad it is if he can hear each breath rattling in and out. He's never been good at the whole medical thing, apart from standard first aid. He can put in stitches like nobody's business, set a fracture, but the minute illness sets in, he's out of his depth. So he dabs at Dean's face with a wet cloth, tries not to think of all the times he's done this for Sam.

"'s funny, you know," Dean says, voice rasping. "I'm usually the one doing this. Never get sick. Sam's always the one getting the flu, or whatever."

Dean winces, the way he always does when Dean mentions Sam, as though he's not ripping open a scar that's had to heal over and over again through the years. Of course, for Dean, it hasn't. "Yeah, well, I'm not exactly used to doing this for myself, so we're even."

"We're always even. You're me." Dean grins, coughs weakly, swallows more water when it's pressed on him. "Sam's always better at this sort of thing, when it did happen."

"Just shut up an get some sleep, okay?"

"I can't. Hurts too damned much."

"You used to be a lot more stoic about this sort of thing."

"I'm trying to break the habit of lying to myself. Kind of pointless. Besides, you're just trying to avoid talking about him." He hisses through his teeth as a sudden movement sends pain jolting through him.

"Who, Lucifer?" Dean is being disingenuous, knows it, doesn't care. He wants to be angry at Dean, can't quite find it in himself.

"Sam." The word is an exhalation of pain.

"Sam's gone."

"I know." Dean's voice is weakening. "Doesn't mean we can't... talk about him."

"Care and share, huh?"

"There's a certain symmetry to it... He liked that sort of thing. Always... wanted to talk. Like a damned girl." He starts coughing again, doesn't stop until Dean props him up until he's almost seated, pours more water down his throat.

"You need to stop talking before you exhaust yourself."

"Already exhausted," Dean points out. "Why's it so cold in here?"

"It's December. Want me to find you another blanket?"

"Christmas, right. Never liked Christmas. Christmas sucks. Never get what I want."

Dean throws another blanket over him, doesn't miss the flinch of pain even from the light contact of fabric. "What do you want?" he asks, as though he doesn't know the answer.

There's a sigh. "I want Sam."

Part 5

That's when Dean makes his decision. He strides purposefully into the back room that serves as his bedroom, pulls out his duffel bag from under his bed, pulls out a bag he's kept at the bottom of the duffel for... well, for five years now. He brings it back, sits on the edge of the cot, pulls out the contents.

"You tell anyone I have this, I'll kill you myself."

Dean's about to make a joke about redundancy —Dean can tell— but he stops, eyes fixed on what's in Dean's hands. "You... kept it. Huh." He huffs, a flash of mirth, of joy, in his eyes, and for a second Dean feels ridiculously happy, because he's seen that look on Sam's face so many times, and God he misses it. He unfolds the brown hoodie, pulls it gently over Dean's head and helps him thread his arms into the sleeves. "Warmer now?"

Dean nods, coughs painfully, presses a hand gently to his stomach, and filled with sudden doubt Dean grabs the hand, pulls it away, lifts the hoodie to take a look under the bandages. There's a bruise spreading along his abdomen. Not a bruise, really, but that's what it looks like: blood pooling beneath the skin, turning it an angry shade of red and purple. He probes it gently, makes a silent apology as Dean hisses with pain, feels the heat radiating under his palm. The right side of Dean's stomach is hard as a rock, and even he knows what that means. He sits for what seems like forever, watching himself die. Doesn't know exactly what he should be feeling.

"Can't breathe..."

Dean pulls him up by the shoulders, eases himself behind him. "Here, you can lean back on me, it'll help you breathe easier." He feels Dean sag against him, head lolling back to rest on his shoulder, can hear his breathing rattling and bubbling in his lungs. "Just take it easy, okay?"

Dean can only manage a breathless nod, twists slightly so that he's nestled against Dean's shoulder, rests a hand on Dean's chest, finding comfort in the sound of his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his chest. Dean bites his lip, reaches up with the hand that's not holding him upright, strokes his hair.

"Hey, Dean?"

He feels him stir, ever so slightly, knows he's listening, but each breath is an agonizing struggle now.

"If... no, when you get back... to your own time... you have to say yes. To Michael, I mean. I know we've talked about it before, but I mean it. Even if we do find the Colt, you and I both know I'll never be able to kill Lucifer. Not in a million years. Not while... not while he's Sam."

Dean's hand clenches ever so slightly against his shirt, and he doesn't know if that's a yes or a no. There are so many things he's forgotten about being himself. He gives his shoulders another comforting squeeze, takes comfort in the fact that, at least, he knows exactly what he wants to hear right now.

"It's okay, Dean. I got you."

Dean raises his head, eyes open, looking at something that isn't there, and smiles. Closes his eyes again. Lets out an exhalation that's half relief, half prayer.

"Sammy..."

Castiel finds him there the next morning, still cradling Dean in his arms. He looks up, thinks maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to scream until he's hoarse, stays silent.

"He's gone, Cas."

Wordlessly Castiel pulls Dean away, draws the blanket gently over Dean's face. Dean stands by the cot, looking down at the motionless figure under the blanket, hands shoved in his pockets. He doesn't realize he's shivering until Cas puts an arm around his shoulders, across his back really, because he's always been shorter than Dean.

"I don't know why I'm still here."

Castiel can hear the unspoken words. I even left myself behind. He looks up at Dean, feels his eyes fill with tears, pulls Dean close. "Not everyone leaves you," he pulls Dean's head down, presses his forehead to Dean's, throws all the fierceness and passion left in him into his voice.

"I'm still here."