Castiel gripped the twin daggers tightly, curling his fingers around the intricately designed handles and pulling them close. His hands were bathed in blood. He pushed his fingers back through his hair with shaking hands, smearing blood and entrails, overly mindful of the knives and potential enemies nearby. He was, in all honesty, too tired for this battle, but, what was it Dean had said? The shit had hit the fan, big time.

A guttural growl to his left snapped his attention back to the battle and he twisted around, staggering slightly from the movement and the headache beneath his eyes, lunging forward to meet the adversary halfway.

Fighting as a human was always different. It wasn't something that he expected he would get used to anytime soon. Having a human vessel had taken a little time to adjust to, but then he had had few limitations to his form. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep, he didn't take mind to injury that would have killed a human being. But now, his balance was always more precarious, his reaction time was slower, and the scraping of talons against his arms shredded his skin like tissue paper and hurt.

He wouldn't get used to fighting as a human, or at least, he wasn't used to it now. And fighting while his head was pounding and he felt tired and unsettled was even harder than usual, but he would manage.

He thrust his dagger into the being's chest, twisting it ninety degrees and then pulling it free with a tearing squelch of skin and blood. He turned for the next one as it fell, criss-crossing the knives in both of his hands and jerking them into either side of the monster's throat.

"Right," he muttered, wiping his blades on his coat. "Time to find the Winchesters."

Not that it was difficult to find them. It never was. All Castiel had to do was look for danger and he would find them willingly present. And danger today was three against two, which meant regardless if Dean wanted to tackle them by himself, Castiel was bound to step in.

Fighting was exponentially easier when the world wasn't spinning, but he knew better: Hell didn't take a break, and there was no rest for the wicked. No matter how tired he might have been, the show went on.

"Cas, look out!"

Castiel turned in time to catch a glimpse of something fast and dark moving towards him. He stumbled back a step, completely off guard from parrying the last attack, knowing the timing involved in this attack would result in an injury for himself, unable to have the time to bring his blades up.

Something shoved him; he fell back hard, knives flying out from his hands.

"Dean!"

Castiel raised his head, looking up at what had shoved him out of the way; Dean. Dean, standing where Castiel had been previously. There was a gunshot and the adversary vanished into mist, but Dean staggered backwards. His hand went up to his chest; sticking out from his coat was the hilt of a knife.

"Dean!" Sam yelled, ending the last of their enemies before dropping the pistol to run over.

Dean's fingers curled around the hilt for a moment before he staggered back again, collapsing down onto his knees.

Castiel moved without conscious thought, catching Dean as he fell. "Dean?" he asked quietly. His chest felt weird, a dull ache spreading throughout his skin, which was not right because Dean had been the one who had been stabbed...

Sam crashed to his knees next to them, grabbing Dean's shoulders. "No, no, no, no, no, Dean! Not again, no, Dean! Dean!"

Castiel woke with a strangled gasp, sitting bolt upright in the cheap motel bed. He was tangled in the blankets and soaked with sweat, trapped somewhere between what he'd just seen and the fact that he was in the motel, very much not on the battlefield, and Sam was sitting at the table ten feet away, watching him closely.

"Cas?"

Castiel looked over at Sam, swiping his tongue over his dry lips, trying to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He couldn't seem to manage.

Sam straightened up, putting the book he was paging through down. "Hey, Cas. Talk to me?"

Castiel shook his head slightly, trying to push away the blankets. They were tangled around his limbs and he couldn't untangle himself, much to the dismay of his stomach. He was starting to feel a little panicky.

"Okay, okay," Sam said, launching out of the chair. "Just take it easy." His hands pulled back the blankets much easier than Castiel was managing. "You were just having a night... mare."

Castiel had already sprinted across the room to the en suite at this point, flinging open the door before his stomach could rebel onto the carpet.

"Oh, don't knock or anything-" Dean started, but it was at this point that Castiel threw up, and Dean finished his sentence with a "Oh, that's great".

The shower curtain pulled back. Castiel glanced up when he was no longer occupied, squinting up at Dean's water-streaked face. "What?" he muttered. His throat felt raw and his mouth was burning.

"You are just a bucket of sunshine," Dean said, pulling the curtain closed. "Don't flush the toilet."

Castiel chose not to respond, but slumped forward to rest his forehead against the toilet seat.

"Isn't being human great?"

Castiel wanted to retort, perhaps with a touch of irritation, but he didn't have the energy. Instead, he just huffed, and wrapped his arms around the toilet.

"We're so... disposable. Vulnerable," Dean continued, mock cheerfully. "You used to be a messenger of God, and now look at you."

Castiel's fingers constricted around the toilet seat. "Dean."

"Yeah, Cas, buddy?"

"Shut up."

Dean just laughed at him. "Don't worry, Cas. It's usually short-lived. Intense, but short-lived. Sam and I've both had it. It's a pain in the ass, but you'll live."

"That remains to be seen," Castiel muttered.

Dean snorted. The water clicked off and there was some rustling before Dean stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped around his hips.

Castiel ended up staring mostly at his bare feet, not bothering to raise his head from the toilet seat. Dean was right. There was something horribly ironic about this, being draped over the toilet with the flu.

"How the mighty have fallen."

Castiel managed a weak glare. "Shut. Up," he repeated, trying to hit the tone that Dean and Sam used when they said it. He didn't know if he managed; he hadn't ever uttered the command before this.

Dean grinned down at him before turning away to the sink, stepping over Castiel's legs in the cramped bathroom.

Castiel peeled his face away from the seat, sitting up slightly. "I had a dream about you," he said critically, looking up at Dean.

"Maybe not the best thing to admit, Cas." Dean spit toothpaste into the sink. "I don't want to hear about your kinky sex dreams, especially if they involve me. Some things I just don't need to know."

Castiel shifted uncomfortably. The toilet paper dispenser was digging into his back. "You died," he said bluntly.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Really? Was it that rough?"

"We were not having sex," Castiel replied tiredly. "We were on a hunt. You stepped in when I was about to be attacked."

"Oh." Dean spit again and rinsed, rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth. "Well, anything's possible." He held his hand down to Castiel. "Come on, get off the floor. You don't even want to know what's down there."

And he didn't really care, to be honest, but he didn't say anything, just reached up to take Dean's hand. He let him pull him up, struggling to maintain his balance and find his feet, only to fail spectacularly when darkness tore across his vision.

"Hey! Cas!"

Castiel scrabbled for purchase on anything, the wall, the sink, but he ended up latching onto Dean's arms and staggering sideways into his chest. His legs felt wobbly and the world was looking the way that the way that the washing machine did when he stared through the little glass door. Dean was shower warm beneath Castiel's goosebump-covered-body and he pressed instinctively closer despite how he already felt too hot on the inside. How could the human body feel hot on the inside but be cold on the outside?

"Sammy!" Dean yelled, hooking his arms under Castiel's. "Little help in here!"

Castiel sighed heavily and let his eyes stay closed. He couldn't open them right now, anyway. There were still many limitations to the human body that he was unaware of.

He was vaguely aware of Dean's hand against his sweat-soaked back. He thought he heard Dean saying something along the path of "We'll get you better, Cas, don't worry", but then again, he couldn't be sure. Human illness did weird things to the senses, and Dean wasn't particularly prone to outbursts of brotherly compassion in the first place, let alone exclamations of fallen angel compassion.

He definitely, probably misheard him.

But then he was half asleep, and as sick as a human, and it really didn't matter in the long run to begin with.

Buckets and buckets of sunshine.

Sorry for the chapter delay - got waylaid by Godstiel in S6 and then crazyCas in S7. S8's bringing the feels back, though. :P I do not own Supernatural. Thanks for reading!