A/N: This particular little ficlet was written for a friend, who landed in the hospital after an accident. She requested a sick-Cas-nursemaid-Dean fic. I personally can't see either of them playing those roles, and so there was generous application of some liberal interpretation, but as it turns out that was the idea behind her request.

Grouchy!Cas is based on yours truly, who according to very reliable sources happens to be the worst patient ever.

Set the winter after they meet, so about six months after Parallax begins.

The first sign, which Dean doesn't realize until later, was the thing with the thermostat.

It's a classic November day, cold and grey and dreary and damp. Dean, dragged reluctantly out of bed by repeated calls from Bobby who has absolutely no respect for days off, notices the cold but doesn't bother trying to do anything about it. He's tossing back the last of his coffee and moving towards the door when he catches sight of Cas, who is shuffling down the short hallway leading to the bedrooms, wrapped head-to-toe in his thick comforter. He has the blanket pulled up to his nose and down over his hair, so all Dean can clearly see of him is narrowed blue eyes.

He stops halfway down the hallway and turns to stare accusingly at the thermostat on the wall. After a moment, and a lot of shifting, he frees one hand and starts fiddling with the controls.

"Hey, Cas, you all right?" Dean asks. Cas wakes up slowly and reluctantly, and Dean's known only a very small number of things that can get him out of bed and moving around before he's damn well ready to be. For his concern, Dean gets an extremely unfriendly glare before Cas turns and shuffles back towards the bedroom.

Dean looks down at Lady who has been following him around in the hopes of getting fed. She provides no enlightening insight, laser-focused as she is on the pop tart in his hand. He shrugs it off, accepting it as a part of Cas' usual morning charm, and heads out.

He comes home to the Sahara.

"Fuckin' hell, Cas!" he snaps, yanking his coat off as he heads over to the thermostat. Once he's turned it down to something slightly lower than the surface-of-the-sun setting, he looks around and finally notices the complete lack of Cas in any of the normal places. The computer is on, a parade of tasteful and conservative pictures that came standard on the computer marching across the monitor- Dean has no doubt Cas hasn't changed the screensaver once since getting the computer, it's just not a Cas thing to do. The TV is off, the couch is empty. And Lady hadn't come rushing to greet him, he sees suddenly, bouncing and dancing and whining like it's been years since last they met when it fact it's barely been two hours. Annoyance still present but grudgingly taking a back seat to concern, Dean heads back to the bedroom.

There's a moment of real, genuine worry when he doesn't find Cas there, until he hears the soft rhythmic thumping, realizes the bed has been stripped of blankets and pillows. He circles around the bed warily and finds Cas lying on the floor. Or rather, he finds a vaguely human-shaped lump amidst a nest of blankets and pillows- arranged, Dean notices, over the heating vent. Lady has tucked herself into the mess, her wagging tail impacting the wall being the origin of the thumping noise.

"Cas?" he calls out, approaching the blanket nest with caution, sidling sideways towards it as though he's afraid the person within will turn out not to be Cas, but in fact the dreaded Swamp-Blanket Thing.

"What?" the lump says in reply, shifting around just a bit, and Dean winces. On a good day, Cas sounds like his throat is lined with sandpaper. This clearly isn't a good day. This time, he sounds like how Dean imagines the Washington head at Rushmore would, if it could speak.

"You sick?" Dean asks, which he freely admits is an extremely stupid question. He can feel the glare piercing straight through the blankets. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Go away, Dean."

"C'mon, Cas, this isn't actually helping," he tries, picking carefully at the corner of one blanket. The pile ripples and shifts and the corner is yanked back, disappearing into the safety of the nest.

"Go away, Dean," Cas growls again, and there's real menace in his tone now.

Dean goes, but not very far.

As the Winchester boys had basically raised themselves, Dean is far and away no stranger to the various illnesses of winter. The big problem here is the difference in patient temperament- Sam is the sort who will deny being sick, and go about his day as normal, even if it means taking a quick break every five minutes so he can throw up in the corner. If forced to admit to being somewhat less than perfectly healthy, he's the stoic martyr, asking only for a basin and a bottle of water near his bed before sending his wannabe caretaker away.

Cas, it seems, has the same general idea but a radically different approach.

Dean takes a moment to regroup, to brace himself. This isn't the normal Cas, he tells himself, the Cas who is cool and controlled and rational. This is a sick and miserable Cas who has reverted to the maturity level of a six-year-old and the hostility level of a tiger with a toothache.

Thus prepared, he heads downstairs to pick up some supplies, then takes his life into his own hands and heads back into the bedroom.

"All right, Cas, up and at 'em," he says cheerfully as he walks in.

Cas' answer is something he no doubt picked up from Dean himself. Not the least bit put out, Dean reaches down and yanks away the first blanket he gets a good grip on.

"Damn it, Dean, don't!" Cas says, whines really, and if Dean needed any more proof that Cas was sick that would've done it. "I'm cold."

"You think you're cold," Dean corrects him, picking up a pillow and uncovering a socked foot. "But you're baking yourself in there."

He keeps at it, wondering where the hell Cas had even found all these blankets, until nothing is left except the man himself, huddled under the comforter and shivering. He curls into a ball, tucked as small as he can get, holding onto his last blanket with a death grip. At that sight, Dean feels like a special breed of asshole, and decides to let Cas keep the comforter. He sits down beside the huddled man, back against the wall.

"Give it a minute to get some air circulating," he says, getting the first aid kit he'd brought up from his car and fishing the thermometer out of it. To look at Cas' medicine cabinet, you'd think any sort of ill health was something that only happened to other people. He hadn't even had any aspirin until Dean got it for himself.

"Hate you," Cas says, words somewhat undermined by his pressing himself against Dean's leg in search of warmth. He's radiating heat like a blast furnace and shivering, although not badly enough for Dean to be getting really worried. 'Miserable' just about nails it, he thinks.

"Stop talking. It hurts just listening to you." All because he's officially a pansy doesn't mean he has to act like it- or, God forbid, let Cas figure it out. He leans forward a bit and picks up the bottle of water, dangles it in front of Cas' face. "Drink this and I'll leave you alone."

Cas squirms around a bit, rests his chin on Dean's hip and stares narrow-eyed at the bottle as if it has offended him. Dean forces himself to not notice Cas' hot breath on his thigh, reminding himself that Cas isn't up to anything right now and Dean himself will undoubtedly catch whatever Cas has got, although he won't be nearly as big a pain about it.

There's a bit more squirming, during which an elbow digs directly into Dean's solar plexus and no way that was an accident, before Cas manages to achieve something that almost qualifies as 'upright', although not if Dean moves so much as an inch. He takes the water and fumbles the lid off, takes a single sip that probably gets all of four molecules of water in him, and peers sideways up at Dean expectantly.

"All of it, smartass," Dean grunts, since Cas is still putting pressure on important internal organs that, as it turns out, aren't keen on being squashed. If Cas' goal is to make Dean as miserable as he is, he'll be pleased to know it's working.

Still, after a little while, Cas apparently realizes that Dean only has so much patience and shifts in installments to a more comfortable position, less draped over Dean and more leaning against him. He takes the thermometer away when Dean offers it to him, reluctantly sticks it in his mouth when Dean glares at him. He makes a face at the temperature it registers and tosses it aside without letting Dean see it, then sighs and settles back against Dean more comfortably, pulling his blanket back up around him.

Dean can't tell if Cas' sudden urge to cuddle is apology and forgiveness both or simply the fever robbing him of the strength to move. However, as appealing as being Cas' pillow sometimes is- depending on the circumstances- he's hungry, and getting hot, and no way is he getting trapped here for however long Cas plans on sleeping.

"Back to bed, Cas," he says, shifting gently. Cas groans and leans harder against him, doing his level best to avoid moving.

It takes Dean the better part of twenty minutes to relocate Cas to the bed, a task which includes chasing away Lady who had been sitting dead-center on the mattress as though it were her own private kingdom. He lets Cas have the comforter, and gives him another, lightweight blanket, and leaves the half-empty bottle of water on the bedside table with the stern order to drink all of it.

He comes in to check on Cas every so often, mostly ignored and occasionally grumbled at. Lady stays where she is, parked on Cas' feet, and gives Dean a smug-dog look every time Cas orders him out.

Dean sleeps on the couch that night, mostly because he has no desire to deal with that. He wakes up the next morning fever-free, and Cas looking a little shaky but a lot better, and somewhat apologetic. Dean keeps all comments to himself about what a pain in the ass Cas is when he's sick, fairly confident he won't be doing himself any favors.

The next day, however, he starts a subtle campaign, and the medicine cabinet slowly fills up. An ounce of prevention, and all that.