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Dean wakes up feeling like second-generation roadkill, the kind made from car-struck scavengers. Which, all told, isn’t that unusual.
Thing is, he also wakes up in a bed he doesn’t recognize. This, too, when taken on its own, isn’t all that unusual.
It’s the combination of the two that sends all his warning bells ringing.
Fighting down a wave of nausea that rises with every rocking motion of the world, Dean extricates himself from the sleeping body draped around him. The man—it feels like a man, Dean doesn’t bother looking—the man lets go with minimal fuss, his hand trailing across the back of Dean’s loose t-shirt.
Slowly, swallowing hard, Dean sits up and edges his legs over the side of the bed. The hazy impression of flannel pajama pants swims before his eyes. Dean pats his thighs and chest before having to catch himself against the bed, but the check is proof: Dean is clothed. Risking the dizziness, Dean looks back over his shoulder, only to have to catch himself again at a sudden tilt.
Lit by the green glow of a digital alarm clock, the man sleeps on, close to waking but not yet there if Dean’s careful. He’s got at least a decade on Dean, maybe more, although he’s still younger than a good number of clients. The weird part, besides the pain, besides the sluggishness, besides the need to hurl his guts, the weirdest part is, they’re both definitely clothed.
Maybe they got dressed afterwards, but Dean doesn’t feel fucked. The bile lingering at the back of his mouth disguises any lingering tastes of latex; maybe that’s what happened.
The headache pounds with his heartbeat, and ramps up accordingly.
Because maybe, he pieces together, it’s merely that nothing’s happened yet.
Time to leave. As fast as he can.
Dean knows what drunkenness feels like. He knows what a couple other things feel like too, and if he hasn’t been drugged, he’ll eat his boots. And then immediately puke them up.
Limbs shaking, he slides out of the bed and onto the floor. He kneels there on all fours, fingers splayed against cool hardwood. Slowly, he tilts forward until his forehead connects with the floor. He closes his eyes. Breathes. Enjoys the cool wood more than he rightly should.
Controlling his breathing, he forces himself to look around. He can’t immediately see his clothes. Which means no wallet, which means...
Wait, no.
Car keys.
Dean crawls about half a foot before having to stop.
No, wallet first. Or money. Anyone’s. He needs a taxi. He needs...
He needs his brain to work way faster than what it’s doing right now.
How hard did this guy drug him that Dean wound up back at his house? That’s the kind of risky shit Dean never even considers doing except with a routine client, and Dean didn’t recognize that profile.
Okay, self-recriminations later. Escape now.
“Now,” Dean whispers to himself.
As long as he can grab some money for a ride, the clothes he’s wearing will have to be good enough. Maybe there will be some shoes by the door, too.
Because the world hates him, Dean’s on the far side of the bed from the door. Dean crawls, or maybe he just catches himself along a winding path. He’s nearly out when it finally occurs to him to check the guy’s bedside table for a wallet.
Wobbling against gravity and fighting against the burning in his bones, Dean pushes himself up to stand on his knees. He immediately falls back, sitting on his heels, but he manages not to fall.
He does slap the floor, though.
A sharp inhale comes from the bed, the jerk of motion of someone startled out of a dream. Through the shadows of the room, the man sits up, and Dean shrinks back. Maybe it’s too dark. Maybe this guy sleepwalks.
Maybe Dean’s gonna get out of this without getting killed or raped.
The man clicks on the lamp on his bedside table. The light hits Dean’s eyes, hits Dean’s brain, hits Dean’s stomach.
Dean doubles over, heaves, and loses the remains of a dinner he can’t recall eating. It surges out of him nonetheless, an acidic spew that leaves him hunched on hands and knees.
A jarringly gentle hand touches his shoulders, slides along his back.
“Dean?” the man asks in a voice rough and deep from far more than sleep. “Can you get up?”
Another wave of sickness presses up inside Dean’s throat, and then there’s a waste bin shoved beneath his hanging head. Dean vomits until he dry heaves, and the man stays where he is, rubbing circles into Dean’s back.
When even Dean’s body finally agrees there’s nothing left, Dean sinks back down in a kneel, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The man shuffles away on his knees and Dean almost falls before the man returns, now with tissues. One, the man wipes over Dean’s hand. The other, the man presses into his palm.
Dean wipes his mouth.
Both tissues go into the trash can. Whatever evidence might have been in there, Dean’s not looking now.
“Let’s get you to the bathroom,” the man tells him, already rising. “If you lean on me, can you try to stand?”
“The fuck did you give me,” Dean groans, squinting up at a silhouette framed by far too much light for just one lamp.
The man presses the back of his hand to Dean’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“The fuck,” Dean says again, straining for clarity, “did you fucking give me.”
“No one at the office is this sick,” the man says nonsensically. He keeps holding out his hand, and Dean’s stomach heaves at the swirl of colors across his palm and fingers, the rainbow stain of an activated soulmark.
Great, Dean’s been drugged by some guy so messed up, he kidnaps prostitutes instead of banging his soulmate.
The man puts the basket of vomit back in front of Dean, apparently expecting another pukefest. When Dean fails to comply, the man gets up to bring Dean a half-empty glass of water from his side of the bed.
It’s clear and tempting as hell, but Dean leans away so far, he’d fall over if the man didn’t catch him with a firm grip on his shoulder, just above Dean’s own soulmark, still inert, black with potential. Fuck no. Even with his sleeve covering it, that’s not a touch Dean ever fucking allows.
Dean fights to shrug him off, only to nearly slump into his vomit on the floor.
“Stay here,” the man urges, laying Dean down on his side in what Dean distantly recognizes as the recovery position.
Telling himself he’s feigning weakness, Dean lets himself collapse against the hard floor.
The man gets up once more and unplugs a cell phone from its charger. He punches in a number so short, it’s gotta be speed dial before kneeling back down beside Dean. Again, the man touches Dean’s forehead with his right hand, all of his palm and fingers swirling with the colors of a found match, a wave of hues flowing across the black.
A lot of people have soulmarks on their hands, more people than not. It’s the obvious point of first contact. Even so, the touch of a soulmarked hand is always invasive to Dean, and that’s in a normal situation, with a normal person. Here, Dean flinches away hard.
“I’m sorry,” the man whispers. “I can’t give you anything for your head until I know- Yes, hello,” he interrupts himself in a louder voice, no longer apologetic in the slightest. “My partner is having a medical emergency. Our address is Twenty-Eight Longbridge Road, we need an ambulance.”
“Help,” Dean croaks.
“Shh.” The man puts a finger against Dean’s lips, but rapidly withdraws it when Dean turns his head and heaves. “His symptoms. They, they started last night, though he’s been under the weather for, I don’t know. A week? I’m not sure. But he began vomiting and can’t stand, and he’s running a fever. A high one. It was a small one last night. He’s still vomiting, but nothing’s coming up.” A pause, his head tilted hard against the phone, his eyes locked on Dean. “Yes, he’s dry heaving. How long? I... A few minutes before I called, I think he fell on his way to the bathroom.”
Help, I’ve been drugged and kidnapped, Dean needs to say, but inhaling through his mouth only leads to painful coughing, and even harder throbbing in his head.
“They’re sending an ambulance,” the man relays to Dean, his hand firm on Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s right shoulder, mercifully. Into the phone, the man says, “We’re on the second floor, I don’t think I can get him down to the door safely, will they- Thank you.” Another pause. “Oh. Of course. His name is Dean Winchester. He’s thirty-eight years old-”
Dean coughs, hard, the force of it wracking his body, because that’s not right, that’s not fucking right, he’s... He’s...
How old is he?
“-he’s on antidepressants and allergy medication,” the man continues over Dean’s hacking, now rubbing Dean’s back. “Um. Prozac. I don’t know the dose. For allergies, it’s all over-the-counter, generic. Sometimes he takes something for heartburn, but he didn’t last night.”
“Drug,” Dean coughs out, maybe loud enough for the phone to pick up.
The man stops at that, leans down close. “Dean? What did you say?”
“Gave me something,” Dean rasps. “Don’t know what. Can’t... Can’t think. Fucking burning.”
“He says he’s burning up,” the man continues into the phone. “What should I do? I have him in the recovery position, he’s conscious. He- Oriented?” His eyes slide to the side, listening to whatever this other person tells him. God, please let it be a real ambulance dispatcher. The man nods along. “All right.”
Looking back down to Dean, the man says, “Dean, do you know where you are?”
“Floor.”
“Do you know what day it is?”
“Night.”
“Dean,” the man says, sounding more frightened than stern. “Do you know where you are?”
“Your bedroom,” Dean groans, the floor tilting beneath him.
“Our bedroom,” the man says.
Dean flops a hand, successfully flipping the bird.
With a deep frown etched into his forehead, the man leans closer still. “Dean, what’s my name?”
Dean twists away.
“Dean, what’s my name,” the man demands.
“Lemme go,” Dean begs.
“He doesn’t know who I am,” the man says into the phone.
The person on the other end of the call must say something for a long time, or maybe that’s reality tilting instead of the floor. Like the crushed worm he feels like, Dean writhes an inch closer to the door before remembering—realizing—that it’s closed.
“Dean,” the man says, speaking slowly as if reduced speed can reduce terror. “My name is Castiel. I’m your soulmate, and you are safe.”
Collapsing the scant inches he’d managed to lift himself, Dean clutches tight to the floor as it rocks. He flips the bird again.
Something clicks against the hardwood: the phone being set down.
“I’m going to roll you onto your side,” the man warns before dragging Dean back into the recovery position, away from the vomit spill. This time, Dean’s lying left side up. “Dean, look, here.”
And the man tugs Dean’s sleeve up.
“Look,” the man says, putting his hand directly over Dean’s soulmark. Dean squirms uselessly, his eyes blurring, his vision bending. Because his soulmark is alive with waving rainbow lines. Because, with the man’s hand held up beside Dean’s formerly black hand print, the soulmarks look like two mirrored halves of a living fossil, each meandering line of color perfectly in sync with its moving counterpart on the other’s skin.
“Whuh?” Dean says. “No. That... No, it... What?”
“You’re safe,” the man says. “I won’t hurt you. No one will hurt you. You’re here, you’re safe. The ambulance is coming, and you’re safe.”
“Don’t have one,” Dean insists, bewildered. Because he doesn’t. He’d remember. He’d...
He doesn’t remember.
“Something’s wrong with my head,” Dean realizes for the first and the thousandth time since waking.
“You can trust me,” the man promises. “You’re my family, I love you, you can trust me, Dean.”
Dean can’t trust his own brain right now. Even so, he grabs at the man’s hand, at the activated soulmark complementing his own.
“I...” The skin still feels like skin. Like a hand. Liking holding this man’s hand.
“Whatever you need,” the man says. “The ambulance is on its way, we can- No, I shouldn’t hang up, we can- Wait. Stay there.”
Leaving his phone on the floor, the man gets up and lunges across the bed. He returns with a different phone, the flat, expensive kind Dean could never afford, and kneels back beside Dean. He dials.
The phone rings. And rings. And rings.
And then Sam groans, “Dude, do you know what fucking time it is?”
“Dean’s disoriented with a high fever,” the man says into the phone, evidently on speaker. “I’m taking him to the hospital, but he doesn’t remember who I am.”
“You- What? Cas, what?” Sam asks.
“I need you to tell Dean he’s safe with me,” the man—Cas?—says, and slides the phone beneath Dean’s ear.
“Dean, are you okay?” Sam asks, and it is Sam. Groggy with sleep but alert with worry.
“Do I got a soulmate?” Dean asks right back.
“Yeah, his hand’s on your shoulder,” Sam answers. “Did he not show you?”
“Whas ‘is name?” Dean asks.
“That’s Cas. Castiel.”
“He’s good?”
“He’s-” Sam lets out a choked laugh. “Dean, he’s the best friend you’ve ever had.”
“Oh,” Dean says, and the floor tilts in relief. “Okay, then.”
Dean closes his eyes and passes out.
He fades in and out of dreams. There’s beeping. His dad, which is weird, what with the guy being dead. But then not his dad, just a nightmare. And then there’s this guy with absurdly long hair. Except no, Sam’s hair’s been like that for years, even though it hasn’t.
Dean wobbles back to consciousness time and time again. IV fluids. A TV with daytime soaps. Cas, slumped in a chair. Cas, slumped against Sam.
Sometimes, the pain is worse. Sometimes, rarely, it’s better. Sometimes, it’s strangely absent, trapped in a glass box that will hurt all the more when it shatters.
Through the muffling wall that is his own ears, he grabs onto snatches of conversation. Words like fever and infection. Something about brain inflammation.
Sam’s voice, over and over, about inflammation and denying damage. Dean learns the word “encephalitis” without knowing what it means. Maybe nothing. Might be a nonsense word. Somehow, he thinks it isn’t, but he can’t piece together why the first definition that springs to mind are just the words “doctor” and “sexy.” A lot of stuff doesn’t make sense, and keeps not making sense.
Dean wakes up, looks at strangers, and falls sleep.
Dean wakes up again.
He looks at the man sleeping beside him, looking as haggard and exhausted as Dean feels.
“Cas,” Dean rasps.
Cas lifts his head. The hospital sheet has left a crease in his cheek.
“Hey, babe,” Dean whispers.
Cas grabs Dean’s hand, holds it against his own face, and presses hot tears against Dean’s skin.
“’M sorry,” Dean says. “I’m sorry, Cas, I didn’t mean it.”
“You were so scared,” Cas says.
“You, uh. You were so scared.”
Not denying it, Cas holds tight. “Please don’t go again,” Cas whispers.
“Couldn’t pay me to leave,” Dean answers, not knowing why the words feel right until they make Cas hiccup a tiny laugh.
“That’s true,” Cas replies. Looking between Dean’s eyes, Cas wipes the tears off his own face before brushing Dean’s hair off his forehead. “Do you remember how we met?”
Slowly, mindful of the tube in his nose, Dean shakes his head. “Remind me? Everything’s all... floaty.”
“We met at a bar,” Cas begins.
“Liar,” Dean says, sure of it.
A weak smile creeps out at the wet corners of Castiel’s eyes. “At a park.”
“No.”
“By a lake.”
“Nope.”
“In a barn.”
Dean squints at him.
Cas looks back.
“Barn in a thunderstorm,” Dean says.
Cas kisses a smile to Dean’s fingertips. “What were we doing there?”
“Not a damn clue,” Dean admits.
Nodding seriously, Cas folds his shifting rainbow of a soulmark around Dean’s hand, and reminds him.