Sting Operation (Destiel)

Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. Sadly, I do not own any of these guys.

A/N: This is set in a slight AU of Season 9. All you need to know is that there is established Destiel, Cas is human, and Sam didn't need to be possessed after the Trials so Cas got to stay in the bunker.

P.S. I apologize in advance for any bee puns that are present in the story. I couldn't resist.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Castiel was a strange man sometimes. That much was fairly well understood and accepted by anyone who knew him, especially his lover and longtime friend, Dean Winchester. It wasn't a bad kind of strange, though. Cas had always been a gentle soul, curious about the world around him to a degree that was almost naïve, so his lack of understanding of most aspects of humanity was not bad or evil, just… interesting.

It was also endlessly entertaining. And ever since he had lost his grace and become human, more and more of those "Cas-isms" had started to come to the surface.

Take, for instance, the fact that the ex-angel had been alive for millions of years and yet had no idea whatsoever how to use a computer, a car, or a washing machine; until a few years ago, he hadn't even known how to operate a cellphone. Then there was the way he adored peanut butter and jelly – grape jelly, to be specific – but absolutely loathed any kind of jam. He was also completely clueless when it came to most forms of pop culture, although Dean was slowly introducing him to several of the more popular eighties films and all the classic rock he could stand.

Probably the strangest thing about him, though, was one that had surfaced back when he was still an angel and had taken on the madness resulting from Sam's broken wall, temporarily becoming mentally and emotionally unstable as a result. That particular thing was his love of honeybees.

Castiel had a seemingly limitless fascination with the lives and habits of honeybees, almost to the point of obsession. After an unfortunate incident in which Cas had followed a bee deep into the woods surrounding the bunker and ended up with a terrible case of poison ivy, Dean had actually allowed him to plant a "bee garden" behind the bunker, just so he could keep the tiny insects closer to home.

The older hunter really didn't understand his love of the tiny yellow creatures – in fact, he'd been stung enough times in his life that he really kind of despised them – but as much as he hated to admit it, the second Cas had flashed those sad puppy eyes at him he was putty in the ex-angel's hands. He was going to have to have a talk with Sam about teaching Cas to use those eyes for evil.

"Just don't come crying to me when you get stung in the ass," he had said a few days ago, and Castiel had laughed and returned to planting a patch of rosemary in the dirt. That was one small perk of Cas's bee garden; a lot of the plants bees enjoyed were also very tasty herbs used in cooking, and Cas would be able to harvest them for Dean's kitchen experiments later in the year.

"I don't really plan on gardening naked, Dean, so I doubt you need to worry about that."

"Yeah, well, still. Don't say I didn't warn you when one of those fuckers stings you."

As expected, Castiel had just disregarded Dean's insult to his insect friends as the worried warning it was meant to be – Dean always got gruff when he worried – and continued working as always. The garden was one of his favorite places to be, no matter what Dean might say, and he had no plans to abandon the bees.

So today when Sam came outside for a little bit of fresh air, he wasn't at all surprised to find the dark-haired man kneeling in the dirt, a small spade in one hand and a cluster of blue flowers in the other. The modest patch of foliage was his safe haven, a refuge from the outside world when the process of adapting to humanity simply became too overwhelming. It was also the place he always went to whenever he was missing Dean – like now, since the older hunter was off on his own doing a simple salt and burn a few hours away.

Castiel looked up when he saw Sam approaching, smiling and putting the spade on the ground before brushing the dirt off his hands.

"Sam? Did you need something?"

"Ah, no," Sam said with a shrug. "But I was getting sick of staring at the walls inside. Wanted to enjoy the weather since it isn't a hundred degrees for once."

Castiel nodded, understanding that simple pleasure very well. He had spent many miserable afternoons tending these plants, wishing for slightly cooler weather so he could at least stop needing sunscreen every two hours. Sam was even worse off; ever since the Trials, although he had been slowly healing, the heat and humidity severely affected him, to the point that he had actually fainted from heat exhaustion on a ninety-degree day and almost given his brother a heart attack. Needless to say, Sam had spent almost the entirety of the summer indoors after that.

"Well, since you're out here, would you like to help me?" Castiel asked, holding out the small spade for Sam and patting the ground beside him. "I still have many bunches of flowers and herbs I want to plant today, and it's supposed to rain soon."

Sam grinned and nodded, happy the ex-angel was willing to include him in one of his favorite pastimes. "Sure."

For the next fifteen minutes, they were pretty much silent. Sam dug small holes in the ground, just big enough for the roots of the lavender and rosemary plants to fit in, and then Castiel brought them over and buried them securely in the earth. Each enjoyed the other's company, as well as the light breeze that was starting to blow and the clouds blocking the harshest rays of the sun. Everything was going perfectly fine until Castiel decided to pull a few weeds and let Sam handle the flowers himself.

As soon as Sam picked up a handful of blue blossoms, a couple of tiny bees rose off of them and began hovering right in front of his nose, buzzing loudly as they examined this strange, shaggy-haired creature who had joined the usual keeper of their garden. Instinctually, Sam's hand rose to swat at them, scaring them a short distance away but also making them angry.

"Sam, wait!" Cas said hurriedly when he noticed what the hunter was doing and the way those two bees and a few others were now buzzing agitatedly around the two of them. Sam immediately stopped, giving the ex-angel a questioning look. "Don't swat at them, they're just curious. Honeybees are docile unless you threaten – ah."

"Cas?" Sam asked, worried by the other man's sudden grunt of pain. Slowly, Castiel reached up to the back of his neck, bringing one hand back with a small dying bee, sans stinger, sitting in his palm and the other with the small needlelike appendage pinched between his fingers.

"She stung me," he said with a sad sigh. "And now she will die as a result."

"Cas, I'm sorry," Sam began, feeling bad for an insect for the first time in his life when he saw how much pity Castiel showed for the creature.

"It's alright, Sam. You didn't know." He used two fingers to dig a small hole in the earth and buried the tiny bee before handing the spade back to the hunter and kneeling next to the remaining bunches of flowers. "Let's get these planted before it starts raining and washes all our hard work away."

The two of them worked in silence for another few minutes, Castiel returning to handling the flowers while Sam prepared the ground for them. Every so often the ex-angel would clear his throat roughly, which Sam thought was a little odd for him but understandable given the fact that they were digging in the dust and dirt. When Cas suddenly stopped handing him anything to plant, he assumed they were finished and turned around to look at the other man, stopping short when he saw the far-off gaze in the brunet's eyes and the way one of his hands was rubbing just below his throat.

"Cas?" he asked softly, not sure what was going on but a little worried now. Castiel coughed a couple of times, the sound raspy and shrill, and when it kept happening Sam hurriedly moved to his side and gave him a couple of firm pats on the back. "Cas, hey. You okay?"

"Sam… I feel strange…" Castiel said slowly, his voice so much raspier than usual that it was almost inaudible. "It's hard to breathe, like there's… something caught in my throat and I can't… swallow it… down." Every few words were followed by another cough, and Cas's hand slowly drifted up to rub at his throat again. "Why would that… be, though? I haven't even… eaten anything."

Sam was pretty sure that in that moment he felt his heart drop somewhere into the vicinity of his ankles. He really hoped this wasn't going to be as bad as his gut feeling was telling him it was, but once he saw the skin on Castiel's neck and arms almost instantaneously start breaking out in a rash while his breathing got faster and wheezier by the second, he was pretty sure it was about to get worse than he had suspected. One quick look at the angry red welt, swollen to the size of a large grape, on the back of Cas's neck was all he needed to see to know exactly what was wrong.

Castiel, the once-mighty Angel of the Lord-turned helpless human, was well on his way to death because of a tiny bee sting.

Sam knew this was entirely out of his ability to fix. Wasting no more time, he hurriedly pulled out his phone and dialed 911, relieved when the operator picked up on the first ring.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"My friend just got stung by a bee and I think he's having an allergic reaction," he said shakily, barely keeping his own panic at bay as the wheezing sounds coming from Cas's throat got worse and worse. "Please hurry, I don't have an EpiPen or anything I can give him."

"Okay, sir, don't worry. We've tracked your location. Just stay on the line, and help will be there shortly. Try to keep your friend as calm as possible, and tell him to try to breathe as deeply and slowly as he can."

Sam put the phone back in his pocket, leaving it on but ignoring it for now in favor of getting Castiel's arm looped over his shoulders and helping guide him toward the street so the paramedics wouldn't have trouble finding them. Cas was visibly shaking now, whether from weakness or fear Sam couldn't tell, and right before they neared the curb he let go of Sam and fell to the ground, retching painfully as he bent double over his knees. Nothing was coming up though, his throat was too swollen, and it accomplished nothing but stealing more precious air and driving the ex-angel into a near-panic.

"S – Sam, I c… I can't… breathe…" he gasped out between fruitless heaves as he clutched onto the taller man's shirt, eyes wide and begging Sam to help, do something, make this go away.

"I know, but try to stay calm and breathe as deep as you can, okay? You're gonna be fine, Cas. Help's coming." He kept a hand on the ex-angel's back, trying to will the dry-heaves to stop so he could catch his breath a little. God, but he wished Dean was here right now. His brother would know how to calm Cas down so much better than he could.

When another couple of minutes passed and Castiel silently slumped over against Sam, face red and swollen and barely any air passing through his lips, the hunter snatched up the phone from his pocket and screamed at the operator, "Please tell them to hurry, he's barely breathing!"

Just as the words left his mouth, he finally spotted the flashing lights of the ambulance speeding toward them, now able to hear the sound of the sirens over his own heart throbbing in his ears. He hung up the phone and waved frantically at them, as if they couldn't already see the half-conscious man whose head was cradled in his lap.

Within seconds the ambulance was parked in front of them and two paramedics were at their sides, one jabbing a needle full of epinephrine and a sedative into the muscle of Cas's thigh while the other checked his pulse and breathing. When it appeared that the epinephrine wasn't helping as much as it could have, the man near Castiel's head tilted his chin back and opened his mouth, muttering something about "airway's still closing up."

"Oh, God, are they going to have to intubate him?" Sam thought, watching as Castiel's wide eyes tracked the foreign piece of rubber moving toward his face. "How did this get so bad so fast?"

Right before the tube could reach the back of his throat, though, Cas gagged and bucked upward, spitting it out and turning his head away with his teeth clenched tightly. Sedated or not, he was still apparently conscious enough to be afraid. When the men tried to turn his head back it only made it worse; he thrashed against their holds, afraid of the additional restraint on top of the fact that his own body was already rebelling against him.

"Whoa, Cas, easy," Sam said softly, shaking his head at the men who were preparing to hold him down before grabbing one of the brunet's hands and squeezing it. "They're going to make this better, okay? But you have to let them put that tube in so you can breathe. It's gonna be uncomfortable, but I promise it'll help you. Just keep your eyes on me."

"D- De …" Cas choked, eyes filled with tears of pain and terror.

"I'll call Dean in a minute. He'll be here," Sam reassured him. "Just focus on me for now. It's alright."

Once Cas gave a faint nod, the man who had worked on him before moved up to his head again, and Castiel squeezed Sam's hand hard, keeping his eyes trained on the hunter as the tube slid past his tongue and down into his throat. He gagged once, two or three tears slipping down his cheeks when the rubber grazed the swollen tissue in his airway, but once it was in the sedative soon took full effect; by the time the ambulance pulled away from the bunker on its way to the hospital, he was completely unconscious.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sam called Dean immediately after Cas was taken back to the ER. He filled out the paperwork while he told Dean what had happened, writing Castiel's name as "Castiel James Winchester," the name the angel had chosen for himself shortly after becoming human, and tried not to hear the way his brother's voice was trembling with barely-suppressed fear. The older hunter barely stayed on the line long enough to tell Sam he'd be there soon, and then Sam knew his brother was probably breaking every speeding law ever written while he made his way back there in the Impala.

That was confirmed when Dean barreled through the front doors of the ER in just over an hour – the drive was supposed to have taken three when one went the speed limit – and demanded to know where Castiel Winchester's room was. It really said something about how far they'd all come that Dean had no problem whatsoever with telling the nurse that he was Cas's husband when she asked him how they knew each other. It was a lie, technically, but the two were close enough that they might as well have been married.

Once he learned the location of Castiel's room, Dean was off like a shot, Sam close on his heels. He was almost as worried about the ex-angel's welfare as Dean was; after all, he'd been the one who had to watch him almost asphyxiate right there on the ground in front of him only an hour and a half ago. He was glad Dean wasn't the one who'd had to witness it; that image was going to be seared into his memory for a long time.

Right as they reached the door and prepared to step inside, Cas's nurse was just leaving. She smiled knowingly at Dean and took hold of his arm, whispering, "He's been asking for you ever since he got the tube taken out. He's still gonna be pretty out of it, since we gave him some antihistamines and pain meds for the swelling and hives, but he should be happy to know you're here."

Dean grinned and nodded, opening the door and striding over to Castiel's bed as fast as his legs could carry him. The ex-angel blinked sleepily and smiled up at him, taking Dean's hand and holding it against his reddened cheek. His entire body was blotchy red and broken out in hives, his cheeks and eyelids so comically swollen that he looked like Wile E. Coyote after being punched by a boxing glove, and his lips were purplish and so puffy they had almost tripled in size. It would've been hysterical if not for the terrifying circumstances behind it.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Dean said softly, kissing the crown of Cas's head since he couldn't see any other place that didn't look painful to touch. "Heard you had a run-in with an angry bee."

Castiel looked crestfallen.

"Yes. I… It stung me. That's never happened before. It was very unpleasant." His voice, still rough from the endotracheal tube, got even more choked up as his eyes filled with tears. "Does this mean that I can't follow the bees anymore, Dean? Will it happen again if I do?"

"Aww, Cas… I hate to say it, but yeah, that probably is what it means. At least not without an EpiPen on hand and your cell with you. If you get stung again it could kill you. It almost did kill you."

"I know. I'm sorry for all this trouble. You told me not to come crying to you if I got stung, and…" He sniffed, wiping at a couple of tears dripping down his cheeks. "And here I am, crying to you anyway."

"Shh, c'mere, it's okay, you're okay." Dean brought Cas over to rest against his chest, pulling him into a hug with his chin on top of the ex-angel's head. "I was kidding then, Cas. You can come to me with anything any time you need to, you know that right?" He didn't make any attempt to move for the next few minutes, just rubbing Cas's back and waiting until he had cried himself to sleep before turning to Sam, who was looking at the two of them like someone had just kicked his puppy.

"Sammy, it wasn't your fault. He was planting a bee garden for God's sake. One of these days he was bound to get stung. I just… Thank God you were there to help him. If you hadn't been…" He swallowed hard, shaking his head and making his way toward the door. "Come on. There're a few errands I want to run before he wakes up again."

He was going to make Cas feel better if it was the last thing he ever did.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

When Castiel woke again, it took him several moments to realize he wasn't still dreaming. Everything in the room looked normal, except... What was that fuzzy thing in his arms? He blearily lifted up the black-and-yellow-striped stuffed animal, blinking slowly at the fat round body, happy-face smile, and little plush honey pot that read "Hope You Feel Better, Honey." It took a moment for the joke to sink in – he was getting better at humor, but it still took a while sometimes – and then cracked a smile for the first time since that morning.

Right as he was about to pick up the bedside phone and call Dean, a small bee flew into the room. At first he was terrified, thinking he was going to be stung again after not even twenty-four hours, but then he realized it was holding something in its tiny legs. With a tiny buzz and a small "plop" the bee flew over and dropped onto the covers between Castiel's legs, and he tilted his head curiously while he unfolded the note clutched between the – fake, he now realized – bee's feet:

"Cas, will you BEE my friend?

I don't have a hive of my own, and I'm oh so lonely. I also don't sting, so you can hold me all day!

I love flowers too! They really recharge my batteries.

Just don't try to share your honey with me – I can't swim."

Castiel smiled, holding the tiny remote-control bee on the tip of his finger and looking out at the doorway. "Dean, you can come in now."

The hunter entered slowly, Sam close behind, and blushed when he saw the toy bee as if he couldn't believe he'd ever willingly do something so lame and sentimental. But this was Cas; he had a knack for making Dean Winchester turn into a walking chick-flick moment without even meaning to.

"I, uh, thought you might like to have a bee to keep around," the hunter said softly, shrugging as if he hadn't put any thought into it at all. "Y'know, when the ones outside hibernate for the winter or Sam and I aren't around to make sure you're okay out there. Plus, you can get all up close and personal with this one and not piss it off. Umm… Do you like it?"

Castiel grabbed Dean's hand and pulled him down, kissing him hard even though it hurt a little with his lips still being a little puffy.

"I love it. Thank you, Dean."

Sam grinned at him then too, reaching into a shopping bag he had brought with him and pulling out what looked like an enormous stack of DVDs.

"And look what I picked up at the video store, Cas," he said triumphantly, handing the plastic cases over to the ex-angel. "I'm pretty sure this is every documentary about, or even mentioning, bees in the entire world."

In hindsight, Sam and Dean would wish they had had a camera to capture the look of absolute surprise and joy on Castiel's face. Before they knew it, Castiel had clambered off of the bed, detaching a couple of monitors and wires that were sure to make the nurses angry later, and wrapped both Sam and Dean in a crushing hug.

"I love you guys."

Maybe inheriting Jimmy's insect allergy wasn't going to bee so bad after all.