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Dean couldn't make himself step through the threshold. He tilted forward and peered into the room at the baggy, lifeless shape on the motel bed, but his feet refused to move. Sam leaned over the bed and stripped the body from the waist up. Bloody clothes piled on the floor. Blood seeped from the chest into the sheet, into the mattress, and dripped over the edge to the carpet.
The sight clenched Dean's stomach. He looked away and scrubbed a hand over his face.
"Go get the towels," Sam ordered without looking up. When Dean didn't move, he craned his head toward the bathroom doorway. "The hell's wrong with you? We gotta stop the bleeding now or he has to go to the emergency room. I dunno why you won't let me take him. This is a fucking mess, Dean."
He had nothing to say. Sam had to take charge and be the older brother that night. Silent and sick, Dean retreated into the bathroom and grabbed every towel he could find. Stabbing the bitch that inflicted the damage did little to make Dean feel better. The hunger for revenge kept him going when he only wanted to curl up on the bed next to him and go unconscious too. But he pushed forward and brought an armload out to Sam, still careful not to get too close.
Sam snatched the towels and plugged the chest wound. "It's just Cas."
"He's human," Dean whispered. "He could die."
"Not if we have anything to say about it. I gotta go get supplies. You, c'mere." The younger brother grabbed the older one by the shoulders and tossed him toward the bed. He pushed Dean's hands onto the towels, forcing him up close and personal with Castiel's new mortality. "Pressure. You know how to do this," Sam coached him. "Keep the bleeding under control. I'll be right back."
"Sammy, I--" Dean felt himself slipping into panic.
And Sam turned harsh because he had to. "Dean, if you don't keep pressure on that wound, he will die! Do it!"
It shook Dean back into himself, as if he'd been having an out of body experience since they stumbled onto that woman trying to kill Castiel. Shakily, he nodded and mumbled that he had things under control, which allowed Sam to bolt from the motel. Dean remembered seeing a drugstore on the corner. Maybe he wouldn't be gone long.
For the first few minutes alone, Dean avoided looking at Castiel's face. He focused on his hands splayed over the wad of towels keeping the blood from escaping his chest. The suit was gone. The trenchcoat had been replaced by bloody shirts and a bloody hoodie dumped on the floor. Baggy, awful cargo pants left his legs shapeless and made him look swallowed whole by mortality.
That woman lured Castiel into her apartment, taking advantage of his need for food and shelter, and they'd had sex. Like every black widow before her, she tried to kill him once his defenses were as good as gone. If Dean hadn't found him in time....
"Cas?" he ventured in a smaller voice than he knew he could make.
He laid there motionless except for slow, intermittent breathing. At least there was that. But Dean didn't like the ashen pallor on his lips or the way his shut eyes seemed to sink further into his skull.
Dean pulled a knee up on the mattress and leaned squarely over Castiel, pressure keeping his chest together. His mind didn't know how to compute mortality in a creature that he'd come to know as powerful, wise, yet too trusting sometimes. He looked the same ... but he didn't. And Dean wondered if he was the only one who could sense that change without being told.
A gurgling sound rose low in Castiel's throat. Dean stiffened, eyes shooting up to his face as he unconsciously rolled it to one side. He groaned, painful and strangled by suffering.
"Cas, you hear me?" Dean pleaded.
He groaned again but never quite came to consciousness.
"Christ, c'mon, Cas, just say something." He took a deep breath, head dropping in exasperation. "I dunno if you can hear me but it's Dean. I'm here. Some bitch tried to ice you but I ganked her first. I got her, Cas. You don't have to worry. Sammy's gone to get stuff to make you better."
He hoped, anyway. This looked fucking bad and they might have to scoop and run to the emergency room even though angels could be anywhere out there. They wanted Castiel's head on a pike and they weren't going to quit until they got it.
"Shit," Dean cursed at himself. He should have gotten in the Impala and driven until he found Castiel after his brother got out of the hospital.
"Dean..."
The voice startled Dean and he looked down, hands still braced on his chest, and found Castiel's eyes fluttering, trying to come back to life. Dean spared a hand to impulsively touch his face. He didn't know what the fuck he was doing but he had to anchor Castiel to life somehow.
"Right here, Cas."
"Can't breathe," he whispered hoarsely. "Hurts."
"I know. You got stabbed. It doesn't look bad. You're gonna be okay."
Castiel's eyes relaxed into a sleepy state. "Liar."
"You're gonna be okay," he repeated sternly.
"Don't deserve okay," he mumbled. "Should let go."
That scared Dean into shaking him. "The fuck did you say?"
"Lived under bridge. Nothing for me here. Hael was right." His tongue flicked over his lips in search of moisture as he rambled in half delirium. "Family doesn't want me. You don't want me." A tear slid from the corner of his eye and dropped on the pillow. His face contorted in agony but Dean couldn't know if it was his chest that hurt or his new human soul.
Whatever the case, Castiel wanted to die. And Dean panicked. That kind of silent panic when the world slips out from under his feet and he knows there's nothing there to catch his fall.
"Why the hell wouldn't I want you?" He spit out those words in a rushed whisper.
"Useless..." Castiel muttered, slipping under again. "Put Sam in danger."
"Cas? Cas!" Desperately, Dean's flexed over his chest and shook him. "Don't be a fucking martyr! You hear me? I want you! God damn it, I want you! You think I only care if you can mojo shit for me? I always wanted you, Cas! I need you!"
Something slipped away. Dean couldn't see anything change but he felt it - the deepening void, the coldness in the room. He sat back on his leg for a second and raked his hands over his head with horrible, heaving breaths rattling through him. This was it. This was it and the hatred of himself for not doing, for not saying... He couldn't wrap his brain around what was happening. The finality was too much. He couldn't feel his hands or his legs, and he thought his own lungs might strangle him.
Vaguely, in slow motion, Sam's looming frame reappeared in the motel room. He saw his brother's lips moving with erratic hand gestures but Dean couldn't hear anything except the panic and blood rushing through his ears. Wetness clung to Dean's face.
And then Sam reeled on his feet. His presence shifted to the kind of calmness that came with absolute certainty and control. Dean watched somewhere in the tangled mess of his mind as light flashed in the room and his brother's eyes came to life with the white hot angelic glow. The shadows of ripped, broken wings flexed on the motel room wall behind him as Ezekiel took over, appearing like the guardian angel to those rejected by their own kind. His stiff mannerisms bent Sam's frame down where he studied Dean's shock and grief with mild concern.
"Fix him," Dean whispered so dryly that it hurt. He grimaced with the force of his threat. "Fix him or I'm telling Sammy about you. He'll eject your busted ass so fast--"
"--Dean, you must not threaten me," Ezekiel replied through Sam's voice. "Castiel is my brother. I require no other motivation."
Dean's eyes fell over Castiel's body. Not even breath stirred him. He couldn't go through that kind of loss. It would break him. "Just give Cas back to me," he whispered, feeling like he was dealing with a crossroads demon. "I need him."
"You love him," guessed Ezekiel as he moved closer to the body.
"Not that it's doing him any good," Dean replied quietly.
"There is nothing evil that can come from a place of love." The angel Ezekiel rubbed his hands together and yanked off the towels to lay bare palms on bloody chest. "He will wake slowly as to not see me. I will only heal enough of his damaged body to ensure he does not die. He will still require a great deal of care. Do you understand?"
"Yeah. Yeah, do it," Dean said as he left the bed and stripped off his own jacket, thinking the night would be a long exercise in torment.
As he kept his back turned, a white glow illuminated the room behind him. No sound. No groaning of pain or even questioning words. Just the warm light of angelic grace reminding Dean that not only did he yank his brother back from Death's bony hands, but now Castiel too. Deep down he knew how wrong it was, and maybe Death would come calling one day to make him answer for those actions, but one response came to mind. Everyone Dean ever loved ended up dying long before him and he couldn't stomach the abandonment. Life without Sam and Castiel took the fight right out of him.
"It is done," Ezekiel said quietly. "Stay with him tonight. I will be watching through Sam."
Dean nodded. He tracked Ezekiel as he stiffly made his way to the bathroom. "What are you doing?"
"Sam was ill with the sight of so much blood. That is what you will tell him," he said, the lie passing between them so easily. "Dean..."
"What?"
Something softer, just a fraction, came over the angel. "I gave Castiel back to you. Now you have to give yourself back to him. You cannot waste any more time."
He understood the meaning behind Ezekiel's words, of course, but he wasn't the kind of guy who pointed out that shit about other people. Especially when they couldn't even point it out to themselves. He gave Ezekiel a nod, at least, to show that he heard him. The angel lumbered Sam's body into the bathroom and left Dean with the quiet, his own thoughts, and the peaceful, slow breathing from Castiel on the bed. No sound ever came as such a relief or a comfort as the breath of life in that fragile, human body.
Dean grabbed a chair from the table situated by the window and sank into the position of guardianship. The first hour passed merely staring at Castiel, afraid that he'd stop breathing again at any second. But each minute of life that ticked by pulled Dean further and further into a place of security. He was there in that moment even if he wasn't awake. That was enough.
Shuffling feet drew him back to reality, to the man emerging from the bathroom. "Hey," he said quietly to Sam. "Feeling better?"
"What happened?" Sam asked, rubbing the back of his head. "Last thing I remember, I was in CVS, and then I woke up hanging over the toilet like a drunk college kid."
"It got a little hairy. Really, Sammy, I'm surprised you got sick and passed out like that. You're a lightweight." Dean smirked. He leaned back in his chair with his elbow resting on the cheap wooden arm. "Are you good now?"
"Y-yeah, I think so." He still seemed confused as he approached the bed. "Is he..."
"He's okay. Like I said, it got a little hairy, but he hung on. I think he's gonna make it. I mean, I dunno but the bleeding stopped and he's breathing good." Leaning forward again, Dean folded his arms on the bed and peered at Castiel's profile. "He's tough for a nerdy dude with--" Well, that wasn't true anymore either and his head fell a bit, defeated, but fighting it.
Sam didn't say anything. That was the good thing about him. He knew when the last thing Dean needed was a pep talk. As he rounded the bed, he squeezed Dean's shoulder without a word.
"It's gonna be a long night. You want me to go get some coffee?"
"Yeah." Dean nodded, relieved. "Thanks."
Quietly, Sam slipped from the motel room again as if he sensed Dean's need to keep watch in solitude. And if he took the long way around the block to pick up coffee, well, nobody had to acknowledge that. It fell under the category of a thousand other things Sam did for Dean that required no other explanation. They both knew.
Dean's hand slid across the bed and reached for Castiel's fingers. He tightly gripped the former angel's hand, fingers laced through each other, and honestly wished he would squeeze back.
"I dunno how to do this," Dean said, "how to fix whatever's broken in us, but I wanna try. We keep doing this to ourselves. You go off and try to fix the world or Heaven or whatever goes wrong. Then if it's not you, it's me doing it. We don't work together enough. We're always trying to protect each other from bullshit but it's ruining..." A heavy sigh twisted through Dean's chest and he shook his head. "I dunno what I'm saying. I just know that you gotta come back... to me. Whatever happened before, we'll figure that shit out."
Maybe it was just a practice run since Castiel wasn't even awake but he needed to get those things off his chest. He just didn't know what words to use. This wasn't exactly his thing, saying what he feels. Something changed though. If he didn't grow a pair this time, he may never alter the cycle of bullshit they put themselves through apart rather than together.
"Just don't die on me again, okay? Give me time to... to fix it. I do want you, Cas, and you're coming home as soon as you can move."
Time passed and Sam still hadn't come back with coffee. Dean realized his little brother intentionally gave him time alone with Castiel. Maybe he had known all along, even before Dean himself knew.
And then it happened. Pressure around Dean's hand brought him crashing back to reality.
Castiel squeezed back.