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Dean fumbles through corridors and into all rooms lining the sides, knowing his Cas is here somewhere.
After what seems like forever, and increasing desperation at not knowing where his best friend is, he hears a pained groan from what sounds like the end of the stretch of rooms.
“CAS?!” He bellowed at the top of his voice, speeding down the dust-covered cracking corridor and whizzing through the doorless frame on his left.
A figure hunched on the floor, trying to scrape himself upwards raised his head at the shuffling and whined “Dean…”, before slumping down onto the floor.
Cas’ fuzzy head only let him focus on one thing at once, and at the moment it had centred on how pathetic he sounded, while hundreds of thoughts flowed through Dean’s mind and were simultaneously pushed back.
“SAMMY!” Dean called, diving to where the angel had collapsed instinctively.
“Cas, hey, hey buddy!” Dean grabbed Cas’ shoulder forcing him to look back into Dean’s eyes while everything around him blurred into vague colour.
“You alright?” Of course Dean knew the answer to this question, otherwise his eyes would have needed testing. His suspicions were unfortunately confirmed by Cas’ inability to do anything other than groan.
Sam then burst into the room, uttering an involuntary “Cas,” before rushing to Dean’s side. “Dean, we gotta go.”
“Right, yeah, you grab his other arm.” Dean stuttered, Sam breaking him from his stupor of shame at seeing Castiel reduced to such pain.
The two brothers hauled him up, expecting him to weight bear on his feet, but the inertia of being lifted off the ground (something he had been unable to do himself) overthrew his conscious state and his head dropped in front of him. One arm around each Winchester, and Dean’s other hand firmly on the holstered angel blade in case of threat, they dragged the unconscious angel out of the room and the building, Dean’s last sight of the place being the blood splashed across the wall where Cas had dropped.
As they stumbled towards Baby, Dean rummaged through his pockets for the keys and then extended his hand to Sam. “Driver.” Was all he managed to say, his mind focused on the injured weight on his shoulder.
Sam wouldn’t bring up the fact he’d without a second thought given up the keys to his Baby until much later. Instead, he replied with a to-the-point “Okay.” And sped around to the driver’s side of the car.
Meanwhile, Dean tried his best to open the backseat door without dropping Cas, and made a bigger success of it than he even thought possible.
He reached down under Cas’ knees and lifted him up of the ground slightly, to slide his legs onto the backseat, again being lax about his ‘no feet on the seats’ obligation. Once he was at the reach of his arms, he slid himself into the car so he was sat with Cas’ torso up against him, and he (carefully but knowing their need to get far far away) whipped the side door shut and looked down to the still unconscious angel he cradled.
With no further comment or question needed, Sam hit the gas and sped the trio away from a place they never wanted to return to if that was entirely possible yes please thank you Chuck.
The car bombed down the road, and a solid five minutes of silence passed while Dean studied his protector and Sam focused on the road. Then, Sam looked up into the rear view and softly queried “What do we do now?”
“We have to go home. Wait for him to get better.”
“… Do we know that he will?”
“Of course he will, Sammy, he’s an angel, he heals himself. You know that.”
“Yeah Dean, but, we don’t know what he was injured with.”
“He will get better, okay?”
“… Then why hasn’t he healed already?”
“... He, he needs some time that’s all.”
“… Are you okay?”
“No, Sammy, I’m not okay, you know why? Because I wasn’t there for him, I couldn’t protect him, neither of us could. And we need him. We’re better together. He can’t… die like this. Alone.”
“… Who said I was dying?” A small, barely noticeable voice croaked from below Dean’s head. When he looked down, Cas’ eyes were still closed, and he was unsure he’d heard anything at all until- “And I’ve got you for company.”
This time the angel’s eyes cracked open ever so slightly, reassuring Dean that he hadn’t spontaneously started hallucinating about his best friend.
“Cas… I’m so sorry, I wasn’t there for you and I’m so sorry about-”
“Don’t be.” The mumble replied. “You didn’t know. And you were there. You came to get me.” Gaps fell between each sentence as Cas swam up from unconsciousness, fighting a battle he knew he would lose rather soon.
“I should have protected you.”
“That’s my job, for you.”
“Angels don’t get injured though, they must have done-”
“I’m hardly the angel I used to be.” Dean couldn’t tell if this hurt more or less than the blood-stained body barely conscious in front of him. “It’s okay, Dean.” He moved his hand up to hold Dean’s, and they stayed looking into each other’s eyes.
Soon, it became clear Cas was losing his battle against the blurry darkness, keeping his eyes open for shorter periods of time and having them closed for much longer. Dean looked up to see Sam’s vision quickly flit away from the rear-view mirror, but he almost didn’t care.
Almost.
“I love you.” Dean looked down to the angel but his eyes were firmly shut and his breathing steady and deeper, causing Dean to become concerned again.
He looked up towards his brother and Sam whispered “I heard it.”
His eyes slowly formed tears, although that may have happened in either outcome, and he ran his free hand through Cas’ locks.
Maybe everything happens for a reason.
And maybe not, but this one time - he could force himself to believe it.