Work Text:
When Cas stepped in front of him, Dean didn’t complain.
When the gunshot went off, his heart didn’t even skip a beat.
He was an angel, afterall.
He stepped forward, pushing Cas behind him and knocking the common thief out cold with a swift right hook.
Dean smirked at how comedically easy and ordinary the whole ordeal was and flexed his shoulder, turning back to his boyfriend with a scoff. “And to think, normally we get jumped by rogue demons, or at least a vamp, huh, Cas?”
When Cas didn’t reply, the drop in Dean’s heart was enough to cut off his breathing. “Cas?”
“Dean-” Cas was leaning against the alleyway wall, heavily, panting slightly. His hand, dribbling with blood, was pressing weakly against his lower abdomen, where a flower of crimson was slowly spreading across his creased shirt.
And for a moment, Dean was confused. Why was the gunshot affecting him? Why wasn’t he just…
...oh.
He wasn’t an angel anymore.
He wasn’t a fucking angel anymore.
“Cas!” He yelped, stepping forward just as Cas’ shaking knees buckled and his eyes rolled back, only just collapsing into Dean’s open arms.
“No, no, no, Cas!” His throat was closing as he lowered his boyfriend into his lap, stroking his hair, tapping his cheek. “Cas open your eyes, look at me.”
When he didn’t respond, he took a breath, trying to keep his emotions in check. He needed to focus if he was going to save his stupid, self-sacrificing boyfriend’s life.
He checked his pulse - weak, fluttering but there, definitely there. His breathing came stuttered, and more thick, dark human blood oozed from his abdomen with each expansion of his lungs but he was breathing.
He was alive, for now.
“Cas? Come on, baby, come on.” He shrugged off his jacket and pressed it against Cas' abdomen, letting out a whine of frustration as the jacket became soaked almost immediately, getting the precious crimson liquid keeping his lover alive all over his hands. He felt weak. The tremors that shot through his entire body pulsed in time to his heart, which meant impossibly fast.
“Alright, alright, Cas, stay with me.” He muttered, barely speaking around the thick lump of anxiety in his throat, and fumbled his fingers (ignore the blood, ignore the blood) into his pocket, fishing out his phone. The screen was blurred and smudged with blood as he scrolled through his contacts, pressing on Sammy.
The other end rang...and rang…and rang...
“Come on, Sammy, hey, hey, baby, stay with me. Come on, Sammy!” He growled in frustration.
“Hey, Dean, what’s up.”
“Sam!” Frustration was immediately replaced with relief at his brother’s voice. “It’s Cas, he-” his voice got stuck, and he swallowed, hard. “He’s been shot, Sammy, he…”
“...but he’s an angel.”
“Not any fucking more!” Dean yelled, ignoring the warm salt trickling down his face and landing on Cas’ ghostly one.
Sam cursed on the other end. “Alright, where are you?”
“Uh, in a back alley, about a block to the right of the theatre.” Dean looked down the alley and out the entrance, blinking to clear his vision. “Directly in front of the abandoned brewery.”
Cas groaned, and Dean’s heart jolted. “Cas?”
Crystal eyes fluttered open, glazed, unfocused. “Dean?”
“Hey.” Dean could have sobbed at the sight of those eyes open, at the sound of a voice he feared he’d never hear again. He ran his shaking fingers through Cas’ hair. “Hey, baby. You’re okay, you’re fine.”
“Dean, I’m gonna hang up and call an ambulance to your location, okay?”
“Okay, hurry.”
The call went dead and Dean dropped his phone, using his free hand to stroke Cas’ still paling face. “You gotta stay awake now, Cas, okay? Can you do that?”
Cas blinked slowly, swallowed and nodded.
Dean’s throat caught and he couldn’t find the energy to blink back the tears anymore. He rested his forehead against Cas’. “You stupid, stupid little-” He sobbed, caught his breath. “Why did you jump in front of a fucking bullet?”
He couldn’t see Cas’ face from his position but he could hear him huff out a laugh. “You...you were going to get hurt...I was protecting you.”
“Yes but you’re not a fucking angel anymore!” He lifted his head to glare into his boyfriend’s glassed over blue eyes. “You can’t just walk off a bullet.”
Despite the situation, a lazy smile spread over Cas’ lips, spotted slightly with blood that Dean tried to ignore. “You were going to get hurt.” He repeated. His eyelids fluttered, slightly, “I was protecting you.”
“No.” His eyes fluttered again, and shut. “No, no, Cas. Cas, you son of a bitch, stay with me.”
Dean tapped Cas’ cheek, and Cas’ eyes half opened before shutting again. “Cas!”
In the distance, the faint sound of an ambulance sounded, paired with the flash of red and blue bouncing against the walls of the abandoned brewery.
“Hey, baby, hey.” He planted a kiss on his boyfriend's hair. “Help is here, you’re going to be fine, you’re going to be just fine.”
He pressed his nose into the sweat-soaked mop of black hair, breathing in its scent like it was the last time he would get the pleasure - as it most likely would be. He paid no attention to the roar of the engine, the screech of wheels and the scream of the siren as the ambulance halted at the entrance of the alley. He simply continued to hold his lover’s face, placing kisses mixed with mutters into his hair, even when the paramedics circled. They spoke in loud, quick succession, and he closed his eyes against the voices, went stiff against prying fingers.
He would not leave Cas.
Someone was yelling into his ear, speaking with his father’s authority over the siren and the voices and the hands. Dean tightened his arms, squeezed his eyes harder, clenched his teeth because everything was too loud, too fast, and he could feel Cas slipping below him.
A pair of hands, two pairs, gripped his arms, pulling, prying, fuck off until they hooked under his arms and yanked.
And Cas fell from his arms.
He felt himself scream, could feel the heat of his fear scorching his throat and igniting his kicking limbs. The demons behind him dragged him away from his lifeline with surprising ease.
He watched, half paralysed, as they fit a mask over his face, checked his response, put him on a stretcher, and then he was gone. And then the demons let go.
A hand, inviting, appeared in front of his eyes, and he took it. He allowed himself to be stood and walked, numb, tingly, to the back of the ambulance. He allowed them to sit him next to the stretcher, to take his boyfriends hand, to feel his pulse beneath bloodstained fingers.
The doors of the ambulance slamming were muffled by the bloodrush in his ears. Cas was still, far too still, even for him. His eyelids didn’t so much as flicker, no matter how hard Dean stared at them, willed them to peel back and reveal the diamonds behind.
He stared until they reached the hospital, and he was dragged away once more.