Chapter Text
Of course it was a Tuesday when Dean Winchester’s world began to fall apart.
They were on a routine hunt. Or at least, what passed for routine nowadays. Since Apocalypse 1.0, the world had turned stranger and far more dangerous. The days of salt-and-burn ghosts and silver bullets were practically quaint now. These days, they weren’t chasing monsters; they were dealing with minor deities, rogue cosmic forces, and the occasional demonic bureaucrat trying to claim dominion over New York.
It wasn’t even fun anymore.
So when word came in about a small nest of vampires preying on the outskirts of some forgotten town in Missouri, Dean had let himself breathe for the first time in weeks. A good, old-fashioned vamp hunt. No prophecy. No demonic interference. Just beheadings and bloodsuckers.
Sam, busy with research on the latest Big Bad (some entity older than God with a name like it was invented by a metal band) opted to stay behind. That left Dean and Castiel to handle things.
Dean hadn’t minded. Lately, he found himself gravitating more towards Cas anyway. Maybe it was guilt over everything the angel had sacrificed. Maybe it was the sense of calm Cas brought to the chaos. Or maybe it was the fact that Dean’s chest felt like it tightened every time Cas looked at him with those unreadable blue eyes.
Dean didn’t dwell on it. Not consciously, anyway.
Cas was still recovering from the last blow to his Grace, and Dean figured a basic vamp job would ease him back into hunting the human way. Salt rounds, machetes, and no divine intervention. No Heaven, no Hell. Just the two of them, like it used to be.
Dean regretted that now.
The hunt had gone sideways in the last five minutes. They’d been doing fine, two vamps down and one to go, when the last bastard came out swinging with something none of them expected.
An angel blade.
Of course. Since the fall, those things were turning up like loose change under the sofa cushions. Too many battles, too many casualties. Too many weapons left behind.
Dean didn’t even see the moment it happened. One minute, Cas was behind him; the next, he heard a choked gasp and turned to see Castiel clutching his side.
The blade was buried deep, just under his ribcage, gleaming in the moonlight with divine lethality.
Dean’s breath caught in his throat. For a second, the world just… stopped.
Then he moved.
He tore through the vampire with a ferocity that bordered on unhinged. The last nest member didn’t even get the chance to scream. When it was over, Dean was left gasping for breath, the taste of sulphur and blood in his mouth, hands trembling as he rushed to Castiel’s side.
Cas was on his knees, eyes glassy, one hand pressed weakly to the hilt of the blade.
Dean dropped beside him. “Hey. Cas. Cas, look at me. You with me?”
Castiel blinked up at him, eyes wide and pained. “It... hurts,” he managed, voice barely above a whisper.
Then he slumped forward.
Dean caught him.
His body moved through instinct. Field triage was a skill Dean had learned from years of patching up Sammy and himself in motel bathrooms. The blade was still in; that was good. No bleeding, at least none visible. But Cas was deathly pale. Greyer than Dean had ever seen him and his pulse was weak. Dean wasn’t even sure angels had pulses like humans did, but whatever was happening, it was bad.
He didn’t dare remove the blade. Instead, he bundled Cas into the Impala and drove, white-knuckled, back across town to the motel where Sam was buried in lore and caffeine.
Sam looked up, frowning. “You’re back ear—” He stopped short when he saw Castiel.
Dean all but carried Cas through the door, lowering him onto one of the beds. “Vamp had an angel blade,” he said tersely. “Got him good. He’s not bleeding, but I didn’t want to pull the thing out.”
Sam was already moving, grabbing supplies and books. “Holy crap. Okay. Alright. We should—wait. Are you sure we shouldn’t—”
“Touch him and I’ll knock your teeth out,” Dean snapped. “I don’t know what that blade’s doing, but I’m not letting him die because we were too dumb to wait.”
They argued quietly but intensely until Castiel stirred.
“Cas?” Dean leaned close.
Cas grimaced, eyes fluttering open. Then, before either Winchester could stop him, he reached down and yanked the blade free.
“Bloody hell—!” Sam jumped back.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Dean’s voice cracked with fury.
Castiel winced, but sat up with effort. “I am not bleeding. I do not need to keep pressure on the wound.”
“You were stabbed, you absolute idiot!” Dean barked, resisting the urge to throttle him. “That thing’s designed to kill angels.”
“I am... fine,” Castiel replied. But even as he said it, his voice wavered.
Cas was not fine.
Over the next few days, the angel’s condition worsened. He slept—slept, which angels didn’t do. His skin stayed greyish, he stumbled when he walked, and sometimes he stared at walls like he was lost in a memory. Conversations were difficult; he’d trail off midsentence or forget what he’d been saying altogether.
Sam tried everything: books, symbols, rituals, even a desperate prayer or two. Nothing worked.
“What are we going to do?” Sam muttered one evening, watching Castiel doze fitfully in bed. “It’s not like there’s an angelic A&E we can waltz into.”
Dean scrubbed a hand over his face, pacing. “There has to be something. What about Crowley?”
Sam blinked. “You want to call up the King of Hell and ask for a recommendation?”
Dean stared at Cas, jaw clenched. “Do you have a better idea?”
They called Crowley.
It was like pulling teeth. Teasing, sarcasm, a bit of inappropriate innuendo, but eventually, the demon gave them something.
“Plainsboro Teaching Hospital,” Crowley had said, voice slick as ever. “New Jersey. Don’t ask me why. Old debt, older secrets. But if you want the best diagnostician this side of the veil? Go to Princeton-Plainsboro.”
They set out that night. The Impala roared through the dark, her headlights carving a path eastward. Dean didn’t speak much. He just kept glancing in the rear-view mirror, watching Castiel's chest rise and fall with maddening slowness.
It wasn’t until somewhere in Ohio that Dean allowed the thought to creep in.
What if he doesn’t make it?
The idea hit him like a sledgehammer. It meant losing an ally or a...friend.
He couldn’t lose Cas. He couldn’t imagine his world without him in it.
Dean shook the thought away and drove faster.