It was just past midnight in Montgomery, Alabama. The wind could be heard howling outside of the windows of their cheap motel. Both of the room's occupants were asleep, the sound of the wind only playing itself into their dreams.

It had been a normal day, or as normal as their days could get. The two brothers had just finished taking out the last of a clan of vampires in the area. With that done, they were set to leave for the next morning.

The rain continued to pelt the windows, but its noise went unheard, fading into the background. A quiet knock sounded on the door, but it was overshadowed by a sudden clash of thunder.

Again, the knock came, but no one in the room stirred. The third time, it wasn't a knock. It was more of a single, sharp hit. It rattled the door and startled both occupants from their sleep.

Dean's hand immediately reached for the gun under his pillow, while Sam's shot out and groped the nightstand until it clasped the cool, familiar metal of his handgun.

Dean had already slid out of bed and was halfway through the door. Motioning to Sam, he told him to go to the other side of the door. As they both crept to the door, quiet with a practiced ease, they could identify the sound of heavy breathing from the other side of the door. Shooting a confused but cautious look at his younger brother, Dean slowly stretched out his hand and grasped the knob. In a flash, he had the door flung open and spun himself around to face the cool night coming in from the entryway.

At first, he didn't see anything, but he could smell the rusty tinge of blood in the air. Behind him, Sam gasped. Dean shot him a glance, but Sam was frozen in place. Dean doubted he would have noticed had he slapped him in the face. And boy, was he tempted to try.

Turning back toward the door, Dean's eyes dropped to mirror the path of Sam's. Like Sam, he couldn't stop the sudden rush of air forcing its way into his lungs.

Slumped heavily against the doorpost was his angel, Castiel. And he looked, frankly, like shit. Or, to be more precise, like he had been hit by a train, then thrown over the side of a cliff, and lastly had a run in with a hundred demons.

Dean was in the middle of making his mental scenario of what could have happened to put Cas in such a dire state when Sam interrupted his train of thought.

"Dean," he said. His voice sounded like nothing more than a forced whisper. Dean didn't respond. "Dean," he said again.

"What Sammy," Dean snapped back. He wasn't in the mood to play twenty questions. Not when his angel was slumped against the doorjamb, looking as if the slightest wind would send him spiraling to the wet ground.

"Dean, his wings," the quiet statement trailed from his mouth. Dean would have done his imitation of Spock's eyebrows if the situation weren't so grave.

"The hell are you-" the rest of his statement was trapped in his mouth. When he turned back to get a look at Cas, he saw them.

Dean wouldn't admit it, but he had imagined what seeing Cas's wings for the first time would be like. He knew that, at this point, they wouldn't be white and bathed in heavenly glory. Not after Cas betrayed heaven and his Father left.

But, when he thought of them, he never thought of what he saw before him. The wings that should have been tall, strong, even majestic, were anything but. The feathers were ruffled, or missing altogether in places. Dean could tell that his wings were black, but the deep spots of blood made the color look more like faded rust. The limp appendages were sprawled out behind has, and making as little movement as their master.

Dean had fallen into a trance of shock. He couldn't imagine what could cause this much damage to a once powerful, celestial being. Or why he could see the wings in the first place.

Sam, who was still standing next to his shell-shocked brother, called him to get his attention.

"Dean," he said, turning toward the shorter man. Dean gave no indication that he heard him. He tried again and again, but his brother was as reactive as a rock.

Finally, Sam gave up trying to call his brother. Instead, he threw his hand up and, for all intents and purposes, bitch slapped his frozen brother.

Dean was quickly snapped out of his revere. He was about to ask Sam what the hell that was for, but Sam started talking before he could get a word out.

"We need to move him, Dean. We can't leave him there! And he looks pretty bad. Like really bad," Sam rambled. It was obvious that he was at as much of a loss as Dean was when it came to dealing with wounded angels.

"What are we supposed to do about his… uh… wings?" Dean asked. With those things in the way, how were they supposed to pick him up? Much less fit him through the door.

"We'll just have to make it work, Dean," Sam said in a 'what makes you think I know' sort of voice.

Dean decided that it was best to simply shut up and work on the task at hand. He, following Sam, crept toward the angel.

Sam rested his hand on Cas's forehead, checking for a fever. Almost immediately, he ripped his hand back, as if burned. He didn't say anything, but he nodded to Dean to indicate that the angel did, in fact, have a fever. Or, more accurately, had become an embodiment of the sun.

Ignoring the heat that he could feel radiating off of the angel, Dean came closer and slid his hands behind Cas's shoulders, but above his mangled wings. With Sam at Cas's feet, the two of them were able to shift the angel to that he was laying down on his side.

As his wings were jostled, a deep, almost feral moan tore its way from Castiel's throat. In reaction to the pain, he tried to squirm out of the grasp of the two hunters, but they both held firm. Dean shifted again, so that he was squatted down next to the agitated angel's face. As steadily as he could, Dean ran his hand through Castiel's hair and whispered low reassurances into his ear.

"Shhh, bud. It's just us, Cas. Just relax," Dean soothed. He looked over at his brother but Sam simply shrugged. He was a clueless as Dean when it came to dealing with hurt angels.

Once Castiel was somewhat calmed down, the two brothers resumed their positions at either end of his person. They made it only a few feet before Cas began to thrash again. His wings were so large that they were dragging on the ground behind them, causing branches of pain the travel through his body at every move.

Sam and Dean looked at each other for a moment.

"I'll call Bobby. Maybe he's got some idea…" Sam trailed off. "You should try to get him to fold in his wings.

Dean shot him a look that clearly said, What the hell makes you think that is a good idea?

"I'm sure they fold up somehow right? I mean if anything they have to bend when he flies so it makes sense that they fold up smaller too, right?" Sam told Dean, while mentally trying to convince himself that what he said actually made sense.

A loud crash of thunder echoed again and the pair jumped. They heard a low moan from near the door, signaling that the thunder caught Cas off guard too.

Before Dean could come up with a reason why they shouldn't do this, Sam had his phone out and was dialing Bobby's number.

Dean headed back towards the door. He followed the watery trail he left when he first came back into the house. The chill of his own clothes was making him miserable, so he couldn't imagine how Cas felt.

He stepped out into the rain, kneeling down next to Cas. Just like before, Dean leaned down to whisper in Cas's ear,

"Hey buddy, you with me?"

The only response he got was silence. He asked twice more before he finally got a response. It was faint, but Dean could hear the angel whispering his name over and over like a mantra.

"Cas, I need you to do something for me, okay? I need you to fold up your wings. We need to get you inside."

"…hurts," mumbled the angel. Dean could have sworn he felt a little crack make its way across his heart. He felt like a villain. It was obvious that Castiel was in a lot of pain, but here he was asking him to do shit.

"There's no other way. I'm… I'm sorry Cas," he croaked. He could feel traitorous tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He had to be strong, if not for himself, for Cas. The last thing he needed was the guy who was supposed to be helping him bawling like a six year old who had his toy taken away.

Cas didn't move to complete Dean's request. He simply kept breathing his shallow breaths, whimpering at various intervals.

It went on and on. The rain kept pouring down around them and neither moved. Dean's mind was occupied with thoughts on what he could do to save Cas, and what would happen if he couldn't.

This is ridiculous. Suck it up, Dean, he mentally chided himself. With steeled breath, he shuffled a few feet back toward the angel, making sure to avoid the extra appendages haphazardly laying about.

"Cas, I'm sorry. I really am." And for a while, he just held him with his head in his lap. Seconds turned to minutes. He was still holding him when Sam came back out from talking with Bobby. Choosing to ignore the precarious position of his friend and brother, he began catching Dean up on what Bobby said.

"So, Bobby knows about as much as we do. He said the best thing we could do was fix his wings up like if he was a bird. The rest is just up to him. Apparently, wings are pretty important to angels, not just an extra limb, so he said we'd want to be careful. So pretty much everything we already know."

If it were any other situation, Dean would have laughed at Sam's frustrated snide comment. But with his arms full of pained angel, it was kind of hard to laugh. The pause went on for a while. Neither knew what to say. Another loud crack brought them out of their stupor.

"Let's just get him inside, Dean," sighed Sam.

"How?" Dean's volume rose. "Anytime he so much as twitches he's moaning, and you want us to just start moving him willy-nilly?"

"Look, I know it's not a good option, but it's not like we have any others! Let's just fold his wings up and get him inside. We'll go from there."

The entire plan sounded absolutely cruel to both of them, but there was not much of a choice otherwise. It was either carry him inside, causing a lot of pain in the process, or leave him to die in the rain. And the latter was never really an option.

Sam moved closer, ready to get the show over with as soon as possible.

"You just hold on to him. I'll do the rest." Sam could see how much this pained his brother. Not that either would ever admit it, but they, especially Dean, really cared for the angel. Sam could have sworn he saw a tear streak down his older brother's face, but didn't look too closely. He could at least give Dean the small comfort of his silence.

Dean moved so the he was sitting next to Cas, and pulled him up from his spot on the ground. The angel's face immediately found its way into the crook of Dean's neck, his hand clinging to the front of his shirt like it was his last lifeline.

Several feet away, Sam took ahold of one of the ebony wings. Even that small movement sent a groan sprawling from the shaking angel's lips. Sam paid no attention to it, though, and set about completing his task. Steadily, he pushed the wing, as gently as he could, toward the angel's back. He could hear the bones grinding and feel the muscles moving underneath his hands.

The injured wings continued to protest, but eventually one wing was tucked up closely to his back. To both of their surprise, the wing stayed in place. The same process was repeated with the other wing. It made the same grinding noise, elicited the same moans, but folded easier than the first.

By the time he was done, his hands were a dark shade of red, an occasional black feather stuck in the drying blood.

The entire time, Dean had sat and held Cas, rubbing his shoulder blades around his wings and whispering softly into his ear. The angel slowly calmed under his ministrations, and by the time Sam was done, he had successfully passed out.

It took Dean a few moments to free his shirt from the angel's clutches. When he was done, he went around behind his shoulders, ready to lift him again.

It took the combined efforts of the two humans to get the angel inside and onto the nearest bed. While Sam went in search of their first aid kit, Dean carefully cut Castiel's collared shirt from around his wings. It was covered in so much blood that, being a white shirt, it wouldn't be salvageable anyway.

A few small cuts trailed along his chest and neck, but it seemed that the majority of the blood all over him had come from his wings.

Sam and Dean each took hold of a wing, slowly feeling its length, trying to detect any fractures. The feathery appendages were broken in several places, but it was fixable. Hopefully. At least, it would be if he were a bird. But angel is close enough, right?

(next Cas is asked to fold his wings)