A/N: For Miyth. More shameless whump and h/c. *g* Set in season 12.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Thanks to 29Pieces for beta reading!

"Don't Hang Up"

After weeks and weeks of fruitless searching, Castiel finally got a lead on Kelly Kline, a staticky snippet over angel radio about where the mother of Lucifer's baby had last been seen. Castiel wanted to get there before the other angels, wanted to talk to Kelly first. Because even if she was carrying the greatest spawn of evil to ever exist, after what happened with Lily and her daughter, Castiel couldn't bring himself to ignore the fact that this was a situation involving a mother and her child.

In hindsight, he probably should have stopped to wonder why the angels had yet to execute a strike against Kelly. Coming face to face with a Prince of Hell answered that question.

Dagon stood between him and Kelly in the lobby of an abandoned hotel, apparently having made quick work at taking the pregnant woman under her protection. The demon raised her palm toward Castiel.

"No, don't!" Kelly blurted.

Dagon paused, angling a mildly curious look over her shoulder. Castiel took his opening.

"Kelly, please, I just want to talk."

She shook her head, hands splayed protectively across her swollen belly. "I'm sorry, Castiel, but I'm keeping this baby."

He flicked a nervous glance at Dagon. "Kelly, I don't know what she's told you about what you're carrying—"

"I'm carrying my son," she snapped, and then took a tentative step toward the door. "Stop looking for us."

Kelly shot Dagon a pleading look, and the demon turned a considering moue back toward Castiel. He didn't know what the demon's end game was, probably to secure Lucifer's child, and once that baby was born, they'd have no use for Kelly anymore. But until then, it seemed the Prince of Hell was willing to play nice with Kelly and accede to her wishes, because instead of killing Castiel on the spot, Dagon merely waved her arm, and an invisible force slammed into his chest, lifting him off the floor and throwing him through the wall into the next room. But the momentum kept him going, and he crashed through the rotted out floorboards into the basement below, landing with a bone-jarring thud and flash of fiery pain in his chest that blacked out his vision for a short time.

Or, maybe not so short, Castiel actually wasn't sure. When his brain started to clear, the first thing that met him was utter silence. Dagon and Kelly had fled, but who knew how long ago. Castiel tried to get up, but let out a cry as lightning speared through his chest. Not only that, but he hadn't been able to move at all.

Blinking through blurry vision, Castiel glanced down and stared dumbly at a piece of rebar protruding up from his sternum. His breathing hitched as he became aware of the concrete slab beneath him—and the burning pain in his back just under his shoulder blade. He'd landed on the piece of metal when he fell, essentially impaling himself.

And now he was stuck.

The rusted, blood-coated rebar was sticking up a good two feet into the air, too much for Castiel to lift himself off of, especially when trying to move threatened to make him black out again. And he had no wings with which to fly.

Castiel's heart started beating faster, filling his ears with a raging roar and pumping more blood out around the edges of the metal, though the rebar would keep him from bleeding out. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to force his breathing to calm down. He needed to think, needed help.

Castiel slowly shifted his right arm, trying to move it as gingerly as possible so as not to jostle his torso, and reached for his pocket where his cell phone was. He had to stretch to get his fingers around it, and that sent a bolt of agony through him. Castiel gritted his teeth and managed to fish his phone out, but by then he was shaking and his fingers fumbled over the virtual keyboard. He finally hit dial, then the speaker button, as he didn't want to try raising his arm and tugging at those connected muscles. The line started ringing, and Castiel prayed it would pick up.

Dean glanced at his phone as the screen lit up with Cas's caller ID. He hit pause on the Japanese anime he was watching and swiped to answer. "Hey, Cas. What's shakin'?"

"Dean," Cas breathed, sounding desperately relieved. It made Dean close his laptop and sit up straighter.

"What's going on, man? Are you okay?"

"N-no. I- I need help."

Dean was on his feet and making a beeline for the kitchen where Sam was making lunch. "Where are you?"

"Colorado. Greensville. The, um, the DeMarco Hotel."

Dean really didn't like how heavy Cas's breathing was, like every word was an effort to get out. "Cas, what happened?" he demanded as he swept into the kitchen.

Sam looked up from the sandwich he was making, brows instantly furrowing in a question. Dean hit the speaker button.

"I found Kelly," Cas's gravelly voice filled the kitchen. "But she's met up with Dagon. For protection."

Sam's face scrunched up. "Dagon? Wait, as in one of the Princes of Hell? The one Ramiel mentioned?"

"Yes."

Dean's heart nearly seized with the horrific memories of that night in the barn where Cas had almost died. "What the hell are you doing going after a Prince of Hell by yourself?" he practically yelled.

"I didn't know Kelly was with Dagon," Cas retorted tetchily, but then he sucked in a sharp breath and gasped.

"Cas?" Sam called worriedly. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Kelly and Dagon are gone," he grunted. "But I'm- I'm stuck. I can't get up."

Dean's stomach clenched, and his gaze narrowed on the phone with steely focus. "Why can't you get up?"

There was silence on the other end, save for Cas's labored breathing, and shit, he shouldn't have been breathing that loudly to begin with.

"I fell through the floor and- and landed on some—" He cut off again with a grunt somewhere between frustrated and pained. "Rebar," he ground out.

"Rebar?" Sam repeated, and Dean could see him trying to put that together like Dean was. Cas had…shit.

Dean pivoted toward the hallway. "Okay, buddy, we're coming. You just sit tight, okay?"

Cas let out a small growl in the back of his throat. "I can't move."

Dean reached the library and then broke into a sprint toward the stairs, Sam's slapping footsteps right behind him.

"Okay, you said Greensville, Colorado, right?" Dammit, that was several hours away. Could Cas hang on that long? "Cas, how bad is it?" he asked, heart stuttering with the echo of the same words spoken in that wretched barn when Cas had told them all to run because there was no hope for him. This was not happening again.

"I- I can't heal the wound with the metal still in it. I think I can stop the bleeding, though."

"Then do that," Dean said, trying to keep his panic in check.

"We could call Mom," Sam suggested as they climbed into the Impala. "Maybe she's closer."

Dean quickly covered his phone's mic with his hand. "No. She's working with those British Men of Letters dicks, and I don't want them anywhere near Cas, not when he's hurt and unable to defend himself."

Sam shot him a dubious look. "You can't think they'd actually do anything to him."

"I don't know what to think, so drop it. Cas is family; we're getting him." Dean uncovered his phone and set it on the dash, then turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine to life. "Cas, you still there?"

"Y-yes." He was starting to sound a little shaky.

"Okay, well, don't hang up," Dean said, deciding he didn't want to leave Cas just lying in an abandoned building, alone, for the next few hours. "You said Kelly and Dagon are gone. Are you sure?"

"Yes. There's no one else here."

Dean pulled the Impala out of the garage and sped down the drive toward the highway. The three of them had fallen quiet, but the sound of Cas's pained breathing was still audible over the rumble of the Impala's engine. Sam shot Dean a worried look.

Dean cleared his throat. "So, how'd you find Kelly, anyway?"

"I overheard part of a transmission on angel radio." Cas paused. "I probably should have realized there was a reason the angels were keeping their distance."

Dean's gut tightened further. "Cas, if any angels show up looking for them, you stay quiet, you hear?"

"Why?" Cas asked, sounding so incredulous that Dean wanted to smack his forehead against the steering wheel.

"Because half of them aren't fans, remember? They're just as likely to leave you there—or do worse."

Cas let out a frustrated sound. "I would prefer to get out of here sooner rather than later," he growled. "And not all angels are like Ishim, Dean."

Oh, Dean could so rattle off the names of angels who were exactly like that dickbag. And count on one hand how many who weren't. But he didn't want to get into an argument with Cas and risk stressing him out further. He needed another way to keep Cas's mind off his current predicament.

"Hey, Cas," Sam broke in. "When was the first time you saw Earth? I mean, were you there when God created it?"

Dean relaxed a fraction. Leave it to his little brother to tactfully divert a conversation.

"No," Cas answered. "I was created after, but before humans. Actually…my first time coming to Earth was with Gabriel. He was showing off our Father's creations. He seemed particularly fascinated by the fish, though he hadn't told me why at the time."

Dean's brows rose. Okay, that was a somewhat interesting tidbit.

"So you watched the birth and development of humanity, huh?" Sam went on. "What was your favorite part?"

They reached the highway, and Dean set a steady yet roaring pace as Cas started telling them about his observations from human history, how impressed he was with the building of the pyramids and the Great Wall of China, how awe-inspiring it was to watch the resiliency of the human spirit in times of strife and tribulation. But he also talked a lot about the beauty in human art—sculptures, paintings. It seemed to fascinate the angel whenever humans created something. They were his father's works, made in His image. And Dean started to see how much Cas had always loved humanity, probably more than any other angel ever had or would.

"She's a terrible guardian angel," Cas said. "Worse than me, in fact."

Sam just shook his head in amusement. An hour into the drive and Cas recounting the things he loved about humanity, the angel had mentioned Netflix as a praiseworthy invention, and from there conversation had veered toward various television shows and movies, and that topic had carried them through another hour and across the state line into Colorado. Currently they were discussing "Angel From Hell," which neither Sam nor Dean had seen, but they were letting Cas go on about it.

"Hey, you're a damn good guardian angel," Dean put in.

Cas huffed. "Well, thank you. I'm certainly better than Jane Lynch's character. I would never…" Cas trailed off, and Sam waited for him to pick up his thought again. He didn't.

"Cas?" Sam called. "You still there?" He glanced at Dean's phone and realized the battery level was at twenty-five percent. Crap, how much charge did Cas's phone have? Dean's probably hadn't been fully charged when they'd started this call, but Cas's might have been.

"Y-yes," Cas finally replied, but his voice sounded weaker now.

Sam frowned. "How you doin'?"

There was a beat before he responded. "I'm cold. I think…maybe I wasn't…wasn't able to fully stop the bleeding…"

Sam and Dean exchanged an alarmed look. Cas couldn't bleed out, could he? He was trapped and hurt, sure, but it wasn't like he'd been stabbed with an angel blade…or a magical lance.

"We're coming, Cas," Dean said. "We're halfway there, okay? Just hang on."

"It- it's getting dark."

Yeah, the sun was almost below the horizon now, but Sam hadn't realized that meant Cas was going to be in the dark soon, too. It wasn't something he'd ever considered would bother the angel, but to be trapped and alone, vulnerable, with darkness descending like a sinister shroud to swallow you whole…yeah, not a good place to be, mentally or physically.

And shit, if Sam was having flashbacks to Ramiel and Michael's lance, what must Cas be going through right now? What had he probably been going through already after such a horrific event? And it wasn't even like Ramiel was the only trauma Cas had experienced in the past several months.

"Hey, Cas," Sam said tentatively. "Uh, how have you been doing lately?"

Cas's responses were getting more delayed, and Sam's chest constricted as he waited with growing anxiety.

"I've been impaled…" Cas said slowly.

Sam huffed out a nervous laugh. "Yeah, you're not having a run of good luck, are you? But you're not dying this time." Sam didn't even bother making it a question.

"I- I know," Cas replied, though he sounded uncertain.

"You know, I never asked how you were after the thing with Lucifer," Sam continued with a pang of regret. Of all people, he knew just how devastating being the Devil's vessel could be, and he hadn't reached out to Cas about it. Granted, there'd been getting kidnapped and tortured, and then his mom coming back from the dead, but that was no excuse for ignoring it completely. Like the Winchesters always did.

"We put Lucifer back in the Cage," Cas replied softly. "I'm…I'm grateful for the…win. And that I…managed to clean up…my mess."

"Lucifer wasn't your mess, Cas," Sam said. "He was your sacrifice to help save the world."

"So…so you do forgive me, for it?"

Sam swallowed hard at the naked vulnerability in his friend's tone. "Of course, Cas."

The battery on Dean's cell went down another level, and Sam dug one of their portable chargers out of the glove box and plugged it into the phone.

Dean's mouth turned down at the action. "Cas, how's your phone's battery?"

"Um…forty percent."

Okay, that wasn't great, but it wasn't about to die on them, either.

"Dean, Sam, I'm tired. Maybe…maybe if I rest, I can—"

"No, no, no," Dean cut him off sharply. "You stay awake and you stay with us."

Cas made what sounded like a pained hiccough. "It's getting too hard to- to talk."

Sam furled his hands into fists, desperately wishing they could go faster, but Dean was already careening down the back roads at ninety-miles-an-hour. "Okay," he said, "you can have a break from talking. We'll talk, and you listen, okay?"

"Okay," Cas breathed. "That'd be…nice."

Sam wracked his brain for something to say. "Hey, did we tell you about the hunter gathering we went to a few months back?"

"No."

"It was actually a funeral for another hunter, but it was more upbeat than that, celebrating his life, you know?" Sam waited.

Dean glanced at the phone as though it could transmit his firm glare. "Cas, you don't have to talk, but you gotta make some kind of noise to let us know you're still there, okay?"

"Mhm-hm."

Sam nodded. "Okay, so growing up, Dad kept us isolated from other hunters, so we never got to experience this type of get-together. It's like a whole sub-culture. They even have this drinking game where every time someone says 'wendigo,' they all have to take a drink."

"I bet Dean enjoyed that," Cas murmured.

Dean shot the phone an indignant scowl while Sam cracked a grin.

"And apparently there's all kinds of crazy stories about us circulating through the hunter community," Sam went on, sharing some of the wild stuff he'd heard from those guys. He did, however, leave out the part about the vengeful demon trapping them in the house and trying to kill them off one by one.

Cas made mumbling noises of acknowledgement every so often, and as long as he kept that up, Sam kept prattling on about some of the most mundane things…and some not so mundane ones. Like his growing correspondence with Eileen Leahy. Sam hadn't really mentioned it to Dean in more than passing, but Eileen had become a good friend, and Sam was even learning some signs from an online resource.

"Hey, Cas, do you know sign language?" Sam asked.

"I know all languages," he replied faintly.

"Can you teach me?"

"Which one? There are many sign languages across the globe."

Sam's brows rose. Oh. He wondered if Eileen's first language was Irish Sign Language, then. He'd start with what he knew she used, though. "American Sign Language."

"Yes, I can teach you."

"Sammy's got a girlfriend," Dean injected with a teasing grin, and Sam rolled his eyes. He'd expected his immature brother to make a comment about it, but Dean had probably been trying to hold it back since they were focusing on Cas here. He apparently couldn't help himself, though.

"I think it's Dean's turn," Sam said abruptly.

His brother quirked a brow. "For a girlfriend?"

Sam snorted. "To talk, dumbass."

"Hey, you were on a roll," Dean countered.

"Cas," Sam said, turning his attention to the phone. "Ask Dean anything you want."

"Hey now," Dean protested with a wide-eyed look.

Sam smirked. "Cas? Hey, come on, buddy."

Dean's expression immediately sobered as they waited to hear Cas assure them he was still there. "Cas?"

"Oh, um," his gravelly voice finally responded, but then he fell quiet again, save for some rasping breaths. "There was that time…you bought fireworks for Sam."

Dean's face scrunched up in confusion. "I've told you that story before."

"I know. But it- it's a nice story."

Sam couldn't help but look over to meet his brother's gaze, now pinched with a mixture of nostalgia and grief. Sam gave him a small smile. "It is a good story."

Dean's throat bobbed. "Okay, sure," he said, voice rough with emotion. But he cleared his throat and started to tell the story, and Sam settled back in his seat to listen, lips curving upward at the fond memory. He'd almost forgotten in all the years since. That it was something Cas wanted to hear, wanted to hold onto and cherish when he hadn't even been there, made Sam realize that they needed to make an effort to create some pleasant memories of their own with the angel when they all got home from this.

Castiel fought to pay attention, he did, but the steady cadence of Dean's gruff voice was lulling him to sleep. The blood loss wasn't helping matters, either. He was so cold. His arms and legs were numb, and he couldn't feel his fingers. The phone had slid out of his grip a while ago and was lying next to him on the concrete slab. He wasn't even entirely sure where it was now that he was immersed in complete darkness, but Dean and Sam's ceaseless talking kept him anchored, kept the phantoms of his mind at bay.

Until something shifted in the rubble, a skittering of stone and plaster that made Castiel jolt so sharply that agony exploded throughout his chest. He must have cried out, because the next thing he heard after the throbbing in his head began to ebb were two frantic voices calling his name.

"Cas, dammit, what's wrong?"

"Talk to us, man!"

He gasped sharply, his chest on fire where it had been glacial only moments before. "I…" he rasped, but the effort required too much. Castiel squeezed his eyes shut and tried to get a hold of himself. Whatever had moved in the debris fell still and silent, perhaps just a loose piece sliding free. No one was here. Nothing was lurking in the shadows ready to attack him.

"I'm," he tried again, but hot liquid bubbled up in his throat, and he sputtered on the copper tang suddenly splashing in his mouth. His chest was on fire. Castiel's next breath hitched, and with it came the terrifying awareness that when he'd moved, the jagged piece of rebar had torn at his lung, which was now filling with blood.

"Cas!"

"Dean—" He coughed, and more fluid splattered his lips. He was drowning. No, he was choking, just like when the poison of Michael's lance had been eating away at him, rotting him out so that his own liquefied insides had bubbled up in his throat to suffocate him. He was going to die like this.

"Cas, listen to me you son-of-a-bitch. Breathe! Okay, just breathe."

"C-can't," he gasped, chest juddering from the action and nearly sending him out of orbit with another explosion of pain.

"Yes you can," Dean argued. "One breath in, okay? With me."

Castiel heard Dean inhale loudly, but he knew if he tried to take that deep a breath, he would pass out. "Lung…" he tried to get out.

"You punctured a lung?" Sam's overwrought voice came through.

Castiel wished the younger Winchester could see him nod, because talking was too much. He heard Dean curse.

"Cas," Sam continued urgently. "You said you can't heal around the metal. Is it touching your lung right now?"

Castiel's eyelids fluttered dazedly. What?

"Cas!" Sam shouted. "Listen to me, you need to heal that lung."

His head was getting fuzzy and their voices were becoming muffled. Heal? There was a piece of rebar sticking up through his chest…

"Cas," Sam pressed, sounding desperate. It tugged at Castiel's awareness, because if Sam needed help, he needed to get up. But no, moving was agony.

"Cas, is the rebar touching your lung?"

Castiel tried to focus, fighting against the thick coating of blood gathering in his throat. "N-no."

"Then heal it. You can do it, man. You didn't have a punctured lung before, so the metal didn't hit it when you landed. It just now grazed it, right? So heal the tissue on the inside. You can do it."

Castiel ignored the clogging in his throat and turned his senses inward toward his vessel's organs. Yes, the rebar had torn at the lung from the outside. His grace was weak, though, after having been stuck here for hours unable to heal the physical damage. Castiel gritted his teeth and attempted to push his grace toward the tattered lung tissue. It began to meld back together, sealing off the cavity from additional blood flow. His lung, throat, and mouth were still full, though, and the sensation was almost enough to launch him into a spiraled panic again.

But Sam's voice was still steadily repeating his directions: heal the lung, deal with the internal bleeding, slow his breathing.

Castiel closed his eyes and forced himself to take a shallow breath through his nose. The lung was healed, and he could mojo away the blood, as Dean would say. It took a few stages, but finally his airway was clear once more, and with the restored oxygen flow, the haze in his mind began to dissipate.

"O-okay," he stammered.

"You're not bleeding anymore?" Sam checked.

"Not- not internally."

He heard two audible exhales on the other end of the phone.

"Cas," Dean said, sounding shaken. "Listen, we should have told you that night outside the barn, after Ramiel."

Castiel frowned. Tell him what?

"But I am not gonna say it now," Dean went on sharply. "You are going to hold on, and after me and Sam get you free and we're home again, I will say it. You hear me?"

Castiel was utterly confused, but he heard him. "Y-yes."

His phone's screen lit up, nearly blinding him with the harsh light after being so long in complete darkness. Castiel's stomach flipped. "My- my battery's almost dead."

"Dammit," Dean swore. "Okay, we're almost there. You stay on the line as long as you can, but I swear we'll be there soon."

Castiel swallowed hard around a lump gathering in his throat. He knew Dean wasn't lying. He knew he and Sam were on their way, had been racing to get to him for the past several hours, not once hanging up and letting him languish in darkness and isolation. Even if his phone died before they reached him, he knew they were out there, and they wouldn't stop.

Castiel let himself trust in that. He held onto that unwavering faith when his phone died, cutting off Dean's voice mid-sentence. He clung to that hope when the silence and darkness pressed in upon him. And he managed to keep up a series of steady, measured breaths to the rhythm of those promises as he repeated them to himself over and over in his head.

He was so deep in the meditation that he didn't hear when footsteps scuffed across the floor upstairs, which was probably good, as he didn't need to be startled and tear that lung open again. A light suddenly burst across his closed eyelids, followed by a voice he'd last heard through a speaker, but now rang out clear and sharp from above.

"Cas!"

He pried his eyes open sluggishly, catching sight of blurred flashlight beams on the floor above. He listened to Dean and Sam scurrying around, trying to find the stairwell to the basement. He didn't call out to them, voice too weak now anyway. Castiel just waited patiently for the door at the other end of the room to finally burst open, and for harried footsteps to rush his way.

"Cas, hey, we're here," Sam said.

Castiel let out a breath of relief as they both knelt on either side of him.

"Whoa, okay," Dean said, cataloguing his condition. A hand reached out to squeeze his. "Hey, buddy, how you doin'?"

"I'd like to get up," he replied.

Dean's face scrunched up with a sympathetic grimace. "Yeah, uh…" He shook his head. "I guess the best way is to just get it over with, huh?"

Castiel gave them a small nod.

"Um, I'll take his legs, you take his arms?" Dean suggested.

"Yeah." Sam stood up and went around behind Castiel's head, while Dean took up a position at his feet. He couldn't hold back a cry as Sam slipped his arms under Castiel's, lifting him a fraction.

"On three," Dean said.

Castiel held his breath as Dean counted, and then he screamed as he was raised up and the piece of rebar ripped down through his chest. He was set back on the ground a little roughly as the Winchesters staggered to support his weight.

"Easy, easy," Dean soothed.

Castiel kept his eyes squeezed shut against the pain, but a moment later he felt his dormant grace stirring to life and seeping into the wound. It anesthetized the pain first, then began stitching everything back together, even his clothes. He opened his eyes.

Dean's and Sam's worried faces were hovering over him, illuminated by the faint halos of light emitting from their flashlights.

"You good?" Sam asked hesitantly.

Castiel started to push himself up, and both Winchesters grabbed his hands to help haul him all the way to his feet. His head swam after being prone for so long. "I'm alright," he assured them. "Thank you."

Dean sagged, and he clamped a hand on Castiel's shoulder. "Next time you get a lead on Kelly, call us."

He sighed. This really hadn't been his fault. "Now that I know Dagon is involved, I will."

Sam shook his head. "Let's get out of here."

"How about we find a motel for the night," Dean suggested as they made their way to the stairs. "I could use a drink. And some food."

"I think I would also like a drink," Castiel put in. Alcohol did little for him, but sometimes he found it psychologically cathartic.

Dean's mouth quirked. "It's on me." He drew to a stop at the top of the stairs, and turned to face Castiel directly. "And listen, you know me and Sam love you too, right?"

Castiel blinked, taken aback. "I…yes."

He had never felt more embraced by love and steadfast devotion than when Sam and Dean had stayed on the phone with him for five hours, refusing to hang up so he wouldn't be alone. Just like when they'd stubbornly refused to leave him in that barn when he was dying. Wait, was that what Dean wanted to tell him when they got back to the bunker?

"Okay, good." The elder Winchester cleared his throat awkwardly. "I just wanted to make sure you knew that we felt the same. Now, and not some time down the line when somebody's dying again."

Castiel glanced at Sam, whose eyes were wavering with the same emotion as Dean. The younger hunter nodded resolutely.

A small smile tugged at Castiel's mouth. "Thank you," he said, echoing his words from his earlier deathbed. Yes, it did feel better to say it now, when they were all safe and whole.

Sam reached out to squeeze Castiel's shoulder. "Let's go make some new stories we can laugh about later."

Dean broke into a wide, almost devious grin, which made Castiel suddenly wary. Yet he quickly dismissed the nerves. He was with family. And no matter where they went, that was where he wanted to be.