The door slammed open, hitting against the faded flower-printed wallpaper of the dingy motel room. Moonlight streamed in, dimly lighting the small room as three men stumbled through. Two men, one much taller than the other, supported the third as they all but dragged themselves inside. Mud tracked in behind them, following them from the door to one of the twin-sized beds lining the wall. The two men still standing dropped the third on the bed gracelessly.

"Sam, lights," said the shorter of the two, his tone quiet and curt.

The taller one, Sam, went back quickly, flicking on the lights and locking the door, leaving streaks of blood on the white door and switch. By the time he had returned to the bed, his brother was cataloguing their friend's wounds, medical kit already in hand.

"This is bad, Dean," whispered Sam as he came back. The two stood over their friend, slowly pulling back the cloth covering the wounds. "This is really bad."

"He's going to be fine," he growled out, though he did not move his eyes from the work in front of him.

In front of them was a broken and bloodied Angel. There were lines of cuts covering his torso, his usual button-down now in ribbons. The fabric was quickly disposed of, joining the already discarded tan trench coat on the floor. Castiel's skin was more red than its usual tan, blood still flowing freely from the gouges; his eyes were closed, though what worried the Winchester brothers the most was that their friend was, and had been, completely unresponsive ever since he zapped them back to their beloved Impala.

He wasn't dead - it was clear that he was breathing, heavy and labored, just as his heartbeat was weak but steady.

The brothers worked past their own wounds trying to patch up their friend. Frequently, they had to wipe their own hands of their own blood for fear of it mixing into the Angel's. Their hands moved feverishly as they cleaned and bandaged the Angel in front of them, neither of them saying much. After a while, there was nothing more for the two to do besides wait.

It was all up to Castiel and whatever fight he had left in him.

Dean pulled up a chair from the rickety kitchenette, dropping himself down heavily. "Sam," he motioned to his brother, silently telling him it was his turn to get fixed up. His little brother walked over, pulling out the chair next to him and propping his elbow up on the table.

With a practiced ease and a gentleness shown only to his little brother, Dean worked insistently on the gash marring Sam's upper arm. The blood had long since dried, leaving long crusted trails down his tanned arm that Dean wiped away easily.

Once Dean was finished, Sam switched places, making Dean stay seated as he tried to catalogue the worst of his older brother's wounds.

Dean tried to insist that he was fine and didn't need assistance, but Sam ignored him, by now used to his brother's stubbornness; he simply placed a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him seated. The older Winchester sat, but he was anything but cooperative, all impatient hands and shifted eyes, looking from Sam's progress on the myriad of bruises, cuts, and scrapes peppering his chest to the unconscious Angel still laying motionless on the bed.

Sam understood his concern perfectly (every once in a while he'd give a glance over to their friend too) but it did nothing to stifle his frustration: every time Dean would move, whatever Sam was doing would get messed up and he would have to restart.

"Dammit, Dean," he said, roughly putting down the needle and roll of bandages he had been working with. "I can't stitch you up if you keep moving."

Dean's head snapped towards his brother. He struck a face that could rival even the best of Sam's, "I told you I was fine, Sam. I don't need all this."

"But you're not fine. You can't sit still, you're covered in blood, there's cuts all over you - you're hurt. As much as you want to hide it, you are. So shut up and sit."

"News flash, Sammy, we're always hurt. It's our job to get hurt and you and I both know I've had way worse than this. I don't need to be taken care of, I just..." Dean ran a hand through his short hair. He kept his eyes on the table in front of him. "I just need Cas to wake up."

"I know, D-"

"No, Sam, you don't know!" Dean stood up, knocking the cheap chair to the ground behind him. Sam jumped. "This is all my fault, okay? You getting sliced, this crappy motel room, Cas - all of it! If it weren't for me, he would still be awake and fluttering around somewhere."

"It wasn't your fault - "

"Of course it was my fault! I'm the one who got the call that Kevin was here, I'm the one who convinced you it was a sound lead, I'm the one who let Cas come with us - "

Sam stood up too, now, "But you're not the one who thought the Tablet was in the factory, were you? And you weren't the one who interrogated the demon to get that information either. I was." He paused for a moment. "We were fooled, Dean. All of us."

"Well then we shouldn't have been! We should know by now; we've been fooled our whole lives by these things! And every time, we go in too early or we're outmanned or outgunned or just plain in over our heads and it always ends up the same: someone dies. Somebody close to us. Mom, Dad, Jess, Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Benny, Anna, hell, even each other. I can't do it again, Sammy, not with Cas. They played us. They played us good and we just let them."

Dean hung his head a moment, as he stood in the middle of the dingy motel room. His clothes were still stained from his own wounds, as well as a heavy puddle soaked into his side from where he held up Cas.

"We couldn't have known, Dean," Sam said softly, his eyes imploring.

Dean looked at him, stepped back, and sagged onto the free bed as if he could no longer support the rest of his body. His legs sprawled in front of him, his back bowed over, he looked younger than Sam could ever remember seeing him.

"They knew. They knew we lost Kevin, they knew that we would follow any lead, no matter how slight. And they knew Cas would be with us. They had Angel Blades, for Christ's sake." Dean's voice was little more than a whisper, and he did not raise his head.

Sam watched his brooding brother, and for once could think of nothing to say. Nothing would make this situation better, nor were there any words to lessen the Winchesters's guilt - either brothers'. So, together, they sat in silence. Together they sat in the small, dimly lit, dirty motel room, with nothing to say and nowhere to go, with only each other, and a sleeping, barely-there Fallen Angel.

XxX