All right, squiddos, here it is~! The rating has increased due to swearing. This chapter includes somewhat graphic descriptions of wounded flesh, so if that's troublesome, maybe skip the latter portion of said chapter. There's more coming very soon! And to those of you who follow me for Until The End Of Time, that's got an update soon, not to worry. Now, onward!

"Alright pretty princesses, wake up," Dean said gruffly. He was sleepier than he would care to admit. They hadn't actually slept since leaving the bunker on their quest for Metatron. His neck was sore and the sunrise made his eyes sting and his head hurt. But he needed to get his brothers into bed.

Brother, singular, he reminded himself. Cas ain't your brother, said the voice of reason in his head.

He's more, another, more timid voice pointed out.

"Dean?" Sam grunted, stirring.

"No, it's the Easter bunny," he grumbled. "Can you walk?"

"Yes," his brother huffed. He slid the blanket that he'd somehow managed to usurp from Cas onto the floor of the Impala and maneuvered to the side of the seat, bracing himself. With an almighty heave, he was miraculously on his feet somehow. But the blood fled from his brain and he was dizzy, so dizzy, and when did the floor get next to my face?

"Uh, I think we'd best stick to the training wheels for now." Dean was at his brother's side as soon as he saw him begin to collapse. A vein in Sam's head throbbed angrily, accented against his red face. He ignored the way his muscles cried out in fatigue and helped the two-hundred-plus pounds of Sam to their feet. Swaying, Sam fell back against the Impala with a grunt. Dean lifted his brother's arm and placed it around his own shoulder, and wrapped an arm around Sam's waist.

"Buy me... dinner first," Sam mumbled.

"Shut up, Fainting Beauty," Dean grunted back.

Slowly, they began to walk towards the bunker. Well, Dean walked and Sam shuffled and Dean dragged and then after what felt like years they were at the door.

"Sam? Wait here, okay?" Dean shoved his weakling of a brother into a chair.

"'M not... goin' any... where, Dean."

"Okay, Sammy, look what I got!" Dean returned a few moments later, his voice dragging Sam out of his fevered stupor and beating his brain into the pavement.

"Be... q... w... eye... ette, Dee... nuh," he managed. "Hur... ts... my... hehh... d."

"Wheelchair," Dean said simply, and once again it was Dean wrestling with his all-but-unconscious brother. Sam couldn't get his limbs to move correctly, not that he really wanted to, and he managed to elbow Dean in the nose.

"Suhhhh...rrr..."

"Shut up, dude," Dean mumbled. He had Sam half in the wheelchair, half leaning on him. He slid his brother off of him and he collapsed in the wheelchair, breathing heavily. Triumphantly, he stepped back to view his handiwork. Sam was slumped over to the side, looking at least forty-five although he was barely more than thirty. He opened his eyes to survey the scene.

"Deeee...n. St...air...s."

It was the most trying event of Dean's horror-filled life not to fall on the floor crying in frustration.

Finally, finally, when Dean had gotten Sam into the sick ward (the bunker had a sick ward!) and into bed, he remembered Cas alone in the Impala.

"Well, at least Cas ain't a fuckin' moose," he grunted to himself. It was his turn to sway a bit as he headed outside once more to collect his second, albiet lighter, charge. Cas was still slumped against the window. He hadn't moved an inch. Dean tapped on the glass lightly, feeling like a kid at the zoo knowing that he wasn't supposed to bother the animals in the tanks.

Castiel's head shot up and he looked around, frenzied. Suddenly, he disappeared, and Dean felt a pair of hands around his throat.

"Don't touch me," Cas growled from behind him. He squeezed Dean's throat and white spots blurred the hunter's gaze.

"Sme, Cas," he whimpered. The hands were gone and he collapsed against the car, gasping for air. "'S me. Cas, it's only me. It's only me," he repeated.

"Oh, holy Father, Dean, I'm so sorry," Cas said weakly. Dean stood up again, brushing off the angel's apologies.

"'S okay, man. Just wait 'til you have all your juice back before you kill me. Then you can heal me up good as new." Somehow, in Dean's sleep deprived brain, this was comedy gold, and he began to laugh, hard.

A strangled cry from Cas made him snap out of it.

"Dean, my wound," Cas said. He grabbed his side and his eyes rolled back in his head as fresh waves of pain rolled over him. "I- I flew, an- and the effort-"

"Cas?" Dean held the angel so he wouldn't lose his balance and fall. He didn't respond. "Cas, you still alive, man?"

Still no response.

Dean felt for a pulse. It was there. Faint, almost invisible, but there. Dean ached with relief and allowed himself a moment of breathing in his scent before leaning down and picking him up. He was really heavy, but Dean was strong. The simple fact that Cas was still breathing fueled him, and it was too short a walk to the sick ward (sick ward!). He laid Cas gently on the bed next to Sam's.

"Dean?" Cas breathed. Dean froze, his arms still wrapped around the angel's torso. Cas lifted his hand to touch Dean's face, gently. Then, he closed his eyes and fell into a restless sleep, panting shallowly.

"I'm here, Cas. I'm still here." Dean was filled with a surge of emotion beyond anything he'd ever felt. It was affection for the torn-up angel. It was mind-numbing relief for his hard-won safety. It was anger and hatred for whoever the hell Cas said had done this. It was longing for... something. It was the emotion that matched Castiel's scent and his voice and his eyes and Dean wrestled the urge to curl up next to him like a newborn puppy latches on to its litter-mates.

But he needed to examine Castiel's wound, and he needed to get some water into Sam. He cast one more glance at the slumbering duo and went into the kitchen.

Dean could have been a doctor in another life, easily. He'd picked up a lot of basic- and not-so-basic- medical skills on the road, and sometimes he wondered what would have happened had he grown up normal. Maybe, there could have been medical school...

Stop it, Dean, focus.

He gingerly removed Castiel's clothing, not giving it a second thought, just knowing that he couldn't fully bandage it with clothes on. He pushed away the little voice that told him not to take of Cas's boxers. The gaping hole was too close to his waistband.

Cas whimpered slightly in his sleep as Dean peeled back his shirt. With the scab removed, new blood beaded to the surface of the wound. Dean let out a low whistle at the sight of it. There was a huge gash that reminded Dean of fresh fish at a market, gutted on the spot to be sold and eaten. A huge flap of skin was still attached to his side, hanging on by a couple of limp sinewy strings. Dean knew that it was too far gone for stitches. He wiped away the dried blood and bits of shirt fabric with a warm, damp cloth, squeezing Cas's hand as the angel hissed.

Inside of Cas's side, the organs were unharmed, thank God, and the muscles had mostly knit themselves back together. Dean cleaned the wound as much as possible before stepping back to assess and to plan his next move.

"Dean?" Cas didn't open his eyes, but Dean knew he wasn't just talking in his sleep.

"Cas? How are you feeling?"

"It hurts so- so much, Dean," he cried brokenly. "Please, it hurts. Make it stop." Cas squeezed Dean's hand as if it was the only thing left keeping him alive.

"I want to, baby, I really do. I want it all to go away." Dean felt himself begin to cry. He wanted to swap places with the angel, to be the one with a giant hole in his side. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was somehow his fault, that Cas had done this to himself for him, for Dean-

Pull yourself together, Winchester, he commanded.

"Please," the angel wailed.

Give him an IV, said yet another voice deep within his mind. You passed the supply closet earlier. They've probably got enough painkillers for a small army.

"Cas, I need you to let go of my hand," he said.

"No. Please, Dean, no."

"You have to, sweetheart." Dean pried Cas's fingers off with difficulty. "I'm going to go find something that will make the pain go away."

Then, something inside of him took charge. The supply closet was huge, filled with every possible thing that could ever be needed for any ailment, from bone-cutting saws to be used in surgery to athlete's foot powder. Dean found an IV stand in the corner, and bags of drugs in a box near it. He found himself remembering which painkillers they'd used on him before, what had been given to Bobby and his own father as they'd lain in the hospital dying, lifetimes ago. He gathered the medicines and the stand, the needle and tube for his elbow, bandages to hold it in place. He placed it all beside Cas and went back to the closet for a scalpel and whatever those little scissors that they used to clip the flesh so that it wasn't in the way of the surgery. Finally, sutures and a hooked needle for giving stitches.

Time to sew.

Okay, I know a lot of people were probably wondering why Dean knows so much about surgery and stuff, so before you start bitchin' about it, hear me out. I think it makes a lot of sense. Dean probably has a very good grasp of anatomy due to time spent ripping bodies in hell. He's spent a lot of his life around injuries, and he's no stranger to improvised surgeries. I think it's very reasonable to think that he's got at least a medic-level skill set. Hell, even I know how to do this stuff. And I don't hunt things that want to tear me apart...

So if you don't like, don't read.

And if you do like, then you're awesome. :)