Sam pulled up to the alley Cas and Dean were hiding in. It'd been almost two hours since he'd gotten the frantic call from his brother, and he was worried about what he might find. All he knew was that something had happened to Cas and that it was bad. Really bad.
Jumping out of the car and grabbing the first aid kit, Sam made his way down to the end of the alley. There he found Cas, lying facedown on the ground, shivering despite the heat and humidity. What was really frightening, though, was the sight of his wings. The fact that he could see them was bad enough, but they looked mangled and burned, a thin sheen of blood covering the flesh. There were charred bits of what looked like feathers, but Sam couldn't be sure the way they were seared to the muscle. They could've just been bits of skin.
"What happened?" he demanded, kneeling down to check the burns. Dean shook his head.
"Psycho witch wanted to sell his tears so she burned his wings."
Sam ran back to the Impala for the jug of holy water they kept in the trunk. It'd work well enough to rinse the burns. When he poured it on Cas's wings, though, the angel flapped them frantically, smacking one of them into Sam's head by accident. He howled at the contact, curling them as close to him as he could manage and whimpering like a child.
If not for the wingspan, Sam would've loaded the angel into the Impala and taken the three of them as far away as he could before treating him. But each wing was at least fifteen feet long and as wide as Sam's torso was long. There was no way they'd be able to fit him into the car without them touching the seats, and Sam couldn't imagine the kind of torture that would be.
Instead, he had Dean check them into a motel nearby and snuck Cas into their room once his brother had gotten the key.
Treating the angel was no small task. Every time Sam would get near his wings, Cas would flap them to try and get away and he'd just end up hurting himself even more. Eventually, Dean injected him with a sedative that could knock out an elephant. It definitely helped, though, that Cas was as exhausted as he was. After that, they went through every bandage, gauze roll, and bottle of ointment they owned in order to get Cas as patched up as they could and left him to sleep for a while before the pain got to be too intense.
After he got Cas taken care of, Sam took a look at Dean's injuries. His wrists and hands had swollen up five times their size and had turned a sickening shade of purple. Now that the adrenaline was finally wearing off, he was starting to have a difficult time moving his hands, and the pain was getting almost unbearable.
Sam wrapped them in a splint with an ace bandage, "How'd you manage this?"
Dean took a deep breath. "She set him on fire, Sammy," he explained, voice breaking. "I couldn't just sit there, but she had me chained up."
"You can't do that, though, Dean. You almost bored them down to the bone. I wouldn't have been able to patch that up," Sam explained. His brother huffed in annoyance, swallowing a couple of painkillers with a bit of whiskey.
"He was screamin' Sam. He blew out the damn door."
There was nothing more to be said. Once Sam had finished wrapping Dean's wrists, the older man headed over to Cas's bed.
The angel looked peaceful, more so than he'd looked in years. Every once in a while, his wings would twitch as he dreamed, but it didn't seem to be bothering him. Dean stretched out beside him and ran his unbandaged fingers through his hair. Cas nuzzled into the touch like a child, which Dean let out a small chuckle at.
"I'll be here when you wake up," he promised.
Okay guys, so you get a choice here. There are two possible routes I can take with this story, and I have drafts of equal quality written for both.
Route A: Platonic friendship is strengthened by the ordeal and no romantic feelings are introduced.
Route B: Friendship is strengthened by the ordeal and romantic feelings are discovered.
If I don't get any votes, I can just flip a coin, but I'd like to know what y'all want to see.
As always, don't forget to favourite, follow and review! Reviews make me happier than a Whovian in a TARDIS!