Title: Within Reach

Prompt: Written for hugglewolf on livejournal: "Supernatural, Castiel, cursed!brothers, Bobby. Castiel comes looking for Bobby and the Winchesters but it's a cursed Sam and Dean that he finds. By the time Bobby comes home and breaks the curse, Castiel is bleeding and traumatised and Bobby isn't sure how to fix him. Or even if he can, never mind how guilty Sam and Dean are."

The door of the panic room was open. Castiel dropped his things and lunged inside, pulling the door shut after him. He reached for the bolt, but his eyes blurred, his hand missed, and he slid down the door to his hands and knees.

Time passed. He might have slept. Castiel wouldn't know.

It had been a nasty curse.

Bobby frowned at the closed door which mocked the humans remaining outside. Sam watched guiltily from his seat at the bottom of the stairs. Dean-concussed, but standing-hovered to Bobby's left.

"He won't let us in," Dean whispered quietly. "Why should he?"

"Because I said so," Bobby declared, stepping forward and yanking on the door handle. To both his and the Winchesters' surprise, it opened easily, and Bobby almost tripped over Castiel. Then he was thrown away from the room violently with Dean after him in a long silent scream of invisible force.

It didn't let up, keeping the Winchesters plastered against the opposing wall. And it was all Castiel, who was sitting dumbly just a foot inside of the doorway and out of reach.

"Get out here," Bobby ordered. "I said come here, Castiel!" Reluctantly, Bobby gentled, trying a coaxing voice. "Come on out, Feathers. We can't help you in there."

"I don't want help." The strangled voice was almost unrecognizable as Castiel's.

Bobby grit his teeth, and grabbed at the stair railing to pull himself forward. Determinedly, he reached for a support beam, and then snagged the open door. He pulled until he stood in the doorway of the panic room.

"I don't want help," Castiel addressed Bobby's boots. The grace started to fade.

"Tough," Bobby grunted, and grabbed Castiel's shoulders. The angelic shout of pain shattered glass upstairs, but Bobby didn't let go. He heaved the angel up and out of the panic room into Dean's waiting arms.

The oldest Winchester yanked Castiel back from the doorway as if it burned. The angel stiffened in the human's grasp, hands scrabbling for purchase in the flannel shirt, and muscles tense.

"Every thing's okay now, Cas," Dean tried to soothe. "We're going to take care of you, and then we'll . . ."

"I don't need to be taken care of," Castiel disagreed.

"Your wings . . ." Sam trailed off. For a second, it looks like Castiel is going to flee. Then he goes limp in Dean's grasp and the huge black wings flicker into sight. They're not widespread the way Dean described seeing them almost two years ago, but curled tightly around the angel, hiding him from view.

They're not beautiful. They reminded Bobby of a bird that had been torn apart by a stray cat many years ago. They were ripped, feathers missing in gaping patches, over a twisted bone structure.

Bobby touched one. Castiel tried to flinch away.

"Let's have none of that," Bobby told him sharply. "Get that shirt off, and let me make sure that you ain't hurt anywhere else."

Castiel was trying so hard to stand perfectly still that he actually shook. "No."

"I don't recall bein' one for arguing, Feathers. You're hurtin' human-like, and I don't let my boys hurt when I can do something to stop it."

Castiel doesn't fly away when Bobby takes a wing in hand again.

It's a start.