Setting: Post Season 11, no Mary, no British chick that shot Sam. Canon levels of Destiel.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't earn money.

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The way it happens is so damn stupid in comparison to all the shit they actually have survived. If it happened in the course of the last few months, maybe it'd be acceptable. If this was about God and the Darkness or even Lucifer. If it was a grand act of redemption or saving the world. But it's just so damn stupid.

They're in the middle of a ghoul hunt, nothing to do with all the usual supernatural they're-in-way-over-their-heads crap. Still hard work and gruelling and could those freaking things be any more disgusting, but you know. Stuff they can handle.

And then an angel shows up. Female vessel around thirty, in a dark grey costume as they seem to prefer wearing, both pissed of and haughty. She doesn't even say anything, just glares at Cas and throws the angel blade.

Not at Cas. Not at Cas at all.

When Sam later tries to make sense of things, even contacts a couple of angels who were on Cas' side, he says she wanted to hit him where it actually would kill him. Because the angels know them that pretty well now, apparently. They've all heard him scream in agony too many times, and almost every single time it had been about Dean.

Like when Metatron killed him and twirled that bloody blade in front of Cas. Which was a thing that happened, apparently.

Or when he'd broken through Naomi's mind control – after being made to practice on thousands of fake Deans, apparently – only to find the real Dean almost broken at his own hands.

Or when Dean had broken him with his own hands, to dissuade him from caring too much. Which only made him care more, apparently. Made him care enough for the entire heavenly host to get fed up with echoes of misery and longing, apparently.

So it makes sense, Sam reasons through choked-back tears, that if they wanted to slice open Cas' heart, they'd aim for Dean's.

And because Cas is all angeled up and reacts quicker than Dean or Sam can even understand the situation, he is there in front of Dean before the blade hits.

There are hands on Dean's waist, his shoulder – that shoulder – and there are Cas' eyes, so close, so kind, suddenly flaring brightness so intense that Dean closes his own against the onslaught of blue – white – light.

And when he opens it again, Cas is sinking forward into him and Dean catches him on instinct. Cheek to cheek, chin on Dean's shoulder, arms hanging down now, with Dean holding him up in a somewhat awkward hug.

There's a scuffle, which he later identifies as Sam trying to get to the other angel and her scoffing and disappearing before he gets the chance to do any damage or get himself killed.

Dean sees dark hair and holds up the dead weight of his best friend and he doesn't understand what just happened.

Sam eventually takes Dean out of his head by suddenly appearing at his side, muttering "No, no, please no, oh Cas, please no" and almost on autopilot, Dean lets his brother guide Cas down to the ground.

His eyes are half-closed, his mouth is half-open and there's the tip of an angel blade sticking out of his chest.

He doesn't look lifeless, not at all.

But he's not moving. There's not even a twitch of an eyelid, a fingertip. Not a breath.

Sam is still muttering an endless litany of "No, please no", as he turns Cas around enough to see where the blade entered him.

Very abruptly, Dean remembers they don't actually know if the ghoul they were tracking might not be around here somewhere and he pulls out his gun, gets up, looks sharply into every corner.

When he comes back, Sam is still kneeling over Cas, strands of his overly long hair stuck in the steady stream of tears on his cheeks. He has stopped muttering.

He does, however, look up and say "Dean".

Like he wants to offer it, but there is no consolation. Not for this.

"No wing prints, Sammy", he hears himself say and realizes it's true a second later.

"He can't be dead if there are no wing prints. That's how it works, right? Cas, he's-… right now he's a fully charged angel, right? So there should be wing prints. If he was-… there'd be wing prints. Right?"

And Sam looks at the ground and sees that Dean is right. There's just earth. Brown and hard, with some grey pebbles in between. Not a hint of a charcoal feather anywhere.

"Right." He still doesn't have much in the way of a voice and draws his sleeves up to his eyes. He keeps them hidden behind flannel and denim as Dean goes on with his theory that seems more accurate by the sentence.

"So I'm guessing-… Chuck, he'll bring him back. I mean, he's done it before. I know he said he wouldn't be all that involved anymore, but come on. This is Cas. His favorite or whatever."

Sam's finally done wiping his eyes, but they still seem plenty red when he looks up at Dean from where he's kneeling with Cas' head in his lap.

"Do you think he ever told Cas?"

Dean just shrugs, mind still racing, caught on that image of his friend's vessel.

"Did you ever tell him?", Sam is saying now and that makes even less sense.

"Tell him what?", he says, already thinking of the best way to get Cas into the Impala. Sam doesn't answer and they leave it at that.

Cas doesn't come back during the long drive to the bunker and so they lay him out on the couch when they're home. Dean even does the sensible thing and calls Garth of all people, because someone should be taking care of those ghouls, but right now, making sure Cas is okay is more important. He's been through the whole coming-back-to-life thing too often on his own, this time he'll be with family.

There was some debate over whether it should be Cas' room or the couch, but they don't know how long it'll take until he's brought back and the couch is just more central. They were pretty sure taking the blade out is preferable, so the bloody thing is sitting on the side table. There's also a towel underneath Cas' back, to keep the little trickle of blood from seeping into the couch. There's very little blood, also on the Impala. If he wasn't an angel, the injury might not even have been so bad.

Sam seems to have calmed down some, even though Dean can tell he's a bit skeptic about Dean's theory. He doesn't have to believe it, though, just have a little hope. A little hope will tide him over till Cas does come back into his vessel. Or body or whatever.

"Should we call Claire?", Sam asks at some point and Dean almost laughs, because they didn't even call Claire when Cas was possessed by the literal devil. Seems silly to upset her over some temporary death.

They do hold vigil, of sorts. They both take a leak and Dean makes them some burgers – because everything's better with burgers and if Sam absolutely insists, he can put enough lettuce on the damn thing to count as one of his freaky-ass salads – but other than that, they don't really leave Cas' side. Sam has taken to holding Cas' limp hand and Dean lets his own hands linger on Cas' shoulder more often than he'd like to admit.

But this is okay. Cas will be glad to have them there when he comes back. Which he will, because if he doesn't, Dean will-...

He's coming back.

Even though he's taking his sweet time.

Eventually, they're so tired they decide to take shifts. Dean lets Sam take the first one, because he's thinking he'll get clean real quick and a couple of hours of nap time, and then he'll stay with Cas well through when Sam's next shift should start.

Dean'll be pissed if he misses Cas' resurrection, but he figures this is the best plan.

He turns the shower to hot and undresses on autopilot. His eyes fall shut a couple of times through soaping himself up and he blearily looks at the wall for the rest of the time. The water pressure is awesome as always, much appreciated after a day like this. His muscles ache and so does his skin. He was probably a bit more tense on the drive home than he let Sam see.

They're getting too old for this, he thinks. For friends to keep dying, even if they come back. For this constant circle of fucked up shit. For all the grief and the missing each other and wishing they'd done better. He's sick and tired of watching Cas die. He's too old to keep wrenching his own heart with fear that this is it, this is the time Cas is actually gone for good.

There are days when he can forget the forty years he spent in hell. Like when they're popping celebratory brews after a successful hunt and Sam's smiling because they did good and saved the day. When Cas tells him he can only taste molecules, but takes a few cautious sips of the beer nonetheless, growing more comfortable around them with each day that Dean doesn't send him away. Happier.

Cas was actually something like happy for a while there. And so was Sam. And so was Dean.

This is the kind of day when he can feel those additional years and then some. When all the horrors are just sitting underneath his skin, an uncomfortable prickle of dread and nightmares waiting to happen.

He sighs into the spray and stands there for a long time until he finally steps out. His eyes are still mostly closed when he towels himself off, wincing at those sore muscles in his arms and neck and back.

The towel safely wrapped around his waist, he blearily blinks at his reflection as he reaches out for his toothbrush.

And halts.

Halts completely.

After stroking Cas' hair back one last time, Sam goes to his room to get himself a pillow. He's taking first shift watching over his friend that may or may not come back from the dead – his head is still stuck on 'please, please, please', also for Dean's sake, because if there's one thing Sam is completely sure of, it's that Dean will not be able to bear losing Cas.

His brother is right, there were no wing prints. This is what he clings to, what they're both clinging to. But while Dean seems pretty sure even the very simple equation 'angel struck with angel blade = dead angel' doesn't apply here, Sam wishes he had this kind of certainty.

"You are God's favorite, you know, Cas?", he whispers into the still air between him and the body on the couch at some point. "But that's not why you've got to come back."

He's praying. Constantly praying to God that this is not the moment when he stops caring. That one last time, he'll take pity on creation. On his child. On the Winchesters.

And with every minute of Cas not breathing, the dread is solidifying.

And he's tired. So tired. He's astounded Dean agreed to get some sleep first, because even after he drove the whole twelve hours back, Sam would have thought he'd play martyr a little bit more. He would have thought nothing could drag him from Cas' side.

But he must be sure.

Or he must have given up.

Half the reason Sam's getting himself a pillow is because he wants to subtly check on the bathroom to see if his brother needs to go back on suicide watch. He feels like half the time one of them is on suicide watch.

They were better. For a whole whooping three months, they were better. No angels, no God and no Darkness, no curses and no apocalypse. No one dying but the regular few innocents they can't keep safe from vampires or demons.

They were better with Cas there, having their back during hunts. Finally letting himself belong with them. Not leaving, not being asked to leave. Part of the family.

There were no wing prints, he reminds himself and it's like a mantra.

When he walks past the bathroom, he hears sobbing.

It's not his place to intrude, but he'll be damned if he'll let Dean destroy himself alone.

Because this would be bad enough if it was just sobbing, when Dean usually cries quietly. Mostly a single tear will do, even for the worst of things.

But this isn't just sobbing, it sounds like Dean actually can't breathe.

So he throws the door open.

The air is foggy from the shower and Dean is bent over the sink, gulping in air like a drowning man. For a moment, it's hard to make out the dark shapes all over his arms and back.

Then, Sam sinks down against the door frame, because his knees won't hold him up any longer.

There were no wing prints.

There were no wing prints on the ground, because Cas had his wings wrapped around Dean when he died.

Notes:

This train of thought was inspired by whoever said at whatever convention that the Winchesters will not give up on Cas until they see wing prints on the ground. I don't have the actual quote anywhere. This has been growing inside me for a while.

I think I could write a second part where Cas comes back and make this explicitly Destiel, but I'm not sure it'll be as good. Tell me if you want me to give it a shot anyway.