"A little help here?" Castiel breathes out hoarsely towards the brothers.

Dean shoots a desperate glance at Sam, making sure that what he is seeing in front of him was real. There was Cas, beaten and bloody, lying on the asphalt, just feet away from being road kill by the Impala. Cas had been missing in action ever since they found the angel tablet. He had vanished into thin air, right in front of Dean, leaving without even saying goodbye. Castiel had said that he needed to protect the tablet from not only Naomi, but from Dean as well…

Dean dashes towards Cas with his strong bowlegs, making as large as strides as possible to make it to Cas. Sam is barely functioning, his body failing in every way; these trials are taking a toll on his body in ways that the Winchesters ever imagined they could. Sam attempts to keep up with Dean, but his strength doesn't even let him make it past the hood of the Impala before Sam becomes weak at the knees. Cas reaches Castiel, grabbing his face with both hands, stretching his face towards his.

"Cas?! Hey, hey, hey, stay with me, Cas!" Dean exclaims, surveying Cas' body, noticing there is blood all over his white undershirt, soaked and stained red. He has rough patches all over his face and skin… Whoever had gotten their hands on the angel had really dug into him…

"I'm okay, Dean. I just require… some shelter to recharge…and heal myself." Castiel says in a raspy, deep voice that is all too familiar to Dean.

"What the hell happened to you, Cas?! Where have you been?" Dean questions.

"I was… protecting the tablet. It's gone now… Crowley has it… I'm so sorry Dean... I thought that I could protect it from him…" Castiel breathes out painfully, wincing at every move and breath he takes.

"Screw the tablet, Cas… Hold on to me." Dean wiggles his left arm under the curve of the angel's knees, gripping him at the knees tightly. He then curves his arm around Castiel's back until he has a firm hold on Cas, and then Dean lifts him up from the ground. Dean turns around, wounded angel in his arms, and looks to his brother while Castiel clings to Dean's shoulders for support.

"Sammy! Help me get him in the back!" Dean gulped, as he rushed towards the still running Impala. He tries to carefully settle Castiel in the back seat, hoping that he isn't hurting the angel during the difficult shuffle to set him inside the car. Dean and Sam climb back into the Impala, and gas it down the road they were on originally.

"Were gunna have to find a room for the night… Cas is in bad shape, Sam, and so are you… We can't be traveling like this…" Dean's face is flushed white with worry for his passengers, two people are pretty much the last bit of family he has… and he can't seem to be able to keep either of them safe and healthy.

Sam stares back at his brother with a knowing glare, his eyes glazed slightly with fatigue….

Dean pulls up to the motel in the Impala, coming to an abrupt stop. He runs inside and attempts to rent a room.

"Hey, I need a room. Three beds." Dean barks at the clerk at the desk.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we only have one and two bedrooms left, we have a low selection of three bedded rooms, and they are all full." The small woman informs him.

"Are you kidding me?! Fine I will take the two beds." Dean mumbles to the girl, scowling as he pays down the cash and swipes the keys from her hand.

Dean rushes back outside, dashing to the door to their room, propping the door open to be able to get Sam and Cas inside. He goes back to the Impala, opening Sam's door.

"Sammy, you need to get out of the car, go to the room, Room 7. C'mon, let's go." He snapped at Sam. Sam wearily slides out of the passenger seat of the Impala, frowning as the pain and tiredness ripple through him, making his shaky and wobbly. Sam manages to finally grasp onto the door threshold, and shuffle himself towards one of the two beds in the room. Outside the room, Dean is sliding his arms back around Cas' body, firmly holding onto him as he lifts him from the back seat. He gently slides him out though the metal framed door of the Impala, and then slams the passenger door shut with a firm kick.

"its okay, Cas, I got you. Don't worry." Dean mutters lightly, just barely loud enough for Cas to hear…

Dean manages to get through the doorway, and hurries toward the bed that isn't occupied by a giant moose of a sick man that is his brother Sam. Dean sets Cas down on the free bed, and looks him over once more… The angel's reflexes are slowed, he can barely move or talk; wincing and whimpering every time that he moves more than an inch. Dean struggles to know what to do... It is so rare that Castiel ever actually needs someone else to help him when he is hurt.

After contemplating a few moments, Dean decides that it's best to get to the source of his pain. Dean sees the blood-soaked growing circle on Cas' abdomen. He can tell Cas doesn't have the strength to explain what happened to him. Dean grabs for the trench coat, tugging the blood splattered sleeves down Cas' arms. Dean lifts Cas up just enough to sneak the coat out from underneath him. Dean manages to remove the suit jacket, also, and then he grabs the wrong-sided blue tie that the angel always wore. He loops his finger inside the knot of the tie, gently undoing it, and then he snakes the tie out from around Cas' neck. He slowly unbuttons the white dress shirt that he always is wearing. He fumbles with the buttons a few times, feeling slightly off put by getting the angel undressed without him knowing fully. Dean shakes it off, knowing he needs to find the source of what's hurting Cas'; weakening him.

Dean unbuttons the last button and flings the sides open of the shirt. There is a gaping hole on Cas' left side, and it looked almost like…. A bullet wound? Dean's eyes open wide, wondering how in the world Castiel could have possibly been hurt by a bullet from a gun… Dean had stabbed him with a knife the first time they met; he would think that a gun would have had the same effect…

How was he supposed to help Cas? It's hard to know what to do next when it's your healer that is the one that needs the healing. Dean jumps up, runs towards the bathroom, and shuffles around till he finds a first aid kit. She snatches the peroxide out of the box, and sits back down next to Cas on the bed.

"Sorry… This might hurt a bit…." Dean mumbled to Cas', not sure if he can even hear him anymore…

Dean opens the bottle of peroxide, and places his free hand softly around the wound; his had resting on Cas' midsection right next to Cas' bellybutton. He then begins to pour the liquid over Castiel's wound. He notices it isn't really reacting to the hole, but at least the liquid is cleaning and clearing out the blood, leaving it disinfected and much clearer what damage had been done… Dean then realizes after he had poured the liquid on Cas' stomach, that he had never moved his hand off from Cas' body. His body was telling him to move his hand but he just kept it there, liking having a stable area of the angel grounded by his grasp on his skin… Dean daringly ventures his eyes other places….

He looks slowly up and down the hurt angel, taking in every detail of his body… the curve of the V in his hip bones, the change in bone structure as he sees the outlines of Castiel's body breathing, his ribs showing their shape at the very end of each of Cas' breaths. He never really had to tend to Castiel's needs, and in turn really never got a chance to take in all the perfect lines and contours of his body…

Dean then realized he was ogling over an angel of the lord' more than that; THEIR angel, Castiel.

Okay, you've helped him all you could, you just need to leave him be, let him rest…

Dean tried to ration to himself that those previous thoughts about Castiel were just purely observation, nothing more… Even though as he remembered what he was taking in visually, his body was responding physically. Dean quickly rose to his feet, embarrassed and hoping that it never made him react like that again… Dean starts to walk away from the bed to sit down at the dingy old table that sat close to the doorway to the room, when he hears a shuffle coming from where he was just sitting. Before he can turn around to see what Castiel was going, he hears a light cough, being choked with attempted words.

"Please…. don't go, Dean. I… need you." Cas pushes the words across his lips desperately…

-TBC if you like it! -