A/N: For Miyth.

Not mine. Thanks to 29Pieces for beta reading! ^_^

"Not Fine"

Castiel stood in the desert, gazing out at the hot, arid vista. He wasn't giving merit to Dean's suggestion that God was on a flatbread in the area, but since he had searched numerous sacred sites and ancient ruins in the Holy Land, Castiel had to admit that stopping in New Mexico couldn't hurt. Perhaps his father was laying low in some place no one would suspect.

But as he gazed intently out over the landscape, the amulet in his hand remained cool. God wasn't here.

Shoulders sagging, Castiel stuffed the necklace back in his pocket. He couldn't give up, but he didn't know where to search next.

A thwack of wing beats had him whirling instinctively, his blade dropping from his sleeve into his hand. Two more puffs of air behind him signaled he'd been caught, and before Castiel could fight back, his arms were seized. One of his captors pinched the nerves in his vessel's wrist and cranked his arm back until the bone snapped and his fingers went numb. His blade thudded on the rocky ground.

Castiel gritted his teeth as he was held firmly in place. The lead angel, Hamiel, stared at him with glacial disgust.

"Tell us where the vessels are, traitor, and we will make your death quick."

Castiel's heart gave a pang. Choosing to defend humanity and free will had been the right decision, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt to be so hated by his own family. Yet he lifted his chin and said nothing.

Neither did Hamiel before he struck the first blow, a punch to Castiel's jaw that snapped his head back. The other two angels kept him upright. Hamiel punched him again, and again. Black spots flitted across Castiel's vision, his grace fizzling to heal the damage to his vessel. Already his broken arm had fused back together.

Hamiel did not ask again. He switched fists and pummeled the other side of Castiel's face until he tasted copper in his mouth. Then the angel delivered several brutal blows to Castiel's stomach that had him doubling over. His captors took that as a cue to force him down to his knees while still holding his arms tautly out to the sides.

Hamiel straightened his suit, then pulled out his angel blade. He placed the tip under Castiel's chin and lifted it. Castiel could only see out of one eye as blood from various cuts dribbled into them.

"Zachariah would make an example of you. I would spare you that if you tell me what we want to know."

Castiel blinked. "You would take the Michael Sword to Michael directly."

Hamiel shrugged. "I'm sure I would be rewarded for it."

Castiel's jaw tightened. Hamiel, Zachariah, they were just serving their own self interests, no thought to duty or what was right. Which meant no argument would sway them.

Castiel glared defiantly. "Dean Winchester will never say yes."

"It's a shame you won't be around to see you're proven wrong."

Hamiel slashed his blade, and Castiel couldn't hold back a cry at the fiery burn as grace oozed up from the laceration on his chest. Hamiel scored another gash over his ribs. Castiel sagged in the grips of his captors, forcing himself to breathe through his nose.

Hamiel crouched down in front of him. "Last chance, Castiel."

"Never," he bit out.

Hamiel let out an audible sigh and straightened. The two angels holding Castiel shoved him forward, and he barely caught himself on his arms before landing face first in the dirt. He saw Hamiel's shadow raise an arm, angel blade pointed down. Castiel sucked in a sharp breath and surged upward to meet the fatal blow. He caught Hamiel's wrist with both hands and used the other angel's own momentum to arc down and up again, plunging the blade through Hamiel's sternum. His mouth dropped open as grace exploded forth in a dying supernova.

Castiel let go of the hilt and spun as the empty vessel dropped. He dove for his blade that had been dropped on the ground, and barely snatched it up in time to parry a strike from the second angel. Celestial steel screeched in a discordant clang.

Castiel wrenched away and ducked another attack from behind. His chest burned, and he could feel his life essence trickling out from his wounds. His vision was also still slightly obscured as blood kept flinging into his eyes, but he didn't falter. He felt the displacement of air as an opponent lunged at him, and spun away. He heard the scuff of shoes and whirled to deliver a strike. There was a hiss of pain as his blade hit its mark.

Castiel thrust again, but this time his arm was caught mid air, and before he could jerk away, a blade punched between his ribs. Gritting his teeth, he dropped his weapon into his other hand and stabbed the other angel through the heart. As the deceased vessel fell, the blade slid out, and Castiel stumbled.

He heard a snarl and twisted toward it, but wasn't fast enough. A second blade plunged into his lower back. Castiel jerked, instinctively swiping out with his own blade, and caught the last angel across the shoulder and one side of his face. Manasseh recoiled sharply, extricating his blade from Castiel's flesh and shooting a hand up to his cheek. Castiel took the split moment of distraction to leap into the ether.

Fire exploded in his torso, and every flap of his wings nearly sent him into a tailspin, but Castiel focused all of his strength on one destination. He crashed into the floor of the small shack with enough force to keep rolling until he hit the wall, and he lay there dazed for several moments. Blurred smudges eventually solidified into wood paneled walls covered in rust-colored sigils. Castiel thought about moving, but his bones felt like jelly and he was shaking. He decided not to try. The warding here would keep him hidden in his vulnerable state. After all, this wasn't the first time he'd been caught by angels or demons and taken refuge here to heal.

Castiel lifted his head with effort to gaze down at his torso. Blood and grace was oozing from several wounds that sent lashes of agony through him with each breath. He could feel fire in his lower back, too, and the spreading warmth beneath him.

He thunked his head back against the hard-packed earth that made up the floor of the shack. These would take a long while to heal. Longer, since the more time he spent cut off from Heaven, the more his powers waned as he fell further and further from grace.

But this was his life now—standing between two armies, both bent on destroying his father's creation. And Castiel would continue to defend it. Until the last of his grace snuffed out like a dying star.

But that was not today. He drifted in a haze of pain, feeling his grace sluggishly stirring at the edges of his tattered body, both vessel and true form. He was vaguely aware of the cold seeping into his mortal shell, but there was nothing he could do about it, even though each shiver jolted like a lance through his broken body.

Sometimes he was closer to consciousness; other times he forgot who or what he was and darkness was a merciful reprieve.

A persistent ringing drew him out of it, and it took Castiel a moment to figure out what it was. His phone. And the only ones to call him on it were the Winchesters. Biting back a moan, he reached for his pocket to pull out the device. There were two missed calls from Dean already, and the current call blacked out before Castiel had a chance to answer it. A prickle of fear gave him enough energy to punch the call back button and shakily raise the device to his ear.

"Yeah," Dean immediately answered.

"Dean," Castiel breathed out heavily. "Are you all right?"

"Fine. Why?"

"You called three times. I thought…" He let out a wheeze. "Sam's all right?"

"He's fine," Dean replied. "I was calling because of some demon activity and you apparently don't have your voicemail set up." He paused. "Cas, are you all right? You don't sound good."

Castiel took a moment to catalogue his condition, and was not encouraged by the progress. Or lack thereof. "I'm afraid I'm…indisposed…at the moment," he regretfully answered. He let the phone slide away from his ear, too exhausted to keep holding it up. He could hear though the speaker just fine anyway.

"Why?" Dean asked suspiciously.

"I had an altercation…with some of my brothers," he said between strained breaths. "It will take me some time to heal."

He heard Dean curse softly in the background. "Okay, we're outside of Denver, Colorado. We'll get a motel…" He trailed off and said something, presumably to Sam. "At the Hornbill Motel. Can you meet us there?"

Castiel glanced at his gaping wounds again and grimaced. "No. I'm sorry, Dean. You'll have to…handle the demon activity." His eyelids started to droop.

"The…" Dean broke off with a scowl. "That's not why we're stopping at the motel," he growled. "If you're hurt, you need a safe place to rest up."

Castiel blinked, taken aback by the concern. "I'm fine," he said breathlessly. "I am in a safe place."

"Where?"

"In a cabin in the woods. It's warded." Castiel shivered, and then bit back a strangled cry as fire erupted in his back with renewed vengeance.

"Cas?" Dean called, sounding alarmed.

"I'll contact you when I've recovered," he gritted out, and managed to shift his hand to punch the button and hang up.

Darkness was encroaching on his vision again, and it was all too easy to let it carry him away.

Dean blinked incredulously at the blank screen of his phone before swearing. "Son-of-a-bitch."

Sam quirked a confused look at him from the passenger seat. "What's going on?"

"Cas got hurt in a fight with angels and is apparently holed up in a cabin somewhere. But no biggie, it's warded." He glowered at the road.

Sam frowned. "Well, if he was able to ward the place, then he's probably fine, right?"

"I don't know." Dean shook his head. "He didn't sound good."

Sam's mouth turned down further, and then he pulled out his phone and started tapping away at the keys. "Got it," he exclaimed a few moments later. "Managed to turn on the GPS in Cas's phone. He's actually not far from here. An hour, maybe."

Dean glanced over to get a look at the map. "Where?"

Sam held his phone up, and Dean did a quick scan of the routes between them and the blinking red dot of Cas's phone. Then he took the next junction and headed north. The bastard had better be all right like he said.

Halfway there, Dean asked Sam to try calling the wayward angel again. But Cas didn't answer. Dean was growing antsier by the mile. At least they were lucky enough that Cas wasn't so far out in the woods that his phone didn't have a signal.

It did, however, take them several back roads to even find the cabin Cas was laying low at, and that was only with the help of the locator beacon. Also, 'cabin' was being generous. When they finally pulled up outside the place, Dean saw that it was no more than a shanty with gaps in the weather worn wood and part of the roof sagging inward under the weight of a large, gnarled tree that looked like it was using the hut to hold itself up.

Sam raised his brows at the place. Dean shrugged. It did look like no one would bother with it. But seriously, even the worst motel dives they'd stayed in were better than this.

They got out of the car and headed for the door. Again, that was being generous. It was a slab of wood slats on rusty hinges.

"Cas?" Sam called as he reached for the entrance to push it open. "You in here?"

There was no response. Dean's gut tightened as Sam cautiously nudged the door inward. It was dim inside the shack, lit only by stray shards of daylight lancing through gaps in the walls. Dean's brows rose sharply in disbelief as he realized there wasn't even a floor in this thing, just dirt.

Sam suddenly stiffened. "Oh my god."

Then he was rushing inside, and Dean's eyes finally adjusted to see what his brother had—Cas laying on the ground against the back wall, covered in blood. Dean surged forward. The interior of the shanty was only about fifteen by fifteen, and they crowded around the unconscious angel, who Dean could now tell was pale and shivering every few moments.

"Cas!" He reached for Cas's shoulder, but the angel didn't react or open his eyes. Blood streaked down his face from several cuts and abrasions, and now that his vision had fully acclimated, Dean could see a faint aura of blue light fizzling through some of the tatters in Cas's suit.

Sam bent down and started pushing the edges of the trench coat aside, trying to get a look at the damage. He sucked in a sharp breath. "Shit. It looks like he's been stabbed in the chest. And sliced up." Sam lifted worried eyes to Dean's. "What do we do?"

"Get him the hell out of here," Dean growled. If Cas wasn't out cold, he'd be having words with the idiot right now.

Dean rocked back on his haunches to consider how they might get Cas up, and frowned at the blood that seemed to be pooling beneath Cas's body.

"Sam, help me roll him."

Together, they shifted Cas onto his side facing them, and Dean leaned over to get a look. The whole back of the trench coat was soaked red, but it was the oozing light that let Dean know where the actual wound was. He bunched the coat up to see what it was.

"Dammit, he's been stabbed in the back, too."

Sam craned his neck to see for himself. "Dean, I don't think we can move him. Those wounds are deep and he's still bleeding."

"We can't patch him up here," he countered, gesturing around at the hovel. Besides, blood couldn't be that important to an angel. …Right?

Sam's eyes were wide with barely restrained panic as he glanced at the walls. "There's already a ton of warding. It might be safer here. I mean, he's leaking grace. What if other angels can track that?"

Dean clenched his jaw. He didn't like it, but his brother made a good point.

"Fine." He fished his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Sam. "Get the stuff from the car."

Sam nodded and sprinted out of the shack, leaving Dean propping up their unconscious friend while he was bleeding out. And Cas had yet to show any awareness whatsoever. His phone was laying beside him, a bloody fingerprint on the keypad.

"Fine, my ass," Dean muttered.

Sam returned a minute later with the duffel from the trunk that contained the first aid and suture kits, along with bandages and bottles of water. While Dean kept holding Cas on his side, Sam moved around to clean the wound in his back and packed it with medicated gauze. They just had to hope Cas's angel healing would kick in at some point. Because it obviously hadn't yet.

They then eased Cas onto his back and started to work on the other injuries. Dean would have liked to get the ripped clothes off, but since they were stuck in this squalid dump, he decided to leave the layers on and instead just unbuttoned the shirt so he could get to the stab wound and lacerations. There was too much blood to clean it all, so they focused on just cleaning up the wounds to reduce the risk of infection, in case that was something they'd have to worry about.

Dean kept waiting for Cas to wake up or at least stir when he started taking a needle and thread to the angel's chest, but Cas remained dead to the world. Almost literally, as Dean was having trouble finding a pulse. The only sign of life was the flickering grace in the stab wounds.

Sam cleaned Cas's face and applied butterfly bandages to half of those injuries while simply applying antiseptic to the rest. Halfway through, he paused to bundle up the now empty duffel and place it under Cas's head as a makeshift pillow.

When they were finally done, Dean sank back onto his ass and studied their handiwork. Cas looked patched up, but still far too pale and unresponsive.

Sam was studying him, too, and reached out to place the back of his hand to Cas's forehead. "He's really cold."

Dean's mouth turned down, and he pushed himself to his feet to head out to the Impala for some blankets. It was getting late, and the sun would be going down soon.

He took the blankets back into the shack and passed them to Sam. "I'm gonna get some firewood. Looks like we might be here a while."

Dean headed back out, but didn't have to go far to gather up some kindling and branches. He carried a large armful back to the shanty and dropped the pile in the middle of the floor.

Sam quirked a brow at him. "You're not thinking of starting a fire in here?"

He shrugged, and tilted his head back to survey the roof. There were already some holes in it. And the wood looked so rotted that he could probably poke it with one of the branches and make the gaps bigger. A nice little chimney.

"It's gonna be dark soon," he replied. "So it's either camping out here or getting Cas to the car."

Sam's jaw ticked as he glanced back at the unconscious angel, who was shivering despite being covered with two blankets. "Fine. Just don't suffocate us."

"Give me some credit." Dean picked up a long branch to go ahead and make that hole in the ceiling.

Sam roved his gaze up and down the walls. "I've been looking over the warding. Some of it's for demons. Some for angels." He hesitated. "They all have different discolorations. Like they'd been made at different times."

Dean shot his brother a perplexed look at the abrupt tangent, but then Sam's meaning sank in, and he swept his gaze around at the sigils—all done in blood. Cas's blood.

Dean turned his attention to the ground, and finally noticed the dark splotches in the dirt, all old, all in different places around the hovel.

Which meant this wasn't the first time Cas had come here.

It wasn't the first time he'd been badly hurt and hid away to heal. God, how long had Cas spent in this pit, lying in a pool of his own blood until he was well enough to leave again? Hours? Days?

Dean's eyes shifted to Cas's prone form, taking in the current damage. Was this the worst it's been? Or just par for the course?

Son-of-a-bitch.

Dean channeled his frustration into jabbing at the holes in the roof until enough rotted wood had crumbled away and he felt comfortable lighting a fire directly beneath it. He used his knife to carve a shallow trench in a circle, and then erected the dry twigs and kindling in the center. It was a simple matter of getting it lit, and then he scooted back as the flames crackled to life and started to exude a bit of warmth into the cold hut.

The smell of smoke was a little strong, but most of it trailed upward through the ceiling like he'd intended. Dean felt only slightly bad for damaging Cas's hiding spot. But on the other hand, he had no intention of letting the angel continue using it. If Cas was ever hurt or in trouble, he should come to Dean and Sam.

The problem was, Cas had warded them against angels finding them, even himself. And in an emergency, he might not be able to try calling them on the cell phone. It'd obviously taken him the last of his strength just to get here.

Because Cas had nowhere else to go. Heaven had cast him out, and it was his own siblings that had just tried to kill him.

Dean ran a hand down his face as he stared at his friend. His friend who had sacrificed everything to help them. Was still sacrificing to help them.

"We need a safe-house for Cas," he spoke up.

Sam looked over from where he was sitting next to the angel's head, brow furrowing in thought. "Yeah, some place better than this. Bobby's?"

Dean shook his head. "Bobby wouldn't be able to do anything if Cas crashed into his living room like this." He let out a frustrated huff. "Too bad that warding on our ribs couldn't have an exception clause for Cas."

Sam's mouth pursed, and he pulled out his phone. Dean didn't ask what he was doing. They could arrange a safe-house for Cas once he was better.

Dean turned his attention to the fire and keeping it stoked as night descended outside. Cas still showed no signs of waking. Dean was tired, and while he'd slept in some pretty dumpy places, he didn't really feel like curling up on the ground, or going out to sleep in the Impala. Sam didn't comment about getting some rest, either.

Castiel woke to the strange sensation of being warm. He twitched his hand, trying to reconnect with his vessel, and felt the weight of a soft fabric lying over him. There was also some beneath his head, pillowing it against the otherwise hard ground. He pried his eyelids open in confusion.

A hand settled on his shoulder, followed by a familiar voice. "Cas? Hey."

Castiel squinted up at the face leaning over him. "Sam?" He winced at the croak in his voice.

The younger Winchester let out a relieved smile. "Yeah, hey. Good to see you awake."

Castiel shifted his gaze around the room. He was still in the shack…but Sam and Dean were there with him. He blinked in bewilderment as Dean scooted closer, and blurted, "How are you here?"

"You called to tell me you'd been hurt in a fight with angels," Dean answered. "Did you think we wouldn't come check on you?"

Castiel frowned at him. "I told you I was fine."

Dean's eyes hardened. "This is not fine, Cas. You were barely alive when we found you."

Castiel quickly did a mental catalogue of his state. He was weak and sore, but his grace was burbling at the edges of his wounds, having sealed most of the deep ones by now. His mouth turned down further as he sensed the gauze and pieces of thread in places in his skin. How long had the Winchesters been here?

He tried to sit up, but Sam pressed a hand to his shoulder.

"Whoa, easy. You were in pretty bad shape."

"I'm mostly recovered now," he replied.

"Forgive us if we don't take your word for it," Dean said a tad harshly, and started to pull back the blankets.

Castiel canted his head at the bandages swathing his torso, and watched mildly as Dean peeled them up to look underneath. As Castiel already knew, the stab wound in his chest was closing up, and the lacerations were mostly healed, just a little red underneath the stitches.

Dean exhaled through his nose. "Okay, the back."

Sam slid an arm under Castiel's shoulder blades and carefully helped sit him up, which Castiel found incongruent since only a few seconds ago they wanted him to stay down. He didn't protest, though, as he silently endured more inspection. He'd learned long ago humans often needed to see things for themselves before they were convinced of validity.

"Well," Dean finally said. "You're not glowing anymore, so that's good."

"As I said."

Dean, however, did not look appeased. He shifted back around to face Castiel directly, and skewered him with a severe mien. "How many times have you had to use this place?"

"I haven't kept count."

That didn't seem to be the right answer, as Dean's expression darkened further. "Why didn't you come to us?"

"When?"

"When you were hurt bad enough to be bleeding all over the floor of this hole!" Dean snapped.

Castiel just stared at him blankly. In truth, it had never occurred to him to go to the Winchesters. "Because I only needed a warded place to wait for my wounds to heal. There was nothing you could have done."

"You mean like stop the bleeding, patch you up, and take care of your vessel so you could heal faster?" Dean rejoined.

Castiel faltered. …No, he had not considered that. Taking stock of himself once more, he had to admit that perhaps there had been some benefit to his vessel being kept warm and bandaged so his wounds had stopped bleeding and taxing this mortal shell further.

"Cas, we were worried," Sam put in. "We're your friends. You don't think we'd care if you've been hurt?"

Castiel didn't have a response to that, and both Sam's and Dean's expressions flickered with something akin to disheartenment.

Dean's quickly turned to anger and he squared his jaw. "You need help, you come to us. We're a team now, and that means we look out for each other."

Castiel was honestly taken aback by the declaration. He had been on his own ever since he chose to stand against Heaven. It had been a cross he'd been willing to bear in order to defend humanity and free will. A heavy burden, but one he accepted nonetheless.

He sighed. "I appreciate the sentiment. I will…try to call you when I need help. If I'm able."

Usually, though, he could only muster enough strength to go so far, and sometimes escape trumped anything else.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

"Yeah, about that," Dean started.

"I found a sigil that acts like a beacon," Sam picked up, pulling out his phone and swiping through some photos. "It's only noticeable to those who know to look for it." He turned his phone around so Castiel could see. "We're gonna put it in the Impala. That way, no matter where you are or what trouble you get into, you can instantly find us."

Castiel blinked incredulously. "I don't think that's a good idea. If any angel were to find out about it—"

"They won't," Dean cut him off. "And this isn't up for negotiation. You are not coming back to this hell hole as long as me and Sam are around. Got it?"

"You're not alone, Cas," Sam said more gently. "Not anymore."

Castiel didn't know what to say to that. He was…touched, that they felt so strongly about this. About him.

He ducked his head in acceptance and gratitude. "Alright."

Dean reached out and clasped his other shoulder. "Think you're good to get out of here?"

Castiel nodded. "Yes."

Sam helped him to his feet, and braced him when he stumbled. If they hadn't been here, he would have stayed another day to fully regain his strength.

Castiel was glad not to be doing that.

Dean gathered up their supplies, and the three of them headed out to the Impala.

"Also," Dean said as he loaded the duffel into the trunk. "We need to work on your definition of 'fine.'"

Castiel didn't bother arguing when Dean had that tone. But a small part of him underwent a slight shift. Maybe he wasn't fine.

But he would be from now on.