And now we have the final chapter with the care and comfort :) Thanks to everyone who followed, read and reviewed! I had a good time writing this one.

Chapter Seven

"Stay still!"

"That's easy for you to say, Squirrel, your bedside manner leaves something to be desired."

"Hey, just be grateful I'm actually helping; I could have made you patch yourself up."

Castiel heard the arguing of familiar voices as he drifted back to consciousness, and slowly became aware of sharp pain across his ribs. He groaned, flinching, trying to push himself onto an elbow, before a hand descended onto the center of his chest and pushed him back into a padded surface with a gentle pat.

"Easy, I'm almost done."

Castiel forced his eyes open and saw Sam leaning over him, needle and thread held up as he expertly tied off a suture. Castiel felt the tug in his side and hissed, glancing down and seeing the deep claw marks across his ribs. He was lying on his back, wearing a pair of sweat pants that weren't his and as he glanced around at his surroundings, he realized he was on the exam bed in the bunker's infirmary. Crowley sat on one of the cots to one side as Dean stitched the demon's wounds, looking like he was being a lot less gentle than Sam if Crowley's protests were anything to go by.

Castiel winced as Sam tied off another suture. "Wh-what happened?" He didn't know how long he'd slept, but he remembered nothing after collapsing in the woods when the Winchesters found them and everything between that and the escape was rather hazy.

"Not much after we got you out of the woods," Sam said with a reassuring smile. "You slept the whole way back."

"On my shoulder, too," Crowley grumbled. "Drooling."

Castiel glared half-heartedly at the demon, frankly too tired to care about what he might have done while unconscious. He was just glad he was no longer chained to the demon. He frowned as he saw Crowley still had the faery collar on his neck and reached up with a weak hand to touch his own throat, heart sinking as he felt the abominable accessory still there.

Dean caught his look as he swept a pile of bloody cloths onto a tray. "We couldn't figure out how to get them off yet, but I'm sure we'll be able to find something in the archives. We just wanted to make sure you weren't bleeding out anymore first."

Castiel nodded in acknowledgement. He could understand the logic behind the choice, he was just desperate to have the collar gone.

Sam tied off one last suture and straightened with a huff of breath. "Okay, I think that's it for the stitches." He set the needle aside and picked up a cloth which he used to clean the blood from Cas' torso. It was warm and soothing, and he closed his eyes again as Sam urged him gently to turn onto his side so he could get to his back. The hunter hissed in sympathy as he gently dabbed at the lash marks there that were obviously still bad, having been opened again during the fight and the latter desperate escape.

Dean came over with clean rolls of bandages and set them on the table beside the bed, giving Cas a once over. "You think you'll heal once we get that collar off?" he asked worriedly.

Castiel sighed heavily, wincing as Sam dabbed a particularly tender spot. "Eventually, yes. Not sure how quickly my grace will come back after this though."

Dean pursed his lips and then glanced at Sam. "Well, in the meantime, let's get you comfortable. Can you sit up?"

Castiel grunted as Deana and Sam helped him sit. His whole body protested, but he managed to stay upright as Dean took up some gauze, taping it over the stitched wounds, and then wrapped bandages around Castiel's torso to hold them all on. He could already feel bandages around his thigh and the pull of sutures Sam must have put in there. His wrist also was bandaged where the dog had bit it. It was painful—but then his whole body was. Castiel just hoped none of the wounds would get infected. He didn't have enough energy for that.

As if reading his mind, Sam said, "We washed the wounds out with holy water first. Not sure what kind of issues faery hounds could cause so we thought it best to be on the safe side."

"Tried to give me the same treatment, the bastards," Crowley muttered from the cot, wincing as he slipped into a shirt and grumbled something about thrift store tripe touching his skin, but Castiel couldn't help a small smile. He was just glad to be back.

"How did you even find us?" he asked, trying to remember. "You said something about Rowena?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, she said she'd gotten word you two had been taken—supernatural crowd likes to brag. It took us a while to find the place, and figure out exactly what we were dealing with, but once we did, we worked up some faery bombs and pulled a full-scale attack on the joint."

"Well, you were just in time," Castiel told them.

"Glad we were," Dean said grimly. "What the hell did they want with you?"

Castiel sighed. "A symbol of power. We did our best not to make it easy for them."

"Yeah, I can see that," Dean said then narrowed his eyes at Castiel. "Crowley said your wings were injured too."

Castiel shot the demon a dark glower, and Crowley simply shrugged and smiled innocently. The Winchesters weren't supposed to know about his wings. That was the only reason he'd let Crowley help him with them to begin with.

"They're fine. Crowley talks too much."

"Cas," Dean said warningly. "If you're hurting, you need to tell us, man."

"At least let us check you out," Sam added coaxingly. "You don't want it to get worse."

Castiel's shoulders slumped and, really, he was too tired to refuse. Now that the Winchesters knew, they would only continue to bother him about it until he finally relented.

"Very well," he sighed and then glanced between then somewhat sheepishly. "Stand back."

He hunched forward and as Sam and Dean gave him some space, he closed his eyes and pulled his wings from the ethereal plane. He was unable to help the small sound of pain that escaped his throat as it was magnified by the fact his wings were physical, their corporeal weight adding to the stress of the injuries.

"Cas, this is…" Sam started then furrowed his brow in sympathy.

"They're terrible, I know," Castiel grunted, hunching in shame at the state of his wings. He felt Crowley watching and glowered at the demon, unable to help feeling defensive even though Crowley was probably the only reason his wings hadn't gotten infected. Still, the demon had told the Winchesters about his injuries and he couldn't quite forgive him for that.

Dean seemed to see the tension and nodded to Sam. "You know what, I got this, why don't you and Crowley go see if you can find anything to get those damn collars off."

Sam nodded in agreement, touched Castiel carefully on the shoulder and then jerked his chin toward Crowley. The demon rolled his eyes and grunted as he hauled himself upright, but followed Sam all the same.

Castiel relaxed a little more without the demon there, and Dean went to fill a bowl with water from the sink. It steamed slightly as Dean set it on the table by the bed and dipped a cloth into it. He held it up, raising his eyebrows in inquiry.

"May I?"

Castiel nodded and Dean stepped behind him and carefully put a hand on the arm of Castiel's wing, near his back, getting him used to the hunter's touch before Dean brought the cloth to one of the injured areas. Castiel flinched at the contact, but didn't yank his wing away from Dean's grasp as he wanted to.

"What happened?" Dean asked him simply as he started to work on Castiel's wings, cleaning the dried and clotted blood from his feathers.

Castiel sighed heavily. "I…am a poor slave, it turns out. They had me flogged."

He could sense Dean's anger, though the man's hands stayed gentle. "They were bastards."

Castiel reached up and worried at the collar around his neck. It had started to chafe, leaving some sores under his jaw and between his neck and shoulders.

"We'll get it off, Cas," Dean told him. "Sam and Crowley will find something."

"I know," Castiel replied, dropping his hands into his lap and looking down at them, fiddling with the bandage around his wrist. He swallowed hard, remembering the brand underneath it. He hoped that would heal and disappear once his grace decided to recharge again. "I just…Dean, I was so stupid. I can't believe I allowed myself to get caught like that."

Dean snorted. "Considering you were with Crowley, I doubt it was all your fault."

Castiel twisted his mouth wryly. "Well, you're not entirely wrong. It was his contact that sold us out." Dean hmed as if in confirming something he'd already suspected. "But both of us…we were so eager to find anything about Lucifer that we didn't think about what could go wrong. I didn't think. I got desperate and I know that's gotten me in trouble before. I should have remembered to stop and consider the possibilities of failure."

"Cas we've all been there before, as you well know," Dean assured him, moving to his other wing and refreshing the cloth. "But seriously, man, you don't have to take on this search for Lucifer alone."

"But I was the reason he escaped, and Sam…I don't want him to have to face Lucifer again."

"And don't you think that's Sam's decision to make?" Dean asked.

Castiel winced as the hunter dabbed a particularly tender spot but couldn't argue. Dean was right. Castiel wished he could protect both Sam and Dean from the people or beings who wanted to hurt them, but he couldn't keep them out of the fight. And they were always stronger when they were together. Maybe this recent failure had been a wakeup call telling him that a little additional help, having people to watch his back, wasn't such a bad thing.

Dean set the cloth aside and reached for a small tube. "Well, everything looks okay, but I'll put a little antibiotic stuff on just in case."

Castiel winced slightly as the ointment stung the open wounds, but once Dean had finished, he gratefully folded his wings away again, taking off most of the agony and only leaving a couple tattered feathers behind.

Dean handed him a soft, long sleeved shirt and helped him into it—an embarrassingly difficult feat with all the pulling stitches.

Castiel wanted to simply lay down on the bed in his room and sleep again, but he wanted the collar off more.

"Come on," Dean said, helping him slide off the exam bed. "Let's go see if they've found anything."

He grabbed Castiel's elbow as the angel staggered on his bad leg. He felt the sutures in his thigh pull and gritted his teeth against the pain, leaning on Dean as they made their way slowly to the library.

Sam was setting a box down on the table when they entered and looked up. "Hey, so I think we found something. It's kind of an all-purpose faery curse breaker I guess? It's supposed to break enchantments and magic from the faery realm."

"It should work," Crowley added from where he sat, slumped more than usual in one of the chairs.

Castiel eased himself into another and watched as Sam pulled bottles of ingredients out of the box and set them on the table next to a large bowl.

Sam measured out the ingredients, put them into the bowl, and spoke an incantation that sounded like Gaelic. A low glow appeared in the bowl and then stopped.

"Well, that should be it," Sam said and took a small cup, dipping it into the mixture.

"Bend your head," he said to Castiel and the angel did as he asked, leaning over the table as Sam poured the mixture across the back of the collar.

At first nothing happened, and Castiel began to worry the spell hadn't been the right one for the job, but then the runes on the collar started to glow. He flinched, expecting the all-too-familiar jolting pain, but instead the glow stopped abruptly and the collar slid from around his neck and thudded onto the table top. Castiel breathed a sigh of relief and shoved it quickly away from him.

"It worked," Sam said in relief.

Castiel felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He reached up to rub the sore spots on his neck as he could feel his grace starting to stir again and felt comforted by the warmth of it in his veins.

"Hello, Moose," Crowley called impatiently. "Your angel isn't the only one here. And I'm the one who helped you find the spell."

Sam rolled his eyes but went over and poured the last of the mixture over Crowley's collar. The demon wrenched it from his neck and threw it to the ground, flicking his eyes to red for a second. "Ah, that's better."

"Cas?" Dean asked. "How's your grace?"

"Recovering," he said. "I should be fine within a couple days." He stood with a wince. "Thank you. I think I want to rest now."

"I could do with some rest myself," Crowley said. "Any chance I could get a room at the Winchester hotel?"

"Hell no," Dean said quickly.

Crowley turned to Castiel, mouth open in indignation. "Do you hear this? And after everything we've been through together."

Castiel sighed wearily. "Let him stay."

"Seriously?" Dean demanded.

"It's just for a couple days," Castiel said, then added with a shrug, "We've had worse."

Dean shrugged back in agreement. "Fine. We'll fix up a room for you."

"I expect chocolates on the pillows and pay-per-view," Crowley called after him and Sam. They ignored him.

Crowley huffed, then turned back to Castiel with a smirk. "Thanks for standing up for me, darling."

Castiel groaned, but it was half-hearted. "Look, Crowley. As much as it pains me to admit, you saved my life a couple times during our misadventure. And you had the opportunity to escape but you didn't. I…appreciate that."

"To be accurate, I was no more capable of escaping that place than you were," Crowley said than sighed heavily and rose from the chair with a wince, heading over to the side table to pour a glass of whisky. "But if it's any consolation, I wouldn't have left you. The Winchesters would have killed me, after all and I've had enough trouble lately."

Castiel smiled slightly. "Of course. Thinking of yourself as always."

"Of course," Crowley smirked. "But what can I say? Playing the bad guy is fun, but even the bad guy deserves to be the hero every once in a while."

Castiel rolled his eyes. Crowley poured a second glass of liquor and handed it to Castiel.

"What do you say? Partners?"

Castiel sighed in exasperation but took the cup. "Fine."

Crowley clinked their glasses and drank.

Castiel might not consider the demon his friend, but he had to admit that he wasn't the worst partner either, despite everything.

Dean and Sam came back in then. "Room's ready," Dean said tersely.

Crowley smiled and set the empty glass aside. "Excellent. When can I move my things in?"

"It's temporary," Dean reminded him with a growl.

Of course, Castiel though, he might change his opinion of the demon once again if he was forced to live with him in the bunker for a few days.

In the meantime, he was just planning on getting a good, long sleep.

If anyone likes Good Omens, I have a one shot for that that I will be posting Friday, so keep an eye out if that's something you might like to read :)