“You’ve got to hold still.” Sam’s voice is too calm for someone who’s elbow-deep in your shoulder with a goddamn needle. You hiss, clutching the edge of the bed frame.

“I am holding still.”

“You’re twitching.”

“Well maybe try not sewing me like a couch cushion and I won’t-shit!” The door creaked open. You didn’t have to look to know who it was; the air got heavier in that way only he made it feel. Cold and warm all at once. Like static and silence and the sound of wings you’d stopped being impressed by a long time ago. You grit your teeth. Sam doesn’t look up. “Heard you ran into another one of your angel buddies. Wanna tell me why I got a knife in the back while you were having a stare-off with Heaven’s Worst?”

“I-” Castiel’s voice falters, and that alone is weird enough to make you glance up. He looks awful. Or, well, more awful than usual. Trench coat wrinkled, tie crooked, hair doing that I-flew-through-the-wind-at-mach-speed thing. But it’s the expression that really hits you. Like someone handed him a bleeding heart and he’s holding it wrong. He steps forward.

Sam pauses with the needle, brows drawing together. “Cas-”

“I brought you something,” Castiel says, cutting him off. Then he looks at you, earnest in the way only he can be, like a child holding out a frog he thinks is a treasure. He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out… a sticker. A goddamn sticker. Blue star. White text. YOU’RE DOING GREAT!

You blink. “What.”

“I acquired a sheet of motivational stickers,” he says with full, angelic seriousness. “They are meant to offer encouragement. I thought…” He steps closer, and his hand hovers awkwardly in the air like he’s not sure where the sticker goes. “I thought you might appreciate the sentiment.” Sam stifles a laugh. You don’t even look at him. You’re staring at Castiel like he’s grown a second head. Maybe a third.

“Cas,” you say slowly, “I almost died tonight.”

He nods. “Yes. But you didn’t. You survived. You fought bravely. I am proud of you.” You stare at the sticker. Then at him. Then back at the sticker.

“…You cut that one off the sheet?”

“There were many options,” he says. “But this one felt… most appropriate. The unicorn seemed too childish.” Of course there was a unicorn.

You cover your face with your good hand, somewhere between laughing and crying, and Sam decides now is the time to finish the last stitch, because pain flares through your shoulder and you let out a strangled, “Fucking hell, Sam!”

“Done,” he says, not even hiding the smirk. Then Castiel kneels beside the bed, holding the sticker closer, and in a rare moment of completely unintentional intimacy, he sticks it carefully to the bandage on your shoulder. His fingers brush your skin, just for a second, but his hand lingers like he doesn’t quite want to pull away.

“I know I’ve been… inadequate,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “But I’m trying. I want to be better. For all of you.”