The bunker feels too quiet when you get back, the kind of silence that presses in on your ears and makes everything hurt a little more. Your arm throbs where the shapeshifter slammed you into the wall, purple and blue already blooming beneath the skin.

Cas’s grace is warm as it knits you back together—careful, reverent, like he’s afraid of causing you any more pain. When he finishes, he doesn’t move away. He stays beside you in the bed, fingers tracing slow, grounding paths along your side, anchoring you to the present.

Dean is on your other side, close enough that you can feel the tension radiating off him, his jaw tight, eyes fixed on the ceiling like he’s trying to punish himself in the quiet. Guilt sits heavy in his chest—he should’ve been faster, stronger, should’ve kept you safe, and it makes his hand tremble where it rests near yours, hesitant, like he doesn’t deserve to touch you.

You’re caught between them, wrapped in their worry and their love, the silence making everything unbearably real, the fear that almost happened, and the pain that still lingers.