Someday Never Comes

Chapter 1

Well, I'm here to tell you now, each and every mother's son,
That you better learn it fast, you better learn it young,
'Cause someday never comes.

~ Creedence Clearwater Revival

June 15, 2008. St Parisius' Monastery, Qal-eh Wust, Afghanistan

The storm had come in with the usual lack of warning, plunging the temperatures of the mountain-enclosed valley from a relatively balmy fifty-four degrees to a chilling minus range. Snow, small and hard and driven before raging winds, filled the crevices and folds of the mountains and coated the narrow valley floor, rolling and tumbling like marbles down the steep slope and making the narrow road treacherous.

The monastery had stood at the top of the ravine, most of it reformed from the caves that riddled the geologically active area, for nine hundred years, a sanctuary and a place of study. It had been adopted by the Benedictines sometime in the fourteen hundreds, and the precentor wore long robes of plainly woven black homespun, drawn high around his neck as he came down the roughly cut stone steps to the gates, his feet pushing the granular snow from his path.

In front of the gate, Brother Thomas held a wildly flickering torch above his head.

"She just appeared out of the storm, Father," he said, raising his voice against the howling of the wind through the stone columns.

"Identification?"

The younger monk shook his head. Father Francis dropped to his knees, looking at the caked and frozen bloodied mess of her shoulder, and the still-bleeding but rapidly freezing mess of her feet.

"Pick her up, bring her inside," he said abruptly, taking the torch from the younger man. "There is infection here and first we must save her, before any questions might be asked."

"Is that a bullet hole, Father?" the monk asked as he dropped behind her and slid his arms under her shoulders and legs.

"Looks like one to me, Thomas," the precentor agreed prosaically. "There were a few armed parties in the mountains the last few weeks, perhaps she ran afoul of one of them."

He waited for the monk to get to his feet, the woman's hood falling back and the torch lighting a long spill of red hair, copper-bright beneath the blood and dust. Her clothing was threadbare and torn, and her feet were bare.

"I think I know who this might be, Thomas," he said, looking back at the bloodless white face. "Come, inside, fast."

One week later.

Father Monserrat walked along the narrow hall from his office, passing the refectory and the workrooms, hurrying to the great spiral stair that rose and fell in the centre of the building, leading up to the chapels and quarters, and down to the monastery's vaults. He began to climb, the long robe gathered in one hand.

As he reached the guest quarters, he slowed, drawing in deeper breaths to counteract the speed of the climb. The most senior monk, ordained like himself and of the same background, had given his permission for their guest to view the priceless treasures of the vaults and to make a copy if what she was seeking was, in fact, within their walls. He reached the room at the end of the hall and knocked on the thick planked door.

It took a short time to open and he looked down at the young woman standing there, thin and pale in a long shift and black robe.

"He agreed?" Ellie asked, her eyes meeting his. He smiled and nodded.

"Your walking speed does not seem to have improved," he said, walking into the room as she pulled it back and turning back to her as she closed it.

"It's a big improvement over not walking at all," she retorted mildly.

"What on earth happened to your boots?" he asked, frowning as he looked at her clothing, patched and washed and folded on the simple timber chest next to the bed.

"Walked them off," she said, hobbling across the room on bandaged feet to the desk by the open and glassless window embrasure. "I had to turn the horse loose when I got to the border and I couldn't go through the pass. They had lookouts anyway, but by the time they caught up it was night and they overshot me."

He shook his head. "You know that Patrick has been looking for you? It was him vouching for you that changed the mind of the abbot?"

She sank gratefully onto the wooden chair and shook her head, the thin sunshine catching the red and gold of her loose hair and lighting it briefly to flame.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said. "When can I look at the manuscripts?"

"When you can make the walk down there without fainting," the monk said acerbically. "A few days. In the meantime, you should be keeping off them," he added, looking at her feet pointedly.

"I don't have much time, Father," she said, the seriousness in her voice and face catching at him.

"You won't have any more by hurrying the healing process and developing another infection," he chided. "Have faith that God will not let you fail."

Ellie stared at him. She would've had faith in God if she wasn't sure that some percentage of his angels hadn't turned bad.

November 25, 2008

The Impala sped down the rain-washed black asphalt of Highway 61, travelling virtually alone.

"No, we need to go somewhere out of the out of the way." Dean glanced down at the map, spread out on the seat between them.

"What's the point, Dean? They can find us wherever we go." Sam looked out of the window. The drab fields and leafless woods looked even colder under the low, grey cloud cover.

"Not with Ruby's hex bags on us. We can just lie low for a couple of days while we figure out what we're doing next." He watched the black ribbon of road unfolding in front of him. After the last few days, he wanted peace. Quiet. No angels, no demons.

So, I guess she's some big-time angel now, huh? She must be happy... Wherever she is.

I doubt it.

Anna hadn't wanted to go back and he couldn't blame her. Power came at a cost and the cost was always too high. He shifted a little on the seat, the stab of guilt at his betrayal of her rising again. What he felt was mixed up with what they'd done, together, he knew. It didn't make it better. The dick had known what to push and he'd given her up and when she'd explained it to Sam, he'd known that he was never going to be the man he'd wanted to be. Nothing he'd done since the angel had raised him had been good.

They'd dropped Ruby at Lexington and headed east, driving through the night. Being caught between Alastair and Uriel was not an experience Dean wanted to repeat – ever.

"Alright." Sam gave in. "Big town or little town?"

"I don't care." He felt Sam's gaze on him, his brother's concern burning like a brand against the side of his face.

He shouldn't've said anything, he knew. Shouldn't've told his brother what he'd done. He'd said he wished he couldn't feel anything and that was true. Then the memories wouldn't be tearing at him, he could look at them clinically, remotely, the same way he'd seen the souls in Hell. But that hadn't happened. All that icy control had gone the minute his face had been touched by sunlight, real light, and he'd sucked in a deep breath of real air.

He hadn't even told Sam the worst part. He couldn't face the disappointment he knew he'd see in his brother's eyes.

I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean. Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother.

That wasn't the case any more, he knew, taking a deeper breath to counteract the tightness in his chest at the memory. That'd gone. He was never going to get it back. He could see Sam's feelings, in the looks Sam slid at him when he thought his brother wasn't noticing, in the silences that filled the space between them, where there'd been … something … that wasn't now there. He wasn't someone anyone would look up to now. He wasn't someone anyone would want to be like … now.

Under the layers of consciousness, under the thoughts and minute-by-minute considerations of what they were doing, when he was awake and there wasn't too much time to think, Hell seethed. He could bury it so long as he kept moving, kept talking, doing things but it came out when he tried to rest. It didn't help that when he'd seen what his brother could do – was doing – had been doing since he'd been buried seemed to make a mockery of what he'd tried to give up for Sam. Neither of them had known the price of that act. Neither of them had known what it would cost them once it was done.

He forced his attention back on the road, easing his foot off the accelerator as he checked the speedometer. It didn't help to talk about it and he couldn't think about it. He just had to keep going, one step at a time. Just keep going and hope that someday it wouldn't feel as bad as it did now.

Dean pulled into Athens, West Virginia just past seven o'clock. There was a motel on the edge of town; clean, quiet and inexpensive, which was just as well because they were getting close to being tapped out.

Unloading the gear, neither man felt like talking, and they carried the bags into the room in silence, setting out the hex bags the demon had given them, running salt lines along the window ledges and doors, unscrewing the vent covers to run lines across them as well, both working with the ease of long familiarity.

Sam moved around the room distractedly, pouring lines automatically. He couldn't get Dean's confession out of his head. Forty years. He'd had no idea how to respond to what his brother had done, or how it had changed him. He kept trying to reference it to something else, anything else, but there was just nothing that correlated to forty years spent in Hell.

He'd tried to make it seem not so … what? Devastating? There was no word to describe what his imagination insisted had been done to his brother. There was no word to describe the changes he could see in Dean, in those times he watched him when he was doing something else. He was twitchy and angry and close to the edge of something, all the time, Sam thought, dropping the salt bag and going to lift his duffel onto the end of the bed. Unzipping it, he pulled out the leather satchel that held the laptop – John's once, then Dean's, now mostly his, he supposed – and the few books he kept with him.

Every night, he heard Dean's breathing change, sometimes only minutes after he'd fallen asleep, sometimes as long as an hour later. He would lie in the dark and listen to his brother's indistinct mutterings, the occasional sharp cry, knowing that soon, sometimes very soon, Dean would be sweating and shaking and he'd wake after that, the ragged breathing controlled.

The first couple of times, he'd tried to wake him. He didn't do that now. Woken from the midst of it, it took his brother minutes to come out of whatever he was seeing, reliving. It dissipated faster if Dean woke on his own.

Every night, he'd hear the scritch of the flask's lid, or a bottle's lid, loud in the silence of the rooms they'd shared. And, he knew, Dean wouldn't try to get back to sleep. Just sit awake and drink until dawn. He could see the deepening shadows around the sockets of his brother's eyes, and sometimes he caught glimpses of panic, quickly hidden, or brushed off, or joked through.

He'd said that he'd ripped through the souls of the damned down there. Torn them apart to ease his pain. Sam didn't know exactly what that meant, but he could see that Dean felt different. Felt broken – not even that, shattered – by what he'd done. He'd tried, a few times now, to point out that acts committed under duress were not the responsibility of the person committing them. He didn't think Dean had taken any notice. He'd tried to point out that whatever souls he'd tortured under the demon's tuition, none could've been innocent. It was, after all, Hell. He didn't think Dean had cared about that either.

Going to the table and setting the book and laptop onto it, Sam pulled out a chair and sat down, running a hand through his hair in frustration. He needed his brother's strength, his commitment and the wild courage that had kept both going since he was old enough to remember. He couldn't see those things in Dean anymore. He'd known his brother wouldn't understand how much more powerful Ruby had made him, how he could use the tainted blood to become a warrior that had a chance – more than a chance – to defeat the forces aligned against them, against their world.

He hadn't told Dean all of it. The thought bounced through his defences and he acknowledged it bleakly. He'd told himself that the end justified the means and killing Lilith was still at the top of his To Do list. But he hadn't told Dean how he'd built his strength so much and so rapidly. Ruby had been doubtful about keeping it from Dean. He knew better. Dean wouldn't understand, could never understand that sacrifices came in many forms and this was one he was making for his family, for the world, on his own. He would pay whatever cost came of it, gladly. He hadn't been able to save his brother. The thought ate at him if he let it. He was going to save everyone, he thought, and that would have to do.

Dean dumped his bag beside his bed and pulled off his boots, peripherally aware of his brother moving around the room, setting up at the table. He dropped onto the edge of the bed, a single thought looping through his mind – Anna's forgiveness had not made him feel any better, was, as a matter of fact, twisting like a rusty knife blade through his guts.

You did the best you could. I forgive you. He closed his eyes at the memory of her voice, the touch of her hand, gentle on the back of his neck, the soft press of her mouth over his, forcing himself to face the memory, the punishment of it not enough, it would never be enough but it was something he needed. He'd given her up, let her down when she'd needed him the most. Like everyone else he'd failed.

After a few minutes, he got up, driven to his feet by the futility of what he was doing, or trying to do. He needed sleep. He needed a drink. He needed five minutes out of his head to get some fucking respite from the weight of guilt, memories, more guilt, pain and heartache.

Stopping in the middle of the room, he looked over at his brother. "You notice if we passed any decent-looking watering-holes?"

Sam lifted his gaze from the screen and looked at him warily. "Nothing special. Why?"

"I need to have some fun," he said, turning back to the bed and reaching for his boots, his tone holding an edge of mockery for himself. Fun wasn't exactly what he needed. Amnesia came closer. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his boots back on. "Wine, women, song."

"I thought you wanted to get some rest," Sam countered, looking at him more closely.

Dean nodded readily, keeping his eyes fixed on his boots. The rest of enough whiskey to blunt the edges of thought; a soft, receptive female body to lose himself in; and hopefully the combination putting dreaming off the agenda until morning. "That is rest. And relaxation. R&R, bro."

He got to his feet, sweeping the car keys and room key from the nightstand with one hand. "C'mon, Sammy, how long's it been since we just went out for a few drinks and a game of pool? It'll be good. Decompression."

Sam shrugged, pushing the laptop screen closed and getting up. "Yeah, sure. Okay."

There were three bars in the small town, two of which served food and advertised music 'til late. Dean made a u-turn at the end of the main street and found a parking space a little under a block from the one his brother deemed the least offensive.

Walking down the street, following the unmistakable sounds of a drinking establishment in full swing, Dean wondered if he was going to be able to shut out his thoughts for long enough to get what he needed. As they came in through the door, he felt himself relax incrementally. The music was loud enough to prevent quiet conversation, an eclectic mix of rock'n'roll, metal and latest hits. The smells from the kitchen were appetising.

He walked over to the bar, looking around at the nearly full room, feeling his brother on his heels. For a moment, as the bass beat infiltrated his bloodstream, pounding in counter time to the beat of his heart, he felt it recede, the tangle of utter crap in his head. He felt like he had a couple of years ago, before he'd started losing everyone he'd needed. He grinned at the bartender, and the curvaceous blonde sitting on the stool to his right.

"Dean, I'm gunna find a table. Get me whatever isn't dripping in grease," Sam's voice muttered in his ear, and he nodded, that too more like the way it'd been, back then, back before … everything.

"What can I get you?" the bartender, a buxom brunette in her late thirties, asked him. She leaned across the bar, her cleavage bulgingly revealed by the low-cut tank she wore as she more or less yelled the query at him.

"Couple of beers, whiskey shots, a burger, loaded and, uh …" he shifted his gaze from the smooth, freckled curves of her breasts to the chalked menu to one side of the bar. "Grilled chicken salad, no dressing."

"Got it," she said, reaching under the bar and pulling out a couple of bottles of ice-cold beer from the fridge beneath the counter, levering the tops off and leaving them on the bar in front of him. She turned away, scribbling the order onto a pad and clipped it to the order rack at the back of the bar, her ass, he noticed, fitting the tight curves of her jeans admirably.

"You in town long?" the blonde beside him asked, and he turned to look at her, noting big blue eyes, heavily lined, a feathery, wavy mass of pale blonde hair that fell over her shoulders and down her back, showing darker at the roots, smooth tan skin, a lot of it on display in a custom-cut, fitted turquoise bustier and short, faded denim skirt.

"Couple of nights," he said loudly back, leaning closer to her. She smelled of some sweet and slightly exotic perfume, the scent slightly clouded by the smells of the bar, beer and bourbon and cigarette smoke. "What's your name?"

"Lindsey," she told him, smiling widely.

Twenty-three or four, he decided, looking at her face. She was pretty and friendly and he felt himself stir, all the things he'd wanted to forget about getting more and more distant as she laid her hand over his on the bar and the touch, more than friendly, sent a jolt of anticipation through his skin and nerves and down to his groin.

Food, he thought, relieved that the escape he'd always looked for was still available, a couple of beers and shots, a couple for the girl beside him and then back to her place. Sammy could fend for himself tonight.

Sam found a table by the rear exit, sighing as he watched his brother lean closer to the blonde at the bar. At the back of his mind, he'd known what his brother was wanting in the way of decompression after the last couple of weeks, but he'd kidded himself that Dean's proposal of a game or two, a quiet dinner and some drinks were going to be enough. He shook his head at himself. It'd never been enough before.

Looking around the room, he wondered if he should be thinking of doing the same thing. The small town had plenty of pretty girls and all of them seemed to be here, talking in groups, dancing on the pocket-handkerchief dance floor, leaning against the pool tables, long legs shown off in skin-tight jeans or micro-mini skirts; skinny or slender or plumper; blonde, brunette and redhead.

He shook his head slightly again, his gaze dropping back to the laminated menu on the table in front of him. It wasn't his scene, never had been. Jess had prised him out of their apartment to bars on a fairly regular basis, but it was her, being with her, that'd made those nights fun, not the loud music or the flesh on display, the anticipation of a pick up, or the alcohol.

He missed her. All the time. Sometimes it was worse than others. He had the feeling he might not ever stop missing her.

The memory of the demon intruded, wiping Jess' face from his mind's eye abruptly. Ruby's latest incarnation was a small brunette, slim but curvy. Empty, Ruby'd told him. Coma patient whose soul had already departed. How the hell would he know? He'd never be able to tell if she was telling him the truth or not.

His brother had shown an incredible restraint when he'd told him what'd happened while he'd been gone. Dean's suspicions had all been there, but he'd made an effort to keep them damped down, had kept his tone reasonable, had kept his arguments logical. And he'd – sort of – apologised to Ruby, had acknowledged that she was helping them.

He looked around as he heard the clump of Dean's boots behind him. Dean put a plate in front of him, followed by a bottle of beer.

"Got mine to go," his brother told him cheerfully and Sam's gaze shifted from the one-sided smile on Dean's face to the blonde standing beside him, her arm curled possessively around his brother's hips. "This is Lindsey," Dean added, glancing down at her. "She's, uh, got this awesome stereo system she, uh – well, fuck, you know."

Sam nodded resignedly. He did know. "Gimme the keys."

Dean dropped them on the table, and turned away, his hand on the blonde's ass as they wove their way through the bar's crowd to the front door. Sam looked at his meal and sighed.

Fun, huh? Oh yeah, this was loads of fun. He picked up his fork and stabbed at a piece of chicken. It was no big, he thought. He'd eat, go back to the motel, check out whatever omens might be showing with both Heaven and Hell so prominent on the plane right now and get an early night.

In his veins, the blood sizzled a little, and he ignored the sensation, telling himself again that he didn't need it, he just needed the power it brought.

Lindsey's apartment block was only a couple of streets away from the bar and Dean walked beside her, his arm over her shoulders, aware that the comfortable, relaxed feeling he'd had in the bar was slowly seeping away.

The tall, leggy blonde they'd met on the shifter case in Pennsylvania flickered into his thoughts and he glanced down at the woman walking beside him, wondering if he was changing his type. Not that he'd ever really had one, it'd been more of a coincidence than a conscious decision. Lindsey shared a few of Jamie's obvious assets, enough that he hoped he could recapture the easiness he'd felt then, the familiar comfort of touch and taste and smell and sensation.

He hadn't felt his memories so strongly back then, he knew. Had been more overwhelmed by the job he thought he'd been raised to do and the fact that he'd been noticed by a power he hadn't even believed in … back then.

In early November, after seeing Sam turn Samhain into a pile of ash, he'd tried to find someone to lose himself in, push that crap aside for a couple of hours, because he'd been hanging on by his fingernails at that point. The woman had been attractive, eager and willing but not enough, not nearly enough to keep Hell away from him. He'd thought that it was just too much, all the crazy on top of him and he hadn't been able to focus on what the hell he was trying to do.

With Anna, it'd been completely different. Because she'd known, he wondered? Because he didn't have to pretend to be someone else? Because she'd understood and wanted him for himself? He didn't know, he'd just known that there'd been no bounce and play in their lovemaking, no sex to the sex, it'd been about honesty and pain and fear and healing, he thought, about the last night on earth and all the fucking implications of that were now so fucking clear to him.

He felt Lindsey press against his side, and shook off his memories and uncertainties, turning with her as she pushed him to the steps of her block. She slid free of his arm and fished around in her purse for her keys, glancing back at him with a smile. Smiling back at her was harder than he'd thought it would be.

She held the door open for him and he looked around the tiled and silent foyer, following her to the elevator doors set into the wall to the right, stepping in behind her when they opened. She pressed the button for the fifth floor and turned to him, sliding her hands up his chest to link them behind his neck as she reached up and kissed him.

As his eyes closed, he thought he smelled the pungent scent of sulphur and a shiver ran down his spine. Lindsey broke the kiss, smiling up at him.

"I know, me too," she said, her voice husky.

He blinked at her, wondering what the hell she was talking about then realised what she'd thought, forcing another smile as he nodded noncommittally.

The elevator pinged and the doors opened and she turned away, catching his hand as she headed down the hall to her apartment.

Relax, he told himself as he ran his hands down Lindsey's sides, leaning back against the arm of the couch and pulling her on top of him. He closed his eyes as her lips covered his, feeling the warmth of desire beginning to fill him–

The wink of a silvery blade, flashing through the air and burying itself deep into–

His eyes snapped open, and he felt his heart rate accelerate, sweat beading on his forehead. The image disappeared, and he kept his eyes open as the woman he was kissing moaned softly against his mouth. He tried to focus on the sensations, the feel of her breasts under his hands, the brush of her hair against his neck, the insistence of her lips on his mouth. His eyes fluttered shut again as she slid her hand down his chest and stomach–

Screams and blood and the overpowering smell of brimstone, and laughter, the high demon laughter–

He sat up abruptly, eyes wide and staring at the puzzled face in front of him.

"What's wrong?" Lindsey asked, pushing her hair back from her face.

"Uh, nothing …" He shook his head, and tried to find a reassuring smile, not sure it was all that reassuring as he felt the press of the memories against his mind. "I … uh … thought I'd left the stove on at home for a second there."

"Oh, yeah. That happens to me all the time too." She leaned forward and kissed him again, and he kept his eyes open, shoving the lingering traces of the memories away, pushing them down.

They moved to the bed, and he tried to concentrate on what he was seeing, on what he was feeling, hands and mouth and fingers and tongue following the remembered paths, breathing in the light floral scent of her perfume, telling himself that he was out, alive, free …

… but he couldn't close his eyes, couldn't lose himself in her, couldn't relax.

She groaned and arched under him and he snatched his hand away from her, staring at his fingers, looking for blood. Everything he did, everything she did, had a counterpoint in his mind, in his memories, and he shook helplessly, needing a release, unable to do more than twist himself into knots, trying to find it.

She lay on her back, hair mussed and dampened with sweat, staring up at him as he clenched his fists, and tried to regain some kind of control so that he didn't look like a fucking psychopath.

Her eyes widened suddenly.

"Jesus!" She pulled the bedspread over herself, her gaze fixed on something over his shoulder. He turned around.

Castiel stood at the end of the bed, his face completely expressionless.

"Dean, we have to talk. Another Seal is at risk."

Dean looked at the angel, then nodded slowly. He didn't know or care if the angel was surprised by the lack of anger in the response. Relief was trickling through him, a sneaking, sly relief that he didn't have to stay here, didn't have to keep trying. His body was aching but he didn't want to be here, where everything brought it all back, vivid and horrifying as the nightmares he couldn't escape from when he slept.

Glancing at the woman beside him, he rolled off the bed, picking up his clothes and getting dressed.

"What the-?" Lindsey's gaze flicked from the total stranger in a trenchcoat in her apartment to the man she'd brought home who was making no move to protect her. "Hey! You, get the hell out of my place! Dean–?!"

Castiel walked to Lindsey, and she drew back from him, her eyes widening. The angel reached out a hand and touched her lightly on the forehead. Her eyes closed, fingers releasing the edge of the cover as she slipped down sideways onto the pillow.

Dean looked down at her. The desire had gone, although the ache was still there, something he'd try to do something about later on. He didn't want to think about Lindsey, didn't want to think about what had happened, what was happening to him, every time he tried to find some point of human contact. Turning away from her, he looked at Castiel.

"What Seal?"

The angel zapped them back to the motel and Dean unlocked the door and walked in, leaving the door open and tossing his key on the shelf to the left of the door.

At the dining table, Sam looked up in surprise, his forehead furrowing as he saw the angel walk in behind his brother.

"I thought you were going to be gone all night? R&R?"

"Wasn't meant to be," Dean said, trying to inject some regret into his tone. "Apparently we got work to do first."

Sam closed the laptop, watching the angel cautiously. His view of angels had undergone a radical swing in the last few weeks. "Castiel."

Castiel looked at him and inclined his head politely as he closed the door behind him. "Sam."

Dean walked to the table, taking a seat next to his brother. "Well, give us the details."

The angel moved to stand beside the table, looking at the brothers. "In Chicago, there's a small boy who is about to become a seal to the cage. He's very special. Lilith has sent her demons to take him. If they can corrupt this boy before his seventh birthday, the next Seal will be broken."

Sam frowned. "What do you mean, about to become a seal? How's he special?"

"That is information you don't need to know," Castiel said repressively, turning to look at Sam.

"This another test, Cas?" Dean rubbed his eyes tiredly. "'Cause if you're planning on wiping out a town, or killing anyone, then we'd like to know now. So we don't waste our time."

The angel looked back at the hunter, his gaze steady. "It is not a test. You have to get the boy before the demons do. You have to keep him safe until he turns seven. Then it will be over, the Seal safe."

"An' if we can't?"

"If you cannot secure the boy, and the demons have him, we will have to kill him, to stop the Seal from being broken," Cas said, his voice without inflexion. "I would prefer it if you were successful."

Sam exhaled loudly. "Not again."

Dean glanced at him and back to the angel. "These God's orders? Killing kids? I don't know … just doesn't sound like God to me. Tell me something, Cas, you sure you know what's going on up there?"

Castiel looked around the room uneasily. "I am not sure of anything right now, Dean. But the orders are the orders, from the highest levels." He turned back to them, his face drawn as he continued, "And the end result is clear. You'd rather Lilith break another Seal? Take us one step closer to Lucifer's rising?"

"How much time do we have?" Dean got to his feet, going to the fridge. "When does the kid turn seven?"

"Not much to get to Chicago. He will reach his seventh year in four weeks."

"Not much time for the other side either then," Sam said thoughtfully, looking around at his brother.

"We'll leave in the morning," Dean said, extracting a beer and knocking the top off.

Castiel looked at them, his expression disapproving. "Leaving now would be better."

Dean's eyebrow lifted. "We drove six hours to get here. After being caught in the cross-fire between angels and demons. We're human, Cas, we need to rest – occasionally."

Castiel bowed his head, his gaze dropping. "Yes, of course."

"Where's your buddy, by the way?" Sam asked.

The angel took a couple of seconds to decipher the reference. "Uriel is in Heaven. Receiving further orders."

"Huh." Dean walked to the bed, dropping onto the edge and pulling off his boots, for the second time. "Good."

The sound of beating wings, and the smaller clap of the air rushing to fill the void where Castiel had stood, accompanied the angel's disappearance.

Dropping the second boot onto the floor, Dean looked across the room at his brother. "What do you think?"

"I think they want us to do their dirty work for them again," Sam said pensively.

Dean nodded. "Yeah."

"What'd he mean, about corrupting the boy?" Sam asked. "How do you corrupt a six-year old?"

Looking away, Dean shrugged. "No clue."

He could've told Sam that corruption was about the rewiring of the mind, the realignment of the soul. It would open a conversation he couldn't have. Anyone could be corrupted, with enough pain, he thought. Anyone.

Dean lay on his side, listening to the soft snores from the other bed. Distantly, in the far back reaches of his mind, he could hear screaming. He tried to shut it out, but he could only mute it, couldn't make it disappear. Fear ran along his nerve ends, shaking him, and he reached down for the pint bottle that sat just under the edge of the bed, picking it up and unscrewing lid and tipping the bottle up, swallowing convulsively.

The dreams were unbearable, shredding his sleep. He wasn't going to be functioning for much longer if it was spilling into his waking hours as well.

The image of her body kept flashing into his mind, naked on the bed, arms lifted toward him. As he looked at the image, he felt desire stir, a deep warmth in his groin reaching out to his limbs. He tried to hold onto that feeling, that normal, human feeling. Then the images would change, and the smooth, pale body would be covered in wounds, bleeding and broken, light winking from the razor blade above her. His stomach jumped, and he clamped his teeth together, arousal vanishing, a throbbing ache left behind.

He squeezed his eyes shut, drinking until the whiskey was gone, his body rigid with tension. He had to find a way to shut it out, to bury it deep enough so that he could rest. At least when he was awake.

Sometimes, lately, so deep inside that he wasn't sure that it was real, he could feel a blackness, something not quite alive, not dead, squirming. He couldn't look at it. He was too afraid of what he would see.