Hey guys!

So what did you think of the latest episode? Personally, I wasn't too keen. I LOVED Dean going full on torturer for Ketch though, and the scenes between Cas and Lucifer were brilliant. But the rest of it kinda fell a bit flat for me. It didn't really seem to develop very much and there was practically no Sam in it at all.

So here's a one-shot about where I'm hoping they'll go from here. 1. Because there is NO WAY Dean bought Asmodeus' Cas voice, and 2. Because there was no sense of character development in the episode itself really (imo anyway), so I wanted to include a little bit of that.

Enjoy ^_^

He was still rattled from the whole Ketch thing. That was all. That was the only reason that Cas' voice sounded wrong. Ketch was back, everything seemed wrong.

"You okay?" he asked his brother. The one, stable thing in his life right now.

Sam huffed out a breath, "not really," he said, "I actually believed him. It was the dumbest story I'd ever heard but I believed him."

"Don't beat yourself up," Dean said, "he's a good liar. Sometimes, the stupidest lies sound the most plausible because they're so dumb. I mean, who actually tries to pull the evil twin crap?"

"You didn't buy it, not for a second." Sam pressed his palms to his eyes, "how could I have been so stupid?"

"Because you want to see the good in everything," Dean said, pressing down on the gas a little harder, "you've never been down with locking people up on the off chance they might be dicks."

"And you?"

Dean smirked, it was a humourless thing. "I've got a special place of hate for that man," he said, it was almost a growl, "he makes my skin crawl, it doesn't matter what name he uses."

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you."

Dean shrugged, "that's not who you are, Sam. That's why we balance," he glanced over at his brother, he was hunched back in the passenger seat, as low as he could go without cramping his legs. He had just wanted to do the kind thing, he always tried so hard to be kind. Dean softened his voice, "without you around I would have killed a lot more innocent things for a lot worse reasons. Sometimes it works your way, sometimes it doesn't. This time it didn't. That doesn't mean you stop doing things your way, alright?"

Sam looked over at him and forced a small smile. Dean nodded.

"Right. So now, we find Cas,"

"I thought you said-"

"Yeah, but… I dunno, something was off about it. The way he spoke… it was weird."

"Weird how, exactly?"

Dean sighed, trying to frame the words in his head. How he had spoken, it had been deliberate, slow. He hadn't seemed concerned when Dean mentioned being cornered by demons, hadn't explained why the demons had been there in the first place, it had been an ambush, they'd been waiting to attack, after Cas had already escaped? That didn't sound right. No signal? He'd picked up the phone, hadn't he? Dean didn't know how to explain any of this without sounding crazy. So he picked the thing that bothered him the most.

"He said 'hello' wrong."

Sam blinked, "what?"

Dean rolled his head to the side, cricking his neck in the process. He knew how it sounded, did he have to explain?

"The way he said, 'hello, Dean'. It wasn't the way he normally says it." He threw a sideways glance at his brother, Sam's eyebrows had shot up almost to his hairline.

"You're kidding?"

"I'm not."

Sam leaned forward, a stupid grin on his face. Dean scowled, waiting for the question he knew would come,

"So, how does he normally say it?"

"Differently." He said shortly. Then, after a heartbeat, "shut up. Look, something's wrong, we need to find him."

"And Jack?"

"Cas first. The kid doesn't wanna be found and he's hiding good enough that we can't find him, he'll be fine. Besides, Cas is the one to talk Jack back when we do find him so…"

"So, Cas first." Sam bit his lip and nodded slowly, pulling his phone from his pocket, "I'll track his cell again."

"You do that." Dean grunted, falling into a tense silence.

It was a few minutes before Sam spoke again, a frown creasing his brow, "I can't get a read."

Dean jerked his head around, "you what?"

"The GPS won't track. It says it's connecting but it's not showing up anywhere on the map."

"That makes no sense, he answered his phone like ten minutes ago, you're telling me he's just not around anymore?"

"Maybe he turned the GPS off?"

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know, Dean, you said he had a lead, maybe he doesn't wanna be tracked by something else."

"Well that's a comforting thought. Maybe we should just go home and forget about it." Dean's voice dripped with sarcasm while Sam rolled his eyes.

"Look, let me get my laptop out, I might be able to do more on that."

Dean reluctantly pulled over at the next diner they came to. He was hungry, and being worried and hungry was never a good mix. Besides, as funny as it was watching Sam squash his laptop onto his knee, he figured it might be more productive if he had the space to get something done. Sam frowned as he typed, ordering coffee and a chicken wrap from the sunny waitress. Dean got coffee too and a steak sandwich, which he tore into when it arrived, shaking the waitresses smile somewhat. Dean glared at the back of the open laptop as he ate. Eventually, Sam sighed and looked up at him.

"Dean, calm down. We don't know that Cas is in trouble."

"My gut knows." Dean growled, "and my gut has been right about everything today so far."

"Because Cas said 'hello' differently?"

"That's right."

"You know how ridiculous that sounds, right? This is Cas we're talking about, he does this, he disappears on some mission on his own and then he comes back. You're way too worked up about this."

"Am I?" Dean's leg was bouncing vigorously under the table and the hand not holding his sandwich clenched and unclenched at his side. He knew he was overreacting, he knew that Cas liked to follow stuff up on his own. But dammit, he trusted his gut, "why don't we find him first and then you can both can tell me how ridiculous I'm being?"

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Looking at Dean with poorly disguised pity, "look, I get it, okay? You're worried. But Cas can take care of himself. You know, sometimes you treat him like he doesn't know what he's doing. Like he's a child who doesn't understand how the world works. He's been a soldier longer than we've been alive. He's an angel, Dean. He's been around for millennia. He's tough to kill."

"Not that tough," Dean muttered, almost to himself. He reached for his coffee and took a long gulp, ignoring the fact that it was too hot. Squashing down the memory of broken wings imprinted in the ground, like the skeletons of leaves.

"I'm sorry." Sam said, voice softened, "I know he's not been back long and you're scared to lose him again. But you've gotta trust him, man. Let him do his thing. I don't think I can find him anyway." Sam closed the laptop, "maybe he found Jack and he's shielding both of them?"

Dean grunted in response, not trusting himself to reply. Sam clearly thought this was over. He slid his laptop back into his bag and placed it on the seat next to him, taking a sip of his coffee before starting on the wrap. Dean pushed his empty plate away. The food had helped, a little. Maybe he was overreacting. But his gut still churned and that 'hello Dean', rolled around his head on a loop. It had been different. It had been less somehow. Though less what, he didn't know.

"We still gotta find him."

Sam sighed, placing his wrap down, "Dean-"

Dean raised a hand, cutting him off, "I hear what you're saying okay? I know that this whole Ketch thing has got us shaken up, and that we still need to find Jack and I know Cas doesn't need me to babysit him. Just humour me. Something was wrong. I just… I need to make sure he's okay and it's not like we have anything else to do right now except wait around and I know you're about as keen to be benched as I am. If he's fine, I'll back off. But don't you think it's weird that we ran into a herd of demons that just happened to be where Cas was supposed to be?"

Sam sat back and crossed his arms, "okay, that was odd. But there could be another explanation. Let's be logical about this, you said his voice was off, right? So let's say he's in trouble, calling back would only mean that Cas still wouldn't be able to talk freely. So, get him to call you."

"How?"

Sam shrugged, "pray to him. Tell him to call you within an hour or you're gonna know something's wrong. Prayers can't go sideways, right? It'll go straight to Cas and if he's fine, he'll call."

Dean pressed his lips together, it was a solid plan. Sam stared at him expectantly.

"Well?" He said, "are you gonna do it?"

"Now?" Dean shifted his weight, uncomfortably. Sam just raised an eyebrow, "fine," he clasped his hands on the table although he knew it didn't matter. He supposed he could pray silently but that never felt right to him. If he was trying to talk to Cas he wanted to talk. "Uh, okay, Cas, I'm praying to you. 'cause I think there was something off about that last phone call, so… call me back in the next hour or I'm coming for you." He glanced at Sam, and then away again, hyper-aware that his brother was listening. "Sam thinks you're fine. And you probably are, but give me a call anyway. That's it," he dropped his hands and sat back, plucking his phone from his pocket and dropping it on the table while motioning to the waitress for another coffee.

"Now, we wait," Sam said, going back to his wrap.

After twenty minutes had gone by, Dean excused himself to the bathroom, leaving the phone on the table. He splashed some water on his face and took some deep breaths to try and ease the knot of tension in his chest. After a moment he looked up at the florescent lights.

"Okay," he said aloud, "so, I know I gave you an hour. I know I'm probably just being paranoid because Ketch is back and there were a lot of demons we had to gank. And I'm sorry if I'm interrupting your 'interesting lead' or whatever but I just really need to know that you're okay. I just got you back, man, and I can't go back to that place again, I just can't. So, if you need to do this angel meet up thing on your own, I get it. Just take five minutes to call me. Please."

He waited another minute before heading back to the table and sat down to stare at his silent phone.

As the rest of the hour ticked by, even Sam started to get restless. It had been fifty-eight minutes of the hour before he finally stood up.

"You're right," he said, slinging his laptop bag over his shoulder, "he should have called by now."

Dean said nothing but followed him back to the impala.

As Dean pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the open road, Sam shifted in his seat,

"What about Ketch?" He asked, quietly.

Dean's grip tightened slightly on the wheel,

"What about him?"

"Do we just… let him go?"

"We didn't let him go, Sam, he got away, there's a difference."

"Right, but-"

"But what? Look. I'm not thrilled at the prospect of him being out there either, but we have bigger problems right now."

"Dean, he's killing people!"

"He's killing witches! Which, you know, so do we."

Dean could feel Sam's disapproval radiating out next to him,

"Only the ones who hurt innocent people. Ketch isn't making that distinction."

"I agree with you, Sammy but until we take care of our family, I'm not gonna commit to a wild British goose chase, okay? We can't waste time."

"What if we don't get any leads?"

"If that happens, we'll talk about it." Dean conceded, "I wanna know what the scumbag's up to too. But I won't put Ketch before Cas as though he's worth my time. I won't do it."

"So you'll stand for symbolism over people's lives?" Sam's voice was getting louder, angrier, which only made Dean's own blood heat up.

"Cas' life could be in danger too, Sam!" He snapped, "I know what I heard and you agreed that he'd have called by now if he was fine. So he's not fine. So we find him. And I don't care if that means leaving Ketch to keep picking up paychecks for murder, okay? I just don't care. We find Cas. And we bring him home."

Sam was silent for a moment.

"You're right," he said, "I'm sorry."

Dean grunted in acknowledgement.

"Look," he said, glancing at his brother's pained expression, "I didn't mean to fly off the handle. I know that Ketch is a bastard and I know you feel like crap for believing his stupid story so you wanna get all the answers you can from him and I know you wanna get Jack back just as bad. But we know Cas is in trouble. And I won't abandon him, not again. I can't. So if that means you go off and do your own search, that's fine. Like I said, you've gotta keep doing things your way. But you can't pull me back from this, not until I find him."

Sam nodded. Then he reached over and patted his brother on the arm.

"I'm with you, Dean."

"Thanks, Sam." Dean said, and he meant it. As willing as he was to go this alone, he didn't relish the prospect, especially if his brother was equally alone, hunting down a toffee-nosed psychopath.

"So where do we start?" Sam asked, as he once again pulled his laptop out and rested it on his knees in the passenger seat, "there's more equipment back at the bunker, but if we can't find Jack, chances are we won't have any more luck with Cas."

"Well, he was going to commune with the angels," Dean said, "we could start there,"

"The sandbox? You think he might have been taken back to Heaven?"

Dean stared ahead at the road.

"What else have we got? Last thing we actually know he was meeting with an angel,"

"Last we know, he was in that bar."

"Right, but that turned out to be nest of demons and we killed the evidence," Dean pointed out. "The sandbox is our best bet, at least for now, see where that leads us."

"Okay," Sam said, settling back in his seat for the long drive ahead. Then, "we'll get him back, Dean,"

"Yeah," Dean said flatly. Only because the alternative was unthinkable, "we will."

So what do you think?

It's kinda short and there's not much plot but it feels like a kinda nice in between thing, building up to the story for the next episode (I can only hope, though it doesn't look like it with the promo :( ) with a bit more character focus than we got in the episode itself.

All feedback is welcome, appreciated and loved.

Love Tibbins xx