Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.
A/N: Dean and Sam are working on the case in Episode 9.08, Rock and a Hard Place; some dialogue will be ad verbatim where it is important for the story. Differences become more and more pronounced as the story continues. Castiel is working on his own case which is equally important for the big plot. This fic is also posted on AO3 (more chapters are up there).

Rexford, Idaho

Cas woke up, but remained prone. Thinking was easier than facing the world because right now, his life sucked. For one, he wasn't in a room and he didn't have a bed. He had locked himself in the Gas-and-Sip last night because he had no place to go. He curled up in a sleeping bag in the break room because that was better than lying on the hard tile floor. He wondered when he had hit rock bottom or if, instead, he was falling into a bottomless pit.

The rejection from Nora last week, or rather, finding out that she wasn't interested in him past babysitting duty took a lot more out of him than he had expected. Then there was Dean's odd behavior when he was here. He seemed distracted at times, but nothing too worrying. It was only that, once again, he was reminded of the fact that he was exiled from Bunker for reasons he really couldn't understand. Finally, he decided it was time to get up. Go through the motions.

He groaned as he sat up. Sleeping in a sleeping bag in the supply closet made it sore and achy. Pain. He groaned and stretched his back, feeling some relief in the aching muscles. It was moments like this that he missed being an honest to goodness angel. Without his grace, he was simply a man.

He uncurled and started to roll up the sleeping bag and moved it into the spot behind the toilet paper on the storage shelves. "Dude, Steve, did you sleep in here?" It was Trey. Skinny-as-a-rail, tall, young, dark-skinned Trey. He was working through college.

"Uh," Cas adjusted his vest, hoping it didn't look like he hadn't washed it in the weeks he had worked here. "No." He was a terrible liar and that single word sounded so unconvincing in his gruff voice. His blue eyes attempted to look anywhere but the supervisor.

"Steve, did your roommate kick you out or something?"

"No." Then he realized that he had. After all, Dean had kicked him out of the Bunker.

Trey looked very, very unconvinced.

"Actually, yes." Cas admitted.

"You can't do that Steve."

He looked up at Trey, "It was one… night." The delivery of that sentence could not have been more awkward or unconvincing.

"Dude, you are really bad at lying." Trey said with a laugh. He straightened his expression and resumed with a serious tone, "But you really can't stay here, Steve."

Castiel allowed his mind to linger on that sentence. You can't stay here . Dean wanted him to sit out the impending war with the angels simply because he was now a man. Perhaps it was time to leave. After he did his duty as sales associate, of course.

He started working on cleaning the counters and opening the registers. After he did that, he gathered up his things.

The former angel walked to the office and rapped on the door. Trey poked his head out. "What?"

Cas said, "You're right. I… have to go."

"Wait, what?" Trey hurried out of the office so he stood in front of the former-angel.

Castiel took off his vest and handed it to his stunned former supervisor. "Tell Nora she was adequately kind to me and that I enjoyed life as a sales associate for the short time that I was one. It was… good practice."

"Steve?"

Cas headed out the door and waved his farewell.

"Steve! Get back here!"

Castiel refused to look back at the life he was leaving behind. It had been a nice break: to hide in plain sight, to have people mistake him for being human. He could go back to that, try to play at that. But somehow, after Dean's visit, after being face to face with another angel and realizing the gravity of the situation for angels, it wasn't satisfying or even ethical to stay here. Not when he was responsible. Trey's words this morning simply provided that final push.

I miss my wings. Angels didn't have their wings anymore. What they had were tattered, broken things. Castiel didn't even have that. Instinctively, he flexed his shoulders and couldn't feel anything there. Cas didn't suppose that there was any way to get them back. No angel was able to teleport any more. Now, they all relied on traditional methods of transportation. For example, Castiel was on the side of a long, deserted highway sticking his thumb out and hoping for a ride. Fitting.

He wore his maroon hoodie. He had packed his things in a backpack: Toothbrush, toothpaste, bread, and water. His sleeping back was tied to the backpack securely. He had the FBI badge that Dean had made him in his back pocket as well as the money he had earned. He still wore the shirt he had worn under the vest when he worked at the Gas-and-Sip in Rexford, Idaho. And it looked a bit grubby and was wet under the armpits. He wasn't sure where he was headed, but he was now in Kansas and was definitely due for a shower. Eventually. The Bunker was achingly close, but he knew he was not welcome there. Dean wanted him away.

Cas found a sort of freedom out on the road. It reminded him of the Winchesters. Their lives were largely on the road. Hunting. He didn't think he could be a hunter, but what he could be was on the trail of the angels and figure out if there was a way to rejoin them or at least get his powers back.

Then perhaps the Dean would take him back because he'd be able to help them again.

Lebanon, Kansas

In the bunker, Dean's phone started ringing. Sam was reading a book, researching a way to hopefully help his brother. He glanced up at Dean who was licking out a pudding cup. There was a blissful expression on his face as he lapped at the pudding for minutes. Sam looked concerned. And the mouth sounds in the otherwise quiet library were hard to listen to. "Dean."

No answer. Ever since he took that mind-meld potion, Dean's mind sometimes went elsewhere. And there would be glimpses of him being very animalistic. It was in the puppy dog expression in his eyes. In the way he whined when something didn't go his way. Urges that he couldn't control unless he had his mind sharp and ready. Once it wandered, he was doing something decidedly less than human. For example, one of the things he had taken to doing was chewing on objects.

"Dean." Sam said as he reached forward to hopefully take the pudding cup away from his brother. To his surprise and dismay, Dean's nose crinkled slightly in a possessive growl and there was a lack of humanity in his green eyes. Though, quickly he refocused and looked embarrassed for behaving in such a way.

The phone continued ringing.

Sam reached for the phone and answered it.

He heard a familiar voice on the other end. It was Jody. "Dean, took you long enough!"

"It's Sam."

"Oh."

Dean sat up, interested. Sam put Jody on speakerphone.

"So, I got a bit of an odd one for you."

The brothers glanced at each other, not entirely sure if they could handle a case right now, but the best way to move forward and pretend that nothing was wrong was to continue working on the family business.

"Shoot," Dean said.

"A small town I cover outside of Sioux Falls-only crime to speak of being the occasional cow tipping. Then last week...four people go missing."

"Alright, so what makes you think it's our kind of weird?"

They could hear a bit of bluster in Jody's voice. "I've got a witness who says he saw someone lift an SUV to nab a girl last night."

The boys looked to each other and had a silent, one second exchange with nothing but their expressions:

Dean's eyes lit up, eyebrows raised expectantly. C'mon Sammy.

Sam shook his head. No. He was tired. Dean was still affected by a potion that messed with his mind. This was a bad idea.

Dean smiled and then leaned towards the phone. "We'll do it Jody." That earned him bitchface.

Ardent, Virginia

Castiel hopped out of the pick-up truck at a middle-of-nowhere intersection in the Virginian woods and waved the driver goodbye. He wore a plain, black T-shirt and some cheap jeans. His sleeping bag had been traded away some clothes at a thrift store. His hoodie was unzipped. It was warm and humid today. Sweat glistened on his forehead, but he had showered two days ago in a cheap motel room. Not that anybody could tell with the layer of grime the dusty roads had left on his skin.

His feet had blisters and he limped as he walked down the road. The sun set and the sky darkened. It had been a couple of weeks since he quit his job at the Gas-and-Sip all the way in Idaho. The former angel looked haggard and thin. He had the barest essentials in his backpack: His money. Salt. A change of clothes. Toothbrush. Toothpaste. In the waning twilight, he pulled out his map to consult it. About five miles, that way. He looked down the road where it forked off deeper into the forest.

The fog hung thickly around the trees as he followed the winding country road. He heard a strange noise coming from his pocket, the horrible screech of a phone's speaker malfunctioning. He stopped and crumpled the map into his armpit as he took his phone out. He glanced down at his cellphone, a burner. It was going a little haywire. The screen was flickering in and out. It warbled and screeched. Noises that he had never heard a phone make before. And finally, silence. He stared at the cellphone for a few seconds.

Then, it started ringing so suddenly that it startled him. His breathing became uneven as his exhales came out as shuddering breaths. The phone was malfunctioning so much that he couldn't read the number, there was just a random bunch of letters and numbers flashing on the screen amid green and blue glitches. He touched the green button to answer and put the phone to his ear.

A tender voice, thready and weak, whispered, "Are you lost?" It was hard to hear, distorted so much that Cas had to focus to decipher the words.

"Yes," Castiel answered, honestly.

"The lost-" The electromagnetic interference caused the words to scratch and warp.

"Who are you?"

Nothing but static.

While he waited for the disembodied voice on the phone to speak again, the former angel was trying to look around and figure out where it was coming from. "My name is Castiel," he offered.

He took his phone away from his ear and saw that it was off. He tried turning it on, but that wouldn't work. He looked up at the canopy overhead, the thick green of trees, looking for any evidence of what could have caused the interference.

He could move on. But he considered what the Winchesters would do in this situation. They'd follow the clues and see where it led. And, though Cas just wanted to focus on the threat of an angel war, he knew that, in the end, he couldn't simply leave the mystery of the monster in this forest. If he had, what he would have left behind here would gnaw at him. Perhaps, it was because he had spent too long with the Winchesters: A bit of being a hunter rubbed off on him.

Dean was driving the Impala. Sam sat in the passenger's seat, a bit disturbed by the possibility that, at any moment, Dean may revert and Sam wasn't exactly sure he trusted the driving of a man whose mind could sometimes be mostly animal. Meanwhile, Dean was fretting over what was going on with Sam. He was broken and the only thing holding him together was an angel hijacking his body.

"Sammy," Dean said suddenly, feeling honest and also feeling like sticking his head out of the window on the freeway. "I'm sorry." As soon as it came out, the hunter flinched. He hadn't meant to say that.

Instead of Sam answering, his eyes flickered blue and his expression changed. His words came out stilted. This wasn't Sam. This was Ezekiel. "Sam isn't healed completely yet. We can't afford to be honest right now. He'll reject me and I'm the only thing keeping him alive."

Dean made the keening noise of a dog's whine. The sound started in his throat and whistled out of his nose. "I didn't mean to say it."

"It seems your mind is not completely human any longer, Dean," Ezekiel observed.

"I know I'm still suffering the after-effects of that potion, but it doesn't happen as often. I'm fine. I'm human."

Ezekiel frowned. Truthfully, he had seen the effects ebb and flow. Normally, it was subtle, but sometimes, when they hit Dean, they hit hard

"How long until Sammy's better, Zeke?" Dean asked, quietly. Realizing that, here, Ezekiel had all of the leverage. He was stupid for making a deal that he didn't fully understand, but he also felt he didn't really have any other options.

"Not too long. This is better as a secret. He'll reject me."

And with that, Ezekiel let Sam have control again. "Sorry about what Dean?" he asked, continuing the conversation from before the angel took over it.

He fumbled with what he was supposed to say before he offered up, "Last hunt. With Sonny. I shouldn't have kept all of that from you."

Sam smiled and looked at the road. "Don't sweat it. Any other big secrets?"

Dean set his jaw and focused on driving. He wanted to tell Sam everything, but telling him would mean losing him.

Castiel walked until he found his way to the motel. He limped to the reception desk and bought a room. He signed himself in as Steve Novak. He was at a loss for what to use for his name, but knew he couldn't stand here, trying to think of a name when all he wanted was to find a place to sit down. It wasn't Jimmy Novak. And it wasn't Castiel.

He went into his motel room. It was dinky. The wallpaper was peeling and he sat on the bed on the starchy sheets. He kicked off his worn shoes and socks before he tenderly touched his feet on the spots which were warm and sore. He looked at the blisters and wished that he still had his powers because then this wouldn't be an issue. His grace had been stolen from him, but he had nobody to blame but himself. He was stupid enough and naive enough to have been manipulated and tricked in the way that he had.

He shut his eyes and willed himself to be anywhere but here. He opened them and only saw the off-white of the motel ceiling.

Hartford, South Dakota

Dean pulled up into the parking lot of Casey's Great Plains Diner. He parked the Impala next to Sheriff Mills' truck. They all left their vehicles and Jody opened her arms in a hug and the boys realized that they missed the warmth of another human being. Things had been awkward and tense at the Bunker and the ride over. Jody just being there seemed to melt that all away.

Dean grinned and then quipped, "Sheriff. Laying off the blind dates, I hope."

This immediately made Sheriff Mills recall her date with Crowley. She smiled and then chastised the younger man, "You bite your tongue, boy."

Dean's smile didn't fade. He enjoyed these fun teasing jabs he'd take at the people he cared about. Sam and Kevin weren't into it. Both too stressed and tired to remain fun as he did so.

Sam wanted to move on with the case so that Dean wouldn't slip up and reveal that something was wrong with him. "Hey, so?"

They got back on track.

Jody pointed to where the SUV had been. "So, car was right here, ass over teakettle. Now, normally, if somebody would tell me that one guy lifted an SUV, I'd tell him to take a flying leap, but after what I've seen…"

Sam gave a knowing nod. "Nothing's impossible."

"Uh-huh." Jody said.

Sam looked at Dean who, with Mills not looking, was scratching his head above his ear and leaning into it slightly. After making eye contact with Sam, he smiled sheepishly and felt he needed to add to this conversation to prove he had been listening. "This matches up with the other two how?"

Jody explained, "Well, four abductions, strong evidence left at every scene. Literally."

Sam checked his brother to make sure he was still focused. Dean rolled his eyes and sighed an almost imperceptible sigh. He was fine . He wasn't stupid. It was just sometimes, if he wasn't focused, he'd drift. It wasn't like he was becoming an invalid or it had too much of an effect on his hunting. It was his job to worry about Sam. Not the other way around.

The pause in the conversation became too conspicuous. Jody noticed, but before she could comment on that, Sam continued, keeping them focused on the case. "So, first vic was a pastor?"

As much as Jody wanted to ask the boys what was going on between them, she couldn't when they were talking about victims and the case. Personal feelings seemed woefully unimportant in comparison to people's lives. "Yeah. Door of his study was punched in. And then, the next two-an engaged couple."

Dean chimed in, "Locked bedroom window was ripped open."

"Mm-hmm. And then we have our waitress here with the topsy-turvy ride," Jody added.

"Any other connection among them?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. They were all members of Good Faith church here." Jody paused and then added, with a touch of embarrassment to her words, "My, uh, my church group back in Sioux Falls was in a tizzy over it."

"Hmm." Dean said.

"What?"

The hunter grinned. "I didn't peg you for churchy."

"Yeah. You know... Choking on the ladies' room floor 'cause of witchcraft kind of makes a higher power seem relevant." The date with Crowley was in the front of her mind because of Dean's mention of it earlier, but honestly, it was something she'd never truly forget.

Dean's face softened in concern. "Jody, are you sure you're, uh, to jump back in the fray?" All Jody could think was that Dean was too good at this.

"This wackadoo stuff keeps coming. More I know, better armed I'll be."

Dean nodded. Sometimes, the best way to cope was just to keep moving on and do what you can.

Again, Sam was trying to get things back on track. "Okay, so, we have, uh, missing church folk and super strength. Maybe angels harvesting vessels? Could be a Buddy Boyle type thing."

"Wh- angels? You're joking."

"Don't get your pants on fire. They suck," Dean said, thinking especially of the angel in Sam.

"You said there was a witness," Sam said.

Jody smiled sheepishly. "Yeah. Well… more or less."