It had been six weeks since Dean had lain on that sofa in Bobby's house, daydreaming and drinking beer, on the fateful day Raphael and Castiel had paid him a visit and never left.

Bobby's house was now crawling with Angels and He and Sam and Dean's struggle to assimilate and adapt to their new life was a roller coaster of highs and lows. Of course there was the food. The Angels only served their spit roasted meat once a week or maybe twice if there was a feast day and manna, wine and assorted fruit are surprisingly low in calories.

Not a real problem for the ultra-health conscience Sam who'd been on a similar diet since his short lived bout with obesity as a child. Dean, never shy about eating, easily compensated by almost constant grazing at the continuously laden feast tables, but for poor Bobby Singer it was a particular nightmare.

Denied the greasy carb and meat laden home cooked meals he loved and all forms of alcohol except for the holy wine which was fucking close to water for a man who'd been a daily whiskey drinker for years, his weight dropped precipitously. Soon saggy jowls and a midsection paunch gave way to countable ribs and visible cheekbones. It got so bad that some of the Angels took to "supervising" Bobby's meal-times; until they were satisfied his consumption levels were adequate.

Their requirements were not that high, however and Bobby continued to be shockingly thin which was probably for the best considering the second biggest trial of living with Angels, the nudity.

It turned out that for the Angels, nudity was not an oversight or a fashion statement, it was a requirement. God had not permitted the Angels to wear clothing unless it facilitated dealing with humans.

In His absence the Angels had doggedly continued the custom as a way of displaying their continued faith and servitude to God and as a hope that their beauty would cause Him to be homesick and return.

The war over clothing between the three men and the Angels began almost as soon as the Angels began moving in. Before they'd laid eyes on the first of the lower order Angels that would swarm the Singer household all the food in the house had disappeared and been replaced by the Heavenly food that was now the daily fare.

At the time, the men had not realized that all of their spare clothing, shoes, towels and bedding had also been removed. It did not take Sam, Bobby or Dean long to become wary of removing any item of clothing less the Angels make off with it to destroy it or at least hide it.

Castiel was no help either. He refused to intercede on the men's behalf with the other Angels on any matter except Dean's car which had been parked on a pedestal next to the roasting spit and had flowers planted all around.

Castiel had never told Dean or any of the others this but he'd always held a soft spot for the car.

He'd watched people for centuries and could never understand the way they could pour so much of their emotions into things, mere objects. People were willing to die for things as much, if not more, than for each other.

He could not count the number of times he watched people feel in their hearts revulsion and hatred towards their fellows and the things of nature while giving love to created objects having neither soul nor grace.

This caused him to feel confusion, many times had he and the members of his garrison puzzled over these things. Indeed, he was sure that this was part of the reasoning Uriel used to justify his stance and in the end Castiel could never forgive his Brother his blasphemous treachery, he could at least understand it.

Then he met the Winchesters, for three years he was with them and walked almost as a human. They embraced him as no humans ever had before, they loved him and fought by his side, but most of all they taught him.

He'd been watching them, Dean especially, and he'd noted their bizarre attachement to the Impala, the ugly, the bulky, the slow, the inefficient.

He'd been bemused by the way they stayed with the car, leaving it only to purge evil or to rest in their continent wide, nomadic domicile web. He'd been disgusted when he'd witnessed Dean eyeing it with his soppy lovers gaze when so many women had been mere useful parts to him, and he'd been hurt when Dean told him in a blunt and rather vile manner that he'd preferred travel in the Impala to flight, the glory of the Angels.

On that day, he'd submitted as he always had, he remembered sitting next to Dean on the wide pretend leather seats during the long, agonizingly slow drive, marveling at all the emotions he'd been feeling and realizing that the object had been the car.

Whenever Dean wasn't speaking to him or looking, absorbed in driving or his own thoughts, Castiel would run his hand over the car parts and through them. He would feel the resonances of Dean and the other owner and the many hands that made and designed the car and all it's parts.

This car had been home to two families, had actually been considered a member of the family by both. This car and every single one of it's parts had been the life's work of hundreds of people. The reason they had given themselves for their very existence.

Angels made beautiful things all the time, with their hands by the intent of the Father, for his Honor and Glory, but they never created the way humans did, humans put everything they had into their creations, infused it with love and lent it part of their own soul, humans created like the Father.

With that conviction in his heart, it had been easy to quell his brothers. Unclean or not, the Impala stayed.

Some evenings He and the three men would find themselves sitting in the car; joking in a way that would certainly have earned them some pleasure had they dared to do it in the house, reminiscing about old hunts or just sitting back sipping Holy wine pretending that it's beer. The web of love that would form would draw the Angels and they would stand around the car and worship God with prayer and their sweet, sweet singing.