Disclaimer: They're cute, but I don't own them.

A/N: Well, the bad news is there will be no new chapter of Causality this weekend. The good news is you get this tag. I think that's good news.

Also this is a two part tag, the next part should be out in the next day or so. I hope y'all enjoy and don't forget to tip you hostess on the way out.

Chapter 1

Failed Martyrs

"Guys!" Sam shouted, attempting to push down the rapidly raising panic in his chest. "Hey! Wake up, Dean!" He dug his knuckles into Dean's sternum, without so much as a flinch from his unconscious brother. "Cas!" He turned back toward the angel.

Cas pushed himself up off the floor and quickly covered the distance. He knelt at Sam's side and pressed two fingers against Dean's forehead. Lines creased his forehead as he concentrated.

Sam looked between his brother and the angel with wide eyes. The angel's healing powers were supposed to be instant, damage undone in no longer than a quick blink. "Cas?"

Castiel shook his head, drawing his hand away from Dean. "I . . . I can't heal him."

Sam's breath caught painfully in his chest. "Is he . . ." He couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't even allow himself to finish the thought. That would make this too real. Dean was fine. He had to be fine.

"I. . ." Cas raised his gaze, his face holding more worry then Sam had ever seen the angel show. "I don't know."

Dean made a sudden gagging sound and bucked up between them, a strangled grunt escaping through tightly clenched teeth.

"Dean!" Hope surged through Sam as his brother fought to sit up, and he moved to press a hand behind Dean's shoulder as he attempted to curl in on himself. That hope was crushed instantly as he realized his brother's eyes were still shut, that he seemed to be struggling against something or someone. "Hey, Dean!"

Dean fell back to the floor then arched up off the ground once more, tense limbs twisting and shifting as shudders ran through him. Sam grappled to steady him, desperate to keep his brother from injuring himself further. "Cas," he barked, and the angel reached out to hold Dean's bent, flailing arms as Sam attempted to brace his head.

Just as quickly as it started, Dean fell limply against the hardwood, like a puppet with its strings cut.

"What was that?"

Heart thudding, Sam turned his head as Rowena came into the room. She stopped short next to Jack, who looked just as lost and worried as the rest of them.

"I don't . . ." Sam looked back down to his immobile brother, hands hovering uselessly.

"Sam, if Michael—"

"We need to get him back the bunker," Sam said abruptly, not allowing Cas to finish. Dean would be fine. He pulled one of his brother's arms over his shoulder, wincing as the man's head flopped forward. Cas wordlessly moved to help lift Dean up. "Rowena, can you take Jack back?" He knew it wasn't likely Rowena had any intention of following them all the way back to the bunker once the gorgon was killed, but Dean barely fit lying down in the Impala by himself. There was no way they could realistically cram another person in the back.

Rowena nodded faintly as they passed by her and made their way out to the car.

They laid Dean out carefully across the backseat of the Impala, cushioning his wounded head with a clean towel from the trunk. Sam gave his brother's prone form one last worried glance as he pulled out of the car, hoping against everything that Dean would snap awake and bitch at him for the worry, that he'd wipe the blood away on the leg of his jeans and crack a joke, and everything would be okay. But his brother remained still and unaware, unmoving.

He shut the door and slid behind the wheel, trying not to think about all the times he'd done this – driven the Impala when Dean was unable to. Sam shifted the car into drive and slammed his foot down on the gas, a spray of gravel flying from beneath the tires as he peeled out of the parking lot. At least the apartment building was on the outskirts of town; they wouldn't have to cut through the city before hitting the highway. He wasn't sure he'd have the restraint to keep from recklessly speed through the busy area.

Sam fidgeted in the driver's seat, gaze bouncing up to the rearview mirror every few moments to check on his brother. Dean's face remained lax, his bloody head rolling slightly as the car pushed forward. They should have patched the wound, done something to keep it from being open and vulnerable for the literal hours it would take them to reach the bunker. Moot point, Sam reminded himself firmly. He'll wake up. Cas will heal it before we hit the state line. He nodded to himself, adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. Cas will –

Cas was rotated awkwardly on the passenger side of the bench seat, keeping watch with wide eyes. Waiting, either for Dean to snap out of it, or for . . .

Sam pressed his foot harder against the pedal, willing the car to go faster.

Cas reached back to the backseat pressing his fingers against Dean's forehead in another attempt to heal him.

"Anything?" he asked, that bit of clinging hope fluttering once more in his chest.

The angel shook his head in frustration as he withdrew his hand. "No."

Sam twisted his hands around the steering wheel, remembering what Cas had told him before. It's not possible for an angel to heal an archangel. But Dean wasn't an archangel, he just had one locked in his head. It was different, it had to be different. Dean would be fine, he just . . . he just had a concussion. That was all. This had nothing to do with Michael. Dean had always been all right. He would always be all right.

"Cas—" He was cut off by a strangled yell from the backseat and looked back to see Dean arching off the seat.

His head snapped back against the cushioned bench, but Sam flinched as though the impact had been against concrete. The muscles in Dean's neck strained, ad he cried out again as his body shuddered. Cas leaned over the seat and pressed a hand against Dean's chest in an attempt to keep him from rolling to the car floor.

Sam drove faster still, silently pleading with Dean as he forced himself not to look in the rearview and fought to ignore the sounds coming from his brother. Then Dean stopped moved, his hand thudding dully against the floormat as he fell limp, just as suddenly as he had in the apartment. It seemed to have lasted forever, but a glance at his watch confirmed the . . . whatever it was, had lasted only half the time as the first one. He wasn't sure what that meant for his brother. Didn't know whether that meant he was getting better or getting worse.

Sam dragged a hand down his face, then finally looked over his shoulder again at his brother. A slightly manic bubble of laughter tumbled pass his lips before he had a chance to stop it.

Cas raised an eyebrow at him. "Sam?"

"I was . . ." He swallowed thickly, trying to maintain focus on the road down with they were currently traversing at a hundred and three miles per hour. "Dean not waking up, having. . ." He shook his head, searching for the right word. "I just realized the best-case scenario here is serious head trauma." He sniffed back another choke of crazed, inappropriate laughter, then cleared his throat. "Never thought I'd be hoping for—" he cut himself off, wishing like hell that they didn't still have five hours of travel ahead of them. "He'll be okay, though." Sam nodded sharply, unsure who he was trying to convince. "I mean it's Dean."

Cas lips twisted into a frown, sadness clouding his features.

He'd been hoping for some assurance and confirmation, not . . . Sam couldn't help but wonder at what point the angel had become so achingly human. "What?" he asked warily.

"Sam, Dean . . ." Cas paused, twisting once more to check on the hunter.

Sam followed his head. Without the ominous gash in the side of his forehead, his brother might have been sleeping.

"At the diner, Dean told me that Michael never stops pounding in his head, that he can't let down his guard even for a moment. That he barely even sleeps."

"What?" Sam had guessed about the pounding, knew that Michael, an archangel, wouldn't let up for a moment and wouldn't tire of railing against that door in Dean's mind. But the sleeping – that one he didn't know, and he should have.

"Sam, your brother is one of the strongest humans I have ever known, but he's still human. The stress his body and mind have been under these past weeks – months, even. It's not sustainable."

00000

Fire blazed through him, sending red-hot blasts into the base of his skull and down his spine. His head burned with a sort of relentless, all-encompassing fire he'd not known before this very moment. He struggled to remember where he was, why he was, anything that existed beyond the hot pain radiating throughout his entire being.

He fought like hell, his brain struggling to comprehend and defend. Misfired thoughts slipped through his fingers like shards of glass, shredding his consciousness until everything was reduced to a single thought.

Michael.

The archangel was here nearby, somewhere. He was in the bar; he could hear the pounding on the door but couldn't see anything through the red-hot agony threatening to tear him apart. He had to find Michael, had to keep the archangel where he belonged, locked behind that door where he couldn't hurt anyone else.

Dean pushed himself off the ground on trembling arms. He stumbled dangerously once he found his feet, collided painfully with the edge of the bar as the banging in his head raised to a deafeningly painful level. He grabbed at his head with one desperate hand, fingertips digging into his hair as he shoved beer bottles out of his way with his other. He could hear the archangel fighting against him, struggling to escape his cage, but he still couldn't see anything. He couldn't find the door, working his way blindly through the bar by the virtue of an outstretched arm. The pounding surrounded him, taking him over and threatening to suffocate him.

Dean growled, yelled in frustration, "Where is he!"

The bar flickered into view as he stumbled toward the wall, knocking over items as he continued to search for the walk-in fridge, the door precariously locked with a screwdriver built of willpower. The door was here somewhere – he knew it was. He just had to find it. If he could find it he could reinforce his hold and keep Michael inside. He had to. He couldn't let him out. He could handle the pain of this burning fire through his head and his body. Nothing else mattered except that door. Except keeping his brother, his family safe.

He pushed off the wall, staggered as the room around him flickered, shifting between the bar in his mind and the infirmary in the bunker. He faltered at that, lost some more of his tenuous hold on Rocky's. Something was wrong. Something had to be, if they in the infirmary. Someone was hurt, and it was his fault. He'd hurt someone. Oh, God, he'd hurt someone. He should never have let Sam talk him out of going into the Mal'ak box.

"Dean, stop it!"

His brother's voice cut through the noise, pulling the bunker into sharp focus.

"It's me. You're in the bunker!"

"I know where I am!" Dean roared, pressing a hand against the table in an attempt to balance himself. The fiery pain was receding, leaving behind a scorched, hollowed-out feeling that was rapidly spreading through his limbs. "That's not—"

That's when he realized the pounding had stopped. He hadn't noticed – how had he missed . . .

"Dean?"

The sudden silence in his head was nearly unbearable as he found the door Michael had been locked behind.

Dean blinked, turned slowly toward his brother. "He's gone." The door was broken off the frame, kegs and anything else the archangel had found to throw in the small area laid strewn across the floor like casualties of a hard-fought war. "Michael . . . he's gone."