Disclaimer: I only own Aniel (though I wish I owned the boys).

A/N: Sorry for the bit of the delay and shorter chapter, I'm just coming off a week of midterms. Hopefully the next chapter will be up sooner! Also, I had NO idea about how angels, demons, etc. traveling while they're in a human body, so from here on in I'm making it up as I go along.

Dean had half expected Sam to launch into a huge speech when they reached the Impala; something about how do we know we can trust him and are we just going to listen to him, with an underlying, but unspoken, what do we do now, but it never came. Instead he just threw his bag into the car before quietly sliding into the passenger seat. Dean glanced over at him worriedly, but couldn't suppress the grin that spread across his face when he saw that Sam was gazing unseeingly out the front windshield, his mind already working to fit the pieces together.

Dean turned on the music as he pulled out of the motel. Sam would talk to him in his own time. He knew, now more than ever, how obnoxious it could be to be pestered for information when you didn't want to talk; he wasn't going to do that to Sam, not when he knew he would confide in him soon enough.

In the frantic rush to pack and get on the road Dean hadn't really had a chance to stop and think about what exactly they were doing. Now, with nothing to really distract him, he was starting to regret just running out on the angel's orders. He hadn't blindly followed anyone in almost two years- not since his father had died, anyway. He didn't know Aniel at all; it unnerved Dean to think about how convincing he had been.

They had just entered another small town and, in an attempt to think about something other than his father, Dean began to study the people and buildings. It was something he used to do as a kid to pass the time during long car trips between his dad's jobs. He never knew if any of the theories he came up with were true but even when he was young he knew that he was probably completely wrong.

He quickly spotted a middle aged woman with a small gaggle of children surrounding her and began to silently come up with a story that vaguely resembled that of the Pied Piper. Dean was trying to think about what she would do with the children she had kidnapped when he suddenly slammed on his brakes, whipping his head around to stare behind him.

"Dean, what the hell are you doing!?" Sam yelled, rubbing his collarbone where the seatbelt had dug in. "You're lucky this isn't a busy street, you just can't stop in the middle of the road like that!"

Dean slowly turned around, breathing deeply and trying to calm his racing heart. "Sorry, Sammy," he said distractedly as he began driving again.

"Why'd you stop anyway?"

"I… nothing." Dean wasn't going to tell Sam why he slammed on his brakes. The fact was, he could hardly believe it himself. Still, he glanced in his rearview mirror anyway. The familiar looking man in the tan trench coat wasn't there anymore, though he refused to listen to the small part of him that insisted that that would make sense if it really was Castiel. It couldn't be the angel, it just couldn't be. God, now I'm seeing things? Maybe I should try to get some more sleep- isn't one of the signs of sleep deprivation hallucinations or something?

"Dean? Have you been listening to anything I've been saying?"

Oh crap. "Look, Sam, if this is about what happened back there, I really don't-"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dean, I've been talking about Aniel. Are you sure we can trust him?"

"You were the one that splashed holy water on him, let him into our motel room, and agreed to leave town," Dean pointed out.

Sam winced. "Touché," he murmured, before launching back into his rant. "I know, but I've been thinking about it. Dean, what the hell are we doing? We don't even know if this guy really is an angel. He's not anything like Castiel was!"

"Uriel wasn't too similar to Castiel either, though."

Sam stared at his brother. "Since when are you sticking up for them?" he asked.

"Since when are you against them?" Dean countered. "I thought you were supposed to be the religious one."

"It's not that I'm against them, but don't you think we're rushing into this? I mean, we talk to this Aniel guy at once, for less than an hour, and suddenly we're on the road on his orders, with no proof that any of his story is real? We know nothing about him!"

"If you threw holy water on him then he's not a demon…" Dean began, but Sam quickly cut him off.

"That's not necessarily true."

Dean frowned. "What're you talking about? You throw holy water on a demon and it burns them. You know that."

Sam shook his head. "Not always. Remember when Yellow Eyes possessed Dad?"

Dean's hands tightened almost imperceptibly on the steering well. "Of course," he said tersely. "What about it?"

"I splashed holy water on him, Dean, and nothing happened," Sam said quietly. "And before you say it, yes, he did get past the salt- but Yellow Eyes wasn't affected by salt barriers either."

Dean froze. "So what you're saying is Yellow Eyes is back and pretending to be an angel," he said woodenly, cringing at his own pathetic attempt at a joke.

Sam sighed. "What I'm saying is that we need to consider the possibility that maybe this guy isn't what he says he is. I'm willing to bet that more demons than just Alastair are pissed that you escaped from hell, and not all of them are going to be the low-level ones we usually encounter."

"Or he could actually be an angel, which would explain him being impervious to holy water and salt," Dean said. "And unless we force him under a Devil's Trap and try to exorcise him, we'll never know."

Sam shook his head. "Castiel's dead, you're believing in angels, I'm seeing demons everywhere, and we're driving through the middle of nowhere on the orders of someone we just met." He snorted. "What the hell is wrong with us?"

Dean chuckled and the two of them fell back into a comfortable silence. They did their best to keep traveling as much as possible, only making a few stops and eating their meals as they drove. It wasn't the sun had already set that Dean asked, "Think we should find a motel for the night?"

"Hm? Yeah, probably," Sam said, looking up from the articles he had been going through. "Hey, what town are we in?"

"Fairfield, I think," Dean said. "Why?"

"Over the past couple of weeks people have been going crazy- like full out, straight-jacket and padded room crazy," Sam explained. "All of them started to act different on Monday and had to be institutionalized by Saturday. By the end of that Sunday, they all died."

Dean glanced down at the articles his brother was holding. "So what are you thinking? Vengeful spirit?"

"Maybe," Sam said. "We'd have to do some digging to figure it out, though. Do you think Aniel's going to want us sticking around long enough to look into it, though?"

Dean bit back the He's not our father comment that was on the tip of his tongue; that would open an entirely new can of worms that he didn't want to deal with. "He can't stop us from doing our job," he finally said.

It wasn't long after that they saw the all-too-familiar neon sign marking the location of the local motel. Dean parked the car and grabbed their duffels and weapons while Sam was checking in. When he returned, Sam tossed him one of the keys and unlocked their motel room, flicking on the light switch as he walked inside.

Dean had followed close behind him and almost ran into Sam, who had stopped almost immediately after entering the room. "Damnit, Sammy, a little warning next time!" he snapped, dropping one of the bags and kicking the door shut.

Sam didn't say anything. He just took a step to the left, allowing Dean to see Aniel, who was standing in the middle of the room watching the two Winchesters with an expressionless face. "Hello, Dean," he said.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Dean asked. "How did you even get in here?"

"I am an angel of the Lord," Aniel said, as if that explained everything.

Dean snorted, but didn't comment. "Listen, there's a possible hunt around here. Sam and I are going to stay here for a couple of days and we're going to need to focus on this, so I'd appreciate it if you cleared out."

Aniel tilted his head slightly, the only physical indication that he was confused. "You don't understand. Both of you need to be prepared for the future battles against Lilith. There is no time to track down spirits."

"No, you don't understand," Dean said. "We have a job to do, a job that doesn't involve seals and angels and the fucking apocalypse! Not to mention that we are not going to be running all over the country just because you tell us to!"

Aniel sighed. "Dean, I wasn't planning on having you leave town right away," he said patiently. "There is no way you can learn everything you must if you are constantly moving. However, you also cannot learn everything if you're on a hunt."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

"How about a compromise?" Sam said quickly. "It's Sunday, so we have exactly a week until the next person dies. We get all day tomorrow for research. After that, we get a few hours everyday to continue and the rest of the time is yours."

Aniel thought about it for a moment while Sam discreetly stepped on Dean's foot to keep him from saying anything. "Very well," he finally said. "I will return early on Tuesday." With that, he vanished.

After Aniel left, Dean glared at Sam. "Why the hell did you do that?" he asked.

Sam dumped his duffle on one of the beds and turned to look at his brother. "Because I figured it would be better to stay on his good side until we know what's going on," he said. "And I don't know about you, but I'm going to sleep. We have one day to find this spirit, remember."

"Yeah, whatever," Dean said. He was exhausted, but he knew that if he tried to sleep he'd only be woken up in an hour or two because of nightmares. "Listen, I'm starving. Do you want to grab something to eat before you crash?"

Sam shook his head. "No, I'm fine. You head out if you want to, though. I'll take care of the salt lines and everything while you're gone."

Dean nodded and left the room without another word. He opened the door to the Impala and slid in, taking a moment to just relax before putting the key in the ignition. He glanced in his rearview mirror and jumped. There, staring back at him from across the street, was Castiel. Dean quickly looked over his shoulder, but the angel wasn't there anymore.

He slowly turned around, shaking slightly. "Okay, quick food run and then sleep," he muttered as he pulled out of the parking lot. "Because I'm pretty sure that seeing a dead angel twice in one day counts as a hallucination."