Author's Note: So this is Chapter 2. Obviously. I had planned to hold off posting it for a few days but I'm addicted to reviews. Leave me one and I will love you forever. Chapters 3 and 4 are still in the writing/editing stage so it may be a few more days before I post them. I'll try not to take too long. Thanks again for the initial support. Hope you enjoy Chapter 2.

Chapter 2

"Son of a bitch!" Dean barked as he tripped. He'd nearly dropped the panel of the shed they were framing. On himself. Twice now. He glared down at his feet, searching for the guilty party. Something was definitely fucking with him. The three or four hours of sleep he'd been getting lately were the norm. It was fine.

"Maybe you should lay off the Jack first thing in the morning," Sid laughed beside him, clapping Dean on the back.

Dean gave him a rueful smile. "What? Hey, I'm sober as a priest on Sunday." Truth was he'd run out of booze. It was a damn tragedy. That was his next job after they were done building Sid's new shed. Assuming they ever did. Easy to assemble, my ass, he thought bitterly.

They went back to work and Dean managed to stay upright and generally unscathed until they'd hammered the last nail into place.

The sun was ungodly bright overhead. If Dean hadn't known just how dry he was, he might have thought he was hungover with as hard as the sun was hitting him. But it wasn't the sun. Just the dreams and the lack of sleep catching up with him. He rubbed a hand over his eyes trying to clear the fog from them.

Sid had run into the house to get them each a beer for a job well done. Dean hadn't been against the idea in the slightest. In fact, he was all for it. Maybe the problem was that he was too sober. He hadn't been this dry in weeks. Months even. It might have felt good, clean, if it wasn't for the sun and the damn nagging feeling that something was sneaking up on him. The skin on the back of his neck crawled.

He'd been fighting off the feeling all morning. It was either that or head for his garage and the stash of weapons he kept in the trunk of the Impala. Ready, willing, and able at a moment's notice. He kept the keys in his pocket at all times. Hadn't told Lisa. She might have thought he planned to bolt. But really, what was the point? Where could he run to? There wasn't anywhere that he hadn't already been. With Sam. They'd crisscrossed the entire country more times than he could count. There wasn't an inch of it to be found that wouldn't remind him of his brother, of the sacrifice he had made, and what the price had been. Too fucking high, that's what the price had been.

In his spare time, after Lisa went to sleep, Dean still pored over every book he had. Leather bound, beat up, ragged pages in languages that he could never understand, Dean had given them all his best shot. He'd stopped just short of seeking out a crossroads. Barely. But Sam had been the researcher. Not Dean. He'd done his damnedest. He'd tried. He'd really tried. He was still trying. But that didn't make it any easier to watch the sun set each day. It didn't slow the change of seasons. They were reminders of how much further away from Sam he was getting. He wanted to do something. He needed to do something. But he was stuck spinning his wheels. Dean looked up. He was building sheds and drinking beer with neighbors. That's what he was doing.

His mouth screwed up in sudden distaste.

Yeah, he'd promised. But Sam had to know he was lying when he did. There wasn't a damn thing in Heaven, Hell, or on Earth that would keep him from saving Sam. Somehow.

Dean looked around, wondering what was taking Sid so long.

Then he noticed the shadow in the trees, next yard over.

Dean was up before he even realized, ready to leap the fence and check it out, hand on his belt where his gun wasn't. Dammit. He was armed with a hammer that had seen better days and the keys to his baby. In the suburbs. That wasn't going to kill anything. Assuming there was anything to kill. Dean wavered between praying there was and hoping there wasn't.

Sid saved him the trouble of finding out.

"We miss something?" Sid asked with a nod towards the hammer clenched in Dean's fist.

"Nah." Dean gave it a flip, catching it neatly before putting it back down, but he kept his attention on that spot over the fence. He'd seen something. Hadn't he? "Was wondering what was taking so long."

"Phone call from the mother-in-law." Sid's mouth twitched into a grimace. He held out one of the beers in his hand for Dean.

They sat together for another hour talking. Afterwards Dean couldn't remember a damn thing they'd said. He'd been too busy watching the trees next door.

"I think I'm getting paranoid," Dean said with a sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked down at the grass. He scuffed a foot through it, digging a toe into the packed soil beneath. The grass was rapidly browning. Definitely wouldn't need mowing again until next year. He was a little disappointed. "Or going crazy. Where the hell are you, Cas?" He looked up at the sky, wondering if Cas was up there somewhere. Watching like a stalker? Or was he ignoring him? "Too busy for me, huh? Fine. Fuck you then. But it woulda been nice to talk to someone. You know. Someone who understands. Lisa tries. She does. But she doesn't know. Not like you'n me."

He was most likely drunk. He'd forgotten where to draw that line a long time ago just like he'd forgotten how to keep count of the bottles he emptied on nights like this. He stretched in the chair, running his legs out over the grass and staring at this toes. His boots were so damn clean, not covered in dust and dirt and grime. No ashes left over from the latest salt and burn. No blood. Not a single damn smudge of ooze that he couldn't explain in polite company. So this was normal life. He hadn't cleaned a blood stain from his clothes since that time he punched the mirror.

"My boots are so fucking clean," he griped, tossing back the remains of the bottle in his hand and dropping it to the ground beside him. It hit the others with a clink and rolled away. "And some guy from work invited me to play golf. Fucking golf. What the hell, man? It's all plaid pants and funny hats, right? I can't play golf. I mean, look at me. You know how much shit I've killed? Nasty things. Evil things. Nasty, fuckin' evil things," he reiterated just in case Cas had missed it the first time. Wherever he was. "Can't tell those stories on the golf course."

He kept on rambling half to himself and the rest to his imaginary friend the angel. The dick. Where was he?

Dean had never told Lisa about the angel on his shoulder. Or any of the rest of it for that matter. He doubted even she would be able to believe what had happened that day. The day the Apocalypse wasn't.

"And Sam was right, dammit. It was a good plan. But why'd it have to be him? Why's it always gotta be us? Haven't we done enough? Given enough? Suffered enough? Isn't it somebody else's turn yet?"

The stars overhead blurred into a jumble of light and dark. He had the urge to bellow at the sky, hope maybe God heard him. The douche. Not that he'd answer.

But Dean didn't do it.

One of these days Lisa would get tired of him waking her up from a sound sleep. She would get tired of his constant drinking and the crazy look he got in his eyes. If she kicked him out he might really drink himself into the grave. Another grave. How many had it been so far? It would be better than being alone. He couldn't be alone. Not yet.

Dean felt around on the ground beside him, hoping there was another bottle that he hadn't sucked dry. No such luck.

As if to cement his rotten luck, it started to rain. It was only a light drizzle. Dean had been in worse. He'd fought in worse. But it was cold and uncomfortable and he was out of booze so he hoisted himself out of the chair and stumbled towards the back door, bobbing and weaving like a prize fighter. He just wished he could control it.

He felt the change in the air more than heard it. The rain covered any noise with a hush anyway. Dean spun, startled to find an unfamiliar face staring back at him. For a moment, he had thought it was Castiel finally come to visit. But the face was all wrong. The eyes watching him were the wrong kind of blank. Wrong vessel, wrong angel inside it.

"Dean Winchester."

The voice was not quite what Dean might have expected. It didn't have any of the thunder he'd come to expect from the angels. In fact it was downright nasal. He half expected the guy to be sporting a pocket protector and tape on his glasses. Assuming he was wearing any, which he wasn't. The suit, however, was pretty much standard issue angel though. They must all shop at the same store.

Dean wasn't sure if his name had been a question or an answer. Didn't really matter which. He was drunk and out of practice but he still knew what came next.

Dean dodged sideways as the angel reached for him. What he wouldn't give for an angel sword right about now. Speaking of which.

The blade glinted in the angel's hand as if called forth by Dean's thoughts. If that was the case, Dean was fine with it disappearing again. Anytime.

"Raphael wishes to speak with you." The angel paused to let that sink in.

"Yeah, I can see that but I'm a little busy now. Is this about that holy oil thing 'cause that was all Cas's idea," Dean said, backing away from the house.

He racked his brain for anything he could use against the angel and came up with a long list of absolutely nothing. He'd kept an angel blade. He wasn't a total idiot. Unfortunately it was stashed safe and sound in the Impala with all the other weapons he'd saved. They were locked up tight in case Ben or his friends started getting nosy. The odds of Dean getting to the sword in one piece were just depressing.

Dean glanced from the house to the garage and back at the angel staring him down.

Oh, what the hell.

"I think you need to work on your stare," Dean said, reaching around and grabbing the chair he'd just vacated. He swung it up into the angel with a grunt, going for a homerun. The dick didn't even move as the chair broke apart. It rained down bits of plastic around him like confetti. Lisa wasn't going to be happy about that one assuming Dean was still around in the morning to explain it.

In the meantime, he took off towards the garage. The fact that he wasn't thoroughly ventilated already gave him some hope that Raphael really did want him in one piece. Of course, he'd seen what angels could do when they were motivated. It was hard to forget the feeling of stage 4 stomach cancer. At least he hadn't been the one to lose his lungs that time. Sam had had that pleasure. Vaguely, Dean wondered just how creative Raphael could be when he wanted something. Not that he was keen on finding out for certain.

Dean slammed into the side garage door in a hurry and skidded to a halt. The angel was waiting for him beside the covered Impala as if he'd been there all along.

"Are you finished?" the angel asked, arms slack at his sides.

He reached out a hand and Dean was much too familiar with what came next. He ducked, bobbing out of the way and nearly landing on his ass. He hit the wall instead, narrowly missing the business end of a rake. That really shouldn't be there.

Those angel fingers hovered closer, ready to zap Dean to points unknown, better left unknown. Then a thin silver blade sprouted from his throat. The angel's mouth formed an O of surprise and quickly filled with brilliant blue white light. Spotlight bright eyes glared at the roof of the garage and his scream had Dean clapping his hands over his ears. The angel's body hit the floor in a heap a second later, wings painting the concrete with black ash.

Dean looked up, sure that he had gone blind from the sudden surge of light. It had burned out his eyes. Had to be. Because he certainly wasn't seeing what he thought he was seeing.

"Hello, Dean."