A/N: holy shit i cannot stop writing this fic hope you eNJOY

CASTIEL

Sound was fading from his ears, replaced with a high-pitched ringing. His lungs were burning. His head was swimming. All other thoughts in his mind were obliterated besides the desperate mantra, over and over: I am human. I need air. I am human. I need air. I need air. Air. Air!

His vision was starting to lose focus when there was a brief blur of white, and the hold on his neck loosened and ceased. He slumped to the ground as his throat reopened, sucking in deep breaths as feeling gradually returned to his limbs. Hands were on either side of his face, turning it roughly upwards, a gruff voice saying his name over and over, growing louder in his ears as they, too, began to function again. His eyes focused on a familiar face: Dean. But he looked different—not quite… Dean.

Castiel had always noticed the precise shade of green of Dean's eyes; it was the very first thing he noticed, in fact, when he saw Dean's physical countenance for the first time. He remembered sparing a moment to marvel at his Father's design, at the depth of color in those two simple facets. Looking into them now, however, they seemed even more vibrant than before—almost captivating, even. Piercing. And there seemed to be—well, not a glow, but a general feeling about him, a hum of power that seemed to resonate through his very being. Castiel could see his wings, too, feathers rustling in the breeze coming through the broken windows. They were half-unfurled, almost protectively. He wondered briefly if this was what all angels looked like from the perspective of a human and suddenly felt even smaller and less significant than before.

Dean looked furious and scared and relieved all at once. "Cas—hey, Cas! You okay?" he asked sharply.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm okay. Does that make me weak? Castiel nodded, coughing, and Dean released him, rising to his feet. His throat was burning and his chest felt oddly constricted, making it difficult to inhale without experiencing a stab of pain. Sam, meanwhile, was standing off to the side with a shell-shocked expression. He looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn't put it into words.

A rumble of thunder brought Castiel's gaze upward, to the ceiling which was so filled with gaping holes that it had to be close to collapsing; then back down, where it rested on Dean. The wind was still blowing, the foundations of the building still snapping and creaking and now rain was coming down through the holes in the ceiling, flashes of lightning from the night sky illuminating Dean's silhouette every other second.

"Dean," said Castiel, warningly. Dean twitched at the sound of his name, but he seemed preoccupied, staring down at his hands with an unfathomable expression on his face. For one brief, terrifying moment that seemed to stretch into several long seconds, Dean's humanity disappeared. Castiel saw in those vivid eyes the same cold lack of emotion that he saw in the faces of his brethren—that he saw in himself. Dean, the most human human he had ever met with the most beautiful soul he had ever beheld, looked more now like the angel he was never supposed to be.

Castiel found that it scared him.

"Dean," he said again, more forcefully.

Then Dean looked away from his hands. His eyes met Castiel's, and the stony mask of indifference was gone, replaced by an expression of such immense despair and fear that Castiel was almost convinced he'd imagined his insecurities. "Help me, Cas," he half-whispered in a voice cracking with emotion. "I can't stop it."

Castiel glanced at Sam, convinced the younger Winchester would know more about calming Dean than he could ever offer, before remembering that Sam no longer considered himself Dean's brother. So, still trembling slightly from having his airway cut off and wincing as he felt the pain in his chest again, Castiel rose hesitantly to his feet so that he was eye-level with the out-of-control angel.

"Dean." He swallowed. "I'm not an angel anymore." It hurt—both physically and psychologically—to say it, to hear it out loud in his own voice, to confirm it in such a manner. "I cannot snap my fingers and make it all better." He paused to take a deep breath. "You need to fix this yourself."

Dean all but sobbed, "I don't know how."

Neither do I, Castiel wanted to say, but he held it back. "Take a deep breath," he murmured, in so low a voice that he wasn't sure Dean could even hear. He must've, though, because he screwed up his face, setting it with determination, and sucked in a long, slow breath through his nose. "Let it go. There are no more demons. You don't need to do this anymore."

Dean closed his eyes and exhaled a shaky breath. The vague aura of power faded as the thunder rumbled into the distance, like a truck driving away. His wings lowered and folded, becoming invisible again. The lightning ceased. The wind softened to a gentle breeze. The building stopped creaking and was still. The tension eased out of Castiel's shoulders as a feeling of peace settled over the place. Even Dean seemed to relax as he opened his eyes and looked around at the damage. He sagged where he stood, swaying for a moment like he was about to pass out. Both Sam and Castiel reached out and grabbed either arm to support him, holding him upright as, for a moment, his head lolled on his shoulders, eyelids fluttering. He seemed to be fighting to stay conscious.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Sam, frightened.

"He used up too much grace too quickly," said Castiel calmly. "Give him a moment, he'll be alright."

And so he was. Though he was pale and shaky, he managed to find his own footing, pulling through whatever small fit he had experienced. "S'okay," he said, waving a hand dismissively and pulling gently free of their grasp. "I'm okay."

The quiet sound of a small voice sobbing reached their ears in the silence that followed, and it seemed to rouse them from a daze. All three of them turned towards the sound to find the child they'd saved, curled in a fetal position near the front of the church, eyes wide and wet with tears. There were groans and stirrings, too, from most of the bodies lying on the ground. The demons were gone, and the people they'd possessed were slowly starting to recover.

"We'd better get out of here before the cops arrive," said Sam in a hollow voice. He and Dean turned to leave, and Castiel moved to follow, but after two steps he was forced to stop, the pain in his torso too great. Dean was the first to notice as Castiel gave a soft gasp, his left hand jumping to a spot over his ribcage.

"Whoa, hey, you okay? What is it?" he asked, turning to face Castiel.

"I think—I think one of my ribs is broken," he replied in a strained voice. In a moment, Dean's hand had followed Castiel's. "No, Dean, you've used too much grace already, don't—" Castiel started, but too late. Two fingers brushed over the spot he'd indicated, and after a brief rush of warmth to the area, the pain vanished and he was able to breathe normally again. Dean needed an extra second to regain his composure, but after that he appeared to be fine. So, in a wordless, morose fashion, the three of them filed quickly out of the synagogue and climbed back into the car. Even Dean, who could've just flown, clambered into the back seat. They hung back a little ways away, watching as the police cars arrived and making sure that everyone who was still alive—including the little boy—was brought out safe and sound. It was completely dark by the time they pulled away and headed back for the motel room.

-x-

SAM

Sam wasn't sure what he had just witnessed, but he knew he never wanted to see it happen again.

On the ten-minute drive back to the motel, Dean explained what had happened, from his visit to Heaven to the following two-hour cross-town chase. He had just been wrestling with five demons at once when Sam and Cas arrived. Sam had felt pretty useless at first, facing a whole group of demons with nothing but a bottle of holy water; he'd felt even more useless when he ran out of holy water and found himself pinned to the ground, the demon's breath foul on the side of his face as its sizzling skin slowly began to repair itself. His hastily-muttered exorcism had been cut short by the uppercut that got him on the ground in the first place. That was when he'd noticed Cas, his brother's hand on the demon's forehead like the angel he thought he was.

"Use the knife!" he'd shouted desperately, earning himself a kick in the gut from his captor.

Before the demon could do any more damage, however, Dean had appeared, and a second later, the demon—or, the human the demon had been riding—fell to the ground. "You okay, Sammy?" the angel had asked gruffly, pulling Sam to his feet.

Sam had nodded, any thought of correcting Dean's nickname for him out of his mind. They'd both turned to see Cas, still trapped against the wall, the demon holding him still choking the life out of him.

Sam had never seen Dean look as angry as he did in the split-second that followed. The next thing Sam had been aware of was a flash of light so blinding, he'd had to shield his eyes. It seemed to come from everywhere, and it wasn't until seconds later that he realized there had been a flash of lightning at the same time that Dean had smote the demon trying to kill Cas.

Sam had approached slowly, realizing with a pang of horror that he was completely responsible for the fact that Cas had almost just died. How could he have let Cas go into that church when he didn't remember a single thing about hunting? He'd seen it himself: Cas's first instinct had been to smite the demon, despite his lack of smiting ability. Whether Cas had once been an angel or not, there was no excuse for what Sam had done. He may as well have handed Ruby's knife to that little boy.

And then there was Dean, unable to get a handle on his grace, just as Cas had predicted. It was frightening, not just to watch, but also to know that this powerful being had almost lost complete control, and there was nothing he could've done about it. Sam should've listened to them more carefully, should've thought about it more…

They were sitting in the motel room now, at the tiny round table, staring into the distance, each with haunted looks on their faces. God only knows what Dean and Cas were thinking. Sam couldn't imagine what their situation must be like right now, how much more terrifying recent events must've made it. "I'm sorry," he blurted into the silence.

Both of them looked at him in surprise. "For what?" asked Dean, as if he could not imagine how the blame could possibly belong to Sam.

"For not listening. Cas, he, he told me, on the way here, about what happened to you, and I should've—should've done something…" He took a shaky breath. Somehow, it didn't seem adequate enough. Then again, apologizing incessantly for the rest of his life would not have seemed adequate enough. "I should've believed you. I'm sorry," he added again. "Cas, it's my fault. You almost died because of me, I can't just—"

Cas shook his head dismissively. "Do not put this on yourself, Sam," he said softly, his blue eyes sincere. "If I had died, it would've been no one's fault but mine."

Sam refused to accept this, but he didn't push it. "Still," he said, taking a deep breath and releasing it in a heavy sigh. "Tomorrow morning, we'll look for the Trickster. And until we find him, I'll teach you everything I know about hunting. Everything," he added for emphasis. He was so desperate to make up for his mistake that he wanted to pull out a shotgun right then and there and teach Cas its ins and outs.

Cas nodded slowly, and there was something of relief about his expression.

Feeling a little better already, Sam rose from the table. "I'm going to sleep," he said, rubbing his eyes. Despite the nap he'd taken that afternoon just before the hunt, he was exhausted.

-x-

DEAN

Cas looked as tired as Sam. Maybe it was the shadows under them, but even his eyes seemed to be a duller shade of blue than usual. Still, he was glad the guy wasn't going to bed yet—they had a lot to talk about. Not that he wanted to talk about it, but…

He waited until he heard Sam turn the water in the shower on. "So you told Sam?" he asked.

Cas nodded. "It appeared to be the best option, since he seemed to know something was… off."

Dean wasn't angry. Cas was right—it was probably better this way. They wouldn't have to hush it all up like they'd been trying to do. Now that Sam knew what was up, it wasn't completely up to Dean to teach Cas all this shit, thank God. And he was even going to help them look for the Trickster. That was definitely good news. Yeah, they needed Sam on their side.

They were both silent for a long moment. Then Cas asked, "Are you alright, Dean?"

Unbidden, the memory of how he had felt in that synagogue rose to the surface of his mind, but he quickly forced it back. He forgot the details of how scared he was, how he felt like the pilot of a crashing plane. He turned it into a distant memory, nothing more than a notion of something that had happened a long time ago. Even despite that, he still felt sick, like his stomach had just been substituted for a pinball. "Yeah, I'm fine, Cas," he said with what was meant to be a reassuring smile, but came out more as a grimace.

Cas didn't look convinced, but for a long time, he said nothing. Sam emerged from the bathroom about ten minutes later and collapsed into his bed. Soon after, the silence was filled with his quiet snores. "I can help you," said Cas gently, a few minutes later.

"With what?" As if he didn't know.

"Your grace. You need to learn how to master it before something… bad happens."

What was he now, the Incredible Hulk? He bit back a snappy retort. Cas just wanted to help, and he needed help, as much as he hated to admit it. How could he ever face a demon again, knowing that its death might bring on a Category-Five Hurricane Grace? He was fucking volatile. He gave a single, short nod. "Not tonight though, okay? I need some sleep, too."

Cas said nothing as Dean got up from the table and, careful not to wake Sam, laid down on the other bed. This was usually the part of the hunt where Cas went back upstairs for whatever the hell needed doing up there. Then, in about two hours, he'd probably reappear and say he needed their help, and they'd have to drag their asses back out of bed again… He laid there for several minutes before remembering that it would be Dean running errands for the Big Guy, not Cas. He lifted his head off the pillow and looked over to where Cas was still sitting, staring off into the distance.

"Cas, I forgot, you need to sleep," he said, starting to sit up.

"No, it's alright," said Cas quickly, though he looked more exhausted than ever. "I will stay up."

Dean thought about pointing out to him that he couldn't do that anymore, now that he was human, but he abandoned the cause. Instead, he just asked, "You sure?"

Cas nodded, but said nothing else. So, Dean laid back down on the mattress, closed his eyes, and waited for sleep to come.

In the dark, however, what he'd seen earlier that night seemed to stand out even more vividly, the things he'd heard resounding in the silence. The final cry of the dead little girl went off in his head periodically, as if to remind himself that, on top of underestimating his own power, he'd let her die, too. Why couldn't he have saved her? A second or two more time and he would've.

He flashed back to that moment directly after he'd killed the five demons that had first gone after him. He'd turned to see Sam, on the other side of the synagogue, with a demon holding him to the ground. What happened after that, even he wasn't sure. His whole body was on fire, his vision white except for that goddamn demon, his wings flaring up behind him (they felt anything but clumsy then)… and then the demon was dead, and he had it under control. He was able to breathe properly again because his grace was under the reins, like it should be—sort of. The storm was still howling outside and debris was still falling from the ceiling, but if he'd had a couple more seconds, he could've gotten a handle around that, too.

But then he turned and saw Cas, with the last demon at his throat—literally—and his fingers turning blue. And then it happened again. Fire, light, wings—worse this time, though, because that was when he lost it completely. It was like trying to lasso a hurricane. It was like trying to keep a leash on a charging rhino. It was like trying to steer a fucking comet. The power was there, scorching his insides and just screaming to be used, but he didn't have any direction for it to go. The demons were gone. There was nothing evil to be killed within at least a mile in any direction. He wanted nothing more than to shove his grace back into whatever dark hole it had exploded out of, but it didn't want to. It refused to. For a second, he felt like a demon had possessed him. The only reason he could stop it from blowing a gasket at all was because it seemed to be satisfying itself by bringing down the building around him. Lightning that he'd summoned struck a tree outside. Rain that he'd called poured through holes he'd punched through the ceiling. Wind that he'd brought filled the hollows under his wings, ruffled his hair, tore at his coat.

He was holding onto that grace for dear life, because if he didn't, God only knows what would've happened to Cas. Or to Sam. Or to the entire damn town. His stomach clenched just thinking about it, and he rolled over in the bed, facing the wall. For a moment, he couldn't close his eyes.

Then there was Cas. Naïve, innocent, pole-up-the-ass-Cas, and his only chance at keeping all his shit in one sock. It was embarrassing how much hysteria he'd been unable to keep out of his voice when he practically begged the guy for help. And he did help—as much as he could, at least. I'm not an angel anymore, he'd said. I cannot just snap my fingers and make it all better. You need to fix this yourself. What Cas said wasn't what he wanted to hear—but it was definitely what he needed to hear. He was on his own now. He didn't have an angel on his shoulder anymore; he was the angel on his shoulder.

Those words hadn't changed his current condition, but the next ones did, for a reason Dean couldn't explain. The guy hadn't said anything Dean didn't already know, but there was something about his voice that gave Dean something to focus on intently enough to block out everything else. It calmed him, gave him just enough of an edge to quell his grace back down to a manageable trickle. He could feel it now, a well of warm energy leaking out through a crack in his heart. It was annoying—he just wanted to sleep, but it was like a fucking IV feed of RedBull.

Several hours passed like this, his head spiraling around everything he didn't want to think about. He felt as awake as ever. It was annoying—he literally couldn't sleep. He'd rolled over about a hundred times trying to find a comfortable position, but every passing minute only made him more frustrated and restless. Everything was constant. Nothing ached or felt heavy or got kinks or cramped or anything. He supposed he should be grateful, but God, it was so unsettling… Finally, he stood, giving up on sleep completely. Screw it. Who needs sleep? Not angels, he supposed.

The clock on the nightstand read two in the morning. Cas was still sitting at the table but had, unsurprisingly, fallen asleep on it, slumped over with his head propped up on his elbow, his mouth hanging open slightly. It didn't look like a very comfortable position.

"Hey. Come on, Cas, buddy, wake up," said Dean quietly, gently rousing the blue-eyed man.

Cas woke with a start and looked around blearily, as if expecting to see something that wasn't there. "Where… where is he?" he murmured, still gazing tiredly about the room as Dean pulled him to his feet. He was really out of it.

"Sam? He's right there," said Dean, pointing to the other bed. "Just pipe down and relax, alright? You need your sleep. Come on."

Cas's eyes landed on Sam as Dean helped him to the other bed, but he shook his head. "No," he said, his brow furrowing, "no, it was someone else. Someone…" He stopped talking at that point, though, because Dean had just laid him down on the bed, and he settled into the mattress with a soft sigh.

"It was just a dream," said Dean calmly. "Get some rest." He doubted the man even heard him with as quickly as he drifted off. Lucky bastard.

-x-

CASTIEL

Castiel had been sitting alone at the table for nearly an hour. It had been alright at first—everything seemed normal, anyway. But after the first half hour he'd started to notice things. The heaviness weighing on him seemed to grow until his eyelids started to droop of their own accord. It was an alarming feeling, having no control over his own eyelids—they just slid shut every once in a while, for only a half-second at a time, and he'd have to give his head a shake to keep them open just a few seconds longer. Is this normal? he found himself wondering. Do humans always go through this routine when it gets this late in the night?

It didn't get any better, though. Next thing he knew, the heaviness was pulling at his head. It would dip under the weight, and then he'd be awake for a few seconds, and then his eyelids would close and his head would droop again… It took him a few minutes of the strange cycle to realize this must be what they called "nodding off." He found it was very detrimental to his thinking process. It was as though the altitude of his head was directly related to his ability to think. Whenever it dropped, his mind slowed down, and when it jerked up automatically as it always did, he came back to his senses.

Eventually, he decided it was annoying him, so he rested his elbow on the table and placed his chin on the palm of his hand for support. Perhaps he just needed some other means of keeping his head up besides his neck. Perhaps humans' necks just weakened during the night and they couldn't keep their own heads upright without assistance. Would sleeping fix that? He didn't particularly care to find out. Sleeping had always seemed like a waste of time to him.

For a few minutes, the new method of support didn't seem to be working. He kept "nodding off," only now, his hand would move with his head. Mostly his head fell forward, same as it did before, but occasionally it would fall backward. At one point, he almost fell out of his chair.

Definitely irritated now, he situated himself in a way that would hopefully deter his head from falling forward or backward and settled down to think. It seemed to work—after a few moments, at least, he seemed to be completely awake. This isn't that hard, he found himself thinking. Why did the Winchesters always insist that they needed sleep? Surely it wasn't an absolute necessity.

"Oh, believe me, it's more necessary than you realize."

Again, Castiel nearly fell out of his chair, but this time it was from shock. That voice didn't belong to either Sam or Dean, and whoever had spoken seemed to have read his mind.

Standing at the edge of the room, leaning lazily against the wall and enjoying a pink lollipop, was the Trickster.

It took a moment to register. Then Castiel was on his feet so quickly that his chair clattered to the floor. "You!" The Trickster just smirked. "Dean—Sam—!" shouted Castiel, looking towards the Winchesters, but they both seemed to be sleeping soundly.

"Oh, don't worry," said the Trickster nonchalantly, pushing off from the wall and strolling past the beds, casting a casual glance at both brothers. "They won't be involved. It's just you and me right now."

"What do you want?" asked Castiel harshly. He was not very happy to see the creature responsible for stripping his grace from him.

"Always so straight to the point, all three of you… Can't we just talk for a bit?" When Castiel said nothing, he prompted, "Come on, don't be like that. I bet you've got a lot of cool stuff to tell me. Like your first day as a human—that had to be interesting, right?"

Castiel stepped around the table, slowly approaching the Trickster until they were inches apart. The other man was quite a bit shorter than him, but even so, he felt considerably less intimidating without the effects of his grace. "Dean could have destroyed an entire town," he said in a low, threatening voice, "and I almost died. Because of what you did." The Trickster didn't show any remorse—in fact, this news didn't appear to affect him at all. The mischievous glint did not budge from his eyes. "You make this right. Now."

"Or what?" taunted the Trickster. "You'll punch me? Because that's about all you can do right now in thi—"

He didn't finish his sentence because, at that moment, Castiel did punch him. He may have punched a brick wall for all the good it did him, of course; it didn't seem to have hurt the Trickster nearly as much as it hurt Castiel's knuckles, but it was still satisfying to do it.

"That was a good try," he said in a mockingly praising tone. "Bet your hand hurts now, doesn't it?" Again, Castiel said nothing. "Look, Cas, bro, I'd love to just snap my fingers and set this all straight again, but what good would that do? I'm trying to teach you guys a valuable lesson here. Oh, speaking of which—" At these words he stepped away from Castiel, sauntering over to the side of Sam's bed. "I can't have smart little Sammy letting you copy all the answers, can I?"

"What do you mean?" asked Castiel, more wary now.

The Trickster stretched out a hand towards Sam, and Castiel reached out instinctively as if to stop him, but too late. His forefinger pressed briefly against Sam's forehead, and Castiel knew that he would not be able to undo whatever had just transpired through that simple contact. The Trickster tapped the side of his nose knowingly, a gesture that Castiel did not completely understand, though the meaning was conveyed quite effectively. "You'll see. Just remember, I'm doing this for you."

Before Castiel could formulate any sort of response, the Trickster had snapped his fingers and was gone. And suddenly, Castiel was sitting at the table again, only now Dean was awake and was at his side, and that horrible heaviness was tugging at him again, so much so that it seemed to be altering his very senses. He didn't even register what Dean had said. Why couldn't he remember sitting back down? And why did he feel so… exhausted? Was that the right word?

"Where… where is he?" asked Castiel, alarmed to find that the memory of his encounter with the Trickster suddenly seemed so distant and vague in his mind. It had just happened, hadn't it? Dean pulled him to his feet, which didn't seem to be completely functional. His steps dragged.

"Sam? He's right there." Castiel saw, dimly, Dean's hand pointing towards the bed, where Sam was sleeping. "Just pipe down and relax, alright? You need your sleep. Come on."

"No… no, it was someone else." Now he couldn't even remember who it was. "Someone…" Why couldn't he remember? It had just happened a few minutes ago, hadn't it?

It wasn't until Dean was laying him down on the bed that the second half of what he'd said registered. You need your sleep. Did he? Was that the problem? Part of him wanted to stay up and try to remember who he'd just been talking to, but the mattress was so beautifully soft, and lying down on his back was so much more comfortable than sitting at that table…

"It was just a dream. Get some rest," said Dean. A dream. Castiel had never dreamed before. Were dreams always so hard to remember?

His wondering ceased as he closed his eyes, settling into the bed with a sigh. Sleep wasn't so bad, he supposed.

-x-

Castiel had been unconscious before, but he had never slept, not willingly—and never because he "needed to." Even his single experience with being "knocked out" had been brief. He was accustomed to being a constant force, always on-guard, always alert. It was, therefore, extremely unsettling to find himself lying in a bed with a gap in his memories that spanned several hours. The last thing he remembered was sitting at the table. So how had he gotten to the bed? And what had happened during that time?

He laid there for a while, feeling oddly reluctant to move—a frightening contrast to how he used to have an unlimited supply of energy. Time had never been particularly relevant to him, but according to past experience, Dean would've dubbed this hour—seven o'clock—fairly early. Having no recollection of what time it was before his memory lapse, Castiel had no idea how long he'd been laying there.

He sat up very suddenly when he realized: the Trickster was here. Well, not anymore, evidently, but he definitely was at some point—wasn't he? No, Dean said that was just a dream, he corrected himself. Then, When did Dean say that?

The memories returned to him piece by piece, and all in the wrong order. First he remembered that the Trickster had been here; then that that had been a dream; then Dean helping him into bed; then falling asleep at the table (because that was definitely what happened, he realized—he'd fallen asleep); then, finally, he remembered some fuzzy details of what the Trickster had said.

"Sam." He sat up, looking towards the other bed, but in place of some rumpled bed sheets, the younger Winchester was missing.

The sound of something sizzling made him look up. Sam was standing at the motel room's stove with his back turned to Cas, frying something in a pan. He turned at the sound of his name and gave a brief, tight smile. "Glad to see you're up," he said, in a tone that wasn't entirely sincere. "How'd you sleep?"

"Strangely," replied Castiel, "but I'll get used to it." Sam looked slightly puzzled at this response, but if he was concerned, he didn't say anything.

It was only then that Castiel took a look around the rest of the motel room and realized why there was such a disapproving set to Sam's face. It seemed that every flat surface near the table—including the table itself—was covered in beer bottles. Those weren't there last night, were they? wondered Cas, trying to count them. He lost patience and gave up after twenty-six.

"Sam, um…" He got up from the bed and took a few cautious steps towards the man who was now angrily sprinkling a few spices over what Castiel realized must be two omelets. "…Were you drinking last night?"

Sam laughed the outraged laugh of someone blamed for something they obviously didn't do. "Are you kidding? I'd be dead if I drank all that."

Castiel scratched his head, frowning. Had he been drinking last night? Was that why he was having such a difficult time remembering everything? Humans generally lost recollection of what they did after a certain number of drinks, didn't they? "Then where did all this… come from?" he asked hesitantly.

"That would be me," said a familiar, though slightly slurred voice from off to the side. Dean had appeared there, leaning heavily against the wall and holding a full bottle of whiskey. "Sorry."

-x-

DEAN

After Cas went to sleep, Dean was stuck alone in the motel room with nothing to do and feeling worse than ever. It didn't take long for his agitation to return with the unwelcome memories he'd spent the last three hours, at least, trying to dodge around. He just needed something to do. How did angels even spend their free time, anyway? He supposed he'd always taken for granted Cas's ability to sit still for so long. What did the dude even think about?

In the silence of the room and his ever-growing restlessness, the angel radio in the back of his mind seemed to grow louder. What had yesterday been high-pitched tones loud enough to blow his eardrums were today soft, enigmatic whispers, murmuring Heaven's Local News and Weather Forecast. It was annoying as fuck. The whispers were constant, never ceasing, like some crazy guy from the loony bin sitting in the corner of his head and muttering paranoid conspiracies to thin air.

He'd never really paid them much attention until now, and even now only because there was nothing else to occupy his mind with. It was a difficult language to grasp, made even more so by the fact that the angels seemed to be even less straightforward in their own lingo. He could pick out words and phrases like Lilith and seals are breaking and protect the righteous man, but everything in between had to be picked apart. Most of the time, they talked faster than he could understand, and when you threw that on top of the fact that there seemed to be at least a hundred of them talking at once, well.

He was about to give up when he heard, quieter than the rest like it was being hissed in someone's ear, his name. Dean. He stiffened, listening more carefully, trying to pick the voice out among all the others and focus on it:

Something strange… the way… using his grace… seen anything like it.

…know what happened?

No. It… he couldn't handle… grace. It could've… badly.

What… Zachariah say?

I don't… Uriel was angry. Said… easy job and… showed incompetence.

"I'll show you incompetence," muttered Dean out loud, feeling ashamed of himself in spite of his determination to not give two shakes of a rat's ass what the angels thought.

"You already have," said a disapproving voice, and Dean didn't need to turn around to know who it was.

"Uriel. Just the man I want to see at two in the morning."

"I'm impressed, Dean. You seem to have picked up on sarcasm much faster than the rest of the garrison. Too bad you can't learn how to kill demons quite as quickly."

"Fuck off," Dean shot over his shoulder, forgetting to keep his voice down. Sam shifted in his sleep, but both he and Cas remained sound asleep.

Uriel grabbed him roughly by the upper arm and turned him around so that they were facing each other. For someone who didn't seem to move much of anything besides his mouth, he was strong. "The only reason you're still here is because the Winchesters listen to you, and no one else," he said in a dangerously cold voice. "You'd better hope it stays that way, because your usefulness is wearing thin. Any more screw-ups like tonight's and you'll be replaced whether those mud-monkeys like it or not." Dean said nothing. Uriel's dark, fathomless eyes were way too close for comfort. "Am I understood?"

Dean considered voicing aloud one of the many creative insults that sprung to mind at this, but a split-second's decision told him it wasn't worth it. So he gritted his teeth and nodded once, stiffly. He sensed rather than saw Uriel's wings unfold; then the angel was gone.

It took a moment for everything Uriel—and those gossiping sons of bitches—had said to sink in. He was in way over his head, he realized. The corners of Heaven were whispering about him, for the love of pie, and not in the "tee-hee, he's so handsome" kind of way. He felt like the bratty kid in class called out for passing notes or something—but this was way bigger. This was disapproval on a cosmic level, almost literally. Not that he cared about pleasing Uriel; he didn't give a damn whether that dude was happy or not. But damn, he'd screwed up big time… What the hell am I doing? he thought despairingly, running a hand over his face and releasing a shaky breath. If he didn't get his shit together soon, then he had a feeling a worse fate was waiting for him than being Uriel's bitch.

He took a seat at the table, fixing his eyes somewhere beyond the door, and spent about ten minutes trying to pretend that the last couple minutes hadn't happened. It didn't work very well. Finally, he managed to pull himself out of the rut by trying to come up with something to fill the rest of the night with. Having nothing to do but sit and think was never a good thing for him, especially on nights like these, when there was nothing else to think about but his latest greatest hits on the Dean's Absolute Worst Mistakes Charts. In the morning, once Cas was up, he'd ask the guy how to get a grasp on his angel mojo, and hopefully then things would get better.

In the meantime, though…

Normally, on nights when he couldn't sleep and he had nothing to do, he'd head for the nearest bar—grab a couple drinks, have some steamy sex with a chick… Now, though, he wasn't exactly sure that was a good idea. Being around people didn't strike him as a particularly attractive option, and if he wanted to score with a hot chick, he should've done it about two hours ago—right now, he'd be lucky if he could hire a half-decent hooker. Anyway, he figured he should at least wait a little until he was more accustomed to this angel thing.

Drinks, on the other hand… Well, that didn't sound so bad. So he stood and, a minute later, found himself standing in the nearest liquor store.

Then he drank. And drank. And drank some more. He couldn't say he was trying to get drunk, exactly; he was just trying to achieve a somewhat less-than-lucid state of mind. Something to distract him, he supposed. He knew better, of course—if anything, alcohol would probably just make him more depressed. But hell, if it made the next few hours go by any quicker, he was up for it.

After the first few beers, he stopped taking individual ones back to the room and just grabbed two or three six-packs at a time. He didn't even pay attention to the amount of empty bottles that piled up on the table, the counters, even the floor; he just kept drinking, waiting for a sensation that should've reared its ugly head not even half an hour after his first sip, the way he was going.

After thirty-some-odd beers, he thought he was starting to feel something. After fifty-some, he was definitely starting to feel something—a tingly something. Not much, but it was a start…

Somewhere around five-thirty in the morning, he stopped bothering to take it back to the motel room and started instead on the liquor store's whiskey.

Seven o'clock found him sitting against the wall of the store surrounded by empty bottles, his legs stretched out in front of him with a near-empty case of whiskey at his side. His throat felt like it was on fire. He'd finally achieved what he was initially going for—a comfortable level somewhere between buzzed and hammered—but it didn't make him feel any better mentally. Just as he'd hoped, he lost track of time eventually, but it took way too long and way too many drinks to be worth it. He supposed, after a point, he wasn't even trying to lose himself in the bottom of a bottle; he just wanted to see what his limits were now that he had some fancy new grace to soak up the poison. What a waste of alcohol, he thought dully, regarding the last full bottle of whiskey in reach with a melancholy expression. I could've been drunk, like, what, eight cases ago? Nine? How many did I go through, anyway? Fucking angels…

He would've been happy to sit there and keep drinking—even if it meant getting up to move within reach of more whiskey—but at that moment, he heard, from the front of the store, the clicking and scraping of a key in a lock. He staggered to his feet so fast he nearly fell over. He did fall over on his first attempt to fly outta there, coming frighteningly close to knocking over a shelf of wine with one of his flailing wings. A moment later, however, and he had left the liquor store in the dust, finding himself instead back in the motel room with the whiskey bottle somehow still intact and full in his hand.

Wow, that's a lot of beer, he thought when he saw all the bottles strewn around the kitchen area, taking a swallow from the bottle in his palm without consciously thinking about it. Where'd all that come from? It took him a moment to remember that it had come from him—and that they were all empty. It took him another moment to realize that Sam and Cas were present.

"Then where did all this… come from?" Cas was asking, gesturing at the bottles.

"That would be me," said Dean, unable, for the moment, to peel himself away from the wall. When did his tongue get so numb? "Sorry."

They both stared at him for a moment. "Dean, are you—are you drunk?" asked Sam in disbelief.

Dean shook his head, dismissively waving his free hand. "Nah." Then he made a noise of assent, shrugging a bit. "'Kay, maybe a little. M'fine. It'll wear off in a minute or something." When Sam continued to stare at him with raised eyebrows, he added, "This grace shit is fuck'n awesome, dude. Soaks this" he waved the bottle of whiskey, "up like a sponge. No puking, no headaches… Nothin'."

Cas's head was tilted slightly and he was looking at Dean with narrowed eyes, like he was trying to figure out what was wrong with Dean by sight alone.

"Yeah, okay, whatever," said Sam, going back to whatever he was doing at the stove. "Just clean this all up soon, would you?"

Dean nodded without being completely aware of what he was agreeing to. He was still distracted by Cas. "How you feeling?" asked Dean, possibly a little too loudly as he managed to push himself away from the wall and shuffle over to the other man. "How was your first night sleeping as a human?"

Cas didn't answer. "You smell very strongly of alcohol," he stated instead. Then, with the half-amused expression he usually got when he tried to make a bad joke, he added in his attempt of a humorous tone, "One could get inebriated by scent alone."

"You're hilarious," said Dean sarcastically. At that, Cas smiled in a way that Dean took to mean he was immensely proud of himself.

Sam, meanwhile, had looked up from his task of scraping one of the omelets off the pan. "What do you mean, 'sleeping as a human'?" he asked warily. "Dean, how drunk are you?"

Cas finally broke Dean's gaze to look at Sam in surprise. "Don't you remember?" he asked. "Yesterday, I said…?"

"You said quite a few things yesterday, Cas," replied Sam, scraping the second omelet onto another plate. Dean's awareness was already returning to him and he could tell something—probably irritation at Dean's impression of "Beer Bottle Fields Forever"—was seeping into his tone, making him sound just slightly tense and impatient. "You'll have to be more specific."

"About—" Cas started, but he seemed either unable or unwilling to continue.

Dean, catching on, took up the rap: "'Bout our engines being swapped, genius," he said, still with a bit of a slur to his words. "You know—me and Cas going all…" Unable to think of a suitable metaphor, he made a vague flip-flop gesture with his hands.

"I really don't know what you're talking about," insisted Sam, turning to face him. He didn't seem to be taking Dean seriously.

Dean opened his mouth to try to explain further, but Cas said, "Dean, wait." The expression on his face as he regarded Sam was somewhere between apprehension and blank horror. "I… need to speak with you. Privately."

Dean stumbled at one point as Cas led him just outside the front door, but managed to move the short distance without help. "What's this all about, Cas?" he asked as soon as the door was closed behind them, slipping back into his gruff exterior now that the effects of the whiskey were wearing off.

"Dean, listen," said Cas urgently. "I had a dream last night, only—I don't think it was a dream."

"Okay," said Dean, inviting him to continue.

"I—I dreamed that the Trickster came to our room while you were sleeping. Or, trying to sleep. He said—" Cas's brow furrowed as he tried to remember, "—at first he just taunted me, but then he said something along the lines of, 'I can't let you copy all the answers from Sam.'" Had the situation been any less serious, Dean would've laughed aloud at Cas's attempt to mimic the Trickster's voice. "Then he tapped Sam's forehead."

Dean waited for a moment for Cas to continue. When he didn't explain, he prompted, "So…?"

"So I think the Trickster altered Sam's memories again. I think he erased every recollection of everything we told Sam about what happened to us."

"What, you think he was actually there?" he asked incredulously, but there was a swell of apprehension in his gut.

"I think some manifestation of him was there. And I think that whatever he did to Sam in the dream has transferred to the waking world."

Dean's expression cleared, and suddenly he felt as uneasy as Cas looked. "I can't let you copy all the answers from Sam." The bastard was going to make this as difficult for them as possible by ensuring that they were on their own, with no help from Sam. "Damn it…"