A/N: Sorry this took so long. It's been a hell of a week. Also, sorry if there are any medical inaccuracies with the bit at the end (no spoilers lol) but I had to look it up on Wikipedia. Enjoy, and please review!

Chapter Four

Gabriel trundles off to his old room to fish his Three Musketeers bar out the back of the toilet tank. Only with his trusty steed by his side can he possibly do this.

It's awkward as Hell. Gabriel sits across from his father, whose legs are crossed too tight to be comfortable, hands folded in his lap.

"Gabriel," says Dick after recovering elegantly from the initial shock. "I must say, this is a surprise, son."

"Yeah, well. I gotta talk to you." Dick immediately straightens; to see Gabriel serious is like catching the Pope in a brothel.

"Shoot."

Gabriel decides just to come right out with it. Beating around the bush ain't gonna make it any prettier. "I think something's happened to Cas."

"Castiel?" Dick frowns. "Why?"

"I saw him just this morning, we were downtown together, then I left and... I haven't heard from the little guy since."

"How long ago was this?"

Gabriel checks his watch, stubbornly ignoring the huge grandfather clock to his left. It's 8p.m. "About nine hours."

"What was your last contact?" Straight to business. He hasn't changed, Gabriel thinks, wrinkling his nose and covering it up as a small sneeze.

"He sent me a text asking if I was okay at about half past eleven." He waits nervously as his father thinks it all over for a few moments. They haven't been in the same room together in seven months. Not since the argument of the century. Jesus, Gabriel was tempted to go into witness protection after that. His father was so angry he'd expected the entire wrath of NATO to rein down upon him. But the cold shoulder was punishment enough, and, in his opinion, reward enough.

Dick rubs his eyes with a finger and thumb and inhales deeply through his nose. "Okay," he says. "This is what we're going to do. You are going to go out and find Castiel and bring him back because it's your damn fault he's gone, you alcoholic moron." He takes his hand away from his face to look Gabriel straight in the eye, his voice remaining calm. "You are not going to breathe a word of this to anyone because if it gets out that my son is gone, and my other son's a failure, people won't want to give me their money. Are we clear?"

Gabriel grins, sitting on his shaking hands. "Crystal, padre."

"Knock, knock."

"Ellen, you know, it'd be just as easy to actually knock."

"Shut up," Ellen smiles as she lets herself into Sam's bedroom. He returns the smile weakly. It doesn't reach his eyes, but she knows he's trying his hardest to pretend like it does.

Ellen smoothes down her shirt with firm hands and sits down at the end of Sam's bed. She gives him the mother look, the I need you to be an adult here look, the look she gives Jo when wine goes missing. Sam raises his head a little instinctively in response.

"Sam... did Dean say anything to you that would suggest, I don't know, he was gonna do anything?"

Sam frowns, making a little knot between his eyebrows. "Ellen..."

"Nothing's wrong, just, did he?"

Sam thinks for a second. Ellen breathes through her mouth. "Well, I mean, he didn't say anything specific about doing something, but all the money's gone, so it's likely that he... What's going on? Where is he?"

"He's gone, Sam."

His eyes widen. "What?" He tries to get out of bed but Ellen pushes him gently back down.

"Easy. We saw him yesterday morning. He said he was going out on a job, and not to wait up for him. Haven't seen him since." She looks at her watch: 10a.m. It's been a day.

Sam runs his hands through his hair. "Oh god, he's probably been shot or something, have you called 911?"

"We can't, Sam. What would we say? 'My brother went out mugging and he hasn't been back, maybe a crime gang is after him, please check the gutters'?"

Sam looks up at Ellen with those big brown eyes and intense vulnerability. "What do we do?"

Ellen stands, puts on her jacket, and says, "I find him."

Castiel opens his eyes and knows that he's blind. Then his head clears a little and he knows that he's blindfolded.

"Mfmnmfphfhphumf," he says.

"Sorry, what was that?" replies a smooth voice behind him. Castiel recognises that voice. It's the man from the bank. Hot anger rises in his throat and he bites down hard on the gag to keep from trying to yell out again.

Rough hands pick at something on the back of his head. "Might wanna close your eyes," mutters the man – Dean, he remembers – before the blindfold comes off and the bright sunlight causes Cas to cry out. He jerks a hand up, attempting to shield his eyes, but his wrist snags on something, giving him friction burn.

He squints as the light fades, allowing him to make out the scene in front of him: he's in a warehouse somewhere. And that's about it. He mentally slow-claps his captor for his originality.

Dean steps into his line of sight and Cas no longer gets the fuzzy warm-and-cuddly butterflies in his stomach. At least Dean has the common sense to tie Cas to a chair seeing as he has the barely controllable urge to beat the shit out of him.

The rage in his eyes must be pretty intense; Dean steps back and raises his hands. "Hey," he chuckles, "relax, I'm not gonna hurt you." His voice has an edge of fear and uncertainty. Cas senses he hasn't done anything like this before.

"I'm Dean." He holds out his hand. Cas glares up at him. Dean takes back his hand, laughing. "See? We can have a good time."

"Whusmufnaom," says Cas.

"Okay, dude, I have no idea what you just said, so I'm gonna go ahead and answer all the typical kidnap questions."

Cas closes his eyes at the word kidnap. To have Dean say it so bluntly really brings the point home that he's a hostage. No, screw that. He's a prisoner.

"One," says Dean, counting on his fingers. "'Where am I?' Well, I'm not gonna tell you that. 'Oh, but Dean, why not?'" He mimics Cas's deep, gravelly voice. "Well, Castiel, if you were to escape, then you'd know where you were, and therefore, where I was. Ipso facto, bad idea."

Cas supposes Dean's had a lot of time to think this through, seeing as Cas was apparently out cold for an entire day.

"Two," Dean continues, "'why are you doing this to me?' You're rich. 'But why are you doing this at all?' None of your damn business. Three, 'what do you want from me?' Easy. Money." Cas opens his eyes to look at Dean. He's looking out of the window, his back to Cas. His shoulders are slumped slightly forwards – terrible posture.

"Four." Dean spins around as if he'd known he was being watched. He locks eyes with Cas and doesn't look away. "'Who are you?' Oh, don't mind me. I'm just a petty criminal." He grins, going for the easygoing look, but coming across as uncomfortable and young. "Did I miss anything?"

"Yurnfnashbludgh," replies Cas.

"Oh, yeah. Of course. 'Why am I gagged?' So you can't scream. Though I doubt it'd do you any good. We're in the middle of nowhere, and what, do you gargle gravel?" He claps Cas on the shoulder before walking past him to somewhere out of Cas's sight.

"So here's my plan, Mr Novak," comes Dean's voice from behind him. "I'm gonna let you stew for a few days, get your mommy and daddy all riled up, then make an anonymous call, asking for five million dollars. Five million, you think, that's practically nothing to them! So as long as pretty Cassie gets returned with her long blonde hair pristine, everybody's fine and dandy."

Cas rolls his eyes at the crappy insult, but he knows Dean's right; five million is nothing. His father's company is worth billions.

Dean moves around behind him, fiddling with something, still talking. Cas senses that keeping busy steadies his nerves. "Now, an anonymous phone call ain't an easy thing to pull off. But I can swing it." He stops moving, supposedly deep in thought. "I'm not just a pretty face and a prize bang, you know. I can make shit."

He walks over to Cas and crouches in front of him. "Hell, I can brag to you, you can't reply." He holds up something so Cas can see it. "Look. This is my old Walkman. As soon as these things became outdated, I figured it could be used for something more... useful. Look." He turns it on and it begins to emit a low hum. Dean swipes it slowly down Cas's body. Once it reaches his waist, the hum turns into a high-pitched shriek.

Dean turns the thing off and holds it up to Cas again. "It's a metal detector! Neat, huh?" He places it on Cas's lap, moving the trenchcoat aside to see what set the device off. "Oh, it's your belt. We'll leave that on, shall we?" He winks at Cas. "Or not."

Cas can feel himself beginning to blush, and Dean can see it, too. He laughs under his breath and picks up the busted-up Walkman, moving back to whatever's behind Cas.

"You gotta earn your rights, man," Dean calls to him. "If we get along, I'll take your gag off. We're gonna be here a little while, might get lonely. But if you act like a bitch," and Cas can practically hear him brandish something in his direction, "then you can just sit there. Capisce?"

Cas nods slightly. Yeah, I capisce.

Suddenly music begins blaring from behind him. Cas listens for a few moments, seeing if he recognises the heavy rock music. He doesn't; he's not really a rock fan.

"I'm guessing you're not a rock fan," laughs Dean, suddenly beside him. Cas jumps a little and turns to him. "Poor little uptown girl. It's AC/DC. Gotta start with the basics." He cracks open his beer, drinking for a few seconds before the chorus hits. "I got guns for hire," he sings loudly, throwing his head back. "Shoot you with desire!"

Sighing behind the gag, Cas closes his eyes again. Of all the criminals in the world, I had to be stuck with one who thinks he can sing. And then the fear he's been holding back starts to seep in, and his hands clench around the rope, his legs brace against the floor, his breathing speeds up. No no no don't hyperventilate not now no you won't be able to breathe there's a thing in your mouth you can't no –

It's too late. He's having a panic attack.

His body goes numb as his breathing gets even faster. He begins to shake. Before he loses his power of speech he tries to call out to his captor, but it comes out as a choke of pain, and then his entire chest catches fire and he can only hunch over and try to focus on reality.

Dean puts down the phone and turns to Castiel when he hears the noise. "Hey, you okay, buddy?" he calls, knowing that the answer is 'no'. He waits a few seconds, then notices that the guy's shaking.

"Shit," he mutters, dropping what he's holding and running to Castiel. He kneels down in front of him. Cas looks up with terrified eyes before squeezing them shut again. "Hey, hey, hey, it's okay," he says as he undoes the gag. "Hey? Castiel?"

He's seen these symptoms before, in himself. When Sam was first diagnosed, Dean used to get panic attacks every day. But someone was always there, someone he could trust.

Castiel looks like he's gonna throw up. Think goddamnit, what did Sammy do?

Carefully, so carefully, he places one of his hands on Castiel's back, his other on his knee. "Castiel," he begins, nervous. "It's alright. I'm not gonna hurt you. I don't want to hurt you. I just really need the money, okay? I panicked. This kinda stuff is all I can do." It's not working. He keeps talking. "I'm gonna get you back safe, okay? I promise, Cas. It's gonna be okay. It'll be okay, man. I won't put the gag back on. It's gonna be okay. I'm not gonna leave you."

He doesn't know where that last bit came from – bit of a surprise, really – but it seems to do the trick. Castiel's breathing slows down and he stops shaking. After a few minutes of Dean keeping his hand steady on his back, Cas looks up.

"Okay?" Dean says, self-conscious.

Cas clears his throat before talking. "Yes," he says, voice hoarser than usual, and equally embarrassed. "Thank you."

"You want some water or something...?"

"That would be nice."

Dean practically runs away from him. He always feels weird after pansy shit like that. But he needs the kid in fine health if he's gonna get a good deal for him.

Sure Dean, says a sarcastic voice in the back of his mind that always reminds him of Sam. That's the reason.