Dean was feeling pretty antsy after that. Every time he heard the door of the shop open when someone walked in, he practically jumped to check if it was Castiel.

It never was.

Charlie visited a few more times before she left for College again. The last time she was there, Dean walking in on her and Jo hooking up in one of the back rooms. Jo flushed and looked extremely embarrassed, but Charlie just grinned cheekily from over her shoulder.

Dean gave an amused huff, shook his head and then left them be. Even though Jo was supposed to be working, he figured that he could give her a break once in a while for putting up with all his crap for such a long time.

However, without Charlie as a distraction, Jo seemed to pick up on his restlessness. She now joined him on some of his breaks, something for which Dean was extremely grateful. It offered him a welcomed distraction from the inherent lack of Castiel. They mostly chatted about arbitrary things, but once or twice Cas' name had come up.

"You miss him, don't you?" Jo asked after he had made some comment about the night he and Castiel had gone out drinking together.

"He has his own shit to do," was all Dean said in reply. Jo frowned but didn't press the issue any further.

Of course, he never mentioned the late-night phone call. He wasn't ready for that conversation. He didn't know if he ever would be – he tended to avoid conversations about feelings as much as he could, and he was one hundred percent sure that that conversation would turn in that direction.

But something about the concerned look in Jo's eyes told him that she was suspicious.


During the time that Castiel was absent, Dean started to have very strange dreams.

Upon waking up, though, he could only remember small fragments of them.

All he could remember about most of his dreams were feathers. Hundreds and hundreds of feathers. And an almost blinding, pure, white light that felt strangely comforting.

But there was one dream in particular that, although it was still fragmented, he could remember better than the rest.

There was a lot of heat and a sense of closeness. He would call it verging on a suffocating kind of closeness, but he felt oddly at ease. There was movement – a lot of frantic, almost desperate movement.

He remembered dark hair and hands everywhere. There were clothes strewn across the far end of what he guessed had to be the small, dark room of a cabin.

And the most prominent thing that he remembered was a pair of familiar, piercing, blue eyes.


Every time he had that dream, Dean awoke with a groan. Even though his memory of the dream was in fragments, it didn't take much to figure out what it was about and he wasn't exactly too happy about having that kind of dream about a guy. In fact, he would have done his best to avoid said guy after those dreams if said guy wasn't already avoiding him.

Even if said guy was Castiel.

One morning, after having an array of extremely strange dreams, with some mention or warning of this 'Uriel' person somewhere in the mix and all involving Castiel in some way, he woke up with a very dark, ominous feeling hanging over him.

He had woken up plenty of times feeling groggy or unmotivated or depressed, but he had never felt this before.

Something bad was going to happen. He just knew it. And the name Uriel was practically ringing in his ears.

The whole time that he had this feeling clawing at the back of his mind, his thoughts drifted to Castiel. He didn't know why, but thinking of him was very comforting. As if his presence would keep him safe.

That entire day, he had no thoughts of pie, none of Jo and Charlie's blooming romance and none, even more surprisingly, of Sam. Just Castiel.

Jo's concern seemed to multiply tenfold at the obvious tension in Dean's muscles and his extreme jumpiness that day.

"What's up with you?" she had asked at one point, when Dean was completely distracted from pie-making by the thoughts buzzing around in his head.

"Hm? Nothing," he mumbled and hastily returned to preparing his pies.


His gut feeling had turned out to be very accurate when, that evening, a large, stoic, dark-skinned man dressed in a suit just appeared (Dean could have sworn he heard a semi-familiar fluttering sound) while he was closing up shop.

"Sorry, we're closed. Come back tomorrow," Dean said absently as he stacked chairs on top of the tables.

"You are Dean Winchester?" the man asked in a low voice. Dean stiffened and turned to face the man in what he hoped to be a calm manner.

"Who's asking?" he replied venomously.

"My name is Uriel."

"Uriel?" Dean repeated incredulously.

"Yes," Uriel nodded slowly, his eyebrows knitted into a mildly confused frown.

Then Dean did something which, upon reflection, was probably very stupid. He dropped the chair he was holding onto the table beside him loudly and then stormed over to Uriel, personal space be damned.

"What did you do to Cas?" he demanded angrily.

"Oh, you mean Castiel? In fact, I came to ask you the same question," Uriel spoke with an intimidating calmness. "Where is he?"

"How the hell should I know?! I don't have him on a leash."

"I do not appreciate being lied to, Winchester."

"Even if I did know where he is, which I don't," He spat. "Why the fuck would I tell you?"

There were no clear signs of anger on Uriel's face, he appeared to remain as calm and emotionless as ever, but there was a very distinct shift in the air around him and Dean just knew that his patience was wearing thin. But that didn't stop him from being the snarky son of a bitch that he was in those kinds of situations.

"Do not test my patience, child."

"Why not? Scared you'll get your ass kicked if you get angry?"

And then, there was a hand clamping down on his throat, holding him up high enough that his toes barely brushed the floor. Damn this guy was so much stronger than he should have been.

"Fine," Uriel sneered. "If you will not tell me where Castiel is, I will make him come to me."

Dean heard that fluttering sound again and he could have sworn that they were suddenly in some sort of warehouse, but he didn't have time to find out because, a few seconds later, he passed out.


When Dean woke up again, his head was throbbing. He blinked away the remnants of the nonsensical dreams he had been having, Castiel's grainy voice still ringing faintly in his head.

He looked around. Surprisingly enough, he found himself to be upright. From what he could tell, he was in the warehouse that he had seen just before passing out. He weakly tried to move his arms, but could barely lift them. Looking down, he saw that he was tied to a board of sorts… Wait, was he tied to a cross? He scoffed a little, then cursed as he realized that he was in the captivity of some freaky stalker of Cas' and completely screwed.

"Awake already, are you? Castiel is not even here yet." The smug sound of Uriel's voice sent a shiver of disgust down Dean's spine. "Thanks to you, drawing him out will be easy," A sneer crossed his face. "But perhaps, I should give him some more… Incentive to come rescue you."

Dean barely had time to comprehend his words when he felt a sharp pain in his side. He looked down to see a strange-looking blade embedded in his flesh.

Dean gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, trying his best not to cry out. Uriel seemed mildly amused by his efforts. He turned and took a few steps away from him, throwing his hands into the air.

"Castiel!" he shouted, his head tilted towards the ceiling. "I know that you can hear me as Anael could. Listen well! If you do not come quickly and face your punishment, your precious human, that you tried so hard to save, will die!"

A wave of confusion hit Dean. Did he really think that Cas could hear him? Could Cas hear him? Maybe he was delirious , but he didn't find it that hard to believe at that point. Confusion changed to dread. He was probably going to die. But if Cas did somehow know he was here and came as Uriel asked, would he be the one to die?

Uriel turned back to him them, his expression as serious as ever.

"He will be here soon. Try not to die too quickly."

Intense pain shot through his side as Uriel twisted the blade before pulling it out. This time Dean did cry out in pain. Shortly after, he fell unconscious again.


When Dean woke up for the umpteenth time, it was to the sound of his name being called. He blinked away the blurriness of his vision to see Castiel standing at the entrance to the warehouse.

"Dean!" he called again, stepping cautiously further into the warehouse.

"Cas," he choked out hoarsely.

Relief crossed noticeably across Cas' face and Dean internally remarked that this was one of the only times that he had seen such obvious emotion on his face.

Uriel stepped out of the shadows, a subtle smugness about him. "You have come, Castiel. A noble choice."

"Uriel," was all he said, with a slight inclination of his head, in return. Dean could see the fear and worry, mixed with what might have been anger, in his eyes, but, as soon as Uriel had arrived, he did not let it show on his face. He kept his expression hard and emotionless. Dean had to admit that, for a man so much smaller than himself, he looked threatening. If Uriel felt at all intimidated, he did not let it show.

"So, are you ready to die?" Uriel asked with an unusual casualness.

"If it will save Dean Winchester," his eyes flicked over to Dean for a moment as he swallowed loudly. "I will do what I must."

Dean felt the blood run from his face. Castiel was going to give up his own life for him. The ache in his side began to fade from his mind as he watched, wide-eyed.

"No, Cas, don't-"

"Dean," he interrupted. "I have my reasons for doing this."

Uriel stepped forward, blade in hand, towards Castiel. Dean felt his heartbeat quicken. He had wanted to see Cas, but not like this. He wanted to see him at his shop, at a bar, hell, maybe even while they were having dinner together. But he didn't want to see him die. Uriel raised his blade above him (ever the melodramatic) as he neared his target. Dean struggled against the ropes tying him up, but they were bound too tightly and he was too weak to be able to break free. Uriel drew closer, stopping just in front of Castiel. No, no, no, no, no, the words pounded in his head, almost like a prayer. As Uriel began to bring his blade down on Cas, Dean felt himself shouting, "No, Cas, no, don't. Castiel!"

The sound of his full name being called seemed to make something shift inside Cas. Within two seconds, the blade was out of Uriel's hand and in Castiel's. Shock was painted clearly on Uriel's face as Castiel mercilessly, with a somewhat unnerving efficiency, drove the blade into his heart. Castiel jumped back immediately when a white light began to pour from Uriel's eyes and mouth, growing and becoming ever more blinding by the second, and threw an arm over his eyes.

"Shut your eyes!" he called. Dean squeezed his eyes closed as tightly as he could, but suddenly there was an explosion of light that penetrated even through his eyelids. When the light faded, he opened his eyes tentatively, his eyes taking a good few seconds to adjust. Castiel was standing up, shaking slightly, though Dean could not understand why. He looked over at Uriel. He was lying on the floor, some of his joints twisted at unnatural angles, presumably from falling, with great scorch marks stretching out from his back in the shape of wings, imprinted on the cement.

"Cas… What…" Dean breathed when Cas started untying the ropes around his legs, then arms. As Dean dropped to the floor, he was steadied by firm hands around his waist.

"Later," he mumbled, sounding somewhat dejected. "I'll explain later. We have to go. You're bleeding out and they won't take lightly to Uriel's death."

"Who are 'they'?" he asked and then, when he received an exasperated look, added. "Right. Later."

Then, a smug and somewhat teasing voice came from the entrance of the warehouse, where a short, cheeky-looking man was standing.

"Got to hand it to you, baby bro, that was pretty bad-ass."


Hey, guys, sorry for the long wait! But here's the next chapter! Please let me know what you think. ^_^