CHAPTER X

They stood on the porch.

Dean was staring out in the driveway with a strained expression on his face, obviously trying to figure out which way Sam had taken. Then he felt Castiel's hand on his shoulder. He blinked and found himself surrounded by woods.

"He's already on his way back to the house," Castiel stated and let go of the demon's shoulder. "About hundred feet away, heading towards us," he shared a look with his friend. "I do suppose that it will not be of an advantage if your hunter saw you with me."

Dean gave him a sharp nod and a thump between the angel's shoulder blades before he took off in a jog.

"Sam!" he called out, fisting the bottle of pills in the pocket of his jacket.

There was cracking branches and the rustling of fabric and a faint "Dean."

The demon caught the breathlessness in the voice and picked up on the pain in it. He didn't need to see what the problem was. That idiot had forgotten to take his pill in the morning – obviously – and Dean hadn't thought about checking if he had swallowed one of those.

Somehow he felt a bit guilty, even when he knew that the hunter was a grown man and that he could take care of himself. It wasn't like Sam wasn't capable of it. It was just the situation they found themselves in that made some things easy to forget. Specially after a night and a morning like this.

Dean couldn't blame Sam nor himself for it.

The very next moment, Sam appeared behind a couple of high withered bushes before him, stumbling along a narrow path towards him. Dean stopped for a moment and then jogged forward, jumping over a fallen tree on his way.

"Dude!" he called out when he reached the hunter and his fingers instantly found their way to his neck, feeling for his pulse which would tell him if his heart was messing around again. He cupped Sam's face with his free hand and made him look him in the eyes.

He wasn't surprised to find the pulse unsteady and his breathing short and ragged.

"You're a stubborn idiot, you know that?" Dean asked with a huff and let go of his neck to fumble in his pocket for the pills.

Chucking out one of them and pushing it past Sam's lips, he kept his other hand on Sam's face.

"Swallow," he ordered.

Sam obeyed of course.

He had totally forgotten about the pill on the sink as soon as he had entered the shower stall this morning. It was stupid, yeah. Forgetting something that was necessary to survive was beyond stupid. And then going out without taking the pills with him had been even more stupid, since he knew that a pill in the morning didn't guarantee that his heart wouldn't try anything idiotic.

So here he was, once again at the mercy of the guy he had tortured weeks ago ... He was depending on him. For the first time in a damn long time he was depending on someone else with his life ... his soul.

"Thanks," Sam murmured, trying to catch his breath.

"We're going back inside and you're fucking listening to Cas." Dean said, sounding utterly pissed as he slung the other man's arm around his neck to help him walk without tripping over something. "We're going to have breakfast and then you're going to get your ass back to bed and stay there," he continued to bark out orders.

A few feet ahead stood the man in the trench coat waiting for the both of them to catch up.

Sam wouldn't look at him. He was too embarrassed and felt beyond pathetic. The hunter couldn't believe that his life – his SANITY – depended on those men. Some sort of angelic demon and an angel ... He who hunted supernatural beings had to rely on just those.

Castiel walked behind them the whole way back to the house. When they finally arrived, he outran them and opened the front-door for the men to let them in. Dean let Sam sit down in the kitchen at one of the chairs at the table and gestured Castiel to do the same before he sat down too.

"So. How are we going to do this?" he asked addressing Castiel with a look.

The angel cleared his throat, staring at the hunter. "I'm going to have a look at Samuel. Then I can tell more about the circumstances. Though it would be preferable if he would lie down for it. It is going to be unpleasant and he high likely will be exhausted."

Sam's gaze flickered up at the angel and then towards Dean. "I won't sleep. - There is no way I will sleep." He locked his gaze with Dean's.

The demon looked back at him understanding. "Can you do that?" he asked Castiel, "Putting up some barrier or something so he won't dream?"

The angel looked pensively for a long moment before he nodded. "I think I can do that."

"How long is the barrier going to last?" Sam asked, looking at the angel sternly.

"I can provide it for about four hours tops, depending on how the bond to Alistair works," he answered immediately.

Sam shared a look with Dean then. Dean shared a look with Castiel.

"Okay. - So breakfast first." The demon rose with a sigh and walked over to the microwave to switch it on and put the timer on. While the microwave's sounds echoed through the house, he got three plates, forks and knives and carried them over to the table. Next he went to get the pancakes on the table and butter and syrup from the fridge.

When they sat at the table together again, Sam gave Dean a hesitant look. Dean gave a reassuring one back anyway and even smiled a little.

Castiel watched their wordless conversation before he cleared his throat. "You know I do not need to consume food to stay healthy," he pointed out, "I am a celestial being."

The demon gave him a glare. "I don't care. Eat and shut up." Then he looked at Sam who was still a bit pale. "You too, or I'll force-feed it to you."

Then they ate until there were no pancakes left anymore and everyone's appetite seemed sated with the empty plates.

"Where should we do it?" Sam asked after a swig of coffee, his gaze darting forth and back in between the beings before him.

"I suggest you lie down on a mostly flat surface," the angel suggested and emptied his cup of coffee. "... and try to relax."

The hunter nodded to himself and cast his look down thoughtfully. "Okay ... I'm waitin' upstairs then ..." he muttered and rose, obviously unsteady on his feet. Dean was about to jump up and give him a helping hand, but Sam rose his flat palm to show him that he could handle himself and that he prefered not to be touched at the moment.

Dean didn't sit back down. He waited until he heard Sam's footfalls on the upper floor before he turned over to face Cas. "Can you make it last longer?" he asked softly.

"What?" The angel stared at him shell-shocked for a moment.

"Take him out, let him fall asleep or however you name it. - Without letting him dream or something ... you know ..." Dean explained hastily.

The angel thought for a long moment. "That would not be necessary."

"It is. I've a demon in the basement who's close to spilling its guts. With Sam around I can't go down there. So ... if you can make it last for a couple of hours longer ... let him sleep as long as it is possible for him without dreaming I'd be grateful." he looked at him meaningfully to emphasize his words.

"I do understand what you mean, Dean. But ... I do not think that he will be pleased when he finds out," Castiel said with honest concern.

"He won't find out. - And IF he does it'll be too late anyway." Castiel didn't know that it was even possible to pull eyebrows that wide up on someone's forehead.

"Too late?" the angel repeated curiously. "For what?"

"For him to figure out the demon knew a way to summon Alistair and bring him wherever I want him. - All that's left is his true name," he explained, keeping his voice low so no one but the angel would hear it.

Castiel's face darkened at this. "What is your plan?"

"Summoning the bastard and taking him out. I'M taking him out, NOT Sam. He'd die trying and I can't let him do that," he answered, determination written all over his face. "I can't."

Castiel nodded. "I can help you with that."

Dean chuckled shyly. "I know you can." He cleared his throat. "But ... I'm going to need you somewhere else then ..." He cast his look down and then back up.

"I'm WAITING!",they heard the hunter call from upstairs.

"We will talk about this," Castiel mirrored Dean's expression from earlier to underline his words. "You are my friend. I do not want you to do something stupid."

~*DW & SW*~

So there he was, covers thrown back, lying flat on his back on the bed. He let his hands rest on his stomach and tried to push away the uneasy feeling the longer he was alone in the room. The hunter wondered if this was okay – if he should let himself be helped ... mostly he was thinking if it was okay about the way this was supposed to happen.

He was flat out terrified of drifting off to sleep after whatever the angel was about to do. At least Dean would be there with him. Would he?

Before his doubts could possibly start to grow, Castiel came through the open door with his usual blank expression and walked up beside the bed. Sam's gaze flickered back and forth between the angel and the door since he couldn't see Dean coming with him. A fact that stirred the uneasiness in his guts and made them twist painfully.

"Where's Dean?" Sam asked warily, propping himself up on his elbows and eyed the angel.

"He will come in a minute he said," the trenchcoat-wearing man answered. Castiel sat down beside Sam and the hunter inched away instinctively.

The angel ignored his gesture though. "Sam," he said.

It was an awkward tension between the both of them, nearly palpable as it flooded the room.

"Dean likes you," the angel stared at him.

The hunter looked away shyly, trying to force the rising heat in his face to vanish. But it only increased.

"You do not have to be embarrassed." Yep, the angel knew how to make things even worse. "He is my friend. And you are his friend. I will not do anything that will hurt you, because it would hurt Dean." He paused. "It is legitimate that you do not trust me. It is also legitimate to feel mad about angels I suppose. I ... WE ... lost the ability to serve humanity a long time ago. Sadly. We are used to tending to our own business."

Sam listened with big eyes, trying to figure out why the angel told him that.

"What I want to say is. We do not know freedom as humanity knows it. Though, Dean Winchester taught me a few things about life on earth and ... I am willing to learn." Castiel tilted his head to the side and watched the human intently. "From all of you, not just from Dean. That is why ... I need to ask you something before Dean will join us in a few seconds."

Sam's gaze wandered to the door and back at Castiel. He gave him a hesitant nod.

"Why did you stay with Dean Winchester after you healed up enough to leave?"

Sam stared at the angel flabbergasted and the muscles in his jaw and lips worked, unable to form an answer in his mind.

There was nothing but a giant question mark hovering above his head right now. He had no clue how to answer his question. Hell, he didn't even know himself why he had stayed in the first place. He could be in the basement already and interrogating that bitch throughly so he would get the answers he was longing for.

"I ... I don't know ... It's a weird question ... I think I -", that was as far as he got before there were heavy footfalls and Dean came in and Sam's mouth snapped shut.

The demon stopped in his tracks and his look darted forth and back between his angel-friend and his hunter-whatever. The both men were staring at him and a foreign silence filled the room.

He instantly sensed that they had been talking about something ... something weird, since Sam's face was flushed in a dark red.

"We ready?" he asked and cleared his throat as he walked over to the bed in a slower pace than he had entered the room.

Sam gave him a short nod and looked away fast.

Castiel nodded too before he looked back down at Sam. The corners of the angel's lips were twitching and pulling upwards slighty – like a light smile or something.

"This might become unpleasant, but I can assure you that it won't hurt, Samuel," Castiel's face was open and honest and he seemed relaxed and sure about what he was going to do – so yeah, Sam decided to trust the man – for now.

"What do I do?" Dean asked as he sat down ont he other side of the bed and eyed Sam sympathetically.

"You can not do anything, Dean," the angel answered.

Sam's gaze locked with Dean's over the short distance. There was worry and insecurity in the demon's eyes all of a sudden, as if he wasn't sure anymore if this was a good idea. And maybe it wasn't. Then again ... the angel knew what he was doing, right?

Sam looked over at him as he lay back against the pillow. "You've done this before, right?" he asked curiously, searching the angel's face.

Castiel nodded but said: "Not with a human. But I read about it."

And that was all Sam got before he felt the angel's hand on his solar plexus, pushing him gently into the mattress. Castiel was right. It felt off and weird and almost as if something was starting to worm around in his insides.

The hunter turned his head away from the angel, who closed his eyes now, to Dean and bore a small smile for the concerned looking man.

"You're doing good, Sammy," Dean tried to support him, when the hunter's face became stressed and scrunched up in distress and discomfort seconds later. "It's over in a moment, 'kay?"

Sam gave him a strained smile and a sloppy nod, trying to reassure the demon that he was okay, like the demon tried to reassure him that everything was fine.

Though the unpleasant sensation increased further and started to edge into pain, and caused a muffled moan.

Dean looked over at his angel-friend whose face laid in lines of effort and something Dean didn't like at all. It was as if Castiel was observing something interesting with his inner eye – and the creases on his forehead started to deepen as if he needed to concentrate more ... The man's breathing sped up slightly and for a short moment he thought he saw PAIN. Physical pain on the Angel's face. The muscles in his friend's jaw and neck worked weirdly frantic and his eyebrows knitted together tightly.

A groan ripped his attention back to Sam, who stared with wide eyes back at him, his breathes coming out in short puffs and there was a thin layer of sweat building on his forehead. Not to mention the draining color of his face and the fading rose color of his lips.

"Dean," he murmured, fisting the sheets. It sounded somehow strangled ... as if something was constricting his airways or he was hurting.

"Cas?" Dean asked, sharp edges of honest worry on his face. "CAS?" he asked louder for a second time, when he saw the hunter's eyes start to water and his breathes became raged.

There was no response, and the expression on Castiel's face told Dean that this wasn't how it was supposed to go down.

Another groan and a choked off gasp fell from the hunter's lips as he threw his right hand up at his chest and dug with his nails into the fabric there.

"Cas. - You gotta stop!" Dean called out, getting on his knees beside the hunter and his friend, one hand already on the angel's shoulder to pull him back if he wouldn't listen.

Sam sucked in a wheezing breath and his body lifted from the mattress, his head pushed back into the pillow.

"Damn it! Stop!" Dean cried out and yanked on the angel's shoulder.

Castiel's hand pulled back abruptly, his eyes snapped open and he backed off from the bed, crawling backwards until his back hit the wall. He was panting, heaving in breaths and pushing them out with so much force it made Dean cringe on the inside. His eyes were blown wide and his face a mask of pure shock and horror.

The hunter's body collapsed back onto the mattress the very moment Castiel let go of him. Sam's eyes rolled back in their sockets and his eyelids fluttered closed. His hand let go of his chest and fell limply to his side as all strength left him.

Dean stared at the hunter's face, his bluish lips ... the lack of movement that indicated that he wasn't breathing anymore ...

It had been quite some time since he'd even tried CPR on anyone, so it took him a long moment before he realized what had to be done in order to get the hunter back from whatever had been happening seconds before.

All in all it had looked like one of those fits he'd had before – just a lot faster and more intensive.

Dean jumped up from the bed and pulled the hunter down onto the floor where he had a hard surface to work on.

He felt for the man's pulse ... he tried to make it out for a damn long moment. Usually he knew where to look, but this was different. Dean was frantic, he was in a panic. Hell, he had never ever been in full blown panic mode like this before.

There was a faint thud against his pointing finger. Though, for the first moment he wasn't sure if he felt his own heartbeat or the hunter's ...

Not losing any more time, Dean tilted the man's head back, clamped his nose shut and pushed his jaw down before he sealed his lips over the hunter's and breathed a lung full of air into him.

The man's cheeks hollowed out and his chest seemed to move a fraction of an inch but nothing more. Again, he pushed a lung full of oxygen into the younger man's lungs before he filled his own once with much needed air.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" Dean called out, his voice wrecked and begging and dripping with unnamed emotions he probably hadn't ever felt before. "Don't you fucking dare!" he ground out between gritted teeth and attacked the man's mouth with another load of air.

Again he waited, panting, hoping that Sam decided to continue to breathe on his own. Seconds stretched like minutes, while he sealed his lips over the hunter's over and over again, in an attempt to save the hunter's life ... and his own.

... to be continued

... looks like it didn't work as they thought it would. Good job in trying to kill poor Moose ...

... I go and get myself some more coffee though ...