This episode is rather long and closely follows the Season 6 episodes 7 to the beginning of 19. Contains spoilers. Sorry it's so long and tedious, but I wanted to cover a lot of ground in this one. Mentions of male/male sexual situations.

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

"Is he speaking in tongues?" The monotonous voice asked Dean, then directed to Sam himself, who was tied to a chair. "Are you speaking in tongues?"

"No, why?" Sam asked, incredulously. "Are you diagnosing me?" He asked the man in the tan trench coat that was standing much closer to him than Dean dared stand. His brother was farther off in the corner of the room, close to the door.

"You better hope he can." Dean said, flat expression on his face.

"Do you really think that-" Sam started, trying to jerk himself away from Cas's fingers feeling for a pulse in the side of his neck.

"You think that there's a clinic out there for people that just pop out of Hell wrong?" Dean asked, stepping forward, a more demanding tone coming over his voice. "He asks, you answer, and then you shut your hole. Got it?"

Castiel avoided smiling to himself at this. Though they were cross with one another, still fighting as they were, Dean still demanded that people respect his angel, even Sam. Sam who was his brother and one of the dearest things to his life. It could have been Dean's cruelty just at Sam's current state, but Cas liked to think that there was something endearing at that demand for respect.

"How much do you sleep?" Cas asked, having taken a moment to piece together his findings so far.

"I don't." Sam replied.

"At all?" Dean asked in surprise.

"Not since I got back."

"And it never occurred to you that there might be something off about that?!" Dean asked, getting in his brother's face a little more.

"Of course it did. I just…never told you." Sam continued, trying to explain in the best way that he could. It wasn't working. He could see that Dean wasn't buying any of it.

"Sam…what are you feeling now?" Cas urged, not sure if Sam understood what he meant. He didn't, because he replied with a scoff and said:

"I feel like my nose is broken." It probably was. He'd been hit pretty hard and his face was bloody.

"No, that's a physical sensation." Cas replied, sounding very much like a doctor. "How do you feel?"

"I…don't know." Sam said, after taking only seconds to let the question seep in.

The angel and Dean looked at one another, and Cas reached down to take off his belt. Sam's eyes widened slightly, then observed in suspicion what might be happening next.

"This will be unpleasant." Cas said, instructing Sam to bite down on the leather that was pushed into his mouth. Sam's eyes snapped around the room wildly, unsure of the implications here.

"If there's some place you find soothing, you should go there now."

Without hesitating, Cas leaned over Sam, reaching forward and slowly driving his hand up past the human's sternum, literally pushing past his skin and up into his organs. Sam bit down and groaned, then started to scream in pain as much as the belt would allow him to. His head leaned back and the veins on his neck pulsed angrily. Light pressed out against the angel's arm as he slowly pulled out, letting Sam slump forward, catching his breath from the incredible pain he'd been in.

"Anything?" Dean asked.

"No." Cas replied quietly.

"That's good news?"

"I'm afraid not. Physically he's perfectly healthy."

"But what?" Dean asked, looking at Sam who was also waiting for some sort of answer for the painful invasion.

"It's his soul. It's gone."

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

Sam's soullessness was dancing on Dean's last nerve. Everything was. He and Castiel were still awkward around one another, and the angel was absent a lot more often in the middle of the holy war he was waging, even though he professed to rather be here on Earth with his friends.

Despite Sam being a total handicap, Dean was forced to bring him along on their cases, even though he didn't help as much as he should have, and even though he made their time together rather unpleasant. Dealing with their grandfather and his dirty deeds was enough. Being forced into indirectly helping Crowley was more than enough, but then the two of them had to face up against skin walkers, and Dean later found himself kidnapped by fairies. Sam came through in the end, but it wasn't the same. It was too hard to deal with the difficulty of having a human with no soul, where one used to be. Sam was a soulless dick bag. He didn't try to be. He truly couldn't feel like himself, the man he used to be. Something had to be done about it.

It was agreed that they were going to press Crowley into helping them, being that they helped him. The two felt that they had leverage. They wanted freedom from his bounds, but to get Sam's soul back and to get to the bottom of the 'secret prison' full of supernatural alphas that were being held and tortured. What did a demon want with them? What did he need so badly? Well, they were going to kill two birds with one stone. The brothers knew where Crowley would be, at his prison, and they were going to get in touch with him, and he was going to help Sam get his soul back. As much as they didn't want to, the group had no other ally but demon Meg and her group. It was entirely unpleasant to have an angel and a group of demons together. The tension was obvious. They'd infiltrated the prison, and it truly was a fortress, full of hell hounds and sigils that trapped anything that wasn't human inside. Meg's demons were killed off one by one, but she stuck ahead with the group.

"I knew this was a trap." Dean grunted, as they found themselves caught in a wide hallway between two doors.

"What do you want, a cupcake?" Meg asked, very much aware that there was a strong chance of it being a trap. There was no surprises with Crowley.

"That should keep them out." Sam pointed toward the barricaded door, rattling with hell hounds on the other side of it.

"How many of them are there?" Dean asked Meg. She was a demon and could actually see the creatures, unlike the humans.

"Lots. I'll be pulling for you. From Cleveland." Meg started.

"What?!"

"I didn't know this was gonna happen. Bright side, them chewing on my meat suit ought to buy you a few seconds." Meg tilted her head back, opening her mouth and waited…and waited. Damn! That's right. The stupid sigils.

"Spell, I think. From Crowley." Cas started, looking smart. "Within these walls, you're trapped inside your body."

"Karma's a bitch, bitch." Dean said, earning a scowl from the inconvenienced demon.

Sam pulled the demon blade from his pocket.

"What are you gonna do? Slash at thin air til you hit something?" Dean asked.

Sam ignored him and offered the blade to Meg. "You can see them. Take this. Hold them off, its our best shot."

She stood for a moment, thinking about it, and then agreed. She hated Crowley as much as they did, and why not? There wasn't a whole lot besides pain that they could bring her. Pain and death.

In a second, she reached forward in a last ditch effort, gripping the angel by the back of his neck and bringing their lips together. If I'm gonna die, why not make things uncomfortable for everybody involved? She pressed firmly against him, placing her free hand against a clothed ribcage. When she broke the contact, she looked up at him and smiled, feeling smart and victorious. It was her eyes that widened when Cas spun the two of them, placing her back against the wall and resuming their kiss much more deeply than she'd initiated.

Why? Not even Cas knew. He knew that he was kissing Meg, and that was it. This didn't feel like kissing Dean, but at that moment, it didn't matter. He could feel his human's eyes on them, and it was what he wanted, to stir the pot a bit. It felt good. Not necessarily the kiss, which did feel good, but tasted horrible. But knowing that Dean's eyes were on him right now. Feeding him the same jealousy he inspired when he was with Lisa. It was exhilarating. He and Dean hadn't kissed in some time. He missed it, and now crashing his lips against those of a demon was filling some sort of emptiness and need. He could feel Dean moving about behind them. He couldn't see what he was doing, but there was some sort of urgent movement.

"What was that?" Meg asked, smirking when at last, he pulled away. Cas turned to his friends for a moment, noting that Sam looked a little concerned. He didn't have a soul, so he couldn't feel betrayal radiating from his brother, but he remembered their talk, and his actions were a surprise. Dean's eyes, however, were incredibly wide. He stood there in shock, as if his eyes were about to break out of his skull and fly away. Cas averted his eyes, now guilty and unable to maintain eye contact.

"I learned that from the pizza man." Dean's eyes went from Cas, taking in his comment, and faded gaze down to the floor.

Meg gave him a look, as if to say, 'sure you did'. She was incredibly smart and as a demon, she could read people. The air was tense. She could see the looks she was getting. You don't learn something like that from no pizza man. That was a baby-makin' kiss.

"Well, A-plus for you. Feel so clean." Meg replied.

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

She'd fought the hell hounds while the others took off in the other direction. Of course it was an incredible challenge, but at the end of it, she was still alive. It was very literally like jumping out of a burning skillet and onto an open flame, because she was overcome by another demon, strapped to a cross-shaped table and tortured with the same demon blade she'd used to save her own life. This wasn't her first rodeo, and she'd taken the torture with a grain of salt and a few screams when the pain became too intense. It didn't last long, as an unexpected thing happened. It was Dean. He drove a blade through the demon's sternum and saved her. He didn't have to. She didn't understand what it was about, especially with the bitter look he burned right into her eyes as he unfastened the leather straps that held her in place.

The entire process was rather in vain, though. The group soon found out that Crowley couldn't help them get Sam's soul out of the Cage. Castiel presented him with an ultimatum, appearing with Crowley's original bones and threatened to burn them if he didn't help them. He couldn't, and in his frustration at losing, Cas promptly burned the bones. The confusion offered Meg some time to escape. She knew that once Crowley was gone, she was the next target in the room.

"She's smart, I'll give her that. I was gonna kill her too. Course I'd have given you an hour with her first." Dean noted to Cas, not looking at him.

"Why would I want that?"

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

Once outside, Dean decided to break the silence by thanking his friend. Yes, what had been happening recently was bad news, but the pleading look in his eyes was more than could be handled in silence. Cas noted that his battle wasn't going well, and some desperate thoughts were hidden behind usually bright blue eyes. They were faded and gray, almost in despair. He was hiding something terrible from them. He hated it, and hated himself for it. But it was the only way. There was nothing his humans could do to help him without getting killed, but he could still save them and their world. There was only one way. It was like waiting to be executed, just looking at the rope that would be used to kill you. Just waiting. He knew a real shit-storm was coming, and this last little moment of friendship he had with the Winchesters was sure to fade away very soon, as soon as they knew the truth. He would be by their side until then, until they knew, and until they cast him out. In his guilt, he wanted something to do for them, looking to Sam, who asked him to 'take care' of the alphas and creatures that were still trapped in Crowley's prison. He didn't need any more explaining than that, and entered those halls again, systematically killing every last thing in that building. It blew off steam, but it brought no solace. Being with humans taught him that killing any living thing was wrong, though it was sometimes needed.

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

As Dean promised, he found a way. Death. Death was the answer. He'd met the everlasting being only a short time ago, and they seemed to have an understanding. He wasn't wrong in his thinking. Death agreed to aide him in retrieving Sam's soul from the Cage, something not hard for someone of his power. Maybe he liked Dean. Maybe he just wanted to stick it to Lucifer a little more. Either way, he offered his help under one condition, Dean would have to wear Death's ring for one full day, and join with a reaper to take the souls of the dying. One full day and he had to do everything he was told to do, following Tess around and taking people into the light beside her. He couldn't remove the ring for the whole day, or the agreement would have been voided.

It wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. The first couple of souls were no big deal, a store robbery gone wrong here, a fat guy having a heart attack there. Then there was the little girl. Dean wouldn't take her. Even though she was sick, and it was her time. There was nothing Tess could do to explain it, so she let Dean learn on his own, watching the chain reaction in the wake of the mistake that he made. Instead of her dying, the nurse that had been charged with her care during surgery was let go early. She went home, was involved in a car accident, and died. When her soul asked why she had to do, Tess pointed at Dean. It was true. It was his fault she was dead.

Though by the end of the day, he'd removed the ring from his hand to stop the mess he was making, he'd gotten the point that Death was trying to make. The disasters he'd caused had a new light shed on them when he was the one that had to clean up after it. He got it, and though he'd broken the deal, Death came through for him, going into Hell, bringing his soul back, and placing it back where it belonged.

"Tell him, don't scratch the wall." He'd said. He referred to the wall that he placed over Sam's memories of Hell. The thoughts of what happened to his soul while it was in the Cage was too much for any human to take. Seeing it all again could easily turn Sam into a babbling, brain-damaged vegetable. Cas had said it before, that the soul was a mess. He didn't want Dean to get it back, for fear of what it would do if Sam knew of his past. Dean insisted. As much of a risk as it was, Dean needed his Sammy back.

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

When Sam opened his eyes again, he was new. He had no memory at all of what had happened in Hell, or any time afterward. He was a blank slate. This relieved Cas greatly. Not only was Sam going to be alright for the time being, but he also had completely forgotten that little confession regarding the nature of Cas and Dean's relationship. He didn't have to worry about Sam confronting Dean about it anymore. He didn't have to worry about Dean being angry with him about that. Maybe things could go back to normal for just a short time. Sam was okay. The wall worked, and God forbid it ever crack.

Sam's memories from the past year did leak back to him, though. A little piece at a time, centering around a case that he and his brother had been on. Virgins were being taken. For what? Ritual sacrifice? No, that only happened in movies. Sam didn't know, and the tiny flashes of memory didn't help.

Dragons. They'd found it to be dragons. Why would dragons want virgins? At first they'd thought it would be to host dragon babies. It didn't matter what they were wanted for. They needed saving. Sam, with his new soul, and Dean as always were going back to the indomitable team they'd been. They fought the dragons, using the broken end of a rare dragon-killing blade to puncture such solid flesh. It was rough, but the two managed to save the girls, all but one, who was unaccounted for.

Mother of All. Nobody knew what the hell that meant. But that's what the dragons intended the virgins for. They wanted to open Purgatory and let something escape into the world of man. The Mother of All was what they called her. That was all Bobby could find on the ordeal. He promised to dig up more dirt, but in the meantime, things were getting busy again. More odd things were happening, and in another town, men were going missing. This town gave Sam unbearable dejavu. He'd been there before, been with…some women. He remembered gunshots, his grandfather, something else. Murder. Yes, that's it. Brenda, the missing sheriff's wife was the key to the missing time. She brought the memories flooding back. Her husband was missing because of Sam. Sam baited the man to catch up to Arachnes, spider people. He tracked all of them, and shot them while they were bound in webs. It came back to bite him in the ass. The sheriff didn't die and he was back for revenge. Putting him down was almost regrettable. With a soul, it was hard for Sam to face what he'd been in his past. He left, unforgiven by Brenda.

Then there were the mannequin murders. That was odd. But not nearly as disturbing as being zapped into an alternate dimension where the two of them were recognized as actors, interpreting their lives on tv. Thousands of people watched, apparently. The Supernatural books that Chuck wrote were hard enough to get used to. The conventions were even weirder. The slash fiction famed by Becky was something all on its own. But this? TV? Their lives? Everyone was watching? How much did they see? Dean was unnerved to no end by this thought. This side of the world was impossible to get used to. Not only was Sam married to 'fake Ruby' in their gigantic home, Cas wasn't Cas anymore. He was some guy, weirdly happy all the time, addicted to something called Twitter, always poking about on his phone. His once very well-fitting coat was replaced with a horrible sweater that Dr. Huxtable would have worn if he was a deer hunter from Canada. They'd been tracking the demon that they followed through some kind of portal. He wasted very little time in wrecking this alternate world, killing people, including fake Cas, who was later dubbed as the Attractive Crying Man by a bum that witnessed the murder.

That was an episode of their lives they didn't want to repeat, and the sooner they jumped back through the portal, the better. Even though they came back to find that the Mother of All, namely THE Eve, was now walking the Earth, brainwashing people. Bobby and Rufus joined forces to investigate. They'd found out about the worms that Eve planted in people's heads, and once the trail led the lot of them to an old warehouse with Samuel and Gwen, the worm took turns infecting people, leaving Rufus dead at the hands of an infected Bobby and Gwen dead at the hands of an infected Dean. Sam killed Samuel on his own, thinking he'd been infected, which he had. Eve sent each of them a message before the worm was electrocuted out of Bobby, stating that they were all going to die.

Bobby'd lost a friend and his suffering wasn't over yet, as the timeline suddenly changed, leading to a present where not only Ellen and Jo were still living, but Bobby married Ellen and they were a happy couple in this life. Lo and behold, this was another one of Castiel's ideas that he developed out of desperation. He convinced Balthazar to go back in time and save the historical ship Titanic from it's watery grave, sparing all the souls involved and spawning new souls for his plan. Fate, however, didn't like this plan and set to cleaning up the mess that the angel made, nearly taking his friends with her just out of punishment. Cas managed to save the Winchesters, but his mistake had to be ratified and Titanic was one again sunk, setting things back as they had to be, with Ellen dead and Bobby once again all alone.

There was a pinhole of light at the end of that tunnel, though. The Winchesters were able to discover that phoenix ash was able to kill Eve where nothing else would. Though neither of them heard of the creatures existing, an answer was provided for that too. Cas sent them back to 1861, the same place Samuel Colt's journal claimed that a phoenix died. While they were gone, the angel managed to slay everything in his way, including his lieutenant Rachel. The Winchesters only had a 24 hour period to gather the ash, and though Dean managed to burn the phoenix, who'd been known as a wrongly hanged man named Elias Finch, he failed to gather the ash. Colt came through for them, and via the postal service, delivered the goods.

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

"Why are you walking like that?" Dean asked, noticing the slower, less graceful gait that Cas was carrying himself in. It reminded him of how Sam walked when he complained about his underwear riding up.

"My uh…groin is rather tender. The skin is raw. I can't stop scratching, Dean. I think I contracted something."

"What?! When?" Dean asked, offended.

"The only time we've been intimate in the past year." Cas replied, annoyed that he had to explain. Intimate was not the word for their last encounter that occurred weeks ago. It had taken place just after Sam had his first crack-in-the-wall seizure. His soul had just been returned and everything seemed like it would be fine, until Sam was thrashing about on the floor. After his muscles went limp, he slept for the first time in a year, and slept heavily. When Cas appeared, Dean had already been drinking in excess, as he did when he was scared or distraught in some form. He worried about Sam, wondered how long he would have his brother back before the entire wall came tumbling down.

The angel and his human had been arguing, and at this point, Cas forgot what it was about. He knew it had something to do with his kissing Meg, but there was more to it. Their words got heated, and like it had before, one thing led into another. It was a surprise how aggressive Dean was while intoxicated, how he made Castiel his even though the two of them were at odds with each other. In anger, Dean had never kissed more passionately, but the rest of his movements were rough and dominating. He'd literally torn parts of their clothing during removal and it almost hurt dry-humping naked in the corner of the bathroom. The angel's hip bones bruised when Dean started with him that night, initiating entry by pressing him against the sink, which Cas broke by gripping the porcelain rim so tightly. His forehead bumped the mirror and spider webbed the glass when Dean pulled a fistful of his hair and then let go to place a possessive bite mark into Castiel's shoulder-blade, before the two of them sank down to their knees and Dean pressed the smaller man's head and chest onto the dirty tile floor, one hand covering his mouth to keep the urgent whimpers from waking Sam who slept just on the other side of the wall. In his drunken state, he noted aloud to his angel that this was "prison style" as he gripped the smaller man's hips. By the time he finished, the two men were exhausted and one was bruised but they were sated Though it was much more violent than usual, it was still their form of closeness and expression of love for one another.

Sam actually yelled at Dean the following morning when he saw the state of the bathroom.

"Dean, what the Hell did you do in here?! The sink is broken! The mirror has blood on it! Dammit, dude. No more trying to take a shower with Jim Beam! Hangover or not, you're cleaning this shit up."

"How do you know you caught something? Maybe it's a rash?" Dean suggested in doubt.

"Perhaps you should just see a doctor. I'm concerned. I didn't get this before when we slept together, but since you've been with Lisa, now I suddenly have-"

"Shut up, Cas." Dean seethed. He always got offended when someone mentioned her in a negative way, as if the woman was a saint. Go to Hell, Dean. She's no princess…which is why this itches so badly. Badly wasn't the word for it. He could barely think it itched so bad.

"I could have only gotten it from you."

"What about Meg? That nasty bitch probably has-" Dean started before the angel interrupted.

"Yes, because it's characteristic for kissing on the lips to cause genital inflammation."

"Didn't I say to shut up? Last warning, open your mouth again and I swear I'll punch you into next year." Dean growled. His fists were already clenched, one already held up in seriousness.

Cas obliged and didn't speak for a while, sucking in his lower lip in frustration. The human wasn't kidding, as it wasn't the first time that he'd resorted to hitting to get his point across. It was Dean that had thrown the first punch in the history of their relationship. Castiel wasn't innocent in the matter either. Though he loved the gentle moments the two of them shared together, he'd definitely been guilty of beating the man he loved near to oblivion.

The group tracked Eve to a small town in Oregon, though they didn't know exactly where she was located. She was in the town, for sure, but where?

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

"I'll search the town. Give me a moment." Cas offered, sitting beside Sam and across from Bobby at a diner while they waited.

Dean looked up a moment later.

"Cas we can still see you." He said.

"Yeah, I'm still here." Cas replied, looking puzzled.

"You don't have to wait on us." Dean assured. Cas rolled his eyes and tried to fly away again, hoping it would work this time, grunting once and closing his eyes to concentrate deeper.

"Well now it just looks like you're pooping." Dean said, entertained.

"Something's wrong." Cas said, when he found it impossible to move from his place without getting up and walking.

"What? Are you stuck?" Dean asked.

"I'm blocked." The angel replied, looking to his friends for some kind of reaction or reasoning. "I'm powerless."

"You're joking."

"Something in this town is affecting me." Came the answer. No, he wasn't joking. He was basically human here, again. That would explain the itching. It didn't start until getting to this town.

"Mom's making you limp?" Dean asked, starting to become annoyed.

"Figuratively, yes." But only figuratively.

"How?"

"I don't know," Cas answered truthfully. "But she is."

"Oh well, that's great. Cause without your power you're basically just a baby in a trench coat." Dean replied, disappointed and still in a bad mood.

Cas looked at the man he was usually so close to, offended. He opened his mouth to say something back, but there was nothing really to say without starting a fight in front of Sam and Bobby. Instead, he shook his head and looked out the window. Great, Dean. Go ahead. You're punishing me because *you* gave me some sort of infection. I fail to see how that's my fault. You didn't even ask for my consent that night. Usually, Dean would ask Cas during intimacy if this was okay, or would prompt him to say that he wanted it.

Sam looked at Bobby, then at Dean, as if to say 'awkwarrrd' but instead he whispered:

"I think you hurt his feelings."