A. N. Before anyone can start throwing rotten tomatoes at me. I'M SORRY! It's taken me way too long to update this story, and for those who read my other fic When Hell Comes After You I know you're all tired of hearing me blame it on the damn writer's block. But I can only promise that I'm not abandoning either of these stories, and that I will keep posting more chapters as long as you'll have them.

Comments and reviews are as always very appreciated; it honestly makes my day to read what you have to say about my stories. I hope the wait was worth it, and I promise not to take so long to update next time!

Disclaimer: Not mine, not now, not ever. Except for Miel.

For the following week, Dean kept up his angel blood diet. Gabriel had decided to keep the dosage they'd started with, instead of making it smaller like they'd originally planned. Apparently being Michael's vessel meant Dean had a higher tolerance for their cocktail. And not that Dean could complain, really, he felt stronger than he'd ever felt before, and he'd managed to control his angelic vision—or whatever— well enough to turn it off when he didn't want to see the angels' grace or wings all over the place. Because, honestly, having four angels in the same room, feather-dusters and all, it got a bit claustrophobic.

With every new taste of blood, Dean could see their wings much more clearly than before. He could see the feathers perfectly now, and they just looked like they'd be so freaking soft, that clenching his fists was all Dean could do not to reach over and touch them. Thing he wasn't even sure he could do in the first place, but he hadn't gotten around to asking, because something told him that touching an angel's wings was a pretty big deal.

Glancing away from his coffee, Dean looked at Castiel from the corner of his eye. He looked healthy; the wound that that bastard Adonis (whatever his name was) had given him had healed completely, according to Mel.

It'd be time for his daily dose of blood soon, and Dean couldn't help but worry about the little, nerdy angel. He'd assured Dean that he'd get used to giving away all that power to him, that it was only a matter of time; but it didn't seem like it was getting any easier for Cas. Even if the weakness that came after only lasted for a couple of minutes— as far as Dean could see, because since the day before, he'd noticed a ripple in Cas's grace that wouldn't smooth out until practically an hour after he'd drank. The concern he saw in Mel's eyes from time to time didn't quell his worries either. Nor the way Eli's wings ruffled when it was time for him to drink, like he was angry that Cas had to do this for him.

Sam was still angry with him for drinking the blood in the first place, but he seemed to have understood that nothing he said was going to change Dean's mind, because he'd stopped stalking him down to talk him out of it. Didn't stop him from giving him that constipated, maximum level bitchface of his though. Gabriel found it hilarious.

That was another thing. The archangel had apparently gotten over his anger at him for how he'd treated Cas in the past. He actually seemed to like Dean now. Dean himself was starting to appreciate the archangel's sense of humor, especially when the pranks were directed at a certain Sasquatch brother of his. And when Eli joined in on the fun, it was even more entertaining. Kid was damn creative when he wanted to. Even if he seemed to have no preference for anyone in particular when he designed his pranks. Dean had found himself on the receiving end of his fair share of them.

But Dean wasn't the only one getting his daily supernatural fix. Crowley popped in more often than not lately, and he had started training Sammy with his new found nature. At least he didn't need to drink blood of any kind, or Dean might have had to shoot the demon in the face. Call him a hypocrite, Dean could care less. Sam was not getting close to a drop of demon blood for the remainder of his gigantic life.

"Dean." He blinked, coming down from his thoughts to look at Castiel. He knew what the angel was trying to say. With a sigh, he downed the rest of his coffee and stood.

"Okay, okay, I'm up." Castiel nodded and walked to the living room. Looking after him, Dean could see the way his wings tensed behind him, as though readying himself to lose all that energy again. He frowned. Cas's wings hadn't done that the last time. Was he getting weaker?

Following after him, Dean was ready to talk the new archangel into telling him. Because God knew Cas had a tendency to keep things regarding his own health to himself; and even when he did tell him, it was always in a less than accurate way that tended to completely disregard the seriousness of his injuries. Like that time Dean had all but demanded he take him and Sam to the past. He had ignored Castiel's claim that it would weaken him, not imagining that what the angel actually meant was that it could very well kill him. He knew better now.

Walking into the living room, he saw Mel sitting next to Cas, that ever present concern shining in her eyes like all the other times they'd done this. Gabriel had his back turned to Dean, standing by Cas, his voice serious. As soon as Dean walked in, the younger angels looked up at him, and Gabriel looked at him over his shoulder before facing Castiel again. With a pat on his brother's shoulder, he offered his hand to Mel. Miel nodded and squeezed Cas's hand before taking her older brother's and standing. She sent a small smile towards Dean and they both left the room in a flutter of wings.

Dean frowned. It wasn't unusual to see the angels talk amongst themselves, but he didn't like the solemn way Gabriel had been talking to Cas, or the look in Miel's eyes when she'd looked at the dark haired angel. Walking up to Cas, he sat next to him.

"What was that about?" he asked. Castiel didn't answer immediately, his eyes fixed on his lap, and Dean knew that to be Castiel-talk for 'I know what it is but I don't want to tell you because I know you won't like it'. He tilted his head, moving into Cas's line of sight, making him turn his head to face him. "Cas?"

Castiel sighed, "Gabriel says we have to increase the dosage. To get you ready to drink his blood."

See?

"What? Why? Isn't what I've been taking enough? I thought I couldn't take too much because of all that overdose crap." He searched Cas's eyes, focusing on the angel's grace. While the angel couldn't lie to him, he hadn't been opposed to hiding things from him if it thought it best for Dean's sake. "Cas."

"That's true. But you're Michael's vessel, and—"

"Yeah, yeah, I can take more juice than usual, I get it." He cut him off. "But what about you? This is hurting you, Cas." He saw the angel open his mouth to protest, but Dean wouldn't have any of it. "And don't you bother denying it, because I can see it, alright? Angelic super-vision, remember?" Castiel pursed his lips in a thin line, and Dean was pretty sure that the angel was wishing Dean couldn't see his real self at the moment.

"Yes, but that is not of import, Dean. You need to get stronger. Raphael is getting more reckless every day, and sooner or later he'll find a way to open the cage. The day we have to meet him in the battlefield is close." Castiel's steel gaze focused on his, and damn it, Dean knew he wouldn't be able to talk the angel out of it. "I'm the only one that has what you need right now. Miel and Elijah are too young, and their rank is not high enough to prepare you for the blood of a real archangel. Mine is."

Dean could feel his resolve faltering; he knew the angel was right, but it just wasn't fair. "Yeah, Cas, I know that, but you can't just—"

"This is necessary, Dean." Dean's shoulders sagged, knowing Castiel would be unmovable.

"Alright…alright, fine." Rubbing his face, he nodded. "Just…" he met the angel's eyes, a fear that he would lose control like the first time he'd tried Cas's blood suddenly taking over him, "Stop me…if I lose it. Don't let me drink more than I have to." His face was serious, but his eyes were begging Castiel to listen. Promise me. Promise me you won't let me hurt you more than I have to.

Castiel's eyes softened, and Dean could see his wings relaxing slightly. It was then that he realized Cas had been uneasy about the effect it would have on Dean as well; and again he felt like a pretty fucking shitty friend for even agreeing to this in the first place.

At the angel's nod, Dean sighed and waited for Castiel to cut his arm. His stomach clenched as he noticed that the cut was deeper than usual, but he didn't say anything and took the angel's offered arm to his lips.

Glancing at Cas, he could actually see the energy leave the angel, like his light faded slowly to flow inside him, so Dean closed his eyes, refusing to see what his need for strength was doing to his friend.

He wasn't sure when his control started slipping, but he remembered his worry and tension leave him as he crossed the line they'd drawn in the last few days, the new power taking the usual rush of strength to a totally new level. He was vaguely aware of Castiel tensing, but the angel didn't stop him, so he closed off to the outside world and kept drinking, basking in the new feeling of wholeness that flowed through him.

Minutes later, he felt Castiel's arm being pulled away, and a growl vibrated in his chest as he clung it possessively. He thought he heard the muted voice of the angel telling him to stop, but he didn't listen. Intent on securing the source of his energy, he sank his teeth into the flesh that, until recently, had felt too hard to penetrate.

Sam opened the door to Bobby's house with a sigh. His training with Crowley had been giving pretty good results, despite the demon's constant jives and condescension. But while Sam could feel his power grow stronger, and while his control over it came to him much more easily than the first practice, it didn't stop Crowley from working him to the bone. He needed a shower, and then he was going straight to bed.

Glancing at his watch, he frowned. Well that was a no to getting a beer. Dean was supposed to be getting his daily dose of blood by then, and Sam might have backed off his case, but he didn't plan on seeing his brother sucking Castiel's blood anytime soon. As he walked by the living room, intent on not looking inside, he heard Cas's voice, and the alarm in it made him freeze.

"Dean." A feral growl answered the angel, and Sam refused to believe that the sound had come from his brother. "Dean, stop, that's enough." No response. "Dean."

Sam walked back towards the living room, his heart clenching at the thought of Cas not being able to stop Dean. Just a few days before, he'd overheard Eli discussing with Miel that Cas would be too weak to defend himself if Dean lost it, but Miel had shut him up with a warning look as soon as she'd noticed that Sam was within earshot.

He got to the door just in time to hear a pained gasp, and the sight that greeted him was the one he had feared since Dean had told him about the angel blood.

Dean looked like he'd lost his senses, and Castiel was way too pale for comfort, pushing pathetically against his brother. Blood stained the angel's arm, and his brother's mouth and chin were completely covered in it.

Suddenly, Dean moved away from Cas's arm, and for a second Sam thought he was back to normal, but then his hand shot to the angel's neck, tightening around it in what had to be a choking hold. The fact that Cas couldn't defend himself could only mean that he was either too weak to do anything, or that Dean was too strong. What shook Sam to the core however, was that his brother was now pulling the angel towards him, aiming his mouth at Castiel's neck.

"Dean, no!" Without thinking, he sent a pulse of power forward, pulling his brother away from the angel. In his hurry, he used a bit too much strength, and Dean ended up flying into the wall. With a brief look at Dean, Sam made sure that his brother was okay, if only slightly out of it, then focused his attention on Castiel.

Bleary blue eyes looked at him, and Sam kicked himself for not thinking of what all this blood business had been doing to Castiel. "…Sam."

"Yeah," he nodded, helping the angel sit up, "Yeah, it's me, Cas. You're okay."

"Dean?" Castiel's eyes searched for his brother, and Sam felt inexplicably guilty for the way the angel had come to put his brother's safety before his own.

"He's okay, Cas. He's right here." He assured him.

"My, my. You Winchesters just can't do anything without making a huge mess, can you." Crowley's voice came from his right. Looking up, Sam saw him looking down at Castiel, something in the demon's eyes that he couldn't quite name.

"Can you help him?" he asked, still holding Castiel close.

"He's already healing, Moose." Crowley rolled his eyes, "Just give him a few moments and he'll start getting his rosy cheeks back."

Sam glared at him, intent on calling Gabriel next when he felt a hand latch onto his shirt, grip already stronger than it had been minutes ago, if only slightly so.

"He's right, Sam." Castiel's eyes were much clearer when he met them again, their usual intensity coming back to their blue depths.

"Cas?" a terribly hoarse voice came from were Dean had landed, and Sam looked away from the angel to see his brother staggering to his feet. The sight of blood still fresh on and around Dean's mouth made something clench in his stomach. What was worse was the look of absolute horror in his brother's eyes as Sam watched Dean piece everything together.

As soon as the fog around his mind lifted, Dean felt the pain in his back from having hit the wall. Trying to get on his knees, images of the last minutes rushed back to his mind.

The blood...so addictive, hypnotizing him with its promise of immediate power.

A muted voice calling his name.

A sudden animalistic urge to not let go of the source of all that energy.

To take more.

More.

More.

Then he'd been pulled away, apparently thrown against a wall. As his thoughts were back in order, Dean felt his heart clench in sudden dread. Staggering up from the floor, he moved his eyes to the sofa just a few feet away from him, fearing what he would find. "Cas?"

The sight of the angel being held up by his brother made something inside him die. Castiel looked too pale, too fragile; too human. The fact that he'd been the cause of that so directly when just minutes ago Cas had been a fully powered archangel— that it wasn't even the first time he'd been the cause of that weakness—, it made his chest constrict.

The flutter of wings snapped him out of his reverie, and Dean turned to a stricken Mel and a serious Gabriel, sure that his expression betrayed the horror that was killing him from the inside.

"Castiel!" Mel cried, rushing towards Cas. Before she could get to him however, she was stopped by both of her brothers; Gabriel holding her back by taking hold of her shoulders while Cas raised a hand, his voice much weaker than Dean would have liked.

"Miel, stay back." He ordered.

"What? Castiel, just let me—"

"Ramiel." Gabriel's voice resonated with hidden power, and the younger angel stopped struggling in his arms.

Watching from a few feet away, eyes wide as he tried to understand what had happened, what he'd done, Dean felt himself tense as deep sapphire eyes turned to look at him. "Cas," he gasped, "I'm—"

"Dean." He flinched, waiting for the accusation that he knew wouldn't come; because the angel was too fucking forgiving for his own good. Castiel's hand, the same he'd used to stop Mel, reached forward, beckoning him closer, and Dean felt himself obeying like a scolded child under the gaze of an always loving parent, walking meekly towards the angel until he was sitting beside him.

The angel's eyes softened slightly, and as much as he wanted to, Dean couldn't find it in himself to look away from his blue eyes. Castiel's hand —smaller than his and lacking in the calluses that separated Dean's lifestyle from Jimmy's— closed around his wrist, guiding his right hand to the open wound on his arm.

It was still bleeding.

And if that didn't say something about just how much he'd drained from the angel, Dean didn't know what did.

Guilt and helplessness took over him, and his left hand joined his right over the cut. He wished that he could just spare his friend of all this pain. That he could take it away.

Closing his eyes, the angel's understanding gaze suddenly becoming too much for him, Dean wished he could just go back and fix this. He felt his frustration at his inability to help boil inside him, nagging at his chest, burning him.

A gasp close to him made him frown, and the light touch of someone's hand over his lured him into opening his eyes. His chest suddenly swelled with relief and confusion, and he found himself gaping like an idiot at the sight before him.

A pale white light illuminated his hands, making them feel warm, the kind of warmth that he'd only felt in the safety of his undamaged family; once upon a time, when he was still four years old, still a child. The unexpected memory made him flinch, and he tried to pull his hands back, but Castiel didn't let him, his hand holding onto Dean's with a strength that hadn't been there moments before.

Confused awe taking over his features, Dean looked up into the angel's eyes, and in them he saw the same old smile; the one that lit up his blue eyes and just barely made his lips curl up. Castiel tilted his head slightly, as if to say 'Don't look at me. You're the one doing this. You're the one helping me. This is all you.'

Castiel lifted his hand from Dean's, and the hunter felt a part of himself pull back into the safety of his chest as the light started fading away. Looking back down at his hands, he pulled them away from Cas's arm, and he couldn't help but to expect the wound to still be there; to magically reappear on the angel's arm, like a big 'Hahah, just kiddin'! Got you good, though!' that Dean had come to await whenever anything good happened in his life.

But the wound didn't come back, and Dean stared down at his hands because finally— fucking finally— they'd done something other than suck the life and happiness out of everything around him.

He must have looked like a freaking idiot too, because there was a quiet chuckle next to him that made him look back at his friend. And just the fact that Castiel was right there, smiling (for real this time), and actually laughing at him —the little bastard—, made a wave of relief wash over him, and Dean pulled the angel into a tight (and manly) hug. Because he hadn't fucked up the only friendship he'd managed to keep for just over three years now, and if there were tears in his eyes, Dean couldn't bring himself to care that Sammy was right there and there was no fucking way he'd missed them.

He felt the angel hug him back, and Dean buried his face in the crook of Cas's neck. Because there was nothing he could do to thank the angel for making him feel more useful and accomplished than he'd felt in so many fucking years.

He felt his brother stand from the sofa, and someone cleared their throat. Freeing Cas from his crushing embrace, and giving the angel a brief shaky smile, he turned to look at the other angels in the room, not quite daring to look at his brother, and ignoring the presence of the demon (who Dean just knew was smirking in all his condescending British glory, the pompous bastard).

Miel was giving him the warmest smile he'd ever seen, and once again Dean felt a genuine happiness and pride swarm inside him that he could see reflected clearly in her eyes and grace. He'd have to ask her later about this way of hers to…well, literally share her feelings with everyone else in the room. Because there was no way those feelings could come from himself.

"Well if you're done molesting my brother, I think some training for your lazy human ass is long overdue, don't you?" Dean looked at the mocking archangel, expecting to find anger in his eyes for what he'd done to Castiel, only to find something almost akin to fondness in his eyes. And really, just thinking that the former Trickster and him were actually bonding was pretty fucking weird; but Dean didn't let himself give it much thought before replying with his usual scowl. And if there wasn't any real anger or hatred behind it either, Dean blamed Mel's happy-mojo.

"Training? What, I don't even get to drink a beer after almost giving myself a panic attack?"

Gabriel laughed, "You're hilarious. Really. But what you just did to cure Cassie proves that you're at the level of an angelic nurse." Dean glared at him, Crowley snorted, "And if that's the only thing that this amount of cocktail has added to your new grace, then I quit chocolate." He paused. "For a day." Miel rolled her eyes with a smile before sitting at Cas's other side.

"Wait, wait," Sam interrupted, standing just a couple feet away from the sofa; and Dean got the feeling that he was still waiting for him to go berserk again. "You just said Dean has a grace? I mean, I thought this was only supposed to give him powers, not actually turn him into an angel."

Gabriel turned sardonic eyes towards Sam, "Well, that might be because you kinda missed the first class, Gigantor. Now go play with your toys, the grownups have to talk."

With a level 9,000 bitchface, Sam glared at the archangel before practically stomping out of the room. Crowley rolled his eyes at the little outburst only to look around and narrow his eyes, nose wrinkling like he'd just noticed a bad smell.

"Well, seeing as the room is now full of all your clean, white pigeon stench, I'll take my leave as well." In the blink of an eye, the demon was gone, and Dean let himself relax, leaning back on Bobby's old couch. The fact that he wasn't sure if it was Sam's exit that he was relieved for or Crowley's was kind of unsettling.

"Okay," he started, "So do we really have to start training right now?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes, "I swear, you humans are all a bunch of whiny babies." A chocolate bar materialized in his hand, which he immediately opened with practiced ease and started munching on, "But, luckily for you, Cassie and I have something to look into, so you can go hide from your over-sized brother and catch on your beauty sleep for a few hours."

"Wait," he frowned, glancing at Castiel, who was already standing from the sofa, rolling his sleeve back down, "You're leaving? Already?" he tried not to sound concerned, but from the amusement in Gabriel's eyes, he'd failed craptastically, "I mean, shouldn't Cas take it easy for a bit?"

"I'm fine, Dean." Came the very expected reply. And while Dean could see that Castiel's grace was perfectly smooth and back to its usual cool blue, he couldn't help but feel wary.

"Right," he looked at Mel, trying to get a more believable answer.

With a small smile, Miel nodded at him, putting a hand on his shoulder, "He really is, Dean. You healed him. He'll be fine."

He sighed, rolling his eyes, "Fine, fine." He turned to look at the archangel, pointing a threatening finger at him, "But if you're not here before tomorrow, you're bringing me some pie."

Miel's laughter immediately made him feel lighter, and Dean's concern evaporated as he met the archangel's golden eyes in a staring match that he knew he wouldn't lose. When it came to pie, no one could stare him down.

TBC

Next Chapter: Sam confronts Dean about this new blood thirst, and Cas meets with an old friend, guess who! (Hint: Name starts with a B :3 )