A/N: Sorry I was gone for long! Finally back from Orlando, and wow, it was a long eight weeks. But also the fastest eight weeks of my entire life. Sorry for keeping everyone waiting! Only 3 more chapters and then the epilogue!


Chapter Twenty-Eight

Something nags at Castiel's brain. He's been awake for nearly an hour now, staring at the ceiling as Dean sleeps next to him, arm thrown over Castiel's waist in a possessive clutch. His brain whirls in a circle, like a machine lagging, just repeating the same flawed process over and over again.

Beside him, Dean twitches slightly and then nuzzles into Castiel's arm, murmuring something indistinguishable before falling silent again. Cas tilts his head down, cutting his eyes down to watch Dean's sleeping features for a moment. He is beautiful like this, relaxed for the first time in days. Before, though, he'd been just as wide awake as Cas is now, tossing and turning like a flimsy sailboat caught in a summer storm.

Finally, Cas hadn't been able to take it anymore and he had murmured, "Come here," and pulled Dean against him with a deep kiss. It hadn't been hot or fast - it had been slow and wrecked, with Dean panting out little ragged gasps against his lips as he rocked into him, and Cas had kept his arms around his neck as he whispered little encouragements.

After that, they had both fallen asleep together, a tangle of sweaty limbs - and it had been blissful, until about an hour ago, when Castiel had abruptly jolted out of sleep.

There is something he should know. Something that's important.

But what?

It's agonizing, just laying here, struggling to remember. Vainly, he tries to think of something that might have triggered his spurt of insomnia and instead goes back to the graveyard conversation. Looks back to the man who sleeps with his arms around him, like Castiel might leave at any second. He had been right earlier; they do have an unhealthy relationship. They have problems, boatloads of them - but they also have a fire that cannot be put out.

And Castiel thinks he might love him.

He hasn't said it back yet, and he wonders if this bothers Dean. If it does, he hasn't said anything about it, which Castiel is grateful for. But Dean is the first person in his life to every say that to Castiel - and he simply doesn't know if he can say it back. What if he thinks he's in love, and he isn't?

What is love, anyway?

Is it watching someone sleep at five in the morning? Is it being able to tell with a twitch of his mouth what mood he's in? Is it running your hands through his hair, is it catching his eyes right before his orgasm hits, is it knowing his favorite food or who his idol is or what his relationship with his father is like?

The problem, Castiel thinks, is that he wants love to be a tangible checklist that he can say, yes, okay, I have that, and deep down, he thinks it might be something more. Something consuming, and maybe he doesn't want that. He has been consumed his entire life.

Dean sighs into his hair.

Dean, who has lost so much and somehow still manages to love so thoroughly. With his eyes fixed on the ceiling, Castiel wades through their conversation - first Jo, then Alastair, then Sam and Ruby - he frowns.

Sam and Ruby, high off each other and Grace. What is it about Grace that attracts humans so much? It has no appeal to Castiel, who actually needs it to survive. It had been both thrilling and terrifying watching how easily it transformed Dean. And had he enjoyed Dean's roughness? He wants to deny that he had, but…

What a mess Dean's been through. And instead of being left to forget about it and move past it, he instead has to deal with the very same drug that ruined his brother's life - what would have happened had Dean never pursued Ruby far enough to learn the truth about it and its origins? He might have never been told about the SD and never been paired with Castiel. If it hadn't been for Ruby -

And suddenly Castiel knows why he's awake.

It's difficult to pry himself out of Dean's sleeping arms, but he manages it without waking the older man and then he fumbles around in the darkness to find a pad and paper, jotting down a quick explanatory note before getting dressed. He takes a moment to look up the directions on Dean's laptop before slipping out the door into the frosty morning air. Luckily, the library is only a couple of miles away from Bobby's place, and at a brisk pace, he manages to get there by seven thirty - and it's only twenty more minutes before an early librarian arrives to open the doors.

She's very helpful - seems to think he's a high schooler, completing some sort of project - If only you knew, he keeps thinking. There's absolutely no one else in the entire building, however, which allows her to devote forty-five minutes combing through old newspapers and FBI press statements to help him find what he needs.

He ends up staring at a picture for nearly ten minutes, trying to let it sink in.

Of course, he has to tell Dean. He just doesn't know how. And when. Immediately? Castiel is tired of having hard talks. He wants to sleep in late and kiss Dean till they're both drunk off it.

He's tired of this fight.

But he's a soldier. And soldiers battle on, even when their muscles ache and their hands carry bad news.

There's no need asking her to make a copy of the newspaper; it costs money, and besides, he can have Dean just drive back here if he really doesn't believe him. By this point, the sun is bright and overhead, and Dean will be restlessly waiting for him to get back. They'll no doubt already be planning an action to take, a way to fight the invisible army building up before them, and Castiel tries to hurry back.

He's preoccupied - of course he is, struggling to digest the impossible information curdling in his stomach - and so there's a lot of things he doesn't notice.

For instance, he doesn't notice the sweat trickling down his back underneath his thick coat. Or the birds calling out loud to each other over his head. Or the black SUV speeding up behind him.

He does, however, notice when it screeches to a halt in the grass behind him, and three burly men pile out of the car, all of them dressed head-to-toe in black and carrying weapons. It's instinctual to fight - to immediately throw himself at the first man, striking out and then sweeping a foot underneath and he falls, and then it's on to the next one, everything happening in a flash. That one is harder, and now there's two down -

He only stops at the warning shot.

"Get in the car," orders the man holding the gun.

Castiel stares, wide-eyed and unmoving. If he obeys, they'll kill him. If he doesn't obey - they'll still kill him, but at least he'll have tried. He twitches, about to feign left - and the butt of a shotgun slams into his head from behind and he crumples, hitting the ground with a sickening thud.

It is a very long time before Castiel knows anything but darkness.


Castiel wakes up with every muscle in his body screaming out in protestation, a muffled groan leaving his lips as he arches his back before collapsing back against the wall. A whimper escapes him, muffled. There's a tightly tied bandana gagging him, cutting into his lips as he gasps, mouth working uselessly in an effort to get rid of it. His arms are held up over his head with shackles, aching from the lack of blood, and when he squirms, he can feel shackles around his feet as well, digging into his ankles.

There's a rising sense of panic welling up inside him as he realizes how futile the situation is - and he presses his eyes shut tightly, counting to ten and willing himself not to scream.

You're going to open your eyes, he orders himself, and look around and assess the situation. You're going to remain calm. You're going to get out and find Dean and stop this from ever happening again.

He struggles to breath, struggles to force himself to remain calm, and then counts to three, telling himself he'll open his eyes on three. Then he counts to five, and then he starts listing the state capitals alphabetically.

Albany, Annapolis, Atlanta, Augusta -

"I can't believe it, I think he fucking fell asleep," comes a familiar voice and Castiel's eyes snap open.

"Gammrim?" he asks around his gag and chokes in surprise.

"Ah, there he is," says Gabriel brightly, looking bloodied and beaten with a black eye and the side of his neck covered in blood and something that looks infected. "Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty." On closer inspection, Cas can see that's it a needle stuck into his neck - and that it's connected to a tube slowly siphoning a bright, crystalline blue out of the angel.

Castiel's eyes dart around the rest of the room and he moves in shock without thinking, struggling to get out of his bondage before whimpering and falling still again. Because it's not just him and Gabriel tied up - no, if only - there are at least seven other angels, all of them chained and shackled with needles in their necks and bruises covering their bodies.

The urge to scream is getting stronger. Frantically, to keep control, he glances back at Gabriel who is patiently watching him take it all in with a sardonic little smile.

"We were taking bets on when you'd finally wake up. Anna lost about six hours ago; I didn't think it'd be until another day, so I guess -"

Castiel kicks his chains, shaking his arms with the strength he has stored up, expression contorted in anger.

Gabriel looks at him in surprise. "What, you don't want to hear about who won? Fine, but it was someone you'd never expect."

"Stop being an asshole, Gabe," says a girl from the other side of Castiel wearily. When he looks over, she's letting her head rest on her arm, looking as though just those few words have exhausted her. The circles under her eyes are a deep purple, contrasting sharply with her dark red hair and pale, pale skin. He supposes this is the Anna who lost. "He thinks he's helping to lighten the mood," she tells Castiel, "but really he's just being annoying."

"No, I suppose you'd rather have me wallowing in my own misery like Inias, over there," says Gabriel in a low voice, jerking his head, and three sets of eyes move to stare at a dead-eyed man just hanging there.

Castiel attempts to make a sound, forgetting his gag for a moment, and both Gabriel and Anna look at him again in sympathy.

"They'll take it away eventually," Anna tells him. "They'll let you bring your arms down sometime too. Not permanently obviously, but," she attempts a smile and it is the most heartbreaking thing Cas has ever seen.

"Don't do that, Anna," says Gabriel darkly, chains clinking as he shifts around. "Don't try to make him feel better. There's no way out of this, kid," he says, abruptly sounding furious. "They're just going to keep draining us and draining us until there's no way we can replenish and then they'll dump our bodies out with all the rest. It's happened to others. It's about to happen to half the people in here."

Castiel closes his eyes, unable to look at the faces of those about to be murdered before his eyes. He's one of them. He's next. The needle's not in his neck yet, but any moment now and they'll be in here to siphon his Grace out as well.

Austin, Baton Rouge, Bismarck, Boise.

"Hey," says Gabriel, and he sounds like he's just made a connection about something. "Hey - kid, you're in the -" he lowers his voice, but Castiel's still got his eyes closed, "the fucking FBI, right? So they're going to send someone to -"

A door opens somewhere far off in the building and suddenly the room is thick with tension, Gabriel instantly falling silent.

Boston, Carson City, Charleston, Cheyenne. He tries to quell the panic bubbling up.

Footsteps echo from the hallway and then pause outside the room and there's the sound of a lock clicking - and then the door opens and Castiel's eyes open against his will and a man walks in, flanked by two bodyguards. He's dressed in a pristine suit, looking almost bored as he looks around at his collection of tied angels. And then his eyes land on Castiel and his expression lights up.

"Ah," he says, striding forward and stepping cleanly over a puddle of something gruesome. "Awake. We were hoping you'd wake up sometime soon. The drugs must all be out of your system now." He smiles like this is something Castiel should be happy about.

Castiel just looks at him, with dried blood on his forehead from where he fell and saliva from the gag slowly dragging down his chin. He is a wounded animal, he is a sharpened sword. He is captured and bound.

"He's gagged, dumbass," says Gabriel after a moment of silence, and the man starts slightly, not looking the least bit upset by Gabriel's bluntess as he says, "Yes, right," and gestures to one of his men. The bodyguard moves forward and pulls out a switchblade, sliding a thick finger under the fabric and pulling it forward - jerking Castiel's head forward in the same movement and sending more spit sliding down his chin - and then cuts through it in one clean motion.

Castiel chokes and coughs as the bodyguard moves away, turning his head to drag his mouth against his raised arm to get rid of the spit before he looks back at the men before them. "Well?" he asks rawly. "What are you waiting for?"

"Excuse me?" asks the man and then looks around at Gabriel and Anna almost as if for confirmation. Then his eyes are back on Castiel, as if he can't look at anything else for long. He is reverent and then abashed. "Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. Lucifer Milton, at your service. I would shake your hand, but…"

Castiel's mind freezes for a moment and in a panic he blurs through five state capitals all at once (ColombiaColombusConcordDenverDesMoines) before he makes the connection and jerks his head towards Gabriel.

"Ah," says Gabriel. "Right. So… this is my brother. Castiel, Lucifer. Luci, Cas."

"Well, I knew you'd been to see him, but I didn't know you were on first name basis," says Lucifer, quite obviously delighted by this. He clasps his hands together. "Did you go around and introduce everyone in here already, Gabriel?"

"Didn't get around to it quite yet," says Gabriel, tilting his head back and decidedly not looking at anyone in the room. He looks resigned.

"Well - this is Anna," begins Lucifer, but Castiel can't take it any more.

"Don't play games with me," he grits out, voice tight with fury. "Do what you came in here to do and then leave."

Lucifer tilts his head, a questioning smile playing at his lips. "And just what did I come in here to do?"

"Stick a needle in my neck," he says with disgust. "Interrogate me. Beat me up again, I don't know. Take your pick."

Lucifer makes a sad little noise, like he's disappointed somehow, and then gestures aimlessly, carelessly. It seems to mean something to his two men, however, because they both get to work immediately, moving seamlessly around each other as if they have done this procedure a thousand times before. "I know you disapprove. I know you don't see the greater purpose behind all of this."

"Greater - purpose?" rasps Castiel, straining now as one of the men comes towards him. He arches his neck and breathes faster as something sharp pricks his throat, sinking into him. He already feels lightheaded. Dover, Frankfort, Harrisburg. "You - just want your filthy money."

"Money," sighs Lucifer, as if the concept is misguided. "Is that all there is to the world? Do you see nothing better than that? Must your goals be so shortsighted?"

Castiel lets out a low groan, feeling his knees give out underneath him as his Grace swirls in his veins and begins leaking out through the tube. He had given Dean all of two drops of his Grace when he'd drugged him; this is already three times the amount of that. Four times. Growing. He sags back against the wall.

"It's overwhelming, I know," says Lucifer sympathetically. "Some adapt to it, some don't." His eyes cut sideways to Gabriel and then over to Inias. Then he's back to looking at Castiel, a smile curving his lips. "I have much faith that you will be one of the ones to adapt."

"What a - fucking - honor," gasps Castiel, dropping his head back against the dirty wall and letting his eyes roll to the ceiling.

Lucifer laughs. "Your companion has influenced you, I see. Crass, but it gets the message across. Yes, I've been watching you for some time now, Castiel," he says when Castiel drags his eyes down to stare at him. "You and your partner. Mr. Winchester. Ah," another smile as Castiel reacts, jerking his head to the side and knocking it painfully against the wall. His arms are screaming, ears ringing. "I suppose you believe he's on his way for you, do you?"

"Leave him -" quick gasp, "alone."

"Think back, Castiel," says Lucifer. He looks calm, like a college professor or a young fresh executive. "Remember Mr. Winchester's little episode with his handler? I'm sure you quickly figured out that it wasn't just him, but a reaction all over the country. And I'm sure you made the connection between them as well?"

Castiel's lips move, throat constricting, but nothing comes out.

Lucifer nods, however, as though he's spoken. "Precisely. Every single one of them had ingested Grace at one point in their lives. The residue of it is much longer than that of any other drug, you see." His eyes drop to the IV bag where Castiel's Grace is currently dripping. There's something hungry about him in that moment, feral. Then he's back to looking at Castiel, calm smile back in place, moment over. "And somehow, due to a magnificent stroke of luck, Mr. Winchester's been exposed to it."

Castiel's fault. All of it. This is all his fault. If he hadn't - Hartford, Helena, Honolulu - drugged Dean, then Dean wouldn't be vulnerable, wouldn't be able to - "How?" he rasps out.

"How?" repeats Lucifer. "Ah. You expect a villainesque monologue, is that it? No. No, I'm afraid, that's not what this is. This is…" he moves around the room and examines each one of his prisoners, "a reminder," he finishes, coming to a stop at the end of the line - a blonde girl who is crying into her hair - and turns back around to look at all of them. "A reminder that there is no escape. There is no leaving. Don't get me wrong; there are rewards, if you cooperate. But if you do not." His eyes fall on Gabriel, abruptly turning callous. "The punishments are great."

"You - can't kill us," manages Castiel, and it already feels like he's losing himself, losing everything he ever knew. The pills had stifled his Grace for his entire life - but it was nothing like this. This is like being pulled apart, minute by minute, in the most painful of ways. Like bleeding out slowly from a hole in his stomach. This is like being flayed alive and pulled apart by wolves all at once. How are Gabriel and Anna still coherent after even a minute of this? "You need - the Grace."

They hold eyes for a long moment before Lucifer sighs and shakes his head slightly. "When will the world learn that there are so many things worse than death? You're correct; I do need it. But only for so long, until everyone's infected, and then what purpose will you have?"

He spares one last glance around the room, straightens his suit, and then leaves the room without another word. The two men follow, and the door clicks shut behind him and the lock turns.

There's a moment of silence and then, "God, I love family reunions," says Gabriel, and then coughs. "Can't wait for the next one."

Something is slowly occurring to Castiel. Indianapolis, Jackson.

"Gabriel," he says.

"What, kid?"

"If he's your brother…" He can't seem to form the words. "Does that mean he's an angel too?"

Gabriel makes a face. "Bingo."

Jefferson City. "He's - he's -"

"Doing this to his own kind?" There is a weariness in Gabriel's voice that should never be there. "Yep."

There's another thing there too. "Did you know? Could you… tell? About me?"

Gabriel leans his head back, closing his eyes. It almost seems as if he isn't going to respond for a moment and then he heaves a sigh and says, "Yes. I knew. I could tell the second I saw you."

With his Grace dragging out of his neck, he can't even pull up anger, only a dull sort of frustration. "Why didn't you… say anything? Gabriel, why?"

"It didn't strike me as that important at the time."

Castiel can only stare at him in blank disbelief. Didn't seem important? Didn't seem important that he clearly didn't know what species he was? He clenches his teeth together for a moment and considers at that moment simply ignoring Gabriel for the rest of his time here, however long that might be. And if Dean does somehow show up, telling him to let Gabriel rot. Didn't seem important?

"I'm sorry," says Gabriel. And just like that, Castiel doesn't care any more. It was a mistake, clearly, but they both ended up in the same situation, and he can't be furious with a prisoner.

"How did you get here?" he asks. "Why would he do this to you?"

"After you and Winchester came by…" And now Castiel sees that the conversation is costing him effort as well; Anna has already sunken back into a stupor, and Gabriel shines with sweat. He licks his upper lip and then continues on. "I waited a little bit, but it nagged at me, and I finally looked into it. Started seeing more and more angels that had disappeared, so I went to check in on Lucifer. I went to see if he was all right," he laughs, like it's funny. "And what I found…" he shakes his head. "I confronted him, like an idiot. I never once thought he'd do it to me too. I never once thought it."

That's the thing. If Lucifer will do this to his own family, what's stopping him? What kind of person - angel - is he? He's insane. He's entirely unpredictable.

He can't think of the capital city of Alaska. It's there, on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach. J. J, J, J. What is it? He can't. He can't think past - "Gabriel, you've been here for weeks. And you still haven't -"

"Don't give up hope, kid," says Gabriel in a low voice. He looks past the point of death. "After all… your partner's still out there, right? I know what Lucifer said, but - there's still a chance. And like he said. You'll adapt. Most of us have." This time, he purposely avoids all glances towards Inias.

"Gabriel - what's the capital city of Alaska?"

Gabriel gives him a sideways look, exhausted and confused. "No idea. Why? You think there's something there?"

"No reason," chokes Castiel, and then another wave of sickness hits him and he's drifting, down into himself, far away, lost at sea.