If it was at all possible, the room became quieter than before. Dean shifted his weight from one foot to the other and crossed his arms in front of his chest, awkward in the stillness. "Well no offense Cas, but none of your visits have been particularily pleasant. You heard Bela… Let's get it over with."

"Well first of all," Castiel turned to John and Bela's side of the room. "You must understand our situation. Lilith's progress has been moving rapidly, and we are getting quite worried. The seals are being broken faster than we can defend."

Bela looked up immediately, recognizing a name that she already knew. "Lilith is breaking… seals?"

Castiel nodded, meeting Bela's eyes with what was probably a very intense stare. "We think of the seals as locks on a door…"

Oh God, not this again…

"And in order for each one to be broken, something specific must occur. If sixty-six seals are broken than Lucifer breaks out of his cage, so to speak." Cas looked to Dean, as if hoping for a more human explanation. Luckily he didn't have to.

"So you mean Lucifer as in… Lucifer the devil?" John raised an eyebrow skeptically, his voice guarded. "The devil?"

"Yes, that is another name for him." Castiel moved his eyes back to Dean, almost like he was the default setting. "Lucifer is my brother."

Now that was a new one. Dean almost jumped in surprise. "He's… what?"

Everyone else's surprise was apparent also. But Castiel didn't give them time to speak up. "Lucifer was an archangel. He disobeyed our father's orders and fell from grace. He was sent to hell, where he turned his human followers into demons. If…" Cas frowned. "If Lucifer is released, he will bring war upon heaven. No matter which side wins, those on earth will suffer. Billions of people will die. You would know it as the apocalypse."

John shook his head, leaning foreword on his elbows almost angrily. "But surely there must be something you can do to stop it! You're angels!"

Voice almost text-book accurate when he next spoke. "'That which is above is the same as that which is below.'… Heaven and Hell are equally balanced, and right now the cards are falling in their favor. Lilith is a very old and very powerful demon. We have neither the numbers nor the means to dispose of her. Which brings me to the reason for our meeting."

John leaned back into the folds of the couch, and Bela wrapped her arms around herself defensively. Dean leaned forwards against the couch where his dad sat, gripping the back tightly. They were all prepared for the bomb to drop.

"Lucifer had many demons loyal to him," Castiel continued. "Azazel, Lilith, Beezlebub, Crawley, Samhain. A few of them have been eliminated over time. Beezlebub was killed by Samuel Colt, Dean killed Azazel, Sam killed Samhain. Those are only a few. Crawley has yet to come out of the woodwork, and for the meantime he is not a threat. Right now we have Lilith to worry about. In order to get to her, my superiors tell me that the best way to do this is to eliminate her followers. The priority right now is Alistair."

The room went silent. It was like everyone was afraid to move for fear of being noticed. Of course, Dean hadn't talked about hell with dad. Neither of them asked, and neither of them told. And the same went for Bela, obviously. They weren't even friends.

So of course… there was no way to know if dad or Bela even knew who Alistair was. Maybe Dean was the only one who had had the indecency of meeting him in hell. Maybe they had met someone else. Their silence could have just been confusion.

Or not.

So Dean just stood there stiffly, afraid to move a muscle, waiting for someone else to ask the first question.

"I just got here," John's voice seemed quite loud in the static atmosphere around them. "My boy just got home… We aren't in any place to be hunting right now. Find someone else…" Indignantly he rose to his feet and continued around the couch – not without a glare in Castiel's direction – and gave Dean a look which said to follow. Dean held back however.

"But you don't want us to hunt him…" Dean met the angel's eyes in hope that he would get the answer there. "Do you?"

Castiel shook his head from side to side slowly. "No."

John turned around, looking flabbergasted. "Well than what" – He threw his hands up in the air. "What exactly is it that you want from us?"

Bela's face was almost blank, but her hands were tightly clenched in her lap. She didn't meet anyone's eyes.

They were afraid. They were all afraid. Hell, Dean didn't want to know the answer either. But someone had to ask.

"Look Cas, I know you don't want to be here." Dean leaned across the back of the couch, gesturing around the room with a hand. "But neither do we, alright? So why don't you just do us all a favor and get it over with? Then you can get off home and tell your little Sunday-school buddies that you did your job. I'd rather not be here all night."

Cas sighed, sweeping the room with his eyes and then falling back on Dean again. "No, we don't want you to hunt him. We aren't planning on killing him yet. First, we need to catch him."

Bela huffed, looking upwards for the first time that night. "Oh of course," she sighed sarcastically. "We'll just stroll back into hell and invite him into our little angel-party. That sounds just splendid!"

"He isn't in hell …"

"Dean's right," Cas nodded in Bela's direction. "We believe that Alistair is in Asia. But that's irrelevant. We don't need you to fetch him for us, we know how to do that on our own. There is a ritual that will bring him right to us… With your help."

"With our…" Dean ran a hand absentmindedly over his spiky hair, leaning on his elbows. " You've got to be kidding me, Cas."

The angel raised an eyebrow. "You know I am not one to kid often, Dean."

"At least tell me one thing…" Dean looked back up tiredly. "Why us?"

The angel's eyes were sympathetic. "You know why."

Bela stood up also, her arms crossed in front of her chest defensively. "You know what, I'm not agreeing to this." She went in the same direction as John, rudely bumping Castiel on her way out. "Screw you and your crazy orders."
Dean caught her by the arm gently, wincing when he felt how cold she was. "Yes, they can." He couldn't help glowering at Castiel, even though he hadn't done anything wrong. "Cas's friends really want this, don't they?"

The angel nodded grimly. "My superiors tell me that this is necessary."

Dean let go of Bela's arm, and she spun around to face the angel again. For a minute she stood there, out of breath. "What would we have to do?"

"You will be given everything you need. The ritual would require a minimal amount of danger on your part. I know I'm asking a lot of you, but it needs to be done. In order to stop Lilith, we believe that we first need to get to Alistair."

For the first time in a long time, John spoke up. He sounded both angry and afraid. "…And what are you going to do with him after you have him?"

Dean was somewhat relieved that he wasn't the only one thinking about it. Was this a chance at revenge? Did he even want it?

As if reading his thoughts, Castiel met Dean's eyes before moving to John's. "We are going to get him to tell us what we need to know."

"He won't talk."

Castiel shrugged, looking about as cold as Dean had ever seen him. "He won't have a choice." The room was silent again, and after a long pause, Castiel surveyed the room with a quiet formality. "Uriel and I will come for you tomorrow, some time before midnight. Be ready."

Dean couldn't help the sense of panic that was creeping over him, cutting off his breath. He looked over to his friend in dismay. "Cas, wait a sec" –

But the angel was gone.