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Chapter title is song from Rush.

39

Working Man - Rush

"Oh crap."

Sam's muttered imprecation was loud in the silence of the library.

"What?"

"That nephilim Cas killed for Metatron's spell."

"The half-angel-half-human?"

"Child of an angel and a human." Sam corrected meticulously. "They're the children of The Fallen, from when they came down to earth and took human wives. It says here that most of them were wiped out in the Great Flood."

Dean blinked.

"The Great Flood, like The Ark Great Flood?"

"Yeah." Sam scoffed in agreement. "Anyway, only one of them, the most powerful, survived down through the ages. The daughter of Hope. Ramiel's daughter."

The chair clattered backwards as Dean shot to his feet.

"Dammit."

Sam looked up from reading, worried.

"Dean, we've got to warn him. I doubt Cas even knows what he's done. Metatron just pointed him in that direction and …"

Dean was already dialing.

The roar of a passing semi drowned out Cas' voice over the phone. Behind that Dean could hear the steady rush of traffic passing by in the background like Cas was standing at a busy intersection. Dean pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off his incipient headache.

What part of 'lockdown' was so hard to understand?

"CAS." He repeated urgently into the speaker.

"Yes, Dean." Cas shouted.

"What the hell are you doing outside?"

"We needed food."

Dean blew out an impatient breath.

"Well, get the damn food and get your ass back inside. And double up on your wards."

"Why?"

"That nephilim you killed for the angel trials? She was Ramiel's kid. Papa Bear's still going to be looking for you."

Silence.

"Cas?"

"I can't 'get my ass back inside', Dean."

It was going to be one of those days.

"Why not?"

"We're looking for the boy."

Dean's lips compressed. He looked across the table, just to check if Sam was getting this.

"Toby?"

"Yes."

He waited a beat. Nothing more came out of the phone.

"What's happened with Toby?" He ground the words out, because his throat had seized.

"We're not sure."

He had to stay calm. He closed his eyes to shut things out and tried to ease up on his grip. He didn't want to break the phone, because they needed the phone, but he was going to snap the thing in two if Cas kept giving him piecemeal answers like this. He knew he wasn't thinking clearly. There was a drumming noise in his ears like the time he'd lost Sam in Flagstaff, and he couldn't breathe. He looked over at Sam, because Sam was calm and Sam kept his head on and Sam minded the details and Sam didn't let things get ahead of him, like the slideshow of horror flashing relentlessly by in his head right now, all the things he had seen in his life, bloody and broken and mutilated, playing out behind his eyes in the world's longest second.

And Sam was calm. Sam had his thinking look on, weighing their options.

"Cas, where are you?"

Dean's head snapped up at the question. It was a no-no, asking for the location of another hunter's safe house. It was particularly egregious, past bad manners and straight into shoot-on-sight territory, when one of you was a freakin' demon.

Sam tilted his head with a little shake: extraordinary circumstances. Never mind their life was a run of extraordinary circumstances. She'd made the point of getting the hell away from them, and now here they were going to be, gate-crashing her hideout, good intentions paving the damned road to hell.

There was a long pause that was Cas looking around.

"Near a lake."

Dean bit his tongue and waited. And waited.

"And a MegaMart."

"Cas, can you see any road signs? Any landmarks?"

How did Sam manage to sound calm like that?

"I believe we passed something called 'Sugar Loaf Mountain'. And…"

Sam was typing as he listened.

"Lo Sparrow."

Before Dean could demand that Cas clarify if he was looking at an actual sparrow, a statue of a sparrow, or a mountain named Sparrow—it was Cas, after all—Sam looked up from the laptop with a short nod.

Got it.

"Cas? Cas."

"Yes, Dean."

"Sit tight, alright? Don't go too far so we can find you when we get there."

Sam was already picking up his things, talking as he swept his gear into his bag.

"They're in Heber Springs, on Greers Ferry Lake. That's in Arkansas. The MegaMart's near the lakefront. It's about 9 hours—we can probably make it in 6."

Dean paced. Six steps to the end of the table, six steps back. He kept his eyes on the pattern of the floor tile, counting off his breaths. The rustling noise that was Sam packing stopped as Sam looked up into the tight set of his face.

"Or."

Sam paused for a heartbeat, grave, before Sam went on.

"You go on ahead. I'll bring the Impala and catch up with you there."

His foot froze mid-step. Was Sam serious?

"You sure about that?"

Sam was looking down again, hunting around under the pile of books and papers for something.

He glanced up and held still.

"Yeah, actually. I am."

Right. It'd be faster this way.

"Here." He fished Baby's keys out of his pocket and threw them across. "I'll see you in a bit."

"Yeah."

He turned to go.

"And Dean."

He stopped and looked back at his brother.

"I'm sorry about Flagstaff."

Cas was still standing by the side of the road with his phone out in one hand when Dean blinked in beside him.

"What the hell happened?"

"He's gone after this."

Zee's voice approached from behind him. Dean gave a violent start and spun around, glaring at her because he hadn't sensed anything, which, of course, hex bag, and scowled. Somehow he'd forgotten how dead cool she could be, not batting an eye at the fact he was here where he shouldn't be, a demon on her turf and trouble. She walked right past him towards Cas, ignoring him completely.

She put a candy bar in Cas' hand and said curtly.

"Eat."

Before he could open his mouth to ask what the…she turned around and tossed a copy of the local rag at him, with the leading headline in bold.

DISMEMBERED HUMAN REMAINS FOUND ON GOAT ISLAND.

Under which was:

SEARCH FOR MISSING 5 YEAR OLD CONTINUES.

"He's HUNTING?"

What the hell had they been doing? What was the kid thinking? He glanced at the headlines again. Scratch that. He knew what the kid was thinking.

"How does he even know how to work a case? How does he even read the paper?!"

"It was on the news last night."

"The news? You let him watch the news?"

Mistake number one. It was something he had figured out fairly early in the babysitting game—put up with as many Thunder Cats or Scooby Doo reruns as it took, but never, ever, ever, let the TV go to the news while Sam was awake, because Sam was precocious. When Dad was gone, Sam's nine million questions worried at every accident, every bear sighting and every serial killer within the lower 48. The news was just bad news.

An icy glare came his way. Not helping.

Dean scanned the newspaper in his hand.

"Zombies?"

"Doesn't fit."

"Hold up. Why'd he take off on his own? Why didn't he talk to you about it?"

She glanced away, out towards the horizon, her lips making an unhappy flat line.

"He's trying to prove he can keep up."

Ignoring what had to be a confused look on his face, she headed off towards the lake, her steps sharp and impatient, scanning the shoreline as she went. He caught up to her as Cas trailed along behind them, glancing around at the neighboring houses as if he might spot Toby behind a bush like a lost dog. Zee's voice was clipped when she continued.

"He doesn't want to go live in Wyoming."

"You're packing the kid off?"

Dean growled the question, unable to keep out stiff disapproval. He'd thought…well, what the hell had he thought? She was so protective of the kid; he'd just assumed…what? They'd stay together the way Dad had schlepped him and Sam everywhere? She'd raise the kid in the life, which—yeah, great idea, Dean, because that always ended so well. And he could just see what would have clicked through Toby's head, trying to hang on to the only stable thing in his messed-up universe, her, thinking the only way to do that, the only way to avoid being left behind, was to show he could do the job.

Fuck.

"Why?"

"He's safer away from me."

He opened his mouth to ask why, then shut it again when she took off down the street, checking behind each lakefront house for private docks. He frowned and turned to Cas.

"Cas, can't you just, sense him?"

"I'm afraid not. I warded him against angels."

"You WHAT?"

"It seemed prudent at the time, considering we were on the run from the Fallen." Cas replied testily.

Dean rubbed at his forehead. He should have known this was going to turn into a grade A cluster.

"The rib carving?"

Cas nodded.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

His headache kicked in for real. He wanted Sam, and Sam's voice of sanity. He looked at the tangled mess before him, and circled back to the one thing that just wasn't making any sense. He stopped her as she turned away from her inspection of the lakeshore, heading back towards the parking lot and her car.

"Why is he safer away from you?"

"Dean." Cas interrupted, weariness and defeat heavy in his voice, fiddling with the chocolate bar in his hand. "I couldn't ward them both. I don't have enough grace."

He looked sharply at Cas, the gray grimness of Cas' face. And then it was easier just to see. The things Cas wasn't saying, the dimness of his light, the pain and the guilt crushing it, the small huddle of angel in his beaten-up trench coat, phantom wings wrapped protectively around himself, trying to ward off the ever-pressing cold.

Shit.

"Cas, can't you just," he looked skyward. "recharge?"

Cas looked away with a downturn of his lips.

"Noah offered, when Heaven fell. I didn't take him up on it."

Penance. Penance like Sam taking Death's hand. With a snap Dean turned and stepped away, staring grimly at his own reflection in the window of a beat up Corolla, his right fist clenching with vicious force. He wanted badly to put that fist through the glass, to feel it shatter, to shatter something, this pattern of his life, everyone falling away like ghosts to the road, while somehow he kept on keeping on.

Cas came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Dean, it's time. Maybe it has been time for a long time."

Dean kept his head bowed and his face taut, keeping an eye out for the shadow that was Death, dogging his every step, reaping everyone he knew. He looked out past the quiet street, out past the low buildings and parked cars, out past the blue haze of the mountains lying dimly on the far side of the lake. Another day, another town, and it looked like earth, it did.

But it was hell. It had to be.

Crowley had taken a page from Heaven's book. Added a little flair.

Re-runs. A collection of Dean Winchester's greatest hits, standing here, while everyone around him dropped like flies.

He shook his head once, because this was not happening.

"Dean."

"No. "

Cas turned his eyes skyward, listening to angel radio, whatever the angels were yakking about up there. With a shiver Cas drew the rumpled trench coat tighter around himself.

"Dean."

"Save the speech, Cas. I don't want to hear it."

"Dean."

He fisted his hand tighter, because this was the story of his life.

"Back at that Gas-n-Sip you worked at." He curled his lip. "I should have left you out of it, Steve. You could have stayed human."

Cas' eyes narrowed belligerently.

"Dean, it's not your fault."

"Isn't it? Everything I touch, every…" He broke off, and tucked his hands closer to his sides. "I can't keep doing this, Cas."

Loss and loss and loss. I can't, Cas. Please don't make me.

Cas glanced down at the chocolate bar in his hand like there might be instructions in the wrapper. After staring at it for a full, unmoving, minute, Cas heaved a long and mildly bitchy sigh, then started unwrapping the foil. "Alright."

That was all he needed.

"Right. Let's get you under some cover first." He turned to Zee. "Your place warded up?"

Her nod was distracted and curt.

"Then take him, and stay. Sam's on the way, and I'll keep looking for the kid."

Before she could start in with the arguing, he snapped at her.

"The two of you are a flaming beacon, sister. Last thing we need right now is the god squad on our ass."

The flaming beacon glared at him. If looks could singe, his eyebrows would be history.

But, yeah, she hated it when he was right. How's that for a change?

There were no goats on Goat Island. There wasn't much else, either. No zombies, no demons, no angels, no kid. He trekked around the damned scrap of land twice to be sure, casting out with all his senses, and got bubkes.

"Hey."

Sam's voice over the phone was a lifeline.

"Where you at?"

"Almost at the border. You figure out what's going on?"

"He's hunting."

"Who? Cas?"

"No. Toby. They let him watch the news."

He could just see the face Sam would be making. Sam skipped ahead to the crucial parts.

"Actual case?"

Dean pursed his lips tensely. He couldn't sense anything. Not here, not in the vicinity. If it was zombies, they'd be the amped-up kind, like Mother. Except. Zee had said the pattern didn't fit, and he was inclined to agree.

"Doesn't fit. Coroner's report said the parts that were found were severed, like cut with a saw. Not chewed on."

Toby wouldn't have had the experience to know. Toby saw monsters everywhere. And there were, but some of them were just the human kind.

Sam mulled that over.

"Where do you need me?"

"Check in on Cas, will ya? I'm going to retrace their steps, see if I can pick up where the kid split."

"Right. Will do. Keep me posted."

"Yep."

The Durango was already back in the MegaMart lot by the time Dean got back there. He wasn't entirely surprised. His life was rife with people inherently incapable of following clear instructions, so why would she be any different?

He glanced around the parking lot, looking for the security cameras, to see what angles they covered, before feeling in his jacket pocket for his badge. It'd been a while since he'd used it, but like habit, he kept it in his pocket—just in case. As he approached the store's entrance, Zee came walking out, alone.

She pointed towards the lakeshore.

"Toby went that way. By himself."

Before he could raise his voice to holler, she pre-empted him, her eyes narrowing with challenge.

"Cas is stashed, extra cans of spray paint. I fed him some key lime pie; it should hold him for a while." She held up a finger when he opened his mouth. "Don't ask me. I don't know why it works. It works."

They needed food.

She kept moving, side-stepping an oncoming shopping cart and the family of four behind it, heading out to her car, ready to blow right by him like he wasn't even there, ticking off to the next imperiled item on her list, self-preservation be damned. Dean grit his teeth again, because Cas was bad enough by himself, and the last thing he needed was another loose screw rattling around when he was already trying to look three directions at once. She flicked a cool look his way—doing this with or without you—crystal in the stubborn set of her mouth.

Awesome.

Swallowing the swear words fizzing on his tongue, he fell in beside her.

"Kid lose his phone?"

"Found it in the back seat. Not sure if he ditched it or dropped it." She said curtly. "He'll try to get out to the island. There's a fishing spot between Goat Island and Scout Island, but not a whole lot of people go out in the winter, so he'll probably have to wait until the morning to find someone."

"How far from here to the nearest marina?"

The corners of her mouth twitched down unhappily.

"He'll have to hitch a ride."

Fuck.

She slanted a look his way, the same dread thought on her mind.

Monster monsters weren't the only monsters out there.

The sun was low in the sky by the time they reached the third marina in the area. He stared with despair at the long line of bobbing boats moored on both sides of the dock.

"How many more of these are there?"

He growled the question, eying the encroaching dusk.

"Three." Zee answered shortly; looking out over the big boats and little boats piled high to the wazoo. It took forever to search the boats one-by-one, forever to account for the ones that were not in their slips, forever to drive from one place to the next. It took forever to ask questions about a kid they didn't even have a picture of to show to people.

He was turning towards the boat closest to him when she moved abruptly away from him, bending down to fish something out from between the dock's wooden planks. Something small that fit in the palm of her hand. Her fingers wrapped protectively around it, hiding it from him, but he had a pretty good idea what it was anyway.

A hex bag.

Toby's hex bag, to be exact. The one that kept him invisible to all demons.

It would be the fastest way.

He had never done it before, picked one human soul out from the noise of all the others, but now that he thought about it, he knew how, easy as pie.

The sun was nestling into the mountains, the waters darkening with the sky, last light painting the clouds blood red and burnt orange. They couldn't do three more of these before darkness fell. He looked down the line of boats and thought of the kid out there, a sitting duck for all the things he'd heard of or read about, their kind of thing or just people doing crap. He shifted where he stood. He'd be fine. It was just a little power, nothing big, nothing game changing, nothing to worry about. He could handle it; the faster way. Sammy must have thought so, or Sam would've never let him out of his sight.

Zee glanced up when he moved, catching on to his impatience.

She was a hunter. He shouldn't need to explain.

It took another second. Something dangerously like regret flickered through those whiskey eyes before she straightened up. She held out her hand to show him the small leather pouch, charred with a symbol that protected the bearer from evil things like him.

"Go. I'll wait here."

She said it evenly, like it was no big thing, like it was a normal thing, when it was the last thing from normal, to be working with demons and running from angels. It was his world, and it should have stayed his world, except they had somehow gotten swept up into it. He could see in her eyes the reluctance and the distaste, because he'd been there, done that, every time he'd had to cut a deal with Crowley and all the others—but the demon you knew was still better than whatever might be out there.

He took a step away because he didn't want her to watch him go all black-eyed.

Then he went to work.

She walked restlessly to the edge of the dock and back, scouring the boats for any sign of motion. She shouldn't have asked. She should have gone with him. They should have done things the long way, the hard way, the tedious, time-consuming way.

The human way.

She seemed to be making a habit of it, asking him to look after Toby, asking him to do the impossible, to draw on the power of the demon but not succumb to it, to go stand on the edge of the cliff and not go over.

She shouldn't have asked.

Her fingers closed around the hex bag in her hand. A bit of bone, a bit of feather; tansy, marigold and nemesia; wormwood soaked in holy water then dried on sacred ground—strong magic, strong enough to have protected Toby from any denizen of hell short of Lucifer himself, and Toby had angel warding for that besides. But it wasn't strong enough to protect him from the zombies, the shifters, the werewolves and the vamps, or any other predator that walked on two legs with a smile.

The marina's lights clicked on behind her as dusk drew out the shadows. She scoured the length of the dock for any signs of motion, trying not to pace. Her cell phone rang.

Sam.

Her finger paused over the screen uncertainly. Sam's first call should have been to his brother. This call…she looked out at the boats again.

"Yeah."

"Zee. What's going on? I tried Dean's cell, but he must have it off. Is he there with you?"

She paused. She knew how Sam felt about Dean using his powers.

"Yes. Sort of."

There was a deadly silence. Sam's normally easy going voice was lethally measured when he spoke again.

"What do you mean?"

"Toby dropped his hex bag. Dean's gone to find him."

She left Sam to read between the lines. The phone went quiet again.

"Where are you?"

"Dodson's Marina."

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

If he hadn't been roasted by worry, Dean would almost have been proud of the kid. The boat Toby had chosen was tied off by itself, only a faint trace of scent left where the kid had unwound part of the rope so the boat drifted out enough to make it a hefty jump from the dock. Nothing could get on the boat without rocking it. Well, nothing except the really powerful monsters.

Like him.

He teleported himself just outside the boat's main cabin and checked the color of his eyes in a shiny strip of chrome before peering into the dim darkness of the small space. Toby was curled up asleep on a padded bench. Squiggly angel warding had been chalked onto the walls and the portholes, the lines wobblier than normal where Toby had to stretch up on his tiptoes to draw the tops. They'd have to teach the kid demon warding, someday, once he got over his AWOL tendencies. Dean ducked under the low threshold, one careful step.

The wood floor made a loud squeak under his weight.

Toby jerked awake. The kid sat up and turned in one motion, the icy flash of an angel blade tight in his right hand, his left hand shooting out to grab a bottle of holy water sitting on the ledge. Toby swung the bottle, sending a stream of liquid arcing out in his direction, over a line of salt that ran the length of the cabin's wooden floor.

A snarl rose involuntarily in his throat. Dean jumped back, his right hand fisting and flexing.

Shit, shit, shit.

He inhaled hard, sucking down air. He had to calm the hell down. He closed his eyes and kept them closed, one hand braced on the wall behind him, and counted his breaths. When he hit ten he opened his eyes and looked cautiously at the shadows, not writhing or too clear like he was still seeing in the dark, and hastily reassessed his approach, eying the gleaming silver weapon in Toby's hand.

Where the hell had the kid gotten that?

"Whoa. Whoa there, tiger. Easy. Easy. It's just me."

Blue eyes sharp and bright in the dimly lit cabin stared at him suspiciously.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, kid, it's me."

"Really you?"

"Really me."

Toby looked him over again, not letting go of the holy water.

"How do I know you're not a zombie? Like Mother?"

He held the kid's stern gaze even as his lips twisted. Varying degrees of the undead, some better than others—was there a test for that?

"Alright, hold up. Zombies bleed green-black, right?"

Toby nodded.

"Well, then. Here goes nothing."

He pulled his knife and cut a thin line on his forearm. A faint trickle of red ran down his arm, slower and fainter than it would have had he been human. It didn't hurt at all. He held out his arm for the kid to see.

Toby leaned forward but stayed behind his salt line.

"And you're you?"

Was he? What did that even mean any more?

He settled back on his haunches. "I suppose so. For now, anyway."

Perhaps because it was the bare-naked truth, the hard grip Toby had on the angel blade eased slightly. Keeping an eye on the kid's weapon, Dean leaned back against the wall behind him.

"What were you thinking, going off like that, Toby?"

"They're here. They've taken a kid. Like me."

"And it's your job now? To save that other kid? Why didn't you ask Zee? Or Cas?"

Lower lip pushed into the upper as Toby made something like a frowning pout.

"Cas isn't well. And Zee can't come. It's not safe for her. But I'm covered. I can do it."

Dean eyed the way Toby was holding the angel blade again, no longer the unsteady, unstable grip the kid had once used on the First Blade, but sure and tight, like he'd been practicing.

"I'm sure, kid. But that was to look out for yourself. Not to go hunting. Especially not on your own."

Toby's mouth puckered and set.

"What difference does it make? Zee is going to send me away anyway."

"She's trying to get you someplace safe, kid. Cut her some slack."

"I won't get in her way. I can help."

Was this what it was like, through the looking glass, on the flip side of the coin? He looked at the kid standing there, angel blade and holy water one in each hand, grim determination in those baby blue eyes. He thought of the time Bobby had all but shoved a baseball and mitt into his hands, and growled at him that he was going to learn to play catch like every other snot-nosed kid or else. He'd left that ball and that mitt back at Bobby's – burned to a crisp now, gone to ash with all the rest of the things he hadn't been able to save.

He crossed the small cabin and sat down on the opposite bench, putting his elbows on his knees, and examined the sigils Toby had scrawled onto the walls.

"They're not half bad."

Toby's mouth quirked.

"I'm still missing one."

Without looking, Dean knew which that was. The blood sigil.

With a weary sigh he rubbed his forehead, and met Toby's determined eyes.

"Look, kid. This life ain't easy. Hunting. What keeps us going is knowing the things we care about are safe."

Toby stared fixedly at him, his chin set at a stubborn tilt.

"I'm not going to tell you you'll understand when you're older. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. I'm not saying you can't keep up, because you're probably as good as I was when I was your age. But I am saying we're all going to worry, Zee, me, Sam and Cas—and that's a distraction we can't afford. If there's any chance at all we can find a way to keep you safe, we jump at it. You get that?"

The kid didn't answer, searching his face with that burning blue gaze, one hand over his chest, unconsciously tapping, tapping, on the dog tags beneath his shirt.

"I don't care." Toby's said abruptly, his tapping fingers momentarily still, resting on the small metal discs over his heart. "If she leaves, she won't come back. You all promise to, but no one ever comes back."

Dean stared at the whorls in the wood flooring by his feet. What was he going to say to that?

Toby went on.

"I can learn. I'll keep up."

Dean shut his eyes tight against the wash of feeling, because he didn't want it, cramping the space in his chest, crowding his dead heart. All those times he had watched the tail end of the Impala pull away, wanting and waiting for the day when he was old enough, good enough, to go with Dad on a hunt, just so he would know, all those hours when the phone sat silent and all the times going straight to voicemail, the haunting weight of not knowing eating away at the bottom of his pretend-carefree days; he knew. He got it.

But it wasn't the answer.

This thing they were embroiled in, not just the life, but angels after them, ripping apart Heaven, looking to empty Hell, there was no place for a kid in it. When she had ganked the angel back at the Gas-n-Sip, saving him from Arkas, Zee had tipped her hand. He didn't understand why she did it, when she could have just stayed clear, but it was done.

It was just the way the cards fell.

His eyes flicked open with the intensity of the words vibrating in him, his voice too harsh and too rough for an eight year old's ears.

"Then you learn. You learn to be as fast and as good as you can get. But you learn all that someplace where we don't worry about you. You learn that someplace safe where we can come back to you. That's the only way this will work, Toby. The angels won't care. The demons and the vampires and the zombies, they won't care. But we will. And you will slow us down. But you learn, and when you're good enough, fast enough, you come help us."

The kid didn't flinch. Toby stood straight and still, looking right at him, eyes clear and sharp and assessing. Not a child. Not anymore.

"Promise?"

Dean held out his hand and the kid took it.

"Promise."

He kept one hand on Toby's shoulder as they walked down the long run of dock towards Zee, Toby's backpack bumping awkwardly where the kid had slung it over one shoulder. Had she been Lisa, hell, had she been anyone else, there would have been tears and outstretched arms and scolding and joy. But she wasn't Lisa, and Toby wasn't Ben, and it was like watching mirror expressionless images approach each other until she knelt and Toby ran, throwing his arms around her neck and just holding on.

It shouldn't have surprised him-it didn't-that Toby's outburst lasted only a minute. Toby straightened up quickly, set his shoulders, one last little bit of childhood in his pained squint, squaring himself up to be grounded from now until the end of time, which Dean had to admit, was a tempting thought if they could have pulled it off.

And it shouldn't have surprised him either that Zee still said nothing. She simply took Toby's cell phone out of her pocket and handed it to the kid.

"Here."

Toby reached out for the phone, but she hung on to it for a second, catching Toby's eye.

"Don't lose it again, yeah?"

The boy paused, looking back at her solemnly.

"'K."

"Alright."

She let go of the phone and stood. Toby pocketed the phone carefully, looked up at her, and tucked his hand into hers.

And that was that.

The thing about powers was, once you turned them on, it wasn't exactly straightforward to turn them off again. As they walked back towards land and into the marina's largely empty parking lot, Dean suddenly flinched, shying away from an inward rush of voices pressing hard on his not-ears—not voices voices, but the noise of souls. Chittering and chittering like a swarm of bugs thick across the landscape, the Mark on his arm flaring in response.

Gray things. Gray things. Some so very nearly black anyway, so close, may as well reach out and take them now, before they could do any more harm, before they hurt anyone else.

Tick tock, time's up, time's up; got a job to do.

Zee flicked a sharp look at him when he stepped back, edging towards the water again, as if that would keep out the overwhelming babble.

"You okay?"

He focused in on her voice and her face. He couldn't sense her at all, not even a peep of a thought. Hell of a hex bag, whatever she put in it. Without meaning to he moved closer, needing that silence. She tensed but held still, looking intently into his face, seeing God knows what—the demon, maybe, the red hot itch on his arm, whispering, whispering, and maybe she should be reaching for her angel blade instead of just staring at him. He took a deep breath when she gripped Toby's hand tighter, and held her ground instead of moving back.

In the distance came the low rumbling approach of Baby's engine. Finally. The Impala's headlights played over them as Sam cruised slowly to a stop. He latched on to his brother's soothing presence, stepping back with one long exhale. The grimness in Sam's face eased as he checked the three of them over, all still there, all still in one piece and no weapons showing, then went back over him again carefully, like a third horn might have erupted on his forehead, or he'd gotten Pinocchio's nose.

Which would suck, because truth was really not his forte.

He'd just given a curt nod to Sam, code for all clear—when suddenly the bright flare of an angel's presence lit up the night like a beacon, way across on the far lakeshore. He must have tensed, because he hadn't so much as moved when they both reacted, Sam out of the car looking for something to point his gun at and Zee shoving Toby protectively between them, one hand reaching into her jacket for her angel blade.

"What?!" Sam demanded, turning in circles and finding nothing but asphalt and leaves.

"Angel."

He snarled the word, staring out across the water, across a distance that human eyes had no business seeing. His whole being bunched, preparing to teleport.

Zee followed the direction of his glance.

"DEAN, NO!"

She barked at him, the sharp order of it eliciting his reflexive halt, long enough she was able to get a grip on his arm and stare straight up into his black eyes.

"Devil's trap."

He sucked in air as her fingers tightened on his arm, the First Blade in his hand, the world swimming beneath his feet with anxiety, because they needed to get to Cas, now and yestereday already, and of course her place would be rigged with a devil's trap.

Sam came up beside him, still looking around on high alert, waiting for an explanation.

"Cas."

He moved towards the Impala. The motor was still running and the car door open. Without needing more Sam went around to the passenger side and Zee hustled Toby into the Durango, slammed into the driver's seat of the SUV, and pulled on out ahead.