When his phone rings for the seventh time in fifteen minutes, Castiel gives in, digs it out of his trench coat pocket, and answers.

"Yes?"

Benny shoots him a glance from the corner of his eye, but ultimately says nothing as they make their way through the night.

Once he dressed in the blacks Benny brought him from the safehouse he keeps, they immediately began brainstorming where Abaddon would be. There were no pleasantries, no swapped or received condolences. One of the things Castiel appreciates most about Benny is his willingness to immediately get to work when it's called for. They have no ideas when Castiel's phone rings and he answers.

He's immediately assaulted with, as he discerns after a few moments of nonsense, is Charlie speaking at an incredible speed.

"-and I knew it was a bad idea and I told him it was a bad idea, like oh wow bad, but he was gonna do it anyway, Cas, and now I know where he is and where they're going but I'm not a badass and I know you are under the whole 'nerd thief chic' you've got going on and you've got Benny with you and you gotta save him, Cas, you gotta-"

"Charlie!" he snaps. He takes a deep breath through his nose. "Charlie, my patience is very thin. Tell me precisely what you're talking about."

"Dean," she says, and if Cas wasn't still in shock, he's certain his heart would have stopped. "Dean went after you guys, and I think Abaddon has him."

"And where is he now?"

"An old office building on eighteenth avenue."

"Out by the docks?"

"Yes."

"How do you know this?"

"I made him put a tracker in his shoe in case his cell phone got taken away. Which it has. They trashed it, I think. Or at the very least turned it off. But I doubt Abaddon is real worried about Dean's cell phone insurance coverage, so I wouldn't be surprised if she-"

"Charlie."

Her voice is small and sad when she answers. "Sorry, chief."

"You did well," he says, the most comfort he can offer at the moment. He tells himself that he'll make it up to her later. "Send me the coordinates of where they have him." He hangs up the phone without another word and looks at Benny.

"What's the plan, boss?" the Cajun asks, smooth and unshakable.

"We go find Dean." He turns back to look out the windshield. "And then we kill Abaddon."


The building where Dean is being held is decrepit. Several windows of the bottom floor have been broken, and there are no lights on, from the outside, anyway. The only sign that it's occupied at all is the guard standing at the door. He's very clearly armed.

Castiel's work, he reflects as he gets out of the car just moments after Benny parks it, is rooted in subtlety. He runs cons or grifts, or he slips into a place in secrecy and subterfuge to take what he wants. Stealing is working with kid gloves and gentle touches. If he does his job right, his mark doesn't even know he was there.

Castiel intends to make his presence quite hard to miss this evening.

He doesn't hesitate whatsoever to pull the gun from the shoulder holster under his coat, point it at the man, and shoot him before the guard has a chance to do more than register their presence. The gun gives the crack of a silenced weapon (the sound not nearly as quiet as the movies Dean so enjoys make it seem) and man gives a cry of pain and crumples to the ground, cursing.

Benny says nothing. They approach the door, and when they get there Benny crouches and hits the man on the back of the head sharply, knocking him unconscious, quiet. Castiel strides past them, not sparing either of them a glance. He knows Benny will take care of the guard, and he has places to be.

He knows, in his logical mind, that Abaddon won't kill Dean. Dean is far too precious to Castiel for Abaddon to kill, even if she doesn't know about the romantic relationship between the two of them, though he's almost certain she at least suspects it. She knows that Castiel is fiercely protective of his charges, and she wants to exploit that. So he knows, in his head, that Dean is at least alive.

His heart, however, isn't as easily convinced, and he is reacquainted with a sickly sort of fear for the second time tonight.

He doesn't bother moving quietly through the building. There are pieces of abandoned office furniture scattered about, desks and chairs and filing cabinets with drawers left halfway open. There's a thick layer of dust and debris covering everything, making it easy to follow the path where Abaddon and her crony took Dean even in the darkness.

Castiel takes the stairs two at a time, anger burning in his chest. He clings to it gladly, building it up and provoking it to a roar.

He will wreck her. He will make her regret everything. He is going to tear Abaddon limb from limb for daring to lay a hand on Dean Winchester.

When he reaches a closed door on the third floor where the disturbances in the dust lead, he takes a beat to center himself before he goes in. As angry as he is, and as much as he's used that to keep him steady and driven, it will do no good to go in with anything but a clear head.

Once he feels braced, he opens the door and walks in.

This room has been cleared of office furniture, but not dust. There are marks on the floor that would probably tell the tale of where everything went if Castiel cared to look. He does not. He prefers, instead, to let his eyes bore into Abaddon in the dim, flickering light afforded them by a lone fluorescent bulb.

She stands at the center of the room, her body language loose and relaxed. She's wearing a black leather jacket, a white t-shirt, and dark jeans. Her red hair clouds around her face, and her mouth again bears the bright red lipstick she so favors. Her eyes twinkle with malice, poorly disguised as good humor.

She's standing behind and just to the left of Dean, who appears to have been tied to a chair. His blacks are filthy from being pulled through the dust, and Cas is further enraged when he realizes they simply dragged Dean around while he was unconscious. There's bruising on his lovely face, his right eye swollen almost shut even as it darkens, and a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. There appears to be a patch where his hair is missing at his left temple, and his shirt is torn open to reveal bloody, oozing cuts on his shoulder and chest. They, at least, appear to be from a scuffle and not from outright torture.

May God have mercy on them, Castiel thinks grimly.

Dean is awake, though, and staring at Cas with remorse and fierceness swimming in his eyes. Castiel gives him a nod, brief, and Dean's mouth quirks up just a bit on one side. It lets Castiel know that, though Dean is hurting, he has had worse, and for now he is fine.

"Cassie!" Abaddon crows, all false cheer and happiness. "So lovely that you're here! Oh, I'm so terribly glad to see you!"

"Abaddon," Castiel says coldly. "I told you not to do anything stupid when you came to my city."

Abaddon laughs, and Castiel can hear how incredibly unhinged she is in the dulcet sound. "Oh, Castiel, you're such a card."

He chooses to ignore her. "I told you that I would make you regret hurting one of my charges."

"You know," she says thoughtfully, menacingly. "When we were growing up, Dean, oh, Cassie here was the golden child." Dean doesn't acknowledge her at all, but Abaddon has always liked the sound of her own voice and she doesn't appear to need any input from either of them. Only the worry that she has a weapon hidden somewhere keeps Castiel still.

"Oh, you should have heard the way Cain spoke of him," she continues, dark delight dripping from each syllable like oil. "'Castiel this,' 'Castiel that,' 'do it the way Castiel does it,' 'pay attention to the methods Castiel uses,'" she sneers. "Cassie could do no wrong, Deanie." She leans down so her lips are almost brushing Dean's ear, and Cas bristles. The knowing, satisfied gleam in her eyes tells Castiel that she's noticed.

"But now, now, Cassie has his own golden boy." She smirks as she straightens. "I've been watching you with the boy, Castiel, and I… Understand the urge to keep him." She draws one long, blood red nail down the side of Dean's neck and Castiel fights the urge to fling himself at her. "So I think I will," she purrs. "I'll keep him from you, and you can be the one left in the cold this time."

Castiel's mind races. What the hell is she talking about? What does she want? Start from the beginning, Castiel, don't get ahead of yourself. Start with Cain. She says I was the golden child, that Cain set me above the others, used me and my work as an example. Which is true, I suppose, but she wasn't half bad at the craft. A little less subtle, maybe. Used different misdirections than I did. Although, it's no wonder. She's aesthetically lovely, with the hair and the provocative clothing she wore-

Tight jeans. Used me as an example. "The urge to keep him."

Dazed, Castiel says, "You were jealous." A smile starts to curl his lips. "You wanted Cain, and you were jealous."


Dean's evening has not gone to plan.

What was supposed to be heroically joining up with Cas and Benny to exact revenge for their family turned into waking up in a nondescript office building with Abaddon tying him to a chair. Then, because she's a delight, she proceeded to beat the tar out of him for a while, seemingly just for fun. The longer it took for Cas to find them, however, the more genuinely angry she seemed to get, and the more she hit him.

Dean really hates her.

The moment they heard the pop! of the silenced gunshot outside, though, her eyes had lit up with an insane sort of happiness.

And now Cas is standing there in front of them, hands casually in his trench coat pockets like he doesn't give a fuck. His blacks are untouched by dirt or dust, not like Dean's are. His hair is sex-wild like it always is, but there's a furious glint in those blue eyes that makes Dean thinks Abaddon's days are fucking numbered.

Cas smirks, and Dean would want him if his body didn't feel like one giant bruise. Damn, he looks good.

"You wanted Cain, and you were jealous."

"What?" Abaddon hisses.

"Oh, how interesting," Cas says thoughtfully.

Abaddon has a hand resting on Dean's shoulder. She's been stroking the flesh bared from the tear in his shirt there in some sort of twisted attempt at… Seduction? Temptation? Dean doesn't know, but it's making his skin crawl.

Now, however, as she becomes outraged at Cas' accusation, the fingers that were so gently touching him are starting to dig in as she clutches him tighter in her anger. Her nails are starting to pierce his skin, and he thinks she's gonna start drawing blood soon. He bites the inside of his cheek, a point of pain that he alone is in control of, to keep himself from grunting. Cas seems to be onto something, and Dean doesn't wanna fuck up his plans any more than he already has.

"I was not jealous," Abaddon snaps. "What would I have had to be jealous of, anyway? Some skinny social reject who could barely hold a conversation?"

"Of course you were," Cas says easily, ignoring the jab at himself. "That's why you were forever parading yourself around in tight jeans and low-cut blouses. Why you've always had a penchant for that hideous red lipstick you refuse to go without."

Dean works hard to keep his face impassive as Abaddon shrieks and her nails sink into his shoulder harder. He can feel blood start to well up, soaking into his shirt. He hopes the black fabric is enough to keep Cas from seeing it. He's kind of on a roll, Dean doesn't want to interrupt if he can help it.

Cas goes on without acknowledging Abaddon's fury. "It must have driven you insane that he wanted me." He's smirking again, his body language insolent as he takes a sauntering step forward. "My God, when we started sleeping together, I'm surprised you stayed. We were… Less than subtle."

"Shut up!"

Cas' smirk spreads into an absolutely brilliant smile. "That would be why you've been trying to beat me since we were children, isn't it, Abbie?" He scoffs. "As if you could even approach being able to compete with me."

In this moment, Dean can see beneath Cas' bravado. Oh, sure, Cas is pissed. He's royally angry, ready to bring Abaddon down and probably burn the building they're in to the ground to make a point. He wants to absolutely destroy Abaddon for what she's done, for what she's taken from them. Dean can see it all in Cas' eyes.

Cas is also scared for Dean. Petrified, and no wonder. Dean's basically at the mercy of a madwoman, and there's very little Cas can do to stop it from all the way over there. If she decides to snap Dean's neck like a chicken's, his neck will be snapped.

It's not a great situation to be in.

"I," Abaddon is snarling, "am better than you ever were."

"Keep telling yourself that, dear," Cas says, condescension dripping from every syllable.

She shrieks incoherently again, her fingers sinking into Dean's collarbone with an unholy sort of strength, the kind that only comes when the bearer has lost their mind. He's barely able to keep quiet through the pain.

"Poor Abbie," Cas sneers. "Always wanting to be in first place." He smiles cruelly. "My dear, you were never even in the running."

Abaddon absolutely screams in rage. She uses the hand she has on his shoulder to hurl Dean forward, because crazy though she may be, stupid she is not. She's not going to get through Cas, so she must figure that her best bet is to flee.

Probably not wrong.

Dean's arms are bound behind him, so he has no way stop himself from hitting the floor hard with his face. He turns his head so his right side, the side with an already black eye, is the one that smashes into the ground. Pain explodes, and he can feel the skin on his cheek split against the floor and the carpet leaves burns against his face. He manages to heave to lay on his side, and although that does have the disadvantage of leaving the chair weighing down onto his bicep in a line of hot agony, the rest of his body gets the barest hint of relief, so he'll take it.

He hears instead of sees Abaddon run down the hall through the second door from the office. She moves rather silently, but the high heel boots she's wearing give her location away pretty definitively. Maybe if she hadn't been so set on dressing the part of femme fatale, she'd have gotten away clean.

Cas, instead of chasing her, immediately crouches behind Dean and begins untying his hands. Now that the threat is out of the actual room, Dean decides he's earned some complaining.

"Ow."

Cas gets him out of his binds quickly, tosses the chair away with a too-loud clatter in the mostly silent building, and then he's pulling Dean up to sit in front of him. Big hands cup his face tenderly, which is nice because the right side feels like raw hamburger and Dean has kinda fallen out of the habit of getting his face smashed in.

He smiles as much as he can. "Hiya, Cas."

"Stupid," Cas growls, but the fact that he punctuates the insult with a gentle kiss to the parts of Dean's face that aren't aching undermine the heat in the word. "Insolent," kiss, "disobedient," kiss, "ridiculous," kiss, "beautiful boy," Cas says fervently, finally kissing Dean very softly on the lips. He returns it as much as he can, although his bottom lip is split and it hurts, it's always, always gonna be worth some hurt to have Cas here like this.

"Cas," Dean murmurs against that lush mouth, "Cas, she's getting away."

Cas sighs, lays a final kiss on Dean's lips, and pulls away. "We'll get her," he promises. He stands, then offers a hand to help Dean to his own feet. As he does so (painfully), Cas continues, "we will have our revenge."

Dean just leans against Cas with a nod, letting his forehead come down to rest on the older man's shoulder. Cas wraps one strong arm around his waist, partially enveloping him in the warmth of the trench coat, as Cas whips his phone out and hits a speed-dial.

Dean is close enough to hear Benny's voice. "Boss."

"Benny, Abaddon is getting away."

There's a beat of silence, then, "Well, shit. I didn't see her. Got her crony, though."

"Azazel?"

"Ayuh."

"... And what have you done with him?"

"He won't be an issue anymore," Benny says vaguely, and Dean thinks that he's glad Benny is on their side.

"Very well," Cas says after another beat of silence. "We'll find her. Bring the car around, please, Dean has been injured."

"Ten-four, boss." The phone goes dead.

Cas drops the phone in his pocket and wraps both arms around Dean, holding him gently but close. He speaks with his mouth pressed to Dean's temple. "Do you think you can make it to the car, little one?"

"She got away," Dean whispered, aching and feeling broken inside. "She got away because of me, Cas."

"Shh, shh, none of that." Cas whispers, steady as he always is. "Dean," his voice is low, fervent, honest, "there is no universe in which there is anything more important than you. We will find Abaddon, or we won't, but there will never be a moment in which I am not grateful that you are safe."

It's too much. On top of the sharp, earth-shattering fear for Sam he felt upon waking up, and then the second wave of terror when he realized that Cas wasn't right behind him as he got out of the building. The absolute horror of realizing that, though the two most important people in his life were out, Garth was still in there. The slowly dawning, cold realization that Garth was never going to come out of the building. The wave of grief that almost took him out at the knees. And then the bubbling, boiling anger, which he now thinks may have been a bit childish, that he was being benched with the rest of the "kids." The fear that Cas might not come for him, might write him off as too much trouble once he realized that Abaddon had caught him. The relief of seeing Cas walk through that door.

And now this.

Dean closes his eyes hard against the tears that are coming to his eyes and making the back of his throat ache. Cas is still making soothing noises, holding him tight, and Dean lets him, no matter how much he believes he doesn't deserve it.

"Come," Cas says after a long few minutes, "let's go home, little one."