Evening came and with it came a knock at their front door. Dean hollered, "Be right there." He scooped Cas up and carried him off to the other room. He made short work of putting him down on the bed and figured he could come back later to get him under some more blankets. Dean stalked back out to the front room just in time to get a second round of knocking. "I said I'd be right there." Then he opened the door.

The office guy was standing there staring back at him. "So you made it back okay?" It was kind of a question.

"Yeah, why?" Dean didn't invite him in and kept the door mostly closed. He looked down and realized that his pants were still a bit wet.

"Eddie called and said you and your partner rented a snowmobile this morning, but that you didn't return it."

"Oh, that." Dean was already trying to figure out how they could possibly deal with that. "Yeah, we had a little accident."

"Oh no. You okay?" The guy seemed to assess Dean again. "Looks like you're all wet."

"Yeah, we ran across the animal that has been attacking people. It drove us out onto the small lake up in the hills there." Dean waved out to the distance. "Guess the holidays have been good to us, because we weighed a little too much for the ice. We both fell through and into the lake."

"Is your partner okay? You're lucky to be alive. It doesn't take long to get hammered by hypothermia." He ran his hand up through his mess of wispy white hair.

"Yeah, he's sleeping in the other room. He might be getting a little sick from the water, but he is a resilient little bugger. We should be fine in a few days." Dean considered for a second before continuing, "You think you could ask Eddie if we could keep the vehicle for a bit longer?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course. I think he was more worried about something getting you all up there. Reasonable worry, given recent events." He turned to go.

Dean interrupted his progress, "Hey, uh, what's your name?"

"Name's Earl."

"Figured I should stop thinking of you as just office guy since you're helping me out with Eddie."

"No problem. I'll even send over extra blankets for you and your friend." Earl nodded and walked off.

Dean let the door close and decided to finally shed his wet pants and hang everything up on chairs near the fireplace.

Dean had been too confident. Cas had spoken, and thus he thought that Cas was also on the mend. He was wrong. After changing, Dean had ventured back into Cas' room to throw some blankets on him. Cas' skin though was covered in a thin film of sweat. He was shivering and at the same time, burning up.

Dean was worried. He spent the better part of the night at his side, mopping his brow and talking to him in hushed tones that sounded like prayers and pleadings. There were apologies interwoven into the mix as well. Dean thought back to what had gotten them attacked. If I hadn't wandered off alone...If I hadn't run out onto the ice...If I had just taken Sam's word for it and stayed in the bunker…

When he eventually fell asleep, it was with Cas' hand clutched in his own. His head had fallen over onto the edge of the bed, his back hunched over. His dreams were full of darkness. There were failures stacked on failures. In the end though, it was always the same. Cas would die. His dreams were torture. Each death worse than the last. All of the deaths somehow were Dean's fault.

When he woke the next morning and looked up at Cas, he was shocked to find his eyes wide open. They were red-rimmed in a way that worried Dean even more. They reminded him too much of the spell Rowena had cast on him. He sat up more and picked up a washcloth from the nightstand. He daubed at Cas' forehead and said, "How're you feeling?" This seemed to be a question that they were doomed to ask each other again and again.

Cas' voice was a grackle squawk. "Better now." Dean didn't buy it. Cas started coughing.

When he was finally able to fall back into silence, Dean got up and mother-henned the blankets back into place around him. "Stop trying to talk so much. Heal first." Cas gave him a glare.

Dean glared back, but Cas said, "It was two words." Then he started coughing again.

"Now I'm just gonna add that it was two words too many. Now be quiet. I'm gonna get you some water. It might help." Dean left before Cas could say another word. He moved off to the kitchen and found a small tumbler in the cabinet. He filled it about half full and carried it back in. He sat down at Cas' side, eased a hand behind his neck, and lifted him a little into a seated position. He adjusted the pillows behind him and then lifted the water to his lips. "Tiny sips."

Cas glared at him. "I don't need water," he barely growled out.

Dean raised an eyebrow as Cas started coughing again. He held up the glass and nodded toward it in encouragement. "Come on now. Don't be a baby."

Cas scowled more, but Dean was able to tip a little of the water into his mouth. He half expected Cas to spit it at him to make a point about the immortal hydration of angels, but he didn't. Thankfully. Dean thought that he had been wet enough in the last 24 hours, thank you very much. He convinced Cas to take another sip, but that was all he could do. He set the glass back on the nightstand and watched Cas struggle to not talk.

"Not gonna lie, it's kinda funny you wanting to talk and not being able to. It's normally like pulling teeth getting you to share." Cas just kept up a solid glare at Dean and Dean continued, "Just so you know, it wasn't a Yeti. Thought that bore repeating. Oh, and did I mention that it was a creature, maybe you know, not just an animal attack?" Dean was feeling the need to "I told you so" all over this conversation.

Cas closed his eyes. He opened them again, and Dean could see the strain he was under. "Tired."

"Guess next time you'll be careful with what you wish for." Dean was quiet and settled his hand on Cas'. "Being human isn't all that great sometimes." Cas just watched him through eyes that were barely open.

He managed to get out one more little phrase before drifting back off to sleep, "Regret nothing."

"Sure buddy, sure. You just sleep." Dean stayed at his side holding his hand, waiting for him to wake up again.

The shaking and the fever spiked again at midnight. Dean had gotten more blankets from Earl, but Cas had managed to kick them off of every side of the bed. His brow was furrowed in what Dean decided was pain. If Cas were human he'd make him soup, gather some antibiotics or maybe pain pills. This was not territory with which he was familiar. Cas just didn't really get sick. He remembered the brief period after the spell and the time when Cas' grace was waning, but those were different. Even then Cas seemed to be mostly in control. This seemed like him burning up from the inside, and he was certainly not controlling that.

He picked up the washcloth from the nightstand and thought that it needed to be replaced. It was a bit wet from the day before. Dean roamed off to the bathroom and got a fresh one and returned to Cas' side. He reached down and pulled the sheet up over his form. Cas didn't kick it away this time. Dean mopped his brow and smoothed back his sweat slick hair. He didn't talk to him, he just watched and waited.

An hour passed like this, then two. He pressed a palm to Cas' cheek to see if he was too warm or too hot. His temperature had fallen a little. Dean reached down and pulled up the rest of the blankets that were still clinging to the end of the bed. The ones on the floor could just stay there for now. Cas opened his eyes a crack and said, "It still burns."

"Where?" Dean moved closer with his worry.

"My back." Dean rolled him over to get a better look at the injuries. It was like moving a rag doll. Dean noticed that Cas' face was pressed into the pillow in what looked like an uncomfortable angle. He slipped a hand under Cas' cheek and turned him.

"That better?" Dean moved the blanket aside and stared at Cas' back.

"Much. Thank you." At least he wasn't coughing now, Dean thought. Dean glanced at his face and saw the intensity of his stare past his red-rimmed eyes. The wound did not look good. Then an odd thing happened. Cas began glowing. It began at the wounds in his back and grew brighter with each passing second. Dean shielded his eyes and the room felt like heat was surrounding them both. "Safe now." Cas' words were coughed out.

Dean opened his eyes and Cas was still laying just as he had been before. His back still looked the same. "What was that?"

"My grace is trying to repair the wound. It can't seem to do it. The poison is eating away at the grace the moment that it acts on the injury." It was a full sentence. Dean wanted to supply some sort of accolade for the moment, but Cas began coughing and didn't stop for nearly three minutes.

"Should I stitch up the wounds?" Dean settled his hand on Cas' lower back and rubbed comforting circles there.

"No, and you should not touch the area that was poisoned. I don't know what it will do to you." He started coughing again. Dean felt guilty. He didn't remove his hand from Cas' back though. He had managed to successfully avoid the poison and was pretty sure that he would continue to be fine.

"Pretty sure I got most of the poison out in the shower, but yeah, probably better to be safe than sorry." Dean looked down at the wounds a little more intently. "Will they heal on their own?"

"I have enough grace to burn the rest of the poison out, but it will take time." He coughed two deep coughs and then began to shake. Dean brought his hand up to Cas' cheek and stroked a thumb back and forth there.

"Not that you should talk much, but can you tell me what the creature was? Maybe I can get Sam to help me research a cure for this that doesn't involve burning out all of your grace. I mean, I know that this is like some sort of a dream come true for you, but I'd rather not have you suffering like this."

"Not enjoying the pain." Cas was still shaking. Dean reached back and pulled up another blanket to wrap around him. "It's a Skoffin, sort of."

Dean moved down into a kneeling position at the side of the bed so that Cas wouldn't have to speak up too much. "What's that, and what do you mean by sort of?"

Cas waited to be sure that he had control of himself. The possibility for coughing seemed to be pushed aside. "I'm not aware of flying Skoffin, but the poison is familiar. They are usually like basilisks."

"Oh, like in Harry Potter?" Dean grinned at his little connection.

"I suppose, but also rather different." Cas motioned for the water on the nightstand and Dean found himself grinning again. He helped Cas maneuver into a sitting position, then he plucked up the water, holding it at his lips. Cas took a few tiny sips at first then he was gulping down mouthfuls in an audible rush. Dean pulled the glass away Cas gave it a nod that seemed to say more.

"Can you sit here on your own while I get more?"

"Yes."

Dean rushed off to the kitchen and refilled the glass. If he got the chance later, he would make soup. Dean thought through the various recipes that he had at his disposal. Chicken and rice might be nice. He moved back into the bedroom and Cas was still sitting there. He looked weak. Dean held the glass to his lips, and he drank a few more sips. "Did you get enough?" He pulled the glass away.

"Yes." He helped Cas lay down, and he went back to adjusting the blankets again.

"I'm gonna give Sam a call about the Harry Potter dragon, see if he can do a little research on antidotes for its poison." Dean smoothed the blankets over Cas' chest and stood over him for a few minutes. "I might venture back up there and get the snowmobile that we ditched."

Cas jumped up faster than Dean thought he was able. It was a mistake. Cas was wheezing and coughing with the effort. Dean worked him back to the mattress. "No." Cas kept repeating between coughs and gasps. "No."

"Okay, okay, Cas. I won't. I'll wait for you." Dean gave his shoulder a little pat and came down close to him again. "I am gonna give Sam a call though." Dean pulled out his phone and paused a moment before calling Sam. "Got no signal in here. Be right back. Don't go anywhere."

Cas looked like he was drifting back off into the land of pain filled sleep. Dean moved out into the main room, grabbed his coat, and then headed outside. He held the phone out in front of himself as if that little extra distance would get him the signal he needed. Earl was out front and gave him a little wave. Dean wandered over to him. "Hey there, Earl. You all have trouble with the cell signal out here?"

"Just a bit. Got a lot of trees blocking ya out here. How's your partner doing?" Earl had a large snow shovel in his hands and he was clearing the walkway a bit while he waited for Dean's answer.

"'Bout the same. He's still fighting off a temperature. He'll be fine though." Dean looked down at his phone again and the lack of the signal. Somehow he now felt that calling Sam was really quite important. He didn't like being so cut off. "Hey Earl, how far do I need to drive to get a signal?"

"You don't have to drive at all. Just use the phone in the office. My wife is in there. Earl turned to the door and hollered, "Hey Leif, help Dean make a call."

"Leif?" Dean cocked his head to the side with the question. "You married a hippie lady, Earl?"

"No, she didn't name herself. Her dad was saving the name for his first born son. Six daughters later and he was ready to give up. Gave the name to my wife. Then two years later he has another kid, a boy."

"Did he name the boy Leif too?" Dean grinned as they both headed back to the office.

"No, he told my wife that he had considered changing her name to something else, like Susan or Samantha. In the end though, he said that nothing seemed to fit her quite like the name she already had. Can't say I disagree with that. She is adventurous and tough as nails. My life has been infinitely better with her in it." Earl reached out and opened the door to the office. "Did you hear me yelling at you?"

The woman behind the counter looked up with her deep set brown eyes. Her hair was all silver grey and pulled back into a loose braid. She smiled when she saw Dean and ignored her husband. "That partner of yours okay?"

"Getting there." Dean moved off to the side so that Earl could close the door.

"I told her about how you two got hurt up in the mountains hunting that animal." Earl reached over the counter and lifted up the phone, an old one, not cordless, onto the counter.

Leif came around the counter to Dean's side and held out a hand. Dean shook it. "I'm Leif, by the way."

"Dean," he replied.

Leif brought a hand up to the side of Dean's face and touched the edge of his hairline. Dean started back a little at the odd intrusion. "Sorry, it's just that your hair looks like it got a little singed."

"It did." He wasn't sure why he answered honestly.

"How?"

"Well," he started and then stopped to consider possible lies. "It was just a Skoffin. You know, mountain dwelling, fire spewing dragon thing that apparently has been terrorizing your little village here." Dean turned to Earl quickly and saw him stiffen. Leif withdrew her hand from Dean's cheek.

"Oh, no," she practically whispered.

"What the hell?" Dean took a step back. He hadn't intended to tell them that. "No, really, what the hell?"

"Don't be alarmed Dean. My wife just has a gift."

"Not okay." Dean stepped back again, and Leif did the same, giving him space.

"I'm sorry. I didn't expect so much." She gripped the edge of the counter now too. She looked at Earl. "This is bad, Earl. So bad."

"Someone better get with the explaining." Dean moved his hand back to the knife he had tucked into his jacket.

Earl reached out to him and something about the move was calming. Dean stared at him and stopped moving toward his knife. "Leif puts people at ease. She can sense what they are feeling, and she can move them to speak freely. She has to touch you for it to work, so you don't need to be worried."

"I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." She looked sincere. "I also didn't expect your truth. A Skoffin?"

"Yeah, didn't expect to be sharing that. Not everyday you run across something like that," Dean ran a hand back up through his hair.

Leif kept looking at her husband and he seemed intent on ignoring her. She reached out to him and settled a hand on his arm. "Earl."

That one word seemed to unleash the floodgates. "I didn't exactly see it die. I just did what I had to do. "

Dean turned to him. "You saw this thing before?" Dean thought back over their conversations. "So when you said you were a hunter, you meant that you were a demon hunter?"

"Former. Me and the missus are retired. We moved halfway around the world just to make it stick," Earl said.

"And even with all that distance, it found us." Leif let go of Earl's arm and turned away from them both.

Earl focused more on Dean then. "Hey, you seem pretty calm for a guy that just got his mind messed with and his hair singed by a Skoffin."

"You'd be surprised just how often stuff like this happens to me." Dean reached out a hand to Earl then. "Let me properly introduce myself. I'm Dean Winchester. I hunt demons and like long walks on the beach."

"You're a hunter too?" Earl seemed quite enthusiastic.

"Yeah, Cas and I are not feds. Now you mind telling me a bit about the creature that you both obviously know a lot about?"

Leif spoke up first and said, "There were two of them not far from our home outside of Reykjavik. They had been babies once; we think they were abandoned by their parents which makes sense since Skoffin are solitary creatures for reasons of self-preservation. We didn't kill them when they were young. We should have, but we didn't know. It was just so unusual to find two of them together. They grew up in the mountains. They were together and not together. Everyone knows that a Skoffin can't look at another Skoffin. That's how you kill one." She took in a deep breath that seemed to be laced in guilt. "Well, there was an attack. It wasn't much, but it was enough. People called it an animal attack in the woods. One of 'em or maybe both of them tore apart a house, killing a family that lived a bit out of the way. There was only one survivor from the family, a little girl. She said that it happened late at night, that her father had just come home from hunting."

"Hunting or hunting?" Dean interrupted.

"Could have been either. The little girl didn't know, neither did her family, but Earl and I worked with him on a few things in the past. We tried to avoid his help though. He was one of those black and white kinda guys. You know, it's human or it's a monster. And if it's a monster you can do whatever you want with it," Leif gave Earl a look that was significant, but Dean did not pry; he just let them finish.

Earl added though, "Leif and I see the world in more shades. The girl told us enough though about the attack, and we knew that we had to do something."

"That's when Earl and I decided to end them."

"What did you do?" Dean could already tell where this was going.

Earl continued the story, "Well, we tricked them into seeing each other. At least that's what we thought had happened. Leif went home, and I stayed behind to clean up the bodies. No one needs to be seeing giant Skoffin bodies laying around. We had a place where we disposed of such things. When I was done with the one, I went to the other intending to cut it up and drag the pieces over to the grave. It moved though."

"You didn't tell me that before." Leif looked at him like she couldn't believe that this was never a part of any conversation that they had had before.

"I'm sorry." Earl dipped his head. There was more that he wasn't saying, and Dean determined to dive into that conversation later. "I cut up the thing anyway. It only moved a little. I buried it and figured it would all just work out. It was our last job. I was glad of it too. I was feeling way too old for this. Leave the hunting to the young pups like you and your partner."

Dean laughed. "I'm not so sure about that. I'm ready to hang up my hat too. Cas and I were just talking about something like this the other day."

"You and him?" There was more to the question that Earl asked, like he was trying to understand the relationship between Dean and Cas.

Yeah, but you don't get that information until I get it figured out for myself. Dean moved to the door. "So you think the Skoffin followed you here?"

"I think that it put itself back together beneath the earth, dug its way out of its grave, and followed us here. It may have taken it some time, but it found us."

"So revenge?"

Leif said, "Maybe. Not sure." Her voice shook a little.

"Well, why don't you come by the cabin later and we can include Cas in on this. I'm gonna head back there and catch him up." Dean moved out the door and Earl and Leif nodded at him as they moved closer to each other. They looked worried, and Dean thought that maybe they should be. After all, he was.

He got halfway back to the cabin when he heard Earl call his name. He turned and waited. Dean leaned back against one of the other nearby cabins and looked out at the snow that had covered everything in sight. He looked over at the spot where he had left the car. It was under a foot of snow that had fallen in the night. He would have to dig it out. That'll take forever.

"There's more you wanted to tell me, but you didn't want Leif to know." It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact.

"Now who has the empathy?" Earl grinned up at him. "I couldn't share it in there. She would feel it too much. Lord knows I've felt it for far too long myself."

"Well, I'm all ears." Dean pressed his hands into his coat pockets. He was glad to have grabbed it before heading out earlier.

"We didn't kill them when we first found them, because they seemed innocent. Leif said that they didn't seem to have any ill-intents. I mean, she couldn't get a full read on them, but she did actually touch one of them. She said she only felt love. They were connected. Of course this was when they were young. It was easy to see them as innocent creatures then. We checked on them from time to time after first discovering them. They traveled in patterns that kept them close to one another. It was amazing when you really think about it, because if they did just one thing wrong, they would end up killing each other. Literally just one look at the other and they'd have been done."

"Nothing else kills them?"

"Not that I know of. Some said that silver or crosses could do it, but that is just something that came out of the proselytizing movements of the early Christians. Leif and I were sure that that wouldn't work."

Dean nodded, but said, "Might not be a bad idea to try though."

Earl shrugged. "Yeah, you have fun with that. If you're wrong, you get to die. Skoffin doesn't give you time to think of something new to try."

"Well, how do you suggest we kill something that can only be killed by the sight of another Skoffin? You think I should go out and find another monster to bring here?" Dean huffed out a cloud of air with the words.

"Not sure. If I knew, I'd have done it right back then."

"So what else happened?"

Earl was wearing a jacket too, but now he brought his arms up and hugged himself against a different kind of chill. He looked steadily at Dean. "Sometimes we have to do things in this line of business that we regret, things that change us. You know what I mean?"

Dean nodded and said, "Yeah, all too well. I'm guessing something happened that you haven't even been able to tell Leif about."

"I'm grateful that she didn't experience it." Earl looked off past Dean then as if eye contact would be too much. His voice dropped low with his confession. "After they fell, I sent Leif back home. Told her that I would take care of the bodies. That part was accurate. We had a pit in the woods that we used to dispose of burnables."

"Burnables?" Dean raised an eyebrow with the question.

"Yeah, you know creatures that you have to burn to destroy or items tied to a ghost."

"Okay, so you took the Skoffins to the pit thing?"

"Well, I cut up the first Skoffin and dragged its pieces to the pit. They're big creatures, so you have to do it that way. I had done the same about a month before with some other creatures that we had defeated. One had these bat-like wings, another had noxious breath like some sort of chemical. It would breathe on you and knock you out. Then it would be able to eat you at its leisure." Earl stopped for a moment.

"I don't get what that has to do with the Skoffin, but eww." Dean shuffled his legs a bit to get some warmth circulating.

"You will," Earl said and paused for effect. "After dropping the first one into the pit, I went back to take care of the second one. That was when I saw it move. It was so injured. I mean the snow was more black than white. The black was pumping out of it's neck. I should have noticed it before. The flow meant that the heart was still beating. I didn't think though."

"So what did you do?"

"I touched it." Earl looked steadily at Dean then. His eyes seemed watery and sorrow-filled. "I felt what it felt. The loss, the pain of its injuries, the abject desolation, all of it came through in that instance. I shrunk back from it, but the connection remained. The creature communicated with me. I should not have understood it, but I did."

"What did it say?" Dean asked.

"It wanted to die. It begged me to kill it. It was alone now without its partner, and it didn't want to keep going. Problem was, I had no way to kill it. I wanted to; don't get me wrong, not because of some odd hate, but because I felt sorry for it. There was nothing that I could do though. I stayed out there for hours trying to come up with something."

Earl was shaking now with the effort of his story. Dean reached out to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Earl. I'm sure you did the best you could."

Earl looked up at him and said, "You're wrong, Dean. I did the worst thing a person could do." He didn't look away, and Dean waited for him to continue. "I cut it into pieces like it was dead. I tossed the pieces in with the rest, the other Skoffin, the other long dead creatures. There was so much death in there. I think that it believed that I knew what I was doing. It didn't cry out as I carved it up. It didn't beg or plead as I dragged it to the pit. I felt its relief with each piece that I took away. Then I poured the salt over the edge of the chasm and added fuel. It was then that the creature understood what I was doing, and it knew that it was not getting its one wish. I tossed in the matches and set the mess on fire. I stood in the black snow, covered in the gore of the creatures at my feet, and I wept for them."

"The fire and the salting didn't kill it?" Dean felt bile rushing up his throat. He could imagine some deaths that might be worse than one by immolation, but this was not death; it was living in constant torment, torn and defeated. It was made worse by the fact that the creature was tossed onto the body of the one other being in all the world that it loved, that it wanted to die for. There was nothing that could compare to such agony, and he had been to Hell, so he knew.

"I could hear its cries, its pleas. I could hear it call out in the language of the old ones, the dead languages that were no longer spoken. I knew what it was saying. I knew by instinct and because it wanted me to know it. I felt its agony not at being torn apart, but at the mere thought that it would never die. It cried out and I thought that I had to get away from it. The flames licked the sky. Black smoke rose from the chasm like a demon was escaping from its womb. I ran through the dark to my home, tears on my face. The sound of its suffering dulled a little with the distance, but at all times and even miles away in my bed, I could hear it. I could hear its cries alone in its grave where it could not die."

Earl started to sink to the ground with the end of his story. Dean moved close and held him up. "So, that's why you came here? So you wouldn't have to hear it?"

"Yes, I started hearing it again just before the first killing. I thought that it was my guilt. Later I thought that it was something supernatural, but not a Skoffin. Skoffin don't fly, don't breathe fire."

Dean let him go and Earl seemed capable of keeping upright. "This creature definitely flew and there was fire, lots of it."

"Yes, there would be now."

"What do you mean, there would be now?"

"I told you that I saw one of the bodies right? My wife had a friend in town that she use to spend time with. He was a nice enough guy. He and Leif had been going to the community center to play Mah Jong together. I never got into the game, so I was happy she found someone that wanted to go with her, someone with her passion. Well, when they were coming home late one night after the games finished, they decided to go get a bite at the diner before heading back here. No one was out, but them. It had been a pretty cold winter. Leif said that the creature attacked them. She ran, but Parker just froze up. The thing crushed him in one blow, then tore him apart with its talons."

"So Leif said that it looked like the Skoffin?"

"She did. I looked at the body and saw the way that it tore Parker apart. It marked his chest with a symbol, clawed deep into him. The coroner thought that it was just random claw marks, but it wasn't. It was a series of crudely made interlocking triangles. I recognized it as a Valknut or a Hrungnir's Heart. It was a symbol commonly seen on the graves of the ancient Norsemen. It is connected to Odin and is said to represent power over death."

Dean rubbed at his jaw and considered. "You think that it was sending you a message?"

"I do. I think that it had no intention of killing Leif, but that it killed Parker just to send the message. I believe that it left the symbol because it wanted me to know that it lived. It has killed because it wants to spur us toward finding a way to end it. The killing will keep happening until we figure this out."

Dean dove down another path, "How did it pick up flying and fire breathing?"

"That's the kicker. It rebuilt itself with the materials that it had in the pit. The noxious breath of the one creature, the wings of the other, and its own snake-like form, coupled with the fire that burned it, but did not destroy it."

"This is going to be damn near impossible." Dean huffed out a long held breath of frustration. "I'm going to head back to the cabin for the night, and tell Cas what you've told me. Maybe he'll have some ideas on how we deal with this."

"Yeah." Earl looked like he was ready to shuffle back to his own home too. "You know, if you don't mind, I'd like to put off the meeting we said we'd have tonight. Telling the story just this once, was about all I could handle. I'll have to tell Leif now too, and I'll need to rest after that."

"You take care of you. We can talk more tomorrow." Dean gave him a pat on the shoulder, and as he was leaving he turned and said, "We'll figure this out, Earl. It's just complicated, not impossible."

Earl looked like he doubted that very much, but he gave Dean a half-hearted smile and went back to his place. Dean went back into the cabin and directly to Cas' room. He was laying on his side under the blankets, staring off at the wall. "It's sad."

Dean came over to him in three steps. "You heard the story?"

"Yes." Cas looked up at him, and the shadows that lined his face made him look worn and beaten. "Can you imagine what it must feel like to love someone that much and then lose them?"

Dean reached out to him and felt his forehead. Cas' skin felt cooler than it had before. "Loss is always painful." Dean stepped back from the bed for a moment. He imagined the world without those he loved. He had lost Sam, more than once it seemed. That loss had nearly ruined him. There was a reason that he was continually throwing himself on the pyre in the name of saving Sam. This thing with the Skoffin was different though too. He looked down at Cas and saw that he was watching him through eyes that were more focused than they had been. "You hungry? I'm not, but I can make you some soup or something."

"I don't require food."

Dean took a few tentative steps toward the door. "I'll just let you rest then. I'll be laying down out here if you need me."

"Dean." Cas' voice stopped him at the door. Dean turned back. "Would you stay?"

Dean stared back at him for a few moments before walking back to the other side of the bed. He peeled back the blankets and got in beside Cas. He laid there for a few moments before Cas rolled over to face him. "I believe that the wound is better."

"You want to let me look at it?" Cas rolled himself a little more onto his stomach and Dean sat up. He pulled the blankets back and looked down at Cas' back. The wounds had sealed. His back held no evidence of injury. "Does it hurt anymore?"

"Not so much. There is a throbbing ache beneath my skin, but not like it was." Cas turned his face on the pillow to face Dean.

Dean reached out and set his palm on Cas' lower back. "Where does it hurt?" Dean pressed his fingers into the muscles there, and Cas just watched him.

"It's much better."

"That's not what I asked, but that's okay." Dean grinned down at him. Dean adjusted his position and brought his other hand to Cas. He kneaded at the muscles there, hoping that it was alleviating the lingering pain. "I feel sorry for the creature too. To have to live like that without the one being in all the world that you care about, would be the worst kind of Hell."

Cas closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to get lost in the feeling of Dean's hands as they worked on a spot near Cas' shoulder. When Cas spoke, his eyes were still closed and his words were low. "Maybe now you can understand why I would want to be human."

Dean knew what he meant, even if he couldn't acknowledge it with words. Instead he came back down to the mattress and rested his head on Cas' back. He closed his eyes. The warmth of Cas there was comfort. Dean hoped that he was giving Cas enough in return.

AN: One more chapter, then it is finished. Hope you all liked it. Leave a comment and let me know.