Ch3- Chasing Miracles

[Dean's POV]

"He's been here, without a doubt." Dean said as he crouched below the small coffee table inside Castiel's ward and pulled out a small, empty cardboard box still smelling sickly sweet from the chocolate that had been inside a moment ago. Castiel lied in his bed, sound asleep.

"How'd you know it was him, could have been from some kid who stayed in this room before." Sam replied skeptically as his eyes scanned the computer screen, looking for causes of memory loss and how to reverse it. So far, no luck.

"See for yourself," Dean pushed the box across the table where it twirled from the motion. On it read 'M&M' surrounded by blue decorations, nothing particular.

"So?"

"Inside." Slowly, Sam took the box in his hands and found it filled with candy wrappers and as he shook it, they fell on the table like leafs. Peeking in, he was relieved to find a hand written note folded neatly into a rectangle and smoothed it out for deciphering.

He cleared his throat and read: "'Sam and Dean, gotta take care of some angelic crap. Be with you in a min.'" He paused to shoot a look of annoyance at Dean who doesn't look any more satisfied than he is. "Can't…he be more descriptive? 'angelic crap' is not very informational."

"Awwww…would you have preferred if I wrote you an informational paper siting 30 sources like in your good old Stanford days? Sorry that wasn't quite mentioned in your prayer." A sarcastic third party chimed in. Surprised, in one swift motion Sam and Dean jumped up and pointed their guns at a smirking Gabriel, only hesitating when the familiar face registered itself in their minds. Gabriel, clearly proud with the grand entrance and sleek comment crossed his arms together, "Aren't you just delighted to see me."

"What took you so damn long!" Dean demanded, tucking his handgun back into the waistband of his baggy jeans.

"You should be grateful that I even came. I was with some cute gals and I could have done great without a prayer that involved me being cursed and some useless threats." Gabriel reasoned back.

"Um. I thought you were dealing with 'angelic crap' according to your informational note." Sam pointed out and shook the little note between his thumb and pointer finger so that it flapped right in front of Gabriel's face.

"Ok. You caught me. Want to hear my full story? Here it goes." Gabriel began as he propped himself onto the window still. "Thanks to y'all, all my archangel brothers are either dead or locked up in hell. Then there's poor me; who have been avoiding all the drama upstairs for thousands of years then boom, I have a good couple of dozens of angels with terrible terrible torn up wings chasing me down. Asking me rather rudely to use my archangel juices to help locate your friend Castiel. In fact, why am I even helping you, you hold a good deal of responsibility for my disturbance." His eyebrows narrowed together.

Dean hesitated and tried his best to not direct any attention to the bed in which Cas' laying in. Gabriel probably hasn't noticed him yet, or Dean has a feeling that he would not be as chill. "Uh, how does that have anything to do with you not getting precisely here any quicker?"

"Because they were outside, Dean." Gabriel exclaimed. "Those angels led by…uh…Bartholomew sensed my power some how, and they were just so close to finding me in this hospital—" He paused and slowly looked up from the cold floorboards. "—What are you doing in a hospital?"

"We—" Sam started to speak but too late, Gabriel's already looking at the bed. Emotions of confusion, anger and surprise formed on his face then he finally looked back at Sam, who still has his hand up in mid-air. "really."

"Listen—we—" Sam started to explain with a forced little smile on his thin lips in hopes of looking sincere. But Gabriel clearly isn't going to buy any of his bull crap as he stood by the side of the bed, face looking up at the ceiling.

"He's an angel, he should be able to heal quickly. Why in the world would you two dumbasses ever think Cas is so weak to heal himself?"

"Well…" Dean walked forward, lips pursed. "Something is different with him. And he doesn't seem to get any better…at least not in the last 4 days that he's been here."

Unfortunately, all this ruckus and loud talking caused Castiel to wake from his long nap. He still has the bandage around his head but the bruises near his cheekbones had begun to fade- from a deep purple to a light greenish brown. With one sleepy hand, he rubbed his eyes but winced when his finger brushed across the tender bruises. He swallowed back a bitter taste from all the painkillers that he's been fed and raised his head feebly to scan the room, only to find three stern looking men staring at him. The closest one seems really scared and confused.

"Hello guys!" Cas tried his best to sound cheerful but it came out low and raspy. He tried again, "What's happening? Why does everyone seem so shocked to see this beautiful creature awakening from his beauty sleep?"

Dean tried to hold back his chuckle. Something about the new Cas' sense of humour gets to him every time. His quick and rather flirty comments make Dean want to jokingly swat him aside and laugh. But he's too worried to admit to his fascination and right now, he'd do anything to have Cas' memories back. There are just too many missing blanks they have to fill to find Abbadon, and of course, worse yet, Metatron. He doesn't have time for anything else.

"Uh, what's wrong with him?" Gabriel said slowly, turning his head to look at Dean, who met his eyes with an equally befuddled look.

"He barely remembers anything." Sam confessed, "You need to understand that Castiel is not the bad one here, those angels outside are. Please, just heal him so he can retrieve his memories and that's all we ask and we will never bother you again."

Gabriel stood deep in thought. His gaze shifted from Sam to Castiel who now is smiling happily at Dean whose eyes darted from the bed to the two. My brother Castiel had always been weird alright, but this really isn't like him. He's showing emotions almost as if…as if he has a human soul. Gabriel sighed and looked at Cas. Who just seems so carefree and at bliss as he smiled up at Dean, they exchanged some light hearted conversation as Castiel's hands reached up and covered the other man's. He could see Dean tense up a slight bit under his layers of clothing. "This is peculiar." He said under his breath as he moved up next to the two, eyeing apologetically at Dean. "Okay, but I might have to put him to sleep so it's not going to be as painful."

Dean's green eyes lit up at Gabriel's agreement as he hesitantly pried Cas' hands off his. "Cas, we need you to rest a little bit more okay? I'll be here when you wake up." He said in a soothing voice.

Cas looked disappointed as the warmth around his cold hands disappeared. With the new man's foreign face looking down at him, he felt uneasy. As if the man's giving off some type of radiation, some type of power. "Who is that, Dean?"

"No one bad, just relax." Dean said calmly as he nodded at Gabriel. With his index and middle fingers, Gabriel lightly tapped on Cas' forehead and he fell back, into a deep sleep. With a stern face, he hovered his hand above Cas' ribs as a white light glowed and they could see the swollen tissue fade and turn back to normal. Same went with his head, the angry bruises and lumps from the collision dissolved, replaced by Cas' usual peachy, smooth skin. He looked well, almost.

"Did you fix him up?" Dean asked with a tight voice.

"Almost, just not his brain yet, even for me it's a little bit difficult because something about him is… cursed. But what I did find out is why he's not healing."

"Why?"

Gabriel took a moment to take a breath, as if he's about to break out something terrible. "He's a human now, Dean. He's vulnerable." He said solemnly. Sam and Dean stared at him in disbelief, eyes wide and jaws hanging down. It was all too much to grasp at one time: Cas is human.

Oh Cas…

Dean couldn't help but feel dread wash over him. That poor poor angel, what's the world done to him? What did he ever do to deserve such unfairness? He clenched his fists and felt his nail bite into his skin. He was just so close to going up to Heaven himself, track Metatron down and stick an angel sword up his holy hole.

"Cursed? What do you mean cursed? Like witch craft?" Sam asked carefullt.

"Yes exactly like that, you should check for hex bags on his clothing. I—" Suddenly all the colours drained from Gabriel's face as he noticeably froze in the middle of the room, eyes darting outside the window to something neither Sam nor Dean could see. "They're coming."

"Who?" The brothers asked in unison.

"The fallen angels. Run, carry Cas with you. Get out of here."

Swoosh! Gabriel disappeared as the first alarms began to sound: 'SECURITY BREACH SECURITY BREACH, LOCK DOWN ENTIRE FACILITY."

Without a second thought, Dean tore the dozens of needles out of Cas' arms and scooped him up, together; they bolted toward the nearest emergency exit, heading straight for the Impala.

- short chapter, fluff is promised in the next one, please fav and follow my IG sam_winchestr-