Pulling into the area he vaguely remembered the warehouse being in, he felt despair closely followed by resolve. Sure, this place was basically nothing but abandoned warehouses but the Djinn had to be in one of them. Hell, as far as Dean knew half were probably made to dissuade him from even trying; fat chance. He fought to remember the morning before, the gut feeling that led him straight to Castiel and hoped that he could get it to work now. Admittedly he didn't know the mechanics behind all of it and was lost as to what the Djinn even looked like –

"They customarily appear as a human with tattoos or scarification."

Castiel was becoming like the little voice in the back of his head, the person keeping him sane in a world where nothing seemed real anymore. Thinking on the last few hours he found himself dwelling on the girl from before. She had been trying to tell him something, show him something. Instinct told him that she was the latest victim and that's when he felt the familiar tugging at his subconscious – similar and yet infinitesimally different.

Not wanting to spend another minute in this world with the ghost of a woman he had never loved, he set his pace to a borderline run. It took fifteen minutes to find the warehouse, another five to break in noiselessly so as to not arouse the Djinn's attention. He had never suspected the Breaking and Entering charge on his rap sheet would have come in handy until now. Who'd have thought being a delinquent growing up would help his work for God?

He clutched the knife a little tighter, unsure of what to expect and nervous for it. He crept along the hallways and through the abandoned rooms, hugging the walls in an attempt to prevent the creature from sneaking up on him. He followed the gentle tugging until he stumbled upon a room that just peering into made him physically ill.

It was like a scene from a B Rated horror movie, anorexic thin girls hanging from the ceiling by their arms, their blood being drained into a bag attached to their jugulars. He saw a ghost image then, the room from another perspective – their perspective by the look of it – that was gone as soon as he blinked. Dean felt the stairs above him creek as someone, something, made its way down them.
At first glance, they looked like the world's record holder for the most tattoos – no part of the exposed skin was spared. He felt his stomach recoil and twist as he watched it pull the needle from the girl from the room's neck ad sucked on it like the fucking juice box he had compared them to barely an hour previous. Distracted by fighting the urge to hurl, he almost missed the girl's low whimpered words.

"Daddy…"

Its eyes became luminescent, the deep royal blue color of energy pouring forth almost making Dean think of Cass all over again only to find himself appalled at the comparison. Castiel was nothing like this beast as it raised its light covered hand and ran its fingers across her forehead. Only broken sobs escaped her lips as she once again went still and it replaced the drip feed. Still, that one word uttered on sorrow filled lips made Dean think. Why, of all the things she could have said, did she say 'Daddy'? It wasn't a cry for help, not a plea; not the kind you would expect.

In that moment Dean had an epiphany. It was not violent or jarring, just the pieces finally clicking into place and him suddenly realizing why he woke up this morning in a bed that was no longer his. The sound of footsteps approaching resounded from somewhere behind him, his body turning to face the approaching group as he found himself looking on the faces of loved ones alive and lost. First came Sam, tall and lanky as always with a sad smile marring his face.

"Hey Dean."

"Sammy…"

"You just…you couldn't stop digging, could you? Too many good things and you just couldn't handle it."

"This isn't real, Sammy. I'm hanging from some dingy ceiling like one of them –"

He gestured to the girls still suspended by lengths of rope.

" – and that monster is bleeding my dry. As far as I know I may be dead in a few hours."

"Oh baby…"

His body stopped and Dean found he couldn't breath as he heard that all too familiar voice from behind him.

"It might be hours out there, but it could be years in here, honey."

The hand on his shoulder broke him from his paralysis as he turned his head to face his mother. She was as beautiful as he remembered if a little more aged.

"You could have a long and happy life here, honey. You could watch your brother become a lawyer, get married and start a family."

Stepping out of the shadows to his left came Lisa holding their baby boy in her arms. Ben was facing him, wide awake with worried eyes and his wisp of black-brown hair sticking obstinately up.

"You could be happy here, Dean. You could have the family you've always wanted, be with your loved ones."

Somehow it was Lisa that made him realize that he had been considering it. Taking one step away from his mother, away from everyone, he pulled the knife from where he had concealed it in his sleeve.

"Dean…"

"What about Cass?"

He looked around the room to faces lost on what to say.

"Yeah, I thought so."

Figuring his instinct had got him this far, Dean listened to his gut and ran the knife into his chest.

Castiel knew it had been a bad idea to let Dean go on a supply run on his own. When he got the phone call about Dean finding an abandoned warehouse a couple of miles from the restaurant Castiel had briefed him in and the farm he had collected the lamb's blood from, he'd begged the winged man to wait for him only to have the other line go dead. Three hours had passed since then, the cleric searching frantically for his charge. When he found Dean hanging from the ceiling hooked up to tubes and ashen he did not bother bottling up his fear.

"Dean! C'mon….Dean, listen to me! I need you to be okay, please!"

Using the knife liberally coated with lamb's blood, he cut Dean down and bent over him to remove the needle that still protruded from his jugular vein. He didn't notice the Djinn until it grabbed him by the back of his clerical shirt and threw him into the trolley covered with surgical equipment. He didn't cry out, didn't notice the scalpel imbed itself in his shoulder blade as his adrenaline kicked in and he stood only to have it toss him onto a nearby stairwell. The creature was on him, its eyes and hand glowing a dangerous shade of royal blue as Castiel fought back and tried to remember where he had dropped the knife.

Dean's vision was blurry as he desperately tried to stay awake, his entire body aching. Like he was in a trance, he slowly picked himself up from where Castiel cutting him down had left him and he stumbled to the only blood covered knife he could see.

"C…Ca…ss…"

Barely able to shamble two feet in his weakened state, he tripped on air and fell, sliding the blade to the floor beside the priest's feet.

Kicking the blade within reach, he let go of the Djinn's glowing arm long enough to grab the blade and drive it home into its skull. Like someone flipping a switch the creature stopped glowing and dropped onto him.

Dean watched the priest kill the Djinn. As relief flooded his synapses and blackness encroached on his vision, he hoped that the girl was alright before falling unconscious.

Dean woke much like he did the first night he had met Castiel – in a foreign room with a strangely comforting feeling of someone carding their hands through his feathers. Unlike that day, he hummed lightly as he recognized the priest's calloused hands and the bed spread as the one from the borrowed room in Pastor Jim's church. Burrowing his face further into the pillow he sighed contently despite being straddled by a clergy man.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

He hadn't been expecting the dry croak that came from his lips.

"So you are awake at last."

"Yeah…"

There was an audible shift in the way Castiel was sitting, the feeling of him adjusting himself above Dean, signaling something important was about to be said. Dean strained his ears to hear the low whisper the priest graced him with.

"Dean…I…I don't think we should do any more hunts. Not like that, anyway."

The winged man turned slightly under the weird of the priest as he peered over his shoulder in an attempt to get a better look at him.

"What's wrong, Cass?"

"This last hunt…I almost lost you, Dean. You've been out for at least three days – I was considering raiding a hospital to put you on an IV drip."

"But I'm fine now."

"But what if next time you aren't? What happens if this happens again and the creature finds out about your wings? We can't guarantee what could happen and I am no betting man."

Dean knew that tone, another argument there was no way to win.

"How was the girl?"

"Pardon?"

"There was a girl there with me, maybe a couple of days older; fifteen, mousy – did she make it?"

He noted the hesitance in the priest's pause, almost as though he had to think on it. What was there to think about?

"…Yes."

Castiel listened to the content sigh come from the body beneath his own. Somehow that made the lie feel that much worse.