"So you exorcised them, right? Problem solved?" Castle asked hopefully. He knew it wouldn't be that simple, things never were. Usually, he liked it that way. Simple was boring. What kind of book finished with 'and then they saved him and sent all the demons back to hell'? But this was one time when Castle really, really wanted the simple answer to be right.

It wasn't. The angel, who was still sitting stiffly beside Dean on Beckett's sofa, turned his head to look at him. His blue eyes were serious. Actually, his whole body was serious. And not even a little bit soft and cuddly. Castle prided himself on his imagination, but he had to admit that if he was writing a book with angels in it, this was not what he would have gone for. The angel said, "The news of Dean's whereabouts has travelled. Demons are converging on New York in the hundreds. The problem is not solved."

"Can't you just transport him away?" Beckett suggested sensibly. Castle felt a glow of pride about how well she was rising to the challenge.

Sam leaned forward, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "Not exactly. The thing is, once the demons are here, it doesn't really matter where Dean is. It'll be chaos. There's a reward for him, see. A big one. Once the demons realise they're wasting their time, they'll take it out on each other. We're gonna have full on warring factions, and people will get caught in the crossfire. Not to mention what demons do for fun when they aren't working."

"If the word gets out far enough, there will be others looking for the Winchesters. It will not be safe for anyone who has witnessed their presence," Cas added, looking away from Castle and down at Dean. Dean had refused to lie down on the couch and was now listing towards Cas, apparently fast asleep. Cas gazed at him curiously and sat awkwardly as his friend slumped against him.

"Dean?" Sam jumped up and rushed to check on his brother.

"What do you mean, others?" Castle asked.

Before anyone could answer his question, there was a knock on the door. It followed the same pattern that Beckett had used when they had arrived. Sam quickly repositioned his brother so Dean was lying on the couch and went to answer the door, making a detour to the table to fill up two shot glasses from a hipflask full of holy water.

Ryan and Esposito were admitted a moment later, having passed all the tests.

"Well, they let us go," Ryan said.

Both detectives looked tired and rumpled, like they hadn't had much sleep, and were somewhat bruised.

"I'm not totally sure they bought our story, but they couldn't prove anything against us, so they let us go," Esposito added, pulling up a chair.

Ryan looked around for an empty seat. There wasn't one. "Wow, your apartment's really small, Beckett."

"It's just a place to sleep," Beckett replied. "Coffee, anyone?"

Beckett made coffee for everyone except Dean, who was asleep (presumably it took a lot of energy to recover from being dead), and Cas, who apparently didn't eat or drink. Ever. And okay, maybe Castle's reaction to that revelation was a little disproportionate, in view of the rest of the information he'd just received, but there's only so much a guy can take. There's a tipping point, after which he starts gibbering like a fool.

"Never? But how? Why? But food is so tasty," Castle stammered.

"Not if it's been in the cupboard for three months," Esposito put in from where was peering into a cupboard in search of coffee cups. "What is this? I don't even want to touch it."

"Not the point, guys," Beckett spluttered, "Demon war, remember?"

"You should probably dispose of that. It appears unsafe," Cas had wandered over to peer into the cupboard, leaving Dean under the watchful eye of his brother.

"Can't you just smite it or something?" Castle suggested.

The angel looked at him humourlessly. Castle resisted the urge to hide behind Beckett.

"Cas," Sam said, urgently. Everyone turned to look at him. Dean was still asleep, but it no longer looked peaceful. His eyes rolled under fluttering eyelids, his breath coming in short, fast gasps. Cas was across the room so fast Castle didn't even see him move. He placed two fingers to Dean's forehead, and the sleeping man relaxed, his tension slipping away and his breathing returning to normal.

Castle didn't even want to contemplate trying to sleep. He knew what Dean had suffered had been a thousand times worse than what he had felt. He could imagine what Dean's dreams were like.

"Is there a plan?" Castle broke the silence that had grown as everyone remembered what had happened. They needed to move on before he thought about it too much.

"Right, a plan," said Sam, looking up from his brother. "We're working on it. But while we do, you guys need to learn the basics of hunting. You're all in this now. You all know where we are, and there are… people… who will stop at nothing to find out that information. You've all got targets on your backs, and you need to know how to protect yourselves. There's no going back now." He didn't sound sorry. Mostly he just sounded businesslike and matter-of-fact.

They went over the basics of defence against demons. The weapons training of the three detectives made it a relatively quick task, and even Castle could already shoot a gun (and was an excellent shot, if he did say so himself). Sadly, he probably wouldn't need to use his fencing skills.

Then came the scary part. Castle was just borrowing Beckett's phone to call his mother and warn her to take Alexis out of town, when an enormous hand covered his own. "Sorry," Sam said, pulling the phone away before he could dial. "You can't call anyone. You might give our position away. Or worse, theirs'." Sam replaced the phone on its bracket, but pulled the line out of the wall. His voice was sympathetic, but his eyes weren't. Castle wondered when he'd changed from the pleasant, hardworking boy he'd read about in quotes from his Stanford friends, into this angry hulk of a man. Maybe he hadn't changed. Maybe he just didn't hide it as well as he once had. Or maybe he had changed. Maybe this was what hunting did to people. Hardened them.

Castle glanced over at Beckett, where she was disassembling her weapon. Beckett's shell was hard enough already. She might not come back from this.

Castle protested the ban on phone calls vehemently. It went against everything in him to not get his family out of harm's way.

He stopped protesting when Sam described the time an archangel had removed his lungs. "Angels like having leverage," he told them, "They've been playing me and Dean off each other for months. If Zachariah finds your family, he'll use them to get the information he wants from you. You cannot call them. Not until we've finished this."

"But they're angels," Esposito exclaimed, "They should be…" He trailed off, horrified.

"They are… misinterpreting God's will in his absence," Cas said shortly, not looking up from the symbol he was watching Ryan draw.

Ryan stopped drawing. "God's what?"

Castiel's expression darkened. "I will find him," he said.

Dean mumbled something, his eyes blinking slowly. Sam and Cas were both at his side in an instant. Dean batted Cas' fingers away from his head and sat up, stretching. Castle pointedly ignored the way Beckett's eyes widened as Dean raised his arms over his head, his shirt riding up to show a thin strip of skin. "Any food?" He asked. "What did I miss?" He looked around the room. A frown grew on his face as he took in the weapons on the table and the symbols everyone was working on reproducing. He stood up, grim and surprisingly steady. "Sam, I need to talk to you." He motioned towards the next room with his head.

The Winchesters didn't seem to understand that in an apartment like Beckett's, going into the next room to argue might seem like it's more private, but it's really not. It started out as a quiet hiss of annoyed voices, and everyone tried to pretend they were still concentrating on the symbols they were practicing. But then the voices got louder, and the social discomfort that accompanies witnessing an argument began to spread throughout the room. One by one, they stopped drawing and tried not to listen.

"Did you even ask them what they wanted, Sam? They shouldn't have to deal with this. This is our problem. They should just stay somewhere safe, and we'll deal with it." Castle hadn't heard Dean get angry before. Mostly Dean had been asleep, or joking, or tiredly protesting that he didn't need help. Or screaming, by Castle didn't want to think about that. Now he sounded fierce and determined, and just a little frightening.

"We can't do this on our own, Dean, and if we just hide them away somewhere, they'll be found. They need to be able to fight." Sam sounded every bit as stubborn as his brother.

"You know what hunting does to people," Dean argued. "These people will never feel safe again. And they'll probably get killed, and if they do, that's on us."

"There are hundreds of demons coming, Dean. Not to mention the angels. What do you suggest we do?"

"Call some hunters! We're practically throwing these people to the wolves! We've been doing this our whole lives and we can't handle it properly. We shouldn't be doing this to them!"

"In case you hadn't noticed, Dean, we're not exactly popular right now. Particularly me. Do you know what's gonna happen if we start calling hunters? They're gonna tell us to go to hell, or they're going to come and finish me off themselves. And then what's going to happen to New York?"

"Those demons are after me, Sam. Me. There is no reason for these people to get dragged in. Haven't we already got enough people killed?"

Castle focussed as hard as he could on his symbol. Hearing people fight always made him tense. He usually tried to break the tension with a joke of some kind, which either would make everyone laugh and distract them from the fight or make them both turn around and yell at Castle. This time, though, Castle was too busy thinking about what he'd heard. It was becoming more and more obvious that Sam had left something out of his explanation. Why would other hunters want to kill Sam?

The noise from the next room stopped. Everyone quickly returned to their tasks, trying to look like they hadn't just been listening to an argument that was supposed to be private.

When Sam stepped back into the room, he looked angry. Castle was struck by a sudden desire not to do anything to piss him off. Dean came in behind him, looking equally tense. He'd finally agreed to go along with what Sam wanted, but only because there was no real alternative. He was not happy about it, and it showed.

Dean came and took over from Cas, peering over Castle's shoulder to inspect the sigil he was practicing. All traces of good humour were gone. Castle felt a sudden surge of sympathy for him. He had a feeling Dean wouldn't respond well to an outpouring of what he would surely see as pity, so he didn't say anything, but that didn't stop him feeling it. Dean, for some reason that wasn't quite clear to Castle, seemed to feel that he was solely responsible for protecting every single person in the whole world.

Cas reappeared in front of them, bearing food. Castle hadn't even noticed he was gone. He placed boxes of pizza on the table.

"Eat up," Sam instructed them. "Big night, tonight."

Castle suddenly realised he was starving. Also, his arms hurt like crazy. He dug his painkillers out of his pocket, washing one down with water and following it up with a slice of pizza or four.

Sam, Dean and Cas were having a meeting as they ate. They huddled on the other side of the room, this time remembering to keep their voices down. Castle could only catch snatches of what they were saying. Words like 'demons' and 'angels' and 'trap'. Castle was pretty sure he heard his own name. He talked to Ryan and Esposito about what they had told the feds to explain the mess and multiple bodies at the house where Castle and Dean had been held, and tried to ignore the gnawing apprehension growing in his belly. He really wanted to go home and hug Alexis. Or possibly wake up and discover that he'd dreamed the whole thing and Frank Walter had been killed by his next-door neighbour in a fight over noise levels.

Sam and Dean came back over just as Ryan and Esposito were having a tug-of-war over the last piece of pizza. Sam shifted the pizza boxes and placed a sheet of paper on the table. "Okay," he said, "Here's the plan."

XXX

An hour later, Castle was lurking in the bushes outside a house very similar to the one he'd been kept in, armed with a can of spray paint, a bottle of holy water, and a small knife. He'd got the easy job because of the cast on his hand and the pain in his wrenched shoulders. Beckett's comforting presence was beside him. She looked beautiful despite the bruising on her face. Fierce and strong, like a warrior woman. Her hair was tied back, and she carried a salt gun, holy water, and a recorded exorcism. They looked at each other and nodded as they heard the signal. It was time.

Castle did not like this plan at all.

XXX

A/N: Sorry this chapter is a bit short. I found it really hard to write, for some reason. Have been distracted by the fact that NEW ZEALAND WON THE RUGBY WORLD CUP :D