In the morning, Sam woke up to a bare bed, with the exception of the pillow under his head. "Gabriel?" He asked softly, looking around for the android. A light groan came from the side of the bed and when Sam moved to get a better look at him, he spotted Gabriel tightly bundled up in the bedding with only his feet visible. "Are you hungover?"
"No, I'm just tired and in pain." He stated softly, slowly moving from under the blankets. His hair was completely messy from rolling around in his sleep and he still looked a little out of it.
"Did you plug yourself in last night?"
"Didn't need to."
"Why?"
"Well, do you want the Gabriel answer or the scientific answer?" He asked as he yawned and stretched.
"I'm curious about the Gabriel answer."
Gabriel smiled at that before flipping him off.
"Then fuck off and go ask Castiel or something, I'm tired. That's the Gabriel answer." He snickered as he curled back up in the bedding. Sam smiled and shook his head as he moved to lay on the floor with Gabriel. Gabriel curled up in his chest, looping his arm around his waist as he hummed in content.
"So what does happen when you drink?"
"Our bodies convert the alcohol levels in our bodies and slowly turn it into our blood. We get groggy and 'intoxicated' in the first place because the process is slow and when we drink it recreates the feelings like it would in a human. Our hangover is just the painful experience of making more blood. And I haven't lost any blood lately so I will end up with too much." He mumbled as he got up and motioned for Sam to follow him.
"What happens when you get too much?" Sam asked, furrowing his eyebrows. "Holy shit, you ask a ton of questions." Gabriel laughed before he turned to face him.
"If we have too much blood in our bodies, we will expel it." Sam had to take a second to think about it, furrowing his eyebrows. He opened his mouth to ask what on earth that meant but got his answer instead.
A steady stream of blood began to drip down Gabriel's face through his nostrils. The android furrowed his eyebrows, wiping his nose with the back of his hand before he saw the red. "Oh, well there you have it, Sammy. This is what happens when we drink too much."
"You bleed?" Sam led him to the bathroom, lifting him so be could sit on the counter before grabbing a washcloth and holding his nose with it.
"It's unnecessary to store extra blood." Gabriel rolled his eyes as he let Sam take care of the blood.
"You don't lose too much, right?" Sam asked softly, hoping nothing happened to them if they were to lose an excessive amount.
"Nope, I'm fine." He replied, smiling widely at him. "It's not like I can really bleed to death or anything." He snickered as he pulled the cloth away.
Sam saw just how quickly it was becoming red and shook his head slowly. "I'm not too convinced of that." He mumbled, pressing it back to Gabriel's nose before making him tilt his head back. "Just sit still, Gabe."
"Why should I? It's boring." He groaned, squirming and trying to get away from the cloth.
"Because you're still bleeding, Gabe." Sam stated as he kept his nose plugged. He soon let go of his nose, seeing the the bleeding had finally stopped. "So this happens every time you drink?"
"Not every time I drink, just about every time I get intoxicated." He snickered, shaking his head as he jumped off the counter. "So I take it you haven't fully finished that manual Chuck gave you, Gigantor." Gabriel turned, taking Sam's hand and placing it on his arm so he could gently squeeze and feel it. "Feel the softness? It's not just the silicone. Under our layer of 'skin', we have a layer of where our bodies keeps our blood. It makes us feel more human when we're touched. So obviously, if we stored too much, we would feel puffy and gross." Sam nodded at that, finding all of these new things about the androids so interesting.
"What happens if you get cut?"
"What happens if you get cut?" Gabriel snickered as he shook his head. "I really don't think you get sick of asking questions." He smiled wider.
"Does it bother you?" Sam asked, just really curious.
"Not really, I just like messing with you. You get all flustered and embarrassed." Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head as he smiled widely. He wondered if Gabriel's favorite pass time was just screwing with him.
"So I take it Dean's still in bed?"
"Yeah, it's seven in the morning. If he can sleep in, he will." Sam pointed out.
"Castiel is probably just attached to his side." He snickered before he went to go check.
Sure enough, Dean was still asleep and Castiel was a few feet away from him. The blue eyed android stared at the human, barely blinking as he stayed focused on him. His lips slowly moved as he whispered to himself, never taking his eyes off of his face.
"Cas, what are you doing?" Gabriel asked softly, careful not to wake Dean.
"Ninety-nine..." He mumbled before looking at Gabriel. "Yes?"
"What are you doing?" Gabriel repeated.
"Counting." Castiel said softly as he went back to staring at Dean's face.
"Okay...Counting what?"
"His freckles."
Gabriel snickered at that, shaking his head as he saw just how infatuated Castiel was with the human. "Alright, well you have fun trying to count all of his freckles. If he wakes up and sees you staring at him again you know he's going to freak out again." Castiel shrugged his shoulders and went back to admiring Dean's face and counting his freckles one by one.
When he was a little over halfway finished, Dean opened his eyes and slowly began to fully wake up. He furrowed his eyebrows when he realized that Castiel was only staring at him. "What are you doing, Cas?" He asked, his voice rough with his sleepiness. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, yawning lightly as he sat up.
"Nothing." Castiel replied as he watched him sit up. Dean raised his eyebrow at that, shaking his head a little.
"Alright. You really are just into staring then." He said softly, stretching his body and slowly working all of the kinks out of his body to help him wake up.
"Is that a bad thing?" Castiel asked softly, pulling the plug out of himself before he wrapped the cord up and set it on the end table.
"It can be. If you just stare at people in public for a long time, they'll probably think that you're some sort of stalker." Dean replied with a shrug as he looked back at him. Castiel furrowed his eyebrows, staying seated on the bed as he watched him.
"Oh." He mumbled as he nodded and looked down at the bedding. "I'll try to stop then."
"Dude, you worry too much. I guess I don't really care what you do when you're at home since it's not really hurting anyone. It's just pretty weird to wake up to it." He replied, ruffling Castiel's already messy hair in an attempt to help him feel just a little better. Castiel smiled a little at that, fixing his hair with his hand. "What do you want to do today?"
"I'm not sure..." He cocked his head as he tried to think of something to do, getting up so that he could make the bed for Dean. "We could just perhaps maybe go to the mall? Gabriel said something about wanting to go there for something." Castiel shrugged as he glanced back at Dean.
"That sounds good. I'll run it by Sam and we'll head out after breakfast or something." Dean mumbled as he grabbed some clothes and headed to go take a shower.
After everyone had gotten ready and eaten, they went to the mall so that the androids would be able to go to have some time to wander around and see if they wanted any of the things that they came across in the stores. The brothers eventually split up with their androids since they both seemed to be distracted by anything with bright colors.
Thankfully, the androids didn't fully catch that they were being watched once again from a distance. Alastair couldn't believe his luck on being able to see the new little toys so soon again. He called up his boss, wanting to see if he was allowed to get close with them and toy with them once more.
"Have you got a view of the objects?" The voice on the phone asked.
"Yes, sir. Target Blue is being completely shielded by Guard dog Alpha, but Target Amber is in my sights. His guardian just went to the coffee shop. What do you want me to do to loud mouth?"
"How much of an open window do you have?"
"Five minutes at most. There's a short line. We won't be able to move onto our plan just yet, but I can at least tag him so we can keep an eye on him."
"Go with whatever you feel is best and then report back to me. If you can, get the both of them, but don't make the first target a number one priority. If you have an opening on just one of them, take it."
"Yes, Sir." He responded before hanging up and getting two of his easier tools out. He slowly crept behind the smaller male, watching his every movement to try and make sure that he wouldn't turn around.
When Gabriel turned a corner and into a secluded area of the shop, he smiled widely at his luck. The big aisles in the corner would prevent anyone from seeing them easily and he would be able to get in and out quickly. Alastair waited patiently for the android focused on some brightly colored packages of snacks before he made his move by shoving the android to the wall and covering his mouth before any sound could escape his lips. When Gabriel began to thrash and struggled to get free, a taser was pressed to the edge of his neck to incapacitate him and drain his battery before Gabriel finally passed out.
Alastair had the perfect plan for how he could quickly get in and out of the place with no one getting suspicious. After implanting the chip into Gabriel's arm, he dropped him to the ground and pretended that he had simply passed out. He helped him into a chair and when people began trying to get him awake and alert, he slipped out with the plans of only hurrying off so he could wait for his next orders.
However, when Alastair saw Dean leaving Castiel alone to go see what happened with Gabriel, he couldn't believe his luck. He ducked away from Dean so he wouldn't be recognized while the android's guard dog slipped past. He smiled widely when Dean didn't see him, happy that he could have a chance to play a little more with the new androids before their plan came into action.
This was going to be so much easier that he could have ever imagined. It would teach those stupid guard dogs to never leave their little lambs out of their sights, because someone could just snatch them up when they weren't looking. He gave Castiel the same treatment he gave Gabriel, sneaking up behind him before tasing and tagging him. He helped Castiel into a nearby chair, gently stroking his hair for a moment as he watched the dazed android with a twisted fondness on his face.
"I thought I told you to watch out for yourself and the things around you, Angel." He said softly, tsking lightly before he pulled away and finally left the building while the little android was still seized up. The best thing about tasing an android was that when the electrical current would drain their batteries and freeze their minds up so they wouldn't remember what had just happened to them. He pushed the android down to sit in the chair, patting his head almost lovingly. "I'll see you later, Little Angel."
"Cas?"
Castiel blinked slowly before he looked up at Dean, watching the human curiously as Dean waved his hand in front of his face. "Yes, Dean?"
"God, I've been trying to get your damn attention for a few minutes now. Are you okay?" He asked, looking him over to make sure he was perfectly fine.
"I'm fine, Dean." Castiel replied, rubbing his eyes for a moment before he slowly got to his feet.
"Are you tired?" Castiel nodded again as he looked up at him.
"Just a little. What about Gabriel, is he alright?"
"Yeah, Sam woke him up and we're going to go home. Did you charge last night?"
"Yes, Of course I did." He said with a light yawn.
Dean nodded slowly and led the drained android back to his car so that he could take him home to get him some rest.
Dean and Sam kept an eye on Gabriel and Castiel after they returned home, wanting to make sure that nothing serious would happen to either of them while they charged again. They had been charged the night before, so they didn't really understand how exactly they could have been tired out so fast and decided that they would have to make sure they could get a chance to check the surveillance footage of the mall from that day when they got into work the next morning.
During the night, Castiel twitched in his sleep, groaning lightly and curling up tighter into a ball before going still again for a few more moments. He soon began to bite at his lip, burying his face into the bedding as images and voices flooded his mind.
"You're only a machine, you'll only ever be a tool." Echoed in his mind over and over. "Someday, they will shut you down and there is nothing you can do about it." His eyes quickly opened and he sat up, taking a deep slow breath before he sighed and lay back down so that he could go to sleep.
This time, his dream was filled with fast images that he almost couldn't catch. There was him and Gabriel going somewhere, blurred and fast voices with words he couldn't quiet understand. He could feel his head pound, sharp pains flashing every now and again as the images continued before he could hear the screeching of tires followed by a deafening crash. "Castiel!" He jolted at the sound his eyes shooting open to see Dean on top of him trying to shake him awake.
"Shit, are you okay? You were mumbling and thrashing in your sleep." He said softly before biting his lip. "You're bleeding." Dean mumbled, climbing off of the bed before grabbing a towel and pressing it to Castiel's nose as he sat up. "I didn't think you guys having nightmares would mean you bleed."
Castiel shrugged, rubbing his eyes as he kept it there. "I'm sorry for waking you." He said softly, looking up at Dean.
"Don't worry about it, it's not like you could help it...What were you even dreaming about?"
"I don't remember." Castiel said softly as he looked up at him. Dean sighed and checked after a bit longer to make sure the bleeding stooped before he patted Castiel's head. "Alright, then I guess you should just go back to sleep. If you have another nightmare, then I'll just wake you again." He mumbled, tossing the towel into his hamper before he waited for Castiel to fall asleep again. He watched him for a while after he slept, making sure that he wasn't having any other nightmares before he finally allowed himself to fall asleep.
Over the next day, Castiel and Gabriel both had have strange flashes where they would zone out and stare off into space, or twitch. They didn't really seem to notice these things happening as the day progressed or they would eventually slowly wander around the house as they thought about different things. Castiel tried to think about the different nightmares or his thoughts and tried to think about what exactly they even meant.
The Winchesters got a chance to look over the surveillance tapes at work, having a little help with getting them after they asked Anna to look into it. At first they didn't notice anything off before the noticed who was carrying Gabriel when he passed out.
"Wait a minute..." Dean mumbled, furrowing his eyebrows. "Is that...That's fucking Alastair." He stated before he cursed under his breathe and shook his head. "Just fucking great. We need to talk to them and find out if he fucking said anything to them or what the Hell he did to them."
"He's never going to stop trying to screw up over, will he?" Sam mumbled, sighing as he leaned back. "Castiel didn't say anything about the mall did he? You said he had just been staring off into space."
"At first I thought that he was just staring off into space, but now I'm really starting to think that he was fucked with." He stated, about ready to go find Alastair and tear him to pieces himself.
"Don't worry, if he's going to keep going after them, then we're going to be able to take him down. He's going to have to get close to us and now we know what to watch out for." Sam replied, trying to keep his cool. At least he knew that Castiel and Gabriel would be safe at home for now, and if a time came where they couldn't leave them at home, they could keep them here with Chuck while they worked.
Later, after all of the images and thoughts that Castiel had been thinking that day that he had never dealt with before, most of which were things about how he would eventually be tossed if he didn't do anything, he couldn't take it anymore. He felt like something was wrong, and it was something that he had never felt before. He couldn't put his finger on what exactly was wrong, but his software began to process an intrusion in his programming and began to search it out just like a human's body would if there was an infection.
Castiel scratched absentmindedly at his arm, furrowing his eyebrows. He continued to slowly scratch at his arm, wincing slightly as he broke the skin. He didn't stop though, feeling like there was something wrong with him. The strange images that came in his nightmares and the flashes that he would get when he was awake. He continued to slowly dig, staring at the TV as he sat beside Gabriel until he could feel something trickling down his arm.
"Cas, what are you doing to your arm?" Dean asked as he quickly went to his side and grabbed it so he could look at it better. Castiel glanced down at his arm to see he had broken through the layer of skin and pierced the layer of blood but he couldn't stop scratching.
"There's something wrong, Dean." He said softly.
"Cas, stop scratching." He ordered, pulling at his hand so that he couldn't try to do it anymore.
"I need to, Dean. I can't help it."
"What do you mean 'you can't help it'? You're just getting it deeper into your arm." "So?" He asked, watching as Dean tried to get the bleeding to stop.
"There's something in my arm." Dean paused at that and looked up at him.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know but there is something that does not belong in there." He mumbled, scratching at his arm again and wincing.
"That means that we should take you to Chuck then, right?"
"I don't have time, I need to get it out." Castiel replied, getting to his feet and heading to the kitchen.
Dean asked Gabriel if he knew what was going on with him but only got a slight shrug as Gabriel glanced over at the kitchen. The moment Dean heard Castiel hiss in pain, he jumped to his feet and hurried in to see the android now using a kitchen knife to get into his arm. "What the fuck, Cas? You're hurting yourself!" Dean snapped as he went to his side.
"It doesn't matter, Dean. This thing will damage me." "Yeah, I'll say! You have a fucking knife in your arm!"
"I don't mean the knife, I know where to cut. This thing inside of me though, I need to get it out." He mumbled, hissing as he began using the knife again to dig deeper into his arm. Dean struggled to remember that Castiel couldn't exactly bleed to death and tried to help him in any way that he could. If there really was something in Castiel, they would need to get it out.
"Stay still for minute while I go grab something." Dean mumbled before heading upstairs to grab two boxes. One was a first aid kit given to him when he joined the Hunter task force, the other was one given to him by Chuck recently. He opened the normal one, grabbing out his hand held X-ray scanner before turning it on and slowly running it over Castiel's arm. Everything looked pretty normal, well normal for an android, before he got over where Castiel had been carving. "Shit, what the hell is a microchip doing there?" He asked, setting it aside. Chuck had shown him the different prints of Castiel's wiring and coding and he knew for sure that there had never been a random fucking microchip in Castiel's forearm before.
"I'm going to help you with this, but stay still, Cas." Castiel nodded before he balled his hand into a fist and bit down on his lip when Dean began to cut into his arm the rest of the way. He used a special plastic gel that Chuck had put into the kit, running it over the cuts in the plastic of the blood packs to temporarily seal it and avoid getting blood into his wiring when they would get that far. "Are you ready now?" He asked after he had blotted up the rest of his blood.
Castiel nodded slowly, breathing heavily and closing his eyes. "Yes, you can do it now." He said softly.
Dean sighed and shook his head before he began cutting into him again. Castiel cried out before he bit down on his lip and tried not to trash. "It's okay, we're almost done, Cas. Just hang in there for a bit longer." he said softly as he got through the bottom of the final layer. "I'm through, we're just about done, I can see it." Castiel nodded, gripping the counter top and feeling it crack under his fingers. Dean set the knife aside and grabbed some tweezers so he could begin working on prying the chip out of his body. Castiel hissed in pain as he tilted his head back and clenched his jaw. "It's out." he said softly as Castiel sighed in relief.
"Thank you, Dean." He mumbled as Dean began to bandage the large wound on his arm.
"It's not over yet, we're going to take you to Chuck and get your arm fixed up. So how long has this been bugging you anyways?"
Castiel furrowed his eyebrows and began thinking about it. "Since the mall, when I zoned out...Maybe something happened." He mumbled. Dean furrowed his eyebrows and remembered some other strange activity that had been going on lately. Both men looked over at Gabriel, seeing he was watching them.
Gabriel realized what that meant and shook his head quickly as he got to his feet. "Hell, no. I am not going to carve myself up like a damn jack-o-lantern."
"Gabriel, let me see your damn arm. If there's nothing in there, we'll leave it at that. If there is something though, we're taking it out."
"No way in Hell." Gabriel stated before groaning and holding his hand out as Dean brought over the X-ray device.
Dean scanned his arm slowly before stopping in the center."There's one here too. And since you didn't start damaging yourself like Cas here, you can find where the puncture mark is." He mumbled as he set it aside.
"Do you really have to cute me open to get it?" He asked with a sigh.
"Well, yeah. That's how we're gonna get it out...Do you want Sam to help?" Gabriel nodded and Dean went to go get his brother.
Once they got Gabriel's chip out too, the brothers put them each in a bag and labeled them before they took Castiel and Gabriel to see Chuck so that they could fix their arms up. When they got there, they ran into an Asian kid working in the labs and going over some paperwork.
"Who are you?" Dean asked, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked him over slowly.
"I'm Kevin Tran, I'm an intern." The young man replied as he looked up at Dean before he saw Gabriel and Castiel.
"Hey guys. So what's going on?"
"Where's Chuck?" Dean asked before Sam placed a hand on his shoulder to get him to hold on for a minute.
"Listen, I'm Sam Winchester and this is my brother, Dean. We were put in charge of looking over Castiel and Gabriel for now and they're having a problem. Do you have any idea where Chuck could be right now?"
"Chuck's picking dinner up right now. What sort of problem are they having?"
"Do you know how to fix up robotic injuries?" Dean asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well...Um, depending on how severe it is, I can probably fix it." Dean nodded and unraveled the bandages on Castiel's wrist as Sam did the same to Gabriel's.
"You're kidding right?" Kevin asked after staring at the injuries for a minute before looking up at the Winchesters.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Just...What exactly happened?"
"Something was bugging Cas so he started so I found him hacking himself up and we discovered that someone implanted chips on them. So we removed them." Dean stated simply.
"Okay, I can see that, but it also sort of looks like they got butchered." Kevin mumbled before sighing lightly. "Okay, give me some time and I'll fix them up." He led the androids back to one of the labs so that he could fix the androids injuries.
"What are we going to do?" Sam asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked back at Dean.
"We're going to start keeping them here again for now until we make sure that Alastair and whoever the fuck he's working for can't get their hands on them when we're working. If we're lucky, they haven't tracked the location of the house yet and we're still safe during the night. All I really know for sure is that it isn't safe to just let them out of the house alone during the day anymore if Alastair is going to keep tracking him down."
"In a worst case scenario, if we do have to leave them on, we can keep the GPS on their phones on, or ask Chuck if there is a way to track them down when they are out on their own." Dean nodded in agreement to Sam's words before sighing.
"All I know for sure is that when I think about him hurting Cas or Gabe and then probably selling them to some freak...It makes me want to kill him." He stated, looking back through the glass to see how they were doing.
What he really didn't expect to see was Castiel and Gabriel's detached forearms laying on the table.
"What are you doing?" He asked, quickly going into the room to make sure he wasn't just hurting them.
"I'm doing what you asked me to." Kevin pointed out, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked up at Dean.
"Okay, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't having their arm ripped off supposed to, I don't know, really fucking hurt?" Kevin shook his head, motioning to the cords that were plugged into Castiel and Gabriel. The angels looked like they were in a peaceful sleep, despite missing a fairly important part of their body and that worried Dean more."Okay, so what? Shouldn't they still be in immense pain?"
"No, it's like being sedated. They won't even know that it ever happened." He replied as he began working on fixing the blood filled layer first. Dean and Sam watched as he fixed everything, leaving nothing behind except for a very thin scar where the silicone reattached. "That should be it." He mumbled, making sure that everything was back to working before he reattached the limbs by the machine screwing them back into place before Kevin used the silicone gel to fill in the spaces where they went in and where the arm attached to make it look like it had never come off in the first place.
"And you're just an intern?" Sam asked, more than a little surprised by how good of a job he could already do at his age.
"Yeah, of course. I took a lot of Advanced Placement robotics and design classes, so it wasn't too hard to start an internship here." He replied with a shrug. "Chuck is teaching me everything he can too, so I do know a lot by now. I'm going to start helping in designing android lines someday."
Sam nodded, glad to see that he was so motivated and was great at what he wanted to do. "Yeah, well, I can't wait to see what you come up with." He smiled at him before looking back at the unconscious androids. "So how exactly do we wake them up again?"
"I just have to stop the program putting them in sleep mode and you'll be able to wake them up." He replied, going to the computer and typing in a few things before he carefully disconnected them from the wiring.
Dean furrowed his eyebrows and went to Castiel's side before shaking him awake. "Cas?" He asked until Castiel slowly opened his eyes and looked up at him curiously. "
Yes, Dean?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.
"Are you alright?" Dean asked, glancing back down at his arm to make sure there wasn't any lasting damage.
"Yes, of course I am. Why?" He asked curiously.
"Move your arm." He stated. While after everything he saw, he knew that the Kevin kid probably really knew what he was doing, but he just wanted to make sure that Castiel still could really still move his arm. Castiel furrowed his eyebrows before he began to move his arm again, slowly moving his hand into a fist before opening it again.
Dean sighed in relief at that and helped him up as Sam got Gabriel coherent and moving again. "Uh, hey, um. One more thing, Kevin. We got these out of them, do you think you can have Chuck look them over when he gets back and tell him to get back to us?" He asked, setting the bags with the microchips on the counter.
"Yeah, of course." Kevin replied, turning off the computer he was working on before he glanced at them. "Anything else?"
"No, that should be it. Thanks again for all your help." Sam smiled at him, gently pushing Gabriel towards the door as Dean led Castiel out.
"Don't worry about it, just take good care of them. They're one of a kind." He replied.
Sam nodded slowly at that, really starting to get a grip on just how true that really was about the androids. Every time he thought that he fully understood just how special they were, they seemed to make a habit of exceeding his expectations.