A/N: You guys make me feel like a little kid on Christmas Day! Thank you so much for all your reviews. This chapter is for those who wanted flashbacks; my gift to you! Pretty much everyone makes an appearance in this one. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel and Belial belong to me.

The timeless question of reason in a sound mind versus madness is one constantly debated, contemplated, and examined by scholars and the everyman alike, regardless of discipline of knowledge or vocation, socio-economic class or race. Mental deterioration was something feared by many in the same way one would fear death; it was just an indication of the passing of another stage of life, but was no less dreaded or frightening for that reason. Man had an obsession with control – over his own life, over others, over things impossible to hold under authority (like time and desire and fate) – and so perhaps one of the reasons for such numbing terror stemmed from the inherent loss of sway over one's own will and mind.

There's always been a fine line between genius and insanity: some, like Beethoven and Poe, skirted dangerously close to the amazingly thin and invisible boundary and delivered unto those that came after the fruits of their somewhat questionable brilliance; others stepped over with no sense of self-preservation or regard for others, aligning themselves with the character of Hamlet, tragic prince of Denmark. Still others had become so deeply entrenched into the dark, dangerous back alleyways of their own minds, the kinds that no woman armed with only pepper spray should venture down alone, or were too buried to deep beneath drugs or drink or their own damaged, deranged psyches that society frowned upon them all as one, criminal and victim alike.

"Wake up Leonard, you feather-brained bastard. Time for your meds," came the singsong, mocking little voice and then there was the coldness of a sharp, stainless steel tip against the inside of his arm. He tried to twist away from the startling prick of pain – and it was frightening, that even this small instrument was capable of bringing about the sensation of discomfort – but it was stabbing roughly through skin and then came the rush of bitter cold, frozen flames that were far different from the icy fire all angels were sculpted from. Colors dipped and lines blurred as he fell back into nightmarish semi-consciousness.

Dorothea Dix must have thought she was something special, a revolutionary, the Florence Nightingale of her time and a merciful angel to those with whom the general public viewed as impossible to coexist. Well, apparently saving grace had some pretty big loopholes and unfixable flaws, because white padded rooms were as bad as barred cells, serving the same purpose – to hide these outcasts, these lepers whose disgusting open sores were not on their body but within their minds, in the bowels of darkness in hopes of "fixing" them, or just to forget about their existence.

In the early 1970s, a psychologist by the name of D. L. Rosenhan designed an experiment in which he sent several "pseudopatients" into psychiatric wards; participants of the study who were of perfectly sound mental health were admitted as schizophrenics under the guise of hearing voices. After their admittance, said faux patients ceased all of what could be considered "crazy" behavior, with the intended measure being how long it would take for said now-normal individuals to be discharged. The average? Nineteen days, or just about three weeks.

There was no means by which he could measure the amount of time he'd been trapped in this place. Day and night, the minute and the hour; the constant fog that surrounded his senses blurred them all. Time had been even more fluid and indeterminable up in Heaven, but nothing was the same now, nothing was the same in this new corporal constitution. Heaven's soldier had been reduced to this shameful vulnerable state; weak and confused and sometimes when the fluorescent lighting above flickered, he thought for the briefest moments that he had been restored, only to come crashing down to garbled words and agonizing feeling and deformed images.

"How's Heaven looking these days, pretty boy?" Here was the puncture, the deluge of unforgiving shadows that dragged him back under the glassy surface of the ever-expansive past melding into the endless possibilities of futures and withholding from his grasp the knowledge of the here and now-

The findings of the study were startling. Although these wards were not the torture chambers of the early twentieth century, much of the underlying problems had not changed in the least bit. Powerlessness, loneliness, and monotony overshadowed the patients' daily routines, for it moments of interaction with them were few and far in between. Physicians and psychiatrists were rarely on the wards, staff members kept to themselves, and although they generally were good-hearted and well intentioned, nurses never assumed any intentional or unintentional harm was being inflicted upon the patients, choosing to place the blame on an individual's mental illness instead of their fellow co-workers.

He knew full well that there were many others here; he could make out moving shapes that passed back and forth hazily in front of the rippling creases in the walls that seemed to breathe with a life of their own. He tried to call out to them but his cries went unheard because no one came, none of the other men or women came. Why couldn't they hear him; did they not know that demons walked among them? Where had they taken Dean's amulet? He didn't know the demons were aware of the power it possessed. The elder Winchester would surely be upset if he'd lost it. The dull ache in his chest seemed to expand, seeping down into the hollow cavern below his ribs, ache changing into sharp stabbings that made his head swim, adrift in a sea of voices that turned into fingers, clawing at him.

Strong hands pried his arms away from where he'd been pressing them against the terrible void, trying to compress it into nothingness. The demon girl stood above him, small pink mouth curved into a knowing smirk. Somewhat distractedly, his glazed eyes took in the sight of geometric patterns undulating like ribbons of silk across the contours of her face; musical notes twisted in and out around each other as colors sang their song, as loud as the choirs of those glorifying the Lord. "Can't wish that away, Leonard. Trying to press your stomach into your spine isn't going to help either. You know what you're feeling right now?" Her breath was saccharine sulfur, sweet death blowing across his cheek as she leaned in close, teeth bared as her lips brushed over his ear in a growl: "Hunger."

After all, who would listen to the ranting and raving of a mentally unstable individual who claimed to be hurt or in pain? That was just crazy. Furthermore, it was probably just a plea for attention or fabrication of the patient's diseased mind. One had to be careful to avoid getting too close to anyone in particular, even the dark-haired, sorrowful blue-eyed, pale, and terrified new patient who'd been transferred just three days ago. Some of the more motherly nurses had been tempted to go in and comfort the poor man who looked like a little boy in the way he curled up into a ball in the corner of the room, eyes flickering back and forth feverishly, like a skittish rabbit. Even a good number of the orderlies, tall and broad-shouldered macho men who'd been hired for their muscles and not their minimal ability to resort to empathy or chick flick moments, had to raise skeptical eyebrows when they saw him, unable to believe the little guy really was as dangerous as his file said. Less than six feet and under a buck seventy, the kid looked like a strong wind could've knocked him right off his feet, and yet not even twenty milligrams of Diazepam could knock him out.

"Open up, Leonard. Betcha you've never tasted a sugar cube like this before. It's a real trip."

"Don't be stupid. Your feathery smoke and mirrors crap isn't going to work in here. My Father made sure of that. Speaking of which, where's yours, hmm?"

"Well, it's been fun watching you go berserk but you're startin' to bore me, little pansy. How 'bout we start having ourselves some real fun?"

Dr. Keiser had suddenly been struck with a nasty case of the swing flu (which was considerably odd, given that the man washed his hands literally at least twenty times a day), and since being confined to bed rest, had phoned the hospital staff with specific instructions to allow Leonard's nurse to proceed with the patient's treatment starting the very next day. And well, better to let the nurse who seemed to be assigned to this…Leonard do her job in peace. She did seem like she knew what she was doing, and had reassured everyone with a winning smile that she was going to take good care of the patient.

And besides, no one liked to be a busybody.

They had dampened his grace and taken away his ability to carry out his Father's will, stripped him of his very sense of being, his name. But even in such altered states of mind, he clung tightly to that which he could remember and that which he knew was real – his name was Castiel and he was an angel of the Lord. Lucifer had risen and the Apocalypse was at hand. Dean and Sam Winchester needed to be protected and although neither was upright or completely blameless, their wounded souls still glimmered with love and mercy that outshone many of Castiel's own brothers and sisters who'd forgotten that their duty was to safeguard and love their Father's creations. He had to find his Father. He missed his Home although it was true that Heaven had no place for him. Not anymore.

"Are you lonely, Leonard? Is it because the Winchesters are too busy to bother with saving your cute little ass again? Maybe it's because big brother Gabriel ditched you. Or did he get gutted when 'serving overseas'? Poor little angel."

And he missed his brother so much that it hurt.

Burnished shades of gold and bronze moved against the darker tan of calloused fingers and the black of a leather strap fell over a palm's life line, cutting it in half until fingers closed over it tightly, nails digging into the flesh. Dean's eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot; because of allergies, he'd told Sam, although both of them new that the only thing the elder Winchester was allergic to was anything even slightly vegetarian, like tofu. And Dean certainly hadn't been eating tofu anytime in the past four days since Sam woke up to find Castiel's tie hanging on the doorknob, fluttering in the morning breeze like a flag of surrender colored dark blue instead of white, like an ominous symbol. In fact, he hadn't been eating much of anything at all, and only with some very shrewd techniques of persuasion that oscillated between wheedling and threatening had Sam been able to get his brother to remember how to do something besides staring at the panoply of objects in front of him.

When Sam had reappeared the motel room, with the look on his face that Dean sometime ago had personally nicknamed something terrible just happened but I don't want you to worry so I'm going to turn on the puppy eyes of DOOM to distract you, the elder Winchester obviously knew something was up. What he didn't expect was for his brother to quietly hand over Castiel's entire wardrobe to go along with the tie still clutched in Dean's fist – trench coat, cheap suit and dress pants, well-worn shoes, threadbare socks and all. The younger Winchester insisted on taking the clothes to a Laundromat and had it been any other time or place or situation, Dean would've gladly taken the golden opportunity to poke fun at what a girl he was being. But this time around, he'd merely nodded, throat tight at the thought of Castiel's clothes lying discarded in the dumpster amongst the garbage, and started going through the pockets of the clothes, pulling the items out from their hiding places one by one.

Dean's gaze now flickered over to the cheap cocktail napkin imprinted with 'The Gentlemen's Club' and a water ring from the beer glass that had been sitting on top of it ("This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here."), before traveling to the cell phone ("This isn't funny, Dean. The voice says I'm almost out of minutes!") and finally to a slightly crumpled Catholic Church's bulletin from Sunday mass a couple of weeks back, carefully smoothed out with the heel of someone's hand to reveal the name of the cathedral – St. Gabriel's.

They weren't exceptionally fancy trinkets or artifacts of ancient and intrinsic value; rather, they could've been found anywhere and actually amounted to nothing more than a pile of junk strewn across the rumpled bedspread. But they obviously meant something to Castiel for these were things that he kept with him at all times; they were valuable enough for an angel to keep hidden away; mementoes that a being who was supposedly superior to materialistic items held onto as the only possessions he ever had – a reminder of perhaps the first vice Dean had dragged him into (besides disobedience, that is, and Dean actually had dragged the angel into that one too, in a way), a cell phone with which he could reach with them while being unable to communicate with his own kin (since all of them wanted to kill him for helping the Winchesters), and a token of remembrance of the elder brother whom he loved and probably would never meet again, unless from behind bloodstained steel in battle (also Dean's fault).

Let's all say it was my fault and get it over with. Oh wait, that's right. It is all my fault, being the righteous man who broke the first seal and all. Well that's just swell.

But what really had Dean feeling like the biggest jackass in the world though was that which was currently lying in his fist, familiar and cold to the touch. It wasn't finding the amulet in and of itself that made his chest tighten painfully in not knowing whether to constrict or expand; it was where. He'd found the cell phone in one of the trench coat's pockets, convenient and easy to access. The cocktail napkin had been meticulously folded into quarters and stowed away into a pants pocket, a closer kept souvenir and the St. Gabriel's Church bulletin had been delicately folded in half and kept in the inner pocket of the suit jacket, the nearest thing to a fond remembrance as angels would ever get. The amulet, however, Dean's amulet, had been in the dress shirt's breast pocket. Closer to the angel than what was meant to keep the memory of Castiel's own brother close, in a place where there was no chance of its loss, in a place that screamed accountability and protection and care applicable to not only the amulet but it's owner as well – right over the heart.

THUNK. "Son of a- oh…ahem. I mean…"

The sounds of a fumble and several objects hitting the ground followed closely by Sam's short, bitten off curse had Dean snapping out of his "let's all hate Dean" party and opening the door to the sight of his brother holding two cups of coffee, a bag of what apparently was breakfast, and a stack of five video surveillance tapes from the motel's management, one of which had fallen to the pavement below and were being picked up by a barefooted, pigtailed little girl. While Sam stood awkwardly by, trying to balance everything, Joy handed the tape to the elder Winchester with a cheerful smile, leaving behind five smudgy little prints from fingers sticky with ice cream or fruit juice popsicle. Dean took them slowly and the girl turned with a little wave, singing something about a little light that was going to shine, shine, shine and skipping off and away to a car idling in the parking lot, apparently waiting for its little passenger.

"Nice going, Sasquatch," he remarked dryly as they both maneuvered back into the room, snatching a cup of coffee from his brother. "Next time how 'bout you don't almost drop breakfast on the little girl whose Dad is waiting in the parking lot."

"How 'bout you get your own breakfast next time then?" Sam snapped back, but without any real venom as he set the precarious load of goods down onto the rickety table, grimacing as his hand hit a suspicious sticky spot on the faded linoleum. "I was already trying to get these." He waved a hand at the pile of videotapes.

"Hey, you were already out the door, dude," Dean mumbled through a mouthful of fake egg and imitation cheese in the breakfast biscuit. He wasn't hungry, but wasn't too keen on seeing Sammy's epic bitch face either, taking a bite just to appease his brother.

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

"It's not my fault the receptionist chick was into you." Probably the only reason we got the damn tapes.

"Screw you," Sam mumbled, but had to agree with his brother. Trying to get the surveillance video had been made considerably more difficult by the fact that the motel's manager had seen both of them as they signed in under neither their own names nor names on any of their fake IDs. The stout little man had been paranoid enough, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the two of them as they rolled in at stupid o'clock in the morning; both looking like someone had just died. They'd spent the last few days taking turns lurking around the front office, seeking out a chance to sneak into the back room in order to filch the surveillance footage of the night they checked in. For such a shabby place, the motel had surprisingly great cameras; probably another manifestation of the owner's skeptical obsessions, and it was only with a fake badge, good timing, and a lot of charm (the kind Sam had almost forgotten how to use) that he was able to convince the receptionist to lend him the tapes before the manger came in that day. Good thing, too. Dean seemed ready to take an axe to the portly man's sweaty; balding head, and they certainly didn't need that when Castiel was already missing. The younger Winchester tried to crack a grin. "At least she has good taste," and Dean snorted derisively in response.

Their banter was quick and easy, teasing words belying the gravity of the entire situation. In the same way they tended to pull pranks on each other when caught up in the midst of a particularly difficult or challenging case in order to alleviate tension, to drain away the stress and agitation in laughter (because that was always the best medicine), even if it was at each other's expense. And well, all things considering, what case was more difficult than the Apocalypse, what monster more frightening than the big bad Devil himself?

The sight was a far cry from a year ago, when neither Winchester knew how to behave around the other, when the ultimate goal for one had been scoring another hit of bitch blood and drowning out the memories of Hell with alcohol for the other, when the landscape had been forever changed with the first appearance of emissaries from Heaven and trying to prevent the breaking of the sixty-six deals. When the ultimate had been to stop Lilith, at any and all costs, even brotherhood. And now?

"No, we. We need training wheels, you and me. As a team. Okay?"

Well, now the training wheels were officially off, the cards were on the table and everything and everyone was all in for the long haul now, for better or worse. For Cas. Sam could see it in the way Dean kept flicking impatient glances at the secondhand VCR they'd managed to pilfer from some thrift shop down the street, could feel it in the atmosphere in the room seemed to thrum with tense energy as he leaned forward amidst the tangle of wiring to pop the tape in and in the way both of them leaned forward with baited breaths, eyes straining at the grainy footage.

An hour and twenty minutes later, Dean was wondering if Sam had gotten the right tapes or if they'd been trying to watch a really bad flick about a shapeless lump with moving masses of static and fuzzy shadows whose tape some nasty kid had unwound the spools of- "Hold it, Sam!"

As if on cue, the tape cleared, sharpening so dramatically that the Winchesters could've been sitting in a movie theater and watching the high definition version of the latest blockbuster event of the season. Except there was no popcorn, no inspiring soundtrack or any surround sound system, just the picture starring Lucifer himself and Castiel, only the crystal clear silent image of the rumpled angel facing down the Devil before the tape fizzed out.

And at the end of this movie, it was pretty clear to the two shocked and speechless members of the audience that good did not prevail over evil. Unless the definition of "prevailed" had somehow become synonymous with getting thrown into the back of an unlabeled, unmarked, unlicensed white van that disappeared off screen to the left and into darkness.

He stood at the edge of the firmament, watching his elder brothers and sisters as they flew back and forth from Heaven down to the created realm now called Earth and the realm between, wings beating impressively against the winds from the throne. Rounded blue eyes gazed upon the might and splendor of his kin with evident awe, at the multitude of feathered appendages by which the others were moving, swift and sure for the Father's purpose and Castiel's soul shone with joy and enthusiastic delight, eager to do the same.

The young angel had never before attempted flying upon his own wings, for in Heaven, although the halls of the Lord were expansive, one simply had to will his own form to his intended destination, or wait until approached by another. There had not been many instances in which Castiel's presence had been required or desired by any of his superiors and he had not yet been given authorized to descend into the created realm, but be that as it may, he still wished to try.

Slowly, carefully and with a great amount of meticulousness, Castiel moved one shoulder and then the other, unfolding his wings from where they lay against his back, localizing a bit of strength into lifting them and testing the weight of the appendages, looking upon them with a bit of dismay. Could it be possible that these small, mussed and muted grayish feathers could achieve the same ends as his sister Ramiel's unspeakably elegant cream-colored wings that shone as bright and lovely as her joyful soul, or Gabriel's, that were two huge and impressive appendages of ice and lightening and chaos rolled into brilliant silver? Shaking the foolish thoughts from his mind, for Castiel knew he would never be as powerful or beautiful as any of his superiors, the young angel slowly extended his left wing and tried willing it into motion.

Ramiel stood behind her little brother, watching Castiel with quiet amusement and deep affection as the young one tilted his head slightly, confused as to why he seemed unable to gain a proper sense of balance. Clearly, none of Castiel's immediate commanding officers had carried out their duty of guiding and counseling the lesser angel and the thought of their negligence made Ramiel greatly displeased, an odd occurrence for the angel of joy. However, vexation could never remain long whenever she sensed the brightness of Castiel's pure innocence nearby and as her little brother struggled terribly in midair, one wing flapping in such a way that he was starting to travel in circles, Ramiel laughed goodheartedly, her merriment shining through the corners of the firmament.

Castiel turned so quickly that he fell, and his soul shrank in sudden embarrassment. Obviously he had misunderstood his sister's laughter for ridicule and the so he sadly folded his wings in tightly against his back, disheartened and crestfallen. Always empathetic and one quick to understand the rapidly changing attitudes of her kin, Ramiel made haste in taking her little brother's hand and sending waves of encouragement toward his soul. "Come, Castiel," she smiled gently, soothing away the shame and fear of failure with her hand, fingers moving kindly over the other's new and still fragile wings. "Would you like to learn how to fly?"

Gabriel sat in council with the archangels and several other of the high-ranking warriors of the seraphim, engaged in discussion as how best to defend the Lord's newly created realm below and their counterparts of dust, Man and Woman – but against what? Surely the greatest among God's sons of flame should have been the most patient and even-tempered of all the Host, yet there always seemed to be disagreement and discontent between Lucifer and Michael, forcing the remainder gathered there to seek peace. As Lucifer spoke in a manner dangerously close to offense against these new creations, Michael's golden light was growing dimmer and dimmer in muted reproach – when suddenly the messenger archangel felt a tug at his soul.

It was nothing so urgent as that which he sensed when rising up in defense of Heaven; his soul was not being humbled at the holiness of God Almighty or being called to duty. This strange lure was gentle and quiet, pure and yet captivating enough to distract Gabriel from the council in a way the archangel had never been before. Turning his head, he caught glimpse of that which called out so very sweetly to his being. His little brother's soul shimmered in exhilaration and abounded with so much joy that it sang aloud as Castiel stretched his wings outwards and flew behind his elder sister, chasing after Ramiel and laughing with such open and genuine pleasure that Gabriel practically glowed with pride at the sight of it.

If any of his brethren had noticed the messenger archangel's sudden distraction and subsequent delight (which was actually rather nigh impossible to ignore, given the small nod of recognition and understanding Michael bestowed upon the other archangel), no one spoke out against him – no one, except for a certain seraph who moved to Gabriel's side and spoke in a low voice that carried the smallest, subtlest hints of mockery. "Watching the children play, brother?"

Indeed Belial was one of the most powerful and mighty of the Host and though his beauty and strength was truly amazing to behold, Gabriel had always felt the need for caution and a certain degree of wariness around this younger brother in particular. "I see why you like to watch," Belial murmured, almost inaudibly and in a tone of stunned surprise when his eyes fell upon Castiel's brightly shining soul. "And who is that with our sister there?"

The archangel was never shaken by Belial's odd penchant for causing strife or troubled by the thinly veiled antipathy the younger seraph for some reason always exuded toward him, but at the other's casual mention of Castiel in such a manner and after a brash and uncharacteristically impetuous glimpse into Belial's soul, Gabriel drew back sharply with a great desire to put Belial in his place. The shift in the seraph's expression had been barely perceptible, but the change in his soul was much more tangible; something was coiling tightly into a knot of unknown hardness and as he turned, the archangel saw the smallest hint of that very glint reflected in his brother's eyes. "Well?"

"Castiel," Gabriel replied stiffly, wings automatically stirring against the seedlings of threat in Belial's challenge disguised as an inquiry – but as if he heard the archangel speaking his name, Castiel glanced upward and smiled shyly at his elder brother, wings moving quicker and surer now as his eyes fixed upon the messenger angel, sapphire blue orbs bright with hope and adoration. At this, Gabriel's soul filled with unconditional love for his little brother, the troubling seraph at his side momentarily forgotten.

Ramiel looked upwards at the glorified messenger of the Lord whose face shone like bronze but was filled with the warmth of affection and all of Heaven would have been filled with overwhelming and abounding with unadulterated joy – had not her gaze slid over to Belial, and for the second time in so brief a season, her lovely brow creased in a frown of displeasure, concern, and mounting alarm as the angel of true vision looked deep into the seraph's soul and saw frightening darkness.

"Sister." Then Castiel was here again, taking her hand and pulling insistently and yet so gently until Ramiel spread her wings again in flight, taking care to guide her little brother with one large, beautiful wing, sheltering him from unfriendly eyes with a part of her physical form and a part of her soul. She took Castiel to the highest mountaintops where the earth very nearly touched the firmament above and helped hold his hand up to brush the underside of Heaven with his feet still in the realm of Creation, smiling at his laugh of pure, unadulterated joy. There was amazement and awe there as she taught him how to dive so the song of the Host became a roaring storm of worship and thanksgiving as the wind caressed the faces of a daughter and son of the Most High, so that the colors of the works of the Lord's hands flew past at near-dizzying speeds and shades…

She slapped him across the face, fingernails digging into the skin below his jaw and Castiel's head snapped to the side from the force of the blow; the world slipped by in an swirl of melting colors and lines that splintered, tapering off into invisibility or exploding in a rash of colliding thunderclouds and dueling rods of lightening. Dizzy and disoriented, the angel tried to focus as steely fingers gripped his chin and jerked his head upwards.

"Still tripping, Leonard?" Meg asked sweetly, knocking the lolling head back against the hard paint-chipped wall with a simple twist of her wrist. Something light exploded in the back of Castiel's skull and he found himself momentarily sightless, eyes rolling uselessly in their sockets as he fell to the ground, heavily. Had he not been so consumed by the lance of what felt like hot metal through his brain, Castiel would have been disgusted at his own weakness at the hands of a demon. "Not so high and mighty without those special little grace-infused party tricks, are you, angel?"

The demons knew they couldn't leave evident signs of abuse upon their captive, but that didn't mean they had to play nice. Black and purple contusions covered his battered frame, easily hidden by the standard white uniform given to all patients. There would be no breaking of the skin, but that wasn't an absolute prerequisite for torment, either. Castiel didn't know how long the fists and feet had been coming from every which direction, crashing down upon what seemed like every part of his body; trying to defend himself was a useless endeavor and had earned him nothing but ridicule and more startlingly painful blows.

Startlingly enough, the pain provided an avenue of ephemeral clarity, overriding all the other neurological gateways for sensation, long enough for Castiel to climb slowly to his feet in the dimness of the cold room; four walls lined to the ceiling with concrete blocks seemed to arch over and dip in front of his face. It was a different place and he vaguely remembered hands pulling his heavy frame along and down, deeper and deeper into what seemed like the bowels of coldness and misery. The angel took a deep rasping breath, coughing on the coppery wetness of blood filling his mouth. "Iaidon adrpan nonci amma coronzon ol doalim-" The words were strange and unfamiliar on his human tongue and Castiel felt a surge of despair at the foreignness with which he struggled to speak the language of his kin, the language he spoke first, taught to the angels by the Almighty Himself.

Meg shrieked in rage, lashing out to savagely backhand him across the face, screaming in a demonic tongue in her turn- "You shut your filthy mouth, you fucking whoreson!" Normally, his grace would have flared to powerful depths in the cold fury of righteousness upon hearing the demon's foul speech but now, only the wild pitch of her scream grated on his ears. Then she was kicking the back of his knees and grinding his face down into the grimy floor. He inhaled dust and his own blood but she was wrong for Castiel knew his place as a son of the Most High, no matter how Lucifer tried to tempt him into succumbing. He would do no such thing, he would not submit-

"Don't try to play the part of the cool and unflappable block of wood," the demon girl snarled, and then she stood, wedging the toe of one shoe under his ribs and flipping him over onto his back, resting her foot on his exposed windpipe. "You're mine now, your hear? Don't you remember? You're mine, Leonard of the nocturnal orgies, and I'm gonna hurt you real good, angel." Meg looked down at the raggedly gasping angel underneath her boot and grinned prettily, sweet and freakin' scary as hell. "I'm gonna show you the fun part of falling and bring you down…" she slid the loose collar of the shirt aside, revealing a swatch of pale skin and she licked her lips, eyes sliding to obsidian black. "…all the way down with the rest of us."

The demon girl stomped down hard upon Castiel's exposed clavicle that poked against the skin, evidence of starvation, and the chord of three cracks that rung out like tree branches snapping in the wind danced out past his flesh and up into the air; a hoarse, guttural croak was all that he could utter blackness descended upon the angel's tortured mind like a smothering cloud of senselessness, but not freedom from the pain, the confusion, or the voice of Lucifer thrumming inside his skull relentlessly.

Give up, Castiel. Give up, Leonard. Curse God and die.

And his answer remained the same: Ag.

A/N: Um. Well. So…drugged up Castiel is pretty interesting, no? And now the Winchesters finally realize what they're dealing with. And Meg is a psychopathic b*tch. For all of you waiting for Belial and Gabriel to resurface, as a forewarning, you guys are going to have to continue waiting for a little while and you'll certainly be surprised with why! The following chapters are going to be pretty heavy with flashbacks, so hopefully you guys will enjoy that little bit. Here are the Enochian translations (which continues to be difficult)

Ag: No

Iaidon adrpan nonci amma coronzon ol doalim: All powerful God casts down you cursed demon of sin

Exams are coming up in the next two weeks, so although I will most definitely try to update soon, I really can't promise anything. Until then, please review!

P.S. Are there any of you readers out there who would be willing to do me a favor?