Disclaimer: Don't own it. Darn.

A/N: Sorry, I know it's later than usual. My muse is being a jerk right now... looking at anything I try to write and going "WTF!?"

Thanks to: Lilithakaducky, Kaorukamiya307, Merisha, Gabriel99, Dory's Human Replica, ppg713, stargazer86, (Mrs.) Heather, Spuffyshipper, Armagonauthor, Frank, and Shinaria for your lovely reviews!

Chapter 9

o-o-o

Dean sighed and scratched his nose. It had been days, now, since that night in the convent, and so far the world hadn't erupted in chaos. Or, if it had, the news didn't see fit to cover it. Rufus called once to ask for news, and didn't seem too surprised that Dean had none to give. Ellen called some time after that, said she was back with Jo and they were hunting together, but he had nothing to tell them, either. Bobby had finally gone to sleep and, when he wasn't screaming, Sam slept, too.

At least, in the midst of all of this, he had found one thing that could take his mind off of everything; tv. Or, more realistically, Jimmy's reaction to the tv.

He leaned over, eyes wide as the images flashed across the screen. The first few times Dean had changed the channel, he had jumped in surprise, eyes flicking from Dean to the screen and back again. Occasionally, he would mutter the names of the things he saw under his breath. "Bear" during a hunting show, "Flower" during an allergy medication commercial, "Game" during the last quarter of a football rerun. He had no words to describe an advertisement for Viagra, though, and it was probably better that way.

"Sun," he muttered as Dean flipped to the travel channel, which was currently showing a special on Tahiti.

"Yeah," Dean grunted, leaning back against the couch. "Wait 'til we get you out to see the real thing, Jim. It's something else."

Jimmy turned and blinked at him, cocking his head to the side. Breathlessly, he mouthed the name, trying it out in his head before forming the word.

"Jim... Jimmy."

"That's right," Dean encouraged with a nod. "Jimmy Novak, Pontiac Illinois."

Jimmy furrowed his brows, tilting his head to the other side, eyes searching the room aimlessly, as though he was listening to something inside his head. No, that was exactly what he was doing. For a brief moment, Dean considered getting up and grabbing a chair, cause sharing a couch with a schizophrenic was not on his top ten list of things to do today.

Please don't let him be crazy. 'Course, knowing the universe's sick sense of humor, he probably will be.

"No," Jimmy murmured. "No no... not. I'm not."

Holy shit did that bastard just read my mind!?

Dean swallowed. Jesus, he'd had his fair share of psychics, and wouldn't it be just freaking perfect if it turned out that psychic was a prerequisite for a vessel? If that was the case, maybe it was time to take the damn tv's advice and "Head to Tahiti now!"

"Not what?" he asked, forcing his voice to come out a little more gently than he felt. After all, if Jimmy was schizophrenic and/or psychic, spooking him would probably be a bad idea.

"Not... Jimmy." Blue eyes stared imploringly up at him. "I'm not Jimmy."

Dean's heart thudded once, twice, them everything crashed to a halt.

"You're not..." Dean cleared his throat. "You're not Jimmy?"

"No..." the smaller man's eyes dropped to the floor. "I'm Cas...tiel. Castiel." The words came out slowly, deliberately, like a drunk trying not to slur.

And just like that, his heart kick-started again. Suddenly, the weird, alien situation he'd found himself in was a little less alien than it had been a second ago. This guy who'd been living with them these last couple of days... he wasn't really a stranger. Not anymore. He was Cas, alive and breathing and definitely, definitely not currently at the mercy of Zachariah and his cronies. Part of Dean knew he should treat the situation with a little skepticism. After all, Jimmy could be crazy, could have developed a split personality and given it Cas's name but... the lights and windows at the bus station? The bleeding ears? The way this guy sometimes looked and acted just like Cas! Just once, he felt like taking this at face value.

Before he really knew what he was doing, he pulled the man into a tight hug, breathing a sigh of relief.

Oh God, thank you thank you so much damn at least one thing's going right...

Castiel stiffened at the embrace and, as Dean pulled away, he didn't relax.

"Uh, sorry," Dean offered weakly, though he couldn't recall a time in his life when he'd had to apologize for hugging someone. "That's... that's something you do when you're really happy to see someone, or you've just gotten some really good news or..."

Castiel's eyes returned to the ground in that same look of concentration as he struggled to summon the right thing to say.

"It's... different," he explained. "Touch. Feeling. It's different."

"Yeah, well, I guess angels aren't exactly the touchy feely types, huh?"

And boy, did that sound weird. Even though he'd had a year to get used to the whole 'Angels Are Dicks' reality, it was still bizarre to think of himself as more cuddly than one of the winged "God it Great, God is Good" types.

Castiel opened his mouth to respond, but abandoned the effort. Either he didn't really have a response to that, or he couldn't quite say it. Ah well. It was a rhetorical question to start with. Anyway, they had more pressing matters.

"Cas," Dean urged, moving to catch the angel's eye. Castiel hesitated a moment, but glanced up at last. "What happened to Jimmy, then? Last time I talked to him, he was definitely alone in there, if you know what I mean."

Castiel frowned, but this time the words came more easily.

"Jimmy... Jimmy is here," he fumbled. "Helping... speak. Helping me speak. Alone, but I fell. Back. I fell back."

"Wait," Dean interrupted. "You fell or you, you know, fell?"

Castiel swallowed, breaking eye contact as a pained expression came upon his face.

"Fell. Pain, anger... Gone. Light and warmth, gone. Was... pain... and fear."

"They ripped out your grace?" Dean translated.

Castiel's eyes widened.

"Grace," he murmured. "My... my grace."

At that, his face crumpled. He took a deep breath, clenching his hands together.

"Never go home," he moaned, wrapping his arms around his waist. "Gone... gone..."

He doubled over, still keening softly. Awkwardly, Dean rested a hand on Castiel's trembling shoulder, but that only seemed to bother the angel, no, former angel more.

Gritting his teeth, Dean rested his head on his hands and closed his eyes. He'd hoped that finding Castiel again would be something to be happy about, but... he couldn't blame him. Poor bastard had been evicted from his home, stripped of his power, and forced to share a body with someone while trapped in a world that was going to come crashing to an end.

And this is his punishment for helping me. Do I know how to thank the guy who dragged me out of the Pit or what?

"I'm sorry," Dean sighed. "I really am."

o-o-o

Hunger gnawed from within his belly. For the first time in a lifetime, he felt something so different from the skull crushing pain that accompanied the visions. It was uncomfortable, but novel in its familiarity.

With a soft groan, he cracked open his eyes and glanced blearily around the room, at last catching sight of the ceramic bowl waiting for him.

It's probably all mush by now, he mused. But mushy cereal was better than nothing.

He heaved himself up with a grunt and reached for the bowl, relieved to see that the cereal inside was fairly fresh. Bobby or Dean must have replaced the bowl from earlier with this.

The first bite landed uneasily in his stomach. The second was better. By the third bite he realized he wasn't hungry, he was starving, and he wolfed down the rest of the bowl, noting in passing that it was Lucky Charms. Dean probably wouldn't have left the house now that the apocalypse was on, which meant he'd picked up a box before the first round of demon detox. Dean officially rocked.

"See anything interesting?"

Sam started, nearly dropping the now-empty bowl. Jess leaned against the wall beside him, one eyebrow quirked. Sam snorted and set the bowl aside before closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. Now that his hunger was satisfied, he could focus on the dull, throbbing pain leftover from his marathon of visions.

"I'm serious, Sam," Jess chastised. "Your visions mean bad things are gonna happen. Don't you kinda feel responsible to take action?"

"Yeah. Took action once and look where that got me," Sam muttered, dropping his hand and glancing over at Jess, who had left her perch to sit beside him. She gave him one of her 'looks' and Sam sighed.

"Listen, Jess, those were the rules back when Azazel was still alive," he explained. "Azazel's dead, and we have no way of knowing what these visions mean. I haven't had one in years."

"Sam." Jess caught his arm, and damn if her hand didn't feel so warm at that moment. "I know you don't want to act, but you know you have to."

"How do I know?"

There is was. The 'Look' again.

"Because I'm a hallucination created by your subconscious mind, and I say you have to, and I'm pretty much always right."

"Jess-"

"Sam, you do realize that you're pretty much externalizing an internal battle that you've already lost."

Sam huffed, a smile breaking onto his face. He had missed this, sparring with Jess.

"All right," he challenged. "If I've got to act, where do I start? I just had the mother of all vision runs and they were all over the place."

Jess smiled sadly at him.

"You're about to find out."

Sam blinked, but before he could so much as utter a 'What?', the dull ache in his head flared up, stabbing him right between the eyes.

"Oh, damn!" he gasped, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. Images swam through his head; a small town, people screaming as black-eyed neighbors laughed, chasing them through the streets, torturing them. A girl ran to the street, gasping for air as a house burned down behind her.

A clocktower shimmered in the haze of the afternoon sun, the clock chiming three.

The vision faded, leaving Sam shaking and sweating on the floor of the panic room.

"Sam?"

He glanced up into her blue eyes.

"We have to find that town," he gasped.

o-o-o

"Dean!"

Dean stiffened. On the one hand, this could be a false alarm. Sam was coming off of the high of his life; could be that whatever was in that basement, he didn't want to see it. And he'd seen so much in the last couple of days.

On the other hand... Sam could need him. He spared a glance at Castiel, who hadn't budged since he'd curled into himself. It'd probably be good to give him some alone time, anyway.

"Dean!" Sammy's voice began to grow frantic.

Swallowing a thrill of fear, Dean hurried down to the basement and opened the small window into the panic room.

"Sam?" he called.

"Dean," Sam rushed to the door, eyes wide. "We've gotta go now, I don't know how much time we have."

"Sam, what are you talking about?"

"There's a town it... it has a clock tower. It's gonna be overrun by demons, Dean, and there's this girl. I don't know, she's important and they're gonna kill her, they're gonna kill everyone!"

"Sam," Dean toned, shaking his head. "Calm down, okay?"

"It was a vision, Dean!" Sam cried. "You know better than to ignore them."

"Bullshit," Dean snorted. "Azazel's dead, I killed him. You haven't had a vision since then."

"I'm telling you, Dean, it was a vision. And if we don't go now, all those people are gonna die and their blood is gonna be on our hands."

He couldn't do this right now. Sam was raging like a lunatic, and indulging those fantasies of his would only hurt them all in the end. Even if the visions were real... what? Go running in there, guns blazing, save the town and free the world? Fat chance that would happen. These things were hell-sent, and he was dont trusting the morally ambiguous.

"Get some rest, Sam," Dean grunted. "I'll bring you some food in a bit."

"Dean, no!" Sam exclaimed, but Dean shut the window on him.

o-o-o

Dean smeared peanut butter over the slice of bread with a little more vigor than was strictly necessary, his foot tapping nervously on the floor.

"Hey, Cas, you want something to eat?"

No response. Dean glanced over at the living room, and grimaced. Castiel sat still, watching tv stonily. Any awe he'd had had been drained the moment he remembered exactly who and what he was. Still, all things considered, Dean had to suppose he was taking it well. His arms were still wrapped around his sides, he was still pulled tightly into himself, but at least he continued muttering the names of things to himself. Maybe that meant Jimmy was in pretty good condition.

Licking his lips, Dean returned to the sandwich, sloppily throwing the second slice of bread over the top. Hopefully Sam would be able to keep it down. He needed his strength right now, if they were going to get through this.

Of course, that was assuming Sam would even talk to him, or do anything but babble on and on about the town with the clocktower. For all he knew, it didn't even exist. People saw some crazy things when they were in detox for run-of-the-mill drugs, much less demon blood.

The thought send a chill down Dean's spine. How did any of this happen? Before, it had been simple; find bad things, kill bad things. Becoming bad things had never been a part of the equation. He didn't know what to do...

His eyes strayed to the line of phones Bobby had propped up on the wall. There was one person who might be able to give him a few answers. Granted, the answers were supposed to be 'divine', coming from the same guys who stood back and cheered while all of this had happened. But hey, he'd bite.

Setting aside the sandwich, Dean reached for one.

RING! RING!

And very nearly jumped out of his skin as it shrieked beneath his hand.

The hell? Since when does anyone use the D.C. line 'cept me and Sam?

He snatched it up on the third ring.

"Hello?" he barked in his best 'cop voice'.

"Dean?" a voice squeaked. "Oh, thank God you're alive."

Well, Dean hardly doubted that God had anything to do with that. All the same.

"Chuck?" He cleared his throat. "Hey, you all right?"

"Well... my house is trashed, and I've got a hell of a headache... I mean, not to mention hell or anything cause I know how much you hate it even though you pretend it doesn't bother you-"

"Chuck," Dean interrupted. "Are you gonna get to the point?"

"Uh, right." Chuck gulped. "Sorry, it's just... it's been tense lately Um, has Sam had any visions yet?"

Dean's stomach plummeted, and he very nearly dropped the phone.

"Say that again?"

"I'm part of the story now," Chuck babbled. "In my vision, Sam had a vision and then I saw myself calling you and telling you about the town and how to get there and what you needed to do once you got there."

"Yeah?"

"Uh... here, you got a pen?"

Ten minutes later, Dean tucked a napkin with all the information into his pocket, where it weighed like an anvil.

"Hey... tell Cas..." Chuck swallowed. "Tell him it's gonna be okay, all right?"

"Why?" Dean snorted. "You have a vision or something?"

"No. But it might make him feel better."

Like that would really make a guy who just got booted to a lower plane of existence feel like a million bucks.

Yup! And once he feels better we can hop on our unicorns and prance away to Candy Mountain!

"Yeah, sure,"

He hung upand slunk into the living room.

"Hey, Cas. That was Chuck."

Castiel tilted his head, his eyes fixed not so much on the tv as the wall behind.

"He says that a vision that Sam just had is the real deal, and that we ought to check it out..." He licked his lips awkwardly. "He, uh, also said to tell you that it would be okay."

Not even a flicker of emotion touched the former angel's face. Castiel inclined his head, then turned his attention wholly back to the tv. Great. Just great.

"Sam," he called, throwing open the door of the panic room. Sam shot up from his spot in the corner, his expression shifting from sheepish to intent. He'd ask about that later.

Dean set the plate on the bed and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Eat that," he instructed. "Then wash up. We're heading out in an hour."

o-o-o