Here's another chapter for you. Chapter three will be out tomorrow, and hopefully chapter four, which doesn't need much work doing on it, but I'm pretty tired, so we'll see. Anyway, here's Dean to the rescue.

Chapter 2

The rumble of the Impala was loud in the narrow side street, even against the beating roar of the rain. Dean leant out of the window, one hand on the wheel, and watched the headlights ripple over the hard lines of fire escapes and the jumbled collection of heaped trash.

Something moved, glinting in the darkness.

"Cas?"

A cat leaped and then was gone into the night. Dean drove on.

A series of narrow alleyways led off to either side. He stopped the car, got out, locked it, then jogged toward one of the narrow openings, exploring it as far as a dead end wall hidden by a gathering of dumpsters. His flashlight flicked to right and left and into any hidden entrance which might hide his lost angel.

Nothing. Dean ran back toward the Impala, then onto the next alley, all the time muttering, "Just one more, just one more."

He knew very well that his search was likely to be useless. Because out of all the dark corners and hidden places Cas could have got himself lost in, why would Dean have any chance of finding the right one?

His light caught on a pair of scared eyes, the rest of the figure hidden in a makeshift shelter of cardboard and tattered cloth.

"Have you seen a man? Dark hair? So high? Looks lost?"

The head shook.

Dean scraped his pocket for the last of his ready money, dropped it into an opening in the shelter and moved on. He'd given a few dollars to an old man earlier and more to a couple of scrawny teenagers, and some others - not because he'd had any hope they could help him, but just because. Who wouldn't do what they could? For people who were out there, alone in the dark - like Cas?

Dean had also had to pull his gun. Searching the hidden places involved a certain measure of risk, and dark figures rising up before him and instinct prickling behind had brought his hand swiftly to the weapon and his back against a wall. But maybe his savage, desperate mood had come across in his voice and stance - the figures had melted away into the night.

"Just one more, just one more."

Maybe Dean was wrong - Cas'd be fine and make it to the bunker and his phone would ring and it'd be Sam saying, "Come home, he's here."

But what if he stopped looking and Cas was just around the next corner, just across the next street? What if he was in trouble or couldn't find his way? He'd been an angel literally forever and a grace-lite human version for five fucking minutes.

"Dammit, Cas!"

Dean's voice came back at him, loud between the high, enclosing walls.

Water leaked into his boots as he ran through a puddle which had collected beneath an overflowing drain.

"Where are you?"

He pivoted and made to run back to Baby - not to go home. No way in hell. But to drive on and keep searching and find Cas.

But something made him stop.

Dean's boots splashed in the oily black sheet, studded with pelting raindrops. He played the flashlight over the features of the alley - more dumpsters, more trash, more dripping black overhangs hiding feral cats, or vermin - or people?

He took another step. Was that a bundle of tied-together newspapers, half falling out of a doorway? Or a toppling heap of trash bags? No. No, it wasn't.

Dean ran forward.

"Cas. Cas!"

He skidded onto his knees, not caring about the dirt and the wet, his hand fastening gratefully around one hunched shoulder, saying the fallen angel's name over and over, shaking him but getting no response, running the flashlight frantically - gratefully - around his body and back up to his face.

It was Cas. It was really him. Dean had found him.

But he was chalk-white, his eyes were shut and his lips were a lifeless grey-blue; his huddled body was curled forward over his drawn-up knees, and he shuddered with cold.

"Cas. C'mon, buddy. I gotcha. C'mon." Dean stuffed the flashlight in his pocket and slid one arm under Cas's shoulder and around his back. "Up you get."

He was limp and his legs slid out from beneath him, but Dean heaved and staggered, adjusted his grip and manhandled the shivering angel out of the alley, through the driving rain, half dragging, half outright carrying him.

"Here we go. Nearly there. I gotcha." Dean gasped. He reeled to one side under Cas's weight then leant him against Baby while he fumbled to unlock the door. "In you get."

Cas collapsed onto the seat. Dean tucked his legs in, slammed the door and ran around to the driver's side, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

He slid in and Baby roared to life.

"Sam?"

"Dean, where're you been? You're not going to find him by-"

"Shut up, Sammy. I got him."

"You-"

"I got him. I'm gonna find somewhere to crash."

"Dean, you should bring him back here."

"No. He's-" Dean glanced sideways at Cas and then over his shoulder as he spun the wheel to reverse out of the alley. The angel was a crumpled, shivering heap, half slid down into the footspace. "He's not in good shape."

"Okay, I just-"

He cut Sam off and stuffed the phone back into his pocket.

"Cas?"

No response.

Dean swore under his breath, scanned his surroundings through the rain still pelting the windshield and made a quick decision based on his long night's search.

The Florida Heights Hotel had looked pretty skeevy, but skeevy was what Dean knew - it would do. He needed a quick stop first, though.

He pulled the Impala up outside an all-night corner store and made a lightning-speed raid, to get back to Cas as soon as he could. He needed to get his angel dry and warm ASAP. And God knows when the poor guy had eaten last. Scratch that - God neither knew nor cared.

Dean turned into the parking lot of the aforementioned skeevy joint, burst into the lobby and hung over the desk with sufficient threat to get one of the better rooms - he'd perfected that look when he was about twelve.

Cas had slid all the way down into the footspace and he spilled out when Dean opened the door, his head flopping back, the whites of his eyes showing between slack lids. And in the neon pink light from the hotel sign, Dean could see he'd been hurt. His face was bruised, his cheek cut.

Dean's jaw clenched painfully. He'd kill them if he knew who had done it. Kill them and send them straight to hell.

"Come on, Cas. Come on, buddy." He gathered up his friend, holding him tightly around his shoulders, supporting him against Baby's side as he slammed and locked the door.

It wasn't easy getting him up to the room, especially with the duffle bag slung over Dean's shoulder and the plastic handles of a shopping bag cutting into his wrist. Cas was so cold and soaked through and taking hardly any of his own weight. Dean dumped him on the bed and started the shower running. He held a hand under the stream, itching to get back to the bed and get Cas sorted out. Cold, cold, cold, getting there - hot.

Okay. He kicked off his boots and shrugged out of his jacket and flannel and then began tugging Cas's clothes off. In the brighter light Cas looked even more pale, the bruising and cuts on his face standing out starkly.

He had on a jacket and hoodie - layers of clothes that any ordinary guy might wear, but not Cas, not his trenchcoated angel.

Dean pulled off the down-at-heel shoes and then the jacket, rolling him from one side to the other to get it out from under him.

He patted Cas's face. "Come on, Cas. I know you're in there."

He tugged the hoodie off one limp arm and then the other.

"Jesus fucking Christ."

There was blood, high up on his right arm, dried and partly washed away into mottled yellow-brown patches. It had soaked through the shirt and a scrap of rag that had been roughly tied around the injury.

Dean couldn't think about it. Couldn't think about what had happened or how. He had to focus, to get Cas warm, to get him dry, to fix him.

He pulled off the shirt. Cas moaned.

"Yeah, come on, time to wake up. Give me a hand here."

The tousled head rolled from side to side.

"Gonna get you in the shower. Get you warm."

Cas moaned again and his eyes crunched together. "No. No," like a sleepy, grumpy child.

"Okay. Let's do this, buddy."

The years rolled away and it was as if it were a small, soaking wet, shivering kid lying on the bed in front of him - Sammy, that time he'd forgotten that Dad had dragged them nearly fifteen hundred miles north and then stayed out playing in the woods.

Dean had had to go and find him and carry him in, cold and wet and miserable and wanting the friends he'd left behind down in the warm south. The kid had been chilled to the bone and as uncooperative as all hell and Dean had done his best to be patient.

He pulled Cas's pants off and let them fall on the floor in a wet heap, then, leaving his white boxers in place, peeled up the soaked tee-shirt, tugging it off over his head.

"Fuck."

He'd only been human for five minutes - how had the world been so unkind to him already? The wound on his bicep - which looked like a cut from a blade - was ugly and Dean thought it might be infected. As well as that, bruises dotted his torso. And Dean hadn't ever seen him without at least a couple of layers on, but surely he shouldn't be this thin? None too clean either - and who would be, living on the streets?

Where had he been? How had he been living? And who had hurt him?

"Come on. Up you come."

"No," Cas groaned. His head flopped over Dean's shoulder. "Deeean."

More than ever it was like dealing with whiny little Sammy. "Yeah, I know. Come on. Let's get you feeling better."

Yes. (Sniff) Let's look after this poor, soggy angel!