Gimme Shelter

by All the kings ham

The war is going badly. The war is always going badly, and Castiel is looking for refuge anywhere he can find it. destiel with some background sambriel

24. Chapter 24

There was blood on Dean, still hot enough that it was slick along his palms and finger tips. He turned his hands over and it was as if the world had crystallized, moving impossibly slow, like he could only process the images one frame at a time. His brain was screaming and it was the only sound. The kitchen was silent. His breaths were tearing at his throat- bitter copper with each ragged inhale, but he couldn't hear them. Someone had turned the sound off.

He couldn't hear his heart pounding, even if he could feel it thundering in the hollow of his rib cage, forcing adrenaline through his shaking body, burning in his veins like venom.

He was huddled around himself on the kitchen floor, and there was blood on his knees too, soaking into his jeans, heavy and wet.

With glacial slowness he raised his eyes to the rest of the room.

And all he could see was more blood.

Blood and blood and blood.

His eyes felt hot and somewhere in his mind someone was still screaming.

Dean was suddenly retching on the floor between his hands- and there was blood mixed there with bile and pizza.

It all happened in perfect silence.

He must have blown out his eardrums.

Or he was in shock.

He dry heaved, choking on the muscle spasm, and mentally he agreed with the second diagnosis.

It had to be shock. He had seen so many worse things than Bobby's kitchen splattered in arcs of blood and small gummy bits of meat which Dean refused to see as human. He should have been able to keep it together, but he was having a hard time breathing through the metallic coating in his throat and he knew that this room would haunt him- possibly for the rest of his life.

Shock is a very bad thing.

Shock dulled reactions, made it hard to think straight.

Shock pulled the body along thoughtlessly, dragging it through hell and grainy feedback that the brain refused to process.

Adrenaline could keep you alive when everything went to hell- but shock would get you killed.

He tried to pull himself to his feet, staggering drunkenly as his legs gave out halfway up. He clutched the table for support, desperately trying to steady himself.

There were three teeth on the table, sitting pale like gravestones in a splash of red.

Dean was grateful that there was nothing left in his stomach.

"The fuck happened here?" He asked to no one in particular- or at least he thought that he did. He felt his lips move, but without any sound it was impossible to be sure if he had said anything at all.

"Michael happened." Andy's soft voice rang out like a piercing bell.

Dean turned to face her as quickly as he could, fumbling to hold to the table and not fall on his ass.

She stood beside the sink in tight black jeans and t-shirt, not a drop of blood on her pale skin. At her feet was the body of a young boy. He couldn't have been more than eighteen, his hair was blonde, his sightless dead eyes soft blue. His chest was pulpy red, the gaping hole of an exit wound baring the brittle, splintered arches of his ribs.

A single gunshot was not near enough to paint the room. There was too much carnage, too many scraps of flesh on the walls and floor to be explained by the plate sized hole in the body.

Dean had never seen the kid before in his life, and they wouldn't be making any polite introductions now, either.

"What?" Dean tried to ask but he only heard a faint ringing, which was a slight improvement to the silence- though not as good as hearing his own voice.

"This is all Michael." She said, gesturing to the carnage staining the room. Her green eyes flickered to the corpse at her feet. "Except this one. Sam did this before Gabriel threw him about four hundred miles north." She looked back up at Dean, an odd expression on her face. "Gabriel always was good at thinking on his feet. Dumb as a sack of hammers, but quick."

"Where's Gabriel?" And what the hell did Dean care about Gabriel? The cold blanket of shock was keeping his thoughts slow and simple. "Where the hell is Cas?" Came a far more important question, and he wished he could hear his own voice. It was disorienting to have a conversation when he could only hear half of it… and not even his own half. Something in Dean was broken. Very, very broken.

Andy blinked slowly at him, her teeth catching sharply on her lower lip. She offered no answer.

"Cas? Where is CAS?" His throat burned and he was almost positive that he was yelling. He hoped he was.

She only watched him with the same quiet, guarded expression.

And Dean was not interested in playing Twenty-questions with her. If he could hear her in the silence of this blood-spattered world, then the girl standing across from his was not Andy. It had to be the thing that was wearing her. The Angel (or whatever it was) was in his head, talking to him through the fog… but the fact that he could make that small leap in logic promised him that he was slowly starting to recover from whatever had happened.

If the thing talking to him could be trusted at all, then Sam was safe… and possibly in Canada, and that meant something at least. But if his brother was safe, and Dean wasn't in any immediate danger of bleeding out, then there was only one thing that he cared about.

"You bitch, where is Cas?" He felt his mouth clumsily forming the words even if all was still crashing silence.

And if Dean didn't know any better, for the briefest of moments, something that looked oddly like grief passed through her eyes like a cloud. She raised a hand and gestured to the room, just the same as before, her lips turned down in a tight line.

The silence held Dean, perfect and still, like he was caught in amber. Shock refused to make sense of her broad sweeping movement. His own brain was doing its best to save him, butt wasn't going to be enough.

The floor tilted up to meet him and he fought to keep his footing.

Once, what felt like a lifetime ago, Dean had come across Castiel's body, laying sprawled out and mostly dead on the gravel of the salvage yard. Cas had been surrounded by scraps of what had, at some point, been a Fallen Angel. Gabriel had taken credit for that one- claiming he had destroyed the other Archangel's vessel. The leftovers of that Fallen Angel had covered a nearly fifty-foot radius. But that had been out in the open and this was in a kitchen- all the visceral horror concentrated in too small a space.

For a moment, Dean allowed himself to look around at the room. There was so much blood.

The choking was back and he was even more grateful now that his stomach had already been emptied. Andy was talking to him, saying something. Distantly he knew that she had crossed the room, she touched his arm, her hand oddly warm against his skin.

And he took a swing at her.

He had no weapon other than his fist and the knuckles of his left hand caught her below her eye. She cried out and stumbled back- and the world came falling down, sounds returning with glorious clarity. There was the ticking of the old coo-coo clock on the far wall, the rumbling swell of the storm still blowing on like it was the end of days, the startled screams of a young girl, and Dean's ragged breaths, his splintered voice filled with rage.

He had no idea what he was saying to her. He had no concept of any human language. There was only fury and pain. Andy retreated in the wake of his blows. Crying out and shouting back at Dean, and doing her best to keep out of arm's reach. She tripped backwards over the body on the floor, slipping in the blood and tumbling in a tangle of denim clad legs. She looked up at Dean, panic wild on her young face, a trickle of blood on the corner of her lips.

Dean caught himself on the counter, looming over her like a wrathful god. The countertop cut into his palms, his back bowed and he pressed his forehead between his hands. He looked down at the child at his feet and she looked back up at him, tears streaking her pale cheeks.

What was he doing?

What was he going to do?

He stayed over her, shaking too badly to stand back up. It took a subjective eternity before he could put real words together.

"Who the hell is this kid?" They would start with the small things, the things that Dean could do something about.

"Michael couldn't force his way into you, so- so he found a different vessel." She had nowhere to go, not unless she wanted to kick his legs out from under him, but it probably wouldn't have given her a clean escape so much as it would make Dean collapse and effectively pin her between him and the dead kid. Her eyes were clear and wide. "It's that damn sigil you put on your shoulder after I told you not to."

Dean stared down at her- waiting for the rest of her answer.

"He's just some kid." She glanced down at the bloody mess of a body under her crooked knees. "Fuck, Winchester. How should I know who he is? Michael probably just grabbed some holier-than-thou choir boy and asked for a ride."

Dean clenched his jaw. This wasn't Andy. The rhythm of her words was right, just like the kid who threatened to shoot him weeks ago- but Dean knew that the thing talking to him was not that kid.

He knew.

And he wondered how he had ever not known.

He drew back his left leg and kicked her square in the shin. It was borderline childish, but it also hurt like hell. She made a sharp noise and curled away from him as much as the corpse and cupboards would allow. "His name was Adam Milligan. We've known about him for years; an extra Winchester waiting in the wings. Not the 'Boy King' and not the 'White Knight'. But hell, even if he wasn't Mary's son, half a Winchester is still better than no Winchester." She rubbed fitfully at her leg, never taking her eyes from his face.

"With John dead, you sealed up tighter than nun, and Sam being … well, Sam is fucked eight ways to Sunday even without Michael giving him the bad touch. That left the youngest brother up for grabs. He would have been able to hold Michael's Grace for a few days at most, long enough for what he had palnned." The tip of her tongue flicked out, edging along her bloodied lip. "Course, that's only if he wasn't distracted by a shotgun blast and an angelic exorcism. Nice trick by the way. Would love to know who taught Sammy that one. The look on Michael's face was… perfection."

Dean swallowed hard, looking from her to the corpse. "I don't have another brother." The anger had distilled his voice, making it softer than a whisper. "It's just me and Sam." What was left of the boy beneath her had John's jaw line… John's nose. Dean was shaking again and this time it wasn't from adrenaline.

"Look, Winchester, Michael is coming back sooner or later- and if I know Michael, it will be sooner. Do you really want to sit here talk about this right now?"

"Get out of her." He was honestly shocked at how calm he sounded.

Andy actually laughed at him, the panic and the fear gone in an instant, the frightened little girl melting away into something else all together.

"Fuck me, Winchester. Are you really that stupid?"

No hesitation. Dean kicked out at her again- but she was gone. Just gone. She didn't roll away, she just stopped being there. Dean drunkenly pushed off the counter and turned around to find her sitting on the edge of the table, the bruising that had started around her eye, the blood on her mouth- gone. There was no blood on her jeans, none on her hands and shirt- and there should have been, she had been sitting on an open bullet wound, in a puddle of blood.

"Get out of her." He said again. He didn't know how to cast an Angel out. Sam hadn't taught him the fancy new exorcism, and Dean had only heard it twice- not enough to memorize. Dean didn't know what to do other than demand. He had no weapon, he had no bargaining chip… he had no Sam to help him.

What he did have was a dead… brother? Half brother? (Dean really wished that John was here right now to explain who the hell this kid really was- but knowing his dad there would likely have been no explanation offered). So Dean had a dead …stranger on the floor and a dead boyfriend all over the rest of the room. He hurt, in ways he didn't know possible, somewhere deep inside that didn't have a name and didn't have anything to do with muscle or bone- and whatever was in Andy was going to get the hell out, and it was going to do it now.

"Get out of her." He repeated, trying to cling to that small bit of calm he had found.

"Listen to yourself." She scoffed. "You literally have no idea, do you?" She leaned back on her hands, back arching in a way that, despite Dean's current state of mind, was still mildly distracting. "Boy did I get picked up by the wrong brother. Short and stupid is a sad combination, Dean." Her eyes were fixed on his from across the small room. "It's all gone to hell, and I'm here to save your sorry ass. So calm your tits and let me help you."

"I told you, I don't want your damn-"

"I KNOW!" She roared at him, a piercing echo of an Angel's true voice in her words, rattling the window and stabbing at his ears. "I know you don't want my 'damn help' but you sure as hell need it. Michael got thrown back up to heaven and he's licking his wounds, but he didn't give up. He needs you, Dean- you have no idea how long, how many hundreds of years he spent cultivating your family line to get you and your brother here and now. He's getting desperate." She slid off the table, a roll in her hips as she made her way over to him, looking up to keep his eye. "He's only going to come back, harder and faster. He just needs to grab a temporary vessel, come right back to where he left you, wreck that sigil you made and then you're good as his."

Dean stared down at her, at it- whatever it was- this other Angel who for whatever reason had taken it upon herself to join his side… but how was he supposed to trust her? He had no reason to. Except… except all the help that she had already given him.

"I'm not asking you- I'm telling you. Take my help. Take my sword. Let me help you kill Michael- or he will ride your sorry ass down to hell, pull Lucifer out of his box and tear your fucking insignificant world apart just to see if his Daddy still loves him."

She was maybe half an inch away from him; he could feel the heat of her body against his, against the drying blood that plastered his shirt to his chest. He felt sick. He just wanted this to be over. He didn't want to fight Michael. He wanted to curl around a bottle of whisky and drink until his liver gave out.

"This was all Michael. He turned your boyfriend inside out. He painted the walls with sweet little Castiel and then Gabriel, his own brothers- just because he could- just because they decided they didn't like his plan. I don't care if you're supposed to be the 'Righteous Man in Hell'- you're Dean fucking Winchester. You're one of us. You're one of the monsters and revenge is a beautiful thing. So give in. Let me help you."

What do you say to something like that?

"It's not a hard choice to make and we are running out of time." Her eyes narrowed, glancing to the side like she was listening to something in the other room. "I can hear him making deals. He's found his vessel. He just needs permission."

"If he found a vessel then he doesn't need me." Logic was still fighting the possible head trauma, all the clouded misdirection in his mind that kept his thoughts slow. He had Cas' blood on him, it made it hard to have complex thoughts.

"Seriously? Are you even listening to a single word that I've said?" She put her hands against his chest and they felt right somehow. "His Grace will rip through any vessel other than yours. You're the one and only. Accept no substitutions. You were made for him. He's going for a part time housing until he can get his hands on you- then he is going to bend you over and take you hard and fast."

"Fuck that."

"Fuck you." She countered. "Fuck all of us if you let him take you." She pushed him, small hands against his ribs, and it hurt. But it was a comfortable pain. Something familiar that took his mind off the blood that he could see over her shoulders. It grounded him, even if just for a moment. "Let me help you. All you have to do is say yes."

He grabbed her wrists and pushed her away, holding her at arm's length. "Why?" And oddly, he didn't have to explain his question. She just knew. Understanding passed over her and she bit her lip, a small frown between her eyes.

"Because maybe once I believed in my brothers, but that was a long time ago, and I backed the wrong damn horse. Lucifer was cast out and I was left turning tricks in hell for a few thousand years. Perspectives change. Priorities change, Dean. I don't want another war. "

She was warm in his hands, but he suddenly felt very cold. "Why would an Angel be stuck in hell?"

"They don't call us Fallen just because it sounds cool. It is literally because we fell, and there ain't a single place further to fall then down to the blackest corners of hell."

And one of those odd little puzzle pieces that had been taunting Dean for so long slid into place. "You're one of those Fallen Angels."

"Oh, wow. Can we get the man a prize?" Sarcasm was thick in her voice. "I definitely ended up with the wrong Winchester. I bet the lovely, leggy Sammy would have figured that one out weeks ago."

"You guys were trying to kill Cas." All that rage was boiling back up. He used her arms to steer her, turning them around and pressing her up against the counter, knowing it was digging into the small of her back. He hoped it hurt.

"Hey now! That was never in our plans. We just wanted to make sure he didn't do what Michael sent him here to do." She wet her lips, breathing shallow through her little upturned nose. "I told them not to kill him, just to keep him away from you. They royally messed that one up- but, hey, Fallen Angels… we were never good at following orders."

Cold anger was strange. It was an oddly rational feeling, like for one perfect moment everything rang clear. He let go of her. He suddenly couldn't bear the thought of touching her.

"What, so me being an Angel who is inexplicably trying to help you- that makes you suspicious. But figure out that I'm a Fallen Angel and suddenly you're backing the hell up. That's prejudice is what it is."

He hardly heard her, he was trailing his fingers through the congealing blood on the table, tracing out a symbol he had seen only a hand full of times- He may not know the new exorcism that was so popular with all the kids these days, but he had seen the bloody symbol that Cas had written- and he was good at those sorts of things. Things that didn't involve words, just actions.

"Hey." Her voice was a sharp warning. "You don't want to do that."

He ignored her, sloppily drawing out the curving lines.

"Dean, stop it." There was a hard edge to her words. It didn't sound like fear, it sounded like a warning, like John used to sound when he was running his boys through the ropes or showing them how to shoot for the first time.

He drew out the last of the lines and slammed his hand against the symbol, just as he had seen Cas do.

Only Andy didn't leave. She didn't vanish or even flicker. Instead Dean's knees gave out and as he went down he slammed the underside of his chin on the table top. His vision faded along with the ambient noises of the room, along with the pain in his chest.

When the world came rolling back he was sitting upright, leaning against Sam's broad shoulder in a way that straddled the border between brotherly and kind of gay.

"Come on, Dean." Sam's reassuringly familiar voice hissed in his ear. "Wake up. You've got to wake up."

Dean opened his eyes and the kitchen light burned him like a midday sun. He turned his face into Sam's shoulder and that small movement made his whole head sing with pain. He probably had a minor concussion- which incidentally had also happened to him at the beginning of this whole mess back in Maine- so maybe it was somehow fitting that everything would end with him in the same sorry condition.

"Come on. Stay with me." Sam had one of those big hands of his on the back of Dean's neck, kind of caught up between his shoulders, holding the collar of his shirt.

"You were in Canada." Dean tried to get out, but there was a disturbing amount of blood that fell from his mouth when he tried to speak, and his tongue felt clumsy and stung as it touched the roof of his mouth. His words came out sounding much more like "Doo wa n Cadada." He must have bit his tongue when he fell- he just hoped he hadn't bitten any part of it off.

Sam looked down at him with more worry than Dean had ever seen before on his face.

"Canada?" His brows came down, half hiding his eyes."

"You needed some help making a bad choice, Dean." Andy whispered, though her quiet voice came oddly loud in the small room.

Dean forced his eyes to find her, despite the pain- and was surprised to see her half slumped on one of the kitchen chairs, eyes hollow, her lips bloodless and pale.

"I thought why not drag the king of bad choices himself back here to give you a hand." She offered a small smile and it was strained. And Dean didn't know if it was the banishing sigil or her somehow brining Sam back to Bobby's, but she looked like she was in pain.

"Tham," Dean slurred through his brother's name, feeling warm blood dripping from his chin. "Dnnt trut her."

"W-what?" That worried look never wavered.

"Dnnt trusth her." Which wasn't much better than his first go, but he had never had to talk with only half a tongue before and he felt as if he was mastering the task fairly well.

"Who her? What the hell are you talking about, Dean?"

"Andy." He tried to talk slower, working around the pain. "Bad Angl."

"Bad… Angel?" Sam's eyes widened just a fraction and he looked over at the crumpled corpse with the gaping hole in its chest that was still on the other side of the room. "I took care of him, Dean. I- I couldn't save Cas. I'm so sorry."

There was a lump in Dean's throat suddenly, and he swallowed it, blood running down his throat like oil. "No. That wasth Michael." It was a bit easier to speak with the blood gone, but it still hurt something awful. "Andy." He pointed at where the girl sat, slumped in her chair a few feet away. There was a fine tremor in his arm and he had to let it drop back to his lap.

Sam looked at the chair, then he looked at Dean, and the worry came back tenfold. "What are you talking about?"

"She's a bad Angel." He said it as slow and clearly as he could.

"Dean, we need to get you to a hospital. Stay right here, ok?" Sam started to position his older brother against the leg of the table. Propping him up like an overly large stuffed animal. "I'm going to go find Gabe. I'll be right back."

"Yeah," Andy drawled slowly. "Gabriel sent your brother flying before getting his brains splattered all over the ceiling." Andy whispered, her hands folder between her knees, making her look smaller than she actually was and that in itself was a fairly neat trick. "Sam missed that bit. You might not want to tell him right now. He probably won't take it too well and I need at least one of you with a level head."

"Just stay right there, Dean. And stay awake." Sam insisted.

"Yeah, Dean. Stay awake." Andy repeated Sam's words in an almost mocking way. "We've got to have you clear and functioning for when Michael comes back and takes you right here on the table... that is unless you're ready to tell me yes."

Dean's eyes widened slightly. "Stham." And why did his brother's name have to be so hard? "Do the exorthism." He swallowed a bit more blood, looking up at Sam as the giant clamored to his unnaturally large feet. "Get rid of her."

Sam looked half between worry and panic. "You got hit pretty badly, Dean. Just stay there. Ok?"

And was that the only thing that Sam could say to him now? Stay?

"He's worried about you. You're all he's got left- he just doesn't know it yet." Andy ran a hand through her hair, and she was shaking too. "Don't be too hard on Sammy. He's got it just as bad as you."

Sam did his best to not look around the room, and to step around the puddles on the floor. He never once looked at the girl on the chair.

Dean stared at Andy for what felt like the hundredth time that evening. "Thun of a bith." He mumbled through a pained breath. She nodded to him in recognition, a tilt of her head like a salute.

Sam… couldn't see Andy, even though she was right there beside them. He couldn't hear her either.

Sam couldn't see Andy… because she wasn't there.

Dean closed his eyes and let his breath out until his lungs burned for want of oxygen and red and white stars burst behind his eyes. He sucked in a hard breath and started coughing, his broken ribs aching like knife wounds. The thing in Andy hadn't been using its evil-Angel moji to talk to him on dead cell phones, or through the haze of shock and head trauma.

She hadn't needed to.

Just like in all those awful horror movies that Dean used to watch on grainy motel TVs, the call was coming from inside the house.

Andy wasn't the one being ridden by an Angel.

Dean was.

"Glairing realizations aside," Andy leaned forward, bowing over her knees to look down at Dean. "We are running out of time. Tell me I can help you."

"You- you don't want to help us." Dean looked up, catching a sideways glimpse at the underside of the table, at Sam and Dean's names written by clumsy adolescent hands and a stolen sharpie. He didn't remember when they wrote it. He wondered if Bobby even knew it was there- some twenty years after the graffiti had been laid out. He wondered if the old man would be upset.

"You don't want to save any of us." He closed his eyes, feeling the slick of blood trickling hot down the back of his throat. If he spoke slowly the words came out fairly clean. It would make him happy if it weren't the only thing he had going for himself right then. "If Michael takes me, or kills me- with you still in me, what happens to you?"

She didn't reply immediately, and when Dean silted his eyes to see if she was even still there with him he was startled to see that she held a sword in her hands. Not any proper blade that he had ever really seen- it was more like a glorified ice pick, and she rolled it slowly between her hands if she had been made to hold it.

"Our Father gave each of his beloved humans a body, with teeth and toes and all the bells and whistles, but there's only really room for one person in a body, just one soul. Now Angels… we're all soul- no body- just our Grace and millennia of memories and rules. I sort of squeezed in there with you- but I can't stay much longer without hurting something permanently. My Grace is going to start tearing up your soul." She never once looked at him while she spoke." If Michael destroys the sigil you used to keep him out and lock me in… well, he's a lot bigger than me. It's standing room only in here and if he forces his way in too it will kill us both. No Grace for me, no soul for you. Just a cozy Winchester shell for Michael to call home."

Dean sneered at her before turning his head away. "Sammy!" He called as loudly as he could, coughing on the name. "We've got to go."

"Dean." Andy said his name in a way that was not at all pleasing to him.

"Shut up." He looked off in the direction Sam had gone, waiting to see the hulking shape of his little brother coming down the hall.

"Dean- you still don't get it." And she was suddenly kneeling beside him, no fatigue or pain on her face. She looked… she looked a hell of a lot better than Dean felt.

"It takes too much energy to match your expectations of me." She said as if he asked for an explanation. "My Grace is full of holes and dragging Sammy here nearly laid me out- I don't actually have a body. I can't actually get bloodied and bruised. But you like me being injured- it gives you something manly to do. Helping the poor damsel in distress."

Dean made a noise of objection but she just looked at him knowingly.

"It wasn't working anymore. I dropped it." She sighed. "Take the sword. I can get you on your feet and I can guide your hand- but you have to say yes."

"Hell. No."

"You stubborn son of a bitch. You have no reason to deny me. You want Michael dead. I don't want to be crushed, or have to deal with Lucifer rising and wanting to know why I wasn't the one to drag his ass up here. I've been living in this bomb shelter you call a brain for weeks now; I know you as well as you know yourself, and you know this is the right thing to do. Just say yes. We are running out of time."

"No."

"Why won't you accept my help?"

And Dean smiled a soft, satisfied smile. Yeah, maybe she had been living in his head for a while. Maybe she thought she knew him, but there were obviously parts of him that she still didn't quite get.

"Because a freaking Fallen Angel is offering it, that's why not. You're poison, lady. Don't think I don't know it."

She stood, hands raised in frustration. "I could have been picked up by the corruptible one- but no. I got myself tied to a damned saint."

Sam came down the hall, looking just as worried as before- probably because he had heard Dean talking to himself and that was never a good sign. "I can't find Gabe." He held a hand out to Dean, an offer to help him up. "Come on. Let's get you to a hospital. I can look again when I know you don't have internal bleeding or something."

Dean didn't take Sam's hand, he honestly couldn't summon the strength to lift his arm. Things were getting quiet again and either because of shock or because he was losing consciousness, he found that he didn't really care.

"I'll just stay here, Sammy." He let his full weight rest against the table leg, too tired to hold himself up suddenly, and the table shifted behind him, sliding away at an alarming rate. He would have crashed into the floor, again, but Andy grabbed the table, holding it in place.

"Dean," And Sam was suddenly looking at Andy, his big puppy dog eyes were looking right at her and for a brief second a thrill ran rampant through Dean.

Maybe she wasn't in his head. Maybe she was real. Maybe she was-

"Your shadow…" and Sam trailed off in the weakest warning in the history of forever.

"God damn it." Dean glared up at her, where she stood between him and his brother, small hands grasping the table. "That stupid thing is you?"

"Like I said, Winchester, there's not a lot of room in you. I've been halfway out the door since you picked me up- until you closed it and locked it with that damned sigil." She didn't look particularly happy. "At least let me fix your head and ribs. The pain is starting to mess with both of us. You passing out right now won't help anyone."

"Dean?" Sam had taken a step or two back, but the kitchen was small, and there was a body on the floor, so he was a little limited in his escape routes.

Dean looked up at his younger brother and tried to figure out what sort of question that he wanted answered. It all seemed fairly obvious now. Wasn't Sam supposed to be the smart one?

"He can't hear me." Andy said on a sigh.

"Oh." Dean answered. Just a simple little sound as he tried to get his thoughts together and explain things to Sam, but it was harder than it should have been and he closed his eyes to try and block out the glairing distraction that was the kitchen.

"Don't you dare go to sleep." Andy kicked him in the hip and Dean yelped.

"That's not fucking fair." He told her. And it really wasn't. Apparently he couldn't actually hurt her, but she could bruise him to hell whenever she felt like it. There was no justice in the world.

"Dean!" Sam sounded like he had been saying his older brother's name for a while. "What's going on?"

"Apparently I've got a Fallen Angel living in my head."

Sam looked like he was wresting with many emotions, and for the first time ever, seemed at a complete loss for words.

"Great." Andy took a deep breath through her nose. "Now tell him how I'm trying to save your sorry ass and you won't even let me patch you up before Michael gets down here and kills us both."

"I don't need your help." He found the strength to point a finger at her in warning before holding a hand out to Sam.

Sam keep as far away from Andy as possibly while getting a good grasp on Dean and hauling him to his feet. The kitchen spun- a kaleidoscope of white tile and red blood. Dean almost threw up again. All he managed was to up heave a bit of blood into his mouth, which he very attractively spat onto the floor.

"Dean- this might be one of those times where is would be good to get help from someone." Sam almost sounded afraid, and Dean began to wonder how bad he must look. He tried to let go of his brother, but he couldn't keep his footing and almost ended up back on the floor. He found himself clinging to Sam's flannel, shaking and groaning softly in pain. He really shouldn't have got up so fast.

"See, even your brother knows you're not going to make it." Andy's voice was in his ear, despite the fact that he couldn't see her any longer. "Please let me help you."

"No." Dean whispered to both of them. "Just… just get me to a hospital."

"You won't make it." Andy's voice sounded oddly final. "Michael almost broke you before Sam sent his ass home. You've got bleeding in your brain, and angelic laws get a little foggy about needing permission to take a vessel when they're dead."

Sam was helping Dean walk, ignoring the dire words of a girl who he couldn't hear. He helped his older brother as far as the back door before they had to stop.

A wisp of a shadow loomed in the doorway, filling it fairly well for something that wasn't real.

"Let me fix you." Her voice insisted with none of the strength from before, there was just quiet desperation as she pleaded with him. "You don't have to take the sword, you don't have to give me anything else- just let me stop the bleeding. I don't want to be stuck in a corpse waiting for Michael to find me."

Dean wasn't a saint. He was many things- but definitely not a saint. He wasn't much of a righteous man either, hell, most days he wouldn't even consider himself a good man. He couldn't bring himself to trust the monster that had taken up residence in his head. Every deal he had ever heard of with any monster, big or small, came with enough strings attached to hang yourself.

He didn't know what she would get from him accepting her sword. He didn't know what lies she might be feeding him while trying to coerce him into killing Michael for her- but he did know what it was like to not want to die.

He had been there more times than he could count.

Death was scary as hell, especially when you came to terms with the fact that there is no way around it- everyone went eventually.

But that didn't mean that either of them had to go tonight.

And she was right… he really did like to help the damsel in distress.

Dean didn't even have to say the word, he felt an alien triumph run through him, and he knew that it was Andy relishing in his acceptance.

Just like that, the pain was gone. His head was clear, his breaths were strong and not at all punctuated with the piercing of broken ribs. A million little aches in his joints, the odd pressure behind his eyes, everything just felt… fine. Like he was waking up from a month long nap. And just like a long nap, he felt oddly more tired than rested. But exhaustion was much more welcome than broken bones and cranial bleeding.

He let go of Sam.

Sam took a bit longer to let go of him.

"Are you ok?" His brother asked hesitantly, eyebrows high and face pale with surprise.

"I'll make it." Now that he could move again he didn't want to stand around talking, he honestly didn't feel like they had much time. "We need to haul ass out of here."

"And then what?" It must have been worse than Dean thought, if Sam was actually following his lead. Sam hadn't done that since he was fifteen and suddenly found himself taller than his older brother.

"Then we figure out how to kill an Angel."

Sam opened his mouth, surely to say something important to Dean- maybe he knew how to kill an Angel- maybe Gabriel had told him- maybe he just wanted to say something smart and annoying… either would have been welcome to Dean.

Instead Sam vanished from beside him. There was a brief blur and the peculiar crashing sound of wings and Sam was simply no more.

Looking back on the moments that followed, Dean knew that things would have gone differently if Sam hadn't disappeared. Dean always felt stronger when Sam was there with him, felt like he had some kind of expectations to live up to, someone to hold him accountable for his mistakes.

"The hell?!" Dean turned quickly, trying to find Andy and at the same time not look at the drying blood all over the kitchen. "Bring him back, you bitch."

She was suddenly in front of him, just as unexpected as Sam leaving. Her eyes were wide and she was pushing her odd sword into his hands. "Take it. Please, just take it." Her voice was high with panic and she was shaking.

Dean wondered how much was an act she was putting on for him and how much was real fear.

"Where's Sam? What did you do?" He pushed her and the stupid sword away, and his fingers tingled where he had accidently brushed against the metal.

"Please." She was begging, her pale eyes red with tears- but Dean wasn't buying it.

He turned away from her, he didn't know where he was going to go- she was, after all, living in his head. But he couldn't just stand there and-

And John was standing in the hall.

Dean knew his father. Even in the shoddy lighting, even after years of John being dead- he knew...

"Dean." John's voice was soft, heavy like when he would come home from a long hunt to find his young sons still up and bleary eyed, watching static lined infomercials on the motel's old television. He said his son's name with such tired warmth- it was the closest he ever got to saying he loved them.

"Dad?" The word tore at Dean's throat. It was too much. It was all too damn much.

"No, Dean." John made his way into the kitchen, heedless of the blood, never taking his eyes from his son's.

"Please." Andy whispered, what sounded very much like real fear dragging through her voice.

"I am Michael, an Angel of the Lord." John said. "We need to talk, Dean."

A giant 'NO' was welling up in Dean, suffocating him as he couldn't find a way to voice his singular thought.

"You left me with no other choice. Raising John Winchester was not an easy task, even for me. But it seems that we needed to speak face to face since your mind has become too clouded for me to talk to you any other way. And this seems like a body that you are more likely to listen to." John's voice was so reasonable. John was never reasonable- and Dean didn't think that he could stand there and talk to a creature wearing his father's face. What few shreds of sanity that remained to him wouldn't stand for it.

"Oh, Father who art in Heaven," Andy was whispering somewhere in the back of Dean's mind, the pleading prayer that no one but they could hear. "Have mercy. Have pity upon me and take away the awful stain of my transgressions. Let me be pure again. Deliver me from my brother, from this evil in his heart."

"Silence, Anduriel." Michael said in John's voice. "Our Father has not answered my prayers in many centuries and he will certainly not return for a retched creature like you."

Dean didn't know if he should be more startled that Michael could hear the other Angel when no one else could, or the fact that Andy listened and grew silent.

"Dean," Michael stopped his slow walk through the kitchen to stand about a yard away from the hunter. "You have been chosen for a great task. You and Samuel will help to cleanse this world."

"Where's Sam?" Dean formed a hardly intelligible sentence, but it was better than the stunned silence.

"I put your brother somewhere safe, so that we would be able to speak without interruption." Michael obviously had not enjoyed the shotgun blast or the exorcism. "It is a great work that we will do together. Say that you will join me, Dean." And John smiled, a smile so reasonable and warm, to match his voice.

The oddness of it all sort of startled Dean into action. "You're doing this all wrong, man."

"Excuse me?" Michael's smile faltered.

"You're supposed to say 'with our combined strength we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the Galaxy'."

Michael blinked.

"And I'll say 'I'll never join you' and you can go on about the power of the Dark Side, maybe tell me you're my father." Dean's mouth was running faster than his mind, it was a problem that often got him in trouble. But he was already up to his eyes in trouble and felt no need to start bailing now.

"I am not your father, Dean. I am merely borrowing his body until I can join with my true vessel."

Apparently Michael wasn't a big Star Wars fan. That was one of the problems with all these big old monsters. They never got movie references.

"My answer isn't going to change, you lunatic. I'm not going to be your meat suit."

"I had hoped that you could be reasoned with." And one of John's big calloused hands was suddenly around Dean's throat. And Dean struggled against the grip, but he had never really been stronger than John, and Angel possessed John didn't seem to be any kind of exception.

"Anduriel's taint has started to leave marks on your body, and soon it will be unsuitable to serve as my vessel. I cannot wait any longer for you to come to your senses." His grip tightened and Dean heard himself make a bad noise. "I cannot cast her out, she has dug herself in too deeply. She may tell you that she is trying to protect you- but all she is doing is forcing me to take a much more barbaric approach in acquiring my vessel."

And Dean recalled Andy's words from before Sam was snatched away- about how Michael wouldn't need permission when Dean was dead. He had been fighting the man who was not his dad since the fingers closed around his neck, but his movements suddenly went from frantic to erratic.

Every one dies.

Very few get strangled by their dead father.

Dean preferred to not be special.

He didn't want to go this way.

If Sam had been there things would have gone differently. Dean was sure of it. Dean liked to think that if Sam had been there that he would have come up with a good solution, a plan that didn't involve 'kill or be killed'. But Dean was alone, and being strangled in real life was never as quick or clean as they showed in movies. It was slow, and it hurt. His lungs were screaming, something in his neck was breaking, his eyes had stopped working and had decided to get together with his oxygen deprived brain and put on a lightshow- all radiant reds and golds and bits of darkness eating away at it all. That darkness was Death. Dean knew with brilliant clarity that the moment that that dark took the last of the lights that there would be nothing left of him, just a shell waiting for someone to move in.

He had no weapon, and kicking and punching was about as effective as shouting at a storm. This is why it was safer for hunters to have back up. Whenever the big bad was just about to take him, whenever Dean found himself on the brink of death- that's when Sam would blast the monster and save the day. But that couldn't happen this time. Sam was far, far away… and Dean was afraid.

Fear makes people make bad decisions, but Dean liked to think that he did it for Sam, and not to save his own sorry ass. Dean had to keep Sam safe, and letting Michael hand his baby brother over to Lucifer was pretty damn far from safe.

A weird acceptance shuttered though his mind. Sam wasn't here, and Dean would have to take what help he could, damn whatever strings might be attached. He would deal with them later if he wasn't dead.

There was no triumph from Andy this time when Dean gave in. Just quiet relief and the thrumming cold, like a heartbeat of ice as he felt the weight of the sword in his hands.

He hesitated for a moment longer than he should have- he blamed the fact that he couldn't see beyond a blur of lights- before shoving the short blade up between Michael's ribs.

The hands around his throat loosened enough that Dean was able to take in choking, moist breaths. His vision cleared enough to watch his father stumble back, looking down at the silver-white blade protruding at an off center angle from his chest. Light poured from the wound, burning bright as John's body struggled with a second death.

Dean had to raise a hand to his eyes against the light, his skin was prickling with the heat from it- and something in his distant memories scoured up the few Angels who had fallen from the sky, burning like comets and the damage that followed in their wake.

Dean ran blind from the kitchen, falling out the back door and onto the porch. The icy rain bit at his face, knocking his breath from him and he staggered, almost falling in the gravel. When the wave of Michael's Grace blew out the windows of Bobby's house, Dean was taking cover behind a haphazard pile of sedans. It hit him like a wave, knocking him back. But unlike the redheaded Angel that Dean had watched die, whose Grace had left him and Cas at the bottom of a well of pain and sorrow, Dean did not rise up feeling heavy with grief.

The best explanation that Dean could come up with, days later when his head cleared, was that Michael simply had not been sad. The Archangel had not felt sadness for the world, or whatever war was waging in some distant heaven. Michael had been filled with anger. Anger and pride. He had been abandoned by his own father, betrayed by his brothers… he had only wanted to set things right. And for three miserable days, while Dean waited at Bobby's for someone to find him and save him from himself- Dean understood Michael perfectly.

By the end of day three, Sam had returned. And alone, Sam mourned because Dean couldn't. Sam was left to burn their Dad's body, for the second time. Sam cleaned the kitchen. Sam fell apart while Dean stayed in the panic room where Andy would not let him leave. The door locked from the outside, leaving Dean alone with his two shadows (neither of which would talk to him) and an unspeakable rage supported by a superiority complex so staggering he almost couldn't stand it.

When Dean came down from being drunk on borrowed rage, he emerged from the basement to find Sam huddled on the lumpy old sofa, eyes bleary, grasping an empty bottle of scotch like the last life raft on a sinking ship.

Dean wanted to say something. But saying 'sorry the dude you fell in love with blew up' didn't seem like it would be quite enough to cover what Sam was going through. Plus, Dean had his doubts that Sam would say it back- which was unfortunate, because Dean really needed someone to apologize for Cas' death.

He found a bottle of whisky and sat beside Sam.

They drank until Bobby came home.

The old hunter listened to their story and let them drink until the house was dry.

Dean wasn't sure how long it took.

Things got a bit hazy. It could have been days or weeks.

He honestly didn't care.

.:.

"You look like hell, Winchester."

Dean snorted awake, almost falling out of the recliner. Glass bottles clanked and fell noisily about his feet.

Sitting on the arm of the couch was Andy. Small and curvy, her hair a mess and hanging in her eyes, and even if Dean would never acknowledge it, she looked… well… he blatantly refused that traitorous part of his brain. She was here and Cas wasn't. His never ending hangover was enough to negate whatever thoughts his brain was trying to have.

"What do you want now?" He slurred, his mouth dry and tasting of death. Wan light was filtering in through the drawn curtains behind the couch- announcing either early morning or early evening. It didn't matter either way to Dean. The storm had played out and ended sometime during the drinking. The seasonably cold sunlight had brought no comfort to anyone in the house.

"I'm calling in a favor."

Dean laughed overly loud and the volume of it hurt his sensitive ears. "I don't owe you anything."

"Not you, you jackass. I've got friends other than you. Some upstairs and some in the basements. You don't live as long as I have without collecting a few IOUs."

"You're wrong." He felt the demanding claws of unconsciousness dragging him back down.

"Excuse me?" She leaned towards him, a curious expression on her soft face.

"I'm not your friend."

"Are you always such a smartass?"

"No. Sometimes I'm asleep."

And for whatever reason it made her smile. "I would have been better off living in Sam, with his filthy soul and broken ethics, but you're way more fun."

"Sam's too good for either of us. So shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you."

And she smiled again, but said nothing.

Dean watched her for an overly suspicious moment before closing his eyes. He just wanted to sleep until the aching in his chest subsided. Time dragged on in the darkness behind his eyelids and when he awoke he was startled to see Andy still sitting on the arm of the couch, leaning back and waiting as if she had all the time in the world.

"Seriously?" He rubbed at his face, feeling the week or so worth of stubble on his cheeks.

"Did you think I would go somewhere else? I'm living in your melon, Dean. You locked me in. Where am I supposed to go?"

The dull pain of the tattoo on his shoulder had long since faded. It was easy to forget about. "If I break it will you go away?" His hand itched for a knife, something he could scratch through that damned symbol and release the Angel from his body.

"I would love to get the hell out of here, but it's not that easy. It has to be destroyed by holy fire," she kept going, not letting him stop her at the idea of lighting his shoulder on fire. "And it goes down to the bone, so we will literally have soak the bone in anointed oil and set it ablaze."

Dean couldn't contain the uneasy expression on his face.

"You also have to destroy the tool used to write the thing. Which you would hope means the tattoo gun, but it also includes the hands that were used it to draw on you. So yes, Dean. If you want to dismember that tattooist, salt and burn his tools and then have Sam cut your back open and light you on fire- I will be out of here like the devil himself is on my heels."

He closed his eyes, deciding that the room was definitely too bright.

"I did try to warn you." And to Andy's credit, she didn't sound too condescending when she said those words.

"Didn't you say something about there not being enough room in here for both of us?" He spoke slowly, not liking at all where this was going, and honestly, the pounding headache that he had was making it harder than normal to focus. Carefully choosing his words gave him more time to think.

"That's what I came to talk to you about."

Tired anger crept into his voice. "Oh, is it? Well then, why are we beating around the bush? If you're here to kill me and gloat about it then get on with it."

"You're no good to me dead." She said simply, glancing down the length of the couch on which she perched.

Dean followed her gaze and realized that Sam was sleeping there, stretched out, long legs bowed and hardly fitting in his chosen sleeping spot.

"See if I get that body of yours as my very own, aside from having one fine backside, I will have every other Fallen Angel who's still alive following me around, demanding to know when we're going to spring our boss from hell. You get enough of us in one place and it's like chumming the waters for Angels and demons alike. It's not a game I want to go back to."

Dean just looked at her. Long and hard.

"So, like I told you first off, I'm calling in some favors."

He slowly sat up straight, his joints complaining, his body feeling stiff and stale from sitting too long in one place. "You want to get to the fucking point already?"

She grinned at him, teeth like a military cemetery. "I'm going to burn up my Grace." When Dean didn't reply she continued, the same brilliant smile in place. "It'll either kill me or put me in a sweet coma- either way it'll free up your insides so I'm not crushing that pretty little human soul of yours."

"You didn't really strike me as the suicidal type." He said after a moment of silence. "Or the self sacrificing type."

"Oh, I'm not. But I would like a vacation from the armies of hell. I'm… just going to hibernate somewhere deep in your bones for a decade or so."

"And instead of just gutting yourself and going into hiding, you decided to show up and tell me what you're up to… because?"

"Because it's going to affect you, so I have to have your permission. I'm a guest here and I've got to stick to the rules."

"Are you serious? Who is keeping tabs on you and making your follow these special Angel rules?"

Her smile softened. "God is. And maybe one day, if I keep my nose clean, he will forgive me and I can go home."

Dean didn't have anything to say to that. For all the hell that he had seen in his life, all the horrible, miserable things that had no right to exist but still did shamelessly- who was Dean to say that God couldn't be one of those things? He was, after all, talking to an Angel. Maybe it was time for Dean to reevaluate his belief system.

"I can bring Castiel back."

Those words were like a slap across the face to Dean, breaking his dogmatic train of thought. "What?" And maybe he sounded desperate, but no one could hear him other than Andy, and she already knew how hopeless Dean was.

"His vessel was destroyed- but Gabriel did the exact same thing to me a few weeks ago and here I am, alive and well." She folded her hands around her knees and leaned towards him. "See, my Grace is bound to a silver denarian coin that some jackass of a hunter picked up. It's a neat little trick I worked out a few thousand years ago- keeping a small portion of my Grace separate from my vessel increases my chances of staying alive.

"When Michael killed Castiel, he wrecked the vessel, but only a few scraps of Castiel's Grace were in that body. The rest of it had been pulled out and tucked away in some dark corner of Heaven as collateral to make sure that my dear little brother went along with Michael's plan."

Dean didn't say anything. He wasn't even sure if he was breathing.

"So one of my brothers upstairs, who owes me a big favor, is going to go find what's left of Castiel for me and I'm going to burn up what Grace I've got left and put your little boy back together."

"Y-you can do that?" He didn't want to get his hopes up. He had already fallen too far and hard. He didn't know if he would be able to recover from another blow.

"If you say yes." She was watching intensely, her pale eyes dancing over him, taking in every thought and emotion that he never let his face show. "It'll hurt like a son of a bitch, having that much of my Grace burning out of you all at once. It will be a whole new notch on the pain scale and I can't just force it on you."

If she was toying with him he would wake Sam and they would go find some blessed oil and look up the nearest burn unit.

"This is very…" He wasn't sure what he wanted to say.

"Very nice of me? I know. Hiding from the Devil makes us all do strange things. And honestly, I think you're a sad, sorry, son of a bitch who's not worth the effort it would take me to corrupt. But you kept me safe from Michael and you made Castiel happy." She glanced at Sam and then back to Dean. "I love my brother. Even if he hasn't trusted me in a few million years. I do you a solid, it makes us even. I give Castiel a second chance to be stupidly happy and maybe he forgives me." She splayed her hands wide. "And I get to sleep in one of the safest places in the known world. Everyone wins."

Dean couldn't bring himself to say anything. That aching, in his chest was back, a deep longing that smothered almost everything else. He could remember the taste of Castiel, the awkward cut of his lips, the touch of his hands. His strange, startled laughter, his heart wrenchingly beautiful smile…. Dean had fallen ass over teakettle for the first rumpled Angel who had fallen into his lap. And now he had a hole in his chest big enough to drive a semi truck through.

Andy was offering Dean a chance to-

A chance to…

He looked at Sam. Sam who had joked about getting married this summer. Sam who was drowning in malt whisky, who was just as lost as Dean. He looked at his brother's sleep slack face, at the puffy bruises around his eyes from too much crying when he thought Dean wasn't watching, the sharp line of his mouth that looked too much like a frown even while he slept.

And as Sam shifted in his sleep, some dark emotion crossing his dreams like a thunder storm, Dean knew why he was hesitating- why he hadn't taken the fallen Angel by the shoulders and shouted yes at the top of his lungs.

Andy was watching him, her expression guarded as she read him like an open book. There was one upside to having someone living in his brain- Dean didn't have to explain to her his rolling, reckless train of thoughts. Which was for the best, because he didn't think he was brave enough to say them out loud.

"Hey now." She stood, moving in quick jerky movements, on the couch then on the other side of the room in an instant. "I'm offering you everything on a fucking silver platter and you- you-" she pointed an accusing finger at him. "You're trying to pull some honorable bullshit on me."

"Are you saying that you can't, or that you won't?" He didn't like the words he was saying, they made him feel sick and broken inside.

"I'm saying that I could have been picked up by anyone, but woe be it unto me, for I was raised up by a righteous man."

He waited, watched as she paced the worn rug, her bare feet making no noise.

"It's a different deal all together, Winchester. It's a whole separate bag of cats you're asking me to open."

"Can't or won't?" He demanded through clenched teeth, just this side of losing his nerve.

"And this makes us even?" She turned, asking him anxiously. "You helped me, I'm helping you and everything is kosher?"

"What are you, keeping score now?" His head was pounding, his hangover drifting dangerously close to a migraine.

"And you will give me a safe place to hide?"

"Do you fucking want it in writing?" He was yelling. He didn't mean to, but he was and Sam was waking up.

"Should we seal the deal with a kiss?" A spark of amusement flared in her eyes.

"Fuck you."

"I like you, Winchester, even if you are a miserable bastard." And she was gone.

"You ok?" Sam was sitting up, blinking a haze of sleep and alcohol from his eyes.

Dean looked dimly at the place where Andy had been only a heartbeat before, then to his brother. " 'm fine, Sammy." His eyes burned and he prayed he wasn't doing anything as asinine as crying. "Go back to sleep."

Sam drew his long legs to his broad chest and somehow managed to look small. "Were you talking to her again?" Sam seemed to have more mixed feelings about Andy than Dean did, which was really saying something.

"Don't worry about it." He ran a hand over his face and he grimaced at the rough, salty texture around his eyes. He didn't look at his brother. He couldn't bring himself to.

"I've been thinking." Sam started in a slow, faltering way. "Maybe we can head out West."

"What?" Dean asked the ceiling.

"We could spend the rest of this cold spell out in California. Get some sun."

"Don't you have classes to teach?"

Sam made a plaintive noise in answer and the room became occupied by the steady ticking of the clock on the wall.

A road trip actually sounded nice. The two of them could sit side by side in the Impala, the wind singing through the open windows. They could just burn up the highway, chasing the sun until they reached the sea. Just like old times.

A return to normalcy would help him to forget.

It would ease the welling pain inside.

"Your nose is bleeding." Sam sounded worried and tired.

Dean lightly touched his upper lip and felt the hot slip of blood between his fingers. "Damn it." He pinched his nose and got to his feet, looking for a box of tissues.

"You all right?"

"Of course I am. It's a nose bleed, not a headshot."

Sam shakily got to his feet. "It's your ears too." And the worry in his voice officially outweighed anything else.

Dean wanted to say he was fine- but when Andy had said that burning up her Grace would hurt him; it had been a gross under exaggeration. 'Pain worse than Dean had ever experienced' was still not enough of a warning. The pain came at him like a heat wave, like a firestorm, like a dying star. A wave of energy flooded through his body and knocked him backwards. His skin could not contain what he was feeling. He rolled, moaning, on the floor. He kicked at the air, raising hands that were blistering to the roof as if in supplication to some being who had the power to stop what was happening to him There were no tears in his eyes, it seemed that even his blood had begun to boil out of him.

He was full of the energy of an Angel and no mortal frame was meant to contain such a force.

The pain did not drag him into unconsciousness, it was too much, too great, and it kept him awake and screaming.

Sam was at his side, but that knowledge was fleeting, only existing for a few seconds that dragged on like years and then even that external understanding was gone, leaving only the burning pain. His fingers blackened, the skin cracking and peeling away. Through the haze of pain he could see glimpses of charred bone. His throat was closing up, he couldn't find enough air to keep screaming.

Then hands were holding him, cradling his face, and with them came a soothing cold and the agony fled from it as if in fear, leaving only a crippling ache in its passing. He struggled to breathe, and as his shirt brushed against the raw skin of his chest he knew that it wasn't just his hands that were ruined.

"Just breathe, Dean-o." Gabriel's soft voice grated on his raw nerves, but it was all Dean could do to follow the directions, taking one treacherous breath after another. There were blisters in his mouth and they tasted like molten copper. His whole body was rigid with the memory of pain, with the very real ache in his splintered bones.

Then the pain too was gone and all that he had was the trembling, larger than life memory of the torture.

He was lying on his side.

There were burns on the carpet.

That understanding forced him to realize that his eyes still worked and were in fact open.

He shakily brought his hands up to his face, fearing the worst, but his fingers looked normal- at least as much as they ever did. Short, dirty fingernails, small willow switch scars over his knuckles, crooked joints from old breaks that were never set right. They were his hands and tears stung his eyes though he didn't know why.

"Dean, talk to me." Sam's voice eased along his spine, doing almost nothing to shake the all too recent memory of pain.

"She tricked me." He tried to sit up, or roll over, or anything- but all he could do was make intense eye contact with the carpet. And he knew that his words were a lie. Andy had told him exactly what to expect, and what he would get in exchange. She hadn't tricked him at all. If the extra hands that were still touching his face and neck were any indication, the Fallen Angel had done precisely what Dean had wanted her to.

She had brought back Gabriel.

Dean found the strength to roll over and face the ceiling, shaking, muscles twitching like he had an electric current running through him. Sam was sitting beside his boyfriend, the two of them hovering over him like worried parents.

"Dean." Sam touched his arm, warm, rough fingers.

And then Dean was laughing, and it kind of hurt, but it was a good pain. Sam looked lost, but then he was laughing too. He pulled Dean up into an awkward embrace and it felt like salvation.

"How uncomfortable is it going to get if I make this a group hug?" Gabriel had hints of a smile curling through his voice and Sam pulled back from Dean long enough to capture his boyfriend in an almost violent hug. They kissed like they were getting paid to and Dean quickly decided that he was far too close to them.

"Get a room, you two." He didn't have the strength to move away, so they would have to do it for them.

"Dean- I, I don't- what?" Sam was fighting with that big brain of his, struggling to put his thoughts in some kind of order. "How… what did you do?" And trust Sam to put two and two together.

"Hey, now, don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Gabriel said before Dean could try and explain what he himself didn't fully understand. The little blonde looked at him in a knowing way and it relieved Dean as much as it hurt him.

He had traded in a chance to be with Cas again, just to see that stupid smile on his little brother's face. And sure enough, there it was. Sam was like a little kid again, laughing and grinning and looking like a fool.

Dean loved his brother, and he would give anything to keep him safe. To keep him happy.

He would sacrifice everything he had, just to see Sam smile.

But how can it be love if all it does is make you lonely and corrupt?

.:.

And then, if you can believe it, four years passed.

Dean got on with his life, he had no other realistic option.

He went back on the road. He threw himself headlong into his work, not enough to get killed, but enough to worry Sam. Enough to earn stern lectures from his little brother with each time he visited, with each new scar. And Sam would tell him to slow down, to take it easy, to be careful- but Dean did nothing by halves, and the recklessness helped him to forget. It's amazing the sorts of things that you can manage to not think about when you're struggling to stay alive.

Besides, Dean hated to be told to be careful, even if in the same breath it warmed something deep in him to know that Sam worried- that Sam would always worry. Dean would never be one of those people who could go missing and have no one notice. Even though his life felt nomadic- he had a home to return to. Somewhere where there was a light left on for him. It was good to not feel entirely alone.

So Dean came to visit on useless holidays like Flag Day and Columbus Day. He would drink with Sam while they clumsily attempted home renovations, and he would grin when Sam reminded him for the hundred and seventh time that he should take backup, that he shouldn't hunt vamps at night, that silver was better than steel - all normal, obvious things that ate away at Dean like a parasite.

And he kept smiling.

Just grin and bear it, as Bobby would tell him.

Dean did the best he could.

Sam and Gabriel did better.

They adopted a dog named Daisy.

Daisy was a long haired mutt that liked to watch Dean while he painted, but not while he hammered or sawed. Dean was not fond of dogs, but after so many regular visits, spread out over so many years, there came a point where Dean would sit on the porch with that dumb dog while Sam was off teaching his little High School kiddies, and him and Daisy would share leftover pizza from the night before.

It was as close to a 'normal' life as Dean suspected that he would ever get- just those beautiful little bursts five or six times a year. He looked forward to them as much as they served to deepen the pit in his chest. He never felt as alone as when he was with them.

It was sometime in an April, and he found himself back in Maine, visiting with his brother and his awkward little family. The three of them went to a bar, even though it was a school night. It had taken some serious convincing on Dean and Gabriel's part, but eventually the giant had agreed to go under the stipulation that he would be the designated driver.

Dean drank beer, because he was pacing himself.

Gabriel drank an almost neon colored Bahama-mama , because he had no shame.

"I call solids." Sam announced as he racked up another game of pool. They were doing two against one, drunks against sober. It was Sam's idea- and even so, he had lost the first two games.

"I think he knows something that we don't." Gabriel whispered loud enough to be heard over the music and general bustle of the Wednesday night bar crowd.

"You think he's hustling us?" Dean asked over the brown glass lip of his beer bottle. "I taught him how to hustle."

"You also tried to teach me how to drink, but I was never as good at it as you are." Sam broke and the colored balls went rolling wildly over the green felt. Two solid colored balls sinking into their little holes.

"He's not a hustler. He's a show off, is what he is." Dean pointed an accusatory finger, warmed through with alcohol and high spirits.

The brothers grinned at each other.

"Who do you think he's trying to impress?" Gabriel played with his green plastic straw, smiling sideways at Dean.

"Probably that brunet at the bar. Sammy always did like brunets."

Sam missed his shot and stepped back, trying to frown at Dean, but not really being all too successful. "And you're always trying to get me in trouble."

Gabriel clumsily lined up a shot and missed fabulously. "Trust me, Sam. You don't need his help getting in trouble."

"No?" Sam chuckled softly, making eyes at his diminutive boyfriend.

"So much trouble when I get you home." He leaned a hip against the table, waggling his eyebrows. "Just you wait."

"Can you two keep the gay at a minimum level until I've made it to my third beer?" And Dean lined up a spectacular shot, because he had been the one to teach Sam to hustle pool, and he had no shame in that.

The three of them played a handful of games, joking, drinking.

Gabriel got clingy the more liquor he had in him. Sam didn't mind.

Dean moved up to whisky shots. Sam didn't comment.

Sam was a good brother. He would help haul Dean's drunk ass back home at the end of the night, and he would listen when Dean mumbled incoherently about things that Sam pretended to not understand.

Dean smiled unevenly over his next shot.

Sam was a good brother.

And while Gabriel leaned up against his giant boyfriend and pulled him down to whisper in his ear- Dean reminded himself that he was a good brother too.

He sunk three more balls while the two were kanoodling with each other. He could have kept going, but his eyes caught a familiar face on the other side of the room. She was older, her hair longer, her shirt lower. But Dean had almost five years to think about Andy, to realize why she had always felt familiar to him- it was because in some hauntingly odd ways, she had looked like him, a younger, obviously more female version of him. And maybe it was some kind of joke she had decided to play on him from the start- or maybe she knew right off the bat that there was almost no one in the world that Dean trusted other than himself, and her best bet was to play the damsel in distress… it had gone a long way to gain his trust that she had appeared as the child of a hunter, hurt and freshly orphaned to boot.

She had played Dean like a fiddle and for a year or so he had hated her for it. Hated her for offering to bring Cas back. Hated her for letting Dean trade out for Gabriel. Hated her for only being strong enough to bring back one of them.

But Dean was good at hunting, drinking, hustling pool and cheating at cards. He wasn't as good at holding grudges against people who helped him- against people who helped give Sam a chance at a normal life.

She had told him that burning up her Grace would put her out of commission for a few decades.

But it had been less than five and there she was, sitting at the bar, smiling softly at him over a dirty martini.

"Your turn, Sammy." He leaned his cue against the table and walked in the direction of the bathroom.

He checked for feet under the stall before locking the door and leaning against it.

"You lied to me." He said to the stale air, knowing that Andy could hear him just fine. He looked down at his feet and saw for the first time in years the faint outline of a second shadow clinging to the soles of his boots.

She didn't make so much as a peep.

Dean was alone with his shadows.

"Andy," despite his intentions, a note of warning had crept into his voice like a threat. And who was he kidding? There wasn't a single thing he could do to her.

He waited and his shadow curled fitfully around his boots, but the Fallen Angel didn't show herself again and Dean wondered if he had imagined her at the bar. Maybe he was just… missing her. Missing the familiarity of her face. They would never be friends, but they had helped each other and that solidarity resonated in Dean.

Dean still didn't know if he believed in what some people called a soul, but he could feel the soft pressure behind his eyes, the weight against his insides, and he knew that whatever Andy was made of was pressing against whatever he was made of- whatever was in him that had been fractured and broken when Cas left- and for the first time, he considered that maybe there might be room for both of them now.

"Just try not to crush me, ok?" He asked of the shadow at his feet.

He returned to the pool table and finished the game, letting Sam win, because the poor man had to spend the evening sober, and he needed at least one thing going for him tonight.

Dean ordered two shots of vodka despite Sam's raised eyebrows and questioning expression.

Dean also tried to watch his own shadows while he drank, but the bar lights were pale neon and not meant to help anyone to see anything. He decided not to let it worry him, at least not right now.

The burn of vodka seared his throat, tasting of nothing other than the smell of rubbing alcohol and fire. He downed the second shot just as quickly, feeling his eyes water.

"I thought you were taking it slow tonight." Sam said from somewhere to Dean's left.

"Changed my mind." He gasped and slammed the shot glass down on the side of the pool table.

"Yeah. I can see that." Sam wasn't watching Dean, he was watching Gabe over at the bar, collecting a new fruit flavored monstrosity. "Does it bother you?"

"Does what bother me?" He started racking up another game, even though his fingertips were feeling pleasantly numb.

"Gabe and me." Sam said carefully, watching Dean from the corner of his eye, as if expecting violence in answer.

"Damn it, Sam. I've never seen you so happy. You two idiots and Daisy wore matching sweaters on your Christmas cards last year." Dean grimaced, licking the backs of his teeth. "You had Christmas cards." Dean kept a copy in the Impala's glove box, but no one needed to know that.

Sam wore an awkward smile that was almost invisible in the bar light.

"You got out, man." Dean looked elsewhere, keeping himself from drowning in the moment. "I'm almost jealous- but I'm definitely not bothered."

"I just mean… we finished remolding your room last year. Thick walls and all... I won't say anything if you bring someone home tonight."

"Excuse me?" Dean let out a startled laugh, looking back at Sam, not believing what he was hearing.

"I just haven't seen you with anyone since-" And then uncomfortable eye contact got in the way of Sam finishing his sentence.

Dean just stared his brother down until Gabriel returned with his drink. "Hey now, none of this." The little Angel got between them, not that it broke their line of sight. "We are having a nice night out. There's no need to start throwing bitch faces at each other."

"Sorry." Sam was barely audible over the music.

"Forget it." Dean shrugged it off, the alcohol helped.

Sam was wrong- just because he hadn't seen Dean with anyone didn't mean that Dean hadn't partaken of one of life's more pressing needs. He broke down every five weeks like clockwork, and spent an hour or so in a motel room with some girl whose face and name were wholly forgettable. But he was just doing what he needed to in order keep his head on straight.

He didn't need to take anyone home tonight. He could make it another day or two, and he would be back on the road by then. Sam didn't need to know anything about it one way or the other. Dean wasn't proud of his weaknesses- at least not like he used to be.

They stayed at the bar until closing, which was around two in the morning, and far too late for Sam on a school night. But it wouldn't be the first time that he went to work on only a handful of sleep. The whole car ride home Gabriel was singing some song that involved a heavy repetition the words 'tick-tock' and it only made Dean very pleased that he had not kept up on popular music. The glow of heavy liquor even coaxed a smile or two out of him on the short ride home.

Sam was responsible and supported a drunk on each shoulder, helping his brother and boyfriend to stagger through the door from the garage. Daisy greeted them with a wagging tail and moist kisses. Dean would never admit it, even when drunk, but he liked the stupid dog.

He pulled away from his brother, gripping the kitchen counters and wall for support. "I got this."

"Yeah you do." Gabriel was laughing, wrapping his arms around Sam's neck and Sam (the big idiot) was smiling back and laughing like the fool he was.

"You two are gross." Dean muttered, making his way down the hall with Daisy close on his heels.

"Yeah we are." Gabriel shouted, only to be quickly shushed by Sam.

Dean didn't know if they made it to their room, or if they just had quiet, half drunk sex in the kitchen- and he didn't want to know. He found his way to the far side of the house, to the room that he claimed as him own when he was visiting. He closed the door and struggled in a superbly uncoordinated manner, getting out of his jacket and boots, dropping them on the floor before almost tripping over them.

Daisy jumped up on the bed and waited for him expectantly, he long tail beating a rhythm against the blankets.

"Scoot over." Dean said like he did every time. She looked up at him with her dark eyes and didn't move, which was also fairly normal for them.

Dean still wasn't won over on the whole idea of a pet dog, and part of him hated that the stupid mutt insisted on sleeping on his bed- but if it really bothered him as much as he said it did, then he would stop letting her in the room.

He slept the deep kind of sleep that only the truly drunk manage, and for just this one time, for the sake of variation, he didn't dream of Cas.

.:.

Dean woke around noon the next day, alone except for Daisy. She looked at him knowingly before licking his bare feet. He groaned and rolled over. The simple movement rioting the hangover he had earned himself from the night before.

Gabriel greeted him in the hall with a tall glass of water and a handful of aspirin. "Rough night last night, cowboy?" His cheeky grin was almost more than Dean could stand so soon after waking up.

He drank his water and his pills down, grimacing at the bitter taste they left on his tongue. "Did we at least win?"

"Even drunk off your ass you can still beat Sam at pool- but he might have just been taking pity on us." Gabe took the glass from him and shook hair from his eyes. "If you're taking off today then you should wait for Samsquatch to come home from school first. He hates when you leave without saying goodbye."

Dean had only done it once, and he had a good reason.

He didn't like to leave without a goodbye either. It was stupid, but family is supposed to be stupid.

"Nah, I was going to finish sanding the doors before I leave- can't let Sammy have all the fun." His well meaning brother had taken it on himself to redo the kitchen last summer, with the intention of giving his boyfriend a proper playplace. It had been a good idea in theory, but the remodel had almost reached its one year anniversary and they were still working on it. All that was left was refinishing those damned cabinet doors that had been shipped to them in the wrong color- and Sam, with another brilliant idea decided that it would be best to just sand them and re-stain them. Something about them matching the rest of the wood in the house… or something like that… Dean had stopped listening halfway through the explanation.

Dean was in over his head to be honest- but he liked working with his hands and would just nod to Sam and wade into whatever home improvement mess that he had concocted for them.

He got a quick shower, dressed in clothes that didn't smell like cigarette smoke and old beer, and found himself in the backyard surrounded by little wooden doors. It was cold outside, Maine in April still had patches of snow on the ground and his breath billowed up in small grey clouds. He smiled to himself, buttoned up his coat and started working.

A belt sander didn't feel as natural in his hands as a rifle, but there was something soothing about manual labor.

Three doors in, and despite the cold weather, Dean was sweating under the layers of shirts and jacket. He switched off the sander and looked to the sky, feeling the cold air against his face, biting and clean and good.

Somewhere in the depths of the house, muffled by plaster and mortar, Gabriel let out a scream which was not at all manly and sent Dean's heart racing- but then came the Angel's wild laughter and Dean found himself smiling softly.

He had many regrets in life. More than he could count- but he refused to let the obnoxious little Angel be one of them. For some unfathomable reason, the little cretin made Sam happy. And Dean could manage to live with the deep, keening ache in his chest if it meant that a few times a year he could come home and see Sam smiling that idiotic smile of his. Self sacrifice was a cruel mistress, but Dean had come to terms with her long ago.

Daisy trotted over to him, lured by the beltsander being switched off, a fuzzy green ball in her maw. Dean had once made the mistake of throwing it for her, and she never let him forget how awesome that had been. The two of them had played fetch yesterday afternoon until Deans arm had started to ache, she had been panting hard enough that her tongue was hanging somewhere down near her low doggy knees, but they had kept playing, even then.

The sander was set down on his work bench and he wrestled the ball from her before throwing it as far as he could, seeing its almost neon color disappearing into the tree line of Sam's large backyard. Daisy took off like a shot after it, flying over the ground.

"She's fast, isn't she?" Gabriel said from behind Dean and Dean wiped the stupid smile off his face before turning around.

"You need something?" Dean raised an eyebrow. The Angel tended to keep away from all manual labor, it was completely unprecedented to see him outside within arm's reach of power tools.

Gabriel smiled up at him, a cocky little smile on his cocky little face. If he wasn't dating Sam then Dean would punch him. Not that Gabriel had done anything wrong to Dean… ever, something about him just grated on Dean. He was a caustic little man who knew how to piss the hunter off with as little as a wink.

"Sam's staying late for a teacher's meeting."

"O…k?" Dean didn't see why this sort of information couldn't wait until he came back inside.

Daisy came running back with her ball in tow, and Dean didn't want to throw it for her when Gabriel could see them, so he stood stoically and ignored her gently pawing at his boots.

"So if I'm not back before he gets here I need you to cover for me." Gabriel wrestled the ball from his dog and chucked it towards the side of the house before continuing.

"Why don't you just leave a note for him?"

"Because he worries when I leave notes."

"My god, you're a freak. I don't wanna' be involved in whatever you're doing." Dean didn't want to be involved in any facet of his brother's inexplicably happy relationship. Sam had told Dean once that he felt like Gabe had been made for him, and Dean didn't understand that, couldn't understand it. But that was alright, he didn't need to know why the little Angel made his brother so happy. He just needed Sam to be happy.

"You're already involved."

"I'm not going to lie for you." Dean had no problems lying to Gabriel, but he wouldn't lie for him. They weren't friends. Dean didn't owe him anything.

"Sam's been asking why I'm here." He leaned against the work table, prodding at the sander like it was some kind of sleeping bear and he simply couldn't resist himself.

"Did you tell him that you're here to slowly drive me insane?" Because this conversation wasn't too far different from every other conversation that the two of them had had over the past few years. Without Sam as a mediator, it typically only took Dean about four minutes before he started having violent feelings towards the Angel.

"No, I told him I'm here to make cupcakes and suck dick. Annoying you is really more of a hobby."

"Oh, god damn it." There were things that Dean didn't need in his head- that mental image was one of them.

Gabriel's jovial manner suddenly dipped, and he got that oddly serious expression that he wore only when things got real bad. "I told him I don't know how I got here. He doesn't know either."

"Well, despite what he likes to think, Sam doesn't actually know everything." On the list of things that Dean didn't talk about- how Gabriel ended coming back from the dead was one of them.

"No, he doesn't. But what Sam does know is that at some point you had a Fallen Angel living in that big empty head of yours and he was kind enough to share his concern with me."

Dean reflexively looked down at his feet, and was slightly horrified to see two muddled shadows lingering beside Daisy and her ball. It chilled him through his coat and he suddenly felt himself questioning the hazy memories of the night before. Dean covered his uncomfortable hesitation by scooping up the ball and tossing it hard. It hit a tree and went bouncing sideways, but the dog barked happily at it and followed as it rolled across the grass and into a snow drift.

"Yeah, well, there's a statute of limitations on bringing that kind of stuff up." He picked back up his belt sander. "It's been four years, Shortstack. If you really wanted to know you should have asked back then."

"You weren't sober enough to ask shit from for months after it happened. Sam wanted me to let you be."

"It's good advice." He turned on the sander and it purred to life like a chainsaw. Daisy took off running, leaving her ball in favor of hiding under the porch- and Dean felt a little guilty about that.

The Angel raised his voice to be heard over Dean's work. "I have ideas as to how I got back here, and I was good to live with those ideas because I'm not the kind of guy who needs to know whose buying his drinks."

"Don't you have somewhere to go that I should be lying to Sam about?" Dean just wanted Gabe gone, he just wanted to not have whatever conversation they were about to have.

Gabriel decided to ignore Dean, which didn't come as much of a surprise. "But when a Fallen Angel sits down on the couch with me to watch Jersey Shore and ask me for a favor- even I start having a few questions."

The sander died in Dean's hands and he looked long and hard at Gabriel, trying to guess if he was still just being baited or if they had fallen into actual conversation territory. Andy had told him that by simply being she would start to lure in Angels and Demons alike- it was why she had wanted to sleep, to just fall off the radar for a few years and in a weird way Dean felt ok giving that to her. They had helped each other. They were both alive because they had helped each other, it was a mutual dependence and Dean easily accepted it.

"You don't like me." Gabriel made the largest understatement of the year. "But you still asked my brother to bring me back."

"Your sister." Dean corrected. He picked up the door he had been working on, setting it with the others and covering them with a canvas tarp so old it was soft. And the hunter wondered who it was that came to sit with Gabriel and tell him all of Dean's helpless secrets, but he had a feeling that it was someone who wanted to make trouble for him.

"Anduriel." Gabriel corrected right back like they were competing.

"You mean Andy?" Startled, he looked at Gabe who was smiling like they were sharing some kind of sick joke.

"You call him Andy? That's so much nicer than what he calls you."

"I call her Andy."

Gabriel let out a startled laugh, unpleasant at such close proximity. "He looks like a girl to you?"

Dean felt his whole mind sort of do a little shutter, struggling with the implications. And he was done. Just done. "I… you know what? Bite me."

"Maybe later, big boy." Gabe winked one amber eye.

Dean's jaw was starting to hurt, he was clenching it so hard. He wondered how much trouble he would get himself into if he just lifted the little Angel up and started shaking him violently. Sam would never need to know.

"Come here, cowboy." Gabriel reached out to Dean, grasp just short of the hunter's jacket as he took a hasty step back.

"Fuck you."

"My, keep making suggestions like that and I might have to tell Sam about this weird little crush you have on me." Gabe caught up with him, backing him against the work bench and Dean had somehow never assumed that the disturbing strength that Cas had always had would be the same in the Archangel. But that was just one more way that Dean found he was wrong. He really needed to stop underestimating Angels- he had a tendency to get his ass handed to him each time he did.

Deceptively strong hands found their way from his jacket to his throat and Dean couldn't have pulled away to save his life- or Andy's for that matter. Gabriel looked deeply into Dean's eyes, the kind of gaze that dragged against his soul and made something deep in the animal part of his brain roar in a panic. He had never viewed Sam's little boyfriend as any kind of threat and that was yet another glairing blind spot that Dean had which might one day get him killed if he wasn't careful.

His shoulder started to smolder like a brand, molten hot, and he could smell burning flesh. Dean struggled against the little Angel, for all the good that it wasn't doing him, but he couldn't just stand there and let whatever was happening happen.

"Calm your tits, Dean-o. You keep struggling and I'm 'gunna end up breaking something you might need later." Gabriel wasn't looking at Dean, he was looking into Dean, into the creature that he had given sanctuary to years ago. And it wasn't fear for himself that rioted through his mind- somehow he knew that Gabriel wasn't going to do any permanent damage to him, for the sake of Sam if nothing else. But he had promised to keep Andy safe- and for a glaringly painful moment, as the sigil on his shoulder burned black down to bone and deeper, he knew that it wasn't going to be a promise that he could keep.

"Gabriel, stop!" He choked out, and he had no idea why he thought that his demands would be met.

A hand released his neck to slid to his chest, because apparently the Angel could still hold Dean in place with one hand as easily as he could two- and Dean watched in horror as that hand slid into his chest, though jacket and shirt, through skin and bone- and Dean bellowed in pain as fingers gripped something deep within him and pulled.

The world crashed sideways like an avalanche falling down a mountain, and when the red haze of pain faded enough for Dean to see again he saw Gabriel holding a falling star in his hands- so bright Dean had to turn away, his eyes burned with the after image.

He was struggling to catch his breath, the pain in his chest and shoulder clamoring to be his only focus. "You son of a bitch. I promised I would keep her safe."

"Anduriel lead thirty-two of our brothers and sisters down to hell during one of the first wars. He's not what you think. You have to be careful who you trust, Dean-o, even the devil was once an Angel."

"She saved my life." Dean was a firm believer in redemption- if only because if there was none, there was only one place that a man like him would go in death. The good had to outweigh the bad at some point. It had to. Dean tried to look back at the man he was talking to, but the light brought tears to his eyes.

"Give her back." He had no idea what he was asking for, but the same part of him that needed Cas now needed Andy too. If she was gone Dean would be well and truly alone for the first time in years. He wasn't sure he could survive being alone again.

"She brought you back to Sam." He no longer knew if he was trying to save Andy or himself.

"Yes." Gabriel's voice was oddly soft. "He did. He's still one of my brothers, and none of the good or bad he's done is going to change that."

Dean hesitated, not knowing any more what words like those were supposed to mean to him.

"Tell Sam I'll be back as soon."

And Gabriel was gone. Dean didn't have to look back to see the space where the Angel should have been.

He did anyways.

Feeling gutted when he looked at the nothing that was left to him.

Dean looked instead at the trees, knowing that the woods were just there against the property line. The fog rolling in for the evening, grey fingers curling around the low branches. The world was disappearing into the quickly approaching night, coming apart in pieces- or maybe that was just Dean.

Daisy dropped her ball at his feet.

Numbly, he picked it up and walked into the woods.

.:.

His phone was ringing, quiet tones muffled in his pocket.

"Yeah?" Dean did his best to sound conversational despite the rough edge to his voice- nothing wrong here. Never anything wrong here.

"Hey." Sam tried to sound normal too, but his big brother could hear the undertones of worry embedded deeply into that single word. "The cars are still here- where'd you guys go?"

He threw the ball again, only a few yards ahead, not wanting to lose it in the dark, not wanting to lose Daisy. He would be in some kind of glorious trouble if he lost his brother's boyfriend and dog in the same day.

Dean had had a few hours to come up with a good lie to tell Sam, he still had nothing. Lying to Sam was never one of his talents. "We took Daisy on a walk." And he started digging himself a hole, because Sam was probably going to notice when Dean came back alone. But he couldn't just say 'You're son of a bitch boyfriend took off with one of his brothers and I don't know where they went,' without sending Sam into some kind of protective boyfriend panic. Gabriel had died last time he was in contact with one of his brothers, and despite the fact that the boys seemed to have a decent tract record with not staying dead, Sam would still worry.

And Dean wouldn't blame him if he did.

He had no idea what Gabriel intended to do with the Fallen Angel he had torn out of him- just as he had no idea how Gabriel had even extracted the Fallen Angel without the holy fire that Andy had said he would need. All he knew was that the Archangel was still finding ways to surprise Dean and he was probably better off not knowing what was happening to Andy right now.

He only wished that he could apologize to her.

He had done his best to keep her safe- but how was he supposed to know that Gabriel could just pull her out like that- and how was he supposed to defend her?

"You two getting along then?" Sam sounded skeptical. Sam had every reason to.

"No, but it's a nice night." Dean tossed the ball again, watching the shaggy little dog run after it, vanishing into the shadows beneath the underbrush for a moment before emerging with her ball, all happy wags and a spring in her step. She never seemed to tire of this game.

"It's like thirty degrees outside." Sam sounded even more skeptical- like he found it hard to believe that Dean could enjoy a walk in the middle of the night when it was cold enough to see his own breath ghosting before him with each word.

Frost crunched beneath his boots. "Yeah, I was going to head back."

"Have you guys eaten yet? I can put some soup on or something." Sam, the pathological caregiver offered, voice small on the little phone out in the middle of nowhere.

"Sounds awesome." He scratched Daisy between her ears and tossed the ball back in the direction they had come from, relying on his inherent sense of north to get him out of the forest and back home. "See you." And he hung up on his brother, not waiting for a goodbye or more questions.

He kept his hands busy, throwing the ball to keep them warm. He had no idea when it had gotten so cold, or dark outside, and as he walked he lost himself in his thoughts once more, the world around him becoming less and less important.

Before he knew it, he could see the yellow glow of Sam's house though to trees, like a beacon, calling to him.

Sure enough, Sam noticed right away that Gabriel was absent. Sam was smart like that.

It took Dean over half an hour to talk Sam out of forming a search party or something equally stupid. This wasn't a missing person's case. This wasn't even a runaway. This was an Angel- and he was not bound by normal human limitations set by geography and time. He could literally be anywhere by now. The brothers wouldn't find Gabriel if they took off into the night searching the city.

They went to a bar instead.

Different one from the night before- because going to the same bar on two sequential week nights smacked too much of a real problem, and Sam was a teacher who didn't need a reputation of being some kind of drunk.

Dean had already diagnosed himself as 'some kind of drunk' and embraced that part of him whole heartedly. He needed alcohol, especially on a night like this. Alcohol helped him to forget that his own Angel was long gone. Alcohol helped to fill that ragged place that Cas had left, and that much smaller place next to it where Andy should have been. Alcohol kept him company while Sam was mentally miles away.

They didn't shoot pool, Sam couldn't concentrate enough for a decent game- which was a shame, because Dean would have won easily. Instead they sat at the bar, side by side and Dean went in headfirst, beers and shots arrived in his hand as if by conveyor belt. It had been a long day and he badly wanted to surrender his control.

Sam nursed a single whisky- ever the responsible adult. "It's not a race, Dean." He mumbled over the rim of his glass, eyes on the smoky windows and neon signs.

"You're just upset because I'm winning." Dean grinned and it felt sloppy.

Sam snorted. "Yeah, that's it." And Dean heard the latent pain in Sam's words. The brothers were here pretending like it was just another night, a charade that they had played a hundred times over, but they were both out of practice and Sam showed signs of wear far worse than his brother.

Gabriel had been gone for less than six hours and Sam was painting himself gruesomely dark scenarios somewhere in the back of his mind. What if the Angel didn't come back tonight- what if he wasn't back by tomorrow night? How soon was too soon to start really worrying?

Only that last one didn't matter, because Sam was already deep into worrying territory. Dean could read his brother like a book- he could almost see Sam's thoughts behind his eyes. The Angel had gone and done something unexplainable. He had stolen one of his siblings and run into the night. Sam didn't know what was happening, and Sam had always been the sort of person who needed to know what was happening.

Dean knew well enough. Andy was dead. Dean had failed to give her a safe place and even if he couldn't let Sam know why it was tearing him up, the whisky in his glass understood.

He drank himself a little deeper in and smiled again.

Since Andy had been torn out of him, the eroding guilt over Cas' death had started to fade. There wasn't anything different Dean could have done that night, and he had known that for years, but it had never dulled all that guilt. Every morning was like the morning after it happened. The smell of blood, and the Lysol that Sam had used to try and clean it, still lingering like a bad dream.

But not tonight. Tonight his head felt clear for the first time in years- or as clear as it could be despite the line of empty glasses at his elbow. He wondered, through the amber waves of whisky, if that guilt had only been in part his own. The vast majority of it, the years of guilt, must have been Andy's. She hadn't been able to save her brother. Dean was only a human, he had never stood a chance against the Archangel Michael. He had been over powered and outgunned. Andy was an Angel (former, Fallen, or whatever she was) and maybe she could have done something.

She was long gone and Dean couldn't ask her. But he was familiar with guilt, and with the beautiful clarity of alcohol and the lifted weight of his soul losing its roommate- he could see that guilt for what it was. She had offered herself up in sacrifice to bring Castiel back. Guilt made people do terrible things like that.

If it had been his brother that died, Dean would have gone to hell and back to save him.

No matter how many times she had told him that she ended up with the wrong Winchester- how much she had hated the righteous man that she had been saddled with- the two of them were more alike than either of them wanted to admit.

He understood Andy better that night than he ever thought he would.

She hadn't been able to make it right in the end. But she was gone, and she had taken all that guilt with her and Dean felt like he could finally breathe.

"Do you think there's a way to summon him?" Sam asked, dragging Dean up from his thoughts.

"What?" He blinked slowly, struggling to focus on his brother.

"Gabriel. If he doesn't come back on his own, do you think there's a way to summon him back?"

Dean licked his teeth, clicking softly. "You can summon a demon, don't see why you couldn't summon an Angel." He spoke softly, hardly above a whisper, just in case someone overheard them and thought that they were some kind of crazy. "We can look into it when we get home."

Something in Dean sort of hoped that the Angel wouldn't show up for a few days, despite what that might do to Sam. Even with the absolution of guilt, Dean was furious with Gabriel- and if he had to look at that smug little face anytime soon, he would start throwing punches.

He grinned at the bartender and held up two fingers, the universal signal that he was still too damn sober.

Two more shots slid over the old bar top to be gingerly caught by Dean's slightly shaking hands. He couldn't feel his fingers, he couldn't feel his teeth. These two shots would be his last unless Sam wanted to carry him to the car.

The whisky burned through him in the best sort of way and he closed his eyes, savoring that clean, familiar warmth.

Someone on the far side of the room let out a startled laugh, too loud and abrupt, cutting through the general white noise of the bar. It reminded Dean of Cas, of the handful of times that Dean had coaxed an awkward laugh from the man, like the Angel had never really learned how to laugh right.

And maybe Dean could use one more shot. Sammy was a strong enough to carry him, and Dean didn't need his pride anyways.

"You ok, Dean?" Sam looked over at him, probably for the first since they sat down.

" 'm fine." He tried to smile again, but he could feel it fall short of his eyes.

If Dean could read Sam like a book, it went both ways and his younger brother gave him a knowing little nod- not that he was agreeing, just that he could see the lie and was letting Dean know that he wasn't fooling anyone.

"Do you miss her?" Sam rolled his glass between his hands, the tumbler almost disappearing.

Dean didn't need to ask who Sam was talking about. "She's been on radio silence since Michael died. It honestly doesn't feel much different. Asleep or gone, 's basically the same thing."

Sam nodded slowly, even if Dean hadn't exactly answered his question.

"I don't think she was so bad- in the end. You know?" Sam finally finished the last bit of his drink, the ice clinking noisily. "She saved you after all."

She saved you damn boyfriend too. Dean thought with only a small amount of venom.

It had after all been Dean's choice. He couldn't blame her for doing what he asked her to.

And maybe she had taken all her guilt with her, and maybe Dean could almost feel like a normal person again. But even if he wasn't blaming himself for Cas' death- Cas was still gone and Dean still missed him in ways that couldn't be healthy.

He had been fool enough to fall in love, and he supposed that he could live with the pain of that for the rest of his life. Thousands upon thousands of people did it all the time. Dean was almost sure of it.

It probably wouldn't kill him.

Probably.

But he had strong doubts that he would ever find another person who fit against him so perfectly.

.:.

Maybe Sam didn't exactly have to carry Dean to the car, but he did most of the heavy lifting. They drove to the ocean instead of straight home. The engine of the Highlander idling and stilling alongside the breakers and the waves crashed and snow fell silently. The little flecks of white vanished into the churning water, and piled slowly on the rocks and against the windshield.

Dean had the feeling that his brother was avoiding going home.

The longer they were away, the more of a chance Gabriel had to beat them back.

Sam didn't want to see all the lights off when they pulled into the drive way.

Sam didn't want to go to bed alone.

Dean didn't blame him.

He rested against the glass of the window, the cold against his cheek jarring. Sam left the radio on and Dean readily drifted in and out of focus while they talked of nothing important. Old hunts, that airstream trailer they stayed in out in Missouri when they were kids, Sam's classes, that little beignet shop in New Orleans that neither had visited in years.

They talked about anything other than Angels.

Dean didn't watch his brother, he watched the snow falling, hypnotically slow, until he felt blind. He closed his eyes and when he opened them they were in Sam's garage. The yellowed light uncomfortably bright after the darkness of the night.

"Did I fall asleep?" He rubbed at the side of his mouth, making sure that he hadn't been drooling or anything else that Sam could mock him for.

"Yeah." Sam yawned, pushing his hair back from his eyes. "I figured we should get home before I passed out too."

Dean watched his baby brother, and wondered at the redness of his eyes- if he really was tired or if it wasn't something else. He wouldn't ask. Knowing wouldn't change anything. "What time is it?"

"Quarter 'til midnight." And he pulled his giant self out of the car, waiting at the door to the house for Dean to follow.

He stumbled a bit stepping down from the stupidly tall car, but Sam didn't laugh at him- they were both too tired for that. Daisy greeted them at the door, not caring that they both stunk of alcohol.

"Were you two boys trying to embalm Dean-o? Because he's still mostly upright." Gabriel was stilling at the kitchen table, two empty marshmallow bags, an tub of frosting and a handful of soda cans laying out before him- the wreckage of a sugar feast. Sweet, sweet carnage all over the table top. He had a box of powdered doughnuts in his hands, white sugar on the corners of his mouth. "There should still be some scotch on top of the fridge if you wanna' finish the job."

"Bite me." Dean clutched the doorframe for support, not trusting his legs.

Sam lit up like Christmas- and Dean grit his teeth, wishing that Gabriel had taken his time coming back. Violence crept up inside him, overwhelming the soothing mixture of whisky and sleep.

"Don't just take off like that. You had me worried." Sam folded himself down over his boyfriend, pulling him close and Dean felt his stomach roll. Sure, Sam was the touchy-feely brother so this kind of thing was expected, but it was always so much worse when he was with Gabriel. "You look like hell, Gabe."

The Angel didn't exactly look like hell but he didn't look great either. That stupid smile he usually wore seemed strained; his eyes were flat, the spark gone out of them. He looked like he had run a marathon, or been deprived of sleep for a handful of days. Secretly Dean hoped that the reason Gabriel looked so frayed around the edges was because Andy had given him what for before going down.

It would serve Gabriel right.

Dean, being only slightly wiser than normal at this point in his drunkenness, didn't voice that particular opinion. Instead he grumbled out a: "hope she punched your lights out, you little jerk."

Through the circle of Sam's arms, Gabriel smiled at Dean. "Oh, Anduriel tore me a new one. You can be proud of him for that."He rested his head against Sam's chest, looking almost vulnerable against the much larger man, even while he kept his dead eyes on Dean swaying in the corner. "But he was never one to take things lying down."

"He wasn't hurting anyone, you son of a bitch. You should have just left him where he was." It was a bit of a struggle to think of Andy as anything other than a teenage girl, calling her a 'he' just felt alien, and Dean didn't know why he was bothering to make the distinction now. But with as drunk as he was, he didn't know why he was doing or thinking half the things that he was.

"Dean." That single syllable from Sam came out of Sam like a warning.

And Dean wasn't in the mood for one of Sam's lectures right now. "Andy's the reason that Michael didn't steal my body and hand you over to the god damned devil himself and your little prick of a boyfriend couldn't just say thank you. He had to go and kill him."

"You don't know what you're talking about, you jackass." Gabriel pulled away from Sam, taking aggressive steps towards Dean, but stopping short when the hunter reared up off the counter to meet him. "My brother wasn't some kind of a self sacrificing saint- he was a great big bag of dicks. Michael would have torn him apart for as punishment from rebelling against Heaven and Lucifer would have done worse once he got up here. Anduriel didn't save you. He didn't save anyone other than himself."

"You were dead." And Dean marveled at how even his voice could be. "How would you know what happened?"

"He rode your body for a few weeks before digging himself a hole and hiding like a coward. Don't talk like you knew him. You didn't know him from Adam. He's been my brother since the dawn of time, before our Father ever considered making you selfish apes. I know him better than you can ever pretend to." Gabriel was an intense little son of a bitch when he wanted to be.

Dean didn't back down- he just did his best to tower over the slightly smaller man and not sway with the drunken pulses washing over him. "I promised I would keep her safe." He couldn't be bothered to keep his pronouns straight. "You had no right to make me break that promise."

"I didn't make you do shit." And Gabriel didn't sound as intimidating now, he just sounded tired. "All I did was set things right."

"Set things right? And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I dragged my brother back where he belongs, because hiding out in a miserable shell of a hunter is not place for someone like him."

"She's been in some kind of a burn out coma for years and you brought her to Hell?" Dean could only imagine what would happen to someone like Andy down there. He had seen his fair share of National Geographic, he knew what predators did to someone who was injured, someone who was weak. Dean gave Gabriel a hard shove, right in the chest, pushing him back, away from him- because if Dean didn't get some space he was going to punch the little jerk.

Gabriel stumbled, but he wasn't drunk like Dean and he kept his feet under him with no visible effort. "I said I put him back where he belonged. I didn't say Hell."

Dean stared blankly down at the little man, not understanding.

"And Sam always talks about how smart you are too." Gabriel lifted a soda can from the table, sipping at it, so calm, like Dean hadn't just assaulted him.

Sam stood uncomfortably torn between the two men in his life, and wisely he kept his mouth shut.

"I put Andy back in heaven, you half-wit. That's where Angels go." He made his way to the fridge, putting the rest of his soda away. "Or, if they're particularly stupid they find a little home in the middle of the woods where they can glut themselves of sweets and have unsanctioned, borderline illegal sex with very tall men."

Heaven? Dean did his best to ignore the end of Gabriel's rant and just focus on the fact that apparently Gabriel had dragged his brother all the way up to heaven. And Dean had nothing to say to that.

"I know about your little deal, Dean-o."

"What deal?" Sam butted in and was promptly ignored.

"And you're a selfish jerk." Gabriel folded his arms over his chest.

"Selfish?" Dean was many things, but he didn't know if he had ever been called selfish outside of not sharing a pizza with his brother. "I'm selfish?"

"You heard me. Castiel died and you wanted to keep all that heart breaking misery to yourself. You had one wish, no strings attached, and you- you wished for me, just so you could stay cozyed up with that martyr complex of yours. Well the jokes on you, cowboy, because there is always enough misery to go around down here." He smiled wide, showing every one of his too white teeth, like a shark. "And you might be mad tonight, but when the booze wears off and you want to thank me tomorrow but your stubborn ass can't find the words because you're the mighty Dean Winchester- you're welcome."

Gabriel left the kitchen like they were done talking. "You coming, Sam? I've had a long day and I'd rather you manhandled me a bit before bed instead of your brother- if you know what I mean."

Sam hesitated, hands out awkwardly at his sides like he didn't know what to do with them. "Dean, I-"

"Go." He ordered, as if Sam had ever followed his orders.

"Are you gunna' be-"

"No. I'm not going to be ok. But you standing around with that look on your face isn't going to make a damn difference." It was a wonder to Dean how quickly he could go from sloppy drunk to angry drunk. It was just one more thing that he was surprisingly good at, though to be fair, he had had a lot of practice over the years.

Sam had that puppy dog look in his eyes, but it had never been his job to take care of his big brother and it was obvious now that he was unsure what to do with himself.

Dean felt defeated. "Go to bed, Sammy. You've got school in the morning." It had been roughly a million years since Dean had uttered those words to his brother and it sent his head spinning. He pulled out a table chair and set his drunk self down.

One of Sam's big heavy hands came down on Dean's shoulder, settling for just a moment. "Goodnight, Dean."

" 'night, bitch."

"Jerk." Sam said affectionately before padding quietly down the hall.

.:.

Dean woke in the morning with another spectacular hangover, but Gabriel didn't meet him in the hall with pain killers, not today. Dean staggered to the kitchen, got his own glass of water and handful of aspirin. He found a beer and slumped on the couch, pressing the bottle to his temple. A cold beer on a cold morning, and as far as he could tell he had the house to himself. Which was just fine with him.

He closed his eyes and imagined that he could hear the snow falling outside. Quiet stillness, and he didn't have to think about anything for half an hour until the pills kicked in. His head felt stuffed with cotton, his mouth dry.

Gabriel had said that Dean would want to thank him in the morning.

But try as he might, sorting through the half formed ideas and feelings in his mind, not a single one of them was gratitude. With the pills kicking in and the hangover retreating, all he really felt was empty. Empty and alone. And despite the fact that the solitude had been more than welcome when he first woke up- it now hung over him like a dark cloud.

Almost like a summoning, Dean heard the beating of wings, the soft pounding at the air that announced that Gabriel had come back home in a less than mundane way. Dean didn't even turn to look at the Angel, he just pushed himself off the couch and went back to his room. He would get dressed, go outside, finish those cupboard doors and then get the hell out of Maine. Sammy didn't need him here anymore, and Dean was sure that he could find himself a hunt within the next few states. Something to take his mind off all those traitorous sorts of feelings that he never wanted, that he would never admit to having.

He made it as far as the hall, his hand reaching out to the doorknob when the Angel on the other end of the house spoke.

It was only one word, just Dean's name. It crashed over him and for a heartbeat he couldn't move. But the body is a slow, wet mechanism of bone that crept even as his mind flew.

He knew that voice. That voice had run rampant through his nightmares and wet dreams alike for the past four years.

And it wasn't Gabriel's.

Dean was completely caught off guard, all the wind in his lungs rushing out of him like he had been sucker punched. And when he finally got control enough of his body to turn around, to see the dark haired Angel standing uncomfortably in the midst of the kitchen, looking like something wrecked cast up on the wrong shore, he found he couldn't trust himself.

He had had this particular dream too many times before.

"Dean?" The Angel said again, softer this time, uncertain.

"Castiel?" And that wasn't Dean's voice, it was ruin. "Cas, is that you?"

"I believe so." He glanced down at himself, eyes bluer than blue looking over his rumpled clothes before searching Dean's face. "Who else would I be?"

"I'm dreaming, Cas." He reached out to the wall, using the hallway for support to stand on legs that felt too weak. "You're dead and I've got to stop having this dream before it kills me."

"I was dead." He said slowly, like he was piecing this together along with Dean. "But they put me back together." Then one of those warm smiles broke over Cas' face, just open and fucking breathtakingly beautiful.

Dean got his feet moving finally, closing the distance between them.

"I have my Grace again, Dean. Michael is dead and I am forgiven. I-" he was cut off as Dean pulled him into a kiss. He mumbled two short words into the hunter's mouth before kissing back slow and purposeful.

And maybe Dean had had dreams like this, but he had always known they were dreams. There was always something in him that knew, no matter how much he wished they weren't, no matter how perfect they felt, he knew that they were only dreams.

Cas was warm in his arms, solid and real, grasping at Dean, hands fumbling awkward, trying to find where they belonged. And this was real.

Dean wanted to cry.

He laughed instead, a bit hysterically, too high, riot broken out in his chest.

Cas looked startled, mouth open, lips dark and abused. And he smiled, eyes bright. "I was unsure if you would welcome me back." His hands were holding tight to Dean's shirt, grasping the thin cotton like a lifeline. "My brothers told me that I have been gone for many years."

His brothers…? Dean had a sinking feeling that perhaps he would owe someone some kind of thank you, but that was later. Right now-

Now…

"You've been gone too long." He murmured almost reverently, studying the man he had not seen in years but was still so familiar to him. "I missed you," Dean found he was shaking, feeling wild and reckless as he kissed Cas again, crashing together, bruising. "You beautiful son of a bitch, I missed you every god damned day."

"I'm sorry, Dean." The Angel apologized, their lips brushing as he didn't bother to pull back far enough. "I-I didn't miss you at all."

And for a moment, Dean was taken aback.

"On account of being dead." He explained, wearing a small, almost negligible smile- as if being dead for years was some kind of joke that he just now got.

Dean laughed again, running a thumb along Cas' rough jaw line, struggling with himself. Every fiber of his being was begging him to drag the Angel to the couch, fold around him and pick up right where they had left off. They could live on that damned couch, and Sam could just deal with it. But he stood there in the kitchen, body singing with adrenaline and hope. He couldn't move, too afraid to break the spell.

"Dean, can I-"

"Yes." Dean rushed. "Whatever you want- the answer is yes. Hell yes. A hundred times yes."

Cas' hands slid from his shirt to his hips, anchoring himself there, a deeply peaceful and trusting expression on his face."That was not exactly the answer I was expecting. But I will try my best to interpret the sentiment to my benefit."

"Oh, god. I forgot how weird you are."

He made up his mind in that moment.

However this ended up playing out, he didn't want any more regrets.

"I-" the words stuck in his throat and he struggled a moment to find the clarity he needed. "I-I love you." It came out rushed, hardly more than a graveled whisper, almost completely unintelligible. But he had said the words, and he could still breathe. The world didn't end. The ground didn't open up and swallow him. Nothing changed.

Nothing except the little smile that Castiel now wore, his eyes lighting up like a dying star.

"You know that, right?" Dean could feel his cheeks warming up steadily with the pounding of his heart.

"I've had my suspicions." Cas watched him with a weighted gaze that could crush a lesser man.

Dean bit his lip, glancing around the kitchen for help, but receiving none. "Are you going to say it back?"

"Dean, I have loved you from the first moment you laid hands on me. I thought you knew." His fingers hooked idly though the belt loops of Dean's jeans, tugging the two of them that much closer together. "But I will say it again- as many times as you want me to."

Dean laughed abruptly and pressed their foreheads together, closing his eyes tightly and just letting himself vanish into the moment.

Their lips met, sweeter than lead paint, and Castiel breathed the words into him. "I love you."

Just three little words. The kind that are thrown around every day like they cost nothing.

But to Dean they meant the world.

They meant more than some sappy Hallmark sentiment.

They were a promise.

They were hope.

And maybe it wasn't much.

But without it, what else is there..?