"What are you doing?"

Sam peered at Dean over the Styrofoam cup filled with noodles. Sam looked around as though Dean were asking someone else. He replied after a moment, as though his brother couldn't tell that there were noodles in broth on the end of his fork. "Eating a Cup of Noodles."

Dean nodded sharply. "Yeah, I got that. Why?"

"As unnatural and unhealthy as those noodles are claimed to be, they do provide sustenance Dean," Castiel offered from one of the beds, where he was sitting with his hands folded naturally across his lap.

"What the angel said," Sam agreed as he stuffed some noodles into his mouth and pointed at Castiel with his fork for good measure.

"Nuh-uh," Dean replied as he shook his head, "I've only seen you eat Ramen twice before and those were not good circumstances. You nervous, Sammy?"

Sam swallowed quickly. "Are you saying I shouldn't be?"

Dean jumped up from the seat as though it were on fire. "Hell, I don't know-sorry Cas- but I know it ain't a good sign when you're doing your Ramen ritual."

"Perhaps you are being paranoid?" Castiel offered with a blink. "After all, as dangerous as Angelus is, he has several chinks in his apparently impenetrable armor, a variety of which we can expose and utilize."

"Yeah, cause it totally sounds like Buffy didn't try that," Dean countered as he leaned against the somewhat wobbly chest of drawers, made out of dark cherry laminate.

"Perhaps. But Ms. Summers lacks a few things that we have. Her agendas, as I understand them, are only attuned to Angelus in a certain way."

Dean began to stroke his chin and train his gaze on Castiel. "Yeah, speaking of which, does that mean we should be worried about that blond girl and her crew? They seem pretty fanatical in their terror."

"You worried about clouded judgment?" Sam fired off from his brain.

"Maybe. I mean, yeah I was," and Dean took a long pause before he could form the word, "tortured, but I mean this guy is an amateur compared to..."

Dean petered off from there and Castiel nodded. "I must state though that Ms. Summer's paranoia is more than understandable. The research on both Angel and Angelus speak for themselves. The antithesis of personalities that inhabit this vampire leads to his instability."

"Basically, the guy is crazier than a monkey in a box of animal crackers, Dean, and Buffy didn't seem to think we were safe at all, " Sam voiced, trying to mask a growing concern gnawing in the back of his mind.

Dean nodded. "We've been hit by twisted fucks before, but something about this guy is different. His modus operandi isn't rational or sane and that makes him difficult."

Sam went back to his Ramen, getting down to the chicken broth at the bottom. "He's worse than that guy on One Life to Live."

Dean grumbled in his throat. "Sammy, please don't compare one of our villains to a bad guy on a soap."

Sam shrugged. "Just stating the obvious, bro. Look at the facts, I think he fits that profile."

"I'm not sure cleanliness is an issue that Angelus possesses," Castiel replied.

"Never mind, Cas," Dean purred low in his throat, still mystified that the angel simply refuses to immerse himself in pop culture references, even though he technically is half-fallen and pretty much powerless in his meat suit.

"Dean, man," Sam starts with a sigh, "I am worried though that we're bringing ourselves up on a false front here in this hotel room. I mean, the bastard knows we're in town and it technically is private so he most likely won't be able to gain entry, but eventually we're gonna need a new plan, even if its not a head-on assault."

Dean bit down on his lip, maneuvering to fix himself a drink. As the ice cubes clink in the glass, he doesn't drink neat when he's that nervous, Dean pauses. "You think he'd try to grab one of us when we went out for ice."

"Its entirely conceivable," Castiel murmured in agreement to Sam.

"No, whats conceivable is that you guys are getting' whipped by paranoia. Look, we've defended ourselves against, are defending ourselves against crazier sobs than this. Don't let the warning label get you, we've got whatever it takes against this guy. We just gotta think of it, is all," Dean smirks confidently as Sam and Castiel blink back, entirely unconvinced and unmotivated.

"And you're too over-confident, Dean. I mean, the guy...come on, man! He followed you out here, tracked you down. You can't say..." Sam trailed off when he realized he was standing, pointing at Dean in frustration.

Dean quirked his eyebrow at his brother. "You got something to say, Sammy? I mean, as far as we know, the most threating thing he's got in his arsenal is psychology and I know for a fact you passed Psych 101. Its a prerequisite to Stanford Law, so you can't tell me that you can't defuse the guy."

Sam crossed his arms in response, his voice raising slightly higher with each sentence. "Except for the part where he enjoys his insanity, maybe you're correct, but he doesn't play by the same rules as the rest of us. His childe is complete proof of that! The company of those who fear or admire him attest to it. Red flagged search results, for Christ sake Dean! Sorry Cas."

"Ms. Summers and her friends were right about one thing," Castiel interjected-ignoring both apologies pertaining to their inappropriate use of angelic words, "Angelus is not even here and you two are already at each others throats. Your arguments both contain merits, but I agree more with Sam that action is a necessary course before someone who plays by a set of rules we cannot understand, his own perverted Free Will if you will pardon the take on our expression, attacks in a way that will send us spiraling out of control and possibly put the earth in conceivable more danger than before."

Sam nodded. "See? Castiel agrees with me."

Dean set down his glass with a sharp thud. "Fine. If we're gonna argue this out, then I'm gonna go get some more ice. I'm gonna need it."

Sam crossed the path as Dean headed to the door with the bucket. "Oh no, you're not. Don't think I don't know what you're doin'."

"And whats that, Sammy?"

Castiel peered up at half of Sam's face and Dean's back. "He's thinking that you, Dean, in your infinite wisdom, have decided to try and snake out Angelus yourself to try and keep both Sam and I out of danger without giving us the opportunity to stop you, an endeavor which you know will ultimately fail because of how much we care for you. And the fact that the guy is a grade A nut job and will probably try and murder us anyways."

"What the angel said," Sam replied as he stuck his chin out at Dean and grabbed the small bucket. "I'll go get the ice."

Sam turned to grab on the door knob, clenching it tightly until his knuckles turned white. Dean whispered low, hands on his hips. "You thinking its not safe, right Sammy? Maybe you shouldn't go alone?"

Sam opened the door with a start, greeted by nothing. Rolling his eyes as he looked over his shoulder at Dean, Sam spoke in confident tones he didn't necessarily feel. "I don't think we're safe in this room, truth be told."

It was a long walk down to the ice machine. Sam was prepared with a few hidden weapons, but nothing major enough. Just major enough to sound the alarm. The ice machine was the ultimate issue when he arrived, however, because it whirred and coughed but refused to sputter out any ice.

Cursing low, Sam hit the side of the machine for good measure and turned to head quickly back to the safety of the room.

"Hello there, younger brother," came her voice before Sam found himself blindfolded and struggling in arms far stronger than his. There wasn't much to catch by the time he had been loaded in the van. He knew it must be Angelus, although the female's name was a mystery to him.

"He's been gone long enough," Dean stated sharply, pounding the table. "Shouldn't have let him go out there. Didn't need ice that bad."

Castiel swung his legs over the bed so that he could sit up. "Then why let him go?"

Dean sighed, loading pure silver bullets into his revolver. "Because, ultimately, he's right. We can't let this guy get to us, make us too scared. Cause thats his M.O. And if that's all he wants to do, he'll win over us through fear."

"But you also admit that he poses a real threat, correct?"

Dean nodded. "Definitely, but Sammy's a big boy. He's shown that he's capable and I'm hoping that Angelus will just lose interest if we don't tip into his hand."

"Sam's been gone a long time," Castiel spoke, lower than Dean had before.

"That's why we're gonna go see what's keeping him," Dean replied as though he had made up his mind long before Sam had left the room. "Should've gone with him in the first place."

Dean popped his head out of the door. "Hey Sammy, how long does it take to get ice?"

No reply. The hallway was empty.

"Daddy, the stars, they're singing to me. Miss Doolittle is smiling!"

Angelus purred as he shifted gears and lanes, making sure Sam was jolted to either wall of the back of the van. "Yeah, Dru? And what are the stars telling you now?"

Drusilla responded to the chuckle in Angelus' delighted and sadistic throat. "It says that he could be beautiful and he's choosing not to be. I could help him see how lovely the world is."

"Well, I didn't want to spoil the surprise, Dru, but I was gonna give him to you as a gift later on, but maybe I'll let you make him beautiful, if you think that'll help."

"Oh yes!" Drusilla swooned with glee, placing a slender hand on Angelus' lap (kidnapping always gave him a hard on), "I think I can help the young brother to help us...or maybe change them completely."

Angelus looked through the mirror, nearly twisted and falling from the ceiling. "Well, he's not half bad looking. Maybe he can be persuaded to do the right thing. I've always had a talent for making people comply with what I want...whats the matter, Dru?"

Drusilla pouted. "He makes me hungry, Daddy. But I don't want to eat him, I need him for play. Could we stop for a bite to eat?"

Angelus grabbed Drusilla's hand, still relaxed across his thigh, and started pumping his own hard cock with it, until he had trouble steering. "Sure, baby. Lets just find a restaurant and then we can order you something off the menu before you play."

Meanwhile, Dean and Castiel had advanced out the door and most of the way down the silent hall. The ice machine rumbled before them and Dean kicked the ice bucket across the hallway, until it fell between railing slats to the first story below.

"Can't believe this!"

"We'll find him, Dean. Angelus wouldn't purely kill him. His spite is of a much worse strain."

Dean bit down on his lower lip. "I know. But I..."

Dean came up to the ice machine, hitting it with the butt of his gun. It rumbled and whirred, but nothing happened. However, Dean noticed a sloshing sound behind the rumble.

"Something is amiss here, Dean."

Dean froze for a moment. "I know. More than one thing's not right."

There was a macabre defiance in Dean's brain, wanting to know if Sam had been stuffed in the ice machine. It would break his heart, but man he wanted a reason to kill the imbalanced vampire. Taking a breath, he hit the ice button again with the butt of his gun. The machine whirred but began to shake instead of just stopping.

Dean and Castiel began to back up when a river of dark red began to pour from the machine, cascading at their feet.

"What the hell is going on?" Dean growled.

Castiel kneeled down, dipping a finger into the red substance. "Dean, its not blood. This substance is communion wine."