A/N

The next few chapters will mostly be lighthearted and cracky fun, but I'm in a mood today, so this is the chapter you get.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, not even a sense of rhythm.

.

.

.
Sam groaned and rolled over in bed. It had been a long day and he'd been looking forward to passing out for the next twelve hours at the very least. Through bleary eyes he could see that he'd only gotten four of those sweet hours before whoever was calling him had decided to disrupt his well earned beauty sleep.

According to the display, 'Axytphol' was calling. Which meant it was Cas. Cas, who still did not understand how cell phones worked or what was an acceptable hour to call people.

"What?" Sam was too tired for manners.

He got a sniff for an answer.

For one moment, Sam had the bizzare thought that a dog was on the other end of the line, though he didn't know how a dog would have mangaged to call him. Speed dial, probably.

"'Z anybody there? Cas?"

"Sam."

Oh brother. Castiel's voice was small and meek sounding, something that Sam had never, ever heard before.

"What'sa matter?"

More sniffing. Hang on, it sounded like-

"Cas, are you crying?"

"No."

That was all the answer Sam needed.

"Where are you? Are you hurt?" Sam sat up in bed and began to pull his pants on. "We'll be there as soon as we can."

"NO!"

"Cas, you aren't making any sense."

"Don't call me that." His voice was a little less wobbly now. "My name is Castiel. Not Cas, not Tiel, Castiel. I don't want Dean to see me like this."

"O-kay? What's wrong."

"I hurt."

"Oh god. How bad is it? Can you get to a hospital?"

"No. I hurt ... inside. A lot. I - I can't breathe, Sam."

"Okay, take deep slow breaths. Can you tell me where you are?"

Castiel rattled off some co-ordinates. Sam was booting up his laptop to check them when Dean stirred.

"'S'amatter?"

"Nothing serious. I have to go see Cas, but I'll be back as soon as I can. Go to sleep."

Dean rolled over and brought a pillow against his face to shield it from the bluish light of the laptop screen.

"- my father gave me my name." Cas was saying into his ear through the cell phone. Sam had almost forgotten he was still on the line.

"It looks about two hours away from here. Can you hold on that long?"

Castiel mumbled a sure and Sam promised to be there as soon as he could. Sam hesitated over his bag for a moment, wondering if he should take any additional weapons. Finally he decided that whatever was in the Impala's trunk would likely be more than enough. With one last look at Dean's peacefully sleeping form, Sam set out to help his friend.

He ended up worrying enough during the drive to call Cas and check up on him. Convinced that the former angel was not in any extreme danger, Sam relaxed and enjoyed the nighttime drive. He had always preferred the night to the day. Night was safe for him, hiding him as well as any other secrets in the velvet sky.

He had to pull over to the side of the road when he got close to the coordinates Castiel had givien him. It would be a ten minute or less walk, but he was still aprehensive about leaving the car unattended out in the middle of nowhere.

Eleven minutes later Sam came across the place Cas had described to him. Only it wasn't there anymore. To be more accurate, it had been there, but then it had been destroyed. Sam gazed in awe at the wreakage of the cottage. The foundation was still there, but everything else had been blown to smithereens. It looked like something very powerful had thrown a temper tantrum. Which, Sam realized, was probably pretty accurate, because there in the rubble was Castiel. He sat very still, with his head bent and his arms wrapped around his knees.

"Cas-tiel?" Sam paused in the middle of the name before catching himself.

Cas looked up at him and there were ovious tear tracks on his face. Castiel himself seemed to catch this as he rubbed his face with a sleeve to get rid of the evidence.

"You came."

Sam picked through the destruction, carefull of his footing. He had no desire to get tetnus.

"Of course I did." He crouched across from the despondant figure. "Do you want to tell me who did this?"

"I did." Cas sounded misereble. Sam's eyebrows shot up.

"You did this? Why?"

"I was angry."

"And?"

Fresh tears manifested at this prompt.

"And I can't keep my eyes from watering."

Sam had never had the chance to be a big brother, not really. With a pang, he realized that was another thing his dad had kept from him with the lack of information about Adam. Sam thought he would have liked to try being a big brother. Maybe then he would have some sort of reference for the situation.

"What made you angry?"

Cas glared, not at Sam, but straight ahead at some enemy in his mind's eye.

"They cut it down."

Sam hoped he would start making sense soon.

"Anna's tree." Cas elaborated. "The one that her grace nurtured."

Oh.

Castiel continued.

"It was a beautiful tree. Anyone near it could feel her spirit, even after her grace was moved. It was a special tree and they just cut it down. Like it was worthless!"

Oh. Sam's heart gave a little pang. The former angel just looked so little, all balled up like that. Little and vunerable and so, so alone. Which was weird because Castiel was inhabiting the vessel of a grown man, probably older than Sam. Appearances are deceiving, Sam reminded himself.

"Is that why you destroyed the house?"

Cas scrubbed his face with the palms of his hands.

"Yes. That is why I destroyed this place." He looked at Sam, looking for him to understand. "I wanted to smite them; the people that did it. But I do not want to hurt people, not really. So I took out my wrath on this place. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you had to drive out here. I've expended a great deal of my 'mojo' as you call it and I'm tired. I'm very tired."

Sam scooched up closer to sit beside Cas and to wrap an arm around his shoulder. Cad startled at the contact and Sam remembered the disgust that angels had displayed when it came to touching him. After the intial twitch, Cas seemed to relax though.

"You miss your sister."

"It hurts." Cas said pathetically.

"I undertand." Sam offered.

"How do I make it stop?"

"I don't know."

They sat for a very long time like that.

.

.

.

"We need to pick out a birthday for you." Dean annouced suddenly a few days later.

"Why?" Cas gave his patented head tilt. Dean sighed.

"Because we don't have that many occasions to celebrate."

Cas looked at him without blinking until Dean turned his head away. Sam, who had been watching the whole thing saw the smile that touched Cas's face as he won that staring contest. He fought the urge to laugh.

"Whatever. Dinner's on me tonight. Pizza, right?"

Sam nodded, and Cas gave a thumbs up, a gesture he was still working on. Dean left.

Sam looked up from the research he was doing on protective rituals, wondering if now would be the right time. It was made easier by Dean unwittingly intruducing the topic.

"Hey, Castiel?"

"Yes?"

Sam hesitated, wondering how Castiel would interpert what he was about to do.

"I got something for you."

Sam twisted in his seat to grab the gift from the pocket of his jacket, which was lying on the bed behind him. They really needed to upgrade to larger motel rooms.

"You didn't need to get me anything." Cas's tone was flat as usual, but there was curiousity plain on his features.

"Uh, I hope you like it." Sam said, awkwardly holding out the object. Sam wasn't as good at this emotional crap as Dean thought he was. Now that he thought about it, this whole thing seemed borderline offensive.

"Sam, is this waht I think it is?"

Castiel was looking down at the pocket-sized picture frame with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Yeah. I go the picture online, so the quality isn't that great, but I thought..." Sam trailed off and then plowed through the rest of the speech. "I thought you might want a reminder. We had a picture of Jo and Ellen, but we burned it, since there really wasn't a way to give them a proper funeral. But I thought you might want a ... something to remember by."

Castiel took the carved object from Sam.

"Did you make this yourself?"

Sam chuckled a bit, relieved at Cas's acceptance.

"I have the splinters to prove it."

Cas ran a finger along the frame arround Anna's portrait.

"This wood is from her tree."

"Yeah, it was kind of hard ot get ahold of..."

Castiel smiled at him. It was a startling change.

"Thank you."

.

.

.

.

.

.
.

Since I'm so terrible with updates, I'll give you the summary of the next chapter now:

"Dean grows obsessive about throwing Cas a birthday party. Because it is his first party, Dean decides that it must be celebrated in stlye - meaning at ChuckeCheese. And with party hats and Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey."

I am also totally willing to accept prompts for this story. Any insanity you suggest will be taken into consideration.