This chapter has been edited.

Sam woke with a start, cold beads of sweat running down his face and chest. He had been having nightmares about Cas turning and hurting Dean before, but he had never endangered his life before. He rubbed his teeth, wincing at the thought of them being pushed out of place. After carding a hand through his hair and sighing, he got up and went downstairs.

He nodded minutely after seeing that his brother was safely chained to the bed in Bobby's living room. He started for the kitchen when he remembered his dream. After a moment's hesitation he walked the distance to the bed in three strides and bent down over his sleeping brother, lifting up his top lip slightly to ensure his teeth were still intact and, thankfully, being met with a set of pearly whites. Dean groaned and rolled his head to the side, eyes snapping open in confusion. Sam quickly withdrew his hand.

"Dude, what the hell? What're you, my dentist now?" Dean scrambled backward into a sitting position at the head of the bed, he covered his mouth with his hand, feeling violated.

"No Dean, I was just," Sam paused, rubbing the back of his neck, unsure what to say. "Checking."

Dean looked at him dubiously before shaking his head and swiping a hand over his face. He brought his legs over the edge of the bed, rubbed the last bit of sleep out of his eye, and with a clang he realized his right hand was still handcuffed. "Any chance I can get these damned things off? I'd like to get up and do stuff today." He read the hesitation on Sam's face and continued. "Look, I'm not going to run off and give my body to a dick angel, okay?"

"Okay," said Sam, shaking his head. He walked over to the bookshelf behind the desk and reached up over top of it, feeling around in the dust for a tiny metal key "So, what happened with you and Cas yesterday?" He said, feeling the pads of his fingers skim over something small and jagged. He grabbed the key and turned around to face Dean, nodding at the shiner his brother sported. "He got you pretty good, didn't he?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Dean replied, he chuckled nervously as his face flared red. He was looking at a spot just over Sam's shoulder when he smiled and licked his lips seemingly unconsciously. "Speak of the Devil."

"Hello Dean. Sam." Said a deep, gravelly voice from behind Sam, making him start. He spun around to be faced with the formerly mentioned angel. "And I am not Lucifer, Dean."

"Could've fooled me with the way you worked me over yesterday." Dean replied tartly. Sam could've sworn that he saw the ghost of a smile pass over the angels' features at those words. He shook it off as trick of the light and proceeded to un-cuff his brother.

"Ah, much better." Dean said, rubbing his chafed, red wrist. "Now that I'm free, who wants to get some grub?" An enthusiastic smile covered his features, the kind that reached his eyes, and made Sam feel uneasy.

"Dean, are you okay?" Sam asked, eyeing Dean suspiciously. Sure, Dean had a voracious appetite, but the Dean he knew would've thrown a punch at Castiel as soon as he was free. The Dean he knew would've started pacing and kicking things, he would've called the angel every name in the book and then some. It was even possible that Dean would've chosen to just leave, but he didn't, and Sam couldn't help but think that there was something off about his brother.

"What Sammy, I'm hungry!" Dean said defensively. He scooped up his leather jacket off the back of the chair and put it on, checking in the pocket to make sure his keys were there. Then he gave them Sam and Cas a nod, his eyes lingering just a moment too long on Cas, Sam thought, then he turned around and walked out the front door, the screen door banging behind him. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, willing himself to not think too deeply into this, for once.

"Cas, what's wrong with him?" Sam said, unable to help himself, he turned to the much smaller man still in the living room.

"He seems perfectly fine to me, considering."

"Yeah, he seems too fine. It's like nothing even happened."

"I'm not sure what you mean." The angel replied with his signature head tilt and eye squint.

"Just, ugh, never mind. Okay?" Sam said resignedly. The sound of a car starting up came through the window, quickly followed by "Get your ass out here or I'm leaving without you!" caused Sam to grudgingly head toward the door, his stomach rumbling with approval. Suddenly, a thought came to him, his dream 'I did it, all of it, for you'. He turned around, opening his mouth to ask Castiel about this, only to find that the angel was gone.

"Dean, I have to talk to you about something." Sam said, as soon as his monstrous frame was inside the car. "I had this dream last night-"

"Clowns or Midgets?" Dean nudged Sam with his elbow, a grin plastered on his face. Sam shook his head, not appreciating Dean's levity.

"Listen Dean, I'm serious. I think you should be careful around Cas. I know I don't have premonitions anymore, but this could be something serious. I just think he might hurt you."

"In case you didn't notice Sammy, he already did." Dean retorted, pointing to the shiner on his right eye. From Sam's close proximity he could see that, while it was swollen, it wasn't enough to impair Dean's vision, it was a sickening combination of purple, and red, with a hint of black, it swooped under his eye, following the curve of his cheekbone.

"No, I mean worse than that. I've been having dreams about him hurting you, but in my dream last night he killed you! He made you choke on your own teeth, and I don't think you should brush it off so easily, he's kind of a loose cannon lately."

"Sam, it's fine. I really don't think Cas is going to kill me." He glanced over at his brother and smiled, trying to be reassuring. "Trust me, okay?"

"Okay," Sam said uneasily. "Just be careful Dean."

"I am the definition of careful Sammy!" He glanced at Sam again, who would later be told that he had pulled a serious bitch face.

The rest of the car ride was silent. They got into the diner and had just placed their order, a salad for Sam and a double bacon cheeseburger for Dean, when, with a flutter of wings, Sam was no longer alone on his side of the booth.

"Hey Cas." Said both boys in unison, having noticed the third party.

"Hello Dean. Sam." Castiel replied. Sam glanced from Cas to Dean to find that, for some reason, they had begun to stare at one another. Sam had noticed the staring contests before, granted he would just shrug them off. Generally they started because someone had said something that angered the other. Sam looked back to Cas, noticing that something felt different about this one in particular, the tension in the air wasn't as thick, it wasn't full of frustration as it usually was, Sam felt like he could just hear what they were saying to each other, both inside their own heads. The air wasn't thick with animosity, it was thick with secrets. Sam was pulled away from the strange silence when a plate was placed in front of him, another one across the table in front of Dean. He looked down at his plate of greens and cleared his throat, racking his brain for something to say, and then it occurred to him.

"Cas, I had been meaning to ask you earlier, I had a dream last night where you said that you had given everything for Dean. You had given everything and he had almost ruined it. Do you actually think that?" Sam was pushing his salad around the plate with his fork, looking sideways at Cas who hadn't stopped staring at Dean across the table, who was making animalistic noises as he bit and chewed at his burger.

"I do think that is true, although I'm sure that won't be a problem. I think Dean has learned his lesson about where his loyalties lie." Sam noticed, with some discomfort, that Castiel's voice was a low rumble, almost a growl.

"Yeah, right." Dean said indignantly around his burger, a mischievous look in his eye as he looked up at Cas. And that's when things got really strange. In the same moment, Sam watched Cas's eyebrows raise minutely, his mouth tighten, and Dean gasped from the other side of the table, effectively breathing in part of the bite he had just taken of his burger. Sam watch as he coughed, took a large drink of coffee, coughed some more, and turned to glare at the angel across the table. Sam glanced back and forth between the two men, unsure of what had happened.

"You okay Dean?" He asked uncertainly.

"Fine, Sam." Dean answered, not even taking his eyes off Cas. Sam resolved to try to eat his salad, not quite wanting to be in the middle of whatever was going on. There was another gasp, followed by an audible gulp and the sound of Dean's fist hitting the table. Sam looked up again to see his brother slumped over the table and breathing heavily into his food.

"Dean!" Sam yelled, halfway up from the table when his brother put a hand up to stop him, he calmed on the other side of the table, but kept alert. He turned to ask Castiel if he could use his 'angel mojo' as Dean called it to see if he was okay, but the words died on his lips. He sat maybe half of a foot from the angel and could clearly see that his pupils were dilated, and his mouth was pulled into a smile (at least a smile by his standards). Sam watched his hand move under the table and in turn saw his brother start scraping the top of the table and breathing more heavily. Feeling uncomfortable and confused, he got up to go to the bathroom thinking that this was very odd behavior indeed.