A/Ns: You know what happens when I don't have time to edit a chapter until Saturday, and then I waste half of that Saturday procrastinating? I'm too damned tired to be funny in the A/Ns. ._. This is no bueno.

Chapter Reference – The Start of This Hunt: Since it has been like six weeks since this arc began, this is a reminder that this whole hunt started with a case Bobby caught wind of: a possible werewolf in Lafayette. The boys checked it out, only to find it was a bust. Just a random guy stabbed in a parking lot, possibly with the silver blade, after some very random animal attacks that coincided to make it look like a werewolf. Also, Dean drove further out of town then he meant to because there'd been a car on his tail (which he thought was Sam) that eventually turned off when he started trying to lose him. See Chapter 89 and 90 for a refresher.

Chapter Reference – Dean's time as a Ghost: After the Season 1 finale when the Impala was t-boned off the road, Dean was in a coma and dying. He spent time as a ghost in the hospital, running around with Cas (who was really Tessa). He (she) gave him lessons in being a ghost, which pretty much boiled down to "stop trying to attack it, you idiot." As per canon, when Dean woke up, he remembered none of this. For a refresher course, see Chapter 35: Season 2, Chapter 2.

Original Timeline Reference – Cole, the ghost Kid (4.15 Death Takes a Holiday): The Winchesters meet a kid named Cole, who died and never had his soul picked up by Reapers. In order to talk with the kid, the brothers get the help of Pamela Barnes to project their souls on the astral plane and spend some time as ghosts with Cole, who teaches them how to interact with the world and move things without touching them.

Chapter Reference – Gordon: Quick reminder that the boys ran into Gordon in this story the same way they ran into him in the original timeline; they caught a vampire case and found Gordon tailing them. Dean insisted they leave him to it, but slipped up by saying a line Gordon said to him the first time around. Dean was unaware of it, but it set alarm bells off for Gordon, who asked around and learned Dean was psychic. See Chapter 60: Season 2, Chapter 27 for a refresher!

Original Timeline Reference – Gordon Learning about Sam (2.10 Hunted): In the show, it was not 100% clear whether Gordon learned about Sam as a psychic from his Roadhouse connections or from the demon he exorcised in Louisiana who started babbling about the upcoming war, psychics on Hell's side, and Sam Winchester as one of them. I like to think it was the demon, and his Roadhouse connections managed to confirm it. I'll be playing something similar here.

Fun fact #210: I have googled the transcript for 2.10 Hunted so many times that both Google and my internet browser suggest it as the first thing anytime I type "s" into the search bar or URL field ._.

Fun Fact #211: I have got to be on some pretty interesting government lists out there for my Google Search Results by now. Assault rifles, sniper rifles, hunting knives, hand guns, ammo, grenades, how to build grenades, how does a grenade explode, what does a grenade smell like when it explodes, various building blue prints, how are walls built, how thick are walls, can grenades explode through walls, how about handguns versus rifle rounds when it comes to piercing walls, and every possible way you can drive into Sioux Falls from every direction that exists on Earth. Oh yeah. My government must know I'm a Supernatural Writer or they think I'm planning a terrorist plot in South Dakota.

Chapter Warnings: Dean and Cas are falling through the Impala, then falling into the Impala (don't get your hopes up, Destiel Fans. We're still so deep in that river in Egypt). Dead Dean is a Forghorn-blowing, glowing corpse of impatience (I swear it'll make more sense below), Sam is pissed, then laughing, then pissed, and Gordon is really lucky he's not dead yet. Oh, and the author's pulling a parody on one of the most beloved lines of the show. It's reeeeal subtle, so keep an eye out for it and try not to laugh (the subtle bit was pure sarcasm)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (This Time Around)

Season 2: Chapter 63

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"Good god, Cas. You gotta lay off the fries, buddy."

Dean groaned as he pulled the angel up, his own body half into Baby's backseat, attempting to haul his passed out friend up and into the back of the black muscle car. It was proving way more difficult than he'd figured. First off, it hadn't occurred to Dean that he had to first figure out how to open Baby's back door as nothing more than a soul. He'd hauled Cas all the way over there, gone to prop the guy up against the rear tire well, only to have him go right through and take Dean down to the ground with him.

The hunter was never speaking of this to anyone ever.

First thing he'd done after landing on top of Cas, his vision going through the most screwed up tilt-a-whirl of his life as he passed through his car, was to straighten right back up and out of the side panel and look around to make sure no one had seen that. Step two was to scramble off the angel he was straddling so he could grab Cas's feet and haul the guy back out from under the car.

Dude, being dead sucked. Being dead and stuck with an unconscious angel sucked more.

Luckily, a soul and a ghost seemed to be about the same damn thing, and he knew how to be a ghost. Well, sort of. It had been a while since he'd played Swayze with a pretty cool ghost named Cole after Reapers had stopped picking souls up from his hometown. But Dean remembered the couple of lessons the kid had tried to teach him and Sam.

Weirdly enough, when his hand went right through the door handle on his first attempt, Dean could have sworn he heard Cas's voice in his head, telling him to stop trying to punch it. Presence, not force. Or…something like that. The hunter just shook his head, unable to place the memory, and tried again.

And again. And again. But eventually, his palm did wrapped around solid metal, and he yanked Baby's door open as fast as possible before his soul or his car changed either of their minds.

The second factor in why-the-hell-is-this-so-much-harder-than-it-should-be was that, apparently, Cas had not been leaning half his weight on Dean when the hunter hauled him all around that field and then the gas station. More like a tenth of it, given the guy now felt like three hundred pounds of dead weight. Then again, Dean was apparently hauling around a wave of celestial intent the size of the Chrysler building and not the skinny tax twerp it currently looked like, so maybe that explained it.

That, or Jimmy Novak was way more jacked than Dean suspected under that rumpled shirt and askew tie.

…Not that he was thinking about that. At all. What the hell.

(Fucking Andy, man!)

"Jesus," Dean huffed out as he got half of the angel to stay, chest-down, on the back seat. He was pretty much just eternally thankful Cas hadn't dropped right through the car again. He so did not understand supernatural physics and he really, really didn't want to, either.

The hunter slumped onto the ground for a breather, leaning his head back against Baby's cool metal, thankful all over again for the single, solitary comfort of his Lady. When he could convince himself to move again, he'd have to go around to the other side and keep pulling the angel through that way. He felt like a friggin' child trying to haul their unconscious drunk of a parent into bed.

Not that Dean had any experience with that, or anything.

(That same child also had experience hauling two hundred and thirty pounds of a grown ass adult into the backseat of the Impala because John Winchester had taken a hit to the head, leaving Dean to finish the hunt and drive his dad back to the motel that night. So, yeah, this was all depressingly familiar when he thought about it. Which he wasn't.)

A shudder rippled through the hunter and Dean didn't bother biting back the groan that came with it. It wasn't like anyone was around the closed up gas station to hear (and even if there was, he was a friggin' spirit right now, so they wouldn't hear it anyway). The hunter pried open tired eyes, glaring at that glowing body two dozen feet away. Two dozen feet that were, apparently, two dozen too many.

That pull that Dean had felt – that gentle beckoning that had been wafting off his not-corpse ever since Cas brought it back to life – had grown incessant the further away he'd gotten from his body. What had once been a sweet siren's call was now a fucking fog horn in his ear, and every step he took further away from it had been twice as hard as the one before.

Maybe that was why Cas felt like he weighed a couple hundred pounds more than he should. Dean certainly felt like he was dragging a dead body behind him in addition to the one he was hauling in front (not dead, just unconscious. Unconscious, injured, and permanently suffering from the worst case of bad timing on the planet!)

Another shudder encased him, followed by another groan that was getting dangerous close to a whine.

"Hold your horses, I'm coming," Dean grumbled at his still-glowing body (and he had not kept half an eye on it the entire time out of fear that whatever Cas had done had a time limit and that thing might stop glowing any minute now, ending his chances of ever waking back up. He totally hadn't fear that at all.) Dean rallied his energy for another round of his new favorite game: Getting Your Unconscious Friend Into the Backseat, complete with the new, limited edition Elephant-Heavy-Angel-Friend expansion pack!

Yay him.

(Games were for twelve year old nerds without girlfriends, damnit.)

Way back in the day, Dean had always thought getting Cas utterly smashed (like well and truly blackout drunk) would have been a sight to see. A happy Cas, that was. He'd seen the unhappy version the day Cas decided to crash a liquor store without Dean for company. But the human had been certain he could get his friend to happy drunk if given the opportunity and right timing. Not that those things had ever lined up. And once Cas lost most of his powers, the idea hadn't seemed like a good one anymore. Happy Cas hadn't really seemed an option after that, which was depressing as hell now that Dean was thinking about it.

Not that it mattered, considering the hunter was now making a new promise to himself. A commitment to never, ever, take this Cas out drinking. Not if he was the one who'd have to haul his inhumanly-heavy ass to the car.

(And he imagined flying under the influence was probably a no-no. Guy would likely go headfirst into a mountain halfway across the planet.)

Dean gave three good shoves to Cas's butt, totally ignoring where he was putting his hands as he did so (and damnit, Andy. This would not be awkward if the damn kid – and Heaven – hadn't been filling his head with all sorts of details on male anatomy absolutely no one had ever asked for in the history of ever). It was a weak, last ditch attempt to get the guy further into the car without having to go to the other side to pull him through. That was going to be another seven feet more, at least, between him and the source of that incessant fog horn still screaming in his ear.

Those seven feet sounded terrible.

But eventually Dean had to call it; he ended up moving around the car to the passenger side. Every step felt like he was sinking in sludge and dragging half a bog with him. He was practically shaking by the time he made it, shudders running through him almost non-stop. Friggin' glowing body and its friggin' pushiness. (Dean did not poke his head above the roof of Baby's car to make sure the thing was still glowing. He didn't. He was just…making sure the gas station was still empty. Safe. Whatever, shaddup.)

Just like that shorter, weaker, but just as handsome version of Dean had done for his dad decades ago, the hunter grabbed a hold of Cas's wrists, planted his feet, and pulled. It took ages and a lot more effort and groaning than Dean would ever admit to later, but eventually he got Cas far enough into the car that he'd be able to close both doors (after a little creative leg-folding on the other end).

Dean slammed the passenger side shut and hurried back around to the other side, in part because he told himself he was in a hurry, but mostly because seven feet closer to his stupid body was seven feet less sludge and shudders and misery and 'Jesus fucking Christ, will you give me one damn minute, I'm coming!' The hunter eyed Cas's body, slumped face-down and motionless on the back seat. He took a minute to tuck the guy's legs in, sort of curled up beneath him and to the side, so that he'd be able to close the door when he woke back up in his body.

The older Winchester glanced over his shoulder at the thing, still glowing away, still fog-horning away.

"Okay, Cas…you better friggin' be here when I wake up."

And not, like, fall through the seat to the ground for Dean to later run over and then leave behind as invisible roadkill. Yeah. That was totally a thought he needed rattling around in his anxiety-riddled not-brain.

Awesome.

With that, Dean took a step back, away from the car and the unconscious angel. Cas didn't sink through the seat. Didn't move. Didn't wake up. The hunter swore internally, not knowing what he'd been expecting from his friend, who'd warned him this all might happen.

(Well, that wasn't true. Cas had said reanimating his body might be the last thing he was capable of doing, but Dean hadn't thought that meant literally. He really needed to teach this Cas how to be more friggin' specific. Particularly when he was seconds away from passing the fuck out.)

With an irritated noise in the back of his throat, Dean forced himself to turn away from that unconscious body he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to see once he was alive, and stomped over to his impatient not-corpse. Every step was like rainbows and butterflies and unicorn poop. It irritated the hunter to no end how damn good it felt in comparison to going the other direction.

"Friggin' impatient, demanding body," Dean growled lowly as he came to stand over his not-dead body. "Friggin' angels passing out on me. Friggin' mother effers killing me in the first place!"

The soul glanced around the gas station, eyes stopping once more on the roof. If he'd been planning on sniping someone, that's where he'd have done it from. So, step one: get his body back. Step two: get up on that roof.

The hunter couldn't quite help it. He cast one more quick look at Cas's half-curled, half-slumped form in the backseat of his Lady, and huffed. Step three: get back to the Impala and start driving, hopefully with an unconscious angel still in the backseat.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered under his breath before lifting his foot and nudging his own torso. He had no idea how to make this work other than climb in, which seemed to be the nonstop mantra coming off his not-corpse in waves.

Luckily, Mr. Insistent-Fucking-Fog-Horn knew plenty for the both of them. Like something out of Jumanji, Dean's foot straight up dissolved and swirled right into his body, sucking up the rest of him with it.

-o-o-o-

Sam stared at the gun in his hand and thought about shooting Gordon in the face with it.

That wasn't what the buzzing in his head – once in the back of his skull but now filling his entire cranium – wanted to do, though. Sam knew what it wanted. What Azazel wanted. Bloodshed. They wanted him to bathe in Gordon Walker's blood. To soak in it until Sam was painted red with his vengeance.

The picture alone should have sickened him. The fact that it didn't…well, that was enough to sicken Sam Winchester, to pull him away from the roaring of bees in his ears and the hot pulsing of angry, bubbling blood in his veins.

Sam kept black eyes locked on that gun and started counting off every memory he had of his brother calling him 'the boy with the demon blood.' Not as an accusation – Sam knew it hadn't been that, not from Dean – but still, he counted them. Racked his brain for every story Dean had told him about his future brother who'd taken the wrong path. Who'd witlessly let his anger and his need to prove himself burn the whole world to the ground.

When Sam got to nine, he opened his fist, letting the gun balance in his palm. Both still shook, but they shook less. The buzz was still there, but he could hear past it. Could feel past it.

"It was a quick death." Gordon's voice was grating as Sam fought for enough control just to let it in. Smugness dripped in every word. Worse, the man actually thought he was being sincere.

Sam wished Dean had told him it would come to this. He no longer thought these events lined up with the world his brother came from (obviously, as Dean had lived in that timeline and Sam was pretty sure Gordon Walker killing him would have made the short version, regardless), but this. This monster wearing the clothes of a hunter. Sam would have let his brother kill Gordon that first night they'd met, with Sammy pinning the man to a wall and Dean holding a knife to his throat.

How did Dean pull away? Knowing he was letting this- this…monster go free? Sam would surely have killed him had he been in Dean's shoes.

The buzzing rose again. A crescendo of violence, begging for a finale. A horrendous, intoxicating itch just under his skin that Sam knew how to scratch. Knew how good it would feel. His fingers shook to make use of it. To- to kill the man who'd killed his brother.

"Why." Sam didn't know how he managed to speak when his jaw was clenched so tight his entire face hurt from the tension of it. But he managed it.

Did it even matter why?

It really didn't, but Sam needed to know. He needed to make some sort of sense out of this, even when he knew there was nothing – nothing – that would ever make it better. No amount of explanation could excuse it, could make this right in the younger Winchester's mind.

Sam kept his eyes on his gun, still trembling in his open palm, and reminded himself that it would matter to Dean.

"You and your brother…" Gordon trailed off, and Sam heard his head thunk lightly against the wall between them. Once again, Sam eyes drifted to that rifle sitting a dozen feet away. "You're not like us, are you Sammy? You're not…human. Not where it counts."

His fist closed around that gun involuntarily and Sam had to shut his eyes to block it out. Gordon's voice. The buzzing. The need for blood so bad he could taste it in his mouth.

"Your brother was psychic."

Clear, brown eyes flashed open suddenly, a brilliant brain flaring to life and drowning out the emotion. The buzz was gone, buried beneath a new roaring, a cry against logic and law and common fucking decency.

That's what this was all about?

"He's still human," Sam countered, spitting the word out. This…this was ridiculous! The absurdity might have been hilarious, if it had been any other situation. If Dean wasn't dead, because Gordon had…. What? Had a problem with psychics?

Sam knew there were racist hunters out there. Hunters who weren't comfortable using the services of psychics and clairvoyants. Humans that were seen as other. The younger Winchester had never fit into that world like his family did, a world that operated in pure black and whites. No grey. Humans good, everything else bad. That had never made sense to Sam and it never would.

But this? Black and white was neither here nor there, right now. Dean being psychic – which he wasn't (and wasn't that the real kicker)– was not an excuse to kill him. It wasn't an excuse to kill anyone. That was murder, plain and simple.

Sam heard fabric scuff against dilapidated wood and realized Gordon was shrugging. "He was dangerous, Sammy."

"It's Sam."

"A hunter should know better than to use an ability like that so openly. He was in my head, practically flaunted the fact." In the darkness of the living room, moonlight and a distant street light barely piercing through the motes of dust still hanging in the air, Gordon shook his head. "A hunter would know better. A psychic should know better. Your brother didn't."

"So this is personal?" Sam seethed from his side of the wall and for a time he forgot about the gun shaking in his fist, about his focus on it instead of what lay just beneath the skin. "A psychic caught some surface thought off you and your response is to murder them?"

"I'm not a killer, Sammy," Gordon scoffed and Sam wanted to punch him. "I'm a hunter and this isn't personal. Your brother was fair game."

-o-o-o-

Dean shot up with the gasp of a damn drowning man and that was familiar. That was what he'd been expecting, so despite the fact it hurt like a bitch and his lungs burned and his ribs had several complaints they'd like to register with the manager, it was mother effing beautiful. The hunter immediately groaned, curling up his shoulders and tilting his neck to either side to crack out the aches and pains and cramps. Damnit, waking up from the dead was never pleasant. Why couldn't, just once, it be a pleasant thing, with daisies or something.

No time for that, though.

The older Winchester scrambled to his feet, ignoring the protests of a body that had been lying in the beginnings of rigor mortis and congealed blood. Fun times. Dean ignored the cold, sticky wetness clinging to the back of his neck and head, and instead turned around to stare at the gas station roof. The hunter took a determined step forward – his intent to get up there as solid and pressing as stone – when he paused. Green eyes darted back to the Impala.

The rear driver's side door was open but the seat was empty. Dean's fingers curled into loosely-clenched fists and he told himself that didn't mean anything. Cas was still there.

"You better be," he muttered, before setting his sights on that roof once more.

-o-o-o-

".223 caliber. Subsonic rounds." Dean stood up from his crouch on the edge of the building, dropping the bullet casing back to the gravel-topped roof. He'd seen this before. This exact damn setup. He remembered tackling the hunter who dared try and take out his brother just like this.

Gordon fucking Walker.

God damn it! He should have known. He should have known. Dean should have iced that hunter's ass the moment he walked back into their lives. Nothing good could ever come from letting that murdering psycho live.

"Son of a bitch," Dean swore viciously, turning and jogging back across the roof to the maintenance ladder he'd found on the far side. As he did, he hastily patted down his jacket and jeans, searching for his phone. He had to warn Sammy. He had no idea why Gordon decided to take him out first (or at all) this time. Hell, they hadn't even left him tied up in his own piss and blood for three days this go around! What the hell did Gordon have to be angry about now? But Dean knew one thing for sure. Time wanted to stay the same, and that meant Gordon Walker was going after Sam.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean screamed this time when his search came up empty. No phone. Gordon must have taken it. The hunter stopped on the edge of the building, one hand in a white-knuckled, angry grip around the pole of the ladder leading down. He tilted his head back, tension in his neck causing veins and tendons to bulge, eyes scrunched closed, as he resisted the urge to scream it a third time.

Of course Gordon had taken his phone. He'd laid a trap for Sam last time by making Dean call him up and deliver an address to meet him at. But the older Winchester had been able to tip him off with a code word. Now, with Dean dead in this version of events, Gordon would still probably use that same trap by sending a text instead, only Sam wouldn't have a clue he was walking into a trap.

'Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, sonofabitch!'

Dean was gonna kill him. He was gonna find him, then he was gonna kill him.

The hunter practically slid down the ladder rather than waste time scrambling down, and jumped off the top of the dumpster. He was bolting across the asphalt before he'd even hit it. Dean rounded the building and headed straight for the Impala. He didn't have time to hope Cas was still in the backseat, just slammed that door shut and ripped the driver's side open.

Baby was rumbling and peeling out of the gas station before his door was fully closed again.

"You better be okay, Sammy, or I'm gonna kill you myself," the hunter grumbled beneath his breath. Even as he said it, he couldn't help but check the rear view mirror, thinking the same damn thing about the invisible angel in his backseat.

-o-o-o-

The air around Sam started to vibrate in time with the bees in his ears and the pulse in his veins. The hunter didn't hear it through the buzz, but the wood around him began to groan and creak, the house physically shifting away from the promise of violence and destruction. In the living room, Gordon stilled, sharp hearing picking up on the noise but unable to identify its source. The hunter quickly rose to his feet, still keeping his back against the wall for the minimal protection it offered. The unknown now had him on edge. More on edge than their current standoff.

"What are you up to in there, Sammy?"

The kitchen groaned again and this time Gordon swore he felt the wall beneath him shudder. The hunter pushed off the wood, turning around to stare at the wall. Something between shock and trepidation started eating at his gut and chest as the wall shuddered and the wood started to warp, almost in slow motion, bulging out towards him.

This….this was…

"It's Sam," the other hunter roared from the kitchen and the house physically shook with the declaration. Enough so that Gordon took several steps away from the wall joining his room to the one the psychic – the powerful psychic – was currently in. "And you're insane."

Gordon watched the planks of wood tremble beneath bits of plaster, sending dust and debris to the floor below. His dark eyes were wide as they slowly tracked across the wall towards that gap into the kitchen, where he knew Sam was. He had not been expecting this. That demon down in Louisiana had mentioned Sam Winchester was a psychic, had mentioned he was going to be a soldier in an upcoming war, fighting on the side of Hell. But that demon hadn't said anything about how strong he was. None of Gordon's Roadhouse connections had mentioned anything close to this level of power, for either of the Winchesters. This level of evil.

Gordon felt even better now knowing he'd put Dean down, and was more certain than ever that he needed to do the same to Sam. He needed to end it quickly, though, before the younger Winchester focused any of that power his way.

It might be too late for that, the hunter reasoned. He wasn't some reckless yahoo – he knew when he was in over his head. There was a sinking weight in his belly that always told Gordon when he was in trouble. But he was smart, too. He knew when to listen to it and when to put his head to work. His two handguns, sitting on the table only a dozen and a half feet away, were currently useless to him. That table was in direct line of sight of the gap in the kitchen wall. He'd be a turkey on a shooting range if he went for them. He still had his knife, at least, and Gordon was a damn good throw.

Against a psychic who could bend walls, though? Who knew.

Sam Winchester had been reasonable enough at the start of this – not even going for a kill shot when he definitely had the opening and the capability – before Gordon taunted him with his brother's death. Maybe he could distract the younger Winchester – snap him out of it or back him down – enough to get a shot in before the psychic turned truly deadly rather than just angry.

"I'm not unreasonable," he said, raising his voice above the creak and groan of the old house straining under the power of an upset psychic. "I understand the use of psychics, Sam. I do. But your brother crossed a line. He sided with demons over his own kind."

Inside the kitchen, Sam's eyes blinked, going once more from pure black to a confused, agitated, and impatient brown. The walls stopped fluctuating in an attempt to get away from the angry Winchester, but the power did not diminish completely. The tension left in the house, focused in the kitchen, was practically a presence unto itself. The buzzing in Sam's head barely diminished at all, the young hunter going from angry to irritable but also perplexed.

"What are you talking about?"

"He wasn't one of us anymore, Sam. He wasn't a hunter." Gordon edged closer to the wall now that it had ceased its trembling, though he still got a distinct impression of danger wafting from the other side of it. Gordon pressed his hand against the wall, surprised to find the wood warmer than he thought it should be in an abandoned house in winter. That unfortunate sinking feeling in his gut got worse. No time to address it now; stick to the plan. "He was no better than the things we hunt."

"That's not true!" came the hissed reply, and Gordon pulled his hand off the wall when he felt it flux beneath his fingers. Wrong avenue, then.

"I saw it myself." The hunter took slow steps towards the doorway, eyes locked on the gap the entire time. He didn't think Sam was in a right enough state of mind to step through there, to attack him like a man rather than a psychic, but he'd been wrong before. "Your brother was with a woman when I took him down. A woman who disappeared in the blink of an eye, once their meet was done."

Gordon hadn't been expecting that, either. He'd pulled away from the scope, staring down at the solo Winchester, now alone in an empty gas station parking lot. And he'd known. He'd known killing Dean was the right choice. A hunter who associated with demons, did deals with demons, didn't start exorcising the thing right on the spot…well, that wasn't a hunter. That was fair game.

Laughter – cold, harsh, and bitter – erupted from the kitchen, stopping Gordon right on the threshold of the two rooms. He paused, glancing warily towards the other end of the room, towards where he knew Sam stood just on the other side of the flimsy wall. Laughter wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting, but as that feeling in his gut only got heavier, Gordon came to the realization that associating with demons was the norm for these two.

"You're a damn idiot, Gordon."

That, and the sudden rigid tension along his own spine, was the only warning Gordon got before Sam stepped into the living room, gun up and expression deadly. Gordon dove into the kitchen as a volley of shots rang out, some hitting the wall right where Gordon had been standing. He felt the stinging pain of a close call along the back of his arm and shoulder blade, but it was a flesh wound at best.

Gordon hit the floor of the kitchen, close enough to his abandoned rifle to grab it. The hunter knew he had no time. Knew all Sam had to do was step back through the gap in the wall and keep on firing. Gordon rolled onto his back, rifle up and cocked, as Sam reappeared in that hole.

The Winchester got a shot off – Walker grunting through the flare of pain in his thigh – but so did Gordon, and he was aiming for a place a hell of a lot more permanent. Sam was spun around by the force of the bullet entering his upper chest, and he disappeared back into the living room.

-o-o-o-

His fingers were turning white around the steering wheel, his knuckles long past that color. Dean glanced at the dashboard clock again, though the dial had hardly moved a full dash mark since the last time he'd looked at it.

Four hours. It had been almost four hours since he'd left the Impala to pray to an angel. Angels, plural. Some of that time had surely been taken up waiting on Balthazar and talking with Rachel, so it might have only been something like three hours since he died. But Dean couldn't be sure, and it was eating at him.

Three hours for Gordon to get to Sam. More than enough time for any hunter. Damnit!

Dean struck the steering wheel with the heel of his hand, ignoring the flare of pain. He wrapped his fingers back around Baby's leather and looked at the clock again.

Gordon would have had to get back into town, probably back to that old house he'd set up last time. Because, damnit, this had all gone down in Lafayette the first go around, hadn't it? Fuck, how come Dean hadn't remembered that when it would have been useful?! That entire encounter with Gordon was fuzzy at best, really. The important shit – like Gordon trying to ice Sam with a sniper rifle and later a grenade – wasn't helpful when it came to dates and locations, damnit (because of course it wasn't).

In all that, Dean didn't remember a bust of a hunt, though. He remembered…. Shit, what case had they been working when Gordon tried to take them out? There'd been a guy…some dude stabbed in a…a parking lot.

God damn it. This had gone down exactly the same as last time, Hadn't it? And he hadn't even noticed. Thanks for friggin' nothing, Timey Senses. God damn crap on a god damn cracker! What was the point of being from the future if it never helped?

Dean struck the steering wheel a couple more times, mentally apologizing to his Baby.

"Alright. Alright, damnit, focus." Dean ran a hand roughly across his skull, then checked the clock again, which really wasn't helping.

If he was Gordon, he'd have given himself an hour, at least, to get back to that crap house before messaging Sam. Maybe more, even, in order to set up the trap. Although, unfortunately, Dean also remembered Gordon laying the trip wires for his brother after forcing him to make the call to Sam, baiting that trap.

Fuck. Dean glanced at the clock again. He needed to get to a phone to warn Sam. A phone or a laptop to trace the kid's GPS and get a location. Dean didn't remember the damn address for that friggin' house, other than bumfuck nowhere. He needed a phone, goddammit.

So, of course, as par the course, there hadn't been a single lit building along the road he was on since he'd left the gas station. Because he'd been forced to drive to the mother effing outskirts because of the car tailing him. Which had been Gordon, as was now very obvious. Dean's grip on the steering wheel tightened. He was gonna kill that son of a bitch.

Soon as he got his hands on a friggin' phone.

As he passed yet another darkened building, the sides of the roads starting to populate with more of them and give him at least some hope, Dean scrunched his face up. There was a ringing in his ears which he hadn't noticed until now. It was the high pitch kind of ring – so high it was almost quiet –that happened from time to time (and more so with age). Some snot-nosed kid had once told him years ago, back when he actually went to school, that your ears ringing like that meant you were losing your hearing; one more frequency you could no longer pick up. Dean had no idea if that was true but ever since, he'd felt that sort of ringing like a personal attack. The hunter tried to pop his ears and shake his head to clear it, but the noise only got louder.

Then the radio suddenly turned on and Dean's gaze snapped to the volume dial as static filled the car.

"What the-"

His first, automatic concern as a hunter – ghosts or demons – didn't make much sense in a moving car going about seventy on surface streets. The static in the radio got so loud Dean could hear the speakers crackling with strain. Dean reached over, uselessly spinning the volume knob, trying futility to turn the whole radio off when that didn't work. Then the ringing increased, to the point where the human was hunching his shoulders instinctively, face scrunched up almost in pain, and Dean realized just what the hell that sound was.

It had been years since he'd heard it.

"Cas?" The hunter glanced over his shoulder at the empty back seat, green eyes scanning the leather-covered cushions for any sign of the angel. The ringing was still getting louder. "Cas!"

Dean swore as he was forced to pull over onto the side of the road, the noise threatening to take over his brain and crash the damn car. Jesus. Breaks squealed and smoked as the Impala came to as an abrupt a stop as physically possible. Dean hissed as the volume rose ever still and he clapped his hands over his ears, already knowing it was useless. An angel's true voice went straight to the brain, hands be damned.

Green eyes widened at the sight of the windshield glass, vibrating under the sustained pitch.

"Cas!"

The angel must be waking up, confused, probably pretty damn dazed, and likely in pain. Or possibly dying. Shit. Cas had said he wasn't that bad off, but Cas was also horrible at under exaggerating that sorta thing! Dean had never really heard an angel die, not with their true voice, at least. Most of the time they were in vessels when they went. He'd definitely never heard an un-vesseled angel bite the dust. Now Dean was kinda imaging it would sound exactly like this, actually.

God, let that not be what was happening right now.

Dean slammed his eyes shut, hands pressing almost painfully against his ears as the noise became a physical pain. All six glass panes in the Impala were humming dangerously.

"Damnit, Cas, if you blow out my windows I am gonna be so pissed at you!"

The ringing didn't stop, but it was like it skipped a beat on a record player. The sound picked up again, even louder, then faltered a second time. This time, it stayed a low background hum and Dean risked opening his eyes at the significant volume drop. The radio shut itself off, then suddenly the sound was swallowed up by a silence so complete it left Dean's ears still ringing from it. The hunter lowered his hands, shoulders still hunched up and starting to cramp.

Shit, that had worked?

Dean turned halfway around in his seat, eyes darting across the still empty back seat. "Cas? You with me?"

There was a low hum: a vibration running through the car and a short burst of static through the radio. It had the after ring of high frequency noise, but it was way more manageable than the shit show performance they'd just gone through.

"Crap," the older Winchester breathed out, shoulders finally sagging. "Are you okay?"

The static buzzed again, speakers crackling and Baby's frame humming with it. It was a long enough hum this time to be completely confusing as an answer. Dean frowned, racking his brain for a way to communicate with an un-vesseled, invisible, injured angel. Fun times, as always, in the Winchester household (carhold? They didn't actually have a house…)

"Okay, uh…one buzz for no, two for yes, yeah? You okay?"

He got two short bursts of static in response and the hunter let out a sigh of relief. Alright, some good news for once. Dean gripped the top of the front seat, still eyeing a completely empty rear seat that he was also talking to, and tired not to feel as strange about that as he did.

"Alright, look…I know that you probably feel like shit right now and you're in no condition to do anything, but Sam is in serious danger. Gordon Walker is the hunter who took me out and Sam is next on his list."

The low-key vibration started up again, building with something Dean could very much tell was anger. Whoa. He was totally able to read an angel through friggin' static and ringing. That was kinda cool and also totally unimportant at the moment.

"We gotta find a phone so we can track Sammy's location. The bastard took mine. Bobby's is the closest I can think of. Any chance you can-"

Two rapid-fire vibrations shot off through the car before Dean could even finish talking, and then there was nothing but total silence. Not even the fuzz of the radio existed anymore. It was the kind of silence that was so complete, Dean knew instantly he was alone in the car on the side of the road in the middle of Indiana. He hadn't actually realized how full the Impala felt with Cas's presence until the angel was no longer there.

Huh. If he'd known that earlier he could have spent the last six and a half minutes in a hell of a lot less stress. Still tons of stress, of course, because Sam was in danger, Dean had no way of contacting him, and also because he was a friggin' Winchester, so stress was a goddamn lifestyle. But at least he wouldn't have also been worrying his best friend was dead in the backseat or not even in the damn car to begin with.

"Cas?"

Nothing but silence replied and Dean slowly turned back around in the front seat. Okay…well, shit. He couldn't leave until Cas got back; the angel wouldn't know where to find him or have any way of getting a hold of him to ask. Not to mention, Dean didn't actually have a useful destination except the motel, which wasn't useful in the slightest because Sam being there was a long shot at best. Nothing but a waste of time and gas that made Dean feel slightly better about not doing a damn thing to protect his brother at the moment.

Like sitting, useless, on the side of the road.

The hunter wrapped his hands back around the steering wheel, itching for action and cursing the fact that he was sidelined until Cas returned, even if the angel was their best shot at getting a phone and a location on the missing Winchester. Dean stared out the windshield at the stretch of dark road in front of him and tried not to break Baby's wheel in half.

"I'll just…uh…wait here, then." The Impala's leather creaked under his totally useless fingers. "Awesome."

-o-o-o-

Angela sat upright in a hospital bed on the second floor of Bobby Singer's house with a gasp that ripped at her lungs but went absolutely nowhere due to something blocking her throat. Not just blocking, shoved down. All the way down. Oh god, she couldn't breathe!

Tears leaked from her eyes as uncoordinated, weak hands scrambled for purchase on the ventilation tube. Pure adrenaline, fueled by fear and terror, allowed Angela to pull the entire length of ribbed plastic up and out of her esophagus. A horrible, horrible experience she never wanted to live through again. Usually Cas took care of all these things, but the angel was definitely not in the driver seat. Angela was in complete, terrifying control. She could feel him in there, still in her head and deep down in her chest, like a little blaring sun, but he was in pain.

A lot of pain.

Angela didn't really know much about what was going on, but it was clear something was really, really wrong. Getting herself upright was almost impossible. All she could manage with muscles that had spent far too long horizontal and unused – cramping, weak, useless– was to list to the side like a broken doll. The ventilation tube hit the floor with a clatter as her hand found purchase along the side table, which was about all she could manage.

Okay. Clearly getting out of this bed on her own wasn't an option. Angela took several deep breaths, trying to calm the panic raging inside. Cas was hurting. The usual steadfast voice in her head was nothing but a frantic murmur that relayed information. Dean was stuck in the middle of nowhere with no direction to go, Sam was in danger, and she needed to get a phone as soon as possible.

Which was calm and steady angel speak for right this damn instant.

Gripping the table beside the bed with a shaking hand, the other trying to peel back the thing sheet and heavier blanket draped over her, Angela sucked in a deep breath. Blue eyes locked on the open door leading to the hallway beyond and, she hoped, someone who could help her. As loud as she could, through a dry, disused, and ventilator-abused throat, Angela yelled for that help. It took her three tires before her voice carried enough to make it downstairs.

"Bobby!"

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/Ns: I apparently put all the author notes at the start of this chapter, leaving me nothing much to say here...I'm sure I'm forgetting things...Oh! Hey! We passed 600,000 words two chapters ago! I'm using AO3's counter because it doesn't count my author notes in (70,000 plus words in author notes...that's an entire novel to itself...yup, I can believe that. Totally sounds 'bout right ._.) But back to that 600,000 word thing. Holy crap! :D

Review Replies: Still...so...far...behind...Still working on it, too. Just hang tight if you haven't heard from me. You will, eventually. I promise [insert silent but oh-so-dramatic weeping, open-mouthed babbling here] Just know that all of your comments, from the quick and simple to the novel-length and complex, have been so so so appreciated and loved.

Up Next: Sam's been shot, Dean gets a surprise guest in his backseat but she comes bearing gifts (and a conversation Dean wants no part of), Gordon's back to chatting like he didn't just almost kill Sam or all-the-way kill Sam's brother, and Ellen Harvelle gets a late-night phone call.