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Chapter Text

Red was the only color in Dean's dreams now.

Mostly they were black. There had been a lot of black in Hell, in the eyes of most of the demons around him. There had been white, too: much rarer, the color of bone, the color of the eyes of the highest-ranking demons like Alastair and Lilith. Otherwise, Hell had mostly been shades of grey.

And the red of the blood.

"What's with all the blood?" Dean asked aloud, staring as it dripped down from the knife in his hands. "We're all souls down here, right? It's not like we've got bodies any more."

Alastair was close behind him, voice a caress. Dean didn't turn. "But you're souls with no experience of picturing yourselves as anything other than the bodies you once wore. That's why you take the form you do. If you cut her, you cut her soul; bleeding is the only way her mind knows how to show the damage you're doing." He laughed, soft and cutting. "Even tastes like real blood, only more so - there's more of what makes her her in it. You should give it a try."

No, Dean thought, but found himself stepping forward anyway. The soul on the rack in front of him had been a woman, once: now it was a shredded mess, just enough of it still hanging together for it to moan weakly as he approached. Dean thought it might be trying to close its remaining eye, but the eyelid had been one of the first things to go.

NO, Dean told himself frantically. It's a dream, wake up, wake up -

But instead he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to where the soul's neck had once been, feeling the blood warm against his lips, slipping into his mouth, rich with the essence of the soul, flavored with its agony.

"A delicacy," Alastair purred behind him, and Dean screamed and screamed in his head and threw everything he had into NO NO NO WAKE UP -

And suddenly he was elsewhere.

It was a moment before he could take in his surroundings, busy scrubbing violently at his mouth, trying to erase the taste of the blood, gasping with the horror of his nightmare and relief of waking. When he did finally get it together, though, he frowned.

He was standing in a room he didn't recognize, which wasn't right, unless he'd taken up sleepwalking. Last thing he could remember, before... yeah, had been going to sleep in one of their usual motel rooms. It had been a particularly unmemorable one, sure, but he was pretty damn sure it hadn't been anything like this. This looked like someone's bedroom, neat and orderly - except for the blood stain on the floor.

Dean looked around warily. This had to be another dream, but red was the only color in his dreams these days, and though he couldn't stop looking at the red blood stain on the floor, he could see the faded blue of the carpet around it, too.

Dream or not, what the hell was he doing here?

"Hello?" he said at last, looking around.

He only had a split-second scream as warning before he was attacked, but it was enough. He fought back before he'd even seen what he was fighting, throwing his attacker away from him and slamming home several punches as a follow-up. His attacker fell away, whimpering, and Dean finally got a decent look at it.

It was a ghost. The ghost of a young woman, from the look of it, though her face was twisted by pain and rage, her fingers sharpened into claws. Dean could see without even thinking three different ways to take her soul apart, with the way of looking at souls he'd picked up in Hell: it wasn't physical weaknesses he was trained to see now, but psychic and emotional ones, the fault lines and wounds that ran along every soul, if you knew how to see them.

Dean knew how to see them, and more importantly, he knew how to use them.

He'd taken a step forward before he caught himself, suddenly sick to his stomach again. This wasn't Hell. The ghost wasn't attacking him any more, it - she - was watching him in fear, and Dean had just come this close to ripping her to shreds.

He cleared his throat. "Hey," he said, throat still tight with self-hatred. "What's your name?"

The ghost looked up at him warily. "Anita," she said after a moment. "Who are you?"

"I'm Dean," Dean said. He tried to project as much reassurance into his voice as he could, the way Sammy always used to. "You okay? You need a hand getting up?"

"No," the ghost said hastily, flinching back. Dean didn't blame her. She was upright again in a blink of movement.

"Sorry about that," Dean offered after a moment. "You caught me off-guard."

"No, I'm sorry," Anita said. She still looked wary, but had lost a lot of the fearfulness from before. "I thought you were... someone else."

"The guy who did this to you?" Dean guessed, eyes drawn irresistibly to the bloodstained carpet once more. He caught sight of Anita's flinch out of the corner of his eye, though, and grimaced. He'd never exactly been Mr. Tactful, but he suspected he'd gotten worse since his trip Below.

"Yes," Anita said quietly. "I don't - I don't know what -"

"It's okay," Dean said. He forced himself to look away from the blood stain and back up at her. He could see the wound of her death livid across her soul - not the physical wound her murderer had inflicted, he wasn't about to change his name to Hayley Joel yet, but the scar of a life cut short, the swirling red and black stain that spoke of another trauma. "Did you see anyone else, after that? An old guy in a black suit, or maybe even a woman with dark hair?"

Anita's eyes widened. "How did you - there was another man, yes. He wanted me to go with him."

"But you didn't," Dean said. "Something made you decide to stay here."

"I need to find my boys," Anita said, and he could hear the thread of panic creeping back into her voice. "He said they were already with him and he'd take me to them, but I knew he was lying, I taught them never to go with strangers. I need to find them, can you help me find them?"

Dean looked away to cover his reaction. She wasn't entirely rational, but then most ghosts weren't, particularly the ghosts of people who'd just been brutally murdered. She seemed half-aware that she was dead, but half not, and Dean wasn't sure how to deal with that.

"I'll try to help," he said finally. "Where are their rooms?"

Anita led the way out of the room and across the hallway, hovering in the doorway to what had evidently been the kids' room. There was a jungle pattern on one wall, and a set of bunk beds against it. The blood stain on the floor was smaller here, but drew Dean's eye just as surely.

"They wouldn't have gone with a stranger," Anita said again, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself.

Dean forced himself to look at her again, at the swirling cloud of concern tearing at her soul. If he'd had her on the rack, he'd have known exactly where to strike: where to plunge the knife, and what hints to make about her children to rip her to shreds.

He swallowed against the nausea and took a breath. Time to see if he could use the skills he'd learned for a better purpose.

"Your boys aren't here, Anita," he said, as gently as he could, but with absolute certainty.

"They have to be," Anita said, near-frantic. "I have to find them."

"You can go to them," Dean told her. "Anita." Saying the name made a person more present, more real, a trick he'd picked up from Alastair and made full use of Below to heighten people's pain. But now it was useful in gaining her attention, anchoring her to the here and now. "Listen to me. Your boys are safe now. They're fine, they're just... waiting for you to come to them."

Not that he knew that, of course. He couldn't promise her that with any more certainty than he'd been able to promise Cole he'd be moving on to a better place if he went with Tessa, or promise that ghost woman they'd run into a year or so ago that she'd be okay if she went on to the other side. But he knew a thing or two about not moving on, and he knew it would be better for her. And for that to happen, he had to ease some of her concern and fear.

"How can you be sure?" Anita asked.

"Tell me about them," Dean said.

Anita blinked, then walked slowly into the boys' room. "Cody's the oldest. He likes cars and trucks, always gets excited about riding in the car. Rory's a couple of years younger, and such a momma's boy at the moment. They're going through a squabbling phase, but they look out for each other. They..."

"They love you," Dean said. "Of course they're waiting for you, Anita. They need you."

Anita looked more at peace already. "How can I find them?"

Dean tried to think what Sam had told the ghost woman they'd helped. "Just... close your eyes, and think of your boys and how much you love them," he improvised.

Anita closed her eyes, and Dean looked around hastily for something. And to his surprise, there it was - the ghostly shape of a Reaper brushing past him and into the room.

Anita smiled suddenly, for the first time, and then there was a bright light that forced Dean to close his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, Anita was gone, as was the Reaper.

"Huh," Dean said aloud. He hadn't actually expected that to work. His eye was caught by the blood stain on the floor again, and he forced himself to look away. He'd actually done it, and though one soul helped didn't go any way at all towards canceling out what he'd done in hell - there was no way to ever undo that, and he was damn well aware of it - it was still something.

He frowned, listening. He thought he'd heard - but very faint -

"Dean. Dean -"

~*~
"- Dean!"

Dean found himself sitting bolt upright in bed, knife instinctively in his hand and this close to slitting Sam's throat, if Sam hadn't just as automatically caught his arm and blocked the move.

"Dude," Dean said after a moment, his heart still thudding from the adrenalin. "You know better than to wake me up like that." He lowered his arm slowly, stuffing the knife back under his pillow.

Sam was frowning at him. "I couldn't wake you any other way, Dean, you were dead to the world. You okay?"

"Fine," Dean said briefly. For a moment, he considered telling Sam about the dream - the second dream - but discarded the idea just as quickly. Sam's words under the influence of the siren's venom recently were still all too clear in his mind, and no matter how much Sam tried to claim he hadn't meant them, Dean knew better. One weird dream wasn't that important anyway.

Sam frowned but didn't argue. "You want to get up? I want to get this job over with and move on."

Dean looked up at him. "Thought you said it was a straightforward salt and burn."

"It is, that's the point," Sam said. "We wouldn't even be here if the guy didn't have a friend of a friend who knew Bobby - the whole thing's probably a bust. All the more reason to check it out and move on: we've got more important things to deal with."

Dean swung out of bed and rummaged through his duffel bag. "Fine, works for me. Remind me what we're looking at?"

"The guy brought in to pack up a murder victim's possessions said he saw a spirit in the house," Sam said. "The owner of the house and her two children had been murdered there a week earlier, so it's not exactly hard to figure out who the spirit is."

Dean paused. "What was the woman's name?" he asked without looking round.

"Uh..." There was a rustle of paper as Sam consulted his notes. "Anita Bowman, apparently. The only tricky part will be if she hasn't been buried yet, it might take a while if they needed to do an autopsy."

Dean swallowed and straightened up. "Yeah. We should check out the house first, in case the guy was imagining it. No point in wasting time on a salt and burn if there's no need." He headed for the shower without meeting Sam's eyes.

"Sounds like a plan," Sam said, distracted by his notes again.

In the shower, Dean frowned at the faint scratches on his arm, and then closed his eyes, tilting his head up to the shower spray.

~*~
Dean spent the ride to the house trying to convince himself that it had just been a dream. Sam had told him a bit about the case while they'd been driving the previous night, and the fact that Dean couldn't remember him mentioning the victim's name didn't mean he hadn't.

He wasn't convincing even himself. Coincidences weren't nearly as likely as fucked-up weirdness, at least when it came to his life.

It wasn't until they broke into the house, though, that he was certain. It was definitely the same place. Which left the question of how the hell he'd been wandering around it in his sleep that night.

"Here," Sam said, passing him one of the EMF meters. Dean took it absently and switched it on, heading for the stairs.

He'd known what he would find, but it was weird nonetheless, walking into Anita's room and seeing the blood stain on the floor. Dean swallowed, unable to look away from it. The meter in his hand buzzed briefly and fell silent again.

So, not a dream. That didn't leave too many options. Dean tried to think if the colors had seemed more washed out than usual, but he'd been so taken aback to see any color at all in his dream that he hadn't noticed. He hadn't touched anything, other than Anita when she'd attacked him, but an angry ghost stood a decent chance of managing physical contact anyway.

He'd seen the Reaper, though. Dean gnawed on his lower lip thoughtfully. He knew the only way to see a Reaper was to be dead, or... to walk beyond the veil.

It made sense, in a way. It had been less than a week since Pamela - Dean felt a pang of guilt and grief just thinking her name - had sent them to the astral plane. Her funeral hadn't even been held yet. Pamela had already been wounded when she'd called him back: maybe something had gone wrong and the connection hadn't been fully severed, somehow. Who the hell knew.

"You got anything?" Sam asked, coming up behind him.

Dean hastily switched off the EMF meter. There was no way he was going to salt and burn Anita's bones when he knew she was already gone. "Nah. I think this one's a bust, dude. If there was anything here, it's gone now."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, eyes fixed on the blood stain on the floor for a long moment before he met Dean's eyes. "Let's get out of here." He turned and headed for the stairs.

Dean took one last look around the room and followed his brother.

~*~
It never got any easier to see one of his siblings die.

Castiel crouched down next to the body of his brother's vessel, careful to avoid standing on the shadow of his wings. He and Israfel had never been especially close, but that was by angelic standards. It was impossible to be truly distant from someone with whom you were in contact over thousands of years. He had treasured Israfel's singing, and it was hard to accept that no one would ever hear it again.

He didn't know how the demons had found a way to kill angels, but he knew they had to find out.

He bowed his head. He should return to Uriel, he knew, and see how his interrogation of Alastair was progressing. Not that Castiel thought that Uriel would have made much progress. Alastair was a very high-ranking, powerful demon, and one who knew more about torture and torment than any angel. There was a limit to what Uriel could do to him.

And it was... difficult to listen to Alastair talk about Dean Winchester. The demon seemed to have realized it affected Castiel more deeply than any remark directed at him personally. Castiel was very well aware of what had been done to Dean in Hell, and what Dean himself had done - indeed, Castiel had witnessed it first-hand - but to hear Alastair speak of Dean with that cruel possessiveness in his voice... Castiel didn't like it, and was not always able to mask his feelings sufficiently.

No. He would not return yet. Instead... perhaps Dean would now be more willing to talk, since they had successfully defended the Seal and captured Alastair some days earlier.

Castiel looked on Israfel's face one last time and reached out along his connection to Dean Winchester's soul.

It was an unexpected surprise to find that Dean's soul was not in his body, but instead standing on a sidewalk, talking to the spirit of a young girl. Castiel took in the scene. Even as he watched, the girl's spirit closed her eyes and dissolved into light, a Reaper flickering past and then gone again.

Dean looked up and right at him. "Cas. What're you doing here?"

Castiel tilted his head, looking at Dean's soul. "I believe I should be asking you that." It appeared unharmed, other than the old wounds and scars from Hell and the life he'd led. "Why are you here?"

Dean shrugged with apparent nonchalance. "You tell me. One minute I was sleeping, the next I was here."

Castiel considered. "Your psychic -"

"Her name was Pamela," Dean said sharply.

Castiel paused. "Pamela," he corrected himself, "built a very powerful bridge to take you beyond the veil. Perhaps it is still latent. You said you were sleeping before you found yourself here. Tell me, were you dreaming?"

Dean's gaze flickered away before he met Castiel's eyes with something like defiance. "Sure. Puppy dogs and candy canes."

It was clear Dean didn't expect him to believe it, so Castiel felt no guilt in listening to his thoughts to learn the truth. The reality was not surprising: Castiel had been aware that Dean dreamed regularly about his time in Hell. He had not fully realized how vivid the dreams were, however, or distressing.

He did not flinch: the horrors of Hell were not new to him. He simply murmured "I see," and regretted it when Dean's eyes sparked with irritation at the realization that he'd picked up on the truth.

"Get out of my head and stay out," Dean told him.

"On the contrary," Castiel said, "the problem is that you are not in your head, and it is time we returned there." He reached out and pressed two fingers to Dean's forehead, creating a dreamscape for them to move to.

Dean blinked and stared around himself. "Where the hell is this?"

Castiel looked around. Everything appeared to be accurate, within the parameters of a dream. "I believe this is a lake you visited when you were seven years old. Would you prefer something else?"

"You -" Dean started, staring at him, then unexpectedly laughed. Castiel found himself warmed by it. "Well, I'm not about to ask an angel of the Lord for strippers, so I guess this'll do. You feel like telling me why, though?" Dean sat down on a broad rock, looking up at him expectantly.

"Because it is not safe for your soul to wander on the astral plane, Dean," Castiel told him. "It's important that you stay within your own mind."

"Oh, I don't know, I'm a Winchester, we have a family tradition of going out of our minds sometimes," Dean said with a snort. "How come it's such a big deal now? It didn't seem to bother you last week."

"You misunderstand," Castiel said. "It's not that it 'bothers' me, as you say, it's that it is dangerous. Unfortunately, it was the only strategy in order to defend the Seal. If there had been any other way, I would not have allowed you to take that risk."

"Hasn't seemed too dangerous to me so far," Dean said. "I've spent the past three nights wandering around, and I haven't had any problems. I've helped lay four ghosts to rest, though. I've been helping people, Cas, instead of dreaming about -"

He cut off, but Castiel heard the words he didn't say: torturing people.

"That little girl you saw," Dean resumed, "she was four when she died, and somehow things got messed up and she never moved on. She never caused any trouble for the living, never... tossed people around or hurt anyone or damaged anything. No one even knew she was there. She'd have just hung around there for god knows how long, crying for her mom, and no one would ever have known or given a shit if I hadn't come across her."

"I understand your drive to help these lost souls," Castiel said. "But it will not undo your actions in Hell, Dean."

Dean flinched. "I know that. But what the fuck else am I meant to do?"

Castiel wished once again that human language weren't so inadequate, that he could communicate with Dean mind to mind. Even now, inside Dean's head, his true voice would inflict damage. It seemed that his borrowed voice could too, however, albeit of a different kind.

"I apologize," he said after a moment. "I expressed myself poorly."

Dean's eyes were wide. "An angel apologizing? Well, that's a first."

Castiel felt a pang at that. The words were true enough, and though it was not truly an angel's place to apologize, perhaps there were times when it would have been better to show more humility, or at least regret. "What I meant was that there is no... debt you have to repay due to your actions in Hell. You have a role to play in what is to come, but you are not expected to assist other souls at such a high cost to yourself."

Dean did not appear convinced, though Castiel was not surprised. He had discovered the first time they had met face to face upon the earth that Dean Winchester did not believe he deserved to be saved.

"It's not about what you 'require' of me," Dean said. "It's about what I have to do, for my own reasons."

Castiel could only gaze at him. When he'd first met Dean Winchester outside of Hell, he'd wondered how this could possibly be the righteous man the prophet had spoken of, this man who lusted and fought, who blasphemed and had no faith whatsoever. And then he had come to know Dean Winchester, and marvel all the more at the ways of the Father. At moments like this, it felt like Castiel's faith in Dean was a great, shining light.

"Quit staring at me like that," Dean snapped. "You don't like me wandering around outside my head, fine, but believe me, from where I'm sitting it beats out dreaming of Hell -"

"I was not... objecting," Castiel interrupted gently, wishing once again that he didn't need to be in a vessel to communicate with Dean. It was impossible to translate his emotions and reactions to the vessel's face rapidly and accurately enough to match human expectations, and that too led to misunderstandings at times. "I respect your reasons for doing this, Dean, they are worthy. Nonetheless, it is too dangerous. When your soul walks beyond the veil, it can be injured directly. Any of the ghosts you have talked to could have attacked you. And demons, like angels, can perceive your spirit. It's fortunate that you have not encountered any so far. They will be drawn to you."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Drawn?"

"Remove your shirt," Castiel told him.

Dean snorted a laugh. "On the first date? Gee, Cas, what kind of guy do you think I am?"

Sometimes Castiel didn't know what to make of Dean at all. "You will have to see to truly understand, I believe."

"Yeah, yeah, I bet that's what you tell all the cute humans," Dean said, but he stood up and began removing his shirt. "So what's the - what the fuck?"

The faint glow was visible the moment the shirt was off his shoulder. Dean craned his neck down at an awkward angle to try to inspect the glowing scar, touching it hesitantly.

"It is not a physical scar," Castiel said. "It is the mark your soul bears from when I gripped you and raised you back to the light. A human soul cannot come into direct contact with the essence of an angel without there being some degree of transference."

"Transference," Dean repeated, looking from Castiel to his shoulder and back again. "What's that supposed to mean? You've given me your angel cooties?"

"It means there is a very faint connection between us. It means you bear the mark of something holy," Castiel said. "And many of the things which wander the astral plane will sense that. In some cases they will not know what they are sensing, in other cases they will, and that makes you even more vulnerable than is normally the case for a human soul beyond the veil."

"Dude," Dean said, staring down at his shoulder again. "Next time I find myself looking around a dark house I can just take my shirt off and use my shoulder as a flashlight."

"I would prefer there was not a 'next time'," Castiel said again. "The danger -"

"Yeah, yeah, your angelic cooties make me even more irresistible to everyone, I got it," Dean replied, shrugging back into his shirt. "But it's not like I can control it, Cas. One minute I'm dreaming of Hell, the next I'm AWOL. Unless there's something you can do about that -"

"Perhaps there is," Castiel said, considering the matter. He didn't have permission to interfere significantly with Dean's dreams, but if they were now not merely distressing him, but putting him in danger...

He took the last step closer, ignoring Dean's startled "What?", and reached out to touch Dean's face. He was inside Dean's mind, and yet this representation of Dean was his true essence, and direct contact would make this more effective.

Dean's eyes were very wide, and Castiel stared at them intently, measuring precisely the effects of what he was doing. It was not difficult to forge the light bond required to let him sense Dean's dreams even from a great distance: there was a bond between them already, of a sort. Dean's mind did not fight or resist him, and Castiel finally released him with some reluctance.

He liked touching Dean's soul, liked being in contact with his essence. It was far closer to the way angels communicated and embraced and loved, and he was drawn to it more than he should be. But this was to help Dean, not to satisfy Castiel's own longings.

"What was that?" Dean asked, his voice oddly muted, without stepping back.

"It will let me be aware of your dreams even from a distance," Castiel said. "So that I can intervene before your mind resorts to that escape route."

"Intervene," Dean said thoughtfully, watching him. "Like bringing me back here?"

"Or the strippers, if you prefer," Castiel said, and was rewarded when Dean laughed, sounding genuinely delighted - and not just, Castiel hoped, at the idea of strippers.

"Nah, I'll skip the strippers," Dean said, grinning at him. "You can save them for my birthday or something."

Castiel felt his lips twitch into a smile almost of their own accord. "Very well. I will leave you to your dream, Dean. Sleep well."

"Hey, you don't have to go," Dean said. "You can stay and hang out here with me for a while. You know. If you want to."

Castiel hesitated. The idea was... tempting. He enjoyed being inside Dean's mind, sharing some of the closeness with him that he could share with another angel. Which was, perhaps, a good reason to instead leave now.

"You never said what you're doing here in the first place," Dean said. "Did you just realize I'd gone walkabout because of your angel stalker thing, or was there something else?"

"One of my brothers was murdered tonight," Castiel told him. The words were no harder to say aloud than any others, and yet he disliked the sound of them in the air.

Dean's face changed, and he started to reach out towards Castiel before apparently thinking better of it and letting his hand drop. "Demons?"

"It can only be demons," Castiel agreed. "But I don't know how. It should not be possible."

"So you want me and Sam to look into it or something?" Dean asked. "I mean, we can try, but I don't know that we're likely to find out much..."

"No," Castiel said. "We're doing all that can be done, at least for now. But thank you. Perhaps later you will be able to assist."

Dean nodded meditatively. "So why did you come here, then?"

Castiel hesitated, unsure how to answer. "I suspected you would understand," he said finally, and left before Dean could reply. Uriel would be waiting for his report, and Dean would sleep safely for the remainder of the night. There was no reason to linger, no matter how much he might like to.

~*~
It proved difficult to concentrate fully and impartially on the interrogation of Alastair when Castiel could sense the nightmare Dean was having about the demon at that very moment. Even though he was picking up only on the shadow of the dream, nothing particularly vivid, Dean's horror and pain bled through sufficiently that it was difficult to mask.

The temptation to intervene immediately and shift Dean's dreams to something more peaceful was immense. Castiel restrained himself, however. He was not doing this to make Dean's life easier or reduce the burden on him, merely to ensure his safety. It was not Castiel's place to interfere with who Dean was.

Knowing that didn't make it any easier, however.

"How are the demons killing the angels?" Uriel demanded for the hundred and forty-seventh time that day. Tenacity was perhaps one of Uriel's qualities that could be seen as both particularly positive and unpleasantly negative, Castiel reflected. Uriel had a surprising number of such qualities.

"With silver bells and cockle-shells and pretty maids all in a row," Alastair said, and chuckled. "There were lots of pretty maids all in a row in hell, you know. Of course, not so pretty any more, not once Dean was through with them. Though he had a talent for seeing the beauty in the destruction. The best student I ever had, did he tell you that?"

Four hundred miles away, Castiel knew, Dean was dreaming of Alastair flaying the skin from his body, inch by excruciating inch. He said, "How are the angels being killed?"

"Really, there are much more interesting questions you could be asking," Alastair purred. "Why don't you ask me about the time Dean managed to surprise even me? The boy has an inventive streak. He -"

"Enough," Castiel said firmly, using his will to force Alastair's mouth to snap shut, even as he reached out through the faint bond with Dean and guided him into the dream of the lake once more.

Uriel took over, before Castiel's weakness could become apparent for what it was. Castiel himself was under no illusions in the respect. "The angels, demon. How are you killing them?"

Cas, he heard faintly through his bond to Dean. Hey, Cas. You around?

Castiel considered for a moment, but the truth was, his presence was not helping with the interrogation in any meaningful way - indeed, Alastair's instinct for his connection with Dean was complicating matters. His presence was not required.

He nodded once to Uriel, and let the bond carry him directly into Dean's dream.

Dean looked up at once, sensing his presence immediately in a way he only sometimes did when awake. "So you were listening in."

Castiel eyed him. "If you called me here simply to ascertain that..."

"Nah," Dean said. "Anyway, I didn't call - I asked. If you were busy playing your harp or something -"

"We were in the middle of interrogating Alastair," Castiel told him.

The smile vanished from Dean's face, and Castiel found himself regretting the cold honesty for a moment.

"Fuck," Dean muttered quietly. After a pause, he added, "Bet that's going well."

Castiel looked away. Dean was sitting on a chair at the end of a little jetty, at the same lake Castiel had built for him the first time. A thought put a second chair next to Dean's, and Castiel sat down.

"Make yourself at home," Dean said wryly.

Castiel cocked his head, frowning. "I assumed, since you called me, that you wanted me here. If that was wrong -"

"No," Dean said hastily. "No, it wasn't wrong. Ignore me, I'm just still... you know."

Castiel did know. They were inside Dean's mind, after all, and though he'd created and was protecting this space for them, it was impossible to overlook the dark storm clouds looming on the horizon in every direction. Dean was still unsettled and angry from his nightmare of Hell, and Castiel knew him well enough, now, to know how Dean dealt with those emotions.

"So, Alastair," Dean said finally.

"Uriel is interrogating him," Castiel said. "It is more his specialty than mine."

Dean shook his head. "You won't get anything out of him, not unless he wants you to know it."

"He is proving difficult," Castiel admitted. "But Uriel is very stubborn, and we have certain weapons against demons."

Dean made a non-committal noise, staring out over the lake. Castiel took in the way the clouds on the horizon were darkening further, and decided a change of subject was in order.

"There are certain other advantages to being inside a dream instead of wandering the astral plane," he said.

Dean turned his head to meet his eyes. "Yeah? Like what?"

A moment of concentration and the lake was gone. Instead they were sitting in an empty diner, facing each other across the table. In the middle of the table was a pie.

"You can eat, in dreams," Castiel said, pleased by the surprised pleasure on Dean's face.

"Neat trick," Dean said. Some of his tension was gone, and Castiel did not need to look out the window to see that the world outside this protected area of dreamscape was lighter now. "Man, you should have told me that last night. I'd have been a much easier sell. What kind is it?"

"Blueberry," Castiel said. "But I'm sure your mind is capable of producing many other flavors if you prefer."

Dean was in the process of cutting himself a slice, but he looked up sharply at that. "You mean I can..." he gestured vaguely around them, "control this place? Think up my own pie and stuff?"

"It's your mind," Castiel reminded him. "This is a form of lucid dreaming, in a way. You have a certain degree of control."

"Huh," Dean said. "That's pretty awesome." He cut a second slice and slid it across the table to Castiel, looking at him expectantly.

Castiel looked back at him. "I do not need to eat, Dean."

Dean chuckled. "You can, though, can't you? This is a dream, after all. And this is pie, Cas. It's not just sustenance, it's good for the soul."

Castiel couldn't help but smile slightly at that. "Very well." He picked up his fork and cut off a small piece. Dean's eyes were intent on him the entire time as he raised it to his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. It had been a very long time since he'd consumed human food, even a dream representation of it, and the taste was surprisingly pleasurable. Of course, here in Dean's mind, it had the taste Dean willed it to have, and so perhaps it was not so surprising after all. It tasted of Dean's enjoyment of it as much as of blueberries. He swallowed.

"Well?" Dean asked, grinning.

Castiel cut off a second piece. "It is very good," he allowed.

"Hell yes," Dean said triumphantly, and dug into his own slice. "I'm telling you, Cas. Good for the soul."

"I think you should eat pie often, then," Castiel said.

Dean looked up at him, his face unguarded. "Yeah. Maybe you're right." He grinned suddenly. "I'll tell Sam you said that. Sorry, Sammy, no bitching about my pie - angel's orders."

Castiel found himself smiling. "So that's what it takes for you to obey freely? An order to eat pie?"

Dean's grin widened. "If you wanted a mindless drone, you picked the wrong guy. Pie's a damn good way to get me to listen, though."

"We did not pick the wrong person," Castiel assured him softly. "Perhaps next time there is a Seal to be saved I should bring you pie first, then."

Dean waved his fork at him. "Pie is always good. But mostly just don't jerk us around, you know? You want me to do something, come talk to me properly, like this. And tell me the truth about what's going on. I don't like being lied to."

Castiel nodded. "I will bear that in mind."

Dean attacked the rest of his pie with gusto, and Castiel slowly worked his way through the remainder of his slice. The silence was companionable, almost comfortable, and Castiel felt himself relaxing in a way that made him realize for the first time how tense he'd been.

~*~
"What were you dreaming about?" Castiel asked, almost demanded, as he materialized in Dean's dream.

The lake again, tonight - it was as good a default as any, until Dean adjusted enough to the idea to be able to define his own safe spaces inside his mind. The horizon was a solid wall of black tonight, though, and Dean was still doubled over, breathing hard, both hands pressed to his face. He hadn't called this time: Castiel had chosen to come when he'd sensed the extent of Dean's distress. The timing had not been... convenient, but he would deal with that later. Dean was his charge and that was justification enough for his actions.

Dean was taking deep breaths, trying to slow his breathing. Castiel reached out and pressed a hand to his back, and Dean didn't pull away.

"Fuck," Dean said hoarsely after a moment, and straightened up, scrubbing his hands across his face.

Castiel did not move, and resisted the urge to look into Dean's thoughts to find the details he wanted. It was for Dean to choose to tell him, or not.

"Pamela," Dean said finally. "It was Pamela. On the rack."

Castiel studied him closely. "You blame yourself for her death." He shouldn't have been surprised, and yet he was. He had expected Dean to blame him for her death, if anyone.

"It's her funeral tomorrow," was all Dean said in response. He took a step back, finally, and sat down on a rock.

Castiel sat down beside him. "I am sorry for her death."

"Are you?" Dean said. It wasn't an insult, Castiel knew, but a genuine question. "I thought you angels weren't supposed to give much of a damn about what happens to people. You're all about the bigger picture."

Castiel bowed his head. "It's true that we cannot afford to be swayed by individual suffering, if it's for the greater good. We are fighting a war. But that does not mean we don't regret the damage which is caused, or wish it could be otherwise. It's not that we do not feel emotion, it's that we usually are not permitted - cannot afford - to act on it."

"You trying to tell me that Uriel's actually mushy on the inside once you get to know him?" Dean said wryly. "Because I got to tell you, Cas, that idea would take some selling."

Castiel couldn't repress a slight smile, although the subject was not really amusing in the slightest. "Some angels find it difficult to endure seeing so much suffering when they cannot alleviate it, and close themselves off, try to avoid feeling so much. Others... we've been away from humanity for a very long time."

Dean nodded, which was more than Castiel had been hoping for. "Either way, she didn't deserve to die," Dean said. "And I got her mixed up in this."

"You're not to blame," Castiel told him.

"Doesn't really matter," Dean said. "She's still dead."

There was nothing Castiel could say to that - or at least, nothing Dean would want to hear. Instead he said, "I apologized to her. About her eyes."

Dean looked at him in obvious surprise. "You did? How did that go down?"

"I believe she told me to 'get the hell out, featherhead'," Castiel said.

Dean actually laughed. "Yeah, that sounds like Pamela. She was one hell of a woman."

"I did not expect her to accept the apology," Castiel mused quietly, "but I felt compelled to offer it. I'm not sure why."

"Because you're not a complete dick," Dean said.

Castiel was surprised to feel himself smiling at that. "Thank you."

~*~
He had planned on visiting Dean's dreams the night after Pamela Barnes' funeral, to offer what company and comfort he could, but Zachariah's decisions meant that he saw Dean far sooner, and not under good circumstances.

Castiel had argued as strongly as he was able against the idea of Dean being made to interrogate Alastair, to no avail. Zachariah's anger at that and his suspicion that Castiel had become too close to Dean - a charge that was difficult for Castiel to deny - led to him placing Uriel in charge of the operation and giving the order for Dean to be taken to Alastair.

Normally, Castiel found it difficult to look away from Dean's eyes. The human description of them as 'windows to the soul' was perhaps not entirely accurate, but it was true that it was often easier to catch glimpses of someone's essence there. Today, however, it was nearly impossible to meet Dean's gaze.

This was too much to ask of Dean. He knew that, had told Zachariah that, insisted long enough to be demoted and placed in a position where he could do less to shield Dean. But Castiel couldn't stop thinking of Dean's expression after he'd laid the little girl's spirit to rest, how he'd wanted to continue to wander beyond the veil at night so that he could help more restless souls, turn some of the skills he'd developed in Hell to better use. Angels did not weep, but when Castiel thought of that Dean and what they were now asking him to do, he understood the desire. Yes, angels were dying, and yes, Castiel desperately wanted to find out how it was happening, but not at this price.

"For what it's worth," Castiel said, "I would give anything not to have you do this."

It was the truth, but utterly useless for all that.

~*~
"This is an unfortunate development," Zachariah said.

Castiel said nothing. There was little he could say to such a breathtaking understatement. Uriel, a traitor. Dean, broken by his machinations and Alastair's malice. Sam Winchester, now more powerful than should have been possible. It wasn't an unfortunate development, it was a disaster.

"A disaster, yes, but not yet irretrievable," Zachariah said, responding to his thought. "Do not concern yourself with Uriel's actions: I will find out who else he may have swayed and deal with them. As for the Winchesters, I fear your... emotional involvement with Dean has made it difficult for you to handle them effectively." He smiled suddenly. "I have some ideas. We can't afford to let Dean fall apart at this stage."

Castiel bowed his head in acceptance, caught between gratitude and concern.

Concern won out when Zachariah's plan became clear.

"Without their memories, they are vulnerable," Castiel said.

"Nonsense," Zachariah said briskly. "Their instincts are still in place, regardless of their memories and knowledge. And the only threat - a very minor one - is here in this building, where I will be close to Dean at all times. He is in no danger."

Castiel had to accept that, reluctantly. "Sam is not as closely protected."

"Nor is he the object of this exercise," Zachariah pointed out. "Keep an eye on him if you wish - but from a distance, Castiel. You would be better off spending the new few weeks regaining some of your objectivity."

Castiel bowed his head and left before Zachariah could turn it into an order.

Sam did not appear to be in any danger during his first day as Sam Wesson, and Castiel covertly kept track of Dean's activities too, from a discreet enough distance that he seemed to have escaped Zachariah's notice. Not, of course, that he was disobeying orders, but nonetheless, it seemed politic to be seen to keep his distance.

It was easier to stay away than he'd expected, however. It was... wrong, seeing Dean so unlike himself. It was still recognizably his soul - Castiel would have known it anywhere - and yet everything from the way he acted to the way he dressed to the things he ate were entirely the opposite of the Dean Castiel had come to know. It was an odd realization, being forced to acknowledge that it was not, after all, only Dean's soul to which he was drawn. He was an angel, and such things as personality traits and quirks and habits should have been beneath his notice. Apparently that was no longer the case.

~*~
Dean gasped as he emerged from his nightmare to find himself standing next to Dean Smith's pristine bed. He didn't need to look to see his own body was still lying between the sheets. Somehow he'd wound up on the astral plane again.

But given the fact that he'd spent the day convinced he was a corporate douche and he'd no clue where the hell Sam was, a minor out of body experience was the least of his concerns.

"CAS!" he yelled.

"You remember me," Castiel said from the doorway. Dean spun to face him. "I was not sure you would."

"Cas, what the fuck is going on?" Dean demanded. "Where's Sam? What the hell am I doing here? ...What the fuck did I eat today, holy crap?"

Castiel didn't smile, not even the faint twitch of his lips that Dean had started to try to elicit. "We will talk in your dreams," he said very seriously. "It's not safe for either of us to be here at the moment."

Before Dean could protest, Castiel had pressed his fingers to his forehead and suddenly they were by the now familiar lakeside.

"What, I haven't been mind-whammied enough for one day?" Dean demanded, though he didn't pull away. Castiel was a welcome presence after the fucked-upness of the day. "Seriously, what's going on?"

"My superior decided to take action," Castiel said, somewhat grimly, Dean thought. "To give you a chance to recover from what you have gone through, and rediscover your enjoyment in what you do."

"By turning me into some kind of Stepford corporate asshole?" Dean said. "That's fucked up, Cas."

Castiel said nothing, which was as good as agreement, Dean suspected.

"Where's Sam?" Dean pressed him. He couldn't remember seeing his brother at all, although who knew if maybe he'd just been whammied not to recognize him. "Because if he's out there looking for me, this asshole superior of yours is going to have problems."

"Sam is here too," Castiel said reassuringly. "He does not remember his true self either, but he is here. Neither of you are in any danger."

"Did you see what I ate today?" Dean demanded. "Dangers don't come any more clear and present than that shit."

And there was Cas's almost smile at last, as the dream twisted about them and reshaped itself into the diner where they'd eaten pie together not long ago. "Perhaps you should eat something else to take your mind off it."

Dean concentrated until a juicy burger and a side of fries appeared, then tucked in gladly. "Don't think this means you're off the hook," he said through a mouthful.

"I did not imagine so for a moment," Castiel said dryly, but he still had that half-smile. "What else do you wish to know?"

"Why the hell we're really being jerked around like this, for a start," Dean said, watching him closely. "You're seriously expecting me to, what, get my mojo back by wearing a suit for a few days?"

"It was decided you needed a respite," Castiel said. Dean noted the wording again - he was getting the distinct feeling that Cas wasn't much happier about this bullshit than he was. "You said so yourself."

"Yeah, well, guess what? I didn't mean I wanted to be mind-whammied!" Dean said. "Seriously, I am sick of being jerked around."

"What would you have me do?" Castiel asked. He looked as weary as Dean could remember.

"Oh, you're asking me what I want?" Dean said. "What I want is for you to undo whatever you've done to my memories, and Sam's, and let us get out of here."

Castiel bowed his head. "That is not within my power."

"Bullshit," Dean told him.

Castiel met his eyes again, looking startled. "I'm not lying to you, Dean."

"No, you're lying to yourself, Cas," Dean said. It was suddenly important to him that Castiel understand. "You pulled me out of the Pit - you can't tell me you're not capable of doing this. What you're really saying is you won't. You're not going to go up against your superiors, you're just going to do what you're told. There's a difference."

After a moment of consideration, Castiel admitted, "Perhaps. But for an angel it is more complicated than you make it sound."

"Whatever you say," Dean said, and let the conversation go. For now. "So I'm guessing I'm not going to remember any of this when I wake up?"

"I believe my superior must have imposed the constraints on your conscious mind," Castiel said. "I never informed him of your habit of slipping beyond the veil in your sleep, and so I assume he didn't put checks in place for that. But yes, when you wake up again, you will be back in the persona of Dean Smith."

"Fuck," Dean muttered grimly. "In that case, I need another burger."

~*~
"Don't call for me," Castiel said, suddenly sitting beside him in the front of the Impala, just as Dean was opening his mouth to yell the following night.

Dean frowned at him. Cas looked tired again - not physically, hell, angels probably didn't get physically tired, but more... weary. "What's wrong?"

"My superior does not know I'm here. It would probably be best if it remained that way," Castiel said. He looked around. "You have chosen a different location this time."

"My subconscious is trying to compensate for that piece of shit I've been driving today, what can I say," Dean told him. "You think you'll get in trouble if your superior finds out you're here?"

"He wishes me to recover my objectivity," Castiel said. "I doubt he would consider this a suitable way of doing so. But there are legitimate reasons for my presence. No doubt if I were not here you'd try to find a way of leaving messages alerting your waking self to the truth of your situation."

"Damn right," Dean said. Not that it had actually occurred to him yet, but it would have sooner or later. And if rationalizing it meant Cas could stay and keep him company, Dean was all for that. After a day of sitting behind a desk and speaking to no one but his boss, a day of not even being himself, Dean could use a familiar face and someone to talk to.

"Sam is well," Castiel said. "Bored of his job already, but he has made friends of a sort with his coworkers."

"Sounds like Sam," Dean agreed. "Good, so long as he's safe."

"I've been watching him," Castiel said. "He's in no danger."

"Well, keep an eye on him for me," Dean said. "I don't like not being able to have his back." Not that Sam seemed too keen to let him watch his back these days, but that was another issue.

"I will," Castiel said. He looked around again. "Are we driving anywhere in particular?"

Dean belatedly realized he'd had his hands on the wheel all this time. He looked around too. "You tell me. You seem to know the inside of my head better than I do."

"No," Castiel disagreed. "A few of the less private areas of your mind, yes. And the spaces I clear for you after your nightmares. But not the rest, unless you choose to share it with me."

"Maybe tomorrow night," Dean said. "You're going to keep coming back while I'm stuck like this, right?"

"Yes," Castiel replied, "if that is what you wish."

~*~
Two weeks into his new life as Dean Smith, Dean was about ready to crawl up the walls. He just needed to figure out how to best
arrange the walls in his dreams for it.

"It is unlikely to be much longer," Castiel said reassuringly. "You've made contact with Sam now. You're investigating the deaths at the firm -"

"- I've half-rotted my insides with the crap I'm eating, I know, I know," Dean interrupted impatiently. "I know, Cas, I just - I hate this, okay? It's fucked up and I hate it."

He shouldn't be taking it out on Castiel, he knew. Sure, it was partly the angel's fault - he could have put a stop to this if he'd really wanted, Dean was still convinced of that. But then again, Dean could remember how hard it had been to disobey his father's orders. He'd tended to pick his battles very carefully, and argue only when he was absolutely sure of his position. He couldn't exactly blame Cas for doing the same. Besides, he would probably have gone insane without Cas to keep him company at nights the past few weeks. He'd gotten used to having the angel in his dreams.

"I understand your frustration," Castiel said. "But I truly believe it will not be for much longer, Dean."

"And then what?" Dean asked. He'd started to wonder that a while back, but hadn't got up the guts to ask until now. "Whatever your boss is waiting for finally fucking happens - what then?"

"I suspect it will depend on your decision," Castiel said heavily. "I can't tell you any more than that, Dean. It's in your hands, not mine."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean said. One day an angel was going to give him a straight answer, and that was going to turn out to be one of the sixty-six seals. "Fine. Distract me. Tell me how your day went."

Castiel was no longer thrown by the question the way he had been the first time Dean had asked it. "I watched over Sam from a safe distance where I would not be noticed. I saw you when you two were together." He paused, then went on, "I also heard of an attack on another Seal."

Dean looked at him. "Did you stop it?"

"I was occupied with watching over Sam," Castiel said. "Other angels defended it, but they were unsuccessful."

Dean slammed his fist against his thigh. "This is what I'm talking about, Cas! You have better things to do than baby-sitting duty because your boss decided it would be funny to take away our memories and leave us defenseless! And we've got better things to be doing than working in the machine and half-assedly investigating a simple haunting using tips from the fucking Ghostfacers. What the fuck is this for?"

"You are important, Dean," Castiel said, catching and holding his gaze. "You and Sam are both important. If you needed this to reconcile you to what you do, that is time well spent."

"Bullshit," Dean muttered, his anger suddenly burned out.

Castiel lowered his head. "It's almost morning. I'll return tomorrow night."

"Yeah," Dean said. "Hey, Cas?" he added, before the angel could disappear. "Thanks. For keeping an eye on Sam."

The angel gave one of his almost smiles and vanished.

Dean sighed and leaned back. They'd been sitting by the lake again, which seemed to have become his default dreamscape. He tipped his head back to the dim sunshine, and that was when the hell hound attacked.

There was almost no time to react - Dean barely had a chance to take in its appearance, but the memory of the hell hounds was seared into him, and though this was a gray, shadowy version, its teeth and eyes were unmistakable.

He yelled and dropped to the ground, but it was as impossible to twist out of the way in time as it had been when they'd dragged him down to Hell. It was on him, its teeth biting into his chest -

- and Dean Smith woke up and turned on the lights, still shaking from a nightmare he couldn't quite remember.

When he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he could see several small cuts on his chest, and made a mental note to invest in a new mattress. By the time he'd reached work, he'd forgotten all about it.

~*~
"Thank fuck," Dean said, yanking off his tie. "Cas, your boss is a manipulative -"

"It is one of his specialties," Castiel agreed, before Dean could add a description he would feel duty-bound to argue with. "It is... good to see you yourself again."

It was beyond good. Watching Dean these past three weeks had been difficult to bear: if it hadn't been for his visits to Dean's dream each night, he wasn't sure how either of them would have been able to endure them.

"I'm not going to be properly myself again until I can wash the taste of that crap out of my mouth with one of those big burgers we ate," Dean told him.

Castiel smiled at the confirmation that Dean remembered his dreams. "That can be arranged," he said.

The way Dean's face lit up when the burger materialized on his desk made Castiel feel warm right through, like a being of light and grace despite the confines of his vessel's body.

"Cas, you're awesome," Dean said fervently, focusing his attention on demolishing the burger faster than Castiel had thought humanly possible. "I don't care how much of a dick the other angels are, you are awesome."

"Thank you," Castiel said softly, warmed by the praise no matter how much he shouldn't have been.

"Where's Sam?" Dean asked once he'd finished the burger. "I'm guessing Zach gave him back his memories too?"

The nickname made Castiel wince, but there was no affection in it as there was in Dean's nickname for him, only mockery. "Yes, Sam has also remembered the truth. He's outside."

"Good," Dean said, and stood up. "Hey."

Castiel looked at him inquiringly.

"Thanks," Dean said. "For keeping me sane these past few weeks."

"It was a pleasure," Castiel assured him.

Dean smiled at him. "Well... feel free to drop in on my dreams anytime, okay?"

Castiel couldn't stop himself from returning the smile. "As often as I can."

"Good," Dean said, and walked out of the office.

~*~
Hearing Dean pray for the first time since his childhood was an awe-inspiring moment for Castiel, and one which helped to restore his faith in Heaven's plans. If Dean could be helped to rediscover his faith in the Father, Castiel could not believe they could fail against Lilith.

The level of Dean's desperation was clear from his threat to refuse to help Castiel in future if Castiel didn't help him now. It was an awkward situation. On the one hand, Castiel's duty was quite clear: the prophet Chuck had prophesied that the encounter between Lilith and Sam would take place, and Castiel could not interfere with that in any way.

On the other hand... Dean had prayed. And there had been a mixture of disappointment and desperation in his tone that made Castiel want very much to be worthy of his faith.

Even a few months earlier, the only possible solution to his conundrum would have been to obey his orders to the letter. But he'd spent a great deal of time in contact with Dean Winchester in the meantime, and had learned much in the process.

"Dean," he said before Dean could walk away. He had to choose his words very carefully, but when Dean said, "Thanks, Cas," he knew it had been enough.

For the first time, Dean's eyes were entirely trusting when they met his gaze, and Castiel treasured it, even as he tried to convince himself that his decision to help Dean had been based solely on his desire to reinforce Dean's faith in the Father, not in Castiel himself.

~*~
"I owe you one," Dean said.

"The plan was yours," Castiel said.

"Plausible deniability, huh?" Dean said, grinning at him crookedly. "If it makes things easier for you, sure. But like I say, I owe you one. I won't forget it."

"Sam is unharmed?" Castiel asked. Mentioning Dean's brother was usually a good way of diverting the conversation if it went places which were uncomfortable or unwise. This one was both.

For once, the tactic was largely unsuccessful. "He's okay," was all Dean said. "You're not going to get in trouble, are you? For helping me out?"

"You helped yourself," Castiel emphasized again, but Dean simply raised an eyebrow at him, and of course they both knew what he meant. "I don't think so. If my superiors had been aware of the advice I gave you, they would have taken action against me before now."

"That's comforting," Dean said dryly, but grinned at him. "I hope you're right."

Castiel could not restrain himself from reaching out to touch a finger to the corner of that smile, filled with wonder. Dean did not pull away, though the grin softened, his eyes thoughtful as they met Castiel's.

There was no warning when the attack came, just the glint of silver teeth and claws, and Dean was falling.

Castiel reacted immediately and on instinct, pressing the palm of his hand to the creature and seeking to expel it back to the darker areas of Dean's mind, where it must have come from. It looked like a hell hound, or perhaps the memory of a hell hound, made of grayer shadows than the true demonic hounds. But it didn't react; he might as well not have been there. It continued savaging Dean's chest, clawing and biting.

Belatedly, Castiel realized that this was not something from within Dean's mind, not something he could simply banish from the protected space he'd thought he'd created there. This was something else.

Dean screamed.

Before Castiel could reach out, he felt a powerful force strike him, and suddenly all his focus had to be expended on trying to remain within his vessel and not be expelled from it. In the real world, the sight of his true self could burn out Dean's eyes; Castiel didn't know or want to find out what damage could be caused while he was within Dean's mind. But he was slipping, slipping...

And then he was gone.

~*~
It took time for Castiel to regain the strength needed to take his own form again, let alone slip back inside his vessel. In the lifespan of an angel, the few hours required would normally have seemed like the blink of an eye. But even when barely capable of conscious thought, Castiel was afraid, truly afraid, of what might be happening to Dean.

The fear blossomed into terror when he finally regained his form and reached out, only to realize he could no longer sense Dean's soul.

Ever since he'd raised Dean from Hell, he'd been able to sense his soul and fly to it when he needed it, with the exception of when Dean had been using Ruby's dark magic to hide himself and Anna. Even then, though, he'd been able to sense his soul, simply not locate it precisely. Now there was... nothing.

Grimly, Castiel flew back to the town where the prophet Chuck lived and he had last spoken to Dean outside of dreams, and reached out again.

Still nothing. But a few hours away, Castiel could faintly sense the dark and light patterned soul of Sam Winchester, meaning that Dean was probably with him or nearby.

A thought took him the motel room where Sam was. Castiel had thought he was braced for what he might find there, but clearly he'd been wrong, because the sight made him hesitate for a moment. Dean was lying on a bed, deathly pale and unmoving. Sam was bent over him, clearly frantic, his hands pressing a towel to Dean's chest.

The bed was soaked in blood.

Sam must have sensed his presence, even though Castiel was for a moment too paralyzed to act. He turned and glared at Castiel, drawing himself up, both threatening and protective. "Look who finally showed up. Did you do this?"

"Not directly," Castiel said with painful honesty. It was entirely possible that his presence in Dean's mind had turned the consequences of the attack into something far worse than would otherwise have been the case.

He stepped forward and touched Dean's forehead, listening. This close he could sense Dean's soul, very faintly, and catch snatches of whirling chaos inside Dean's head. But when he tried to reach into Dean's mind, he ran up against a solid block of power, one he couldn't penetrate.

"He's bleeding," Sam said sharply. "Now you're here, maybe you could make yourself useful and heal him before he bleeds to death instead of just staring at him like you've never seen him before?"

"Have you been able to wake him?" Castiel asked, still trying to listen to Dean's mind. He could understand Sam's concern - there was indeed a lot of blood - but the physical wounds were not the worrying ones.

"No," Sam said. "I woke up an hour ago and found him like this. Something must have got in during the night - we didn't have a salt line down -"

"Nothing came into the room," Castiel said absently, his attention still entirely on Dean. "The attack took place inside his mind."

"Aren't you supposed to protect him from things like that?" Sam demanded.

Castiel took no offense at Sam's tone: he was clearly frantic with worry about his brother, and his protective fury was a trait which reminded Castiel of Dean, of the good that was still at Sam's core, despite the creeping darkness across his soul. "Yes and no," he said, and turned his attention to the wounds on Dean's chest.

Only to pause, frowning, and lean in to stare at them more closely.

He'd known that the wounds could only be a reflection of wounds inflicted on Dean's soul, much like the hand print on Dean's shoulder was a reflection of the way Castiel had pulled his soul from Hell. That was why he'd been more concerned with trying to assess the damage to Dean's mind and soul first. Now, however... It was difficult to see, as Dean's chest was covered with blood, but there were scars from older wounds too: clearly this had not been the first attack, and Castiel had to tamp down on his fury at himself for not knowing about that already, because anger was not helpful. Not when he could see, now, that together the marks of the old and new cuts formed a sigil.

The creature, whatever it had truly been, had carved a sigil for banishing angels into Dean's soul.

Castiel moved his hand towards the sigil, but was unable even to touch it, let alone heal it. Of course, it was only a reflection of the marks on Dean's soul; that was where the damage needed to be healed. Except Castiel couldn't enter Dean's mind, the sigil holding him at bay. And Dean was clearly far too badly injured to be able to heal himself without assistance and guidance.

"Can you heal it?" Sam demanded, having obviously reached the limits of his patience for waiting.

"Not like this," Castiel said slowly. "The wounds are on his soul and inside his mind."

"Well, he's bleeding from his body," Sam snapped, "so -"

"Place pressure on the wounds," Castiel advised him. "I don't think you'll be able to stop the bleeding, but it can't hurt."

Sam pressed the towel back against Dean's chest and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "If you can't help him, I'm going to call Ruby, maybe she can."

"You will not bring a demon anywhere near Dean while he is in this condition," Castiel said, with absolute finality.

Sam glared at him. "She was a witch, she might actually be able to help him." Unlike you, his expression said.

"If you attempt to contact her, I will compel you to sleep until Dean is recovered," Castiel said. It was not a threat, simply a statement of fact. Dean was horrifically vulnerable: Castiel had not yet managed to determine exactly how badly injured his soul was, but certainly there was nothing but chaos where his mind should have been.

Sam glared at him for another moment, but Castiel turned his head away from Dean for the first time since entering the room to meet his gaze firmly, and whatever Sam saw in his eyes seemed to take the fight out of him.

"I just... can't lose him," Sam said. "Don't give me any of that bullshit about you not being able to interfere, this time. Please. I know your kind doesn't seem to give much of a damn about humanity after all, but Dean's different. And he thinks you're different. He's gone from falling asleep wherever he drops to sleeping through to morning, and I know that's something to do with you. He trusts you. Please, Cas, prove him right."

"I do want to help Dean," Castiel assured him, more gently now, reminded once again of the strength of the brothers' love for each other. That bond was one of the brightest, shining parts of Sam's soul. "I'm trying to determine how."

"You really can't heal him?" Sam asked, looking down at Dean again, still pressing the towel - slowly turning red - against his chest.

"Not the physical wounds, not until the ones on his soul are healed," Castiel admitted. "But you're right, he has lost a dangerous amount of blood. That I can help with." He touched Dean's forehead again as he said it, then his cheek, willing his blood to be replenished, to flow more slowly, willing his body to enter a state where his injuries would not inflict permanent physical damage before they could be healed. "You do not need to be concerned about him bleeding to death before we can help him."

He straightened again, frowning at the realization of how much even simply limiting the physical damage had drained him. An attack using that sigil would normally take an angel out of commission for at least a day, and leave them weak and unable to fight for several days after that. Castiel had fought his way back as quickly as he could, knowing that Dean was injured, but he was not at his strongest and he knew it.

"'We'?" Sam repeated, looking more hopeful. "What can I do? Just tell me how I can help him."

Castiel cocked his head to the side, suddenly sensing something familiar close by. Dean? "Stay with him," he told Sam. "Your presence helps him, and gives him something to wake up for. I will return in a moment, there's something I must check." And before Sam could protest, Castiel was gone.

It was Dean, but not quite in the way Castiel had been hoping for.

He was sitting on the sidewalk, a block away from the motel, next to the Reaper that Castiel had seen him with before. Tessa, Dean had called her, and she was presenting the same appearance as she had the last time Castiel had seen her with Dean.

"I wondered how long it would take for you to show up," she said.

Castiel ignored her, focused entirely on Dean. He was nothing like as substantial as he'd been when Castiel had found him walking beyond the veil before. He was merely a suggestion of the Dean Castiel knew, a shimmer in the air.

"He is not dying," Castiel told the Reaper. "You have no claim on him."

She arched an eyebrow. "You might want to tell him that. He's the one who sought me out."

Castiel focused on Dean again, who was looking at him now. His eyes were as piercing as ever, even though - Castiel was fast concluding - this was only a fraction of his soul.

It made sense, but the implications were terrifying. If Dean's soul had been torn into shreds, and the sigil prevented Castiel from healing it, then Dean could well die after all. Or worse. It would be all too easy for a demon to capture a fragment of his soul and take it back to Hell. Castiel could only hope that none had done so yet.

"Dean," he said softly, and knelt before him, reaching out to touch his cheek. Dean's soul was usually so vibrant and strong to his touch, but this fragment was insubstantial and faint. If Castiel had not been an angel, he would have passed right through instead of touching him. "Dean, why did you seek out a Reaper?"

"I want to go with her," Dean said. "She asked me once, and I should have gone then. Things would have been better if I'd gone with her." He frowned at Castiel. "I know you, don't I?"

Castiel nodded slowly, not taking his hand away. "You do. I'm Castiel, but you often call me Cas."

He was beginning to understand what had happened. Dean's soul had cracked along its fault-lines, ripped apart by the force of the sigil carved into it or the impact of Castiel being banished from his mind. Castiel was still unsure whether that had been the aim of the plan or whether the attack had been directed at him instead, but that was a question to consider once Dean's soul had been restored.

This fragment, it seemed, was Dean's suicidal streak, the part of him that was convinced he did not deserve to live. It was saddening that it was as substantial as it was, but it could be useful, too. Castiel was fairly certain that it would be possible to overcome Dean's suicidal urges - after all, although Dean had a bad habit of rushing in places where even Uriel or Zachariah would have feared to tread, he'd never actually tried to kill himself.

"I'm glad you did not go with her," Castiel said quietly. "Then I would never have had the opportunity to meet you. And my existence has... been the richer for meeting you."

The Reaper's eyebrows were both raised now, but Castiel ignored her.

"People have died because of me," Dean said, but he hadn't pulled away.

"And many have also lived," Castiel countered. "We need you, Dean." He hesitated, then added, "Sam needs you. He told me to tell you so."

He was reluctant to try to repair Dean's soul by relying solely on the bond with his brother. Castiel was far from certain that Sam could still be saved, and Dean was already dependent on him. If Sam were to be lost, Dean's soul might fracture again.

And yet there was no avoiding it. So much of Dean's soul was centered around his brother that removing that core would mean he was no longer Dean. Castiel would simply have to hope that the bond could bear the weight Dean put on it, and that others could provide enough support to lighten the load.

"Sam?" Dean said, blinking. "Where is Sam?"

"I can take you to him, if you'll come with me," Castiel said.

Dean hesitated. "But Tessa..."

"I won't be going anywhere, Dean," Tessa said, raising her hand to touch Dean's other cheek. "I'm never far away. But like I said, when you finally come to me, I don't want your soul to be fragmented."

Thank you, Castiel said silently, for her alone.

It's not you I'm doing this for, angel, she replied equally silently. You're not the only one with an interest in Dean Winchester. Heal his soul.

She leaned in and pressed a kiss to Dean's insubstantial forehead, then smiled at him and vanished.

"I like her," Dean said with a sigh.

"I know," Castiel said. "Will you come with me now?"

"Okay," Dean agreed absently. He was watching Castiel with distracted attention. "I like you too, Cas."

Castiel permitted himself a moment's relief at the nickname, but reminded himself how badly Dean's soul was fractured. This piece was not all of Dean, and it was likely that what this part of Dean liked about him was Castiel's power to destroy him, to bring him oblivion.

"I'm glad," he said nonetheless. "We'll go to Sam now."

It took only a moment's concentration. Dean's body had not moved during Castiel's brief absence; Sam was now sitting on a chair next to Dean's bed. He didn't look up, unaware of their presence, and Castiel was slightly relieved at the confirmation that Sam's powers had not quite developed to that extent yet.

"Sam," the ghostly fragment of Dean's soul said with quiet satisfaction. He turned his attention to his own body, studying the cuts on his chest with interest. The bleeding had slowed almost to a stop, but Sam was still wiping away a fresh sheen of blood every few minutes.

Sam's head snapped up the moment Castiel allowed himself to become visible. "What's going on?"

For a moment, Castiel wondered how much to tell him, but decided on the truth. He had to have faith that ultimately Sam would never choose to hurt his brother, and understanding the situation might ensure he would not attempt to involve the demon he had been associating with.

Besides, Castiel had an idea now of how he was going to have to proceed, and he would need Sam Winchester's cooperation, and preferably assistance.

"The cuts on Dean's chest are not random," he said at last. "If you look closely they form a sigil. Dean's soul has been shattered into pieces and those pieces are scattered, some inside his head, some wandering beyond the veil." Once again Castiel regretted that it had ever been necessary to allow Dean to go there. It had allowed a Seal to be saved, but if it now came at the cost of Dean's soul, it would not have been worthwhile.

Sam had turned pale. "But you can put him back together again, right?"

"The purpose of this sigil is to banish angels," Castiel explained reluctantly. Dangerous information, if Sam ever became a true enemy, but for now it was important that he understand. "I was visiting Dean in his dreams at the time of the attack. The sigil was carved into his soul, banishing me - and it prevents me from entering his mind to heal him now."

Sam was silent for a moment, absorbing that. "Send me in," he said. "I can do it, I'm sure I can. I've been in Dean's dreams before - we don't have any dream root, but -"

Castiel held up his hand to stop him. "I'm not able to send you into his mind either, Sam. The sigil prevents me from using my power on him in that way. Even if I could, I do not think you would survive the attempt. You've been in Dean's dreams before, but he isn't dreaming now. His mind is simply... chaos. Shattered pieces of insanity."

Sam turned a shade paler. "Then what are we going to do?"

Castiel looked at the shard of Dean's soul, which was currently licking its own blood off its finger. "Dean is the only one who can heal the wounds in his soul and erase the sigil. Each fragment of it that is erased will increase my ability to enter his mind, and my ability to help him. I've found a fairly substantial fragment of his soul: now we must persuade it to go inside him and erase its portion of the sigil. That should then be enough to let me enter his mind."

"Fine, yes, let's do it," Sam said at once, looking around the room as if he expected to be able to see Dean's soul. "How? What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to talk to him," Castiel said. "You need to help me convince him that erasing this portion of the sigil is the right thing to do. Otherwise I'm concerned this fragment of his soul may return to him and choose not to heal itself, and we could be left with no way in."

"Can he hear me?" Sam asked, and looked around again. "Dean? Hey, Dean, can you hear me?"

The fragment of soul looked up from Dean's bloodied chest. "Sam," it sighed again.

"He can hear you," Castiel assured him, "though of course he is not his normal self. Help me to convince him this is necessary."

"Hey, Dean," Sam said again, a little louder. "I need you to do something for me, okay? Did you hear what Cas said? You've been hurt, and I need you to heal the cuts for me, got that?"

Dean had seemed insubstantial and distracted, but he became visibly more focused as Sam spoke, and Castiel knew that this gamble had paid off.

"What?" Dean asked, and looked from Sam to Castiel. "Cas, what does he mean?"

Castiel said, "Unbutton your shirt and look at your chest."

A different fragment of Dean's soul would have leered or cracked a joke at that, but this one simply followed his instructions. There were four cuts on its chest, glowing dimly when the shirt slipped open.

"Somewhere inside you, there is a carving of the sigil," Castiel explained carefully. "The part you can see on your chest is the part you have the power to erase. I - we - need you to find it and remove it."

"Why?" Dean asked, frowning.

"Because I want you to live," Castiel said softly. "I need you, Dean." He held Dean's gaze, and didn't break it as he murmured to Sam, "He wants to know why he should do it."

"Because I need you," Sam echoed at once. "Please, Dean. I can't lose you again, okay? I don't... deal with it very well. So I need you to do this for me, Dean."

"That's what you want me to do?" Dean said uncertainly, looking back and forth between them. "I don't know how."

"You'll find the sigil somewhere near your center," Castiel said. "Touch it, and if you want it to heal, you'll be able to heal your portion. You'll see the marks vanish from your chest, and that section from the sigil. Will you do it, Dean?"

Dean hesitated. "That's what you want me to do for you? And for Sam?"

"And for yourself," Castiel added softly. He could not afford to interfere with Dean's deathly impulses, but he needed to try to ensure they didn't become the anchor around which his soul was rebuilt. "I want you to live for you too, Dean. You do deserve life."

"He's telling you the truth, Dean," Sam agreed. His eyes were wide when he looked at Castiel; perhaps the true nature of this fragment of Dean's soul had only just become clear to him. "You trust Cas, right? And you trust me too, you keep telling me that. Trust us on this."

Dean nodded slowly. "I'll try to do it."

"Thank you," Castiel said, and walked over to place one hand on the scar on the shoulder of the Dean lying on the bed, and the other on the fragment of soul. He couldn't send Sam into Dean's mind, or enter there himself, but it was where Dean belonged, and sending that part of him back in was not difficult. It vanished.

"Has he done it?" Sam asked, his voice hushed, as Castiel straightened up.

"Not yet," Castiel said. "But I have sent that fragment back into his self."

Sam nodded, looking at Dean's pale face. "Thanks. For helping him."

Castiel ignored that. He was not doing this primarily for Sam, and it was not something for which gratitude was required. Instead he pressed his hand to Dean's forehead again, listening in. His mind was still fragmented chaos.

A dark pool with a monster lurking in the depths -

Darkness and blood and screaming -

The Impala driving down an endless highway -

Castiel removed his hand and waited with as much patience as he could muster.

"There!" Sam exclaimed suddenly, but Castiel had already sensed it. The four cuts that had been on the fragment's chest were slowly fading, leaving only faint, shadowy scars behind. Castiel permitted himself a moment of relief.

"So you can heal him now, right?" Sam said eagerly.

"It is not quite that simple," Castiel corrected him. "Each fragment will have to be found and convinced to heal itself. But it should now be possible for me to enter his mind to find the other fragments."

"What do you want me to do?" Sam asked.

"Remain here and watch over him," Castiel said. "You cannot lay down a salt line, or use iron or anything else which might repel any pieces of his spirit which have been thrown beyond the veil. But equally, he is defenseless right now, and once I am inside his mind I will be almost powerless to defend him, too." Not information he liked giving Sam, but it was important that the gravity of the situation be clear to him. "It will be up to you to defend him against any external threats. Do not allow any demons to come near him, or spirits, or anything else which could pose a risk. Do you understand?"

"Of course," Sam said. "Just - help him, Castiel, please."

"I will try," Castiel said, with as much comfort as he was capable of giving, and reached out to touch Dean's shoulder again, letting the faint bond between them guide him through the tiny gap in the barrier blocking Dean's mind.

The motel room vanished, and all was chaos.

~*~
Echoing laughter -

A werewolf lunging, and a moment of terror -

A wooden cross over a shallow grave -

Castiel automatically sought to impose a degree of order, but it was impossible. Just enough of the sigil had been removed to allow him to enter Dean's mind, but it was still blocking his ability to influence anything he saw. And so he allowed the shards of Dean's mind to flow around and through him, overwhelming in their intensity.

Shadows of wings visible in the air -

A little girl with a flower in her hair -

Dean's amulet, lying on the ground -

Castiel allowed that shard to carry him along with it, going with the chaos instead of trying to impose order on it, and found himself in a clearing in the middle of some woods. The woods were dark and silent, but the sun shone into the clearing and the grass was bright and warm. Castiel bent down to pick up Dean's amulet. It was warm to the touch.

"Dean," he murmured, a call despite how quiet it was. He focused, trying to draw in the shard of soul the amulet represented. "Dean."

When he looked up, a ten-year-old Dean was standing in the clearing with him, staring at him and the amulet in his hands. "That's mine."

"It is," Castiel agreed. "Would you like it back?"

Dean eyed him suspiciously, but allowed Castiel to place it round his neck, and relaxed somewhat as it settled into place. "Thought I'd lost it."

"I don't think you'll ever be likely to lose it for very long," Castiel reassured him. "Are you injured?"

Dean seemed to shrink in on himself. "No. Sammy's the one who got hurt."

Castiel paused. "How did he get hurt?"

"It was my fault," Dean muttered, lowering his head. "I left him alone and the shtriga came after him. I shouldn't have left him."

Castiel was not privy to every detail of every event in Dean's childhood: he hadn't spent Dean's life watching over him. But he'd rescued Dean's soul from Hell, had pieced him back together and returned him to life, and that had inevitably given him a glimpse of some of the most formative events in making Dean the man he had become. The shtriga incident had been one of them.

There was little point in arguing with this Dean: he was convinced of his own guilt, and within his own very narrow terms, he was correct - he shouldn't have left Sam alone. The fact that he should never have been placed in such a position to begin with was, to Dean, utterly irrelevant. Besides, this drive to protect his brother was part of the bedrock of who Dean was. It was not Castiel's place to interfere with that.

"I've seen Sam," Castiel said instead. "He's not hurt, Dean. He's fine. But he needs you."

Dean's head came up, looking panicked. "Is he alone? I didn't mean to leave him alone again -"

"He's not alone," Castiel reassured him. "But he's worried that you've been hurt. You have cuts on your chest, don't you?"

Dean frowned and pressed a hand to his chest. "How did you know?"

"It doesn't matter," Castiel said. "We need to go somewhere and heal them."

Dean shook his head stubbornly. "They're not bad. I'll be fine."

"They're more dangerous than they look," Castiel told him. "They need to be treated, Dean."

"Who are you?" Dean asked suddenly, looking at him suspiciously again.

"My name is Castiel," Castiel said patiently. "You may call me Cas if you prefer."

Dean took a hasty step backwards. "You want to hurt Sam. You said you'd kill him. Stay back."

Castiel restrained a sigh. Of course, this was not the ten-year-old Dean that had encountered the shtriga, not really. This was the embodiment of all of Dean's protective instincts towards his brother, and even Castiel was perceived - with justification - as a potential threat.

"I did say there would be consequences if he continued down the path he is on," Castiel admitted. "But I don't want to hurt him, Dean, as I believe you know. I've been trying to protect him when I can, because I know how important he is to you."

Dean still looked wary. "Why should I trust you?"

"Because I want you to succeed in protecting Sam," Castiel said. "But you need to stay fit and well in order to defend him properly, you know that. Which is why you should let me show you how to heal yourself."

Dean eyed him. "Heal myself? You're not going to do anything to me?"

Castiel said, "I will only show you where to go. It will be up to you to do what is necessary."

"Fine," Dean said briefly. "Show me the way."

Castiel held out his hand, and Dean took it reluctantly. It was hard for Castiel to control their movements, but the center of Dean's mind was the closest thing to a stable spot left in the storm, and the maelstrom of his mind carried them there naturally.

It was the lake, and Castiel was glad again that he'd chosen that dreamscape to offer Dean some stability after his nightmares. Now it was a stronger haven as a result. At the moment, however, its peacefulness was marred by the thunderstorm that was raging, and the pulsating red scar of the sigil, floating in mid-air.

To Castiel's relief, the fragment of Dean's soul he'd found with Tessa was still there, pacing back and forth across the small strip of ground before the lake and the sigil. The two Deans looked at each other sharply, then at Castiel.

Castiel focused his attention on the young, protective Dean he'd brought with him. "Do you understand why you need to heal your cuts?"

"So I can be strong enough to protect Sammy," Dean said.

"Yes," Castiel agreed. "But also so you can protect yourself, Dean. You're important in your own right. All you need to do now is touch the sigil over there, and will the cuts to heal. Do you understand?"

"It's safe to touch?" Dean asked warily. "What does it do?"

Castiel debated whether a lie or the truth would cause the most damage, and decided to tell the truth. "It's safe for you to touch. It's a sigil for banishing angels from your mind."

Dean frowned. "Did I put it there?"

Castiel hesitated. It was a fair question. He was almost entirely certain the ghostly hell hound that had inflicted the wounds had not come from Dean's subconscious, or at least not solely. Something or someone had been controlling it, had forced it to carve each cut so precisely. And once Dean was restored, Castiel was going to find out who had done it. For now, he simply said, "No. Someone else did it, and it's hurting you."

"He's me," the other, older Dean said. "What did it do, Cas, split me in two?"

"It has split you into many pieces," Castiel admitted. "I'm trying to help you put yourself back together."

The two Deans looked at each other before giving identical, reckless shrugs. The younger Dean marched over to the sigil and reached up to press his palm against it.

Slowly, several more lines faded away, and Dean pressed his hand to his chest again before turning to look at Castiel and his older self. "They're healed. But there are still two of us."

Castiel could feel that his influence in Dean's mind had increased slightly with the deletion of more of the sigil, but he didn't think it would be necessary for this. "Touch one another," he suggested.

The two Deans shot each other identical wary glances, but the older Dean strode over to the younger one and put a hand on his shoulder.

The process of the two fragments of soul merging was strange to see. It wasn't that one vanished into the other, it was that they merged to become a new Dean. Castiel realized belatedly he should have known what the new Dean would be like. The combination of Dean's recklessly suicidal urges and his driving instinct to protect his brother produced a figure that looked very like the Dean who'd sold his soul in exchange for his brother's life.

"How do you feel?" Castiel asked him curiously.

"...Weird," Dean said, turning to look at him. "There are more parts of me out there?"

"Many," Castiel said. "I need to go look for them. Will you be all right here?"

"Fine," Dean said briefly.

Castiel frowned, and reached out to touch his shoulder. It was, as always, an extraordinarily intimate thing, to touch a piece of Dean's soul directly, but considering he was currently in Dean's shattered mind, it was perhaps not as great a liberty as it might have been. He said nothing else, merely held Dean's gaze.

"I'm okay," Dean said after a moment. "Really, Cas. I'll stay here and be good."

Castiel couldn't help a reluctant smile at that promise, and reminded himself that there would be no way for Dean to sell his soul again here. "Very well. I will return soon."

~*~
He found Dean's fear hiding in a closet: an eight-year-old Dean cowering away from him. Just as Castiel was about to crouch down and offer him comfort and reassurance, Dean pulled a shotgun out of nowhere and shot him.

Dean's mind expected it to hurt and so it did, but Castiel couldn't help but smile anyway.

~*~
Dean's love of hunting and desire to protect people from the supernatural was driving down a dark highway in the Impala. Castiel was half-expecting to be stabbed or shot again when he materialized on the front seat beside Dean, but it appeared that this part of Dean's soul saw him as an ally, not a threat.

"You didn't want me to let all the people in that town die," Dean pointed out, as if it was blindingly obvious. "And you helped me find a way to save Sam from Lilith. I'm not sure about most of the other angels, but you protect people, Cas."

Castiel found it oddly difficult to speak for a moment. "Will you let me protect you now, Dean?"

Dean grinned at him, confident and free and bright. "If you ask me nicely."

~*~
As each piece of Dean's soul repaired its portion of the damage inflicted in the attack, Castiel found himself increasingly able to use his influence inside Dean's mind, slowly reducing the chaos there and exerting more of a pull to draw in the smaller shards of Dean's soul to his core, without him having to search out each one. At the same time, it became easier to locate and go to the larger pieces of his soul.

This was perhaps as well, because Castiel would never have considered searching for any part of Dean up among the clouds.

"I was under the impression that you hated flying," Castiel said, materializing on the cloud beside him.

"I'm not flying, I'm sitting," Dean said, grinning at him. Indeed he was: sitting on the very edge of the cloud, his legs dangling ridiculously off it, swinging back and forth.

Castiel supposed there was no need for him to pay heed to physics or reality inside his mind, and sat down next to him. "Why are you sitting up here, then?"

"I wanted to see what the world must look like to you," Dean said, looking around in fascination.

Castiel didn't have the heart to tell him that angels spent almost none of their time up among the clouds, contrary to whatever odd ideas he'd picked up from modern culture. He simply said, "It's beautiful, isn't it."

"It is," Dean agreed. "Sometimes I just don't get why you'd come down and hang around us when you could be up here instead." He smiled at Castiel. "But I'm glad you do, Cas."

"You underestimate yourself," Castiel said after a moment. "You - humanity in general, but you in particular - you are far more beautiful to my eyes than these clouds or the skies."

He was slowly coming to realize that this piece of Dean's soul encompassed Dean's regard for him. It was humbling that it had become a large enough piece for Castiel to have sensed it separately. Castiel had not suspected that Dean's feelings for him ran this deeply. It was an honor, and something more than that.

Nonetheless, this Dean was no more his Dean than any of the other fragments of soul he'd encountered, and Castiel did not hesitate before asking, "Will you come with me, Dean?"

"Of course," Dean said at once.

When that fragment of soul was reintegrated with the others that had been recovered so far, the new Dean flushed red and refused to meet Castiel's eyes for a few minutes.

~*~
Castiel didn't realize he'd found Dean's baser desires until the latest Dean had him backed up against a tree and was kissing him.

He did succeed in reuniting it with the rest of the soul, eventually. This time they both flushed red.

~*~
It took time and a lot of careful, exhausting searching, but Castiel finally succeeded in reuniting most of Dean's soul and restoring some sense of order and sanity on Dean's mind. Most of the sigil was now gone, leaving only an angry red cross pulsating in the air next to the lake.

Castiel had some idea which piece of Dean he'd so far been unable to find. He even had an idea where it would be located, but he'd nonetheless saved it for last, knowing that retrieving it would require him to have as much access as possible to his powers, and wanting as much of the rest of Dean's soul to have been restored as possible.

The missing piece was the one that had been worst traumatized by Dean's time in Hell.

The rest of Dean seemed to have figured that out too, because he caught Castiel's arm as Castiel was gathering himself to leave. "Don't."

Castiel met his eyes. "Don't what?"

Dean swallowed visibly. "Don't go looking for that part of me. I don't need it. I don't want it. All it's been doing is slowing me down, making me weak - or worse. Can't I just... stay like this?"

Castiel sighed. He should have expected the question. "Is that truly what you want? To abandon part of your soul and give up part of who you are?"

Dean shrugged, defensive. "What good has it been doing me, Cas?"

"I don't know," Castiel admitted. "All I know is it is a part of you, Dean. And I would not want to see you lose any part of what makes you who you are."

Dean held his gaze for a long moment before nodding and lowering his head. Castiel touched his cheek in farewell and plunged into the darkest nightmares of his subconscious.

~*~
Hell was not a pleasant place to be, not even a dream-memory of Hell.

It didn't take long for Castiel to find the right place, however: Dean was at the very center, torturing himself on the rack with a brutality that sickened Castiel. The fragment of his soul on the rack was screaming, though not for mercy. The fragment of soul wielding the knife was shaking and trembling, but still cutting viciously.

Castiel could only hope that he would manage to retrieve the soul shards before a dream-memory of Alastair appeared. In Dean's mind he had been all-powerful, and so here he would truly be so. Castiel would endure being put on the rack if that was what it took for Dean's soul to pull itself free of this torment, but he would prefer a different way.

"Enough, Dean," he said. "You've both suffered enough." He held out his hand, entreating.

"No," both Deans said in unison.

Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Dean had never come to terms with his actions in Hell, or accepted that he deserved to be saved.

"You could step off the rack right now and come to me," Castiel said to one of the fragments. "Why won't you?"

"Because I was the one who carried out the torture," the Dean on the rack whispered. "For ten years, I did things you can't even conceive of, Cas. I deserve this. I need this."

Castiel turned to the other fragment of soul. "You could put down the knife now and come to me. Why won't you?"

"Because I was the one who carried out the torture," the Dean holding the knife hissed. "I deserve this." He slashed a particularly vicious wound into the side of the other fragment of soul, twisting the knife, and smiled with dark satisfaction when the other Dean screamed.

"Enough, Dean," Castiel said more sternly. "I won't allow you to do this to yourself." He reached out and grabbed the hand holding the knife, pressing it to the fragment of soul on the rack and watching as the two pieces screamed and fused into one Dean, lying huddled on the ground.

"This changes nothing," Castiel told the new Dean. "It does not mitigate what you did, or restore the souls you tormented." He softened his tone. "If you had not been meant to be saved, I would not have been able to save you. But now it's up to you to save yourself. Or the demons truly will have succeeded in breaking you."

He held out his hand again, and after a long, long moment, Dean took it.

Castiel pulled him to his feet and smiled at him. "It's time to go."

~*~
Dean opened his eyes to find both Cas and Sam leaning over him. He tried to sit up, but quickly abandoned the idea as a bad plan. His body felt like it had been run over.

"Ow," he croaked.

Sam's grin was as blinding as it was shaky. "Lie still. You lost - fuck, I don't even know how much blood. You're going to feel like shit for a while."

"No kidding," Dean muttered and turned his attention to Castiel, who was smiling at him, a full-blown, genuine smile. "Hey. Thanks, Cas."

Castiel inclined his head. "There's no need to thank me, Dean. I'm simply glad the damage could be repaired."

"Yeah, speaking of which," Dean said, "what the fuck happened? That hell hound -"

"It wasn't a hell hound," Castiel said, the smile vanished from his face as though it had never been there. "No hell hound could have carved that sigil so precisely."

"Then what was it?" Sam asked before Dean could.

"A thought-form, I believe," Castiel said thoughtfully. "A manifestation of thought or will, under someone's control. Perhaps it borrowed the shape of a hell hound from your subconscious, or perhaps it was given that shape by whoever was controlling it."

"So someone sent that thing into my head to carve that sigil into me with its claws and teeth?" Dean said. "Nasty."

"The bridge between your unconscious mind and the astral plane was not completely closed," Castiel said. "Someone found a way of exploiting that vulnerability even without your soul wandering beyond the veil. I would very much like to know who."

"You and me both," Dean said grimly.

"I will try to find out," Castiel said. "In the meantime, you should rest. Sam is right, you lost a great deal of blood."

"Do I need to worry about that thing coming back?" Dean asked him.

"I believe not," Castiel said. "It was torn to pieces and destroyed when I was banished from your mind. And I doubt whoever was responsible would attempt the same tactics twice."

"Hmm," Dean hummed, his eyes slipping shut. He was suddenly feeling exhausted again.

He felt Castiel's fingers cool against his forehead. "Safe dreams, Dean."

~*~
"I have come to report an alarming incident," Castiel said.

Zachariah nodded. "I assume it involves Dean Winchester somehow."

"He was attacked by a thought-form which carved an angel-banishing sigil inside his mind," Castiel reported. "His soul was shattered by the force of it, and though he is mostly recovered now, the damage was very nearly irreparable."

"How interesting," Zachariah said. "I will look into this, Castiel. I'm sure whoever or whatever is responsible will have plausible deniability, but I'll track down the demon responsible. In the meantime, you may return to your duties."

Castiel bowed his head in acknowledgement and left, keeping very tight control of his thoughts and emotions until he was at the other side of the garrison.

Plausible deniability. It was a phrase Castiel had not heard often before, not being as fast to pick up on human jargon and slang as Uriel had been. In fact, the last time he'd heard it had been from Dean - inside one of Dean's dreams. Just as Castiel had been saying that his superiors had to be unaware of the hint he'd given Dean about the archangel, since they'd taken no action against him.

Just before the attack had come.

But it was impossible. Dean was at the heart of their plans for preventing Lucifer from rising. No angel would jeopardize that, least of all Zachariah.
And yet Castiel couldn't convince himself that that choice of words had been purely coincidence on Zachariah's part.

At the very least, it meant that Zachariah had been listening in on his conversation with Dean. Had been aware that Castiel had been meeting with Dean in dreams, but had never mentioned it, even to reprimand him.

But the only way any of it could possibly make sense would be if Zachariah was not, in fact, working to prevent Lucifer from rising, as Castiel had always been told. If he did, in fact, see Dean as expendable, and Castiel also.

If Uriel's betrayal extended not only down through the ranks of the garrison, but also up, to the higher levels of command in Heaven...

It couldn't be true, but Castiel would make some discreet inquiries nonetheless.

~*~
It was just as well that he was so familiar now with Dean's dreams. Castiel didn't even need to lean into his bond with Dean this time to reach the lake where Dean was sitting. Given that Zachariah was almost certainly listening in, and would most likely be following him, speed was of the essence. Dean seemed confused by the note and Castiel's haste, but Castiel was confident that Dean would go to the address he'd given him.

Castiel knew as soon as he arrived at the warehouse he'd chosen, however, that it would be too late.

"Hello, Castiel," Zachariah said, smiling. "I was wondering when you'd arrive."