Hey folks!

I know it's been a while since I've posted but once you see what I have been up to recently, I have a feeling you may forgive me…..maybe. As I posted a few months ago, I've been working really hard getting my freelance writing career off the ground (again, a big thanks to all my fanfiction fans for all the support that helped me to get to this point).

In July I experienced something, well, rather surreal. Writing as I do for Daemon's TV, I've gotten somewhat used to getting to be a part of all of my favorite television shows. But when I went to Comic Con in San Diego, I got to experience it on a whole new level. As a full-fledged member of the press, I visited many press rooms at the convention. The highlight of the week happened I got the chance to interview the cast of Supernatural. It was beyond amazing to get to speak to the people who have created these characters that I love so much.

To see videos of the interviews, check out my profile page. I've put a link there to my blog post all about my adventures at Comic Con, which includes the videos from my Supernatural interviews and others.

And now, back to the story! :o)

Chapter Five

Cass?

Dean?

They weren't really words. They were more like images. Thoughts that added up to concepts that the two of them understood.

I'm going to get you out.

Dean felt a pull from another part of the world; the part that held his body and Castiel's vessel. With a sudden flash, Dean got the image of Bobby pulling the needle and tubing from his arm. Everything in his very being screamed out in protest, knowing that those physical things were all that were keeping him attached in spirit to the angel. They were the only things that would save Castiel.

Still buried deep within the other plane, Dean somehow found the strength to be in two places at once. Putting everything he had into it, he forced his meat suit to stop Bobby from cutting the tenuous contact he had with Cass.

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From the moment Castiel had lost consciousness and nearly ended up cracking his head on Bobby's floor, he'd been stuck in a nightmare. Demon blood poisoning didn't just affect the host vessel; it attacked the spirit of the unfortunate victim as well. That was part of its strength and what made it that much more dangerous. The angel affected by it was sent into a personal Hell not unlike the one experienced by all three of the Winchester men. Bred by the blood, creatures made of darkness came into being; biting and tearing at the celestial body. All while, the virus-like poison did its own number on the physical vessel.

Not too many angels could survive the vicious two-pronged attack. Of those poisoned, angels of the lesser classes would expire almost immediately, getting lost in the blackness and the terror. Once in the depths of the illness, even the stronger angels would eventually succumb. Their grace would give out and without that vital part of their being they couldn't heal their physical form.

It was the world's worst catch-22 and Castiel had been there for more than 24 hours.

Those angels who didn't die right away passed into oblivion within a day, maybe a day and a half. The fact that Castiel was still alive was something of a miracle, but the battle was wearing the angel down. He'd long ago lost the ability to form clear thoughts and didn't even know where he was anymore. He couldn't remember a time where he wasn't trapped in blackness; screaming silently at the things that tore at him, causing more pain than a flesh-and-blood body could ever feel.

As he lay in terror, Castiel (if that was indeed his name, he couldn't be sure any longer) thought of giving up the fight. Truthfully he had been thinking of it for a while. But every time he nearly let the blackness completely take him and rob him of the last bits of consciousness he had left, something stopped him. Somewhere deep down, he knew that there was something he had to do. He didn't know what it was and he didn't know why, but it was important, that much he knew.

The fight had been a long one and Castiel didn't think he had much more left in him. Thoughts began to plague him. The thing that he had to do, was it really that important? Did it really need to be done? Couldn't someone else do it? He hurt. He hurt a lot. Couldn't he just let go and allow the blackness to completely take him? He had a feeling there would be no more agony where he would go. Why not? Why not just…

And that was when he heard the voice. Except that it wasn't a voice because there were no sounds where he was and no vocal chords to form them anyway. But he still he knew the one behind the call.

Breaking through the pain and suffering and the fear, the sound reached the trembling creature of light that Castiel had become.

Cass?

Somewhere Castiel found the strength to look up at the one who had come for him.

Dean?

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Bobby and Sam stared at each other for a few seconds after Dean had made his demand. There was still no other sign of the hunter regaining consciousness but there was no doubt in either of their minds that they had to heed his request.

"Damn kid, I think this might actually be working." Bobby said, pointing suddenly to Cass' face. It was subtle, but there was a change there. Dean's face too, though not exactly better, was at least not worse.

"I think they're both fighting it now," Sam replied in shocked awe.

After about an hour, both Dean's and Castiel's condition improved. Getting no protest this time, Bobby silently stopped the transfusion, knowing that Dean had given all that he could to the angel physically.

Hours passed and neither angel nor man regained consciousness. Bobby and Sam had sensed that the battle was now being fought in a place they couldn't see. Somehow knowing that the two needed to remain physically close, they left Dean where he was. There was really nowhere else to put him anyway, except down in the panic room or on the couch downstairs. If they did that, they'd have to run back and forth between the two. It just seemed easier to have them both in the same spot.

As Sam tucked a blanket under his brother's chin, he couldn't help but to smile at the picture the two of them made on the bed together. It reminded him of he and Dean when they were little and their dad couldn't afford a room with more than two beds. The brothers had griped but young Sam had more often than not been perfectly happy to have his big brother by his side some of those nights. Even with their dad in the room, Sam had never felt safer than if Dean were there, too. Right now he hoped that Cass and Dean were somehow getting the same comfort.

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Dean had always fought against opening up to anyone about his time in Hell. At first because he didn't want to remember it himself, then later because he didn't want to admit to anyone what he had done there. Nowadays he didn't talk about it mostly because he didn't want to give Sam any reason to scratch at that wall in his head.

One thing he'd never discussed was the end of the day in Hell. He had told Sam once that when they were done torturing him, his body would just magically be healed and everything would start all over again.

The truth was actually much worse.

When they were done, they would throw Dean in a cage - broken, naked and bloody. Occasionally, for added fun, they would hang him from meat hooks. Every night they would leave him in his cell to sleep (such as it was) and pull him out in the morning, his body whole once again. The truly sad thing was that without that schedule, Dean wouldn't have been able to mark the passing of days. It was their way of adding to the torture, to make him realize how long he had been there. Even when Dean had agreed to come off the rack and torture souls, they had still continued to throw him in a cage at night.

The night that Castiel had come, Dean had been balled into a corner, trembling as the memories off all that he had done that day had relentlessly replayed themselves over and over in his mind. Sleep was a long gone memory: something to be alternately treasured for its brief respite from the living nightmare and cursed for its ability to bring back the day in vivid detail through awful dreams.

Alastair and his minions had left Dean that night, their cackles echoing down the stone hallway met with answering groans and screams as they had gone searching for their next victim in another cell.

Dean hadn't been sure how long he had lain there, shivering on the cold floor, when something had caused him to look up. He had blinked as a light started to form in an upper corner of the cell. It became brighter as he watched and though Dean knew he should have felt fear from anything that would approach him in that awful world, he felt nothing but warmth.

The light materialized into a humanoid shape and Dean felt his fear continue to ebb away. Dean immediately knew that the being in front of him was a friend and would be a friend forever. Later, when Dean's head broke through the surface of the earth out of his grave, when his mind had chosen to forget the horrors of Hell and the one who had rescued him from it, deep down he still remembered the friend who had come to help him at his greatest time of need.

The shape of a hand formed within the light, reaching out towards Dean. When it gripped his arm, he gasped at the heat that came from it but did not back away. The pain was necessary, he could sense it. A necessary evil to be endured for the reward it would bring.

Dean Winchester, you are saved.

The voice was like light itself and as it said the words, the being pulled Dean up until he felt himself being flung through the space and time. Memory and thought ceased moments later and would not return until Dean woke up in that coffin.

Now it was Dean's turn. Appearing to the injured angel as a light of friendship and strength, Dean reached down and grabbed Castiel by the arm.

I'm going to get you out.