The next day, Dean didn't even think about Anna briefly. She had pretty much disappeared from his mind.

Castiel was still facing his dilemma. Sam had been hitting the very tip of the iceberg with his research. He'd been organizing the documents he had between angelic afflictions, curses, and weapons. Sam had his chaos spread over the main table of the bunker. Dean was starting to concerned with whatever important project he was working. He seemed to think that he, too, should be involved with whatever this was.

"Hey, Sammy. What's with this nerdy stuff you've working on?" he questioned.

Sam was too focused on a document to pay his older brother much attention. "Cas can't leave his vessel. He thinks that someone angelically roofied him, and I said I'd help."

Dean rose his eyebrows. "Are you serious? What's wrong with Jimmy?"

"Nothing. The problem is that he isn't in Jimmy." Sam put the article he was reading down and placed it in one of his piles.

"Well, that sounded dirty." Sam glared at him. "Why doesn't Cas just come over here and figure it out himself? Besides, him being in a different vessel isn't too much of a big deal, is it?"

Sam, who was now leaning back in his chair and making eye contact with his brother, wasn't sure how to respond at first. "I don't know. I guess he just prefers to continue whatever he's doing and I'll do it. I don't mind."

Dean frowned skeptically at his sibling. "Really? You'd rather do that than, I don't know, figure out how to kill Abbadon?" In secret, Dean was wondering why Cas didn't contact him about the issue. Usually, Cas tended to trust Dean slightly more than Sam.

"I guess. It's less stressful."

Now that, Dean couldn't argue with. Maybe he'd give Cas a call. "Hey, does he still have his phone?"

"Well, I think he went back to Jimmy and grabbed the phone and the trench coat. Maybe don't call, though," Sam tried, making sure that Dean wouldn't recognize the voice he would hear from the other side of the phone.

Dean just frowned. "Why?" he asked, leaning back in his chair as the question came out.

Sam realized that he didn't have a great explanation for that. "Well, uh, Cas is in a female vessel. I just suggest against it because it's just really weird talking to girl-Cas."

Dean let go of the frown after a moment and laughed at his brother's excuse. "What, so does he sound sexy over the phone now? Is that it? You don't want me to end up hooking up with Cas?" He continued laughing at his own joke.

It took a second or two to realize that Dean was joking, and to laugh along. It was a good thing Dean didn't catch the nervousness in his voice. "So, will you help me find something?" Sam knew that he didn't supply Dean with a decent amount of useful information, but there was enough to find something at least a little bit relevant.

Dean picked up and put down one of the manilla folders in front of him. "Yeah, of course."

Cas wasn't as relaxed as Sam and Dean. After the first nine or ten days in his new vessel, he was starting to get used to it. At least he still had his beloved trenchcoat. Castiel liked to think that the coat was a very important part of him and his personality. Although, Cas was getting annoyed with seeing an unfamiliar face every time he walked past anything with a reflection.

Eventually, Cas got a call from Sam. He had requested to meet at a diner and go over some of the possibilities of what happened a few days ago. Castiel obliged.

The day after the call, Sam and Cas went to chat in a small restaurant called "Jiffy Burger". Sam was early, Castiel on time. At first, Sam wasn't sure that Cas was Cas. The vessel was just so alien. However, the trench coat was the dealbreaker.

"Hey, Cas. Wow," he breathed out. "It's so weird to see you as - "

"A woman, yes. I find it odd, as well."

The waitress asked both of them if they wanted something to drink. Cas ended up taking a glass of water because he didn't want to seem out of place compared to Sam. There was something off, though. Castiel felt a strange tug at the back of his mind. It was telling him something, but there was no way to tell exactly what was happening, so he ignored it.

Sam cleared his throat and fished out the documents he had brought. "So, Cas, I found a few folders on such about angel vessels, and things that can affect oxytocin levels in angels."

Cas, even in a completely different vessel, kept his squinty facial expression, seemingly staring nowhere in thought. "I appreciate you looking into this for me. I'm sure you have much more important things to do than this."

"Oh, well, in all honestly, I probably would have ignored it if it weren't for that whole, 'I accidentally boned your brother' part. I know you didn't mean to, but it's just so weird to think about."

"Then don't," Cas replied quickly. He was quite embarrassed about that part and hoped it would not be mentioned from there forward.

"Sheesh, okay."

Cas leaned in with more interest now. "What have you found?"

"Well, I found a few references to the whole 'lust' thing, but not with that relating to being grounded in a vessel. Could you tell me how you felt when you were under the influence of the potion stuff?"

Cas just kept staring off into the distance. "The moment I took of sip of the drink, I felt as though I were in a dream, and I had no control of my actions. The lust that my vessel experienced - I could feel it. It just wasn't me producing those emotions. I was 'backseat', but my vessel wasn't conscious either." He ended by looking back into Sam's eyes expectantly.

Sam nodded in understanding. "Yeah, that sounds a lot like one of them. I couldn't exactly translate the name, but it works in the way you described. It doesn't have anything to do with being stuck in a vessel, though. I imagine something happened when you and Dean - when you…"

Cas got it. Sam didn't need to say it again.

The waitress from earlier came back, asking for their orders. Sam went with a garden salad. Weirdly, though, Cas' instinct told him that the tug from the back of the brain wanted food. He ordered a burger. That sure caught Sam off guard.

"Wait, you eat now? You didn't mention that," Sam pointed out, sitting up straighter.

Castiel frowned. "I haven't felt hunger until right now. I imagine something else is malfunctioning."

"Maybe you're becoming human?" Sam suggested.

Cas pondered that for a few seconds before shaking his head. "No, I don't think so."

"So, we're basically no further than we were before."

Castiel nodded slightly. "I think it's safe to assume that the culprit was an angel. I don't see the point of this, though. Keeping me in one vessel isn't too harsh of a punishment."

"Well, maybe they planned on tearing your and Dean's friendship apart by making you have sex with him without Dean knowing," Sam blatantly stated.

That made Cas' metaphorical stomach drop. That was an obvious observation, but a scary one. It seemed like the sort of thing that they wouldn't consider off the bat, and would be told in the monologue of the antagonist later on. "That's a feasible assumption," Cas said.

The waitress was back very quickly compared to some of the other diners Cas had joined Sam and Dean in. "One garden salad for the sir," she said, placing the pile of lettuce in front of the extremely tall man, "And one traditional burger for the miss."

Sam dug a fork into the salad, but he also seemed to be consciously waiting to watch Cas take a bit out of the food in front of him. It got Cas a little bit annoyed and offended. He picked up the burger, and shamelessly took a giant bite out of it. Weirdly, that burger didn't taste like molecules. In fact, it was just as delicious as Dean would make it out to be.

Cas took a second bite, and then another. Quickly, the entire burger was consumed. After the focus of eating wore off, Castiel was left looking at a very wide-eyed Sam Winchester, who had only taken one or two pieces of lettuce from his platter.

"I didn't know I was hungry," was all Castiel had to say. Actually, after that endeavor, Cas was starting to feel a lot of things. He could smell the aromas of the restaurant to the weakness of his grace. Until that moment, Cas didn't feel how absolutely drained he was. Sam must have seen it too.

"Cas, are you okay? You just scarfed down an entire burger, even faster than Dean, and you look more tired than before."

Was it really that obvious? Cas didn't know what his face looked like anymore. He never took the time to really look into a mirror. The angel just hoped that his former vessel would be his once more very soon.

Very, VERY suddenly, Cas' thoughts were stopped abruptly by a slam of uneasiness. There were no demons there, no monsters, no angels. He could sense it. Despite that, Cas felt an odd metallic feeling on the backs of either side of his mouth. His stomach felt like it was being squeezed from the inside. Cas was salivating profusely, and he kept trying to swallow it down. What "it" was exactly, Castiel didn't know.

Cas stood up without saying anything, and tried to see where the bathrooms were from their table. Sam stood up, too, not understanding what his angel friend was doing. The moment the facilities were spotted, Cas went right for it, into a family restroom. He wasn't sure what to do, but he was breathing raggedly. He must have forgotten to lock the door, because Sam followed Cas into the bathroom and locked it from the inside himself.

"Whoa, Cas, what's wrong? Are you going to be sick?"

Cas responded silently by swallowing a decent amount of times.

Sam nodded, trying to keep calm, half not knowing what to do with a sick angel. "Okay, Cas. Get on your knees in front of the toilet and let your body throw up into the bowl. Uhh, maybe pull your hair back if it gets in the way." Sam didn't know how to prepare a divine creature for the disgusting horror of vomiting when that angel had never felt it before.

Cas would have pulled the vessel's hair back, but it stood itself up well enough for it not to be too much of an issue. Besides, pulling the hair straight, it would only be to the shoulders at most. The stomach acid (which he didn't even know his body produced) flowed up Cas' throat and out of his mouth.

Sam tried to be comforting, he really did. He even got down next to Cas and tried to rub his back or something of the sort, but Cas, frankly, found it a little annoying. After the entire burger made its way back up Cas' throat, he leaned back. Sam looked flustered, for he had not expected his angel-friend-of-the-Lord to blow chunks in the middle of a diner.

After about five minutes, the two of them evacuated the bathroom and Sam paid for the bill. The two of them left, and Sam wasn't sure what to do with Cas. He hadn't spoken since the incident. He couldn't take him back to the bunker, because Dean would most likely be there right now.

Sam's plan ended up being to take Cas to a motel room. However, Sam needed Cas to stop being so emotionally constipated and tell him how he was feeling if he wanted to get better. "What the hell happened back there?!" Sam exclaimed, eyes on the road.

Castiel was sitting shotgun, and he seemed to be sweating and breathing heavily. It wasn't an awful condition, but the signs that he was sick were overwhelming. "I-I don't know."

There was silence for a moment while Sam was thinking of a response. "Angels can't get sick right? So, what's wrong with you?"

Cas turned his head to look at Sam with an annoyed expression. "I don't know."

"Well, do you still feel sick?"

Castiel thought that it was a apparent that he felt like crap, but elaborating seemed to appease the youngest Winchester. "My grace seems to be lingering. It's all there, but it's as if it's disconnected from my being." He took a ragged breath. "There may now be reason to assume that my predicament has a deeper understanding that we have not yet unlocked."

"You think?! Look, I'm going to take you to a motel room, and we're going to try to sort this out, okay?" Sam laid out.

Castiel grunted and nodded. The last thing he wanted to do right now was throw up all over Dean's car. It was difficult to imagine that the hunter didn't even have an awareness that the person who he'd shared a motel room with, engaged in sexual activities, and abandoned was actually his closest and most trusted friend. Dean saw Cas with a shroud of masculinity, and that made him off-limits. If he ever found out about what they did together, he would surely freak out completely.

As Castiel and Sam pulled into the motel, Cas seemed to be getting a bit antsy. Surely, there was vomit threatening to rush up his esophagus. Sam quickly checked out one room for the night with one bed. To him, spending that money didn't mean too much, so if Cas decided to flee, no big deal. They just needed some time to wrap their minds around the information that they had yet gathered.

The moment Sam got back to the car, the ill angel asked for the card to the room. He got out of the car as hastily as possible and walked with speed to the nearest available restroom, Sam tailing close after. While Cas stayed in the locked bathroom, dry heaving, Sam sat on the single bed and waited. He attempted to dig through his memories and uncover some sort of giant relevant information.

It never managed to show itself.

After the noises stopped, water ran from the sink, and the door opened. It seemed as though Castiel had splashed a bit of water on himself. Luckily, though, the angel appeared to be far less sickly-looking.

Sam stood up. "Cas, are you okay?"

He stood in the door frame, leaning to one side. Besides that, Cas looked to be in the clear. "That was extremely unpleasant," he stated. "But yes, I think that's over for now, although I still feel queasy in the slightest." He exerted his arm to force himself to stand completely straight up.

Sam relaxed his shoulders and sat back down. "So, I don't really have any ideas. We need to do some research, but we've also gotta find a way back into your vessel, or Dean is going to freak out." He paused, a question coming to mind. "How long have you been feeling like this?"

"Just today."

"Well," Sam said with false optimism, "Maybe it's just a one time thing."

Castiel smiled, trying to take the suggestion to heart, but to no avail. He leaned against the door frame once more, this time out of manor instead of exhaustion. "Maybe." Castiel sighed, breaking eye contact with his friend. "There's no telling if I'll have to sleep, along with eating. I can't even begin to understand what this malfunction is."

"Yeah," Sam replied, pursing his lips. "I'll look into it."

Cas launched himself from the doorframe once again, now deciding to walk closer to where Sam was relaxed. "Anyways, has anything of significance occurred that you wish to discuss?"

Sam was affronted. "You want to talk about that right now?"

Castiel stared expectantly at the hunter.

"No, not too much has come up in the big game. Besides the fact that our grandfather was in the Men of Letters, but you already know that."

"Hm. Does Dean know of the predicament at hand, sparing details?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. He knows that you can't smoke out of your vessel, and that you're not currently in Jimmy. I asked for help researching, since neither of us have much better to do."

The two looked at each other for a few seconds, not having anything else to speak of. In that silence, both were relieved when Sam's phone buzzed. It was a text from Dean.

'Hey, where the hell are you? I need my car.'

It didn't take too much time for that to register. "Oh, Cas, I need to leave. You've got the room for tonight. I guess, just wait here and see if you fall asleep? If you do, make sure to text me, alright?"

Cas didn't respond; he didn't need to. Sam just held the silence and threw it at the door, and he left without another word.

There he was, an almighty angel of the Lord, sitting in bed as if he were required to stay there. He wasn't, but Sam's suggestion was a good choice. Castiel sat on the bed, waiting for the inevitable fatigue that would conquer him eventually. However, Cas' life wasn't done with all of the surprises. Just as Cas was beginning to doze off for the first time, his phone rang.

Of course it was a call from Dean.

Cas ignored it until the dial tone rang as many times as plausible. After the rejection, Cas received a text message.

Hey, Cas. I know you're in a different vessel, but I honestly couldn't give two craps.

Castiel almost smiled at that. Oh, yes he would.

Anyways, just come back to the bunker (I'll send you the address), but it might end up helping you make it back into Jimmy.

Cas probably would have agreed if he hadn't made regrettable choices. He didn't respond. He put the cellphone of the night stand by his bed and finally let himself fall into slumber.

Okay, so chapters 1 and 2 are complete. Keep in mind that I do not have a beta of any sort, and I haven't thoroughly went over these. I'm beginning to hit a writer's block, but I'll try my best to swim through it. Due to Thanksgiving, there were 5 days off from school, those days being the time that I wrote these. However, school starts back again tomorrow. I'm sorry for the lack of time I'll have to write, but I take 4 AP classes, I swim competitively 5 days a week, do orchestra, chorus, drama, and with all of that, my girlfriend and I have been receiving threatening messages from the friends of my ex boyfriend... Everything's really hectic and stressful, but I'll try my absolute best to keep up, I promise. I hope you have a good day! Now, continue on scrolling until I update, ya little shits. Over-and-out.