Warnings/Rating: SPOILERS to 5.03, GEN, PG. Mild crack.

Disclaimer: Kripke's world (and a reference to another). I still own nothing.

A/N: Meh. I've been working on this damn thing since the episode aired, and I'm still not happy with it, but it's getting posted anyway. Might change bits later. Contains wildly incorrect assessments of what Castiel can and cannot do and the effects of smoke from angel-trapping oil. Also, I doubt Dean and Castiel let things get this far out of hand.

-.-

The Day They'll Never Get Back
by CaffieneKitty

-.-

"Just out of curiosity, what is the average customer wait time to speak to an archangel?" asked Dean.

"Be ready." Castiel lit the ring of oil. They both stood watching the catatonic man inside the circle of flame for any sign of hosting an archangel, although both of them knew that wasn't what they were really there for.

About ten seconds later, the fire alarm started ringing.

Dean glanced at the ceiling. "I thought you said that wasn't gonna be a problem."

Castiel waved two fingers in the air and the ringing stopped.

"It isn't a problem."

"Nice trick," said Dean, raising his eyebrow.

"It has been convenient on several occasions."

"Remind me to take you along the next time me 'n Sam-" Dean stopped.

Silence stretched before Castiel spoke with a tone of query. "The next time you and-"

"Never mind," Dean said, cutting the angel's question off.

The flames on the floor continued flickering. Donny Finnerman continued staring.

-.-

Outside the room the brief blare of the fire alarm had caused some disruption among the other patients in the Psychiatric wing of St. Peter's Hospital. Staff calmed the agitated patients and called maintenance to find out what had triggered the alarm. Orderlies were sent room-to-room, checking on the less reactive patients and confirming there was no sign of a fire.

-.-

Justin Fong walked briskly between the rooms, noting the patients' names before peering in to check that they safe and secure.

He liked his job. He made sure to have a bright smile for all the patients (although he was still learning that a few patients found smiling to be a sign of aggression or ridicule) and to address them all with respect, whether they were smiling back or catatonic. It was a minefield some days, but he loved the social puzzle it presented. He was learning more about psychology every week here than he had in two years of night school.

Justin checked the chart by the door of the next room. Donny Finnerman, catatonic. Justin put on his best cheery smile and opened the door. "Just doing a check, Mr Finne-" He stopped in his tracks, face falling.

Two strange men appeared to be roasting Mr. Finnerman alive. The one not wearing a trenchcoat said, "Aw, crap."

Justin found his voice. "Oh my god! What's-!"

Before he could finish his query of alarmed confusion, the man in the trenchcoat popped from the other side of the room to right in front of Justin, pushing two fingers against the orderly's forehead and staring with intent blue eyes that-

Justin blinked. Mr. Finnerman sat in his chair, as usual, staring at the window. Aside from the patient, the room was empty and tidy. Perfectly normal.

"Oh," said Justin, wondering why he felt so distressed. His heart was racing and the hair on the back of his neck was standing up.

A strange sweet smell wafted through the room, and it was a little warm, but there was nothing to be alarmed about. "I-" He shook his head and left, making a tick on his room list that everything was fine.

-.-

Castiel turned back to Dean as the orderly left. "This has also been convenient," the angel said, answering Dean's look.

"Great," said Dean. "He won't be the last person sticking his nose in either; there's no lock on the inside of these doors. You should get out in the hall and nail anyone that gets too curious."

Castiel looked from Dean to the wheelchair-bound man in the circle of flame. "This would not be an effective use of available resources. Raphael may show up at any time."

"I promise, I'll holler for you if he does." Except he's killed you before and I'm off limits, so maybe I won't holler that loud. Plus, I don't wanna end up picking your teeth out of my hair.

Castiel fixed Dean with an intent gaze. "I should not leave the room."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. Stay right there by the door then." Raphael's not gonna show here anyway. We're just baiting the trap.

Aromatic smoke gathered on the ceiling of the room, filtering into the ventilation system.

-.-

None of the staff had found any sign of fire on the room-to-room check, and maintenance were baffled by the alarm system which was showing no faults.

Patients were calmed, except for a few who swore they could smell smoke. Or doughnuts. This was waved off or noted in files as individual patient histories suggested, until staff began to notice the strange sweet-smoky-spicy smell too.

The smoke detection system was checked again, and found to be in perfect working order, except for the fact it wasn't going off. The fire department was alerted.

-.-

The door opened and shut a few times, with partial shouts in a wide variety of vocal timbres cutting off abruptly as Castiel nailed the interlopers in the forehead and encouraged them to find nothing abnormal going on in the room.

Donny Finnemen still sat in the center of the circle of flame, staring at the window as Dean observed him.

Poor bastard. Wonder if he has family? Castiel had said that having Michael take over his body would be worse for Dean. Can't see how things could get much worse. I've been dead, and I've been to Hell. Either one seems... Dean watched the man's eyes, staring glassily, glint of flames reflecting off their unresponsive surface. Poor bastard.

Something moved beside Dean and he became simultaneously aware that Castiel wasn't at the door anymore and that said door had also not opened in a while.

"Hey! Why aren't you over there handing out free two-finger lobotomies?"

Castiel gazed evenly at Donny Finnerman. "I believe I have resolved the issue."

Dean looked over as someone's shadow raced past the shuttered window; in the hall people weren't quite shouting, but their voices held that tone of professional crisis-handlers on the verge of losing their cool.

"How, exactly?" he asked, not looking away from the door.

"The door and window can no longer be seen from outside the room."

Dean turned back to Castiel, his eyebrows flying ceiling-ward. "Really?"

"Seal of Enigma." Castiel stared at the man in the wheelchair. "The door and window still exist, but the human eye will not see that they are there. It will not last long."

"Still, that's all kinds of awesome." Running feet went past in the hall again. "What's going on out there?"

"I believe the smoke may be getting out into the hallway. It's causing great concern."

"Crap." Dean looked around the room. "It must be getting out through the vents."

"Possibly."

Dean grabbed some sheets off Donny Finnerman's bed. He crammed one sheet into the ventilation grate and laid the other along the floor in front of the door as a makeshift draft-stopper. "There. That'll block most of the smoke from getting out, they'll calm down, everything's hunky spunky."

"Indeed."

The barely perceptible haze in the room deepened slightly.

-.-

Outside the room, a controlled and confused panic was in progress, as no one could locate Mr. Finnerman or the room he was supposed to be in, even though Justin Fong swore he'd just been in it and everything was fine.

Firefighters had arrived and ordered everyone in the Psychiatric wing - patients, staff and visitors - to gather in the activities room until they could make a determination about the vague smoke. The main hospital was notified that the Fire Department was present, and the fire doors between the Psych wing and the main hospital were all closed as a precaution.

As the firefighters and hospital staff were trying to track down Donny Finnerman, someone in the maintenance crew switched from working on the alarm system to testing the sprinkler system.

It worked just fine.

-.-

"We can't wait around all day for this chicken-feathered freak to show up," Dean said, canting a meaning-filled eyebrow at Castiel.

"We need to be sure we have waited a sufficient amount of time," Castiel stated, glancing at Dean.

Just then the sprinkler-heads opened up with a sustained ksssssshhhhhhhh and dumped water on the three men in the room. The ring of flaming oil sputtered and spat as the water fell. A greasy, aromatic steam boiled up from the flames, filling the room with a smell like someone was deep-frying a cinnamon-battered watermelon.

Dean looked at the ceiling into the water spray and threw his hands up in exasperation. "Perfect. That's not gonna help at all."

Castiel waved his fingers at the ceiling. The sprinklers not directly over the circle of flame began spraying flower petals. Water still poured down on Donny Finnerman and threatened to douse the circle of flame, and now the cinnamon-battered watermelon smell was being overpowered by the reek of singed geraniums.

"Also really not helping." Dean scraped water-plastered flower petals from his face. "What the hell, Cas?"

Castiel frowned down at his fingers. "I can't influence the sprinkler inside the burning circle. I have no explanation for the flowers. Perhaps the smoke is causing some unintended side-effects."

Dean glanced around the smoke-, steam-, and flower-petal-filled room. "So, what, blocking the smoke in turned the room into an angelic mojo hotbox?"

Castiel blinked blankly. "A what?"

Sodden petals scattered as Dean shook his head. "Never mind. How do you feel, Cas?"

The soaking wet, petal-polka-dotted angel looked momentarily introspective. "I feel... unusual."

"Like unusual how? Like sick?"

"I don't get sick."

Dean went to the door and kicked the improvised draft-stopper away. "You said this stuff can kill an angel if one crosses the flame. What does the smoke do?" he asked, jumping up on Donny Finnerman's sheetless bed to yank the second sheet out of the ventilation grate.

"I'm not sure. I don't think I am dying, but the last time I died it was too fast to register many sensations."

Dean scowled at the man in the center of the circle of flame and hoped the 'angel telephone' transmitted death-glares too. Archangel or not, nobody gets away with killing my friends. Even the ones that get resurrected. "You need to get out of here," he said to Castiel, jumping down off the bed with a geranium-scented squish.

"No. We need to finish our task."

They both knew the task wasn't getting the archangel to land in the middle of St. Peter's Psych ward. Dean figured that by now they had to have spent enough time screwing around to lure Raphael into the trap waiting back at the house. However, arguing with Castiel in front of Raphael's human listening device would be tactically moronic, so Dean settled for a concerned glower in Castiel's direction.

The angel continued staring at the man in the wheelchair, but with a mildly distracted look. Things were not okay with him yet. Dean couldn't tell if the air was clearing or not; air seemed to be equal parts smoke, steam and flower petals.

Dean glanced out the window at the fire trucks and scurrying people in the parking lot. "The windows here don't open, but you tell me if you feel worse or pain or anything more than 'unusual' and I'll bust one open, get some air in here." It would alert anyone outside the building that something was wrong in the psych wing and security alarms would sound, but given the pandemonium and the sprinklers going off, keeping this quiet was likely a lost cause.

"The circle is breaking up," Castiel said, voice oddly thick.

The burning oil was spreading, floating on the water puddling from the sprinklers. Donny Finnerman sat dripping obliviously as the flaming oil spread around the room.

"Nonono. This is no good, we're gonna burn the damn hospital down!"

"Dean? I feel..."

Dean glanced over at Castiel. The angel's face was scrunched up as though he was in pain; his mouth was half-open and he was breathing in funny gasps.

"Cas? Sonofabitch!" Dean grabbed a visitor's chair, hefted it and turned to the window.

Castiel sneezed.

Between one blink and the next, the room was sparkling clean. No fire, no flowers, no water spraying, no scorch marks on the floor. The visitor's chair had removed itself from Dean's hands and settled back into its corner at a precise 45 degree angle to both walls. Donny's bed was made; the smoke-blocking sheets and blankets had leapt up and tucked themselves into crisp folded corners. Everything was perfectly dry.

Blinking again, startled by the lack of water dripping into his eyes, Dean looked down at himself for any lingering traces of potpourri. Not a single petal anywhere. "Wow. That was-"

"-convenient. Yes." Castiel snuffled into his trenchcoat sleeve.

The door swung open and the asian orderly that had been the first to poke his head into the room a long while ago poked his head in again. "Mr. Finnerman! Oh, you have visitors, hello. I'm sorry, but we must evacuate all of you to the activities room." Behind the orderly a firefighter in full gear lurked.

"Yeah, sure. We're done here, I think?"

Castiel nodded. "Yes. I believe so."

-.-

The psych ward activities room was full of firefighters, patients, visitors and staff, all milling around and panicking, soothing, or otherwise exchanging stories and theories about what was going on in the Psych wing.

"This is no good," said Dean, watching conversational clumps intermingle. "This'll get around and attract attention."

"It would not serve our task to have this incident become widely known."

"Can you do that-" Dean poked himself in the forehead with two fingers, "-to everyone in the room at once, like a big angelic neuralyzer?"

"A what?"

Dean held his hand up as though thumb wrestling with someone invisible, "Neuralyzer? From the movie 'Men in Black'? It's a-"

Castiel tilted his head and blinked.

Dean sighed and waved his hand dismissively. "Never mind. Can you blank everyone's memory at once?"

"Not anymore."

Swallowing an unwarrantedly sarcastic 'great' along with a bit of guilt for being the reason Castiel wasn't as hooked up to the angel network as he once was, Dean looked around the room again. "It's gonna take hours to do all these people one at a time."

"Also if they are not kept separated, the ones who are not cleared will tell the ones who are what happened again and the process will need to be repeated."

That statement warranted sarcasm. "Fantastic."

"I do not have a plan for this eventuality."

Dean reached into his coat and got his fake FBI badge and smirked. "That's why I'm awesome. I always have a plan." He jumped up on a table and held the badge up to the throng. "Excuse me, if I can please get your attention?"

Conversations lulled and fell silent.

"Eyes front, thank you. I am Agent Jones, this is my partner Agent Smith. We are with the FBI. We need to interview all of you regarding this incident. Agent Smith will be taking your individual statements in a private room one at a time."

Of course, things would have gone a lot smoother if this wasn't the Psychiatric wing.

-.-

After the staff had gotten the patients with paranoia and conspiracy issues calmed, medicated, or otherwise no longer actively rioting, and after they had determined that Dean and Castiel were not delusional patients themselves, and after the fire chief had called Agent Smith and Jones' grumpier-than-usual FBI supervisor Mike Kayser at the South Dakota branch office/junk yard, the two ersatz FBI agents finally started the long process of 'interviewing'.

Dean herded one person at a time into a side room, where Castiel poked them in the forehead and sent them off through a second exit.

Nearly three hours and ninety eight pokes later, Dean ushered in the last person.

-.-

Justin Fong watched as individuals were taken one by one into a side room and didn't return. First several of the staff, then patients - some of whom were combative or medicated - visitors, disgruntled firefighters, more staff. He fought down a feeling of creeping paranoia. The activities room was empty by the time Agent Jones pointed at him and snapped his fingers.

"You're up!"

Justin smiled nervously as he went to the side room door. "Thanks, it was starting to feel kind of ominous, everyone leaving except me."

Agent Jones looked at his watch and shook his head with a smirk. "Sorry for making you wait dude, but someone's gotta be last. Luck of the draw. Head on in."

An FBI agent called me 'dude'. Justin grinned at the dichotomy and went into the side room followed by Agent Jones.

The trench-coated Agent Smith waited, blue eyes staring. Justin felt a shiver of nervousness but frowned and told himself it was a lingering remnant of his irrational childhood fear of men in neckties.

"Last one, Cas."

"Hi!" said Justin, holding a hand out towards Agent Smith to be shaken. "Man, it's been a weird-"

The two fingers coming towards his forehead gave Justin a funny sense of deja vu. He ducked, holding up his hands to shield his face.

"Wait! Why are you-" He looked between the two agents. "You aren't FBI are you?"

"No," said Agent Smith.

Agent Jones stood in front of the door back to the now-empty activities room, smirking, arms crossed. "We defend the earth from the worst scum of the universe," he said dramatically. "We are... the Men in Black."

Agent Smith cocked his head to the side and looked at Agent Jones. "While arguably correct in the first part, the second part is not accurate."

"Yeah," said Justin, confused. "Neither of you are wearing black. He's got a camel-colored trenchcoat and you're wearing plaid, leather and jeans."

Agent Jones deflated and rolled his eyes. "Just poke him and let's go."

And then there were the fingers again.

-.-

Streetlights were buzzing to life as Dean and Castiel left the hospital. Dean wasn't sure whether it was a sign of how tired the angel was or just a polite gesture that made Castiel walk across the parking lot with him rather than popping out to meet him at the car.

"You figure all this'll pay off?" Dean asked, thinking of the trap laid back at the abandoned house on the edge of town.

"Raphael must know now that we are sincere in our efforts to contact him."

Dean snorted. "After all that, he probably figures we're idiots."

"The more he underestimates us, the more likely this is to work."

"Should work like a charm then." Dean grinned.

The corner of Castiel's mouth quirked as they crossed the parking lot to the Impala.

- - -
(that's all.)