Archive of Our Own ^beta

About three months after the darkness is defeated, life at the bunker starts to settle into a routine. Sam wakes up early and goes for a run, making a triple loop of the Lebanon city limits that takes him a little over an hour. Cas wakes up late; according to him, sleeping in is one of the best things about not being an angel anymore. Somewhere in the middle, Dean gets up and cooks breakfast for three -- sometimes heavy, sometimes light. It depends on his mood and what he finds in the fridge.

This morning he fries some bacon and scrambles a half dozen eggs with onions and mushrooms and a double handful of chunky, frozen potatoes. He lets the potatoes and onions simmer on low for a few minutes, then adds in the mushrooms and eggs and flips the bacon. Heat suffuses the kitchen, as does the smell of butter and grease, but it's pleasant, warm and familiar in a way walking into a Biggerson's isn't. He also makes himself two slices of toast, slathering them in the apricot jam Cas bought at the farmer's market off US 281. It's way better than the cheap stuff Dean usually gets at the grocery store, but he stubbornly refuses to admit it out loud.

Once the food is done, Dean empties the coffee pot into a carafe they lifted from the Minooka IHOP and hauls it and his plate out to the library, where his laptop is waiting for him. Settling into his favorite chair, he eats while reading his email. Sam set up Google alerts for keywords that could mean a hunt, things like haunted and unexplained and exsanguinated. It's made finding their next job considerably easier, but they still have to sort through plenty of chaff. The first email is an entertainment blurb about a midnight sci-fi/horror double-feature at the hipster theater in Smith Center; the next two are advertisements for Halloween stores opening in Topeka and Wichita next week.

Sam gets back just as Dean is finishing his eggs, still breathing hard and blotting his red face with the sleeve of running jacket. His damp hair hangs limp at his temples. He grabs a bottle of water from the library's mini-fridge and downs about half of it before saying anything.

"Well? What's the news of the world?"

Dean shrugs. "Looks like nothing went bump last night."

"What about that?" Sam asks, leaning over Dean's shoulder to point at something on the screen. He smells like sweat and the stink-weed that grows wild along the county highway and Dean elbows him to make him back off a little.

"What?"

"The third unread message down."

It's an alert for the phrase white figure; Dean opens it and follows the link to an article in a Nebraska newspaper. The headline screams, "WHITE FIGURE SCARES LOCAL TEENS AT POPULAR ATTRACTION."

"Could be something," Sam ventures, tapping his water bottle on his thigh.

Chewing his toast, Dean shakes his head. "Could be drunk kids spooked by a haunted house."

"Let me get showered and then I'll start looking into it. Is Cas up yet?"

"Nope. And it's your turn to wake the beast."

"The beast is already awake," Cas grumbles from the doorway. He pauses there for a moment, his hair sticking up in every direction, then sighs and shuffles toward the table. He scratches his side as he walks, making his shirt ride up enough to flash a sliver of his tattoo, and Dean looks away, frowning at the laptop so he doesn't get caught staring. "Do we have a case?"

"Maybe," Sam says, finishing his water. "Possible haunting."

Cas grunts under his breath in a way that's at least two parts agreeable. He's hovering behind Dean's shoulder, so close that Dean can smell him, sleep-soft and warm. After a moment, he helps himself to Dean's coffee, and Dean absolutely does not watch his throat work as he swallows.

"Sorry," he says as he sets the cup down. It's almost empty; carefully, he refills it from the carafe. "My mug is in the kitchen."

"It's -- whatever," Dean says, heat prickling at the back of his neck. "It's cool."

+

"All right," Dean says, drumming his fingers on the table. "What've we got?"

"Okay... Grand Island Family Fun Fair," Sam says without looking up from his tablet. "It opened about a hundred years ago, a few miles up the road from where it is now. Sounds like it was more of a circus back then, it had trained animals and a sideshow -- like, fire-eaters and sword-swallowers, that kind of thing. It moved to its current location in the late forties, and it ditched the Ripley's Believe It or Not stuff for games and carnival rides." He taps the tablet, scrolling down the page. "A freak tornado storm destroyed half the place the eighties. It took them about a year to rebuild it."

"Anything weird?" Dean asks. "Wacko deaths? A real mummy in the haunted house?"

"Nothing so far. Its official website is pretty generic and its Wikipedia article is just a stub. What about those kids?"

Dean glances at the article open on the laptop. "Um... Archie Wright and Michelle Ruiz, both sixteen. They took a ride on some sappy, couples-only love-boat thing. About ten minutes in, a white figure floated up through the bottom of the boat and started screaming at them."

"I've found five similar accounts," Cas says, his knee bumping Dean's under the table. He has his own coffee now; he's using his favorite mug, a huge thing shaped like Felix the Cat's head. It has pointy ears and round, bugged-out eyes that make Dean feel like he's being watched.

"Newspaper accounts or Ghostfacers message-board stuff?"

"Four are from newspaper articles, the fifth is from a woman's personal blog," Cas replies. He pops a piece of bacon into his mouth, licking the grease off his thumb in a way that makes Dean shiver. "Charlene Jackson visited this Tunnel of Love with her husband on their tenth anniversary. Evidently, they were recreating their first date."

"How romantic," Dean snorts.

"These accounts are nearly identical to yours," Cas continues. "About midway through the ride, a white figure appeared out of nowhere and began verbally abusing them."

"Yeah, that sounds like something," Sam says, setting his tablet aside.

Dean sighs. "Great." They just got in from a job the night before last, a werewolf gig that dragged on for a week and left all of them pretty banged up. Dean's shoulder still aches from getting tossed into concrete wall. "And here I was dreaming of three full days off."

"Grand Island is only two hours from here. It'll keep 'til tomorrow," Sam offers.

"No," Dean says, shaking his head. He'd love another day, but now that a real case is on the table he won't be able to settle until they're on the road. "I'd rather just rip the band-aid off. Let's shoot for downstairs in... two hours. We can get lunch in Grand Island and grab a motel before we hit up the carnival."

+

According to the pictures Sam found online, the Fun Fair's love tunnel is a boat ride on a fake river, so Dean packs double the usual amount of clothes. He practically has to sit on his bag to zip it, and the extra weight makes it heavy enough to pull on his sore shoulder, but he's learned not to gamble with hunts involving water. He's taken too many accidental swims over the years. The only thing worse than walking around in wet jeans is driving home in jeans that are faintly damp and smell like the bottom of a sewer.

Once he's all packed, he flips off the lights and backs out of his room, pulling the door closed as he goes. As he turns around, he bumps into Cas, who is staring down at his phone in the middle of the hallway.

In his underwear.

"Sorry," he says.

Dean doesn't really hear him; he's too busy staring, taking in the broad set of his shoulders and the thick curve of his thighs. The hair on his legs is sparser above his knees. He has a scratch on his side, a long and narrow line that follows the arch of his ribs, tapering off just above his tattoo. It's faded and scabbed now, some four days after that bastard werewolf gave it to him, but Dean had been quietly hysterical when it happened. He'd washed it and poured vodka over it with clumsy, shaking fingers.

Cas hunting with them has been both a blessing and a curse. Dean likes having him around all the time. He likes knowing where Cas is. But he also worries a lot. He hates seeing Cas hurt. He hates watching Cas bleed.

"I was just texting Claire," Cas continues.

Dean takes a step back and clears his throat. "Is she okay?"

"Yes. Jody is hunting something she believes is a witch. Claire sent me a picture of some Latin text they were unable to translate."

"Well, if they need anything, tell them to call," Dean says. Cas has another scratch on the side of his neck, a thinner line that stretches from his jaw to his ear; Dean studies it for a second before adding, "Why aren't you dressed? We're outta here in forty-five."

"Oh," Cas says, looking down at himself and then back up at Dean. "My clothes are still in the dryer. I was just going down to get them. Don't worry. I'll be ready in forty-five."

He touches Dean's arm as he passes, his fingers just skimming the bend of Dean's elbow.

+

Dean checks the weapons one last time, then closes the Impala's trunk.

"Hey," he says to Sam, his voice echoing around the garage. "Where's Cas?"

Sam pauses with the beer cooler loaded halfway in the backseat, one end still balanced on his thigh. "I don't know. His gear's all here. Maybe he needed the head."

"Yeah."

"Unless," Sam ventures, glancing upward.

"Right, yeah. Unless he's upstairs." Dean sighs under his breath. "I'll go get him."

The bunker's top floor is a conservatory, a single, open room with flagstone floors and peaked skylights and an east wall made entirely of windows. Dean and Sam have never used it for anything -- in fact, Dean had almost forgotten it was even there -- but within a week of moving in permanently, Cas started filling it with plants. He swept out the dust and dragged all the broken furniture down to the basement, and now he spends hours up there when they're not on a job, pruning and watering and repotting. He brings new plants home all the time, although it won't be long before he runs out of space; he already has so many that when he leaves the door open the green, earthy smell of them greets Dean at the bottom of the stairs.

At first, Cas is just a dark shape in the glare from the windows; once Dean's eyes adjust, he finds Cas crouched over a plastic bucket, filling his stash of brightly-colored glass watering bulbs. Silently, Dean watches him. A warm, careful feeling blooms in his chest, achy and buttery and soft, just beneath his ribs. He can't quite breathe.

"You know," he says finally, the words slow to leave his throat, "if you just left those things in, you wouldn't have to come up here every day with a watering can."

"Coming up here every day is the point," Cas says mildly. Leaning over, he nestles a red bulb in the closest plant, spearing its straw-end into the soil. The water inside it makes a soft glugging sound. "I enjoy tending to them. I enjoy helping them grow."

He sets a yellow bulb in the next plant, his hand brushing over a leaf as he pulls away, two fingers skimming the curve of it, and for the thousandth time, Dean almost asks him why he decided to fall. Cas had been unwilling to talk about it right after it happened, so Dean had let it go. All he knows is that Cas made a choice. Heaven gave Cas an ultimatum and Cas walked away.

"I'm almost done," Cas says.

"Don't worry about it. Ten more minutes ain't gonna ruin our whole day."

Cas catches Dean's wrist, his wet thumb sliding over Dean's pulse as he pushes a turquoise bulb into Dean's hand. "It'll be five minutes if you help me."

Down in the garage, Sam lays on the horn, but Dean nods and says, "Yeah, okay."

+

US 281 is a dead stretch between Lebanon and the Nebraska line, nothing but rolling prairie along the highway and the hint of flint hills in the distance. There's no traffic in either direction, so Dean leans on the gas until the Impala is coasting between seventy and seventy-five. It's a hot day, the sky a brilliant blue and nearly cloudless. With the windows down the radio is barely a buzz; Dean switches it off as they pass White Rock and starts humming his way through side one of Houses of the Holy.

Cas is sitting shotgun. It's apparently his turn; he and Sam have worked out some kind of rota that Dean doesn't understand because it doesn't seem to have a pattern. He has a book in his lap. It looks about five hundred years old, and he's holding it open with both hands so the wind doesn't flap the pages like it's flapping the collar of his shirt. He's due for a haircut; the hair behind his ears is starting to curl.

"You're gonna get carsick," Dean tells him, frowning in the rearview mirror as Sam knees the back of his seat. Sam is looking at something on his phone, his face blue-white in the screen's glow. "Last time you read in the car you puked."

Cas turns a page. "That road was very bumpy."

"What are you reading?"

"Don Quixote." Cas closes the book around his finger and shifts sideways, leaning his back against the door and folding one leg on the seat. "In Spanish."

"Why?"

"It's a great work of literature."

"No -- I mean, why in Spanish?"

Cas is silent for a few moments. "Angels understand every language ever spoken on earth. I fell with that knowledge, but I'm afraid I'll lose it now that it's no longer... instinctual. Besides," he adds, opening the book again. "Cervantes wrote it in Spanish."

The highway curves slightly through Hastings, and they hit a pocket of lunchtime traffic that makes Dean ease off the gas. Wal-Mart looms on their left as they approach the lake, and Dean considers stopping on their way home to pick up more shells and butane and salt. Cas could probably use some new clothes. Dean took him shopping right after he fell, but his credit cards had been ready to break, so they'd stuck to the basics -- two pairs of jeans, a handful of shirts, a package each of socks and boxer-briefs, a sturdy pair of boots. That was three months ago. They've been working at a pretty good clip since then, and hunting is hard on clothes.

The shirt Cas is wearing now is blue and green plaid. It was one of the first things he'd tried on that day, and Dean's chest had ached watching him do it. He'd looked at himself sadly in the mirror, and his hands had been stiff as he straightened the collar and sleeves.

"Right after we moved into the bunker, Sammy found a whole bunch of books in one of the bedrooms. Novels in foreign languages -- Spanish, French, Italian, Russian." Dean clears his throat. "We just stashed them in the basement, but if you -- they're yours, if you want them."

"Thank you," Cas says, smiling. "I think I'd like that."

+

They roll into Grand Island a little after one. Sam is half asleep, his eyes slitted and his head lolled against the window; Cas still has his book in his lap. Dean is starving -- his stomach has been growling on and off since Hastings -- so he takes it slow past the Denny's off the highway. The parking lot is a clusterfuck, a car in every spot and a throng of people waiting outside the front door. Sighing, Dean flips a u-turn at the next light and pulls into a flop called the Motel Capri. It looks like something in their price range, and it's only a few blocks away from the Fun Fair.

Dean parks beside a wheezing, sunbleached vending machine, and he leaves the engine running in case his card is flagged and they have to beat it in a hurry. The office is tiny, the air inside stuffy in spite of the dusty ceiling fan. As Dean approaches the counter, a skinny kid with lank hair drags himself away from a magazine long enough to ask, "King or two queens?"

"One and one," Dean says, sliding his card and matching ID across the counter. "Preferably next door to each other."

"No can do. Doubles are on the ground floor, singles are upstairs."

Dean hesitates; he doesn't like the idea of Cas alone in a room that isn't close by. Cas is a deadly hand-to-hand fighter and he's unstoppable with a knife, but he's a mediocre shot. He isn't paranoid enough yet. He doesn't reach for a weapon at every funny noise. But if Sam takes the single Dean won't get any sleep; he'll be up all night listening to Cas breathe like a creeper.

"I got two doubles with a connecting door," the kid offers.

It's tempting, but doubles are another thirty a night, and this doesn't look like the kind of town with a poker game going in someone's back room. "One'll do, if it's got a couch."

"A fold-out couch," the kid says, handing Dean a set of keys and a form that wants his name and the Impala's license plate number. "It should have sheets on it already. If it doesn't, give me a buzz."

+

"Home sweet home," Dean drawls, tugging the faded curtains closed.

Cas snorts and sets their bags on the coffee table.

The room isn't bad, just dingy and kind of drab -- flowered wallpaper that's peeling where it meets the door frame and colorless carpet that's balding along the beaten path. The stench of stale cigarette smoke covers everything like a blanket. The kitchen counter is the same off-beige formica as the table; both have weird smudges in places, greasy-looking spots that suggest housekeeping buffs out any scratches and burns with tan shoe-polish.

Once the beer and bottled water have been loaded into the fridge, Dean sits at the table, where his laptop is still trying to find the motel's wi-fi. After a moment, a pop-up informs him that he entered the wrong password. He types it in again -- slower this time -- then leans back, toying with a complementary matchbook while he waits. His chair creaks. Behind him, Cas is muttering in Enochian as he digs through the gear. They're pretty low on salt rounds; he's probably looking for the reloading press.

Dean's shoulder is stiff from the two-hour drive. He stretches his arm over his head, but that only makes it worse, turning a slight twinge into a dull ache. Sighing, he rolls it a little. He hears Cas come up behind him, but he still jumps when Cas' hand settles at the curve of his neck.

"Are you still sore?" Cas asks.

"Yeah, kinda."

"You need a heating pad."

Dean huffs and tosses the matchbook on the table. "Heating pads are for old people."

"Heating pads are for anyone with physically strenuous jobs," Cas counters. "I bought one a few weeks ago and I don't regret it."

Dean opens his mouth to say, "Maybe," but Cas starts massaging his shoulder, pressing the heel of his hand right where everything is tense and tight, and Dean makes a low, thin noise instead. Cas kneads Dean's shoulder with his fingers, then finds a knot with his thumb and rubs it until it eases. Dean drops his head, biting the inside of his cheek so he doesn't embarrass himself by moaning. It feels so good to be touched like this, to have Cas touching him like this. Cas murmurs something under his breath and rests his other hand at the side of Dean's neck. Dean wants to lean into it, to turn his head and kiss Cas' palm. He's almost certain Cas would let him, but that's a scarier idea than Cas pushing him away.

The door rattles. Cas gives Dean's shoulder another soft squeeze, then brushes his fingers through Dean's hair and heads into the kitchen. "Beer?"

"Yeah," Dean says, his voice thick. Taking a breath, he twists around in his chair to greet Sam as he comes in. "What's for lunch?"

Sam pulls a face. "McDonalds," he says apologetically.

"C'mon, dude. Really?"

"It was that or Chick-fil-A. Lesser of evils."

"Whatever," Dean says, rolling his eyes. "Just hand it over. I'm so hungry I'll eat anything."

Sam drops a bag beside Dean's laptop and passes another one to Cas, then sits down across from Dean and unwraps an incredibly sad-looking chicken sandwich. He leans his arm on the table and it wobbles to one side. Dean peers inside his bag, which smells like a Big Mac and Chicken Nuggets. He starts with his fries because he figures they'll disappoint him less.

"So," he says, chewing loudly for Sam's benefit. "We might have a problem."

"When don't we have a problem?"

Dean can't argue with that, so he washes his fries down with some beer and continues. "What's our in, here? We can't play feds without a body, not unless we wanna tell them the X-Files are real. We can't apply for jobs -- I mean, we're a little old to run away with the circus."

"Visitors," Cas says. He's lounging against the counter, his feet crossed at the ankle and his beer and burger waiting at his elbow. "We'll have to go in as visitors."

"Yeah, okay. Three grown men hanging out at an outdoor Plucky Pennywhistle's. That's not creepy at all."

Cas drains his beer, then sets the bottle on the counter and walks over to the table. "I doubt anyone will notice," he says, reaching for the laptop over Dean's shoulder. The Fun Fair's website is up on the screen; he clicks the photo album link and opens a panorama shot taken just outside the front gate. He rests his other hand on Dean's back while the image loads, and Dean relaxes into it before he realizes what he's doing. "This place is similar to a county fair. Aside from games and rides, it has food stalls, craft vendors, and livestock showings. I imagine all sorts of people will be there."

"I guess," Dean says. The photo shows a crowd that spans all ages, but nearly everyone over thirty is wearing a fanny pack or carrying a large bag, which makes Dean think they're parents. "We can try it."

"Well, you guys have fun," Sam says, standing. He snags his fries and the other laptop and slinks toward the door. "If you need me, I'll be at the Hall of Records. Or the Historical Society. Or the library."

"Coward!" Dean accuses, but Sam just shuts the door without looking back.

"I take it he's still afraid of clowns?" Cas asks, his mouth twitching.

Dean shakes his head. "I don't know where I went wrong."

+

Sam takes the car because all the geekboy offices he needs are on the other side of town. Dean and Cas walk the four and a half blocks to the Fun Fair; they cut through the alley behind the motel, where the skinny kid from the front office is sneaking a cigarette in the shade of a delivery truck, then head down a narrow street without any trees or sidewalks. The afternoon sun is relentless. Dean is sweating by the time they get there, his face hot and his collar damp enough to stick to the back of his neck.

General admission is ten bucks each and cash only. Cas pays it before Dean even gets his wallet out, and Dean is only somewhat surprised. As far as hustling goes, Cas is lousy at pool but frighteningly good at poker, and he disappeared for a few hours during their recent werewolf gig. The way he plays he'd only need about half that to really clean up, especially if the game was Hold 'Em.

"Over here," Cas says, handing Dean one of the tickets. Dean chuckles at the cartoon clown printed on it; Sam would already have the heebs.

At the turnstiles, they give their tickets to a teenaged girl who keeps popping her gum in their faces. She waves them through and over to an older dude; he subjects them to a cursory security inspection that misses all of their knives. Dean has five tucked in his boots and stashed in his sleeves, and he's reasonably sure Cas is carrying another four.

Once inside, Dean buys a jumbo-sized frozen cherry limeade and a blue cotton candy the size of his head.

"Try it," Dean says, offering Cas the cotton-candy. "I bet it looks like the clouds you used to sit on."

He feels like an ass immediately -- Cas gave up way too much for Dean to be joking about it -- but Cas just snorts so loudly the noise rattles in Dean's ear.

"You know better than that," he says. He pops a penny-sized piece of cotton-candy in his mouth, then wrinkles his nose like it isn't the best stuff on earth. "I've always found it strange, how that sort of imagery became associated with angels."

"Didn't you tell me the Bible's wrong more than it's right?"

"It's not in the Bible," Cas insists, pinching another piece of cotton-candy between his fingers.

Dean shrugs. He wouldn't know; Revelations is the only part of the Bible he's read.

"An angel of the Lord appeared to them," Cas quotes, his voice a low rumble that Dean feels behind his ears and at the back of his neck. "And the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified." Pausing, he sucks a fleck of cotton-candy off his thumb. "I believe it was Renaissance painters who turned angels into fat babies sitting on clouds."

The center of the Fun Fair is a midway, and it has the usual money-traps -- skeeball, ring toss, water pistols, milk bottles, strength contests. The booths are a neon nightmare, each one framed in chaser bulbs that flash in red and yellow and green. Behind them, a siren blares to announce a winner. A toddler running with stuffed penguin twice her size bumps Dean's leg; she stumbles back a few steps, then darts off in the other direction.

"These games appear to be rigged," Cas says, loud enough that the guy barking for the beanbag toss shoots him a dirty look.

"That's the whole point," Dean says.

Cas considers that for a few seconds, then leans down and helps himself to some cherry limeade. Instead of taking the cup, he steadies it by holding Dean's wrist. As he straightens, he licks his lips and asks, "Why do people play?"

"Well, it's -- um. It's fun," Dean says, heat crowding up under his jaw. Turning, he herds Cas toward the Ferris Wheel, where presumably the other rides are. "And the buy-in is usually cheap, so people don't really care that they're getting fleeced."

By the time they reach the Tunnel of Love, the cherry limeade is gone and Cas' mouth and fingers are faintly blue from all the cotton-candy he's stolen. Both of them are sweaty and their jeans are dusty halfway to their knees. Dean ditches his cup in an overflowing trashcan buzzing with flies, then gestures Cas toward a tree so they can survey the scene without making their sunburns worse. Being in the shade is only marginally cooler; Dean leans back against the tree's trunk and wipes his wet hairline with his sleeve.

The ride's entrance is a red concrete arch with Tunnel of Love stenciled on it in dingy white. There are about a dozen couples in line; two look like they're in their early twenties, but the rest of them are probably still in high school. All of them are cuddling or holding hands. The whole area smells vaguely of stale, chlorinated water.

Cas narrows his eyes. "I don't see the romance."

"All that crap's inside," Dean explains. "Hearts, flowers, cupids -- I bet it looks like a Valentine's Day sale at a Hallmark store in there."

"Valentine's Day is a human thing I doubt I'll ever understand," Cas says, watching as another couple joins the line. "Saint Valentine was stoned and beheaded."

"Yeah, but he's the patron saint of love."

"He's the patron saint of beekeepers and plague. Also marriage, but marriage has traditionally had very little to do with love."

Dean shrugs. He keeps a Saint Christopher medal in the Impala's glove-box because Bobby gave it to him; he doesn't know jack-shit about the saints. "This ain't about love," he says, nodding at the ride. "It's just a place for kids to make out a little without their parents around."

Cas goes quiet for a couple minutes. He still has cotton-candy at the corner of his mouth; if Dean kissed him now he'd taste like sugar.

"Well?" Cas asks finally, his knuckles brushing the back of Dean's hand. "Are we getting on?"

"What --? No!"

Dean just blurts it out -- too quickly, too loudly, too everything. Cas jerks back a little, and a complicated look passes over his face, equal parts anger and irritation and sadness. His mouth thins, and his gorgeous blue eyes cut toward the ground. Dean doesn't know what to do with that, but he grabs Cas' arm on instinct, like a part of him is still afraid Cas will flutter off the way he did during their apocalypse days. He knows Cas can't do that anymore, but he twists his fingers in Cas' sleeve anyway.

"Cas, I wasn't -- the sun's still out. All the attacks happened after dark."

"Of course," Cas says, his voice dull and clipped. "We should come back after closing."

"Look, it's not --"

Cas turns away. "If we're done here," he says over his shoulder, "I'd like to return to the motel."

+

Dean grabs the first shower when they get back to the motel; he offers it to Cas, but Cas just grunts and gestures for Dean to go ahead without looking up from his phone. Dean has carnival dust on his hands and face -- in his hair too, judging by the way his scalp is itching. He cranks the water up until it's hot enough to flush his skin pink, hissing when it hits the slightly sunburned patch on the back of his neck. He stands under the spray for a few minutes, too wrung out and tired to do anything else. He watches the water swirl down the drain as the heat soothes the ache in his sore shoulder.

He's always been a glutton for punishment, so he replays the Tunnel of Love conversation in his head while he soaps his body and shampoos his hair. An empty feeling hollows into his chest when he remembers the sad and angry look on Cas' face. He's such an idiot. It wouldn't have killed him to get on that stupid ride--

--except for how it would've. He knows what Cas wants -- or what it seems like Cas wants. Dean wants it too; he's just too scared to let it happen. Holding Cas, kissing Cas, any of that -- it would ruin him for anyone else, and most days that idea is more than Dean can handle. It's too big.

Thinking about Cas like that just makes Dean's dick perk up. He ignores it at first, but the ache between his legs becomes insistent, and it's easier to just wrap a soapy hand around himself and get it over with. He braces his other arm on the tile, tucking his face into the crook of his elbow to muffle the noise. It doesn't take long; he never needs much where Cas is concerned. His orgasm hits him hard and fast, come splattering the tiles as he imagines sliding his dick into Cas' perfect mouth, but it leaves him frustrated, weirdly unsatisfied.

+

Cas ducks into the shower as soon as Dean is clear of it, disappearing into the steam cloud escaping the bathroom without a word. He shuts the door pointedly. Dean stares at it for a full minute, then sighs and digs up some clean clothes. Once he's dressed, he sits on the edge of his bed and sends Sam a series of increasingly threatening texts regarding the condition of his car and acceptable dinner options. If he ends up with another Big Mac he's probably going to shoot somebody.

The door rattles just as Dean is explaining, in explicit detail, how he's going to shave Sam's head while he's sleeping. A moment later, Sam comes in looking windblown and carrying a grease-spotted bag that smells like burritos. He also has a stack of papers tucked under his arm.

"Anything for me in there?" Dean asks sweetly.

Sam stares at him for a few seconds, dead-eyed, then pulls a burrito out of the bag and tosses it over. "Double steak, asshole."

"Awesome," Dean says, holding it up to his nose so he can smell it through the foil. "What'd you find out in dorkland?"

"The Historical Society didn't have much on the Fun Fair. Just a few Brownie shots from its early days." Sam grabs two beers from the fridge; he hands one to Dean before sitting down at the table and opening his. "They've published a local history pamphlet, but the paragraph about the Fun Fair is almost the same as the blurb on its website."

"What about the land?"

Sam shrugs. "Not much to tell. Arthur Mack started it in 1912 on his own land -- part of his family farm. By 1946 one of his grandsons owned it; he wanted to expand it, so he bought the current site from the city. As far as I can tell, there was nothing there before that. It was just unincorporated land the city didn't need."

"So... nothing?" Dean asks, licking guacamole off his fingers. "No Civil War battles or double-secret unmarked graves?"

"Nope."

"Someone must've died at the Fun Fair," Cas says, stepping out of the bathroom with a towel slung around his hips.

Sam takes a bite of his burrito, nodding as he chews and swallows. "That's what I'm thinking. A death on the property -- probably on the Tunnel of Love."

Cas' hair is still wet; water is dripping down his neck and pooling in the dip of his throat. Dean watches him as he walks over to the couch, transfixed by the warding tattoo on his side and the anti-possession tattoo between his shoulder blades. Dean wants to touch that skin, kiss it. He wants to find out what it would feel like under his fingers, taste like under his tongue.

"Anything, uh -- anything like that?"

"Just one," Sam says, reaching for his beer. "An old dude carked on the Tilt-A-Whirl back in the seventies, but -- it's probably not our guy. Why would he turn up forty years later to haunt a different ride?"

"Yeah."

Cas slips back into the bathroom with a handful of clothes, and Sam lobs a balled-up napkin at Dean's head. "Dude, are you okay? You seem kinda spaced."

"What --? Oh, yeah," Dean says, snapping back to reality so fast he nearly shakes himself like a wet dog. He coughs a little and rubs his chest. "Burrito went down the wrong way, is all." He clears his throat to sell it, then points at the papers waiting on the table. "What's all that?"

"Death records from 2005 to 2010. The first sighting was in 2010, so I figure whoever this is bit right around then." Sam shuffles through the papers for a few seconds, then sets a couple aside. "I also printed out the five accounts, since they're as close to witness statements as we're going to get."

It's been bothering Dean that they can't talk to the witnesses, but there's nothing they can do about it. The Fun Fair is a tourist trap; of the ten people who have seen this thing, only four live locally, and they're all under eighteen. Cas had suggested fronting as paranormal historians, telling them they were writing a book on Nebraska's ghosts. It was a damn good idea, but dealing with minors meant dealing with parents, and parents would probably want proof that they aren't wackos -- publishing details or a agent's contact information, something.

"Are we looking for a man or a woman?" Dean asks.

"We don't know," Cas says, buttoning the dark blue shirt Dean hates because it brightens his eyes. He sits down across from Sam and picks up the printed accounts. "Archie Wright and Michelle Ruiz described a woman. Charlene Jackson described a man."

"What about the others?"

Cas pauses long enough to read through the last three papers, then says, "They don't give specifics beyond having seen a white figure."

"They didn't get a good look at it," Sam says, sighing. "They were scared, it happened too fast -- stop me when this sounds familiar."

"Great," Dean grumbles, crumpling his burrito wrapper into a ball and lobbing at the trashcan. Predictably, he misses. "We don't even know what we're looking for."

"We'll see it tonight," Cas says. He lays the papers aside and reaches for the burrito bag. "We'll just have to pay attention."

+

"This isn't going to work," Cas whispers.

Dean holds up his hand as something moves near the carousel. Once it's gone, he glances at Cas over his shoulder. "Yeah, it will."

The Fun Fair only has two overnight security guards. Sneaking in is just a matter of distracting them long enough to hop the fence.

"Your brother said ten minutes."

"Yeah, well, hacking takes time." Dean thinks Sam's hacking. He's not entirely sure.

"I understand that, but --"

Glass breaks in the distance, the noise piercing the stillness like a gunshot. Dean knows it's just Sam playing a sound clip over the Fun Fair's PA system, but it's surprisingly realistic. The security guards swallow it whole. One shouts from somewhere near the midway, and the other sprints past the Tunnel of Love, his walkie-talkie hissing as it jostles against his hip.

"All right. Let's do this."

The fence is taller than Dean, but only by half a foot. Getting over it is pretty easy, but Dean grits his teeth at all the racket. The chain-link rattles like a can full of iron rounds and his gear clanks and thunks as his bag bumps against his back. Cas is quieter about the climb, but he hits the ground with a grunt that seems to echo off everything. Sam breaks another imaginary window, using a different PA speaker than before; down toward the livestock pens, the security guards shout again.

Dean has seen some shit over the years, but the Fun Fair after hours is creepy as hell. Grasshoppers hum in the hedge skirting the fence; the plywood clown beside the cotton-candy hut looks like it's sneering. The emergency lights crackle and buzz overhead, their sodium flare washing everything out and casting long, thin shadows that twist with the wind. Dean touches Cas' arm and gestures for them to cut a sharp left. The Tunnel of Love's entrance is pitch-black; without the carnival din, the steady lap of the fake river greets them from thirty feet away.

Past the turnstiles, the chlorine stench is strong enough to burn Dean's eyes and throat. He rubs his hand over his face and fans his flashlight between the ground and the walls. Puddles dot the concrete landing. The boats are lined up at the end of it, tied to posts and bobbing placidly in the water. A few yards farther down, the tunnel narrows considerably. It's the start of the ride, marked by a lattice arch entwined with plastic flowers.

"We could try walking it," Dean offers, when he sees Cas frowning at the boats. "I bet there's a landing all the way down."

"You'd lose," Cas says, his tone sharp.

"What?"

"I searched for pictures of the interior online, since you didn't want to take the ride with me earlier, and --"

"It wasn't that I didn't want to," Dean cuts in, which is only twenty-three percent untrue. He did want to. He just -- fuck. He doesn't know. "I didn't see the point when there was zero chance of the ghost showing up."

Cas gives Dean a long, baleful look, then unties the first boat and tugs it closer to Dean by the rope. "Beyond that arch, the landing is only a few inches wide."

"So... what? You wanna float downriver like Huck Finn?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Cas asks, cocking his head to the side. "We could swim, if you think that would be easier."

Dean throws up his hands. "Okay, okay. Just get in boat."

Without the ride's current, they have to drag themselves along by grabbing onto the frilly scenery and pulling. It's not the most ridiculous thing Dean's done for a hunt -- the 'teddy bear doctor' thing wins that award -- but it's pretty damn close. The boat is a tiny, fiberglass thing; it isn't very heavy, but it's awkward to move, and about five minutes in Dean's bum shoulder catches fire, pain flaring into his arm. The back of his neck breaks out into a sweat, itchy where it beads at his hairline. Beside him, Cas is breathing in a way that's really fucking distracting.

Dean zones out for a few minutes, too busy imagining what Cas would sound like in bed -- if his voice would get rougher, if he'd moan Dean's name, if he'd breathe like that against Dean's skin. He only snaps out of it because Cas elbows him and says, "Wait, stop."

"What --? Oh." Dean clears his throat. "Is this -- you think this is the middle?"

"More or less," Cas says. He sweeps his flashlight around in a slow arc, pausing on a group of cement cupids clustered around a waterfall of fake roses. "I still don't see the romance."

"Maybe there's music when the ride is going," Dean says, but Cas just scoffs under his breath and passes him a shotgun. Out of habit, Dean checks it for shells before he rests it in his lap. "So... I guess we just sit here until Casper shows up?"

"I guess."

They wait. Water laps patiently at the sides of the boat, swaying it enough to make Dean feel a little seasick. The seat really isn't large enough for two grown men, so Dean is pressed against Cas from shoulder to knee. Something is dripping farther downriver, the sound muffled by distance and as steady as a leaky faucet. Dean flexes his hands; they feel scraped and raw from all the plaster hearts and wicker vases he's touched.

"We might," Cas starts slowly, pausing like he's choosing his words. "We might have to kiss."

Dean just stares at him.

"Charlene Johnson -- she was kissing her husband when the ghost attacked."

"Okay, sure," Dean says, his face hot and his voice curling in on itself. "But the others -- those accounts didn't mention kissing."

"Unsurprising, when you consider they were all teenagers. If they came here to... make out behind their parents' backs, they're not going to confess to a newspaper their parents read."

Dean rubs his hand over his face. He -- fuck. It makes sense. "All right, yeah. We -- um. We can try it."

Cas hesitates for a second, then leans in and brushes their mouths together. It's soft and sweet and Dean clenches his fists in his lap so he doesn't deepen it or encourage it. So he doesn't turn it into something it isn't.

Cas glances around when he pulls back, sighing under his breath. "It didn't work."

"Well, you know. Ghosts kinda keep their own schedules."

"I suppose." Cas shifts a little, knocking his knee against Dean's and making the boat list to one side. "Maybe we should try again."

That's a terrible idea, but when Cas leans in again Dean meets him halfway. It starts out the same as the first, just a careful catch of lips, but Cas lingers for a moment. He slides his hand up Dean's arm, pausing at Dean's shoulder, squeezing softly. Dean breathes out a noise and grabs a handful of Cas' shirt. He tugs Cas closer, even though he knows he shouldn't. Cas dips his head, pressing his mouth to Dean's jaw, and then the boat rocks violently to one side, bouncing in the water before crashing into the river's concrete bank.

"Fuck," Dean spits, scrambling for his shotgun. The ghost doesn't waste time with anymore dramatics; she just rushes at Dean and starts screaming in his face.

"GET OUT! YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!"

Cas shoots first but apparently misses; a second later Dean pops her right between the eyes. She dissipates with a puff of ash but shouts at him again in a slower, deeper voice.

"YOU NEED TO LEAVE! LEAVE NOW!"

A wave of water erupts on Cas' side of the boat. Cas takes the brunt of it, but a good handful splatters across Dean's cheek and jaw. The ghost reappears, her face twisted into an ugly snarl. Cas fires off another shot; Dean hears the familiar crackle-whisper of a ghost fizzling out, but she doesn't waver. Either Cas missed again or his shell was a dud.

"DIE! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"

Dean blows her away, then grabs for one of the cement teddy bears along the bank and shoves against it to launch the boat backward. "C'mon," he says, gesturing for Cas to help him. "We've seen her. Let's get the hell out of here."

Water dripping in his face, Cas fires as a white mist begins swirling together at the front of the boat. The ghost ripples out before really forming. Cas drops his shotgun and reaches for the bank and then the boat lurches back another foot.

+

It's a chilly night in spite of the scorching afternoon heat; Cas is shivering by the time they get back to the car.

"You all right?" Dean asks.

"I'll live," Cas replies. His voice is tight, like he's clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering.

The Impala is parked off the gravel service road behind the Fun Fair, tucked under one of the droopy trees lining the soft shoulder. Sam is waiting for them in the passenger seat, listening to his weird folk music with the door open and one foot dragging in the dirt. Dean trips over something as they approach; he stumbles and curses under his breath, and Sam leans out to greet them with a gun in his hand.

"Oh," he deadpans, rolling his eyes as he lowers it. "It's just you."

"Happy to see you too, Sammy."

"I thought," he starts, trailing off to frown at Cas' damp hair and clothes. "What happened?"

Dean gestures for the keys. "Ghost didn't play fair."

"Cas, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just cold and wet."

Sam turns to face them, swinging his other leg out of the car. Gravel crunches under the heels of his boots. "You guys certainly took long enough."

"Yeah, well," Dean says, hurrying toward the trunk so Sam won't see his face heat. "She didn't show right away."

The trunk opens with a squeak, the sound slicing through the grasshopper drone coming from the bushes. Cas shivers again as he's stowing his gear and Dean passes him a bag of clothes.

"Here. Grab something dry."

Cas murmurs, "Thanks," then peels off his wet shirt and drops it on the tarp wedged in the corner of the trunk. The strong lines of his back leave Dean dry-mouthed, and the t-shirt he pulls on fits him like a glove, tight across the shoulders in a way that makes Dean want to stare at him forever. He follows that up with Dean's brown and yellow flannel; his hands shake a little as he straightens the collar.

Dean wants to wrap Cas into a hug and hold him until he warms up, but he says, "I'll crank the heater up once we get on the road. Do you need jeans?"

"I -- no." Cas looks down at himself, tugging the shirts up on one side and flashing a damp spot that arcs over his hip and hugs half his ass. "I'm just -- damn it."

"What?"

"My phone," Cas says, fishing it out of his wet pocket. The screen is black and it stays black when he thumbs the button.

"Don't worry about it. We'll stop off somewhere on the way back and pick up a box of rice."

"Dean," Cas starts, but he doesn't finish. He just brushes his fingers over Dean's jaw and climbs into the car.

+

They don't get back to the motel until after one, the sky starless and dark when Dean pulls into his spot beside the vending machine. Cas has had a pretty shitty night, so Dean offers to take the couch. He's exhausted in a way he can feel in his bones; his shoulder is stiff and achy and a dull throb has put down roots at the base of his spine. He figures he'll drop off the minute he lies down, no matter how thin or uncomfortable the fold-out mattress is.

Sleep doesn't come; he can't get his brain to shut off. All he can think about is Cas kissing him -- the way Cas' mouth had felt against his, the soft noise Cas had made right before the ghost popped in. Cas had licked his lips as he leaned in the second time, and an incredible heat had pooled deep in Dean's gut. He knows it was just for the job, that they were just trying to provoke the ghost, but he also knows he was right about Cas ruining him for anyone else. Cas is the only person Dean wants. If Cas walked out of his life tomorrow he'd still be the only person Dean wants.

The motel is close enough to the highway that it sounds like the big rigs are rolling through the parking lot, and their room is close enough to the vacancy sign that Dean can hear its tired, neon buzz whenever the traffic dies down. Dean is usually immune to that kind of noise -- a side-effect of spending thirty-some years on the road -- but tonight it makes him restless. Every honk and creak and hum just digs straight under his skin.

Dean rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, then rolls onto his side with a sigh.

+

Dean wakes up to the sound of someone padding around the kitchen, their bare feet whispering on the cracked and curling linoleum. When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is the bathroom door, hanging open just enough to frame the dripping faucet. Steam clouds the visible slice of mirror; everything smells like wet heat and cheap motel soap. His back is killing him. Grunting under his breath, he slowly heaves himself over. He doesn't bother with the knife under his pillow. Three large cups of coffee are sitting on the counter, waiting beside a potted plant that's basically dead.

He's pretty sure it wasn't there last night. He blinks at it stupidly for a few seconds, then sits up and rubs his eyes, mumbling, "What the hell is that?" around a yawn.

"It's an azalea," Cas says, coming out of the alcove that hides the kitchen sink with a glass of water in his hand. His hair is shower-damp. He's wearing a pair of gunmetal-gray sweats and the t-shirt Dean lent him; heat curls in Dean's gut as he realizes Cas must've slept in it.

"It looks like it ain't long for this world."

Shrugging, Cas pours the water on the azalea. "It just needs attention." He grabs two of the coffees, then walks one over to Dean before sitting down at the table. He has the reloading press laid out, empty shells lined up neatly beside it.

"Why are you even up?" Dean can't see the clock from where he's sitting -- the couch is faced the wrong way and he's hunched over his coffee like a gargoyle -- but Sam is gone. If he's on his run, it's too early for Cas to be awake. "Before noon, we usually gotta pull you outta bed by your ankles."

"You exaggerate," Cas insists, twisting the cap on a salt canister. "I don't know. I woke up, and I couldn't fall back to sleep, so..."

"So you went out and bought a plant?"

"I bought the plant when I bought the coffees."

Dean looks at the cup in his hand; the yellow sunburst stamped on the styrofoam is all too familiar. "Since when does Gas & Sip sell plants?"

"Mine did."

An uneasy feeling crawls into Dean's chest. Cas' stint in Rexford isn't something Dean likes to think about -- for a hundred reasons, a good ninety-nine of which are entirely Dean's fault -- but he blundered into this, so he makes himself say, "Yeah?"

"Flowers, mostly," Cas explains, pulling the lever on the reloading press. "When the local nursery had overstock, Nora would buy them cheap and place them near the register to encourage impulse purchases."

"So, you knew you were being had and you still fell for it?"

Cas shrugs again. "It would've died if I'd left it there. I can save it."

"Cas," Dean says slowly, because -- fuck. He needs to know. "Why did you fall?"

Cas frowns at the reloading press. The silence is horrible; Dean can hear himself breathing, the sound louder than the constant plat-plat-plat of the bathroom sink. A car pulls out of the motel's parking lot, tires squealing. Dean hides behind his coffee for a minute or two, but the longer it drags on the more his skin crawls.

"Hey, forget it. You don't --"

"When we fought the darkness," Cas starts, his voice low. Dean shivers, unconsciously rubbing the inside of his arm. "Facing something that old and that evil, something God himself struggled to defeat -- it was difficult for the host. As many angels succumbed to despair as were lost in battle. When it was over, heaven was in disarray. The angels who remained called a council to discuss what to do next."

Dean's pretty sure heaven was a trainwreck before the darkness, but it makes sense. Cas had disappeared for a couple of weeks after the dust settled, long enough that Dean had half-convinced himself he'd never see Cas again when he suddenly turned up at the bunker, hollow-eyed and human.

"There was a call for restructuring, for new protocols," Cas continues. "It was decided heaven should... remove itself from earthly affairs until things were put in order."

"So... what? Heaven's sealed off?"

"For the foreseeable future, yes. Time runs differently in heaven -- it could be a hundred years before the gates reopen. Two hundred. By then, you --" Cas cuts off, his fingers tapping a restless rhythm on the table. It's a human gesture and weird to see; Cas has picked up a ton of new habits in the last three months, but fidgeting isn't one of them. "There was some concern about my attachment to humanity. I had to make a choice."

"And you chose this?" Dean just can't wrap his head around it -- Cas giving up heaven and his grace and everything else to chase monsters with two bonehead hunters who keep stepping in their own shit. "You --"

"I chose my friends," Cas says simply. He fits two shells into the reloading press and carefully fills them with salt. "Besides, I didn't exactly excel at being an angel."

"Hey." Setting his coffee on the floor, Dean stands up and walks over to the table, but he hovers when he gets there, unsure of what to do. "Don't say that kinda crap. It's not true."

"I killed more angels than I can count. I --"

"You helped stop the apocalypse." You pulled my dumb-ass out of hell when I didn't deserve it. "You were the first in line to fight the darkness." Just thinking about it makes a knot burn in Dean's throat, sour and thick; it had been incredible, seeing Cas dressed in heaven's armor, all flared wings and righteous fury, but Dean had been shit-scared every minute that he would have to watch Cas die.

"From a human standpoint, I suppose the good and the bad come close to balancing out. Heaven views these things differently. Failure and disobedience are absolute."

"Cas," Dean starts, but Cas just shakes his head.

"I made my decision, and I don't regret it," he says, reaching for his coffee. "I don't need you regretting it for me."

+

"Okay," Sam says tiredly, his shoulders hunching. They've been at this for close to three hours, give or take a cheeseburger run; Dean can almost see Sam's temples throbbing. "Let's go over it again."

"Why? My version of events won't change."

Dean snorts out a long, irritated sound.

"Dean," Cas starts, his eyes narrowing, but Sam waves him off before he gets going.

A door slams upstairs, hard enough to rattle their windows. Cas' chair creaks. Grumbling under his breath, Dean starts unwrapping his burger -- a real burger, with avocado and crispy bacon and cheese that isn't plastic. Just touching it makes his fingers greasy. As he's picking it up, Sam sighs and points at him, saying, "You. Go."

"It was a woman," Dean explains, for that feels like the hundredth time. He takes a bite of his burger, chewing loudly to drown out Cas' frustrated huff. "She was young. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen -- somewhere in there. She had curly hair," he adds, twirling his finger above his own. "Big eyes, long face."

Sam looks at Cas over his beer. "Okay, now you."

"It was a young man, approximately twenty years-old. He had short hair, wide-set eyes, and a weak jaw. His clothes were casual."

"I don't know about clothes," Dean admits, fumbling for a napkin inside the burger bag. "She was pretty misted out. From the waist down she was only half there."

"He was fairly solid to the knees."

"Christ." Sam rubs his forehead. "Are you sure you guys were even together? You know -- in the same place at the same time?"

"Yes," Cas says.

"What were you doing before Casper showed up?"

Cas drinks his beer. Heat crawls up the back of Dean's neck; he puts his burger down and says, "We weren't -- we were sitting on the stupid boat. In the dark."

"And the ghost just... popped in out of nowhere?"

"Yes," Cas says again, just as Dean grumbles, "Yeah," around a mouthful of fries.

Sam shakes his head at them, then reaches for the case notes, his wrist bumping the azalea. Cas moved it to the table for some reason; it looks ridiculous there, drooping quietly between Dean's gun and a pile of finished salt rounds. Sam shuffles through the papers for a few moments, and Dean gets up to grab another beer.

Finally, Sam says, "All right. Let's go through the death records. Maybe something will jump out at us. Mildred Carmichael," he reads off, scanning the details with his finger. "Cardiac arrest, at age... eighty-four."

"Nope," Dean says, closing the fridge.

Sam sets Mildred Carmichael aside. "Next up is... Jun Yeung, age seventeen." Cas perks up a little at that, but then Sam says, "Forget it. Car accident on the county highway. He died five miles outside of town."

"This would be easier with a motive," Cas points out. "If we knew the ghost's purpose, we could winnow the list."

"Yeah," Sam agrees, nodding. He leans back in his chair and makes a slow, thoughtful gesture. "Okay, so... let's say it's a woman --"

"Sure," Dean cuts in crossly. "Just for shits and giggles, let's say she is."

"Is it -- I don't know, a Woman in White kinda thing?"

Dean considers this for a moment, then shakes his head. "I don't think so. A fake river that's only three feet deep is a weird place for a suicide."

"I think -- I think Dean is right," Cas says, his beer halfway to his mouth. "Women in White are bound by grief or guilt. They wander because they can't return to a cherished place. This ghost wasn't mourning. His behavior was territorial."

"Yeah. She kept telling us to leave."

"He also threatened us."

"Threats," Dean repeats, pacing beside the table. "She said we were going to die. Maybe it's like... like --" he snaps his fingers " -- like a Hookman deal. Some cranky bastard who doesn't like kids having a place to smooch."

Cas waves him off. "That implies someone in a protective role -- a parent, or a guardian. The ghost I saw died too young."

"The ghost you saw isn't the ghost I saw, and --"

"The ghost you saw died too young, as well."

"Hey," Sam complains, holding up his hands. "C'mon. This isn't getting us anywhere. We're -- we need a better look at this ghost. We'll just have to go back tonight."

A prickly feeling settles in Dean's gut, anticipation mixed heavily with unease. Going back is a terrible idea; he doesn't need to spend another night pressed up against Cas in a tiny boat. He doesn't need Cas kissing him again. But -- fuck. He wants it.

"Of course," Cas says mildly. "We'll just have to go back."

+

The Fun Fair doesn't close until ten on Fridays, which leaves them with a lot of time to kill. Too much time. Enough time for Dean to start checking the clock every thirty seconds while thinking about Cas' mouth. Thankfully, Sam saves the day by mentioning the bar up the street.

"It beats sitting around here," Sam says, pulling on a clean shirt. It's the yellow and blue one Dean hates, but he's feeling grateful enough to let it go. "Just promise me you and Cas'll take the sticks out of your asses for a couple hours."

It doesn't look like Cas is coming at first -- he's sprawled on his bed, surfing through the motel's handful of channels with his eyes half-open -- but as Dean and Sam are walking through the door, he says, "Wait," and reaches for his boots.

The bar is only two blocks away, so they walk there in spite of the heat. They cut through the alley behind the motel, the sun bright and yellow-white overhead. The kid from the front office is out there again, blowing smoke at the blazing sky and holding a sweaty can of Coke against his forehead. He's crouched in the shade of the motel's dumpster. A plastic bag catches the sluggish afternoon wind; it flirts briefly with Sam's feet, then skips ahead of them for half a block before fluttering into a fence.

The alley meets the street beside what looks like an old warehouse until Sam turns the corner and gestures at the door. It's called Taylor's Place. The neon sign in the window is busted, and inside it's kind of a dive -- bad lighting, deep red carpet, dark wood paneling that's seen better days. They grab a hi-top near the fire exit and order three whiskeys that take ten minutes to arrive. Dean asks for a couple of ice cubes in his. He's been trying to take it easy on the hard stuff now that the Mark of Cain is gone; the ice will slow him down a little, and chewing it will give him something to do with his mouth once the glass is empty.

Happy Hour hasn't started yet; the crowd is still pretty thin and mostly regulars, older guys that probably drink the same thing every night and sit in the same chair. A baseball game is playing on the tiny TV behind the bar. It's the Royals against the Angels; Dean squints at it for a few minutes, but they're sitting too far back for him to really watch. Rattling the ice in his glass, he rambles about last year's World Series run and the recent Cueto trade. Once he veers into how much he hates the Cardinals, Sam wanders away and Cas starts folding his cocktail napkin into a swan.

"Traitors," Dean accuses, his hand almost brushing Cas' back as he heads over to the dusty jukebox.

He picks out two dollars worth of Creedence songs, then ducks into the john to slap some water on his face. The naked lightbulb above his head flickers and pops as he wipes his hands on his jeans. He's fucking tired. He doesn't know when he finally conked out last night -- or this morning, whatever -- but the dull twinge behind his eyes is telling him he didn't get his full four hours.

On his way out he spots Sam at the bar, his stupid hair falling in his face as he leans closer to the woman beside him. She's gorgeous -- wide, brown eyes and dark hair that's done in tiny, shoulder-length braids. Dean detours past them just to be nosy; as he's approaching, she laughs at something Sam says and slides her hand up Sam's arm. Dean's pretty impressed until he gets close enough to overhear their conversation.

"No, we don't have a title for it yet." Sam smiles and rests his elbow on the bar. "We want something that'll really grab people's attention, though -- Haunted Nebraska, maybe."

"I should give you my brother's number," she says, her voice warm and bright. "He's writing his dissertation on Great Plains urban legends."

Dean shakes his head and keeps walking, muttering, "What a dork," as he makes his way toward Cas.

"What happened?" Cas asks.

"Nothing. Just Sam being Sam." A pool table opens up in the corner; Dean nudges Cas' arm and nods that direction. "C'mon. I rack, you break."

"I hate pool."

"You don't hate it," Dean counters. As an angel, Cas had played like a shark and he'd been smug as hell about it. "You don't like that you're not good at it anymore."

Cas finishes his drink, tipping his head back enough that Dean can't help but stare at the long line of his throat. "It's very frustrating. I understand the angles perfectly, but --"

"Yeah, yeah. Your clumsy monkey meatsuit keeps flubbing the shots. I got news for you, buddy -- humans have to practice that kinda stuff. Me and Sammy are good because we've been playing since we were old enough to reach the table." Dean nudges Cas' arm again. "C'mon. It'll give us something to do while Columbo over there solves the case."

Cas answers that with a flat, unimpressed look -- the kind of look that says he might still be a little sore about their earlier squabble -- but he eventually slides off his stool and follows Dean to the other side of the bar. The game area is noisy and dark, cut off from everything else by a hip-wall and a couple of pinball machines. Dean walks a slow circle around the pool table just to make sure everything's kosher. The felt has two worn patches, gray-green and shiny in the poor light; one is hugging a corner pocket, and the other is just south of dead center, probably from drunks gouging down on sloppy breaks. Dean's played on worse. The legs are level and they don't wobble.

As Dean is corralling the balls between his arms, Cas frowns over his cue and asks, "Is this a real game, or are you just hoping for a hustle?"

Dean shrugs. He's used Cas as bait before -- Cas is just average enough that beating him doesn't make Dean look too good up front -- but this isn't the right kind of crowd. They'd have to come back later, after the old-timers have been pushed out by college kids with more money than sense. "If a sucker comes up, I ain't turning him away, but -- let's just play, yeah?"

Cas leans over the table, the neck of his tan henley yawning away from his collarbone. His break is decent; he gets a fairly good spread and manages to sink two balls. The jukebox clicks. After a beat of silence, the bar's shitty speakers start coughing up Run Through the Jungle. Dean hums along under his breath as he waits for Cas to decide on his next shot. Cas hesitates like he's weighing his options, then nods to himself and squares up behind the four.

"Wait," Dean says, tapping the side pocket with his knuckles. "Go with the three."

"The four is an easier shot."

"Yeah, but you'll end up with the pearl locked behind those stripes. And then it's my turn."

"At which point you'll... wipe the table with me?" Cas asks drily.

Dean doesn't deny it; low-balling Cas or letting him win isn't going to teach him anything. "Hey, it's your game," he says, holding up his hands. "Me --? I'd take the three."

Cas tilts his head, one eyebrow quirked like he isn't quite buying what Dean is selling. Smiling, Dean starts humming again: over on the mountain/thunder magic spoke/let the people know my wisdom/fill the land with smoke. On their left, one of the pinball machines clatters and dings. Cas walks around the table and lines up the three, his hands white-knuckled on the cue.

"All right. In the side."

"Hey," Dean says, coming up behind him. He doesn't get too close, but he touches Cas' shoulder, right where it curves into his neck. "You gotta relax. Drop your arm a little. If you're too tense you'll just -- it's all about flow. Let the shot happen."

"Dean, if this is the 'be the ball' speech from that golf movie you keep making me watch, I'm --"

"What --? No. I'm just trying to help." He shouldn't have touched, because now he can't stop. He slides his hand down to Cas' elbow, tugging until it's positioned the way he wants, and he taps Cas' waist with the other, nudging him closer to the table. "Okay, you're good."

Cas leans back before Dean can get out of his way, and half the blood in Dean's body rushes to his dick. Biting his lip, he drops his hands; this is exactly the kind of intimacy he tries to avoid. That he's always tried to avoid. Chances are, Cas would be a better marksman if Dean wasn't too cowardly to teach him the old-fashioned way -- if he could press up against Cas' back and wrap his arms around Cas' body and hold Cas' hands in his without completely losing his shit.

The shot goes in clean. Cas looks pleased with himself when he straightens, and Dean makes himself smile. A server catches Dean's eye as Cas turns back to the table, and Dean gestures for a beer just so he'll have someplace safe to put his hands.

"The seven or the three?" Cas asks.

"You, um -- the seven. It's a longer shot, but if you miss I'll be in the weeds. Anything I make from there'll be slop."

Cas starts lining up the seven. The jukebox clicks again, then spits out the opening bars of Born on the Bayou. Dean's at Cas' back before he can stop himself, breathing Cas in as he palms Cas' hip. He traces the hem of Cas' henley with his thumb.

"Ease over a little. Yeah, like that -- that's perfect. You're perfect."

+

Sneaking into the Fun Fair is harder the second time around. There's a third security guard on site because of the weekend, and the other two don't fall for Sam's broken glass dodge as quickly as they had the night before. The first time he plays it, nothing happens aside from a muffled, crackly, walkie-talkie conversation that Dean loses somewhere between Cas breathing down his neck and the grasshoppers whining in the hedge. Sam plays it a second time and a third. On his fourth try he loops in a clip of a woman screaming. It sounds like a horror movie shtick, but it finally gets someone's attention. The guard stationed closest to the Tunnel of Love melts out of the shadows and heads for the midway at a brisk walk.

"All right," Dean mutters, grabbing the fence. "Up and at 'em."

The Tunnel of Love's stale, chlorine stench hits Dean like a slap to the face. He takes a few slow breaths through his mouth once he's under the arch, trying not to gag. Behind him, Cas does the same. The boats are waiting for them at the end of the landing; Dean's boots make sharp, wet noises as he sloshes through the puddles. The trip downriver seems to take longer this time; Dean doesn't know if that's because of the lead in his sore muscles or the anticipation churning in his gut.

"I think this is it," Cas says, just as Dean is starting to sweat.

"Nope. We need to go up a little more." Dean frowns at the spiral of red and pink hearts climbing the wall beside him; the glow from his flashlight dulls them, bleaching them into shades of orange. "Last time we stopped by a bear-looking thing."

"I can't believe you even remember."

"It was ugly as hell. Kinda hard to forget."

They drag the boat forward a few more feet. It moves in awkward lurches, and Dean snags a fingernail on something in the dark. He hisses and shakes his hand for a second or two, but after that he just lets it sting. He's not putting his finger in his mouth after touching the ride's moldy props and nasty water. They haul the boat forward again. It bumps against Cas' side of the bank; Dean hears a quiet, sloshing sound, and then Cas grumbles in Enochian, the harsh words rumbling around the tunnel like an earthquake.

"Dude, I'm pretty sure that wasn't polite."

"No. It wasn't."

Their next heave brings them about a foot short of the cement teddy bear, and Dean says, "Yeah, that's the lumpy sonofabitch." He digs a shotgun out of his bag and checks it for shells. He turns toward Cas as he's setting it in his lap, but Cas is already there, leaning into his space.

Cas kisses his jaw and the corner of his mouth. Each touch is just a soft press of lips, but Dean closes his eyes, clenching his hands around his shotgun. Cas hesitates for a second, then tips his head and slots their mouths together just right. It's so good. A noise catches in Dean's throat, and he wraps his arm around Cas' shoulder, pulling him closer. Cas nudges the shotgun out of Dean's lap, then brings his hands up to Dean's face, cradling Dean's jaw. He strokes Dean's cheek with his thumb and he pushes his tongue into Dean's mouth, filthy and slow, and -- Jesus Christ. There's no way they can pretend this is still for the job, but Dean isn't sure he cares right now. He doesn't want to stop.

He slips his hand under Cas' henley, holding it at Cas' side, right over Cas' tattoo. He wishes the tunnel wasn't so dark. He sucks Cas' lower lip into his mouth, nipping the swell of it with his teeth and soothing over it with his tongue. Moaning, Cas curls his fingers into Dean's hair, tugging just enough to make Dean gasp. The boat bobs in the water. Cas slides sideways in the seat, but Dean just follows him down, his hand curved around the back of Cas' neck. Dean's thigh ends up between Cas' legs, and -- fuck. Cas is so hard. Dean shifts until their dicks are riding together, heat coiling in his gut at the way Cas shudders underneath him.

"Dean." Biting Dean's jaw, Cas rolls his hips. The boat rocks dangerously, knocking between the banks like a bumper car. "Dean."

"We should go back to the motel," Dean says, palming Cas' dick through his jeans. "I wanna actually see you come."

Cas breaths out a gorgeous noise. "Don't -- don't say that if you don't mean it."

Before Dean can respond to that, the smell of ozone floods his nose, sharp enough to make it sting. The ghost doesn't fuck around this time; she doesn't even bother appearing. She just screams bloody murder and flips the boat over like a toy. Dean and Cas hit the water together, their legs still tangled. Stale water fills Dean's mouth. He panics for a split-second -- he can't remember if Cas knows how to swim -- but then his back hits the bottom with a jolt that shocks his bum shoulder. The river is fairly shallow; Cas won't drown if he stands. Dean struggles to his feet, dragging Cas up with one hand and groping for his bag with the other. The shotguns are too waterlogged to use now, but he doesn't want to risk leaving them behind.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"

The ghost flickers in and out. A giant wave of water rears up, crashing down so hard and so fast that it throws Dean back against the bank. Cas shouts. Pain flares in Dean's forearm, jagging like lightning between his elbow and his wrist. The river calms for a second, and Cas slogs toward him, breathing hard. A white mist starts taking shape in the corner of Dean's eye; Cas shoves him down with a grunt and swings something over his head. A crowbar, maybe -- it makes a dull, clanging sound as it glances off the crap on the bank. The ghost zaps out with a wail, spitting heat and ash.

A whirlpool forms around Dean's legs. Cas stumbles into Dean in the dark, and Dean scrabbles at the bank as he reels back, trying to keep his balance. His hand lands on his flashlight. It's only partially soaked, and he shakes it a few times, growling, "Please, please," as the batteries rattle around. Water leaks down his wrist. The flashlight finally coughs up one feeble burst of light; before it gutters out, Dean sees that the boat is broken in half. Part of it is pitched up on the bank, but the rest of it is just gone. It probably sunk.

"C'mon," Dean says, wiping the water out of his eyes. His arm is on fire. "We'll just have to wade back."

The ghost screams again. A tendril of mist curls up from the water, but Cas swats it with the crowbar, grabbing Dean by the shirt as it dissipates.

"Hurry, before he returns."

+

Clouds are blotting out the moon, so the service road running behind the Fun Fair is dark. Dean and Cas walk quickly, Cas lugging both the bags because Dean is holding his wet flannel to his bleeding arm. Their footsteps feel loud, even with the grasshoppers for competition. Tonight's meeting place is the same as last night's: half a mile down the road, just where the trees along the shoulder start to thin. When they get there, Sam and the Impala are gone. Incredulous, Dean stares at the empty clearing for a full minute, his arm throbbing and his clothes dripping onto the dirt.

"Well, shit," he says finally.

"Do you think he's all right?"

"Yeah, he's -- the rent-a-cops probably made him." Dean turns in a circle, scrubbing a hand through his damp hair. "I told him not to set up so close to the joint, but he kept saying the computer hoodoo he was working needed to be in a certain range or radius or -- whatever."

The clouds shift with a burst of wind; a handful of moonlight pushes through the trees, and Dean frowns at the tire tracks scoring past his feet. He hopes Sam didn't get tailed back to the car. The Impala isn't exactly low-profile; if the security guards spotted it, they'll have to skip town and set up shop somewhere else. Ditching their motel would mean losing what they paid for tonight and getting gouged at their next stop. Check-in clerks always charge extra when they're pulled out of bed.

"I'm sure he called."

"Yeah," Dean agrees. Sam probably did call, but Dean's phone is a wet brick in his pocket and Cas' phone is back at the motel, drying out in a bowl of rice. "Well, I guess we're hoofing it."

"What if he comes back?" Cas asks, glancing up and down the road. "Maybe we should wait."

"No way," Dean says. Cas has taken a swim two nights in a row; with their luck, he's going to end up with pneumonia. "It's cold out here. We need to get you inside."

"You shouldn't be out here, either. How's your arm?"

Dean scowls a little; he hates being coddled, and the soft, concerned expression on Cas' face is making his chest ache. "I'll live."

Grand Island is the kind of town that has nosy neighbors, and nosy neighbors have a habit of calling the cops when they find strange men lurking in their front yards. Dean and Cas stash the gear in the woods edging the road -- they don't need to get stopped with two bags of guns and knives; they've already got thirteen fake IDs and credit cards between them, and their fingerprints belong to a missing person and a dead guy -- and they make their way back to the motel using alleys and side streets. The pain in Dean's arm eventually ebbs to a throb, but his soaked jeans and boots feel like they weigh a hundred pounds. Cas is walking unevenly, favoring one leg like he cracked his knee on something back at the Tunnel of Love. Three blocks down a dog starts barking at them, but they duck into the shadows across the street before its owner turns on the porch light.

The next alley is narrow, lined on either side by sagging, wooden fences. A trickle of dirty water wanders down the center of the asphalt. They startle a raccoon scavenging for a midnight snack; it growls quietly, then slinks back behind a trash can. The wind picks up again and Cas shivers, his elbow bumping Dean side. Dean hesitates as they approach the street; the motel is a straight shot if they jaywalk. Cas shivers again, and Dean decides to risk it, tugging Cas' sleeve as he steps off the curb. They cut diagonally toward the motel's crumbling driveway. The parking spot beside the vending machine is empty.

Outside their room, Dean sticks his hand in his pocket and hisses, "Fuck."

"What now?"

"Sam has the key."

The lock on the door is old and cheap. It's the kind of thing Dean normally picks in fifteen seconds, but he's frozen solid. His shoulders are shaking and his hands are almost numb. He flubs it the first time, sliding the rake in too fast and letting it catch awkwardly on the pins. On his second try he turns the tension wrench too far; it pops out and hits the rubber welcome mat with a soft plink.

"Here," Cas says, nudging him out of the way. "Let me see."

Cas bends over the lock, half his face slipping into shadow. He fits the rake and tension wrench back into place, then flexes his hands a couple of times. His fingers are long and deft, and heat floods Dean's face as Cas adjusts the tension wrench with the pad of his thumb. An hour ago, Cas had been pulling Dean's hair. He'd kissed Dean's jaw and rubbed his dick against Dean's thigh, and --

"Got it."

The lock gives up with a tired snick. Cas opens the door, and the smell of stale smoke and gun oil hurries to meet them at the threshold. Dean flips on the heater on his way to the bathroom; it makes a cranky, clanking sound, then wheezes into gear. He showers quickly, soaping and shampooing before he deals with the gash on his arm. It arrows down the length of his forearm, perfectly straight except where it curves toward the inside of his wrist. He washes it carefully. It's not bleeding anymore, but it's starting to hurt again now that his body is warming up.

The bathroom door opens as Dean is switching off the water, but it closes again before he can ask Cas what he wants. When he pushes the shower curtain away, he finds clothes waiting for him on the toilet -- a t-shirt, a pair of flannel pants, a pair of boxer-briefs. He gets as far as the boxer-briefs before Cas comes back in. He's as near-naked as Dean. He pauses in the doorway, fanning the door a few times break up the steam.

"Hey, I'm not dressed."

Cas shrugs. "Neither am I."

"Yeah," Dean says, trying not to look. He clears his throat. "Shower's all yours."

"Let me see your arm."

"It's fine."

"Dean," Cas says sharply. He nudges Dean away from the door and points at the toilet. "Sit down so I can look at your arm."

Dean sits. He doesn't have the energy to argue. His post-hunt adrenaline rush is starting to wane; between that and the heat from his shower, he's crashing pretty fast. Yawning, he braces his arm on his thigh. Cas wets a washcloth in the sink, then sets their emergency vodka on the floor and kneels between Dean's legs. He skims his fingers over Dean's knee as he reaches for Dean's arm. His hair has dried weirdly, hanging flat across his forehead and cowlicked up behind one ear. Dean has his hand in it before he's even aware of it.

Cas closes his eyes. He leans into Dean's hand, tipping his head to the side, his throat catching as he swallows. Dean breathes out a noise and tugs Cas up. He kisses the spot where Cas' shoulder curves into his neck, then drags his mouth up to Cas' jaw. He lingers there, sucking just hard enough to leave a faint mark.

"Dean," Cas murmurs, his voice dark at the edges. "Stop distracting me."

"Sorry," Dean says, pulling away. "Yeah, I -- sorry."

Cas runs the washcloth down Dean's arm, so carefully that Dean barely feels it, then opens the vodka bottle and pours a healthy splash over it. That stings like hell, and Dean hisses between his teeth, clenching both hands into fists. Cas shushes him gently. He touches Dean's shoulder and Dean's jaw and brushes his fingers through Dean's hair. It feels so good and Dean's so tired; he almost forgets to be scared of it.

As Cas is bandaging Dean's arm, he says, "You're half-asleep. Why don't you go to bed?"

"In a minute," Dean says, rubbing his face. "Sam --"

"Sam is on his way back."

"How do you know?"

"I reassembled my phone while you were in the shower," Cas explains, tearing a piece of medical tape with his teeth. "It was as you suspected -- the security guards realized the noise was a ruse and went looking for the source. He lost them in the woods, but he decided to be safe and take a long drive."

"What about the stuff we ditched?

"He's retrieving it now." Cas pats Dean's leg. "You're all done."

He helps Dean up, pressing his mouth to Dean's temple when Dean sways into him. He strokes his hand down Dean's side and says, "You're taking the bed."

Dean doesn't argue with that, either.

+

Dean wakes up slow. The heater is still running, making the room stuffy and hot. A big rig rattles down the highway, followed shortly by another; the second one blares its horn. A few rooms down, a door opens and closes. Footsteps move toward the parking lot. Dean's arm itches, and it takes him minute or two to remember why. When he stretches, his leg bumps something solid. He rolls over and opens his eyes.

Cas is in bed beside him. He's still asleep, his mouth parted slightly and his eyelashes fanned against his cheeks. His hair is a riot against the pillow. He has his hand curled under his chin, which for some reason strikes Dean as absurdly human. They're not touching, but they're close enough, lying knee to knee and nose to nose. If Dean reached over, he could slide his hand up Cas' arm. If he leaned in, he could kiss Cas' sleeping mouth.

Dean just watches him sleep, breathing him in as the motel continues with its morning absolutions -- a telephone rings upstairs; a car coughs to life in the parking lot; a garbage truck rumbles down the alley behind the building, stopping every few feet and grinding its gears before it moves on. Warmth curls into Dean's chest. Waking up next to Cas is the kind of bullshit domestic fantasy he likes to pretend he doesn't have; the truth is, there's nothing he wants more.

Cas makes a slow, bleary noise and opens one eye. After a moment, he opens the other and says, "Good morning," in a voice like sandpaper.

Jokingly, Dean says, "I could've sworn I went to bed alone."

"The couch is very uncomfortable."

"I told you that last night."

"You were asleep on your feet last night," Cas counters, yawning. "You didn't say much of anything."

Upstairs, the telephone rings again. Cas shifts closer, his foot brushing down Dean's shin. He pushes the covers back a little, just enough for Dean to see what he's wearing.

"Is that my shirt?"

Cas shrugs against his pillow. "It smells like you."

"Cas," Dean says, his heart beating too hard and too fast. "You -- um. We --"

Cas cuts him off with a soft touch to the jaw. He says, "Stop being afraid of this, Dean," before rolling over and dropping back to sleep.

+

The next time Dean wakes up, two women are arguing in the parking lot. Dean's Spanish is pretty terrible -- he can order una cerveza and ask for el baño, and that's about it -- but from the handful of words he understands, it sounds like their keys are locked in their room and they both think it's the other one's fault. The noise dies down in a few minutes, and Dean sits up, shaking the pins and needles out of his bum arm. Beside him, Cas is snoring softly. He still has his back to Dean, and the blanket is pushed down past his hip. Over his shoulder, the clock insists that it's almost eleven.

That's way later than Dean usually sleeps -- so much later that he feels groggy and stiff. His mouth and throat are dry and a caffeine headache is budding behind his eyes. The heater is off. Dean can't imagine Cas getting up again; Sam probably killed it when he left for his run. Sam isn't in the room, and as Dean shuffles into the kitchen for a glass of water, he sees Sam's stinky running shoes by the door. That means Sam left and came back and left again. That also means he saw Dean and Cas sleeping in the same bed -- twice! -- but Dean makes himself shrug it off. Nothing happened, and even if it had -- well. He doubts Sam would be surprised.

The Impala is gone when Dean peeks out the window.

"Sure, Sammy," he mutters, tugging the curtain closed. "Just borrow the car whenever you want. Don't worry about leaving a note or anything."

By eleven-thirty Dean's caffeine headache is in full bloom, so he throws on some clothes and walks the block and a half to the Gas & Sip. It's cut from the same cloth as every other Gas & Sip Dean has visited over the years -- white tile floors and a pop music soundtrack and a meat-locker air conditioner. When Dean comes in, the woman on duty is pouring bright yellow liquid cheese into the warming pot beside the nacho chips. Dean buys three large coffees and six microwaveable sausage biscuit things he hopes will be decent when they're hot. There aren't any dying azaleas at the register; Cas must've taken the last one.

On his way back through the motel's parking lot, Dean stops by the office. The same kid is behind the counter, drooping in the early afternoon heat as he flips idly through a magazine. When the bells on the door jangle, he looks up and asks, "You need more towels?"

"Nah, we're good," Dean starts, but he stops there. His face is on fire.

The kid blinks at him.

Dean takes a breath. He's shit-scared, but -- fuck. He wants to try. "I was wondering," he says finally, going for casual despite feeling like he's going to puke, "is that room next door still available?"

"Yep. You want me to add it on?"

"Yeah. That's -- yeah."

"The couches are pretty uncomfortable," the kid admits, his tone somewhere between apologetic and bored. "I probably should've warned you."

"It's cool," Dean says, pocketing the key.

+

Cas isn't exactly awake when Dean gets back, but he's more or less upright, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head down and his arms resting on his knees. He looks up as Dean opens the door and rubs his sweaty face with both hands. Dean flips on the air conditioner, which whines and clanks nearly as much as the heater had last night. He dumps the Gas & Sip haul on the counter, then brings one of the coffees over to Cas. Impulsively, he runs his hand through Cas' hair before heading back into the kitchen. Cas looks up at him again; this time, the corner of his mouth curves into a bleary smile.

And -- wow. Dean fucking loves him. He loves that Cas is a grumpy asshole in the mornings. He loves that Cas watches boring History Channel documentaries. He loves that Cas buys half-dead plants, and that he reads books in foreign languages, and that he buys dumb, touristy refrigerator magnets when they fuel up at hickville truck-stops. Cas flashes him another smile, half-hidden by his coffee cup, and the warm ache in Dean's chest fans hotter and brighter. They need to talk, but they'll have to do it later. Cas isn't really conscious yet, and Dean's going to need a few more hours to find the nerve. Besides, Sam could be back any minute; Dean doesn't want to start something just to put it on hold the rest of the day.

"You hungry?" he asks instead.

Cas responds with the kind of grunt that could mean sure but could also mean fuck off; Dean decides to take it as a yes and pops four of the sausage biscuits into the microwave. While they're heating, Dean tosses the other two into the fridge, then fills a glass of water and dumps it on the azalea. He feels kind of silly doing it. It still looks close to death. Most of its leaves are more brown than green, and its petals are a sickly shade of pink.

The microwave pings tiredly. The motel room only has one plate -- and right now, Dean's phone is sitting on it, covered in rice -- so he stacks two of the sausage biscuits in a paper towel and puts them on the bedside table.

"Soup's on."

Cas splits a sleepy frown between Dean and the food. "Where's your brother?"

"Hell if I know," Dean grouses, setting his own breakfast on the counter. "When I woke up, Baby was gone and so was he." He unwraps one of his sausage biscuits, hissing under his breath as the steam curling off it burns his fingers. "How's your leg? You were limping last night."

"I think it was just a pulled muscle," Cas says, rubbing his thigh. "It seems to be fine this morning."

The sausage biscuit turns out to be serviceable. The sausage patty and powdered eggs are decent, but the biscuit is dry and tastes like cardboard. Dean chases each bite with a mouthful of coffee. He's still debating if he wants to choke down another one when Sam comes in, carrying his laptop and a fresh stack of papers.

"Where've you been?"

Sam looks smug. "While you two were sleeping," he says, his mouth twitching in a way Dean chooses to ignore, "I was solving the case."

"Go on." Folding his arms, Dean leans back against the counter. "I'm listening."

"Where's my coffee?"

Sighing, Dean hands it over. He'd flick Sam's ear if he could find it under all that hair. Sam takes a long, slow sip, then sets the cup on the table, right beside the azalea. He shuffles through his papers for a minute. Cas is starting to wilt again; Dean knocks on the counter to get his attention, then asks, "You joining us, Sleeping Beauty?"

"In a minute," Cas replies, chewing. He has biscuit crumbs down the front of his -- Dean's -- shirt.

A goofy smile tugs at Dean's mouth, but he bites it back. Stupid case. He turns to Sam. "All right. Spill."

"Well, Shania made me think of it. I --"

"Shania? Who's --? Oh, the hot chick from the bar."

"Yes, Dean," Sam says mockingly. "The hot chick from the bar. I gave her the bluff Cas came up with, the book about Nebraska's ghosts -- anyway, when I brought up the Tunnel of Love, she told me two of her friends were attacked in high school."

"High school?" Dean asks. "She's... what? Thirty?"

"Thirty-four."

"That doesn't fit the facts we have," Cas points out, cautiously unwrapping his second sausage biscuit. "Perhaps she misunderstood --"

Sam waves him off. "We didn't have all the facts. I should've thought of this myself, but the land title search took me all day, and then you two kept arguing about the ghost -- although, that should've --"

"Sammy, please."

"Sorry," Sam says. He thumbs the lid off his coffee and blows on it a little. "Our accounts go back five years because the Grand Island Independent has only archived five years of its articles online."

Dean rubs his hand over his face. "You gotta be shitting me."

"Nope. When I went through the old library archives, I found accounts dating back to the eighties."

"Great. That means looking at a billion more death certificates."

Sam shakes his head. "I thought so too, but then I found this." He digs a paper out of the stack and hands it to Dean. It's a crooked, microfiche-blurry copy of an old newspaper article. The headline reads, "TORNADO DEATH TOLL RISES; TWO MORE FOUND IN CARNIVAL COLLAPSE."

Dean stares at it for a moment. "Two spooks?"

Double hauntings are weird. But it wouldn't be the first time, and it explains why Cas' description didn't line up with his. It also explains Cas' lousy marksmanship that first night. He isn't as dead-handed as Dean and Sam yet, but he isn't that bad -- not bad enough to miss twice in a row from two feet away. He hadn't missed; he'd been shooting at something else.

"Keith and Katie Moran," Sam says, sliding two death certificates across the table.

The bed creaks as Cas stands. He picks up the death certificates, then settles against the counter beside Dean, his fingers skimming Dean's hip as he asks, "Married?"

"Siblings."

"Sammy, if this is about to get gross --"

Sam huffs out a disgusted noise. "No, nothing like that. They were Fun Fair employees." He types something on his laptop, then faces it toward Dean and Cas. The screen shows a grainy, Polaroid-quality photo of a pile of rubble. "The place got trashed by a tornado in the eighties. I read about it when I was doing background, but I didn't connect it to the haunting because we had the dates all wrong."

"They were working that night," Dean says, looking up from the newspaper article.

"Yeah. I guess when the sirens went off, they ran into the Tunnel of Love to help evacuate it, but they -- it collapsed before they could get out."

"You're going to die," Cas says, his voice thoughtful and slow. He glances at Dean, tilting his head enough that Dean can see the mark on his neck, faint and barely the size of his thumb. "They weren't protecting their territory. They were trying to warn us."

Dean nods. "Yeah. And they got violent because we didn't leave. Thirty years of that same shtick has probably made them twitchy. They can't rest in a place like that -- that dumb ride runs twelve hours a day." He folds the article in half and wings it at Sam's head. "What about the bodies?"

"Buried locally. Family vault."

"Nice," Dean says, smiling. Mausoleum jobs are a cakewalk. All they have to do is jimmy the plate off the drawer and bash a hole down the side of the coffin. The bodies burn slower in a tight space, but waiting around an extra thirty minutes beats digging up a grave.

"Don't get too excited. Several Morans still live in town, so we can't just smash and grab. We've got to keep it tidy."

"You know us," Dean says, reaching for his coffee. "We do delicate work."

+

They roll up to the cemetery a little after six. It's across town from the Fun Fair, just south of where the railroad tracks meet US 281. The sun is sinking fast, bruising the horizon a rosy gold. Dean parks about a half-mile down the road; mausoleum jobs don't require too much gear, and an unfamiliar car on the grounds for an hour or two might arouse suspicion. In Dean's experience, funeral directors spy and meddle and gossip more than the Neighborhood Watch.

The back fence is lime-stained links woven with wooden slats; it's only waist-high, so they hop it instead of going in through the front gate. A newer section stretches away from them on their left, a lush slope of grass dotted with flat, mower-friendly stones. The section behind them feels older; the grass is thinner, and many of the upright markers are crooked and sinking. Sam studies a map he drew on the back of a McDonald's napkin, then directs them past a thicket of slouching trees.

"I know this is a vault gig," he says, glancing over his shoulders, "but doing this during the day always weirds me out."

"Yeah," Dean agrees. He's holding his belt as he walks; he has a crowbar tucked down the leg of his jeans, and the weight of it is dragging them down.

Sam waves them around another knot of trees and a striking, marble statue of an angel. She's beautiful, her upturned face flushed by the sunset. She's also very old. Moss darkens the cracks in her features, and a finger is missing from one of her outstretched hands, right below the knuckle. The break is smooth and worn; it happened years ago. Cas pauses as they pass her, his fingers tracing the point of a flared wing, and anger claws deep underneath Dean's ribs. Heaven never should've made Cas choose.

Dean touches Cas' wrist. "Pretty sure yours were bigger."

"Yes," Cas says simply. "They were."

The mausoleum section backs against a low rise. Sam hesitates over his map for a moment, then heads down a narrow, wobbling path tread into the grass by a hundred years of feet. Wind rustles through the trees. Stopping suddenly, Sam gestures at the largest vault in a group of four; it has gray stone walls and a peaked roof supported by two pairs of sturdy pillars. Dead leaves are clumped along the crossbeam. The weather-stained doors are wrought-iron, greenish with age and set with patterned, frosted glass.

Dean whistles through his teeth. "Ritzy place."

"Yeah, the Morans have money. And they've been in town a long time." Turning, Sam points to another vault about a hundred yards away, larger but similar in shape. "There are three more generations in there."

Cas pops the skeleton lock as soon as he figures out which size allen wrench to use. The vault is an eight-seater, three drawers stacked on either side and a pair of stone sarcophagi waiting in the middle. The air inside is musty, but not in the moldy, forgotten way Dean is familiar with. Sunlight streams in through a stained-glass window on the back wall; the picture looks like some kind of family crest. The floors have been recently swept. A bouquet of flowers is dying in the vase bolted to one of the drawers.

"Walter Moran," Cas reads, touching the leaves.

"Keith and Katie's father." Sam sets a hammer and a chisel on the closest sarcophagus. "Their mother is still alive."

Cas hands Sam a screwdriver, and together they unscrew the corner fittings on Katie's drawer. They don't say a word. Dean watches them as he tugs the crowbar out of his jeans and adjusts his belt. He'd been worried when Cas first started hunting with them, and not just because of the risk. He and Sam have been a two-man team a long time; he hadn't been sure they'd know how to make room for a third person, or if Cas could fit into their daily grind without catching on all their rough edges. He hadn't wanted Cas to feel excluded. He hadn't wanted Cas to leave. But Cas has slipped into their lives seamlessly. Perfectly. Dean can't imagine hitting the road without him.

"Hey," Sam says, poking him with the butt of his screwdriver. "All hands. We need to get this show on the road."

"What's your rush? You got a hot date tonight?"

Sam snorts. "Not me. You two have to check the ride again. You know -- in case this doesn't work."

An anxious feeling twists into Dean's gut. Sam is absolutely right. There are no guarantees with this job; they're only ever about sixty percent sure they're burning the right stiff, and after that there's still a chance that the ghost is attached to something else. They always go back and poke around one last time. It's just -- shit. Dean hasn't found his nerve yet.

Sam swaps his screwdriver for his chisel and starts chipping at the drawer's seal. "I need to think of a new distraction, though -- broken windows aren't going to work three nights in a row."

"Do you have a sound clip of a cow mooing?" Cas asks, pushing his sweaty hair out of his face. "It might make them think the livestock have escaped."

+

The boats are locked up this time. Dean isn't surprised; their exit last night hadn't exactly been smooth. He's just glad there isn't a rent-a-cop posted inside the ride. The padlock is ten-dollar drugstore garbage. Those are often harder to pick because the internal mechanisms are so cheap and clunky, but Dean springs it pretty quickly once he gets Cas to hold the flashlight steady. Cas unravels the security cable mooring the first boat, and Dean slips the padlock his pocket. It clinks against the extra room key he's been carrying all day and he reminds himself to breathe.

This might actually be easier in the dark, without Cas' wide, gorgeous eyes watching him and weighing everything that he says. He knows Cas is human now -- he can't read things or feel things or whatever it is he used to do -- but sometimes he looks at Dean in a way that makes him feel completely naked. Beyond naked. Like Dean is just standing there without his skin. Like his chest has been cracked open. Like every hateful, horrible, ugly thought he's ever had is just sitting in his hands.

Cas is silent as they heave the boat downriver, but Dean lets it go. They've never needed a lot of chatter anyway, and Dean is preoccupied with trying not to puke. The pitch and roll of the boat isn't helping the nervous churning in his gut. Neither is sitting next to Cas. This is it -- Dean knows this is it. They inch forward. The water slaps loudly against the bank and the smell of chlorine crowds into Dean's nose.

The silence drags on for a few minutes after they stop alongside the ridiculous teddy bear. Cas eventually shifts beside him, sighing and knocking their knees together, and Dean blurts, "I am afraid of it."

"Why?" Cas asks.

Because I'm bad at this. Because you used to be fucking stardust. Because if you left tomorrow it would kill me.

He must've said that out loud, because Cas asks, "Where would I go?"

The jittery feeling in Dean's gut turns cold. Almost immediately, Cas fumbles for him in the dark; he catches Dean's shoulder and slides his hand up to Dean's neck. Curling his fingers in Dean's collar, he hauls himself into Dean's lap, his knees bracketing Dean's hips. The boat rocks sharply, dipping down enough that water slops over the side and pools around their feet. Dean grunts and reaches for the bank, groping around until he finds the teddy bear's legs.

"Hey," he says, grabbing Cas' waist with his other hand. "I was hoping to skip the Titanic reenactment tonight."

Wrapping his arms around Dean's shoulders, Cas speaks against Dean's temple. "I realize how that sounded, and I -- that's not what I meant. I came to you after I fell because that's what I wanted, not because I had no other choice."

"Not too many other options out there."

"I lived as a human before. I could do it again."

Dean huffs. "You worked at a gas station." He slips his hand under Cas' shirt and strokes the smooth, warm skin of Cas' back. "You were homeless."

"I was surviving. I'd nearly saved enough for an apartment when Bartholomew forced my hand."

They fall silent again. Water laps at the boat. Cas kisses Dean's cheek, then drags his mouth down to Dean's jaw, all stubble and slow heat. The noise Dean makes is needy and low and embarrassingly loud as it echoes around the tunnel.

"Heaven," Dean says, once he can breathe again. "You could go to heaven. You can't tell me they wouldn't take you back. Hannah -- Hannah had a soft spot for you."

Cas pauses for a moment, then says, "You're probably right. Hannah was a good friend to me when they were on earth. If I asked -- with a sincere and honest desire to return -- I think they would allow it. But that's not what I want."

"You'll die."

"Of course I will. All humans do." Cas brushes a hand through Dean's hair. "But I'll also be with you while I'm alive."

Dean's throat knots up, sour and hot; he has to clear it twice just to get his next words out. "The way we live --? That could be five years. One year."

"It could also be thirty. Fifty. I'll take whatever comes."

The boat nudges against the bank, fiberglass scraping against concrete with a sound that makes Dean itch. Cas shifts closer, his hand sliding to the back of Dean's neck and his thumb rubbing the dip behind Dean's ear. Dean grits his teeth a little -- he's been hard since Cas first climbed into his lap, and Cas squirming around isn't helping -- but then Cas shifts again and his dick presses against Dean's belly.

"Do you feel that?"

"Yeah," Dean says, heat coiling at the base of his spine. "Yeah, I feel it."

"I'm not sure you do."

Cas leans back slightly. Dean can't see what he's doing, but he hears the soft rasp of a zipper, and then Cas grabs his hand and tugs it down and -- fuck. Fuck. Cas' dick is hard and hot and as soon as Dean touches it, he rolls his hips. The boat rocks, sloshing more water over the side. It swirls around Dean's boots. Cas kisses Dean's mouth and fucks Dean's hand, everything slow and lush and perfect.

"Angels aren't supposed to want this kind of thing -- sex, love, any of it. They weren't created for it. But with you, I did. With you, I always did." Cas shudders and curls his hand into Dean's hair and breathes out a filthy noise against Dean's mouth. "When I fell the first time, it was worse. Sometimes, you were the only thing I could think about. At night, when I tried to sleep, I wanted -- I just wanted you."

"Cas," Dean says, wrapping his other arm around Cas' back, pulling Cas closer so he can rub himself against the curve of Cas' ass. "Jesus Christ."

Cas bites the corner of Dean's jaw. "When I got my grace back, it was -- oh, oh -- it was easier, I could... bury it in a way. It wasn't constantly under my skin. But still -- still, I wanted -- Dean, Dean."

Dean jacks Cas faster, stroking down as Cas' thrusts, twisting his wrist as he pulls back up. He wishes he could see the look on Cas' face. He wishes he could see the head of Cas' dick pushing through his fist. He runs his thumb over it, right over the slit, and Cas tightens the fingers buried in Dean's hair. He comes with a moan, his mouth brushing the shell of Dean's ear; it's beautiful and desperate and dark and Dean wants to hear it forever.

As Cas is catching his breath, Dean palms himself with his sticky hand. He doesn't think he'll last long enough to get his dick out of his jeans, but Cas tugs on his fly, nipping at Dean's lips as he pops the button and draws down the zipper. His hand is sweaty and warm, and Dean fucks into it with his mouth open and his head tipped back. Cas kisses his throat when he arches and gasps.

"I imagined this quite often," he admits, his voice a soft burr. "How you would look, how you would sound, how you would feel."

"Cas," Dean says, the tension finally breaking. "Castiel."

Cas kisses Dean's through it, soft and easy and slow. After, Cas hums against Dean's mouth and touches the hollow of Dean's throat, and he kisses Dean until Dean leans in too far and the boat tips them into the water.

+

When they get back to the car, Sam takes one look at them and sighs.

"Still? With the ghosts?"

"No," Dean says, wringing out the tails of his flannel. "The ghosts are gone."

"Then why are you all wet?"

Dean shakes his head and gestures for the car keys. Once Sam passes them over, Dean and Cas walk to the trunk, dripping twin trails of water behind them. The trunk opens with a squeak, and Dean curses under his breath. The only spare clothes left are a pair of boxer-briefs he thinks are Sam's and a handful of mismatched socks. The shirt Cas wore on their first Tunnel of Love trip is balled into the corner, but it's stiff and smells like it needs to be washed.

Cas grabs the tarp, wrinking his nose as he shakes it out. "I assume you want to drive?"

Dean just looks at him.

"Of course you do." He touches Dean's hip, his thumb sneaking under Dean's shirts. "I'll spread this across the front seats."

After he goes, Dean catches Sam's sleeve and tugs him a few feet away. In the moonlight, his brown plaid shirt is nearly black. Dean opens his mouth, then closes it. When he tries again, what comes out is, "Um."

"What's up?"

"Just -- um. Just this," Dean mutters. He pulls the second motel key out of his pocket and shoves it into Sam's hand.

Sam raises an eyebrow. "What's this for?"

"It's a key." Dean feels like an idiot. He probably sounds like one, too. "It's for the room -- it's for the room next door to ours. I think it's adjoining, but it'd be cool if you didn't test that out tonight."

"For the room next door," Sam repeats slowly. He glances over his shoulder at Cas, then turns back to Dean with a horrible, little-brother smile on his face. "So you two can -- so you... really?"

"Sammy, don't be an asshole."

"Hey, dude. Don't get me wrong," Sam says, holding up his hands. Behind him, grasshoppers are whining in the bushes. "I'm glad. I'm just -- finally? Right now?" He sneaks another glance at Cas. "Tonight?"

Heat floods Dean's face, despite the way he's shivering. "Yeah."

"That's -- wait. You already did." Sam snorts out an incredulous noise, loud enough that it rattles in Dean's ears. "You were on that love-boat, and -- that's why you're all wet."

Dean scratches the back of his neck.

"Dean, please tell me I didn't spend two hours playing a farm animal concert for a closed carnival so you and Cas could scratch off some kinky, bucket-list item."

"We didn't -- it's not like we planned it."

Sam stares at him for a minute, then says, "I'm a good brother."

"Yeah, you are."

"I want you to remember this."

"When?" Dean asks, rolling his eyes. "When I'm writing my will?"

"Sure."

"Okay, yeah," Dean says flatly. "When I die, I'll leave you the secret underground bunker we already live in." Sam's shoulders are shaking like he's trying not to laugh; Dean punches him in the arm. "Get in the car. You're riding in back."

"Of course I am."

"Just get in the fucking car."

+

Cas comes out of the shower naked, scrubbing his hair with a towel. Water catches in the dip of his throat and beads down his chest. His skin is gold-pink with heat, warm when Dean touches his shoulder and jaw. Dean is still clammy and cold from their midnight swim, stripped down to his boxer-briefs and shivering, but he pulls Cas closer and kisses him. Cas endures it for a few minutes, then nudges him toward the bathroom, saying, "You smell like a public pool."

Steam hangs heavily in the bathroom, clouding the mirror and the ceiling fan. The pipes are still hot; they only clank a little when Dean turns the tap. He showers quickly, using the last of the motel shampoo and nearly losing the soap down the drain. The cut on his arm is still slightly open -- too open for a dunk in the Tunnel of Love's dirty water. It stings as he washes it, but it doesn't bleed. Once he's finished, he splashes more vodka on it and wraps it in a clean bandage.

Cas is sprawled out on the bed when Dean walks out of the bathroom, one hand resting on his chest and the other hidden behind his head. His hair has made a damp spot on his pillow. Dean hesitates at the foot of the bed, just taking him in. Cas had held his hand between the Fun Fair and the car, and Dean had driven back to the motel with his thumb tapping a rhythm on Cas' knee. This really is it. Whatever they're doing here, it's permanent.

"Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean murmurs. He hasn't had a lot of permanency in his life. He thinks he'd like it. "Yeah."

The bed groans and dips as Dean climbs up and settles between Cas' legs. The sheet drags roughly against his damp knees. He runs his hands up Cas' thighs, tracing his thumbs over the strong curves of muscle. He palms Cas' hips. Cas is already hard, his dick flushed and achingly full. Dean moves up Cas' body, tucking his arms under Cas' shoulders as he kisses Cas soft and slow and dirty. Cas hums into it, curling his hand around the back of Dean's neck and sucking Dean's tongue into his mouth. The slick, wet slide of it is incendiary. Cas strokes his other hand down Dean's back, holding it at the base of Dean's spine, his fingers splayed, pressing into Dean's skin a little, like he can't get Dean close enough.

Dean kisses the corner of Cas' mouth and the point of Cas' chin, then drags his lips down the line of Cas' jaw, everything open and wet. He bites his way down Cas' neck, pausing to suck a kiss at the hollow of Cas' throat. Their dicks aren't quite lined up, so when they do rub together it's a sweet shock, jolting through Dean like lightning. He slots their mouths together again, moaning when Cas' fingers twist into his hair and tug. Cas wraps his other arm around Dean's waist and pulls Dean closer. It shifts Dean up enough that when he leans back to thumb Cas' nipples, Cas' dick slips under him, nudging the space behind his balls before sliding along the cleft of his ass. Dean shivers with want, choking out a noise that makes Cas' eyes darken.

Cas runs his hands down Dean's sides, curving one over Dean's hip, holding Dean in place as he thrusts up and rubs himself against Dean's ass. He wraps the other one around Dean's dick, stroking steadily, everything slick with precome and sweat. Dean rolls his hips into it, moaning, his knees slipping on the sheets. The bed creaks and thumps against the wall. Cas skims his palm over the head of Dean's dick, and Dean leans down, brushing Cas' hair out of his face as he noses in for a kiss. Cas bites Dean's lip and curls his tongue into Dean's mouth, easy and filthy and slow.

The bed thumps against the wall again. Dean presses another kiss to the hollow of Cas' throat, then inches down to tease Cas' nipple with his mouth. He traces it with the tip of his tongue, then brushes his lips over it, then grazes it with his teeth. Cas' breath catches; he murmurs Dean's name and digs his fingernails into Dean's shoulder. Dean slides down again, kicking at the sheet as it tangles around his foot. Cas cups the back of Dean's neck. Dean smooths his fingers through the hair arrowing away from Cas' navel, then kisses the head of Cas' dick and sucks it into his mouth.

Cas moans, the sound so needy and low it fans the arousal-burn under Dean's skin. Dean takes Cas in as deep as he can, letting Cas' dick push against his tongue and crowd into his throat. It's been awhile since he's done this -- long enough that he feels clumsy at first -- but he loves the way Cas tastes, all salt-heat and clean skin, and Cas is gasping, arching under him. Cas slides his hand away from Dean's head, but Dean brings it back and holds it there, so he'll know that Dean doesn't mind. So he'll know that Dean likes it. Cas' other hand brushes over Dean's jaw, and Dean tips his head a little, letting Cas feel the shape of himself through his cheek.

Dean pulls off to slick his tongue around the head, then turns and bites a kiss into the inside of Cas' thigh. He sucks a bruise there, up high enough that his nose is hidden in the crease of Cas' hip. Cas' spit-wet dick bumps Dean's jaw; Cas breathes Dean's name again and tugs Dean's hair. Dean presses a kiss to the base of Cas' dick, then drags his tongue up the length of it and sucks it back into his mouth. The bed dips as Cas sits up. He runs his hand down Dean's back, then twists until he can reach Dean's hip.

"Come up this way," he says, his voice slow and rough. "I want to taste you too."

"Jesus, yeah," Dean says, want shivering through him again as he shifts around and nudges Cas onto his side.

The new angle feels weird at first, but when Dean sucks Cas back in, Cas curves perfectly in his mouth. He draws back slightly, skimming his lips over the head of Cas' dick and laving his tongue along the slit. Cas huffs out a noise and tugs Dean closer, his hand sweaty and warm on the swell of Dean's ass. He leans in slow, his breath fanning over Dean's dick, but he just teases Dean the way Dean had teased him, nosing in the crease of Dean's hip and trailing slow kisses up the inside of Dean's thigh. Dean is shaking when Cas finally sucks him in; Dean digs his fingers into Cas' thigh, moaning, the noise humming in Dean's throat because his mouth is full, so fucking full.

The heater switches off, filling the room with the slick, obscene sounds of them sucking each other off. Cas' mouth is impossibly hot and impossibly wet; Dean twists his fingers into the sheets at every curl of his tongue and drag of his lips. Cas starts thrusting a little, not too hard or not too deep, just restless twitches of his hips. Dean takes Cas in as far as he can; he palms Cas' balls, rubbing his fingers along the skin just behind them, and Cas comes, shuddering, gasping around Dean's dick.

Once Cas catches his breath, he rolls Dean onto his back and slides around until he's between Dean's legs. Dean can see him now -- the messy spill of his hair, the bright blue of his eyes. His mouth looks gorgeous around Dean's dick, lush and red and spit-slick. He curves his hands under Dean's ass, encouraging Dean to roll his hips. The needy, endless heat in Dean's gut starts to thrum. Cas pulls up slow, then sucks him down, down, down, and -- fuck. Dean comes with his mouth open and his hand in Cas' hair and his toes curling in the sheets.

He pulls Cas up, wrapping his arms around Cas' shoulders as Cas settles against his side. Cas hums and kisses his shoulder. The blanket is on the floor, but Dean is warm. He thinks he'll like sleeping like this, with Cas' hand on waist and Cas' mouth against his neck.

+

It's just before ten, but it's already gearing up to be a hot day. The sun is big and bright in the sky, beating on the back of Dean's neck as he waits in line at the concession stand. He studies the price board for a few seconds, trying to decide between pink cotton-candy or blue. The kid in front of him orders five hotdogs with very specific and detailed instructions, and Dean sighs, glancing over at Cas. He's sitting on a sagging bench wedged under one of the Fun Fair's handful of trees. He's wearing Dean's red shirt and typing something on his phone; when he looks up and catches Dean watching him, he offers Dean a soft smile.

Dean forks over six dollars for a blue cotton-candy and a frozen cherry limeade, then heads over to Cas, picking a careful path between the running children. The crowd is thicker than Dean expected for a Sunday morning. Off to his left, a siren blares in the midway. A little girl toddles past him carrying a triple-scoop ice cream cone. Dean snorts; he's pretty sure how that's going to end.

Cas tucks his phone in his lap as Dean sits down and reaches for the cherry limeade. The cup drips condensation onto his jeans. After a few long sips he passes it back, resting his hand on Dean's thigh. It's cooler in the shade, but not by much.

"You talking to Claire again?" Dean asks.

"Yes. Their witch has turned into a whole coven. Jody wants to know if we're... in the neighborhood."

"Yeah, of course," Dean says. For Jody, they're always in the neighborhood. "Tell her we'll be up that way about dinnertime."

Sioux Falls is only four hours away -- give or take -- but they still need to pack up the rooms. They also need to make a few pit-stops. The Impala is down to a quarter-tank of gas, and they're low on bottled water and beer. With all the swims they've taken in the last three days, they're past due for a laundromat run. Jody would probably let them use her washer and dryer, but Dean hates to ask.

"C'mon," he says, brushing his hand over Cas' knee. "If we leave now we can sit down for lunch instead of grabbing drive-thru. There's a truck-stop outside Vermillion I think you'll like."

"Why?"

"It has a whole wall of ugly refrigerator magnets."

Cas smiles and kisses him. He tastes like cherry limeade.