Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Well, my heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talking."

+ + +

Now

In the boomtown of Sioux Falls, in the second-story window of a building on 10th Street, there is a hand-painted sign reading “Samuel Henry Winchester — Attorney at Law.” In the sublet below, retired Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Singer and his partner Rufus Turner have a general store, just one of several on 10th Street, let alone Main or Phillips. Across the hall is a notary and surveyor offering claims — bought and sold. The hustle and bustle of any of these businesses, normally impossible to miss through the thin walls and floors, are drowned out. Sam’s office is small and stuffy with both windows open to the street below, letting in the smell of fresh mulch and timber as well as the endless banging of new construction. Inside, stripped down to his shirtsleeves with his head tilted back out of the open window, is the man they say came back from the dead.

He kicks his feet up onto the desk where Sam is working. A bit of dried mud flakes off the toe of one of his boots and falls onto the paper Sam is trying to read. Sam, long-suffering and short-tempered, doesn’t even look up as he shoves the man’s boots off the side of the desk and into the floor. The man’s heels hit the wooden floor with a hard thunk, and he laughs as he reaches into his vest pocket for his flask.

“It’s not even noon yet,” says Sam.

“So?” says the man. “Maybe this is water.”

“Sure, Dean,” says Sam. “And maybe I’m Gilbert Pierce.”

Dean takes a swig of rye whiskey, offers it to his brother, then pockets the flask with a shrug. He sits up a bit and cranes his neck to see past the legal drafts Sam is using to hide the paper he’s really writing on.

“You still writing to that school teacher out in Perdition?” asks Dean, cracking a smile. “The one that can’t hear?”

Sam shuffles his papers. “She can still read,” he says. “Lips too.”

Dean smirks. “Yeah, I bet she can.”

“You’re disgusting,” says Sam. “She’s ... very intelligent, and I think she appreciates having someone to talk to. I’m sure she must be lonely.” Sam stops himself and grimaces at what he just said. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say nothin’.”

“You were thinking it,” Sam says. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt for you to have someone to talk to besides me. I mean especially after ... after ... well, you know.”

Dean digs his nails into the side of his thigh, hard enough to leave marks in the skin underneath. “Yeah,” he says, reaching for his flask again. “I’ll get right on that.”

Dean takes a too-long swig and bites back the burn. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. A bead of sweat drips behind his ear and runs down into his collarless shirt. It’s already mid-September, but Dean swears it’s staying hotter longer with every passing year. Maybe he can blame it on the influx of warm bodies Sioux Falls has gained over the past few years, crowding around and raising the ambient temperature. They’re certainly to blame for the racket outside, and Dean has half a mind to close the window and just suffer the stifling air in his brother’s office.

If there was a knock at the door, neither Sam nor Dean heard it. That said, knowing Bobby Singer, the scuff of his boots on the floor was likely all the warning they were given before the surly bastard busted in the door like he owned the place.

“How’d I know I’d find your ass here?” Bobby says, slamming the door behind him with one hand and holding up a leather folder in the other.

“Where else would I be?” asks Dean.

Bobby palms his hat off his head and tosses it on Sam’s desk. “Oh, I don't know. How about the damn marshal’s office?”

Sam glances between the two of them and quietly lifts Bobby’s hat off of his papers. “Mornin’, Bobby,” he says. “Where’s Rufus?”

“Downstairs. Actually getting some damn work done,” Bobby says. He steps over and slams the folder down in Dean’s lap, clearly not caring if he smacks Dean in the goods. “Speaking of.”

"Oof." Dean lurches forward. "The hell is this?"

"Work. Ever heard of it?"

Dean flaps open the file and thumbs through the contents. It’s mostly wanted posters offering rewards too small to bother dealing with. "Oh c'mon, Bobby," Dean says. "You know I don't bounty hunt anymore."

"They ain't even that far. One on top's wanted for a murder in Cold Oak."

"That's in the Black Hills, isn't it?" asks Sam, his letter neglected as he reaches for the parcel in Dean's hands. "Out near Deadwood?"

"Ain’t that far?" Dean says, "Hell, that's all the way across the territory."

"Yeah," says Bobby. "Well, see, they got these crazy new things called trains."

"'Angel Face Allen'," reads Sam. He raises his eyebrows. "'Five-hundred dollar reward to be paid for the arrest and delivery of Emmanuel Allen to the Sheriff of Cold Oak, Dakota Territory.’"

"Angel Face?" Dean says with a snort. "What, he real pretty or something?"

"Yeah," says Bobby. "Or somethin'. The sheriff out there, Phillips. He's an old drinking buddy of mine."

"You got any other kind?" asks Dean.

"Do you?"

Dean rolls his eyes and snatches the poster back from Sam. “So you’re sending me to pay back some kinda’ favor. Got it.” Dean clicks his tongue with a wink.

“Watch it, boy. I ain’t the one sittin’ around on my lily-white ass instead of doin’ my job. ‘Sides, you could stand to put a few miles on ya. Don’t want you gettin’ soft.”

“First of all, my ass ain’t—”

“Alright, alright,” says Sam, both hands thrown up like he has a gun pointed in his face. He slaps his hand down on his desk and slides his letter into the center drawer. “Sorry, but I’m with Bobby on this one, Dean.”

“Traitor.”

Bobby crosses his arms and leans against Sam’s desk. “Guess I should mention that I already sent a line this morning and told Joe you’re coming.”

Sam stifles a laugh while Dean grits his teeth. “Damn it,” he says. "Fine."

“They got a train heading out this evening,” says Bobby. “You can get your four hours in on the way there.”

“Sounds comfortable,” Dean grumbles.

“Anything to get you the hell out of my office,” says Sam under his breath.

Before Dean can say anything, Bobby points a finger in his face. “Cold Oak.”

“Yes, sir,” says Dean with his tail between his legs, so to speak.

“Try not to embarrass me,” Bobby says. His gaze is hard and his tone rough, but he still gives Dean a smile and affectionate squeeze on the shoulder before picking up his hat and turning to leave.

“Crusty son of a bitch,” Dean says under his breath.

“I heard that,” Bobby says, and he shuts the door behind him.

Dean shakes his head and wipes the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. He stands with a groan, and his bad knee pops as he stretches it out. Outside, a foreman barks orders at the workers putting in the new train depot at the corner of 10th and Maple.

“Sounds like you’ve got a job,” says Sam, making no effort to hide any hint of amusement in his voice.

"Sounds like you need to shut the hell up."

Dean takes the long way home from Sam's office, avoiding the Harvelle saloon the way he always does nowadays. The influx of new people in the city over the past few years has driven up the cost of room and board, so Dean and his brother share a room in Jody Mills’ boarding house on Main Street. Downstairs, the other boarders sit down to a dinner of boiled meat and rye cake, and Jody wraps Dean’s up in a dinner napkin to take on the train. Despite her attempts to chase him out of her kitchen, Dean manages to give her a quick kiss on the cheek and reaches behind her back to steal an apple from the table before running off upstairs.

Dean doesn’t keep around much that can’t fit into saddlebags or be rolled up into a bedroll, so there isn’t much to pack. There are the essentials for the trail — tinder, cordage, cleaning kit, provisions, and ammunition — but also his flask and some of the money he keeps in a cigar box under his mattress. Just before turning to leave, Dean stops and looks at the Mexican shawl covering the foot of his bed. It’s woven with a black and white striped pattern, and when unfolded, it’s as long as Dean is tall. He folds it up in his oilskin coat and tucks it carefully into his bedroll, but not before giving it a quick kiss.

That evening, Dean arrives at the station along the eastern bank of the Big Sioux River. The new electric lights of the depot glow orange against the vibrant blue-violet of the early dusk sky as steam pours from the engine and settles around the platform like a layer of morning fog. Dean hands Baby off to the young handler to be loaded onto the horse car, but not before getting right up in the boy’s face and putting the fear of God in him.

“One wrong hair on her head,” Dean says, holding her reins just out of the boy’s reach, “and it’ll be nothing for me to go back to prison. Hear me?”

It’s a joke, of course, but the boy still pales at the sight of the holstered piece on Dean’s hip. He looks up and opens his mouth to speak, but then just nods frantically and leads Baby away.

Dean finds his car, hangs his hat on the hook by the window, and stretches out as best he can on the wooden bench. As the train rolls out of the depot and down the track, Dean watches the lights of the city dance over the river. For some reason he can’t explain, he turns around in his seat and takes one last long look at Sioux Falls as it grows further and further away.

For several hours, the only thing outside Dean’s window is the dark stretch of the plains and the blanket of stars overhead. He eats the cold dinner Jody packed him slowly, mostly for want of something to do. Every so often, they stop at small railway towns, most of which are no bigger than a depot and a single boarding house for rail employees. Dean sleeps through most of them, though at the stop in Pierre, he gets off to stretch his legs and have a smoke and a drink.

It’s raining when the train makes its final stop, but Dean’s got miles more to go. He makes his way down to where the handlers unload the horses from the stock car, and he watches intently with his arms folded tightly over his chest as one of the men leads Baby down the ramp.

“That’s quite a well-mannered horse you’ve got there,” says the man as he hands her off. “Didn’t give me any trouble at all."

Baby nickers and nudges Dean with her nose. “Thanks,” he says, gently scratching the blaze between her eyes. “Always was my best girl.”

Dean finally arrives in Cold Oak by wagon train, joined after the last stop on the Northwestern. It’s colder in the hills, Dean notices immediately, and the wind whistles through the thick cover of spruce trees. The rain that would have been muggy and overbearing in Sioux Falls leaves a damp chill in the air that cuts through his clothes as the wind blows. He pulls his hat further down on his brow and turns his collar against the cool drizzle as he walks Baby through the streets and stretches her legs. It’s been raining a while. The footprints and wagon tracks in the street are deep, and Dean has to pick his feet up a bit more than usual as he walks. In the middle of town, rain glides off a large iron bell with an oak tree engraving. The gentle drum echoes on the inside, barely audible above the quiet murmur of people around town going about their days.

A petite woman with her skirts hitched up in one hand walks past him with her head down, and Dean spins around to grab her by the arm. She jerks away at first, then looks down at the badge on his belt. “Y-Yes?” she asks, and her eyes are wide and as pale as the sky. “Can I help you with something?”

Dean lets go of her arm and raises his hand apologetically. “Maybe, Miss...”

“Wilson. Ava Wilson.”

“Miss Wilson,” he says, stressing the words to put on a show of being extra polite. “Point me in the direction of the sheriff’s office, will you darlin'?”

Ava points further on down the street at a point where the path forks and jerks her thumb to the right. “Can’t miss it, Marshal," she says dryly. "There’s a sign.”

Dean tips his hat and thanks her as he sets off in the direction she pointed, but she just hugs her arms to her chest and tramples away through the mud. Most of the buildings in town are built together, sharing demising walls and a common boardwalk, but the sheriff’s office and adjoining jail are off by themselves. There’s a curved-back chair outside with a brass spittoon next to it, collecting the odd spray of rainwater that blows under the awning. Dean ties Baby off to the post and does his best to kick the excess mud from his boots before stepping inside with a light knock on the door frame.

The inside is small and bare-bones compared to the marshal’s office back in the city. Two men, one young and squirrely and the other older with a broad frame and cold stare, sit inside at a desk. Dean had been told Sheriff Phillips was a Dakota man, with his nephew Carl as his deputy. The man behind the desk surely looked like the man he was after, but Dean somehow wasn't convinced by the pale and gangly fellow staring at him with his jaw hanging open.

In the corner, a pot-bellied stove provides some much-needed relief from the damp chill hanging over the town. The older man sits behind the desk with his feet kicked up onto the surface, sipping what smells like coffee out of an enamel mug. The younger one jumps up immediately when Dean walks in and puts his hands on his slim hips.

“Sheriff Phillips?” asks Dean, pulling off his hat and glancing around for a hook. He doesn’t find one and passes his hat between his hands.

“You found him,” says the man behind the desk. He leans further back in his chair and takes another sip of his coffee. “What d’you want?”

“I hear you need yourself a man gone after,” says Dean.

Phillips raises an eyebrow and sets his cup down. “You Bobby’s boy?” he asks.

“Yes, sir,” says Dean. “Name’s D—”

“Dean Winchester,” says Phillips. His face breaks into a smirk. “I know you, Lazarus.”

The squirrely one looks confused for a moment and turns to Phillips. “L-Lazarus?” he asks.

“You don’t know, Garth?” asks Phillips. “This man here came back from the dead. What was it again, son? Six? Seven highwaymen? Massacred the whole damn supply train you were s’posed to be guarding, I heard. All of them. ‘Cept you.”

“And my brother,” Dean corrects.

“Yeah, but he wasn’t the one who crawled out of his own grave,” says Phillips. Garth blanches, and when he swallows hard, the movement makes his cheeks look even gaunter than before.

Dean sets his jaw. “Bobby tell you all that?” he asks.

“Some, but not all,” says Phillips with a chuckle. “Your reputation precedes you, Marshal.”

Rain comes down over the tin roof, and Dean sets his gaze on the sheriff’s coffee cup, avoiding the man’s eyes. After a moment, he looks at Garth and sizes him up. "What happened to Carl?" he asks.

"Killed two months ago," says Phillips with a sigh. "Took a stray bullet to the knee, and then the sickness set in. To be honest, that's the reason I haven't gone after Allen myself. Got my hands tied making sure this one here knows what's what."

Garth sets his jaw and straightens up his spine. Dean can see his hands tighten into fists in an attempt at appearing more confident, rather than intimidating. "And I can assure you, sir, I will do everything in my power to live up to his good name and honor his mem—"

“I'm sure you will, son." Phillips cuts Garth off, his voice heavy with a tone of dismissal. He swings his legs off his desk, and Dean jumps when his boots hit the floor.

“Lately, there’s been some trouble with people getting held up on the road into town,” says Phillips as he stands. Phillips, it seems, can be straight to the point when it strikes him. Dean can appreciate that. “Up until now, people have been coming away with nothing worse than empty pockets and a gun pointed in their face.”

“But now, you’ve got yourselves a body,” says Dean.

“Now, we’ve got ourselves a body. You can see for yourself.” Phillips picks his hat up from his desk and motions with his head for Dean to follow him out the door. “C’mon, Garth. You need to see this too.”

The three men step outside, and Dean gives Baby a quick pat on the flank as he passes.

“Now, you probably passed the crossroads on your way into town, Marshal,” says Phillips. He turns up the collar on his jacket as he walks ahead. “That’s where we found him. Name’s Corbin Tilghman. T-i-l-g-h-man. When he wasn’t running shipping trains in and out of town, he was down at the saloon putting back drinks and picking fights with fellas twice his size. Real jumpy son of a bitch.”

Phillips leads the two of them down the block to a storefront with coffins in the front window, one of them occupied by a remarkably well-preserved corpse.

“Here,” says Phillips. “Be warned. It’s not pretty.”

Stepping inside, Dean is immediately hit with the indescribable stench of death, made all the worse by the damp interior. A young woman steps out from a back room, wiping her hands with a lightly soiled handkerchief. She’s lovely with intense brown eyes, but something about her immediately gives Dean the feeling that she wouldn’t be interested in a smile and wink from the stranger that just rolled into town.

Garth quickly takes off his hat. “Good afternoon, Miss Tessa.”

“Afternoon, Tess,” says Phillips.

“Good afternoon,” says the woman cautiously. She gives Dean a quick look up and down as she wrings the handkerchief in her hands, though they don’t seem to get any cleaner.

“This here’s Dean Winchester with the U.S. Marshals,” says Phillips. “We’re here to see Corbin.”

“Right this way,” says Tessa as she lifts up a section of the counter. She tucks the handkerchief into the waistband of her apron and smooths back her hair as the three of them pass and head into the back room. Glass-paneled cabinets line the walls, each full of large bottles full of a rainbow of colorful chemicals. There are more machines and tools than any kind of doctor’s office Dean’s been in, and a work table sits in the middle of the room. On it lies a figure draped in a white sheet, and it doesn’t take a bloodhound to know that it’s the source of the stench.

“You have good timing, Sheriff,” says Tessa, closing the door behind them. “His widow has been down here twice now asking when they can get the body back.”

“She can have him later today,” says Phillips. “I wanted the marshal to see him first. If you would?”

“Of course,” says Tessa. She comes around behind Dean and takes one corner of the sheet. She gives a quick look to Phillips for approval, then throws it back.

“Oh, god,” says Dean, recoiling. He hears Garth retch.

All of Corbin Tilghman’s blood has drained to where he lay on his back, leaving his skin pale and velvety looking. He’s starting to bloat in places, but most notably, there are two gaping holes where his eyes had once been. The wounds are black and blistered, and Dean suddenly understands where the nickname “Angel Face” had come from. Corbin looks like he’d had his eyes burned out by holy fire.

“Hell,” says Phillips. “Told you it wasn’t pretty. I never seen anything like this.”

Dean feels his heart drop into the pit of his stomach, but it’s not from squeamishness. “I have.”

“Come again?” asks Phillips.

“I’ve seen this once before,” says Dean. “Years ago.”

Dean gets up close to Corbin’s body and stares into his vacant eyes. “Since Bobby’s told you so much about me,” he says to Phillips. “He ever tell you about the time I came face to face with the outlaw Luke Scratch?”

“Y-you went up against Old Scratch himself?” asks Garth. “And you lived to tell about it?”

Dean rubs the back of his neck. “Well, he worked alone back then.”

“Damn. Still,” says Phillips, shaking his head.

"You've got an angel watching over you,” says Garth, awestruck.

“That,” adds Phillips, “or you made a deal with the Devil, boy.”

Dean swallows and looks at Tessa. “Any injuries?” he asks.

“Aside from the obvious,” says Tessa, crossing her arms. “There was a single shot in his left leg.”

“That’s how Scratch keeps his victims from running. He lames them,” says Dean. “You keep the bullet?”

“Right here,” says Tessa. She picks up a metal tray containing a small lead bullet and presents it to Dean. “The shot went straight through his femoral artery.”

“Looks like a forty-five,” he says. “He was only shot once?”

“Only the once.”

“Damn lucky shot,” says Phillips.

“Yeah, just not for poor Tilghman here,” says Dean.

“T-that,” stammers Garth, pointing to the gaping holes in Corbin’s face. He wipes a handkerchief over his mouth and swallows hard. “That were done when they was dead.”

Phillips cocks an eyebrow and turns to his deputy. “How do you figure?”

"Well, see,” says Garth, gesturing vaguely to Corbin’s body. “He ain't got an-any bruises or nothing. I'd fight like hell if a man tried to — to do that to me.”

“The trauma to the artery would have made him bleed out in a matter of minutes,” says Tessa. “The blood loss would have caused him to pass out even before that.”

"Well, Marshal?" asks Phillips. "That sound like your Devil?”

"Could be," says Dean. "The sorry bastards that Scratch blinded were always still alive, though."

"The shot through the artery very well could've been an accident," says Tessa.

"If that's the case," says Phillips, shaking his head, "then maybe that shot was lucky for Corbin after all."

"Seems like it," says Dean. "Did he carry a gun?"

"Civilians can't carry them in town," says Phillips. "Everyone out here has at least one hunting rifle, but I think he had a handgun as well."

"Where is it now?" asks Dean.

"It wasn't on the body," says Phillips. "Likely stolen, since I doubt he didn't have it on him."

"So," says Dean, taking a step back. He leans against one of the cabinets and crosses his arms and ankles. "That's Tilghman. What all do you know about Allen?"

"He seems to be the leader of the gang committing our recent crossroad robberies," says Phillips. "Been hearing about him for a couple of weeks, but it's like I said. There haven't been any deaths until now. He's got at least two accomplices, a man and a woman, but we don't have names for them."

“You got a description?" asks Dean.

"A few," says Phillips. "But they’re all conflicting. The only consensus is that he's a white man, somewhere between 25 and 40."

“Surely somebody’s seen them around. The local inn? Saloons? You don’t go through the trouble of robbing stagecoaches just to camp out in the woods.”

“Sorry, Marshal,” says Garth. “You know as much as we do now.”

"Helpful," murmurs Dean. "It doesn't help that Allen is also most likely an alias."

"Yep." Phillips crosses his arms over his chest. "And based on what you've told me, it's looking like it’s one of Scratch's."

Dean looks at the sick, sad corpse on the table and peers deep into the black pits where his eyes once were. He can't help but imagine how it must have smelled — like charred flesh and cooked meat — and a sour taste rises up in the back of his throat as his imagination fills in the hiss of hot iron through soft flesh.

“So it would seem,” says Dean, straightening his hat on his head. “How far outta town did you say that crossroads was?”

Later that afternoon, as the evening’s crickets have just begun to stir, Dean rides out to where Corbin’s body was found. It’s been a while since Dean’s really dug in and let Baby just run, but she takes to the turns and uneven hills of the trail like a dream. The dappled sunlight breaks through the cover of evergreens and scatters across the trail and over Baby’s inky coat and mane while cool mountain air rushes over Dean’s skin. For a moment, just before the two of them come to a break in the trees, Dean feels himself smile. He can’t remember the last time anywhere felt like home more than the leather of his saddle.

The woods open up to a clearing, surrounded on the sides by spruce trees and the outline of the slightly snow-capped mountains. Thin, gray clouds hang overhead, and just ahead, there is a trail cutting across the main path where the rain and passing wagon wheels have dug deep tracks into the rocky mud. Dean pulls Baby just off the road and dismounts, swinging his leg over her rump and dropping down onto the soft grass.

“Stay,” he says, dropping the get-down rope to the ground. Baby initially turns towards him and shakes her head, but she stays put. “That’s it. Good girl.”

While this particular stretch of the road isn’t particularly high traffic, it’s still been worked over enough to throw off any kind of trail. Dean can admit that he’s never been that great of a tracker, and Corbin’s been dead for days. Allen and his crew are likely several days ride ahead of him, though Dean’s made plenty of arrests with worst head starts in his day.

There’s a click from right behind him, and the first thing Dean can think is shit, maybe Bobby was right — he’s getting soft. The second thing he thinks is that he needs to plan his next move very, very carefully.

Dean slowly raises both hands by his sides when he feels the cold press of a barrel tip against his back. After a deep breath, he spins around and throws back his left shoulder into the gunman's right bicep, but before his attacker's gun even hits the ground, Dean feels a hard kick to the back of his bad knee. He goes down immediately and scrambles in the dirt as he tries to crawl away. A hand grabs him by the upper arm and yanks him off the ground. Dean is thrown onto his back, and before he can even get a good look at his assailant, he's being kissed hard on the mouth.

"Hey there, sweetheart. Miss me?"

Chapter Text

Then
^{(Five Years Earlier)}

The people of Sioux Falls all knew of Marshal Winchester. Dean was devilish and competent, if not too handsome for his own good. Folks said he’d dug his way out of his own grave after he’d been put there by a .45 when the wagon train he and his brother had been guarding on the trek from Yankton to Sioux Falls was ambushed. His brother Samuel — young but known to be generally trustworthy — claimed to have dug the shallow grave with his own bare hands. At least, so went the story. Regardless of who believed it or not, Marshal Winchester’s reputation preceded him with even small children sometimes wriggling free from their mother’s grasp to run up and poke and prod at the man everyone called Lazarus.

Lazarus wasn’t a difficult man to find. Locals knew that checking the district headquarters of the U.S. Marshal’s Service was a lost cause. Dean was far more likely to be seen around the widow Ellen Harvelle’s saloon, putting back one-bit whiskey or getting himself underfoot of either Mrs. Harvelle or her daughter Joanna, but more likely than that, he would be found in his brother’s law office. It was here where the gentleman from Illinois found the marshal on an April morning, some years ago.

Dean sat by the window, shuffling through arrest warrants and court documents when there was a soft knock at the door.

“Showtime, Sammy,” said Dean, nodding his head in the direction of the sound.

The iron bell above the door gently jingled, and Sam smoothed his hands over the front of his suit as he pushed back his chair to stand. A man about Dean’s age, give or take a few years, hesitantly stepped inside. He wore a gray wool suit with his hair a mess, no doubt from haphazardly removing the hat he fiddled with in his hands.

“Mr. Winchester?” the man asked.

“Yes?” said Sam and Dean in unison. The man knit his brow and looked between the two of them at Sam’s dark suit and the mud on Dean’s boots and decided to settle his gaze on Dean.

“Marshal Winchester?”

“You found him,” said Dean.

The man gave a quick nod and an unsure, one-sided smile to Sam then stepped further into the office. He stuck one hand inside his jacket pocket and fumbled for something.

“Marshal, my name is Cas Milton. I am here on the business of a man named Luke Scratch, last seen here in the Dakota Territory and responsible for the death of one Mr. Gabriel Milton.”

“Your kin, I reckon?”

Cas just calmly continued, going over his words as if they were carefully rehearsed. “There is currently a $300 reward for the apprehension of Mr. Scratch. He is to be taken into custody alive so that he—”

“Hang on,” said Dean as he held up a hand. “You got any paperwork? Is there even a proper warrant for this guy?”

Cas produced a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket, unfolded it, and held it out for Dean. Dean glanced at it then jerked his head in Sam’s direction. With a polite nod, Sam took the paper, unfolded it, then sat back down and leaned all the way back in his chair as he looked it over.

“I will admit you are far from the first man I have asked. The most I have heard is that the Marshals will get to him when it’s his turn. I figured I would take matters into my own hands,” Cas said. “So to speak.”

Sam looks up from the paper. “This is a bounty.”

“Yours if you accept my offer. I put forth the reward money myself, but I assure you, I can get you the official warrant for his arrest.”

Dean looked to his brother and set his jaw. It wouldn’t be the first time he or any other lawman went after a fugitive outside of the scope of the U.S. government, but bounty hunting was hard and dangerous and, in Dean’s experience, rarely worth the risk.

“Look,” Sam started, “Mr. Milton—”

“Three hundred ain’t enough for alive,” said Dean.

“Excuse me?” asked Cas.

“Dean,” said Sam under his breath.

“Bringing him back alive’s a two-man job. My guess is that’s part of the reason you’ve been having so much trouble getting someone to go after him. Once that three-hundred gets split both ways, it’s not enough for the trouble of tracking some bastard potentially all the way across the territory and bringing him back. That is if you can even get him back in the first place.”

“How do you mean?” Cas asked, cocking his head to the side and setting a stern look Dean’s way.

Dean sat back in his chair, folding his arms and letting his knees spread. “You said he’s wanted for murder? You tell me if a man like that would come easy if he knew he was just gonna have to sit through a trial and a hanging. Fugitives like that? They’d rather die with their boots on.”

“Well, as it were, it will be a two-man job.” Cas gripped his hat until his knuckles paled, and he straightened his spine. “I’ll be going with you.”

Dean laughed, a hard and mean thing. “Absolutely not,” he said.

“What’s so funny?” asked Cas, his brow furrowed.

“Absolutely not,” said Dean, sighing as he came down from his laugh. “I was even starting to think about taking the job, but I’m not even gonna entertain that.”

“Look,” Cas said, jaw tight. “I have asked ten men already. Now, I was referred to you by name because someone apparently made the misjudgment that you were man enough for the task.” His eyes dropped down to between Dean’s legs and back up, insinuating something. Dean crossed his legs.

Sam’s chair scraped against the floor, and he stepped around the desk. Standing perfectly straight, Sam was taller than Cas by nearly a head, but Cas made no sign of standing down. “Mr. Milton, I think it would be best if you—”

“Five hundred,” said Dean. Sam sighed and gave his brother a weary look.

Cas lifted his chin and looked as if he was hiding a smirk. “Four.”

“Deal,” Dean said, uncrossing his legs and letting his foot hit the floor loudly. “But your ass is staying here.”

“Then you won’t get any money upfront.”

“Sorry,” said Dean bitterly. “See, that’s not how this works.”

“I’m not going to just watch you ride off into the sunset, never to be seen again.”

“And I’m not bringing some greenhorn in a suit to apprehend a fugitive.”

“Then I believe we are at an impasse.”

Dean got to his feet to look the other man in the eye, craning his neck to make the most of the scant difference in height between them. Even so, Cas didn’t so much as blink. He was handsome enough, though with large features that he hadn’t seemed to have grown into yet — big eyes, full lips, a shave that wasn’t quite close enough. Dean felt himself shrinking a bit under Cas’ intense eyes, impossibly blue though perhaps a bit sad.

Dean looked away. “Can you ride?”

“I wouldn’t offer to go with you if I couldn’t.”

“You got a gun?”

Without taking his eyes off Dean, Cas pulled aside the front of his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster with what looked like the grip on either a Colt Peacemaker or maybe a Remmington.

Dean swallowed. “Can you hit anything with it?”

Cas scoffed at that, and Dean grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of Sam’s office, down the stairs through the downstairs shop, and into the street. Sam poked his head out of the second-story window, and Bobby and Rufus both leaned in the doorframe to watch the drama.

Dean pulled a mostly empty tin flask out of his jacket pocket and threw it into the street several yards away. “Shoot,” he said.

Cas rolled his eyes and took his time pulling his gun and lining up the shot. Steel-faced, he clicked back the hammer on his revolver and pulled, sending the flask flying across the ground with a loud ping. A few people poked their heads out of surrounding shops, and Cas dropped his head sheepishly and gave an apologetic wave. Dean grit his teeth and stomped over to the shop, slid between the two men, and grabbed a random glass bottle off one of the shelves.

“Put it on my account,” Dean grumbled as he stepped back into the street. He poured out the bottle’s contents at Cas’ feet, held the bottle in front of Cas’ face, and reared back to throw it high into the air. Cas shuffled his feet and took aim from the shoulder, waiting for the bottle to curve back down into a free-fall, and took his shot. The first missed, but on the second, the bottle exploded into a shower of broken glass. From the doorway, Rufus let out a low whistle.

“Crack shot,” Dean mumbled under his breath.

Cas holstered his gun and smoothed a hand over his hair, then down the front of his jacket. “Clay pigeon shooting every summer,” he said casually. It wasn’t lost on Dean that you don’t go trap shooting with a revolver.

“Yeah,” said Dean, “well, pigeons don’t shoot back.”

“It’d be rather alarming if they did.”

Dean fought back a grin, clearing his throat and running a hand over the back of his head. “Fine,” he said. “We leave out tomorrow morning. Be here before sunrise, and wear some damn boots.”

He turned and headed back inside, ignoring both Rufus and Bobby’s jeers and the small hint of a smile he caught on Cas’ face.

Dean snuck into the Harvelles’ saloon through the backdoor later that afternoon, carefully stepping around crates and sacks so as not to startle Jo. She stood at the sink with her back to Dean, and her pale blonde hair was a frizzy mess, pulled back off her face haphazardly. From behind, Dean could tell the front of her blouse and skirt were near completely soaked through. Even up to her elbows in dishwater with her hands raw from scouring powder she hummed to herself, occasionally lifting her voice into a light bit of singing. Dean couldn’t help but think she looked beautiful.

He crept up behind her and grabbed her waist with both hands, making her drop her pan into the water with a shrill yelp. Dirty water splashed up over the both of them, and Jo turned around and slapped Dean in the chest with a soapy rag.

“Dean Winchester!” she yelled. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Dean just laughed and let her go. He leaned back against the work table in the middle of the kitchen and hitched one ankle over the other. “Howdy, Jo,” he said.

“What do you want?” Jo asked, turning back to her dishes.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?” she asked. “You and every other man that walks in here.”

Dean smirked and dropped his chin to his chest, thinking of the last man that had one too many and practically begged Jo to marry him. She’d thrown his ass out into the street herself, and she wasn’t too nice about it, either. “No,” Dean said. “It’s not that.”

The doors between the kitchen and storage swung open. Jo’s mother Ellen walked past, carrying a sack of potatoes on her hip.

“Afternoon, Ellen,” said Dean. “Thought I’d come talk to Jo right quick.”

“Hey there, baby,” said Ellen, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “You got a knife?”

“Yes, ma’am. Got my pants on, don’t I?”

Ellen shoved the sack into his hands. “Then peel those if you’re gonna stand around and talk,” she said before turning and rushing back the way she came.

Dean set the sack on the table and pulled out his folding knife as Jo’s shoulders shook, stifling a laugh. “You shoulda’ known she’d put you to work,” Jo said.

“Yeah, should have,” said Dean, whittling away at the first of several potatoes. “And here I thought I was like a son to her.”

“You are, which is why you get chores,” said Jo. “Now, you gonna tell me what it is you want?”

“I got a man,” Dean said.

Jo snorted. “Is that right?”

“Shut up,” said Dean. “I got a man. Just came into town wanting me to go after some highwayman that killed a friend of his. Thing is, he refuses to stay behind. Says he needs to see that I’m not just gonna run off with his money. Now, I need an extra pair of hands to keep him out of trouble.”

“Ah,” said Jo, nodding and sounding a bit dispirited. “You need a nursemaid.”

Dean set aside his potato and knife and took Jo by the arm, turning her towards him. “I need someone I know I can rely on,” he said in earnest. “I need a partner.”

Jo looked at him with wide, wondrous eyes then laughed nervously. “What’s my cut?” she asked, hiding a grin.

“Twenty percent. We ride out tomorrow at daybreak.”

“Deal,” she said, and she gave Dean a light shove. “Don’t be late.”

Dean turned his watch face to the window and strained his eyes to read the time in a bit of moonlight — just past four o’clock. Dean wagered he had just over two hours until sunrise. It was cold that morning, and Dean shivered as he unfolded himself from his blankets and felt around for the oil lamp on the table between his bed and Sam’s. Sam’s bed creaked as he rolled over and threw an arm over his eyes to block the low light.

“Sorry, Sammy,” whispered Dean, hunched over and fumbling to step into his trousers. “Heading out for a while. Jo, too. Keep an eye on Bobby for me? Miss Jody and Ellen too?”

Sam grunted and mumbled something in response, and Dean chuckled to himself. Sam’s too-long hair was a mess, sticking out all which ways and plastered to his face, and there was a wet spot on his pillow where he’d been drooling in his sleep.

“‘Course you will,” said Dean. “See ya, kid.”

Dean pulled on his boots and slung the bedroll and the saddlebags he’d packed last night over his shoulder. With one last look around the room for anything he missed, Dean turned down the lamp and blew out the last bit of light.

Dean rode out to the bridge over the western section of the Big Sioux River. Baby was restless and eager, and the extra zeal in her step jostled Dean a bit in his saddle. At the end of the bridge, just before the road opened up to the frontier, was the soft glow of a rider holding up a lantern to watch Dean approach.

“‘Bout time you showed up,” said Jo as she lowered the lantern and readjusted her grip on her reins. Dean recognized her clothes as being mostly his teenage hand-me-downs, cuffed or tucked in where the sleeves or trousers were too long for her. She kept her large, black and white shawl wrapped around her like a jacket, and she belted it with her father's gun belt. From under the wide, flat brim of her hat, she looked a bit pale with tired, red eyes.

“Damn, Jo,” said Dean. “How much sleep did you get last night?”

“Enough,” she said, shrugging one shoulder. Her horse Ghost — a blue-eyed gelding Dean had helped her pick out years ago — nickered at Baby and dipped his head to nudge and sniff at her. Jo leaned forward and patted his neck then said, “Mama’s gonna have some choice words for you when we get back.”

“She give you any trouble about taking off from the saloon?” asked Dean.

Jo bit her lip and looked out into the distance. “I left her a note,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Told her I was going off with you. Probably thinks we’re eloping,” she said, forcing an uneasy laugh at the end.

“Don’t know if she’d be happy about that or not,” said Dean.

A small, genuine grin flickered across Jo’s face. “Me either,” she said. “Guess we’ll find out, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Jo looked up over Dean’s shoulder and lifted her chin. “Heads up.”

Dean turned Baby around just in time to see Cas coming up over the bridge, riding a buckskin horse. Per Dean’s suggestion, he did in fact wear proper boots — gloves too. Dean mumbled thanks to no one in particular that Cas appeared well-outfitted for riding, though his ability in the saddle was still yet to be seen. Jo was a bit green herself when it came to long trips, but Dean knew she wouldn’t bitch and moan when it got rough. He just hoped Cas would be the same.

“Mornin’,” Dean called out.

“Good morning,” said Cas as he approached. He nodded politely to the both of them but had a question in his eye. “Marshal. Miss ... ?”

“This here’s Jo,” said Dean. “Jo, this is Cas. Cas Milton.”

“Miss ‘Jo’,” Cas said, reaching up to tip his hat. He turned to Dean. “You made it seem like you typically work alone.”

Dean placed one hand over the other on his saddle’s horn and tossed his head to the side. “I do,” he said. “Jo’s here to keep you out of my hair.”

Cas looked briefly to Jo, giving her a quick once over, then sighed and turned back to Dean. “Very well,” he said, and he handed Dean a slip of paper he’d pulled from his vest pocket. “Our rate stays the same, however.”

“‘Course,” said Dean, looking down at the paper. “The hell’s this?”

“A bank check,” said Cas. “You can cash it at the Citizen’s National when we get back. Five hundred dollars, just as we promised.”

“You said the whole damn reason you were coming out here was ‘cause I was getting paid up front,” said Dean, feeling his temper rising.

Cas just grinned and urged his horse to walk on. “C’mon, Marshal,” he said over his shoulder. “Only so many hours in a day.”

Jo dug in her heels and started off after Cas. “You heard the man,” she said, sounding amused.

Dean crumpled the check in his fists but stopped just shy of tearing it. Not needing any encouragement from Dean, Baby started after the other horses, falling into formation just behind Ghost. They rode for the first several hours like that, one right after the other, no one bothering to talk. The singing of the frogs on the banks of the river slowly faded as they rode, eventually being replaced by morning songbirds. The sky slowly lightened and turned an array of dreamy colors as the sun came up behind them. Dean sat back in his saddle and forced himself to get used to staring at the back of Jo and Cas’ heads. He had a feeling he was going to be seeing little else for a long while.

Chapter Text

Now

“Miss me?”

Dean hawks back and spits in Cas’ face.

“Alright,” says Cas, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I suppose I deserved that.”

With one of Cas’ hands out of the way, Dean takes his opportunity and throws his elbow into Cas’ jaw. The angle is odd and he doesn’t get enough power behind it to do any real damage, but it gives him an opening. Dean flops onto his stomach and crawls towards where Cas’ pistol landed, kicking and clawing through the mud, but Cas is back on him in a second.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he says. Cas climbs over top of him and gets his arm around Dean’s neck. He flexes his bicep, and it’s just enough to restrict the flow of blood to Dean’s head. Cas’ other hand is firm against the back of Dean’s head as he begins to count down. “Ten, nine....”

Instinctually, Dean’s hands fly up to Cas’ forearms to try and pry him off. Before he can think to try and reach back and grab Cas by the family jewels, Cas wraps his legs around Dean’s and rolls them so that they’re both on their back with Cas using Dean’s body to protect his own.

“Eight,” says Cas, and the bastard sounds bored. “Seven, six....”

Dean struggles and fights to kick his legs — to buck or break Cas’ hold or something — but he can feel his grip weaken as his vision turns spotty.

“—ive. Shh, that’s it. F—”

Dean’s hands fall from Cas’ arm. The sky overhead is gray, and it’s getting darker.

“Three....”

When Dean comes to, he’s on his knees. There’s a man behind him tying his wrists together. It’s a damn good knot, too. Dean keeps his head down as he wriggles against the rope, trying to twist his hands and find any kind of loose spot or opening he can slip through later but finds none. He’s got a few knives on him, one hidden in his boot and another in a sheath against his back. If the person behind him looks away, Dean can maybe get to one of them. From in front of him, there’s the click of a hammer being pulled back and the sound of another pair of boots in the wet grass. There is a third person; this complicates things.

Dean watches as Cas' boots come to a halt in front of him. He crouches down on one knee and nudges the star on Dean’s belt with a knuckle.

"Well, well, well. Evening," he says, pausing to pretend to read Dean's badge, "Marshal."

“How long was I out?” asks Dean through gritted teeth.

“About twenty seconds,” says Cas. He dips his head and tries to catch Dean’s gaze, but Dean squeezes his eyes shut. He can admit to himself that he's too afraid to look this ghost from the past in the eye. As he keeps his head down, he wonders which would be worse: if he doesn't recognize anything of the man in front of him, or if he's all too familiar? Either way could get him in a hell of a lot more trouble.

Cas stands with an exasperated sigh and lifts his foot until the toe of his boot touches the underside of Dean's chin. He tilts Dean's head up and says, “It’s rude not to look at someone when they’re talking to you.”.

Dean takes a deep breath to steel his nerves, purses his lips, and opens his eyes. The first thing he sees is that he’s staring down the wrong end of a very familiar Remington 1875 — blue steel, walnut grip. Dean always did like that gun, but he finds he likes it a lot less right about now. The man behind him — a tall black man in a fringe buckskin jacket — comes around to his front and rubs his hands together, looking Dean over and sizing him up. Three horses outfitted for the trail stand nearby, including Cas’ old horse Sera. A pale wisp of a woman in black stands with them, and she has Baby by the reins, struggling to keep her still as Baby bucks her head and stamps her feet. And Cas—

Cas is a sight. Even caked in mud from where he wrestled Dean to the ground, Cas still carries himself as an absolute gentleman. His beard has grown into an even layer of scruff, and Dean spies a single gold hoop dangling from one ear, but everything else is so familiar it leaves Dean with his mouth hung open. Cas lowers his gun from where it’s pointed in Dean’s face with a showy twirl, and takes a few steps back, shifting so his weight is on one hip. He readjusts his hat over his rucked-up hair and wipes the blood from his split lip with the pad of his thumb. All the while, he never takes his eyes off Dean.

The woman yelps as Baby snaps her teeth at her, and Dean mumbles “good girl” under his breath.

“Gordon!” says the woman. “A little help here, cowboy?”

Gordon makes a move to start toward her, but Cas stops him with a raised hand and passes him his pistol. “Watch him,” he says. Gordon nods, and he keeps Cas’ gun pointed at Dean as Cas heads toward the horses.

Blood raises up into Dean’s face as the woman jerks Baby’s head around, but Cas calmly takes the reins from her. “Thank you, Meg,” Cas says quietly, almost tenderly. “I’ll take it from here.”

Baby stamps her feet and pulls away at first, but Cas is gentle as he smooths a hand over her neck, repeating “shh, easy Baby” in a whisper. Baby lets Cas pet her muzzle as he ties her off to his own horse. She must remember him, and Dean has to look away from the way Cas smiles at her.

“Well, Em?” asks Gordon as Cas approaches. “What do you wanna do with him?”

“Hm,” says Cas, crouching down again to Dean’s level. “Haven’t decided yet.”

“You’re not gonna kiss me again?” asks Dean, just quiet enough for only Cas to hear. The crack earns him a sharp slap across the face, but Dean just smirks and takes it.

“Get up,” orders Cas, and he grips Dean’s arm so hard that Dean bets he’ll have bruises. Cas jerks him to his feet and immediately starts to pat Dean down. He pulls the Colt from Dean’s holster first and passes it back to Gordon, then Dean’s handcuffs. Without even having to look for it, Cas crouches down and pulls the folding knife from Dean’s boot. He passes the knife back as well then makes his way up Dean’s legs, grinning a bit too much for Dean’s liking as he runs the backs of his hands up the insides of Dean’s calves, knees, then thighs. Cas looks him dead in the eyes right as he grabs hold of Dean’s ass with both hands.

“Alright,” mumbles Dean. “Easy.”

Cas pats his hands upward one more time, and he pulls the antler-handled hunting knife from the back of Dean’s trousers. He slips it from its sheath and eyes it appreciatively, then hooks it onto his own belt.

“That’s mine,” says Dean.

“Well,” says Cas, “it was mine first.”

He backs away and reaches out his hand to Gordon, who hands over Cas’ pistol. “We’ll take him to camp for now. Mr. Walker,” he says. “Miss Masters. Please help the marshal onto his horse.”

Meg and Gordon look to one another. Gordon opens his mouth to say something, but Meg glares up at him and says, “You heard him.”

There’s a moment before Gordon takes ahold of him where Dean has half a mind to break into a run. That idea is immediately quashed when Gordon grabs hold of Dean’s arm with astonishing grip strength.

“I can’t ride without my hands,” says Dean.

“Yeah, you can,” says Cas dismissively as he throws his leg over the back of his horse. He tugs on the knot tying Baby to him to check it.

Dean’s knee is on fire as he’s manhandled over to Baby. Without his hands for balance, he leans forward and accidentally puts his weight on his saddle’s horn, driving it into the soft part of his stomach. Cas gives a quick glance behind him then digs his heels into Sera’s side, and Baby follows dutifully as they move out. Gordon, riding a bay horse, comes up Dean and Cas’ left and takes the lead with Meg right behind him. Occasionally, she looks back over her shoulder at Cas then turns her cold, dark eyes to Dean. She looks him up and down then turns away, apparently not thinking much about what she sees.

They head out perpendicular to the way Dean came from, well off of the main road to and from Cold Oak. It’s unbearably quiet the whole way, save for Gordon occasionally whistling a tune to the beat of the horse hooves in the mud. Dean’s back, hips, and thighs start to ache, and he leans his head back to stare at the sky — anything to keep from watching Cas’ back. The outline of two vultures, black against the clouds, circle silently above. They’re waiting for him, he thinks. They know he’s already dead. Dean should have known that out of everything, Cas Milton always was going to be the thing that got him killed.

By Dean’s estimate, they turn off of the road about an hour later. There’s a faint trail through the woods made of little more than two tracks of dirt through tall, wild grass. The path goes alongside a rocky scarp, about five feet tall and overgrown with roots and mosses. After a short while, they come around a bend in the path. It’s completely dark out, but Dean can see the remnants of a small fire glowing in a patch of fallen trees. Gordon leads them toward it, drops down from his horse, and ties it off to a tree. As Meg and Cas do the same, Gordon comes around and pulls Dean from Baby. Cas leads her off with Sera, and Gordon leads Dean toward the fire.

To call it a camp would be generous. There’s some line tied off with rain slickers and blankets draped over them as makeshift tents. Three sets of bedding are laid out, and one of the nearby fallen trees has been hauled in front of the campfire as a bench. Dean gets a very bad, sinking feeling of dread when he sees an iron poker propped right up next to the fire pit, ready to be set in the flames to burn red hot.

“The hell you starin’ at?” asks Gordon as he jerks him away.

Cas takes a seat in front of the fire and pokes it to urge it back to life. Meg pulls a length of rope from Gordon’s horse and follows him as he takes Dean to a nearby tree.

“Oh, shut up,” she says as Dean thrashes in Gordon’s grasp. “Hanging you would be too much trouble.”

“Get comfy, Marshal,” says Gordon, shoving Dean to the ground. As he holds Dean down, Meg finishes off the rope securing him to the trunk.

“What if I have to take a piss?” Dean asks her.

“That sounds like a personal problem,” she replies.

“Enough,” says Cas over his shoulder. Despite the damp surroundings, the fire has come somewhat back to life. “Don’t talk to him.”

“Fine,” says Meg. She kicks Dean’s boot and tromps over to take a seat next to Cas. Dean can’t hear what she says to him.

The mud on Dean’s clothes and in his hair has mostly dried, but it’s still cold outside of the range of the fire. If he sticks his leg out as far as it can go, he can just barely feel its warmth creeping up past his ankle. Cas and his companions mostly ignore him. Cas disassembles and meticulously cleans his gun while Gordon goes over the contents of his saddle bags. Meg occasionally glances over her shoulder to make sure Dean’s still there, but by and large, it’s quiet. The three of them make something to eat over the fire, and its smell reminds Dean of warm beds and Jody’s cooking back in Sioux Falls.

After the meal, as they wind down for the evening, Gordon walks over and crouches in front of Dean. He holds up a bit of camp bread, still warm and smelling of a hint of bacon grease, but Dean just turns away and curls in on himself.

“Suit yourself,” says Gordon with a smile. He takes a bite and turns back to camp.

Dean brings his knees up to his chest as best he can and lets his head fall forward to rest on them. He doesn’t want to think about how many hours he’s been awake, but they’re catching up to him. Despite everything, the sounds of the forest and the crackling of the fire are soothing. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he’s somewhere else, maybe having a late-night drink with Bobby and Sam or sleeping under the stars with Jo by his side. He presses his cheek against his knee, squeezes his eyes shut, and dreams.

He’s on his horse. Sam is there, right by his side, and the two of them joke and laugh with each other as the supply caravan rolls past. Dean keeps his hand on his pistol, but as far as he can tell, it’s quiet all around. A wagon up the trail blows a wheel in a pit of mud, and the cracking of wood echoes in Dean’s ears. In the scramble to get it unstuck, a shot goes off in the distance. There’s a scream, and that’s one person dead.

A band of men on horses comes up over the hill. More shots go off. Two, three people dead. Four. Five.

Sam is nowhere to be seen. Draft horses cry out and fight against their lines and harnesses. Ten people dead. Dean tries to pull a man out of the line of fire, but he gets a bullet through the neck. As he dies, his blood gets on Dean’s face.

Nineteen people dead. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two dead. Twenty-two and Dean, the light breaking above him. Dirt in his mouth. Lead in his chest. Ghosts in his ears, pulling on him. Dragging him down.

Lazarus, the ghosts whisper. Their sharp tongues flick over his skin, burning with a million small cuts. Oh, Lazarus. Lazarus.

La-a-a-zarus....

“Dean?”

Dean wakes with a start, and he coughs and spits, but the only thing that comes out is saliva. He’s above ground. His shoulders ache, and the rope cuts into his wrists when he tries to move his arms. Cas is seated just in front of him with his back turned. He’s in silhouette with only a thin outline visible from the low, smoldering fire. There’s something in his hands, and he tilts his head as he fiddles with it.

“Are you awake?” he asks in a low voice.

Dean rolls and cracks his neck. “Yeah. Am now.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No,” Dean lies. It’s been a long time since his cold dinner on the train wore off.

Cas tosses a damp twig onto the embers, and it hisses and foams as the moisture burns out. He runs a hand through his hair and pulls the wool blanket around his shoulders tighter. The forest around them practically buzzes with the sound of insects, and, in a nearby tree, a bird makes a soft call like a whinnying horse.

Cas lifts his head and listens. “A screech-owl. Can you hear it? The way it trills?” When Dean doesn’t say anything, Cas sighs and stands. He steps around the fallen log and plops himself down on the ground on the other side. He leans back against it and kicks out one leg. If Dean did the same, their legs would brush against each other. Cas doesn’t say anything; he just sits and stares, his eyes tired and heavy.

"So,” says Dean after far too many seconds of silence.

“So?”

“This is what you do now? Murder?"

Cas chuckles, and it sounds like a scoff. "You talk as if you've never killed a man."

"Only ones that pulled first," says Dean.

"Then we have that in common.”

"Bullshit,” spits Dean. His throat burns from trying to keep his voice in a harsh whisper. “Corbin Tilghman. Remember him? You burned his eyes out, Cas."

Cas sets his jaw, and the movement of muscle pulls the corners of his mouth into the slightest hint of a grin. The firelight sets the side of his face alight in a flickering, red glow. "You got handsome," he says.

"Go to Hell."

"Planning on it." Cas flicks a bit of dried mud off his trousers. "So long as the Devil gets there first."

"Aw shit, Cas," says Dean. "You're not still hung up on him, are you?"

"You're talking about the man who maimed and killed my brother."

"I'm talkin'—” Dean pauses to look around and lower his voice. “—about the most dangerous man this side of the damn Mississippi."

"Who you went after alone,” says Cas, “bringing about this little reunion."

Dean shakes his head and gazes at the ground between his knees. "That's different," he says.

"How so?"

"Because you're gonna get yourself killed."

"If I'd really been the Devil like you believed, you would be dead already."

"Well, you know me. Dying never did really ever stick. 'Sides.” Dean lets his head fall back against the tree and stares at the stars through the canopy above. “I don't know that I really care what happens to me anymore."

"So you care what happens to me, then."

"What?"

"You think it was perfectly fine for you to pursue Scratch since you don't care about your own wellbeing, but it's foolish for me to do the same. I can only gather, then, that you—"

"Alright, alright.” Dean shifts uncomfortably. “I get it."

"It isn't a crime to care for others, Dean."

Dean glances across the fire at the two sleeping bodies. "You care for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern over there?"

"Yes."

"You're gonna get them killed."

"Maybe so.” Cas shrugs a shoulder. “It wouldn't be news to them."

Dean balks. “So, that’s what it’s all still about. After all these years. You say you care about others, but really it’s all just about one man.”

Cas turns his head away and squints at nothing in particular. He works his teeth over his bottom lip.

Dean sighs. "Scratch ain't workin' alone."

"I know," says Cas, staring off into the night. "He's found himself a posse. They call themselves the Horsemen, after the Book of Revelation. Four harbingers of the end of times and the Devil himself."

Dean swears under his breath. "Shit. What do you know about them?"

"Only that they're all as ruthless as Scratch, in their own ways. They're seasoned. At least two of them have been at this since the war when you and I were still wearing knickerbockers."

"You know there's no such thing as an old outlaw."

Cas smiles that crooked grin of his. "You're a betting man," he says. "Are you willing to bet on that?"

Dean bites his tongue. Another owl calls out into the night, this time a hoot rather than a whinny.

“What’s that one?” asks Dean.

“A great horned owl.”

“Oh.”

The owl cries out again, it’s mournful call echoing through the dark. Cas reaches into his coat, pulls a hand-rolled cigarette out of a filigreed case, and strikes a match against the side of it.

Dean lifts his chin in the direction of Meg and Gordon. “You plan on tellin’ them we’re—”

“Lovers?”

Dean grits his teeth. “Acquainted,” he corrects.

Cas lights his cigarette, and the flame reflects back in his eyes. He crosses his legs as he smokes, holding the cigarette between two fingers like a woman. On the exhale, Dean is hit with a waft of familiar smelling smoke, including the faint note of vanilla Cas always preferred.

“Now, why would I do that?” Cas asks.

“‘Cause they’re gonna start asking questions,” says Dean. “Like ... why does my horse like you? Why am I not dead yet? I mean, what’s the plan, Cas? What are you going to do with me, really?”

“I told you,” he says with a wry grin. “I’m still thinking.”

Cas holds out his cigarette in front of him. It goes against Dean’s better judgment to indulge Cas like this, but he nods anyway. He can feel the warmth of Cas’ hands in front of his face, and his dry lips barely brush against Cas’ fingers as he inhales.

“I think,” says Dean as he blows out smoke, “if you were going to kill me, you’d have done it by now.”

“Is that so?” asks Cas. He sits back down. “Nothing gets past you. Except three people just behind a treeline, waiting to ambush whoever next came across a crossroads.”

Dean opens his mouth to say something, but he comes up short.

“You never were that great of a tracker,” says Cas with a chuckle. “You focus too much on the path ahead and go blind to everything around you.”

“Well,” says Dean. “I guess we have that in common too.”

“Don’t try and be clever, Marshal. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Still. You know I always find my man.”

“I bet you do,” says Cas, clearly amused. He stubs out his cigarette and slips it back in his case to be finished later. “You should get some real sleep. We’re heading out in the morning.”

As Cas stands and stretches, Dean struggles against his restraints, desperate to get comfortable in preparation for a long night. The mud underneath him soaks into the seat of his trousers. As the night breeze brushes up against the damp material, it sends a chill through Dean’s body.

“Well, goodnight,” says Cas. He curls his blanket around himself as he turns to head back to his bedroll, but he only takes one step before he stops. He drops the blanket from his shoulders, tucks it around Dean as best he can, and walks away without another word.

Chapter Text

Then

They only rode for twenty miles that first day. If it had just been Dean by himself, he could have easily doubled that, but he thought he’d attempt to extend an olive branch and ease Cas into things. At first, at least, and if not for Cas, then for his poor horse Seraphim.

The slow progress and frequent stops made Dean’s skin itch but seemed to keep Cas quiet, and Dean decided early in the day that his restless feeling was preferable to any kind of argument. Especially when the three of them had nothing but miles of flat, open plains ahead of them. It was only that evening, well after both camp and supper had been made, that Cas said something.

“Marshal?” he asked.

“Hm?” Dean was already laid out on his bedroll with his hat placed over his face and his hands folded across his chest.

“Do you think we’ll be able to make better progress tomorrow?

Dean peeked out from under his hat. Across the fire, Jo ran her fingers through her loose hair to rebraid it and chuckled to herself. 

“I only ask because, by my figuring, we’ll be making it to Provenance a whole day later than necessary if we keep at the pace we’ve been going.” 

“Well,” said Dean. “That all depends on you.”

“I am not the one leading this particular outfit,” said Cas. 

“Really? Could've fooled me.”

“Dean,” chided Jo with a bit of amusement in her voice. 

“We’ll get there when we get there,” said Dean. “If you think you can handle a tougher ride, we’ll pick up the pace come mornin’. But it’s on you if you can’t handle it.”

“That’s all I ask,” said Cas.

The night breeze carded through the tall grass and kicked up a cloud of orange embers from the fire. They swirled around against the deep night sky like a flock of birds then faded away as they blew across the plains. A chorus of crickets cried out around them, and Dean tilted his hat all the way back to look at the stars as he listened.

“Hey, Jo?” asked Dean. “When we get back, do you think Ellen’s gonna kill me a lot, or only just a little bit?”

Jo laughed and had to restart her braid. “You? Only a little bit. I’m definitely going to get the worst of it.”

“Yeah, she always did like me better.”

Jo picked up a pebble and chucked it over the fire in Dean’s direction. “I can hear her now. ‘Joanna Beth Harvelle!’”

“Always gotta use the full name,” said Dean with a chuckle. “My old man could be a hateful son of a bitch, but even he didn’t call me Dean Milton.”

Cas lifted his head and looked to Jo. “Sorry, but did you say Harvelle? Like Bill Anthony Harvelle?”

“Oh boy, here we go," said Dean. He pulled down his hat to cover his eyes and crossed his arms.

“My father," said Jo. She bent her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees.

“Really?” asked Cas. “Why he was the most wanted man in the territory before....”

“Go on," said Dean, not deigning to look out from under his hat.

“Before he was apprehended by the famous bounty hunter ... John Winchester.”

The three of them sat in silence. Jo picked up one of her braids and ran her fingers through the end.

“I didn’t really know him,” Jo said after a while. “Doesn’t really matter, I guess.”

For a moment, Cas sat and watched her. His hand twitched, but he stayed still until Jo dropped her arms from around her knees and uncurled from herself. He scooted closer to her and held out his hand for her to take.

“Well, it is a pleasure to properly meet you, Joanna Harvelle,” Cas said, and he kissed the top of her hand. He glanced over to Dean. “I’m looking forward to making some real progress tomorrow, though I admit I do wish we had some music during the day. Something so it isn’t so quiet.”

“Jo here can sing,” said Dean.

“Oh, really?” asked Cas. “Would you, Miss Harvelle?”

“You don’t gotta call her that, you know?”

Jo glared at him under her hat, then turned back to Cas. “At least one of you is a gentleman.”

“Hah!” Dean laughed. “I bet. Doesn’t exactly make you a lady, though.”

“I just sing in church sometimes is all,” said Jo. “I doubt you’d want to hear it.”

“Actually, I’d like to hear that very much,” said Cas. “Would you sing something now?”

As Jo cleared her throat and sat up straight, Dean laid back and made himself as comfortable as possible.

“My latest sun is sinking fast. My race is nearly run. My strongest trials now are past. My triumph hath begun. O-o-oh come, angel band. Come and around me stand. Oh, bear me away on your snow-white wings to my immortal home."

If Cas wanted to play lawman and pick up the pace, then so be it. Dean would oblige him. As Jo sang, Dean let his eyes drift closed until he fell asleep the best way he knew — under a blanket of stars while listening to his favorite sound on God's green Earth.

"Oh, bear me away on your snow-white wings to my immortal home.”

Chapter Text

Now

There isn’t a muscle in Dean’s body that isn’t sore when he wakes up. He’s still covered head to toe in mud, though thankfully both it and the ground beneath him have dried overnight. The morning sun pokes through the evergreens to the east, and Dean squints and turns away to keep from looking directly into the glare. The others are already awake and seem to have been for a while. The aroma of camp coffee and something savory being reheated over the fire hits Dean’s nostrils, and he’s so hungry that the smell makes him feel nauseated.

Aside from the breakfast, everything from the camp has been packed away. The wool blanket Cas threw around him is already rolled up and fitted to the back of his horse’s saddle. Cas sits by the fire, occasionally stirring the pot sitting in the coals or taking a sip of his coffee. At some point, while Dean was out, Cas changed out of his muddy clothes and rinsed the dirt from his face. The other two stand by the horses, doing some last-minute packing up. Gordon reties the rope between Baby and Sera and gives it a tug for reassurance while Meg tosses a snapsack of supplies over her horse’s rump. She glares at Dean out of the corner of her eye as she does so, occasionally glancing back to Cas. When the sack is secured, she steps over to Cas and nudges him on the shoulder.

“Em, can I talk to you?” she asks, glancing over at Gordon. “Alone?”

Cas stands with a nod and brings his coffee with him as they walk off into the woods and disappear. Gordon watches them go then drops his chin to his chest and chuckles. He gives the saddle strap underneath his horse a yank, then makes his way over towards Dean and plops down onto the fallen log, bent over with his arms resting on his knees.

“Good mornin’, Marshal,” he says.

“Is it?” asks Dean, and it makes Gordon laugh again.

“Sure it is,” asks Gordon. “You’re above ground, aren’t you?”

“Just not by much,” he says, and he shifts a bit to try and get some feeling back in his hips and backside.

“You know,” says Gordon, “I think I like you, Marshal.”

“If you really liked me, you’d untie me.”

“Oh, he’s funny. You got a name?”

“No.”

“Smart, too.”

Gordon smooths a hand over his goatee, and a grin cracks across his face. He sits up a bit then slumps down to Dean’s level, sitting crosslegged with his back against the log. “You see those two?” he asks as he jerks his head in the direction Cas and Meg headed. “It’s always like this. Always the odd man out.”

Dean leans his head to the side to try and see over Gordon’s shoulder, but Meg and Cas are long out of view. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

Gordon shrugs. “You, probably. Wondering why Em won’t let her just put a bullet in your ass and be done with it. Never did know her to question the big man’s orders, though.”

“How do you mean?”

“Masters was already with Allen well before I came along, and, well, let’s just say I think she’s ridin’ his dick in more ways than one.”

“Oh,” says Dean.

“A-a-always running off to Daddy,” Gordon says with a laugh. He fiddles with his pocket knife as he talks, running it under his nails to dig the dirt out. “She’ll figure it out one day, though. You know what I mean?”

“Can’t say I do,” says Dean as he rolls his head and tries to crack his neck.

“That in this life, you can’t rely on nobody but yourself,” Gordon says. He looks up to meet Dean’s gaze, and his eyes are dark and endless. “One day, you’re gonna be in deep shit and Daddy isn’t gonna be there.”

“Y’know,” says Dean. “Maybe I do know what you mean.”

“‘Course you do,” says Gordon. “Cause folks like you and me? We’re smart. We look after ourselves. Though, no offense, one of us is currently doing a better job at it.”

“None taken, but I gotta ask. Why are you telling me any of this?”

“I told you. I like you,” says Gordon. He takes the canteen from his hip and throws his head back as he takes a long drink, then he holds it out. “Thirsty?”

“Yes, actually,” Dean admits. If Gordon wants to act like his friend, then Dean is more than willing to let him; it might be beneficial down the road to have some kind of ally in this mess.

Gordon walks over on his knees and waterfalls some of his water into Dean’s mouth, and half of it dribbles down his chin and onto his shirt. It’s not much at all, but it’s nice to have something in his stomach. His stomach growls about that same time, and Dean ducks his head and says, “I’d rather you not hand feed me if it’s all the same to you.”

“Hey, fair enough,” says Gordon, and he sits back down. “So, where you from, Marshal?”

“Dean.”

“Is that right?” says Gordon. “Well, where’s home, Dean?”

“Lawrence,” says Dean after thinking about it for a moment. “Lawrence, Kansas.”

“No shit? I was born in a little shack along the Missouri River. How’d you make it all the way up here?”

Before Dean can answer, a pair of footsteps approach. Gordon gets to his feet and dusts the forest floor from the seat of his pants. Cas and Meg walk back to camp, and Meg pointedly does not look in Dean’s direction once.

“Move his hands in front,” says Cas. He reaches behind him and tosses Dean’s cuffs to Gordon, who catches them one-handed. “Let him eat something, then we’ll head out.”

Meg stands and watches from afar with her hand resting delicately on her gun as Gordon undoes the knot and readjusts Dean’s arms. Being able to relax his shoulders feels so good that Dean’s eyes water. He isn’t allowed the luxury of rubbing his raw wrists, however, before Gordon clamps Dean’s own cuffs on him.

He’s allowed the leftovers from breakfast — pintos and salt pork with some crushed-up biscuit. It’s a bit thick where it sat over the fire for a while, but the crisp, burnt bits are surprisingly not that bad. Gordon lets him take another drink from his canteen, and then it’s time to move out.

They fall back into the formation as they ride, with Gordon and his horse taking the lead. Gordon guides them along the trampled path through the woods until it opens up to a rocky, uneven slope down into a valley of tall grasses and patches of wildflowers still hanging onto summer. It’s cool, but bright. The sun hangs directly overhead, hidden behind a high layer of wispy, feather-like cirrus clouds. Their progress is slow and ambulatory, and Dean can’t feel much from the waist down.

Gordon taps out a beat against his thigh, and he spends much of the journey singing the occasional spiritual or gospel tune to himself. Without Jo, it’s been a long time since Dean’s had music on the trail. Gordon’s mumbled singing ends up being a welcome relief from the cold silence from his other two captors, but the moments when Gordon is quiet are excruciating. After a while, Dean can’t take it anymore, and he leans forward to get Cas’ attention.

“You gonna tell me where the hell you’re taking me?” he says in a harsh whisper.

Cas looks at him over his shoulder and pulls back on Sera a bit to let Meg and Gordon walk on ahead. “Does it matter?” he asks. For a beat, he doesn’t say anything else, but then he rolls his head on his shoulders and adds, “I suppose you’ll find out soon enough.”

Meg looks back over her shoulder and smirks. “Thought we weren’t supposed to talk to him?” she calls back.

“You two aren’t,” he says, and that seems to be the final word on that.

At the end of the clearing, just behind another patch of evergreens is a small creek where they stop to water the horses and refill their canteens. Cas keeps stealing glances at Dean over his shoulder, but it’s another hour after they move out again before he speaks.

“How is Sam?” he asks quietly. He’s pulled his horse back to ride alongside Dean, rather than in front of him. “Does he still have his practice?”

Dean doesn’t reply; he just keeps his head down.

“You’re working alone?” Cas asks hesitantly. “Where’s Miss Harvelle?”

Dean clenches his fist around the reins and then forces it to relax. “Mount Pleasant Cemetery,” he says.

Cas goes pale. “Oh.”

“Not too long after you left.”

“Dean,” Cas says. He drops a hand from his reins and almost makes the mistake of reaching over to Dean, but he pulls back at the last minute. “I’m so—”

“Don’t,” says Dean. “You’re probably the last person I want sympathy from. You betrayed us, remember?”

Cas seethes, his shoulders clenching up around his neck. “Should I even bother trying to explain myself? Because I have a feeling you’ve already decided you’re not going to believe me.”

“Oh, I’m never going to believe you about anything ever again. That’s for damn sure.”

Cas looks straight ahead with a huff. “How’s your knee, at least? After I—”

“After you kicked the shit out of it yesterday?” spits Dean. “Terrible, thanks.”

“That was ... a low blow,” says Cas. “Dean, I never intended for you to get hurt all those years ago. It just ... happened that way.”

“Hurt?” Dean scoffs. “Cas, you’re lucky I didn’t lose my whole damn leg!”

“I’d say you’re the one that’s lucky. It would have made no real difference to me one way or the other. It just would have a shame, is all.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself.”

“I'm serious. Would it make a difference if I said I was sorry? Truly, deeply sorry?”

“Nope."

“Fine,” says Cas, and he pulls back on his reins. His horse stops short, and he dismounts to walk along beside her.

Dean’s head is still spinning with anger, and the idea of letting Cas have the last word makes his skin crawl, no matter how much worse it makes the situation. “Be honest with yourself, Cas,” he says. “You didn’t give two shits about what happened to me back then, so why go through with all this? Why not just kill me? Really?”

Cas doesn’t need to say anything. They both know why.

“You’re still sweet on me,” Dean says with a laugh. “You sick bastard. Couldn’t kill me then, and now that you have another chance, you still can’t.”

Cas just stares right ahead, but Dean can see his nostrils flare.

“Did you think about me, Cas? At night when you were all alone?” Dean leans forward as close as he can and whispers, “Did you think about how I ruined you?”

Cas grabs Dean’s pant leg and pulls him from his horse. Dean barely has time to try and brace himself with his bound hands before he lands on his bad knee and goes down.

“Fuck you!” he screams through the shock of the impact.

Cas immediately straddles him and grabs the front of Dean’s shirt. He picks him up and slams Dean’s shoulders back into the ground, his face completely cold with fury.

“Wooah! Whoa, hey!” says Gordon as him and Meg scramble to get down from their horses.

Cas’ hands are trembling as they grip Dean’s collar. He rears back and punches Dean across the face. Dean spits up blood and tries to punch back, but Cas just lifts him up and slams him back down again, nearly knocking the wind out of him.

Gordon slides in the dirt down behind Cas, gets an arm around his chest, and pulls him off of Dean. Dean scrambles to his knees and lunges after them but Meg latches onto his back, gets her arms around him like a vice grip, and the two of them go rolling. The movement and the ringing in his ears leave Dean not knowing which way is up, but when Meg grabs him to pull him away from Cas, he's still able to push her off easily, even with his hands cuffed. Gordon is still holding Cas back like he’s a rabid dog on a leash, and that’s when the shot goes off.

The crack echoes through the valley, and a flock of birds takes off from a nearby tree. The three men all stop and turn to Meg. One arm is raised high, pointing her pistol straight up into the sky.

“One of you is going to explain what the hell is going on,” she demands, lowering her gun and moving it back and forth between the three men. “Five seconds.”

Cas gets to his feet and straightens his clothes, spits, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re acting like I’m the one that shot you!”

Gordon jumps in front of him, and Meg turns her gun his way. “Four,” she says.

“No,” shouts Dean, “you just left me to bleed out in the middle of nowhere!”

Meg takes aim at Dean. “Three.”

“If you’re so worried about why I haven’t killed you, why haven’t you tried to escape?”

Dean doesn’t even have time to process that before Meg shouts “Two!”

“Enough!” says Cas, and everything goes quiet. “The marshal and I have ... history. He’s my concern, not either of yours. Nothing else changes. Alright?”

Gordon looks down at Dean with a dark, peculiar look on his face. Meg lowers her gun and passes a hand over her hair, smoothing away the flyaways. Cas approaches her and takes her face in both hands, gently sweeping the pad of his thumb over her cheek. Dean looks away as he hauls himself to his feet, shrugging off Gordon’s extended hand. He keeps his back to Cas, but he can still hear him speak to her softly.

“I told you,” he says just above a whisper. “You have to trust me.”

“I do,” she says, and she punches him in the arm. “I just don’t want to regret it.”

Dean’s cuffs jingle as he tries to sweep the grass and any remaining dried mud of off him. Gordon chuckles and passes a hand over the lower part of his face.

“What’d I tell ya?” he asks quietly. “Straight to Daddy.”

“Gordon,” says Cas.

“Em?”

“Take my horse for the next leg. I’ll take lead.”

“Can do,” says Gordon, and he goes to lead Dean by the elbow back to the horses.

Meg glares at him, and Dean is starting to get really tired of the way she always looks like she wants to stab him. Then again, he thinks, judging by the way she pounced on him moments ago, maybe she really does. He winks at her, and she turns away in a huff to mount her horse.

It’s a miracle of miracles that the rest of the day goes by somewhat smoothly. Dean still can’t get anybody to tell him where the hell they’re going, but Gordon is more than happy to make small talk, despite Cas’ order. Dean is happy to go along with it, and the fact that Gordon can be surprisingly affable doesn’t hurt. He tells Dean about how he used to break and run wild mustangs from San Joaquin to sell either in Mexico or further up into the States and territories, and he tells him about how he’d send some of the money back to his mother in Missouri. It’s all a welcome distraction from how much pain Dean’s in or the way the day-old mud on his face and body is starting to itch.

“Baby here is a mustang,” says Dean. “Maybe she was one of yours.”

“Maybe,” replies Gordon with a smile. “It is one small fucking world. And getting smaller.”

Gordon also drills Dean about dime novels and what songs he knows — “How ‘bout ‘Jack O’ Diamonds’? ‘Way Up On Clinch Mountain’? The Pirates of Penzance?” — and before Dean can even remember to start asking about Cas or his plans for Dean, they’re stopping to make camp for the night.

Despite the shining sun, a light mist of rain picks up shortly after the four of them stop. They make camp a stone’s throw away from a creek, under the cover of a large tree growing almost straight out of a waist-high ledge of flaky, layered shale. Its roots weave through the rock and dirt and hang down like jungle vines over the spot where Cas sets up the tarp to form a tent. Gordon takes the horses to be watered and fills everyone’s canteens. When he comes back to camp, Cas asks him how cold the water is.

“Not too bad,” says Gordon.

Cas shrugs out of his coat and tosses it and his hat onto his bedroll. “I’m going to take the marshal and let him rinse off,” he says.

“You are?” asks Dean.

“Unless you’d rather stay in dirty clothes,” says Cas. He takes Dean’s bedroll off of Baby’s back and digs out his change of clothes. He only hesitates for a second when his fingers brush over Jo’s shawl, but then he very carefully folds it all back up together.

Dean reaches up and tries to run a hand through the back of his hair, then grimaces at the texture. “Fine.”

“After you,” says Cas, and the two of them start off together.

“Oh sinners, let’s go down,” sings Gordon to himself, and his amusement peeks through his voice. “Let’s go down, come on down....”

Cas walks ahead, slow and casual, keeping one thumb hooked onto his gun belt.

“Since when do you draw crossbody?” asks Dean, thinking of Cas' old shoulder holster.

“It’s more comfortable on horseback,” says Cas over his shoulder.

“Well, yeah. Slower though.”

Cas shrugs a shoulder, and Dean can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “Don’t need to be fast when you’re good.” Dean decides he isn’t going to touch that one.

The early evening crickets start to stir when they approach the creek. It’s fairly still and looks maybe waist-deep at most. Nearby tree limbs hang over the water, trying to reach the other side. The ground along the edge is rocky too, with large sheets of shale cutting through the dirt. Above, the sky is just starting to change colors, and the light mist of rain clings to Dean’s skin like condensation.

Cas takes Dean’s hand and pulls him close to him. To Dean’s shock, Cas unlocks the handcuffs and hangs them on his belt.

“What—?”

“Be quick,” says Cas. “The rain’s picking up again.”

Dean pulls off his boots and socks and leaves them on the sheet of rock. He wades in up over his knees and squats down, gasping lightly as the water comes up over his thighs and up around his waist. It’s colder than he’d prefer, but it feels nice over the rope burn around his wrists and the saddle chafing on his thighs. After his initial rinsing off, his jacket is the first thing to go followed by his shirt and trousers. He wrings them all out and hangs them over one of the low-hanging tree branches to drip dry. Cas leans against a tree with Dean’s change of clothes bundled up in his arms, one leg crossed casually over the other.

“You’re not gonna watch me?” Dean asks.

Cas shifts his shoulders. “I’ve seen it before,” he says, turning his head but not stealing a glance.

“That’s not—” Dean stammers. He cups some of the water in his palm and lets it waterfall over his arms. “I could just take off, y’know? Always was faster than you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Cas says. “I’m the one that’s armed.”

“Yeah, and you don’t miss,” says Dean. The cold water runs right between his legs, and it makes him jump and shudder. “You wouldn’t shoot me, though.”

“No," says Cas after a moment, his voice soft. “I wouldn’t. But I do have your clothes.”

“Shit,” laughs Dean. “Good point.”

“Would you have preferred it if I had Meg watch you?”

“No!” Dean stumbles over an unstable river rock. “God, no.”

“Then there you go," Cas says, and he catches a glimpse over his shoulder, though only for a second.

Dean crouches down further into the water and scoops some up to rinse his face and hair. “So, uh, is she—?” he asks. “Are you—?”

“No.”

“Alright.” Dean drops the subject.

He pours cupped handfuls of water over his chest and down his back. There’s an old, uneven scar right in the center of his chest and a matching one on his knee. Cold water runs along the marks as it travels down the dip in the middle of his chest. He’s never been particularly bothered by either scar, but they both feel open and exposed with Cas so nearby.

“Moriah,” says Cas, shifting his stance and readjusting Dean’s clothes in his arms.

“‘Scuse me?”

“Where we’re going,” replies Cas. “The three of us have been laying low here after we ran into some trouble with Pinkerton agents not too long ago. Moriah's a few days ride. Should be able to restock, try and pick up a few leads.”

Dean’s stomach turns, and he remembers himself. “You call what you’ve been doing ‘laying low’?”

Cas turns toward Dean to toss his dry clothes onto the ground near Dean’s boots, then crosses his arms and turns all the way away. “You wouldn’t listen to me if I tried to explain.”

“No, probably not,” says Dean. He rinses his face one last time then stands and wades out of the water. He shakes his head like a dog, and water goes flying. Cas flinches away from the spray. “They call you ‘Em’.”

“Yes.”

“Do they know your real name?” asks Dean as he steps into his trousers.

Cas doesn’t answer, and something in Dean’s chest flips over.

“Do ... do I?”

"I'm afraid you know too much about me," says Cas.

Dean pulls his shirt over his head and tucks it in. "That's why you can't let me go."

"Precisely." Cas turns to Dean and leans his shoulder against the trunk of the tree, watching silently as Dean pulls up his suspenders and steps back into his boots. Dean recognizes the look on his face as one of confliction. His lips are pursed and his eyes downturned at the corners, more so than normal. It's a look that makes Dean think about doing something really stupid.

“Goddamn it, Cas,” he says, running a hand through his hair and up and down the back of his neck. "You serious about Scratch?"

“As the grave,” says Cas, one brow cocked.

“Fine. You keep those off of me,” he says, gesturing to his cuffs on Cas' hip, “and I’ll help you take him out. Once he’s dead, we go our separate ways and pretend this shit never happened, because I sure as hell never want to see you again.”

“Tsk. Negotiating with a criminal? How noble of you, Marshal.”

“Not negotiating,” says Dean. “Offering a ... temporary ceasefire.”

“From where I’m standing,” says Cas, “you don’t seem to be in much of a position to be bargaining.”

“Fine,” says Dean with a grin and a shrug. “Then you can go back to playing jailer, and this time I do everything in my power to make you absolutely miserable.”

“Careful. That might just make me change my mind about killing you.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Cas cracks a smile, and Dean knows he’s got him hooked.

“Deal,” says Cas. He holds out his hand for the two of them to shake on it.

“So. To Moriah?” asks Dean.

“To Moriah. If you’re serious about this, then you’d better be ready for a trial by fire.”

Dean just smiles and nods. “Always am.”

“And Dean?”

“Yeah?”

Cas smiles and turns to walk back to camp. “I meant it,” he says. “You got handsome.”

Chapter Text

Then

On the road, Cas was the perfect trail partner — quiet, self-sufficient, driven to a fault. Of course, the downside was that those very characteristics also meant that the man was prone to being aloof, moody, mulish, and bull-headed. They’d picked up the pace the way that Cas had asked. He never said anything about it, but Dean could see the way Cas would squint and grit his teeth through the pain and exhaustion of riding for hours on end. Dean just thanked God or whoever was at work that Jo seemed to be rather taken with him. She was a much-needed relief from the tension on those long, quiet nights by the fire when Cas would just stare off into space with some preoccupation clear on his face. 

Sometimes, early in the morning before the breakfast was done, Cas would go off and sit by himself. He’d find a rock or log by a stream and quietly scribble something in a small leatherback notebook as the sun came up behind him, casting its light over his hair and making it shine a warm, rich brown. Occasionally, he’d pause to gaze down at his page with a furrowed brow, and he’d perch the end of his pencil between his teeth. 

“You don’t have to stare at him,” said Jo in the morning over coffee. She sat against the base of a tree, looking comfortable with Dean’s jacket draped over her lap. “He’s not going to just run off.”

Dean ripped up a handful of grass and threw it at the fire. “I still don’t trust him.”

“What’s not to trust?” asked Jo with a shrug. “Seems to me like the type of man to tell you exactly what he thinks.”

“Yeah. That’s the problem.”

Jo chuckled and sipped her coffee. “I like him.”

“Well, then why don’t you marry him? Then you can like him all you want.”

Jo glared over the rim of her tin mug. Dean had only seen her sweet brown eyes that full of vitriol a few times before, but it never failed to make him feel smaller than he was.

“Sorry,” mumbled Dean. “I’m gonna let him know the breakfast is about ready.”

“Good plan,” said Jo carefully, and she went back to her coffee.

Dean pulled himself off the ground, dusted the dirt and dry grass from the seat of his pants, and made his way over to Cas. He came up behind him and stole a peak over his shoulder. Cas brushed his pinky finger over the page, blending together the graphite lines on a sketch of a bird with a bent neck and broken wing. A few yards in front of them was the same dead bird, half buried in the dirt and obscured by a curtain of tall, swaying prairie grass. Cas pulled his pencil from between his teeth and filled in long blades of grass in the background of his drawing with confident flicks of the wrist.

“You’re not half bad.”

Cas jumped and drew a heavy black line down the center of his drawing.

“Oh. Uh, sorry,” Dean mumbled. 

Cas threw his pencil down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, it’s fine,” he said. “I can fix it later I suppose.”

Dean nodded and shuffled his feet. “Well, food’s about ready. You gonna be ready to move out in a few?”

Cas closed his book over his pencil and tucked them both into his vest pocket. “Of course.”

When they made it back to camp, Jo had a small, bemused grin on her face while neither Dean nor Cas said anything else to each other. That was usually how it went those first few days on the road — small, quiet moments with only just enough words spoken between them.

According to Cas, this Luke Scratch had connections in the town of Provenance. What those connections were or what exactly laid in store, Dean wasn’t sure. He’d just have to trust Cas, and that was proving to be easier said than done. Especially since, every day, Dean was feeling less and less like the one in charge of this expedition with little more to do than just shut up and ride.

So they rode. For hours, through the tall grasses of the Dakota plains with little else to look at besides the horizon ahead, the sky above, and each other. 

Sometime in the middle of the night, Dean got up and wandered off from their camp to take a leak. At first, as he headed back towards his bedroll, he thought he heard Cas talking in his sleep. It was only as he got closer and the outline of Cas’ figure got clearer in the moonlight that Dean realized Cas was awake, sitting with his knees pulled up and his arms draped over them.

“You should go back to sleep,” mumbled Dean. “We’ll be hitting town in the morning.”

Cas didn’t answer. He just kept repeating something under his breath.

Dean ambled over to where Cas was sitting and nudged him with his boot. “You praying?”

Cas sighed. “I was.”

“Yeah? How’s that working out for you?” asked Dean with a small, bitter laugh. 

“So far, so good. Still above ground, aren't I?”

The laugh died in Dean’s throat. “Scoot over,” he said, and he plopped down next to Cas. He got his flask from his jacket pocket and tipped it back, taking too hard of a drink and hurting his throat in the process, then passed it over. “I’m serious. Does that stuff work?”

“Liquor?” asked Cas, taking a sip.

“Praying.”

“Oh.” Cas passed back the flask. There was a faint, wet sheen around its mouth. “It certainly doesn’t hurt.”

Dean took one more drink and screwed the cap back on. “What do you, uh, what do you pray for?”

Cas bit his lip and thought it over for a moment. “Peace.”

“Sounds vague. That all?”

Cas looked down at the ground between his knees. “I’m not sure there’s much else I want.”

“No?” asked Dean. “Money? Loose women? A lake full of whiskey?”

The corner of Cas’ mouth twitched up in an approximation of a smile. “I don’t think you’re supposed to pray for vice.”

“No? Shows what I know, then.”

Cas was quiet for a moment, and the wind rustled over the grass and through his hair. “My father was a preacher. Or, so I’ve been told.”

“Well,” said Dean, "my daddy was a drunk.”

To Dean’s surprise, Cas laughed. It wasn’t anything big, but the way he smiled made his whole face scrunch up in a way that made him near unrecognizable. He leaned back on two hands and shifted his legs to sit cross-legged, tilting his head back to beam a sad smile up at the stars. “Those things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”

Dean swallowed. “Right.”

“I never knew him, but—” He dropped his chin. “—Gabriel did.”

“Gabriel was your ... ?”

“Brother,” said Cas after a moment, his lashes downturned over his cheeks.

Dean thought of the way Sam looked when Dean left out and how even though he was fully a man now, he’d still looked so young and innocent in his sleep. The thought of something happening to him put a sour taste in the back of his throat. As if possessed by some force outside of himself, Dean reached over and placed his hand just above Cas’ knee. He could feel thick, warm muscle under his palm. It was thicker than he would have expected, and Dean felt his fingers curl themselves around the curve of Cas’ leg. His hand felt nice sitting there, but he couldn’t help but just stare at how wrong it looked, like a foreign object out of place in space and time. After a moment, Dean lifted his eyes away from where he was staring at his hand to find that Cas was staring at him. The look in Cas’ eyes was indescribable, but something about it made Dean very suddenly feel like some kind of frozen prey animal.

“It’s late,” said Cas. 

Dean pulled his hand away, the spell seemingly broken for now. “Yeah. Big day tomorrow,” said Dean. “You’ve still time to pull out if you’re having second thoughts.”

“None whatsoever,” said Cas with sudden intensity. “Good night, Marshal.”

“Night.” Dean sat and watched as Cas hauled himself to his feet and made his way back to his bedroll. He stretched out his hand and relaxed it a few times, shook his head, and crawled back over to his spot beside Jo.

Chapter Text

They follow the river. For days they ride, caught in a whiplash-inducing back and forth of pouring rain and rushing winds. For the whole journey, Dean hasn't been sure which is colder — the weather, the food, or the reception to him joining their ranks. Gordon seems mostly amused, though Dean can't help but feel like its at his expense. Cas' demeanor is entirely unreadable during the day, and the less said about Meg the better.

They’re all soaked. It’s been two days since Dean was let out of his own handcuffs, and while the awkward atmosphere at camp and nights spent sleeping under a slicker next to Cas Milton of all people hadn’t yet made Dean regret every one of his decisions up to that point, every moment he spent in sopping wet boots was pushing him closer and closer to changing his mind and trying to make a break for it. The downpour had let up for the time, but in a few weeks that rain will turn to snow, and Dean isn’t sure where they’ll be then.

The three of them reconnect with the road about six miles outside Moriah. They pass a homestead nestled into one of the foothills' many valleys where large, sturdy workhorses are exercised in a fenced-in paddock. Up a hill, far back off the road, is a two-story house with gingerbread trim and bright, vacant windows that gaze down over the rest of the property. Swinging from a post where the road branches off toward the farm is a sign that reads “Cassity Stud Farm” in dark green paint. A handful of muddy farmhands sit or lean on the rails and nod at Dean and the others as they pass by. One whistles at Meg, but she doesn’t so much as turn her head. She just digs in her heels, takes up the lead, and the four of them put the place behind them.

It’s another hour’s ride before they arrive, and Dean hears the rushing of water before he sees the falls. To his left, coming into view from behind the large boulders and pin-straight evergreens flanking the river is a wooden damn with a walk-across bridge leading into town. Water rushes from an opening under the bridge that pushes a millwheel and feeds the river running downhill and back the way they’d come.

The horses’ hooves sling mud as they struggle up the path’s sharper incline uphill, while Gordon drops down from his horse to help it along. Just after the bridge, they pass under a wooden mining sluice raised approximately thirty feet off the ground by support columns jammed into the muddy ground in the middle of the street. The path continues up ahead, twisting and dodging around pines and rock formations as it snakes its way further up into the hills. On both sides of the street are wooden cabins built on platforms to keep them level, their porch steps descending down into rocky mud. Dean wagers it’s about supper time as they finally make their way into town, and the clouds overhead are thick enough and the sky is dark enough that the windows of the surrounding building glow with the flickering light of oil lamps.

Towering over the rest of the town by a full story is a whitewashed clapboard building with “Juliet’s” painted on the broad side. The only noise in town seems to be coming from inside, and Dean can see ladies in white smock dresses pass in front of the windows looking out over the second-story balcony — a bordello, though seemingly the only place in town to stay.

A bell over the door jingles as the four of them make their way inside, dripping water all over the wooden floor. The inside is bustling more than Dean expected for a town this size, and the smell of perfume, spirits, and tobacco sits heavy in his lungs. There’s a counter right at the entrance, a hallway and staircase behind it heading up, and empty doorways to the left and right leading to two different parlors, both hazy with cigar smoke. To the left, Dean can see a long bar with all class of people leaning against it. Men sit at Faro and poker tables, some with a working girl perched in their lap and others with one draped over their shoulder, whispering something in their ear. To the right is a quieter sitting room, still full of men and women in white smocks with a bear of an English Mastiff curled up asleep in front of the fireplace.

The white-haired, bearded man behind the counter looks wary of the disheveled strangers, but he rents them three rooms — “The lady has to have her own.” — and cold baths. Cas pays with coins from a dirty coinpurse, and the man behind the counter either mistakes the dried blood for mud or pretends he does. He doesn’t ask for a name, and he doesn’t ask why they’re in town. Cas takes the three keys, politely hands one to Meg, and then tosses the third to Gordon.

“The Marshal is with me,” he says, leading the others up the stairs behind the counter. “Change, eat something, get settled. We’ll hit up the rest of town in the morning.”

“Heard that,” says Gordon, tossing and catching his room key. He shoves past Dean casually, bumping their shoulders together and not seeming to care that he did. Meg heads to her room at the other end at the hall, leaving just Dean and Cas together.

It’s the first time they’ve been separated from the others since they reached their agreement by the river, and Dean can feel the unease hanging over him like his wet clothes.

“I want to head back downstairs tonight,” says Cas, the first time he’s directly addressed Dean all day. He doesn’t look over his shoulder and keeps his back turned to Dean as he unlocks the door.

“Probably a good call,” admits Dean. “It does seem to be the hotspot in town. You thinking someone here will have a lead on Scratch?”

“Perhaps,” says Cas, opening the door and stepping aside to let Dean in first. “But mostly I just need a drink.”

Dean can’t argue with that. He steps past Cas and drops his bedroll from his shoulder. At first glance, the room is nice, ritzy even, though a closer look reveals cracks in the ceiling and water damage in the wallpaper. There’s a double bed with iron rails and too much large furniture with dark finishes that blend into the Damask wallpaper, making the whole space seem small and just shy of claustrophobic. Cas closes and locks the door behind them, and it does nothing to help matters. Dean pulls at his damp collar.

Outside, the rain has started back up — still light, and the sound of it against the roof is just barely loud enough to be heard over their voices. Cas strides past Dean towards the bed, drops his pack, and works his dark overcoat off of his shoulders. He drapes it over the metal footboard and perches on the edge of the mattress to ease his suspenders off his shoulders.

“Is this alright?” he asks, cocking a brow and peeking up at Dean as he pulls off his riding boots. His shirt is the same blue as his eyes with a faint striped pattern woven in, and the buttons at the top are already undone. As he leans forward to drop his boot on the floor, Dean can see down to the tanned skin and light wash of dark hair across his chest. It feels like eons before Dean realizes that Cas had asked him something.

“I thought the privacy would allow us to speak freely,” continues Cas. He whips off his socks and just lets them fall into the floor. There’s a full, fat beat of silence that lingers longer than it should, filled only by the patter of rain and the slight creaking of the iron bed frame under Cas’ weight. Dean quickly wets his lip, hoping Cas doesn’t see the flash of his tongue.

“I have nothing to say to you,” he says, and it tastes bitter as he says it.

Cas sighs and leans back on both hands. His bare toes just barely touch the ground, and he lifts his foot to let it swing mindlessly. “What happened to that ‘temporary ceasefire’?”

Dean undoes his gun belt and makes a show of dropping it onto the dresser with a heavy clunk. “I’m not shooting, am I?”

Cas drops his chin to his chest to poorly hide a smile.

“You on the other hand,” says Dean, crossing his arms over his chest, “better start talking.”

With a sigh, Cas stands and digs the dry clothes out his pack. “Fine,” he says, turning his back to Dean as he begins to undo the buttons on his fly and untuck his shirt.

A gust of howling wind sprays more rain against the window, and the sound sends a shiver through Dean’s body. He’s still damp down to his under layers and knows Cas must be too, but he still can’t help but feel like this show of changing in front of him is meant to be some kind of diversion. Cas’ shirt goes up over his head, and Dean doesn’t wait to see more than a flash of Cas’ lower back before he turns around and starts to fish his own change of clothes out of his bedroll.

“What do you so desperately need to know?” asks Cas. In an instant, it’s as if Dean’s mind is completely wiped blank. Or, rather, that the sheer number of unknowns at that moment is so overwhelming that he simply doesn’t know where to start. Dean just pulls the first question he can think of.

“What’s with the earring?”

“What do you want me to say?” Cas asks with a laugh. “It’s to pay for a proper burial in the event of my untimely yet inevitable death?”

Dean drops his jacket, undoes his suspenders, and pulls his shirt over his head. “Maybe,” he mumbles.

Cas’ laugh dies off, and Dean hears the soft thud of his trousers hitting the floor. When Dean’s back turned, Cas sounds dangerously like his old self. There’s a brief flicker of something in Dean’s chest at the sound of Cas’ laugh or his teasing sense of humor, something like two pieces of flint trying to produce flame. It’s been over a week since Dean’s slept in his bed, and much longer since he’d had someone else in it. As Cas undresses behind him, Dean can hear every sound he makes. Every sound of fabric moving against skin fills Dean’s head with the memory of how it feels to undo those buttons or ease off those layers with his own hands — hands that remember the feeling of soft skin over thick muscle, of a fistfull of thick dark hair, of stolen touches during quiet moments in the dark.

Dean shakes his head to clear it. That flint had caught fire all those years ago, and if the ‘old Cas’ ever really existed in the first place, then he was left to burn with everything else.

“What kind of trouble d’you all get into with the Pinks?” Dean asks, desperate to think about anything else.

“A bad lead had us all the way out in the Wyoming Territory,” says Cas. “We’d been stringing them along for a while, but we stayed in Sunrise longer than we should have. Things got cut a little close.”

Dean pulls on his dry trousers and shirt. “How do you know they’re not still after you?”

“Because,” says Cas, “they were never after us. They’re after Scratch.”

Dean starts to tuck his shirt back in, but pauses. “What?”

“Or so they believe. I’d expected them to be right behind us back in Cold Oak. Imagine my surprise when I found you instead.”

Dean does up the fly on his trousers, focusing on the sensation of the buttons through fabric as Cas’ words dawn on him. The Pinkertons were after Scratch, and Cas had expected them back in Cold Oak where Corbin Tilghman lies waiting to be buried, blinded after being killed in a one-in-a-million shot.

Dean drops his hands and turns around. “The eyes,” is all he can say.

Cas steels himself and lightly drags his fingers over the quilt on the bed. He nods.

“You’ve been leading them off of Scratch’s trail. Leaving bodies that look like his.”

“Exactly,” Cas says, staring down at nothing in particular. “If I can’t be the one to get to him first.... All of this will have been for nothing.”

“Oh, trust me. I know,” he says, his teeth clenched so hard he can barely get the words out. “I just don’t understand.”

Cas sighs and lets his fingers fall from the edge of the bed. Hesitantly, he takes a step forward. “Dean. You have to know that my intentions towards you were always—” He reaches out and brushes his knuckles down Dean’s arm in a whisper-light touch. “—genuine.”

Dean just stares at Cas’ hand, transfixed. It’s warm through his sleeve. Dean feels the start of a quiver to his lip, and he grits his teeth harder to fight it. “I was yours, Cas,” he whispers. “And you left me for dead.”

“I know.”

Dean shoves Cas’ hand away. “All for some fucked up idea of vengeance.”

Cas steps back, and the air between them turns cold. “And your motivations are so much more pure.”

Cas is quiet when he speaks, but Dean can hear gunshots in his voice. In those deep blue eyes, he sees ghosts. Twenty-two dead.

“I’m the law, Cas,” he says, fighting a tremble. “I have no other motivations.”

There’s a knock at the door.

“What?” Cas asks, unflinching.

“Em?” calls Gordon’s muffled voice. “Em, open up. It’s Masters.”

Cas shoves past Dean, unlocks the door, and throws it open. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing yet,” says Gordon. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck and glances down the hallway. “But come on. There’s someone who wants to talk to you.”

Cas glances back at Dean, but he doesn’t need to say anything more. Dean tosses him his boots and scrambles to get his own on before following Cas and Gordon out of the room and down the stairs. At the front counter, Gordon veers left through the parlor, darting between the crowd of couples and ignoring their dirty looks. He glances back over his shoulder at the other two, then heads through a doorway in the far back corner of the room. They enter a dark hallway, approximately ten feet long with wood panelling and a single sconce at the far end. Below it is a single door with a faint bit of light coming out from the crack underneath.

“Just through here,” says Gordon. He stops just before the door and knocks twice.

“In here,” replies Meg’s voice.

Inside is an oppressively hot office with a roaring fireplace and broad wooden desk with one chair behind it and two others facing it. Meg leans against one, legs and arms crossed tightly. In front of the hearth stands a man in silhouette against the flames, his hands casually shoved into the pockets of his heavy black overcoat and the Mastiff from the parlor sat obediently by his side.

“Hello, boys,” says the man as he turns around. His voice has the same chilling rasp as the storm outside, though he stands at an unassuming height with a slightly-round frame and wispy head of dark hair. “I understand you lot are looking for a certain someone.”

“Might be. That depends,” says Dean. “Who the hell are you?”

“Name’s Crowley,” says the man, “and you could say I’m in the business of other people’s business.”

“How’d you find us?” asks Cas.

“I didn’t,” says Crowley. “One of my boys found your little kitten here prowling around.”

“Yeah, and looks like I caught a rat,” says Meg. “Just wasn’t expecting to find you out here in this dump. How the mighty have fallen....”

“Oh, come now,” says Crowley. He pulls out his chair and sits, the Mastiff laying down right beside him. Crowley pours himself a drink from a cut glass decanter. “And here I’d thought you’d come to beg for your old job back.”

“Go to Hell,” she spits. Dean hears Gordon chuckle behind him.

“Please. That’s hardly the insult you think it is. Gentlemen?” Crowley gestures to the seats in front of him with his glass. “Sit.”

Cas gives Meg’s arm a squeeze before he leans back in the chair she’s perched on. Dean pulls the other one up closer to Crowley’s desk with a scrape and sits at the edge, hunched forward and leaning one arm on his knee. Gordon steps forward to stand between the two chairs with his arms crossed.

“I need an errand done. Nothing too troubling, really, but I think it could prove to be ... mutually beneficial. Besides, I’ve got what you want.”

“And what’s that?” asks Cas.

“Information,” says Crowley. “Everything you need to know to get one step closer to the Devil himself.”

“And how the hell do you know where Scratch is?” asks Dean.

“Industry secret, I’m afraid,” replies Crowley. “That’s where a little thing called ‘trust’ comes in. You can vouch for me. Won’t you, darling?”

Meg glares him down, then looks down at Cas. “Crowley has his spies in nearly every city in the territory. If I know anything,” she says in a low voice, “it’s that he has a ... talent for uncovering what anything you want to stay buried.”

“Much like that preacher back in Salvation,” says Crowley. Meg is struck silent and turns away.

Cas sits up and leans all the way forward in his chair. “What do you want us to do?”

“C—” Dean starts. “Em.”

“I said,” Cas snaps, keeping his eyes on Crowley. “What do you want?”

Crowley leans back in his chair with an oily grin. He takes a drink, and the fire behind him reflects off the cut edges of his glass. “There’s a stud farm not too far out of town. Might’ve even passed right by it on your way here. The family that owns it and I came to a sort of arrangement a while back, but the time’s come to collect.”

“Just how much of an ‘arrangement’ are we talking?” asks Gordon.

“Six thousand,” says Crowley.

Gordon whistles, low and slow.

“Last time I paid them a visit, Cassity’s idiot son-in-law let it slip that he keeps the cash ‘safe and sound’ in the floorboards in the upstairs bedroom under the rug. You get that to me, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“Six thousand is a hell of a lot of money,” says Dean. “How do you know we won’t just grab it and run?”

“Because,” says Crowley, turning to Cas. “From what I gather, you are actually desperate enough to give it up. How much is revenge worth to you, Emmanuel?”

Cas says nothing, but Dean can feel the fire burning from underneath his skin.

“Like I said,” says Crowley. “My business is other people’s business.”

Cas leans back and seems to turn the offer over in his head. Dean recognizes the look in his eyes; Cas is already eating out of the palm of Crowley’s hand.

“And if we run into any trouble?” asks Gordon.

Crowley’s eyes go dark. “Then you make it look like what it is — an armed robbery gone wrong.”

“Alright,” says Cas as he stands up. “We’ll rest here tonight, resupply in the morning, and scope the place out. Then we hit it tomorrow night.”

Gordon shrugs and nods, Meg keeps her head down, and all Dean can do is just stare as Cas shakes Crowley’s hand.

Later, after a cold drink and colder bath that left him feeling not much better than when he first rode into town, Dean steels himself to go back to his and Cas’ room. He opens the door to find Cas sat up in bed with his notebook, sketching by the light of the oil lamp on the bedside table. Cas makes no comment to Dean when he comes in; he just scoots over to the side of the mattress, apparently remembering how Dean always has to sleep closest to the door.

“Um, thanks,” mumbles Dean as he sits on the edge of the bed to pull his boots off. He slips beneath the covers, and Dean isn’t sure if Cas keeping his side of the bed warm is a peace offering or something more self-serving. Either way, it’s the most comfortable he’s been since he left Sioux Falls.

“What’re you drawing?” he asks.

“The painting on the wall,” says Cas, not looking up from his sketch.

Dean takes a peak at Cas’ paper. Intersecting lines and patches of shading litter the page. Dean looks back over his shoulder at the painting above the dresser where a white-sailed frigate battles a dark, brooding sea. He looks back down at Cas’ sketch and tilts his head, trying to find the ship among the lines.

“It’s not finished,” says Cas. “This is just the rigging.”

“Right,” he says, watching Cas’ pencil strokes. “Guess I’ll have to just trust you.”

“Yes,” says Cas, peaking down at him. “You will.”

Dean rolls onto his side, turning his back to Cas. “How long are you gonna have that light on?” he grumbles.

Cas sighs and snaps his notebook closed over his pencil. He dims the light and blows it out, leaving the two of them in pitch black. The dark makes Dean’s stomach drop, and he can once again hear Cas moving behind him, this time against the sheets.

“I’ve just got a bad feeling about this is all,” says Dean.

“I know. I do too.” The mattress shifts under Cas’ movements as he tucks himself in; the tops of his knees bump against the back of Dean’s legs. “But it’s not like I have another choice.”

“You’ve got plenty of other choices,” says Dean. “You’re just stubborn as all Hell.”

Dean can’t see it, but he can feel Cas’ smile in the huff of warm breath over the back of his neck. “And here I thought you always liked that.”

The mattress shifts, and Dean feels Cas’ folded arms up against his back. “Yeah,” he says. “Guess I did.”

Dean’s not sure how long they lie there like that, quiet yet wide awake in the dark, but it feels like forever. A soft roll of thunder shakes the window, and Cas pulls the quilt higher up over the two of them. Dean leans back, and Cas curls up closer. His hips slot right up against Dean, making a traitorous noise escape from down in Dean’s throat.

“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s cold,” says Cas. “And you smell good.”

“...I do?”

“Yeah.”

Dean forces himself to swallow. “Like what?”

Cas’s forehead brushes against the back of Dean's neck. "Soap," he says, pausing to breathe deeply. He scoots his hips a bit closer. "But also tobacco. Leather."

One of Cas' hands creeps up beneath Dean's undershirt and splays out against his belly, his palm hot and heavy where Dean's stomach is softest. Dean’s heart is pounding in his ears so loud he can barely hear the way every rational part of himself is screaming danger.

"Sweat," Cas whispers. "Musk."

Dean grabs Cas’ hand and pulls it down between his legs. He gasps at the sensation, and there is a full few seconds where Dean tries to push Cas’ hand away but finds himself completely petrified.

Cas jerks away instead, nearly taking the covers with him. He throws himself out of the bed and goes to stand in front of the dresser, his hands pale white where they grip the edge. He keeps his head down and turned away, and Dean can see the way his back heaves as he takes in heavy, shaking breaths. After just barely a moment, he grabs his pack off of the floor, turns to leave, and slams the door behind him.

Chapter Text

Then
^{(22 Years Earlier)}

It was a beautiful, clear August afternoon when they laid Mary Winchester in the ground. The sun stood proud and high overhead and chased the midday shadows back underneath whatever thing had cast them. All around stood tombstones, several shiny and new, and as they continued dotting the hillside into the distance, they became indistinguishable from the blackened stone chimneys that remained where homes had once been.

The boy pulled at his starchy collar and fidgetted with the too-long sleeves of his black wool jacket as they itched against the tops of his hands. The ground smelled of smoke and gunpowder — of rot and an open mass grave still being filled. He dusted his dirty palm against his pant leg and stepped back from the grave to stand beside his father and younger brother.

“Does this mean we have to leave?” the boy asked.

“Stop asking me the same question,” said the man as he picked up the boy’s younger brother. “You know better than that.”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy, dropping his hands to his side and straightening his back.

“Are we done here?”

“Yes, sir.”

The younger brother wrapped his arms around their father’s neck and buried his tears in his shoulder while his father petted his hair. “S’okay, Sammy. Daddy’s gonna make it all okay.”

The boy looked at the broken ground in front of the stone and wondered how anyone could possibly put it all back together again; wondered how to unfell the tree that made the coffin or rebuild his home and mother’s body from the ash blowing in the breeze.

As they turned to leave, the father placed a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The men that did this will get what they deserve,” he said. “All men do, sooner or later.”

Later that night, some of the men in town found one of the raiders hiding in a well and hanged him from an old tree beside the smoking remains of a burned-down homestead. They left him there, swinging in the hot summer sun until the crows ate his eyes and his foot fell from its socket. 

The boy never saw Lawrence again.

Chapter Text

Now

Dean didn’t sleep much the night before, so it had been easy enough to wake up before everyone else and sneak out onto the porch to listen to the morning songbirds before the bulk of them headed south for warmer skies. A heavy layer of fog sits over the hills, pouring over the muddy streets and pooling in the dips and valleys formed by the road snaking its way through town. It’s quiet, and normally on a day like this, Dean would have been out on the lake with his fishing pole long before the sun had even come up.

The door behind him creaks open, and Dean snuffs out his daydream of quiet water and freshly caught walleye with a shake of his head.

“Mornin’, Marhsal,” says Gordon.

Dean rubs his eyes and wraps Jo’s shawl around him tighter. “Dean,” he says. “And mornin’.”

Gordon leans against a post near where Dean is sitting and rolls a cigarette. “Smoke?”

“Please,” says Dean.

Gordon seals the paper, passes it to Dean, and rolls himself another. He flicks the head of a match with his thumbnail and lights both their cigarettes. Across the street, a man comes out of the front of a store to sweep the boardwalk. Dean nods at him with an attempt at a smile, but the man quickly turns his back from the both of them.

“Nice folk out here,” says Gordon. He takes a drag of his cigarette and leans back against the post.

“Hmm,” mumbles Dean as he takes a drag himself. A cool breeze from the north gets up under his shawl and rustles the fringe. Further into the distance, Dean can just barely see snow-capped mountains poking out above the mists.

“Well, you’re real talkative this morning.”

“Just thinking,” says Dean on an exhale. “It’s some beautiful country out here. Been a long time since I’ve been this far out West.”

“West.” Gordon chuckles, smoke drifting from his nose and mouth. “Hell, this isn’t West. Ever been to California?”

“Almost. Once before,” says Dean. His knee begins to stiffen, and he stretches out his leg as best he can. “I was hunting down a man who’d killed his wife and son after losing it all in a lousy hand of poker. Son of a bitch made it all the way out to Pyramid Lake before I caught up with him.”

“And?”

“And he thought he’d try and duel me, so I put a bullet in his shin.” Dean ashes his cigarette. “Bastard cried the whole way back.”

Gordon smiles. “I knew I liked you. Maybe once you chew through that leash Uncle Sam’s got you on, you can see it for yourself.”

“No need.” Dean holds up both wrists to remind Gordon that he’s no longer shackled. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“That you are,” says Gordon. He shakes his head and takes another drag with his lips curled into a grin. “You eaten anything yet?”

Dean takes a drag and holds it. “Can’t,” he says. “Nerves got me too wound up.”

“Nerves.” Gordon chuckles in disbelief. “You know the best thing about this life, Marshal?”

“Tell me.”

“It’s real easy.”

“Hmm.”

“You always know where you stand, ‘cause you see? All this? The thieving, whoring, gambling, hell, even the bounty hunting? It’s just a game, is all. And if you’re playing the game, then you’re either with us, or you’re with them. The other team. The opposition.”

“That right?” Dean takes a drag with shaky hands. “What’s that make me, then?”

Gordon licks his teeth and grins. He drops his cigarette and stamps it out. The front door behind them swings open, and Cas’ boots hit the front porch with a thunk that cuts through the peace like a heavy cleaver.

“He’s with us,” he says. Cas turns up the collar on his coat against the cold morning mist and runs a hand through his hair. As he passes Dean and Gordon and heads down the stairs, Meg follows closely behind.

“We’re going to hit up the rest of town for some supplies,” she says. “Maybe we’ll find someone interested in doing a little business without asking too many questions.”

“Any requests?” asks Cas as he puts on his hat. He keeps his eyes turned out towards town, away from Dean.

“Some real coffee,” says Gordon. “Not that shit we’ve been drinking.”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

“You two should head down to the Cassity’s and get a closer look at the place,” says Meg.

Gordon clicks his tongue. “Didn’t know I took orders from you.”

“Nobody takes orders from anyone,” says Cas. It comes out sounding rehearsed. “But it would be greatly appreciated. We’ll meet you two there later.”

“Yes, sir,” says Gordon. “Right away, sir.”

“Gordon.”

Gordon grins and waves the two of them away. Meg rolls her eyes and takes Cas by the arm, getting on her toes to whisper something in his ear as she leads the two of them down the rocky hill toward the rest of town. Gordon tilts his head to watch them leave

“‘Nobody takes orders from anyone,’” he grumbles under his breath. “Yeah, you keep on telling yourself that.”

Dean rubs a hand over his neck and takes a heavy drag of his cigarette.

“You wanna know something?” Gordon asks. “A little birdy told me that the bossman slept in Masters’ room last night.”

Dean chokes on his smoke.

“Can’t say I blame him, though. Probably beats waking up to you. No offense.”

“None taken,” Dean lies. "I, uh, guess I'm a heavier sleeper than I thought. Didn't even notice he left."

“Masters is a piece of work, but you gotta’ admit she ain’t exactly a chore to look at.”

“Yeah. This, uh, ‘little birdy’,” says Dean, “didn’t happen to be a dove, now did it?”

Gordon folds his arms and laughs. “Might’ve been,” he says. “Why make money if you’re not gonna spend it, right?”

“S’pose.” Dean sets his jaw. “Just thought you were sending it to your mother.”

Gordon jumps down from the porch, and the landing slings mud all over Dean’s boots. “Are we gonna head out, or do you wanna stand around and talk all day?”

Dean rolls his shoulders and lets the shawl drop from them. He takes one last drag of his cigarette, and it hisses against the damp deck boards when he stubs it out. The two of them gear back up, and then it’s off.

At a canter, it only took around half an hour to make it back towards the Cassity’s farm. The roads are still slick with mud from last night’s last bit of rain, but the horses have a better time going downhill in the muck and mire than up. Gordon is all business and keeps quiet the whole way with his eyes narrowed and locked onto the path ahead, only breaking to occasionally glance into the treeline alongside the road.

Dean figures he ought to follow suit. He was still a lawman, and he’d damn well be remiss to forget it. Getting too comfortable simply wasn’t an option, even if Dean told himself that taking out the most dangerous man in the West was worth the fleas he’d get for lying with dogs. Especially after last night, speaking of getting too comfortable and lying where he shouldn’t.

“Let’s head off the path here,” says Gordon. “We can go the rest of the way on foot.”

Up ahead, the outer stone fence of the Cassity’s property is barely visible around a bend in the road. A thicket of trees runs along the side of the road, and Dean can just make out the way it curves around the backside of the homestead clearing. On the other side of the road, the river runs quietly, and no traffic can be heard coming up the road. All seems clear.

The two of them pull off the road and hitch the horses to an old spruce trunk. Last night’s rain and this morning’s dew falls sporadically from the canopy above, each drop hitting the forest floor with a gentle splat. One lands square on the back of Dean’s neck, and he turns up his collar against it.

“You got your gun?” asks Gordon. He spins the barrel on an old Schofield one, two, three times before clicking it back into position and re-holstering it.

Dean rolls his eyes while his back is turned. “Yeah,” he says. “Wish I had my knife, though.”

Or, rather, Cas’ knife. Dean may have gotten his Colt back when the two of them made their agreement by the river, but Cas had kept the hunting knife.

Gordon grins, and just like that he’s back to his usual self. It’s like a mask has been lifted, or perhaps like one has been put on. Dean isn’t sure yet. “Just don’t go causing any trouble, now,” he says.

“Didn’t plan on it.”

The two of them head through the forest toward the farm. As they get closer, the trees get slightly less dense, and there’re several feet of open space between the edge of the forest and the low stone fence surrounding the place. To the left, behind the house, the fence ends just where a natural rock formation jutting out of the hillside begins. Dean jerks his head in that direction and makes his way around and up toward it. After a small bit of climbing up jutting tree roots and avoiding slippery patches of moss, the two of them crouch down onto their stomachs and look out over the farm.

The main house sits below them with the stable and paddock off to the left. To the right are a shed and a larger outbuilding with a lean-to built off the side. It seems to be a quiet morning with farmhands coming and going from the stable to the shed to the outbuilding and back again. The smell of wet hay and horseshit is oppressive, even from a distance, and Dean’s hands shake so badly that he lays on top of them until they go numb. His eyes burn from sleeplessness.

“Get it together,” he whispers to himself.

“You say something?” asks Gordon.

Dean pulls one of his hands out from under his chest and wipes his eyes. “Just thinking with my mouth, I guess.”

“Remember, Marshal. Just a game is all.”

“Yeah,” says Dean. “‘Course.”

The two of them stay up there all morning waiting on Cas and Meg. Down the embankment, an older man in a light gray hat stands in the livery field and inspects a bay-colored stallion while a younger, rounder man stands next to him and appears to be talking his ear off. Dean suspects that’s Cassity and the “idiot son-in-law” that Crowley had mentioned. His tired eyes drift closed for just a second, and Dean sees the two of them with burned-out holes for eyes, standing and talking as if nothing was wrong.

Gordon nudges him in the side. He holds out some jerky and biscuit he’d had wrapped up in his pocket and offers some to Dean who chokes it down despite the lump in his throat. What Dean really wants is another cigarette. What he wants is a damned drink, but his empty flash is currently bundled up in his bedroll.

The sun is high and shines down a cold, white light. Yesterday’s rain sits heavy in the air, making it cold and humid — the kind of cold that cuts through your clothes and clings to your bones. A formation of birds flies overhead. A farmhand wheels a tarp-covered cart under the outbuilding’s lean-to and parks it. Dean’s lids get heavy, and all it takes is him resting his chin on his arm before he’s out cold. He tries not to dream.

“How’s it look?”

Dean’s gently kicked awake.

“Quiet,” says Gordon. “Nobody’s left, and maybe two or three have come by on the roads.”

Cas gets to his knees and crawls between Dean and Gordon. “I suppose that’s good. Less chance of anyone turning up. Here.” Cas tosses Gordon a leather coin purse of silver dollars then pulls out a pair of binoculars and looks down over the homestead. “Your cut.”

“Well, hello Lady Liberty,” says Gordon as he sifts through its contents.

“We checked on the horses and dropped the rest of the supplies there. Once we get back to Crowley, we should be set to ride out immediately.”

“So, what’s the plan?” asks Meg. “Go now, or wait until dark?”

“Too many farmhands around now,” says Dean. “Best wait until nightfall then create some kind of distraction. That should give us two kinds of cover, at least.”

Cas looks over at him with a strange look.

“What?” asks Dean.

Cas turns back and raises his binoculars again. “Gordon,” he says. “When it gets dark, I want you to go to the stable and release the horses. Meg, Dean, you two keep close to me while I get up into the bedroom.”

Cas passes the binoculars to Dean. “See that corner window on the top floor?”

Dean does. It sits right over the covered porch that wraps around from the house’s front to its side, and the pane sits crooked in its track.

“It’s slightly open. Hopefully just forgotten about and not stuck.”

Dean passes the binoculars over to Meg.

“From what we gathered around town, there should only be five people in the house,” she says. “Noah Cassity, his son-in-law Carl, and three daughters.”

Dean’s stomach drops. He doesn’t like knowing their names.

“We ain’t seen any of them,” says Gordon. “Just Old Man Cassity and Carl.”

Meg hands the binoculars over to Dean to pass back to Cas. “How many hands?” she asks.

“Five or six,” says Dean. He makes himself swallow. “A couple of them look young. Practically kids.”

“Young means jumpy,” says Gordon. “All too eager to do something stupid.”

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” says Cas. “If the time comes.”

“I say if they wanna get their fool selves shot protecting some other bastard’s money, let them."

Cas puts the binoculars away and clasps his hands in front of him. “Let’s just pray we get in and out of there before any of that is necessary.”

“So,” says Meg. “Now we just wait.”

Cas rests his forehead against his hands. “Now we wait.”

For every hour until dusk, Cas takes out a match, lights it, and lets it burn down to his fingers. The tosses the nubby ends in a pile on the ground in front of where he sits off by himself against the trunk of a tree. As the sun meets the horizon and its rays shine blinding gold over the foothills, Cas turns his head to watch until everything goes dark. He drops the last match, still burning, onto the pile then stands and stamps it out.

“Let’s go.” He pulls out a black bandana and ties it around the lower half of his face. “Masks on.”

The three of them all get to their feet and secure their face coverings. Dean ties his knot extra tight in the hopes that the fabric won’t flap and give away how hard he’s breathing. In and out through his nose, nice and easy.

“Gordon, head down first,” says Cas. “Give us a few minutes to get into position then give the signal. Meg and Dean, you’re on me.”

Gordon nods once, quickly, then heads down the left-hand embankment to sneak past the outhouse and around the back of the stable. Cas looks to Meg and Dean then starts in the opposite direction. The two of them clamber behind him, trying to both keep quiet and not make a wrong step in the near-black. The only light they have to go by is the few lights on inside the house, the sliver of the moon, and the stars above.

Cas leads them back down the hill to the spot where Dean and Gordon first got a look at the property. There are a few feet of open clearing between the treeline and the stone fence, and the three of them crouch down and run up behind it. Dean’s back hits the stone, and he throws a glance back over his shoulder and over the top.

“Coast seems clear,” says Dean, keeping his voice low.

“Alright,” says Cas. “You two hide out behind the outbuilding. I’ll stay behind the shed. When Gordon gives the signal, follow behind me.”

Dean can barely hear him over his heart pounding in his ears, loud as the inside of a grandfather clock cabinet. His knee is already on fire, and he wonders why the hell he’s even following along with this. Cas looks over to Meg and turns to Dean. Before Dean can look for an answer on Cas’ face, Cas lifts himself up and jumps the fence. Meg swiftly follows, up and over like a cat, and Dean scrambles after her.

They run for the lean-to and duck behind the wagon. The light from the house hits the wheel spokes and casts soft, overlapping shadows on the ground. Dean pokes his head up over the crates. About fifty feet away, Cas takes cover around the corner of the shed and drops into a crouch. He nods, Dean nods, and they get ready for Gordon’s signal.

It doesn’t come. The wait is unbearable, and Dean has to change the knee he’s leaning on every few moments to keep the throbbing at bay. He grits his teeth and bites his tongue, but Meg can see right through it based on the strange look she’s giving him.

“You gonna hold it together, big tough lawman?” she asks.

“Shut up,” he spits. “Where the hell is the signal?”

“No clue.” She looks across the clearing between the two buildings to Cas and appears to think about running over there, but changes her mind and turns back to Dean.

“Maybe one of us should go check on Gordon,” he says.

“Em’s still waiting.”

“So, what? We just sit here until he says otherwise?”

“Yes,” she says, and Dean’s not sure why he bothered asking.

“Damn it.”

Meg turns from him to look out around the wagon. “No one forced you to be here in the first place.”

“No, but—” Dean’s knee pops, and he tries to disguise his groan as a sigh. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Meg sighs and drops down to sit in the mud. “Seems like we’ve got time.”

“Not that much time.” If Dean didn’t know any better, he’d swear the shaking of her shoulders was a laugh. “How the hell’d you get mixed up in all of this anyways? Who are you avenging?”

“No one,” she says, and it sounds like that’s the end of that conversation until she adds, “It’s a matter of loyalty.”

“Loyalty, huh?”

They wait. Still no sign of Gordon.

“I’ve been at the mercy of bad men enough to know a good one when I see him,” Meg continues. “Emmanuel’s one of the good ones.”

Dean is struck. A sick, cold part of himself wants to laugh, but he keeps it pushed down. “And Gordon?”

“Gordon wouldn’t know loyalty if it slapped him on the ass. Gordon is loyal to Gordan. Not a bad thing, not a good thing.” She shrugs, and it’s harsh like she’s shaking away an unwanted touch. “Just a thing.”

“Right,” says Dean, and he wonders how Cas managed to convince her that he knows a damned thing about loyalty. Then he remembers what Gordon said about Cas sleeping in her room last night, and it makes the churning in Dean’s stomach worse. He wonders what exactly happened, what Cas said to her. He wonders if it was anything he’d heard before.

Meg rolls her shoulders. “Where is that goddamned signal?”

Dean grabs hold of the edge of the wagon and uses it to hold himself up as he changes knees. The weight and movement set the cart off balance, and it jumps and tilts two wheels into the air before crashing back down when Dean jerks his hand away. The load underneath the tarp shifts to one side, and a pale human hand falls out from underneath the canvas.

“Shit!” Dean scrambles away from the cart until his back hits a crate.

Meg lifts the end of the tarp and bites back a groan. The two of them are greeted with the body of a young man, maybe twenty years old at most and dressed as a farmhand. His head lolls to the side, face up with cloudy, sunken eyes and a gaping mouth in the shape of an ‘O’.

“Oh, hell,” she mumbles.

Dean looks back at her and, for the brief lack of what else to do, laughs nervously. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

Meg grabs the corpse’s arm. “Ravagers.”

She shows him the faded tattoo of a steer skull on the inside of the corpse’s wrist. On his various fingers, next to scrapes and old scars, are blue dots sloppily needled into the skin with blue ink. Gang tattoos. Seemingly decorative, but Dean recognizes the name as being one of the many outlaw gangs crawling around the territories.

“You thinking we’ve stumbled upon some kind of hideout?” asks Dean.

“It makes sense. Big place. Close to town, but far enough away that even gunshots won’t reach,” she says. “But stumbled? I doubt it.”

“Yeah,” he says. He shakes his head. “Shit, yeah. Oh, god. Okay.”

“Em!” Meg whispers over the crates. She pulls down her bandana. “Em, we have a problem here!”

Cas doesn’t make a move to respond.

“Damn it,” says Meg. She throws a quick look over both shoulders, readjusts her mask, and makes a dash across to the shed.

She’s quick, Dean will give her that much. She whispers something to Cas, and in the low lighting, Dean can see his eyes grow big. With a quick glance out towards the clearing, he runs back over to Dean and slides in behind the wagon.

“Oh,” he says upon seeing the body. “Hello.”

“Yeah.”

“This complicates things.”

“You think? Pretty sure we’ve waltzed right into a criminal hideout,” says Dean as he winces and drops down to both knees. Cas reaches out to steady him with one hand and lowers the tarp back over the body with the other. Dean slaps his hand over Cas’ before he can pull away. “One of us needs to find Gordon.”

Cas’s eyes burn with thought for a second. “Meg’s the quietest.”

“Go. Maybe she can find out just where the hell he is.”

“Of course.” Cas jumps up briefly, then turns and drops back down. Dean still has a hold on him. “Oh, and Dean?”

“Cas?”

“Next time I send you to scope a place out, don’t fall asleep.”

A hot flash burns through Dean’s body. He could punch him, right here and now. He would punch him if they didn’t need to get the hell out of there.

“Might’ve slept better if somebody hadn’t been all over me the night before,” Dean says. “Then again, you seem to have slept just fine.”

Cas just glares, cold and silent. Dean shoves him away and digs his fist into his aching knee to keep from sending it flying into Cas’ face. Anything to get a reaction out of him that isn’t just detached, noble anger.

“You don’t want me,” says Cas, and it’s not what Dean was expecting. “You can barely stand me. You just want—”

Two shots go off, followed by the thunder of stampeding hooves.

“Hyah! Go on, get!” Gordon calls out in the distance.

Lights come on in the house. Dark figures rush past the windows.

“Cas, c’mon,” pleads Dean. “Our cover’s not blown yet.”

A man in a dirty union suit and untied boots runs out of the front door with a shotgun. He fires it into the air, and more lights come on. Dean can hear more men shouting inside. Two more half-dressed men rush out of the side door towards the stable and fleeing horses. Cas pulls his revolver and pulls the hammer back.

“Cas—!”

Cas calmly stands and fires a shot right through the man’s temple. He falls to the ground like a discarded ragdoll, and that’s when all hell breaks loose.

“Goddammit!” yells Dean, though he can hardly hear himself over the ringing in his ears.

“—me!”

“What!?”

“Cover me!”

“Like hell!” Dean scrambles into a crouch and pulls his gun. Cas’ back is turned to him, and one well-placed bullet could end all of this right here and now. But then Cas makes the dash over to Meg, and Dean jumps to his feet.

Two shots hit the mud near Cas’ feet. Upstairs window, far right. The Ravager gunman pokes his head up to take another shot, and Dean throws the hammer back on his revolver and shoots. The first misses, but the second hits the gunman in the hand, and he cries out and ducks back inside.

Cas yells something in Meg’s ear. She nods and takes off around the back of the house. Dean rushes across the clearing to Cas’ side. He slams his back up against the side of the shed. Shots go off in the direction of the stables, and a man cries out in pain.

“Meg’s going to—!” Cas yells in Dean’s ear. A bullet whizzes past their heads. “Meg’s going to find Gordon and they’ll pull the fire off of us.”

“Us?”

“We have to get into that upstairs bedroom.”

Another shot flies past them, and Dean turns around to fire another shot into the upstairs window.

A dark-haired woman runs out the side door with a rifle. Cas throws a hand into Dean’s chest, holds him back, and pulls back the hammer on his revolver. “How many shots do you have?”

“That was three.”

The woman spots them and turns the rifle on them. Cas takes aim and waits to see what she does. She pulls back on the lever, and Cas puts her down.

“Well, don’t miss then,” he says.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” says Dean. Several more shots ring out near the stable. The woman’s blood pools on the ground and reflects the warm lights of the house. “We need to move.”

“Come on,” says Cas. He takes off for the side porch, and because Dean is an idiot, he follows.

Cas grabs onto one of the wooden posts and pulls himself onto the porch railing. Dean does the same, and when Cas jumps up to grab onto the edge of the roof, Dean gives him a boost with his shoulder. When Dean’s knee nearly fails him, Cas reaches down and pulls Dean up onto the roof.

The corner window they’d banked on is stuck, so Cas throws an elbow into it and shatters the lower pane of glass. Inside, they stand at the end of a hallway with a stairwell at one end and several doors. One flies open, and another Ravager stumbles out. He scrambles for his pistol, but Dean is quicker, and the man takes a bullet between the ribs and drops.

“Dean, in here!”

Dean runs through the door Cas is holding open for him. He slams it behind him, and the two of them shove a nearby dresser in front of the door as more footsteps come from downstairs. This is clearly the master bedroom, judging by the size of the bed and the small fireplace directly across from it.

“Okay,” says Cas. “This should be it.”

Two shots go off from outside, and the second one cracks the bedroom window.

“You look for the money,” says Dean. “I’ll cover the window.”

Dean presses up against the wall next to the broken window while Cas grabs a fire poker. The footsteps downstairs sound like they’re coming from the hallway outside now, and more shots come from outside.

“Where’s the rug?” asks Cas. “Crowley said there’d be a rug.”

“Dammit, Cas. Hurry up.” Dean shatters the rest of the window with the butt of his revolver. He can only see where the Ravager is outside by the muzzle flash when he takes another shot. Dean fires off one shot in that direction, then another. He’s out, but the returning gunfire stops.

Cas shoves the poker between the floorboards in front of the bed and puts his weight on it.

Dean throws a glance outside the window. “You got it?”

“Help me,” groans Cas. “Come grab the board.”

Between Cas prying the boards up with the poker and Dean pulling them the rest of the way up, the two of them tear up nearly every damn floorboard in the room. There’s a bang against the door like someone kicking it, and the dresser jumps.

“There’s no money,” says Dean.

Another bang. Cas starts yanking drawers out of the nightstands and shaking them out.

“We went through all of this—”

“I know.”

“—and the goddamn money isn’t even here, Cas!”

“I know!”

Dean grabs a small side table and throws it across the floor. “This whole thing was a set-up, you stupid bastard!”

Cas jerks his head up, and his hair flops down over his forehead. His face is flushed, eyes dilated and wild. “Thank you, Dean,” he says. “I hadn’t realized that.”

The dresser lurches forward as the door is kicked open. Dean reaches over and pulls Cas’ revolver from his holster and fires a shot right into the chest of the Ravager busting in the door. It's a young woman about Dean’s age with loose blonde hair splayed out around her head, the ends of it saturated in the creeping pool of blood on the floor. Her hand is still loosely wrapped around the grip of a revolver. She looks like Jo.

“Come on,” says Cas. “We need to go.”

Dean can’t move.

“Dean.” Cas shakes him by the shoulder. “Come on.”

There might be more gunshots outside; Dean can’t tell. The only thing he can hear is Cas’ voice in his ear urging him out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and out of the house. Meg and Gordon are outside on horseback, Meg leading Sera behind her and Gordon doing the same with Baby.

“Are you two alright?” asks Cas.

“Sure,” Gordon jumps down from his horse. “You got the money?”

“There isn’t any money,” says Cas. He’s still holding the fire poker from upstairs, and he flexes his hand around it.

“What? You’re saying you didn’t find it?”

“I’m saying it wasn’t there. Likely never was.” Cas gestures to one of the bodies in the mud. “Grab one of them.”

Gordon does but not before checking the man’s pockets. He hauls the poor bastard up by his underarms.

“Check his wrist,” says Meg, and she dismounts her horse.

Gordon pulls back the man’s sleeve and, sure enough, there’s another steer skull tattoo matching the one on the body in the wagon.

“So, we did get led right into a trap,” says Meg.

“So it would seem,” says Cas. He bounces the poker against his palm as he heads back inside the house. “Bring him in here. The fire is still lit.”

Dean drags himself up to the front steps and holds onto the railing. He pulls down his bandana and tries to take in full breaths. The Ravager’s body thumps against the steps as Gordon drags him up the stairs and into the house.

“I’ll take it from here,” Cas says from just inside the house. “Might as well take what you want.”

Meg saunters past Dean and leans in the doorframe of the house. “Cassity’s dead,” she says. “His son-in-law too.”

Vague noises like metal against stone and furniture against wooden floors come from inside. Dean squeezes his temples with his palms. They’re hot.

“Looks like the whole family was in with the Ravagers,” Meg continues. “We’re pretty sure nobody got away, but we didn’t see any sight of the daughters.”

“We dealt with two of them,” says Cas.

“Think we need to worry about the third?” asks Meg.

“I doubt it.” Cas grunts, and there’s the hiss of hot metal being quenched. “We’ll be out of here soon enough.”

Dean staggers forward onto his hands and knees and heaves the meager contents of his stomach into the mud. He coughs and spits and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

Gordon passes by Meg and tromps down the stairs. “Found a little bit of money. Not six-thousand, but....” He looks down at Dean. “You good down there?”

Dean’s limbs shake as he comes down from the adrenaline, but he manages to hold himself up on one arm enough to wave him away. He’s pathetic, getting sick at the first sign of a fight, and his face and eyes burn.

“So,” says Meg. “No money. What’s next?”

Finally, Cas emerges from the house. He drags the body out by the back of the man’s collar and drops it in the mud right in front of Dean. Vacant eyes stare back at him, black and bleeding.

“Next, we pay a repeat visit to our friend Crowley.”

Chapter Text

Then

Dean, Jo, and Cas dragged themselves into town after sundown. They’d seen the light and plumes of chimney smoke on the horizon for miles, but as the trail ahead turned into a dusty dirt street, Dean couldn’t help but think that Provenance wasn’t so much a town as a smattering of timber homes and dark-windowed businesses. There was of course a saloon, and usually a place like that would be Dean’s first stop both for matters of business and pleasure, but it didn’t seem likely that Jo would have been allowed inside. Thankfully, a hotel sat across the street although it showed no signs of life save for the faint glow of a single oil lamp peaking through the first-floor window.

Dean immediately pulled his hat from his head and smoothed his hair back behind his ears as soon as they stepped inside. A man stood behind the counter, not quite middle-aged but already showing hints of white in his dirty blond hair. He kept a plug in his cheek and looked the three of them up and down before leaning down behind the counter to spit.

“Yeah?”

“Evening, sir,” said Dean, flashing the man his badge. “Name’s Winchester. U.S. Marshal. This here’s my associate, Mr. Milton, and my wife, Joanna.”

Cas nodded his head while Jo gritted out a smile. Dean wrapped one arm around her waist, and she threw her elbow into his back when he kissed her hard on the cheek with a smack.

“We’re looking for a place to stay for the night. This it?”

“Sure,” said the man behind the counter.

“Also looking for a man named Scratch, Luke Scratch. You know him?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. He sure don’t live here.”

“What about a man named Milton?” asked Cas. “Would have come through town last year. About yay tall. Long sandy brown hair? A propensity for being obnoxious?”

“Why? What’d he do?”

Cas put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and stepped around him. “So you do know him then.”

“I didn’t say that.” The man leaned forward, hands far apart, and perched on the edge of the counter.

“Quiet out this way,” said Dean. “This time of year, I’d expect this place to be crawling with cowboys, gamblers, whores....”

The man spat behind the corner. “Rail’s come through up-a-ways north if you hadn’t noticed. Any pokes that used to roll through here on the way to Omaha just hop straight onto the North Western heading out of Salvation. Steer too. Feels like soon folks won’t ever need to step off of a train for nothing. Not when they can get all those fancy ladies’ dresses from New York hawked to them through the passenger car windows.”

“Salvation. You said that’s north of here?”

“Why?” asked the man, deadpan. “You gonna’ buy your woman here a new hat?”

Dean bumped Jo on the jaw with a knuckle. “I think I just might.”

“Yeah, well. Ain’t about a half day’s ride from here. Maybe a full day with the lady.”

Cas cleared his throat. “Yes. Well, thank you very much, Mr. ...?”

“Roy,” said the man.

“Mr. Roy.”

“No.” He spat again. “Just Roy.”

“Well, alrighty then.” Dean shot a quick look over his shoulder to Cas. “Good deal.”

Dean paid the man for two rooms with a polite nod, and the three of them made their way up the stairs.

“So, what’s the plan?’ asked Cas, stopping and turning to the others.

“I’m turning in.” Jo snatched the key from Dean’s hand and brushed past him. She turned to Cas and added, “Good night, then.”

“Goodnight, Miss Harvelle,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”

Jo let herself into her and Dean’s room. She closed the door softly behind her, leaving Dean and Cas alone at the top of the landing.

“So, on to Salvation then?”

“Jesus, Cas.” Dean rubbed a hand through his hair and over the back of his sore neck. “Not tonight.”

“No. No, of course not.” Cas fidgetted with his hands. He clenched his fist and stretched out his hand, his arm stiffly held by his side.

“Hey.” Dean dipped his head and caught Cas’ eye. “Relax, alright?”

Cas glanced away. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m gonna find him for you,” said Dean. “But it ain’t gonna be tonight. Hell, probably not tomorrow night.”

“No, right. Of course.”

“Better off just settling in,” Dean said. “You’ve got a long ride ahead of you.”

Cas pursed his lips and nodded.

“Right, well.” Dean clapped him on the shoulder. “Get some sleep, speaking of.”

“Yes. You as well.” Cas stood quiet for a moment before glancing around and clearing his throat. “Dean?”

Dean blinked at him. So far during the past few days, it had only ever been ‘Marshal.’

“Yeah, Cas?”

Cas held out his hand. “My room key?”

“Oh. Yeah. Here.”

Dean handed Cas the key. It happened so quickly that Dean nearly missed it, but when Cas reached out to take the key, he extended his forefinger and brushed it down the back of Dean’s hand and over his knuckles. Cas’ lips twitched up into the faintest hint of a smile as he let his hand fall away, as if his anxiousness and agitation from mere seconds ago had been wiped away completely.

“Well,” he said. “Good night, then.”

“N-Night....”

After Cas let himself into his room, Dean stood and stared at the closed door until he remembered to shake the cobwebs from his mind. He wiped his hand over the front of his jacket and headed to his room.

Dean climbed into bed and propped himself up, arms folded behind his head. On the other side, Jo sat propped up on the edge of the bed. She wore one of his old shirts as a nightgown, and she hummed softly to herself as she undid her braids and brushed through the waves with her fingers.

“Well, Jo, what do you say?” Dean asked, only half-seious. “Is tonight the night?”

Jo pulled the hem of her shirt down to cover herself as she turned and slid beneath the covers. She rolled onto her side, facing away. “Not on your life.”

“Aw, c’mon. Not even a little curious about what it’d be like?”

“I can imagine what it’d be like,” she said, “and I’ll pass.”

“Damn,” said Dean with a chuckle.

Jo turned over and propped herself up on her elbow, head in her hand.

"If I do, are you gonna marry me for real?" she asked.

"Nope."

"That’s what I thought," she said.

Dean couldn’t quite read her expression. "Would you want me to ... ?”

“Hmm.”

She placed her hand on Dean's chest and leaned in to kiss him. He gasped softly against her lips in surprise, bringing his hand up to brush back her hair and cup her cheek. Away from the trail like this, she was soft and delicate like a downy baby bird. It was different than the quick kiss on the cheek he’d stolen downstairs. It was tender, almost exploratory, but completely devoid of any heat. She pulled back and looked down in thought.

"Nope.”

Dean laughed — more of a heavy breath really. "S’what I thought."

"Go to sleep.”

Dean wet his lips. “Night, then.”

“Night,” Jo said. She rolled back over and blew the candle out.

Not too soon after, they were awoken by the choking smell of smoke.

Chapter Text

Now

Cas kicks open the bordello door.

“Crowley!”

The ruckus startles the late-night patrons still on the saloon floor. Card games stop. A few working girls yelp and clutch their hands to their chests; some jump up and cower together. The white-haired man at the front begins to hunch down, and Cas clicks back the hammer on his gun as he points it in the man’s face.

“I’d keep those hands above the counter, thank you,” he says. “Miss Masters?”

Meg comes up from behind Cas and points her gun at the man behind the counter. His eyes are wide as he takes a step back and holds up both hands. Cas gives a quick look at Gordon. Gordon nods, and Cas tips his head in the direction of Crowley’s office. He stomps off in that direction through the parlor, his boots caking mud into the rich carpet with every step.

“Crowley!” he shouts again.

Gordon is cool as a cucumber, stopping every so often to threaten a patron into sitting back down. Dean follows them in a daze with Meg taking up position behind him, keeping her pistol raised to keep any potential bodyguards back.

Cas throws open the door in the far corner of the room. A guard rushes him from the end of the dark hallway, and in one smooth motion, Cas takes the man’s knife, slips back behind him, and gets the blade up under his chin. He manhandles the guard all the way to the door to Crowley’s office and calmly says, “Open it.”

The guard swallows hard and scrambles to get the key in the door. As the door swings open, Cas drags the knife across the man’s neck and throws the body on the ground in front of Crowley’s desk.

Crowley gets up from his seat. “Well, bugger.”

Gordon comes up behind him and claps both hands on his shoulders. With a grin, he shoves Crowley back down into his seat. The Mastiff gets to its feet and growls, baring its teeth with its massive head held low. Cas pulls his pistol, cocks the hammer back, and points it at the dog. “Call it off or I put a bullet in it,” he says.

Crowley’s eyes are wide as he swallows hard, looking between Cas’ gun and the impenetrable look on his face. “Juliet,” he says harshly. “Heel.”

The dog reluctantly backs down and goes to her master’s side.

“Well,” says Cas. “We’re alive.”

“Yes, I can see that,” says Crowley.

His eyes dart from Cas to the door. Dean can hear a commotion from outside in the parlor.

“Meg,” says Cas under his breath, and that’s all she needs to hear. She pulls back on the hammer of her gun and steps out of the office, down the hall, and back out of the entrance into the parlor.

A bead of sweat runs down Crowley’s temple. Outside, a woman shrieks. There’s a muffled groan, then the sound of furniture being turned over, and finally, a gunshot.

Dean sneaks his hand to his holster and reaches for the butt of his revolver despite being out of shots. It feels better in his hand. Gordon kneads Crowley’s shoulders, and Cas’ face is as cold and unreadable as ever. Then it’s all over in a breath, and the man from behind the front counter stumbles in and falls to the floor.

“Get up,” says Meg as she comes in behind him, holding a shotgun by the barrel. She tosses it to Dean.

The man clambers to his knees. Meg nudges him in the back of the head with the muzzle of her gun, and he slowly raises his shaky arms out to his sides. Dean catches the man glancing up at Crowley with a wild eye for no longer than a blink before throwing open his jacket and reaching for a sidearm from his hip.

“Guthrie—” starts Crowley, but then Meg fires, and he snaps his mouth shut against the spray of blood.

Juliet cowers and cries out. Each bark is a knife that cuts through the ringing in Dean’s ears. Guthrie’s face smacks against the edge of Crowley’s desk as his body falls forward. A massive chunk of the back of his head is missing, and the rug soaks up the dark blood like a camp biscuit. Like the ends of Old Man Cassity’s daughter’s hair after Dean put a bullet through between her ribs. Somewhere, deep inside his own chest, Dean can feel the ghostly burn of hot lead.

“Marshal?”

Dean jumps like his spirit was yanked back into his body. He rubs his chest. “Y-yeah?”

“Keep one eye on the door.” Cas gestures to Guthrie’s body with his revolver. “Make sure nobody else wants to join our friend here.”

A clammy sweat begins to break out across Crowley’s forehead, and his chest heaves. “You idiot. You don’t think the law heard that?”

Cas kicks one leg over and perches on Crowley's lap. He lifts his chin with the barrel of his revolver. “Oh, I do think that,” he says. “I also think you and the sheriff’s office have long since come to an agreement that they should simply ignore any commotion they hear coming from inside your establishment.”

“Oh, is that what you think?”

Cas drops his chin. “I certainly like my chances,” he says. “So. What’s it gonna be?”

Crowley strains his neck back, his chest heaving as he tries to calm his breathing. “You’re crazy.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“If anything, you should be thanking me.”

“Is that right?”

“Anything I’d do to you would be a blessing compared to what Scratch has in store for you,” says Crowley. “A minute with him, and you’ll be begging somebody to shoot you.”

“You talk too much.” Cas presses the tip of his gun further into the soft flesh under Crowley’s chin, craning his head back. He clicks back the hammer, and Crowley’s eyes clench shut.

“Alright! Alright!” he begs. “Wait, wait. Please.”

Cas pulls back his gun, just enough to let Crowley relax his neck.

“I told you I have information, and I meant it,” says Crowley in a rough, breathy voice. “Scratch, the Horseman, all of it.”

Cas gets to his feet. He tosses his pistol and catches it by the barrel. “Were those your men at Cassity’s?”

“Not mine,” says Crowley. “Ravagers. ”

“Who are they?”

For a second, the fearful look on Crowley’s face disappears. He smirks and glances at Meg. “Why don’t you ask your dear little—?”

Cas rears back and brings the butt of his revolver down across Crowley’s face with a crack. Crowley’s face twists to the side as he spits and coughs up blood, and Gordon digs his hands into his shoulders to shove them back into his chair even harder.

“Where is Scratch now?” asks Cas. “Answer carefully.”

“I don’t know, but—”

Cas pulls his arm back like he’s going to hit him again.

“But! But I know who does!” cries Crowley, Blood and spit spew from his mouth and dribble down his chin. “Ravagers are little more than thugs, but they’re incredibly useful if you need a competitor’s kneecaps broken or need to keep certain product from coming into town.”

“So that’s your game.” Cas takes a step back and lowers his arm. “Creating artificial scarcity through intimidation.”

“Well, not me personally. My business partner.” Crowley turns his head and spits out more blood. “The man you want is named Hale. Gardner Hale, your ‘Black Horseman’ as it were. The Ravagers are his men.”

“And Hale knows where to find Scratch.”

“More or less,” says Crowley. He immediately flinches, but Cas just stares at him, calmly and attentively. “It’s a pyramid. All of it. The Horseman answer to Scratch, and they all have their own men that answer to them.”

“I want names,” says Cas.

“Then you’ll have to ask Hale. Climb the chain of command. At the top, you’ll find your Devil.”

“And what if I don’t believe that you don’t have information about the others?”

Crowley swallows hard. “Then I suppose I’m a bit fucked.”

Cas shifts his weight to one hip and rests his free hand on his gun belt. Unexpectedly, he chuckles and shakes his head. “Where do we find this Hale?”

“He has a homestead on Lake Manitoc. Follow the road going east out of town, then up the mountain.”

“How many men does he have guarding it?”

“Well, a whole lot less now that you blew through them all,” says Crowley. “So, one? Maybe two if the decrepit old creep hasn’t shot one of them himself.”

“Hale would kill his own men?”

“Would,” says Crowley. “Could. Does often.”

Cas bends down to eye level with Crowley, scrunches his eyes, and tilts his head as if he’s looking for something. Dean doesn’t know if Cas finds it or not, but then Cas pulls back and stands up straight.

“I see. Well,” he says. He wipes his thumb over his lips, hiding a smirk. “I must thank you for your time, then.”

Gordon picks up one hand and claps it back down onto Crowley’s shoulder, jostling him as he laughs to himself. “See, now?” he says to Crowley as he drops his hands and makes his way over to Cas. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“C’mon, Em,” says Meg, reaching for his sleeve. “Let’s get out of this hellhole.”

Cas fixes his hat on his head and takes one last look at the once smug bastard he’d just reduced to a bleeding, battered mess.

“Agreed,” he says. Before he turns to leave, he spits on the ground right between Crowley’s feet. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

There’s something different about Cas as they follow the trail heading toward Lake Manitoc. Crowley had given him a scent to track, and Cas took to the road like a bloodhound tugging at his leash. Morning is peaking its head around the corner. The setting moon and hint of cobalt blue in the sky illuminate the edges of Cas’ outline in cold light but leave the rest of his frame in silhouette. His shoulders sit high and tight, pulled in as close to himself as he can manage.

The crash from the night’s adrenaline has left Dean numb. The others too, he gathers, based on the fact that Meg hasn’t glared at him once and even Gordon hasn’t had much to say. Instead, he keeps his eyes pointed sharply ahead into the woods, over Cas’ shoulder. A soulful, rumbling croon from way down in his chest is the only noise, and he loosely times the peaks and falls of his voice to the splattering of horse hooves through the mud. Gordon’s voice shakes something deep in Dean’s stomach, and he racks his brain in vain to place the tune before Gordon goes quiet, licks his lips, and comes back in with a soft, gentle voice.

“I’ve a good old mother in Heaven, my Lord. How I long to go....”

He repeats the call, and on the response, Dean can barely hear Meg take the upper octave no louder or clearer than the first words harshly whispered at morning light.

“I’ve a good old mother in Heaven, my Lord.”

“How I long to go.”

Dean lets the droning spiritual hold him upright and lets Baby follow the road as his eyes drift closed. He thinks of sitting in the Stone Church back in Lawrence a few days after the attack listening to the choir and how the choir had buried three of their baritones, causing the harmony to feel small and wanting. Dean remembers looking over at Sam in their father’s lap and thinking their family felt the same. Their mother used to sing “Loch Lomond” to him the way Dean’s seanmhair had sung it to her. Dean wonders if Meg or Gordon knows it.

When Dean opens his eyes, they fall to the back of Cas’ head. He sees Guthrie’s shattered skull and gray matter splattered against Crowley’s carpet, easy as dropping a jar of preserves. Dean blinks, slow and dry, and it’s fine. Cas’ head pieces itself back together. The glass gets swept away.

Baby’s ears have begun to droop, and the hardware of her bridle clinks softly as she tosses her head. Dean reaches down and smooths his hand down her neck to tell her that it’s okay, girl. He’s tired too.

There’s not been a word among the four of them about what they might be riding into. Dean supposes it doesn’t matter. If Cas has made his mind up to run gun-first right into the lair of the beast, God Himself would have a damned time trying to stop him. Meg wouldn’t think twice about running in after him, and Dean figured if that lair had so much as a single Indian Head penny lying about then Gordon probably would as well. So maybe there wasn’t much that needed to be said. Not when they didn’t even really have a solid idea of what they were about to find out by the lake shore. Except—

Dean looked over at Meg. She and Crowley had been previously acquainted, and she’d been the one who brought Cas right to him. As soon as Dean opens up that line of thinking, the rest comes trickling out. The crack Crowley had made about her old job, the way she recognized the Ravager tattoo. Gordon’s crack about the dick riding and “I’ve been at the mercy of bad men enough to know a good one when I see him.”

But the Dean reminded himself Cas trusted her — clearly more than he did Gordon or even Dean — and for some wild reason he’d never be able to comprehend, that was apparently good enough for him. At least for the time being.

They can tell they’ve reached Lake Manitoc when the road veers right towards a gap in the trees where the first hints of golden hour poke through the pine needles. Dean supposes it’s a good sign that they haven’t been sniped by a rifled sentryman lying in the bushes, but when the four of them stop to dismount and find that the forest is completely silent, that pathetically small shred of optimism fades quickly and his heart rate picks up after a skip. He scratches between Baby’s eyes as he ties her off near Sera and the others, double checks his Colt is fully reloaded, then clicks back the hammer.

Without a word, Cas slinks off into the treeline. Dean is the first up behind him. The forest floor is still soft from the rain, and Dean’s thighs burn as he makes careful, sideways steps up the gentle incline of a muddy hill. At its summit, no more than twenty feet away from the horses, Cas squats down into a crouch with both elbows on his knees. Dean drops down beside him, and the two of them peer down into a rocky clearing. Clusters of smooth boulders litter the lakeside, and in their shadows are fifteen or so wedge tents surrounding a cold campfire. There’s not a soul to be seen, and a quick glance over at Cas confirms that he doesn’t see anything either. Despite this, down closer to the shore, three horses stand hitched outside a small cabin. A puny trail of smoke lifts up and away from the chimney while the door stands wide open.

Cas gets to his feet, and the others don’t fall far behind. Dean follows him around the camp’s perimeter, keeping himself low as he runs in a half-crouch. He and Cas come skidding behind one the boulders nearest the cabin while Meg and Gordon scurry on ahead and duck behind another. The four of them sit silently for Dean doesn’t know how long, but it sure feels like hours as Dean watches Cas’ back as Cas peers around the boulder. A faint layer of sweat clumped some of the strands behind his ear into a curl. Dean hadn’t noticed before that Cas’ hair is getting a little long.

Cas whips his head back around towards Dean, and the two lock eyes. Cas’ fire in Crowley’s office had burned down to smoldering embers — less intense on the surface, but burning much hotter. His eyes flicker down Dean and his lips part as if he’s planning on saying something, but then he turns back to the cabin and slowly stands. He signals for Gordon to stay put and for Meg to follow him, and as she gets to his side, Dean decides fuck it, gets to his feet, and comes up behind her. He hopes she can’t hear him forcefully breathing through his nose.

The boards creak as Cas puts his weight on the first step, and the three of them freeze. When they still don’t hear anything, Cas pulls his gun and steps all the way inside.

The air is sour with the stench of death and piss. Two bodies lie just inside, one thin and balding and the other younger with dark skin that’s gone pale and gray. Their clothes are black with dried blood, and the floorboards underneath them are stained with it as well. Dean nudges one of the corpses with the toe of his boot. It’s stiff.

At the end of the room in front of the fireplace, propped up in a curved-back chair and wrapped in a wool blanket, sits a white-haired figure with its back to them.

“Isaac?” comes a small, shaky voice. “Isaac, is that you?”

The three of them stop dead. Dean and Cas look to each other, then back to the man in the chair. Cas nods, and Dean clears his throat.

“Y-yeah, boss,” says Dean carefully. “It’s just me.”

Meg glances down at the bodies. “Which one of them do you think was Isaac?”

“Flip a coin?” mumbles Dean.

“Shh.” Cas holds up a hand. He holsters his pistol and takes a hesitant step forward, then another. The white-haired man doesn’t move, so Cas whispers, “C’mon.”

Dean’s heart would be pounding out of his chest if he wasn’t so confused. He’d been expecting a weathered old killer, but as the three of them approach and step around to get a good look at him, all they see is a frail husk of a man. His mouth hangs open slightly, and his head shakes from side to side as if stricken with some kind of tremor. One of his hands is wrapped loosely around an old cap-and-ball revolver, the other sitting limply in his lap.

Cas crouches down into a squat. “Mr. Hale?”

The man’s sunken eyes flicker to Cas as if he’d just noticed him standing there.

“Isaac?” he asks, long and breathless. His voice sounds like a cloud of dust that’s been beaten out of a rug.

Cas reaches forward and slips the revolver out of the man’s feeble grip and hands it off to Meg. He gently lifts the man’s sleeve to reveal an old, faded tattoo of a steer skull inside his wrist.

“Looks like Crowley was right about something, after all,” says Cas. He lowers his mask and then asks in a gentle voice, “Mr. Hale. Do you know where you are?”

“I’m ... home?” the old man barely makes out.

“That’s right,” says Cas.

“Who — who are you?”

“I’m afraid that’s not very important right now,” Cas says, and he presses his lips together in feigned sympathy. “You need to tell me all you can about the outlaw Luke Scratch.”

Hale wheezes and struggles to catch his breath. His lips are pale and chapped. “I don’t—” he hisses. “I— Get out.”

“Or what, exactly?” asks Cas softly.

Hale’s frail hands twitch and try to grasp at the pistol that was once in his hands. He shifts and writhes in his chair but can’t muster up the energy to even unwrap himself from his blanket. He coughs and gasps for air and looks around. Finally, he slumps back into his chair and looks back at Cas with wet, lost eyes.

“W-where’s Isaac?” he asks. “Who are you?”

Cas drops his head and sighs. He gets to his feet and pulls his gun from his holster. “Search the cabin,” he says to Meg. “Our friend needs more convincing.”

Dean blinks at him for a second, then grabs Cas’ arm and pulls him aside. “Wait,” he whispers, “Cas—”

“What?” asks Cas, indignant. He shakes Dean’s hand off of him.

“You can’t do this, Cas.”

Cas knits his brow and cocks his head to the side. “Oh, I absolutely can.”

“Look at him. I’m not going to stand here and watch you terrorize a senile old man the way you did Crowley.”

Cas takes a step forward, lifting his chin to look Dean dead in the eyes. “Then I suggest you step outside.”

Cas doesn’t even blink, but Dean can’t bear to look at him for more than just a second. Their shoulders knock together as Dean brushes past him. The last thing he hears before slamming the cabin door shut is the sound of Hale’s chair being kicked out from under him.

“Where the hell are you going?” asks Gordon as Dean passes him.

Dean doesn’t bother to answer. His hands are shaking so badly that he’s afraid to even look at him, afraid to show how weak he is more than he already has. He tromps off to the water’s edge and squeezes his eyes shut, digging in his pockets for his tobacco and paper. He shakes some out, licks the edge of the paper, but struggles to get it rolled. Finally, it’s good enough, and he tucks it between his lips.

Across the lake, stone formations reach towards the skies, high over the pines and spruces. A layer of fog sits across the water’s surface as the sun begins to come up over the mountains, and the fresh morning air is sweet and cool as Dean breathes it in. The dawn chorus has begun murmuring, but still everything is quiet enough to hear a frog dropping into the water or a fish breaking the surface for an insect. It’s beautiful.

A shot goes off inside. The crack echoes against the rocks.

Dean lights a match. He lights his cigarette. He holds the smoke before shakily letting it out nice and slow.

The cabin door swings open. First Meg, followed by Cas who wipes blood from his face with his coat sleeve.

“Got it,” he says. “Let’s go.”

There’s a small dock off the back of the cabin with a small boat. Dean wonders what kind of trout Manitoc has. He bets they’re biting right about now. It seems like a good day for it.

“Dean.”

“Yeah?” Dean asks around another drag of his cigarette, not turning around until Cas grabs his arm. Some blood gets on Dean’s sleeve.

Cas dips his head and looks up at Dean from under a furrowed brow. “You coming or not?”

Dean stares down at Cas’ hand, his lips curling into a bitter grin as he blows smoke over Cas’ face. “‘Course,” he says.

And so he does.