Author's Note: Phew, that's a big word! At least I'm all caught up now...
I Spy
They're travelling so slowly, Cas' gaudy pimp mobile may as well be going at twenty miles-per-hour. Dean checks their speed on the dash, mildly surprised to find that they're cruising along at sixty-two. He puts his foot down on the gas just in case the dial is broken. Maybe, he ponders as they silently eat up the miles to saving Sam from that asshat Gadreel, this car feels slow because it's not Baby. Baby is, after all, the best.
The tension adds weight to the back seat and keeps Dean alert—or maybe the suspension in this thing is shot.
A half-dozen tedious and silent miles pass them by before Dean, without thinking, says, "I spy..." He snaps his mouth shut before he can say anything else. It's nothing, he tells himself. Just something either he or Sam would say to break a silence that had become too long. Sam would ignore him or chuckle and start the game—it was fifty-fifty. But Sam isn't here. Dean's worry only increases.
"What?" Crowley's question from the back seat drags Dean back to the present and his current passengers.
Dean blinks. "What?" he echoes dumbly.
Crowley huffs a frustrated sigh. "What do you spy with your little eye, dumbass?"
"Oh." Dean looks around—at the road, the cars, the trees. There isn't much to choose from. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with... B," he decides on.
"Blacktop," Crowley says in less than a second. Dean opens his mouth to tell him he's right, but he doesn't get the chance to speak before Crowley announces, "My turn." Dean watches in the rear-view as Crowley makes a show of looking around. "I spy with my little eye... something beginning with S and P." His handcuffs jingle as he leans back on his seat and a smug smile appears on his face.
Dean scans the road ahead but nothing immediately springs to mind. Then flashing lights in the rear-view mirror catch his eye. "Speeding police," he guesses as the patrol car effortlessly overtakes them with the siren blaring.
Crowley shakes his head. "Nope."
"Uh..." Dean looks again, drums his fingers and clicks his tongue as he thinks. An SUV sails past, a dog giving Dean the stink-eye from out of the back window. It's a bit creepy. "Shampooed Poodle?"
Crowley snorts, "No."
Dean falls silent again.
"Santa's posterior," Cas suddenly says.
It's the first thing he has said since this crappy road trip began. Crowley and Dean both look at Cas. Dean only breaks his stare when he hasn't looked at the road for too long. Cas misinterprets their stunned silences. "I played this game with some homeless people," he explains. "They told me the rules."
"Okay," Dean says at length. He sighs, unwilling to admit defeat. "What was the answer, Crowley?"
"Sanctimonious pricks," he supplies, and the smug smile remains firmly in place.
Cas nods as if this explains everything, while Dean scrunches up his face. "Santa did a what now?"
THE END