It had taken a lot of contemplation, but after the second day Ben finally decided it was time to sell his car. It was the next obvious choice, really. The cash he'd got out of the poker tournament with had been enough to cover the rest of the hotel charges and food, but following Claire or vise versa would be a waste of gas, and both of them were well aware how much gas cost those days.

And he wanted to get her into a clinic to check her vitals, just to make sure she wasn't getting an infection from his shoddy stichwork. The last thing he could handle right then was dealing with the guilt of her getting hit with a huge fever. Once the trunk was cleaned and they'd had a decent night's rest, Ben went back to the hotel to pack up his stuff and agreed to meet her at the nearby dealership.

It was definitely true; the second day was always the worst. Last night, the pain from her wound maintained a low roar in her entire bloodstream, managed by the liquid fire in Ben's flask. In the morning, at least the discomfort was centralized, but it'd also intensified-condensedlike a freaking plasma star on the side of her leg. Claire ate a handful of Tylenol for breakfast and packed after Ben headed back to his hotel. The anti-inflammatory medicine did its job, though she was forced into a longer conversation with Rev. Kingsley when she limped up to his office to say her 'thank yous' and 'goodbyes.' Every other step tingled and pinched, and sliding a new pair of jeans over the wound was a lot less fun than she anticipated, but true to her word, she and the red GTO pulled into the dealership parking lot within five minutes of their meeting time.

She found Ben already in the office talking with the dealer, midway through the paperwork and looking a little worse for wear. The dealer was midway through a pitch to try and get him to trade it in for a newer car, but Ben was already shaking his head even though he didn't interrupt the man.

"...good value, given its mileage. You kept her in good shape. You'll get a decent trade for it."

"No thanks, man. Cash is fine by me."

Claire carefully eased herself into the tweed-looking chair beside Ben, and handed him one of the extra large Dunkin' Donuts coffees she carried which he took with a grateful smile. He looked like he was having a childhood pet put to sleep. She couldn't help but feel bad-a little sympathy never hurt anybody.

"All right, man, if that's what you want. Lemme double-check the books real quick'n see."

Ben muttered a quiet 'thanks' before taking a deep drink from his coffee, then looked sideways at Claire. The dealer blinked behind his screen, taking a breath.

"How's 28,000 sound?"

Ben very nearly spat out his coffee. "What, dollars?"

With a sidelong look at the dealer, Claire's eyebrows arched, and the corner of her lips twitched into one cheek. She switched her gaze back to Ben and mouthed the words Up the ante.

"I dunno, man," Ben said immediately, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's got a lot of sentimental value. Maybe I should drive it to my mom's and let her put it in storage."

The dealer took the bait and quickly countered. "I could go as high as 35,000, but I'd want my mechanic to look at it first and make sure it was in good condition."

It took all of Ben's effort not to have a heart attack on the spot. He'd never had so much money before in his life. The Camaro had been a junker when he'd found it in the nickel ads. It had taken him three months to find all the parts it needed, and another five to rebuild it. He'd maybe spent four thousand on it altogether. I am so in the wrong line of work,he thought.

His eyes turned to Claire. "What d'you think?" She pressed her bottom lip into the top, and made a very convincing show of her 'deliberation.'

"'Lotta vintage lovers in Chicago would pay at least twenty-five more than that just to turn it over." Or so she had read once in an American Auto magazine near Joliet when she was having the GTO's tires replaced last summer. She could recite the article word for word, if she thought it would tighten the jawline of the dealer across from them. He was very good at hiding it, but Claire had been watching veryclosely.

The dealer looked like he was sweating bullets. He chewed his lip viciously before flashing a quick smile. "I'm gonna go get my mechanic. Don't you two go anywhere, yeah?"

When he disappeared through a back door Ben stuck his fist in his mouth to keep from making any sound. How was this even possible?He had to be dreaming.

"Pinch me."

Claire's shoulders twitched in a bout of silent laughter that was easy to see in her eyes. They flicked from the door the salesman had just walked through back to Ben, and her head tipped with the gravity of her smile. A fair trade was a fair trade, but this... well, this certainly put the life back in his eyes. Claire was more than a little glad for it.

"I'll wait," she mused over a happy sip from her coffee, and eased back a little more comfortably in the chair-favoring her leg, of course. "Y'know, just in case."

"What am I even gonna do with that much money?" Ben blurted, his eyes still staring at the door. What if the dealer came out and told them to get lost? What if he decided they'd stolen the car? What if they declared it a lemon? What if what if what if?

"I think I'm gonna throw up."

"That probably won't help," Claire stated the obvious with a wry smile. A few moments later, both the salesman and what could only be the mechanic returned through the back door. The mechanic was an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and heavy laugh lines around his mouth and eyes, and when he looked at Ben he seemed very pleased.

"Your girlfriend tell ya to pick between your girls, kiddo?" he asked, his voice sounding much younger than the body it belonged to. Ben's eyes widened almost comically. Claire's cheeks blazed, half hidden behind her cup of coffee.

"Uhh, she's n- we're just friends," he clarified. The mechanic grinned more into one cheek than the other and offered the kid his hand.

"Well, you sure as hell put a'lotta love into that Chevy."

"Thank you, sir," Ben replied, taking it and giving it a firm shake. Hearing it wasn't as good as imagining hearing it from Dean, but it filled up some secret part of him with fulfillment and gratitude.

"We're not really in the business of selling classic cars, though," the dealer said. Any good feelings in Ben immediately emptied out of him, but the mechanic hadn't let go of his hand yet.

"But I'll buy it," the mechanic replied. "65-k, if you'll accept the offer." Only after a monumental amount of effort (and a hard bite down on her tongue) was Claire able to keep herself quiet, but her eyes shot straight to Ben's face. Somewhere deep inside her, she was praying he didn't actuallyloose his breakfast on the floor. Ben only nodded dumbly, too afraid to speak.

"So's that a yes?" The older man's grin lengthened, but his eyebrows arched with a curious glance at the salesmen behind him. Claire took the opportunity to firmly nudge Ben's foot with the tip of her boot-just a light kick to jar him out of his stupor. She also piped up to the two other men. Her smile, at least, came easily.

"He's just really attached."

"Yes," Ben blurted, nodding a little more vigorously. "Yeah, that's- yeah. More than fine. I feel like I'm robbing you." The look on the salesman's face seemed to agree, but it was out of his hands. The mechanic added his other hand to the handshake, then gave Ben a friendly pat on the shoulder before letting go.

"Nah, my boys'an I compete in car shows-been lookin' for a Camaro for a while. You know, there's kind of a shortage of Chevys in this town." He chuckled at his own little joke, then casted a look toward the back door. "C'mon back, we'll knock everything out and have you set by noon."

Ben seriously thought about sending the money back to his mother. Having a paper trail wasn't a good thing in his line of work, to be frank. Then he had a genius idea: loading up gift cards. It took the better half of the day, but by the end of it he had a stack of gift cards almost as thick as a playing deck. It made his brain hurt a little.

They'd gone to the clinic to have Claire's leg looked at as well, just to be safe. The doctor had frowned a little at them, saying that regular thread wasn't exactly the most sanitary way to handle that kind of wound. Within the hour Claire's leg was restitched and she was given a prescription for antibiotics and vicodin once Ben explained that they were traveling sales reps and were going to be on the road again for a few more days before heading 'home.'

Knowing that it was back to the grindstone the following day, Ben decided to find the nicest hotel in town and check them in. Someplace that had room service and pay-per-view, and maybe a really nice bathtub. It was just a case now of did they share one room, or get two with some sort of joiner. He'd never been in those kinds of hotels before, but surely they had to exist. He'd seen them on TV.

"Not sure I even want to get used to this..." Claire breathed with look of awe around the lavish black marble and warm accented lobby. It was nice-very nice. Maybe toonice. She'd been in church guest rooms, convents, and trucker motels for so long, anything fancy tended to make her a little uncomfortable. She felt like she stuck out like the limp she was doing her best not to show.

"Probably won't," Ben replied, finally deciding on one room. He wanted to be within easy reach if something happened to her and she needed him. "It'll just be for tonight. I wanna be sure we can buy a few supplies before we go that might cut into our budget a bit."

Thatcaught her attention, but Claire stayed quiet while he finished checking in. On the way to the elevator, she re-shouldered her duffel and cut the lobby into sections with her gaze. It was crowded. Were hotels like this always crowded? Luckily there weren't any other guests in line for the doors behind them. They dinged, then closed after Claire pressed the 'close doors' button and leaned back against the brass rail. "So what'd you have in mind?"

Something about her question made his insides twist. Ben swallowed, trying to play it cool. "For what, supplies?"

Her brows pinched together above her nose, then rose high above a somewhat comical look, and a nod. "Uh-huh. What'd you think I meant?"

"Well, I mean, the rest of the night. Like, if we were gonna watch movies or... y'know what, nevermind." He laughed awkwardly. "Ah... probably a couple new guns and ammo and maybe a few specialty items. I've got iron and silver, but I haven't got any copper and we should probably see what we've both got and cross-reference to see whatever it is we're missing from the bulk, y'know? Better over-prepared than under-prepared, right?" At first, Claire had been watching simply because he was explaining. Then the explanation continued to a curious length, and she started picking up on those little facial and bodily clues all the interrogation textbooks and psychology references taught her to look for. The way he hadn't stopped to breathe was a big one all on it's own.

Claire felt her cheeks get warm-annoyingly so, because it was the umpteenth time in three days. Get it in check,she thought to herself, unaware that her eyes had moved to the doors, waiting for them to open. She tried convincing herself it was just the whole new-partner thing, but Claire wasn't that naive. It didn't mean she couldn't try to just work through it.

She cleared her throat a little and nodded, jumping into the conversation Ben seemed to be having with himself. "Michigan's got a seven day waiting period." The elevator doors opened. Claire shuffled herself in front of them and waited for him to lead into the hall. "I've got a contact outside of Holland, though. Last I checked, she has everything." Concentrating on what they knew best was a lot easier.

"Works for me," Ben replied. He'd had every intention of driving out of the state anyway, after stopping by to visit his mother. It'd been four months since he'd last driven through Arcadia. The elevator door dinged open, thankfully interrupting that thought.

In a matter of moments, they were both inside the room. Again, that strange sense of grandure overcame them. The colors made the room appear twice its size, and everywhere was the subtle shift of rich fabrics and inlays. Ben was most impressed by the huge windows on the far facing wall and the way the setting sun set the city and the room ablaze.

"Wow."

"Yeeah..." Business talk was waylaid for the strange sense of nostalgia that washed through Claire's chest. She remembered rooms like this, or at least oneroom like this. In Disney World when she was nine, with both her parents. Claire dropped her duffel bag on the suitcase rack and swept the room with a small smile she didn't realize was on her face. "Definitely not gonna get used to this."

"It's like a vacation," he said in wonderment, dropping his bag as well. He didn't even know what he wanted to do first, but his body decided for him with a noticeable gurgle that sent fire into his face. Wordlessly he went to the little kitchen table and sought out the menu. Claire caught the look of determined intent in his eyes and grinned brightly.

"You read my mind." She started shrugging out of her jacket and tossed it on one of the two queen beds. She was still wearing the thread bare t-shirt and cami from last night, and her hair felt like it'd been washed with gun residue. Her body was torn between food and shower. Thankfully the food would take a while. Oh, how she adored efficient time management opportunities.

"Get me something greasy," she suggested on her slow-way to the bathroom.

Just looking at the menu options left him almost as baffled as the hotel room options. The prices were insane;it was the kind of fare he expected to see on an anniversary or some big celebration, not after selling his car. Hell, his graduation party food hadn't even been that much, and he'd fed 20 people. Despite the overwhelming urge to order as cheaply as he could, or even to go as far as to drive to the nearby Hardy's they'd seen driving in, Ben forced himself to embrace Opposite Day in all its splendor.

"Yeah, room service?" he said into the phone. "I'd like to place an order for room 482?"

In the closed-off, shampoo and humidity-smelling bathroom after a rather lengthy shower, Claire had no idea of the savory-sweet atmosphere that would hit her like a wall when she finally opened the door and stepped back into the main room. The automatic twisting of wet, blond hair in the towel between her hands stopped dead. Claire's eyes were locked like scopes on the spread set up on the kitchenette table.

"Oh...wow." She expected maybe a monster eight dollar burger dripping with cheese and ketchup, but this... Maybe it was the Vicodin she took right before bathing, but Claire's stomach tightened and her knees felt veryweak.

Ben turned around from the window, looking almost out of place in their current setting with the last of the fading sunset backlighting his form. He caught her expression and smiled.

"Almost thought you drowned in there," he said with a hint of amusement in his voice. Sitting on a side table he'd dragged over from their little "sitting room" and settled between their two beds was a case each of Michelob Ultra and Dr. Pepper, and some gift basket sort of thing that had a Movie Night theme.

"Maybe I did..." -and this was Heaven? Needless to say, Claire was slowly starting to realize she didn't get a lot of time to relax. Or maybe she just never had a reason to; busy work kept her mind away from things like this. She dropped the towel on the back of a chair and went straight for a can of beer. Mixing it with the pain killer was fine-they weren't going anywhere.

Ben came around to one of the two chairs and settled into it, starting to pull off the lids of the plates. The aroma in the room intensified twofold.

"Rock-paper-scissors you for the steak," he said, casting another smile in her direction.

Funny how room for dessert mysteriously appears with the smell of cherries and dark, rich chocolate, even after stuffing herself mercilessly for the last forty minutes. The piece of chocolate cake in front of Claire was slowly disappearing, bite by bite between the pain-killer and Lite Beer mix of giggles and snickers. The phrase 'fat and happy' flashed through her mind about ten minutes prior. Now, Claire found herself overcompensating for nearly ten years of an almost monk-like existence, grinning stupidly at the bright smile and sharp hazel eyes across from her.

"I reallythought you were gonna hurl on his shoes..." she managed to chuckle out around her latest bite of cake.

"So did I," he admitted, his face permanently burnished red around his cheeks and ears from the beer. He was ahead of her by at least three as well as a few sips from his flask, which he declared earlier that he had every intention of giving an upgrade with top shelf booze rather than the stuff he could normally afford.

"If I'da known how much I couldda gotten for it, I'd've refurbbed a few other cars that year and kept 'em at my mom's. How crazy." Claire flopped back against her chair and continued to giggle at nothing in particular.

"She would've allowed that? My mom would've called the junkyard." She put her hand on the flat of her stomach and pushed the other through her now-dry hair. Of course, now she was picturing her father buried waist-up under a hood. Much as she missed him, the image was too funny not to smirk at.

"It wouldda taken some weedling, but I think she would've caved," he said. His tongue had considerably loosened with each subsequent drink. "It would've given her somethin' to try'n drag me home for."

Even as he said it, some of the good mood drained out of him, but he battled it with another bite of the outrageously decadent dessert. "Maybe I'll start doin' repairs for cash when we're runnin' low. I never thought 'bout doin' that."

Claire nodded in agreement, feeling like a hundred pound slug. She was done with the cake-there just wasn't any room left. "Probably more reliable than the poker thing." Safer too.

"Not that we're gonna need cash anytime soon," he said with a sudden and huge grin. Claire mirrored it easily, reveling in the way her lips and the tip of her nose tingled.

"So, Gracious Host," she both praised and teased him, lacing her fingers at the back of her head. "What now?"

"Well, we've got a huge flat-screen and any number of pay-per-view movies on demand." Ben started to pile the leftovers onto fewer plates in order to stick them in the refrigerator in their private kitchen. "What say you?" Claire giggled, forcing herself to sit up and crack open another beer.

"Surprise me-I haven't seen a lot of movies." She covered her empty plate and limped her way to the bed on the right.

It was nearing 4AM by the time they finished Return of the Jedi. Ben refused to watch the prequels on grounds that they were shit and Hayden Christensen was a terrible actor, so they'd premised the three movies by watching Ghostbusters and Caddyshack.Needless to say, Ben thought Bill Murray was a god among insects.

It was the second time Ben had ever seen Claire drunk, and in all honesty he kind of liked drunk Claire. Drunk Claire smiled and giggled a lot more than Sober Claire did in the small amount of time that he knew her, and she had this look about her that he found himself enjoying immensely. Her hair would tangle around her too-red cheeks and her amazingly clear blue eyes would get glassy and when she smiled, he felt it in his groin.

"You okay over there, Chuckles?" he asked her once she'd settled down on her bed again. "Good for one more?"

By that point, Claire had made herself lazily comfortable without any regard for how one was supposedto lay on a bed. She was half-curled on her side with a thick pillow loosely clutched to her chest-the majority of her hair sprawled off the side of the bed, twitching for the floor each time she moved. She shifted, peering at him from across the space between the two beds. Like most of the sentences she managed to start in the last hour, this one started with a delicately scoffed laugh.

"One more beer or one more movie?" Her cheeks were apple'd and Claire's abs actually hurtfrom laughing-but she didn't even feel the gash in her leg anymore. Honestly, Claire probably couldn't feel her legs in general by that point.

"We might be out of beers," he said, half the words coming out as a grunt as he leaned sideways over the gap between his bed and the table between them to check. Sure enough, the twelve pack was empty and the sodas still remained untouched. "Yep. Out. So another movie? Or somethin' else?" She exaggeratedly arched one brow at him, even squinting one eye to close, then snorted comically at herself.

"I don't-" she pushed a sudden breath toward the ceiling. Rolling to her back had shifted all the beer in her head, and she had to catch up, her eyes closed. "S'cuse me." Even drunk, Claire was still polite. "I don'think I'll last through another movie."

Her eyes opened again, sleepy and giddy and glazed-and looking at Ben from her upside down angle. She smiled warm and automatic, just on the thought that she couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much fun. Ben smiled back, glad that her legs and torso were temporarily out of view. It was always really strange to see another girl in yoga pants. Not that yoga pants weren't incredibly sexy, but they reminded him a little too much of his mom, and that whole train of thought often lead to an instant buzzkill.

"Probably not," he reaffirmed with a nod. He'd yet to have himself a hot bath or anything, and considering how drunk she was and ready to pass out maybe taking one would be a good idea. It would at least give him the privacy of a shut door for a little while.

His reaffirming nod was returned by one of her own, just for good measure, and because for some reason Claire thought the redundancy was funny. The sheets whispered with the slow, heavy movements of her attempt to sit up, then swing her feet over the side in order to stand. The weight on her bad leg shot a lightning bolt of sobriety up her spine, and Claire hissed through her teeth on her way toward her bag. She was surprisingly upright for her level of intoxication, but still listing toward her injury. "Jus'gonna check a few things," she muttered, full of breath and mostly to herself. Claire snuck a sidelong glance at him as she unburied her laptop.

"Sure, no problem," he replied, nodding yet again. In fact, her move to retrieve her laptop reminded him of something he'd yet to do: protect their room. Of course, it was highly unlikely that any demons or supernatural creatures would find them in such a ritzy place so high off the ground, but it was better to be vigilant than under-prepared. He rolled sideways off the bed and went to his duffel.

"Did'ju get a chance t'clear things up with 'Kim'?" Claire lightly slurred as she rolled back onto her bed and flipped open the laptop. It took her a moment to properly locate the power button-probably would've been better to push her hair out of her eyes first.

Who?he thought, but then recognition dawned on him. "Oh! Yeah. She's... fine. Her dad's out and home safe." Claire nodded once, then propped herself on folded elbows and squinted at her screen as it came to life. No less than three password screens protected everything she'd worked for in the last ten years. It took a little more effort this time around to hunt and peck the encryptions in her current state.

On the fourth try for the second password, Claire huffed exhaustion and drunken frustration, then propped her chin in one hand and tried again with the other-like that would improve her chances. Her eyes washed a more brilliant blue from the screen, flicked over the computer edge to where Ben was lying salt at the door. She lost her train of thought-her gaze wandered the line of his forearm to the salt box, to the string of white he left behind. Ben continued with the rest of the warding, going to each of the windows as well before returning to his duffel bag for a woven mat. He put the mat in front of the door and once it was unrolled, it revealed a devil's trap.

By the time he looked up, Claire's cheek was sagging heavily against her palm, pushing her eye into a squint. She'd half-forgotten about the laptop, and what she was supposed to do on it before succumbing to one of the best nights of sleep she'd have in a long time. Whatever it was would come to her in the morning, she was sure.

Once Ben was finished putting everything back in his duffel and putting both his and hers back in the closet, he turned back to find Claire asleep face-down on the laptop keyboard. He smiled weakly in response, carefully tugging it out from beneath her before turning it off and putting it on the nearby nightstand. After that was done he took in inventory: She was already basically in pajamas, and she'd never put her shoes back on, so all it took was a gentle maneuvering to get her blankets out from beneath her and tuck her in. She looked peaceful, and it made Ben glad.

God, he wanted to kiss her. It was with that thought that Ben disappeared in the direction of the bathroom.