Author's Note: It's been a while. Thanks for those sticking by and emailing/reviewing/responding/prodding me for updates. I do appreciate the encouragement and knowing that you're interested.

The last road trip he had been on was a hunt. It had been the first hunt he had really been allowed to help with, and only because he was too young to stay home on his own while no one was available to babysit. So, at the age of eleven, Cas had been shuffled into a car loaded with weapons, given an armful of books to practice his budding translation skills on, and settled into questionable motels.

It wasn't the best set of childhood memories; yet they all came rushing back to him as he watched the landscape change around him.

"You're a quiet guy." It was the third time in twelve hours that Dean had made that observation. "You okay in there?"

"I had forgotten what travelling like this was like."

"What?" Dean seemed intent on prompting a conversation along now. He even turned down the music in encouragement. "Exciting? A good pace? Relaxing?"

"Mind-numbingly boring."

"Boring? How is this boring? Open road, good music…"

"Cows."

"Cows are awesome, Cas." Dean grinned, taking his eyes off the road long enough to catch the wry look from the younger man. "C'mon, would you rather be flying all over the place?"

"It would be more convenient."

"Dude, planes are dangerous."

"And you going twenty over the speed limit isn't?"

"Yeah, I'm in control here; I know what I'm doing."

The pause as Cas mulled over the comment was filled by Freddy Mercury still blasting out of the speakers around them. It was not the sort of noise that Cas was really used to, but he couldn't quite bring himself to complain about it. Everything jerked a moment as the breaks protested a forced stop at a single line of rail cutting through two fields and fencing off a pasture of very nervous cattle. Given the noise the sudden stop had caused, Cas knew that Dean would be under the hood or beneath the car— crooning apologies and oiling a complaining joint— when they stopped for the night.

The first of a long line of train cars rattled past and drowned out Queen. "You like to be in control."

"I like my feet on the ground."

"I meant in general."

"Kid, I'm more laid back than that mutt your dad keeps around."

"You're a nervous wreck."

"Bullshit." Dean glared at the train until the last car passed and the barriers rose again. "Besides, I can't be a wreck if Bobby trusts me with looking out for you."

"Because you keep a loaded arsenal in the trunk."

A twist of a nob and 'Killer Queen' got a lot louder than Cas liked. He was about to protest the assault on his ears, but he caught the set of Dean's jaw and the way the hunter glared at the road ahead of them.

"Just watch the cows, smartass."

The campus was not what he had expected. It was still sprawling, and still had the sense of a "city within a city," but Cas found that it wasn't as overwhelming as he had thought. Of course, he had only seen a handful of buildings up close so far. And, the buildings sprawling out over the main campus did seem a little excessive. But it was quiet (for a huge university campus in the middle of summer), and the bright colours and open areas that peppered the area offered a good sense of welcome.

He could see why Sam liked the place already, but finding that coffee shop they were going to meet in was going to be hell. Cas knew that his friend had found a place to stay in the dorms, already, but he wasn't sure how.

"Do you have any idea where we're going?"

Dean was studying the printout map they had grabbed from the visitors' centre. It was a simple greyscale thing with a handful of the biggest buildings and attractions of the campus labelled as clearly as can be on the scale used to outline the entirety of the campus. But it was also the sort of map that you already had to be familiar with— or have a tour guide walking you through it— to make any sense of.

"I have a rough idea." Cas hadn't expected Dean to come with him onto the campus. Not after the way the hunter seemed to have settled into their hotel the night before and responded to Cas' decline of a night out with a muttered "geek kids wouldn't know fun if it bit their ass" before he disappeared out the door. It was painfully obvious that the town centred on the school and students for its economy, so Cas hadn't asked where the hunter had gone off to or what he had done. "Are you sure you want to come with me?"

"Course I am." The printout map was crumpled and tossed to the nearest bin before Dean shoved his hands in his pockets and glared at the unoffending buildings. "What else would I do all day?"

"I have time before my appointment; we can find the coffee shop Sam was talking about and you can wait there. I shouldn't be too long."

"Dude, that is definitely not my scene."

"And a waiting room is?"

"Scared I'm going to scare a receptionist and ruin your chances at a scholarship?"

"They let Sam in."

"Yeah, well, kid's freaky smart." Dean watches a family head into the visitor's centre, no doubt to schedule a private tour for their own little brat. For God's sake, the guy Dean had to assume was the father was wearing a sweater-vest. This place may as well be a whole planet removed from anything he knew.

"We doing this, or not? Because I'm fine with skipping academia with you, seeing Sammy, and then taking off to New Orleans for the rest of those three weeks we're supposed to have."

"I can't just blow off Stanford."

"But you want to." Dean sidestepped around a garden, eyeing the masonry containing the plants with obvious distaste. Things were too clean, and organized, and freaking bright. It looked like the brochure, and that was always just asking for trouble— in his hunter's opinion. The brochure never mentioned the darkside of the pretty pictures— the suicides and date rapes (Dean did do his own research, after all. His baby brother was going to this school). Never mind the stuff that went on beneath all that, the stuff that dragged a hunter to the city once in a while. He had caught wind of a potential haunting he wanted to check out later. "Hell, I would to."

"I never said that I didn't want to study here."

"But you never outright said that you wanted to." Kicking the crumpled corpse of a soda can down the walkway as they moved, Dean glanced at the names of the buildings they passed. Bright stucco and open air made this whole place look like an extension of some very expensive Californian suburbs. He wondered if Sam would pick up any Spanish while he was here. "And you suck at lying, kid."

"Look," Cas glared at the brochure in his hands, seemingly processing what Dean was suggesting; "after this, we'll go on a hunt. You can blow off some steam."

"Yeah? And get Bobby pissed at me? No thanks."

"It'd be an educational experience."

"You just called it a hunt."

"Research."

"Research? For what?"

"Just some wholesome American folklore."

Dean stopped, a hand on the door of one bright building that had "Admissions" scrawled in neat typeface across a sign. "No such thing. What is it you want to hunt?"

"It really is just research."

"You want me to call Bobby? He'll yell some sense into you." Even inside, the building caught the sun, and the open feeling of the campus remained— at least until they got to a lobby, where the sunlight was safely muted. "'Sides, I'm not going into something I don't know. If it's a hunt, you say it. If it's some geek thing you want to check out, say that. Big difference between the two."

Cas dug out his I.D. and neatly folded invitation to the campus. "I want to check out Mintern, while we're in California."

The name sounded familiar, but Dean couldn't place it. He waited until the kid had signed in for his appointment and they were ushered by a perky receptionist through the door. The woman looked like she could have been a student, and Dean wondered again just what Sammy was going to do about food and money, and if he was going to make any sort of honest go at normal life here. Or just fall back into grifting habits. Something seemed to click with the name and the overall wholesome appearance of the waiting room they had been stuck into.

"No, we're not going there."

"It's not dangerous."

"This is the place that has its own demon story, right? Demon took over in the 30s?" The desk across the room was empty— Dean assumed that the need for two receptionists during the quiet summer was redundant. He took it to mean that he could safely fall into one of the chairs and let his feet up on the too-small coffee table.

"Fought an angel."

"No. We're not going." The only reading material in the place was a campus newspaper and some little magazine set up to reassure parents and family that their little geniuses would have the very best education out there. He thought the course calendar was presumptuous, but it saved him from looking into stubborn blue eyes and caving then and there about the whole 'let's research a demon' thing.

"I just want to check it out."

"Demon, Cas. Bad mofo. No."

"Years ago." Cas finally took a seat to wait, and Dean thought that the idea of his friend pouting over this was adorable. "It's gone."

"Those things never leave."

"It could have proof that an angel was there."

"Angels don't exist, kid." It seemed absurd to even have this conversation in a fucking waiting room, where any kid and rich parents could waltz in. "And shut up. We'll talk about it later."

If a reply was coming, Dean didn't get to hear it. The door near the empty desk opened and a woman in a skirt-suit approached Cas to greet him. Dean refused to move, or get up, just on principle. He already didn't like the campus, and he couldn't imagine how far backwards Sam must have bent to get into the damn place.

Even if it was amusing to hear Cas get called "James" and "Mr. Singer".

"So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

Dean's hands were shoved deep into his pockets. "Your dad will probably be happy, though. Not having to pay for Stanford." Fingers brushed over some coin change and he headed to the nearest vending machine. At least he liked that about the campus— snacks were readily available.

"I got a scholarship." Cas paused, and watched as Dean fed coins into the machine. "I just don't think I'd be comfortable here."

"That admissions lady creep you out too?"

"It's not that. I just don't think this is the best environment for me."

"Sam would be here with you."

"I thought you didn't want me to come here, anyway."

Selection made, Dean shrugged before he stooped to collect the candy bar that had tumbled through the machine. "I don't really care, either way. It'd be convenient to check up on you and Sam at the same time."

"I don't need to be looked after."

"Sure." A pause as Dean watched the steady flow of walking tours cross and visitors make their way to their own admissions appointments. If the crowd was anything to go by, he could see a handful of benefits to hanging around the place if needed. "Think any of the sorority places are haunted?"

"Let's just find the coffee place."

Dean's hands were shoved so far into his pockets, he could feel the prick of the lining's seams digging into his knuckles. Everything, every piece of architecture closest to the campus— like any college town intent on cashing in on the familiarity of blending in to the students' surroundings— was the same stucco and stone mix with brightly tiled roofs. It threw Dean off, and his internal bearings seemed completely off when he was sure they left campus, but found another sign naming some tiny lab or study building.

So he just fell into step behind Cas and tried to get an internal map of the area. It wasn't until he saw what was obviously a café not associated directly with the campus that he relaxed. Still built up in the same open style, there was at least a wrought iron fence to separate the patio from the streets.

"So what do you think, Cas?"

No pleasantries and Dean bristled. It may have been the late-summer weather, or the location change, or the fact that their father's shadow wasn't looming on the horizon to drag them off anywhere; but Sam looked like Dean remembered him when they were younger. His little brother, sitting with some sweet-smelling, vanilla-laden drink between his hands, looked like a normal kid— right down to the oversized hoodie with 'Stanford' emblazoned across the chest. "No hello for your big brother, bitch?"

"Yeah, hi, Dean." A pause as Sam seemed to catch on that it wasn't exactly nice to keep that much of a distance between them. "It's, uh, good to see you again. Find everything okay?"

"Yeah. Got a cozy little motel and everything." Dean fell into the standard-issue patio chair across from his brother. His weight shifted it enough to scrape it back across the concrete. "You been good?"

"I'm fine." Sam closed his hands around the paper cup he was drinking from and turned a hopeful gaze to Cas again. He was more than ready to shut out Dean if his brother started in on asking about salt lines and talismans. "How did the meeting go, Cas?"

"It went well. I was offered the scholarship that was expected."

"But Cas wasn't going to take it."

Sam had taken the considerate pause as a good sign, about to add his own opinion and congratulations when Dean jumped in. Now, his face fell and he seemed to flounder between the option of turning a shocked look at his friend and levelling a glare at his brother. Dean thought that the accusation of 'liar' was going to be tossed in somewhere. Instead, Sam decided on confusion and turned the full force of his hurt to Cas.

"Cas?"

A sigh and glare aimed at Dean before Cas nodded. "It's still an option, Sam. But I don't think Stanford is the best school for me."

"Best school? Cas, c'mon. It's one of the best anywhere. And you could get a scholarship too." Dean recognized that wheedling tone all too well. Sam wanted this far more than Cas did. "We said we were going to go to school together."

"Afraid you can't make new friends, Sammy?"

Dean started in surprise when Cas punched his shoulder. The kid could put some force behind that short distance between them.

"Dean, I advise you to keep your mouth shut."

"Love it when you get all bossy, Cas." Dean rubbed his shoulder, not bothered by the ache, but surprised that Cas had hit him at all. "Shit. Where did you learn to hit?"

The conversation continued without him, and Dean refused to consider the fact that he might have been sulking over being excluded completely.

"Sam," Cas started— he wanted to be calm, rational, before his friend could jump to any conclusions; "I said that it may not be the best for me. I was also offered a scholarship for Cornell, and I intend to give their program a fair examination."

"Cornell?" There had been hunts there, when they were younger, and Sam remembered the classic look of the campus from a distance. He preferred the clean, modern look of Stanford— the influence of the local culture and diversity. The hunts had jaded Ithaca for him as a WASP sort of college town. "Cas, that's across the country."

"And we will both have easy access to phone lines and campus internet connections. I'm not even sure if I will accept the offer there."

Sam had deflated, mulling over the information over his drink. "I guess."

The chair scraped across the concrete patio again as Dean pushed himself up and patted Cas on the shoulder. "I'm grabbing a drink and a walk while you two finish your little break up. You know where the motel is, Cas."

That slow burn of Sam's anger had started up again, and he leaned forward in the chair to glare at his brother before Dean could swagger off. "Jerk."

"Bitch."

The Impala wasn't in the parking lot when Cas got back to the motel. It was a noticeable absence as he paid the cab fare and headed to the colourful door of the room. There were three spaces nearby that could have fit the bulk of the car (Dean having insisted on the cheap, old motel with a justification that the Impala could actually be parked in the lot), and Cas didn't think that Dean would have risked his car by parking anywhere other than plain view of the room. Without the car, and with no indication of light in the window, Cas surmised that Dean was not in.

Cas had declined spending the night in the dorms with Sam, fairly certain that it would result in the sort of conversation that consisted entirely of one person attempting to convince another that a choice was made poorly and then lead to awkward silences. He was not a fan of those conversations, and opted instead to scribble down Sam's newest contact information on a napkin. Now, ignoring the slight disappointment of having found Dean out for the night, he focused on transcribing the new information next to the old.

It was another few hours before Dean came back— Cas takes a quick stock of fresh cuts on his knuckles and a cut on his cheek— just as some new slew of infomercials was starting up. There was a stain on Dean's shirt that could have been a drink, but was dark enough to be a spattering of blood.

"Hunt?" There was no smell of burning, no singed marks in the leather jacket, no mud on Dean's boots, and Cas couldn't recall reading of anything more sinister than a possible ghost here.

"Sort of."

Cas could smell the alcohol, now. "Bar fight?"

"Smart kid."

"Why?"

"How'd your date with Sammy go? Do anything fun?" Dean wasn't expecting an answer, not as he headed to the tiny bathroom to wash up.

Cas let it slide and turned off the ancient television in favour of pulling out the information on Cornell. Dean tossed his shirt onto his bed and kicked off his boots before he fetched items from his duffle— another shirt, a small pouch where Cas knew he kept soap, a shaving kit, and toothbrush.

There was an audible click as Dean released the clip in his favoured pistol and Cas looked up. Satisfied with whatever he found, the hunter tucked the gun under his pillow and grabbed a Bowie knife for the nightstand. "We good to leave in the morning? You didn't make any more play-dates?"

"You don't want to see your brother." It wasn't a question.

"Are we good to go?"

"I'm ready to go in the morning."

"Good. Damn college town gives me the creeps."