Las Vegas.

"Makes sense," Seth says, staring at the expanse of desert outside the outskirts of the city that Dean calls home, "that you live in the seediest city in the States. It was made for you."

Dean snorts and sands his hands together. "The seediest cesspool. But that's beside the point. Stop distracting me; you know why you're here."

Seth nods slowly and swipes at his hair stretching over his shoulder. He's wearing a baseball cap backwards and a concert tank top that make his wings slightly visible from the sleeves. "I know exactly why I'm here with you in this dirty place on my day off instead of sleeping in at the hotel."

"So I can outgun you with this beauty," Dean thumped his hand across the hood of a vintage Mustang, shining cherry red in the sunlight. "In the middle of the desert so no one else has to see you lose."

Seth smiled, toeing out of his shoes and pulling off his shirt and hat. He liked to fly barefoot, liked the way the breeze raced across his bare skin whenever he flew as fast as he could, and always felt like he could fly just a little faster with as few articles of clothing on as possible. Not that he would fly around completely naked, it was just that he felt freer this way.

He nods at Dean's Mustang. "You seem really sure of yourself."

"Damn right, I do. This here's my baby. Never disappointed me once; don't think she'll do it this time," Dean said, leaning back on the hood. Seth threw his discarded clothes in the back and began stretching his arms and legs and shoulders. "You ever hear the saying 'never say never?'"

Dean rolls his eyes and rounds the front of the Mustang to the driver's side.

"Fuck off."

Dean starts the engine and lets it rumble till it's fully awake. Seth pokes his head into the passenger's side window. "Start on three, right?"

"Yeah, three. Race to the old 'See You Soon' billboard about a mile or so out. Hope you're ready- I'm not gonna give you a running start."

Seth nods. "That's fine. I don't need one."

Dean gives him a lopsided grin. "Cheeky little…"

Seth gets into starting position alongside the Mustang, crouching down slightly. He's pretty sure of himself too; he's earned the right to be. Out of his peripheral vision, he sees Dean give him three fingers, two, one.

Seth pushes off with his left foot, the farthest foot back, and launches himself into the air, kicking up a cloud of dust as his wings shove downward. He soars upward, flying high enough for the Mustang speeding along the dirt road to resemble a toy car, then dives down and races alongside it. Already, he's doing a good job of keeping up. He isn't close enough to the Mustang to be able to see the speedometer on the dashboard, nor is he on the right side of the vehicle to clearly see it, but he knows the vintage car is pushing about 90 right now. He can feel the engine pumping, like the ragged breathing of a rabid beast, feel its metallic, mechanical heart beating as it roars down the road.

But keeping up isn't enough. Seth has to win.

Seth has gotten the hang of understanding what he needs his wings to do in order to achieve certain levels of flight. He flaps his wings hard, creating thrust forward, taking light, controlled breaths. He has to keep his wings beating; gliding will give him drag. Slow him down. Deeper breaths would slow him down too; he still needed to keep oxygen flowing to his brain and muscles.

Seth knows when Dean has shifted gears in the Mustang; the audible roar of the engine before the vehicle surges forward is the telltale sign. Seth also knows he has to kick it up a notch on his part.

But honestly, he has no idea what is happening now.

It feels like an injection through the heart, like fire shooting through his veins in place of blood. It stings a little bit, burns in the familiar, pleasant way that adrenaline does, but hurts like his heart is literally hammering against his chest. One powerful push from the wings and Seth is ahead of the Mustang; more and more and suddenly the Mustang is humming from behind. He glances back at the vehicle, looks forward again for the old billboard. It's coming up fast, but Seth can't slow down; there's still too much fire coursing through him.

Dean hasn't slowed either. They both gun it for the home stretch, kicking up a small dust storm with the dirt they leave in their wake. Briefly, Seth has time to wonder where all of this energy came from and be both terrified and amazed at it before the billboard whizzes by in a faded blur and suddenly it's only him. He lands awkwardly, the adrenaline high-or whatever the heck that was-leaving him almost instantly, and skids to a stop, his bare feet sliding across the sand and kicking up clouds of dust as high as his waist. He nearly trips and faceplants, but rights himself just in time to stop, stand upright for a full second and then sink gratefully to his knees and gulp in air like it was going out of style.

The purr of the Mustang approaching at a much easier pace creeps up behind him, accompanied by an eventual death of the engine and the sound of a car door opening. He can hear Dean racing across the dirt at him and vaguely recalls the speedometer in the Mustang. He wonders briefly how fast they were both traveling and asks himself if he is brave enough to try it again.

…eh, maybe not so soon.

"Shit, dude, are you okay?"

Seth's arms and legs are shaking, as they would once adrenaline wore off. He turns and looks up at Dean, who has a million different emotions playing across his face at once, genuine concern and awestricken wonder being the most recognizable. Seth nods slowly, hesitantly; he still hasn't caught his breath yet. So much for controlled breathing.

"Y-yeah…I'm okay." He pauses. "You look spooked."

"What happened?"

"I don't know," Seth said, really just wishing to lie down flat on his back and rest his lungs and wings and everything. "What do you mean?"

Dean shrugs, still looks at a loss for words.

"Unless you were holding back that whole time, you just took off on that last stretch like you had rockets strapped to you or something. And you…didn't look like you."

Seth narrowed his eyes, feeling dead tired after his mysterious adrenaline high. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Gold. Your eyes, I mean," says Dean, staring at him hard. "They were bright gold."

.

.

Seth pulls down the bottom lid of his eye, staring at his reflection in the mirror.

Brown. Just brown. Not a hint of gold found within them, but Dean swears up and down that they had been bright, iridescent gold at some point while he was in flight. Of course, he could've been exaggerating, but there wasn't much keeping Seth's weird transformation from getting any weirder with yellow eyes. Maybe it was just a trick of the light? It was pretty bright out. One thing was for certain, Seth had never flown that fast before; it was like his body had kicked itself into overdrive or something. He hoped that it wouldn't happen too often without him being able to control it, like during a show or when he was walking around somewhere.

Raw is in Vegas this show. Fun.

Dean lived there, so he opted to just stay in his apartment rather than a hotel. Roman and Seth had the luxurious option of staying in a room in the city, which Seth decided wasn't all that bad. Vegas was a city full of colorful characters; he'd counted, like, five people walking around on the street wearing fake angel wings and white clothes with halos, several with devil costumes, and far too many with an ungodly combination of crazy colors and scanty outfits. Street personalities, he hoped; if the people of this city actually dressed like that, Seth would've had a much harder time getting used to Las Vegas. It was worth noting though, that if he did happen to let his wings slip out, it wouldn't be too surprising to the people here. That was their norm anyway. If anything, they would probably think the wings were really awesome well-made fakes.

"Do these look gold to you?" Seth asks, cornering Roman in the main area of their hotel room. Roman looked up from his phone, shifting his position on the bed to sit straight and see Seth's eyes better. He squints up at him, shakes his head. "Nope. They're the same mud brown they usually are."

Seth frowns, unconsciously rubbing at his eyes with his palms.

"Why would they be gold?" Roman asks. He's directed his attention back towards whatever is on his phone. Seth shrugs, lying on his stomach on the other bed, his wings fluttering gently in the AC current. "Dean and I raced earlier. He said when I looked back at him, my eyes were gold. I've never flown that fast before."

Roman glances up from his phone momentarily, but otherwise seems unfazed. "Well."

"That's it?"

"Well, I mean, after your best friend grows wings overnight, golden eyes aren't exactly the weirdest thing that you can come to the table with," Romans says. Now that he's said it and Seth thinks about it, Roman's probably very right. Roman taps something out on his phone and asks without even looking up, "What do you want to get for lunch? I'm feeling like buffalo wings-"

Roman trails off and purses his lips, giving Seth a tentative sidelong glance. Seth is giving him death glares, looking very unamused.

Roman goes back to looking through his phone.

"Sorry."