Without very much information to go off of, Dean was forced to stop by the missing children's houses. So far, all of the kids had lacked siblings, and disappeared without a trace. Sometimes signs of forced entry showed up the morning directly after a kid went missing, but for the most part the police could confirm that the forced entry was a separate occasion from the kidnappings. It was a pretty strange pattern. Only once—out of what had developed into five cases—were the parents away while it happened. Otherwise, the parents reported that at least one of them had been in the house and went into the kid's bedroom to find that they were gone. Kids' friends had been phoned, divorced spouses were looked into, and all of it was coming to nada.

However, Dean didn't think he was doing too bad on this one. He'd found two hex bags in the children's bedrooms, and was hoping if he could get to this next location quickly enough, he might find another. He imagined the other two houses had each been left with their own hex bags, but that the police might have collected them as evidence. One of his own bags was sitting unravelled on the table in his motel room. He'd been picking through its ingredients, but most had been at least somewhat charred- which wasn't exactly usual for spells, since a lot needed their components to be in specific conditions. But it did a good job of hiding the identity of the flower petals and bones the witch had used, and it now made it infinitely more difficult to decipher what spell they might have been casting to get into the kids' rooms. He didn't think the charring was a coincidence, either; whoever it was, they were probably used to dealing with hunters. It wasn't a comforting thought—but Dean was pretty sure he'd still get the jump on this witch, one way or another.

The house he'd just pulled up to was painted a soft blue. Cops were in the living room, busy asking if the McVies were sure that this wasn't just some panic-call with news going around about other disappearances. Dean overheard the parents going into detail about how, an hour ago, their daughter Christine—only eight years old, for God's sake—had gone up to her room after school and when the mother brought up laundry not half an hour later, they realized she was gone. No open window, no swinging back door, no history of a stressful home life or running off. The police officers talking it over with them pretended to be dubious of the story, but Dean knew it was just so that the entire town wouldn't lose its collective mind.

But, on the plus side, it didn't seem like anyone had taken much notice of his entrance. He was free to go look for Christine's room—apart from the fact that, of course, things never ended up so easy. The stairs led right up to a girl's room with its door wide open. A little girl, this one around twelve years old and probably an older sister, watched his entrance warily. Not only did it make Dean start feeling like a creep to have come up here unannounced, but this broke the pattern. It might not just be sibling-less children anymore.

Dean greeted her as normally and non-creepily as possible. He just needed to poke around the room for a little overlooked bag. "Pretty crazy down there, huh?" he asked, taking a surface-level glance along all the furniture.

The girl nodded and stayed on one of the two beds in the room, hugging a little owl plushie with big glass eyes. He squatted to check under the bed, moved pictures and toys, and was finishing up by closing the closet doors when she spoke up. "Are you looking for something?"

Okay, so, maybe he would be up here for a little longer than he'd wanted. This was fine. And not weird. "Uh, yeah. I was wondering if you'd seen a small bag, maybe laced around the top? It probably got dropped somewhere."

Recognition dawned on her face. "You mean the bag Mom's friend gave me?"

He nodded, wondering if it was possible for him to track this friend down—to have a nice, clean hunt. It seemed too good to be true. "Could you show it to me?"

The little girl opened up her nightstand drawer and silently produced a felt bag that had a piece of ribbon sewn around the top, to keep the contents in place. It was the same as the others he'd collected so far—and it was pretty generic in general, except that this one in particular had been scented with flowery perfume. It was probably done to hide the stench of old animal bones and decaying matter inside.

Dean had apparently been studying it for a little too long, because the girl's voice eventually piped up with, "You can keep it." He thanked her and snuck back downstairs, somehow managing to blend into the little gathering enough to ask the parents a few things.

"No, no. We haven't had anyone over in a while. Why?"

He shrugged. The wife had been much more willing to talk to him, and by now the husband was snaking an arm around her waist, giving Dean the sort of look that said he'd better not upset the family any more today. "I just have to make sure no neighbors came over to see the kids in the last few weeks, stuff like that."

They glanced at each other. "I've been visiting close friends over the weekends, but I don't think I discussed the kids much…" Mrs. McVie admitted.

"Would you be able to write me a list of who you visited? I should double-check some facts with them."

The sour look on the husband's face at this next request must have brought one of the cops over, because suddenly there was a woman beside him, asking, "What were your credentials again, sir?" She had wavy dark hair that curled softly at the tips, accenting how the suit brought out her curves. According to her, they were packing it in before too many reporters showed up. He just barely made it out of the door with the list before the husband seemed inclined to start throwing punches. He hoped the painstaking care that went into writing the list meant it was reliable.

OOO

The newest hex bag didn't end up being any more helpful than the others. He was just stuck in yet another motel room again, with the computer as his only company and a bunch of hex bags that were leading him to very short dead-ends. He didn't want to bother Cas again, but at the same time…

"Dean? Is something wrong?"

He pinched his nose. "Nope. Just calling."

Cas paused. "How's the hunt?"

"It's fine." His fingers twirled a pen around, not really trying any tricks in particular. "I've got a few hex bags and a possible connection, but it's not going anywhere yet."

"So it's a witch."

"Yeah." He laughed. "People, man. They always seem to be the worst."

"I guess for a human to become a "monster" without being forcibly bitten would require… extreme circumstances."

"Say, how're you handling it?"

"Acceptably, I think."

The conversation lulled. Dean felt a little stupid and figured Cas was probably clamming up after the gas station scene. "You know, I opened the hex bags that were left in a few of the houses after being used. I've been trying to figure out the ingredients for a while, but it all sort of got crushed together. If I stopped by your place, would you be able to figure out what spell components the witch might have been using?"

"Ah… I probably could, but I'm still working late hours."

"You wanna stop by my motel room for a while, then?"

The call went silent.

"Know what? I wanna see you here tomorrow night. Whenever you get off work, it doesn't matter. I won't be doing anything else anyways. Room 23, the Mountainview Motel. Got it?"

Cas mumbled something that sounded vaguely affirmative.

OOO

A shadow passed by the shuttered window of Dean's motel room. His mind picked up on it just as it did with most other sounds or motions; it paid attention, and then his conscious brain decided to ignore it, since it was busy shutting down at the thought of the other sixteen tabs he opened and hadn't even started looking through yet. A sigh escaped at the same time a knock from the door rang out across the room. The rapping was quick and hesitant. Dean rolled his eyes before unlocking the door at the thought of Cas standing outside nervously, feeling guilty about whatever new thing Cas thought he was responsible for. The figure that met him at the door wasn't exactly what he was expecting.

Dean hoped his face didn't reflect the amount of surprise he got at seeing Cas… tired, sweat-ridden, and carrying a ratty sleeping bag. If he was going to try summing it up, Cas looked just about fed up with human life. The sun was starting to dip, and the cool wind of the season had begun springing up through the parking lot, as the ex-angel glanced away from him and shuffled on the soles of his shoes. He moved to give some Cas room to come in and did his best to catch his friend's gaze again, but it seemed like Cas had noticed something in Dean's reaction that would be a little late to walk back on. The door was closed and locked in the stretching silence.

Cas stopped in the middle of the room with his duffel and sleeping bag, looking entirely lost. "I'm sorry. I didn't have anywhere else to leave my things."

He shrugged. "Uh, you can dump them on the bed if you want. I don't care." A little smile rose up as a way of warding off his own awkwardness. "You should've seen me after some gross hunts. It gets way worse, I'm telling you."

Cas followed his advice and returned the smile. But his smile failed to hide the lines that'd developed beneath his eyes, and it certainly didn't escape Dean's notice that he purposefully kept the junk pile small, as if worried about taking up too much of Dean's space and time. "Speaking of—you said you needed me for something concerning these witches?"

"Yeah. I grabbed a couple hex bags that were left behind, but they've got some ingredients I didn't really recognize. I was hoping you knew what they were—and maybe what spell they're meant to cast, but really, as long as I know what kind of charred flower they got, I could just dig around online." His hand unconsciously rubbed at the back of his neck while Cas leaned over the cheap wooden table to look at the small assortment of hex bags, most of which had been opened. A nail clipper was beside the mess from when Dean had been poking around. Cas immediately sent to work, looking over the remains immediately and moving bones around with a light brush of his finger. It was easy to envision Cas picking the flower petals up and recognizing them in a heartbeat—and then, when Dean ended up admitting he didn't need help with anything else, Cas would leave again as quickly as he'd arrived. It was the last thing Dean wanted to happen. "Hey, Cas, no offence…" The ex-angel glanced up the second Dean spoke. "But you look worn out. This doesn't have to get done, like, right this instant."

Cas frowned. "Oh? I—I could come back tomorrow, if that's better for y—"

Dean waved his arms to gesture "hold on". "I meant you're free to wash up and stuff first. I can order food. The shower's all setup…"

"Ah…" Cas remained confused for another moment, and then an epiphany seemed to strike him full-on. "Um, sure. Thank you." He grabbed his original duffel bag that seemed all too light and empty for Dean's liking. His friend bit his lip and glanced up again. "Do you know of a laundromat nearby?"

Laundromat? "What?"

He watched Cas' cheeks turn a fade shade of pink as he pressed the duffle closer to his chest. "Nevermind."

Dean took another glance over Cas' appearance and realized why things felt so off. Though the sun was setting and Cas must have gotten off work a while ago, he was still wearing his work clothes. He hadn't even been wearing a jacket outside to ward off northern Idaho's recent fall weather. Suddenly, he felt himself wondering if Cas had a jacket, let alone many other clothes. He turned to dig through his own bags while Cas stood by the bed, both of them being two awkward idiots and letting another bout of silence pass before Dean stood up and pushed a set of his own clothes into Cas' arms. It was probably one of the only remaining clean sets of clothes he had left for this hunt, but Cas didn't seem to mind borrowing his stuff. In fact, Cas' eyes practically lit up and he made sure to thank Dean again, very quickly.

"Yeah, whatever," he mumbled, more self-conscious than dismissive. "Don't use all the hot water."

Not that he expected Cas to take long to shower, but there were some other things he could tell Cas would have to tend to. Like the peach fuzz that had begun developing since he last saw Cas a couple days ago. He didn't mention it outwardly—just let Cas go into the bathroom and tried to let himself forget about his friend's condition, preferring to distract himself with the case. Like with the first family, the police had been forced to return to the homes with missing children because of reported break-ins. It didn't make sense why a monster would return to the houses, and do it repeatedly. He found himself hoping that the police were anticipating this at the next houses and had neglected to mention it to the news for obvious reasons, but that might also endanger the cops. Some of them were dicks—but they were still innocent.

And who knew what the witches were using kids for? Usually, that meant forced proteges, human ingredients, cannibalism… worse than most of the stuff that happened to adults. It was cruelly ironic. He stood over the hex bags again and glanced between them and the list he'd made—the bones of some small bird, ashes of God-knows-what, those burnt petals, fresh pieces of diced lemon, and pineapple mint leaves. Needless to say, it smelled awful. But that seemed to be all there was—save for little black particles that might have been more ash. Tracing the spell's intentions to figure out what the witches were after was a rare hunting practice—mostly because it was slow, annoying, and didn't lead to anything half the time—but once in a while it was the only option they had in order to get any information on their opponents.

One of the bags shuffled a little. Dean assumed it was an odd draft in the motel room until the pressure of the room seemed to shift, and suddenly it felt as though someone had kicked him in the gut. Dean doubled over with a groan. The table supported his balance for only a moment before the whole place began to spin His gut shrank in on itself even further. Bile rose up in his throat. Then Dean felt himself falling—falling so fast, without the resistance of wind to slow him down. He thought he might have been falling into an abyss by the way things turned silent and dark around him.

Then it was lights out.