"You can't be serious."

Hands planted on the desk, Dean stared down at his commander. Bobby glared right back up at him, still in his chair, very obviously not intimidated at all by Dean's looming over him. Not that Dean would have really expected him to be, if he'd thought about it.

"You ever known me to be a comedian, boy?"

"No, sir, but…" Dean struggled to contain himself, keep his voice at least within sight of the margins of what could be considered respectful. "With all due respect. I don't think this is the right decision."

"Well, then, good thing it's my decision, and not yours. Ain't it?"

"Sir," Dean started. Bobby cut him off.

"You are way outta line, and I think you know that." His accent, stronger than Dean's, came through even more powerfully when he was pissed or getting there. Like right now. "Sit down."

Dean straightened up, taking his hands off the desk. "Sir - "

"I said sit. Down. Rose." Bobby's jaw tightened, visible even under the beard. "'Less you want a write-up padding out that file of yours?"

There was a second where Dean really, honestly didn't care, where he got real close to telling Bobby to go right ahead. Thankfully, the smart part of his brain, small as it was, woke up and started yapping. He forced himself to take a deep, deep breath in (one, two, three, four), then dropped back into the chair in front of Bobby's desk.

Bobby took a second just to glare at him. With a different CO, Dean might have taken it for an act or a show of power, but he'd worked under Bobby long enough to know better. Nothing Robert "Bobby" Singer, a lifer in the Bureau, did was for show. The few awards and medals hanging on the walls of his office, next to the antique guns and garage signs, were only the ones he was proud of. He had drawers more at home that, by his own high standards, he didn't consider earned.

And he held every single agent under his command to those same standards. Especially Dean. As the silence stretched on, getting more and more uncomfortable, Dean couldn't shake the feeling like his dad was disappointed with him.

Finally, Bobby decided to have mercy on him. Tone flinty enough to light a fire with, he asked: "Let's try that again, from the beginning." He leaned back in his worn leather chair, lacing his fingers together. "That amenable to you, Special Agent Rose?"

Dean winced. Equivalent of your mom calling you by your full name. "Yes, sir."

"Great." Bobby cleared his throat. "You heard of hunters?"

Oh, he meant starting over from the beginning beginning, Dean realized. He tried not to sound too sullen as he repeated, "Yes, sir."

Bobby explained anyway. "I ain't talking about your average red-blooded heartland American here, who buys a sixty-four-pack and a camo Carhartt and drops off the grid for the first week of deer season. This is an underground community. Homicidal maniacs, really one shade off from domestic terrorists, and between me and you…" He leaned forward, chair creaking, and put his hands on his desk. "That classification's really only 'cause we don't precisely got a box to put these guys in."

Dean, not super sure what Bobby wanted from him here, just nodded.

"Arson," Bobby started, ticking the crimes off on his fingers, "breaking and entering, kidnapping, torture, child abuse, vandalism, grave desecration, impersonation of an LEO, abuse of a corpse, grand and petty larceny, credit fraud, just about every degree of murder and manslaughter there is…the list of shit these guys get up to's a mile long. They're clever, mostly decentralized, they recruit new members like crazy to refill the ranks that keep on getting killed off and, now, this here's my favorite part - "

"They do all this 'cause they think they're killing monsters." Dean finished for Bobby. That earned him another glare, but with only a fraction of the power of the first.

"We've been tracking these sons of bitches for years, but it's like a goddamn hydra: you take one down, two more take over where he left off. We gotta strike at the heart. Get as many of 'em in one go as we possibly can."

"Which calls for undercover work."

This time, Dean got a nod from Bobby. "Mostly, it don't get bigger than two or three at a time, but we've identified four major cells. Garth and Eileen're taking East Coast, Jo and Claire are on the West Coast…" The first time around, Dean had started out on bad footing by pointing out how green Agents Harvelle and Novak were and questioning Bobby's judgment in pairing them on this. This time, he bit his tongue. "And Jodie and Donna are heading Southwest. Second biggest cell." Bobby took a deep breath, looking down at the marked-up map he had spread across his desk. "The biggest and baddest of all of 'em's out in the Midwest. Heartland. That's where you come in."

"Yep." Dean cleared his throat. "Me and Sam fucking Ridgway."

"You watch your language," Bobby warned, leaning forward. "Wanna start over again?"

Dean sighed explosively, but answered, "No, sir."

Bobby kept him on the hook for a second before saying "Didn't think so," and moving on with a grunt.

"This is your first field assignment since what happened." Dean bristled, but Bobby, bless him, didn't go into detail. "You been on desk duty for months, and that's on top of all the mandated desk duty and head-shrinking."

Dean grimaced at the reminder. The necklace he was wearing felt really heavy, all of a sudden.

"Now, I don't wanna do this to you. If I had anybody else, I'd start you off on a bunny slope case - don't say a damn word, you've been outta the game for close to a year, you know I'm right." Dean closed his mouth. Bobby gave him a beat before continuing. "But you're my best agent, and I need you on this."

"Yeah. Me and Ridgway." The smart part of Dean's brain could only do so much work in one day, especially when he was this mad. "Y'know, Bobby, things must've gotten real topsy-turvy while I was gone, if he's one of your best agents now, too."

"You need a partner," Bobby said flatly. "And Ridgway's psych experience is gonna come in real handy on this particular case."

"You sure you're not just hoping to get some extra 'counseling' outta him?" Dean threw up air quotes around the word. "Or maybe you just want him to keep an eye on me. Look, I don't need to be on a leash, and I don't want him of all people poking around in my head…and, y'know, how good can he be at all that mind-hunter bullshit, anyway? The BAU threw him out."

Bobby's patience was very clearly getting thinner than his hair as he told Dean, "Special Agent Ridgway was reassigned to my unit for reasons that ain't none of your business. I'm pairing you two 'cause I'm sending you into a loony bin and he's got plenty of experience with psychos. And I know you don't wanna hear this, Dean, but you do need a new partner."

"So give me anybody else." Dean wondered if it would help if he got down on his knees and begged. "Give me Donna, give me Jody, send him along with the other one. Or - pair him with Garth, or Claire. Anybody."

"Son, you have been riding my ass for months now about getting back in the field," Bobby stated. "Ridgway's my condition. You wanna sit back down on the bench? 'Cause that can sure as hell be arranged."

Dean's jaw worked. He didn't realize he was grinding his teeth until they started to ache. Quietly, he said, "No, sir."

Bobby nodded, as if that ended the matter. After a second, Dean asked, "Is his hair still stupid?"

"That ain't none of your business, either."

"Look, if you're gonna saddle me with him, at least make him cut his hair before we ship out."

"It is not your job to police SA Ridgway's appearance, Rose," Bobby snapped. "Since you seem to have forgotten what your actual job is, you need to walk your happy ass down to Intel, meet up with the partner you are stuck with whether you like it or not, and talk to Shurley. He's gonna be your guardian angel."

Dean knew he ought to just get out while he still had a job, but as he stood up, he just couldn't help himself. He hadn't used to be like this. Not since high school. And yet here he was, commenting, "Figured you would've replaced my case agent with some random asshole, too."

"I didn't need to," Bobby said quietly, and the weight of the unspoken Cas is still alive settled around Dean's neck with all his other consequences as he left the office.

Dean had been really hoping to talk to Castiel alone for a while before they had to get down to business. It had been too damn long since they'd had a work conversation, and he'd have sure liked to get his feedback on the situation…or at least some sympathy. He'd kind of been counting on it, actually; not like it would have been out of character for his "partner" to be late.

Just his luck, though: today, for what was probably the first time in his entire life, Sam Ridgway had decided to be on time.

Dread and resentment instantly pooled in Dean's stomach the second he caught sight of Sam's lanky figure, leaning against the wall in the hallway that led to Castiel's office. He hadn't changed a damn bit since Dean had last seen him - jacket unbuttoned, loose tie untucked, every bit as sloppy as usual. And he was extra dismayed to see his hair was, indeed, still stupid: fluffy waves of coffee-colored shine going well past his jawline. Bastard didn't even have the sense to put it in a ponytail.

Dean had a couple dress code deviations, himself. But at least he kept his necklace tucked away under his shirt where nobody could see it.

"Rose," Sam said neutrally, pushing off the wall as Dean approached.

"Couldn't even give me five minutes, could you?" Dean had never liked small talk, and he especially wasn't in the mood for it right now. He didn't give a damn whether this got back to Bobby or not.

Sam's pink little mouth pressed into a thin line. "Look, I'm not happy about this, either."

"Great." Dean brushed past him without another look. "Looks like we're actually on the same page for once."

Voice rising into that high, annoyed whine Dean hated so much, Sam started, "Okay, y'know what - "

Dean cut him off. "Let's just go talk to Cas." He threw a glance over his shoulder, closing the remaining distance to Castiel's door. "Sooner we get this started, sooner it's over with."

Sam didn't answer, so Dean stepped into the office.

As far as government dynasties went, the Shurleys were a little like the Kennedys - or maybe the Dulleses would have been more accurate. The extended family had roots in just about every federal law enforcement agency, running all the way back to when the CIA was still the OSS; on the FBI's Wall of Honor alone, about a dozen of the portraits had the name "Shurley" underneath them, even though most of them tended to gravitate to the spookier side of things. From what Dean understood, the conspiracy boards had gone absolutely apeshit with the recent appointment of the patriarch (Charles, went by Chuck) to the head of the NSA.

There were a lot of whispers about pulled strings. Nepotism. Incompetent assholes skating by on the grease their family name slicked across palms. Dean, who'd met more than a few, knew that was true for plenty of them. But when it came to Emmanuel "Castiel" Shurley, he was just damn good at his job.

His office, a former conference room that Dean guessed he could admit might have been commandeered based on the Shurley thing, could have belonged to a professor at an Ivy. Books on every single wall. Filing cabinets. Maps. And a whole bunch of bee paraphernalia, stuffed ones and cross-stitches and mugs that Castiel, apparently baffled by their very existence, had just kind of crammed wherever there was room. Outside of them, the whole place was meticulously organized.

Castiel was the best handler Dean had ever had. If he didn't know something immediately, he knew exactly where to find it, office functioning like some sort of external brain. The only flaw he had, as far as Dean was concerned, was that he was a total technophobe; it didn't get much more advanced than a dozen clocks set to different time zones. Which was where Charlie, crammed into a corner with all her screens and towers, came in.

Dean was relieved when he stepped in and saw that everything was pretty much exactly as he remembered it, right down to the bee mobile hanging from a random spot on the ceiling with a dust-furred spiderweb in it. At least a few things hadn't changed since he was last in the field.

The only weird thing he could note was that there was somebody else in the office besides Castiel and Charlie, a little Asian guy sitting uncomfortably over by Castiel's desk, but before he could say anything about it, Castiel was already stepping forward.

"Dean," he greeted, "Sam." Perpetually messy-haired and unshaven, he smelled like mint. Just like the last time he and Dean had met for a drink outside work. "I'd heard you transferred to CID."

Sam nodded, smiling tightly, and Dean looked at him. He hadn't known he and Castiel knew each other. He wasn't sure why he was so annoyed by that.

"We should get started." Castiel turned away from them, and nodded to the little Asian guy, who stood up. "This is Kevin Tran, the Bureau's leading expert on the hunting community. He's been studying them for years, and he's the one who constructed the identities you'll be using. He's going to…assist me on this case."

Castiel's displeasure about having to work with somebody new, especially somebody who knew more than he did about something, was so thick you could practically grab it out of the air. Dean had been around long enough to see the adjustment period for Charlie; Kevin here was in for a real bumpy ride.

He got it. From Castiel's end, at least.

"Hey." Approaching, Kevin shook their hands, movements sharp and busy, then handed each of them one of the two thick folders he'd been clutching to his chest. "These are your backstories, and all the information you'll need. You're going in as Sam and Dean Winchester."

"Excuse me, what?" Sam asked with his hated little scoff-laugh, at the same time Dean flatly told Kevin, "You are not sending us in there as a married couple."

He even had a whole argument prepared. About how he really doubted these redneck assholes would be rolling out the red carpet for a couple of queers uppity enough to get hitched - even almost a decade out from Obergefell. But Kevin was already scrambling to reassure them.

"No, no, no. Of course not." He shook his head, waving his hands. "You're brothers."

Dean looked at Sam, who looked back at him, and knew that they were thinking exactly the same thing. So looked like lightning did strike twice.

"We look literally nothing like each other." Dean gestured. "Look at us, we don't even have the same skin tone."

"And what the hell is up with that last name?" Apparently not to be outdone, Sam chimed in. "What, was 'Colt' too obvious? 'Luger?'"

"Okay, look - " Kevin threw his hands up. For the first time, Dean noticed the caffeine shakes, and wondered how many days in a row this guy had been up. He hoped they were caffeine shakes, at least. "You need an excuse for how close you're going to have to stick to each other, and 'Winchester' is a perfectly normal and common last name, look at some statistics. Plus: it's one that these guys are gonna respect."

"He is an expert," Castiel reminded quietly. Dean kept what he'd been about to say to himself.

"You became hunters after your father was killed by a vampire," Kevin went on, almost happily. "On a camping trip. You checked it out for yourself, and wound up stumbling upon it and bringing it down."

Well, it wasn't any stupider than anything else about this case. Dean released a thunderous sigh from his nose and tucked the file under his arm.

Sam, though, kept his out, frowning down at it. "Are you sure these are gonna hold up? I heard these people are paranoid."

Dean was, annoyingly, glad he'd asked. Every single cover identity he'd worn before had come from Castiel. He didn't know shit about Kevin, and from what he'd seen so far, he didn't think he'd trust the guy to get him a cup of coffee. Much less make him into a new person.

"Oh, ye of little faith." They turned, too close to in unison for Dean's comfort, to watch Charlie spin around in her chair to face them. "I shored them up on the back end. You guys have everything a real person could ask for. Arrest record, school transcripts, medical records, digital footprints…and if anybody googles you or runs your prints, I'll know in half a second."

"School transcripts." Sam's eyebrows rose. Dean couldn't tell if he was impressed or skeptical.

"Yeah, you got a D in Pre-Calc." Charlie made a sympathetic face. "Sorry."

"Your flight leaves in two hours." Like he was desperate to get control over the situation back, Castiel took two envelopes off his desk, handed them over. "Tickets. Your bags, with all the clothes and equipment you'll need, are already at the airport, and the car you'll use undercover is waiting for you in South Dakota. For now, I suggest you use this time to tie up any loose ends and gather anything else you need to take with you."

"Wait, you're not going to brief us or anything?" Sam sounded rattled. Dean probably shouldn't have liked it as much as he did. "I thought…standard procedure's a few weeks to - "

"There's no time." Castiel cut him off.

"They're escalating," Kevin agreed. "Especially Crowley's - the Midwest cell, where you're going. Uh, 'increased demon activity.' So…we need an insertion as fast as possible."

Dean privately thought that it was more of a budget issue than a criminal one. The last two cases he'd assigned, he'd gone in raw with only a jacket about as thick as the one he was holding now, no in-depth prep to speak of. But Sam was pulling way too funny of a face right now for him to reassure him.

"Can't we - " Sam started, but Kevin was already shaking his head, brushing past him and heading for the door.

"I'm sorry, I've got a meeting in Counterterrorism that starts…" He went to check his watch, apparently realized he wasn't wearing one, and looked up at Castiel's clocks instead. "Five minutes ago. Shit, I gotta run."

Sam looked after him, raising his hands helplessly then letting them fall back to his sides, at a loss. He looked at Castiel. "Two hours?"

"An hour and fifty-six minutes, now."

Sam hesitated, made a weird little grabby motion with one hand that had Dean squinting (what, Mr. Perfect Psych had a tic?), then heaved a sigh through his nose and followed Kevin out the door. Dean was about to go with him, already running through a catalog of shit he had in his apartment and trying to figure out what he could take that fell into the categories of both "useful" and "wouldn't instantly blow his cover." But he'd barely taken one step before Castiel said, "Dean. Please, stay."

Son of a bitch. Squaring his shoulders, Dean turned around, and tried to wiggle free. "Cas, c'mon, I got wheels up in less than two hours now, I gotta…"

"This won't take long," Castiel assured.

There were two chairs near his desk. He sat down in one of them, gestured for Dean to take the other. Hesitating, he glanced over at Charlie, but she just winked at him and slipped on a pair of headphones bigger than anything he'd seen outside of a cockpit. So looked like there was really nothing stopping him. Swallowing back a groan, Dean set all his paperwork aside, and dropped into the chair.

Deep breath. One, two, three, four.

"How are you doing?" Castiel asked immediately.

"Fine," Dean answered, wishing people would stop asking him that. "Awesome. Finally got a new case, after they had me pushing paper for six months; one more week and my ass would've melded with that chair."

"You have a new partner, too."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me."

"I wouldn't expect you to be happy about being paired with Sam."

"Well, ain't that the understatement of the century." Dean leaned back in his chair. "Look - Jesus. It'd be bad enough if he were just green, which he is." To Dean's knowledge, Sam had never gone undercover before. If he had, he'd be shocked if he made it five minutes without shredding his cover doing something he thought was cool. "But he's also…you know what he's like."

"Yes," Castiel agreed.

"I've worked with him three times. Hell, one would've been too goddamn many." It was always something. Every single time. "He fed us bad information from a 'profile' I swear he pulled out of his ass. Almost blew my collar and my cover. He's always gotta make a big goddamn show about being Agent Special Snowflake Loose Cannon, and…Cas, he stole a car. I saw him hotwire a fucking car. He didn't even do a good job, either, damn thing stalled!"

"I read the incident report recently. After he was assigned to me. I believe the justification was a - ?"

"Trust me, I know this asshole, the kid had nothing to do with it." Dean stabbed a finger down on his thigh to make his point. "It was all about the headlines. And that rookie that the Shrink Squad lost while he was still on their payroll - "

Castiel broke in. "The inquiry found that the entire unit was responsible for what happened to Junior Agent Moore. Heavy blame was especially placed on their commander. Don't you remember the hearings?"

"You really want me to believe that wasn't just politics?" Dean shot back.

Castiel exhaled through his nose, then took a few seconds. Dean waited, shoulders tense, for him to drop whatever bomb he was cooking up, and - "Dean, you know Sam wasn't responsible for what happened to Benny."

There it was.

"Oh, son of a bitch," Dean said quietly, looking away and rubbing at his mouth. It was better than grabbing at what was under his shirt, which was what he'd moved automatically to do before he stopped himself.

"He wasn't even with the BAU at the time. He'd taken a leave of absence."

"Yeah, I know." Dean looked at Castiel. Well, glared. He knew he couldn't fire him. "You start moonlighting as a shrink while I was still riding a desk, Cas? Or Internal Affairs?"

Castiel just looked at him. In that blank way of his, like he was legitimately confused and trying to figure out what was going on. And, just like always, it made Dean think, too, and that made him feel bad.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"I care about you, Dean." Castiel said it about the same way he might have said Most agents carry Glocks or My dad is an asshole: a neutral, unchangeable fact. "This is going to be very dangerous. I want you to come back."

"What, you don't think I can handle it?"

"I have no doubt you can handle it. We've known each other for more than a decade; I've been your case agent a dozen times over, I know how well you operate undercover even under emotional duress. What I have doubts about is whether or not you'll handle working with Sam."

"He's an asshole," Dean stated. His own fact.

"Yes," Castiel agreed, "and he thinks the same thing about you." Before Dean could say anything about that, he was already moving on. "You don't have to like him. You don't have to agree with the reason you two were assigned to each other. But you know better than anyone that this won't work unless you cooperate with him. I know you can, I'm asking if you will."

"I can't make any promises about him cooperating with me," Dean warned.

"I'm not talking to him."

Dean exhaled explosively through his nose. "What d'you want from me, Cas?"

"Survival." Castiel stood. "I want you to work with Sam, complete the necessary steps for this case, and come back to Virginia without a major incident."

"And prove I don't need a shrink with a gun to keep an eye on me," Dean summarized, getting to his own feet.

"You can put in a request for a partner transfer as soon as you're extracted." Castiel nodded, then paused. "I'm sorry. I know I overstepped here. But after…everything, I…I was worried, and I needed to make sure…"

"Hey, hey, it's okay. I needed the kick in the ass, I - oh, okay, we're doing this."

Castiel had just raised his arms for a hug. Dean embraced him; as with all Cas hugs, it was stiff, awkward, went on just a bit too long, and felt like Castiel was pulling all his info from a diagram he'd only halfway studied. But it was familiar. As Dean patted his back, necklace pressed into his chest, it occurred to him that, in all the months he'd spent crying on Castiel's shoulder, or sleeping on his couch when his apartment was too empty, they'd never really talked about how what had happened had hit him. An agent he'd worked with just as long as Dean had died while he was handling him. And he'd had to listen to it, stuck in a room a thousand miles away with nothing he could do.

Dean suddenly felt like the world's biggest jackass.

"Hey," he mumbled, not letting go of Castiel when the hug reached its natural (by Castiel standards) conclusion. "When, uh…when I get back…I think I…I wanna buy you dinner, man."

"Oh." As they pulled apart, Castiel blinked in surprise, but then smiled. "All right. I would…enjoy that."

"Yeah." Dean gave a sharp little nod, then coughed, embarrassed. "Okay, uh - I oughta go. I'll talk to you soon."

"Have a good flight."

As he left the room, Kevin's folder and Castiel's ticket in hand, Dean hoped this one would be short and sweet. Even though he knew better by now. He hoped, for everybody's sake, that everything went smooth, he and Sam didn't kill each other, and there were no unexpected wrinkles that kept them from wrapping up on time.

Which, of course, was kind of like getting down on his knees in front of the universe and just begging for shit to hit the fan.