IMPERIAL MALL - EVENING

Between the afternoon rush and the dinner hour, the old mall in uptown Sioux Falls was usually pretty dead. Some couples, some bored teens, some parents using the stores as a babysitter. All the mall walkers were in bed. If you were an emotionally constipated angel with depleted grace, it was an ideal time and place to unwind. There was a big, green, vintage carousel in the middle of the mall and Castiel watched it go round from one of the semicircular benches that flanked it.

No too far away at the corporate coffee shop, Dean was picking up his order - a large black coffee and a tall-ass seasonal cappuccino with whipped cream. He stopped briefly at the condiment table where he took out a flask of whiskey to surreptitiously add a shot to the cappuccino, something he'd apparently done to the last two - in his biased opinion, booze was a perfectly reasonable way to grease the wheels on a bad day.

By the time he brought the drinks back to their bench, Castiel was still transfixed by the scene of families and joy but he looked pretty tipsy now, mostly feeling the headrush from staring into a bright, spinning object for forty-five minutes. He didn't move when Dean sat beside him and offered him his drink.

"Do you see that?" Castiel asked, his voice a bit more gravelly than usual. "That... they don't even care about the absurdity of existence. Or the thoughtless deity that orphaned them in this... big, fat failed experiment. Right now, everything's perfect." He smiled at that.

"Magic moments," Dean said dryly. "You want another ten dollar milkshake?"

He offered the cappuccino again. Castiel sat up and took it, suddenly almost alert.

"This means a lot to me," Castiel said. "Dee. Deener."

Dean chuckled to himself and watched the carousel. "You ever call me Deener again," he said, "I'll dropkick your ass all the way to Five Guys. Promise."

"Dee-Dubbs," Castiel went on. "Wubbs. You can't nickname yourself, Wubbs."

"The hell I can't," Dean said.

Castiel drained a goodly portion of his drink, past the point of moderation. "This vessel, it's more confining every day. With so much evil in the world, it's so hard to do nothing. I get the urge to rain down the wrath of Heaven. But now, it's almost like Heaven never existed. Time crawls. I'm an old soldier, fading away."

Dean shrugged. A fight sounded good to him right now. "So why don't we go kick some demon ass?"

Castiel snorted at Dean being Dean. "Yeah. Let's go."

"Come on," Dean said, still into it. "We'll tear it up! Like hunters. Small time stuff, Bobby doesn't need to to know. We'll keep the training wheels on, what's the worst that could happen?"

Castiel was still sober enough to give Dean the sassiest of looks. "Do you expect me to answer that question, or can I just squint?"

"Hey, I'm trying."

Castiel smiled at Dean, but in the done-est way. "You're trying to put me back the way I was," he sighed. "And I appreciate the effort - your sincerity. But I've spent years trying to move forward. To be a man. And it's already too hard."

Dean settled back, facing the carousel but looking at nothing in particular. "Not easy for any of us, Cas. It's not supposed to be. You've seen me and Sam; most of the time, we're hangin' on by a thread. And it's not just the 'end of the world' stuff, either. I tried what you're doing. Being normal. And that was so much harder. At least when you're fighting monsters, you've got something you can punch in the face. And at least..."

Dean needed a moment. "They got the decency to kill you when you lose. But there are things about being a man... that even if you've got everything down, and you do everything right, you're still gonna feel that ache. So you roll with it, and learn how it all shakes out - you get wise. But then you start gettin' old. And just like that, life stops giving you things and starts taking 'em away. The people you love, the guy you used to be. It hurts to the bone, and sometimes, you can't make it stop. But it won't kill you. That's the bitch of it all. So you just have to keep goin'. Learn to live with it. And no one can tell you how."

Castiel frowned. He sat back, eyes wherever. Considering Dean's words. After a long beat, "Say that again."

Dean looked back at Castiel, a bit surprised, but in a second he got it. "It's supposed to be this hard," he said.

Cas looked at Dean, eyes full of sympathy. He offered Dean his cappuccino. And Dean - who had managed to bring himself down with his helpful speech - was just blue enough to take it. He had a swig and was pleasantly surprised.

"Good stuff," Dean said. "Not 'ten bucks a pop' good, but hey." He passed the drink back. "So you had enough, or you wanna ride the merry-go-round?"

"I'd like to go home," Castiel said. He got up, doing a very admirable job of not looking wasted. But then he started walking who knows where and Dean had to start dragging him to the exit.

When they were practically out of the mall, Castiel spotted a new machine near the exit, where the photobooth used to be. It almost looked like a video game, but it had a keyboard and a touch screen. The cabinet was black and airbrushed in red flames and skulls. The Inferno logo was on the sides and the word "Crossroads" written in front over the screen.

"What is that?" Castiel asked, beginning to look more and more outraged as he walked toward it.

Dean didn't answer, he just followed. But when they were closer, it started to make sense. From the look of it, this machine spat out personalized, official crossroads contracts. For $4.99 a piece. Castiel was breathing hard now, nostrils flared. Furious at the realization.

Those douchebags were tricking people into selling their souls in the mall. And charging them for it.