"I can bring some beverages, just tell me what you want to order," Cassie offered, staring at the tips of her own shoes. It was obvious that she felt uneasy, perhaps even threatened in a pub full of huge bikers and loudmouthed, denim-clad babes.

"A strawberry daiquiri with whipped cream, super sweet!" Gabe asked playfully around a huge heart-shaped lollipop that filled half of her mouth.

"Whatever..." Dean sighed, too flabbergasted to actually care about a drink. He had no problems accepting Gabriel's laid-back attitude and squeaky voice. What shocked him was that the archangel appeared much more like himself in the body of a glitzy, nonchalant teenage girl with a tiny, heart-shaped face, porcelain complexion, golden curls and a hellish attitude than in the vessel of a middle-aged, seedy janitor the Winchester knew.

"Make it double..." she leaned to bring her lips close to Cassie's ear though her whisper was so loud that everyone could hear, "double whatever on ice."

The Winchesters awarded the joke with small huffs, but the younger angel seemed lost in a way that made looking at her almost painful. Dean bit his lip. It was so odd, so wrong. Cas was often confused, but never this vulnerable. Earthly idioms, references or jokes which he failed to get excited his curiosity, annoyance, even amusement, but they never challenged his self-respect or repose, like he knew that his inability to understand them didn't matter at large. Sometimes Dean embellished his speech with all kinds of weird connotations and proverbs he could come up with just to banter with with the Seraph and though Castiel didn't get most of them, he got that it was meant to be raillery. Sometimes when this happened, he would give Dean one of these rare looks of affection and lenience seeping through pretended umbrage. A look that would make Dean feel safe and cherished. Cassie, on the other hand, seemed authentically mortified.

"And you, Samantha?" she asked feebly.

"A bloody mary with unsalted tomato juice. Make sure they add celery," the hunter asked kindly with a small, courtly smile. Her brother rolled his eyes.

"Seriously? Dude, we're boozing and you're trying to make a drink healthy?"

Having noticed a strange tension bubble up between the sisters, Gabriel made a classic, theatrical 'whoops' face, putting her finger to her plump, pearly, pink lips.

"C'mon, sis, I'll give you a hand. By the way, what do you want? Sex on the beach?" she giggled at her sister's embarrassment as they were leaving the table and heading towards the bar.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Dean leaned forward and hissed:

"What is he, I mean she doing here? I get Cas, but Gabe? She's a friggin archangel. Are we so lame that we can't even gank a simple monster without asking Holy Hosts of Heaven for help?"

Samantha seemed genuinely hurt. Dean had a soft spot for his brother's big eyes, dimples, bulb nose and girly smile when he was a guy, but now that Sam was a girl, giving Dean the puppy eyes was nothing but the dirtiest of all dirty tricks.

"All right, there..." the older Winchester drawled out willy-nilly, "I didn't mean to jump all over you. Just tell me the plan."

The younger hunter bit her lip.

"She's the bait."

"The bait," there was no emotion in Dean's voice. He was too stunned. The only association that immediately sparked up in his brain that included Gabriel in his girly, lacy, naughty visage and baiting was leading straight to something very dirty and very illegal.

"Yes," Samantha didn't seem to notice her sister's bafflement, "You remember the vic's profile. Young women, blonde and fairly attractive."

"But he's not a woman! I mean... Not a human. Monsters will psych it out."

"That's why you're here. In case they sense it," there was no doubt that there was a hidden agenda behind Samantha's timid statement.

"Why me?"

"Well, victims have another feature in common," she gulped; in no time her entire face was as red as a beetroot, "They were all virgins."

Now that was offensive.

"Virgins?!"

Samantha ruffled up at Dean's yell, but after a while she calmed down; her face assumed an expression of understanding, ruth and affection. She even took Dean's hand in hers. Dean braced himself for an impending chick flick moment.

"Deana, you know I love you and I support you with all my heart and I would never ever even think of demeaning your... Uhm, your kind of sex. Still, monsters are not so open-minded and they're certainly not into political correctness. Since you have never been... Penetrated by a man... Well, technically you are a virgin," she choked out, caught between the need to show her sister heartfelt support and being embarrassed out of her mind.

So female Dean was lesbian. It made sense. The disconcerting thing was that it made sense in more than one way...

Luckily, the moment of awkward silence between the Winchester sisters was broken by clinking of glass and footsteps. The angel-girls returned, each of them carrying two glasses. While placing the bloody mary with a huge celery stem in front of Sam, Gabriel elbowed the tumbler Cassie had just placed in front of Dean. The hunter could have sworn it was deliberate.

"Oopsadaisy!" she exclaimed, then assumed the fakest of all fake innocent smirks while Dean hissed as his lap received an ice-cold shower of booze.

"Don't worry. I will clean it..." Cassie offered and without further ado she pressed her hand to Dean's thigh, then moved it dangerously close to his crotch.

The hunter tensed up in an anticipation of this tantalizing jolt of pleasure spiked with pain that shot through his veins every time Castiel touched him, then relaxed, equally relieved and disappointed. There was nothing. Even when Cassie peeked at him and Dean saw a glimpse of blue behind her long, dark eyelashes, there was nothing.

Dean eyed her once again when she was walking back to take her seat; he had to admit that there was nothing wrong with her; though she was fit and lean, she had all the curves in all the right places, decently covered with a beige turtleneck and knee-long pleated skirt. If he met a girl like this on one of his better days Dean would probably try placing his hand on one of those pale thighs and moving it up, under that Sunday-schoolgirl's skirt, but then it would probably end in a night of unsentimental banging and throwing the post-it note with her number into a nearest trash can. It was not how it was supposed to be. It was not how he wanted it to be.

-xXx-xXx-xXx-

"So I was thinking if it would be practical if we kept two journals, one for the dates, places, contacts and details of each case and another for lore, creatures, ways to kill them.." Samantha rambled on, casting stealthy glances at the darkest corners of the pub in wait for something unusual to happen while Gabe was leisurely swirling the remnants of her drink with a striped pink-and-white straw, Dean was staring blankly at Cassie, whose vapid gaze was wandering about the pub as well, "Of course we would have to introduce some kind of coding or a very good, updateable table of contents so that we are able to correlate the dates with monsters."

Gabrielle tried to get the last sip of her daiquiri; the straw made a loud, ugly, burbling sound.

"Sorry," she giggled. Samantha just sighed.

"I wonder if the entries should be added in alphabetical or chronological order. Or perhaps we should start from describing victim's symptoms, omens, weapons etcetera and simply add a list of creatures that could be involved in each case?"

Slurp.

"Sorry again..."

"Uhm... Although it would reduplicate the first journal... Or perhaps we should give up paper journals and try to build a good digitized database. It would be much more accessible, but on the other hand it could be lost easily. Laptops often break and pen-drives are so tiny..."

Slurrrrp.

A chuckle. A sigh.

"Or perhaps we could store it on an external server, but then again..."

Sammy's blather went in one ear and out the other. All Dean could think of was Cassie and how much everything was wrong about her. She was buttoned up and funky like real Cas, but it was an insecurity of a girl learning to ride roller skates, not an insecurity of heaven's Dwayne Johnson learning to drive a Catterpilar 797B. There was no way she storm into that barn having had a hurricane open the door for her. There was no way she could just stand there, perfectly unfazed, with a foot-long knife guard-deep in her chest and give Dean that particular look that meant I should smite you and then resurrect you, then smite you and resurrect you again to teach you some respect, but you are just too adorable. There was no way she could storm into his life and violate his mind, rape him, tear him apart with just a few words and then be so sincerely clueless about it, so amazed by how vulnerable a human can be. There was no way she could then put him back together, cocoon him in that warm safety, in a feeling that he was cared for, protected, cherished.

It wasn't until his memories of Cas's were juxtaposed with Cassie's iffiness and and obsequiousness that Dean realized why he treasured the Seraph's loyalty so much. It wasn't that angel was allegiant by nature. He was anything but this. It was about how special Dean felt knowing he was the only one who had ever won this steadfast devotion. He had witnessed how fierce Castiel's wrath could be; he basked in being so precious that the warrior of Heaven was making an exception for him. Castiel's patience wasn't limitless and God help anyone who tried to put it to the test, unless it was Dean.

The older Winchester hardly registered when Gabriel left to bring another round of drinks; he was immersed in thought, fighting his own internal fight. It was high time to admit that he liked being the weak one, the protected one. It didn't mean that he would be submissive - of course he made the most of his special privilege to wrangle with his angel. He was ravished every time that ice-cold, whirling vertigo pierced his guts if he saw Castiel's eyes darken in barely contained rage, a truly biblical ire welling up behind his blue irises. In fact, he often provoked Cas on purpose just to get a shot of his favorite drug. It wasn't difficult, because...

Well, they quarreled nearly all the time. No wonder they did. Now that Dean thought about it, he realized that the Seraph was incedibly self-assured and insensitive, so intractable and haughty, so hopelessly dense and literal, so... Neanderthalian. Ughm. A typical man. Rock-ribbed, deaf and blind to anything that wasn't not obvious. Gosh, that bullhead could be a real pain in the ass. A huffy, dull-witted, mullish caveman.

Dean snapped out of it upon realizing he was gritting his teeth in helpless anger. He looked down, wondering whether this litany had anything to do with his newly acquired ovaries or how something so tiny managed to infuse his brain with misandrous ideas so quickly.

Anyway, apparently Dean loved hating Castiel - real Castiel - just the way he was. Awkward and confused, yes, but powerful and headstrong. As tenacious in haggling with Dean as in protecting him. Protecting his little treasure.

Yeah, the situation required some serious coming to terms with himself.

The Winchester started up, nudged from behind. Before he wised up what was happening, he found himself being hauled out of the pub by flushed and angry Gabriel, whose fingers were dug deep into Dean's arm.

"I hate this place. Dad, how can anyone be so hideous?" she hissed straight to Dean's ear.

"What happened?"

"I am never going to wash these foul stares off of me... We're leaving,"

"Hey, I was just getting on for another epiphany!"

Dean tried to balk, but to no avail. No matter if his legs cooperated, Gabriel was still dragging him out of the pub.

"Doesn't matter. I feel soooo violated."

"Well, you had it coming," the hunter snickered, "Look at yourself."

It stopped the archangel in tracks. She spun around, authentically offended.

"You are a swine. A sexist swine."

"Anyway, if you have beef with some pervs, why don't you just smite them?"

"I just don't. I could give them a lesson trickster-style, but we don't have time for this."

Dean crossed his arms, rising his eyebrows.

"So you admit that that's what you do when someone pisses you off? It is a punishment."

"Gosh, you've been a woman for sixteen hours and you're already carping."

Gabriel rolled her big, makeup-dripping eyes before patting Dean's head. Everything went dark.