"The bar is the key," Dean said.

"You should get some sleep, Dean," Cas said.

"I'm not going to sleep. You could die. Hell, what if this was your last night on earth, Cas? What would you want to do with it?"

Cas gave Dean a strange look and Dean was reminded awkwardly of when they had gone to a brothel to try and get Cas laid before hunting Raphael. "I'm not certain a ghost can kill me. Maybe this is a good test," he finally said.

"I'm not going to wait and see if a ghost can kill you, Cas. That is not happening. Like I said before, the bar is the key. I'm going to go down to the lobby and see if the night clerk knows anyone who used to work there. All this only happened in the late 60s. There's got to be someone in town who still remembers what happened."

The night clerk had a friend who'd been the bartender that night. Dean got an address, and he reluctantly returned to the hotel room, knowing he couldn't barge into the guy's house at eleven at night.

Cas was lying in the bed nearest the door with his eyes closed when Dean came in the room. Dean knew he wasn't sleeping. He slept rarely, and his breathing was distinctive when he did. Dean suspected Cas didn't want to speak to him, and dimly he wondered why. Maybe the angel was afraid, although Dean couldn't really fathom such a thing.

Without knowing why, he sat down on Cas's bed and put a hand on his shoulder. "I've got a lead. It's the bartender who was there the night Jenny Plainer's husband killed that guy and then died in the crash. We can go see him first thing in the morning."

"You've got it all figured out, have you?" Cas asked.

There was something in his voice that Dean didn't want to analyze. He could tell Cas was annoyed with him for some reason, and a part of him knew and didn't want to acknowledge it was because his overprotective act had to be irritating for someone who used to be practically all powerful. He couldn't help being protective—he couldn't bear the thought of losing Cas. He rubbed Cas's shoulder absently. "I know you don't see this as a threat. You're probably right and it can't kill you. I just can't take the chance, alright?"

Cas turned his head so he was looking at Dean. "Okay. I'll try not to die, if that makes you feel any better."

"Thanks," Dean said, wryly. He got up and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

The next morning they went to see the bartender. He lived in a nice house in a newly built suburb. Dean and Cas were both wearing suits, and had fake FBI credentials they had brought with them when they came from the future, so they were hoping Murphy didn't want to look at them too closely. The Campbell's guy, who Mary had set them up with, still hadn't gotten Dean and Cas any IDs. Everything seemed to take a hell of a lot longer in the seventies, but cover stories didn't require an electronic paper trail, which was nice considering Sam had been the hacker. He wondered what he'd do when someone wanted to talk to a superior with no Bobby around to call; well, he'd find out soon enough.

"We're closing up some old case files, and the Plainer case wasn't properly documented. We just need to ask you a few questions," Dean said to Fred Murphy, a middle aged man who vaguely reminded Dean of his father at that age—an age his father would now never be.

"Paperwork is a bitch," Murphy said sympathetically, letting them in and asking them to sit on his sofa. He sat down across from them in a big plush chair. "Why does the FBI even have a file on that murder? I don't remember them investigating at the time. I wouldn't think it would be in their jurisdiction."

"There were some questions at the time about the involvement of a biker gang," Dean said vaguely.

Murphy nodded. "Makes sense."

"So can you tell us exactly what happened?" Dean asked.

"Weirdest night of my life," Murphy said. "Guy walks in—and I knew him, right? He was always pretty even tempered, but where Jenny was concerned, he got so jealous. He turned into a different person. Mabel—she was the barmaid working the night before—she told me that Jenny had been flirting with Tom Cross all night that night. Turns out Jenny went home and told Guy she was leaving him, and then checked into the hotel. He went and waited for her in the bar the next night. Somehow he'd gotten wind of the fact that she and Tom liked it there.

"So I see Guy fuming at the bar and I offer him a beer. He refuses, and I tell him that he can't just sit at the bar for free, so he orders a root beer. How do you like that? Knowing he's planning on killing someone, he doesn't even take a shot of whiskey to calm his nerves. Just root beer. And he was mad, I could tell, but I remember he lit my cigarette, and his hands didn't even shake. Course, he was a vet—he'd been to Korea.

"Anyway, finally Tom walks in, arm in arm with Jenny. She was a beautiful girl, and the way she looked at Tom—well, I could see how Guy could snap. He got up from the bar and did the craziest thing. He cut her finger off. And not just any finger, the one where her wedding ring should have been but wasn't."

Cas and Dean looked at each other. So this was how Jenny was tied to the hotel.

"Wow, that's awful. We didn't know about the finger. Did it stay at the scene?" Dean asked.

"How did you know? Yeah, he dropped it and later on the boss had me clean it up. I buried it under the rose bush after I found out she had died."

Dean looked at Cas and Cas nodded imperceptibly. He knew where the rosebush was. Dean fought the desire to get up and go salt and burn the finger. They had to stay in role for Murphy to finish his story.

"What happened next?" Cas asked.

Murphy paused thoughtfully. "I honestly think that Guy never intended to kill Tom—but Tom took exception to Guy taking Jenny's finger, as well he might, and he pushed him back. Guy went crazy, and there was a struggle. They both got bloodied, and then Tom went down. I still remember the way he looked, splayed on the carpet…Jenny screaming…but she went with him when he pulled her into his car. They went off a cliff. Folks said he was going too fast around the curve, trying to get away, but I don't think he even touched the brakes. He wanted to die after what he'd done and he wanted to take her with him."

"Thank you," Dean said. "You've been incredibly helpful."

They got back to the hotel around noon and salted and burned the finger. The bar had been destroyed in a controlled burn several years before, but the rose bush still grew near where the foundation could still be faintly seen.

Dean sighed in relief. Cas was safe.

They decided to stay the night because check out time was ten a.m. and they were already on the hook for another night. Dean wondered if there was a bar nearby where they could celebrate that night, but Cas didn't seem interested in drinking.

"Come on Cas, did you learn nothing from that story? Guy was sober, and it made him go crazy and kill someone. The same thing could happen to me. All work and no play makes Dean a dull boy! You gotta come with me," Dean said.

"I don't understand that reference," Cas said. "I don't want to go to a bar tonight, but if you get a bottle, I'll have some drinks with you."

"Not feeling sociable?"

"I just don't know what it's like to drink in this state. I want to experiment in private," Cas said.

Dean almost made a double entendre about how he'd like to "experiment in private" with Cas, but then figured it would probably be lost on him and just left to get the bottle.

When he returned, he found Cas sitting calming on the floor in the bathroom in a circle of salt.

"What the hell?" Dean asked.

"Apparently Jenny was not the one killing men," Cas said.

"Did he hurt you?" Dean asked fiercely.

"Just this," Cas said, holding up a bandaged hand. "I think you were right—I think he might be able to kill me."

"Not while I'm around," Dean growled. "So it has to be Tom or Guy. I mean, it should be, because Jenny appeared to you first."

"Ghosts are remnants. What if they act out the drama—Jenny looks at another man, and then Guy kills the man in a jealous rage," Cas said.

"Do you remember what Murphy said? He said something about both of the men losing blood and Tom lying on a carpet. What if it's the carpet? What if it's still somewhere on the grounds?" Dean asked.

The ghost appeared and Cas threw the iron rod he was holding at Dean, who swung through him, dissipating him. He reappeared—bloody and angry—and threw a chair at the window, shattering it. Ghosts always did that to disperse the salt, but Cas had set up his salt ring in the bathroom seemed safe from the breeze, for now.

"Go find it Dean. I'll be fine," Cas said, reaching for the iron rod. Dean handed it over and ran to the hotel clerk.

"Tell me you have things from the bar in storage somewhere on the grounds," he said.

"Just in the shed out back," the man said before it occurred to him that the things from the bar were none of Dean's business. Dean took off at a run, praying for Cas to be alright.

The shed was locked, and Dean took a shovel that was standing nearby and pried the lock ring off. He flicked on the light and found the pile of rugs right away. "Give me a break!" he said aloud, looking at the five rolled up rugs.

He'd only been in the 70s for a few weeks and didn't want to go on the run if he didn't have to, but he was dangerously close to just pouring gas on the whole pile of rugs. Fortunately the first one he opened had a giant blood stain on it.

"Why the hell would the boss keep that?" the clerk asked, peeking in behind him.

"Help me get this out of here so I can burn it," Dean said.

"Why?" the clerk asked, but he gamely took an end and they laid the carpet on the grass.

"I don't know—cause it's creepy and morbid to keep it?" Dean said. He poured gas on the rug and lit it on fire. "Thanks man. I'll be checking out bright and early tomorrow," he said as he ran back to the hotel.

He found Cas bloodied but conscious on the bed. "I could use that drink now," Cas said.

"Did he—he burned, right?" Dean asked.

"You got him," Cas said.

"We should go to a Zeppelin concert to celebrate," Dean smirked.

They hunted together for months, Cas started to understand being human, and even some of Dean's references, and Dean tried to forget Sam. After a while Dean realized he didn't want to forget Sam, and started bringing him up more and more.

"Maybe not existing at all was better for Sam. After all, he was very troubled," Cas said. His voice was soft across the space between them in the hotel room, and the darkness somehow made the conversation less real; made Sam something that could be talked about, for once.

"Nothing he couldn't have gotten over, if he'd had the chance," Dean mumbled.

"You don't know that. Maybe the fates had placed even more difficult obstacles in his path. Perhaps what happened to him was a strange sort of kindness," Cas said.

"You're a pretty good liar," Dean remarked.

"Nearly everything I learned about being a human I learned from you. If you don't like me lying, you shouldn't have taught me how," Cas said.

It took a moment for that to sink in. Cas hadn't denied that his comforting words had been a lie. Sam wasn't in a better place; he wasn't at peace. He didn't exist. Dean remembered a time when he had thought that was better than dying. He didn't think that anymore.

"You can take comfort from the fact that Sam lives on in your memories," Cas continued.

Dean winced at the clichéd sentiment. "I know I never sent you any greeting cards. Where are you picking up this schmaltz?"

"Clichés are only clichés because they're what humans believe, deep down inside. And we might hunt demons and monsters, but we've had enough chick flick moments that you've taught me a lot about what exactly it is that humans feel," Cas said.

Hearing his own expressions on Cas's lips felt—wrong, somehow—liked he'd let the man too far in. Like Cas knew him too well. Hell, the man had been in his dreams like Freddy freaken Kruger, and he was worried about him picking up his verbal ticks? Maybe it was just because the only person who'd ever known him that well was Sam—or maybe it was because they were starting to veer dangerously close to couple territory.

Couple territory was not a country that Dean wanted to explore with Cas.

Dean wasn't a prude, but he didn't exactly swing that way, either. Which is not to say he'd never let a guy give him head if there was no hot chicks around and he was drunk or bored enough. And if, once or twice, just for the hell of it, he'd let it go farther than that, well, no one really needed to know about it. He wouldn't go so far as to say he was bisexual, but people were people, and sometimes on the road, if he was lonely, having a person touch him just to make him feel good made all the difference. If this generosity came from a man instead of a woman it didn't change anything at all.

Nothing that mattered, anyway. And he knew, without having to even try it, that it wouldn't matter between he and Cas. After all, if you really wanted to be technical about it, Cas wasn't even a man. He wasn't even a human, which should be the more worrisome problem. But it didn't seem to be a problem for Dean. He thought they might have a chance, despite their differences.

Maybe Cas was right about the clichés and the chick flick moments.

Anyway, he didn't want to sour the one thing he had in this world. Even if he and Cas were starting to act like a married couple that didn't mean he should take it a step further and kiss the guy. He wasn't even sure Cas swung any way—he'd never seen him look at any woman or man in any kind of sexual appreciation. He'd seen Cas sleep and the man never seemed to wake up with morning wood or have sexual dreams. Maybe in spite of the fact that he had male genitalia and seemed generally indistinguishable from a human male (his ability to fly from place to place notwithstanding), he really didn't have human desires.

Dean hoped he didn't. Cas had become such an important person in his life, and he didn't want to ruin it. He knew himself enough to know that if he tried to be a partner in every way to Cas, he would ruin it soon enough. Convincing himself that Cas didn't want his advances was the only thing stopping him from making them.

It was so tempting…but dangerous, too. Dean had never been smart with his emotions. When he was very young he'd had a box of things—mementos, baseball cards, family photos—a child's treasures. He'd put his heart and soul into that box, telling himself that no matter where they went or what lies he had to tell the kids at school, he would always know who he really was because he would always have that shoe box to remind him. Of course the box had gone missing in one of the countless Winchester moves, and Dean had been quietly, privately devastated, feeling like he'd lost who he was, not a box of scattered papers and memories.

The way he loved people always reminded him of that box. He stuffed them full of everything that was him, as if loving them would prove he was real, worth it…someone who mattered. And then when they died or left him or, in the memorable case of Cassie Robinson, told him he was crazy, he felt like he had nothing left. He gave too much to the people he loved, and after he lost Sam, at first it had felt like there was nothing left of him.

Cas wasn't just a person Dean loved. He was the only person who really knew who Dean was—and he was the only other person guarding the memory of Sam. Dean thought maybe he should guard himself better, not make the same mistakes he'd made in the past…maybe he and Cas should try to extend their circle of friends.

There had to be other hunters out there, and maybe there was some woman out there who would understand his lifestyle and love him anyway. That way if something went wrong in his love life, he'd still have Cas. Because after losing Sam and Bobby to the vagaries of time travel, he didn't know what he'd do without Cas. He didn't know how he'd stay human, or sane.

So Dean grunted in a noncommittal way—this conversation was dangerous. As much as he wanted, needed to talk about Sam, he couldn't let Cas be his everything. A few moments later when Cas called his name softly across the darkness, Dean pretended to be asleep, knowing full well he wasn't fooling his friend.

But Cas let him get away with it like he always did, and soon they both slept.

"Mount up," Dean told Cas the next morning.

"Where are we going?" Cas asked.

"I realized last night it could all happen again. Azazel—the apocalypse. There were other children. We have to find the yellow-eyed demon, Cas, and we have to kill him again."

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! Please review :) Also, I was just reading the wiki about Bobby and I guess he didn't start being a hunter until the early 90s which probably does make Dean older than him now. Anyone know when his wife got possessed?