Notes: AND WE HAVE REACHED 300,000 WORDS! HOW SHOULD I CELEBRATE?!

leahelisabeth: You and me both ;)

ship. me: ooo! And you're so good at this guessing thing! You've got me all figured out XD *hearts and huggles*

Disclaimer: hmmm, nope, no. I'm awesome, but not that awesome.

CHAPTER 6

Dean looked over his crew once Cas had left, trying to gauge how far he could take this before the next outburst, or if he could even prevent another one all together. It was a nice thought to think that maybe his crew would calm down and trust him to guide them in this. He would never put them in a dangerous situation unless he thought that he could pull them out of it. Hell, his little brother was among the crew. Didn't that count for anything?

It was starting to feel like the last time that Bela was on the ship, with so many turning on him. At least he had Sam and two of the Novaks on his side, maybe even Bobby. Oh, how that preacher man loved a challenge.

Dean leaned down on the chair's backrest and met the eyes of each of his people, "Okay, so the question remains, how do we get the artifact out without setting off the alarms?"

He waited for his crew to work their magic. None of them could resist sharing their insight for such a job. He lit the flame, and the moths would fly right for it.

Chuck was the first ensnared by the fire, "Well, you don't. Not through the door, anyway," he hesitantly leaned over the table and picked up one of the disks laying there, "Uh, is this the layout?" he asked Bela. She nodded and smirked, winking at Dean.

"Full blueprints of the entire grounds," Bela said smugly, even with the bruise from Cas' punch spreading slowly over his face.

"Well….c-could be we look hard enough…we, we could find a way in then," Chuck finished and Dean almost punched the air in joy, that's what he likes to hear. That made four.

With a warm smile he looked at his mechanic, "You dig into that, my man," then he turned to Bobby, "Sheppard, you haven't said a word. Time to weigh in. What's your take on all this?"

It was a bit risky on Dean's part to be asking for the preacher's opinion so early on, but he needed Bobby to back him up in this if he was going get the rest of his crew. Whether they knew it or not, they all relied on the old man's wisdom and knowledge to govern some of their choices. Even Cas, in all of his freaky awareness, listened with rapt attention to any advice that came from the preacher.

Dean crossed his fingers as Bobby paused before he replied, "The take sounds ripe enough. That's assuming we can fence it…" he glanced at Bela with the unspoken question in his eyes.

Thankfully Bela really was on top of all this stuff, "No worried about that. I know a guy on Persephone. He's already got half a dozen buyers on the big. The split is going to be sweet, I can tell you."

At the preacher's nod, Dean was about to count the preacher in, but then the gruff man spoke again, making Dean half panic, "But Cas is not wrong. She can't be trusted," he finished with a glare Bela's way.

"I'm not asking you to trust her. I'll be with her on the inside the whole time," the Captain tried to sooth.

"You're going to hold her hand or something?" Anna almost snapped, making Meg next to her smile in appreciation of the Companion's spit and fire.

"If that's what it takes. Or do you all still think I'm going to take advantage of her?" Dean spat right back.

Unexpectedly, Meg shrugged and slapped her hand lazily down on the table, "You know what? I hate this bitch as much as Funny Farm, but I'm never one to toss away a job involving weapons. So, as long as you can keep it in your pants, Cap, and as long as she doesn't fuck us again, then I'm in. Plus, I really am sick a tired of being broke."

Dean paused, not really expecting that, but happy nonetheless. That's five, he guessed and he watched as Anna's shoulders let go some of the tension.

"Fine, but you better not end up in a prison that I'll have to bail you out of again. Not sure I have enough left in the reserves to get you all out," she sighed and got up from the table. If they were going to be docked near this rich man's resort, she may as well grab a couple jobs and earn some money herself before this was all said and done. She had asked for this after all.

Six….

Dean looked over to Bobby once more, not having gotten a real answer from him.

The preacher let out a magnificent and weary sigh that could be heard through the entire room, "Oh, balls. Guess we're doing this then."

Seven. That was the magic number.

It was Meg's job to help move Castiel and Balthazar into their temporary home for the duration of Bela's stay. For whatever reason, the job of "tucking them in" fell to her and there were a few unhappy people with this idea to send them away, Meg included as she would have much preferred to have their riddling clairvoyant around to give 'em some sort of warning before everything went to shit…if it went to shit.

She would have thought that Dean would be upset about it too, sending off his bed warmer, but the Captain was the one who ordered this in the first place, much to the surprise of everyone else.

With a huff, she dumped a bunch of food and water packets onto the floor of the second shuttle while the two younger Novaks stood and watched, "Captain says you're supposed to stay put in here, fly it out a good distance from the rich and to-do planet and stay there until we call. He doesn't want Freakazoid running afoul of his blushin' psychotic bride."

"Is that because he's worried that she knows who we are? Or because he doesn't want an "incident" with Cassy again?" Balthazar asked, cautiously glancing at his little brother who was sitting calmly in one of the chairs. It seemed like the youngest brother was having peculiar mood swings, furiously angry at some moments and then completely calm in others. It worried him, but for whatever reason, Dean didn't seem all too concerned.

"It's because if she does figure out who you guys are, she'll turn you in before you can say….'don't turn me in lady," Dean finished lamely as he walked into the shuttle.

Balthazar snorted at the comment, "Well, this bloody bounty on us just keeps getting more and more exciting. Aren't you worried about Gabriel?"

"She hasn't paid much attention to him at all, just Cas so far. I'd let you stay too, but I need someone I can trust to keep an eye on him," Dean glanced over at Cas to see how he felt about all this, but the other man had turned his chair around so that it was facing the other way, blocking his face from view of the others, "Don't want to dangle the goods in front of her face and have her calling the feds or anything. Am I right, Cas?"

Like one of the movies that he and Cas watched with the bad guy swiveling around in his chair, he turned to face them, his face contorted in an awkward looking mask of anger.

"She's a liar," he spat out, very loudly. Loudly enough that just outside the shuttle, Bela could easily hear it all.

"That doesn't exactly set her apart from the rest of us, Cas. And the money we can get sounds fair enough. So cowboy up and stop it with the hissy fit," Dean retorted, his voice making it sound like he also stuck his tongue out.

"She's a liar and the bite will sting when it comes back!" Now Cas' face was becoming an alarming shade of red, enough that Balthazar was becoming quickly concerned. This amount of anger was rare for his little brother, in fact, he wasn't sure if he had ever seen Cassy so furious before.

Meg ducked out of the room, hoping to escape before the lights started to burst and flicker.

"This is for you and the crew! Do you really think that I'm stupid enough to let her get the best of me again?! Fuck, man, I thought you trusted me!"

"Never trust sheep where a wolf has been known to lurk!"

Dean growled in frustration and Balthazar flinched into the corner of the shuttle, away from all of the loud yelling. It was all a bit ridiculous to see, both his baby brother and the Captain turning purple in the face as they screamed back and forth. He had seen many a domestic disputes in his time, but this one just seemed plain…odd. It would be funny if the situation wasn't so dire…and for the fact that if Cas got any louder he stood a good chance of letting out that ear puncturing screech.

Dean moved right up into Cas' space and wagged a finger in front of his face, not lowering his voice at all even in the close proximity "Trust is a two way street, buddy. You don't trust me to take care of you and the crew then I'm not sure that I can trust you to muck up this job. That's why I'm sending you off. When you get back, and we're all not one step away from becoming homeless, then we can talk again about you not believing that I can do this."

"You started it!"

"How the hell did I start this?!"

"By not believing that I could handle sex!"

Now Balthazar's ears were starting to burn along with his face and he too dashed from the room, not about to get in between quarreling lovers who were arguing over what happened in their bed. Those were some of the more scarring arguments that could grace anyone's ears, especially when it involved siblings.

Dean sputtered for a moment, completely thrown off, "What?! I'm just trying to look out for you! Just like I'm doing now, actually, you ungrateful little…"

"I can look out for myself! I am not some helpless victim that you can lord over with promise of protection! I'm a very dangerous victim that has protected you on many occasions! You're nothing more than a clown fish hiding out in my sea anemone."

"I have never been in your anen…anemone!" Dean screamed back.

"I'm well aware of that because we haven't had sex yet!"

Outside the shuttle, Bela snorted as the voiced drifted far enough into the ship that they could be heard in the kitchen…much to Gabriel's and Sam's horrifying realization as they went over the disks at the table.

"You know what, Cas? I'm done arguing with you here. If you're going to be all pissy cause I'm trying to look out for you, then that's your problem. I've got a job to do, I've got to put food on the table, and I have to buy you more stinking drugs. So just sit tight with Balthazar and I'll see you in two days….And to think I came here to leave you a deck of cards…" Dean muttered as the stormed out of the shuttle, shutting the hatch behind him.

As soon as the door shut, Cas' whole body seemed to sag and he draped himself in one of the chair, his face completely blank as Balthazar stumbled in a few minutes later when the screaming match had ended.

Awkwardly Balthazar took note of Cas' still form and lack of expression before slowly walking over to the chair next to his brother.

"Ah, so….Another exciting adventure in sitting, I suppose. You want to play a game, Cassy?

His brother barely looked up, instead he looked sadly out of the window.

"…Cassy?"

"Afraid…" he whispered.

Balthazar sighed, "Oh, Cassy. We'll be okay. You don't have to be afraid. I know that you're worried that Dean is working with that boo hway-hun duh puo-foo…"(remorseless harridan)

"No, not me. Dean. I think I might have gone too far. This was a bad idea from the start."

Balthazar snorted, "Well, you've made that opinion very clear."

Sadly Cas turned to gaze at his brother's face, reaching out for his blazer to grab in his fingers for comfort, a thing he had done ever since he was a baby, "You have no idea…"

Wow...still can't believe I wrote that...LOL!