Dean isn't used to smiling in the morning. Most days—if he even manages to sleep—he wakes with the dawn, and with the sun his worry rises. He spends the first few moments of consciousness with a crease in his brow and a nervous, angry feeling in his gut. If he's lucky his morning coffee will do away with one or the other, but never both.

Today, though, Dean sleeps until well after noon, his dreams uninterrupted and warm, and when he wakes a sense of calm settles over him like a blanket. He doesn't move for a few minutes, just stares up at the ceiling, tries to hold on to the unfamiliar feeling.

He's already been awake a few minutes when he leans out of bed to pick up his replacement cell, and finds it blinking with a new message, recieved over two hours ago. When he reads it, his smile grows wider.

I'm in Auckland. The
man in front of me has
a picture of an Impala
on his phone. It is bright
green. You'd hate it.

Dean taps out a reply—telling Castiel that the man in front of him was probably a pimp—before climbing out of bed and making his way to the bathroom, leaving the phone on his desk. Sam and Charlie are talking quietly in the war room, too engrossed in their conversation to notice him walk by, so when he finds the bathroom door closed Dean just assumes Charlie is in the habit of closing doors and doesn't hesitate to shove it open.

It gets halfway before it collides with something solid. Or, he quickly realizes at the harsh gasp of pain from the other side, someone.

Carefully, Dean pushes it fully open and is greeted by the sight of Chuck, clutching at his bloody face and grimacing in pain.

"Ughhhh! Whaddahell, Deab?" he groans, fingers pressing gingerly against the bridge of his nose, "you brog my node."

"Crap, sorry," Dean moves past him, grabbing a wad of toilet paper and shoving it into Chuck's hands, "didn't know you were here."

Glaring at Dean as though he'd smacked him with the door on purpose, Chuck presses the paper against his nose, checking constantly to see if it's stopped bleeding. It doesn't take too long, and Dean's ready with a damp towel.

"It's probably not broken."

Chuck takes the towel without comment and steps in front of the mirror, continuing to glare at Dean's reflection as he cleans his face. When Dean checks for breaks in the bone he flinches, and his scowl grows more pronounced.

"It's fine," Dean tells him, stepping back and clapping him good-naturedly on the shoulder, "just a blood nose."

Chuck doesn't look convinced.

"Id dudn' feel fibe," he says thickly, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"Give it five minutes."

Before Chuck can argue, Dean ushers him out of the bathoom and closes the door.

When he makes his way out into the war room shortly after, Chuck's still glowering, but Sam and Charlie look up with matching smirks. Sam shakes his head, and Dean gets the distinct impression that Chuck has been doing more than a little whining over his minor injury.

"Sorry about your face, Chuck," Dean says sincerely, and when Chuck glances up from the print out of the angel tablet he adds; "your nose, too."

"Good one," Chuck replies darkly, turning back to his work.

Dean laughs, heading for the kitchen.

"Anyone want coffee?"

The general consensus is yes, so Dean sets about brewing a whole pot. He carries it out just as Sam starts coughing again.

"You doin' okay, Sammy?"

Sam nods, one hand pressed over his mouth as he tries to stop coughing, and his eyes water with the effort. When it subsides, he takes a huge gulp of coffee. Clears his throat.

"Fine," he croaks, but the word barely makes it out before he's coughing again, and he has to excuse himself to the bathroom to empty his lungs.

Dean watches him go with a frown before turning to Chuck.

"Please tell me you've seen something about whatever he's got."

Chuck fidgets in his seat.

"Nothing you don't already know."

"Well, any ideas about who would know something? He's getting worse."

As if to punctuate this, a particularly loud cough echoes down the hall, followed by a miserable groan. Chuck just shrugs.

"Maybe there'll be something on the tablet?"

"Maybe," Dean says, sinking down into a chair beside Charlie, who's frowning in thought, "you got another idea, Charlie?"

"I was just thinking... how about Missouri?" Charlie looks to Chuck in question, "She's still kicking, right?"

Dean raises his brow. He'd all but forgotten about the psychic, and immediately feels guilty. Last time they'd seen her, they'd promised to keep in touch. That was more than seven years ago.

"Yeah, I think so. I mean, I haven't seen her up here for years," Chuck taps his temple, "but I tend to feel it when one of the characters—uh... When one of the people I wrote about dies."

He looks sheepishly at Dean, whose eyes are narrowed at him, knuckles flexing against the table top.

"Characters?"

"You already hit me in the face once today," Chuck points out, leaning away, "doing it again would be redundant."

"Yeah, but see that was an accident," Dean says, smiling with all the warmth of a shark, "which means I didn't get any satisfaction from it."

Chuck grimaces, shuffling further away, "Can we talk about Missouri again?"

"It's worth a shot, right?" Charlie asks them both, hopeful, and Dean lets a relieved-looking Chuck off the hook. He nods to himself.

"It won't hurt. Might as well see what she can see."

"What who can see?"

They all look up to see Sam, pale and exhausted, walking slowly into the room.

"We're thinking Missouri might be able to tell what's wrong with you," Dean says, standing and stretching out his arms, "y'know. Besides the obvious."

Sam shoots him a pissy look, and Dean grins.

"What say you, little brother? You think you're up for a road trip?"

Dean pats his pockets, looking for his keys.

"What, right now?"

"Time's a wastin', Sammy."

"It'll take us like four hours to get to Lawrence. Probably closer to six because we'll need to stop every time I have to cough up a lung."

"So what?"

"So we can't just turn up at Missouri's house unannounced at 9pm."

"Nine isn't exactly late."

"Dean, she's like sixty-five years old. She'll probably be asleep. We'll go in the morning."

"But we need to—"

"Can you go argue about this someplace else?" Chuck asks, and they both look down at him, incredulous.

Charlie laughs aloud at the looks on their faces, and Chuck turns his frown toward her.

"Fine," Dean says, throwing his hands up in surrender and heading for the hallway, "we'll go in the morning. Charlie, you wanna come help me clear the rest of the junk out of your room?"

"Sure," she says, standing up and linking her elbow around Sam's, "c'mon Treebeard, you can supervise."

"I told you Charlie, I'll come to the convention but I'm not dressing as—"

"Yes," she says firmly, dragging all six feet four inches of him along beside her as she walks out of the room, "you are."