A/N: As of July 9th un-betad but since it's been so long since I updated I'm pre-publishing. Hope you like how I did the case, I don't wanna flood it with technical jargon or anything but once the story is completed (or if I publish stuff earlier) the case files will be available for you guys to look through.

Beta'd Dec. 13th by K!

Chapter 13: Killer Carnival

"You're up early."

Dean pulled at his tie and glanced at his brother. He yanked the piece of toast out of his mouth before responding. "First day at work, gotta make a good impression."

"Since when has that mattered?" Sam groused, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"It just does Sammy, you think you can behave while I'm gone?" he teased. His brother did have a point, though. Generally he was more likely to roll out of bed and into a wrinkled set of clothes usually located at the foot of bed. The majority of the time, he didn't even have time for breakfast. He checked himself in the hallway mirror one last time as he toed on his shoes.

It was easier to admit he was anxious of a new working environment than wanting to impress Cas.

"I'll be fine, Mom," Sam shot back.

"Hey, you can shut it. Wasn't so long ago an entire precinct was pulled out to save your ass."

Sam quieted at that. He knew his brother had technically forgiven him, well, as much as his brother was capable of forgiving such transgression. Dean held grudges. Not in the petty way, but in the I'm-gonna-pull-this-card-on-you-everytime-you-get-snarky way. "I'll be fine. I'm thinking of checking out some of the job applications I picked up. Just make sure to check in."

"Right."

Dean grabbed his 'go-bag' from the hallway closet and closed the door. Since it would be his first day he didn't have one at the office yet. Cas had given him plenty of tips on what to pack but he'd still had half a hernia trying to fit everything he might need into it. He hopped into the rental car they had until the Impala was hauled up north and made his way towards the central office.

Although he'd had plenty of years working in law enforcement, and for the FBI, as the doors slid open to the Behavioral Unit work floor his heart thudded in his chest. He looked around, a little lost for a second. He knew one of the desks on the floor would be his but didn't feel like shuffling around like an idiot until he found it.

"Dean Winchester! A legend among men."

Dean turned around to see Pamela striding towards him with her arms open. He almost collapsed from relief. Instead, he let his smile slip into a charming grin and held up one of his own arms to accept the hug. "Miss Barnes."

"Pamela."

"Pamela it is then."

"You look a little lost. Why don't I show you to your desk?"

Dean laughed and felt most of the tension seep out of him. While he was sure there would be a learning curve and an adjustment period, the sense of camaraderie was very much the same as back in Oklahoma City. Pamela stopped at an empty desk and tapped on it. "This is yours, the one in front of you is Ellen's." She moved to a table a few feet away from his and dropped into the chair. "And this one's mine."

He looked around his desk and nodded. Dean looked at his go-bag and at her with a raised eyebrow. "Can I just keep it here or?"

"I generally do." She rolled her chair to the side and pulled out one of the largest drawers to reveal a tightly squished bag. "There's a locker hold down the hall and to the right if you want. It really depends on how much stuff you packed I guess. Or you could keep it under your desk like Ellen does."

"Sounds good," Dean mumbled as he let the bag drop and kicked it under his desk. He sat down into his seat and fiddled around with the drawers for a little bit. After he'd moved the standard issue lamp three times he turned back to Pamela. "So, what now?"

Pamela drummed her fingers on the table and glanced at the row of offices on a raised platform. "That really depends on the cases. We have regular work schedules but of course have to be open to head anywhere; if we get an urgent case. We don't always go places either. Sometimes we just consult from here or go over old cases."

"Huh."

"Yeah, not as glamorous as Novak probably sold it to you as?"

"We never discussed it that much to be honest."

Pamela hummed to herself. "Either way, we've got a little bit. That top left office? The big one? That's Novak's. The one next to it? That's Singer's. We usually wait for the big guy to come out and wave us in."

"How do we pick cases?"

"We don't." Pamela pulled out her phone and idly ran through it. "We used to have a specific liaison for that. Handled all the PR stuff as well as which cases we got. She left when the last team disbanded though. Now Charlie looks through 'em and ranks 'em by urgency. They get sent to Agent Novak and we either consult from the office or we pack up and go."

Just as Pamela was finishing, Cas' door swung open. Dean's mouth went a little dry. It was one thing seeing him casually or when he was more or less a victim in a case that was being worked on. It was something rather unexpected to watch him stride out of his office, file in hand, radiating authority. He gave one commanding glance across the floor to the other agents and Dean's skin tingled. Pamela rose out of her chair and just as he was attempting to get his feet working again, Ellen walked in through the double doors.

"Oh, hey Dean. Good to see you," she said in a hurry as she tugged a young looking blonde behind her. She pulled out her office chair and almost pushed her into it. "Now Jo, can you sit here for a little and entertain yourself?"

"I'll be fine," Jo muttered back at her, rolling her eyes. She and Dean made brief eye contact and she smiled a little.

"Good. Are we in the conference room?" Ellen asked.

"What? Yeah, yeah Cas just came out," Dean mumbled out as he finally moved back into action.

"Cas, huh?" Dean felt heat collect at the back of his neck as she laughed. "Glad to see you and the boss man are getting along. He doesn't make friends easy."

"He can come off a little stiff."

"There's a rumor going around about something sharp and painful being in certain places but that's an after hours conversation." She gave him a cheery smile before they walked into the room. The change was instantaneous in her. The second she was inside her entire demeanor changed, especially towards Cas. It was a level of professionalism he'd have to slowly test the boundaries of. And hopefully not ruin with his loud mouth.

"Good to see you, boy."

"Good to be here," Dean replied, taking a seat next to Bobby.

"I trust you've settled in already?"

Dean looked up at Cas and even the tone he was using, although friendly, vibrated with a demand for respect. "Yeah, Pamela helped me out."

"Do you have your go-bag?"

"Stashed under my table."

"Good. We're going to Medford, Wisconsin."

"And what's so important in Medford?" Ellen asked as she accepted her copy of the file.

"So glad you asked," Charlie said as she walked in. "Sorry for the delay, computer wouldn't transfer it to the room. They updated to different hardware in here even though I told them it wasn't necessary." Cas raised his eyebrow at her and she settled into her own chair. "Family mutilations."

Dean winced. It looked like there would be no training wheels.

"Well, sort of."

Dean opened his own file and thumbed through it. He frowned. "The children are all left alive."

"So we know he ain't a family annihilator. I don't know if that's good or not. These kids are never gonna recover," Bobby grumbled as he flipped through the crime scene photos.

"If he leaves the kids alive shouldn't we have a sketch or something already?" Dean asked as he rustled the pages back and forth.

"We do," Castiel acknowledged. He nodded Charlie to go ahead. An image of a clown popped up on the screen.

"You have to go be kidding me," Dean and Pamela chorused at the same time.

"I'm afraid not," Castiel mumbled sitting down with them. "There have been three families so far and every time the child said that their clown friend killed their parents."

"Hold on, friend?" Bobby frowned. "The kids knew the guy?"

"Not really. I mean, it seems like it's a 'picked up a stray puppy' type of clown friend," Charlie added as she pulled up the pictures of the families on the screen. Dean winced a little at seeing the crime scene photos blown up so large.

"There's no sign of forced entry so-"

"The children admitted to letting them in."

"Jesus. Don't they know better than to let strangers in?" Dean mumbled to himself. The bodies almost looked like they'd been torn apart. Pieces scattered across the bedroom.

"Well, these kids are still pretty young. I mean- 'if you sprinkle them with glitter and tell 'em it's pixie dust- they'll jump off the roof'- young."

"That's unsettling." Ellen closed her folder and rubbed at her eyes.

"It is. Which is why we're going. Wheels up in thirty." Castiel closed his own folder.

The group got up, knowing they had been dismissed and walked out. Dean lingered for a moment. He waited a little for Castiel to notice and wasn't disappointed. "Is there something I can help you with Winchester?" Dean frowned a little at how formal it sounded but tried not to let it get to him.

"No, just ah. First day and everything. Trying to get used to things," he replied and attempted to hurry out of the office.

A hand on his shoulder paused him. Although his mouth showed no change in expression, Castiel's eyes softened a little. "We'll be meeting downstairs to get our lift to the jet, Dean. I hope you packed everything I told you to. This may take a few days."

Dean smiled a little, feeling elated and nodded. He was halfway down to the garage with the others before it sank in.

Jet.

Flying.

… … … … … … … … … … … .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . .

"Nervous flier?"

Dean turned towards Charlie as she sat down next to him. "You could say that."

"You know, there really aren't that many-"

"Please don't start listing statistics. It never helps."

Charlie gave him a lopsided smile and a small shrug of the shoulders. He appreciated her trying. Cas had warned him that their job would require a certain amount of flying but Wisconsin was only a fourteen hour drive away. He'd rather have driven. When Dean had first sat down he'd tried to stare at the pictures of the crime scenes, hoping the horror printed out in front of him would distract him. It had only succeeded in making him a little nauseous.

"Is it a phobia or something you could work on? 'Cause you're kinda shit out of luck with this job."

"I'm aware." Dean had to control himself from snapping. It wasn't her fault that he had issues with heavy metal objects soaring through the air on jets. Sam had told him, he had control issues. Dean had told him planes were unnatural.

"You should look into anxiety medication," Castiel offered offhandedly as he settled back into his own seat. "In any case we'll be arriving in about half an hour. Officer Hayden will be there to meet us with our vehicles. It'll be around an hour drive to Medford from the Central Airport."

"I'm not a big fan of medication," Dean mumbled as he gripped the chair a little tighter as they hit an air hole.

"There's no shame in needing a little help," Ellen offered kindly. "It's like my late husband taking pain pills for his blown knee."

Dean huffed a little and tried to settle back down. For the most part, the rest of the flight went without too many freak outs. Focusing on the case wasn't working and they'd discussed everything they could without being at the location. So, instead, he focused on Cas. The guy was still obsessively reading through the file when everyone else was prepping themselves mentally for what they were about to go deal with. Even the few times that the plane jolted Cas seemed to never move. Barely even shake. For whatever reason Dean found that calming. Once or twice during the last few minutes they'd shared eye contact. Every time Cas had given him an adorable, confused 'can I help you?' look. And every time Dean had shaken his head and tried to look elsewhere. It didn't work for long.

… … … … … … … … … … … .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . .

"This is stupid."

Castiel stared at Dean for a moment before getting out of the car and putting on his sunglasses. There were no clouds and it was bright. Loud noises surrounded them and flashing lights lit up any dark shadows around buildings.

"It's the most obvious and viable lead."

"We're at a damn carnival."

"Which would make sense seeing as our unsub has been parading around in a clown suite."

"Right," Dean grumbled. It wasn't that he had a problem with carnival's, that was Sam's thing. He'd just expected something a little more.. dark out of the first case he worked. Something like Dahmer, Bundy or Ressler. Not a brightly lit landscape filled with 'it's not gonna be a damn clown'. "So what are we even looking for?"

"First of all we're going to find the owner."

"Just us?"

Cas smiled a little behind his sunglasses. "The others are at the homes of the previous victims. We'll have plenty of time to go over them ourselves. For now, I want you to see the difference between how we handle interviews and how they did it in your unit."

"I doubt there's much difference in the way you interrogate people," Dean grumbled as they tried to maneuver through the throng of people. For having three murders in their town they all seemed pretty cheerful.

"For one, interrogation is for the police office. Right now we're just asking questions, trying to gain insight."

"If you say so..."

After a few unsuccessful rounds through the carnival they finally found a sign that at least had the name of the owner on it. J. Cooper. Of course it had taken them a little longer to find Mr. Cooper's office due to Dean's accidental poor choice of wording towards a blind knife thrower. Dean didn't think they'd found anything useful. The carnival did its rounds and for the most part hadn't had any trouble yet. The owner gave his condolences to the families and informed them that there weren't any costumes missing and the sketch didn't look like any of his workers.

"They all look the same anyway" Dean had snapped a little.

Castiel had apologized and they were now sitting in the FBI issued black van ready to head back to the others. "You know, we want to work with the locals. Not against them."

"That was useless and you know it."

"You might want to check that temper of yours a little in the future." It sounded like a friendly suggestion but the steel behind Cas' eyes told Dean that it was an order.

Dean sighed. "Yeah. Shit. My bad. I didn't exactly work with the most honest or forthright people before."

"Which is why I wanted you to accompany me to this."

Castiel turned the key in the ignition and the car rumbled to life. He looked behind him to pull out when Dean reached over and grasped his forearm firmly.

"What are you-?"

"Just two seconds."

Confused, Cas turned the car back off and tried to see what Dean was so interested in. Just before he started feeling impatient Dean lifted his arm and pointed into the edge of the crowd. "That little empty pocket right there. I swear I saw..." The sentence trailed off into silence as they zeroed in on the area. Although whatever had first caught Dean's attention first there was a family standing towards the edge. Their daughter was yanking at the mothers arm pointing towards the edges behind the broken down cars.

"We should go talk to them."

… … … … … … … … … … … .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . .

Dean's hunch had been right.

Admitted, it had taken a day or so for anything to happen but he hadn't been hallucinating. They'd spoken to the family and to the daughter who said she wanted to spend more time with her 'friend.' Castiel had told them it wasn't anything too much to worry about. He didn't want to spook the family without needing to, but there was a chance that they could be a target. At Dean's insistence they set up a surveillance team outside of their house. He'd originally wanted them out of the house completely but the team argued that it would draw up too much attention. It was better if they stayed. To Dean it felt like they were using them as bait.

The 'clown man' did come. They'd had to chase him back to the carnival before apprehending him.

And the family was safe.

"A killer clown?"

Dean laughed into the phone as he tossed his jacket into the rickety motel room chair. He'd been offered the same accommodations as the rest of the team at the same hotel. The BAU kept a certain amount of budget aside to make sure that they had a place to stay during an investigation. He'd had to argue for the permission to stay at a different establishment. It wasn't that they put them in five star places or anything, he'd just never felt comfortable in places that had chandeliers in the lobby.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't tackled the guy myself."

"You did what?!"

"Hey, he was gonna get away. By the by, don't ever try and run after someone in fun house."

"What the hell happened?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle. I tell you what though. Knew that blind guy wasn't blind. No way you throw knives that well and actually see."

"So... your first case for the BAU was a blind, knife throwing, killer clown?"

"Just about sums it up."

"I told you clowns were evil."

"Oh come on, Sammy. Once in a lifetime occurrence."

"You know I'm going to bring this up every time you try and make fun of me again."

"Whatever you say," Dean mumbled into the phone as he shrugged off his work shirt. He tossed on a t-shirt and shimmied into a pair of jeans. They wouldn't be leaving until mid-day the next morning so he was planning on checking out one of the local bars to have a celebratory drink.

"So you coming home?"

"Yeah, should be there tomorrow. We land, go home, and start again at 8am sharp."

"All right. Don't do anything stupid, Dean."

"I never do!"

The protest fell on deaf ears as Sam hung up. Dean shook his head and shrugged. He ran a tired hand through his hair. He'd worked long hours at his old job before but he hadn't accounted for feeling any drain on himself at all. Dean checked his watch before stuffing his wallet and his phone in his pockets and heading out the door. The hotel the team had been placed at wasn't too far from the town and neither was the motel. He could easily walk to a small local pub he'd found earlier. He'd barely been sitting for thirty minutes before the scrape of a chair alerted him that someone was joining him.

"I had a feeling I would find you here."

Dean smirked and signaled the bartender to get another drink, then pointed his thumb to the side. "I'm just celebrating my first successful case with the BAU."

Cas chuckled softly and accepted the drink from the bartender. "The others are on their way. I called them when I stepped in and saw you. They seemed disappointed that they didn't 'beat you to the punch'."

"Oh really?"

"I believe they wanted to buy a round for a job well done."

"Well they're more than welcome to still do it." Dean raised his glass and clinked it against Cas'. "Cheers then. Preemptively."

"Cheers."

"Can't leave you alone for two minutes can we?"

Dean and Cas turned around to see Pamela marching towards them, a bright smile on her face. "You can't cheers without the rest of the team here."

"My bad?"

"Oh shut up, Winchester. You're not even sorry," Ellen groused and gently punched him in the shoulder. She waved the bartender down. "He's buying!"

"What? I thought I was getting a surprise party or something."

"You were until you snuck off on your own." Bobby grabbed his beer and tilted it towards Dean in a toast.

"There goes my first paycheck," Dean mumbled but without any real feeling behind it.

Charlie laughed and laid her hand on his shoulder, "Think of it as mandatory hazing."

"If this is the worst you got, I think I'll make it to tomorrow."

… … … … … … … … … … … .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . .

The night was dwindling down and most of the team had already called it quits. The general population in the bar was starting to dwindle too as Dean and Cas nursed their last round of beer. The conversation had long since become a comfortable silence.

Suddenly, Cas spoke up. "Is it what you expected?"

"Huh?"

"The job, is it what you expected?"

Dean chuckled and swished the last drag of his beer around the bottom of the glass before downing it. "It was certainly something different." There was another small pause. "Kinda fucked up though, ya know?"

Cas hummed and pulled out his phone as it buzzed.

"Like, some carnie got fucked in the head as a kid, and decides to hop a couple of circuits to take it out on good families."

"You shouldn't say that, Dean. I believe that 'carnie' is a slur to them."

Dean huffed and shook his head, "That's not my point. I'm just saying... I dunno. A part of me kinda understood the bangers and dealers I was working with. This though? Manipulating kids barely out of their diapers?"

Castiel tapped away at his phone.

"Am I boring you?" Dean joked, nudging his boss gently. He almost immediately drew his elbow back as he realized who he was being so cozy with. For a moment it had felt like the other times they'd spent time together. Friendly, intimate. Maybe it had been a bad idea to join the BAU. Suddenly Dean found himself obsessively trying to focus on anything but Cas' warm, strong body. Or his beer moistened lips.

"Not at all, Dean." When Cas finally looked up the focus in his expression made Dean's throat close up a little. "Our originating agent for this past case has something he wants us to look at."

"Two cases in one go? You do that often?"

"No, not at all."

"You're gonna look at it anyway aren't ya?"

Castiel smiled and pulled up a few pictures on his phone. "I usually wouldn't care but I happen to know the originating agent that's asking for inquiry through Officer Hayden."

"Right. I think that's bull, I bet you're just a big softy for helping people," Dean teased, turning in his chair to face him.

"Careful Agent Winchester. I'm still your superior and head of the BAU office."

A tingle spread through Dean at the tone in his voice. And here he thought he'd never find anything good about authority.

He blamed it on the beer.

"You're frowning."

Castiel glanced up at Dean briefly before going back to his phone. "It may actually be an unfortunate stroke of luck that we already had a case in Wisconsin."

"That bad, huh?"

"I don't know yet. I'll have to call the office chief tomorrow. If we have no other pressing cases I may go for a brief consultation."

"Fuck, that sounds serious."

"The victims are children."

Dean's gut clenched a little. "Jesus,what is it with creepy fuckers and kids."

"There's a technical answer I could give you, but it wouldn't make either of us feel better."

A small sigh escaped Dean as he rubbed his hand through his short hair. "You want company?"

"I'll send a mass message out in the morning on what they want us to do."

"Right. Yeah." Dean watched as Cas stood up and placed a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Your enthusiasm for the job is an asset Dean. Don't lose that."

Dean watched as Castiel dialed whoever the agent asking for him was. And if Dean's eyes lingered a little longer than necessary, it wasn't something that he was going to share with anyone else but his hand and his fantasies.