AN: We get a few more characters in this one, but this time, it's my choice. They helped me get a few more of the prompts in. (Y'all made me work with those aliases and undercover story!) I'm having fun and I hope you are too.

Also, if we get any more SNOW in APRIL this story may be delayed as I hitchhike south and away from this @#$% weather.

Janice is this super-de-duper beta who is way busy and still getting back to me quickly! She deserves all the pie.

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Cas deliberately turned his back to his hunting companion as he skimmed the headlines for any sign of their quarry – Lucifer. The "newspaper" he'd purchased seemed more like a collection of ridiculous fiction than anything that reported any actual news (Neither Government using drones disguised as pigeons to spy on us! Proof inside! nor The newest British Invasion – King Charles' underground secret efforts to take America back! inspired confidence in the publication), but it was still better than watching Crowley supposedly interrogating a "lady of the evening" he thought might have some information for some reason. He was flirting more than "interrogating," undeterred by the fact that she was nearly a foot taller than he and had a five o'clock shadow.

The ringing of Cas' phone was a welcome distraction. The number was unknown. "Hello?"

"Hello," answered an unfamiliar woman's voice. "My name is Charlene North. I was trying to reach...Dean."

"He gave you this number?" Cas asked, wondering what kind of alibi he needed to verify this time. He was stalling a little, hoping she'd give him some clues or at least the last name Dean was using. The older Winchester had a bad habit of forgetting to give Cas a head's up.

"Yes. I thought it was his number. I'm supposed to let him know the role that he and his partner will be using to gain the access they need," she said, smoothly avoiding telling him anything useful at all. "Do you know the full names that should go on the identity badges?"

"Er…" Cas started.

"She's looking for help with aliases, you bampot," Crowley said right in Cas' ear, naturally listening in. "The wonder twins must be on a hunt." Into the phone, he said, "I'm Crowley. Forgive my colleague Castiel, my dear. He's not terribly bright. What are they going in as?"

Cas frowned at the demon and turned his body away to try to shield the phone from him. "Is that what you need?" he asked. "I can help you."

"Yes, actually." Charlene sounded a bit amused but still professional. "They have to come in as wedding planners, but I don't know what names they want to use."

Behind him Crowley laughed heartily. "I would pay to see that!" he chortled. "Those two wouldn't know a color scheme from their –"

Cas ignored him. "Er, Sam...Sinatra."

"And Dean Swift!" Crowley yelled over his shoulder.

There was a pause, then Charlene chuckled a little. "Okay, if you say so. Are you two coming along as well or do they still work with just the two of them?"

"We cannot come," Cas answered reluctantly. He would have much preferred to work with them than his current companion. (He would have rather been paired with just about anyone or anything than Crowley, up to and including a rabid bunyip like the one that had nearly ripped his arm off in Talledega or the giant, cursed chicken statue that had eviscerated and eaten five people in Little Rock or…) Cas refocused. "We are working on a different, er, case at the moment. But you may call if you can't reach them for some reason."

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

"Give 'em hell for us!" Crowley chimed in with a grin that said he thought he was clever.

For the fifth time in the last hour, Cas seriously considered murder.

WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER

Dean flopped onto the first bed he saw and stretched out with a groan uncaring of the questionable cleanliness of the lime green and yellow comforter. Even with his head all the way at the top of the mattress, his feet dangled off the end of the bed and he knew that Sam would have even less luck finding a comfortable way to sleep. "We are getting spoiled," he muttered, rolling away from a particularly persistent spring.

"Or we're getting older," Sam answered, which Dean thought was rude. True, but rude. "I'll grab food. Did you hear from Charlene yet?" They'd just completed a second very long day of traveling and expected to be in Yakima in the morning. Charlene had promised to contact them about what role they'd be playing in the Terhorst entourage

"Nope. I'll call her," Dean offered. He tossed the keys in the direction of Sam's voice and assumed he'd caught them when he didn't hear them hit the floor. A second later, the room door opened and closed again. Dean sighed and fished out his phone, wondering what had inspired the motel's owners to paint the ceiling burnt orange. It was as if they'd chosen the ugliest colors available and used them all. He held his phone in front of his face and dialed Charlene's direct number.

"Charlene North," she answered coolly.

"Hey, it's Dean. Been waiting for your call," he responded, a little surprised at the chilly reception.

"Oh! Dean. I didn't know it was you. Yesterday, I called the number you gave me and reached two of your associates. Mr. Castiel and Mr. Crowley. Didn't they tell you that they were able to help me?" Charlene asked, her tone changing drastically when she realized who she was talking to.

Dean sat up so fast he gave himself vertigo. "What? Shit, did I actually give you the wrong number?" Maybe he was getting old.

Charlene rattled off the number he'd given her – Cas' "official" number – and Dean swore again, silently this time. Apparently, he'd been giving out that number a lot lately and had given it to her out of habit.

"They chose your aliases. Is that okay?" she asked, sounding concerned. "Are they trustworthy? I didn't tell them exactly why you were coming, or where, but they seemed to know what you two do."

"Yeah, they know," Dean grumbled, not answering the question about reliability because he was not about to get drawn into a discussion about Crowley's moral compass (if such a thing even existed). "Let me guess, they picked something stupid?"

"Well...Sam Sinatra and Dean, uh, Swift."

Dean laughed at Sam's name, but it grew directly into a groan when he heard the moniker he'd have to carry. Taylor Swift? Really? "Any way we could change that?"

"I'm afraid not," Charlene apologized. "I already submitted the names to security and ordered your badges and things. It would raise a whole lot of red flags if I changed the names now." She chuckled and tried to hide it with a cough. "I wondered if those were really names you'd choose, but I didn't have your number…"

"And you thought it was funny," Dean groused, not really angry. "Wanna tell me who came up with those so I can kick their ass later?" He was only half kidding.

"I believe that Sam's was from Mr. Castiel and yours from Mr. Crowley," she said. "Though I'm not positive."

"Sounds about right." Dean rolled his eyes and gave a mental shrug. It wasn't like he had to live with the name for long. "So what's our cover? Additional security? Catering? Grounds crew?"

There was a slight pause, then she said, "I did my best, but there's no way they'd bring someone onto the security team without a whole lot longer vetting process. Caterers don't need to be here at this stage, and the existing grounds crew here at the castle has that under control."

Dean was starting to get a bad feeling about what she was going to say next. Her hesitation wasn't helping things, either.

"There's only one area I could find where it made sense to pull in someone at this stage. I told them that you're local wedding planners who've done weddings at castles before and you're willing to consult with our event designers."

Dean blinked and looked blankly ahead. He tried to think of a job that he would be less qualified for than a wedding planner for rich douches and came up empty. Then he wondered if he could manage to "accidentally" shoot himself so he could bow out of this case. Sam probably wouldn't buy it, though.

"Dean? Are you still there?"

"Yeah. Just, uh, surprised. That's pretty different from anything we've done before." He rubbed his forehead. There was no point in getting angry at Charlene, who was doing the best she could. He wondered exactly what they would have to do, then he tried not to whine. "Seriously, there's no way to change it?"

"I'm sorry," she said, sounding like she meant it. "I really couldn't think of anything else. And there's another issue."

Of course there was. "Not your fault," he answered, knowing he sounded ungracious. "What else is up?"

"Because they think you're local, there's no reason for you to have rooms on the grounds here, like those of us who traveled in. And there aren't exactly a lot of hotels and motels nearby, either, so they're all full for miles and miles with all our temporary workers. You'll have to stay over an hour away from here." She almost managed to keep the fear out of her voice, but Dean caught it. She was seriously freaked out and wanted them closer. It made it easier to forgive her for the role she'd foisted on them.

"We could try to hide the fact that you're staying on the grounds, but now they're really paranoid and making sure everyone who's supposed to leave actually leaves every night."

Dean rubbed his forehead harder. "We'll figure something out," he said. He really didn't want to sleep in the car or camp out, but if they had to, they had to. "We'll stay close somehow."

Charlene was really busy, so they only talked for another minute or two, Dean getting specific driving directions and a time to meet. When they were done, he flopped back down on the bed again and briefly pictured throwing Crowley into a running jet engine. Boring. He could do better. He half dozed and imagined dipping the demon into honey and tossing him into a grizzly bear enclosure at the zoo.

"Bears would probably die from biting him," he mumbled.

"What now?"

Dean's eyes flew open to see Sam, huge from this vantage point, looking down at him with a barely-concealed smirk.

"I was just wishing we could feed Crowley to some bears," he admitted, sitting up because Sam was carrying a bag that smelled like fried chicken and everything good in the world and there were two six-packs of Coors on the table.

Sam hmm'd. "I've always thought I'd like to put him through one of those stone crushers they have at quarries," he said as if discussing the weather. He might hide his violent side pretty well most of the time, but Crowley had always had a gift for bringing it out in him. "Then flush whatever's left down the toilet in a frat house."

"Detailed, vindictive, and disgusting," Dean approved. Since it was all talk anyway, they enjoyed an ever more graphic discussion of ways they could dispose of their frenemy while they ate their KFC (the chicken was grilled, but still awesome, and Sam had even gotten the best sides). Finally, Dean sat back, stuffed. Sam had let him have all the mac and cheese and all the gravy that came with the potatoes and there weren't any leftovers.

"So…" he said, pausing to belch loudly. "I talked to Charlene while you were out…"

Sam laughed at the aliases and didn't give Dean a hard time for accidentally giving Charlene Cas' number instead of his own. Of course, he'd gotten the name of someone who was at least affiliated with mobsters and the rat pack and other cool stuff instead of just some girl who had dangerously catchy music that guys like them weren't supposed to like. Sam stopped laughing when he heard what their fake job was.

"How the hell are we supposed to pull that off?" Sam wanted to know, but it wasn't like Dean had any ideas. They might just as well have been asked to spin straw into gold.

"I don't know!" Dean stood up and began to pace. "I don't think I've ever even been to a wedding. Well, except a couple that I crashed." He wrinkled up his face; he hadn't done that since he was barely old enough to shave, and he'd found excuses to avoid a wedding Lisa had tried to drag him to. "All I remember was there was free booze and a lot of pretty girls in ugly matching dresses."

"I went to one with Jess," Sam mused. "There's lots of flowers, too. Decorations on the tables. Candles. Cake. One big party."

"You and I have very different ideas about what makes something a party," Dean shot back. "Oh, yeah, there's no place for us to stay, either."

"Wait, what?"

Dean outlined the problems with finding some place near the castle that they could stay at night. "So chances are we're sleeping in Baby and you'll have to do without your curling iron." Sam kicked the leg of Dean's chair for the quip, clearly still disgruntled by the jobs they'd have to fake.

"I need to do some research while we have wi-fi," he muttered, collecting the detritus from their meal and dropping it in the inadequate little trash can that came with the room and cuing up his laptop.

Sam was still muttering at his screen when Dean gave up on finding somewhere to stay and went to bed. Despite that, Sam was already awake and returning with coffee by the time Dean got up. He accepted the hot brew without a word, but frowned a little, wondering if the fact that Luci was out running amok again was making it hard for Sam to sleep.

"You awake enough to hear about what I learned?" Sam asked, sounding way too animated for Dean's level of caffeination.

Dean shrugged. "You find our cryptid?" he asked in a sleep-roughened voice, silently determining to keep an eye on his brother for more signs of devil-induced insomnia.

"No. Well, maybe," Sam answered. "If batsquatches or gumberoos are real, could be one of those. But I was talking about wedding planning."

"Bat –?"

"Don't say it." Sam gave Dean the glare that had once made a naiad cry. (Dean had seen it with his own eyes.) Though having it aimed at Dean only amused him, he didn't follow up on all of the potential jokes this time, being more interested in his coffee at the moment. The moment passed before Sam continued. "In order to sound credible, we need to have at least a few terms down." He must have seen the disgruntlement on Dean's face because he continued quickly. "Not too much. Then we just need to act, er, artistic."

"In other words, weird." Dean knew Sam would take it as disparaging, but he didn't mean it that way. He had fond memories of some artistic chicks who were creative in all the best ways.

"...listening to me?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm listening." Dean wasn't. He listened just enough to hear that he should wear his black jeans and a plain black t-shirt (he could live with that) and then went right back to tuning Sam out. He continued to not listen when, after they were showered and dressed and ready for the day, Sam jumped right back in to talking. Dean didn't listen to the stuff about wedding parties, flowers, or color schemes, just driving his baby and tuning it all out. Actually, he was a little impressed that Sam had slogged through all of that information; the dude could read and retain lore like nobody else Dean had ever known, but this was above and beyond. Dean was pretty sure his brain would have fled the premises if he'd tried to stuff it with wedding planning crap.

"...father of the bride shoots as many of the doves as he can. If blood actually lands on the couple, it's considered good luck."

Dean stopped reciting the lyrics to Simple Man in his head and gave Sam a flat look, hiding his amusement. It was a bad idea to encourage Sam's snarky side. "I'm listening. You don't have to make shit up."

"Really? You're listening?" Sam asked, wearing a disbelieving half smirk. "Ten minutes ago, I told you that it's becoming popular to rent a bounce house for your guests to jump on if they get bored or your ceremony goes to long."

"Well, that would be cool," Dean answered, admittedly a little sullenly.

"And an hour ago, I said that for outdoor weddings, you have to dye the grass to match the dresses."

"You were the nicest kid," Dean sighed dramatically. "Never talking back. Never complaining. Never, ever being a smartass. Then you learned to talk." He laughed when Sam punched him in the arm. "You knew I wouldn't listen, wouldn't remember it anyway. And who cares? I have a PhD in BS."

"Can't argue with that," Sam agreed too quickly, and Dean knew if he looked at him, there would be a barely-there smirk on his face. "But at least one of us should know something about our supposed job and going over it out loud helps me remember. Besides," and now he could actually hear the smirk. "It annoys you."

It was Dean's turn to punch Sam this time.

But their amusement and banter died a quick death as they rounded the curve that let them get their first look at Congdon's Castle. It was impressive – large, walled grounds of deep green grass and beautiful landscaping leading up to what Dean would have called a manor house. A ridiculously huge one. It was made of fieldstone and had several wings that he could see, all of varying heights and roof pitches, yet somehow a united whole. Stone chimneys stood proudly in most corners, covered porticos with arched windows lined the long sides, and narrower windows almost like the balistrarias or arrow slits in the more traditional castles peered out of the front.

But it wasn't the grandeur in front of them that stopped Sam and Dean in their proverbial tracks. Rather, it was the dozen or so emergency vehicles all over the road leading to the castle. And through the thrown-wide gates, they could see a massive blood stain on the otherwise pristine white drive. There were patches of blood on the grass too.

Dean pulled to the side of the road and exhaled gustily. There was a real possibility they wouldn't be allowed in at all now, at least not today, but it didn't look like they could exactly wait to start investigating.

A cop hurried toward them, probably to tell them to get lost, but Dean's attention was caught by something white just inside the gates. "Is that…?" he started.

"Yup," Sam answered glumly. "It's a skull."

* * *

AN: I couldn't find a last name for this Charlie anywhere online, so I chose one for her.

"Bampot" is an insult I heard once and have always wanted to use. Mr. Internet says it's Gaelic in origin, so I had Crowley use it.

Simple Man one of my favorite songs, done by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Batsquatches and gumberoos are legendary monsters of the Pacific Northwest. I didn't make up either one (for once).

Timelady66: Thanks! It's fun to write different characters!

sylvia37: It's a fun new challenge!

MicheleChadwick: Timothy has to come back! This is a lot of fun, though I had to do a bit of thinking to make some of it fit together (which I love). Now I want to write a ghost dinosaur!

Christine: I don't know how much Barb will actually be in the story, but I love her! And that's why I had her go by Charlene, because Charlie will always mean Bradbury to me!

Colby's girl: It's a cool challenge and I'm enjoying it. Glad you're on board.

Jenjoremy: Mostly just trying to keep everyone from getting bored! Actually, I find it fun to have to figure out all the pieces. (There's a real possibility that I'll do it again...) It makes me so happy that you live Barb. If anyone would just absorb the I killed Hitler (besides Jody), it's Barb. Whump? What would make you expect that? LOL I hope you keep liking it.

muffinroo: It sure gets interesting incorporating all the disparate pieces...but I love it!

stedan: Yay! I love your comments! I was intrigued when one reader chose Charlie/Charlene. Yup, the guys sure have changed. Confession: I got a little misty when I read that seeing Barb again is a little like seeing an old friend. You made my day!

Kathy: The reader who chose Congdon's Castle gave me so much great information about it and the area around it -- I doubt I'll do it justice. And yup, Timothy has to come back!