BOBBY'S PLACE - NIGHT

Dean was getting tired of watching Sam wolf down his spaghetti. He briefly thought about giving his a try, but couldn't bring himself to eat anything made by a guy who doesn't know how a necktie works. So, Dean went to the fridge for a beer, but got what was probably the worst shock of the day. Nearly everything in the refrigerator was healthy. Vegetables, fruit, bottled water, smoothies in ever color and... vegan mayonnaise. But no booze. Dean felt his stomach lurch - he was about to throw up a little. God help him if Sam ever saw this. Dean shut the fridge and turned back.

"What are you looking for, Dean?" Castiel asked. He'd been standing behind the refrigerator door.

Dean had to take a second to compose himself. "Just gettin' a beer," Dean said.

"We don't have alcohol in the house," Castiel said.

Dean glared at him for a moment, then pointed toward the living room. "That the real Bobby?" Dean asked, dead serious.

"If you're thirsty, we have plenty to drink," Castiel said. He opened the fridge and gestured helpfully to the smoothies. "You can have any one of these you want... Except that one." He pointed to the only orange one. "That one's mine," he said darkly. It sounded like a threat.

Dean nodded, tried to smile. "I'll keep that in mind," he said.

Castiel smiled in an unsettling, dead-eyed way. He got two green smoothies out of the fridge, set them on the table in front of Sam, then got the two plates he made up and brought them into the living room. It'd been a little while since Dean had witnessed anything that frightening.

"Dude, did you see that?" Dean whispered to Sam.

He turned to see Sam with a smoothie raised to his lips. This annoyed Dean no end.

"What am I even asking you for?" Dean whispered angrily. He sat down again, leaning back from the table. "This is Donita all over again."

"Who's Donita?" Sam asked, starting to get defensive.

"You remember when Dad used to take us to that house with the big lizard skeleton hanging from the ceiling?" Dean asked.

"No," Sam said.

"Of course not," Dean said, all pissy. "Donita Hayes was this anthropologist Dad visited for a few weeks out in Owensboro, he used to take us over to her house. Said she was helping him on a job, but I could tell somethin' not-right was goin' on. We'd have these big, corny dinners there and they'd act like everything was normal. You agreed with me that it was sketchy."

"How old was I?" Sam asked, in a sort of dry, exasperated tone.

"Old enough," Dean said. "The point is, we were gonna do a walk out. Together. But then 'Donita' gave you a box of crayons and some paper, and suddenly you two were solid buds. You Judased me, Sam."

"How. Old. Was I?" Sam asked again, getting ticked.

"It doesn't matter," Dean whispered. "You always do this to me - you're a friggin' comfort whore."

Sam gawked at him, scoffing, too taken aback for words. Because nuh-uh.

"You wanna ignore how weird everything is here?" Dean asked quietly. "That Bobby's a teetotaler with a clean house? Or how about Cas eating and drinking?"

"We've seen Cas do that before," Sam whispered.

"Only when something wasn't right," Dean said. "Cas ate his weight in Mickey Dee's because famine was screwing with his head."

"What about Gabriel and Balthazar?" Sam asked. "What if angels just start eating after a while?"

"Gabriel was a basket-case," Dean said. "The guy ate enough sugar to power daily trips to Cardassia. And Balthazar drank because he was slut. And that's how we live with it."

"Look, we-." It took a second for that last bit to connect. Sam shook it off. "We still have to figure out where Crowley is," he said. "If anyone's gonna know, it's Cas and Bobby. So just... let it fly for now."

Meanwhile, in the living room, Bobby and Castiel sat on the couch, the rabbit between them, their untouched spaghetti on the coffee table. Bobby was resting elbows on his knees, occasionally re-adjusting his cap. He seemed depressed and a bit anxious. Castiel was watching Sam and Dean's hushed arguing from the corner of his eye like it was a stakeout. He picked up the rabbit and held it to his chest, petting it in a listless, almost sinister way. Like a Bond villain.

"Sam's hair is magnificent," he said matter-of-factly. "We need to find out what happened. Tell them what's been going on here."

"It'll keep 'til the morning," Bobby said. "You find a book that works?"

Castiel turned back to Bobby, his expression softening. "I thought,... The Tempest," he said. "It looked involved. And it's thick."

"Uh, Bobby?" Sam asked. He walked over to the couch, arms folded. It felt weird to him, asking for something from Bizarro Bobby. "We were wondering if we could crash some place?"

"Well, there's a guest room now," Bobby said, throwing a look in the direction of the back hallway, "you're both welcome to it."

Sam looked intrigued. "Thanks," he said, in a quiet, distracted kind of way. He backed through the kitchen until he was closer to the hallway than Dean. "Dibs on the bed," he said quickly, before sprinting off to find the guest room.

"Sam!" Dean shouted after him, getting up. "You don't get to bogart other people's stuff, Sam!" He took off after Sam.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "There's two beds," he muttered. "Idjits."

Castiel shook his head. "I never realized how odd they were," he said, all the while petting his rabbit.