BOBBY'S PLACE - NOON

Sam frowned at the laptop, slightly shocked. "So... Crowley and Balthazar want world peace," he said. "Okay. I know I'm gonna regret this the second it comes out of my mouth, but-."

"No," Dean said. He got up and started pacing, really keyed up by the way the plot was thickening.

"Well, they're using their own names," Sam said, "telling everyone what they are. They have a permanent address."

"And they're not worried about, oh, say, the wrath of Heaven and hunters coming down on them?" Dean asked.

"They're really not," Sam said with quiet concern. He scrolled through one of the wiki pages dedicated to Inferno.

"Folks have tried," Bobby said. He came in from the kitchen carrying a cup of coffee and took the seat Dean vacated, making an old man noise as he did. "Hunters. Angels. Even demons, for some reason. Everybody's taken a shot at those two weasels, and nobody's lived to tell the tale. But over the past few years, somethin's been killing angels by the dozen. Three guesses on who the main suspects are."

"Oh, the fun just keeps on comin'," Dean bitched. "What I don't get is, how's Balthazar even working with Crowley in the first place? Maybe there's an 'Evil Dicks' category on Craigslist."

Sam gave him a puzzled look.

Dean grinned sheepishly, shook his head. "I don't even know what I just said."

"When we met Balthazar, he was buying souls," Sam said, going back to his research. "Maybe they crossed each other's territory or something?"

"Yeah..." Bobby started to say something, but didn't finish. He just scratched the rabbit's head and looked really guilty.

"Bobby?" Sam asked, suspitious.

"Alright, say something fast," Dean said. "And it better not start with 'I have always been a woman who arranges things'."

"Let's hold the attitude," Bobby said. "You remember how we needed the location of Death, and I had to pawn my soul to Crowley?"

That shut the boys up.

"Well," Bobby said, "it turns out the son of a bitch didn't feel like givin' it back. Cas got on the horn to every angel he knew for a favor, but Balthazar's the only one who answered. Not that we needed more. He showed up with a crappy old sling and took out Crowley's hellhound. With a rock. Then he got out this screwy lookin' bag, said he was gonna drive the demon outta Crowley if he didn't give back my soul." Bobby smiled nostalgically. "It was... peachy." He shrugged. "Never woulda thought they'd run off and get hitched afterward."

"Yeah, well, I've seen weirder," Dean said sullenly.

Dean gestured to the laptop and Sam when back to his research. Dean continued to pace.

"Bobby, get out the Rolodex," Dean said, "'cause I think we're gonna have to call all the cars in on this one. Who's alive here, Rufus? Garth? Annie and Jody?"

"Hold on a minute," Bobby started, not liking where this was headed.

Dean was too worked up to notice. "We need to know what went wrong on the other hunts," he said. "We gotta... I don't know, we gotta stop these guys, before they start whatever screwed-up crap they've got in the works-. Frank! Do we still got Frank? The guy, not the critter."

"Frank's alive and kickin'," Bobby said, "but I think you and I are gonna have to have a little chat about some things."

"Get this," Sam said.

Bobby sighed. There'd be no talking to them now.

"Crowley and Balthazar have, like, regular human bios online," Sam said. "They're unofficial, but apparently they're passing as some Andy Kaufman-type comedians who don't break character. Had a few dozen hell-themed cooking videos go viral on YouTube before they made the jump to TV. Their names are supposed to be Roderick Spode and..." He rolled his eyes witheringly. "Hugh G. Balzac."

Dean chuckled, but got dirty looks for it. He cleared his throat. "So why'd Cas bail on us?"

"He has work," Bobby said.

Dean frowned. "What, like an actual job?" he asked. "I thought he was kidding. So what's he do, paper route? Squint at stuff for nickles?"

Bobby's eyes wandered. "Don't give him a hard time, " he said. "I mean it."

Dean gasped in open-mouthed, Victorian shock. "When have I ever?" he snarked.

Bobby sighed. "He's a librarian," he said, then added quickly, "and you're not gonna say anything to him about it."

Somehow, Dean's eyes started smirking before his mouth did. "He's a what, now?"