BOBBY'S PLACE - MORNING

All suited up and ready for the fight of their lives, the hunters had finished breakfast and were now marching out to their cars into the cold morning light. They were carrying every weapon they had, but it still felt too light. The best plan they could come up with was somehow also the worst.

Jody couldn't stop watching the last episode of Inferno, playing different scenes back over and over. There had to be something else, something they missed. But the rest had given up hope of something better and resigned themselves to go down swinging.

The doom and gloom of the moment had Sam looking particularly Sam-like again, and Dean felt the need to put on a brave face and boost him up.

"Yeah, I know," Dean said gently as if Sam had said something. "But at least we got a road to go down."

"Yeah," Sam said, a little shrug twitching up his shoulder. He was watching the show out of the corner of his eye. Crowley and Balthazar putting on their show for throngs of adoring rubes. "Be nice to get it over with."

Dean watched with him. Something gave him a little smile and then a laugh. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to steal an enemy's insult and throw it back in their face. A small victory.

He whispered to Sam conspiratorily, very pleased with himself, "Hey... Hey. Which one of them is Little Spoon?"

A haunted look came over Sam. He didn't turn back to Dean, but in a deathly serious tone, he whispered back, "Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to."

That possibility hadn't occurred to Dean. He shook it off before a possible answer - or worse, a visual - could pop into his head.

"Boys," Annie said, "you wanna take a look at this?"

"You got somethin'?" Dean asked, a little too quickly. It was one thing to act brave for Sam, but they could use more than a good attitude.

"There's no teleportation in the studio, right? No flicking out?"

"Yeah?" Dean didn't really know, but that's what everyone told him.

Jody replayed the end of that bit with Crowley and Balthazar making their new deal: the lights went out and then came back on and everyone except Balthazar was gone. "So how'd they disappear? Isn't that live?"

Clearly, Dean wouldn't know. But Frank would. "Hey!" he hollared at Frank who was just about out the door.

"What," Frank croaked, tired and out of generosity. "You need a pint'a blood? Maybe a kidney?"

Dean pointed to the TV. "How'd they disappear? You said no flicking, no zapping."

Jody replayed the clip for Frank but he didn't seem impressed.

"It's an old movie studio," he said, in a tone that suggested Dean was an idiot for questioning him. "They've probably still got trap doors. If that's studio 1B, they definitely do. As in practical effects. No flicking, no zapping."

Dean was visibly disappointed - whatever unspoken idea Jody might've had was donezo, right? But when he turned back to her. She was giving them a look. An important look.

"What?"

"Trap doors?" Jody asked. "So there's space under all the stages?"

Sam and Dean looked at each other. They didn't know exactly what he was driving at but damned if there weren't a load of offensive possibilities if they could get under the stages without being seen. They looked back at Frank and he was definitely sensing the possibilities...

COMMISSARY - MORNING

At Heathcliff Studios, Crowley was back in the highest of spirits. His little worker bees were briefed on the Winchesters and busy prepping the studio for their inevitable infiltration, buzzing about. All but one.

Crowley decided he needed to start breaking in his new assistant, which apparently meant forcing him to play chess at a table in the back. 'Out of Touch' by Hall & Oates was playing over the PA. Shipley had so many of Crowley's pieces! He looked so proud of himself until-.

"Checkmate," Crowley said quietly. Blithely. Like it twernt nothin'.

Shipley was somewhat confused at first. Then he was baffled. He lost? How!?

"Where?"

"You moved your bishop," Crowley explained.

"But... I got all the guys."

Crowley sighed and sat back. "I was hoping they'd give me a smart one this time."

"Okay, so chess isn't really my game."

"Then pick your poison."

"Checkers. It's less... Montessori."

Crowley snapped and the board changed to a fancy little checker's board, all set with red on Crowley's side and black on Shipley's.

"I call red," Shipley said. He tried to turn the board around and Crowley slapped his hand away.

"Uh-uh. In this house, we go by the eyes."

"Fair enough." Shipley smiled and made his opening move. "But if I stink so loud, why aren't ya playing against the computer? You lonely?"

"I'm not playing against you. You're playing against me." He moved a piece of his own. They started moving faster, taking each other's pieces.

"You do that with all your P.A.s?"

"Just the ones I think will enjoy it."

"What makes you think I'd like chess?"

"Empathy."

Shipley snickered as Crowley took three of his pieces. "You got empathy?"

"No, you've got empathy," Crowley said. "You were helping the angel trick me, weren't you?"

Shipley's smile fell into apprehension.

"I'm not angry," Crowley assured him. "I mean,... you broke the rules and went behind my back to help my partner betray me. I should road-haul you till you're nothing but a pelvis with a belt, but you're new and... perspicacious. Not perspicacious enough to hold your secret meetings out of view of the security cameras, but after reviewing the footage, I liked what I saw. Your move."

Despite the fear of Hell being put into him, Shipley managed to move his piece. "Well, you're killin' all the demons anyway. What did I have to lose tryin' to steer things away from the rocks?"

Crowley took Shipley's last piece, but he seemed happier about what Shipley had just said than his victory. Somehow vindicated. "Exactly. You smelled blood in the water and you did something about it. But more importantly, you know what blood smells like, which tells me you've got a future."

'Heaven Is a Place on Earth' started playing. Shipley didn't believe he was off the hook yet. Hell, he'd only been off the rack for a few months - he knew better than to assume he wasn't being screwed with.

"I still lost," he said, ostensibly about the game. "Not too bright."

Crowley shook his head. "You were too in your own game," he said in a surprisingly amenable tone. "The trick is to know what the other player is going through. Understand their moves, but still play your own game. You'd be good at it if you practiced."

Shipley's eyes wandered thoughtfully. "Demons can love. That's all I wanted to know."

Crowley smirked and leaned in, savoring the moment (the way only he could). "You didn't need me to tell you that."

That got his attention back, just in time to see Crowley's eyes shift suggestively. Following his eye line, Shipley saw them: at the front of the commissary, Lydecker had brought Balthazar a crate of something or other (microphones?), both beaming over it happily in the golden morning light.

Shipley got all flustered and tried to laugh it off. "Hey, I-. No offense, but I don't swing that way, okay?"

Crowley shrugged, smiling. He got to his feet but whispered confidentially. "Doors open from both sides, darling."

He left Shipley and crossed the room to give Balthazar's crate a look. "You know we just got new microphones?"

"Yes, but these ones have buttons," Balthazar said playfully and pushed a button on the one he was holding to make it BEEP! loudly. Obnoxious. Crowley drew a breath to question this silly - and undoubtedly expensed - purchase, but before he could snip a snark, Balthazar demonstrated, putting a mic up to his lips, "If you let me (BEEP) in your (BEEP) with my whole (BEEP), I'll (BEEP) your (BEEP) like an ice cream sundae."

Crowley's mouth hung open. He looked like a child seeing Santa in his living room on Christmas morning. "You... got us self-censoring mics?" He took one for himself, giggling at the possibilities, and split into a boyish grin. "You (BEEP)-guzzling (BEEP)-bag! I could (BEEP) you on your (BEEP) until my gums bleed."

"Hey, could I get one of those?" Shipley had followed Crowley, looking a little spun.

Crowley gave him a look. The 'I know and you know' look. "Are you planning to be on the show?"

"Nah, I just-. It looked fun."

Crowley held his up for Shipley to take. "Go. Pop those P's. You're only young once."