A Car's Tires on a Road

You say there's so much you don't know

After our adventurous stroll through crazy town and after we'd made sure nobody was killing or hurting anyone, we decided it was best to go back to the motel. Sam and Carly spent their time with whatever research they were working on, while Cas and I were doing absolutely nothing. I liked this new arrangement. I could sit around and eat all day while pretending to look after Cas, while the others did the boring stuff. Since he was now more human than angel and seemed to still recover from his injuries, I had to feed him and things like that, sure, but that wasn't too hard.

Cas would sit on the couch and read, and it kind of felt like before but at the same time it didn't, because then I wouldn't start poring over all the things I wanted different but just walk over to him and make him eat a sandwich. It was easy and casual and for a moment it felt like we were back. Just two friends hanging out and breathing the same air.

By the time the afternoon was about to turn into evening, though, my newly developed laziness was interrupted when Sam and Carly stormed our room with news. Of course it was right the moment I was helping Cas out of his shirt, because he'd spilled ketchup and somehow managed to entangle himself in the fabric, which might have looked a little strange.

"Uh," Sam made mid-sentence.

"Uh," I copied. I looked at Cas' exposed chest right in front of me, looked back at Sam, looked to the ground.

"Dean," I heard Cas' muffled voice from inside the Henley Bermuda Triangle and remembered I was supposed to unstick him. I quickly pulled it off him, showed it to Sam like he could possibly see why I'd done that, then found a very interesting spot on the ceiling.

"Okay, uh," Sam said with a little shake of his grimacing head. "Police called us. They found a body."

"Another one?" I whined. This town had a serious murder problem. I wasn't sure what to do with that, maybe, I thought, we should just go and arrest everyone, since it seemed to be spreading like a sickness. Just to be safe.

I went and proceeded the maddening task of finding yet another fresh thing for Cas to wear, which proved impossible, so he had to wear a sweater I'd already worn. He didn't seem to really mind, but I kind of minded a lot.

Half an hour later, we stood deep in snow somewhere approximately next to the highway leading in and out town, looking at the spot where they'd found the body. My jeans were soaked with melting snow and I couldn't wait to get back inside since Cas was wearing all my warmest clothes. The beginning dusk painted the sky orange in an amazing sunset and I might have stopped a moment to appreciate it, if it weren't for the white frozen body in front of me.

"Serves him right," I said, somewhat satisfied with myself.

"You sure it's Dale?" Sam asked, since he hadn't had the kind of close-up look at him I'd had.

"Yeah, I'm sure," I said. "Also, look over there. Look familiar to you?"

I was gesturing over at Dana, the only one watching I could spot, standing near the scene and wiping tears off her face with a tissue. This was weird, though. Even for this case. It's not like Dale didn't deserve it, but I would have expected him to be found dead in his bed or something, since that's the Nightmare's way of doing things. But either way, we had one killer less on the loose.

Sam and Carly went to talk to Dana, which left Cas and me with the few police officers ambling around like they were on their afternoon stroll. One of them was nibbling at a chicken leg while looking down at the body. Apparently, the gruesome image of Dale's frozen face didn't spoil his appetite.

"Funny, huh?" an officer said as he stood next to us.

"What?"

"I mean, we were looking for that guy," the officer said and chuckled, "and now he's a popsicle."