Dean Winchester itched.

Under his collar, beneath his cuffs, along his waist, down the seams of his pants... if he hadn't known better, he'd have punched the guy at the tailor shop for selling him a suit that was undoubtedly made out of live ants.

Instead, he was forced to settle for making a face as he tugged at the offending fabric, wrenching it away from his protesting skin.

"Stop that," Bela whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "You look like a twitching cockroach, darling, it doesn't suit you."

Dean leveled a glare at her. She, of course, looked perfectly radiant and at-home amidst the intimidating grandeur of their surroundings. Her floor-length gown was pale green silk, and boasted a neckline just on the tasty side of tasteful. She could (and had) charmed everybody in the joint, and Dean couldn't help but be jealous of the ease with which she ingratiated herself to others.

"Still don't know why I had to be your date," he grumbled, snagging a handful of too-tiny sandwiches off a passing tray.

"You're not my date, you're my accessory," she retorted. "Now. Captain. Shall we mingle?"

With a grumble, Dean took her outstretched arm and allowed himself to be paraded around the room.

This should be Sammy's job, he thought, stuffing miniature food into his face with his free hand. All this bowing and scraping and knowing which napkin to wipe your ass with at the end of the night. Sammy was the one who knew how to rub elbows and shoulders and whateverthefuckelse with the rich and powerful. He had training.

But that was the problem, wasn't it? He had training, yeah, but the odds of someone in this crowd recognizing the Backwoods Whiz Kid from Helios Law were just too damn high, and Bela had needed someone to look pretty, complete her sophisticated image, and blend into the background. Dean Winchester, up to bat.

Sammy hadn't put up a fuss when he'd been benched. Dean made a mental note to get him back for that when they were back on the Impala.

"Why do you people always have your fancy parties at museums like this?" Dean muttered to Bela as they ambled past a massive ice sculpture that had been carved (inexplicably) into the shape of a pirouetting squid. "The way these guys are pounding back the drinks... I get drunk, shiny things start to go missing. Seems to me, you're asking for a sticky-fingered mayor of wherever to walk off with half the art collection."

"Not everyone has your sense of decorum, Captain," Bela whispered back, nodding calmly at two immaculately dressed young ladies as they passed.

A light squeeze on his arm from her manicured hand - "There -" Bela muttered, her eyes flicking towards the side of the room for the briefest moment. He followed her gaze - sure enough, there was a small door set into the wall, insignificant to anyone who wasn't looking for it. Bela stopped walking, releasing her grip on Dean's arm. "If Crowley's information is accurate, the necklace should be through that door."

Dean nodded. The job. Action. This was something he could get behind. "Alright," he said, "What are we standing around for?"

Bela just smiled and patted his shoulder (Dean tried not to feel like an idiot German Shepherd being praised for licking his own balls). "I do so love your enthusiasm," she told him, "but you will absolutely not be accompanying me."

"What - but -" Dean sputtered.

"The phrase 'bull in a china shop' springs to mind," Bela observed neutrally. "Just stand here. Look pretty. Eat something." She grinned, her smile sharp and thin. "You're good at that."

She had disappeared before Dean had time to protest. Bereft of company, he glanced up at the dancing squid. "But I'm the captain," he moaned quietly to his icy new friend.

The squid did not deign to reply.

"Dumpling?"

The voice was low, gravelly, and utterly intrusive. Dean looked up into a pair of unsettling blue eyes.

When he was younger, Sammy had been obsessed with the history of Earth-That-Was. He'd read everything he could get his hands on, and when he ran out of stuff to read, he'd come find Dean (typically elbows-deep in some part of The Impala, making sure they'd make it to their next port) and vomit knowledge all over him. It had become a kind of soothing background nothing to Dean, just words washing back and forth in easy waves.

Despite his best efforts, some of that learning had stuck. Now, in this moment, Dean's mind called up the image of the Bermuda Triangle, all azure-blue and just as deadly as this man's gaze. But hell, he thought, if this is drowning, maybe that ain't half-bad.

It took him a moment - his brain ordering his eyes to zoom out, zoom out, before the stubbled face of a suited waiter swam into view.

"Uh," he managed eloquently.

There was a long moment, and he experienced the uncomfortable sensation of the waiter's eyes scanning him from head to toe. Finally, the man nodded.

"Very good, sir," he said in that same broken-glass voice. He and his tray brushed past Dean, headed for a portly man and his beautiful Companion.

Dean blinked.

What -

He couldn't be positive, but - he could've sworn that as the waiter squeezed past him, Dean had felt the hilts of at least two knives sheathed at the man's waist.

Anywhere else, this would have been shiny and happy, but here? Well, Dean had been forced to check all his weapons at the door. So what the hell was a damn waiter doing all spiky like a porcupine?

"Dumpling?"

A young woman this time, suited and carrying a tray of the steaming treats. Wordlessly, Dean took two, searching around him for any sign of the blue-eyed waiter.

There was no trace of him. He'd disappeared.

"Time to say goodbye, Captain."

Bela was at his elbow without any warning, and Dean had to physically restrain himself from jumping. She latched onto his arm with an ease that no one who had just committed grand larceny should be able to exude. "I believe we've reached the 'hasty exit' portion of our evening."

"That so?" Dean's eyebrows were making a break for his hairline.

As if in response, the alarms system began to scream. Bela fixed him with a cool look. "That's so, darling."

And with Bela practically tugging him towards the exit, Dean barely had the chance to glance over his shoulder, searching one last time for the mysterious blue-eyed waiter.

xXx

It took a monster-sized portion of luck, and the better part of Dean's childhood-honed street smarts to get the pair of them from the museum to the shipyard without being flagged down by any Alliance law enforcement or grabbed by a drug-happy mugger willing to try his luck with anyone whose clothes looked just a bit too new. When the sleek outline of the Impala rose into view, Dean breathed a sigh of relief.

"Home, sweet home," he heard Bela mutter next to him. He made a conscious decision to ignore the sarcasm dripping from her words.

"Damn straight," he responded.

By the time the two of them were aboard, the loading ramp raising behind them, Dean was starting to shake off the tension of the night. The disparaging snorts of the rich, the weird-ass ice sculpture... that waiter... it all slid from his shoulders, and he could feel his spine straighten.

Taking mental inventory of his surroundings brought in that familiar rush of pride. The cargo bay, spotless and spacious. The well-maintained cockpit. The comfortable (if not necessarily roomy) bunks. This was home. This was where Dean knew who he was.

"Everything go okay?"

Sam Winchester was too tall for this 'verse, a fact Dean would never let him live down. The man was six-foot-four, if he was an inch, and he felt every single centimeter of that height in the low-ceilinged hallways of the Impala. But he took the metal ladder down to the cargo hold like he had been born and bred there (which, Dean reflected, he had been), and landed in front of his brother with practiced ease.

"Shiny," Dean responded. "You should'a RSVP'd yes. I ate some tiny sandwiches, and Her Majesty's got the loot stashed... somewhere."

When he looked over his shoulder, Bela was holding the necklace. He hadn't seen it as they'd made their escape, and there was very little room in that dress to stash much of anything...

"Don't ask," Bela said in response to the question that glared so heavily in his expression.

"Everything quiet here?"

Sam shrugged. "Charlie reckons she's got us ticking along smooth with the parts she and Bobby salvaged this afternoon. Other than that, not much of anything to report."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, Samsquach," drawled a low voice, "but we might have just the teensiest bit of an issue."

Dean and Sam both looked up towards the cockpit, where Meg Masters, resident pilot and smart-ass, was leaning against the rail. She cocked a hip, fixing them all with a sardonic grin.

"Seems your little stunt raised a couple of red flags," she said. "Just got word - Alliance cruisers are hobbling all boats trying to make it out of Helios's airspace, searching for your trinket."

Dean grimaced. "That puts a bit of a twist on matters if we want to make it to Crowley with our asses intact."

His brother shrugged. "We could take a breather. Twelve hours or so."

"Let their little tizzy work itself out?" Dean smiled. "That short Alliance attention span. Such a shame."

"We bunking down for the night?" Meg wanted to know.

"Crowley won't be pleased by the delay," Bela muttered.

"Yeah, well it's either that or release his lovely necklace into the caring hands of Alliance custody," Dean snapped.

Bela shrugged, unfazed. "I'll let him know." She disappeared towards her bunk, even as Meg made her way back to the cockpit.

Sam was watching Dean with an all-too-knowing expression. "Everything go okay?"

The image of blue, unreadable eyes swam before Dean, unbidden. He blinked the memory back. "You're starting to sound like a broken record, Sammy."

"You're never this on-edge when you come back from a job that goes smooth."

"Yeah, well, maybe I just don't like hanging around all those Core Go Neong Yung Duh -"

"Dean -"

"I need a drink."

He should have guessed that Sam would follow him into the kitchen. The kid was like a dog with a fucking bone - when he got hold of something, it took more than a few spritzes of water to force him to let go.

"If something's up, Dean, you've gotta let me know."

"I swear to God, Sammy -"

"Would you pipe down, you idjits?"

Bobby Singer was glaring up at the two brothers from the kitchen table, where he had what looked like an entire planet's worth of produce spread out. He was busy peeling his way through a mountain of potatoes, and bits of the shredded skin clung to his beard. This fact did not render his irritated look any less intimidating.

"Sorry, Bobby." It was a familiar chorus from Dean and Sam. Bobby nodded, mollified.

"Just don't want you waking Charlie. The girl's worked her ass off today, and it'd be a fine thing if you two morons paid her back by waking her up."

Sure enough, Charlie Bradbury was asleep in the armchair set in the corner of the kitchen. Still wearing her oil-stained coveralls, she had curled up around herself like a pillbug. Somebody - and Dean was inclined to think that somebody was a soft-hearted, bearded, gruff old man - had seen fit to find a blanket to cover her up in. Despite the headache brewing behind his eyes, Dean found himself smiling softly at the sight.

"Here." Bobby plunked a plate loaded with delicious-smelling dinner in front of Dean, and handed him a pair of chopsticks. "They never feed you enough at those grand-ball-things."

"It was all tiny," Dean agreed, digging in. "I didn't know you could make dumplings that small."

"Core folk," Bobby snorted, shaking his head.

"We're laying low 'til morning," Sam supplied as Dean continued stuffing his pie-hole. "Alliance got wind of some thievery, so we want to let them blow off steam before we make a break for it."

Bobby nodded contemplatively. "Smart," he said. "S'what your daddy would'a done."

"I figure we leave around oh-seven-hundred, Standard," Dean said, spraying crumbs across the table. "The shipping rush'll be on them then. They won't be able to stop everyone who needs to get off-world without pissing off some major players. Boat like the Impala? She'll slip right under the radar. We'll be on Crowley's doorstep 'fore he even has a chance to launch one of those temper tantrums he loves so much."

Sam coughed lightly in that annoying I-have-an-idea-you're-going-to-hate way.

"Oh for God's sake, we know you don't have a damn thing stuck in your throat, boy," Bobby snapped. "Spit it out." Dean tried his best to hide his grin in his rice, and failed miserably.

"It's just that - if we do get stopped by the Alliance tomorrow - it might be better for us to have a reason to be traveling through their blockade," Sam said. "A reason that's not just 'because we want to'."

"You mean to say..." Dean prompted, eyes narrowing.

"I mean to say, passengers," Sam clarified, meeting Dean's gaze. "Look, it's not unheard of for a model like the Impala to ferry passengers off-world. And any excuse to get past the Alliance is a good excuse. It might be worth the risk, if only for the short trip to Crowley's."

Dean chewed over his brother's words even as he chewed Bobby's cooking. Not for the first time, the fact that his brother was a damn genius was highlighted brutally for him. Should'a let him keep on lawyering, that tricky voice in the back of his mind whispered, as it always did. Should'a let him have that life you couldn't...

"One passenger" he capitulated, setting down his chopsticks. "Maybe two, if they're a pair can't be separated. But I'm not having a damn circus on my boat."

"No circus," Sam agreed, eyes smiling even as his mouth stayed serious. "You got it."

Dean left Charlie in charge of recruiting fares the next morning. For a shy girl, she had a way with making strangers feel at home. She'd melt your heart like butter 'soon as look at you, a talent Dean had yet to grasp.

He wasn't much good for first impressions at the moment anyway. The night before had yielded next-to-no sleep, a fact he could blame mostly on the anxiety of their imminent blockade-running (though that waiter's blue eyes made an appearance or twelve every time he tried to close his own). Which meant that, as he climbed up to the cockpit, he was a very grumpy Captain indeed.

Meg was her usual acerbic self, helped by the metric ton of tea she seemed able to put away each morning. "Hey, Cap," she said. "We 'bout ready to try this thing?"

"Soon as I get the all-clear from Charlie," Dean gritted, rubbing blearily at his eyes. The cockpit was the place in the whole boat where he felt the most at home. He'd grown up flying the Impala, after all - relinquishing the reins to Meg had been a bitter act, but the woman was the most gorram talented pilot he'd ever come across. She'd gotten them out of tighter spaces than she'd gotten them into, and those were stats that were hard to argue with.

"Hear we're playing ferry-boat," she said, avoiding his gaze. "That's bound to be just a bundle of interesting."

"Let's hope not," Dean muttered.

"Hey, Cap!" a voice chirped through the com system. "We snagged ourselves a fare! Buckled in and ready to go!"

"Copy that, Charlie," he said into the com. Then, turning to Meg, he heaved a sigh. "Alright, then," he said. "Wheels-up, and let's get going."

He found Charlie moments later, checking the netting on the equipment in the cargo hold. "Where are our mysterious passengers?" he asked, joining in to help out with the last of the checks.

Charlie laughed. "It's just the one," she explained. "He seems nice, if a little quiet. Didn't have much in the way of luggage. Just wanted to get to where we're going." She straightened, remembering something. "Oh! And he paid up-front."

Dean felt a chill wash over him as he watched Charlie reach into her coverall pocket for the cash. "Up-front?" he asked.

You don't pay nobody up-front unless you want no questions asked. His father's voice rang in his skull as though the old man was shouting the words in his ear. Up-front was bad. Up-front meant nothing but trouble. Up-front...

"Yep! The money's right here -" Charlie offered the cash out, looking confused when he didn't immediately take it. "Captain?"

"You hold onto that for me, okay Charlie?" She nodded. "Where's the passenger now?"

"Spare quarters," she told him. He started off in that direction, then paused -

"What's his name?"

"He only had the one," Charlie said. "He said to call him 'Castiel'."

xXx

He should have known.

He should have known.

Every cell in his body was telling him that he should be surprised - shocked - dumbfounded in this instant. And yet - Dean watched the mysterious Castiel through the open doorway to the spare quarters feeling nothing more than dull realization.

The blue-eyed waiter was on his ship.

The blue-eyed waiter was on the Impala.

There was no way in hell this was good.

Castiel - that was his name, it seemed, or at least what he wanted to be called - sat on the edge of his bed, a single duffel bag next to him. There was no other baggage, nothing else in the way of possessions. Just a man and a bag.

A man who was staring, incidentally, at Dean.

"Hello, Captain," Castiel said. The voice was exactly the same as Dean remembered it.

"What are you doing on my boat?"

The words were out of Dean's mouth before he had the chance to check them. But once they were in the open, he couldn't regret them. Payment up-front, one bag, no questions asked...

Castiel cocked his head to the side, a strangely birdlike motion on a man. "I am traveling, Captain. The same as you."

Dean snorted. "Like hell. Why does a cocktail waiter need to make tracks off-world so early in the morning?"

"Why does a Core-World dinner guest?"

Dean gritted his teeth against a wash of frustration - but even through the irritation, he couldn't miss the way the man's hands tightened on his satchel. There was something in the bag - something the man didn't want to let go.

"I chose your ship for a simple reason," Castiel informed him, his voice gentle. "I believe that you have as much interest in avoiding the Alliance as I do. No ulterior motives. I am not here to make trouble for you or your crew, especially since I suspect that you and your crew are perfectly capable of making trouble by yourselves. If you simply get me to my destination - which, incidentally, is your destination as well - you will receive twice the payment you have already received, and we can both part happy men." His head cocked again, that odd, alien motion. "Do we have a deal?"

A long silence stretched between the two. Dean studied the other man's expression, but Castiel either had the best poker face he'd ever seen, or the man just flat-out did not experience emotion. He wasn't sure which option he'd like to bet on.

"Dean?" That was Sam's voice over the comm. "You'd better get up to the bridge. Now."

"That will be the Alliance blockade," Castiel supplied calmly. "Remember my offer, Captain. And do what you will."

xXx

Sam looked at Dean like he was crazy when Dean gabbled out a "shutupSammydon'ttellthem -" as soon as he arrived, breathless, at the bridge.

"Dean -" he started, but Dean cut him off.

"Not - don't tell 'em about the passenger. I need to talk to you all about him first."

"The cruiser's hailing us, Dean. What do we do in the meantime?"

Dean fastened on his most brilliant smile. "Come on, Sammy. What's that Winchester charm for, if you're not conning law enforcement?"

It took the better part of twenty minutes (and some fairly obvious double entendres) to convince the young Alliance officer to let the Impala through the barricade. By the time they bid their farewells, the officer's gigantic ears were beet red, and Dean's face hurt from forced smiling.

"See?" he said to Sam, switching off the video display. "Works every time."

But Sam was already on the comm. "Crew meeting," he ordered. "Bridge. Now."

Two minutes later, Bobby, Charlie, and Bela had all joined Meg, Sam, and Dean up on the bridge. Meg pulled up CCTV footage of the spare quarters, and the crew watched as Castiel paced quietly in his allotted rooms.

"He looks so clean," Meg observed, quirking an eyebrow. "Cute... but clean."

"And he was at the gala last night?" Bela asked. "We can't trust him." Her tone was light and crisp, but the force behind her words was unmistakeable. "He obviously wants less to do with the Alliance than we do. Having him aboard this ship is tantamount to painting a target on the side of the Impala and begging to be used as shooting practice."

"Which we're pretty much doing already," drawled Meg. "Teacakes is right." For such a small woman, she took up a helluva lot of space, propping her boots up on the console and leaning back in her chair. Without seeming to pay it much attention, she tossed a gleaming switchblade from hand to hand in complicated whirls and twists. It helps my dexterity, she'd once told Dean with a smile as deadly as the blade itself. Dean wasn't sure he'd believed her, but the habit sure as hell kept him from backseat driving.

"This guy's something else," Meg continued as the switchblade danced. "You can see it in the way he moves. Probably Alliance. High ranking. He's on his way to the outer planets? Either he pissed someone off, or he's going after someone who pissed him off." She shrugged. "Either way, we get caught someplace we don't want to be in a beautiful little shit-storm."

Dean groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. "Tah Ma Duh..." he muttered.

"Charlie? What do you think?"

That was Sam's measured voice, breaking in over the static that threatened to overwhelm Dean's brain. Telling his headache to just hold on a gorram minute, Dean glanced over at the mechanic.

The woman looked up at Sam over the top of one of those antique Earth-That-Was comic books she was always collecting. "Me?" she squeaked.

Meg snorted, and Dean briefly reconsidered his no-throwing-crew-out-the-airlock rule.

"As long as everyone's bitching," he said with a glare to the pilot, "might as well hear what you think on the matter." There was something about the young mechanic that brought out his big-brother overprotective side, and the way that Meg and Bela sometimes ran roughshod over her rankled like nothing else. "You're the smartest one in most rooms, anyhow. So. Yes or no on our squeaky-clean Alliance-bait?"

Charlie lowered the comic book, blushing at the sudden attention. "Uh," she stammered, glancing around the room. Bela was watching her with the casual disinterest usually reserved for cats observing the pathetic struggles of cornered rodents, while Meg's stare was characteristically fever-bright and hungry. Charlie visibly wilted.

An over-sized hand landed on her shoulder. Charlie looked up into Bobby's grizzled face. He gave her a barely-perceptible smile, before moving back to lean against the wall.

"I, uh, never was much of a one for reading people," Charlie faltered. "Always thought machines just plain made more sense. But that man - Castiel - he seems broken, but not bad. Like maybe there's a couple'a screws loose, but he's running just the best that he can." She smiled, a sunny thing that could have blinded a stadium's worth of people. "And hell, we've all got some screws loose to be here, right?"

Dean found himself losing the battle against his grin. "That's a point and a half," he said gruffly. "Bobby?"

"Aw hell, boy, don't you drag me into this," the older man said. "I just work here."

"You're a grumpy old man, you know that?"

"So your daddy told me," Bobby mumbled.

"Sam?" Dean turned to his brother expectantly.

"He hasn't tried to hurt us yet..." Sam began slowly. His eyes were fixed on the CCTV footage as though he was mesmerized. "And God knows we're not best friends with the Alliance anyway. Even so... there's something familiar about him, Dean."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Familiar-good, or familiar-bad?"

Sam shrugged. "Just familiar. Like there's something that should be ringing a bell in my head, but it isn't."

"Well that's not ominous at all," Bela muttered.

"I say he stays 'til we reach Crowley's hideout," Sam said definitively. "That's my vote."

"Two for letting the nerdy clean guy stay, and two for throwing him into space," Meg observed. "Tie-breaking vote's yours, Cap."

The figure on the screen seemed to quiver and grow in front of Dean's eyes as he studied it. Something about Sammy's words was ringing in his skull - the man looked familiar. Sure, his rational inner voice reasoned, the guy's from Helios. Sam probably played baccarat with him or some other fancy-pants game when he was still at school...

But it was more than that. Something about this Castiel seemed familiar to Dean as well. Something about the way he moved, like Meg had said, or the way he'd looked at Dean - looked through Dean - as though he was nothing more than a blip on his radar screen...

Operative...

The word whispered in the back of Dean's mind, calling up memories (fire, screaming, Mama, Mama, Mama) he'd rather die than confront.

But no. The Operatives were just myths - horror stories - dreamed up by the Alliance. Super-soldiers with no emotion, no remorse - single-minded in their crusade for A Better Society. And even if they were real - even if this Castiel really was one of them - why would he be running from the Alliance cruise ships? Surely he could just hitch a ride without having to rely on smugglers and scavengers (who were, Dean would be the first to admit, notoriously unreliable).

"He stays."

For the second time in an hour, Dean spoke without realizing it. He blinked, realized what he'd said, then repeated the words. "He stays. For now. Until Crowley's."

A collective sigh - relief? Disappointment? - ran through the cabin as the crew members began to disperse. Bobby was the last to leave, pausing at Dean's shoulder to mutter, "Hope you know what you're doing, boy."

Dean shot him a wan smile as the image of those blue eyes flashed in his mind once more. "Me too, Bobby. Me too."