They're exorcising a carnival in Maryland this week, which means Dean is both amused and sad every time he thinks of Sam, even though his brother is better off now that he doesn't have murderous spirits trying to rip him apart. Still, Dean and Cas finally manage to get rid of the suckers and even prevent the carnival from being destroyed in the process, aside from a couple of stalls which burned down, but Dean thinks that overall it was a success.

As a thank you for saving everyone's asses, they get a couple of free tickets for the carnival rides. Dean pouts because they just put their life on the line and the carnies could have at least given them a day pass. Cas, on the other hand, is beside himself with glee. "Which one should we try first?" he says, looking at the tickets and then at the names of the rides. "Do you think we'll have time to try them all?"

"Dude, are you kidding? I'm so not going to try them all," Dean says, because they've been given tickets to the carousel and he's sure as hell not riding the carousel at his age, it would look so creepy.

However, Castiel is not kidding. He looks like a child who has just been handed a stack of free tickets for carnival rides. As they're standing in line for the first ride (the rollercoaster, which Dean only moderately objects to) there's seven- and eight-years-old waiting with more patience than Cas. He fidgets around and cranes his head to follow the loops and twists of the tracks above their heads. When their turn comes, he needs help to pull down the security bar in front of him.

The ride is short and not very scary (at least not compared to last night's vengeful spirits trying to rip them apart) but Cas is grinning when they get off. "That was fun," he says, wobbling a bit and trying to regain his balance after having been shaken around. His hair is sticking up on his head even worse than usual.

"It was okay," Dean concedes. "Where to next?"

He shouldn't be having this much fun, Dean thinks, it's just a carnival. The rides are old, the paint is fading, they music on the speakers dates back to the 60s. But Castiel looks like he's having the time of his life, and somehow his enthusiasm is contagious. Usually Dean thinks that Castiel acts as a child, because there's no other way to describe the way Cas looks at the world, to describe how the most mundane things are beyond his comprehension. The truth of the matter, however, is that Castiel was never a child.

It's the first time ever that Castiel has been on a rollercoaster, Dean realizes. And it's the first time Castiel steps into a haunted house, the first time he plays a rigged game of throwing the hoop, the first time he rides the carousel. Dean absolutely refuses to go on the carousel, because there's nobody older than twelve on there, so Cas takes both tickets and goes twice, once on a rocketship and the other on a white horse. The second time he strikes up a conversation with the pigtail girl on the pink unicorn next to him.

Dean is sure that if he'd tried that he would have been arrested for suspicious behaviour, but the girl's mum just awws and waves at them when they pass by. "Your friend is adorable," she tells Dean. "He looks as if he's never been on a carousel before."

"He hasn't," Dean says, leaning forward to rest his arms on the metal rails around the ride. "It's his honest to God first time on a carousel."

"Shut up!" the woman exclaims, laughing. "Where does he come from?"

"Not from around here, that's for sure," Dean says with a grin.

"That was fun," Castiel says, after the ride is over and he's waved goodbye to the girl with pigtails. "Though I liked the rocketship better than the horse."

They've run out of tickets and it's getting late, so even Cas admits it might be time for them to leave if they want to get to a motel before dark. Dean agrees, but on their way out they pass a cotton candy stall.

"You've never tried this before, either, haven't you?" he asks Cas.

Cas shakes his head, so Dean buys him a cotton candy from the wrinkled lady behind the stall and they both watch in fascination as she wraps the spun sugar around a stick to form a sticky pink tower.

With his first bite, Cas gets cotton candy all over his mouth and his nose. "This is good," Cas says. "But it's very sticky."

Dean nods and grins as he watches Castiel's attempts at eating without getting any cotton candy over himself. He knew Cas would like it.

Cas quickly figures out the best way to eat it by watching a couple of kids nearby, and soon enough he's breaking off small pieces with his fingers and stuffing them into his mouth. "Thanks, Dean," he mumbles around a particularly large mouthful.

"It's not a proper carnival without some cotton candy," Dean says.

"Here," the old lady says, handing Dean another pink tower of cotton candy.

He tries to refuse, saying he only bought one, but the lady smiles at him, a wrinkled toothless grin. "On the house," she says. "It's good to see young people enjoy themselves."

"Thank you," Dean mumbles, and he bites into the cotton candy. It tastes like sugar and a bit like happiness.