He was only a few feet from the mark, and as he took the last step and reached out, he heard an unexpected sound, the safety on a gun being released somewhere off in the darkness. It was never as dramatic as in the movies, but the sound was still distinctive enough that Danny stopped moving. This wasn't an entirely unheard of incident; sometimes a mark had more protection for his possessions than was strictly necessary, or there was competition. Some of the nastiest misunderstandings of between thieves could be traced back to the moment one of them chose weapons over skill. Even so, Danny wasn't going to be the one to suggest overcompensation when he didn't know what he was facing.

"You're not getting paid?"

"It's not that kind of work." 

"Then what kind is it?"

"A job."

"Which doesn't pay anything; that sounds like grounds for finding alternate employment."

"I get by." Now he sounded a little defensive, which was fine with Danny; it gave him a glimpse of insight into this interloper's motivations. 

He didn't look wealthy; the leather jacket and jeans wouldn't let him pass through the crowd downstairs, and from the sound of it, he hadn't planned on mingling, just slipping in to do whatever it was that he considered within his job description. The duffel bag didn't give Danny any clues as to what that might be; out of it came a number of baggies with different colored powders, a silver bowl, and what looked like a stick of incense. Next to those was placed a battered notebook, which the other man handled with care. 

"What are you doing?" It didn't look like any authentication setup that Danny had seen, or pawned off on people who didn't have anything better to do with their money than throw it away on confirming that their possessions were collectible. 

"Fixing this piece of crap."

"It doesn't look broken," Danny pointed out.

"I didn't say how it was broken; it's got a curse on it, and anybody that keeps it around while this sucker has juice in it is going to have a lousy decade or two and then they're going to end up dead, along with all of their relatives." 

"That information is probably not included in the paperwork," Danny mused.

"It never is."

"And you're going to make it safe."

"If the magic's sunk too deep, it might take the cursed object with it."

"You mean the mask, and take it where?"

"Into oblivion, I don't know."

"That's going to impede the resale."

"Look, it's just a possibility, and lucky for you and your friend, I happen to be very good at what I do, that's why I was called in."

"By who?"

"Some guy out of Vegas."

Now Danny had a sinking sensation in his gut and a desire to place a long distance phone call. 

"Reuben?"

The guy sat back on his heels and looked up at Danny, gaze calm, giving nothing away and taking in the way that Danny was standing still and waiting for an answer he was sure of. "Yeah, he that friend of yours?"

"None other."

"Sounds like he got wind of this thing's reputation and wanted to make sure that everything went smoothly."

"I'd appreciate a warning about outside assistance before we meet up over a gun."

"Well, he didn't tell me squat either, but what can you do." The matter apparently explained as far as he needed it to be, the man turned back to his preparations, not twitching when Danny crouched down next to him.

"Danny Ocean," he said, offering a hand, and the other man looked over before shaking. 

"Dean Winchester. Nice to meet you." 

"So, Dean, do you need me to do anything with this 'cleansing'?"

"You wanna be useful? See about getting the mask out of that piece of overkill they're calling a display case while I get set up."

"Sure." 

Even though he was going to have a  pointed discussion with Reuben regarding the proper method of assembling a team, Danny was too experienced not to recognize an opportunity for a more efficient grab. Dean seemed to know what he was doing, and even what Danny's specialty was, and had to have some degree of expertise in breaking and entering, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to make it to the master bedroom without being seen or caught. 

There was an alarm system in place, and it was rather creatively applied, but even a good piece of engineering couldn't beat human ingenuity, and it only took a few minutes for Danny's fingers to skate across the only flaw and figure out how best to disable it. He had his own set of tools, although none of them were as exotic as Dean's.

All of his attention was directed to disarming the system, so when he stopped back with as mile, the sound of clapping was unexpected.

"Nice job."

"You're surprised?"

"Nah, you know what you're doing." 

Raising an eyebrow at him, Danny affected a grateful expression. "Thank you." 

"Now, you want to step away from the mask and let me do the rest."

Dean rolled to his feet with an unconscious ease that Danny considered speculatively. 

Sorting through the various baggies, Dean stared at the mask, and then tossed a small handful of each powder, waiting for some signal that Danny couldn't make out. 

"Huh."

"What is it?"

"Not the usual suspects, that makes this a little more complicated." 

Dean pulled a matchbook out of jacket and dumped a small amount of green power in the bowl, added the contents of a flask and then dropped a single match in the center of the mixture. The result was an explosive reaction that rocked them back a couple steps, and Danny coughed, waving smoke out of his face. 

"Think anybody heard that?" Dean wondered, not looking particularly worried, but more like he thought he was supposed to think about the possibility of other people happening across what they were doing.

"With the band they've got downstairs? I don't think they can hear anything," Danny reassured. 

"Good thing too, because this has to go quick." Dean gave Danny another look, weighing whatever he was debating and thrust the bowl into Danny's hands. "I need you to toss this on the mask when I tell you."

"What're you going to do?"

"Gotta say some words, then there's going to be a spirit loose, and I'm the one who knows how to banish it."

"You usually do this on your own?"

"Sometimes, it works better with two people."

Dean grabbed the notebook and flipped through the pages until he found the correct section and began reciting Latin in a steady, hypnotic tone. At first there was no sign that anything was happening, and Danny thought the whole thing was anticlimactic. Then, there was a whining sound, as though wood was being stretched past its tolerance, and the eyeholes of the mask lit up from within and the surface of the mask *twisted*, carved surface becoming leathery-looking flesh. 

Danny shot Dean a look, not knowing if that was supposed to happen or if it was just an unexpected side effect, and saw Dean holding the mask's blankly malevolent gaze. He jerked his head to one side as if shaking something off, and motioned sharply to Danny without pausing in his recitation. Moving into position, Danny heaved the bowl's contents at the mask and stepped out of the way. 

Something happened almost immediately; the mask's eyes dimmed and then flared even brighter as a foul, inky cloud poured out of it and gathered in front of the two men. 

Snapping the book shut, Dean dropped it to the floor behind him and grinned. "Alright, now we're getting somewhere." 

Whatever the cloud was, or wherever it came from Danny could tell that it had one basic drive, and that was to destroy the individuals who had torn it out of its cozy home inside the mask. It spun around Dean and Danny like a silent, deadly whirlwind, yanking at their clothes and dropping the temperature further with each rotation. Whether its intention was to freeze them or tear them apart, either one wouldn't take long, and Danny hoped that the other man had been prepared for this eventuality. 

Dean had backed up against Danny so they were braced against one another, and as they struggled to stay upright, he reached behind him, grabbed Danny's coat to get his attention and passed him a crucifix and a bottle. 

"You know the Lord's Prayer?" he called out.

"Sure."

"Dump that on yourself, start reciting, and walk out of here."

"What about you?"

"It's not gonna touch you, that's Holy Water."

"So it'll go after you instead?"

"It's a spirit, being dead doesn't make them smarter, and I'm covered." When Danny hesitated, Dean added impatiently, "I don't tell you how to do your work, now just do what I tell you, we can argue about it later."

"Count on it," Danny said, and poured the bottle over his head. Beginning a verse that he hadn't spoken with any conviction for years, Danny stared the cloud as it spun around them, closed his eyes, and stepped forward. 

He came out the other side and landed on the floor, sliding back and hitting the foot of the bed. When he looked up, the cloud had grown taller until it touched the ceiling and had thickened so that Danny couldn't make out Dean's shape still inside, and Danny could tell that if Dean had a plan, he was running out of time. Braced against the footboard, Danny stared unblinking at the spot where he knew Dean was standing, waiting, and clutching the crucifix, still murmuring the Lord's Prayer.

From inside the cloud, there was the sharp sound of a gunshot, and the impenetrable pillar was blown open on one side. There were two more shots, and the blackness fell away like sliced velvet to reveal Dean standing with a shotgun in hand and a fierce grin on his face.

"And that's the way these things are done," he said cheerfully, as if he hadn't been nearly rent limb from limb by a possessed mask. 

"So that's standard," Danny said, scrambling up. 

"Yeah, pretty much." Dean stowed the shotgun back in his bag, and began brushing himself off. 

"That killed the spirit?" He was still having some trouble coming to terms with the fact that a piece of art had been taken over by a spirit that had objected to being relocated, and that there were people who could be called in to deal with the problem, but Dean's casual attitude helped make it all seem reasonable. 

"Well, the Holy Water, the crushed relic, and some rock salt made a good triple shot, and your praying put the stopper on it."

"So it won't come back?"

"Not here, not without some serious resuscitation, so your friend's got his creepy souvenir to hang on his wall." Dean took the mask off its hook and handed it to Danny.  

"Wonderful." Up close the mask was even uglier than when it had been a mere wall hanging, and Danny wondered again about how Reuben could have so little taste. 

Dean had dirt smeared across his face and there was a distinct smell of charring in the air. To anyone who hadn't just seen what Danny had, Dean looked as though he had gotten caught in a barbecuing gone wrong. It was the complete assurance that Dean carried himself with that made Danny step closer. Dean knew what he was good at and clearly enjoyed it, despite the lack of a steady salary or guarantee of success. That honesty was a quality that Danny appreciated as well as found attractive, and he had no reservations about letting that show on his face.

There weren't rules for this sort of thing, but basic 'will keep you out of jail' common sense dictated that there were safer, less intimate ways of getting to know a near-stranger. But Danny, who counted rationalization as one of his sills, that the situation by noting that they'd sort of worked a job together, and even if they were in danger of being caught, they had already gotten the goods.

Dean turned his head to catch the digit with his teeth and Danny hissed at the bite. They weren't entirely playing, even when the job was over, and that was good, even now, neither of them were unaware of their surroundings. Dean let go of Danny's thumb and tilted his head back invitingly. 

“Stop thinking so much,” he advised and without glancing around, put his hands on Danny’s waist and guided him further backwards along the side of the bed. His grip was confident and unhurried as he maneuvered Danny around obstacles and he was so sure of himself that Danny went along with it. When he felt the edge of the bed against his legs, Danny relaxed and let gravity take him down.

Arching back into the mattress, the tension of the job gradually lifted away as Dean’s touch removed that tightness until he felt more at ease. When he reached up to adjust their position, Dean made a pleased noise and responded. He slipped Danny’s buttons loose with a series of quick motions and pushed his shirt open.

Dean was wearing layers the way someone without a lot of choices did to use something as long as possible and the shirts were interfering with Danny’s hands on approach. Shoving cloth away from skin, he got what he was seeking, and let the the movement of his fingers convey his satisfaction. 

While Danny had been trying to undress the other man, Dean had been focused on running hands and mouth over Danny’s torso, and so the first tug on his shirt didn’t get his attention. When Danny slid one hand under the warm cloth and found a line that disappeared into Dean’s pants just off his right hip and dug in with his nails, Dean hissed, sat up straighter and met Danny’s eyes unflinchingly. Danny hadn’t been going for pain, just trying to encourage a cooperative spirit, so he didn’t repeat the movement, but rather used the opportunity to grab hold of Dean’s shirt and drag it over his head.

With a couple seconds of eye contact, Dean answered whatever question he'd had, and without fumbling or asking Danny if he was sure; he simply slid lower, unbuttoned Danny’s slacks and went down on him.

Before sensation whited out higher brain function, Danny idly wondered what had made Dean so sure of himself when he was barely into his twenties. Most kids were still working out who they wanted to be; they didn’t have a career and already know the right people unless they were raised for it, or had fallen into it. 

One of Dean’s hands caught at his shoulder, and Danny smelled gun oil. He asked absently, “What would you have done if I’d tried to take the mask?”

They didn’t have enough time for Danny to find every place that made Dean’s muscles clench as he sighed and moaned, but Danny made a promising start. He had to hold Dean still when he twisted, gasping against the inevitable, and his fingers left bruises on Dean’s hips.