Chapter Text
The place was one of those bars that smells like history - old wood, spilled beer baked into floorboards, the faint ghost of cigarette smoke that still clung to the rafters even though the state had banned smoking a decade ago. A neon sign hummed lazily over the bottles behind the counter, casting everything in a bruised purple glow. The low murmur of conversation mixed with the clack of pool balls, a jukebox playing country music, and the occasional scrape of a barstool. It felt calm, comfortable, the kind of place where you could almost forget monsters exist.
He said I wanna be the one who people turn to,
Even if it means I may be wrong,
Can't believe the tides are finally turning
Just as I had planned it all along.
Sam and Dean had taken a booth near the back, one with vinyl cracked from years of elbows and spilled drinks. Dean leaned back, stretching his jean-clad legs out, sighing like he was finally allowed to relax. Sam nursed a beer that was already too warm, glancing around with that habitual hunter’s attention even though the night was supposed to be downtime.
A raven-haired barmaid passed them now and then, smiling the kind of tired-but-genuine smile that said she was used to regulars, used to long shifts, used to handling men twice her size without flinching. She was friendly, but not flirtatious, efficient, grounded, steady on her feet even in the dim light.
It was the scruffy man at the far end of the bar who disrupted the atmosphere. He leaned in close when she approached him - too close. His hand came up like he was just adjusting his grip on the glass, but the barmaid subtly shifted her weight back, just an inch. “And I'll howl at the moon until you hear me, and make all the other voices go away,” he hissed, his beer breath making her recoil, annoying him further.
It was a small enough flinch for both Winchesters to notice. Dean’s brows drew together. “You seeing that?”
Sam followed his gaze. The guy was whispering something directly into her ear, and she smiled, but it was a thin, stretched smile, the kind she put on like a uniform. Her shoulders stayed tight; her gaze never quite met his.
“Maybe they’re together,” Sam murmured. “Could just be… I don’t know. Couple stuff.”
Dean snorted softly. “That ain’t ‘couple stuff.’ That’s ‘back off, dude’ written all over her face.”
Sam watched for a moment longer. The man reached out, fingers brushing the underside of the barmaid’s wrist. A light touch, harmless in theory, but she stiffened - barely, subtly. Her blue eyes flicked down, then up again, smile locked in place, movements suddenly more rushed as she turned away to grab someone else’s order. Sam sighed. “Yeah. I saw that,” but they couldn’t hear the words. Not a single syllable carried their way, just the low hum of his voice and the way she seemed to shrink without actually moving, and maybe, maybe they’re projecting. Hunters read danger into everything, everywhere. Every twitch, every too-close glance, every forced laugh.
They tried to go back to their drinks, but their eyes kept drifting back.
The man’s posture was relaxed, confident - too confident. He followed the barmaid with his gaze every time she moved, like she was a thing he owned rather than a person doing her job. When she finally circled back near him, he grabbed her hand outright, softly enough to look affectionate to anyone not paying attention, firmly enough that she subtly tried to pull back.
Dean shifted in the booth, spine straightening, jaw tightening.
Sam murmured calmly, “We don’t know what’s happening.”
“Yeah,” Dean whispered. “But I know what it looks like.”
Another couple of minutes passed, as both Winchesters tried to get back to their drinks, tried to ignore what was playing out in front of them, tried to stay focused on ignoring the world around them, and failed miserably. The barmaid set an amber drink in front of the man, head slightly bowed,red lips pressed together in a smile that never quite reached her eyes. His thumb stroked her knuckles. Her shoulders locked.
Sam breathed out through his nose, tension coiling. “Okay… that wasn’t nothing.”
Dean pushed his empty glass away, eyes following the exchange. “Nope. That was absolutely something.”
They didn’t get up. Not yet. They still weren’t sure, and the last thing they wanted was to misread the situation, cause a scene, or worst of all,make things harder for her if they were wrong. They’d seen enough real-world ugliness to know that sometimes interference helped… and sometimes it locked the door tighter behind the victim.
For now, they watched. Patient. Alert. Hunters even when they were supposed to be off the clock. Every tiny detail felt amplified in the dim bar lighting. The soft flick of her wrist as she placed a drink on the counter. The way her shoulders rose - not quite a flinch, not quite a brace - whenever the man leaned in, the quick, too-shallow breath she took before she turned to him, like she had to gather the pieces of herself first. Every motion controlled, careful, practiced.
Sam felt his gut twist, a quiet, familiar dread curling low and cold. It was the same feeling he got right before walking into a house where the monster wasn’t supernatural, where the threat was human, intimate, the kind that didn’t leave claw marks or sulfur traces - the kind that hid behind closed doors, behind smiles, behind excuses. Something in the barmaid’s body language hit that exact note. He watched her fingers tremble for half a second when she picked up a glass. A tiny slip. Gone the moment she noticed it. He swallowed hard. Come on. Please let us be wrong.
Dean wasn’t much better. His knee bounced under the table, restless energy building with every heartbeat. His eyes kept cutting toward the man - sharp, assessing, cold around the edges. He wasn’t staring out of curiosity, he was mapping, cataloguing, filing away every feature like he was building a wanted poster in his head. If this turned into something, Dean thought, jaw ticking, I need to know exactly what this guy looks like. He tried to act casual, picking at the beer label, shifting in his seat, but his focus kept dragging back unwillingly. The man leaned in again, speaking low, and even from across the bar the tone felt wrong, tight, edged with ownership.
¨Knowing somewhere in the dead of night. A better man with a bigger fight may show, and give it a go,” he grinned at the girl, dull brown eyes darting around the bar, before settling on the Winchesters, their eyes watching, memorizing every detail of the exchange, but he didn´t care. She was his. “You tryin’ to make me jealous, Faith?” he asked, watching as her eyes followed his gaze. Shaking her head, she tried to appease him, knowing that when he was in one of his moods, the smallest thing would set him off. He’d left work early, which meant one of two things: another fight with the foreman, or … they had finally laid off his lazy ass.
Dean felt the first spark of anger catch in his chest. Not fiery … yet. More like a pilot light flicked on.
Sam nudged his boot under the table. The unspoken question hung between them: Are we seeing what we think we’re seeing? Or are we projecting?
Dean met his eyes, and for once, he didn’t have an answer ready. His voice was low, a rough whisper: “It’s the way she freezes. Look at her shoulders.”
Sam did. He didn’t want to, but he did, and there it was again.
The barmaid stepped away after the man murmured something to her, something that made her mouth tighten before she forced it into a professional smile. She kept her chin down, her movements quick, a controlled dance as she skirted around the bar, smiling at the other bar staff and patrons. Keeping her distance, but with a cool efficiency. Too efficient, like she wanted space to maneuver between everyone without drawing attention.
Sam’s fingers curled around his glass until the condensation slicked his palm. “I hate this,” he muttered under his breath. “This is supposed to be our night off …” he muttered, his body tired from hunting and lack of sleep. Dean huffed something like agreement, but there was tension coiled in every line of him, a taut readiness that said he was five seconds from standing if the picture got any clearer. Still, neither of them moved … not yet, because guessing wrong meant they could embarrass her, or provoke the guy, or worsen whatever she might be dealing with once she clocked out. They knew the stakes weren’t simple, but every instinct in both of them was starting to tilt toward the same, uncomfortable truth.
Something was off ... and if this man crossed one more line, one more touch, one more look, one more too-close lean-in … well, they wouldn’t want to be him, that was for sure, because chances were, he wouldn´t be walking out of the bar.
Dean stood, assuring Sam that he was just gonna hit the head, when in reality he wanted to get a closer look at the guy that at some point tonight he knew would receive a pummeling. Walking across the sticky wooden floor, he sang along to the song that was playing, as if he didn´t have a care in the world. “‘Til then I'll sail through waters no one has the nerve to, Tryna reach rock-bottom though I'm swimming in a bottomless sea,” he crooned, his eyes taking in the number of patrons, the exits and the barmaid.
Pushing open the bathroom door, he took a moment as the stench from the urinals hit him, like a physical slap - an eye-watering blast of ammonia, stale beer, and something that could only be described as urinal stew. The kind of scent that suggested the pipes were older than the bar, and possibly sentient. Dean recoiled immediately, scrunching his nose so hard it practically folded into itself. “Oh, come on,” he muttered, leaning back like distance alone could save him. “That’s … that’s a war crime. That’s chemical warfare. I think I just lost ten years of my life.”
It was the kind of stench that crawled into your clothes and died there. That room needed a priest, not a mop. Another patron walked out, fanning the air dramatically. The door swung open again, releasing a fresh wave, a sharp, acidic tang layered over the swampy musk of decades of bad aim.
Dean groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Seriously. I hunt demons for a living, and this is the most evil thing I’ve smelled all week,” he muttered as he made his way to one of the cracked urinals. He remembered what Sammy had said about breathing through his mouth, and as he unzipped his jeans, he closed his eyes, desperately trying to ignore the brown stains, and the stench of age old urine as he relieved himself. “I can fucking taste it if I breathe through my mouth,” he muttered to himself. “Fucking prick," he mumbled.
“Beg ya pardon?” a deep, raspy voice beside him questioned.
Opening his eyes, Dean hastily zipped up his flies, and turned, his stomach churning as the guy from the bar stood at the end of the urinals, his glass in hand as he stared. Dean froze for half a second, then straightened fully, shoulders squaring as he turned to face the guy. The man filled the doorway, jaw clenched, eyes hard and glassy with alcohol and something meaner. Dean kept his tone low. Controlled. “Didn’t mean anything by it. Just talkin’ to myself,” he replied, moving towards the water-stained sink, turning the tap and running his hands beneath the freezing water. His movements were slow, measured, as he assessed the situation, before reaching for some paper towels, drying his hands, and then throwing them towards the already over-flowing trash can.
The scruffy man sneered. “Yeah? Sounded like you were talkin’ about me.”
Dean didn’t blink. “Maybe I was.”
That got the guy’s attention, and his spine stiffened, as his grip tightened around his glass. “You got somethin’ you wanna say?”
Dean stepped just close enough to make the message clear. “Yeah. I do,” he admitted, his voice dropped to a dangerous murmur. “Back off the waitress.”
A mocking laugh punched out of the man. “The hell do you think you know?”
“I know what I saw,” Dean replied, eyes steady. “And I know she doesn’t like you hangin’ on her like that.”
The man’s face flushed dark. “You watchin’ my girl now? You some kinda sick creep?”
Dean’s jaw flexed. “She didn’t look like your girl. She looked like someone who wanted a little space.”
The man took a step forward, chest brushing Dean’s. He was huge, in every respect of the word. Easily a head taller and wide like a linebacker, but Dean didn’t budge. “You don’t talk about her,” the man growled, his breath hot and sour. “You don’t look at her. You don't even think about her.”
Dean’s voice went ice-cold. “Buddy, if you treated her right, I wouldn’t’ve noticed you at all.” Another step. Another subtle lift of the guy’s shoulders like he was gearing up, coiling. Dean held his ground, unfazed. “Walk away.”
For a long, tense second, the man just stared, mud-brown eyes full of barely-contained violence, then scoffed, pushed past Dean’s shoulder hard enough to make the metal fixtures rattle, and stormed out of the bathroom. Dean let out a slow exhale, shaking off the tension before it settled too deep, his body aching to punch something. Now he knew the situation, knew that he and Sammy had read it correctly, which meant, at some point, he would get to fight someone, probably that guy, and he was down for it.
So many knots and kinks out herе on the ocean, May as well livе it up while I'm still free, the jukebox sang out, as he made his way back to the booth.
The hours passed slowly, and by ten the bar was almost empty. The manager called last orders, the ancient brass bell clanging noisily as patrons finished up their drinks, heading home or to whichever bed they were spending the night in. Chairs scraped, bottles clinked, and the bar’s warm buzz faded into the flat quiet of closing time. Sam and Dean stayed where they were, eyes sharp even as the room emptied. The man finally pushed himself off his stool, muttering something to no one in particular before stumbling out the door. The brothers tracked him until the night swallowed him whole.
The remaining staff moved slowly through the space - wiping counters, stacking glasses, sweeping up the day’s remnants. The dark-haired barmaid kept her head down, movements brisk, focused, and when she offered them a tired smile and a soft “Goodnight,” they returned it, but neither of them fully let their guard down.
Finally, accepting the night was over, they drained the last of their drinks and pushed out into the cold. The air bit at their cheeks, sharp and metallic, the kind of chill that settled into bones that were already tired. The street was nearly silent, just the hum of distant traffic and the soft buzz of the old streetlamps, their light flickering like they were fighting off sleep themselves, their dim glow bouncing off the puddles, creating a mirage of reflections and movement in the shallow water.
Across the road, the motel’s neon VACANCY sign sputtered in a jittery, uneven glow, casting sickly red flashes across the pavement. The place looked tired, but familiar in a way only cheap motels ever were to the Winchesters. Sam shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets, breath drifting out in slow clouds. Dean rolled his shoulders, the tension from the bar easing just enough for him to feel the dull ache settling in. They crossed the street, gravel crunching beneath their boots, and stepped into the motel’s narrow walkway. The heater in the room hummed behind the thin walls, and somewhere a TV droned low, muffled by decades-old plaster. It wasn’t home, but it was warm, and it was theirs for the night.
Inside the malt-brown room, they tossed their jackets over a chair near the window, the old formica table chipped, the familiar scent of stale coffee and cleaning chemicals greeting them like an old, unimpressive friend. Sam kicked off his boots with a sigh; Dean pulled his brown Chippewa boots off, discarding them next to his bed, finally letting his guard drop an inch, and for the first time that night, they felt the weight in their shoulders ease. Crossing the room, he flicked on the bathroom light, the old fluorescent tube buzzing before it sputtered to life. The glow was harsh, almost sickly, washing the cramped motel bathroom in a pale, unforgiving white. He braced his hands on the sink and leaned in, staring at the mirror as if it might blink first.
He looked rough. Worse than rough.
The stench of the bar clung to him - stale beer, cheap disinfectant, that godawful bathroom smell that felt like it had soaked straight into his skin. No amount of scrubbing would fix it. His hair was mussed, sticking up at odd angles; his jaw was shadowed with stubble that had crossed the line from rugged to unkempt, but it was his eyes that bothered him most. They looked tired. Dull around the edges, rimmed with red, like he hadn’t truly slept in weeks, which he hadn’t … at least not the kind of sleep that mattered. There was a heaviness there, something worn thin and stretched tight.
He lifted a hand to rub at his face, but the mirror only made the gesture look defeated. He noticed the lines at the corners of his eyes, deeper than he remembered, carved by years of fighting everything but time.
“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath. “Get it together.”
The motel bulb flickered again, catching his reflection in a brief stutter of light. For a split second, he almost didn’t recognize the man staring back. Broad shoulders slumped. Tension etched into muscle and bone. A hunter who looked older than he had any right to be. He forced himself upright, but the mirror didn’t soften. It never did. One more breath. One more night. One more mess to clean up. Dean reached for the tap, the pipes groaning in protest as cold water trickled out. He splashed his face, hoping it would wake him up, shake something loose, make him feel human again.
It didn’t.
He grabbed the clean threadbare towel, dragging it over his skin, and straightened, but no matter which angle he looked, he still didn’t like what he saw.
And then from somewhere outside, a scream tore through the quiet.