SPN Fic: We Were Like Family Once 2/4 (Gen, PG13, Pre-Series)

[dodger_winslow]

Title: We Were Like Family Once (2/4)
Author: Dodger Winslow
Challenge: family_secret Family Secerets: The Winchester Screts Challenge
Prompt: Confession is always weakness. The grave soul keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment in silence.
Word Count: 29,700
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Rating: PG13 for language
Spoilers: up to Born Under a Bad Sign
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while.

Summary: The first time John showed up at the Roadhouse, he was hunting. He’d tracked his quarry here, knew it was inside. This was its home base, the place it holed up when it wasn’t running around, doing what things like it did.

John spent the next several days checking his facts, back-tracking through his research to make sure he wasn’t wrong about something he knew he wasn’t wrong about.

He called Dean, warned him it was going to take longer than he’d originally thought. Dean assured him that was no problem, he had everything under control … which is exactly what Dean would have said even if his hair was on fire while he was speaking.

Once John was sure he hadn’t mis-interpreted anything - hadn’t jumped a logic train somewhere along the line and gotten carried away on the wrong track entirely - he spent a couple of days lurking, haunting shadows, watching the comings and goings of the Roadhouse and everyone who spent time there. The Harvelles lived in the back rather than off-site, something that was damn inconvenient for him but probably one of the reasons it was still around.

Jo rode the bus to school in a nearby town. John considered intercepting it, taking her off and holding her until it came after her. That plan accomplished two things - securing the child out of harm’s way and giving him the perfect bait for a trap - but in the end he rejected in, not only because he wasn’t ready to act yet, but also because taking Jo that way would be too traumatic for her. Even having met him before, it would scare her to be pulled out of her routine, scare her more once she realized he wasn’t going to let her go.

More than that though, if it worked, if using her as bait pulled the thing in close enough for John to take it down, she’d never understand it was done for her own good. She’d only understand she’d been used to lure something she loved to its death, and she’d blame herself because kids always blamed themselves. So while he was willing to put her through that if he had to, he wasn’t willing to do it unless he had to, unless it was the only way to keep her safe.

And right now, as far as his surveillance showed, things with the Harvelles were on a relatively even keel. Jo and her mother seemed like a long-term cover for this thing, which while uncommon, wasn’t entirely unprecedented. And as long as she was part of its cover rather than someone it was stalking as prey, she wasn’t in the kind of danger he’d originally thought. Maybe not in any danger at all, in fact.

When evil took Human form, it sometimes became susceptible to other aspects of humanity, including attachment, and even love … at least as much as such things were capable of experiencing love. The more he watched, the more he though that might be the case here.

It seemed very attached to this child, in particular; and that smacked of a deeper connection than a simple predator/prey relationship. There had to be easier targets around, especially with John making this one a such risky proposition; so just the fact that it was sticking to this child, this woman, even after it understood John was after it - something it would be a fool not to realize, knowing what John did and that he was doing it here - required him to at least consider the possibility there was another dynamic in play.

No matter how much research you did into something like this, no matter how sure you were of the facts you had on hand, there were always going to be variables to the equation you didn’t know, you couldn’t know. And those variables, by their very nature in being unknown and unconsidered, held the potential to change everything, from eradication strategies to whether or not eradication was even necessary.

From John’s experience, it wasn’t often something cropped up to shift your perspective much more than a few degrees one way or the other concerning the nature of the quarry itself. He’d been hunting almost a decade, and he’d never yet targeted something that changed his thinking on whether or not it had to be taken out. But still, when additional information did crop up that you hadn’t considered in your original assessment, it was a reckless man who didn’t step back and take the time to consider it.

And John wasn’t reckless. Sometimes he was stupid. Occasionally he was borderline self destructive, or so Jim Murphy was prone to telling him. But he wasn’t reckless. And this wasn’t something he’d considered. It wasn’t something he known even existed to be considered.

But as much as it wasn’t something he thought very likely, and as much as it wasn’t something he wanted to even concede could be true, it was at least possible, he supposed, that Jo actually was his daughter. Its daughter, dammit. And if that proved to be the case, it changed everything about him.

About it.

The more he watched the Harvelles, the more he found out about them, the more trouble John was having keeping his pronouns straight. As much as he knew better than to allow himself to do so, and as much as it unnerved him to admit he was doing it anyway, he kept thinking of that thing as Bill, or as the girl’s father, or as Ellen’s husband. It was a self-indulgent way of looking at things that would likely to get him killed if he kept it up. But even knowing the risk it was to personify something like this thing to an individual - to let it start to seem human to him, to let himself start to see it as something driven by human emotions, by human concept of morality, of right an wrong, of good and evil - he still found himself giving in to the temptation of thinking of it as a man instead of the monster he knew it was.

He instead of it.

Bill instead of the monster.

But it was more than just Jo and her mother. It was Bill himself. It had thrown John off his game with its easy grin and welcoming hospitality. Its flawless sincerity when spinning congenial lies had John questioning his own research, second-guessing his own conclusions.

Which again, was probably why it was still around. It took a smart bastard to adopt such a complexly humanistic persona, and an even smarter one to play that persona so convincingly even someone with John’s experience was having difficulty remembering what it was, what kinds of things it did, why it couldn’t be allowed to live.

He’d been watching the Roadhouse - watching it - for almost a week when he decided he’d learned as much as he could from this far a remove. It was time to make a choice: step off the hunt all together or move in closer to get a better perspective on what it was doing, how it was doing it, and what the best way to stop it might be. Part of him really wanted to just call it a wash - just put it to the books as one that got away, or one that didn’t pan out - but every time he considered doing as much, her daughter slipped into his memory. Ellen’s daughter. Joanna Beth. Or Jo-Jo as she preferred to be called. He couldn’t leave her to whatever it had planned. It might have been easier on them all if he could have, but he couldn’t. So John made his choice, committed himself to following through on what he’d already started.

He waited until well after dark on a Friday night, hoping the place would be busy enough for him to slip in and get the lay of the land before it was on him again, chatting him up and doing its best to confuse him into mistaking it for the friendly tavern owner it played convincingly enough to fool the harshest critic. But even though the place was full to the gills, jumping with laughter and activity and the boisterous buzz of people working their way into the weekend, Ellen saw him the moment he slipped through the door. Her nod was cool, more of an acknowledgement he was there than any kind of welcome the ilk of which her smile had offered him the first time they met.

He supposed that was to be expected. As much as the thing he was tracking seemed oblivious to what John was doing, how closely John was watching it; Ellen was anything but oblivious. John wondered how much she knew as compared to what she just suspected. He wondered if she realized what he was hunting - who he was hunting, from her perspective - or if he’d just put her to such an overall general unease that she wasn’t quite over it yet, wasn’t quite willing to let him be anything other than an ass who offered an unsolicited critique of her parenting skills before he ever even bothered to ask her name.

Though the odds were against it, there was an open table in the corner again, so he took it, putting his back to the protection of two walls as he waited for her to get around to making her way over to tell him Bill wasn’t here. He knew Bill wasn’t here. He’d timed it this way carefully, wanting the environment surveilled and secure before Bill showed up - before it showed up - to put every other damn thing up for grabs.

"Hello, John," Ellen said, her eyes guarded in a way they hadn’t been a week ago. "Can I get you that drink Bill offered?"

He smiled a little despite the fact it wasn’t funny, and wasn’t intended to be. "So it was only Bill’s offer?" he asked without pushing his tone far enough to imply any intention to spark a conflict.

She shrugged. "What’s mine is Bill’s. He makes you an offer, I’m good for it."

It was a political answer, as answers go. She was trying not to offend him at least. That had to count for something. "Coffee’s fine," he said.

Her eyes flickered with a wariness he couldn’t miss. "So you’re working then?"

"Maybe I just don’t drink," he suggested easily.

She snorted. "Yeah. Right. You look like the teetotaler type, Winchester." Then, "Coffee it is. Black and strong, if memory serves."

He nodded, and she left him, came back several minutes later with a mug she set on the table in front of him. By that time, he’d fixed every aspect of the tavern in his head, identified weapons, avenues of escape, noted which things could be turned to his advantage and which ones could be turned to the disadvantage of either his quarry or anyone trying to back his quarry’s play.

He still didn’t like the odds of walking amongst his enemy’s allies, but at least three men had greeted his slow scan of the place with small nods of unmistakable greeting. It wasn’t something he’d expected, to find people here willing to identify themselves as someone to trust in a crowd of strangers. Not that he would trust them, given their much stronger ties to the Harvelles than to any fidelity they might feel to a reputation he brought in the door along with his evidently well-known name; but still, it was an unexpected thing to find, and it wasn’t something he was used to, or entirely comfortable with.

"So … Bill around?" he asked casually.

She studied him for several seconds, then said, "You keep a journal, don’t you? So why don’t you check there? See what you’ve got logged in for where he is and what he’s doing right now. And just in case you wondered, his shoe size is eleven, and he wears a thirty seven long in a man’s jacket."

Well that clarified whether or not she realized he’d been watching. John shrugged, said, "I thought I’d ask instead. Seems more polite."

"He’s here," she lied. "Why?"

"No reason. Just thought I might take him up on some of those lies well told if he’s around."

Her eyes narrowed. For just a moment, he thought she might turn and leave, but she didn’t, asking instead, "Mind if I ask why you’re watching us? What, exactly, is it you’re looking to see?"

He was prepared for the question. He’d been as diligent as he could be in keeping his surveillance low-key, but it was flat as shit in this part of the country and watching from a conceal wasn’t always one of the options available. Assuming they might have noticed him at one time or another, he had a contingency plan in place in case one or the other of them - in case she or it, he reminded himself - decided to call him on the carpet, challenge what he was doing and why he was doing it.

"Don’t mind at all, Ellen," he said. "You can always ask."

She waited. He didn’t clarify.

"Very coy, John," she said finally. Then, after a three-beat for effect, she added, "I’m not a big fan of coy. I prefer my men to stand up, be men."

He let the insult pass because it didn’t serve him to engage it. But because he didn’t want to escalate her antagonism either, he didn’t leave her challenge unanswered. "Not watching you so much as watching your place," he said, his tone laced with casual indifference he was pretty sure she wouldn’t buy. "You have an interesting clientele. A few of them more interesting than others."

It wasn’t the truth, of course. He wasn’t in the business of telling the truth any more than he was in the business of answering questions she didn’t actually ask. If he gave her an answer and she didn’t challenge it, push for something more, there was no reason to offer something she didn’t demand as duly owed. Knowledge was power, and even when you were as good a liar as John Winchester was, answering questions held the potential to tell people things they didn’t already know, if not by what you said, then by what you didn’t say.

"We know most of the faces around here," Ellen said. "Except yours, of course."

He smiled in appreciation of how directly that called him out without actually calling him out. "I suppose I can’t object to you viewing it that way," he said.

She seemed to make a decision then, asking, "Mind if I sit?" as she pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.

"Be my guest," he said only after she was already seated.

"So here’s the deal," she said. "I don’t like games. Not playing them, and not being played by them. So I’m going to lay my cards on the table here, and hope you’re man enough to follow suit."

John smiled a one-cornered smile. It served him to respond this time, so he did, letting his tone warn her off pushing too hard on ground he wasn’t likely to cede without shedding a little blood first. "Not a big fan of insults, Ellen. That’s twice you’ve called me something less than a man. Might want to give it a little thought before you go for three."

"Not trying to insult you," she lied. "I’m just trying to figure out the lay of the land. You come with an extensive reputation … extensive enough Bill pretty much assumes whatever you’re doing, it must be on the up-and-up. But I have to be honest with you, John: You’re making me a little nervous. Bill’s an easy-going guy. You have to really work to get under his skin, really put your mind to it to make him anything other than glad to see you and sad to see you go. But me? I’m a little harder to get along with, for the most part. I’m a little more prone to taking offense, a little more willing to wonder what in the hell you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, reputation be damned."

John took a sip of coffee as he listened to her talk. It was strong and black as she’d promised; but it was also good. Fresh in a way that indicated she might have put it on when she first saw him walk through the door rather than serving him something that had been brewing on a hotplate for half a day, untouched by customers more inclined to alcohol than caffeine. That surprised him some. He’d expected it to taste like shit, maybe a little worse.

"You seem like the friendly type to me," he said when she finished. Then, just to acknowledge a small gesture not made to be acknowledged, he said, "Good coffee. Appreciate you brewing it up fresh rather than pouring me from the dregs."

"That’s not an answer," she said.

He smiled at her, took another drink before putting the mug back on the table between them. "Never really heard a question. Did I miss something?"

"What are you doing here?" she asked directly. "What are you hunting, and why does it feel like us?"

He responded to her demand by being coy. "Maybe I’m not hunting. Maybe I’m on vacation."

She snorted her opinion, both of his answer and his choice of how to answer. "You don’t want to answer, then tell me you don’t want to answer," she said. "But don’t play me like you think I’m a fool."

"I don’t think you’re a fool, Ellen," John returned calmly.

"Then what are you doing here? What are you hunting?"

He considered that, impressed she’d ask him a second time when he’d so clearly refused to answer her the first. She was giving him a second chance to play it another way, to answer her this time, or at least not insult her in how he chose not to answer. He reciprocated by saying, "I’m not going to answer that. My business, not yours." Then, after a beat, he added, "But if you want to talk about this Hole in the Wall Gang thing Bill mentioned, I’m all ears."

"So … I give, you take? That’s the relationship you’re looking to establish?"

He studied her in the yellow bar light. It wasn’t a flattering light for a woman. It made most look old, harsh, worn. All it made Ellen look was strong, like someone capable of taking him out if he played his cards inelegantly or without giving her the consideration she was due. The way her emotions played hide-and-seek in her expressions was deceptive. She looked like she was giving away much more than she was, and she knew how to use that impression to her advantage.

John’s game was chess. There were few who could match him; he hadn’t yet met the man who could beat him. Just as clearly, Ellen’s game was poker. She played her cards so close to the vest it was virtually impossible to tell what she was holding, as compared to what she wanted you to think she was holding.

"Actually," he said after several seconds, "it seemed a little one sided the other way to me. Not to be critical, but it felt a bit like you were dictating terms, laying down the law of what I would tell you and what you wouldn’t offer in return."

"So all you’re looking for is a little reciprocation? A little tit for tat?"

That sounded like a fair assessment, which made him seriously doubt it was. He suspected there was a trap in there somewhere, so he stepped lightly with his response, conceding, "I’m willing to give a little to get a little. I’m just not much for giving someone I don’t know from Adam’s hind ox the low-down on my business: what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, how I plan to go about doing it. That’s really not my style."

"What is your style?" she asked.

He smiled a little. "A lot of ass, a little bit of fair play. And there are those who would argue the fair play part of that assessment."

"Then what are you here for? Shady Rest said you never dropped by, but wherever you landed, I’m relatively sure they have coffee. So unless you’ve got a schoolboy crush on me, I’m not really sure why you came back."

"I came back for the same reason most of these other people are here, I suspect," he lied. "Just looking for a warm spot in the chill, a bright spot in the dark."

"We make our own warm around here," she said. "Make our own bright, too. So if you’re looking to share in that, you might considering actually opening an account before you start looking to make a withdrawal."

His coffee was going cold. He kept drinking it anyway. "So how long have you and your husband been married?" He asked it more to throw her off balance than because he expected her to answer.

"Long enough I don’t date other men," she said. "And his name is Bill, in case you were a little unclear on that."

"I’m not unclear on much," John said. "Unless I choose to be unclear, of course." Then, because he felt he’d made his point about what he owed to whom before he asked whatever fucking question he wanted to ask, he went ahead and put a card down as an opening bid, saying, "So Bill, huh? William Anthony, to his accountant, or so I’m told."

"I’m his accountant," Ellen said.

"Not something I didn’t already know."

She leaned into the space between them. "So, John," upping his bid like she was preparing to chat about the weather, "You have kids?"

"I do," he agreed. "But we’re not going to talk about them."

"Is that what you mean by giving a little to get a little?"

He considered that. "So … I talk about my kids, and you’re going to reciprocate by telling me everything there is to tell about pretty little Joanna Beth?" He said it the way he did deliberately, choosing his words to warn her off the subject she was pursuing.

Ellen didn’t take warnings very well.

"Seems to me you already know a fair amount about Jo," she said. "Meanwhile, you haven’t even told me Sam and Dean’s names yet."

John tried not to react, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded. It wasn’t that he was surprised she knew the basics about his life. His sons’ birth certificates were both a matter of public record, so if she and the thing she was married to knew enough about him to have his name and Lawrence, it couldn’t be more than a five minute stroll to a sketchy profile of the boys; not only their names and ages, but also their mother’s name, and what happened to her and when, if not how.

But even expecting her to have that information, it still hit him hard to have her play it the way she did. Made him tense up with a sudden flush of anxiety, flicked his mind off his game and put it to a back-scan of everything he’d done, or failed to do, over the years to keep his boys under the radar, off the grid proper to the end of hiding them in plain sight.

It wasn’t that hard to get lost in America if that’s what you were looking to do. The trick to it was remembering that the common man can’t buy attention, for the most part; while the man skulking about in the shadows draws the free and focused attention of every law enforcement agency in the book, not to mention most of the neighborhood watch groups and enough vigilant citizens to run the risk of getting gunned down on a public street with an AK-47 to cries of self defense and media recitations of every violent crime in recent memory.

"Point’s a bit moot, isn’t it?" he asked after several seconds of silence. "I’m assuming my dossier came with the basics: age, height, weight, marital status, kids, how I take my coffee, how far I can be pushed before I start pushing back."

"Thought I’d ask anyway," she said. "Seems like the polite thing to do."

He took another drink of coffee, stalling. Nice, tidy, little package she’d tied him up in. Using his own words against him didn’t leave much moral ground to stand on, which was no doubt her point. Short of admitting there were two sets of rules - the ones that applied to him and the ones that applied to everyone else - she’d not given him a whole lot choice but to tell her what she wanted to know. And not because she didn’t already know whatever he might say. Odds were better than even she did. But cornering him into granting details about his personal life - especially the more vulnerable aspects of that life - was tantamount to finessing him into ceding the high ground, giving her the advantage of a broader perspective on the whole of him than he normally cared to share.

Than he normally would consider sharing, even under the most dire circumstances.

"I have two," he said finally, giving her only what he was sure she already knew. "Boys."

"Teenagers, right?" she prompted.

"Fourteen and ten." He made a quick decision, offering her a few irrelevancies she wouldn’t have just to see if it would back her off pursuing details that might not be so irrelevant. "Younger one likes to read, ask questions, piss me off. Older one takes a little more after his old man, prone to kicking ass first and asking questions later, favors classic rock, has a natural flair for making things run, both mechanical and otherwise."

Ellen seemed a little surprised by his choice. She tried to read his thinking in his eyes, but he kept it under wraps, giving her no more than she was giving him. Which was to say nothing. In spite of that, she relaxed a little, backed off pushing his buttons to offer "Jo’s fond of coloring, but she likes to ask questions, too; has a natural flair for pissing me off and for wrapping Bill around her little finger. I suppose that’s to be expected though … daughters and their daddies."

John nodded. "Her offering the definition of mercurial struck a familiar chord," he admitted. "And my Sam has the same reaction to being called Sammy as she does to being called Joanna Beth. When they were younger, I took it as a given Dean would be the one to require a tight reign, but Sam makes it his mission in life to prove me wrong on that count. He’s not much for social misbehavior, but he’s hell on wheels when it comes to pushing every button I’ve got for no better reason than he knows where it is and how to push it."

Ellen laughed at that. "Sounds like Jo and Sam might get along," she said.

"Or fight like cats and dogs," John agreed. He’d offered as much personal context as he intended to, but even knowing what he’d told her was nothing more than a strategic concession to buy a foothold without compromising anything that might be used against him at some later date, he found it a little difficult not to share more with her, found it hard to resist telling her a few of the more creative things Sammy did to twist him to the same kind of irk he’d watched Jo twist Ellen to by presuming to call her on the use of profanity.

"Like as not, they’d be friends," Ellen allowed. "Jo likes boys. And boys seem to like her, though not for the reasons she’d prefer, I suspect."

John grinned, looked down at the flawless dark of what remained in his coffee cup. "Dean’s going to be trouble on that front," he said. "Boy’s got a natural eye that’s going to buy him more parental ire than he knows what to do with once he grows into the confidence to follow through on his instincts."

"Fourteen-year-old who’s short on confidence?" Ellen gave him a skeptical look. "I find that a little hard to believe. Most fourteen-year-olds I know think they own the world."

"He’s an interesting mix," John said, still staring into the coffee. "Early damage left him a little more hollowed out than he tends to show. Always looking to fill that spot, but not willing to fill it with something less than what’s missing."

Hearing his own words even as he said them, John realized how far over the line he was in saying things he ought not be saying. This was exactly the sort of thing that could compromise a kid. Damn fool who gave a stranger the keys to his son by telling them the boy’s weaknesses, letting them in on what he needed and how he looked to find it. John cleared his throat a little, looked up again, met Ellen’s eyes. "But even so, he’s a real player in the making. Couple more years, he’ll be leaving a trail in his wake. Not even that, if he keeps going at the rate he’s going."

The re-adjustment wasn’t something she bought on even the most basic level. But she seemed to understand why he’d say it, why he’d play his own boy as a bit of an alley cat, make his fourteen-year-old out to be a morally compromised kid whose only interest in a girl was the quickest way to get between her legs, then play that characterization of him as if it was something a father could be proud of raising.

As the mother of a young girl, what he’d said should have amped the defensive set of her posture. Instead, as a woman capable of hearing what a man said on a deeper level than whatever words he used to say it, the wariness in her spine softened. She smiled a little, nodded like she understood what he was saying. "So what is it you’d like to know about the Hole in the Wall Gang?" she asked. "Other than that Bill’s the only one who refers to us that way."

John’s glance flicked around the room. "I suppose I wouldn’t mind finding out how I’m so damned well known somewhere I’m not aware of being known at all."

She smiled at him the way a woman smiles at a man who doesn’t understand why she finds him attractive. "You tend to make a splash when you touch down," she said as if explaining the obvious. "Things like that don’t go unnoticed."

"Things like what?"

"Oh, I don’t know … the shtriga in Wisconsin, maybe? Or the lycans in South Dakota? Or how about the raichos in Pennsylvania? That one got a lot of attention, raichos being an endangered species and all."

He snorted quietly. "Wasn’t the raichos who were endangered when I ran into them. Although I will admit I might have taken a few dozen over my limit by the time the season ran its course." He rolled one shoulder with the memory. "They did their fair share of fighting back, though. One, in particular, took quite a fancy to me, thought I’d make a tasty midnight snack for the kiddies. I disabused his black-hearted ass of that notion, but not before he’d taken me on the red-eye to a height that damned near busted my leg when I convinced him he should drop me."

But even as he spoke, his mind was clicking through a hundred thoughts, trying out a hundred different scenarios and discarding them, one by one. "So … I take it my resume’s posted on a bulletin board somewhere?" he ventured finally. "John Winchester’s Greatest Hits, and a few stupid moves that damned near got him killed?"

This time, she studied him. "Word gets around," she allowed.

"Around … the boys room? My number on a wall somewhere? And if it is, does it say nice things about me? Or at least impressive things?"

"You telling me you don’t know there are others out there doing the same thing you do?" she asked.

He hesitated, allowed, "I know of a few."

"Bobby Singer," she said. "Daniel Elkins. Some preacher in Minnesota, if I’m not mistaken."

That one, he didn’t expect. It blindsided him out of left field, and he wasn’t at all successful hiding his reaction. His blood pressure spiked high enough to give him an instant headache; he actually heard his jaw snap shut, his teeth clamping together so hard he knew it had to have jumped every muscle in his face. He could hear how defensive he sounded when he demanded, "So … they’re all part of your little gang, too?"

The substrate of resentment and anger just below the eggshell-thin skin of bare civility might have intimidated someone else, but it didn’t seem to bother Ellen at all.

"Not really," she said, her tone casual, easy, informative. "Bobby’s been known to show up on occasion, but he floats in and out on his own schedule. Never been much for maintaining ties, that one. And he’s not a big fan of social venues either has always been my assumption. More of a middle-of-nowhere kind of guy. Danny Elkins, on the other hand, used to drink here on a regular basis; but he’s lost the taste for the company of anything he can’t behead at the end of the conversation these days. And your preacher friend?" She shrugged. "He’s a little like you; known in the circles, but not sure he knows about us. You and he served in the military together, didn’t you?"

John actually flinched at that. Resentment flared to something much deeper, something much darker. To keep from responding in a way he wouldn’t have thought through thoroughly enough before he said it, John stood, pulled out his wallet and flicked a five to the table between them.

"Sorry," she said. "I suppose that’s one of those things it would have been more polite to ask about rather than coming right out with it like that, huh?"

He brushed past her, headed for the door.

"Leaving so soon?" she asked, turning as she stood.

"Stay out of my business," he told her. "And keep it clearly in mind that fucking with Jim will get you killed." His voice was low, as much of a threat as he’d ever made to anyone he didn’t already intend to kill. He didn’t miss the protective glances his quiet growl drew, he simply ignored them, holding her eyes, making sure she understood how serious he was about this, how much he meant exactly what he said.

She frowned a little, looked like maybe she’d pushed him a little farther than she’d intended to. "I wasn’t threatening your friend," she said.

"Good choice," he said. "Because the man has God on his side. But trust me, that isn’t who you’ll need to worry about if you fuck with him." He glanced around the sudden hush of the tavern, making sure the rest of them knew he wasn’t talking just to her. "That goes for all of you," he added, his voice still quiet, still deadly. "To a man, if I have to. And anybody you’ve ever cared about."

He left them thinking about that, slipping out the door and heading for the Impala, barely aware of the bite of the night’s sharp chill against skin so flush with anger it was tingling against his bones. He was half way across the parking lot before Ellen stepped outside the Roadhouse to watch his progress from the boardwalk.

He had the Impala’s door open and was ready to drop inside when she stopped him by calling, "For someone who plays hardball the way you do, you’re kind of a pansy-ass bitch about getting as good as you give." He met her eyes across the top of the car and the distance between them. She was standing with both arms wrapped around herself against the cold. "To tell you the truth," she added after a beat. "I expected more."

"Sorry to disappoint," he said.

She shrugged a little. "Didn’t say I was disappointed. Just said I expected more."

"Expect whatever you want," he returned. "But once you put Jim in play, we’re done talking."

She smiled a little, said, "Yeah. I kind of got that. If I’d’ve known bringing him up would put your panties in such a twist, I probably wouldn’t have played that card quite the way I did."

"Thought you were the one who didn’t like games."

She shrugged. "I might have exaggerated a little. More like I don’t like being played. And I was feeling a little played at that point in time."

"And now?" he asked.

"Feels a little more fair, I suppose. Like the playing field’s been leveled a bit."

"I’m not a very good sport when it comes to playing fair," John informed her coldly.

"So I’ve heard."

"Good for you." He resumed his interrupted intention to leave.

"Also heard you like to stack the deck pretty heavily in your favor," she added, stopping him again. "I don’t play against a stacked deck, Winchester. Fair game or no game in my place."

"What makes you think I have any interest in your game at all?"

She gave him a small smile. "You’re still here. That’s a pretty good start." He looked out into the darkness, studied it, considered it. "What have you got to lose?" she asked when he didn’t respond.

"What have I got to gain?" he countered.

She shrugged again. "I don’t know … maybe a bit of information? Maybe a greater understanding of something you’re only beginning to see? Maybe a few friends if you’re lucky … and if you aren’t too much of a poor sport, or a - what is it Bobby calls you? - arrogant, know-it-all, loud-mouth blowhard?"

John chuckled in spite of himself. "That sounds like Bobby," he acknowledged.

"I think he meant it as a compliment. At the very least, he said it with affection, if not actual admiration."

"What about Jim?" John asked. "What does Jim say about me?"

"I suspect you already know as much, but just to put your mind at ease: your preacher friend isn’t part of our network. He’s just someone who moves around enough pieces on the board to show up our radar now and again. Much the same way you do."

"Then how did you know we served together?"

"I’m a good guesser."

"Not good enough."

She cocked her head to one side. "Good enough to set your ass on fire," she pointed out.

He tried not to smile at that but wasn’t entirely successful. "I mean I’d need more than just ‘it was a good guess’ before I’d be willing to set it aside."

"Ah. Okay. Not really all that complicated. I’d heard he was a Marine; I know you were one, too. Seemed like a two plus two thing."

"A lot of men were Marines."

"I would probably assume you served with all of them, too," she said.

"Bullshit."

She chuckled. "Not much for letting someone avoid telling you the obvious, are you, John?"

"And what would the obvious be?"

"You gave it up."

"Bullshit," he said again.

This time, she actually laughed. "Not to burst your bubble there, but you did give it up. Mentioning Bobby and Elkins was like poking you with a stick, but I thought your eyes were going to pop out of your head when Murphy’s name came up. Knowing enough about you and Bobby to use that as a benchmark, you responding to just the barest of implications Murphy might know something he hadn’t told you about told me exactly how close the two of you are; that you go way back, and that your bond is much more than just simple friendship."

"It never occurred to me Jim knew about you and didn’t mention it," John said.

"Yeah," she said. "I kind of got that, too, from the way you took what I said as a threat against him. Everything I’ve ever heard about you is pretty much predicated on the notion that you wouldn’t trust your own mother even if she came with an iron-clad, money back guarantee."

"Getting your money back doesn’t help much if you’re dead," he observed.

"But you trust Jim Murphy," she said. "And you showed me that."

"Jim’s a good man," John said.

"I got something more along the lines of brother. And since you don’t have a brother, and both of you served overseas in the Marines … like I said, two plus two."

John considered that for several seconds. "Not sure I can afford to sit across a poker table from you," he said finally. "Sounds like my game face tells you more than it’s supposed to."

"I’m a waitress in a roadhouse. If I wasn’t good at reading men, I wouldn’t get much in the line of tips now, would I?"

He closed the Impala’s door, leaned on the roof, watched her until she prompted, "Kind of cold out here. You coming back in or are we going to stand out here and just stare at each other for a while longer?"

He walked across the parking lot slowly this time, joining her on the front stoop with a causal, "I suppose I can stick around for a while. Play a couple of hands out, see if the company suits me."

She laughed. "Damn white of you there, John."

"I think I warned you about the whole ‘not playing well with others’ thing, didn’t I? And if I didn’t, sounds like Bobby covered the bases well enough for you to be clear on the buyer beware aspects of dealing with me."

She shook her head, grinning. "You men. You’re all alike. Think you’re so damn tough, such insular little islands sitting out in the wild oceans of strong and silent. Well news for you, John Winchester: I specialize in greasing strong and silent to drunk and chatty. Consider that fair warning made of the buyer beware aspects of dealing with me."

He smiled at her, letting the tension in his shoulders slide down his spine, a little; letting it ease up from the constant vigilance he’d maintained for so long now he hardly remembered what it was like to be without it. "I’ll consider myself duly warned," he agreed. "Now how ’bout that drink you offered?"

"Jack and Jack?" she asked.

"Considering the company I’m keeping, I think maybe I’ll just stick with coffee," he said.

*
On to Part 3