Between Games - Justified/Supernatural Crossover
Title: Between Games
Prompt: John Winchester meets Ava Crowder
Fandoms: Supernatural and Justified
Word Count: 1,830
Rating: PG
No Warnings Needed.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to msninacat for her cheerleading. Many thanks to chemm80 and her awesome beta.
XXX
John steps into the dim bar from the glaring heat of the day. He’s not even sure if the place is air conditioned, but compared to the triple digits outside, it feels blessedly cool.
He tells himself to give Sammy a piece of his mind. The kid told him Kentucky was supposed to be “moderate” in the summer. Apparently no one gave that particular memo to Harlan.
John picks a spot in the corner; it gives him a view of the entrance and most of the bar. He settles in a chair that groans ominously under his weight but seems sturdy enough. The chair’s seat is worn three shades lighter than the rest of it. John figures if it held that many assess without falling apart, one more shouldn’t take it out.
The bar is pretty empty. There’s an older guy, whipcord thin with gray hair. John pegs him as a potential problem. The man reminds John of a hawk, narrow nose and gaunt body. He can’t see his eyes but he’d bet his bottom dollar they are as sharp as knives. He’s not a big man, but John learned years ago that size doesn’t mean a damn thing.
There’s a youngish kid with a baseball cap and greasy hair. John dismisses him without so much as a second glance.
The bartender is a young girl.
All he wants is a place to jot down some notes on his latest hunt, swallow a cold beer and wash down the stink of burned bones, but in his personal experience paying attention to potential players has often given him the edge.
John believes in personal experience.
He allows his gaze to travel to the bar. It’s not much different than any other bar in any other town. A little seedier than most, maybe, but seedy and John Winchester have met. It doesn’t mean the beer won’t be cold.
He glances at the honey-blonde-haired bartender. She’s as pretty as a picture. A little thing - a buck twenty if she weighs an ounce and probably the same age as Dean. John wonders if she’s even old enough to be in a bar, let alone laying down whiskey. Not that Dean is old enough to be in a bar either. That doesn’t mean the kid doesn’t try to get served every chance he gets.
John doesn’t much care if she’s breaking the law, and if he knows southern towns, and he does, he doubts very much if anyone else cares either. In terms of Dean? Well, the kid is at their rented house just outside of town with Sammy. John grins to himself. The boy has been in far too many bars for John to count. Hustling pool, running some scam or another. John knows, approves on some level but, there is a bit of old-fashioned dad in him who sometimes thinks he should draw some line in the sand. If he catches the boy in this bar or any other there will be hell to pay.
Catches being the operative word, John thinks wryly, because while Dean might hit a bar he isn’t likely to get caught.
The girl grabs a bar rag, wipes the bar efficiently and then heads toward his table. She moves slow and languid, hips rising and falling with an easy stride.
“Hey,” she says, as if that is an actual greeting. She’s managed to make that one syllable word two. “What can I getcha?” She drawls the words out slowly but it’s not gentile…this girl is no plantation southern belle and it shows in every nuance.
“Beer…whatever’s on tap.”
“Sure thing. Something to eat?”
She isn’t holding an ordering pad, but John has no doubt she will remember what he wants.
“Anything good?” he asks. With bar food, a recommendation from the lady serving it is better than any review you’ll get in a newspaper.
She smiles then, giving the simple question more attention than it deserves.
“Mostly it’s shit, but the barbeque is pretty good. Homemade slaw on the side.”
John mulls it over for a second.
“Ava,” says the gray haired man, “How about a refill?”
“You just wait, Arlo.” She shoots a quick glance at the older man over her shoulder.
“I got me a payin’ customer to serve.” She leans on the word paying. For some reason John doesn’t think it’s just because there will be actual money coming out of his wallet to pay for the bill.
“Payin’ or no, I doubt your daddy would like to hear of you treating me like that.” It doesn’t sound particularly mean but there is an edge to his voice that just solidifies John’s original thoughts on Arlo.
Ava turns to Arlo, “Just ‘cause Bowman’s my husband, don’t mean Bo Crowder’s my Daddy.” There is steel in her voice and if John were a gambling man, he’d not be too sure that if push came to shove Arlo would end up winning a battle with Ava.
Again John is struck with how damn young the kid probably is and why in the hell is she married to anyone? He immediately berates himself. Ava? She’s not his business any more than Arlo is. He just wants his damn beer.
“Maybe…maybe not.” Arlo’s voice is southern slow and he answers mildly enough, but John can hear the ice in his voice. Arlo makes no overt move toward Ava but John notices the subtle shift of a man who’s losing patience.
John gets the feeling Arlo isn’t a patient man in general.
“Barbeque it is, sweetheart.” John answers, suddenly not wanting to keep the girl from Arlo, paying or no. His original thoughts on the gray haired man were on the money.
Arlo is dangerous.
John isn’t terribly worried, but that doesn’t mean that he wants Ava to get in any more trouble than she already is. Apparently though, she could care less. She deliberately makes sure that she turns her back to Arlo, her honey hair tossed over her shoulder with the easy confidence of someone quite a bit older than she is.
“Did you want the slaw, Mister? Or fries maybe?” She lets her eyes lock on his. They are startling blue.
“Slaw is good,” John says and offers her a crooked grin.
She moves away then and damn if John doesn’t notice the round of her ass. She may be just a kid, he thinks, but she’s got curves in all the right places. She walks right past Arlo doesn’t even slow down near his table. It’s a blatant disrespect to the man and John wonders why she does it. Arlo may be a dick but she is a waitress. Then again, maybe she has more than a little reason to dislike Arlo.
Arlo scowls but doesn’t call her on it, just tips his glass, swirling the tiniest bit of amber liquid at the bottom.
John is thankful for the lack of drama, for whatever reason.
Once he’s satisfied that all is quiet, he pulls out his journal, reviews his latest entry and decides to update it with a quick picture. It’s easy enough to remember what the Rugaru looked like but his art leaves more than a little to be desired. He figures if it gets the point across to Sam or Dean well, he will take the hit on his lack of artistic ability.
There is a loud voice from a door off to the side of the bar. John swivels his head to see a young man, good-looking he supposes, dark hair and strongly built, the kind of kid who has spent years in working with his hands. The kid stagger-steps up to the bar, leans heavily there a moment. John has seen more than one drunk in his life, has even traveled that road himself now and again. It bothers him less then the dark glint in the kid’s eyes. That just naturally makes John want to take him down a peg or three.
“Godammit, Ava!” The man bellows and grabs Ava roughly by the arm.
“Get off of me, Bowman,” Ava wrenches away from the man. Bowman? Isn’t that the name of her husband?
Suddenly John does care about Ava Crowder. Because John Winchester may be a sonofabitch and an asshole to boot, but he doesn’t hurt girls. And he doesn’t like boys who think that hurting girls makes them men.
John is moving toward Bowman in a heartbeat but not before the man slaps Ava once hard. It drives her face wickedly to the left, a small trick of blood dripping from her split lip. She loses her footing and falls against the bar.
John catches the boy’s hand easily before he has a chance to slap her again. Bowman is a bully and his own version of mean but it’s not anything that John hasn’t met before. Oddly enough, it’s not Bowman he’s worried about; it’s Arlo he watches in his peripheral.
“How about you leave the lady be.” John isn’t asking a question and he punctuates the order with a less-than-gentle squeeze of the kid’s arm.
The boy sneers, “How ‘bout you keep outa shit you don’t know nothin’ about.”
“Oh, I know about this just fine.” John doesn’t allow the pressure against Bowman’s arm to waver; in fact he adds just a bit more and jerks Bowman’s arm up behind his back. The kid grunts once. The tactic is an old one but a good one and John’s driven a three-hundred-pound gorilla to his knees with just the right amount of torque.
The kid doesn’t fall though - just allows the grunt to trail off to a whimper.
John can see that Arlo hasn’t moved but the man tips his glass in John’s direction.
“Might not be a wise choice, boy.” Arlo mentions to John. It’s been a while since John’s thought of himself as a boy, but in deference to the fact that Arlo has at least twenty years on him, he lets it go.
John’s voice is rock steady. “Not much of a choice, in any case. So Arlo? Do you get off watchin’ girls get beat?”
Arlo grins slow. “Not really, but Ava can take care of herself.”
Then as if to prove the point, Ava stands up squarely, wipes the trickle of blood from her mouth. “It’s true, Mister. You can let Bowman go. He’s just a bit touchy. Ain’t that the truth, Arlo?”
“Sure ‘nuff.” the old man says.
John leans over to Bowman’s ear. He speaks quietly. “That girl better not have any more problems with you tonight, son.” John growls low, then he jerks his arm up hard. This time it almost does drop Bowman Crowder to his knees.
He steps away then drops a twenty on the bar and backs slowly out of the bar.
John’s had his fill of redneck bullshit. He decides he’ll pick up the boys and head to Pennsylvania. It will be worth the ten-hour drive and Sam’ s incessant whining to put Harlan in his rear view.
end