w. earp (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} owndamnweapon) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} chances_rpg,@ 2025-05-21 11:42:00 |
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| Entry tags: | supernatural: dean winchester, wynonna earp: wynonna earp |
Dean hadn’t been here for very long but he was already getting twitchy. Literally, his hands wouldn’t stop twitching. It’d been happening every now and again since he’d gotten out of Hell, which was already a ride he hadn’t really come down from yet before getting pulled into this place. Honestly Dean was starting to get pretty tired of getting yanked around.
His first day in New San Francisco had been spent mostly trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Didn’t exactly get very far since nobody else seemed to know much of anything. Those he’d come across when he’d arrived initially turned out to just be people in glorified monkey suits, which go figure. If you wanted useful information, never start with an official badge. They often knew less than you did. Dean had eventually given up, but he wasn’t going to say no to a free laptop and a place to stay either. Sure, he was wary as all get out, but what was the saying? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth? And at the very least, it still wasn’t Hell.
Yeah, he’d been a little worried about that at first. That maybe somehow he’d finally snapped down there and this was all just one giant coping mechanism, starting with hallucinating crawling out of the ground and ending up here. Or maybe that weird guy in the trench coat had something to do with this. What was his name? Castiel? He was actually the last thing Dean clearly remembered before this place, now that he thought about it. That son of a bitch. Guy calls himself an Angel of the Lord and he was just supposed to, what, believe that?
This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.”
No shit. Some holy tax accountant shows up saying God has work for him to do and he’s just supposed to have faith in that? Please. This wasn’t his first rodeo. But after spending an entire day trying to find anything he could using the search bar and coming up frustratingly short, all Dean really wanted was a drink. Several drinks. And maybe some good conversation.
Finding himself at a bar on his second day here and waiting on company, Dean had settled into a booth near the back with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. His already had a little whiskey in it, just to get rid of the tremors. Seemed to be the only thing that worked.
Dean had come to this place from Hell, whereas Wynonna – well, at the very least, it felt like a version of Hell. Despite having actually been there herself, too. She hadn’t allowed herself the chance to grieve; she couldn’t. That would mean he was actually gone and that she’d accepted it, right? And if there was one thing Wynonna Earp was incredibly good at when it came to heartbreak and grief, it was denial.
Still, that didn’t stop her chest from aching like her sternum could crack open any minute while she went through the motions of making sure she was actually decent before leaving the apartment. The very stark, bare apartment that didn’t feel like home at all. What was home now, anyway? She hitched up her pants and adjusted the baggy, low cut tank top she was wearing under her leather jacket, because at least some things had to stay the same. And she didn’t exactly have a wide array of wardrobe options on hand.
Wynonna made her way to the bar, more like thirty minutes instead of the twenty she’d suggested, and against her very nature, snuck in quietly to look around for the new guy. She spotted him toward the back and made her way over, not accounting for just how fucking good looking he would be in person. Well. Shit. Old habits die hard, sometimes.
“All that whiskey just for us, handsome?” she quipped with a grin as she slid into the booth, shrugging out of her jacket and promptly pouring herself a glass of bad decisions.
Dean had been preoccupied with thoughts he’d honestly just as soon not be preoccupied with at all, so the sudden interruption by a female voice was welcome. He immediately schooled his expression into something that was a little more typical for meeting an attractive woman in a bar, not that she’d know the difference. They didn’t know each other, so she had no reason to assume he wasn’t exactly in the usual head space that came with being in a place like this.
“Unless you wanted to open it up to the floor, but I figure we could start with just the two of us,” he responded with a lazy sort of smile, not making his attempt at looking her over anything approaching subtle. Hell or not, subtle had never been his style.
He hadn’t bothered to take off his own jacket, mostly because he’d been running a little colder ever since he’d gotten out. The old leather of his was a familiar scent that he’d latched onto soon after his escape, otherwise unable to immediately get the sights and smells of Hell out of his head. And sulfur wasn’t exactly the kind of smell you forgot anytime soon. He wasn’t going to complain about the view he got when she took hers off, though. Dean thought to himself idly that she was one of the prettier hunters he’d ever seen. And not just because most of the hunters he knew looked like Bobby.
Raising his own glass to take in another drink, he gave her a considering look while he let the whiskey burn its way down his throat. Damn he’d missed that. “So what’s your deal?”
If Wynonna had been a peacock, she would’ve preened at the way his eyes raked over her. As it was, she gave a half-smug sort of smile as she set the bottle back down to take healthy swig of the drink she’d just poured. If she was about to get into the nitty gritty of the bullshit that was her own life, she’d need to at least catch up to whatever he’d already drunk waiting for her to arrive.
“I’m not even sure where to start with that,” she remarked, topping off her glass and settling back into the booth seat, which included at least one boot pressing against the seat next to him as she sank down. “I guess the tl;dr is… family curse?” Not really a conversation starter she tended to lead with, but they were meeting here under no false pretenses of who and what they were, as far as she could tell. “Goes back some generations, thanks to dear old grandpappy Wyatt. Er, well, great-great-you get the idea. Anyways, killing demons is an Earp family tradition at this point.”
Family curse? Dean could relate. Maybe she meant it a little bit differently than he did, but he was pretty sure there was some kind of curse on his family at this point. Dead mom. Dead dad. Killed by the same damn demon that gave his kid brother Sam some freaky psychic abilities that almost got him killed too. Actually did get him killed, but Dean hadn’t let him stay dead for long. That was how he’d ended up on the fast track to Hell. Definitely cursed.
Dean was getting pretty sick of demons messing with his family, but there wasn’t much you could do about it when your family’s main business was hunting.
“You could say it’s a Winchester family tradition too,” Dean acknowledged with a tip of his glass in her direction before taking a drink. He’d met plenty of hunters who understood the job, but not too many who’d experienced the kinds of things his family had. It was a little bit different when it was always personal.
Topping off his own glass before settling back into his seat, Dean leaned back a little to stretch his legs out under the table. “What kind of curse? Witches? Spirits? Just plain old demonic?”
“Demonic brought on by a witch, mostly. Something about cursing all the people killed by Wyatt’s hand to a life of eternal damnation by way of becoming demons and resurrecting every time the Earp heir kicked the bucket. Fucked up cycle where all of us got screwed by her and her asshole husband.”
Wynonna scowled a little and took another swig of her drink, letting the taste linger on her tongue for a moment before swallowing it down. “Her asshole husband who, in my universe, just so happened to be like… the OG demon. Snake in The Garden of Eden and who knows what else. He was a dick, too.” For a moment, she craned her neck enough for him to see the small puncture scars where she’d been bitten once.
“Anyways, I kicked his ass and ended the curse, and blah blah blah. Still have demons and other weird shit out there that I was sort of hunting before I landed here. What about you? What’s your story?”
“Damn that’s a bitch.” Seriously, Dean hated witches. They were always screwing shit up for them with their freaky little hex bags and annoyingly inconvenient curses. It sounded like her family had really gotten the shit end of the stick on that one, which yeah, he could relate to in a smaller way. Not so much an ongoing generational curse as it was his parents getting caught up in a mess that he and Sam ended up having to clean up.
Her sudden movement catching his attention, his eyes flickered to her neck and the small puncture wound that had scarred over with a raise of his brow. He had some pretty weird scars he could probably show her and this wasn’t exactly a family place but the amount of clothes he’d have to take off would probably still get him slapped with a public indecency fine.
“Good for you,” he smirked around the rim of his glass before taking another drink, as much because he wanted one as it was a stalling tactic. What was his story? Not something he usually got into when he was having a casual drink with someone, at least not the real story anyway. But she was a hunter who had her own family history with demons so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to actually say something true. What did it matter in this place? Nobody seemed to know who Dean Winchester was here. Except for a girl named Kitty who looked like she could be Jo’s twin, but that was still a whole bag of weird he wasn’t totally ready to deal with. “My story? Oh, you know… Both parents gone. Killed by a demon. Same one that got my younger brother killed trying to use him in his crazy demon army. Made a deal with a different demon to bring him back and got a one way ticket to Hell for it. Or at least it was supposed to be one way.”
‘Bitch’ was definitely putting it lightly as far as she was concerned, but she’d take it, agreeing quietly with a nod of her head and another sip of her whiskey. Everything involving Clootie was history at this point, she’d moved on and actually lived a little since then, even if it wasn’t enough in the end.
The second he mentioned his parents being killed by demons, Wynonna nodded again and held up her glass in a sort of toast. It was, unfortunately, something she could relate too well to. “I hate to say it, but we seem to have things in common where these dickwads are concerned. Demons took my oldest sister and I accidentally shot my daddy in the back trying to save her.” The words tumbled out before she could think to keep that part in, but… well, he seemed like someone she could be open with where this crap was concerned.
“Thought Willa was dead for the longest time, but no. She is now, but that’s a whole shit show of its own. Waverly’s my baby sister, if you see her around on the network. Can’t say I blame you for making that deal. I’d do the same for her if it came down to it. Kind of have in our own fucked up way.”
Wynonna bit back a sigh and held her glass toward him, waiting for him to clink. “Cheers for all that B.S. and somehow still making it out alive. Were you still in Hell when you wound up here or had you managed to drag yourself out?”
In a weird way, it felt pretty good to say some of that out loud to someone who really got it without you having to explain yourself to the other person. Even some hunters would raise their eyebrows at a thing or two he’d just said. Making deals with demons was generally frowned on, even if it meant saving family. That seemed to be what separated the Winchesters from the rest. When it came to family, they’d always put that first. Even his old man had done it in the end.
But it also pretty much sucked that they could relate this closely to some of the things he’d just unloaded. “Yeah, seems that way,” Dean responded a little more seriously, his expression sobering slightly before he hid that behind another drink that he took right after tipping his own glass to clink with hers. “Sorry that happened. But we do what we gotta do for family, right?”
Her question about Hell made him pause, just for a second, immediately bringing back some sensory memories that were still barely in the past for him. The stale air of a pine wood box was weirdly hard to forget. Also the sound of fist meeting wood over and over until it finally gave way. The smell of dirt all around him and sudden, blinding sunlight after decades of nothing but Hell’s oppressive lack of it. Dean’s hand tightened around his glass reflexively before he answered, his knuckles still bearing the marks of someone who’d literally had to dig himself out of his own grave. “I’d been out for about a day. Maybe more. Hard to say, I was still getting used to how time works up top again. Had just about enough to find my brother before I ended up here.”
“Family always comes first,” she agreed, more quietly than she had been speaking. Because family did come first – Waverly, Nicole, Doc, her little girl. Protecting them and keeping them safe, no matter the cost. Even if that cost was her life. Except it hadn’t been her life in the end, had it? That thought had her mirroring his action after their glasses clinked, taking a hefty swig from her own glass and nearly draining it.
Wynonna wasn’t exactly the more observant person, nor was she the most tactful. But reading his body language in response to her question had her almost immediately regretting asking, because that look on his face felt too close to home. Asking that had thrown him back to the moment, hadn’t it?
His verbal response more than confirmed that. “Ah, fuck,” she muttered, reaching for the bottle again to top off both their glasses. “Um. Sorry for asking, that was kind of a dick move on my part. You just– kind of seem to be handling it better than I think most people would. But I guess that’s something that comes with the territory of our lives, huh?”
Her movements mirrored his in a way that was a little too familiar to him. Dean recognized the signs of someone who buried their feelings in other things when shit got a little too real. He should know, he did it too. Usually it was people or booze. Sometimes it was both. But definitely always booze. Which right now was keeping him pretty level despite the sudden near visceral memories of Hell brought up. The company was currently helping a little bit too, he’d admit.
Dean realized too late that anything he’d been thinking about was probably showing on his face, which was confirmed by her reaction. Shit. He wasn’t usually the guy who let his guard down but in his defense, he had been a little off his game ever since he’d gotten here. Even before that. Being in Hell had done a number on him, he knew that, but he was pretty used to burying what he needed to in order to get the job done. It’s what he’d done as soon as he got out. The only thing that mattered was finding Bobby and Sam. And he’d found them. Job done. Now what?
“Eh it’s okay.” Dean nodded his thanks for the refill before taking another drink, setting it down as he lifted his free hand to scratch absently at the back of his neck. The half-smile he cracked didn’t fully reach his eyes. “Comes with the territory, yeah. When your whole life’s been some flavor of an ongoing horror show, guess it’s easier to compartmentalize. Even going to Hell.”
In true Winchester fashion, he was also an expert at deflecting. “... Anyway, that’s my sob story. Other than that, just trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing here. You?”
“Yeah, I know that feeling all too well,” she admitted with a huff, taking another drink from her glass and setting it down in front of her. Most of the time she was able to swallow it down, keep her emotions in check or channel them in some other way – also usually booze (check) or sex (working on it). She’d been doing better about the drinking for the most part, but grief spirals had a tendency to really fuck her up, and she’d been deep in the middle of once ever since arriving.
Wynonna’s shoulders lifted and dropped in an almost too casual shrug. “I mean, I think most of the folks around here frown upon the whole demon killing thing, so that’s a no go. And it’s been a while since I’ve had any sort of real, non-supernatural related job and it’s not like putting bullets in their heads actually pays well.”
She smirked and then glanced up to him again. “Last regular gig I had was at a strip club, so I guess I could always go back to getting naked on stage. Money’s pretty decent, drinks are usually on the house, and it’s a good way for me to get laid on the reg, so it’s got its perks.”
“Yeah what’s that about? It’s like nobody even respects the profession anymore.” Dean had figured out pretty damn quick that there was a hell of a supernatural community here that was just living out in the open worry free. A werewolf, some kind of devil, an actual ghost? That was maybe the craziest part, he’d never come across a ghost that was in any way corporeal. Or hadn’t been driven insane by choosing not to move on. Was it rude to ask if the guy hadn’t felt the need to? Dean was a little too curious about how that even worked here.
This place was a circus and having to go against every single one of his instincts wasn’t easy. Hunting was all he knew, all he’d known his entire life. But he also wasn’t about to start hunting supernaturals here without a cause, and so far, they hadn’t given him any. So he was just sitting back and waiting for one of them to give him a reason, basically. She had a point, though. Even when he had jobs to do it’s not like him and Sam were ever making the big bucks.
That’s what credit card fraud was for.
At the mention of her last regular gig, it took him by surprise enough that he choked a little on the next sip. Having to take a moment to swallow the rest of it before coughing, Dean laughed as he looked back up at her. “Well, hell. I’m sure there’s a place somewhere around here you could work. I mean if you wanted to go back to that. Bet you were all kinds of great at it.”
What the hell was he even saying? Although in his defense, it had been awhile. Pre-Hell, awhile. Even Dean had to sometimes find his mojo again.
“I don’t think our profession is as common in other universes as it is ours. Hell, I don’t even know of any other real demon hunters in my world. I’m the crazy chick with a gun that sends them on their merry way. Well– I had a gun that did that, anyways.” Sacrifices had to be made to keep her daughter safe and letting go of Peacemaker was one of the bigger ones.
Making him choke on his drink had been a little unexpected, but it made her grin all the same, both eyebrows raising in surprise. “My perfect hair and top shelf ass could definitely get noticed,” she remarked, before leaning in over part of the table toward him, a mischievous look on her face. “I mean, you seemed to notice. Maybe you could come and see me, y’know, if you wanted to. Might even give you a lapdance on the house in one of those private rooms where no one can see us.”
“You got me there.” Yeah, so he’d checked her out when she’d first walked in. So sue him. He might not be totally on top of his game right now, but he still had eyes in the front of his head that worked well enough. She was definitely attractive. And a hunter, which meant that she understood the life. Which also meant she probably wasn’t the type that got all bent out of shape when he didn’t call her in the morning. Which yeah was a little messed up, but hey, so was he. He could own that. “But something tells me you don’t have any trouble getting noticed.”
Her invitation hung in the air like this tangible thing between them. Not that he thought she was actually inviting him to a strip club right now, that was still a bit hypothetical. But her body language was crystal clear in the way she leaned on the table, and Dean found himself grinning in the face of that mischievous look just out of habit. Hard not to when a pretty girl was in the picture, even if his mind was only half on her while the other half was still caught somewhere between this place and Hell. Not on top of his game was an understatement, considering the old Dean Winchester probably would have already been asking the bartender to close out the tab. Not that he wasn’t tempted. He couldn’t say what exactly was holding him back right now.
“Hey let me ask you something.” Dean folded his hands together on the table in front of him to lean in a little too, looking for all like they were having some kind of hushed conversation they didn’t want anybody else to hear. Honestly he didn’t really care who heard what he was saying right now. “If you could go back and choose something else. Anything else other than what we do. Would you?”
If she wanted to be noticed, it was usually easy enough given what she had a tendency to wear when out to a bar. Leather pants and crop tops were a staple in her wardrobe, keen on accentuating the silhouette of her figure at any given time. Wynonna was hot and she knew she was hot, and that worked to her advantage most of the time.
Wynonna’s grin widened a little when he leaned across the table, closing the distance between them a bit more and for half a second wondering if they were about to take the bottle of whiskey to go. Except his question wasn’t at all what she’d expected to happen and the brief falter in the way she looked at him gave that away. But it was fine– it was also a question she wasn’t entirely sure how to answer.
“Well, the thing that sucks is I didn’t really have a choice, but I guess if I did…”
She was kind of stumped. Because even without the whole demon hunting curse thing, her life was on a trajectory of just sucking in a lot of ways. “I dunno, man. Own a bar, maybe? That feels like a lame answer, but there’s not a lot to do in Purgatory other than drink.”
“No lame answers here. Besides, people always need a good bar.” As evident by the fact that they were currently in one, and both probably needing it to escape a little for different reasons. She hadn’t said as much, not really, but Dean sort of assumed. She had a similar look that he’d seen on himself in the mirror lately. The kind of look that said a person was maybe running from something. A lot of hunters had that look, so there was no saying it was anything other than the usual hazards of the job. Or if it was more and she just wasn’t saying it, it wasn’t his business.
He understood her, though, on another level. For different reasons, but he hadn’t had much of a choice either. Not since old Yellow Eyes had come uninvited to his house and into their lives when he was still just a kid. Not since his dad had spent his and Sam’s entire childhood dragging them on hunting trips so that they were never in one place for long enough to do anything else except pass through it. Dean had made his peace with it. But the nature of how he was raised did mean he had a hard time picturing doing anything else when hunting was all he knew. Wynonna understood that, which hey, that pretty much sucked. But at least he wasn’t alone in that feeling. “And the crazy thing is a part of me thinks I’d still end up here anyway.”
Didn’t even think he’d be any good at running a bar, just drinking in one. Damn if he didn’t miss the Roadhouse right now. And Ellen, Jo and Ash. That place had already been reduced to rubble since long before he’d been sent to Hell, and Ash with it.
Taking a longer pull from his glass, Dean gave her a considering look. “You got anywhere to be after this?”
“If I ain’t runnin’ a bar in another universe, I’m definitely getting shit faced in one. That’s par for the course or whatever, though. Jack Daniels and Johnnie Walker are my best friends, never steered me wrong.” Which wasn’t necessarily true – Wynonna had made plenty of really god-awful decisions while drunk on whiskey over the years, which usually involved some dick and his dick by the end of the night.
Wynonna tipped her glass back and downed the contents of it without much fuss, an old pro at draining her drinks, especially when certain feelings were getting a little too close to the surface.
The fact that she felt like she could probably spill everything to this guy and have someone really understand freaked her out, because try as the people closest to her might, they could never really get what it meant to be the heir. Dean, though? He could. She eyed him for a moment, brows pinched just slightly before she gave a half-shrug in response, along with an all too casual smirk.
“Nowhere in particular. Why? Got somethin’ in mind?”
“Jack and Johnnie are pretty good, I’ll give you that. No substitute for a good Glenn single malt, but otherwise I’m not picky. Me and Jameson go way back too.” He’d honestly gotten most of his drinking habits from his dad, which maybe wasn’t great, but not like he could do anything about it now. Or would. “But you know what I’m always in the mood for? A purple nurple.”
Flashing her a grin, Dean followed suit and drained his own glass. He wasn’t exactly in a hurry, he just liked drinking. Maybe a little too much, but the eldest Winchester wasn’t really one for that sort of introspection. That’s what Sammy had always been good for, but Sammy wasn’t here and it was just Dean, casually feeling sorry for himself at the bottom of a bottle.
It was nice to talk to someone who got it, at least. Like really got it. He’d known plenty of hunters in his time, but hardly any of them shared the same kind of experiences he’d had. Or the same kind of loyalty. Most of them wouldn’t understand why he’d done what he did for Sam, even Bobby hardly understood it and he sure as hell would have tried to stop Dean if he could have, but Dean immediately knew he didn’t need to explain himself to Wynonna.
“Well we did agree on two bottles,” Dean allowed with a casual tilt of his head, like he’d only just remembered their first conversation. Admittedly not his best line, but it was a safe suggestion, being that they were both here to drink. Another bottle and some less heavy conversation seemed in order. “What do you say we crack that open and see where it takes us?”
His first day in New San Francisco had been spent mostly trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Didn’t exactly get very far since nobody else seemed to know much of anything. Those he’d come across when he’d arrived initially turned out to just be people in glorified monkey suits, which go figure. If you wanted useful information, never start with an official badge. They often knew less than you did. Dean had eventually given up, but he wasn’t going to say no to a free laptop and a place to stay either. Sure, he was wary as all get out, but what was the saying? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth? And at the very least, it still wasn’t Hell.
Yeah, he’d been a little worried about that at first. That maybe somehow he’d finally snapped down there and this was all just one giant coping mechanism, starting with hallucinating crawling out of the ground and ending up here. Or maybe that weird guy in the trench coat had something to do with this. What was his name? Castiel? He was actually the last thing Dean clearly remembered before this place, now that he thought about it. That son of a bitch. Guy calls himself an Angel of the Lord and he was just supposed to, what, believe that?
This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.”
No shit. Some holy tax accountant shows up saying God has work for him to do and he’s just supposed to have faith in that? Please. This wasn’t his first rodeo. But after spending an entire day trying to find anything he could using the search bar and coming up frustratingly short, all Dean really wanted was a drink. Several drinks. And maybe some good conversation.
Finding himself at a bar on his second day here and waiting on company, Dean had settled into a booth near the back with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. His already had a little whiskey in it, just to get rid of the tremors. Seemed to be the only thing that worked.
Dean had come to this place from Hell, whereas Wynonna – well, at the very least, it felt like a version of Hell. Despite having actually been there herself, too. She hadn’t allowed herself the chance to grieve; she couldn’t. That would mean he was actually gone and that she’d accepted it, right? And if there was one thing Wynonna Earp was incredibly good at when it came to heartbreak and grief, it was denial.
Still, that didn’t stop her chest from aching like her sternum could crack open any minute while she went through the motions of making sure she was actually decent before leaving the apartment. The very stark, bare apartment that didn’t feel like home at all. What was home now, anyway? She hitched up her pants and adjusted the baggy, low cut tank top she was wearing under her leather jacket, because at least some things had to stay the same. And she didn’t exactly have a wide array of wardrobe options on hand.
Wynonna made her way to the bar, more like thirty minutes instead of the twenty she’d suggested, and against her very nature, snuck in quietly to look around for the new guy. She spotted him toward the back and made her way over, not accounting for just how fucking good looking he would be in person. Well. Shit. Old habits die hard, sometimes.
“All that whiskey just for us, handsome?” she quipped with a grin as she slid into the booth, shrugging out of her jacket and promptly pouring herself a glass of bad decisions.
Dean had been preoccupied with thoughts he’d honestly just as soon not be preoccupied with at all, so the sudden interruption by a female voice was welcome. He immediately schooled his expression into something that was a little more typical for meeting an attractive woman in a bar, not that she’d know the difference. They didn’t know each other, so she had no reason to assume he wasn’t exactly in the usual head space that came with being in a place like this.
“Unless you wanted to open it up to the floor, but I figure we could start with just the two of us,” he responded with a lazy sort of smile, not making his attempt at looking her over anything approaching subtle. Hell or not, subtle had never been his style.
He hadn’t bothered to take off his own jacket, mostly because he’d been running a little colder ever since he’d gotten out. The old leather of his was a familiar scent that he’d latched onto soon after his escape, otherwise unable to immediately get the sights and smells of Hell out of his head. And sulfur wasn’t exactly the kind of smell you forgot anytime soon. He wasn’t going to complain about the view he got when she took hers off, though. Dean thought to himself idly that she was one of the prettier hunters he’d ever seen. And not just because most of the hunters he knew looked like Bobby.
Raising his own glass to take in another drink, he gave her a considering look while he let the whiskey burn its way down his throat. Damn he’d missed that. “So what’s your deal?”
If Wynonna had been a peacock, she would’ve preened at the way his eyes raked over her. As it was, she gave a half-smug sort of smile as she set the bottle back down to take healthy swig of the drink she’d just poured. If she was about to get into the nitty gritty of the bullshit that was her own life, she’d need to at least catch up to whatever he’d already drunk waiting for her to arrive.
“I’m not even sure where to start with that,” she remarked, topping off her glass and settling back into the booth seat, which included at least one boot pressing against the seat next to him as she sank down. “I guess the tl;dr is… family curse?” Not really a conversation starter she tended to lead with, but they were meeting here under no false pretenses of who and what they were, as far as she could tell. “Goes back some generations, thanks to dear old grandpappy Wyatt. Er, well, great-great-you get the idea. Anyways, killing demons is an Earp family tradition at this point.”
Family curse? Dean could relate. Maybe she meant it a little bit differently than he did, but he was pretty sure there was some kind of curse on his family at this point. Dead mom. Dead dad. Killed by the same damn demon that gave his kid brother Sam some freaky psychic abilities that almost got him killed too. Actually did get him killed, but Dean hadn’t let him stay dead for long. That was how he’d ended up on the fast track to Hell. Definitely cursed.
Dean was getting pretty sick of demons messing with his family, but there wasn’t much you could do about it when your family’s main business was hunting.
“You could say it’s a Winchester family tradition too,” Dean acknowledged with a tip of his glass in her direction before taking a drink. He’d met plenty of hunters who understood the job, but not too many who’d experienced the kinds of things his family had. It was a little bit different when it was always personal.
Topping off his own glass before settling back into his seat, Dean leaned back a little to stretch his legs out under the table. “What kind of curse? Witches? Spirits? Just plain old demonic?”
“Demonic brought on by a witch, mostly. Something about cursing all the people killed by Wyatt’s hand to a life of eternal damnation by way of becoming demons and resurrecting every time the Earp heir kicked the bucket. Fucked up cycle where all of us got screwed by her and her asshole husband.”
Wynonna scowled a little and took another swig of her drink, letting the taste linger on her tongue for a moment before swallowing it down. “Her asshole husband who, in my universe, just so happened to be like… the OG demon. Snake in The Garden of Eden and who knows what else. He was a dick, too.” For a moment, she craned her neck enough for him to see the small puncture scars where she’d been bitten once.
“Anyways, I kicked his ass and ended the curse, and blah blah blah. Still have demons and other weird shit out there that I was sort of hunting before I landed here. What about you? What’s your story?”
“Damn that’s a bitch.” Seriously, Dean hated witches. They were always screwing shit up for them with their freaky little hex bags and annoyingly inconvenient curses. It sounded like her family had really gotten the shit end of the stick on that one, which yeah, he could relate to in a smaller way. Not so much an ongoing generational curse as it was his parents getting caught up in a mess that he and Sam ended up having to clean up.
Her sudden movement catching his attention, his eyes flickered to her neck and the small puncture wound that had scarred over with a raise of his brow. He had some pretty weird scars he could probably show her and this wasn’t exactly a family place but the amount of clothes he’d have to take off would probably still get him slapped with a public indecency fine.
“Good for you,” he smirked around the rim of his glass before taking another drink, as much because he wanted one as it was a stalling tactic. What was his story? Not something he usually got into when he was having a casual drink with someone, at least not the real story anyway. But she was a hunter who had her own family history with demons so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to actually say something true. What did it matter in this place? Nobody seemed to know who Dean Winchester was here. Except for a girl named Kitty who looked like she could be Jo’s twin, but that was still a whole bag of weird he wasn’t totally ready to deal with. “My story? Oh, you know… Both parents gone. Killed by a demon. Same one that got my younger brother killed trying to use him in his crazy demon army. Made a deal with a different demon to bring him back and got a one way ticket to Hell for it. Or at least it was supposed to be one way.”
‘Bitch’ was definitely putting it lightly as far as she was concerned, but she’d take it, agreeing quietly with a nod of her head and another sip of her whiskey. Everything involving Clootie was history at this point, she’d moved on and actually lived a little since then, even if it wasn’t enough in the end.
The second he mentioned his parents being killed by demons, Wynonna nodded again and held up her glass in a sort of toast. It was, unfortunately, something she could relate too well to. “I hate to say it, but we seem to have things in common where these dickwads are concerned. Demons took my oldest sister and I accidentally shot my daddy in the back trying to save her.” The words tumbled out before she could think to keep that part in, but… well, he seemed like someone she could be open with where this crap was concerned.
“Thought Willa was dead for the longest time, but no. She is now, but that’s a whole shit show of its own. Waverly’s my baby sister, if you see her around on the network. Can’t say I blame you for making that deal. I’d do the same for her if it came down to it. Kind of have in our own fucked up way.”
Wynonna bit back a sigh and held her glass toward him, waiting for him to clink. “Cheers for all that B.S. and somehow still making it out alive. Were you still in Hell when you wound up here or had you managed to drag yourself out?”
In a weird way, it felt pretty good to say some of that out loud to someone who really got it without you having to explain yourself to the other person. Even some hunters would raise their eyebrows at a thing or two he’d just said. Making deals with demons was generally frowned on, even if it meant saving family. That seemed to be what separated the Winchesters from the rest. When it came to family, they’d always put that first. Even his old man had done it in the end.
But it also pretty much sucked that they could relate this closely to some of the things he’d just unloaded. “Yeah, seems that way,” Dean responded a little more seriously, his expression sobering slightly before he hid that behind another drink that he took right after tipping his own glass to clink with hers. “Sorry that happened. But we do what we gotta do for family, right?”
Her question about Hell made him pause, just for a second, immediately bringing back some sensory memories that were still barely in the past for him. The stale air of a pine wood box was weirdly hard to forget. Also the sound of fist meeting wood over and over until it finally gave way. The smell of dirt all around him and sudden, blinding sunlight after decades of nothing but Hell’s oppressive lack of it. Dean’s hand tightened around his glass reflexively before he answered, his knuckles still bearing the marks of someone who’d literally had to dig himself out of his own grave. “I’d been out for about a day. Maybe more. Hard to say, I was still getting used to how time works up top again. Had just about enough to find my brother before I ended up here.”
“Family always comes first,” she agreed, more quietly than she had been speaking. Because family did come first – Waverly, Nicole, Doc, her little girl. Protecting them and keeping them safe, no matter the cost. Even if that cost was her life. Except it hadn’t been her life in the end, had it? That thought had her mirroring his action after their glasses clinked, taking a hefty swig from her own glass and nearly draining it.
Wynonna wasn’t exactly the more observant person, nor was she the most tactful. But reading his body language in response to her question had her almost immediately regretting asking, because that look on his face felt too close to home. Asking that had thrown him back to the moment, hadn’t it?
His verbal response more than confirmed that. “Ah, fuck,” she muttered, reaching for the bottle again to top off both their glasses. “Um. Sorry for asking, that was kind of a dick move on my part. You just– kind of seem to be handling it better than I think most people would. But I guess that’s something that comes with the territory of our lives, huh?”
Her movements mirrored his in a way that was a little too familiar to him. Dean recognized the signs of someone who buried their feelings in other things when shit got a little too real. He should know, he did it too. Usually it was people or booze. Sometimes it was both. But definitely always booze. Which right now was keeping him pretty level despite the sudden near visceral memories of Hell brought up. The company was currently helping a little bit too, he’d admit.
Dean realized too late that anything he’d been thinking about was probably showing on his face, which was confirmed by her reaction. Shit. He wasn’t usually the guy who let his guard down but in his defense, he had been a little off his game ever since he’d gotten here. Even before that. Being in Hell had done a number on him, he knew that, but he was pretty used to burying what he needed to in order to get the job done. It’s what he’d done as soon as he got out. The only thing that mattered was finding Bobby and Sam. And he’d found them. Job done. Now what?
“Eh it’s okay.” Dean nodded his thanks for the refill before taking another drink, setting it down as he lifted his free hand to scratch absently at the back of his neck. The half-smile he cracked didn’t fully reach his eyes. “Comes with the territory, yeah. When your whole life’s been some flavor of an ongoing horror show, guess it’s easier to compartmentalize. Even going to Hell.”
In true Winchester fashion, he was also an expert at deflecting. “... Anyway, that’s my sob story. Other than that, just trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing here. You?”
“Yeah, I know that feeling all too well,” she admitted with a huff, taking another drink from her glass and setting it down in front of her. Most of the time she was able to swallow it down, keep her emotions in check or channel them in some other way – also usually booze (check) or sex (working on it). She’d been doing better about the drinking for the most part, but grief spirals had a tendency to really fuck her up, and she’d been deep in the middle of once ever since arriving.
Wynonna’s shoulders lifted and dropped in an almost too casual shrug. “I mean, I think most of the folks around here frown upon the whole demon killing thing, so that’s a no go. And it’s been a while since I’ve had any sort of real, non-supernatural related job and it’s not like putting bullets in their heads actually pays well.”
She smirked and then glanced up to him again. “Last regular gig I had was at a strip club, so I guess I could always go back to getting naked on stage. Money’s pretty decent, drinks are usually on the house, and it’s a good way for me to get laid on the reg, so it’s got its perks.”
“Yeah what’s that about? It’s like nobody even respects the profession anymore.” Dean had figured out pretty damn quick that there was a hell of a supernatural community here that was just living out in the open worry free. A werewolf, some kind of devil, an actual ghost? That was maybe the craziest part, he’d never come across a ghost that was in any way corporeal. Or hadn’t been driven insane by choosing not to move on. Was it rude to ask if the guy hadn’t felt the need to? Dean was a little too curious about how that even worked here.
This place was a circus and having to go against every single one of his instincts wasn’t easy. Hunting was all he knew, all he’d known his entire life. But he also wasn’t about to start hunting supernaturals here without a cause, and so far, they hadn’t given him any. So he was just sitting back and waiting for one of them to give him a reason, basically. She had a point, though. Even when he had jobs to do it’s not like him and Sam were ever making the big bucks.
That’s what credit card fraud was for.
At the mention of her last regular gig, it took him by surprise enough that he choked a little on the next sip. Having to take a moment to swallow the rest of it before coughing, Dean laughed as he looked back up at her. “Well, hell. I’m sure there’s a place somewhere around here you could work. I mean if you wanted to go back to that. Bet you were all kinds of great at it.”
What the hell was he even saying? Although in his defense, it had been awhile. Pre-Hell, awhile. Even Dean had to sometimes find his mojo again.
“I don’t think our profession is as common in other universes as it is ours. Hell, I don’t even know of any other real demon hunters in my world. I’m the crazy chick with a gun that sends them on their merry way. Well– I had a gun that did that, anyways.” Sacrifices had to be made to keep her daughter safe and letting go of Peacemaker was one of the bigger ones.
Making him choke on his drink had been a little unexpected, but it made her grin all the same, both eyebrows raising in surprise. “My perfect hair and top shelf ass could definitely get noticed,” she remarked, before leaning in over part of the table toward him, a mischievous look on her face. “I mean, you seemed to notice. Maybe you could come and see me, y’know, if you wanted to. Might even give you a lapdance on the house in one of those private rooms where no one can see us.”
“You got me there.” Yeah, so he’d checked her out when she’d first walked in. So sue him. He might not be totally on top of his game right now, but he still had eyes in the front of his head that worked well enough. She was definitely attractive. And a hunter, which meant that she understood the life. Which also meant she probably wasn’t the type that got all bent out of shape when he didn’t call her in the morning. Which yeah was a little messed up, but hey, so was he. He could own that. “But something tells me you don’t have any trouble getting noticed.”
Her invitation hung in the air like this tangible thing between them. Not that he thought she was actually inviting him to a strip club right now, that was still a bit hypothetical. But her body language was crystal clear in the way she leaned on the table, and Dean found himself grinning in the face of that mischievous look just out of habit. Hard not to when a pretty girl was in the picture, even if his mind was only half on her while the other half was still caught somewhere between this place and Hell. Not on top of his game was an understatement, considering the old Dean Winchester probably would have already been asking the bartender to close out the tab. Not that he wasn’t tempted. He couldn’t say what exactly was holding him back right now.
“Hey let me ask you something.” Dean folded his hands together on the table in front of him to lean in a little too, looking for all like they were having some kind of hushed conversation they didn’t want anybody else to hear. Honestly he didn’t really care who heard what he was saying right now. “If you could go back and choose something else. Anything else other than what we do. Would you?”
If she wanted to be noticed, it was usually easy enough given what she had a tendency to wear when out to a bar. Leather pants and crop tops were a staple in her wardrobe, keen on accentuating the silhouette of her figure at any given time. Wynonna was hot and she knew she was hot, and that worked to her advantage most of the time.
Wynonna’s grin widened a little when he leaned across the table, closing the distance between them a bit more and for half a second wondering if they were about to take the bottle of whiskey to go. Except his question wasn’t at all what she’d expected to happen and the brief falter in the way she looked at him gave that away. But it was fine– it was also a question she wasn’t entirely sure how to answer.
“Well, the thing that sucks is I didn’t really have a choice, but I guess if I did…”
She was kind of stumped. Because even without the whole demon hunting curse thing, her life was on a trajectory of just sucking in a lot of ways. “I dunno, man. Own a bar, maybe? That feels like a lame answer, but there’s not a lot to do in Purgatory other than drink.”
“No lame answers here. Besides, people always need a good bar.” As evident by the fact that they were currently in one, and both probably needing it to escape a little for different reasons. She hadn’t said as much, not really, but Dean sort of assumed. She had a similar look that he’d seen on himself in the mirror lately. The kind of look that said a person was maybe running from something. A lot of hunters had that look, so there was no saying it was anything other than the usual hazards of the job. Or if it was more and she just wasn’t saying it, it wasn’t his business.
He understood her, though, on another level. For different reasons, but he hadn’t had much of a choice either. Not since old Yellow Eyes had come uninvited to his house and into their lives when he was still just a kid. Not since his dad had spent his and Sam’s entire childhood dragging them on hunting trips so that they were never in one place for long enough to do anything else except pass through it. Dean had made his peace with it. But the nature of how he was raised did mean he had a hard time picturing doing anything else when hunting was all he knew. Wynonna understood that, which hey, that pretty much sucked. But at least he wasn’t alone in that feeling. “And the crazy thing is a part of me thinks I’d still end up here anyway.”
Didn’t even think he’d be any good at running a bar, just drinking in one. Damn if he didn’t miss the Roadhouse right now. And Ellen, Jo and Ash. That place had already been reduced to rubble since long before he’d been sent to Hell, and Ash with it.
Taking a longer pull from his glass, Dean gave her a considering look. “You got anywhere to be after this?”
“If I ain’t runnin’ a bar in another universe, I’m definitely getting shit faced in one. That’s par for the course or whatever, though. Jack Daniels and Johnnie Walker are my best friends, never steered me wrong.” Which wasn’t necessarily true – Wynonna had made plenty of really god-awful decisions while drunk on whiskey over the years, which usually involved some dick and his dick by the end of the night.
Wynonna tipped her glass back and downed the contents of it without much fuss, an old pro at draining her drinks, especially when certain feelings were getting a little too close to the surface.
The fact that she felt like she could probably spill everything to this guy and have someone really understand freaked her out, because try as the people closest to her might, they could never really get what it meant to be the heir. Dean, though? He could. She eyed him for a moment, brows pinched just slightly before she gave a half-shrug in response, along with an all too casual smirk.
“Nowhere in particular. Why? Got somethin’ in mind?”
“Jack and Johnnie are pretty good, I’ll give you that. No substitute for a good Glenn single malt, but otherwise I’m not picky. Me and Jameson go way back too.” He’d honestly gotten most of his drinking habits from his dad, which maybe wasn’t great, but not like he could do anything about it now. Or would. “But you know what I’m always in the mood for? A purple nurple.”
Flashing her a grin, Dean followed suit and drained his own glass. He wasn’t exactly in a hurry, he just liked drinking. Maybe a little too much, but the eldest Winchester wasn’t really one for that sort of introspection. That’s what Sammy had always been good for, but Sammy wasn’t here and it was just Dean, casually feeling sorry for himself at the bottom of a bottle.
It was nice to talk to someone who got it, at least. Like really got it. He’d known plenty of hunters in his time, but hardly any of them shared the same kind of experiences he’d had. Or the same kind of loyalty. Most of them wouldn’t understand why he’d done what he did for Sam, even Bobby hardly understood it and he sure as hell would have tried to stop Dean if he could have, but Dean immediately knew he didn’t need to explain himself to Wynonna.
“Well we did agree on two bottles,” Dean allowed with a casual tilt of his head, like he’d only just remembered their first conversation. Admittedly not his best line, but it was a safe suggestion, being that they were both here to drink. Another bottle and some less heavy conversation seemed in order. “What do you say we crack that open and see where it takes us?”