Disclaimer: I don't own them. It makes me sad
Dean had no idea when he walked into the Roadhouse that evening that his life was about to change. Not like that's surprising at all, most people have no clue at all that something monumental is about to happen to them. The average person doesn't just wake up in the morning knowing that the entire fabric of their reality would shift before they went to bed that night, it was all part of the marvellous uncertainty that was the Human condition. So when Dean Winchester-Singer ducked behind the bar and into the back stock room, the wet washcloth to the face was, if not entirely expected, certainly not an earthshaking revelation.
"Bitch!" Dean chirped, grinning widely was he flicked the cloth off his face and back in the direction from which it came, pouting slightly when the slight blonde girl dodged. Cackling victoriously, she plucked the cloth off the floor with her free hand and plopped it back onto the empty tray that was currently riding her hip.
"Gotta be faster than that, Deano. I learned from the best!" The man in question snorted and rolled his eyes.
"Who, you mean Sammy? Please, I taught that punk kid everything he knows. And since when's he the favourite brother, anyways?" Dean said, unable to stop himself from feeling the small rush of love and pride that thought's of Sam always brought out in him. His Sammy, all grown up and starting law school, pretty young fiancée at his side...
"Since he's not here to have an opinion. And it's stepbrother, jerkface." The blonde stuck her tongue out, squishing her face up into what Dean liked to refer to as her ''Diva-Brat" expression. She swept through the door, returning to the bar in time to serve one of the first customers of the evening. Dean followed, skulking against the doorway; arms crossed while his sister poured the drink and gave the man his change, keeping a subtle eye out in case he tried anything funny. When she was done, the young woman turned back around, noticing Dean's protective glare and rolling her eyes. "Seriously Dean, I can handle myself, I don't need the whole father bear routine every time we work a shift together."
"You're my sister, Joanna-Beth. It's my prerogative to be the hulking asshole in the corner." Dean said, shrugged and straightened as he did so.
"STEPbrother, Dean."
"You're the only one who cares about that Jo." Dean turned away then, grabbing a fresh damp cloth to rub idly at an old stain on the bar. Tuesday nights were usually slow, and this early in the evening there wasn't much to do yet. In the next twenty minutes or so the dinner crowd would start to straggle in, and Jo would hit the floor taking orders as Dean tended bar and Ash cooked up a storm back in the kitchen. Business as usual, really. Dean puttered for a few more minutes, pouring a couple drinks for the next set of customers through the door, before speaking to his sister again.
"Are the parents out for dinner then?"
"Have they done anything else since we took over Tuesday nights?" Jo's slow drawl dripped with sarcasm, and Dean couldn't blame her. Their parent's really hadn't done anything else with their Tuesdays since they both realized they were free to declare it date-night.
"Think they went out for the usual?"
"Again Dean, they're kinda stuck in their ways, yeah?" Dean knew that Jo was still at the age where her parents were considered somewhat old and boring, so he forgave her the obvious disdain. Truthfully, Dean had felt the same to until recently. Getting older had given him a bit of perspective, and if his foster parents spent every Tuesday night at the same restaurant making moo-cow eyes at each other like teenagers over their dinner plates, well, there was something to be said for growing older with someone and still being comfortably in love, right? Not like they hadn't earned it. To this day, Dean will never know what had possessed his father's oldest friend to adopt him and Sam after the car accident that killed their father, but Dean figured it must've been some serious divine intervention on his behalf. One minute he was a twelve year old boy staring down a parade of social workers clucking about the 'horrible tragedy of it all,' trying to reassure his kid brother that two dead parents didn't mean they were going to lose each other too, when Robert Singer has burst through office door like a flannel tornado, signing papers and barking orders. By night's end Dean and Sam were bundled into Bobby's truck and were making their way to Bobby's home in South Dakota.
Dean remembers the next few days passing in a blur of adjustment. Neither boy had seen Bobby for a few years by that point, nor had they met Bobby's new wife or stepdaughter either. But Ellen was warm and welcoming and Jo was as refreshingly charming and caustic as a six year old could be and somehow they all made it work. How Bobby and Ellen managed to hold their strange blended family together through the pitfalls of grief, sibling rivalry and the inevitable hotbed of teenage hormones Dean will never know, but he had nothing but love and respect for the people he had long-ago affectionately dubbed 'Mostly-Mom and Nearly-Dad.' And now, fifteen years later, the Winchester-Singer-Harvelle clan were still going strong.
Dean had been working on auto-pilot most of the evening, lost in thought, so he didn't notice the first time the belligerently drunk man palmed the shapely curve of his sister's rump. He missed it the second time too. The third time though brought Jo's agitated raised voice, and Dean looked up just in time to see the man lurch to his feet, flushed and cursing a blue streak right up in his little sister's face. Dean didn't even think before launching himself over the bar and forcing himself between his sister and the threat, crowding back into the other man's personal space, ignoring the stench of cheap whiskey on his breath.
"I suggest you leave, chucklehead. Cause you so much as look at her funny again, and I start breaking bones, you dig?" Dean's words were punctuated with a harsh shove to the man's shoulders, which caused the drunk to stumble back. In retrospect it probably wasn't the best move as it seemed to only enrage the man, who came charging back at Dean with all the ferocity of the desperately drunk and stupid. Momentarily caught off guard, Dean took a glancing blow to his shoulder. Behind him Jo squeaked in surprise before rapidly cutting through the gathering crowd towards the bar, likely going for the antique but fully-functional shotgun that was hung there, ostensibly for decoration.
Assured that his sister was out of proximity of the flying fists, Dean refocused on his opponent, ducking a wild haymaker then stepping right up into the other man's reach, immobilising one flailing arm with a tight grip, his free hand snaking up to the back of the drunk's head. A well placed trip and a quick pivot later and Dean was bending the off-kilter man at the waist, smashing his face into the nearest tabletop with the wet crunch of cartilage. The man tumbled to the floor, bloody and mostly insensible with booze and pain. If there was one thing John Winchester had taught his son before his untimely death, it was how to fight like a Marine. Around Dean the crowd fell into an uneasy silence, nervously shifting their attention from the eerily calm bartender to the moaning heap on the ground. When he spoke, Dean's voice carried to every ear in the unnatural stillness of the moment.
"I recommend that anybody associated with this jackoff should scrape his ass off my momma's hardwood and let him know in the morning that he's not welcome back, or else..." Dean never got to tell them what else, before he was interrupted by a fist to the back of the head. Cursing, Dean spun quickly even as a meaty thunk echoed loudly in the space where his erstwhile attacker had been standing. Letting his gaze dart to Jo behind the bar first to ensure her safety, it was easy to follow her wide-eyed stare back to the man standing behind him. Dean spent a second to take in his rescuer; from the dark messy hair to the cock-eyed blue tie, and overly-large trenchcoat over a rumpled suit. The blue blue blue eyes caught and held him for the briefest of times, before Dean realized that he was mooning over a man who was wielding a solid wood barstool with the same detached, straight-faced aplomb he'd probably displayed when holding his drink a few minutes ago. At his feet another dumb drunk groaned and tried feebly to roll over, clutching his midsection like he'd just been hit by a freight train instead of five founds of oak.
"Pardon my interruption, but I believe the bartender has the floor." The man's tone was dry as the Sahara, his voice the low low rumble of thunder on the horizon. The moment seemed to stretch out over the room, every eye riveted to the two men standing in the center of the bar.
Dean wasn't quite sure what he said next, but it must have been suitably threatening because the troublemakers were drug out shortly after by apologetic friends. Other customers drifted back to their tables, and Jo set about cleaning up the glass that had smashed during the altercation, but Dean only had eyes for the man who calmly set his barstool back down in its rightful spot, resuming the slow nursing of his beer like it was the only pragmatic action left to him. Dean moved behind the bar like he was underwater, swaying with a larger motion than he was used to. The strange current kept tugging his gaze over to the stiff figure at the end of the bar, meeting vibrant cerulean irises every single time.
While Dean didn't catch it when the man finally finished his drink and left, he mustn't have minded the attention because when Dean wandered over to clear the empty bottle, a name and number was scrawled in a neat spidery hand on the damp coaster. Dean laughed, a genuine smile making the corners of his eyes crinkle.
He'd be calling Castiel tomorrow, of that there was no doubt.