It made no sense. Why did he keep coming back to this place, a place he absolutely hated?
Maybe he was just drawn to that obnoxious sign, like a bug's drawn to a light. That damn sign. That sign that seemed to be screaming "ROADHOUSE!" at him and then beating him over the head a couple of times just so that it was sure he knew without a doubt where he was, what he was getting himself into. Maybe those red letters were more of a warning than anything else. Stay away from the ROADHOUSE! But Dean simply could not stay away, despite the fact that he hated the place. Actually, hate wasn't even a strong enough word. He loathed, abhorred, despised the Roadhouse, and yet, here he was, sitting on a bar stool, his hand wrapped tightly around a cheap bottle of beer.
This really wasn't very different from other bars he and Sammy frequented. It shared the same seedy feel, the same questionable regulars, the same cheap décor you'd expect to find in a place like this. In fact, Dean had been in hundreds of places almost just like this. But the damned Roadhouse was still somehow unique.
Dean knew that this was all about his dad. That was all anything was about nowadays. Ellen had said that Dad had stopped by this place pretty often, and Jo had even said something to the effect of Dad saying this place was like… home. That word… that thought always seemed to make something shift around in his stomach. When he'd heard Jo voice the statement for the first time, he's had the urge to shake her until she toke it back, convinced that she was lying. But he hadn't touched her and that night he had laid awake, wondering if his father had been at the damned Roadhouse having a grand old time while he had sat next to Sammy's bed, gun in hand, prepared to kill anything that tried to hurt his brother. Wondering if while he had been giving up his Lucky Charms, his free time, his childhood, Dad had been laughing with Ellen and Jo, proclaiming that he felt as if he were… home… when he was with them. These thoughts had caused a bright flash of rage, directed for a moment at his dad. His dad, of all people. Dean immediately had felt guilty… more guilty than usual. God, he didn't want to think of it right now. He'd rather think of anything else. Anything other than why he was still alive and Dad was gone. He stole a glance over at Sam. Well, almost anything. Dean would just settle on the fact that there was something about this place that intrigued his father, and he was going to find out what it was, no matter how many times he had to be assailed by that damn "ROADHOUSE" sign.
Since this place was so similar to so many other bars Dean had been in, many times accompanied by his dad, he decided that it couldn't be the building. It had to be the people inside of it. Dad had seen something in them, and Dean was going to find out what it was if it killed him. And it just might. Seriously.
Dean focused his steely gaze first on the person in the group he found the least grating… Ash. He could have acknowledged the guy didn't mean any harm and perhaps even be amused by him if it weren't for Sammy. Sam seemed to idolize the hick, and it bugged the hell out of Dean. First off, there was just something about Ash that Dean found offensive. Maybe it was the mullet. Maybe it was the computer… that piece of shit looked worse than Dean's baby had after she'd been hit by the semi. Maybe it was the fact that Ash was getting laid while Dean and Sam were putting their asses on the line looking for the Demon. But in all likelihood it was the mullet. That was one unholy terror that needed to just die. It was tempting to get Ash piss-ass drunk and shave his head, but it seemed as if Ellen was always watching. To placate himself, Dean found great joy in tugging on the back of Sam's hair and commenting that he didn't know mullet was contagious.
In all honesty, though, Ash wasn't the problem. Sam's dependence on him was. Since when did the Winchester boys need anybody else's help? They had discovered that they were just fine hunting without Dad, even. They needed no one. Sammy always had all of the answers. Dean gave "College Boy" hell for it, but Sam was smart, dammit, and Dean depended on his brother's brains. It had always been the two of them verses the world and all of the stuff that nightmares were made of. Now Sam didn't trust his own brain anymore, didn't trust himself. It was almost as if he was worried that the whole Patricia Arquette deal was affecting his ability to reason things out. Answers that would have come instinctively to Sammy a few months ago were now being researched by Ash. Dean understood that Sam was scared. Hell, Dean could give Sammy something to be really scared of if he let out what Dad had told him. It was eating him up inside, just as violently and painfully as the guilt. But watching Sam lose confidence in himself wasn't helping matters. Enough had changed already, and Dean wasn't a big fan of change. Especially not change of this size. It wasn't Ash's fault that Sam was acting different, but Dean couldn't stay mad at Sam any longer than he could at Dad. Therefore, Ash had to be to blame.
Dean was distracted by a flash of skank near the jukebox. Oh, Lord, if she tried to play another REO song, he was going to lose his beer on the counter Ellen had wiped down a few minutes ago. Jo. He didn't even know what to do about her anymore. Yes, she had a cute face and body. Dean even saw glimpses of her been an actual normal person when she talked to Sam. But, God, she was annoying the hell out of him. The original punch had impressed him, coming from such a tiny thing, but after that she had disintegrated into OC twit-land. Dean had seen grade school girls with crushes more subtle and mature than Jo was acting. Sure, Dean liked attention; he loved the feeling he got knowing that some girl believed she needed him. But Jo's desperate attempts were not a turn-on. Unless you consider a major pain in the ass to be a turn-on.
Sam was currently conducting an experiment of sorts, and his findings were amusing him to no end while they consistently became more and more grating on Dean's nerves. Sometimes, Sam would give Ellen a call before showing up at the Roadhouse. Other times, the Winchester boys would just turn up unannounced. When Mama and Daughter Hunter knew that the boys were coming, Jo would great them in outfits that had just enough cloth to keep her from getting reported for public indecency. When Jo had no idea that Dean was dropping by, she made far more sensible clothing choices… choices that would not incite a riot from drunk, lewd customers. She was ridiculous, pure and simple. He'd met plenty of other girls who were able to act like they were beyond their Sesame Street days. Since he had to deal with Jo so often now, he wished that she would just grow up like these other women had done. He was far more open to other methods of flirting, methods that didn't make him feel like he'd just sat through a marathon of the worst teenybopper shows of all time.
"Are you just gonna sit there starin' into space, or are you gonna to do something useful like Ash and Sam?"
Ellen. Dean stared at the woman, daring her to tack a "sweetie" at the end of the question, as she was doing so often with Sam now. As much as he was annoyed by the mullet and Jo, he hated Ellen. He hated how Sam had made them come to the Roadhouse so soon after Dad had died because he'd heard this woman's voice on Dad's phone. He hated how she insinuated that the Winchester boys owed her something: information, research, whatever. They owed nobody anything. He hated how attached Sam had become to her in only a few weeks, how he was looking at her as if she were a material figure. Ellen Hunter could not lick the bottom of Mary Winchester's white slippers. Sam might make a big show in Lawrence about missing their mom, but he hadn't known her and her lullabies and bedtime stories and extra chocolaty chocolate chip cookies. People assumed that Dean had stopped speaking after Mom had died out of grief. That was slightly right. But it was more out of a desperation to engrave every aspect of his mother into his head, her face, her voice, the sound of her laugh, so he could be sure that would never forget a single detail. His own voice got in the way, so he stayed silent until he'd cemented her into his memory. And now Ellen wanted to act as a mother figure to the boys with her "sweetie"s and "be careful"s? Dean snorted, almost viciously. She had nothing on Mary Winchester.
This was bad enough, but Mom had been dead for over twenty years. What Dean hated most of all was how Ellen acted as if Dad had meant something to her, like something had happened between them. It hadn't. Dean would stake his life on that. When Sam had asked once if Dad and Ellen… Dean didn't even want to finish the thought. Sam had just been a baby. He had never seen how crazy Dad had been about Mom. He'd never seen what their father had really been like, the bear hugs, the impromptu bouquets for Mom just to let her know how much he loved her, the three of them cuddled on the couch to watch some Disney movie. Sam couldn't remember Dad's face on the night that the Demon had killed Mom. He was just a baby and could not possibly remember hearing their father sobbing in the night when he thought his boys were asleep. Of course Sam couldn't remember, but on November 2, 1983, four-year-old Dean had realized that both of his parents died. John Winchester was a different man, and everything he did after that night was for his family, for the protection of his boys but especially for his Mary. He never even looked at another woman ever again, and it wasn't as if women weren't looking at him. Dean had just watched as his dad ignored these women's advances and concentrated on hunting. Dad had died and been burned with his wedding band on his finger; there had been only one woman in his life, and it sure as hell was not Ellen.
Ellen was still waiting for an answer to her question. Luckily, she had the sense enough to refrain from "sweetie"ing him. Dean forced a smile to spread across his face. "I'm covering up this stool. Saving you from some dusting later." God, he hated this damned place.
Over in the other corner of the room, Sam looked up from the possessed cactus Ash was showing him on his computer. Dean was sitting at the bar, apparently joking around with Ellen. Sam sighed inwardly as he returned his gaze to the screen. He just wanted to leave, to hit the road and never look back at the Roadhouse. But, as much as he really disliked the place, he and Dean always found themselves driving back toward it. It was almost as if that obnoxious "ROADHOUSE" sign wouldn't let them escape. Sam sighed again. It made no sense at all.