"Damn fangers!" Dean exclaimed, slamming his hand down onto the steering wheel. Sam fought the urge to sigh; he had heard this speech so often he could practically recite it word for word.
"I mean it's bad enough that the whole damn world knows about them now, but then this bitch comes along…" Dean gestured violently towards the radio, from which the smooth voice of Nan Flanagan could be heard advocating vampire rights as usual. Dean scoffed before continuing.
"I can't believe people actually fall for this crap! I wish I could stake the whole damn lot!" Finally reaching the end of his tether, Dean switched over to a cassette tape of some classic rock band. Sam rolled his eyes, but was thankful that Dean had at least cut it short tonight. He rolled down the window and leaned into the breeze, even the nights in Louisiana were baking hot at this time of year.
"I'm starving." Dean finally said after about an hour of no noise except Metallica playing moderately quietly.
"Well next place we come across we'll go get some food okay?" Sam said, relieved to have a chance to stretch his legs. He had grown out of the leg space in the Impala when he was sixteen, but he'd never told Dean. He knew how much he loved this car; he'd never get rid of it so it was useless to whine. Besides, he didn't want Dean to feel anymore guilty about the things he liked.
About ten minutes later they saw a sign for a little town named Bon Temps and it was only a few minutes after that before they swung into a make-shift parking lot outside a relatively decent looking bar. The neon sign on the roof shone the name Merlotte's into the night.
Sam jumped out of the car as quick as he could and shook the cramp out of his legs. It looked nice enough from the outside, despite the number of trucks in the lot suggesting a high population of rednecks. The light flooding out from the windows looked warm and friendly, and a gentle hum of music and chatter came drifting out of the door as it opened. A couple came walking out, their arms entwined around each other waists, giggling slightly.
Inside Sam was surprised to find that Merlotte's was maybe one of the nicest bars he'd been in, at least on a job anyway. It had an impressive number of booths and tables to their left and on the right there was a pool table, which Sam could see Dean eyeing. In front of the entrance was a long bar, where a man was sat at one of the many bar stools. It had an impressive array of spirits lining the wall behind it, and Sam noticed a display fridge with a number of bottles of Tru Blood. Everything was made of some form of wood, dark and spotlessly polished, which gave the place a sort of cozy glow.
They were greeted by a woman with dyed red hair and a very strong southern accent. Her name tag read 'Arlene'. She smiled warmly at them as she went through the routine of leading them to a booth, giving them their menus and listing off the specials. Sam could tell her smile was fake, and noticed the lines of stress across her forehead, yet it was a very good fake smile and he nodded along as he should.
Once they were sat down in a booth two down from the door, Dean immediately started scouring the menu for something to eat.
"Would you check this out Sammy?! They've got chicken fried steak! Chicken. And Steak. On one plate." Dean grinned. "I think I'm going to like it here Sammy."
Only Sam wasn't really listening. On the other side of the room, taking an order from another booth was a girl. She had red hair, but it sure as hell was no dye job, and as she smiled at the women she was serving it felt like the sun had lit up the room. There was no falseness in that smile, her hair was half pulled up away from her face and decorated with two yellow flowers down one side. Sam could feel himself staring but couldn't tear his eyes away from her as she laughed and put her fingers to her mouth when she replied to whomever she was talking.
"What are you – ?" Dean began, but right at that moment there came an almighty crash and the sound of a door being slammed. This finally diverted Sam's attention as his head flicked around so fast he cricked his neck. His hand reflexively snapped to the gun he had holstered in the back of his jeans, but relaxed again as a little blond haired girl came storming from round by the kitchen followed by a man in a shirt tucked into jeans which, in Sam's opinion, were a bit too tight.
"Sookie!" The man implored, obviously thinking she was being unreasonable about something or other.
"No!" yelled the blonde, far more ferociously than Sam thought was possible for someone so small. "Y'all can carry on being hateful and, and… prejudice!" Sam thought the black girl behind the bar was going to hit her at this point but a quick finger was pointed at her instead.
"Don't look at me like that Tara-Mae it is what it is and what it is, is prejudice! I expect it from all the dumb fucking rednecks around here but I thought y'all would be a bit better than that! Seems I was wrong 'bout that, but it doesn't mean that I have to stand around and listen to it!" She finished her rant and, with a slight hesitation as she looked around, seemingly only now noticing the packed bar staring at her, stormed out.
"Well," Dean said, a little too loudly, "I guess this isn't the quiet little town it seems to be."
After noise levels returned to nearly normal, Arlene came back to take their order. Dean, of course, ordered the chicken fried steak with apple pie for desert. Sam just went for the cheeseburger and fries. They got a beer each to drink and set about discussing the job.
"So all sorts of crazy shit has been happening in this town recently," Sam begun, his voice becoming a deep whisper, "there were two strings of murders, one was resolved as a fangbanger hater, but the other just stopped. There were at least two victims, both found with their hearts cut out. Then, nothing." Sam paused as Dean grumbled.
"What is it?"
"I bet it's those damn vamp assholes." Dean muttered angrily.
"Dean, neither of the victims was exsanguinated, I doubt a vampire would just leave a corpse full of blood just lying about." Sam explained, his patience with Dean's obsession was thinning.
"Anyway," He continued, "The murders stopped and everything went back to normal."
"So? What's that got to do with us?" Dean asked, losing interest slightly. He took a swig from his beer and winked at the girl behind the bar, who swiftly gave him the finger. Struggling not to laugh at Dean's hurt expression, Sam continued.
"Well, the thing is that just before the murders stopped there was a town wide blackout. No one remembers anything for at least a 24 hour period."
"So they had a barn dance and drank too much tequila. Why's that important?" Dean was being infuriating about things, as usual, but Sam knew he would turn him around, he always did.
Arlene came back at this point with their orders and Dean set about demolishing his steak. Sam ate a couple of fries as he made sure their waitress was out of earshot, before leaning in and dropping his voice again.
"Well, there were multiple reports of blackouts from a couple of residents throughout the previous week, but there were a few residents who saw them. They said they appeared drunk and were doing all sorts of crazy stuff like having sex in the streets." Dean looked half disgusted, half curious about this newest piece of information. "That's not all, there were also reports that people were walking around with black eyes."
Dean's eyes widened.
"You're thinking Demons?" He said incredulously. "In this town? Bit random don't you think?"
"What else do we know that has black eyes Dean?" Sam retorted, tired of being second guessed by his older brother and also tired in general.
"Alright, alright." Dean gestured with his cutlery for Sam to calm down. "I guess even if it's not demons, black eyes seem like our kind of thing."
"Thank you." Sam grumbled, finally turning to his cheeseburger.
An hour later, they arrived at a motel just outside Bon Temps. Sam was so worn out from the long drive down from Illinois that he collapsed on his bed fully clothed and was out like a light. He dreamed of red hair and sunshine.
The next morning Sam woke up to an empty room. He looked around, slightly confused, as Dean almost never went out without waking Sam up first.
He found his toothbrush in the duffel bag he didn't remember bringing in the previous night. He went into the bathroom, splashed some cold water to try and fight off the southern heat. Then he set about ridding his mouth of a dry morning taste whilst pottering about the room.
He picked up his phone and saw it was flashing that he had a message on his answer machine. He dialled the number and put it on speaker, presuming that Dean left a message to tell him where he was going. He set it on the table by the window as Dean's voice filled the room.
"Sam?! SAM! Listen, buddy you gotta help me! One of them is after me and I got no way out so when you get this… GOD DAMN IT SAM PICK UP YOUR PHONE! Oh God, Sam? SAMMY! SAA –"
The phone beeped to signal the end of the message but Sam was frozen in place. He suddenly sprang into action, only half aware of what he was doing as he flung his toothbrush out of his mouth, grabbed his jacket and the duffel bag still filled with weapons. He barely paused as he spat out toothpaste onto the grass verge whilst running into the parking lot.
Before he knew it Sam was driving as fast as he could back to the only place he knew where to start; Merlotte's bar. It didn't occur to him until he was half way there that he was in the Impala and how strange it was that Dean would have left it behind.
