Sorry about the posting delays, folks. Two children battling colds and a husband that is trying to get rid of one has thrown my RL for a loop. I am trying to get this story finished up. Hopefully, the words will begin to come again. Thanks for your patience! ~ Relativity
When Bobby had been a boy, he had had a great-aunt who took immense, mean-spirited pleasure in mocking and arguing all of the adages her husband liked to use. If he said, 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with one footstep,' she would tell him it would be much better if that one footstep was into a car or onto a train. If he said, 'Anger is one letter short of danger,' she would yell at him and tell him that, yes, she could read. If he said that something was in the last place he looked, she would laugh and say, 'Well, why the hell would you keep looking after you found it?'
As true as that last thought may have been, it was also true that Dean was in the last place they looked. That is, he was, of course, in the last place they had planned to look (before getting really worried and stressing about coming up with a plan B).
Bobby had almost driven past Gino's Ginmill when Sam shouted for him to stop. Backing up the old pick-up, he looked to where Sam was pointing. There, hidden in shadowy darkness, nearly invisible to the naked eye, sat the Impala. Luckily, Sam had spent his childhood thinking of the car as home and, to a lesser degree than Dean, had an almost sixth sense for locating it.
"What's the plan Bobby?" They both knew that they could not simply go into the bar and haul Dean out. One, it was nearly seven o'clock and the place was pretty busy and they couldn't afford to have the cops called. And two, Dean would not go easily.
Bobby parked the truck near the Impala and the hunters got out and started for the front door. They both scanned the parking lot (filled with trucks, muscle cars, and motorcycles) and the building they were heading towards. They were both hunters through and through, after all.
"We need to go about this casual-like," Bobby told him. "Let's get in there and find him, but try and blend in. I think we need to stake out the front and back door and wait until he leaves on his own. Then, we can get the drop on him."
"But Bobby," Sam said before Bobby could open the front door of the bar, "what if the ghost, or whatever's possessing him-"
"Sam," Bobby interrupted, "I am ninety-nine point nine percent positive that your brother is not possessed."
* * *
Sam looked around. The place was a typical, sleazy dive. The music was loud, the lights were low, and there were any number of shady people looking to start a fight. Great. Just the sort of place Dean – his Dean – would pick out.
Luckily, Sam saw Dean before Dean saw them. But, of course that was because he was in the typical Dean place to be – back of the building, gambling. And of course, his brother happened to find a place with a decent-sized Texas Hold'em game going on. Just another one of the extra senses Dean seemed to have.
Bobby took an open spot at the bar, watching Dean through the mirror directly in front of him. Sam had a harder time blending in and finding a place to observe the poker game. He walked along the outer edges of the bar and eventually sat himself down in a small, dark booth – near enough to see the game, but not enough to really hear.
From what Sam could see, Dean was doing pretty well. There were six players in the game and Dean's stack looked like one of the larger ones, though not the largest. He and another man – one who was dressed almost too well for the surroundings – were about even chip-wise, and there was another big and scary looking guy that had quite a bit more than either of them. The other players didn't look like they needed to be worried about. Two were wannabe biker boys without the skill or courage to ever truly be tough. And the last player was a college kid who, from the looks of things, was about to find out that playing poker in real life was a lot different than on-line.
What the short-stacks apparently didn't realize was that the cards in your hand only meant so much. These three guys played as if the cards on the table were for them alone and the two cards in their hand were the only things that mattered. Sam watched as his brother read all of the naive players' tells and made quick work of two, while the sharp-dressed man took out the other.
The big guy was harder to read. He had gained the most chips by simply sitting back and taking hands here and there, folding quickly with others, and seemingly had no real strategy. It wasn't until the game had dwindled to three that the guy started losing his advantage, little by little, until Dean and the suit forced him out and the two were left with heads up action.
* * *
The game went back and forth between Dean and the suit. Both men were good, trying to read the other and give away nothing. The contest had gotten a lot of attention. It seemed the big guy wanted to see how it all ended – as did a good number of equally big and larger friends.
It was just after nine and Sam took stock of his surroundings once again. The college kid and his friends had long since gone, as had the wannabe bikers. The bar was full of beefy guys, older construction workers, and women in tight denim and/or leather. Most seemed to be watching the poker game with quiet excitement.
Sam was starting to get a bad feeling. There were too many unknowns. Bobby fit into the scene for the simple reason that he looked like any of the other older, hard-working men in their coveralls or jeans, a flannel shirt, and a baseball cap. Sam, though... Sam should have stuck out. However, no one paid him any notice.
Dean and the suit. The two men sitting at the poker table stood out. The suit more so though. He really didn't look like he should be there. He was too well-dressed for this place. Even if he hadn't been a manual laborer or biker – like the college kids – he still stood out like a polished, manicured nail against all of the sore thumbs in this place.
With that thought in mind, Sam took another look around. That's when he noticed that a good number of the large biker-types, including the big guy from the game, were not so much interested in the match, but were instead interested in the suit winning.
