- This chapter is a series of flashbacks, of a sort, from the crew's POVs.

Benny knew Dean before Mr. N had even met him, though it would be years before they introduced themselves.

They were both brawlers, aimless and violent and angry. Benny would see him around town, sometimes across the bar during a free for all. He was a twink, really, a tall twink in a leather jacket with an angry spark in his green eyes. Benny took note of him, but that was all.

Benny's not proud of those years of his life, but he doesn't lie about them, either. He was in a gang, a violent one, and it was a bad crew. It wasn't until Andrea was lost to senseless violence, a gunshot no one could tell him the origin of, that he got out.

Without the gang, though, he was lost, aimless. He did some drugs, slept around, and let his life lose meaning. He was prepared to die that way without his Andrea.

Until a familiar twink sat down next to him at a bar, introduced himself as Dean, and talked about a job offer with no long-term guarantees. He talked about loss, how he and his partner were familiar with it, and how they wanted to help Benny get back on his feet if he'd come to work with them (always "with," never "for").

"Why?" Benny had asked. "Gotta be easier people to hire, brotha."

Dean had shrugged. "Well, I told Cas a little bit about you, and he's got a big heart. He wants to help. Thinks it's 'destiny' that we knew each other, and that we need someone to help with security and that you're a little lost right now." A smile had graced Dean's lips. "Cas is real good at finding lost people and bringin' 'em on home."

The way Dean had looked when he'd talked about Cas made Benny think of Andrea, how Andrea had seen the best in people no matter what, even when she'd been proven wrong. How she'd urged him to do the same.

He agreed to the job offer before he'd really thought it through. He's grateful every day that he did.

Anna met Castiel at a club one night, funny enough. She'd been drinking (she'd always been drinking those days), and had started to feel woozy, nauseous. She'd made her way to the bathrooms and had been on her knees, face in the toilet, when she'd barely noticed a commotion just outside, though she'd been too focused on how unendingly miserable she felt to really pay attention.

Finally, a man had stepped into the women's bathroom, propped the door open behind him and knelt beside her. He'd swept her long hair into capable hands and rubbed her back as she finished vomiting and shaking.

"Shh, shh, you're all right. Hush, now. You're all right."

He'd helped her stand, cleaned her up and wiped her face. He'd explained gently that he believed she'd been roofied, that he was going to use her cell phone to call her a cab, and that she could tell the driver her address when she got in. He paid for her ride home, and when she'd woken up the next morning, she'd found the note he'd left in her jacket pocket, a phone number and if you ever again find yourself in need.

She'd texted him to thank him, and there began a wonderful friendship she wouldn't give up for anything. When he'd text her, years later, about needing a server at a bar where he'd make certain she was protected, Anna already would have done almost anything for Castiel.

Accepting an offer for a better job was easy.

Cassie had been carrying Balthazar out of bars on and off for years. They'd met and struck up a tentative, flimsy sort of friendship. Cassie, soppy idiot that he was, wanted to "be there" for Balthazar. At the time, however, Balthazar was far too deep into cocaine use to be doing much maintenance for the friendships he did have, much less for strangely stiff-backed men who spoke too formally.

When he hit rock bottom, however, ODing in the bathroom of a dive bar he shouldn't have set foot in, it was Cassie who found him, and Cassie's boyfriend Dean who drove him to the hospital. Cassie who contacted the therapist who finally made Balthazar see that rehab was the only way. Cassie was the only one who visited Balthazar in there, and he stayed in Cassie and Dean's spare bedroom when he got out.

And, when he was ready for steady employment, it was Cassie who hired him, dismissing his colorful history in favor of his impressive culinary schooling with the phrase, "We've been thinking about starting an appetizer and dinner menu, anyway. Can you assist me with that, please?"

Charlie didn't have an exceptionally sad story, per se. Her parents died young, of course, and her foster families had held little to no warmth as she grew up. She didn't have any friends, since she wasn't willing to let anyone be close to her.

(The closer they were, the more it would hurt when she lost them.)

She met Mr. W and Mr. N at the little diner Mr. N worked at and where they offered free wifi. Mr. W would cuss at his laptop and make moon eyes at Mr. N, and Charlie found herself hopelessly charmed. She told herself that was as far as it would go.

But when her apartment got broken into, she called Mr. W first. He came at once, angry and protective and loud. He called a few more people and they packed up everything she owned that very night, stored her boxes in Mr. W and Mr. N's garage, and Charlie stayed with them until Mr. W helped her find a better apartment in a safer neighborhood.

The floodgates were open after that.

She spent her holidays there, they made her a birthday cake, Mr. N would call to see if she was doing all right just because. She ate meals there, watched the dogs when they were out of town, and found herself with two best friends who were at least ten years older than her and fiercely loyal to her.

When they needed a hostess? It was a no-brainer

Fresh from losing his mother, the center of his universe, the driving force behind everything he did, Kevin agreed when his roommate asked if he wanted to sneak into a local bar. He would have agreed to anything that let him feel something.

How he got from that, to getting caught, to Mr. N pulling him aside, to sobbing in Mr. N's arms in a tiny office while he wailed about missing his mother, Kevin will never really understand. He knows, though, that Mr. N started letting him come in after that, started texting him about homework and new shoes and "come here for dinner, please, I've made far too much." Mr. N and Mr. W introduced him to the crew at The Bunker, the people who have become his family. Mr. W helped him get his driver's license, buy a car, and talked him through the first panic attack he had when he wanted to ask a girl out.

Kevin never really got asked if he wanted to DJ at the bar. He was just given a schedule and started collecting a paycheck one day. He has some suspicions that the position may have been created for him, actually.

He's too grateful to ask, though.

Jo Harvelle was just looking for a place that reminded her of her mom's bar. While The Roadhouse is all wood floors, wood panelling, red leather booths, and a scarred bartop, whereas The Bunker is low lighting, chrome, black leather, and colored lights on the dance floor, in many ways they are the same.

Her mom isn't there to yell at her about her homework, but Castiel will ask about it from time to time. Her mom isn't there to tell off guys who grope her, but Dean and Benny keep a sharp eye on the patrons at the bar. Maybe her mom is still a phone call and a few hundred miles away, but Jo's part of a family just the same here.

Dean swears up and down that all he intended to do was start a club with Cas and staff it. Castiel, in all his years of knowing Dean inside and out, knows better, even if he does keep that knowledge to himself.

(It does get harder to do so when he sees Dean fret over one of their own, but keep it to himself he does.)