AN: Hurt!Dean in this chapter. You're welcome, Dean girls ;) And as an FYI for anyone interested, I will be attending Colossal-Con this June! I will have three different cosplays, one will be Lucifer from Supernatural, the next will be Meg from Supernatural, and then Pacifica Northwest from Gravity Falls. I plan to wear a little nametag somewhere on my person so if anyone out there wants to say 'hi' to me in real life they'll know who I am. I won't be selling stuff or nothing, I just wanted to let y'all know that I'll be there!
This time, Dean had promised to earn them some money and do some research for the case. He'd figured why not kill two birds with one stone? And what better way to do that than by asking the bar-flies about the killings, while simultaneously hustling them out of their probably-not-all-that-hard earned cash.
Currently, he was in the midst of his third game, having already willingly lost a few hundred bucks, but he knew he'd be winning it back soon enough.
"Think all your questions are throwing off your game, boy." The guy chortled, lips pulled wide as his yellow and crooked teeth gleamed under the dim bar lights.
"Shut up, I'm fine." Dean grumbled, keeping up the facade. He positioned his cue in front of the white ball, hitting it expertly to ensure that it wouldn't knock any of the others into a hole. He gave a huff, for show, of course. "You were saying something about Marty."
"Yeah, seen him in here from time to time. Seemed like nice enough of a guy, not sure why anyone'd want to kill him."
"You know any of the other victims?" Dean asked.
"Hey, you don't wanna ask around too much, otherwise you're gonna be next." He laughed at his own joke, because yeah, death is just freaking hilarious.
"What, you people gonna feed me to the tree?" Dean asked, forcing himself to hold his tongue from calling this douche-bag out.
"What, you really believe the crap?" He gave a snort. "You ask the right people, and they'll tell you that those kids had it coming."
Dean paused. Things were starting to get interesting. "What do you mean?"
"My daughter knew some of the kids that died. Sounded like a bunch of dicks, always picking on that poor Amanda girl."
"Wait, the one who was out there with them?"
"Guess so." He hit the last of the striped balls into the hole, only the eight ball remaining now.
"Amanda have any relation to the other victims?"
"Do I look like her dad to you? Go find someone who cares."
With a final hit, the guy had won the game yet again. "You had enough yet?" He asked.
As much as Dean wanted to get back to the hotel room and tell Sam everything he'd just learned, he wanted to knock this asshole down a few pegs first. "C'mon, man, just one more game. Please, I'm getting better." Dean whined in a pleading tone.
"Tell you what. Up the price, and you got a deal."
Hook, line, and sinker. "You're on."
They reset the game, and the guy allowed Dean to take the first shot. With one hit, the guy paled, and then slowly began to put together what was happening.
"Wh-what was that?" He stammered, a frown beginning to form on his face.
Dean faked innocence. "Lucky shot I guess." He took another shot, sinking two balls at once, serving only to increase the guy's disbelief.
"Hey, you trying to hustle me, boy?!" The guy's voice had started rising in fury.
"What, can't handle getting beat by a rookie?" Dean managed to hold back his grin. "I swear, man, just got a good few shots in." Dean hated the guys with tempers. They were always the ones that made a scene, and scene-making was never good. He purposefully missed the next shot before the guy blew his top.
Looking slightly relieved, the guy started taking his shots. Dean watched nervously as he sunk hit, after hit, after hit. Sammy would kill him if he lost all their cash. Thankfully, the guy finally missed again, so Dean took his time with ensuring his win. He made his final shot, and then smiled in victory. He started to grab his well-earned cash, but then the dude's hand snaked around his wrist.
Guess this was gonna end badly after all.
"Problem?" Dean asked with a semi-asshole-istic grin.
"You-you swindled me, you son of a bitch!" He shouted.
"Listen, buddy. You outta cut your losses, and let me go before it gets ugly."
"Oh, I'll show you ugly."
What the hell kind of a comeback was th-
WHACK.
Dean heard rather than felt the impact of the fist on his jaw, at least to start. Hey, if this guy wanted a fight, fine. He'd get a fight.
"Last chance, man." Dean warned. "Walk away now before you get yourself hurt."
Well that only seemed to make the guy more pissed. He swung again, but Dean easily dodged it, leaving the guy to awkwardly stumble forwards when his blow hit nothing but air. Just as Dean was beginning to enjoy the sight of the guy making a fool out of himself, two arms roughly grabbed his own, pinning them back.
Oh great. The asshole had friends. The main guy nailed a blow to Dean's gut, pushing all the air out of him in a wheezing grunt. A second landed on his face before he managed to kick back, causing the second guy to release him as Dean's foot came into contact with his knee.
Didn't the bartender usually keep this stuff from happening? Dean cast a glance to the bar to see the bartender- oh, you gotta be freaking kidding. He was taking bets on the fight. Tis town was even sleazier than he thought. Now he was just hoping that everybody had bet on the wrong guy so that they would lose all their dirty money.
Dean looked back to the fight just in time to see a pool cue heading directly for his face, but not in time enough to stop it. The shock mixed with the force behind it knocked him to the ground. Instead of getting back up, Dean chose to stay down, and suppressed an eye roll when he heard the small crowd cheer at his alleged defeat. He then heard the guy chuckling at what he believed to be his victory. He leaned over Dean, and started to go through his pockets, and that's when Dean shot back up and heat-butted him. Hard.
The guy staggered back, hand gently touching his already heavily bleeding nose. "You son of a bitch!"
Dean tried not to laugh at how funny the guy sounded with a blood filled nose. "You had enough yet?" He asked, grinning.
Like a raging bull, the guy blindly charged at Dean. All ire, no finesse. Dean merely stepped out of the way, and then kicked the guy in the back, and he fell.
His partner probably could have snuck up on Dean, but his primal yell gave him away. Dean quickly spun around, grabbing him by his shoulders, and tossed him onto his fallen partner. The two groaned in pain while Dean calmly walked back to the pool table, and plucked his well-deserved cash off of it. He looked back to the now mostly disappointed crowd that had stood passively by.
"Really appreciate the help guys." He scolded them. A few cast their eyes down in guilt as he approached. He slapped a couple bills down to pay for his drinks, and then he was off.
After he climbed inside his beloved Impala, he eyed himself in the mirror. There was an already purpling bruise on his jaw, along with a long stripe down his face from the pool cue. It still stung quite a bit, but, undoubtedly, he'd had way worse. Sammy was still probably gonna freak out when he saw him though, but really, he was fine. He revved up the engine, and headed back to the hotel. When he made it to their room, he wasn't surprised to see Sam sitting at the table, which was now littered with books and his laptop, and Sam had a blatantly frustrated expression.
"Research finding you squat?" Dean asked.
Not looking up just yet, Sam huffed. "Just the opposite actually. You look up 'evil trees' and all you get is a bunch of tattoos people get to look tough, the Whomping Willow from Harry Potter, but mostly just a bunch of stupid, fantasy video-game lore, but not a single damn thing on actual evil trees."
Dean was about to tell him his good news, but apparently Sam wasn't done complaining.
"So I tried looking for ghosts, but there's nothing! No suspicious deaths in there before now, so I tried to find people that had gone missing."
"Sam-"
"And that also got me a big, heaping pile of nothing. So then I tried looking up forests sprites, but that just took me to a bunch of kids' cartoon shows." He huffed again, running a hand through his hair. "I swear, Dean, I've been trying, but-" He at last looked up at his brother, and stopped midsentence. "What the hell happened to you?!"
"Bar fight. I'm fine. Sam, liste-"
"How'd you get in a bar fight?"
For the love of God, kid... "Guy wasn't too happy about being hustled. But before the fight, I was talking to him about-"
"Hang on, I'm gonna grab you some ice. What's that big stripe from?"
Dammit, Sam, just shut up already. "Got me with a pool cue. Can you stop-"
"Here's the ice." Sam tossed the bag to him. "Is he gonna come back for-"
"Sam, it's a witch, and I think I know who it is!" Dean finally managed to blurt out.
Sam frowned. "What?"
Dean huffed. "The guy I was hustling in the bar, I was asking him beforehand about the victims. Apparently, the teenagers that were supposedly with Amanda were real dicks to her. So I started doubting her story about hanging out with her besties in the woods."
"She-she's just a kid, Dean."
"Just saying, we've seen kids do a lotta messed up stuff before. 'Specially if she's screwing around with magic. That crap'll mess with your head."
"What makes you think it's Amanda?" Sam asked.
"First off, she lied about being friends with them, so you gotta wonder what she was doing with them. Second, all these people are getting killed, but she somehow manages to get away? Not to mention how defensive she got when we started asking if she saw anyone else in the forest."
"So- what do you suggest we do now?"
"I say we wait for her to go to school, and then search her house for anything witchy."
"Alright, let's say we find something. Then what, Dean?"
"What do you mean?"
"She's a person, we can't exactly take her out just like any other monster."
"She's slaughtering people, Sam."
"She's a kid, Dean! We can't just kill her!"
"She doesn't seem to have any problem with murder, why should we?"
"Look, I'm not saying that what she's doing is right, far from it. But she's still a person. She got involved with some stuff that she shouldn't have, but I know that deep down there's gotta be some good left in her."
Oh, c'mon, Sammy, not this again. Every time Sam played the 'good deep down' card, it left Dean with now choice but to cave. "Fine. What's your plan?"
Visibly relieved, Sam suggested, "We still outta check her house out, just to make sure that she's our witch."
Nodding, Dean agreed. "Sounds good to me."
"It's pretty late right now, though. Let's get some rest and we'll investigate tomorrow morning. It'll give your face some time to look less disgusting." Sam added with a grin.
"Hey, my face is awesome!" Dean countered.
"Good night, Dean."
"Night, Sam." And with that, both brothers were off to bed, readying themselves for another day in the hell that a hunter called life.
AN: Next chapter's even longer than this one, and it's probably my favourite one. Last chapters in case-fics usually are the best, just where all the good stuff is. And I'm sure you're expecting it at this point, so here's your-
Sneak Peek: "He'd been forced into the world of demons and monsters since he was six months old. Why anyone would willingly fall into that life was beyond him."
I've got a mostly free day tomorrow, so maybe this'll be up before the new episode airs. Until then, drop a review if y'all are enjoying! I love to see all you following and would love to hear from you!