Dean saw white-hot stars and tasted blood down the back of his throat. Then came the pain. A considerable amount of it, centered somewhere in the neighborhood of his nose. He dropped to his knees on a wooden floor, cupped a palm under his nostrils as the red dripped out. He was afraid to touch anything. Probably broke his whole damned face.

"Where the cock-suckin' fuck did you come from?" The man, presumably on the other end of the fist, gawked down at Dean. The guy didn't stay confused for long; a boot rocketed up into Dean's chin and sent him sailing backwards. He smashed into a table and the deceptively cheerful skittering of poker chips rained down around him, rolling off under more tables and booted feet. He couldn't be sure, what with the throbbing in his face that spread into his brain, but Dean thought he noticed the glint of metal on some of the heels. Spurs.

There were screams and shouts and the dull cracks of more fists hitting bone, but thankfully it wasn't Dean on the sorry end of the punches this time. He couldn't stand up—his legs weren't exactly cooperating—but he could roll away from what was left of the table and find refuge behind some sort of curtain.

The curtain, however, took exception. A woman squealed and spat at him, shifting her layers of skirts and fixing him with a glare full of daggers.

Dean lifted a hand, the less bloodied one, in a desperate signal of surrender. "Sorry, lady. My bad. Just … just don't get your panties in a wad—"

Those were, perhaps, not the smartest words Dean Winchester had ever uttered. From the folds of the woman's skirts—which, upon closer inspection, were not particularly clean—she produced a small, old-fashioned snub-nosed gun. Might even have been an antique Derringer, if Dean wasn't imagining things. It leveled at his head and he back-peddled. Fast.

A slug cracked into the floor beside him.

"Jesus! I didn't do nothin'!" Dean shielded his face with a shoulder and scrambled away from the crazy lady, soles slipping in the dirt and sawdust and now, blood.

Tables were being flipped and more punches thrown. A spray of liquor followed the crash of breaking glass and Dean kept moving, low to the floor, until he found shelter between a piece of furniture and the corner of the room.

Room? Where the hell was he? Where the hell was Sam?

He touched his nose gingerly, assessed that the bleeding had mostly stopped and it probably wasn't broken after all. He smelled iron and whiskey and the sour stench of unwashed bodies, but not peaches or death. The slant of the sun through the windows, what little he could see from cover, was late-day and long-shadowed. He rocked back against a wood paneled wall, and the furniture he'd hidden behind twanged and jolted when a body bounced off it. Several piano keys sprung loose like busted teeth.

He waited until the piano stopped shuddering before peering around the corner again. It seemed to be a good ol' bar brawl, which Dean had suspected, but this wasn't just any bar. It was rugged and filthy and lit by kerosene lamps suspended from ceiling beams. There were antlers and tin-type photographs on the walls and the clientele, mostly male, wore hats, suspenders and a week's worth of grime.

This was a saloon. And it looked suspiciously like one he'd visited before. In a very different time.

Fan-fuckin'-tastic.

Dean started to move away from the safety of the piano. Sam had to be here somewhere; he'd felt the temporal quiver too. He had to have been caught in the same Magical Mystery Tour that dragged Dean to Dodge City, or wherever the hell this place was.

As Dean took a step forward, a voice hissed at him from the other side of the piano: "Don't."

He pulled back just as a brass spittoon soared past his head and whumped into the wall, chunks of soggy tobacco and dark, disgusting syrup splattering the area, the piano and Dean.

"Aw, what the hell?" Dean flicked his fingers, brushing black stuff from his shirt. At least it wasn't Leviathan bits, but man, this was so not helping.

"Things got all bag o' nails right quick, didn't it?" The voice spoke again, sounding a touch amused at Dean's situation.

"S'pose it did," Dean groused, looking down the piano.

The guy was roughly youngish, the same way he and Sam were, and marginally cleaner than the other patrons. He adjusted his bent, wire-rimmed glasses and grinned at Dean; his teeth were crooked but still free of rot. City slicker, Dean guessed, or younger than he looked.

"Columbus McCallum." The man reached across the piano, spidery fingers extended in a risky gesture of greeting. "You're welcome to call me Lom."

Dean grabbed his hand, pumped it twice before ducking back behind the piano. "Dean Winchester."

"Winchester? As in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company?"

"Um, maybe? Couldn't tell ya." Dean flinched as the window behind the piano blew out from something small and fast piercing the glass. Bullet, from the sounds of it. "Where are we?"

Lom shook shards from his dark, poorly-cut hair and coughed. "In a peck of trouble?"

"No, no. What town?"

"You must've gotten brushed in the noggin but good, Mr. Winchester. We are in Mongrel, Nevada. Specifically, at the Sweetwater Saloon. Or whatever will be left of it …"

Christ. Not even in the same state, anymore. Could this make any less sense? Dean scanned the barroom purposefully, searching for anyone taller than the norm and probably shirtless. Possibly even bearing peaches.

The saloon wasn't large but it was chock full of flailing arms and legs, furniture being knocked every which way, and the din was such that he couldn't hear Sam calling, even if he wanted. And Dean wanted to hear his brother now with all his being.

"Lom. Have you seen another guy here, dressed kinda like me? Lotsa hair, stupid tall?"

"I cannot say that I have, Mr. Winchester. But then it is a tad difficult to tell one scrapper from the next, presently." Lom winced as a shot glass bounced off the wall over his head. "Was he here with you?"

"Not sure."

"Well. That is extraordinarily unhelpful."

"Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don't know."

Lom pressed his lips tightly, his eyes wide behind the distortion of his glasses. "I take it you would not be adverse to availing yourself of the establishment's back door?"

Dean still didn't see Sam anywhere; maybe he got dropped outside. It was the best Dean could hope. "Sounds like a plan, Mr. McCallum."

"Then I suggest you high-tail it this way." Lom timed his sprint judiciously and took off like a jackrabbit, behind a wall of men in a stubborn grapple.

Dean scuttled close on his heels. Over his shoulder, he heard the distinct rise of voices. Great. He should've known it would only be a matter of time before the law showed up. Some patrons froze in their boots. Others with apparently more to lose went diving for the exits, obstructing Lom's path.

Didn't matter much anyway. By the time they got to the doorway, a thickset man with a frown and a badge had a pair of revolvers trained on the both of them. His expression was impassable; clearly he wasn't going to take any of their crap unless they wanted to bicker with the business ends of his guns.

Dean did the smart thing and kept his cakehole firmly shut.

xXx

Come to find out, Lom McCallum was the piano player for the Sweetwater Saloon, recently transplanted from all points east of the Mississippi. The man was a bit vague with his reasons for relocating to Mongrel, and Dean was content to let it stay that way. He wasn't exactly eager to justify his own appearance in Nevada, let alone in 1873, but they found themselves conversing guardedly in the same hot, airless jail cell. Three other men—though Dean would've labeled them more animal than man—shared their quarters and the reek was enough to singe nose hairs. The other three knew each other and hung together like a pack of vultures. Or flock. Or whatever the hell a group of vultures was called. Sam would've known.

He'd already scoped out the jailhouse, assessing his chances of escape. They weren't bad, truth be told, except he was rapidly losing daylight. This wouldn't have been an issue if he'd had the chance to get a better look at the layout of the joint before being thrown inside.

And then there was the sheer number of civilians to contend with: the three sharing his cell, Piano Man, and another half-dozen behind bars on the other side of the room, not to mention the deputy on watch. He couldn't trust a one of them, except maybe Lom, and that was a long shot at best. The deputy had already taken a few jabs at Dean's attire and 'pretty boy' cleanliness, but Christ, let him jab. At least Dean didn't smell like armpits and horseshit.

"So what started the brawl at the Sweetwater? I missed that little detail." Dean spoke in hushed tones to Lom, really just making small talk to keep his mind from wandering to myriad ominous places.

Lom inclined his head slightly, gesturing to one of the prisoners in the cell, a ropey black-haired man with an easy smile. Suspiciously easy. "That's Billy Harper. I would give him an especially wide berth, Mr. Winchester—"

"Dean."

"Dean, then." Lom dropped his gaze when Harper angled their way in vague curiosity. "He does not, as they say, play fair." Lom's voice had gotten so quiet Dean nearly missed the comment.

It seemed, however, Billy Harper didn't need to hear Lom McCallum to know he was being gossiped about. Or perhaps he was simply arrogant enough to believe everyone talked about him—good, bad or otherwise. He unhitched his hands from the bars and wandered, as casual as a Sunday stroll, to an empty wooden bucket sitting maybe five feet from Dean's boots. He began humming to himself, sounded like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Without a lick of self-consciousness, he unbuttoned his trousers, took out his dick and pissed into the pail. The stink was impressive. He looked over at Dean and Lom, smiled that easy smile—uneven teeth flashing behind a layer of coarse stubble and grime—and then splattered Dean's boots with urine. There was nothing in his demeanor to indicate it was an accident, either.

Dean hopped back out of reflex, and Billy chortled. Lom had a hand on Dean's arm before a single fist could be lifted.

Billy put himself back in his pants and took his sweet time returning to his corner of the cell, where the other two men where lounging and laughing bold-faced. Lom gripped Dean's arm tighter and whispered, "No, sir. It would be most unwise to engage—"

Dean shook off Lom's hand and fixed Billy with a pointed stare. "What? He's just a dumb-ass horse fucker; if he wasn't with his girlfriends, I'd feed him his own balls." Said loud enough, of course, to be heard by the entire jail. The deputy watched with his feet on the desk, uninspired. Hoots came from the other holding tank and Billy hoisted eyebrows, feigning shock. The tallest of the three, a man who seemed to be painted in every shade of dull brown, elbowed Billy.

"Why, I do believe he has besmirched your fine reputation, Mr. Harper," the lackey said into Billy's ear.

"Has he now, Mr. Bales? I ain't sure I should be frumped by such a Nancy-boy. He did let me piss on his shoes—"

Dean grinned and Lom's face dropped all color, nervous fingers plucking at Dean's t-shirt. "Mr. Winchester—Dean—I fear you might well be bitin' off more than you can chew, here."

"My mouth is bigger than it looks. And I'm hungry," Dean said almost pleasantly, pulling against the feeble restraint and making a point to flex his chest; he was still better fed than these yokels and had no doubt he could whump them, bare-fisted. It would be … therapeutic. He wouldn't even have to pull the bootknife he still felt pressing stiff against his ankle, missed by the deputy's cursory pat-down.

One of the guys from the other cell, the same bruiser who had slugged Dean at the Sweetwater, clattered at the bars. "Hear that, Billy? He reckons he's got a big mouth …"

This spurred a round of mean laughter from Harper and his cronies. There was something odd behind the taunts, something conspicuously unsaid. Dean mulled over the 'big mouth' comment, a sour feeling oozing up from the bottom of his stomach.

Finally the deputy stood, planted his feet, settled his hands on the guns at either hip. His brow was thrown into shadow as the sun squatted on the horizon, dusk fast approaching. One flickering lantern sat on his desk, providing the only useful light which was hardly useful at all.

"That'll be enough," he slurred. Dean wasn't sure whether the lawman was tired, indifferent, or half-drunk. With luck, all of the above, then maybe Dean could find occasion to jimmy the lock. Lom's glasses might just do the trick, if bent the right way.

The room begrudgingly quieted and the men drifted into their companionable groups, eyes glittering at each other in wariness and threat. The night air, dry as dust, cooled quickly and mercifully lessened the stink in the jailhouse—or else Dean was just getting used to it. His belly complained, having long since digested the peaches, and it didn't look as though the deputy was fetching dinner anytime soon. He might've considered nodding off—except Harper was still humming to himself, still prowling and smirking, and Dean didn't dare shut his eyes.

Lom actually did fall asleep; this wasn't his first spin in the pen for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he'd told Dean earlier. Fact was, there weren't very many 'right places' in Mongrel. It was an ill-mannered, mischievous town, born of opportunity. Over the ridge, a vein of silver had been discovered and Mongrel had grown up around it to service the mine. The pretense of law kept a loose rein on crime, key word being "loose".

Dean fell into the familiar role of guardian, as Lom's head drooped and the piano player began to snore softly. The job felt, at once, comfortable and annoying. His worry for Sam nagged insistently, but he couldn't do squat from inside a jail cell so Dean began the habitual weighing of allies and antagonists. If a window of opportunity showed up, he had to know whom to trust, whom to use, whom to knife in the back.

From overheard conversations, Dean figured out the guy with Harper was named Tanner Bales. Bales tended to use fifty-cent words and made like an educated man, but fat lot of good an education did in the middle of the Nevada desert. His clothes might've been fancier than Harper's, had they not been just as worn and dusty. Their third wheel, a scrawny younger good-for-nothing—who looked almost shriveled, he was so thin—was often the butt of their jabs but he suffered the abuse eagerly. His colorless hair hung in long, greasy strings from under his hat, and he reminded Dean of a subway rat.

The deputy busied himself playing solitaire with a deck of cards, chugging from a flask and occasionally spitting onto the floor. Charming.

Nobody had much of anything to say as the night went on and the moon climbed, so when one of the prisoners spoke from the other cell, Dean startled.

"D-deputy. There's somethin' wrong with … with the Polak here. I think – I think he's got the conniptions 'er somethin'." The man pressed his face to the bars and Dean took keen notice; he recognized the sharp edge of panic in the prisoner's voice. A huge body hit the floor, writhing and choking in the other cell. The so-called Polak appeared to be in sincere distress. The lighting was shit and Dean couldn't be 100% positive it wasn't a ruse, but he was certain enough to pay close attention. Genuine or no, this could be just the distraction he needed. He nudged Lom awake.

Naturally, Harper and Bales showed interest too. Not that they'd been sleeping themselves, but now they jostled each other and pointed and slung arms over the scrawny, unnamed kid in almost-ownership.

"Lukasz?" The deputy grunted and stood, scrubbing a hand over his scalp.

The downed man was caught in a puddle of moonlight pouring through the small barred window on the east wall. His back was broad and hunched, shirt straining at the seams as he raked the floor, filthy straw caught between his fingers. Dean blinked and stared; the shoulder blades shifted. They shifted wrong. He wanted it to have been a trick of the shadows but, no. The bones, they were relocating; now he could hear the joints popping over the man's gasps and spasms. Fabric tore, and Lukasz shuddered powerfully.

Lom moved to Dean's side and sucked in breath. "Holy Mary, Mother of God …"

"I don't think she's gonna do us a damned bit of good right now," Dean murmured.