The door squeaked behind me, "Dean? What's up?"

I guess I took too long to shove that crap back to where it belonged, Sam's voice had that tone to it. Course these days I can't really blame him for riding my ass. "She's six hours out and it's turning into one of our usual jobs."

"That bad?"

"What else would you expect?"

"Shit."

I turned around. He was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, he'd taken his suit coat off and loosened his tie. His head twitched a bit in Roy's direction as his shoulders asked a question with a quick shrug.

"Up to him. He's here because he's pissed at Oliver making choices for him and I told you I'd do things different so..."

"Really?"

It was nice to know I could still surprise my brother from time to time. "Yeah." I pushed passed him and went back inside. "Roy? You got a choice to make. This job has gotten crappy, as in the shit that tends to end up with us either dead again, in Hell again or facing some stupid life or death choice. Usually I'd just tell someone like you to get the hell out and bail but you're an adult, you've faced plenty of your own crap and you know our story so you decide. I have to go grab two more rooms and make a beer run. Back in a few."

I grabbed Baby's keys as they both stared at me. Sam's jaw was almost to the ground, which is no mean feat. I think Roy was just shocked that someone had actually asked him what he wanted to do, instead of told him. Two things hit me while walking down the stairs, the first was how saying all that actually made me less stressed and the second was I was tired of shit like this. Sure, I'd gotten all restless back at Oliver's and yeah it'd felt good to be driving Baby again, starting a job, thinking it'd be easy. Show up, kill some vamps, save a few folks and move on. Stupid fucking fantasy. Three days out of the gate and we were right back in the thick of it and there was a part of me that didn't even care. Which is not a good way to go into a fight like this.

Apparently the twenty something lonely clerk that had been at the desk when Roy had checked in was gone. The guy that was there when I walked in barely smiled. He took my card and hooked me up with two rooms with nothing more than the usual questions asked. Which didn't bother me, I wasn't really in the mood to talk. I got back into Baby, turned the key and the music started. "Really? She's not even here yet and my radio's already talking to me."

"Desperado, oh you ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the night time from the day
You're losin' all your highs and lows
Ain't it funny how the feelin' goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin' but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you
(Let somebody love you)
You better let somebody love you before it's too late"

"Of all the damn songs Baby, you had to pick that one?" A crow landed on the hood, stared me right in the face and I swear it laughed at me before flying off. "Son of a bitch." I clicked the radio off and looked up, "If ya'll think that's going to help anything you really don't know me all that well. Instead of meddling in my lack of love life how about you do something useful and stop all this crap without me for once? Be a nice change of pace." The crow didn't return and nothing happened, "Yeah, that's what I thought. I wouldn't be in this mess if you gods, any of you, did what the hell you're supposed to."

It didn't take all that long to get to the nearest liquor store. Gas stations wouldn't have what I was looking for, beer wasn't going to cut it and I don't touch any hard liquor they sell. I may be an alcoholic but I do have taste. I had no idea where one actually was but drinking for as long as I have just look for the hints. The run down strip mall, beat up pavement, homeless people and that sense of desperation. Doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing they all look and somehow smell the same. It's a weird mix of dust, rarely used industrial grade cleaners and stale air. "Well Baby, another day, another liquor store and another world ending event. That's just great. What other choices am I supposed to make? Who the hell else would do this crap job?"

It probably says something about me that on long drives I'd come up with different voices Baby would have if she was a person, how she'd look. Not that I'd have sex with a car, even a car in person form but if anyone ever asked who I'd spent most of my time with it'd be her. I know the things I'd pretend she'd say in reply to my questions was just me thinking but I usually managed to tweak the reply into something funny or sex related, I couldn't even manage to do that. "Well this isn't good darlin'. I can't even make myself laugh."

I got to the store, walked in and didn't even have to look for what I wanted. I'd never been in this one before yet I knew exactly where everything was just by looking at the tops of the bottles. The guy behind the counter didn't even say a word other than the total, barely looked at me, bagged my crap and went back to looking at his phone. In theory I'd probably saved his life helping helping Sam stop Lucifer or when I killed Dick and the rest of the Leviathans or who knows, maybe his mom would have been attacked by vamps if I hadn't done my job. All those things used to matter to me, used to balance out all the shit we'd been through; the fact that I'd driven across the country more times then anyone in their right mind should, seen hundreds if not thousands of people yet most of them didn't have a damn clue as to who I really was or what I did. It used to. Right then, holding another bag of liquor what I wanted most was to be back on the dock at Oliver's place, fishing. I didn't even want to be home, because home meant I was hunting. Which was the last thing I wanted to be doing.

I was four blocks away from the liquor store heading back to the hotel and I didn't even remember getting back into Baby, which was bad. Running on auto pilot gets people killed. "All right, get back in the game or walk away. Pick one. Coyote's coming. Roy's an amateur but I know he's staying to see things through, he still cares. She'll need more than Sam and Cougar for back up. They'll need me and be real, when was the last time you had an easy job. Stop fucking deluding yourself, there are no easy jobs. Shut up, do your job and move on. It's what you do. Of course none of what I've just said is an actual choice, it's crappy ass convincing."

The entrance to the hotel parking lot was coming up and it took everything I had to turn Baby's wheel instead of driving past it. "You'll get them all killed. Is that what you want?" It was quiet, I'd turned Baby off and hadn't noticed. I was starting to think that when I'd told Sam I only had one fight left in me it wasn't just about fighting the Mark. "One more, get through one more. You gave Oliver your word nothing would happen to Roy. Suck it up."

I got the feeling that someone was watching me so I looked up through the windshield, Sam was standing on the balcony staring straight at me. "And now he knows. Shit. So much for doing things differently. Here's me, dragging myself into a fight when everything is telling me I shouldn't because I'm barely hanging on and there's him, worried but willing to back my play even when he knows I'm being an idiot. We both know better but we'll both do it anyway. Picture perfect examples of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

He started walking down the stairs, so I pulled my ass together and got out of Baby. I already knew what he was going to say, seeing as how this was the millionth or so time we'd had this conversation in one form or the other.

"Is Roy staying?" May as well start the ball rolling.

"Yes. Are you..?"

First one, didn't need to hear the whole thing "No."

He stopped walking, he hadn't expected that. Usually I lie. "Do you..?"

"No." Next. I just stood in front of him, waiting.

"Then why?"

"You don't need to hear the reasons, you know why."

He started getting pissed, "So, not doing things differently after all then."

"Yeah I am, I just told you the truth instead of lying, I gave Roy a choice. Should we bail on him, leave Coyote on her own?"

"Of course not, we don't have to bail. You can back out, I'll stay. I'm not attached to your hip, I can do things without you. Your head's not in this Dean. That's when you and I both make stupid choices."

"Sam, I don't bail on people. I'll be fine when the time comes."

"Really? You've bailed plenty of times. Just not physically." He yanked the bag out of my arms. I was kind of surprised he didn't shove me as pissed and frustrated as he was. "Get your head straight. I won't back your play this time if it means watching you go back down that path again. If you don't want in, don't be in. No one is going to give you shit about it, not me, not Roy, not Coyote. Figure out why you want to do this because if you don't have a why you won't have a reason to fight. If you can't fight you don't need to be on a job. Especially one like this."

He turned to walk off then his head dropped down and his shoulders slumped forward and he looked at me over his shoulder. All that anger was gone, replaced with a desperate pleading look. He knew what my usual reasons for doing things usually resulted in. "If you don't care about saving people, then why do this? I don't need saving, neither does Coyote. We know what's out there, the people that need saving are the ones who don't. They're the ones we're doing this for, or at least they should be. Back to basics. Think about it."