Fic: Running on Empty (4/4)

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Chapter 3b


Heat waves shimmer off the soft asphalt of the parking lot as Dean crosses to the admin bus the next morning. The bus’ big air conditioning unit is cycling noisily, so it’s a safe bet that Tony’s inside, adding up the receipts from the previous show. Tony is a cynical bastard, but he’s sharp and he’s the only one who always knows exactly where they’re supposed to be and when, so Dean’s gotten into the habit of checking with him before he starts driving anywhere. Dean’s ninety-nine percent sure that Colorado Springs is their next gig, but he’s got another reason to be here today anyway.

Dean knocks on the side door and waits a bit. Tony grunts out the word “Come!” and Dean goes. Tony’s got papers spread all over the table, flanked by a printing calculator on one side and a box of doughnuts on the other. Dean can smell the Irish in his coffee from here.

“How’d it go?” Dean asks, snagging a doughnut and lounging on one hip against the arm of the couch across from Tony.

Tony makes a haphazard slap at Dean’s hand as it comes out of the doughnut box and rolls his eyes. “Not bad; if we’re lucky we’ll break even by the end of the week.”

Dean chews and ponders for a minute.

“Why does everyone keep talking about six days off like it’s an impending apocalypse?”

Tony snorts, doesn’t even look up as he says, “You’ll see.”

Dean raises a doubting eyebrow.

“So where are we spending this Hiatus of Doom?”

“Lincoln,” Tony says, spitting the word like it tastes bad.

Lincoln? He doesn’t remember seeing that name on the tour itinerary. Of course, he hasn’t looked at it in quite a while, having chucked the worthless piece of shit in the nearest trashcan after that first night.

“Nebraska? What’s in Lincoln?”

Tony leans back in his chair and folds his hands behind his head, stretching. He looks Dean in the eye for the first time since Dean walked in.

“A bunch of bullshit, likely,” Tony says. “River and Linc have family there; it’s where they grew up. Linc has an ex and a couple of kids who still live there, I think. Why did you think he started using that name?”

“Linc” is the drummer’s stage name, of course, and Dean honestly hasn’t thought much about where it came from, one way or the other. It seems weird to think of the band having families, too. In fact, they rarely enter Dean’s mind at all unless one of them is being a pain in his ass right at the moment. They might have been spawned full-blown from some grunge-rock Hellmouth, for all Dean’s considered the question of their origins.

“That’s…domestic…of them, I guess,” Dean says.

Tony spits out a bitter laugh.

“Right. Except River’s mom is all he’s got left and she has Alzheimer’s, stashed away in a home someplace. She doesn’t even know him and he wouldn’t visit her if she did. And Linc, well…his ex won’t even let him see the kids and he hates his parents. He just goes back there out of some twisted desire to rub their noses in his ‘success,’” Tony says, complete with air quotes around the last word.

Tony reaches around with both hands and twists his head hard to the right, then back in the other direction and his neck pops with a sickening crunch. He rolls his shoulders a couple of times, picks up his pen and bends over the table again.

Dean gets up to go, knowing he’s already been dismissed. He steps outside, grinning as he closes the door behind him. There’s one less scrap of paperwork on Tony’s pile and he doesn’t have a clue.

**
About an hour before the gates open that night, Dean wanders down the arena concourse with the borrowed sheet of paper in his hand. Jen is standing behind a table carefully folding t-shirts into neat little rectangles. She smiles at Dean when he walks up.

“What’s up? You out of clean shirts?” she asks, indicating the merchandise on the table.

“Probably,” Dean laughs. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

He hands her the paper. She scans it and laughs wickedly.

“Band hotel room assignments. Niiice.”

“You’ll make sure that finds its way into the right hands?”

She nods, still grinning.

“I’ll take real good care of it for you.”

“I owe you one, sweetheart,” Dean says.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take it out in trade one way or the other,” she says, winking at him over her shoulder as she carries the paper toward the offices further down the hall.

“Hey, Mack! Can I make a couple hundred copies?”

**

Another town another place,
Another girl, another face,
Another truck, another race,
I'm eating junk, feeling bad,
Another night, I'm going mad,
My woman's leaving, I feel sad,
But I just love the life I lead,
Another beer is what I need,
Another gig my ears bleed.

We Are the Road Crew – Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead)

Dean still thinks of the crew bus as the Big Pig, but he’s gotten used to the solid feel of the oversized rolling motel now, and the nickname is more affectionate than an insult. They’re about an hour out of Colorado Springs when Dean senses the tension suddenly radiating from behind him.

He checks the interior mirror and the disturbance seems to center around Jake, who’s on the phone. He can hear most of what the guy is saying and if Dean had been in any doubt about the call being bad news, Michael’s pained frown from across the aisle would have cleared it up pretty quickly.

“Kristi, come on, don’t…no, I know…but you knew that, it’s my job. Baby, look, we’ve got six days off and we’re not far away, right next door…I swear, I’ll come home for a few days…”

Dean’s ninety percent sure that Jake’s from San Antonio, which is way the hell and gone from “right next door,” but he recognizes desperation when he hears it, too.

Jake listens for a minute, then just lets the phone drop to his lap, closing his eyes on a heavy exhale. He gets up and heads for his bunk without a word.

Michael looks at the floor for a beat or two, then walks to the front of the bus and flops down next to Dean.

“Girlfriend?” Dean asks, nodding toward the back of the bus, but keeping his eyes on the road.

Michael lets out a grunt to the negative and says, “Wife.”

“Ouch,” Dean answers. “That happen a lot?”

Michael gives a sideways nod that Dean takes to mean “often enough.” What Michael says out loud is, “First time for Jake.”

It’s weird, the stuff Dean knows about the other guys on the crew and the stuff he doesn’t—like he knew where Jake is from, but not that he was married, or how Joe has that on and off thing going with Sandra in catering. They’re all together 24/7—eat, sleep, work and repeat. If that weren’t enough, Dean knows how to get people to talk about themselves without giving them much back—does it out of habit, really—but he’s not sure he’s ever taken it this far before. He’s never stayed with one group of people long enough, never had a reason to care.

Dean glances at Michael sprawled in the shotgun seat and it gives Dean a strange jolt, like Michael doesn’t belong in that spot, like he’s just the smaller shadow of the one whose rightful place it is. Dean gives a sharp shake of his head. Must be some leftover damage from the concussion or something.

Just as Dean is thinking that Michael is uncharacteristically quiet tonight, he starts talking again.

“But yeah, it happens pretty much every tour. Women don’t last with guys like us…we’re gone all the time, you know how it is. Really Jake’s lucky she bothered to call him. Last year Slam went home a couple of days early and found his wife in bed with some guy she worked with. They’d been together eight years, too. But some make it work, I guess.”

“Not you, though?”

“Nah, man. Guys like you and me…baby, we were born to run. Like Springsteen,” he says, smirking.

Dean snorts.

“I don’t care if you are the boss’ brother—if you call me baby again, I’ll tie you to the back of this bus and we’ll see how fast you can run to Lincoln.”

Michael shows Dean both his palms, grinning.

“There’s a bong in the back that’s calling my name, anyway,” he says, rolling out of the seat. He takes a few steps up the center aisle before he turns his head back toward Dean.

“See ya later, baby,” Michael says over his shoulder.

Dean grabs a mostly empty soft drink container out of his cup holder, lines up the shot in the mirror and throws it backhanded, nails Michael square in the back of the head with the missile.

“Yes! I still got it!” Dean pumps his fist, wincing at the end of the movement. His rib has healed enough it doesn’t seem inclined to shift every time Dean does, but it’s still plenty sore and it aches annoyingly for the rest of the drive.

It’s totally worth it.

**

The day before their first full night in Lincoln, Joe gives Dean a conspiratorial look across the diner table where they’re eating lunch, nods at Jake and says “Therapy tonight.”

“And by ‘therapy’ you mean…” Dean inquires.

“Massive doses of alcohol and the liberal application of strippers.”

“Nice. Those always do wonders for my mood,” Dean says, grinning and nodding approvingly.

Around eight that evening, Dean wanders into the hotel lobby. Joe and Jake are already there, waiting for the rest of the crew to gather. All four members of the band come staggering out of the elevators and slouch into the hotel lounge. Rick glares at Dean when he passes.

“They look like lukewarm shit,” Joe comments. His t-shirt reads, “I’m Huge in Japan.”

“You mean more than usual?” Dean asks.

“Apparently they were bad boys last night, and now they’re not allowed to leave the hotel,” Joe says, smirking. “I heard a bunch of fans somehow got hold of their room assignments. Quite a disturbance, hotel property was damaged. Finally had to call the cops. Or so I heard.”

Dean makes a humming sound. “You don’t say?”

“I wonder how that happened?” Joe says, one corner of his mouth quirking upward.

“Karma?” Dean says, grinning.

Joe chuckles, as the last of the crew finally wanders into the lobby. They pile into the bus and Joe hauls them to a strip club downtown, where Jake takes on enormous quantities of tequila and three hours of lap dances from Dazzle, the Puerto Rican Firecracker. The rest of the crew make sure Jake’s shot glass stays full, but they’re doing a pretty good job of keeping up with him themselves.

Jen is there, looking sexy in a skintight leopard print skirt and black t-shirt. She’s not nearly as loud as the guys are, but she’s keeping pace with most of them, has drunk a couple of them pretty much under the table, in fact. She catches Dean’s eye and winks at him over the big cigar she’s smoking and it cracks him up. Luckily he’s too drunk for it to hurt much.

About an hour before last call, Jake quietly slithers from his chair to the floor, out cold. Slam reaches down and hoists him over his shoulder with a grunt, then heads for the door. The rest of the crew recognizes their cue and they spill out into the parking lot with varying degrees of steadiness. They don’t even try to drive back to the hotel; they just pile into the bus and pass out in their bunks.

Dean makes the mistake of stopping to piss on the way, meaning he has to search for an empty bunk. He bounces off the bulkheads a couple of times before he finally focuses on one at the top of a triple tier. While he’s studying the problem of climbing that high while he’s this high, he notices Jake snoring loudly in the bunk below.

Dean reaches up and grabs the front retainer board of the top bunk, hauling himself up and flailing for purchase with his feet. He’s pretty sure he steps on Jake’s arm at least once in the process. After he decides he’s probably not going to roll out onto the floor again, in spite of the way the bus seems to have started spinning, he peers over the edge of the bunk at Jake’s sleeping face. You poor son of a bitch.

And maybe Dean’s the poster child for alcohol and denial being the answers to exactly nothing, but for a few hours Jake’s friends made sure he didn’t have to think about the unpleasant reality that’s waiting for him at the end of the tour. Dean decides he’s proud to have been a part of that.

**

His entire concert was the essence of performance. I saw the familiar elements of a man I’d gotten to know exaggerated to the extreme. He had reduced rock stardom to its roots: being a rock star is the intersection of who you are and who you want to be. - Slash (regarding David Bowie).

By day four of their stay in Lincoln, Dean understands Joe and Tony’s dire predictions for this layover a lot better than he ever wanted to. Night before last he barely caught Mick, the bass player, before he smashed the headlights out of the band’s bus with a mic stand. Yesterday he had to half coax, half manhandle the normally easygoing River down from a fucking tree. He was hanging upside down from a branch for no reason Dean could ever discern.

“Why me, Joe? Why am I the designated babysitter for these idiots?” Dean asks.

They’re at a table in a small bar the band seems to favor, for whatever reason. Dean’s not clear why it’s so special. He thinks somebody said something about it being the first place Linc played.

“Because Mikey says you can handle yourself in a fight,” Joe replies.

Dean frowns.

“Let’s skip the part where I wonder whether your brother would know a good fighter if one bit him in the ass…he’s seen me fight once, and that ended with me unconscious and hospitalized.”

“Okay, let me put it this way, Dean: who else is going to do it? These guys ain’t Aerosmith, with their own private bodyguards. My crew is it. You want me to send Bear? The old fart’s arthritis is so bad, it’s all he can do to get up and down from the stage. Or there’s Jake…the kid’s half bright, can barely find his own ass with both hands. Oh, I know, how about Mikey…should I continue?”

Dean shakes his head in disgust.

“No, I take your point. I just think it’s going to defeat the purpose if I kill ‘em myself.”

Joe grins tiredly.

“If it comes to that, I swear I’ll help you hide the bodies. Until then, just do the best you can.

Dean looks over at the band. They’re slouched at various angles around a big booth in the corner, taking turns along with three or four girls snorting lines of something off the table, not even trying to hide it. It explains a lot of their behavior over the last couple of days, Dean thinks. He nods toward them and looks at Joe.

Joe rolls his eyes.

“I know. They’re not too bad when we stay busy, on the road, but this shit…” Joe says, shrugging.

“Just the band, right? I don’t see the crew doing anything stronger than a little weed now and then,” Dean comments.

“Some roadies are into the harder stuff,” Joe allows. “I discourage it amongst my guys, but it happens. The band does it because they have too much money and too much time. Roadies don’t usually have a whole lot of either. No, with the crew, it usually starts with trying to stay awake on the night drives and escalates from there. That’s one reason I was happy when you took over the driving responsibility.”

Most of the road crew is in the bar, too, but that’s mainly because it’s nearly midnight and their hotel is nearby and they have nowhere else to be. Joe and Dean are the ones who are working here. They’ve taken up a more or less strategic position off to one side of the room where they can see everything that goes down.

And something is about to go down. Dean can feel it.

Dean scans the room restlessly, trying to pinpoint the source of his tension. The band’s table is fairly quiet; they were mostly drunk when they started on the blow and they haven’t slowed down at all. In fact, River looks like he’s on the verge of passing out and Linc doesn’t seem like he’s that far behind. Then it hits Dean.

“Joe, where’s Rick?” Dean asks, searching the room.

“What?” Joe looks at the band again and swears viciously when he doesn’t locate Rick among them.

Dean’s partway out of his chair when he hears the pulsating bass rumble of a big motorcycle engine from somewhere just outside the open door of the bar. Screaming breaks out from that vicinity and people scatter like bowling pins.

Correction: the bike is inside the bar.

And Dean prides himself on his quick reflexes, but it does take him an extra second or two to react when Rick cranks the throttle and the big bike roars to the middle of the dance floor. Indoor motocross is not something Dean deals with that often, okay, so cut him some slack.

Rick seems to be trying to do donuts in the middle of the bar, judging from the way he has the handlebars cranked around, or maybe that’s just the only position he’s capable of maintaining in his fucked-up state. Either way, he makes it through about a round and a half before he dumps the bike.

Momentum and residual engine torque take the motorcycle through a couple more pretty forceful rotations. Tables are flying, glass is breaking, and there’s a lot of screaming and all-around chaos. Dean entertains a second or two of hope that the out-of-control bike will run over the sorry motherfucker and finish the job, but Rick’s luck is better than Dean’s, as usual, and he manages to curl up and roll out of the way. Just like a cockroach.

After the first wave of screaming dies down, Rick obviously is fine, but it still seems like he got the worst of the whole incident, so Dean raises his voice so he can be heard around the room.

“Okay, show’s over, everybody’s fine. Just go back to…whatever,” Dean trails off lamely.

Once he’s reassured everyone how fucking fine they actually are, a few of them seem to snap out of their shocked state and start pulling themselves together. Dean reaches down, hauls Rick up by his collar and looks around for Joe, intending to ask him for disposal instructions.

Suddenly there’s an earsplitting screech from behind Dean and something clamps down on the back of his right thigh. He lets out a roar of pain and lets go of Rick. He twists around to see a girl with short black hair in a leather miniskirt latched onto his leg and biting him with all her strength.

“Fucking hell…get off me! Shit!” Dean yells and tries to pull his leg away.

The bar had gone quiet, but it’s as if all the screaming lit a fast-burning fuse. River and Linc exchange looks and the bomb goes off—without a word they both start grabbing and pounding on whoever gets in their way. The rest of the band and most of the crew join the fray, and the bar explodes into an all out brawl.

Dean’s got no attention to spare for anyone or anything beyond the sharp little monkey teeth still digging into his leg. He tries to pry the girl loose, then to shake her off.

Jesus Christ, she’s like a goddamned snapping turtle, Dean thinks frantically, and he finally gives it up and backhands her across the face. It stuns her into letting go.

Dean rubs at his leg a couple of times as he assesses his position. He straightens up too quickly and almost gets clocked, but he weaves out of the way in time to shift his stance and deck the idiot. A hand grabs at his shoulder and he throws his weight behind a hard right cross without even looking at the face his fist smashes into.

The motion hurts his side, and Dean is suddenly really, really over this shit. He starts cutting a swath across the bar, swinging at everything in his way with both barrels. By the time he’s out of breath the fight has mostly burned its way out.

He reaches the wall near the door and leans back against it, panting. Most bar fights are pretty short-lived—drunks don’t have the best stamina in the world, not to mention balance. There are still a few diehards punching and wrestling around, but he can see the band is pretty much done. They were way too wasted when the thing started and it’s not like Dean has a high estimation of their probable worth in a fight even if they hadn’t been. The remaining combatants give it up soon after, collapsing against the nearest supporting surface, exhausted and confused.

Dean rests for a couple of minutes, then locates Joe deep in conversation with a heavy-set guy Dean assumes is the bar’s manager. Joe writes something down on a slip of paper and hands it over to the guy, then turns back toward the main room, looking at the mess tiredly. Dean looks at the broken glass, overturned furniture and tire-marked flooring, and he figures this must have been what Tony was talking about when he mentioned breaking even.

Joe trudges over to Dean’s position, wiping blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. He slumps against the wall next to Dean and nods at the wreckage.

“That is the problem with a six-day break.”

**

The load-in in St. Joseph, Missouri, is subdued, most of the crew still sporting some kind of souvenir from the fight, wearing their black eyes and split lips like merit badges for idiocy. Dean’s injuries, old and new, have stiffened up some and he’s trying to keep moving by helping with the sound setup.

He’s on his way to the main sound truck to grab Bear a couple of speaker cones when he hears a woman’s voice. He pokes his head around the corner of the truck to see.

The girl is backed up against the bobtail they use to haul most of the band’s instruments, and Michael’s there too, holding her with his hands on her shoulders.

“I had to see you,” she purrs.

“Oh God, Sherri, yeah, I want to see you, too…of course I do, but…shit, I’ve got to go. They’re going to be wanting me for sound check really soon. Can you…”

Dean’s a little surprised to see that Michael wasn’t exaggerating too much about her looks; she is smokin’ hot, about eighteen or so, and even in a plain t-shirt and shorts Dean can tell she has a really nice body. She’s smiling at Michael and he’s obviously hooked, stuck there like a fly in a spider web.

“It’s okay, baby,” she says, running her finger down Michael’s chest. “This is the truck where we…uh, you know…that night, right? I’ll just wait for you here.”

“Um, yeah…” Michael stutters, and she leans up to kiss him.

“I’ll be here when you’re done, okay?” she says when she pulls back.

Michael just starts nodding like a bobblehead on a dashboard, obviously having lost the ability to form words. She pats his chest and smiles, makes a “go on” motion with her head, and he does, turning back to look like he’s afraid she’ll disappear, like she was a hallucination or something.

Dean totally doesn’t blame him for thinking that, because something here doesn’t add up. He stays hidden and watches Sherri watching Michael leave.

She waits until Michael is out of eyeshot and turns quickly to the truck, opening the passenger door and leaning inside. Dean’s pretty sure she’s looking for something, mostly under the passenger seat. She searches and swears for a minute or two, then finally climbs up into the cab. Dean pads closer.

“Shit, shit, shit…where is it? No, no, no…it’s got to be here…” she’s perched on her knees on the seat while she rummages underneath, giving Dean a really incredible view of her ass from his position just outside the truck’s open door.

From here he can see he was definitely right about one thing—this chick is way out of Michael’s league. No wonder she played him so easy; the only question is what she’s playing at.

“Lose something?” Dean asks mildly, when he’s mostly done looking.

“Fuck!” she gasps and flails, falling off the seat and sprawling into the floorboard. Dean winces in sympathy when she smacks her elbow on the dashboard on the way down, but he doesn’t move from where he’s deliberately using his body to block at least one exit from the truck’s cab.

“Maybe later,” Dean says, faking a smile. “Right now I’m guessing you’ve got bigger things to worry about. Like what you’re going to do about five thousand dollars’ worth of blow that’s suddenly disappeared.”

Her dark eyes are fixed on Dean and he can almost hear the gears turning as she tries to figure the best way to twist him around her finger.

“You have it,” she says, and her eyes narrow. It’s not a question.

“I didn’t even know for sure that you had it,” Dean says, “…until just now.”

“Who are you and why is this any of your business?” she asks.

“I’m Michael’s friend and you’re fucking him over. That makes it my business,” Dean says.

As soon as the word ‘friend’ is out there it hits Dean hard, the way the simple truth spoken aloud sometimes does. Damn it, he cares what happens to Michael and that’s a complication he could definitely do without. Maybe it’s that old Chinese thing where he keeps saving the guy’s hide, so now he’s responsible for him. Whatever, this girl has been nothing but bad news for both of them.

“I’m not…God!”

Sherri huffs in frustration and grabs the steering wheel, using it for leverage to clamber out of the floorboard. Dean moves back far enough for her to drop out of the cab and onto the pavement.

“I’m not ‘fucking him over.’ He wasn’t supposed to be involved; he was just supposed to be my ride,” Sherri says, frowning.

Dean just looks at her, unimpressed, and makes a twirling motion with one finger for her to keep talking.

“It’s my brother Neal. He’s such a prick…you have no idea,” she says.

“We’ve met. And I have an idea,” Dean says dryly.

“I just…I didn’t plan it, you know? I met Mikey and he was so sweet and he kept talking about the tour and all the places he’s been and I just wanted out, you know? Haven’t you ever felt like that, like you’d rather be anywhere but where you are?” she asks, blinking earnestly up at Dean.

The corner of his mouth twitches and he exhales a bitter little laugh. He really hates it when things get ironic. It’s like the cosmos just loves to fuck with him or something.

“So you decided Michael was your ticket out…why?” Dean asks, eyebrows raised.

Sherri’s eyes go even wider and she starts gesturing with her hands as she explains, talking in a rush, like she can’t get it all out fast enough.

“I work at the bowling alley and Michael came in that night and he was so sweet. He gave me a ride back to my house, which I would never have let him do, but it was Thursday and Neal always makes a…run…to Lincoln on Thursdays, so I wasn’t expecting him back at all. He would have killed Michael,” Sherri says and something unpleasant darkens her eyes for a second, a haunted look that Dean associates with some unfortunate firsthand knowledge of death.

“After we, uh…afterward, we sat in the truck and talked and I said I had to go to the bathroom, but I went in the house and threw some of my stuff in a bag. I thought I’d talk Michael into taking me with him, you know?”

Dean’s played enough poker—and scammed enough himself—to catch most liars out after about two sentences. This chick…Dean watches her face as she talks and he decides she’s either a really good actress or she’s telling the truth.

“So what made you decide to take some of Neal’s ‘stuff’ while you were at it?”

Sherri gets a dull, resigned look in her eyes then, and it drags at Dean harder than anything she’s said so far.

“I knew if I left, I’d need money and there’s only so many ways for a girl like me to make it out there. I figured Neal’s the one who made me miserable enough to leave town, he might as well pay the price.”

“Except all you did was sic him on Michael.”

She frowns, and Dean’s ninety percent sure she’s as surprised as she seems.

“Neal’s been here?”

She looks around quickly, almost panicked, like she expects Neal to jump out from behind the truck any second and Dean feels a couple more pieces of the girl’s puzzle click into place. This Neal guy really is a dick.

“Not here, in Sioux City. Shaking Mikey down for his five grand.”

“But…I…shit. Neal came back to the house that night before we could leave, before I got a chance to talk to Michael about taking me with him. I had to get out of the truck and stay there. Neal would have tracked us down and killed us both if I hadn’t. As it was, he nearly…it doesn’t matter,” Sherri finishes, looking miserable.

“So, you stole a bunch of your brother’s shit intending to sell it, and stashed it in this truck intending to ride off into the sunset with Mikey. That about cover it?” Dean says.

She takes in a deep breath and blows it out through her lips, nodding.

“I didn’t think Neal would track Michael down, though. He’s such a sweet guy, you know? I never wanted him to get hurt.”

If even half of what Dean suspects about Neal is true, then taking off like this is a pretty gutsy move on her part, but still.

“You should have left the dope where it was, then. That shit always gets somebody hurt. Or dead,” Dean says, then almost wishes he hadn’t. The look in her eyes is telling him she probably knows a lot more about that effect than anyone should.

“Probably. But that brings us right back to where we started,” she says. “Where is it?”

Dean shakes his head.

“I don’t have it. Like I told you, I didn’t know it was here until fifteen minutes ago. Where did you even hide it in the first place?”

“Under the seat,” she mumbles, her eyes wandering away from Dean’s.

“Well, genius move there. This is a rock tour and these guys spend half their lives in these trucks. Some roadie probably found your little stash the day after you put it there. Probably thought it was Christmas and his birthday all rolled up into one, too.”

And maybe made a little money on the side, selling it. Like to the band, Dean thinks, remembering the scene at the bar.

“I told you…” Sherri starts.

“I know, I know…you didn’t plan it,” Dean says, holding up his hand to cut her off. He gives her a probing look and tries to think what to do.

“Neal isn’t going to stop until he’s got his money—or taken it out of Mikey’s hide,” Dean says.

“I know. He’s a monster,” she says quietly.

And of course Dean doesn’t tell her killing monsters is his job, but he thinks it. Thinks about how easy it would be for him to track this guy down and kill him if he were some sort of supernatural threat. If he had his car, he might do it anyway—drive out to Council Bluffs and put an end to this worthless piece of shit himself.

He glances at Sherri and he’s expecting her to start crying at this point, honestly, but she doesn’t. Maybe if she had, things would have gone a different way—Dean would have resented being manipulated, disliked her more—but as it is, Sherri is looking at him with a certain wary trust, like she’s got him pegged as somebody who’ll help her instead of trying to hurt her. And maybe Sherri is pretty good at reading people, because Dean finally sighs and pulls out his wallet. He separates out a few small bills, hands her the rest of the money, and just waits.

She hesitates. Dean grits his teeth.

“Nowhere near five thousand, but it’ll get you a bus ticket somewhere,” Dean says.

She looks him in the eye for a few seconds before she takes the money.

“Don’t tell Michael,” she says.

Dean exhales sharply through his nose and shakes his head.

“Take care of him?” she asks, staring at him with her big, wet doe eyes.

“I’ll look out for him,” Dean says.

Dean watches her walk away without looking back. He shakes his head. He’s under no illusion that he’s looking at the end of this clusterfuck. Too bad Neal isn’t his type of monster; it would have been a lot simpler.

People, man… they complicate everything.

Whatever. He turns on his heel and walks to the arena. It’s almost show time and he’s got work to do.

**

The band is off its game. Dean wouldn’t have thought he’d been paying enough attention to tell the difference, but the depressed mood bleeds over into the music and it’s obvious from the sound and the general atmosphere in the arena that nobody’s putting as much into the performance as they normally do.

Dean’s heard this same show dozens of times now, seen the spotlights move and change color the same way every time, and when the lighting shifts slightly, he feels the change instantly. He looks up at the lighting grid just as the crowd gives a collective gasp. The truss creaks loud enough to be heard over the music. Sparks shower down onto the stage, triggering screams from the audience. A violent screeching sound of something metal giving way cuts the music off, and half the grid starts to sag downward.

Dean’s already moving toward the crowd on the floor, but they’re shrinking back from the falling truss already. Dean realizes that’s not entirely a good thing; someone’s going to get crushed in the backward press.

Dean stands there undecided for a second, but there’s not a damned thing he can do to help the crowd, so he turns to the stage instead, takes a running start and jumps, shoving equipment out of the way and trying to locate the personnel.

River has already vacated, smartest one of the bunch as usual, Dean thinks, but Linc is still sitting behind his drums staring open-mouthed at the collapsing grid. Dean gives a quick glance upward. It’s not coming down fast, but it is fucking coming down.

Dean grabs Linc by the shirt and hauls him bodily down the steps at the side of the stage, shoving him hard to get him out of the drop zone. He looks around for Joe and spots him just off the stage right, with Rick in tow.

That just leaves the crowd and fuck, where are the house lights? The dragging squeal of tearing metal is still clawing at Dean’s ears, each piece of the rig that falls pulling another behind it, leg bone connected to the thighbone, world without end. It probably only takes a minute or two but it seems a lot longer before the metallic horror show ends and the screams of the crowd begin to seem loud again. Then the house lights come up. Dean swears.

“Ladies and gentleman, please…”

It must be the arena’s PA system and Dean’s got no idea who’s using it; he just hopes they can keep anyone from getting crushed in the evacuation.

“Please, ladies and gentleman, you’re in no danger. Please leave the arena in an orderly fashion…”

“Fucking Christ!” Dean growls, as he looks up into the seating area. “Orderly” was never an option and people are already down. He has the urge to scream at them, tell them to stop running, the danger’s over, like that would do any good. He finally has to look away.

He turns and jogs across the floor to Joe, keeping an eye out for falling debris. The members of the band are nowhere to be seen; Dean assumes Tony or somebody herded them off to safety first thing.

Joe is taking a head count of the crew over by one of the arena floor entrances. Dean makes a quick and dirty count of his own and comes up short. A horrible thought hits him then and he turns and sprints back to the left side of the stage.

Michael’s crap is all still there, fairly untouched, but Michael isn’t. Dean scans the arena floor, but he doesn’t see any sign of the kid. He heads back to where he last saw Joe and meets Joe halfway there. He’s evidently had the same thought as Dean.

“Where’s Mikey?” Joe asks, voice laced with panic.

“Not at the stage,” Dean says firmly. Or under it, he doesn’t say. But where?

There are only two main floor exits and Dean points to one.

“Check the loading dock!”

Dean runs toward the other opening. It’s kind of a tunnel under the seating and it’s not all that well lit. He might have missed them completely if the branch from the locker rooms hadn’t funneled the voices straight to him.

“You little shit, I’ve been chasing you over Hell’s half acre for weeks now!”

“I don’t…don’t have your stuff,” Michael stammers.

“What’d you do? Sell it? You’re gonna give me the fucking money you got for it right the fuck now!”

Dean creeps down the curving hallway and spots them. Neal’s rabid with anger, spit flying every time he speaks.

“No…no,” Michael says.

Neal’s got one hand balled up in the front of Michael’s shirt and he draws his other fist back. The situation isn’t going to get any better unless Dean does something. His options are pretty limited, so he takes a running start and just hits the big prick with a flying tackle. Neal hears Dean coming and turns but it can’t save him and Dean takes him down. He hits the concrete floor with a heavy smack, Dean’s weight knocking the air out of him with a whoosh.

Neal’s had some time to work up a head of steam and the fall doesn’t slow him down much. He arches his body up under Dean sharply and throws him off. Dean staggers back against the wall. Dean’s ready for him by the time he gets up, but Neal reaches behind his back and pulls a .357 magnum out of his waistband.

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but I’m getting pretty fucking sick of finding you up in my business every time I turn around,” Neal says.

“Yeah, I can see how it would be inconvenient, having to fight somebody your own size every time you’re expecting to beat the hell of some scrawny-ass kid,” Dean answers automatically, but the gun pretty much has his full attention.

Neal curls his lip and walks closer, gun still aimed squarely at Dean’s chest, now at what is commonly referred to as “point blank range.”

“Think you’re funny. Let’s see how funny you are with your insides splattered all over this wall.”

“Probably not nearly as funny as that,” Dean says, nodding at something over Neal’s left shoulder.

“Right…” Neal begins, smirking, but he’s cut off by the solid whump of a two by four making abrupt contact with his head.

Neal makes an “uh” sound and drops to the floor.

“Nice shot, Mikey,” Dean says, mainly to cover his enormous sigh of relief. Michael is looking at him with round eyes and Dean claps him on the shoulder, waiting for him to correct the nickname. Dean sees the intent in his eyes for a second, but he seems to change his mind.

“Thanks, bro.”

Dean kicks the gun away from Neal’s limp hand, then winces and rubs at his right side.

“If you broke my rib again, you sorry son of a bitch…” but he’s interrupted by the ring of his phone. It’s an unknown number.

“Mr. Winchester?”

“Yeah,” Dean answers hoarsely, already knowing it’s nothing good.

“I’m calling from Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, New Mexico. We have a John Winchester here, and you’re listed as his emergency contact…”

“What’s wrong? How is he?”

“Calm down, sir. He’s going to be fine, but he’s sustained some pretty serious injuries. You should really come…”

Dean closes his eyes briefly at the wash of relief.

“I’m on my way,” he says simply and hangs up.

He meets Michael’s questioning look.

“Not another dead dog, I hope,” Michael says, with a flicker of an uncertain smile.

Dean laughs a little in spite of himself, shaking his head.

“No,” Dean says.

“But you’re leaving,” Michael says. It’s not really a question.

“Yeah. My Dad’s in the hospital.”

“You can always come back to the tour after he’s better?” Michael says.

It soaks in then, that he’s leaving as fast as he can get a ride out and Dean’s shocked to realize that he’s going to miss being here. It occurs to him for the first time that he hasn’t really even thought much about hunting while he’s been working this gig. He’s actually gotten attached to this freakshow in just a few weeks, and he knows better than that. What a long, strange trip it’s been, for sure.

Then he realizes that Michael’s still looking at him hopefully and Dean finally just shakes his head. His tour is over.

**
Michael watches the dotted white lines roll under the truck, ticking off the minutes to Council Bluffs. Dean said something about taking the bus, but Joe had just rolled his eyes and volunteered Michael’s services as a driver. Michael was glad, because he’s not really looking forward to saying goodbye. Judging from the scene when they left St. Joseph, Michael doesn’t think Joe was either.

“Hate to see you go, Dean, but...well, I hope your old man’s okay,” Joe said, handing Dean his final pay. And a little bit more besides, Michael was pretty sure.

“He’ll be fine. Just a hunting accident,” Dean answered, sticking out his right hand.

Joe shook it and then used it to pull Dean in for a hug. Michael could see Dean’s back stiffen for a second or two before he reached around with one hand and pounded Joe twice on the back.

Joe let him go and stepped back.

“If you ever need anything…well, I still owe you one,” Joe said, glancing in Michael’s direction.

Dean just nodded and turned to Michael.

“Just keep him away from the pussy,” Dean said.

“Hey…”

Dean smirked.

“I guess as long as you keep a chunk of lumber handy, it might be safe for you to get a little now and then,” he said, shoving Michael hard enough to make him stagger. He’d acted like he minded at the time, but he really didn’t.

Michael looks across the truck’s cab. Dean’s eyes are on the road, but he’s not really looking at it. His mind is already about a hundred miles ahead of them.

“So do you think Neal really sabotaged that truss?” Michael says. He’s already pretty sure he knows the answer, but he figures it’s as good a way as any to get Dean to talk to him.

Dean shrugs. “Your brother seemed to think so.”

“What do you think?”

“I think if he didn’t, then him being there was a pretty fucking big coincidence.”

“Yeah. I guess the cops had enough warrants on him it didn’t matter. Maybe he’ll forget about me by the time they let him out,” Michael says.

Dean gives a grunt that could mean anything, then asks, “How many casualties?”

“They took four or five to the hospital, but I don’t think any of them were too serious.” Michael waits and when Dean doesn’t say anything else, he remembers something he’s been wanting to ask.

“Hey, Dean?”

“What?” he answers, letting his head flop against the seatback like he’s annoyed.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you…what is that thing?” Michael asks, motioning to the amulet hanging around Dean’s neck. “Where’d you get it?”

Dean’s mouth tightens and he frowns slightly. For a minute Michael thinks he’s not going to answer, but he finally says, “Somebody gave it to me a long time ago.”

Then he slides down in the seat and slips on a pair of shades, folding his arms like he’s going to sleep.

Michael gets the message and just drives for a while in silence. He doesn’t think Dean’s really sleeping, though, because hello…he’s not stupid. Dean’s body isn’t relaxed enough and his breathing, well, he’s just faking it; it’s that simple.

And Michael gets it. He’s been around Dean long enough to figure out that he’s one of those guys who doesn’t like to talk about himself, or his feelings, or anything that matters. And it’s not that Dean doesn’t care. Hell, Michael wouldn’t be here if he didn’t. No, Michael’s pretty sure the reason Dean acts all hard is because he cares too much.

They pull up to the storage unit in Council Bluffs just as the sun’s going down and Dean jumps out of the truck like he’s got springs tied to his ass. He unlocks the door and goes in, runs his hand along the car’s side like he’s petting it, and Michael guesses maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing.

After a minute or so a small smile settles across his face and he looks back at Michael like he’s forgotten he was there for a minute. Michael realizes this is his last chance.

“So, Dean…” he pauses and looks down at the toe of his boot, scuffs it across the concrete floor. “I never said thanks, you know…for saving my life and well…everything.”

“I think you saved my ass that last time, Mikey,” Dean says, smiling a little.

Michael chuckles. “I guess, but it was still my fault in the first place.”

Dean’s eyes flicker at that, but Michael doesn’t know how to read it and he forgets it when Dean speaks.

“Well, Mikey, we both got places to be, so…I guess, just get some of that SWAG* for me,” Dean says, hands in his pockets.

“Huh. If Joe ever lets me out of his sight long enough.”

Dean smiles a little at that. “He worries about you. It ain’t like you don’t give him plenty of reason, dude. Besides, it’s what us big brothers do.”

It’s a small slip, but Michael’s not above taking advantage of it.

“You have a little brother, Dean? You never said.”

Dean hesitates, then says, “Yeah. Well, not so little anymore, but he’s younger.”

Michael thinks about that for a second, then grins.

“Well, speaking as a younger brother, I’d say he’s pretty lucky to have you.”

Dean doesn’t answer and Michael can tell he wants to leave then, can see how he gets kind of fidgety, so he asks, “Sure you can make it to the auto shop okay?”

“Oh yeah,” Dean says, smiling at the Impala. “She’ll get us there.”

Michael waits until Dean has the car started anyway, waves at him as he shifts it into gear. Dean just smirks faintly in goodbye and drives off. And again, Michael’s not stupid—Dean’s not coming back to the tour after his dad gets better. Michael’s pretty sure he’ll never see Dean again.

As he gets back into the truck, Michael thinks about how Dean looked behind the wheel of the Impala—like he belonged there, almost a part of the car. It seems kind of big for one person, though, and Michael tries to imagine Dean’s brother, wonders if he ever rides shotgun in that beautiful black monster. The picture feels so right to him that Michael thinks he probably does.

END

*SWAG = Sex With a Groupie