A/N: Thanks for all the support from last chapter, everyone! I hope you enjoy this chapter as well.

Chapter 2: A Winchester Night Out

Crowley was suave. Crowley was urbane, was debonair. Crowley was, simply put, the kind of man that could pull off wearing sunglasses indoors with style and panache.

Dean Winchester was not.

Dean Winchester was also the kind of man to call someone who did, or otherwise imparted such valuable advice, a 'pansy ass,' so the little bastard had it coming anyway.

Now normally Crowley didn't go for the shades himself, but when twiddle-dee and twiddle-dumbass decided they were going to flip logic the bird and check out an up and coming hunter pit-stop…

Instead of worrying, Crowley settled in at the bar with a tumbler of bourbon, a bowl of peanuts, and a smile. He had always enjoyed a bit of theatre.

The scene opened with a pair of brothers—Moose and Squirrel, we'll call 'em for clarity's sake—sauntering into a crowded, dimly lit bar. They were looking for information—wanted an easy mark to ease the elder brother back into the hunt—and thought this might be the place to find it. They figured they could kick back and relax among their own people.

But a hush fell as the hicks inside slowly realized just who they were looking at. The Brothers Winchester, oblivious as always, made their way over to the bar and settled in, but the noise didn't start back up.

The brothers had worried briefly that news of Squirrel's… condition… might have leaked, but they needn't have. That wasn't the problem. No, the problem was more fundamental than that. Because what the Winchesters failed to realize—and had been failing to realize for years—was that they weren't hunters. Not really, not where it counted.

A hunter was a hick in over his head—and he knew it. A hunter was a paranoid son of bitch out for vengeance more than any greater good, though he might save a few sods along the way. A hunter was a mortal man—or woman, took all kinds—and he would die before his time.

The Winchesters… met none of these basic requirements. The boys hunted rugarus when they wanted a vacation, and thought they had it handled when fundamental forces of the universe were arrayed against them—and they did. The boys were raised to battle, born and bred to the fight. And mortality? There were only so many times someone could play paddy cake with Death before the word didn't really apply anymore.

The Winchesters were hunters the way Loki was a mischief-maker.

And the hunters knew it, too. From what Crowley's feelers had overheard, there were two camps. The ones who thought the boys were some myth come to life to save humanity and those who thought the boys were something that should be hunted down, beheaded, torched, and buried in a salt quarry.

Crowley couldn't really tell who was right; the truth was probably somewhere in the middle.

And, well, there was a third group. A small, stupid, third group made up almost exclusively of first generation hunters that had come late to the game and were just starting to make a name for themselves. The opinion of this camp was that the Winchesters were a couple of upstarts that had gotten a lucky break or two.

Like Crowley said, stupid.

But, Crowley frowned in thought, he might have been a bit off. Was this theatre or one of those nature documentaries?

Before Crowley could puzzle it out, a group of upstanding gentlemen from camp number three broke the awkward silence before it dragged on long enough for the boys to notice. A group of three big, posturing men approached the boys—ergo, entertainment.

They were also making everyone else very nervous. All around the bar, wiser folk were backing up, drawing away, hands twitching towards weapons or protective charms as the fancy struck them.

But there was no reason for the general riffraff of the pub to worry. The two groups spent a moment sizing each other up before moving on to the ritual dick measuring contest of greeting, and then settling down for a round of bragging over cheap, watered down whisky. As was tradition.

It went on that way for nearly twenty minutes.

Crowley put his head in his hands and tamped down on the urge to snigger.

Because remember how Crowley had said that hunters were paranoid? Well, these particular bright sparks had decided to keep themselves safe by covering their bases.

Mostly by, well…

"And then," the broad shouldered, red-bearded alpha male at the center of the pack bragged loudly, "I gutted the bitch."

A laugh went up between the Neanderthals as they clanked their bottles together in a toast, letting out a group cheer of "Christo!"

"Ha-choo!" Dean said loudly, flatly, and none-too enthusiastically. But he did duck his head and close his suddenly black eyes, and that was really all you could ask for the thirty-seventh time he'd had to pull the maneuver.

Sam sent his brother a commiserating look and then turned back the older men. "Hey, uh, why do you keep saying that?"

"Keep saying what?" the man asked, eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Christo?" Sam reminded.

"Ha-choo!" Dean said, exaggerating the motion so that he accidently elbowed Sam in the ribs as he convulsed.

"Oh, sorry," Sam said before catching the looks on the others' faces and freezing. "I mean… jerk."

"Bitch," Dean snapped back automatically.

The man on Sam's right stared at them for another minute before shrugging. "Figured the reason so many hunters get ganked by demons is they don't see possession coming. Work that little nugget into everyday conversation, you can notice someone's eyes flash black clear across a room."

"Really," Dean said flatly.

"I reckon so," the hunter on Dean's left said with satisfaction. "Big shots like you two gotta know what sneaky sons of bitches demons are. You throw out a Christo—"

"Ha-choo!"

"—or two and…" the man trailed off. "You ok, son?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Sam covered quickly. "He's allergic to cats."

"Oh, right," the man accepted easily before he blinked and seemed to think about that response. "Wait, how does that…"

Crowley laughed. Loudly. The Winchesters sent him twin glares while the hunters just stared suspiciously.

Crowley smiled sweetly and wiggled his fingers in a wave.

"Anyway," Dean said loudly, eyes back on his tablemates, "you were saying you had run across signs of a black coven up in Washington?"

That, Crowley had to hand it to the Squirrel, was a fancy bit of wordplay, though someone not used to watching hunters in their natural habitat might have missed it. It gave the rival group the chance to posture, showoff their connections and knowledge while still giving the boys the in they needed to gather information—which was a priority as all the Winchesters' normal avenues of monster migration news had dried up. Or died off, as it happened.

And it probably would have worked too, if a female hadn't taken that moment to make her move.

If Carver Edlund was to be believed, Dean had had women throwing themselves at him for most of his life, and with hunter women it was statistically more likely for that to be literal.

In this case a waitress chose that moment to "trip" and spill her tray of margaritas down his front—and herself into his lap.

"I'm sorry, sugar. Let me get that," the hot little blonde number said huskily, moving to wipe a smudge of salt off the corner of Dean's eye.

Dean's very black, very demonic eye.

Her finger paused.

A girlish shriek of terror split the air.

The waitress, a service to her profession truly, grabbed the shrieking man by the back of the neck and yanked him backward with one hand while she went for her machete with the other.

"I can explain!" Sam babbled, pushing up from his chair as pandemonium erupted around them.

"Demon! It's a demon!"

"No!" Sam yelled, eyes darting. "Dean just, uh—"

"Damn it," Dean muttered at his brother's back as he heard a chorus of safeties click off.

Sam glanced down at his brother and hissed, "What do we—" That was as far as he got before his big brother swept him into a sleeper hold, pulling him into an awkward backbend against Dean's chest as his airway was slowly squeezed shut.

"Nobody move or Big Bird gets it!" Dean snapped, gun pressing insistently into Sam's temple.

"You are so getting the squirt bottle when we get home," Sam gasped nonsensically.

"Heh." The leader of the big and bearded posse made his reappearance to sneer, "The great Dean Winchester went and got himself possessed, and Sammy Winchester didn't even notice."

"Uh, yeah," Sam said quickly through the chokehold Dean had him in, "that's what happened."

Dean rolled his eyes—not that anyone who didn't know what to look for could tell while they were demon black—and lifted the moose up off his feet in one easy motion. Sam let out a frankly emasculating squeak as he was dragged back through the front door and out of sight.

There was a long moment of silence as every soul present, Crowley included, watched the door swing quietly shut. Then a mousy twenty-something, hands locked white-knuckled around a glock, demanded, "Did Sam Winchester just get abducted by a demon?"

An old timer tried on a shaky smile. "I-I'm sure it'll be—"

The mousy kid continued shrilly, "On our watch?"

A beat.

And that was when the real panic erupted.

Crowley glanced around at the frankly impressive number of munitions changing hands before standing up with his best salesman's grin. He was always equally delighted for a minute in the limelight or a chance to win brownie points and had just spotting an opportunity for both. "Don't worry folks," he called as he sauntered into the thick of the quickly amassing riot. "I'm a pro at anti-possession rites. I'll get this sorted in a jiff. Just stay here. Take a load off."

It took him a bewildered moment to realize no one was paying attention to him. He briefly considered being offended, before a voice cut in.

"Are you new or something?"

Crowley tugged his sunglasses off his nose as he turned to the voice.

"This ain't the time to try and make a name for yourself," the barkeep continued with the same disinterested tone—but the sweat at his temples ruined the image he was trying for. "That thing was clever enough to nab a Winchester. Better not to get involved."

Crowley felt one brow take off for his hairline without his consent. "You're just going to let a demon have a fellow hunter? Two, if you count the one he's wearing."

"It ain't like that." The man shook his head and sent Crowley a look before turning back to wiping down the bar with determined focus. "Newbie, you take my advice and forget what that moron was saying. Those were the Winchester boys. No offense, but you ain't up to their level, and they got it handled."

"And if the demon kills them before they… handle it?"

"Then it's too stupid to live." The man sent Crowley a long look. "You don't kill a Winchester. Just pisses 'em off."

Crowley paused and then nodded in agreement. That might've been the smartest thing he'd ever heard a hunter say.

By the time Crowley teleported himself into the Impala's back seat the brothers were already settled in the front and peeling out of the gravel lot.

Sam spared the demon king half a glance before turning back to Dean and complaining, "I can't believe you used me as a freaking hostage, man. It's not like getting shot would've even hurt you."

"Shows what you know," Dean snorted. "That shit stings like a bitch. And I freaking swear, if I get shot in the face with a salt round one more time this week, I'm going on another rampage."

Sam shifted guiltily, "…I said I was sorry about that."

Crowley settled back with a contented sigh. Quality theatre.