I do not own Star Trek 2009 or Supernatural

This one begins right after Nightmare Reborn but the ensuing chapters will just be snapshots (if they end up relating to a previously written story, I'll put up a note).

The first time I saw them walk into my San Francisco bar, I thought "My god, if that isn't trouble, I don't know what is."

You see, I own a bar. Not a club, not a trendy place that serves tinkly martinis and has grooving beats, a DJ and sexy, beautiful people all pressed up against each other on the dance floor.

Nope, my establishment has a couple of dart boards, two battered pool tables, a real, old-fashioned jukebox and I serve beer (good beer, but beer). The atmosphere's dark and a little smoky and the booths are clean and comfortable but they definitely don't look it. The bar itself is old too, nearly 200 years young, solid oak, dinged, stained and scarred from countless fights and spills. The stools kinda match but not really and they're squeaky if you sit on them wrong. My beer glasses don't match either, picked up wherever whenever and the pretzel dish is communal instead of the fancy new automated dispensing machine.

I like my bar. It's good at listening to the people who walk through the door, if that makes sense and it attracts its own customers – usually older individuals, some weary, some rowdy, most not clean-cut and swell, if you know what I mean.

So that's why when I saw them walk into my bar, I thought "My god, if that isn't trouble, I don't know what is."

The two young leaders were cocky as hell, walking with the swagger that said they owned the world. They were trailed by a group of individuals I recognized from the news.

Shit.

Starfleet. Specifically the ones who had just saved the planet.

It's not that I don't appreciate Starfleet business, I do, but the young officers, man do they like to party, they get into fights, they smash up the bar, it's just a huge hassle.

On the other hand, they had just saved my life and everyone else on the planet. And these particular crews looked rather hounded, probably hunted by media and star-chasers.

So I put on my best neutral bartender face and asked what they'd have without letting on that I knew who they were. They ordered several pitchers of good beer and congregated around my biggest table with a giant bowl of pretzels.

The one captain (I later found out he was Dean Winchester) ambled over to my jukebox and put on AC/DC's Back in Black. I was a little less wary after that – anyone who likes AC/DC can't be that bad.

Then they started with the weirdness.

They didn't get rowdy. They just got, well, strange.

One dude with a mullet challenged the kid who was probably underage, the other kid with a face like blank cardboard and the Asian to a game of darts but instead of standing the normal seven feet away from the target, they decided to play from across the room. And even at that distance, they played better than most of the people in the bar (yours truly included).

The only woman in the group was matching a dark-haired man in medical blue shot for shot and apparently complaining loudly about "overenthusiastic idiots."

The freakishly tall one and the Vulcan were busy discussing the correct ratio of pretzels consumed to alcohol imbibed (who says the words 'consumed' or 'imbibed' at a bar like mine? For that matter, who cares about an alcohol/pretzel ratio? Just eat the damn things!).

Then there were the engineers. How did I know they were engineers? They were slugging back beer like it was Pepsi and hadn't come up for air after two hours of constant booze. That and I didn't understand a single word they were saying (the thick Scottish accent didn't help matters any). They were also stealing pretzel sticks from the tall dude and building a very complicated-looking, impressively tall log cabin (?).

And the captains. Sitting at the bar, sipping their drinks far more slowly than I had expected and just, well, chatting. I was more than a little confused. Usually Starfleet captains were right in the thick of things, drinking, talking loudly, tooting their own horns.

So I thought about this little conundrum as I polished glasses and kept the dart players in beer. Then I had a small epiphany when the bar door swung open and the two captains honed in on the new arrivals (a few regulars) before dismissing them as a threat – being in the spotlight was tiring. Exhausting, probably. And tonight they were taking the chance to sit back in the shadows, unwind and leave their rank behind.

I could respect that.

A few hours later, the bar was pleasantly busy and I almost missed the crews leaving. They tipped well and said goodnight, the whole lot looking more relaxed than when they had come in and I knew my bar had done its job.

That was all I saw of them, but I heard through the grapevine later that they had gotten more than a little crazy and been kicked out of several esteemed establishments (heavy on the sarcasm here, I don't like people who sneer at my little bar because it doesn't sparkle) for excessive behaviour.

Huh. That was odd. I hadn't had a problem.

So when the word went out that the crews of the USS Impala and Enterprise had been banned from most major watering holes in San Francisco by collective (slightly snooty) agreement, I decided what the hell. They seemed like good people and good friends with each other.

I checked the Starfleet schedules and the next time they were due in together, I put a discreet little sign on the door, just in case, because I'm a busybody like that.

Impala and Enterprise crews welcome.

To my surprise, they took me up on the offer.

In fact, you could say I've gotten to know them better, that they've become regulars whenever they're in town. Not always the whole contingent (that's a lot of beer and a lot of unique individuals in one smallish space), but I see all of them and now they say hi instead of just nodding.

Of course, it's not a well known tradition and I take pride in keeping my mouth shut when the other clubs complain about the crazy world-saving crews.

In unconscious reward for my silence, I've been privileged with a glimpse into their world – I know that Dr. "Bones" McCoy misses his daughter and is struggling with his ex-wife, that the Harvelle women (don't ever call Jo a girl if you want to continue breathing) are trying to buy the house beside John Winchester's, that Ensign Chekov really is legal (really. I quadruple-checked) and Commander Sulu hates sake (funny story. Maybe I'll tell it some other time).

And I've found that both Lieutenant-Commander Scott and Commander Singer only come alone to the bar and give their learned opinions on my new or exotic beers when their ships are sitting in pieces up at space dock and they're afraid the ships are going to hate them eternally (can ships hate? I know bars do. Scotty and I had this philosophical conversation one night. Evidently ships and bars are more alike than you would first think).

I've been given the honour of becoming Lieutenant Castiel's 'Captain Winchester-advice litmus test,' meaning that if the kid has suspicions about friendly 'advice' given to him by the captain (and his prank-enabling crew), he comes and asks me. I swore I'd always tell the truth, and I always have.

I know that sometimes Captain Jim Kirk wanders into the bar as just Jim Kirk, a young man with the weight of Starfleet on his shoulders and wants to forget that same weight. And I see how Captain Dean Winchester worries constantly about his entire crew, even when they're on shore leave. He likes to air these concerns, let them out to evaporate for a short time. I know Commander Sam Winchester in turn worries almost obsessively about his brother (and rightfully so. Almost every time I see the Impala's captain, he's wearing a new bruise or bandage). I've discovered that Commander Spock is an excellent conversationalist when he is so inclined (he comes to chat when he finds the human world overwhelming).

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first time Dr. McCoy stumbled in on his own, I knew that if I didn't do something, he'd be flat out swimming in a puddle of booze and his own puke by the end of the night.