Notes: set preseries (teenchesters), Stanford era, and sometime in season five, respectively. This got a bit more poetical than I originally expected it to be. Call it AU if you like, or put it down to unreliable witnesses. (Or maybe they're simply more perceptive than most.)

Warnings: language, drugs and alcohol, a guy who won't take no for an answer (but nothing comes of it), and mild violence.

-SPN-

Zeke just wants a fix.

The cheap motel isn't the best pickings, but it's there and he's desperate. Just twenty bucks. All he needs is twenty bucks. Cash if he's lucky. If he's even luckier maybe he'll just find drugs, cut out the middle man.

He's been watching the place for almost an hour, waiting for a car to pull away so he can be sure of an empty room. There's a gun burning a hole in the small of his back, but he doesn't want to use it. He's jittery, anxious, and he knows that soon his hands will be shaking too badly to jimmy the lock. He's about to risk just picking one at random, but then one of the doors swings open.

It's an older guy, dark hair, scruffy beard. He's rough looking, but that's normal for a place like this, and the classic car which growls to life after he climbs in is nice. Real nice. Zeke feels a spark of the sick excitement which serves for hope these days.

He slinks forward, keeping out of the streetlight which casts a sickly glow over the parking lot. It's too late for the wannabe punks and too early for the drunks and hookers, so the place is eerily quiet. Even the nearby rumble of the freeway seems muffled by the heavy August heat, and Zeke can't resist a few paranoid glances over his shoulder. Still, he makes short work of the lock and slips into the room with a sigh of relief.

. . . which catches in his throat when his eyes adjust to the dark.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

He's stumbled across a fucking dealer. No, not a dealer; no dealer he's ever met has this many weapons. A mobster. A hit man. A psychopath. Or maybe something worse, he thinks, his eyes landing on the papers and books scattered across the table. It's too dark to make out the details of the words and pictures, but what little he can see reminds him unpleasantly of his crazy great-aunt and the stories she used to tell to scare the children into behaving.

His heart begins to pound in his chest, as if it's anticipating being carved out for some psycho ritual. He wants out, out, out –

Too late.

He doesn't even notice the door on the other side of the room until it snaps open. His gun is in his hand in an instant, but the other guy has one too – and his is bigger.

"Who the fuck are you?" demands the kid – and he is a kid, can't be more than eighteen, but his aim is sure and steady, his expression hard.

"No one," says Zeke quickly. "Doesn't matter."

"Like hell," the kid growls, readjusting his grip. "Now you tell me what the fuck is going on or I'll –"

Zeke never finds out what creative threat the kid has in mind, because at that moment a door opens again. It's the door Zeke came through, and he spins towards it, gun still in hand. He has a moment's glimpse of another kid, this one even younger, before he's on the ground with pain exploding through his face as the butt of a shotgun is driven into his jaw.

When his vision clears the older kid is on top of him, green, green eyes boring into his.

"You alright, Sammy?" the kid asks, his gaze never wavering, and it's not until the younger kid answers that Zeke realizes who he's talking to.

"Fine." The younger one is standing behind the other one, holding Zeke's gun with nearly the same confidence. It's pointed directly at Zeke's heart. "You?"

"Yeah."

"Who is he?"

"Working on that," the older one replies darkly. His eyes gleam through the dark, bright and cold like scalpels, and Zeke is certain that it is not the product of the sickly light which filters through the window. There's something wrong with these two, something off, their faces too perfect, their eyes too old; he doesn't like it, he doesn't like it.

"I – I was just looking for a fix!" he stutters. "P-please don't kill me!"

The older one looks unimpressed, but the younger one's eyebrows draw together in a frown. In the yellow glow of the streetlamp he looks like some mystical elf-child; ageless and ethereal.

Inhuman.

"He's just a junkie," says the younger one, lowering the weapon.

"He pointed a gun at you." The older one pronounces it like a death sentence, and for a terrible moment Zeke is convinced that this is the end of his miserable life, that breaking into this motel room was the last mistake he'll ever make, that these impossible not-children will kill him, or worse . . .

"Dean," says the younger one, and after a moment's hesitation, the older one lowers the shotgun. Another moment and Zeke is free, icy green eyes staring down at him.

"This never happened," the older one says, and Zeke nods frantically as he fumbles his way to his feet. The older one glares. "Now get out."

Zeke doesn't look back.

-SPN-

Tyler just wants to get laid.

The party's pretty lame, but the girl is hot and they won't be here for long if he has his way. And he will have his way. She's acting like she doesn't want him, but he knows her type, all dyed hair and piercings. They like to play hard to get.

"For the last time, I am not. Interested. Go find someone else to drool on."

"Come one, babe," he entreats, leaning forward and dropping his voice to a sultry murmur. That one always gets them. "You know you want me."

The girl gives a sharp burst of incredulous laughter.

"In your dreams, asshole. Fuck off."

Bitch. Still, Tyler isn't giving up that easy. He reaches out and grabs her wrist, not letting go even when she tries to pull away, black fingernails clawing at his hand.

"Let go of me, you fucking –"

A hand lands on Devin's shoulder.

"She said no."

Tyler turns to tell the guy to mind his own fucking business, and finds, much to his consternation, that he has to crane his neck to see his face. He relaxes, though, when he recognizes it. It's only Sam Winchester. He's in Tyler's dorm; one of the quiet, 'sweet' types, all shaggy hair and soft eyes. And yeah, he's tall as fuck, but Tyler was on the varsity wrestling team for four years, captain for two of those, and he knows that height isn't worth shit if you don't know how to use it.

"Walk away, Winchester," Tyler says, shaking off his hand. "This's got nothing to do with you."

"I'll walk away if you do," Winchester says evenly, and Tyler kind of wants to punch that steady, mature look off his face.

But Tyler is feeling magnanimous, so he doesn't. Not yet.

"Look, if you really want me to kick your ass then I will, but I'm giving you a chance here."

Winchester shrugs.

"And I'm not taking it."

Tyler bristles, a scathing reply on the tip of his tongue, but it's cut off when the girl yanks her arm out of his grip.

"Right, lovely bit of male posturing," she says, edging around them both and back towards the bulk of the party. "I was just going to knee him in the balls," she adds, jerking her head at Tyler, "and I'm still going to report you," she informs him, "but really, thanks for the backup, pretty boy."

"Bitch!" Tyler calls after her.

She flips him off.

"Sounds like you lucked out," Winchester comments. "Next time a woman tells you she's not interested, listen."

Tyler's vision is going red, humiliation and frustration boiling beneath his skin, and Winchester is turning to leave, as if he thinks he can pull a stunt like that and just walk away.

"Hey!" Tyler calls. Winchester stops. "You think you really think you can take me, Sammy-boy?"

"It's Sam," says Winchester, turning back towards him. "And you're drunk."

"I've had a couple," Tyler agrees with a challenging tilt of his head. "I could still wipe the floor with you."

A muscle twitches in Winchester's jaw, but he blows out the tension in a long-suffering sigh, way too self-controlled for someone Tyler knows has had at least as many beers as he has.

"I'm not going to fight you just to make a point."

He's trying to walk away again, and shit, Tyler can't let him walk away, he needs a fight, with anyone but especially with the self-righteous son of a bitch who thinks he can cockblock him. Tyler scours his memory for everything he knows about the guy, every raw nerve he can touch on. Winchester's notoriously tight-lipped, but there's one subject which is guaranteed to get a reaction.

"Does your dad know what a pussy you are, Sammy?"

He's just sober enough to recognize, in the split second it takes for the change to come over Winchester's face, that he's made a mistake. It's like he's tugged on a kitten's tail only to find out that it was a tiger all along, and his stomach plummets an instant before he's slammed into the wall.

Height can be an advantage, and it turns out that Sam Winchester knows how to use his. Tyler is quite effectively pinned, but even if he weren't he's convinced he would be paralyzed by the hazel eyes which are suddenly inches from his own. There is nothing soft about them now. There's something in them which roils and blazes like the depths of hell, and Tyler isn't entirely certain it's figurative –

- and then it's gone, leaving his eyes burning with the glow of dying embers.

"You don't know a damn thing about my family," he says, low and dangerous. Abruptly, he pulls back, leaving Tyler to find his footing with suddenly wobbly knees. "Take your own advice: walk away."

Tyler flees.

In the morning, he puts it all down to fear and alcohol.

Still, he never can bring himself to look Sam Winchester in the eye again.

-SPN-

Spike just wants his bar back.

It's bad enough when the three guys come swaggering in like they own the place. It's worse when the tall one hunkers down in a corner with his laptop like some prissy chick who thinks she's too pretty to have a good time. When the male model one spends half an hour flirting with the bartender and then starts to intentionally lose a game of pool, that's the final straw.

Spike knows a hustler when he sees one.

He really wants to toss the guy out on his ass, but he's not stupid. He's got a couple of his boys around, but he prefers it when the odds are heavily in his favor. Best thing is to get one of them alone, send a little message. The tall one has a good four inches on everyone in the bar, and the male model isn't exactly small, either. More than that, they both move like they've got training – military, maybe, or something less legit. He'd bet anything the male model type has at least a knife on him.

The weird one it is, then. Shouldn't be too difficult. He has a look on his face as if he's not quite sure what's going on. The guy looks like he's never been in a bar before, let alone a dive like this one. He's wearing a suit, for Christ's sake.

Spike's in luck, too, because not twenty minutes into the game male model reaches into his pocket to raise the stakes and curses when he comes out with a black wallet.

"Sorry dude, give me a sec," he says with an apologetic grin to the poor sucker he's playing. "Hey Sammy!" he calls across the room to the tall one. "Run grab my wallet for me, would ya?"

"Get it yourself," the tall one retorts, not even glancing up from his computer.

"Kind of in the middle of something!" the male model shoots back, gesturing sweepingly at the pool table and pretending to wobble on his feet. Spike's gotta admit, the guy's good.

"I will fetch the item, Dean," the weird one says, speaking for the first time in Spike's hearing. His voice is strangely gravelly.

"Sure, thanks Cas," says the male model – Dean, apparently. "It's the brown one, glove compartment."

'Cas' (weird name to go with his weird everything else; maybe he's foreign?) nods in understanding, and Dean catches his arm before he can leave.

"Dude. Just walk."

The instruction makes no sense, but Spike doesn't dwell on it. Instead, he gives a surreptitious nod to Bernie and Kurt, and the three of them slip quietly out the backdoor to circle around to the front. The weirdo is just turning away from the shiny classic car, and within seconds they have him surrounded.

"Going somewhere?" Spike asks, while the weirdo stops in his tracks. The vaguely befuddled look evaporates as the weirdo's eyes narrow and sharpen.

"I would advise you to rethink this course of action," the weirdo says. "I am not one to be trifled with, and I as yet have no reason to wish you harm."

"That sounds like a threat," says Spike, raising his eyebrows in surprise which isn't entirely feigned. The weirdo's got balls. "I don't like threats, do I, boys?"

Bernie and Kurt make sounds of agreement, taking Spike's lead and beginning to close in on the weirdo, whose eyes flicker to them and then back to Spike again.

"I don't like faggots and cheats in my bar, either," Spike continues. "When we're done with you, I think we'll have a little talk with your boyfriends."

Spike is never entirely sure of what happens next. All he knows is there's a whirl of a trench coat, a flutter of something like wings, and suddenly Bernie and Kurt are on the ground. Another second in which he can do nothing more than gape wordlessly, and he's slammed to the ground with the weirdo's hand around his throat.

The weirdo holds him down with no apparent effort, his head tilted to the side, examining him like an insect pinned to a board, or a germ on a slide.

"I have destroyed things much more powerful and dear to me than you in defense of the Winchesters," says the – the thing, because no way it's human, not with the strength in the grip which is slowly cutting off Spike's air, not with the endless depths in its eyes. Those eyes are all Spike can see as he fights for air, his peripheral vision going black. His head feels foggy, and all he can think is that he never expected the Lord's judgment to be blue . . .

"Cas!"

A voice breaks through the haze, and the grip on Spike's throat loosens somewhat, leaving him coughing and gasping.

"What the hell?" demands the voice, and Spike can now recognize that it belongs to the male model, who he can just see from the corner of his eye. He and the tall one are both striding toward them from the bar. I was right, Spike thinks, a little hysterically. They did have knives.

"These men took exception to us," the thing which is still holding him trapped explains. "I did tell them that I had no desire to hurt them, but they were quite insistent."

"Yeah, I bet they were," the male model agrees darkly.

"They're alive," the tall one says, out of sight. "Let that one go, Cas. We were just leaving, anyway."

The thing hesitates, but complies when the male model nods. The thing rises to its full height, staring down at him implacably.

"You ought to be more cautious in the future, Joseph Kepler," it says, addressing him by a name he hasn't used in over a decade. It turns away with a swish of its coat, and Spike listens to the murmur of three deep voices fade beneath the pounding of his heart.

He stays down for a very long time.