Don't Go Eating My Heart

Back To the Roadhouse

Spoilers:
Still taking place in Season 2 no real spoilers in this chapter.

Dean shifted the impala into park outside the roadhouse. He grabbed the phone from the seat beside him and checked to make sure he didn't have any missed messages. Nothing.

"You better not be getting dead Sammy." Dean muttered to himself before hopping out of the car.

He didn't bother knocking, he just swung the door open and walked in.  It was empty of customers, but considering it was 2 in the afternoon and they were closed, it wasn't surprising. Ellen was behind the bar as she wiped down the counter and Jo was over along the wall wiping down tables. Both of them looked up as the door shut behind him. Jo smiled when she saw him.

"Hey."

He nodded at her. "Hey Jo." His gaze drifted to the bar. "Ellen."

"So you are still alive. Would it kill you to call once in awhile boy?"

"Yeah I'll try and work on that." A smile twitched on his lips.

"Yeah I won't hold my breath." Ellen paused for a moment and when she spoke again her jovial tone was replaced with concern. "Where's Sam?"

Dean cleared his throat and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. "He's working a case," the muscle in his jaw twitched, "by himself."

Ellen's eyebrows raised in surprise. "You're letting him work a case by himself?"

Dean snorted and shook his head as he walked over to the bar and sat down. "Yeah it wasn't exactly my call."

"He's a tough boy, and he's smart, he'll be okay." She offered him a reassuring smile but he just looked away.

Dean sniffed and then licked his lips before looking back at her. "Bobby said you had a lead on the demon?"

Ellen sighed. She wasn't surprised that he was evading emotion, just slightly annoyed. "Yeah Ash found a cluster of demon signs with his program. I'll go grab him for you."

Dean nodded and Ellen went through the back door to find Ash. Dean looked down at his hands that were loosely folded together on the bar counter. His mind was going a million directions at once. His dad was dead because of him. There was a lead on the demon that had killed his mom. Sam was hunting by himself. And that case made no sense. He couldn't stop thinking about it. He couldn't stop thinking about Marley. She was absolutely infuriating. She refused to give him a straight answer, she didn't take anything seriously, and she was so smug with that stupid smirk.

"Dean?"

Dean snapped his head up to look at Jo who was standing beside him with her arms crossed.

"What?" His voice was gruff but it wasn't necessarily harsh.

"You've been staring into space. I've said your name like three times." Although her tone was joking there was clearly a lace of real concern.

"Just got a lot on my mind." He turned his gaze straight ahead, away from Jo.

She simply leaned her back against the bar. "What's Sam hunting?"

She saw his jaw clench. "Not sure. We think it's something new. Bobby's looking into it."

Jo had perked up. "Victims?"

Dean glanced over at her in surprise.

She shrugged. "What? Maybe I can help." Dean scoffed and her face hardened. "I'm serious. I've read my dad's hunting journal, maybe he found something on whatever this thing is."