forthedog | (no subject)

He doesn't think about where he's going, in the end. He just goes.

Outside the club he pulls out his phone, practically running toward where his bike is parked. The call takes less than a minute. He doesn't have more than that to spare. Get the gun. Get the girls. Lock the door and don't answer it. Especially don't answer if it's Dean. I'll explain later.

Though how he'll do that is pretty low on his list of things to figure out.

Later he'll wonder why he didn't go to Castiel. He'll wonder and he'll sense the answer without actually wanting to get too into it. More than one answer. More than one kind of difficulty.

He needs someone like him. He needs a hunter.

He could stop in, see Neil, try to tell him just enough. But he's already heading toward Sam's. Too late to turn back now.

It always has been.

It's beyond late, and it occurs to him as he stops outside the door that he doesn't even know for sure if Sam is here, but what the fuck. He raises a fist, pounds on the door. Hard.

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He takes the bag without a word, then - freezes. At the question. Though he knows what the tattoo is, what it's for, and it makes sense to ask it.

Bizarrely, he's a little offended.

"I don't touch ink. Common courtesy."

There's a flicker in Mike's eye then, like he's actually insulted by the question. Not that Sam particularly cares. He knows there's an etiquette, remembers Mike trying to explain it all to him the first time he'd stepped into the place. Maybe Sam should have more respect for it all, but right now he just doesn't care. He needs answers.

"Did you see anything else on him?" Sam asks. "Any fresh tattoos. Or brandings. Anything at all out of the ordinary."

"Anything else? No." Aside from the many scars, the obvious marks of a body that's been through all manner of hell aside from Hell itself. But nothing new. Nothing strange.

But was there? Should he have noticed something?

His eyes narrow slightly. "Why?"

"You've seen more of him than I have lately," Sam says with a shrug, resolutely not thinking about how true that is in more than one sense. "Figured you might've noticed something that could lead us to him. Anything could help right now."

Sam gives Mike another look-over then, scrutinizing. Some demons work alone, others together. It's impossible right now to know if the one in Dean is solitary or if there's a wider a web here. And there's still a significant part of Sam that isn't sure whether or not to trust Mike.

Without another thought, Sam flicks a slit in the bag of salt in Mike's arms, freeing just enough granules to start a small river of white over Mike's hands.

He isn't expecting it, and he almost flinches, on a gut level wondering if Sam might be about to take a chunk out of him after all. But then it's just... the bag, salt, and he lifts one hand, rolling the grains between his fingers, puzzled.

"The hell was that about?"