Five dollars for a dance, but the bullets are free.

Graphic by hobbitsized, fic by youstupidfucks.

A strip club. The suspect actually frequents a strip club. It’s like it was Dean’s lucky day, especially — especially — because of how they’re handling the job this time.

This time, Sam had surmised, they’d need to go delicate; no snooping around, or at least not a lot of it. They’ll need some people on the inside. So while he’s doing the boring computer work, Dean gets to be in town for a business trip like for some big corporation — the kind that turns heads, the kind this scumbag won’t be able to ignore — while watching the girls dance.

And, well, watching out for Jo, of course, though he strongly suspects she’s somehow stashed a knife somewhere in that very nice and revealing shiny thing she’s wearing. While Dean gets to be the slime of the corporate world, Jo gets to get even more up close and personal with this douchebag and the rest of the staff, finding out little things that the man only reveals in his after hours time.

Now, he’s supposed to be listening to McWorthington — oh, even his name sounds douchey — go on and on and on about the deal he made last week, he can’t help but glance (okay, more than glance) at Jo as she converses with a blonde woman in a business suit, another club patron. (She looks nice as a brunette, Jo does, but he finds he likes her regular hair color more, and he loves getting an eyeful of just about everything, but he likes when she looks more comfortable, acts more comfortable—)

A very sharp glare from Jo draws Dean back to the mission, because if he stares much longer, she’s likely to kick his ass when they get out of there.

“And besides, the girls here are just fantastic, wouldn’t you say?” The ass is saying just as Dean turns his ears back on. “So… enchanting. I’d love to get alone with one for awhile…”

His eyes wander the club and it looks like they stop on Jo. The smile nearly slips from Dean’s face, but he reminds himself that if McWorthington even tried anything she’d probably break his nose. …Definitely break his nose. Still, his lips can’t help but tighten as he almost says, I bet you would, you son of a bitch.

Still, he plays along and nods approvingly, catching Jo’s eye as she looks their way, a very clear information, talk after.

If he can keep from killing their suspect right on the spot, he very much looks forward to it.

—-

When they meet up — blocks away from the strip club, at a motel after circling the town once or twice, taking the long ways, the back-roads, ducking back to separate hotels and switching out cars — Dean can’t help but hand her his jacket before she can even say anything, just in case she wants to put it on. An eyebrow shoots up to her hair — still can’t get used to it being brown — and she just walks to her bag and withdraws some of her own clothes, starts undressing right there.

“Please, Dean. If I don’t want to wear it, I’ll just— what are you doing?” A shirt’s halfway over her head as she turns back to find, in amusement, Dean studying the very tacky portrait of a dog over his bed.

“I’m just giving you— I mean— can’t I be respectful every now and then?!” He hates the smirk that he knows has crept on to her face.

Jo walks right up to him as soon as she’s covered, looking him up and down quite shamelessly. “Mm-hmm. Sure.” Is she getting back at him? Checking him out like he’d checked her out before? It’s quite possible. It’s very, very possible.

Dean clears his throat, trying not to focus on the fact that she’d been very nearly naked just feet away from him. “Let’s just compare notes, okay?” She turns, lingering before taking a seat at the desk, very deliberately. Now she’s just being mean. “The scumbag’s definitely guilty. We’ve got hours of him bragging about all the less than legal things he’s done, plus the way he was looking at those girls? We’ve got our man. We can call Sam and Cas and—”

“Hold on just a second,” Jo says, pulling a curl from her face. “Don’t doubt your intuition, Dean. But we were missing something before. There’s two.”

A look of confusion passes over Dean’s face. “You mean—?”

She nods. “Yep. He’s working with someone in the club.”

His stomach clenches. One of that girl’s co-workers…? “Well. I guess we’ll have to tell Sam that—”

“More time.” Jo’s quick. “Can’t bust the guy just yet. Tomorrow night, we’re going back.”

Dean fights back a sigh. He’s got a feeling this is going to be a much longer case than he’d thought.