Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1
If Dean had to guess, it probably took much more energy than most people thought to be a complete and total dick. He was just guessing here, of course, but the proof was right in his face.
The guy standing on the other side of the counter was red-faced and panting, which meant either the yelling was exhausting or he was just wildly out of shape.
"What kinda establishment you runnin' here, pal?" The Chicago accent was so over the top Dean wondered if it was fake. "Scammin' people out of all their money!"
Once the guy was finally finished with his rant, Dean looked up from his side of the counter from his nails he’d been picking. It was more for show than anything; grease under the nails was one of the many permanent aspects of being a mechanic.
Finally, he stomped around the counter and slapped a flabby hand onto the workbench. A sweat-stained receipt sat between the two of them. “Fix this, now!”
“I did fix it,” Dean pointed out, trying his best not to let the annoyance show on his face. He must not have done too well of a job because fatso was looking more pissed off by the second.
“That’s why you’re mad. It’s not my problem you can’t afford a quality service, pal.”
Not to mention he had already comped half the bill; all the guy came in for was an oil change and had come out with a shot transmission line and a cracked belt he swore had been ‘running just fine yesterday.’
Dean tapped the receipt with a greasy finger. “You’re lucky it didn’t snap while you were driving. Could’ve blown the whole thing.”
The guy’s face flushed an even deeper shade of red. “Bullshit! You mechanics pull this crap all the time. Make up problems so you can bleed people dry.”
Dean leaned back against the workbench, crossing his arms. “Yeah, that’s the plan. Opened a whole shop just so I could hustle you outta fifty bucks.”
“Two hundred!” the guy snapped, stabbing a finger at the receipt.
“Two hundred after I knocked half off,” Dean corrected. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
For a second it looked like the guy might actually swing at him. His hand clenched on the edge of the bench, knuckles going pale.
Dean didn’t move. He’d dealt with worse than an angry suburban dad in a polo shirt.
Finally the guy snatched up the receipt and crumpled it in his fist. “This place is a scam. I’m tellin’ everybody I know.”
Dean shrugged. “Be sure to spell my name right in the Yelp review.” He tapped the four-letter nameplate twice.
The guy stormed toward the door, muttering something under his breath. The bell above it jingled violently when he shoved it open.
Silence settled over the shop again.
Dean waited a few seconds, just in case the guy decided to storm back in for round two. When nothing happened, he let out a long breath and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“People,” he muttered.
From somewhere behind him, a voice said, “You know most business owners try not to insult their customers.”
Dean smiled without looking back. He popped open the cash drawer casually, sorting the bills with slow, lazy flicks.
“Even after five years, I never get tired of it,” He turned his head over his shoulder to shoot Bobby Singer a shit-eating grin. “‘Buisness owner’--makes me sound like some big-shot.”
“Good thing we know better, then.” Bobby shot back, hobbling into the main area, weaving through aisles of merchandise, muttering ‘idgit’ under his breath. The shop door swung twice behind him, letting in the cold, late-December air of the garage.
“Customer sounded pissed,” he observed.
“Customer was pissed,” Dean corrected.
“Probably ‘cause you were runnin’ your mouth.”
Dean shrugged. “Probably ‘cause he didn’t like the bill.”
Bobby grunted, which in Bobby-language probably meant fair enough.
Dean waited for a second, listening to the rhythmic tapping of Bobby’s cane on the concrete floor and sobering up a bit. The man shouldn’t even be here.
Hell, he shouldn’t have been here for the last five years.
Normal people--normal old people, that is--retired. They went somewhere warm, parked their asses on a beach, cracked open a cold case of beer, and spent the rest of their lives doing absolutely nothing.
Bobby Singer had decided a long time ago that was a fate worse than death.
Instead, he’d handed Dean the shop, grumbled something about “being too damn old to keep crawling under cars,” and then proceeded to show up almost every day anyway.
It had taken Dean years of working under the man to convince him to finally start taking yearly vacations.
He shoved the cash drawer closed with his hip.
“You know retirement’s a thing, right?” he said, half serious. “Pretty popular with people your age.”
Bobby gave him a look. “You’re already making me head down South for the holidays like some invalid--so if you’re callin’ me old again, I swear I will take this cane and-”
“You already hit me with it last week.”
“You deserved it last week.”
Bobby finally reaches the counter and plants both hands on it, eyeing the grease-stained workspace like he’s inspecting for problems Dean’s too dumb to notice.
For a moment the shop settled into a comfortable lapse, broken only by the ticking of the old overhead lights and the distant metallic clank from the garage bay.
“A week this time.”
Dean leaned against the counter, folding his arms.
“A whole week?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “What is this, a record? You might as well stay til Easter.”
Bobby grunted. “Don’t get used to it.”
Dean snorted. “Trust me, I won’t.”
He watched Bobby poke suspiciously at the ancient computer like it personally offended him. Bobby never trusted machines that didn’t run on gasoline, and Dean was pretty sure the only reason the man touches the shop computer at all is to make sure Dean hasn’t somehow bankrupted the place.
“Where you goin’ this year?” He asked.
“Down to Louisiana. Old buddy of mine’s got a place on the water.”
Dean whistled low. “Swamp retirement. Nice.”
Bobby shot him a look. “It ain’t retirement.”
“Sure it isn’t.”
“It’s visitin’.”
“Uh-huh.”
Bobby squinted at him like he’s debating whether smacking Dean with the cane again would be worth the effort.
Dean grinned right back. Before he could press the issue, Bobby’s attention was back on the ancient computer where the schedule blinks back up at him.
“You got one more customer today,” He read off, drumming his fingers distractedly, “Not a regular. Some out-of-towner.”
“No biggy,” Dean said, cracking his neck, “I’ll be finished with him in no time. You can head on home.”
If it was three years ago, Bobby would’ve brushed him off without a second thought. Nowadays, though, the unstoppable force of Bobby Singer seemed to have finally begun slowing.
Not that he’d ever admit it.
Bobby peered at the screen a second longer like it might suddenly change its mind, then huffed and pushed himself upright with the cane.
“Fine,” he muttered. “But if you screw up the paperwork again, I ain’t fixin’ it.”
Dean put a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I resent that.”
“You should.”
Dean glared at him.
Bobby started for the door, the steady tap—tap—tap of the cane echoing across the concrete floor. Dean still remembered how bitterly he’d tried to avoid using one after the accdient. Looks like everyone caves in to pain eventually.
Halfway there Bobby paused, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Don’t stay too late,” he said gruffly. “Kids need sleep.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I’m twenty-eight, Bobby.”
“And you still act twelve.”
There’s no response to that. Bobby grumbled something (‘idgit’) under his breath and pushed the door open.
“Say hello to Sam for me. Good kid.”
The evening air spilled in for a moment before the door swung shut behind him. The shop fell back into quiet again.
Dean stood behind the desk for another second, listening to Bobby’s truck cough to life outside before rumbling away down the street. Then he exhaled through his nose and cracked his knuckles.
“Alright,” he muttered to the empty shop.
One more customer.
He wandered back toward the open garage bay, grabbing a rag off the workbench and wiping his hands. The silvery winter sun bled gold across the concrete floor from the ceiling windows.
The Christmas lights he’d bothered to put up last week blinked dimly from the ceiling, soaking the space in shades of red, green, and white. The holidays were only a week ago, but they already looked like they’d been up for too long.
Dean glanced around the flashing lights, taking in the familiar sight.
Singer Automotive’s: a three-bay space garage, wide enough to fit three cars side by side if they really tried, though usually it was just one in the center and the others stacked with spare parts or worktables.
Singer Automotive was a three-bay space, wide enough to fit three cars side by side if they really tried. The far wall ran floor to ceiling with pegboards, every tool imaginable hanging in its place, each one coated in a thin layer of grease that marked it as well-used. The hydraulic lift dominated the center bay. The concrete floor was stained dark in places, telling the history of decades of spilled oil. An ancient radio sat in the corner, pushing classic rock through a crackling speaker.
Dean’s domain.
He settled in the worn, three-legged stool near the back, checking his watch every couple of seconds to confirm that the last appointment was, indeed, late.
A half hour passed, in which he entertained himself by seeing how long he could balance a wrench on his finger and wondered what he was going to have for dinner.
Then, finally, the low growl of an engine rolling into the lot outside.
Dean got up from his desk just as he heard a car pull slowly into the garage. Pushing through the shop doors, he leaned against the wall and watched the last customer of the day park their car.
It wasn’t one he recognized.
This in itself wasn’t unusual, considering he knew it won’t be one of their many regulars, but something about the machine made him pause.
The car was a beauty.
Low and long, painted a deep metallic red that gleams even under the dusty garage lights. Chrome rims caught the sun like mirrors, and the body was polished so clean Dean could practically see his own raggedy reflection in the door. It was the kind of car that’s either been babied its whole life or cost more than Dean makes in a year.
Probably both.
Dean tilted his head, squinting at the motor mascot on the front.
Yeah, he thought to himself, that tracks.
The engine cut and the driver’s door swung open. Out stepped a guy who looked like he walked straight out of a Jersey mob movie.
Mid-thirties, maybe. Hair slicked back with enough product to survive a hurricane, dark sunglasses even though the sun’s halfway down, and a thick gold chain sitting heavy around his neck. His forearms were inked nearly solid, tattoos climbing out from under the sleeves of a tight black shir. There were at least three rings flashing on his fingers when he shut the door.
The guy looked around the garage like he was inspecting a crime scene.
Then he pointed two fingers at Dean, still leaning against the wall.,
“Hey. You the mechanic?”
The voice was pure New Jersey. Loud, nasal, and aggressive enough that Dean could practically hear the turnpike in it. What is it with people and ridiculous accents today?
Dean hooked his thumbs into his back pockets and strolled a little closer.
“You the guy with the problem?” He pasted on his best customer-service smile, already tired of this whole thing. Last thing he needed was some douche-bag (because this dude has to be a douche if he looks like that) breathing down his neck while he worked.
The man snorted, already digging in his pocket for something.
“Yeah, buddy,” he said. “You got no idea.”
Dean ignored the weirdly foreboding statement and jerked his chin toward the car.
“Alright,” he said. “What’s the issue?”
The guy shrugged like the answer might be optional.
“Engine’s makin’ a noise.” Dean stared at him.
“A noise,” he repeated flatly.
“Yeah.”
“That narrows it down.”
The man finally pulled something from his pocket--a set of keys attached to a gaudy, silver keychain--and tossed them toward Dean without warning.
Dean caught them on instinct.
“Just take a look at it,” the guy said. “You’ll hear it.”
Dean squinted at him. “Hear what, exactly?”
Another shrug.
“It just… ain’t right.”
“That’s very helpful.”
The guy didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm. He was already glancing back toward the street like he was late for something.
“Listen,” he said, waving a hand dismissively, “just check it out, yeah? Call me when it’s done.”
Dean glanced down at the keys, then back up. “You’re not gonna stick around?”
“Nah.”
“You don’t even wanna tell me what the noise sounds like?”
The man was already walking backward toward the sidewalk.
“You’ll figure it out,” he called. “I need it in perfect condition by tomorrow.”
Dean frowns. “Buddy, that’s not how—”
But the guy’s already turning away, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he heads down the block without another glance.
Dean stood there for a moment.
He looked down at the keys in his hand, then back at the very expensive car sitting in the middle of his garage.
“…Huh.”
Blinked once, slow.
“Well,” he muttered to the empty shop, “that’s new.”
He turned the keys over in his palm and glanced toward the open bay again.
Dean walked a slow circle around it, eyes narrowing as he took it all in properly.
Up close, the thing was immaculate: a deep, cherry-red paint, chrome polished bright enough to blind somebody. The kind of car that usually came with a guy in a suit and a monthly payment the size of Dean’s rent.
Which is why the first thing he noticed feels… off.
The license plate’s missing. Not fallen off or bent, just gone.
Two empty screw holes stare back at him from the bumper.
Dean hummed quietly and kept walking.
He leaned down near the windshield, squinting through the glass.
The steering column had been opened up before. The plastic casing underneath was slightly warped, one screw missing, and a thin sliver where the panel doesn’t quite meet right.
Dean didn’t even have to open the door to guess what’s under there.
Exposed wires.
“Classy,” he muttered.
He kept circling the car.
The VIN plate at the base of the windshield caught the light. Dean bent closer, automatically checking the little metal tag.
Except the rivets holding it in place weren’t factory; someone’s messed with it.
Dean straightened slowly, eyes drifting along the door frame where another VIN tag should be.
There was one. Sort of. The sticker was scratched up like somebody tried to peel it off and gave up halfway through.
Not suspicious at all.
He kept walking.
The trunk lid didn’t sit flush with the body. It was slightly crooked, like it’s been forced shut too hard a few times.
He reached the driver’s side again, pulling the door open. Inside, the interior smelled faintly like cheap cologne and something sharper underneath--something metallic.
Dean’s eyes flicked briefly to the floor mat. There was a dark stain there, half-scrubbed.
He stared at it for a second, then exhaled slowly through his nose and shut the door.
Missing plates.Tampered VIN tags. Jimmied ignition. Mystery stain.
He rolled the keys once across his knuckles.
“…Not my problem.”
He walked around to the front, popped the hood latch, and lifted it open. “Let’s hear that noise.”
- - -
"Not bad!" the guy said, straightening from where he'd been inspecting the interior with a broad grin. Three gold teeth. Dean had mentally started calling him Jon Bon Jovi about forty minutes ago and wasn't planning to stop. “Not bad at all, kid.”
“Tell it to the online reviews,” Dean replied from his seat, a ways away across the garage.
He was done and then some with this whole thing and all he wanted now was for Bon Jovi over here to get the hell out of his shop.
The guy chuckled like Dean’s just told the funniest joke he’s ever heard.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, slapping the roof of the car affectionately. “Runs smoother now. Should go for a fortune.”
Dean shrugged, purposefully ignoring the words. It’s not suspicious to sell a nice car. It’s not.
He spun a wrench lazily between his fingers. “Loose belt and a bad pulley,” he said. “Wasn’t complicated.”
For all the shady crap about the car, the actual mechanical issue had been completely normal.
Almost disappointingly so.
Bon Jovi dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a thick fold of bills.
Dean watched him count it out like he was dealing cards.
“Two hundred, right?” the guy said.
“Two-fifty.”
Bon Jovi paused. Then he was grinning again, flashing the gold teeth.
“Worth every penny.”
He peeled off the bills and tossed them onto the counter beside Dean without bothering to count the rest.
Dean glanced down. It was more than the bill. Of course it was.
“Thank you for choosing Singer Automotive,” He said, the words forced, “We hope to see you again soon.”
The guy waves a hand dismissively, as if wafting the words and terrible atmosphere out of the air.
“Nah, don’t get all stiff on me,” he said, leaning back against the car with a grin that showed the three gold teeth glinting in the fluorescent light.
“Gotta say… nice work. Real nice. Not often you find someone who knows their way around a car… and knows how to be discreet.”
Dean raised an eyebrow, still curious after everything. “Discreet?”
“Yeah,” the guy said, tapping a finger on the hood. “People like me… we don’t want our business all over the internet. That’s the beauty of a guy like you.”
Dean shrugged, brushing off his hands and cringing internally at the wording. “Right. Glad to be of service.”
He waited for the guy to move on. But the compliments keep coming. “Most people would’ve pried too much. Asked questions. But none of that shit. I like that.”
Dean didnt’t respond, just nodded once, keeping the gesture tight. There was a faint sense of unease permeating his insides now, first appearing when this goddamn car rolled into his garage and only rising as Bon Jovi continued to run his slimy mouth.
“You know when to keep your mouth shut. Not everyone does.”
Dean didn’t bother to grace that statement with a nod.
After a beat, the guy straightened, finally getting to the point. “Name’s Gordon Walker,” he says, extending a hand. Dean barely notices it at first, distracted by the way the man’s eyes keep darting around the garage.
Dean shook it once he registered the motion, quick and cautious. “Okay,” he said, not offering his name in return. He was trying to be obvious with his disinterest now.
“Pleasure to meet you… Dean.” Gordon said, eyes flicking downward to read Dean’s nametag. His grin widened, and there was something in the way he said Dean’s name, slow and deliberate, that made his skin prickle. And not in a good way, like when a hot chick rolled her tongue around the sound.
“Good name. Very professional.”
Dean tensed. “Thanks.”
“I’ve got friends,” Gordon continued, ignoring the edge in Dean’s voice. “People who require… similar services. People who would really appreciate a mechanic like you. Someone careful, who knows how to keep things quiet.”
Dean blinked. Gordon spoke quietly, but it’s like his voice is echoing across the concrete floors and walls, bouncing around before exploding outward and outside, letting the world know what he’s saying.
The air was slimy and thick.
"I'm gonna be straight with you," Dean said, placing the wrench down firmly on the table. "I don't do that kind of stuff. I fix cars. That's it. I don't get involved in people's shady business, I don't hide anything, and I sure as hell don't owe favors to anyone."
"Oh, but I think you should." Gordon said, and with a lowering of his arm, he patted his jacket pocket. Dean took a long look at the lump there, raising a single eyebrow. Wow. Guy thinks he's the first to pull a gun on the mechanic.
He was about to tell the sorry asshole to scurry back to whatever street crew he was initiating for when his eyes snagged on the mark inside the man's forearm.
A slick, stylized emblem. A bolt of lightning curling through a flaming wheel.
Dean's brain didn't so much process it as detonate.
Hell's Circuit.
He was eight again, barefoot in dry Kansas grass, watching heat shimmer off a parking lot while his dad argued with a cop who kept looking too calm for the amount of blood on the pavement. The taste of ash. The ringing silence after the shots stopped. The way people moved wrong when they thought nobody important was left to see it.
The way his mother hadn't moved at all.
Dean's grip on the wrench tightened until the metal dug into his palm.
He knew that mark. Would've known it anywhere. It wasn't something you forgot--it was burned in, stamped behind the eyes, the kind of thing that lived in the back of your skull for twenty years and waited.
They were drug runners and street racers. Back in Kansas, there wasn’t a soul in the city who didn’t know the name. From hold-ups at local donut shops to Red Notices, it seemed like half the headlines in the Midwest had to do with Hell’s Circuit.
And now the tattoo was on this guy's arm.
On a guy standing in Bobby Singer's garage in Chicago like he owned the air in the room.
Dad would love this, he thought, and the thought made him want to put his fist through something.
Gordon was still talking, still coasting on his own importance, but Dean had stopped hearing the words. The garage around him seemed to narrow, the lights bleeding into a sick glow at the edges.
"When I sell this car," Gordon continued, oblivious, "I want to be able to recommend the man behind it as well. You understand."
Dean finally dragged his eyes up from the tattoo.
He'd always had a taste for cheap thrills. But this wasn't going thirty over on the highway after last call. This wasn't even the kind of trouble you could sleep off. Hell's Circuit didn't leave loose ends. They didn't negotiate. They showed up at your door, or they showed up at somebody else's--somebody you couldn't afford to lose--and either way the message was the same.
This could touch Sam.
The thought settled like ice water in his chest.
Gordon looked on expectantly, hand still resting near that lump in his jacket. The sun was fully gone now, the garage dark except for the Christmas lights still blinking their stupid, cheerful nonsense across the walls.
Dean didn't know what to say. Very quickly and very suddenly, every possible response had consequences attached to it. This was Bobby's shop. It was Sammy's address he'd be going back to tonight. It was their names written on everything in his life, and Hell's Circuit had a long memory and no particular objection to collateral damage.
"Let me…" he started, throat dry. "Let me think about it."
Gordon stared at him for a beat.
Then he laughed. Low and knowing, like Dean had just confirmed every suspicion rattling around in his head.
"There it is," he said. "That's the smart answer."
Dean said nothing. His pulse hammered hard enough to piss him off.
Gordon tilted his head, studying him now with open amusement. Whatever front Dean had managed was gone; the guy had seen straight through it and found exactly what he was looking for underneath.
Christ.
Walking around in his tacky jewelry and his knockoff mobster act, throwing the name around like a grenade he didn't even have to pull the pin on. Dean had met bigger men than Gordon Walker. Meaner ones too. Under different circumstances he would've laughed in his face. Under slightly different ones he might've put him through the windshield.
But Hell's Circuit changed the math. That tattoo changed the math.
"Relax," Gordon said, like Dean wasn't quietly running the numbers on every possible way this could go sideways. "Nobody's forcing you into anything tonight."
Tonight. Dean caught the word.
Gordon reached into his jacket and produced a folded scrap of paper, setting it on the workbench without ceremony.
"A number," he said. "You decide you want to make some real money, you call."
Dean stared at it without touching it.
Gordon leaned against the car one last time, completely at ease.
"Three days," he said. "After that, we stop waiting on an answer." A pause, just long enough. "And we start making other kinds of arrangements."
He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to.
Then he was in the car, engine turning over with a low, expensive growl, and the red metal slid out into the dark like it had never been there at all.
Dean stood alone in the garage. The Christmas lights blinked on and off across the empty space. He looked at the scrap of paper on the workbench for a long moment.
"Damn it."
His heart wouldn't slow down. He scrubbed a hand over his face, disgusted with himself, with the cold sweat at the back of his neck, with all of it.
"I should've at least charged him extra."