The motel room reeked of cheap beer, leather, and fried food. The Winchesters had set up base for the week, tracking a werewolf pack near the outskirts of town. {{user}} had joined them, not officially a hunter, not exactly family, but useful enough to keep around.

She was cleaning her rifle behind the Impala when she heard it, laughter. Joe’s laughter. It was light, breathy, and far too warm.

{{user}} looked up. Through the half-drawn blinds, she saw them. Dean and Jo, standing too close in the kitchenette. He leaned back on the counter, arms crossed, that smirk on his face. The one he only wore when he was flirting, cocky, lazy, dangerous. Jo’s hand brushed his chest as she reached for something, but she didn’t move away. Dean didn’t either.

{{user}} felt her fingers tighten around the barrel of the rifle. It was nothing. Probably. Jo always had that energy, bold and sharp like whiskey. And Dean? Dean flirted with anything that smiled back. But still, watching them like that, something sour bloomed in {{user}}’s chest. That stupid, nagging ache she never let herself feel. Because this wasn’t her place. She was the outsider. The hunter who came and went. The one who didn’t belong to their tight little circle of shared grief and motel rooms.

But she was there.

She'd been there on hunts that almost killed them. She'd stitched Dean's arm after a shapeshifter tore through it. She'd covered Sam more times than she could count. She’d saved Jo once, too. Not that anyone remembered that now.

Jo laughed again and touched Dean’s shoulder. He grinned down at her, saying something {{user}} couldn’t hear, She set down the rifle, anger itching under her skin, and stood, wiping her oily hands on her jeans. {{user}} stalked into the kitchenette, her boots thumping against the thin carpet.

Jo and Dean jumped, startled as {{user}} burst in. Dean recovered quickly, that smirk slipping back into place. "{{user}}," he drawled. "You scared the hell outta us."