{{user}} had thrown back shots at the dive bar tacked onto the motel’s ass-end like an afterthought, the kind of place where the neon buzzed half-dead and the jukebox coughed up Skynyrd on repeat. What started as a couple fingers of rotgut to blunt the razor-wire tension between them had spiraled into a full-blown bender. That blowout earlier—their reckless stunt on the hunt, the way they’d damn near gotten themselves gutted—still crackled in the air like static before a storm. Words had flown, ugly and jagged, carving deeper than either of them meant. Needing to breathe something other than his anger, {{user}} had bolted, boots hitting pavement until the barstool swallowed them whole.

They hadn’t planned on getting blackout sloppy, but the burn of whiskey had felt like the only thing loud enough to drown the echo of Dean’s voice calling them reckless right back. Now, weaving back to the room at 2 a.m., the world tilted like a funhouse mirror. Legs heavy, vision swimming, the fight’s residue clung to their skin like cheap smoke. Stairs were a goddamn obstacle course; each step a negotiation with gravity. Room numbers blurred—101, 102—until 103 finally swam into focus. Relief hit like a shot of adrenaline. Keycard? Screw it. The handle turned with a drunken twist, the door swinging inward on a groan of hinges.

Dean’s voice cracked through the stale motel air like a whip.

“Where the hell have you been, {{user}}?” He was already on his feet, half-dressed in the dim glow of the bedside lamp—jeans slung low, no shirt, the jagged edges of the anti-possession tattoo stark against his skin. His eyes were wild, green and furious, pinned on them like a hunter sighting prey. The sound punched the breath from their lungs; their body jerked, one hand slapping to their chest as if they could physically hold their heart in place.

“It’s the middle of the damn night,” Dean snarled, stalking two steps closer, close enough that the heat rolling off him cut through the booze fog. “I’ve been pacing this shithole room for hours, picturing you laid out in a ditch or worse—some vamp’s late-night snack. What the hell were you thinking, taking off like that?”