milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Dean's changing the oil on the Impala. Sam should be in the motel room, working on gathering more background information for their next case.

He can't make himself sit still long enough to focus.

After the sixth circuit of the room, he throws his hands in the air and stalks through the door to Milliways instead.

At least there he can grab better coffee than the cheap vending machine crap, right?

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"I guess anyone spends time in a bar sees their fair share." Boyd eyes the table and circles; the green stripe is an easy shot. Lining it up: "Trick's not to be one."

"Always a good start," he agrees, watching.

Sam holds his silence while Boyd takes his shot, then adds,

"I'd venture a guess that a lot of the people here don't exactly have all that much experience with bars of the kind it sounds like we both know."

Yellow stripe's a little trickier.

He glances up at Sam before he lines it up.

"If you had to venture a guess," casual, "what kind of bars would you say those are?"

Sam eyes him for a second, then shrugs.

"More roadhouse than not, for one."

Boyd takes his shot, misses, grimaces, wheels away to pick up his glass.

(The grimace might have more to do with the bullet wound in his shoulder than genuine irritation at missing.)

"Now, that's a word we don't have in our parlance except as it comes from the outside. Easy Rider and all."

And at the end of Easy Rider, it's the hillbillies who blew up Peter Fonda and fucked up Dennis Hopper.

Boyd's well aware of that.

"Knew a place in Nebraska named that. Seemed to fit."

Before it was burned to the ground, anyway.

Sam sinks the green six in the side pocket, then lines up a second shot on the bright red three toward the far corner.

"What would you call them?"

"Bars," Boyd says, watching the table. "Pool halls. Older folks might call them honky tonks."

"Fair enough."

He takes his shot, watches the ball ricochet off the bank and spin away, then steps back for Boyd to take his turn.

"Been in some places that could be called any or all of the three."

"A traveling man," Boyd says, lining up his shot.

"Yep," Sam confirms. "The business keeps us on the road most of the time."

Boyd shoots; in goes a stripe.

"And what would happen," he says, lining up another shot, "if someone were to inquire as to the nature of that business?"

"Depends on who's asking," he replies, with a quick grin.

It's absolutely true, as it turns out.

"Are you?"

Another shot, another pocket, Boyd lines up a third.

"Only if it should not offend."

"No reason it should."

And since given the entire conversation about the dead, the guy's clearly not likely to buy the truth of what it is they do --

"We're private investigators."

Boyd misses his third and retreats to his glass.

"The kind for hire?"

"Pretty much. We don't work for the cops, or anything like that. More... independent clients, you could say."

Although they impersonate them from time to time.

Sam sinks the recalcitrant three and lines up his own next shot.

"What about you?"

"Currently unemployed."

Boyd's watching the table.

"Coal mine's hiring. Not a lot of other options."

He nods, and shoots again, then moves for a third.

"West Virginia?"

"Harlan."

If he's as well-traveled as he says, Boyd doesn't need to specify further.

"Kentucky, right?"

He steps back from the table as the ball kisses the edge of the side pocket and spins away, and glances over at Boyd.

"Heard of it; never been there, though."

"It don't tend to be a place people go to," Boyd agrees, circling the table for his next shot. "Not if they got any choice in it."

Sam shrugs.

"Yeah, well."

Matter-of-fact.

"Folks also don't got a lot of cause to hire private investigators, neither."

They take care of their own dealings.

Not, of course, that Boyd would know anything about this.

He takes a shot, misses, frowns.

"Might be part of why we've never been there."

He eyes the lie of the table; they're pretty evenly matched.

Boyd finishes off his drink, and stays silent; time to see if Sam's willing to give anything up of his own accord.