Demons! Always causing trouble!

[Somniloquist]

Given how Dean had spoken to her the last time they had cause to do so, Maxwell wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of Dean accompanying him so conspicuously on this strange outing. Everyone involved knew what sort of car Maxwell drove, and it sure as fuck wasn't the Impala in which he was currently seated. He wasn't of a mind to complain, though. An old car like this had an identity that the modern, foreign car he'd chosen didn't have. He'd chosen it for that very reason, of course, but it was nice to sit in a car that felt like it was made for men like himself and Dean. His own car was tiny and the way his long limbs crowded in it had gotten him a few snickers in the past. Nothing he wasn't able to turn around. Hell, this thing even had ashtrays arranged in it, though he didn't dare light up without asking. That Dean was protective of this car was glaringly apparent; the man stared daggers at him if he even played at pulling open the driver side door. The first couple minutes of their drive had been spent settling in, trying to establish himself as part of the scenery. He knew by now that someone else had occupied his current seat for years, could even feel the imprint of a narrower ass still there, so he couldn't be sure what success to expect, if any at all. Would it even be welcome?

He took the opportunity of the tape Dean had put in clicking to a stop to speak up. "Alright, I know you're not wild about coming along here, but I think you've actually got more experience with weird shit than I do. I don't have any choice about taking part or not; if I told her to fuck herself, she'd probably have come to the house. You didn't like her home visit last time, did you?" Useful as it had been, Max didn't count it among his own fond memories. She had a condescending bearing that wasn't unlike Eva's. She laughed openly to discover Dean as well as he was, remarked that it was disgusting how he failed to drink him dry as his very first option. He hadn't been forthcoming about why he was in need of that amount of blood, not fully. While he didn't think that Carmelia had much interest in his personal affairs, he was beginning to suspect that she was taking some interest in his continued livelihood. He didn't make the mistake of thinking she had any deeply personal respect for him as an individual, but he knew that he was somewhat hard to come by. Vampires like him usually didn't think they had enough to lose through disobedience that they respected the authority of anything at all, let alone the Authority, which was downright laughable. The same esteem for human society that tickled her funnybone made him useful to her. It would be as nothing for someone in her position to tear everything he'd worked for to tatters. He had the idea she could sew it back together, too, if she was so inclined. "It's not as though you can just off someone like that." He let out a slow breath at the thought, shaking his head. "You don't want to know what sort of wrath would rain down for doing that. These Authority types can't forgive; someone would stage a coup if there were even rumors of it."

None of that political nonsense was his scene, not remotely. Succeeding in politics involved assuming a set of morals and characteristics that swayed with the tide of public opinion. At least, such was the case for those so long-lived as vampires. The trick was to shift so subtly that no worthwhile group recognized it happening. While most vampires remembered all kinds of things, it was relatively rare that they should hold their own to some belief they'd espoused two centuries ago. Those that would normally took very little part in government anyhow; they didn't trust it. At present, and really, in general, vampires had a very fragile sense of honor and dignity. It seemed like their self-respect was so fragile that the slightest brush with threat or insult threatened its stability. This could be seen on a small scale in how individual vampires had been known to react to human beings taking them anything but deadly serious. Stories of humans turning up in alleyways, drained of blood and severely beaten, weren't as rare as the AVL might like. They were the public arm of the Authority, of course, but he doubted they'd hear anything about what a vicious circle it all was. Their own kings and queens staged secret, bloody wars on account of one rude snort, and they wondered why sarcastically calling a teenage-bodied vampire Edward Cullen got frat boys murdered. It was always that way. People could start in politics being sharp and good-intentioned, but it went to shit before they got anywhere meaningful. He'd done his best to stay out of it as long as possible. This was but one scene in the story of that failure.

[DeanEffingWinchester]

Little as Dean liked the thought of being seen accompanying a vampire to a vampire bar, he liked the thought of doing it in Max's little compact car even less. The thing was hardly a car at all so much as a windup toy, as far as Dean was concerned, and if he absolutely had to go on this mission, he was at least going to do it in style. The Impala hadn't ever been a hard sell to Max, though, so at least there was that. Sometimes, though, sometimes it was strange to look over and see someone else sitting where his brother had been for so long, and Dean would be lying outright if he said that he'd never glanced over in the dark and seen another face, just for half a second, when Maxwell was turned towards the window. It had only been once or twice, but it had been unnerving, nonetheless. Somehow it was worse to think that one day he might look over and see only Maxwell, that years might erode away his brothers memory until he no longer fit in that space. As it was, he just tried not to think about it, and it worked as well for that as it did for most of the things that Dean just didn't wan to acknowledge.

"I find that a little less than comforting, I gotta tell ya," Dean said, gruff and without humor, though it wasn't really an effort to deny it. The fact was that he'd been focused on hunting demons most of his life, tracking down creatures that liked to rip people to shreds, figuring out what he was up against before he went into it, guns blazing. If Max's role was primarily disposal and clean up after all the detective work had been done, well, then Dean felt better about being there anyway, but it didn't mean that the situation didn't leave him a little more than tense. News coverage meant it might get to other hunters would have gotten wind of it, and though they weren't the type to flaunt their relationship in public - something that Dean felt was probably more his choice than Max's - it would be easy enough for the wrong eyes to see them arriving together, talking, and Dean would have no good explanation for it. Hunters didn't work with vampires, Winchesters especially didn't work with vampires, and if the wrong person saw them together, put two and two together, even without guessing the nature of their involvement, the things Dean had done to keep them both safe wouldn't matter anymore. The hunting community was spread out, distrustful even of each other, but information and rumors still had a way of working their way down the grapevine. Dean had seen how wrong it could go when some overzealous psycho took it upon themselves to deal with a problem, and he wasn't itching to give anyone something to deal with.

"So I can't shoot her, is what you're saying," came after a tick, just enough time to make it seem like Dean had actually thought about it, weighed the pros and cons, and he turned a disappointed glance towards Max, pouting just slightly, eyebrows tuned up hopefully in the middle, as though Maxwell might relent with a, Well, just this once. More and more, Dean had begun to wish he'd shot that horrible woman on first sight, when it was something he could have chalked up to the heat of the moment, done without the consequences on it falling on Max. "That woman is a…she's a fucking harbinger of doom, I swear," Dean cleared his throat, adjusting his grip on the wheel as the car slid over asphalt, purring and content, and Dean tried to find some comfort in the low thrum of the engine. He let the pop and hiss of the cassette deck fill the silence between their words for a short while before he reached out and ejected the tape, leaned towards Max to shove it in the glovebox without retrieving another. "Three deaths before this finally hit someone's radar. Really?" It was easy to hear the tension in his voice, irritation at the incompetence that he laid squarely on Carmelia's shoulders. It was her job to catch these things before they got out of control, right? Well, three gruesome deaths seemed pretty out of control to him.