The smell of alcohol and leather was a familiar one that sank into Shaun’s senses and soothed him. The little far-off bar he’d found was quiet and dark. Places like this didn’t believe in having too many lights, and that was the way he preferred it. Sitting at a corner of the bar, away from the few patrons that were in there, he could see what he needed to while nursing his beer. There were no fancy microbrews here, or cocktails that cost upward of double digits. You ordered your beer, from the tap or a bottle, or you took your shots; that was what a place like this offered.

Lucas was back in the motel room tapping away furiously at his computer, completely engrossed in his research. Once upon a time, it had frustrated Shaun to see Lucas so wrapped up in whatever he was doing online. He was a man of action. The idea of sitting around for hours doing research or a bit of planning was boring. After such research and planning had helped save his ass more than a few times over the years, Shaun had grown to appreciate it. It didn’t hurt that it always seemed to put Lucas in a far better mood than when he started. The man was one for details; he had to have the best plan possible, and it put him in a better frame of mind when he was able to.

It had taken them time, but they had eventually established a routine that worked well for the both of them. They worked together to dig through the scene of an attack or murder, both of them knowing enough to find all the different pieces of evidence. Usually that lead to Lucas returning to their room to do research, confirm their target, and formulate a plan of action. Shaun had no problem letting his partner take control, as he trusted Lucas completely. When it came time to execute the plan, that was when Shaun stepped up to the plate. Once the claws came out and the time to kill arrived, Shaun was there to either follow through on Lucas’ plan, or to improvise if it all went to hell.

“I’d say you look lonely, but you look way too happy over here by yourself.”

Shaun turned toward the sound of the stranger’s voice, trying to remember how to speak after being pulled so abruptly from his mental wandering. The new arrival was about his height, though built more like Lucas. The man leaned on the bar, illuminating his face better under one of the overhead lights. Shaun saw dark brown hair, kept short and off his face, and hazel eyes that were the peculiar type that seemed to change color depending on how the light hit them. He had a wicked grin on his face, looking like he was looking to cause some trouble, but the kind Shaun might enjoy.

“Worst pickup line ever,” Shaun told him, grinning as he waited to see how the man would react. Instinct told him that the guy randomly approaching him like this was probably meant to test the waters. People did randomly approach others in a bar like this for casual conversation, but something about the way this stranger was looking at him made him wonder if he was looking for something a little more friendly.

“How about, nice shoes, wanna fuck?”

Oh, there was definitely an impish quality to the man’s voice. He sounded like he knew he was just that good.

The joke made Shaun laugh though. “Okay, now that’s the worst one I’ve ever heard, so you win. Name’s Shaun.”

The man took Shaun’s offered hand with a smile. “Nicolai, though only my grandma calls me that. You can call me Nic.”

His speech was rapid, but clear, not a trace of slurring or an accent. From what Shaun had heard around town and in the bar, that marked Nic as someone from out of town. Wasn’t all that strange an idea, since the little town wasn’t that far off the highway heading south. Probably another random stranger passing through, looking for somewhere to relax and have a few drinks. Shaun had to give the man credit. After all, he’d chosen the same type of bar that Shaun had. There was a far more energetic one a few miles away, providing loud music and even louder patrons. Shaun had preferred the one that gave him that feeling of nostalgia, and something had obviously motivated this out-of-towner to do the same.

“Haven’t seen you around here before,” Nic commented as he slid into the seat next to Shaun with a lazy grace.

“And you don’t sound like you’re from around here,” Shaun shot back.

“True, because I’m not. Been sitting around town doing nothing while I wait for my friends to show up. Means I’ve had plenty of time to sit in this bar and get drunk, and I haven’t seen you in here before. Though, you do sound like you belong around here.”

Shaun chuckled at that. “Not from here. My partner and I are in town, doin’ some work.”

“Partner, eh?”

“Work partner. We’re here because of the uh, incident, at the motel.”

Nic’s eyes widened. “Oh, those two guys who got killed, right? That make you a Fed? Didn’t know they brought in Feds for a couple of random guys killed in some backwater motel.”

“Backwater eh? Guessin’ you ain’t the type to come from a place like this huh?”

Nic grinned wider at that. “Me? God no, I’m from New York, City that is. I took a Greyhound down here to meet some friends that I’m visiting. They were supposed to meet me halfway in this town, but they’re having car trouble. So here I am, stranded until they get up here.”

“Why not just get another bus ticket?”

“Thought about it, but maybe I find this place a little charming.”

Shaun smirked, gesturing to the bored looking bartender for two more bottles. “Charming? Don’t think I don’t know what that means. I heard ‘charming’ plenty of times growin’ up. Just a nice way of saying ‘backwards,’ right?”

“I think that’s what it’s supposed to mean, but I kinda like it. It’s quiet around here, you know? Really sinks into you and just…soothes. The people are friendly, or at least pretend to be. It’s a good kind of quiet, without a bunch of horns going off, or sirens somewhere. If it wasn’t for all the damn bugs, I might be tempted to stay in a place like this from now on.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. City boy is gettin’ turned to the dark side.”

“Hey, it’s a new experience for me. What can I say? And what about you? You from a place like this? That why you’re in here, to soak up the familiar ambiance?” Nic asked, raising the brown bottle, that had been slid to him, in a salute of thanks.

Despite the difficulty of trying to keep up with Nic’s rapid speech, Shaun found the way he talked endearing. It was quick, but clean, and there was an odd mixture of eloquence and casual irreverence in both his manner and speech. It wasn’t quite the clipped and almost sharp way that Lucas spoke, but it wasn’t the easygoing drawl Shaun knew his own voice had. It didn’t have the abrupt rudeness of city living that Shaun had come to expect either. Nic spoke as if he had nowhere he had to be in a rush, but had plenty to say before he got there.

“My parents owned a bar in the small town I grew up in,” Shaun explained truthfully. He had discovered a long time ago that when it came to this life, you lied enough without needing to throw unnecessary lies on top. That and you never knew when you might have to face a story you once told to a stranger. It was easier to keep your story straight if you kept to the truth as much as possible.

“What, in some honky-tonk like this?”

Shaun smiled, finding Nic’s words almost insulting, but liking how his playful tone softened them. “Almost exactly like this. Quiet, with a limited choice of alcohol, nothing fancy. The kind of place people could come into and just relax, maybe have a quiet conversation. Sometimes it got rowdy, but it was usually just…like this. Calmin’.”

Which was mostly true. It had been a generally calm place to live. It had also been a place for plenty of hunters to stop and have a rest. It had been his mother’s place first, but after his father had lost his arm, he had taken up helping to run the place. His other job had been preparing his only son for a life of hunting. Between the various hunters that found their way into the roadside bar and his father’s training, Shaun had lived and breathed hunting for as long as he could remember.

Nic nodded. “Makes sense, reminds you of home. I guess in your line of work, you probably don’t get to too many places like this, do you?”

Shaun raised one shoulder and let it fall. “Here and there. Just depends on where the work is.”

“All at the demand of whoever’s calling the shots, eh?”

“Something like that. What do ya do for a living? Seems like you’re on vacation at the moment, but ya can’t always be partyin’ it up, can ya?”

Nic laughed, shaking his head. “Naw, not all the time. I’m sort of a freelance worker. Do a bit of this and a bit of that. Nothing really specific, but I’m good at taking care of people’s problems for them.”

That piqued Shaun’s interest. “What sort of problems?”

“I mean, the last job I took was a guy having computer problems. Some kind of bug in the system that had it acting weird. I couldn’t find out what was causing the problem, but the guy had enough trojans in his system to make anyone have a stroke.”

“So, computer stuff then.”

Nic smiled slyly. “Not always, like I said, just depends on the person’s problem.”

“Can’t tell if your work is that vague or if you’re secretly an assassin.”

Nic winked at him. “I could be, you never know. Maybe someone put a hit out on you and I’m just scoping you out to see what sort of trouble you might be. You government boys make quite a few enemies.”

Shaun snorted. “Don’t think I got much to worry about. Me? I got a quiet life, that just kinda gets interrupted by dead bodies every now and then.”

He was looking at Nic with a little more professional interest than when he’d first sat down. It sounded like Nic did something almost like mercenary work, no matter what he might call it. The only mercenary types he knew were either overseas, or just another name for a hunter. Despite how connected they were in this modern age, they didn’t know every hunter they came across out in the field. It was possible that Nic was another hunter and was trying to find out if Shaun was here working.

The playful man didn’t seem very dangerous, not with that carefree attitude and easy laugh but Shaun knew that appearances meant little in his line of work. At first glance, it made sense for hunters to be the huge wall of muscle that he was and little else. That same thinking could be flipped on its head when you took into account how quick Lucas could be with a blade, or how quickly a monster could fall due to one of his well-executed plans. Hunters came in all shapes and sizes, and this lithe man could possibly be one hell of a skilled hunter.

Nic tipped the mouth of his beer bottle toward Shaun with a knowing smirk. “Don’t really seem like the type to lead a quiet life. If you wanted one of those, you would have stayed in whatever town you came from and not become a Fed.”

“Alright, you got me there.”

“If only I could be so lucky as to have you anywhere,” Nic quipped, punctuating his sentence with a long drink from his beer.

Shaun smiled, admiring a man who could so easily hit on someone in a rough bar in the middle of nowhere. “That so?”

“It might be, your partner isn’t gonna miss you if you’re gone for a little while longer, is he? I could use a bit of company while I drink.”

Shaun cautiously raised a brow. “Don’t remember tellin’ ya I had a partner.”

“Isn’t that what you fed boys do, run together in pairs? Or are you one of those lone wolf types, walking off into the sunset, never looking at the explosion as it happens?”

Shaun let out a bark of laughter. “Alright, fine, ya got me again. He’s doin’ his own thing at the moment. So, I think I can stay here a bit and keep ya company.”

“Oh good,” Nic replied, his eyes lighting up in eagerness. “I’ve got the next round in that case.”