FIC: Renegade [Millennium x SPN]
Title: Renegade
Fandom: Supernatural x Millennium
Disc: Kripke owns SPN, Chris Carter owns MIL
Characters: Sam, Dean, Frank, Jordan
Timeline: Post Millennium finale, post 2x12 ‘Nightshifter’ for Supernatural
Word Count: 3104
Rating: PG
For mhalachaiswords
Summary: On the run and out of options, Sam suggests a visit to their old FBI friend. Sequel to Detour.
There’s something liberating about admitting you’re screwed. Dean admitted it about every five seconds as he and Sam rode out into the sunset, rolling the words around in his head like bone dice, and feeling a little bit lighter every time.
They were screwed.
They’d probably go down in a blaze of glory.
It might even be worth it.
He stole another glance at Sammy, scowling with his arms crossed in the passenger seat, and felt that heaviness press back down again, that inescapable feeling of doom.
Crap.
“Look, Sam, we’ll figure a way out of this.”
His brother turned a dark eye his way. “Oh, we will, will we? We can’t stop running, but there’s nowhere to hide. Ellen’s been more help than she should be, but what do we do about the bounty? Other hunters are hunting us, FBI guys are waiting to pop out of the bushes, and the yellow-eye demon could have henchmen in every diner waitress or hotel clerk.”
Dean griped the wheel tighter and wished he hadn’t drunk all that coffee at the last gas-up; he kind of had to pee. Sam was still glaring at him, all wounded puppy, and Dean grit his teeth.
“So what do you have to suggest, baby brother? What now? Cause we’re fresh out of ideas over here.”
Sam just snorted, staring out at the passing trees, winter bare and sadly bleak. They were silent in that space, the hard truth strangling them. Sam tapped his finger on the glass twice, hard, and turned back to Dean with a sardonic little half-smile on his face. Dean’s heart broke just a little to see that smile on Sammy’s face; it used to belong just to their father.
“I know what we do, Dean. Take a page from the FBI’s playbook.” He huffed out what might have been a laugh. “Fight fire with fire.”
And Dean knew exactly what Sam meant. “Hell, no. Bad idea.”
Sam just looked at him, and Dean knew he was beaten. A bad idea was still an idea, after all, and they could do with a new one or two.
“Fine. But you have to deal with the creepy daughter.”
Sam just arched an eyebrow and turned up the radio.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
It was dusk when they rumbled up to the curb, sliding past it and up the neatly groomed drive. The lights were on in what must be the kitchen as the boys quietly closed the doors, or as quietly as one could when shutting heavy steel.
“So, now what, walk up and say ‘Lucy, we’re home?” Dean groused, buttoning up his coat.
Sam was rubbing his hands together, face thoughtful. “We could, or we could just explain why we’re here and ask for help.”
“Oh, since when has honesty been the best policy? It worked so well every other time we’ve tried it.” Dean jumped slightly as the porch light went on.
A young woman’s voice fell out into the night air. “We were expecting you, you know. Go in the shed and drag a tarp over the car then come inside. Bring your bags.”
The Winchester boys exchanged glances, Dean wishing he had time to douse himself in holy water or say a quick prayer, as Jordan Black opened the back door. The back light cast a halo around her curly hair, a disconcerting vision of youth and age, all rolled into one.
Sam obediently went to fetch the tarp and Dean stood there feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, waiting for the semi-truck that was Jordan to take him out a twenty paces and flatten him into road pancake. He was still standing there, unsure which direction to flee, when Sam dragged him in the house.
“It’s, um, nice of you to let us, um, in,” San said, ducking his head down in a weird parody of an older brother not-hug.
Jordan smiled up at Sam, her face warm. “Dad’s in the living room and it’ll be a few minutes before dinner’s ready. If you want to get cleaned up first, we’ve put you in the room to the left of the stairs. The bedspreads are yellow.”
She held the door for Dean, grinning. “I knew you’d be back. You knew it, too, didn’t you?”
Dean glared at her. “What made you so sure? How’d you know, anyway?”
Shutting and locking the door behind her, Jordan said, “An angel visited three nights ago and said you needed haven.”
“An angel. Right,” Dean grumbled, tromping up the stairs after his brother. “What next, someone comes in waving a flaming sword and carrying us up to heaven in a chariot?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, leaning against the banister, “That stuff is just old legends.”
Dean could feel her laughing at him all the way up the stairs, around the corner, and even into the bedroom. Two twin beds with bright yellow coverlets were in a room overlooking the back yard. He pushed the curtains away and looked out as Sam washed his hands in the adjoining bathroom. Dean was surprised at how secluded the back yard actually was, with tall privacy bushes and a stout, solid fence. Even on the second story he couldn’t see the neighbor’s yards or inside their houses; an interesting contrast to the open and inviting front flower-filled lawn.
“Did you hear her? Angels? What kind of crap is that?”
“Why not? It’s no weirder than shape-shifters or vampires.” Sam spat, rinsing the toothpaste out of his mouth. “Besides, I think it’s sort of nice to think there’s someone on the other side helping the good guys out.”
Dean shed his coat into the closet. “You would. I still think this is a bad idea. He’s a fed; what if he turns us in?”
“He is not going to turn us in, Dean. Not him.” Sam was giving him that look again, the same one from the car, and Dean wondered if it were the result of some freaky vision-seeing bond thing his brother, Frank and Jordan Black had going on. Then decided it was better off not to know.
“If you’re wrong…” Dean let the words hang there, heavy as dread, but Sam only shook his head.
“If I’m wrong, then we’re no more screwed than we were this morning. Come on; let’s see what’s for dinner.”
Dinner, it turned out, was pretty tasty roast chicken with mashed potatoes, green beans, real, homemade bread, and one scowling Frank Black dissecting them with his eyes across the dinner table. Dean was pretty convinced that in his previous life, Frank Black had laser beams, and maybe sharks, attached to his forehead.
“So, boys, would you like to tell me why I am to grant you both haven?”
The Winchesters exchanged looks, and by the look in Sam’s eye, Dean knew they were meandering their way up shit creek not even bothering to look for paddles. It was turning out to be that kind of week.
“We’re in a bit of trouble with the law. The FBI, actually.”
“What, exactly, did you do to deserve that?” Frank said, voice rumbling like thunder. Dean stole a glance at Jordan, neatly cutting up chicken into perfectly square pieces and smiling softly to herself.
“We didn’t do what they think we did, that’s for sure.” Dean twirled his knife, point down, on his napkin. “They, uh, seem to think we’re some sort of modern-day Bonnie and Clyde-I’m Clyde,” he added, still looking at Jordan. She ignored him.
“And are you? Some sort of Bonnie and Clyde wannabes?” Frank asked, tilting his head to the side and looking at Dean like he had inspected that crime scene those few short months ago. It felt like someone was looking at his bones, the parts that made Dean, Dean, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“No!” Sam burst out, “We’re not. Really. It’s just that when we do the sort of work that we do, sometimes people get in the way, get the wrong idea. And sometimes people get hurt, even when we try to protect them.”
“Ah.” Frank closed his eyes for a moment, steepling his fingers in front of his nose. “I see. And you wish for me to believe you innocent, and to perhaps help you out of this…dilemma.”
Sam squirmed, shifting in his seat. “I thought you’d understand, maybe, how to help. We’re, well, we’re out of options.”
“You’re never really out of options, you know.” Jordan looked up from her chicken. “You just haven’t figured out how to ask.”
“Now is not the time, honey.” Frank smiled at his daughter. “Let me find out what the law thinks of all of this then I’ll see what we can do.”
Frank excused himself from the table and walked into the study off the front hall, closing the door as firmly behind him as if it were locked.
“He’ll be back when he’s done.” Jordan stood and cleared the dishes. She slid them into the sink, her motions graceful and awkward all at once. “Let me clean up. We don’t have a TV to watch any more, but I think there are some magazines in the sitting room.”
Sam murmured something about letting them help clean up, but Jordan waved them way. “It’s okay. I do it every night, part of our little ritual. Pretend to be a normal family with normal things like homework, and dishes, and garbage out on Tuesdays.”
Her shoulders were straight, unyielding, and the boys gave up with little fight. They found magazines in the living room, where Jordan said they would be: a month or two out of date and tending towards gardening and Martha Stewart. Dean flipped through one article that taught him how to decoupage leaf designs onto a dresser and make some sort of whipped salt foam to put on top of sea bass.
“Dude, if we ever meet this Martha person we’re totally going to have to slay her.” He said, wading through three pages of learning how to make leather throw pillows.
“Oh, I don’t know. This recipe for stuffed squash blossoms actually looks pretty tasty.” Sam scrunched his nose up as he kept looking. “Never mind. Total slayage.”
They looked at each other then, wallowing in the absurdity of it all, and Dean started to giggle. Not exactly manly, but what could be manly about sitting there reading Martha having just eaten roast chicken at a kitchen table, like they were the most white-bread of them all and their world wasn’t crumbling down like some fucking Humpty-Dumpty of epic proportions. Sam’s face cracked a smile, a real one, and he was soon snorting away, just as amused as his brother.
Jordan found them that way a few minutes later, her face bemused in that way teenagers get when they see adults doing something dumb. “If you guys are done being, well, whatever it is you are, do you want to play cards?”
“What do you have in mind, Go Fish,” Dean snorted, still laughing.
Jordan’s face lit up with a smile of her own. “No, stupid head. I want to play poker.”
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Dean was down twenty three dollars, an AC/DC zippo lighter, and the leather string off of his left boot when Frank came out of his study, clutching a fist of papers. He didn’t have to have psychic visions to know that whatever was on those pages was probably bad. Like the kind of bad that the FBI and police had plastered all over every board from San Diego to Boston.
“A fascinating read, I must say.” Frank sat down in the fourth seat at the card table. “You boys have been very busy.”
“We didn’t kill anyone,” Sam was quick to point out, reshuffling the cards three times in rapid succession.
“And I suppose the credit card fraud charges were just their way of saying ‘we love you, too’?”
“Nope, that stuff we totally did.” Dean shrugged at his brother’s glare. “What? You’re the one that was all, ‘honesty is the best policy’.”
Jordan covered up her giggle by trying out her new lighter. Dean tried not to glare. “You know, it’s hard to make an honest living when you’re out saving the moronic masses every night. Not exactly job application material.”
“Yeah, and your card playing sucks. You’d probably have starved it that’s all you had to live on.”
“Hey! I play pool, too,” Dean said, offended, and tried to sneak a peak at her cards.
“Jordan! Language,” Frank said, frowning.
“Sorry, Dad,” she answered, obviously not sorry at all. Dean couldn’t even begin to count the ways he was glad Sammy finally grew out of that phase. Took going away to college, but most days it was worth it.
“This is an impressive record to get around, no matter how you look at it. St. Louis, Baltimore, Milwaukee. There are some people that are very interested in getting their hands on you two, convinced you’re the second coming of the anti-Christ.”
Jordan had stopped fidgeting with her new belongings and became very still. Dean wasn’t sure if Frank’s frown or Jordan’s stillness was more alarming. He glanced at Sam and saw the same thoughts flit across his brother’s face.
“Here’s my thing,” Frank said with a sad smile, “Or my thing these days. I’ve met the anti-Christ, or something very like her, and you two are a pale imitation if that’s your game. You might be petty criminals, but what I read between the lines, and on the lines if you read Detective Ballard’s report from Baltimore, is that you two are fighting the good fight with very little cover fire.”
“We’re not looking for absolution,” Sam said, his face looking more worn than his twenty-two years. “We’re just looking for a way out so we can keep doing what we do better than almost anyone on the planet.”
Frank was silent, his fingers tracing over the lines of text on the pages as if he could read truth in Braille. The room was quieter than Dean would have thought possible, not a sound strayed in from the street, just the slightly dusty silence of an old house, well loved. He wondered how long they’d lived here, this strange two person family, self-contained, wondered what brought such lined sadness to Frank’s face and Jordan’s dish washing, and why the bedspreads were yellow.
“I have some friends left at the agency that owe me some rather impressive favors. Despite what you may think the government does or doesn’t know about the way the world really works, or what this Agent Hendrikson believes is really going on, there are those who truly see.” Frank sighed, folding the papers over in half. “Stay for a few days and no one will think to look for you here.”
“You did turn off your cell phones, didn’t you?” Jordan asked, her voice thin. She looked haunted, and Dean knew he hadn’t been the only child who had hidden in the anonymity of a hotel room with only bad décor for company.
“Yes, we turned them off. Picked up our messages remotely from pay phones,” Sam answered her, pulling out his phone to show her.
She nodded, reassured and looked to her father. “I still have to finish my geometry homework. Do you mind if I…”
Frank smiled, gently patting her shoulder. “Go up to bed. I’ll check on you before I tuck in, but everything will be fine. Tell your dreams to be easy on you, you done good, kid.”
Frank watched his daughter go with a wistful smile lingering on his lips. “She’s so much like her mother these days, more so every hour.” He shook his head and stood, walking to a wet bar in the corner of the living room.
“Scotch? Something tells me you boys could use a glass.” He handed one to both Dean and Sam, ice cubes clinking. “Or maybe more than one. Ask me again tomorrow, but it seems that Resheph isn’t the only being interested in your fate. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I can’t say. But it will certainly make your lives-our lives-much more interesting.”
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The few days spent in the Black house were strangely peaceful. There was no where to go, even if they wanted to, and nothing particular to do. The boys played cards with each other and Jordan, chess with Frank, and studied the rather impressive occult library Frank had in his study. On the morning of the third day, Frank wandered in to the kitchen, clutching a cup of cold coffee and sat at the table.
“I’ve had some news. It seems that your case has been…advocated to someone with influence. Agent Hendrikson has been reassigned and requested to seek counseling.”
“That’s fucking fantastic,” Dean said, bouncing up out of his chair, his third hand of Gin Rummy for the morning tossed aside like old lettuce.
Sam seemed less eager. “I hear a ‘but’.”
“Isn’t there always a ‘but’,” Frank said, his face grave. “I’ve done what I can, and the wheels of justice will turn. But they’ll turn slowly, and not without error. You’ll have to be careful, and try to stay as legit as possible. In the meantime, I’ve agreed to fly back to DC to help an old friend out with a few issues they ran into there with some unsolved cases.”
“You’re doing something for them so they’ll drop the federal cases against us,” Dean said, surprised. “You don’t even like us that much.”
“Liking you, or not, has nothing to do with it.” Frank half-smiled. “And whatever gave you the idea I didn’t like you boys.”
Dean scowled and said nothing, wondering how such a sheltered girl like Jordan could learn to play poker like a professional. “So what does that mean for us now? Can we leave or will we be arrested by the first rent-a-cop with a boner for some real action?”
“You can leave, your spot on the FBI’s most wanted list has been given back to some well-deserved terrorists, but you may want to stick around for a bit.”
“Why?” asked Sam, curious.
“Jordan will be home at three and she’s looking forward to winning a matching throwing knife from Dean’s collection.” Dean was surprised to realize that Frank was actually amused, a bona-fide twinkle in his eye.
He was even more surprised to realize he was happy to wait. After all, the supernatural would still be there in the morning, just waiting to be hunted.
The End.
Fandom: Supernatural x Millennium
Disc: Kripke owns SPN, Chris Carter owns MIL
Characters: Sam, Dean, Frank, Jordan
Timeline: Post Millennium finale, post 2x12 ‘Nightshifter’ for Supernatural
Word Count: 3104
Rating: PG
For mhalachaiswords
Summary: On the run and out of options, Sam suggests a visit to their old FBI friend. Sequel to Detour.
There’s something liberating about admitting you’re screwed. Dean admitted it about every five seconds as he and Sam rode out into the sunset, rolling the words around in his head like bone dice, and feeling a little bit lighter every time.
They were screwed.
They’d probably go down in a blaze of glory.
It might even be worth it.
He stole another glance at Sammy, scowling with his arms crossed in the passenger seat, and felt that heaviness press back down again, that inescapable feeling of doom.
Crap.
“Look, Sam, we’ll figure a way out of this.”
His brother turned a dark eye his way. “Oh, we will, will we? We can’t stop running, but there’s nowhere to hide. Ellen’s been more help than she should be, but what do we do about the bounty? Other hunters are hunting us, FBI guys are waiting to pop out of the bushes, and the yellow-eye demon could have henchmen in every diner waitress or hotel clerk.”
Dean griped the wheel tighter and wished he hadn’t drunk all that coffee at the last gas-up; he kind of had to pee. Sam was still glaring at him, all wounded puppy, and Dean grit his teeth.
“So what do you have to suggest, baby brother? What now? Cause we’re fresh out of ideas over here.”
Sam just snorted, staring out at the passing trees, winter bare and sadly bleak. They were silent in that space, the hard truth strangling them. Sam tapped his finger on the glass twice, hard, and turned back to Dean with a sardonic little half-smile on his face. Dean’s heart broke just a little to see that smile on Sammy’s face; it used to belong just to their father.
“I know what we do, Dean. Take a page from the FBI’s playbook.” He huffed out what might have been a laugh. “Fight fire with fire.”
And Dean knew exactly what Sam meant. “Hell, no. Bad idea.”
Sam just looked at him, and Dean knew he was beaten. A bad idea was still an idea, after all, and they could do with a new one or two.
“Fine. But you have to deal with the creepy daughter.”
Sam just arched an eyebrow and turned up the radio.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
It was dusk when they rumbled up to the curb, sliding past it and up the neatly groomed drive. The lights were on in what must be the kitchen as the boys quietly closed the doors, or as quietly as one could when shutting heavy steel.
“So, now what, walk up and say ‘Lucy, we’re home?” Dean groused, buttoning up his coat.
Sam was rubbing his hands together, face thoughtful. “We could, or we could just explain why we’re here and ask for help.”
“Oh, since when has honesty been the best policy? It worked so well every other time we’ve tried it.” Dean jumped slightly as the porch light went on.
A young woman’s voice fell out into the night air. “We were expecting you, you know. Go in the shed and drag a tarp over the car then come inside. Bring your bags.”
The Winchester boys exchanged glances, Dean wishing he had time to douse himself in holy water or say a quick prayer, as Jordan Black opened the back door. The back light cast a halo around her curly hair, a disconcerting vision of youth and age, all rolled into one.
Sam obediently went to fetch the tarp and Dean stood there feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, waiting for the semi-truck that was Jordan to take him out a twenty paces and flatten him into road pancake. He was still standing there, unsure which direction to flee, when Sam dragged him in the house.
“It’s, um, nice of you to let us, um, in,” San said, ducking his head down in a weird parody of an older brother not-hug.
Jordan smiled up at Sam, her face warm. “Dad’s in the living room and it’ll be a few minutes before dinner’s ready. If you want to get cleaned up first, we’ve put you in the room to the left of the stairs. The bedspreads are yellow.”
She held the door for Dean, grinning. “I knew you’d be back. You knew it, too, didn’t you?”
Dean glared at her. “What made you so sure? How’d you know, anyway?”
Shutting and locking the door behind her, Jordan said, “An angel visited three nights ago and said you needed haven.”
“An angel. Right,” Dean grumbled, tromping up the stairs after his brother. “What next, someone comes in waving a flaming sword and carrying us up to heaven in a chariot?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, leaning against the banister, “That stuff is just old legends.”
Dean could feel her laughing at him all the way up the stairs, around the corner, and even into the bedroom. Two twin beds with bright yellow coverlets were in a room overlooking the back yard. He pushed the curtains away and looked out as Sam washed his hands in the adjoining bathroom. Dean was surprised at how secluded the back yard actually was, with tall privacy bushes and a stout, solid fence. Even on the second story he couldn’t see the neighbor’s yards or inside their houses; an interesting contrast to the open and inviting front flower-filled lawn.
“Did you hear her? Angels? What kind of crap is that?”
“Why not? It’s no weirder than shape-shifters or vampires.” Sam spat, rinsing the toothpaste out of his mouth. “Besides, I think it’s sort of nice to think there’s someone on the other side helping the good guys out.”
Dean shed his coat into the closet. “You would. I still think this is a bad idea. He’s a fed; what if he turns us in?”
“He is not going to turn us in, Dean. Not him.” Sam was giving him that look again, the same one from the car, and Dean wondered if it were the result of some freaky vision-seeing bond thing his brother, Frank and Jordan Black had going on. Then decided it was better off not to know.
“If you’re wrong…” Dean let the words hang there, heavy as dread, but Sam only shook his head.
“If I’m wrong, then we’re no more screwed than we were this morning. Come on; let’s see what’s for dinner.”
Dinner, it turned out, was pretty tasty roast chicken with mashed potatoes, green beans, real, homemade bread, and one scowling Frank Black dissecting them with his eyes across the dinner table. Dean was pretty convinced that in his previous life, Frank Black had laser beams, and maybe sharks, attached to his forehead.
“So, boys, would you like to tell me why I am to grant you both haven?”
The Winchesters exchanged looks, and by the look in Sam’s eye, Dean knew they were meandering their way up shit creek not even bothering to look for paddles. It was turning out to be that kind of week.
“We’re in a bit of trouble with the law. The FBI, actually.”
“What, exactly, did you do to deserve that?” Frank said, voice rumbling like thunder. Dean stole a glance at Jordan, neatly cutting up chicken into perfectly square pieces and smiling softly to herself.
“We didn’t do what they think we did, that’s for sure.” Dean twirled his knife, point down, on his napkin. “They, uh, seem to think we’re some sort of modern-day Bonnie and Clyde-I’m Clyde,” he added, still looking at Jordan. She ignored him.
“And are you? Some sort of Bonnie and Clyde wannabes?” Frank asked, tilting his head to the side and looking at Dean like he had inspected that crime scene those few short months ago. It felt like someone was looking at his bones, the parts that made Dean, Dean, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“No!” Sam burst out, “We’re not. Really. It’s just that when we do the sort of work that we do, sometimes people get in the way, get the wrong idea. And sometimes people get hurt, even when we try to protect them.”
“Ah.” Frank closed his eyes for a moment, steepling his fingers in front of his nose. “I see. And you wish for me to believe you innocent, and to perhaps help you out of this…dilemma.”
Sam squirmed, shifting in his seat. “I thought you’d understand, maybe, how to help. We’re, well, we’re out of options.”
“You’re never really out of options, you know.” Jordan looked up from her chicken. “You just haven’t figured out how to ask.”
“Now is not the time, honey.” Frank smiled at his daughter. “Let me find out what the law thinks of all of this then I’ll see what we can do.”
Frank excused himself from the table and walked into the study off the front hall, closing the door as firmly behind him as if it were locked.
“He’ll be back when he’s done.” Jordan stood and cleared the dishes. She slid them into the sink, her motions graceful and awkward all at once. “Let me clean up. We don’t have a TV to watch any more, but I think there are some magazines in the sitting room.”
Sam murmured something about letting them help clean up, but Jordan waved them way. “It’s okay. I do it every night, part of our little ritual. Pretend to be a normal family with normal things like homework, and dishes, and garbage out on Tuesdays.”
Her shoulders were straight, unyielding, and the boys gave up with little fight. They found magazines in the living room, where Jordan said they would be: a month or two out of date and tending towards gardening and Martha Stewart. Dean flipped through one article that taught him how to decoupage leaf designs onto a dresser and make some sort of whipped salt foam to put on top of sea bass.
“Dude, if we ever meet this Martha person we’re totally going to have to slay her.” He said, wading through three pages of learning how to make leather throw pillows.
“Oh, I don’t know. This recipe for stuffed squash blossoms actually looks pretty tasty.” Sam scrunched his nose up as he kept looking. “Never mind. Total slayage.”
They looked at each other then, wallowing in the absurdity of it all, and Dean started to giggle. Not exactly manly, but what could be manly about sitting there reading Martha having just eaten roast chicken at a kitchen table, like they were the most white-bread of them all and their world wasn’t crumbling down like some fucking Humpty-Dumpty of epic proportions. Sam’s face cracked a smile, a real one, and he was soon snorting away, just as amused as his brother.
Jordan found them that way a few minutes later, her face bemused in that way teenagers get when they see adults doing something dumb. “If you guys are done being, well, whatever it is you are, do you want to play cards?”
“What do you have in mind, Go Fish,” Dean snorted, still laughing.
Jordan’s face lit up with a smile of her own. “No, stupid head. I want to play poker.”
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Dean was down twenty three dollars, an AC/DC zippo lighter, and the leather string off of his left boot when Frank came out of his study, clutching a fist of papers. He didn’t have to have psychic visions to know that whatever was on those pages was probably bad. Like the kind of bad that the FBI and police had plastered all over every board from San Diego to Boston.
“A fascinating read, I must say.” Frank sat down in the fourth seat at the card table. “You boys have been very busy.”
“We didn’t kill anyone,” Sam was quick to point out, reshuffling the cards three times in rapid succession.
“And I suppose the credit card fraud charges were just their way of saying ‘we love you, too’?”
“Nope, that stuff we totally did.” Dean shrugged at his brother’s glare. “What? You’re the one that was all, ‘honesty is the best policy’.”
Jordan covered up her giggle by trying out her new lighter. Dean tried not to glare. “You know, it’s hard to make an honest living when you’re out saving the moronic masses every night. Not exactly job application material.”
“Yeah, and your card playing sucks. You’d probably have starved it that’s all you had to live on.”
“Hey! I play pool, too,” Dean said, offended, and tried to sneak a peak at her cards.
“Jordan! Language,” Frank said, frowning.
“Sorry, Dad,” she answered, obviously not sorry at all. Dean couldn’t even begin to count the ways he was glad Sammy finally grew out of that phase. Took going away to college, but most days it was worth it.
“This is an impressive record to get around, no matter how you look at it. St. Louis, Baltimore, Milwaukee. There are some people that are very interested in getting their hands on you two, convinced you’re the second coming of the anti-Christ.”
Jordan had stopped fidgeting with her new belongings and became very still. Dean wasn’t sure if Frank’s frown or Jordan’s stillness was more alarming. He glanced at Sam and saw the same thoughts flit across his brother’s face.
“Here’s my thing,” Frank said with a sad smile, “Or my thing these days. I’ve met the anti-Christ, or something very like her, and you two are a pale imitation if that’s your game. You might be petty criminals, but what I read between the lines, and on the lines if you read Detective Ballard’s report from Baltimore, is that you two are fighting the good fight with very little cover fire.”
“We’re not looking for absolution,” Sam said, his face looking more worn than his twenty-two years. “We’re just looking for a way out so we can keep doing what we do better than almost anyone on the planet.”
Frank was silent, his fingers tracing over the lines of text on the pages as if he could read truth in Braille. The room was quieter than Dean would have thought possible, not a sound strayed in from the street, just the slightly dusty silence of an old house, well loved. He wondered how long they’d lived here, this strange two person family, self-contained, wondered what brought such lined sadness to Frank’s face and Jordan’s dish washing, and why the bedspreads were yellow.
“I have some friends left at the agency that owe me some rather impressive favors. Despite what you may think the government does or doesn’t know about the way the world really works, or what this Agent Hendrikson believes is really going on, there are those who truly see.” Frank sighed, folding the papers over in half. “Stay for a few days and no one will think to look for you here.”
“You did turn off your cell phones, didn’t you?” Jordan asked, her voice thin. She looked haunted, and Dean knew he hadn’t been the only child who had hidden in the anonymity of a hotel room with only bad décor for company.
“Yes, we turned them off. Picked up our messages remotely from pay phones,” Sam answered her, pulling out his phone to show her.
She nodded, reassured and looked to her father. “I still have to finish my geometry homework. Do you mind if I…”
Frank smiled, gently patting her shoulder. “Go up to bed. I’ll check on you before I tuck in, but everything will be fine. Tell your dreams to be easy on you, you done good, kid.”
Frank watched his daughter go with a wistful smile lingering on his lips. “She’s so much like her mother these days, more so every hour.” He shook his head and stood, walking to a wet bar in the corner of the living room.
“Scotch? Something tells me you boys could use a glass.” He handed one to both Dean and Sam, ice cubes clinking. “Or maybe more than one. Ask me again tomorrow, but it seems that Resheph isn’t the only being interested in your fate. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I can’t say. But it will certainly make your lives-our lives-much more interesting.”
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The few days spent in the Black house were strangely peaceful. There was no where to go, even if they wanted to, and nothing particular to do. The boys played cards with each other and Jordan, chess with Frank, and studied the rather impressive occult library Frank had in his study. On the morning of the third day, Frank wandered in to the kitchen, clutching a cup of cold coffee and sat at the table.
“I’ve had some news. It seems that your case has been…advocated to someone with influence. Agent Hendrikson has been reassigned and requested to seek counseling.”
“That’s fucking fantastic,” Dean said, bouncing up out of his chair, his third hand of Gin Rummy for the morning tossed aside like old lettuce.
Sam seemed less eager. “I hear a ‘but’.”
“Isn’t there always a ‘but’,” Frank said, his face grave. “I’ve done what I can, and the wheels of justice will turn. But they’ll turn slowly, and not without error. You’ll have to be careful, and try to stay as legit as possible. In the meantime, I’ve agreed to fly back to DC to help an old friend out with a few issues they ran into there with some unsolved cases.”
“You’re doing something for them so they’ll drop the federal cases against us,” Dean said, surprised. “You don’t even like us that much.”
“Liking you, or not, has nothing to do with it.” Frank half-smiled. “And whatever gave you the idea I didn’t like you boys.”
Dean scowled and said nothing, wondering how such a sheltered girl like Jordan could learn to play poker like a professional. “So what does that mean for us now? Can we leave or will we be arrested by the first rent-a-cop with a boner for some real action?”
“You can leave, your spot on the FBI’s most wanted list has been given back to some well-deserved terrorists, but you may want to stick around for a bit.”
“Why?” asked Sam, curious.
“Jordan will be home at three and she’s looking forward to winning a matching throwing knife from Dean’s collection.” Dean was surprised to realize that Frank was actually amused, a bona-fide twinkle in his eye.
He was even more surprised to realize he was happy to wait. After all, the supernatural would still be there in the morning, just waiting to be hunted.
The End.