SPN/CM crossover fic: As You Are Now, So Once Was I (2/?)
Title: As You Are Now, So Once Was I, Part II
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Criminal Minds
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, Prentiss, J.J., Reid, Garcia
Summary: Sequel to “ All the King’s Horses.” When Dean catches J.J.’s press conference on the news about a current case and notices a few...inconsistencies, he realizes the BAU is definitely going to need his help. Again.
Warnings/Spoilers: Future fic, spoilers through season five of both shows.
Word Count: 3761
Disclaimer: While I really wouldn’t object to having Dean and or Morgan, I alas do not own them or any of their cohorts.
Previous:
1
As You Are Now, So Once Was I
Part II
April 11, 2017, 9:56 A.M.
Schoolcraft County Police Department
Manistique, Michigan
Morgan and Emily glance once at each other before striding down the precinct’s hallway, both having the same train of thought, both knowing they’ll have to let one more person in the loop. They stop in front of a desk covered with no less than three computers, Garcia’s eyes focused intently on one of the screens, her fingers typing mind-blowingly fast. When she notices she has company, she looks up through her glasses, hands paused on the keyboard.
“Not here, baby,” she says to Morgan playfully. “I’m not that exhibitionist, even for you.”
Morgan commands his facial muscles to smile, and succeeds. In a manner of speaking. Gesturing to Emily and himself, he requests, “We, uh…we need you to look up someone’s whereabouts.”
Unfortunately, when Emily had put in the inquiry-command, rather-for Dean to be moved to a medium-security facility, she hadn’t been told where he would be going. Some stupid chain of politics that Emily really didn’t want to contemplate. Never mind that she’s FBI. No, the BOP decided to be assholes and not let her know. She would’ve tried to find him herself, but she’s neither so talented in computers as to be able to do a search, nor has she really had the time. (If she lets the annoying side of her win, she’d also acknowledge that she hadn’t quite been looking at all. Because, seriously. Dean. She honestly hadn’t thought she’d ever see or speak to him again.)
“Finding people who don’t want to be found is my specialty,” Garcia grins, and clicks twice on something, getting ready to type. “Who am I looking for?”
Morgan and Emily look at each other again, and then Emily replies quietly, “Dean Winchester.”
“Dean Winchester?” Garcia repeats, and halfway through, both agents hiss at her to be discrete.
“It’s under the radar,” Morgan beseeches. “Prentiss is crazy convincing when she puts her mind to it, but we don’t really want to involve the rest of the team, let alone the P.D. Think you can do that for us, girl?”
Garcia starts to reply, before narrowing her eyes and glancing between the somewhat guilty-looking co-workers. Then a comprehending, if not downright gleeful, expression comes over her face. “Wait one minute,” she says slyly. “You don’t think he’s guilty, do you? I knew it. I knew someone that gorgeous couldn’t be a killer. It’s like…unconstitutional.”
“Hey, now. We never said he wasn’t guilty,” Morgan objects hotly. “And I resent that. Just ’cause he’s not repulsive to women doesn’t mean-”
Garcia snorts. “Sweetie, you know I love you, but you just don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says matter-of-factly. “Em, back me up here.”
Morgan glares at Emily accusingly. She studiously pretends he’s not. “I’d rather not comment.”
“Ha!” triumphs Garcia. Then she sobers up (mostly). She’s all for fun and games, but she can tell that, while Morgan and Emily are also usually up for witty banter, they’re walking on burning coals right now. “All righty,” she addresses her computer, “where are you, you sexy man beast you?”
Morgan looks very much like he’d like to put his fist through a wall (or, more accurately, Dean’s face), but he restrains himself. Emily surreptitiously takes stock of where everyone is in the police station, and is gratified to discover that no one’s paying them any attention. They probably just figure Morgan and Emily had come up with a lead. Which, possibly, they have. But they don’t intend to tell anyone just yet.
“Connect Four,” Garcia says happily, and Morgan and Emily quickly come around the desk to peer at the screen. “After our darling Emily was kind enough to get him transferred, evidently they plopped him in the Federal Correctional Institution in Edgefield, South Carolina. Its feng shuiing leaves some to be desired, though, if you ask me. I’m sure that poor boy needs some sun.”
“I’ll put in a requisition for a plasma screen while I’m at it,” Morgan deadpans.
Garcia makes note of his taut features, a configuration that she’s very rarely seen directed at her, and clears her throat awkwardly. “Right,” she starts over. “So you want directions from the airport?”
Emily bites her lip. “Yeah-”
“Hold up,” interrupts Morgan. “We got two options here, if you want to keep this quiet. We can either take a commercial flight, or we can, you know, not go. How exactly do you plan on explaining us going off on an excursion, to a location we can’t tell anyone about? We got the prison number-we’ll just do this by phone.”
Emily looks at him strangely, halfway between wanting to smack him unkindly over the head and seeing merit in his words. Because he does have a point. Last time, the entire team went to Illinois to talk to Dean; no subterfuge required there. But now…not only would Emily and Morgan have to lie to their teammates (all of whom are professional profilers, mind you), but they’d be forcing Garcia to as well. And, much as they all adore her, she’s a pretty shitty liar.
Garcia watches as Emily and Morgan have a silent battle of wills, Emily’s years of being dragged all over Creation by her mother having strengthened her resolve; Morgan’s years of growing up in the ’hood, of being secretly abused, and of kicking down doors even he didn’t have to having given him what Garcia fondly refers to as the Sultry Stare of Death. Due to their equally strong sides, it’s clear to anyone that neither is backing down.
With an impatient groan, Garcia stands up. “You two have to blink sometime, you know,” she says. As they’re still not moving, she puts one hand on each of their shoulders, turning them towards her. “What happened to compromises?” Temporarily deferring, Emily and Morgan focus on the analyst. “Why don’t you call him first. If whatever he has to contribute won’t work by ear, then you can go and talk to him. Good?”
They shrug in vague assent. “I’ll go, uh…I’ll get a hold of the prison,” Emily mutters, walking away to get some privacy. Talking to the real McCoy of serial killers in less than a hardass manner in the middle of a police station that contains morales lower than low isn’t on the top of the Good Things to Do list.
“No advice for me?” Morgan asks, feigning petulance. “You aim to hurt, woman.”
Garcia scoffs. For a man of nearing forty-five, Morgan could be remarkably childish at times. Granted, Garcia wouldn’t have it any other way, but still. It wouldn’t do any harm to act like an FBI agent every once in a blue moon. “You, my stubborn little friend, are going to find out all you can on Dean. I have a feeling you’ll have much better PR skills if, should you end up having to talk to him, you know more than how many people he’s supposedly killed.”
“‘Supposedly’?”
Garcia winks. “I told you-”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘someone that gorgeous could never be a serial killer,’ I got the picture,” Morgan recites, disgruntled. Stealing one of her laptops, he stalks off towards an empty interrogation room in order to do as Garcia had said. Don’t get him wrong, he really has no intention of hopping a United Airlines 747 to go visit a thirty-five-to-lifer, though on the other hand, he is kind of interested. But only sort of.
Settling into the room and shutting the door, Morgan opens the Bureau’s database-after smiling at Garcia’s background that consists of her and the whole team grinning, even a rare one from Hotch-and searches for Dean’s name. There’s more information that Morgan had expected, to be honest, taking into account that Dean’s case should’ve been effectively shut eight years ago. He figures Henricksen had died before getting the chance to declare the status, and since Dean and Sam were supposedly dead, no one gave it any notice.
Well, the better for Morgan. He’s more than capable of doing digging of his own, but that’s a far cry from actually wanting to do it.
The main page looks the same as any other perp’s (apart from the unusually smarmy mug shot): name, aliases, birthdate, birthplace, height, weight, eye and hair color… Dean’s rap sheet raises Morgan’s eyebrows, not just because it could wallpaper one of Morgan’s properties, but also because of the variety. There’s your run-of-the-mill robberies and battery; then the higher profile identity theft, credit card fraud, plus the murders, of course; then the weird ones. Grave desecration, and the notations of Dean’s odd “confessions,” for instance. Morgan curiously plays the video from Dean’s theoretical admission from the Baltimore holding.
My name is Dean Winchester. I’m an Aquarius, I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, and frisky women.
Morgan pauses to marvel at how incredibly different Dean’s voice and intonations are from the ones Morgan had heard that, if there weren’t video proof, he wouldn’t believe it’s the same person. Morgan takes a head-clearing breath and continues.
And I did not kill anyone. But I know who did. Or rather what did. ’Course, you can’t be for sure, because our investigation was interrupted. But our working theory is that we’re looking for some kind of…vengeful spirit. You know, Casper the Bloodthirsty Ghost. Tony Giles saw it, and I’ll bet you cash money Karen did, too. But, see, the interesting thing is the word it leaves behind. For some reason, it’s trying to tell us something.
But communicating across the veil, it ain’t easy. Sometimes the spirits, they get things jumbled. You remember “redrum.” Same concept. It’s, uh, it could be word fragments, other times it’s anagrams. See, first we thought this was a name, “Dana Shulps.” But now, we think it’s a street: “Ashland.” Whatever’s going on, I’m betting it started there.
You arrogant bastard. Tony and Karen were good people, and you’re making jokes. It’s someone behind the camera, Morgan assumes one of the arresting detectives. There’s, predictably, disgust written all over it.
I’m not joking, Ponch.
You murdered them in cold blood, just like that girl in St. Louis!
Oh, yeah, that wasn’t me either. That was a shapeshifter creature that only looked like me.
Morgan presses the spacebar, stopping the video. He’d heard enough.
Every behavioral bone in his body is screaming at him to file Dean nicely under the category of a paranoid schizophrenic with religious psychosis, and maybe a topping of narcissistic personality disorder. He watches Dean’s mannerisms and the assured look in his affectations, and very much wants to see Dean as an example in a textbook.
And yet…there’s some part of Morgan’s mind-certainly not a scientific or rational part-that’s causing him hesitation from labeling as such the man smirking on the screen in front of him.
He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he hadn’t gone with everyone to Marion, he’d be more than happy to slap Dean with a cut-and-dry diagnosis. Morgan hadn’t spent more than ten minutes with the guy, but he’d seen Dean’s reaction when they’d showed him the crime scene photos (not to mention Prentiss’s weird loyalty). Even barring Dean’s clearly dystopian mindset, the only true spark of life Morgan had seen was when Dean was looking at the evidence of a horrifyingly sick individual. (And when J.J. mentioned Sam, but Morgan intuits that that’s a whole ’nother can of worms.)
Yeah, he’s seen serial killers have a guise of innocence-that’s pretty much how they get away with crap-but Dean’s eyes had been sharp, his mouth set in resolve. Hell, his entire body stance had become more alert and rigid, mind sorting through any relevance of past experiences, acumen of deductive reasoning whirring into place. And Morgan can’t even write it off as Dean angling for something.
He’d become determined even before Emily had proposed the relocation to a medium-security prison. There’s a first time for everything, but Morgan has a very hard time imagining that Dean Winchester would voluntarily help out the Federal Bureau of Investigation if he were really as Henricksen and his file suggest.
Again, in no way is Morgan in the Team Dean camp, he’s just…entertaining the possibility that perhaps some things were overlooked because of preconceptions. Which is a main difference between regular cops and agents, and the BAU. There are times when the BAU isn’t as uniformly objective as Morgan would like, but in general, he tries to address each person questioned with the “innocent until proven guilty” mentality.
And so if he throws out the paper data, goes with what he feels, he comes to the conclusion that, at the very least, Dean’s motives for helping them here are pure. With that thought firmly in place, solely for the benefit of the Manistiquans, of course, Morgan looks at the rest of Dean’s records. His goal being to get to the bottom of precisely what Dean had said at the end of his statement:
You asked for the truth…
April 11, 2017, 10:01 A.M.
Federal Correctional Institution, Edgefield
Edgefield, South Carolina
“Federal Correctional-”
“Save it. Just connect me to Dean Winchester,” Emily says impatiently, really not interested in formalities.
There’s a brief pause, during which Emily infers the person on the other line is reforming their thoughts, when she’s asked, “Is this Agent Emily Prentiss?”
Emily guesses she shouldn’t have been surprised, but she is. “Um…yeah. I am.”
“Mr. Winchester told a guard you’d be calling,” says the receptionist (or whoever). “Understandably, we didn’t necessarily believe him, but-”
“I don’t care,” replies Emily in a harsher tone than normal. Considering the nature of the last case on which Dean’d advised, she doesn’t want to waste any more time on this one. The receptionist huffs, but goes to, presumably, retrieve Dean.
It’s a lengthy three minutes later when Dean’s rough voice comes on. “You know, if I keep consulting with you, I’m gonna start charging a fee,” he says by way of greeting.
Emily tries not to be taken aback at Dean’s nonchalance, and wonders if the animation Dean’s projecting is because of the prospect of helping the BAU again with a brutal and difficult investigation. She tries not to profile just how deviant and sad that perspective is.
“Morgan and I decided you could be an asset to this case,” Emily says. “Thing is, we don’t think it’d be…well, prudent for the whole team and local P.D. to know about it.”
“Morgan, that’s the guy that looks like he’s auditioning for a Bowflex commercial?” Dean clarifies. No sense in having any kind of confusion as to the people with whom he’d be communicating.
Emily makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a groan at the complete absurdity of Dean’s comment. She can tell that Dean’s definitely embellishing his sarcastic and lighthearted tone, and wonders what it’d take for it to become real and second-nature.
“Yeah, that’s Morgan,” she answers. She starts to move on to the actual nature of her call, but one thing strikes her that she can’t help but ask. “You know he does at least a thousand sit-ups a day? Who the hell does that?”
Dean holds the phone away from his ear, staring at it in bewilderment. Then he gives a half-smile and thinks that maybe Emily won’t be so straight, narrow, and agent-y all the time. “And?” he ripostes. “So do I.”
Emily is rendered aggravated for a few moments, caught in the middle of being annoyed and pondering if Dean’s telling the truth. Judging by his physique when she’d met him, she doubts he isn’t. And becomes even more irked with both men. Really, a thousand a day? That’s just plain vanity.
Emily’s momentary lapse in concentration coerces Dean to get back on track. He may be toying with coming out of shadows and gloom, but this kind of case is certainly not the time for it. “Okay,” Dean says, clearing his throat, “so how we going to do this? Do I get temporary leave from prison or something?”
Dean’s words do the trick, and returns Emily into investigative mode. “Well, that’s the other thing,” she says awkwardly. “We can’t really bring you out here. It’s a lot less difficult to hide just talking to someone than it is to hide an entire person.”
There’s silence on Dean’s end, almost to the point where Emily questions if he’s still there, when he responds, “Sure, no, I get it.” Emily can hear the stiltedness in his voice, and waits. “But, small problem with that.”
“Oh yeah?”
Dean vacillates on how much he should tell her just yet. He hasn’t had much time to study how Emily approaches things thus far, and isn’t sure if she’s one to react to outright pushing, or more passive-aggression. “You’re gonna need me there for this,” he says. “Trust me.”
Glancing around the precinct as if to make sure it really would be impossible to sneak in Dean, and coming to the conclusion that yes, it would, Emily sighs. “Trust you,” she repeats hollowly. “Dean, it’s not really my authority here-”
“Then bring stoic dude in the loop if you have to,” Dean intercedes emphatically, Emily assuming correctly that Dean was referring to Hotch. “But this isn’t something that I can tell you over the phone. Let alone while I’m being monitored from ten feet away.”
Emily tightens her hand around her cell, exasperated beyond belief. “Look,” she snaps, choosing not to acknowledge the immaturity of getting into an argument with a convicted felon. “We could use your help, really. But I can’t just get you out of prison and fly you to Michigan without anyone noticing. I can send you what we’ve got on the case so you can look at it and get back to us, but that’s about it.”
“I get your situation, I do,” Dean says sincerely, attempting to keep his articulations level for the sake of maintaining the guard’s relative inattention, “but crime scene photos and grieving parents depositions aren’t going to cut it. Not with this. I need to be there, see things.”
“You solved the last case without-”
Dean nearly growls with frustration. “This is not even close to the same thing!” he exclaims, now hardly caring if the guard hears. All he cares about right now is getting the gravity of everything across without divulging too much too soon. “Prentiss, the only reasons I was able to solve that last one were because you guys were tired and not operating on all cylinders, and because it was lucky you got the Latin carvings in the photos. If those hadn’t been there, if you’d just gotten a different angle for the scenes, I probably wouldn’t’ve caught them. It’s the same thing here. I can’t do anything worth jack squat from whatever documents you got going on. Please. I can solve this, I just need some leeway from you.”
Dean’s this close to simply spilling all he knows to Emily, but he knows she’ll neither believe him, nor would she even consider bringing him in anymore. In fact, on top of another psych eval, she’d most likely make a note somewhere saying he’s mentally incompetent and no one can ever think about consulting him going forward. Which, while Dean’s just fine in solitary, prefers it actually, he’s sure he’d go out of his skull if he weren’t able to close this current case at least.
He honestly doesn’t give a shit if the BAU doesn’t call on him again-he’ll just make sure not to watch the news-but given that he knows, he knows they need him, he can’t just ignore it. He’d thought he could, but Heaven help him, he feels that constant pang in his chest as if future victims are begging for salvation, that jittery sensation in his muscles for an imminent hunt, that racing in his blood that’s only satisfied when some evil son of a bitch is dead, buried, and burned. It’ll just consume him, drive him to real insanity, if the damn FBI is muddling around in circles; meanwhile, the culprit is sneering right in front of Dean, who’s stuck in a cage like a feral lion.
No.
He’s not felt this alive and electrified in years, and in someone like Dean, that’s a dangerous combination if it doesn’t have an outlet. Clenching his free hand into a fist, he closes his eyes. “Please,” he says, in the voice reserved for things as asking a bereaved single father if he’d cremated all of his son in order to exorcise the homicidal brat, “I know you know I’d be a benefit. And yeah, it’ll require some gymnastics to get me out of here for a few days, but if it means saving people, isn’t it worth it?”
And isn’t that the question of the century, Emily muses darkly as she wages an internal battle. She’s on the verge of refusing Dean once more when her eye catches the board that contains all the crime scene pictures and victims. She stares at Jansen’s mutilated and all-wrong body splayed on her bed, Beltway’s torso swollen with water, the blood pooled inside Levin’s chest staining her skin blue, black, and purple.
Most importantly, she thinks of how she’d feel if someone else died and she had to explain to someone’s fiancée or child or parent just why she hadn’t been able to prevent the death. She’d have to contend with her conscience shouting accusations that she would’ve had a better chance of stopping the unsub if she’d had Dean’s help after all.
She has no choice. Screw the chain of command. Screw morals. This is bigger than that.
Swallowing, Emily says with conviction, “You’re right. I don’t know what I’d do if there were another victim that could have been saved if we’d brought you in to assist us.”
She doesn’t see Dean’s allayed smile, or his forehead dropping on the corner of the phone booth in relief, but the fluidity is back in his words. “Thank you,” he replies.
“It won’t be easy, but I’ll make some threats and have you on a plane in less than twenty-four hours, mark my words,” Emily says with no room for argument.
“Great,” replies Dean. “But, just so you know, the first thing I’m doing when I’m there is getting a burger. I’m fucking starving.”
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke
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