SPN/CM crossover fic: As You Are Now, So Once Was I (5/?)
Title: As You Are Now, So Once Was I
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: 3346
Disclaimer: While I really wouldn’t object to having Dean and or Morgan, I alas do not own them or any of their cohorts.
Author’s Notes: I stole two lines from another TV show in this chapter...virtual cookie to those who catch them.
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As You Are Now, So Once Was I
Part V
April 12, 2017, 9:35 A.M.
Peninsula Pointe Hotel - Room 217
Manistique, Michigan
Emily’s not entirely sure what wakes her, but at half past nine, she jolts up with no small amount of confusion, and is immediately bombarded with a massive fatigue headache. There’s a strange, not entirely unpleasant, scent in the air, like-
“Morning, princess.”
Her thoughts interrupted, Emily startles back against the headboard at seeing her new roommate. Dean’s sitting across the room from her in the pullout that he’d transformed back into a chair, the blankets pristinely folded on the cushion. He unconcernedly sips a hot cup of coffee, staring at her intently.
“I got you one, too,” he says, reaching over to the table and tapping a second cup. “But you might want to shower first. You look like you’ve spent days working an unworkable case.”
Emily glares at him. “That’s so nice of you,” she says dryly. As she gets out from under the covers, she notices that Dean’s hair is damp, and his outfit had changed. She admits this one fits substantially better than the previous, but it rouses suspicion.
“Where have you been?”
“What? Nowhere,” Dean lies smoothly, taking another drink of his coffee. “I took a shower, if that’s what’s freaking you out.”
“Your clothes,” Emily says, taking a step closer. “They’re new.”
Dean gives up, knowing he should have realized a profiler would be harder to fool than a regular passerby. “I’ll pay you back, I promise,” he says, looking genuinely apologetic.
Emily narrows her eyes, and Dean takes out a very familiar wallet from his jeans, tossing it over to her. She catches it reflexively, and looks inside, only to discover thirty missing from it. “How’d you find this?” she asks. After her wallet had been stolen once years back when she worked in Chicago, she’d always hidden it in a place only she would remember.
Smiling innocently, Dean says, “Sam and I used the same stuff-in-the-mattress trick. Law enforcement has more techniques in common with delinquents than you’d think, Emily.”
“It’s Prentiss to you,” she snaps, miffed over the money thing. She reaches under her pillow to where she’d placed her gun, but finds it’s gone, too. Gritting her teeth, she peers at Dean again.
As if legitimately forgetting he had it, Dean relieves the nine-mil from his waistband. “Sorry,” he says. “Force of habit.”
“Where did you go?” she requests again, taking her weapon from Dean. There’s no bullets missing, which thankfully meant Dean hadn’t relapsed-yet.
“To get clothes, thought we’d settled that,” Dean replies perplexedly.
Emily glares. “Don’t you lie to me,” she commands firmly. “No one brings a gun to a clothing store.”
“You never know,” says Dean, “that saleswoman looked pretty shifty.”
There’s a glint in his eyes that makes Emily roll hers. “Those cost way more than thirty, didn’t they?”
All Dean does is smile and put his legs up on the edge of her bed. She almost laughs at how his charm evidently hadn’t faded even after so many traumatic experiences and near a decade in prison. Had she not been, you know, pissed.
A knock at her door cuts off any next words she might have. Emily walks quickly to it and looks through the peephole. “One second,” she calls, and then turns on Dean. “Get out of here. Now.”
Dean’s plainly humoring her, but retreats to the bathroom. Emily makes sure he’s out of sight, runs her fingers briefly through her hair for a semblance of a brushing, and opens the door. She’s not surprised that Hotch is already in his suit, straight face firmly in place, even though he’s always the last to go to bed (well, except perhaps this last night, thanks to Dean’s arrival), and the first to rise.
He averts his eyes at her relative state of undress. “Sorry, I thought-”
Emily looks down, completely forgetting that she hadn’t changed out of her pajamas. A robe suddenly falls at her feet, and she glances to her left to see Dean leaning against the bathroom doorframe. Pursing her lips, Emily shrugs it on and turns back to Hotch.
“You need me back at the station?” she asks, anticipating both the question and answer.
“Yes,” Hotch says, finally looking back at her. “Everyone’s up-well, except for Morgan. He can sleep like the dead.”
Chuckling, Emily can easily picture this. Morgan’s a very apt profiler and marksman, but when he’s not on a stakeout or chase, he’s remarkably lazy. “I’ll be out in fifteen.”
Abruptly, Hotch frowns, looking past Emily into the hotel room. Her heart pauses, hoping he doesn’t say anything. “Are you…wearing perfume?” he inquires awkwardly.
“What? No,” she says, schooling her voice. “Why?”
Hotch shakes his head as if to clear it, and Emily’s heart resumes its rhythm. “Nothing,” he replies. “Just-just get down to the station as quickly as you can. And bring Morgan. Break down the door if you have to.”
Emily nods. “Got it.”
After one more frown, Hotch leaves down the hallway, and Emily closes the door after him. “That was Hotchner, right?” Dean questions as soon as she does so. “The monotony is familiar.”
“Yes,” she says impatiently. “Look, I’m going to shower, and then I need to get down to the P.D.-do not leave this room.”
“Scout’s honor,” recites Dean, making a gesture with his left fingers that’s vaguely reminiscent to its namesake.
Emily walks past him into the bathroom. “Wrong hand,” she says, before shutting Dean out with a snap.
An instant later, he hears the lock click and the water start. He gives it a few seconds before crossing the floor and finding the hotel-supplied notepad and pen. Scribbling on it, he leaves it next to Emily’s gun on the bed.
“Sorry, Em,” he says, glancing at the closed bathroom door. “I’ve never been good with rules.”
Quickly making sure none of the rest of the BAU is in the hall, Dean makes his way downstairs and outside, starting up the Jeep and pulling out into the road.
It’s not far to the home of Kari Jansen’s best friend, Mitchell Owens, the address for which Dean had nicked an hour ago while Emily was still asleep. He had predicted her order for him to stay put, and so had taken all the necessary precautions and made contingency plans. He assumes the team will get their heads together at the police department before they go for round two on witness statements and crime scene observations. Which leaves him with a small window within which to do his own recon.
Her shower is shorter than normal, a fact about which she’s not happy, the time reduction primarily due to not only Hotch’s constraint, but her anxiety over what to do about Dean. It doesn’t take her long to get dressed and go through her other morning rituals, but when she steps out of the bathroom, she instantly knows something’s awry. Dean’s nowhere to be seen, and when she notices the message on the comforter, she gets an even deeper sense of dread.
Picking it up, she reads the text, Dean’s handwriting rushed but legible.
Emily-
Had to do some things. Back later.
- Dean
P.S. Don’t worry, I have lots of practice dodging the Feds.
Emily closes her eyes with a sigh (while also ignoring Dean’s blatant use of her first name). Kicking herself because she really should have known better-though, she notes, at least Dean hadn’t taken anything from her this time-she packs up all she’ll need for the next dozen hours or so, and rushes out the door. She’s halfway down the hall before she remembers the other part of Hotch’s request.
Striding quickly to room 218, she pounds on the entrance sharply. “Morgan!” she yells. “Get your ass out here!”
In reality, it’s only about forty seconds until he answers, but to her, it was long enough to where she was about two away from breaking in out of sheer impatience. Emily guesses that Hotch’s own banging on Morgan’s room got him up, because when he greets her, he’s dressed and ready, sliding his own gun into its holster as he walks outside.
“You’re not usually so much of a nag, Prentiss,” he comments as they make their way down to the FBI-issue SUVs. “Something happen?”
Emily snaps her eyes over to her partner and then back to the car. “No,” she replies hastily. “Just tired is all.”
Morgan watches her askance for a couple moments, before evidently deciding that she’s either just already caffeinated and is telling the truth, or else she’s not going to tell him regardless of what he says, so there’s no point in trying. He knows that if it’s something detrimental or of great import, she wouldn’t lie. He wouldn’t team up with her repeatedly if he didn’t trust her.
“Okay,” he says slowly, getting into the driver’s seat.
Emily looks out the window at the quaint town as Morgan heads towards the police station, wondering how long she can keep Dean’s presence from him. She doesn’t doubt her secret-keeping abilities, but in this instance, she sincerely doubts she can hold Morgan off for long. The only unknown at this point is what she’s going to use as an explanation.
April 12, 2017, 9:48 A.M.
Home of Mitchell Owens
Manistique, Michigan
Dean pulls up against the curb outside Mitchell’s home, taking a few seconds to simply stare at the small, New England-style residence, reveling in how normal it feels to once again be preparing to adopt an alias in order to glean information from someone. He’d thought it’d come with more nervousness, but to be honest, it feels just as familiar as busting out of prison had.
Taking a breath, Dean gets out of the Jeep and walks up the steps to knock on Mitchell’s door. When the twenty-something answers, it’s obvious he’s still in deep mourning for Kari, eyes red and outfit looking like he’d been wearing it for the past week.
Making sure his distressed mask is firmly in place, Dean cries, “Is it true? Is Kari dead?”
Mitchell flinches at the name of his best friend, but nods. “Wh-Who are you?” he asks.
“Simon Kirke,” says Dean, gambling correctly that Mitchell wouldn’t know his Bad Company band members. “Kari was a really good friend of mine in grad school.”
“Sh-She never m-mentioned you,” says Mitchell, voice cracking.
Dean adds in a touch of hurt to his hysteria. “We sort of had a falling out,” he explains. “But I never stopped caring about her.”
Nodding, Mitchell opens the door further and steps away from it, allowing Dean to come in. “You want something?” he inquires, shuffling toward the kitchen. “Beer, soda, water…?”
“Beer would be great right about now,” says Dean, taking a seat on the dilapidated couch and looking around the room. It’s nothing special, nothing besides a clock and a few photos adorning the walls; for that matter, Dean observes, all the pictures are of either Mitchell and Kari, or Kari herself. “Denial much?” Dean murmurs to himself.
Mitchell returns with two Old Milwaukees in his hand and passes one to Dean, sitting in a chair next to the couch. Dean pops off the beer cap with his ring-which he’d convinced the guards at all three prisons to let him keep (his necklace is a whole other story…)-and doesn’t raise his bottle to Mitchell. For the sole reason that the man looks as if any possible mention of Kari’s death would set him off in tears.
However, Dean does have a job to do.
“So, um, Mitchell,” he begins, taking a sip of the liquor and then setting it on the table, “have the cops harassed you too much?”
Mitchell shrugs almost imperceptibly. “Usual questions you see on Law & Order,” he replies quietly. “Was Kari s-suicidal…did I have anything to do with it…did she have any enemies…”
“Yeah. They don’t usually have any kind of decorum,” sympathizes Dean, the sentiment only partially a ruse.
“You’ve been on the other side of it?” Mitchell inquires hopefully.
Dean smiles blandly. “A few years ago, m’brother, he-he passed,” he says, trying his best not to wince. “Passed” isn’t exactly even in the realm of the word Dean sees as fit. Murdered…butchered…slaughtered…any of those terms would more precisely define just what he’d done to Sam. “This son of a bitch killed him, actually. He was a year younger than Kari. Had a lot to live for. I feel like I coulda saved him.”
“I’m sure it was out of your hands,” says Mitchell, glad to be on a subject other than Kari.
“Sure,” manages Dean, almost wishing the guy knew just how contrary Sam’s death was to what he suggested. It was far from out of his hands. Unclenching his fist from the beer bottle once he realizes he’s probably close to cracking the glass, Dean goes on, “Listen, uh…I don’t want to ask this, but I gotta know. You have any idea what happened to Kari? Did she mention anything abnormal? The cops don’t know jack, last I heard. I mean, I understand if it’s too hard or whatever, but she meant a lot to me, too, you know?”
At first, it seems as if Mitchell would clam up again, but then he lets out a fragmented breath, picking at the label of his bottle. “I didn’t tell the cops this, but…she’d come over late a few times the past couple days. She said she’d had nightmares, pretty bad ones.”
“Was that normal for her?” Dean prompts once Mitchell stalls.
He shakes his head. “No. She’d had a bad dream now and then, like all of us, but…this was different. It really rattled her.”
“Did she say what they were about?”
“She didn’t know,” answers Mitchell, with something in the vicinity of a doleful chuckle. “She just knew that once she snapped out of it, she was really shaken. She said she felt like she was going to-to die.”
Dean attempts to react as an outsider would, but internally, he’s thinking this is only cementing the theory that he’d had back in Edgefield. He can’t quite remember the specific name of what he believes is causing the deaths, but he’s well aware that so far, all evidence from this case is matching the description. He’s also cognizant of the fact that if he pushes Mitchell any further (today, anyway), the man is going to shut down for good; also, that Emily, Morgan, and the rest of them over at the police department aren’t going to get anywhere without his direct assistance.
He thanks Mitchell for the beer, shares condolences, and then exits the house. He’d originally planned to go to all three victims’ homes and do some more investigating, but Mitchell’s response had been enough for the immediacy. Now, he just hopes none of the Manistiquans remembers him.
April 12, 2017, 9:50 A.M.
Schoolcraft County Police Department
Manistique, Michigan
Emily and Morgan arrive as the rest of the team is finishing up getting their coffee and taking their spots around the conference table. Rossi kindly enough hands the two some mugs of steaming coffee, of which they are genuinely appreciative.
“Now that we’ve got a little rest,” starts J.J. from her spot at the head of the table, “I think we can make some headway on this. I think the answer’s just out of reach; we only need one more piece of the puzzle to crack it.”
Emily tries her hardest not to look shady as she thinks of Dean roaming around Manistique-or, potentially, other towns-doing God knows what. She takes a long drag of her drink lest her mouth decide to blurt out something that her mind doesn’t want it to.
“Anyone want to start?” J.J. forwards, looking between her five fellow agents.
Reid pipes up with another theory (which Emily tunes out almost instantly once she recognizes it as an old Star Trek plot), Garcia-who had joined them for the purpose that she’d come to similar dead ends on the computer front-critiquing it, when Sheriff Yardis comes bursting into the room.
“Sheriff, what-” Hotch exclaims, but is cut off before he can say much. An action that usually would not be tolerated. Unless, of course-
“A boy was just found dead,” says Yardis somberly. Everyone exchanges worried and shocked glances at the information. “He was staying with his grandmother, who woke up twenty minutes ago and discovered his body.”
J.J. puts on her stoic media liaison face. “What do you know about him?”
“Xander Nathanson,” says Yardis in a strangled voice. “He is-was-nine years old.”
J.J.’s face shatters. Hotch’s becomes more strained than normal. “Nine?” J.J. repeats faintly. It’s no secret that Henry is the exact same age.
“How did he die?” Morgan asks, trying to steer the conversation to more facts, less emotion. He’s no less distressed over the age and death of the boy, but the sooner they figure out the vitals, the sooner they can track down his-and the other three victims’-killer.
“We don’t know,” says Yardis dejectedly.
“What?”
“We don’t know,” the sheriff says again. “It’s like he just…died. There’s no markings of any kind on his body, nothing in his room is out of place. Maybe the coroner can find something, but…far as we can tell, he’s in perfect health. Except that he’s…he’s…”
Emily waves him off. “We’re doing the best we can,” she reports, knowing that it does nothing to ease anyone’s grief.
Yardis nods, then hovers for a few seconds before hurrying out of the room, unsure of what to do with himself. “We need to keep focus,” says Hotch, tossing a whiteboard pen to Morgan to add Nathanson’s name and limited-as-of-now stats to the list of victims. “The unsub has moved up his timetable from six days between murders to five. It’s not much, but he could continue to do so.”
Emily looks down at her folder of papers, when something alerts her peripheral. She glances up, and, had she taken a drink of her coffee, she would have surely spit it all over the table.
His back is turned from her, but the shorn haircut, lackadaisical posture, and clothes are unmistakable. Without a second thought, she quickly excuses herself and walks out of the room as swiftly as Yardis had. Striding up to him, she yanks him out of view of her colleagues, into a deserted alcove.
“What the hell are you doing here, Dean?” she hisses, unable to believe the gall he’d had to waltz into a police station.
“Always nice to see you,” he comments. “All right, look. I’m not here for kicks; I hate P.Ds. I’m here because I have something that’ll help you.”
Emily lets out a kind of exasperated scoff. “I don’t have time for this,” she says. “A new body was just found, a nine-year-old boy, and-”
“What?” Dean sputters, screeching to a halt.
“Yeah,” replies Emily, oddly gratified to see the horrification in Dean’s expression. “Just-please, just go back to the hotel and stay there. If someone sees you here…”
Dean’s not intimidated. “Sorry. No can do,” he says. “This is gonna go down one of two ways: either you introduce me, or I walk in there. But either situation is going to result in you letting me in on this case.”
She’s the farthest thing from fond of Dean’s assertiveness, as if he has authority over her, but she’s both too exhausted to argue and is having harder and harder of a time thinking of justifications for not incorporating him.
“Okay,” she says finally. “But stay behind me, and remember that you’re the criminal here. You’ve got no jurisdiction.”
Dean knows agreeing is the only way to convince Emily, and so even though he has no intention of letting the FBI run this particular show, he smiles.
“Deal.”
Faith is for those afraid to admit they just don’t know. It’s okay to not know.
- Anonymous
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