SPN/CM crossover fic: As You Are Now, So Once Was I (6/?)
Title: As You Are Now, So Once Was I
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Criminal Minds
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,788
Summary: Sequel to “ All the King’s Horses.” When Dean catches J.J.’s press conference on the news and notices a few...inconsistencies, he realizes the BAU is definitely going to need his help. Again.
Previous:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
As You Are Now, So Once Was I
Part VI
April 12, 2017, 9:54 A.M.
Schoolcraft County Police Department
Manistique, Michigan
Dean follows Emily slowly, nothing short of amused. He waits out of sight for the point at which he feels will cause him the most humor. (Though, granted, also the least bodily harm.)
“Um…there’s something I have to tell you,” she’s saying, voice delayed as if to put off the inevitable.
“Pertinent?” asks Hotch shortly, still deeply affected by the news of the latest murder.
Dean smiles and takes the unintended cue to make himself known, leaning against the doorframe, outwardly smug, but internally wary and making note of possible modes of escape. “I’d say so,” he smirks, looking first at Emily’s face, and then at the stunned ones of the rest of the room. He does enjoy making an entrance.
Of course, his smirk drops remarkably fast when both J.J. and Hotch’s weapons come up and point straight at his heart. He has no illusions Morgan’s would have joined them, had he not been catching Emily’s eye with a look that’s not quite a “What the fuck is going on?” but rather “I thought we agreed to the opposite of this.”
Which makes Dean unexpectedly feel a flicker of happiness that Morgan had, however reluctantly, been in support of Emily in this matter. Judging by everyone else’s expressions, on the other hand, Dean doubts they had any semblance of an inkling that he’d been in contact with one-by extension, three-of their own.
“Oh, come on,” says Dean, raising his hands up, “are the guns really necessary? It ain’t like I’m going to go on a homicidal rampage.”
“Dean,” warns Emily exasperatedly. “Please.”
“Shut up,” snaps Hotch to the man who, forty seconds ago, he’d believed to be safely behind bars. “What are you doing here? How are you here?”
Dean glances from Emily to Morgan, and then, when the latter looks to his right, Garcia. She’s withholding-poorly-a smile, and Dean quirks his mouth. He can tell she’s in the loop about him, which makes only four more agents that he has to win over.
Or, if not totally win over, tolerate his presence enough so he’s not riddled with .45 slugs by lunchtime.
Rossi takes over for Hotch, whose vein in his temple is throbbing dangerously. “What is this, Prentiss?” Rossi inquires, unfazed and leaned back relaxedly in his chair.
Dean gets the sense that the man is a large believer in first impressions, and fortunately, Dean thinks he passed the tenured agent’s test. At the very least, didn’t immediately put him off. And that leaves just Hotch and the lovely woman who had alerted Dean, indirectly of course, to the case in the first place.
Really, Dean muses, he owes her. Had she not made the press conference, he’d still be wasting away in prison, folding sheets with a deadbeat who has no modicum of oral hygiene whatsoever. Admittedly, he doesn’t see this as quite the right time to bring that up. Perhaps in a few days. And when J.J.’s not armed. Come to think of it, he wagers, this may require jewelry.
“Okay, first of all, I did not break, or help to break, him out of jail. He did that all by himself,” explains Emily in more of a sheepish voice than Dean’d ever heard. She looks at Morgan again for help, but he’s not so inclined. “But, uh…I may have talked with him.”
“Excuse me?” J.J. exclaims, still aiming her weapon at Dean’s chest. “You mean after we consulted with him four years ago?”
Emily nods miserably, and Dean takes pity on her. Mainly because while she did answer his call like she promised, he’d done most of the questionable stuff. “If you’re gonna get mad at anyone, get mad at me,” he asserts, noting Emily’s surprise. “She gave me her card back then in case I ever…well, anyway. I saw your press conference, Agent Jareau, and thought I could help. Emily here-sorry, Agent Prentiss-wasn’t able to get me out of prison even temporarily, so I had to do it by my lonesome.” Dean passes his eyes from J.J.’s perilous gaze to Hotch, and back again. “Look. I just came to help. Promise.”
The two exchange a significant glance and, upon silently communicating, lower their weapons. “Both of you, sit,” commands Hotch.
Dean shuts the door and takes a chair between a now seated Emily and Rossi, figuring they’re the people that, aside from Garcia, are least likely to strangle him. “Man, you all look like crap,” Dean comments blithely, sizing up his companions behind a smarmy mask.
Hotch lets out a noise comparable to a growl, and Morgan’s eyes are daggers. It’s not an untrue statement, but it doesn’t mean they want to hear it. Rossi leans towards Dean, his face sober but not particularly unkind. “Mr. Winchester, now would be a great time to shut the hell up,” he suggests calmly. “All of us would really like to hit something right now, and while I doubt Garcia would participate, I can’t say the same for anyone else.”
Dean’s not much for listening to people a lot of the time, but Rossi’s words do nothing but corroborate the atmosphere of the room. Dean nods almost imperceptibly, dropping the smartass façade and, with it, bringing back the shadowed contours in his face. After which Rossi almost wishes he’d had just kept the first expression; it’s unnerving to see Dean’s young age saddled with lines similar to Rossi’s own.
But ultimately, it’s not up to him.
Neither man, nor anyone else, says anything for a while, Hotch and J.J. seemingly too antagonized-whether at Emily or Dean (maybe both), Emily doesn’t know-and the rest appearing to choose the least tense time to speak. Unfortunately, such a time hasn’t yet revealed itself.
Until Reid, of all people, intercedes. His voice smaller than usual, he pipes up, “I think we should listen to what he has to say.”
“He’s a criminal, Reid,” J.J. retorts. “A murderer.”
“Wasn’t such a big deal last time,” Reid snipes, astonishing everyone with his vehemence. “We were at a loss for information then, and he provided the clue we needed. Now we’re in the same situation. Are you pissed because he broke out of prison and committed some crimes, or because you think he can find something we didn’t?”
“Reid,” says Morgan lowly, watching their unit chief and liaison’s faces which are, predictably, taken aback.
“I’m serious,” persists Reid, ignoring Morgan. “Look. I wouldn’t even consider this if he hadn’t helped us before. But he has. And I’d think we would do just about anything to stop these killings. And anyway, Dean’s hardly the worst guy we could work with.”
“How do you figure?” asks J.J. “There’s that pesky, you know, mass murder thing.”
“You gotta keep bringing that up?” snaps Dean. A few jibes he’ll allow, even if he is innocent from the homicide charges. But after a while, it starts to get vexing. Particularly when it makes them doubt his abilities or alliances. “Could you put that aside for two friggin’ seconds?”
J.J. stares at him, her blue eyes probing to the point of making him more than a little uncomfortable. Dean appraises his intent for a moment, deciding if it’d clinch or ruin his chances, but takes the risk.
“You don’t have any leads for any of your four victims. You really want to tell the mother of a nine-year-old that you can’t locate his killer?”
J.J. flinches, and Hotch’s hands curl into fists. “How do you know about that?” asks Morgan.
“Heard the cops talking about it a couple minutes ago. News travels fast in a town this size.”
“Dean, you’re not really helping yourself here,” remarks Emily softly.
“No, you know what?” J.J. proposes forcefully. “Never thought I’d say this, but Dean’s right.” Hotch looks at her in shock. Dean looks at her with more.
“I am?” he inquires with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah,” she replies. “I can’t imagine ever losing Henry. And I know that if some monster ever-ever murdered him, I wouldn’t accept that the police or FBI couldn’t find the guy. If they weren’t able to, I-I’d try to find him myself.”
Dean perks up at J.J.’s use of the word “monster,” purely out of reflex, but in this circumstance, he’s pretty sure she just means some human psychopath. He’s not going to mention that right now. Not when his status of being integrated officially into the investigation (leastways into the BAU, anyhow) is up in the air. He has a feeling that even if the rest of the team were on board, it’s Hotch he really needs to sway.
“I just want to get this guy, Agent Hotchner,” says Dean with a practiced amount of respectful intensity. “If you really don’t want me here, I’ll bail. I swear. But if there’s the tiniest chance you think I could add something…”
Hotch doesn’t respond, and Dean sighs. “Fine. It’s been fun, Emily,” he says to the woman who’d dared give him a shot.
Regarding each person in the room perfunctorily, he strides out, leaving solid terseness in his wake, no one finding the fortitude to hold anyone else’s eye.
Emily’s the first to sever it, straightening and staring straight at her boss. “Nice, Hotch,” she says coldly. She’d never had that tone to her superior before, but she’s not sorry about it. She has reason. “You just sent away our last hope of getting the unsub. Congrats.”
Mouth in a fine line, she stands up brusquely from her chair and hurries out of the room. “Dean!” she calls out in the precinct, not caring about the officers that look up strangely at her. Dean’s nowhere in sight, and she swallows angry regret.
It’s maybe half a minute before she feels a hand on her shoulder, and knows it’s Morgan without needing to hear any sound. “Hey,” he says, a tone of his own regret in the word.
“Thanks for the help,” she says sarcastically.
“Don’t even start with that,” he says firmly, even as he’s aware that he’s just a scapegoat for her pique with Hotch and frustration with Dean. He rubs a hand over his neck in vacillation. “You want me to help you find him?”
Emily looks at him, surprised. “What?”
“We can go back to what we originally planned,” he elaborates. “Have Dean assist us, just keep it under the radar.”
Emily rolls her eyes. “’Cause that worked out so well last time.”
Morgan shrugs. “You got a better idea?” he asks. “It’s up to Hotch to have Dean consult officially. But I think if we tried hard enough, we could confer with Dean and keep Hotch in the dark.”
“Just Hotch?”
“If we have to,” Morgan replies. “Seems like everyone else is on board with this. I’m not saying we have to let them all in on this, but…I dunno, maybe. Rossi or J.J. at least. Reid isn’t the best at keeping secrets that aren’t his own.”
Emily chooses not to comment on Morgan’s candor about Reid, even though she hadn’t guessed the words would come out of his mouth. He’s usually extremely protective of the nerd. “It doesn’t matter now anyway,” Emily says. “Dean’s gone. He made disappearing his living for years. What are the odds we’d actually be able to catch up with him?”
Morgan smiles shrewdly. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think Dean was telling the truth,” he replies. “I don’t know the dude very well, but he doesn’t strike me as a person who’d give up on a puzzle, despite the fact that he wasn’t in on it in the first place.”
“You think he’ll stick around? Try and solve this himself?”
“It’s a possibility,” says Morgan. “In which case, it shouldn’t be all that hard to pinpoint his location. Manistique is small, and much as I hate to admit it, Dean’s face and demeanor is pretty hard to forget.”
Emily chuckles ironically-he’s not wrong. “You really think we can head him off?” she asks insecurely.
Morgan prays she doesn’t see his falter. Truth be, his confidence level is hovering around the fifty-eight percent range. He doesn’t need Reid to tell him that’s not great. “Yeah,” he says regardless, putting on false bravado. “I think we have a good chance of it.”
Smiling, Emily nods. “Thanks,” she says sincerely. “For…you know.”
Morgan returns the smile, but feels guilty about doing so. Even though he trusts his own facilities, he’ll readily admit that Dean’s a sneaky son of a bitch with street smarts to rival some of the perps Morgan’d put away. He has more than a lot of his own, growing up in Chicago and being a beat cop there for a while, but Dean’s entire livelihood had depended on him successfully evading capture and improvising on the drop of a hat.
He doesn’t want to let Emily down (which is the primary argument of why he’d told her they can get hold of Dean again), but to himself, he’s thinking that it’ll take nothing less than a miracle to do so. Really, the only good thing that’s come out of this whole mess is that apart from Hotch, Morgan’s reasonably positive that Dean’d somehow convinced the BAU to trust him-okay, not trust per se, but allow to lend his skills to the investigation.
Still, if they can’t locate him, it’ll all be worthless. Worse, they’ll be back at square one. And top off the whole damn SNAFU, they’re running out of time before not only do they have to inform Xander Nathanson’s mother that they have no clue who killed her son, but in which to catch the murderer.
April 12, 2017, 10:21 A.M.
Michigan Highway 77
Near Blaney Park, Michigan
Dean’s not entirely sure where he’s going, beyond that it’s vaguely north. It isn’t like he plans to go all the way to Canada or anything (honestly, he really doesn’t have the energy to forge a passport), but for the moment, he’s just driving. It’s a stress reliever that’s always worked. Well…except for now, evidently.
Letting out a heavy breath, he pulls over to the shoulder of the highway, shutting off the Jeep and leaning forward to rest his forehead against the wheel. He wishes he had some aspirin, or at least some whiskey, to take the edge off, to calm his nerves that feel like they’ve run into an electric fence. Repeatedly.
He doesn’t really realize just how long he’d been in that one position until he hears a sharp rap on the window. Nearly jolting out of his skin-and hating that he had; when the hell had he become so fucking jumpy?-he slides his eyes left, not moving his head. He does, however, when he recognizes the uniform and gadgets of a highway patrol officer.
He’s determined not to lose form or appear suspicious and so, upset that he doesn’t have even a measly pocketknife for confidence, he rolls down the window, looking the cop straight in the eye. Show no fear. Show no skeeviness.
“Can I help you, Officer?” asks Dean casually.
“You all right, son?” the cop replies, peering in the car in what Dean assumes was meant to be a subtle manner. “We got a call ’bout a vehicle parked on the side of the road.”
Dean stops himself from rolling his eyes, feeling that probably wouldn’t be the wisest move. “I’ve just been drivin’ for a while,” he explains without missing a beat. “I’m comin’ from Independence, going to see my sister up in Grand Marais. Been drivin’ for about thirteen hours now, needed an hour or two of rest is all.”
The cop studies Dean’s face for a couple seconds, thankfully not questioning why he would stop for a nap when he’s a mere hour out from his purported destination. “Y’know, you look kinda familiar,” the officer observes curiously. “You been through here before?”
Great. Just awesome, Dean grumbles to himself.
“No, sir,” he answers, keeping the anxiety out of his voice. If the cop accurately identified him…
“All right, then,” replies the officer, shaking his head a little. “Well, look, you should get yourself to a motel, or at least a rest stop for a while. Dangerous to be driving when you’re tired.”
Nodding, Dean plasters on a fake, but not overly so, smile. “Yes, sir,” he agrees. “Sorry about the disturbance.”
The cop relaxes, succumbing to Dean’s non-threatening, calm exterior, and taps the window frame in farewell. “Take care, son,” he says, walking back to his cruiser.
Dean watches as the black and white Crown Vic joins the other traffic, bright sun glinting off the lights on the roof. He starts up the engine and puts the car into gear, staring out at the endless asphalt in front of him.
After no fewer than three decisions and reconsiderations, Dean reaches over to the passenger seat and retrieves some folders from underneath his jacket. On the tabs of the manila in thick black Sharpie reads:
LEVIN, AMITA - 3/26/17
BELTWAY, ZACHARY - 4/1/17
JANSEN, KARI - 4/7/17
NATHANSON, ALEXANDER - 4/12/17
Inside, pictures stare up at him in glaring technicolor, and field observations and M.E. reports lay out bluntly the specifics. Dean imagines the department is wondering how they’d managed to lose the folders-it’d been pathetically easy to nick them, truthfully; though, to be fair, the police and agents were all stretched to their limits-but he also imagines that they’d made copies. Not that it’d matter much at this point. If they hadn’t made any progress with the first three victims by now, Xander’s death wouldn’t provide anything new off of which they could work.
Dean scans through the reports, his trained eye skipping over the filler and going straight to the necessary, acutely studying the photographs. In his gut, he knows this case’ll be harder to crack than the last one, due only in part to the fact that all it’d taken, essentially, for the thing back in Manchester was some Where’s Waldo? prowess. Which, Dean has to say, had come part and parcel with cross-country hunting trips (it’d only required one drive from New York to Oklahoma for him to pinpoint the real Waldo in the Land of Waldos, much to a seven-year-old Sam’s chagrin). Especially around the central and southern states, owing to I Spy only allowing two answers: tumbleweed, or thundercloud.
Though he told the BAU he’d overheard the cops talking about Xander’s murder, he in reality didn’t hear any details. Just that the boy was nine, and that the cause of death was virtually unknown. A reason why Dean dreads getting to the last file.
That dread is immediately made founded when he sees the before and after pictures. The photo of him alive is with what must be the family dog, a chocolate Labrador whose head rests on a laughing Xander’s shoulder in the hopes of getting the slice of pizza in his master’s hand.
Dean himself had only ever had a dog once, a large Border Collie that had apparently been a stray in this Podunk town he, Sam, and John were staying in. He was fourteen and Sam was ten, and John was off on a four-week hunt, leaving his boys to the dingy motel room. The dog would wander around the parking lot every so often, searching for scraps of food, and although Dean had resisted the thing the first couple times he saw it, he couldn’t turn away the big brown eyes and earnest face forever.
Without Sam’s consent (not that Sam minded), Dean coached the dog into the room, marveling at how the carpet was so stained that the muddy pawprints weren’t distinguishable from the other marks. He carefully washed every speck of dirt from the dog’s mangy fur, and when he was done, it was pristine. That coupled with half of Dean’s cheeseburger that night had the dog following him around like a shadow.
The first couple days that Dean and Sam left the dog for school, it’d barked enough to where the motel owner threatened the boys with a belt, but firm “No”s from Dean to the dog soon stopped it. He was free to roam outside while they were away, but, somehow knowing the time of day, was always at the street, sitting happily as you please, when Sam and Dean walked back from school. He’d bowled Sam over more than once, causing bruises and scrapes, and had even knocked Dean back a couple steps, but frankly, neither gave a damn.
The dog was theirs, really the only thing they could rely on (Dean chooses determinedly not to ruminate on how wrong that is), and although its diet wasn’t exactly Purina, it was content. The three of them were. And when the lights were out, and Sam was asleep but Dean wasn’t for fear of the nightmares he’d not-so-occasionally get, the dog would jump onto Dean’s bed.
He took up the majority of it, worming over to Dean’s side and pressing his nose into Dean’s arm, but he soon found that when the dog was next to him, the nightmares would cease. He’d never told anyone-come on, that’s kinda girly-but nevertheless, whenever Dean gave the slightest of uncomfortable movements, the dog would be there in a flash.
Sam and Dean were so caught up in the dog and in schoolwork that they didn’t notice the weeks go by. It was late, past midnight, when a key sounded in the door, twisting in the lock. Sam and Dean jerked awake, and Dean lost his space heater as the dog leaped off the bed, hair raised and a low growl that neither brother had ever witnessed sounding deep in his throat.
The door opened, and Dean realized it was John just a second too late. The dog, not recognizing the intruder, bounded across the room and tackled the already injured hunter. John, hardly expecting the attack, was jarred off balance, falling onto the carpet with a dull thud. Dean called out for the dog to stop, but as far as it knew, there was someone endangering its family, and it wouldn’t have any of that. John lashed out with a boot, catching the dog in the side and eliciting a yelp from it.
He lay still on the floor, and Dean, disregarding John’s new welts and scrapes, ran instead to his dog. He gingerly touched his abdomen, and he whimpered again, his eyes staring up trustingly into Dean’s. John yelled at his eldest, but his words fell on deaf ears. All Dean’d cared about in that moment was the dog, and for two days straight, he didn’t move except to get it water and food.
After the first eighteen hours, John gave up on attempting to move Dean away-he’d tried using force, but had underestimated the power behind Dean’s hands and legs, getting only impressive bruises for his efforts. He’d tried yelling that it was past time for them to leave the town, that he’d found another hunt, but that hadn’t worked either. Sam had done his best to explain the situation, but John simply couldn’t comprehend that they’d allowed “that goddamned mutt into the room like he’s some goddamned housetrained pet.”
With Dean’s attention, the dog had gotten better, and although it’d limped, the tongue he ran over Dean’s face was enough. As soon as the dog stood up, John pulled Dean onto his feet by his collar and stared into his son’s mutinous green eyes.
“We’re leaving,” he commanded. “Now.”
“Not without him,” said Dean, pointing to the dog. “I’m not leaving him.”
“Either you leave the dog, or I leave you.”
It was the first and only time Dean told his father he hated him, and the first of two times-the second being when Sam ran away to Flagstaff-John struck him. Not hard (not this time, anyway), but enough to shock his son into submission.
Sam had said a weepy goodbye to the dog and climbed into the Impala without further objection, John following soon after. Somehow, the dog sensed something bad was going down, and sat in front of the door as Dean grabbed his duffel, the normally happy face set into what Dean was only able to describe as defiant, stubborn.
Dean had shoved his way past the dog, willing himself not to shed a single tear or sniffle even once. He forced himself not to look down as the dog pressed against his leg the entire walk to the car. He’d prepared himself to jump in the backseat, but Dean pushed him away, the dog skidding against gravel.
The motel owner had happened to be out doing a cursory check of the rooms that had just been vacated, and did a double-take at the scene. “Hey!” he hollered, confusion written on his face. “Whatcha doin’?”
Dean met the man’s frown, wished he hadn’t.
“You comin’ back, ain’tcha?” the manager asked. “You ain’t leavin’ ’im, are ya?”
“We’re-we have to go,” Dean answered.
The manager’s face was completely floored then, glancing from the melancholy dog to a melancholy Dean. Though initially he’d been pissed at the dog’s barking-and the dog’s presence in general-he’d realized in haste that the “man and his dog” adage was a hundred percent on target. So seeing Dean obviously getting ready to skip town, without his canine companion simply didn’t compute.
“But ya takin’ him, yeah?” persisted the manager. “He wants t’go.”
Dean’s gaze flickered over to John, and then to a tearful Sam, and then to the dog, and then back to the man. “No,” he answered. “T-Take care’a him.”
A quick kiss to the dog’s nose and Dean scrambled into the car, shutting the door with a creaking slam. As they drove away, leaving dust in their wake, Dean turned around, gazing through the rear window. He watched the dog bay once, and then lie down on the ground, staring after his master, his expression clearly one of wondering what he’d done to make Dean leave.
Sam stared at Dean in half-accusation, half-sadness. “Lemme alone, Sam,” whispered Dean, turning away.
Neither brother ever mentioned the dog again.
In fact, now’s the first time in twenty-four years that Dean’s ever thought about him, figuring that his memory had simply blocked it out. He briefly wonders what happened to it, wonders if the motel manager had done as Dean requested, or if he’d just let it run astray again. If, God forbid, the dog had found a new family who were actually able to keep him. Dean abandons that line of thought with a jaw clench at himself for being so lame.
Instead, he looks back at the photograph of Xander and his Lab, and, with nary a hesitation, removes it from the paper clip and pins it under the visor’s mirror. Why, he’s not completely sure. He doesn’t have the right to the picture, not even close, but hey. If the file’s “lost,” it’d only make sense for the photo to be, too.
He flips through the crime scene photos, at Xander’s body that, if the skin hadn’t been too pale, the lips too blue, would have simply looked like he were sleeping. He makes a mental table of the victims, categorizing their injuries and the rest of the vitals in their respective slots, and cements it to his mind.
Closing his eyes for a minute, Xander’s smiling face and Xander’s dead face juxtaposed together, his heart and his head war. He barely takes time to weigh the pros and cons before peeling out onto the highway, taking the nearest exit, then getting on the road again-this time, M-77 South.
To hell with Special Agent Hotchner. He’s got a job to do, and if there’s one thing the BAU is gonna learn real fast, it’s that you don’t get between Dean Winchester and his objectives. You just don’t.
Ever.
“What do you call this place?”
“This is Heaven,” was the answer.
“Well, that’s confusing,” the traveler said. “It certainly doesn’t look like Heaven, and there’s another man down the road who said that place was Heaven.”
“Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates?”
“Yes, it was beautiful.”
“Nope. That’s Hell.”
“Doesn’t it offend you for them to use the name of Heaven like that?”
“No. I can see how you might think so, but it actually saves us a lot of time. They screen out people who are willing to leave their best friends behind.”
- Inspired by “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” by Earl Hamner, Jr.
Next
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Criminal Minds
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,788
Summary: Sequel to “ All the King’s Horses.” When Dean catches J.J.’s press conference on the news and notices a few...inconsistencies, he realizes the BAU is definitely going to need his help. Again.
Previous:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
As You Are Now, So Once Was I
Part VI
April 12, 2017, 9:54 A.M.
Schoolcraft County Police Department
Manistique, Michigan
Dean follows Emily slowly, nothing short of amused. He waits out of sight for the point at which he feels will cause him the most humor. (Though, granted, also the least bodily harm.)
“Um…there’s something I have to tell you,” she’s saying, voice delayed as if to put off the inevitable.
“Pertinent?” asks Hotch shortly, still deeply affected by the news of the latest murder.
Dean smiles and takes the unintended cue to make himself known, leaning against the doorframe, outwardly smug, but internally wary and making note of possible modes of escape. “I’d say so,” he smirks, looking first at Emily’s face, and then at the stunned ones of the rest of the room. He does enjoy making an entrance.
Of course, his smirk drops remarkably fast when both J.J. and Hotch’s weapons come up and point straight at his heart. He has no illusions Morgan’s would have joined them, had he not been catching Emily’s eye with a look that’s not quite a “What the fuck is going on?” but rather “I thought we agreed to the opposite of this.”
Which makes Dean unexpectedly feel a flicker of happiness that Morgan had, however reluctantly, been in support of Emily in this matter. Judging by everyone else’s expressions, on the other hand, Dean doubts they had any semblance of an inkling that he’d been in contact with one-by extension, three-of their own.
“Oh, come on,” says Dean, raising his hands up, “are the guns really necessary? It ain’t like I’m going to go on a homicidal rampage.”
“Dean,” warns Emily exasperatedly. “Please.”
“Shut up,” snaps Hotch to the man who, forty seconds ago, he’d believed to be safely behind bars. “What are you doing here? How are you here?”
Dean glances from Emily to Morgan, and then, when the latter looks to his right, Garcia. She’s withholding-poorly-a smile, and Dean quirks his mouth. He can tell she’s in the loop about him, which makes only four more agents that he has to win over.
Or, if not totally win over, tolerate his presence enough so he’s not riddled with .45 slugs by lunchtime.
Rossi takes over for Hotch, whose vein in his temple is throbbing dangerously. “What is this, Prentiss?” Rossi inquires, unfazed and leaned back relaxedly in his chair.
Dean gets the sense that the man is a large believer in first impressions, and fortunately, Dean thinks he passed the tenured agent’s test. At the very least, didn’t immediately put him off. And that leaves just Hotch and the lovely woman who had alerted Dean, indirectly of course, to the case in the first place.
Really, Dean muses, he owes her. Had she not made the press conference, he’d still be wasting away in prison, folding sheets with a deadbeat who has no modicum of oral hygiene whatsoever. Admittedly, he doesn’t see this as quite the right time to bring that up. Perhaps in a few days. And when J.J.’s not armed. Come to think of it, he wagers, this may require jewelry.
“Okay, first of all, I did not break, or help to break, him out of jail. He did that all by himself,” explains Emily in more of a sheepish voice than Dean’d ever heard. She looks at Morgan again for help, but he’s not so inclined. “But, uh…I may have talked with him.”
“Excuse me?” J.J. exclaims, still aiming her weapon at Dean’s chest. “You mean after we consulted with him four years ago?”
Emily nods miserably, and Dean takes pity on her. Mainly because while she did answer his call like she promised, he’d done most of the questionable stuff. “If you’re gonna get mad at anyone, get mad at me,” he asserts, noting Emily’s surprise. “She gave me her card back then in case I ever…well, anyway. I saw your press conference, Agent Jareau, and thought I could help. Emily here-sorry, Agent Prentiss-wasn’t able to get me out of prison even temporarily, so I had to do it by my lonesome.” Dean passes his eyes from J.J.’s perilous gaze to Hotch, and back again. “Look. I just came to help. Promise.”
The two exchange a significant glance and, upon silently communicating, lower their weapons. “Both of you, sit,” commands Hotch.
Dean shuts the door and takes a chair between a now seated Emily and Rossi, figuring they’re the people that, aside from Garcia, are least likely to strangle him. “Man, you all look like crap,” Dean comments blithely, sizing up his companions behind a smarmy mask.
Hotch lets out a noise comparable to a growl, and Morgan’s eyes are daggers. It’s not an untrue statement, but it doesn’t mean they want to hear it. Rossi leans towards Dean, his face sober but not particularly unkind. “Mr. Winchester, now would be a great time to shut the hell up,” he suggests calmly. “All of us would really like to hit something right now, and while I doubt Garcia would participate, I can’t say the same for anyone else.”
Dean’s not much for listening to people a lot of the time, but Rossi’s words do nothing but corroborate the atmosphere of the room. Dean nods almost imperceptibly, dropping the smartass façade and, with it, bringing back the shadowed contours in his face. After which Rossi almost wishes he’d had just kept the first expression; it’s unnerving to see Dean’s young age saddled with lines similar to Rossi’s own.
But ultimately, it’s not up to him.
Neither man, nor anyone else, says anything for a while, Hotch and J.J. seemingly too antagonized-whether at Emily or Dean (maybe both), Emily doesn’t know-and the rest appearing to choose the least tense time to speak. Unfortunately, such a time hasn’t yet revealed itself.
Until Reid, of all people, intercedes. His voice smaller than usual, he pipes up, “I think we should listen to what he has to say.”
“He’s a criminal, Reid,” J.J. retorts. “A murderer.”
“Wasn’t such a big deal last time,” Reid snipes, astonishing everyone with his vehemence. “We were at a loss for information then, and he provided the clue we needed. Now we’re in the same situation. Are you pissed because he broke out of prison and committed some crimes, or because you think he can find something we didn’t?”
“Reid,” says Morgan lowly, watching their unit chief and liaison’s faces which are, predictably, taken aback.
“I’m serious,” persists Reid, ignoring Morgan. “Look. I wouldn’t even consider this if he hadn’t helped us before. But he has. And I’d think we would do just about anything to stop these killings. And anyway, Dean’s hardly the worst guy we could work with.”
“How do you figure?” asks J.J. “There’s that pesky, you know, mass murder thing.”
“You gotta keep bringing that up?” snaps Dean. A few jibes he’ll allow, even if he is innocent from the homicide charges. But after a while, it starts to get vexing. Particularly when it makes them doubt his abilities or alliances. “Could you put that aside for two friggin’ seconds?”
J.J. stares at him, her blue eyes probing to the point of making him more than a little uncomfortable. Dean appraises his intent for a moment, deciding if it’d clinch or ruin his chances, but takes the risk.
“You don’t have any leads for any of your four victims. You really want to tell the mother of a nine-year-old that you can’t locate his killer?”
J.J. flinches, and Hotch’s hands curl into fists. “How do you know about that?” asks Morgan.
“Heard the cops talking about it a couple minutes ago. News travels fast in a town this size.”
“Dean, you’re not really helping yourself here,” remarks Emily softly.
“No, you know what?” J.J. proposes forcefully. “Never thought I’d say this, but Dean’s right.” Hotch looks at her in shock. Dean looks at her with more.
“I am?” he inquires with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah,” she replies. “I can’t imagine ever losing Henry. And I know that if some monster ever-ever murdered him, I wouldn’t accept that the police or FBI couldn’t find the guy. If they weren’t able to, I-I’d try to find him myself.”
Dean perks up at J.J.’s use of the word “monster,” purely out of reflex, but in this circumstance, he’s pretty sure she just means some human psychopath. He’s not going to mention that right now. Not when his status of being integrated officially into the investigation (leastways into the BAU, anyhow) is up in the air. He has a feeling that even if the rest of the team were on board, it’s Hotch he really needs to sway.
“I just want to get this guy, Agent Hotchner,” says Dean with a practiced amount of respectful intensity. “If you really don’t want me here, I’ll bail. I swear. But if there’s the tiniest chance you think I could add something…”
Hotch doesn’t respond, and Dean sighs. “Fine. It’s been fun, Emily,” he says to the woman who’d dared give him a shot.
Regarding each person in the room perfunctorily, he strides out, leaving solid terseness in his wake, no one finding the fortitude to hold anyone else’s eye.
Emily’s the first to sever it, straightening and staring straight at her boss. “Nice, Hotch,” she says coldly. She’d never had that tone to her superior before, but she’s not sorry about it. She has reason. “You just sent away our last hope of getting the unsub. Congrats.”
Mouth in a fine line, she stands up brusquely from her chair and hurries out of the room. “Dean!” she calls out in the precinct, not caring about the officers that look up strangely at her. Dean’s nowhere in sight, and she swallows angry regret.
It’s maybe half a minute before she feels a hand on her shoulder, and knows it’s Morgan without needing to hear any sound. “Hey,” he says, a tone of his own regret in the word.
“Thanks for the help,” she says sarcastically.
“Don’t even start with that,” he says firmly, even as he’s aware that he’s just a scapegoat for her pique with Hotch and frustration with Dean. He rubs a hand over his neck in vacillation. “You want me to help you find him?”
Emily looks at him, surprised. “What?”
“We can go back to what we originally planned,” he elaborates. “Have Dean assist us, just keep it under the radar.”
Emily rolls her eyes. “’Cause that worked out so well last time.”
Morgan shrugs. “You got a better idea?” he asks. “It’s up to Hotch to have Dean consult officially. But I think if we tried hard enough, we could confer with Dean and keep Hotch in the dark.”
“Just Hotch?”
“If we have to,” Morgan replies. “Seems like everyone else is on board with this. I’m not saying we have to let them all in on this, but…I dunno, maybe. Rossi or J.J. at least. Reid isn’t the best at keeping secrets that aren’t his own.”
Emily chooses not to comment on Morgan’s candor about Reid, even though she hadn’t guessed the words would come out of his mouth. He’s usually extremely protective of the nerd. “It doesn’t matter now anyway,” Emily says. “Dean’s gone. He made disappearing his living for years. What are the odds we’d actually be able to catch up with him?”
Morgan smiles shrewdly. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think Dean was telling the truth,” he replies. “I don’t know the dude very well, but he doesn’t strike me as a person who’d give up on a puzzle, despite the fact that he wasn’t in on it in the first place.”
“You think he’ll stick around? Try and solve this himself?”
“It’s a possibility,” says Morgan. “In which case, it shouldn’t be all that hard to pinpoint his location. Manistique is small, and much as I hate to admit it, Dean’s face and demeanor is pretty hard to forget.”
Emily chuckles ironically-he’s not wrong. “You really think we can head him off?” she asks insecurely.
Morgan prays she doesn’t see his falter. Truth be, his confidence level is hovering around the fifty-eight percent range. He doesn’t need Reid to tell him that’s not great. “Yeah,” he says regardless, putting on false bravado. “I think we have a good chance of it.”
Smiling, Emily nods. “Thanks,” she says sincerely. “For…you know.”
Morgan returns the smile, but feels guilty about doing so. Even though he trusts his own facilities, he’ll readily admit that Dean’s a sneaky son of a bitch with street smarts to rival some of the perps Morgan’d put away. He has more than a lot of his own, growing up in Chicago and being a beat cop there for a while, but Dean’s entire livelihood had depended on him successfully evading capture and improvising on the drop of a hat.
He doesn’t want to let Emily down (which is the primary argument of why he’d told her they can get hold of Dean again), but to himself, he’s thinking that it’ll take nothing less than a miracle to do so. Really, the only good thing that’s come out of this whole mess is that apart from Hotch, Morgan’s reasonably positive that Dean’d somehow convinced the BAU to trust him-okay, not trust per se, but allow to lend his skills to the investigation.
Still, if they can’t locate him, it’ll all be worthless. Worse, they’ll be back at square one. And top off the whole damn SNAFU, they’re running out of time before not only do they have to inform Xander Nathanson’s mother that they have no clue who killed her son, but in which to catch the murderer.
April 12, 2017, 10:21 A.M.
Michigan Highway 77
Near Blaney Park, Michigan
Dean’s not entirely sure where he’s going, beyond that it’s vaguely north. It isn’t like he plans to go all the way to Canada or anything (honestly, he really doesn’t have the energy to forge a passport), but for the moment, he’s just driving. It’s a stress reliever that’s always worked. Well…except for now, evidently.
Letting out a heavy breath, he pulls over to the shoulder of the highway, shutting off the Jeep and leaning forward to rest his forehead against the wheel. He wishes he had some aspirin, or at least some whiskey, to take the edge off, to calm his nerves that feel like they’ve run into an electric fence. Repeatedly.
He doesn’t really realize just how long he’d been in that one position until he hears a sharp rap on the window. Nearly jolting out of his skin-and hating that he had; when the hell had he become so fucking jumpy?-he slides his eyes left, not moving his head. He does, however, when he recognizes the uniform and gadgets of a highway patrol officer.
He’s determined not to lose form or appear suspicious and so, upset that he doesn’t have even a measly pocketknife for confidence, he rolls down the window, looking the cop straight in the eye. Show no fear. Show no skeeviness.
“Can I help you, Officer?” asks Dean casually.
“You all right, son?” the cop replies, peering in the car in what Dean assumes was meant to be a subtle manner. “We got a call ’bout a vehicle parked on the side of the road.”
Dean stops himself from rolling his eyes, feeling that probably wouldn’t be the wisest move. “I’ve just been drivin’ for a while,” he explains without missing a beat. “I’m comin’ from Independence, going to see my sister up in Grand Marais. Been drivin’ for about thirteen hours now, needed an hour or two of rest is all.”
The cop studies Dean’s face for a couple seconds, thankfully not questioning why he would stop for a nap when he’s a mere hour out from his purported destination. “Y’know, you look kinda familiar,” the officer observes curiously. “You been through here before?”
Great. Just awesome, Dean grumbles to himself.
“No, sir,” he answers, keeping the anxiety out of his voice. If the cop accurately identified him…
“All right, then,” replies the officer, shaking his head a little. “Well, look, you should get yourself to a motel, or at least a rest stop for a while. Dangerous to be driving when you’re tired.”
Nodding, Dean plasters on a fake, but not overly so, smile. “Yes, sir,” he agrees. “Sorry about the disturbance.”
The cop relaxes, succumbing to Dean’s non-threatening, calm exterior, and taps the window frame in farewell. “Take care, son,” he says, walking back to his cruiser.
Dean watches as the black and white Crown Vic joins the other traffic, bright sun glinting off the lights on the roof. He starts up the engine and puts the car into gear, staring out at the endless asphalt in front of him.
After no fewer than three decisions and reconsiderations, Dean reaches over to the passenger seat and retrieves some folders from underneath his jacket. On the tabs of the manila in thick black Sharpie reads:
LEVIN, AMITA - 3/26/17
BELTWAY, ZACHARY - 4/1/17
JANSEN, KARI - 4/7/17
NATHANSON, ALEXANDER - 4/12/17
Inside, pictures stare up at him in glaring technicolor, and field observations and M.E. reports lay out bluntly the specifics. Dean imagines the department is wondering how they’d managed to lose the folders-it’d been pathetically easy to nick them, truthfully; though, to be fair, the police and agents were all stretched to their limits-but he also imagines that they’d made copies. Not that it’d matter much at this point. If they hadn’t made any progress with the first three victims by now, Xander’s death wouldn’t provide anything new off of which they could work.
Dean scans through the reports, his trained eye skipping over the filler and going straight to the necessary, acutely studying the photographs. In his gut, he knows this case’ll be harder to crack than the last one, due only in part to the fact that all it’d taken, essentially, for the thing back in Manchester was some Where’s Waldo? prowess. Which, Dean has to say, had come part and parcel with cross-country hunting trips (it’d only required one drive from New York to Oklahoma for him to pinpoint the real Waldo in the Land of Waldos, much to a seven-year-old Sam’s chagrin). Especially around the central and southern states, owing to I Spy only allowing two answers: tumbleweed, or thundercloud.
Though he told the BAU he’d overheard the cops talking about Xander’s murder, he in reality didn’t hear any details. Just that the boy was nine, and that the cause of death was virtually unknown. A reason why Dean dreads getting to the last file.
That dread is immediately made founded when he sees the before and after pictures. The photo of him alive is with what must be the family dog, a chocolate Labrador whose head rests on a laughing Xander’s shoulder in the hopes of getting the slice of pizza in his master’s hand.
Dean himself had only ever had a dog once, a large Border Collie that had apparently been a stray in this Podunk town he, Sam, and John were staying in. He was fourteen and Sam was ten, and John was off on a four-week hunt, leaving his boys to the dingy motel room. The dog would wander around the parking lot every so often, searching for scraps of food, and although Dean had resisted the thing the first couple times he saw it, he couldn’t turn away the big brown eyes and earnest face forever.
Without Sam’s consent (not that Sam minded), Dean coached the dog into the room, marveling at how the carpet was so stained that the muddy pawprints weren’t distinguishable from the other marks. He carefully washed every speck of dirt from the dog’s mangy fur, and when he was done, it was pristine. That coupled with half of Dean’s cheeseburger that night had the dog following him around like a shadow.
The first couple days that Dean and Sam left the dog for school, it’d barked enough to where the motel owner threatened the boys with a belt, but firm “No”s from Dean to the dog soon stopped it. He was free to roam outside while they were away, but, somehow knowing the time of day, was always at the street, sitting happily as you please, when Sam and Dean walked back from school. He’d bowled Sam over more than once, causing bruises and scrapes, and had even knocked Dean back a couple steps, but frankly, neither gave a damn.
The dog was theirs, really the only thing they could rely on (Dean chooses determinedly not to ruminate on how wrong that is), and although its diet wasn’t exactly Purina, it was content. The three of them were. And when the lights were out, and Sam was asleep but Dean wasn’t for fear of the nightmares he’d not-so-occasionally get, the dog would jump onto Dean’s bed.
He took up the majority of it, worming over to Dean’s side and pressing his nose into Dean’s arm, but he soon found that when the dog was next to him, the nightmares would cease. He’d never told anyone-come on, that’s kinda girly-but nevertheless, whenever Dean gave the slightest of uncomfortable movements, the dog would be there in a flash.
Sam and Dean were so caught up in the dog and in schoolwork that they didn’t notice the weeks go by. It was late, past midnight, when a key sounded in the door, twisting in the lock. Sam and Dean jerked awake, and Dean lost his space heater as the dog leaped off the bed, hair raised and a low growl that neither brother had ever witnessed sounding deep in his throat.
The door opened, and Dean realized it was John just a second too late. The dog, not recognizing the intruder, bounded across the room and tackled the already injured hunter. John, hardly expecting the attack, was jarred off balance, falling onto the carpet with a dull thud. Dean called out for the dog to stop, but as far as it knew, there was someone endangering its family, and it wouldn’t have any of that. John lashed out with a boot, catching the dog in the side and eliciting a yelp from it.
He lay still on the floor, and Dean, disregarding John’s new welts and scrapes, ran instead to his dog. He gingerly touched his abdomen, and he whimpered again, his eyes staring up trustingly into Dean’s. John yelled at his eldest, but his words fell on deaf ears. All Dean’d cared about in that moment was the dog, and for two days straight, he didn’t move except to get it water and food.
After the first eighteen hours, John gave up on attempting to move Dean away-he’d tried using force, but had underestimated the power behind Dean’s hands and legs, getting only impressive bruises for his efforts. He’d tried yelling that it was past time for them to leave the town, that he’d found another hunt, but that hadn’t worked either. Sam had done his best to explain the situation, but John simply couldn’t comprehend that they’d allowed “that goddamned mutt into the room like he’s some goddamned housetrained pet.”
With Dean’s attention, the dog had gotten better, and although it’d limped, the tongue he ran over Dean’s face was enough. As soon as the dog stood up, John pulled Dean onto his feet by his collar and stared into his son’s mutinous green eyes.
“We’re leaving,” he commanded. “Now.”
“Not without him,” said Dean, pointing to the dog. “I’m not leaving him.”
“Either you leave the dog, or I leave you.”
It was the first and only time Dean told his father he hated him, and the first of two times-the second being when Sam ran away to Flagstaff-John struck him. Not hard (not this time, anyway), but enough to shock his son into submission.
Sam had said a weepy goodbye to the dog and climbed into the Impala without further objection, John following soon after. Somehow, the dog sensed something bad was going down, and sat in front of the door as Dean grabbed his duffel, the normally happy face set into what Dean was only able to describe as defiant, stubborn.
Dean had shoved his way past the dog, willing himself not to shed a single tear or sniffle even once. He forced himself not to look down as the dog pressed against his leg the entire walk to the car. He’d prepared himself to jump in the backseat, but Dean pushed him away, the dog skidding against gravel.
The motel owner had happened to be out doing a cursory check of the rooms that had just been vacated, and did a double-take at the scene. “Hey!” he hollered, confusion written on his face. “Whatcha doin’?”
Dean met the man’s frown, wished he hadn’t.
“You comin’ back, ain’tcha?” the manager asked. “You ain’t leavin’ ’im, are ya?”
“We’re-we have to go,” Dean answered.
The manager’s face was completely floored then, glancing from the melancholy dog to a melancholy Dean. Though initially he’d been pissed at the dog’s barking-and the dog’s presence in general-he’d realized in haste that the “man and his dog” adage was a hundred percent on target. So seeing Dean obviously getting ready to skip town, without his canine companion simply didn’t compute.
“But ya takin’ him, yeah?” persisted the manager. “He wants t’go.”
Dean’s gaze flickered over to John, and then to a tearful Sam, and then to the dog, and then back to the man. “No,” he answered. “T-Take care’a him.”
A quick kiss to the dog’s nose and Dean scrambled into the car, shutting the door with a creaking slam. As they drove away, leaving dust in their wake, Dean turned around, gazing through the rear window. He watched the dog bay once, and then lie down on the ground, staring after his master, his expression clearly one of wondering what he’d done to make Dean leave.
Sam stared at Dean in half-accusation, half-sadness. “Lemme alone, Sam,” whispered Dean, turning away.
Neither brother ever mentioned the dog again.
In fact, now’s the first time in twenty-four years that Dean’s ever thought about him, figuring that his memory had simply blocked it out. He briefly wonders what happened to it, wonders if the motel manager had done as Dean requested, or if he’d just let it run astray again. If, God forbid, the dog had found a new family who were actually able to keep him. Dean abandons that line of thought with a jaw clench at himself for being so lame.
Instead, he looks back at the photograph of Xander and his Lab, and, with nary a hesitation, removes it from the paper clip and pins it under the visor’s mirror. Why, he’s not completely sure. He doesn’t have the right to the picture, not even close, but hey. If the file’s “lost,” it’d only make sense for the photo to be, too.
He flips through the crime scene photos, at Xander’s body that, if the skin hadn’t been too pale, the lips too blue, would have simply looked like he were sleeping. He makes a mental table of the victims, categorizing their injuries and the rest of the vitals in their respective slots, and cements it to his mind.
Closing his eyes for a minute, Xander’s smiling face and Xander’s dead face juxtaposed together, his heart and his head war. He barely takes time to weigh the pros and cons before peeling out onto the highway, taking the nearest exit, then getting on the road again-this time, M-77 South.
To hell with Special Agent Hotchner. He’s got a job to do, and if there’s one thing the BAU is gonna learn real fast, it’s that you don’t get between Dean Winchester and his objectives. You just don’t.
Ever.
“What do you call this place?”
“This is Heaven,” was the answer.
“Well, that’s confusing,” the traveler said. “It certainly doesn’t look like Heaven, and there’s another man down the road who said that place was Heaven.”
“Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates?”
“Yes, it was beautiful.”
“Nope. That’s Hell.”
“Doesn’t it offend you for them to use the name of Heaven like that?”
“No. I can see how you might think so, but it actually saves us a lot of time. They screen out people who are willing to leave their best friends behind.”
- Inspired by “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” by Earl Hamner, Jr.
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