Fic: Well If I Don't Win, Imma Gonna Break Even, Part One
Chapter One -
Lexington, Virginia had some of the best sandwiches Dean Winchester had ever eaten in his life. Two separate restaurants had crossed the culinary threshold to become “frigging awesome” in Dean’s book. He was extremely ready to tuck into a roast beef and some fancy dressing situation in a third, when his phone rang loudly in the late afternoon quiet of the small town café.
Dad looked up from where he was scribbling in his journal and frowned. “Who the hell could possibly be calling you?”
Dean looked at the caller ID. He didn’t recognize the number, but he had given very few people his digits, so he had a short list to guess from. Dean was sure that Pastor Jim had informed John Winchester of the existence of his friends, so that meant Dad had just plain forgotten about it, or assumed that Dean wouldn’t hold on to them long.
He took a deep breath, said stiffly, “Excuse me for a moment,” and stood up, turning away to answer the phone. “Yeah?”
“Dean.” It was Neal. But he sounded strange. It took Dean a moment to realize what it was, but as he did, a sense of foreboding settled over him. Neal wasn’t smiling. The last time they had spoken over the phone, Dean could hear the con man’s infectious grin in his voice.
“What’s wrong?” The words tumbled from his mouth, louder than he liked, before he could stop them. He walked further away from Dad.
“I need to learn how to shoot. How soon can you get to Philly?” He was walking outside, in a city. Dean could hear the traffic and the wind blowing hard into the cell phone.
Neal, these words were coming from Neal “why do you carry a knife and gun” Caffrey. Neal Caffrey wanted to learn to shoot. Something was seriously wrong.
Dean felt something hard sink into the pit of his stomach, something that reached a thin, scratchy hand all the way up to his throat. He choked on it when he spoke, “Six hours. But, I know a range in Chester County. I would teach you in the goddamn woods, but there’s too much population out there. It has to be a range.”
“Fine,” Neal said briskly. “I’ll meet you there.”
“No, it’ll be hard to find. And it’s going to be dark by then. We can’t shoot after dark.” He took a moment to formulate a plan and said, “There’s a gas station right off the Downingtown turnpike exit. Meet me there in like five and a half hours.” Dean glanced back at his dad, wondering what the hell he was going to say.
“All right.”
“Neal,” Dean said before the con man could hang up, “How long do you have to work on this?”
He finally heard Neal exhale with a smile. He imagined it broad, dazzling, and entirely fake. “A few days. See you later.”
Dean flipped his phone closed with a heavy sigh and turned back to Dad. John Winchester was looking at him, eyebrows raised.
“Who was that?”
“A friend,” Dean answered, making no move to sit back down. “Listen, Dad, do you think you can do this job solo? My friend is kind of having a…problem. He needs my help. I have to go take care of this.”
“He?” John asked, in a strained tone of voice. “Jim said your friend was a girl.”
Dean worked his jaw and fought the urge to tell Dad to just ask him if he had questions about his own freaking life. Instead, he replied calmly, “I have more than one friend, Dad. This friend is a he and he asked me to help him with something. Can you do the job solo?”
John closed the journal with a decisive snap and replied, as if Dean was crazy for even asking, “Of course, Dean. I did this job solo for fifteen years. I think I can take care of the ghost of a war horse by myself.”
The alleged ghost of a freaking war horse, Dean thought, but again said something else entirely. “Fine, then. I’m heading north. I’ll be back in a few days.”
“I’ll probably be gone by then.” John picked up a chip from Dean’s untouched plate and popped it into his mouth, chewing deliberately.
Dean grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and patted his jeans for his keys. “Fine,” he repeated. “I’ll call you. When I’ve taken care of this.”
Dean could barely stop fidgeting under Dad’s piercing gaze and he couldn’t leave until the man had said whatever his version of goodbye would be that day. “Taken care of what exactly?” He asked in a low voice.
Dean didn’t want to answer, mostly because he wasn’t exactly sure, but also because he wanted Neal’s business to stay private. Who knew what kind of information about the con man could aid in his eventual arrest. Dean didn’t want to be a source of any trouble for Neal and Kate. All he wanted to do was help.
“It’s not any of your business, Dad,” he replied quietly.
John’s face grew stormy. ”Not my business?” he repeated incredulously. “Are these the felons you spent the night with outside Chicago last year? I think it had better be my goddamn business what you’re getting yourself into. Are you out of your mind, son?”
Dean felt those words like they were a blow. “First of all,” he answered slowly, trying to stop them both from making a scene. “You can’t be a felon unless you’re caught and convicted. My friends are neither. Second, the girl isn’t even involved. And third, neither of them would ever ask me to do anything illegal.”
Dean knew there was a possibility that someday he might offer. And they wouldn’t be able to say no, for whatever reason. But Dad didn’t need to know that.
“Also,” Dean added, looking around the café and lowering his voice. “It’s not like you and I have always followed the letter of the law, Dad. It’s not like I don’t know how to run from the cops. I know how to keep my nose mostly clean, and how to get out of a bad situation if I have to. No one can prove I ever did anything for those two except pass along a message, because I didn’t and that’s the honest to God truth. If you had asked me about it instead of going to Jim for your information, I would have told you that.”
If Dad was at all perturbed about Dean’s uncharacteristic outburst, he didn’t show it at all in either his face or the way in which he said, “Fine then. I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Fine,” Dean repeated and walked out the door, wishing he had the balls to pick up the sandwich and take it with him. He was really freaking hungry.
Five hours later, Dean pulled the Impala into the Downingtown BP. It was a rinky-dink little place, smack in the middle of four ramps on and off of the PA turnpike. He looked around for other cars and saw only one, a ten year old silver Lexus sedan. Neal was leaning against the passenger side doors, watching him.
Dean pulled up and parked alongside the vehicle. He rolled down his window, smiled winningly, and said, “Hey, Stranger.”
Neal’s returning smile was tentative at first, making Dean more certain that something was wrong. “Hey, yourself,” he replied and pushed off from his car, closing the space between them in two short steps. Neal leaned into the window of the Impala and grinned at Dean wickedly. “You here to pick me up, baby?”
Dean raised his eyebrows in response. “I know a cheap motel around here,” he said with a smirk. “Do you want a ride, or would you rather follow me there?”
There was only the hint of a strain in Neal’s voice as he replied, as if he were trying to speak lines he hadn’t thought of himself, “Well, since the Lexus is stolen, I should probably ditch it. So, I guess I’ll need a ride.” His wicked grin had fallen to a shadow of itself.
Dean knew Neal smiled without meaning it all the time, he’d seen him do it before, he knew it was the bread and butter of a great con artist. Somehow, tonight, he couldn’t pull it off, he couldn’t maintain. But Dean didn’t let on that he could tell how much Neal was off his game. He only said, “So, grab your shit and get in.”
Neal took a small, black duffel bag from the passenger seat of the Lexus and dropped it to the ground. He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and quickly wiped down the steering wheel and every other surface on the dash and door handles. His movements were efficient, professional, and he was scowling.
Dean bent his arm back in a long-practiced movement to unlock the rear door. “Throw your bag in the back,” he called to Neal. “You’re not ready to see what I’ve got in the trunk.”
Neal’s scowl was replaced by a questioning half-smile, but he did as he was told. As he pulled open the door and climbed inside the Impala he said, “It had better not be a dead body. I don’t need that kind of heat.”
Dean peeled out of the gas station with a low chuckle, deciding it would be funnier if he didn’t answer.
Neal stayed in the car while Dean rented the room. He tossed Neal the second key through the Impala’s open window and went in first. He knew Neal would follow on his own time. Maybe they were being silly, overly careful or whatever, but he did it without consulting the con-man. Dean had caught the wariness in Neal’s expression, and he figured it would be best to just let him handle the situation how he wanted.
Dean was throwing his meager possessions into one of the dresser drawers when Neal finally entered. He didn’t look upset now, not in the face. But there was something behind those blue eyes that Dean couldn’t pin down. He wished they were able to see more of each other. He wished that he could read the subtext, that he could just know what was going through Neal’s head.
And he desperately wanted to know what the next couple days would bring. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for it.
Neal tossed his duffel to the floor and strode across the room to reach him. Dean could barely react, before Neal’s hand was fisted in the leather of his jacket and his name was just a hard breath on Neal’s lips.
“Dean,” he said again, and pulled their bodies together roughly.
“Neal.” Dean tried to back up, suddenly feeling nervous and unsure. “I don’t think I can-“
But Neal cut him off, “Please,” he whispered desperately. And he pulled Dean flush against him, gripping the leather harder and wrapping his free arm around Dean’s shoulders. He settled his face into the crook of Dean’s neck and just shook. Only very slightly and quietly, but Dean could feel it in his arms and his chest and his labored breath against Dean’s skin.
Startled, Dean wrapped his arms around Neal reflexively. “Hey, hey,” he murmured, bringing a hand lightly across Neal’s back and into his hair.
In response, he only gulped a breath in what Dean desperately hoped was not a choked back sob.
“Neal, what’s wrong,” he asked softly into the hair at his friend’s temple. “Where’s Kate?”
Dean felt Neal stiffen as he pulled away from his embrace, eyes looking far too bright. “Kate’s in the hospital.”
“What?” It was the last thing he had expected to hear.
“There was,” Neal hesitated, looking for once like he had no idea what to do with his body. His hands raised for a flash just to his hairline, then his ear, and then fell, slipping into his pockets only to come right back out a moment later. “There was a mishap.”
At Dean’s continued look of confusion and worry, Neal looked uncomfortable. “A job went south. Kate was the one who took the brunt of it. It wasn’t my choice. She had to take the lead on this one and so she ended up catching all the fallout.”
“So you wanna learn to shoot…to get revenge? “ Dean asked, incredulous. “That doesn’t sound like you at all.”
“No,” Neal said immediately. “No, I…It’s just that I could have prevented it. I was right there… in the…” He paused for a moment and laughed hollowly. “In the shadows. If I’d shown my face we would have both been dead. But…if I’d had a gun…I wouldn’t have shot them. I wouldn’t have. I just could have scared them, distracted them. So she could get away. And we would have blown town. And that would be that.”
“How bad is it?”
“She’ll be all right in a few days. They…beat her up pretty badly. I called 911 and ran when I heard them coming. Those…fucking bastards…ran too, but I couldn’t risk following them. Peter was going to get to us by tracking them down. It was sheer luck that he didn’t end up in that alley at the same time as the paramedics. I called a…friend…to make sure she was okay and that the plan was set. Then I called you.”
The look in Neal’s eyes was pleading, as if he thought that if he told Dean every detail of what had happened and what he had done, that his actions would be somehow…validated. That they would be right. Dean wasn’t complaining, it just seemed weird to be on the opposite side of this type of conversation. He’d had them with Dad countless times over the years, when something dangerous or stupid happened to Sam.
Dean realized that Neal probably had almost no time to process all this since it had happened. It couldn’t have been more than eight hours ago and Neal had been running on nothing but adrenaline and anxiety ever since. “Okay,” Dean replied evenly and then asked, “What’s the plan?”
As he replied, Neal’s voice settled into a tired monotone, like it was a full on confession rather than an explanation, “We always set plans for this kind of situation before we start a job. She’ll get well enough in the hospital, under a fresh alias or Jane Doe if she can get away with it, then she’ll skip out on the bill and meet me at JFK in four days. Flying is way more difficult under an assumed name than it used to be, but I have a friend who can get us the IDs and tickets in time. We’ll be in Europe this time next week, but even I don’t know exactly where.”
Dean could not help looking away at the news. He moved past Neal and sat down in the multi-colored plastic chair at the requisite table in the corner, and told himself he had no right to be upset. “For how long?”
“With this much heat on the right and wrong side of the law…three, four months. At the least.”
Dean frowned. “If you’ll be in Europe, why the rush on shooting lessons?”
Neal returned Dean’s expression with a grim seriousness that did not suit his features. “We will be working in Europe, Dean. This impromptu trip will put us back a little bit in funds, and we have big plans for next year. So, no matter what my feelings on guns are, if I live this life I have to know how to use one. It was…bravado, or naiveté or…sheer idiocy-"
“All right, all right,” Dean interrupted, getting the idea. “So you need to learn. That’s fine. I get it.”
Neal’s legs seemed to give from beneath him and he sat down heavily on the bed facing Dean. His shoulders slumped and his head fell into his hands.
“I just wish,” he cried, “that it hadn’t taken something like this for me to realize. I wish it had been me--“
Dean cut him off again. “Neal, stop it.”
“It’s true. Kate should have never been put in that position. I taught her everything she knows about this life. I should have prepared her better. I should have been better prepared.”
Dean cast a hard look at Neal and said plainly, “Well, you weren’t. But you’re doing something about it now, so quit whining. Kate can take care of herself. She’s tougher than you think. She’ll pull out of this fine and you’ll both be more careful in the future. There’s no sense in crying about it now.”
He picked up his keys from where he had tossed them earlier and stood, “Come on,” he ordered.
“Where are we going?” Neal didn’t move. He just looked at Dean, eyes wide like a lost puppy. It made Dean’s lip curl.
“Out. We’re not going to do ourselves any good moping around here. It’s too early to sleep and I wouldn’t put a gun in your hands right now even to clean it.”
Neal blinked slowly at him, apparently letting the words sink in. “Yeah,” he murmured a moment later. “Yeah, okay.” He ran a hand through his stress-mussed hair and settled his shoulders, as if making himself ready to get up and out of this particular mood. Dean was all for it, but he had a strange sinking feeling about what kind of façade the con-man would use to bottle up his worry and guilt.
Neal stood up, straightened his tie, and tried to smile. Tried, and failed miserably. “Let’s go, then,” he said, finally able to pull his lips into the right shape. It would have fooled a lot of people, but it didn’t fool Dean. There was no emotion behind those intense blue eyes. When Neal did that, that counterfeit smile, his eyes looked dead.
Dean’s fingers curled in a fist around his car keys. He could not take another second of this act. “That’s it. That is fucking it. Do not smile at me unless you fucking want to, Neal. It’s sad as hell when you do that.”
Neal’s smile fell as his eyebrows rose in surprise. He lifted his chin as if he were giving Dean some kind of evaluation, appraising him like a rare artifact.
When Neal didn’t actually respond to what Dean had said, he repeated, “Come on,” and turned towards the door. Neal followed him wordlessly.
End part one. Click through to part two.
Lexington, Virginia had some of the best sandwiches Dean Winchester had ever eaten in his life. Two separate restaurants had crossed the culinary threshold to become “frigging awesome” in Dean’s book. He was extremely ready to tuck into a roast beef and some fancy dressing situation in a third, when his phone rang loudly in the late afternoon quiet of the small town café.
Dad looked up from where he was scribbling in his journal and frowned. “Who the hell could possibly be calling you?”
Dean looked at the caller ID. He didn’t recognize the number, but he had given very few people his digits, so he had a short list to guess from. Dean was sure that Pastor Jim had informed John Winchester of the existence of his friends, so that meant Dad had just plain forgotten about it, or assumed that Dean wouldn’t hold on to them long.
He took a deep breath, said stiffly, “Excuse me for a moment,” and stood up, turning away to answer the phone. “Yeah?”
“Dean.” It was Neal. But he sounded strange. It took Dean a moment to realize what it was, but as he did, a sense of foreboding settled over him. Neal wasn’t smiling. The last time they had spoken over the phone, Dean could hear the con man’s infectious grin in his voice.
“What’s wrong?” The words tumbled from his mouth, louder than he liked, before he could stop them. He walked further away from Dad.
“I need to learn how to shoot. How soon can you get to Philly?” He was walking outside, in a city. Dean could hear the traffic and the wind blowing hard into the cell phone.
Neal, these words were coming from Neal “why do you carry a knife and gun” Caffrey. Neal Caffrey wanted to learn to shoot. Something was seriously wrong.
Dean felt something hard sink into the pit of his stomach, something that reached a thin, scratchy hand all the way up to his throat. He choked on it when he spoke, “Six hours. But, I know a range in Chester County. I would teach you in the goddamn woods, but there’s too much population out there. It has to be a range.”
“Fine,” Neal said briskly. “I’ll meet you there.”
“No, it’ll be hard to find. And it’s going to be dark by then. We can’t shoot after dark.” He took a moment to formulate a plan and said, “There’s a gas station right off the Downingtown turnpike exit. Meet me there in like five and a half hours.” Dean glanced back at his dad, wondering what the hell he was going to say.
“All right.”
“Neal,” Dean said before the con man could hang up, “How long do you have to work on this?”
He finally heard Neal exhale with a smile. He imagined it broad, dazzling, and entirely fake. “A few days. See you later.”
Dean flipped his phone closed with a heavy sigh and turned back to Dad. John Winchester was looking at him, eyebrows raised.
“Who was that?”
“A friend,” Dean answered, making no move to sit back down. “Listen, Dad, do you think you can do this job solo? My friend is kind of having a…problem. He needs my help. I have to go take care of this.”
“He?” John asked, in a strained tone of voice. “Jim said your friend was a girl.”
Dean worked his jaw and fought the urge to tell Dad to just ask him if he had questions about his own freaking life. Instead, he replied calmly, “I have more than one friend, Dad. This friend is a he and he asked me to help him with something. Can you do the job solo?”
John closed the journal with a decisive snap and replied, as if Dean was crazy for even asking, “Of course, Dean. I did this job solo for fifteen years. I think I can take care of the ghost of a war horse by myself.”
The alleged ghost of a freaking war horse, Dean thought, but again said something else entirely. “Fine, then. I’m heading north. I’ll be back in a few days.”
“I’ll probably be gone by then.” John picked up a chip from Dean’s untouched plate and popped it into his mouth, chewing deliberately.
Dean grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and patted his jeans for his keys. “Fine,” he repeated. “I’ll call you. When I’ve taken care of this.”
Dean could barely stop fidgeting under Dad’s piercing gaze and he couldn’t leave until the man had said whatever his version of goodbye would be that day. “Taken care of what exactly?” He asked in a low voice.
Dean didn’t want to answer, mostly because he wasn’t exactly sure, but also because he wanted Neal’s business to stay private. Who knew what kind of information about the con man could aid in his eventual arrest. Dean didn’t want to be a source of any trouble for Neal and Kate. All he wanted to do was help.
“It’s not any of your business, Dad,” he replied quietly.
John’s face grew stormy. ”Not my business?” he repeated incredulously. “Are these the felons you spent the night with outside Chicago last year? I think it had better be my goddamn business what you’re getting yourself into. Are you out of your mind, son?”
Dean felt those words like they were a blow. “First of all,” he answered slowly, trying to stop them both from making a scene. “You can’t be a felon unless you’re caught and convicted. My friends are neither. Second, the girl isn’t even involved. And third, neither of them would ever ask me to do anything illegal.”
Dean knew there was a possibility that someday he might offer. And they wouldn’t be able to say no, for whatever reason. But Dad didn’t need to know that.
“Also,” Dean added, looking around the café and lowering his voice. “It’s not like you and I have always followed the letter of the law, Dad. It’s not like I don’t know how to run from the cops. I know how to keep my nose mostly clean, and how to get out of a bad situation if I have to. No one can prove I ever did anything for those two except pass along a message, because I didn’t and that’s the honest to God truth. If you had asked me about it instead of going to Jim for your information, I would have told you that.”
If Dad was at all perturbed about Dean’s uncharacteristic outburst, he didn’t show it at all in either his face or the way in which he said, “Fine then. I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Fine,” Dean repeated and walked out the door, wishing he had the balls to pick up the sandwich and take it with him. He was really freaking hungry.
Five hours later, Dean pulled the Impala into the Downingtown BP. It was a rinky-dink little place, smack in the middle of four ramps on and off of the PA turnpike. He looked around for other cars and saw only one, a ten year old silver Lexus sedan. Neal was leaning against the passenger side doors, watching him.
Dean pulled up and parked alongside the vehicle. He rolled down his window, smiled winningly, and said, “Hey, Stranger.”
Neal’s returning smile was tentative at first, making Dean more certain that something was wrong. “Hey, yourself,” he replied and pushed off from his car, closing the space between them in two short steps. Neal leaned into the window of the Impala and grinned at Dean wickedly. “You here to pick me up, baby?”
Dean raised his eyebrows in response. “I know a cheap motel around here,” he said with a smirk. “Do you want a ride, or would you rather follow me there?”
There was only the hint of a strain in Neal’s voice as he replied, as if he were trying to speak lines he hadn’t thought of himself, “Well, since the Lexus is stolen, I should probably ditch it. So, I guess I’ll need a ride.” His wicked grin had fallen to a shadow of itself.
Dean knew Neal smiled without meaning it all the time, he’d seen him do it before, he knew it was the bread and butter of a great con artist. Somehow, tonight, he couldn’t pull it off, he couldn’t maintain. But Dean didn’t let on that he could tell how much Neal was off his game. He only said, “So, grab your shit and get in.”
Neal took a small, black duffel bag from the passenger seat of the Lexus and dropped it to the ground. He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and quickly wiped down the steering wheel and every other surface on the dash and door handles. His movements were efficient, professional, and he was scowling.
Dean bent his arm back in a long-practiced movement to unlock the rear door. “Throw your bag in the back,” he called to Neal. “You’re not ready to see what I’ve got in the trunk.”
Neal’s scowl was replaced by a questioning half-smile, but he did as he was told. As he pulled open the door and climbed inside the Impala he said, “It had better not be a dead body. I don’t need that kind of heat.”
Dean peeled out of the gas station with a low chuckle, deciding it would be funnier if he didn’t answer.
Neal stayed in the car while Dean rented the room. He tossed Neal the second key through the Impala’s open window and went in first. He knew Neal would follow on his own time. Maybe they were being silly, overly careful or whatever, but he did it without consulting the con-man. Dean had caught the wariness in Neal’s expression, and he figured it would be best to just let him handle the situation how he wanted.
Dean was throwing his meager possessions into one of the dresser drawers when Neal finally entered. He didn’t look upset now, not in the face. But there was something behind those blue eyes that Dean couldn’t pin down. He wished they were able to see more of each other. He wished that he could read the subtext, that he could just know what was going through Neal’s head.
And he desperately wanted to know what the next couple days would bring. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for it.
Neal tossed his duffel to the floor and strode across the room to reach him. Dean could barely react, before Neal’s hand was fisted in the leather of his jacket and his name was just a hard breath on Neal’s lips.
“Dean,” he said again, and pulled their bodies together roughly.
“Neal.” Dean tried to back up, suddenly feeling nervous and unsure. “I don’t think I can-“
But Neal cut him off, “Please,” he whispered desperately. And he pulled Dean flush against him, gripping the leather harder and wrapping his free arm around Dean’s shoulders. He settled his face into the crook of Dean’s neck and just shook. Only very slightly and quietly, but Dean could feel it in his arms and his chest and his labored breath against Dean’s skin.
Startled, Dean wrapped his arms around Neal reflexively. “Hey, hey,” he murmured, bringing a hand lightly across Neal’s back and into his hair.
In response, he only gulped a breath in what Dean desperately hoped was not a choked back sob.
“Neal, what’s wrong,” he asked softly into the hair at his friend’s temple. “Where’s Kate?”
Dean felt Neal stiffen as he pulled away from his embrace, eyes looking far too bright. “Kate’s in the hospital.”
“What?” It was the last thing he had expected to hear.
“There was,” Neal hesitated, looking for once like he had no idea what to do with his body. His hands raised for a flash just to his hairline, then his ear, and then fell, slipping into his pockets only to come right back out a moment later. “There was a mishap.”
At Dean’s continued look of confusion and worry, Neal looked uncomfortable. “A job went south. Kate was the one who took the brunt of it. It wasn’t my choice. She had to take the lead on this one and so she ended up catching all the fallout.”
“So you wanna learn to shoot…to get revenge? “ Dean asked, incredulous. “That doesn’t sound like you at all.”
“No,” Neal said immediately. “No, I…It’s just that I could have prevented it. I was right there… in the…” He paused for a moment and laughed hollowly. “In the shadows. If I’d shown my face we would have both been dead. But…if I’d had a gun…I wouldn’t have shot them. I wouldn’t have. I just could have scared them, distracted them. So she could get away. And we would have blown town. And that would be that.”
“How bad is it?”
“She’ll be all right in a few days. They…beat her up pretty badly. I called 911 and ran when I heard them coming. Those…fucking bastards…ran too, but I couldn’t risk following them. Peter was going to get to us by tracking them down. It was sheer luck that he didn’t end up in that alley at the same time as the paramedics. I called a…friend…to make sure she was okay and that the plan was set. Then I called you.”
The look in Neal’s eyes was pleading, as if he thought that if he told Dean every detail of what had happened and what he had done, that his actions would be somehow…validated. That they would be right. Dean wasn’t complaining, it just seemed weird to be on the opposite side of this type of conversation. He’d had them with Dad countless times over the years, when something dangerous or stupid happened to Sam.
Dean realized that Neal probably had almost no time to process all this since it had happened. It couldn’t have been more than eight hours ago and Neal had been running on nothing but adrenaline and anxiety ever since. “Okay,” Dean replied evenly and then asked, “What’s the plan?”
As he replied, Neal’s voice settled into a tired monotone, like it was a full on confession rather than an explanation, “We always set plans for this kind of situation before we start a job. She’ll get well enough in the hospital, under a fresh alias or Jane Doe if she can get away with it, then she’ll skip out on the bill and meet me at JFK in four days. Flying is way more difficult under an assumed name than it used to be, but I have a friend who can get us the IDs and tickets in time. We’ll be in Europe this time next week, but even I don’t know exactly where.”
Dean could not help looking away at the news. He moved past Neal and sat down in the multi-colored plastic chair at the requisite table in the corner, and told himself he had no right to be upset. “For how long?”
“With this much heat on the right and wrong side of the law…three, four months. At the least.”
Dean frowned. “If you’ll be in Europe, why the rush on shooting lessons?”
Neal returned Dean’s expression with a grim seriousness that did not suit his features. “We will be working in Europe, Dean. This impromptu trip will put us back a little bit in funds, and we have big plans for next year. So, no matter what my feelings on guns are, if I live this life I have to know how to use one. It was…bravado, or naiveté or…sheer idiocy-"
“All right, all right,” Dean interrupted, getting the idea. “So you need to learn. That’s fine. I get it.”
Neal’s legs seemed to give from beneath him and he sat down heavily on the bed facing Dean. His shoulders slumped and his head fell into his hands.
“I just wish,” he cried, “that it hadn’t taken something like this for me to realize. I wish it had been me--“
Dean cut him off again. “Neal, stop it.”
“It’s true. Kate should have never been put in that position. I taught her everything she knows about this life. I should have prepared her better. I should have been better prepared.”
Dean cast a hard look at Neal and said plainly, “Well, you weren’t. But you’re doing something about it now, so quit whining. Kate can take care of herself. She’s tougher than you think. She’ll pull out of this fine and you’ll both be more careful in the future. There’s no sense in crying about it now.”
He picked up his keys from where he had tossed them earlier and stood, “Come on,” he ordered.
“Where are we going?” Neal didn’t move. He just looked at Dean, eyes wide like a lost puppy. It made Dean’s lip curl.
“Out. We’re not going to do ourselves any good moping around here. It’s too early to sleep and I wouldn’t put a gun in your hands right now even to clean it.”
Neal blinked slowly at him, apparently letting the words sink in. “Yeah,” he murmured a moment later. “Yeah, okay.” He ran a hand through his stress-mussed hair and settled his shoulders, as if making himself ready to get up and out of this particular mood. Dean was all for it, but he had a strange sinking feeling about what kind of façade the con-man would use to bottle up his worry and guilt.
Neal stood up, straightened his tie, and tried to smile. Tried, and failed miserably. “Let’s go, then,” he said, finally able to pull his lips into the right shape. It would have fooled a lot of people, but it didn’t fool Dean. There was no emotion behind those intense blue eyes. When Neal did that, that counterfeit smile, his eyes looked dead.
Dean’s fingers curled in a fist around his car keys. He could not take another second of this act. “That’s it. That is fucking it. Do not smile at me unless you fucking want to, Neal. It’s sad as hell when you do that.”
Neal’s smile fell as his eyebrows rose in surprise. He lifted his chin as if he were giving Dean some kind of evaluation, appraising him like a rare artifact.
When Neal didn’t actually respond to what Dean had said, he repeated, “Come on,” and turned towards the door. Neal followed him wordlessly.
End part one. Click through to part two.