09x07 - Procedural Drama - Part Two: Intercut
Episode Number: 09x07 of Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Procedural Drama
Subtitle: Intercut
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 2,077
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, language
Status: Complete. Feedback appreciated.
Chicago, IL. Sam waited for Dodge at Bernie's Fine Diner. He grabbed a paper on his way in because the headline read PENTHOUSE STRANGLER STRIKES AGAIN; that's the case Dodge was working on.
According to the paper, the killings started in San Francisco three months ago. The murderer hit three more cities before the first body appeared in Chicago. The nickname came from a local paper in San Francisco, which dubbed him such because he strangled his victims before throwing them off the roofs of high buildings. Back in Tampa, he began mailing in the victim's identification to the police the next day as a taunt.
Sam found the entire article odd, as it asserted a second victim had been killed but failed to mention his name. Otherwise, the three-page article went into ridiculously specific detail.
Dakota "Dodge" Gage laughed when she saw Sam reading the carefully quartered paper.
"Looks like you're used to reading the paper on the train," she commented sitting opposite him in the booth.
"Dodge, hey," Sam said as he stashed the paper.
"Nice to see you again, Sam."
Dean made a quick stop at a local Hoodoo store, but the storekeeper didn't want to sell to him. Nothing he said mattered to the elderly woman, who seemed certain Dean was lying to her. Finally, he pulled out the demon-killing knife and showed her it, which successfully convinced her that Dean Winchester was a hunter.
After paying, he sat in his car for five minutes seething over how Sam could have easily gotten a sale with his dewy-eyed sympathy. What really pissed Dean off was that he knew his brother did a lot more to win people's trust, and he just couldn't do it, not the way Sam did it.
He rolled up to the empty warehouse he'd scouted. It was remote, abandoned, and structurally sound.
Dean cleared one of the rooms on the bottom level and marked the floor.
"Let's light this candle," Dean said to himself.
"Sorry, I've had a hell of a day," Dodge said as their food came.
"Yeah, I was just reading about the case."
After the waiter cleared, Dodge looked at Sam and shook her head. "I just went to make a next-of-kin notification the second victim."
"You sound confused," Sam remarked.
"Because when we showed up to talk to his wife, the guy was there, at his house," she explained. "Alive."
"But didn't you get his ID in the mail?" Sam asked. "Like the other victims?"
"We did, but we didn't find his body."
"Huh," Sam said, his fork half way to his mouth.
'Summoning an angel is never a good idea,' Dean thought to himself as he set up the ritual. The warehouse echoed hugely with every step he took, and he felt on edge, even jumpy.
He forced himself to focus on the task at hand. Dean lit the match and threw it down, completing the spell.
The few electronics in the building went out with a POP! Dean looked around.
"You're kidding," Metatron snapped. "You've got to be joking."
Dodge excused herself, "I'll be right back." Sam watched as she walked back to the diner's bathroom.
As soon as the door shut, Sam grabbed Dodge's bag. It wasn't quite a purse, but it did have all of her belongings in it. He pulled out her phone and a notepad and quickly started to look through them.
His heart skipped a beat when another woman came out of the bathroom. Sam needed to hurry. The phone was a bust, so he put it back and leafed through the notepad until he came to today's date.
"Harper Scoggins" was scrawled in untidy handwriting on the page; under his name was one Vivian Scoggins, noted to be his wife, and his address. Sam snapped a photo of the page with his phone, hoping he'd be able to read the illegible scramble of letters later. Then he stuffed her notes back into her bag and put on his best innocent face.
Dodge came out of the bathroom only moments later.
"How long are you staying in Chicago?" she asked.
"A couple of days," Sam replied.
"Well, I haven't had a chance to thank you," she said, "for the help you've given me, sorting through all this stuff. And that weird case with people losing their voices - "
" - out in Wyoming, right," Sam smiled. "That was a crazy case, actually."
"You mean crazier than usual?"
"Actually, a little bit, yeah," Sam responded. "We have this rule - "
" - we?" Dodge asked.
"My brother and I," Sam clarified. He purposely avoided talking about his brother and other hunter connections with the FBI Agent. He had learned to trust her, given her dedication, but if he was wrong, no one was coming down with him. "We have this rule, there's never two crazy things going on at the same time."
"I take it there were in Wyoming?"
"Exactly."
They both laughed. It was nice, being out with someone and laughing. When Sam was with Jess, and even later with Amelia, he felt guilty for keeping secrets. The weight of that slowed Sam down. And, admittedly, he had kept things from Dodge, but she knew he was a hunter. She knew about the supernatural dangers out there, and that took away the guilt, lifted it from Sam's shoulders. That's why he could smile and laugh like this.
At least, that's what he told himself.
"So, thank you," Dodge continued, snapping Sam back to reality. "I know you've probably got bigger fish."
"Actually, I don't," Sam admitted.
"No joke," Dean said simply. "I've got some questions."
Metatron pointed his handy shotgun at Dean. "Why did you summon me?"
"Like I said, I've got questions," Dean replied. "Look, there's no holy ring of fire. No other angels, and I've warded against anyone who might want to drop in."
It happened to be true. Metatron didn't like it when humans told the truth; he found that they did this right before doing something utterly foolish. He didn't lower his gun, but his expressions softened.
"Questions about what?" he asked.
"I want to know about fallen angels."
"Like Lucifer?"
"No, not that fallen," Dean corrected. "More like, say, Gabriel."
"Gabriel? The archangel who left his post, made his entire family believe he was dead, then pretended to be trickster for a few thousand years?" Metatron asked in his most annoyed voice.
"Sounds about right," Dean replied. "What would've happened to him if he, say, cut out his grace to become human?"
From behind the barrel of his gun, Metatron could tell his hypothetical question wasn't about Gabriel.
"You just said it," he replied blithely, "he'd be human."
"Yeah, I get that, I mean, would he have a soul? When he died, what would happen to him?"
For a man staring at the end of a shotgun, Dean really pushed buttons. Metatron lowered the gun but kept it trained on him. "What are you trying to accomplish, Dean?" the archangel asked with resentment.
Sam sat in his motel room, his mind occasionally wandering over bits of his and Dodge's lunch conversation. He shook himself out of it. He needed to focus on Harper Scoggins.
Something about the entire situation didn't add up for Sam. Maybe he just needed something to do with Dean being such an ass, or maybe it was just plain instinct. But the killer mailed the ID of this man to the police, like the other taunts, yet he was alive.
"When we showed him his ID, he said, 'Oh, I lost my wallet a few days ago!' Turns out, he even filed to get a new one that morning," Dodge had explained to Sam.
When Sam asked Dodge if she noticed any injuries on Harper, she had agreed. "Yeah, he had a bit of a limp, like a bad back, and he was wearing a turtle neck, but none of that makes him a zombie," she had added playfully.
He smiled when he remembered her smile. 'Get a grip,' Sam thought to himself. 'Stop thinking about her and start thinking about the case.'
Sam was certain this was a case. Strangulation wouldn't kill a vampire, or a shifter, or, well, anything supernatural, really. Neither would falling from a great height. Usually supernatural entities left bodies in their wake, so Sam dipped into the local police reports.
No heartless bodies, so likely not a skinwalker or a werewolf. No exsanguinated bodies, so not a vampire. Sam iterated through the list of possibilities, crossing out monster after monster as he went.
"I'm not accomplishing anything," Dean spat back. "I just want answers."
"And you summoned me?"
"You're the one with all the answers."
Metatron considered this. Dean hadn't been using flattery; no, he had been stating the truth. He honestly believed that Metatron had the answers.
"Angels that fall have souls," Metatron replied. "God decides their final repose upon death."
Dean considered this seriously. Metatron didn't like company; he had learned to enjoy the solace of solitude in his years as a daring recluse. At one point in his life, he envied those souls in their own little heavens, happily existing alone. Something in Dean's behavior threw him, though. He thought he'd gotten a good take on the man when he and his brother struggled to slam the gates of hell.
"You're fretting a single soul?" Metatron asked. "The guy who helped lock away every demon?"
"What's that suppose to mean?" Dean shot back.
"I mean," Metatron started, "you and your brother have affected countless souls and not always in a good way. Yet you're honestly upset about this one hypothetical soul."
"So what?"
"It bothers me you've summoned me for this little mind game of yours, Dean Winchester."
"This isn't a mind game," Dean tentatively said. "I just, I need to know what would happen to Castiel if he - "
" - Castiel?" Metatron repeated. "He didn't cut out his grace, did he?"
"No," Dean replied. "But he brought it up."
"Why would he do that?"
"It doesn't matter," Dean snapped.
Metatron raised the barrel of his shotgun again. "Of course it matters! The reason for his fall is an important part of how his soul is judged."
Dean hedged, "For love."
"Love?" Metatron repeated, "Can you be a bit more specific?"
Dean bit his lip and replied, "So he can grow old and die with the human he loves."
Metatron considered this. "That would make him an idiot, but I don't think God would hold it against him."
"You don't think? That's reassuring," Dean commented sarcastically.
Having eliminated anything creepy, crawly, or monster-like on his list, Sam concluded Harper could be a powerful witch. Unfortunately, in a city like Chicago, a clever monster might be able to cover its tracks, which meant Sam needed to prepare for everything possibility.
He whipped up a batch of the witch-killing potion Bobby had given him and his brother. Then he packed a silver knife, bullets, and a few other odds and ends just in case.
Sam stopped when he realized he was about to assess a possible case based on surviving an attack. Maybe, in this instance, subtlety would be more effective. He sat down and considered his options.
"Be honest, Dean," Metatron barked from behind his gun, "this isn't about Castiel."
"What're you talking about - "
'Humans can be such idiots,' Metatron thought to himself. "If this was about Castiel, he'd be here asking me, not you. So why don't you ask your damn question so I can go back to ignoring gnats like you?"
Dean ruffled himself but took a moment before responding. "All I want to know is - Will Cas be all right? I just want to know that much."
Metatron truly lowered his gun this time, pointing the barrel at the ground.
"What?" Dean asked at this oddly non-hostile gesture.
"This isn't about Castiel," Metatron repeated. "This is all about you. You're afraid."
"Screw you!"
"Not afraid to die," Metatron continued, "but afraid to live. Honestly, I should kill you," he indicated his gun, "for wasting my time. But that'll only give you what you want, the easy way out of your troubles, Winchester. Sorry, kid, you'll have to grub in the dark and hope for the best like everybody else. Give my love to the prophet, your brother, and Castiel."
The sound of wings went up; Metatron was gone.
"Freaking angels!"
<<< Previous Part:
Part One: Bankable
Next Part: >>>
Part Three: Murphey's Law
Primary Post: 09x07 Procedural Drama
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Procedural Drama
Subtitle: Intercut
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 2,077
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, language
Status: Complete. Feedback appreciated.
Chicago, IL. Sam waited for Dodge at Bernie's Fine Diner. He grabbed a paper on his way in because the headline read PENTHOUSE STRANGLER STRIKES AGAIN; that's the case Dodge was working on.
According to the paper, the killings started in San Francisco three months ago. The murderer hit three more cities before the first body appeared in Chicago. The nickname came from a local paper in San Francisco, which dubbed him such because he strangled his victims before throwing them off the roofs of high buildings. Back in Tampa, he began mailing in the victim's identification to the police the next day as a taunt.
Sam found the entire article odd, as it asserted a second victim had been killed but failed to mention his name. Otherwise, the three-page article went into ridiculously specific detail.
Dakota "Dodge" Gage laughed when she saw Sam reading the carefully quartered paper.
"Looks like you're used to reading the paper on the train," she commented sitting opposite him in the booth.
"Dodge, hey," Sam said as he stashed the paper.
"Nice to see you again, Sam."
Dean made a quick stop at a local Hoodoo store, but the storekeeper didn't want to sell to him. Nothing he said mattered to the elderly woman, who seemed certain Dean was lying to her. Finally, he pulled out the demon-killing knife and showed her it, which successfully convinced her that Dean Winchester was a hunter.
After paying, he sat in his car for five minutes seething over how Sam could have easily gotten a sale with his dewy-eyed sympathy. What really pissed Dean off was that he knew his brother did a lot more to win people's trust, and he just couldn't do it, not the way Sam did it.
He rolled up to the empty warehouse he'd scouted. It was remote, abandoned, and structurally sound.
Dean cleared one of the rooms on the bottom level and marked the floor.
"Let's light this candle," Dean said to himself.
"Sorry, I've had a hell of a day," Dodge said as their food came.
"Yeah, I was just reading about the case."
After the waiter cleared, Dodge looked at Sam and shook her head. "I just went to make a next-of-kin notification the second victim."
"You sound confused," Sam remarked.
"Because when we showed up to talk to his wife, the guy was there, at his house," she explained. "Alive."
"But didn't you get his ID in the mail?" Sam asked. "Like the other victims?"
"We did, but we didn't find his body."
"Huh," Sam said, his fork half way to his mouth.
'Summoning an angel is never a good idea,' Dean thought to himself as he set up the ritual. The warehouse echoed hugely with every step he took, and he felt on edge, even jumpy.
He forced himself to focus on the task at hand. Dean lit the match and threw it down, completing the spell.
The few electronics in the building went out with a POP! Dean looked around.
"You're kidding," Metatron snapped. "You've got to be joking."
Dodge excused herself, "I'll be right back." Sam watched as she walked back to the diner's bathroom.
As soon as the door shut, Sam grabbed Dodge's bag. It wasn't quite a purse, but it did have all of her belongings in it. He pulled out her phone and a notepad and quickly started to look through them.
His heart skipped a beat when another woman came out of the bathroom. Sam needed to hurry. The phone was a bust, so he put it back and leafed through the notepad until he came to today's date.
"Harper Scoggins" was scrawled in untidy handwriting on the page; under his name was one Vivian Scoggins, noted to be his wife, and his address. Sam snapped a photo of the page with his phone, hoping he'd be able to read the illegible scramble of letters later. Then he stuffed her notes back into her bag and put on his best innocent face.
Dodge came out of the bathroom only moments later.
"How long are you staying in Chicago?" she asked.
"A couple of days," Sam replied.
"Well, I haven't had a chance to thank you," she said, "for the help you've given me, sorting through all this stuff. And that weird case with people losing their voices - "
" - out in Wyoming, right," Sam smiled. "That was a crazy case, actually."
"You mean crazier than usual?"
"Actually, a little bit, yeah," Sam responded. "We have this rule - "
" - we?" Dodge asked.
"My brother and I," Sam clarified. He purposely avoided talking about his brother and other hunter connections with the FBI Agent. He had learned to trust her, given her dedication, but if he was wrong, no one was coming down with him. "We have this rule, there's never two crazy things going on at the same time."
"I take it there were in Wyoming?"
"Exactly."
They both laughed. It was nice, being out with someone and laughing. When Sam was with Jess, and even later with Amelia, he felt guilty for keeping secrets. The weight of that slowed Sam down. And, admittedly, he had kept things from Dodge, but she knew he was a hunter. She knew about the supernatural dangers out there, and that took away the guilt, lifted it from Sam's shoulders. That's why he could smile and laugh like this.
At least, that's what he told himself.
"So, thank you," Dodge continued, snapping Sam back to reality. "I know you've probably got bigger fish."
"Actually, I don't," Sam admitted.
"No joke," Dean said simply. "I've got some questions."
Metatron pointed his handy shotgun at Dean. "Why did you summon me?"
"Like I said, I've got questions," Dean replied. "Look, there's no holy ring of fire. No other angels, and I've warded against anyone who might want to drop in."
It happened to be true. Metatron didn't like it when humans told the truth; he found that they did this right before doing something utterly foolish. He didn't lower his gun, but his expressions softened.
"Questions about what?" he asked.
"I want to know about fallen angels."
"Like Lucifer?"
"No, not that fallen," Dean corrected. "More like, say, Gabriel."
"Gabriel? The archangel who left his post, made his entire family believe he was dead, then pretended to be trickster for a few thousand years?" Metatron asked in his most annoyed voice.
"Sounds about right," Dean replied. "What would've happened to him if he, say, cut out his grace to become human?"
From behind the barrel of his gun, Metatron could tell his hypothetical question wasn't about Gabriel.
"You just said it," he replied blithely, "he'd be human."
"Yeah, I get that, I mean, would he have a soul? When he died, what would happen to him?"
For a man staring at the end of a shotgun, Dean really pushed buttons. Metatron lowered the gun but kept it trained on him. "What are you trying to accomplish, Dean?" the archangel asked with resentment.
Sam sat in his motel room, his mind occasionally wandering over bits of his and Dodge's lunch conversation. He shook himself out of it. He needed to focus on Harper Scoggins.
Something about the entire situation didn't add up for Sam. Maybe he just needed something to do with Dean being such an ass, or maybe it was just plain instinct. But the killer mailed the ID of this man to the police, like the other taunts, yet he was alive.
"When we showed him his ID, he said, 'Oh, I lost my wallet a few days ago!' Turns out, he even filed to get a new one that morning," Dodge had explained to Sam.
When Sam asked Dodge if she noticed any injuries on Harper, she had agreed. "Yeah, he had a bit of a limp, like a bad back, and he was wearing a turtle neck, but none of that makes him a zombie," she had added playfully.
He smiled when he remembered her smile. 'Get a grip,' Sam thought to himself. 'Stop thinking about her and start thinking about the case.'
Sam was certain this was a case. Strangulation wouldn't kill a vampire, or a shifter, or, well, anything supernatural, really. Neither would falling from a great height. Usually supernatural entities left bodies in their wake, so Sam dipped into the local police reports.
No heartless bodies, so likely not a skinwalker or a werewolf. No exsanguinated bodies, so not a vampire. Sam iterated through the list of possibilities, crossing out monster after monster as he went.
"I'm not accomplishing anything," Dean spat back. "I just want answers."
"And you summoned me?"
"You're the one with all the answers."
Metatron considered this. Dean hadn't been using flattery; no, he had been stating the truth. He honestly believed that Metatron had the answers.
"Angels that fall have souls," Metatron replied. "God decides their final repose upon death."
Dean considered this seriously. Metatron didn't like company; he had learned to enjoy the solace of solitude in his years as a daring recluse. At one point in his life, he envied those souls in their own little heavens, happily existing alone. Something in Dean's behavior threw him, though. He thought he'd gotten a good take on the man when he and his brother struggled to slam the gates of hell.
"You're fretting a single soul?" Metatron asked. "The guy who helped lock away every demon?"
"What's that suppose to mean?" Dean shot back.
"I mean," Metatron started, "you and your brother have affected countless souls and not always in a good way. Yet you're honestly upset about this one hypothetical soul."
"So what?"
"It bothers me you've summoned me for this little mind game of yours, Dean Winchester."
"This isn't a mind game," Dean tentatively said. "I just, I need to know what would happen to Castiel if he - "
" - Castiel?" Metatron repeated. "He didn't cut out his grace, did he?"
"No," Dean replied. "But he brought it up."
"Why would he do that?"
"It doesn't matter," Dean snapped.
Metatron raised the barrel of his shotgun again. "Of course it matters! The reason for his fall is an important part of how his soul is judged."
Dean hedged, "For love."
"Love?" Metatron repeated, "Can you be a bit more specific?"
Dean bit his lip and replied, "So he can grow old and die with the human he loves."
Metatron considered this. "That would make him an idiot, but I don't think God would hold it against him."
"You don't think? That's reassuring," Dean commented sarcastically.
Having eliminated anything creepy, crawly, or monster-like on his list, Sam concluded Harper could be a powerful witch. Unfortunately, in a city like Chicago, a clever monster might be able to cover its tracks, which meant Sam needed to prepare for everything possibility.
He whipped up a batch of the witch-killing potion Bobby had given him and his brother. Then he packed a silver knife, bullets, and a few other odds and ends just in case.
Sam stopped when he realized he was about to assess a possible case based on surviving an attack. Maybe, in this instance, subtlety would be more effective. He sat down and considered his options.
"Be honest, Dean," Metatron barked from behind his gun, "this isn't about Castiel."
"What're you talking about - "
'Humans can be such idiots,' Metatron thought to himself. "If this was about Castiel, he'd be here asking me, not you. So why don't you ask your damn question so I can go back to ignoring gnats like you?"
Dean ruffled himself but took a moment before responding. "All I want to know is - Will Cas be all right? I just want to know that much."
Metatron truly lowered his gun this time, pointing the barrel at the ground.
"What?" Dean asked at this oddly non-hostile gesture.
"This isn't about Castiel," Metatron repeated. "This is all about you. You're afraid."
"Screw you!"
"Not afraid to die," Metatron continued, "but afraid to live. Honestly, I should kill you," he indicated his gun, "for wasting my time. But that'll only give you what you want, the easy way out of your troubles, Winchester. Sorry, kid, you'll have to grub in the dark and hope for the best like everybody else. Give my love to the prophet, your brother, and Castiel."
The sound of wings went up; Metatron was gone.
"Freaking angels!"
<<< Previous Part:
Part One: Bankable
Next Part: >>>
Part Three: Murphey's Law
Primary Post: 09x07 Procedural Drama
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)