Due Supernatural [NC17] Sam/Dean, Part One
Title: Due Supernatural
Author: queenklu
Beta by: dugindeep
Artist: sagetan
Word Count: 30,475
Pairing: Sam/Dean (AU, not related. This is not a statement.)
Rating: NC17
Warnings: ...sssssex? Some violence, no more (and quite a bit less) than is in the show.
Summary: Constable Samuel Winchester of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has come to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and, for reasons about to be explored at this juncture, he has found himself attached to one rough-around-the-edges Chicago flatfoot by the name of Detective Dean Harvelle, who is not as dissimilar as one would suppose. Even factoring in the quite literal demons haunting Sam's past.
“Excuse me,” Sam said, stepping up to take his place at the front of the line. “I’m Constable Samuel Winchester of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I was wondering-“
“You’re a Mountie?” a young woman asked as she appeared at his shoulder, tossing her head to remove strands of blond hair from her appraising blue eyes.
“Er, yes,” he said, transferring his attention from the man with a rather unfortunate looking haircut behind the desk, and then back again, uncertain as to whom he should be addressing. “I was hoping someone might-“
The mullet-haired officer sniffed rather disdainfully from where he’d sagged forward on the desk. “Aint you kinda lost, man?”
Sam was very good at not letting his smile go tight-he’d had enough practice. “Thank you kindly, Mr. …Ash, but as long as this is the 27th District of Chicago’s Police Department then I am right where I would like to be.”
“You talk kinda funny.”
He blinked. “I…beg your pardon?”
“Good thing you’re so good looking.” A grin-rather wolfish, and Sam would know-spread across the blond woman’s face as she stepped in, and instead of relaxing as Sam was sure he was meant to, he felt himself tensing under such an obvious display of regard. He barely resisted the urge to tug at the collar of his serge.
“Thank you,” he said, finally, “Miss…?”
“Harvelle.” She slid another step into his personal space, until there was really very little room between them and the front desk, looking up at him (a great deal, as Sam was considerably taller) through her lashes. “But you can call me Jo.”
“Jo.” Sam clasped his hands behind his back and put up all of his walls, shellacking the polite, oblivious Canadian temperament in place. “I’m terribly sorry to bother you-“
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she waved off, linking arms with him to pull him from the line. The Sergeant behind the desk snorted and went back to perusing what appeared to be a picture book, of sorts. “Ignore Ash, he wouldn’t know manners if they hogtied him to a trailer park.”
“Hey, now,” Ash warned. “That’s my natural habitat you’re talkin’ ‘bout.”
She ignored him, leaning into Sam. “I’d be more than happy to help you with…whatever you need, Corporal.”
“Constable,” Sam corrected, clearing his throat. “Miss-Er, Jo. Actually, I’m-I’m hoping you could help me locate an officer of the law.”
“Well…” She blinked, slowly, eyes lingering due south of his lanyard as she pushed her chest forward to more prominently display the badge there that read ‘Civilian Aid.’ “I’m practically a police officer-how’s that work for you?”
Sam again clasped his hands behind his back, a deliberate and efficient movement he had learned tended to remind people of his professional demeanor. He was almost certain-almost, of course, only counting in matters of horseshoes and hand grenades-that she wasn’t sincerely interested in him, but only attempting to put him off-guard or elicit unfavorable attention she could then turn against him. Many of the female authority figures he’d had previous experiences with up north had been much the same way.
“It’s actually a specific officer I’m after, Ms. Harvelle. The one assigned to…this case number?” He pulled the documentation from his belt and presented it to her, all smiles and thank-you-kindlys-Stop that, he ordered himself, and shoved his mindset roughly back in place.
“Oh.” Jo’s smirking façade slipped into the mask she wore when doing her job, and Sam allowed himself to feel a small spark of triumph. “Yeah, should’ve figured.” Her mouth twisted, and something in Sam sank. “He’s in the lockup.”
“I don’t mind wait-” Sam stopped. “Beg pardon?”
“Second cell from the end, can’t miss him,” she sighed, pushing the paper against his chest. “Just look for the one running his mouth.”
Even at first glance Sam would have said there were quite a number of men and women detained that would have said fit Ms. Harvelle’s bill rather nicely. He kept his hat in his hands and his footsteps careful and steady, just as he was sure Jo expected him to; as if he was intimidated when faced with so many criminals, but striving to hide it. Instead of unnaturally at ease.
Not that Jo had lingered to watch, but hers wouldn’t be the only eyes drawn to a man in a red uniform.
There wasn’t anything particularly different about the cell second from the end, aside from the curious glances some of the other inmates sent that way. Or more specifically, the way of the man lounging against the back wall, wearing jeans that looked as if they had been painted on, and a white t-shirt that didn’t seem to have much substance to it at all. Sam’s eyes were drawn to his ornaments-twin leather bracelets on one wrist, a thin metal chain on the other to match a plain silver ring on one insignificant finger. He held his body on display, hips jutting out for everyone to salivate over, but his head turned fractionally towards the older man on his left who seemed all too eager for the attention.
“So they hauled you in for your gun, huh?” the shameless man murmured just loud enough for Sam to hear, baring his white, even teeth in a grin. “You even know what to do with it?”
“You got a smart mouth on you,” his admirer panted, looking so much like Bela for a moment that Sam rubbed his nose to hide the break in his mask. “You even know what to do with it?”
“Depends. Hey, Dudley Do-Right!” Sam started, caught by the tone of voice and piercing green eyes turned his way. A leer pulled across the man’s features, but not enough to detract from his attractiveness. “You window shopping or looking to buy?”
This brought a few rounds of chuckles and jeers from the other inmates, and Sam shook off his inertia and stepped up to the bars, schooling his expression into a polite smile. “Actually, I was told this cell held a Detective Mouth, if any of you-“
The man’s features went blank, and then stony, angry as the other prisoners noticed and reared up to their full heights. Honestly, Sam thought as the guard quickly moved forward with the keys, that was hardly any effort at all.
“Nice move, bitch,” the man spat at Sam as he shouldered his way free, and Sam was so startled the word fell from his mouth without consent.
“Jerk.”
Luckily, the detective seemed too preoccupied pulling his holster over his paper-thin shirt to have noticed.
“Alright!” Dean hollered the second he stepped in the bullpen, “Who sent the Mountie into the holding cell?”
“One guess,” Ash hollered without looking up from his skin mag, and Dean rounded on his sister.
“The fuck.”
“Don’t cuss at me,” Jo smirked, hands on her hips, “You think Lieutenant Singer appreciates you making this a hostile working environment?”
“The Lieu’s got enough to do without you screwing up my busts, Joanna,” he sneered right back. Like that wasn’t a threat that fucking worked on him, every time.
Right on cue, the dreaded voice bellowed from his office, “Do I have to separate you two?” loud enough that the entire precinct bustled with people suddenly looking busy.
Dean sighed and obeyed, spinning off from Jo. “We’re good, boss.”
“Good.” Lieutenant Singer didn’t get up from his desk, which meant Dean had to lean into the office in precarious ways to make sure he could be seen. “Detective Harvelle, I somehow recall you passing a class on paperwork? Even if it was by the skin of your teeth? Or maybe you’re practicing for your future entertaining at kids’ birthday parties and turned the paperwork into a rabbit that just…hopped away.”
“Yes, sir, bringing you the bunny, sir.”
Dean spun out of his chair with the files in hand and walked smack into a wall of red wool. Christ, they grew ‘em big in Canada. Dean had to jut his chin up a good couple inches to glare this roadblock in the eye.
“Why are you still here?” Dean asked, very patiently, he thought. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”
“I’m terribly sorry for the misunderstanding,” the Mountie-man said, but he didn’t look terribly sorry. Okay, no, scratch that, he looked plenty sorry, Dean just wasn’t buying it. Nobody that good-looking actually felt anything close to the level of remorse Dean would need to accept that the Mountie felt bad about busting his…bust; Being a decently good-looking guy himself, Dean knew these things. “I was simply trying to-“
“Do you know who that was?” Dean cut him off, jabbing a finger back towards lockup. “That man I just spent an hour with breathing down my neck? Biggest damn pimp on the Upper East Side and you blew my cover before he could offer me a job. Son of a bitch.” Dean wrangled free of the wire while he talked, aware that he was flashing some skin but too angry to care at this point.
“We have a word for that in Canada.”
“Oh yeah?” Dean snapped while he tugged the tape free from his goody trail, “What’s that? ‘Pimp, eh?’”
“Entrapment.”
Dean’s gaze jerked up, sure for a split second there was something like interest around the corners of the Mountie’s strangely earnest eyes, in spite of the serious disdain dripping from his tone. “…Huh.”
“Harvelle!”
Dean quickly sidestepped into his boss’s office, dropping the files on the Lieu’s desk as subtly as a guy could drop anything. He could feel the red eyesore hovering right outside the doorway, just as sure as he could feel the gritty scratch of Singer’s pen across the duty roster.
Singer didn’t look up when he rumbled, nice and slow to spell it out real clear, “You need me to tell you to play nice, boy?” Then he did look up, and Dean flinched.
“No, Sir.”
There was a pinch around Singer’s mouth that Dean would’ve sold a lung to have gone in that instant. It was a And-here-I-thought-maybe-I-was-done-worrying-about-you-doing-stupid-shit look, a disappointed look, a look that said if there wasn’t a walking fire hydrant twiddling his hat within hearing range the Lieu would be tearing him yet another new one, to go with his collector’s set.
The Lieu’s eyes dropped real briefly to Dean’s wrists, which he made sure to show were nice and unmarked under the thin loops of his bracelets. And he kept his thoughts quiet until a flick of Singer’s pen sent him backing out with a short nod.
The Mountie was waiting for Dean at the door-of course he was-and followed him all the way back to his desk like Clifford the Big Red Dog. “Okay, seriously?” Dean asked, eyebrows high but his fire gone, “What do you want from me?”
Big Red handed over a piece of paper without a word.
Dean barely resisted the urge to bang his head against the desk (again and again and again) then got up and sat on his cluttered desktop to remove the temptation. Which meant his jeans bunched in a way that wasn’t entirely comfortable, but at least he wasn’t breaking his neck staring up at this guy.
“Alright, man, look. That you popped in here in person means this is pretty high up on your priority list, right? I get that. Dead Mountie, whatever, probably like if someone killed a cop.” He dropped his voice on that last bit, because you just don’t say shit like that. “But I gotta tell you, this is not at the top of my priorities, and it doesn’t really seem to be at the top of your boss’s either. They keep telling me ‘hunting accident-’”
“It wasn’t.”
Whoa. Alright, fine. Dean had been doing his damned-ness to play nice (in the last few minutes), but that cold fury came out of fucking nowhere and seriously roughed up his calm. Except- The anger was tucked back out of sight so fast that if Dean’s hackles hadn’t still been up, he’d’ve blamed it on sleep deprivation and let it drop. Instead he made them both a little rope-bridge of silence, interrogation technique #134, and waited for this stranger to break it.
It gave Dean time to finally look at him, see past the cardboard Mountie cut out to the…well, to the guy Dean wouldn’t kick out of bed if it came in civilian clothes. His hair was longer than Dean expected from the movies (were there even Mountie movies? Maybe he meant cartoons), but combed into place with military precision, brown bangs not quite long enough to be tucked behind his ears. Tall, like Dean mentioned, broad shoulders, trim waist, standing at parade rest. No way was he older than Dean, probably even a small handful of years younger, but his eyes looked old. Not old tired, not old seen-it-all, just…I know. I know who I am. I know who you are.
Neat trick. Half the time Dean didn’t even know who he was.
He gave himself a mental shake just as Mountie-boy did it physically, a lock of his carefully organized hair falling down over his brow when he ducked his head. “I’m-I apologize for my outburst, and my failure to introduce myself. I’m Constable Samuel Winchester, RCMP. The ‘dead Mountie,’ as you say, was my father.”
An unhealthy, damaged chunk of Dean wanted to leap forward and commiserate with him, go, Aw man, that sucks, tell me about it, but he shut it down. This wasn’t bonding time. This wasn’t a suspect. And in a few more minutes, he wouldn’t even be Dean’s problem.
“Yeah, well. This is hunting season,”-Dean started ticking the facts off on his fingers-“your dad wasn’t wearing fire engine red or any other kind of reflective safety gear, he was shot with a common scope rifle caliber, and they found a whole bunch of dead caribou around his body. That really doesn’t point towards murder.”
“Perhaps,” Winchester said with a tilt of his head, and why didn’t Dean buy that for a second? “Manslaughter, however, is another matter. If we can prevent another such incident from occurring, then it is our duty to do so.”
Dean felt like he was watching one of those instructional videos back at the academy. “Okay, whatever. I’m telling you,” he held up a hand when it looked like Winchester was about to find a way to politely interrupt, “that I will get to it. I will call each and every damn person on that list and grill them like their lives depend on it. And if one of them is guilty? I will haul their ass in.”
Winchester’s eyes flicked to the disaster of his inbox, like he’d be able to levitate the list right to the top of the pile if he stared hard enough, then brought his gaze back up to Dean’s so fast it was almost hard to remember it had happened.
“Meanwhile,” Dean said around the sudden clench in his jaw, “actual murders are taking place, real life bad guys who mean to do bad and then do it, and who aren’t getting the book thrown at them because people keep interrupting me. Comprende?”
Dean spread his arms a little as he stood, a trick to look bigger than he was (and he was not small, just not a freaking sasquatch either) and slid into the Mountie’s space to make him back off. He didn’t, and Dean wound up bruising the back of his thighs on the corner of his desk getting free.
“He wasn’t a pimp.”
Dean took a deep, calming breath and turned back around. “Pardon?” he said, even going so far as to speak Canadian.
“The man-panting at you in the cell?” It even came out with a straight face, pause so subtle Dean almost missed it because-a smile that tight should not give the man dimples. How seriously unfair were his genetics? “He has a tattoo on the back of his neck.”
“In America, pimps are allowed to have tattoos.”
There was a tiny little shake of his head, and his voice was barely above a hum. “I think you’ll find that it’s a symbol of the mythical beast called an adlet, a vampiric dog-human hybrid that, among other things, mates for life.”
Dean stared at him, long and hard. “You just made that shit up.”
“No, I didn’t.” There was a smile-a very tiny, almost invisible smile-lurking in the corner of his mouth, but it didn’t look like a ha ha caught you smile. In fact, it looked kind of cold, cut off. “It’s an ancient Inuit legend that has taken somewhat of a cult following in modern times. As long as the blood he indulges in is strictly animal in origin he should be fairly harmless, should you choose to continue your romantic endeavors.”
Constable Winchester slung his duffle over one shoulder, turned on his heel, and left with a brief tip of his hat, calf-high boots thudding dully against the cement floor.
“…Freak.”
Sam stepped out of the Police Department and breathed deep-or started to, until he remembered the air quality of Chicago in general. Then he cracked his neck.
And his jaw. Damn it.
His skin itched from more than the serge. He wanted to shed it, shed these feelings and the uniform and just-
No. Sam shook his head. He had things to accomplish before he could. Until then… He gathered up the pretentious words and full sentences, keeping them close, building a wall between himself and the irrational outbursts of emotion brought on by the proximity of that cop.
He sighed, inwardly, bracing for a sweetly scathing remark from Bela that, for obvious reasons, never came. For all that he had to put up with when she was around, she might have been able to create a distraction giving Sam the opportunity to search the Detective’s desk. Of course, her distractions tended to involve quite a bit more bodily harm than was strictly necessary…
Oh well. Sam straightened his spine that last fraction of an inch and started marching.
~*~
The Canadian Consulate was a sturdy brick building tucked in between slate grey structures twice its height, Americans as overbearing in architecture as they are in spirit. Sam allowed himself a small curl of his lips as he saw the flag, surprised by an unexpected surge of patriotism so far from home. Apparently the serge was both literally and figuratively starting to rub off on him.
“OUT OF THE WAY!”
Sam hissed in a breath and obeyed, only just catching himself from reaching for…something he hadn’t tried to bring on the plane-as a Canadian officer ran from the building holding a tray of something that appeared to be on fire, wearing a frilly apron over his standard brown RCMP uniform. He bolted past Sam to the edge of a small garden-dry and dying now in the fall-dropped the flaming tray, and proceeded to quite literally hose it down.
“Fudge! Fudge!”
At first Sam thought he was merely substituting for the vernacular, but on closer inspection it did indeed seem to be…
“Fudge!” the man hollered again, throwing down the hose, then he turned and froze halfway through wiping his oven-mitt adorned hands on his apron. “Dude,” he said, tilting his head to one side to better frown at Sam, “What the hell are you wearing?”
Sam wished rather fervently for Bela to be near enough to growl.
“I bed your pardon?”
“Red. You’re wearing the red. Oh man, you are so getting guard duty-Not it!”
“…I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”
“Wow.” The nose above his scruffy chin wrinkled. “You’re like, really Canadian, eh? I mean, pfft, so am I. Hi,” he said, extending his hand, then jerking it back to remove the oven mitt before extending it again. “I’m Constable Andrew Gallagher. Andy. What up.”
“Constable…Samuel Winchester...”
“Huh,” Andy said, tilting his head, “Must be new. So, uh…” He started heading towards the Consulate entrance, walking backwards to trail Sam along. “What’d you do?”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Pardon?”
Andrew’s smile went crooked, then let out a scoff. “No, seriously. This is, like, the Land of the Lost-Toys. Or the Land of…I don’t know, Recalled Toys. The toys with, like, pieces babies choke-You know what? This is Mountie dumping ground, my friend. If they’d wanted you in Canada, they’d-a kept you there.”
“Interesting.” Sam had to put a little extra effort into keeping his face blank, but not for the reasons anyone might guess. “Were you perhaps- I don’t mean to pry, but what brought you to Chicago?”
“Pry.” Andy’s face contorted momentarily as he scoffed. “Dude, maybe they kicked you out for being too Canadian.”
He pushed the door open, almost into another Mountie, this one with short-cropped dark brown hair under his slightly singed Stetson that was much more kempt than Constable Gallagher’s had any hope to be. And he was clean-shaven, spine ramrod straight under his mildly scorched red uniform. “Welcome to Canada!”
“Shut up, Corbett,” Andrew ordered, and shouldered him to one side.
Constable Corbett seemed unperturbed, if the fact that he clicked his heels together was any indication. “May I offer you some pemmican? It expands!”
Sam’s stomach turned, mask slipping almost completely off as the bag of dried flesh was shoved under his nose. “Ah, no thank you.” He squeezed past Corbett-barely-and followed Andy’s stalwart stomp down the hallway lined with portraits of the Queen.
“Was he, ah, too Canadian?” Sam asked, blandly. Andy gave him a look, then huffed and paused outside a door emitting faint tendrils of smoke.
“Dunno. I heard he dissed curling. Look, Inspector Tiel’s in his office-I’ve got another batch of brownies to bake, so if you don’t mind...”
“Oh, it wasn’t fudge?” Inane was almost Sam’s second nature, now. Good.
“What wasn’t?”
“The pan you left outside.”
“Oh, yeah,” Andy agreed suddenly, nodding with undue exaggeration, “Definitely. Special fudge.”
The Sam he wasn’t supposed to be snorted. The Sam he currently was nodded politely and went to speak with Inspector Tiel.
Okay, only so many places a Mountie could be: the Hoser Hut down on 7th-which, color Dean dumb, but this particular Canuck didn’t seem like the Hoser Hut kind of guy, and not just because a puck hadn’t taken out any of his teeth-or the Canadian Consulate. And even if he wasn’t there, odds were they’d know where he was.
So Dean could have called.
Instead he pulled his baby over to the curb and got out, making a beeline for the doorway overshadowed by a blinding red and white maple leaf flag. Aw, cute, they even had a Mountie statue out front for the tourists to take pictures w-
Dean stopped. Looked around. Looked back at the perfectly immobile human being standing guard.
“You’re kidding right?”
No answer.
“You are fucking kidding me.”
Not even a blink.
“Shit.” Dean raked a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. He’d thrown on his leather jacket before high-tailing it out of the precinct, but he hadn’t managed to grab another shirt-and like hell was he zipping up-so the autumn air had a bit of a bite to it, almost enough to make him envy a cocoon of retina-searing wool. …Nah.
“Constable Winchester?” He stood a little to one side, trying to coax those strangely intriguing hazel eyes his way. “Samuel Winchester? Can I call you Sam?”
The Mountie didn’t even breathe differently.
Dean thought about heading inside, asking when the spell wore off their little toy soldier so he could come back later, but that didn’t-it didn’t feel right pretending Winchester didn’t exist, even though the guy didn’t seem inclined to return the favor. Which…alright, might not be such a bad thing. For now.
Dean rolled his shoulders, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet before he just spit it out. “Alright, I’m sorry if I came off as all-cold shoulder and shit about your dad. That really, truly sucks.”
Dean thought he saw a flicker at the corner of Sam’s-the Constable’s-gaze, but he could have just been blinking. If he was allowed to blink. “I can do the cop-speak if you’d like that better. I’m genuinely sorry for your loss. Death of a loved one is always a tragedy.” Nothing. “Nah, it’s hard for me to sell, so it’s gotta be hard for you to buy. Just trust me, I really do feel bad for brushing you off. When my dad died I was a fucking wreck, and he just had a heart attack. If there was someone to blame besides bacon fat and high cholesterol I’d go to the ends of the earth hauling the son of a bitch in.” Dean’s lips quirked, and he almost got another blink. “So I guess we’ve got that in common.”
Part of what made Dean a good cop was what Jo called his “freaky people reading voodoo,” and the fact that Winchester was giving him so little to go on… Well, that may have snagged Dean’s interest a little. Now, other people might say he was imagining things, but it looked to Dean like Sam (and it was Dean’s head, he could call him whatever he wanted) got a little soft around the edges. Like he said, not so anyone would notice. Except people looking for it.
Dean hid the start of a smile, looking off across the dying lawn. “Oh and you were right about the pimp-or not-a-pimp-by the way. Turns out he’s some low life Internal Affairs bought trying to sniff out… Whatever, you saved my hide. And I set up a tail to make sure if he is into that blood stuff that he gets his poison from a butcher shop and not the local mortuary. So, nice tip.”
Sam was playing dumb again-ain’t nobody here but us chickens-but if Dean thought he could see a little smugness buried in there, who was he going to tell?
“So…” He cleared his throat, rocked on his heels. “So I made a few calls. Well, alright, I called everyone on that list of people flying in and out of Canada around the time of the accident.” Dean paused, expecting some sort of outburst, but the most he got from Sam was a little pinch in the corner of his mouth. “Seeing as it was the first week of hunting season, I was sort of expecting… But I guess it’s our luck that not many people can afford flying to the middle of nowhere, right?”
Dean even reached out to nudge him a little, before letting his hand fall short and eating his grin. Something about the royal guards. Didn’t they have permission to beat you up if you touched them? Christ.
“Look, listen.” He moved directly into Sam’s line of sight so he didn’t have a choice about the first bit. “Like I said, if it was my dad, I’d be kicking heads out of the way to get the guy that popped him. And I’m figuring you for that kind of guy, too. But the thing is, I can’t let you wander around terrorizing completely innocent people looking for the bad fruit in the bunch, and seeing as I’m-kinda between partners at the moment, I thought I’d let you tag along. You know. With me. On the job. …Helloo.”
Not even a blink.
“Seriously, dude, I’m gonna find a spoon somewhere and dangle it from your mouth-”
Sam’s gaze snapped to his and for a second, and Dean swore he could hear bells.
Probably because he was, in fact, hearing bells. Clock bell, chime type things. Five of them. Still, it kind of made his hair stand on end.
“That’s the end of my shift,” Sam said, kind of quietly, and then his eyebrow quirked. “A spoon?”
“It lives!” Dean cried, maybe a little over the top. He dropped his hands, shoulders rolling in their holster. “So you coming?”
“Yes.” Sam took off his Stetson and tucked it under one arm, and it might’ve just been the Autumn sunlight hitting his features but Dean thought he saw something…human…in the flash of Sam’s grin. “Definitely.”
“You don’t need to check with anyone?” Shit, was Dean stalling? Now? Why? Other than whatever was making his chest feel tight out of the blue. “You know, before we-head out?”
Sam looked over his shoulder with a definite wince. “No, you’re right. One moment.”
He barely touched the doorknob when it jerked open and a Mountie-or a Ranger Rick, he wasn’t wearing the red uniform like Sam-fell out. “Oh, heeeey,” Mr. Rick drawled. “Hey, Sam. You don’t. Have to stand guard any more,” he added, pausing to half-ass a hiccup. “Okay?”
“Thank you, Constable Gallagher, I had noticed.”
Dean nearly pulled something trying not to snort. All he managed to do was turn Sam’s hilarious expression his way. Definitely something Jo would call a bitch-face.
“Could you please inform Inspector Tiel-Oh, never mind. Corbett?”
A second Mountie, wearing the red and probably not high as a kite, appeared at Gallagher’s shoulder. “Yes, sir!”
“I’m going out.”
Dean grinned. This was pretty damn awesome, seeing Constable Samuel Winchester’s Canadian tapped down to the bottom of the barrel.
“Yes, sir!” Corbett saluted. “I will inform the Inspector! Where shall I tell him you’ve gone?”
Sam closed his eyes. Dean’s grin was starting to hurt in places. “Tell him I’ve gone with Detective Harvelle.”
“Ah,” Corbett winked. “I see. A little tête-à-tête, as the French say. And the Canadians. Well, the French speaking Canadians. And the Quebecois. Which, I suppose-“
Sam shut the door in their faces. Dean’s day was officially made.
“Now that was damn near rude,” he mock-gasped as Sam joined him in walking towards the car. “Think you’ve got a bit of Chicago in you, Sammy.”
Their elbows brushed, so Dean got to feel the surprise flicker through the Mountie’s frame. All he got on the outside, though, was a wrinkled nose. “Sammy?”
“Mmhmm,” Dean smirked, probably way too smug as he climbed into his baby. Yeah, her hinges squeaked, but not nearly loud enough to cover up Sam grumbling, “Sounds like a chubby twelve-year-old,” as he slid into the passenger’s seat.
He looks good in it, hit Dean like a hacky-sack between the eyes, but he shoved the thought away.
“That’s the first incomplete sentence I’ve heard from you,” Dean said, playing up his incredulity but not by much. “Right on, Sammy. Right on.”
Highway to Hell and the Impala’s roar to life plowed over any more protests. One classic rock CD: $15. The look on Constable Winchester’s face: fucking priceless.
“Would you mind-? This isn’t really-“
“Allow me to explain an American cultural thing to you: Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.”
“What, pray tell, is a cakehole, and where does a firearm enter into it?”
“…You are so full of shit.”
Sam was truly starting to regret accompanying Detective Harvelle, and it had nothing to do with his fondness for ‘mullet rock’ or questionable interrogation techniques, which seemed to mainly consist of blatantly flirting with every woman in sight until the interested party became annoyed, and then using that fluster against them.
Not that Sam was flustered at all. Not in the slightest. No, he decided, eyes hardening at nothing in particular, he was not.
Dean was-“mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” to group him with Lord Byron.
And they weren’t getting anywhere.
“So we’ve just got the one last interview to do today,” Dean announced as he stepped from his car-a ’67 Chevy Impala painted six coats of gloss black that Dean had gone on (and on) about for great length. “After, you wanna grab some chow?”
“With you?” Sam flinched at his own tone, all the more heartfelt when Dean’s cocky strut faltered but didn’t halt.
He flipped his keys over in his hand without looking at Sam. “Or not.”
Sam ducked his head and rubbed at the backs of his eyes just in time for the deeply (or apparently not so) buried other-Sam to surge up and say, “I’m sorry,” loud enough that no muffling would disguise it.
Dean stopped and turned to look at him, one hand on the pushbar of the building door. It was just starting to drizzle a little, so Dean had to look over the upturned collar of his leather jacket.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said again, in for a penny. “The number of hours it takes to fly from Innuvik-” He cut himself off. “That is, I would very much like to have dinner with you.”
His inner Sam flopped down with a ruthless smirk, even when he reminded it that this meant they wouldn’t be shedding the uniform until much later in the evening.
Inner-Sam offered up a few suggestions for getting them out of it sooner. Highly inappropriate suggestions, shocking enough that Sam-
“Yeah, okay,” Dean said, casual as anything as he pushed open the door, “Sounds like a plan.”
Gotta love the smell of fluoride in the morning, Dean thought grimly, trying not to wrinkle his nose as the dentisty smells wafted over them. The waiting room was pretty quiet, just a mom flipping through a Healthy Living while her kids built vaguely obscene shapes out of building blocks. There was a blond chick with her blond hair cut all pixie short wearing pink pooh-bear scrubs at the front desk, perky nametag perched on a perky rack that read ‘Meg.’ (The nametag, that is, not her-shut up.)
“Meg Masters?” he asked, draping a little over the counter, maybe showing off a bit. For anyone, or at least, not anyone in particular. “Hi.” He grinned, coaxing a smirk out of her. “I’m Detective Harvelle. We spoke on the phone earlier.”
“Right, about my boss and his hunting trip.” Her equally perky eyebrows jumped. “I told you he wasn’t in today.”
“Yeah, but,” Dean dropped his voice just a little, almost hitting the gravelly purr he’d been rocking that morning in the lockup. He didn’t let himself think too hard about why every sense he had was straining for a reaction from Sam, though. Dean snagged one of the flower-topped pens from the desk and tipped it Meg’s way. “You were on that trip, too.”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, shrugging conspiratorially as her tone fell to a mocking hush, “But I wasn’t there to hunt anything.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t see anything strange,” Sam cut in, totally killing the mood.
Dean eased back enough that Meg could get a look at him too, and instantly wished he hadn’t. Her eyes went wide at the bright colors, but when they zoned in on his face all Dean could do was watch the blue in her irises darken down to burnt indigo. Pretty much par for the course.
“Well, well,” she said, and she really nailed the purr, “He does talk. Where’s his string? I’ll give it a pull.”
In-a-propriate, Dean’s gut announced, like maybe he couldn’t tell. A flush the color of his uniform was creeping up Sam’s neck-but not an appreciative one. He didn’t look to Dean for help and he didn’t look annoyed; all he looked was disinterested, uncomfortable, and unimpressed. It made something in Dean squirm, but he wasn’t about to put a name to what.
“Be nice, he’s Canadian,” Dean heard himself cut in anyway, which. Oh man, so not the plan, but it got Meg’s eyes back on him for a sec. He cocked his head. “You got somewhere we can talk?”
“Sure.” She sounded way too smug about getting them alone, feeding just about every threesome fantasy Dean had never let himself have with one smirk.
It was just a short walk to Dr. Gordon Walker’s office, which was full of browns and grays that made Dean want to kill himself, but hey, to each their own. A couple pictures hung up-Dr. Walker, he presumed, an average-looking African American male with a closely shaved head and a short beard type thing around his mouth (Dean was crap for beard names), standing most often with an older black woman who was probably his mom, and a much younger woman who was probably his sister. No wife, no life. No hobbies, besides a photo of him straddling the neck of a felled Rudolf.
“I took that,” Meg said, tapping the frame. “Not my best work, but try explaining angles and light refraction to a bunch of dentists. I minored in photography,” she added to answer Dean’s questioning look. “The boys let me tag along on their trips so I can…frolic with the nature.”
Something about the way she spoke-not just now, but always-rubbed Dean the wrong way. Soft and syrup slow. He hated it. He hated it more when she dripped it at Sam. Taunting, that was the word. I’ve got a secret, I’ve got a secret. So did she really or was she just fucking with the guy in red?
Dean shouldered between them again, and if they thought he was competing for her attention fuck them both. “So, Miss Masters.” He could do that taunting thing too, running his knuckles along his notepad. “Did you? See anything strange?”
“What, you mean like-Big Foot?” She sidled around the desk, blue eyes stuck on the Mountie. “Werewolves maybe?”
“No,” Dean drawled, “Like unsafe or inexperienced gun handling.” What the hell was up with Sam? He was damn near rigid at Dean’s side, pasty white under the neon lights.
Meg’s eyes flicked to Dean’s and stuck, finally. “No. Why?”
“A man was killed in the area your group went looking for eight tiny reindeer-“
“Caribou,” Sam corrected like a knee jerk. So Dean only wanted to hit him a little bit.
“Whatever,” he said instead. And raised his eyebrows at Meg.
“Killed?” she repeated, all fluffy white and pure, like one of those aliens that looks like a kitten until it opens it’s maw and eats the extra’s face. “How?”
Every bit of Sam’s tension was screaming don’t don’t don’t but it was so loud Dean’s mouth was moving by the time he understood the word. “Hun-“
“Thank you for your time.” Sam’s grip on his arm was going to leave actual fucking bruises, Jesus. Dean jerked free pretty quick but not fast enough to keep his fingers from tingling with blood loss. Ow.
Meg’s smirk bared all of her teeth. “See you around, Constable Winchester. Detective Harvelle.”
Dean’s gears got so wrenched at the way she’d tacked him on, at the tone of her voice, that he let himself be herded all the way to the Impala before he sidestepped Sam’s crowding. “Damn it, Sa-“
Dean stopped. Shut the door to his car without getting in, something ugly crawling up his spine. “How did she know your name?”
Dean had been in firefights before-he’d lost a partner to one for fuck’s sake-and Sam had that same look on his face. That blank, have-to-run, nowhere-to-go look, mask torn almost all the way off.
“Sam?” Dean shoved out, backing towards the door. “How did-fuck it.”
“Dea-Detective! Wait-“
“Now that just smarts,” Dean bit out under his breath as he tore up the stairs three at a time with Sam all-but on top of his heels. “You didn’t introduce yourself, Sammy, so how-“
Dean shut up when they slammed their way into the waiting room, but the mom still squeaked and dropped her magazine like it was on fire when she saw them. Either that or she was a little shocked at the bone-jarring shatter of plate glass as something heavy flew through a window, it was kind of a toss up.
“Shit!” His shoulder hit the door before his hand did, so it half opened and half snapped the lock to Gordon Walker’s office as they barreled inside. The window behind the desk gaped with a huge jagged hole, faint smattering of blood on the bottom edge, and Dean’s stomach was trying to crawl up the inside of his throat before he even made himself look.
He focused on the cool, heavy weight of his gun in his hands and Sam’s almost-too-close presence at his back. Meg he couldn’t focus on, a tangle of unnatural angles and staining pooh bear scrubs on the concrete below them, broken glass scattered around her crumpled body.
Sam breathed out something like, “Damn,” which was shocking enough without the sudden absence of his heat at Dean’s side. Fuck. Dean tore off after him, shutting down every emotional sensor he had so he’d be able to look at her body up close.
“Sam, don’t touch anything,” he hollered as they sprinted around the building’s corner in the parking lot. “You don’t have-“
He shut up.
The body was gone.
He looked up at the broken window, and the rain beating away the blood on the concrete.
Meg Masters was gone.
