One
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"It would seem, Mr Winchester, that our best course of action would be to plead temporary insanity," the man said, with carefully crafted charm and perhaps the merest hint of amusement.
Dean looked at the man standing in front of the desk to which he was handcuffed. He was almost tall, but not too imposing for a lawyer. However, Dean had come to recognise over the years that people who looked imposing rarely were, while the quiet ones… Well, they had to be watched.
"Really. You think that's gonna help?" he asked, managing to match the man's charm without even trying.
"No. But it would avoid having to explain to the jury that you 'hunt monsters' for a living - a story that is contrary to the belief of various law-enforcement agencies with whom you have copious records. I assume you're sticking to that story?"
"Don't have another."
"Story? Or living?"
"Both."
"I see."
"No, you don't."
The man unbuttoned the first of some rather attractive round holdfasts on his immaculate, fantastically expensive suit jacket and pulled out the wooden chair. He sat himself down with small movements that positively reeked of breeding and money, setting his briefcase on the bleak table of the police cell with a determined smile that Dean had seen many times before. On the face of a vampire, among others.
"I have a peculiar feeling this is going to be one of my more… memorable cases," the man said with relish. He crossed his ankles without apparent hurry, lacing his hands in his lap and leaning back into the chair to appraise the Winchester at his leisure. "We haven't actually been introduced, and I must apologise for the rush here. They have treated you with haste and scorn in a city where arrests such as yours would have the tabloids attempting to batter down the door, if only anyone bothered to actually use the elementary education with which they were blessed and read your charges." He stood abruptly, holding his right hand out. "Mr Winchester, my name is--"
"Look, pal, you look like a lawyer, and you certainly sound like a lawyer, so I'm gonna pretend you are a lawyer. But while I'm cuffed to this desk like Charlie Manson, I'm not really gonna be comfortable discussing my 'case'," Dean smiled serenely.
The man nodded. "I see. Well, under the circumstances, I don't see what harm a little personal freedom would do you." The man let his hand drop and turned on a dime to the door of the room. He banged and it opened. "Ah! There you are, my good man. Would you be kind enough to release my client from his bonds? The poor degenerate is already suitably weakened from six hours without food or water, and therefore completely physically unprepared to move any faster than I would trouble myself in these new shoes."
The police officer stepped inside and was followed by the lawyer as he made it to the table. He eyed Dean for a long moment before reaching over and unlocking the handcuffs.
"Don't make me put those back on," the officer said sternly.
"Y'know, if I was a chick, that offer would really do it for me. I'll be staying out of those for now," Dean winked with malicious amusement.
The lawyer's face cracked into an immediate and face-defeating grin that stayed aimed at Dean until the officer had left the room and secured the door once again. Dean's supercilious expression dropped like lightning.
The lawyer advanced on the table. "There we are. Better?"
"Oh yeah. I could do this every day," Dean grumbled, rubbing his wrist.
"Then I think it's time we were formerly introduced, Mr Winchester. I'll be your attorney."
"Until my real one gets here," Dean grunted, but offered his hand anyway. The man took it and they shook, both slightly surprised by the firmness of the others' grip.
"Oh I assure you, you will never need another lawyer," he said, his eyes fairly twinkling as their hands dropped. "My name," he added, letting one hand steal to the button in the middle of his suit jacket, "is Alan Shore."
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Dean looked at the expensive table under his crossed arms as his forehead rested quite comfortably upon them. He pondered the craziness of the last twenty-fours in terms he could get his head around - which basically boiled down to a nuisance that stood between him and a cheeseburger. From a diner at least four hundred and twenty miles from his current position.
He lifted his head as he heard the swish of a plush door to the similarly opulent office. Eyeing the man who walked in, he managed a huff. "Thought you'd left me to my real lawyer."
"I am your real lawyer, Mr Winchester. I did get your bail paid and you released into my firm's custody - no mean feat considering the charges against you," Alan smiled genially. "Your first choice of lawyer hasn't arrived, so you can stop fighting my help or simply plead guilty to murder and go down for a good few years. Which would you like?" he asked curiously.
Dean's eyes went past him to the closed door and he huffed. "Maybe he ain't comin'. You'll have to do," he admitted.
Alan inclined his head just a tad. He carried his long coat and briefcase to the chair opposite Dean, dropping one over the back rest and the other to the desk. "I asked them to bring you food. Did you get it?"
"I got something that would have passed for great if they'd left the meat in," Dean shrugged. "Thanks, though."
"It's my job, Mr Winchester. Now then," he said happily, making himself comfortable in the chair, busying around with several bulky manila files. "I've been reading the old FBI file on you, before and after you were declared dead - twice," he added with some awe. He sat back, closing a folder with certainty. "Odd that they refuse to believe you actually are alive right now. How could they ignore such irrefutable evidence as a renowned lawyer swearing it's really you in the flesh?"
"You don't know me, pal," Dean said dismissively. "I could be anyone pretending to be Dean Winchester."
"True. Well, if you are… I must say, it's not what I expected at all."
"You were expecting someone taller?" Dean smirked.
Alan opened his mouth but there was a polite knocking on the door. He turned and Dean sat back to await this latest development.
"That would be me," said a voice, and once the owner was around the doorjamb he was indeed one of the tallest people Alan Shore had ever seen duck through the entrance to his office. The man walked in confidently enough, his briefcase under his arm and his longer-than-average brown hair swept back behind his ears in at least a pretence at decorum.
"And you would be?" Alan asked politely, getting to his feet and offering a hand.
Dean looked up at the new lawyer before the tightness to his eyes appeared to relax slightly. The new addition to the room put his hand out to Alan's and shook it.
"Charles Fort," he said, nodding.
"Ah yes, Mr Fort. Mr Winchester had all but given up hope of your arrival. Welcome to Crane, Poole and Schmidt," Alan smiled.
"I went to the county jail but they redirected me here. They say my client has a slight… imagination problem?"
"Perhaps," Alan acceded, but he looked back at Dean before appraising the newcomer. "If you don't mind me asking, why would he ask for you when this firm was given his case by the judge this morning?"
"I've worked with Mr Winchester before," Charles said with a nod.
"Really?" Alan havered, a slight smile on his face. "Been practising long?"
"Uh, no," Charles shrugged. "Actually? This is my first murder case."
"And you've come from…?"
"Oh, ah - Kansas. Rickard, Sutton and Sieveking," Charles nodded eagerly.
Alan's eyes narrowed slightly. "I see," he judged, in a tone that told Charles he did at that, and only too well. "So," he added suddenly, smiling and rubbing his hands in apparent cheer, "how do we divvy up this partnership?"
"Well, if it's ok with you, Mr Shore--"
"Oh please - call me Alan," he beamed.
"Alan then. If it's ok with you, I'd like to be… well, more of an observer. As I said, it's my first murder case and I've been a fan of yours for a while. I'd love to see how you do it," Charles nodded.
"Oh," Alan blinked. "I shall have to invite you to a sleep-over some time." He sniffed and turned back to the defendant, sitting and watching the two of them. "Have no fear, Mr Winchester," he said brightly, "I have tried many, many cases in my time, and I have absolutely no intention of losing this one."
"Super," Dean managed.
Alan flourished his jacket to a close before sitting, pulling his briefcase toward him and opening it up. Charles pulled up a chair and looked at Dean. He frowned back at the taller man, darting his eyes at Alan with urgency, who was still hidden behind his briefcase. Charles pulled out the puppy eyes and shrugged almost indiscernibly.
Alan closed his case, slapping a rather hefty file on the table. "So then. Let's get to the night in question. The police caught you running from a scene where a woman was lying in the street, two rather large stab wounds in her body caused by the long, inscribed blade that you had in your hand at the time. It bore her blood and traces of flesh, and your sweat was on the handle. No other prints or traces were found. It looks bad. Can you explain what you were doing there?"
Dean sat back and looked at Charles Fort for a long moment.
"Please, enlighten us," Charles smiled, but it appeared a little too polite, a little too tight.
Dean cleared his throat, flicking his gaze up at Alan. "You won't believe me."
"Sir, I have seen midgets riding scooters down these very halls, a partner of the firm partying in a bunny costume, a high court judge arrange to kill his wife using a local nineteen forties pulp fiction reject, Victorian pornography collections, two grown men in Buzz Lightyear regalia fighting by the lift - and I myself have graced these offices dressed as a flamingo. Anything you tell me could conceivably rate a little lower than any one of those incidents on my personal disbelief meter."
Dean's worried frown spread into a smile. "Okie dokie." He sat forwards, lacing his fingers together to lean his arms on the table top. "Don't say I didn't warn you… I was there because the girl was possessed by a demon. She killed two people the night before - check the morgue - so she was stabbed with a charmed blade. Which I kinda stole from another demon."
"Mr Winchester, without trying to come across as some kind of TV junkie, I have had the misfortune to have been a captive audience to shows like The Dresden Files. Aren't you supposed to exorcise demons?" Alan asked with a ready smile.
"You can. But it's easier to stab 'em if they're right in front of you," Dean said, with an equally ready smile.
"Are you sure you stabbed her?" Charles interrupted.
Dean turned his supercilious expression on him. "Want to ask me the angle of the blow? The splatter pattern? What colour her earrings were? Go right ahead, Gil Grissom," he said coldly.
Charles' chin stuck right out in abject vehemence. "Why don't you ask him why he's really here, Mr Shore?" he asked quietly.
"What? And entertain the notion he may not be totally and in every way insane after all? Then I couldn't represent him," Alan grinned. "Still, it would be fun." He turned to look at Dean. "If I did ask you why you 'really' did it, what would you answer be? Remember, when they get you on the stand you won't be able to lie."
"I'm sure that would be no trouble for him," Charles put in, his teeth mostly together.
"It wouldn't be any trouble at all - I learn from those around me," Dean said, with surprising lethargy that Alan took to be reluctance. Dean looked away suddenly, at the table top. Alan watched the pair of them as he leant back in his chair, but said nothing.
Charles's face shifted into earnest territory again. "Just tell us what you thought you were doing."
Dean avoided his gaze. Alan studied him in silence.
"She was a demon," Dean insisted.
"I see," Alan sighed. He opened the manila file again. "You purport to be a monster hunter and killer, sir. Do you often do this in full view of an audience?"
"No-one saw it," Dean asserted suddenly.
"For your sake, I hope not," Alan observed quietly. He mused for a second before looking up from the file. "It says here you had no traces of blood on you at all. So you holding the murder weapon is decidedly circumstantial."
"Is that good?"
"It is," Alan nodded cheerfully. "Now all we have to do is come up with a reason for you wanting to run from a crime scene holding a bloodied jungle weapon."
"Tell us," Charles said firmly.
"No," Dean said forcefully to Alan, before pinning Charles with a look.
"Mr Winchester, please explain why you apparently stabbed a woman in the street last night, and were careless enough to get yourself arrested for it. It really is quite important."
Dean took a deep breath. He held onto it for a moment, looking undecided.
"Mr Winchester, I can't help you if I don't know the real details," Alan added, sounding much more gentle.
"No," Dean said quietly. "Just… no."
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Yeah, you know why, right? Hope you like Alan. I adore him. :)
And yeah, in all the excitement I forgot to mention this is Boston Legal crossover!