Summary: We find out exactly what happened with Jim's goat Frank, meet one of John's transvestite hookers, and Dean wears lime green hot pants for the greater good.
Episode 21: Salvation
John: Son of a bitch.
Dean: What is it?
John: I just got a call from Caleb.
Dean: Is he okay?
John: He's fine. Jim Murphy's dead.
Sam: Pastor Jim? How?
John: Throat was slashed. He bled out.
Dean: What about the goat?
Sam: Oh, bad taste, Dean.
Dean: What? Dad's the only one that can get friendly with Frank?
Sam: Oh, man, you too? See, this is why I left. I hate you guys. *gets in the car*
Warnings: Pre-series; Transvestite Hookers; mentions of bestiality; John Winchester's dubious parenting skills; underage cross-dressing; crack!fic
The Conspiracy of Frank
Nothing happened with Frank. Well, mostly nothing. Actually, that depended on which Frank you were talking about.
Frank the Goat, who liked to eat people's pants or Frank the transvestite hooker who usually went by Candy. John hooked up with her whenever they were in town to see Jim. Dean thought she was nice. Sam thought it was weird John felt the need to introduce them to the hooker he paid for sex a couple of times a year. Right now, none of that mattered, though, because Candy had a problem that fell under the category of 'their kind of thing.' Some supernatural something or other was going after local hookers and John had enthusiastically agreed to help.
Dean tried not to think about exactly why he was so enthusiastic.
Sam was eleven so they'd dropped him off at Pastor Jim's with a stack of books so classic Dean was considering it a tragedy. He'd tried to broaden Sam's reading horizons earlier that year. Bought him a stack of porn from the second hand section of a porn store in a town they were passing through and Sam had looked at them with the kind of disgust usually reserved for putting their dad's underwear in the washer on laundry day, dumped them out on the drive in front of their motel, and burned them.
That was the last time Dean tried to help Sam broaden his horizons. Actually, it wasn't, but at the time, Dean was pretty sure it was going to be. He was also pretty sure he was lying to himself, but that was still a few years away.
So, they dropped off Sam and went to meet Candy. She was nice enough, thick blond wig, bright effervescent personality in the form of E-cup falsies spilling out of a neon pink tube top and a purple pleather skirt so tight Dean would have thought it impossible to hide the package he knew was there, except Candy had explained tucking to him the last time they'd been through – complete with a demonstration that had been actually kind of interesting until Dean remembered where that dick had been and now Dean couldn't get that image out of his head, no matter how hard he scrubbed at it.
As they'd approached, Candy waved at them, then made a reassuring gesture to her companions and met John and Dean halfway, all hugs and cheek pats for Dean, leaning down because the heels put her at 6'3. "Look at you! You must have put on at least another inch."
John got a long, appraising look from her, which he returned and Dean tried to pretend his dad wasn't thinking about what Dean knew he was thinking about. There was only so much a fifteen year old should know about his father's sex life.
"John, you're looking well."
"Not bad yourself. New hair?"
"A gentleman always notices."
"I'm no gentlemen."
"Winchester, you naughty boy."
Dean rubbed a hand over his face, "Dad, seriously, can't this wait until I'm, like… three states over?"
John chuckled and Candy winked at him and Dean got the feeling he was the butt of a very inappropriate joke. John reached over and ruffled his hair, just a quick run through, because Dean wasn't above cutting the old man for messing up half an hour of work that morning, before getting back to the matter at hand.
"So, you've got my kind of problem?"
Candy nodded back at the girl still waiting back at the corner. "Come on. Glitter saw the whole thing, she can give you the details."
Glitter was way too calm, either that or she'd smoked some really good shit before stepping out that night and Dean was betting, by smell alone, that it was the later.
"Amber took a client into the alley – he gives us all the creeps, but she's young and they always think they're invincible. I followed, because I wanted to make sure she was okay and there were these… dogs. Really big dogs and something in the middle that wasn't a dog, really, but it almost was. Like I thought it was a dog until I realized it had arms."
Dean perked up, "Arms?"
"Yeah, sugar, like human arms and its head looked human too, only when it got up behind her, its jaw just… unhinged sort of and it took most her throat in one bite and the dogs came in and started going at her hands and feet and the guy was just standing there, watching, and I must have screamed, because they looked at me and I ran. Lucky for me, a movie had just let out and the streets were pretty busy, so they didn't follow, because otherwise…"
Glitter stopped with a choked sob as Candy put a consoling arm around her.
John had his notebook out, scratching down key words and outlining a sketch of what she was describing, but he spared her a sympathetic smile before he pressed. "Anything else you can remember? What did the man look like?"
"Normal, I suppose. White, kind of pale, grey hair. He's always wearing a business suit and he's been here once a week for the last month, since the bodies started showing up."
"And they're all…?"
Candy provided the rest, "Necks ripped out, hands and feet missing, not a lot of blood left in the body, not a lot at the crime scenes, either."
They hung around a while longer. John did a sketch of the creature and had Glitter help him make adjustments here and there until he had it more or less accurate. Dean made some notes of his own and let Candy fawn over him, because 6'3 of burly man in a pleather mini skirt or not, it was still flattering.
They headed back to Pastor Jim's, caught a few hours sleep and got up just before noon to go into research mode. Sam was awake before them, because Sam liked to keep 'normal hours' like a 'normal person' whose family wasn't on a first name basis with a transvestite hooker.
John frowned, "Sam, be nice to Candy. She made you cookies last time."
Dean moaned happily, "Oh, man, those were some good cookies. Think I could get more of those?"
"You find out what's killing her friends, I bet she'll make double."
Sam took a book off the kitchen counter and dropped it in front of John, a small stick-it note peaking out from between its yellowed pages. "Don't bother. It's an Adlet, the creature anyway. Vampiric dog-human. The dogs were probably its brothers and sisters, usually the liters are mostly dog, with only one or two hybrid man-dogs. Not sure who the guy is, but the lore says Inuit girls would offer sexual favors to it in exchange for goods. So, maybe he's offering the girls to it for something."
Dean looked at the book, then back at Sam before deciding to state the obvious. "It wasn't exactly having sex with her, Sammy, and she's not exactly a she."
"The actual text just translates to their 'favors,' it doesn't specify sexual, that's just the popular theory. Or maybe that's why it ate her. Him. Screw you guys, I'm going back to books on social commentary."
He stomped off and Dean sat back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, smiling smugly while John scanned the lore Sam had found. "I am so getting cookies."
They spent the rest of the day researching how to kill it. There really wasn't anything definitive, but rumors centered on the holy trinity of monster killing; beheading, silver, and fire, which, quite frankly, worked on just about everything supernatural.
Sam was on the sofa in the back room, nose in his book and John and Dean were at the table in the kitchen, arguing over how to lure the thing where they needed it. It seemed to be hunting in a five block radius and it would be better to use bait, a young girl – preferably an actually girl – but neither of them were willing to put a civilian at risk.
John thought they should stake out the streets over the next few days and hope they got lucky, Dean thought there had to be a better way, because with five blocks to cover and only two of them, the odds were good they'd miss it at least once and someone else would die.
"Why not use Dean?"
They stopped arguing, both of them leaning over to look at Sam through the archway, where he was still sitting on the sofa.
After a moment, John's eyes slid over to Dean in assessment, even as Dean shook his head, "No. No way!"
Sam kept going, though, heedless of Dean's distress, or probably because of it and because he was a bastard and a traitor. "Last time we were here, Candy said he was as pretty as a girl, didn't she?"
"She did." John really seemed to be considering it and Dean flushed, because the problem was, Sam was right. Candy had said that and a lot more. She'd gone on and on about his eyes and his lashes and his mouth and how with not much work at all, Dean would be prettier then some of the real girls that worked the corners further down East Main Street.
Worse yet, even as he kept shaking his head, Dean knew he was going to do it, because bait was the best way to do this and the only viable bait they had was Dean.
John gave him a sympathetic shrug and Dean slouched with a huff.
"Son of a bitch."
Not that he was ever admitting it to Sam, but as Dean looked at his own reflection in the closed storefront window, he had to admit, he made a damn pretty girl and it really hadn't taken much. Candy had spent barely five minutes on his face and another ten on getting his hair pulled under a tight cap and trying various wigs before settling on a dirty blonde one that was disturbingly close to his natural hair color.
There had been a few wardrobe changes before Dean agree to a pair of lime green spandex hot pants that sparkled under the street lights, black fishnet thigh highs, a sheer mesh top with a powder blue tube top under and only a minimal amounting of padding to mimic the small breasts of a younger girl.
Candy wanted knee high boots, but after a few attempted high kicks, he'd deemed them too restrictive. However, he'd eventually been forced to agree, because the choices came down to the boots with their kitten heel or the six inch stilettos and while the boots were restrictive, he could barely walk in the stilettos. Besides, John had pointed out while trying not to look at Dean for more then half a second at a time, the boots gave Dean somewhere to hide a weapon, which was a good point.
Candy and Glitter were across the street with a few others, ready to let him know when their mark showed up. John sat in his car half a block away. Dean stood at the corner and tried not to look like a Hunter stalking prey. The first two hours were a bust. The next was, too, but the fourth hour, they hit pay dirty, which thank fucking god, because Dean was getting way too comfortable walking in heels with his balls tucked up into his pelvis.
They were rounding on three in the morning and John had gotten out of the car and propositioned Dean to get him alone in the alley to discuss whether they were maybe doing something wrong. Maybe they needed to consider changing tactics, but Dean maintained that, according to the police reports, all the girls were young and attractive and Dean was both of those things, which had the added benefit of making John take a longer look at Dean before shuddering and walking back out to the car.
Served him right, Dean didn't deserve to be the only one not entirely comfortable with this.
Not that there wasn't a plus side. Considering how many tricks he'd turned down so far and the amount of money they'd offered him for something as simple as sucking cock, Dean figured he had a solid fall-back career if he ever decided to give up Hunting.
Finally, as yet another man in a business suit started down the street in Dean's direction, he looked up and Glitter gave a jerky little nod, Candy moving in to comfort her as Dean slipped his hand up, tucking the too long hair back and tugged on his ear a few times to let John know they had their suspect.
Just as Dean dropped his hand down to his side, the man stopped in front of him, "You selling?"
"You buying?"
The guy looked Dean over thoroughly, probably trying to assess the validity of his gender if Sam's research was even remotely accurate. If he really was after girls someone should have told the guy that this neighborhood wasn't the place to start looking. Ten minutes down East Main Street was where the girls hooked, this side of the tracks was Twinks and Trannys as far as the eye could see.
After a minute, the guy smiled, big and sleazy, just like Glitter had said. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm buying. How much?"
"Sixty bucks and I suck your brains out of your dick."
From the raised eyebrows, that might have been a little forward, but the guy nodded and Dean smiled and focused on the tug of his silver knife against his calf as he followed the target down the street into one of the alleyways. He had a few minutes before John got there, but the way Glitter had described things, it went pretty quick and Dean wasn't willing to risk this by stalling.
He got on his knees in front of the guy immediately and looked up with wide eyes, keeping all attention focused on his mouth by slowly licking his lips while he worked one of his hand into his boot, the other coming to rest on the man's hip and waited. It wasn't ten second before the slide of pebbles behind him was followed by hot breath on his neck and Dean tugged his knife free, stabbing it behind him in what he hoped was the generally vicinity of a neck or some other vital area. Blood gushed over his hand and the outraged cry of something not quite human roared through the alley.
The man scrambled to the side, cursing and slipping into shadow behind the safety of two giant fucking huskies the size of a small car. Dean cursed, dodging the swinging clawed hand of the Adlet, that was at least the same size as the dogs behind it, maybe bigger and John really better hurry the fuck up.
The creatures snarled at him, bent on all fours, sniffing him with flared nostrils from several feet away and then growled deep in its throat, eyes narrowed in anger. Good news, Sam's research was spot on, bad news, the jig was definitely up. Dean shrugged, "Sorry, fido, looks like you're outta luck."
It lunged and Dean rolled, still expecting to feel claws rip into him. Instead, he was greeted by the sound of a high powered rifle blasting its way through the alley and he looked up to see John at the open end of the street, re-adjusting the rifle on his shoulder.
The next bullet hit the thing square in the head and it went down, claw twitching. In a perfect world, Dean would have cut its head off right then to be sure, but in a perfect world he wouldn't be fighting a pack of monstrous dogs in kitten heels and a wig.
At the other end of the alley, the dogs loomed closer, one sniffing its maybe-probably-please-be-dead brother, while the other stalked closer to Dean, who was backing slowly towards John, keeping his eyes trained on the threat.
"Dad, you got a machete in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
"I'm always happy to see you, son." Dean caught the machete that slid along the ground to him and tucked the smaller knife back in his boot, letting himself stand to his full height plus one inch.
The other dog had finished assessing its pack mate and from the way it laid its ears back against its head and vibrated with the force of its growl, Dean was pretty sure the assessment was either dead or close enough not to be an immediate threat. One dog went for John, the other for Dean, who stood his ground, machete raised. He ducked at the last second, swiveled as the thing skidded along the ground where it landed and slammed into the side of the building, momentarily stunned.
He took the opportunity to bring the machete down, putting everything he had into taking the things head off in one swipe. Somewhere in there, he vaguely registered shots being fired and looked over to see John taking the other dog's head off for good measure, before moving onto the Adlet, who'd stopped twitching, but better safe then sorry.
Immediate threats taken care of, they turned their attention to the cowering man at the back of the alley. Dean looked at John and smiled grimly, "You want to take this one, or should I?"
John looked at Dean with a concerned frown, "Is it personal?"
"Yeah, no. He didn't even make it to first base."
John shouldered his rifle and nodded, "Have fun."
"Hey, Dad!" John stopped, half turning and Dean grinned, because he'd wanted to do this for hours. "Do these shorts make my ass look big?"
John's eyes moved down before he could stop them and Dean chuckled at the shudder that ran through his dad. "Very funny, I'll be with Candy. Don't come back to the car for a couple of hours at least."
Dean's cry of, "Oh, man, come on, not in the car!" chased John out of the alley.
Alone, Dean turned to the man and his smile slowly stretched back over his face. This side of town, a rifle firing would have drawn attention, but the odds were good no one was calling the cops on it. Even if they did, the response time around here was thirty minutes minimum.
"Hey, scumbag." Dean stepped forward, dropped to a crouch less then a foot away, "Mind if I call you scumbag?"
The guy pushed his shiny dress shoes into the gravel, pushing back into the fence behind him.
"Here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna ask you some questions, if I don't like what I hear, you're gonna scream." Actually, four dead hookers fed to those things meant he was gonna scream either way.
Sometimes, Dean really loved his job.
It was nearly six before they finally made it back to Jim's church.
Dean had untucked and ditched the wig, but since his clothes were in the Impala, he hadn't had a chance to change. It got him free pie at the all night diner, though, because the guy who served him thought he was just 'too cute.'
The Impala smelled like sex and Dean rolled the windows down and glared at John the entire drive. On the plus side, Candy had indeed made them cookies and he consoled himself by eating five of them while the worst of the smell receded.
Jim had coffee ready when they came in. Dean had shrugged on his leather jacket over the mesh shirt to give himself the illusion of modesty and he considered going upstairs to change, but decided caffeine was way more important than his dignity at this point.
He leaned against the counter while John gave Jim the run down on the Adlet and after, Jim nodded. "I'm just glad it's over. How is Frank, by the way?"
On Sundays Candy was just Frank and he attended Jim's church. He helped with bake sales and fund raisers and organized member meetings. "Frank's good."
Dean chuckled, "Yeah, Frank's good."
"Dean…"
"No, really, Dad and Frank are like this." He twined his fingers together and used the hand to smack an imaginary ass in front of him.
John ignored him in favor of drinking his coffee. Jim raised his eyebrows, more at Dean's lewd display then what John and Frank might have been up to. "Dean, that's hardly an appropriate way to talk about your father."
"I dressed in spandex and took out an Adlet's mutt in heels and a padded bra. If I want to poke fun at Dad for getting frisky with Frank, I am well within my rights."
None of them had heard Sam coming down the stairs, but it was hard to miss his cry of, "Frank?! The goat?!"
Dean considered correcting him. For like two whole seconds. John and Jim were too stunned by the implication to say anything right away and Dean took the opportunity. "What? I didn't hear Frank complaining."
John looked sharply at Dean, who grinned into his mug as Sam looked at John in disgust, then over at Dean, down and back up – taking in the boots, the fishnets, the hot pants, the exposed midriff, the padded little blue tube top – and groaned. "It's too early for this shit. I'm going back to bed." And turned around to trudge up the stairs.
No one in the kitchen moved until the bedroom door had slammed shut and Dean tried not to laugh. He really did, but John was shaking his head fondly and Jim was sighing, because he'd known them long enough to know when not to interfere in Winchester affairs. Sam and Dean's prank wars were legendary and had long reaching affects for anyone who stepped in the middle and while no one had officially called prank war yet, giving John the idea to put Dean in drag was as good as, as far as Dean was concerned.
He just couldn't wait to see how long it took Sam to figure it out.
It took three hours and when Dean heard Sam's yell of, "Why the hell is there yogurt in my shoes?!" from inside the church, followed by, "Dean!" he knew it was on and even if, when asked, Sam would say he won that war, because Dean was the one to call truce after Sam managed to somehow switch his toothpaste for Wasabi – the ingenious little bastard – Dean liked to think he won, because Sam was still at least a little traumatized by what he thought happened with Frank the Goat. Even if it didn't.
-finis-