I just noticed that the lengths of each chapter in this story tend to be erratic; some are short, others really long. This is one of the former. A lot of the chapters are of the characters talking. However the story is moving, slowly, but moving. Thank you to those who have read and reviewed!


Chapter 02

In which Agent Osterberg and Detective Dorsey make a meeting

Dean roused himself out of slumber a few hours later, mostly by shifting the wrong way and poking himself with the knife he customarily kept under his pillow. He let out an annoyed grunt, cracked open an eye and rolled over, blinking sleepily.

"Did you poke yourself again?" Sam asked, not looking up from where he was still scrolling through his laptop.

"No," Dean lied.

"You know once or twice is understandable, but when you've done it fifty-seven times don't you think you should have learned your lesson by now?"

"Shaddup," Dean said, sitting up and rubbing his face. "So, what have you got?"

"Well there was an event in Des Moines where several people with no relation to each other reported seeing the face of Jesus Christ in the clouds," Sam began. "And then two days ago in Wichita thirteen tombstones in the Maple Grove Cemetery suddenly faced east instead of north – considering it happened overnight nobody thinks it was a mere prank. And in Georgia…"

He was interrupted when Dean's phone rang. Dean yawned, motioned to Sam to give him a minute, and then answered it. "This is Agent Osterberg(i)."

"Agent Osterberg, this is Detective Arnold Dorsey," a familiar voice said on the other end.

"Shawn?" Dean said, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh come on, Dean, I was trying out a fake identity. What, you and Sam are the only ones allowed to impersonate persons of authority using rock star aliases? I believe it's called a 'synonym'."

"That's 'pseudonym', Shawn," Gus' voice said in the background.

"I've heard it both ways," Shawn answered him.

Dean had to grin. "Yeah, but did you have to use the real name of Engelbert Humperdinck?"

"You know the real name of Engelbert Humperdinck?" Sam said dryly, looking up from the screen.

"Shaddup," Dean told him again, and turned back to his phone. "Shawn, you do realize that I gave you this number for emergencies, right?"

"Dean, please, of course I know that."

"Really? Because the last time you called you wanted to know if I could confirm whether Ann Coulter was possessed by a demon or not."

"You've seen the woman – it was a fair question," Shawn defended. "But as to why I called now, well, Gus and I were thinking about renting a boat for the weekend and thought that if you and Sam were in the vicinity that maybe you wanted to join and…"

"Pass. Why'd you really call?"

Shawn chuckled, indicating that Dean was right and this time Shawn just wasn't calling for kicks. "Hah, you got me. Listen, I called because there's something a little suspicious going on here. You know, the 'holy shit, that can't be real, Christo, Christo save me' type of suspicious."

"Oh yeah?" Dean said, arching an eyebrow. "What exactly is going on?"

"It's… you know what, it would be better if I actually showed you," Shawn said. "Any chance you and your little big bro can swing by? I promise the pineapple smoothies are on Gus. Liberally doused with whiskey for you, of course."

Dean was hesitant. He liked Shawn, he did, despite the psychic detective being unpredictable, a loose cannon, and the poster child for acting on complete, batshit insane fucking impulse. In fact it could be argued that the above were the exact reasons why he liked him. And, even with the above, he was sure that Shawn wasn't one to see something that wasn't there. If he said it was the Winchesters' type of suspicious then there was 99.9% chance he was correct, and the 0.01% would be justified later. Still he wasn't sure if Shawn and his unusual method of tackling a situation was conducive to the situation he and his (very) detached brother were having at the moment…

"This pause has gone on for much longer than I'm comfortable with," Shawn said on the other end. "Dude, I have to tell you, if you start with the heavy breathing I might, well, I might suddenly consider things I shouldn't."

Dean must have given the phone a weird look because Sam asked, "Is he attempting phone sex or something?"

… Or it could be very, very funny. Besides, after hanging around Soulless!Sam, Shawn and Gus might actually be good for the two of them.

And so Dean made a snap decision. "Hey Sam, how much more of that research you did were you going to go through?"

"Uh, I had about forty possible hits," Sam said.

"Great, that settles it then," Dean said, and then to Shawn: "We'll be in Santa Barbara tomorrow morning."

"Awesome," Shawn said. "Gus is stoked – he's getting the smoothies as we speak. Until tomorrow, Agent Osterberg."

"Detective Dorsey."

"Actually I've decided it's now Detective Folasade Adu."

"Sade, Shawn?" Gus' voice came again.

"Yeah, I guess I'll keep working on that," Shawn said, and then ended the call.

Dean looked up to see that Sam was giving him an angry glare. "Six hours of research and you decide to skip off to Santa Barbara because Shawn called?"

"Hey, he said he had something suspicious that was right up our alley."

When Dean didn't elaborate, Sam prodded, "Well?"

"He said he'll show us when we get there."

The bitch-face was back in full effect at that. "So we're going there on the hunch of a guy who pretends to be a psychic detective."

"Hey, have a little faith, would you? Remember, it was the same fake psychic detective that saved your ass from Zachariah." Dean got to his feet and began to dump his stuff into his bag. "Now get packed up – I take the first driving shift."

Sam sighed. He was musing that even though he technically could feel no emotion, he was experiencing something vividly close to hate towards his older brother. And then he ultimately settled on indifference – he had been reverting to this trick throughout most of his interactions with his brother. He then remembered Shawn and Gus and wondered if the same tactic would work on them.

Continued


i Stage name of Iggy Pop