Dean settled back in his chair, hardly listening as Lisa spoke with Alistair Heyerdahl, the studio's head director. He trusted her well enough anyway to look out for his interests, and she was much more tactful when it came to discussing script issues. It was too bad there wasn't a clause in his contract that allowed him to pick his partner, otherwise he sure as hell wouldn't be sitting across the conference table from Ruby Cortese. She sent him a sultry smile, just the edges of her red lips curling as her eyes narrowed seductively and her fingers toyed with the edges of her copy of the script.
Dean hated her. But he kept his face impassive. "Dean," she greeted him, finally breaking the silence they'd maintained since meeting in the hall. Her agent glanced at them, but said nothing. Under the table, Dean felt Lisa place a calming hand on his thigh, though her attention seemed never to waver from her argument with Alistair.
"Ruby," he replied, keeping his voice steady. "Lure any more kids to hell lately?"
She only laughed at him, flipping her dark wavy hair over her shoulder, before leaning over the table in a manner clearly meant to display her attributes. Rather than arousal, all Dean could feel was the disgust curling in the pit of his stomach. "Be fair, baby," she drawled, one red tipped nail drawing vague designs on the slick table top. "Joanna is just darling at this gig, and your little brother would have been bigger than even you." Ruby leaned back in her chair and spun slightly away as she laughed low. "In more ways than one," she finished with a lewd wink in his direction.
Lisa's hand on his leg tightened to a painful grip, proof that she was listening to their exchange, and sending him a silent plea to keep things civil. Dean folded his hands together to still the angry trembling in his fingers and sent Ruby a tight smile. "You can't handle this Winchester, Ruby. You shouldn't bite off more than you can chew," he told her, struggling to keep his voice light. Even he could hear how he failed, his recommendation coming out as more a threat.
Still, the woman only smiled at him, eyes alight with wicked mischief. "Who said anything about chewing?" she returned, the tip of her tongue darting out to run suggestively over her lips as her eyes raked over his figure.
Dean didn't bother to hide his disgust then, and was never more grateful for Lisa as when she stood, signaling the end of their meeting. Dean bolted up, pushing the chair back a little too forcefully in his hurry, but if Alistair noticed, the older man chose not to comment, simply rising to his feet and shaking Dean's and Lisa's hands in turn. "As always, a pleasure doing business with you," he told them with a smarmy smile.
He forced a smile back before Dean rounded the table, eyes on the door and escape with Lisa hot on his heels. Ruby's hand gripped his when he passed too close and Dean looked down at her, brow raised as he subtly tried to pull away. "Speaking of our dear friends," Ruby started, using Dean's arm to pull herself up to standing way too close for his comfort, "have you checked out our co-stars?"
Before he could ask what she meant, Lisa was pressing at his back, urging him out the door. "Sorry to cut this short, darling," she called to Ruby, neither looking nor sounding at all apologetic. "We've got other business, you know, things to do, and such. Ta!" Lisa waved over her shoulder, dropping the fake cheerfulness as soon as the door closed behind them. Dean and Lisa looked at the solid wood for a moment, then she let out a sigh of relief, stepping around Dean to head down the hallway, her pace much quicker now that they were leaving than it had been on arrival.
"What the hell was she talking about, Lisa?" Dean asked, easily keeping pace with his shorter friend. "Dear friends and co-stars. What was all that shit?"
Lisa sighed again, her hand rising to absently toy with the ends of her loose ponytail. "As much as I wish I could say Ruby was only trying to rile you," Lisa confessed, clearly uncomfortable, "truth is, this whole film is like…" she paused, her hands floating in the air helplessly as she searched for the words, "like a clip show of all your favorite mistakes."
"Come again," Dean said, nodding shortly to the secretary as they passed. She took a moment to wave at them before turning her attention back to the line of applicants auditioning for the newest Hellhounds production. Dean shook his head as he looked over the group. God, some of them were just kids. Lisa beat him to the door, holding it open for him to pass through. Once outside, they paused briefly, squinting against the glaring sunlight after the semi-dark studio offices.
Lisa waited until they were safely seated in her van, away from prying eyes and ears, before she passed him a thin folder of papers. He lifted his brows at her in question, but she only motioned again to the folder, then focused on pulling on her seatbelt as if the task actually required brain power. So Dean flipped it open, frowning when Ruby's headshot greeted him. Quickly, he rotated it to the back. The next photo pulled an unceremonious "Fuck" from him. The printed name might have read 'Joanna Tal' but Dean would recognize his childhood friend anywhere. Joanna Beth Harvelle. He'd known that Ruby had managed to bring Jo into their world, but this would be his first time acting with her. "Ellen is going to kill me," he muttered.
"Yeah, keep going," Lisa ordered, the sarcastic lilt to her tone clear indication that he wouldn't like what he was going to see. "It gets better."
He flipped through the photos at a steady pace, punctuating each with another curse. Tessa. "Shit." Garth. "Crap." Meg. "Damn it." Amy and Bela. "Hell and balls," he finished, closing the folder and tossing it over his shoulder to the middle row of seats. Lisa nodded, pulling the car smoothly into traffic. "It's like the devil himself cast this film," he growled. "Get me out of it, Lisa."
She shook her head, her frown deepening. "Would if I could, Dean, really. But remember that little thing you have called a contract? We negotiated away your right to decide what films you'd do in exchange for the higher pay and the one percent clause." Dean cursed again, though he knew that the one percent he continued to make off the sale of each film was the bulk of Sammy's tuition. Lisa's laugh brought him out of his thoughts, though there was no humor in the sound. "Honestly, if I didn't know better, I'd think Alistair was trying to get you to quit."
His brows lifted from frown to surprise at that. "Quit?" he echoed doubtfully. "All the money I make that man, you'd reckon he'd be doing all he can to get me to stay."
Lisa puffed out another sigh, her eyes never leaving the road. "Alright, hotshot, keep up with me here because things are about to get a little convoluted." Dean settled back against the door and put on his best listening face, because when Lisa said things were going to get convoluted, she meant it. "You quit, you break contract. And this," she pointed a finger at him, "is the kind of break that usually results in a you'll-never-work-in-this-town-again attitude. Hellhounds is particularly notorious for this sort of thing. You quit, they sue, you're broke, under a ton of debt, and without options, so you go crawling back." She put her hand back on the wheel, her fingers running nervously over the furred cover. "Alistair and his boss get what they really wanted all along: a hot ticket porn star at a cut rate price."
"Like I'd come back," Dean snorted, crossing his arms over his chest.
Lisa didn't pay any attention to his show of rebellion, only shaking her head as if she found him hopelessly naïve. "I'm not going to pretend to know everything that goes on with that company, Dean," she told him, "but I'm not dumb enough to believe that they don't have ways of making you come back. Not after going through all the trouble of forcing you to break away."
Silence fell in the car for several miles, Lisa watching carefully out the windshield and Dean staring blankly out his window. "So," he finally said, just as old warehouses and rundown office buildings began to give way to neat houses and well-trimmed yards, "I'll just be sure not to break." Lisa nodded her agreement, but the furrow of her brows betrayed her worry.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
