Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Temperance Brennan (Bones), Seeley Booth, others from Bones and Supernatural
Summary: When I saw The Usual Suspects I just saw an opening for a cross-over.
Spoilers: Huge spoiler for 2.07 The Usual Suspects.
Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Eric Krippe's characters from Supernatural and Fox's characters from Bones. No money being made, only my debts are my own (but you're quite welcome to those).
No Beta, so all the mistakes are my own.
Part 10
Not wasting any time Dean waded straight in as soon as the office door closed. "So what is it you want to talk about?" he challenged Booth calmly as he followed them over to the desk.
Booth smirked at Bones as he made his way round the desk, "sure you don't want to take a seat first?" he asked with a tilt of his head and a gesture to the chairs.
Dean bristled but Sam grabbed his arm in warning. "That's sounds like a good idea," Sam replied trying to keep his brother calm while maneuvering him to a seat opposite Booth and Bones.
Dean glared at his brother before taking a seat and turning back to Booth. "I repeat what's this all about?"
Booth produced ten manila folders and put them on the desk in front of Dean as he and Bones took seats opposite the Winchesters. "These are case files that the FBI can't fathom… some seem to have stopped… some are continuing… some we just don't know. What these cases have in common is that they appear to be serial whatever and we're at a loss. What I was hoping is that you could look at them and see if anything is up your street," Booth explained resting his arms on the table and bridging his fingers together looking intently at Dean for his reaction.
Dean relaxed a bit as he and Sam started pulling the folders over and looking at the names on the files with a quiet intensity.
"Are these victim's names or what?" Dean asked all business-like opening one file and glancing through the contents.
"Some are victims, some are places," Booth replied continuing to study both of their expressions intently. Bones had opened one and was surprised by what it contained; she quickly returned it to the pile.
Dean pulled another one out, looked through and passed it to Sam, "isn't that the one in New York with the painting?" When Sam didn't instantly reply he added, "You remember where you met that chick Sarah… she was hot and got real spunk," he whistled and winked at his brother.
Sam blushed then smirked as he checked the contents, "yeah the girl in the painting… where you burned the doll."
"That's the one… she was a vicious little bitch," Dean agreed as they looked at one another.
"So you're saying that case is closed?" Booth asked hopefully, taking the folder back, and the boys nodded. "So what was it?"
"Ghost of the little girl in the painting," Sam explained. "She'd killed her own parents and then been adopted by a new family. She killed the family and managed to place the blame on the father, but through the family portrait she killed people who bought the painting. We tried to destroy the painting."
"But because her power was elsewhere it didn't work and we had to track the cursed object down to the family tomb. I burnt the doll and the girl disappeared," Dean finished still looking at another folder but looking up from time to time. "Everyone thought it was the father until we figured that some of the things in the picture were different from the original and he was pointing to her."
"So how many of these cases have been taken care of and how many are still out there?" Booth asked wondering how you killed things that shouldn't exist.
Dean shrugged, "don't know… we can tell you the ones we've taken care of… even find out about some of the others… but just like the police in St Louis didn't know I was alive until the Baltimore police asked… so hunters don't usually broadcast a kill… and some of these things go to ground for years before they start hunting again."
Booth looked disappointed, "is there any way of finding out?"
"We can check against dad's journal," Dean suggested pulling it out of his jacket. "Maybe ask a few friends."
Sam looked with his brother with a sly grin, "come on… we can work it a bit better than that," he rebuffed. Turning to Booth, "what you want is a database of all hunter kills cross-referenced to type, location and kill method by date," he suggested in geek talk.
Dean's jaw dropped and he turned to his brother, "geek-boy how long do you think that will take you?"
"Is it even possible?" asked Booth dumbfounded at the suggestion but thinking of the possibilities.
"I think we know someone who's already started one," Sam replied with a grin at Dean, who eyed him sideways with disbelief.
Dean turned to look at his brother and frowned, "Ash?"
Sam grinned at his brother, "yeah, Dr Badass himself. We were talking about tracking the increased incidents and decided that it would be useful to be able to back track. He thought about doing a database of incidents and then putting a closing date on each with the hunter's initials. I don't know how far he's got… he was starting with recent ones and working back… but I left him details of ours and dad's."
"Is there a prize for most kills at the end of the year?" Dean asked flippantly continuing to look through the files and compare with dates in their dad's journal.
"So we could cross-check FBI files with this database," Booth smirked happily thinking of all the cases he could get to write closed on, even if he wasn't sure how they would be explained without him being dubbed Mulder.
"Er… no… one because it isn't complete… and two I don't think Ash would trust the FBI with the info," Sam replied writing a note in one folder and sliding it to his brother.
"And three, I'm not sitting around looking at files for the next six months," Dean complained looking at the file Sam had passed him and flicking pages in the journal. Then pushing three back to Booth, "those three have been taken care of; black dog in two years ago in Michigan, wendigo in Colorado back last year and ghost in Philly couple of weeks ago."
"You sure," Bones asked wondering what fantasy creature they would blame next; then she thought about the remains in the lab which proved they weren't completely insane, "I mean we started with shape shifters and vampires, now you've got more legends come to life. You sound deluded."
Dean shrugged leaning back in his seat, "I should be sure dad and I took care of the black dog when Sam was at Stanford. The wendigo was Sam's first job back on the road and we nearly lost a friend to the ghost a couple of months ago."
Sam grinned at his brother, "yeah Ellen was really pissed at you for that. She really turned the journey ice cold back to her place."
"Stupid, dumb kid playing at hunter," Dean groused staring past Booth and frowning at how Jo had nearly gotten herself killed, and how he'd taken the blame.
"Yeah but she sure had the hots for you," Sam smirked ignoring Booth and Bones.
"That's a given but you don't get reckless on a hunt," Dean admonished turning to stare at his brother. "Ellen would have killed us both if Jo had gotten herself killed."
"Hey it wasn't me who let her tag along," Sam complained feeling uncomfortable under his brother's gaze.
"Do I take it you let a woman join you on a hunt?" Bones asked raising an eyebrow to Dean.
"Not so much let," Dean objected tired of this conversation. "More tried to stop her getting herself killed because she wasn't going to go home, but she wouldn't do as she was told and got herself caught."
"But you got her out alright?" Bones asked worried.
"Of course but not without her mum blaming Dean for it," Sam sounded offended at Bones reaction, forgetting the final outcome of that saga. "Look, give us an hour and we'll tell you which are closed and our closest guess about what's causing the others."
"Guess, that doesn't sound like you know what you're doing," Bones commented, preferring facts to guesses.
"Look lady, some of these things have similar mo's and others try to hide by pretending to be something else; until we get more information it's sometimes difficult to say with certainty," Dean rebuked.
"Ok you've got an hour," Booth agreed as he got up. "I'll call the office and I'm sure Bones has some lab work to do," he motioned her to leave them to whatever they did.
As soon as they left the room Bones turned to Booth, "do you really think it was a good idea to leave them with those files?"
Booth smirked as he turned to her, "do you think I'd leave them with anything sensitive?"
"But they're unsolved cases. Aren't you just giving them ideas?" she frowned as they walked towards the main lab.
"Not really. Last night when you were being your usual skeptical self, I was listening to what they were saying and some of the things struck a chord with some cases so I grabbed the files," he shrugged, "then added a couple of more recent ones."
"So you expect them to identify them all as case files for ones they've already solved?" Bones asked confused.
"No, but I hope they will close at least eight of them," he replied as he took out his cell to ring his office.
As soon as they were alone Dean got up and stretched, "Typical FBI wants us to close their cases to get off our backs," he groused. "It's bad enough that they get in the way when we're trying to solve cases that they haven't got a clue about."
Sam looked up from the folder he was examining, "Hey at least doing this you should get off their radar for a while… could be worse."
Dean did a sideways glance at his brother, "Maybe… What was all that stuff about a database... and why were you telling them?"
"Ash and I discussed on our last visit to the Road House as a way of seeing how bad things were getting," Sam shrugged. "When we were at Bobby's he said possessions were on the increase, we thought it'd good to know what else was happening."
"And?" his brother pushed.
"And I thought if we showed that we were more organized that we could get more of their trust," Sam replied innocently.
Dean rounded on his brother, "We don't need their trust; we just need to get out of here without more charges."
"Dean if we play this right we could get all the charges dropped and official backing," Sam replied surprised that his brother hadn't worked it out. "This is the tip of their unsolved cases that have been solved by hunters… If we can close some cases maybe we can get more than just a few charges dropped… Maybe we could get a legit tag for ids and credit cards… Maybe we could find out if Ash or Bobby is on their database and get them removed."
Dean was listening to his brother and working through the possibilities. "Ok we see what their offering, but if we don't like it we get out…I'll call Bobby and Ellen. You can talk to Ash," he finished getting out his cell phone.
An hour later Booth and Bones returned to her office to find Sam and Dean still making notes. Dean was talking to someone on his cell while continuing to compare a file with their dad's journal. Sam was typing on his laptop and looking at another file.
Booth walked in rubbing his hands together in anticipation, "so boys what have you got for me?"
"Those over there are closed… some us… some other hunters," Dean replied unemotionally. "These two we can't find any reason to think they're closed. Sam's checking out that one against known mo's… I got this one… seems dad had caught its scent but never got to it… got Ash chasing some things for me and should be able to take it on."
"Why are we going to do that one, again?" Sam complained from behind his laptop.
"Its closer," Dean replied to Sam's glare. Turning back to Booth, "anyways we should be able to go after it as soon as you cut us loose, which I believe was the reason for this exercise."
Booth congratulated himself on a job well done, "so you think they might be your type of thing?"
"Might be," Dean hedged not willing to give too much away too soon, "what's in it for us… if we take them on?"
"Do you think you're in a position to negotiate?" Booth asked knowing that the Chief had given him some leeway on perks.
"Well you wouldn't show us these if you didn't want something from us," Dean smirked, "and if you want us to do something for you," his smirk got wider, "then there's always room for negotiation."
Booth raised an eyebrow, these boys were smart, and he'd give them that. "If you can solve these then we get all charges dismissed; so far you've only lost the ones on the cases you've identified."
Dean looked at Sam to continue; after all Sam had done some law school. "Are you expecting us to solve your cases and not expect something in return?" Sam posed but continued before Booth had time to reply, "At the very least we'd expect an expense account for FBI cases and legit id's."
"And at the most?" Booth asked amused by their stance.
"All previous charges dropped on revealing what we were doing… just so you know it was in the line of our job," Sam started, Dean frowned at him. "Any weapons we may carry to be considered licensed and paperwork to prove it. Our friends to remain under the prosecution radar for their hunt based activities and their properties considered safe houses… There may be others that we think of when we have time to talk alone."
Booth whistled, "Impressive list; I'd have to check it out with the boss, but the credit card fraud might be a problem and we will need to know who these friends are."
"I'm sure your bosses can convince the credit card companies that this was a public service to discover how easy it was to defraud them," Sam smirked. "As for our friends; there're a few places and a few more people but we'd need assurances before putting those people in danger. The list may change as we meet people who need protecting in our fight."
"So would you put Lenore and her friends on that list?" Bones asked puzzled by who they thought of as friends.
Sam looked at Dean, who looked surprised before offering a slight nod. "If we knew where she was then yes, so long as they don't start killing people," Sam replied.
"Anything else?" Booth smirked.
Dean pondered before adding, "It would be useful to have a fully paid up health insurance, even when we're not covering your cases."
"I'll meet you up at 10am tomorrow at FBI headquarters and you'll get to talk to the boss," Booth instructed. "So you'd better decide if you want anything else before then and leave the files on the desk when you leave."
"No problem," Dean replied getting up and pocketing their journal, "we've got all the notes we need, right Sam."
Sam closed the laptop, "Yeah… and more than we usually have on a case… though it'd be nice to look at any evidence that you have stashed away."
After The Winchesters had left Bones was appraising Booth.
He turned on her, "What?"
She shook her head, "Nothing?"
"Come on it's never nothing," he pleaded. "You don't do that look for nothing."
"It's just… you just let them make all those demands and never stopped them," she replied with a frown. "It was almost like you were expecting them."
He smirked, "Of course I was expecting them… I'd already worked out most of the requests before I brought the files here."
"So what weren't you counting on?"
"Wanting the Vampires protected," he admitted. "I thought they'd want to protect their sources, but I don't think anyone had thought about the vampires before you brought them into the equation."
"Yeah I could see that," she agreed with a nod, "but if they're really peace loving then it would be a pity to allow their extinction."
"And you'd like to study them?" Booth grinned.
She returned the grin as they went back to work, "But of course."
As they walked back to the Impala, Sam asked, "So what have you got planned for tonight?"
Dean looked at him, "I think we need to sort out some strategy on those cases and get in touch with Ash, Ellen and Bobby. We need to let them know about the deal we're trying to cut."
"What about Missouri?" Sam queried as he got settled in the passenger seat.
"She likes you," Dean replied uncomfortably, "so you get to talk to her."
Sam grinned, "I thought Dean Winchester wasn't frightened of anything… now I find he's scared of older women."
Dean frowned starting the car, "I'm not scared… just… delegating certain tasks to you."
"You are so scared," Sam laughed.
"Shut-up," Dean grumbled as he pulled on to the highway. "When we've done that I'm going to have a bit of fun with Jackie before we walk into the lion's den tomorrow… cuz I don't think we'll have much chance after."
"And I'm supposed to do what… while you're banging the masseuse?" Sam complained glaring at his brother.
"Find your own sexy lady… carry on researching… get drunk… watch porn… I don't know… just chill out for a bit," Dean replied. "You do know how to chill out… don't you Sam?" he teased.
Sam elbowed him in the ribs and Dean laughed.
After spending another night in their luxury suite Dean and Sam arrived at FBI headquarters for a morning meeting with Booth, Bones and the Chief. The lobby was large with several people milling around, there was a guard screening everyone who was going further into the building and a large reception desk where everyone seemed to go before the guard would let them through.
Dean strolled up to the desk with his brother sauntering behind taking a good look at the layout. "Good morning," he grinned to the man behind the desk, "Dean and Sam Winchester, we've come to…"
"So you're Dean and Sam Winchester… got a whole lot of cages rattled here," the man replied before Dean had a chance to finish.
Dean smirked as Sam rolled his eyes, "What can I say, obviously our reputation precedes us."
"Yeah well you see that Agent over there?" the man pointed out a gruff looking man drinking coffee across the lobby.
"Yeah… so, what's he to me?" Dean asked shaking his head.
"You messed up his case in Jericho and called him and his partner Mulder and Scully… they were not amused."
Dean shrugged and grimaced trying not to look at the man, Sam smirked at his brother's discomfort.
"So you better make sure you stick close to your escort because there's several more got a grudge against you," the man continued as Booth appeared.
"Not bad, I thought you'd keep us waiting," Booth remarked as he joined them, the other Agent walked over.
"You'd better keep an eye on them, dangerous place this for criminals," the Agent threatened looking menacingly at Dean.
Booth smirked at the Agent, "back off Gerry these guys are our guests."
"Yeah well there'll be a few guys looking for them when they come out," the Agent replied angrily.
"There's a department meeting at eleven that you'd better attend," Booth responded before turning to Dean and Sam. "Chief's waiting for you so we'd best go," he instructed as he led them to the guard.
Sam stepped through easily but Dean had to relinquish both a gun and knife before he could pass. Sam looked annoyed, "I told you not to come packing."
Dean grinned sheepishly, "Sorry… force of habit." Turning to Booth, "I will get them back, won't I?"
Booth took possession of the weapons and slid them into his pockets, "only if you behave… What's in the gun anyway?"
"Silver bullets," Dean shrugged. "You can never be too careful."
After they left the lobby Dean was busy mentally mapping the building in case they needed to escape, leaving Sam to converse with Booth.
When they entered the office Booth's boss stepped forward to shake their hands. "Seeley has told me a lot about you boys. Don't know how much I believe… but if cases can be closed then I'm happy."
"Thank you sir," Dean replied shaking his hand and taking a look around the office. He was surprised to see Bones sat in the office.
The Chief saw Dean glance at Bones, "yeah have something in common, she's not FBI but helps us solve cases. Seeley and I hope we can persuade you to do the same."
"We have some conditions on that," Sam replied shaking his hand before sitting down.
"Yeah Seeley mentioned that you were trying to negotiate some things," the Chief smiled. "Why don't we start by going through some of those cases you said were closed? Seeley has tried to explain that some of those cases are what the public call X-files."
"Yeah I'm sure Gerry won't believe your explanation about what happened in Jericho?" Booth asked.
"Classic woman in white," Sam replied. "Here we copied the details from our journal for those eight cases," he continued handing out files to the Chief, Booth and Bones. "We thought you might want hard copy of our evidence and our solution."
"And I thought you were making all that noise just to annoy me," Dean quipped and shrugged.
Sam rolled his eyes, "Just because you thought banging the masseuse was a good use of our time, didn't mean I had to enjoy listening."
Dean grinned, biting back a come back. Bones rolled her eyes but Booth just smirked at the antics.
"So these were all your cases?" the Chief asked.
"Either ours or our dad's," Dean replied.
"I thought you said that some weren't yours?" Bones interrupted.
Dean re-iterated, "They weren't they were dads, when we were doing something else."
Bones rolled her eyes. "That's hair splitting," she complained.
Dean shrugged, "Look things have been getting more hectic so we've been covering more jobs, used to be one a month now it's more like two or three a month that we find. Sam and I can just about cover two a month with the research, traveling and getting the job done, dad used to send us some that he couldn't cover. I wouldn't want to take credit for his work."
The Chief raised his eyebrows, "So you're saying that these types of cases are on the increase?"
Sam responded, "A friend of ours says there's been a rise in the number of possessions; as for the other stuff it might be increasing or we're getting better at recognizing it."
"Either way it means more work and more chances of getting caught by you guys," Dean added, "no offence."
Booth and the Chief smiled. "None taken," the Chief replied. "So Booth tells me the St Louis case was a 'shape shifter' and we've got its remains. All we've got to do is rebury it with a new identity to close the case. But that leaves us with the problem of how we deal with your other crimes. Explain why we have grave desecration on your file."
"Quickest way of dealing with a vengeful spirit is to salt and burn its bones," Dean replied, "course it doesn't work when they've been cremated; then you have to find the object they've cursed and destroy that by burning. Then there was the nailing the zombie back in its coffin, that was really fun!"
"What about the breaking and entering?" The Chief asked not wanting to delve any deeper into the explanations.
Dean shrugged, "You'll have to be more specific on that, it's a hazard of the job that sometimes we need to find the evidence before the hunt."
"You say you have to find evidence, but then you burn everything so your claims can't be checked," Bones interrupted. "How can you prove that it was what you claim?"
Dean looked at her, ready to get angry, just because she didn't believe didn't mean these things weren't real. "First off lady, I don't tell you how to do your job so don't question me on mine," he rebuffed. "Secondly some of these things return if you don't dispose of the body; burning's the tried and tested way of stopping that. Sometimes the thing reverts to its human form on death, so yeah then we have to get rid of the evidence."
"You'd better explain that last one," Booth instructed feeling a dread at the answer.
Sam looked at Dean before replying, "Werewolves return to their human form, so it would appear to the police that someone had been killed by a silver bullet. We're not sure whether they can infect anyone after they die, so it's better to burn and be sure." Sam paused to give them time to take that in before continuing, "If someone is possessed they can fall out of windows and break bones but still appear to be ok… until they are exorcised… once the demon is out they will die. Unless you see the person before they've been exorcised you'd think whoever exorcised them had killed them."
"If you go after a werewolf can you hold off burning until we get some evidence to test?" Bones asked hoping to prove this one to be a fake.
"So long as you don't expect to be there when we go after it," Dean responded.
The Chief looked surprised at the easy answers and was still processing the information as he asked, "So have you added to your requests?"
Dean and Sam looked confused, then looked at each other with a 'do you know what he's talking about, cuz I don't' look.
"You told Seeley that you wanted certain assurances before you would help us with our case files," The Chief explained.
"Oh those?" Dean replied and promptly looked at Sam to continue.
"Why don't we start with our original requests and work it from there?" Sam suggested.
"Well we've dealt with the St. Louis case; Dean is now off the wanted list for murder. Charges on other cases will be dropped only after you've explained what you were doing but I don't foresee a problem there," The Chief replied.
Dean shrugged, "Fair enough."
"We'd need to check what weapons you're carrying before allowing a license to cover them and I'd like to see you use them in our firing range. Anything illegal would have to be explained and even then I'd be dubious. I understand most of your ammo is specially made, so I'd need the name of your supplier."
"What we have gets the job done, different creatures different kill methods; so if it's illegal we still need it. As for our supplier we'd need assurances of their protection, we've already lost our best to a demon and there's not many out there," Dean rebuffed.
"I understand but we need to check them out. Identity fraud is a big one for you; either id badges or credit cards. If we get the current charges dropped we won't expect to find new ones," he instructed.
"So how are we supposed to do our job?" Dean complained. "We don't get paid and I can only hustle so much pool, besides motels expect a credit card."
"We'll create four identities for each of you. The identities will all have a credit card and id; if you ever need to make another id quickly you use one of those identities and inform your handler," the Chief insisted.
"What if we can't?" Sam postulated.
"This office will not be held responsible," he replied. "If you follow the rules you have the protection of this office, if not you're on your own."
Dean shrugged, "been on our own most of our lives."
"That's true," Booth agreed brightly, "but wouldn't it make things a little easier if you didn't have to get out of town before they rumbled your real identities."
"Yeah but we've been picking up our own cases without a handler, why would we want one now?" Sam interrupted.
"You said your dad sent you on cases," Booth replied to which the boys nodded, "well think of your handler like your dad; sending you cases and checking you're ok."
Sam and Dean shrugged at each other. "Our dad's gone and no-one can replace him," Dean ground out.
"Your handler wouldn't replace your dad," Booth shrugged, "just be a safety net passing you jobs occasionally."
"So if we need hospital treatment we ring our handler and everything gets sorted?" Sam asked.
Booth looked at the Chief, "You'll have a basic medical card in each name, anything more your handler will arrange; not that we expect you to be using it too often. So can you help us to help you, or do you want to go back to being fugitives?"
"What about our contacts and friends?" Sam asked.
"We'll see what we can do after you help us out," the Chief replied. "I understand Seeley had you look at two cases," they nodded, "so what do you think?"
"You seem to have a werewolf in Richmond just down the road in Virginia and over in Carthage Mississippi you seem to have another shape shifter," Dean replied. "Since the full moon's at the end of the week the werewolf would be first priority, and then make a move on the shape shifter."
"So you need to be out of here by Thursday?" the Chief suggested, Dean gave Sam a sideways glance before they agreed. "That gives everyone the rest of today and tomorrow to sort out the details," he instructed Booth. "I'll get paperwork completed for you to sign tomorrow afternoon, Seeley will check your weapons and set up the firing range for you. In the meantime I suggest that you take them to your office and start on the files."
As they stepped out into the corridor a confused Dean turned to Sam, "have we actually agreed to anything yet?"
"Not yet," Sam confirmed.
Tbc