As he finally pulls up to the driveway, Dean dreams of nothing more than to slide under warm covers next to his husband and not wake up until his alarm goes off in the morning. But that's not happening—not with the tons of papers he's still got to go through. Contracts, tax statements, even freakin' phone bills. It's the most tedious and annoying kind of work and it's definitely not what Dean became a consulting detective for.
That's what happens when the only eye witness of the so-called accident has a little too much loyalty for the perp and won't let a peep out of his mouth. So Dean has to find something—anything—that will make him talk despite whatever feelings or arrangement they have going on. Even if it takes staying up night after night and ruining his eyesight with miles of tiny print.
Dean's not terribly worried about the results. CEO snakes like Brady couldn't function—let alone hoard as much—without a few skeletons in their closets. The only concern is time. The "don't leave the city" won't keep Lucifer Shurley grounded forever. And once he's gone, with his resources, there's no catching him.
And that's another unsolved case, another family never seeing justice, only grief.
"I thought you'd be home later," Dean hears as soon as he enters the living room.
He finds Ketch sitting in his armchair, a glass of scotch in his hand, like he's been there all day. And he's telling Dean he's home too soon, at ten freakin' pm?
Dean scoffs. "I missed you too," he says pointedly, lifting his bag full of papers. "I brought work home to spend more time with you, Arthur."
Ketch rolls his eyes, setting the glass on the table. Right next to a newspaper that looks suspiciously like a prelude to an anonymous threat. Or a preschooler's homework. One look at his own face on the picture in the carefully cut out article on top tells Dean everything—Ketch is a freakin' sap who collects all of Dean's wins.
"You know that's not what I meant," Ketch says, reaching forward to take the bag out of his hand. He drops it on the floor, before taking Dean's hand and bringing him closer. "I'm glad you're home." His strong grip moves to Dean's thighs, long fingers grazing Dean's ass, pulling him down. "I missed you a ton," Ketch coos, as the armchair squeaks under their joint weight.
With his knees on both sides of Ketch, Dean leans down to kiss that stupid faux-deadly-serious pout off his face.
"That's more like it."
Ketch's hands find their way to Dean's belt buckle, begin to undo it. Dean hates to stop him. He'd love to stay here, love to let Ketch fuck him raw right on this armchair. Lately there's been something about Ketch that's making him hotter than ever.
"I can't," Dean mutters against Ketch's lips and pulls away. "I've got work. Looks like you've done yours already," he adds, nodding at the newspaper scraps.
Ketch turns his eyes down, bashful. "What, I can't be proud of my husband?"
Dean lets out a huff of laughter, and pushes his fingers through Ketch's hair to swipe back a stray strand, then watches it fall back on his forehead. It's so rare that he gets to see Ketch in such outrageous dishevelment outside of gym or bed.
"Just don't get all serial killer scrapbook-y about it."
"Can't promise that," Ketch says, with a completely straight face and doesn't smile until Dean gives him another kiss.
As Dean pulls away, he lets out a disappointed smile, but doesn't protest. He must know there aren't shortcuts in Dean's job.
"Go get that scum, Detective Winchester."
Dean made a critical mistake when it comes to staying up all night and going through boring papers. He decided to let his eyes rest—for just a second.
"Amateur," Ketch huffs, fondly, when he finds him sleeping on the sofa in an incredibly uncomfortable, half lying position.
Ketch knows that Dean would want him to wake him up so that he can keep going through his little phone bills and other crap, to find something on Brady. But he's sleeping more soundly than he has in weeks, so, instead, Ketch puts a throw pillow under his head to help him avoid an awful neck pain and covers him with a blanket.
How the hell could he get so soft for this guy? He used to be a tough, respected, top agent. Now he's tucking his dork of a husband to sleep.
Looking at the separate piles of papers, Dean barely made it through half of them. He's gonna be pissed at himself, and at Ketch, too, in the morning. But that's fine. Ketch is quite confident that his mood will change completely by afternoon, when he finds the street cam recording of the incident. Because of course there's a recording. These days, there always is.
The one problem is, as per usual, that the party most interested in the recording had the most money to pay off the guard and hire a good hacker to cover up for the missing time. And then, he also had a good place where he could hide it, instead of destroying it, just to have blackmail material on Shurley, if there's ever a need in the future. Because it's never just about the money—it's about money and power. Even for maggots like Brady.
Once Dean gets the video, he's not gonna need any of those papers to lock Shurley up for good, so what's the point of him losing sleep?
And yes, he will have the video. Because Ketch doesn't need money or blackmail. He knows a few much dirtier tricks.
Having made sure his shuffling didn't wake Dean up, Ketch walks out the back door, quiet as a church mouse, and goes straight to the tool shed at the other end of their garden.
It's more of an everything shed, to be honest. Dean built it for everything that no longer fit in the garage between his Impala, Ketch's Bentley, and both their bikes. With time and all the sports gear (which features a sad reminder of the time Dean thought he'd be a golfer), the barbecue gear, a bunch of old furniture and stuff that wasn't so successful at the garage sale, the place got too crowded and was hardly ever visited.
It still had enough space in it for a very uncomfortable steel chair and a set of Ketch's favorite toys.
The well-oiled door doesn't squeak as he walks in, but his slow step is menacing enough. Not that, after this afternoon, he still needs to pose for menacing. Mr. Brady sitting in the chair, in the middle of the shed, is already well aware of what Ketch is capable of.
"Shall we continue?"
Dean tends to pride himself in his light sleep. The sad truth is that it has a lot to do with a lifetime of working in rather dangerous jobs. So far he's been lucky not to have many life-threatening encounters, but in fact, all it took was one.
That changed ever since he moved in with Ketch. While Dean himself is not exactly some damsel in distress in constant need of protection—he can take care of himself just fine, even against skilled assailants—it's always good to have someone who's got his back. A professionally trained, ex-military, badass someone at that. The one guy Dean couldn't take out in a fight, so he took him out to dinner.
For one, he's not sleeping with a gun under his pillow anymore. He keeps it in the drawer of his nightstand now.
Apparently, he also falls asleep just about anywhere, at a time he should definitely not be sleeping. The turn of a lock on the door is still enough to stir him awake.
The house is dark, his watch says two am. He doesn't remember grabbing a blanket, so Ketch must have been here—and he will get an earful for not waking Dean up, later. That's not his concern now.
For a moment, Dean remains silent and listens. If someone comes in, they'll make a sound eventually, the smallest rustle of their clothes, too heavy a breath. There's no one inside. Dean's muscles relax. Maybe he only dreamed the sound of the lock up. Maybe it was Ketch, taking a walk in the middle of the night, like he does sometimes.
Least Dean can do is check if the door is locked at all. He walks to the kitchen, making a mental note to fetch some grub on his way out. The back door is locked, but just as he's about to turn away, a sliver of white light piercing through the blocked window of the tool shed catches his eye. No one's had a business in being in the shed in weeks, let alone be there right now.
Dean grabs a small, sharp knife from the drawer and walks out into the cool air.
"You know, numerous research has been done that proves torture is ineffective in obtaining information," Ketch says, breaking out a needle from its package, and attaching it to a syringe. "Because the tortured can lie their head off just for the pain to end."
"Let me guess, you're so good, that doesn't apply to you," Brady snarks.
If he's still up for being a sarcastic little jerk, it means they have a long night ahead of them. The maggot's not the kind of guy to spit in the face of death; he'd sooner cower in the corner and hope she doesn't notice him.
"No." There have been people much better at torture than him. More efficient, more cruel, or deriving way more pleasure from it. Ketch is just a guy who'll do what needs to be done. "But I have time."
Brady still looks at him skeptically. There might be a small misunderstanding between them. As much as torturing doesn't exactly bother Ketch, he has better things to do with his time, like sleeping, drinking good whisky, or spending time with Dean. He doesn't plan to torture him forever, that'd be just inhumane. Besides, Dean's going to have more tough cases, meaning more bad guys who don't wanna play nice and share what they know or do what they're supposed to do. Meaning, Ketch is going to need the shed vacant soon.
"See, this is how it's going to work. First, I'm going to keep inflicting unimaginable pain on you and put stress on your body, until you tell me the location of the video file." He stabs the needle into a vial and pulls the plunger back. It's quite a cocktail in there, and he made it himself. With some extra poking here and there, Brady should break by morning. "But here's where the fun begins. I shall go to the given location, truly trusting that the recording is there. Because if it's not there, I will come back, and I will deprive you of one of your senses. And we'll start again."
Brady doesn't look so smug anymore. Ketch has learned that the threat of mutilation works much better than the pain itself. That's all it takes for Brady to change his tune.
"Listen, if I tell you, Lucifer will kill me."
Ketch lets out a sigh. Loyalty he gets. Fear? That's a weak motivator. Even a weaker excuse.
He gives Brady a crooked smirk. "If you don't tell me, you're gonna pray he does."
Without further ado, Ketch slides the needle into Brady's vein, and slowly releases the poison. Once he's done, he throws the syringe into the trash and pulls himself up to sit on the edge of the old pool table. It should start working soon. He'll know by the droplets of sweat pouring down Brady's face.
"So, what do you think about pineapple pizza?" Ketch asks, causally. A few slices left from his takeout dinner are about the only food currently in their fridge and Ketch is gracious enough to offer in case the guy chooses to lose every last of his taste buds tonight.
It's not Brady that answers him.
"I'd say it's a lousy last meal."
It's Dean, standing at the door, an unreadable expression on his face as his eyes travel from Ketch to Brady and back.
"Oh, thank God!" Brady cries out, tears streaming down his face in an oscar-worthy performance. "Detective Winchester, you have to save me! This guy went completely insane."
But Ketch can barely register anything that's going on around him. Dean's right there, Dean caught him red-handed. He's fucking screwed and he has to find a way out of this that doesn't hurt Dean but doesn't land Ketch in jail either.
For now, he lifts his hands up in a placating gesture.
"I can explain this."
Dean's never seen Ketch so freaked out. It's not a good look on him. Arthur Ketch is undeterred, poised and fearless. At critical times, he seems completely detached from emotions. He's not supposed to have those huge, moonlike eyes, slack jaw and pale face, he's not supposed to be trying to explain things in the tone of a child that broke mom's favorite vase.
There's some sort of satisfaction in knowing that Dean's the only one who can make Ketch almost break that way. There's a ton of repulsion in it too.
Dean slips the knife he's been holding into his pocket and approaches the two. There's a row of bottles set on the pool table behind Ketch. There is more classic stuff there, too, like scalpels and pliers and a bone saw, but looking at Brady; his untouched, if ashen skin, and perfectly manicured fingernails, none of them were used recently.
They're all just lying there, cleaned and ready. On the pool table Dean bought with his first detective earnings, the one he scammed Ketch out of his family heirloom pocket watch on. The one they made love on, for the first time in their house. Now it's used as a table for torture devices and poisons.
"For some reason, I've always known you were more of a 'leave no mark' kind of guy," Dean says, at last.
Somehow, Ketch's eyes grow even wider, but this time it's just surprise, not fear anymore, as it must be dawning on him that Dean's not calling the police yet.
"What do you mean, you've always known?"
Dean crosses his arms. "You married a detective," he informs him, frankly beginning to feel like he should be offended. "How stupid do you think I am?"
When Ketch still keeps staring at him weirdly, a quiet 'how' on his lips, Dean knows he's not waiting for the whole retrospection about leaving the house in the middle of the night and the clues suddenly dropping on Dean at the key moments in the cases. Or about those articles from the newspapers that had probably something of an ego trip in them, on top of the spousal pride.
It's rather something along the lines of: how the hell aren't you freaking out about the torture? How are you so calm and practically gloating instead of calling the cops? How has our life not fallen apart the moment you walked through that door?
Dean can answer that easily: a lifetime of dangerous jobs with dangerous people, doing work he didn't always like doing but got used to. He was always more of a 'leave all sorts of marks' kind of guy.
"Guess we both have our secrets," he says, enigmatically and pulls Ketch in for a deep, hot, kiss.
Add to the list of clues that tipped Dean off: lately Ketch has been hotter than ever.
"Oh my God, you're both fucked up!" Brady yells, ruining the moment.
He's not looking too good, there are huge drops of sweat forming on his forehead and his ashen skin is turning red. That's Dean's cue to leave; they'll have to talk out the rest later.
"Is it gonna be a problem that he saw me?"
Ketch turns his head to Brady, who seems close to real tears, this time. "Is it?"
"No, I won't tell anyone," Brady pleads obediently. Anything else wouldn't end well for him. Not that he's very convincing.
But Dean trusts that Ketch will take good care of it one way or another.
"You'll have the record tomorrow," Ketch assures him. "Sleep tight."
It's a relief, not having to go through the rest of the papers, though he kind of wishes he knew about it before he made it through the first half. Speak of the torture.
As Dean's on his way out, he turns to Ketch and shoots him a wink.
"Have fun, and don't stay up too late."