2. It's Not What You Say

'Well that sucks,' Dean said, tossing the memo onto the table.

Everyone seated around the conference table shuffled nervously in their chairs, a few stared out the single window that stretched high across one wall; those who couldn't see the view of the parking lot wished they could but instead had to contend with admiring the dull wood grain of the table top. Eric shook his head and sighed.

'What'd I say? Dean asked, bewildered.

The silence was broken at last by the jangling of a coin tin held in a delicate, long fingered hand. Jayme C. Basken, dubbed Jiminy by most of the crew, coughed pointedly and shook the tin again in Dean's direction.

Dean's eyes narrowed. 'Thanks man, but I get paid enough.'

He didn't like Jayme. Too skinny, pale-faced and a network minion, Dean considered the man nothing more than a slimy, ass-licking, one-stinking-rung-at-a-time ladder climber. And that was on a good day. Appointed the CW's watchdog, Jayme sat in on just about every staff meeting except, of course, the ones in which any real decisions were made; the ones Eric held in clandestine surrounds at odd hours of the day and night.

Jayme pursed his lips disapprovingly. 'You cussed.'

'No I didn't.' Dean spread his hands disbelievingly and searched for support. Only Sam, next to him, met his gaze, his shoulders lifting in a shrug. Eric had sunk his head onto the table and was thumping it none too gently.

'Yes you did.' Jayme was prim but adamant. 'You said sucks. That's a quarter in the tin.'

'You gotta be kidding me! Eric? What the fuck-' He broke off with a grunt as Sam's shoe connected with his ankle.

'Oh, that's a nasty one. Seventy-five cents!' Jayme crowed triumphantly.

'Bite me!' Dean snarled, shifting his feet to avoid another blow from Sam.

'A dollar!' Jayme was wriggling with ecstasy. Any moment now, Dean thought, and he'd wet his pants with excitement.

'Bite me is not swearing,' Dean protested, incredulous.

'That's a matter of opinion. Either way, it's rude and inflammatory,' snapped Jayme and waved the offending memo in the air. 'And, according to point four in this document, it constitutes a fine!' He rattled the tin again.

Dean sat back and shook his head. 'You're serious.'

'I'm afraid so. Now pay up.'

Dean shot a look at Sam before fishing in the front pocket of his jeans. Every woman in the room sighed wistfully. He pulled out a few notes and threw them onto the table in disgust.

Jayme carefully selected one and pushed it into the tin. 'You only owe one dollar,' he said, frowning.

Dean shrugged. 'Consider the rest payment in advance.'

'No need to get uppity.' Jayme, his point having been made, was struggling with being conciliatory. Unfortunately, Dean was in no mood to help him out.

'No prizes for guessing what your middle initial stands for,' he drawled.

'Why you-!' Jayme launched himself across the table at Dean, screaming abuse. Ten pairs of hands were needed to restrain him as he fought to reach his target. Only after the man had been dragged from the room, spitting and cursing, did Dean deign to comment.

'I guess the little shit's gonna need a bigger fucking tin.'

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Jo slumped in her bean bag, out of sight of passers-by. The trailer was gone, but she'd fought to keep the bean bag. It was a small victory, but at this stage any win was better than none at all. Without the trailer, she'd been forced to flit between broom closets just to find some privacy, but today was warm and bright and, sandwiched between the walls of a small alley, she nestled into the vinyl and lifted her face to the sun. If her situation wasn't so dire, she might have found more joy in the moment.

Roger had been right after all. Jo had been dragged back in for another episode. But while she suspected it was simply an excuse to put her character to bed – sadly not Dean's - it wasn't panning out in quite the way she'd hoped. For one, she was still tending bar; in a hole-in-the-wall dive so sleazy it made the Roadhouse look like a feature in Homes of the Rich and Famous. Two, she still didn't possess a car and worse, seemed to have lost the knife. But the greatest ignominy was that she'd been proved right; Dean hadn't called her like he'd promised.

Jo shook her head sadly. Men; they never meant what they said.

She should have left the bullet in him.

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The writers huddled around a small table that was balanced precariously on only three legs. An old broom handle acted as the fourth, tilting the table top just enough that coffee cups, pens and papers had to be held to avoid ending up on the dusty floor. The light was dim, and the air stale. Eric was used to finding out-of-the-way places for meetings, far from the prying eyes and cocked ears of the network, but this was the worst.

'How did this happen?' Sera asked Eric. Always demonstrative, she'd raised her hands to convey her confusion, and then swore as her unbound copy of the latest script slid off the table and carpeted the floor.

'Who knows? It started in the fan fiction forums; rules and regulations about inappropriate language, keeping everything within the context of the show. It just spread from there. The network got wind of it and decided to clean up its act. It wants to show the viewers that it cares.' Eric sighed. 'Basically, it's a load of crap.'

The team eyed each other nervously. Nothing irritated them more than having their creativity stifled by the demands of the viewers and there wasn't a single person in the room whose pocket hadn't been hit by the new rules. As a joke, Dean had drawn up a tally sheet of everyone's indiscretions, but his outright lead had sparked unforeseen competition. Now, even those people who'd never before considered using foul language were swaggering around the lot, mouthing off like dock workers. Things were getting out of hand and the network wasn't happy.

So, in a childish attempt to ensure everyone knew who owned the sandbox, the CW were now making noises about imposing the same restrictions on scripts, a directive that had every writer shuddering.

'How do we work around it?' Raelle asked.

Eric flipped open the large bound volume in front of him. Titled Useful Euphemisms for the Dirty Minded, it contained the network's latest regulations. Just shy of two hundred and thirty pages, the guide was a minefield guaranteed to remove the legs from just about any creative project.

'In all fairness to the network, this isn't HBO, so we've always had to work within the broadcasting restrictions. This directive, if it's enforced, is just going to make things a little trickier,' Eric explained. 'It's not like we use outright profanity anyway, but the inference is always there, just under the surface, and because it's integral to characterization, we want to hang on to it.'

He looked around at his team. They'd all worked so hard to make this show what it was. This was just another inconvenience that would need to be dealt with and he didn't want it cramping their style. 'Honestly? I don't think we have anything to worry about, but we need to be aware of the dos and don'ts.'

He slid the manual across the table for others to see. 'I've marked the pages relevant to us. Read them and learn just how far you can stretch the parameters.'

Cathryn skimmed over it and looked up. 'Who the hell talks like this?' She sighed. 'So basically we can show, but we can't tell?'

Eric shrugged. 'Apparently, as long as it's tastefully done, nudity, sex scenes, fights – even decapitation - are acceptable. Direct reference to it is going to be much trickier to handle.'

'But that's ridiculous!' exclaimed Ben. 'Ninety percent of Dean's dialogue is hunting and sex. This is tantamount to gagging him.'

'Not to mention cutting off his balls,' Sera muttered, bitterly. She was rather partial to Dean's balls, having contributed greatly to their development over the past year.

Eric nodded. 'But this is where we're luckier than most. Dean and Meg, even Sam, set the precedent in previous seasons, so even the network realizes that a sudden clamp down will be detrimental. My take on this is we're safe to carry on with what we've got. We'll just have to be careful with new material.'

'So Dean can keep calling everyone a bitch?'

Eric nodded. 'I don't see why not.'

'But bang still means fuck?' Sera asked.

'Yeah. Except when it means bang.'

'So what do we do with this?' Cathryn waved the manual in the air. 'Ignore it?'

Eric took it from her and shook his head. 'I don't think we should.'

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Eric, as usual, was the last to leave. He felt relieved, his spirits buoyed by the creative frenzy that had followed his earlier assurances to his team. Careful to switch off the light, he closed and locked the door behind him. No evidence of their gathering remained, except for the thick book wedged firmly beneath one of the table legs, the network's directive having been put to good use after all.

tbc