Dealings
'Luke' was sprawled on a park bench about three blocks away from the hospital; phone in hand, willing it to ring. He had been there for what felt like days, though Dean knew it had only been a few hours at most, with regular breaks for coffee.
Once he knew Sam had been hauled off by the cops, it was a process of elimination. He hadn't been arrested. He wasn't back at the motel. So, it had to be the hospital. Dean had positioned himself as close to the hospital as he thought was safe, and tried to look busy whenever anyone went by. This hadn't prevented three eager and slightly furtive men asking him for two distinct and distasteful favours. They had disappeared remarkably quickly, once Dean had explained to them that a) he was not in that line of work and b) they were disgusting.
Dean looked up from his phone and snorted. A man in his thirties was walking slowly but purposefully towards him. Customer number four, it seemed.
The man was wearing jeans and a jacket, Dean saw, as he got closer. Oh. Not a customer, Dean realised, when it was too late to move and have it seem natural.
"Evening," the man said, conversationally.
"Evening," Dean replied, manoeuvring his feet into a better starting position. Just in case.
The man stood still, side on, about six feet away. Dean stayed where he was.
"What are you selling?"
Dean tried not to roll his eyes. "Not selling anything."
"Don't bullshit me."
Dean looked sideways at the guy. "Really. Not selling anything."
"Yeah." The guy turned to face Dean for the first time, eyes taking him in. "So, what's in your pockets?"
"Not much," Dean said honestly.
"Show me," said the man.
"Ah, no."
The guy moved his jacket aside to show the gun on his hip and the badge on his belt. He stepped closer to the bench.
"Show me here, or show me at the station." For a cop, he sounded pretty cheerful, Dean thought.
"Okay," Dean said, and turfed out the contents of his pockets, laying them one by one on the bench beside him so the cop could see.
The cop ran his eye over the assorted items. Cash. Gum. Phone. Condoms. He flicked his eyes over Dean again, re-assessing. He looked at Dean's fresh black eye and cut lip, and the bruising underneath it that travelled down his neck.
"Okay. Thank you."
Dean nearly fell off the bench in shock.
"I haven't seen you here before," the cop commented. "My name's Raimi. I work Vice."
"I'm Luke," Dean said easily.
"Nice to meet you," Raimi said. "You can put your things away now. Thanks."
Twice inside a minute, Dean was shocked into silence. He put his stuff back in his pockets.
"You're polite for a cop," Dean eventually got out.
Raimi made a small sound in the back of his throat. "Politeness doesn't cost anything."
"You weren't so polite when you thought I was dealing," Dean pointed out.
Raimi acknowledged this with a wave of his hand, and said, "I won't have drugs here. What happened?" he asked, gesturing minutely at Dean's face.
"Oh." Dean had almost forgotten about that. "Disagreement."
"With a customer?"
Dean was confused for a second, and then he got it. Vice. Oh, right.
"Ah." What was the best thing to say? "Yeah."
The cop looked at him hard. "This customer. Is he going to be making any complaints?"
"Nah." Dean leaned back, giving Raimi a better look at his face and neck. "He did all the work."
Raimi motioned towards the free space on the bench. "Mind if I sit?"
Dean gave him the go-ahead.
The cop sat down in silence. They looked at the view.
Raimi looked at Dean. "Do you have a pimp?"
"No, nope."
"Are you safe?"
Dean looked at Raimi this time. "Yeah." What kind of cop was this?
"Do you know a kid named Mark?"
"Why?"
"He's in some trouble. I thought maybe you'd be a friend of his?"
Dean bared his teeth as he looked in the opposite direction. "Yes."
Raimi nodded. "They'll try to get hold of you. The shrinks. They're good like that. So, if you want to be around to be a friend to him, you need to stay safe. Okay?"
Dean switched his attention back to the cop. "Yeah. Thanks." The phone started to vibrate in Dean's pocket. He stood up painfully and fished the phone out.
"Don't mind me," Raimi said, not moving from the bench.
Dean flipped open the phone. "Mark?"
It was Sam. Dean's face split in a smile of sheer relief. He fixed his eyes on a point in the middle distance and listened hard to his brother. Dean didn't say much, mindful of the fact that the cop was still within earshot, but reluctant to walk away. Cops were always more interested in the things you didn't want to them to hear, in Dean's experience.
Dean finished the call by arranging to visit Sam the next day, and hung up. When he turned round to face Raimi again, the cop was doing a passable impression of not listening.
"Everything okay?" Raimi asked casually.
Dean nodded vaguely.
"He's fine."
The cop looked cautiously at Dean. "Are you?"
Dean kept his face clear of emotion. He gestured at his face and said, "What, this? It's nothing."
"It's not just your face though, is it? I think I saw you in the hospital last week."
"I'm fine, man," Dean told him, thinking rapidly.
Raimi looked at his fingernails. "If you were having a problem with somebody, to the extent that they had put you in hospital, the smart thing to do would be to tell me."
Dean sat down on the bench again. He said nothing.
"I don't know what dealings you've had with cops before, Luke," Raimi said slowly, "but I'm not here to make your life harder. I won't push you for details of what happened, but what happened to you was like nothing I've seen before. I wouldn't want that to happen again, to you or to anyone, so if you could tell me anything that would help me stop it from happening again, I would appreciate it."
Raimi placed a card with a phone number on it on the bench between them.
"And whatever you can or can't tell me," he went on, " you can call me if you're in trouble. Okay?"
Dean couldn't speak. He picked up the card and put it in his jeans pocket. He nodded in a off-hand way, looking past the cop, not focusing on anything.
Phoenix was turning out to be a little different than he had expected.