Two

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"Mr Winchester," Alan sighed.

"Just 'Dean'," the defendant rumbled petulantly. "Mr Winchester was my dad."

"Oh yes, your father… who died and left you the only legal family to look after your younger brother…" Alan flicked open the file in front of him and glanced at it. "…Sam?"

"Kinda."

"Hmm," Alan allowed. "Why are you determined not to tell anyone what happened?"

Dean's eyes went to Charles Fort's. The other man was watching him, a slow tide of red passing up his face, but the reason appeared unclear to Dean.

Charles raised his eyebrows. "Tell us that at least," he said, his voice hollow.

"No."

"If you don't--" Charles urged.

"No," Dean growled.

"Tell him!"

"It's got nothing to do with the case," Dean groused.

"My dear fellow, it is the case," Alan smiled. "If you hadn't been arrested for running out of the alley brandishing the murder weapon covered in blood and gore, none of use would be here now."

Dean swallowed and looked around the well-kept office. "Look, this ain't none of your business, so--"

"Indeed it is, Mr Winchester," Alan said sharply. "Do you want to go to prison?"

"It's not your business," Dean growled.

"And why's that?"

"It's family business!"

"You and your brother's?"

"Yes!"

"Because?"

"Because we're all that's left, that's why!" Dean hurled. "I had to look out for him, same as I've always done! I couldn't leave him there and let him get into it all over--!" He clamped his mouth shut.

Alan raised a single eyebrow before he got to his feet and walked over to the drinks cabinet in the side bar. He pulled out a bottle of scotch and began pouring out a rather generous measure.

"We go to trial tomorrow, Mr Winchester. Half the city think you should be put down for being rabid." He carried the glass over to the table, depositing it in front of the client. He sat himself down again and sniffed. "I don't care what you've done," he added quietly, "and I don't care how you feel about it. What I do care about - what matters to the jury most - is why," he added softly.

He looked up and caught his client watching the sparkling liquid in front of him with bitterness.

"The why, Mr Winchester, if you please. It can save you," he added gently.

Dean looked at him with a rueful smile and eyes that spoke volumes on betrayal and resignation. "Aw, I think it's too late for that, Mr Shore." He picked up the scotch and downed the entire glass in one shot.

Alan noticed with bewilderment and a little disappointment that the expensive liquor didn't cause the least bit of reaction in the man.

"Tell him," Charles said quietly.

Dean looked across the table at him. He raised his head, as if by looking down his nose he could smash the other lawyer's stare with ease. To Alan's surprise, it did just that, and Charles looked at the table top with resignation.

Dean pulled in a short breath, then looked directly at Alan Shore. "Nope," he declared flatly, his chin out, as if daring the lawyer to beat it out of him.

Alan appraised Dean with a tight smile. "Well that's not very helpful, Mr Winchester. I can't fight this with what I've got."

"Don't matter. Demon's been knifed. Sammy's safe for now."

"Sammy?" he prompted.

"--Sam," Dean amended quickly.

Alan's face took on a half-smile, as if half of his attention were stuck on how to engage his client and the other half on note-taking. "Hmm," he smiled, an evil glint already forming in both eyes by virtue of their predisposition regarding mischief - and turning things on their heads at every opportune moment.

He got up to go back to the bar, this time picking up the coffee pot from the hotplate. "I can see we have a lot of work to do if we're to get you off tomorrow," he said. "Coffee, Mr Fort?"

Charles sighed and got up, crossing the room.

A shorter, decidedly portly man rounded the doorjamb with almost a skip in his step. He stopped short, staring at Dean in the chair.

"Alan," he said curtly, curiosity applying for extra time but failing, "there's a good looking ruffian sitting in your office."

"Ah! Denny!" Alan grinned, appearing behind him. "This is our new client, Mr Winchester. Dean Winchester, this is Denny Crane."

"Client, you say? Client?" He hissed his demands with urgency, still meeting the seated man's gaze with a challenge. "Look at him! He's all rugged and car-mechanic rough! That," Denny said fearfully, stabbing a finger at Dean but looking at Alan, "is one of those 'dirty pool men' they talk about on all those stalking websites!"

"Denny, please. We don't need to know what websites you read in your spare time."

"Read? Who says I read?" Denny scoffed. He looked back at Dean. "You'll have to get rid of him! I'm the Captain of this ship! How are the girls here going to look at me with him sat there like that? There's only room for one devastatingly handsome man in this office - and that's me!" he asserted, dragging his stare off the client to fling it at his friend.

"While personally injurious, I understand the motivation behind your remarks, Denny. However," Alan stressed, dropping a hand upon the shoulder of the firm's largest ego, "be soothed by the knowledge that he is wanted for murder. We'll get him off and he will disappear back into the seedy underbelly of this grand country of equal opportunity for loonies that we call the United States."

"Just make sure you do, crewman," Denny affirmed.

"Hey, Captain Kirk," Dean interrupted, "I ain't happy about being here either. Just let Shore there do his job and I'll be out of your hair. Well, the hair you got left, anyway."

Denny's mouth dropped open. "Alan? I think he just insulted me," he complained. "He insults people and he's too good-looking!"

"I must apologise for the client, Mr Crane," said a voice from behind him.

Denny whirled around, catlike, to find another man standing a way behind Alan, in the middle of helping himself to coffee from the pot on the side.

"Good God! So is he!" he accused.

"Now now, Denny. This is Mr Charles Fort - known as Sam Winchester to his family," Alan said helpfully.

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance, which Alan's free hand cut short with an amused, flourished wave.

"Oh come now, boys. I pride myself on having half a brain, and I have read both your files. It rather seems you two are smoke and fire - never one without the other." Alan let go of a puzzled Denny to walk toward Sam. "There is no firm called Rickard, Sutton and Sieveking in Kansas - the names belong to a group of gentlemen who produce a little-known magazine called the 'Fortean Times'. According to research by my faithful assistant Clarence, their inspiration to do so was a Mr Charles Fort. And you do rather answer the description of the wayward Sam. Really, it wasn't hard to put together." He spun, assessing Dean's warning look before turning back to the taller brother with a warm smile. "Would you trust me to win his case if I weren't able to put the least of the minutiae together, Sam?"

Sam shrugged, but it was clear he was past caring. "You got me. What now?"

"Now you need to fill in a few things that your brother seems unwilling to."

"Sam!" Dean warned sharply.

Sam looked over at Dean, judged his wrath too far away to be able to physically suppress him before he could get some words out. "I'll tell you what I know."

"Goddamn it, Sam! What the Hell do you think I'm--"

"Mr Winchester, please," Alan interrupted.

"He's a very angry young man," Denny marvelled quietly. "I'll just… get back to my office." He turned for the door. "I'll feel better with my guns around me." He fled.

Alan watched him go with amusement, before turning back to look at both boys. "And you, Sam, what would make you feel better?" he asked, his eyes assessing the younger man who towered over him.

"Just get him off this murder charge. It's that or I break him out."

"Quite right!" Alan crowed with delight, a hand to his chest in admiration. "And what else are brothers for! Which, I have the most peculiar feeling, shall be the thrust of our case, by the way."

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The following day was a blur. Dean was seated next to Alan, Sam on his right. Dean noticed neither the prosecutor nor the two police officers who took the stand to give damning evidence of having arrested him. What he could and did notice was the way the tide was flowing.

It was going his way alright, but it was bringing all the crap the high seas deposited on the carcasses of large dead sea creatures, the ones too dense to have fought or flown.

Which, Dean was realising with a sinking feeling rather akin to drowning in that sea of effluence, was actual exactly what he had done.

Failed to fight. Failed to fly. Failed at everything.

Except saving Sammy from all that demon blood on that girl, getting arrested and prison.

He let himself glance at his silent, immaculately dressed brother with the totally unsuitable hair. A small smile fought for time on his lips before he felt a knock at his right elbow. "Whut?" he managed, realising Alan was talking at him.

"You have to sit in the chair," he repeated cheerfully.

"What!"

"I told you that you would called to the stand. Get up there," he smiled. Then he added a few extra layers of unctuousness: "Try not to look like such a ruffian."

Dean's face twisted into something that Alan was positive was about to spew forth terrible epithets, and he smiled, recognising the first hurdle had been jumped. However, no snippy comeback materialised from Dean as he stood quietly.

"Good luck," came a small voice, and Dean looked back at his brother. Sam tried a hopeful smile but it came out rather cornered.

Dean stepped out from behind the desk and was guided by a rather large court bailiff to the little box and its accompanying seat. Despite his years in all kinds of places, the slap of the wooden gate closing made him jump and his skin tighten, as if unbreakable bonds were already being snapped around his wrists for all eternity.

No wait, he thought suddenly, that's been done. And I'm still here.

He looked up and found Alan before him. "Mr Winchester. Have you been sworn in?"

"What?" His look of cluelessness apparently went down well with the jury.

"Have you taken an oath?" Alan smiled.

"What kind?" Dean asked, looking around at the judge for help.

The judge - a large man with no patience, it seemed - put a hand over the microphone and leaned toward the witness stand. "Mr Winchester, have you put your hand on the Bible and sworn to tell the truth here today?"

"Why the Hell would I need a Bible to do that?" Dean demanded, aghast. He heard the sound of a palm colliding with a forehead and knew without looking it was Sam's.

The judge blinked. He sighed and looked at Alan, who was not remiss in taking up the slack, hearing the slight noises of amusement from the jury already.

"Mr Winchester," he said grandly, buttoning up his suit jacket and walking to stand in front of the judge. He turned to look at his client. "Do you swear to tell the truth here today?"

"Well that's kinda the point, ain't it? Don't waste my time," he tutted.

"Please enter for the record that we understand that passes for a yes in his world," Alan grinned.

The judge simply rolled his eyes.

"And Mr Winchester, could you tell us if you stabbed the lady in question? Miss Celia White?" Alan continued.

"I could." Dean's eyes bored into the man not twenty feet away.

"And?"

"And yeah, I could."

"Then do it," the judge boomed. "Don't you waste my time, Mr Winchester," he threatened.

Dean blew out a breath. "Alright then." He paused for a long moment, his eyes sweeping round the room. He wiped a hand over his face.

"Anytime today, if you please," Alan said politely, still smiling.

"No," Dean managed.

"No what?" Alan asked.

"No, I didn't actually stab her."

"Oh! Really? But you said you did," Alan said quickly, ignoring the surprised sounds from the seated watchers and assorted people behind him. "Why would you lie to the police?"

"I didn't. They just never asked me. They saw me with the knife and the next thing I know, I'm face down on the hood. I know I like a bit of rough stuff, but not with guys," he tutted.

Alan heard the jury's amusement and hoped they were warming to the defendant as planned. "And so when they arrested you, and asked you repeatedly if you stabbed her, what did you say?"

"Nothin'."

"Hmm. Curious," Alan mused. "Most people shout and scream until their lungs give out, protesting their innocence." He looked at Dean, a hand out in mystification. "Why didn't you?"

Dean wet his lower lip, his eyes darting away from the desk at which he knew his brother to be sat.

Suddenly, he found his boots to be the most interesting things in the known universe.

"Mr Winchester?" Alan prompted.

"She was dead when I found her, ok? I got the knife and the Doughnut Department saw me. I ran and they grabbed me. End of story," he informed his footwear.

Alan again heard one or two breaths of amusement from the jury. He sniffed to himself to hide his glee. "When you say you 'got the knife', Mr Winchester, what do you mean? Exactly?"

Dean stared daggers at him. He said he was on our side! he raged. "I took the knife."

"You… took… the knife. From whom?"

Dean let his head tilt as his gaze swayed round the courtroom. "Someone else."

"Mr Winchester," the judge protested suddenly. "You will answer the questions like a grown-up or I'll find you in contempt."

"Fine!" Dean snarled. "I took it off my brother."

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Thanks for giving this a chance, people. I really appreciate it!