All of her bar-flies went suddenly quiet and wary; all of them eyeing her like she might be dangerous. Several different hands slid off the table and into pockets or drifted near belt lines. Delmonico knew what that meant; she'd been around enough bars during research trips to know that there were probably knives and guns in those pockets.
She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat.
Delia openly appraised the newcomer. "You're not really Dean's ex-one-night-stand type, are you?"
As a healthy forty-ish year old who could still run a mile and a half in the morning and wore a size ten, Delmonico was pretty enough to draw attention at the department mixers. Granted the other tenured professors were all above her age bracket, but still. Also, she spent enough time in bars she'd learned to endure all kinds of come-ons and how to decline a man's advances without bruising his delicate ego. (And not incidentally, how to tell if the fella was going to be a problem and extract herself gracefully before he got nasty.) The dead Dean Winchester from Lawrence, KS would be over fifteen years her junior. She'd been propositioned by younger.
Delmonico smiled at the other woman, determined to stay on the table's good side. The best way to do that was to meet them on their own terms. "Sweetie, when the fellow is that cute and...athletic...even a lady my age would consider it."
Humor twinkled in Delia's eye. Oh, she'd considered it, too.
"But, no. I've never actually met the guy. I'd really like to," she finished.
Suddenly a splash of somebody's drink hit her in the face. Delmonico recoiled, expecting the burn of alcohol to sting her eyes. It took a moment for her brain to register the lack. In fact, the liquid didn't smell at all and wasn't the least bit sticky. "Water?" she asked stupidly. "What am I? The Wicked Witch of the West? I'm not going to melt!" Then she realized everyone had relaxed a fraction. "It's holy water, isn't it? I'm not possessed."
Because these people honestly and truly believed she might be, that a demon would walk up to them in a bar and ask for a modern day Van Helsing's phone number.
"Okay then, not a demon," Danny admitted, but that didn't make him relax any. If anything, his voice deepened and became more threatening now that she was an unknown. "Who are you? And why are you so interested in the Winchesters?"
"Are we still taking bets?" Bo wanted to know. "My money's on Fed, second choice for witch. Any takers?"
"Why Fed?" Delia wondered.
"She's got that 'I belong in an office' vibe," Bo shrugged.
Delmonico decided she wasn't enough of a liar to be anything but honest right now. "My name is Leah Delmonico; I am a professor of mythology and folklore. I am writing a book on urban legends. Everywhere I go, I have run into the name Winchester. In fact, I have more evidence of Sam and Dean than I do of Big Foot. You all believe these men are real. If they are, I want to talk to them."
Lindsey blinked in bewilderment. "A professor."
She nodded and sat down with her purse on the table. "Oh, and before I forget," she murmured pulling a folder from the outside pocket. "I heard your game of Fact or Crap and I would love to use some of your quotes for my next research paper. Do you mind?" she asked, sliding several sheets of paper across the table.
"What's this?" Bo picked up his copy for a better look.
"Release forms, giving me legal permission to use your words in my publication," the professor explained, completely forgetting Danny's implied threat for a moment. She also dropped a few pens from her university on the table for them to write with. "If you don't want me to use your name, just check the box on the bottom."
T.J. skimmed the document. "I know I'm a little drunk, but is she for real?"
Lindsey held up the tablet he had been poking at. The screen showed them a webpage for one Professor Leah Delmonico, her current class listings, and her list of publications. He tapped the screen bringing up another site, titled "Modern American Folklore" with "Chapter 3: Winchester, Just a Rifle...Right?" highlighted. "I think she's legit."
Everybody but Eye Patch Danny clustered around the tablet to read the wikipedia synopsis.
"Woman don't believe in monsters or the Winchesters, but she still wants their phone numbers," T.J. shook his head. "I don't know whether to run her skinny ass outta here or introduce them and sit back with a bag of popcorn."
A broad grin stretched its way across Danny's face as an idea came to him. "Well now. I say we have ourselves a little fun and give the professor here a little challenge. How's about she pays for the bottle and we all play one more round of Fact or Crap. If the little lady gets at least three outta five right, we give her the release forms and the phone number. If she doesn't, we give her the boot. Sound like a plan?"
.o0o.
Leah Delmonico was fuming mad. Still.
It had been days since she'd been unceremoniously thrown out of a roadhouse bar by a band of half-drunken 'monster hunters' who had laughingly told her she needed to study more because she clearly didn't know here subject very well. Didn't know her subject very well! Really? Didn't know her subject?! She had literally written a book on the subject. What did those bar-flies know?
And she was just supposed to take their collective word that they were right and she was wrong? How would they know that several different kinds of evil clowns had tried to kill Sam Winchester? Evil clowns, seriously? What childhood trauma lead to the spread of that rumor?
Or that Dean Winchester once mind-melded with a dog? Mind-melding is a Star Trek thing, dammit, not a supernatural thing! Some of the stories getting around about Winchesters were becoming strangely sci-fi. Like the military man who heard from a friend of a friend about body-snatching worms a marine picked up in some tombs in the Sandbox until Sam and Dean hit the scene.
At least they had all signed the release forms as consolation prizes before throwing her out.
Delmonico tried to calm herself down. She had textbooks to evaluate for her next round of classes, tests to write, and a couple of summer class projects to grade for her grad students. From experience she knew that if she tried any of that now, all the textbooks would be written by morons, all of her tests would be impossible to pass, and her students would be reduced to tears by her comments on their failed papers. Calm. She had to be calm. She was a professional and could act like one.
It almost worked. It would have worked, if no one had picked that moment to knock.
"Professor Delmonico?" a bearded man demanded, letting himself in with a second slightly shorter man following in his wake. Both were too old to be students at the university, but neither exactly had the 'collegiate professional' aire about them. "I'm Ed Zeddmore, this is my colleague Harry Spengler. We want to talk to you about appearing as a guest on our T.V. Series 'GhostFacers.'"
"Yeah, see we're professional paranormal investigators. We chase real ghosts for a living instead of just ghost stories," Harry explained with a touch of condescension in his tone.
"Which is why we probably didn't get mentioned in your book," Ed added. "Since, you know, we're not fakes and just making things up. Anyway, we have our own website where we post video footage of our investigations, but the networks won't pick us up. They said that we," he held up his hands making air quotes, "lack credibility."
"Lack credibility," Harry echoed with a roll of his eyes. "Like we haven't been doing this for years and years. I mean, come on. We already published a book!"
"Thinman, by Zeddmore and Spengler. Look it up," Ed broke in.
"And we have actual footage of a T.O.S.H. No other paranormal investigation crew has that!" Harry cried, as though he was delivery the last damning bit of evidence at a murder trial.
Delmonico felt compelled to ask, "What's a Tosh?" and then regretted her words, because she was pretty sure she did not want to know the answer to that question right now.
"What's a T.O.S.H," Ed repeated, with a pity-the-sad-little-person laugh. "A Trans-locating Opaque Spectral Humanoid, of course. We have it on tape."
"Yeah, only it called itself an 'angel'." This time Harry made the air quotes.
"Like those are real!" Ed scoffed. "So, if we could get another professional, you know, like a published university professor, to come on the show with us, then that might be enough," again with the air quotes, "credibility to make them reconsider."
"So, what do you say?" Harry demanded.
Oh, this was not helping Delmonico's migraine or her temper. Taking a deep breath and reminding herself that she really was a professional, she answered, "Gentlemen, my work focuses on the effects of folklore on society, not the folklore itself. I am not a ghost chaser or any kind of paranormal investigator. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to appear on your..." Idiocy, she thought but didn't say aloud. "...production," she finished instead.
"Come on!" Ed wheedled, "We'll make you as famous as us!"
"It'll get you all the hot guys!" Harry offered excitedly. "Good looking guys will totally dig the bad-ass ghost hunter chick!
Right, because that is all I want out of life! Delmonico thought as she struggled not to roll her eyes. "I'm sorry, gentlemen. I'm afraid I just don't have the time for any new projects with the semester starting so soon."
Both men deflated.
"Well, this blows!" Ed whined. "First those douches the Winchesters refuse to come out to be the eye candy muscle next to our amazing brain power and knowledge, now the only decent-looking professor chick refuses to get on board to be the show's gravitas! What'll go wrong next?!"
Almost against her will, Delmonico asked, "Wait, you know the Winchesters?"
Ed snorted. "We met a few times."
"They totally ruined our footage from Morton House in Wisconsin!" Harry complained.
"But we exchanged phone numbers with them anyway, in case they ever got in over their heads and needed our professional advice or assistance," Ed explained with a sniff.
"You two seriously have Sam and Dean Winchester's phone number?" she asked cautiously, not wanting to send them into another frenzy of unwanted information.
"Of course!" Ed exclaimed sounding vaguely insulted. "We're not liars!"
"Can I get that number from you?"
Harry shrugged and dug in a pocket for his phone.
But Ed stopped him and put on what he probably thought was a crafty expression. "What's in it for us?"
Delmonico rubbed her temples, considering her options and the odds that these two morons would ever actually get anything published. "How about this: you give me that phone number, and if the Winchesters answer I will give you a ten minute blurb on camera about the history of whatever haunted house you're thinking about investigating."
"Twenty minutes," Ed counted. "And you have to come out and do publicity shot by the haunted house wearing something slinky when the network picks us up."
Delmonico forced a smile. "Twenty minutes and publicity shots wearing my usual clothes."
"Fine," Ed grumbled, "but you're killing some rating points, here."
She could live with that; it would be a lot less embarrassing than another round of Fact or Crap. "Gentlemen, we have a deal."
A/N: If you haven't seen the GhostFacers' "Interview with an Angel" with Misha Collins doing a guest spot on the webisode, then you won't get the TOSH reference. Look it up on youTube, its hilarious.