A/Ns: I know many of you have been pondering for quite some time now what's up with Chuck's writing, and whether he's writing details of Dean being from the future. I present: the answer. I've not really written this kind of thing before, where two versions of events are happening simultaneously, so hopefully it comes across clearly.
Reviews: Thank you everyone who commented or 'pushed' that like button last chapter! We gota lot of newcomers, which is awesome (and to you all I say, Welcome!). I wanna take a min to spotlight something a couple of our binge readers mentioned, which was some form of happiness or surprise that this story had been updated recently, as many lengthy stories don't get finished. Seeing that brought up by multiple people really made me really smile because, honestly? If you'd asked me two years ago if I would still be writing this story today, I probably would have told you no. Would I have said I hope so? Absolutely. But if I'd had to guess and be honest about it, I'd have said that I was likely to lose interest, get disheartened, or just get too busy to write this mammoth all the way through. I'm happy to say the first hasn't occurred in even the slightest, and the last two may be battles I am waging, but I haven't lost yet :)
Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to those that brought it up, and those who've been with me since the start, or the damn near start, or even just a really long time! It's been a long, but good, two years and I really appreciate that you guys appreciate this story is still going (if that makes any sense). I'm gonna keep working my little butt off (it's really not that little...) to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.
Chapter Warnings: Chuck's writing, Persephone's reading, Jo's hunting, Dean's scheming, Andy's helping, and Sam just thinks this is all a really bad idea.
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The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 33
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Chuck was nervous. His palms were positively leaking sweat around the stack of papers, and he couldn't seem to stop his whole face from alternating spastically between a smile and a frown, like some sort of crazy person. His cheeks were starting to hurt from it.
"H-Hey, Steph?" He stopped in front of her chair, and it very much had become her chair over the last three weeks. A dilapidated old thing that had more fabric hanging off of it than on it, but she'd seemed quite content with the Lazy Boy, hauling it over to his front window and curled up in it the first time he presented her with something to read. They'd started with an old draft from several books ago. Chuck had offered it to her, suggesting maybe she could read it and then version his publisher had fina'ed, so she got a hang of the kind of editing he went through. And the help maybe he needed after all.
She looked up from that chair now, halfway through the last book he'd sent to his publisher. It hadn't printed yet, and was the first thing 'new' he'd let her read. But it was far too late to make changes to it now. Chuck felt it was safer that way. He'd only managed to hand over old things that maybe he wouldn't feel too crushed over if she didn't like them or had harsh critique. As of yet, she hadn't offered much more than sparse grammatical input (apparently, his was, what was the word she'd used? Lacking.) and many questions concerning where the story might go from there.
"What's up, Chuck?"
He couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his mouth, momentarily distracting him from the fact that he'd been nervous. The slang sounded weird as ever coming from this woman. She alternated between the strangest mix of super-formal English and the kind of vernacular someone picks up from watching entirely too much 90's television shows. Chuck figured it had something to do with English not being her first language, but she hadn't told him much when he'd poked around.
Her super formal training in English, wherever it had come from, made her quite the old-fashioned grammar Nazi, though. Oxford Comma level Nazi. He'd had to remind her several times that that comma was considered optional. She'd just stared at him until he'd told her he couldn't change it, what she was reading was already published.
Okay, so perhaps she hadn't lost every inch of that intimidating persona he'd first met. Still, he supposed being a grammar Nazi wasn't a bad thing in her job, though. Maybe she just scared her clients into writing faster.
"Here." Chuck thrust the papers he was holding towards her. It was only a couple of chapters stapled together, not quite the thick stack of a finished book like she was currently reading. "I, uh…it's new. Unpublished, I mean. Uh…ripe for…critique. I-If you… wanna take a stab at it?"
Stephanie sat up, eyes wider with interest. She took the papers from him, noticing his nervousness as he clutched them a tad too tight and took a second too long to let them go. When he finally did, she settled back in the chair, but stared up at him instead of the chapters now in resting against her drawn up knees. "You're finished with it, then?"
"Uh…not…completely. It's- It's just a first draft."
Which was a lie. He'd already been through three different editing passes on it, which was about two and a half more than he usually did, but he really wanted her to like it. Or, at least, he thought he did. He wasn't used to anyone but Sera – his publisher – reading them before they were printed. It opened up a whole new round of possible rejection (disdain, disinterest, repulsion. Straight up laughing in his face. Etc, etc), and Chuck wasn't so great with that.
"Okay."
She tucked her legs back under her and dug in to the first page with no further ado. Chuck stood there for another moment, awkward, before he turned and shuffled back to his desk.
-o-o-o-
When Jo Harvelle's number popped up on his cell's display, the thing ringing away in his pocket, Dean couldn't say he was surprised. He hadn't been expecting it down to the minute or anything, but he had been expecting it for the last week or two.
"Hey there, Jo," he answered easily, sliding into the diner booth that Andy and Sam already occupied. He was still making them pay for their threats by dragging them to every single diner that boasted about 'world famous' pie.
"How far are you from Philly?"
Straight to the point then. Dean pulled the phone away to glance at it like he could actually pass on that raised brow straight through to the demanding girl on the other end of the line. "Hello to you, too."
He could practically hear the eye roll. "Dean. I'm serious."
"Four hours," he supplied, while Sam tried to ask what was going on with just his face. "You got a case?"
"Yeah, I got a case. Three weeks ago, a girl disappeared from a Philadelphia apartment, and she wasn't the first." Dean remembered the hunt. It had been the reason he'd expected Jo's call. It had been her case, though he remembered them snaking it from her on Ellen's request. Not that that had stopped her for long. She'd her to show up before they even got started. "Over the past eighty years, six women have vanished. All from the same building-"
"Your mother know you're on a hunt?" Dean couldn't help but interrupt. He didn't need the details or the sell, anyway. They were obviously going.
"What makes you think I'm on it?" He could practically see her evasive eyes dart to the side, that smirk playing at the corner of her lips to cover her unease. "I could just be calling you with the details."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Right. Only this isn't the Roadhouse landline, and I'm not an idiot."
"Fine," Jo bit back, and he practically hear the pursed lips and terse face. "I'm on it. I've rented the apartment-"
Despite Sam now trying to flag him down for details and Andy glancing back and forth between the two of them, Dean ignored them both. He closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead. God damn it. She wasn't supposed to beat them there. "Jo-"
"There's ectoplasm here, Dean. This is one seriously pissed off ghost we're dealing with."
"Jo-"
"I've gone back through the building's history-"
"Are you insane?" Her stream of excited words died abruptly, and Dean sighed. "You're practically a walking billboard for this guy's type, and you went into that apartment alone?"
Now Sam was looking decidedly worried, which he had every reason to be, even if he didn't know the details. The other end of the call went dead quiet, and Dean knew he'd pissed her off. He just hope she didn't hang up on him without handing over an address first.
"How do you know I'm his type?"
"What?"
"The ghost," she clarified, voice clipped. "How do you know he has a type?"
Well, crap.
"Lucky guess." Dean ran a hand down his face, angry at himself and the situation. She hadn't said anything about the victims, other than they were young girls, had she? He hadn't let her get that far. Son of a bitch. It was time to switch tactics. "You calling us for backup? You better be calling for backup, or I'm calling your mother."
Jo snorted. "What's she going to do?"
Which was a fair question, but so not the point. "Jo."
"Yes." The word was practically spat, but Dean didn't really care. It was the one he needed to hear. "I…could use some backup, alright? You gonna step up, or you gonna tattle on me?"
"We'll be there in four hours. Text me the address." Dean pulled the phone away from his ear, then thought better of it. "And don't hunt this thing on your own, you got that?"
"I'm not a child, Dean."
"No, what you are is new to this, and your mother will murder me if you get dead. So sit tight – not in the building – until we get there."
He hung up before she could answer, knowing she would only argue. Even thought she was smart enough to know she was over her head, even though she'd called for backup. Jo was tenacious as hell and didn't know how to stop. Dean just hoped she actually listened this once.
Ellen wouldn't have to kill him if anything happened to her, he'd friggin' do it himself.
Their waitress came over as Dean tucked his phone away, Sam already asking what was going on while digging out his wallet. The older Winchester still didn't answer, instead smiling tightly up at their server.
"We'll take that pie to go."
-o-o-o-
"Jo Harvelle is the daughter of the bar owner, yes? The…Roadhouse?"
Chuck looked up from his laptop. It had only been ten minutes or so, but Steph was several pages in. He rubbed at his chin, trying not to be self-conscious. It was just a question. An innocent question. "Yep, that's her. Jo and Ellen Harvelle."
Steph hummed noncommittally and went back to the chapter. Chuck hesitated, opened his mouth, closed his mouth, decided she probably didn't want to be interrupted, and went back to typing.
"How does Dean know the ghost's type?"
Chuck stopped again. "Huh?"
"Dean said she fit the ghost's type. How did he know?"
"Uh…." Chuck smiled, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Just wait, you'll find out."
Steph narrowed her eyes at him, but she looked more putout than angry. So Chuck laughed nervously before going back to his writing. Eventually, she went back to the story, but he couldn't help glancing over at her with every page flip.
-o-o-o-
As they exited the diner, they were intercepted by a middle-aged man in a business suit before they could make it to the Impala.
"Excuse me, gentlemen?" The trio pulled up short at the incredibly average looking man heading towards them from the direction of their car. He was Caucasian, maybe early forties, with close-cut, pale hair, the beginnings of a receding hairline, and a stiff smile. Dean was immediately on guard, though nothing particularly screamed danger. "I'm looking for a gas station. Do you know where the nearest one is?"
Dean and Sam exchanged glances, Andy quiet behind them. Sam took one for the team, turning a friendly smile on the stranger. "We passed one on our way in. Two blocks up the road that way. On the right."
The man smiled and dipped his head. "Thanks, thank you very much."
And then he turned and walked in the direction Sam had indicated.
"That was weird." The two brothers turned to Andy, who was still staring after the guy. He glanced between them. "Was that weird? Felt weird."
"It was weird alright," Dean mumbled, glancing back over his shoulder at the retreating figure. "That was an angel."
"Wait, what?" Sam straightened, forehead smoothing out as he whipped his gaze back at the stranger in a damn near comical double take.
"For real?" Andy asked at the same time, eyebrows climbing towards his hair. "That was an angel? Like Cas?"
"Yeah." Dean was still watching the man, who made it past the next building and a row of hedges, both of which obscured him from sight. The hunter rubbed at his chest absently. He turned and headed for the Impala, the other two following, asking a million questions a minute, but Dean was busy wondering if that had happened the first time around.
He was sure it had been an angel. He'd seen enough of them, knew how they held themselves stiff in their vessels, the holier than though vibe that just wafted off of them in waves. But was this new? Was it a result of them going off radar, or had this happened the first time? Dean from 2006 wouldn't have thought anything of a weird guy in a suit who didn't leave much of an impression other than 'odd.'
Cas had said Heaven was likely watching them and would notice when they dropped off the grid. Hell had taken a crack at tracking them down. Was this Heaven's turn?
Dean angled another look over his shoulder in the direction the angel had gone, but there was nothing to see. He pulled open the driver's door and got in the car, the other two following, still bugging him for answers. They'd have to check the Impala over for trackers, again, but they couldn't do it there.
-o-o-o-
The hex bag was missing from the wheel well. They didn't see any other evidence of tracking devices, supernatural or man-made, or tampering at all. It didn't surprise Dean that Heaven was less technologically savvy than Hell. Went with that whole holier-than-though crap.
"We'll have to make another one." Sam glanced towards the trunk, trying to calculate how much they had left of their ingredients. They'd made one for Andy, and Dean had lost one on a hunt a couple weeks ago ('What do you want me to say, Sam? The thing must have fallen out. I was a little pre-occupied not becoming Vamp meat!'). Sam was certain they had enough to replace the one in the Impala, but after that, he wasn't sure. He made a mental note to talk to Cas about getting some more the next time they saw her.
"Yeah," Dean growled, though it wasn't Sam he was annoyed at. No one touched his Baby, and now Heaven and Hell had both put their stinkin' mitts on her. Sons of bitches, all of them. "We should up the warding on her too. Make it harder for them to mess with her."
He hadn't wanted to put the hex bag in the interior, because, hexbags, damnit. But maybe they would have to. Only problem was, they couldn't ward the car against angels getting in without locking Cas out too. But clearly, they were going to have to start getting a little more creative in their defense.
"We should keep moving." Dean headed back for the front of the car. Heaven probably wasn't doing anything more than tracking their movements – he hadn't spotted anyone following them and Cas had seem pretty unconcerned with the surveillance – but he didn't want to risk them dropping by for a listen. He really didn't want to go back to worrying about what he could say out loud again.
First chance they got, he was warding the car six ways from Sunday.
-o-o-o-
"Who was the man in the suit?"
Chuck stopped writing again, looking over the top of his computer to the woman still curled in her chair, but staring at him expectantly. He blinked.
"You wrote him into the scene, yet he left without any relevant purpose." Stephanie looked almost annoyed at the inconvenience of one of the basic components to any plot and, for an editor, Chuck kinda wondered how many books she'd read before this one. "You must have had a reason to include him."
"You did not ask this many questions when you read the other drafts."
She shrugged one unapologetic shoulder in his general direction. "I had already read the finished book. I knew the answers."
"Yeah, well," Chuck gave the stack of papers in her hands a pointed look, "you'll know these answers when you finish reading this book."
Those green eyes narrowed on him again.
"Isn't that what an editor does?" he prodded, before realizing with a pleasant jolt of surprise that he was teasing her. Without fear of death-by-eye-daggers-or-possibly-dismemberment, even. When her narrowed-eyed stare didn't get worse but shifted more into a put upon glare, Chuck relaxed ever so slightly and that tiny little ball of confidence deep down inside him – more of a pea than a ball, really – grew just a little bit bigger.
Stephanie ducked her head back into the story, but not before correcting, "Editorial assistant."
Chuck shook his head and tried to focus on typing.
-o-o-o-
"What are we going to tell her?" Sam asked after the silence in the car had lasted more than fifty miles, the talk of angels and demons dropping off about an hour ago. Dean twitched in the driver's seat, already uncomfortable with the new choice of topic.
"Nothing."
Sam just turned his head to his brother and stared, unimpressed. "Dean," he admonished, that kindergarten-teacher-lecturing-the-slow-kid voice in full gear. "She going to know something's up. How are we going to explain knowing so much about the case?"
Andy's head popped up between theirs, causing Dean to lean away with a tsking sound. The kid really should give them some warning. And wear his damn seatbelt!
"Wait, is this about you being from the future?" Andy asked, arms crossed over the front of the seat, head resting on them as he glanced between the two brothers like an up-close tennis match. So up close, he was pretty much the net in this metaphor.
"What else?" Dean grumbled. He lifted one hand from the steering wheel and made it halfway to his chest before he realized what he was doing and, reluctantly, put his hand back on his Baby. He was well aware of his brother's eyes on him the entire time.
Andy either didn't notice, hadn't spotted the tick in general, or decided not to comment. Instead, he frowned, tilting his head so his cheek was pressed into his wrist as he looked at Dean. "We can't just tell her?"
The older Winchester angled a pointed side-eye in the kid's direction. "You know, most people don't just believe you when you say something like that."
Their resident third wheel just shrugged. True enough. He wouldn't have believed it himself, if Dean hadn't admitted it under Andy's power. Actually, he still wasn't sure he believed it. This could all be a psychotic break, and he was locked in his head, rocking back and forth in the corner of a padded room muttering 'yellow-eyed demon' and 'ghosts' over and over again to the wall.
That scenario was really just as likely, he figured.
"So we're going to lie to her, instead?" Sam got them back on track, though his tone lot a left to be desired, support wise. Dean was back to twitchy. He wasn't exactly thrilled about lying to Jo either, thank you very much, but it was their safest option. "She's not stupid, you know. She's going to know something's up."
"We'll…stick with the psychic story if we have to tell her something."
Dean gave up trying not to and rubbed at his chest, and ended up doing it a little more harshly than was strictly necessary. It wasn't aching, not like it did around a demon, but sternum-Cas wasn't sitting well today and Dean didn't like it. Whether it was the angel they'd bumped into back at the diner or the fact he basically scheming against a friend (family), Dean didn't actually know. Probably both. He was starting to think the angel didn't like it when he lied, and if that was what was going on, well Cas was gonna have to just learn to deal. He'd been lying for nine damn months now and his little chest angel hadn't had anything to say for any of that.
(Not true, but also not supportive of his point, so that truth could shove it, as well)
"The less people that know about this, the better," he added, partially for Sam who was still sitting there with a half-formed bitchface (hard to tell which one, since it was still evolving, but Dean guessed it was lucky #1), and partially maybe also for Cas, too. Lying to their friends might suck balls, but pretending to be psychic was easier than explaining where he was actually from.
Sam didn't say anything, and Andy resettled his chin on his arms. He stared out the window, thinking idly, before asked, almost casually, "So…what was the plan again?"
Dean rolled his eyes but outlined the facts of the case again. Their perp was Herman Webster Mudgett, aka H.H. Holmes. ('Wait, like, the Murder Hotel guy? The Chicago World Fair guy? America's first serial killer? That H.H. Holmes? That's our ghost?!') The lot next door to the prison where he'd been hung and someone had decided, decades later, 'yeah, let's put an apartment complex here.' Jo playing bait because she was young, blonde, and female. And the subsequent race to find her in the walls-slash-basement-slash-sewer-slash-torture-chamber.
"We push Jo towards the empty lot and the basement," the hunter decided, wringing his hands along the steering wheel as he all but thought aloud about it. "We lead her to the answers we already know, let her think she figured them out herself. It's what I used to before, with Sam."
"You did?"
He didn't bother explaining, despite his brother's pinched eyebrows and affronted tone. Dean really didn't want to get any further into this mess – or the potential this had to become an absolute mess - than they already were. They just needed to lead Jo to H.H. Holmes and his underground chamber without getting her kidnapped or used as bait, or suspicious of them in the slightest.
How hard could that be?
-o-o-o-
Dean needed to stop asking himself, or Time, or destiny, or what-the-fuck-ever, that question.
Jo was waiting for them when they pulled up to the apartment complex, along with half a dozen cops and three cruisers. The three exchanged looks inside the Impala as they had to circle the block and find a place to park. Jo followed after them, rounding the corner just as they pulled curbside and shut the engine off.
"They must have found another girl," Dean muttered as they climbed out of the car. He vaguely remembered another vic getting nabbed while they'd been out looking for their ghost. He was pretty sure they'd her out alive, though. He vaguely recalled finding Jo and another girl. But then they'd had to turn around and use Jo as bait, yet again, because they'd had nothing else to draw Holmes back with.
If they could just get to that underground chamber and trap the ghost again, they'd be in and out in half a day, tops. Of course, they had to somehow manage all of that with Jo hanging around, chomping at the bit for a slice of the action, and they couldn't tell her how they knew the where and the when and the how and the why.
How did that saying go? Three people can keep a secret….
That wasn't even funny, in their line of work.
"He took another one. Teresa Ellis, apartment 2F," were the first words out of her mouth. Angry words. She pinned Dean with a look that definitely could have maimed, if not killed. "I could have stopped it!"
"No, you couldn't have." There was no use pulling punches, even when he knew they'd hurt. Jo was feeling the guilt every hunter with half a conscience felt when they lost someone on a hunt. But he knew from previous experience that even if they'd shown up a whole day earlier, they still wouldn't have keep Holmes from taking his most recent victim.
He also knew that victim was still alive and they had time to find her. They just had to figure out how to skip a day of research and searching, and get to the good part without mentioning Dean was form the future, Andy was a Jedi, and Sam saw dead people.
Oh, right. And they had a fiery Harvelle woman on their hands.
Awesome. This was going just so great already.
"I've had it up to here with your crap!" Jo crowded right into his personal space, glaring up at him with as much ferocity as he'd ever seen in her. Dean stared right back, like he had once before, ten years ago. Only now he knew so much more than he had then. "If you think I can't do the job, then why did you even come?"
"I came because this isn't amateur hour, okay?" His words were just as biting as hers, his tone booking just as little room for argument. "You wanna be a hunter? Great. You're going to be a badass someday, Jo, I know it. But you don't start at level ten – no one does – and if you go into this thinking you know what you're doing, you're gonna get yourself killed."
Behind him, Sam held Andy back with a hand, the two of them a few feet further off and distinctly uncomfortable to be both on the sidelines of this conversation and sidelined by the conversation. The couple of feet Sam gave the two wasn't exactly privacy – there was no way this chat was getting that – but it was something. In front of him, Dean watched Jo grind her teeth together, her jaw clenched and vein pulsing, arms crossed defensively over her chest. But all Dean saw was a girl used to having to prove herself to every man who ever set foot in her home, and now she was putting on a damn good face when she didn't need to. Not around him. She just didn't know that yet.
Her eyes darted between his, and whatever she was looking for, she finally backed off a step, turning to the other two, instead. "Who's he?"
Subtle change of topic: check. Dean let her have it.
Andy's eyes widened at suddenly being addressed by this very, very angry chick, and he looked from one brother to the other before pushing past Sam to hold his hand out. "I'm Andy. I'm, um… just tagging along?"
One fine eyebrow rose even as Andy looked back at Sam to see if he'd gotten that even close to right. Especially once she didn't take his hand, and he dropped it awkwardly.
Jo looked back over her shoulder at Dean. "Not amateur hour, huh?"
The older Winchester just huffed. "It's good, Jo. He's with us."
She turned back around, not satisfied but not pushing it either, and Sam asked where she was with the case. Jo's eyes hardened and she held herself straighter, launching into the details she'd gathered and the reconnaissance she'd done so far. Dean had to give all three of them credit: she'd done her research and a lot of the legwork, and Sam and Andy kept straight faces, nothing in their questions or responses hinting that they already knew a lot of what she was telling them.
"I smelled something in the hallway last night while I was doing a search, and… I think something made a grab for me, but I didn't see it." Jo crossed her arms, looking pissed at herself for not doing better and acting defensive as hell, worried they might have similar thoughts. "I think it's in the walls."
"Sounds like solid recon," Sam responded with an encouraging smile, clearly having noticed the same thing as Dean. Jo was too hard on herself, thought she had too much to prove, and was going to get herself killed trying to do it. "Let's get inside, see what we can find together."
They grabbed their gear out of the trunk and Jo led them past the police and up to the apartment. Dean let out a whistle once they got upstairs. All of Jo's research was spread out on the kitchen table. He'd forgotten how good a file she put together.
"This is impressive," Sam agreed, pushing some newspaper clippings aside to reveal building blueprints.
"Put it together myself." Jo came up beside the taller man with a wry smile. "It's definitely a ghost, the ectoplasm confirms it, but I can't figure out what he's tied to, or who he is. This place was built in 1924 as a warehouse, it wasn't converted into apartments until a few months ago. Before that, it was an empty field."
"So, the most likely scenario would be someone died bloody in the building." Sam played along, bobbing his head. He wasn't exactly an Oscar nominee, but he'd played enough roles through their time as hunters to not sound too forced.
"I already checked." Jo crossed her arms, staring down at the spread of information. "In the past eighty-two years, zero violent deaths. Unless you count a janitor who slipped on a wet floor."
The Winchesters tried three times each to follow her research and get it where they needed to go without making big jumps. In the walls, basement, possible bloody death before the building. Each time fell flat, with Jo getting more and more obstinate about what she'd already learned and what she'd crossed off. Not to mention the growing suspicion as she stared at each of their fumbled attempts. Finally, Jo uncrossed her arms and focused a narrow gaze as fierce as her mother between the two Winchesters.
"Why are you guys acting weird?"
"You're acting weird."
Sam couldn't even suppress the sigh, that time, and Jo raised an unimpressed brow at the older Winchester.
"Nice comeback. You practice that all morning?"
"Shut up," Dean grumbled.
Jo launched back into her theory of a cursed object or something their ghost must be tied to. They'd have to sweep each apartment one by one, and should split up to do it. Which was a total waste of time and absolutely not what they needed to do. Dean was still trying to figure out how they were going to push her towards the empty lot without making things even more obvious when Andy interrupted, surprising all three of them.
"What about the surrounding buildings?" He was leaning on locked arms across the table from them, staring down at the photos and clippings. The kid glanced up, blinking in turn at the stares.
Jo regarded him with narrowed eyes, before glancing at both brothers and shooting back, "What about them?"
"Uh, I just mean… Did anyone die bloody in those?"
Dean blinked, realizing that they'd completely ignored one of their greatest assets. And it wasn't Andy's super-power (no way in hell he'd ever let the kid control Jo, or any hunter for that matter). No, it was his complete naivety to this scene. To hunting. They could blame his leaps of thought and easily missed information that any hunter should know as amateur hour. In the meantime, Dean and Sam could fill in the gaps, as if the kid's out-of-the-box thinking (cough, amateur, cough) was inspiration. Damn. He should have hired Andy as his unintentional cover nine months ago. He'd have had way less anxiety around Sam and Bobby at the time.
(Also, so not true, and totally wouldn't have worked. But, again, not supportive of his point here, so reality and fact-checking could just shove it.)
"How close does proximity matter to a dead guy?" Andy continued, shrugging a little self-consciously as Jo's stare lingered. "If he's an angry ghost wanting to kill girls, he's kinda gotta go where the girls are. Like…an apartment complex."
The younger hunter rolled her eyes, clearly more annoyed now than ever that Dean had brought a total noob along. And after giving her crap for her own slim resume. "That's not how ghosts work. They can't leave whatever they're bound to. If he died in one of the surrounding buildings, he'd be stuck haunting that building."
"Wait, he might be on to something," Sam parried before the lead Andy gave them grew too cold to use. Unfortunately for them, it only seemed to make Jo more annoyed. Right, because now the noob was upstaging her, and the Winchesters had his back. Good god, this was gonna turn into a feminism thing, Dean could just taste it. "You said this plot used to be a field. Did any of the surrounding buildings ever utilize it? Maybe that's why we can't find a violent death; it happened before this place was built."
"Uh…" Jo set aside her irritation and started pushing through the spread of papers until she found photos of the lot prior to construction. She laid it down for all of them to look at. "Here. This is the field. The surrounding buildings…Oh. Look at that."
She pulled back, both vexation and surprise flashing across her face before she grew serious again. "This building here. There are bars on the windows."
"A prison." Dean glanced at Sam and Andy. So far, so good. And all they'd had to do was bring along a hunter even less experienced then her and then given him all the answers. By her crossed arms and the none-too-happy glare she was throwing Andy's way, things were going just great there.
"I'll check the records," Sam said immediately, digging his laptop out of his backpack before the words were even out of his mouth. "Up until the nineteen hundreds, prisons were still executing people by hanging. Maybe they used the field."
Dean let out a silent breath of air as the team went to work. Yeah, Jo might be pissed off at all of them, but maybe, just maybe, they'd pull this off without her getting up close and personal with a serial killer.
-o-o-o-
Fifteen minutes later, Sam came back with H.H. Holmes' name. Jo whistled. She sure knew how to pick them. That got them to his Murder Hotel, and the likelihood of him in the walls.
"We need to get in there," Jo said immediately, already up and moving.
"What about the basement?" Dean resisted the urge to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. Damnit, he knew there wasn't a basement in this building. That's not what he'd meant. "That murder hotel had a torture chamber thing in the basement, right?"
"This building doesn't have a basement," Jo replied, once again looking at him weirdly, like she couldn't decide if he wasn't nearly as good at this as her mom had led her to believe, or if he was just having a really, really off day.
He hoped she went with the latter.
"I know, I meant- uh… what if it…did?"
A really, really, really off day.
"Like a sewer system?" Andy asked, staring at him a little too blandly. Again, Dean wondered where the kid had been the last half a year. And where his own brain was now, because the answer clearly wasn't in his skull.
"Yeah, like that. This guy was known for trap rooms and stuff. We should cover all our bases." Dean got a supportive nod from Sam, of course, and turned a look he hoped came off as confident and not cautious-as-hell in Jo's direction.
She stared at them for an eternity, a weird and unreadable look on her face, before finally saying, "Fine. We split up. Check the walls and the sewers."
"No chance in hell. We stay together," Dean countered immediately, a tight-lipped smile in place and a tone that booked no room for argument.
Jo crossed her arms and the effort not to roll her eyes was visible in the clench of her jaw. "It'll be faster if we all split up."
"How about pairs?" Sam offered, ever the peace-keeper. He glanced between the two feuding hunters, arms raised in partial placation. "Dean and I have the most experience, we'll each take one of you."
"Dibbs." The older Winchester sidled up to Jo, and if looks could kill, he'd be six feet under. Twice. Dean gestured to the other men in the room. "You two are on wall duty. Jo and I've got the sewer."
If he thought that might appease her, he was sorely mistaken. Instead, he got a cantankerous young hunter itching for a hunt she had every right to lay claim to, thinking he was confining her to a wild goose chase after a basement that didn't exist. She looked about ready to skin him alive by the time they gathered their gear and headed out.
Had he mentioned being from the future and knowing everything sucked? Cuz it absolutely did.
As they parted ways, Dean pulled Sam to the side and told him to forget the walls, grab a crap-ton of salt, rope to spring a trap, and a cement truck. He and Jo would figure out how to lure Holmes into the basement, and they'd trap him there for good, just like last time. With Jo already down there, Dean figured there was a good chance their ghost would follow.
-o-o-o-
Stephanie handed the chapters back over to Chuck, who was still writing the rest. He smiled up at her. "So?"
"I would like the rest when you are finished."
With that, and absolutely nothing more, she turned and headed back for her chair, leaving Chuck – and not Chuck – to stare after her, a touch disappointed (and a touch annoyed at the bossiness, which he was pretty sure wasn't bossiness, just directness, but on a woman intimidating as that, it sure as hell read as bossiness). The writer set the pages down beside his laptop, sighed, fidgeted, though he couldn't quite place what left him fidgeting, and hit the print command on his laptop for the rest of what he'd gotten down so far.
He could feel another headache coming on already.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Quality: I hope it didn't come across as being a little off, but I struggled with this one. Partly because I got halfway through it before realizing I hadn't planned it out well enough and had to sort of spot fix, partly because Jo Harvelle ended up being hard to right. I don't like angry characters, and she was kinda angry in this episode, feeling like she had to prove herself and be on the defensive. And Dean just made that even worse in our timeline. Which is so not fair. I'm the writer! I should get to decide whether or not Dean makes my job harder.
…It just, it really doesn't work out that way. Ever. (Looking at you, lady!Cas -_-) I feel so, so much more for Chuck now. Being 'God' sucks.
(Also, can we talk about how uncomfortable I just got calling myself 'god'? *shudder* No thank you.)
The Bitchface List: I don't always like to write out which bitchface is which in the chapter, because that format feels repetitive, or some of them are just too long and interrupt flow if they're used too often. But I do feel like I should put this list somewhere you guys have access to it… How does the Deleted Scenes sister story sound? I'll post it as its own chapter so you all have it as a reference if you want it.
I'll post the April Fool's chapter there too. I know some people mentioned not getting to read it (you're not really missing *that* much. Just some cockroaches, guys, I swear ;)
Btw, Bitchface #1 is 'What, that doesn't make any sense, Dean. Don't be an idiot.' I honestly don't think we've used it since, like…chapter 2. And not Season 2: Chapter 2. No, I mean…chapter 2. So it deserves an A/N just this once.
Reviews: I will try to get to some review-replies this weekend! Sorry to keep you all waiting, I'm quite terrible at this part, but I really do like to answer you guys and acknowledge (and appreciate) your comments!