A/Ns: HI GUYS! [waves incredibly enthusiastically] Boy, have I missed you all! I know some of you probably screeched when you saw the e-mail update, while others are reading this warily, wondering if they should believe your eyes. Well you can believe it! THIS IS A REAL CHAPTER!
[insert crazy Kermit dance here]
It has been a loooooong time coming. A year, actually. I really wanted to get this chapter up last year after checking the trailer for a detail I thought I'd missed and realizing that I put a thanksgiving note in there. Which means this story hasn't updated for a year (eek!). I really wanted to get you all a post on the year anniversary, but I wasn't able to as I was visiting family for the holidays and had very little free time.
So please accept this humbly delayed chapter, and what I absolutely hope is a return to routine posting.
Chapter Reference – Recap: I have super exciting news for everyone! Due to the growing length of this story and the horrendously long covid-related break we took, I decided to write up a summary of this story. It is short and sweet (well, at least for me ;) and only really covers important plot-related events. It's should be a great tool for anyone who doesn't have the time it takes to do a full re-read of this beast! You can find it linked to this story in the series section on A03, or in my profile on ff-dot-net.
Reviews: O. M. Chuck, guys. So, while the delay in posting this story has been awful, I read every single review that comes in, and I read every one with great joy and appreciation. And I gotta say. Just, holy shit. Not only were all of your reviews humbling and inspiring and touching, I didn't realize over the course of a year just how many there were. I went back to the trailer to check something I wrote and OMG. The trailer alone has over a hundred and fifty reviews between both sites. HOLY CRAP. You guys are just so amazing. I know I say it a lot, but seriously, this story exists because of you. Thank you so, so much for sticking with me through the last crazy year and a half, and for being here today. I can't wait to share the rest of this story with you.
Quick Side Note on that Note: A belated but very happy birthday to Forestpelt, who has stuck with me through the entirety of Covid as a friend, confidant, and endless encourager of this story. Thanks so much for your friendship, enthusiasm, and feedback! Happy late birthday, friend.
Chapter Warnings: Dean's robbing a bank, Sam's so done with this insanity, Ronald is doing his best (which, admittedly, isn't great), and an evil shifter's being shifty.
Quality Warning: I don't feel this is my best work, by far, but I am still getting back into the groove of writing. I happen to think this chapter is a little short and could use a little more oomph in activity, but I also had to end it somewhere and struggled to do so . Hopefully you guys will give me a little grace period to get my writing legs back under me and get us back into the truly interesting stuff!
Enjoy!
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 75
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Roger 'Okie Dokie' Miller sat bolt upright at the unmistakable sound of a semi-automatic gun firing. Roger had never heard a semi-automatic gun firing, not in real life, but instinctually he knew. Which really didn't make sense, because there was so very little reason to jump right to gunfire. But that's definitely what had just happened.
The group he'd escorted right to the bank monitors, those nice fellows he hadn't thought twice about, the ones he'd been escorting back out of the bank innocently enough, were now robbing it.
Roger scrambled up, only making it to one knee as he pulled his pistol from his hip holster, leveling it at the man who'd opened fire in the bank. The same man who'd just shot the bank manager. Thomas. Oh god, this man had just shot Thomas.
"Drop it!" Roger yelled, but neither he nor his target had any time to choose their next action.
Before the shooter could spin fully around – already shouting that it was okay, this wasn't a robbery! – the taller of the other two men was upright, clocking Roger right in the temple. The security guard and his gun both slumped to the ground, out for the count.
Sam grabbed for the gun, tossing it far away from the man's unconscious body. All of which gave Dean time to clamber to his feet as well, marching over to Ronald with the kind of fury that had the bigger man stumbling several feet back, eyes wide. Dean ripped Betsy straight out of his hands.
"Are you kidding me right now!?"
Dean spun away from the wide-eyed, only-slightly-guilty, much-more-stunned-and-lost-and-maybe-a-little-upset eyes of Ronald Reznick. The god damn idiot didn't get to look like a kicked puppy, damnit. Ronald had just started the exact same damn timeline that ended with a bullet in his heart that Dean was doing everything – everything – he could to prevent. So no, Ronald didn't get to look sad and wounded here, damnit.
The man from the future had about three and a half seconds to survey the chaos around him – people screaming or cowering, several of them sprawled on the floor, some eyeing the front door, wondering if they should make a run for it. Most of the tellers were crouched behind their stations, watching him with terrified eyes. There was blood splattered on the lobby floor where the bullet had clipped the shifter, a trail of it leading back behind the teller stands, which, damnit, led to the back of the bank. Just like last time.
Dean closed his eyes, dread settling in his stomach like a friggin' ball of cement. He could not believe what he was about to do.
With Betsy aimed at the ceiling, Dean fired two quick automatic rounds. More screams echoed around him. Bits of dust and plaster rained down. Sammy shouted his name from behind and oh, yeah, he'd get the honor of explaining his absolute insanity to his brother in just a second. Yay him. Until then…
"This is a robbery, everybody down, nobody move!"
He was spun around by Sam's hand, curled right around his bicep in a damn near death grip. "Dean! What the hell?!"
Dean ignored their newly acquired hostages. The simpering, sobbing, fear coming off civilians who had every reason to be afraid, despite the fact that they weren't in any real danger. Instead, he focused on his brother, who looked very torn between freaking out and punching something. Probably Dean. It was usually Dean. And Sam, unlike the others in the bank, actually did have every reason to be afraid. The Winchesters were now in very real danger, of being shot or, worse, arrested.
"The shifter's still in the bank," Dean growled quietly, hoping his brother would understand. The look Sam gave him definitely said he needed a hell of a better reason to fake-rob a bank than that one. "Look, the cops are already on their way, Sammy-" There was no way one of the tellers hadn't hit the silent alarm, and definitely no way the people who had made it out the front doors hadn't found someone to call 9-1-1 by now. "-so either we run right now, or we stay here and do the job."
Sam's look – the one that labeled his brother as completely off his rocker – did not change. "Dean, we absolutely run. We found the shifter once, we'll find him again. This isn't worth getting arrested over!"
They weren't talking breaking and entering, grave desecration, credit card fraud, or any of the other small-time, non-violent offenses the Winchesters committed on a near daily basis. This was bank robbery. Armed bank robbery. With hostages.
Dean just shrugged, keeping half an eye on the scared people littering the lobby floor. They'd need to lock and secure the front doors and quickly if they were staying. Then get their hostages in a more contained, controllable location while they hunted down the shifter. "Sure, we'll find him again," Dean answered, keeping his volume down, "after he drops two or three more bodies."
It was a low blow. Because Sam was right; landing in federal prison for armed robbery was probably not worth saving one or two people. Not with their destinies and all the shit they had to do to stop it. But they were hunters. A zero tolerance for loss of innocent life was written right into the contract when you signed up. Usually didn't matter what it'd cost you in exchange.
"Damnit," Sam muttered, looking devastated by that realization. "Dean…this is insane."
"Hey," Dean tried for his most encouraging smile. "We got out of it last time, we can do it again."
The arched brow Sam aimed his way stung because yeah, alright, the kid must be damn sick of hearing that promise shortly before everything – and Dean meant everything – usually went to Hell in a handbasket.
If Time really was a sentient being, Dean couldn't wait to find her and strangle her.
"Ronald." At Dean's barked command, the larger man – standing empty-handed several feet away, still looking like someone had stolen his puppy – jumped about a foot off the floor. "Get the front doors."
The ex-security-turned-bank-robber blinked, then looked up towards the set of double doors and the darkening street just barely visible beyond the reflective glass. He patted himself down, like their might be more than a semi-automatic assault rifle hiding in his too-tight jumpsuit. "I don't have anything…"
Dean's glare could have melted steel. Because of course the man had figured out how to sneak in a semi-automatic rifle in his jumpsuit, but hadn't made room for anything actually useful. "Figure it out, Ronald!"
The man scrambled away, posthaste. Dean turned back to his brother, only feeling a little guilty for being so hard on Ronald. The guy had blown their cover, sent their shifter running (and he no doubt had a new skin by now, which meant another civilian dead, this time on their watch), and set them up perfectly to be arrested for robbing a god damn bank.
Again.
Again.
How did this shit keep happening?!
"We need to get these people up and get them into the vault," he said to Sam, handing Betsy off to his younger brother, who took her quite reluctantly. Dean, meanwhile, was keeping an eye on Ronald as he scurried off to grab a stanchion from the nearest teller line – causing a woman to scream as he got too close too quickly. He tried to calm her down, completely unsuccessfully, by telling her in the least calm and convincing voice ever that it was okay, they were FBI. Dean wanted to go over there and hit him with his own gun, only he'd already handed Betsy off to Sam. So instead he put his head in his hand and prayed to a god he did not believe in for some level patience. Any patience at all would be great.
Luckily, having no idea what else to say to further calm the terrified hostages he was busy terrifying, Ron hurried back to the door, sliding the pole between the handles of the doors. It wouldn't last for long but, then again, the doors were made of friggin' glass. So nothing would. All the cops had to do to get in was break them.
"Why can't we just let them go, Dean?" Sam asked quietly, eying Betsy with unease and pointedly not looking at the room full of terrified people that they'd created. "It'll be easier to hunt for a shifter in an empty building anyway."
Sam knew that wouldn't actually be the case; letting everyone go meant it would only be too easy for the shifter to slip out with them. But in that moment, forced to confront the dozen scared faces glancing their way, that knowledge didn't make this feel any more right.
"We can't, Sammy," the older Winchester muttered, actually sounding contrite about it. He reluctantly met his brother's eyes. "Cops are gonna call the FBI, the FBI will call for SWAT. That's our ticket out of here. Without hostages, none of that happens. The cops just shoot their way in right off the bat."
And they'd all end up dead or in jail. Dean didn't need a Hollywood-certified degree in bank robberies to know that. Hostages made good shields, whether or not you cared if they got hurt. And Dean cared, which meant every one of these people, while slightly traumatized, would walk out of this bank physically unharmed by the end of the night. The Winchesters just needed them to function as shields to buy time to find the shifter first.
"I know it sucks, man," Dean muttered again, this time quirking a small, utterly mirthless smile. "But we'll get through it. And they'll be one less murderous monster in the world after we're done."
That was the Winchester way, was it not?
Sam did not look mollified in the slightest (after all, there might be one less monster, but two more wanted posters in its place) but eventually he sighed, resigned to this insane plan. Gripping Betsy with at least half-faked intention, he walked past his brother towards the largest group of huddled hostages. As Sam began herding people to their feet, then towards the hallway that led to the vault, Ronald made his way back over to Dean, footsteps both excited and hesitant.
"What now?" he asked nervously, eyeing the crowd Sam was gathering like any one of 'em could be the mandroid. They technically could, but Dean's money was on the shifter having made for the back of the bank, most likely to hide and change skins in private. That's what had happened last time, and, as the man from the future well knew, time liked to stay the goddamn same.
"Now we hunt that piece of shit down before he kills again," Dean growled, mostly under his breath but by the way Ronald's eyes widened, it had been clear enough. "You, on the other hand, are gonna shut up and guard the hostages you took, you giant idiot."
The look of hurt that crossed the man's face was only matched by the look of confusion. Dean was understanding of the first and wanted to slap off the second. "But- I- you said-"
"No buts, Ronald," Dean snapped, grabbing the man by the jumpsuit and pulling him over to the downed security guard. Mr. Okie Dokie was still out and would likely have one hell of a shiner when he eventually came 'round. Dean bent over, scooping up the guard's discarded gun from several feet away and tucking it in the back of his jeans. Then he got Ronald to help him haul the man off the floor and across the lobby to the gathered crowd of terrified civilians. Sam was more or less escorting them single file towards the vault, having one of the tellers lead the way. Dean, Ronald, and their unconscious security buddy brought up the rear.
Once the same teller had opened the vault, her nicely manicured hands shaking the entire time, Dean called for them to hold up. He had them line up against the hallway wall leading to the vault so he could make his way over to his brother. Ronald stayed at the back, propping Mr. Okie Dokie up against the wall next to the last hostage. She eyed the unconscious security guard nervously while Ronald patted him down for any other weapons. He removed a can of pepper spray and a pair of handcuffs. Then awkwardly took a few steps away from the guard and the woman who was clearly terrified of him.
"It's okay-" he started to say before Dean barked at him to shut. Ronald scurried further away, at first headed for the brothers but freezing at a second bark to stay where he was and watch them. Right. That made sense. If all three of them were at the front of the line, that left their 'hostages' free to run back to the lobby. It left the mandroid free to bolt.
Ronald stationed himself at the front end of the hallway, clasping and unclasping his hands nervously as he eyed any one of their potential murderous robots.
"Jesus Christ," Dean muttered as he joined Sam, who raised a single eyebrow that succinctly and clearly reminded him just whose fault all this was. "I know, I know, shut up. Here."
Dean crouched down, pulling a silver knife from an ankle holster. As he stood back up, offering the knife to his brother, Sam's forehead had smoothed out in that way that screamed, 'danger!'
"Dude!" the younger WInchester hissed, pushing the knife back towards him with a look of disbelief and a quick glance to the hostages. Most of them were keeping their eyes on the floor, but a few watched on with wide-eyed fear. Sam dropped his voice. "I thought we said no weapons."
Dean had the decency not to outright laugh, but his eyes shifted sardonically to Betsy, still in his brother's hands. "Yeah. Cuz that worked out so well for us. Besides, like I was really walking in here naked." He rolled his eyes, half at the idea of him going anywhere unarmed, half at his brother for flipping his predictably girly shit about this. "Look, just use it to test them."
Sam looked like he'd thrown a disc or maybe burst something. "We can't just cut into them, Dean!" he hissed, keeping his voice so low it was almost hard for Dean to hear him, less than a foot away.
"Oh come on, it's a scratch," Dean argued back, balking at how much of a pain in the ass Samantha was being about this. He knew the situation sucked, but it was the one they were stuck with so they just had to deal.
"It's also incredibly unhygienic, for starters," Sam argued right back, throwing out the arm that wasn't holding Betsy. As the nearest civilian jumped from the sudden movement, scooting closer to the person next to him, Sam lowered his hand with a guilt grimace. Dean could see from the way he slouched that he was trying to make himself less intimidating in stature alone (bit late for that). "I'm not slicing into these people for the same damn reason junkies don't share needles, Dean!"
Huh?
Oh.
Ooooh. Shit. Dean hadn't thought of that.
"Uh…" the man from the future grimaced. "Alright, well, touching their skin should be enough. If they're the shifter, they should react to the silver."
Sam didn't look any more appeased, but at least he stopped arguing. He still hadn't taken the knife, though.
Dean tried again to get them back on track. They were on somewhat of a time limit here, after all. "Once we're sure the shifter isn't in the crowd, we lock them in the vault and go hunting."
"The vault is a sealed room, Dean." At the confused look Sam got in return for that statement, the brains of the operation sighed and tried not to hate everything about his life in that moment. "There's no air, in or out, in there. They'll suffocate."
Oh. Right.
Dean grimaced. Damnit, why was robbing a bank and taking hostages so complicated?He did remember them mostly leaving the vault door open last time, with one of them guarding it at all times. This was probably why. Not that he remembered that conversation. "Okay, uh…test them anyway, we need to make sure this group is clean, and get them inside. Then you and Ronald stand guard with the door cracked, and I'll find the shifter."
The way Sam opened his mouth immediately let Dean know just what he thought of that plan. But he held up his hand, face as serious as he could muster.
"I'll move faster alone," he argued, which wasn't a lie. They didn't have time to teach Ronald how to hunt right now. Which, yes, Dean knew was his own damn fault and he'd own that….Later. "And it's not like we can leave him here, alone, to guard the hostages while you and I hunt this thing down."
Sam's jaw clenched, the vein in the corner of his cheek jumping. Dean offered a weak smile, but the younger Winchester was having none of it.
"How about I hunt the damn thing down and you guard the hostages you took with the idiot you brought along!" Sam hissed, emphasizing each accusing word with a push of Betsy towards Dean's chest.
Fair point. Not that Dean would admit it.
"Because I know how this goes down," he countered. Future knowledge almost always won him this type of argument. And when that wasn't enough, there was always his charming personality to consider. "Besides, people like you more. They trust you and that puppy-dog innocence. They'll feel safer with you. You know I'm right."
He might be right, and Sam might even know it, but it sure didn't make the younger Winchester any less murderous about it.
"Fine," Sam breathed out, the word hardly an acquiescence. "But I swear to God, Dean, if Ronald does anything-"
"He won't," Dean reassured immediately. "I'll talk to him. He's just going to sit here and be a good little hostage guard, alright?"
The man from the future jiggled the knife in his hand, encouraging his brother to take it.
Sam closed his eyes briefly, clearly not believing a word of that promise, but took the strap attached to Betsy, threw it over his shoulder and slid her around to his back. He swiped the knife out of Dean's hand and turned to the first hostage, who eyed the blade nervously.
Dean left his brother to start awkwardly explaining the deal to the civilians – into the vault, but first I'm going to press this blade to your skin, no, I won't hurt you, I promise – and headed towards the back of the line where Ronald was waiting eagerly. Dean didn't have any more silver on him, and he was damn reluctant to give Ronald another gun, but there wasn't much choice. He needed Ronald as backup in case the shifter was in the line and decided to bolt before the silver gave him away. A gun wouldn't kill him, but it might slow him down enough to give Sam time to catch up.
"Jesus," Dean muttered to himself again, taking a deep breath of his own even as he pulled the gun from his waistband to hand over to their way-too-happy-about-this tagalong. Jesus, this had all gone to hell already and the night was only getting started.
-o-o-o-
The bank manager's office was very much as Dean remembered it. Empty but for a disgusting pile of shed skin and goo in the middle of the room. The blood trail that lead from the lobby to this office was new and quite convenient, but it ended at the pile of nasty. The shifter had switched skins and healed, as shifters were wont to do.
"Damnit," Dean muttered from behind the desk, poking at the pile of gooey leftovers with a pen he'd stolen off the desk. He hadn't expected anything more than this exact scene, but it was frustrating all the same.
The man from the future stood with a huff and a groan, looking around the office. Last time, the shifter had stashed the new body….somewhere. Dean couldn't remember where, but it didn't really matter. Knowing what the new skin looked like hadn't helped them much last go around and Dean didn't want to waste precious time searching for wherever he – or it – had stashed the body.
What he needed was a weapon that would actually work against the creature. Leaving Sam with the only silver knife had been risky, but they needed to eliminate the pool of hostages so they could safely release them later without worrying about the shifter walking right out of the bank with them. Then he needed eyes in the sky.
Dean started ransacking the manager's desk, searching for anything silver and hoping the guy hadn't been a cheap bastard. The action along with that thought cause his vision to nearly spin from the déjà vu. That was usually a good sign, so he kept going. It took a couple drawers and a search of the desktop before he found it; a letter opener that came with such a dizzying amount of 'been there, done that' that Dean knew it was silver-coated before he even inspected it.
He pocketed the knife, grabbed the light switch on his way out, and headed for the security room Mr. Okie Dokie had first lead them to before this hellish night began. He had a shifter to find, and the cameras were his best and quickest bet.
Dean was well on his way to the security booth, leaving behind the manager's office, when the phone inside started ringing.
-o-o-o-
Sam left Ronald to guard their certified-human hostages while he went in search of water and a first aid kit. One of the bank tellers had told him where to find the supplies; a break room for the first and the last of the teller's stations for the second. He'd easily found the unopened case of water in the break room, stacked next to a mini fridge. The first aid kit to treat the security guard's minor injuries took a little more searching and Sam was just standing up from retrieving it when he heard the distant ringing of a phone. The hunter straightening from behind the teller's stand, eyes wide.
The phone rang three times before abruptly cutting off. Sam waited a beat in the silence of the lobby, wondering if whoever had been calling hung up, or if maybe Dean had decided to answer it.
Another beat passed before Sam realized with a jolt that it was probably the cops calling to negotiate. Immediately, the well-trained hunter dropped back down, crouching behind the teller stand. The upper windows of the lobby would give any sniper a pretty clear view of the lobby, and with it, Sam. There were no flashing lights, no obvious cop cars or uniformed officers beyond the glass of the front doors, but it was also hard to see from his obscured angle and the growing dark outside. What glass he could spot from his position mostly reflected the lights of the lobby, not giving much away of the outside world.
"Shit," Sam hissed, realizing if it was the cops, they hadn't hung up. Someone had answered the phone. Realization sunk like a led ball in his stomach – Dean wasn't his only 'partner' at the moment – and Sam scrambled back towards the hallway, staying as low as possible.
In his head, he was praying over and over again that Dean had been the one to pick up that phone. Because, if not, they were so damn screwed. If prison life didn't beat him to it, Sam was going to murder his brother.
-o-o-o-
"No, no, we're not bank robbers! You've got it all wrong. We're the FBI!"
Ronald's voice was easily audible halfway down the hallway and Sam rearranged his priorities. He was going to murder Ronald long, long before he murdered his brother. The dumbass was standing at the start of the hallway leading to the vault, where a phone was attached to the wall next to a time-punch clock – likely out of use for years now – and a plaque with a photo of the employee of the month. Ronald had the security guard's gun in one hand, phone pressed to his ear with the other, running his mouth loudly and paying about as much attention to the open vault door as he had to anything else remotely important this entire day.
"Demands?" Ronald's eyes were wide as he shifted his weight, turning his back even more so to their hostages and catching sight of Sam booking it his way. "We don't have any demands-"
Sam grabbed the phone out of Ronald's hand and slammed it back onto the receiver, the case of water and first aid kit tightly gripped in one hand. Big, round, stupidly vulnerable brown eyes stared at him, and Sam clenched his free hand, resisting the urge to break the phone or, even better, Ronald's face.
"Are you insane?" he yelled instead, lowering his voice only when the hushed, panicked whispers of the hostages inside the vault reminded him they weren't alone. One of the male bank employees ducked away from the cracked door as soon as Sam glanced their way, having clearly been watching them. They needed to be so much more careful than they were being, darn it.
"Wh-what's the problem?" Ronald asked, oblivious as always. His shoulders were almost up around his ears, a tinge of red on his cheeks from both embarrassment and defensiveness.
"The problem, you idiot, is that we're not really FBI!" Sam hissed, but kept his tone as low as his broiling anger would allow. He did not understand how this moron could be so damn blind to what was really going on here.
"You're…you're not?"
By the way Ronald's eyes doubled in size, rounding out like giant, bulging saucers, he really didn't have a clue as to the mess he was in. Sam rubbed at his forehead hard enough to redden skin – anything to keep him from lashing out any more than he already had – then grabbed Ronald by the sleeve of his jumpsuit. Angrily, he led them around the corner, out of sight of the hostages. This was not the sort of thing innocent civilians needed to see or hear.
"Of course not," he hissed back, setting down the water and first aid kit. "Come on, Ronald! We dress up as service technicians and hunt monsters. Of course we're not with the fucking U.S. government!"
The way Ronald's free hand slowly curled into a fist, the other starting to shake and the handgun with it, was the least of recent events to inform Sam that things were quickly getting out of control. He owed his brother the biggest damn 'I told you so' in the history of the phrase.
-o-o-o-
Dean's eyes were starting to hurt staring at the multiple feeds of low-quality CCTV footage. That could probably be fixed if he blinked more, but the hunter didn't want to risk it. They didn't have a lot of time before the cops would cut the power – a step Dean remembered clearly from their last go around – and the shifter wasn't going to be just up and wandering around, turning those pretty glowing eyes towards every camera in the joint. By now, he obviously knew there were hunters in the bank with him, which meant he'd by lying low, trying to figure a way out.
The front doors were currently locked, and Ronald had rigged up enough of a contraption to keep 'em that way even if the shifter had a set of keys. Removing that setup would make noise, enough to hear from the front half of the building. Plus, Dean was keeping an eye on the camera feed for the lobby and front door, just in case the shifter made a run for it. There was a back door, of course – all buildings had to have at least two viable exits to meet fire and safety codes – but the bank's was strictly a fire door; alarmed to go off if opened. They hadn't heard any alarms, so Dean knew the guy was still in the bank. And his first move, even before searching the manager's office, had been to barricade the shit out of that door with every piece of office furniture he could find in the nearby rooms. So the shifter wasn't getting out that way (and, added bonus, the cops weren't coming in. At least not easily).
"There!" Dean exclaimed aloud, despite being alone, as he finally spotted someone on the cameras. It could just be a straggler from the lobby who'd managed to stay hidden and avoid being led into the vault, but Dean doubted it.
Still, he had to be sure. Between the quality of the image – which was crappy – and the angle on the crouched, partially obscured man, Dean couldn't get a good read on the guy's face. He could discern race (dark-ish skin, probably Black but the camera sucked balls so Dean wouldn't go strictly by that alone), clothes (pressed dress-shirt and tie) and either short-cropped hair or buzzed. Maybe even shaved? The grainy quality of the video wasn't helping much there.
The guy who originally owned that skin was probably an employee of the bank, given the half monkey suit. He'd likely been in the back when this shitshow got started, bumping into the fake bank manager as he'd come running back to his office.
Dean had little doubt this was their guy, but stayed glued to the screen, hoping the figure – crouched behind a desk in the one and only conference room the bank had – would turn towards the camera and confirm it.
It took another thirty seconds, time Dean wasn't sure he had, before the man finally turned.
"Got you," Dean growled, jabbing a finger into the monitor, right over the creature's glowing eyes.
The hunter grabbed the silver letter opener off the counter and bolted for the door. The minute he hit the hallway, the building went pitch black.
"Son of a bitch!" he muttered, sparing the lights overhead a second's glance before he broke into a run for the conference room. The emergency spotlights flickered on with the whir of a far off generator, but it didn't matter. Dean had known the power would get cut eventually, but he'd hoped it would be after he got to the shifter. This guy would be jumpy as hell, knowing he was being hunted, and even the smallest change in environment was likely to trigger action.
It certainly would have triggered Dean, if he'd been the one hiding away with a couple guys out to kill him. Staying in one place was the best way to get dead. And now, with the power out and the cameras down, they'd lost their best and fastest way to find the guy if he'd fled to another part of the building. If he lost the shifter now, they'd have to clear the bank on foot, one room at a time. Dean doubled his pace to the conference room.
Sure enough, by the time he burst through the door, knife at the ready, the room was empty.
"Son of a bitch!"
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Next Up: Ronald does not like Sam and has himself a right little hissy fit, Dean's calling in the FBI, and Sam wants to know when he bought a ticket for the bus to Crazy Town, and when that bus took a sharp left turn right off Insanity Cliff.
Updating Schedule: I did not get as many chapters written pre-posting as I had hoped, but I also realized that I needed to stop focusing so solely on that. I missed you all. I missed hearing from you, hearing your ideas and hopes and excitement. That is going to get me writing routinely more than I could ever do alone.
So while I am going to aim for a two-week posting schedule for now, my goal is to get it back to weekly once I get into a rhythm. I can't promise I'll succeed or that there won't be any more delays or breaks. The world, my life, and my schedule are all still fairly unpredictable and also not back to normal. But I've got high hopes and I want to get you all what I can when I can!
Reviews: I would love love love love LOVE to hear from you! It doesn't even have to be about this story – how have you been? Is everyone fairing okay? I hope you're staying as healthy and sane as possible in trying times. Let me know how you've been. I can't wait to talk with you all again, and thank you so much for waiting so long and tuning back in!
Cheers,
Silence