Fake Fan Fiction ❯ Fight or Flight ❯ Conversations ( Chapter 4 )

Mediaminer/Anonymous Reviewer(s):

 

Raven Black: Yep, they finally got to meet! And I dunno why, but I've ALWAYS envisioned Dean and Dee hating each other, ever since I first dreamed up this crossover. They're just too much alike. And I'll tell you who you should feel sorry for: NOT ROSE. Don't care who else you feel sorry for, but Rose deserves any bad thing that comes his way. That's all there is to it. Hope you enjoy this chapter, too!

 

Calliope Della Corte: Yep, finally another chapter! In case you can't tell, I take FOREVER to update. I don't like it, but the fact is, I write when I have the inspiration, and if I try to write just for the sake of getting a chapter out I totally suck. Anyways—I know it's kinda funny to picture the last chapter—I had a hard time writing it, believe me, but in the end I think it turned out all right. And about Ryo's acceptance of all this—it's a good thing I got this review, because that actually hadn't occurred to me. I did try to explain it in this chapter, though, after I read the review, so thanks! And…I hope the explanation is acceptable. Enjoy the chapter!

 

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Sam's injury didn't change his habits much. He was up and dressed at what Dean considered the obscene hour of seven A.M., and was in the midst of swallowing a couple of the pain pills he usually kept nearby when Dean stumbled out of bed.

 

The older brother didn't mention the medicine that the younger was using as a “crutch” with more and more alarming frequency these days. He simply fished a bottle of lukewarm water out of his bag and pushed it into Sam's hand—too often the other man just swallowed them dry. Sam muttered his thanks, and Dean turned away without a word.

 

The motel room was silent as Dean showered and dressed, except for Dean's small shuffles and, occasionally, a muffled curse if something in the bathroom was inconsiderate enough to get in his way. After some mishap, though, he came back into the room looking more alert, if slightly grumpy.

 

“Wanna go get some breakfast before the cops get here?” Dean asked. “I saw a gas station back down the road a couple miles.”

 

At some point when Dean was in the shower, Sam had dragged out the laptop, and was now browsing, not through research pages, but through e-mails. Dean shook his head in disapproval—he had never liked the idea of Sam keeping in touch with the people at Stanford University; it only seemed to depress him, and Dean hated that. Moreover, he simply didn't understand it. It was unlikely that Sam would ever go back to Stanford, and he knew that, so why did he keep chasing an uncatchable dream?

 

But then, maybe Sam didn't see it that way, Dean reflected. His brother didn't necessarily think the same way as, quote unquote, “normal people.” Maybe in his eyes, Sam was simply trying to hold on to whatever little he had left, after Jessica. Maybe to Sam, it wasn't chasing a dream he couldn't reach, but rather holding onto one he'd already caught—even if it was pointless.

 

Dean shook his head slightly. In his opinion, his brother was too complicated for his own good.

 

“I'm not hungry,” Sam replied in answer to the question, dragging Dean out of his morose thoughts. “You can go, though.”

 

Dean shrugged. “Nah. I'm not really hungry, either. Just thought I'd ask.” With that, he threw himself back onto his bed and fell to contemplating the ceiling, and for a while neither one said anything. After all, Winchesters generally stayed quiet until they had something of value to say.

 

Of course, it wasn't long before Dean thought of words that he deemed valuable.

 

“Do you suppose that Dee guy has ever been able to get a girl in his entire life?”

 

He could practically hear Sam roll his eyes.

 

“No, seriously. I mean, the guy's got nothing going for him. I bet even if a girl had some sort of aneurysm and actually walked up to him, he'd panic and start screaming for his mommy,” Dean scoffed.

 

“Relax,” Sam said calmly, without taking his eyes from the computer screen. “They're no competition.”

 

“As if I was worried! I know I've got ten times the body of that pansy. Never thought you'd finally admit it, though…”

 

“I'm not admitting anything,” Sam replied, deleting an e-mail and opening the next.

 

“Yes, you are! You said they're no competition—”

 

“Because they're too busy being in love with each other to even look at anyone else,” Sam explained absently, his eyes scanning the e-mail. “Becky and Zack say hi. Have any messages for them?”

 

“Yeah, tell Becky that if she's changed her mind I'm still available—for a limited time only, of course. So you mean to tell me that those two are--?”

 

“Gay, yeah. And together—that's important, too,” Sam said, now typing Dean's message with a slight smile, though whether it was at Dean's words or his own, or a mixture of the two, it was impossible to say. “So you have nothing to worry about.”

 

Dean sat up suddenly in the bed, looking slightly freaked out. “Dude…I don't even want to think about how you knew that.”

 

He could see Sam roll his eyes this time, though his gaze remained on the screen. “It's plain to anyone willing to look close enough, Dean. It's in their eyes, and in their voices. The way they look at each other, and especially when Dee says Ryo's name—it's there for anyone to see.”

 

“I want you to stop noticing things,” Dean grumbled. “You know too much.”

 

“What're you gonna do, have me killed?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Is this bothering you?” Sam asked suddenly, actually turning to Dean for the first time.

 

“The fact that my little brother always knows absolutely everything? Yeah, it's bugging me a little.”

 

“No. The fact that they're together. I never knew where you stood on that kind of thing.”

 

Dean leaned back against his pillows and stared up at the ceiling. After a moment, he shrugged and said, “I never really thought about it. I don't think I care one way or the other. I mean, seriously, with the stuff we deal with every day, who even cares?”

 

“So…if I told you Beck had a girlfriend, you couldn't care?”

 

Dean sat up quickly and stared at his brother, who looked absolutely impassive. “You've gotta be kidding me…”

 

Sam didn't say a word.

 

“You…are kidding me, aren't you?”

 

“I could be. But then…maybe I'm not,” Sam said, his tone blank and not betraying anything either way.

 

Dean stared some more. “Sam…please tell me you're joking.”

 

Sam simply shrugged and turned back to his computer, and continued with his e-mails.

 

“Dammit, Sam!”

 

XXX

 

Meanwhile

Dee and Ryo's Apartment

 

“HEY, MONKEY! IF YOU'RE NOT DOWN HERE IN THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS, I'M GONNA BRING YOUR BREAKFAST TO THE PRECINCT AND GIVE IT TO ROSE!”

 

“DON'T YOU DARE! I'D RATHER YOU EAT IT THAN HIM, YOU SKANK!”

 

“IT'S THREE SECONDS NOW! TWO…ONE…OW! GOOD GOD, YOU STUPID APE, IS THAT YOUR SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING?”

 

“Nope, just my solution for anything concerning perverted, lame-brained homos,” Bikky said at normal volume, smirking as he watched Dee hop around, clutching at his ankle.

 

“Morning, Bikky,” Ryo said, calmly ignoring the early-morning fight between the two most important people in his universe.

 

“Morning,” Bikky said. “Hurry up, I've gotta meet Carol and she'll kill me if I'm late again…”

 

“Chick-whipped,” Dee inserted, still rubbing at his leg.

 

“Easily solved,” Ryo chuckled, slapping some bacon between two pancakes and handing the concoction over. “Breakfast to go.”

 

“Thanks,” Bikky said around a mouthful. “I gotta go. Bye, Ryo. Bye, perv.”

 

“Don't be late,” Ryo told him.

 

“I know.”

 

“Doesn't mean you'll pay attention.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Don't get arrested,” Dee told the teen's back.

 

“Damn, guess that means putting off the beer run down at the salt flats.”

 

“Get outta here, you freak,” Dee called as the door shut behind Bikky.

 

Ryo smirked as he started on his and Dee's food. “Always gotta have the last word, don't you?”

 

“And since when do you have a problem with that?” Dee asked, and then smiled triumphantly when Ryo blushed slightly and turned back to frying pancakes as if the job was vital to life.

 

A couple seconds later, he yelped slightly as a pair of arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him back against a strong chest.

 

“You know, you'd think I'd be used to that by now,” he commented idly, without turning.

 

Dee's chuckle rumbled up through his chest, and Ryo smiled. “I like watching you cook.”

 

“I like you watching me cook,” Ryo replied, flipping a pancake.

 

Dee laughed again, and ran a hand lightly up Ryo's side. “So can I ask you something?” he asked, dropping a kiss on Ryo's shoulder.

 

“Shoot.”

 

“Why did you accept all this…spirit…stuff…so quickly?”

 

Ryo didn't answer right away. He reached out slowly and turned off the stove, then began to put the food on plates at the same speed. Dee waited patiently and continued to hold him, and finally Ryo finished his task and replied.

 

“I don't know. I never would have…before. I'm not even sure how much I believe now. But you just don't understand, Dee. I guess I can't…expect you to.”

 

“Well, try and explain it to me, then,” Dee urged softly.

 

Ryo exhaled, a little shakily, and abandoned the thought of food for a moment, leaning back against his partner.

 

“Dee, I know you. I think I know you better than I know me. I know every detail—I'd know your face if we didn't see each other for thirty years and then met in the middle of a crowded street in Sri Lanka. And that man—he looked exactly like you. There wasn't a single difference between your face and his. Not even a pair of `life's twins' looks that much alike.”

 

He shivered a little, and Dee's armed tightened comfortingly.

 

“But then…when you came to the precinct, and I saw you…I knew. I knew it was you—beyond a shadow of a doubt. And…well, you know the rest,” he finished, rather lamely.

 

Dee nodded absently, running a hand through Ryo's hair.

 

“I'm still not what you'd call `a believer',” Ryo went on. “I don't buy the whole vampire thing, for instance. But…I don't know, somehow I'm sure that…that thing at the morgue—it was a shapeshifter. They might be crazy, and then again they might now—but that much was true.” He sighed heavily, then half-turned and looked up into Dee's green, green eyes. “So…that's why. That's why I believed it. So can we…stop talking about it now? That was…the worst time of my entire life—no exceptions—and I…I just want to put it behind me, okay?” His voice broke near the end, and he found himself blinking back tears.

 

Dee smiled, and tilted Ryo's chin up for a kiss. Ryo loosened up slowly as the kiss went on, and by the time Dee pulled away he had finally begun to relax. He sighed, and leaned his head into Dee's chest, just letting Dee hold him.

 

After a few minutes, though, he regained his practical side and pushed away until their arms were only wrapped loosely around each other, and not crushing each other. “We need to eat…gotta be at the precinct by eight…mmph…” He leaned into the sudden kiss for a moment, and then broke reluctantly away. “Dee…unless you wanna go hungry today, you'd better stop doing that,” he murmured, pressing their lips together again.

 

Finally, though, Dee leaned back with a sigh, running a hand through Ryo's hair one more time. “Fine, let's eat.”

 

Ryo nodded, and was turning to get the plates when Dee pulled him back, planted a quick kiss on him, and leaned close to whisper, “Love you, Ryo.”

 

Ryo smiled. “I love you, too.”

 

“More than the brat?”

 

Ryo raised an eyebrow.

 

“Fine, more than anything except the brat?”

 

Ryo grinned and set the plates on the table so that Dee could kiss him again. “Now, that I'll agree to.”

 

Ryo ended up making their breakfast to go.

 

XXX

 

Ryo and Dee showed up at the motel a little before ten. Dean was the one who answered the door, and he glared daggers at Dee, who was standing in front, before stomping back to his bed, once again leaving them in the awkward position of having to invite themselves in.

 

“Oh, yeah, he and Rose are gonna get along great,” Dee muttered, letting Ryo enter first and then following him and closing the door.

 

Sam, though, seemed to be in a better mood today than he had been last night, though he still seemed a little pale and tired. He smiled a little at them and said, “You're a little early.”

 

“We had a chance to duck out for a little while, so we took it,” Ryo explained, smiling warmly at Sam and then at Dean, though the latter was barely acknowledging their existence at the moment. “I hope it's not inconvenient—”

 

Dean snorted derisively. “All of this is damned inconvenient.”

 

“Yes, I guess it is, from your point of view. I'm sorry,” Ryo said sincerely.

 

Dean looked at him in mild surprise, then grunted and looked away. “So we going or what?”

 

“Just waiting on you, Princess,” Dee said acidly before Ryo could reply in his smooth, quiet way.

 

Sam chuckled, then fell silent instantly when Dean scowled at him. Then the older brother was getting up off the bed and murmuring, “I'll get my keys.”

 

“Wait—you want us to let you drive yourself?” Dee asked, not even sure why he cared.

 

“Hey—it's bad enough that I have to do this at all. I'm not getting hauled in in the back of a cop car,” Dean snapped, pulling his keys out of his bag.

 

Dee shrugged. “Whatever, man. Let's just get this over with.”

 

“Hey, this wasn't even my idea,” Dean snapped, not even noticing as Ryo went over to sit down next to Sam. “If you don't wanna do it, then stop being all Nazi and leave us alone.”

 

“Hey, which one of us has the badge here? I don't like dealing with you any more than I like dealing with rattlesnakes, but it's my job.”

 

“Well, quit,” Dean said dismissively, turning back to his bag. “Not like this town needs another half-assed cop, anyway.”

 

Dee flushed red. “Why, you—”

 

“Ya know,” Sam said quietly to Ryo as the other two continued to shout at each other, “I always wondered what would happen if Dean met himself.”

 

Ryo looked thoughtfully at the two men. “Think the world'll implode?”

 

XXX

 

“So this is the NYPD, huh?” Sam said, his voice carefully neutral as his gaze ran over the building.

 

“I know, it's not too great to look at,” Ryo said with a sigh. “And this is our relatively new building. The old one didn't even really need the help of the fire to fall down.”

 

“It's not that bad,” Sam said, shouldering open the door and waiting for the group to step through.

 

“Thanks for saying so, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the entire thing flew apart at the first breeze,” Ryo said with a chuckle, already headed toward a hallway. “Think Rose is still in his office?” he asked, speaking to Dee now.

 

“Are you kidding me? I don't think the bastard ever does anything. Why would he be away from his desk?”

 

Ryo chuckled softly, and was about to reply when a loud, screeching voice reverberated through the hall, startling the few people in the vicinity.

“DEE-SENPAI!”

 

Dee's expression changed to one of wide-eyed horror, and he looked around frantically, then reached for the nearest person—who just happened to be Dean—and yanked him forward, ducking behind him and jumping back at the same time.

 

What happened next happened too quickly for Sam's eyes, but it all ended a few seconds later with Dean on the floor, arms and legs entangled with those of another person, both of them struggling for freedom.

 

“ACK! WHAT THE HELL!

 

“THAT'S SO MEAN, MR. SEXY! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS RUN AWAY LIKE THAT?”

 

“GET OFF ME! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU, ANYWAY?”

 

“DEEEE! COME HERE, STUD!”

 

“ARE YOU INSANE? I'M NOT COMING ANYWHERE NEAR YOU!”

 

“IS ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT I'VE BEEN DIVE-BOMBED BY AN UNIDENTIFIABLE THING?”

 

“I'M NOT A THING!”

 

“HEEELP! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, YOU INSUFFERABLE BASTARD!”

 

And then a strange sound reached Dean's ears, and he stopped struggling to try and identify it. It was loud, and explosive, and familiar though he hadn't heard it in a long time, and it made him want to smile even while he was pinned by…whatever this thing was. It was freakin' infectious.

 

Sam was laughing.

 

Now, it wasn't like Sam never laughed. He did, sometimes. But usually it was just a soft chuckle, or, most common, a wide grin and nothing more. There had been precious little to laugh at in his life, and even less since Jessica, but now—now he was practically doubled up, screeching with mirth as he watched his brother, trying in vain to free himself.

 

By the time Dean regained his wits, the other—person?—had finally scrambled off of him, and as Dean got up slowly, it turned to face Dee and pouted. “You're so mean, Senpai. Why do you always throw people at me?”

 

Dee shrugged nonchalantly. “Defense mechanism.”

 

“For God's sake, Sam, will you stop laughing?” Dean snapped, glaring until Sam's shouts of mirth died to chuckles. Then he turned to the thing that he felt had very nearly killed him.

 

He thought it was a man, but he couldn't be absolutely certain. For the sake of argument, though, I'll say it's a guy… He was fairly tall, but his boyish face and wide innocent eyes made him seem somehow smaller, and the fact that he was thin as a rail didn't help any. His voice, oddly enough, didn't give anything away—it was neither high like a girl's or low like a guy's, but something exactly in between. And most annoying of all—was his hair. Dean could not, for the life of him, figure out what color it was. At first, it seemed like a faded blue color. Then it looked like there was purple mixed in with the blue. Then Dean thought it must be a weird gray color. And finally, he decided that it wasn't any of those, but rather a mix of them that formed an entirely new color.

 

How does anyone work around this guy without trying to kill him and then themselves in a bizarre murder-suicide pact?

 

Sam came up behind him then, and Dean found himself leaning over and whispering in a perfectly audible tone, “What do you think it is?”

 

Sam hit him.

 

“I'm sorry about him—” the younger Winchester began, but he was cut off when the odd man waved a hand dismissively.

 

“Don't worry, I'm used to it. Dee-senpai acts exactly the same way. I think it's just how he shoes his love for me.” Then he rubbed his neck and winced, ignoring Dee's glare. “I do wish he'd stop throwing people at me, though.”

 

“Maybe if you'd stop trying to kill me I wouldn't have to use human shields,” Dee muttered.

 

The man smiled winningly. “I'm not trying to kill you, Mr. Wonderful! I'm just trying to show my love!” Then he quite suddenly turned away from Dee and said cheerily, “Good morning, Ryo!”

 

“Good morning,” Ryo said politely. He was about to say something else when the man turned to Dean and Sam and held out his hand.

 

“I'm Jemmy J Adams,” he said, as cheerily as he seemed to say everything. “You can call me JJ.” He shook Sam's hand, and Dean allowed him to shake his own reluctantly. JJ laughed. “I'm really sorry about tackling you—I swear I would have stopped if I could. I didn't hurt you, did I?”

 

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, as if I could.” But despite his short temper today and his annoyance at being dive-bombed, he found himself grudgingly liking this man.

 

“So where you all headed, anyway?” JJ asked, addressing the group at large.

 

“We're going to see the Commissioner,” Ryo explained. “These two need to talk to him.”

 

“Ooh, are you FBI?” JJ asked with a grin. “Please tell me you're here because Rose finally got in trouble.”

 

“`Fraid not,” Dee said. “They just have to talk to him.”

 

“Oh. Well, I'll go with you,” JJ said happily. “I have some reports to drop off—”

 

“Uh…well…” Ryo said reluctantly. “I'm sorry, JJ, but….it's…it's kind of…private…”

 

JJ pouted. “Aw, you're keeping secrets from me? That's mean…” His grin was so sudden it was almost alarming, and he laughed. “Well, then tell Rose he'll just have to walk down to forensics to get his own lab results. He hates doing that…”

 

Dee grinned. “Oh, I'll tell him.”

 

Ryo rolled his eyes. “I swear, you two are twelve. Can we just go?”

 

“Oh…wait a sec, before I forget,” JJ said suddenly, as they began to turn away. “Maria called for you earlier. She's mad that you haven't come since…well, you know since what. Anyway, she wants you to go for dinner tonight, and I don't think you have much of a choice.”

 

JJ made it sound like some kind of curse, and Dean was surprised when Dee smiled happily, though his voice was quite normal when he replied. “Okay. Thanks, JJ.”

 

JJ beamed. “You're welcome, Sexy!” Then he planted a kiss on Dee's cheek, and bounced off before Dee could smack him.

 

“Uh…does he ever…walk anywhere?” Sam asked.

 

Dee shrugged. “If he has, I've never seen it.”

 

“Well, I'm glad she called, anyway,” Ryo said. “Bikky has a new friend over there—he came a few weeks ago with his little sister. Kid named Morgan.”

 

Dean's step faltered slightly, and he had to fight to hide his surprise. It can't be…it can't be, can it?

 

He glanced at Sam, and knew instantly that his brother was wondering the same thing.

 

XXX

 

Dee looked like he was headed for the guillotine knocked on the door that read “Commissioner Berkley Rose” in bold black lettering. Ryo looked amused, but he his it whenever Dee glanced at him. Once again, Sam wondered what he and Dean had gotten themselves into.

 

“What do you want, Laytner?” an irritated voice asked from within.

 

Dee seemed to take this as an invitation, and he shoved open the door and strode inside as if he owned the place. “Why, Rose, it's great to see you, too. I'm fine, thanks for asking.”

 

Rose didn't sigh, didn't roll his eyes, didn't show a single sign of exaggeration. In fact, he turned away as if Dee had ceased to exist, and addressed Ryo instead.

 

“Hello, Ryo,” he said warmly, and the look in his eyes made Sam a little uneasy. “Did you take care of what you left to do?”

 

“Yes, sir,” Ryo said politely—a little too politely, Sam thought. “Actually, that's what brings us here. I'd like you to meet Dean and Sam—” He paused for a moment, before apparently remembering that he didn't have a last name to give. “They have something important to talk to you about.”

 

“Concerning?” Rose asked, his tone all business now.

 

“Some of the mysterious deaths that have been happening. They think you should stop investigating them,” Ryo said, laying all their cards on the table in one bold throw.

 

The Commissioner didn't say anything for a long time. He took off his glasses, wiped them slowly, and put them back on. Then he began to fiddle with the papers on his desk, arranging them meticulously even though Sam couldn't see how they could possibly be organized further. Once he was done with that, he sat back in his chair and just stared at them, with a cold, piercing gaze that made Sam's skin crawl as with a hundred centipedes.

 

He looked, and looked, and looked, until Sam had to fight the urge to crawl under something and hide until it was over. When his father had looked at him like that, it had always been a sure sign that he was in for a dressing-down, and déjà vu sent a shiver down his spine. He'd always hated when John Winchester gave him that look. But somehow…somehow this guy was even worse. His gaze had no expression—no anger, no puzzlement, not even irritation. It was creepy, and Sam felt a thrill of something that was not fear, but something akin to it.

 

And then Rose spoke, in a flat, bored voice that proved worse than the silence.

 

“Would they care to explain why?”

 

Ryo grimaced slightly. “Yeah, that's why we brought them here, but…well, it's a good thing you're sitting down, sir, because there's no way in hell you're gonna believe this…”

 

XXX

 

Rose's expression didn't so much as flicker the entire time Dean and Sam told their story. Not a single thing they said seemed to rattle him. He didn't ask any questions or make any comments—he just listened.

 

When Sam—who took over the telling in the middle—stopped talking, Rose leaned back in his chair, and did the staring thing again. Sam stared back, waiting for the smart-aleck comment he was more-than-half-expecting from Dean. But it never came, and the silence went on.

 

Then, finally, Rose spoke, and his voice was the same as before.

 

“Would you boys excuse us?”

 

It was clearly not a question, and even Dean saw that it was best not to argue. In fact, he was the first to head for the door, Sam trailing along behind.

 

The brothers didn't speak until they were seated on the bench outside Rose's office. Then Dean drew in a shaking breath and said, “Wow.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Suddenly, Dad seems way less creepy.”

 

“Uh-huh. What is with that guy?”

 

“He's jealous of Dee,” Sam said instantly.

 

Dean threw up his hands in disgust. “There you go again. I would love to know why.”

 

Sam shrugged—he thought it was fairly obvious. “He wants Ryo and can't have him, so he hates Dee.”

 

“Oh, good God! Is there a single straight person in this precinct?!”

 

“Nope,” a guy walking by with a stack of papers replied calmly, but he didn't give them a chance to reply before he disappeared around the corner.

 

Dean watched him go, then leaned over and said in a low voice, “We have to leave this place immediately.”

 

Sam looked puzzled. “Uh…why?”

 

“Because everybody's clearly insane and I've seen Dad as a cop, which I never needed to see. We have to go, Sam.”

 

Sam rolled his eyes. “We can't, Dean. Unless you want to get slapped with quite a few messy charges. And they know where we're staying.”

 

Dean sighed heavily. “Damn.”

 

XXX

 

“You've brought insane men into my precinct.”

 

Rose's tone was completely calm, but his message was clear.

 

I'm beginning to think you're insane…

 

“Why, exactly, did you bother bringing them? Why not just arrest them?”

 

You'd better have a damn good explanation for this…

 

“I mean, you can't possibly believe them, so…”

 

At least, I hope you don't believe them, because then I'd have to fire you for the good of all concerned…

 

But then Rose took a good look, and sighed heavily. “Great. You believe them.” And then he turned to Dee. “Laytner, why am I even surprised that you bought a story like this?”

 

Dee flushed a brilliant, angry red, and was opening his mouth for a furious retort when Ryo said quietly, “He didn't. I did.”

 

There was a long silence, and something actually shoed on Rose's face—concern.

 

“Do you want to tell me why?”

 

He spoke gently, softly, like someone at the bedside of a very ill man, and Dee ground his teeth in annoyance.

 

But though Ryo must have noticed the tone, he remained calm. “No, I don't.”

 

“But you do believe them.”

 

“I do.”

 

“And you don't think that they may have had something to do with it all.”

 

“No, I don't.”

 

“And you agree that further investigation is useless.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And what, exactly, do you suggest I tell the IA and my officers?”

 

“I was hoping you could help with that.”

 

Rose sighed heavily, and thought for a bit, leaning forward in his chair and resting his arms on his desk. “I don't buy it,” he said at last. “But—I'll make you a deal, Ryo. I'm going to keep trying to find possibilities. Otherwise, I'm looking at some serious trouble with the higher powers. But in a month's time, if there haven't been any more murders, I'll begin the process to drop the cases your…friends…covered.”

 

Ryo smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

 

“Well, it's a one-time only offer. Next time you bring someone in with a story about demons and spirits on killing sprees, I'll personally arrest them, fire Laytner, and restrict you to desk duty for sake of your sanity.”

 

“Hey, why do I get fired and he gets desk duty?” Dee asked, looking highly offended.

 

Rose looked impassively at him. “Do you really want to know?”

 

“Why, you low—”

 

“Okay!” Ryo said a little too brightly. “We're done here, I guess. Thanks again, Commissioner, sir. Come on, Dee—”

 

“Hold on.”

Ryo froze in the middle of leading Dee toward the door.

 

“You wouldn't happen to know if those two boys are planning to…uh…what did they call it? Oh, yes…hunting. You wouldn't happen to know if they plan to hunt anytime soon, would you?”

 

“Commissioner, they don't exactly trust us, you know,” Ryo replied, neatly dodging the question.

 

“Mm-hmm…well, you realize that you'd be legally obligated to turn them in if you caught them breaking any laws—say, vigilante laws, for instance. Don't you?”

 

Ryo's heart fell—his scrupulously honest nature wouldn't allow him to dodge that bullet. “Yes, sir.”

 

“Oh, and Ryo?”

 

Ryo froze with his hand on the knob, trying not to wince. “Yes, sir?”

 

“I'm supposed to be in meetings all day, so don't even bother trying to contact me after you finish your shift.”

 

Ryo looked at him for a long moment, then smiled gratefully and said, “Yes, sir.”

 

Dee continued to grind his teeth.

 

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AN: Okay, so it was another chapter made up mostly of dialogue. I'm sorry if that bores people, but by the time all the talking was finished the chapter was thirteen pages long and there was no time for action.

 

Anyways, I'm sorry for once again taking so long. It took me forever to get this chapter started—I just couldn't figure out how—but once I finally started it, about four days ago—well, after that horrible first line, the thing pretty much wrote itself. I very rarely am able to say that about my stories, so I'm glad I can right now. The hardest part was definitely typing it—I did it all in one straight shot—used up my entire post-Supernatural adrenaline rush AND about a pint of caffeine to get the job done. I just hope it reads as well as it wrote…