The Universe's Mixer

Lois had been busy over the last few weeks. Between the King Kong situation (which landed her a front page headline at least) and the renewed Edgett murder investigation, she'd barely had time to stop for lunch. She was slightly miffed that Ollie hadn't done much in the way of checking up on her after the experience with the giant ape, but she supposed he was busy too.

She had a rare slow news day, which meant she wasn't going to eat lunch at her desk and she decided it would be good to actually make time for her ex. They might have been exes, but she considered him a friend now and she wanted him in her life. Especially since he was really the only person she knew in the City.

Which was how Lois ended up at Queen Industries, checking in with Oliver's secretary. She supposed she could have called ahead, but that sort of took away the surprise of dropping in on him for lunch. She was currently trying to explain to the secretary that she didn't have an appointment but still merited a call to the woman's boss.

"Just tell him that Lois is here for lunch. Let him make up his own mind about whether or not he has time for me," she said, a hint of exasperation edging into her voice. She wasn't a huge fan of gatekeepers like this woman.

Dinah still hadn't quite forgiven herself for the issues caused with the mayor and the Justice League. She should have talked to him first. Come to that, she should have handled her first outing as leader better. They'd been floundering until Batman's subtle but firm reminder that she had to take control of the situation.

She was taking advantage of the gym facilities that were set up in the basement of the Clock Tower. She was doing a number on the punching bag, taking out her frustrations on it. Though she wasn't a large woman, she could hit awfully hard so the bag was creaking on its hinges as she unleashed a barrage of punches.

There might have been other, more personal, frustrations in there but for now she was just focused on the reassurance of being able to hit something.

As it turned out, The City had a few tattoo parlors. Lindsey looked into all of them.

One had a reputation for doing shoddy work. Another had a reputation for tattooing people who came in drunk. There was a tattooist at one shop that had a huge portfolio of tribal work, and it could be seen at the shop's web site. A lot of the lines looked like the stuff Lindsey'd be getting redone. The man had himself a new client.

After a phone call describing what he wanted, and after a ten-minute consultation in person about price and amount of time the work would take, Lindsey had an appointment. By the end of the next day, he'd have himself a new set of protective tattoos. He'd be invisible to anything looking for him again, except for the naked eye. The Partners wouldn't see him. Neither would surveillance, though that was more of a funny perk than an outright objective.

He cancelled his afternoon appointments (there were only two, and they were for some easy stuff--small claims grade, easy crap) and headed out to City Ink. When he arrived, a girl with orange and blue hair and a nose piercing that reminded him of a bull smiled at him and took his coat. She took out the drawings Lindsey'd given over the day before, nodded at them, and said she'd go get Ben.

Ben, the tribal tattooist, was a skinny kid of about 25, who weighed maybe a buck twenty if he was lucky. He had stretched-out ear lobes and a hole in his chin Lindsey didn't understand, and a shaved head, as well as sleeve tattoos and a tattoo that stretched from the back of his neck to the top of his skull. He was wearing a wife-beater undershirt and pants that kept falling down slightly because he was so skinny.

"Okay. I'm gonna go set up my workstation. You want a water, or anything? We got some cookies Shauna made, too."

The orange-and-blue-headed bull girl grinned.

Jo had put off talking to Dean for a little bit. She hadn't meant to, but things had gotten busy. And then she'd happened to pass by a restaurant with large windows around the waiting area. Which meant she got the nice full view of Dean kissing his date-some gorgeous brunette in a little black dress. She'd seethed about that for awhile, though really it wasn't like he'd exactly led her on on New Years' Eve, unless one counted him going on about how important that midnight kiss was and then kissing her on the forehead.

Yeah, because nothing says 'I like you' like a nice sexy kiss on the forehead.

She knew she was being silly, but that didn't make her any less annoyed that he hadn't bothered to mention that he was dating someone. It just would have been nice to not feel out of the loop.

But none of that really mattered and that wasn't the reason she'd stopped by his place. She'd really wanted to make sure that she talked to him about taking jobs from Fred before Fred let it slip and got the business end of whatever chauvinist scolding he was going to give about how Jo apparently couldn't do the job.

When she found the building that had been listed under Dean's address, she'd had to double check it a few times to be sure.

A flower shop?

Dean Winchester was no longer living in a motel, but in an apartment over a flower shop?

She supposed it was fitting that the mayor was apparently from Wonderland, because 'curiouser and curiouser' was pretty damn fitting right about now.

Jo knocked on the door, hoping that she'd at least catch him at home.

There were at least two bars in town that seemed a bit out of the ordinary and were providing competition of a sort to the Roadhouse. Jo wasn't really sure what to make of either of them. Fangtasia was vampire friendly and apparently run by a vampire. She honestly didn't know why Dean, Sam and Cas hadn't just rallied together and swooped in and burned the whole place down, but Jo knew better than to go into something like that alone without getting the full story. Caritas was rumored to be run by a green-skinned demon but was a magically enforced neutral territory where no violence was allowed, or something along those lines.

She didn't think the crowds for the three bars would overlap all that well, considering that hunters tended to be anti-demon and anti-vampire, but apparently tonight everyone was drinking somewhere else. Jo sighed as she wiped down the bar counter top for possibly the fifth time tonight. It was tempting to just close up early since the bar was empty, but you never knew when there'd be a rush she supposed. However, by the time it was nearing closing time she'd given up on the idea of a rush or of making any money whatsoever for the night.

If there was one good thing about The City, Murphy thought, it was the fact that she didn't have to turn her official police reports into works of fiction, with made-up terrorist organizations, and gas line ruptures or mass hysteria and folle a deux to explain away the magic and the unexplained. She could just write down that there was a giant primate terrorizing The City. It made headlines of real, legitimate newspapers, not just the gossip rags. It was kind of refreshing.

On the other hand, with all the superheroes known to mankind to serve and protect, it was starting to make Murphy feel a little bit...out of place. Unnecessary. Sure, there was the day to day weirdness, but she was feeling a little disconnected again lately, and she knew she needed to do something about it. So, Wednesday, after her shift, she sent Jesse a quick message to see if he was free for coffee. Even if he wasn't able to join her, what better way to get over mid-week hump day than a shot of caffeine?