The Universe's Mixer

Dean had settled into the normal mode when finding out that something terrible might have happened to someone he knew and/or cared about. It could be a truly frightening and dangerous mode. The look in Dinah's eyes when the couple realized the voices on the scanner were talking about Fred's place was more than enough fuel for Dean's anger. He cared about the brainy Southern gal, and he cared even more for one of her good friends. Begrudgingly agreeing to investigate the fire, Dean let Dinah continue with a slightly larger problem...alone. He'd get back to her as soon as possible; he'd made that promise.

He pulled up as close as the fire trucks and police cars would allow, and his heart sank as he realized just how much damage had already been done. It was too the point that the experts were letting the fire burn itself out. The City, being a true survivalist, had sequestered off the burning building to a strange little island. Nothing else would be damaged.

The hunter got out of the car, went to the back of it, and found a hopefully convincing jacket and a badge. Fire inspector. He never thought he'd use this one. Well, not since that one time in Pasedena...a flicker of a naughty boy smirk slipped across his lips before it was gone and he was walking toward a crowd of official looking types.

"What happened here?" he asked in one of his gruffer more authoritative voices.

(backdated to before Damon heals Enigma)

Once Dinah heard from Hank that the gas masks were ready, she sent out a message to everyone that could possibly be help with this current situation. There were the new recruits and those who had helped out in the past. She didn't know how many would show up or how the meeting would go. She had hoped that she would have had more time to introduce the new recruits to each other and to start building up the trust between the team before the next crisis, but life never did work that way, did it?

Truth be told, she wouldn't have minded just having a few quiet nights with Dean as well.

On the other hand, this was the only life she could picture for herself. She'd taken her time off and it had never felt right. Saving people, helping people-that was what she was meant to do. She didn't live for the potential disasters, but she couldn't picture herself doing anything but trying to avert them.

She had brought along the gas mask that Enigma had loaned her for the reverse engineering. She wanted to return it as soon as possible anyway and it also give her an excuse to get Dean the chance to look the young woman over. Dinah had no problem with getting a second opinion as to how much of the tip about the plan could be believed.

She gave Dean's hand a squeeze as she waited in the lobby of Stark Tower for the redhead in question to grant them permission to visit. Whatever came of this and the meeting, they would handle it together. That in itself was a reassurance.

Enigma’s news about the Joker and Scarecrow’s plan had pretty much wiped everything else out of Dinah’s mind. Her first instinct was to call Dean, but he’d already texted her the night before and told her that he was coming home today, so she would wait. She wasn’t going to rush him home from whatever it was he felt that he still needed to be doing now that his hunt was done.

She’d dropped off the gas mask with Hank to see if he could reverse engineer enough for the team and now she needed the time to think and draw up plans before she talked to anyone else. The hardest part was that she didn’t know how much of the new team she should involve, if any of them.

As soon as that thought popped into her head, she shoved it aside. She couldn’t make that decision for anyone. She had to give them the choice. She had to make it clear what sort of enemy Joker could be and make it clear that she would make do if they decided to stay away from him. She believed in the people that she’d recruited recently and she couldn’t start doubting their abilities and being overprotective now, no matter how much she might want to.

She also wanted Dean involved with this. She would feel better with him watching her back and she believed that he had a point-they needed to be there for each other with things like this. They needed to start working as a team instead of compartmentalizing when it came to danger. They wouldn’t always have to work together on crimefighting or hunting but with something this big, it didn’t feel right to leave him out.

The apartment had already been stripped of Christmas decorations. She’d taken those down on Christmas Eve because truthfully, she’d been overcompensating with the holiday cheer. The first Christmas without Jake was always going to be rough and she’d simply hoped that she could drown that out by celebrating her first Christmas living with Dean. So she’d decorated and shopped and tried to make plans and it hadn’t been fair to expect him to somehow make her forget that her adoptive son wasn’t here for this.

She didn’t know what time he planned to be home and she wasn’t going to wait all day-she’d call him eventually and tell him what was going on if it got too late, but for now she sat at the kitchen table scribbling plans in a notebook as she tried to work out the best use of the team’s resources to stop this plan before it became a problem for the people of the City.

( Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry... )

After the information garnered from the CBI agent, it wasn’t hard to follow the breadcrumbs and surmise that it was tied into the feud between the two families that owned the buildings involved. From there, they had both started researching. When Sam came across the Greek mythology involving Alastor, the god of blood feuds. A little bit of digging gave Sam all of the answers that he needed. Once the two brothers traced the family trees, it was easy to pinpoint the next victim. It would seem that the spirit was working his way down the branches of the family tree. Those that were the closest relations to the source of the feud had gone first and then it had continued to work its way outward.

What Sam didn’t bother to tell Dean was that Alastor could only be killed immediately after he’d taken a life. The next victim wouldn’t be saved, but would instead be bait for the trap. Sam had no emotions either way about the collateral damage, but he imagined that Dean might have a problem with it. It was better to at least keep up the appearance of trying to save that next victim.

Both brothers had armed themselves with a stake before setting off for the separate apartment buildings, but Sam was pretty sure that Dean wouldn’t be in much position to use it since he was focused on saving the victim as well as killing the demi-god.

( Same name, different creature )

Upon his arrival in the City, Sam had found keys to an apartment and a car. He assumed that they had belonged to the previous Sam, but truthfully he didn’t think too much on it either way. He didn’t much care whether or not he had a home but it made things easier to not have to find a new motel every night he supposed. It was just one less thing to worry about.

Dean’s phone call hadn’t garnered much reaction on his end. Though he did toss a few pillows on the bed in his second bedroom. It might be difficult to hide things with his brother around, but he would manage.

Sam had given the address and now he was going over the clues. He’d set up a corkboard in which he’d pinned all of the the things that they knew already. He frowned at it, studying each piece of information and trying to figure out how things fit together, trying to find a pattern that would explain what it was they were hunting.

( A role reversal of sorts? )

Dinah wasn’t at ease in the wake of her discussion with Eric. No, she didn’t like just how casually and easily he had found her. She also wasn’t sure how she felt about the truce, even if she was the one who had proposed it. She did believe that it was the best way to keep people safe. To keep Dean safe, assuming he went along with it. She didn’t plan on dropping the ball on Eric. She wasn’t going to assume that he would keep his word. Though if he did, that would give them the chance to focus on the Joker and Scarecrow. And Enigma, if the girl continued to make trouble.

Dean wasn’t home when she got home, so she decided it was time to wrap presents. She wrapped his first and slipped it under the tree. There were two for him-a ‘naughty’ and a ‘nice’ present. She smiled a little and started humming to herself as she settled into wrapping some of the other presents. She was nervous about the discussion that would be had whenever he got home but for now she would just enjoy the fact that there wasn’t a crisis happening right now. That she could be at home, wrapping presents for the people she cared about.

( Snow's coming down, I'm watching it fall... )

Dean stared at the building. The owner of said building had called Fred about something living inside it. Fred done some research and found nothing that would suggest ghosts or poltergeist or anything else they usually looked for. In fact, it seemed like a very normal building, but things weren't right. There had been multiple deaths recently; none of which seemed more than mere accidents. Not that any accident was mere when it took a life.

The older Winchester called in the younger for a hand. He had said that they should hunt together, and so he thought he'd take the chance to do so. Some of their work was already done by the brainiac that Dean was still refusing to claim as boss. She was more of a mediator or contractor than boss. She was his pimp - not that he'd ever say that to her or Dinah. It did amuse him somewhat.

"Bet it's some lame ass curse. I know Fred said no one died in there, and let's face it - there isn't much else it could be. A demon? A demi-god? You do any digging?" He didn't think Sam would just take Fred's word for it, even if she did seem to have a way of getting information. Hacker. He'd bet she was just that. He didn't mind. Sometimes hacking was the only way to get anything good.

The holidays were going to be hard for Dinah. She’d expected that. Facing the prospect of Thanksgiving and Christmas without Jake made her heart ache. She still thought about her lost son often, but she was in the process of making peace with it. Having Dean around helped a lot. It helped to keep her mind off the grief and gave her a shoulder to cry on when she really needed it. It had also helped to get back into fighting crime. Having a purpose, having something to drive her made it easier to avoid falling back into the despair that she’d felt in the months after Jake’s disappearance.

Since Thanksgiving was the first holiday without Jake, she’d dreaded it. But she’d also started to make plans. It was her first holiday with Dean, and she wanted to do something to celebrate that. She knew he liked pie and all kinds of food, really. And from what she knew about his life before the City, she doubted he had had many big Thanksgiving meals.

Since Dinah’s form of cooking generally ended in things being burnt to a crisp or over-seasoned or some combination of the two, she’d enlisted Alfred’s help. She’d invited the butler (though really, he was so much more to Bruce and to everyone else who had stayed at the Manor or been a part of the inner circle) to dinner, but he’d politely declined. Dinah felt bad about letting Alfred go back to the empty manor on the holiday, but he’d pointed out to her that Thanksgiving was a traditionally American celebration. So she’d given him a hug and thanked him profusely once everything was done for the turkey dinner.

Then it was a matter of waiting. She’d asked Dean to try to be home at a certain time today, without telling him exactly what was going on. She had hoped it could be a surprise. Whenever he did come home, it would be to a table filled with turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, rolls, and to an assortment of pies waiting in the kitchen. She knew he liked his pie after all.

As Dinah had expected, her phone reappeared in her pocket on the way home from Enigma's warehouse. As soon as it did, she'd called Dean. If she knew him as well as she thought she did, he would have been worried by now, possibly frantic and almost certainly out looking for her.

She was still twitchy and exhausted and she was really glad to be going home. She just wanted to see Dean and make sure he was still okay-to make sure that none of the nightmares she'd had about him over the last half day had come to pass.

By the time she made it home, she definitely looked the worse for the wear. She did the best she could to smooth her hair down, trying to look as presentable and 'okay' as she could before she let herself in the door.

Eric was pleased.

Not just because there was going to be a party, to which they'd invited every single person in the City, but because it was for him and Baba. But to top that off? It was in their new home, Castle Dracula.

He would retain his sleeping place, and she would - of course - retain her cabin. Both would be used for various things, but their main residence was going to be the castle. Eric was in love with the building. The rich history, the fact that it belonged to living relic, every aspect of the castle was glorious to him. Baba had warmed to the place.

It was decorated with the red and black that they had decided on for colors. Tastefully done, but very gothic. The front door was wide open, welcoming all visitors. From the front gates to that open door was a pathway of red roses, to guide people inside.

The castle held many rooms, but only the ones on the ground floor were open to wandering. The stairs leading to the levels below and above were cut off by large men and velvet ropes. Strict instructions were given that only himself or his wife were allowed to pass. Even with these restrictions, there was more than enough room to fit every citizen, should they choose to show. Plenty of room to poke around.

In the great dining hall stood large tables laden with many kinds of food and smaller tables with chairs for people to sit at. Tables had been placed in other rooms, too, for people to take their food, drink, or company. Catering staff roamed with hors d'oeuvres and took drink orders. There was a large room filled with art and two fondue stations - chocolate and cheese. A room with a nice, even floor and a grand ceiling which also held the orchestral quintet he had found. Once the sun set, the grounds around the castle would be lit up with tiny fairy lights.

There was to be only one truly scheduled event, and that was when he and Baba would make their appearance and introduce themselves to the rest of the City as Eric and Red Northman. This would happen closer to sunset so that the other vampires could attend. The rest of the time, the people would be allowed to do as they wished when they wished to do it. Eric had spared no expense to get this rolling along. He wanted his new wife to have a party that nobody would soon forget.

Freshly moved in to her new place, Megan was in a good mood. And good moods should be spread. In this case, Megan decided to pay it forward by doing some outreach for Fixit. Annie would like the business, right? More business meant more machines to talk to, as far as she figured. It would be like making new friends. Maybe. She still wasn't clear on the absolute specifics of how Annie's powers worked. And there was a new employee to hire! All in all, lots of work to be done.

So Megan made flyers. Come visit the store flyers. Help wanted flyers. Lots of neon flyers. She thought they looked cute, and she'd remembered to put the name and address of the store on it and everything. And in those bright colours, there was no way they'd be missed.

She spent an afternoon out 'porting to various parts of the City, taping them up, leaving them in little piles inside stores, and slipping them underneath cars' wipers. So much more interesting than taking something out in the paper, she thought, bending back the wiper of a black car and shoving a couple of flyers underneath.

Opening night for Verdi's La Traviata ran as smoothly as the City Opera House manager designed it. He allotted a certain number of complimentary tickets to be distributed by high-performing members of his production. Those lucky enough to receive these tickets were placed on a special guest list and personally escorted by the house staff to their box seats. The manager himself claimed a seat in Box 5, which was otherwise empty.

Tonight, the crowd glittered and shone brightly under the warm glow of the opera house. Attending the opera was as much about high art as it was about being seen. With every playbill this night came an invitation to the opening night celebration following after the performance. There, all would get their fill of the glamor brought out by opening night.

When the lights in the auditorium dimmed, so too did the chatter. Then began the orchestra, casting its spell with rich, full-bodied music. The pianist, one Hannibal Lecter, would be remembered by musical types for his mastery. But there was limelight enough for others, as well. The production's Violetta, Ms. Christine Daeé, sang soprano with a curious and heady combination of seduction and fresh youth, while the Flora of the opera, Ms. Enigma, carried the darker mezzo-soprano with an expert's touch. And when the lights came up, it was to the roar of an audience recognizing the triumph it just witnessed.

Once the curtain calls were done, the crowd began filtering down the staircase and into the Grand Foyer, where the night was just beginning. The wine flowed; the violins hummed -- a triumph indeed.

Jo had a few days to think things over and hopefully figure out a way to keep the re-opening of the newly combined bar from resulting in bloodshed. Whatever Eric said about his rules, she wasn't sure how much she could trust the vampire or the rest of his clientele to keep from seeing her clientele as juice boxes with legs.

The first step right now was keeping her customers away. Jo had put the word out to some of her regulars already. Now it was just a matter of tracking down Dean and Sam. She really didn't want to tell Dean because she had a feeling that the hunter's first instinct would be to try to step in and for better or for worse, this was her problem to solve.

Jo dropped by the apartment over the flower shop and knocked on the door. She wasn't sure she would ever get used to the idea of Dean living over a flower shop. It did seem rather... ill-fitting and just a little bit amusing at that.

(Morning/afternoon/a day or so after this)

They didn’t come out of that bedroom for a while, and he really didn’t feel like getting out of bed when he finally woke up, his arms still around her. Dean felt good. He was home, and he felt damn good. He pressed a kiss to her skin and held her. Part of him wanted to wake her up and have some more fun, but the part that was in control - Sam might jokingly say “for a change” about that - wanted to simply be, here, with her.

He gave her a soft squeeze, trying not to upset her or wake her. His hands softly rubbed and petted at her skin. He was so very comfortable and on a nice side of peaceful, which wasn't something that happened often in his life.

( Read more... )

(Warning: gets a bit steamy at the end)


The City had been extra-frustrating over the past two weeks. Dinah still didn’t know if her Dean was even in the City anymore and for some reason she couldn’t find the Sherwood Florist at all. She was missing home, missing her guy, and worried about how much more she could stand to lose.

When she finally did drive by that familiar shop, she almost passed it up before pulling a U-turn and parking in the garage.

She let herself in and searched every last room before she realized that he wasn’t here. His things still were which she could only hope meant that he was still in the City and not that the City meant for her to suddenly take up living with the other Dean. That would just be... awkward on every level.

She stopped short in her search as she came to a smear of deep red. The smell burned at her nostrils. Dinah frowned and knelt beside what was very obviously a blood smear. There were a few strands of dark brown hair mixed in with the blood as well. She recognized that hair color all too well.

She felt like she might be sick but set about cleaning up the blood, trying not to think about what might have happened to cause it and who it might have happened to. In fact, she was almost positive that it had been the other version of herself and there were two people in the City who might have done this, though she didn’t want to think of the possibility of either of them in her apartment.

Once the cleaning was done, Dinah put on one of Dean’s t-shirts and breathed in the faint scent of him, taking comfort in that physical reminder of him at least. She took to wandering around the apartment as if she half-expected him to just appear somewhere. Hey, in the City anything was possible. She was more than a little unnerved at both the blood and the lack of confirmation that he was still in the City and she just wanted to see him right now.

( And it feels so good... )

It had happened again. This time when Tony was out walking around. No suit, which worried him honestly. It meant the Iron Man was back on the other planet, and though it was at least something to know that it was locked down from use it by anybody but him, it was still disconcerting to know.

At least he was back in a real civilization though. He'd walked through the streets, trying to get his bearings, finally finding his way into a pub. Good alcohol and pub food, there wasn't anything better after what he'd been eating lately. He didn't know how he was going to pay for this, but he'd figure out something. Or just run like hell when he'd had his fill.

He sat at the bar, making his way through a plate full of buffalo wings, watching some kind of sports program on the television and sipping off some bourbon. He'd work out where he was and what he was supposed to be doing later. First he wanted a decent bite to eat.

Talking to Jen and hearing Jen voice her fears had only driven the point home to Dinah. The Joker was back. Possibly back from the dead by some mysterious twist of fate. Dinah didn't know how that was possible and the Joker she knew of was... well, she supposed she had no way of knowing if he was mortal or immortal since no one had ever killed him. She'd always thought that he was human, but perhaps he was something else?

She didn't have answers. All she had were questions and fears. She wasn't worried for herself so much as for those that she cared about and really everyone in the City.

After speaking with Jen, she had tried to find the Batman to talk about this. She had tried, but Batman hadn't been anywhere she could find. She would almost bet that he knew that the Joker was back already. In fact, she would be surprised if Batman didn't know. She wasn't thrilled at being kept out of the loop, but that wasn't surprising either.

After about an hour of searching and trying to get ahold of Batman on the comm, she decided that she would have to save the conversation for another night. Maybe she would have stayed out longer, but there was a part of her that was really worried for Dean. He was living with her above the shop-if the Joker wanted to go after someone she cared about, it didn't get much more obvious than that.

She let herself into the apartment, looking for any sign that Dean was home.

"Dean?" she called out as she ditched her shoes and jacket and moved further into the apartment.

Dinah had made it home before Dean had finished at the bar. She wondered briefly where he was, but assumed that she'd find out whenever he got home. While she had her reasons to have trust issues, in her mind a new relationship was a new start. Assuming that they were calling it a relationship. She really didn't know what they were or what they might call themselves. All that she knew was that she did trust Dean, and she believed they'd figure it all out eventually.

She was tired, so she hadn't changed out of her costume yet. She'd merely plopped down on the couch and ditched her boots before snuggling into the cushions and turning on the TV.

She didn't mean to fall asleep, but somewhere between the late night reruns of Sex and the City and some other late night TV that was laughably bad, she drifted off.

Dean looked at his phone. His side was doing much better these days, and he was able to actually do more things than he had before. He was strongly considering something, especially if a certain someone kept checking on him. He knew he'd given into his considerations under more pain, or at least the idea of pain, but he'd been a pretty good boy, mostly.

He looked at himself in the mirror. The stitches could come out soon. He'd even go by a doctor eventually to let them look it over, maybe. He'd had worse without the help of a quack after all, or so he told himself. No matter how hard he tried, his mind kept going back to the phone and a question. Should he?

Finally, he gave in.

Free for a drink? It wasn't the same invite to the same restaurant, but it was a text that had started that particular adventure. If you are, meet me at O'Hare's. Usually at 45th and Vine.

Dinah was extremely glad for that fact that they had painkillers in the apartment, especially because her head felt like it was about three sizes too big by the time they’d arrived at the Sherwood Florist.

She made it to the door first and let the two of them in. As soon as they were inside, Dinah went into action mode. She was in her element with this sort of thing. Having problems to solve-having someone to take care of, even if Dean was just as focused on taking care of her-that was easy. Being on a sort of double date with her closest friend and not knowing how things were going to work out? Not nearly as easy.

The painkillers were in the oversized toolbox that she’d converted into a first aid kit. She brought it back to the living room, along with bottles of water for each of them to drink with the Tylenol 3 that she had in the first aid kit.

She took two for herself and then held out the bottle to Dean.

“You should take these and then you need to shower. The sooner you wash that wound out, the better.”

Dinah would want to shower herself. She might not have spent as much time on the ground, but she had gotten covered in vampire dust and had been knocked to the ground a few times as well. But cleaning out his wound came first. She was going to have to keep an eye on that and make sure it didn’t get infected.

“Think we might have some leftover pie and ice cream in the freezer if we still wanted dessert after all of this,” she said with a small smile.

It might have been a bribe to get him in the shower, or possibly making up for the date that had been cut short.

( Read more... )