Disclaimer: I don’t own characters from either show: if I did then I’d hardly be writing fanfic.

A/N: props to neviditelny for the bunny.

 

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Stranger Than Fiction

 

“Run them again. Check them by hand if you have to.” Danny told Lindsay.

 

She frowned at him. “Why? We’ve got a hit. Look…” She pointed to the screen. “Dean Winchester.”

 

“Deceased.” He tapped the screen.

 

“Oh.” She frowned, “Old print?”

 

Danny Messer shook his head, the print was as fresh as they came in his world, the blood was still wet and the print was in it. The blood could easily be the vic’s, but they were still waiting for DNA to finish running it. The case had started off weird and was getting weirder by the minute. How did a dead man’s print turn up in fresh blood at a recent crime scene, over a year after the man was meant to have died?

 

“Rerun it.” He requested. If a manual inspection brought the same result, he’d have to look into Dean Winchester’s death.

 

“Please?” Montana teased.

 

He flashed her a grin and left the lab, he had crime scene photos to go over.

 

******

 

He just didn’t get it, the body was drained of all blood, but there wasn’t a drop at the scene that belonged to the victim. There was no puncture wound either. Furthermore, the doors and windows were all locked from the inside. Then there was the weird slimy stuff that they’d found in a large puddle on the floor by the body, it fluoresced under black light but the mass spec was unable to identify it.

 

The weirdest thing though was the bloody print. The blood and the print both belonged to the deceased Dean Winchester. The coroner’s report matched the criminal record, which matched the evidence he’d found at the scene. He’d seen the autopsy pictures as well. The man was definitely dead!

 

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, bundled up all the papers and photos into the folder and headed for Mac’s office.

 

*****

 

Dean sat on the bed in the hotel room, he wasn’t sure how he’d managed to drive himself back there. His arm was bleeding heavily now. Carefully, he eased his arm out of the sleeve of his denim jacket. He cringed and tossed it aside; it was ruined now anyway. His t-shirt was pulled off over his head with one hand and he inspected the wound. He wished he hadn’t let Sam go off on his own to visit Sarah Blake.

 

“No no, Sammy, you go, I can handle the Shelack demon. Stupid mother…” He grumbled aloud to himself as he fumbled with the first aid kit.

 

He carefully cleaned and stitched the 6” wound closed with practiced skill. He’d done it more times than he could count; it was second nature to him. He taped a dressing over it, tidied the kit away and crawled onto the bed to crash out and regain his strength.

 

He slept for hours and when he woke he was sore and groggy. He was with it enough to realise though, that he should call his brother and let him know that he was ok. Dean reached for his back pocket to pull out his cell phone: it wasn’t there! He frowned and shifted on the bed searching amongst the covers, then around the room for it. A sense of dread slowly spread up his spine.

 

“Don’t panic… it’s probably in the car.”

 

He washed, dressed and made his way out to where he’d parked. The seat was covered in blood and he’d trailed it all the way to the motel room door too, but there was no sign of his cell. “Crap.”

 

He had to go back to the scene; he hated doing that. First, he would have to clean out his car; the poor baby was a mess.

 

******

 

Danny and Flack arrived at the crime scene and saw that the seal had been slit through; exchanging silent looks they reached for their side arms. They took either side of the door as Don turned the door hand and pushed it open. They used silent commands to show their movements and direct the other’s as they moved around the apartment on stealthy feet; they’d worked together enough that they were used to each other’s directions.

 

“NYPD!” Flack called out in warning. “Come on out.”

 

Dean bit down on his lower lip, holding his breath. He’d heard people in the hallway, while he was looking for his cell, and had just enough time to climb into the closet in the bedroom, when he heard the light creek of floorboards. He hadn’t been sure who it was, then those words had come and he cursed silently. Going back to the scene was always a dumb idea. He considered his options, he wasn’t likely to get past them, there were at least two of them; from the voices he’d heard. He was in trouble.

 

He took a deep breath and decided to try and bluff it.

 

“Ok, I’m not armed, I’m coming out.” He called; he shook his head at his own stupidity.

 

By the time he’d eased open the closet door there were two guns pointed at him. He raised his uninjured hand; the other one hung loosely, the bandage peeping out from under the short sleeve of his T-shirt.

 

Danny Messer had seen many things in his time, but he’d never come face to face with a live man whose autopsy notes he’d scrutinised. He gasped. “Holy crap.”

 

A similar thought flashed through Dean’s mind but mostly because he’d never been face to face with two good looking cops before. There was dumb luck and then there was… well… dumb luck.

 

“Dude, you can lower the guns. Really, not armed.” He thanked whatever deity might be listening that for once he’d left it in the Impala.

 

“Dean Winchester?” It was half question half statement, as the safety was engaged and Danny replaced his piece in its holster.

 

Don kept his gun trained a moment longer, while his colleague did a quick pat down and then waved his hand for him to lower it.

 

Dean groaned inwardly, he must have left some blood or something at the scene, some way for them to identify him. That was sloppy; he was getting slack and complacent.

 

“You’re meant to be dead.” The CSI prompted.

 

“Reincarnation?” He said hopefully, one arm held wide. Even when he was neck deep in trouble he couldn’t help himself.

 

“This is Winchester?” Flack asked, looking from their suspect to his lover.

 

Danny heard the jealousy colouring the tone and turned to look at him. It was ridiculous to feel that way about a suspect, especially one who was meant to be dead: irrational, although, the man was hot… for a dead suspect.

 

Dean raised an interested eyebrow and watched the exchange. He really wished Sam was there to bail him out with some unexpected, ingenious idea. Just when he thought things couldn’t get worse his attention was pulled to the strange glow through the doorway. He cringed. Shelack demons didn’t generally re-form or regenerate, but if their remains weren’t treated right they could attract a feeder demon.

 

“Dude, hate to break the party up, but we’ve got a problem.” He nodded towards the doorway.

 

Both cops turned to look, and if Danny was stunned to see a talking walking dead man… he wasn’t sure how he’d describe what he saw in the other room.

 

“What the…?”

 

Flack was reaching for his gun, but Dean put a stilling hand on his arm, gentle enough that it wouldn’t be thought of as a threat.

 

“Won’t do anything.” He whispered.

 

Danny turned blue eyes on him questioning, “What?”

 

“We need salt.” Feeder demons, aside from the usual application of salt against demons, were like giant slugs…mostly… if he could get a tub of salt they’d be fine.

 

They both looked at him like he was crazy, couldn’t he see the grey skinned ‘thing’ in the lounge, granted it was only about 4’ tall but it was ugly and fat.

 

He raised his eyebrows, shrugged and moved towards the door, “Fine, leave it to me…lets hope there’s salt in the apartment.” He muttered.

 

The Feeder was busy, doing what it did, and not paying any attention to its surroundings. It was easy for Dean to slip past it, giving it a nice wide berth as he did. When he reached the kitchen he started to open cupboards as quietly as he could. He detected a change in the noises and turned round to see the demon looking at the other two in the doorway across from him, it made a sound like a heavy rock being dragged over concrete.

 

He shook his head, finally laid his hand on the salt tub, and moved back towards his target. Easing the lid off as he moved.

 

“Yo Fugly.” Dean called to it and it immediately turned to look at him, faster than you would expect something with that weight to move. He took his opportunity and threw a large quantity of salt in its face. There was a howl and a hiss then the thing dissolved into a bigger pile of goo. “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.”

 

He shook the rest of the salt over the entire puddle of slime, both old and new and set light to it. The flash was short and sharp, fading quickly away to leave a scorch mark on the floor but no other evidence remained.

 

“What the hell just happened here?” Flack asked, still confused and his hand still on his holstered firearm.

 

“You want the truth or the… ‘go back to your relatively safe oblivious lil world’ version?” Dean asked, looking from one to the other. He couldn’t decide which was the better looking of the two; he didn’t want to…in fact he was quite enjoying the idea of imagining them together.

 

“Truth.” Danny said, pointedly.

 

“Ok, but I warned you.” And with that, he proceeded to tell them about the events that had occurred.

 

******

 

“What about the body?” The CSI asked, his face a study of confusion at what he’d just heard.

 

“What body?” Dean was genuinely lost. There’d been no body when he left, just a puddle of goo from the Shelack demon’s demise.

 

“We found a body, near the …slime. You saying you don’t know nothing ‘bout that?”

 

He shook his head, “Dude, there was no body when I left, just the slime. I left in a hurry on account of the gaping wound in my arm. But I was with it enough, I’d have noticed a body.” Slow fear crept up his spine again. “Tell me about it… the body.”

 

******

 

“Wow.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You do that sort a thing often?”

 

“All the time.”

 

Danny shook his head. “Man, that’s just crazy.”

 

“Yeah, you don’t know the half of it.” Dean looked out of the driver side window. The body wasn’t a body, but a regenerating Shelack demon - that wasn’t just a Shelack but some weird hybrid. When he’d first beheaded it, it hadn’t severed completely; with being injured he was in a hurry to get out and never noticed. The damn thing had come back to life while at the morgue.

 

“So…”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Wanna tell me why you look so well for a dead man?” Danny was looking at him with intense blue eyes.

 

The demon hunter couldn’t resist looking back.

 

“I bleed well for a corpse, eh?” He looked down at the cuts and grazes he bore from his second battle with the Shelack hybrid and then across at the equally bruised and grazed CSI.

 

Danny snorted.

 

“It was a Shapeshifter, it tried to frame me for murder. It pretty much worked but we killed it when it was still wearing my face. Knew how to pick the handsome ones to copy at least.”

 

“Remind me not to ask a question I’m not prepared to hear some weird assed answer to.” The New Yorker chuckled and shook his head.

 

Dean laughed, “welcome to my world.”

 

Fingers touching his cheek caused him to fall silent.

 

“You should come in, let me help ya get cleaned up.”

 

For a moment Dean thought he was going to say no, that he’d start up the Impala and drive away leaving CSI Danny Messer on the sidewalk; alone. He remembered all the times he’d had a go at Sammy for not taking chances, he could just imagine his brother’s smug look. To hell with it! He pulled the keys from the ignition and pushed open the car door.

 

“Lead the way.”

 

******

 

The door closed behind him as Dean took in the room he found himself in. He was surprised; he hadn’t taken Danny for the clean minimalist type. The apartment was neat and tidy: the furniture expensive. He raised an impressed eyebrow and turned to look at the other man.

 

“Nice place.”

 

“Thanks.” Although, admittedly he couldn’t take all the credit for it, most of it was his work even if the art on the walls were Don’s choice. He wasn’t sure how his guest was going to react to that revelation.

 

While Dean took a seat on the edge of the sofa, the blond went to the bathroom and started getting out supplies: first aid kit; antiseptic, and; cotton swabs. He ran a bowl of water, poured some of the antiseptic wash in and nodded towards his guest.

 

“Take your shirt off, I think it’s a right off, you can have one of mine.” Danny sniffed and waved a hand at him, indicating the bloody torn garment that vaguely resembled the T-shirt Dean had put on that morning.

 

The dark-haired man winced as he started to pull his T-shirt off. There was no way he was ever facing one of them mother fuckers alone again. The damn thing had nearly had his arm off the first time, and the second he tried to gut him. Danny had helped, but in the end it had to be him: the guy had no idea what to do, even if he was a quick learner. He hadn’t been afraid to jump into the fray though. Things might not have been quite so difficult if the cop hadn’t had to answer another call and left them to it. He still wasn’t sure what the damn demon had been but it was gone now and it wasn’t coming back.

 

He looked at the gash, and bruising that was rapidly forming on his abdomen. He was absorbed in examining his injuries and missed Danny moving the bowl to the glass coffee table beside him. He only looked up when a hand rested on his shoulder. Blinking in surprise a moment, he smirked.

 

“Been a while since I’ve taken a beating like this.”

 

Danny frowned, not liking the fact that Dean was so used to getting hurt, and dunked the cotton swab in the antiseptic solution; he squeezed it out before reaching up to run it gently over Dean’s scratched cheek. The sting from the wounds caused him to suck in air, but he didn’t pull away. His eyes studied the blond’s face carefully. Earlier that day he’d expected to be arrested or something, it was bizarre that he was now in a cop’s home, having his injuries taken care of. A very attractive, fit cop… that he really wanted to get closer too.

 

And then, before he even had time to react, those grinning lips were hot and hard on his and all Dean could do was part his lips and take it. His uninjured arm came up to sink his fingers into Danny’s hair, while his face was cradled gently, lips and tongue demandingly plundering his mouth. Recovered from the initial shock he kissed back, hot and needy as their mouths duelled but the CSI won dominance over it.

 

They didn’t hear the door open, or see Don standing looking at them while he loosened his tie and pulled it off over his head. Top buttons were undone and a slow smile spread across his lips.

 

“That looks like fun, think I got here just in time for the party to begin.” Flack’s amused voice cut in.

 

Dean jumped and scrabbled to part them, his cheeks heated and his green eyes were wide. “I…we…” The smooth eldest Winchester brother had completely lost his cool.

 

Danny was smirking, Don was grinning and Dean was just starting to get a clue.

 

“You’re… together?” He asked, looking from one to the other, the ‘Rabbit caught in the headlights’ look starting to recede a little.

 

“That gonna be an issue?” The blond asked him, blue eyes twinkling with lust and mischief.

 

“I… no?” He mostly asked, uncertain of the answer himself. “If it’s not an issue for you guys, then it isn’t for me.”

 

The two New Yorkers were exchanging looks, and he followed the hidden message that passed between them. ‘Oh!’ Two hot cops wanted to take him to bed… who was he to protest? Realisation registered on his face and it was recognised by the others: Flack’s buttons were undone and Danny’s hand grabbed Dean’s and pulled him to his feet; he followed the pull as he was led to the bedroom.

 

As the door closed behind them, Danny said, “Just so you know… Don likes to be the boss.”

 

~Fin~

 

readers.