So. Because I don’t have enough on my plate right now(!!!) I figured I’d do a few short fics for fun. I plan to write a little series of destiel meet-cutes, with each installment being around 1,000 words long. I wanted to do something a bit different from my usual fare in terms of both how and what I write, just to sort of see if I actually can or whether I’m forever damned to write darker stuff with stupid humour.
This first one is different because it doesn’t rely on dialogue like so much of my stuff does. The next one is a little more traditional AU-y than I usually go for, the one after that is canon, which I’ve never written before, etc.
If you have any ideas that you want me to write, sling me a message and I’ll see what I can do (I do have a small queue of promised fics, but they’re almost written, so whilst there will be a delay, it shouldn’t be that long).
survival of the sickest (ao3 link)
The first time Dean sees him, it’s via grainy CCTV footage splashed across the six o’clock news.
His initial thought is, ‘huh, pretty’.
His next thought is, ‘idiot’.
***
The second time Dean sees him, it’s via someone’s shaky cell phone footage. His voice is deeper than Dean would’ve imagined and he certainly knows how to command a room. Five people get shot, three of them fatally, and he gets upgraded to the five o’clock news.
***
The third time Dean sees him, it’s via a handheld camera as the operator leans out of the news helicopter following the high-speed police chase.
He’s just murdered a family of four at a truck stop and stolen their pickup for no other reason than he can.
There’s no way not to admire that kind of ballsy move, really.
***
The fourth time Dean sees him is both much better and much worse.
The camera quality is sharp and right in his face as he’s flanked by two burly police officers and propelled through the hordes of paparazzi and looky-loos. This close, Dean can see the inky fan of shadowed lashes that frame icy blue eyes, the sharply angled jaw, the straight nose, the wild splay of dark hair.
Dean amends his previous thought. This guy is beyond pretty. He’s beautiful.
Shame he’s nowhere near as good as he thinks he is. Otherwise, they’d be Dean’s chains around his wrists and ankles, rather than the state of California’s.
***
The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth times Dean sees him are during the televised arraignment and trial.
He sits relentlessly impassive next to his court-appointed lawyer. Doesn’t contest the charges when the time comes, simply acknowledges his wrongdoing with the guttural declaration, “Wrong place, wrong time.”
He’s wearing a suit. It’s made of cheap polyester, but he makes it look good. Like it’s tailored to every muscle of his body, rather than something they dragged out of the lost and found to make him look less like a predator.
It doesn’t work at any rate. Not on a wolf amongst sheep.
Throughout the trial, he sits with his broad, sure-fingered hands interlaced atop the desk. He only speaks when spoken to and even then it’s in monosyllabic form.
Like it’s an inconvenience that he’s even there.
California is a death penalty state and Dean’s beginning to think that it’s a crying shame.
***
The ninth time Dean sees him is the sentencing hearing.
Dean already knows what’s coming. You can’t just kill thirty-two people, injure fifty-seven over the course of two weeks, and hope that you won’t be on the receiving end of the three-drug-protocol.
He gets sentenced to both death and life imprisonment. The former for twenty-eight counts of capital murder, the latter for four counts of second-degree murder and seventeen counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
It’s an impressive rap sheet and Dean should be thankful that there’s one less idiot fucking it up for the rest of them. But strangely, he’s not.
***
The tenth time Dean sees him is the best yet. Because it’s the first time he meets him.
Those blue eyes are wide with shock and a little bit of awe as Dean strafes the two guards who refuse to die, using their own semi-automatic rifles.
The Rugers are unwieldy and impersonal, but they get the job done.
Satisfied that they’re well and truly dead, Dean turns to him in the back of the armored prisoner transport truck. His ankles and wrists are bound and although Dean’s tempted to leave him like that for his own fun, he figures what the hell. He reaches for the ring of keys at guard number one’s hip, tosses them over.
Dean leaves him to methodically work his way through his shackles, and sets about getting rid of any trace of his own DNA. After all, it wouldn’t do to be exchanging one murderer for another.
Once he’s cleaned up and wiped down, Dean goes back around to the busted open doors of the armored van.
C4 isn’t exactly subtle.
He’s still there - surprisingly - and Dean coaxes him closer with the curl of an index finger.
He looks less predator now, more prey. But that’s only because he’s a Bull shark to Dean’s Great White.
He stands up in the back of the van, head dipped low until he can unfold to his full height once he drops out of the armored box and down onto the asphalt next to Dean.
Huh. He looked taller on TV.
Still. He is awfully pretty.
Dean smiles his charming lopsided smile, the one that convinces people far more upstanding than the man in front of him, to let him be the last face they see.
In response, he tilts his head, an ostensibly innocent gesture, but there’s a piece of the empathic puzzle missing.
Ah, a genuine sociopath. Those are hard to come by nowadays.
Dean gestures to his car where it’s parked haphazardly in the middle of the highway, a big shiny roadblock, perfect for stopping prison transport vehicles transferring dangerous murderers from jail to prison.
They’re both cop killers now.
***
Inside the car, Dean waits. Watches as he decides whether to trust Dean or not.
It’s either that or he starts walking and the nearest town is fifty miles away.
His face is instantly recognizable too.
It’s a risk either way.
One slightly more so than the other.
Dean observes through the windshield as he comes down on the side Dean knew he would.
The passenger door is wrenched open and he slides in next to Dean on the bench seat.
“It’s real nice to meet you, Cas.” Dean tells him, the first words he’s uttered since a little diner just outside of Folsom.
The responding low rumble is almost lost to the roar of the engine as Dean puts the site of his rescue mission in the rearview mirror, but he catches it anyway.
“You too, Dean.”
