Stand Your Ground

Missed Your Exit Series: Case One

Chapter One: Interior, Motel, Early Morning

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Supernatural.

Author's Note: Here we have the long awaited multi-chapter continuation of Missed Your Exit. This fic can be read as a standalone but for context/background I'd recommend going and reading that first (it's only a few hundred words). This takes place about a year after the events described in MYE. Hope it lives up to your expectations!

Harry rolled over with a groan, pressing his face into a thin and offensively floral-patterned motel coverlet. Sore and disoriented he felt pretty much just wrecked.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," called Dean as he backed into the room, arms laden with coffee and a plastic bag of what often passed for groceries with them.

Harry groaned again, groping blindly for his glasses.

He felt a little like he'd been run over by a freight train and there was a reaction headache building between his eyes that would need to be addressed before the blinds went up. He scrubbed a bit at his face running his tongue over his teeth, his eyes and mouth were alternately crusty and gummy.

When he finally levered himself upright and slid his glasses onto his face he wasn't surprised to see the interior of a cheap motel, though he didn't think it was the one he'd fallen asleep in.

"How long was I out?" he asked, his voice husky from disuse.

"About sixteen hours, actually you're probably pushing seventeen now," Dean answered, handing him one of the coffees.

Harry accepted the extra-large cup gratefully and inhaled deeply. The fumes were enough to jump start his brain and the first glide of the coffee itself over his tongue was gritty, dark and hot and absolute heaven.

"Where are we?" Harry asked two minutes and half-a-cup later.

"Minnesota," answered Dean with a cheeky grin, tearing the silver foil on a packet of poptarts off with his teeth.

Harry nearly choked on his coffee. Not only were they in a different motel but they were in a different state. He hadn't even felt Dean move him dead to the world as he'd been.

"I carried you in here like a princess about six hours ago and you didn't even twitch."

Harry scrubbed a hand through his hair and berated himself for his inattention even as he chugged the rest of his coffee. If he was still in England that kind of carelessness might have ended very badly. He glanced up at Dean somewhat ruefully, lucky this wasn't England.

"Great, I'm sure the night staff loved that."

"Was quite the turnout, made fifty bucks off the maid betting her I could get you into the room without waking you up. Here―"

Harry caught the two-pack of poptarts flung carelessly his way with ease, they were the chocolate chip kind and he rolled his eyes.

"Breakfast of champions, bon appetit."

"This isn't breakfast Dean," Harry scolded, biting off a corner and, realizing just how ravenous he was, devouring the whole packet in one go, "It barely even qualifies as food."

"Yeah well my live in chef fell into some weird writer's coma and I had to eat something. Want more?"

"Gods, yes. I'm bloody starving."

Dean tossed him another packet, and Harry fell upon it greedily.

Appetite and caffeine addiction mostly dealt with, Harry stood and stretched, his back and shoulders tense and stiff from days of being hunched over his laptop trying to hammer out a final draft a double his usual speed for his demon editor. Stretching done he took stock of his surroundings.

Dean had computer printouts and bits of newspaper covering the rickety coffee table and Harry didn't spot the weapons bag in the room. This meant two things, Dean had a case and they were going to be on the road in short order.

"What are you hunting?" asked Harry, leaning over to rifle through his backpack for his toothbrush and a clean set of clothes.

"Don't exactly know yet," Dean admitted, sorting the papers into what passed for order with Dean, "I've been tracking a set of missing persons in the paper, we've got twelve of them all told in the past two months and five of those in the past week. They were all taken from the Rockfall National Preserve. It's a pretty popular spot for campers and hikers this time of year. Victims were taken from all over the park, men, women, most of them pretty experienced campers but a few noobs here and there. Police have no leads, no bodies have been recovered."

"Could be a serial killer," Harry pointed out, picking up the pen and pad of paper next to the phone on his bedside table and jotting down a few notes of his own.

The detective in his newest and most popular series was actually starting to look like a female version of Dean, but what the hunter didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too, until yesterday when I read this."

Dean handed him one of the more crumpled printouts, and Harry read the headline out loud.

"Local Man Claims Fellow Hiker was Ripped to Shreds."

"And get this, guys claims the thing that did it was too fast for him to see, basically just a colored blur."

"Let me guess, no body?"

"No body, no parts of bodies, no hair, no blood, no traces of anything," Dean agreed with a grin that should have been inappropriate given that there was death mutilation and possibly consumption of human flesh involved in the conversation.

Harry had spent a full day coming up with a giant reference chart about decomposition he was inordinately proud of just last month though so he was in no position to judge.

"Alright," said Harry stripping out of his sweats and t-shirt and padding into the cramped little bathroom, "Give me ten minutes."

Harry popped two Advil and brushed his teeth, thoroughly, and he couldn't help the groan of relief that escaped him when he finally relieved the pressure in his bladder. He flushed the toilet, letting his boxers puddle on the floor carelessly, and reached over to flick the shower on, unsurprised by the crappy pressure and lukewarm water.

"There's this thing called a door," Dean complained, "You can do things like close it."

Harry grinned a bit to himself as he stepped under the spray. He left the bathroom door open for a couple of reasons. The first was the practical avoidance of lingering claustrophobia and cramped motel bathrooms. The second was because five months ago the pissed off vodyanoy that Dean had been hunting found out where they were staying and he'd nearly died in the shower when Dean was not two feet away. And last but certainly not least, he liked the way Dean sometimes allowed his eyes to dart along the lean lines of his naked body when he thought he could get away with it.

"How far is it to the campground?" he called out to Dean, lathering up his hair with the unused half of the complementary bottle of shampoo.

"Nother four hours or so, don't worry I'll drop you off somewhere with wifi before I head out."

Harry frowned a bit, they'd been running together for the better part of a year and this was the first time Dean had proposed that they separate for any significant length of time.

"You looking to get rid of me?" Harry asked, his tone deceptively casual, almost teasing, stepping back under the spray to rinse his hair.

He was surprisingly bothered by the thought.

"I just don't know how long this is gonna take and I'm gonna be camping out until I figure out whatever's doing this and how to kill its ass. Besides, looks like this one is gonna be pretty gruesome one way or another."

"All the more reason for me to come with you," Harry said flicking the shower off as the water started to go cold and quickly toweling off and padding into the main room.

"I'm telling you it's fine, you're not gonna be able to work in the middle of nowhere and you'll be safer in—goddammit Harry! Put some clothes on!"

Harry rolled his eyes but skinned into a clean pair of boxer-briefs and some black sweatpants before turning back to face Dean.

"You can look now blushing virgin, I'm decent," he said crossing his arms over his chest.

Dean flicked his eyes up, ready to look right back down if Harry was messing with him, and raising an eyebrow at the author's mutinous expression.

"You're really going to argue about this? I'm trying to be considerate here."

"Well then stop, cause you're doing it wrong. I can write anywhere Dean, it's called a pen and paper, and I'd rather spend a few days kipping in the woods than sitting in a hotel wondering if you're going to be the next one reported missing."

"The job's dangerous, it's never bothered you before," grumbled Dean.

"That's because I've always been in adequate proximity to do something to help you if you got yourself into trouble."

"I'm telling you I could've handled that bitch—"

"Yeah, if her husband hadn't locked you in their wine cellar for a day and a half," Harry interrupted, he knew the ghost that had been riding Mrs. McElroy was a sore spot of Dean's but he wasn't above poking it to make his point.

"You know what," snapped Dean, "Fine. Tag along if you want but if you so much as think about complaining I will be 'I told you so'- ing your ass all the way back to the nearest motel and leaving it there."

"Deal," agreed Harry.

He pulled on a shirt he'd stolen from Dean that advertised for Jack Daniels in faded lettering and shoved his dirty clothes and the motel notepad into his bag.

"I'm so gonna regret this," muttered Dean.

Harry ignored him, sliding his feet into his slip on sandals and slinging the bag over one shoulder. Dean probably thought that he'd slow him down or be a liability but after spending a year living in a tent, albeit a magical one, while he was hunting horcruxes with Ron and Hermione he was actually pretty good at camping.

In fact before Dean had picked him up in that graveyard he'd been living in that same tent just drifting from town to town and apparating whenever he desperately needed the internet for work.

"Shall I check us out?"

"Knock yourself out," grumbled Dean tossing the room key at his head.

Harry caught it, again deftly, and went to return it to the front desk before settling himself next to Dean in the passenger seat of the Impala.

The volume of the music blaring let Harry know that he wouldn't be talking to Dean for the next few hours until he stopped internally grumbling. So Harry leaned his head against the window, watching the countryside fly by as Dean flagrantly ignored speed limits. He fell asleep again after about a half-an-hour.

AN: Okay guys, this is Case One in a pre-series series of five cases and one Christmas Special. That means five middling size multi-chaps and one longer one shot. They will be rated M and you can read the super explicit versions of these stories on AO3 under my account there (same penname).

I have the outline for Case One done, but the chapters are being written as I go so updates are going to be sporadic at best (I'll thank you all in advance for your patience).

Hope you guys enjoyed and please feel free to drop me a review on your way out to let me know what you think!

Til next time!

Berry