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Chapter One: The Winchesters go Welsh

Deep in a Washington forest that surrounded the tiny town of Oveida, Dean Winchester stalked purposefully through the wide spaced trees, hunting rifle at the ready. A thick, silvery mist hung interchangeable with the darkness around him, the moon above refracting off the haze to color everything a chilling blue.

As he walked in tight strides, a combat ready gait that belonged on a Navy SEAL recruitment video, he banged his head along to the damagingly loud, rhythmic power chords of For Whom the Bell Tolls blaring from the ear buds he wore; a camo green pair of shooting earmuffs fit snuggly over them. It was highly disconcerting to be unable to hear anything around him, but at least the music sounded great.

He examined the woods in front of him through yellow tinted shooting glasses, on high alert for any sign of movement, but the thin layer of Vaseline smeared on the front of the lens restricted this sense as well. He could see everything, but just a general sort of outline. He idly wondered if this is what it was like to have cataracts, and then laughed quietly at the idea of ever getting old enough to find out.

Just as he stepped into an eerily empty clearing, a stiff breeze picked up, seeping through the multiple layers of clothing he wore and shooting a tingle of apprehension down his spine. The mist and foliage in view was unaffected by the chilling wind; it was exactly what the hunter had been waiting for.

Raising his upper lip in distaste at the stench of dirt and stagnant water that now surrounded him, Dean spun on his heel. There was a blur of a white clad figure in between the trees he had just exited that disappeared as soon as he saw it; if he didn't know much, much, better, he'd think he'd imagined it.

The wind picked up again, and this time Dean was ready. He spun and fired in one smooth motion, watching the figure step back as the round tore uselessly into it. It wavered like a paused VHS before phazing feet at a time towards him.

He unloaded his clip and walked as fast as he could backwards, feeling his back bump against a tree on the edge of the clearing just as he shot the last round. He knew he should be much more worried than he currently was, but the impaired sight and Metallica made it feel a lot like a first person shooter. All he felt was adrenaline.

She was on him, now. Spindly claws reaching menacingly towards him. He swung his rifle at her, and it bounced back, jarring his arms painfully. Her face was distorted and blurry through the tampered goggles, but he could see her eyes expand to giant, black smudges as her jaw dropped to reveal ragged, uneven fangs filling her mouth.

"Scream all you want," He yelled back. "You're gonna have to try harder than that, you moody bitch!" He shouldered the rifle and unsheathed a short iron machete that hung from his belt. He didn't swing it just yet, not while he had her right where he wanted her.

Then the song changed.

The slow intro to Fade to Black picked up and the woman's unearthly shrieking tore through the protective ear muffs, throbbing against his ear drums and making his head swim. When a wave of nausea over took him, he stumbled backwards and caught his heel on an exposed root, falling painfully (arguably moreso to his dignity than tail bone) on his ass.

The music had grown loud enough to overpower the wailing again, and even as he scrambled away from the lunging figure, Dean made a mental note to thank Sam for insisting on the double ear protection. Without it, he'd be hemorrhaging all of his blood out his eye sockets; a bit of dry heaving seemed like a good trade.

Her feet left the ground as she neared him, hovering in the air as she moved in for the kill.

His forced grimace of terror was replaced with a triumphant grin even before the black mass that he knew to be an impromptu net of iron chains connected with the monster's head and knocked her easily to the cold ground.

As she attempted to stand under the weight, a lanky figure crashed on top of her- a blur of denim and plaid. Sam Winchester squatted over the restrained monster, a knee in between her shoulders and a wicked looking iron blade held against the back of her neck.

Dean grinned at him as he stood and brushed himself off. "I fucking hate Fade to Black!"

Sam squinted his eyes, trying to read his lips.

Realizing he couldn't get in a witty one liner when both of them were as good as deaf, Dean finally sighed, pulled back the netting and swung his machete. It hit squarely on her neck, easily slicing through the decayed skin and grating against the tip of her spinal cord.

Its head rolled, but the mouth didn't close. The shrieking didn't stop.

Standing, Sam jerked the empty duffel bag off his brother's shoulder. Dean looked like he'd been slapped and immediately swung a fist, but the younger man twisted expertly out of the way of his punch and knelt to gather the wailing head. While he was focused on cramming all of the long hair inside the bag, Dean casually wiped the dirty machete across the back of his brother's jacket, smirking at the black goop it left behind.

The twenty minute hike to the sheltered cove where they'd parked took nearly an hour, the headless corpse slung between them like a drinking buddy making their progress frustratingly slow.

It wasn't until they'd fed both head and body into the commercial grade wood chipper that both removed their ear protection.

"Holy shit, Sammy, we just killed our first banshee!" Dean announced in excitement, flinching at the sound of his own loud voice.

Sam pursed his lips as he ran a hand through his hair, dislodging the awkward indents left from the earmuffs. "How many times do I have to say this, it's a Llorona, not a-" Poorly imitated fart noises interrupted him, and he glowered at Dean.

Moving away the hand he'd been blowing raspberries against, Dean grinned back. "Hey- after we bury this banshee slop in salted earth, you wanna go get a drink to celebrate?"

Sam rolled his head on his shoulders, popping his neck with a frown. "Man, I spent the last three hours camped out in a tree, I'm not really in the mood to go cozy up with the locals."

"Aw, come on," He waved off a pair of crows that had appeared to peck curiously at the rotten remains and set to scooping the soupy mess up with a shovel, dumping it into the grave they had dug earlier. "We didn't even have to use the Colt on her, that's definitely worth a few drinks."

"Ugh," Sam's grunt echoed from inside the whoodchipper hopper that he was currently cleaning out. He leaned out, revulsion on his face as he withdrew his gloved hand, a foot long clump of lank hair tangled around his fingers. A blackened, oozing bit of scalp was still attached. He swung it at the grave where it landed with a sickeningly wet squelch, black hair fluttering around it. "Whatever, you can go and I'll crash at the hotel. Go get the salt."

Rolling his eyes, Dean shouldered the shovel and walked around the trees to his car, muttering about fun-hating brothers. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw someone leaning patiently against the Impala hood.

"Hi there," The man said, standing up and smiling warmly at him, hooking his thumbs into the gun holsters at his waist. They were less out of place than the sword sheathed behind him and the strange, Napoleonic military-style jacket he wore. "I seem to have gotten myself a bit lost, perhaps you can help?"

"Help with what?" Dean asked, approaching him warily, eyes never leaving the guns. "You're kinda heavily armed to be walking around the woods asking strangers for help."

"Says the man with a rifle across his back, Colt at his hip and a machete on his belt."

"I'm hunting."

"Hunting what?" The man asked lightly, hunching his shoulders and biting his bottom lip coyly, prominent cheekbones standing out even more.

Dean frowned and put his hands in his pockets. "None of your damn business. What do you want? If you scratched my car, I swear to god I'll hunt you."

"Oh, now that does sound fun! I just was hoping for some directions, that's all. And I'd never scratch anything as beautiful as this. Captain John Hart, by the way." He held out a hand politely.

"Dean." He replied, shaking his hand guardedly. He did have some distracting cheekbones. "Captain of what?"

"Of my own fate, for a start. Say, this is a nice coat." John's blue eyes seemed to glow, mesmerizing, and he still held Dean's hand, reaching out to feel the leather of his coat lapel.

"Thanks, it, uh, it belonged to my dad…" Dean felt awkward and uncomfortable, uneasy by the closeness yet strangely pulled towards him at the same time. He smelled very nice.

"I do love a man with daddy issues." The grin John gave was irresistible, and Dean allowed himself to be pulled down into a kiss, dazed by the turn of events. With a twist and shocking strength, John had him pressed against the Impala, hands roaming under his jacket and a knee pressed between his legs.

Dazed turned quickly to confused, which made way for outright alarm when the tingling that started in his lips spread to his face, neck and beyond. After that, the paralysis set in quickly.

John pulled away and took a step back, grinning as Dean slid down the side of the car to the ground. He waved the Colt at him playfully. "Hope you don't mind, just need to borrow it. Although I don't have a very good history of returning the things I borrow. Aaaaand..." He bent, feeling around Dean's jacket before pulling out Ruby's demon knife from an inner pocket. "I thought you might have this, as well. Captain Jack is gonna love this." He patted Dean's crotch reassuringly before standing up and turning to leave. He stopped, looking back at the frozen hunter thoughtfully. "What a shame, your lips are exactly as soft as they look. Aw well, maybe next time. Ta!"

Sam came walking curiously around the trees that blocked the car from his view just in time to see a blinding, gold flash of undulating, shimmery light and Dean laying stone still in the dirt.

*****

"So what's the plan?" Sam asked, frowning at the dilapidated shack they stood in front of.

Dean shifted from one foot to the other, looking out at the dark water, eerie and still under the setting sun. "We go in, pull the FBI card and push 'em until they fold like their ancestors after the Boston Tea Party."

"What if they play dumb?"

"We ask out right." Dean tugged at his too-tight suit pants with an annoyed groan. "I need a new suit."

"Maybe the Bureau will spring for it. Man, are you sure this is the right place?"

"Frank says without a doubt, but it's not exactly what I was imagining." He replied slowly, looking from the abandoned pier they stood on to the barely noticeable entrance. "When that demon jumped, or transported, or skidoo'd or whatever, there was a weird electro-magnetic field that he's never seen before. He found the same signal pouring out of this city. After tracking mail orders, power usage and government funding-"

"Funding by the crown."

"Yeah, that. He piggybacked custom sensor scans that can register the field onto American and Russian satellite signals, tapped into the CCTV and logged all the information with a processing algorithm adapted from a MIT senior project prototype."

"Do you know what any of that means, Dean?"

"Some of the words are familiar; it means we're in the right place." He shrugged. "I always get the short end of the technobabble, just wanted to feel like the computer guy for once."

Sam's lip curled in a poor attempt to hide his humor. "It doesn't agree with you." He pushed at the rickety wooden door and it swung forward on silent hinges.

The cramped lobby was packed full of racks with numerous postcards and worn travel brochures boasting sunny locales far away from the doom and gloom of Cardiff. Touristy magazines filled a rack on the wall and Dean picked one up, displaying it to his brother. "Snowdonia?"

A wooden counter cut across the room, more yellowed brochures long past their relevance stacked along the polished top, an ancient desktop PC that would have looked more at home in an elementary school computer lab in the nineties sat at the end. Strings of wooden beads hung across the doorway behind the counter, twisting idly in the stiff breeze staggering through the room.

"They really need to revamp their decor, this place is depressing." Dean said quietly.

"If you want to see depression, you should try working here. Can I help?"

Both Winchesters jumped at the deep voice, turning towards the newcomer.

"Hallo." The young man greeted with a bright flash of a smile and a small wave. He leaned against the counter, taking a sip from the coffee mug in his hand.

Dean cleared his throat. "Good afternoon, Mr… ?"

Sip. "Jones."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Jones." Dean finished with a nod. He examined the man, taking in his perfectly fitted black dress shirt and deep burgundy vest with a cursory glance. "Nice suit."

The man smiled over his mug, a little smirk like he was enjoying a joke only he could hear. "Good afternoon. I'd comment on yours, but, if you can't say anything nice. You wear it better than some, I suppose."

It was definitely not the most flattering of comments, but when delivered in his tidy Welsh with his polite smile, Dean didn't know whether to thank him or be offended.

"So, can I help you? Looking for a Cardiff map of the stars or did your GPS give you the wrong directions to the nearest McDonalds?"

Sam coughed lightly, straightening his suit jacket. "Yes, actually, you can help. We're federal agents and we were hoping you could give us a little information." They both mechanically removed their badges and held them out.

Placing his cup down, Mr. Jones stuck his hands in his pockets and raised his eyebrows. "Bit out of your jurisdiction, agents… Zant and Rossington, is it?"

"We're after an international fugitive under cooperation with the UN and local police force." Sam explained, nodding as he pocketed the counterfeit badge. "You don't have to help us, but I assure you we'll be back in twenty minutes with enough Police Constables to put your mind at ease about our intentions."

"Oooh," The smile never wavered as he furrowed his brow and made the deep, almost sarcastic oohing noise. "I'll take your word for it, Agent. The last thing my night needs is PC Andy bumbling through it. How can I help?"

"You can start by telling us what this place is."

"Did you miss the sign out front? Cardiff Bay Tourist Information and Travel Agency."

Dean smirked. "Maybe you should work on your advertising. These pamphlets are covered in more dust than motel bibles and there's no paperwork in sight."

"The Welsh aren't big on travel." He replied with a shrug.

"Are you sure this isn't a crummy front? That's an awful nice suit, maybe you're the desk boy for the Cardiff mafia."

"Are organized criminals the only people with quality clothing across the pond?" Mr. Jones smiled politely.

Unsure of how else to react to this, Dean laughed. "Listen, we're trying to contact a known associate of the fugitive we're tailing. Do you know a Captain Jack?"

"Have you tried the docks? They're thick with those naval types that like to go by captain."

The brothers looked at each other. His casual manner and responses were definitely out of the ordinary.

Taking his turn at the bat, Sam leaned against the counter, giving his most charming smile. "You seem intelligent and in the know. What can you tell me about Torchwood?"

Mr. Jones leaned forward himself, blue eyes sparkling in the dim light. "Are you coming on to me? I'm sorry, but you're really not my type."

Dean grinned at Sam's startled expression and the blush spreading across his face. "Do you ever give a straightforward answer?"

"Not if it can be helped, no."

"Okay. Are you familiar with a John Hart?"

That one had the desired effect. Mr. Jones straightened up and the smile fell away, replaced by an unreadable straight-faced mask. "Why?"

"He's the fugitive."

"Of course he is."

They stood facing each other down in silence, the man appeared to be considering something. He finally reached up to his ear, tapping a nearly invisible ear piece. "Sir, I've got two decidedly dodgy Americans out here with FBI badges short a few digits on the badge numbers and obvious aliases. They're asking about John." He waited, not meeting either of their eyes, before smiling at an unheard reply. "Yes, I'm aware you know a great deal of Johns. John Hart, sir." He smiled apologetically at them and pressed an unseen button.

The wall behind them folded back with a quiet hiss of hydraulics and a loud thud. They stared abashedly from the dank tunnel revealed by the moving wall to the calm Mr. Jones, who had gone back to sipping his coffee.

"Don't keep him waiting."

"I knew it was a front." Dean said over his shoulder as they walked into the passage. "Sloppy."

The hall deposited them in a huge room with too much going on for either of them to process. They stood dumbfounded, gaping around the Hub.

"Two strapping American boys in suits making house calls, what a great way to kick off the weekend!"

They turned towards the booming exclamation.

A tall, painfully handsome man was standing on a raised platform behind them, arms crossed and feet planted firmly in the ramrod straight posture and pose of a trained soldier. He wore black trousers and a crisp, sea-green dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up neatly past his elbows. Dark red suspenders completed the outfit. "Although, not very nice suits."

"I don't believe Top Shop has branched out to Texas just yet, Captain."

"We're not from Texas." Dean grumbled, glaring at Mr. Jones, who had inexplicably appeared in the cavernous room from an entrance across the odd indoor moat. "And you should talk to your employees about a little less sass in their customer service." He directed at Captain Jack.

"Ianto, sassy? Never!" A dazzling white smile split across his handsome face. "Torchwood operatives are trained to be serious at all times."

"This is ridiculous!" Sam cut in, staring around at the unfamiliar machinery and bunker-like walls. "You just let us into your top secret Cardiff Batcave and all either of you will talk about is clothing?"

"Clothes make the man, Mr. Winchester."

"How do you know my name?" Sam asked, he and Dean immediately backing up to each other in alarm.

"Oh, um, that would be me." Said a timid voice. A short Asian woman rolled out on a desk chair from behind an impressive row of computer monitors, keeping her eyes downcast as she spoke. She had a wide, pretty face and wore a business skirt with a subtle, purple blouse. "The Chevrolet you parked in the plaza garage has unregistered plates and a filed off VIN number, but there's a serial number on the replacement fender that was purchased from a Canadian salvage yard through their eBay shop in '06. The credit card used belongs to a Hector Aframian, known alias of Dean Winchester. Presumed dead multiple times with more criminal charges than I'm going to bother listing, his brother Samuel is suspected of harboring and accessory. Also presumed dead more than once." She seemed almost apologetic revealing the information.

"Sloppy…" Ianto muttered from where he was leaning against a waist high railing, not looking up from the handheld computer he was studying.

"For what it's worth," Sam said quietly, clearing his throat and trying to not appear as overwhelmed as he felt. "Not all of those presumptions were fake."

"So I guess you aren't falling for the federal agent shtick." Dean said with a nervous laugh.

"We're also not gonna fold like the Brits after the Boston Tea Party." Jack replied, stepping off the stairs and approaching the pair. "Now that was a fun Friday. Drunk rebels in racist attire throwing things off boats. I just intended to watch, but some of those forefathers were so damn provocative in their Mohawk Warrior headdresses. I never liked tea very much, anyway. Now how about you two start explaining what you're doing at my base, sticking your cute little noses in my business."

"We- Jesus Christ, there's a pterodactyl in here!"

Jack laughed, Tosh giggled and Ianto smirked when the brothers hit the deck in reaction to the shrill, earsplitting shriek from above.

"I don't think you boys were quite prepared for Torchwood." Jack said, smiling.

Description
Chapter One: The Winchesters go Welsh

Deep in a Washington forest that surrounded the tiny town of Oveida, Dean Winchester stalked purposefully through the wide spaced trees, hunting rifle at the ready. A thick, silvery mist hung interchangeable with the darkness around him, the moon above refracting off the haze to color everything a chilling blue.

As he walked in tight strides, a combat ready gait that belonged on a Navy SEAL recruitment video, he banged his head along to the damagingly loud, rhythmic power chords of For Whom the Bell Tolls blaring from the ear buds he wore; a camo green pair of shooting earmuffs fit snuggly over them. It was highly disconcerting to be unable to hear anything around him, but at least the music sounded great.

He examined the woods in front of him through yellow tinted shooting glasses, on high alert for any sign of movement, but the thin layer of Vaseline smeared on the front of the lens restricted this sense as well. He could see everything, but just a general sort of outline. He idly wondered if this is what it was like to have cataracts, and then laughed quietly at the idea of ever getting old enough to find out.

Just as he stepped into an eerily empty clearing, a stiff breeze picked up, seeping through the multiple layers of clothing he wore and shooting a tingle of apprehension down his spine. The mist and foliage in view was unaffected by the chilling wind; it was exactly what the hunter had been waiting for.

Raising his upper lip in distaste at the stench of dirt and stagnant water that now surrounded him, Dean spun on his heel. There was a blur of a white clad figure in between the trees he had just exited that disappeared as soon as he saw it; if he didn't know much, much, better, he'd think he'd imagined it.

The wind picked up again, and this time Dean was ready. He spun and fired in one smooth motion, watching the figure step back as the round tore uselessly into it. It wavered like a paused VHS before phazing feet at a time towards him.

He unloaded his clip and walked as fast as he could backwards, feeling his back bump against a tree on the edge of the clearing just as he shot the last round. He knew he should be much more worried than he currently was, but the impaired sight and Metallica made it feel a lot like a first person shooter. All he felt was adrenaline.

She was on him, now. Spindly claws reaching menacingly towards him. He swung his rifle at her, and it bounced back, jarring his arms painfully. Her face was distorted and blurry through the tampered goggles, but he could see her eyes expand to giant, black smudges as her jaw dropped to reveal ragged, uneven fangs filling her mouth.

"Scream all you want," He yelled back. "You're gonna have to try harder than that, you moody bitch!" He shouldered the rifle and unsheathed a short iron machete that hung from his belt. He didn't swing it just yet, not while he had her right where he wanted her.

Then the song changed.

The slow intro to Fade to Black picked up and the woman's unearthly shrieking tore through the protective ear muffs, throbbing against his ear drums and making his head swim. When a wave of nausea over took him, he stumbled backwards and caught his heel on an exposed root, falling painfully (arguably moreso to his dignity than tail bone) on his ass.

The music had grown loud enough to overpower the wailing again, and even as he scrambled away from the lunging figure, Dean made a mental note to thank Sam for insisting on the double ear protection. Without it, he'd be hemorrhaging all of his blood out his eye sockets; a bit of dry heaving seemed like a good trade.

Her feet left the ground as she neared him, hovering in the air as she moved in for the kill.

His forced grimace of terror was replaced with a triumphant grin even before the black mass that he knew to be an impromptu net of iron chains connected with the monster's head and knocked her easily to the cold ground.

As she attempted to stand under the weight, a lanky figure crashed on top of her- a blur of denim and plaid. Sam Winchester squatted over the restrained monster, a knee in between her shoulders and a wicked looking iron blade held against the back of her neck.

Dean grinned at him as he stood and brushed himself off. "I fucking hate Fade to Black!"

Sam squinted his eyes, trying to read his lips.

Realizing he couldn't get in a witty one liner when both of them were as good as deaf, Dean finally sighed, pulled back the netting and swung his machete. It hit squarely on her neck, easily slicing through the decayed skin and grating against the tip of her spinal cord.

Its head rolled, but the mouth didn't close. The shrieking didn't stop.

Standing, Sam jerked the empty duffel bag off his brother's shoulder. Dean looked like he'd been slapped and immediately swung a fist, but the younger man twisted expertly out of the way of his punch and knelt to gather the wailing head. While he was focused on cramming all of the long hair inside the bag, Dean casually wiped the dirty machete across the back of his brother's jacket, smirking at the black goop it left behind.

The twenty minute hike to the sheltered cove where they'd parked took nearly an hour, the headless corpse slung between them like a drinking buddy making their progress frustratingly slow.

It wasn't until they'd fed both head and body into the commercial grade wood chipper that both removed their ear protection.

"Holy shit, Sammy, we just killed our first banshee!" Dean announced in excitement, flinching at the sound of his own loud voice.

Sam pursed his lips as he ran a hand through his hair, dislodging the awkward indents left from the earmuffs. "How many times do I have to say this, it's a Llorona, not a-" Poorly imitated fart noises interrupted him, and he glowered at Dean.

Moving away the hand he'd been blowing raspberries against, Dean grinned back. "Hey- after we bury this banshee slop in salted earth, you wanna go get a drink to celebrate?"

Sam rolled his head on his shoulders, popping his neck with a frown. "Man, I spent the last three hours camped out in a tree, I'm not really in the mood to go cozy up with the locals."

"Aw, come on," He waved off a pair of crows that had appeared to peck curiously at the rotten remains and set to scooping the soupy mess up with a shovel, dumping it into the grave they had dug earlier. "We didn't even have to use the Colt on her, that's definitely worth a few drinks."

"Ugh," Sam's grunt echoed from inside the whoodchipper hopper that he was currently cleaning out. He leaned out, revulsion on his face as he withdrew his gloved hand, a foot long clump of lank hair tangled around his fingers. A blackened, oozing bit of scalp was still attached. He swung it at the grave where it landed with a sickeningly wet squelch, black hair fluttering around it. "Whatever, you can go and I'll crash at the hotel. Go get the salt."

Rolling his eyes, Dean shouldered the shovel and walked around the trees to his car, muttering about fun-hating brothers. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw someone leaning patiently against the Impala hood.

"Hi there," The man said, standing up and smiling warmly at him, hooking his thumbs into the gun holsters at his waist. They were less out of place than the sword sheathed behind him and the strange, Napoleonic military-style jacket he wore. "I seem to have gotten myself a bit lost, perhaps you can help?"

"Help with what?" Dean asked, approaching him warily, eyes never leaving the guns. "You're kinda heavily armed to be walking around the woods asking strangers for help."

"Says the man with a rifle across his back, Colt at his hip and a machete on his belt."

"I'm hunting."

"Hunting what?" The man asked lightly, hunching his shoulders and biting his bottom lip coyly, prominent cheekbones standing out even more.

Dean frowned and put his hands in his pockets. "None of your damn business. What do you want? If you scratched my car, I swear to god I'll hunt you."

"Oh, now that does sound fun! I just was hoping for some directions, that's all. And I'd never scratch anything as beautiful as this. Captain John Hart, by the way." He held out a hand politely.

"Dean." He replied, shaking his hand guardedly. He did have some distracting cheekbones. "Captain of what?"

"Of my own fate, for a start. Say, this is a nice coat." John's blue eyes seemed to glow, mesmerizing, and he still held Dean's hand, reaching out to feel the leather of his coat lapel.

"Thanks, it, uh, it belonged to my dad…" Dean felt awkward and uncomfortable, uneasy by the closeness yet strangely pulled towards him at the same time. He smelled very nice.

"I do love a man with daddy issues." The grin John gave was irresistible, and Dean allowed himself to be pulled down into a kiss, dazed by the turn of events. With a twist and shocking strength, John had him pressed against the Impala, hands roaming under his jacket and a knee pressed between his legs.

Dazed turned quickly to confused, which made way for outright alarm when the tingling that started in his lips spread to his face, neck and beyond. After that, the paralysis set in quickly.

John pulled away and took a step back, grinning as Dean slid down the side of the car to the ground. He waved the Colt at him playfully. "Hope you don't mind, just need to borrow it. Although I don't have a very good history of returning the things I borrow. Aaaaand..." He bent, feeling around Dean's jacket before pulling out Ruby's demon knife from an inner pocket. "I thought you might have this, as well. Captain Jack is gonna love this." He patted Dean's crotch reassuringly before standing up and turning to leave. He stopped, looking back at the frozen hunter thoughtfully. "What a shame, your lips are exactly as soft as they look. Aw well, maybe next time. Ta!"

Sam came walking curiously around the trees that blocked the car from his view just in time to see a blinding, gold flash of undulating, shimmery light and Dean laying stone still in the dirt.

*****

"So what's the plan?" Sam asked, frowning at the dilapidated shack they stood in front of.

Dean shifted from one foot to the other, looking out at the dark water, eerie and still under the setting sun. "We go in, pull the FBI card and push 'em until they fold like their ancestors after the Boston Tea Party."

"What if they play dumb?"

"We ask out right." Dean tugged at his too-tight suit pants with an annoyed groan. "I need a new suit."

"Maybe the Bureau will spring for it. Man, are you sure this is the right place?"

"Frank says without a doubt, but it's not exactly what I was imagining." He replied slowly, looking from the abandoned pier they stood on to the barely noticeable entrance. "When that demon jumped, or transported, or skidoo'd or whatever, there was a weird electro-magnetic field that he's never seen before. He found the same signal pouring out of this city. After tracking mail orders, power usage and government funding-"

"Funding by the crown."

"Yeah, that. He piggybacked custom sensor scans that can register the field onto American and Russian satellite signals, tapped into the CCTV and logged all the information with a processing algorithm adapted from a MIT senior project prototype."

"Do you know what any of that means, Dean?"

"Some of the words are familiar; it means we're in the right place." He shrugged. "I always get the short end of the technobabble, just wanted to feel like the computer guy for once."

Sam's lip curled in a poor attempt to hide his humor. "It doesn't agree with you." He pushed at the rickety wooden door and it swung forward on silent hinges.

The cramped lobby was packed full of racks with numerous postcards and worn travel brochures boasting sunny locales far away from the doom and gloom of Cardiff. Touristy magazines filled a rack on the wall and Dean picked one up, displaying it to his brother. "Snowdonia?"

A wooden counter cut across the room, more yellowed brochures long past their relevance stacked along the polished top, an ancient desktop PC that would have looked more at home in an elementary school computer lab in the nineties sat at the end. Strings of wooden beads hung across the doorway behind the counter, twisting idly in the stiff breeze staggering through the room.

"They really need to revamp their decor, this place is depressing." Dean said quietly.

"If you want to see depression, you should try working here. Can I help?"

Both Winchesters jumped at the deep voice, turning towards the newcomer.

"Hallo." The young man greeted with a bright flash of a smile and a small wave. He leaned against the counter, taking a sip from the coffee mug in his hand.

Dean cleared his throat. "Good afternoon, Mr… ?"

Sip. "Jones."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Jones." Dean finished with a nod. He examined the man, taking in his perfectly fitted black dress shirt and deep burgundy vest with a cursory glance. "Nice suit."

The man smiled over his mug, a little smirk like he was enjoying a joke only he could hear. "Good afternoon. I'd comment on yours, but, if you can't say anything nice. You wear it better than some, I suppose."

It was definitely not the most flattering of comments, but when delivered in his tidy Welsh with his polite smile, Dean didn't know whether to thank him or be offended.

"So, can I help you? Looking for a Cardiff map of the stars or did your GPS give you the wrong directions to the nearest McDonalds?"

Sam coughed lightly, straightening his suit jacket. "Yes, actually, you can help. We're federal agents and we were hoping you could give us a little information." They both mechanically removed their badges and held them out.

Placing his cup down, Mr. Jones stuck his hands in his pockets and raised his eyebrows. "Bit out of your jurisdiction, agents… Zant and Rossington, is it?"

"We're after an international fugitive under cooperation with the UN and local police force." Sam explained, nodding as he pocketed the counterfeit badge. "You don't have to help us, but I assure you we'll be back in twenty minutes with enough Police Constables to put your mind at ease about our intentions."

"Oooh," The smile never wavered as he furrowed his brow and made the deep, almost sarcastic oohing noise. "I'll take your word for it, Agent. The last thing my night needs is PC Andy bumbling through it. How can I help?"

"You can start by telling us what this place is."

"Did you miss the sign out front? Cardiff Bay Tourist Information and Travel Agency."

Dean smirked. "Maybe you should work on your advertising. These pamphlets are covered in more dust than motel bibles and there's no paperwork in sight."

"The Welsh aren't big on travel." He replied with a shrug.

"Are you sure this isn't a crummy front? That's an awful nice suit, maybe you're the desk boy for the Cardiff mafia."

"Are organized criminals the only people with quality clothing across the pond?" Mr. Jones smiled politely.

Unsure of how else to react to this, Dean laughed. "Listen, we're trying to contact a known associate of the fugitive we're tailing. Do you know a Captain Jack?"

"Have you tried the docks? They're thick with those naval types that like to go by captain."

The brothers looked at each other. His casual manner and responses were definitely out of the ordinary.

Taking his turn at the bat, Sam leaned against the counter, giving his most charming smile. "You seem intelligent and in the know. What can you tell me about Torchwood?"

Mr. Jones leaned forward himself, blue eyes sparkling in the dim light. "Are you coming on to me? I'm sorry, but you're really not my type."

Dean grinned at Sam's startled expression and the blush spreading across his face. "Do you ever give a straightforward answer?"

"Not if it can be helped, no."

"Okay. Are you familiar with a John Hart?"

That one had the desired effect. Mr. Jones straightened up and the smile fell away, replaced by an unreadable straight-faced mask. "Why?"

"He's the fugitive."

"Of course he is."

They stood facing each other down in silence, the man appeared to be considering something. He finally reached up to his ear, tapping a nearly invisible ear piece. "Sir, I've got two decidedly dodgy Americans out here with FBI badges short a few digits on the badge numbers and obvious aliases. They're asking about John." He waited, not meeting either of their eyes, before smiling at an unheard reply. "Yes, I'm aware you know a great deal of Johns. John Hart, sir." He smiled apologetically at them and pressed an unseen button.

The wall behind them folded back with a quiet hiss of hydraulics and a loud thud. They stared abashedly from the dank tunnel revealed by the moving wall to the calm Mr. Jones, who had gone back to sipping his coffee.

"Don't keep him waiting."

"I knew it was a front." Dean said over his shoulder as they walked into the passage. "Sloppy."

The hall deposited them in a huge room with too much going on for either of them to process. They stood dumbfounded, gaping around the Hub.

"Two strapping American boys in suits making house calls, what a great way to kick off the weekend!"

They turned towards the booming exclamation.

A tall, painfully handsome man was standing on a raised platform behind them, arms crossed and feet planted firmly in the ramrod straight posture and pose of a trained soldier. He wore black trousers and a crisp, sea-green dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up neatly past his elbows. Dark red suspenders completed the outfit. "Although, not very nice suits."

"I don't believe Top Shop has branched out to Texas just yet, Captain."

"We're not from Texas." Dean grumbled, glaring at Mr. Jones, who had inexplicably appeared in the cavernous room from an entrance across the odd indoor moat. "And you should talk to your employees about a little less sass in their customer service." He directed at Captain Jack.

"Ianto, sassy? Never!" A dazzling white smile split across his handsome face. "Torchwood operatives are trained to be serious at all times."

"This is ridiculous!" Sam cut in, staring around at the unfamiliar machinery and bunker-like walls. "You just let us into your top secret Cardiff Batcave and all either of you will talk about is clothing?"

"Clothes make the man, Mr. Winchester."

"How do you know my name?" Sam asked, he and Dean immediately backing up to each other in alarm.

"Oh, um, that would be me." Said a timid voice. A short Asian woman rolled out on a desk chair from behind an impressive row of computer monitors, keeping her eyes downcast as she spoke. She had a wide, pretty face and wore a business skirt with a subtle, purple blouse. "The Chevrolet you parked in the plaza garage has unregistered plates and a filed off VIN number, but there's a serial number on the replacement fender that was purchased from a Canadian salvage yard through their eBay shop in '06. The credit card used belongs to a Hector Aframian, known alias of Dean Winchester. Presumed dead multiple times with more criminal charges than I'm going to bother listing, his brother Samuel is suspected of harboring and accessory. Also presumed dead more than once." She seemed almost apologetic revealing the information.

"Sloppy…" Ianto muttered from where he was leaning against a waist high railing, not looking up from the handheld computer he was studying.

"For what it's worth," Sam said quietly, clearing his throat and trying to not appear as overwhelmed as he felt. "Not all of those presumptions were fake."

"So I guess you aren't falling for the federal agent shtick." Dean said with a nervous laugh.

"We're also not gonna fold like the Brits after the Boston Tea Party." Jack replied, stepping off the stairs and approaching the pair. "Now that was a fun Friday. Drunk rebels in racist attire throwing things off boats. I just intended to watch, but some of those forefathers were so damn provocative in their Mohawk Warrior headdresses. I never liked tea very much, anyway. Now how about you two start explaining what you're doing at my base, sticking your cute little noses in my business."

"We- Jesus Christ, there's a pterodactyl in here!"

Jack laughed, Tosh giggled and Ianto smirked when the brothers hit the deck in reaction to the shrill, earsplitting shriek from above.

"I don't think you boys were quite prepared for Torchwood." Jack said, smiling.