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❝ I almost get crutches and Dean throws a book at me. ❞

𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐲,

——— 9:00 𝗔𝗠 ; After the very nutritional breakfast consisting of Choco-Shells and after that, a glass of watered down orange juice, Elisa and Dean found themselves in the safe houses small library.

"I have her file right here. Stole it from your room, so know you went through it too often, so I snatched it." Dean said, tone dry and seemingly disinterested.

Elisa almost rips the file out of his hands, not even registering Deans words until her brain ran them through again. Excuse you?!

"You went snooping in my room." That wasn't a question, it was a statement and certainly not one that she was happy about.

"You went snooping in my room— for a family related file— You can't do that!" Elisa's voice is suddenly hoarse, eyes filled with a flood of anger that hadn't been there before.

Her room was personal. Every teenage girls room is personal! Nobody should go in one of those without permission, seriously, you could come out dead and missing a limb or two.

"I didn't look at anything I wasn't supposed to be seeing anyways." Dean started, already taking his seat at the library table, lit up with just a single lamp. "Just figured out where you kept the file, and took it. You should stop storing sentimental items under your pillow, Cassie's been replicating that and it's becoming way too obvious." He added, signalling for Elisa to come over with his hand.

And she does, but her jaw remains open. Elisa still isn't over the fact that Dean was snooping around in her room. Without permission.

"It's best we divide the file. I know you've gone through it an abysmal amount of times already, but I'd like to see if you missed anything, Eloise." And then, Dean just... divided the amount of papers in the file - folder, sliding half of them over the table to Elisa.

Elisa knew she hadn't missed anything, in fact, almost every line in that file was highlighted in a different color, each with its own separate meaning. No, it wasn't written down what the colors meant, but it was clear as day to Elisa.

Blue for things she knew were true.
Red for things she knew were lies, she'd seen the scene after all.
Purple for stuff the police had missed, and so on.

To no surprise, scouring through the file led to nothing Elisa hadn't noticed prior. If anything, it left her more confused because Dean insisted in some of the things in the file being completely different from what they actually were.

"If you're so sure about this, then I'm sure you can do this alone as well. Because I'm not going to let myself by commandeered around by someone, AKA you who, unlike me, hasn't spent upwards of an hour every night looking through that file." Elisa snapped, she hadn't even noticed her hand grabbing Dean's wrist like she was about to crush it with a hydraulic press.

Seemingly, Dean's cool wasn't so cool anymore.

Hah, you get the joke I was making there? 10/10 comedian skills.

The boy gets up, prying Elisa's hand off of him and it clearly takes a lot of thought power for him not to shout at her right then and there. The guy has a low temper, you know?

"Instead of accepting my help like any normal person would, you're really trying to push me away? You can't be helped, Elisa." Dean sighs, "Not if you act like this when someone tries to help you."

Sure, maybe that was true, but still! Dean 100% would have reacted the same if Elisa suddenly snooped through his dad's file.

Dean runs an exasperated hand through his hair, leaving it messy and un-styled.

"Listen, Elisa. We were both assigned to this case, your sister's case, because our abilities extend one another. You won't be able to solve it without me, and I won't be able to solve it without you and your prior knowledge."

There's a beat of silence before Dean continued,

"And you know very well that Sterling, Briggs, and any other Agent wouldn't be able to solve this either. We need to work together on this, regardless of if I snooped around in your room or not."

With those words, Dean calmed himself down and sat back in the chair, his posture tense.

Elisa, finally coming to her senses, sighed.
"You're right. I'll work with you. But only if you never enter my room without permission again, have we got a deal?" It was evident that Elisa wasn't a fan of cooperating with Dean Redding of all people on this, but if it meant solving Mary's murder, she'd live with it.

And they did indeed cooperate, though the journey there was a rocky one. At one point, Dean had had enough of Elisa's antics, throwing a book in her vague direction.

It didn't hit her, no, but it made her jump up from her chair, thinking it was going to hit her.

Now, I'm sure you can imagine, but jumping up from an old and creaky wooden library chair at full speed with no particular goal of where to land isn't that pleasant.

Elisa jumped, bumped against the table which the chair was backed into and then proceeded to hit her knee on the tabletop.

"Ow! Look what you did, Dean! I thought we were finally getting along well and then you just oh-so-suddenly feel the need to throw a book at me!" Elisa scoffed, her tone accusing.

Dean returned her tone, seemingly just as unamused.
"It wasn't meant to hit you, besides, you were the one that jumped up like a missile were about to hit you. The most it's going to leave is a bruise, you won't need to go to the doctor."

"Over the next couple of weeks, Agent Sterling and I will occasionally be joining you in the library. Try to keep your cools." Agent Briggs said once Elisa and Dean had finally emerged from their hour long 'meeting' in the library.

The two just dismissed the agents words as if he'd just told them something un-noteworthy.

"Oh, and Elisa? Try to stay civil with this."

HELP CHAPTER 2 anyways... Here's a nonsensical meme I saw in my dream 😇