Destination: Cheekbones Caffrey

Cheekbones Caffrey is the eleventh story in my Crossed Lines series—a fusion of Caffrey Conversation and Supernatural. Some readers have asked about the gore content in the tales. Although Supernatural can be quite bloody, the supernatural beings in my stories are more likely to use curses and spells than inflict physical wounds. The strong relationship between brothers Dean and Sam Winchester is what initially attracted me to the series, and it makes them a good fit for the family nature of Caffrey Conversation. For readers of Caffrey Conversation who'd like to give Cheekbones Caffrey a try, here's a brief summary of the main characters specific to Crossed Lines and their situation at the start of the story.

Dean and Sam are two monster-hunting brothers. They come from a long line of hunters where the family business is described as "Saving people, hunting things." In my stories, Sam and Neal are roughly the same age. Dean is about as old as Henry, and that's not the only thing they have in common. Dean is the spitting image of Henry. They discovered that they share a common ancestor, Seth Winslow. Seth lived at the beginning of the 20th century. He abandoned his family and created a new life for himself as Seth Winchester in 1907.

In Supernatural, Dean and Sam are loners. They spend their lives driving a classic Impala across America in search of monsters. That was their mode of operating in my first Crossed Lines story, but since then Dean and Sam have evolved into a brighter future. Both of them have girlfriends. Chloe Bishop is a freelance technical writer who writes urban fantasies on the side. She's also a witch and can trace her ancestry to Bridget Bishop, a woman executed for witchcraft in the seventeenth century. Chloe discovered she had supernatural ability in my first story. She's been nervous about how it would affect her relationship with Dean. Having a witch for a girlfriend was not ever something he would have chosen but Dean's learned to adjust, especially since Chloe's potions have proven to be lifesavers on multiple occasions.

Sam's girlfriend Maia Stavrou, a grad student in classics at Yale, has an even more complicated background. The woman she considered to be her older sister Electra was actually Astrena, the ancient Greek goddess of witches and vampires. Maia used to be her handmaiden, but Astrena erected a wall in her mind, and she now can't recall her former life. A couple of months ago, in Glass Angels, Electra's true identity was discovered and she was banished back to the stars.

At the end of that story, Maia invited Chloe, Dean, and Sam to live with her in Astrena's house, a luxurious Victorian mansion in New Haven. Dean suggested Bobby also move in. Bobby Singer was a surrogate dad to the brothers when they were growing up. He's now keeping an eye on the women when the guys are gone on a job. He's also watching over the house. They know it has enchanted objects and doubtless other secrets, but finding out what they are is proving to be more difficult than they anticipated. Dean is known to be very fond of Scooby-Doo. Bobby joshes him that they've now become Scoobies living in a Mystery Mansion. Dean enjoys the comparison, and I like the optimistic message it conveys.

Then there's Crowley. His history is even more convoluted than Maia's. Crowley is a demon. In the second story of Crossed Lines, he possessed Curtis Hagen, an art forger who is well-known to the White Collar team. Crowley has access to Hagen's memories, and they may have affected him more than he realizes. Crowley was instructed by Astrena to monitor Neal and the Winchesters. Henry's resemblance to Dean set off warning bells in Crowley's paranoid brain. He was the first to discover Henry and Dean's common ancestor. Initially he was dismayed at the thought of Bureau agents working in league with hunters. Later, he feared an even more ominous alliance had formed, namely the Men of Letters had joined forces with hunters and the FBI.

The Men of Letters is a secret organization of scholars. Like hunters, they are dedicated to destroying monsters, but the Men of Letters have rarely worked with hunters, believing them to be inferior. Crowley latched onto the notion that the company Henry works for is actually a front for the American branch of the Men of Letters. Supposedly it had been eradicated by the demon Abaddon, but Crowley suspects the scholars instead went underground and are now plotting the destruction of creatures from the basement of Win-Win. What Crowley set in motion to correct matters is the subject of Cheekbones Caffrey.

Cheekbones Caffrey on Archive of Our Own
Cheekbones Caffrey on FanFiction

Related blog posts:

• A Win-Win-Win Situation
• Crowley: On the Outside Looking In
• Crossed Lines page on our blog with links to story summaries