Title: Corn Fields or Cadillacs

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: I own nothing, the title is borrowed from one of the songs by the group Farmer's Daughter.

Summary: So . . . the boys have saved the world. They've partied. Now what?

Rating: PG

Notes: This is a rapid one-off. I might follow it up with a sort-of-arc, but I don't really have any real direction. Also, the suicide with holy oil thing, I borrowed from someone else. I know the story is up on the spn_gen LiveJournal community, but I can't seem to find the fic. So, I make no claim to it, but I honestly can't recall who wrote it first.


It had been a week since they'd averted the apocalypse. Seven days since they'd stopped the End of Days.

It was going to take longer than a week for either of them to deal with the fact that it had actually been that easy. It seemed that the way the war between Good and Evil ultimately came down to a winner-takes-all one-on-one. Lucifer vs. Michael. The trouble would have been that the battle itself would have destroyed the world. Much like a fight between Godzilla and Mothra, the damage would have been incidental. The way that whole buildings get crushed when the monster gets tossed around.

Lucifer and Michael had put in an appearance, managing to create noncorporeal, ghostly bodies so they could talk to Sam and Dean. Ranged on either side were masses of possessed people. Some by demons, some by angels, all of them lined up and waiting for their leaders to go at it. There was just one thing they needed to start.

"Dean, you must say yes. Let me in. If you do not, Lucifer will destroy everything."

"So . . . why isn't he destroying everything right now?" Dean asked.

Michael remained silent, but a demon shouted, "He can't order us to do anything until he has his vessel."

Dean turned, and saw a demon getting smacked around by his fellows, and Sam, clearly in the midst of a similar conversation, at the other end of the large, isolated field they had gathered at. He turned back to Michael. "Let me guess. You can't do anything either, until I say yes."

"No," Michael said. "This is why it is imperative that you say yes before your brother agrees to be Lucifer's vessel."

Sam was on his way over, Lucifer and some of his lieutenants in tow. Dean went to meet him, Michael and Zachariah trailing after. "Dude, you gettin' this?"

Sam's smile was a beautiful thing to see. It had been so long since they'd felt able to smile, and Dean felt his face grin in answer. "It's like a Mexican standoff," Sam said. "Neither of them can do anything until we say yes, but as long as neither of us says yes . . ."

"Nothing happens."

They both turned to their respective angels and said, in unison, "No."

Lucifer and Michael shared an almost panicked look, and they started trying to speak. Before either of them said anything, Sam added, "And silence does not mean consent, neither does consent achieved while Dean or me are not fully conscious and aware of what we are agreeing to, it doesn't count in the small print on a contract that we didn't read because it looked like a standard form, and it doesn't count as implicit to anything. The only agreement to this that counts, is if one of us clearly, and in specific, non-sarcastic or ironic speech agrees to be possessed by one of you."

"What?" Dean asked Sam.

"Just in case they decided to whisper the question, time it so that you're nodding or saying yes to something else, and then say that you – or me – agreed because we nodded immediately after they asked, even though the nod wasn't referring to that question."

"Oh," Dean said. "What he said," he added, gesturing at Sam.

That was when things got kind of weird. "This is your fault!" Lucifer snapped at Michael.

"My fault? How is it my fault?" Michael demanded. "Just because you don't have enough control over your minions to keep them from convincing my vessel that it's better for him not to allow me in?"

"No. The fact that you just had to agree when Father insisted on these rules and bound us all with them so we can't even do anything, now that he's gone!"

"He wouldn't have had to do it if you would just have done as you were told!"

"Me! I'm not the one who kept breaking up continental plates because he can't control his lightning!"

From there it degenerated into name-calling and fisticuffs between the two spirit-form archangels. It was kind of like watching children on a playground. Dean could have sworn he saw hair-pulling happening.

A plan had sprung into being, Sam had jerked his head at Dean, and the two of them had managed to circle around the arguing pair, and their lieutenants, with holy oil, and light it up, without any interference. The original plan had been to say 'yes', using the holy oil they had in quantity to set themselves on fire. It would have been a horrible way to die, but it would have left Lucifer and Michael trapped, unable to do anything. But with them arguing, and the accompanying angels and demons taking sides in the fight, everyone there was distracted. As the fight went on, looking more and more like two men brawling than two mighty angels in mortal combat, Sam and Dean circled around, creating a circle of holy oil. No one noticed, until it was too late, Dean bending down and lighting it up.

That had stopped the arguing, but had left Lucifer, Zachariah, a bunch of other jerks they didn't know the names of, and Michael all stuck together in the circle, unable to go anywhere.

There had been shouting, threats and a whole lotta shuffling on the part of the gathered armies. In this case, cutting off the snake's head really worked. Without their bosses able to command, both armies fell apart and sort of wandered off, muttering and disappointed. A phone call to Cas, and suddenly he was there, with a message and a gift from God.

The gift? God had arranged for Cas to briefly have the power to leave those angels all isolated there, no company but each other for eternity. The message? "At least someone understands that I wanted humanity to have the free will to choose their own endings."

So it was a week later, they'd won, and now both of them were left contemplating what to do next. They were contemplating it over an extra-large super-supreme pizza with extra cheese, wings, cheesy garlic bread and a caesar salad to salve Sam's food-conscience. They'd gotten lucky for once, without the aid of a rabbit's foot, and been the 1,000th customers at the little pizzeria.

While Dean went to the bathroom, Sam contemplated the newspaper a previous customer had left in the booth. By the time Dean came back, Sam was frowning a little wryly at the newspaper. "So, do you want to keep hunting?" Sam asked.

"Why are you askin'?"

Sam sighed. "Because it's all over. We beat Yellow Eyes, avenged Mom, Jessica and Dad, stopped the Apocalypse, got the go-ahead from God. We could stop. We don't have to keep going."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Point taken. We could set up somewhere, try to get a normal life." He looked a little wistful. "Have kids and a white picket fence and all that crap."

"Exactly," Sam said. He took a deep breath, "But . . ."

"But?"

"Do you think either of us could really settle down? I mean, how long before we start seeing stuff in the paper," Sam gestured at the story he'd circled while waiting, "and thinking we should really go deal with it?"

"You found a job?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. "But I thought we should think about this. If you don't want to, if you want to stop, we should stop."

"Do you want to stop?" Dean asked.

"Yes, and no."

"Yeah. Me too."

There was a long pause. A waitress came by and freshened their drinks, Dean ate two slices and five wings, and Sam got halfway through the salad, thick with bacon, parmesan cheese, olive oil and croutons.

"What's the case?" Dean finally asked.

"Uh . . . someone wound up testing a local urban legend about a ghost that kills virgin teenaged boys," Sam said. "She used to be a prostitute and was killed by some hardcore religious nut virgin man-"

Dean smirked and his whole body twitched as he tried not to burst into laughter.

"Anyhow. The story goes that if you go into the old bordello, she'll sleep with you, and if you're not good enough . . . um . . ."

"In the sack?" Dean asked.

Sam closed his eyes, seeking patience to deal with the crassness that could only come from his brother. "Yes," he said finally. "Anyhow if you're not good, she kills you, assuming you're a virgin. At least, that's what the story says the legend is. Thing is, there's a strip joint in the building where the bordello used to be, and a kid went there with his friends."

Dean figured out the rest. "His friends said he went off with some chick who apparently doesn't work there, but seemed like she was planning on sleeping with the guy, and now he's dead?"

"Yup."

A moment's contemplation. "So . . . killer hooker ghost that sleeps with people in a strip club."

Sam rolled his eyes and smiled as he chorused with Dean, his voice resigned but amused, Dean's eager. "We're going."

"Damn skippy," Dean said. "Eat some pizza."

Looks like they had work to do.