Supernatural: Tall Tales

A/N: Greetings, Earthings! So, I'm posting this a day early since my schedule tomorrow is looking pretty hectic and this will mean less stress for me in my real life.

Read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Supernatural or Criminal Minds; I just own the characters that I happen to create.

ENTER THE TRICKSTER

"Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted."

Psalms 107:17

Springfield University. Crawford Hall

Springfield, Ohio…

A man was walking up a few steps towards a school building; just outside by the steps into the building, he saw a woman standing with one foot up on a ledge binding her shoe. The man stopped and looked at her; it was cold out and yet she was only wearing a white dress while he was dressed in an overcoat.

"Excuse me," the man said, and the woman turned her head and looked at him, smiling and rising up in standing position. "Are you lost?"

"No. I've been waiting for you, Professor," the woman responded, putting down her foot on the ground, turned around towards the man and put her hands behind her back.

The professor couldn't help but smile. "Huh. Are you in one of my classes?"

The woman pouted. "Don't you recognize me?"

The professor laughed a little, slightly embarrassed. "Well. They're big classes. Anyway, my office hours are Tuesday and Thursday mornings." And he turned to leave.

"Really? I was –" the woman began and he stopped "- hoping I could see you now."

The professor looked back at her, uncertain. "Umm." He then thought about it for a moment. "Well, since you asked so nicely. Come on."

She smiled and walked with him into the school.

Now in a office, the woman was looking at a book that the professor had written called "Modern Morality - Examining societal views & belief systems", and that the name on it was Arthur Cox; she turned the book over and looked at a picture of Arthur on the back, smiling at the camera. She ran her fingers over his picture.

Arthur walked over to his desk, put down his case, and took off his scarf, while looking over at the woman.

The woman smiled. "Such a handsome photo."

Arthur laughed. "That old thing." He then hung up his scarf. "So, what can I do for you? How's the Anscome paper coming?"

"Uh, professor I –" the woman laughed nervously as she set the book down and he opened a window. "I - I have a confession to make."

"Oh? What's that?" Arthur asked, looking over at her.

The woman smiled sheepishly. "I'm not really one of your students."

Arthur was started, but then he smiled. "Really? Then why are you here?" they looked at each other for several hour-long seconds, their smiles fading.

"Maybe I should just go," the woman mumbled, embarrassed as she turned away.

"Wait," Arthur said and she turned back towards him; he walked around the desk towards her. "I get it. I understand how you're feeling and it's only natural." And he stood in front of her. "You are young and wide-eyed," he said, smiling. "And I'm somewhat of a celebrity around here." She smiled at him, and he reached out his hand and pulled her up to him. "Don't get me wrong, you're a very beautiful girl," he added softly. "But it would be wrong of me to take advantage of you." And he stroked her hair a bit. "I just uh, I just respect you too much."

Arthur continued smiling a little, stroked his hand under her chin and then pulled her in for a kiss; he brought down his hand and she put hers behind his neck stroking him down over his shoulder. As they continued kissing, her face began to "melt", becoming old and almost a bit decomposed; unaware of the change, they stopped kissing, and she opened her eyes and looked at him. His eyes were still closed and he was smiling, but when he began to open his eyes and saw what she had become his smile quickly changed into shock

"Oh my god," he gasped, staring; he backed away from her, still staring, and she was almost a bit surprised of his actions.

`"What? Don't you like me anymore?"` the woman asked, pouting.

Arthur continued to back away, his hand going over his desk as he did, knocking down a few things to the floor, he kept staring at her, breathing heavily, and he was now behind his desk, over by the window he opened earlier.

The woman walked towards him. `"Don't you want me?"`

Meanwhile, the janitor was locking up the front of the building; he turned and was walking down the steps, swinging his arms. He was almost to the bottom when, suddenly, a figure fell down behind him. The janitor flinched at the impact sound and turned around to look; directly behind him, Arthur was lying face up on the steps to the school, his head right down on a step, eyes closed and a blood pool was forming around his head.

'Whoa…what the hell?'

King's Lair

Springfield, Ohio

One week later…

Liz was ready to spit blood, but was doing her best to keep her temper under control as she sat in the hotel room with her brothers, researching through a lot of old books; it'd been a tough week with both the case they were suppose to be working on, and the fact that she was working extra hard in keeping her brothers from killing each other.

Currently, Sam was sitting on the couch, head leaning on one of his fists, looking through books; there were several books around him, both on the table, where Liz was sitting on the floor, looking through said books, and on the couch next to him. Sam rubbed his eyes and face with the same hand as before as a slobbery noise reached his ears; for Dean was on the bed next to him eating fries covered with chili and hot sauce and was reading a magazine.

Sam sighed and looked over at him. "Dude. You mind not eating those on my bed?" he asked, trying to sound polite and calm, which wasn't easy at the moment.

Dean picked up more fries from the plate, which was on Sam's bed. "No, I don't mind," he responded, putting the food in his mouth and then sucked of his fingers to get the chili off.

Sam sighed irritated and tried to read the book in front of him, but Dean chose that moment to chew with his mouth open.

"How's research going?" he asked, his mouth full.

Sam glared at him. "You know how it's going?" he closed the book, clearly frustrated with Dean, and Liz groaned. "Slow. You know how it would go a heck of a lot faster? If I had my computer."

Dean looked up, and smiled at him. "Mmm." He then went back to reading his magazine, Liz shot Sam a warning look, and he took another book and opened it.

"Can you turn that down, please?" Sam asked, referring to the music playing on the radio.

Dean nodded. "Yeah, absolutely." He reached over to the radio and turned the volume up.

Wincing, Sam looked up and glared at Dean, not happy. Dean, on the other hand, was acting oblivious and continued reading his magazine.

Before Sam could open his mouth, Liz slammed the book she was looking through shut, stood up, and went over to the radio, switching the music off; she then yanked the magazine from Dean's hands, getting a protest from him, which she ignored as she also took away his fries.

"Liz!"

Liz gave her twin a cold look, tossed the magazine onto the cluttered table, dumped the fries into the trash, shoved the plate into the sink, and then went back to the smaller table that was covered with books; she selected one and shoved it into Dean's hands, almost knocking him back onto the bed.

"The radio remains off," she said angrily, having had enough. "You won't eat anymore food on Sam's bed, Dean, and you will help us with the research. Now I don't want to hear another word from either of you for the n-"

Just then, there was a knock on the door; exchanging a look with her brothers she went over to it and looked through the peephole. She looked back at her brothers and then opened the door to Bobby.

"Hi Bobby."

Bobby smiled a little and noted the tension in the room. "Boys, Lizzy."

Dean tossed the book onto the bed. "Hey Bobby."

"Hey, Bobby," Sam echoed.

Bobby entered and Liz closed the door. "It's good to see you again," he remarked.

"Yeah, uh. Thanks for coming," Liz said, relieved that he was there and hoped that he could help before they all went mad, and they walked over the middle of the room, toward Dean and Sam. "Come on in."

"Thank god you're here," Dean said, echoing Liz's relief as he shook hands with Bobby, who also shook Sam's hand, too.

"Sooo, uh…what didn't you want to talk to me on the phone about?" Bobby asked, deciding to get down to business and, maybe, figure out what was going on with both the case and the Winchesters.

"It's this job we're working, we'd…" Sam scoffed, wondering how to explain what he meant. "We weren't sure you'd believe us."

Bobby laughed. "Well, I can believe a lot."

Sam nodded. "No, yeah, yeah. I know, its just we-we've never seen anything like it-"

"- Not even close," Dean added, nodding.

"And we thought we could use some fresh eyes," Liz imputed.

Bobby shrugged. "Well, why don't you begin at the beginning?"

"We can do that," Liz agreed, clearing away some dirty dishes so that Bobby could sit on the second bed while Sam pulled up a chair and Dean sat back down on the first bed. "So, it all started when we caught wind of an obit. See a professor took a nosedive from a fourth story window, only there's a campus legend that the building's haunted. So we pretexted as reporters from a local paper…"

And she told him about the interview, the legend, investigating the office of Crawford Hall, which only had four floors and not six like in the legend, learning from the janitor that Arthur Cox was seeing a lot of women behind his wife's back, the frat boy being abducted by aliens that first probed him repeatedly and then made him slow dance with one of them, and then the researcher, who'd gotten eaten by what appeared to be an Alligator down in the sewers.

"…and during all of this, Sam's laptop first gets frozen to the point that we had to call up Penelope Garcia to help us fix it, only to have it disappear, and then someone lets out all of the air from the tires of the Impala," Liz concluded. "Plus, Sam and Dean have been at each others' throats and I've spent more time trying to keep them from killing each other since Sam blames Dean for his missing laptop and Dean blames Sam for what happen to the Impala, then I have working on this blasted case!"

"Liz, calm down," Bobby said, gently shoving her into a chair at the kitchen table as he faced them "I've heard enough and frankly, I'm surprised at you two. I really am," he told Sam and Dean. "First being all the stress that you're putting your own sister through because of a few mishaps. Sam. First off, Dean did not steal your computer."

"But I-" Sam began.

Bobby held out his hand towards Sam, who shut his mouth, fuming. "Shhh." And he then looked at Dean. "And Dean, Sam did not touch your car."

Sam glowered at Dean. "Chhyeah!"

"Quiet, Sam," Liz ordered and he pouted.

Bobby continued as if they hadn't said anything. "And if you two bothered to pull your heads out of your asses it all would have been pretty clear. Especially since Liz already has it figured out, but hasn't realized it."

"Really?" Liz asked, surprised.

"What?" Dean asked at the same time.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "What you're dealing with."

"What are we dealin' with?" Sam asked.

"You've got a trickster on your hands," Bobby responded, picked up one of the books that was lying open on the table, and showed them a page, which had a male figure wearing a golden outfit and it looked like he was being sneaky.

Liz looked at the page and felt like kicking herself since she'd been looking through the book on Norse mythology when Sam's laptop disappeared. "Loki…of course."

Dean snapped his fingers. "That's what I thought."

"What?! No you didn't!" Sam protested and winced when Liz shot him a warning look.

"I gotta tell you," Bobby remarked, bemused. "You guys were the biggest clue."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"These things create chaos and mischief as easy as breathing," Bobby explained, "and it's got you so turned around and at each others' throats. You can't even think straight."

Sam groaned. "The laptop."

"The tires," Dean said.

"He probably had us pegged the moment we got into town," Liz added.

Bobby nodded. "It knows you're on to him," he agreed. "And it's been playin' you like fiddles."

"So what is it?" Dean asked. "Wha-wha-wha-wha.. Spirit? Demon? What?"

"Well…more like demi-Gods really," Bobby corrected. "There's Loki in Scandinavia, there's a Anansi in West Africa. Dozens of them. They're immortal and they can create things out of thin air. Things as real as you and me. Make 'em vanish just as quick."

Dean nodded. "Mean like a- angry spirit, or an alien, or an alligator."

"The victims fit the M.O too," Bobby agreed. "Tricksters target the high and the mighty. Knock 'em down a peg. Usually with a sense of humor. Deadly pranks, things like that."

"And I think I know where he's getting his ideas," Liz said, getting up and went over to her bag; she dug around and pulled out several magazines. "The Weekly World News," she explained, carrying over to the table and opened each of them. "He was readin' these for ideas."

"Makes sense," Sam agreed. "Those tabloids are full of stuff that isn't true half the time."

Dean agreed with that and then something occurred to him, something that they'd missed because of their arguing. "Bobby, what do these things look like?"

Bobby shrugged. "Lots of things. But human mostly."

Dean looked at both Sam and Liz. "And what human do we know who's been on ground zero this whole time?"

Both Sam and Liz frowned at first, not understanding, and then they got it.

"The janitor."

"Now that I think about it," Sam realized, "his emotions haven't exactly been human-like…more like that shape-shifter."

"And odds are that he's looking for a new target," Dean agreed, and they knew they had to stop the trickster before anyone else got hurt, or worse, killed.

The trickster, also known as Loki, was flipping through issues of Weekly World News, looking at stories about a woman in love with alien, an alligator in the sewers, and then stopped on one about a cannibal that'd killed his entire family with a chainsaw.

"Oh, that's a good one," he chuckled, setting aside the magazine and then whistled to a dog that was sitting on the couch. "Come here." The dog ran over and he picked it up in his lap. "Could you eat? I could eat. Come on."

Loki put down the dog, got up, revealing that he was wearing a white tank top and red silk boxers; he took a glass of champagne and walked over to the kitchen table, which was filled with plates of cakes and fruit.

He examined the sweets and frowned. "Something's missing."

Suddenly two women appeared next to him; he put one finger with whip cream in one their mouths while the other fed him a piece of cake, and they all laughed a little.

'I knew splitting up was a bad idea,' Liz thought, pulling open yet another door and felt like screaming when she found herself in yet another endless corridor.

Once it became apparent that they were dealing with another pagan god, they armed themselves with pine stakes and headed out to Crawford Hall the next night. Upon entering the building, Dean had insisted on splitting up to search for the trickster, ignoring her and Bobby's objections of it being a bad idea, and he had headed off in one direction and Sam in another direction; she and Bobby had reluctantly split up, too.

She'd gone into the basement to check the janitor's office and had almost jumped out of her boots when she turned the corner and found Loki waiting for her, eating a candy bar.

"Hey there, Elizabeth."

"It's Liz," Liz snapped, raising the stake, "and thanks to you, I've been having a bad week." And she went to attack – only to have him disappear. "Hey!"

"Sorry, Lizzy," Loki apologized, reappearing behind her, and she spun around, "but I don't fight ladies as a personal rule. Bye now!" and he snapped his fingers.

Now she was stuck in a labyrinthine of seemingly endless doors and corridors, and she was pissed. "Let me out!"

Sam was certain that he was going to blow a fuse…again, if he didn't find a way out soon; he should've know that Dean wouldn't damage or even hide his laptop on purpose, but something inside him just snapped, and poor Liz had gotten caught in the middle again, and now he was in some kind of maze thanks to Loki.

He had gone off on his own and had been checking the inside of a closest, only to have Loki pop up behind him, and shoved him inside, locking the door.

`"Hey!"`

"Sorry, Sammy, but you've got an unfair advantage with your abilities," Loki had told him and then had left.

He'd kicked the door off its' hinges and had stormed out, only to find a second door instead of the corridor.

"Dammit!"

Dean knew that his decision to split up to find the trickster wasn't his best idea, but after the week he'd been having and the condition of the Impala, he wasn't exactly thinking straight.

He was searching one of the hallways when he heard music playing and he followed it into the auditorium, where he found an unexpected sight on the stage: it had a round bed on it, with a disco-ball above; there was a fouton next to it and a little bar that had three martini glasses on it. There were lava lamps on the tables next to the bed, and on the bed there were two women. Dean looked around and started going down the stairs as the women watched him, smiling.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, the women began crawling towards him to the foot of the bed.

"We've been waiting for you, Dean," the dark-haired woman said.

"You-you - You guys aren't real," Dean stammered, trying to ignore the signals that his body was sending to him.

The dark-haired woman laughed. "Trust me sugar, it's gonna feel real."

Dean laughed nervously since it was very likely to be true.

"Come on," the blond woman offered. "Let us give you a massage."

Dean sighed and nearly gave into temptation. "Wo-haa…You know, I'm a – I'm a – I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Really. I am, but…I'm – I'm gonna have to pass."

Both women pouted. "Aww…"

"They're a peace offering," Loki announced. Startled, Dean turned around and found the trickster sitting in one of the audience chairs. "I know what you, your sister, and your brother do. I've been around a while. Run into your kind before."

Dean shrugged. "Weell, then you know that I can't just let you keep hurting people."

"Come on!" Loki groaned, rolling his head back. "Those people got what was coming to 'em. Hoisted on their own pertards. But you, Elizabeth, and Sam. I like you. I do. So treat yourself. Long as you want. Just…long enough for me to move on to the next town. Hell, I'll even throw in fixing your car and returning Sam's laptop."

Dean was severely tempted, and he was surprised by the offer to fix his car and return the laptop. "Yeah…I don't think I can let you do that."

"I don't wanna hurt you," Loki told him honestly, taking out a candy bar and unwrapping it. "And you know that I can." And he bit into the bar.

"Look, man," Dean said seriously. "I…I gotta tell you, I-I-I dig your style. Alright. I mean…" he looked at the women, and laughed a bit. "I do, I mean…" he made a pff sound, smiling. "And the ehh, the slow dancing alien." And they both laughed.

"One of my personal favorites," Loki agreed.

Dean nodded regretfully. "Yeah. But uh…I-I can't let you go."

"Too bad. Like I said, I liked you," Loki said, sighing as his smile faded. "Your siblings are right. You shouldn't have split up."

Dean grimaced. "I agree with you there."

Just then, one of the doors opened. Loki turned around and saw Bobby standing just inside the door, stake in hand, and he started to walk down the steps, wondering where both Sam and Liz were.

Loki looked back, his eyebrows raised. "You splitting up? That was a trick?" and Dean did his "yeah" face. "Hm. Not bad," he commented as Dean pulled out his stake. "But you wanna see a real trick?"

Just then, a chainsaw started up behind Bobby, who turned and found a huge masked man with a chainsaw in his hands; he swung at Bobby as he threw himself down. Dean went for Loki but the dark-haired woman caught his hand in the air, swung it back around, and she slammed his head onto the wood…hard. Bobby threw himself out of the way from the chainsaw, doing everything to get away.

With a grunt of frustration, Sam ripped the door out of its' frame and tossed it aside, he then stepped through – into the front entrance and could hear the sounds of fighting and shouting coming from the nearby auditorium.

"Dean, Bobby."

Gripping his stake, Sam ran for the doors and used his telekinesis to blast them open as he charged inside to a startling scene: Dean was wrestling with two nearly naked women on the stage that were kicking his ass, and Bobby was being chased around by the hockey-masked guy, who was armed with a chainsaw, from the Friday the 13th movies, but he couldn't see Liz anywhere.

Sam then spotted Loki, who was lounging in one of the chairs, eating a candy bar, and he headed for the stairs…only to end up slipping on a banana peel and tumbled down the stairs instead.

"Watch out for that first step, Sammy," Loki suggested. "It's a doozy."

Liz was beyond annoyed as she kicked at the door before her since it was locked; she'd used the trick of always going left, and hopefully she would find the exit soon.

With a grunt, she kicked the door hard and was thrilled when the lock broke, and the door swung open; she stepped through and found herself in the front entrance.

Hearing the shouts and fighting coming from the auditorium, Liz gripped the stake and headed for the doors-

"Goin' somewhere, Lizzy?"

Liz went on the defensive when Loki suddenly appeared, blocking her way. "You have some nerve messin' with my brothers like that."

Loki shrugged. "What can I say? True, I might've overdone it with the Impala, but they've had fights before."

"That's true, but it caused me no end of stress in keeping them from killin' each other," Liz pointed out. "And now you're tryin' to kill them, which I won't let happen."

Raising the stake, she thrust it toward Loki's chest and he easily dodged; for several minutes, Liz attacked and Loki dodged until he finally caught her wrist; she grunted as he forced her to drop the stake and pinned her arm behind her back.

"Let me go!"

"Sorry, can't do that," Loki told her quietly, keeping her pinned. "And like I said before, Elizabeth, I don't fight ladies." He then touched Liz's forehead with two fingers, and she slipped into a deep sleep.

He held Liz for several seconds and then gently laid her on the floor before returning his attention to the auditorium.

Meanwhile, both Sam and Bobby were fighting off the chainsaw attacker while Dean continued getting his ass kicked by the women, and was thrown into the chair just below the one that Loki was sitting in.

"Ha! Nice," Loki laughed. "Applause ladies. Nice show." Groaning, Dean got on his side and spotted a stake by Sam's feet. Sam turned around and saw Dean, who nodded and Sam went after it. "Dean…Dean, Dean, Dean. I did not wanna have to do this." And he stood up.

Grabbing the stake, Sam threw it to Dean, who got up and twirled the stake around in his hand; he then turned around, and put the stake right on target – Loki's chest. Loki frowned, surprised and feeling pain.

"Me neither," Dean agreed regretfully.

The chainsaw man was standing over Sam, chainsaw in the air; he looked over at Dean and Loki, worried. Loki wasn't looking too good and then the chainsaw man disappeared, and the women went next, the same way. Dean was still standing, stake in hand through Loki's chest, looking him in the eye. He then pulled it out, and Loki fell backwards into his seat, blood trail out of his mouth.

Sam and Bobby walked over to Dean while looking at Loki.

"You guys ok?" Dean asked.

Bobby nodded.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "Good guess."

"I gotta say, he had style," Dean remarked and then groaned. "Urh…where the hell is Liz?"

"Don't know," Sam admitted. "Loki trapped me in a closest…you don't suppose-"

Exchanging a panicking look, the three men ran up the stairs and out the doors, finding Liz lying on the floor, unconscious.

"Liz!"

"Liz!"

Bobby knelt next to Liz, found a pulse, and began shaking her both gently and firmly. "Liz, Liz, wake up, honey." And he was relieved when she groaned and slowly came to. "Come on, let's go."

Dean and Sam helped their sister up and hurried for the doors.

Back in the auditorium, Loki approached his 'dead body' and watched it disappear as he ate his candy bar.

Outside, both the Winchesters and Bobby were surprised to find the Impala waiting for them, which was proof that Loki had kept his promise to undo the damage he'd done.

"Bobby," Sam began. "Thanks a lot. We really couldn't-"

"Ah…save it," Bobby snapped. "Let's just get the hell out of Dodge before somebody finds that body and alerts Henriksen to your location."

Agreeing with that, they hurried down the stairs and over to the car; while Bobby helped Liz into the backseat, Dean and Sam went to either side of the car to get in and then stopped.

"Look, Dean," Sam said awkwardly. "I just wanna say…that I'm uh…uhm…"

"Hey. Me too," Dean cut in, and Sam nodded a little.

Bobby shot them both an exasperated look. "You guys are breaking my heart, could we please just leave?" he then got into the car. Sam smiled a little to himself, Dean looked over at him, nodded, and they got into the car, where they found Sam's laptop. Dean started the engine and they drove off.

Loki watched them go, both with amusement and sadness; like he'd told Dean, he pegged them as hunters the moment they'd arrived and had decided to mess with the Winchesters since he knew what the future had in store for them.

He hadn't always been a trickster, who enjoyed taking the high and mighty down a few pegs, eating sweets, and just having fun; but that who he was now and if no one learned the truth, then so much the better.

Frowning, Loki looked up toward a place that was high above the Earth. 'I wish I could've warned them, but I can't…not yet.' Sighing, he left to travel to other places.

A/N: I hope you all enjoy this one, because I had a really hard time turning it into a one-shot, and I hope I did it justice. R&R everyone!