Still penniless.
AN: For wild wolf free 17, for introducing me to Anne Sexton. Title from American Pie, by Don McClean. And shame on you if you didn't know that already. There really aren't words for "yes" and "no" in Latin, by the way.
Jester stole his thorny crown
"Cannot believe I agreed to this," Dean grumbled. "For you, of all people!"
"I'm very persuasive. And I did put it off until after the big bash," Bela said calmly.
"Which is why I'm up here with a hangover," Dean shot back.
"You didn't have to come. You could have said no."
"You knew perfectly well if you convinced Sam I wouldn't have a choice."
"Absolutely. You can be a bit predictable sometimes."
"Oh, is that why you didn't faint when you saw us in the parking lot the other day?"
"I hadn't seen the bodies."
"Whoa. A compliment. In Bela-speak, anyway."
"Bela-speak doesn't have compliments," Sam said as he joined them. "Like how there's no word for yes or no in Latin."
Bela glared at him. "Tell me, have you two made it your life's mission to annoy me?"
"Not like we've got anything better to do anymore," Dean observed.
Point.
They were sitting at the window of a fifth-storey apartment watching the window of the fifth-storey apartment across the street ("Stake-out!" Dean had exclaimed. "Way cool, man. Are there doughnuts?"). The man occupying it had recently acquired a haunted painting one of Bela's oldest clients was eager to have – apparently one of his most hated business associates fit the spirit's MO.
She hadn't told the boys that last part, but as the man was a mob boss anyway, she didn't think they'd object too much. To be honest, she'd been astonished that they'd agreed to help her steal the painting in the first place.
Adrenaline junkies.
"OK. He leaves at nine-thirty every Saturday, and gets back around four, so that's more than enough time. We've got three minutes to disable the security once we're in the apartment, and after that it's just a matter of getting past the doorman with the painting."
"Sam can take the security system," Dean said. "Does your buyer want the frame, or just the picture?"
"It's the original frame, never been replaced, so yeah, the lot," Bela said. "That's what makes this so damn awkward. I can't carry something that big on my own and not be noticed."
"Guys, he's off," Sam said, peering out the window. "Where's he headed?"
Bela grinned. "The most expensive and exclusive brothel in New Orleans."
"Every Saturday?" Dean said, staring. "He doesn't look that rich."
"Spends it all in the brothel," Sam said drily.
Getting in wasn't much of a problem. They fed the doorman some bull about the latest girl to move in being a friend from college, and he was more than happy to believe it if it meant he got more time to drool down the front of Bela's top.
But even he would notice when they came back half-an-hour later with a three-by-four-foot painting wrapped in brown paper.
Getting in wasn't even difficult. Neither was the security system. Bela felt a bit… cheated. Where was the fun in this job if people didn't at least try to make it difficult for her?
It simply wasn't… cricket.
She'd die before she spoke those words aloud in the presence of the Winchester brothers.
Dean helped her get the painting off the wall; Sam was making a phone call to the police about gunshots in the building next door. Sure enough, when they got back down to the lobby, it was empty; everyone was outside gawking at the police pulling up in the street, running around and shouting about come out with your hands up and drop your weapon, or we will shoot!
Americans.
They were carrying the heavy, ungainly painting between the three of them, shuffling past the crowd as quickly as possible towards the Impala. The painting wouldn't have fit in Bela's own car, so she didn't snark much as they propped it against the back seat and then climbed in the front.
And she certainly did not enjoy being sandwiched on a bench seat of a classic car between two of the best-looking men in creation.
At all.
Any hypthetical enjoyment went out the window when Dean pulled over on a back road outside the city limits and cuffed her to the steering wheel. He and Sam got out, removed the painting from the back seat and –
Bela went from exasperated to shrieking like a fishwife when she caught sight of the lighter fluid in Dean's hands. "Don't you bloody dare, you bastards!"
Sam shook his head at her. "You really think we're that naïve?"
"The money I could have got for that!" she shouted at him as the flames leapt high into the night.
"Sorry," Sam smirked.
"Sorry! Sorry! You utter, utter bastard! I don't know how you and your happy-go-lucky sociopathic reprobate of a brother got out of the deepest, darkest pit in Hell that was undoubtedly reserved for the two of you, but so help me God, I'll summon those hellhounds and watch them drag you both back down there by the ankles for this!"
Dean leaned into the car, uncuffed her, and then stood back out of the way of her fist.
"For that, you can walk back to town."
"I'll call a taxi," Bela snarled at him, standing over the ruined remains of the 750'000 dollar painting.
"Pity the driver," Dean said.
As they climbed in the car, she heard him say to Sam, "Am I a happy-go-lucky sociopathic reprobate?"
"Only on Thursdays," Sam shrugged. "But then, not even Dad ever got the hang of Thursdays."
Bela had the overwhelming urge to scream.