Aaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaaargh! I HATE plot bunnies!
This little #^%* of a rodent has been lurking around the empty plot bunny pen for months, with nothing but a terrible title and a single sentence description of a possible story. A very short sentence. And now, as I'm trying to read something work-related the little WRETCH leaped out of my tea mug, sank its teeth into my ankle, and WILL NOT LET GO. Nor will it offer any suggestions more than the most bare bones, rudimentary story (doesn't even quality as a plot yet). It has done this in the full knowledge that I am attempting to wrangle Jackie-Joy, the Most Uncooperative Diva Bunny In The Universe who is supposed to be dictating 'Old Dogs, Old Tricks'.
I really, really hate plot bunnies.
But we know that here in the Jimiverse, giving bunnies an airing, no matter how unhelpful they appear to be, can sometimes prompt them into dictating another chapter or two, and maybe even coming up with a storyline, so in the spirit of indulging the loony leporids, I present to you the first chapter, with the thoroughly appalling title of...
WHO'S THE WINCEST OF THEM ALL?
Disclaimer: They're not mine, I just throw them to the fangirls and run in the opposite direction.
Rating: T. Because Dean and words.
Summary: As in, who can be the most excruciatingly wince-inducing? To their horror, Sam and Dean are about to find out, when they have to attend a fan-fiction convention to find out what's causing some of the participants to start killing each other. As if that's not bad enough, they have to go under-cover deeply enough to blend in without raising suspicion, which will need some seriously convincing disguises. And suitably comfortable foundation garments. And possibly plenty of mind bleach afterwards. The w-word is just a terrible pun in the title, no slash here, go on, move along, no yaoi, nothing to see, go about your business...
Blame: I don't know, but when I find out whose fault this story is, I will be most put out.
Chapter One
Sam could never be described as a bible-basher, or a god-botherer. He 'believed' in God – he believed in gods – the same way he believed in gravity, or carbohydrates, or the existence of sadness – not as an article of faith, but as the knowledge of something that existed.
(Dean was adamant that he didn't believe in God. "Just because He exists don't mean I'm gonna go around believing in Him," the older Winchester would snort disdainfully, "It's like believing in angels, I don't do that, because it'll just give 'em big heads and encourage them.")
But he was probably a more careful and thoughtful student of holy books than most people, especially the strident ones who liked to wave them about in public and use their personal narrow interpretation of it to justify persecution of people they didn't like very much. The nature of his brain, and the nature of his life, had turned him into something of an autodidactic scholar of such writings, picking them apart the same way he would a book to write an essay or assignment; they were not so much spiritual guides as tool, albeit cryptic ones, to help him do his job.
Currently, he was considering the Ten Commandments. In particular, The Seventh Commandment:
You will not kill.
It was all in the translation, of course, he mused, in the interpretation of context in which the original was written. From Aramaic, to Hebrew, to Greek, to Latin, out of Latin in the 1500s, to modern English, with the notes, impressions, musings, mores, opinions and human mistakes of each translator, it had changed and evolved like the society reading it. The original meaning of the earliest Hebrew text could be interpreted as 'kill', or 'murder', or possibly even 'destroy' or 'break'. It had clearly been intended to refer to the taking of human life – the difficulty was, of course, as with everything, context.
'Thou shalt not do murder', an order against unlawful killing, might be closer to what was originally intended, given that there was plenty of actual killing going on in the Old Testament, sometimes with God's approval, sometimes at His instigation, to the point where Sam had, as a child, had mental pictures of Him sitting on a cloud, egging His people on, possibly, with a large bowl of celestial popcorn resting in His lap and wearing a shirt reading FIGHT FIGHT ISRAELITE!. The Good Book condoned the death penalty for certain crimes, and recognised the inevitability of death in warfare, so it did seem a bit odd to Sam that the King James version, with its sonorously lyrical and rolling passages intended to be read aloud to instruct and uplift, should make what appeared to be such a small yet seemingly fundamental change: 'Thou shalt not kill'.
Was there a closet pacifist amongst the teams of translators who had laboured away over the text? Did the overseeing committee, even King James I, assume that there would always be a good supply of clergy to explain and interpret the scholars' work to ordinary people?
He sometimes thought it was a pity that people were so readily prepared to start bashing each other over the head about The Whole Religion Thing, picking and choosing and twisting the bits from their preferred publications that suited them and ignoring others, when the gist of so many supposedly holy books contained some pretty simple messages to all of humanity about getting along with your fellow human beings. Yep, he was pretty sure that if he was given the job, he could boil it down to a single page of text for the convenience of everybody.
Don't hurt each other. Somebody else's life is as important as yours. Look after each other. You will always have differences, but be civilised about it – worry about your own morality. Don't rush to judgement. Don't be idjits, don't be assbutts. This tiny blue planet is your only home in all of Creation. Be good to each other.
You will not kill.
His eyes slid sideways to his brother.
Unless your brother is doing his absolute best to drive you to murder, then it's probably okay.
Dean was belting out 'If You Want Blood' for the fourth time in less than three hours, having been listening to one of his AC/DC tapes continuously since they'd left their last motel room. Sam glanced back at the two dogs, Lemmy and Lars, snoozing peacefully on the back seat, and marvelled once more at their ability to snooze through Dean's singing. It must be because they were part Hellhound, he thought, if you were a Hellhound, you'd have to be able to ignore the wailings of the tormented and despairing Damned in the lowest Circles of Hell. Which was pretty much what Dean's singing could sound like.
Because justifiable homicide has precedents in the earliest teachings of the Christian faith, for all sorts of transgressions. They didn't have amplified music back then, but I'm pretty sure that if they did 'Heavy Rock In An Enclosed Space' would've been pretty close to the top of the list of things you could be stoned to death for. After blasphemy, before bearing false witness, probably about equal with adultery.
"It's criminal, there ought to be a law," Dean sang loudly (for a given value of 'sing').
Yes, yes there should, Sam agreed silently.
"Criminal, there ought to be a whole lot more…"
Certainly some sort of prohibition on assault by music.
"You get nothin' for nothing, tell me who can you trust…"
Thou shalt not sing at thy brother in a manner that be tuneless, grating, and above all unnecessarily loud, lest thou damageth his hearing, and discomfort his mind.
"We got what you want, and you got the lust…"
Thou shalt not drum upon the steering wheel of thy car until thy brother beginneth to worry that thou dost not actually have control of thy vehicle, in which he too is a passenger.
"If you want blood, you got it…"
Thou certainly shalt not remove thy hands from the wheel for a quick strum of air guitar to the consternation of thy brother.
"If you want blood, you got it…"
If thou insisteth upon listening to hard rock for hours at a time, verily and forsooth shalt thou at least change the damned tape occasionally, not listen to the same fucking one over and over and over…
Yep, it all boiled down to the interpretation of what constituted justified killing.
"Blood on the streets," howled Dean happily, "Blood on the rocks, blood in the gutter, every last drop…"
"Jesus Dean, if you don't knock it off, I'll give you blood in the gutter," growled Sam. "Yours. Every last drop."
Dean turned his most obnoxiously infuriating grin on his little brother. "Careful there Sammy," he warned, "Don't anger the Gods Of Rock while I'm worshiping."
"You don't sound like you're worshiping," Sam snapped, "You sound like you're being disembowelled. By somebody with not much knowledge of human anatomy, but plenty of blunt knives."
Dean's sunny expression didn't change. "I don't expect you to understand," he said serenely, "After the brain damage you sustained when you were younger."
"Brain damage? What the hell?" demanded Sam.
"You know," Dean went on airily, "Education. School, then college. It damaged your brain. You took it all too seriously, and it turned you into a long-haired emo girly freak."
Sam stared at his brother. "Are you implying that academic endeavour turns people into 'long haired girly freaks'?" he demanded.
"It's a sad side-effect of a brain that thinks too much," Dean sighed melodramatically.
"Ronnie could've gone to university," Sam pointed out, "She won a scholarship to study engineering, before she was bitten. I've never heard you call her a long-haired girly freak."
"She's a long-haired freak," Dean agreed, "But she aint girly. I've seen angry beef steers that were girlier than her."
"I dare you to say that to her face sometime," Sam taunted smugly. "You're just jealous because her arms are bigger than yours."
"Actually, screw steers, I've seen men who look girlier than her."
"Oh yeah," Sam smiled, "And you're one of 'em."
Dean rounded on his brother. "No I aint!" he shot back.
"Oh, I'm afraid you are," simpered Sam, "Those cheekbones, those eyes, those eyelashes, those lips, you'd have made a beautiful girl." Then, because he couldn't resist twisting the knife a bit, he continued. "People used to say that to Mom, when you were a baby. They'd think you were a girl, and then say what a shame it was that you weren't because you had such a pretty face…"
"And no doubt they used to ask her if you were a baby sasquatch," Dean sniffed with disdainful dignity, "Anyway, I'm secure enough in my masculinity not to care about what anybody might have said about me when I was a baby. I laugh about it now. Ha ha. See? That's me laughing about it."
"Well, good for you," chuckled Sam. "Although, seriously, you have got a real purty mouth…"
"Shut up, you freak!" yelped Dean. "Stop bein' a perv, and do something useful. Find our next job."
"I've been workin' on it," Sam told him, "I might have something, but I'll need to do a lot more digging before I can say for sure. Unexplained sudden deaths."
"Sudden deaths?" echoed Dean, all business.
"Yeah," Sam confirmed, "A handful of unconnected women killing each other, and then a couple of weeks later, it happens again in another town."
"Whoa," went Dean, "So, what happened? Knitting circle gettin' out of hand? Martial arts and crafts taken too far? Frying pans at close quarters?"
"That's what I have to establish," Sam gave his brother, "Find out what happened, and see if it's a job for us."
"Are these women hot?" Dean's eyebrows performed one of their amazingly sinuous and articulate waggling routines.
"Well, most of 'em were young, I guess," Sam shrugged. "If I'm honest, well, yeah, some of 'em were hot."
"You can do more researchin' at Bobby's," Dean instructed seriously, "And find me some hot women to rescue, while I spend some time with my number one girl," he patted the dash, "And the most awesome kid in the world."
"Of course," Sam rolled his eyes but smiled. Like every other parent on the planet, Dean was convinced that his son, RJ, was the most awesome kid in the world. After all, Sam felt the same way about his daughter Frankie. "And now that he's walking by himself, he's the most annoying kid in the world."
"Hey, don't diss my wingman," growled Dean. "He's a big help in the garage."
Sam gave his brother a level look. "Dean, when he's 'helping' you in the garage, 'helping' usually consists of grabbing a tool, finding something noisy to bash it against, and getting covered in grease."
"Well, he's makin' an early start," Dean said defensively, "He's gonna be a great grease monkey. He can tell a screwdriver from a wrench, and he knows the torque spanner."
"Recognises it, yes," Sam agreed, "But he can't even lift it yet."
"See? That's just how talented he is," Dean stated with satisfaction.
Sam sighed, and decided to let it go. Neither of them liked to freeload when they were at Bobby's and Dean had always put in a lot of time in the yard towards earning their keep, but since RJ had arrived, spending time in the yard often degenerated to training around with his boy, watching RJ explore the junk or roll around with the dogs. Bobby didn't mind; it was a wonder that RJ had ever learned to walk at all, considering the amount of time he spent sitting on his practically-grandfather's knee. Anyway, spending time with RJ would put Dean in a good mood. Which would probably smooth the way when he explained the job he'd found to his big brother.
As Dean returned to his AC/DC sing-along, Sam thought over the job he'd been researching. He had more details that he was letting on: yes, the women were young, and yes, some of them had qualified as what Dean would consider 'hot'. And he was already pretty sure that it was a situation needing the attention of Hunters. But the women concerned had not been meeting up for stitch and bitch sessions, or play group, or to plan animal activism activities, or plot terrorist attacks against large oil companies. And they weren't witches, meeting to plot and scheme and cast spells and meddle with the lives of other for their own twisted and evil amusement.
No, it was much worse than that, and he was not looking forward to tackling this job.
And he suspected that Dean would be even less happy about it, once he'd been appraised of the details.
From the Book of Exodus: Thou shalt not kill.
The Book of Leviticus extended that to: Do not stand idly by when you can act to save a life.
Even if the person is undeserving, if you can save a human being, do so. If they are in danger, and you can help them, then save their lives. No matter how depraved you may think them, a murderer, a war criminal, a drug lord…
From the Book of Sam: Even writers of fanfiction.
Sighing inwardly, he took comfort from another verse from the Book of Sam: But if thou wishest to take a teeny weeny bit of amusement from thy brother's discomfort about a job, go ahead.
I have no idea what this bunny's name is, but when I find out, I'm going to make a wax effigy of it. Wretched thing. Feed it reviews, and we might get more out of it. We might even make Jackie-Joy jealous, and get her dictating more enthusiastically too.