AAAAAAAARGH! AAAAAAAAAARGH! It's a plot bunny!
Here I am, struggling to get the bunnies to get on with dictating 'Old Dogs Old Tricks' and Dean's Pirate Adventure - Jackie-Joy is being a diva again, and Dirty Miranda has gone into dry dock - and whilst I'm trying to wheedle something out of those two little... wretches, this critter pops its head up out of a bag of lizard nest box substrate, of all things. And it WILL NOT SHUT UP. AAAAAAAARGH! That's THREE of the little... devils on the go at once! (Still, having complained that the plot bunnies had deserted me completely, I probably shouldn't complain too loudly, and maybe some competition will get the other ones talking again...)
I think one of the Denizens might have sent this bunny some months ago - if it was you, IDENTIFY YOURSELF YOU RELENTLESS TERMAGANT!
So, it's just a vague outline at this point, but writing sometimes encourages the little... dears, so let's have a try, and call this one...
Disclaimer: They aint mine (but if they were I'd rent them out by the hour and retire on the proceeds)
Title: Like A Boss
Rating: T. Because Dean. And themes. And Dean-themes.
Summary: There's something wrong with Castiel, Angel of the Lord and Sheriff of Heaven. Sam's no expert on celestial physiology, but if he didn't know better, he'd say that Cas has a terrible cold. Which is silly, because angels don't get colds, right? I mean, it would have to be a pretty specific and souped-up cold to infect an angel. Or, for that matter, a demon. But the real question is, when a supernatural being in an important position of power is out of action, who's going to stand in for the boss?
Chapter One
"I gotcha, bro," Sam half-led, half-dragged his big brother away from the building. Dean was doing his best to keep up and carry his own weight, but he was clearly in pain, and just as clearly determined not to let it show. For once, Sam was content to let the he-man I'm-your-big-brother-and-I'm-fine routine slide – he could barely see as it was, but his brother was in a worse state, and right at that moment his immediate concern was to get them away from the place before
FWOOMP
It wasn't like in the movies when a prop façade packed with pyrotechnics went up, mused a part of his brain as the force of displaced air hit them and almost sent them sprawling, but that was the nature of reality, it was so boringly real, not entertaining at all, really, and right now, he'd be really really happy with boring…
They stumbled as far as the car and he got shotgun open on the second try, depositing his brother gracelessly then scrambling around to the driver's seat himself. Dean let out a small stifled yelp as he slid awkwardly into the seat, and Jimi, the half-Hellhound Rottweiler, leaned his big earnest head over the seat, nosing in concern at his Alpha.
"It's all good, bro," Sam told his brother, starting the engine and easing the car carefully out onto the road, and watching the conflagration in the mirror, "It's goin' up like a bonfire."
"Sam," Dean said in a small quiet voice, "Sam, I can't see."
"I know," Sam replied, his voice as calm as he could make it, "Just hang tight, let me get us back to the room, we'll fix this…"
"Sam," his big brother repeated, a decidedly unDeanlike tremor in his voice, "I can't see."
"It's okay, bro," Sam tried to sound reassuring, "We'll get this fixed, I promise."
Like so many Hunts before it, the job had not gone exactly to plan.
It had appeared to be a routine salt and burn, a haunting in a beauty salon – Miss Sarah-Belle Hemridge's Palais de Primp – that had catered to the drag community. When the proprietor had refused to sell up to a developer, the would-be speculator decided to take matters into his own hands, and torch the place; Miss Sarah-Belle had been working late, and had sadly perished in an explosion made worse by the large quantities of nail acrylic, polish, hairspray and lamé fabric on site. The salon had been refurbished and carried on business in the capable hands of Miss Sue Perheeroe, but it was a classical recipe for a vengeful haunting.
What the Winchesters didn't realise until it was too late was that one of Miss Hemridge's assistants had been working with her, taking inventory of the wig stocks, so there were in fact two angry ghosts to deal with.
And in accordance with the Universal Principles of Winchester Luck, the assistant who'd died along with her employer had been Miss Annie Bolic, whose stage act had included her trademark move where she hoisted a leather-clad twink on each bicep whilst belting out 'You Think You're A Man'.
The two unquiet spirits had double-teamed the Winchesters, nearly primping them into submission before the boys managed to light the place up to destroy everything that was anchoring the angry ghosts there. But they'd done it, and gotten out alive – any job you could walk (or perhaps stagger) away from counted as a win, in Sam's book. And if Dean was experiencing some physical distress due to the encounter, well, Sam couldn't help but think that maybe he'd contributed to the problem himself…
It was a classic, predictable, utterly reliable Dean strategy: angry manifestation taking too close an interest in his brother, so he'd say whatever he thought would be most effective in taking the ghost's attention away from Sam, and draw it to himself. And while it was usually a very effective strategy, under the circumstances, taunting a professional drag artiste about body hair had been an invitation for trouble.
Especially given that waxing was one of the mainstay services the salon had provided.
And Miss Bolic had truly been a big girl, so to speak.
The unkind comparison, which had included the words 'gorilla' and 'weed whacker' and 'Agent Orange', had the desired effect: the two ghosts immediately turned away from Sam. As Miss Bolic grabbed Dean, then Miss Hemridge reached for the wax pot and the spatula, it gave Sam the opportunity to search out and find the two pairs of size thirteen high heels they were looking for. Finding the footwear that had been kept as mementoes of the former beauty therapists, he concentrated on deploying salt and lighter fluid and lighting 'em up, but hadn't been able to completely block out the sound of tearing denim, his brother's outraged complaint, and then his screams…
Squinting through the eyeliner and shadow caking his lids, he drove through the night back to their crappy motel room du jour. At least one of them could still see, he thought, sparing a glance for his big brother.
Although why anybody, even the crazed and deranged ghost of a vengeful drag act beautician, would even want to put false eyelashes on Dean, given that the man's own eyelashes were as long as a Jersey cow's, was beyond him.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
"Nearly there," Sam reassured his big brother. Dean lay sprawled on his bed in shirt and shorts, moaning, as Sam dabbed carefully at his left eye with a cotton tip soaked in make-up remover, where the fantastically long tiger-striped fake eyelashes had become entangled and acted to glue Dean's lids shut. "Just about coming off now…"
The glue finally gave way, and Dean's eye sprang open. As it did, he let out a piercing shriek.
"What? What?" Sam yelped frantically, peering into Dean's eye to see if he could identify some injury, "Is there something in your eye?"
"Oh – my – GOD!" yipped Dean, his just-freed eye opening wide. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"What do you mean, what the fuck is wrong with me?" demanded Sam. "I got primped, just like you!"
"No, no, I mean, have you seen yourself?" demanded Dean. "Jesus, Sam, sky blue shadow up to your eyebrow, what the fuck, dude? I do NOT need to have my eye finally pop open, and see that!"
"Huh?" Sam paused, and glanced over at the speckled mirror on the wall – Miss Hemridge had apparently been going for a retro roller disco 70s look. It hadn't looked good then, and the passage of a few decades hadn't improved it any.
"You look like Mimi," complained Dean, "Or maybe Barbara Cartland with a bulldog clip on the back of her head. Fuck, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
"Well, excuse me for giving your glued-shut-by-false-lashes eyes priority over my so-last-century makeover!" snapped Sam, giving Dean a searing Bitchface #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable Dean, You Know That?). "I could've just left you here, blinded, and cleaned my own face off first, but hey, call me a careless idiot, I thought I'd just get my brother's sight restored first…"
"Yeah, yeah," Dean let his head fall back. "Next time, give a guy warning, you know, 'Oh, by the way, before you open your eye, I look like an extra from a really cheap bad porno film'."
"Jerk," muttered Sam, attending to Dean's other eye. Finally all the offending fakes were removed. "Okay, your eyes are open. This stuff will take of the make-up, and you'll be back to looking your doe-eyed self in no time."
"Great," said Dean, a grim expression on his face, "Now give me the bad news."
"Huh?" Sam blinked. "What bad news? There is no bad news, those lashes came off, your own are all still there, that crap will clean off. Unless you're having some problem with your sight, there is no bad news!"
"Not my eyes!" snapped Dean, his face reddening somewhat, "You know," he waved a hand vaguely legward, "Down… there."
Sam glanced down at his brother's legs. "Oh, that," he couldn't suppress a grin. "Yeah, you got waxed, bro."
"How bad is it?" asked Dean. "Don't sugar-coat it, just tell me."
"Looks like a full leg job," Sam elaborated. "Couldn't you tell?" He smiled. "You screamed like a little bitch," he added.
"Once the wax started flying, it was all a bit of a blur," replied Dean. "A very painful blur. Which is why I did some unavoidable and totally manly yelling. A man gets the hairs ripped out of his legs, he's gonna do some manly yelling, okay? Fuck, it felt like I was sittin' in a pot of boilin' water," Dean humphed, "And I was kinda tryin' to block it out." He tweaked at his shorts. "Damn it, I think those assholes got my brief line…"
"It'll grow back," Sam shrugged, "You've had worse."
Dean's glowering glare suggested that he did not entirely agree.
"Well, why don't you hit the shower," Sam told him, "And I will remove my terrifying and completely outdated makeover, so your delicate sensibilities aren't offended."
Dean picked up some clean clothes and headed for the bathroom. "Yeah, get on that, RuPaul," he muttered. "And by the way, that foundation so does NOT work on you," he added, "It's too pink, you need something a bit warmer, ya know, for people who did this for a living, they got all the taste of a Jersey Shore wannabe…"
Sam sighed, and started to clean the make-up from his face. For a guy who could be ridiculously stoic about life-threatening injuries, Dean could sometimes be as melodramatic as hell about things that really didn't matter. Seriously, complaining about the tacky make-up the ghost had left? Melodrama much?
He was just swiping the last of the crap from his face when heard a shriek from the bathroom. Gun in hand, Jimi at his heels, he burst into the door.
"What?" he demanded, searching for the threat that had sneaked up on his brother. There was nothing in the bathroom except his big brother. His big brother, clutching a towel around himself. Clutching around himself, and wearing an expression of desperate horror. "Fuck, Dean," he grumbled, putting up his weapon, "I thought something terrible was happening to you."
"Something terrible HAS happened to me!" yipped Dean, "I've been… I've been…"
"You've been…?" prompted Sam.
"I've been…" Dean swallowed, his eyes looking stricken. "Sam, I've been… clear-felled."
"Clear-felled?" echoed Sam.
"Clear-felled!" repeated Dean. "You know," he paused to wave a hand vaguely, then quickly returned to clutching at his towel. "Clear-felled! Defoliated! The optical inch, and then some!'
"What?" Sam's face creased in confusion before his brother's meaning became clear. "What do you mean, defol… oh. Oh." He blinked. "Really?"
"Yes, really!" snapped Dean, "You think I'd joke about somethin' like this?"
"Well, why were you screaming like you were having your arms cut off?" demanded Sam. "You gave me a hell of a scare!"
"You got a scare?" Dean scoffed scornfully. "You got a scare? I'm the one who was assaulted by those damned ghosts with a wax pot, which incidentally should be banned in The Hague as a form of torture, I'm the one who went to get into the shower and discovered that he's been, been, been…"
"Denuded?" suggested Sam helpfully.
"…left completely bare! No man has any business bein' completely bare below the waist, Sam, not unless he's like a pole-dancin' stripper or something or he's eight years old! And you're complainin' that you got a scare?" Dean glared at him accusingly.
"Okay, okay!" Sam held up his hands in a placating gesture, "You got a scare too! Probably a worse one than me! I'm sorry!" He paused. "How the hell did you get, you know," he waved a hand vaguely about waist height, "And not realise it?"
"It was kind of generalised agony in the generalised area," Dean muttered, "And I told you, I was tryin' to block it out."
Sam tutted sympathetically. "So, they got you good, huh?"
" 'Good' is not the word I'd use," Dean muttered.
"Okay, yeah, poor choice of word," Sam agreed. "The whole nine yards, then?"
"And then some," Dean sighed gloomily.
"The full monty?"
"With a capital mont."
"Like the whole, uh, scorched earth strategy?"
"The crater of the Tunguska event wasn't this scorched."
"Well, look on the bright side," Sam said sunnily, "You got it done for free. Do you know how much you can be charged for a crack back and sa-AAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Sam let out a shriek almost as loud as Dean's had been as his brother pulled off his towel and snapped him expertly on the upper leg with it. "JESUS H. CHRIST!"
"I hope it hurt," scowled Dean. "You shut the fuck up, or the next one will get you where they got me…"
"Not that!" Sam wailed as he clapped his hands to his eyes. "Oh, fuck me, I did NOT need to see that!"
"Now you know how I felt when my eye opened," Dean smiled unkindly.
"Aaaaaaargh!" went Sam again, turning his back, and yodelling in pained outrage as Dean snapped him on the backside. "Aaaaargh! You are not allowed to take off so much as a sock in the same room as me until it grows back!"
He scuttled out of the room as he heard the shower start. Jimi tilted his head, and gazed up at his Second with big questioning brown eyes.
"Your Alpha is an asshole," muttered Sam. "Fuck, I'm glad this job is done. Two angry ghosts, ridiculous make-overs, and, and, and, that, I just want today to be over." He paused, and reached down to pat the dog, who gave him a big doggy grin. "Yeah, you're right," he sighed, with a small grin of his own. "After this, it can't get any worse."
Jimi barked twice, and butted at Sam as a muffled flap-flap noise came to his ears…
"Hello, Sam."
"Gaaaaah! Oh," Sam let out another yip of surprise. "Hi, Cas. Sorry, you startled me. And before you ask, yeah, it's the personal space thing… uh," he peered at the angel more closely. "Uh, you sound a bit more, um, gravelly than usual. And your vessel is looking a bit pale."
"Yes," agreed Castiel in a vague tone.
"Cas, are you all right?" asked Sam, feeling a bit worried.
Castiel, Angel of the Lord and Warrior of Heaven, gave him the expression that the Winchesters privately referred to as the Eye-Sex Stare Of Doom, and said, "No."
Then it was just as well he had the personal space thing wrong again, because when he fainted, Sam was right there to catch him.
Poor Dean - discombobulating (or defoliating) him is just too entertaining. And poor Cas - he doesn't look well. And Poor Sam - because Dean.
What on earth is this plot bunny up to? And what's its name? Possibly Florence. Florence Nightmare. Encourage the critter, and let's see if we can wring an actual story out of it...