Chap 3
-o-o-o-
Someone within the group huddled in the wings area suddenly banged on a drum three times. A male, voice from the stage responded.
"I believe that sound is to signal to us that there is somebody at the make believe door."
Two further intentionally screechy and strangled, yet still clearly male, voices began to chant There's somebody at the door, there's somebody at the door. The audience enthusiastically joined in. Garth looked from Sam to Dean impatiently.
"Well? What're you waiting for? Go on!"
Sam looked wide eyed and hopeful at Dean.
"What? Why're you...? Oh. Nooo! No way I'm going out there first dude."
"But, you're the eldest!"
"Yup, and I've decided you're going first."
Garth sighed, then summoning all the strength he could muster he shoved the brothers as far as he was able, beyond the shelter of the stage curtains and out onto the open stage. It was an undignified, stumbling kind of entrance, but the audience still erupted into cheers, applause and, horror of horrors, wolf whistles. Some wise guy amongst the public yelled out loudly Nice legs, shame about the faces. Scarlet with embarrassment and desperately tugging on the hem of his frock coat in a hopeless attempt to make it seem longer, Sam smiled weakly and gave the audience a quick bow of his head. Dean, however, had frozen like the proverbial rabbit caught in car headlights, and was standing stock still, staring out at the audience in the packed theatre, a kind of nauseous look on his face.
Spotting the fact that there was a certain amount of stage fright stalling their two leading men, the owner of the non screechy male voice ad-libbed to try and help move things along.
"Look! My fake, and rather disturbingly manly looking, daughters! It is the strangely named Prince Charming and his brother, the equally strangely named Prince Even-More-Charming. Go. Bring them to me so they may say the lines given to them and tell our audience why they honour us with a visit. Oh...It would probably be best not to mention that they have both forgot to don the velvet knickerbockers which should complete the lower half of their costumes, it may cause embarrassment."
Sam took a step backwards, his attention solely on the shorter of the two Ugly Sisters. His brain desperately trying to process the incredible sight of Bobby Singer fluttering huge spidery false eyelashes at him from the other side of the stage.
Bobby was resplendent in a huge hoop skirted dress which ended mid-calf. The material was pure Hot Pink with a pattern of randomly scattered, hand sized, acid orange, love hearts. Around Bobby's neck was strewn an incredibly long tangerine orange feather boa. Giant gaudy coloured earrings were clipped to each ear and hooked over one arm was a car crash of an extremely large purse. His legs were encased in thick stripy stockings of scarlet and yellow and on his feet he wore a pair of pink quilted slippers clearly designed to make his feet appear huge. The trashy and badly applied makeup almost faded into insignificance by comparison, except that Bobby was still sporting his usual bearded look. The over-sized brim of his straw sun hat, banded with a variety of flora and fauna as well as colourful decorative birds, butterflies, honey bees and cats, bounced crazily as Bobby, holding the hand of his stage sister, began to skip across the stage towards Sam and Dean.
Sam's stare switched to Bobby's counterpart, and Sam couldn't contain his moan of distress. The sound of his brother's upset overcame everything else, instantly drawing Dean's attention, and sending his already seriously rocked world into a further 90 degree tilt.
"No. No...It...It can't...?"
Hand in hand with Bobby, dressed in matching style but in colours consisting of bright blues and yellows, and with a broad red, lipstick coated, smile on his face, was John Winchester.
Sam felt his legs grow suddenly weak and he grabbed hold of Deans shoulder to steady himself. Feeling the slight tremor in Sam's grip, Dean's emotions shifted gear. Moving from shock, through hope and finally going on up to explosive fury.
"NO! ENOUGH! Show yourself you half pint dick! You don't get to do this! You can't do this!"
On hearing Dean's shout, the Wicked Stepmother rapidly tottered his way to the front of the stage. Castiel was beautifully arrayed in a scarlet, full length Edwardian style day dress, complete with old fashioned high collared neckline, from which cascaded bountiful layers of black lace dotted with sequins that flashed metallic blues and gem like greens beneath the stage lighting. His dress came furnished with an enormous bustle at the back. He carried a black lacy parasol glittering with a profusion of sequins all to itself and, on his head, was perched what could only be described as a black velvet Fez. The Fez was adorned on one side with a fan of large, red ostrich tail feathers that bobbed and wafted cheerfully in time to his every movement. He drew a large breath, and shouted out to the audience Oh yes he can!
As one voice, every single member of the audience joyfully rose to the occasion, bouncing excitedly in their seats as they shouted back to Castiel, Oh..No! He...Can't!
The audience and Cas had happily completed two further renditions of the statements when Wicked Stepmother felt a firm tap on his shoulder. Castiel turned his head, straight into the oncoming fist of Prince Charming. The audience froze. In fact, everybody except Sam and Dean froze. Castiel had been freeze-framed halfway through his unconscious flight to the floor.
The Trickster strolled onto the silent stage, giving Dean a slow handclap.
"You know Deanie...I'm thinking you're missing the whole concept of this pantomime thing somehow. You do understand the idea of light hearted fun, don't you?"
Sam planted himself directly in front of the much shorter man and drew himself up to his full impressive height, folding his arms across his chest and glaring down at the Trickster, effectively blocking the potential for a thoroughly physical response from his older brother.
"Only a sick and perverse moron could describe this as light hearted fun! How dare you? What twisted little part of your imbecilic little mind thinks Dean and I will allow you to make a mockery of the people we love? People we have lost? Exactly how much of a douche bag are you? Trickster? You're nothing more than a walking, talking, infantile joke who hasn't got any kinda life yourself, so you get your kicks by screwing over other people's lives, 'cos that's all you're fit for. And don't bother trying to point out you're some kind of neverheardofhim God! Hell! Even those in Valhalla look down on you; put up with you rather than actually want you around! Did you get your invite to the Winter Solstice Celebrations in the Great Hall? Got any mistletoe wood on you this year? Well?"
-o-o-o-o-
A.N. For anyone needing a memory jog, the Trickster is the Norse God Loki, God of chaos and fire.
Also, the timeline for this is set shortly pre the death of Bobby, although Dean has already completed a hunt with Garth.
SB x