"What is this?" Crowley barked, storming into the kitchen in one of Balthazar's v-neck shirts, which was alarming enough by itself for Castiel who had only managed to make it home long enough to change into pajama pants so that it would look like he had slept at the house instead of in Meg's guest bedroom with Dean, but it was made even more terrifying because his agent had just slid his iPad towards him across the top of the breakfast nook with US Weekly's website pulled up in glorious, soul-crushing high definition.
"I know this one!" Charlie piped, settling down next to him with a bowl of Lucky Charms and an innocent smile on her face. "That is Balthazar's iPad, I can tell because you can see right there on the corner where I dropped it when he introduced me to Posh Spice."
"Did you meet David Beckham!?" Alfie asked excitedly, shutting the refrigerator door quickly so he could rush over to Charlie and gossip about British soccer stars.
"Would you two shut up?" Crowley asked, pointing a stern finger at the iPad and looking pointedly at the picture that was displayed across the small screen. "Who is that, James?"
The actor actually looked down at the picture, because so far all that had registered for him was the familiar logo of the gossip magazine before Castiel's heart had kicked into over drive and he had turned his attention towards Charlie's weak attempt at a distraction so that he wouldn't throw up all over the device. It had been too much to hope that he could sneak out to see Dean, especially now that filming had started and paparazzi were being more insistent than ever, angling to get pictures of him and the other stars that no one else would have.
Castiel started trying to compose an excuse for why someone had probably gotten a grainy picture of him kissing Dean in the hallway outside of the employee break room at the bar or maybe saw him that one time when Jess had started serving him tequila at Dean's insistence instead of vodka and waters. Cas had taken a cue from Jo to lean over the booth that he and Charlie and Alfie had ended up in to slap his boyfriend on the butt. It had just been too tempting and Dean's jeans were tight in all of the right places and the other man was just so handsome without even trying and Cas still couldn't believe his luck that the bartender was all his.
But when he looked down at the screen the only thing he could do was thank Meg for being so full of wisdom instead of alcohol like he had been the night before and insisting that he ride with her over to her apartment instead of climbing into the Impala with Dean like had wanted to. Because it wasn't a picture of him and his bartender in a compromising oh-so-homosexual situation that he would never possibly be able to explain to Crowley in a million years, but instead it was a picture of him and Meg heading into her apartment with his arm slung companionably around her shoulders as he laughed at some joke she had made that involved eggplant.
They had only made it into the apartment about ten minutes ahead of Dean who Charlie had stopped to talk to when everyone had parted ways and started climbing into vehicles to leave the bar and head over to Meg's for waffles and a Xena marathon that he remembered both of the girls being pretty excited about. Whatever photographer that had seen him and Meg together must have taken the picture and then gone off to stalk some other unsuspecting celebrity because if they had stuck around then they probably would've seen Dean launching himself at Castiel on the balcony of Meg's apartment They definitely would have gotten the paycheck of a lifetime from just the few seconds that the two men had spent embracing out in the open before heading back inside.
The blazing headline underneath the picture read "James Collins Mystery Woman: Strangers bachelor seen out on the town with unknown love interest". Castiel still had to come up with a lie for what was going on and it's not like he could say that Meg was his girlfriend because fucking everyone in the house knew that he was gay, not that Crowley knew that. But this was better than if someone had gotten a picture of him with Dean, right?
"That is..." He began, clearing his throat and trying to think of the best way to describe Meg to someone who had never met her.
That is my secret boyfriend's best friend? Who her? Meg's just this girl who drinks a lot and watches nothing but 80s movies that feature strong-willed women. That is the manager of the bar that I met the love of my life in? That is my friend Meg who calls me Clarence and doesn't know that two grown men were making out on her couch while your boyfriend's assistant and her were out getting ingredients for waffles at the closest all-night minimart? Oh, by the way I was one of those men and we had sex in her guest bedroom too.
"Meg." Castiel finished lamely, looking over at Charlie who had forced a grin on her face and was nodding beside him.
Crowley nodded and widened his eyes, waving his hand in a gesture that meant he expected the other man to elaborate and expand on that answer before the agent lost his patience. "James, I am not a complete moron. I assumed that she had a name, what I meant is who is this woman to you?"
"She's my friend." He offered softly, hoping that would be the end of it.
"Since when do you have friends that I don't know about?" Crowley asked, channeling the bad cop from every procedural cop drama that Dean bitched about his uncle loving the hell out of when he was a teenager.
"She's his beard," Charlie spat out suddenly, along with about half a mouthful of cereal and earning a disgusted look from Crowley before his face lit up brighter than Cas had ever seen it.
"That's bloody brilliant," the other man stated plainly, reaching across and ruffling Charlie's hair playfully. It was the playful part that was scaring Castiel just a little bit.
"You aren't mad that she knows?" the actor asked, tensing himself up to push Charlie or Alfie out of harm's way if it looked like his agent was about to snap and go postal on all of them.
"How could I be mad at her when she's doing such a good job taking care of you?" Crowley replied, moving to pinch Charlie's cheeks too, but she ducked back out of his reach with a strangled sounding laugh looking at Castiel with an anxious expression on her face. "I should have thought of it years ago. Do you know how many problems this would have solved if I had just hired someone to pose as your girlfriend all this time?"
"I didn't hire her, Crow." Castiel said quickly before his agent got ahead of himself and started planning a big elaborate fake wedding for him and Meg because he needed more exposure or something else that would further his career. "Meg is actually my friend."
"No one does something for nothing, James." Crowley said seriously, frowning at his client. "What does she want from you for doing this? I mean, she must know that it's not real? Surely, you wouldn't be heartless enough to lead some poor girl on, I'm not even sure I could do that and I would sell my own mother if I needed a part for the Aston."
"Jesus," Alfie muttered, looking meaningfully at Charlie before heading for the living room.
"So is your relationship with Balthazar based on getting something from him?" Charlie asked, always protective of her boss even though he was years older than her and a million times more worldly.
"Of course it is," Crowley said with a shrug, sliding the iPad back over to himself and clicking on the link to the presumably speculative article that had been written about Castiel's picture with Meg. "He is with me because it's the most convenient thing for him right now and I am with him because well, like I said, I'm not heartless."
"You don't think it could be more than that?" Castiel asked, feeling just a little bit sorry for the other man if he couldn't see that Balthazar was more invested in whatever it was they had going on besides it just being easier to spend time with Crowley rather than putting in the effort to find someone else.
"I try to be realistic, my boy." Crowley said with a sad smirk quirking the corners of his mouth. "If you trust that everyone had good intentions then you put yourself out there to be hurt, so you get hurt. It's as simple as that."
"Your mother didn't hug you enough," Charlie said decisively, letting her spoon clatter down into her bowl and twirling out of the room to go plop down next to Alfie on the couch, picking up the video game controller the younger man offered her.
"If she wasn't a genius, I would swear that Balthazar was fond of her," Crowley grumbled, letting his eyes rove over the article and scoffing just a bit at whatever he was reading. "You didn't answer my question."
"I'm sorry," Cas deadpanned, poking at his own soggy bowl of Cheerios and deciding that the vodka and tequila were conspiring against him to starve him out. "I was a little distracted by finding out that you didn't have a soul. Of course, she doesn't think it's real, Crow. Meg's not an idiot, she's doing me a favor because she is a good friend of mine and she wants to see me happy."
"Well it's nice to know that you're taking your career as seriously as I do," Crowley replied, straightening up and heading back out of the room, presumably to go back upstairs to Balthazar who had a habit of sleeping in whenever he possibly could. They had all agreed that jetlag had stopped being an excuse that the other man could use a while ago. "Invite her to dinner or something, I wouldn't mind meeting another friend of yours and chances are I'll like her at least as much as I like Patrick."
"I'll see what I can do."
As soon as his agent had disappeared, Castiel was up and out the back door of the house; fleeing across the wide back yard and towards the gate that lead to the private stretch of beach that ran behind the guesthouse. He pulled out his phone, debating about who he should call first. Cas had left Dean asleep in Meg's guest bedroom before the sun even came up, accidentally rousing the other man when he crawled out of bed after getting a text from Charlie saying that Alfie had finally shown up to get them; the younger man had disappeared with her car after two episodes of Xena and a mysterious text that made his driver blush beet red.
Dean had clung to him and begged him not to go, burying his face in his neck and wrapping a leg around him in an effort to keep the actor in the bed with him. Every time that Cas had to leave Dean he felt like he was leaving a piece of his heart behind with the other man and he knew eventually it would either make him bitter and jaded or desperate enough to do something stupid. Something stupid like volunteering his boyfriend's lesbian best friend who had done nothing but cover for Castiel and Dean so far to be his beard in the very harsh media spotlight that followed him everywhere. Maybe he should call Meg first.
He bit his lip and pressed the call button, glancing back at the house to make sure that Crowley wasn't watching him from the balcony and wondering what he was doing outside when his agent knew that Cas hated sand and the beach and only liked the ocean in theory because it smelled the same no matter what coast you were on.
"Dean, wake up." Meg said jumping onto the bed next him and hitting him in the head repeatedly with a pillow until he moved to weakly bat her away. "Goddamnit, Dean. I'm not fucking around wake up, I have news! News that you will love me forever for!"
"You made me a huge plate of bacon?" Dean grumbled, pushing the smaller woman off of him so that he could grab the pillow that she was hitting him with and clutch it to his chest.
It was Cas's pillow and he didn't want it smelling like fucking girly ass gardenias or something from Meg touching it. Yes, it was technically her pillow and she could have it back eventually, but for now he wanted to pretend like his boyfriend hadn't left at the asscrack of dawn with whispered promises that he would see him as soon as he could. Dean was getting really tired of not having definitive times that he could see Castiel, if he was a movie star or famous or something then this wouldn't be a problem anymore. Then they could just be together and no one would care because it wouldn't seem like his actor was dating down with some out of work mechanic turned bartender.
"No bacon," Meg said cheerily; too cheerily for someone who didn't have bacon happening in their life right now in Dean's opinion, but then again he always got a little grumpy in the morning when people woke him up before he was ready to function. "But it's as good as bacon, it can mean that you're going to get to see your lurver as much as you freaking want because I'm amazing and awesome and you should worship the fucking ground I walk on."
"Unless you've turned into a cup of coffee in the last five milliseconds or so I highly doubt I will be worshipping anything about you, Meg." Dean groused, making sure that the sheets were wrapped firmly around his waist before he sat up and scooted back to prop himself up against the headboard. "What did you do that was so freaking fantastic and what does it have to do with Cas?"
Meg squeaked and pulled her phone out, waving it merrily in his direction before settling into his side and putting her head on his shoulder with a satisfied sigh. Dean looked at the headline that was plastered across the small screen of her Android, frowning down at the picture of Cas and Meg that had the world's most inaccurate article attached to it. Least of which was them thinking that the pair was a couple because they said that Meg was sweet and mild-mannered and a struggling actress instead of a sassy, foul mouthed bar manger.
"The fact checker at this magazine is so going to be fired," Dean said with a laugh, handing the other girl her phone back once he had finished the article. "You're not a struggling actress, that's totally ridiculous."
"I moved here to be an actress," Meg said simply, shrugging just a bit and clicking around on her phone to a Xena fan website. "I'm kinda surprised that you're not freaking out about it, maybe this is you maturing Dean."
"You never told me that," Dean said with a little frown, looking down at the smaller woman who just shrugged again and enlarged a picture of Xena's breastplate, making a little hum of confusion over the image. "And why would I be freaking out? Some photographer got a lucky shot and can pay his rent this month off of that picture. It's just going to suck for him when Cas finally comes out."
Meg moved away from him with a stricken expression on her face, biting her lip and grabbing a hold of his hand that was propped up on Cas's pillow that he had put in his lap. "Dean, I don't think that's going to be happening anytime soon."
"Why not?" Dean asked, narrowing his eyes shrewdly as he searched her face for whatever it was that was making her look at him like she had just ran over his puppy. "It's not like we can hide forever, Meg. I mean, I love him that kind of leads to other things farther down the road. I would eventually like to take him out on a real date, do the whole dinner and a movie schtick even though it's super lame. I want all of that with Cas and he wants all of that with me."
"Of course he does, sweetie." Meg said soothingly, glancing at Dean's phone when it started vibrating on the nightstand that was on his other side. "You just need to be supportive of whatever hare brained schemes he comes up with until he's ready to come out of the Hollywood closet."
"What did you two do?" Dean choked out at Meg who just shook her head and mouthed wordlessly besides him as he scrambled for his phone and pressed it to his ear as soon as he saw that it was his actor calling him.
"I'm guessing you saw it?" Castiel's voice came through the phone's earpiece, managing to calm Dean just with the sound of his gruff baritone even though his mind was racing with all of the different things that Meg and his boyfriend could have done in the name of helping their relationship stay a secret.
"Yea, Meg just showed me." Dean said, tightening his grip on his friend's hand when she started to get off the bed. "And she saying some pretty vaguely scary stuff that is making me think that you did something dumb."
"Well, it was Charlie actually," Castiel replied, Dean could hear the shushing sound of ocean waves breaking on the beach behind the actor's temporary home and he knew that the other man hadn't corrected his agent's misguided assumptions about the picture of James Collins's mystery girlfriend. "But it's still a good idea as long as we're careful and Meg has agreed to help me for as long as I need her to so that you and I can spend more time together."
"What am I supposed to do, Cas?" Dean asked agitatedly. "Just fucking live in her guest bedroom and keep hoping that no one sees you and me leaving at the same? What did your agent think of your little plan?"
"His words were, and I'm quoting, 'bloody brilliant'," Castiel said sounding absolutely delighted that his agent was on board with yet another lie about his client, how much was going to be too much before it all came crashing down on them? "Don't you see this is a good thing, Dean?"
"How could this possibly be good?" Dean barked, letting Meg escape out of the room with a mouthed 'Sorry' at him as he ran his hand through his bedraggled hair. "In case you haven't forgotten, Meg is just as gay as you are. How is it going to help your image at all to be seen out and about with a lesbian? And what if she wants to have her own relationship, Cas? What if she meets someone and you two have to do a big fake break up for the press?"
"That's just it! She gets to spend time with the person that she likes and I get to spend time with you."
"Charlie," Dean said drily, letting his head clunk back hard on the headboard so that maybe the pain would wake him up from how surreal his life had become. "So what is Charlie going to pretend to be my girlfriend and we'll just go on double dates with our fake girlfriends together so that we can see each other?"
"I hadn't really brought it up to Charlie yet," Castiel replied. "But why not, Dean? At least this way I can walk down the street with you without all of America speculating about my sexuality."
"I just don't see why you fucking care," Dean barked, punching the pillow in his lap in frustration. "Why does it matter if everyone knows that you're gay? Why is it anyone's business but yours who you sleep with?"
"Because I haven't made it yet, Dean." The other man said desperately. "I'm not to that point where I can make big revelations about myself to the public and expect them to still go see movies that I'm in. Half of my fans will boycott me and the other half won't be able to picture me playing a romantic heterosexual lead. I'll be forever type cast as the villain or the gay best friend or the sage, asexual sidekick. I will never get a lead role again."
"Roche knows though, right?" Dean asked harshly, remembering all of the pictures that he had seen over the last week of the director running his hands through the other man's hair or leaning into his actor like they were old lovers. "He knows you're gay and you still got the lead in his movie."
"Of course he knows, Dean." Castiel sighed through the phone. "But he's not afraid of what people think, it's different in other countries. They aren't as hung up about this kind of thing like Americans are and he's being really understanding about Crowley."
"Well, if he's so fucking understanding then maybe you wouldn't have to hide if you were with him." Dean spat, wondering when the jealously that he had pushed down the night before had come back out to play and wishing that he could hide how much it was caused by him being scared of losing Castiel just like he had lost Victor. "Maybe Crowley would fucking love Roche because they're both fucking British and can go fuck off and drink tea and talk about how wonderful it is that they get to be around you as much as they want when no one else does."
"Why are we talking about Balthazar? What does any of this have to do with him?" Castiel asked confusedly, but all Dean could hear was his boyfriend trying to change the subject and it felt like just another thing that the actor was hiding just like he was hiding him and when was it going to end. "I'm doing this for you, Dean. So that I can be with you more and Meg is trying to do us a favor and I'm just trying to enjoy having a win in this whole situation for once. It's hard enough without you acting childish about the whole thing."
"I'm acting childish?" Dean scoffed, disbelievingly. "Cas, you are the one who is over thirty and still hiding in the closet from the whole world. I did the whole coming out thing a long time ago and I'm still standing, it didn't ruin my life and it's not going to ruin yours."
"Can we just try it my way, Dean? Just for a little bit to see if it can work? If it doesn't we'll figure out something else; some other way to explain who you are to me so the press leaves us alone."
"I know who I am, Cas." He replied softly, shoving back his possessiveness of the other man yet again because fuck everything Dean really did love him and would take whatever he could of Cas for as long as he could until something went wrong to screw it all up. "I don't want to be your dirty little secret forever. I just want you."
"I know. I just want you too." His actor said tightly. "And we'll get there, baby steps. And yes, by the way."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I would love to go on a double date with you Dean Winchester."
Dean laughed at that, it was slightly panicked and more than a little tearful because he knew that he couldn't keep going without Cas by his side forever before he snapped and did something that blew their cover in a big way. But it was also a little relieved because he hadn't seen any pictures of his actor out on innocent working lunch dates with Balthazar and that made him feel better as he said goodbye to the other man and told him he loved him and got up to start getting dressed. Meg barged in right when he pulled on his jeans from the night before, bearing a pile of sheets that she tossed at his chest with an appeasing smile.
"It's fine, Meg." Dean said, setting the linens down on the edge of the bed so that he could try to find his shirt from wherever Cas had pulled it off of him the night before. Apparently tequila plus vodka made for a very forward closeted actor, sporting a Russian accent and murmuring things into Dean's neck in a foreign language; it had been hot as hell. "Your dads aren't fighting anymore, you don' have to pick which one you want to spend summer vacation with."
"Good," She said smiling wider and toeing his boots towards him. "Because I would've picked the dad who had a beach in his backyard and a foxy redheaded assistant for me to gawk at."
"Ouch," he replied, clutching at his chest like he was wounded before pulling his shirt over his head and starting the task of changing the sheets that his friend at least had the grace not to mention were much less pristine after he and Cas had commandeered the bedroom. "Charlie seems real cool though, probably too nice for you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Meg asked defensively, twirling a lock of her dark wavy hair around her finger and gnawing on her lip.
"You usually go for edgier girls," Dean replied with a shrug, smiling at how distraught his friend looked at that comment. "Girls who ride motorcycles and wear a lot of leather and have a lot of kinky sex toys."
"Well maybe my tastes are changing," Meg said quickly, gesturing at Dean in disbelief. "I mean if playboy Dean Winchester can decide to settle down with someone then maybe I can decide that I'd rather have someone who likes to cosplay and read comic books more than they like to bungee jump off of the Golden Gate Bridge."
"Still kind of surprised that Bela talked you into doing that." Dean pointed out, bundling up the soiled sheets and carting them off to the washing machine that Meg had in a small room off of her kitchen. "Cas wants to do a real date, by the way."
"He told me," Meg replied trailing after him and leaning with her arms crossed over her chest in the doorway, watching him struggle with her ancient washing machine that he had fixed on more than one occasion for her. "You and I should go get breakfast and plot out my intricate seduction of Charlene Bradbury over mimosas and an obscene amount of scrambled eggs."
"You sure your boyfriend isn't gonna get mad at me if I let you take me out to breakfast?" Dean teased, ignoring how it made his heart hurt a little bit that everyone was going to think that Cas was Meg's and not know that the actor belonged heart and soul to him instead.
"Not if I tell him that you treated me," Meg said sticking her tongue out at him and going off to gather her purse. "You owe me, Dean. I'm sacrificing dating every coked out of her mind actress between here and Mexico for you and your future husband. It's really the very least you could do."
"You're right, you are a saint," Dean corrected himself, perching on the back of the couch and crossing his leg onto his knee so that he could tie up the laces of his boots. "And I will feed you for the rest of your life if it means that I get to see Cas every day and can keep him away from Balthazar Roche."
"Charlie said he's a good guy," the girl cajoled. "And apparently he's being a really good friend to Cas. She said that you and him would probably get on like gangbusters."
"I bet. Can we go now?" the bartender asked, changing the subject off of something that would make him start cycling like a jealous jerk again when he knew that if anyone was being too friendly with anyone, it was Balthazar towards Cas and his boyfriend would tell the other man to back off if it got too out of hand. Wouldn't he?
"Oh, Dean." Meg cooed, hooking her arm through his and leading him out the door and to the elevator. "This is a good idea, Charlie is a genius. You get your man and I get my girl and everyone is happy. What could possibly go wrong?"
"You realize that's what people say in movies right before something goes wrong right?"
"Shut up, you're spoiling my moment." The other woman snapped, smiling serenely as the elevator took them down to the bottom floor of her apartment complex.
Luckily visitors needed to be buzzed in to get into the front glass doors of Meg's building, so it gave Dean enough time to step away from her and shove her out ahead of him when the metal doors in front of them slid open to reveal a crush of paparazzi milling around directly outside the doors, cameras at the ready to snap a picture of the nameless woman who had managed to snag Hollywood's latest up and coming bachelor. As soon as they saw Meg the flashbulbs started going off and muffled questions were hurled at her through the glass separating the two of them from the men and women who really were just trying to do their jobs.
"What's your name?"
"How long have you and James Collins been an item?"
"Do you like Coke or Pepsi?"
Dean just shrugged when Meg looked back at him with a terrified expression on her face before pulling out his phone and shooting off a message to Charlie that she and Cas better start coming up with the details of their whole stupid lie.
"How'd it go?" Charlie asked Castiel, punching at the buttons on her controller so that she could shoot the zombie that was sneaking up behind Alfie on the screen.
"Fine," the actor sighed, running a hand through his hair before freezing and leaning to the side, craning his neck so that he could see into the foyer. "Where's Crowley?"
"He went out for bagels for Balthy," Alfie replied, making a whipping motion with his hand before hurriedly putting it back onto the controller and cursing under his breath when a baddie jumped out of nowhere from the side of the screen. "No so scary now that he's whipped."
Castiel smirked at the younger man and set his phone down on the kitchen counter, rubbing at his temples. "I think I'm going to go back to sleep."
"Yea, you realize that the volume on Meg's television only goes so high right?" Charlie asked, glancing back at him.
"We'll never be louder than Crowley and Balthazar," Castiel replied jokingly, heading out of the room and towards the stairs.
"You'd think that was something to aspire to," Alfie muttered, settling back on the couch from where he had been sitting on the edge now that all of the zombies were dead and he and Charlie were moving onto another part of the building that they were exploring.
"Where did you get off to last night?" Charlie asked, crossing her legs underneath herself and pulling one of the throw pillows into her lap. "Keep in mind that you stole my car and I've low jacked that sucker so you can tell me or I can look it up online. Honesty is easier."
"Says the girl who just lied about the girl she likes being her friend's beard."
"We aren't talking about me," Charlie replied, elbowing the younger man sharply in the ribs. "We're talking about you and why you went to an all night diner in my car over in Bayview instead of staying with me and Meg and watching Xena and planning your Iolaus cosplay with us."
"Who the hell is Iolaus?" Alfie asked, making his character jump onto a bookshelf for no other reason than he could.
"He is Hercules' sidekick. We've already decided that Dean is going to be Hercules."
"And Cas?"
"Picture some amazing facial hair on him and we have our perfect Ares." Charlie replied ruefully, causing the other man to groan in disbelief. "But seriously, who did you go to meet?"
"Why do you think I went to meet someone? Maybe I just really wanted some diner food at four o'clock in the morning."
"That's understandable, but I know from experience that I've had some of my best, most life-altering conversations over greasy burgers and bad coffee in tiny roadside diners. Spill."
"I met someone," Alfie said simply. "Last night when you and Meg went to track down the boys, a guy bought me a drink."
"Suck it, Fergie!" Charlie said, doing a spinning kick to open a door that probably would have opened if she had just hit 'X'. "He totally thought you were straight, by the way. I now own the moon; you may visit me in my new kingdom of Moondoor, where I am the queen."
"Good to know that you all have been speculating about my sexuality."
"Relax, dude." The girl said, sounding more apologetic than you would expect about the whole betting thing. "He hired you because he thought you were straight, so take it as you paying back his threats by pulling one over on him. What's his name?"
"Chris, he's a teacher."
"You and Dean with your nerds, that's cute." Charlie commented jokingly.
"You're one to talk Ms. I-have-a-Princess-Leia-tattoo," Aflie replied, picking up a gun where it was hidden under a table in the room they were in.
"Hey, it's awesome, she's riding a twenty sided die, and what happens at Comic-Con stays at Comic-Con," Charlie said sternly. "What does your teacher teach?"
"Art or something at UCLA I think."
"That's very specific, Alf. You're one hell of a listener." The girl said drily, jumping up from her seat and pointing wildly at a hoard of zombies that had just appeared in the next room that they had been headed into. "Shoot, Iolaus!"
"For Moondoor!" The younger man yelled, firing wildly into the mêlée until Charlie's phone started buzzing on the coffee table in front of them and they had to pause the game to take care of whatever new drama their respective bosses were freaking out over.
Author Note: I love Alfie and happy holidays and all updates for everything are still gonna happen this week even though people have lives and families and other things to do besides read fanfiction. I have nothing else to do, so I'll keep writing it. Enjoy your turkey and catch up all at once. Also guys, I have a tumblr where I sometimes post up stuff that doesn't make it anywhere else (drabbles, ficlets, random spn stuff) its :deathsteelwriter. So visit me if you feel like it, I am a lot less creepy than you are probably picturing.