DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CRIMINAL MINDS, SUPERNATURAL, OR ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HERE IN...
After an hour or two of just driving, Dean decided to chance the radio. He noticed someone had taken out the old system and replaced it with a slightly tweaked out set up. Hoping that whatever came blaring out of the speakers was anything but Gaga, Dean turned the dial. He was pleasantly surprised. The intro sounded fairly rock'n'roll. "I could get used to this..", he mused aloud, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and bobbing his head. When he heard the lyrics, he almost busted a gut laughing. It was 'Tear It Up' by Queen. Dean shook his borrowed head in amusement. "Perfect", he grinned.
'Are you ready? Well, are you ready? We gonna tear it up!'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!'
'Turn me lose, baby..'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!'
'Wooah!'
'Hey! Give me your mind, baby! Give me your body..'
'Yeah! Give me some time, baby, let's have a party..'
'It ain't no time for sleepin', baby, soon it's round your street I'm creepin'- you better be ready!'
'We gotta tear it up! Stir it up! Break it up! Baby!
'We gotta tear it up! Shake it up! Make it up- as you go along!'
'Tear it up! Swear it up! Wake it up! Baby!'
'Tear it up! Start it up! Stake it out- and you can't go wrong..'
'Hey. Listen, I love you 'cause you're sweeter, love you 'cause you're naughty..'
'Yeah! I love you for your mind, baby, give me your body..'
'Oh, I wanna be a toy at your birthday party..'
'Wind me up! Wind me up! Wind me up!- and let me go!'
'Tear it up! Stir it up! Break it up!- and let me go..
'Tear it up! Shake it up! Make it up!- as you go along!'
'Tear it up! Turn it up! Burn it up! Baby..'
'Are you ready? Oh yeah!'
'Baby, baby, baby, are you ready for me? Oh yeah!'
'Baby, baby, baby, are you ready for love? Oh yeah!'
'Are you ready? Are you ready, are you ready for me? Yeah! Oh yeah!'
'Alright.. I love you so near! I love you so far! Gotta tell ya, baby, you're drivin' me gaga!'
It was close to noon when Dean pulled off the road and decided to check in on the incantation situation, and hopefully grab a bite to eat at a near by diner. He had taken apart the tiny, pink cell and deposited the pieces into the empty, plastic shopping bag. He figured he could get someone to stick it back together later, but if he hadn't taken the phone apart, Derek and friends might have seen fit to use the GPS to track him.
That's all he needed; the FBI back on his trial.
Dean asked to use the phone in the diner before he placed his order. He sipped a coffee and waited for someone to pick up.
"Singer's auto salvage", a gruff voice greeted, "How can I help you?"
"Bobby, It's Dean", Dean muttered in undertone into the receiver.
"Hey, cutie pie", Bobby chuckled, "How far away are ya'? 'Other you' is gettin' antsy."
"I just stopped for a bite", Dean answered, taking another sip of coffee.
"Is that Dean?", Penelope asked, having just returned from fawning over the impala for the tenth time.
Bobby nodded at 'her'.
"Can I talk to him?", she asked. "Something's bothering me.."
"Yeah, sure", Bobby shrugged, handing her the phone immediately.
"Dean?", Penelope asked using dean's old voice.
"Hey", Dean greeted, shivering inwardly. He still wasn't used to this whole someone-else-in-his-body-thing.
"Did you turn off my cell?", Penelope asked in a worried tone of voice. "My friends can track you-"
"-Via the sin card", dean finished for her. "Yeah, I know. I took it apart to be safe. Sorry about that, by the way."
"That's okay", Penelope dismissed lightly. "I could put it back together in my sleep. I was just worried about the tracking part. My team is the best in the FBI, and they have a tech pool at their disposal, so.." she trailed off.
"What's a tech pool?", Dean asked, nursing his cuppa' joe.
Penelope couldn't believe her borrowed ears. "You don't know what a tech pool is?"
"No, I'm not a frickin' genius. I don't know everything!", Dean barked.
"Sorry", Penelope apologized. "It's a room full of technical analysts who track down badies using the boundless resources of the internet", she explained. "That's what I do. For my team. I'm their specialized tech."
"So.. they can't find me without you, right?", Dean asked, his hopes high.
"I will admit they'll have a more difficult time of it", Penelope sighed. "but alas, there are indeed suitable replacements."
"can you keep an eye on the news for me then, and give me a heads up if I.. you.. this body should become the FBI's most wanted?"
Penelope chuckled at the unintended innuendo.
"I'm gonna pick up a disposable cell and send Sam the digits", Dean continued.
"Will do", Penelope agreed, "What are you up to anyway? I hope you're treating my body right." Penelope hadn't meant for it to come out all flirty, but it was difficult to rein that sort of thing when your new voice was so... silky.
Dean cringed. "Um... creepy, but- yeah. Everything's good here. I don't intend to do anything that might attract too much attention, so don't worry. This piece a' tail ain't going nowhere."
"Hey!", Penelope huffed, making Dean's voice sound rather girly, "My usual body is not just some piece of tail! I treat it the same way I treat Ester! Not just any old thing goes into that 'engine'!"
"Who's Ester?", Dean was almost afraid to ask. He was picturing some 80-year-old lady with grey, curly hair and a lilac dress-suit for some reason.
"You've been driving around in her..", Penelope rolled 'her' eyes.
"You named your car Ester?", Dean asked incredulously.
"Well, what was I supposed to name her?", Penelope fumed. "I bet it's better then whatever you named yours!"
"My car doesn't need a name because it already had one when my dad bought it!", Dean barked. "Im-pal-a!"
"Oh that's so original", Penelope mocked.
"It doesn't need to be 'original'", Dean argued, losing his cool a little before remembering he was in the middle of a diner and was trying to keep a low profile. "It's functional", he continued in undertone. And then, a thought occurred to him. "Hey, are you allergic to anything, by the way? It's just- I don't wanna put me in the hospital just 'cause I ate peas or something."
Penelope thought the abrupt change in topic rather odd, but replied never-the-less. "Um, no. Not really. Veggies are fine. It's only meat you gotta worry about."
"Come again?", Dean asked 'his' heart skipping a couple of beats.
"My body can't handle protein very well", Penelope explained. "My parents were hippies. I've been a vegetarian since I was seven."
"SON-OF-A-BITCH!", Dean cursed rather loudly in despair. This was turning into a nightmare and people were beginning to stare. "You mean to tell me that even two bites of a delicious cheese burger might make me hurl?"
"I'm saying that if you take two bites of any kind of meat besides a small amount of fish, you may be looking at toxic shock and a coma", Penelope tried to stress how serious the situation was, "not to mention the major loss of karma. Eating animals is wrong. It's like eating poor, defenceless babies."
"The dumb cow doesn't care anymore!", Dean growled in abject frustration. "It's dead!"
"You self-centred carnivore!", Penelope snapped.
"You damn tree-huggin'-bitch!", Dean snarled back. "Of all the enviro- green house- flower sniffin- rainbows and sunshine lovin'- van hoppin' skanks on this god damn blue marble, I had to get the one with the meat allergy!"
"Well, excuse me, 'princess'!", Penelope barked, "I'm so sorry I'd rather not eat anything that once had a face! Once felt the warmth of the sun on it's skin! Once may have had children and a family! Maybe they didn't understand what they had, but they had it! They had emotions, and eyes, and hearts, and maybe even a soul, so whatever gives us the right to take that away from them? Can you tell me that? How can you be so heartless? So cruel? Is that what you really think? Or is it the blood-lust stirring in your veins that makes you lash out so irrationally?" Penelope sat, breathing heavily, waiting for Dean to come up with an answer to her impassioned speech.
"Listen..", Dean tried to amend after a brief silence, "I didn't mean- It's just- I eat a cheese burger at least every day or two. I need meat. It's the one good thing in my life that always stays the same, you know? Sam goes AWOL.. the impala gets totalled.. someone you care about.. well, they aren't there anymore, and the day just keeps shittin' on ya', but the one thing that fixes all that, faster and better than anything, is a grease ball burger, a coke and some homemade pie. Not being able to have that.. I don't know what that world is like, and, to be honest, I hope to never have to know that world."
"Well.. pie is still okay", Penelope relented. "I love pie."
"Thank god", Dean sighed with relief. "Okay, I guess I'll have to deal for now."
"And you might want to buy a bag of almonds or walnuts or something to keep your energy up", Penelope added as an after thought. "I never go anywhere without almonds. I'll give you my debit and credit pins, but only if you promise not to over charge the accounts."
"Wait, why would you trust me with your pin numbers?", Dean asked in confusion. He'd never trust anyone with his.
"How else are you supposed to pay for that lunch you've been planning to order?", Penelope pointed out shrewdly. "Think about it, sunshine."
Dean gulped. He hadn't even thought of that.
Penelope held her borrowed hand over the receiver. "Do you have a computer around here?", she asked Bobby, who was tidying up near by.
"Ah, Sam might", Bobby answered after a moments thought. "Sam!"
Sam came jogging into the room. "Yeah?"
"You have a laptop, right?", Bobby asked.
"Yeah, you need it?"
"'She' does", Bobby gestured to the smiling 'Dean'.
"Okay, I'll go get it", and he jogged back out of the room. Sam reappeared moments later with his laptop tucked underneath his right arm.
"Here you go", Sam offered, handing the laptop to the Penelope with Dean's face.
"Thanks", Penelope grinned warmly.
Sam just nodded. It was so weird, knowing that it wasn't his brother looking at him through those eyes.
Once Penelope had accessed Sam's system, she began the process of stripping it down and installing a new system to better suit her needs.
Sam and bobby watched in awe as Dean's fingers, once so clunky and suited to more brawny tasks, flew across the laptop keyboard with careful precision.
"Bye-bye, windows", Penelope muttered aloud, deleting the offensive software. "Hello Linux", she smirked, hitting the enter button and watching with satisfaction as the new system began to install itself. After the installation was complete, and quickly customized, she wasted no time in opening various tabs and windows and quietly remote accessing her system at Quantico to monitor for any trouble. "All set up", she chirped into Bobby's phone. "Looks like nothing too frightening is happening so far, but I'll keep you updated."
"Good", Dean mumbled around a mouthful of homemade apple pie.
"The pin numbers for my debit and credit respectively are 7118 and 3912. Good luck out there."
"Roger that", Dean affirmed, ending the call and attacking the pie with true earnest.
[a/n: at last! i finished this blasted chapter! thank heavens! i had most everything else figured out, meaning what direction i wanted to take, all except this frickin' diner chapter and that's the one that stopped me cold. go figure. anyway, i hope everyone's not too mad. love y'all. peace.] [PS: i happened on the song at the beginning by accident. i didn't even know it was on my mp3 player until it started blaring in my ears. it's definitely worth a listen.. or ten listens...]
