Title: Overrated

Author: Jade Hunter

Disclaimer: None of the characters or properties of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural belong to me.

Prompt: 026 - Money.


He waited in the car, as he always did when Dean chose to do this crap. Making a living, his brother said, and their father would say the same, but Sam had always hated it. Not because it was cheating people out of their hard earned money (because, most of the time, people in places like these weren't exactly your average hard working American), but because other families didn't make it their business to cheat people. Normal people didn't "make a living" hustling.

There was a knock on the window; it was Buffy, her hair shining in the dim light, looking for all the world like she was another young woman out for a good time in a too-rough bar. If Sam hadn't seen her fight the way she did with his own eyes, he would've thought that, too, but he now knew better.

Leaning over, he unlocked the driver's seat door and she slid in.

"He won't mind," she said of Dean, and of her sitting in the driver's seat instead of sliding in the back, which was her usual seat. "Right?"

"Nah," Sam replied, and it was true. Considering how much Dean fell over himself to flirt with her, he wouldn't mind her sitting there, since it wasn't like she was going to drive or anything. "What's up?"

"Couldn't stand the smell in there anymore," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Cigarette smoke and BO do not mix well." She brightened, "Hey, did you know your brother's hustling all these people at the pool table?"

Sam nodded shortly, "Yeah, he does that."

"What?" she asked, raising a brow. For someone who had her moments, Buffy was surprisingly intuitive.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

She just kept looking at him, though, and the urge to tell her was growing. They'd been traveling with each other for a few months now, and Buffy was cool. He liked her. Not in the way Dean liked her, of course, but he liked her in his own way. Not like a sister, since they hadn't known each other for that long, but like a friend type person.

"I just...don't like it," he said gamely. "Why does he have to do that? Why can't we just get normal jobs and earn money like other people?"

She laughed.

Brows knitting together in hurt, Sam stared at her. Of all the possible reactions, her laughing hadn't even been on the list.

"Okay, Sam, I get that this is one of your issues," she said finally. "You want to be normal, I get that. This whole Slayer thing ruined my life, and I can't count the number of times I just wished I could be normal. But, um, speaking as someone who had to work at a Doublemeat Palace for a year to make ends meet, all the while going on patrol smelling like grease, I have to say that you're being very weird here." She laughed again. "Besides, even normal people don't want the jobs you'd be forced to take if Dean didn't do this. I mean, most respectable places wouldn't hire two brothers who live out of their car and don't know how long they're in town for, you know?"

He was quiet for a moment. She was right about that last part, at least, and it blew him away that he hadn't exactly thought about something like that before.

"Buffy?"

"Yeah?"

He turned to look at her seriously. It was one thing to admit to himself that he was wrong with one aspect of this whole normal schtick he had going on, as Dean would say. It was quite another to have his brother, the one he'd been bother with this issue for months, know about it. "Can you not tell Dean we had this conversation?"

She smiled.


FIN.