Chapter 4

Sam is done packing and is waiting in the car by the time Dean comes into the garage. He's used to traveling light and even if he wasn't he can mojo anything else he needs from thin air the way Gabriel used to do. It won't do any harm for Dean to see some sort of proof he is actually a trickster, especially since he has no real plans to be handing out just desserts. Sometimes monsters are human and he agrees they should be stopped, but he can't really muster up the enthusiasm to be punishing them in ridiculous ways and laughing about it. Dean slips into the driver seat giving Sam a strange look. It takes Sam more than two hundred miles to realize that Dean was expecting Sam to want to be in control and driving. Sam supposes if he actually had alpha instincts they might have surfaced then, but he doesn't, and anyways, it's Dean's baby, the idea of someone else driving it while Dean is able to, even if that person is Sam, just doesn't fit right in Sam's head. So maybe it'll shake Dean's confidence that Sam is an alpha, but having failed to insist on driving this first time Sam sees no reason to start insisting later on. Besides, Dean's supposed to drive the impala, that's just the way the world is and Sam has no inclination to change it.

Dean is officially past trying to work Sam out. It doesn't do him any good, all it really does is tie his brain in knots, so he's going to give it up. It'll get filed under possible signs of a trickster – cause wouldn't that be a great trick, leaving everyone confused and bewildered simply by your presence – and if it turns out not to be a trickster thing he's going to file it under general Sam weirdness. It can join his constant staring and his lack of discernible expression on that list.

Dean is heading for a nice simple salt and burn in Texas. He feels safer taking Sam on their first hunt when the prey is something not even living. It will let him get a feel for Sam without offering up a perfect victim for a vicious trickster. If Sam is a vicious trickster. Dean, much as he hates himself for it, is starting to have doubts about Sam's viciousness. Strange, weird, creepy, and brain bending sure, but vicious?

They arrive as the sun is setting. Sam pays for a hotel room with two doubles with cash he's conjured, why Dean's glaring at him like that Sam's not sure given that Dean usually pays by fake credit card, but apparently conjuring money is a sign of evil. Who knew.

They go to the room and Sam conjures food, which Dean looks suspicious of but still eats, and they each claim a bed getting to sleep without speaking another word.

Sam, it turns out, can con people even better than Dean. It shouldn't be a surprise, hello! trickster!, but it manages to catch Dean off guard all the same. Sam talks to witnesses and it's like everything about him changes, he stops being the emotionless alpha and becomes all sweet and trustworthy and shit. Dean was right, the guy has dimples when he smiles, and, it seems, killer puppy dog eyes. Dean isn't quite sure how someone with his size and strength can seem so gentle and harmless but Sam manages it. Hell, if Sam didn't go back to the cold, blank, creepy guy Dean knows every time they're alone Dean might even be questioning his own memory.

All in all, no matter how productive the day, all it does is creep Dean out further, making him worry about how apparently good Sam is at hiding himself, and what he might be hiding from Dean.

They run into the other hunter the next day. Well, they run into the other "agent assigned to the case" the next day, but it's easy to tell he's a hunter. FBI agents assigned to strings of murders generally don't ask questions about the electricity sometimes being on the fritz, which is what the other "agent" is doing when they run into him at the home of the most recent victim's mother.

They take him outside for a chat about the ghost they're all hunting. He's an alpha, Sam can tell by the way he holds himself like he's ready for a fight before anyone's had a chance to start the conversation, so Sam decides to go with what he's mentally dubbed his stay calm till they go away method of dealing with alpha's. The alpha gets up in his face about interfering in his hunt and Sam stays cool, unruffled, and silent throughout. Before this has made alpha's give up, the complete disinterest neither provoking them nor submitting. Apparently Dean's presence changes the alpha's assumptions and he jumps to the conclusion somehow that Sam's an omega and Dean's his alpha. Dean seems taken aback for a moment, then rallies and drives the other hunter off with some controlled but sharp remarks about attacking other's omegas. Silence falls as soon as the other hunter leaves. Sam content to say nothing while Dean seems to be considering something so deeply he isn't even present to the passing of time.

Eventually Dean snaps out of whatever thoughts he was rapped up in and they go to salt and burn the bones of the young girl who is not yet at peace.

Sam had... Sam had... Sam had let that alpha assume that he was an omega and that Dean was an alpha!Dean remembers his earlier decision and stops himself from trying to understand Sam's reasoning. He does however mentally move Sam a couple of points higher on his "weird shit" scale, that, if truth be told, has had to have its top measurement increased several times since he's met Sam. Dean's not sure anybody anywhere has a large enough "weird shit" scale to withstand Sam before they've met him. And if that somebody does exist Dean's rather sure he doesn't want to meet them. Such a person must be some sort of weirdness magnet, and Dean has enough weird in his life just with Sam, he doesn't need to add more.

The trickster has behaved itself at least. And considering how weird it actually is he's having an easier time considering that maybe he should actually give it a chance.

Published: March 19, 2013