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Chapter name borrowed from LYNX.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE- TRICKSTERS AND FOOLS

Sam sat on the couch looking through the books, rubbing his face tiredly.

He waved me off when I tried to help him.

"You've got less sleep than I have, Odette, drop it."

I gave up, curling into the nearest armchair.

Dean sat on his bed behind Sam, rapidly polishing off his chili cheese fries.

I glanced at the radio with ill-concealed dislike.

Sam looked up, annoyed.

"Dude. You mind not eating those on my bed?"

Dean shrugged.

"No, I don't mind."

He ate another.

Sam gritted his teeth.

"You know how it's going? Slow. You know how it would go a heck of a lot faster? If I had my computer."

"Hmm," Dean ignored him.

I looked uneasily between them.

"Here, Sam," I held out my own laptop. "Use mine."

"Thank you," Sam said pointedly, glaring at Dean.

He twitched at the music.

"Can you turn that down, please?"

"Yeah, absolutely."

He turned it up louder.

I repressed a sigh.

"You know what?" Sam's left eye twitched.

"Maybe, uh, you should just go somewhere for a while."

Dean shut off the radio and looked up irritably.

"Hey, I'd love to. That's a great idea. Unfortunately, my car's all screwed to hell."

Sam sighed.

"Dean, I told you, I have nothing to do with-"

He was cut off by the reappearance of Castiel.

Dean threw his hands in the air.

"Finally! Some competent assistance!"

Sam scowled.

"Hi, Castiel," I smiled shyly.

"What seems to be the problem?"

Castiel sat down on a chair uncomfortably, looking so out of place I wanted to laugh.

"It's this job we're working," Sam began. "We've never seen anything like it."

"Not even close," Dean shook his head.

Castiel glanced at us.

"Tell me."

"So it all started when we caught wind of an obit. See, a professor took a nosedive from a fourth story window, only there's a campus legend the building's haunted. So we pretexted as reporters from the local paper."

Sam swung around to glower at Dean.

"I found out about the local legend, when Dean was all over this blonde barfly named Starla," Sam continued, and I put my head in my hands as he repeated what he'd said to me earlier.

"Fishnets!" Sam finished.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dean crossed his arms. "Hold on a minute."

"What?" Sam snapped.

"Come on, dude, that's not how it happened."

"No?" Sam raised an eyebrow. "So you never drank a purple nurple?"

"Yeah, maybe that," Dean conceded. "But her name wasn't Starla."

"Then what was it?"

"I don't know."

He turned to Castiel, taking up the story.

"But she was a classy chick. Grad student, anthropology and folklore. We were talking about local ghost stories."

Castiel only looked politely befuddled.

Dean continued, waggling his fingers at Sam threateningly.

"And Sam's all prissy, doesn't even let me get five minutes alone…."

"Right," Sam interrupted sarcastically.

"And that's how it really happened."

Dean shrugged.

"I don't sound like that, Dean!"

Dean was unconcerned.

"That's what you sound like to me."

Castiel stared at them calculatingly.

"You are unusually…. antagonistic towards each other."

"Nothing," Sam swiped at his hair. "It's nothing."

"I find that hard to believe," Castiel said calmly.

"It is uncommon behavior for the two of you."

"Look, it," Sam paused.

"We've just been on the road for too long. Tight quarters, all that. Don't worry about it."

Castiel didn't look as if he believed him, but let the matter drop.

"So, anyway," Sam resumed.

"We figured it might be a haunting, so we went to check the scene of the crime."

Castiel tilted his head.

"So we spoke to the janitor. Apparently, the dead guy used to bring in a lot of girls to his apartment. There was one the night he died, too. The janitor never saw her come out."

Sam threw a dirty look at Dean.

"And he," Sam stabbed a finger at Dean.

"Kept stuffing his face with nuts."

"Oh, come on," Dean huffed. "I ate one, maybe two!"

"Just let me tell it, okay?"

"We came back here, and I tried to do some research," Sam frowned at Dean.

"But he ruined my laptop!"

"I did not!" Dean countered.

Castiel looked at me for an explanation.

"We couldn't find anything on the building," I said. "History's clean."

"Then it's not a haunting," Castiel stood up.

"The next thing is pretty weird, even for us," Dean added.

"What is?"

So we told him.

~Supernatural~

If Castiel had been capable of laughing, I think he wouldn't have hesitated to do so at this point.

"Aliens? That is highly improbable, even for…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Dean cut him off.

"We thought so too, until we saw the saucer-shaped scorch mark in the park."

"I see."

"And then," Sam exploded. "Dean stole my laptop!"

"You jacked up the Impala!"

"You took my money!"

Sam tackled Dean to the bed, wrestling him.

Dean batted him away, kicking at his legs.

"Hey, guys! Guys!"

I tried to separate them, and ended up squashed between Dean and Sam, fighting for breath.

I couldn't help laughing at the mess we were in.

"Get off!"

"No, you get off!"

"No, you!"

"You're squashing Bambi, Giantopolos!"

I sighed, trying to free myself to no avail.

Castiel pulled us apart easily.

"I know what you're hunting."

Three pairs of eyes flashed to his face.

"The two of you were my biggest clue."

"Quit the drama, Pretty Boy, and tell us already," Dean rolled his eyes.

Castiel stared at him, affronted.

"It's a trickster."