ZOMG, you are all so naise! *sniff sniff* You feed the bunny! *sniff sniff* You make me feel loved, wanted and needed! *sniff sniff* (As opposed to my paid employment in RL, to which I had to return today, Casdammit.) You give me such feels! WAAAAAAAAAH!
Ahem.
This particular plot bunny was a little bit reticent, but then, today, presumably because of all the kind reviews, it wouldn't shut up! I think this might be the bunny named Petunia, who was, if I recall correctly, released by Rayhne after the funeral of Kenneth the plot bunny who dictated 'Brains, Brawn, Beauty and Rumsfeld'. (Which means, if we're lucky, her brothers Randolph, Nathanial, Jonathan, and Christopher may also be hopping around somewhere...)
NOW
Chapter One
South Dakota
As someone with English as his first language, Bobby was familiar with the phrase 'Well, now I've seen everything' as an expression of surprise and bewilderment, although amongst a younger demographic the saying had largely been replaced by 'doubleyou tee eff?'. He never used it himself. Partly because, as a Hunter and a Man of Knowledge, he was keenly aware that there were things that walked the world he hadn't seen, and hopefully never would. And partly because he knew the Winchesters.
Exposure to the Winchesters had cultivated in Bobby a certain resistance to surprise in the way that exposure to constant wear will produce calluses on bare feet. Their antics had reset the threshold of his WTFometer to the point where something that would send any ordinary person into paroxysms of disbelief and confusion would merely elicit a sigh, a barely cocked eyebrow, and a resigned instruction of "All right, ya idjit, I'll get the tweezers/the turpentine/some towels/the bolt cutters/the bath running/the castor oil/the number for the plumber/the disinfectant/a clean shirt/some pants/the tissues and you can tell me later what happened..."
For example, if any ordinary person was just finishing dinner when they received a call from someone who was to all intents and purposes their son, saying basically 'Hi, my brother has a nasty wound in his leg that needs professional medical attention because a job went south but I can't take him to a hospital or clinic because the police are looking for us so I'm doing about twenty over the speed limit through fading light with no lights on see you soon', they would probably have a question or two, such as, OH MY GOD THE POLICE WHAT THE FUCK WHY ARE THE POLICE CHASING YOU WHAT'S HAPPENING WHAT'S GOING ON OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING DID YOU REMEMBER TO PAY YOUR INSURANCE THE POLICE OH MY GOD NOW I'VE SEEN EVERYTHING then forget all about dinner and run around in circles flapping their hands up and down.
Bobby, however, merely sighed, and replied "All right, ya idjit, just get that idjit here in one piece, I'll get the doc here, and you can tell me later what happened", then contacted a doctor who was sympathetic to his extra-curricular activities. He then finished his dinner, cleared the table, put on a pot of strong coffee and did the washing up, because experience had taught him that a) crises are generally better dealt with on a full stomach, b) the solid old varnished wooden surface made an entirely serviceable operating table, c) doctors have coffee drinking tendencies remarkably similar to Hunters, and d) a mixture of green beans, mashed potato, ketchup and mustard left overnight will accrete into a conglomerate harder than anything known to the cement production industry and require excessive effort to remove the next day, even if the dogs were allowed to give the affected crockery a pre-wash rinse. Such is the wisdom of a Man Of Knowledge.
When the Impala skidded into the yard in a spray of gravel, he didn't bat an eyelid.
When Sam got out and half dragged, half carried his wincing and protesting brother to the door, as Jimi the half-Hellhound Rottweiler trotted anxiously behind them honking soothingly on Oinker Stoinker the blue squeaky pig toy, he didn't ask anything.
When he noticed that Dean was wearing a sequin-spangled pair of tights, he didn't say a word - after all, he had in times past seen them drag each other into his house, in need of medical attention, covered in chocolate (Dean), covered in marshmallow (Sam), covered in chocolate and marshmallow (Dean), wearing a zebra print leotard (Sam), wearing a Girl Scout uniform (Dean), wearing a Sailor Moon outfit (Sam), in a catsuit (Dean), in a wetsuit (Sam), in a pirate suit (Dean), in a gorilla suit (Sam) and in his birthday suit (Dean) – he just held the door open so they could hustle through to the kitchen.
"So, let me guess," mused Bobby, "You went after the unquiet spirit of a dead magician, and in order to draw him out, Dean put on the tights, called himself Tracey, and danced around making jokes about how short and useless the guy's wand was?"
"The Amazing Rhonda," supplied Sam by way of explanation, helping Dean onto the table, "Knife Thrower Extraordinaire, and vengeful spirit. And of course, The Amazing Deano, Professional Target Extraordinaire, had to go trawling himself as bait..."
"I fit the tights," Dean somehow managed to smirk and grimace simultaneously, "And it takes a man as secure as me in his masculinity to wear tights like thes-OW!"
"Sorry," said Doc Taylor, a woman of around Bobby's age with a no-nonsense air about her as she removed the makeshift dressing around Dean's leg. "From the look of this, you're lucky you still have a masculinity to be secure about, a bit higher and you'd have been auditioning for boy soprano. I'm afraid that these tights will never perform again, though."
"That's okay," Dean did the grin/grimace thing again, "I was planning to salt and burn 'em anyway. The very existence of a pair of spangly men's tights threatens to lower the general population's testosterone levels, excepting the Living Sex God, of course. Although I think Sam might just have had his heart set on them when I'd finished with them, I think he wanted to make some pretty scrunchies for his hair..."
"I so do NOT want your hand-me-down sparkly tights," muttered Sam.
Doc Taylor frowned at the wound. "This is going to need suturing that's beyond superficial tissues," she pronounced. "For the record, I'd rather be doing this in theatre." She shoved a bottle of iodine disinfectant and a handful of gauze into Sam's hands. "You get that cleaned up."
"Hey, no touching the merchandise, you perv," Dean instructed through gritted teeth.
"Don't flatter yourself, jerk," griped Sam, wiping away blood.
Painkillers were administered, the wound was cleaned to Doc's satisfaction, and she began to suture.
"All right then, Amazing Deano," began Doc Taylor, "You got yourself a nasty laceration here..."
"It's okay," Dean smiled sunnily, "The watermelons will take out the lamps tomorrow if they go twang too early."
"He, uh, get's kind of, um, loopy with painkillers," explained Sam with a pained expression.
"You don't say," remarked Doc. "Well, your unquiet spirit did something of a number on your sartorius, so..."
Dean looked thoughtful. "I had one of those when I was little," he announced. "I broke the end off, and stuck the ducky up my nose!" He looked around proudly, like a child announcing he'd been given the part of Sheep Number Three in the kindergarten nativity play.
"It's a muscle in your leg, Dean," Sam rolled his eyes with a Bitchface #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean).
"Is the purple bit still fluffy?" asked Dean anxiously. "I can't yodel the daisies if the purple bit doesn't stay nice and fluffy, and soft..."
"It's beautifully fluffy," Doc went on without missing a beat as she handed over some antibiotics, "But in order to keep it nice and fluffy, you have to take these twice a day until they're all gone..."
"I don't know if the parakeets will dance for those," he said doubtfully, eyeing the packet of antibiotics, "They don't like getting custard on their boots."
"...Keep the dressing dry, and make sure the wound stays clean..."
"Turnips!" Dean burst out. "Turnips! With feathers! And the Rabbits go to Mars!"
"Sounds like one o' them strange bands," muttered Bobby, "Ya idjit."
"...And stay off that leg for at least a week..."
"Idjits in space," declared Dean portentously. "Bobby put them there, because they kept driving their algebra balloons through his Serbian toupee." He leaned in, somewhat clumsily, to whisper to her. "He hates that," he told her.
"Oh, God," moaned Sam, "Can you leave us some sedatives?"
"The painkillers I'm going to leave for him are pretty strong," Doc Taylor pointed out, "So he probably won't need anything to help him sleep."
"Who said they were for him?" Sam practically wailed.
"You have eyes like crusty gyrating gerbils," Dean sighed, smiling at Doc, "Will you marry me?"
"Not unless you straighten out, or I get a lot drunker," Doc told him firmly.
Dean looked disappointed, then hopeful. "Would you like to touch my winky?" he asked.
"Would you like to sew his mouth shut?" asked Bobby, as Sam choked on a mouthful of coffee and his expression arranged itself into Bitchface #1™ (Dean, I Don't Believe You Just Did/Said/Ate/Punched/Shot/Had Sex With That!)
"I could put it in a splint, maybe," offered Doc, "Since I'm also instructing you to refrain from sex for the next two weeks."
That sentence seemed to have the same effect on Dean as a bucket of ice down the shorts might do.
"What?" his face was a picture of astonished horror. "But... the liquorice umbrellas! And the yellow flashing monkey noses! I can't do that! I'm the Living Cucumber God!"
"Idjits in space is starting to sound pretty good just about now," Bobby mused, "Launched via boot applied to the ass module..."
"Noooooo!" howled Dean in protest. "I'll diiiiiiiiie!"
"No you won't," Doc snorted in amusement. "That muscle is in exactly the wrong place, so you can't go, shall we say, overtaxing it in the heat of the moment. That is not a place where you want a big chunk of scar tissue forming adhesions, and setting you up for a chronic pain problem. And nobody ever died of not having sex."
"Female ferrets," Dean replied promptly, "If they don't have sex, they die. They die, they turn up their fluffy little toes, and they die of virginity..." his eyes swam with tears. "That's so sad..."
"Dean, you are not a female ferret, and you are not, under any circumstances, in any reality, in any danger of contracting virginity," snapped Sam, "And you will do what Doc says in order to heal up properly."
"He's bossy," Dean humphed, his bottom lip coming perilously close to a pout.
"Don't worry," Bobby assured Doc Taylor, "We'll make sure he keeps himself nice. It won't be the first time he's needed savin' from himself."
"We could do with some down time anyway, while I find our next job," Sam added, helping his brother off the table. "Something that won't require, tempt or excuse the Living Sex God and his after-dark activities. Come on, bro, let's get you upstairs."
"What about if I promise to let her go on top?" asked Dean hopefully, leaning perilously to starboard.
"No. You heard the doc."
"What about if I promise not to do it standing up?"
"No."
"What about if I promise to do it on an air mattress?"
"No!"
"What about if we do it on a waterbed?"
"No!"
"Tyre swing?"
"NO!"
"Hammock?"
"Dean! Shut! Up!"
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
Colorado
Mother Superior Emily, in her sixties and Mother Superior of the convent of St Clare, looked up when she heard the knock on the door. "Come in."
"You wanted to see me, Reverend Mother?" The sister at the door was not a young woman, but she wore the habit of a novice.
"Ah, Sister Felicity, do come in," smiled Mother Emily, consulting the paper before her, "I have some news concerning your mission work placement. I have approval from the Mother House for you to go to our house in Virginia, to assist the religious sisters there in their work with their rehabilitation services..."
A pair of green eyes bored disconcertingly into Mother Superior. "This is a test, isn't it?" It was a statement, not a question.
Mother Emily didn't flinch. "In this life, my girl, everything is a test," she said wryly. "And an opportunity. To practise obedience and humility. You could think of it as a wonderful chance for some professional development."
"Sounds familiar," muttered Sister Felicity, "I'm sure that I had a sergeant tell me that when he posted me to the armoury for three months..."
"Really, Fic?" snorted Mother Emily, cocking an eyebrow and resorting to the nickname that usually signalled that she was having some difficulty in taking her novice completely seriously. "Tell me, did you stab anybody that time?"
"I never stabbed him!" Sister Felicity protested, "I was assisting Father Lucas in locking up, and they turned up demanding the money from the donations box, what was I supposed to do?"
"Well, I believe that someone, gosh, his name escapes me right now, started with J, I think, once proposed that you 'turn the other cheek'?," offered the senior nun with a deadpan delivery.
"They was threatening Father Lucas!" insisted Sister Felicity. "Father Lucas! Who's over eighty now! Anyway, he fell on his own knife," she went on. "I just... pushed him away."
"Several feet away, the police report said," Mother Emily pointed out.
"Just off the carpet. You know what a fuss Sister Horatia makes about the carpet," shrugged Sister Felicity. "She'd have a fit if it got bloodstains on it."
"And his co-offender just happened to break his own arm," went on Mother Emily.
"Exactly," agreed Sister Felicity.
"Of course," nodded Mother Emily. "After he hurled himself backwards into the communion rail."
"That's right," nodded Sister Felicity.
"After you prayed at him."
"Yes."
"And called upon the Almighty to 'send forth these wicked evildoers from God's house'."
"Yes."
"And when you waved your cross at him, he just upped, and, whoosh, flew backwards through the air, via divine inspiration."
"The power of Christ compelled him," declared Sister Felicity with a perfectly straight face.
"Why you do this to me, Dimi," muttered Mother Superior Emily. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Novices had been so much more... conformable when she had entered the order. Of course, that was in an earlier time, when girls often came straight out of school, they didn't have lives and find their calling after beginning some other career. Difficulty with submission to the Rule, and leaving behind their previous worldly lives, was sometimes a problem with women taking a religious vocation at an older age. But if the order was to reject everybody who struggled, she reflected, every single one of us would've been out on our backsides at some point... "Sister Felicity," Mother Emily went on firmly, "This is not about any sort of... reprisal. This is all about you deciding whether this is really the life for you. That's what a novitiate is for. And part of that life is going where you are sent, where you are needed. And Mother House is in the best position to decide that."
"Yes, Reverend Mother," replied Sister Felicity dutifully, in a tone that Mother Superior was sure would sound right at home being used to inform someone Tonight, you die in your sleep. "When do I leave?"
"In three days," Mother Emily told her, handing over the sheaf of paperwork. "I'm not completely heartless, you know," she added with a small smile, "And there is an element of self-preservation involved. Considering that your coaching has got the Skunks to the final for the first time in years... is that really an appropriate mascot for a junior baseball team?"
"They like it," Sister Felicity told Mother Superior, "Plus, their playing really did stink."
"Well, the Skunks would all up and murder me if I took away Sister Fic, their head coach and number one cheerleader, before the big game. Think of the fit that Sister Horatia would pitch if I was beaten to death by a group of ten-year-olds armed with baseball bats and moral outrage – all that blood and brain matter on the carpet..."
"They're good kids," smiled Sister Felicity, standing up to take her leave, "And they're going to win."
"Some might consider it cheating to have a nun praying for divine intervention," Mother Emily quirked an amused eyebrow at her most interesting novice, "It could be interpreted as an unfair advantage to have God on their side."
"Oh, no," Sister Felicity positively smirked as she paused in the doorway, "They're going to win because they have me on their side."
Feed little Petunia with reviews! So when we finally stomp her, she makes a really satisfying squelchy noise...
Reviews are the Winchester Of Your Choice wearing the Peculiar Outfit Of Your Choice on the Kitchen Table Of Life!*
*For the purposes of solicting reviews, Castiel counts as an honorary Winchester, whether he turns up or not.**
**Crowley does not at any time count as an honorary Winchester, but I know that some of the Denizens are quite keen on him, so you may substitute him if you really must.