I want revieeews! Waaaaah! Here, I'll swap you some for another chapter.
Oh, yeah, an AUTHOR'S CREDIT to Georgia, for her suggestion about the car...
Chapter Seventeen
"Oh, it smells just wonderful, Sister Peter," enthused Dean as the elderly nun put a piece of pie in front of him, "You are clearly an artist!"
"Oh, away with ye, Father!" she snorted with amusement in a strong Irish accent. "Tis me own gammer's recipe. A special combination of spices."
"I think there's crack in this," he declared after a mouthful, "Because I'm already addicted. I bet your middle name is Eve," he grinned at her. "You are a temptress in a habit!" The elderly nun actually giggled as she returned to the kitchen.
"Is he always like this?" asked Felicity in a bewildered tone.
"He's usually worse," replied Sam glumly, "At the moment, it's toned down to priest level. Usually, if it has two X chromosomes per cell, he'll flirt with it. I'm a bit worried about what will happen at his funeral – if there's a woman present, he'll sit up on his pyre, waggle his eyebrows and say something like, 'Hey, have you ever wondered if you'd like to try S&M, or necrophilia – or am I flogging a dead horse?'."
"It's not my fault that I was born with an excess of masculine charm and I ooze erotic fascination wherever I go," Dean shrugged carelessly. "It makes men want to punch me, and women want to sleep with me..." he let out a sigh, put down his fork briefly, and inconspicuously reset his watch.
"It's making me want to punch you," Sister Fic muttered.
"Well, you're obviously not a proper woman," Dean flapped a hand dismissively, "You're a penguin."
"Or maybe my dick is just bigger than yours," she noted off-handedly, making Dean choke on his mouthful of pie.
"That would explain a lot," he wheezed, "Because you are anti-hot. There's clearly something wrong with you."
"Excuse me?" Felicity cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Actually, it makes sense," Sam reasoned. "Dean noted that when he first met you, he felt absolutely no compulsion to flirt with you – you were in no way at all an occasion of sin. It's because you're family. It's pheromones."
"Pheromones?" Dean queried. "Like, she's a queen bee, and she's exuding a smell that says, 'Hey, I'm engaged to Jesus, stay the hell away from me or I'll sting you' kind of thing?"
"MHCs," Sam replied.
"Huh?" Dean stared at his brother. "Speak English, dude."
"Major Histocompatibility Complexes," Felicity elaborated. "It's to do with your immune system. It's generally not healthy to mate with somebody who is too immunologically, and therefore most likely genetically, similar to you – basically, you'll tend to get healthier, more robust offspring if you breed with somebody who's genetically unlike you. It's where cultural incest taboos come from. It's why most animals have an innate aversion to incest, except for a couple of species of lizard."
"And fan fiction writers," shuddered Sam. "God, they scare the crap out of me."
"I wonder who they'll pair Fic up with?" mused Dean, "Because Chuck will end up writing about her, now we've found her."
"This is Chuck, the Prophet?" asked Felicity, "Drinks too much, dressing gown, calls you up and complains bitterly whenever you entertain a lady friend too imaginatively?"
"That's him," Sam sighed gloomily. "His books are still being published online."
"Hence the online L.E.W.D. campaign to get him to write more, er, explicitly about you two," she recalled.
"Yeah," Dean nodded, "So, the awful reality is, as soon as they get hold of you, well, you're fair game."
"Surely not," she said reasonably, "I'm a nun. Well, I will be. If I make it through my novitiate."
"Huh, like that will stop them," grunted Sam. "They write about us doing angels, us doing demons, us doing angels AND demons, us doing each other..."
It was Felicity's turn to choke on a mouthful of pie.
"…Angels doing demons, pretty much any permutation or combination that can be made. You being a nun, that will only encourage them," he went on. "They have Bobby and Crowley as a pair, for fuck's sake."
"Bobby? Mr Balls?" Her eyes were wide with horror. "Does he KNOW about that?"
"No, and we intend to keep it that way," Sam said grimly. "If he ever, EVER, finds out that there are people writing about him and Crowley setting up house, he will devise a spell that will fry the internet across at least half the planet."
"Yeah, and where will I get my porn from then?" chirped Dean.
"Dean!" Sam hissed, "Your curse!"
"Yeah, yeah," sighed Dean, fishing out his watch, "I'm going to be chaste forever at this rate." He paused, and looked at his big sister. "I wonder who it will be," he mused.
"Who?" she asked.
"The first Fic-slash-somebody story," Dean explained. "The first Fic fic. I was just wondering who they'll pair you up with."
"Dean!" Sam glared with a double strength Bitchface #1™ (Dean, I Don't Believe You Just Did/Said/Ate/Punched/Shot/Had Sex With That!)
"It's going to happen," Dean pointed out, "I was just wondering who it will be. Cas, do you think? Some sort of heavenly reward for being a good nun? Crowley maybe, corrupting a nun."
Felicity and Sam stared at him in horror.
"Pre-marital sex, maybe?" he suggested. "Can your financé take a vessel, and come down amongst humanity again to claim his latest Bride?"
"You watch your mouth, mister!" snapped Felicity in outrage, "You are NOT too big to put across my knee, little brother!"
"Bobby's too old, Kevin is too young," he pondered, "Hmmmmm… I know!" he said brightly. "It'll be Fic – slash... Andrew!"
"Huh?" chorused his siblings.
"Totally!" beamed Dean. "You'd like him, he's a funny guy, he's cool."
"You are speculating about people writing stories about me having a fling with a werewolf?" his sister squawked with horror. "A pair-bonded werewolf?"
"Be grateful if it's Andrew, and not Ronnie," he warned her knowingly as Sam sprayed coffee over his plate. "There's a definite demographic for That Sort Of Thing..."
"Dean, I will not sit here and listen to you talk about me having sex with somebody else's... partner!" she burst out. "It's... it's... all kinds of wrong! And creepy! And from what you've told me, he'd never consider it anyway!"
"Oh, they'd come up with some justification, or just designate it AU," Dean clarified. "One way or the other, in fan fiction, you need to get laid, Fic."
"Great, just great," she growled, "A week ago, I was a novice, doing a placement in a rehab class, and now, I've found out that I'm a Winchester, with two Hunters for little brothers, one of whom probably needs a good smiting for blasphemy, there are demons after me for reasons unknown but assumed dishonourable, and there's a whole bunch of people out there who will be just raring to write me a sex life that would put Paris Hilton to shame. With a frigging werewolf." She sighed. "Fuck my life. So, is he cute?" she added.
"Gah!" yelped Sam, "Can we stop this line of conversation five minutes ago? It's totally disturbing!"
"Yeah, I gotta reset my watch," Dean agreed.
"We should be concentrating on working out why there's demonic interest in Fic," Sam stipulated, "If we can work out what they want, we have our best chance of derailing it."
"It might be best if we go to Bobby's for a while," Dean told her. "You've seen it for yourself; consecrated ground doesn't keep demons out. It barely slows them down. There isn't anywhere that you're safe."
"I can't just wander off visiting whenever I feel like it," Felicity reminded them, "I'm only supposed to have leave of absence to check for any information about my birth family here. I'm supposed to go back to St Clare's in Virginia as soon as I'm done."
"Tell your Mother Superior that you've got a lead on an old priest who used to attend here, and he was marvelled at because of his amazing memory, and Sister Agnes said you should go see him where he now lives in South Dakota," supplied Sam. "I think she'll back up your story if need be. Seriously, we need to work this out."
"We've got a time and a place for the last break-in," Dean said, "If I have a look at that map again, maybe I can figure out where and when the next one can be. We catch the demon, then we find out what the hell they're doing."
"How do you catch a demon?" she asked. "Just one, a lower level one you said, threw you guys around like hacky sacks."
"With a devil's trap," Sam replied, pulling a napkin towards himself and taking out a pen. It's probably not a bad idea if you learn to draw it."
"Then you throw lots of salt, holy water, and consecrated iron at it, and threaten to exorcise it," Dean told her. "You'd be amazed at what they're prepared to do to stay the hell out of Hell. Then, if the meatsuit is already dead, you kill it with a very particular kind of knife." From the folds of his cassock, he produced his demon-killing blade, and handed it over. Fic inspected it and tested its weight.
"Nice," she noted, "Good steel. Good balance." She shaved some hair from the back of her wrist. "Good edge." She handed it back to Dean. "Good boy!" she chirped, patting him on the head.
"Cow," he muttered with a smile, then went back to finishing his pie. "It's about a six hour trip – we should leave early tomorrow."
"Can I drive?" asked Felicity.
"No," replied Dean.
"Please? Please?" she wheedled. "Pleeeeeeease?"
"Nuh-uh," Dean shook his head, "I'm not having you drive my Baby like she's in an episode of Highway Pursuits Gone Bad."
"Yeah, right," snorted Sam, "Because you've never, ever driven like a leadfoot – you only drive her to church on Sundays..."
"You know, technically, since I'm your older sister," Felicity began slyly, "As the oldest, I should have inherited the car."
"Over my cold, dead, rotting body," answered Dean.
"Can I just kick you in the shin instead?" she asked brightly. "It would be less trouble. And less smelly."
"You can't have my car!" snapped Dean.
"You just said I could!" Felicity was just as adamant.
"No I didn't!" yapped Dean indignantly.
"Yes you did!" she insisted. "All we're doing now is haggling over how badly damaged you have to be before I get the keys."
"Oh, God," moaned Sam, "Stop it, you two! I'll drive! You, no complaining! And you, no singing!" He leaned down. "And you – no howling."
"Sissy."
"Harpy."
"Bitch."
"Jerk."
"Dick."
"Cow."
"Rumph!"
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
"Once we're on the road, you'd better call Bobby," Sam smiled as he tapped at the laptop.
"Yeah," Dean couldn't help smiling too as he pored over the map and the list of places and times of the break-ins. He doodled a series of circles. "Wait 'til we tell him, we've found another Winchester! We got a nun in the family!" He shook his head. "I wish I could've seen Dad's face."
"She can handle a gun, and a knife, and she can throw you across a desk without breaking a sweat," Sam noted. "Plus, her Latin is damned good. He'd have been proud."
"We should tell her that," Dean mused, looking at the map. "Yeah, there's definitely more than one search party at work, here," making more marks on the map. "They're being damned careful about anyone picking up a pattern, too. But it's there."
"There was another one," Sam relayed, clicking a link, "Two days ago. Kentucky. And one yesterday, in Missouri." He read the details from the news sites, and frowned. "They're a lot closer together. Hey, there was one in Oklahoma this morning."
Dean drew points on the map, and stared, letting his mind take in the way they fit together. He drew a wide, sweeping arc on the map.
He stood up suddenly, knocking over his chair.
"Dean?" Sam leaped up too, as Jimi jumped down from his snooze on the bed.
"We gotta get to Fic," Dean said shortly, picking up his gun and his flask of holy water, abandoning all pretence of being blind Father Angus. "And head for Bobby's right away. They're headed here next."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
Sister Felicity Morgan – Or am I Deanna Winchester?, she mused – was deep in thought. It had been a hell of a revelation to find out who her birth mother – and father – had been, and on top of that, she had found out that she had blood kin, two little brothers, and they were Hunters, and the things they Hunted...
She had been a cop, and now she was a nun. A novice, she corrected herself. She had seen things that at the time she had dismissed because her rational mind had known that such things could not happen, such things did not exist, but...
It was a lot to take in.
And she really really had no desire at all to read about herself having sex with a werewolf.
"How will you write this, Chuck?" she wondered out loud with a wry smile, "Do I pace the room oozing angst, do I sit quietly and try to absorb it all? Do I burst into a burlesque song and dance to mess with your head? There's an idea. How about, you don't reveal me to the crazed fan fiction writers, and I keep all my clothes on? Come on, it's a good offer... give me a sign, O Chuck, Prophet of the Winchester gospels!"
Nothing happened.
Then nothing happened some more.
"Figures," she grunted to herself in amusement, glancing up at the crucifix on the wall. "Doesn't throw us our any further than we can swim, huh?" she muttered. "It's just as well that You've given me plenty of time to adjust to this, pal, otherwise come our wedding day, I might just have thrown the ring back in Your face and left You with the bill for the reception..."
There was a knock on the door. She opened it to Sister Agnes.
"Sister Felicity?" the old nun smiled up at her. "I'm so sorry to bother you this late."
"Not at all, Sister Agnes," Felicity smiled back, "What can I do for you?"
"Oh, it's what I can do for you, my dear," Sister Agnes beamed. "It's Sister Lucia. She's having one of her lucid moments – they're getting further apart, I'm afraid – and she must've overhead us, when I thought she was napping." The older nun took her hand. "She remembers your mother, Mary!" she said excitedly. "She says she remembers your birth!"
"She does?" marvelled Felicity.
"Oh, screamed the place down, you did, apparently," laughed Sister Agnes gently, "And you were born with the most luxuriant hair! And your mother practically had a tug-of-war over you with her! Oh, do come, Sister," the old nun pleaded, "She is so happy for you, and wants to share her memories with you."
"That's very kind of her," smiled Sister Fic, "And of you, Sister Agnes. Where is she?"
"I'm right here, my dear," said a voice behind her. Felicity spun around.
"Sister Lucia?" she asked.
"Well, yes and no," replied the elderly nun, her eyes colouring black. "If I'm honest, mostly no."
Felicity was reaching for her flask of holy water when Sister Agnes' walking stick connected with the back of her head.
(Andrew is, of course, the pair-bonded and sometimes beleaguered partner of Ronnie, the Jimiverse's Crankiest Werewolf. We don't actually know if he's cute, because nobody's ever drawn him. We know that, when he's human, he has a ponytail, and he's about Dean's height, and he smiles a lot. I don't know why, but I get a strange mental picture of him looking a bit like Dave Mustaine. Go figure.)
Oh noes! Eebil demons are eebil! With a capital eeb!
Encourage the bunny! Reviews are the Stories Pairing You Up With The Character Of Your Choice On The Fanfic Site Of Life!*
*I want an afternoon spent with the document processing machinery in Hell's library. Or Rumsfeld's last litter of puppies.