Fic: Q & A - SPN
Title: Q&A
Fandom: Supernatural, Gen
Words: 1139
Rating: PG-13 for a bit of language
Notes: Thanks to coyotesuspect for the beta! Spoilers for 5.09 "The Real Ghostbusters". A What If? kind of story.
Dean can work with being the centre of attention. There are times in Dean's life when it's way easier to just slip the radar, but there are also occasions that will prompt him to deliberately call down attention on himself. If it'll keep Sam out of trouble, for example, or if it's to catch a pretty girl's eye? He's all over that. This is not one of those times. Someone's let it slip to the entire "Supernatural" convention that they're the Sam and Dean, not just a Sam and Dean, and no one seems to be buying their laughing protestations.
Next to him, Dean can hear Sam shifting his weight uncomfortably. Right. So. They’ve just been... outed to a room full of devoted fans and from the look on their faces (it’s like they’re some scary, uniform mob), Dean’s not sure if the crowd is going to shower them with love or stampede them. If the chick in the ghost costume gets to him first he doesn’t think that he’d mind Option A so much, but the one in the bad Bobby costume? All sorts of levels of wrong.
He thinks that he might kill Chuck, or Becky, or maybe both. Chuck’s cell is no fucking question getting smashed to bits.
“Uh... hi,” he stammers out and Sam shoots him a look which seems to say Why are you provoking them?
It’s not so bad, actually. They seem more shocked to be addressed by their heroes than anything else and they mutter among themselves for a moment, like a ripple of sound that travels through the room and hey, that’s kind of weird, but it’s kind of a cool effect too.
Slowly, from the back of the room, a hand creeps into the air. Dean stares at it blankly, until Sammy, shoulders still tight with tension, looks helplessly at him and then tentatively says, “Yeah? In the back?”
Dean remembers that there are Sam Girls and Dean Girls, but this is literally a girl dressed as Sam, her hair so long that it seems like the perfect mockery, really, of Sam’s shaggy bangs. She jumps to attention, looking way too excited. She’d be kind of hot, actually, if she weren’t dressed like his little brother and that’s just somewhere he doesn’t want to go.
“Hi, I’m Tara.”
“Hey,” Sam and Dean reply at the same time, equally awkward, and another little buzz goes through the room. Thinking of Becky, Dean wonders if this is a response geeks have trained into them.
Tara, for her part, looks just tickled to have been addressed directly. “Thank you for coming to the convention,” she says surprisingly calmly.
Sammy’s got that look in his eye that says he really, really wants to bolt, but he stays put and speaks instead. “You’re uh, welcome.”
Tara’s obviously thrilled with the ineloquent reply. “I'm a really big fan. I think you two do great work.” She hesitates, then adds. "Would you sing for us? My favourite scene is from 'No Rest for the Wicked', when you sing 'Dead or Alive'. Bon Jovi rocks. Sometimes."
There's an appreciative murmur going through the crowd as Dean trades glances with Sam again. He’s pretty sure that he looks about as bewildered as his brother does.
“Maybe later?” Sam replies hesitantly and Dean picks another raised hand just to get the hell away from the singing request. It’s the hookman again, though he’s taken off the hook, which is good, because he was going to take an eye out with the damn thing. “Have we seen the last of Ruby?”
Someone else calls out from across the room, “Where are Jo and Ellen now?” without waiting to be called on and Dean thinks that that’s just rude.
He opens his mouth to reply, but catches the pleading look on Chuck’s face just in time and says instead, with an awkward little shrug. “Sorry. Spoilers.”
Most of the room seems pretty ambivalent, but there’s an excited little shriek from a group of girls sitting together on one side of the room. Dean’s pretty sure that the blonde hair and black tank top is supposed to be a Jo costume and he thinks that Jo would probably find that a lot more flattering than Dean does his several million copy-cats in the audience. He takes some satisfaction in knowing that none of them rock the look as well as he does. As if anyone ever could.
Dean picks another raised hand and it seems like everyone and their cousin has got their hand up now.
"I've got this recurring problem with my Impala, maybe you can - "
Dean actually perks up a little at this one, but Sam's already rolling his eyes and Dean cuts the guy off to say they'll chat about it later. He kind of means it too, because loving a '67 Impala is totally a redeeming feature in his mind.
Dean thinks he might just be getting into this and chooses another guy to speak. It was hard to tell in the mass of bodies, but ends up choosing a guy dressed up as him.
“Did you really go to Hell?”
A hush falls over the room, but Dean doesn’t notice because his world has suddenly narrowed and this isn’t a question he wants to answer, ever. He clenches and unclenches his jaw, trying to gather himself and he’s never loved his brother so much when Sam steps in and takes over.
“Look, I know that you’ve all read the books. Obsessively, even. But all of that, it was real. We’re real and you don’t know us. What we do isn’t pretty and a lot of time, it just plain sucks. It’s not something we do for fun.”
Chuck starts forward with a worried look on his face and joins them. Dean has to resist the urge to deck him right then and there. “What I think Sam is trying to say - ” Chuck starts before Dean cuts in, finding his voice again.
“What Sam is trying to say is that all of you need to take off your plastic amulets and your yellow contact lenses and get the hell back to your lives. There is a war going on out there, a real war with casualties and demons and angels - ” and Chuck looks crushed to have his latest plot twist spoiled, Dean can’t bring himself to care “ - on top of the usual crapfest we have to deal with. So go home. Live your lives and pray, pray really hard, that you’re spared all of this.”
The silence in the room is palpable this time, like an extra presence, and Dean thinks savagely, Good.
It’s about then that ghosts start flicking into existence around them and that pretty effectively ends conversation for a while.
Fandom: Supernatural, Gen
Words: 1139
Rating: PG-13 for a bit of language
Notes: Thanks to coyotesuspect for the beta! Spoilers for 5.09 "The Real Ghostbusters". A What If? kind of story.
Dean can work with being the centre of attention. There are times in Dean's life when it's way easier to just slip the radar, but there are also occasions that will prompt him to deliberately call down attention on himself. If it'll keep Sam out of trouble, for example, or if it's to catch a pretty girl's eye? He's all over that. This is not one of those times. Someone's let it slip to the entire "Supernatural" convention that they're the Sam and Dean, not just a Sam and Dean, and no one seems to be buying their laughing protestations.
Next to him, Dean can hear Sam shifting his weight uncomfortably. Right. So. They’ve just been... outed to a room full of devoted fans and from the look on their faces (it’s like they’re some scary, uniform mob), Dean’s not sure if the crowd is going to shower them with love or stampede them. If the chick in the ghost costume gets to him first he doesn’t think that he’d mind Option A so much, but the one in the bad Bobby costume? All sorts of levels of wrong.
He thinks that he might kill Chuck, or Becky, or maybe both. Chuck’s cell is no fucking question getting smashed to bits.
“Uh... hi,” he stammers out and Sam shoots him a look which seems to say Why are you provoking them?
It’s not so bad, actually. They seem more shocked to be addressed by their heroes than anything else and they mutter among themselves for a moment, like a ripple of sound that travels through the room and hey, that’s kind of weird, but it’s kind of a cool effect too.
Slowly, from the back of the room, a hand creeps into the air. Dean stares at it blankly, until Sammy, shoulders still tight with tension, looks helplessly at him and then tentatively says, “Yeah? In the back?”
Dean remembers that there are Sam Girls and Dean Girls, but this is literally a girl dressed as Sam, her hair so long that it seems like the perfect mockery, really, of Sam’s shaggy bangs. She jumps to attention, looking way too excited. She’d be kind of hot, actually, if she weren’t dressed like his little brother and that’s just somewhere he doesn’t want to go.
“Hi, I’m Tara.”
“Hey,” Sam and Dean reply at the same time, equally awkward, and another little buzz goes through the room. Thinking of Becky, Dean wonders if this is a response geeks have trained into them.
Tara, for her part, looks just tickled to have been addressed directly. “Thank you for coming to the convention,” she says surprisingly calmly.
Sammy’s got that look in his eye that says he really, really wants to bolt, but he stays put and speaks instead. “You’re uh, welcome.”
Tara’s obviously thrilled with the ineloquent reply. “I'm a really big fan. I think you two do great work.” She hesitates, then adds. "Would you sing for us? My favourite scene is from 'No Rest for the Wicked', when you sing 'Dead or Alive'. Bon Jovi rocks. Sometimes."
There's an appreciative murmur going through the crowd as Dean trades glances with Sam again. He’s pretty sure that he looks about as bewildered as his brother does.
“Maybe later?” Sam replies hesitantly and Dean picks another raised hand just to get the hell away from the singing request. It’s the hookman again, though he’s taken off the hook, which is good, because he was going to take an eye out with the damn thing. “Have we seen the last of Ruby?”
Someone else calls out from across the room, “Where are Jo and Ellen now?” without waiting to be called on and Dean thinks that that’s just rude.
He opens his mouth to reply, but catches the pleading look on Chuck’s face just in time and says instead, with an awkward little shrug. “Sorry. Spoilers.”
Most of the room seems pretty ambivalent, but there’s an excited little shriek from a group of girls sitting together on one side of the room. Dean’s pretty sure that the blonde hair and black tank top is supposed to be a Jo costume and he thinks that Jo would probably find that a lot more flattering than Dean does his several million copy-cats in the audience. He takes some satisfaction in knowing that none of them rock the look as well as he does. As if anyone ever could.
Dean picks another raised hand and it seems like everyone and their cousin has got their hand up now.
"I've got this recurring problem with my Impala, maybe you can - "
Dean actually perks up a little at this one, but Sam's already rolling his eyes and Dean cuts the guy off to say they'll chat about it later. He kind of means it too, because loving a '67 Impala is totally a redeeming feature in his mind.
Dean thinks he might just be getting into this and chooses another guy to speak. It was hard to tell in the mass of bodies, but ends up choosing a guy dressed up as him.
“Did you really go to Hell?”
A hush falls over the room, but Dean doesn’t notice because his world has suddenly narrowed and this isn’t a question he wants to answer, ever. He clenches and unclenches his jaw, trying to gather himself and he’s never loved his brother so much when Sam steps in and takes over.
“Look, I know that you’ve all read the books. Obsessively, even. But all of that, it was real. We’re real and you don’t know us. What we do isn’t pretty and a lot of time, it just plain sucks. It’s not something we do for fun.”
Chuck starts forward with a worried look on his face and joins them. Dean has to resist the urge to deck him right then and there. “What I think Sam is trying to say - ” Chuck starts before Dean cuts in, finding his voice again.
“What Sam is trying to say is that all of you need to take off your plastic amulets and your yellow contact lenses and get the hell back to your lives. There is a war going on out there, a real war with casualties and demons and angels - ” and Chuck looks crushed to have his latest plot twist spoiled, Dean can’t bring himself to care “ - on top of the usual crapfest we have to deal with. So go home. Live your lives and pray, pray really hard, that you’re spared all of this.”
The silence in the room is palpable this time, like an extra presence, and Dean thinks savagely, Good.
It’s about then that ghosts start flicking into existence around them and that pretty effectively ends conversation for a while.