Title: Quatloos to Gummy Bears
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: GEN, PG.
Word Count: 600 words
Warnings: Mild crack. Depictions of easily misunderstood convention antics. Faulty logic.
Disclaimer: The exchange rate of nothing, which is what I have, to every single show or 'verse referenced in this ficlet, which is what I don't have, is so far beyond infinity, it's out in ten-dimensional space somewheres.
Summary: Written for
spn_thur_nights Drabble Prompt from
starrylizard: Sam and Dean go to a fan convention, cursed fan item, auction.
A/N: ...so then I did a second response to the same prompt, maybe with more 'in-show' feeling. Do plot-holes exist if there's no plot, per se? Yeah, still cracky, but kind of unavoidable when conventions are involved. All costumes described have been seen or worn at actual conventions. Then while I was writing this I was having trouble making the cursed item a 'fan item' so...
Quatloos to Gummy Bears
by CaffieneKitty
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Dean's voice was urgent on the phone. "Quick, Sam, what's the exchange rate of quatloos to gummy bears?"
Sam stopped in the middle of the hallway and was nearly run over by an apologetic Vorlon. "What???"
"Quatloos to gummy bears!" said Dean, "Come on, Sammy, you've gotta have some kind of geek-boy insight here." Sounds of a happy riot were tinny in the background.
"Uh..." Sam said with a half-smile, "I have no idea what you're talking about, Dean. What's a quatloo?"
"Crap." Dean's phone muffled for a second. "Forty gummy bears!" fuzzed through the earpiece in Dean's voice, followed by faint cheering.
"Dean... where are you and what are you doing exactly?"
"I'm at that slave auction thing."
"You're trying to hook up." Sam rolled his eyes in disbelief and continued walking down the hallway toward the main ballroom where the costume contest was finishing. "We're here looking for an 'Arwen Evenstar' necklace some psycho cursed, one that will kill anyone who is wearing it at midnight tonight, and you're trying to hook up."
"Dude, come on, I'm not trying to hook up. Hang on-" Muffled again. "Gold-pressed what?"
"You do know that the 'slave auction' is only for an hour of the person's time in a public place, and there's strict rules on behavior and no grop-"
"She's got the thing, Sam."
Sam stopped in the middle of the hall again and got a dirty look from a pair of passing elves. "What?"
"The thing! The necklace! She's got it! She's wearing it right now! Crap, I'm running low on gummy bears!"
"Who's 'she'? Where?"
"The green chick I'm bidding on! Auction's in Conference Room D."
"You're sure it's the right necklace?"
"It's the only one that's registered on the EMF, Sam. Get your ass down here! Bring candy! Or quatloos or cubits or something! Anything!"
Sam did a one-eighty and started jogging back down the hallway toward the elevator, dodging a broad hairy man in black fishnets and a boustier followed by some kind of red demon-thing with giant flippers. "Can't you just get her out of there?"
"There's about a thousand people in here, Sam," Dean said over the increasing background noise and crinkly rustlings. "I mean I could get 'em all to move, and drag her out, no problem, but I don't think she'll be too inclined to give her trinket up of her own free will if I charge in through a roomful of her geeky pals to get to her. This auction thing's not over 'til after midnight, and by then it'll be too late." The phone muffled again. "Uh... Fifty-seven... no! Fifty-eight gummy bears!" The sound cleared. "Sam, I'm out of freaking gummy bears."
Sam planted a hand on the wall as he swung around a turn in the hallway and avoided a grumpy Sailor Moon. "Why are you bidding gummy bears, Dean? Bid M&M's. Chocolate is like gold to these people."
"Can't."
"Why?"
"Left them in the car."
"What?"
"You said all that stuff about Hospitality suites and room parties and free food, so I figured I wouldn't need 'em! How's I supposed to know I was gonna need to bid on some green chick with fangs and a cursed necklace?"
Sam sprinted into the closing elevator and pushed 'L'. "Alright, stall or something, I'll score some chocolate and meet you at the slave auction in five. We'll get her." Sam disconnected his phone to see a short woman with a stack of colorful books and a t-shirt that read, If You're Really a Goth, Where Were You When We Sacked Rome? leering up at him.
"Planning a charisma check tonight, hunh Stretch?" the woman said with a smirk.
Sam laughed weakly and willed the elevator to descend faster.
- - -
(that's it for this one)