The Love of Dean Winchester's Life: a SuperWho romance (part two)
Part One and Disclaimer, etc here
The candy wrappers did indeed make Dean angry. Their gaudy colors. The rustling sound as they blew in the wind. The sweet scent hanging over them. Their sheer numbers, showing just how much the Trickster had been indulging his sweet tooth while they tramped around town looking for him.
Another gust of wind sent a sticky, rustling rainbow piling up against the blue panels of a…
“Police Box,” Sam read. “Pull to open.”
“So do we…pull?” Dean reached for the wooden stake hidden inside his jacket, but Sam started walking around the police box with a distant look on his face. The Impala followed him with a more curious expression.
“Guys?” Dean called. “Kinda hunting a Trickster here? Really, what the hell? It’s just a police box?”
“I know this box,” Sam said.
“That’s…special. Where from?”
The Impala ran a hand down the box’s blue paneling. “It seems familiar to me, too.”
“You remembered the candy wrappers, too. So were you…created here or something?” The thought of the Impala’s soul being created, by the Trickster, as just another example of his sick jokes made something twist in Dean’s chest. This was more than some stupid game. The thought of it made him want to pull those blue doors open and step in, stake ready. But Sam was currently standing in front of the doors with an expression like a worshipper at a tabernacle.
“What kind of history do you and this box have, exactly?” Dean asked.
Sam shook his head like he was coming out of a dream. “It was…little kid stuff. There was this-oh, God.”
“I think it’s like me,” the Impala said, rapping the police box’s frame. “We both go places. What’s the word…vehicles?”
“But it’s a box.”
“In the show, it wasn’t.” Sam shook his head again, this time more firmly. As if trying to deny the evidence in front of him. “Christ, who’d have thought he’d be a fan too?”
“And just how do I resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?” asked the figure who just then burst from the police box’s door. The tone was all too cheerful and all too familiar.
The Trickster stood grinning, even as he adjusted the very colorful and absurdly long scarf around his neck. Its fringe dragged among the candy wrappers on the ground, which was no mean feat even considering he wasn’t the tallest son-of-a-bitch in the world.
“Care for a jelly baby?” he asked. “Too bad, because I left them in the pool room. Along with some bikini-clad additions that defiantly would not fit in the family-show slot. But that’s life, isn’t it?”
“Did you steal the TARDIS?” Sam asked, and for a moment, Dean half expected him to reach out for the stake he held and finish the Trickster off himself.
The Trickster looked momentarily disappointed. “Really, kid, what are you, twelve? I hate to disappoint, but it’s not the real deal. Just some homemade arts and crafts. A beauty, though.” He looked back at the police box/TARDIS/whatever and nodded approvingly. “I’m breaking MO for a day. Less pleasantly ironic but unpleasantly gruesome death, more…magic and adventure. There’s a fan convention in town today, you see. So I thought I’d join in. The hotel bar is currently on the moon, which unfortunately wiped out more of my potential audience then I’d realized. Not literally wiped them out,” he added hastily, as Dean took a step forward with the stake. “They’ve got oxygen, and airlock, everything. And they’ll have a real thrill when the rhinos arrive.
“For those still earthbound, let’s just say the mannequins at mall just outside of town will be putting on a show. And not all the Cybermen are cosplayers.” He winked. “I was going to have a go at painting the town with BAD WOLF, but a surprising number of pimply-faced college students beat me to it.”
Well, that explained the weird words they’d been seeing everywhere in their search for the Trickster. Come to think of it, Sam had reacted to those pretty oddly, too-nodding and laughing quietly to himself as if there was some inside joke.
“It’s all completely harmless,” the Trickster said. “I even left the statues and the shadows alone. I’m taking a vacation, boys. Except then I heard my old friends the Winchesters were in town, and…”
“You couldn’t resist screwing with us,” Dean said.
“In a manner of speaking.” The Trickster made a not-entirely-mocking half-bow in the Impala’s direction. “Pleasure to see you in the flesh, so to speak.”
“So what’s up with that?” Sam asked. “How does bringing the Impala to life have anything to do with classic British sci-fi shows?”
“Ah. It’s an episode that hasn’t aired yet.” The Trickster winked. “Early 2011. Good times.”
“Time…you’re joking,” Sam said, eyes narrowed. “Because it’s a time-travel show, right? But time travel’s just from shows and movies.”
“Like Back to the Future,” Dean said, glad they were finally on familiar ground. “Star Trek IV.” See, you didn’t have to be British to time travel.
“Sam, Sam, Sam,” the Trickster said. “You really think that’s beyond me? Aren’t you forgetting a certain Tuesday?”
And yeah, Sam was defiantly ready to stake him now. The Trickster saw it, backing up against the TARDIS with his hands raised.
“Sorry, inappropriate of me to remind you of that on a day when we should all be having some fun, relaxing. Seriously, Sam. If you won’t be nice for the sake of keeping the peace, I’m warning you-my last words, if they happen to come today, will have to do with the identity of a certain River Song.”
Sam backed down, but looked more confused than anything.
“Oh. Has Silence in the Library aired yet?” The Trickster frowned. “Oh. Not just yet. Looks like I’ve spoiled you already.
“But really, guys, this is supposed to be a nice thing. In the episode, our hero got to spend some time with a very old friend in a brand new way. So today, our heroes get to spend some time with a close friend in the flesh.” He smiled at them all, benevolently as a seraph. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“Yeah,” Dean drawled. “Really kind of you.”
The Impala’s face fell at his sarcastic tone, and he added quickly, “Not that I’m not glad to have some face to face time, but getting it from you is just a little rich. And even so, you’re still being a dick. Think of what Jimmy Novak’s wife had to wake up to this morning. Why’d you pick on him, anyway? What did he do to get on your bad side?” Unless this was the Trickster’s good side. Which just didn’t bear thinking of right now.
“Jimmy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And was the right person. Mostly that. It’s a whole bunch of technical stuff you guys wouldn’t understand even after I explained it-a little wibbly wobbly,” he said with a wink at Sam, “and a lot to do with destiny and bloodlines-but long story short, the next best match after James Novak here would be a nine year old girl.”
Dean winced. Then once more considered staking the Trickster, even though this seemed not to be his fault this time. Except for the mental image. Then he considered, briefly, staking his own eyes out.
“It’s not like you mind that much, is it?” He flicked the end of his striped scarf between Dean and the Impala in Jimmy’s body. “Today’s a day for us all to relax a little, Dean-o. Open some boundaries a little. Acknowledge what lies beyond them. I mean, if I can admit my fascination with a cheesy show divided between space soap opera on the one hand and crappy special effects, surely you can accept-”
“You talk an awful lot when you fangirl, don’t you?” Dean asked.
“Or stay repressed, it’s not like it matters to me either way. Honestly,” the Trickster said to Sam, “ever feel like your lady-killer brother is a Harkness without all the best parts?”
“Does everything you say have to be a reference?” Sam asked with an expression familiar to Dean from the last time he’d tried to explain the plot arcs of Doctor Sexy, M.D. There were levels of fangirl, and Sam was not on the same level as the Trickster.
“So shoot me,” that creature was now muttering. “I’ve got them bottled up from years, nobody to talk to who appreciated them. Now…” He wrapped another length of that god-awful scarf around his neck, enough to take a few steps across the alley. “Here’s how it’ll be. Your Baby will be inside our lovely volunteer from the audience, Mr. Novak, for twenty four hours total. This little joke started around nine thirty this morning. It’s currently a little past three. What are you going to do for the next eighteen hours?”
Sam and Dean turned to the Impala, who looked at his feet and said quietly, “I’m not sure. What do you want to do?”
“We’ll pass on the fan convention, thanks,” Dean said. “What else is there to do in Pontiac?”
“There was that sign,” Sam said in his trying-too-hard-to-be-helpful voice. “For the Route 66 Museum.”
“I think I’ve seen enough of roads, thanks,” the Impala said. “And I’ll see them again-right? What happens to me when the twenty four hours is up?”
He aimed the question to the Trickster, but the door of the TARDIS was already closing. It didn’t even slam on the end of the scarf, which would have made four whole hours of walking worthwhile.
Sam was staring at it thoughtfully when a light went on behind his eyes. He had an idea, and by the way the corners of his mouth were trending it wasn’t entirely a happy one.
“So look, I know the Trickster says nobody is going to get hurt today-but those mannequins at the mall aren’t going to be totally benign. Not if he’s true to the spirit of the thing.” His eyes ran over the lines of the TARDIS. “And he seems to be.”
“So what are you saying? We…”
“All those mannequins,” Sam said. “J.C. Penny. Abercrombie and Fitch. Victoria’s Secret.”
“We have to help those people,” Dean said.
“We’re going to go on a hunt?” the Impala asked.
“If you don’t want-” He turned to see the Impala grinning so hard Jimmy Novak’s sharp nose was wrinkling.
“I would love to go on a hunt with you,” he said.
Sam smiled back. “Then let’s get going! After all,” he added as the smile faded, “the mall’s on the other side of town. We’ve got a lot of walking to do.”
As they rounded the corner, a bizarre sound come from the alley: a mechanical wheeze, like a vulture with pneumonia, as imitated by a roller coaster. Beside Dean, Sam sighed-a little sadly, and a little fondly.
“Fangirl,” Dean said.
“He does not in any way resemble a means of keeping oneself cool,” the Impala announced. They looked back at him. He shrugged. “If anything, that’s got to be the opposite of cool.”
“Good one, man.” Dean nodded approvingly.
“Shut up,” Sam told them. “You’ll understand one day.”
“Maybe we will,” the Impala said, all trace of humor vanished.
#
Sam managed to convince a girl in the dressing rooms at Abercrombie and Fitch that no, the headless plastic things closing in on her were not cosplayers-why cosplay from that episode, anyway-and broke short their introductions with a “Nice to meet you, Sadie-run for your life!”
He got an invitation to her room at the convention hotel for it, so that was something.
Saving the innocent victims at Victoria’s Secret was all Dean ever hoped it could be-and there were some tense moments when he had to break free of the embrace of a blank-faced golden woman in a lacy negligee-but his favorite part was joining the Impala in beating back the autons with the broken limbs of their defeated comrades. Baby was all the warrior he imagined. When they stood back-to-back, facing the mannequin population of Pontiac, Illinois, everything felt right. Together, they could save the world.
Even if supposedly no one was in any real danger today. Especially if nobody was in any real danger today. It was a break, a vacation, a day off for the heroes. But tomorrow would come, and they’d still be there-in whatever form-and they’d be ready.
It was worth everything, even the inevitable bruises, even the confusion, even four hours of slogging around looking for the goddamned Trickster, to really know that. To know he knew it.
“Is this what it’s like for you every day?” the Impala asked as they trudged home at the end of an evening of mannequin bashing. “Running around? Fighting? Saving people?”
“Pretty much.”
“It’s awesome,” he said.
Dean put an arm around the Impala’s shoulders. “Welcome to the family business, Baby.”
#
Sam didn’t take Sadie up on her offer, but he did go down to the site of the hotel bar-or the site where it had been until eleven this morning, and the probable site of its eventual reappearance-“Just to check things out,” he said. There was nothing to check out. “I’ll probably be back late,” he added. Quite deliberately.
“Sure you’re not going to pick up any convention-goers?” Dean asked. He was sprawled on one of the beds-they’d had to check back into the hotel for the night, which might’ve caused a weird scene if the clerk hadn’t been distracted by the news of a disappearing bar and some giant practical joke at the local mall-and the Impala lay on the other, not asleep but looking inches from it. A combination of fresh air, walking, and fighting off autons seemed to have done the poor guy in.
But just then, Sam and the Impala exchanged glances with each other, and Jimmy Novak’s head tilted almost imperceptibly. As if he had seen and agreed to some hidden message.
Whatever. Dean lay back down. The day’s activities were starting to tell on him, too. “Hey, Baby. Think you’re going to be all right on your own for an hour? I’m exhausted.”
Suddenly the Impala was perched on the bed beside him, peering at him with wide blue eyes. “You’re going to sleep?”
“Just a little nap. Okay?”
“Can I watch?”
“Uh…if you want.”
“I’ve never seen it happen,” he continued, as if in explanation. “I’ve felt it…you and Sam falling asleep on my seats. Going away, and then coming back after a bit. Leaving your bodies there…defenseless.” He frowned. “Except not defenseless, because you’re with me. But I always wondered what that would look like. You, letting yourself become defenseless. But not defenseless. Does that make any sense?”
“Not really. But go ahead, I don’t mind if you see me sleep. Heck, I’ve probably drooled all over your leather a few times.”
“Sixteen,” the Impala said. “You’ve grown out of it, mostly. Sam still does sometimes. You should put a napkin under him or something.”
“I’ll remember that.” He closed his eyes, and though the weight remained on the bed beside him, he didn’t mind. It felt…familiar, even though it was entirely new. And comforting. As if he was somehow locked away from the world, not becoming defenseless at all.
To part three--