Plz can haz fic halp?
Would anyone be interested in beta-reading kimmer1227's Sweet Charity fic?
It's a gen casefic set in New Orleans during Dean's last Mardi Gras before his deal comes due. It features original characters from my Nazareth 'verse, but I'm writing it to stand on its own. Here's a snippet for anyone who's interested:
He was fooling himself if he thought this one would be simple.
“A friend of mine just called about a job,” Dean said, tossing a wet towel at Sam’s sleeping head. “A woman killed on a makeshift altar in her apartment, bunch of satanic shit scrawled on the walls. Sounds promising, right?"
“Nnrrgh,” Sam said, rolling over under the motel’s mustard-colored blanket.
“Come on, get moving. This one’s my birthday present, Sammy.”
That was kind of a stretch, seeing as Dean’s birthday had come and gone a week before, and no one had said a word. Maybe it was because every major holiday and significant date this year was labeled Dean’s Very Last, and if they made a big deal out of every Last, they’d go nuts.
Or maybe it was because at the very moment Dean turned twenty-nine, he’d been yarking up blood and Sam had been waving the Colt in some housewives’ faces. God damn, did covens suck out loud.
God damn, did Ruby suck out loud, telling Dean shit he’d rather not know.
“Where’sa job?” Sam groaned, too groggy to have slept last night. “And who’s this friend?”
“New Orleans,” Dean said, keeping his eyes on his boots as he laced them up. “And her name is Elena Washington.”
“How do you know her?”
“I spent some time in the city a couple years back. You were at school.”
“She, like, a friend-friend, or a drunk-sex-and-bye-in-the-morning friend?”
“Sam. She’s in her seventies.”
“Oh. Okay.” Then Sam sat up, suddenly accusatory: “What about that conjure man in Louisville? He said he might-”
“Birthday present,” Dean repeated, because no twit in a Hawaiian shirt was handing out get-out-of-hell-free cards, and he’d had enough of Sam’s trapped expression every time they hit another dead end.
Sam flopped on his back, frowning at the ceiling. “We could get you a cupcake with a candle in it. You know, in Indiana. Missouri, even.”
But Dean was already throwing things in his duffel, because work took precedence and Sam didn’t have any better jobs lined up. “Dude, it’s Mardi Gras next week.”
Sam’s eyes darted sideways at Dean, and he blew air through his teeth. “Of course it is.”
“You remember Krewe d’Etat that one year? What was it, ‘98?”
“I remember,” Sam sighed in resignation, kicking free of the blankets and rolling out of bed. Dean got the feeling he was being allowed to win, and he tried not to think about why that might be. “I got hit in the head by a bag of glowing plastic skulls, and you didn’t even notice because your tongue was too far down that girl’s throat.”
“I was thinking about the talking teddy bear I caught. Remember those bears? You squeezed them, and they went-“ Dean put on a squeaky mouse voice: “Hail to the dictator!”
Sam shook his head, lumbering into the bathroom. “I hate Mardi Gras.”
“You hate fun,” Dean called after him.
“I hate fun.” And the bathroom door clicked shut.
So that was the plan. Work the job, get elbow-deep in oyster po-boys, and hit the parade route. A couple of hand grenades, and he’d forget all about what happened to souls in hell.
New Orleans had been good to Dean once upon a time, and a couple years back, he’d tried to be good to her too. They understood each other.
But it could never be that simple.
I'm hoping for some brainstorming help and general hand-holding, so if you have the time to spare and this sounds like it might float your bubble, please drop me a line. Thank y'all so much!