Confessions of a Male Escort
Masterpost | Previous Chapter
I am so sorry for how long it took me to get this posted. Er… had some difficulties with life and er… my muse (little bitch), but hey! Finally got the next chapter up! Woo! Enjoy!
Warnings: Not many that I can think of… um… usual violence that comes with writing Supernatural fanfiction. Giant man-sized teddy-bears (fucking creepier than anything else on Supernatural if you ask me) and er… brief death of a character. Doesn't last long mind but it's there… *coughs* Oh. And Ardifiel. He’s back in this chapter. He needs a warning.
Chapter Ten
5th November, 2008. Oregon
“Remember, remember, the fifth of November. The gunpowder treason and plot.-“
“Go away.” Harry burrowed under his pillow to escape from his insane angel, that didn’t get the hint and just sat down on his bed next to him.
“I see no reason, why the gunpowder treason, should ever be forgot.”
“Because we’re in America and they don’t give a damn about it. Shut. Up.” Harry grumbled, clinging to his pillow when he felt it slowly being tugged off of him.
“Oh come now, I was there for that particular snippet of history! It was… fascinating!” Harry groaned, seeing that his plan to get a few more hours sleep before having to face the demo-Winchester brother’s to make their way to wherever the hell they were heading. Something about naked women in showers.
“Why are you here? You ignored me for the last week,” Harry pointed out, relinquishing his pillow and watching as Ardifiel made himself comfortable by curling onto his side and hugging the pillow.
“I didn’t ignore you. You’ve been visited every day by either Castiel or Yebemiah. I was busy. Besides, you didn’t call for me! So, you clearly didn’t need me!” Ardifiel pointed out, and Harry just shrugged and curled on his own side to face the angel.
“True. Why are you here then?” Harry asked, stifling a yawn and rubbing a hand over his face.
“Ah, I overheard something about a hunt involving naked women in showers. I came to offer a helping hand. These people need me. I’m… comforting,” Ardifiel said, in clearly what he hoped was his most sincere voice, but just made Harry stare at him blankly.
“I’m more comforting than you, and I’m a whore.”
“Yes, well, it’s shocking how comforting you can be if you’re being paid to do it. I’m not. This is from the kindness of my heart,” Ardifiel said, and Harry wondered if he could get paid just to deal with Ardifiel.
“I’m asking for a raise,” Harry muttered, and Ardifiel made a noise similar to a kicked puppy.
“There’s no need to be mean. Wait, you’re not still in pain are you? Castiel informed me that you foolishly took on Samhain’s magic. It had better have not been for Winchester,” Ardifiel said with narrowed eyes.
“It was for this stupid war you dragged me into,” Harry muttered, then sighed and looked at Ardifiel, wincing at the concern he saw there. “No, I’m not still in pain. Cas sorted me out. Everything is fine.”
“Right, so when are we leaving then?”
“Whenever Dean or Sam come and get me. Are you honestly going to stick with us in the hopes you can perv on defenceless, scared women? Are you lying when you say you’re an angel?”
“Hey! You’ve met Uriel. I am an awesome angel compared to him!” Ardifiel exclaimed, and Harry had to concede that he was right on the mark with that.
“True. You do know you don’t have to babysit me, don’t you? You don’t have to hang around me all the damned time,” Harry told him, exasperation in his voice.
“Is this your way of telling me to go away?”
“No. Just… I know why you’re here. Sam hasn’t done anything wrong, so leave him alone. You have no reason to hurt him, pick on him or generally act like every other angel around him," Harry said with a suffering sigh. Ardifiel made a small wounded noise, but nodded all the same.
"Fine, but he hurt you Harry. You can put a brave face on it, but if even Castiel noticed, then you know it's pretty obvious. Though apparently Sam is either ignorant, blind or dense. I'm not sure I've decided on which one. I may just go with all three and save myself the time trying to figure it out."
"Stop being mean," Harry snapped, though without much fire behind it. Ardifiel had a point afterall, Sam had hurt him. Even Dean seemed to know that. Which was a little embarrassing.
Ardifiel didn't get a chance to respond to Harry's snappish retort as there was a sharp knock on the door and Dean's voice yelling for Harry to get ready. Harry grumbled and finally got out of bed, quickly changing into the first set of clothing he reached in his bag. Ardifiel silently just watched him - leered at him - and then meekly followed behind Harry once Harry was ready to leave.
"Ardy coming along then?" Dean asked, having noticed the angel standing behind Harry as soon as they reached the Impala. A small bang and then a muffled curse signally that Sam had heard Dean, and sure enough, Sam looked around the back of the car and sent Ardifiel a wary smile.
"Hey, Ardy. You two ready to go? Dean's disturbingly keen to go question women in the showers," Sam told them, sending Dean a look that told them all just what he thought of that.
"Yeah, Ardy's rather keen as well. It's why he's here. No other reason other than to go completely against stereotype and leer at defenceless, semi-naked women," Harry explained, getting a completely unapologetic grin from Ardifiel for his troubles. Dean just chuckled whilst Sam shook his head.
"Great. So these two are pervs and we're the only two that actually have a sense of decorum? Awesome," Sam grumbled, either not hearing or choosing to ignore the derisive snort from Ardifiel at that comment.
"Indeed. Right, get in the car. Let's go and see what the hell is going on with these people," Harry declared, opening the door to the back and climbing in before anyone could say anymore. He was hoping he could catch a nap on the way to wherever the hell it was they were going.
He was silently grateful when everyone took his lead and got in the car, after that, it didn't take long for them to be on their way.
5th November, 2008. Oregon
Harry and Sam stepped out of the car, having dropped Dean and Ardifiel off at the fitness centre where the women had been terrorised by… something. Harry was still wondering over how Dean and Ardifiel had managed to convince them to get that job. Really, of all the people to send, those two were not who Harry would have chosen.
Apparently, however, given Harry is a male escort and Sam was, in Dean's words, 'a geeky prude' - something Harry silently disagreed with - Dean had decided he was the one most suitable for the job and Ardifiel had decided that, as an angel, he should go along to give… moral support to the 'poor women'. Harry didn't even want to know.
"We were had, you know."
"I know. I'd say that Dean and Ardifiel teaming up together is a sign of the end of the world, but well… it's a good two months late for that. Pre-warning would have been nice," Harry muttered, ignoring the amused look Sam shot him - and the small voice in his mind that told him he did get an advanced warning of a few months.
"We do have angels on our side though, so that's a bit of bonus," Sam pointed out, and Harry restrained from saying that it was only a bonus with less than one percent of the angels. The rest were massive dicks.
"So we're meeting… who?"
"Er… a lady called Candace. She was the one who had um… contact with the whatever it is," Sam told him after having quickly checked the note he'd made stuffed in his pocket.
"Right! Candace. Awesome. What exactly are we hoping to find out?"
"What it is?" Sam asked, looking just as lost as Harry felt. There was a chance that Dean and Ardifiel had really left the wrong people to this job.
"Huh. Well, off we go Sammy-Sam. Time to find out what the feck this woman has to say. And then stop Dean and Ardy hitting on impressionable semi-naked women," Harry said with a sigh, patting Sam's chest and walking into the restaurant. "By the way, Lucky Chen? Just how lucky are we talking here?"
"Keep walking, Harry, we need to find Candace," Sam muttered, nudging Harry into the restaurant and almost walking into his back when Harry stopped once more.
"Found her." Harry pointed to the only single occupant in the not-so-busy restaurant and looked over his shoulder to grin at Sam, who just shook his head and stepped around Harry, pausing a step in front of him.
"You coming?"
"Sure, sure. Think I can get some of those fortune cookie things? I want to know my fortune. Not too sure why. Well, actually, I want to see if it will tell me that I'm going to die anytime soon. Most fortunes tell me that. It can get rather amusing actually," Harry admitted with a grin. Sam just stared at him and then shook his head, making Harry slump a little. Before 'The Bitch' Sam actually laughed at his lame jokes. Or would at least show an interest. Harry was well aware that he had resorted into acting like a child tugging on his crushes pigtails since it had been confirmed that Sam was indeed hanging around with the Hell Floozy, but well… Harry was kinda getting desperate now.
"Okay… come over to us when you've got some. Bring me some, yeah?" Sam asked him, giving Harry a brief puppy dog eyed look that made Harry scowl, before he turned around and walked over to the woman they assumed was Candace.
"Sure, give me the puppy eyes. Freak. I'll just… lick all the fortune cookies. See how you like that," Harry chuntered under his breath, heading to where the owner of the place was standing by the till and hoping he got at least one fortune cookie.
Fifteen minutes of pleading, coercion and bribing later, and Harry had a small bag of fortune cookies and headed to where Sam and Candace were still talking. Admittedly, Harry had spent so long getting the cookies in the first place in the hopes that Sam would have concluded the interview by now. Apparently his luck still sucked.
"I'm not surprised the spirit world chose to make contact with me. I'm something of a… natural sensitive." Harry would have immediately spun back round on his heels and ran off in the other direction had Sam not noticed his approach and smiled briefly at him. Scowling, Harry sat down in the seat next to Sam. "Oh… um…"
"I'm Harry, his… er…"
"Editor! Yeah, he's my editor," Sam said quickly, and Harry hoped he wasn't required to prove this in anyway as he couldn’t spell for toffee.
"Oh! So what did you say you're calling your book again?" Candace asked him, sending Harry a tiny bemused smile before turning her attention back to Sam. Sam looked a little flustered before giving a small shrug.
"Oh, well, um… well, the working title is… 'Supernatural'. Yeah, I've been crossing the country with Harry here, gathering stories like yours. But, anyways, you were telling me about your encounter," Sam prodded and Harry leant forward on the table as far as he could without looking bored and uninterested. Which is sort of was. He really disliked the interview stage sometimes.
"Yes. Well," Candace sighed and Harry shot Sam a confused look, Sam rolled his eyes in return and they both turned their attention back to Candace, "once I saw the apparition, that's when I started to run."
Harry's attention was caught by a couple kissing passionately at the table across from them by this point and couldn't help but gape. He was British; that kind of carry on normally came with the accompanying soundtrack of tutting and disgusted mutterings. Apparently his distraction dragged Sam's attention to the couple as well, so neither were paying much attention to poor Candace.
"And… you er… you said the ghost chased you?" Sam asked, managing to drag his attention back to the task at hand. Harry sort of wanted to give him a round of applause for that feat, but was too distracted.
"Not just that. It knew my name. It kept yelling, 'Mrs Armstrong! Mrs Armstrong!' and that's when I hit the stairs and fell," Candace told them, and even Harry's attention was dragged away from the couple that looked two steps away from just shagging on the table and to Candace's rather bizarre story. What the hell kind of ghost called after their victims?
"You fell? The ghost didn't push you?" Sam asked, and Harry wrinkled his nose in confusion. This case was just getting weirder and weirder. He wondered if that was some sort of theme with the Winchester Brothers.
"Oh, I don't - I don't know. I mean, I think it did. Maybe," Candace added, biting on her lip as she looked both sheepish and confused. Quite an accomplishment, Harry thought.
"Well… did you feel like it meant to hurt you? You know, like it was violent or something?" Harry asked seeing as Sam was once more trying to not look at the amorous couple across from them.
"It was a ghost. I'm lucky to be alive. Anyway, I was at the bottom of the stairs, and that's when it got weird," Candace admitted with a small, wry chuckle. Harry glanced at Sam who shrugged, then looked back at Candace. "It helped me up."
"Pardon?"
"Say again?"
"Yeah. It helped me up. And it kept saying over and over, 'Please don't tell my mom'." Harry felt his jaw drop as he gaped at Candace and silently hoped that Sam knew how to respond to that, because he was completely at a loss.
"Yeah, that's weird." Well, Harry possible could have come up with that response.
Harry and Sam walked over to where Dean and Ardifiel were standing outside the Fitness Centre, bickering over something that Harry wasn't entirely too sure he wanted to know about. Glancing at Sam, who just shrugged, they both walked over to the bickering pair and hoped that they had found out something to make this case just a little less… weird.
"So? Did you pick up anything at all? Find anything out? Work out what the bloody hell is going on here? Please say you did, this case is starting to give me a headache," Harry muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose and pouting when the looks on Dean and Ardifiel's faces gave the answer away.
"Nope, no EMF in the shower or anywhere else around, and the Holy EMF machine next to me picked nothing up either, well, useful. He got the number of three women, which, dude, I so would have gotten if you hadn't cockblocked me," Dean said, turning and snarling at Ardifiel, who just blinked innocently, doing an excellent impression of Castiel and making Harry want to give him a round of an applause.
"I have no idea what you mean. I'm an angel, we'd never do something so crude," Ardifiel claimed, the wicked smirk on his face let them all know - unneeded - that he was lying through his teeth.
"Great! So Ardy hits on freaked out women, Dean gets cockblocked, I have a headache and we're all even more lost than we were when we got here," Harry groaned, scowling when Sam patted him on the head awkwardly. There was a time, Harry muses, when Sam wasn't awkward around him in the least, or well, when he was, it was adorable and made Harry want to jump his bones.
Now he just wanted to salt and burn the wankers.
"Yeah, like Harry said. To be honest, I'm not that surprised you found nothing. Dunno about Harry, but I kinda got the feeling back there that crazy pushed Mrs Armstrong down the stairs," Sam admitted with a shrug.
"Sam's right, she was a couple of colours short of a rainbow. I mean, what ghost apologises and asks their victim not to tell their mother? Bloody weird."
"I… this is me not asking," Ardifiel muttered, shaking his head and slumping back against the wall.
"I've gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed," Dean piped up and Ardifiel nodded his head fervently behind him.
"You wanted to save naked women," Sam deadpanned, and Harry rolled his eyes so hard he honestly thought he felt something click behind his eyeballs. Due the slight alarm from that feeling, he missed Dean's answer, but judging by Sam's expression, and the fact it was Dean, Harry was fairly certain he knew the answer.
They were saved from anything Ardifiel might have wanted to add to that - and really, Harry knew it was only a matter of time before the angel fled back to whatever pervy angels did when not bothering him because no prospect of naked women running to the 'safety' of his arms - by a trio of rough looking boys running after a shorter, runtier looking boy. Harry gave a dramatic, reminiscent sigh as he watched them pass.
"Ah, brings back memories. Harry Hunting, good times. Good times," Harry said, with a smirk on his face.
"That some kinky game that I'm not entirely sure I want to know the details of?" Dean asked him and Harry stared at him.
"I'm a male escort and even I'll admit that you clearly have some kinks locked up in that Cro-Magnon skull of yours that are, quite frankly, a little disturbing. No, Dean, Harry Hunting was a game played by my lovely cousin and his friends wherein they chased me and then beat the stuffing out of me when they inevitably caught me."
"I am not Cro-Ma - Cromu - What you said!" Dean exclaimed and Harry just looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You don't even know what it is, clearly. And well, no, you're not. You’re far to pretty to pass as a caveman, though your manners wouldn't be out of place," Harry observed dryly as he looked at a gaping Dean, whilst Sam snickered next to him and Ardifiel looked like he was trying not to laugh.
"You - you're not nice."
"Great come back. Should we go help the runt? Or just leave it as nature intended and let the wimpy little kid get pummelled?" Harry asked in a bored tone, looking back to where the kids had run.
"I vote on nature," Ardifiel piped up in a bored tone, and Harry smiled at him cheerfully.
"I'm down with that. So! Back to the case, any ideas?" Dean asked, all three ignoring the trademark bitchface Sam was pitching at them, clearly wanting to go help the midgetty-runt.
"Sorry, Dean, but I don't think anything's going on around here," Sam admitted with a shrug and Harry silently agreed, though clearly Dean and Ardifiel didn't, which creeped him out. Those two agreeing was just… scary.
"Something's going on," Dean told them, nodding to where a man was arguing with a police officer about something and walking past Sam and Harry to walk nearer to the arguing men. Harry glanced at Sam and then Ardifiel, before shrugging and walking after Dean. It was something to do after all.
"How the hell was I supposed to get a look at it? It grabbed me from behind and three me into a tree!" The man was yelling when Harry sidled up next to Dean, and silently Harry could see Dean's point about something going on. Shame none of them had any idea what that something was.
"Yeah, okay, Gus. I understand you got shook up. Anyone would be. But don't you think it - Don't you think it had to be a bear?" The officer asked and Harry wrinkled his nose in confusion at what the hell the two were talking about and looked to the side to see if Dean had any idea. Sensing Harry's gaze, Dean looked at him and shook his head, shrugging.
"I know a damn bear track when I see one! This thing didn’t leave bear tracks! Its feet were huge!" Gus exclaimed and the officer sighed with obvious forced patience.
"Now, Gus…"
"It was Bigfoot, Hal -- The Bigfoot!" Gus exclaimed, arms starting to pinwheel around in his agitation.
"Gus, you're not talking sense here."
"There's a Bigfoot out there, damn it! And he's a son of a bitch!" Harry gaped and then stepped closer to Dean so he could hide in his shadow a little as he snickered. Dean's slightly shaking told Harry that he was amused by the argument as well. It was because they were both distracted by their amusement that Harry figured was the reason they both jumped when Sam interrupted the two men.
"Excuse us. FBI," Sam said and Harry wanted to silently groan. Why were they always the FBI? He was beginning to feel like he was trapped in a damned episode of the X-Files, only without David Duchovny's ass to stare at. Not that Sam's didn't make up for that, mind…
"Stop ogling my little brother's ass," Dean hissed at him, before stepping over to stand next to Sam and showing his badge when the officer looked at him. Harry pouted and looked back to see Ardifiel had bailed on them, wanker.
"Wanker." Harry huffed and walked up to join the two brothers, glaring at the officer when he stared suspiciously at him, but showing his badge when Dean discreetly elbowed him.
"What's the FBI want here?" The officer asked them suspiciously, whilst Gus didn't even bother to hide his interest in the conversation.
"We're here about the… that," Sam said awkwardly, nodding to Gus and making the officer gape at them a little.
"About Bigfoot?" The man asked Sam in disbelief, and at least Sam had the good grace to look a little embarrassed at that question.
"That's right. Sir, can you tell me exactly where this happened?" Sam asked Gus, who smirked at the officer and then stepped forward to nod at Sam.
"Yes, I can."
"What the hell's going on in this town? First there's a ghost that's not real and now a Bigfoot sighting?" Dean asked later as the three were walking through the woods that Gus had told them he'd seen the Bigfoot.
"Technically, no one said the ghost wasn't real, just… polite and a bit of a mummy's boy," Harry pointed out, getting a glare from Dean for being unhelpful.
"Cheers."
"Well, never mind the ghost-whatever. Right now? The Bigfoot thing confuses me. I mean, every hunter worth his salt knows Bigfoot's a hoax," Sam stated and Harry looked at him, making a wounded noise in the back of his throat.
"Really? Damn, I kinda really wanted to see one," Harry muttered, kicking at some of the fallen leaves at his feet and ignoring the chuckling from Dean.
"Clearly not a hunter worth your salt, Harry."
"I'm not a hunter. Sheesh, how many times do I have to remind you of this?" Harry groaned, glaring at Dean who just took a step back, smirking and holding up his hands.
"Fine, fine. Not a hunter. Whatever. Still, even though you're not a hunter, you've gotta admit I'm right. This is fucked up."
"I hate admitting you're right at the best of times. But sure, even I can swallow my pride and admit you're right. So what do you two expert hunters think is going on?"
"Not a clue. Maybe someone's pumping LSD into the town water supply," Dean suggested with a shrug and Harry snickered.
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, huh? Wait until you see the newspaper taxis."
"Sometimes, I have no idea what you're talking about. Actually, most of the time I'm pretty lost," Dean admitted, whilst Sam snorted and Harry gaped.
"The Beatles, Dean… you know what? Never mind, I've found the footprints… er… Really? No Bigfoot, because those? Those are kinda… big… feet…" Harry trailed off weakly, staring down at the tracks along with Dean and Sam.
"Okay. What do you suppose made that?"
"Harry's right… that is uh… is a big foot," Sam admitted and Harry couldn't suppress the snort of amusement. Really, it was either laugh or lose your mind at the sheer insanity of everything going on.
"Okay. Right," Dean said with a firm nod, causing Harry to lose his inner-battle and start to giggle. Sam snickered and nudged Harry, trying to make him stop, before Dean looked at them, rolled his eyes and led the way through the wood, following the tracks.
Eventually they came to a stop at a liquor store and Harry snorted once more and shook his head.
"This is fucked up," Harry muttered, following behind Dean into the store and looking around the place.
"So, what - Bigfoot breaks into a liquor store, jonesing for some hooch? Amaretto and Irish cream. He's a girl-drink drunk," Dean added and Harry snickered as he looked at the trashed store.
"Things are never boring with you two, are they? And also? I vote that the best joke in the world possibly starts with 'Bigfoot breaks into a liquor store', seriously," Harry said, still giggling and snickering slightly.
"Hey. Check this out!" Sam called out to them from further back in the store. Dean and Harry traded a look and walked to where Sam was standing, looking at a practically empty porn magazine rack.
"He took the whole porno rack? Well, I'll say it again. What the hell is going on in this town?" Dean asked, looking around as though hoping someone would pop up and tell them just that. Harry kinda hoped that was the case as well, but sighed when it didn't happen.
Slumping a little and feeling completely baffled, Harry followed Sam out of the store, leaving Dean to carry on gaping at the empty porn rack. Clearly the disappointment was high on that part.
"So… if Bigfoot doesn't exist, right? What, do you think, did all this?" Harry asked, once Dean had joined them, all three sitting on the steps to the store.
"I got nothing," Dean admitted, and both he and Harry turned to look at Sam in hopes that the 'Walking Encyclopaedia of Weird' had any idea.
"It's got to be a joke, right? Some big-Ass mother in a gorilla suit?" Sam suggested, making Harry wonder about that encyclopaedia claim.
"Or it's a Bigfoot. You know, and he's some kind of alocoholo-porno addict. Kind of like a deep-Woods Duchovny," Dean suggested and Harry groaned.
"Just call me Mulder," Harry murmured, watching a young girl cycling towards them, whilst Sam and Dean were both clearly trying to work out what was going on. As the little girl passed them, a copy of a porn magazine fell out of her basket by their feet.
"A little young for Busty Asian Beauties," Dean muttered as he picked the magazine up.
"As my madam once said; 'you're never too young to dyke it up'," Harry stated and Dean turned to look at him and chuckled.
"Dude, I don't even want to know." Harry just grinned at him, then frowned when the little girl grabbed a box from her bike basket and walked past them to leave it at the store door. They all glanced in the box and noticed it was full of liquor and porn, along with a small note just stating 'sorry'.
"Okay, not to sound totally skeevy and like a total nonce, but er… follow the little girl?" Harry asked them, cringing at little at what he said. The looks on Sam and Dean's face mirrored the discomfort he felt at the decision, but silently they all stood up and followed behind the little girl.
They stood outside the house that the little girl had entered into and Dean turned to look at them as they stepped up to the porch.
"What's this, like a… Harry and the Hendersons deal?" Dean asked them even as he knocked on the door. Before either Sam or Harry could answer, the girl answered the door and looked up at them.
"Hello?"
"Hello! Um… could we… you know what? Are your parents home?" Sam asked, clearly thinking back to what Harry had said before they actually followed the girl home.
"Nope."
"No…" Sam said, then looked to Dean and Harry, looking a little lost as to what to say next.
"No. Um… have you seen a really, really furry-"
"Is he in trouble?" The girl asked sounding genuinely upset as she interrupted Dean's question.
"No. No, no, no," Sam reassured her, chuckling a little at the sheer bizarre nature of whatever was going on, "not at all. We just - we wanted to make sure that he was okay."
"Exactly!" Harry piped up and Dean nodded beside him, all three of them were clearly trying their hardest not to just break down into hysterics.
"He's my teddy bear. I think he's sick," the little girl told them, looking at them with a devastated look on her face, which was what Harry was blaming on for Dean's apparent lack of sanity with his next statement.
"Wow. Uh… amazing. 'Cause, you know what? We are uh… teddy bear doctors!" Dean told them and Harry only just restrained himself from slapping his hand to his face. He'd been a lot in his time, but teddy bear doctor was a first, even for him. Mostly because Furry's really creeped him out. People in animal/character costumes kinda scared the shit out of him and he was beginning to get a bad feeling about this specific part of the whole weird ass case.
"Really? Can you please take a look at him?"
"Sure," Sam agreed and Harry muffled the whimper that wanted to escape.
"Sure. Yeah," Dean nodded and they all followed the girl into the house.
"Sure? Are you two insane? What, exactly, do you know about medicine at all? Because me? I know nothing. And other than stuffed with fluff, I know nothing about Winnie the freaking Pooh's anatomy!" Harry hissed at them as they walked through the house behind the girl.
"Shh, we might be able to find out what the hell is going on here," Sam hissed back at him, stopping when Dean did and causing Harry to bump into his back.
"He's in my bedroom. He's pretty grumpy," the girl warned them before she knocked on the door. Harry just stepped a little closer to Sam and held on to the back of his t-shirt. "Teddy? There's some nice doctors here to see you."
Upon opening the door, Sam, Dean and Harry all looked into the room and stared at the sight of a large, man-sized teddy bear. Harry suppressed a little whimper, then jumped back, shuddering when the teddy screamed at them.
"Close the friggin' door!" The girl closed the door and turned to look at the three men with wide, hopeful eyes.
"See what I mean?" Harry just let his head fall forward into Sam's back whilst Sam and Dean just exchanged surprised looks. "All I ever wanted was a teddy which was big, real and talked. But now he's sad all the time not 'ouch' sad, but ouch-in-the-head sad. Says weird stuff and smells like the bus.
"Um, little girl…" Dean started and Harry snickered, before realising that they hadn't actually asked the girl her name.
"Audrey!"
"Audrey. How exactly did your teddy become real?" Dean asked, which wasn't actually the question Harry wanted answered. To be honest, Harry wanted to get away from the creepy man-bear-thing. Furrys were creepy. Living teddys bears were terrifying. Shuddering a little, Harry took a step closer to Sam, still gripping his t-shirt and ignoring the amused look Sam gave him.
"I wished for it."
"You wished for it?" Sam asked her, whilst Harry was kind of wondering just where Audrey's parents were.
"At the wishing well!" Audrey told Sam as though the answer was clearly obvious, which, had they known about a wishing well, it possibly was. Dean took that moment to open the door to room that had the teddy in and saw it was sitting on the bed watching the news.
"Look at this. You believe this crap?" The teddy asked, pointing to the TV. Dean shrugged a little and shook his head.
"Not really." Harry snorted, just knowing Dean wasn't talking about the news like the teddy was. And really, Harry wondered if he would lose his mind given he was talking about a damned teddy bear like it was a sentient being.
Which it kinda was.
A really depressed one.
"It is a terrible world! Why am I here?!" The teddy demanded angrily, and Audrey hurried over to stand next to Dean in the doorway.
"For tea parties!!" Audrey told him cheerfully.
"Tea parties? Is that all there is?"
"Audrey, give us a second, okay? Okay," Sam said, stepping back with Harry and Dean a little further down the hallway and away from Audrey and the suicidal teddy bear. "Are we… should we… are we gonna kill this teddy bear?"
"How? Do we shoot it? Burn it?" Dean asked and Harry couldn't stop the semi-hysterical giggle that bubbled up inside him.
"I don't care how. But I vote burning it. Burn it, kill it. Please?" Harry hissed, still not letting go of his grip on Sam.
"What's your deal anyway? You're acting really freaked out and er… haven't let go of me yet."
"I hate people dressed up as animals. Disneyland? Yeah, that's my idea of a fecking nightmare. This? This is just fucked up beyond imagination!" Harry hissed waving his free hand towards the bedroom with the teddy bear inside.
"Right, okay, ignoring your er… unusual fears and getting back to this um… case. Thing. Whatever. If we do burn it, how exactly do we know it's gonna work? I don't want some giant, flaming, pissed-off teddy on our hands," Dean pointed out and Harry cringed but refused to admit the man had a point for a second time that day. Really, it would have given him indigestion.
"Yeah. Besides, I get the feeling that the bear isn't really the, you know, core problem here," Sam said and Harry nodded, turning to face Audrey.
"Completely agree with you there, Sammy-Sam. Hey, Audrey! Where are your parents?" Harry asked, finally getting to ask the one thing that had been bugging him beyond the six foot something living teddy bear.
"My mom wished they were in Bali, so I think they're in Bali," Audrey told him and harry just blinked at her and then looked back at Sam and Dean.
"Bali. Huh."
"Okay, well… I'm really sorry to have to break this to you, but… your bear is sick. Yeah he's - he's got…" Sam trailed off, clearly having not thought that far ahead in his reasoning and excuses.
"Lollipop disease." Harry choked off a laugh at Dean's answer to save Sam's floundering and Sam shot Dean a baffled look but nodded his head all the same.
"Lollipop disease."
"It's not uncommon for a bear his size. But, see, it's really contagious," Dean carried on, whilst Harry practically gnawed his lip off trying not to burst into laughter. The day just got more and more random.
"Yeah, so, is there someone - maybe a grown-up - that you can stay with while we treat him?" Sam asked her and Harry gave up the fight and giggled a little before coughing and looking serious once more.
"Mrs Hurley lives down the street," Audrey told them and all three men gave a little sigh of relief. Not that Harry was all that fond of kids, but still, he didn't want to see one abandoned alone in a house with a giant living teddy bear.
Not something he ever considered he would have to worry about, admittedly.
"Perfect!" Dean said and Harry and Sam nodded their agreement.
"Good, yeah, good. Uh… we'd like you to stay there for a few days, okay?" Sam asked her and Audrey nodded agreeably.
"Okay."
"Oh! And Audrey? Where's the wishing well?" Harry asked getting grateful looks from both brothers, who had clearly not thought to ask that. Sometimes Harry could be useful.
"You know… I should probably um… not be part of this one. You know, with the whole pretending to be really cruel and er closing the place down because we're mean, spiteful, lying bastards called Health Inspectors or whatever you people call them over here," Harry mumbled as the three of them arrived outside of Lucky Chen's Restaurant, the same place he and Sam had met Candace earlier that day - and wow, was it still the same day? Because it just seemed to be getting longer by the minute.
"What? Why?" Dean asked, looking a little distracted as he stared into the restaurant, before finally turning his attention to Harry.
"Well it's just… erm… fine, I threatened the guy into giving me some free fortune cookies without having to buy any other food."
"Really? You did that? Huh… how come you didn't save any for me?" Dean asked, whilst Sam sighed and shook his head, looking for all intents and purposes like he had one mother of a headache coming along. Harry was right there with him on that one.
"I don't like you. Now, I'll just um… hide in Prescill-"
"No! No you don't. Suck it up, Shrimp, you're coming with us. We'll work your nefarious fortune cookie stealing ways to our advantage somehow," Dean told him with a narrow-eyed glare, then yanked Harry into the restaurant by the sleeve of his shirt. Sam snorted softly behind them and followed silently.
Once inside, they made their way to the wishing well that supposedly brought a teddy bear to life - and really, even at Audrey's age, that wasn't what Harry would have asked for - and probably shit loads other weird stuff.
"Think it works?" Dean asked them, standing next to the small fountain - because even in his mind, Harry refused to call it a well more than once. He liked a well to have a good echo to it when you dropped a coin in it before he'd actually accept that it was a well. Wells were good places to hide bodies… this was not.
"Got a better explanation for teddy back there?" Sam asked, and Harry cringed just at the thought of the beast.
"God has a fucked up sense of humour and is getting me back for… something. I'm not sure what. I'll think of something I've done to piss him off. Can't be that hard," Harry muttered, frowning as he thought back to some of the more recent blasphemous stuff he'd done.
Like breathe, if one was to ask Uriel.
"Well, there's one way to find out either way," Dean said, digging around in his pockets for what Harry assumed was a coin to throw into the wishing not-a-well.
"What are you gonna wish for?" Sam asked. Harry just watched the two in amusement, noting the childish glee on Dean's face. He could guess what Dean was going to wish for without having to ask.
"Shh!" Dean hushed, dropping the coin into the fountain. "Not supposed to tell."
"How old is he again? And see? Not even a decent plooping sound. That is not a well," Harry muttered to Sam, who snickered and nodded his agreement.
"Sometimes, I do wonder about his age," Sam muttered back, whilst Dean ignored both of the in favour of staring at the door like it held the secrets of the universe. Moments later, the reason for Dean's attention came apparent as a man wearing a delivery outfit of some form entered the restaurant.
"Somebody order a foot long Italian with jalapeno?"
"Huh, I'd guessed pie. You learn something new everyday," Harry murmured when Dean perked up and hurried over to get his sandwich. Sam just shot him an amused look and shook his head.
"You have a lot to learn about Dean. Most of it revolves around his stomach." Sam and Harry walked over to the table Dean had sat himself at with his sandwich, and slid into the seats opposite him.
"I think it works! That was pretty specific," Dean said around a mouthful of masticated Italian sandwich - Harry had no idea what was in it… but it looked like tomatoes were involved. Or blood. Something red.
"The teddy bear, the sandwich…" Sam trailed off and Harry wrinkled his nose when he noticed the couple that were still possibly surgically attached at the lips sitting by their table. Actually, he was a little stunned that they had neither left to shag, nor apparently been arrested for public indecency.
"Mm. I'm guessing this," Dean added, tapping the newspaper left on the table with a headline declaring a local lottery winner.
"And that," Harry added, pointing to the couple trying to possibly eat one another actually. Harry really wasn't too sure it could be called lust. It really did look more like hunger.
He should stop watching zombie movies at night.
"Well, that definitely goes on the list," Dean agreed when he looked at where Harry was pointing. "What are we supposed to do, huh? Stop people's wishes from coming true? Sounds like a kind of douchey thing to do."
"Yeah, maybe," Sam agreed hesitantly. "But come on, man. When has something like this ever come without a price tag? And usually a deadly one."
"I'm sensing a story behind that and I really want to hear it one day, but… I'm with Sam. Kinda makes you think up the old warning 'be careful what you wish for', doesn’t it?"
"I don't know. It's a damn good sandwich," Dean said as he carried on eating the damned thing. He slumped a little in his seat when he noticed neither Harry nor Sam were looking impressed or convinced. "Alright, fine. We'll put a hold on the wishing until we figure out what's going on."
"Good bo-oop!" Harry slumped a little and hid his face in Sam's jacket when he noticed the waiter hurrying over to them, getting amused looks from both brothers, though thankfully the waiter didn't appear to notice him, or at least, the man didn't recognise him as the guy that basically stole a bag of fortune cookies.
"Uh, gentlemen, gentlemen. I'm sorry. We don't allow people to eat outside food here," the waiter told them, looking at Dean with a frown on his face. Which was possibly why he hadn't noticed just who was trying to merge with Sam on the other side of the table.
"Well, I am certainly not gonna eat the inside food here," Dean told him snootily, making Harry pull away slightly from hiding in Sam's coat - something that was amusing Sam to no end - so that he could look and see what Dean was up to. "Health department. You, my friend, have a rat infestation. We're gonna have to shut this place down under emergency hazard code 56c."
"Rats?!" The waiter exclaimed, looking horrified. Harry and Sam, meanwhile just stared at Dean whilst he tried to look sympathetic at the waiter. How the hell had Dean known any health department codes?
"Sorry, sir. But we're gonna have a look around, see if we can find any other problems. If you could empty the place, and er… the fountain too? Thank you for your cooperation," Sam told him when the waiter just nodded his head dumbly. Harry had a second of feeling sympathy for the man, before it quickly passed and he slid out of the booth behind Sam, making sure to keep the taller man between himself and the waiter.
Not long later, the place was empty, as was the fountain. Sam and Harry stood next to it whilst Dean swept all the coins out of the way. So far, none of them could see anything magical and mystical about it that would indicate it making wishes come true. Not that Harry was surprised. Between the three of them, they possibly had the IQ of a particularly intelligent Alsatian. Mostly because Harry and Dean's collective IQ dragged Sam's own IQ down quite significantly.
It was a depressing realisation.
"Typical fountain, plaster Buddha. Nothing I can see," Dean muttered as he swept the last of the coins away.
"Yes, nothing. We keep a clean place here." Harry jumped slightly, having forgotten about the waiter who had been watching them like a hawk. Really, it wasn't like they were going to run off with the damned thing.
"Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave during the preliminary investigation, okay? Thank you," Sam told the waiter, moving to usher the protesting man outside, then shutting the door in his face. Harry watched him and then looked back at Dean, who was grinning and holding a handful of coins.
"Oh, come on. Aren't you a little bit tempted?" Dean asked him, and Harry just stared at him incredulously.
"One, what would I wish for exactly? And two, why the bloody hell would I want to? Knowing my luck, it'd bite me in the arse in the most spectacular fashion. So no. Not tempted in the slightest. Sam?"
"Nope. Wouldn't be real. And like you, I wouldn't trust it," Sam told them with a chuckle as he came back to join them.
"I don't know, that bear seemed pretty real."
"And creepy as all fuck," Harry muttered as a shiver ran down his spine.
"True. To it being real. And a little creepy actually," Sam added with a nod to Harry. Dean just rolled his eyes at the two of them.
"Come on, if you could wish yourself back, you know, before it all started… think about it. You'd be some big yuppie lawyer with a nice car and a white picket fence," Dean stated and Harry bit down on his lip and looked away from the two brothers. Dean did have a point there. Sam actually once had a chance at a future. Dean and Harry were the ones that had never really had a choice in their lifestyles.
"Not what I'd wish for."
"Seriously?" Both Dean and Harry asked. Dean and Sam turned to look at Harry in surprise, making Harry fidget a little.
"What?'
"Why are you surprised?" Sam asked him, looking confused. Harry just shrugged and glanced at his feet.
"No reason really. Just… if I knew that it couldn't backfire on me and I had the kind of opportunities you once had, then I'd probably wish to get them back," Harry admitted quietly. Actually, he kinda wished he'd never agreed to be the personal whore of Heaven. And boy, did that sound weird.
"It's just… it's too late to go back to our old lives, you know? I'm not that guy anymore," Sam pointed out and Harry and Dean shared a suspicious glance before they both shrugged it off.
"Alright, well… what then? Hmm? What would Sammy wish for?" Dean asked and Harry snickered but turned his attention to Sam, himself wondering exactly what Dean was asking.
"Lilith's head on a plate. Bloody," was Sam's answer. Harry winced a little at that response, but didn't say anything. He wasn't particularly keen on Lilith either to tell the truth.
"Okay," Dean said, sniffing a little and then carrying on sweeping away the last of the coins. He paused a few seconds later and crouched down next to something in the fountain. "What is that?"
Harry looked at where Dean was pointing and shrugged, just seeing a coin. Nothing surprising, considering where it was.
"Some kind of old coin. I don't recognise the markings," Sam said, bending to look closer at the coin.
"Damn," Dean cursed when he tried to pick the coin up but failed. Harry snorted a little and leant on the fountain, smirking when Dean glared at him.
"Lift with your legs," Sam told Dean helpfully, grinning widely when Dean turned his glare to Sam. He turned back to the coin and tried to pry the coin up but failed once again.
"Is that little mother welded on there?"
"Hang on!" Harry piped up, grinning at both brothers when they looked at him curiously, before he ran from the restaurant. Before Dean could realise that there was really only one place Harry could possibly be going to, Harry opened the trunk of the car and grabbed a hammer and a crowbar, giving a small maniacal cackle as he slammed the trunk shut. Wincing a little at the loud noise it made and hoping Dean didn't somehow hear that.
Practically skipping back into the restaurant, he held up the hammer and crowbar for Sam and Dean to see, grinning mischievously as he did so.
"Time for some fun! Woo! Now, this? This is my idea of fun. Reckless destruction. Get in. Now shift it, Dean. This is work for the sadistic and maniacal. You're just a little too vanilla for this," Harry added with a chuckle, nudging the gaping Dean out of the way and jabbing the crow bar under the coin.
"Hey, hey, hey! What is this?! You are gonna break my fountain!" The waiter exclaimed, running back in when he noticed just what Harry was doing.
"Not the only thing I'm gonna bloody break in a minute," Harry muttered, getting a chuckle from Dean. Sam stepped forward to stop the waiter from stopping harry. Or Harry from hitting the poor guy.
"Sir, I don't want to slap you with a 44/16, but I will," Sam snapped at him, and Harry briefly wondered where the two brothers had learnt all the random knowledge they seemed to carry in order to be Health Inspectors/FBI Agents/anything else random and bizarre. Harry was an excellent escort, - if he did say so himself - an alright nurse, - should a client have that kind of kink - and a passable wizard - actually, he sucked at that - but that was about it. He was pretty certain he'd never have been able to remember half the stuff the Winchesters seemed to know. Harry glanced over to see the waiter glaring at Sam, but taking a step back, and grinned.
"Good good. Now then, back to business," Harry muttered, making sure the crowbar was firmly caught on the coin and then bringing the hammer back to smash it onto the other end of the crowbar. "Holy fuck!" Sam practically had to throw himself to the floor to avoid the end of the hammer that flew off upon impact with the crowbar.
"What the hell?" Dean asked, whilst Sam and the waiter both scrambled to stand back up and stared at Harry in shock.
"Coin's magical," Sam pointed out, completely needlessly in Harry's opinion.
"Thanks for that observation, Sherlock. Fecking magic. Christ, it's everywhere. I hate magic. No pointing fingers, thank you very much. Potions don't count. Any Tom, Dick or Muggle can do those."
"Er… Right, so magic makes Harry pissy. You know… I don't think we can destroy this," Dean pointed out disappointedly.
"Huh, sucks. Guess there's no hope for us to do anything about this then, huh? Shall we leave? I'm bored. I say we leave. Surely there's something better for us to do, you know, before the giant teddy comes after us for er… diagnosing it with Lollipop Disease," Harry pointed out, slumping a little when Sam ignored him and crouched down to trace the coin. Looking over Sam's shoulder, Harry snickered, getting a suspicious look from both Sam and Dean.
"What?"
"Sammy! I'll show you my etchings if you show me yours!"
"Dude! Don't be sharing etchings whilst I'm around. Actually, don't at all!" Dean exclaimed, shuddering a little whilst Sam just sighed and looked to be praying for patience.
"Don't pray to Him, Sammy. He sucks. No offence, God, but you kinda do. Admit it. Except, you know, when you don't. Er… Etchings?" Harry asked when he noticed Sam, Dean and the waiter looking at him oddly.
"Right, etchings. Here, you two go look into this," Sam said, handing the 'etching' to Harry, though probably only because he feared what Harry would come up with had he handed said 'etching' to his brother.
"Where you going?" Dean asked when Sam walked to the door to leave.
"Something just occurred to me," Sam told them before he hurried out of the restaurant, leaving Dean and Harry just gaping after him.
"Huh. He just… left. Dean, your brother's a freak."
"I hear ya."
Continue
I am so sorry for how long it took me to get this posted. Er… had some difficulties with life and er… my muse (little bitch), but hey! Finally got the next chapter up! Woo! Enjoy!
Warnings: Not many that I can think of… um… usual violence that comes with writing Supernatural fanfiction. Giant man-sized teddy-bears (fucking creepier than anything else on Supernatural if you ask me) and er… brief death of a character. Doesn't last long mind but it's there… *coughs* Oh. And Ardifiel. He’s back in this chapter. He needs a warning.
Chapter Ten
5th November, 2008. Oregon
“Remember, remember, the fifth of November. The gunpowder treason and plot.-“
“Go away.” Harry burrowed under his pillow to escape from his insane angel, that didn’t get the hint and just sat down on his bed next to him.
“I see no reason, why the gunpowder treason, should ever be forgot.”
“Because we’re in America and they don’t give a damn about it. Shut. Up.” Harry grumbled, clinging to his pillow when he felt it slowly being tugged off of him.
“Oh come now, I was there for that particular snippet of history! It was… fascinating!” Harry groaned, seeing that his plan to get a few more hours sleep before having to face the demo-Winchester brother’s to make their way to wherever the hell they were heading. Something about naked women in showers.
“Why are you here? You ignored me for the last week,” Harry pointed out, relinquishing his pillow and watching as Ardifiel made himself comfortable by curling onto his side and hugging the pillow.
“I didn’t ignore you. You’ve been visited every day by either Castiel or Yebemiah. I was busy. Besides, you didn’t call for me! So, you clearly didn’t need me!” Ardifiel pointed out, and Harry just shrugged and curled on his own side to face the angel.
“True. Why are you here then?” Harry asked, stifling a yawn and rubbing a hand over his face.
“Ah, I overheard something about a hunt involving naked women in showers. I came to offer a helping hand. These people need me. I’m… comforting,” Ardifiel said, in clearly what he hoped was his most sincere voice, but just made Harry stare at him blankly.
“I’m more comforting than you, and I’m a whore.”
“Yes, well, it’s shocking how comforting you can be if you’re being paid to do it. I’m not. This is from the kindness of my heart,” Ardifiel said, and Harry wondered if he could get paid just to deal with Ardifiel.
“I’m asking for a raise,” Harry muttered, and Ardifiel made a noise similar to a kicked puppy.
“There’s no need to be mean. Wait, you’re not still in pain are you? Castiel informed me that you foolishly took on Samhain’s magic. It had better have not been for Winchester,” Ardifiel said with narrowed eyes.
“It was for this stupid war you dragged me into,” Harry muttered, then sighed and looked at Ardifiel, wincing at the concern he saw there. “No, I’m not still in pain. Cas sorted me out. Everything is fine.”
“Right, so when are we leaving then?”
“Whenever Dean or Sam come and get me. Are you honestly going to stick with us in the hopes you can perv on defenceless, scared women? Are you lying when you say you’re an angel?”
“Hey! You’ve met Uriel. I am an awesome angel compared to him!” Ardifiel exclaimed, and Harry had to concede that he was right on the mark with that.
“True. You do know you don’t have to babysit me, don’t you? You don’t have to hang around me all the damned time,” Harry told him, exasperation in his voice.
“Is this your way of telling me to go away?”
“No. Just… I know why you’re here. Sam hasn’t done anything wrong, so leave him alone. You have no reason to hurt him, pick on him or generally act like every other angel around him," Harry said with a suffering sigh. Ardifiel made a small wounded noise, but nodded all the same.
"Fine, but he hurt you Harry. You can put a brave face on it, but if even Castiel noticed, then you know it's pretty obvious. Though apparently Sam is either ignorant, blind or dense. I'm not sure I've decided on which one. I may just go with all three and save myself the time trying to figure it out."
"Stop being mean," Harry snapped, though without much fire behind it. Ardifiel had a point afterall, Sam had hurt him. Even Dean seemed to know that. Which was a little embarrassing.
Ardifiel didn't get a chance to respond to Harry's snappish retort as there was a sharp knock on the door and Dean's voice yelling for Harry to get ready. Harry grumbled and finally got out of bed, quickly changing into the first set of clothing he reached in his bag. Ardifiel silently just watched him - leered at him - and then meekly followed behind Harry once Harry was ready to leave.
"Ardy coming along then?" Dean asked, having noticed the angel standing behind Harry as soon as they reached the Impala. A small bang and then a muffled curse signally that Sam had heard Dean, and sure enough, Sam looked around the back of the car and sent Ardifiel a wary smile.
"Hey, Ardy. You two ready to go? Dean's disturbingly keen to go question women in the showers," Sam told them, sending Dean a look that told them all just what he thought of that.
"Yeah, Ardy's rather keen as well. It's why he's here. No other reason other than to go completely against stereotype and leer at defenceless, semi-naked women," Harry explained, getting a completely unapologetic grin from Ardifiel for his troubles. Dean just chuckled whilst Sam shook his head.
"Great. So these two are pervs and we're the only two that actually have a sense of decorum? Awesome," Sam grumbled, either not hearing or choosing to ignore the derisive snort from Ardifiel at that comment.
"Indeed. Right, get in the car. Let's go and see what the hell is going on with these people," Harry declared, opening the door to the back and climbing in before anyone could say anymore. He was hoping he could catch a nap on the way to wherever the hell it was they were going.
He was silently grateful when everyone took his lead and got in the car, after that, it didn't take long for them to be on their way.
5th November, 2008. Oregon
Harry and Sam stepped out of the car, having dropped Dean and Ardifiel off at the fitness centre where the women had been terrorised by… something. Harry was still wondering over how Dean and Ardifiel had managed to convince them to get that job. Really, of all the people to send, those two were not who Harry would have chosen.
Apparently, however, given Harry is a male escort and Sam was, in Dean's words, 'a geeky prude' - something Harry silently disagreed with - Dean had decided he was the one most suitable for the job and Ardifiel had decided that, as an angel, he should go along to give… moral support to the 'poor women'. Harry didn't even want to know.
"We were had, you know."
"I know. I'd say that Dean and Ardifiel teaming up together is a sign of the end of the world, but well… it's a good two months late for that. Pre-warning would have been nice," Harry muttered, ignoring the amused look Sam shot him - and the small voice in his mind that told him he did get an advanced warning of a few months.
"We do have angels on our side though, so that's a bit of bonus," Sam pointed out, and Harry restrained from saying that it was only a bonus with less than one percent of the angels. The rest were massive dicks.
"So we're meeting… who?"
"Er… a lady called Candace. She was the one who had um… contact with the whatever it is," Sam told him after having quickly checked the note he'd made stuffed in his pocket.
"Right! Candace. Awesome. What exactly are we hoping to find out?"
"What it is?" Sam asked, looking just as lost as Harry felt. There was a chance that Dean and Ardifiel had really left the wrong people to this job.
"Huh. Well, off we go Sammy-Sam. Time to find out what the feck this woman has to say. And then stop Dean and Ardy hitting on impressionable semi-naked women," Harry said with a sigh, patting Sam's chest and walking into the restaurant. "By the way, Lucky Chen? Just how lucky are we talking here?"
"Keep walking, Harry, we need to find Candace," Sam muttered, nudging Harry into the restaurant and almost walking into his back when Harry stopped once more.
"Found her." Harry pointed to the only single occupant in the not-so-busy restaurant and looked over his shoulder to grin at Sam, who just shook his head and stepped around Harry, pausing a step in front of him.
"You coming?"
"Sure, sure. Think I can get some of those fortune cookie things? I want to know my fortune. Not too sure why. Well, actually, I want to see if it will tell me that I'm going to die anytime soon. Most fortunes tell me that. It can get rather amusing actually," Harry admitted with a grin. Sam just stared at him and then shook his head, making Harry slump a little. Before 'The Bitch' Sam actually laughed at his lame jokes. Or would at least show an interest. Harry was well aware that he had resorted into acting like a child tugging on his crushes pigtails since it had been confirmed that Sam was indeed hanging around with the Hell Floozy, but well… Harry was kinda getting desperate now.
"Okay… come over to us when you've got some. Bring me some, yeah?" Sam asked him, giving Harry a brief puppy dog eyed look that made Harry scowl, before he turned around and walked over to the woman they assumed was Candace.
"Sure, give me the puppy eyes. Freak. I'll just… lick all the fortune cookies. See how you like that," Harry chuntered under his breath, heading to where the owner of the place was standing by the till and hoping he got at least one fortune cookie.
Fifteen minutes of pleading, coercion and bribing later, and Harry had a small bag of fortune cookies and headed to where Sam and Candace were still talking. Admittedly, Harry had spent so long getting the cookies in the first place in the hopes that Sam would have concluded the interview by now. Apparently his luck still sucked.
"I'm not surprised the spirit world chose to make contact with me. I'm something of a… natural sensitive." Harry would have immediately spun back round on his heels and ran off in the other direction had Sam not noticed his approach and smiled briefly at him. Scowling, Harry sat down in the seat next to Sam. "Oh… um…"
"I'm Harry, his… er…"
"Editor! Yeah, he's my editor," Sam said quickly, and Harry hoped he wasn't required to prove this in anyway as he couldn’t spell for toffee.
"Oh! So what did you say you're calling your book again?" Candace asked him, sending Harry a tiny bemused smile before turning her attention back to Sam. Sam looked a little flustered before giving a small shrug.
"Oh, well, um… well, the working title is… 'Supernatural'. Yeah, I've been crossing the country with Harry here, gathering stories like yours. But, anyways, you were telling me about your encounter," Sam prodded and Harry leant forward on the table as far as he could without looking bored and uninterested. Which is sort of was. He really disliked the interview stage sometimes.
"Yes. Well," Candace sighed and Harry shot Sam a confused look, Sam rolled his eyes in return and they both turned their attention back to Candace, "once I saw the apparition, that's when I started to run."
Harry's attention was caught by a couple kissing passionately at the table across from them by this point and couldn't help but gape. He was British; that kind of carry on normally came with the accompanying soundtrack of tutting and disgusted mutterings. Apparently his distraction dragged Sam's attention to the couple as well, so neither were paying much attention to poor Candace.
"And… you er… you said the ghost chased you?" Sam asked, managing to drag his attention back to the task at hand. Harry sort of wanted to give him a round of applause for that feat, but was too distracted.
"Not just that. It knew my name. It kept yelling, 'Mrs Armstrong! Mrs Armstrong!' and that's when I hit the stairs and fell," Candace told them, and even Harry's attention was dragged away from the couple that looked two steps away from just shagging on the table and to Candace's rather bizarre story. What the hell kind of ghost called after their victims?
"You fell? The ghost didn't push you?" Sam asked, and Harry wrinkled his nose in confusion. This case was just getting weirder and weirder. He wondered if that was some sort of theme with the Winchester Brothers.
"Oh, I don't - I don't know. I mean, I think it did. Maybe," Candace added, biting on her lip as she looked both sheepish and confused. Quite an accomplishment, Harry thought.
"Well… did you feel like it meant to hurt you? You know, like it was violent or something?" Harry asked seeing as Sam was once more trying to not look at the amorous couple across from them.
"It was a ghost. I'm lucky to be alive. Anyway, I was at the bottom of the stairs, and that's when it got weird," Candace admitted with a small, wry chuckle. Harry glanced at Sam who shrugged, then looked back at Candace. "It helped me up."
"Pardon?"
"Say again?"
"Yeah. It helped me up. And it kept saying over and over, 'Please don't tell my mom'." Harry felt his jaw drop as he gaped at Candace and silently hoped that Sam knew how to respond to that, because he was completely at a loss.
"Yeah, that's weird." Well, Harry possible could have come up with that response.
Harry and Sam walked over to where Dean and Ardifiel were standing outside the Fitness Centre, bickering over something that Harry wasn't entirely too sure he wanted to know about. Glancing at Sam, who just shrugged, they both walked over to the bickering pair and hoped that they had found out something to make this case just a little less… weird.
"So? Did you pick up anything at all? Find anything out? Work out what the bloody hell is going on here? Please say you did, this case is starting to give me a headache," Harry muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose and pouting when the looks on Dean and Ardifiel's faces gave the answer away.
"Nope, no EMF in the shower or anywhere else around, and the Holy EMF machine next to me picked nothing up either, well, useful. He got the number of three women, which, dude, I so would have gotten if you hadn't cockblocked me," Dean said, turning and snarling at Ardifiel, who just blinked innocently, doing an excellent impression of Castiel and making Harry want to give him a round of an applause.
"I have no idea what you mean. I'm an angel, we'd never do something so crude," Ardifiel claimed, the wicked smirk on his face let them all know - unneeded - that he was lying through his teeth.
"Great! So Ardy hits on freaked out women, Dean gets cockblocked, I have a headache and we're all even more lost than we were when we got here," Harry groaned, scowling when Sam patted him on the head awkwardly. There was a time, Harry muses, when Sam wasn't awkward around him in the least, or well, when he was, it was adorable and made Harry want to jump his bones.
Now he just wanted to salt and burn the wankers.
"Yeah, like Harry said. To be honest, I'm not that surprised you found nothing. Dunno about Harry, but I kinda got the feeling back there that crazy pushed Mrs Armstrong down the stairs," Sam admitted with a shrug.
"Sam's right, she was a couple of colours short of a rainbow. I mean, what ghost apologises and asks their victim not to tell their mother? Bloody weird."
"I… this is me not asking," Ardifiel muttered, shaking his head and slumping back against the wall.
"I've gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed," Dean piped up and Ardifiel nodded his head fervently behind him.
"You wanted to save naked women," Sam deadpanned, and Harry rolled his eyes so hard he honestly thought he felt something click behind his eyeballs. Due the slight alarm from that feeling, he missed Dean's answer, but judging by Sam's expression, and the fact it was Dean, Harry was fairly certain he knew the answer.
They were saved from anything Ardifiel might have wanted to add to that - and really, Harry knew it was only a matter of time before the angel fled back to whatever pervy angels did when not bothering him because no prospect of naked women running to the 'safety' of his arms - by a trio of rough looking boys running after a shorter, runtier looking boy. Harry gave a dramatic, reminiscent sigh as he watched them pass.
"Ah, brings back memories. Harry Hunting, good times. Good times," Harry said, with a smirk on his face.
"That some kinky game that I'm not entirely sure I want to know the details of?" Dean asked him and Harry stared at him.
"I'm a male escort and even I'll admit that you clearly have some kinks locked up in that Cro-Magnon skull of yours that are, quite frankly, a little disturbing. No, Dean, Harry Hunting was a game played by my lovely cousin and his friends wherein they chased me and then beat the stuffing out of me when they inevitably caught me."
"I am not Cro-Ma - Cromu - What you said!" Dean exclaimed and Harry just looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You don't even know what it is, clearly. And well, no, you're not. You’re far to pretty to pass as a caveman, though your manners wouldn't be out of place," Harry observed dryly as he looked at a gaping Dean, whilst Sam snickered next to him and Ardifiel looked like he was trying not to laugh.
"You - you're not nice."
"Great come back. Should we go help the runt? Or just leave it as nature intended and let the wimpy little kid get pummelled?" Harry asked in a bored tone, looking back to where the kids had run.
"I vote on nature," Ardifiel piped up in a bored tone, and Harry smiled at him cheerfully.
"I'm down with that. So! Back to the case, any ideas?" Dean asked, all three ignoring the trademark bitchface Sam was pitching at them, clearly wanting to go help the midgetty-runt.
"Sorry, Dean, but I don't think anything's going on around here," Sam admitted with a shrug and Harry silently agreed, though clearly Dean and Ardifiel didn't, which creeped him out. Those two agreeing was just… scary.
"Something's going on," Dean told them, nodding to where a man was arguing with a police officer about something and walking past Sam and Harry to walk nearer to the arguing men. Harry glanced at Sam and then Ardifiel, before shrugging and walking after Dean. It was something to do after all.
"How the hell was I supposed to get a look at it? It grabbed me from behind and three me into a tree!" The man was yelling when Harry sidled up next to Dean, and silently Harry could see Dean's point about something going on. Shame none of them had any idea what that something was.
"Yeah, okay, Gus. I understand you got shook up. Anyone would be. But don't you think it - Don't you think it had to be a bear?" The officer asked and Harry wrinkled his nose in confusion at what the hell the two were talking about and looked to the side to see if Dean had any idea. Sensing Harry's gaze, Dean looked at him and shook his head, shrugging.
"I know a damn bear track when I see one! This thing didn’t leave bear tracks! Its feet were huge!" Gus exclaimed and the officer sighed with obvious forced patience.
"Now, Gus…"
"It was Bigfoot, Hal -- The Bigfoot!" Gus exclaimed, arms starting to pinwheel around in his agitation.
"Gus, you're not talking sense here."
"There's a Bigfoot out there, damn it! And he's a son of a bitch!" Harry gaped and then stepped closer to Dean so he could hide in his shadow a little as he snickered. Dean's slightly shaking told Harry that he was amused by the argument as well. It was because they were both distracted by their amusement that Harry figured was the reason they both jumped when Sam interrupted the two men.
"Excuse us. FBI," Sam said and Harry wanted to silently groan. Why were they always the FBI? He was beginning to feel like he was trapped in a damned episode of the X-Files, only without David Duchovny's ass to stare at. Not that Sam's didn't make up for that, mind…
"Stop ogling my little brother's ass," Dean hissed at him, before stepping over to stand next to Sam and showing his badge when the officer looked at him. Harry pouted and looked back to see Ardifiel had bailed on them, wanker.
"Wanker." Harry huffed and walked up to join the two brothers, glaring at the officer when he stared suspiciously at him, but showing his badge when Dean discreetly elbowed him.
"What's the FBI want here?" The officer asked them suspiciously, whilst Gus didn't even bother to hide his interest in the conversation.
"We're here about the… that," Sam said awkwardly, nodding to Gus and making the officer gape at them a little.
"About Bigfoot?" The man asked Sam in disbelief, and at least Sam had the good grace to look a little embarrassed at that question.
"That's right. Sir, can you tell me exactly where this happened?" Sam asked Gus, who smirked at the officer and then stepped forward to nod at Sam.
"Yes, I can."
"What the hell's going on in this town? First there's a ghost that's not real and now a Bigfoot sighting?" Dean asked later as the three were walking through the woods that Gus had told them he'd seen the Bigfoot.
"Technically, no one said the ghost wasn't real, just… polite and a bit of a mummy's boy," Harry pointed out, getting a glare from Dean for being unhelpful.
"Cheers."
"Well, never mind the ghost-whatever. Right now? The Bigfoot thing confuses me. I mean, every hunter worth his salt knows Bigfoot's a hoax," Sam stated and Harry looked at him, making a wounded noise in the back of his throat.
"Really? Damn, I kinda really wanted to see one," Harry muttered, kicking at some of the fallen leaves at his feet and ignoring the chuckling from Dean.
"Clearly not a hunter worth your salt, Harry."
"I'm not a hunter. Sheesh, how many times do I have to remind you of this?" Harry groaned, glaring at Dean who just took a step back, smirking and holding up his hands.
"Fine, fine. Not a hunter. Whatever. Still, even though you're not a hunter, you've gotta admit I'm right. This is fucked up."
"I hate admitting you're right at the best of times. But sure, even I can swallow my pride and admit you're right. So what do you two expert hunters think is going on?"
"Not a clue. Maybe someone's pumping LSD into the town water supply," Dean suggested with a shrug and Harry snickered.
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, huh? Wait until you see the newspaper taxis."
"Sometimes, I have no idea what you're talking about. Actually, most of the time I'm pretty lost," Dean admitted, whilst Sam snorted and Harry gaped.
"The Beatles, Dean… you know what? Never mind, I've found the footprints… er… Really? No Bigfoot, because those? Those are kinda… big… feet…" Harry trailed off weakly, staring down at the tracks along with Dean and Sam.
"Okay. What do you suppose made that?"
"Harry's right… that is uh… is a big foot," Sam admitted and Harry couldn't suppress the snort of amusement. Really, it was either laugh or lose your mind at the sheer insanity of everything going on.
"Okay. Right," Dean said with a firm nod, causing Harry to lose his inner-battle and start to giggle. Sam snickered and nudged Harry, trying to make him stop, before Dean looked at them, rolled his eyes and led the way through the wood, following the tracks.
Eventually they came to a stop at a liquor store and Harry snorted once more and shook his head.
"This is fucked up," Harry muttered, following behind Dean into the store and looking around the place.
"So, what - Bigfoot breaks into a liquor store, jonesing for some hooch? Amaretto and Irish cream. He's a girl-drink drunk," Dean added and Harry snickered as he looked at the trashed store.
"Things are never boring with you two, are they? And also? I vote that the best joke in the world possibly starts with 'Bigfoot breaks into a liquor store', seriously," Harry said, still giggling and snickering slightly.
"Hey. Check this out!" Sam called out to them from further back in the store. Dean and Harry traded a look and walked to where Sam was standing, looking at a practically empty porn magazine rack.
"He took the whole porno rack? Well, I'll say it again. What the hell is going on in this town?" Dean asked, looking around as though hoping someone would pop up and tell them just that. Harry kinda hoped that was the case as well, but sighed when it didn't happen.
Slumping a little and feeling completely baffled, Harry followed Sam out of the store, leaving Dean to carry on gaping at the empty porn rack. Clearly the disappointment was high on that part.
"So… if Bigfoot doesn't exist, right? What, do you think, did all this?" Harry asked, once Dean had joined them, all three sitting on the steps to the store.
"I got nothing," Dean admitted, and both he and Harry turned to look at Sam in hopes that the 'Walking Encyclopaedia of Weird' had any idea.
"It's got to be a joke, right? Some big-Ass mother in a gorilla suit?" Sam suggested, making Harry wonder about that encyclopaedia claim.
"Or it's a Bigfoot. You know, and he's some kind of alocoholo-porno addict. Kind of like a deep-Woods Duchovny," Dean suggested and Harry groaned.
"Just call me Mulder," Harry murmured, watching a young girl cycling towards them, whilst Sam and Dean were both clearly trying to work out what was going on. As the little girl passed them, a copy of a porn magazine fell out of her basket by their feet.
"A little young for Busty Asian Beauties," Dean muttered as he picked the magazine up.
"As my madam once said; 'you're never too young to dyke it up'," Harry stated and Dean turned to look at him and chuckled.
"Dude, I don't even want to know." Harry just grinned at him, then frowned when the little girl grabbed a box from her bike basket and walked past them to leave it at the store door. They all glanced in the box and noticed it was full of liquor and porn, along with a small note just stating 'sorry'.
"Okay, not to sound totally skeevy and like a total nonce, but er… follow the little girl?" Harry asked them, cringing at little at what he said. The looks on Sam and Dean's face mirrored the discomfort he felt at the decision, but silently they all stood up and followed behind the little girl.
They stood outside the house that the little girl had entered into and Dean turned to look at them as they stepped up to the porch.
"What's this, like a… Harry and the Hendersons deal?" Dean asked them even as he knocked on the door. Before either Sam or Harry could answer, the girl answered the door and looked up at them.
"Hello?"
"Hello! Um… could we… you know what? Are your parents home?" Sam asked, clearly thinking back to what Harry had said before they actually followed the girl home.
"Nope."
"No…" Sam said, then looked to Dean and Harry, looking a little lost as to what to say next.
"No. Um… have you seen a really, really furry-"
"Is he in trouble?" The girl asked sounding genuinely upset as she interrupted Dean's question.
"No. No, no, no," Sam reassured her, chuckling a little at the sheer bizarre nature of whatever was going on, "not at all. We just - we wanted to make sure that he was okay."
"Exactly!" Harry piped up and Dean nodded beside him, all three of them were clearly trying their hardest not to just break down into hysterics.
"He's my teddy bear. I think he's sick," the little girl told them, looking at them with a devastated look on her face, which was what Harry was blaming on for Dean's apparent lack of sanity with his next statement.
"Wow. Uh… amazing. 'Cause, you know what? We are uh… teddy bear doctors!" Dean told them and Harry only just restrained himself from slapping his hand to his face. He'd been a lot in his time, but teddy bear doctor was a first, even for him. Mostly because Furry's really creeped him out. People in animal/character costumes kinda scared the shit out of him and he was beginning to get a bad feeling about this specific part of the whole weird ass case.
"Really? Can you please take a look at him?"
"Sure," Sam agreed and Harry muffled the whimper that wanted to escape.
"Sure. Yeah," Dean nodded and they all followed the girl into the house.
"Sure? Are you two insane? What, exactly, do you know about medicine at all? Because me? I know nothing. And other than stuffed with fluff, I know nothing about Winnie the freaking Pooh's anatomy!" Harry hissed at them as they walked through the house behind the girl.
"Shh, we might be able to find out what the hell is going on here," Sam hissed back at him, stopping when Dean did and causing Harry to bump into his back.
"He's in my bedroom. He's pretty grumpy," the girl warned them before she knocked on the door. Harry just stepped a little closer to Sam and held on to the back of his t-shirt. "Teddy? There's some nice doctors here to see you."
Upon opening the door, Sam, Dean and Harry all looked into the room and stared at the sight of a large, man-sized teddy bear. Harry suppressed a little whimper, then jumped back, shuddering when the teddy screamed at them.
"Close the friggin' door!" The girl closed the door and turned to look at the three men with wide, hopeful eyes.
"See what I mean?" Harry just let his head fall forward into Sam's back whilst Sam and Dean just exchanged surprised looks. "All I ever wanted was a teddy which was big, real and talked. But now he's sad all the time not 'ouch' sad, but ouch-in-the-head sad. Says weird stuff and smells like the bus.
"Um, little girl…" Dean started and Harry snickered, before realising that they hadn't actually asked the girl her name.
"Audrey!"
"Audrey. How exactly did your teddy become real?" Dean asked, which wasn't actually the question Harry wanted answered. To be honest, Harry wanted to get away from the creepy man-bear-thing. Furrys were creepy. Living teddys bears were terrifying. Shuddering a little, Harry took a step closer to Sam, still gripping his t-shirt and ignoring the amused look Sam gave him.
"I wished for it."
"You wished for it?" Sam asked her, whilst Harry was kind of wondering just where Audrey's parents were.
"At the wishing well!" Audrey told Sam as though the answer was clearly obvious, which, had they known about a wishing well, it possibly was. Dean took that moment to open the door to room that had the teddy in and saw it was sitting on the bed watching the news.
"Look at this. You believe this crap?" The teddy asked, pointing to the TV. Dean shrugged a little and shook his head.
"Not really." Harry snorted, just knowing Dean wasn't talking about the news like the teddy was. And really, Harry wondered if he would lose his mind given he was talking about a damned teddy bear like it was a sentient being.
Which it kinda was.
A really depressed one.
"It is a terrible world! Why am I here?!" The teddy demanded angrily, and Audrey hurried over to stand next to Dean in the doorway.
"For tea parties!!" Audrey told him cheerfully.
"Tea parties? Is that all there is?"
"Audrey, give us a second, okay? Okay," Sam said, stepping back with Harry and Dean a little further down the hallway and away from Audrey and the suicidal teddy bear. "Are we… should we… are we gonna kill this teddy bear?"
"How? Do we shoot it? Burn it?" Dean asked and Harry couldn't stop the semi-hysterical giggle that bubbled up inside him.
"I don't care how. But I vote burning it. Burn it, kill it. Please?" Harry hissed, still not letting go of his grip on Sam.
"What's your deal anyway? You're acting really freaked out and er… haven't let go of me yet."
"I hate people dressed up as animals. Disneyland? Yeah, that's my idea of a fecking nightmare. This? This is just fucked up beyond imagination!" Harry hissed waving his free hand towards the bedroom with the teddy bear inside.
"Right, okay, ignoring your er… unusual fears and getting back to this um… case. Thing. Whatever. If we do burn it, how exactly do we know it's gonna work? I don't want some giant, flaming, pissed-off teddy on our hands," Dean pointed out and Harry cringed but refused to admit the man had a point for a second time that day. Really, it would have given him indigestion.
"Yeah. Besides, I get the feeling that the bear isn't really the, you know, core problem here," Sam said and Harry nodded, turning to face Audrey.
"Completely agree with you there, Sammy-Sam. Hey, Audrey! Where are your parents?" Harry asked, finally getting to ask the one thing that had been bugging him beyond the six foot something living teddy bear.
"My mom wished they were in Bali, so I think they're in Bali," Audrey told him and harry just blinked at her and then looked back at Sam and Dean.
"Bali. Huh."
"Okay, well… I'm really sorry to have to break this to you, but… your bear is sick. Yeah he's - he's got…" Sam trailed off, clearly having not thought that far ahead in his reasoning and excuses.
"Lollipop disease." Harry choked off a laugh at Dean's answer to save Sam's floundering and Sam shot Dean a baffled look but nodded his head all the same.
"Lollipop disease."
"It's not uncommon for a bear his size. But, see, it's really contagious," Dean carried on, whilst Harry practically gnawed his lip off trying not to burst into laughter. The day just got more and more random.
"Yeah, so, is there someone - maybe a grown-up - that you can stay with while we treat him?" Sam asked her and Harry gave up the fight and giggled a little before coughing and looking serious once more.
"Mrs Hurley lives down the street," Audrey told them and all three men gave a little sigh of relief. Not that Harry was all that fond of kids, but still, he didn't want to see one abandoned alone in a house with a giant living teddy bear.
Not something he ever considered he would have to worry about, admittedly.
"Perfect!" Dean said and Harry and Sam nodded their agreement.
"Good, yeah, good. Uh… we'd like you to stay there for a few days, okay?" Sam asked her and Audrey nodded agreeably.
"Okay."
"Oh! And Audrey? Where's the wishing well?" Harry asked getting grateful looks from both brothers, who had clearly not thought to ask that. Sometimes Harry could be useful.
"You know… I should probably um… not be part of this one. You know, with the whole pretending to be really cruel and er closing the place down because we're mean, spiteful, lying bastards called Health Inspectors or whatever you people call them over here," Harry mumbled as the three of them arrived outside of Lucky Chen's Restaurant, the same place he and Sam had met Candace earlier that day - and wow, was it still the same day? Because it just seemed to be getting longer by the minute.
"What? Why?" Dean asked, looking a little distracted as he stared into the restaurant, before finally turning his attention to Harry.
"Well it's just… erm… fine, I threatened the guy into giving me some free fortune cookies without having to buy any other food."
"Really? You did that? Huh… how come you didn't save any for me?" Dean asked, whilst Sam sighed and shook his head, looking for all intents and purposes like he had one mother of a headache coming along. Harry was right there with him on that one.
"I don't like you. Now, I'll just um… hide in Prescill-"
"No! No you don't. Suck it up, Shrimp, you're coming with us. We'll work your nefarious fortune cookie stealing ways to our advantage somehow," Dean told him with a narrow-eyed glare, then yanked Harry into the restaurant by the sleeve of his shirt. Sam snorted softly behind them and followed silently.
Once inside, they made their way to the wishing well that supposedly brought a teddy bear to life - and really, even at Audrey's age, that wasn't what Harry would have asked for - and probably shit loads other weird stuff.
"Think it works?" Dean asked them, standing next to the small fountain - because even in his mind, Harry refused to call it a well more than once. He liked a well to have a good echo to it when you dropped a coin in it before he'd actually accept that it was a well. Wells were good places to hide bodies… this was not.
"Got a better explanation for teddy back there?" Sam asked, and Harry cringed just at the thought of the beast.
"God has a fucked up sense of humour and is getting me back for… something. I'm not sure what. I'll think of something I've done to piss him off. Can't be that hard," Harry muttered, frowning as he thought back to some of the more recent blasphemous stuff he'd done.
Like breathe, if one was to ask Uriel.
"Well, there's one way to find out either way," Dean said, digging around in his pockets for what Harry assumed was a coin to throw into the wishing not-a-well.
"What are you gonna wish for?" Sam asked. Harry just watched the two in amusement, noting the childish glee on Dean's face. He could guess what Dean was going to wish for without having to ask.
"Shh!" Dean hushed, dropping the coin into the fountain. "Not supposed to tell."
"How old is he again? And see? Not even a decent plooping sound. That is not a well," Harry muttered to Sam, who snickered and nodded his agreement.
"Sometimes, I do wonder about his age," Sam muttered back, whilst Dean ignored both of the in favour of staring at the door like it held the secrets of the universe. Moments later, the reason for Dean's attention came apparent as a man wearing a delivery outfit of some form entered the restaurant.
"Somebody order a foot long Italian with jalapeno?"
"Huh, I'd guessed pie. You learn something new everyday," Harry murmured when Dean perked up and hurried over to get his sandwich. Sam just shot him an amused look and shook his head.
"You have a lot to learn about Dean. Most of it revolves around his stomach." Sam and Harry walked over to the table Dean had sat himself at with his sandwich, and slid into the seats opposite him.
"I think it works! That was pretty specific," Dean said around a mouthful of masticated Italian sandwich - Harry had no idea what was in it… but it looked like tomatoes were involved. Or blood. Something red.
"The teddy bear, the sandwich…" Sam trailed off and Harry wrinkled his nose when he noticed the couple that were still possibly surgically attached at the lips sitting by their table. Actually, he was a little stunned that they had neither left to shag, nor apparently been arrested for public indecency.
"Mm. I'm guessing this," Dean added, tapping the newspaper left on the table with a headline declaring a local lottery winner.
"And that," Harry added, pointing to the couple trying to possibly eat one another actually. Harry really wasn't too sure it could be called lust. It really did look more like hunger.
He should stop watching zombie movies at night.
"Well, that definitely goes on the list," Dean agreed when he looked at where Harry was pointing. "What are we supposed to do, huh? Stop people's wishes from coming true? Sounds like a kind of douchey thing to do."
"Yeah, maybe," Sam agreed hesitantly. "But come on, man. When has something like this ever come without a price tag? And usually a deadly one."
"I'm sensing a story behind that and I really want to hear it one day, but… I'm with Sam. Kinda makes you think up the old warning 'be careful what you wish for', doesn’t it?"
"I don't know. It's a damn good sandwich," Dean said as he carried on eating the damned thing. He slumped a little in his seat when he noticed neither Harry nor Sam were looking impressed or convinced. "Alright, fine. We'll put a hold on the wishing until we figure out what's going on."
"Good bo-oop!" Harry slumped a little and hid his face in Sam's jacket when he noticed the waiter hurrying over to them, getting amused looks from both brothers, though thankfully the waiter didn't appear to notice him, or at least, the man didn't recognise him as the guy that basically stole a bag of fortune cookies.
"Uh, gentlemen, gentlemen. I'm sorry. We don't allow people to eat outside food here," the waiter told them, looking at Dean with a frown on his face. Which was possibly why he hadn't noticed just who was trying to merge with Sam on the other side of the table.
"Well, I am certainly not gonna eat the inside food here," Dean told him snootily, making Harry pull away slightly from hiding in Sam's coat - something that was amusing Sam to no end - so that he could look and see what Dean was up to. "Health department. You, my friend, have a rat infestation. We're gonna have to shut this place down under emergency hazard code 56c."
"Rats?!" The waiter exclaimed, looking horrified. Harry and Sam, meanwhile just stared at Dean whilst he tried to look sympathetic at the waiter. How the hell had Dean known any health department codes?
"Sorry, sir. But we're gonna have a look around, see if we can find any other problems. If you could empty the place, and er… the fountain too? Thank you for your cooperation," Sam told him when the waiter just nodded his head dumbly. Harry had a second of feeling sympathy for the man, before it quickly passed and he slid out of the booth behind Sam, making sure to keep the taller man between himself and the waiter.
Not long later, the place was empty, as was the fountain. Sam and Harry stood next to it whilst Dean swept all the coins out of the way. So far, none of them could see anything magical and mystical about it that would indicate it making wishes come true. Not that Harry was surprised. Between the three of them, they possibly had the IQ of a particularly intelligent Alsatian. Mostly because Harry and Dean's collective IQ dragged Sam's own IQ down quite significantly.
It was a depressing realisation.
"Typical fountain, plaster Buddha. Nothing I can see," Dean muttered as he swept the last of the coins away.
"Yes, nothing. We keep a clean place here." Harry jumped slightly, having forgotten about the waiter who had been watching them like a hawk. Really, it wasn't like they were going to run off with the damned thing.
"Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave during the preliminary investigation, okay? Thank you," Sam told the waiter, moving to usher the protesting man outside, then shutting the door in his face. Harry watched him and then looked back at Dean, who was grinning and holding a handful of coins.
"Oh, come on. Aren't you a little bit tempted?" Dean asked him, and Harry just stared at him incredulously.
"One, what would I wish for exactly? And two, why the bloody hell would I want to? Knowing my luck, it'd bite me in the arse in the most spectacular fashion. So no. Not tempted in the slightest. Sam?"
"Nope. Wouldn't be real. And like you, I wouldn't trust it," Sam told them with a chuckle as he came back to join them.
"I don't know, that bear seemed pretty real."
"And creepy as all fuck," Harry muttered as a shiver ran down his spine.
"True. To it being real. And a little creepy actually," Sam added with a nod to Harry. Dean just rolled his eyes at the two of them.
"Come on, if you could wish yourself back, you know, before it all started… think about it. You'd be some big yuppie lawyer with a nice car and a white picket fence," Dean stated and Harry bit down on his lip and looked away from the two brothers. Dean did have a point there. Sam actually once had a chance at a future. Dean and Harry were the ones that had never really had a choice in their lifestyles.
"Not what I'd wish for."
"Seriously?" Both Dean and Harry asked. Dean and Sam turned to look at Harry in surprise, making Harry fidget a little.
"What?'
"Why are you surprised?" Sam asked him, looking confused. Harry just shrugged and glanced at his feet.
"No reason really. Just… if I knew that it couldn't backfire on me and I had the kind of opportunities you once had, then I'd probably wish to get them back," Harry admitted quietly. Actually, he kinda wished he'd never agreed to be the personal whore of Heaven. And boy, did that sound weird.
"It's just… it's too late to go back to our old lives, you know? I'm not that guy anymore," Sam pointed out and Harry and Dean shared a suspicious glance before they both shrugged it off.
"Alright, well… what then? Hmm? What would Sammy wish for?" Dean asked and Harry snickered but turned his attention to Sam, himself wondering exactly what Dean was asking.
"Lilith's head on a plate. Bloody," was Sam's answer. Harry winced a little at that response, but didn't say anything. He wasn't particularly keen on Lilith either to tell the truth.
"Okay," Dean said, sniffing a little and then carrying on sweeping away the last of the coins. He paused a few seconds later and crouched down next to something in the fountain. "What is that?"
Harry looked at where Dean was pointing and shrugged, just seeing a coin. Nothing surprising, considering where it was.
"Some kind of old coin. I don't recognise the markings," Sam said, bending to look closer at the coin.
"Damn," Dean cursed when he tried to pick the coin up but failed. Harry snorted a little and leant on the fountain, smirking when Dean glared at him.
"Lift with your legs," Sam told Dean helpfully, grinning widely when Dean turned his glare to Sam. He turned back to the coin and tried to pry the coin up but failed once again.
"Is that little mother welded on there?"
"Hang on!" Harry piped up, grinning at both brothers when they looked at him curiously, before he ran from the restaurant. Before Dean could realise that there was really only one place Harry could possibly be going to, Harry opened the trunk of the car and grabbed a hammer and a crowbar, giving a small maniacal cackle as he slammed the trunk shut. Wincing a little at the loud noise it made and hoping Dean didn't somehow hear that.
Practically skipping back into the restaurant, he held up the hammer and crowbar for Sam and Dean to see, grinning mischievously as he did so.
"Time for some fun! Woo! Now, this? This is my idea of fun. Reckless destruction. Get in. Now shift it, Dean. This is work for the sadistic and maniacal. You're just a little too vanilla for this," Harry added with a chuckle, nudging the gaping Dean out of the way and jabbing the crow bar under the coin.
"Hey, hey, hey! What is this?! You are gonna break my fountain!" The waiter exclaimed, running back in when he noticed just what Harry was doing.
"Not the only thing I'm gonna bloody break in a minute," Harry muttered, getting a chuckle from Dean. Sam stepped forward to stop the waiter from stopping harry. Or Harry from hitting the poor guy.
"Sir, I don't want to slap you with a 44/16, but I will," Sam snapped at him, and Harry briefly wondered where the two brothers had learnt all the random knowledge they seemed to carry in order to be Health Inspectors/FBI Agents/anything else random and bizarre. Harry was an excellent escort, - if he did say so himself - an alright nurse, - should a client have that kind of kink - and a passable wizard - actually, he sucked at that - but that was about it. He was pretty certain he'd never have been able to remember half the stuff the Winchesters seemed to know. Harry glanced over to see the waiter glaring at Sam, but taking a step back, and grinned.
"Good good. Now then, back to business," Harry muttered, making sure the crowbar was firmly caught on the coin and then bringing the hammer back to smash it onto the other end of the crowbar. "Holy fuck!" Sam practically had to throw himself to the floor to avoid the end of the hammer that flew off upon impact with the crowbar.
"What the hell?" Dean asked, whilst Sam and the waiter both scrambled to stand back up and stared at Harry in shock.
"Coin's magical," Sam pointed out, completely needlessly in Harry's opinion.
"Thanks for that observation, Sherlock. Fecking magic. Christ, it's everywhere. I hate magic. No pointing fingers, thank you very much. Potions don't count. Any Tom, Dick or Muggle can do those."
"Er… Right, so magic makes Harry pissy. You know… I don't think we can destroy this," Dean pointed out disappointedly.
"Huh, sucks. Guess there's no hope for us to do anything about this then, huh? Shall we leave? I'm bored. I say we leave. Surely there's something better for us to do, you know, before the giant teddy comes after us for er… diagnosing it with Lollipop Disease," Harry pointed out, slumping a little when Sam ignored him and crouched down to trace the coin. Looking over Sam's shoulder, Harry snickered, getting a suspicious look from both Sam and Dean.
"What?"
"Sammy! I'll show you my etchings if you show me yours!"
"Dude! Don't be sharing etchings whilst I'm around. Actually, don't at all!" Dean exclaimed, shuddering a little whilst Sam just sighed and looked to be praying for patience.
"Don't pray to Him, Sammy. He sucks. No offence, God, but you kinda do. Admit it. Except, you know, when you don't. Er… Etchings?" Harry asked when he noticed Sam, Dean and the waiter looking at him oddly.
"Right, etchings. Here, you two go look into this," Sam said, handing the 'etching' to Harry, though probably only because he feared what Harry would come up with had he handed said 'etching' to his brother.
"Where you going?" Dean asked when Sam walked to the door to leave.
"Something just occurred to me," Sam told them before he hurried out of the restaurant, leaving Dean and Harry just gaping after him.
"Huh. He just… left. Dean, your brother's a freak."
"I hear ya."
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