Fic: Love, War and Remembrance (1/5)
Fic: Love, War and Remembrance (1/5)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: Sam visits Sarah. Dean and Chloe figure out what to do with all those tacky gifts that they didn't ask for in the first place.
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: NC-17
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
This fic is dedicated to Clarksmuse. Happy Birthday Katie!
Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5
Not since Sam had been in college at Palo Alto had he been away from Dean for any appreciable length of time. So when his brother had unceremoniously dumped him on the doorstep to the Blake family auction house and then taken off, Sam wasn't quite sure what to make of things.
By way of explanation, Dean had looked at Chloe and waggled his eyebrows. Make the most of it, dude. I know I will. So Sam was pretty clear on Dean's meaning. Which didn't mean that just knocking on the door of the auction house like a lost puppy wasn't awkward.
To Sam's everlasting relief, Sarah rather than her father, answered the door.
“Sam,” her radiant smile left him speechless. “You're early!”
“You were expecting me?” Sam asked. He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
She nodded, a coy half-smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Chloe called.”
“Oh thank God,” Sam muttered. It was times like this, Sam was glad to have a sister-in-law like Chloe. If she couldn't curb Dean's impetuous behavior, at least she could mitigate it slightly.
At Sarah's look of inquiry, Sam shrugged self-consciously. “I didn't exactly know that I was going to be making a visit,” he confessed. “Dean said something vague about checking out the New Jersey Pine Barrens, but I think that may have been a smokescreen to keep me from asking too many questions.”
“Did you not want to visit me Sam?” Sara quirked an eyebrow. Although the smile remained on her face.
“I don't mind,” Sam grinned at her as he tucked his hands in his pockets nonchalantly.
“Good,” She stepped through the door of the auction house, turned and locked it behind her. Off Sam's confused look, she shrugged her shoulders. “Do you actually want to hang around here and watch my father glare at you?”
“Well when you put it that way,” Sam grinned back. “How are things between you two?”
“Adversarial as usual,” Sara waved the question off as she turned and headed toward her car. Sam was relieved to note that Sara's car was a sedan with lots of leg room. He considered it a vast improvement over the compact rental that she'd been driving when they reconnected in Metropolis.
Oblivious to Sam's musing, Sarah continued. “Bela Talbot hasn't done our family any favors, either. She's been playing against me by appealing to Dad's sense of greed. Normally, I'm around to keep an eye on what's moving through the auction circuit. But with the work I've been doing for your hunter friends in Washington lately, I've let a few pieces slip past my guard.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Sam asked sympathetically.
“No,” Sarah sighed and shook her head. “Unless you have an extra cache of money burning a hole in your pocket and want to be a silent partner in an antiques business.”
Sam stumbled , caught himself and looked at her in surprise. “How much are we talking about?”
Sarah looked at him in surprise. “I was joking, Sam.”
His mind drifted back to their recent trip into the Supersition Mountains and the half-rotten mule packs, filled to bursting with gold ore, that they'd found there. They weren't sure if the mine that they'd found them in was the famous Lost Dutchman Mine, but they were pretty sure that they wouldn't find it again, thanks to the glamor that seemed to bend perceptions whenever they were near it.
Nevertheless, the result was that the Winchester family was now pretty stinkin' rich. Chloe had turned the ore over to her friend Oliver Queen to sell, and he'd reported back that it was high-grade stuff.
The irony of it was that none of them knew what to do with all that cash. Dean and Sam had spent most of their lives living in crappy hotels and earning a living through credit card scams, poker and hustling pool. Chloe had grown up in frickin' Smallville as the daughter of a crap-factory manager.
She talked about getting a better place to live, one with maybe a second bedroom so Sam could bunk in when they were home. Dean had taken a bit of their new funds and spun through Vegas. But he'd come back to the penthouse suite that they'd rented in a pissy mood.
“Having cash takes most of the fun out of it.” He'd told them.
And the worst part was that the money seemed to be multiplying. On it's own.
Sam had called Ollie to ask if he was seeing things correctly when he'd checked their bank balance, only to have the billionaire assure them that it was normal.
“I took the liberty of setting your family up with a personal investor,” Queen had said. “Trust me, Sam. You've got nothing to worry about. That much money will grow on it's own, even if you never touch it.”
“Great,” Sam muttered. They were screwed. So very screwed.
The next day, they'd sat around the table in their suite, and talked about what to do with all that money.
“Can we give it away fast enough?” Dean crossed his arms and scowled down at the table where Sam and Chloe sat pouring over calculations.
“We could try,” Chloe pushed her laptop away with a dejected motion. “There are always charities that the Justice League underwrites. But I don't think Bruce or Ollie would let us give the whole thing away.”
“So we keep a little,” Dean said. “That doesn't sound so bad.”
“Do you know how much a little is?” she raised her eyebrows. “Guys like Ollie and Bruce give away about 90 percent of their income to charity, and they're doing pretty well on the remaining ten percent.”
“We could buy you The Daily Planet,” Dean suggested.
“Okay, maybe we're not that rich,” Chloe said with a laugh.
“Maybe Jo or Ellen would want to start another roadhouse?” Dean said. “As often as the demons trash them out, that would be a nice little sinkhole to pour money into.”
“We could always spend it on ammo,” Sam shrugged. Off Dean and Chloe's look, he threw his hands in the air. “What? It worked for my college fund.”
“We could start a medical fund for hunters,” Chloe said tentatively.
“We'd do better to start a legal fund,” Dean said. “Most hunters fall back on credit scams for things like hospital bills.”
“We'll figure something out,” Chloe said with a despondent shrug.
* * *
The conversation ran through Sam's head in the space between two heartbeats. With an earnest smile, Sam took Sarah's hands in his own.
“How much would you need to start a place like your dad's?”
“A lot,” Sarah said with a tired sigh. “A lot more than I have.” She tilted an eyebrow at Sam in confusion. “Why do you ask?”
“I know of a couple of venture capitalists who are desperate to get rid of some money. They might be interested in a silent partnership. Particularly if your auction house is in the business of taking cursed objects off the market.”
Sarah gave him a confused look. Then she looked harder at him. Her eyes widened as she seemed to realize that his jeans and boots were new and his shirt was a nicer cut and fabric than when she'd last seen him.
“I thought you didn't get paid to hunt,” She murmured.
“It's a long and interesting story,” Sam grinned at her.
“Maybe you'd better tell it to me over dinner,” she said.
“Only if you let me buy.”
A sly, knowing smile crossed her lips. “I think I can do that. And maybe we can put a few figures on paper for your friends. Especially if they've got great big piles of money just burning a hole in their wallet.”
“They're like Scrooge MacDuck,” Sam said.
“I like them already.” Sarah linked her arm through his and escorted him to her car.