Fic: People Are Strange (2/6)
Fic: People Are Strange (2/6)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: Dean and Chloe head to Houston to help out an old friend while Sam and Sarah do their own sleuthing.
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7 and Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean, Sarah
Pairing:Chloe/Dean Sam/Sarah
Rating: pg-13
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
"Is everything alright?" Sam's voice sounded concerned as he answered the phone.
Dean blinked at that. "Who said anything was wrong?"
"The first words out of your mouth were: How are things there? Not: Dude, what color is her underwear? So what's wrong?"
Dean's lip twisted in a fair impression of Sam's bitchface. "I can't just call and check up?"
"No," Sam said.
"Come on, dude. Maybe I want to know if you and Sarah are taking care of our investment."
"No, you don't," Sam said. "You could care less."
"Okay, maybe." Dean nodded. "I do need a favor though."
"Thought so," Sam said.
"Yeah, you're a freakin' genus," Dean muttered.
"So what's up?"
"It's this friend of Chloe's," Dean said. "Something about him rubs me the wrong way."
"Like Oliver Queen --"
"Don't start," Dean cut Sam off. "I've already been through this with Chloe."
"Okay, Fine," Sam said. "What's his story?"
"He's Meta," Dean said. "Has a brother and a dad. Both hunters. He's a homicide cop here in Houston."
"Huh," Sam said thoughtfully.
"What huh?" Dean asked.
"Just - he's not hunting."
"Pretty much," Dean said.
"That's probably it."
"What is?"
"This guy left his family and stopped hunting," Sam said. "That would rub you the wrong way."
"Yeah, maybe." Dean chewed his lip. The sound of shifting noises on the other end of the line, combined with the quiet murmuring of a female voice made Dean think that Sam was possibly in bed with Sarah. Which meant that Dean had probably interrupted some post-coital snuggling.
"Was that Sarah I heard?"
"Yeah?"
"Sammy, you sly dog."
"Jeez, Dean, do you have to make everything sound trashy?"
"There's nothing wrong with being happy for you."
"Have you ever heard the word Inappropriate Boundaries before, dude?"
"Yeah. So what's your point?"
There was a heavy sigh on the line. "Nevermind. What's this guy's name? I'll contact Bobby and check up on the Dad and brother."
"Thanks, Sam." Dean recognized the extremely clumsy segue for what it was and gave Sam the pass out of the conversation. "Name's Mackenzie. From Texas. Youngest son is Zach or Zachery or something. Don't know the dad's name, though. Oldest is Daniel, but Chloe calls him Mac.
"The dad's specialty is probably blood magic. But he'd be training the younger kid - so they'll probably be doing more salt and burns."
"Alright," Sam said. "Dean --"
"What?" Dean asked warily. He recognized Sam's tone of voice as the one he liked to use for those touchy-feely moments.
"About the way I left you and Dad --"
"Oh jeez."
"I'm sorry."
"Oh shut up," Dean muttered.
* * *
"Who was that?" Sarah asked sleepily when Sam hung up the phone.
"Dean," Sam said quietly. He looked apologetically down at Sarah. "I know I'm supposed to be helping you set up the new auction house, but he wants some help with this hunt."
Sarah sat up and nodded. "Then we'll help him."
He looked at her in surprise. "Seriously?"
"Really, Sam." She nodded. Off his skeptical look, she tilted her own head and smiled at him. "This is coming at a good time. I mostly needed you to help with the financial statements and making sure that the transfer of the licenses went smoothly.
"Now it's just waiting on things to go through escrow, and we can do that on the road as easily as we could in Metropolis."
Sam chuckled at that. "Never thought I'd use my Stanford education to open a business." His expression turned serious. "Are you okay with this, Sarah?"
"The part where you set me up in business that's a front for a hunting network, or the part where you'll have to take off for a job at the drop of a hat?"
"Both," Sam admitted with a hard swallow.
She waved off his concerns with a flippant gesture. "If it makes you feel any better, I would have struck out on my own eventually anyway. I was getting sick of the way that Bela Talbot was manipulating things between me and Dad. Sooner or later, I'll run into her again. But when I do, she won't have him as leverage against me."
"You make it sound like a game between the two of you," Sam said.
Sarah shook her head. "Not even close. It's never personal between us. I just want to get cursed artifacts off the market before someone gets hurt. She wants to roll around in great big piles of money. Since neither of us can achieve our goals if the other wins, we're always at odds."
"Just remember, this is Kansas. Between Lawrence where Dean and I were born, Smallville where Chloe is from, and Metropolis where Lex lives, the state is a little weirder than New York. And some of the artifacts you may run across --"
"The stakes are higher." Sarah nodded. "I understand that. But that also means that I'm needed here more often than I would be back east."
"I guess it does," Sam said quietly. "You up for that?"
"I won't deny that it's kind of scary," Sarah said. "But it’s like back when I found out about that painting. I don't want to live my life afraid. So I'll just have to deal with it."
And just like before, when she'd stood in their hotel room and declared that she was scared out of her mind over the painting, Sarah set her chin in that defiant line that made Sam's heart skip a beat.
He leaned forward, closed the gap between them, and left a tentative kiss on her lips.
She smiled a little and darted out to steal a second kiss from him. "So what does Dean need our help with?"
"We're going to track another hunter."
"How?"
"Probably call Bobby first and see what he has to say. And we're probably also going to hear from Chloe. Dean doesn't want her to know what we're up to yet. She'll want help researching blood cults."
"I'll probably be more help there, than tracking down wayward hunters," Sarah said. "I may not know a lot about blood magic, but after growing up researching the history of old antiques, I've gotten pretty good at finding obscure information."
Sam frowned at that and looked at her speculatively.
"What?"
"You sure? Because - blood magic is stuff that'll give you nightmares."
"I want to help, Sam."
"Okay," he nodded. "Just - remember: You can stop anytime that it gets too scary."
She chuckled at that. "Okay."
Sam nodded as if reassuring himself. "Okay."