Fic/Pic King of the Road (Gen)
Title: King of the Road
Author:
quellefromage
Pairing: none, gen
Rating: PG-language
Disclaimer: No profit is being made. I do not own Supernatural. In fact, after this, it won't even talk to me.
Summary: Dean copes...in mysterious ways. Spoilers up to IMTOD
A/N I have no excuse. No one put a gun to my head to make me do this...okay, someone (
kimonkey7) put CRACK images in my head, that made me WANT to do this, possibly encouraged it, maybe even enabled a little, but...really?. No excuse. Just enjoy it for the utter crack that it is. All pics are courtesy the luminous
kimonkey7, who also beta'd. Also, thanks to
shallowz for the tutorial. This fic contains images possibly disturbing to sensitive persons.
King of the Road
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There is a legend that is whispered in the small towns and big cities across America, a story about two brothers named Winchester, who traveled this country, fighting evil, saving people, hunting things. Only a few could say they saw these brothers in person-they stayed in the shadows, away from the law, away from curious eyes. But those who did meet them would never forget the shiny black car, the two handsome men, the sparkling...er…um…okay, just read…you’ll see.
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It started as a joke.
Dad and Sam were in the middle of yet another argument, and Dean was thoroughly sick of the both of them. It seemed like all they did was fight. Sam was a senior, and at age 17 was even more of a princess than he was at age 15, and Dean had spent half of that year calling him Cinderella. Sam wouldn’t go on hunts unless Dad dragged him bodily from the house. He complained about the food, about the hotels, about the weather, about the CAR even. When Dean heard that bit of blasphemy pass his brother’s lips, well, Sam was fucking lucky to be alive.
But Dad wasn’t much better. He reacted to Sam’s incessant whining with threats and more threats, given in an increasingly loud tone to which Sam was apparently deaf, but it gave Dean a lot of unintentional anxiety. Dean was accustomed to fighting for his life when Dad yelled, and having him yell, even during an argument that didn’t even involve him, set off the whole “fight or flight” instinct in Dean, and it was exhausting. Already tonight he’d grabbed his knife three times, and he felt like he’d downed six cups of coffee.
Sam was bitching about having to do some research that Dad needed on Tengus. Nasty Japanese demons that Father Jim had said had improbably been reported near Lafayette, Indiana. Dad was starting to ratchet up to a decibel level that would have gotten the cops called on them had they been in a motel, but they were in a small farmhouse on the edge of town away from neighbors, thank Christ. Dean sighed, grabbed the laptop, and went into the kitchen to do the research himself. He powered up the computer, grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat down and pulled up Google.
“I’m not moving to Indiana!” Sam yelled, from the other room.
“Don’t use that tone with me! You’ll go where I tell you, and when I tell you!”
Dean shook his head, felt his heart start to pound a little faster in his chest. Goddamned King of the World and the little Princess, the both of them acting like idiots, having their little screaming party… he grumbled and on a whim, entered Princess Party into the search engine…and something came up that made him grin, madly.
It was a website that offered everything for princesses…dresses, sashes, shoes…and best of all, they had crowns. Tiaras, they called them: sparkly, shiny, and the perfect thing, Dean thought, to shut those two the hell up. Dean scanned through the list, made his choice and pulled out his wallet-- found a credit card that was near the end of its larcenous life. This one had the name Curtis Mayfield on it, and it was his current favorite alias. He hoped there might be enough, just enough left, to buy two crowns--one for King John and one for Princess Sammy. The next time those two went at it, he was gonna pull out the tiaras, and crown ‘em good. He chuckled to himself, and entered a mail drop address in Springfield-even kicked in for express shipping.
And then Sam came in, grabbed the laptop from him, and stomped off to his bedroom before Dean could object. And he forgot all about princesses and crowns when Dad entered and growled at him to do something useful instead of sitting around drinking all the beer.
“Yes, your highness,” Dean muttered as he went off to St. Mary’s to fill a couple of gallon jugs with holy water.
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It was four months before Dean made it to Springfield to pick up the mail. A lot had happened in that time. They’d moved three times, had a run in with some zombies in Kentucky of all places, and, oh yeah, Sam was gone. After a big fight with Dad, he pulled out the full ride at Stanford card, packed his bags and left-that was two weeks ago. Since then Dad had been even more secretive than usual, going off on trips alone, drinking more, and missing Sam nearly as much as Dean, only in a much more prickly way, and Dean had a hard time avoiding his father’s barbs. And he didn’t really know what to do with himself, so he decided to go on a mail run, as they were running low on bogus credit cards.
As a result, Dean hadn’t really thought about what he’d ordered all those months ago, and he couldn’t figure out why the hell a box for Curtis Mayfield, from The Princess Factory, was sitting in his mailbox, along with half a dozen credit cards.
He got in the Impala and slit the package open with his knife, and pulled out a shiny, rhinestone-encrusted, fucking…tiara?
And there was another one in the box, too--this one even more ornate than the other.
“The fuck?” he said, holding a crown in each hand and trying to figure out why the hell someone would have sent him something like that. Then he remembered-Princess Sammy. King John. Shit.
He shook his head. That was 75 bucks down the drain. He tossed the package into the back seat and started to look through the rest of the mail.
The sun broke through the clouds and sunshine filled the Impala. Dean squinted, reached for the visor, and suddenly, rainbows and sparkles, and impossibly bright dots danced around the interior of the car. It was like a giant disco ball was hanging from the rear view mirror. Dean stared, amazed and stunned. He twisted around and looked in the back seat.
The tiaras had fallen out of the box and were sitting on the seat, glittering and flashing in the noon day sun. It looked like a pirate’s treasure chest had spilled out across the back seat of the car. “Huh,” he said, a slow grin spreading across his lips. He hooked his arm over the seat and snagged one of the tiaras.
He studied it, turning it over and over in his hands, mesmerized by the spray of light that emanated from it, lighting up the upholstery like a thousand tiny klieg lights. Made the interior look different, even more beautiful, he thought, and the Impala’s interior was plenty beautiful. He cradled the tiara, lifting it up and down, impressed by the weight of it, the heft. It felt substantial-like a real crown, and not one made of glass. The diamonds, or crystals, or whatever they were, were seated in silver mountings, and there was one large rhinestone that dangled in the center of the tiara, surrounded by other, lesser stones. He touched the stones with his fingertip, felt the sharp edges, the cool planes. There were three small combs attached, and he ran his fingernails over them, drawing out a tinkling sound. Musical. He strummed the tiara, admired it--and suddenly, he wanted to put it on.
Bottom lip tight between his teeth, he glanced around furtively. The August heat had driven the few inhabitants indoors, and he was alone. He slowly raised the tiara, set it gingerly atop his head. He grabbed the rear view mirror, and twisted it so he could see his reflection.
He cocked a grin because the reflection wasn’t one that he knew. This was someone completely different. Not him at all, and yet…it was him, only better, somehow. And while his inner homophobe screamed that this was gayest thing ever in the history of gaydom, that he was the fucking QUEEN of the gays, he didn’t think he looked gay. He thought he looked…majestic. Like someone who was his own person, who did the things HE wanted to do, no matter what anyone else said or wanted or did, and anyone who didn’t like it could go to hell. It felt POWERFUL. And that felt pretty freaking amazing, because between dealing with Mom’s death, and Dad’s pain and Sam’s needs, and every fucking evil thing in the universe, powerful was something Dean hadn’t felt very often without a shotgun in his hands.
Dean straightened the mirror, and started the Impala. He reached up to take off the crown, hesitated, then took his hands away. He took one more look in the mirror and grinned. “Fuck yeah,” he said, and drove off, window down, radio turned up loud, and tiara firmly in place-the King of the Road.
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It started as a joke, and most people would still consider it a joke, but, to Dean, it’s not. It was a way to relax, when things were tense,
a way to get some control, when things were falling apart all around him, a way to do something that wasn’t about hunting, or loss, or death, or Dad, or Sam. It was about Dean, for Dean, and only Dean. And that’s the way it stayed…for years. Until Sam came back. Or, rather, until Dean dragged Sam back into his life, and for awhile, he didn’t need the tiara anymore.
And together, they dealt with Dad’s disappearance, and hunted again, and searched for justice, for revenge. Dean handled Sam’s issues, and losses, his anger, and grief, and then, his freakish visions appeared…
“I have these dreams…”
“I’ve noticed.”
“…and sometimes, they come true.”
“Come again?”
Dean hadn’t worn a tiara in freaking months…and then Sam said they had to go to Lawrence. And Dean nearly put one on right in front of Sam. Instead, he called Dad. Who didn’t answer, of course.
And they went to the fucking house, and there was totally something there. And then they tracked down Dad’s old friend, and that led them to Missouri…and that was a problem. Because while Sam got visions, he couldn’t read minds, but Missouri…she could see every single rhinestone that glittered on Dean’s head.
Worst of all, it turned out she was a bit of a prude-she thought Dean was a cross-dressing degenerate. Treated Dean like dirt, much to Sam’s amusement. He probably wouldn’t have thought it was so funny if he’d known why. Eventually, though, Dean won her over. It cost him though. He had to give her his back-up tiara. Bitch.
Seemed like a good time to restock. He made sure to order an extra one, just in case he ran up against another tiara-snatching psychic.
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They’d been on the road for awhile, when Dad sent a text message. Wanted them to go to Illinois, to check out some haunted asylum. Dean was thrilled to know that Dad was okay. Too bad the job was such a bastard. Sammy shot him full of rocksalt, which goddamned fucking HURT like a goddamned motherfucking motherfucker. And then, Sam tried to kill him. Yeah, that was a fun job, thanks Dad.
He really couldn’t talk to Sam after. Ghost or no ghost, what the hell do you say after something like that? They checked into the hotel, and Dean made sure he had the tiara in his dopp kit--snuck it into the bathroom with him, locked the door and he put it on, sat on the porcelain throne. He picked rock salt out of his chest for over an hour, and told himself that his brother didn’t really hate him.
And then Dad called, and god, he was so glad to hear his voice, even if it was just to give them a job. Which Sam, that ingrate, bitched about. And then, Sam took off- Dean left his ass alone on the road, just south of Indianapolis. Dean watched Sam get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror until he was completely out of sight, then he pulled over, got out his tiara, and wore it all the way to Burkitsville.
Turned out, Sam didn’t really hate him. Came back and saved Dean’s ass, though he did have a rescue plan…and that plan was not to have anyone going through his shit when he was dead and finding a goddamned tiara.
No, he needed to have way more than one. They detoured to Oklahoma to pick up the mail from the drop box. Dean made Sam go get coffee while he collected the mail, because the box from his new tiara supplier, was gonna be a little tough to explain. The new crown was
amazing.
.
He pulled the Impala out back behind the VFW post that sat next to the post office, parked, and put it on. Damn, he looked good in that crown. Felt good, too. Kinda ironic that they tangled with the rawhead that night-and Dean went from feeling great, to being damned near dead.
Dying sucked, hard. Through a straw. Especially when you were in a hospital, and your brother had your bag and your tiara is in a hotel room, miles away. Was it any wonder he bailed, took a cab and found his brother? Found his crown too. Found that he wasn’t really scared of dying. Mostly he was just scared of leaving his little brother all alone. With a duffle full of tiaras.
Thank God, (and yes, he did, despite what he told Sam), thank God he didn’t have to leave him. That was a tough gig. But not as tough as the next one.
A Monster truck-literally, a Possessed Killer Monster Truck. And Cassie. Cassie had provoked a solid two months of tiara wearing after she dumped him, and here she was again, looking just as good as he remembered, and damned if he didn’t try not to remember. And he thought that the 100,000 volts and the heart attack had hurt.
They dealt with the stupid monster truck. Dean left Cassie behind, again. Sam asked if he ever wondered if they should just chuck it all and settle down. Dean just smiled. Remembered the feel of the tiara on his head, pulled out his sunglasses, and told Sam to wake him when it was his turn to drive.
It wasn’t long after that Sam had a vision that sent them to Saginaw, Michigan, and changed everything.
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Goddamned visions. Sam had already seen one Miller die, and now, they were on their way to try to save Roger Miller from losing his head. And Sam was scared. Said so.
“Why the hell is this happening to me?”
“I don’t know, Sam, but we’ll figure it out, okay? We face the unexplainable every single day. This is just another thing.”
“Tell me the truth. You can’t tell me this doesn’t freak you out.”
And Dean had paused. Put on his game face. “This doesn’t freak me out.” But, really…what the hell? Dean was trying to maintain a calm surface while paddling like mad underneath, like a freaking duck with a goddamn psychic brother…duck.
They were too late to save Roger Miller. They went back to the motel, and researched until they couldn’t see straight. Later that night, when Sam was asleep, Dean left the motel room, went out to the Impala, and pulled a box out from deep under the driver’s seat. He took out his favorite tiara, put it on, and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest, closing his eyes. He felt calm immediately. He was in charge, he could figure this out…he was the King of…exhausted.
“Yeah, Sammy, I’ll protect you. Me and my tiara,” he mumbled, and fell asleep.
He woke to the sound of tapping on the window, and startled a bit, seeing Sam, face pressed to the glass. Dean grimaced, yawned, stretched, and rolled down the window.
Sam was gaping at him.
“Dean, what the hell?” Sam demanded.
“What?” Dean asked, not completely awake.
“What the fuck is on your head?”
“My hea…” Dean began, reached up and touched rhinestone. FUCK.
“Oh, my god, you went out and banged a beauty queen,” Sam snapped, bitchy as hell. “I can’t believe you found a pageant queen to sleep with in the middle of a case. In the middle of the night, no less!”
Dean hurriedly slipped the tiara off his head, tossed it aside. Paddled like a crazy, cross-dressing duck with a psychic brother, and hoped his brother wasn’t a mind reader, too. “Hey, you have the shining, I have…uh…chick radar.”
“Chick radar?” Sam shook his head. “You’re unbelievable. I’m going for breakfast. You coming?”
“Nah, Miss Madison County made me eggs and pancakes before I left. She was grateful…hey, wanna know what her talent was?”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear about your booty call.”
“Bring back coffee!” Dean shouted after Sam. As soon as Sam was out of sight, he slumped in his seat. “Shit, that was close.” He took off the tiara, and held it in his hands for a minute, then sighed. He had to get rid of it…of them. Sam would let this go…eventually…once, but not twice. Twice would be a disaster.
Dean got out of the car and headed for the dumpster, meaning to toss them in, but, as he stood there, gazing into the box, the tiaras twinkling at him with sad, glittery, princess puppy eyes, he couldn’t do it.
It was the coward’s way out, and he wasn’t a coward. If Sam found them, he’d say they were trophies. Say he was starting a collection from all fifty states. Maybe even make a list... Yeah, that would do it.
But he could never let Sam see him wearing a tiara again. Because maybe he really was a coward when it came to Sam. He tucked the tiara box under his arm and went into the motel room, where he stashed it in his duffle. Now that Sam had seen it, there wasn’t much sense in hiding them. He could make a joke out of it. Present Sam with a crown next time he was acting like a little princess, just like he’d meant to all those years ago.
“Okay,” Dean said, sighed with relief. “This is gonna be okay.”
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And it was okay. The events with Max Miller sort of made Sam forget about seeing his brother in the tiara. Oh, sure, Sam made jokes. Lame jokes. But he quit after a couple weeks and a few dozen beatings.
A day or so after their adventure with the lovely Bender family, and, oh, by the way? Hot poker to the chest? Right up there on his list of shit NEVER to do again, Dean was feeling a bit antsy, as he watched Sam cruising the net, looking for jobs. He needed a drink, but there wasn’t a bar nearby. He needed a woman, but, again, no bar. He couldn’t just go door to door…wait…Laundromat. There was a Laundromat just down the road, and if he couldn’t pick up a babe there, he might be able to get in a little tiara time if the joint was empty enough.
“I’m going to do some laundry,” Dean announced, and began sorting his clothes by smell before he decided they all smelled equally bad. “Want me to do yours?” he asked.
Sam looked up from his research, surprised. “Uh, sure.” While it wasn’t unheard of for Dean to do laundry, offering to do it without payment or coercion or threat of death by NPR, was rare. “Take anything that isn’t folded.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Dude, I’m so not rooting through your dirty clothes. Gimme the bag. If they’re dirty, I’ll wash ‘em. If they’re clean, I’ll wash ‘em again.”
“Jerk.” Sam grinned.
“Bitch.” Dean replied, and was out the door, favorite tiara stuffed into the duffels along with the clothes and detergent.
He arrived at the Laundromat and found a lovely young thing to do out in the Impala between the wash and dry cycles. Kim loved muscle cars. Kim loved muscles. Dean had both. Dean had Kim. And after Kim was gone, Dean stripped to his shorts, threw the last of the laundry into the washer, put on his tiara and rocked out, playing air guitar to “Renegade” in the empty Laundromat.
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Sam snapped the laptop shut in disgust. Nothing. Not a damned thing supernatural. He flopped down on his bed and grabbed the remote, made a quick circuit of the six channels available, two of them holy roller clap-trap, and switched off the TV. He was tired, bored, and he missed Jess so goddamned much he could barely breathe.
He rolled onto his side, and that’s when he saw it, sticking out of Dean’s bag, shining in the harsh motel light… a tiara. That tiara. The one Dean had gotten from the beauty queen a couple months ago. Sam reached over and snagged it from the bag, held it in his hands. He’d been surprised to see Dean wearing it in the car that long-ago morning, because he’d thought he was the only guy who ever wore a tiara.
Jess was a beauty queen in high school, had been a California Jr. Miss. It was how she came to be at Stanford; she’d been given a scholarship…and a tiara. And sometimes, when they made love, he asked her to wear it. Sometimes, she asked him to wear it. And sometimes he wore it when she didn’t ask, or even, when she wasn’t there. He couldn’t say why, exactly. It just made him feel…different. Stronger. Less alone. And, he looked fucking good in a tiara, if he did say so himself. Then there was the fire, and he’d lost Jess, and everything else he had in his life-tiara included.
Sam sat up, went into the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror, and put the tiara on his head.
It wasn’t as nice as the one Jess had, but it was still nice. Shiny. Sam closed his eyes, felt the weight of the crown on his head, felt Jess’s arms around him, felt her breath on his neck, and suddenly, he could breathe again. He felt so much better that he went back to research, knowing that he’d find something this time that would lead them to Dad, or to the demon who’d taken away his girl and his crown.
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Dean pulled up in front of the motel, and the window to their room was dark. Sam must have gone to bed. He grabbed the duffels full of clean laundry from the backseat, and headed for the door. He had his hands full of laundry, and keys in his mouth, when the door opened. Sam was standing in front of him, dressed only in boxers, with a tiara on his head. Dean’s back-up tiara.
Which was ironic, because Dean also had a tiara on his head. Though he was fully clothed in Mountain Spring fresh apparel, thanks to Snuggle. The keys fell from his mouth.
The two brothers stood in silence for a minute, each taking in the sight of the other wearing a…oh, hell…wearing a tiara.
“What the fuck are you doing going through my stuff?” Dean yelled.
“What the fuck are you doing wearing THAT in public?” Sam shouted back.
“What the fuck are you doing wearing THAT in here-in your underwear? Okay, wait. I don’t want to know,” Dean said, and stepped into the room. “Really, man. What the hell?”
So Sam told Dean about Jess. And Dean told Sam about King John and Princess Sammy. And it was all very manly, and not the least bit chick-flicky. There was no hugging.
They eyed each other again, silently, then said, in unison…”You look good.”
Dean grinned. “Dude, you look good. I look AWESOME.”
Sam grinned. “You’re first runner up, man. I’m fuckin’ Mr. America.”
“In your dreams, rhinestone cowboy,” Dean smiled.
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And that is how it began. It started slowly at first. They’d both wear the tiaras in the hotel room, or in the car as they drove long, empty stretches of road to pass the time. Each knew that if a tiara came out, that something was up. Just another form of silent communication, but an important one. And there was a beneficial side effect. Wearing the tiaras improved the boys’ mood so much it made them feel damned near invincible.
So they decided to try wearing the tiaras “on the job”. During a routine salt and burn in Hattiesburg, the ghost they were trying to banish was so fascinated by the tiara-wearing grave diggers that it didn’t even howl when they set fire to its bones. After that, they started wearing them on all their jobs. It gave them an edge, an advantage over evil. Plus, they looked damned good in those tiaras.
Dean had a dream. He hadn’t told Sam, but, somehow, he thought Sam knew. One day, when they found that yellow-eyed bastard that took their mom, and Jess, and Dad, that skeezy sob was gonna look at them, see two men wearing tiaras, and he was gonna laugh. And that’s when they’d blow him straight back to hell.
There is a legend that is whispered in the small towns and big cities across America, a story about two brothers named Winchester, who crossed this country, fighting evil, saving people, hunting things. Only a few saw these brothers in person-they stayed in the shadows, away from the law, away from curious eyes. But those who did meet them would never forget the shiny black car, the two handsome men, the sparkling tiaras.
And how fucking hot they looked wearing them as they drove away into the sunset.
The End…
Author:
quellefromage
Pairing: none, gen
Rating: PG-language
Disclaimer: No profit is being made. I do not own Supernatural. In fact, after this, it won't even talk to me.
Summary: Dean copes...in mysterious ways. Spoilers up to IMTOD
A/N I have no excuse. No one put a gun to my head to make me do this...okay, someone (
kimonkey7) put CRACK images in my head, that made me WANT to do this, possibly encouraged it, maybe even enabled a little, but...really?. No excuse. Just enjoy it for the utter crack that it is. All pics are courtesy the luminous
kimonkey7, who also beta'd. Also, thanks to
shallowz for the tutorial. This fic contains images possibly disturbing to sensitive persons.
King of the Road
<> <> <> <>
There is a legend that is whispered in the small towns and big cities across America, a story about two brothers named Winchester, who traveled this country, fighting evil, saving people, hunting things. Only a few could say they saw these brothers in person-they stayed in the shadows, away from the law, away from curious eyes. But those who did meet them would never forget the shiny black car, the two handsome men, the sparkling...er…um…okay, just read…you’ll see.
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It started as a joke.
Dad and Sam were in the middle of yet another argument, and Dean was thoroughly sick of the both of them. It seemed like all they did was fight. Sam was a senior, and at age 17 was even more of a princess than he was at age 15, and Dean had spent half of that year calling him Cinderella. Sam wouldn’t go on hunts unless Dad dragged him bodily from the house. He complained about the food, about the hotels, about the weather, about the CAR even. When Dean heard that bit of blasphemy pass his brother’s lips, well, Sam was fucking lucky to be alive.
But Dad wasn’t much better. He reacted to Sam’s incessant whining with threats and more threats, given in an increasingly loud tone to which Sam was apparently deaf, but it gave Dean a lot of unintentional anxiety. Dean was accustomed to fighting for his life when Dad yelled, and having him yell, even during an argument that didn’t even involve him, set off the whole “fight or flight” instinct in Dean, and it was exhausting. Already tonight he’d grabbed his knife three times, and he felt like he’d downed six cups of coffee.
Sam was bitching about having to do some research that Dad needed on Tengus. Nasty Japanese demons that Father Jim had said had improbably been reported near Lafayette, Indiana. Dad was starting to ratchet up to a decibel level that would have gotten the cops called on them had they been in a motel, but they were in a small farmhouse on the edge of town away from neighbors, thank Christ. Dean sighed, grabbed the laptop, and went into the kitchen to do the research himself. He powered up the computer, grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat down and pulled up Google.
“I’m not moving to Indiana!” Sam yelled, from the other room.
“Don’t use that tone with me! You’ll go where I tell you, and when I tell you!”
Dean shook his head, felt his heart start to pound a little faster in his chest. Goddamned King of the World and the little Princess, the both of them acting like idiots, having their little screaming party… he grumbled and on a whim, entered Princess Party into the search engine…and something came up that made him grin, madly.
It was a website that offered everything for princesses…dresses, sashes, shoes…and best of all, they had crowns. Tiaras, they called them: sparkly, shiny, and the perfect thing, Dean thought, to shut those two the hell up. Dean scanned through the list, made his choice and pulled out his wallet-- found a credit card that was near the end of its larcenous life. This one had the name Curtis Mayfield on it, and it was his current favorite alias. He hoped there might be enough, just enough left, to buy two crowns--one for King John and one for Princess Sammy. The next time those two went at it, he was gonna pull out the tiaras, and crown ‘em good. He chuckled to himself, and entered a mail drop address in Springfield-even kicked in for express shipping.
And then Sam came in, grabbed the laptop from him, and stomped off to his bedroom before Dean could object. And he forgot all about princesses and crowns when Dad entered and growled at him to do something useful instead of sitting around drinking all the beer.
“Yes, your highness,” Dean muttered as he went off to St. Mary’s to fill a couple of gallon jugs with holy water.
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It was four months before Dean made it to Springfield to pick up the mail. A lot had happened in that time. They’d moved three times, had a run in with some zombies in Kentucky of all places, and, oh yeah, Sam was gone. After a big fight with Dad, he pulled out the full ride at Stanford card, packed his bags and left-that was two weeks ago. Since then Dad had been even more secretive than usual, going off on trips alone, drinking more, and missing Sam nearly as much as Dean, only in a much more prickly way, and Dean had a hard time avoiding his father’s barbs. And he didn’t really know what to do with himself, so he decided to go on a mail run, as they were running low on bogus credit cards.
As a result, Dean hadn’t really thought about what he’d ordered all those months ago, and he couldn’t figure out why the hell a box for Curtis Mayfield, from The Princess Factory, was sitting in his mailbox, along with half a dozen credit cards.
He got in the Impala and slit the package open with his knife, and pulled out a shiny, rhinestone-encrusted, fucking…tiara?
And there was another one in the box, too--this one even more ornate than the other.
“The fuck?” he said, holding a crown in each hand and trying to figure out why the hell someone would have sent him something like that. Then he remembered-Princess Sammy. King John. Shit.
He shook his head. That was 75 bucks down the drain. He tossed the package into the back seat and started to look through the rest of the mail.
The sun broke through the clouds and sunshine filled the Impala. Dean squinted, reached for the visor, and suddenly, rainbows and sparkles, and impossibly bright dots danced around the interior of the car. It was like a giant disco ball was hanging from the rear view mirror. Dean stared, amazed and stunned. He twisted around and looked in the back seat.
The tiaras had fallen out of the box and were sitting on the seat, glittering and flashing in the noon day sun. It looked like a pirate’s treasure chest had spilled out across the back seat of the car. “Huh,” he said, a slow grin spreading across his lips. He hooked his arm over the seat and snagged one of the tiaras.
He studied it, turning it over and over in his hands, mesmerized by the spray of light that emanated from it, lighting up the upholstery like a thousand tiny klieg lights. Made the interior look different, even more beautiful, he thought, and the Impala’s interior was plenty beautiful. He cradled the tiara, lifting it up and down, impressed by the weight of it, the heft. It felt substantial-like a real crown, and not one made of glass. The diamonds, or crystals, or whatever they were, were seated in silver mountings, and there was one large rhinestone that dangled in the center of the tiara, surrounded by other, lesser stones. He touched the stones with his fingertip, felt the sharp edges, the cool planes. There were three small combs attached, and he ran his fingernails over them, drawing out a tinkling sound. Musical. He strummed the tiara, admired it--and suddenly, he wanted to put it on.
Bottom lip tight between his teeth, he glanced around furtively. The August heat had driven the few inhabitants indoors, and he was alone. He slowly raised the tiara, set it gingerly atop his head. He grabbed the rear view mirror, and twisted it so he could see his reflection.
He cocked a grin because the reflection wasn’t one that he knew. This was someone completely different. Not him at all, and yet…it was him, only better, somehow. And while his inner homophobe screamed that this was gayest thing ever in the history of gaydom, that he was the fucking QUEEN of the gays, he didn’t think he looked gay. He thought he looked…majestic. Like someone who was his own person, who did the things HE wanted to do, no matter what anyone else said or wanted or did, and anyone who didn’t like it could go to hell. It felt POWERFUL. And that felt pretty freaking amazing, because between dealing with Mom’s death, and Dad’s pain and Sam’s needs, and every fucking evil thing in the universe, powerful was something Dean hadn’t felt very often without a shotgun in his hands.
Dean straightened the mirror, and started the Impala. He reached up to take off the crown, hesitated, then took his hands away. He took one more look in the mirror and grinned. “Fuck yeah,” he said, and drove off, window down, radio turned up loud, and tiara firmly in place-the King of the Road.
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It started as a joke, and most people would still consider it a joke, but, to Dean, it’s not. It was a way to relax, when things were tense,
a way to get some control, when things were falling apart all around him, a way to do something that wasn’t about hunting, or loss, or death, or Dad, or Sam. It was about Dean, for Dean, and only Dean. And that’s the way it stayed…for years. Until Sam came back. Or, rather, until Dean dragged Sam back into his life, and for awhile, he didn’t need the tiara anymore.
And together, they dealt with Dad’s disappearance, and hunted again, and searched for justice, for revenge. Dean handled Sam’s issues, and losses, his anger, and grief, and then, his freakish visions appeared…
“I have these dreams…”
“I’ve noticed.”
“…and sometimes, they come true.”
“Come again?”
Dean hadn’t worn a tiara in freaking months…and then Sam said they had to go to Lawrence. And Dean nearly put one on right in front of Sam. Instead, he called Dad. Who didn’t answer, of course.
And they went to the fucking house, and there was totally something there. And then they tracked down Dad’s old friend, and that led them to Missouri…and that was a problem. Because while Sam got visions, he couldn’t read minds, but Missouri…she could see every single rhinestone that glittered on Dean’s head.
Worst of all, it turned out she was a bit of a prude-she thought Dean was a cross-dressing degenerate. Treated Dean like dirt, much to Sam’s amusement. He probably wouldn’t have thought it was so funny if he’d known why. Eventually, though, Dean won her over. It cost him though. He had to give her his back-up tiara. Bitch.
Seemed like a good time to restock. He made sure to order an extra one, just in case he ran up against another tiara-snatching psychic.
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They’d been on the road for awhile, when Dad sent a text message. Wanted them to go to Illinois, to check out some haunted asylum. Dean was thrilled to know that Dad was okay. Too bad the job was such a bastard. Sammy shot him full of rocksalt, which goddamned fucking HURT like a goddamned motherfucking motherfucker. And then, Sam tried to kill him. Yeah, that was a fun job, thanks Dad.
He really couldn’t talk to Sam after. Ghost or no ghost, what the hell do you say after something like that? They checked into the hotel, and Dean made sure he had the tiara in his dopp kit--snuck it into the bathroom with him, locked the door and he put it on, sat on the porcelain throne. He picked rock salt out of his chest for over an hour, and told himself that his brother didn’t really hate him.
And then Dad called, and god, he was so glad to hear his voice, even if it was just to give them a job. Which Sam, that ingrate, bitched about. And then, Sam took off- Dean left his ass alone on the road, just south of Indianapolis. Dean watched Sam get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror until he was completely out of sight, then he pulled over, got out his tiara, and wore it all the way to Burkitsville.
Turned out, Sam didn’t really hate him. Came back and saved Dean’s ass, though he did have a rescue plan…and that plan was not to have anyone going through his shit when he was dead and finding a goddamned tiara.
No, he needed to have way more than one. They detoured to Oklahoma to pick up the mail from the drop box. Dean made Sam go get coffee while he collected the mail, because the box from his new tiara supplier, was gonna be a little tough to explain. The new crown was
amazing.
.
He pulled the Impala out back behind the VFW post that sat next to the post office, parked, and put it on. Damn, he looked good in that crown. Felt good, too. Kinda ironic that they tangled with the rawhead that night-and Dean went from feeling great, to being damned near dead.
Dying sucked, hard. Through a straw. Especially when you were in a hospital, and your brother had your bag and your tiara is in a hotel room, miles away. Was it any wonder he bailed, took a cab and found his brother? Found his crown too. Found that he wasn’t really scared of dying. Mostly he was just scared of leaving his little brother all alone. With a duffle full of tiaras.
Thank God, (and yes, he did, despite what he told Sam), thank God he didn’t have to leave him. That was a tough gig. But not as tough as the next one.
A Monster truck-literally, a Possessed Killer Monster Truck. And Cassie. Cassie had provoked a solid two months of tiara wearing after she dumped him, and here she was again, looking just as good as he remembered, and damned if he didn’t try not to remember. And he thought that the 100,000 volts and the heart attack had hurt.
They dealt with the stupid monster truck. Dean left Cassie behind, again. Sam asked if he ever wondered if they should just chuck it all and settle down. Dean just smiled. Remembered the feel of the tiara on his head, pulled out his sunglasses, and told Sam to wake him when it was his turn to drive.
It wasn’t long after that Sam had a vision that sent them to Saginaw, Michigan, and changed everything.
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Goddamned visions. Sam had already seen one Miller die, and now, they were on their way to try to save Roger Miller from losing his head. And Sam was scared. Said so.
“Why the hell is this happening to me?”
“I don’t know, Sam, but we’ll figure it out, okay? We face the unexplainable every single day. This is just another thing.”
“Tell me the truth. You can’t tell me this doesn’t freak you out.”
And Dean had paused. Put on his game face. “This doesn’t freak me out.” But, really…what the hell? Dean was trying to maintain a calm surface while paddling like mad underneath, like a freaking duck with a goddamn psychic brother…duck.
They were too late to save Roger Miller. They went back to the motel, and researched until they couldn’t see straight. Later that night, when Sam was asleep, Dean left the motel room, went out to the Impala, and pulled a box out from deep under the driver’s seat. He took out his favorite tiara, put it on, and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest, closing his eyes. He felt calm immediately. He was in charge, he could figure this out…he was the King of…exhausted.
“Yeah, Sammy, I’ll protect you. Me and my tiara,” he mumbled, and fell asleep.
He woke to the sound of tapping on the window, and startled a bit, seeing Sam, face pressed to the glass. Dean grimaced, yawned, stretched, and rolled down the window.
Sam was gaping at him.
“Dean, what the hell?” Sam demanded.
“What?” Dean asked, not completely awake.
“What the fuck is on your head?”
“My hea…” Dean began, reached up and touched rhinestone. FUCK.
“Oh, my god, you went out and banged a beauty queen,” Sam snapped, bitchy as hell. “I can’t believe you found a pageant queen to sleep with in the middle of a case. In the middle of the night, no less!”
Dean hurriedly slipped the tiara off his head, tossed it aside. Paddled like a crazy, cross-dressing duck with a psychic brother, and hoped his brother wasn’t a mind reader, too. “Hey, you have the shining, I have…uh…chick radar.”
“Chick radar?” Sam shook his head. “You’re unbelievable. I’m going for breakfast. You coming?”
“Nah, Miss Madison County made me eggs and pancakes before I left. She was grateful…hey, wanna know what her talent was?”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear about your booty call.”
“Bring back coffee!” Dean shouted after Sam. As soon as Sam was out of sight, he slumped in his seat. “Shit, that was close.” He took off the tiara, and held it in his hands for a minute, then sighed. He had to get rid of it…of them. Sam would let this go…eventually…once, but not twice. Twice would be a disaster.
Dean got out of the car and headed for the dumpster, meaning to toss them in, but, as he stood there, gazing into the box, the tiaras twinkling at him with sad, glittery, princess puppy eyes, he couldn’t do it.
It was the coward’s way out, and he wasn’t a coward. If Sam found them, he’d say they were trophies. Say he was starting a collection from all fifty states. Maybe even make a list... Yeah, that would do it.
But he could never let Sam see him wearing a tiara again. Because maybe he really was a coward when it came to Sam. He tucked the tiara box under his arm and went into the motel room, where he stashed it in his duffle. Now that Sam had seen it, there wasn’t much sense in hiding them. He could make a joke out of it. Present Sam with a crown next time he was acting like a little princess, just like he’d meant to all those years ago.
“Okay,” Dean said, sighed with relief. “This is gonna be okay.”
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And it was okay. The events with Max Miller sort of made Sam forget about seeing his brother in the tiara. Oh, sure, Sam made jokes. Lame jokes. But he quit after a couple weeks and a few dozen beatings.
A day or so after their adventure with the lovely Bender family, and, oh, by the way? Hot poker to the chest? Right up there on his list of shit NEVER to do again, Dean was feeling a bit antsy, as he watched Sam cruising the net, looking for jobs. He needed a drink, but there wasn’t a bar nearby. He needed a woman, but, again, no bar. He couldn’t just go door to door…wait…Laundromat. There was a Laundromat just down the road, and if he couldn’t pick up a babe there, he might be able to get in a little tiara time if the joint was empty enough.
“I’m going to do some laundry,” Dean announced, and began sorting his clothes by smell before he decided they all smelled equally bad. “Want me to do yours?” he asked.
Sam looked up from his research, surprised. “Uh, sure.” While it wasn’t unheard of for Dean to do laundry, offering to do it without payment or coercion or threat of death by NPR, was rare. “Take anything that isn’t folded.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Dude, I’m so not rooting through your dirty clothes. Gimme the bag. If they’re dirty, I’ll wash ‘em. If they’re clean, I’ll wash ‘em again.”
“Jerk.” Sam grinned.
“Bitch.” Dean replied, and was out the door, favorite tiara stuffed into the duffels along with the clothes and detergent.
He arrived at the Laundromat and found a lovely young thing to do out in the Impala between the wash and dry cycles. Kim loved muscle cars. Kim loved muscles. Dean had both. Dean had Kim. And after Kim was gone, Dean stripped to his shorts, threw the last of the laundry into the washer, put on his tiara and rocked out, playing air guitar to “Renegade” in the empty Laundromat.
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Sam snapped the laptop shut in disgust. Nothing. Not a damned thing supernatural. He flopped down on his bed and grabbed the remote, made a quick circuit of the six channels available, two of them holy roller clap-trap, and switched off the TV. He was tired, bored, and he missed Jess so goddamned much he could barely breathe.
He rolled onto his side, and that’s when he saw it, sticking out of Dean’s bag, shining in the harsh motel light… a tiara. That tiara. The one Dean had gotten from the beauty queen a couple months ago. Sam reached over and snagged it from the bag, held it in his hands. He’d been surprised to see Dean wearing it in the car that long-ago morning, because he’d thought he was the only guy who ever wore a tiara.
Jess was a beauty queen in high school, had been a California Jr. Miss. It was how she came to be at Stanford; she’d been given a scholarship…and a tiara. And sometimes, when they made love, he asked her to wear it. Sometimes, she asked him to wear it. And sometimes he wore it when she didn’t ask, or even, when she wasn’t there. He couldn’t say why, exactly. It just made him feel…different. Stronger. Less alone. And, he looked fucking good in a tiara, if he did say so himself. Then there was the fire, and he’d lost Jess, and everything else he had in his life-tiara included.
Sam sat up, went into the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror, and put the tiara on his head.
It wasn’t as nice as the one Jess had, but it was still nice. Shiny. Sam closed his eyes, felt the weight of the crown on his head, felt Jess’s arms around him, felt her breath on his neck, and suddenly, he could breathe again. He felt so much better that he went back to research, knowing that he’d find something this time that would lead them to Dad, or to the demon who’d taken away his girl and his crown.
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Dean pulled up in front of the motel, and the window to their room was dark. Sam must have gone to bed. He grabbed the duffels full of clean laundry from the backseat, and headed for the door. He had his hands full of laundry, and keys in his mouth, when the door opened. Sam was standing in front of him, dressed only in boxers, with a tiara on his head. Dean’s back-up tiara.
Which was ironic, because Dean also had a tiara on his head. Though he was fully clothed in Mountain Spring fresh apparel, thanks to Snuggle. The keys fell from his mouth.
The two brothers stood in silence for a minute, each taking in the sight of the other wearing a…oh, hell…wearing a tiara.
“What the fuck are you doing going through my stuff?” Dean yelled.
“What the fuck are you doing wearing THAT in public?” Sam shouted back.
“What the fuck are you doing wearing THAT in here-in your underwear? Okay, wait. I don’t want to know,” Dean said, and stepped into the room. “Really, man. What the hell?”
So Sam told Dean about Jess. And Dean told Sam about King John and Princess Sammy. And it was all very manly, and not the least bit chick-flicky. There was no hugging.
They eyed each other again, silently, then said, in unison…”You look good.”
Dean grinned. “Dude, you look good. I look AWESOME.”
Sam grinned. “You’re first runner up, man. I’m fuckin’ Mr. America.”
“In your dreams, rhinestone cowboy,” Dean smiled.
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And that is how it began. It started slowly at first. They’d both wear the tiaras in the hotel room, or in the car as they drove long, empty stretches of road to pass the time. Each knew that if a tiara came out, that something was up. Just another form of silent communication, but an important one. And there was a beneficial side effect. Wearing the tiaras improved the boys’ mood so much it made them feel damned near invincible.
So they decided to try wearing the tiaras “on the job”. During a routine salt and burn in Hattiesburg, the ghost they were trying to banish was so fascinated by the tiara-wearing grave diggers that it didn’t even howl when they set fire to its bones. After that, they started wearing them on all their jobs. It gave them an edge, an advantage over evil. Plus, they looked damned good in those tiaras.
Dean had a dream. He hadn’t told Sam, but, somehow, he thought Sam knew. One day, when they found that yellow-eyed bastard that took their mom, and Jess, and Dad, that skeezy sob was gonna look at them, see two men wearing tiaras, and he was gonna laugh. And that’s when they’d blow him straight back to hell.
There is a legend that is whispered in the small towns and big cities across America, a story about two brothers named Winchester, who crossed this country, fighting evil, saving people, hunting things. Only a few saw these brothers in person-they stayed in the shadows, away from the law, away from curious eyes. But those who did meet them would never forget the shiny black car, the two handsome men, the sparkling tiaras.
And how fucking hot they looked wearing them as they drove away into the sunset.
The End…