All Powers Are Not Created Equal 1/1 - Pg13 - SPN/VM (gen)
Title: All Powers Are Not Created Equal
Author: Jinni (jinni.tth@gmail.com)
Rated: Pg13
Disclaimer: All things VM belong to Rob Thomas, et al. All things SPN belong to Eric Kripke, et al.
Characters: Dick, Logan, Veronica, Sam, Dean
Notes: Oh. Dear. God. A crack!fic plot bunny ran up and bit me in the ass. It hurt, really. And it hurts even more if I try not to write what the bunny wants…therefore this was written (that, and I can’t work on the Sam/Lindsey sequel at work since, yeah, pr0n). So, yeah. This is meant to be silly. For serious.
Notes2: This is also partially blamed on spankerella, because yesterday she said she needed more Dick (the character, not the…well…)… I made her an icon, but the idea of more Dick just stayed with me. So… more Dick!!!!!!
Spoilers: Through all eps of s3 Veronica Mars and all eps of s2 Supernatural.
Summary: The boys track a strange series of events in Neptune, only to find out that not all the ‘special’ kids are dangerous. And some are ‘special’ in more ways than others.
~*~
“I think I may have something.”
Attention immediately captured by the very words he’d been hoping to hear for almost a week, Dean looked away from the TV to fix Sam with a stare. In the background the talk show host rattled on and on about somebody’s baby’s daddy or something. Dean hadn’t really been paying that much attention. He hated most talk shows, but it was either that or frickin’ Days of Our Lives, and there was no way in hell he was stooping that low.
“Yeah?” He was proud of how he kept himself from sounding too eager, like he hadn’t been sitting here for days practically climbing the walls, needing to get back on the road. It was getting to the point where he’d take anything - be it large or small - so long as they were out there hunting again.
“It’s not overly exciting or anything, but it’s certainly weird,” Sam muttered, continuing to stare at the laptop screen. Dean sighed, standing up from the bed. He saw the corner of Sam’s mouth twitch. Little bitch had been dragging this out to tease him.
Dean cuffed the back of Sam’s head lightly. “Get on with it.”
“Town in California - Neptune - they’ve,” Sam paused and shook his head. “People are getting drunk for no reason.”
That… didn’t sound like a job. “So what? Let me guess - it’s a little college town, right? Co-eds getting wild and wacky, hopefully with wet t-shirts and video cameras.” Now that was a nice thought.
“There is a college nearby, yes,” Sam said slowly. Looking up at Dean, he shrugged. “But none of the people involved had been actually, you know, drinking.”
Weird.
“In fact, one of the individuals in question was a professor at the school.”
“Professors are people, too, Sammy.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dean, they are. Good of you to realize that. However this sixty-three year old grandmother of three hasn’t touched alcohol in thirty years. She’s been with the school for the last twenty, and no one believes for one second that she decided to get falling-down drunk.”
“Huh,” Dean muttered. He took a seat in the chair across from Sam’s. “Drugs?”
“No. Nothing in their system to give any indication as to why they’d have all the physical symptoms of someone that had partied a little too hard.”
“And we’re sure that these students aren’t just lying?” Dean prompted. That was the answer that made the most sense. Yeah, even good old granny could be telling a fib. Just because you were a senior citizen didn’t make you a fucking saint. “I mean - college kids and all, right?”
Sam’s eyebrows went up at the insinuation. His lips pressed together, and Dean could almost see the mantle of prissiness settle around his brother’s shoulders. “I think I got drunk once the entire time I was at school, Dean. Not all college students belong in a Gone Wild video.”
Yeah, well, Dean knew how boring his brother could be, too. Trust him to go off to college and not do anything even remotely adventurous. He opened his mouth to ask Sam how neglecting the quintessential college experiences had been having a normal life and then thought better of it. Might just make Sam all moody, and damn if he wanted to put up with that for the rest of the afternoon.
Instead, he bit his tongue and tried to think of any other excuse that would make this not their kind of job. As much as he wanted a reason to get out of here, he didn’t want to drive a day or two for nothing, either. They could’ve been doing that this whole time instead of just sitting here if that was how they wanted to spend their time.
Finally, he let himself just accept it for what it was. Sam was right; it wasn’t an exciting job, but it did sound like a job. “So - something supernatural, then? Any idea what?”
“Not a clue.”
Well, this was going to be fun.
~*~*~
Sam hated coming to California with a passion that he didn’t think he could ever make Dean understand. The only reason he had even brought up this job in the first place was because he could see that his older brother was going stir crazy. Anything for Dean, right?
Right.
And, hey, how bad could it be? Something - a spirit, a curse, whatever - was making people get drunk. Not even violent-drunk, just falling down, laughing, goofy as hell drunk.
If only investigating this didn’t mean wandering around a college campus - in California - and being reminded at every twist and turn just what he’d given up over a year ago when he’d let Dean talk him into going out for a couple days to look for their dad.
“You coming or not?”
Sam tore his eyes away from the newspaper he’d snagged off of one of the empty tables in the cafeteria. Last night it had happened again. Another group of students were found stumbling around, but claimed that they hadn’t had anything to drink. Well, one of them admitted to having drank a single beer - but that was hardly enough to get a six-four, two-hundred pound football player smashed, in Sam’s opinion. The local sheriff had taken them all back to the station according to the paper, but they were released an hour later when they ‘immediately sobered up, like a switch had been thrown’.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” He followed Dean out of the cafeteria and into the too-bright afternoon sunlight. After sitting in a dingy motel room for almost a week straight, his eyes were a little peeved at being forced to cope with bright California sunshine. He soaked it up anyhow, enjoyed the warmth on his face and bare arms as he followed Dean through the campus to interview the list of people he’d been able to pull together. Most of them lived on campus though they’d have to visit a few places in town, too - including the Neptune Grand.
“The whole random drunkenness, turning off like a switch without warning - I’m thinking it’s got to be a curse.”
Dean laughed. “A curse? On what? The random students that are getting hit with it? Or maybe an object? But that wouldn’t make sense, right - because there can’t possibly be an object in common with every time this has happened. Can’t be a place, either, because this is happening all over.”
Sam frowned. “Then what do you think it is, smart ass?”
“Mind control.”
“Mind…” Sam was the one that laughed that time. He shook his head. “No way. The last thing someone would do if they had mind control would be make random groups of co-eds think that they were drunk.”
“So - what then? Demon with a sense of humor?”
“That’s more likely than mind control,” Sam scoffed with a roll of his eyes.
“Yeah, well - let’s try to think up something else, all right?” Dean said. “I’d like to think we have enough demon problems without screwing around with one that just wants to get kids drunk, okay?”
Sam couldn’t argue with that.
~*~*~
Everyone they talked to on campus said the exact same thing - they hadn’t been drinking or, if they had, it wasn’t nearly enough to account for the drunken antics they’d gotten up to. Their stories didn’t change a single detail from the newspapers had already printed. And now, here they were, at the penthouse suite-come-apartment of one Logan Echolls.
“He’s the kid of that actor that went on trial for murder, remember, Dean?” Sammy had reminded him during the elevator ride up. “Try to have some tact.”
“Who? Me?” Dean’s brow rose. “Dude, I’ve got tact.”
So he had bit down on that impulse to tell Logan just how much he’d liked Aaron Echoll’s last film, just to prove Sammy wrong.
“You were one of the people the sheriff had in custody last night, right?” Sam started the questions off right away after giving Logan their bogus story about working for the health department. Dean leaned back in the leather couch, admiring the room, and letting Sam take the lead. He could have tact, damnit.
Especially if he just kept his mouth shut.
“Yeah, I was in with those crazy kids,” Logan drawled, sprawling out in the chair across from them. “All of us in that one little holding cell.” He grinned widely, but Dean didn’t miss the part where it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I tell you, our sheriff really knows how to treat his guests.”
“And you hadn’t been drinking, right?”
“We had been studying,” Logan emphasized the word. “The only person that was legitimately drunk showed up that way.”
Dean felt his curiosity perk up. He sat up and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. “Who was that?”
Sam shot him a look as if to say nice to join in, and Dean ignored him.
“Dick Casablancas. My sometimes roommate and BFF.”
Dean wasn’t going to laugh at the name.
He wasn’t.
Laughing at that name or making some sort of joke? That would be too easy. And he didn’t do easy unless it was a waitress up against a wall, outside of a bar. That was the only kind of easy he liked.
Making fun of poor, little Dick for his unfortunate name…
Poor…little…
Damnit.
“And when he says BFF, we’re talking shades of Brokeback here.”
Dean looked up at the newcomer to the conversation, happy to have something to take his mind off of all of the bad jokes he could have been making. The quick, sarcastic tone belonged to what looked like a spitfire of a blonde. She walked up and put her hand on Logan’s shoulder, squealing when he pulled her into his lap. Logan’s girlfriend, then.
“What have I told you about outing me and Dick in front of strangers?
“That you like because closets are too small for the two of you to hide in forever?” she asked with a shrug, palms turned to the ceiling, face a picture of sarcastic innocence.
Dean thought that he might could love this girl, given half a shot. Or, at the very least, love her for a night or two. Too bad she had a boyfriend.
“Right,” Logan nodded. “Now, tell the nice men from the health department about how we were not drinking last night.”
~*~*~
The common factor was Dick.
Sam made a face and tried that again.
The reason for these problems was Dick.
This time, Sam just sighed. There really was no getting around that guy’s name, was there. To be honest, he was surprised that Dean had held in his wise cracking comments for this long.
“So - everywhere that Dick goes, trouble follows,” Dean nodded.
Sam frowned, but the look on Dean’s face was angelic.
“What?” Dean asked.
“Nothin’,” Sam sighed. He wanted to be off of the subject of Dick already, and it had only just come up.
Fuck.
Sam put his head in his hands. Maybe this was a new power of his - channeling his brother’s inner smartass. Something that only cropped up when Dean held back whatever sarcastic, low brow things he wanted to say.
Or maybe the whole thing really was just that funny.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” Sam muttered, raising his head. The corner of Dean’s mouth twitched. Narrowing his eyes, Sam turned back to the details they’d been able to get from Veronica and Logan. “So… Dick made an appearance at each of at least four out of the five locations. I’d say that means whatever’s happening is his fault.”
“Sounds like we need to find Dick and have a little talk.”
Again, Dean’s mouth twitched, like he was holding in a smile. It was too much for Sam. He laughed, loudly, head thrown back. After a couple seconds, he heard Dean join in.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean was the first to get his laughter under control. “God, Sammy - you’re so crass sometimes. Leave the poor guy alone. He can’t help that he’s a Dick.”
Sam managed to hit Dean upside the head before he could get out of the Impala, and it felt good.
~*~*~
Finding Dick - and, God, Dean was loving that - was easier said than done. After an hour they ended up no closer than they’d been when they started. Luckily it was right about that time that they ran into Veronica again. Dean let his gaze wander over her in a long, slow eye-fuck. Tight jeans, slung low on her hips. A t-shirt with some wacky print on it.
She caught him staring and gave him one of those looks that said he’d better not do it again. Dean shrugged, gave her his most unapologetic smirk, and moved over so that she could sit between him and Sam.
“Know where we can find your friend?”
“Which friend?” she gushed. “You know, I have so many.”
If sarcasm was money, this girl would be rich. She never turned it off, from what he could tell.
“Dick.” Sam said. Dean looked away, hiding his grin with a cough. Yep. Not getting old yet.
“You need to interview him, too? I don’t think he’ll be much use to you. I mean, he was pret-ty,” she drew out the word with a knowing lift of her brows, “wasted, if you know what I mean. He pretty much spends most of his time like that lately. C’mon, I’ll help you find him.”
There was sadness behind her words, and Dean wondered if she was more of a friend to this Dick guy than he’d picked up on when they’d been talking to her earlier. Then it had been jokes and eye rolling, now it was something like regret?
Dean shrugged it off. No chick flick moments meant no chick flick moments. No way in hell he was going to ask her what was wrong.
“You can just tell us where he is,” Sam said, easy going and placating. “No sense in wasting your time. I’m sure you have studying.”
“I work in the library,” she cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Believe me when I say that I have plenty of time to study. Right now, I want to help you two.”
“The thing is - we think Dick might be causing whatever’s going on, and I wouldn’t want you to get hit with it again.”
Exactly the kind of thing Sammy would say. Dean groaned mentally and out loud and glared at his brother over Veronica’s head. They were going to have to have that talk about when, where, why, and how to keep secrets; Dean could see it now. Hopefully it would go better than it had when Sammy was five.
Dean grimaced with the memory of trying to explain to a very stubborn Sam why he couldn’t warn his kindergarten classmates about the scary things in the dark. That hadn’t gone over well.
Sam was trying to explain things to Veronica. Dean paid half-attention, leaning back to look at the sky. Sunset had come and gone, bringing with it darkness and stars. He didn’t really care about the sky or the stars but helping Sammy out of the hole he’d just dug didn’t appeal to him, either. He tilted his head back down, smirking when Sam started listing off to Veronica all of their evidence.
Wait - evidence?
“You believe him?” Dean cut off Sam’s ramble because near as he could tell, they should still be on the ‘yes, it’s all real’ part of the explanation.
“About there being more stuff in heaven and hell, blah, blah?” Veronica rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Why not? Might not be as easy to believe if I wasn’t there the other night, didn’t go from being stone-cold sober to falling-down drunk so quick that it made my head spin. There’s no sane reason for that.” She shrugged again. “So either I accept that this is what happened - which makes more sense than any of the BS excuses I’ve come up with - or I just keep going mad trying to figure it out.”
“Well…okay,” Dean nodded. “Carry on, Sammy boy.”
“Sam,” his brother corrected automatically before launching back into the reasons why they thought it was Dick causing everything. And then, the conclusion. “The easiest way to prove it will be for one of us to get near him while he’s been drinking.”
“Then let’s go,” Veronica stood up. “Knowing Dick, he’s already gotten cozy with Jose tonight.”
Dean felt his lips spread in a grin. He laughed.
Yeah, he was pretty sure he could adore the hell out of this girl.
~*~*~
“Sammy… Sammy…”
“Wall, Sam. Wall. Oh, ow. That had to hurt.”
Okay, so volunteering to be the one that went in the room to confront Dick? Not the brightest idea Sam had ever had.
~*~*~
From there it was all downhill. Well, once Sammy had sobered up (and Dean was never going to let him forget being so drunk that he walked into a wall). Veronica explained things to Logan, who didn’t believe them until he tried it out for himself. An hour later, when he was sober, they discreetly tried to de-curse Dick.
He wasn’t cursed, though.
“Huh.”
“He could be… you know, like me.”
“What? Special?” Dean’s eyebrows shot up to the point that he was pretty sure that they might fly right off his head. The thought of Dick being special - heh - had never occurred to him. “Dude - he’s special, but we’re talking short bus here, not -“
“I think he is, Dean,” Sam interrupted. “He’s got some kind of drunken projection…empathy?”
Even Sam wasn’t sure what to call it. “Drunkempathy?” He tested the word out.
“That’s stupid.”
“Empathdrunk?”
“Dean.”
~*~*~
Telling Dick about his powers was one of the easier conversations that Sam had been able to have since he came back to the hunting life. Easier still than getting Sarah to believe them about the haunted painting that one time, even if Dean hadn’t been able to come up with a good name for Dick’s, admittedly very odd, power. Dick just took it in stride, nodding his head, looking to Logan for reassurance that they weren’t yanking his chain. Sam got the feeling that the blond surfer-wannabe was just going to go drink himself stupid to try to forget things after it was all said and done, though. Somewhere tonight on campus, there would be some very drunk co-eds.
Well, nothing that they could do about Dick being a moron. If he and Dean killed people for being idiots, they’d be killing half the people they met. More, if Dean was the judge of things.
“Don’t worry,” Veronica murmured to him under her breath. “We’ll try to keep an eye on him.” She paused. “Well, a better eye on him, anyway.”
“Most useless super power - ever,” Dick stopped and yelled back at them, as he walked away. Sam was pretty sure he heard a mutter or two about how unfair life was, and he didn’t bother hiding his grin. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to have such an easy to manage - not to mention painless - power.
Logan rocked back and forth on his feet, a mischievous grin on his face. It was the kind of grin that was a little scary because you could almost see some kind of plan behind it. Logan looked over at Veronica and waggled his eyebrows. “You know what this means, right?”
“Get Dick drunk and you don’t have to buy beer for anyone else at a party?” she deadpanned, and Dean snorted with laughter.
“Exactly.”
END
Author: Jinni (jinni.tth@gmail.com)
Rated: Pg13
Disclaimer: All things VM belong to Rob Thomas, et al. All things SPN belong to Eric Kripke, et al.
Characters: Dick, Logan, Veronica, Sam, Dean
Notes: Oh. Dear. God. A crack!fic plot bunny ran up and bit me in the ass. It hurt, really. And it hurts even more if I try not to write what the bunny wants…therefore this was written (that, and I can’t work on the Sam/Lindsey sequel at work since, yeah, pr0n). So, yeah. This is meant to be silly. For serious.
Notes2: This is also partially blamed on spankerella, because yesterday she said she needed more Dick (the character, not the…well…)… I made her an icon, but the idea of more Dick just stayed with me. So… more Dick!!!!!!
Spoilers: Through all eps of s3 Veronica Mars and all eps of s2 Supernatural.
Summary: The boys track a strange series of events in Neptune, only to find out that not all the ‘special’ kids are dangerous. And some are ‘special’ in more ways than others.
~*~
“I think I may have something.”
Attention immediately captured by the very words he’d been hoping to hear for almost a week, Dean looked away from the TV to fix Sam with a stare. In the background the talk show host rattled on and on about somebody’s baby’s daddy or something. Dean hadn’t really been paying that much attention. He hated most talk shows, but it was either that or frickin’ Days of Our Lives, and there was no way in hell he was stooping that low.
“Yeah?” He was proud of how he kept himself from sounding too eager, like he hadn’t been sitting here for days practically climbing the walls, needing to get back on the road. It was getting to the point where he’d take anything - be it large or small - so long as they were out there hunting again.
“It’s not overly exciting or anything, but it’s certainly weird,” Sam muttered, continuing to stare at the laptop screen. Dean sighed, standing up from the bed. He saw the corner of Sam’s mouth twitch. Little bitch had been dragging this out to tease him.
Dean cuffed the back of Sam’s head lightly. “Get on with it.”
“Town in California - Neptune - they’ve,” Sam paused and shook his head. “People are getting drunk for no reason.”
That… didn’t sound like a job. “So what? Let me guess - it’s a little college town, right? Co-eds getting wild and wacky, hopefully with wet t-shirts and video cameras.” Now that was a nice thought.
“There is a college nearby, yes,” Sam said slowly. Looking up at Dean, he shrugged. “But none of the people involved had been actually, you know, drinking.”
Weird.
“In fact, one of the individuals in question was a professor at the school.”
“Professors are people, too, Sammy.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dean, they are. Good of you to realize that. However this sixty-three year old grandmother of three hasn’t touched alcohol in thirty years. She’s been with the school for the last twenty, and no one believes for one second that she decided to get falling-down drunk.”
“Huh,” Dean muttered. He took a seat in the chair across from Sam’s. “Drugs?”
“No. Nothing in their system to give any indication as to why they’d have all the physical symptoms of someone that had partied a little too hard.”
“And we’re sure that these students aren’t just lying?” Dean prompted. That was the answer that made the most sense. Yeah, even good old granny could be telling a fib. Just because you were a senior citizen didn’t make you a fucking saint. “I mean - college kids and all, right?”
Sam’s eyebrows went up at the insinuation. His lips pressed together, and Dean could almost see the mantle of prissiness settle around his brother’s shoulders. “I think I got drunk once the entire time I was at school, Dean. Not all college students belong in a Gone Wild video.”
Yeah, well, Dean knew how boring his brother could be, too. Trust him to go off to college and not do anything even remotely adventurous. He opened his mouth to ask Sam how neglecting the quintessential college experiences had been having a normal life and then thought better of it. Might just make Sam all moody, and damn if he wanted to put up with that for the rest of the afternoon.
Instead, he bit his tongue and tried to think of any other excuse that would make this not their kind of job. As much as he wanted a reason to get out of here, he didn’t want to drive a day or two for nothing, either. They could’ve been doing that this whole time instead of just sitting here if that was how they wanted to spend their time.
Finally, he let himself just accept it for what it was. Sam was right; it wasn’t an exciting job, but it did sound like a job. “So - something supernatural, then? Any idea what?”
“Not a clue.”
Well, this was going to be fun.
~*~*~
Sam hated coming to California with a passion that he didn’t think he could ever make Dean understand. The only reason he had even brought up this job in the first place was because he could see that his older brother was going stir crazy. Anything for Dean, right?
Right.
And, hey, how bad could it be? Something - a spirit, a curse, whatever - was making people get drunk. Not even violent-drunk, just falling down, laughing, goofy as hell drunk.
If only investigating this didn’t mean wandering around a college campus - in California - and being reminded at every twist and turn just what he’d given up over a year ago when he’d let Dean talk him into going out for a couple days to look for their dad.
“You coming or not?”
Sam tore his eyes away from the newspaper he’d snagged off of one of the empty tables in the cafeteria. Last night it had happened again. Another group of students were found stumbling around, but claimed that they hadn’t had anything to drink. Well, one of them admitted to having drank a single beer - but that was hardly enough to get a six-four, two-hundred pound football player smashed, in Sam’s opinion. The local sheriff had taken them all back to the station according to the paper, but they were released an hour later when they ‘immediately sobered up, like a switch had been thrown’.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” He followed Dean out of the cafeteria and into the too-bright afternoon sunlight. After sitting in a dingy motel room for almost a week straight, his eyes were a little peeved at being forced to cope with bright California sunshine. He soaked it up anyhow, enjoyed the warmth on his face and bare arms as he followed Dean through the campus to interview the list of people he’d been able to pull together. Most of them lived on campus though they’d have to visit a few places in town, too - including the Neptune Grand.
“The whole random drunkenness, turning off like a switch without warning - I’m thinking it’s got to be a curse.”
Dean laughed. “A curse? On what? The random students that are getting hit with it? Or maybe an object? But that wouldn’t make sense, right - because there can’t possibly be an object in common with every time this has happened. Can’t be a place, either, because this is happening all over.”
Sam frowned. “Then what do you think it is, smart ass?”
“Mind control.”
“Mind…” Sam was the one that laughed that time. He shook his head. “No way. The last thing someone would do if they had mind control would be make random groups of co-eds think that they were drunk.”
“So - what then? Demon with a sense of humor?”
“That’s more likely than mind control,” Sam scoffed with a roll of his eyes.
“Yeah, well - let’s try to think up something else, all right?” Dean said. “I’d like to think we have enough demon problems without screwing around with one that just wants to get kids drunk, okay?”
Sam couldn’t argue with that.
~*~*~
Everyone they talked to on campus said the exact same thing - they hadn’t been drinking or, if they had, it wasn’t nearly enough to account for the drunken antics they’d gotten up to. Their stories didn’t change a single detail from the newspapers had already printed. And now, here they were, at the penthouse suite-come-apartment of one Logan Echolls.
“He’s the kid of that actor that went on trial for murder, remember, Dean?” Sammy had reminded him during the elevator ride up. “Try to have some tact.”
“Who? Me?” Dean’s brow rose. “Dude, I’ve got tact.”
So he had bit down on that impulse to tell Logan just how much he’d liked Aaron Echoll’s last film, just to prove Sammy wrong.
“You were one of the people the sheriff had in custody last night, right?” Sam started the questions off right away after giving Logan their bogus story about working for the health department. Dean leaned back in the leather couch, admiring the room, and letting Sam take the lead. He could have tact, damnit.
Especially if he just kept his mouth shut.
“Yeah, I was in with those crazy kids,” Logan drawled, sprawling out in the chair across from them. “All of us in that one little holding cell.” He grinned widely, but Dean didn’t miss the part where it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I tell you, our sheriff really knows how to treat his guests.”
“And you hadn’t been drinking, right?”
“We had been studying,” Logan emphasized the word. “The only person that was legitimately drunk showed up that way.”
Dean felt his curiosity perk up. He sat up and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. “Who was that?”
Sam shot him a look as if to say nice to join in, and Dean ignored him.
“Dick Casablancas. My sometimes roommate and BFF.”
Dean wasn’t going to laugh at the name.
He wasn’t.
Laughing at that name or making some sort of joke? That would be too easy. And he didn’t do easy unless it was a waitress up against a wall, outside of a bar. That was the only kind of easy he liked.
Making fun of poor, little Dick for his unfortunate name…
Poor…little…
Damnit.
“And when he says BFF, we’re talking shades of Brokeback here.”
Dean looked up at the newcomer to the conversation, happy to have something to take his mind off of all of the bad jokes he could have been making. The quick, sarcastic tone belonged to what looked like a spitfire of a blonde. She walked up and put her hand on Logan’s shoulder, squealing when he pulled her into his lap. Logan’s girlfriend, then.
“What have I told you about outing me and Dick in front of strangers?
“That you like because closets are too small for the two of you to hide in forever?” she asked with a shrug, palms turned to the ceiling, face a picture of sarcastic innocence.
Dean thought that he might could love this girl, given half a shot. Or, at the very least, love her for a night or two. Too bad she had a boyfriend.
“Right,” Logan nodded. “Now, tell the nice men from the health department about how we were not drinking last night.”
~*~*~
The common factor was Dick.
Sam made a face and tried that again.
The reason for these problems was Dick.
This time, Sam just sighed. There really was no getting around that guy’s name, was there. To be honest, he was surprised that Dean had held in his wise cracking comments for this long.
“So - everywhere that Dick goes, trouble follows,” Dean nodded.
Sam frowned, but the look on Dean’s face was angelic.
“What?” Dean asked.
“Nothin’,” Sam sighed. He wanted to be off of the subject of Dick already, and it had only just come up.
Fuck.
Sam put his head in his hands. Maybe this was a new power of his - channeling his brother’s inner smartass. Something that only cropped up when Dean held back whatever sarcastic, low brow things he wanted to say.
Or maybe the whole thing really was just that funny.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” Sam muttered, raising his head. The corner of Dean’s mouth twitched. Narrowing his eyes, Sam turned back to the details they’d been able to get from Veronica and Logan. “So… Dick made an appearance at each of at least four out of the five locations. I’d say that means whatever’s happening is his fault.”
“Sounds like we need to find Dick and have a little talk.”
Again, Dean’s mouth twitched, like he was holding in a smile. It was too much for Sam. He laughed, loudly, head thrown back. After a couple seconds, he heard Dean join in.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean was the first to get his laughter under control. “God, Sammy - you’re so crass sometimes. Leave the poor guy alone. He can’t help that he’s a Dick.”
Sam managed to hit Dean upside the head before he could get out of the Impala, and it felt good.
~*~*~
Finding Dick - and, God, Dean was loving that - was easier said than done. After an hour they ended up no closer than they’d been when they started. Luckily it was right about that time that they ran into Veronica again. Dean let his gaze wander over her in a long, slow eye-fuck. Tight jeans, slung low on her hips. A t-shirt with some wacky print on it.
She caught him staring and gave him one of those looks that said he’d better not do it again. Dean shrugged, gave her his most unapologetic smirk, and moved over so that she could sit between him and Sam.
“Know where we can find your friend?”
“Which friend?” she gushed. “You know, I have so many.”
If sarcasm was money, this girl would be rich. She never turned it off, from what he could tell.
“Dick.” Sam said. Dean looked away, hiding his grin with a cough. Yep. Not getting old yet.
“You need to interview him, too? I don’t think he’ll be much use to you. I mean, he was pret-ty,” she drew out the word with a knowing lift of her brows, “wasted, if you know what I mean. He pretty much spends most of his time like that lately. C’mon, I’ll help you find him.”
There was sadness behind her words, and Dean wondered if she was more of a friend to this Dick guy than he’d picked up on when they’d been talking to her earlier. Then it had been jokes and eye rolling, now it was something like regret?
Dean shrugged it off. No chick flick moments meant no chick flick moments. No way in hell he was going to ask her what was wrong.
“You can just tell us where he is,” Sam said, easy going and placating. “No sense in wasting your time. I’m sure you have studying.”
“I work in the library,” she cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Believe me when I say that I have plenty of time to study. Right now, I want to help you two.”
“The thing is - we think Dick might be causing whatever’s going on, and I wouldn’t want you to get hit with it again.”
Exactly the kind of thing Sammy would say. Dean groaned mentally and out loud and glared at his brother over Veronica’s head. They were going to have to have that talk about when, where, why, and how to keep secrets; Dean could see it now. Hopefully it would go better than it had when Sammy was five.
Dean grimaced with the memory of trying to explain to a very stubborn Sam why he couldn’t warn his kindergarten classmates about the scary things in the dark. That hadn’t gone over well.
Sam was trying to explain things to Veronica. Dean paid half-attention, leaning back to look at the sky. Sunset had come and gone, bringing with it darkness and stars. He didn’t really care about the sky or the stars but helping Sammy out of the hole he’d just dug didn’t appeal to him, either. He tilted his head back down, smirking when Sam started listing off to Veronica all of their evidence.
Wait - evidence?
“You believe him?” Dean cut off Sam’s ramble because near as he could tell, they should still be on the ‘yes, it’s all real’ part of the explanation.
“About there being more stuff in heaven and hell, blah, blah?” Veronica rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Why not? Might not be as easy to believe if I wasn’t there the other night, didn’t go from being stone-cold sober to falling-down drunk so quick that it made my head spin. There’s no sane reason for that.” She shrugged again. “So either I accept that this is what happened - which makes more sense than any of the BS excuses I’ve come up with - or I just keep going mad trying to figure it out.”
“Well…okay,” Dean nodded. “Carry on, Sammy boy.”
“Sam,” his brother corrected automatically before launching back into the reasons why they thought it was Dick causing everything. And then, the conclusion. “The easiest way to prove it will be for one of us to get near him while he’s been drinking.”
“Then let’s go,” Veronica stood up. “Knowing Dick, he’s already gotten cozy with Jose tonight.”
Dean felt his lips spread in a grin. He laughed.
Yeah, he was pretty sure he could adore the hell out of this girl.
~*~*~
“Sammy… Sammy…”
“Wall, Sam. Wall. Oh, ow. That had to hurt.”
Okay, so volunteering to be the one that went in the room to confront Dick? Not the brightest idea Sam had ever had.
~*~*~
From there it was all downhill. Well, once Sammy had sobered up (and Dean was never going to let him forget being so drunk that he walked into a wall). Veronica explained things to Logan, who didn’t believe them until he tried it out for himself. An hour later, when he was sober, they discreetly tried to de-curse Dick.
He wasn’t cursed, though.
“Huh.”
“He could be… you know, like me.”
“What? Special?” Dean’s eyebrows shot up to the point that he was pretty sure that they might fly right off his head. The thought of Dick being special - heh - had never occurred to him. “Dude - he’s special, but we’re talking short bus here, not -“
“I think he is, Dean,” Sam interrupted. “He’s got some kind of drunken projection…empathy?”
Even Sam wasn’t sure what to call it. “Drunkempathy?” He tested the word out.
“That’s stupid.”
“Empathdrunk?”
“Dean.”
~*~*~
Telling Dick about his powers was one of the easier conversations that Sam had been able to have since he came back to the hunting life. Easier still than getting Sarah to believe them about the haunted painting that one time, even if Dean hadn’t been able to come up with a good name for Dick’s, admittedly very odd, power. Dick just took it in stride, nodding his head, looking to Logan for reassurance that they weren’t yanking his chain. Sam got the feeling that the blond surfer-wannabe was just going to go drink himself stupid to try to forget things after it was all said and done, though. Somewhere tonight on campus, there would be some very drunk co-eds.
Well, nothing that they could do about Dick being a moron. If he and Dean killed people for being idiots, they’d be killing half the people they met. More, if Dean was the judge of things.
“Don’t worry,” Veronica murmured to him under her breath. “We’ll try to keep an eye on him.” She paused. “Well, a better eye on him, anyway.”
“Most useless super power - ever,” Dick stopped and yelled back at them, as he walked away. Sam was pretty sure he heard a mutter or two about how unfair life was, and he didn’t bother hiding his grin. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to have such an easy to manage - not to mention painless - power.
Logan rocked back and forth on his feet, a mischievous grin on his face. It was the kind of grin that was a little scary because you could almost see some kind of plan behind it. Logan looked over at Veronica and waggled his eyebrows. “You know what this means, right?”
“Get Dick drunk and you don’t have to buy beer for anyone else at a party?” she deadpanned, and Dean snorted with laughter.
“Exactly.”
END