Fic: Not the gravity plan
Not the gravity plan, 1.8k, Charlie and Kevin show up at the same time.
Written for caithream at the batcave fic & art comment fest!
Charlie and Kevin show up at the same time. She's reaching for the door handle when Kevin says, "No, I wouldn't do that if I were you."
"Well you're not me," Charlie says. "In fact, I don't even know who you are. You've been following me since the gas station." She's on edge because it was creepy, the kid's beat up car tailing her, kind of swerving sometimes.
"You're on that scooter," Kevin says, pointing toward where she parked it against the hillside. "You were going like 20 miles and hour. You wouldn't pull over and let me pass."
"We're on country roads. And you drive like a crazy person."
"I'm only eighteen! My mom never let me get a license."
That draws her up short, because dude, that is rough. "You know. My parents wouldn't let me get my license either," she tells him. Then pauses, because: "I mean, come to think of it, I snuck out one night and tried to teach myself to drive on my mom's Mercedes, which landed me in the hospital with a broken fibula, a sprained wrist, and a love for speed. So I guess that could have been why. But, dude, the drag racing scene in Illinois?" She leans in to tell him, like it's their secret, "Surprisingly happening...Anyway." She reaches for the handle of the door.
"No," Kevin says sharply. Charlie pauses and raises her eyebrows. He shrugs and waves a hand to it. "It says 'don't touch' in Enochian."
"Oh." She pulls her hand back because that sounds ominous. "Wait, what's Enochian?"
The door swings open before Kevin can respond. Charlie's heart does a little jump because it's Sam, who now forever and always will feel like one of her knights. They'd won that battle so hard.
"Kevin?" Sam asks, which makes Charlie relax a little. Any friend of Sam and Dean is...well, she thinks, maybe that's not a failsafe way of judging anyone, but he's probably not a creepo. Sam turns to her. "Charlie."
She grins. "Hi, Sam."
Right now, Sam is sans battle paint and in a sweater vest with a pen hooked onto the collar, like a professor or a librarian. Charlie's seen him in a jacket and tie, and she's seen him in jeans and a flannel shirt which was better, but that sweater vest makes him look downright cuddly. It suits him.
"Charlie?" Dean calls, voice echoing up from what seems like far away.
She peers past Sam inside. "Woah."
"Yeah," Sam says, and leads them onto a balcony that overlooks a crazy cavern room, like the Torchwood Hub only less drippy. He taps the railing twice and says, "Right. Come on in."
"Charlie, get in here!" Dean yells up. "There's a whole weapons vestibule!"
Kevin mutters, "Better reception than I get, and I'm the one saving the world."
They head down some great, 20s looking metal stairs, into a very period-accurate antechamber, then into a second, more homey room. Charlie checks out the books as they walk past, and breathes, "Scratch that. Hello, room of requirement."
Kevin puts his bag on a long table across from a pile of open books. Charlie sits in a cushy arm chair and puts her goggles onto the side table and then her laptop bag next to them.
Dean pours them out drinks and he's all shiny and happy and smells like strawberries when he moves past, which reminds Charlie of the winter she spent volunteering on an organic fruit farm. Kevin downs his drink immediately and reaches for the bottle.
"So," Dean says, propping his feet up on the desk next to Sam's pile of notebooks. "Welcome to our Batcave."
Which means there are secret passageways and probably like, five cars and fancy gadgets. Charlie wonders which book you pull out for the full reveal and says, "So does that make Sam Batman?"
Dean's feet fall to the floor. "No, what? No." Sam laughs and Dean says, voice colored with betrayal, "Charlie, you were my favorite."
She sinks into the chair, listening to them argue, and then watches when Dean pauses arguing to get up and grab another bottle and refill Sam's glass with a hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam gets a private smile on his face that confirms what Charlie first thought, that he's looking better than last time they met, and that he and Dean are good. Last time they'd been arguing. This time they're just adorable.
The scotch is good. Charlie asks what year it is, because recently she's been trying to be more of a mainstream badass and know her liquor, and Dean admits it was just in this crystal decanter waiting for them. Kevin scoffs and says something gloomy about maybe being more vigilant when all of Hell is out to get you, but eventually he loosens up a little after his fifth swig and when Dean and Charlie get into some particularly good comic book banter ten minutes later.
"So, Charlie," Sam finally asks. "I thought you said you were done hiding? What brings you out here?"
"Yeah, that was before the FBI came in to investigate a series of unexplained LARPing deaths...the real FBI. I kind of panicked? I just wanted to disappear for a little while and when you guys said I could stay here for a couple days it was a relief. So, is that why you're here, Kevin? Are you some fugitive, too?"
Kevin looks bored and tragic. "I guess. I'm just translating a demon tablet. But it takes forever and I thought living in an underground lair would be better than living on a boat."
"Oh."
"I get seasick," he explains.
"I know how to use a scimitar," Dean grouses later on in the night.
"Oh yeah?" Charlie steps out of his reach. "Because with the way you're swinging it you'd think it was a broadsword."
Dean says 'huh' and adjusts his hold and parries. He and Charlie are in shirtsleeves and scabbards and there's jazz echoing out from a record player in the corner and a fire lit in the fireplace. Their feet are sliding over parquet floors. Meanwhile, Sam and Kevin are in conversation at the table, talking about demons.
Charlie doesn't know what she expected when Dean said they had a hide-out. Maybe a one-room place with a low ceiling or at least something modest with Sam and Dean's stuff shoved into one corner and some spider webs, maybe a spare bedroom. Definitely not this.
"You know, this place is really great," she says, and tries not to let her oh god let me live here shine too obvious. "This is a real life secret clubhouse."
"I know, right?" Dean grins, actually, straight up grins. Which is what makes the difference so clear when he frowns over at Sam and Kevin a second later.
"Kevin, really," Sam's saying, while Kevin's sitting on the desk next to Sam's books, smiling finally, looking a little shy even. "You're doing good, everything considered. The last prophet used to have migraines and get passed out drunk, and lived in his bathrobe."
"You don't have to thank me," Kevin says. "To be honest, I'm not doing it for god or anything. I'm doing it for you-"
"Kevin," Dean barks, which makes Charlie jump. She carefully pulls Dean's scimitar away from him by the handle and puts it back in its display holder.
"What?" Kevin asks.
Dean jerks his head. "Let's go. You need to get cleaned up. You look like a piece of shit run over that grew a goatee."
"Wow. Nice, Dean," Sam says, but he's smiling.
Kevin rolls his eyes and says, "Gee, thanks," and allows himself to get dragged along when Dean crooks an arm around his neck to drag him away in an brusque manner.
Dean's voice echoes from down the hall. "Listen, you stop hitting on my brother and I'll let you use the bubble bath."
"He loves the bubble bath," Sam tells Charlie, after they hear the heavy creak of a door opening and Kevin's exclamation of yeah, it is a badass bathroom, you were right. "He's taken three this week, and it's only Tuesday."
Charlie drops down in the chair across from him. "So," she says, folding her hands on the table. "You're happier,"
"What?" Sam says, but isn't fooling anyone. He looks healthy and has his hand on a book and Charlie's seen that light-touch-to-the-ancient-page sort of thing before. Sam's in nerd heaven, and Dean's obviously over the moon happy. She doesn't pretend to know them that well, but from what she's seen, they're right where they want to be.
She spells it out. "Than before," she tells him. "You're happier. Come on, you don't think I couldn't spot your erstwhile nerd angst from a mile away?" She waves to herself. "Hellooo, I am the very definition."
"Uh. Yeah, I'm uh. Yeah, this has been a good break. I've been wanting to settle down a little and me and Dean're good now, so." He clears his throat and executes a very obvious change of subject. "So, what about you? What happened?"
Charlie sighs. "It's just, after you guys left, I decided to be who I really am, right?" Sam nods and she continues. "But I don't know who that is. I've spent half my life taking fake names and trying to leave my past behind. I mean, doing really well for myself. Like, really well. You have no idea what people will pay you just to do a little computer work, but- but yeah. It's kind of embarrassing but what I really want to do is help people and be the hero, you know? And until I can figure out how to do that, I'm going to keep my head down. Just for a while." She stops herself before things get too depressing. "All I'm saying is, being yourself is harder said than done."
"Believe me," Sam says. "I hear you."
Dean comes in then, wiping his hands off on his shirtfront. He throws himself into the chair next to Sam's and slings an arm over the back. "Ok, what'd I miss."
"I think Charlie should help us save the world," Sam says.
"What," Charlie says.
Dean gives her a look. "Yeah, he's not just throwing that phrase around. But ignore him. He's trying to start some like a nerd army or something. And yes, he got that idea from you."
"We do actually need help saving the world," Sam says.
"Uh," Charlie says. Because the idea isn't just cool, it's fantastic, and she has definitely done stupider. "I have no idea what that actually entails, but I'm in."
"Cool," Dean says.
That's settled then. When they go to turn in, after Kevin comes back looking a hundred times more washed and dezombified, Charlie follows them all down the hall, looking at goofy portraits of guys in wire rimmed glasses. She asks, "So, are there beds in this place, or what?"
"There're a couple rooms with their own bathrooms, a kitchen, a weaponry..." Dean keeps ticking things off on his fingers.
Sam snorts. "It's like a freaking men's club or something."
"And wait till you see the living room! These people really knew how to save the world in style."
Written for caithream at the batcave fic & art comment fest!
Charlie and Kevin show up at the same time. She's reaching for the door handle when Kevin says, "No, I wouldn't do that if I were you."
"Well you're not me," Charlie says. "In fact, I don't even know who you are. You've been following me since the gas station." She's on edge because it was creepy, the kid's beat up car tailing her, kind of swerving sometimes.
"You're on that scooter," Kevin says, pointing toward where she parked it against the hillside. "You were going like 20 miles and hour. You wouldn't pull over and let me pass."
"We're on country roads. And you drive like a crazy person."
"I'm only eighteen! My mom never let me get a license."
That draws her up short, because dude, that is rough. "You know. My parents wouldn't let me get my license either," she tells him. Then pauses, because: "I mean, come to think of it, I snuck out one night and tried to teach myself to drive on my mom's Mercedes, which landed me in the hospital with a broken fibula, a sprained wrist, and a love for speed. So I guess that could have been why. But, dude, the drag racing scene in Illinois?" She leans in to tell him, like it's their secret, "Surprisingly happening...Anyway." She reaches for the handle of the door.
"No," Kevin says sharply. Charlie pauses and raises her eyebrows. He shrugs and waves a hand to it. "It says 'don't touch' in Enochian."
"Oh." She pulls her hand back because that sounds ominous. "Wait, what's Enochian?"
The door swings open before Kevin can respond. Charlie's heart does a little jump because it's Sam, who now forever and always will feel like one of her knights. They'd won that battle so hard.
"Kevin?" Sam asks, which makes Charlie relax a little. Any friend of Sam and Dean is...well, she thinks, maybe that's not a failsafe way of judging anyone, but he's probably not a creepo. Sam turns to her. "Charlie."
She grins. "Hi, Sam."
Right now, Sam is sans battle paint and in a sweater vest with a pen hooked onto the collar, like a professor or a librarian. Charlie's seen him in a jacket and tie, and she's seen him in jeans and a flannel shirt which was better, but that sweater vest makes him look downright cuddly. It suits him.
"Charlie?" Dean calls, voice echoing up from what seems like far away.
She peers past Sam inside. "Woah."
"Yeah," Sam says, and leads them onto a balcony that overlooks a crazy cavern room, like the Torchwood Hub only less drippy. He taps the railing twice and says, "Right. Come on in."
"Charlie, get in here!" Dean yells up. "There's a whole weapons vestibule!"
Kevin mutters, "Better reception than I get, and I'm the one saving the world."
They head down some great, 20s looking metal stairs, into a very period-accurate antechamber, then into a second, more homey room. Charlie checks out the books as they walk past, and breathes, "Scratch that. Hello, room of requirement."
Kevin puts his bag on a long table across from a pile of open books. Charlie sits in a cushy arm chair and puts her goggles onto the side table and then her laptop bag next to them.
Dean pours them out drinks and he's all shiny and happy and smells like strawberries when he moves past, which reminds Charlie of the winter she spent volunteering on an organic fruit farm. Kevin downs his drink immediately and reaches for the bottle.
"So," Dean says, propping his feet up on the desk next to Sam's pile of notebooks. "Welcome to our Batcave."
Which means there are secret passageways and probably like, five cars and fancy gadgets. Charlie wonders which book you pull out for the full reveal and says, "So does that make Sam Batman?"
Dean's feet fall to the floor. "No, what? No." Sam laughs and Dean says, voice colored with betrayal, "Charlie, you were my favorite."
She sinks into the chair, listening to them argue, and then watches when Dean pauses arguing to get up and grab another bottle and refill Sam's glass with a hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam gets a private smile on his face that confirms what Charlie first thought, that he's looking better than last time they met, and that he and Dean are good. Last time they'd been arguing. This time they're just adorable.
The scotch is good. Charlie asks what year it is, because recently she's been trying to be more of a mainstream badass and know her liquor, and Dean admits it was just in this crystal decanter waiting for them. Kevin scoffs and says something gloomy about maybe being more vigilant when all of Hell is out to get you, but eventually he loosens up a little after his fifth swig and when Dean and Charlie get into some particularly good comic book banter ten minutes later.
"So, Charlie," Sam finally asks. "I thought you said you were done hiding? What brings you out here?"
"Yeah, that was before the FBI came in to investigate a series of unexplained LARPing deaths...the real FBI. I kind of panicked? I just wanted to disappear for a little while and when you guys said I could stay here for a couple days it was a relief. So, is that why you're here, Kevin? Are you some fugitive, too?"
Kevin looks bored and tragic. "I guess. I'm just translating a demon tablet. But it takes forever and I thought living in an underground lair would be better than living on a boat."
"Oh."
"I get seasick," he explains.
"I know how to use a scimitar," Dean grouses later on in the night.
"Oh yeah?" Charlie steps out of his reach. "Because with the way you're swinging it you'd think it was a broadsword."
Dean says 'huh' and adjusts his hold and parries. He and Charlie are in shirtsleeves and scabbards and there's jazz echoing out from a record player in the corner and a fire lit in the fireplace. Their feet are sliding over parquet floors. Meanwhile, Sam and Kevin are in conversation at the table, talking about demons.
Charlie doesn't know what she expected when Dean said they had a hide-out. Maybe a one-room place with a low ceiling or at least something modest with Sam and Dean's stuff shoved into one corner and some spider webs, maybe a spare bedroom. Definitely not this.
"You know, this place is really great," she says, and tries not to let her oh god let me live here shine too obvious. "This is a real life secret clubhouse."
"I know, right?" Dean grins, actually, straight up grins. Which is what makes the difference so clear when he frowns over at Sam and Kevin a second later.
"Kevin, really," Sam's saying, while Kevin's sitting on the desk next to Sam's books, smiling finally, looking a little shy even. "You're doing good, everything considered. The last prophet used to have migraines and get passed out drunk, and lived in his bathrobe."
"You don't have to thank me," Kevin says. "To be honest, I'm not doing it for god or anything. I'm doing it for you-"
"Kevin," Dean barks, which makes Charlie jump. She carefully pulls Dean's scimitar away from him by the handle and puts it back in its display holder.
"What?" Kevin asks.
Dean jerks his head. "Let's go. You need to get cleaned up. You look like a piece of shit run over that grew a goatee."
"Wow. Nice, Dean," Sam says, but he's smiling.
Kevin rolls his eyes and says, "Gee, thanks," and allows himself to get dragged along when Dean crooks an arm around his neck to drag him away in an brusque manner.
Dean's voice echoes from down the hall. "Listen, you stop hitting on my brother and I'll let you use the bubble bath."
"He loves the bubble bath," Sam tells Charlie, after they hear the heavy creak of a door opening and Kevin's exclamation of yeah, it is a badass bathroom, you were right. "He's taken three this week, and it's only Tuesday."
Charlie drops down in the chair across from him. "So," she says, folding her hands on the table. "You're happier,"
"What?" Sam says, but isn't fooling anyone. He looks healthy and has his hand on a book and Charlie's seen that light-touch-to-the-ancient-page sort of thing before. Sam's in nerd heaven, and Dean's obviously over the moon happy. She doesn't pretend to know them that well, but from what she's seen, they're right where they want to be.
She spells it out. "Than before," she tells him. "You're happier. Come on, you don't think I couldn't spot your erstwhile nerd angst from a mile away?" She waves to herself. "Hellooo, I am the very definition."
"Uh. Yeah, I'm uh. Yeah, this has been a good break. I've been wanting to settle down a little and me and Dean're good now, so." He clears his throat and executes a very obvious change of subject. "So, what about you? What happened?"
Charlie sighs. "It's just, after you guys left, I decided to be who I really am, right?" Sam nods and she continues. "But I don't know who that is. I've spent half my life taking fake names and trying to leave my past behind. I mean, doing really well for myself. Like, really well. You have no idea what people will pay you just to do a little computer work, but- but yeah. It's kind of embarrassing but what I really want to do is help people and be the hero, you know? And until I can figure out how to do that, I'm going to keep my head down. Just for a while." She stops herself before things get too depressing. "All I'm saying is, being yourself is harder said than done."
"Believe me," Sam says. "I hear you."
Dean comes in then, wiping his hands off on his shirtfront. He throws himself into the chair next to Sam's and slings an arm over the back. "Ok, what'd I miss."
"I think Charlie should help us save the world," Sam says.
"What," Charlie says.
Dean gives her a look. "Yeah, he's not just throwing that phrase around. But ignore him. He's trying to start some like a nerd army or something. And yes, he got that idea from you."
"We do actually need help saving the world," Sam says.
"Uh," Charlie says. Because the idea isn't just cool, it's fantastic, and she has definitely done stupider. "I have no idea what that actually entails, but I'm in."
"Cool," Dean says.
That's settled then. When they go to turn in, after Kevin comes back looking a hundred times more washed and dezombified, Charlie follows them all down the hall, looking at goofy portraits of guys in wire rimmed glasses. She asks, "So, are there beds in this place, or what?"
"There're a couple rooms with their own bathrooms, a kitchen, a weaponry..." Dean keeps ticking things off on his fingers.
Sam snorts. "It's like a freaking men's club or something."
"And wait till you see the living room! These people really knew how to save the world in style."