The Great God Pan Is as Dead as Disco [Supernatural/American Gods]
Title: The Great God Pan Is as Dead as Disco(2 of 2)
Series: Supernatural/American Gods
Word count: Approx. 13,500
Rating: R (very hard R)
Summary: In which a bet is placed, a trap is set, and questions of ownership and birthdays prove to be far more complicated than originally thought.
Back to Part One
"Dude. We're going up against Zamfir?"
Sam tried to make a remark about Dean watching too many infomercials (the words were there, in his head and on his tongue), but the first clear, floating note filled the room, filled his mind, and took all speech away.
"What the hell kind of music is that?" This was said with a blistering contempt Dean normally reserved for the likes of Kenny G. Sam heard him, but only the sound, no sense, no sense at all as the pipes slid past rosy lips, turning a single note into a seven-note scale. He couldn't tell if it was a minor key or a major key--the notes were spaced strangely, not quite sharp or flat, but as natural as bird song. Scale after scale flowed from the pipes, key signature shifting upwards and upwards, each strangely spaced note playing in Sam's head a fraction of a second before it hit his ears.
"For fuck's sake, it's not even in tune. That right there, Sam, is a sure fire recipe for having someone chuck a beer bottle at your head. With this crowd, I give it, oh, thirty seconds."
Three seconds passed in an instant (dragged out forever and ever and ever). Behind the bar, the bartender moaned softly. She began to drum out a rhythm on the bar, palms slapping wetly in the spill of beer that had pooled on the varnish. One of the other band members began to beat the same pulsing, tripping rhythm against the sound box of his guitar. The fiddle player dropped his instrument (the crack of the broken neck and the twang of the snapped strings were a grace note that heralded the melody rising, lifting out of the scales) and sidled up to the guitarist. His eyes were wide with shock, but he smiled lazily as he pressed up behind the other man, belly to back, swaying in time to the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm that Sam was tapping out against his thigh, the rhythm that was pounding in his head. Sam's head tipped back, and his eyes closed.
"What. The. Fuck?"
The voice was familiar, but the music was so much more so, more important, more present, more everything. He felt something pulling at his arm, but he shook it off--not important.
"Sam... Sam! Right, that's enough. Let's get you out of here."
Sam felt warmth on the sides of his head, hands covering his ears, but it wasn't enough to blot out the melody. Then, the hands were roughly pulled away and the music filled him again, rushing through him, drowning out the snarling and giggling from behind him.
Let go of me you crazy bitch! What the hell do you think--hey! Okayokayokay... enough of that, not that I don't appreciate the hey! gesture--and I'll be really, really happy to take you up on that when you're sane...
The notes piled on top of each other, pulling them up into the melody, into the dance. A woman danced through the room, booted feet striking the ground and shaking the glasses on the tables as she passed, building on the rhythm. Her brown hair swayed in front of her face, breaking and parting to reveal the glint in her eye or the flush in her cheek. She held a bottle of Jack by its neck, high over her head, and the bottle glowed bronze in the light. She lifted the bottle to his lips and he drank greedily, spilling it down his chin. Laughing, she licked the whiskey from his face, and her laugh was the melody and the melody was her laugh. The warmth of her hand on Sam's chest filled his ears, and the thrill down his spine as he ran his tongue along her jaw and her hand up her shirt was the change from key to key, the building of the tempo. She pressed herself to him and he to her, moving with the music.
Moans and laughter blended with the music, which grew faster, louder, harder. He smelled something sweet, something burning, and he knew it was the music, and it was the sex, and the girl in front of him. Her hand cupped against the front of his pants, and when he kissed her, he tasted whiskey and blood on her lips.
Who he was, where he was, all was forgotten, all was lost. There was the music, and the sound of his own heartbeat rushing in his ears. The soft cotton of her tee shirt pulled tight over his knuckles as he cupped her breast, and he gasped in relief when she finally worked his jeans open.
The gasp broke the kiss, and she lifted the bottle to his lips again. The cool of the glass touched them for just a second, then disappeared before he could get a drop. The wet thunk and holler of pain didn't break through the lust and the craving (where did the whiskey go? there was going to be whiskey, wasn't there?) but something else did. It sliced through the music, leaving cold clarity in its wake.
"Enough."
* * *
The spider bobbed and bounced in its web, cackling in glee at the show playing out beneath. Five couples (including two that had no idea they were inclined to enjoy their own gender) were in full flagrante delicto. Over on the pool table, a woman with full hips and small breasts slowly poured a bottle of Bailey's over her bare stomach. The liquid drizzled down slowly, and she told her friend to quick, quick, lick it up before it ran down and ruined the felt. When her friend leaned over to run her tongue over birth scar and stretch mark, the Bailey's was no longer smoke-creamy but clear and golden and sticky as honey.
A group of dancers threaded in and among the musicians onstage, passing bottles from hand to hand. Bottles of Popov darkened and grew heavy, plastic turning to glass so green it was almost black. The liquid that poured from them was as yellow as piss and smelled like new wine and old roses. Their clothes stayed on--for the moment--but the movements, sinuous and sharp by turns, explained why dancing was one of the first things to be banned as old rites and old ways were purged.
And there was Sam Winchester, his tongue down a pretty young thing's throat while her hand was down his pants. That's what he got for thinking he was above the sort of tomcatting his brother got up to.
Ah, yes. Dean. For all that Sam seemed fair on his way to getting some trim right there in public, the Trickster's attention was on the other Winchester boy. He just sat there on his stool, leaned back against the bar, sipped on a Fuzzy Navel, and giggled as Dean squawked and squalled and tried to push past grasping hands and greedy mouths.
Dean did grab at a bottle of what used to be SoCo that was being passed around. He took a big swig, but judging from the set of his eyes and that queasy twist to his mouth, it was more for fortification than intoxication. Mr. Nancy was not surprised to see that the liquid Dean wiped away with the back of his hand was ruby red.
"Funny about that," Mr. Nancy said, hours later, as if it were all a propos of nothing. "After that one sip of--what was it? red wine?" (And indeed it had been just that, a fine red, the color of old vineyards, the color of battlefields.) "After that, your boy Dean walked through that revel like a nun taking a stroll through a cloister."
The Trickster sighed and shook his head, but he didn't rise to the your boy bait again. "He's just that hung up on his brother." He paused, and a tapped a finger against his lips as he pondered. "Freud had to have had a catchy term for that kind of thing, right? You know, mangling some play or another, missing the point completely in the process?"
Mr. Nancy knew better than to go down that road again. He had no desire to be sitting there until four in the a.m. talking about the twisty inevitability of prophecies. That never, ever ended well.
He thought about maybe mentioning--all offhand, of course--what he'd noticed when Dean got himself clocked with a bottle. A thick, syrupy red wine had splashed out of that bottle of Jack. Not sweet wine, the kind Mr. Nancy liked, but a harsh red, strong in tannins. A "this is my blood" kind of wine, the kind that had been used in sacrifice and ritual long before the Christ.
"You've had some fun with those boys." It was just a statement, if anything could be said to be just a statement when Mr. Nancy said it.
"Nothing less than what they deserve," the Trickster said. "Those two morons have no idea what they're dealing with." He swirled his fruit punch around and around in its plastic glass--if it was still fruit punch. Mr. Nancy wouldn't have bet on it.
Mr. Nancy nodded slowly, sucking at a bit of cherry that had gotten lodged between two of his teeth. He spared a quick flash of a smile as Marge brought them both coffee. "No, I wouldn't say they do," he said, once she'd left. And until that afternoon, he hadn't either. Not for sure. But what he saw from up in his web had confirmed some suspicions that had been rattling around in his head for a good decade and a half.
"This May should be mighty interesting. Mighty interesting... Oh, yes. I should say so."
He wondered if that afternoon's events might finally start to get it through those thick Winchester skulls that demons weren't the only ones who could claim a soul or possess a body.
* * *
"Dean?" The word came out wobbly, slurred, two syllables where there should have been one. The music was still throbbing and pulsing through Sam, but his brother's voice cut through that like feedback. The small, smooth hand around his cock (and there was a pair of hands sliding up his belly, and another soft, warm body pressing up behind him--when did that happen?) pulled him back into the melody, his hoarse yell of pleasure fading into the pipes' flowing, floating notes. His eyes flickered closed again. His right hand covered one of the hands on his belly, and he leaned forward to catch the other girl in a kiss. The girl behind him rose up on tiptoe to try and nuzzle at the back of his neck. She laughed when he pulled away, and countered by reaching further around and further down. But her hand stopped mid-reach, lifting from his skin, and he felt her hold her breath.
"I said, that's enough."
It had the same effect as a bucket of cold saltwater being poured over him. Sam's head snapped up and his shoulders shook, as if he'd just startled himself out of dozing off. He'd never lost an erection so fast in his life.
Funny thing was, Dean wasn't yelling or snarling. His voice was utterly even, perfectly flat, and it cut through the music like a garotte. Sam waited for him to say something like okay, guys--party's over, or way to go, Sammy, but this? So not the time, or to do something smartass like hold up a lighter and request 'Freebird' or 'Stairway.' He waited and waited for Dean to do something Dean-like. But in a way, it wasn't Dean, just as the man who had walked into the bar at Stanford was Dean.
Blood and wine mingled, covering one side of his face. It had splashed up into his hair, matting it and reddening it. There should have been a joke about Carrie, Sam thought. There should have been something other than that cold fierceness, eyes as hard as jasper.
Sam wanted to say something, wanted to get Dean to say something to him, but the music wasn't stopping and the girls weren't letting him go. He wanted Dean to make it all go away. He wanted Dean to go away, so he could lose himself in the music and in the lust. Loss of self, loss of thought, just pleasure.
"You. Stop."
One glance from Dean, and the brunette who'd been giving Sam a handjob hunched down, peering up warily through her hair. Behind him, the other girl (Sam had no idea what she even looked like) pressed even closer, but it was for safety, not seduction.
Dean pushed his way through the crowd, calmly muscling people aside on his way towards the stage. Sam was, for the moment, forgotten. Sam called after him, and Dean looked back over his shoulder for just a second, hazel eyes shockingly green against the red smeared down his face.
"Not your fight," he said, and that was the last of that.
Three different girls and two men slid up to him, hands running over leather and denim, but Dean kept on walking. No smart comments about maybe later, so hold that thought, sweet stuff or no way in hell, asshole.
"Put the pipes down. Now." Here Dean's voice raised, but it wasn't in anger. It reminded Sam of John, when he'd given the boys an order he needed them to obey without question (get in the car... whatever you do, don't look at it... don't open the door to anyone but me... wait 'til I give the all-clear... run!)
No jokes about Zamfir. No remarks about what was going on. The music shifted, became more frenzied. The piper's dark eyes glittered as the flute moved back and forth beneath pursed lips. Nothing was said, but a challenge was issued all the same. The dancers began to wend their way up behind Dean, moving more sharply than before. Sam had to fight to stand where he was. It was all he could do to keep his ground. He couldn't even call out a warning when someone finally tried to jump Dean.
It was a middle-aged man, bulky, bearded. He rushed Dean from behind, snarling and wheezing like a bulldog as he jumped into a flying tackle It didn't work. Dean just swung his elbow out and back, connecting hard with the guy's throat. The guy fell hard to the floor, but other than a quick glance to check that he was down, Dean paid him no mind. He didn't cuss the guy out or sneer at him.
One of the dancers on stage tried to bring him down from above, but all Dean did was step aside. The crowd didn't move to catch her and she landed hard. Sam could hear the crack of bone from all the way across the room.
Dean barked out "Sam!" but didn't look back, trusting and expecting Sam to jump to it. And Sam did. That one word, his name, was enough to snap through the music. Sam finished buttoning his pants and stumbled forward, shaking the effects of the music off the way he might shake water out of his ears after a shower.
He pushed through the mob, letting his bulk do most of the work for him. He did manage a quick "sorry" as he pushed someone a little too hard, perhaps.
He couldn't see the fallen dancer, but he had seen the fall and knew where she had to be. Sam hunched down, and there she was, huddled up, crying, tendering not just her ankle, but her hand as well. Her other hand was holding her chambray blouse closed.
"They kept on stepping on me and kicking me." The words bubbled up between sobs. "It hurts... it hurts..."
She lifted her undamaged hand to the side of her head, and pressed it to her ear. She pulled the hand away when her blouse fell open again, but decided in the end that blocking the sound was more urgent than modesty. "I want it to stop. I don't like it any more."
"We're working on it." Well, Dean was working on it. The crowd was actively trying to push him away from the stage, but Dean was calmly, inexorably pushing back. And he was winning. Sam wasn't really sure what he was meant to do here, other than keep this woman from being trampled. "The music doesn't have you any more."
"It hurts..." was all she could say to that.
The music had changed, or maybe they had; it no longer seduced, it screeched. It was tinny, and hollow, and ridiculous, like a tune that came out of a novelty necktie or birthday card.
Sam carefully scooped the woman up, right arm under her knees, left across her back. His reach was long enough that he could press a hand against her ear. Her other ear was pressed tight to his chest.
He stood up, and even though the music he heard was no longer what it used to be, the other melody still rang through his mind's ear.
Dean jumped for the stage. When the hell had he pulled his gun? Sam started to call out, started to yell at him not to shoot the guy, but Dean's path took him alongside the piper.
The gunshot cut the music off mid-note. The bullet crossed in front of the piper, shearing through each of the reeds in the pipe as it went. The splinters flew every which way, like confetti in a storm, and the bullet lodged harmlessly in a far corner, just a few inches below an enormous spider web.
As for the piper, he didn't even look surprised. He simply dropped the few fragments that remained in his hands, winked at Dean, and vanished. There was even a puff of smoke. It sparkled.
Dean--and it was Dean, this time--looked at the place where the piper had been. He blinked. And blinked again.
"What the hell...?"
That just about summed it up.
"Let's get out of here while they're still..." Sam nodded his head to the side, indicating the mass of confused and increasingly mortified people.
Of course, he could very well be counted among their number. Sam passed the woman in his arms along to someone who seemed to know her, an elderly man with a concerned expression and a bite mark on his face, and chose to concentrate on the way she clung desperately to the other man rather on than the increasingly, chillingly clear recall of just what he'd been doing a few minutes ago.
Dean, with his usual gift for timing, walked up behind him and clamped a hand down on his shoulder. The grip was firm enough that there'd be no escaping without violence.
"So... Sam. Had a good time, did you?"
Sam wheeled 'round, pulling free and giving Dean a shove. Dean step-stumbled back, grinning and cackling.
"Let's go before the police get here." Sam stalked out to the car, doing his best to ignore Dean calling after him and telling him if he wasn't careful, his face would freeze that way.
* * *
"The sparkles were a nice touch, I'll give you that. There's no respect for that sort of flash these days. Did I ever tell you about the time I led an entire marching band through a hospital? Woman I was with at the time needed a bit of a lift, and some little-bitty bouquet wasn't going to do the trick." Mr. Nancy allowed his memories to drift along as he sat there, hands folded on his belly. Maybe it was time to find himself a new woman, another one who knew how to laugh and have herself a good time, even when times weren't so good.
"Well, it seemed like the thing to do." The trickster appeared pleased by the compliment. "Besides, when the time comes, I want them to figure out that the cute little piper was just a... you know..." The Trickster circled a hand in the air as he fished for the best word for it.
"Construct?"
The Trickster wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, but... that always sounds so academic. Boooo-ring."
Mr. Nancy nodded solemnly. Boring was only part of the problem. It was a bad thing when gods got caught up in the academic trap; they ended up dissected, or worse yet, fossilized. Then again, Mr. Nancy wasn't so sure that what was happening to the fellow across the table was all that much better. Problem with becoming archetypal was that what you were started to gobble up who you were.
And where was the fun in that?
"Shadow," Mr. Nancy said at last, the corners of his eyes dimpling just a touch at the private joke. "Call it a shadow. That's a much better word for it--smacks of mystery, not something you build in a lab."
The Trickster (Mr. Nancy couldn't even remember the last name he'd worn) pursed his lips and nodded slowly, not agreeing, but thinking it over. Finally, he shrugged. "Eh... that'll work. Wonder what the Boy Detectives would call it? Nah, they wouldn't call it anything. They'd just mispronounce Latin at it until I got bored and went home."
"Seems to me you're finding plenty there to keep you entertained over the past year," Mr. Nancy observed. The lack of weight in this observation was almost believable.
"It's like a bad soap opera--predictable straight down the line and enough to make your eyes roll right out of your head sometimes, but you just can't stop watching. And every Thursday gets you wanting more. Not-so-little Sammy's going to be dragged into a war for the throne of hell, pouting and clenching that massive jaw of his all the way, and there'll be some sort of wrenching ethical dilemma when it comes to saving his brother's soul, yadda-yadda-yawn. I can't wait."
Mr. Nancy's grin echoed the trickster's. "You know as well as I do it ain't going to end that way."
"Like I said, I can hardly wait. You-know-who is going to be pissed when they come to collect Dean's soul."
"Mmm-mmm-mmm. I dare say so." It would have been foolish to say it out loud. Names have power, and Mr. Nancy knew all too well what kinds of people could be lurking in corners, seen but not noticed. And given how certain people had just demonstrated how much they didn't like meddlers--well, best to be silent than sorry.
Oh, it would have been nice if Dean had fallen under the spell of Pan's pipes and had a high old time of it--and given how he normally was, it would have been a positively stratospheric time. The sheer entertainment value alone would have been worth every drop... no, not every drop of soma. But it would have been worth parting with a good-sized swallow.
"How much do you want to bet that they're on the phone to Mr. Bobby Singer right now?" he asked. "Trying to find out what those pipes really were, where they came from?"
The Trickster cocked his head to one side, like a dog trying to home in on a whistle that may or may not be familiar. "Not... yet. Not until Illinois, I'm thinking. Besides, haven't you lost enough for one day, Anansi?"
Ever since his old name had gotten lost in what he was, the Trickster had become awfully cavalier about tossing about other folks' names. Mr. Nancy would have to set him straight on that one of these days.
"Losing eventually comes right back around to winning, you keep at it long enough." The words were freighted with long, long experience. Mr. Nancy hadn't exactly won this bet, but he'd figured out easily enough that he was right about which god had laid claim to Dean Winchester's soul.
It had taken some digging back to figure out where and when--and how--Dean had gotten that amulet of his.
Mr. Nancy never was able to find out quite where Bobby Singer laid hands on it, but he'd done so, and done so safely. That in and of itself was impressive on its own. Shame he couldn't find the right books or the right folks to tell him what he had, but that was just the way these things went, especially when a particular individual had taken a keen interest in the proceedings.
Far as Mr. Nancy could tell, Bobby had meant for John Winchester to take that 'real special' amulet and tuck it away behind wards and bars and runes in that hidey-hole of his. He'd even known enough to pass the thing along through a child who was too young--too innocent--to be considered an initiate.
Dean, though... Mr. Nancy wasn't sure if Dean had killed anyone or anything by then, but at twelve, the boy was already enough of a soldier that the amulet had taken to him the way a cuckoo takes to a warbler's nest.
Being given the thing on Christmas just sealed the deal.
Of course, John hadn't the faintest clue what had happened, and back then Bobby trusted him enough to figure that John knew what he was doing, giving that amulet to his oldest son. By the time Bobby had reached the point where he was willing to level a shotgun at John in order to make a point perfectly clear, it was too late to do anything for Dean.
Mr. Nancy hadn't seen Mithras around for decades, but it didn't mean he was gone. And as far as Mr. Nancy could see, the red-capped bastard's fingerprints were all over Dean Winchester.
"Care to place another bet?" the Trickster asked.
"That all depends on the bet." The table was all but clear, and the two gods sat back, hands resting on full bellies. In a moment or two, Marge would come by and see if they wanted more coffee. "This wouldn't be another one about the Winchesters, would it?"
"Aw... you guessed." The Trickster's eyes narrowed in dangerous good humor. "It's been centuries since I've found such good toys. It's so much fun to watch them get their comeuppance over and over again. What on earth would I do for entertainment if it weren't for epically dysfunctional families?"
"You'd starve. You'd go poof like one of your... what did we decide to call them again?" Meddling was the air they breathed, Mr. Nancy knew. They lived to stir the pot and keep things all roiling 'round and bubbled up. But if the Trickster was only in this for the laughs, Mr. Nancy would eat his fedora, with his yellow gloves as a chaser.
No, the Trickster knew damned well that Mithras had claimed Dean Winchester as his own, on the day that had once been celebrated as his birthday, his festival. Time after time after that, Dean had been blood anointed just as the soldiers who'd worshipped Mithras long, long ago.
"Shadows. Your mind's slipping, Anansi." There was a look on the Trickster's face as if he'd gotten a whiff of pie baking on someone's windowsill, but Mr. Nancy's mind was no more slipping than Mt. Everest was getting up to take a walk across the Himalayas. It would be a good long time before the archetype's shadow would be showing off eight legs.
"That may be, that may be."
It would be a mighty good show, once that demon decided to claim Dean's soul. Mithras might not have stepped in to interfere before now--soldiers fall in battle, and the god of soldiers would damn well know and respect that. But today had shown that he might interfere when someone tried to steal what was his. The instant that remnant of Pan's power had tried to sink its teeth into Dean, Mithras had bitten right back.
"So what do you have planned next for your favorite toys?" Mr. Nancy didn't expect a truthful answer, but he did expect an interesting one. He wasn't disappointed.
"I don't think Sammy boy has learned his lesson. I'd be willing to bet," and here the Trickster pulled the bottle of soma back out and put it on the table between them, "that he's going to go all proactive on us when it comes to this whole King of Hell nonsense, if he thinks it will save Dean. And I bet Dean will try to leverage on his own deal to do the same."
Mr. Nancy's nose wrinkled and he leaned back, putting some distance between himself and the Trickster. "Proactive? Leverage? What the hell have you been reading these days?"
"Just practicing for my next gig," the Trickster said, offering no further explanation. "Anyhow, I'm thinking it's going to wind up all Gift of the Magi, only with more blood. And screaming. I'm thinking lots of screaming."
That would no doubt be the case. Mithras also being the god of contracts, and all.
"That does tend to happen, when you draw Hell into things. It doesn't hurt things are already shaken up pretty well down there." That last was said with deep satisfaction, and a smug savoring of each and every word. Certain rumor mills were still lit up with stories about how a human, a simple human with no patronage of any god, no kind of indwelling, no one who was an avatar of any sort, had spotted an opening and just up and clawed his way out of the underworld through sheer stubbornness, his eyes so fixed on the exit there hadn't been even a single thought about looking back.
It was a big jolt, a big noise; there was now hope in Hell, and millions of souls were now keeping their eyes (or what was left of them) peeled for their own chance at escape.
"There's lots of players paying attention to those two. Lots of heavy hitters, new and old."
"Mmm-hmmm." Mr. Nancy had 'borrowed' some of Ibis's notes a few years back. The old bird had first picked up the Winchesters' story back in ninety-one, but had been following family trees backwards rather than looking forwards. What-his-name--the one in Vegas--had put out some very quiet, very discreet inquiries, and Mr. Nancy had picked up on the rumor traffic that had been generated as a result. "Lots of souls down there. Lots of people who'd be grateful to whatever pied piper could lead them out and up while the set-to's a-setting to."
Plenty of grateful souls. More than enough to give decades of sustenance to any psychopomp or underworld god--ancient or modern-who was in the right place at the right time. Plus, it would be so very, very nice to see those greedy, soul devouring bastards down below get some comeuppance.
Millions of souls. All looking for their break, all ready to make a run for it.
If you were going to complete the transition from god to archetype, you might as well do it with style.
"The only problem is, my pipes got shot into a million pieces by that Dirty Harry wanna-be." The Trickster stared morosely into his fruit punch. It put Mr. Nancy in mind of the Delphic Oracle, if only she had gotten her mojo from high-fructose corn syrup instead of sacred smoke.
"I thought you didn't mind losing the pipes."
"I don't."
For once, Mr. Nancy actually believed him. The pipes had served their purpose. They were a tool, not a totem. The Trickster hadn't lost a weapon, he'd simply tested a more powerful one.
The Trickster lifted his glass. "What I do mind is that I didn't get to finish my Fuzzy Navel."
"Pity."
So yes, there were plenty of players in the game who were very interested in those two boys. Only question was, how many of them knew or guessed that Dean Winchester wasn't so much a sacrificial lamb as a Trojan horse?
* * *
At least it's over. Sam's words seemed loud in his own head after he'd said them, and they kept trying to shape themselves to a melody he'd rather forget.
It was enough to remind him that things were never over, not for them.
"Over? Yeah, well... It's going to be a while before I get that image out of my mind. You owe me a shitload of drinks for that, Sam."
The sun had dropped low enough that Dean had finally turned on the headlights. His face was occasionally lit up as a car came the other direction, and even in the yellow or blue-white light of the oncoming headlights, Sam thought he could still see a hint of red.
"It's payback for you and the--who were they? The Doublemint Twins? Anyhow, you suck at keeping promises, you know that?"
Dean's mouth twitched into a grin, the kind that was one step from becoming a smart remark built around Sam's use of the word 'suck.'
"We still have to call Bobby..."
"Tell him the whole story," Dean said just a little too gleefully.
"...and go over the pertinent facts with him. About the pipes. And the piper."
"I swear to you, Sam, those sparkles were pink. What kind of demon gives off pink sparkles." Pause. "It would explain a lot about 'Hello Kitty,' though."
"You're really funny," Sam snapped. Even so, he made a mental note about a few things to look for the next time they were stocking up on snacks and sundries at a dollar store.
A few good jokes, the anxiety of waiting for retaliation, the planning of ever more elaborate comebacks... Yeah that might help.
"We can call Bobby when we stop to eat." A little more distance and a boundary behind them. That might make things easier to talk about. "Maybe he'll know what was up with those pipes. I don't think we were dealing with a demon, and not just because of the... sparkles? There really were sparkles?"
"Pink ones," Dean confirmed. Another car passed, another flash of red lit up his face. The cold, hard expression of the man in the bar was gone, but Sam could see the afterimage reflected in the windshield.
"What happened to you back there?" Sam hadn't meant to ask that question, but that was what came out.
"Me? You're asking what happened to me? You're the one who was standing there getting his freak on with two girls you hadn't even met."
Sam clenched and unclenched his jaw. His fingers drummed a sharp tattoo on his leg, but it was just annoyance, not a phantom beat. "And you're the only one in there who wasn't getting his freak on, as you put it. One minute you're about to panic--"
"Was not."
"You were about to panic, and the next..."
Sam had been able to tell Dean about the man in Palo Alto, the man with the red hat and the amulet, but that was as close as he could get to telling Dean about what he'd seen back at the club.
It would have been easier to give Dean all the gory details about the making out, the groping, the handjob.
"...the next, you're just walking up to the stage and you shot the pipes right out of the guy's hands."
"That was pretty badass, wasn't it?" Dean gloated.
"Do you even remember doing that?" Sam asked.
"Of cour--" Dean paused for a moment, and the quiet seemed just a little too quiet. "Yeah. Of course I remember. Pretty much. It happened kind of fast. I was acting on, you know, instinct."
The hunted, haunted look was only there for a moment before it shifted back to something more gleeful and more malicious.
"Besides, the trauma of seeing my baby brother--"
"You're not going to give that a rest, are you?"
"Nope."
Hello Kitty would be too mild a revenge.
"You're enjoying this far too much," Sam said. He'd intended it as a gripe, but it had too much truth for that. "Aren't you at all interested in why you were the only one in that club who wasn't affected?"
That was met by a distinct lack of eye contact and a grumble Sam couldn't quite hear.
"What makes you so sure it wasn't a demon?" Dean asked, pissed off and about ready to start an argument.
"It didn't feel like possession." Sam should know. He still had the scar on his forearm from when Meg had bound herself to him. Besides, they both had the tattoos now, the ones that would keep all but the most powerful demons from getting hold of them. "It had to have been the music, like Bobby thought it was. But that still doesn't..."
"Still doesn't what?" Dean finally asked when the break in the sentence drew out a little too long.
"Still doesn't explain why I was affected and you weren't."
Dean had been affected, though, Sam thought but did not say. One moment, he was desperately fending off what looked like a dozen groupies. The next, he was like the ice-cold wrath of God.
He would need to mention that when he talked to Bobby, Sam told himself, but he knew that once they crossed the border, that memory would start to fade along with the others. They would tell Bobby that they'd located the artifact, and even though Bela hadn't shown, they'd been able to keep it from being used to hurt anyone else. Bobby might research the origins of the thing just in case there was something else like it out there, or maybe just out of simple curiosity. Beyond that, the story was over.
Dean let one hand slide from the steering wheel. He reached up and started rubbing his amulet between thumb and forefinger. "You're supposed to be the smart one in the family." There was some definite grouchiness there, Sam was amused to note. "You tell me."
It was Sam's turn to smile evilly. "Maybe it's because you're already so debauched you were immune."
"Real funny, Sam." Oh, yes. That had touched a nerve. It was time to see if he could strike that again.
Payback, as Dean might very well point out, was a bitch. (And with the thought of payback, the beginnings of an idea, the faintest edge of a realization, skittered along the edges of Sam's consciousness and was gone before he could catch it.)
"It's too bad, you know. Drinking. Getting felt up by a couple of hot girls. That sounds like something that would have been right up your alley."
Dean might have liked all of that, but he wouldn't have liked the loss of control, Sam thought. He wouldn't have liked the feeling of drowning in the swirl of breathy notes and deep, so low you felt-it-rather-than-heard-it drumbeat.
The look Dean gave him was murderous in the passing light. It was halogen blue, with no trace of red. "I thought you were the one who didn't want to talk about this."
The glare sharpened at Sam's sudden yelp of laughter. "I don't believe you. You're actually disappointed!" He shook his head, mouth still open in disbelieving laughter. "You are actually pissed off that you didn't get in on the fun."
"You want to walk to Illinois? 'Cause that can be arranged."
"Oh, man... that's just like the perfect irony or something." Again, the thought of payback, of comeuppance, made a pass at his attention and was drowned out by the sheer glee of giving back as good as he'd gotten. Sam tried to remind himself that this was something he should mention to Bobby, but Dean snarled something censorable and slammed the Impala up to eighty.
They passed the WELCOME TO ILLINOIS sign, but Sam was laughing so hard he didn't even notice.
Series: Supernatural/American Gods
Word count: Approx. 13,500
Rating: R (very hard R)
Summary: In which a bet is placed, a trap is set, and questions of ownership and birthdays prove to be far more complicated than originally thought.
Back to Part One
"Dude. We're going up against Zamfir?"
Sam tried to make a remark about Dean watching too many infomercials (the words were there, in his head and on his tongue), but the first clear, floating note filled the room, filled his mind, and took all speech away.
"What the hell kind of music is that?" This was said with a blistering contempt Dean normally reserved for the likes of Kenny G. Sam heard him, but only the sound, no sense, no sense at all as the pipes slid past rosy lips, turning a single note into a seven-note scale. He couldn't tell if it was a minor key or a major key--the notes were spaced strangely, not quite sharp or flat, but as natural as bird song. Scale after scale flowed from the pipes, key signature shifting upwards and upwards, each strangely spaced note playing in Sam's head a fraction of a second before it hit his ears.
"For fuck's sake, it's not even in tune. That right there, Sam, is a sure fire recipe for having someone chuck a beer bottle at your head. With this crowd, I give it, oh, thirty seconds."
Three seconds passed in an instant (dragged out forever and ever and ever). Behind the bar, the bartender moaned softly. She began to drum out a rhythm on the bar, palms slapping wetly in the spill of beer that had pooled on the varnish. One of the other band members began to beat the same pulsing, tripping rhythm against the sound box of his guitar. The fiddle player dropped his instrument (the crack of the broken neck and the twang of the snapped strings were a grace note that heralded the melody rising, lifting out of the scales) and sidled up to the guitarist. His eyes were wide with shock, but he smiled lazily as he pressed up behind the other man, belly to back, swaying in time to the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm that Sam was tapping out against his thigh, the rhythm that was pounding in his head. Sam's head tipped back, and his eyes closed.
"What. The. Fuck?"
The voice was familiar, but the music was so much more so, more important, more present, more everything. He felt something pulling at his arm, but he shook it off--not important.
"Sam... Sam! Right, that's enough. Let's get you out of here."
Sam felt warmth on the sides of his head, hands covering his ears, but it wasn't enough to blot out the melody. Then, the hands were roughly pulled away and the music filled him again, rushing through him, drowning out the snarling and giggling from behind him.
Let go of me you crazy bitch! What the hell do you think--hey! Okayokayokay... enough of that, not that I don't appreciate the hey! gesture--and I'll be really, really happy to take you up on that when you're sane...
The notes piled on top of each other, pulling them up into the melody, into the dance. A woman danced through the room, booted feet striking the ground and shaking the glasses on the tables as she passed, building on the rhythm. Her brown hair swayed in front of her face, breaking and parting to reveal the glint in her eye or the flush in her cheek. She held a bottle of Jack by its neck, high over her head, and the bottle glowed bronze in the light. She lifted the bottle to his lips and he drank greedily, spilling it down his chin. Laughing, she licked the whiskey from his face, and her laugh was the melody and the melody was her laugh. The warmth of her hand on Sam's chest filled his ears, and the thrill down his spine as he ran his tongue along her jaw and her hand up her shirt was the change from key to key, the building of the tempo. She pressed herself to him and he to her, moving with the music.
Moans and laughter blended with the music, which grew faster, louder, harder. He smelled something sweet, something burning, and he knew it was the music, and it was the sex, and the girl in front of him. Her hand cupped against the front of his pants, and when he kissed her, he tasted whiskey and blood on her lips.
Who he was, where he was, all was forgotten, all was lost. There was the music, and the sound of his own heartbeat rushing in his ears. The soft cotton of her tee shirt pulled tight over his knuckles as he cupped her breast, and he gasped in relief when she finally worked his jeans open.
The gasp broke the kiss, and she lifted the bottle to his lips again. The cool of the glass touched them for just a second, then disappeared before he could get a drop. The wet thunk and holler of pain didn't break through the lust and the craving (where did the whiskey go? there was going to be whiskey, wasn't there?) but something else did. It sliced through the music, leaving cold clarity in its wake.
"Enough."
* * *
The spider bobbed and bounced in its web, cackling in glee at the show playing out beneath. Five couples (including two that had no idea they were inclined to enjoy their own gender) were in full flagrante delicto. Over on the pool table, a woman with full hips and small breasts slowly poured a bottle of Bailey's over her bare stomach. The liquid drizzled down slowly, and she told her friend to quick, quick, lick it up before it ran down and ruined the felt. When her friend leaned over to run her tongue over birth scar and stretch mark, the Bailey's was no longer smoke-creamy but clear and golden and sticky as honey.
A group of dancers threaded in and among the musicians onstage, passing bottles from hand to hand. Bottles of Popov darkened and grew heavy, plastic turning to glass so green it was almost black. The liquid that poured from them was as yellow as piss and smelled like new wine and old roses. Their clothes stayed on--for the moment--but the movements, sinuous and sharp by turns, explained why dancing was one of the first things to be banned as old rites and old ways were purged.
And there was Sam Winchester, his tongue down a pretty young thing's throat while her hand was down his pants. That's what he got for thinking he was above the sort of tomcatting his brother got up to.
Ah, yes. Dean. For all that Sam seemed fair on his way to getting some trim right there in public, the Trickster's attention was on the other Winchester boy. He just sat there on his stool, leaned back against the bar, sipped on a Fuzzy Navel, and giggled as Dean squawked and squalled and tried to push past grasping hands and greedy mouths.
Dean did grab at a bottle of what used to be SoCo that was being passed around. He took a big swig, but judging from the set of his eyes and that queasy twist to his mouth, it was more for fortification than intoxication. Mr. Nancy was not surprised to see that the liquid Dean wiped away with the back of his hand was ruby red.
"Funny about that," Mr. Nancy said, hours later, as if it were all a propos of nothing. "After that one sip of--what was it? red wine?" (And indeed it had been just that, a fine red, the color of old vineyards, the color of battlefields.) "After that, your boy Dean walked through that revel like a nun taking a stroll through a cloister."
The Trickster sighed and shook his head, but he didn't rise to the your boy bait again. "He's just that hung up on his brother." He paused, and a tapped a finger against his lips as he pondered. "Freud had to have had a catchy term for that kind of thing, right? You know, mangling some play or another, missing the point completely in the process?"
Mr. Nancy knew better than to go down that road again. He had no desire to be sitting there until four in the a.m. talking about the twisty inevitability of prophecies. That never, ever ended well.
He thought about maybe mentioning--all offhand, of course--what he'd noticed when Dean got himself clocked with a bottle. A thick, syrupy red wine had splashed out of that bottle of Jack. Not sweet wine, the kind Mr. Nancy liked, but a harsh red, strong in tannins. A "this is my blood" kind of wine, the kind that had been used in sacrifice and ritual long before the Christ.
"You've had some fun with those boys." It was just a statement, if anything could be said to be just a statement when Mr. Nancy said it.
"Nothing less than what they deserve," the Trickster said. "Those two morons have no idea what they're dealing with." He swirled his fruit punch around and around in its plastic glass--if it was still fruit punch. Mr. Nancy wouldn't have bet on it.
Mr. Nancy nodded slowly, sucking at a bit of cherry that had gotten lodged between two of his teeth. He spared a quick flash of a smile as Marge brought them both coffee. "No, I wouldn't say they do," he said, once she'd left. And until that afternoon, he hadn't either. Not for sure. But what he saw from up in his web had confirmed some suspicions that had been rattling around in his head for a good decade and a half.
"This May should be mighty interesting. Mighty interesting... Oh, yes. I should say so."
He wondered if that afternoon's events might finally start to get it through those thick Winchester skulls that demons weren't the only ones who could claim a soul or possess a body.
* * *
"Dean?" The word came out wobbly, slurred, two syllables where there should have been one. The music was still throbbing and pulsing through Sam, but his brother's voice cut through that like feedback. The small, smooth hand around his cock (and there was a pair of hands sliding up his belly, and another soft, warm body pressing up behind him--when did that happen?) pulled him back into the melody, his hoarse yell of pleasure fading into the pipes' flowing, floating notes. His eyes flickered closed again. His right hand covered one of the hands on his belly, and he leaned forward to catch the other girl in a kiss. The girl behind him rose up on tiptoe to try and nuzzle at the back of his neck. She laughed when he pulled away, and countered by reaching further around and further down. But her hand stopped mid-reach, lifting from his skin, and he felt her hold her breath.
"I said, that's enough."
It had the same effect as a bucket of cold saltwater being poured over him. Sam's head snapped up and his shoulders shook, as if he'd just startled himself out of dozing off. He'd never lost an erection so fast in his life.
Funny thing was, Dean wasn't yelling or snarling. His voice was utterly even, perfectly flat, and it cut through the music like a garotte. Sam waited for him to say something like okay, guys--party's over, or way to go, Sammy, but this? So not the time, or to do something smartass like hold up a lighter and request 'Freebird' or 'Stairway.' He waited and waited for Dean to do something Dean-like. But in a way, it wasn't Dean, just as the man who had walked into the bar at Stanford was Dean.
Blood and wine mingled, covering one side of his face. It had splashed up into his hair, matting it and reddening it. There should have been a joke about Carrie, Sam thought. There should have been something other than that cold fierceness, eyes as hard as jasper.
Sam wanted to say something, wanted to get Dean to say something to him, but the music wasn't stopping and the girls weren't letting him go. He wanted Dean to make it all go away. He wanted Dean to go away, so he could lose himself in the music and in the lust. Loss of self, loss of thought, just pleasure.
"You. Stop."
One glance from Dean, and the brunette who'd been giving Sam a handjob hunched down, peering up warily through her hair. Behind him, the other girl (Sam had no idea what she even looked like) pressed even closer, but it was for safety, not seduction.
Dean pushed his way through the crowd, calmly muscling people aside on his way towards the stage. Sam was, for the moment, forgotten. Sam called after him, and Dean looked back over his shoulder for just a second, hazel eyes shockingly green against the red smeared down his face.
"Not your fight," he said, and that was the last of that.
Three different girls and two men slid up to him, hands running over leather and denim, but Dean kept on walking. No smart comments about maybe later, so hold that thought, sweet stuff or no way in hell, asshole.
"Put the pipes down. Now." Here Dean's voice raised, but it wasn't in anger. It reminded Sam of John, when he'd given the boys an order he needed them to obey without question (get in the car... whatever you do, don't look at it... don't open the door to anyone but me... wait 'til I give the all-clear... run!)
No jokes about Zamfir. No remarks about what was going on. The music shifted, became more frenzied. The piper's dark eyes glittered as the flute moved back and forth beneath pursed lips. Nothing was said, but a challenge was issued all the same. The dancers began to wend their way up behind Dean, moving more sharply than before. Sam had to fight to stand where he was. It was all he could do to keep his ground. He couldn't even call out a warning when someone finally tried to jump Dean.
It was a middle-aged man, bulky, bearded. He rushed Dean from behind, snarling and wheezing like a bulldog as he jumped into a flying tackle It didn't work. Dean just swung his elbow out and back, connecting hard with the guy's throat. The guy fell hard to the floor, but other than a quick glance to check that he was down, Dean paid him no mind. He didn't cuss the guy out or sneer at him.
One of the dancers on stage tried to bring him down from above, but all Dean did was step aside. The crowd didn't move to catch her and she landed hard. Sam could hear the crack of bone from all the way across the room.
Dean barked out "Sam!" but didn't look back, trusting and expecting Sam to jump to it. And Sam did. That one word, his name, was enough to snap through the music. Sam finished buttoning his pants and stumbled forward, shaking the effects of the music off the way he might shake water out of his ears after a shower.
He pushed through the mob, letting his bulk do most of the work for him. He did manage a quick "sorry" as he pushed someone a little too hard, perhaps.
He couldn't see the fallen dancer, but he had seen the fall and knew where she had to be. Sam hunched down, and there she was, huddled up, crying, tendering not just her ankle, but her hand as well. Her other hand was holding her chambray blouse closed.
"They kept on stepping on me and kicking me." The words bubbled up between sobs. "It hurts... it hurts..."
She lifted her undamaged hand to the side of her head, and pressed it to her ear. She pulled the hand away when her blouse fell open again, but decided in the end that blocking the sound was more urgent than modesty. "I want it to stop. I don't like it any more."
"We're working on it." Well, Dean was working on it. The crowd was actively trying to push him away from the stage, but Dean was calmly, inexorably pushing back. And he was winning. Sam wasn't really sure what he was meant to do here, other than keep this woman from being trampled. "The music doesn't have you any more."
"It hurts..." was all she could say to that.
The music had changed, or maybe they had; it no longer seduced, it screeched. It was tinny, and hollow, and ridiculous, like a tune that came out of a novelty necktie or birthday card.
Sam carefully scooped the woman up, right arm under her knees, left across her back. His reach was long enough that he could press a hand against her ear. Her other ear was pressed tight to his chest.
He stood up, and even though the music he heard was no longer what it used to be, the other melody still rang through his mind's ear.
Dean jumped for the stage. When the hell had he pulled his gun? Sam started to call out, started to yell at him not to shoot the guy, but Dean's path took him alongside the piper.
The gunshot cut the music off mid-note. The bullet crossed in front of the piper, shearing through each of the reeds in the pipe as it went. The splinters flew every which way, like confetti in a storm, and the bullet lodged harmlessly in a far corner, just a few inches below an enormous spider web.
As for the piper, he didn't even look surprised. He simply dropped the few fragments that remained in his hands, winked at Dean, and vanished. There was even a puff of smoke. It sparkled.
Dean--and it was Dean, this time--looked at the place where the piper had been. He blinked. And blinked again.
"What the hell...?"
That just about summed it up.
"Let's get out of here while they're still..." Sam nodded his head to the side, indicating the mass of confused and increasingly mortified people.
Of course, he could very well be counted among their number. Sam passed the woman in his arms along to someone who seemed to know her, an elderly man with a concerned expression and a bite mark on his face, and chose to concentrate on the way she clung desperately to the other man rather on than the increasingly, chillingly clear recall of just what he'd been doing a few minutes ago.
Dean, with his usual gift for timing, walked up behind him and clamped a hand down on his shoulder. The grip was firm enough that there'd be no escaping without violence.
"So... Sam. Had a good time, did you?"
Sam wheeled 'round, pulling free and giving Dean a shove. Dean step-stumbled back, grinning and cackling.
"Let's go before the police get here." Sam stalked out to the car, doing his best to ignore Dean calling after him and telling him if he wasn't careful, his face would freeze that way.
* * *
"The sparkles were a nice touch, I'll give you that. There's no respect for that sort of flash these days. Did I ever tell you about the time I led an entire marching band through a hospital? Woman I was with at the time needed a bit of a lift, and some little-bitty bouquet wasn't going to do the trick." Mr. Nancy allowed his memories to drift along as he sat there, hands folded on his belly. Maybe it was time to find himself a new woman, another one who knew how to laugh and have herself a good time, even when times weren't so good.
"Well, it seemed like the thing to do." The trickster appeared pleased by the compliment. "Besides, when the time comes, I want them to figure out that the cute little piper was just a... you know..." The Trickster circled a hand in the air as he fished for the best word for it.
"Construct?"
The Trickster wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, but... that always sounds so academic. Boooo-ring."
Mr. Nancy nodded solemnly. Boring was only part of the problem. It was a bad thing when gods got caught up in the academic trap; they ended up dissected, or worse yet, fossilized. Then again, Mr. Nancy wasn't so sure that what was happening to the fellow across the table was all that much better. Problem with becoming archetypal was that what you were started to gobble up who you were.
And where was the fun in that?
"Shadow," Mr. Nancy said at last, the corners of his eyes dimpling just a touch at the private joke. "Call it a shadow. That's a much better word for it--smacks of mystery, not something you build in a lab."
The Trickster (Mr. Nancy couldn't even remember the last name he'd worn) pursed his lips and nodded slowly, not agreeing, but thinking it over. Finally, he shrugged. "Eh... that'll work. Wonder what the Boy Detectives would call it? Nah, they wouldn't call it anything. They'd just mispronounce Latin at it until I got bored and went home."
"Seems to me you're finding plenty there to keep you entertained over the past year," Mr. Nancy observed. The lack of weight in this observation was almost believable.
"It's like a bad soap opera--predictable straight down the line and enough to make your eyes roll right out of your head sometimes, but you just can't stop watching. And every Thursday gets you wanting more. Not-so-little Sammy's going to be dragged into a war for the throne of hell, pouting and clenching that massive jaw of his all the way, and there'll be some sort of wrenching ethical dilemma when it comes to saving his brother's soul, yadda-yadda-yawn. I can't wait."
Mr. Nancy's grin echoed the trickster's. "You know as well as I do it ain't going to end that way."
"Like I said, I can hardly wait. You-know-who is going to be pissed when they come to collect Dean's soul."
"Mmm-mmm-mmm. I dare say so." It would have been foolish to say it out loud. Names have power, and Mr. Nancy knew all too well what kinds of people could be lurking in corners, seen but not noticed. And given how certain people had just demonstrated how much they didn't like meddlers--well, best to be silent than sorry.
Oh, it would have been nice if Dean had fallen under the spell of Pan's pipes and had a high old time of it--and given how he normally was, it would have been a positively stratospheric time. The sheer entertainment value alone would have been worth every drop... no, not every drop of soma. But it would have been worth parting with a good-sized swallow.
"How much do you want to bet that they're on the phone to Mr. Bobby Singer right now?" he asked. "Trying to find out what those pipes really were, where they came from?"
The Trickster cocked his head to one side, like a dog trying to home in on a whistle that may or may not be familiar. "Not... yet. Not until Illinois, I'm thinking. Besides, haven't you lost enough for one day, Anansi?"
Ever since his old name had gotten lost in what he was, the Trickster had become awfully cavalier about tossing about other folks' names. Mr. Nancy would have to set him straight on that one of these days.
"Losing eventually comes right back around to winning, you keep at it long enough." The words were freighted with long, long experience. Mr. Nancy hadn't exactly won this bet, but he'd figured out easily enough that he was right about which god had laid claim to Dean Winchester's soul.
It had taken some digging back to figure out where and when--and how--Dean had gotten that amulet of his.
Mr. Nancy never was able to find out quite where Bobby Singer laid hands on it, but he'd done so, and done so safely. That in and of itself was impressive on its own. Shame he couldn't find the right books or the right folks to tell him what he had, but that was just the way these things went, especially when a particular individual had taken a keen interest in the proceedings.
Far as Mr. Nancy could tell, Bobby had meant for John Winchester to take that 'real special' amulet and tuck it away behind wards and bars and runes in that hidey-hole of his. He'd even known enough to pass the thing along through a child who was too young--too innocent--to be considered an initiate.
Dean, though... Mr. Nancy wasn't sure if Dean had killed anyone or anything by then, but at twelve, the boy was already enough of a soldier that the amulet had taken to him the way a cuckoo takes to a warbler's nest.
Being given the thing on Christmas just sealed the deal.
Of course, John hadn't the faintest clue what had happened, and back then Bobby trusted him enough to figure that John knew what he was doing, giving that amulet to his oldest son. By the time Bobby had reached the point where he was willing to level a shotgun at John in order to make a point perfectly clear, it was too late to do anything for Dean.
Mr. Nancy hadn't seen Mithras around for decades, but it didn't mean he was gone. And as far as Mr. Nancy could see, the red-capped bastard's fingerprints were all over Dean Winchester.
"Care to place another bet?" the Trickster asked.
"That all depends on the bet." The table was all but clear, and the two gods sat back, hands resting on full bellies. In a moment or two, Marge would come by and see if they wanted more coffee. "This wouldn't be another one about the Winchesters, would it?"
"Aw... you guessed." The Trickster's eyes narrowed in dangerous good humor. "It's been centuries since I've found such good toys. It's so much fun to watch them get their comeuppance over and over again. What on earth would I do for entertainment if it weren't for epically dysfunctional families?"
"You'd starve. You'd go poof like one of your... what did we decide to call them again?" Meddling was the air they breathed, Mr. Nancy knew. They lived to stir the pot and keep things all roiling 'round and bubbled up. But if the Trickster was only in this for the laughs, Mr. Nancy would eat his fedora, with his yellow gloves as a chaser.
No, the Trickster knew damned well that Mithras had claimed Dean Winchester as his own, on the day that had once been celebrated as his birthday, his festival. Time after time after that, Dean had been blood anointed just as the soldiers who'd worshipped Mithras long, long ago.
"Shadows. Your mind's slipping, Anansi." There was a look on the Trickster's face as if he'd gotten a whiff of pie baking on someone's windowsill, but Mr. Nancy's mind was no more slipping than Mt. Everest was getting up to take a walk across the Himalayas. It would be a good long time before the archetype's shadow would be showing off eight legs.
"That may be, that may be."
It would be a mighty good show, once that demon decided to claim Dean's soul. Mithras might not have stepped in to interfere before now--soldiers fall in battle, and the god of soldiers would damn well know and respect that. But today had shown that he might interfere when someone tried to steal what was his. The instant that remnant of Pan's power had tried to sink its teeth into Dean, Mithras had bitten right back.
"So what do you have planned next for your favorite toys?" Mr. Nancy didn't expect a truthful answer, but he did expect an interesting one. He wasn't disappointed.
"I don't think Sammy boy has learned his lesson. I'd be willing to bet," and here the Trickster pulled the bottle of soma back out and put it on the table between them, "that he's going to go all proactive on us when it comes to this whole King of Hell nonsense, if he thinks it will save Dean. And I bet Dean will try to leverage on his own deal to do the same."
Mr. Nancy's nose wrinkled and he leaned back, putting some distance between himself and the Trickster. "Proactive? Leverage? What the hell have you been reading these days?"
"Just practicing for my next gig," the Trickster said, offering no further explanation. "Anyhow, I'm thinking it's going to wind up all Gift of the Magi, only with more blood. And screaming. I'm thinking lots of screaming."
That would no doubt be the case. Mithras also being the god of contracts, and all.
"That does tend to happen, when you draw Hell into things. It doesn't hurt things are already shaken up pretty well down there." That last was said with deep satisfaction, and a smug savoring of each and every word. Certain rumor mills were still lit up with stories about how a human, a simple human with no patronage of any god, no kind of indwelling, no one who was an avatar of any sort, had spotted an opening and just up and clawed his way out of the underworld through sheer stubbornness, his eyes so fixed on the exit there hadn't been even a single thought about looking back.
It was a big jolt, a big noise; there was now hope in Hell, and millions of souls were now keeping their eyes (or what was left of them) peeled for their own chance at escape.
"There's lots of players paying attention to those two. Lots of heavy hitters, new and old."
"Mmm-hmmm." Mr. Nancy had 'borrowed' some of Ibis's notes a few years back. The old bird had first picked up the Winchesters' story back in ninety-one, but had been following family trees backwards rather than looking forwards. What-his-name--the one in Vegas--had put out some very quiet, very discreet inquiries, and Mr. Nancy had picked up on the rumor traffic that had been generated as a result. "Lots of souls down there. Lots of people who'd be grateful to whatever pied piper could lead them out and up while the set-to's a-setting to."
Plenty of grateful souls. More than enough to give decades of sustenance to any psychopomp or underworld god--ancient or modern-who was in the right place at the right time. Plus, it would be so very, very nice to see those greedy, soul devouring bastards down below get some comeuppance.
Millions of souls. All looking for their break, all ready to make a run for it.
If you were going to complete the transition from god to archetype, you might as well do it with style.
"The only problem is, my pipes got shot into a million pieces by that Dirty Harry wanna-be." The Trickster stared morosely into his fruit punch. It put Mr. Nancy in mind of the Delphic Oracle, if only she had gotten her mojo from high-fructose corn syrup instead of sacred smoke.
"I thought you didn't mind losing the pipes."
"I don't."
For once, Mr. Nancy actually believed him. The pipes had served their purpose. They were a tool, not a totem. The Trickster hadn't lost a weapon, he'd simply tested a more powerful one.
The Trickster lifted his glass. "What I do mind is that I didn't get to finish my Fuzzy Navel."
"Pity."
So yes, there were plenty of players in the game who were very interested in those two boys. Only question was, how many of them knew or guessed that Dean Winchester wasn't so much a sacrificial lamb as a Trojan horse?
* * *
At least it's over. Sam's words seemed loud in his own head after he'd said them, and they kept trying to shape themselves to a melody he'd rather forget.
It was enough to remind him that things were never over, not for them.
"Over? Yeah, well... It's going to be a while before I get that image out of my mind. You owe me a shitload of drinks for that, Sam."
The sun had dropped low enough that Dean had finally turned on the headlights. His face was occasionally lit up as a car came the other direction, and even in the yellow or blue-white light of the oncoming headlights, Sam thought he could still see a hint of red.
"It's payback for you and the--who were they? The Doublemint Twins? Anyhow, you suck at keeping promises, you know that?"
Dean's mouth twitched into a grin, the kind that was one step from becoming a smart remark built around Sam's use of the word 'suck.'
"We still have to call Bobby..."
"Tell him the whole story," Dean said just a little too gleefully.
"...and go over the pertinent facts with him. About the pipes. And the piper."
"I swear to you, Sam, those sparkles were pink. What kind of demon gives off pink sparkles." Pause. "It would explain a lot about 'Hello Kitty,' though."
"You're really funny," Sam snapped. Even so, he made a mental note about a few things to look for the next time they were stocking up on snacks and sundries at a dollar store.
A few good jokes, the anxiety of waiting for retaliation, the planning of ever more elaborate comebacks... Yeah that might help.
"We can call Bobby when we stop to eat." A little more distance and a boundary behind them. That might make things easier to talk about. "Maybe he'll know what was up with those pipes. I don't think we were dealing with a demon, and not just because of the... sparkles? There really were sparkles?"
"Pink ones," Dean confirmed. Another car passed, another flash of red lit up his face. The cold, hard expression of the man in the bar was gone, but Sam could see the afterimage reflected in the windshield.
"What happened to you back there?" Sam hadn't meant to ask that question, but that was what came out.
"Me? You're asking what happened to me? You're the one who was standing there getting his freak on with two girls you hadn't even met."
Sam clenched and unclenched his jaw. His fingers drummed a sharp tattoo on his leg, but it was just annoyance, not a phantom beat. "And you're the only one in there who wasn't getting his freak on, as you put it. One minute you're about to panic--"
"Was not."
"You were about to panic, and the next..."
Sam had been able to tell Dean about the man in Palo Alto, the man with the red hat and the amulet, but that was as close as he could get to telling Dean about what he'd seen back at the club.
It would have been easier to give Dean all the gory details about the making out, the groping, the handjob.
"...the next, you're just walking up to the stage and you shot the pipes right out of the guy's hands."
"That was pretty badass, wasn't it?" Dean gloated.
"Do you even remember doing that?" Sam asked.
"Of cour--" Dean paused for a moment, and the quiet seemed just a little too quiet. "Yeah. Of course I remember. Pretty much. It happened kind of fast. I was acting on, you know, instinct."
The hunted, haunted look was only there for a moment before it shifted back to something more gleeful and more malicious.
"Besides, the trauma of seeing my baby brother--"
"You're not going to give that a rest, are you?"
"Nope."
Hello Kitty would be too mild a revenge.
"You're enjoying this far too much," Sam said. He'd intended it as a gripe, but it had too much truth for that. "Aren't you at all interested in why you were the only one in that club who wasn't affected?"
That was met by a distinct lack of eye contact and a grumble Sam couldn't quite hear.
"What makes you so sure it wasn't a demon?" Dean asked, pissed off and about ready to start an argument.
"It didn't feel like possession." Sam should know. He still had the scar on his forearm from when Meg had bound herself to him. Besides, they both had the tattoos now, the ones that would keep all but the most powerful demons from getting hold of them. "It had to have been the music, like Bobby thought it was. But that still doesn't..."
"Still doesn't what?" Dean finally asked when the break in the sentence drew out a little too long.
"Still doesn't explain why I was affected and you weren't."
Dean had been affected, though, Sam thought but did not say. One moment, he was desperately fending off what looked like a dozen groupies. The next, he was like the ice-cold wrath of God.
He would need to mention that when he talked to Bobby, Sam told himself, but he knew that once they crossed the border, that memory would start to fade along with the others. They would tell Bobby that they'd located the artifact, and even though Bela hadn't shown, they'd been able to keep it from being used to hurt anyone else. Bobby might research the origins of the thing just in case there was something else like it out there, or maybe just out of simple curiosity. Beyond that, the story was over.
Dean let one hand slide from the steering wheel. He reached up and started rubbing his amulet between thumb and forefinger. "You're supposed to be the smart one in the family." There was some definite grouchiness there, Sam was amused to note. "You tell me."
It was Sam's turn to smile evilly. "Maybe it's because you're already so debauched you were immune."
"Real funny, Sam." Oh, yes. That had touched a nerve. It was time to see if he could strike that again.
Payback, as Dean might very well point out, was a bitch. (And with the thought of payback, the beginnings of an idea, the faintest edge of a realization, skittered along the edges of Sam's consciousness and was gone before he could catch it.)
"It's too bad, you know. Drinking. Getting felt up by a couple of hot girls. That sounds like something that would have been right up your alley."
Dean might have liked all of that, but he wouldn't have liked the loss of control, Sam thought. He wouldn't have liked the feeling of drowning in the swirl of breathy notes and deep, so low you felt-it-rather-than-heard-it drumbeat.
The look Dean gave him was murderous in the passing light. It was halogen blue, with no trace of red. "I thought you were the one who didn't want to talk about this."
The glare sharpened at Sam's sudden yelp of laughter. "I don't believe you. You're actually disappointed!" He shook his head, mouth still open in disbelieving laughter. "You are actually pissed off that you didn't get in on the fun."
"You want to walk to Illinois? 'Cause that can be arranged."
"Oh, man... that's just like the perfect irony or something." Again, the thought of payback, of comeuppance, made a pass at his attention and was drowned out by the sheer glee of giving back as good as he'd gotten. Sam tried to remind himself that this was something he should mention to Bobby, but Dean snarled something censorable and slammed the Impala up to eighty.
They passed the WELCOME TO ILLINOIS sign, but Sam was laughing so hard he didn't even notice.