Journeys
>> Journeys
TITLE: Journeys
AUTHOR:
ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: generic spoilers for all three shows, but nothing much IMHO. Except for SPN where there are mild spoilers all around up to 3.12.
GENRE: Gen. Crossover between SPN/Doctor Who/Criminal Minds. (Yes. I know. Don’t judge.)
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, the Doctor, Spencer Reid
SUMMARY: Conditioners. Frizz. Screwdrivers. Journeys. It’s not crack, though.
RATING: pg13
FEEDBACK: Dude…duh.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own them. Bugrit.
NOTE: The story started here, and I was offered cookies and a spleen in return. You know me, I can never turn a good spleen ‘n cookie down. And then I thought, oooooh the prompt the dragonz suggested for her birthday works excellent here too. (What? I’m multitasking.)
NOTE2: beta by very shiny
buffyaddict13. Her contribution in the Reid talk was amazing.
It is good to have an end to journey toward;
but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. LeGuin.
It’s strange holing up in the TARDIS, though ‘holing up’ is the wrong word to begin with, cuz, dude, the place is huge. It should have come as no surprise, not with what he’s seen, not with what he’s been through, but here he is, here both of them are, in a freaking spaceship (“Time-machine cum spaceship,” Reid said the first day and Dean wanted to throttle him), and Dean’s not even feeling the need to hum Metallica anymore. Well. At least not loud enough for Sam to hear, though the Doctor rolls his eyes or whistles along as if he knows.
Once he even patted Dean on the shoulder telling him to relax, they weren’t actually flying. They were fazing in and out as they moved through dimensions, time, whatever, and Dean had stopped humming anything. There was no spit left for that, his mouth had run that kind of dry.
And the Doctor was chuckling, and then Sam was too. Superhearing bastards.
Dean smiles.
It was about fucking time they got a break. Here he’s been, running out of time, then running into a Timelord. Whatever the fuck he is, Dean’s grateful he’s one of the good guys.
Cuz it’s the Doctor’s screwdriver that gets Lilith out of the way, and Dean thinks that makes him even with the Doctor. Dean’s saved his life, too, after all. Admittedly, from Sam, but a life saved is a life saved, right? Was kinda hard getting through to Sam, too, telling him how that was not the Trickster. Sam seemed to be tripping, a kind of cold panic radiating around him in waves, pulse after pulse after pulse, muscles clenched and eyes… Dean thinks he remembers those eyes, remembers them from a lifetime ago, when all he could breathe was the ashes of what home had been. Same eyes were on dad then, and Dean remembers, cuz he’s seen them more recently in his own mirror, after the whole dream tripping. And now on Sam, eyes of those hovering close to the edge contemplating loss and dive off. Fuck, it scared Dean. It still does.
Goddammit, till Sam lowered the Colt? Dean’s heart had stopped beating.
“Mine, too,” the Doctor had said as if reading his mind. “Both of them.”
Dean has still no idea what that’s supposed to mean. Doesn’t matter.
For now it’s all good. It’s safe. What looked like a police box from the outside actually fits his Impala inside and Dean still can’t wrap his mind around it, even as the Doc rambles on and on about timey wimey spacey wibbly wobbly stuff and dimensional transcendence. It should have sounded insane, but he actually makes sense. Much more sense than Reid whenever he goes on about the space/time continuum. Dean’s willing to take the wibbly wobbly theory any day.
Dean has no idea how the Doctor took Reid in (and it feels that way, Reid doesn’t feel like a guest at all, more like a younger and occasionally annoying sibling, the way the Doctor looks at him sometimes, all affection and sadness and… unreadability, as if he’s watching parts of himself from a distance. It’s different from the way he’s looking at him and Sam. It’s not the look of equals exactly, but it’s the look of one who knows more than he lets on.) Reid is just in the TARDIS with them, and he looks like a kid in a candy store. He’s riding the sugar-high, alright, the way he’s hovering and touching the TARDIS as if it’s the Holy Grail of Geekdom. Dean shifts his eyes to Sam, who merely shrugs.
“I really want to study your sonic screwdriver, Mr Who,” Reid says and Dean’s eyes turn to him. “I think I’ve been here long enough. You know…you know you can trust me. You’ve shown me the TARDIS basics, couldn’t I see the screwdriver as well?”
“You are not touching my screwdriver,” the Doctor says, cocking his eyebrow. He looks amused. “I’ve seen your slight of hand.”
“Whoa,” Dean says. “That sounds dirty. Should we leave you two alone?”
Reid and the Doctor completely ignore him.
“And for the last time, don’t call me Mr Who, call me Doctor. I am the Doctor, you know.”
“No, you’re just a doctor,” Reid says really slowly with the cadence of someone who’s had this conversation too many times and that with a loon. “Because for that matter, so am I, but I don’t insist on using my title the whole time, do I?” Reid considers. “Well, not all the time.”
“Actually,” Sam cuts in, “you do.”
“Oh,” Reid frowns. “But I am a Doctor.”
“Well, so am I,” the Doctor says. “In fact I am the Doctor.”
“Yes, but…”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Dean says.
“You know, my other companions weren’t so stuck up on names,” the Doctor says shoving his hands in his pockets, standing with legs apart like an old Western Cowboy.
“I don’t really like the term ‘companion’,” Reid says. “It sounds very passive. You know I just came for the ride,” he adds softly.
“Yep, we should definitely leave you two alone,” Dean mumbles.
The Doctor shrugs.
“Fine. You’re not my companion. My companions tend to have prettier hair anyway.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?!”
“Well…”, the Doctor says and his hands move as fast as Dean’s on a gun and the screwdriver blinks blue and white, “your hair is rubbish.”
And then he starts giggling. If anyone could bottle up glee and sell it in bottles, the Doctor would have already been processed. He’s laughing with eyes and mouth and body, hands slapping his knees and it’s hard not to join along, especially once you catch sight of Reid’s head. His hair is standing around in all angles, as if he’s been caught in a storm of static.
Reid reaches with careful hands.
“Frizz,” he says. “You made my hair extra frizzy and uber-hovering. Very mature, Mr Who.”
“I pride myself in my maturity,” the Doctor says winking at Dean, who’s doubled up, still laughing, but his laughter dies out when he realizes that Sam is looking at them shocked.
“I…” Sam says. “It’ll be okay, Reid. You’ll be okay in no time. We can fix this.”
“Dude,” Dean says. “I knew you were attached to your hair but…”
“I’ll give you some of my hair conditioner,” Sam continues.
“The one that makes his hair so soft and silky,” Dean scoffs.
Sam Winchester was ready to kill anyone and anything in their path if it meant Dean harm. Sam Winchester readily accepted time and space travelling. Maybe the whole space time thingy waggled Sam’s brain cuz the same Sam Winchester is now freaking cuz Reid’s hair is like a nuclear explosion, like a dark-haired Bozo’s… and suddenly Dean gets it.
“Dude… do you hate clowns cuz of their hair?!”
Sam’s mouth is one tight line.
“Let it go, Dean.”
By God. Dean will never let that one go. Ever.
“Clowns are a creepy bunch,” the Doctor cuts in, eyes alight with interest. “The stories I could tell you…”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Sam says too quickly and Dean chuckles. “But, Spence, man, seriously, just take my conditioner. Just take it.”
“Thank you,” Reid says. “I will. But right now I’m actually more interested in how the screwdriver did that. If I call you the Doctor and not Mr Who, will you let me study it? Under your supervision, of course?”
“You don’t get laid much, do you?” Dean asks.
“Get laid?”
“You know. Sex. Chicks. You know?”
He’s gesturing wildly in the air. He doesn’t think he can handle another case of virginity so soon.
“I have an IQ of 180 and you’re talking to me about…about girls? I mean women?” He looks flustered, then he frowns at Dean, crosses his arms, and leans against the control panel. “And by the way, that’s a totally offensive term.” He turns back to the Time Lord, ignoring Dean. “So, doctor. Do we have a deal?”
The Doctor rolls his eyes, but seems pleased, as if somehow he’s won a war.
“Fine,” he says, grabbing Reid by his shoulder and manoeuvring him to a table with wibbly wobbly machinery. “I’ll show you how the bloody thing works.”
Soon both are engrossed in their work, Reid’s hair floating around like a weird halo, or, you know, a clown wig.
(“Dude,” Dean whispered to Sam that night day whatever in the quarters given to them when it was all done and explained and the cards laid out. “Everything I ever said about your hair? I take it back. There are people with uglier haircuts than yours.”
Sam rolled his eyes and then both collapsed into sleep that felt like centuries.)
And yeah, Reid is a totally different story. Dean thinks that Reid is the way Sam would be if he didn’t have the beneficial influence of Dean Winchester in his life. From where he’s standing? Sam’s owing him big time, cuz dude, Reid’s dress code? Dean clicks his tongue against his teeth. And yet there it is. If you ignore the weird shirts and chequered sweaters and actually manage to focus on the guy, what you see is not what you get. There’s that edge again, IQ laced with eccentricity and sadness. It’s strange, but Reid reminds him of Ash, like two sides of the same coin.
Dean lets out a sigh. He misses Ash. He wished he hadn’t died. He wished that no one had died, because that’s been the story of people caught in the Winchester trail. Victor, Nancy, so many more names to add to the list, but he can’t change that. He bites down the thought, forces it to take earlier paths.
Now, the Doctor, Dean’s willing to admit, has style. It takes cojones to wear those striped suites, the sneakers, the accent and that sort of hair and get away with it.
And, Dean thinks, leaning back and feeling the worlds around him fade in and out, it’s great being able to think silly thoughts without agony consuming you. It’s great watching your brother hover near the Doctor and the kid listening to the lecture on the screwdriver with shoulders unclenched, less burdened.
When you run out of time, it’s great finding a place that is timeless, a place where time isn’t a river to drown you, but water parting around you as if you’re separated by a safe warm force field looking at you with eyes full of mischief.
And yeah, he misses Bobby like hell. Misses his world and the road and the hunting. But here they are safe. Here the hellhounds can’t find them. Here he doesn’t always have nightmares. Here he knows (cuz the Doctor promised him) that the timeline can be meddled with and wrongs can be righted. Soon.
Soon.
But not just yet.
Journeys aren’t always measured in miles and the road isn’t always asphalt. But here’s Sam and the Impala and new friends and a future. And that’s a road trip, alright.
Dean doesn’t need more than that.
-The End.
SIDENOTE:
pdragon76’s prompt was ‘I want a happy Dean’. Hope you like it, doll. *smish*
TITLE: Journeys
AUTHOR:
ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: generic spoilers for all three shows, but nothing much IMHO. Except for SPN where there are mild spoilers all around up to 3.12.
GENRE: Gen. Crossover between SPN/Doctor Who/Criminal Minds. (Yes. I know. Don’t judge.)
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, the Doctor, Spencer Reid
SUMMARY: Conditioners. Frizz. Screwdrivers. Journeys. It’s not crack, though.
RATING: pg13
FEEDBACK: Dude…duh.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own them. Bugrit.
NOTE: The story started here, and I was offered cookies and a spleen in return. You know me, I can never turn a good spleen ‘n cookie down. And then I thought, oooooh the prompt the dragonz suggested for her birthday works excellent here too. (What? I’m multitasking.)
NOTE2: beta by very shiny
buffyaddict13. Her contribution in the Reid talk was amazing.
It is good to have an end to journey toward;
but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. LeGuin.
It’s strange holing up in the TARDIS, though ‘holing up’ is the wrong word to begin with, cuz, dude, the place is huge. It should have come as no surprise, not with what he’s seen, not with what he’s been through, but here he is, here both of them are, in a freaking spaceship (“Time-machine cum spaceship,” Reid said the first day and Dean wanted to throttle him), and Dean’s not even feeling the need to hum Metallica anymore. Well. At least not loud enough for Sam to hear, though the Doctor rolls his eyes or whistles along as if he knows.
Once he even patted Dean on the shoulder telling him to relax, they weren’t actually flying. They were fazing in and out as they moved through dimensions, time, whatever, and Dean had stopped humming anything. There was no spit left for that, his mouth had run that kind of dry.
And the Doctor was chuckling, and then Sam was too. Superhearing bastards.
Dean smiles.
It was about fucking time they got a break. Here he’s been, running out of time, then running into a Timelord. Whatever the fuck he is, Dean’s grateful he’s one of the good guys.
Cuz it’s the Doctor’s screwdriver that gets Lilith out of the way, and Dean thinks that makes him even with the Doctor. Dean’s saved his life, too, after all. Admittedly, from Sam, but a life saved is a life saved, right? Was kinda hard getting through to Sam, too, telling him how that was not the Trickster. Sam seemed to be tripping, a kind of cold panic radiating around him in waves, pulse after pulse after pulse, muscles clenched and eyes… Dean thinks he remembers those eyes, remembers them from a lifetime ago, when all he could breathe was the ashes of what home had been. Same eyes were on dad then, and Dean remembers, cuz he’s seen them more recently in his own mirror, after the whole dream tripping. And now on Sam, eyes of those hovering close to the edge contemplating loss and dive off. Fuck, it scared Dean. It still does.
Goddammit, till Sam lowered the Colt? Dean’s heart had stopped beating.
“Mine, too,” the Doctor had said as if reading his mind. “Both of them.”
Dean has still no idea what that’s supposed to mean. Doesn’t matter.
For now it’s all good. It’s safe. What looked like a police box from the outside actually fits his Impala inside and Dean still can’t wrap his mind around it, even as the Doc rambles on and on about timey wimey spacey wibbly wobbly stuff and dimensional transcendence. It should have sounded insane, but he actually makes sense. Much more sense than Reid whenever he goes on about the space/time continuum. Dean’s willing to take the wibbly wobbly theory any day.
Dean has no idea how the Doctor took Reid in (and it feels that way, Reid doesn’t feel like a guest at all, more like a younger and occasionally annoying sibling, the way the Doctor looks at him sometimes, all affection and sadness and… unreadability, as if he’s watching parts of himself from a distance. It’s different from the way he’s looking at him and Sam. It’s not the look of equals exactly, but it’s the look of one who knows more than he lets on.) Reid is just in the TARDIS with them, and he looks like a kid in a candy store. He’s riding the sugar-high, alright, the way he’s hovering and touching the TARDIS as if it’s the Holy Grail of Geekdom. Dean shifts his eyes to Sam, who merely shrugs.
“I really want to study your sonic screwdriver, Mr Who,” Reid says and Dean’s eyes turn to him. “I think I’ve been here long enough. You know…you know you can trust me. You’ve shown me the TARDIS basics, couldn’t I see the screwdriver as well?”
“You are not touching my screwdriver,” the Doctor says, cocking his eyebrow. He looks amused. “I’ve seen your slight of hand.”
“Whoa,” Dean says. “That sounds dirty. Should we leave you two alone?”
Reid and the Doctor completely ignore him.
“And for the last time, don’t call me Mr Who, call me Doctor. I am the Doctor, you know.”
“No, you’re just a doctor,” Reid says really slowly with the cadence of someone who’s had this conversation too many times and that with a loon. “Because for that matter, so am I, but I don’t insist on using my title the whole time, do I?” Reid considers. “Well, not all the time.”
“Actually,” Sam cuts in, “you do.”
“Oh,” Reid frowns. “But I am a Doctor.”
“Well, so am I,” the Doctor says. “In fact I am the Doctor.”
“Yes, but…”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Dean says.
“You know, my other companions weren’t so stuck up on names,” the Doctor says shoving his hands in his pockets, standing with legs apart like an old Western Cowboy.
“I don’t really like the term ‘companion’,” Reid says. “It sounds very passive. You know I just came for the ride,” he adds softly.
“Yep, we should definitely leave you two alone,” Dean mumbles.
The Doctor shrugs.
“Fine. You’re not my companion. My companions tend to have prettier hair anyway.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?!”
“Well…”, the Doctor says and his hands move as fast as Dean’s on a gun and the screwdriver blinks blue and white, “your hair is rubbish.”
And then he starts giggling. If anyone could bottle up glee and sell it in bottles, the Doctor would have already been processed. He’s laughing with eyes and mouth and body, hands slapping his knees and it’s hard not to join along, especially once you catch sight of Reid’s head. His hair is standing around in all angles, as if he’s been caught in a storm of static.
Reid reaches with careful hands.
“Frizz,” he says. “You made my hair extra frizzy and uber-hovering. Very mature, Mr Who.”
“I pride myself in my maturity,” the Doctor says winking at Dean, who’s doubled up, still laughing, but his laughter dies out when he realizes that Sam is looking at them shocked.
“I…” Sam says. “It’ll be okay, Reid. You’ll be okay in no time. We can fix this.”
“Dude,” Dean says. “I knew you were attached to your hair but…”
“I’ll give you some of my hair conditioner,” Sam continues.
“The one that makes his hair so soft and silky,” Dean scoffs.
Sam Winchester was ready to kill anyone and anything in their path if it meant Dean harm. Sam Winchester readily accepted time and space travelling. Maybe the whole space time thingy waggled Sam’s brain cuz the same Sam Winchester is now freaking cuz Reid’s hair is like a nuclear explosion, like a dark-haired Bozo’s… and suddenly Dean gets it.
“Dude… do you hate clowns cuz of their hair?!”
Sam’s mouth is one tight line.
“Let it go, Dean.”
By God. Dean will never let that one go. Ever.
“Clowns are a creepy bunch,” the Doctor cuts in, eyes alight with interest. “The stories I could tell you…”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Sam says too quickly and Dean chuckles. “But, Spence, man, seriously, just take my conditioner. Just take it.”
“Thank you,” Reid says. “I will. But right now I’m actually more interested in how the screwdriver did that. If I call you the Doctor and not Mr Who, will you let me study it? Under your supervision, of course?”
“You don’t get laid much, do you?” Dean asks.
“Get laid?”
“You know. Sex. Chicks. You know?”
He’s gesturing wildly in the air. He doesn’t think he can handle another case of virginity so soon.
“I have an IQ of 180 and you’re talking to me about…about girls? I mean women?” He looks flustered, then he frowns at Dean, crosses his arms, and leans against the control panel. “And by the way, that’s a totally offensive term.” He turns back to the Time Lord, ignoring Dean. “So, doctor. Do we have a deal?”
The Doctor rolls his eyes, but seems pleased, as if somehow he’s won a war.
“Fine,” he says, grabbing Reid by his shoulder and manoeuvring him to a table with wibbly wobbly machinery. “I’ll show you how the bloody thing works.”
Soon both are engrossed in their work, Reid’s hair floating around like a weird halo, or, you know, a clown wig.
(“Dude,” Dean whispered to Sam that night day whatever in the quarters given to them when it was all done and explained and the cards laid out. “Everything I ever said about your hair? I take it back. There are people with uglier haircuts than yours.”
Sam rolled his eyes and then both collapsed into sleep that felt like centuries.)
And yeah, Reid is a totally different story. Dean thinks that Reid is the way Sam would be if he didn’t have the beneficial influence of Dean Winchester in his life. From where he’s standing? Sam’s owing him big time, cuz dude, Reid’s dress code? Dean clicks his tongue against his teeth. And yet there it is. If you ignore the weird shirts and chequered sweaters and actually manage to focus on the guy, what you see is not what you get. There’s that edge again, IQ laced with eccentricity and sadness. It’s strange, but Reid reminds him of Ash, like two sides of the same coin.
Dean lets out a sigh. He misses Ash. He wished he hadn’t died. He wished that no one had died, because that’s been the story of people caught in the Winchester trail. Victor, Nancy, so many more names to add to the list, but he can’t change that. He bites down the thought, forces it to take earlier paths.
Now, the Doctor, Dean’s willing to admit, has style. It takes cojones to wear those striped suites, the sneakers, the accent and that sort of hair and get away with it.
And, Dean thinks, leaning back and feeling the worlds around him fade in and out, it’s great being able to think silly thoughts without agony consuming you. It’s great watching your brother hover near the Doctor and the kid listening to the lecture on the screwdriver with shoulders unclenched, less burdened.
When you run out of time, it’s great finding a place that is timeless, a place where time isn’t a river to drown you, but water parting around you as if you’re separated by a safe warm force field looking at you with eyes full of mischief.
And yeah, he misses Bobby like hell. Misses his world and the road and the hunting. But here they are safe. Here the hellhounds can’t find them. Here he doesn’t always have nightmares. Here he knows (cuz the Doctor promised him) that the timeline can be meddled with and wrongs can be righted. Soon.
Soon.
But not just yet.
Journeys aren’t always measured in miles and the road isn’t always asphalt. But here’s Sam and the Impala and new friends and a future. And that’s a road trip, alright.
Dean doesn’t need more than that.
-The End.
SIDENOTE:
pdragon76’s prompt was ‘I want a happy Dean’. Hope you like it, doll. *smish*