This is an unusual one for me. The last few weeks, while in between writing other stories, five of us—geminigrl11, K Hanna, Phx, and Yuma--got together and started an email round robin. We've done four, this is the second one. The inspiration was a screencap from New York Minute, which showed Jared in the trunk of a car, smiling. This is the SPN story we spun from that shot.
I own nothing, reviews craved. The other three RRs will be posted by my fellow writers.
Smiling All the Way
Yuma
It was a dumb idea. It was a stupid idea.
It was his idea.
Sam had balked at Dean's suggestion that they simply break into Wannmucker's private library—he still found it unfair for anyone who didn't appreciate reading to own a library that vast—and take the artifact before more people went Stepford and cheerfully walked into traffic or blow their nuts off. Dean's exact words, not his.
The alarms blaring in that FAA bunker still rang in Sam's ears and only punctuated the fact that he was getting further and further away from the careful, mundane life he tried to fabricate around him. The thought of adding B&E to his resume made his guts clenched.
Oh, like posing as one of his catering staff is so much better, Sam thought as he tried to stay as small—he could hear Dean laughing—as possible under the old Quaker desk.
Someone sounding like Marlon Brando with a lungful of helium was talking to Wannmucker. He was talking slow as if Wannmucker was an idiot, although Sam suspected it was more so people could understand his warbled syllables.
"…with interest was due by now," squeaky Marlon was saying. He could be heard playing with the artifact, a knife made of human bone that looked like a morbid letter opener. It scraped against Wannmucker's throat with an audible rasp.
"I-I'll g-get you your money. D-double that in fact!" Wannmucker was beginning to sound like Squeaky Marlon, himself.
Sam grit his teeth. If he hadn't been shoved out there to serve pigs-in-blankets—Dean had five—then the blinis with caviar—Dean had tried three, spit out two—he would have been up here sooner. He wouldn't have been caught under the desk, praying they couldn't see his feet, and listening to the Mickey Mouse rendition of a Godfather movie. The bad one.
"…did anything I want! They gave me their money smiling! Told them to go play in the street and they did! It's like candy from a baby! I can get you the money!"
Oh, stupid. Never tell them your plan, Sam mentally groaned, knowing what would come next.
Sure enough, Sam could hear the thin cut made, Wannmucker's whimper, and then, "Open your safe."
"Okay," Wannmucker said cheerfully. A couple of beeps and chirps later, a heavy door was groaning open.
Squeaky Marlon tsked. "You've been holding out on me. Is this everything?"
"Nope," Wannmucker piped up.
"Where's the rest?"
Wannmucker giggled. "In my super-duper secret safe."
Squeaky Marlon grunted impatiently. "Where?"
"Under my desk."
Sam blinked, suddenly realizing his nose was two inches away from the 9-digit keypad of a really fancy safe.
Oh…crap.
Phx
Sam's idea sucked.
Sam's ideas always sucked, but the kid had looked so absolutely horror-struck, the pussy, at the idea of breaking into the old fart's place that Dean had relented, but only if Sam could come up with something better. Geez, it wasn't like they'd never done anything like that before… but being the awesome big brother he was, Dean had decided to humor his brother and they went with Sam's plan anyway.
And this was it?
Dean groaned. At least Sam was the one wearing the penguin suit and pretending to be part of the catering crew. That was something, but still, "mingling" with the most boring, supposedly upper-crust partygoers this horrid little Midwestern town had to offer was enough to make a guy want to slit his wrists with a piece of paper. Even the food sucked, and the women were all way too old or ugly.
God, could this day get any worse?
His only consolation was that the artifact, while definitely nasty, was pretty cool. A knife made of human bone? Yup. Cool. Of course, the fact the knife gave its owner total control over whoever pissed him off took away some of its coolness 'cause, as Dean mused, mind control sucked. Especially with the added quirk that the poor hapless victim followed commands with a big smile on his face. It was just twisted, creepy and wrong. Very, very wrong.
Speaking of wrong, what was taking his brother so long?
Dean glanced down at his watch and frowned. Sam should have been back downstairs by now.
Tyranusfan
Sam prayed silently that Dean would burst through the door just then. Or smash through the window. Anything. Sam needed help and he needed it now.
Three years at Stanford had dulled some of his hunting skills, Sam would have been the first to admit—well, not to Dean—but he had been surprised to find that his childhood adoration of his older brother still existed, strong as ever. It had just been submerged under his "normal" school life. Sam needed Dean to be that adored hero again, before Wannmucker and Squeaky Marlon found him.
"Who the hell are you?"
Too late. Sam scrambled out from under the desk, drawing his .45 with expert grace and aiming at Squeaky Marlon's head. Some skills were never forgotten. He drew his curved blade and held it out toward Wannmucker, who was behind him near the window.
The helium-voiced Brando wannabe actually looked a little like Brando. The older years. Well, kinda like John Goodman playing Brando on Saturday Night Live. In one hand he held the bone-knife; the other was tucked in his tuxedo coat pocket. Okay, weird. Wannmucker still looked like the weasly extortionist he was…white trash with money.
"Stay where you are," Sam ordered with what he hoped sounded like confidence. The two men didn't move, though Squeaky Marlon's hand stayed in his left pocket. "I want the knife."
"Oh, I don't think so…," Squeaky Marlon warbled. At that moment, two of his thugs, whom Sam and Dean had spied earlier when they'd arrived, burst through the door. The two men were huge: Sam's height, but twice his width across the shoulders. Not good.
Wannmucker took advantage of the distraction caused by their entrance and jumped Sam from behind, sending his blade clattering across the desk. Sam struggled to bring the gun around, but Squeaky Marlon struck from the other direction, knocking the gun away.
Wannmucker was stronger than he looked, but Sam was better trained. He remembered his lessons even through college, using them once to defend Jess from a mugger in San Francisco. Another thing time hadn't dulled. Wannmucker was unprepared when Sam threw himself backward, slamming his assailant again the wall between the two windows. When the man's grip loosened, Sam spun and hurled Wannmucker over his shoulder, sending him careening into Squeaky and downing both of them.
Unfortunately, the time it took to do that was just enough to allow Squeaky's thugs to charge across the small office. No sooner was Sam free of Wannmucker when the two slammed into him. He hit the wall hard enough to knock the wind from him, and as he gasped for air, the blows started falling. The ham-like fists of his attackers quickly reduced him to a wheezing heap on the floor.
Sam was so stunned by the ferocity of the attack that he could barely resist when they dragged him upright and held him again the wall, face first. He couldn't move.
Squeaky and Wannmucker had gotten up, and Squeaky smugly strolled over behind him. "Now, young man…"
Sam felt his sleeve being rolled up, and struggled to pry himself loose, but the two thugs held him fast. The next thing he felt was the bite of a knife slashing his forearm just above the wrist.
Mere seconds later, Sam felt the urge to escape bleed from his body. Why did I want to get away, again?
He was turned, and pressed more gently against the wall, facing Squeaky and Wannmucker. Squeaky grinned at him, baring tobacco-yellowed teeth. "Why don't we start? Tell me who you are."
Sam wanted to lie, wanted to spit in Squeaky's face. He tried to. But when his brain sent the command to tell Squeaky to screw off, his mouth replied by twisting into a grin.
"My n-name's Sam Winchester."
K Hanna
It never ceased to amuse Dean that the richer somebody was, the simpler their security system was to circumvent. Granted, defenses were probably down because of the little tea party they were throwing, but ultimately? Something would've had a harder time getting into any one of the Winchesters' motel rooms than into the Wannmucker estate. And that included the motels with the hollow plywood doors.
Not to mention that by the time he was fifteen and had discovered the opposite sex, Dean had gotten pretty good at breaking into their motel rooms in the middle of the night, too. So the McMansion wasn't much of a challenge.
Dean was just slipping inside the upstairs veranda doors when he saw Sam.
Unfortunately, his brother wasn't inside the house Dean was about to perfect his B&E skills on. The kid was just coming out onto the terrace below, four beefy men surrounding him. The quartet made a turn onto the lawn below Dean and headed away from the party, toward the circular driveway at the front of the house.
Dean frowned. Okay, that definitely wasn't part of the plan. Sam was pretty good at talking himself out of predicaments, a skill Dean had taught him the finer points of, so the fact alone that he'd been discovered wouldn't have worried Dean so much. But Sam wasn't even looking at the men, let alone unleashing that earnest tone and puppy dog eyes on them, and the way they had him hemmed in… Dean chewed his lip and leaned forward over the railing, searching for a sign of a gun or knife at Sam's back.
Nothing. It was as if his brother had just decided to take a walk with the guys they were supposed to be robbing. Robbing of a knife…that…
Sam's head turned a little to the side, and Dean didn't even need to see the edge of his smile before he was in motion, cursing under his breath. Of all the stupid— They should've just done the heist the way he'd intended, but oh, no, Sam had to do it the hard way and get himself whammied, for God's sake!
It didn't take long to get down from the veranda, nor to cross the lawn after the departing group. But by the time Dean reached the edges of the fancy-shaped bushes—Sam had had some weird name for them, of course—along the edge of the brick drive, Dean could just see the two biggest guys closing the trunk lid on his eerily grinning brother.
Crap.
Yuma
The ubiquitous Cadillac had a pretty roomy trunk.
If Sam had had a choice—in this case, he hadn't, not really—and he'd needed to be tucked somewhere with his knees to his chin, backbone aching, arms pinned underneath his own body weight, into a trunk, the Cadillac would be his first choice.
Wait. His second. The Impala would have been his first. Not that Dean would ever stick him in the trunk. He'd threatened to, went so far as to prod him toward it on occasion, even threw Sam over his shoulder once after Sammy had said Motorhead sucked kiwis, but luckily Dad had stopped Dean before—
Where was he?
The car swerved a little on the road, something metal banged into his ankle. Ow.
Oh, right. The trunk.
Sam blinked. His nose itched. He wanted to scratch it but he couldn't wiggle because of the two sandbags they'd thrown in there to tie around his ankles later to "swim with the fishes." Who really says that in the real world? The sandbags were large, stuffed in the back with the spare tire, a crowbar, and a flashlight. In the really roomy trunk.
Sam paused. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something told him this wasn't right, that being in here just because Mickey Mouse Marlon told him to get in wasn't normal. Then again, that was no surprise because normal had evaded him ever since he'd been born no matter how hard he'd tried to—
The trunk. Think about the trunk.
His mind was a jumble ever since…since what? The only time his mind had cleared was when he'd been told to get in the trunk, and that had made a lot of sense so of course he got in the trunk.
The car jumped and the flashlight tapped him on the head. Ouch. Pothole. Where were they going? Oh, yeah, swim with the fishes. Boy, that was a stupid thing to say. Well, telling them his real name, what the knife did, how its effect lasted until the victim died, and so forth…that was stupider.
Sam lay there, mentally counting the bumps the car ran over, how many times the flashlight kept hitting him, and how often the tiny cut they had made with that cursed knife burned. Something nagged him that he was missing something very important but before he could mull over it…
The car stopped.
Oh, good. They were there. Maybe he could get out of the trunk now. He was getting thirsty.
Phx
"You have got to be kidding me," Dean muttered as he watched the four guys get out of the Cadillac. The bright full moon gave enough light to see without a flashlight, but it was still too dark to see if any of them were carrying the knife.
The men had driven for almost an hour before finally turning down a dirt road and ending up here at a lake, the car finally coming to a stop at the foot of small pier. Dean had parked farther back and walked down, not willing to risk being heard if he brought the muscle car any closer. What could he say? A 1967 Chevy was not exactly the most inconspicuous car to tail anyone in and a throaty V8 engine was hard to hide, even in the dark. "They're not seriously going to…" His voice trailed off as the trunk was opened and a flashlight clicked on. He strained to see his brother and then sighed and rubbed a hand wearily over his face when he did. Even as Sam turned away from the blinding light shining in his face, it was easy to see that the kid was still whammied. Damn.
As the smiling fool was "helped" out of the trunk and then continued grinning as two of the thugs escorted him onto the pier and started tying something to his ankles—sandbags?—Dean grimaced. Wannmucker and associates, or asses for short, were planning on sending his brother to a watery grave, and if Dean wasn't pissed off before, he was now. No soggy Sammys allowed.
Quietly moving through the trees, the hunter approached, his handgun held loosely in his grip. These were people. If he killed them, Sam would be pissed. If he didn't, Sam would be dead. There was no contest. These guys were going down.
"Hey!" he yelled as he brought the gun up. Everyone turned to look at him. "Nobody move!"
"Who are you?" one guy—Dean cocked an eyebrow—squeaked as he moved closer to Sam. The Mickey Mouse Club Mafia? Just freakin' wonderful.
"You deaf, or just stupid?" He ignored the question and gestured with the gun again. "I said nobody move. That means you too, asshole."
Ignoring the threat, the guy turned to Sam. "Who is this clown?"
Dean caught a glimpse of the white of bone. Okay, so is was the guy calling the shots… and fired a warning shot, cutting his brother's words off, knowing Sam would have no choice but answer. "On the ground," he barked, pleased when three of the men were kissing dirt before he'd finished the order, but that still left the guy holding the knife. The guy controlling Sam. Dean lined up his next shot and growled, "Step away from the kid."
The guy smirked at him, the word out of his mouth even as Dean took his shot. "Jump."
The bullet shattered the knife just as Sam started to jump…
Tyranusfan
A minute or so after the car stopped moving, the trunk lid opened. Sam saw three silhouettes standing above him, but was blinded when one of them clicked on a flashlight and shined it in his face. He turned away, futilely closing his eyes. Ow. I've got eyes, you know…
"Get out," one of them said, voice high and squeaky. Sam smiled at him, more than happy to oblige. Unfortunately, his legs had stiffened up and he flailed. He kept smiling as he tried to comply with Squeaky's order. He really was trying. Damn, he was thirsty.
The men apparently didn't have much patience, because two of them growled and reached for him, hauling his and his uncooperative limbs roughly out of the car and onto what looked like a pier. Were they going on a boat? Sam hadn't been on a boat since that swamp monster in Flor—
"Go with these men," Squeaky told him, a hint of smug satisfaction in his voice. Sam smiled, nodded, and let the two giants pull him away from the car and down to the end of the pier. Sam looked out across the expanse of water as the men bent down and tied…something…to each of his legs.
"Hey!" a voice cried out from behind him.
Sam turned, curious as to who else would be out here in the middle of the night. The voice sounded familiar, too.
"Nobody move!" the voice called authoritatively. Sam blinked. Was it the police? Why would the police be here?
"Who are you?" Squeaky challenged the visitor. He sounded angry. Well…as angry as Mickey Mouse could sound. Sam giggled quietly to himself at the thought.
"You deaf, or just stupid? I said nobody move. That means you too, asshole," the newcomer yelled back. Oh. It was Dean. Of course. The tone made sense now. It was Dean, and he was really, really mad. Sam grinned at Dean, waving briefly as his brother got a little closer.
Squeaky turned toward Sam. "Who is this clown?"
This is my brother, Dean, Sam tried to explain helpfully. He liked to help people. But as he opened his mouth to say just that, the loud report of a gun cut him off. Nine mil, sounded like. Dean's favorite pearl-handled one.
Dean loved that gun. Sam loved Dean. He'd forgotten that during the last three years. He hadn't meant to, it was just easy when there was school and Jess and pre-law… Until recently, Sam had just forgotten how much he'd missed Dean, especially during those first two years alone in California. Funny how you don't know what you have until—
He'd have to tell Dean he'd missed him at school. He really had. When they were done here, Sam would tell Dean all about it. He smiled at the thought.
Dean's voice broke into his thoughts again, bringing him back to the present. "On the ground!"
The two big—God, they are huge, are they football players?—guys and the weasel-looking one dropped down to the ground. Squeaky didn't move. Dean leveled the gun at Squeaky and hissed, "step away from the kid."
Squeaky smirked at Dean, then turned abruptly to Sam. "Jump."
Sam grinned. At last, water. He was so freakin' thirsty… He turned and leapt off the pier as another loud crack filled the night air.
It all happened so fast. There was a flash of light, and Sam felt like he was waking up from a dream. Holy shit!
He was in midair when he realized he had jumped from the pier. His forward momentum was disrupted when he suddenly flailed his arms, but it wasn't enough to stop his fall. Instead of the graceful dive he seemed to have initiated, he dropped like a stone. The ice cold water smacked him in the face and he gasped in shock, getting a mouthful of water in return.
Sam panicked, frantically trying to swim, but he couldn't move his legs. He was tied to something on the pier. His head went under again. Managing to hold his breath this time, he tried everything, even a freakin' doggy paddle. He came up again, coughing out water and greedily sucking in air.
He managed a look back over his shoulder; ropes were tied to his legs at the knee, and lead back to the pier. It was keeping him from going further out, but was also keeping him from righting himself, and he kept going under head first.
In between trips into the lake, he heard the crack of a gun, a .22, his brain automatically and absurdly identified immediately. The shot was immediately followed to two deeper, louder ones. 9mm. Dean. It had to be Dean.
Sam's mind instantly went to worst case scenario. Oh, God, Dean had been shot. Squeaky. Squeaky and Wannmucker, they must have—- His fretting was interrupted when a body hit the water, the wave flipping Sam onto his side. This position was worse than the other, as it tangled the ropes on his legs, and tilted him at a deeper angle. His head went under.
Panic settled in again as he quickly realized he wasn't coming back up this time. He groped blindly with his arms, his right hand dragging in mud for a moment. The bottom of the lake was just beneath him, a little over an arm's length away, not enough to push himself up out of the water.
The icy cold was seeping into him as his all too matter-of-fact brain deduced that he only had a few seconds of oxygen left. He was going to drown like this, not knowing if Dean—-
A surge of bubbles and sound ushered something else into the water, something big. Sam couldn't see, but felt something wrap around him and heave him upward. He exited the water so fast his head smacked into the side of the wooden pier, dazing him. Sam didn't care about the explosion of pain in his head or the fact that he was bent double and very uncomfortably, with his feet sticking out of the water and something—-no, someone—-holding his torso up in an iron grip.
Dean. He panted, feeding his starved lungs, and twisted his head to find his brother mere inches from his face, looking every bit as frantic as Sam had felt a moment before.
"Dean?" he asked, triggering a series of coughs. His shoulder was pressed against Dean's chest, and he lifted one too-heavy arm to hold onto Dean's shoulder. His head drooped, landing at the crook Dean's neck in a most undignified manner. Dean's free hand patted his head and checked for injuries.
"Shut up for a second, Sammy. Damn, that was close…"
Dean shifted a bit, the hand dropping away. "Hang on, I just gotta…there," Sam saw a glint of light from a knife, and his legs suddenly fell free into the water, righting him. He wrapped both arms around Dean briefly while he found his footing in the muck below them. For a minute, he imagined he felt Dean's arms do the same. He must have imagined it because Dean wasn't the touchy-feely type. Another second and he was standing free, and Dean had only an arm at his back to steady him.
Yeah, he must have imagined it. It had been a long night.
"You okay?" Dean asked. Sam just rolled his eyes and laughed. "Yeah, I thought so. Let's get out of this crap."
Dean pushed him to lead the way, and they trudged out of the lake beside the pier. The car was still at the end of the wooden structure, but the men were gone. Sam remembered the first body that had entered the water.
"I thought—- Somebody fell into the lake… Was that—-?"
"Mickey Mouse? Yeah, he pulled a gun on me."
Pulled a…shot a gun. Sam had heard a shot from a gun that wasn't Dean's. The panic from earlier resurged and Sam turned, grasping his brother's soggy jacket.
"Did he hit you? Are you—-?"
"Calm down, fish breath," Dean shrugged him off. "He took a shot at me, I dropped him. It was him or you, Sam. Don't think I'm sorry about it."
Sam nodded. He knew Dean wouldn't be sorry about that. Sam wouldn't be either if their roles were reversed. "What about the others?"
Dean shrugged. "Took off as soon as the knife was busted. I guess Mickey Mobster was using it to control all of them."
"So," Sam stopped, realizing he didn't know where they were going. "The knife's history?"
"Yup," Dean nodded, stopping when he noticed Sam had stopped. He pointed down the road. "Car's over there, come on. You probably need to get out of those clothes."
Sam couldn't argue with that, especially when the night breeze hit him and sent shivers down his back. Still, he grinned at his brother. "Trying to get me undressed? Sorry, I don't swing that way. Not on a first date, anyway."
"Shuddup!" Dean drawled as he led the way down the road.
END