ladydrace | 100 Things Challenge, #15!

Haven't done one of these in ages...

Working title: "Trickster Time!"
Fandom: SPN.
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel. (It's what I'm going for anyway)
Other stuff: Au.
Word count: 2300~ words so far.

You can all go ahead and blame my son for this one. Having an almost-4-year old around means you get exposed to quite a lot of children's TV, and a lot of these presenters are just too damn cute. Add to that the fact that Gabriel would be just fucking perfect hosting a kid's show, and voila! Brand spankin' new AU was born! And FYI, I lean heavily on brain-searing stuff like Lazy Town for inspiration. Fair warning.

Notes:
The plot started out as just a vague "wow, I'd love to see Gabriel host a kid's show" but before I knew it an actual plot took shape. The setup I'm most set on right now (I have several plot options for this), is the idea that Gabriel was originally a chef or something, but was sort of half-forced to join the family business of making family friendly (and Bible-compliant) TV. One of Gabe's brothers (right now I'm thinking Michael) hosts a kid's show (I was thinking a dulled down version of Lazy Town here) and decides that to boost ratings, what his show needs is a villain. Gabriel signs on to become The Trickster, a thoughtless, somewhat mean, scheming antagonist that the host can bounce his educational plots off of. Only problem is that in record time, The Trickster becomes the most popular character of the entire fucking network, even under the thumb of the bible-bashing goodie-two-shoes story-lines which wasn't really all that entertaining in Gabriel's opinion. So he decides that The Trickster needs his own show. The entire network has an aneurysm over this, and cuts Gabriel (and The Trickster) off completely. Gabriel tells them all to fuck off and starts up on his own. Trickster Time is born. And takes off like a fucking rocket.

I sort of want it to be Sam/Gabriel, but it might end up being only vague pre-slash, because I'm entirely too focused on Gabriel's story here.

Snippet:

“Hey, kids, guess what! That's right, it's TRICKSTER TIME!”

Perky music blared from Bobby's ancient TV, and on the screen an otherwise unassuming dude started bouncing around, wearing clothes so eye-searing that if the music hadn't already made Dean feel vaguely ill, then the psychedelic colors sure would have.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Dean grumbled, as Bobby turned off the TV, to the relief of everyone in the room. Even Sam looked a little green around the gills.

“No, I ain't kiddin' ya. You boys drop in on me after two years without a peep and ask me to find you jobs ASAP. This is it. This guy needs heavy lifters and broom swingers, and I owe him a favor. Ask me about it and I'll shoot ya.”

Dean put up his hands in a placating gesture. “Sure, whatever, we'll take it. It's a paying job, so it's golden.” Sam nodded behind him, and Bobby scowled at them. “Careful, you might hurt yourselves with your enthusiasm.”

“Dibs on the heavy lifting,” Dean said, and Sam rolled his eyes.

“His name's Gabriel, and he needs people yesterday, so you boys better grab your shit and head over. I'll give him a call and let him know you're coming.”

“Right, thanks Bobby,” Sam said, more polite than Dean really felt up to being just then, even to Bobby. “Yeah, thanks,” Dean muttered and followed Sam out.

“A kid's show. I mean really?” Dean complained the second the door was closed behind them. “Us? Should we really be even marginally involved in anything that affects kids?”

“We'll be doing grunt work, Dean. I doubt anything we do will affect the viewers at all.”

“Still. I don't like it.”

“You were the one who wanted to go legit,” Sam reminded him in a low voice, and Dean immediately felt bad. He was the one who'd been dragging Sammy around for years after their dad died, not able to stop for longer than a few days anywhere, and Sam had been there by his side all the way, regardless of his own wishes. In reality Dean didn't want to settle down at all, but he'd finally been able to pull his head out of his own ass long enough to realize that Sam did. Had always wanted to. And Dean had had enough of being a selfish asshole. So they'd called Bobby and now it was time to put down some roots.

The address Bobby had given them turned out to be a small studio downtown. Inside it was nothing short of chaos.

As they stepped through the door labeled “employees only” they were met by a couple of burly guys carrying what looked like half a plaster wall. Behind them a short man was talking non-stop. He was wearing a dusty t-shirt and ill-fitting jeans, rather then the eye-searing outfit from the show, but he was still unmistakably Gabriel.

“I can't believe you assholes, I can't leave you alone for five freakin' minutes without you breaking something! This place is a dump as it is, I don't need you incompetent fucks to take down the goddamn building around me!” He spotted Dean and Sam as they stepped aside to make way for the apparent wall-breakers.

“You two! You're from Singer?”

“Yeah, my name's Sam and this is Dean-”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You're here for work, right?”

Sam shut his mouth and just nodded.

“Awesome. Any of you bozos know how to fix a john?”

Dean pointed a thumb at Sam faster than a speeding bullet.

“Great! Sasquatch, upstairs, tools at the end of the hall, john's on the left. Middle stall. Go!”

Sending one last bitch face at Dean, Sam headed up the worn staircase.

“You, Swim Suit Edition! You get to help Dumb and Dumber pick up what used to be the back wall of my set. We're shooting at five, and by then I need that wall back up!”

“Uh...”

“What, you need a road map? It's rubble, back there, to be taken outside. Chop chop!”

Dean reminded himself firmly that Sam was currently upstairs getting friendly with a toilet, before sending the utter asshole, who was apparently his new boss, a strained smile and went to go pick up some wall. So far Dean really hated going legit.