Chapter Title: Stakes
Author: Restive Nature
Disclaimer: Neither show represented in this fiction belongs to me. Dark Angel is the product of Cameron/Eglee and Fox, whereas Supernatural is the product of Kripke and The CW. No profits are made from this fiction and it is intended for private enjoyment only.
Rating: PG-15
Genre: Crossover
Type: Humorous
Pairing: None/ implied longing
Summary: The lines are drawn and the stakes are high.
Spoilers/ Timeline: This would take place after Sam has left for Stanford while Max, Dean and John are all on the road together.
Feedback: Always welcome!
Distribution: Ask first please.
A/N: This story, while being in the same universe as WiC, does not actually occur within that storyline. This fiction is just an off-shoot of what might have happened.
A/N2- I was watching the DA episode “C.R.E.A.M.” and I couldn't help but write this!
"Enough!" John roared, spinning around in the chair that he was seated in, at another dingy little motel room that they had pulled into that afternoon. Both his children, the ones that had remained with him, anyway, froze. Their eyes wide with startlement and surprise, since John rarely had to raise his voice too awful much to get their attention, Though their bodies were stiff, their eyes still slid towards one another, perhaps gaging off each other just how much trouble they were in. John's eyes glittered as he watched them. Finally he pushed to his feet and moved to stand before them. Both Dean and Max stiffened even more, though neither one of them snapped to attention. "I have had it," John hissed as his gaze moved back and forth between them. "I've just spent the better part of an afternoon listening to you two bicker. And I'm sick of it!"
"So I suppose you're glad we weren't all riding together then huh?" Dean smirked, trying to throw off his father's anger with humor. And it might have worked if what he'd just said had been anything else. But that just indicated something else to John.
"Oh my God," the older man groaned. "You've been arguing about this, this? For how long?"
"Well we weren't exactly arguing," Max hedged, her head tilted to one side in a thoughtful manner.
"How long?" John demanded again, through gritted teeth. Max and Dean glanced at one another contemplatively.
"It was about Mississippi, wasn't it?" Dean nodded and Max pursed her lips.
"Yeah, Jackson," she agreed. "'cause you were all bent out of shape when that guy threw in that free donut with my lunch order."
"Well geeze Max," Dean groused. "You're old enough to know now that you don't take candy from strangers."
"Wasn't candy and we watched him serve other people from the same tray and they didn't keel over dead," Max snorted.
"Wait!" John interceded angrily. "Jackson, Mississippi?" Both kids nodded. "You've been arguing about this for two days?"
"Well not arguing per se," Dean grinned again. "Discussing..."
"Debating!" Max chimed in. They glanced at each other and shared a conspiratorial grin. They had such fun driving their father insane.
"Chatting," Dean nodded.
"Whining," Max drawled out and suddenly Dean's grin deepened as they began to turn to one another.
"Moaning and complaining," Dean countered, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Bitching and pissant-ing," Max threw out, hands on her hips. Dean's jaw dropped and he turned back to his father.
"That's not even a word!" he protested. John just shook his head sadly while Max watched them both, triumphant. Dean, realizing that he'd let his sister get the best of him, turned back to her. "And I still say I'd win." Max opened her mouth ready with the ages-old little sister retort, but before she could even draw air to begin, John was breaking it up again.
"I don't want to hear it," he protested loudly, holding one hand up in each of their faces, standing in between them. He took in a huge breath and let it out slowly, counting to ten silently and praying for patience. "Okay, I have an idea how to solve this." That caught their interest immediately and both kids paid attention to John, who was glancing at his watch. "All right, it's just after six now. He stepped back and reached for his wallet in his back pocket. "You each have until midnight to prove yourselves. Here's a hundred, each." He pulled out two one hundred dollar bills and separated them, one for each child. "That will be paid back, believe me."
But instead of hopping to, both Max and Dean were eying him suspiciously. Dean broke first though. "What does the winner get?" he asked as he stuffed the money his father had just given him into his own jeans pocket.
John rolled his eyes. "The satisfaction of winning?" he asked acerbically, watching both of them. They glanced at one another and then with eerily similar smirks, they shook their heads together in the negative. "Whatever," John snorted. "Figure that out for yourselves." The pair nodded and turning to one another again, excluded John in a swift debate.
"Slave for a day?" Max asked. Dean nodded.
"12 or 24?" he countered.
"24 of course," Max snorted. "Consecutive or broken down?"
Dean flashed her a smile. "Consecutive. Done?"
"Done!" The pair shook hands and turned back to their father. He just shook his head sadly.
"Just remember," he warned. "Be back by midnight or there will be dire consequences."
"Gotcha Dad," Dean grinned as he headed for the door, scooping up his jacket as he moved. Max on the other hand, was heading for the bathroom, scooping up her clothing bag as she went.
*****
"So I guess little Maxie is gonna have to forfeit," Dean chuckled, his voice, though slightly haggard, was filled to the brim with satisfaction. He was watching his watch, counting down the minutes to midnight. John was doing the same, though he was slightly more worried. But then, with three minutes left to go, he relaxed from his worried position by the door. He heard her motorcycle. Glancing out the window, he confirmed that it was indeed his daughter. He dropped the curtain back and moved to sit down at the table where Dean was counting out a pile of money. He'd only arrived back at the motel some fifteen minutes prior. And that was due to the clocks in the bar being fifteen minutes fast, he explained to his father. It was a common enough practice around the country.
"So what's the grand total?" John asked as Dean finished dropping the last bill onto the pile of money he'd counted.
"Minus the hundred bucks you staked me?" Dean pursed his lips. "Eight hundred forty-three." John whistled, soft and low. That was a damn decent night. Just then, Max breezed in.
"Did I make it?" she panted just slightly out of breath. John made a show of checking his watch.
"With one minute to spare," he chuckled.
"Sorry," Max grinned. "I would have been here sooner, but it was so hard to get away from that crowd." John watched his daughter, settling himself in for the performance that was about to begin. Since he'd seen her before she'd left on her little money making jaunt, she'd had to explain to him what she was up to before he let her go. There really wasn't much he could do to stop her though, she was legally an adult now.
"So," Dean drawled, "how'd you do? Me, I'm sitting pretty on eight four three."
"Hang on," Max grunted as she thrust one hand into the left pocket of the trench coat that she was wearing. She began pulling out small bills, counting them out quickly and expertly as Dean began to snicker. Once she'd reached one hundred, using up every last bill that she'd had in that pocket, she handed the crumpled and then smoothed out bills to John. He accepted them with one eyebrow raised. "There," Max smiled. "Paid back in full." Dean snickered even louder now.
"That's the best you can do Maxie?" he taunted. He leaned back in his chair, reaching his arms up to stretch. "Looks like I'm the man."
"Not so fast there hot shot," Max retorted instantly as she began to undo the tie to her coat. "That's just paying Dad back. My winnings are in my other pocket." That said, she removed the coat and Dean, who'd been eying her happily in one moment, was staring, jaw dropped, the next.
John had to hide his own smirk. Max, before she'd left for her excursion, had changed into an amazingly tight fitting dress. And not only that, the form fitting dress had been designed to show off more than the usual assets, having had large portions of the sides cut away, to reveal the wearer's waist and lower back and then there was the... ample cleavage factor. John hadn't been too happy about it and seeing the flush rising in his son's cheeks, knew that Dean shared his opinion, though probably for very different reasons. But since John had already worked out his struggle with his daughter growing up, he was able to sit back and enjoy the performance. He couldn't help the bark of laughter at the artful look on Max's face as she glanced down at herself, following Dean's heated gaze that the poor boy wasn't doing anything to hide.
"Ooh," she simpered, catching sight of, not just her cleavage, but what was... caught there. "How did I miss that one. She pulled a twenty from between her breasts and threw it onto the table. And then, disregarding her brother completely, she began pulling money from her trench coat pocket. And even John's laughter subsided as he realized what he was seeing.
"Max," he breathed out, "that's..." He couldn't even begin to think of adding it up, he was so stunned by the amount.
"Nine thousand, two hundred and thirty eight dollars," Max announced happily. "Oh, plus this twenty I missed, making it fifty-eight."
"How..." Dean choked out, his eyes brimming with confusion, lust and more than a hint of self-righteous anger. And then it all seemed to explode at once. "What the hell were you doing?"
"I wasn't strolling the docks," Max snapped back, though there wasn't that much of a real bite to her tone. "If that's what you were worried about."
"I-!"
"Because the pay is so much better at the Ritz," Max giggled, her ponytail swinging as her whole body shook and John once again had to try and control his laughter.
"You were-!" Dean's eyes were glittering dangerously now.
"Oh relax," Max waved a dismissive hand at her elder brother.
"What did you do?" Dean demanded, striving to relieve a little of the pressure building in his... body, without being obvious about it.
"I went gambling," Max smiled. "Wasn't that the bet? To see who was better at making more money. Or scamming it?"
"Yeah," Dean grunted. "But nine thou..."
"I know, right," Max giggled suddenly and John almost choked on his laughter as his beautiful daughter suddenly became a vacuous airhead right before their very eyes. "'Cause I just got offa work, dancin' ova at The Electric Ave. Huge tip night! And one a my customers told me that the Lions' Den was a really great place to come and play that little game with the thing and the ball that goes roun' and round!" She ended her little speech, one hand on her hip, the other toying with the end of her ponytail. Her lips were pursed in a coy smile, while she batted her lashes flirtatiously at them. She held that pose for a moment and then dropped the pretense with a genuine smile. "So, I'd say that brings a very satisfying end to that debate, right Dean?"
John glanced at his son and the laughter he'd been trying to hold back, burst forth once more. "Dean!" he barked and his son's eyes reluctantly turned towards him.
"Well, I'm gonna go take a shower and get ready for bed," Max announced as she pivoted on one heel and headed to the bathroom. John heard a tiny, pained groan and shook his head. Thank God that Max was oblivious to her brother's feelings for her, because John just hoped that there was no way in hell that she'd ever be that intentionally cruel to a guy. John waited until the bathroom door shut.
"Dean," he grunted once more and his son came back to himself, shooting his father a wary glance before he grimaced and looked back down at his now meager, comparatively speaking, winnings. Before anything more could be said, the door to the bathroom re-opened and Max popped her head back out.
"Oh and slave boy," she chortled wickedly, "your day begins at six a.m. sharp! You can start with breakfast in bed. And make it good." She disappeared once more and the two men turned to each other.
"Well, I guess that's that," Dean sighed as he began to gather up his money. "The best man won."
"I heard that!" Max shouted out from the bathroom. "And I'm a woman!"
"Whatever," Dean shouted back, apparently now able to get back on equal footing, now that temptation was out of the room. "Just don't expect me to call you Master!"
"Ooh, I like the sound of that."
As the banter between the two continued, John watched thoughtfully. In a way, maybe Dean was right. The best man had won. Because Max didn't realize that the boy had been her willing slave, all along. Now he really had the chance to show her that he would and could, do anything ... for her.
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