Lucky Strike
Dec. 21st, 2014 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamer...Suddenly I feel like a parent and it's a little terrifying, not gonna lie.
Anyway, this probably came from the fact that every now and then, I'll just go 'you know, I want to read some Dean/Xander fanfiction' and then realize 'you know, self, there is very little Dean/Xander fanfic on the internets' right about the time I wanted to write Shadowed Suspicions. And then Dean had the Stand Wayward Son. And then I was like...well. I can't not write that. There'll probably be more, later. Hopefully after I've gotten more of the general canonverse written for it, because I don't write gen very often and it's kind of cool, but at the same time this happened and. Yeah. Anyway. I will hopefully update soon, since the next 'chapter' for Shadowed Suspicion is another Stand picture, and I should really get them out of that cliffhanger eventually.
This could probably be read as a general AU, because of the mention that Dean's not traveling with John Winchester at this point, aside from the references to Xander as Jojo, a Joestar, or his actual Jojo name. Which actually might be a bit of a spoiler for Shadowed Suspicions, actually, since we haven't gotten to that point yet, where he's comfortable with people calling him by either, and he hasn't actually chosen his Jo- first name yet. So, I guess, if you don't want that spoiled, don't read this until that point in Shadowed Suspicions.
Main Points:
Supernatural crossover with a Shadowed Suspicions (another fanfic on here) AU. So, to be clear, it's kind of a...Supernatural/BtVS/Jojo's Bizarre Adventure crossover. Sort of. There's a lot of alternate universing and crossover stuff going on here.
Summary: The Scoobies, including Dean, have a bit of a day off.
Word Count: 2,210
Notes: Dean being Dean, there might be a little innuendo. Also, Dean/Xander pairing. Fluff.
Rating: K+
“Well, the Hellmouth is supposedly quiet for the next couple days. How’d you feel about heading down to the bowling alley?”
Dean literally stops moving, shooting Xander a disbelieving glance. “Seriously? That’s one of the lamest games in the history of ever.”
He didn’t expect his boyfriend to lean against the wall, refusing to move, a slow, mischievous smile spreading over his face that makes a tingle travel like fingers down his spine. “You are going to take that back,” he announced with certainty. The confidence was pretty sexy too. Dean shifts as he stops. It’s pretty easy to tune out Queen Cordy at the end of the hallway and the other noise from people who don’t matter. The world narrows to the two of them, which is a bit of a rush.
Just admitting it, though, wasn’t the name of the game. “What? Seriously, it’s all luck.”
Xander’s grin doesn’t fade. It’s a script they both share. “I’m going to show you exactly how much skill it takes. You, me, the girls. Hope you’re hungry, because you’ll be eating your words.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re talking big now.” Dean waits until Xander leans back away from the wall and he falls in step behind as they head to class. The view’s better from back here. “My lucky strike,” he practically purrs, just barely loud enough for Xan to hear.
The faltering step and the red ears are all the reward he needs. He catches up now, carries his boyfriend’s books, because he just loves trying to keep that blush on those cheeks. Jojo tries to ignore that, carry on a normal conversation as if the previous plans had been forgotten for the time being. He can’t completely hide the pleased smile, though, or the breathless laughter that creeps in every now and then when Dean meets his gaze and grins.
It’s honestly kind of surprising when he shows up at the bowling alley and doesn’t get his bones jumped by any fangy friends. It seems like the sort of place that would be a prime hunting ground, either way one defined it, but the place was practically deserted and now that he thought about it, they’d never been here on patrol. His first instinct is that maybe this is one of those fabled neutral ground places, or maybe it’s owned by a Hunter or a demon, or maybe both. Before Xander, before Sunnydale, the second would have been an occasion for grabbing the shotgun out of the trunk, but now he knew that they weren’t all bad, and in any case Xan wouldn’t have mentioned it if it’d been a problem and the demon was hostile.
It’s even more surprising when he walks in and Xander’s already there, wearing one of those ridiculous clown-like bowling getups that oddly enough neither looks out of place nor…bad. On him, anyway. The bowling shoes he has aren’t ridiculously clown-like, but kind of…well, honestly kind of plain, which is something Xander never does, so that’s a bit of a shock. And they’re also kind of old, and scuffed, but…well-worn, well loved, like the gun John gave that’s the only thing Dean actually keeps from the jerk and…he’s getting sidetracked from things that matter.
There’s also a bowling bag, empty, and a bowling ball already waiting in the ball-area. It’s like a storm, black and silver with what might be flashes of blue woven in or might just be a trick of the light.
Xan notices that he’s there and waves energetically, looking like the dork he is with a huge, dorky, gorgeous smile plastered over his face. Dean begins to wander over, but gets stopped by the clerk, and Xander practically has to run up to get him and walks him through the correct shoe size and finding exactly the correct bowling ball, excitement barely contained, and maybe, maybe, Dean can revise his mental categorization of bowling, if only to get Xander to smile this widely with no hint of shadow and the geeky excitement practically radiating from him. He’s careful when he puts one then another weight in Dean’s hands, evaluating one then another, and then apparently they have to find ones with exactly the right size finger holes. It’s somewhat amusing to think of all the innuendo he possibly can, despite how innocent Xan’s concentration is. He’d probably blush and get really flustered and laugh, the stupid one, not the one Dean likes to hear more, if he said anything. Still, this is rare. Dirty jokes are cheap.
Willow and Buffy have arrived and pretty much set up by the time they find one that earns the Joestar stamp of approval. Xander grabs the card out of Buffy’s hands, sticking his tongue out at her when she seems to be unhappy with that choice of action. Willow hands him the pencil shyly. He really hopes that she ends up with someone soon, because this continual pining can’t be good for her, and he still hopes, as does Johan, that she ends up happy.
Eventually, Xander finishes his scribbling and hands out the card proudly.
It seems that he’s decided that normal, human names aren’t enough for this card. They all have to be nicknames. “‘Hotshot’? Is that you?” he reads slowly, before earning a shake of the head and a ‘keep reading’ gesture. He takes his time, just to annoy Jojo. “‘Xena’? Really?” Buffy rolls her eyes, but doesn’t interrupt. “‘White Hat.’” He doesn’t get that at all.
“Oh! That’s referring to my computer skills!” Willow exclaims proudly, blushing slightly. “White hat hackers are ones that do it, you know, for the good. And then there’s grey hats, which do it without permission, which technically might be me because I’m usually the one hacking the police databases and stuff and they didn’t really ask for me to do it even though I’m doing it to save people and stop evil and stuff and not using my computer skills for evil or personal gain which would make me a black hat but they still didn’t ask me to do it but Xander would refer to me as a white hat even if I might technically not be one and maybe I shouldn’t really be talking about this in the middle of a public bowling alley even though we’re pretty much the only ones here…” She’ll probably go on like that for a while, so he might as well continue.
He gets to the last one on the list and bursts out laughing hard enough that Willow takes the card from him, curious and quizzical.
“‘Lucky Strike’?” she reads out loud, and neither of the girls get it, which just makes it even more friggin’ hilarious.
Xander’s grinning, pleased, content, and stretches, long and slow. “You’re Hotshot,” he states, unnecessarily, but Dean’s smile falters just slightly as he shivers.
“This is a bet, by the way. You have to prove your mouth wasn’t just running off without you again.” He places his bowling ball in the return and begins to tie his shoes.
“You’re going to want those to be tighter,” Xander advises over his shoulder, as the pizza arrives. Of course that boy would want food. Not that Dean disapproves, one bit. “What do I win when I win?” he asks louder, confident grin back.
“When I win, you mean.” Dean manages to spend a whole minute pretending to think. “I’ll think of something.”
“Mystery prize. You’re gonna regret that.”
Dean sees Buffy staring and winks. She rolls her eyes fondly at them both. “It’s been forever since I’ve been in one of these. Before…” Her expression falters, and her voice is a little shaky as she finishes the sentence. “Before I became Slayer.”
The atmosphere alters, shifts so it was pushing them down, breathing on their necks. Jojo’s the one that manages to push past it, which is unusual. “Well, think of it as an exercise in control, then. It’s tough with super strength not to go overboard. Trust me, I figured that one out on my own. I’m just lucky I didn’t super wreck my ball.”
“Do me a favor.” The Slayer stretches, a disturbed expression on her face that nonetheless lightens their load. “Don’t ever sound like Giles again.”
Xander makes a face as he sits. “Said and done, Buff.”
It’s pretty clear that Xander’s somewhat rusty, but it’s also not luck as he keeps getting strikes at the end of the game. He’s super courteous, cheers on his friends when they do well, gives them encouragement when they don’t. He does give Dean a glare when he slaps that tempting backside, but then, Jojo was kind of asking for it. But when it’s his turn then the world disappears and Xan’s concentration is total. It’s clear that this is seriously practiced, that he knows exactly what he’s doing. He manages to suppress the looks of disappointment pretty well when he gets 8 or 9 points, according to Willow, who as a neutral third party who knows how to score these things is being scorekeeper. It’s not a matter of doing worse than them, because that’s not even close to what’s going on, especially with Dean’s consistent gutterballs. Xander teases about changing the name to ‘Gutter King’, and Buffy joins in with a remark about that describing exactly where Dean’s imagination is most of the time, and instead of his second chance up there, he tackles Xander on the seats and tickles him into helpless giggles until Buffy joins in. He’s frustrated with himself. Just like always, he’s not living up to his own expectations, but he’s gotten better about beating himself up about it. And the final score of 137 is by no means bad, especially compared to Dean’s 43, Willow’s 76, or even Buffy’s 102, but he’s still pouting slightly and chasing that away with pizza.
Then again, there’s an ease, a relaxed confidence that’d been there at first and was creeping back in as they started the second game. By the end of the first, he’d apparently gotten back into stride. And seemingly effortlessly, he kept knocking down the pins on the first or second chance (strike or spare, Willow tells him). He became less expressive about his turns, much quieter.
It’s just the slightest bit breathtaking, and yeah, okay, so it might actually be a little about skill, but Dean plans to not let Xander know without a fight.
He doesn’t get the chance, when suddenly Xander’s behind him on the floor, right behind him, arms gently guiding his own. He’s not usually this demonstrative, especially in public, and suddenly Dean feels like he’s burning. “It’s not a matter of strength,” Xander’s explaining, and the words are to all of them, which just makes this a little more surreal. And he’s loving every minute of it, even as a part of him is squirming happily about this. “I mean, yeah, strength is important, because without it you can’t bring the ball up every time. But consistency is the name of this game. You need to have a consistent approach. You need to have complete control of the ball and your arm, especially the wrist. Sudden jostling of the ball right before you let it go will affect its trajectory. And when you pull it back to give it speed,” he demonstrates with Dean’s arm, which is adorable and couply and Dean never thought he’d be okay with these small, silly things until they started happening, at which point he was all for them, “…you shouldn’t pull it back too far, or you’ll lose control over it.”
He starts trying to move back, but almost unconsciously Dean moves back with him, and he hears the half laugh, half cough, all embarrassed. “Well, I suppose with how bad you’re doing, you have to get all the help you can get.” There’s a moment as Xander ponders his next words. “Dean, you have a really great spin, but you’re probably not doing it on purpose. Which is the problem. You almost fall over all the time, which is not the point.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he mutters, but Jojo catches the words.
Dean can hear the smile in his boyfriend’s reply. “Hey, that fancy thing that it looks like they do in the movies all the time really isn’t accurate, sadly. Losing your balance isn’t the way to have control. You want to keep your grip pretty much the same until you let it go.” He demonstrates again, and his arm is really kind of warm by this point, being manipulated effortlessly. “Try that out, and I can see the way you do it. Believe it or not, there isn’t just one way to do it. The trick is, again, control, and learning your style and making that consistent. Then I can give you more specific advice.”
“I like your style of advice.” Dean doesn’t even have to turn to know that Xan’s grinning, and he is too, now. Xander was right, and knows Dean’s realized that. But now Dean has something to work with, something to work toward, and if he can manage to break a hundred, now, he won’t even mind that he’s promised Jojo who knows what.
