Dean and Crowley's Big Adventure (5/?)
In honor of canon STEALING MY IDEA, have another bit of D&C's BA!
Previous parts can be found here.
For all that it was modeled after a castle, the best line of defensive architecture western civilization came up with in pretty much its entire existence, the mansion was absurdly easy to break into.
"Did vikings even have castles?" Dean muttered, picking the perfectly mundane, modern deadbolt on the massive front doors that loomed over the permanently-bridged moat that surrounded the place. "I thought they spent all their time sailing around, raiding other people. This guy should be living in a long boat or something."
"And going about wearing a helmet with giant bloody horns on it, I suppose," Crowley said. "Perfect for goring thy enemies and getting clotheslined by not-particularly-low hanging branches."
Dean decided to ignore him. The last tumbler in the deadbolt slid into place and he listened to the faint scrape of metal on metal as he turned the bolt back, then gripped the wrought iron handle and eased the door open.
He expected a grisly shriek of hinges, and was mildly disappointed when they glided open with barely a whisper. Where a regular castle's front gate would lead through the curtain wall to an open courtyard, ready to be filled up with an army to await any invading forces and keep them from the keep, where all the real goods would be kept, Mr. Thorsson (of course he named himself "Thorsson") had instead opted for a pretty standard front hallway, decorated in an odd mix of modern suburb and Medieval Times, the off-white, popcorn textured walls playing counterpoint to massive, dusty tapestries and what looked like samurai armor.
"Right," he said. "Because Vikings hung out in Asia all the time."
"There's actually archeological evidence to suggest that," Crowley said.
Dean wanted to continue to ignore him, and would have, if he hadn't managed to forget to get all the intel on this little job before coming in. "Where're the remains located?"
"The great feasting hall," Crowley said. "Where else?"
Dean closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. "The dining room. Okay, then." There were archways leading off the hallway to the left and right. Dean drew his gun, holding it low as he eased his way down, glancing into the offshoot rooms. Having grown up in hotel rooms, Dean had never entirely understood why someone needed more than a kitchen and a bedroom. He had to admit having a library, a gun range, and a dungeon were turning out to be pretty useful as well, though the big-ass houses he and Sam had been in over the years didn't usually have those last two. Thorsson's "castle" didn't even seem to have the library. All the rooms off the main hall seemed to lead to smaller display rooms, most containing renaissance fair grade replicas of old armor and weapons. Some of them also had couches and side tables, though Dean couldn't really imagine who the guy would entertain in a room covered in crossbow bolts. (It did look pretty badass, he had to admit. He wondered how much Sam would object to a room like that back home.) Finally, the end of the hall opened up into a long room running what looked like the whole width of the home. It was mostly empty, the stone floor uncovered, the walls vaulted some twenty feet up like a cathedral. More tapestries covered the woodwork, all of these showing one particular long-haired blonde dude with a beard vanquishing awkwardly posed mythical beasts.
"Good god," Dean muttered. "It's like the old timey version of fanfiction."
"Not a very good likeness," Crowley noted. He was standing in front of one of the tapestries, this one showing the blonde man holding aloft a balding man's head, a suited body lying at his feet.
"Dunno," Dean said with a smirk. "Looks pretty good to me." He turned away from the tapestry toward the display case that stood in the center of the room, the contents encased in thick glass and resting on a pillow of red velvet. "Great feasting hall, huh?"
"He has tables to bring in when guests are over," Crowley said, then smirked. "I imagine he thinks he'll get to use them any day now."
"That's just sad," said Dean, walking up to the case and circling it. He couldn't see any sign of an alarm system on the case. The contents, blackened, pockmarked bits of steel that Dean supposed were mostly in the shape of a bent up axe blade and a bit of domed helmet, were illuminated by a small LED in the top of the glass case. He hovered his hand next to the case, wondering if some kind of silent alarm would alert the police if he knocked on it. "I'm sure if he looked hard enough, there'd be plenty of dudes out there just waiting to go all Game of Thro -- Crowley?"
The demon had disappeared. Dean spun in place, looking for him, then was suddenly airborne as something he only managed to register as gray and misty slammed into his chest from below. He smacked into one of the tapestries, raising a cloud of dust that made him choke even as he tried to pull in a breath to replace that lost by the combined blows of the spirit and the wall.
"L-lief Erikson, I presume?" he coughed out. The spirit didn't get any less gray, misty, and shapeless upon closer inspection. In its shifting currents, Dean could almost make out faint human features, like the spirit had a faint memory of what it was supposed to look like, but had forgotten all the details. "Man, you're barely more than a viking's fart."
The tapestries around him began to pull away from the walls, flapping in a sourceless, circling wind. Dean thought maybe he should stop trying to tease North America's oldest, angriest spirit.
"Look," he said instead, slowly inching towards his feet. "I know you've been stuck on this planet way too long. You probably don't even know who you were any more. But you let me take care of business, and that can all be over, okay? You can go home to Ragnarok or -- fuck that's not the right term, is it?"
The faintly human mouth on the misty cloud of anger and insanity grew into an angry wail and the wind blew harder. Dean thought he saw a hand lifting in the midst in addition to the war cry bellow that shook his bones at a frequency lower than his ears could pick up.
Definitely the wrong term.
Dean stared the thing down, lifting his shotgun and wondering if salt still worked on a spirit this ancient. The spirit certainly didn't seem to recognize it as a threat, but then few of them ever did. Dean shot rocksalt into the thing's face and didn't wait around to see if it did more than ruffle the spirit's feathers. He dove for the display case, reached it as the wind died around him, threw off the glass top (it wasn't even attached to the stand, Jesus, this Thorsson was an idiot) and grabbed hold of the twisted, crusty metal of the old helmet.
And screamed.
Previous parts can be found here.
For all that it was modeled after a castle, the best line of defensive architecture western civilization came up with in pretty much its entire existence, the mansion was absurdly easy to break into.
"Did vikings even have castles?" Dean muttered, picking the perfectly mundane, modern deadbolt on the massive front doors that loomed over the permanently-bridged moat that surrounded the place. "I thought they spent all their time sailing around, raiding other people. This guy should be living in a long boat or something."
"And going about wearing a helmet with giant bloody horns on it, I suppose," Crowley said. "Perfect for goring thy enemies and getting clotheslined by not-particularly-low hanging branches."
Dean decided to ignore him. The last tumbler in the deadbolt slid into place and he listened to the faint scrape of metal on metal as he turned the bolt back, then gripped the wrought iron handle and eased the door open.
He expected a grisly shriek of hinges, and was mildly disappointed when they glided open with barely a whisper. Where a regular castle's front gate would lead through the curtain wall to an open courtyard, ready to be filled up with an army to await any invading forces and keep them from the keep, where all the real goods would be kept, Mr. Thorsson (of course he named himself "Thorsson") had instead opted for a pretty standard front hallway, decorated in an odd mix of modern suburb and Medieval Times, the off-white, popcorn textured walls playing counterpoint to massive, dusty tapestries and what looked like samurai armor.
"Right," he said. "Because Vikings hung out in Asia all the time."
"There's actually archeological evidence to suggest that," Crowley said.
Dean wanted to continue to ignore him, and would have, if he hadn't managed to forget to get all the intel on this little job before coming in. "Where're the remains located?"
"The great feasting hall," Crowley said. "Where else?"
Dean closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. "The dining room. Okay, then." There were archways leading off the hallway to the left and right. Dean drew his gun, holding it low as he eased his way down, glancing into the offshoot rooms. Having grown up in hotel rooms, Dean had never entirely understood why someone needed more than a kitchen and a bedroom. He had to admit having a library, a gun range, and a dungeon were turning out to be pretty useful as well, though the big-ass houses he and Sam had been in over the years didn't usually have those last two. Thorsson's "castle" didn't even seem to have the library. All the rooms off the main hall seemed to lead to smaller display rooms, most containing renaissance fair grade replicas of old armor and weapons. Some of them also had couches and side tables, though Dean couldn't really imagine who the guy would entertain in a room covered in crossbow bolts. (It did look pretty badass, he had to admit. He wondered how much Sam would object to a room like that back home.) Finally, the end of the hall opened up into a long room running what looked like the whole width of the home. It was mostly empty, the stone floor uncovered, the walls vaulted some twenty feet up like a cathedral. More tapestries covered the woodwork, all of these showing one particular long-haired blonde dude with a beard vanquishing awkwardly posed mythical beasts.
"Good god," Dean muttered. "It's like the old timey version of fanfiction."
"Not a very good likeness," Crowley noted. He was standing in front of one of the tapestries, this one showing the blonde man holding aloft a balding man's head, a suited body lying at his feet.
"Dunno," Dean said with a smirk. "Looks pretty good to me." He turned away from the tapestry toward the display case that stood in the center of the room, the contents encased in thick glass and resting on a pillow of red velvet. "Great feasting hall, huh?"
"He has tables to bring in when guests are over," Crowley said, then smirked. "I imagine he thinks he'll get to use them any day now."
"That's just sad," said Dean, walking up to the case and circling it. He couldn't see any sign of an alarm system on the case. The contents, blackened, pockmarked bits of steel that Dean supposed were mostly in the shape of a bent up axe blade and a bit of domed helmet, were illuminated by a small LED in the top of the glass case. He hovered his hand next to the case, wondering if some kind of silent alarm would alert the police if he knocked on it. "I'm sure if he looked hard enough, there'd be plenty of dudes out there just waiting to go all Game of Thro -- Crowley?"
The demon had disappeared. Dean spun in place, looking for him, then was suddenly airborne as something he only managed to register as gray and misty slammed into his chest from below. He smacked into one of the tapestries, raising a cloud of dust that made him choke even as he tried to pull in a breath to replace that lost by the combined blows of the spirit and the wall.
"L-lief Erikson, I presume?" he coughed out. The spirit didn't get any less gray, misty, and shapeless upon closer inspection. In its shifting currents, Dean could almost make out faint human features, like the spirit had a faint memory of what it was supposed to look like, but had forgotten all the details. "Man, you're barely more than a viking's fart."
The tapestries around him began to pull away from the walls, flapping in a sourceless, circling wind. Dean thought maybe he should stop trying to tease North America's oldest, angriest spirit.
"Look," he said instead, slowly inching towards his feet. "I know you've been stuck on this planet way too long. You probably don't even know who you were any more. But you let me take care of business, and that can all be over, okay? You can go home to Ragnarok or -- fuck that's not the right term, is it?"
The faintly human mouth on the misty cloud of anger and insanity grew into an angry wail and the wind blew harder. Dean thought he saw a hand lifting in the midst in addition to the war cry bellow that shook his bones at a frequency lower than his ears could pick up.
Definitely the wrong term.
Dean stared the thing down, lifting his shotgun and wondering if salt still worked on a spirit this ancient. The spirit certainly didn't seem to recognize it as a threat, but then few of them ever did. Dean shot rocksalt into the thing's face and didn't wait around to see if it did more than ruffle the spirit's feathers. He dove for the display case, reached it as the wind died around him, threw off the glass top (it wasn't even attached to the stand, Jesus, this Thorsson was an idiot) and grabbed hold of the twisted, crusty metal of the old helmet.
And screamed.