Title: Troll
Author:
brightly_litRating: PG
Genre: gen, casefic, humor
Characters: Sam, Dean, the thing they're hunting
Word Count: ~1000
Summary: Sam and Dean hunt a monster they never have before: a troll.
“Got it,” Sam said.
Dean looked up expectantly and tossed down his lore book, getting up.
“Able to regenerate even when hacked apart, able to eat anything, thus they have very strong digestive acid and sometimes vomit on their opponent as a form of attack,” Sam went on.
Dean made a face. “We have seen some really weird shit, but this one’s right up there.” He shook his head, remembering the poor victims, nice people just going about their lives. They’d been attacked out of nowhere by a monster who refused to be deterred by any normal means, escalating to that most offensive of offensive maneuvers. The one guy who hit back said the thing came to pieces at the first blow, but then it gathered up what was left of itself and scuttled away. “So what is it?”
He turned the laptop to face Dean. “A troll.”
Dean’s got an impish look. “Troll? Like, the douchebags that ruin everything for everyone on the internet?”
“They’re not really the only thing ruining the internet ...,” Sam said cryptically. Dean tried to figure out what he meant. Free Dr. Sexy episodes on YouTube weren’t ruining the internet. Lore on monsters was only beneficial, for Sam and Dean, anyway. Porn certainly wasn’t ruining the internet. Was there anything else on the internet?
Sam read a lot of news and stuff; he probably had some objection about the decline of human civilization, but Dean liked things a little uncivilized. Anyway, the world had been about to end as long as he’d been alive, so any evidence that humanity was still around at all was good news, as far as Dean was concerned. “But no,” Sam went on, “more like the creature in fantasy tales that lives under bridges ... or,” he said, reading more through the webpage, “in caves.”
“Like their mama’s basements?” Dean chortled, then waxed nostalgic. “Like in Lord of the Rings? Legolas all runs up the chain and jumps on its head, then shoots an arrow point blank .... So, what, big ugly pasty dude who’s ... into bondage?”
“Some of the lore says that, but there’s more that indicates they look like any other person, they’re just ‘unchristian.’ Probably refers to uncivilized strangers people considered savages.”
“... Like the douchebag in his mama’s basement. That’s a guy being unchristian if ever there was one.”
“Oh, but Wikipedia says they do have ‘some form of social organization.’”
“... Like the douchebag in his mama’s basement, douching it up with other trolls in some godforsaken chat room.”
“Well, I guess they don’t call them trolls for nothing,” Sam sighed, getting up and loading up his duffle.
“How do you kill ’em?”
“Fire.” He brandished a blow torch and threw it in the bag, and Dean tossed a lighter on top. “Although some lore says they turn to stone if they’re exposed to sunlight.”
“... Like the douche in his mama’s basement.”
They’d tracked the troll to a nice house in the suburbs with a manicured lawn and lamps on posts on either side of the walkway, which seemed weird, given that what led them there was a stench and a trail of filth and garbage the troll left in its wake: more vomit (ugh), and otherwise lots cans of Mountain Dew and empty junk food containers. Dean picked up a Corn Nuts wrapper by the very corner and dangled it for Sam’s perusal. Even the wrappers were sticky with cheese powder, grime, and other stuff Dean was determined not to identify. “They really will eat anything,” Dean growled.
They crept across the lawn and peered in the windows, bewildered to see a very nice middle-aged couple sitting down to a decidedly healthy-looking meal. “This is the place, right?” Dean asked, confused. In response, Sam picked up the remains of a very large discarded Flamin’ Cheetos bag right by the back door. “Guess it’s the place,” Dean agreed.
He kept trying to figure out how something like that could get past the couple at the dining table, or be living in their house without their knowledge, when Sam murmured, “Basement,” and nodded to a door that appeared to lead to the basement of the house from the outside. Its handle was crusted with filth.
Dean made another face. “These things are as bad as witches!” he hissed.
“Worse,” Sam said shortly.
After first wrapping a rag around the handle--they’d been spewed with foul substances by any number of monsters, but they sure as hell weren’t volunteering to come in contact with anything touched by that troll--they eased open the door and descended the steps. The filth increased in foulness and density the farther down the stairs they got, until they had to carefully watch each step lest they step in something that would take a pocket full of quarters to clean off their jeans. They could hear the thing cackling to itself from a dimly lit room at the base of the stairs. Dean held up a hand, and they paused to listen: “Yeah, bitch, how do ya like that?” It chortled. “Her head’s gonna fuckin’ explode when she reads that. That’ll teach her that women shouldn’t get on the internet ... unless they’re gonna be takin’ their clothes off for papa.”
Dean nudged the door open, to see a young pimply twenty-something guy typing in front of his computer screen while shoving more garbage in his mouth. His room was lined with the kind of crap that had led them to its lair. Also porn. Lots of porn. “Well, whaddya know?” Dean said. “Right, Sam? Just like I said.” He smacked Sam lightly. Sam seemed disappointingly unsurprised, all business, like after all the time he spent on the internet this was entirely what he’d expected after all. He handed Dean the lighter, and Dean lit up the blowtorch. “C’mon, Sammy. Let’s flame that troll.”