Spoon
Title: Spoon
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Cas, Sam, Death
Warnings: Cursing. Spoilers up through S8.
Word Count: 4,200
Summary: Death appears and gives the boys a task.
Notes: This is the sequel to Clowntime is Over and takes place in the same universe as Generator and Save Rite. You can read them too. Or not.
“I highly recommend the fish and chips. The portion size is most generous here.”
The other three members of the party looked around nervously. The four of them were crowded into a booth at a small, rural diner. Dean heard gulls cawing outside, meaning they were still somewhere near a sea coast. “My car,” said Dean, who half rose.
“In the parking lot,” said Death.
Dean peered out the window relieved to see his baby situated in an end spot. “Oh, yeah. Uh. Cool.” He sat back down beside Cas and extended an arm across the back of the seat, behind the nervous ex-angel's back.
Sam, who was seated next to Death, obligingly picked up one of the laminated menus. “I don't suppose they have salads here?”
“Yes. And you would find it to be quite tasty, if you enjoy wilted lettuce drowning in vinegar.” Death wrinkled his aquiline nose at the prospect.
“I'm trying to watch what I eat,” Sam told him with a bit of forced jocularity. “You know, to avoid you as long as possible.”
“Well, you are an abject failure at that, then.” Death cocked an eyebrow.
“I think you're losing a step, Death,” said Dean, surveying the diner and then leaning close over the table. “All these people in here: they're still alive.”
“I had noticed,” sniffed Death. “Oh, here we are!” A wait person had arrived with three very large baskets of deep fried seafood, and one bowl of salad consisting of greens which, one supposed, were freshly picked at some point in time. “I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of ordering for the table. There is only so much witty banter one might take in a day, and, well, you three are not getting any younger.”
Sam forked up a tangle of desiccated greenery. “You were right about the salad,” he sighed. Cas picked up an odd-shaped batter-dipped delicacy, glared at it, and then, his head canted at a twenty degree angle, politely held it over Sam's plate. Sam plucked it off of Cas's fork. “Yeah, thanks, Cas, maybe there's actual nutrition in there somewhere.” He cracked off the crispy fried batter to examine the soft, white protein center.
Death sawed off a delicate fragment of cod with his knife and fork. “Sam, if I may say, you oughtn't be so fussy. In actuality, this insignificant planet of yours is really overdue for another asteroid impact, but I simply can't tear myself away from the food.”
“Try the fried clams! They're amazing!” urged Dean, whose mouth was already quite impolitely full.
Cas speared another batter-fried morsel, but then let it drop back in the basket. “Why did you bring us here?” he demanded of Death.
“For the food. And the company. I must say, I much prefer this latest incarnation of yours, Castiel. Though the insanity phase was … diverting. Angels, sadly, have never been among my favorite creatures.” Death's dark eyes narrowed to regard the bite of deep-fried salmon cheek on the end of his fork. “But I suppose you are regardless interested in that little blue vial Metatron now keeps on one of his many dust-ridden bookshelves.”
Cas was suddenly all ears, leaning forward. “What do you want of me?”
Dean put a hand on Cas's shoulder and tugged him back gently. “Cas.”
“I thought that might pique some interest.” The thin lips pulled into a grimace that may have been a smile. “I shall require all three of you, I think, to complete the tasks.”
“Tasks?” said Dean, waving a hand. “Hey, sorry, no dice. We've wasted too much time on trials. No more of that horse shit.”
Death’s tone was soothing. “Ah, now, you must have learned you can't believe everything you read on a strange tablet, now can you?” He inclined his head towards Sam, knowing look on his immortal face. “Let me ask you, Dean, what is it worth to you to have your brother once again, as it were, in the pink?”
“I'm listening,” said Sam, pushing away his limp salad.
“Sammy,” warned Dean, but now it looked like it was two-to-one.
“Three tasks. That is all I shall ask of you.”
“This is sounding depressingly familiar,” Dean told him, but Death was already holding out an object from his vest pocket.
“And here is the first task: you must stave off a flood, using only this spoon.” He placed the sliver implement in Cas's outstretched hand.
“What?” said Dean, who unsuccessfully made a snatch at the spoon. “Oh, great. And next we pick up all the sand on the beach with tweezers, right?”
“Now, we must make haste,” Death told them. “The chef de cuisine here has advanced coronary artery disease. I had been holding off, as I wanted to savor one last meal.” There was a crash and a scream from the direction of the kitchen. Cas, Dean and Sam all jerked around to stare in that direction as there were shouts and one of the waitresses took off running.
Death wiped his mouth with a monogrammed silk handkerchief. “There we are. I should leave a nice tip, and then we're off.”
“Off where?” asked Dean, as Cas pulled a much-crumpled five dollar bill from his pocket and put it on the table.
And then they were quite suddenly no longer at the diner.
“Okay, I am getting seriously pissed off about all this zapping around!” fumed Dean. They looked around. The surroundings had changed: they were now along a lonely country roadway on the outskirts of a small town. Judging from the ass-load of pine trees visible everywhere they were still somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
The Impala, to Dean's relief, was nearby, but Death was no longer in evidence. “What the hell? So where are we supposed to prevent this flood?”
“Uh, Dean,” said Sam, pointing to Cas, who now stood under a big yellow sign. It depicted a stick man fleeing a cartoon wave, and the words, “Tsunami evacuation route.”
“We're supposed to hold off a tidal wave?” said Dean.
“It's more properly termed a tsunami,” Cas told him. Cas was still clutching Death's silver spoon.
“With a spoon?” Dean shook his head with frustration. “Should we go into town and nose around a little?”
“You sure you wanna walk around in broad daylight dressed like that?” chuckled Sam.
Dean pulled at his waistband: he hadn't changed clothes since the impromptu cold shower in Clownland, so he was still wearing a pair of ratty sweat pants with the word “JUICY” splashed across the butt. (Cas, for his part, was clad in plaid board shorts and a T shirt touting the UC San Diego mascot.) “Aw, crap. I need to change clothes. Do you think Death grabbed our stuff?” he asked, going to open the Impala's trunk.
“The stuff you got soaked in the sewer line? I hope he burned them,” said Sam. “Or maybe hurled them into the sun.”
“Maybe we could find a laundromat in town.”
“If they have a hazardous waste disposal unit.”
Dean squinted up the road as he opened the trunk. He grinned and pulled out a gym bag. “Oh, hey, we got our luggage! Death is an awesome bellhop.”
“Uh, I’m sure he’d love to hear you saying that about him.”
After he and Cas had run behind a convenient evergreen to change into clothing Dean found more hunter-appropriate, the threesome strolled into town, the parties expressing a range of emotions, from annoyance to curiosity. Dean's mood was not improved by what they found as they walked a while down the main street. The town was mostly deserted, but for knots of teenaged girls, who would gather around a shop front, snap photos, giggle madly, and then flutter off.
“More Twilight crap,” sighed Dean, passing yet another tacky tourist shop. Cas speculatively held up a “Team Jacob” T shirt to measure it for size, but Dean grabbed it and tossed it back into the pile.
“What I don't understand is how we're supposed to use Death's spare silverware to prevent an undersea earthquake,” said Sam, who held up said spoon.
“Maybe you guys coulda thought to have asked him before he zapped off?” Dean grumbled.
“If I still had my powers, I could venture out to the fault line perhaps,” Cas mused.
“But you don't, and don’t get any ideas about paddling off the continental shelf,” Dean told him.
They passed by a collectibles shop. “Dean,” said Cas, picking up a statue, “why is this monkey wearing a fez?”
“Because it's hilarious.”
“Oh,” said Cas, frowning and setting it down. Dean grinned and picked up a red felt hat from a shelf and placed it on top of Cas’s head, earning an angelic expression of scorn.
There were a number of colorful flags and banners on a table out front, flapping in the wind. “Flags of the world!” said Sam, who was much impressed with the miniature flags.
“What the hell is this flag for?” asked Dean, picking up an blue- and green-striped one.
“Uzbekistan,” Cas told him.
“Uzi-what?” asked Dean, who shrugged. “Gotta love a country named after a machine gun I guess.”
Cas doffed the fez and instead picked up a sparkling rainbow pinwheel and peered at it. Sam took it from him and demonstrated blowing on it. Cas’s face looked like the secrets of all creation had just been revealed to him.
“I'm not gonna buy that for you, so cut it out,” Dean told him.
“Aw, just take it, babe. Nobody buying my stuff anyway,” came a voice cracked with age.
Dean turned to the speaker, a small, dark-haired woman who was evidently the shop's proprietor. “Hey, no offense. Your stuff is a hundred times better than all the vampire crap!”
“Twilight? Can't say I care for it. My granddaughter likes it. Thinks the vampire boy is cute. I have to say, if something like that was trying to date her, I'd be after it with my shotgun, sure as hell.” And then she spat into the gutter.
Dean grinned, now happy to be in the presence of what was clearly a kindred spirit. “So, you lived here long, ma'am?”
“Call me Beth. Lived here my whole life. And as you probably noticed, I ain't a teenager, not any more.”
“Have you ever been here for a tsunami, Beth?” asked Sam. “Or heard any tsunami warnings?
“Nope. Some young men came by, a few years back, put in those signs. I have yet to see it. This ain’t some tropical isle with the hula-hula girls, you know. The ocean, it stays put here.”
“Huh.” The three men exchanged some puzzled glances.
“Nope. You ask me, we're more likely to be flooded out by that dam.”
Suddenly, all eyes were fixed on the shopkeeper. “Do you have a hydroelectric dam in this vicinity?” Cas asked, his eyes all eagerness. Ever since he had fixed the small Men of Letters system in back of the bunker he had become a great fan of civil engineering projects.
“Yup. Ruined the damn salmon fishing. That's why you don't see anyone around these parts any more. Nothing left but silly teenage girls and their loopy vampires.”
“Dean,” said Sam, who motioned for his brother to follow along. “Hey, uh, look at this shop up here!” Dean and Cas followed him away from Beth’s shop. “So what if the flood we're supposed to stave is the one caused by the dam?” asked Sam, pretending to be fascinated by an 8x10 picture of Robert Pattison.
Dean halted, crossing his arms. “Okay. Now instead of flying over to the sea bed, we're gonna blow up the dam? With a fucking spoon?”
“I am intimately familiar with the workings of hydroelectric dams, Dean!” said Cas.
“It's fucking up the ecology, Dean,” Sam told him. “You heard Beth. It's diminishing the salmon population!”
“Fish? Fish is what I just ate for lunch, Sammy. I'm not risking my ass - and yours - for Charlie the Tuna.”
“But Dean-”
“Sam, you know what security is like at dams nowadays? We try fucking around, we'd have the feds on us before you can say ‘fish sticks.’”
“Dean.” Sam looked back at Beth's store and smiled. “I got an idea!”
“Wait, you're being sneaky and underhanded now?” asked Dean. Sam nodded eagerly. “Well, I should say that's my job, but I do like this development.”
“One thing,” said Sam, raising a long index finger. “Cas, you remember that cartoon we showed you? The one with the moose and squirrel?”
Cas’s features deepened into a vast frown. “I didn't understand that cartoon, Sam.”
“No problem. But there's just one thing.”
The long black car pulled up before the gates, flags on the grill proudly flapping in the wind. The guard in the booth did a double take when the driver cranked down the window and he was confronted with two serious-looking suited individuals seated in the front seat, both glaring at him through reflective sunglasses.
The driver flashed some kind of diplomatic badge. “Uzbek ambassador is here for the scheduled visit. Sorry, we're a little early.”
The guard blinked. This was his summer job, and he had been trying to complete the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. He flailed around a bit and came up with a clipboard. “Uhhhh. I don’t have you on the schedule?”
There was suddenly a rumble from the back seat: the deepest voice the guard had ever heard, barking out something in a strange foreign language. “No, sir, they don’t have you on the schedule,” the very large, very important looking man in the passenger seat was saying.
This produced a torrent of ill-tempered words from the back seat. “Yes sir,” said the passenger. “Well try to get it straightened out.”
The guard quickly decided that whatever was going on, it was definitely above his pay grade. “Uh, hey, but, I’m pretty small potatoes here. They don’t tell me anything! Why don’t you head on up and, uh, they’ll take care of you at the office?”
More gobbledygook from the back seat.
“Yessir. We’re heading in now, sir.”
“The parking lot is just up the hill,” the guard told them apologetically.
The driver gave the guard a curt nod and sped inside.
Dean cranked up the window. “Hey, Cas, is that really Uzi?”
“Uzbek,” corrected Sam.
“Yes, Dean. It is a Turkic language. Was I doing well at acting irritated?”
“That was awesome. You sounded really pissed off.”
“I informed the guard that I had had connubial relations with his grandparent.”
Sam frowned. “Uh. Funnier in Uzbek?”
“I just don’t know what you guys plan to do what we get inside,” said Dean.
“Hey, weren’t you the one who told me you can get anywhere with a suit, an ID badge and an attitude?”
“That’s what I don’t understand, Sammy, when did you turn into me?”
“Come on, Dean. We’re improvising!”
“I still have the spoon,” said Cas.
“Cas! Put away the spoon and act like an Uzi. Here we are!” said Dean.
Sam reached over and, to Cas’s utter disappointment, snatched away the utensil.
As the Impala pulled up in the parking lot a small committee of mid-level managers stepped out to gape in surprise as two government agents stepped out, followed by a rumpled man wearing a fez.
“I bring the greetings of country of Uzbekistan to the peoples of United States of Washingtonian!” declared the man in the fez. He had a strange accent that sounded sort of halfway between Russian and Spanish. One of the mid-level managers reached out a hand to shake. Cas grabbed him and kissed him on both cheeks. The mid-level manager stepped back, badly shaken, as the rest of them shrunk away.
“I bring presents from mother country of Uzbekistan,” he declared, and Sam handed out key rings with an impressive crest featuring a roaring lion.
“Oh, thank you,” said a mid-level manger.
“Why does it say, ‘Twilight?’” asked another mid-level manager.
“Kristen Stewart is very big in his country,” Dean whispered. The mid-level manager nodded hastily and put the key ring in a pocket. He didn’t want to raise too much of a fuss lest the man in the fez get an urge to kiss him.
“Ambassador Jomanineedadrinkazov will now commence a tour the facility,” Sam told them.
“Hey.” As everybody filed into the facility, Dean pulled aside one of the mid-level managers. “Which way is the can? It’s a long road from Uzi-ville.”
The man pointed the direction, and Dean, with Sam tagging along, peeled off from the crowd, walking down a long shag-carpeted hallway towards the men’s room.
“Is that even an Uzbek accent?” Dean asked Sam.
“Does it matter?” his brother chuckled, pleased at his own perfidy. “I just told him to talk like Boris Badenov. Wait, are we really going to the bathroom?” he asked Dean.
“Yeah. I think I overdid on that Twilight lemonade.” They entered the cramped bathroom. Dean took one look at the urinal, which was stuck in flushing mode, and found a stall. Sam paused to regard his hair in the mirror above the urinal. “We still gotta figure out what to do with Death’s spoon,” Dean called from inside the stall.
Sam pulled the spoon out of his pocket and scrutinized it. “Cas will figure it out. I told him to make them take him to the control room.”
“I gotta say, Sammy, having Cas act like a foreigner was brilliant.”
“I am that good.” Sam was unfortunately so entranced by his own magnificent sideburns that he didn’t see Dean coming out of the stall. The door knocked into Sam, and he lost his grip on the spoon, which, after a bit of fumbling, fell into the urinal, and was quickly flushed away.
“Fuck!” opined Dean.
Sam merely gawped.
“Well, I’m not going after it! I’ve had my fill of sewers for the day,” said Dean.
And then the urinal began to back up.
“Whoa, these guys built a dam, and they have no idea how to plumb a men’s room?”
“Dean,” said Sam, eyeing the waters now creeping over from under the stall Dean had just vacated.
“Son of a bitch! Let’s get out of here.”
The Winchesters hastened out of the rapidly flooding washroom and back down the hallway. “Where do you think they took Cas?”
“I am wanting to see methodology of opening sluice.”
Cas reached under his odd red monkey hat to scratch his head. The felt was itchy. He irritably took it off and set it down on the desk beside him. He had tried to convey to Sam that red wool monkey hats were not the traditional dress of Uzbekistan, nor was the cartoon character Boris Badenov’s manner of speaking reflective of an Uzbek accent. But Sam assured him that it wouldn’t matter, and indeed, these humans seemed fooled by the ruse.
He wished, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time, for the return of his powers, if only for a few minutes. He could have easily stunned the few personnel in the room and then opened the sluice to drain the artificial lake in back of the dam. He hadn’t spent a lot of time studying this project in depth, but he had already determined that whoever designed the dam had made a mathematical error somewhere along the line: the concrete had not been laid in thick enough, not by several centimeters, and the walls eventually would be breached by the tremendous water pressure. It was actually fortunate that Death had sent them here, though Cas puzzled at the metaphysical conundrum of the great reaper trying to stave off mortality. Why wouldn’t he want to collect more souls?
He had reached this point in his philosophical musings when a great drop of water came down from the stained ceiling and plopped right on the head of one of the humans.
“Oh, fuck me. Not again,” grumbled a feisty, red-bearded human. “Oh, uh, forgive me, Mr. Ambassador.”
Cas blinked in confusion, and then remembered that the men were all using that salutation to address him now. He still found subterfuge to be disorienting. “You are forgiven,” he assured the man, making the sign of the cross over him.
The man looked at him dubiously, and then told everyone, “If it’s the men’s room again we gotta evacuate. I don’t wanna get written up by public health again.”
Everyone nodded and stood up, stretching. Cas noticed the guy at the control terminal didn’t bother to log out.
He got an idea. A fairly devious idea. Dean, he decided, would approve.
Sam and Dean stood in the lobby, watching the dam’s current staff saunter out. They had found out, to their relief, that a bathroom flood was evidently a routine occurrence around these parts. Thus they were not as yet wanted men. However, there was still the dilemma of how to retrieve Death’s spoon from the bowels of the sewer system. Sam had suggested rock-paper-scissors, but for once, Dean had declined the challenge.
“Oh, hey, Ca- Mr. Ambassador!” Dean hailed as the ex-angel emerged into the lobby.
Cas clutched Dean’s lapel. “I have forgotten culturally important red monkey hat!” he pleaded.
The mid-level manager who had been escorting Cas squinted in puzzlement at Dean. “We gotta go retrieve his fez, man. Important stuff. International relations could be in jeopardy!”
The guy shrugged. “Just don’t step in the sewer water.”
Dean sighed. “Been there, done that.” Dean and Cas walked until they were out of sight of the lobby, and then both broke into a run towards the control room. “They showed me how the facility operates, Dean,” Cas huffed as they reached the control room and hurried inside. “But I don’t know how to employ the spoon.”
Dean smiled. “Just do your thing. Sam already took care of the spoon.”
Cas looked in puzzlement at Dean for a moment. And then he punched in the correct controls at the compute to open the sluice to full, topping this off by throwing the computer against the wall, which effectively stuck the gate into an open position.
“Don’t forget your hat,” laughed Dean, lobbing the fez at Cas as they prepared to vacate the room. They hastened back to Sam and, and after an improvised speech touting the great strength of America-Uzbeki alliance, jumped in the car and peeled out at five miles an hour over any applicable speed limit.
“Uzbekistan,” mused one of the mid-level managers.
“Hey,” said another mid-level manger, harkening to the sound of rushing water, “was that sluice supposed to be open?”
“We have our own room tonight?” Cas looked around the motel room in wonder.
Dean smiled and hopped onto the bed. “It's a treat,” said Dean, lying back and putting his hands underneath his head. “You done good today. With the ambassador thing.”
“It was Sam's idea,” said Cas modestly. He sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you think our mission was successful?”
“Well, we obviously haven't heard from Death yet. But when Sam's letter gets to the newspaper, I'll bet they close down that dam permanently. And then Beth will get to go back to selling fishing tackle instead of vampire T shirts.”
Cas nodded, and let Dean tug him down to lie next to him. They lay there for a while, side by side, staring up at the ceiling in silence.
“Cas?”
“Yes, Dean?”
Dean shifted to roll over, facing Cas. He went up on one elbow. “Could you say something, you know, in Uzbek?”
Cas studied Dean's face for a time, and then spoke in an oddly-accented foreign language, his voice soft and low.
Dean's mouth edged into half a grin. “What did you say? I have the mouth like a goldfish or something?”
Cas put a hand up, tracing the side of Dean's face with one long finger. “I said you are very beautiful.”
Dean's breath caught, for a moment, in his throat.
Sam peered down at his laptop and smiled. Tomorrow, he would find a printer and drop his anonymous missive in the mail.
He wanted to find a library as well. After a bit more research, he had begun to suspect there were irregularities in the environmental impact statement. There may well be a scandal. Indictments!
It was funny, they hadn't fought a single monster that day - that is if you didn't count the omnipresent Edward and Jacob - and yet this had possibly been one of their most successful “hunts” ever. He closed his laptop, thinking, and went to grab a glass of water from the bathroom.
Maybe he should talk to Dean and Cas? Maybe there was room in the whole “saving people” agenda for more than just ganking vampires. He took a big swallow of the water, and then leaned over, splashing cold water on his face. It felt refreshing.
He straightened up, doing a double-take at the mirror image.
There was another being in the bathroom, staring over his shoulder.
“Moose! What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?”
NEXT
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Cas, Sam, Death
Warnings: Cursing. Spoilers up through S8.
Word Count: 4,200
Summary: Death appears and gives the boys a task.
Notes: This is the sequel to Clowntime is Over and takes place in the same universe as Generator and Save Rite. You can read them too. Or not.
“I highly recommend the fish and chips. The portion size is most generous here.”
The other three members of the party looked around nervously. The four of them were crowded into a booth at a small, rural diner. Dean heard gulls cawing outside, meaning they were still somewhere near a sea coast. “My car,” said Dean, who half rose.
“In the parking lot,” said Death.
Dean peered out the window relieved to see his baby situated in an end spot. “Oh, yeah. Uh. Cool.” He sat back down beside Cas and extended an arm across the back of the seat, behind the nervous ex-angel's back.
Sam, who was seated next to Death, obligingly picked up one of the laminated menus. “I don't suppose they have salads here?”
“Yes. And you would find it to be quite tasty, if you enjoy wilted lettuce drowning in vinegar.” Death wrinkled his aquiline nose at the prospect.
“I'm trying to watch what I eat,” Sam told him with a bit of forced jocularity. “You know, to avoid you as long as possible.”
“Well, you are an abject failure at that, then.” Death cocked an eyebrow.
“I think you're losing a step, Death,” said Dean, surveying the diner and then leaning close over the table. “All these people in here: they're still alive.”
“I had noticed,” sniffed Death. “Oh, here we are!” A wait person had arrived with three very large baskets of deep fried seafood, and one bowl of salad consisting of greens which, one supposed, were freshly picked at some point in time. “I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of ordering for the table. There is only so much witty banter one might take in a day, and, well, you three are not getting any younger.”
Sam forked up a tangle of desiccated greenery. “You were right about the salad,” he sighed. Cas picked up an odd-shaped batter-dipped delicacy, glared at it, and then, his head canted at a twenty degree angle, politely held it over Sam's plate. Sam plucked it off of Cas's fork. “Yeah, thanks, Cas, maybe there's actual nutrition in there somewhere.” He cracked off the crispy fried batter to examine the soft, white protein center.
Death sawed off a delicate fragment of cod with his knife and fork. “Sam, if I may say, you oughtn't be so fussy. In actuality, this insignificant planet of yours is really overdue for another asteroid impact, but I simply can't tear myself away from the food.”
“Try the fried clams! They're amazing!” urged Dean, whose mouth was already quite impolitely full.
Cas speared another batter-fried morsel, but then let it drop back in the basket. “Why did you bring us here?” he demanded of Death.
“For the food. And the company. I must say, I much prefer this latest incarnation of yours, Castiel. Though the insanity phase was … diverting. Angels, sadly, have never been among my favorite creatures.” Death's dark eyes narrowed to regard the bite of deep-fried salmon cheek on the end of his fork. “But I suppose you are regardless interested in that little blue vial Metatron now keeps on one of his many dust-ridden bookshelves.”
Cas was suddenly all ears, leaning forward. “What do you want of me?”
Dean put a hand on Cas's shoulder and tugged him back gently. “Cas.”
“I thought that might pique some interest.” The thin lips pulled into a grimace that may have been a smile. “I shall require all three of you, I think, to complete the tasks.”
“Tasks?” said Dean, waving a hand. “Hey, sorry, no dice. We've wasted too much time on trials. No more of that horse shit.”
Death’s tone was soothing. “Ah, now, you must have learned you can't believe everything you read on a strange tablet, now can you?” He inclined his head towards Sam, knowing look on his immortal face. “Let me ask you, Dean, what is it worth to you to have your brother once again, as it were, in the pink?”
“I'm listening,” said Sam, pushing away his limp salad.
“Sammy,” warned Dean, but now it looked like it was two-to-one.
“Three tasks. That is all I shall ask of you.”
“This is sounding depressingly familiar,” Dean told him, but Death was already holding out an object from his vest pocket.
“And here is the first task: you must stave off a flood, using only this spoon.” He placed the sliver implement in Cas's outstretched hand.
“What?” said Dean, who unsuccessfully made a snatch at the spoon. “Oh, great. And next we pick up all the sand on the beach with tweezers, right?”
“Now, we must make haste,” Death told them. “The chef de cuisine here has advanced coronary artery disease. I had been holding off, as I wanted to savor one last meal.” There was a crash and a scream from the direction of the kitchen. Cas, Dean and Sam all jerked around to stare in that direction as there were shouts and one of the waitresses took off running.
Death wiped his mouth with a monogrammed silk handkerchief. “There we are. I should leave a nice tip, and then we're off.”
“Off where?” asked Dean, as Cas pulled a much-crumpled five dollar bill from his pocket and put it on the table.
And then they were quite suddenly no longer at the diner.
“Okay, I am getting seriously pissed off about all this zapping around!” fumed Dean. They looked around. The surroundings had changed: they were now along a lonely country roadway on the outskirts of a small town. Judging from the ass-load of pine trees visible everywhere they were still somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
The Impala, to Dean's relief, was nearby, but Death was no longer in evidence. “What the hell? So where are we supposed to prevent this flood?”
“Uh, Dean,” said Sam, pointing to Cas, who now stood under a big yellow sign. It depicted a stick man fleeing a cartoon wave, and the words, “Tsunami evacuation route.”
“We're supposed to hold off a tidal wave?” said Dean.
“It's more properly termed a tsunami,” Cas told him. Cas was still clutching Death's silver spoon.
“With a spoon?” Dean shook his head with frustration. “Should we go into town and nose around a little?”
“You sure you wanna walk around in broad daylight dressed like that?” chuckled Sam.
Dean pulled at his waistband: he hadn't changed clothes since the impromptu cold shower in Clownland, so he was still wearing a pair of ratty sweat pants with the word “JUICY” splashed across the butt. (Cas, for his part, was clad in plaid board shorts and a T shirt touting the UC San Diego mascot.) “Aw, crap. I need to change clothes. Do you think Death grabbed our stuff?” he asked, going to open the Impala's trunk.
“The stuff you got soaked in the sewer line? I hope he burned them,” said Sam. “Or maybe hurled them into the sun.”
“Maybe we could find a laundromat in town.”
“If they have a hazardous waste disposal unit.”
Dean squinted up the road as he opened the trunk. He grinned and pulled out a gym bag. “Oh, hey, we got our luggage! Death is an awesome bellhop.”
“Uh, I’m sure he’d love to hear you saying that about him.”
After he and Cas had run behind a convenient evergreen to change into clothing Dean found more hunter-appropriate, the threesome strolled into town, the parties expressing a range of emotions, from annoyance to curiosity. Dean's mood was not improved by what they found as they walked a while down the main street. The town was mostly deserted, but for knots of teenaged girls, who would gather around a shop front, snap photos, giggle madly, and then flutter off.
“More Twilight crap,” sighed Dean, passing yet another tacky tourist shop. Cas speculatively held up a “Team Jacob” T shirt to measure it for size, but Dean grabbed it and tossed it back into the pile.
“What I don't understand is how we're supposed to use Death's spare silverware to prevent an undersea earthquake,” said Sam, who held up said spoon.
“Maybe you guys coulda thought to have asked him before he zapped off?” Dean grumbled.
“If I still had my powers, I could venture out to the fault line perhaps,” Cas mused.
“But you don't, and don’t get any ideas about paddling off the continental shelf,” Dean told him.
They passed by a collectibles shop. “Dean,” said Cas, picking up a statue, “why is this monkey wearing a fez?”
“Because it's hilarious.”
“Oh,” said Cas, frowning and setting it down. Dean grinned and picked up a red felt hat from a shelf and placed it on top of Cas’s head, earning an angelic expression of scorn.
There were a number of colorful flags and banners on a table out front, flapping in the wind. “Flags of the world!” said Sam, who was much impressed with the miniature flags.
“What the hell is this flag for?” asked Dean, picking up an blue- and green-striped one.
“Uzbekistan,” Cas told him.
“Uzi-what?” asked Dean, who shrugged. “Gotta love a country named after a machine gun I guess.”
Cas doffed the fez and instead picked up a sparkling rainbow pinwheel and peered at it. Sam took it from him and demonstrated blowing on it. Cas’s face looked like the secrets of all creation had just been revealed to him.
“I'm not gonna buy that for you, so cut it out,” Dean told him.
“Aw, just take it, babe. Nobody buying my stuff anyway,” came a voice cracked with age.
Dean turned to the speaker, a small, dark-haired woman who was evidently the shop's proprietor. “Hey, no offense. Your stuff is a hundred times better than all the vampire crap!”
“Twilight? Can't say I care for it. My granddaughter likes it. Thinks the vampire boy is cute. I have to say, if something like that was trying to date her, I'd be after it with my shotgun, sure as hell.” And then she spat into the gutter.
Dean grinned, now happy to be in the presence of what was clearly a kindred spirit. “So, you lived here long, ma'am?”
“Call me Beth. Lived here my whole life. And as you probably noticed, I ain't a teenager, not any more.”
“Have you ever been here for a tsunami, Beth?” asked Sam. “Or heard any tsunami warnings?
“Nope. Some young men came by, a few years back, put in those signs. I have yet to see it. This ain’t some tropical isle with the hula-hula girls, you know. The ocean, it stays put here.”
“Huh.” The three men exchanged some puzzled glances.
“Nope. You ask me, we're more likely to be flooded out by that dam.”
Suddenly, all eyes were fixed on the shopkeeper. “Do you have a hydroelectric dam in this vicinity?” Cas asked, his eyes all eagerness. Ever since he had fixed the small Men of Letters system in back of the bunker he had become a great fan of civil engineering projects.
“Yup. Ruined the damn salmon fishing. That's why you don't see anyone around these parts any more. Nothing left but silly teenage girls and their loopy vampires.”
“Dean,” said Sam, who motioned for his brother to follow along. “Hey, uh, look at this shop up here!” Dean and Cas followed him away from Beth’s shop. “So what if the flood we're supposed to stave is the one caused by the dam?” asked Sam, pretending to be fascinated by an 8x10 picture of Robert Pattison.
Dean halted, crossing his arms. “Okay. Now instead of flying over to the sea bed, we're gonna blow up the dam? With a fucking spoon?”
“I am intimately familiar with the workings of hydroelectric dams, Dean!” said Cas.
“It's fucking up the ecology, Dean,” Sam told him. “You heard Beth. It's diminishing the salmon population!”
“Fish? Fish is what I just ate for lunch, Sammy. I'm not risking my ass - and yours - for Charlie the Tuna.”
“But Dean-”
“Sam, you know what security is like at dams nowadays? We try fucking around, we'd have the feds on us before you can say ‘fish sticks.’”
“Dean.” Sam looked back at Beth's store and smiled. “I got an idea!”
“Wait, you're being sneaky and underhanded now?” asked Dean. Sam nodded eagerly. “Well, I should say that's my job, but I do like this development.”
“One thing,” said Sam, raising a long index finger. “Cas, you remember that cartoon we showed you? The one with the moose and squirrel?”
Cas’s features deepened into a vast frown. “I didn't understand that cartoon, Sam.”
“No problem. But there's just one thing.”
The long black car pulled up before the gates, flags on the grill proudly flapping in the wind. The guard in the booth did a double take when the driver cranked down the window and he was confronted with two serious-looking suited individuals seated in the front seat, both glaring at him through reflective sunglasses.
The driver flashed some kind of diplomatic badge. “Uzbek ambassador is here for the scheduled visit. Sorry, we're a little early.”
The guard blinked. This was his summer job, and he had been trying to complete the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. He flailed around a bit and came up with a clipboard. “Uhhhh. I don’t have you on the schedule?”
There was suddenly a rumble from the back seat: the deepest voice the guard had ever heard, barking out something in a strange foreign language. “No, sir, they don’t have you on the schedule,” the very large, very important looking man in the passenger seat was saying.
This produced a torrent of ill-tempered words from the back seat. “Yes sir,” said the passenger. “Well try to get it straightened out.”
The guard quickly decided that whatever was going on, it was definitely above his pay grade. “Uh, hey, but, I’m pretty small potatoes here. They don’t tell me anything! Why don’t you head on up and, uh, they’ll take care of you at the office?”
More gobbledygook from the back seat.
“Yessir. We’re heading in now, sir.”
“The parking lot is just up the hill,” the guard told them apologetically.
The driver gave the guard a curt nod and sped inside.
Dean cranked up the window. “Hey, Cas, is that really Uzi?”
“Uzbek,” corrected Sam.
“Yes, Dean. It is a Turkic language. Was I doing well at acting irritated?”
“That was awesome. You sounded really pissed off.”
“I informed the guard that I had had connubial relations with his grandparent.”
Sam frowned. “Uh. Funnier in Uzbek?”
“I just don’t know what you guys plan to do what we get inside,” said Dean.
“Hey, weren’t you the one who told me you can get anywhere with a suit, an ID badge and an attitude?”
“That’s what I don’t understand, Sammy, when did you turn into me?”
“Come on, Dean. We’re improvising!”
“I still have the spoon,” said Cas.
“Cas! Put away the spoon and act like an Uzi. Here we are!” said Dean.
Sam reached over and, to Cas’s utter disappointment, snatched away the utensil.
As the Impala pulled up in the parking lot a small committee of mid-level managers stepped out to gape in surprise as two government agents stepped out, followed by a rumpled man wearing a fez.
“I bring the greetings of country of Uzbekistan to the peoples of United States of Washingtonian!” declared the man in the fez. He had a strange accent that sounded sort of halfway between Russian and Spanish. One of the mid-level managers reached out a hand to shake. Cas grabbed him and kissed him on both cheeks. The mid-level manager stepped back, badly shaken, as the rest of them shrunk away.
“I bring presents from mother country of Uzbekistan,” he declared, and Sam handed out key rings with an impressive crest featuring a roaring lion.
“Oh, thank you,” said a mid-level manger.
“Why does it say, ‘Twilight?’” asked another mid-level manager.
“Kristen Stewart is very big in his country,” Dean whispered. The mid-level manager nodded hastily and put the key ring in a pocket. He didn’t want to raise too much of a fuss lest the man in the fez get an urge to kiss him.
“Ambassador Jomanineedadrinkazov will now commence a tour the facility,” Sam told them.
“Hey.” As everybody filed into the facility, Dean pulled aside one of the mid-level managers. “Which way is the can? It’s a long road from Uzi-ville.”
The man pointed the direction, and Dean, with Sam tagging along, peeled off from the crowd, walking down a long shag-carpeted hallway towards the men’s room.
“Is that even an Uzbek accent?” Dean asked Sam.
“Does it matter?” his brother chuckled, pleased at his own perfidy. “I just told him to talk like Boris Badenov. Wait, are we really going to the bathroom?” he asked Dean.
“Yeah. I think I overdid on that Twilight lemonade.” They entered the cramped bathroom. Dean took one look at the urinal, which was stuck in flushing mode, and found a stall. Sam paused to regard his hair in the mirror above the urinal. “We still gotta figure out what to do with Death’s spoon,” Dean called from inside the stall.
Sam pulled the spoon out of his pocket and scrutinized it. “Cas will figure it out. I told him to make them take him to the control room.”
“I gotta say, Sammy, having Cas act like a foreigner was brilliant.”
“I am that good.” Sam was unfortunately so entranced by his own magnificent sideburns that he didn’t see Dean coming out of the stall. The door knocked into Sam, and he lost his grip on the spoon, which, after a bit of fumbling, fell into the urinal, and was quickly flushed away.
“Fuck!” opined Dean.
Sam merely gawped.
“Well, I’m not going after it! I’ve had my fill of sewers for the day,” said Dean.
And then the urinal began to back up.
“Whoa, these guys built a dam, and they have no idea how to plumb a men’s room?”
“Dean,” said Sam, eyeing the waters now creeping over from under the stall Dean had just vacated.
“Son of a bitch! Let’s get out of here.”
The Winchesters hastened out of the rapidly flooding washroom and back down the hallway. “Where do you think they took Cas?”
“I am wanting to see methodology of opening sluice.”
Cas reached under his odd red monkey hat to scratch his head. The felt was itchy. He irritably took it off and set it down on the desk beside him. He had tried to convey to Sam that red wool monkey hats were not the traditional dress of Uzbekistan, nor was the cartoon character Boris Badenov’s manner of speaking reflective of an Uzbek accent. But Sam assured him that it wouldn’t matter, and indeed, these humans seemed fooled by the ruse.
He wished, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time, for the return of his powers, if only for a few minutes. He could have easily stunned the few personnel in the room and then opened the sluice to drain the artificial lake in back of the dam. He hadn’t spent a lot of time studying this project in depth, but he had already determined that whoever designed the dam had made a mathematical error somewhere along the line: the concrete had not been laid in thick enough, not by several centimeters, and the walls eventually would be breached by the tremendous water pressure. It was actually fortunate that Death had sent them here, though Cas puzzled at the metaphysical conundrum of the great reaper trying to stave off mortality. Why wouldn’t he want to collect more souls?
He had reached this point in his philosophical musings when a great drop of water came down from the stained ceiling and plopped right on the head of one of the humans.
“Oh, fuck me. Not again,” grumbled a feisty, red-bearded human. “Oh, uh, forgive me, Mr. Ambassador.”
Cas blinked in confusion, and then remembered that the men were all using that salutation to address him now. He still found subterfuge to be disorienting. “You are forgiven,” he assured the man, making the sign of the cross over him.
The man looked at him dubiously, and then told everyone, “If it’s the men’s room again we gotta evacuate. I don’t wanna get written up by public health again.”
Everyone nodded and stood up, stretching. Cas noticed the guy at the control terminal didn’t bother to log out.
He got an idea. A fairly devious idea. Dean, he decided, would approve.
Sam and Dean stood in the lobby, watching the dam’s current staff saunter out. They had found out, to their relief, that a bathroom flood was evidently a routine occurrence around these parts. Thus they were not as yet wanted men. However, there was still the dilemma of how to retrieve Death’s spoon from the bowels of the sewer system. Sam had suggested rock-paper-scissors, but for once, Dean had declined the challenge.
“Oh, hey, Ca- Mr. Ambassador!” Dean hailed as the ex-angel emerged into the lobby.
Cas clutched Dean’s lapel. “I have forgotten culturally important red monkey hat!” he pleaded.
The mid-level manager who had been escorting Cas squinted in puzzlement at Dean. “We gotta go retrieve his fez, man. Important stuff. International relations could be in jeopardy!”
The guy shrugged. “Just don’t step in the sewer water.”
Dean sighed. “Been there, done that.” Dean and Cas walked until they were out of sight of the lobby, and then both broke into a run towards the control room. “They showed me how the facility operates, Dean,” Cas huffed as they reached the control room and hurried inside. “But I don’t know how to employ the spoon.”
Dean smiled. “Just do your thing. Sam already took care of the spoon.”
Cas looked in puzzlement at Dean for a moment. And then he punched in the correct controls at the compute to open the sluice to full, topping this off by throwing the computer against the wall, which effectively stuck the gate into an open position.
“Don’t forget your hat,” laughed Dean, lobbing the fez at Cas as they prepared to vacate the room. They hastened back to Sam and, and after an improvised speech touting the great strength of America-Uzbeki alliance, jumped in the car and peeled out at five miles an hour over any applicable speed limit.
“Uzbekistan,” mused one of the mid-level managers.
“Hey,” said another mid-level manger, harkening to the sound of rushing water, “was that sluice supposed to be open?”
“We have our own room tonight?” Cas looked around the motel room in wonder.
Dean smiled and hopped onto the bed. “It's a treat,” said Dean, lying back and putting his hands underneath his head. “You done good today. With the ambassador thing.”
“It was Sam's idea,” said Cas modestly. He sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you think our mission was successful?”
“Well, we obviously haven't heard from Death yet. But when Sam's letter gets to the newspaper, I'll bet they close down that dam permanently. And then Beth will get to go back to selling fishing tackle instead of vampire T shirts.”
Cas nodded, and let Dean tug him down to lie next to him. They lay there for a while, side by side, staring up at the ceiling in silence.
“Cas?”
“Yes, Dean?”
Dean shifted to roll over, facing Cas. He went up on one elbow. “Could you say something, you know, in Uzbek?”
Cas studied Dean's face for a time, and then spoke in an oddly-accented foreign language, his voice soft and low.
Dean's mouth edged into half a grin. “What did you say? I have the mouth like a goldfish or something?”
Cas put a hand up, tracing the side of Dean's face with one long finger. “I said you are very beautiful.”
Dean's breath caught, for a moment, in his throat.
Sam peered down at his laptop and smiled. Tomorrow, he would find a printer and drop his anonymous missive in the mail.
He wanted to find a library as well. After a bit more research, he had begun to suspect there were irregularities in the environmental impact statement. There may well be a scandal. Indictments!
It was funny, they hadn't fought a single monster that day - that is if you didn't count the omnipresent Edward and Jacob - and yet this had possibly been one of their most successful “hunts” ever. He closed his laptop, thinking, and went to grab a glass of water from the bathroom.
Maybe he should talk to Dean and Cas? Maybe there was room in the whole “saving people” agenda for more than just ganking vampires. He took a big swallow of the water, and then leaned over, splashing cold water on his face. It felt refreshing.
He straightened up, doing a double-take at the mirror image.
There was another being in the bathroom, staring over his shoulder.
“Moose! What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?”
NEXT