SPN fic: "Occasional Demons" 2/7 (PG, gen)
Notes and disclaimers in Chapter 1.
Chapter 2
Dean didn't actually drop to his knees and kiss the ground when they got off the plane in Honolulu, but it was a close call. The main thing that stopped him was the fact that it wasn't actual ground he'd be kissing, but the rubbery-looking, puke-green industrial carpet of the airport terminal.
On a banner above the luggage carousel, a smiling girl in a grass skirt and coconut-shell bra informed Dean that he was welcome to paradise. Dean was unconvinced. He was dehydrated and sleep deprived, his car and his guns were stowed in a long-term parking lot half an ocean away, and his back was killing him.
Also, he was about to strangle his brother.
The last time they'd had to fly, Sam had smirked at him, mocked him for humming Metallica and ragged on him for panicking and making himself susceptible to demonic possession. It had irritated Dean just enough to take the edge of his panic, which he'd considered a fair exchange. This time around, though, Sam had been infinitely worse. This time he had been sympathetic. This time he had fussed over Dean's seat belt (because a lap belt was going to be so much help if they fell out of the sky in a giant flaming fireball), and patted his shoulder every few minutes, and even bought him a teeny little bottle of JD from one of the flight attendants (Dean would've needed about fifty of those to make him forget the fact that he was in danger of falling out of the sky in a giant flaming fireball). For six straight hours, every time Dean started to relax a little, he would catch a glimpse of Sam in his peripheral vision, watching Dean with big, worried eyes, and all of Dean's hard-won calm would fly right out the window. In a giant flaming fireball.
"There's your bag." Sam snagged Dean's duffel from the conveyor belt and dropped it at Dean's feet. His movements were stiff, and he spent several seconds pressing one fist into the small of his arched back before turning to watch the carousel again. Dean winced in sympathy, despite his resentment. Sam had looked hilariously awkward folded into his tiny airplane seat, knees and elbows tucked in at crazy angles. He had to be feeling even more cramped and stiff than Dean now, which was saying a lot. "And there's mine."
"I've got it." Dean shouldered his way in between two elderly ladies in pastel pants suits, and hauled Sam's bag off the carousel with a grunt. "Jesus, Sam, what've you got in there, rocks?"
"Research materials," Sam said. Dean rolled his eyes and went to fetch a luggage cart.
There was a complimentary shuttle bus to take them from the airport to the hotel. The driver, a motherly-looking woman in beige slacks and eye-searing Hawaiian-print shirt, draped flower garlands around their necks as they climbed aboard. Dean thought the flowers would be fake, but one close look -- or rather, one close whiff -- established that they weren't. He sneezed violently at the perfumey smell, and cursed under his breath as he clawed the garland off. Sam smirked at him with entirely unwarranted amusement.
"I don't think you're getting into the proper island spirit, Dean."
"Fuck proper island spirit," Dean muttered, earning himself a matched pair of startled glances from the honeymooning couple seated in front of them. He wadded the garland into a ball and tossed it at Sam, who caught it easily in one oversized hand. "You like that flowery shit so much, you can have it."
"Thank you," Sam said sweetly, and put Dean's garland on over his own. The smell from the crushed flowers was even stronger than before, but Sam seemed entirely unbothered by it.
Dean sneezed again.
Sam fell asleep during the ride to Waikiki, slumped sideways against the window with his head pillowed on one arm. He looked all of twelve years old, face slack, throat exposed and vulnerable. There was a time, not that long ago, when seeing his brother passed out like that would've sent Dean scrambling for his cell phone to take a picture for future blackmail purposes. Now the sight was like a punch to the solar plexus, a sharp jab of pain and fear.
You have to save him, Dean. It's the only thing that matters. As if he needed to be told that. As if he was going to get careless and forget or something.
Thanks a fucking lot, Dad. Next time, how about you tell me something I don't know, like what the hell I'm supposed to be saving him from? Oh wait, better yet, how about next time you don't go off and fucking drop dead on me? That would be a good one.
Dean clenched his hands in his lap, stared blindly at his own white knuckles until the surge of impotent anger passed. No point in raging at a dead man. If he didn't know what he was supposed to be saving Sammy from... well, then he'd just play it safe and save him from everything. How hard could it be, right?
He slouched a little lower in his seat and watched his first view of Hawaiian scenery glide by in the part of the window that wasn't being blocked by his oversized lump of a brother. They were passing through what looked like a business district, and the boxy, anonymous buildings looked weirdly out of place among the coconut palms and brightly flowering hedges. Mountains -- not the biggest Dean had ever seen but definitely the greenest -- made a jagged line against a brilliant blue sky. Every other courtyard seemed to have a fountain and a flower garden in it, and every other pedestrian seemed to be wearing a flower garden on his back. Dean had always thought those shirts were a kind of joke, one of those things tourists brought home to prove where they've been but no one actually wore. Kind of like the oversized sombreros with the stuffed parrots on the brim that got sold in bordertown souvenir stalls in Texas and New Mexico. But apparently they were actually considered cool here.
Dean shook his head. People were weird.
The road curved, and suddenly there were glimpses of turquoise-colored water in the spaces between the buildings. Dean closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his temples with thumb and forefinger. Between the drive to LA, the time spent at the airport and the actual flight, he'd had less than five hours of sleep in two days, and the sudden barrage of vibrant colors and flowery smells was making him dizzy. At the same time, he could feel the tension slowly draining from his shoulders and back as the thought we're actually here began to sink in.
Maybe it was foolish to think that they were somehow safer here than they would be back on the mainland. But whatever shitstorm the yellow-eyed demon was stirring up, it seemed to be centered in the middle of the country. Dad's copious case notes showed nothing outside the US, and Jessica's death was the only incident to happen near a coast. Dean didn't know what the hell that meant, but he had to believe that it meant something. That taking Sam across an ocean -- or, more precisely, letting Sam take him across an ocean -- would buy them a little more time, a little more peace. A six-hour flight and a few days spent surrounded by people in ugly shirts was a small price to pay.
Their hotel was the last stop on the shuttle route. Dean poked Sam awake and climbed out with their bags, leaving Sam to tip the driver. He stopped in front of the entrance and looked up at the name emblazoned over the sliding glass doors.
"Waikiki Beach Palace, huh?" He glanced from side to side, taking in the rows of souvenir shops and touristy restaurants lining the street in both directions. Nothing in his line of sight looked like a beach. "So much for truth in advertising."
"The beach is four blocks away," Sam said. "We can walk over after we check in, if you want."
"Actually," Dean said, "what I want is to get inside where it's air-conditioned."
They'd gone from airport terminal to shuttle bus too quickly for him to really feel the air temperature, but now he was starting to notice the way his henley clung damply to his back and armpits. It wasn't the choking sauna heat of summertime Florida or Louisiana, but it was hot enough, and the late-morning sun was baking the back of his neck with an intensity that threatened instant sunburn if he didn't get into the shade right now.
"Come on." He hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. "Let's get settled."
There was a lot to be said for traveling on somebody else's dollar. The hotel was by far the nicest place they'd ever stayed at. They had to actually take an elevator up to their room, and the key was a brightly-colored card with a picture of an orchid on one side. The decor was way too pastel for Dean's taste, but the beds were large and comfortable and there was a mini-bar in the cabinet under the TV. When Dean pulled back the blinds on the window, he could actually see the beach.
A blinking orange light on the phone informed them they had a message waiting. Sam listened to it while Dean leafed through a stack of glossy tourist brochures advertising sunset dinner cruises and glass-bottom boat tours.
"That was Claire. She's tied up in some sort of all-day meeting today, but she wants to meet us at the ship tomorrow morning, show us around."
"Great." Dean crossed to the nearest bed and flopped down onto the pale turquoise bedspread. "That means we have the whole day free to--"
"Research," Sam said firmly.
Dean glared at him. "I was going to say sleep."
"It's ten-thirty in the morning, Dean."
"Yeah, so?"
Sam's face scrunched into the all-too-familiar "my brother is an idiot" expression, and Dean braced himself for a lecture about the sleeping habits of normal people. But what Sam actually said was, "This isn't going to be like a regular case, Dean. Internet access at sea is going to be limited, and there sure as hell won't be any libraries or book stores around. Whatever legwork we do, we'd better do it in advance and hope we have whatever we need when we need it."
"Fine." Dean toed off his boots and rolled over, closing his eyes and wrapping the bedspread around himself like a cocoon. "You do whatever you want. I'm taking a nap."
Behind him, Sam breathed a deep, long-suffering sigh. Dean buried his face in the pillow and lay still. After a minute or so, he cracked one eye open just enough to see Sam cross to the window and close the blinds.
He woke up four hours later, feeling reasonably clear-headed and hungry enough to start chewing on the glossy tourist brochures. Sam was on the other bed, hunched over the laptop in deep concentration. He had half a dozen books spread out in a semicircle around him, along with some geeky-looking magazines and stacks of computer print-outs, all slightly the worse for wear from having been stuffed into Sam's luggage.
"Shit, no wonder your bag weighed a ton." Dean reached across the gap between beds to snag a printed sheet, but Sam slapped his hand away.
"Don't touch that, dude, you'll get the pages out of order."
"Well, excuse me for breathing." Dean contemplated the potential amusement value of knocking some of the paper stacks to the floor and decided it wasn't worth the effort. "What is all this crap, anyhow?"
"Japanese folklore and mythology." Sam typed a few words into the laptop, clicked, frowned, scribbled something down on a notepad. "Everything I could put together before we left."
"Hmm." Dean untangled himself from the covers and sat up. "So you think the ship picked up something nasty in Yokohama, then?"
"That's where the trouble started. I figure it's a start."
"Okay, so what've you got?"
"Well..." Sam began, but Dean held up a hand to forestall him.
"Actually, hold that thought. How about you give me the lecture over some food?"
Going out for lunch turned out to be a complicated enterprise. First, Sam announced that neither one of them was going anywhere without sunscreen. The hotel shop charged them eighteen bucks for a small bottle of greasy white crap that smelled like fake coconut. By the time his arms, face and neck were all slathered to Sam's satisfaction, Dean felt as if he'd been dunked head first into a pina colada.
"Don't make that face at me," Sam said. "We both know you burn at the drop of a hat."
They made it all of two blocks from the hotel before Dean realized that SPF 35 just wasn't going to cut it for him. He could actually feel the sunburn creeping up on him as he walked, a flush of heat spreading over skin that suddenly felt as if it was stretched too tightly over his muscles. He was going to just suck it up and deal but Sam, in full mother-hen mode, dragged him into the nearest shop and refused to leave until Dean picked out a shirt to cover up with. It took twenty minutes for Dean to settle on a pale green cotton button-down that didn't look too girly over his jeans and white t-shirt. He turned toward the cash register just in time to see his brother come out from the changing room, decked out in khaki cargo shorts, flip-flops and an emerald-green shirt that looked like a forest of palm trees and scarlet macaws had exploded all over it.
By the time Dean got finished laughing, the sunburn didn't even hurt anymore.
"Okay," Sam said, "the way I see it is-- jeez, Dean, will you please stop snickering?"
"I can't help it." Dean pressed his lips together to keep them from twitching, but it was no use. "You look like an extra from Fantasy Island."
"Anyone who knows what an extra from Fantasy Island looks like has no business snickering at other people. Are you ready to listen now, or what?"
"I'm listening."
"You sure? You don't look like you're listening."
"No, I totally am." Dean pushed his plate to the side, leaned forward with his elbows on the table, and stared at Sam with an expression of deep and exaggerated fascination. "See, this is me listening."
They were sitting in a booth in a small diner that was actually pretty decent, even if they did serve their burgers with slices of pineapple on the side. Dean was drinking a Pepsi and Sam was drinking something fruity and rainbow-colored and topped with a paper umbrella. Sam was also eating his burger with the pineapple slice actually on top of it, the pervert. Dean was starting to wonder if the fugly shirt was having some sort of sinister effect on his brother's brain. Maybe it was a freaky island curse or something. Maybe Dean was going to wake up in the middle of the night to find Sam staring at him with glowing emerald-green eyes and dancing the hula.
In which case Dean was totally rock-salting his ass, 'cause some things were just too evil to exist.
"Dean!"
"What? I said I'm listening."
"The way I see it," Sam was saying again, "we have three likely possibilities. Angry spirit, curse, or some sort of demon or... thing."
"'Thing?'" Dean quirked an eyebrow at him. "Is that a technical term?"
Sam shrugged. "Japanese folklore is full of creatures we've never encountered before. Tanuki, Oni, Tengu, Ketsune -- who the hell knows which ones are real? And there's tons of ghost stories, too."
"Ooookay..." Dean took a bite of his burger and chewed thoughtfully while he mulled things over. "Unless somebody who really hates research scientists decided to curse the whole ship, any one of those things would mean some sort of object brought on board."
Sam nodded. "The Stommel was in Yokohama for two weeks. People probably went shopping."
"Which means it could be anything. Some grad student picks up a trinket in a flea market somewhere, and suddenly the whole ship is fucked over. Great. How are we supposed to find whatever it is?"
"Good question," Sam sighed. "Sweep all the living quarters with the EMF meter and see what turns up?"
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy." Dean shook his head. For a geekboy genius, his brother had an amazing knack for missing the obvious sometimes. "I may not be a fancy-ass college boy, but even I know that a research ship is a giant metal box full of electrical equipment that's probably turned on at all times. We're not gonna get anything useful from the EMF."
"Oh." Sam plucked the umbrella from his drink and twirled it absently between his fingers. Dean contained the urge to snicker some more. "Fine, we'll have to search by hand, then."
"Perfect!" Dean rolled his eyes. "So we have to search the ship for an unknown object that may or may not be connected to an unknown supernatural creature which we probably won't know how to defeat once we find it."
"Yep." Sam beamed at him over the top of his girly drink. "Piece of cake, right?"
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
Dean didn't actually drop to his knees and kiss the ground when they got off the plane in Honolulu, but it was a close call. The main thing that stopped him was the fact that it wasn't actual ground he'd be kissing, but the rubbery-looking, puke-green industrial carpet of the airport terminal.
On a banner above the luggage carousel, a smiling girl in a grass skirt and coconut-shell bra informed Dean that he was welcome to paradise. Dean was unconvinced. He was dehydrated and sleep deprived, his car and his guns were stowed in a long-term parking lot half an ocean away, and his back was killing him.
Also, he was about to strangle his brother.
The last time they'd had to fly, Sam had smirked at him, mocked him for humming Metallica and ragged on him for panicking and making himself susceptible to demonic possession. It had irritated Dean just enough to take the edge of his panic, which he'd considered a fair exchange. This time around, though, Sam had been infinitely worse. This time he had been sympathetic. This time he had fussed over Dean's seat belt (because a lap belt was going to be so much help if they fell out of the sky in a giant flaming fireball), and patted his shoulder every few minutes, and even bought him a teeny little bottle of JD from one of the flight attendants (Dean would've needed about fifty of those to make him forget the fact that he was in danger of falling out of the sky in a giant flaming fireball). For six straight hours, every time Dean started to relax a little, he would catch a glimpse of Sam in his peripheral vision, watching Dean with big, worried eyes, and all of Dean's hard-won calm would fly right out the window. In a giant flaming fireball.
"There's your bag." Sam snagged Dean's duffel from the conveyor belt and dropped it at Dean's feet. His movements were stiff, and he spent several seconds pressing one fist into the small of his arched back before turning to watch the carousel again. Dean winced in sympathy, despite his resentment. Sam had looked hilariously awkward folded into his tiny airplane seat, knees and elbows tucked in at crazy angles. He had to be feeling even more cramped and stiff than Dean now, which was saying a lot. "And there's mine."
"I've got it." Dean shouldered his way in between two elderly ladies in pastel pants suits, and hauled Sam's bag off the carousel with a grunt. "Jesus, Sam, what've you got in there, rocks?"
"Research materials," Sam said. Dean rolled his eyes and went to fetch a luggage cart.
There was a complimentary shuttle bus to take them from the airport to the hotel. The driver, a motherly-looking woman in beige slacks and eye-searing Hawaiian-print shirt, draped flower garlands around their necks as they climbed aboard. Dean thought the flowers would be fake, but one close look -- or rather, one close whiff -- established that they weren't. He sneezed violently at the perfumey smell, and cursed under his breath as he clawed the garland off. Sam smirked at him with entirely unwarranted amusement.
"I don't think you're getting into the proper island spirit, Dean."
"Fuck proper island spirit," Dean muttered, earning himself a matched pair of startled glances from the honeymooning couple seated in front of them. He wadded the garland into a ball and tossed it at Sam, who caught it easily in one oversized hand. "You like that flowery shit so much, you can have it."
"Thank you," Sam said sweetly, and put Dean's garland on over his own. The smell from the crushed flowers was even stronger than before, but Sam seemed entirely unbothered by it.
Dean sneezed again.
Sam fell asleep during the ride to Waikiki, slumped sideways against the window with his head pillowed on one arm. He looked all of twelve years old, face slack, throat exposed and vulnerable. There was a time, not that long ago, when seeing his brother passed out like that would've sent Dean scrambling for his cell phone to take a picture for future blackmail purposes. Now the sight was like a punch to the solar plexus, a sharp jab of pain and fear.
You have to save him, Dean. It's the only thing that matters. As if he needed to be told that. As if he was going to get careless and forget or something.
Thanks a fucking lot, Dad. Next time, how about you tell me something I don't know, like what the hell I'm supposed to be saving him from? Oh wait, better yet, how about next time you don't go off and fucking drop dead on me? That would be a good one.
Dean clenched his hands in his lap, stared blindly at his own white knuckles until the surge of impotent anger passed. No point in raging at a dead man. If he didn't know what he was supposed to be saving Sammy from... well, then he'd just play it safe and save him from everything. How hard could it be, right?
He slouched a little lower in his seat and watched his first view of Hawaiian scenery glide by in the part of the window that wasn't being blocked by his oversized lump of a brother. They were passing through what looked like a business district, and the boxy, anonymous buildings looked weirdly out of place among the coconut palms and brightly flowering hedges. Mountains -- not the biggest Dean had ever seen but definitely the greenest -- made a jagged line against a brilliant blue sky. Every other courtyard seemed to have a fountain and a flower garden in it, and every other pedestrian seemed to be wearing a flower garden on his back. Dean had always thought those shirts were a kind of joke, one of those things tourists brought home to prove where they've been but no one actually wore. Kind of like the oversized sombreros with the stuffed parrots on the brim that got sold in bordertown souvenir stalls in Texas and New Mexico. But apparently they were actually considered cool here.
Dean shook his head. People were weird.
The road curved, and suddenly there were glimpses of turquoise-colored water in the spaces between the buildings. Dean closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his temples with thumb and forefinger. Between the drive to LA, the time spent at the airport and the actual flight, he'd had less than five hours of sleep in two days, and the sudden barrage of vibrant colors and flowery smells was making him dizzy. At the same time, he could feel the tension slowly draining from his shoulders and back as the thought we're actually here began to sink in.
Maybe it was foolish to think that they were somehow safer here than they would be back on the mainland. But whatever shitstorm the yellow-eyed demon was stirring up, it seemed to be centered in the middle of the country. Dad's copious case notes showed nothing outside the US, and Jessica's death was the only incident to happen near a coast. Dean didn't know what the hell that meant, but he had to believe that it meant something. That taking Sam across an ocean -- or, more precisely, letting Sam take him across an ocean -- would buy them a little more time, a little more peace. A six-hour flight and a few days spent surrounded by people in ugly shirts was a small price to pay.
Their hotel was the last stop on the shuttle route. Dean poked Sam awake and climbed out with their bags, leaving Sam to tip the driver. He stopped in front of the entrance and looked up at the name emblazoned over the sliding glass doors.
"Waikiki Beach Palace, huh?" He glanced from side to side, taking in the rows of souvenir shops and touristy restaurants lining the street in both directions. Nothing in his line of sight looked like a beach. "So much for truth in advertising."
"The beach is four blocks away," Sam said. "We can walk over after we check in, if you want."
"Actually," Dean said, "what I want is to get inside where it's air-conditioned."
They'd gone from airport terminal to shuttle bus too quickly for him to really feel the air temperature, but now he was starting to notice the way his henley clung damply to his back and armpits. It wasn't the choking sauna heat of summertime Florida or Louisiana, but it was hot enough, and the late-morning sun was baking the back of his neck with an intensity that threatened instant sunburn if he didn't get into the shade right now.
"Come on." He hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. "Let's get settled."
There was a lot to be said for traveling on somebody else's dollar. The hotel was by far the nicest place they'd ever stayed at. They had to actually take an elevator up to their room, and the key was a brightly-colored card with a picture of an orchid on one side. The decor was way too pastel for Dean's taste, but the beds were large and comfortable and there was a mini-bar in the cabinet under the TV. When Dean pulled back the blinds on the window, he could actually see the beach.
A blinking orange light on the phone informed them they had a message waiting. Sam listened to it while Dean leafed through a stack of glossy tourist brochures advertising sunset dinner cruises and glass-bottom boat tours.
"That was Claire. She's tied up in some sort of all-day meeting today, but she wants to meet us at the ship tomorrow morning, show us around."
"Great." Dean crossed to the nearest bed and flopped down onto the pale turquoise bedspread. "That means we have the whole day free to--"
"Research," Sam said firmly.
Dean glared at him. "I was going to say sleep."
"It's ten-thirty in the morning, Dean."
"Yeah, so?"
Sam's face scrunched into the all-too-familiar "my brother is an idiot" expression, and Dean braced himself for a lecture about the sleeping habits of normal people. But what Sam actually said was, "This isn't going to be like a regular case, Dean. Internet access at sea is going to be limited, and there sure as hell won't be any libraries or book stores around. Whatever legwork we do, we'd better do it in advance and hope we have whatever we need when we need it."
"Fine." Dean toed off his boots and rolled over, closing his eyes and wrapping the bedspread around himself like a cocoon. "You do whatever you want. I'm taking a nap."
Behind him, Sam breathed a deep, long-suffering sigh. Dean buried his face in the pillow and lay still. After a minute or so, he cracked one eye open just enough to see Sam cross to the window and close the blinds.
He woke up four hours later, feeling reasonably clear-headed and hungry enough to start chewing on the glossy tourist brochures. Sam was on the other bed, hunched over the laptop in deep concentration. He had half a dozen books spread out in a semicircle around him, along with some geeky-looking magazines and stacks of computer print-outs, all slightly the worse for wear from having been stuffed into Sam's luggage.
"Shit, no wonder your bag weighed a ton." Dean reached across the gap between beds to snag a printed sheet, but Sam slapped his hand away.
"Don't touch that, dude, you'll get the pages out of order."
"Well, excuse me for breathing." Dean contemplated the potential amusement value of knocking some of the paper stacks to the floor and decided it wasn't worth the effort. "What is all this crap, anyhow?"
"Japanese folklore and mythology." Sam typed a few words into the laptop, clicked, frowned, scribbled something down on a notepad. "Everything I could put together before we left."
"Hmm." Dean untangled himself from the covers and sat up. "So you think the ship picked up something nasty in Yokohama, then?"
"That's where the trouble started. I figure it's a start."
"Okay, so what've you got?"
"Well..." Sam began, but Dean held up a hand to forestall him.
"Actually, hold that thought. How about you give me the lecture over some food?"
Going out for lunch turned out to be a complicated enterprise. First, Sam announced that neither one of them was going anywhere without sunscreen. The hotel shop charged them eighteen bucks for a small bottle of greasy white crap that smelled like fake coconut. By the time his arms, face and neck were all slathered to Sam's satisfaction, Dean felt as if he'd been dunked head first into a pina colada.
"Don't make that face at me," Sam said. "We both know you burn at the drop of a hat."
They made it all of two blocks from the hotel before Dean realized that SPF 35 just wasn't going to cut it for him. He could actually feel the sunburn creeping up on him as he walked, a flush of heat spreading over skin that suddenly felt as if it was stretched too tightly over his muscles. He was going to just suck it up and deal but Sam, in full mother-hen mode, dragged him into the nearest shop and refused to leave until Dean picked out a shirt to cover up with. It took twenty minutes for Dean to settle on a pale green cotton button-down that didn't look too girly over his jeans and white t-shirt. He turned toward the cash register just in time to see his brother come out from the changing room, decked out in khaki cargo shorts, flip-flops and an emerald-green shirt that looked like a forest of palm trees and scarlet macaws had exploded all over it.
By the time Dean got finished laughing, the sunburn didn't even hurt anymore.
"Okay," Sam said, "the way I see it is-- jeez, Dean, will you please stop snickering?"
"I can't help it." Dean pressed his lips together to keep them from twitching, but it was no use. "You look like an extra from Fantasy Island."
"Anyone who knows what an extra from Fantasy Island looks like has no business snickering at other people. Are you ready to listen now, or what?"
"I'm listening."
"You sure? You don't look like you're listening."
"No, I totally am." Dean pushed his plate to the side, leaned forward with his elbows on the table, and stared at Sam with an expression of deep and exaggerated fascination. "See, this is me listening."
They were sitting in a booth in a small diner that was actually pretty decent, even if they did serve their burgers with slices of pineapple on the side. Dean was drinking a Pepsi and Sam was drinking something fruity and rainbow-colored and topped with a paper umbrella. Sam was also eating his burger with the pineapple slice actually on top of it, the pervert. Dean was starting to wonder if the fugly shirt was having some sort of sinister effect on his brother's brain. Maybe it was a freaky island curse or something. Maybe Dean was going to wake up in the middle of the night to find Sam staring at him with glowing emerald-green eyes and dancing the hula.
In which case Dean was totally rock-salting his ass, 'cause some things were just too evil to exist.
"Dean!"
"What? I said I'm listening."
"The way I see it," Sam was saying again, "we have three likely possibilities. Angry spirit, curse, or some sort of demon or... thing."
"'Thing?'" Dean quirked an eyebrow at him. "Is that a technical term?"
Sam shrugged. "Japanese folklore is full of creatures we've never encountered before. Tanuki, Oni, Tengu, Ketsune -- who the hell knows which ones are real? And there's tons of ghost stories, too."
"Ooookay..." Dean took a bite of his burger and chewed thoughtfully while he mulled things over. "Unless somebody who really hates research scientists decided to curse the whole ship, any one of those things would mean some sort of object brought on board."
Sam nodded. "The Stommel was in Yokohama for two weeks. People probably went shopping."
"Which means it could be anything. Some grad student picks up a trinket in a flea market somewhere, and suddenly the whole ship is fucked over. Great. How are we supposed to find whatever it is?"
"Good question," Sam sighed. "Sweep all the living quarters with the EMF meter and see what turns up?"
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy." Dean shook his head. For a geekboy genius, his brother had an amazing knack for missing the obvious sometimes. "I may not be a fancy-ass college boy, but even I know that a research ship is a giant metal box full of electrical equipment that's probably turned on at all times. We're not gonna get anything useful from the EMF."
"Oh." Sam plucked the umbrella from his drink and twirled it absently between his fingers. Dean contained the urge to snicker some more. "Fine, we'll have to search by hand, then."
"Perfect!" Dean rolled his eyes. "So we have to search the ship for an unknown object that may or may not be connected to an unknown supernatural creature which we probably won't know how to defeat once we find it."
"Yep." Sam beamed at him over the top of his girly drink. "Piece of cake, right?"
Chapter 3