A Series of Somewhat Unfortunate Events for zelda_addict (2/2)
Event Three: The Killing Curse, not for children under twelve.
Every parent, of every age, parenting every age of child, knows that particular heart-stopping second when they hear the one sound that can freeze their blood and twist their very soul into knots - the sound of their child shrieking in pure, utter terror. An uncontrollable scream of fear, instilling a mirroring fear into the heart of that child's caregiver - nothing can possibly be more frightening.
So loud is Sammy's screaming, that it penetrates through brick and concrete and reinforced salt-soaked and warded steel all the way to Dean's bedroom. He had only run back there for a moment, remembering that he had left the electric heater on last evening due to it being freezing and he having two small companions bunked temporarily in the same room with him - but the old thing is a clear fire hazard if left unattended, and he didn't want to just let it run all day. He left Sammy and Cas in the library (he knows better by now than to leave them unattended in the kitchen) calmly chowing on Cheerios in front of his laptop, which is currently playing some random animated movie about talking fish on Netflix.
And in that sixty seconds, something horrible has happened.
Sammy's shriek of terror penetrates several walls with no difficulty, and Dean comes barreling around the corner into the library, gun drawn in readiness to face down whatever danger is lurking.
His first reaction is to notice there is nothing in the room, other than the two children he left.
One of which is, again, on top of the nearest bookcase.
"Sam!"
His five-year-old brother is, once again, six feet off the ground, peering over the edge and pointing at the floor, screaming bloody murder at what looks like absolutely nothing.
Seriously, what the hell. It is way, way too early for this. And if Sam's faking it, the little brat, he is gonna find himself on the receiving end of John Winchester's long-remembered method of punishment for crying wolf...
Castiel has managed to free himself from his makeshift booster chair, and is seated on the ground below Sam, looking up at the hollering five-year-old as if he can totally understand the panicked gibberish Sam is bestowing upon the rest of them.
"Sam...Sam. SAMMY!" Dean tries out-shouting the kid, but unsurprisingly is barely able to be heard, much less get his attention. He steps up to the scene of the chaos, and then sees what apparently has his little brother so worked up.
In all fairness, that's one freaking hugeass wolf spider. Fully five inches in legspan, the thing's friggin' creepy, and nobody wants that crawling on them while they eat, or at all for that matter. Must've gotten into the Bunker somehow, with all the rain the last few days and the warm spell they've had, and Dean's secretly glad it didn't decide to drop in on him in the shower or something, or he might be reacting much the same way.
But seriously, if Sam doesn't lower the decibel level he's going to break another potion bottle somewhere.
Baby Castiel regards the creature silently, which has paused multi-legged in front of the bookcase, no doubt as sytmied by the shrieking as they all are. The infant cocks his head curiously, and then looks back up at Sam, who is peering warily over the edge of the shelf, eyes wide with fright. Tiny dark brows draw together for a moment, and then Castiel reaches out a chubby hand toward the arachnid.
Dean's first instinct is to smile. Aw, how cute, he's gonna try and make friends with it. It'll probably bite him, but A for effort, too bad I don't have my camera for future blackma - Jesus! He jumps, and blinks away dark spots from the flash of light that just temporarily blinded him.
A small plume of smoke curls lazily upward from the tiny pile of ashes.
"Uh…" Dean looks up, and sees a sleep-ruffled Kevin in the doorway, coffee mug paused halfway to his mouth. "Did he just…"
"Smite a freaking spider? Yeeeeah." Castiel beams over at them, clearly pleased with himself, while Sam makes a spluttering noise of surprise followed by an awestruck, "duuuuuude," from overhead.
"Holy crap."
"You think!"
"I'll get back to work looking for a way to control that," Kevin says hastily, scooting back out the doorway before any meltdowns (of any age) can happen.
--
Event Four: A Sorcerer's Apprentice: or, You're the one who taught Sam to read at age four, Dean.
He really should have seen that one coming, there was no excuse for it. But a week of playing house with a five-year-old and a baby angel had made him far too trusting - and that is going to come back to bite him now, hard.
"How much of it did you drink?!" Kevin screeches from outside the bathroom door while he tries to cough up the rest of the juice.
"Like twenty ounces!" he manages to yell back between heaves, though at this point it's probably useless.
"What the hell, Dean!"
"I didn't know, you moron!"
Sam had brought him 'breakfas' in bed, Dean, look!' consisting of an enormous glass of juice and two pieces of jam-drenched, burned toast; and like a good big brother, he'd dutifully downed the entire tray and ruffled a hand through a beaming Sammy's curls, telling him what an awesome little brother he was.
Dean had then had taken the tray back to the kitchen to find that his little brother had apparently dumped a hefty dose of that same Elixir of Eternal Youth potion into the juice glass because he wanted his big brother to be 'not quite so big, Dean!'
Hence, trying to regurgitate some of the potion before it hit his digestive system, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be working too well. Judging from the panicking going on outside the door, Kevin is catching on to the fact that this could (will) end up potentially disastrous.
He sighs, rests his head against the fogged mirror for a second, then opens the door. Kevin stumbles back with a small yelp, eyes wide.
"Calm the hell down," he growls, pushing past the moaning teenager into the corridor. "I was takin' care of that little monster when I was four, I can do it again now - surely you can handle a baby angel at nineteen. Grow a pair and go corral the two of 'em while I figure out how long I've got before I can't see over the countertops anymore. Then we gotta call somebody to come help you figure out if this crap really does have a three month shelf life or if the Letters were as accurate with that as they were with like, everything else they labeled in this mausoleum."
"And if they were?"
"Then we might get lucky and you'll only be on babysitting duty for weeks, not months."
"Yeay..." He heard the whimper behind him only a few seconds before the hallway started to spin like a carnival ride.
Soon as I can do it and not be called a bully, you are so getting punched in the nose for this, Sam...