Laundry Day
Title: Laundry Day
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Cas, Sam
Warnings: Cursing. Spoilers up through the S8 finale, and potential spoilers for S9.
Word Count: 4,400
Summary: What happens when Dean asks a certain ex-angel to iron his shirts
Notes: This one was inspired by some cast quotes from Comic-Con regarding what’s in store for S9.
Sam impatiently flicked yellowy the pages of the grimoire that was spread open on his lap.
Something didn't add up, and it peeved him. There was nothing that quite fit the the news article he’d read about the recent attack. He squinted out the Impala's passenger side window, wondering what was taking his brother so damned long.
“Yeah, Cas!” came Dean's voice from across the parking lot. Sam's brother was heavily laden with bags of greasy fast food, his neck crimped over his cell phone: he refused to buy headphones, as they were, in his own words, “super dork-o-matic.”
Personally, Sam thought uttering a phrase like “super dork-o-matic” qualified one under the heading. But he wisely kept his mouth shut.
He closed the book, carefully depositing it on the floorboards, and cranked down the window to receive a paper bag, drink, and a crumpled wad of paper napkins, all the time muttering a small prayer of apology for the damage they were doing to the environment with this crappy meal.
“Cas, could you do me a favor, buddy?” Dean was babbling into the phone. “I'm completely outta shirts. Could you, if you get a chance-? Yeah, that would be great. OK. See you.”
“Seriously?” asked Sam, as Dean hopped inside. “You're seriously having an angel of the Lord iron your shirts now?”
Dean rustled into his bag and extracted one dripping bacon burger. He licked the pink-ish secret sauce off his hand and grabbed one of Sam's napkins. “He's not ironing them, Sam. He's just sticking some stuff in the wash.”
Sam huffed and pulled out a somewhat wilted salad. He fished around in the bottom of the bag for the little packet of dressing.
“What?” said Dean, his mouth now half jammed with meat byproducts.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Sammy. I know that look.”
Sam was indeed flashing The Look. “You know perfectly well he's not just gonna throw them in the wash, Dean. He's gonna walk twenty miles-”
“Five miles!”
“-into town to that laundromat, since you won't show him how to drive,” Sam was ticking things off on his fingers, “carrying a thirty pound pack of laundry, with a broken arm-”
“He sprained his wrist!” said Dean, jamming some French fries in his mouth. “Sam, why are you coddling him a sudden? He's living there, eating our food.”
Sam sighed as he tore open the pack. He hated thousand island. “And you have him do the grocery shopping too.”
“Gotta keep him busy. So he doesn't sit and sulk. I fucking hate it when he sits and sulks.”
“I don't think turning him into your personal manservant is the solution, Dean.” Sam pouted and shook the plastic salad container, trying to coat all the desiccated lettuce leaves in the too-sweet dressing.
“Hey, that's an idea,” said Dean, slurping soda and igniting the engine. “You think we could get him to wear a little maid apron around or something?”
Sam needed several of the paper napkins to clean up mouthful the soda he spit out over the dashboard.
Cas finished scooping the bulk of the brothers' laundry into the tan cloth duffel. It ended up stuffed pretty full, since besides the clothes he'd also grabbed linens and towels and whatever else. It had been a while since they’d washed: probably too long. Humans tended to make everything grubby. He finished zipping it up and, favoring his right hand, slung the heavy bag over one shoulder, groaning under the weight.
It was a long-ish walk into town, but it was a nice day, so he didn't mind so much. Sam had given him a couple of driving lessons, “in case of emergency,” he'd told Cas. They had been a little rushed, and always when Dean was away, so he suspected the elder Winchester would not approve. But the point was moot, as there wasn't a car around right now. And the bunker wasn't located on any bus route, so shoe leather was really the only alternative.
A truck roared by, tooting his horn at Cas as he walked along. He raised up his hand in greeting, but let it pass. After Dean had found him reading a book called On the Road, Cas had received a very stern lecture regarding hitchhiking. Curious, he had asked Dean to specify exactly why he needed to refuse a favor from a human.
“Because you're still a naïve little fuck. That's why,” grunted Dean. Cas had resolved to ask Sam about it at some point, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.
He was about halfway there when he realized he had forgotten to take along his cell phone. He stopped, dropping the heavy duffel on the ground, and stretched his aching shoulder. Should he go back and get it? It had been another of Dean's strictures, that he keep it with him at all times, and in a fully charged state. He mused about it for a moment, imagining the call from Dean requesting he pick up a six-pack, “as long as you're in town.” He scowled, picked up the duffel bag, and trudged onwards into town.
After all, he wouldn't be gone that long.
“Ewwww! Damn. I'm glad I already ate,” said Dean, leaning over the corpse.
Given that the coroner was evidently out for his own lunchtime, the clerk, upon seeing the Winchester brothers's fake FBI badges, had sullenly waved them on through into the autopsy room. Sam grimaced and let the sheet covering the corpse fall back down over its head. He walked down to the other end and picked up the clipboard hanging at the end of the table. John Doe, it said. “It” was a male. Or had been. Careful to use his gloved hand, he lifted the corner of the sheet which hung over that end of the table and peeked inside.
Dean whistled low. “Skinned from head to toe,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Guess this one was thorough. So, we're either tracking Buffalo Bill....”
“Or we've got some kind of creepy crawly on the loose,” Sam finished, once again dropping the sheet.
“What's your take?”
“Well, this one hits pretty close to home: we're just a few mile up the 281! I'd say we go after it, either way.”
“You find any matches in your weird old book?”
“Nothing that's an exact match.”
“Seems like this would be pretty distinctive.”
“There’s monsters that eat people, but nothing that skins them and leaves them like this. Nothing local, at least.”
Both brothers started as suddenly the doubled doors to the autopsy room suddenly banged open and the languid clerk arrived, breathless. “Oh, so you guys are still here! Good! Tubby Burch wants to talk to ya.”
“Uh, Tubby...?” inquired Dean.
“He's the sheriff,” sighed the clerk, giving a “no duh” snort for good measure.
“The local constabulary is named, 'Tubby?'” Dean whispered as the clerk disappeared again. Sam shrugged, and they followed the clerk out of the autopsy room.
Sheriff Burch, as it turned out, wasn't corpulent, a characteristic he attributed to the Atkins diet. In fact, it took a few moments of chatting about carbohydrates before the officer could be persuaded to talk about the business at hand.
“So, I suppose you boys are here about Jack O'Sheemo in there?” he finally said, adjusting his belt around his absent belly.
“So, you've ID'd the vic?” Sam asked.
“Yep. Can't say anybody in town was much surprised he would come to a bad end.”
“He had enemies?”
The sheriff snorted. “Collecting enemies was a hobby for that one. But still it was a lousy way to die. We had to go by dental records. No face; no fingerprints. You could see that.”
Dean nodded in sympathy. “You ever had anything like this around here before?”
“No, not in any way. Half of my job is rounding up drunks. Of which Jack was one. Of course. The biggest crime wave here this past season is the Stripper.”
Dean perked up, maybe a little too much. “Uh, the what?” Sam put in before his brother could say anything.
“I'm sure it's just boys playing pranks. But I've had a couple witnesses swear up and down she's an old woman.”
Sam and Dean were both paying close attention now. “And what does he - or she - do, specifically?”
“Why, knocks you down and steals you clothes!”
Sam and Dean exchanged a glance.
The officer formerly known as Tubby was chucking. “I had the same reaction, boys. Was sure the first time, and the second: they tied one on, lost their clothes. Wouldn't be the first time! I've had a few late nights myself.” And here the sheriff patted his absent stomach.
Sam and Dean managed to extract themselves from the sheriff's office after a brief discussion about the glycemic index.
“Tubby,” muttered Dean, shaking his head as he opened the Impala's door. “Officer Tubby.”
“Sheriff Tubby,” Sam corrected. “And, have you ever heard anything like that?”
“What, the little old lady mugger?”
“Yeah. I mean, outside a Monty Python sketch?”
“Not lately. Anyway, you wanna check out the vic's last known address?”
Sam shrugged, and the car roared to life.
“Hey, Cas!”
The bell tinkled softly as Cas crossed the threshold. He nodded in reply. Susie was the plump, sunny woman who ran General Laundry Mat in downtown Lebanon. She usually had a child or two toddling around at her feet.
Cas was under a stricture to use only “Cas,” not his full name, and never to supply a last name. Based on past experiences, Dean wanted to stave off further interactions with any fallen angels who might happen by. Cas had also been supplied with something called a “back story,” in which he was a distant cousin to the Winchester brothers. Under Dean's instruction he had carefully committed every detail of this story to memory, though, as he was also under orders to speak only when spoken too, he hadn't had the chance to share much of it. He was relieved, as lying still did no come naturally to him.
When Dean had first introduced Cas to Susie, he had gone over and told her something in a very soft voice, to which Susie had nodded and sadly clucked her tongue. Cas, lacking his angelic powers of hearing, had not been able to glean what was said, but after that, she had seemed to treat him with a great amount of warmth and indulgence.
“How's that arm doin', sweetie?”
As Dean had no rules regarding the use of nicknames, Cas felt free to answer her on this. “It feels better now, thank you,” he said, unconsciously rubbing on the ace bandage that wrapped his left wrist. “I believe the swelling has gone down somewhat, and I can flex it with less pain.”
“That's nice. Could you do me a favor, babe?”
“Babe” was another affectionate nickname. It had nothing to do with Cas's perceived age. “I would like to. Please tell me what you would like?”
“If you're gonna be here a while, could you keep an eye on the place? I have to drop off Cody.”
Among Susie's progeny were beings named Cody and Kayla. It seemed that they spent the day being picked up and dropped off by Susie. Cas was unclear as to the mysterious purpose of this transportation. But he was glad to do a favor for her, as she appeared pleasant. “I will keep a careful eye on the General Laundry Mat, Susie.”
“Thanks honey. I'll be back in two shakes!” said Susie, taking children by the hand and herding them out into the parking lot, where they all climbed into an aged SUV and took off.
Cas was left squinting out the door, wondering about the unit of time for a “shake.”
“So, what's the deal?”
Sam straightened up, taking a bit of time to do it. His knees ached, and he had a crick in his neck. He wouldn't actually say it out loud, because Dean would never stop teasing him, but he was getting too damn old for this shit.
He clicked off the flashlight. “The deal is, Dean, whatever it is, it's written in a foreign language, and as you'll remember, I was pre-law, not linguistics.”
“Stumped, college boy?” Dean seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Yeah, basically.” Sam frowned down at the door leading into the icky, dusty crawl space. The victim's house, once they broke into it, was fairly boring. Until Sam, to his eternal regret, noticed the hidden door behind a bureau on the stairway landing. There were a lot of scrapes on the hardwood floor from the thing being pushed back and forth, so they decided to take a look-see. Despite Sam's obvious unsuitability for fitting into tight spaces, Dean had declared that he was the one who need to take a look, as, after all, he was the one who had discovered it.
There was some kind of altar set up inside.
“Can you write it down?”
“Pretty sure it’s Chinese or Japanese. Meaning, no.”
“Well, take a pic, and we'll send it to Mr. Google Translate. Give him something to do.”
“You don't think Cas is busy?”
“What? Watching the dryer go round and round?”
“And getting your six-pack?”
Dean laughed. “I didn't ask him to pick up a six-pack. Yet.”
“That's my favorite book.”
Placing his finger to mark his place, Cas looked up from where he was sitting on a bench watching a dryer full of Winchester-wear go around and around. Somehow, he had missed the bell tinkling that signaled a new person entering the Laundry Mat. “Yes?”
“On the Road. It's a great book.” The speaker was a young-looking man, his face relaxed into a sincere-seeming smile of greeting. He possessed epicanthic folds, as well as dark hair and eyes, indicating East Asian ancestry, which Cas gathered was an important characteristic in a human. Or something humans seemed to pay attention to.
“I haven't finished it, so I can't categorize it yet,” Cas told him.
The young man sat down next to Cas. “Jizo,” he said.
“Cas,” Cas responded, though he wished, for some obscure reason, he could offer his full name. “I enjoy reading about traveling across the country. I'm … not in a position to do it myself.” He decided this didn't technically violate the “do not speak unless spoken to” rule, as Jizo had introduced himself.
“Tied down?” Jizo dug into his nylon athletic bag and began grabbing clothes.
“In a sense.” Cas turned and watched flannel shirts and cotton sheets tumbling one over the other. “At least, I miss the days when I was more … mobile.”
“Well, like Dorothy said, in some ways, there's no place like home.”
Jizo had risen and crossed over to the row of washers. He stuffed some items into a machine. And then he strolled over to the little vending machine with soap and fabric softener and bleach and that annoying bottle of Rit dye nobody ever used.
“Are you far from home, Jizo?” asked Cas.
Jizo chuckled as his quarters fell against steel. “Much farther than you could imagine.”
“So, what's the scoop?”
Sam leaned against the car, staring at his phone. “Cas hasn't written back.”
“What, is he ignoring emails?” asked Dean. He whipped out his own phone and started thumbing out a text. “CAS WTF?” He hit send, and then started when the phone rang. “Well, that was quick.” He held it to his ear. “Cas? Oh, hey, Sheriff!”
“You told me to call you if anything strange happened,” the Sheriff told him. Even over the phone, the voice sounded strange. Dean looked at Sam.
“Yeah. So, something happened.”
“I'll- I'll give you the address. Get here. Quick. Please.”
“Let me grab a pen!” Dean gestured at Sam, who tossed him a notepad and a pen from the glove compartment.
Cas was folding the freshly-cleaned sheets. He wasn't sure why, but this activity pleased him.
Jizo was transferring his damp clothes to one of the dryers. They had been chatting, off and on, about this and that. “So, how long have you lived here, Cas?”
“Not long,” said Cas, congratulating himself on a skillfully vague answer. He thought Dean would approve, though he wasn't certain Dean would like him talking to a stranger.
“You know the gal who runs the place?”
“Susie?” asked Cas.
“Susie,” said Jizo. Cas stopped folding sheets and blinked at him. It was as if the name surprised him.
“I sometimes watch the place while she drops off her children.” Cas had never been exactly certain what he was supposed to watch for, but he was glad to be of service.
“Oh, she has kids?” Jizo seemed honestly surprised. “How many, do you think?”
“I'm not certain,” Cas admitted. “Cody. Kayla. Kaitlin. Madison. Tyler....” It was odd that he hadn't thought about it before. “They always seem to be different.”
Jizo didn't reply, but for some reason, he looked concerned.
A vehicle pulled up outside. “Oh, there she is,” said Cas. He and Jizo exchanged a glance. Oddly enough, the hairs on the back of Cas's neck were prickling. He wished not for the first time that he still retained his angel senses.
The bell jingled as Susie crossed the threshold. She stood for a while, children at her feet, staring at Jizo.
“You,” she said.
“Datsueba,” said Jizo. “Fancy meeting you here.”
There was blood everywhere.
Sheriff Burch stood outside, cigarette butt clutched in his trembling fingers. “I quit these, you know. Healthy lifestyle,” he confided to Sam.
“How many bodies?” Sam asked him, as a stretcher emerged from the storefront.
“Four. Five, maybe. Not a one of them has a bit of skin left on them.”
“All of them flayed?” asked Dean, watching the attendants march the stretcher into the ambulance.
“The doc tells me … he thinks they were alive. When they did it. At least … when they started.”
Sam shuddered and looked at Dean, who was staring steely-eyed at the Sheriff. “We're going in,” Dean told him. Without waiting for an answer, he charged inside, Sam on his heels. There was blood all over the floor, over the machines, splattered on the overturned laundry baskets, pooling in the sink, dripping from the vending machine.
And a couple of bodies remained, though at least they’d been covered up.
Sam forced himself to keep calm and look around. “Dean, something strike you as weird?”
“Yeah, there are definitely elements that strike me as weird.”
“No, I mean, this is a laundromat, right?”
“Says so on the door.”
“Where's the clothes?”
Dean turned to stare at his little brother, and then he looked around the room. There were laundry baskets and bags, but Sam was right: no clothing. “Damn. So, we've got a psycho killer … clothing thief?”
“You think they're related? I mean, to the stripper case?”
Dean thought it over for a moment. “She's come to the source.”
Sam suddenly fished in his pocket and grabbed his phone.
“You hear back from Cas?” asked Dean.
“No!”
Dean froze. “He went to the laundromat, Sammy.”
And then they were both running for the door.
The children were the first to attack. They flew, fangs barred, at Jizo, who drew a katana from god knows where.
Cas's first instinct was to draw his angel sword, which, of course, was impossible. He swore under his breath at his current powerlessness. And his lack of perception. Datsueba was a demon. How could he have missed it?
He stepped back, as fleeing seemed his only option, but Datsueba turned to him. “Don't go anywhere, babe. I'm saving you for a snack.” And then she pushed out a hand, and Cas was thrown back, smack against the metal vending machine. He groaned as he hit the floor on his sore arm. And then to add insult to injury he was bonked on the head by that stupid bottle of Rit dye.
Jizo had felled one and then two of the demon children. The crackled and crumbled to dust as he slayed them, but then it seemed more and more rose in their place. He was already looking pale, and bleeding from a number of bites.
A demon, Cas thought, clutching the bottle of dye as Datsueba stood, grinning at Jizo’s plight. How to fight a demon. Think. He forced his human body to calm down. Jizo screamed, and his sword clattered to the ground. He dove for it, as two demon children pounced on him.
Cas, trying to be furtive, grasped one of the sheets out from where it was neatly folded up in his duffel bag.
The Impala screeched into the space beside Susie's vehicle. Sam was out and running before it had even come to a halt, and Dean was somehow hot on his heels, nearly running into his brother when Sam stopped dead at the threshold.
Cas was sitting on a washing machine, cradling his arm. Meanwhile, a person with a sheet thrown over her head, like a cheap-ass Halloween ghost costume, was standing in the middle of the store, struggling and complaining. “Let me out! Let me out!”
“Cas! Are you all right?” asked Dean, running to Cas's side.
“Susie is a demon, Dean,” Cas explained. “Her real name is Datsueba. For the moment, I have confined her underneath a sheet painted with a devil's trap.” He held up an empty bottle of Rit dye.
“Good work, Cas!” said Sam, who crept nearer to peer at the frustrated demon.
“Hey, is that my sheet?” asked Dean.
“I need to take her back,” explained a much-bloodied Asian dude. He pulled some silver chains out of a nylon gym bag. He flicked a finger, and the chains flew towards the demon, wrapping themselves around her.
“Taking her back where?” asked Dean. “And who the hell are you?”
“That's Jizo,” said Cas. “He's a Bodhisattvah.”
“And why are you talking to strange Bodhisattvahs?” scolded Dean. “You know the rules!”
“Your angel provided invaluable assistance,” Jizo told Dean. “I have been tracking Datsueba for a while now. She is required to guide souls to our afterlife. But things have been … disrupted lately. And somehow she escaped into the wrong spiritual plane.”
“Oh! I think somebody called her here, actually,” said Sam. He brought out his cell phone and showed Jizo a picture of the writing that had been scribbled above the crawlspace altar.
Jizo squinted at the small screen, and then nodded. “Someone named Oshimo?” he asked. “What happened to him?”
“She took his skin,” said Sam.
“And we think she’s been stealing clothes,” Dean added.
Jizo shook his head. “She was probably having trouble getting enough to feed herself. She’s always been one greedy demon.”
He tied up the thin silver chain, and then snapped the devil’s trap sheet off Datsueba. In her true form she was now unrecognizable, old and wizened.
Keeping the end of the chain in one hand, Jizo handed the sheet back to Cas. “We won't be needing this anymore,” he said with a smile. He bowed formally to Cas. “I am in your debt, Castiel. If you should go and travel around the country, remember, I will be watching over you.” And then, with no further ado, he and Datsueba disappeared.
“You weren’t supposed to give him your real name,” said Dean.
“I didn't,” said Cas, tilting his head in wonder.
Dean grabbed the sheet from Cas's hands. “So, I gotta sleep under a devil's trap now?”
“I … improvised,” said Cas.
“You did a good job, Cas,” said Sam.
Dean shrugged and tossed the sheet back in the duffel. “Yeah. On the way back, how about you take shotgun seat?”
“Dean,” said Cas. “I would like to drive.”
Dean went utterly silent.
“Hey, ya know, I'm gonna take this bag of clean clothes out to the car!” Sam said, altogether too loudly. And then he was gone.
Cas was staring at Dean. “As the proprietor has been taken away, there is no longer a functional laundromat in Lebanon. I will need to drive in order to do your laundry.”
“We could … drive you?”
“Dean-”
Dean waved his hands. “All right. Look. I know, you must be going kind of stir crazy. I can't imagine what it must be like.”
“No. You can't.”
Dean huffed. “I just don't want you to get hurt, Cas! I mean, look at your arm.”
“My wrist will heal, Dean.”
“But what if Susie Tuba or whatever the hell she was called had been an angel?”
“There may always be angels. We might not be able to fix it. I can't live my human life, if that's all I have, hiding in your bunker!”
“Our bunker,” said Dean, placing a hand on Cas's good shoulder. “It's your home too.”
“It feels more like prison.”
Dean took his hand off Cas's shoulder and stared at the floor. His breathing had become rough. “You don’t wanna stay with us?” he whispered.
Cas’s brows knitted together. “Dean, as you know, I am very bad at these kinds of interactions.”
“Yeah. You are.”
Cas stepped forward. And then, tentatively, he put two fingers under Dean's chin, gently tilting Dean's head up to face him. “I will- I will go and do laundry. And I will pick up beer. And maybe those magazines you like. And then I will drive back to the bunker. Home.”
Dean rubbed a sleeve across his eyes. “Where you gonna go for laundry? The laundromat in the next town up the 281 is fucked up too.”
“Where to go for laundry?” Cas tilted his head. “I was thinking … Las Vegas.”
Dean stared for a while, and then the corner of Cas's mouth ticked up. Just a little.
“Fucker,” said Dean. And then, for no reason, he pulled Cas into a hug. “You do not tell Sammy about this,” he whispered when he pulled back.
“About what?” asked Cas.
Dean wrapped an arm around Cas's shoulders and walked him towards the door. “We'll stop on the way and pick up some beer. And some ice for that wrist.”
“Do you want magazines?”
Dean chuckled. “Maybe not today. How about this? I’ll drive to the store, and then I’ll show you how to drive on the way back.”
“I already know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“How?”
Dean grinned. “You guys aren’t half as sneaky as you think you are.”
The bell tinkled as they exited.
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Cas, Sam
Warnings: Cursing. Spoilers up through the S8 finale, and potential spoilers for S9.
Word Count: 4,400
Summary: What happens when Dean asks a certain ex-angel to iron his shirts
Notes: This one was inspired by some cast quotes from Comic-Con regarding what’s in store for S9.
Sam impatiently flicked yellowy the pages of the grimoire that was spread open on his lap.
Something didn't add up, and it peeved him. There was nothing that quite fit the the news article he’d read about the recent attack. He squinted out the Impala's passenger side window, wondering what was taking his brother so damned long.
“Yeah, Cas!” came Dean's voice from across the parking lot. Sam's brother was heavily laden with bags of greasy fast food, his neck crimped over his cell phone: he refused to buy headphones, as they were, in his own words, “super dork-o-matic.”
Personally, Sam thought uttering a phrase like “super dork-o-matic” qualified one under the heading. But he wisely kept his mouth shut.
He closed the book, carefully depositing it on the floorboards, and cranked down the window to receive a paper bag, drink, and a crumpled wad of paper napkins, all the time muttering a small prayer of apology for the damage they were doing to the environment with this crappy meal.
“Cas, could you do me a favor, buddy?” Dean was babbling into the phone. “I'm completely outta shirts. Could you, if you get a chance-? Yeah, that would be great. OK. See you.”
“Seriously?” asked Sam, as Dean hopped inside. “You're seriously having an angel of the Lord iron your shirts now?”
Dean rustled into his bag and extracted one dripping bacon burger. He licked the pink-ish secret sauce off his hand and grabbed one of Sam's napkins. “He's not ironing them, Sam. He's just sticking some stuff in the wash.”
Sam huffed and pulled out a somewhat wilted salad. He fished around in the bottom of the bag for the little packet of dressing.
“What?” said Dean, his mouth now half jammed with meat byproducts.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Sammy. I know that look.”
Sam was indeed flashing The Look. “You know perfectly well he's not just gonna throw them in the wash, Dean. He's gonna walk twenty miles-”
“Five miles!”
“-into town to that laundromat, since you won't show him how to drive,” Sam was ticking things off on his fingers, “carrying a thirty pound pack of laundry, with a broken arm-”
“He sprained his wrist!” said Dean, jamming some French fries in his mouth. “Sam, why are you coddling him a sudden? He's living there, eating our food.”
Sam sighed as he tore open the pack. He hated thousand island. “And you have him do the grocery shopping too.”
“Gotta keep him busy. So he doesn't sit and sulk. I fucking hate it when he sits and sulks.”
“I don't think turning him into your personal manservant is the solution, Dean.” Sam pouted and shook the plastic salad container, trying to coat all the desiccated lettuce leaves in the too-sweet dressing.
“Hey, that's an idea,” said Dean, slurping soda and igniting the engine. “You think we could get him to wear a little maid apron around or something?”
Sam needed several of the paper napkins to clean up mouthful the soda he spit out over the dashboard.
Cas finished scooping the bulk of the brothers' laundry into the tan cloth duffel. It ended up stuffed pretty full, since besides the clothes he'd also grabbed linens and towels and whatever else. It had been a while since they’d washed: probably too long. Humans tended to make everything grubby. He finished zipping it up and, favoring his right hand, slung the heavy bag over one shoulder, groaning under the weight.
It was a long-ish walk into town, but it was a nice day, so he didn't mind so much. Sam had given him a couple of driving lessons, “in case of emergency,” he'd told Cas. They had been a little rushed, and always when Dean was away, so he suspected the elder Winchester would not approve. But the point was moot, as there wasn't a car around right now. And the bunker wasn't located on any bus route, so shoe leather was really the only alternative.
A truck roared by, tooting his horn at Cas as he walked along. He raised up his hand in greeting, but let it pass. After Dean had found him reading a book called On the Road, Cas had received a very stern lecture regarding hitchhiking. Curious, he had asked Dean to specify exactly why he needed to refuse a favor from a human.
“Because you're still a naïve little fuck. That's why,” grunted Dean. Cas had resolved to ask Sam about it at some point, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.
He was about halfway there when he realized he had forgotten to take along his cell phone. He stopped, dropping the heavy duffel on the ground, and stretched his aching shoulder. Should he go back and get it? It had been another of Dean's strictures, that he keep it with him at all times, and in a fully charged state. He mused about it for a moment, imagining the call from Dean requesting he pick up a six-pack, “as long as you're in town.” He scowled, picked up the duffel bag, and trudged onwards into town.
After all, he wouldn't be gone that long.
“Ewwww! Damn. I'm glad I already ate,” said Dean, leaning over the corpse.
Given that the coroner was evidently out for his own lunchtime, the clerk, upon seeing the Winchester brothers's fake FBI badges, had sullenly waved them on through into the autopsy room. Sam grimaced and let the sheet covering the corpse fall back down over its head. He walked down to the other end and picked up the clipboard hanging at the end of the table. John Doe, it said. “It” was a male. Or had been. Careful to use his gloved hand, he lifted the corner of the sheet which hung over that end of the table and peeked inside.
Dean whistled low. “Skinned from head to toe,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Guess this one was thorough. So, we're either tracking Buffalo Bill....”
“Or we've got some kind of creepy crawly on the loose,” Sam finished, once again dropping the sheet.
“What's your take?”
“Well, this one hits pretty close to home: we're just a few mile up the 281! I'd say we go after it, either way.”
“You find any matches in your weird old book?”
“Nothing that's an exact match.”
“Seems like this would be pretty distinctive.”
“There’s monsters that eat people, but nothing that skins them and leaves them like this. Nothing local, at least.”
Both brothers started as suddenly the doubled doors to the autopsy room suddenly banged open and the languid clerk arrived, breathless. “Oh, so you guys are still here! Good! Tubby Burch wants to talk to ya.”
“Uh, Tubby...?” inquired Dean.
“He's the sheriff,” sighed the clerk, giving a “no duh” snort for good measure.
“The local constabulary is named, 'Tubby?'” Dean whispered as the clerk disappeared again. Sam shrugged, and they followed the clerk out of the autopsy room.
Sheriff Burch, as it turned out, wasn't corpulent, a characteristic he attributed to the Atkins diet. In fact, it took a few moments of chatting about carbohydrates before the officer could be persuaded to talk about the business at hand.
“So, I suppose you boys are here about Jack O'Sheemo in there?” he finally said, adjusting his belt around his absent belly.
“So, you've ID'd the vic?” Sam asked.
“Yep. Can't say anybody in town was much surprised he would come to a bad end.”
“He had enemies?”
The sheriff snorted. “Collecting enemies was a hobby for that one. But still it was a lousy way to die. We had to go by dental records. No face; no fingerprints. You could see that.”
Dean nodded in sympathy. “You ever had anything like this around here before?”
“No, not in any way. Half of my job is rounding up drunks. Of which Jack was one. Of course. The biggest crime wave here this past season is the Stripper.”
Dean perked up, maybe a little too much. “Uh, the what?” Sam put in before his brother could say anything.
“I'm sure it's just boys playing pranks. But I've had a couple witnesses swear up and down she's an old woman.”
Sam and Dean were both paying close attention now. “And what does he - or she - do, specifically?”
“Why, knocks you down and steals you clothes!”
Sam and Dean exchanged a glance.
The officer formerly known as Tubby was chucking. “I had the same reaction, boys. Was sure the first time, and the second: they tied one on, lost their clothes. Wouldn't be the first time! I've had a few late nights myself.” And here the sheriff patted his absent stomach.
Sam and Dean managed to extract themselves from the sheriff's office after a brief discussion about the glycemic index.
“Tubby,” muttered Dean, shaking his head as he opened the Impala's door. “Officer Tubby.”
“Sheriff Tubby,” Sam corrected. “And, have you ever heard anything like that?”
“What, the little old lady mugger?”
“Yeah. I mean, outside a Monty Python sketch?”
“Not lately. Anyway, you wanna check out the vic's last known address?”
Sam shrugged, and the car roared to life.
“Hey, Cas!”
The bell tinkled softly as Cas crossed the threshold. He nodded in reply. Susie was the plump, sunny woman who ran General Laundry Mat in downtown Lebanon. She usually had a child or two toddling around at her feet.
Cas was under a stricture to use only “Cas,” not his full name, and never to supply a last name. Based on past experiences, Dean wanted to stave off further interactions with any fallen angels who might happen by. Cas had also been supplied with something called a “back story,” in which he was a distant cousin to the Winchester brothers. Under Dean's instruction he had carefully committed every detail of this story to memory, though, as he was also under orders to speak only when spoken too, he hadn't had the chance to share much of it. He was relieved, as lying still did no come naturally to him.
When Dean had first introduced Cas to Susie, he had gone over and told her something in a very soft voice, to which Susie had nodded and sadly clucked her tongue. Cas, lacking his angelic powers of hearing, had not been able to glean what was said, but after that, she had seemed to treat him with a great amount of warmth and indulgence.
“How's that arm doin', sweetie?”
As Dean had no rules regarding the use of nicknames, Cas felt free to answer her on this. “It feels better now, thank you,” he said, unconsciously rubbing on the ace bandage that wrapped his left wrist. “I believe the swelling has gone down somewhat, and I can flex it with less pain.”
“That's nice. Could you do me a favor, babe?”
“Babe” was another affectionate nickname. It had nothing to do with Cas's perceived age. “I would like to. Please tell me what you would like?”
“If you're gonna be here a while, could you keep an eye on the place? I have to drop off Cody.”
Among Susie's progeny were beings named Cody and Kayla. It seemed that they spent the day being picked up and dropped off by Susie. Cas was unclear as to the mysterious purpose of this transportation. But he was glad to do a favor for her, as she appeared pleasant. “I will keep a careful eye on the General Laundry Mat, Susie.”
“Thanks honey. I'll be back in two shakes!” said Susie, taking children by the hand and herding them out into the parking lot, where they all climbed into an aged SUV and took off.
Cas was left squinting out the door, wondering about the unit of time for a “shake.”
“So, what's the deal?”
Sam straightened up, taking a bit of time to do it. His knees ached, and he had a crick in his neck. He wouldn't actually say it out loud, because Dean would never stop teasing him, but he was getting too damn old for this shit.
He clicked off the flashlight. “The deal is, Dean, whatever it is, it's written in a foreign language, and as you'll remember, I was pre-law, not linguistics.”
“Stumped, college boy?” Dean seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Yeah, basically.” Sam frowned down at the door leading into the icky, dusty crawl space. The victim's house, once they broke into it, was fairly boring. Until Sam, to his eternal regret, noticed the hidden door behind a bureau on the stairway landing. There were a lot of scrapes on the hardwood floor from the thing being pushed back and forth, so they decided to take a look-see. Despite Sam's obvious unsuitability for fitting into tight spaces, Dean had declared that he was the one who need to take a look, as, after all, he was the one who had discovered it.
There was some kind of altar set up inside.
“Can you write it down?”
“Pretty sure it’s Chinese or Japanese. Meaning, no.”
“Well, take a pic, and we'll send it to Mr. Google Translate. Give him something to do.”
“You don't think Cas is busy?”
“What? Watching the dryer go round and round?”
“And getting your six-pack?”
Dean laughed. “I didn't ask him to pick up a six-pack. Yet.”
“That's my favorite book.”
Placing his finger to mark his place, Cas looked up from where he was sitting on a bench watching a dryer full of Winchester-wear go around and around. Somehow, he had missed the bell tinkling that signaled a new person entering the Laundry Mat. “Yes?”
“On the Road. It's a great book.” The speaker was a young-looking man, his face relaxed into a sincere-seeming smile of greeting. He possessed epicanthic folds, as well as dark hair and eyes, indicating East Asian ancestry, which Cas gathered was an important characteristic in a human. Or something humans seemed to pay attention to.
“I haven't finished it, so I can't categorize it yet,” Cas told him.
The young man sat down next to Cas. “Jizo,” he said.
“Cas,” Cas responded, though he wished, for some obscure reason, he could offer his full name. “I enjoy reading about traveling across the country. I'm … not in a position to do it myself.” He decided this didn't technically violate the “do not speak unless spoken to” rule, as Jizo had introduced himself.
“Tied down?” Jizo dug into his nylon athletic bag and began grabbing clothes.
“In a sense.” Cas turned and watched flannel shirts and cotton sheets tumbling one over the other. “At least, I miss the days when I was more … mobile.”
“Well, like Dorothy said, in some ways, there's no place like home.”
Jizo had risen and crossed over to the row of washers. He stuffed some items into a machine. And then he strolled over to the little vending machine with soap and fabric softener and bleach and that annoying bottle of Rit dye nobody ever used.
“Are you far from home, Jizo?” asked Cas.
Jizo chuckled as his quarters fell against steel. “Much farther than you could imagine.”
“So, what's the scoop?”
Sam leaned against the car, staring at his phone. “Cas hasn't written back.”
“What, is he ignoring emails?” asked Dean. He whipped out his own phone and started thumbing out a text. “CAS WTF?” He hit send, and then started when the phone rang. “Well, that was quick.” He held it to his ear. “Cas? Oh, hey, Sheriff!”
“You told me to call you if anything strange happened,” the Sheriff told him. Even over the phone, the voice sounded strange. Dean looked at Sam.
“Yeah. So, something happened.”
“I'll- I'll give you the address. Get here. Quick. Please.”
“Let me grab a pen!” Dean gestured at Sam, who tossed him a notepad and a pen from the glove compartment.
Cas was folding the freshly-cleaned sheets. He wasn't sure why, but this activity pleased him.
Jizo was transferring his damp clothes to one of the dryers. They had been chatting, off and on, about this and that. “So, how long have you lived here, Cas?”
“Not long,” said Cas, congratulating himself on a skillfully vague answer. He thought Dean would approve, though he wasn't certain Dean would like him talking to a stranger.
“You know the gal who runs the place?”
“Susie?” asked Cas.
“Susie,” said Jizo. Cas stopped folding sheets and blinked at him. It was as if the name surprised him.
“I sometimes watch the place while she drops off her children.” Cas had never been exactly certain what he was supposed to watch for, but he was glad to be of service.
“Oh, she has kids?” Jizo seemed honestly surprised. “How many, do you think?”
“I'm not certain,” Cas admitted. “Cody. Kayla. Kaitlin. Madison. Tyler....” It was odd that he hadn't thought about it before. “They always seem to be different.”
Jizo didn't reply, but for some reason, he looked concerned.
A vehicle pulled up outside. “Oh, there she is,” said Cas. He and Jizo exchanged a glance. Oddly enough, the hairs on the back of Cas's neck were prickling. He wished not for the first time that he still retained his angel senses.
The bell jingled as Susie crossed the threshold. She stood for a while, children at her feet, staring at Jizo.
“You,” she said.
“Datsueba,” said Jizo. “Fancy meeting you here.”
There was blood everywhere.
Sheriff Burch stood outside, cigarette butt clutched in his trembling fingers. “I quit these, you know. Healthy lifestyle,” he confided to Sam.
“How many bodies?” Sam asked him, as a stretcher emerged from the storefront.
“Four. Five, maybe. Not a one of them has a bit of skin left on them.”
“All of them flayed?” asked Dean, watching the attendants march the stretcher into the ambulance.
“The doc tells me … he thinks they were alive. When they did it. At least … when they started.”
Sam shuddered and looked at Dean, who was staring steely-eyed at the Sheriff. “We're going in,” Dean told him. Without waiting for an answer, he charged inside, Sam on his heels. There was blood all over the floor, over the machines, splattered on the overturned laundry baskets, pooling in the sink, dripping from the vending machine.
And a couple of bodies remained, though at least they’d been covered up.
Sam forced himself to keep calm and look around. “Dean, something strike you as weird?”
“Yeah, there are definitely elements that strike me as weird.”
“No, I mean, this is a laundromat, right?”
“Says so on the door.”
“Where's the clothes?”
Dean turned to stare at his little brother, and then he looked around the room. There were laundry baskets and bags, but Sam was right: no clothing. “Damn. So, we've got a psycho killer … clothing thief?”
“You think they're related? I mean, to the stripper case?”
Dean thought it over for a moment. “She's come to the source.”
Sam suddenly fished in his pocket and grabbed his phone.
“You hear back from Cas?” asked Dean.
“No!”
Dean froze. “He went to the laundromat, Sammy.”
And then they were both running for the door.
The children were the first to attack. They flew, fangs barred, at Jizo, who drew a katana from god knows where.
Cas's first instinct was to draw his angel sword, which, of course, was impossible. He swore under his breath at his current powerlessness. And his lack of perception. Datsueba was a demon. How could he have missed it?
He stepped back, as fleeing seemed his only option, but Datsueba turned to him. “Don't go anywhere, babe. I'm saving you for a snack.” And then she pushed out a hand, and Cas was thrown back, smack against the metal vending machine. He groaned as he hit the floor on his sore arm. And then to add insult to injury he was bonked on the head by that stupid bottle of Rit dye.
Jizo had felled one and then two of the demon children. The crackled and crumbled to dust as he slayed them, but then it seemed more and more rose in their place. He was already looking pale, and bleeding from a number of bites.
A demon, Cas thought, clutching the bottle of dye as Datsueba stood, grinning at Jizo’s plight. How to fight a demon. Think. He forced his human body to calm down. Jizo screamed, and his sword clattered to the ground. He dove for it, as two demon children pounced on him.
Cas, trying to be furtive, grasped one of the sheets out from where it was neatly folded up in his duffel bag.
The Impala screeched into the space beside Susie's vehicle. Sam was out and running before it had even come to a halt, and Dean was somehow hot on his heels, nearly running into his brother when Sam stopped dead at the threshold.
Cas was sitting on a washing machine, cradling his arm. Meanwhile, a person with a sheet thrown over her head, like a cheap-ass Halloween ghost costume, was standing in the middle of the store, struggling and complaining. “Let me out! Let me out!”
“Cas! Are you all right?” asked Dean, running to Cas's side.
“Susie is a demon, Dean,” Cas explained. “Her real name is Datsueba. For the moment, I have confined her underneath a sheet painted with a devil's trap.” He held up an empty bottle of Rit dye.
“Good work, Cas!” said Sam, who crept nearer to peer at the frustrated demon.
“Hey, is that my sheet?” asked Dean.
“I need to take her back,” explained a much-bloodied Asian dude. He pulled some silver chains out of a nylon gym bag. He flicked a finger, and the chains flew towards the demon, wrapping themselves around her.
“Taking her back where?” asked Dean. “And who the hell are you?”
“That's Jizo,” said Cas. “He's a Bodhisattvah.”
“And why are you talking to strange Bodhisattvahs?” scolded Dean. “You know the rules!”
“Your angel provided invaluable assistance,” Jizo told Dean. “I have been tracking Datsueba for a while now. She is required to guide souls to our afterlife. But things have been … disrupted lately. And somehow she escaped into the wrong spiritual plane.”
“Oh! I think somebody called her here, actually,” said Sam. He brought out his cell phone and showed Jizo a picture of the writing that had been scribbled above the crawlspace altar.
Jizo squinted at the small screen, and then nodded. “Someone named Oshimo?” he asked. “What happened to him?”
“She took his skin,” said Sam.
“And we think she’s been stealing clothes,” Dean added.
Jizo shook his head. “She was probably having trouble getting enough to feed herself. She’s always been one greedy demon.”
He tied up the thin silver chain, and then snapped the devil’s trap sheet off Datsueba. In her true form she was now unrecognizable, old and wizened.
Keeping the end of the chain in one hand, Jizo handed the sheet back to Cas. “We won't be needing this anymore,” he said with a smile. He bowed formally to Cas. “I am in your debt, Castiel. If you should go and travel around the country, remember, I will be watching over you.” And then, with no further ado, he and Datsueba disappeared.
“You weren’t supposed to give him your real name,” said Dean.
“I didn't,” said Cas, tilting his head in wonder.
Dean grabbed the sheet from Cas's hands. “So, I gotta sleep under a devil's trap now?”
“I … improvised,” said Cas.
“You did a good job, Cas,” said Sam.
Dean shrugged and tossed the sheet back in the duffel. “Yeah. On the way back, how about you take shotgun seat?”
“Dean,” said Cas. “I would like to drive.”
Dean went utterly silent.
“Hey, ya know, I'm gonna take this bag of clean clothes out to the car!” Sam said, altogether too loudly. And then he was gone.
Cas was staring at Dean. “As the proprietor has been taken away, there is no longer a functional laundromat in Lebanon. I will need to drive in order to do your laundry.”
“We could … drive you?”
“Dean-”
Dean waved his hands. “All right. Look. I know, you must be going kind of stir crazy. I can't imagine what it must be like.”
“No. You can't.”
Dean huffed. “I just don't want you to get hurt, Cas! I mean, look at your arm.”
“My wrist will heal, Dean.”
“But what if Susie Tuba or whatever the hell she was called had been an angel?”
“There may always be angels. We might not be able to fix it. I can't live my human life, if that's all I have, hiding in your bunker!”
“Our bunker,” said Dean, placing a hand on Cas's good shoulder. “It's your home too.”
“It feels more like prison.”
Dean took his hand off Cas's shoulder and stared at the floor. His breathing had become rough. “You don’t wanna stay with us?” he whispered.
Cas’s brows knitted together. “Dean, as you know, I am very bad at these kinds of interactions.”
“Yeah. You are.”
Cas stepped forward. And then, tentatively, he put two fingers under Dean's chin, gently tilting Dean's head up to face him. “I will- I will go and do laundry. And I will pick up beer. And maybe those magazines you like. And then I will drive back to the bunker. Home.”
Dean rubbed a sleeve across his eyes. “Where you gonna go for laundry? The laundromat in the next town up the 281 is fucked up too.”
“Where to go for laundry?” Cas tilted his head. “I was thinking … Las Vegas.”
Dean stared for a while, and then the corner of Cas's mouth ticked up. Just a little.
“Fucker,” said Dean. And then, for no reason, he pulled Cas into a hug. “You do not tell Sammy about this,” he whispered when he pulled back.
“About what?” asked Cas.
Dean wrapped an arm around Cas's shoulders and walked him towards the door. “We'll stop on the way and pick up some beer. And some ice for that wrist.”
“Do you want magazines?”
Dean chuckled. “Maybe not today. How about this? I’ll drive to the store, and then I’ll show you how to drive on the way back.”
“I already know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“How?”
Dean grinned. “You guys aren’t half as sneaky as you think you are.”
The bell tinkled as they exited.