A/N; Well, I told myself I'd never ever watch Supernatural because I knew, I knew this would happen and that I'd become emotionally attached and now, now I've watched seven years of television in like a month and I'm lost to the fandom and I'm a goner.
Anyway. I love Supernatural. I love Dean. And I love the Discworld so damn much. So I decided what the hell, let's do a crossover and see what happens when my favourite Death meets my favourite hunter! Anyway, I dunno what else to say. Of course I don't own any of the characters, blah blah blah.
So Dean, Death and Death walk into a pizzeria...
It was supposed to be just a regular hunt. With all the crazy going on these days, with all the bigger pictures and apocalypses and heavenly plans, Dean had actually been looking forward to a simple salt and burn. But he'd caught sight of a familiar figure in the pizzeria he'd passed on the main street, and he'd tried to keep walking, he really had. He'd tried to ignore it and forget he'd seen him and just focus on the job, dammit. But he couldn't. He stopped in his tracks, a little way down from the restaurant, swore, and turned back. Maybe there was a reason Death was here. Maybe it wasn't just an odd coincidence that he and Sam were hunting in the same town Death was visiting.
And so, Dean found himself creeping into another pizzeria (and seriously? What was up with Death and his junk food addiction? Was it like, a way of laughing at himself? Haha me, I can't die of high cholesterol or diabetes? Dean had no idea, and really didn't want to think about it. You knew you were messed in the head if serious thought went into the apparent diet of frickin' Death) towards a table at which sat, with his back to Dean, the tall and thin figure of Death himself. Dean would never admit to it, but Death scared the shit out of him. So cold and void of compassion. So unfeeling. Having a conversation with the man was like being beat over the head with your own tombstone, but in a strangely polite way.
"Dean. You might as well sit down, although I hope for your own sake that you don't intend to bother me too long. I am expecting company. What mess are you going to ask me to clean up this time?" Death spoke suddenly, not even bothering to turn or even look up from his pizza. Dean swallowed and moved forward, still wary as he sat across from him. Death eventually lifted his eyes to his, and his horribly empty eyes made Dean feel slightly nauseous, much to his annoyance. They were so full of nothing.
"Company? What, is this a Reaper pizza party?" Dean asked, forcing as much casual bravado into his words as he could.
"Yes, Dean, company. Believe it or not, you are not the only person who wishes to speak to me," Death said, with that same long suffering, irritated tone he so often used when with Dean. Dean opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly something appeared in the seat to his left. His mind didn't want to process it at first. He'd seen demons and werewolves, windegos and ghosts, angels and hellhounds and even Hell itself. But his brain just didn't want to accept that a seven foot tall skeleton in a black robe wielding a scythe that looked sharp enough to cut reality -which of course, it was- was suddenly sitting at the table.
GOOD EVENING. I HOPE I AM NOT TOO LATE.
The words seemed to arrive in Dean's head with no input from his ears, and this freakish detail on top of all the others snapped him out of his shock.
"What the hell are you supposed to be? The Grim Reaper?"
IF YOU LIKE.
The voice in his head was old, powerful, and although he couldn't understand how on earth a voice could sound skeletal, it did. He found his own voice utterly failing. One Death was bad enough. Now there was another one? What the hell? He turned his horrified, wide eyes back to the Death he knew, for some familiarity –and wasn't that just the weirdest thing, that he had a particular Death to look at for familiarity- and saw something which just added another dollop of weird onto the whole insane sundae. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that Death, his Death –what the hell- looked almost embarrassed.
WHY IS IT ALWAYS PIZZA? WHY NOT A NICE CURRY? The skeleton looked at Death, and if Dean wasn't staring at a skeleton with supernovas in his eye sockets, he'd have said he almost looked huffy. Death didn't look up from his pizza, although Dean noticed a slight twitch of annoyance in his jaw.
"I like the pizza,"
WELL I SUPPOSE IT'S ALL WELL AND GOOD, BUT WE ALWAYS HAVE PIZZA-
"You don't have to have any-"
THERE'S A CURRY SHOP IN ANKH-MORPOK, DOES A VERY GOOD VINDALOO-
"I don't enjoy curry-"
I ASSUME IT'S GOOD, OF COURSE, THOUGH I'VE NOTHING TO COMPARE IT TO-
"I believe they also serve pasta, if you would prefer-"
I HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT THE MORE APPROPRIATE DESCRIPTION OF THEIR CURRY IS 'LETHAL', THOUGH HOW ANYONE EXPECTS ME TO KNOW IS QUITE BEYOND ME-
Dean watched this exchange in something of a trance. He couldn't quite work out what exactly was going on. The Death who had appeared, all seven bony feet of him, who could speak into his head and was always grinning, seemed… pretty different to the ones he was used to. And he certainly looked like every typical picture of the Grim Reaper. But how could he possibly be Death, if Death was right there beside him, looking as though he were struggling valiantly to remain utterly stoic? And if they were both Death, then why on earth were they arguing about food? And as was typical of Dean, the more confused he got, the more irate he got. Dammit, he was here for a reason, and Reaper bosses or not he sure as hell wasn't going to listen to them bitch at each other over pizza.
"Hey!" He almost shouted it, glaring at the two of them. They slowly turned their gazes to him, almost in unison, and his annoyance-fuelled bravado stuttered. Dark, empty eyes stared at him like he was nothing but a speck of bacteria, and cold blue lights in the depths of an eternally grinning skull watched him intently. He cleared his throat, rallying fiercely.
"Listen. I uh, hate to interrupt this… reunion or whatever the hell this is, but… what the hell?" His voice sounded much stronger than he felt at that moment with those eyes staring at him. Death, the one with the skin, looked at him over the bridge of his nose the way he always did, as though he were regarding a particularly vile piece of dust that had landed on his suit sleeve. Death, the one without skin, merely tilted his head a little.
AH. THIS WILL BE THE ONE YOU TOLD ME ABOUT, I TAKE IT? Dean frowned as the other Death nodded, returning to his pizza with a long-suffering sigh.
"Yes. Dean Winchester. Have you got it?"
"Hey, got what? Reapers are gossiping about me now?" Dean interrupted again, his irritation quickly overcoming his fear. This was becoming ridiculous. Skeleton Death shrugged, an oddly human gesture that didn't seem to suit him at all.
WHY SHOULD I HAVE IT? HE IS OF THIS WORLD, NOT THE DISC, Dean pinched the bridge of his nose.
"What disc?" he asked with no small measure of annoyance. Death grinned at him, not that he could do much else.
THE DISCWORLD. WHERE I WORK. A WORLD NOT ENTIRELY DISSIMILAR TO THIS ONE, ALTHOUGH OF COURSE THIS ONE IS NOT PULLED THROUGH SPACE ON THE BACKS OF FOUR ELEPHANTS STANDING ATOP THE ENORMOUS SPACE TURTLE GREAT A'TUIN. Dean thought perhaps his brain was taking a holiday. He'd thought he was handling everything, handling the memories of hell and all this crap with angels and the apocalypse and Lucifer and everything fairly well. Obviously not. This was it, this was his psychotic breakdown, wasn't it? This was his mind finally snapping, huh? He was going to lose his mind in a pizzeria in the middle of freaking nowhere surrounded by Death; one skeleton, one junk food addict, and, apparently, space elephants.
"Careful now Death, you know how their little minds are. He'll crack and turn into a gibbering mess if you keep this up," Death said mildly, though with the barest hint of a smile that made Dean extremely uncomfortable.
OF COURSE. MY APOLOGIES, Death inclined his head, and Dean was sure that if all this chat about curries and pizzas and outer space wildlife hadn't pushed him over the edge, an apology from a Grim Reaper might do the trick.
"He is of this world, true. But I happen to know that you don't just keep an eye on the Disc. You're too nosy for that, cousin," Dean's eyes almost popped out of his skull.
"Hold up. Hold the fu- cousin?" Death rolled his eyes.
"Obviously not technically. But it is a simple way to refer to one another. You didn't think I was Death for the entire universe, did you? If I was, do you think I would have time to sit and have pizza with you?" The contempt in his tone was back. Dean was now every bit as confused as before. There was another Death. Maybe even multiple Deaths. He really could use a drink right now.
THE DISC HASN'T QUITE GOTTEN THE HANG OF PIZZA YET, the other Death said conversationally after a moment of silence in which Dean stared in mute horror at his world's Death who merely regarded him with something akin to disgust. He turned back to look up at his skeletal associate and sighed, holding out a hand with an expectant look. And while logically –logic? Where was logic featuring anywhere in this event?- a skeleton cannot roll its eyes, Dean could have sworn that the two brilliantly cold supernovas deep in those sockets did roll, or rather, move in an estimation of a roll,and then Death reached into his cloak and pulled out an hourglass.
It was, Dean thought, one of the strangest hourglasses he had ever seen. The sand inside was not pouring out of one bulb and into the other as it should have been. Or rather, it was, and then some would flow back up into the top bulb, and some would swirl around and around in a slow moving spiral inside the glass, and some seemed to be sloshing around the bottom bulb like waves in a teeny tiny sea. The three of them stared at it, skeletal Death with curiosity and an air of smugness as the other Death looked even more irked than before. Dean just stared, until he noticed a small plaque at the bottom of the hourglass, into which was inscribed his own name.
"Hey! What the hell? Why do you have some freaky… I dunno, hoodoo hourglass with my name on it? What is this, witchcraft or something?"
OH NO, Death said as he looked at Dean again, NOT WITCHCRAFT. WITCHES DON'T REALLY GO IN FOR THIS SORT OF THING. NO, DEAN WINCHESTER, THIS IS YOUR LIFE.
Dean sat back in his seat, feeling almost utterly defeated by this most recent in a string of completely absurd statements.
"Okay you know what, that's it. I'm all maxed out on crazy today. I'm out of here," he said, getting to his feet with his hands up.
"Sit down, Dean," said Death, arching an eyebrow at him across the table. Dean glared back, having had enough.
"Hell no. Whatever this is, I am done," Dean snapped, backing away.
AH BUT YOU ARE NOT DONE, ARE YOU? HENCE THE CURRENT… ANOMALY WITHIN THE LIFETIMER, rumbled the graveyard voice in his head, YOU SHOULD BE DEAD, DEAN WINCHESTER. MORE THAN ONCE, I BELIEVE,
The other Death inclined his head at Dean, and said in his clipped voice;
"Yes, he should be. Very dead," Dean was having a hard time deciding whose voice was creepier. Sure, Bones could put his words straight into Dean's head, but pizza boy had a voice filled with complete and utter indifference towards everything human. Bones nodded in sympathy.
HAD A FEW CASES LIKE THAT MYSELF, YOU KNOW. WIZARD FELLOW RINCEWIND, WOULDN'T DIE AT THE PROPER TIME. IT'S LIKE I TOLD ALBERT, I SAID 'I DON'T ASK FOR MUCH, DO I? JUST A LITTLE PUNCTUALITY, THAT'S ALL.' MAN FELL RIGHT OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD AND I STILL COULDN'T GET HIM.
"Indeed," replied Death, clearly uninterested, "And I happen to know that you yourself have meddled with a few lifetimers in the past. Turned them upside down, as it were," said Death with a cold stare at his counterpart. There was a long, awful stretch of silence.
MAYBE ONCE OR TWICE, Death conceded eventually, with what Dean would swear was sheepishness, BUT ONLY ON SPECIAL OCCASSIONS. HOGSWATCH NIGHT, AND SUCH. YOU KNOW. TRYING TO GET INTO THE SPIRIT OF THE THING, AND ALL THAT.
"Quite," was the response, and Death's voice was growing more and more acidic the longer he stared at his bony associate, "Now tell me. Did you mess with this lifetimer?" His voice was patient, but full of sharp edges and cold steel and Dean was quite glad that it was not being aimed at him for once. The skull somehow managed to look affronted.
ME? OF COURSE NOT. IF THERE HAS BEEN MEDDLING, IT HAS NOT BEEN ON MY END. IT'S ALWAYS ME THAT GETS THE BLAME. HONESTLY, Death grumbled. The other Death glared at him with such venom Dean thought he was trying to set the bones on fire just by looking hard enough. The skeleton shrugged again, and sat the hourglass on the table, getting to his feet with a series of echoing clicks.
WELL, IF THAT'S EVERYTHING…? HATE TO RUSH OFF, BUT THERE'S A KING'S ABOUT TO BE OFFED AND I'M TO BE THERE TO COLLECT HIM. YOU KNOW HOW IT IS. YOU MIGHT AS WELL KEEP THAT, IT'S NO USE TO ME ON THE DISC. I ACTUALLY HAVE A FEW MORE OF THESE PECULIAR TIMERS YOU KNOW. PEOPLE THAT SHOULD HAVE DIED AND HAVEN'T, OR RATHER THEY HAVE AND THEN BEEN GLUED BACK TOGETHER AGAIN. HOLD ON, and Death began to rummage in his cloak, pulling out two more lifetimers, both carved in wood, and both with brass plaques on the bottom, just like Dean's. One however, was far larger than the others, and seemed to have a pattern of… were those feathers? Carved around the wood. Dean reached across to snatch them before Death could, and his eyes only widened when he saw the names. The smaller one, the one most similar to Dean's, had the name 'Sam Winchester' inscribed beneath it. And the one with the feathers said simply 'Castiel'. Dean stared at them, at the sand swirling around and around, bursting like little geysers in the bulbs, rolling and spinning and moving in all of the ways sand in an hourglass should not. Then, suddenly, they weren't in his hands anymore, but Death's. His Death's.
"Now now Dean. These aren't for you," he admonished, as if to a child.
"Hey now hold on, those are… they've got our names on them, and they're what, lifetimers? Whatever the hell that means, I think they damn well are for us!" He made to grab for them again, but Death merely slid them into his briefcase at his side with a smirk.
THEY ARE THE TIMERS OF YOUR LIVES, YES. BUT YOUR LIVES CANNOT BE INFLUENCED BY THEM. YOU CANNOT USE THEM TO INTERFERE WITH ANYONE'S LIFESPAN.
"You said you did,"
I AM DEATH, he grinned, I AM EVERYONE'S LIFESPAN. DON'T WORRY. HE CANNOT USE THEM TO CONTROL YOU, NOR INFLUENCE YOU IN ANY WAY. HE IS MERELY… KEEPING AN EYE ON THEM, Death inclined his head in agreement, but Dean's wariness didn't ease much. Skeletal Death then drew himself up to full height, and picked a speck of dust from his scythe.
PERHAPS WE SHALL MEET AGAIN, DEAN WINCHESTER. ALTHOUGH, GIVEN YOUR TRACK RECORD, I SHALL NOT ASSUME I WILL ONLY SEE YOU ONCE, one of Death's eyesockets seemed to flicker for a moment, and Dean had the utterly surreal idea pop into his head that Death was winking at him. Stunned into silence, he could only watch as Death turned to Death, gave a small nod of the head which was returned, although grudgingly, turned back and snapped his fingers, which made a sound like a tree branch breaking in two. Out of nowhere –although by this point in the conversation, Dean found he had no space in his mind left for any more surprise- appeared a brilliantly white horse, huge and tall and fierce looking. The pale horse. Dean stared up at the looming, dark-eyed face of the Grim Reaper's own steed as it stamped the ground with its hooves creating sparks, snorting and tossing its head. Death swung himself up onto the horse in a swirl of black cloak, sitting tall and imperial and dreadful on this pale steed, his scythe flashing against the fabric of reality, his bony hands clutching the reigns, his supernova eyes flaring behind that terrible grin.
COME, BINKY.
Binky.
Dean's brain simply refused to comment at this point.
Death and Binky rode towards the window of the pizzeria, before vanishing without so much as a dash of special effects. One moment they were there. The next, they simply were not.
Dean sat in stunned silence for a long moment, as Death continued eating his pizza. Slowly, he shook his head as if trying to dislodge the whole event, his mind completely unprepared to surrender to him the information on why he was even there. It was too busy processing. Part of it was still chanting, space elephants?!
"So," Death said after a while, and looked up, "Have you managed to recall why you came to bother me this time?"
When Dean arrived back at the motel, he was faced with a pretty ticked little brother. Sam had gotten worried when Dean hadn't come back to the motel and the ghost hadn't burst into flames, so he'd legged it across town with an iron poker and burnt the bones himself, fending off the crazy spirit all the while. But then he hadn't been able to find Dean, and he'd gone back to the motel assuming he'd be there, only he wasn't, and what the hell Dean? What had taken so long, what had he been playing at, was he alright, what happened, he looked pale, did he want a drink? And Dean accepted that drink, and the next, and the next, until he blissfully fell into a drunken sleep, his dreams full of white horses with pizza slices for wings, flying through swirling sands and bright blue stars.
So there you have it. I hope everyone is in character and stuff... lemme know if you feel like reviewing :3 I'd be very appreciative!
