Well, Ulfric, the little plot bunny who's been dictating this story, has been drowned out by Fergus (who's dictating 'The Streaker's Defence') for a while, but thanks to some encouragement from some of the Denizens, he's been inspired to raise his rabbity little voice, kick his brother in the leg and shove him out of the way, and give us the next chapter in this one…
Chapter Eight
By the time Fic and Sam got to the composting bays, what could only be called full-blown shenanigans was in progress.
Crowley was wielding his shovel viciously, hurling abuse and compost at Dean, who stood in wolf form, grinning at him, batting the shovel away, while the gaggle of children laughed and pelted them both with decomposing plant matter. The people who were around barely paused to give the scene an amused glance, then went about their business. They'd seen it all before; Crowley was a reluctant refugee, and Dean Winchester in particular was a reluctant host.
"You oaf! You pillock!" Crowley howled in outrage, "I'll have your bollocks off, you bastard!"
Dean blew a raspberry at him, and the kids redoubled their efforts, making His deposed Majesty shriek, "And you can call off your monstrous munchkins!"
Fic clapped her hands for attention. "Okay, kids," she called in a stern voice, "That's enough, Fergus is sufficiently contaminated, and the compost has had a turning it won't forget in a hurry." She waded in, grabbing at collars and arms, oblivious to the flinging of filth. "Come on, knock it off, don't make me go Sister Fic on your tushes." She turned to another woman who was standing and watching, shaking her head in amusement. "Hey, Bess, could you herd this lot off to the ablutions block?"
"Hey, I'm a werewolf, not a Border Collie!" laughed Bess, as she began to flap at the kids like her husband Garth shooing the chickens around, "Okay, people, you've had your fun, time to clean up."
There were a few disappointed noises, but she curled her lip to growl sternly, and they subsided, forming up into two lines. "All right, bathing party, to the ablutions block, by the right, quick march! One two one two one two hup hup hup!" With surprising organisation, they marched off under her watchful eye, Todd falling in with the rest.
"Okay, break it up, guys," instructed Sam.
"Sod off, Bullwinkle!" yelled Crowley as Dean flipped him off.
"Seriously, what are you idiots trying to do?" Sam waved his arms, "Kill each other?"
"That's half the plan," Crowley grimaced, hefting his shovel, "Or at least, I intend to remove him from the gene pool!"
"He's already bred," Fic pointed out.
"Then I can limit the damage!" snapped Crowley, waving his shovel threateningly, his eyes taking on a red cast.
"Uh, Fergus, watch your temper," cautioned Fic, eyeing the dogs, Xena who had shadowed Dean, and Zeus who stuck to Sam.
"Bollocks to my temper!" growled Crowley, his eyes glowing, "Bollocks to your brother, bollocks to you, bollocks to the camel you rode in on, and bollocks to this bloody compost! I'm going to set fire to… aaaaaaargh!"
Growling, the dogs leaped at Crowley, their eyes glowing as redly as his, and grabbed at his meatsuit.
"Xena! Zeus!" Sam called urgently, as Dean let out a bark of authority, but it was no good; their Hellhound heritage provoked, the dogs were in The Zone.
"Yaaaaaaaaargh!" warbled Crowley, as Xena sank her teeth into his meatsuit, then, with a strange glollop sound, Zeus shoved his muzzle right through the substance of it.
"Oh, not again," groaned Fic, as a roiling column of black vapour smoked out of Crowley, a thin wail of Bollooooooooooooocks! accompanying it as it swirled away from the collapsing body. "How many times do you have to be told? Don't provoke Jimi's descendants!"
"It's the, uh, Hellhound blood," Sam explained sheepishly to Kerryn, who stood gawping as the scene played out. "He gets his demon thang on, they get the urge to drag him back to Hell. Instinct kicks in, and they go straight for the soul. It's like a greyhound catching sight of a rabbit."
"Or Chuck catching sight of a roll of TP," added Dean, shapeshifting back to human, grinning as Zeus sniffed at Crowley's uninhabited host body, then cocked his leg on it.
"Dean!" Sam gave a strangled yelp as it looked like Dean was about to follow suit.
"What?" demanded Dean, "I'm the Alpha here, it's my prerogative to cover a lower-ranked animal's scent mark… oh, you're such a little bitch," he finished in a mutter.
"Uh, where did, um, Fergus go?" asked Kerryn in a confused voice, having followed them out of a sense of morbid curiosity.
"He won't have gone far," sighed Fic, "He'll be back."
"If only to determine whether anybody pissed on his meatsuit this time," added Sam, "At least this time we can genuinely tell him that Dean didn't…"
From the scrubby foliage a chicken suddenly made a dash across the yard to peck furiously at Dean's shin.
"Bollocks!" It squawked. "Bollocks! Bloody Winchester! Which one of you pissed on my meatsuit? Pkaaaark!"
"It was the dog, not Dean," Sam answered hurriedly, "Look, Fergus, you've been warned before…"
"Keep your bloody mutts under control!" clucked the chicken irritably, flapping its wings. "What are you staring at?" it demanded, rolling its beady eyes at Kerryn.
"It could be worse," noted Fic philosophically, "He could've found a skunk to possess again. Although I thought he was kind of cute, like what Pepe Le Pew would've been like with a Brit accent instead of French."
"I shall expect my usual meatsuit to be decontaminated within the hour," the chicken cackled snippily. "Within the hour." It turned and clucked menacingly at the dogs, who regarded it with mild curiosity. "Come and 'ave a go if you think you're 'ard enough," it squawked, "I'll peck your bloody eyes out, you traitorous mutts."
"Mrs Cluckity!" called an anxious voice; Garth rounded the corner, and came running at them. "Mrs Cluckity! There you are!" He glared at the chicken. "You get out of Mrs Cluckity right now, Fergus," he growled, "She should be sitting on her eggs!"
"Blame Winchester the Dumber here," clucked the chicken, "He started it, puckpuckpKAAAARK!"
Garth's eyes narrowed. "Get out of Mrs Cluckity right now," he repeated.
"Not until I've crapped in Mr Deanity's bed!" crowed the chicken, setting off at a high-speed flapping dash.
"Get out!" shrieked Garth, running after the chicken. "Get out! Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas…"
The chicken squawking and Garth exorcising, they disappeared around a building.
"Crap," muttered Sam, "Jesus, Dean, do you have to provoke him like that?"
"I'm Chuck, and he's the TP," Dean grinned unrepentantly. "And we got the compost turned."
"Go get dressed," instructed Fic, "In fact, go wash first, then get dressed. You stink."
"You really know how to make your little brother feel good about himself," sighed Dean, fluttering his eyelashes. Fic flipped him off.
Sam turned back to Kerryn with a sheepish smile. "So, uh, why don't we go back to where we left off? Sorry about that. Sometimes, Dean happens. Now, we were asking about…"
He was interrupted by the sound of running feet, and Frankie calling for him.
"Dad! Dad!" She came charging around a corner, and pulled up. The Winchesters were all on the alert instantly, and Sam barked an enquiry at her. "It's Mom!" she replied breathlessly, "Kevin's got 'em on the radio!"
The look of relief that passed across Sam's face was unmissable as he suddenly turned and sprinted away. It was Dean who barked another enquiry.
"They're headed back now," Frankie went on, "But it sounds like they're comin' in hot…"
Dean swore, then turned to follow his brother, Frankie at his heels. "Come on," Fic grabbed Kerryn's arm, "Sounds like this could get ugly fast."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
In a shack not far from The Den, a young man of Asian ancestry sat surrounded by electronics detritus, in front of an aged radio set, with Sam hanging over his shoulder, while Bobby and Frankie stood by, looking concerned. In a corner, a large man who looked like a Hell's Angel sat on an exercise bike that trailed wires, pedalling vigorously. He gave them a cheerful wave, but didn't slow down.
"I got 'em," Kevin said, frowning at a switch, then giving the set a hefty thump, "I got 'em, just give me a sec."
The younger guy fiddled with a couple of dials, and poked at a couple of switches. A speaker crackled into life, and a woman's voice, backed by sounds of gunfire and swearing, spoke calmly but quickly.
"… calling The Den, Ramble On calling The Den, do you read, this is Ramble On calling The Den…"
"It's Mom!" chirped Frankie.
"Ramble On, this is The Den," Kevin spoke into the handset, "You're breaking up, but we gotcha back."
Sam grabbed the handset. "Kelly, where are you? What's happening?"
"We're about twenty miles out, and we got company," the woman's voice replied, "We hit a swarm of 'em this morning, a big one – that asshole Fergus hasn't been chatting with his old school friends, has he?"
"Right now he's a chicken," Sam said distractedly, "What's your status?"
"We're all intact, more or less, hang on," she broke off and gunfire sounded again. "Suck on that! Tell Fic to break out the plaster bandages, though, we got a couple of broken bones…"
"I'll get on it," Fic interjected.
"… And we think Jody got bitten, but there's a lot of blood, we can't say for sure…"
A chorus of groans and swearwords went up in the small room.
"She's asked for you, Bobby," the woman said. Bobby muttered something about rampant idjitry.
"What about the mission?" pressed Dean tensely.
"Viktor Frankenstein will have a whole new bunch of toys," came the reply. There was a general murmuring of relief. "You wanna send the UAVs for a pick-up?"
"That's a negative," Dean answered, "They'll be too busy with air support."
"Dean, this is important…" the voice began.
"So are you, missy," snapped Bobby gruffly, "You just get your asses back here and we'll have it soon enough."
"Who died and made you Alpha, old man?" demanded the voice. Bobby curled his lip and growled, which provoked a crackling laugh from the speaker. "Will do. OW! Hey, we're not in a cruiser here! You do know your driving sucks, right?" There was the sound of cursing in the background. "See you soon! Ramble On out."
Kevin flicked switches on the cobbled-together set, and nodded to the man on the bike. "Okay, you can pull the plug, Beverly," he said.
Kerryn couldn't help herself. "Beverly?" she blinked, "Your name is Beverly?"
"Well, it seems silly to answer to 'Mad Dog' anymore," the large man shrugged, "Given the company." He unplugged the exercise bike, and picked it up as if it was a toy. "You're new, right? Decided on the anti-possession tattoo thing yet? 'Cause if you do, I need notice, so I can pedal enough to charge up the batteries, don't wanna run out of gun halfway through…"
"Beverly is our tattooist," Bobby explained hurriedly, "But that can wait – we got a situation on our hands."
"What's happening?" asked Kerryn, worried by the tone of the conversation she'd overheard.
"We've got people coming back to camp," Kevin said, "And they're bringing company."
"Sometimes the Croats form these swarms," Sam explained, and Kerryn nodded; she'd seen it, and had fled from several of them with her group of unlikely refugees. "Sounds like they've got one following them. So we gotta get ready to repel boarders."
"I have to find Todd," Kerryn said promptly, "I have to find my son…"
"He'll be safe," Dean told her, "I promise you that, he'll be in the safest place we can put him."
"He's my son!" she repeated desperately, "He's just a child…"
"And he'll be safe, with all the other kids," Dean growled, clearly not ready to argue the point. "You get your gun, and get to the fence."
She was about to argue, but saw the look on his face, and subsided.
"You come with me," Beverly said firmly, "You got a weapon?"
"Well, yeah," Kerryn replied reluctantly, "But I'm hopeless with it."
"So am I," Beverly confided grimly, "But if you can pull a trigger, you're on the fence." He headed out the door with the exercise bike under one arm. "Get your gun, then come back here, then we'll get you some ammo." He smiled humourlessly. "Look at it this way; the target practice will be good for both of us."
Golly gee, looks like we might get some action next chapter. No doubt Leahelisabeth will be campaigning for some of the Croats to band together and shove Sam into a box. Why zombies would do that, I don't know...
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