A/N: Wow, thanks for all the awesome feedback, gang! Over 100 reviews! If you knew how much your responses brighten my day... you'd probably think I was a freak, actually. Hehe. This part (and probably the next part) have definitely entered full-on silly mode in spots. Hope that's okay. Still no content that couldn't have been televised. Please review!

Disclaimer: Don't own Supernatural, the Winchesters, or any of the assorted other incidentally mentioned properties, entities or trademarks appearing in this part. Of which there are a couple. Kind of.

- . -

Laundry Day

Part 7

by CaffieneKitty

- . -

Dean scrabbled backwards, trying to stay low and get off the washers, electricity crackling in the lights above, his eyes wide and white in the flare.

Over the crackling of the lights and rumbling of the dryers, a melancholy little voice from dryer 7B said Nooo....

The lights flared and crackled for another fraction of a second before arcing in a massive discharge into the sign on the wall that declared the laundromat not responsible for damages. The smell of burnt plastic overlay the soapy, floral scent of the room as the coroplast sign melted and dripped down the wall.

Don't cry, don't cry, the other dryers whispered.

Sam swatted the Good Housekeeping into a puddle, taking a paper cut across the cheek from the Field and Stream and managed two steps closer to the washers before being blind-sided by the Upstate Michigan phone book and a well-thumbed copy of 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' that joined the fray from behind the front counter. "Dean! You okay?"

The whites of Dean's eyes were nearly luminous in the gloom as he glanced over at Sam. "I'm fine. Sounds like Mikey doesn't want Amanda to play rough." Looking up at the quiescent light fixtures and over at the melted sign oozing down the wall, Dean stood up, muck-filled sock still in hand.

Sam blocked the incoming phone book and deflected it into a puddle on the floor. It struggled feebly before it became water-logged and stopped moving. "Dean!"

"What?" he said, turning back to look at Sam.

"Don't throw the sock!"

"What-" Dean began. A ka-chunk noise came from behind Dean, and he half-turned towards it. The unidentified missile struck his leg, stinging as much as a hard slap, exploding in a puff of white powder that stuck to his recently soaked jeans. "-the hell?" Dean glared at the coin-operated laundry soap dispenser on the wall as it ka-chunked again and shot another box of detergent. Dean turned to the side so it skimmed off his back. "Oh, now that's just annoying."

Kachunkachunkachunkachunk-. Little boxes of laundry soap began shooting across the room. Three more hit Dean in the legs and chest as he jumped down off the washers, and he batted two more away. Several more flew past him and were hit by the still-flapping dryer doors, exploding over the dryer aisle or ricocheting in random directions. Dean ducked under the folding table bolted to the back end of the row of washers. "Really, really frigging annoying."

At the other end of the room, Sam was gaining on the magazines. He slapped the Vogue into the Field and Stream, knocking both down onto the wet floor, stepped on one of the Reader's Digest's that had flapped too low and was watching for a sneak attack from the self-help paperback. Just then, something hit the back of his head with a wet splut and the force of a good solid sucker-punch, knocking him to his hands and knees on the slick floor. He turned and rolled under the bolted-down folding table at the entrance end of the row of washing machines as further unidentified objects flew over him.

"You alright?" Sam shouted down the row of washers at Dean

"I'm fine, Sam! What the hell knocked you down?"

Sam touched the back of his head. Wet, sticky and not warm... He brought his hand around and examined the substance on his fingers. Blue. Floral-smelling. "Uh. Fabric softener. Or liquid detergent." He looked up at the second dispenser on the wall, which was launching single-load sized plastic bottles of laundry additive across the room.

"Damn bear."

Sam judiciously chose to ignore Dean's comment.

"This is nuts, Sam!" Dean continued as laundry additives launched intermittently across the room, and the dryers roared and rumbled. "Amanda's got the whole friggin' place working against us. There's no way she'll just let us chuck the sock in the dryer."

"We can't," said Sam, "If we did, things would get a lot worse. Michael kept an attack from becoming lethal. If he's cut right off, there'll be nothing to hold Amanda back. We have to find another way."

"How? Light this goop on fire like we did at the cemetery, get 'em both with the smoke?" Dean examined the sock, which was oozing liberally, having soaked up more water.

Sam ruffled his hands through his hair to stop the fabric softener from drizzling slowly down the back of his neck which was driving him insane. "Well, that could work, but Amanda would fight it."

"And she's not fighting already?" Dean grimaced as the sock dripped. "Anyway, never mind, there's no way this crap will light now without some serious jet fuel."

"Where's the lighter fluid?"

"Left it in the car." Dean fished out and shook his Zippo.

"Great."

"Hey, you said we weren't lighting it up, so I didn't put it in the toolbox. We really need to get a bigger toolbox for when you get these blue-collar urges." He grimaced as he flicked the lighter with no result. "Doesn't matter, my damn flint's wet too."

"Could go out to the car and get the lighter fluid and some match-" The one waiting area bench that wasn't bolted to the floor suddenly grated across the linoleum to block the doorway.

"Hunh. What do you think about that?" Sam said with a nod towards the door.

Dean stuffed the wet lighter back in his pocket. "I think somebody's seen too many Disney movies."

The rumble of the dryers distinctly giggled.

"I think she's listening, Dean." Sam turned around under the table. "We aren't trying to hurt Michael," Sam spoke loudly, addressing the flapping, rumbling dryers. "We're trying to help you both."

You can't have him, the voice of the dryers said, resuming the refrain. A renewed burst of fabric softener and detergent grenades launched across the room, pelting the tops of the folding tables. Otherwise, no change.

"Since when do ghosts listen to reason, Sam?" said Dean.

Sam shrugged and turned back. "It was worth a shot."

"Right. Lawyer."

Sam glared down the row of washers at his brother, who ignored him and stuck the now essentially useless sock full of sodden ghost-muck into a corner underneath the folding table.

"I hate to say it," said Sam, "but the only way to get them out is to give them what they want, get Michael's mom here."

"How? I told you, Sam, she won't come near the place."

"What if we call her."

"What?"

"You got her name, right? Get her number from information, or look it up in the phone book, call her up, get the phone to where Michael is. Maybe he can talk to her, talk her into coming for him or something?"

Dean looked disdainfully down the row of washers at Sam.

"It's all I got, man. You want to try it or what?"

Dean rolled his eyes and dug out his cell phone. "Mine's waterlogged, you got yours?" he said, stowing it again.

Sam tossed his phone down the row of washers below the detergent shooting gallery and Dean caught it. "I'll get the phone book, you can start 411-ing just in case. What was her name?"

"Kopecky."

"With a C or a K?"

"...both?"

Sam gave Dean a look.

"I dunno, Sam, I didn't ask her to spell it. I wrote it down starting with a K." He looked at the low reception bars on Sam's phone and got out from under the folding table, staying low and avoiding the arc of the soap dispensers while dialing 411. "Just look it up both ways. It's a small town, if she's in there she'll turn up."

Sam glanced around for the room, spotted the phone book on the floor in the puddle it had landed in. "You realize if she's unlisted we've got to move on to plan C?" Sam dodged across the floor, snagged the phone book and ran in behind the front counter, folding himself into the small space underneath.

"We have a plan C?" said Dean, swatting down a ricocheting box of laundry detergent with the cell to his ear. "Uh, Alger County, Michigan" he said into the cellphone at the automated prompt.

"I don't think we really had a plan B," muttered Sam, sitting on the floor behind the counter, peeling apart sodden pages of the phone book.

"Residential," Dean said into the cellphone, ducking low and getting closer to the front of the store for better reception. Only a few boxes and bottles flew overhead as he picked his way down the aisle between piles of wet laundry. Amanda must be conserving ammo, he thought.

Sam peeled sections of the phone book apart from each other, looking for the K's. Something small flapped around the corner of the counter. Sam snatched the battered copy of 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' out of the air, wedged it into a support bracket under the counter and kept looking through the phone book. "Maybe she's getting tired, things seem to be slowing down," Sam observed optimistically.

Dean pursed his lips, wishing his brother wouldn't tempt fate like that. Or tempt the ghost that was apparently occasionally listening to what they said. "Kopecky," Dean said into the phone, plugging his free ear, then louder and slower as the automated system failed to understand. "Ko. Peck. Ee. Gah! What the-!" he shouted as something flew up in front of his face, flapping. He swatted away the stray Reader's Digest that had escaped Sam's earlier magazine massacre, listening to the automated voice giving him the number for a completely wrong name. "What? No! Kopeck- Dammit!" He growled and hit the disconnect key. "Friggin' automated system."

Sam popped his fabric softener slicked head around the corner of the counter. "I've got the number."

"Great, 'coz I am done trying to deal with machines that don't know how to cooperate. What's the num- dammit!" The lone remaining magazine whipped towards Dean's eyes, but he blocked and slapped it down, stepping on it for good measure. A sudden clash and rattle behind Dean spun him around, but not in time to avoid the charging laundry cart. Between the soap on the floor and having one foot on the magazine, Dean's footing was a lost cause. He landed in the cart which then sped towards the front wall of the store.

Sam came out from behind the counter as his brother flew past in the cart. "Dean?"

"Here!" Dean shouted, tossing the phone at Sam, who caught it. The cart hit the edge of the carpeted waiting area and tipped over in a tangle of legs, arms and aluminum tubing. Dean cursed, legs thrashing in the air, trying to disentangle himself from the laundry cart. Sam dialed the phone, barely resisting the sudden urge to take a picture.

"Yes, what?" An annoyed female voice answered.

"Ms. Kopecky?" Sam peered down the row of flapping dryer and washer doors to 7B. Smacking down a bottle of detergent with it first, he dropped he battered, soaked phone book and took a couple steps backwards into the carpeted waiting area. Dean, still awkwardly intertwined with the laundry cart, looked up with a raised eyebrow at Sam walking backwards nearby.

"Yes! Who is this!"

"There's someone here that wants to talk to you." Sam had never actually been on a Slip 'N Slide, but he'd seen commercials. He ran forward on the carpeted section and dove onto the linoleum, sliding belly-down under the agitated dryer doors on the slick layer of moistened soap that had built up from the bursting detergent boxes, ending up against a pile of wet laundry a few feet short of dryer 7B. He skidded the phone along the wall the rest of the way to stop underneath Michael's dryer.

A wisp of steam trickled out of the open door of 7B, puddled briefly over the squawking phone, then pulled it inside.

There was a clatter as Dean stood up and shoved the laundry cart aside. "Is it working?" he called to the soles of Sam's shoes, watching the room for other moving objects.

"He's got the phone," Sam called back, "we'll see. Either way, he must be using up a lot of whatever energy he has available to do this..."

The phone dropped out of the dryer with a clatter and slid back into Sam's reach. Sam picked it up the phone from the floor and didn't even need to hold it close to his head to heard the enraged tinny voice on the other end. "You better run... what kind of sick joke... I'm coming down to that laundromat right now, you twisted..."

Sam hit the disconnect and stuffed the soap-slimy phone into a pocket. "I think she's on her way, Dean," Sam shouted over his shoulder and started wriggling backwards out from under the swinging doors, which turned out to be trickier than he'd thought, because although the soap accumulated in the aisle had made for an easy slide in, getting a grip to push backwards from was nearly impossible. While figuring out the logistics of the maneuver, Sam missed the slightest of wiggles that the formerly rock-motionless door of 7B began to show.

The rumble of the dryers all around and above Sam howled up into a scream. Noooo! I've lost him!

"Oh, great, here we go," muttered Dean.

- . -

(tbc)