Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 21: Hot potato
Closing another book Sam stretched out his spine and pinched at the bridge of his nose, trying to shift the tension headache mounting up there.
His eyes were sore and gritty, sleep spawned by no actual sleep rimmed his lids and lodged in the corners of his eyes. Forty percent antique dust, sixty percent eye strain and one hundred percent exhaustion.
It occurred to Sam then, that it was taking Kevin an awful long time to get that refill on their coffee. If he wasn't going to keep staring blankly at the same sentence, he needed caffeine, now.
He found Kevin standing in the kitchen doorway, still holding their empty mugs, he looked bemused.
Kevin lifted one hand in greeting.
"Sorry Sam, guess I got distracted."
Dean was in the kitchen, a bunch of dismembered appliances scattered around him, a box and styrofoam packaging littering the floor at his feet, the air carried the acrid tang of solder flux to Sam's nose.
"What is Dean doing?" Sam asked, "Is he…? He is, isn't he. He's making some kind of—."
"Home Alone style booby trap out of a microwave. Yeah…" Kevin said.
"Just tell me he hasn't dismembered the coffee maker."
"I haven't been brave enough to ask, he looks kinda… intense." Kevin raked a nervous hand through his greasy hair and moved from foot to foot.
Dean did look intense.
"Okay, stay here, I'll go save the coffee maker." Sam pushed his way into the kitchen, wading past empty packaging.
"So is it alive, alive," he asked, doing his best doctor Frankenstein impersonation.
Dean looked up with a grunt from whatever he was doing with the soldering iron, behind the microwaves control panel, "the point of this Sammy, is to make the little asshat dead, dead!"
"So, it has nothing at all to do with wanting to reenact a scene from one of the worlds most disturbing Christmas movies?"
"The fact that you think a PG13 movie, is one of 'the worlds most disturbing Christmas movies,' is adorable Sammy," Dean gazed at him from under lowered lids. "An' kinda worrying, I gotta say," he teased smirking, as he screwed the panel back in place.
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
Sam spotted the coffee maker in the sink, thankfully it was still in one piece, but achingly empty of his favourite research aid.
Looking around the kitchen, Sam realised Dean was using the only two accessible power points in the kitchen for the soldering iron and microwave.
"I know, you said, this worked before, on Tinkerbell, Dean. But this Gremlin, it seems pretty smart, how are you gonna get it in there to begin with."
"Ye of little faith. We just use cream, remember how much the little bastards love cream? Put it inside, right at the back, like so. Lure it in." Dean placed a bowl of water inside the microwave. "I've rigged it, so any more weight on the plate, causes the door to slam shut. "an' rewired it, so it'll startup soon as the door closes." Dean tossed an apple inside the microwave.
The door slammed shut and the microwave whirled into action, just as advertised.
"Anddd cue an explosion of green blerk," Dean crowed, grinning a shit eating smile and sketched a bow. "Sayonara Spike!"
Sam chuckled and shook his head. "That's… actually pretty ingenious, Dean."
Dean preened. "I'm way better than Macaulay Culkin."
That was the thing about his big brother. He played up to the whole grunt image; always claimed Sam was the brains of the outfit. But, Dean was actually pretty smart. Maybe not for memorising and regurgitating facts and figures in an exam setting, the way school required. But he had a kind of applied genius.
When people saw him do something like this, just effortless, they'd be shocked, seeing how smart Dean actually was.
Sam looked back over his shoulder at Kevin, to gauge his reaction. The boy's jaw was unhinged and his face was a picture of surprise.
"Wow," Kevin murmured, "yeah, that is impressive. Can we stop researching fairies now? More to the point, can I have coffee? And maybe, get back to the Angel tablet."
Sam frowned at his tone on the last bit, he thought the boy hated translating the tablets, but he sounded almost like a junky jonesing for his next hit. Their prophet needed some R&R, he reminded himself again; something to remind him he had a life as someone other than a research aid or prophet of the Lord.
"Did you find warding to keep the little bastard away from my car?"
"Seriously?" Kevin whined.
Sam shook his head at the prophet's tone. "According to the lore, hag stones could protect horses from night-riding by fairies,"
"Baby ain't a—" Dean began.
"—They hung the stones over the horse's mangers or tied them to the stable doors." Sam continued, ignoring his brother's outrage over the perceived insult. "Apparently fairies wouldn't be able to pass underneath them."
"Hag stones?" Dean asked eagerly, tune changed completely.
"They're also called Adder, Odin or holey stones.
Basically stones with naturally formed holes right through them. According to the lore, looking through one will let you see hidden things, and beings like the fae."
"Like, in Coraline?" Kevin asked.
He didn't recognise whatever thing Kevin was referring to, so just shrugged.
"Any chance we have any of them hag stones in storage, or can pick them up somewhere?"
"Yeah, you can get them in new age shops. Mystic Myths, in Wichata, will probably have them. Or there might be some with the supplies up in the lab.
Assuming, Uh… hag stones will work on gremlins at all."
Dean opened the door of the microwave and grabbed out the nuked apple and steaming bowl of water, juggled the two items like hotpotatoes for a moment, then, tossed the apple across the kitchen at him.
"Look sharp Sammy."
He caught it on instinct, hissing when the heat stung his palm, the thing felt gross, the spongey texture of the partially cooked fruit reminded him of the leathery give of partially decomposed bodies, grimacing he shot the ruined apple into the trash.
Meanwhile, Dean had filled a new bowl from a carton of cream and slid it into the machine, leaving the door hanging open. He put the rest of the carton into the refridgerator and slammed the door.
"I'm gonna go look for a stone with a hole in it." Dean muttered and wandered off, leaving the mess from his project for Sam to clean up.
…ooo0ooo…
An hour later, Kevin was in his room, sitting at his desk with the Angel and demon tablets in front of him, when a series of bangs and a shrill metallic ringing, something like an old style fire alarm, nearly gave him a heart attack.
Thankfully, what ever it signified, it wasn't the bunker going into lockdown; and the lights stayed on.
With a sigh, Kevin placed both tablets inside the box he'd covered in every warding against angels and demons he knew, and placed it in the centre of the devils trap he had drawn on the floor during the last crisis (or was it the crisis before the last one? He found it hard to remember.)
He was still standing at the door, hand on the bolt, trying to decide if he should stay put, in case the ruckus was anything to do with Crowley; or get out, in case there was an actual fire. When he heard Dean whoop extatically from the hallway followed by the hunters heavy boot falls hurrying in the direction of the kitchen.
Sounded like Dean's booby trap had actually worked.
Color Kevin impressed.
As he made his way cautiously to the kitchen, Sam caught up with him and dashed past, following his brother.
A thick haze of oily black smoke spilled out of the kitchen enterance, fingering it's way along the hallway ceiling.
Kevin followed the Winchester brothers towards the fire, but stalled in the doorway, gripping the door jam.
Flames flared and guttered inside the microwave's metal body, reeking black smoke billowed from the vents and a small circular hole in the glass of the microwave door.
Sam leapt forward to yank the microwave's plug from the wall socket.
Unfortunately that didn't do anything to stop the flames inside the machine, or the smoke.
"I take it back, this wasn't ingenious. This was moronic." Sam scolded and shook his head at the destroyed appliance.
Kevin wondered how long the microwave had been running.
Dean scoffed. "It worked didn't it?"
Suddenly, the sprinkler system opened up, and the chaos was compounded by a downpour of stinking brown water.
Kevin spared a moment to be thankful that he hadn't gone in there, and only the sprinklers in the kitchen had activated; as Sam ducked back past him, out of the downpour of stagnant water, yelling something about the shut off valve.
Dean didn't seem concerned by the destroyed microwave, smoke, blasting alarm or the torrent of slimy water. Above the chaos, he heard him crack some one liner about creaming the gremlin, as he stepped up to the microwave and bent over to peer inside, a victorious grin plastered on his face.
Kevin stepped back further, away from the kitchen, and the rancid water, beginning to ooze its way down the hallway, seeking out lower ground; it looked like it had been sitting in the fire system since the place was built, ten million years ago.
He covered his ears and contemplated that the elder Winchester's gremlin killing plan might be more messy and destructive than the gremlin itself, and wondered if he could make a run for it, back to his room, to avoid being enlisted in clean up.
Dean popped open the door of the microwave at nearly the same time the alarms and the sprinklers cut out.
Thank you Sam!
"Sonofabitch!" Dean stepped back, coughing, stumbling away from the cloud of smoke that poured from the guts of the charred and battered machine.
He swore again, sounding upset, but Kevin couldn't see why.
Dean took another step back and his foot went out from under him, sliding on something on the floor.
Dean stumbled backward further, and caught himself against the refrigerator, causing the door, that had been standing open a few inches to slam shut, loudly.
Dean honest to god snarled, as he bent over and picked up the thing he'd slipped on. A flattened and empty cream carton, that had been laying on the floor by the refrigerator.
Sam was back. He walked in, over to the microwave with a fire extinguisher, and shot a burst inside. Dousing the guttering flames and blowing out most of the noxious smoke.
Leaning over, the younger Winchester peered into the microwave interior and select huffed a short snort of something that was almost laughter.
"Is that the Glock 9mm? The backup gun you had stashed under the table in here?"
Dean walked closer and stood beside his brother peering at the smoking mass of melted plastic and metal, empty cream carton still in hand.
"It was." He muttered sourly.
—-/—
Authors notes:
Please comment and review!
So there's a whole bucket load of videos on YouTube of people microwaving various things.
There is a video of someone microwaving a Glock 9mm, the gun does melt and catch on fire but it also fires the bullet that's in the chamber. So cool!
And yes, the water that comes out of fire systems is really gross as heck, from sitting in the pipes stagnating for years and years, my hubby's a tradie and has personal experience.
So... the spn finale ... it wasn't as bad as I expected with Dabb at the helm... after how the last three seasons, I've been really dejected with the shows direction and writing and was expecting to feel no feelings at all. To just be relieved that it was over, and there was no way Dabb could ruin Spn further.
Instead I cried.
I'll miss the show and the boys and Covid really messed stuff up. I'm pretty sure no matter how the show ended there'd be people that weren't happy. Trying to please everyone is a sure fire way to make nobody happy.
But hey, Endings are hard! And we all have the power in our hands to create a fanfic story with the ending we wanted. So how about you give it a try