Past 2
Tessa showed up again at precisely 8:00 AM the next morning.
"Good mo . . ." she started to say.
"What did you do to my car?" Dean interrupted.
"Your car?"
"Yes, my car? What, did you and all your Reaper buddies decide to sneak in and give her a paint job?"
"Of course not, but you should take the fact that your vehicle has changed colour as further evidence that this is inevitable. It turned pale, I assume?"
"It turned into a douche-mobile. Is there any way to change it back?"
"Doubtful. You can't fight this, Dean."
"So, what now? Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life going around taping dead people on the shoulder like we did that one day?"
"No, of course not. That was mostly an educational exercise that the previous Death wanted you to engage in. Far too many beings die in a day for you to see to them all personally. The work of extracting souls is typically the responsibility of us Reapers. You are meant to oversee us."
"And what happens if I just do nothing, does everybody stop dying?"
"No Dean, death is a force of nature, an unstoppable force. That force may be centered around you now, but it doesn't need your express permission to act. Death is the default of all living things. I suppose if you wanted to, you could actively try to suppress it, stop death, but please don't."
Dean huffed a little and squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. He had spent basically his entire life trying to save as many lives as possible and now here was someone telling him that all he needed to do was will it so and no one would need to die again. No more Marys, no more Jos, or Bobbys, or Charlies. It should be simple, but it was anything but. Dean was practical enough to guess what would happen to the planet if no one ever died, and it wouldn't be pretty.
He was interrupted from his angst as Sam walked in from the hallway. Maybe there was one thing he could do. "Okay, listen up then, if I'm supposed to be your boss, then here's your first order: Sam doesn't die. No matter what happens, Sam does not die."
"Understood" Tessa said immediately. She turned to look at the younger Winchester, "Congratulations Sam, you are now immortal."
Sam, who hadn't had his coffee yet, only blinked at her.
There was a moment of awkward silence before it suddenly occurred to Dean to ask, "so, if you don't actually need me to do anything, then what are you doing here anyways?"
"I'm here to give morning report."
"Morning report?" Sam asked, the academic side of his brain finally waking up.
"Yes, every morning I will give you an account of all the beings that have died during the previous day. I was chosen for this task because of our prior relationship", she gave a little frown at that last part.
Dean laughed, "so, basically you're my secretary."
"Among Reapers, the privilege of working directly with Death is considered to be a great honour" said Tessa although her expression demonstrated that she considered it to be anything but. "Now shut up and pay attention. The previous day saw the death of 28,956 aardvarks, 14,093 albatrosses, 56,202 alligators . . .
"Stop" said Dean, "what are you doing?"
"As I said, I'm giving you an account of everything that died the previous day. To simplify it for you I'm going in alphabetical order and only mentioning large categories of animals rather than individual species. For example, did you know that there are 22 different species of albatross?"
"And over 14,000 of them died yesterday?" Sam asked curiously.
"Yes, I'm afraid climate change is rather seriously affecting their population."
"Stop" Dean said again slightly louder this time. "I don't care about all this. How many people died yesterday?"
"If by people, you mean humans, the answer is 149,673" Tessa stated matter of factly.
Dean looked slightly pale. "So many?"
"Actually, that's slightly below average for the day. Now, if we could continue with animals, we still have to get through plants, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, and supernatural creatures."
"You can't be serious. How long is all that going to take?"
"Most of the day."
"And you want to do this every day? I doubt the old Death spent all his time sitting around listening to you recite a zoology textbook."
"The old Death instinctively knew all of this already. You probably could to if you felt like it, but it was decided that since you've so far been less than enthusiastic about your new position it would be better to give you the information directly. Now, picking up where we left off: 4,500,546,072 ants, 12,678 anteaters . . ."
Dean's head hit the desk.
The next few days passed tortuously slowly. Sam and Dean spent most of their time researching Dean's new condition, as they called it, and trying to tune out Tessa's constant lists of dead plants, animals, and everything else. There were a few interesting tidbits in there that Sam picked up on, for example, the number of dead demons each day strongly indicated that there were more active hunters in the world than either of them had ever guessed. Mostly, though, it was just noise, incessant, uninteresting, distracting noise.
By day three, Dean was ready to gouge out his own ears with a rusty knife, but Tessa pointed out that as one of the most powerful beings in the universe he would just heal anyway.
By day five, Sam and Dean had gone through every book in the library that could possibly be considered relevant and had failed to find any reference to a human taking on the mantle of Death. "That's because it's never happened before" explained Tessa unhelpfully.
By day eight, Dean suffered his inevitable breakdown. He was in the kitchen pouring himself a cup of coffee. Tessa's latest recited death toll customarily ended sometime around two in the morning and for the last week, it had been impossible for Dean to get more than a few hours sleep. Dean glanced at his watch and sighed heavily, it was 7:59 and his torturer would be popping in any second now. Sam grimaced in sympathy, he'd tried to stick around and be supportive of his big brother but sometimes during the day he couldn't resist sneaking off to his room for some peace and quiet. It didn't matter where Dean went, Tessa just followed him around the bunker. At least, she had agreed to stand outside the bathroom door rather than follow him in and only continued her report at a slightly louder volume so as to be heard over flushing toilets and running water.
Dean thudded down moodily in one of the kitchen chairs and wrapped both hands around his coffee. Seconds later Tessa appeared in front of them. "Good morning Dean" she gave her customary greeting before launching straight into it. "The previous day saw the death of . . .
"twenty-six thousand and ninety-eight aardvarks" Dean yelled suddenly, drowning out whatever Tessa had been about to say. "I know exactly how many freaking aardvarks died yesterday, are you happy now?!"
Sam jerked his head around, startled by his brother's outburst. He was even more surprised when Tessa gave a small nod of satisfaction. "That's correct. Now can you tell me how many grey wolves died yesterday?"
"Six thousand and two" Dean said as he rubbed his forehead wearily.
"And humans? How many humans died?" Tessa asked gently.
"One hundred and fifty-two thousand, four hundred and thirty-eight" Dean's voice came out as a whisper.
"Good" Tessa said softly as though she was speaking to a small child "and can you tell me what some of their names were?"
"Ridwana Chadwick, Conrad Gerhard, Amrit Das, Yoriko Miyamoto" Dean's voice faltered and a single tear ran down his cheek, "Tyson Okorie, Lauren Guppy . . ."
"That's enough Dean" Tessa said gently and placed her hand on his shoulder as he buried his face in his hands, probably trying to hide how upset he was.
Sam watched dumbstruck. Partly because Dean usually only cried if the world was ending and partly because Dean somehow knew things it should have been impossible for him to know. Yes, Tessa had been telling them for over a week that Dean was now Death, but this was the first time he had displayed any actual Death-like characteristics and Sam couldn't help but be a little unnerved. The previous Death had been a creepy old guy with a cane who had been able to do impossible things like pulling Sam's soul from hell or opening the door to purgatory and try as he might Sam just could not reconcile his image of his brother with that persona.
"You've done well, Dean" Tessa said. "I'll be back when you're ready for the next step" and with that she disappeared.
