A/N: Well, I did say Monday. Sorry that I couldn't pin down which Monday. RL is a needy witch, but as high as unemployment is in our town, I'm darned lucky to be working, so I certainly can't complain. Yes, this was the sequel to "Death By Golden Retriever." I want to thank everyone who lurked, and especially the folks who read and took the time to review. Nothing but love for ya! Pop culture references: Forgot to mention that the line "We got cows" was lifted from the movie Twister. Phoebe is to blame for the Schiltz malt liquor reference. She has no shame, that's why I love her! Chapter title is taken from those Michael Jordan, Larry Bird McDonalds' commercials.
Disclaimer: I know I don't own them. You know I don't own them. Must you torment me with that cruel knowledge?
Part 5 –nothin' but net
Coyote pulls himself out and shakes the dirt out of his fur, head to toe, in one fluid motion.
"You gotta let me go, Old Man," the AU trickster smirks. Bastard's wrapped from his neck to his ankles in bright shiny duct tape marked with blue containment sigils, but it doesn't stop him from being a complete arrogant ass.
Dean tightens his grip on the fug's neck and shakes him like a disobedient puppy. The trickster glares at him. "You can't kill me."
"He's right, you know," Anansi says solemnly, from behind. "You can't kill him."
Dean rolls his eyes. "Been here long, Spider?"
"Long enough." Anansi steps into bright sunshine out of thin air, still dressed in those resplendent midnight black robes with the silver webbing. His eyes narrow as he takes it all in. "He's not even from around here," Anansi murmurs, more to himself than the others.
"Stood there watching all that time, and you never thought about giving us a hand, huh?" Dean keeps his tone light, but there's an edge in his voice.
Anansi shrugs, then starts clapping all six hands.
Coyote snarls at Anansi.
Dean scowls. "Cute. Real cute."
000
Back at the cabin John seriously considers pulling his pistol from his back waistband and using several of the sonsofbitches for target practice, like that annoying light brown one with the flappy ears.
John doesn't know why, but he can't stand that particular bastard.
"Uh, Sam? What's the name of that big brown one over there?"
"Umm…Brown Swiss."
"Huh. And that one over there?"
"Jersey cow," Sam answers calmly. At least, he tries to sound calm. Sam hates being stuck here just as much as John does. Pointing out the different features and breeds seems to distract him, so John lets him have at it.
John nods over to the left. "And that one?"
"That's a Guernsey. Comes from the British Channel Island of Guernsey…"
Sam rattles off stats about the fat content of the milk, and traits desirable to farmers, and John somehow manages to keep a straight face.
My youngest son knows about nearly every breed of cow known to mankind. Why? I don't wanna know, John tells himself quietly. I really, really don't.
John stands there rubbing his palms on the thighs of his jeans. He wants to blow off steam, wants to kill something, and he would too, if he wasn't sure that the rounds would just ricochet off the shield. He hates feeling useless, under siege by a herd of damn zombie cows, no less.
This one might not make it into the journal.
John blinks, and that's the measure of the thing. There's that familiar sensation of sliding sideways, and in the blink of an eye he finds himself standing beside Sam in a sunlit pasture somewhere else.
John glances behind him; the cabin's gone. His eyes narrow a little at the sight of the crater on the left, and he doesn't let his guard down when he sees Anansi standing there, but Coyote's there too, relaxed and easy, so John untenses a little.
Sam stops and stares when he sees the man cocooned in duct tape from his chin to his feet, standing next to Coyote.
There's a slight tickling sensation inside both their heads, familiar and just as snarky and irritating as can be.
Ah'm back!
As usual, Sam doesn't laugh. It's the lousiest Ahnald imitation either one of them's ever heard.
It's the most beautiful thing both of them have heard in the last twenty four hours.
"Hey, Samantha," Dean says from behind. "Did ya miss us?"
Best part about it is, they can hear the grin in his voice before they ever lay eyes on him. It's bright and cheerful, full of relief and downright glee. It's infectious. John relaxes all the way and Sam grins a little, even when Dean reaches out and tousles that Sam's shaggy mop of dark hair.
They don't hug. Oh hell no, they don't. Not in front of outsiders. Family's back together again, and all's right with the world, at least for right now, this moment.
Coyote trots over with the same slightly goofy, happy grin on his face. He walks around them in a circle, rubs up against Sam and John's legs, steps over their feet, more cat-like than dog like, but the Old Man doesn't give a damn. By the time he heads back to Anansi and that AU trickster Coyote's head is up, his ears are prickled and he's got the look of being all about business.
Anansi stares at Coyote and the Winchesters intently. Coyote narrows his eyes, scowls a little. "What?" he barks.
Anansi shrugs. "Nothing, Old Man."
"Couldn't start the party without you," Dean says cheerily as they walk over. The trickster glares at all three of them.
John huffs. "So, this is the bad guy, huh?"
"Yep," Dean nods.
"Doesn't even have a name," Coyote purrs. "Damn amateur."
"Big John Winchester," the trickster grins as he looks John up and down. "Gee, I thought you'd be taller."
John scowls at him and the trickster laughs. "Aw, don't be like that, Johnny. My original plan was to wipe all three of you off the face of the planet. Nothing personal." The trickster raises his chin and smirks. "That's just the kinda guy I am."
"What was the deal with all the cows?" Sam demands angrily.
"Heh. Had you goin' there, didn't I?" the trickster's sneer gets even deeper. "Well, this has been about two days of my immortal life that I'll never get back. It's been fun. NOT. You chumps have to let me go."
Coyote grins wolfishly. "The hell we do. We can't kill you, dumbass, but there's nothing in the rule book that says that we can't make your life a living hell."
"None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for you, Old Man," the trickster spits out. "You should have minded your own damn business. You came over into my house and you interfered." He jerks his head over at Coyote. "Bet he didn't tell you any of that, now did he?"
"Yeah, he did," John says mildly. Sam and Dean nod in agreement.
"He…he what?" The trickster's eyebrows raise up towards his hairline in complete surprise. Even Anansi looks shocked.
"He told us all about that other Dean Winchester. You killed him for one hundred days, am I right?" John leans forward, gets right in his face, and the trickster jerks back. John's grin is just as wolfish as Coyote's. "Buckle up, princess. You're gonna be here for a while."
000
The Red Bull delivery truck re-appears five minutes later. The splat's satisfying and the crater's damned impressive but after the third time Coyote shakes his head. "I don't know about you," he says to the others after they retrieve the trickster out of the crater, "but this tossing thing is getting kinda old. Real old, real fast."
John, Sam and Dean grumble agreement.
John gets this mischievous gleam in his eye. "Boys," John says quietly, and all four of 'em go into a huddle as John whispers something only they can hear.
Coyote, Sam and Dean look puzzled.
John nods. "Trust me on this, will ya?"
So they do.
One blink later The trickster finds himself sitting at a table in this tavern somewhere. He's the only one in the place. He doesn't recognize anything around him, but there are no Winchesters around, no mangy mutt either, and that's all right with him. He could go the rest of his immortal life without laying eyes on those sumbitches or that bastard Anansi.
The trickster picks up the can of beer on the table in front of him. Huh. Schlitz. He's never heard of it, but there's a big black bull with horns on the label, and he smirks at the sight of it. He doesn't feel anything special or magical about the can. Probably their feeble way of giving him the finger for the cow thing. They can't keep him, and they can't kill him, so screw them.
He smirks as he cracks open the can, pours it into the glass and takes a sip. The malt liquor is nice and cold, really smooth going down.
He has just enough time to realize that he's been punked.
The wall behind him crashes inward and this huge black longhorn Brahma bull muscles its way through the flying debris.
Two thousand pounds of enraged bull versus one hundred fifty pounds of depowered trickster really is no contest.
They hit the rewind button on that one about eight times, then decide to go for an even ten. Each time the trickster hits the brick wall in the tavern, all spreadeagled out like roadkill, he makes a different pattern in the smashed bricks.
It reminds Sam of snow angels.
"Damn, that was a blast from the past." Dean's impressed.
"It's a classic," John nods. "Used to watch that commercial on TV. It never gets old."
Sam's fascinated. He always has been intrigued about Trickster powers, altering the molecular structure, materializing things out of thin air. He's tried to get Dean to talk about how it feels. That's like pulling teeth. Even though he's got the most unique vocabulary Sam's ever heard, Dean claims that he's not that good with words.
Sam knows that's not true.
Dean goes on instinct. He's damn good at visualizing things. Coyote, well, he's Coyote, and Sam realized months ago that Coyote never was one for explaining things either, so Sam stands there and takes it all in. It goes into his mental file marked Coyote/Dean.
Dean's standing over there with his hand clamped around the trickster's neck. The trickster's looking no worse for wear; he's healed up quite nicely. It's a better deal than he gave those cows he was tossing all over the place. Sam suddenly feels bad about that. Those cows were minding their own business, grazing, being peaceable, before that idiot came along.
Coyote pads by, his head down, ears pricked, and those eyes of his go greenish-gold. Sam looks up and sees Dean's eyes glow with the same golden spark.
A few seconds later Sam hears mooing and cowbells all around them.
The Red Poll heifer twins walk by first. They're alive and whole, frisky, full of life. They're followed by the British White, the Guernsey, the Brown Swiss, hell, every dead cow they've seen for the last two days. They head down the hill for the pasture, mooing and kicking up their heels, joyful, glad to be alive.
Zombie Holstein brings up the rear, but she's a zombie no longer. She flicks her tail at some flies and shakes her head vigorously. Her cowbell rings out, loud and clear.
Sam stutters. "D-did you guys--"
Coyote sits down on his haunches and does a really bad job of looking innocent.
Dean shrugs. "Wasn't their fault, Sammy. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's all." His voice is quiet, thoughtful.
The trickster sneers. "Aw, ain't that cute? That's the difference between me and you, kid. You're soft. You don't have the balls for it, and you just proved my point by wasting the power you have on a herd of damn cows."
"It was fun killing that other Dean Winchester." The trickster tilts his chin up at Dean. "Over and over again. He screamed like a girl, he peed himself. Did you know that?"
Dean looks at the sky overhead and his eyes take on a wicked golden glint.
"Off the Golden Gate bridge, over the Grand Canyon, through the Gateway Arch, off the Sears Tower, nothing but net," he calls out loud and clear.
The trickster looks puzzled.
He goes from zero to two hundred miles an hour in twelve seconds as Dean throws him up into the air and cuts the lines of gravity all around him. The trickster's a blur as he rockets straight up into the sky. The bastard's shrieking, high and thin, like a car alarm.
"Did he scream like that?" Dean says out loud as he tracks the screaming object with his eyes.
John and Sam look puzzled. Coyote grins like a loon. "The Mystery Spot."
The light dawns for John and Sam.
John chuckles. "That's my boy."
Sam's speechless.
Inside their heads Sam and John see everything that Coyote and Dean see. Dean calls each shot right on target, and the trickster drops into the Broward County mystery spot still screaming like a big old girl as the wormhole swallows him up.
"Oh. Ohhh." Coyote staggers sideways a few steps. "You gotta give me a minute. Kid…that…that was beautiful," he gushes.
Dean puts his palms together, elbows out straight, and bows, slow and elegant. "It's zen, grasshopper. The student has surpassed the master."
"You two are a real piece of work, you know that?" Anansi says drily.
Dean stands there for a moment, absently rubbing his stomach with his right hand. ""We gotta celebrate. I'm thinkin' BBQ. And pie."
The cow formerly known as Zombie Holstein moos at him. Loud and long, full of disapproval.
Sam didn't know cows could roll their eyes.
000
Epilogue's next, on Wednesday. This Wednesday, smartass. It's a party, Winchester style.