PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Ladeez and any gennlemen, management is pleased to inform you that Chaonea has been At It Again.
Should you care to direct your web browser to httpCOLONSLASHSLASH scorrokinDOT deviantartDOT com/#/d3jvxg4 , you will find a picture of Dean being horrified by an overly skittish towel. We suggest that you allow yourself at least ten minutes for rolling about, screaming with laughter, because the expression of utterly bewildered horror on the bloke's face is priceless. (This also confirms that she has stolen a TARDIS and is using it to produce fan art in astonishingly short time frames - just to let you know, when she is arrested for theft of a time-travelling vehicle, I will personally arrange to take up a collection to bail her out, and I'm sure that all Denizens of the Jimiverse would like to contribute).
Now, onwards and upwards! (Unless you're Sam's towel, in which case that will be onwards and downwards)
Chapter 4
"Slow down! You'll get us pulled over!" snapped Dean, squirming and slouching lower into his blanket.
"Ten minutes ago you were telling me to drive faster!" replied Sam in exasperation.
"That's because when we drove through that town, people were looking at us," grumped Dean, wiggling and adjusting his blanket. "They were looking at us, Sam. Pointing. Pointing and laughing. A grandmother in leopard-skin leggings and a midriff top with 'MILF' on it pointed and laughed. A man in a Snuggie pointed and laughed. A large woman who was possibly actually a hippo with lipstick on wearing Daisy Dukes and some gaffer tape, it looked like, pointed and laughed. A guy with his pants practically around his knees pointed and laughed, and then all his friends with their pants practically around their knees pointed and laughed! People who are too stupid to hitch their pants up laughed at us, Sam!"
"Yeah, well, laugh back at 'em. At least we know how silly we look. They're more to be pitied than scorned."
"An orange woman laughed at us!" Dean was mortified, wriggling again, whether in discomfort or outrage wasn't clear. "She was orange, Sam! Glow-in-the-dark orange! The colour of Fanta! The colour of Doritos! The colour of a safety vest! The colour of a carrot cake with plutonium icing!"
"Plutonium isn't orange," interrupted Sam. "It's a sort of silvery grey, if it's in its pure metallic form. Although it does make colours in solution, depending in its oxidation state, and what the anion is – Plutonium dioxide gives a kind of orangey solution, but..."
"All right, all right, she was as orange as a carrot cake with plutonium dioxide with the right anion icing!" fumed Dean with another twitch. "The point is, Sam, the point is, a woman who looked like Snooki laughed at us!" He twitched again.
"Well, we probably do look kinda, you know, weird," sighed Sam. "Be realistic. Two grown men, one wrapped in a ducky blanket, one wrapped in a bunny blanket. If it wasn't us and you saw it, you'd laugh, too. Have you got worms or something? You need me to stop?"
"No, I do not need you to stop," Dean spoke through clenched teeth, and kept wiggling. "What I need, is for us to get to Bobby's, so we can figure out what the fuck is going on, and I can wear something more substantial than a pair of boxers and a pink blanket with bunnies on it. Who the fuck came up with the idea of rabbits having a tea party, anyway? This blanket was made by someone who was totally high!"
"Well," Sam mused, "Lewis Carroll did write the March Hare as being present at the Mad Hatter's tea party, so there is a literary precedent for leporids being depicted drinking tea..."
"You know, one day, Sam, you're going to meet a nice encyclopaedia, and the two of you will find out you have so much in common, you'll fall in love, and before you know it, you'll be married and have a whole brood of little handbooks and dictionaries..." Dean's predictions about Sam's future domestic situation were interrupted as he started to writhe in earnest. "Aaaargh, something's really wrong, that's really uncomfortable, it's likeEEEEEEEEP!"
Dean's boxers suddenly shot out from under his blanket, and blew out the window.
"Um," began Sam, "Was that what I think it was?"
"Yes, Sam," replied Dean with a calm of the type that is found in the eye of a F5 tornado, "That was exactly what you think it was. I am now sitting here, wearing nothing but a pink bunny blanket and a pissed-off expression."
Sam couldn't help himself. "You know, Chuck will be really freaked out about having to write that," he chuckled.
"Don't you dare laugh!" scowled Dean, "Just because you still have your pants on, don't you dare laugh at me!"
"Hey, I barely have my pants on," Sam pointed out, "They keep falling to half mast every time I stand up. I think they might even be trying to fall down now, while I'm sitting here and driving. In fact..." he broke off, a strange expression on his face. "Oh. Er. EroooOOOOOh, er, oh, shit, oh shit, ohshitohshit..."
The wheels squealed as Sam hit the brakes and pulled off the road. Dean watched in confusion as his brother threw open the door, leapt out of the car, and began to dance a hornpipe. Dean followed in bemusement.
"Oooh! Argh! AAARGH!" yodelled Sam, jumping up and down, his legs twitching.
"Dude, are you... krumping?" asked Dean incredulously.
"Not on purpose!" yelped Sam desperately, "It's not me, it's myyyeeeeAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Suddenly, Sam's legs shot out from under him as Dean's had done – his pants yanked themselves skywards, off his legs, and he ended up falling flat on his back, blanket akimbo and feet in the air...
"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, Sam!" Dean shrieked and clamped his eyes shut and spun away, "Oh, fuck me, that's a view of you I haven't had since you were a toddler and trying to kick me while I changed your diaper!"
Sam's jeans and boxers drifted gently back down to earth.
"OhGodohGodohGod," moaned Dean, "What has been seen cannot be unseen..."
Sam scrambled to his feet, face the colour of a tomato, and wrapped his ducky blanket around himself. "Oh God," he muttered, "Oh God, I've just been pantsed by my own pants, there is no word for how wrong that is..." He stood, apparently in shock, for a few moments, then gathered up his clothes. "I feel... naked," he almost wailed.
"That, Sam, is because you are naked," sighed Dean. "We are naked. Underneath our nauseatingly cute blankets, we are buck naked." He stomped grimly back towards the car. "Come on. I'll drive. It'll give me something to do besides freak out and gibber incoherently." He stomped back towards the car.
Sam slid into shot gun, clutching his blanket more tightly around himself. "There's a draft," he whined.
"I'll swap you a draft for the image of the Grand Canyon now burned into my retinas," snapped Dean. "I cannot begin to describe exactly how traumatised I am. I am so traumatised, Dr Phil could not help me."
Sam fished his phone out of his tearaway trousers. "Bobby?" he began uncertainly, "It's Sam. Um, there's been another kind of, er, development with our problem..."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
They arrived at Bobby's yard just on dark. He could tell that they were shell-shocked by the way they barely bickered as they left the car and approached the house, exchanging only one half-hearted 'bitch/jerk' call and response. Sam had wound his blanket around himself so tightly that Bobby wasn't sure how his legs had enough room to walk. Dean was wrapped up in his like an old peasant grandmother, as though he were trying to disappear into it entirely.
"So, Babushka and Pocahontas," Bobby greeted them, only to be met by two pairs of resentful eyes.
" 'S not funny," muttered Dean, managing to convey the chill and gloomy pessimism of the windblown steppe in just a couple of syllables.
"What he said," echoed Sam, hitching his blanket up.
"Well, actually, technically, it could theoretically be regarded as droll. From a certain point of view," opined Bobby.
"Yes, it could," Dean conceded, "From a certain sadistic, cruel, voyeuristic, unfeeling, inhumane and creepily pervy point of view, I can see that a total asshole might possibly find our situation to be somewhat amusing."
"The draft is back again," grizzled Sam.
They moved to the living room, where Bobby explained what he'd already done.
"Since you first called, I've been doing some reading," he told them, "And I gotta tell ya, this isn't like anything I've ever come across before. It's clearly some sort of spell or curse, but if you're sure you haven't done anything to piss off a witch recently..."
"We're sure," Dean affirmed, "We haven't dealt with a witch for months."
"Well, it would help if we could work out the motivation behind this. Who would want to do this?"
"Who would want to humiliate us? Render us unable to put clothes on? Leave us unable to wear anything except adorably sweet fluffy blankies? Hmmmm, let me think, oh, yes, for a start, only every demon we've ever encountered, thwarted, burned, sent back to Hell or otherwise pissed off. So, that narrows it down to, what, no more than a few thousand..."
"No, this isn't a demon," said Sam, "They don't go in for pranks, they go in for physical torture, mental torment and existential anguish."
Dean gave his brother A Look. "Sam, being reduced to wearing nothing but a fluffy blanket and a smile, I'd say that constitutes torture, torment, and enough existential anguish to keep a whole busload of emos going for a year." He shuddered. "And if we're going to talk about mental torment, let me just say that a diaper shot of your gigantic adult overgrown Sasquatch ass sets a new standard in scoop-out-my-own-brain-through-my-nose-with-a-rusty-spoon-to-make-it-stop moments."
"No, he's right," cut in Bobby. "Not something actually evil. Not nasty enough."
Sam swallowed, and looked stricken. "You don't think this reeks of, um, Trickster?" he ventured.
"No," grumped Dean, "If it was Gabriel, he'd be unable to stay away. He'd totally want a look, up close and personal, although he might regret it if he had to look at your ass."
"Yeah, and I guess anybody who has anything against us would go for something less drafty, but a lot more deadly," Sam conceded.
"Exactly," agreed Bobby, "Which leads me to think that we might be dealing with something kind of recent, new. The question is," he posed, "Who wants your clothes to tear themselves off you?"
"Well, we'd have to start with every woman I've ever met," smirked Dean, unable to help himself even under the circumstances, "And a lot I haven't, so that narrows it down to at least several thousand..."
"Wait a minute." Sam absently adjusted his blanket; his expression indicated that he was Thinking About Something. "Women you haven't met. Wanting to perve on you. On both of us." He frowned – the hamster that Dean often visualised running in Sam's head had obviously popped a couple of amphetamines and was holding a private rave party in the wheel. "Could this... could this possibly be connected to... fangirls?"
Dean looked dubiously at Sam. "You mean, those strange people who read Chuck's stories?"
"Or maybe the ones who write their own," continued Sam. "Some of them are kind of, well, obsessed. And given free rein, they do write things worse than, er, spontaneous nudity. The prosecution presents Exhibit A, aka Becky." A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Oh, God, no, you don't think... they really are obsessive, you don't think one of them actually managed to do a spell or something?"
Bobby stroked his beard. "It's highly unlikely anyone outside of the business would be able to construct a spell from scratch, even if they've combed Chuck's stories for details," he pointed out. "I guess maybe somebody could've done it unintentionally – it's happened before, people foolin' around with things they don't understand. It's a long shot, but it might be a place to start."
"Right. Let's get the laptops, and we'll see if we can find anything." Sam and Dean stood up. As Sam stood up, his blanket stood down, while Dean's tried determinedly to billow up around his ears. They both let out little yelps, and readjusted their blanketage.
"Aint nobody here to see you, boys," Bobby pointed out mildly, heading for the kitchen.
"You're here," Dean argued.
"You aint got nothin' I haven't seen before," the old Hunter reasoned equably. "We're all boys here, and anyway, who do you think chased the two of you around the house after The Great Bath Escape of '85?"
"That was different," Sam muttered, "We were kids!"
"I've got two things to say. One, stop bein' so precious, we'll figure this out. And two, don't flatter yourselves, 'cause I aint interested in lookin' at what you're showin'," drawled Bobby, resuming his mission to brew coffee.
Sam sighed. "I guess at least it's not cold. Except for that draft."
"That's probably the Venturi effect, making the wind whistle between your ginormous ass cheeks," muttered Dean.
"Dude, you're obsessed with my ass! Stop it!" demanded Sam.
"You're the one who insisted on showing it to me!" countered Dean, "It's not my fault that image has been branded onto my cerebellum!"
"Visual cortex," corrected Sam. "The bit of your brain that deals with sight is the visual cortex, in the occipital lobe. It sits above the cerebellum, which is actually a distinct structure, distal to the cerebrum."
Dean sighed. "Why the culprit couldn't arrange to have your brain spontaneously leap out of your head too, I don't know. Probably that would be too merciful." He headed for the kitchen. "I need something stronger than coffee. Something to dissolve the neurons in my visual cortex."
"Ethanol won't actually dissolve your neurons," Sam corrected him, starting up his laptop, "Wernicke's encephalopathy is a manifestation of the effects of vitamin B1 deficiency, often associated with alcoholism. It affects metabolism of astrocytes, not neurons, and they're not strictly speaking 'brain cells' because they are found in the spinal cord too and they perform a kind of support function for neurons..."
"Great. Great. Good to see that the draft isn't chilling your own brain, not slowing down metabolic activity in the Insufferable Smartass cortex," grumped Dean. "I swear, one day the world will end, and we'll all be running for higher ground screaming "Help help help the killer tidal wave is coming run for your lives," and you'll be standing there, lecturing: "Actually, the correct term is a 'tsunami', and in fact more of us will die from the ultramegagargantuHurricane than the wave, so you might as well stop running because you'll only die tired."
"That would make it a storm surge rather than a tsunami," muttered Sam, frowning thoughtfully at the screen.
"I rest my case, Your Honour." Dean followed Bobby. "I'll just go make some support cells vitamin B deficient with a storm surge of alcohol to my visual cortex. Unless Bobby has some mindbleach. You just get on with planning your wedding. If I'm your best man, do I have to wear a dust jacket? Are you going to have bookmarks as bomboniere? Ooh, ooh, since you're marrying a book, you'll be able to have... page boys!"
"Jerk."
Reviews are the Warm Fluffy Astrocytes wrapped around the Neurons Of Life. With a motif of duckies printed on their membranes.