SPN Fanfic: Laundry Day 8/8
Title:Laundry Day - 8/8
Characters: Sam, Dean
Classification: Humour, multi-part, gen
Rating: PG13? K+? Nothing that couldn't have been televised.
Warnings: None. Smatterings of spoilers for Season 1 episodes up to and including "Nightmare"
Word Count: 3243 words
Disclaimer:Sigh. Pout.
Timeline: Set between the Season 1 episodes "Nightmare" and "Benders"
Summary: The Winchester boys do their laundry. Sounds boring, doesn't it... Sam and Dean can only wish it was.
Originally posted July 12, 2006 at fanfiction.net
Laundry Day - Part 8
by CaffieneKitty
- - -
I've lost him! I've lost him! shrieked the dryers, and bottles of fabric softener flew across the room at full force, making fist-sized dents in the drywall above Dean's head.
Dean crouched down lower, reaching under the doors that were now whipping back and forth so hard the glass in them was spidering with cracks when they hit each other. One of the doors shattered, showering Sam with broken glass. Dean lunged, grabbed one of Sam's feet, and yanked him out of the dryer aisle.
Sam slid out, rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows, shards of glass falling off his back. "Michael's mom better get here quick."
"You're sure he's still here?"
"He has to be conserving energy for when his mom comes. He's just so weak Amanda just can't find him."
Dean raised his head a little to peer around the room, but got back down fast when four small somethings embedded themselves deeply in the drywall above his head. That wasn't laundry detergent. He looked across the room at the vending machine wall.
Oh, right. The change machine, thought Dean. Joy.
It rattled and fired in bursts of four quarters, shooting across the room at as close to ballistic speeds as Amanda could probably manage. A round of quarters hit one of the already cracked dryer doors, bursting the glass like confetti and ricocheting around inside the dryer drum.
"She's dangerous with that thing," said Sam. "It's like rounds of buckshot."
"Yeah. Mikey probably wasn't letting her use it before." Another volley embedded itself in the wall above Dean. "Stay low, we can get underneath it, she'll lose her arc of fire on us."
Sam nodded and they ducked under the folding table, quarters impacting the table's surface and embedding there. Another bottle of fabric softener hit the table with a splutch.
Dean peered out from under the table, judging the limits of the arc. "Straight across and up against the wall."
"Didn't I already say I'm not twelve once today? Just go."
Dean scooted out and set his back to the wall between the change machine and the fabric softener dispenser, Sam following close behind. Quarters dented the top edge of the row of washers facing them and ricocheted. The washer doors on their side of the washing machine island clacked open and began whipping back and forth like the ones along the dryer aisle. A few machines spilling contents not already spilled onto the floor. Where Sam and Dean crouched against the wall, though, nothing could hit them.
"As long as we stay right here, we should be good until Mikey's mom shows up."
Why, why, why, was Sam so determined to tempt fate like that?
Something rattled towards them from the back end of the aisle. Two laundry carts charged up the aisle side by side, bumping over piles of wet clothing, led by the mop and bucket, scraping along the wall the Winchesters sat against. The flinging washer doors were doing a horizontal version of a stadium 'wave', each door shutting to let the carts past at full speed, then re-opening behind them.
Dean ducked around the speeding mop bucket to the other side of the change machine and faced the onrushing carts. Sam hopped back against the folding table, out of the way of the mop and bucket, ducking the mop handle as it swung around past his nose. The change machine fired another volley, grazing Sam's ear as he dodged out into the open front area under a barrage of fabric softener bottles. The mop and bucket were waiting for him.
Dean kicked one cart in the basket and hooked an elbow around the upright pole of the second. The kicked cart rattled backwards into the wall. The second cart jerked to a sudden halt like a dog coming to the end of a too-short leash, wheels flying out from under it, landing on its side. The downed cart's wheels spun in annoyance as the kicked cart rallied for another charge.
Sam dodged clear of flying fabric softener bottles, holding his stinging left ear, the mop and bucket whizzed past him again, mop handle swinging around in an attempt to clock him in the head. Sam sidestepped and booted the bucket as it went past, sending it hurtling and sloshing in behind the front counter. He grimaced at the bench barricading the front door. "Gonna have to clear the doorway if Michael's mom's going to get in." He called to Dean.
"Oh, ya think?" Dean spun the supine cart around sideways and shoved it into the other one, whacking washer doors on the way past and interlocking the carts up against the back wall. "Ha!" Dean said as the carts struggled together before the powdered detergent machine he was now next to ka-chunked and pegged him in the side of the head. The box exploded in a cloud of eye-stinging white granules and Dean hit the floor again to get out of its range as more boxes whipped overhead.
Sam wedged himself between the front counter and the bench, and tried pushing the obstacle out of the way, but it wouldn't budge. Typical. "It'll probably move when Michael's mom shows..." The persistent mop and bucket shot out from behind the counter and charged at Sam again.
"It better." Dean rubbed soap powder from his eyes with a relatively un-soapy corner of his t-shirt and spotted the ghost-repellent sock under the folding table. On the wall above him, the powdered soap dispenser shot two more boxes and then ka-chunked without shooting. Dean looked up at it. It paused, ka-chunked a few more times without issue then stopped. "Small mercies." Dean muttered, ducking under the table for the sock as quarters ricocheted around the aisle
Sam kicked the mop and bucket out of the way again and got out from between the bench and counter in case Amanda got any ideas about pinning him there. The mop and bucket swung in a wide loop and raced back at Sam. As it sped towards him, the mop tumbled forward out of the bucket, hit the floor on the tip of its handle and sprang head-first towards Sam's face, dirty cotton tendrils trailing mucky water. Sam blocked the inbound mop with a forearm, knocking the head aside, only to have the handle whip up and glance off his right temple. Sam grabbed the handle and flung the mop into the waiting area. It hit the wall head first, bounced on its handle off the carpet and launched at Sam again.
Meanwhile, Dean, pressed up against the wall the change machine was on, counted the time between the shots the machine was making. It was still firing steadily at the top edge of the row of washers, trying for ricochet hits on Dean since Sam was out of range. Dean got right beside the machine with the sock, stepping over a pile of wet clothes. The machine rattled and shot a round at the washer right in front of it, bouncing the ricocheting quarters off Dean's boot as he swung around with the sock and jammed it in the drop chute the quarters had been firing out of. Rattle-splck. Rattle-splck. No more quarters. Whether Sam's concoction was doing anything besides being a mass of sticky goo jamming up the machine didn't matter. It was effective. Dean grinned, considering himself temporarily ahead of the insanity and looked over to check on Sam, then stopped and stared, bemused for a second at the sight of his baby brother in hand to, uh, handle combat with a mop.
Sam jumped over the handle of the mop swinging at his ankles, skidding a little on the landing. The mop planted its handle on the soapy linoleum and hopped spinning into the air. Sam ducked and took a step back only to find the mop bucket had snuck in behind him. He tripped, slipped and landed on the floor. The mop landed head first between Sam's feet, bounced back up, rotating in a blur and nailed Sam hard in the solar plexus with its handle. Sam emitted an ugly grunt as the mop flipped around and landed head first on Sam's face in a creditable imitation of a face-hugger from the Aliens movies.
"Sam?" Dean said, a little stranged out that he was about to step in to save his brother from a frigging mop when something wrapped around Dean's ankles and yanked. He lost his footing on the slick floor, landing on his side, turning over immediately to see what had tripped him. A soggy pastel-checked bathrobe was wrapped snugly around both his feet. He swore, kicked and grabbed for his jackknife as the robe rapidly entwined itself further up his legs.
Sam pried the mop off his face and flung it aside, coughing and gasping. He caught a movement down near his toes and kicked out at the lurking mop bucket with both feet. It sloshed away across the floor towards the folding table, caught a wheel on a downed magazine and tipped over, dumping dirty water everywhere. Sam was halfway to his feet before the mop cartwheeled in for another attack.
Dean pulled the jackknife out of his pocket, just as a pair of pink and aquamarine paisley yoga pants ambushed him, whipping around his torso and pinning his right arm awkwardly across his chest before tying themselves in an inaccessible knot behind his back. The knife, coated with soap like most of the rest of Dean, squirted out of his grasp. "Son of a bitch!" he swore. With his free left hand, Dean twisted and snagged the folded knife, flicking it open with a thumb. He had just begun sawing awkwardly at the paisley pants when a crocheted blanket slapped itself around Dean's midsection and reared threateningly in front of his face. Well, as threatening as a hand-crocheted wet granny square afghan made of the ends of about a hundred different colours of yarn could be.
Sam blocked the inbound mop again, getting to his feet only long enough for the mop to shoot between his feet and twist, landing him on the floor. Again. He tried to keep the mop pinned under his knees, but it shot off into the shadows. "This is ludicrous," growled Sam, getting back to his feet and watching for the mop. And Dean. Where exactly was Dean, anyway? Sam could hear his brother cursing, but didn't see him. "Dean?"
Dean slashed at the blanket with the jackknife in his left hand, keeping it away from his face and making a few large unravelling holes. "Little busy, Sammy!"
"You okay?"
"I'm doin' just fine, you watch out for yourself!" He might be okay saving Sam from a mop, but there was no way he'd let Sam rescue him from a bunch of wet laundry, no matter what a pain in the ass it was being. The loose crochet weave of the blanket hooked around his fingers and wrapped the hand holding the knife, pinning it to Dean's right shoulder, constricting tightly. Thrashing and wriggling and cursing as the blanket covered his head, Dean heard the sinuous slurping noises of other piles of wet clothing moving across the floor towards him.
Sam frowned as Dean's cursing became oddly muffled. "Dean?" The mop, which had been lurking in the shadows against the front wall, cartwheeled in behind Sam while he was distracted and nailed him in the kidney, knocking him stumbling and slipping off balance into the range of the fabric softener machine. Sam dodged a flying white bottle, but the mop was there again, in his face and jabbing him in the adam's apple with the wet mucky end. It shoved him up against the dented wall and wedged him there by jamming its handle up against the edge of the folding table. On the opposite wall, the fabric softener dispenser thunked... and emitted nothing. The fabric softener firing squad was out of ammo too.
The dryers howled in frustration, and the light fixtures began sparking and snapping again. Sam gaped up at them in alarm. On the other side of the washer island, Dean thrashed harder.
Just then a badly muffled four-cylinder engine roared outside the laundromat, and tires squealed on the pavement. A car door slammed and a woman's voice said several nasty things.
The overhead lights stopped arcing. The dryer doors stopped swinging. There was a rumble as the blockade cleared away from the door, and a click as the front door unlocked and swung ajar. Dean peered over at the door through the holes in the crocheted blanket and watched Michael's mother storm in.
"Come out! Come out here where I can tell you what I think of you people! How dare..." Her rant trailed off as her eyes adjusted to the gloom and the condition of the store dawned on her. She skidded a little on the soapy floor coming to a halt. "What-" She spotted Sam in the gloom, still wedged against the wall and grappling the mop with both hands. "What's happening here?" She demanded, walking over and planting her fists on her hips, glaring at Sam. "I demand an explanation for this!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw the door of dryer 7B swing fully open, spilling steam onto the floor. The cloud coalesced into a small child shape. The woman looked slowly over and took a step back. Another, taller, pale form appeared, a plain young woman. She knelt down and ruffled the top of the little cloud of steam and gave it a quick hug. Goodbye Michael, the dryers whispered.
"Tricks! This is nothing but cruelty, tricks and lies." Michael's mother ranted shakily, staring at the small shape. "Do you think I'm an idiot to believe-" The steam child, Michael, went forward, rolling, billowing and wisping along the floor toward the woman. The tall pale shape of Amanda stood at the end of the dryer aisle and watched as the little cloud of steam impacted the woman around the legs.
You finally came back for me, the steam-child breathed and dissipated. Michael's mother fell to her knees on the soapy linoleum with a gasp.
The mop holding Sam against the wall clattered to the floor, and the laundry around Dean loosened. Sam rubbed his throat and got out of the way, peering around the washers to where he'd last heard Dean cursing. Sam raised his eyebrows at the sight of his brother encased in bright sodden laundry. Dean shook the folds of the afghan away from his face and, after seeing Sam was okay, growled, "Say anything right now and you'll regret it 'til you're ninety."
Amanda stood and glared at the woman kneeling on the floor. Michael's mother looked up at the ghost of the girl. "I... I am so sor-" but the ghost girl just glared and spun on her translucent heel, refusing the apology. For his sake. Not yours, the dryers whispered. Get out. The middle-aged woman squawked and slid backwards on her knees across the slick floor, landing against the wall next to the door with a quiet thump. The dryers turned off one by one as Amanda passed them, stalking away from Michael's gaping mother down the aisle, and the dryer doors slammed shut. By the time Amanda reached the back of the laundromat, she had faded into nothing and disappeared.
The middle-aged woman looked around the laundromat with her mouth hanging open, got to her feet and ran out of the laundromat. A car door slammed and tires peeled out.
"Hunh." said Sam, looking over his shoulder at the door as Dean thrashed around, still tangled in the loosening afghan. "That was interesting."
"Whatever. Get this crap offa me."
Sam pulled out his knife and cut apart the slashed crocheted blanket. "She tries to kill us, but just glares at Michael's mom, shoves her to the door and walks away?"
Clear of the afghan, Dean sawed off the knotted paisley yoga pants. "Amanda was protecting the kid," he said, matter-of-factly, "We were a threat to him, so she gets mean with us. Her thing with Michael's mom, that was her personal axe to grind, and since it was Michael's mom, hurting her would have made him unhappy, even though he was already gone. So..." he kicked free of the pastel-checkered bathrobe, "Momma gets a glare and a shove."
Sam looked at Dean like he'd grown antlers.
"What? It got whatever Amanda needed to do done so why worry about it?" Dean stood up and looked around the room. Couple doors with broken glass on the dryers, crashed and entangled laundry carts, melted sign. Soap and quarters everywhere. "Uh, let's go."
- - -
The street outside was thankfully empty, and the lack of onlookers from neighbouring businesses seemed to indicate that the chaos inside the laundromat hadn't disturbed anyone outside it.
Sam leaned over the Impala, writing on a sheet of Motel 6 stationery from Idaho, using the roof as a writing surface. He felt like he was coated in drying detergent, which he pretty much was. Soap stung his paper cuts and the slash on his ear. He was itchy. "The sooner we can hit a place with a shower the better."
"What's the matter Sammy, don't like smelling 'spring-time fresh' for a change?" Dean said, quickly covering the front seats with towels from a Best Western outside of Tulsa.
Sam looked up. "Dude. You're so covered in soap, you're foamy."
"Yeah, well you should see your hair," said Dean, pointing to Sam's head. His hair was slicked around in random spikes and sticking out at all angles, and slightly blueish from the fabric softener. "You look like one of those freaky little trollie dolls."
"I do not want to know how you know things about trollie dolls." Sam grinned, figuring Dean was fair game now. "My hair is nothing. You were nearly mummified by the world's ugliest pants."
"I wasn't nearly mummified by a pair of frigging pants!"
"Right, the bathrobe and the afghan helped. And I'm not even gonna say what it looked like you were doing to that laundry cart."
"Shut up. You got your ass kicked by a mop."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Whatever. How's this?" Sam held up the sheet of motel letterhead. Your dryer is fixed. Sorry about the mess, it read.
"What about what's his name. Carl."
"Right. I doubt he'll be back for his book." Sam added, Carl said to say he quit, at the bottom, wrapped the keys up in the note and shoved the wad through the mail slot of the locked door. "Let's get out of here."
They both got in the car, sitting on the purloined towels.
"This is the last time I let you pick a frigging laundromat." Dean said, starting the Impala.
"It was the only one in town, Dean."
"I don't care," said Dean, pulling out and away from the laundromat at a fast, yet nonchalant 'no reason to think we're up to something' speed. "If I'd've picked it, I'd have checked it out."
Sam rolled his eyes. "This was a total fluke. We are not dragging the EMF into every laundromat we go into."
"Why not? Worst that'll happen is we'll go through batteries like crazy. I'll take that over pink underwear and psycho haunted laundromats any day."
Sam made a rude noise and grinned out the window.
"I would've thought of it sooner but your stupid oatmeal maneuver dropped the caffiene levels in my bloodstream to dangerously low levels."
"I'm never going to hear the end of this am I?"
"Nope." Dean grinned, turning towards the interstate.
Sam sighed and shook his head.
"Dude, do that again, your hair didn't even move."
"Bite me." It was going to be a long drive to Minnesota.
- - -
(Part 7) (INDEX)
Characters: Sam, Dean
Classification: Humour, multi-part, gen
Rating: PG13? K+? Nothing that couldn't have been televised.
Warnings: None. Smatterings of spoilers for Season 1 episodes up to and including "Nightmare"
Word Count: 3243 words
Disclaimer:Sigh. Pout.
Timeline: Set between the Season 1 episodes "Nightmare" and "Benders"
Summary: The Winchester boys do their laundry. Sounds boring, doesn't it... Sam and Dean can only wish it was.
Originally posted July 12, 2006 at fanfiction.net
Laundry Day - Part 8
by CaffieneKitty
- - -
I've lost him! I've lost him! shrieked the dryers, and bottles of fabric softener flew across the room at full force, making fist-sized dents in the drywall above Dean's head.
Dean crouched down lower, reaching under the doors that were now whipping back and forth so hard the glass in them was spidering with cracks when they hit each other. One of the doors shattered, showering Sam with broken glass. Dean lunged, grabbed one of Sam's feet, and yanked him out of the dryer aisle.
Sam slid out, rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows, shards of glass falling off his back. "Michael's mom better get here quick."
"You're sure he's still here?"
"He has to be conserving energy for when his mom comes. He's just so weak Amanda just can't find him."
Dean raised his head a little to peer around the room, but got back down fast when four small somethings embedded themselves deeply in the drywall above his head. That wasn't laundry detergent. He looked across the room at the vending machine wall.
Oh, right. The change machine, thought Dean. Joy.
It rattled and fired in bursts of four quarters, shooting across the room at as close to ballistic speeds as Amanda could probably manage. A round of quarters hit one of the already cracked dryer doors, bursting the glass like confetti and ricocheting around inside the dryer drum.
"She's dangerous with that thing," said Sam. "It's like rounds of buckshot."
"Yeah. Mikey probably wasn't letting her use it before." Another volley embedded itself in the wall above Dean. "Stay low, we can get underneath it, she'll lose her arc of fire on us."
Sam nodded and they ducked under the folding table, quarters impacting the table's surface and embedding there. Another bottle of fabric softener hit the table with a splutch.
Dean peered out from under the table, judging the limits of the arc. "Straight across and up against the wall."
"Didn't I already say I'm not twelve once today? Just go."
Dean scooted out and set his back to the wall between the change machine and the fabric softener dispenser, Sam following close behind. Quarters dented the top edge of the row of washers facing them and ricocheted. The washer doors on their side of the washing machine island clacked open and began whipping back and forth like the ones along the dryer aisle. A few machines spilling contents not already spilled onto the floor. Where Sam and Dean crouched against the wall, though, nothing could hit them.
"As long as we stay right here, we should be good until Mikey's mom shows up."
Why, why, why, was Sam so determined to tempt fate like that?
Something rattled towards them from the back end of the aisle. Two laundry carts charged up the aisle side by side, bumping over piles of wet clothing, led by the mop and bucket, scraping along the wall the Winchesters sat against. The flinging washer doors were doing a horizontal version of a stadium 'wave', each door shutting to let the carts past at full speed, then re-opening behind them.
Dean ducked around the speeding mop bucket to the other side of the change machine and faced the onrushing carts. Sam hopped back against the folding table, out of the way of the mop and bucket, ducking the mop handle as it swung around past his nose. The change machine fired another volley, grazing Sam's ear as he dodged out into the open front area under a barrage of fabric softener bottles. The mop and bucket were waiting for him.
Dean kicked one cart in the basket and hooked an elbow around the upright pole of the second. The kicked cart rattled backwards into the wall. The second cart jerked to a sudden halt like a dog coming to the end of a too-short leash, wheels flying out from under it, landing on its side. The downed cart's wheels spun in annoyance as the kicked cart rallied for another charge.
Sam dodged clear of flying fabric softener bottles, holding his stinging left ear, the mop and bucket whizzed past him again, mop handle swinging around in an attempt to clock him in the head. Sam sidestepped and booted the bucket as it went past, sending it hurtling and sloshing in behind the front counter. He grimaced at the bench barricading the front door. "Gonna have to clear the doorway if Michael's mom's going to get in." He called to Dean.
"Oh, ya think?" Dean spun the supine cart around sideways and shoved it into the other one, whacking washer doors on the way past and interlocking the carts up against the back wall. "Ha!" Dean said as the carts struggled together before the powdered detergent machine he was now next to ka-chunked and pegged him in the side of the head. The box exploded in a cloud of eye-stinging white granules and Dean hit the floor again to get out of its range as more boxes whipped overhead.
Sam wedged himself between the front counter and the bench, and tried pushing the obstacle out of the way, but it wouldn't budge. Typical. "It'll probably move when Michael's mom shows..." The persistent mop and bucket shot out from behind the counter and charged at Sam again.
"It better." Dean rubbed soap powder from his eyes with a relatively un-soapy corner of his t-shirt and spotted the ghost-repellent sock under the folding table. On the wall above him, the powdered soap dispenser shot two more boxes and then ka-chunked without shooting. Dean looked up at it. It paused, ka-chunked a few more times without issue then stopped. "Small mercies." Dean muttered, ducking under the table for the sock as quarters ricocheted around the aisle
Sam kicked the mop and bucket out of the way again and got out from between the bench and counter in case Amanda got any ideas about pinning him there. The mop and bucket swung in a wide loop and raced back at Sam. As it sped towards him, the mop tumbled forward out of the bucket, hit the floor on the tip of its handle and sprang head-first towards Sam's face, dirty cotton tendrils trailing mucky water. Sam blocked the inbound mop with a forearm, knocking the head aside, only to have the handle whip up and glance off his right temple. Sam grabbed the handle and flung the mop into the waiting area. It hit the wall head first, bounced on its handle off the carpet and launched at Sam again.
Meanwhile, Dean, pressed up against the wall the change machine was on, counted the time between the shots the machine was making. It was still firing steadily at the top edge of the row of washers, trying for ricochet hits on Dean since Sam was out of range. Dean got right beside the machine with the sock, stepping over a pile of wet clothes. The machine rattled and shot a round at the washer right in front of it, bouncing the ricocheting quarters off Dean's boot as he swung around with the sock and jammed it in the drop chute the quarters had been firing out of. Rattle-splck. Rattle-splck. No more quarters. Whether Sam's concoction was doing anything besides being a mass of sticky goo jamming up the machine didn't matter. It was effective. Dean grinned, considering himself temporarily ahead of the insanity and looked over to check on Sam, then stopped and stared, bemused for a second at the sight of his baby brother in hand to, uh, handle combat with a mop.
Sam jumped over the handle of the mop swinging at his ankles, skidding a little on the landing. The mop planted its handle on the soapy linoleum and hopped spinning into the air. Sam ducked and took a step back only to find the mop bucket had snuck in behind him. He tripped, slipped and landed on the floor. The mop landed head first between Sam's feet, bounced back up, rotating in a blur and nailed Sam hard in the solar plexus with its handle. Sam emitted an ugly grunt as the mop flipped around and landed head first on Sam's face in a creditable imitation of a face-hugger from the Aliens movies.
"Sam?" Dean said, a little stranged out that he was about to step in to save his brother from a frigging mop when something wrapped around Dean's ankles and yanked. He lost his footing on the slick floor, landing on his side, turning over immediately to see what had tripped him. A soggy pastel-checked bathrobe was wrapped snugly around both his feet. He swore, kicked and grabbed for his jackknife as the robe rapidly entwined itself further up his legs.
Sam pried the mop off his face and flung it aside, coughing and gasping. He caught a movement down near his toes and kicked out at the lurking mop bucket with both feet. It sloshed away across the floor towards the folding table, caught a wheel on a downed magazine and tipped over, dumping dirty water everywhere. Sam was halfway to his feet before the mop cartwheeled in for another attack.
Dean pulled the jackknife out of his pocket, just as a pair of pink and aquamarine paisley yoga pants ambushed him, whipping around his torso and pinning his right arm awkwardly across his chest before tying themselves in an inaccessible knot behind his back. The knife, coated with soap like most of the rest of Dean, squirted out of his grasp. "Son of a bitch!" he swore. With his free left hand, Dean twisted and snagged the folded knife, flicking it open with a thumb. He had just begun sawing awkwardly at the paisley pants when a crocheted blanket slapped itself around Dean's midsection and reared threateningly in front of his face. Well, as threatening as a hand-crocheted wet granny square afghan made of the ends of about a hundred different colours of yarn could be.
Sam blocked the inbound mop again, getting to his feet only long enough for the mop to shoot between his feet and twist, landing him on the floor. Again. He tried to keep the mop pinned under his knees, but it shot off into the shadows. "This is ludicrous," growled Sam, getting back to his feet and watching for the mop. And Dean. Where exactly was Dean, anyway? Sam could hear his brother cursing, but didn't see him. "Dean?"
Dean slashed at the blanket with the jackknife in his left hand, keeping it away from his face and making a few large unravelling holes. "Little busy, Sammy!"
"You okay?"
"I'm doin' just fine, you watch out for yourself!" He might be okay saving Sam from a mop, but there was no way he'd let Sam rescue him from a bunch of wet laundry, no matter what a pain in the ass it was being. The loose crochet weave of the blanket hooked around his fingers and wrapped the hand holding the knife, pinning it to Dean's right shoulder, constricting tightly. Thrashing and wriggling and cursing as the blanket covered his head, Dean heard the sinuous slurping noises of other piles of wet clothing moving across the floor towards him.
Sam frowned as Dean's cursing became oddly muffled. "Dean?" The mop, which had been lurking in the shadows against the front wall, cartwheeled in behind Sam while he was distracted and nailed him in the kidney, knocking him stumbling and slipping off balance into the range of the fabric softener machine. Sam dodged a flying white bottle, but the mop was there again, in his face and jabbing him in the adam's apple with the wet mucky end. It shoved him up against the dented wall and wedged him there by jamming its handle up against the edge of the folding table. On the opposite wall, the fabric softener dispenser thunked... and emitted nothing. The fabric softener firing squad was out of ammo too.
The dryers howled in frustration, and the light fixtures began sparking and snapping again. Sam gaped up at them in alarm. On the other side of the washer island, Dean thrashed harder.
Just then a badly muffled four-cylinder engine roared outside the laundromat, and tires squealed on the pavement. A car door slammed and a woman's voice said several nasty things.
The overhead lights stopped arcing. The dryer doors stopped swinging. There was a rumble as the blockade cleared away from the door, and a click as the front door unlocked and swung ajar. Dean peered over at the door through the holes in the crocheted blanket and watched Michael's mother storm in.
"Come out! Come out here where I can tell you what I think of you people! How dare..." Her rant trailed off as her eyes adjusted to the gloom and the condition of the store dawned on her. She skidded a little on the soapy floor coming to a halt. "What-" She spotted Sam in the gloom, still wedged against the wall and grappling the mop with both hands. "What's happening here?" She demanded, walking over and planting her fists on her hips, glaring at Sam. "I demand an explanation for this!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw the door of dryer 7B swing fully open, spilling steam onto the floor. The cloud coalesced into a small child shape. The woman looked slowly over and took a step back. Another, taller, pale form appeared, a plain young woman. She knelt down and ruffled the top of the little cloud of steam and gave it a quick hug. Goodbye Michael, the dryers whispered.
"Tricks! This is nothing but cruelty, tricks and lies." Michael's mother ranted shakily, staring at the small shape. "Do you think I'm an idiot to believe-" The steam child, Michael, went forward, rolling, billowing and wisping along the floor toward the woman. The tall pale shape of Amanda stood at the end of the dryer aisle and watched as the little cloud of steam impacted the woman around the legs.
You finally came back for me, the steam-child breathed and dissipated. Michael's mother fell to her knees on the soapy linoleum with a gasp.
The mop holding Sam against the wall clattered to the floor, and the laundry around Dean loosened. Sam rubbed his throat and got out of the way, peering around the washers to where he'd last heard Dean cursing. Sam raised his eyebrows at the sight of his brother encased in bright sodden laundry. Dean shook the folds of the afghan away from his face and, after seeing Sam was okay, growled, "Say anything right now and you'll regret it 'til you're ninety."
Amanda stood and glared at the woman kneeling on the floor. Michael's mother looked up at the ghost of the girl. "I... I am so sor-" but the ghost girl just glared and spun on her translucent heel, refusing the apology. For his sake. Not yours, the dryers whispered. Get out. The middle-aged woman squawked and slid backwards on her knees across the slick floor, landing against the wall next to the door with a quiet thump. The dryers turned off one by one as Amanda passed them, stalking away from Michael's gaping mother down the aisle, and the dryer doors slammed shut. By the time Amanda reached the back of the laundromat, she had faded into nothing and disappeared.
The middle-aged woman looked around the laundromat with her mouth hanging open, got to her feet and ran out of the laundromat. A car door slammed and tires peeled out.
"Hunh." said Sam, looking over his shoulder at the door as Dean thrashed around, still tangled in the loosening afghan. "That was interesting."
"Whatever. Get this crap offa me."
Sam pulled out his knife and cut apart the slashed crocheted blanket. "She tries to kill us, but just glares at Michael's mom, shoves her to the door and walks away?"
Clear of the afghan, Dean sawed off the knotted paisley yoga pants. "Amanda was protecting the kid," he said, matter-of-factly, "We were a threat to him, so she gets mean with us. Her thing with Michael's mom, that was her personal axe to grind, and since it was Michael's mom, hurting her would have made him unhappy, even though he was already gone. So..." he kicked free of the pastel-checkered bathrobe, "Momma gets a glare and a shove."
Sam looked at Dean like he'd grown antlers.
"What? It got whatever Amanda needed to do done so why worry about it?" Dean stood up and looked around the room. Couple doors with broken glass on the dryers, crashed and entangled laundry carts, melted sign. Soap and quarters everywhere. "Uh, let's go."
- - -
The street outside was thankfully empty, and the lack of onlookers from neighbouring businesses seemed to indicate that the chaos inside the laundromat hadn't disturbed anyone outside it.
Sam leaned over the Impala, writing on a sheet of Motel 6 stationery from Idaho, using the roof as a writing surface. He felt like he was coated in drying detergent, which he pretty much was. Soap stung his paper cuts and the slash on his ear. He was itchy. "The sooner we can hit a place with a shower the better."
"What's the matter Sammy, don't like smelling 'spring-time fresh' for a change?" Dean said, quickly covering the front seats with towels from a Best Western outside of Tulsa.
Sam looked up. "Dude. You're so covered in soap, you're foamy."
"Yeah, well you should see your hair," said Dean, pointing to Sam's head. His hair was slicked around in random spikes and sticking out at all angles, and slightly blueish from the fabric softener. "You look like one of those freaky little trollie dolls."
"I do not want to know how you know things about trollie dolls." Sam grinned, figuring Dean was fair game now. "My hair is nothing. You were nearly mummified by the world's ugliest pants."
"I wasn't nearly mummified by a pair of frigging pants!"
"Right, the bathrobe and the afghan helped. And I'm not even gonna say what it looked like you were doing to that laundry cart."
"Shut up. You got your ass kicked by a mop."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Whatever. How's this?" Sam held up the sheet of motel letterhead. Your dryer is fixed. Sorry about the mess, it read.
"What about what's his name. Carl."
"Right. I doubt he'll be back for his book." Sam added, Carl said to say he quit, at the bottom, wrapped the keys up in the note and shoved the wad through the mail slot of the locked door. "Let's get out of here."
They both got in the car, sitting on the purloined towels.
"This is the last time I let you pick a frigging laundromat." Dean said, starting the Impala.
"It was the only one in town, Dean."
"I don't care," said Dean, pulling out and away from the laundromat at a fast, yet nonchalant 'no reason to think we're up to something' speed. "If I'd've picked it, I'd have checked it out."
Sam rolled his eyes. "This was a total fluke. We are not dragging the EMF into every laundromat we go into."
"Why not? Worst that'll happen is we'll go through batteries like crazy. I'll take that over pink underwear and psycho haunted laundromats any day."
Sam made a rude noise and grinned out the window.
"I would've thought of it sooner but your stupid oatmeal maneuver dropped the caffiene levels in my bloodstream to dangerously low levels."
"I'm never going to hear the end of this am I?"
"Nope." Dean grinned, turning towards the interstate.
Sam sighed and shook his head.
"Dude, do that again, your hair didn't even move."
"Bite me." It was going to be a long drive to Minnesota.
- - -
(Part 7) (INDEX)