SPN Fanfic: Red Bull Gives You...
Title: Red Bull Gives You...
Characters: Dean, Sam
Rating: GEN, PG-13
Word Count: 3000-ish
Warnings: CRAAAAAAAAAAAACK. Egregious and unauthorized product placement. Highly inaccurate depictions of certain publicity events. Dubious latin that I do not in any way recommend emulating. Vast amounts of illogical plot contrivances.
Disclaimer: The boys and their world belong to Kripke, Red Bull belongs to a huge, nifty, multi-national corporation of some kind, and hopefully both have sufficient senses of humour not to sue me because I have no money, and this is all just for fun.
Summary: Sometimes the demons are crazy too.
A/N: As a large portion of fandom knows or is about to find out, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki participated in a Red Bull charity event on September 7th. This got me pondering translating the event over to Sam and Dean, which got the crack-bunnies woken up with a vengeance, apparently. :-P Probably not the only Red Bull or soapbox fic this event will spur from fandom. Possibly the silliest and worst organized. Set sometime in early Season 3, so spoilers to that point.
-
Red Bull Gives You...
by CaffieneKitty
-
"You're sure it's not a trickster, Sam?" Dean squinted into the sun as he knelt in the parking lot of the Sleeping Lion Motel over what was recently a pile of scavenged lumber and assorted other parts. "Seems more like a trickster's m. o."
"No, it's a demon. Or demons," said Sam, examining an apple crate for structural stability. "Bobby tested the stuff himself. Definite demonic influence."
Dean hammered the last two by four of the back rest into place. "Why though? How does this help the demons?"
Sam shrugged. "The random mayhem it would cause might be reason enough," he said, adjusting the position of the apple crate between the ropes attached to the front 'axle'.
"Maybe. Demonic plans usually make some kind of strategic sense though."
"I don't know if anything they've done since the gate opened has been part of a plan. They've either gone to ground or are..."
"Messing with the humans just for giggles?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Hey, hand me that-" Sam waved in Dean's direction without looking.
Dean passed the hammer over, then smiled tightly and waved at a kid peering through the curtains of the motel room next to theirs. The little girl grinned and waved back before her unseen parents pulled her away from the window.
"We're sure this is gonna work, Sam? I mean, not that the 'Leave it to Beaver' bonding time with my little brother isn't totally worth getting stared at by everyone in the motel."
Sam snorted. "It'll work. Bobby says so, and even if he wasn't going to be affected too if this fails, I doubt he'd just take a wild guess. Although I don't think he really wants wings either."
"We couldn't have made this in, y'know, sections or something? Done it inside the room?"
Sam looked at the six foot long wheeled wooden platform he was nailing the apple box to. "...naw. It's... more, uh, structurally stable in one piece."
Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "Which is Sammy-speak for you didn't think of doing it that way before we started, right?"
Sam looked affronted as he handed the hammer back to Dean. "Of course I thought of building it in sections, Dean. It just... It'll work better this way. Needs to be in one piece to make it over the finish line."
"Right." Dean glanced back at the Impala. "Hey, how are we gonna get this damn thing to the race?"
"There's a truck. It'll pick it up. Does it for all the racers."
"It better. I'm not sticking this thing in my car."
"It's just a soapbox racer, Dean." Sam snagged the tiny can of black paint and the journal, hunching to paint a very particular and highly detailed symbol inside the apple crate. "There's been way worse things in the car."
Dean grunted in acknowledgment, checked that the back wheels of the racer were securely attached, then moved around to the front to test the steering. "This is going to be the fugliest thing either of us have ever driven. Plus it's gonna handle like a cow." One of the steering ropes caught on something as Dean tugged on it. "A drunk cow." The rope popped loose from whatever it had caught on and the front wheels jerked abruptly to the side. "With three legs."
"Hey!" protested Sam from under the apple crate. "Drawing arcane symbols here! You mind not jiggling the cart?"
"Sorry." Dean let go of the steering rope and crouched in front of the contraption to look it over. Wheels snagged from a couple rusted-out shopping carts found in a ditch, apple crates from the back of the local Farmers' Market, mismatched old wood and nails from an abandoned tool shed. Fugly on wheels.
"Hey, don't these Red Bull nut-jobs judge style more than speed? We're starting off with serious negative style points here."
"Doesn't matter. We don't need to win. We just need to get the cart and this symbol across the finish line." Sam leaned back from the symbol he'd painted inside the crate and compared it to the symbol on the new printout stuck in the journal next to him. "Otherwise tomorrow at sundown, everyone who's drunk Red Bull made in the factory the demon infiltrated really will sprout little, fluffy, white, fully functional wings, just like in the commercials, permanently."
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Bobby tested this stuff, right?"
"Yeah?" Sam folded the printout, closed the journal and looked up at Dean.
"So right now... does Bobby have little fluffy-" Dean made flappy motions with his fingers.
"No. No, not 'til sundown tomorrow."
"Aw. Okay. I was hoping for a picture."
Sam glared. "Thousands of people, at random locations all over the Midwest are going to suddenly sprout wings tomorrow night and you-"
"No, no, come on, Sam!" Dean frowned. "I know this is serious."
"Right."
"Would have been sweet though, right? Bobby with little wings?"
"Dean!"
"Fine!" He resumed scowling at the water-stained wood of the racer's nose.
"Hey, Sam, you done with the paint?"
-
It wasn't the best paint job, but it was a paint job. Looked a little dull among the fiberglass sheep and spaceships at noon the following day, but Dean figured it had class. More than plain wood, at least.
"Whaddaya think Sammy, really?"
Sam pursed his lips and glanced at the nose of the racer, now decorated with a leering grin in black and fluorescent-road-marking-spray-orange. "It's fine, Dean. Here." Sam pushed a logoed helmet into Dean's hands. "We're up next. I checked all the 'Death' and 'Hell' themed entries just in case there was a demon on site and nobody flinched. Anyway, we're racing the giant corncob."
"Awesome." Dean grinned and strapped on the helmet.
"So," Sam said, "you're having fun now?"
"Why not? This is the first last and only time I'm gonna get to race in a soapbox derby. I intend to enjoy the he-" Dean cut himself off, glancing sideways at Sam. "I mean, why not have fun?"
Sam fiddled with the strap of his helmet.
"Look. All we have to do is get a rolling pile of painted firewood across a mark on the pavement, right? That's it. We don't even have to worry about beating the giant corncob. Simple. We can relax."
The fiberglass corncob rolled past the Winchesters heading for the starting gate, followed by a man about Bobby's age in a yellow spandex jumpsuit with green flared gloves, green jockey shorts, interlocking green 'C's on the chest, a yellow cape with green edges and a crash helmet shaped like a pat of butter. He stopped next to the Winchester's cart. "Evening fellas. Ready to get humiliated?"
Dean smirked and examined the speaker's costume. "Heh. Looks like you beat us to that."
The man smirked back. "Oh this is just my gimmick." He struck a pose. "'Captain Corny.' Kids love it."
"I bet they do," Sam said with a grin.
The man turned his head towards Sam and met his eyes with an odd intensity. "Yes," he said in a voice that sounded suddenly as oily as his butter-shaped helmet appeared to be. "Get them while they're young and they're yours forever. Isn't that right, Sam?"
Dean frowned as the older man swirled his cape and headed toward the starting line waving dramatically to the cheering crowd. "Sam, you didn't register us under our real-"
Sam stood up straight and called after the old man. "Hey! Cristo!"
The man stumbled slightly and kept walking and waving.
The PA fired up. "Next race is Captain Corny vs Easy Rider. Captain Corny vs Easy Rider. Racers, get your carts to the starting block."
Dean grabbed the front of the racer and started pulling it to the starting point. "Was that a flinch or did he trip on something?" he muttered to Sam.
Sam got on the other side of the cart. "I don't know, I don't even know if he heard over the noise. I'm sure he's possessed, though."
"Okay," said Dean, "so, you think he's got some kind of 'cross the finish line' thing goin' on too...? Maybe-"
"Maybe him winning the race is the trigger." Sam's eyes widened and he looked over the apple crate at Dean. "The awards ceremony! It's at dusk!"
"Crap," said Dean.
"The activation must be tied to him winning. Maybe some kind of crowd-focused psychic energy thing. Like that Tulpa back in Richardson."
"Well all right then! We gotta beat that son of a bitch!"
Sam looked down at the cart rolling bumpily between them. "Uh, Dean? This cart isn't designed to win."
"So? We are."
Sam looked dubious.
"'Scuse me, Miss?" Dean said as he passed a refreshment station. "Can we get a couple of those for the road?"
"Sure! Free for racers!" The girl handed Dean and Sam each a can of Red Bull as they pushed towards the starting gate.
"Uh..." Sam looked at his blue and silver can.
Dean passed his can to Sam as well. "Bless 'em. I'm driving."
Sam joggled the cans. "What? Wait, but-"
Dean rolled the cart into the starting position next to the giant corncob. "We don't have time to rock-paper-scissors for driving, Sam, and besides you-" he glanced over at the mildly smiling butter-helmeted old man at the starting gate next to them and lowered his voice. "You've got the holy water thing better memorized than I do."
"Not for energy drinks!" Sam bleated. "In cans!"
"You're also better at improvising in Latin," Dean said before waving to the whooping crowd.
"But-"
"So we meet again," said the old man in the corncob, chuckling.
"Have we met before?" Sam said pointedly.
The man laughed louder. "Of course we have. Over in the parking area. You've got some serious memory problems there, Sammy."
Sam snarled and took a step towards the corncob but Dean caught his arm, still grinning with clenched teeth, waving to the crowd.
"Come on, Sam," Dean whispered. "He can't do anything in front of all these people or he already would have. Neither can we."
"But Dean, he's-!"
Dean dropped his voice lower. "We can't exactly haul a guy in tights and a cape out of a corncob go-cart and exorcise him while hundreds of people watch on the frigging Jumbotron, Sam!" Dean pushed his brother towards their cart. "Get settled in. We'll get him."
"Good luck, boys!" chortled the old man. "See you down below!"
Dean smirked tightly at the man and gave a final wave to the crowd as he got into the front of the cart.
Sam, positioning his feet and legs in the back of the cart, glared across at 'Captain Corny' and snarled "May angels ride on your fenders."
The butter-helmeted driver's eyes flipped black for a split second. Sam smacked Dean in the shoulder. "D'you see that?"
"Oh yeah," Dean grabbed the steering rope and started to tuck his feet into the nose of the cart.
Sam glanced over Dean's shoulder. "Dean!"
Dean glanced over his shoulder. "What?"
"Feet. Not on the-"
"Right." Dean moved his feet away from the painted symbol on the bottom of the apple crate and rested them on the steering axle.
"Racers ready?" called a guy in blue and white with a headset.
"I've been ready for millennia!" crowed Captain Corny.
Dean muttered, "Yeah, yeah, smarmy son of a-"
"Hang on," Sam said, shifting to surreptitiously pull a rosary out of a pocket and clutch it together with the cans of energy drink. "Okay, set."
Dean nodded at the race officiator. "Yeah, we're good."
Captain Corny grinned.
"Oh shut up!" growled Dean.
"I said nothing," said the possessed corncob driver, blinking innocently.
The race officiator looked between the two carts. "Have we got a grudge match here, gentlemen?"
"You might say that," muttered Sam.
The officiator spoke into the loudspeaker pickup. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a grudge match here! Captain Corny versus Easy Rider!"
"OoooOOoooo!" said the crowd.
Dean gently thunked his head repeatedly against the edge of the apple crate. "Can we please get this going?"
"All right. Ready? Set?" The man stepped onto a platform between the drivers and pushed the lever that lowered the starting gates holding the carts at the top of the hill. "GO!"
Dean and Sam rattled down the first steep section ahead of the giant demon-driven corncob, their combined weight giving them an early advantage, but the sleeker corncob caught up shortly after the bottom of the first steep slope.
Dean eyed the approaching fiberglass vegetable. "Any time you're ready to start with the Latin is fine by me Sam."
"It's-" Sam grunted as the cart went over a pothole. "It's got to be altered, there's no way a-"
"Okay! Stop explaining and get on it!" Dean jerked the steering rope so the cart lurched suddenly towards the corncob, which jerked sideways into the wall in response and slid along the hay bales for several feet, losing momentum. The crowd cheered.
"Awesome," Dean chuckled as the 'Easy Rider' rattled over the crest of the next slope a couple yards before the corncob.
Behind Dean, Sam swore and muttered. "Rojo, rosso, ro.... rosa? No, no, no. Ru something. Rubellus! No. Ruuuuu-oof!" Sam grunted again as they hit another pothole on the down-slope. "Rufus! Or rutilus...."
"What's the friggin' hold up, Sam?" Dean hollered over his shoulder as they reached the flat and he tried to keep their wooden cart in front of the demon-driven corncob. "The crossover's coming up over the next hill and that's the best shot we're gonna have at him!"
"Have you tried doing a holy water ritual on something that isn't water, that's also inside a tin can, while riding downhill in a smirking apple crate, Dean? I don't think so!" The rosary beads clattered as Sam wound them around both cans. "Stop front-seat blessing!"
"Fine, just hurry! And try to be more aerodynamic! We're losing speed on the flats!"
Sam ducked his head, and tucked in his knees. "Rufus or rutilus. It's not actually red, more amber... so... rutilus. Okay! Got it."
"Great!" Dean lurched the cart to the opposite side of the track to block Captain Corny's advance. The tip of the corncob tapped the wooden backrest behind Sam before backing off. The crowd whooped.
Sam hunched lower, his knees up around his ears. "...I think, anyway."
"Just do it!" The corncob swapped sides of the track and was pulling even with the wooden cart quickly. The driver's eyes were full black under the butter-pat helmet as he glared at the Winchesters.
Sam muttered over the bead-wrapped cans in Latin. "Exorcizo te creature... uh... rutilus taurus...." Dean could hear Sam's voice rising with skepticism.
"Come on, Sammy! You're doing great!" said Dean with no idea whether it was going to work or not. He tweaked the steering ropes and took another lunge at the corncob before heading over the final down-slope. The driver didn't flinch away this time, but grinned as he went over the edge nearly even with the wooden cart.
"...in nomine Deo, patris omnipotentis et in virtute Spiritu Sancti. Here!" There was a quick rattle as Sam slid one can out of the looped rosary and passed it over Dean's shoulder.
"Perfect!" Dean gathered the steering ropes in one hand, grabbed the blue and silver can, stuck a thumbnail under the edge of the tab and started shaking it as the final down-slope flattened, leading into the crossover, a few feet ahead of the corncob. Sam untangled his can from the rosary and shook it fiercely.
"Right at the center of the crossover, let him have it!"
"Yep!"
Dean swung out to take the right-hand arm of the crossover, briefly raising the cart onto two wheels as it curved in and rattled up to the center with the demonic corncob bearing down on them from the other arm.
"NOW!"
Both Winchesters popped their drink cans open, Dean one-handedly, and sprayed hopefully-holy Red Bull at the corncob and driver before zipping though the crossover in front of him.
Dean grabbed at the steering ropes and hauled the cart away from the hay bale wall it was racing straight toward coming out of the crossover. It tipped onto two wheels again, threatening to go over.
"Lean!" Dean yelled. He and Sam leaned and kept the cart from tipping over. The airborne wheels hit cement with a jarring crunch and kept rolling towards the finish line.
Sam turned to watch the steaming corncob bury its nose in the hay bale wall and tip onto its side. The driver was hidden completely inside except for the butter-pat-shaped helmet. "Woo! He's down!"
"Yeah!" Dean pumped a fist in the air.
The crowd roared, a little confused by the interplay, but ready and willing to yell regardless.
The inflated arch over the finish line loomed, the Winchester's wooden cart with the black and orange painted leer rattled through. As the symbol painted inside the apple crate crossed the painted line, a yell rang out from within the corncob.
"What the-" Dean turned the cart towards the hay bales past the finish line, both Winchesters dragging their feet to stop the wooden cart fast.
Behind them the corncob erupted with a cloud of demonic black smoke. The crowd gasped. Dean and Sam were off the cart and running before it had stopped, but the demon-smoke sank straight down through a storm drain instead of heading into the tightly packed crowd for a new host.
Sam skidded up to the corncob first, rosary and empty beverage can still in hand, closely followed by Dean. An arm appeared beside the butter-shaped helmet, and a very confused older man blinked up from the fiberglass corncob.
"Wha- what happened? Where am I?"
"It's... uh..." Sam looked at Dean.
"A soapbox race," said Dean, peering down the storm drain before dusting his hands together.
The man patted the bumpy surface of the corncob. "What is this thing?"
"Giant corncob," said Dean helpfully. Sam glared.
The man looked down at himself inside the corncob and did a double-take. "What on earth am I wearing!?"
"Uh..." said Sam, glancing at Dean.
"Spandex," said Dean, gravely.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Medic!" he bellowed as race officials converged on the corncob.
-
"Too bad we got disqualified, Sammy," said Dean, laying on the hood of the Impala, watching the stars come out. "We kicked ass in that race. We coulda taken that spaceship team easy, or the sheep. That thing probably tipped going over the first hill."
Sam stuffed his cell phone into his pocket. "Bobby's fine, no wings, no reports of anyone anywhere sprouting wings. Looks like it worked. He's going to keep an ear to the ground for a while anyway."
"Wings." Dean snorted. "I guess sometimes demons are crazy too."
"Some cultures have demons who also act as trickster-figures. Bobby figures it might have been one of those."
"See, now, that makes more sense. As much sense as making random people grow wings ever will." Dean sat up and hopped off the hood of the car. "Ready to go?"
"Yeah. FBI'll pick up the media coverage before morning if they're on the ball."
Dean grimaced. "We made the news again?"
"Not quite. The 'exploding' corncob, the driver developing amnesia about what he's been doing the last two months and our disqualification for 'unsportsmanlike conduct' got some attention." Sam slung a bag into the back seat and leaned on the passenger side roof. "There were blogs with video of the corncob crashing uploaded before I shut down the laptop."
Dean leaned on the driver's side roof. "You know, all things considered, that was kind of fun."
"Yeah."
"We built a soapbox racer." Dean grinned. "You and me."
Sam chuckled, "It's weird, isn't it. Normal."
Dean snorted. "Normal for the nineteen-fifties, maybe."
"True."
"Not something I ever even thought of doing." Dean shook his head. "Why did gigs like this never come up when we were kids?"
"Fewer demons?" Sam postulated. "Saner demons?"
"Maybe."
"Who knows, Dean. Dad didn't exactly tell us everything, maybe stuff like that did come up and he just never mentioned them."
Dean smirked. "Heh, right. Can you imagine Dad and Bobby building a soapbox racer?"
"Well, y'know, Dean, Bobby was awfully quick with the research on the symbol and the whole crossing the finish line thing...." Sam trailed off.
Dean blinked. "You don't really think Dad and Bobby..."
Sam grinned and shrugged.
Crickets chirped for a second or two.
"...Nahhh," the Winchesters said in unison, getting in the car to drive off.
And if they happened to grill Bobby about soapbox racing the next time they were in South Dakota, it was an entirely unrelated coincidence.
- - -
(that's it)
Characters: Dean, Sam
Rating: GEN, PG-13
Word Count: 3000-ish
Warnings: CRAAAAAAAAAAAACK. Egregious and unauthorized product placement. Highly inaccurate depictions of certain publicity events. Dubious latin that I do not in any way recommend emulating. Vast amounts of illogical plot contrivances.
Disclaimer: The boys and their world belong to Kripke, Red Bull belongs to a huge, nifty, multi-national corporation of some kind, and hopefully both have sufficient senses of humour not to sue me because I have no money, and this is all just for fun.
Summary: Sometimes the demons are crazy too.
A/N: As a large portion of fandom knows or is about to find out, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki participated in a Red Bull charity event on September 7th. This got me pondering translating the event over to Sam and Dean, which got the crack-bunnies woken up with a vengeance, apparently. :-P Probably not the only Red Bull or soapbox fic this event will spur from fandom. Possibly the silliest and worst organized. Set sometime in early Season 3, so spoilers to that point.
-
Red Bull Gives You...
by CaffieneKitty
-
"You're sure it's not a trickster, Sam?" Dean squinted into the sun as he knelt in the parking lot of the Sleeping Lion Motel over what was recently a pile of scavenged lumber and assorted other parts. "Seems more like a trickster's m. o."
"No, it's a demon. Or demons," said Sam, examining an apple crate for structural stability. "Bobby tested the stuff himself. Definite demonic influence."
Dean hammered the last two by four of the back rest into place. "Why though? How does this help the demons?"
Sam shrugged. "The random mayhem it would cause might be reason enough," he said, adjusting the position of the apple crate between the ropes attached to the front 'axle'.
"Maybe. Demonic plans usually make some kind of strategic sense though."
"I don't know if anything they've done since the gate opened has been part of a plan. They've either gone to ground or are..."
"Messing with the humans just for giggles?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Hey, hand me that-" Sam waved in Dean's direction without looking.
Dean passed the hammer over, then smiled tightly and waved at a kid peering through the curtains of the motel room next to theirs. The little girl grinned and waved back before her unseen parents pulled her away from the window.
"We're sure this is gonna work, Sam? I mean, not that the 'Leave it to Beaver' bonding time with my little brother isn't totally worth getting stared at by everyone in the motel."
Sam snorted. "It'll work. Bobby says so, and even if he wasn't going to be affected too if this fails, I doubt he'd just take a wild guess. Although I don't think he really wants wings either."
"We couldn't have made this in, y'know, sections or something? Done it inside the room?"
Sam looked at the six foot long wheeled wooden platform he was nailing the apple box to. "...naw. It's... more, uh, structurally stable in one piece."
Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "Which is Sammy-speak for you didn't think of doing it that way before we started, right?"
Sam looked affronted as he handed the hammer back to Dean. "Of course I thought of building it in sections, Dean. It just... It'll work better this way. Needs to be in one piece to make it over the finish line."
"Right." Dean glanced back at the Impala. "Hey, how are we gonna get this damn thing to the race?"
"There's a truck. It'll pick it up. Does it for all the racers."
"It better. I'm not sticking this thing in my car."
"It's just a soapbox racer, Dean." Sam snagged the tiny can of black paint and the journal, hunching to paint a very particular and highly detailed symbol inside the apple crate. "There's been way worse things in the car."
Dean grunted in acknowledgment, checked that the back wheels of the racer were securely attached, then moved around to the front to test the steering. "This is going to be the fugliest thing either of us have ever driven. Plus it's gonna handle like a cow." One of the steering ropes caught on something as Dean tugged on it. "A drunk cow." The rope popped loose from whatever it had caught on and the front wheels jerked abruptly to the side. "With three legs."
"Hey!" protested Sam from under the apple crate. "Drawing arcane symbols here! You mind not jiggling the cart?"
"Sorry." Dean let go of the steering rope and crouched in front of the contraption to look it over. Wheels snagged from a couple rusted-out shopping carts found in a ditch, apple crates from the back of the local Farmers' Market, mismatched old wood and nails from an abandoned tool shed. Fugly on wheels.
"Hey, don't these Red Bull nut-jobs judge style more than speed? We're starting off with serious negative style points here."
"Doesn't matter. We don't need to win. We just need to get the cart and this symbol across the finish line." Sam leaned back from the symbol he'd painted inside the crate and compared it to the symbol on the new printout stuck in the journal next to him. "Otherwise tomorrow at sundown, everyone who's drunk Red Bull made in the factory the demon infiltrated really will sprout little, fluffy, white, fully functional wings, just like in the commercials, permanently."
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Bobby tested this stuff, right?"
"Yeah?" Sam folded the printout, closed the journal and looked up at Dean.
"So right now... does Bobby have little fluffy-" Dean made flappy motions with his fingers.
"No. No, not 'til sundown tomorrow."
"Aw. Okay. I was hoping for a picture."
Sam glared. "Thousands of people, at random locations all over the Midwest are going to suddenly sprout wings tomorrow night and you-"
"No, no, come on, Sam!" Dean frowned. "I know this is serious."
"Right."
"Would have been sweet though, right? Bobby with little wings?"
"Dean!"
"Fine!" He resumed scowling at the water-stained wood of the racer's nose.
"Hey, Sam, you done with the paint?"
-
It wasn't the best paint job, but it was a paint job. Looked a little dull among the fiberglass sheep and spaceships at noon the following day, but Dean figured it had class. More than plain wood, at least.
"Whaddaya think Sammy, really?"
Sam pursed his lips and glanced at the nose of the racer, now decorated with a leering grin in black and fluorescent-road-marking-spray-orange. "It's fine, Dean. Here." Sam pushed a logoed helmet into Dean's hands. "We're up next. I checked all the 'Death' and 'Hell' themed entries just in case there was a demon on site and nobody flinched. Anyway, we're racing the giant corncob."
"Awesome." Dean grinned and strapped on the helmet.
"So," Sam said, "you're having fun now?"
"Why not? This is the first last and only time I'm gonna get to race in a soapbox derby. I intend to enjoy the he-" Dean cut himself off, glancing sideways at Sam. "I mean, why not have fun?"
Sam fiddled with the strap of his helmet.
"Look. All we have to do is get a rolling pile of painted firewood across a mark on the pavement, right? That's it. We don't even have to worry about beating the giant corncob. Simple. We can relax."
The fiberglass corncob rolled past the Winchesters heading for the starting gate, followed by a man about Bobby's age in a yellow spandex jumpsuit with green flared gloves, green jockey shorts, interlocking green 'C's on the chest, a yellow cape with green edges and a crash helmet shaped like a pat of butter. He stopped next to the Winchester's cart. "Evening fellas. Ready to get humiliated?"
Dean smirked and examined the speaker's costume. "Heh. Looks like you beat us to that."
The man smirked back. "Oh this is just my gimmick." He struck a pose. "'Captain Corny.' Kids love it."
"I bet they do," Sam said with a grin.
The man turned his head towards Sam and met his eyes with an odd intensity. "Yes," he said in a voice that sounded suddenly as oily as his butter-shaped helmet appeared to be. "Get them while they're young and they're yours forever. Isn't that right, Sam?"
Dean frowned as the older man swirled his cape and headed toward the starting line waving dramatically to the cheering crowd. "Sam, you didn't register us under our real-"
Sam stood up straight and called after the old man. "Hey! Cristo!"
The man stumbled slightly and kept walking and waving.
The PA fired up. "Next race is Captain Corny vs Easy Rider. Captain Corny vs Easy Rider. Racers, get your carts to the starting block."
Dean grabbed the front of the racer and started pulling it to the starting point. "Was that a flinch or did he trip on something?" he muttered to Sam.
Sam got on the other side of the cart. "I don't know, I don't even know if he heard over the noise. I'm sure he's possessed, though."
"Okay," said Dean, "so, you think he's got some kind of 'cross the finish line' thing goin' on too...? Maybe-"
"Maybe him winning the race is the trigger." Sam's eyes widened and he looked over the apple crate at Dean. "The awards ceremony! It's at dusk!"
"Crap," said Dean.
"The activation must be tied to him winning. Maybe some kind of crowd-focused psychic energy thing. Like that Tulpa back in Richardson."
"Well all right then! We gotta beat that son of a bitch!"
Sam looked down at the cart rolling bumpily between them. "Uh, Dean? This cart isn't designed to win."
"So? We are."
Sam looked dubious.
"'Scuse me, Miss?" Dean said as he passed a refreshment station. "Can we get a couple of those for the road?"
"Sure! Free for racers!" The girl handed Dean and Sam each a can of Red Bull as they pushed towards the starting gate.
"Uh..." Sam looked at his blue and silver can.
Dean passed his can to Sam as well. "Bless 'em. I'm driving."
Sam joggled the cans. "What? Wait, but-"
Dean rolled the cart into the starting position next to the giant corncob. "We don't have time to rock-paper-scissors for driving, Sam, and besides you-" he glanced over at the mildly smiling butter-helmeted old man at the starting gate next to them and lowered his voice. "You've got the holy water thing better memorized than I do."
"Not for energy drinks!" Sam bleated. "In cans!"
"You're also better at improvising in Latin," Dean said before waving to the whooping crowd.
"But-"
"So we meet again," said the old man in the corncob, chuckling.
"Have we met before?" Sam said pointedly.
The man laughed louder. "Of course we have. Over in the parking area. You've got some serious memory problems there, Sammy."
Sam snarled and took a step towards the corncob but Dean caught his arm, still grinning with clenched teeth, waving to the crowd.
"Come on, Sam," Dean whispered. "He can't do anything in front of all these people or he already would have. Neither can we."
"But Dean, he's-!"
Dean dropped his voice lower. "We can't exactly haul a guy in tights and a cape out of a corncob go-cart and exorcise him while hundreds of people watch on the frigging Jumbotron, Sam!" Dean pushed his brother towards their cart. "Get settled in. We'll get him."
"Good luck, boys!" chortled the old man. "See you down below!"
Dean smirked tightly at the man and gave a final wave to the crowd as he got into the front of the cart.
Sam, positioning his feet and legs in the back of the cart, glared across at 'Captain Corny' and snarled "May angels ride on your fenders."
The butter-helmeted driver's eyes flipped black for a split second. Sam smacked Dean in the shoulder. "D'you see that?"
"Oh yeah," Dean grabbed the steering rope and started to tuck his feet into the nose of the cart.
Sam glanced over Dean's shoulder. "Dean!"
Dean glanced over his shoulder. "What?"
"Feet. Not on the-"
"Right." Dean moved his feet away from the painted symbol on the bottom of the apple crate and rested them on the steering axle.
"Racers ready?" called a guy in blue and white with a headset.
"I've been ready for millennia!" crowed Captain Corny.
Dean muttered, "Yeah, yeah, smarmy son of a-"
"Hang on," Sam said, shifting to surreptitiously pull a rosary out of a pocket and clutch it together with the cans of energy drink. "Okay, set."
Dean nodded at the race officiator. "Yeah, we're good."
Captain Corny grinned.
"Oh shut up!" growled Dean.
"I said nothing," said the possessed corncob driver, blinking innocently.
The race officiator looked between the two carts. "Have we got a grudge match here, gentlemen?"
"You might say that," muttered Sam.
The officiator spoke into the loudspeaker pickup. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a grudge match here! Captain Corny versus Easy Rider!"
"OoooOOoooo!" said the crowd.
Dean gently thunked his head repeatedly against the edge of the apple crate. "Can we please get this going?"
"All right. Ready? Set?" The man stepped onto a platform between the drivers and pushed the lever that lowered the starting gates holding the carts at the top of the hill. "GO!"
Dean and Sam rattled down the first steep section ahead of the giant demon-driven corncob, their combined weight giving them an early advantage, but the sleeker corncob caught up shortly after the bottom of the first steep slope.
Dean eyed the approaching fiberglass vegetable. "Any time you're ready to start with the Latin is fine by me Sam."
"It's-" Sam grunted as the cart went over a pothole. "It's got to be altered, there's no way a-"
"Okay! Stop explaining and get on it!" Dean jerked the steering rope so the cart lurched suddenly towards the corncob, which jerked sideways into the wall in response and slid along the hay bales for several feet, losing momentum. The crowd cheered.
"Awesome," Dean chuckled as the 'Easy Rider' rattled over the crest of the next slope a couple yards before the corncob.
Behind Dean, Sam swore and muttered. "Rojo, rosso, ro.... rosa? No, no, no. Ru something. Rubellus! No. Ruuuuu-oof!" Sam grunted again as they hit another pothole on the down-slope. "Rufus! Or rutilus...."
"What's the friggin' hold up, Sam?" Dean hollered over his shoulder as they reached the flat and he tried to keep their wooden cart in front of the demon-driven corncob. "The crossover's coming up over the next hill and that's the best shot we're gonna have at him!"
"Have you tried doing a holy water ritual on something that isn't water, that's also inside a tin can, while riding downhill in a smirking apple crate, Dean? I don't think so!" The rosary beads clattered as Sam wound them around both cans. "Stop front-seat blessing!"
"Fine, just hurry! And try to be more aerodynamic! We're losing speed on the flats!"
Sam ducked his head, and tucked in his knees. "Rufus or rutilus. It's not actually red, more amber... so... rutilus. Okay! Got it."
"Great!" Dean lurched the cart to the opposite side of the track to block Captain Corny's advance. The tip of the corncob tapped the wooden backrest behind Sam before backing off. The crowd whooped.
Sam hunched lower, his knees up around his ears. "...I think, anyway."
"Just do it!" The corncob swapped sides of the track and was pulling even with the wooden cart quickly. The driver's eyes were full black under the butter-pat helmet as he glared at the Winchesters.
Sam muttered over the bead-wrapped cans in Latin. "Exorcizo te creature... uh... rutilus taurus...." Dean could hear Sam's voice rising with skepticism.
"Come on, Sammy! You're doing great!" said Dean with no idea whether it was going to work or not. He tweaked the steering ropes and took another lunge at the corncob before heading over the final down-slope. The driver didn't flinch away this time, but grinned as he went over the edge nearly even with the wooden cart.
"...in nomine Deo, patris omnipotentis et in virtute Spiritu Sancti. Here!" There was a quick rattle as Sam slid one can out of the looped rosary and passed it over Dean's shoulder.
"Perfect!" Dean gathered the steering ropes in one hand, grabbed the blue and silver can, stuck a thumbnail under the edge of the tab and started shaking it as the final down-slope flattened, leading into the crossover, a few feet ahead of the corncob. Sam untangled his can from the rosary and shook it fiercely.
"Right at the center of the crossover, let him have it!"
"Yep!"
Dean swung out to take the right-hand arm of the crossover, briefly raising the cart onto two wheels as it curved in and rattled up to the center with the demonic corncob bearing down on them from the other arm.
"NOW!"
Both Winchesters popped their drink cans open, Dean one-handedly, and sprayed hopefully-holy Red Bull at the corncob and driver before zipping though the crossover in front of him.
Dean grabbed at the steering ropes and hauled the cart away from the hay bale wall it was racing straight toward coming out of the crossover. It tipped onto two wheels again, threatening to go over.
"Lean!" Dean yelled. He and Sam leaned and kept the cart from tipping over. The airborne wheels hit cement with a jarring crunch and kept rolling towards the finish line.
Sam turned to watch the steaming corncob bury its nose in the hay bale wall and tip onto its side. The driver was hidden completely inside except for the butter-pat-shaped helmet. "Woo! He's down!"
"Yeah!" Dean pumped a fist in the air.
The crowd roared, a little confused by the interplay, but ready and willing to yell regardless.
The inflated arch over the finish line loomed, the Winchester's wooden cart with the black and orange painted leer rattled through. As the symbol painted inside the apple crate crossed the painted line, a yell rang out from within the corncob.
"What the-" Dean turned the cart towards the hay bales past the finish line, both Winchesters dragging their feet to stop the wooden cart fast.
Behind them the corncob erupted with a cloud of demonic black smoke. The crowd gasped. Dean and Sam were off the cart and running before it had stopped, but the demon-smoke sank straight down through a storm drain instead of heading into the tightly packed crowd for a new host.
Sam skidded up to the corncob first, rosary and empty beverage can still in hand, closely followed by Dean. An arm appeared beside the butter-shaped helmet, and a very confused older man blinked up from the fiberglass corncob.
"Wha- what happened? Where am I?"
"It's... uh..." Sam looked at Dean.
"A soapbox race," said Dean, peering down the storm drain before dusting his hands together.
The man patted the bumpy surface of the corncob. "What is this thing?"
"Giant corncob," said Dean helpfully. Sam glared.
The man looked down at himself inside the corncob and did a double-take. "What on earth am I wearing!?"
"Uh..." said Sam, glancing at Dean.
"Spandex," said Dean, gravely.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Medic!" he bellowed as race officials converged on the corncob.
-
"Too bad we got disqualified, Sammy," said Dean, laying on the hood of the Impala, watching the stars come out. "We kicked ass in that race. We coulda taken that spaceship team easy, or the sheep. That thing probably tipped going over the first hill."
Sam stuffed his cell phone into his pocket. "Bobby's fine, no wings, no reports of anyone anywhere sprouting wings. Looks like it worked. He's going to keep an ear to the ground for a while anyway."
"Wings." Dean snorted. "I guess sometimes demons are crazy too."
"Some cultures have demons who also act as trickster-figures. Bobby figures it might have been one of those."
"See, now, that makes more sense. As much sense as making random people grow wings ever will." Dean sat up and hopped off the hood of the car. "Ready to go?"
"Yeah. FBI'll pick up the media coverage before morning if they're on the ball."
Dean grimaced. "We made the news again?"
"Not quite. The 'exploding' corncob, the driver developing amnesia about what he's been doing the last two months and our disqualification for 'unsportsmanlike conduct' got some attention." Sam slung a bag into the back seat and leaned on the passenger side roof. "There were blogs with video of the corncob crashing uploaded before I shut down the laptop."
Dean leaned on the driver's side roof. "You know, all things considered, that was kind of fun."
"Yeah."
"We built a soapbox racer." Dean grinned. "You and me."
Sam chuckled, "It's weird, isn't it. Normal."
Dean snorted. "Normal for the nineteen-fifties, maybe."
"True."
"Not something I ever even thought of doing." Dean shook his head. "Why did gigs like this never come up when we were kids?"
"Fewer demons?" Sam postulated. "Saner demons?"
"Maybe."
"Who knows, Dean. Dad didn't exactly tell us everything, maybe stuff like that did come up and he just never mentioned them."
Dean smirked. "Heh, right. Can you imagine Dad and Bobby building a soapbox racer?"
"Well, y'know, Dean, Bobby was awfully quick with the research on the symbol and the whole crossing the finish line thing...." Sam trailed off.
Dean blinked. "You don't really think Dad and Bobby..."
Sam grinned and shrugged.
Crickets chirped for a second or two.
"...Nahhh," the Winchesters said in unison, getting in the car to drive off.
And if they happened to grill Bobby about soapbox racing the next time they were in South Dakota, it was an entirely unrelated coincidence.
- - -
(that's it)