trans_9 | Making With The Normal

No no, Dean agrees. This is very important. Because there's not way in hell Dean is going to use the bathrooms that look like they're ready to eat whatever comes close. Grinning, Dean glances over the graffiti.

"Finally, something that looks somewhat normal. Freakin' plant toilets. I'd rather not worry about having a bite taken outta me when I'm trying to go." Dean jokes, checking out the stalls.

The stalls all looked normal. In fact, the whole place looked so normal that it was bizarre in the context of a sentient alien meat ship. The only weird thing was the stall at the end, with the holographic bio-hazard sticker on it.

But hey, running water and flush toilets! YES!

"I think the toilet paper restocks itself," Paco said, also kicking open the stalls. "We've been using this place for awhile and we've still got just as much as we started with. Which is a creepy I can live with for the sake of not having Stacy watch me pee."

That bio-hazard sticker intrigues Dean. However, thankfully, he is smart enough to not try and investigate. He's curious, not stupid. But yes! Toilets are good.

"Ugh, talk about Big Brother," Dean remarks, eying the last stall. "I've run into some pretty freaky crap, but this Stacy chick takes the cake."

Paco and Kate (well, the Yeerks pretending to be Paco and Kate) had already thumped on the door a couple times without anything bad happening. But the door was still stuck closed.

"Seriously," Paco said. "Not only is she Big Brothering it up, she's broken. Did your brother tell you about the giant acid-spitting roaches that kidnapped a bunch of us and threw us down a hole to get hunted by their creepy bug-babies?"

"Uh, no, but that would've been something nice to know." Dean replies, looking grossed out. "The kid doesn't tell me anything."

He keeps wanting to stuff his hands into coat pockets, but unfortunately, the plantsuit is not equipped with such things. With a slight huff, he glances around the bathroom.

"Bugs are nasty, dude."

Oh. Well, Paco wasn't going to tell him about Sam accidentally shooting himself in the foot then.

"You don't know the half of it," Paco said, making a face. "The grown-ups were like, seven feet long and the babies were two or three feet. I fought conquering alien bugs when they invaded my hometown; they had lasers but at least they weren't trying to eat me." He kicked the wall lightly. "It took Stacy a few hours to actually notice, then she just wiped 'em out."

"Okay, too much information. Don't need to know about the roaches, tha-- wait a minute, alien bugs with lasers?" Dean asks incredulously. "The hell kind of world were you living in?"

Because Dean has faced vampires, werewolves, Wendigos, even Bloody Mary, but alien bugs with lasers? That's a new one.

"Got it, no more roaches."

Paco laughed and jerked his thumb in the direction they'd come. "Where do you think Jaime got his special spinal friend? Before we found him in an empty lot, I mean."

He made skittery gestures with his hands. "The Reach are these buggy alien traders who drop a scarab on a planet and tell it to bond to someone when the civilization reaches a certain point. Then they show up all 'here, let us give you shiny awesome tech! And also put mind-control drugs in your water', and the guy that the scarab bonded to is supposed to help them take over. But Khaji got broken or something, and figured out that free will is more awesome than following the Reach's rules, and he and Jaime told them where they could stuff it. So they got all pissy and attacked, and we kicked their buggy butts."

Dean listens to that, and he sort of laughs at the way Paco describes it. No wonder they get along so well. Well, other than the whole car thing, but the way Paco explains is totally Dean's type of understanding.

"Nice. Mind control sucks." Dean finally replies. "We don't got aliens, but we got possession, and demons are a pain in the ass."

Paco loved an audience. He didn't get to brag much back home since Jaime was trying to keep a secret identity, so he was going to grab this with both hands.

"We haven't had any -- no, I tell a lie, there was the demon from the video game, but Traci took care of that one." Paco shook his head. "Possession totally blows. We had the former hitman of God roll into town and try to possess the kid of some friends of ours. Really not cool."

But oh man did he get an awesome story out of that one.

"Demon from a video game." Dean repeats, grinning. "That's sort of epic, if you think about it. The hitman of God thing sounds familiar, though. We had some crazy Jesus guy chasing after me 'n' Sammy a while back."

"It didn't actually come from a video game, so I'm not sure if it counts," Paco said, scratching the back of his head. "It was a bunch of nerds in someone's basement playing with magic and they just based their demon on the one in the video game. Traci hunted them down and scared the bejeezus out of them from what I heard. Do not interrupt that girl's dates, seriously.

"Oooh, that's never good. Why was he after you?"

Dean snorts at the date comment; he's met girls like that. Those chicks are crazy. But then Paco's asking why the Jesus guy was after him, and Dean pauses, because he probably shouldn't answer that. Sam has already been on his case, and besides, the kid had a point. He shouldn't be blindly trusting people, no matter where he was.

"I have no idea. Guy was crazy, must've thought we were demons or something," Dean says easily, grinning.

Paco snorted and shook his head, but apparently took Dean's explanation at face value.

"So," he said, hopping up on the counter next to the sink. "I'm betting from the Pagan Gods and Pointed Sticks thing you told me about earlier that I'm not the only one with awesome stories to tell."

Not to mention he knew some things from when the Yeerks had been tromping around in everyone's skulls. He hadn't been interested in the "how" or "why", just what his new toy soldiers could do.

Buuut Paco was trying to wash all that away.

Dean leans against the wall, folding his arms and getting comfortable. He figures he can spare a few of the simpler, less personal stories for the kid, since he's got a few. Besides, he'd already told the Pagan Gods story, so why not Bloody Mary? Or the clown story? Those are always fun.

"Heh, yeah. I got a few," Dean replies. "You know all those things parents make up to scare their kids? A lot of it is real. Like Bloody Mary, the Hook Man, evil clowns. Take your pick, man."

"Bloody Mary's real?" Paco clapped a hand over his face. "Oh great. I owe Brenda five bucks and an apology. But I already knew the clown thing."

Birthday party. Sock puppet. Do not want.

"Tell me about the Hook Man."

Dean chuckles. "Yeah, Bloody Mary's real. Not one of my favorite hunts."

But he will tell the story. He thinks, and then goes full story mode.

"So Sam and I find this lead in Iowa, right? Apparently some dude got shanked and hung above his car with his girlfriend inside it. So we go to check it out, and the chick is hot," Dean nods sagely. "Tried to hook her and my brother up, but he's such a prude. Anyway, not the point. Turns out the girl's dad was cheating on the girl's mom, so the dad gets shanked too. 'Course, I wasn't there, I was salting n' burning the bones of the dude we thought was the Hook Man. And it was, but the guy was still around."

Dean pauses to think so more, and then shrugs his shoulders. "Ended up being that the reason the Hook Man didn't go was 'cause the chick was wearing something that had belonged to the guy, so we had to melt the necklace down. That worked, but the cops kicked us out of town, so Sam didn't get the chance to do the nasty with the chick. But we got rid of the thing, so."

And that's the end of that story; Dean looks proud of himself.

Paco looked torn between being impressed and being grossed out.

"Man. I don't think we have that in my world. That is massively creepy," he said, shaking his head. "He just...showed up?" Pause. "In freakin' Iowa?"

Dean laughs. "Yeah, in freakin' Iowa. We got a lot of cases in the weirdest places. Guess the creepy-crawlies like the places nobody's even heard of."

He's looking a bit more relaxed, actually. "Any other things you can think of? Or you got more of a tour to lead me on?"

"They probably don't want to compete for attention," Paco said. " 'Oh, there was a giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man walking the streets here in New York? Man, I can't believe I missed it, I was watching a bunch of crazy people dance in the windows of a department store'. They probably hate that."

He frowned thoughtfully. "I could show you where we keep Escherville. I haven't been inside of it, but it's creepy and full of these creepy killer stone angels. They can't get out, I don't think, but we don't want to go in either. Or we could hit the Vatican, or the weird empathetic alien tree."

"Escherville, huh?" Dean says thoughtfully. "Yeah, sure, why the hell not. Already been to the Vatican, surprised I didn't get... smited? Smote? Whatever."

"What's the empathetic alien tree?"

Paco hopped off the counter and crooked his finger, heading for the door.

"Smite's not in my vocabulary that much, but I like to imagine that the Big Guy says 'pwned' when he does it."

Yes, Paco could pronounce 'pwned'. He was just that kind of guy.

"The empathetic alien tree is exactly what it says on the tin," he said. "It's a tree, it's from Ax's home planet, and it's pretty friendly."

The Sub-Visser had wanted to chop it down or light it on fire. Paco shook his head and lead the way toward Escherville.

Oh, that one makes Dean laugh. He's heard the term before, and what makes it funnier is picturing Castiel saying 'pwned'. The angel would just stare, like he always did when Dean made a joke.

"See, I know angels, and they've got no sense of humor, I swear." Dean answers. "So if the Big Guy's got one, they sure as hell didn't inherit it."

The alien tree idea sort of sounds weird to Dean, but hey, if he was going to go on a tour, he might as well get the full experience.

"Ax is that blue horse thing, right?" Dean asks, following Paco.

"You've met angels? Seriously?" Paco asked, turning around and walking backwards. "That's pretty cool. Except the lack of humor. Maybe your angels like...puns or something. Because the Big Guy's got to have one, or else a bunch of people are pretty screwed."

Paco changed directions to lead Dean to the Tree. It was a little out of the way, but it was between the bathroom and Escherville.

"Yup. Andalite. Gotta say, him being an alien? Makes so many things make so much more sense."

"Yeah. But they're all dicks." Dean replies, shrugging. "Man, if Cas ever shows up or gets slimed in or whatever, try telling him a joke. It will get you nowhere, seriously."

Dean's oblivious as to where they are. Paco could be leading him into the Great Pit of Carkoon, for all he knew.

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"Maybe they're compensating for something?" Paco suggested with a grin. "If 'Dogma' taught me nothing else, it's that angels don't have 'em."

If they had a Great Pit of Carkoon on this ship, they hadn't found it yet. But it would be so cool if they did.

"I don't know about you, but when there's a fourteen-year-old kid wandering around gibbering to himself and doing nerd herd-level science, I start worrying that we're going to find him giggling to himself, covered in gore, and leading a robo-zombie army of doom."

They were on a sentient meatship (that might have a Great Pit of Carkoon on it). Anything was possible.

Dean laughs at that. "Probably. One of them, Uriel? He acts like he's got a stick up where the sun don't shine all the time."

No joke. Dean's inner nerd (what, he has one, it's just buried really, really deeply) would have a heart attack.

"Yeah, see, that's just creepy," Dean replies. "S'like this one demon chick back where I came from, she always possessed little girls. Creepy as hell."

"Enlighten the angels with humor, Dean," Paco teased. "Teach them to smite the unworthy with knock-knock jokes."

He shook his head. "Yeah. So you see why I like the 'mouthless alien nerd' idea better, even if he looks like he could take someone's head off by wiggling his butt."

The rounded the corner of one of the buildings, revealing the Tree in all of it's symmetrical, blue-colored glory. The grass surrounding it was a greener shade of blue, and...something seemed to reach out to both of them in greeting. It wasn't a voice like Ax's, or even like Stacy's, and there weren't any words. But it knew they were there, and it welcomed them.

Paco heaved a sigh and closed his eyes for a moment. "I think this is like the Andalite version of a church or something. That'd fit in with the rest of the stuff down here."

"Man, I should. Wonder if Cas would smite people who tell bad jokes if I told 'im they were demons." Dean jokes, chuckling.

But he does agree with the alien nerd bit. "No joke. See, I like it better when whatever I'm fighting doesn't have psychic powers. Makes it sort of unfair."

And then there's the Tree, and wow, Dean is actually sort of speechless. Whatever it is that reaches out to them startles Dean, though, and even though it's not malicious, Dean's careful to watch around him.

"Yeah. The Vatican's down here too, isn't it?" Dean says, and despite himself, he's relaxed. It's the atmosphere.

"Oh definitely," Paco said. "I haven't had to fight psychics yet, but I bet they're a lot harder to whack over the head."

Paco liked the Tree, and not just because the Sub-Visser had hated it. It was just alien enough that it didn't seem weirdly out of place (like the bathrooms did), and just normal enough that it didn't give him the creeps (like the toilets Stacy wanted them to use). Say what you would about the Andalites, but they had good taste in plants.

"Yeah, it is," he said. "The City's pretty much a world tour of important-and-or-religious buildings, all in one place. Like Epcot or whatever, but on a meatship instead of in Florida."

"Right, 'cause you can't sneak up on them. Mind-reading sucks."

It's very peaceful here, and Dean thinks that this is one of those places he'll be visiting a lot and not telling anybody. Reputation and all that.

"Huh. That's weird," Dean replies, and that's saying something, especially considering what sort of life Dean leads. "This ship's pretty big, isn't it? You think we're actually in space or something like that?"

"So the only option is to come swinging at them from the front," Paco said. "Did you try thinking about really weird stuff to throw them off? Then again, when you're psychic, it probably takes something really bizarre to knock you for a loop..."

Paco was kind of surprised that more people weren't hanging out around the tree, honestly.

"I think so, yeah," he said. "I'm not an astrologist or anything, but I don't recognize any of the constellations outside the Observation Deck windows, and they keep changing, so...space. Maybe I'll get to blow up a planet this time."

Making With The Normal

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