Song Remains the Same

Chapter 91: Clowning Around

"Children though can never have grown up feelings until they've been allowed to do the growing."

- Fred Rogers

A little worse for the wear, Sam tiredly entered the motel room. He wore his FBI dress blues, just like his brother, who he found waiting inside. Dean sat at the kitchenette table in the tiki-themed room, pulling Chinese takeout from a brown paper bag.

As Sam came in, Dean glanced his way briefly. "Hey! So, what's the low down with trauma town?" He flashed a playfully-antagonizing grin at Sam, who pulled a wan face. In response to the face, Dean chuckled and smiled wider and returned to unbagging little white containers.

Very funny, Sam thought prissily. Dean knew—knew—that Sam had issues with clowns and yet had sent him alone the past few hours to spend time at Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie—aka hell. And now he was laughing about it. Sam smacked a few of the placemats he'd taken from the joint down onto the table right in front of his brother, who was immediately befuddled at the kiddie crayon creations.

"...What the hell are these?"

"Kid therapy," Sam answered grimly, sauntering into the room and letting his tone show his skepticism. "Draw your worst nightmare, poof, Plucky fixes it." He started pulling off his suit jacket. "They hang those up on this big wall smack dab in the middle of Plucky's."

The kid's pizza-and-game chain was currently becoming central to the job the Winchester brothers were working here in Kansas. Mysterious, wacky deaths (the first by an octopus-vampire, apparently, the second by a stabbing that involved a horse and maybe a lance) had one thing in common: the people who had died so far were both parents of different, unrelated kids who'd gone to the same birthday party at Plucky's a few days prior.

"Well, can't argue with this," Dean said in an overly serious tone as he looked over the placemats Sam had set down. He tapped the top drawing. "Leprechauns are deadly." Sam snorted, pulling at his tie to loosen it. Dean was in deep thought, however briefly. "Okay, so, that kid Kelly draws a monster, and then that goes after her father?" His tone suggested he thought it was nuts, even for them. "That's what we're saying?"

"Well, here's the thing," Sam said, picking up his carton of food and a pair of chopsticks then retreating across the room to the other little table set up by the window. "Plucky's employees label those when they hang them on the wall so that you know which kid drew what. And guess which two were missing." He corrected himself as he sat down. "Well, name tag was there—but no place mat."

"Little Miss Octovamp," Dean guessed. The first death that had transpired.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed glumly. "And... Billy." The second death. "So... somehow, whatever he drew came to life and killed his dad, riding a horse." He poked at his beef lo mein. It was harder and harder to summon an appetite these days.

"Close, but no Seabiscuit, Sammy," Dean said, a knowing smile on his face. Sam frowned over at his brother questioningly. Dean was pulling a folded up piece of paper out of his suit jacket. "See, I went and had a little chat with Billy. And he drew me this."

Curious, Sam got up and went to Dean's side—his brother was unfolding the paper so Sam could see what was on it: drawn crudely, a very malevolent looking unicorn with a rainbow for a tail was impaling a person through the chest.

Sam did a bit of a double take at the violent image. "So... now unicorns are evil?" he asked incredulously.

Dean made a face. "Yeah. Obviously." He turned his attention to food, pulling a takeout container toward himself.