Destiel Fluff

Flat-pack fun

"So, get this," Sam strode through the door to the kitchen, brandishing his laptop, "there's been a string of mysterious deaths in the newly opened gated community down the road."

"Aren't those places marketed as being 'extra safe'?" Dean air-quoted, "as if that's even a thing."

"Yeah, that's why this is weird; they're supposedly animal attacks too, but with no signs of break in"

"This is starting to sound like our kinda thing, do the victims have anything in common besides where they live?" 

"Nope, just ripped up chests and general deadness."

"Monkey-suit time," Dean rolled his eyes, "but first I need bacon." 

* 

 By some miracle, there had been no one around to interrupt their investigation, which meant that all avenues could be explored without people giving them suspicious looks; yet it was fruitless. Nothing showed up on the EMF-metre, no hex bags, they were new builds so no ghosts attached to the houses, no evidence of disaster on the site - which was unusual in itself - in fact the whole thing was suspiciously clean. 

"No place should be this perfect," Sam mused, shoving his hair distractedly behind his ears, "and also have so many deaths within a month. Something has to be rotten here"

"Demon deal? Like a property developer buying the perfect plot in exchange for their soul?" 

Sam whipped out the laptop and tapped away, seemingly getting wifi from absolutely nowhere, until he huffed irritably. "Dunno Dean, this guy checks out; he's a well-established developer, nothing like this has happened on his sites before, plus he's been in the business for over forty years. A demon deal would've come back to bite him by now..." 

"What else could it be? Cause if it's some cursed object that a random dropped decades ago wandering across this site, and it's buried beneath one of the actual houses and we have to somehow find it and destroy the bastard, I'm gonna punch something." 

"Don't jinx it, man" Sam huffed a laugh, "maybe there'll be something in the books back at the bunker?"

"Yeah, fine. I need a drink anyway," Dean pulled his collar away from his neck, "actually can we stop off at that Ikea on the way back? Need some more shelves for my room."

* 

"Thought you just needed shelves, Dean?"

"Yeah whatever, bitch," the trolley wheel squeaked as they turned yet another corner, "this place is like a damn maze"

"Mazes don't make you buy three bedding sets, a handful of different lamps, a whole pile of cushions, a toothbrush holder-" 

"Shut up! These things are useful; the library is dark as anything, the chairs at the research table make my butt ache, changing bedding is important for hygiene, and I'm fed up with my toothbrush tasting like hair products after sitting on the sink, so there." 

"But was the entire supply of the restaurant's meatballs really necessary?"

"Yes." Dean was firm on this point, even more so than the others, "shopping makes me hungry."

"Well thank goodness we're at the tills then, because you've finished them"

Before he could retort, an overly enthusiastic cashier was greeting them with a cheery stream of nonsense. He quickly came to the conclusion that everyone working in retail deserved at least double the pay if they had to reel off this spiel every time, and still manage a smile. That or their mouths were surgically sewn into a grin. 

"All called up, thank you very much for your purchases!" the cashier, Alex according to their name tag, handed Sam a ridiculously long receipt, "We've got some wonderful deals today, so you may notice that your total is very low. If you could just read out your items please, it's store policy to ensure we haven't over- or under-sold you!" 

Sam half-smiled at them, and started rattling off the items, until he frowned and brought the paper closer. He coughed slightly, as if to clear his throat, but ended up trapped in a coughing fit. It continued for an awkwardly long time, in which Dean got impatient and went to take the receipt to carry on, but Sam shook his head and snatched it back.

"Sammy? Are you okay?" Dean could tell from his Sam's behaviour that something was not right here, "Okay Alex, could you please get some water for my brother?"

Alex nodded and slipped through a door, Sam immediately stopped coughing and turned to Dean, "This isn't Swedish, and this is not a receipt for household items."

"What? Since when do you speak Swedish?"

"I don't, but I can read Latin. This is a contract."

"The fuck?" 

"I'll explain in a minute, Alex is coming back," he began coughing again, hitting his chest for dramatic effect.

"Here's your water, sir," creepily wide smile still in place.

Sam continued hacking.

"Christo, Sam! Are you sure you're okay?" Dean didn't miss the flinch, or the falter of the grin. 

After a sip of water, the taller brother reassured Dean with a hand to the shoulder and nodded to Alex, "Sorry about that, I'll carry on if that's alright?"

"If you could start again from the beginning, please? I've lost track of where we are."

"Sure," he began as normal, but soon started reciting an exorcism. The effects were immediate; the smile vanished and Alex's eyes turned to black, they leaned over the desk to throttle Sam, but it was too late. The smoke rushed out, but Sam brought out a metal hip flask at the last second and flipped it open, which sucked the demon into it. 

"Sam?! What the entire fuck is that?" Dean grabbed the flask and turned it over and over in his hands, examining the sigils and runes, all while shaking it a bit to spite the demon inside. He'd never seen anything work like that before, but he recognised some of the marks from the demon-killing knife.

"I've been working on a hypothetical demon trap, so we don't have to kill everyone who's possessed just to get the son of a bitch inside them. Glad it worked, otherwise there'd be an Ikea demon still floating about." 

"Cool! I've always said you're the brains of this outfit Sammy," he ruffled his brother's hair and grinned, "so explain this contract thing to me cause it's making zero sense."

"Yeah, so essentially the receipt says 'I acknowledge the discount and give my soul in exchange, redeemable in 72 hours' and reading it out loud seals the deal," Sam shook his head sadly, "it makes sense; people moving into a new house need furniture and stuff, and this is the closest place for miles. Wonder if this demon has operated like this at other locations?" 

"And the 'animal attacks' were hell hounds! Well they're not gonna do it anymore; I'm ganking this bastard first chance I get, tricking people into selling their souls for furniture? Who does that? Sick piece of crap," he gave it a firm shake and stuck a middle finger up at the flask.

"If my calculations are correct, Dean, you should be able to submerge the flask in Holy Water and it'll destroy the demon inside," Sam smiled modestly at his invention, "but we should probably clear out before Alex wakes up..."

"Yeah, good shout," Dean looked at the figure on the ground with pity, they'd scraped their elbow in the fall, "but one thing first," he vaulted over the desk and put the money for his housewares haul into the till, nodding with satisfaction at a job well done.