Nothing but a Magic Shadow-show
Oct. 28th, 2014 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsTitle: Nothing but a Magic Shadow-show
Rating: R for swearing
Warnings: Use of the F word, abuse of amphetamines, show-level violent injuries.
Words: ~9000
Summary: Leaving Kevin alone in the Bunker with only Crowley for company was probably not the Winchesters’ brightest idea. Mix together a prophet’s paranoia with drug abuse and demonic stirring, add the Winchesters’ unexpectedly early return to the Bat Cave after a chimera hunt gone a little bit awry, stir in a meddlesome demon and you’ve got yourself the recipe for a perfect Winchester storm.
Hurt!Dean, hurt!Sam, crazy Kevin, manipulative Crowley, Gadreel inside Sam...
Artist:
alexisjane - Who has produced some absolutely fabulous and wonderful animated art – go and shower her art master post with praise and virtual chocolate chip cookies with the best ice cream. Many thanks and more virtual treats of all descriptions also go to my lovely beta firesign10, who helped me beat this story into shape. Any remaining typos and bad grammar are all down to me fiddling after the fact.
Sometimes Kevin hated the Bunker.
Scratch that. Sometimes Kevin hated everything. He hated being stuck underground with only two self-righteous, self-absorbed, frighteningly lethal hunters for company most of the time. He hated being stuck in the Bunker alone when the Winchesters sloped off to save the world again. He hated the fucking angel tablet with its indecipherable scripts, and the weight of the expectation that landed on his thin shoulders every time Sam or Dean looked at him with hopeful expressions to ask “how’s it goin’, kid?”
He hated being called kid.
He hated that his only hope of conversation when the Winchesters were absent was with the fucking demon that murdered his mother and his girlfriend. He hated Crowley’s lies and the fact he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure that his Mom was really dead. He hated Crowley’s eyes, the way they crinkled at the corners as if he was a nice person who smiled a lot, instead of the ex-King of Hell. He hated that he was irresistibly drawn down to that dark dungeon, even though he knew that Crowley only wanted to mess with his head. He hated how much he fucking swore these days, since finding out he was a fucking prophet.
Kevin hated that he was standing with his toes just touching the edge of the devil’s trap, talking to Crowley again right now. Because he just couldn’t bear the silence upstairs in the empty bunker.
“I assume you know this place is surrounded by fallen angels?” Crowley said, and jangled his manacle, almost playfully.
That seemingly random statement snapped Kevin’s attention away from his list of hated things.
“What?” He said, feeling dumb. Kevin hated feeling dumb. He stared at the demon for what felt like a full minute, loathing Crowley’s smirk and trying to think like the valedictorian he used to be, instead of the half-crazy, fully drugged-up on-speed kid he’d become. He didn’t want to converse with Crowley, that wasn’t why he was here – though he couldn’t have said what his reason was for being here, if anyone had pressed for an answer. Fortunately, nobody was asking.
But now, of course, Kevin couldn’t let that ridiculous claim pass unchallenged.
“How can you know that, stuck in here? I thought this place was shielded from everything.”
Crowley shrugged.
“I can feel all that righteousness gathered out there like the concrete was paper, kid.” Crowley spat out the word righteousness like it was bile.
“Don’t call me kid,” Kevin said, but it was an automatic response, because his mind was racing. This place was warded against everything, wasn’t it? Or maybe the Men of Letters hadn’t thought about angels being dangerous, if they’d thought of them at all… Fuck.
“How many?”
“Oh, I’d guess about a dozen of the featherless tossers.”
“How long have they been out there?” Kevin could feel his panic rising. It fluttered like bird wings in his throat.
“The first one arrived the day after Moose and Squirrel left us home alone. They’ve been arriving in dribs and drabs ever since.”
“And you’re only just telling me this now?” Kevin knew he was screeching a bit, but he didn’t care. He didn’t bother waiting for Crowley’s doubtless flippant answer. He was already halfway out of the blast-doors, too distracted to remember to shut them behind him. Crowley was shouting something, but he wasn’t listening. He had work to do.
Of course it would be fucking raining; the skies opening and dumping what felt like the entire Atlantic Ocean on their heads before they reached the Impala. Dean berated typical Winchester luck, and swore under his breath as he fumbled with half-frozen fingers for her keys. Dean wiped the blood off them surreptitiously before Sam could call him on it, and if he appeared a little stiff sliding into the blessedly dry interior of the car, he was pretty sure that Sam had so much wet hair hanging in his eyes that he wouldn’t notice. No way was Dean letting Sam drive. Even with clawed-up ribs, he wasn’t going to risk Sam putting them into a ditch after taking yet another blow to the head. Zeke or no Zeke.
“But, Dean, I wasn’t even knocked out,” Sam was saying, while reaching over into the back-seat to grab an old shirt to towel himself down.
“Maybe not this time, Sammy.” Dean’s thank Christ went unspoken. “But you’ve been making a habit of it recently, so no driving.”
He grabbed the damp shirt from Sam’s hand and passed it over his own dripping face, before turning to have a good look at his brother, visible now in the car’s interior light. Sam was a little pale, and there was a small cut above his left eye, but other than that, he didn’t look too bad. Dean nodded, satisfied, and fired up the Impala’s engine. He was so fucking cold. He whacked the heater up to the max and eased Baby down the rutted track back to the interstate. Why these stupid monsters couldn’t hole up in nice warm strip joints with beer on tap was beyond him. But no, always with the fucking ass-end of nowhere. In the rain.
After a couple of miles, Dean could hear the faint snuffling breaths that meant that Sam was sleeping, and he felt vindicated. The kid was still recovering from those damned trials; he got tired more easily these days, even with angel healing mojo going on inside him. Dean had hoped Zeke’s undercover work would have produced results much quicker, but hell, when had anything ever turned out like Dean wanted, huh?
Dean’s ribs were burning while the rest of him was like ice, and he tapped the heating vent in irritation. Dammit. He’d have to check it out when they got back to the Bat Cave and its awesome garage. At least this chimera job had gotten done quicker than they’d expected, with the added bonus that Garth had left a message to say a local hunter had taken out the poltergeist on the East Coast, so they could head home a few days earlier than expected. Dean smiled. The fact that he now had a home to go to was a never-ending source of contentment for him. Added to that, the thought of the memory foam mattress waiting for him was currently very appealing…
Sam’s eyes flew open in shock as Baby moved from smooth tarmac to crunch over gravel. Dean swung her back onto the blacktop with a low curse. Sam’s hand hit the dash as he slid out of his seat.
“Crap, Dean! What the hell?”
Dean was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white, and he was glaring out of the rain-spattered windshield like the view of the road ahead had just insulted their mother.
“S’ok, Sammy. Just a deer or something on the road.”
Sam stared at Dean’s profile – the deep shadows under his eyes and the way his lids were drooping even now – and called bullshit.
“Pull over.”
Sam could see Dean working through all the arguments – from what for, and it’s only a few more miles Sam to I’m perfectly fine. Dean said none of them after taking one glance at Sam’s face.
“Fine, have it your way.”
Baby’s wheels crunched on gravel again as Dean pulled onto the hard shoulder, lips pursed into a childlike pout. Sam immediately got out and walked around to the driver’s side, and waited impatiently for Dean to shuffle over. Even that small effort left Dean pasty-faced and sweating. Sam nodded as he slid in behind the wheel.
He’d seen Dean take a hit from the chimera, so he really should have noticed his brother was concealing something serious much earlier than this. He could use his own blow to the head as an excuse, but it didn’t feel like much of one to Sam.
“Show me.”
Dean shook his head. Deflecting, damn him, always fucking deflecting.
“It’s nothing, Sam. Just a couple of scratches…”
Sam sat there, solid and unmoving. He felt like smacking Dean, or at least yelling at him for being such a stubborn ass. He resisted the temptation and merely repeated his demand.
“Show me.”
Dean reluctantly opened his jacket and Sam hissed. From a single glance it was evident Dean’s clothes were soaked through with more than just rain. Dean winced as he lifted the edges of his two shirts, dragging them up to expose his stomach and side scored with three bloody parallel tears where the chimera’s claws had caught him.
“See? They aren’t even that deep – ow, Sam, fuck!”
Sam was leaning in and gently touching the ragged edge of one of the cuts. Dean was right; none of them appeared that deep, though dark blood was still oozing from them, like something was stopping them clotting properly. But that wasn’t what had Sam concerned. Around the damaged area, Dean’s flesh was angry and inflamed. Tendrils of red snaked out from the wounds, dark against the pallor of Dean’s fair skin. Sam could feel heat emanating from the cuts, but when he put his hand on an uninjured patch of skin, Dean’s flesh felt cold.
“I bet you didn’t even wash it with holy water yet, did you? God, Dean. How can you be so careless with yourself?”
Ignoring Dean’s mumbled protests, Sam pulled out his hip flask of holy water and began to pour the contents over the wounds. He was expecting the resulting sizzle, but not Dean’s extreme reaction.
His brother screamed. Dean’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his back arched off the leather seat as if he’d been electrocuted. Mercifully, this agony lasted only seconds before Dean collapsed backwards, unconscious, head tipped back and mouth slack.
“Shit!”
Sam hurriedly felt for a pulse, was only slightly reassured when he found it, because it was too rapid to give him any peace of mind. Clearly this was far more serious than it had first appeared, and Sam needed to get Dean somewhere safe and warm, stat. He took a brief moment to rearrange Dean into a more comfortable position before slamming the Impala into gear and gunning the engine. He had to get Dean to the Bunker – to its well equipped medical supplies and to its even better library. He needed to stop the bleeding and treat those wounds, but he knew he was going to have to hit to books too. The severity of Dean’s reaction indicated some sort of supernatural infection he hadn’t come across before, and there had to be something in the archives on how to deal with it. It was at times like these that Sam missed Bobby more for his massive intellect than his gruff-love.
Kevin wiped his hands on his jeans. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get paint all over himself, but it didn’t matter because there were now angel wards painted on almost every surface, door and wall inside the Bunker, and he was starting to feel a tiny bit safer. Even if the Men of Letters’ tasteful art deco décor was now looking like the victim of a particularly crazed and possibly psycho graffiti artist. Speaking of crazed psychos, Dean was going to kill him. For someone who’d apparently never lived in a house since he was four, Dean was showing surprisingly domestic tendencies now they were all settled in this weird, antique residence. Kevin doubted Dean would see past the apparent vandalism to the practical protection he’d provided.
Which reminded Kevin of what he intended to do next.
He heard Crowley’s shouting wafting up from the depths of the dungeon. He absently thought perhaps he should have shut those blast doors, but the demon’s words skittered around his head, containing no meaning for him. Irrelevant. Redundant. Fucking demon.
The only thing that would stop his hands shaking was waiting for him in the firing range. He walked fast - didn’t run, he didn’t need to run, of course not, not now he’d locked this place down so tight, but still…He made his way to the weapons rack. The moment his hand closed around the crossbow, he could feel his heartbeat slowing from its rabbit-fast beat.
He slotted a practice bolt into the mechanism and his body relaxed into a firing stance.
He’d show Dean. Katniss, indeed. He was fucking Robin Hood crossed with Hawkeye, that’s who. He was shiny, he was mighty; everyone said he was a prodigy. He was prodigiously high. Fuck yeah.
Only half of Sam’s attention was on the road, the rest was honed in on Dean, fixed on the sound of his brother’s breathing. So it was a good job they were less than half an hour from the Bunker or Sam might have ended up driving the Impala into a ditch in the dark.
Now it was Sam’s turn to grip the steering wheel like he was holding on to a life preserver, knuckles bleached white and lips pressed tight together. Twenty minutes in, Dean started making strange choked-off little gasps, and Sam floored the accelerator. The Impala bellowed in protest, but her speedometer hit a hundred and stayed there, and Sam reached the main doors of the Bunker in record time.
The rain had reached torrential levels, turning everything outside the entrance to mud. There was even floodwater cascading down the concrete steps down to the Bunker door. Sam sat dithering, listening to the rain drumming on the Impala’s roof. He wanted to get Dean indoors as quickly as possible, but carrying him through this cold rain wouldn’t do him any favours. They’d both be drenched the second they exited the car. Nope, there was nothing for it. He was going to have to leave Dean here and fetch the first aid kit out of the Bunker. He could try to triage the wounds in the car before moving Dean inside. Either that, or find some tarpaulin to wrap his brother in to keep him dry while carrying him inside.
Decision made, Sam made the dash for the door, key out of its fancy box and ready in his hand. He was ready for the door to open smoothly, as it should. When it didn’t, he jarred his wrist on the unmoving bulk. He shook out the pain in irritation. He was already soaked through to the skin.
“What the fuck?”
He really didn’t have time for this. Dean didn’t have time for this. Muttering under his breath, Sam joggled the key in the lock. No, it was definitely unlocked, so why wasn’t it budging? He took a step back and charged the doors with his shoulder. This time he felt something give. He shook wet hair from his face and gritted his teeth. He aimed his best powerhouse kick at the centre of the double doors and grinned with satisfaction when the wood gave way at last, allowing the doors to swing open a foot or so. He’d have to worry about the Bunker’s compromised security later.
He registered the makeshift barricade inside the doorway, kicking bits of smashed up furniture out of his way as he headed for the stairs. What the hell had Kevin been up to while they were away? Who or what was the young prophet trying to keep out of the Bunker? Sam had just noticed that the walls seemed to be covered with newly-painted symbols – Enochian, anti-angel wards, if he wasn’t mistaken - when something punched into his left leg, throwing him sideways into the wall. His leg gave way underneath him and he was falling.
Oh shit, not again, was his last thought as he took a header down the staircase.
Kevin freaking Solo was fucking amazing. These uppers were freaking amazing. He hadn’t felt the need to take his ‘supplements’ for several weeks, and had forgotten how fucking AMAZING they made him feel. He’d spent the last ten hours angel-proofing the Bunker and barricading the front door with whatever bits of the heavy 1950s furniture he could manage to drag up the cast iron steps, and he was pretty proud of his achievements. Even his Mom would have been proud, he thought, tears filling his eyes at the thought. It was okay. It was a perfectly macho emotion. Besides, he was entitled.
“I’m entitled, dammit!” Kevin yelled at nobody across the up-ended edge of the polished teak table he was currently resting his feet on. He took a big gulp from his coffee mug and wondered whether to take another pill. He had to stay vigilant. He might have warded this place up the wazoo – huh wazoo, what a stupid word, what did that even mean anyway - but someone had to take care of things and after all, he was Kevin Freaking Solo and feeling totally fucking amazing and… holy shit there was something trying to break into the Bunker!
Hands shaking, Kevin grabbed the crossbow he’d placed on a chair next to the angel tablet, barely noticing when his jerky motions sent his mug flying. He only just missed sending the precious tablet after it. Coffee streamed over the polished wood and tile floor. Every thump and crash against the doors seemed to reverberate around inside Kevin’s head, but somehow the smooth feel of the crossbow stock had firmed his grip along with his resolve, so when his makeshift barricade eventually gave way, his aim was completely steady. He waited until the giant shadowy figure lurched towards the top of the stairway before letting fly, and watched with satisfaction as his Enochian-etched bolt hit the target dead on.
Who yelped and swore in a voice Kevin knew well, before falling in what seemed like slow motion, only to land with a sickening crunch on the first landing.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit… The crossbow fell to the floor with a clatter as Kevin ran up the steps two at a time. Now that the intruder had conveniently fallen into the more brightly lit part of the main room, Kevin’s gigantic fucking error of judgement was abundantly clear. He’d just put a nine inch silver tipped bolt through Sam Winchester’s thigh, and knocked him down the stairs.
Kevin had given up expecting the world to make any sense from the day God struck him with lightning and turned everything to chaos, and two scary, scruffy guys rescued him from a couple of angels. Nonetheless, this cluster-fuck was looking likely to be Kevin’s pièce de résistance, almost rivalling getting his girlfriend’s neck snapped. Okay not as bad as that, not yet, but still…so not amazing.
Sam moaned and opened his eyes when Kevin’s hand grasped the big guy’s shoulder. Kevin could have sworn Sam’s irises flashed electric blue for a second before Sam’s gaze focused on Kevin’s, then the light was gone - if it had ever been there - and all Kevin could see was Sam’s face twisted with pain. He dismissed it as a hallucinatory side effect of the uppers, and tried to focus.
“What the…?” Sam said. “You shot me!” Sam sounded indignant and incredulous rather than angry, but Kevin’s veins were full of amphetamines so he couldn’t stop buzzing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you left me here on my own, well, I mean with just me and Crowley and I thought you were an angel; Crowley said…” Kevin broke off his babbling when Sam lifted a hand.
“Wait. What? You thought I was an angel?” Sam grimaced as he let his hand drop again with an audible thud, like it was too heavy to hold it up. “Why would you think that?”
Kevin flushed. How the hell could Sam turn those sad eyes on him and make him feel guilty every time? Okay, granted, right now he was feeling guilty for a good reason, having just severely injured the big guy through listening to a freaking demon. What was the matter with him?
“Crowley said the Bunker was surrounded by fallen angels…,” Kevin trailed off. Wait a goddamn minute, how did he know this was really Sam and not a fallen angel pretending to be Sam? Or worse, possessing Sam?
“Oh please, how could an angel get in here with all this warding? And if there was an angel inside me, which isn’t possible because I’d never give it permission, then the wards would supress it, maybe even expel it,” Sam said, waving a weary hand at all Kevin’s Enochian graffiti and holy fuck, he really must be an angel because he had just completely read Kevin’s mind and…
“Dude, I’m not reading your mind, you haven’t stopped talking since I came to.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. Now you have to help me up. Dean’s outside in the car and he’s in a bad way. Fucking chimera got him.”
Helping Sam up, however, didn’t go so well. Firstly, the dude was freaking heavy. Like two hundred pounds plus of solid muscle and bone heavy. Second, Kevin had just effectively crippled the guy. Which was how Kevin ended up falling down the rest of the stairs to land at the bottom like a flower in a press, squashed flat between Sam Winchester and the floor, both equally unresponsive.
Great.
Cozy Powell was dancing with the Devil, and it was loud enough to wake the dead. Normally Dean would have approved, but right now he had a pounding headache, which was impairing his enjoyment of the track. He groped for the knob to switch off the radio, fumbling at it twice before realising the drumming wasn’t coming from the Impala’s speakers but from her roof, where torrential rain was beating down on metal. His eyes flew open. What the hell?
This was all wrong. First, he was slumped in the shotgun seat when the last thing he remembered he’d been driving. Second, apart from him, the car was empty. No Sam. Third, he felt like a black dog had been chewing on him. His hand went to his ribs and came away dark and wet. Blood.
He sat up, too quickly. His head was swimming and felt too heavy for his neck, swaying around like one of those stupid wobbly-headed dogs that douchebags with no class who drive pimped-up Toyotas have on their back shelves when they’ve run out of space in the front because of all the fluffy dice. “Don’t worry, Baby, I’ll never do that to you…” he muttered, patting the dash awkwardly. Sweat broke out on his forehead and trickled down his face. He swiped at the trails with one shaky hand. Where was Sam?
Oh. Wait. Of course Sam wasn’t here. Sam was in Stanford. Get a grip, Winchester! Dean opened his eyes again, not remembering shutting them. Damn, but he was in a bad way. He groped in his pocket for his cell. He should call Dad, check in. He poked at the phone with numb fingers, growing increasingly more puzzled as he cycled through his contacts. It didn’t take long. Sam’s number was there, along with a pathetically few others. Some guy called Garth, another called Charlie, together with some chick - Krissy - and a Sheriff Mills, and that was it. No Dad. No Bobby Singer, no Pastor Jim. He hesitated, shaking finger poised over Sam’s name. What if he called and Sam didn’t answer? Salty sweat stung his eyes, and he wiped his brow again.
He swore as the phone slipped from his cold fingers and fell into the foot-well. He made the mistake of reaching for it and blackness over took him.
When he came to again, his stomach was on fire. Someone must’ve thought he was dead and thrown him onto a pyre – just like Dad. And Bobby. Oh god. They were both dead, everyone was dead. He remembered now. Memories were flooding back. Too many, and too fucking awful to process.
He gingerly lifted his shirts and winced at the mess that was revealed. Livid open wounds slashed across his belly and ribs, and all of them were bloody and inflamed already. A chimera, yeah, that was it, and Sam had treated him with holy water, then…then he couldn’t remember what had happened next. Where the hell was he? And more importantly, where was Sam?
He peered fruitlessly through the rain-smeared glass into the darkness outside. Wait. What he needed was his phone. He remembered dropping it…Yeah, he needed to call Sam. He could do that, sure he could. If he could just reach the damn thing without blacking out again.
He was sweating, yet he couldn’t stop shivering. He knew this wasn’t a good sign, but it was hard to do anything about it when it was taking every ounce of concentration to stop himself toppling over. Then everything went even further to shit when the Impala’s radio burst into life in a crackle of static.
Demons. Fuck. Just what he needed.
Dean fumbled at his gun with fingers made clumsy by the chimera’s poison, only for it to virtually jump out of his hand. The Colt 1911 followed the cell phone into the foot-well on the shotgun side, and Dean swore.
“Wouldn’t do you any good anyway, Deano. You know it takes more than a bullet to kill the likes of me.”
He knew that voice in a way that was visceral and deep rooted. Sure enough, that smug, fucking son of a bitch Alastair was smiling at him from the backseat when Dean turned his head. And wasn’t that just the burnt crust on the pie of his current predicament?
He shook his head, confused. Wait a minute though.
“You’re dead,” he said. “My brother killed you.”
Alastair laughed and Dean shivered, a primeval reaction to the well-remembered sound.
“Come now, Dean, you know better than most - what’s dead doesn’t always stay dead, right?”
And Dean did. Of course he knew. He couldn’t help a shudder when Alastair’s long fingers slid around the back of his neck, then trailed down his chest, the rough edges of his nails digging into Dean’s skin.
“Just like old times, hey, my sweet toy?”
“F...fuck you,” Dean managed through clenched teeth, shuddering again as Alastair responded by digging his nails in deeper, tearing at Dean’s anti-possession tattoo.
“What say we have a little fun with this pretty, pristine flesh of yours, hey? I’ve missed you so much. I bet you’ve missed me too, haven’t you.”
Fear surged through Dean then, just enough to animate him, freeing him from his paralysis. He groped for and found the door handle, and even as Alastair opened up a bloody line across the tattoo ink, Dean tumbled out of the car and into the ice-cold rain.
He ran as if Hell Hounds were chasing him, but he didn’t get far before the ground disappeared from under his feet and he was falling. Alastair’s voice followed him down into the dark.
“You can’t escape, Dean. All roads lead to the Pit…”
Kevin wasn’t sure how long he’d been pinned down underneath the ridiculous mountain of Sam – probably nowhere near the three hours it felt like to him – when he heard a noise coming from the top of the stairs. Oh no, no, no… Sam had broken down all their defences and left the Bunker wide open, and now some angel or demon or other fucking monster was going to just stroll in and slice Kevin open and probably eat his brains or cut his hands off so he’d never play cello again, not that he’d played his cello since this whole shit-fest started but …
Footsteps, shuffling and uncertain, on the stairs. Kevin almost stopped breathing. It was a fucking zombie!
Maybe if he just stayed very, very quiet and still, the son of a bitch wouldn’t see him, and would think Sam was just a heap of clothing waiting to be taken to the nearest Goodwill store. With a giant longhaired cat asleep on it. Nothing to see here, nothing edible at all, no brains, just shuffle on by, dear zomb.. Dean.
Wait, what? Kevin tried once more to shift Sam’s bulk, but only succeeded in freeing one arm, which he waved uselessly in Dean’s direction.
“Dean!”
Kevin was somewhat mortified when it came out more of a squeak than a manly cry for help, but he needn’t have worried about his loss of dignity, because Dean either didn’t hear, or simply ignored him. Dean maintained his unsteady progress across the room and away from the pile of Sam’n’Kevin. Desperate, Kevin tried again, louder this time, and was rewarded when Dean stopped and turned around.
Kevin’s hopes were dashed when he saw Dean’s face. The man was deathly pale and looked haunted beyond any ghost. His eyes were too wide and shadowed, the angles of those Grecian cheekbones stark and sharp as axe edges. Dean made a strange gesture with his hand before turning away and leaving the room, barely managing to hold himself upright as he passed through the doorway. Sam had been right when he’d said Dean was in a bad way, and Kevin swore under his breath.
Abso-fucking-lutely fantastic. Now he had two injured Winchesters on his hands. Well, on his whole body, actually, and if Sam didn’t wake up and move himself soon, Kevin would probably suffocate. Serve them right, because then the only person left in the Bunker would be the ex-King of Hell, and Kevin would like to see the Winchesters persuading Crowley to help them. Their odds of success in that instance ranged between Fat Chance and No Chance, he reckoned.
Luckily for Kevin (and the Winchesters), Sam must have still been able to read minds even while unconscious, because the big man chose that moment to groan and roll off Kevin. Finally Kevin was able to scramble out of the way and rub some feeling back into his limbs. He stood for a moment, in the grip of indecision – there was Dean on the one hand, Sam on the other, both apparently needing urgent attention. Then Dean loosed his grip on the doorframe and disappeared from view, and Sam was there at Kevin’s feet breathing very loudly, clearly in a lot of pain, all of which was entirely Kevin’s fault. So guilt made the decision for him.
Sam it was then. Dean would have to wait.
Turning Kevin’s key and watching him whizz around like a particularly manic clockwork toy had seemed like a great idea when he’d started that game, but now, hours later, Crowley was regretting winding up the prophet so thoroughly.
“Sometimes you are just too clever for your own good,” he muttered, flexing his fists and wincing at the burn from the cold iron manacles. He hated to admit it, but Sam Winchester’s plan (because he was sure it was Moose’s, not Squirrel’s idea) to leave him metaphorically stewing in his own juices, instead of beating the crap out of him? Well, that plan was working. Hard though it was to believe, there weren’t many things Crowley could imagine that were worse than being stuck with nothing but his own company for days at a time. Wrapped up with the dreaded boredom was the madness of the half-remembered and totally unwelcome emotions that Sam’s blood had stirred up inside of Crowley’s ancient psyche. Remorse, regret, even a soupçon, Lucifer help him, of repentance. The Three ‘R’s as they were never taught in Hell’s schools.
So when he heard footsteps approaching, he was inordinately grateful for the distraction. He immediately perked up, hoping he could have another prod or two at the wounded soul that was Kevin Tran. He was only marginally disappointed when his visitor turned out to be the equally deliciously battered Dean Winchester. There really was an embarrassment of riches in damaged souls round here.
“Squirrel! To what do I owe the pleasure? Had a falling out with your ‘soul mate’ the not-so-jolly, not-so-green giant? Got to say, you look a little bit rough round the edges.”
Rough was a huge understatement. Crowley watched as Dean ignored his pleasantries (nothing new there) and made his way to the far side of the chamber. The man was moving as slowly as an eighty year old with chronic arthritis, his left arm held tight across his stomach like a barrier. Or as if it was there to stop his guts spilling onto the concrete floor. Crowley raised one brow. Interesting.
Things got even more interesting when Dean turned around. He shuffled towards the chair in which Crowley had spent bloody eternity, chained and bound. Dean’s eyes were wide and flitting from one thing to another, but Crowley guessed from the way they darted about at random, that whatever Dean was seeing wasn’t visible in this reality. Crowley noted with some apprehension that Dean was now holding a wicked-looking, salt encrusted blade in one hand – looked like it was torture-time for demons. Strangely, the expression in Dean’s green eyes was not menace, or even his usual simmering anger. It was fear, and just possibly resignation.
“Well, this is new, Squirrel,” Crowley said, keeping his tone light and conversational while carefully tracking Dean’s progress. The hunter stalked around Crowley’s chair as if he was a caged animal scoping the confines of its prison. Which was ironic, given it was Crowley who was the one tied up here. Crowley barely suppressed his indignation.
Dean didn’t seem conscious of the need to keep his distance or to stay outside the boundaries of the Devil’s Trap, and now Dean was so close, Crowley could smell the metallic tang of fresh blood with a hint of something else, as bitter as rue. Intriguing. Dean’s face was pale and beaded with sweat, and even though his gaze was now fixed on Crowley, it didn’t seem as though Dean was actually seeing him. The mystery of what was going on inside Dean’s head was solved in the next second. Crowley was left wishing he’d remained in a state of blissful ignorance when Dean’s knife slid expertly into Crowley’s thigh at the point where it would cause the most pain to the demon’s meat suit.
It seemed that Dean’s reputation as one of Alastair’s most accomplished pupils had not been undeserved.
Crowley was glad for the sake of his reputation that the warding on the Men of Letters’ Bunker meant that no demon within fifty miles would be able to hear him scream.
Kevin wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, but somehow between the two of them, they’d managed to get Sam out of the angel-warded library and safely into his room, where Kevin was going to have to extract the crossbow bolt. Kevin tried not to freak out at how pale Sam was, or how badly his long limbs were trembling by the time they got him onto his bed. Or about exactly how Kevin was going to get that fucking bolt out of Sam’s leg. So when Sam sent Kevin to the kitchen to fetch boiling water, the obligatory towels and of course, knives, he was glad of the excuse to run away, even though he knew it was only a temporary respite.
As Kevin rummaged around the drawers looking for the finest, sharpest blade he could find and filling the room with steam from the ancient urn-thing that passed for a kettle in Men of Letters Land, he thanked the God he no longer believed in that he had used an armour-piercing bolts instead of one of the hunting style broad-heads. That would have been impossible to get out without leaving a fist-sized hole. He just hoped the tip of the bolt hadn’t lodged in Sam’s femur. It would have been so nice to have been able to deal with this like normal people do, just this once. Like being able to dial 911 and go to, you know, a freaking hospital when injured.
The last thing he expected on his return to the bedroom was to find Sam Winchester sitting on the edge of his bed. Sam held the bloodied bolt in one hand, while the other was clasped down hard over the now empty hole in his thigh. There was an uncharacteristic expression of benign calm on his face.
“You…you just pulled it out? Are you insane? No…wait. Don’t answer that.” Kevin laid down his armful of supplies, which were apparently now redundant, and reluctantly approached Sam. Who was still staring at him with that peculiarly blank expression. The man was probably in shock, Kevin thought.
“Here, let me have a look. You could have done so much damage just yanking it straight out like that…”
“I am fine, Kevin,” Sam said, stopping Kevin in his tracks. “The bolt had not penetrated as deeply as we feared. See? It is merely a flesh wound.”
Sam lifted his slightly bloody hand to show him. Kevin had to agree on closer inspection that the hole in Sam’s leg didn’t look that deep, and there was far less blood than Kevin had expected. Sam didn’t seem to be showing much sign of his earlier concussion either, which had Kevin not been so relieved, he might have found strange. As it was, when Sam told him he could take his carefully selected knives back to the kitchen, he was more than happy to comply.
Of course, one crisis averted only meant it was time for the next one to arrive, right? Because Kevin Tran’s life sucked that much. He had barely put the knives back in the drawer when the bunker’s quiet was rent by a terrible scream. He ran into the corridor in time to see Sam emerge from his room and run – yes, the man was suddenly able to not only stand and walk on that injured leg, but fucking sprint like Usain Bolt – in the direction of the dungeon.
Kevin stood stock still for a moment, seized by indecision. Surely Sam could handle this - whatever the hell it was - on his own. Sam was clearly feeling fighting fit, and however weird this sudden recovery was, Kevin didn’t have it in him to delve too deeply at the moment. He was worn too thin, fragile and see-through as a piece of Saran wrap. These Winchesters and their constant battles, it was all too much. Kevin thought about just picking up his bag and walking out of the Bunker; about what it would be like to be free – and that’s where his once agile brain stalled. He couldn’t even remember what it had felt like to be Kevin Tran, Advanced Placement; what it had been like to have nothing to worry about except excelling at … well, anything that wasn’t translating a language that was only spoken by angels.
So when he found himself following Sam towards the danger instead of running away, he wasn’t surprised. Of course, he immediately wished he had fled in the opposite direction, when an overpowering stench of sulphur and blood hit him on arrival at the open doors to Crowley’s prison.
The tableau that met his eyes was like something out of a Greek tragedy, or one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest plays.
“Give me the knife, Dean,” Sam was saying, in his calmest, most reasonable voice, the one Dean said Sam used on old ladies to coax information out of them. His hand was outstretched, palm up to receive the offending weapon, but Dean showed no sign that he saw it, or that he’d even heard Sam speak.
Dean was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall. His long legs were sprawled out in front of him and he was humming something Kevin couldn’t quite make out. Kevin felt he could be excused for not playing guess the song though. He was too distracted watching Dean toying with a knife that had once been bright steel, but was now so gore encrusted it was barely distinguishable from the bloody hand that held it. Kevin was mesmerised by the speed the blade was moving, stabbing between the spread fingers of Dean’s left hand, then outlining Dean’s thigh, then back to the hand again, as if he was challenging himself to a game of skill or chance. How long before he tired and made a mistake?
“Dean,” Sam tried again, but Dean took no notice. Stab, jab, stab…occasionally the knife blade would slip and the metal would make an unpleasant screech as it skidded on the concrete floor. Kevin winced at how perilously close it came to slicing into Dean’s leg.
“He can’t hear you, Moose.”
Crowley’s croak was almost inaudible, but it made Kevin jump. The King of Hell was such a mess Kevin had assumed he must be dead. Reluctantly, Kevin tore his gaze away from Dean himself to take a closer look at Dean’s handiwork. Crowley’s clothing was ripped to shreds. His exposed torso was nothing but a mass of cuts, but the hardest thing to look at was Crowley’s face. Dean had sliced into one cheek so deeply Kevin could see jawbone and teeth showing through the loose flap of flesh, and Crowley’s left eye dangled from its socket, only held in place by the exposed optic nerve. Kevin fought down the urge to throw up.
Sam ignored Crowley, but the demon kept talking, even though it must have hurt like Hell (and wasn’t that ironic?). His words kept getting swallowed up in nasty gurgles and strange whistling noises as his facial muscles failed to work as they should.
“Poor Squirrel. He thinks he’s in Hell, you know. Now he’s trying to decide whether he should turn the knife on himself, but it won’t help, will it Dean? Nothing stops the pain…”
Dean’s movements grew more frenetic at Crowley’s words, and before Sam could react, Dean viciously stabbed the blade down, with enough force that it impaled his left hand to the floor. Kevin might have emitted a girly squeak at that, but Dean’s expression barely changed. The only difference was he went utterly still, as if the act of affixing his own hand to the floor had flipped an off-switch in his head. Even the humming stopped.
Kevin was as frozen as Dean, but Sam reacted. Sam sprang forward with a speed and grace that made a nonsense of the fact he’d recently been shot in the leg. Kevin shook his head. These Winchesters were a total mystery to him, always confounding expectations. Kevin prepared for his usual role of helpless bystander, as events unfolded before him.
Sam carefully pulled out the knife, throwing it into a far corner, out of reach. He had one arm around Dean’s shoulder, and was trying to stem the blood flow from Dean’s injured hand, but his brother’s only reaction was to start a gentle rocking motion, while mumbling something that made Sam turn pale. Dean was talking so softly Kevin couldn’t quite make out the words. Curious, Kevin moved closer to the two Winchesters, until finally he could hear what Dean was saying that had Sam looking so pained. Dean was rocking backwards and forwards, repeating the same words over and over.
“Not real, not real, not real.”
Back when Kevin was in High School, his Mom had made him join a volunteer program – Mom had told him this bunch of teenagers were organised into a force for the greater good. They did stuff like helping clean up litter in the local park, doing shopping for the old folks, that sort of thing. It wasn’t exactly the super-hero type of greater good Kevin had been anticipating when he joined up, but he hadn’t minded so much. One time the group had visited the Lakeside psychiatric hospital. Kevin couldn’t recall exactly what the purpose of their mission of mercy had been, but he did vividly remember seeing into a room where an elderly man had been behaving exactly like Dean was doing now. A psychiatric nurse walking past must have seen Kevin’s shocked expression. The nurse had stopped to put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder and led him away.
“Fred’s stuck inside his own head. It’s some nightmare he used to have when he was young. Sometimes something unfamiliar will help snap him out of it, but often nothing works, and we have to wait for him to find his own way.”
Looking at Dean and Sam, Kevin didn’t think Dean was going to find his own way, and maybe Sam was just too familiar…Before he could think of all the reasons he should never interfere in Winchester affairs, Kevin stepped forward into Dean’s space.
Dean was being driven crazy. Crazier. Whatever. The demon that Dean had tortured would not stop fucking talking, irritating him with its stupid British accent and mocking words. It had been a tactical error on Dean’s part not to have cut its tongue out first, instead of going for the eyes. Then, of course, Sam arrived. Alastair never failed to roll out Sam in one form or another before the end of each session. Fucking awesome.
This Sam was older than the usual Sams Alastair created to torment him. This one looked more careworn, had longer hair, more stubble. But it was still pretend-Sam, and as such, had to be ignored, not matter how realistic the tone of voice. This one had perfected that slightly exasperated concern that was his Sam’s speciality, and the sincerity of its gaze was hard to turn his back on, but Dean did his best.
“Your best isn’t good enough though, is it, son? It never was.” John didn’t step out of the shadows, but his voice carried as it always had, finding its way into Dean’s darkest corners. “You tried so hard, but you were always weak. Inadequate. Such a disappointment.”
Dean’s mantra almost changed from not real to shut up, shut up, but he knew it didn’t matter. No matter what he said or did, he couldn’t make things right. He could never make things right.
The pain as he stabbed the knife through his hand had barely registered. He gave out a half moan, half wail of frustration when the Sam-a-like confiscated his blade, and pulled Dean in close so that he was pressed up against a wall of heated muscle that felt and smelled just like the real thing, and wasn’t that a kick in the nuts. It was all too much, and though he knew resistance was a waste of effort, he started to struggle against the not-Sam’s suffocating hold, as his own tenuous hold on reality shifted and slipped away.
“Dean.”
A new voice intruded into Dean’s consciousness. One that didn’t belong here; one that he’d never heard in Hell.
“Dean, can you hear me? Look at me.” The voice demanded, and two small cool hands gripped either side of his head, stilling his motion, forcing him to look dead ahead into dark, fierce, almond shaped eyes.
Dean stared as individual features slowly resolved into a person. Dean knew that face. It was the kid they’d ripped from college ambitions and a promising future. The one they’d proceeded to drive half mad in the name of some cause Dean couldn’t quite grasp the importance of right now. What has his name? Kevin Tran. Dean prodded his psyche, watched the bruises form. Yeah, the guilt was still all there, as was Dean’s instinctive urge to guard and protect sparked by Kevin’s little brother persona.
Gradually other details filtered through into Dean’s brain – there was the smell of damp concrete and the iron tang of fresh blood; a fainter scent of sweat and herbal shampoo that spoke of Sam; the throb of pain coming from his wounded hand where it was clamped tightly in Sam’s huge fist; the fiercer burning waves that were emanating from his injured stomach. The chill of the draught coming through the open dungeon doors on the tracks of tears on his cheeks. The twinge of embarrassment at the thought that everyone in the room had witnessed him having some sort of fucking meltdown.
“Fuck, Sammy. You’d better not be cuddling me right now.”
Dean was a little shocked at how hoarse his voice sounded. He really hoped he hadn’t been screaming.
Sam’s arms round Dean’s torso didn’t relax their grip, but Dean felt Sam’s breath moist and warm as a Chinook as Sam huffed exasperation down the back of Dean’s neck. It was gross and kind of awesome, all at the same time. Not that Dean would ever have admitted the latter, of course.
Senses sharpened, Dean finally became aware that Sam’s stiffness wasn’t all down to keeping big brother under control. Something was wrong. He could see a dark patch on the leg of Sam’s jeans, recognised the signs of an injury. Concern ran through his veins like an injection of Ritalin, and he made the mistake of trying to sit up straight to see better. Which had the net result of ensuring he saw nothing at all, as the resultant pain knocked him right out.
“Is he…?” Kevin asked, hesitant. Sam shook his head.
“He’s fine, or he will be. He’s just passed out. Come on, help me get him up and out of here.”
Kevin rushed to assist; though to be honest, Sam was strong enough to lift Dean on his own, in spite of his own injuries. Sure enough, once upright, Sam simply lifted his brother into his arms like a child, and carried Dean out of the dungeon. Kevin followed.
“Hey!” Crowley yelled, outraged. “What about me? You can’t leave me here like this!”
Kevin grimaced when he looked back to where the demon was waving his manacles at his grotesque, carved-up face. It was not a pretty sight. Sam on the other hand didn’t even bother turning his head, and kept on walking.
“You’re the King of Hell,” Sam said, “fix yourself or don’t fix yourself, I couldn’t care less.”
A large part of Kevin felt like applauding, while the rest scurried after the Winchesters as fast as possible to avoid any demonic fall out. Of course, he wouldn’t have been so eager to follow Sam if he’d realised all Sam wanted from him was more research. Before Sam had even laid Dean down on the bed, he was barking out instructions that Kevin found himself following without a single word of protest. As usual, it was an emergency – and when was it NOT an emergency, after all?
Kevin ransacked the Men of Letters’ library in the search for treatments for chimera poison, muttering to himself as he did so about ingratitude and the uncanny propensity shown by Winchesters in finding the worst in every situation.
He found the right references quickly, and even managed point Sam to where the ingredients were stored, but by the time Sam had the copper bowl on the table and was grinding the dried frog’s heart into powder, Kevin was starting to crash. The last of the uppers had oozed their way out of his pores, and his body was suddenly cognisant of the fact he’d been awake some twenty-four hours longer than a body should be awake for.
Kevin dropped about ten gears. He went from buzzing high-speed mode to doddering around like one of the walking dead, all in a matter of minutes. He toyed with the idea of taking another couple of pills, but his body had clearly decided enough was enough, because before he could put that thought into action, his legs were folding underneath him, and he found himself sitting on the floor.
Oh well, that settled that then. Must be nap time. He leaned his head back against the wall that was conveniently supporting his back, and closed his eyes.
Sam wrinkled his nose at the strong stench coming from the bowl as he added the final ingredient to the recipe for treating Dean’s poisoned wounds.
“And a pinch of ground peppercorns? Really? This had better work, Kevin,” he said, pounding the mixture with the marble pestle. The Men of Letters’ kitchen was well equipped for all kinds of cooking, Sam would give them that. Puzzled by Kevin’s silence after the hours of constant brain dumping, Sam glanced around only to discover the Prophet had checked out on him.
“Huh.” Just as well Sam’s concussion wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, as it was apparent he wasn’t going to get any more assistance from Kevin. The kid’s head was tipped back at an awkward angle where he was propped against the wall, and he was already starting to snore. Sam made a note to come back and sort the kid out once he’d finished applying this disgusting poultice to his brother’s wounds. Then he’d have to see about scrubbing off that Enochian graffiti Kevin had scrawled all over the Bunker entrance and war room. Maybe angel-proofing their refuge would have been a good idea at any other time, but at the moment, Kevin’s impromptu decorations could possibly keep out one of the only friends they had left - if and when Castiel finally found his way from Colorado.
Sam hesitated for a moment, the bowl of smelly anti-chimera paste in his hands temporarily forgotten, arrested by the fact that he was more worried about the thought of seeing Cas again than whether their friend would survive the journey unscathed, given the former angel’s newly human state. And surely, any angel protection would have no effect on Castiel now?
But before he could latch onto them, these troublesome thoughts slipped away and dissolved as if they had never existed. What was he doing standing here when Dean needed him? Sam shook his head. Holding firmly onto the bowl so as not to spill a drop of the noxious mix, he hurried through to Dean’s room.
In the thin mountain air of Colorado, Castiel deliberately crashed a car, then killed an angel named Hael. Elsewhere, Metatron watched and smiled, while frightened fallen angels fought each other because they didn’t know what else to do.
Nestled deep inside Sam, the angel Dean knew as Ezekiel was spread thin, the ache from his broken wings dull but all pervasive. Healing Sam Winchester was always going to be a hard task, but the angel had not expected this continual compounding of injuries, the adding of new wounds that required mending, nor the additional drain on his depleted resources that had been required to protect himself from the presence of Kevin’s wards and banishing symbols. The need to stay continually alert to what was happening around Sam was also a strain he hadn’t anticipated, but now, with Dean and Kevin unconscious, and Sam’s recent, inconvenient memories taken care of, the renegade angel thought that perhaps he could rest for a while.
Leaving the thinnest of threads connecting him to Sam’s consciousness, the angel drifted.
Rating: R for swearing
Warnings: Use of the F word, abuse of amphetamines, show-level violent injuries.
Words: ~9000
Summary: Leaving Kevin alone in the Bunker with only Crowley for company was probably not the Winchesters’ brightest idea. Mix together a prophet’s paranoia with drug abuse and demonic stirring, add the Winchesters’ unexpectedly early return to the Bat Cave after a chimera hunt gone a little bit awry, stir in a meddlesome demon and you’ve got yourself the recipe for a perfect Winchester storm.
Hurt!Dean, hurt!Sam, crazy Kevin, manipulative Crowley, Gadreel inside Sam...
Artist:
alexisjane - Who has produced some absolutely fabulous and wonderful animated art – go and shower her art master post with praise and virtual chocolate chip cookies with the best ice cream. Many thanks and more virtual treats of all descriptions also go to my lovely beta firesign10, who helped me beat this story into shape. Any remaining typos and bad grammar are all down to me fiddling after the fact.
Nothing but a Magic Shadow-show
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Sometimes Kevin hated the Bunker.
Scratch that. Sometimes Kevin hated everything. He hated being stuck underground with only two self-righteous, self-absorbed, frighteningly lethal hunters for company most of the time. He hated being stuck in the Bunker alone when the Winchesters sloped off to save the world again. He hated the fucking angel tablet with its indecipherable scripts, and the weight of the expectation that landed on his thin shoulders every time Sam or Dean looked at him with hopeful expressions to ask “how’s it goin’, kid?”
He hated being called kid.
He hated that his only hope of conversation when the Winchesters were absent was with the fucking demon that murdered his mother and his girlfriend. He hated Crowley’s lies and the fact he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure that his Mom was really dead. He hated Crowley’s eyes, the way they crinkled at the corners as if he was a nice person who smiled a lot, instead of the ex-King of Hell. He hated that he was irresistibly drawn down to that dark dungeon, even though he knew that Crowley only wanted to mess with his head. He hated how much he fucking swore these days, since finding out he was a fucking prophet.
Kevin hated that he was standing with his toes just touching the edge of the devil’s trap, talking to Crowley again right now. Because he just couldn’t bear the silence upstairs in the empty bunker.
“I assume you know this place is surrounded by fallen angels?” Crowley said, and jangled his manacle, almost playfully.
That seemingly random statement snapped Kevin’s attention away from his list of hated things.
“What?” He said, feeling dumb. Kevin hated feeling dumb. He stared at the demon for what felt like a full minute, loathing Crowley’s smirk and trying to think like the valedictorian he used to be, instead of the half-crazy, fully drugged-up on-speed kid he’d become. He didn’t want to converse with Crowley, that wasn’t why he was here – though he couldn’t have said what his reason was for being here, if anyone had pressed for an answer. Fortunately, nobody was asking.
But now, of course, Kevin couldn’t let that ridiculous claim pass unchallenged.
“How can you know that, stuck in here? I thought this place was shielded from everything.”
Crowley shrugged.
“I can feel all that righteousness gathered out there like the concrete was paper, kid.” Crowley spat out the word righteousness like it was bile.
“Don’t call me kid,” Kevin said, but it was an automatic response, because his mind was racing. This place was warded against everything, wasn’t it? Or maybe the Men of Letters hadn’t thought about angels being dangerous, if they’d thought of them at all… Fuck.
“How many?”
“Oh, I’d guess about a dozen of the featherless tossers.”
“How long have they been out there?” Kevin could feel his panic rising. It fluttered like bird wings in his throat.
“The first one arrived the day after Moose and Squirrel left us home alone. They’ve been arriving in dribs and drabs ever since.”
“And you’re only just telling me this now?” Kevin knew he was screeching a bit, but he didn’t care. He didn’t bother waiting for Crowley’s doubtless flippant answer. He was already halfway out of the blast-doors, too distracted to remember to shut them behind him. Crowley was shouting something, but he wasn’t listening. He had work to do.
Of course it would be fucking raining; the skies opening and dumping what felt like the entire Atlantic Ocean on their heads before they reached the Impala. Dean berated typical Winchester luck, and swore under his breath as he fumbled with half-frozen fingers for her keys. Dean wiped the blood off them surreptitiously before Sam could call him on it, and if he appeared a little stiff sliding into the blessedly dry interior of the car, he was pretty sure that Sam had so much wet hair hanging in his eyes that he wouldn’t notice. No way was Dean letting Sam drive. Even with clawed-up ribs, he wasn’t going to risk Sam putting them into a ditch after taking yet another blow to the head. Zeke or no Zeke.
“But, Dean, I wasn’t even knocked out,” Sam was saying, while reaching over into the back-seat to grab an old shirt to towel himself down.
“Maybe not this time, Sammy.” Dean’s thank Christ went unspoken. “But you’ve been making a habit of it recently, so no driving.”
He grabbed the damp shirt from Sam’s hand and passed it over his own dripping face, before turning to have a good look at his brother, visible now in the car’s interior light. Sam was a little pale, and there was a small cut above his left eye, but other than that, he didn’t look too bad. Dean nodded, satisfied, and fired up the Impala’s engine. He was so fucking cold. He whacked the heater up to the max and eased Baby down the rutted track back to the interstate. Why these stupid monsters couldn’t hole up in nice warm strip joints with beer on tap was beyond him. But no, always with the fucking ass-end of nowhere. In the rain.
After a couple of miles, Dean could hear the faint snuffling breaths that meant that Sam was sleeping, and he felt vindicated. The kid was still recovering from those damned trials; he got tired more easily these days, even with angel healing mojo going on inside him. Dean had hoped Zeke’s undercover work would have produced results much quicker, but hell, when had anything ever turned out like Dean wanted, huh?
Dean’s ribs were burning while the rest of him was like ice, and he tapped the heating vent in irritation. Dammit. He’d have to check it out when they got back to the Bat Cave and its awesome garage. At least this chimera job had gotten done quicker than they’d expected, with the added bonus that Garth had left a message to say a local hunter had taken out the poltergeist on the East Coast, so they could head home a few days earlier than expected. Dean smiled. The fact that he now had a home to go to was a never-ending source of contentment for him. Added to that, the thought of the memory foam mattress waiting for him was currently very appealing…
Sam’s eyes flew open in shock as Baby moved from smooth tarmac to crunch over gravel. Dean swung her back onto the blacktop with a low curse. Sam’s hand hit the dash as he slid out of his seat.
“Crap, Dean! What the hell?”
Dean was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white, and he was glaring out of the rain-spattered windshield like the view of the road ahead had just insulted their mother.
“S’ok, Sammy. Just a deer or something on the road.”
Sam stared at Dean’s profile – the deep shadows under his eyes and the way his lids were drooping even now – and called bullshit.
“Pull over.”
Sam could see Dean working through all the arguments – from what for, and it’s only a few more miles Sam to I’m perfectly fine. Dean said none of them after taking one glance at Sam’s face.
“Fine, have it your way.”
Baby’s wheels crunched on gravel again as Dean pulled onto the hard shoulder, lips pursed into a childlike pout. Sam immediately got out and walked around to the driver’s side, and waited impatiently for Dean to shuffle over. Even that small effort left Dean pasty-faced and sweating. Sam nodded as he slid in behind the wheel.
He’d seen Dean take a hit from the chimera, so he really should have noticed his brother was concealing something serious much earlier than this. He could use his own blow to the head as an excuse, but it didn’t feel like much of one to Sam.
“Show me.”
Dean shook his head. Deflecting, damn him, always fucking deflecting.
“It’s nothing, Sam. Just a couple of scratches…”
Sam sat there, solid and unmoving. He felt like smacking Dean, or at least yelling at him for being such a stubborn ass. He resisted the temptation and merely repeated his demand.
“Show me.”
Dean reluctantly opened his jacket and Sam hissed. From a single glance it was evident Dean’s clothes were soaked through with more than just rain. Dean winced as he lifted the edges of his two shirts, dragging them up to expose his stomach and side scored with three bloody parallel tears where the chimera’s claws had caught him.
“See? They aren’t even that deep – ow, Sam, fuck!”
Sam was leaning in and gently touching the ragged edge of one of the cuts. Dean was right; none of them appeared that deep, though dark blood was still oozing from them, like something was stopping them clotting properly. But that wasn’t what had Sam concerned. Around the damaged area, Dean’s flesh was angry and inflamed. Tendrils of red snaked out from the wounds, dark against the pallor of Dean’s fair skin. Sam could feel heat emanating from the cuts, but when he put his hand on an uninjured patch of skin, Dean’s flesh felt cold.
“I bet you didn’t even wash it with holy water yet, did you? God, Dean. How can you be so careless with yourself?”
Ignoring Dean’s mumbled protests, Sam pulled out his hip flask of holy water and began to pour the contents over the wounds. He was expecting the resulting sizzle, but not Dean’s extreme reaction.
His brother screamed. Dean’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his back arched off the leather seat as if he’d been electrocuted. Mercifully, this agony lasted only seconds before Dean collapsed backwards, unconscious, head tipped back and mouth slack.
“Shit!”
Sam hurriedly felt for a pulse, was only slightly reassured when he found it, because it was too rapid to give him any peace of mind. Clearly this was far more serious than it had first appeared, and Sam needed to get Dean somewhere safe and warm, stat. He took a brief moment to rearrange Dean into a more comfortable position before slamming the Impala into gear and gunning the engine. He had to get Dean to the Bunker – to its well equipped medical supplies and to its even better library. He needed to stop the bleeding and treat those wounds, but he knew he was going to have to hit to books too. The severity of Dean’s reaction indicated some sort of supernatural infection he hadn’t come across before, and there had to be something in the archives on how to deal with it. It was at times like these that Sam missed Bobby more for his massive intellect than his gruff-love.
Kevin wiped his hands on his jeans. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get paint all over himself, but it didn’t matter because there were now angel wards painted on almost every surface, door and wall inside the Bunker, and he was starting to feel a tiny bit safer. Even if the Men of Letters’ tasteful art deco décor was now looking like the victim of a particularly crazed and possibly psycho graffiti artist. Speaking of crazed psychos, Dean was going to kill him. For someone who’d apparently never lived in a house since he was four, Dean was showing surprisingly domestic tendencies now they were all settled in this weird, antique residence. Kevin doubted Dean would see past the apparent vandalism to the practical protection he’d provided.
Which reminded Kevin of what he intended to do next.
He heard Crowley’s shouting wafting up from the depths of the dungeon. He absently thought perhaps he should have shut those blast doors, but the demon’s words skittered around his head, containing no meaning for him. Irrelevant. Redundant. Fucking demon.
The only thing that would stop his hands shaking was waiting for him in the firing range. He walked fast - didn’t run, he didn’t need to run, of course not, not now he’d locked this place down so tight, but still…He made his way to the weapons rack. The moment his hand closed around the crossbow, he could feel his heartbeat slowing from its rabbit-fast beat.
He slotted a practice bolt into the mechanism and his body relaxed into a firing stance.
He’d show Dean. Katniss, indeed. He was fucking Robin Hood crossed with Hawkeye, that’s who. He was shiny, he was mighty; everyone said he was a prodigy. He was prodigiously high. Fuck yeah.
Only half of Sam’s attention was on the road, the rest was honed in on Dean, fixed on the sound of his brother’s breathing. So it was a good job they were less than half an hour from the Bunker or Sam might have ended up driving the Impala into a ditch in the dark.
Now it was Sam’s turn to grip the steering wheel like he was holding on to a life preserver, knuckles bleached white and lips pressed tight together. Twenty minutes in, Dean started making strange choked-off little gasps, and Sam floored the accelerator. The Impala bellowed in protest, but her speedometer hit a hundred and stayed there, and Sam reached the main doors of the Bunker in record time.
The rain had reached torrential levels, turning everything outside the entrance to mud. There was even floodwater cascading down the concrete steps down to the Bunker door. Sam sat dithering, listening to the rain drumming on the Impala’s roof. He wanted to get Dean indoors as quickly as possible, but carrying him through this cold rain wouldn’t do him any favours. They’d both be drenched the second they exited the car. Nope, there was nothing for it. He was going to have to leave Dean here and fetch the first aid kit out of the Bunker. He could try to triage the wounds in the car before moving Dean inside. Either that, or find some tarpaulin to wrap his brother in to keep him dry while carrying him inside.
Decision made, Sam made the dash for the door, key out of its fancy box and ready in his hand. He was ready for the door to open smoothly, as it should. When it didn’t, he jarred his wrist on the unmoving bulk. He shook out the pain in irritation. He was already soaked through to the skin.
“What the fuck?”
He really didn’t have time for this. Dean didn’t have time for this. Muttering under his breath, Sam joggled the key in the lock. No, it was definitely unlocked, so why wasn’t it budging? He took a step back and charged the doors with his shoulder. This time he felt something give. He shook wet hair from his face and gritted his teeth. He aimed his best powerhouse kick at the centre of the double doors and grinned with satisfaction when the wood gave way at last, allowing the doors to swing open a foot or so. He’d have to worry about the Bunker’s compromised security later.
He registered the makeshift barricade inside the doorway, kicking bits of smashed up furniture out of his way as he headed for the stairs. What the hell had Kevin been up to while they were away? Who or what was the young prophet trying to keep out of the Bunker? Sam had just noticed that the walls seemed to be covered with newly-painted symbols – Enochian, anti-angel wards, if he wasn’t mistaken - when something punched into his left leg, throwing him sideways into the wall. His leg gave way underneath him and he was falling.
Oh shit, not again, was his last thought as he took a header down the staircase.
Kevin freaking Solo was fucking amazing. These uppers were freaking amazing. He hadn’t felt the need to take his ‘supplements’ for several weeks, and had forgotten how fucking AMAZING they made him feel. He’d spent the last ten hours angel-proofing the Bunker and barricading the front door with whatever bits of the heavy 1950s furniture he could manage to drag up the cast iron steps, and he was pretty proud of his achievements. Even his Mom would have been proud, he thought, tears filling his eyes at the thought. It was okay. It was a perfectly macho emotion. Besides, he was entitled.
“I’m entitled, dammit!” Kevin yelled at nobody across the up-ended edge of the polished teak table he was currently resting his feet on. He took a big gulp from his coffee mug and wondered whether to take another pill. He had to stay vigilant. He might have warded this place up the wazoo – huh wazoo, what a stupid word, what did that even mean anyway - but someone had to take care of things and after all, he was Kevin Freaking Solo and feeling totally fucking amazing and… holy shit there was something trying to break into the Bunker!
Hands shaking, Kevin grabbed the crossbow he’d placed on a chair next to the angel tablet, barely noticing when his jerky motions sent his mug flying. He only just missed sending the precious tablet after it. Coffee streamed over the polished wood and tile floor. Every thump and crash against the doors seemed to reverberate around inside Kevin’s head, but somehow the smooth feel of the crossbow stock had firmed his grip along with his resolve, so when his makeshift barricade eventually gave way, his aim was completely steady. He waited until the giant shadowy figure lurched towards the top of the stairway before letting fly, and watched with satisfaction as his Enochian-etched bolt hit the target dead on.
Who yelped and swore in a voice Kevin knew well, before falling in what seemed like slow motion, only to land with a sickening crunch on the first landing.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit… The crossbow fell to the floor with a clatter as Kevin ran up the steps two at a time. Now that the intruder had conveniently fallen into the more brightly lit part of the main room, Kevin’s gigantic fucking error of judgement was abundantly clear. He’d just put a nine inch silver tipped bolt through Sam Winchester’s thigh, and knocked him down the stairs.
Kevin had given up expecting the world to make any sense from the day God struck him with lightning and turned everything to chaos, and two scary, scruffy guys rescued him from a couple of angels. Nonetheless, this cluster-fuck was looking likely to be Kevin’s pièce de résistance, almost rivalling getting his girlfriend’s neck snapped. Okay not as bad as that, not yet, but still…so not amazing.
Sam moaned and opened his eyes when Kevin’s hand grasped the big guy’s shoulder. Kevin could have sworn Sam’s irises flashed electric blue for a second before Sam’s gaze focused on Kevin’s, then the light was gone - if it had ever been there - and all Kevin could see was Sam’s face twisted with pain. He dismissed it as a hallucinatory side effect of the uppers, and tried to focus.
“What the…?” Sam said. “You shot me!” Sam sounded indignant and incredulous rather than angry, but Kevin’s veins were full of amphetamines so he couldn’t stop buzzing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you left me here on my own, well, I mean with just me and Crowley and I thought you were an angel; Crowley said…” Kevin broke off his babbling when Sam lifted a hand.
“Wait. What? You thought I was an angel?” Sam grimaced as he let his hand drop again with an audible thud, like it was too heavy to hold it up. “Why would you think that?”
Kevin flushed. How the hell could Sam turn those sad eyes on him and make him feel guilty every time? Okay, granted, right now he was feeling guilty for a good reason, having just severely injured the big guy through listening to a freaking demon. What was the matter with him?
“Crowley said the Bunker was surrounded by fallen angels…,” Kevin trailed off. Wait a goddamn minute, how did he know this was really Sam and not a fallen angel pretending to be Sam? Or worse, possessing Sam?
“Oh please, how could an angel get in here with all this warding? And if there was an angel inside me, which isn’t possible because I’d never give it permission, then the wards would supress it, maybe even expel it,” Sam said, waving a weary hand at all Kevin’s Enochian graffiti and holy fuck, he really must be an angel because he had just completely read Kevin’s mind and…
“Dude, I’m not reading your mind, you haven’t stopped talking since I came to.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. Now you have to help me up. Dean’s outside in the car and he’s in a bad way. Fucking chimera got him.”
Helping Sam up, however, didn’t go so well. Firstly, the dude was freaking heavy. Like two hundred pounds plus of solid muscle and bone heavy. Second, Kevin had just effectively crippled the guy. Which was how Kevin ended up falling down the rest of the stairs to land at the bottom like a flower in a press, squashed flat between Sam Winchester and the floor, both equally unresponsive.
Great.
Cozy Powell was dancing with the Devil, and it was loud enough to wake the dead. Normally Dean would have approved, but right now he had a pounding headache, which was impairing his enjoyment of the track. He groped for the knob to switch off the radio, fumbling at it twice before realising the drumming wasn’t coming from the Impala’s speakers but from her roof, where torrential rain was beating down on metal. His eyes flew open. What the hell?
This was all wrong. First, he was slumped in the shotgun seat when the last thing he remembered he’d been driving. Second, apart from him, the car was empty. No Sam. Third, he felt like a black dog had been chewing on him. His hand went to his ribs and came away dark and wet. Blood.
He sat up, too quickly. His head was swimming and felt too heavy for his neck, swaying around like one of those stupid wobbly-headed dogs that douchebags with no class who drive pimped-up Toyotas have on their back shelves when they’ve run out of space in the front because of all the fluffy dice. “Don’t worry, Baby, I’ll never do that to you…” he muttered, patting the dash awkwardly. Sweat broke out on his forehead and trickled down his face. He swiped at the trails with one shaky hand. Where was Sam?
Oh. Wait. Of course Sam wasn’t here. Sam was in Stanford. Get a grip, Winchester! Dean opened his eyes again, not remembering shutting them. Damn, but he was in a bad way. He groped in his pocket for his cell. He should call Dad, check in. He poked at the phone with numb fingers, growing increasingly more puzzled as he cycled through his contacts. It didn’t take long. Sam’s number was there, along with a pathetically few others. Some guy called Garth, another called Charlie, together with some chick - Krissy - and a Sheriff Mills, and that was it. No Dad. No Bobby Singer, no Pastor Jim. He hesitated, shaking finger poised over Sam’s name. What if he called and Sam didn’t answer? Salty sweat stung his eyes, and he wiped his brow again.
He swore as the phone slipped from his cold fingers and fell into the foot-well. He made the mistake of reaching for it and blackness over took him.
When he came to again, his stomach was on fire. Someone must’ve thought he was dead and thrown him onto a pyre – just like Dad. And Bobby. Oh god. They were both dead, everyone was dead. He remembered now. Memories were flooding back. Too many, and too fucking awful to process.
He gingerly lifted his shirts and winced at the mess that was revealed. Livid open wounds slashed across his belly and ribs, and all of them were bloody and inflamed already. A chimera, yeah, that was it, and Sam had treated him with holy water, then…then he couldn’t remember what had happened next. Where the hell was he? And more importantly, where was Sam?
He peered fruitlessly through the rain-smeared glass into the darkness outside. Wait. What he needed was his phone. He remembered dropping it…Yeah, he needed to call Sam. He could do that, sure he could. If he could just reach the damn thing without blacking out again.
He was sweating, yet he couldn’t stop shivering. He knew this wasn’t a good sign, but it was hard to do anything about it when it was taking every ounce of concentration to stop himself toppling over. Then everything went even further to shit when the Impala’s radio burst into life in a crackle of static.
Demons. Fuck. Just what he needed.
Dean fumbled at his gun with fingers made clumsy by the chimera’s poison, only for it to virtually jump out of his hand. The Colt 1911 followed the cell phone into the foot-well on the shotgun side, and Dean swore.
“Wouldn’t do you any good anyway, Deano. You know it takes more than a bullet to kill the likes of me.”
He knew that voice in a way that was visceral and deep rooted. Sure enough, that smug, fucking son of a bitch Alastair was smiling at him from the backseat when Dean turned his head. And wasn’t that just the burnt crust on the pie of his current predicament?
He shook his head, confused. Wait a minute though.
“You’re dead,” he said. “My brother killed you.”
Alastair laughed and Dean shivered, a primeval reaction to the well-remembered sound.
“Come now, Dean, you know better than most - what’s dead doesn’t always stay dead, right?”
And Dean did. Of course he knew. He couldn’t help a shudder when Alastair’s long fingers slid around the back of his neck, then trailed down his chest, the rough edges of his nails digging into Dean’s skin.
“Just like old times, hey, my sweet toy?”
“F...fuck you,” Dean managed through clenched teeth, shuddering again as Alastair responded by digging his nails in deeper, tearing at Dean’s anti-possession tattoo.
“What say we have a little fun with this pretty, pristine flesh of yours, hey? I’ve missed you so much. I bet you’ve missed me too, haven’t you.”
Fear surged through Dean then, just enough to animate him, freeing him from his paralysis. He groped for and found the door handle, and even as Alastair opened up a bloody line across the tattoo ink, Dean tumbled out of the car and into the ice-cold rain.
He ran as if Hell Hounds were chasing him, but he didn’t get far before the ground disappeared from under his feet and he was falling. Alastair’s voice followed him down into the dark.
“You can’t escape, Dean. All roads lead to the Pit…”
Kevin wasn’t sure how long he’d been pinned down underneath the ridiculous mountain of Sam – probably nowhere near the three hours it felt like to him – when he heard a noise coming from the top of the stairs. Oh no, no, no… Sam had broken down all their defences and left the Bunker wide open, and now some angel or demon or other fucking monster was going to just stroll in and slice Kevin open and probably eat his brains or cut his hands off so he’d never play cello again, not that he’d played his cello since this whole shit-fest started but …
Footsteps, shuffling and uncertain, on the stairs. Kevin almost stopped breathing. It was a fucking zombie!
Maybe if he just stayed very, very quiet and still, the son of a bitch wouldn’t see him, and would think Sam was just a heap of clothing waiting to be taken to the nearest Goodwill store. With a giant longhaired cat asleep on it. Nothing to see here, nothing edible at all, no brains, just shuffle on by, dear zomb.. Dean.
Wait, what? Kevin tried once more to shift Sam’s bulk, but only succeeded in freeing one arm, which he waved uselessly in Dean’s direction.
“Dean!”
Kevin was somewhat mortified when it came out more of a squeak than a manly cry for help, but he needn’t have worried about his loss of dignity, because Dean either didn’t hear, or simply ignored him. Dean maintained his unsteady progress across the room and away from the pile of Sam’n’Kevin. Desperate, Kevin tried again, louder this time, and was rewarded when Dean stopped and turned around.
Kevin’s hopes were dashed when he saw Dean’s face. The man was deathly pale and looked haunted beyond any ghost. His eyes were too wide and shadowed, the angles of those Grecian cheekbones stark and sharp as axe edges. Dean made a strange gesture with his hand before turning away and leaving the room, barely managing to hold himself upright as he passed through the doorway. Sam had been right when he’d said Dean was in a bad way, and Kevin swore under his breath.
Abso-fucking-lutely fantastic. Now he had two injured Winchesters on his hands. Well, on his whole body, actually, and if Sam didn’t wake up and move himself soon, Kevin would probably suffocate. Serve them right, because then the only person left in the Bunker would be the ex-King of Hell, and Kevin would like to see the Winchesters persuading Crowley to help them. Their odds of success in that instance ranged between Fat Chance and No Chance, he reckoned.
Luckily for Kevin (and the Winchesters), Sam must have still been able to read minds even while unconscious, because the big man chose that moment to groan and roll off Kevin. Finally Kevin was able to scramble out of the way and rub some feeling back into his limbs. He stood for a moment, in the grip of indecision – there was Dean on the one hand, Sam on the other, both apparently needing urgent attention. Then Dean loosed his grip on the doorframe and disappeared from view, and Sam was there at Kevin’s feet breathing very loudly, clearly in a lot of pain, all of which was entirely Kevin’s fault. So guilt made the decision for him.
Sam it was then. Dean would have to wait.
Turning Kevin’s key and watching him whizz around like a particularly manic clockwork toy had seemed like a great idea when he’d started that game, but now, hours later, Crowley was regretting winding up the prophet so thoroughly.
“Sometimes you are just too clever for your own good,” he muttered, flexing his fists and wincing at the burn from the cold iron manacles. He hated to admit it, but Sam Winchester’s plan (because he was sure it was Moose’s, not Squirrel’s idea) to leave him metaphorically stewing in his own juices, instead of beating the crap out of him? Well, that plan was working. Hard though it was to believe, there weren’t many things Crowley could imagine that were worse than being stuck with nothing but his own company for days at a time. Wrapped up with the dreaded boredom was the madness of the half-remembered and totally unwelcome emotions that Sam’s blood had stirred up inside of Crowley’s ancient psyche. Remorse, regret, even a soupçon, Lucifer help him, of repentance. The Three ‘R’s as they were never taught in Hell’s schools.
So when he heard footsteps approaching, he was inordinately grateful for the distraction. He immediately perked up, hoping he could have another prod or two at the wounded soul that was Kevin Tran. He was only marginally disappointed when his visitor turned out to be the equally deliciously battered Dean Winchester. There really was an embarrassment of riches in damaged souls round here.
“Squirrel! To what do I owe the pleasure? Had a falling out with your ‘soul mate’ the not-so-jolly, not-so-green giant? Got to say, you look a little bit rough round the edges.”
Rough was a huge understatement. Crowley watched as Dean ignored his pleasantries (nothing new there) and made his way to the far side of the chamber. The man was moving as slowly as an eighty year old with chronic arthritis, his left arm held tight across his stomach like a barrier. Or as if it was there to stop his guts spilling onto the concrete floor. Crowley raised one brow. Interesting.
Things got even more interesting when Dean turned around. He shuffled towards the chair in which Crowley had spent bloody eternity, chained and bound. Dean’s eyes were wide and flitting from one thing to another, but Crowley guessed from the way they darted about at random, that whatever Dean was seeing wasn’t visible in this reality. Crowley noted with some apprehension that Dean was now holding a wicked-looking, salt encrusted blade in one hand – looked like it was torture-time for demons. Strangely, the expression in Dean’s green eyes was not menace, or even his usual simmering anger. It was fear, and just possibly resignation.
“Well, this is new, Squirrel,” Crowley said, keeping his tone light and conversational while carefully tracking Dean’s progress. The hunter stalked around Crowley’s chair as if he was a caged animal scoping the confines of its prison. Which was ironic, given it was Crowley who was the one tied up here. Crowley barely suppressed his indignation.
Dean didn’t seem conscious of the need to keep his distance or to stay outside the boundaries of the Devil’s Trap, and now Dean was so close, Crowley could smell the metallic tang of fresh blood with a hint of something else, as bitter as rue. Intriguing. Dean’s face was pale and beaded with sweat, and even though his gaze was now fixed on Crowley, it didn’t seem as though Dean was actually seeing him. The mystery of what was going on inside Dean’s head was solved in the next second. Crowley was left wishing he’d remained in a state of blissful ignorance when Dean’s knife slid expertly into Crowley’s thigh at the point where it would cause the most pain to the demon’s meat suit.
It seemed that Dean’s reputation as one of Alastair’s most accomplished pupils had not been undeserved.
Crowley was glad for the sake of his reputation that the warding on the Men of Letters’ Bunker meant that no demon within fifty miles would be able to hear him scream.
Kevin wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, but somehow between the two of them, they’d managed to get Sam out of the angel-warded library and safely into his room, where Kevin was going to have to extract the crossbow bolt. Kevin tried not to freak out at how pale Sam was, or how badly his long limbs were trembling by the time they got him onto his bed. Or about exactly how Kevin was going to get that fucking bolt out of Sam’s leg. So when Sam sent Kevin to the kitchen to fetch boiling water, the obligatory towels and of course, knives, he was glad of the excuse to run away, even though he knew it was only a temporary respite.
As Kevin rummaged around the drawers looking for the finest, sharpest blade he could find and filling the room with steam from the ancient urn-thing that passed for a kettle in Men of Letters Land, he thanked the God he no longer believed in that he had used an armour-piercing bolts instead of one of the hunting style broad-heads. That would have been impossible to get out without leaving a fist-sized hole. He just hoped the tip of the bolt hadn’t lodged in Sam’s femur. It would have been so nice to have been able to deal with this like normal people do, just this once. Like being able to dial 911 and go to, you know, a freaking hospital when injured.
The last thing he expected on his return to the bedroom was to find Sam Winchester sitting on the edge of his bed. Sam held the bloodied bolt in one hand, while the other was clasped down hard over the now empty hole in his thigh. There was an uncharacteristic expression of benign calm on his face.
“You…you just pulled it out? Are you insane? No…wait. Don’t answer that.” Kevin laid down his armful of supplies, which were apparently now redundant, and reluctantly approached Sam. Who was still staring at him with that peculiarly blank expression. The man was probably in shock, Kevin thought.
“Here, let me have a look. You could have done so much damage just yanking it straight out like that…”
“I am fine, Kevin,” Sam said, stopping Kevin in his tracks. “The bolt had not penetrated as deeply as we feared. See? It is merely a flesh wound.”
Sam lifted his slightly bloody hand to show him. Kevin had to agree on closer inspection that the hole in Sam’s leg didn’t look that deep, and there was far less blood than Kevin had expected. Sam didn’t seem to be showing much sign of his earlier concussion either, which had Kevin not been so relieved, he might have found strange. As it was, when Sam told him he could take his carefully selected knives back to the kitchen, he was more than happy to comply.
Of course, one crisis averted only meant it was time for the next one to arrive, right? Because Kevin Tran’s life sucked that much. He had barely put the knives back in the drawer when the bunker’s quiet was rent by a terrible scream. He ran into the corridor in time to see Sam emerge from his room and run – yes, the man was suddenly able to not only stand and walk on that injured leg, but fucking sprint like Usain Bolt – in the direction of the dungeon.
Kevin stood stock still for a moment, seized by indecision. Surely Sam could handle this - whatever the hell it was - on his own. Sam was clearly feeling fighting fit, and however weird this sudden recovery was, Kevin didn’t have it in him to delve too deeply at the moment. He was worn too thin, fragile and see-through as a piece of Saran wrap. These Winchesters and their constant battles, it was all too much. Kevin thought about just picking up his bag and walking out of the Bunker; about what it would be like to be free – and that’s where his once agile brain stalled. He couldn’t even remember what it had felt like to be Kevin Tran, Advanced Placement; what it had been like to have nothing to worry about except excelling at … well, anything that wasn’t translating a language that was only spoken by angels.
So when he found himself following Sam towards the danger instead of running away, he wasn’t surprised. Of course, he immediately wished he had fled in the opposite direction, when an overpowering stench of sulphur and blood hit him on arrival at the open doors to Crowley’s prison.
The tableau that met his eyes was like something out of a Greek tragedy, or one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest plays.
“Give me the knife, Dean,” Sam was saying, in his calmest, most reasonable voice, the one Dean said Sam used on old ladies to coax information out of them. His hand was outstretched, palm up to receive the offending weapon, but Dean showed no sign that he saw it, or that he’d even heard Sam speak.
Dean was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall. His long legs were sprawled out in front of him and he was humming something Kevin couldn’t quite make out. Kevin felt he could be excused for not playing guess the song though. He was too distracted watching Dean toying with a knife that had once been bright steel, but was now so gore encrusted it was barely distinguishable from the bloody hand that held it. Kevin was mesmerised by the speed the blade was moving, stabbing between the spread fingers of Dean’s left hand, then outlining Dean’s thigh, then back to the hand again, as if he was challenging himself to a game of skill or chance. How long before he tired and made a mistake?
“Dean,” Sam tried again, but Dean took no notice. Stab, jab, stab…occasionally the knife blade would slip and the metal would make an unpleasant screech as it skidded on the concrete floor. Kevin winced at how perilously close it came to slicing into Dean’s leg.
“He can’t hear you, Moose.”
Crowley’s croak was almost inaudible, but it made Kevin jump. The King of Hell was such a mess Kevin had assumed he must be dead. Reluctantly, Kevin tore his gaze away from Dean himself to take a closer look at Dean’s handiwork. Crowley’s clothing was ripped to shreds. His exposed torso was nothing but a mass of cuts, but the hardest thing to look at was Crowley’s face. Dean had sliced into one cheek so deeply Kevin could see jawbone and teeth showing through the loose flap of flesh, and Crowley’s left eye dangled from its socket, only held in place by the exposed optic nerve. Kevin fought down the urge to throw up.
Sam ignored Crowley, but the demon kept talking, even though it must have hurt like Hell (and wasn’t that ironic?). His words kept getting swallowed up in nasty gurgles and strange whistling noises as his facial muscles failed to work as they should.
“Poor Squirrel. He thinks he’s in Hell, you know. Now he’s trying to decide whether he should turn the knife on himself, but it won’t help, will it Dean? Nothing stops the pain…”
Dean’s movements grew more frenetic at Crowley’s words, and before Sam could react, Dean viciously stabbed the blade down, with enough force that it impaled his left hand to the floor. Kevin might have emitted a girly squeak at that, but Dean’s expression barely changed. The only difference was he went utterly still, as if the act of affixing his own hand to the floor had flipped an off-switch in his head. Even the humming stopped.
Kevin was as frozen as Dean, but Sam reacted. Sam sprang forward with a speed and grace that made a nonsense of the fact he’d recently been shot in the leg. Kevin shook his head. These Winchesters were a total mystery to him, always confounding expectations. Kevin prepared for his usual role of helpless bystander, as events unfolded before him.
Sam carefully pulled out the knife, throwing it into a far corner, out of reach. He had one arm around Dean’s shoulder, and was trying to stem the blood flow from Dean’s injured hand, but his brother’s only reaction was to start a gentle rocking motion, while mumbling something that made Sam turn pale. Dean was talking so softly Kevin couldn’t quite make out the words. Curious, Kevin moved closer to the two Winchesters, until finally he could hear what Dean was saying that had Sam looking so pained. Dean was rocking backwards and forwards, repeating the same words over and over.
“Not real, not real, not real.”
Back when Kevin was in High School, his Mom had made him join a volunteer program – Mom had told him this bunch of teenagers were organised into a force for the greater good. They did stuff like helping clean up litter in the local park, doing shopping for the old folks, that sort of thing. It wasn’t exactly the super-hero type of greater good Kevin had been anticipating when he joined up, but he hadn’t minded so much. One time the group had visited the Lakeside psychiatric hospital. Kevin couldn’t recall exactly what the purpose of their mission of mercy had been, but he did vividly remember seeing into a room where an elderly man had been behaving exactly like Dean was doing now. A psychiatric nurse walking past must have seen Kevin’s shocked expression. The nurse had stopped to put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder and led him away.
“Fred’s stuck inside his own head. It’s some nightmare he used to have when he was young. Sometimes something unfamiliar will help snap him out of it, but often nothing works, and we have to wait for him to find his own way.”
Looking at Dean and Sam, Kevin didn’t think Dean was going to find his own way, and maybe Sam was just too familiar…Before he could think of all the reasons he should never interfere in Winchester affairs, Kevin stepped forward into Dean’s space.
Dean was being driven crazy. Crazier. Whatever. The demon that Dean had tortured would not stop fucking talking, irritating him with its stupid British accent and mocking words. It had been a tactical error on Dean’s part not to have cut its tongue out first, instead of going for the eyes. Then, of course, Sam arrived. Alastair never failed to roll out Sam in one form or another before the end of each session. Fucking awesome.
This Sam was older than the usual Sams Alastair created to torment him. This one looked more careworn, had longer hair, more stubble. But it was still pretend-Sam, and as such, had to be ignored, not matter how realistic the tone of voice. This one had perfected that slightly exasperated concern that was his Sam’s speciality, and the sincerity of its gaze was hard to turn his back on, but Dean did his best.
“Your best isn’t good enough though, is it, son? It never was.” John didn’t step out of the shadows, but his voice carried as it always had, finding its way into Dean’s darkest corners. “You tried so hard, but you were always weak. Inadequate. Such a disappointment.”
Dean’s mantra almost changed from not real to shut up, shut up, but he knew it didn’t matter. No matter what he said or did, he couldn’t make things right. He could never make things right.
The pain as he stabbed the knife through his hand had barely registered. He gave out a half moan, half wail of frustration when the Sam-a-like confiscated his blade, and pulled Dean in close so that he was pressed up against a wall of heated muscle that felt and smelled just like the real thing, and wasn’t that a kick in the nuts. It was all too much, and though he knew resistance was a waste of effort, he started to struggle against the not-Sam’s suffocating hold, as his own tenuous hold on reality shifted and slipped away.
“Dean.”
A new voice intruded into Dean’s consciousness. One that didn’t belong here; one that he’d never heard in Hell.
“Dean, can you hear me? Look at me.” The voice demanded, and two small cool hands gripped either side of his head, stilling his motion, forcing him to look dead ahead into dark, fierce, almond shaped eyes.
Dean stared as individual features slowly resolved into a person. Dean knew that face. It was the kid they’d ripped from college ambitions and a promising future. The one they’d proceeded to drive half mad in the name of some cause Dean couldn’t quite grasp the importance of right now. What has his name? Kevin Tran. Dean prodded his psyche, watched the bruises form. Yeah, the guilt was still all there, as was Dean’s instinctive urge to guard and protect sparked by Kevin’s little brother persona.
Gradually other details filtered through into Dean’s brain – there was the smell of damp concrete and the iron tang of fresh blood; a fainter scent of sweat and herbal shampoo that spoke of Sam; the throb of pain coming from his wounded hand where it was clamped tightly in Sam’s huge fist; the fiercer burning waves that were emanating from his injured stomach. The chill of the draught coming through the open dungeon doors on the tracks of tears on his cheeks. The twinge of embarrassment at the thought that everyone in the room had witnessed him having some sort of fucking meltdown.
“Fuck, Sammy. You’d better not be cuddling me right now.”
Dean was a little shocked at how hoarse his voice sounded. He really hoped he hadn’t been screaming.
Sam’s arms round Dean’s torso didn’t relax their grip, but Dean felt Sam’s breath moist and warm as a Chinook as Sam huffed exasperation down the back of Dean’s neck. It was gross and kind of awesome, all at the same time. Not that Dean would ever have admitted the latter, of course.
Senses sharpened, Dean finally became aware that Sam’s stiffness wasn’t all down to keeping big brother under control. Something was wrong. He could see a dark patch on the leg of Sam’s jeans, recognised the signs of an injury. Concern ran through his veins like an injection of Ritalin, and he made the mistake of trying to sit up straight to see better. Which had the net result of ensuring he saw nothing at all, as the resultant pain knocked him right out.
“Is he…?” Kevin asked, hesitant. Sam shook his head.
“He’s fine, or he will be. He’s just passed out. Come on, help me get him up and out of here.”
Kevin rushed to assist; though to be honest, Sam was strong enough to lift Dean on his own, in spite of his own injuries. Sure enough, once upright, Sam simply lifted his brother into his arms like a child, and carried Dean out of the dungeon. Kevin followed.
“Hey!” Crowley yelled, outraged. “What about me? You can’t leave me here like this!”
Kevin grimaced when he looked back to where the demon was waving his manacles at his grotesque, carved-up face. It was not a pretty sight. Sam on the other hand didn’t even bother turning his head, and kept on walking.
“You’re the King of Hell,” Sam said, “fix yourself or don’t fix yourself, I couldn’t care less.”
A large part of Kevin felt like applauding, while the rest scurried after the Winchesters as fast as possible to avoid any demonic fall out. Of course, he wouldn’t have been so eager to follow Sam if he’d realised all Sam wanted from him was more research. Before Sam had even laid Dean down on the bed, he was barking out instructions that Kevin found himself following without a single word of protest. As usual, it was an emergency – and when was it NOT an emergency, after all?
Kevin ransacked the Men of Letters’ library in the search for treatments for chimera poison, muttering to himself as he did so about ingratitude and the uncanny propensity shown by Winchesters in finding the worst in every situation.
He found the right references quickly, and even managed point Sam to where the ingredients were stored, but by the time Sam had the copper bowl on the table and was grinding the dried frog’s heart into powder, Kevin was starting to crash. The last of the uppers had oozed their way out of his pores, and his body was suddenly cognisant of the fact he’d been awake some twenty-four hours longer than a body should be awake for.
Kevin dropped about ten gears. He went from buzzing high-speed mode to doddering around like one of the walking dead, all in a matter of minutes. He toyed with the idea of taking another couple of pills, but his body had clearly decided enough was enough, because before he could put that thought into action, his legs were folding underneath him, and he found himself sitting on the floor.
Oh well, that settled that then. Must be nap time. He leaned his head back against the wall that was conveniently supporting his back, and closed his eyes.
Sam wrinkled his nose at the strong stench coming from the bowl as he added the final ingredient to the recipe for treating Dean’s poisoned wounds.
“And a pinch of ground peppercorns? Really? This had better work, Kevin,” he said, pounding the mixture with the marble pestle. The Men of Letters’ kitchen was well equipped for all kinds of cooking, Sam would give them that. Puzzled by Kevin’s silence after the hours of constant brain dumping, Sam glanced around only to discover the Prophet had checked out on him.
“Huh.” Just as well Sam’s concussion wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, as it was apparent he wasn’t going to get any more assistance from Kevin. The kid’s head was tipped back at an awkward angle where he was propped against the wall, and he was already starting to snore. Sam made a note to come back and sort the kid out once he’d finished applying this disgusting poultice to his brother’s wounds. Then he’d have to see about scrubbing off that Enochian graffiti Kevin had scrawled all over the Bunker entrance and war room. Maybe angel-proofing their refuge would have been a good idea at any other time, but at the moment, Kevin’s impromptu decorations could possibly keep out one of the only friends they had left - if and when Castiel finally found his way from Colorado.
Sam hesitated for a moment, the bowl of smelly anti-chimera paste in his hands temporarily forgotten, arrested by the fact that he was more worried about the thought of seeing Cas again than whether their friend would survive the journey unscathed, given the former angel’s newly human state. And surely, any angel protection would have no effect on Castiel now?
But before he could latch onto them, these troublesome thoughts slipped away and dissolved as if they had never existed. What was he doing standing here when Dean needed him? Sam shook his head. Holding firmly onto the bowl so as not to spill a drop of the noxious mix, he hurried through to Dean’s room.
0x0x0x0
In the thin mountain air of Colorado, Castiel deliberately crashed a car, then killed an angel named Hael. Elsewhere, Metatron watched and smiled, while frightened fallen angels fought each other because they didn’t know what else to do.
Nestled deep inside Sam, the angel Dean knew as Ezekiel was spread thin, the ache from his broken wings dull but all pervasive. Healing Sam Winchester was always going to be a hard task, but the angel had not expected this continual compounding of injuries, the adding of new wounds that required mending, nor the additional drain on his depleted resources that had been required to protect himself from the presence of Kevin’s wards and banishing symbols. The need to stay continually alert to what was happening around Sam was also a strain he hadn’t anticipated, but now, with Dean and Kevin unconscious, and Sam’s recent, inconvenient memories taken care of, the renegade angel thought that perhaps he could rest for a while.
Leaving the thinnest of threads connecting him to Sam’s consciousness, the angel drifted.
0x0x0x0
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no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 02:34 pm (UTC)And thank you for everything!
no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 03:19 pm (UTC)Anytime, feel free to ping me *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 02:49 pm (UTC)You captured Kevin's voice so well, and I enjoyed seeing the repercussions of the uppers.
I liked too how you hinted throughout about Gadreel's presence, and also how you dealt with Dean's state of mind during his chimera poisoning.
Thank you for sharing! :)
no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 08:52 pm (UTC)Plus this line: The Three ‘R’s as they were never taught in Hell’s schools. was awesome.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-29 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-29 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 02:07 pm (UTC)I loved how Gadreel's feeling were filtering through to Sam's because he was stretched so thin. Sam's injuries and Dean's Hellucinations kept the tension incredibly high, and I even found myself feeling a little sorry for Crowley. No one was left unscathed. Loved it!
no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-31 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-03 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-03 07:35 pm (UTC)Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2014-11-03 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-11 01:57 am (UTC)And AJ's art was amazing. I love the animated pieces for all of them, but the Kevin/Crowley was is especially creeepy.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-11 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 04:50 pm (UTC)And I loved the " he was prodigiously high. Fuck yeah. " part, LOL that whole paragraph was funny! :-)
And oh I also loved the description of what kinda damage Dean did to Crowley, yuck, but way cool! :-)
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 08:32 pm (UTC)