Chapter Seven "An Even Trade"

"You know, the fact that you two are human now means I can shoot you, and you'll shut up."

Kevin is rewarded by a sharp silence. It's not as if he would carry out his threat. He can't even fire a gun, much less hit anything with it. Dean had tried to teach him once, but it didn't go well. Still, the sudden interjection into the constant chatter achieves the desired effect. Cas and Crowley stare at Kevin expectantly, and perhaps a little worried.

"I'm almost into the security cameras, so can you just be quiet for two seconds, and we'll figure out what's going on?"

"What's the point?" Cas says. He speaks in the most pathetic, defeated tone that Kevin almost feels sorry for him. Until he remembers that no one else will give him the same consideration.

"Stop acting like this is already over," Kevin says. "Dean's never given up on any of us, so we're not gonna give up on him. Now sit down, and shut up until I tell you to do something."

Crowley is a bit less compliant, but Cas is almost too obedient. Kevin can't keep thinking about how the former angel has already given up. Dean must be in some kind of trouble, and they're all going to have to be on top of things if they're going to help him.

The silence lasts long enough for Kevin to finish hacking into the camera feeds of the supermarket and surrounding traffic cameras. He searches the footage for the proper time when Dean might have been there, and he is rewarded by the familiar sight of the Impala.

"There!" Kevin exclaims. "Told you!" He feels a bit like a child now, but compared to the others, he kind of still is.

"Can I talk now?" Crowley says.

"Is it possible to stop you?" Kevin snarks back.

Crowley ignores it. "Assuming you've found our missing Winchester, are you able to determine his current location?"

After a few keystrokes, Kevin realizes that's a negative. "No," he says, deflating slightly. "He goes into a bar with this girl, and he never comes out. Which is impossible because he can't have been in there for two days."

"Angels." Cas says, suddenly standing.

"What?" Crowley replies, looking up at him with a bored expression.

Cas moves around the table to get a look at Kevin's computer screen. "Where's the girl? What did she look like?"

Kevin pulls up the best view of the girl in the supermarket parking lot.

Cas shakes his head. "She can't be an angel because Dean's warded, but she could be something else."

"Something like...?" Crowley says.

"There are a lot of things that can track humans, mostly likely a rogue reaper. They're easily bought."

"But why?" Kevin says, still not putting the pieces together. What could the angels want with Dean now?

"Me." It's almost as if Cas read Kevin's mind.

Then he does put it together. "Because you were part of the spell that locked Heaven. They're using Dean to get to you?"

"Know what that means?" Crowley asks with a glint in his eyes, but Kevin and Cas just look at him in confusion. "Dean's still alive."

The thought sends a thrill of hope reverberating throughout the whole room it seems. But Kevin still has misgivings.

"That doesn't tell us how to find him."

"It's quite simple really," Cas says in that same defeated voice. "We trade."

The thought of giving Cas to those crazy bastards, even to save Dean's life seems every level of wrong in Kevin's mind.

"Well, there is one other option," Crowley says, almost lazily.

"What's that?" Cas replies with obvious skepticism.

"A simple location spell would be the start to a good rescue."

Kevin glares at Crowley, not sure if he hates him more now than he ever did before. "Why didn't you say so?"

"When we thought he was dead, the whole thing would just have blown up in our faces and confirmed what we already knew. I thought it best to wait and see what you came up with. It was always possible he was alive somewhere, but I didn't want to find out he wasn't that way."

"It would have saved us a lot of time," Cas says.

"And you would have said it didn't matter because you thought he was dead too. Can we move on? All we need are some basic ingredients, which should be easy to find in this place, and something of Dean's like hair. So, you check the shower drain, and I'll get the rest."

Crowley leaves the room with a bit of a spring in his step as if he's actually looking forward to this, and Kevin suggests that Cas try Dean's comb first.

~oOo~

It is a point of personal pride for Crowley that he manages to maintain a somewhat carefree facade in the face of his current situation. There is the small matter of bickering with the bloody angel, but it's not as if he would actually do anything to Castiel now. It would be at cross purposes with what seems to be everyone's objective—namely, keeping Dean alive. Crowley is clever enough to have realized that it is the angel alone, not Kevin, and certainly not himself, that keeps Dean from becoming rather more reckless than is strictly speaking healthy.

Crowley had hit on the issue some weeks before in the garage. Not that he or Dean had said so in so many words, nor ever would, but it was clear enough. Which makes things all the more complicated seeing as the angels want Castiel dead, and it has suddenly become Crowley's job to ensure they don't succeed because Dean was stupid enough to get himself captured. Which is one thing Crowley is certainly not calm about, whatever his more public attitude may indicate. Dean cannot die, and because of that, neither can Castiel. Which makes the angels' inevitable move to trade one for the other a problem to which Crowley sees one answer. And it's an answer he likes because the sheer backstabbing nature of it makes him feel like his old self again. He knows it will be difficult to convince Kevin, though Castiel will probably agree too quickly because he's only thinking about saving Dean, to the point of offering to sacrifice himself. Crowley will never admit that he almost stopped hating the former angel at that point.

After gathering the supplies he needs for a location spell, Crowley returns to the library where Castiel has already returned, holding a few light hairs in the palm of his hand as if they're alive.

"Excellent," Crowley says, just to keep up the ruse that he's completely unperturbed by any of this. He sets up the map and begins to mix the other items. At some point, Castiel reluctantly drops the hairs into the mixture and everything is ready. Crowley wastes no time in lighting a match and watching to see where the spell will lead them.

"I'm not good with maps," Castiel says, "but that doesn't look very far away."

"It isn't," Kevin replies. "Hang on a second." He types the coordinates into his computer and comes up with an unfinished house in an abandoned subdivision. "Looks like the contractor must have run out of money. This place is completely empty."

"A good place to come and go without being seen," Castiel says. "But there's no way we can get in without them seeing us."

"Again, I have a brilliant plan," Crowley says, sensing his moment.

Kevin gives him an annoyed look. "Sure you do."

"Please." Crowley puts his hand over his heart dramatically. "I happen to think it's the best way to save Dean. That is the point of all this, isn't it?"

Castiel frowns. "What is this plan?"

"Easy. Being the blundering imbeciles angels always are, they won't suspect anything amiss if I offer to trade you for Dean."

"Because it sounds like something you would do," Kevin says.

"Precisely. It would get both of us inside and close to Dean where we can stage our grand rescue. Nothing to it."

"Except that we don't know how many there are," Castiel says. "And need I remind you that we're both human now? I doubt we're much of a match for even a few angels."

Crowley smirks. "Sam and Dean subverted the whole lot of you."

Castiel gets a very dark look in his eyes that is actually somewhat frightening. "We are not Sam and Dean."

The meaning is twofold, and Crowley picks up on that. One, that Castiel does not appreciate the comparison, and two, that he and Crowley don't have the same skills and determination and strength of character and all that nonsense.

"Do you want to just sit here then?" Crowley says. "I don't see any other options that don't include someone actually dying, which I thought we were trying to avoid."

"What do you care?" It's a challenge that Crowley is certain Castiel has been wanting to make ever since this whole thing started.

Perhaps a bit of honesty is merited at this point. "Dean could have killed me, but he didn't. I pay my debts."

The accusation is clear, and Crowley knows he's won the argument. There is still a debt, an unpayable one between them. The only reason they aren't killing each other right now is that somehow, they both matter to Dean, and it would upset him. It's possible that Dean might forgive Castiel if he did something nasty to Crowley, but Dean would be more likely to shoot Crowley the second he knew he'd done anything to Castiel. A bit unfair, in Crowley's opinion, but he doesn't get to make these decisions. He can only work with what he has on hand, and at the moment, that means teaming up with the one person in the universe he truly hates.

~oOo~

Dean's not sure at what point he falls asleep, wakes, sleeps, wakes again. He has no concept of time in this windowless, empty room. The angels haven't come through in a long time. Dean is starting to recognize the signs of hunger and dehydration, but more than anything, he is exhausted from standing so long. When he falls asleep, his weight rests on his arms, which are now burning from the exertion.

How long has it been? A day? Two? Does it even matter?

Dean shakes himself. He can't start thinking like that now. He has to focus. He may be a captive, but he's still got a mission. It ain't over yet.

Usually, these sort of thoughts would help Dean to come up with some sort of plan or at least work up the energy to struggle and shout a little, but he can't seem to find that in himself now. He's not giving up. No way in Hell that's happening. But maybe he's not giving it the same effort he used to because that's just not in him anymore. It never will be.

There's always been something missing, something empty in Dean. Something other people had that he just didn't. It never mattered as long as he had Sam to make up the difference. Dean remembered telling his brother once that they kept each other human. He was probably right. Dean's sure not feeling very human right now. He's not sure what he feels like, but everything seems to have been leading to this. His violent thoughts, his lack of concern for anyone outside of Cas.

And that's when Dean knows that whatever part of him is holding onto that shred of humanity will be obliterated if anything happens to his only friend. It doesn't seem as noble as the cause Dean used to fight for—or thought he was—but it's all he has, and it will do. Dean's not gonna die here, and neither is Cas. So whether he feels like it or not, he's gotta start coming up with a plan.

But would it kill them to give him a drink of water? A snack maybe? Dean doesn't think well on an empty stomach. He doesn't think all that well in general, but he's passable when he's well fed. As it stands, he can't seem to think of any angle, anything his captors would want more than Cas dead. There's no bargaining, no dealing. Dean doesn't have anything they want. He's useless to save his friend.

It's a feeling Dean is all too familiar with, and he's not in the mood to wallow in it. So, he does the only thing he can think of. He pulls a the chains, just a little, and in the right direction that, after a million years, he might start to weaken their anchor points in the wall. It's not much, but it's all he can do.

And in case anyone is listening, he sings at the top of his lungs, very badly, just to be annoying.


I am very excited to say that I am working on chapter eleven right now, and I have finally figured out how to make an em-dash in Google Docs. The latter might not seem all that important, but I feel that the use of certain punctuation can affect the feel of a sentence and thus, the effect on the reader. Those little hyphens just weren't doing it for me. Anyway, thanks for all the comments and such. I really appreciate hearing from everyone.