Kevin heaped a small mountain of papers onto the table. Each sheet was covered in bizarre words and symbols, most of it in languages Nell couldn't even recognize, let alone read.
Sam looked at Kevin skeptically. "That's your 'big news'? You translated the tablet into… doodles?"
There was an underlying derisive tone in Sam's voice that Nell didn't appreciate. The Winchesters asked a lot of Kevin, and the kid worked hard. Harder than he should, a lot of the time.
"This is some sort of cuneiform, isn't it?" Nell asked, because it looked vaguely like some old examples she'd seen in textbooks, and because she wanted Kevin to know that at least she appreciated how hard he was working on all of this.
"Yeah, it is," Kevin replied, looking a little relieved. His hands were clenching and unclenching, and trembling a little, like they weren't accustomed to being still after clutching a pen for so long.
"I hit a wall translating the tablet into English. But I found an ancient codex linking the Angel script to proto-Elamite cuneiform, and I was able to translate the tablet and the footnotes into Elamite, which is…" Kevin trailed off, looking a little uncertain now.
"Doodles," Dean repeated flatly. Nell bristled at the tone, and had to clench her jaw hard as Kevin's shoulders slumped.
"It's extinct," Kevin admitted.
Sam peered down at the scattered papers and frowned thoughtfully. "Well, can you read it?"
Kevin shook his head slowly. The excitement with which he'd brought the papers into the library had almost completely disappeared now, replaced with resigned exhaustion. Nell wanted very badly to hug him, or maybe punch Dean, but resisted both temptations. "No one can. Scholars have tried for centuries."
"So it's a dead end?" Dean slapped the papers on the table with a little more force than strictly necessary, frustration clear in every line of his body. Kevin started a little at the motion, and Nell's teeth itched with repressed irritation.
"Not quite," Kevin said, hope not entirely gone. "Now, most proto-Elamite is abstract, but I was able to decipher one phrase from Metatron's footnotes: 'Falling angels'."
Sam perked up visibly. "Okay, so, the footnotes refer to Metatron's spell?"
"Maybe." Kevin seemed to be caught between excitement and not getting his hopes up.
"Okay." Sam furrowed his brow, crossing the room on too-long legs to scan the books there intently, running his finger along spines and pulling out huge tomes. "Well, maybe if we can decipher the footnotes, then we can reverse the spell and…"
"Punt those winged dicks back to heaven," Dean completed, seeming to catch the excitement. He slapped the table eagerly. "Where do we start?"
Sam thunked a huge stack of books down on the table, looking grim. "Research." Dean's face fell. "We comb through the library, see if we can find anything else on Elamite."
Dean made a face at the book like it was a plate of steamed vegetables. "Zimmerman's Encyclopedia of Extinct Languages … Volume One: Adai to Atakapa. How many volumes are there?"
"24," Kevin answered, already cracking open a book. At Dean's horrified look, Kevin reassured him, "Don't worry, we've found them all."
"Awesome," Dean said, not sounding at all enthused. He cast a pleading look at his brother, who huffed and opened his own book. Forlorn, Dean began to open his own when his phone rang. His shoulders sagged in relief.
"There is a God," he muttered, walking a few paces away from the table to take the call.
Nell only listened with half an ear to Dean's stilted conversation with 'Cas'. She was too distracted by the buzzing anger heating her blood. She liked Sam and Dean well enough, but they were callous sometimes. They had spent far too long relying on each other and protecting each other at the expense of everyone else, and it showed in how they treated Kevin. It was bad enough that they let him work himself half to death trying to translate the damn angel tablet. Now, when Kevin finally made some sort of break in the translation, every other word out of their mouths was a complaint.
They hadn't complimented Kevin on the find. They hadn't even so much as thanked him. They'd just put another book in his hand and expected him to get back to work—and he had, because he was a good kid and he just wanted all of this to be over.
"Cas found a case," Dean said when the phone call ended. "I'm gonna go check it out."
He turned down the hallway towards his bedroom, presumably to pack a bag. Sam stared after him for a second, confused, then rose from the table. "Don't you mean we're gonna go check it out?" He followed his brother down the hall, leaving Nell and Kevin sitting alone at the table with piles of books and research.
Nell's teeth ground together. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to take a deep breath to calm down. This did not work.
"I'll be right back," Nell told Kevin softly, rising from the table herself. Kevin shrugged with the resigned apathy of someone who is utterly used to being left alone to do all the research on his own.
"So then, what's the point, Dean?" Sam was saying as Nell approached the open door to Dean's bedroom. Dean was tossing clothes into his bag haphazardly, and weapons with a little more care. "I mean, it's barely even a case."
Dean shrugged. "That's why I'm just gonna go have a little look-see, and … we're not gonna waste a whole lot of manpower on a big pile of nada."
Sam paused. Then, sourly, "So in other words, you're just looking for any excuse to bail on research."
"You got me," Dean said, utterly unapologetic.
Nell stopped in the doorway. She resisted the urge to fold her arms across her chest—it felt like that would be too distinctly feminine expression of anger, one that the brothers might use to dismiss her words as unreasonable and emotional.
Instead she kept her arms at her sides, her back straight, and said flatly, "You two are assholes."
Sam jerked a little in surprise, whirling to face her. Dean raised his eyebrows, apparently surprised at both the outburst and the language.
"What?" He asked, looking half-lost, half-amused. "What'd we do?"
"You treat Kevin like shit, is what you do." Nell's eyes were burning, and for once she was glad she couldn't cry anymore. The tears she wanted to shed in pure frustrated anger would have only made her seem less credible, she knew. "He's practically a zombie working on that damn tablet night and day, and when he finally comes up with a breakthrough, all you can do is bitch at him. And now, you're leaving."
"He translated the tablet into a dead language!" Dean protested, starting to grow defensively angry himself. "What the hell did you want us to do with that?"
"How about a Thank you, Kevin, for poring over a tablet for days and days and coming up with some sort of solution?"
"What 'solution'?" Dean ground out. "It's just another problem. You saw all those books."
"It's the first step to one, and it's the best thing you've got so far," Nell bit back sharply. "You don't give him any credit."
"I'll give him credit when he finds a way to get the angels back in heaven."
Sam opened his mouth then, and spoke in a soft, soothing tone. It must have been meant to placate her, but when combined with his next words it did the opposite.
"Nell, this is important." He opened his mouth to continue, but Nell cut him off.
"So is Kevin!" She shook her head, taking a step back and balling her hands into fists. She was getting too angry, and if she continued on like this she didn't know what she would do. She wanted to hurt them for hurting Kevin, and it took every ounce of restraint she had not to do so physically.
But the aggression had to slip out somehow, and before Nell could even process what a colossally bad idea it was, Nell muttered spitefully, "You're just like your father."
Silence. It was disbelieving silence at first—both men's eyes went wide with shock—but then it became thick with repressed anger.
"Where the hell do you get off?" Dean's voice was lower than Nell had ever heard it before. "What the hell do you know about our dad, huh?"
Nell swallowed, then glanced away. There would be no hiding it now. "...I read the Supernatural books."
"What?" Sam breathed the question in his shock, but his voice grew louder as he demanded, "When? How did you even know about those?"
"A few weeks ago." Nell paused to let that sink in before she said, "And they weren't hard to find. Did you really think I wouldn't at least Google you?"
It was not technically a lie. Nell did not want Sam and Dean to know that she had spoken to Crowley, much less that he had told her about the books and that she had listened to him and read them.
"Weeks," Sam repeated, sounding almost winded.
"So you know…" Dean trailed off.
"More than I ever wanted to know about you, frankly, yes," Nell finished. "I'm sorry for bringing it up, especially like that—but I stand by the sentiment. You two grew up in this. This has been your life, and you chose it, over and over again. You both had the chance to give it up, and you didn't. Kevin never had that choice. I'm sick of you treating him like a prophet instead of a human being. When was the last time you said a word to him that wasn't about the tablet? About what he can do for you? About what he has to do for the world, because you say so?"
"That's not fair," Dean started.
"No, it's not fair!" Nell said, voice rising. "It's not fair to him! You keep asking more and more of him, and you never even stop to say thank you! He works for hours on end, burdened by guilt, with you two making him feel like every death at the hands of an angel is his fault!"
"He is the only one who can stop this!" Dean shouted back. "We need him to decode that tablet, and end it!"
"WOULD YOU ALL STOP FIGHTING?"
Nell shut her mouth. Kevin just beyond her in the hall, looking tired.
"I'm right here." He looked between all three of them, and apparently decided he didn't have the energy to deal with their argument. He jerked his head back toward the library. "...This Elamite isn't going to translate itself."
Dean left without another word. Sam, Kevin, and Nell all returned to the library and sat down to research in tense silence.
They were at it for hours. When Sam and Kevin started to sigh heavily and rub their eyes, Nell got up to put on a pot of coffee and returned with two cups of a strong, dark brew and a small plate heaped with blueberry muffins. Sam shot her a grateful look, while Kevin's hand snaked out to grab a muffin seemingly of its own accord. His eyes never left the page he was scanning unblinkingly.
Nell did her best to scan the volumes she'd been assigned, but she couldn't find even the barest mention of Elamite, let alone anything that would prove useful to them in translating Kevin's scribblings. While Nell didn't tire physically anymore, she did tire mentally, and she valued the brief breaks afforded to her by coffee and snack runs when the words on the pages all seemed to meld together into one opaque, nonsensical mass.
Maybe eight hours later, Sam's phone rang. He stood up from the table and walked a few paces away so as not to disturb Kevin's manic page-flipping. Nell, however, leaned back in her chair and shamelessly eavesdropped on the conversation.
"Yeah, we're almost through the texts over here," Sam paused, sighing. "We got nothing."
"Have you tried Professor Morrison?" Dean asked. Sam had. He'd ducked away at one point and spent nearly 45 minutes on the phone trying to get in touch with the man, to no avail.
"Yeah, he's unreachable. He took a sabbatical to live amongst the Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea. Needless to say, we're pretty burnt."
Dean was quiet for a moment before saying, determined, "Well, there's one guy there who is nothing if not well-rested."
Sam paused a moment, then straightened. "Crowley?"
Kevin stiffened at the name. Nell ducked her head into her book to hide the shameful, near-Pavlovian response she had to the demon's name.
"I'm just saying we're not keeping him chained up for the one-liners," Dean said, tone practical.
Sam shrugged, though he didn't seem too hopeful. "It's worth a shot, I guess."
"Just be careful, alright?" Dean warned, all brotherly concern. "Don't fall for any of his 'quid pro quo' crap."
"Noted. So, what about you? How's Cas's lead panning out?"
"Four victims suddenly exploded. I tried EMF. I've looked for hex bags, sulfur—nada."
"Spontaneous combustion?" Sam guessed. "Maybe the Thule?"
"No, no, no. I already ruled them out. The bodies were vaporized. They weren't burned."
"That sounds like a real case." Sam sounded concerned. "Dean, I should be there."
"Naw, man," Dean said, a little too quickly. "That's—uh… not necessary." Was he trying to sound suspicious? "No, I, uh—I got this one covered." Dean hung up without further conversation, leaving Sam to stare at his phone in puzzlement.
"Is he cheating on you, or something?" Nell joked. Sam's face contorted in disgust for a moment, but then he returned to scowling at his phone.
"I don't know what's up with him lately. I feel like he's trying to hide something, but I can't imagine what it could be about..." A deep line appeared between Sam's brow. "This thing with the angels is too important to be keeping secrets."
Nell remembered, suddenly and uncomfortably, how Dean had asked her not to mention anything to Sam about the sick smell that still lingered around him. Were the two things connected?
"Did you say Crowley before?" Kevin asked flatly, interrupting Sam's brooding.
"Uh, yeah," Sam nodded. "If he can read Enochian, maybe he can read Elamite." Sam shrugged. "It's worth a shot."
Kevin looked mutinous for a moment, but then he caught sight of the mess of books and papers on the table. He sighed heavily. "Okay. We'll ask Crowley."
Sam cleared his throat softly. "How about I ask Crowley?"
Kevin relaxed back in his chair. "Yeah, okay. That sounds good." Sam plodded off down the hall. Kevin leaned forward on the table, seemed to consider reading, and then simply gave up, resting his head on the large book and drifting off into a light doze. Nell propped her head in her hand and listened.
Sam opened the doors to the dungeon. There was a soft rattling of chains as Sam entered, then a scraping of metal and a crinkle of paper. "Can you read this? Elamite?"
A pointed, muffled clearing of a throat.
"It's a simple yes or no, Crowley." A long, stubborn silence. Sam huffed. "Fine." There was a rustle of fabric.
Crowley grumbled, voice no longer muffled. "A gag? Really? Isn't it a little much?"
"With you? Nothing is too much."
"Oh, Moose. You're making me blush."
Sam crinkled the paper again, voice impatient. "Can you read Elamite or not?"
"It's by no means my favorite of the ancient tongues, but yes," Crowley drawled. His confidence and poise seemed unaffected by being locked up in a dungeon for weeks.
"Will you help us read it?" Sam asked immediately.
"Why on earth would I?"
Sam paused, then said, voice fierce, "Because I was there that night. I saw what humanity did to you." Crowley scoffed, though his heart rate was elevated a little. "Like it or not, there's still a little part of you that's not a douche."
"Sorry, Moose. To the last drop."
There was a scrape of metal. Sam's voice took on the low, rough, dangerous quality Nell had heard when he threatened her with a knife. "Crowley, the only reason you're alive is because my brother thought you would be useful. So far you've done jack." Sam sighed. "Back to plan 'B,' I guess." The paper crinkled again and Sam began to walk away.
"Which is?" Nell could practically hear the eye-roll in the demon's voice.
"Give you up to Abaddon," Sam said frankly. Nell felt a little thrill of panic at that thought, for some reason. She decided not to think about it.
"You think you can threaten me with that hack?!" Crowley growled. Sam's steps paused. "She's all fury, no finesse."
"I'm not so sure," Sam said doubtfully. "Our last encounter with Abaddon, she was pretty terrifying. Scarier than you've been in years." Sam laughed a little.
Crowley was silent for a moment, then said, voice low, "Bring that to me."
Nell was initially amazed that Sam's transparent manipulation had been so successful. Sam walked back toward Cowley and handed him the paper. There was a small pause, and then a crinkling of chains and paper, and a soft impact. If Nell had to guess, she'd say Crowley crumpled up the paper and threw it at Sam.
Sure enough, Sam walked back down the hall toward the library, face a thundercloud. Kevin snapped out of his doze as Sam entered, and he looked unsurprised by the expression on Sam's face.
"That well, huh?"
Sam rolled his shoulders. "He won't read it right now, but give it a few hours, or days. He'll agree eventually."
Kevin looked doubtful, but apparently decided not to question Sam's logic.
"Well, since we're done reading and are now waiting out the stubbornness of a demon, why don't you two take a nap, or a shower, or both, and I'll get some dinner started?" Nell proposed brightly, returning the extinct language encyclopedias to their place on the library shelves.
Sam huffed a little, probably at her implication that he hadn't showered in over a day and smelled like it, but walked down the hall, apparently seeing the merit in her suggestion. Kevin stood slowly and stretched, moving to follow him, but paused in the doorway.
"Hey, Nell?" Nell looked at him, pausing in her clean up at the serious look on this face. "Thanks." The word was weighty and full of meaning, and it warmed something in Nell's chest where her heart used to beat.
"You're very welcome."
It wasn't until evening, when Kevin and Sam were eating pasta and Nell was putting a batch of cookies in the oven, that Crowley began to holler for 'Moose'.
"Sam," she called from the kitchen, removing her oven mitts and wondering, curiously, if touching a hot baking pan would even burn her now. She made a note to find out.
Sam swallowed his food before speaking, a courtesy she wished he could convince his brother to adopt. "Yeah?"
Nell tipped her head down the hall. "He's asking for Moose."
Sam grimaced, but scraped away from the table and disappeared down the hall. Nell listened to the now-familiar turning of locks and creaking of doors. Sam was silent as he entered the dungeon.
"I'll do it," Crowley said after a moment. "But I want something in return."
For Kevin's benefit, and because she didn't want to look like a lunatic staring intently down the hall and ignoring him, Nell quietly repeated Sam and Crowley's conversation for him.
"Yeah, what's that?" Sam did not sound in a mood to negotiate.
"A telephone call." Sam scoffed, apparently unwilling to even consider the idea. He began to walk out again. Crowley cried out after him, "Come on, Moose! Even Dahmer got one telephone call."
Crowley alternated bargaining and insults as Sam shut the doors behind him and made his way out into the main room. Despite his walking out on Crowley, he looked thoughtful.
"Who would he call?" Nell asked, curious who Crowley's phone-a-friend would be.
"Abaddon, probably." At Nell's blank look, Sam elaborated. "She's a Knight of Hell. One of the strongest, baddest demons out there. She's currently in a kind of war with Crowley over who gets to rule Hell. She's also the reason this bunker's so empty—" Sam gestured at the expansive place. "She killed all the living members of the society that created it."
All of this Nell already knew, although she nodded like this was new information. Abaddon's existence wasn't what puzzled her. "But if they're at war, why would he call her?"
"He probably wants to see whether she's managed to conquer hell while he's been locked up." Sam said. Nell nodded slowly, agreeing with that reasoning.
"Seriously?" Kevin bit out. "You want to let Crowley communicate with Abaddon? A king and a power-mad Knight of Hell isn't enough for you? You want to throw a demonic team-up into the mix?"
Sam shook his head, speaking slowly, as if he was just working out his thoughts out loud. "I don't think so. I mean, I don't trust Crowley, either. But I can't honestly see him working with Abaddon. He hates her too much."
Kevin grit his teeth. "You said it. You can't trust him."
"We don't have to," Sam insisted. "Look, Crowley's bound. We can end the call whenever we want. Even if he wanted to give Abaddon information, he has none to give her. He doesn't even know where the bunker is."
Kevin's lips were thin, eyes narrowed as he considered. Finally he asked, grudgingly, "He says he can decrypt the translation?" Sam nodded. "What if he's lying?"
"You're right," said Sam. "We're gonna need proof."
Kevin trailed Sam back down the hall. Nell paced the library and listened once more.
"Okay, Crowley," Sam said. "One phone call, after you've proven you can read Elamite." There was a small sound as the paper was presumably pushed across the table. "What are these?"
Crowley was quiet for a moment, then said, in a vague, taunting tone, "Ingredients."
"More specific," Sam said, frustrated.
"Ingredients…" The paper was shoved across the table again. "For a spell." The paper was shoved once more, and Crowley heaved a put-upon sigh. "Heart of a Nephilim. Cupid's bow. Grace of an angel." He sounded as bored as if he was reading a grocery list.
"And the rest of them," Kevin demanded.
"Phone call," Crowley said firmly. "You'll get the rest when I get paid. Now. Who's gonna be a dear and open up a vein?"
Nell turned to stare at the hallway, momentarily confused. Why the hell would one of them need to 'open up a vein' for a phone call? It took her a moment to remember from the books the demonic method of long-distance communication, and its need for a bowl of human blood. There was a small rustling, clunking sound, and Sam exhaled a short breath.
Crowley interrupted whatever was going on—Sam drawing his own blood, probably—with a noise of protest. Sam sighed through his nose, impatient. "What?"
"Not yours. His."
Kevin's heart began to pick up a bit. Sam asked stubbornly, "What difference does it make?"
"I've had yours. Stuck in here, you can't fault me for wanting a little variety."
"No way!" Kevin nearly shouted.
"What's wrong, Short Round?" Crowley taunted. "Afraid of needles?"
"No," Kevin said, voice cold, "I just have a policy of not giving blood to anyone who's murdered my mother."
"I," Crowley said lazily, unconcerned, "have nothing… but time."
"You're a dick," Sam said firmly. The rustling fabric sounded once more.
"Good luck with that translation," Crowley said lightly.
Kevin's heart rate picked up again. He huffed a frustrated breath, and picked something up with a clatter. A syringe, probably. Soon after, the sound of thick liquid emptying into a container sounded, and Crowley began chanting. Mysterious, murky whispers Nell couldn't understand followed.
"This is Crowley," he said, imperious. "Connect me to—" He paused, then repeated, annoyed, "Crowley!"
In an apparent aside to Sam and Kevin, Crowley muttered, "Bad connection."
Then, "Crowley. Your king." There was another pause. "If you don't connect me to Abaddon right away, I will be forced to—" Crowley cut off abruptly, heaving a frustrated, disbelieving breath.
"What?" Sam asked. "What happened?"
Sounding like he'd sucked on a lemon, Crowley replied, "I've been placed on hold."
There was a tense silence for several long minutes. Finally Sam asked, "How long does it take to transfer a demonic phone call?"
"Can it, Moose."
"Crowley, you got your call," Kevin said.
"Yeah, it's time," Sam agreed.
"It's time when I bloody well say it's time!" Crowley snapped, then fell silent as more eerie sounds emitted. In a much calmer tone of voice, Crowley greeted, "Hello, Abaddon."
Nell wouldn't hear Abaddon's reply, but Crowley drawled, "And how are the numbers?"
There was a long pause, and when Crowley spoke again his voice was simmering with suppressed anger.
"You're taking souls before their time. Voiding my contracts!" Abaddon must have said something more infuriating, because Crowley spluttered for a moment before growling, "You ganky, putrescent skanger. It may look like bean-counting to you, it may lack a certain adolescent flair—" Crowley's voice dripped in disdain. "But my way works. You think you can control Hell with chaos alone, without the support of those who are still loyal to me?!"
There was a long pause as Crowley listened to whatever Abaddon had to say. Finally, Crowley spoke quietly, his words more promise than threat. "Your way will backfire. You. Will. Burn."
There was a skittering sound as something scraped across the metal table. Crowley sighed.
"Crowley?" Sam asked, almost hesitant.
Resigned, Crowley spoke. "Bring me the translations. I keep my agreements." There was a shuffling of papers, and Crowley read them, voice dry. "Obtain the ingredients: heart, bow, Grace, blah, blah, blah.. Mix until the smoke shall rise from the ashes, casting the angels from heaven, blah, blah, oh." Crowley paused, sounding interested at last. "Hm. It's irreversible."
"What?" Sam asked, disbelieving.
"This spell can't be undone," Crowley said, seemingly happy to clarify the bad news. "The new world order—we're stuck with it."
Sam and Kevin looked defeated when they returned to the main room. Sam walked a few paces away to call Dean with an update while Kevin sank into a chair at the table.
"Your heard him, right?" Kevin asked, voice hollow. "How he said it's irreversible? Crowley can't be trusted, but I don't think he's lying about this."
"I heard him." Nell leaned back in her chair, thinking. "Getting them back to heaven isn't the real goal, though, right?" She asked, to clarify. "You just want them off Earth."
Kevin shrugged tiredly. "Where else would they go?"
Nell mirrored his shrug. "I don't know. But if the goal is to stop the angels off from creating chaos on Earth, maybe reversing the spell isn't the best way to go about it. Couldn't you send them somewhere else? Or, if not, then trap them in one place, where they couldn't hurt anybody?"
"That's…" Kevin looked pained.
"Actually not a bad idea," Sam completed, looking hopeful. He had finished his phone call, evidently. While Kevin muttered to himself about why didn't he think of that, Sam continued, "Even if the spell does turn out to be irreversible, if we can figure out some soft of a work-around…"
Sam turned to rifle through the books in the library with a renewed gleam in his eye. Kevin sighed and pushed away from the table. "Back to the tablet, then."
Nell watched the hunched set of Kevin's shoulders as he retreated down the hall with a frown. Sam returned from perusing the library with a thick stack of books, and without a word he slid a few toward Nell. She accepted them without complaint and got to reading.
Dean returned early the next morning. Sam had fallen asleep on one of the thick books on angel lore, and he snapped guiltily awake at the sound of the bunker door slamming. Dean plodded down the stairs, taking in Sam's tired gaze and Nell sitting stiffly at the table, books strewn about.
Dean looked at Nell, opened his mouth, and then seemed to remember that he was angry with her. He looked at his brother instead. "You look like hell, Sam."
"I'm fine," Sam lied immediately.
"He only got two hours of sleep," Nell tattled without shame, ignoring Sam's betrayed look and heaving herself up to put on a fresh pot of coffee.
"Alright, back to bed, Sammy," Dean ordered.
"Dean, I'm fine," Sam argued. "I've gone on less sleep than this before dozens of times, you've seen me. And this is important."
"Yeah, and those times you hadn't had your ass kicked by the trials," Dean groused. "You're still not fully recovered. Your precious books will still be here when you wake up. Now go get some sleep before you collapse."
Sam sighed, but obediently pushed away from the table. He paused at the entrance to the hallway, though. "Dean, you should know… to get Crowley to translate the Elamite, we had to let him make a phone call."
It took Dean a second to process what that meant. "You let him call Abaddon?"
"They're enemies, Dean. If we didn't know that before, the call kind of made that clear. But the thing is, Crowley demanded to use Kevin's blood for the call, and Kevin gave it. When I was cleaning up the syringes, I noticed one missing, and when I went to check… Dean, I saw Crowley shooting up Kevin's blood."
Nell froze at that, eyes wide as she stared at the quietly sputtering coffee pot. Shooting up blood? That was… well. The vampire in Nell thought that was an awful waste of perfectly good blood, and her teeth ached almost mournfully at the thought of it. The rational part of her, the part that Nell still thought of as human, couldn't comprehend it any better. What was the point? Sam had said it as if it was some sort of drug.
"Huh." Dean huffed thoughtfully. "Think the partial cure got him addicted, or something?"
"Maybe," Sam allowed. "He's certainly been different since then."
"Well, if he is a junkie for human blood, that gives us some more leverage on him, at least." Dean said carelessly. "Is that all?" Sam must have nodded, because Dean said, "Good. Go get some shut eye."
Dean walked into the kitchen when Sam had gone, looking hopeful. Her snitching on Sam had apparently mostly made up for her earlier transgressions. "You bake at all while I was gone?"
Nell laughed. "No. But if you can wait half an hour, you can have muffins."
Dean grinned, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Have I told you lately that you're my favorite vampire?"
"Okay, close the books," Nell said a few weeks later, rising from what had become 'the research table' in the library. She strode into the kitchen and called over her shoulder, "Clear off the table."
"What? Why?" Kevin hovered protectively over his papers, making no move to clear them away. Sam and Dean hesitated, too.
"I mean, I could keep the birthday cake in here," Nell reappeared in the kitchen doorway, balancing a tray on one hand and a small stack of plates and forks in the other. "...but seeing as I can't eat it, I don't see much point."
"Birthday cake?" Kevin repeated, still looking a little lost. Sam obligingly started gathering up papers and books and moving them out of the way, and with a nudge from his brother Dean followed suit.
When the table was clear, Nell set down the cake. She had baked it in the middle of the night in order to maintain the element of surprise. While she hadn't had the chance to get candles, she had written in gold-colored icing, Happy Birthday Kevin. Kevin stared at it blankly for a moment, then looked at Nell.
"That's today?"
"That's today," Nell confirmed. "And my gift to you is that you don't have to suffer through the Happy Birthday song. Now, how big of a slice do you want?"
The three boys ate lemon cake while Nell watched them and tried not to look too wistful. Dean remarked about how he wished he'd known it was Kevin's birthday earlier, or he would have done something. Then Sam, looking haunted, recounted to Kevin and Nell some of the ways Dean had 'celebrated' Sam's birthdays as a kid.
"You're not supposed to punch people on their birthday," Nell said, narrowing her eyes at Dean disapprovingly.
"Of course you are," Dean said around a mouthful of cake. "It builds character!"
When they finished with the cake, Dean took the leftovers into the kitchen and returned with three beers. He handed one to Sam, and another to Kevin. Kevin reached for it, then hesitated with his fingers a few inches away from the bottle.
"I'm not 21."
"Dude." Dean pressed the bottle into Kevin's hand. "You're a prophet of the lord, she's a vampire, and we hunt monsters. Normal rules don't apply."
"...Fair enough." Kevin took a sip, and only grimaced a little at the taste.
"I had my first beer when I was thirteen," Dean informed him. "And our Dad 'gave me my first beer' when I was fifteen."
"That explains a lot," Kevin said, straight-faced. Dean kicked him under the table. Sam laughed.
It was nice, to be together like this. To take a break from the tablet and angels and demons, and just be four people sharing beer and stories. Or, three people and a vampire. Nell tried not to think about the difference, and how desperately she would have liked to have a beer herself. Even if she could drink it, or even get a buzz from it—and she seriously doubted that she could—it was no longer safe for her to lose her inhibitions like that.
Nell contented herself with watching Dean ply Kevin with more and more beer, and seeing Kevin become more and more inebriated. It was his first time getting drunk, and it showed. And it was highly entertaining, too, because the more Kevin drank, the less he held back the snarky insults directed at the Winchesters.
Sam drank more slowly, also apparently enjoying the show, but his eyes began to droop one hour and two beers in. Dean shooed him off to bed, and Sam drowsily complied without protest. Kevin stood up soon after—Nell wasn't sure whether he meant to go to bed, or to fetch another beer—and wobbled dangerously.
"Okay, that's enough," Dean said, standing up. He moved to support Kevin with an arm over his shoulder, but Kevin swatted him away.
"'m fine," Kevin said irritably. "Lemme go to bed." Reluctantly, Dean let him go. Kevin teetered down the hallway like he was on a heavily rocking boat, but managed to make it back to his bedroom without falling.
Dean glanced at Nell uncertainly. "You think I gave him too much?"
"A bit," Nell said. "But he'll be fine. I'll bring him some water."
"Probably a good idea," Dean agreed. "And hey—" Dean hesitated. Cleared his throat. Glanced away. "Thank you, for doing this. What you said, before—" He cut himself off again. "I'm glad you're looking out for him, that's all."
Nell figured that was about as close to an apology about their behavior toward Kevin as Dean would ever get, so she said, "Apology accepted."
Dean's eyebrows rose, then dropped into a scowl. His mouth opened, then closed. Then he sighed, shook his head, and turned to walk down the hallway with a quiet, "Good night."
Nell fetched two water bottles from the fridge. They were usually used whenever Sam and Dean went on the road, but Nell figured they'd be safer to leave by Kevin's bed if he drunkenly knocked one over sometime during the night.
She knocked lightly on Kevin's door, and entered when he grumbled irritably. He was already under the covers, but opened his eyes to look sleepily at her. Nell handed him one of the water bottles.
"If you don't want to feel like shit in the morning, I suggest you drink all of that."
Kevin cracked the seal on the bottle obediently and gulped it down quickly. He finished it in less than a minute and then sighed, "Thanks."
He set the bottle aside and mumbled something as he settled back into bed, eyes half closing. Nell couldn't make out what he'd said except for the word Mom.
"Excuse me?" Nell asked, feeling a little offended for some reason.
Kevin let out a jaw-cracking yawn. "You're like… the mom friend," he said, more clearly this time. "Y'know. The one who always has snacks and sunblock and makes sure people don't drown in their own vomit." Kevin looked to see if Nell understood, and she nodded. Kevin sighed. "I miss my mom."
Nell didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing.
"Crowley says she's alive, but Crowley lies…" Kevin trailed off, staring up at the ceiling. "And Dean says that even if she is alive, she's as good as dead, which is probably true, but it kills me not knowing…"
Something in Nell's chest twisted painfully. "We'll find out," she said quietly. "Whatever the truth is, I'll help you find out."
Kevin blinked doubtfully at her. "Promise?"
"Yeah. I promise."
