Don't Feed After Midnight

Chapter 25: Prophetic Trauma

Kevin was so focused on the Angel tablet that he didn't hear the bunker door thunk open, then closed again. He didn't hear Dean's heavy bootsteps come down the metal stairs and through the war room.

The first thing that made him aware of Dean's return was the smell of food.
A cord tugged around his neck, the attached Hag stone thunking loudly onto the wooden table beside the Angel tablet.

"And these, are yours." Dean announced as he dumped a takeout bag in Kevin's lap, slapped his shoulder and ruffled his hair. "Good job kid."

"Yeah, um, thanks." Kevin fingered the Hag stone strung on the sturdy burgundy cord and lifted it to peer through the hole.

Across the table, behind his laptop, Sam was doing the same thing with another stone.

Looking through the hole in the stone caused a weird distortion of the light thrown up by Sam's laptop screen, it almost looked as though the hunter had a halo. Kevin blinked and rubbed at his eyes. Too much time staring at the word of God, he thought, hoping all the weird holy eyestrain wasn't going to leave him needing glasses.

Dean waved a piece of paper.
"Says here, apart from helpin' you see fairies, an' keeping them off stuff; hopefully. Hag stones are supposed to stop bad dreams and help you get knocked up."

Sam huffed. "Is that why you aren't wearing one? You do understand, you can't get pregnant, right Dean?"

"Yeah, yeah, funny. I taught you 'bout the birds and the bees, jackass. Besides, I'd hate to give you more target practice." Dean's mouth thinned and he looked away briefly with something like regret clouding his face.

Sam ducked his head in response, jaw clenched, and Kevin suddenly remembered.

Dean once had a daughter, Emma, born from a one-night stand with an Amazonian. Sam shot her. Admittedly the daughter had been a monster intent on killing Dean and Sam was only trying to protect his brother. But Dean hadn't realised that at the time and maybe he still held reservations over his brother's actions.

Man, the Winchesters had so many reasons to be messed up.

Dean shrugged off the moment, pulled a burger from the takeout bag on the table and took a giant bite.

"Mystic Myths only had three, mine's in the impala." He said with a full mouth.

"Yeah, uh," Sam cleared his throat, allowing the subject change, and let the awkward moment lurch by.
He held up his own stone. "Well, I'm thinking this one would do more good in the machine room. We don't want Spike putting the bunker into lockdown again."

Dean grunted.

"So, was Brennan's grandmother's spellbook in the car?" Kevin asked hopefully, trying to dispel the tension.

"Nah, I looked after we got off the phone. Vaguely remember now, it's gotta be in Dad's, Rover Hill, lockup."

Sam swallowed his mouthful of fries.

That's three days, there and back," he groused.

"Yeah well, you two hang here incase Cas gets back, I'll take a road trip."

"Dean—" Dean's phone began ringing before Sam could finish.

"Irv, long time no see." Dean answered the phone affably.

Whoever Irv was, he had a lot to say.

"Yeah no, we're not lookin' to capture a demon anymore. That project was a bust."

Kevin nibbled at his fries, and stifled a wave of resentment over how easily Dean brushed aside his work on the demon trials. Watched the hunter's face contort as the Irv person said something more.

"That many demon signs, Huh?"

"…"

"Ahhh crap. Yeah, okay, you're right, that does sound like something we oughta check out."

"…"

"No Irv, you leave it alone. We'll check it out. Might have ta do with this other thing we got goin' on."

Dean nodded at whatever Irv said next and pulled a face.

"You hear the skuttlebutt yet? That meteor shower last week. Hate to Chicken Little on you man; but not a bunch of rocks or space junk. That, my friend, was a buttload of angels falling, and listen, this is important, they need meatsuit's just like demons, but they gotta ask permission."

"…"

"Yeah, spread the word, that's a big ol', 'Just say No,' okay?"

"…"

"Yeah, Irv, fallen angels."

Dean listened for another long moment.

"Pretty much.

Well, trust me, they're just monsters with good PR. So, if you run into one, torch his ass with holy oil.
Oh, and if they drop, uh, like, a silver sword, grab it. Those pigstickers come in handy."

Another silence on Dean's part, more talk on Irv's.

"Hey, look, I know this is weird, but—"

Dean kept talking but Kevin didn't bother trying to follow the conversation, he was too concerned by the stubbourn look on Sam's face. The younger Winchester had been none too pleased by the idea of Dean going off alone, to get Brennan's book.

Whatever this Irv guy was talking about, it made it even less likely Sam would willingly let his brother go off alone for three days in a world besieged by fallen angels.

The Winchesters might argue about it for a bit, but they were going to leave him here alone, again.

The thought of peace and quiet might be attractive… but they were also probably going to leave him here, alone with Crowley.

The gremlin didn't really worry him much, it was annoying, but he didn't think it would harm him, he had the stone after all.

Crowley on the other hand… No matter what Dean said, the hag stone wasn't going to protect him from the nightmare he'd lived, the nightmare that was real.
Crowley was just downstairs.
The demon had found him on Garth's boat, when the Winchesters had told him it wasn't possible. Crowley had filled his head with whispered threats and illusions from afar. Then found and abducted him. Set him up in a simulacrum of Fizzels Folly.
It had only been Crowley's fake Sam and Dean forgetting the secret knock, then being too nice, that had made him doubt and clued him in to the deception.

Sometimes he still wondered if everything here in the bunker was real, or if it was all just an illusion made to trick him.

Castiel might have healed his body after everything Crowley did to him. But, there was nothing that would take away the memories. Of that British accented voice, so seemingly reasonable and civilised as it spewed threats and promises.
The demon's beard rasping roughly against his gore coated skin. Hot sulphurous breath pouring into his ear and over the nape of his neck.
Those hands around his throat, lifting and holding him up against the wall, his feet kicking helplessly in useless struggle…

Kevin felt his throat tighten and his heart begin skudding desparately inside the cage of his ribs.
He struggled to keep breathing in and out, slow and even. To stave off a panic attack and another bout of hyperventilation.

He forced his mind away from Crowley desperately and tried to remember every note in the opening refrain of Brahm's, Cello Sonata No. 1. Moved his fingers against the tabletop in the shape of the chords; pressing down on the wood until his joints were aching and almost numb with the strain.

It sounded like Dean was finishing up on the phone. "So, if you run into any problems, give a call, okay?

The more hunters that know, the better."

Dean hung up.

"So, that was Irv Franklin, you remember him, Sammy?"

"Yeah, friend of Bobby's, right? Simese twin werewolf guy." Sam rolled his eyes.

"That's him," Dean confirmed and wiggled his eyebrows which made Sam huff in response.
"Irv recons something demonic's shaking, literally. Isolated earthquakes, cattle mutilations, weird-ass weather, the whole nine."

"Crowley's followers? Or something to do with the angels, maybe?" Sam guessed.

Dean hummed agreement and ate a fist full of fries.

"That's my guess. Or, could be something to do with Cas and that freaking spell Metatron talked him into." He rubbed at the back of his neck and bit his lip.

Kevin could never work out how he felt about Castiel.
The Angel had saved him from Crowley and healed his injuries after the things Crowley had done to him, he'd even grown back his severed finger.
Which meant he might be able to play the cello again, one day.

But Kevin never got the feeling that the Angel saw him as anything, but a means to an end.
They definitely weren't friends.

Castiel was a wild card. He'd double crossed the Winchesters to work with Crowley in a play for power; and caused the Leviathans escape from purgatory. That, in turn led to their leader, Dick Roman, unearthing the Leviathan tablet; and Kevin's subsequent activation as a Prophet of the Lord.

If you thought of it like that, Castiel had ruined his life and caused his Mom's death, just as much as the King of Hell.

Castiel had caused the whole fallen Angel mess as well; and Kevin couldn't seem to get past the memory of how Castiel had grabbed him by the front of his sweater and yanked him up, (so like Crowley with that implacable, inhuman strength,) how the Angel had loomed there, right in his face and spat. 'There is no out. Only duty.
You are a Prophet of the Lord, always and forever... ...until the day you cease to exist, and then another Prophet takes your place.'

How'd Dean put it? 'angels – they don't care. I think maybe they just don't have the equipment to care.'

It had never been clearer than when he hung there, in Castiel's grip, that the Angel didn't give a fuck about him.
The prophet.
The word keeper.
Kevin Tran's entire value lay in a job description. Being a living breathing decoder tool; and if he didn't do the task he'd been created for, well, Castiel would impassively toss him aside, without a second thought.

So, if the Angel of the lord, was actually human now, there would be a certain taste of spiteful poetic irony in it for Kevin. The asshole would finally get to see what it was like, to be a pathetic, powerless human.

While Kevin had been caught up with his own thoughts, the Winchesters had started arguing over Dean checking out Irv's thing, on the way to getting Brennan's book, alone.

"Kevin will be perfectly fine here by himself, Dean. Crowley's shackled in the dungeon, in the middle of a devil's trap. He isn't going anywhere.
Seriously man, if there's that many demonic omens, whatever Irv found is more than a milk run, and you know it!
You'll be fine for a couple of days, won't you Kevin? I mean we could call Charlie …"

The thought of being babysat like a child by the Charlie girl, a girl who sounded no older than he was, filled him with annoyance.

He imagined her lording it over him and acting like she was his Mom.

"No, I'll be fine. I can handle myself."

Dean was frowning, looking at him with a kind of speculative worry, probably remembering how he'd found him curled in a ball and terrified of a freaking washing machine.

"I said, I can handle myself!" He argued hotly. "I did it for a whole year, didn't I?"

Dean glanced at Sam again. "Yeah, you did. Just don't forget to eat, and no stayin' up all night translating, okay kid?"

"Yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes. "No keggers, I get it."

Five minutes later, he was alone. Alone except for the heavy stifling presence of Crowley down in the dungeon, below his feet.

.../.../.../

Authors note: It always takes longer than you think it will, doesn't it?

Husbands having car accidents and ending up with concussion really don't help my writing process, they are very, very needy. Worse by whole magnitudes than small children, just sayin'