Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 35: Morning after tales
Kevin awoke like Excalibur rising from the lake, he breached the surface and sleep ran off him like so much water.
Stretching languorously, Kevin realised his head was clear and the grand sum of nowhere on his body hurt. The only discomfort he felt was the pressure of an overfull bladder and an itch on his forehead.
Sitting up, he rubbed at that itch, and a yellow post-it note fluttered down into his lap. Reaching blearily for the yellow square of paper between his knees, Kevin managed to knock the metal hip flask and empty plastic water bottle over the wall side of the bed.
He peered down the gap at them nestled in the dust bunnies and other debris that had met the same fate, post-it in hand; as the previous events returned to the forefront of his mind in a rush: That phone call from the Abbadon lady, Sam and Dean asking him to look for information on Knights of Hell, going down into the archives… Crowley!
His stomach swooped remembering again the demon's implications about his Mom, and the violence he'd done in response. Then, Crowley's offer, and his rejection… because Crowley had to be lying … didn't he?
'Are you sure? Did you ever see her body? I mean, how can you be sure she's dead?—Gonna make this simple, Kevin. Let me go, and I'll give you back your mother.' Crowley's words echoed again in his memory
"She's dead,"he refuted, out loud to the empty room.
'Oh, she wishes she was. After what I had my heavies do to her, she's begging for it.—But when have you ever known me to let anyone off easy?' The memory of Crowley's voice insinuated gruffly.
Crowley's words crawled around in his brain like so many cockroaches, as Kevin blinked down at the words inked in Dean's messy scrawl on the post-it note which had been stuck to his forehead, waiting for another overwhelm of emotion to spiral him into a panic attack; but everything felt somehow distanced. As if years had passed, rather than a single night's sleep.
He'd talked with the gremlin and it had plied him with something he'd thought was just a hip flask, stolen from one of Dean's many, scattered booze stashes. He'd drunk the contents down without thinking. But it hadn't been whisky, or at least not just whisky.
The gremlin had drugged him.
Crap, crap, crap! He'd been stupid. Incredibly stupid. How many accounts had he read of people getting trapped in the fae realms by eating or drinking fairy food? Yet he'd gone and done just that, like a complete and utter idiot.
Nervously, he glanced around the room again, a sudden suspicion stalling the breath in his lungs. But the room looked no different. Full of antique junk, cluttered with research materials and notes, and his dirty laundry. All his reading had led him to believe the fairy realm would look less dingy and outdated— and more… magical, than the Bunker.
'I'm a fraction of your size, boy. And while you're wearing that stone I can't touch you.' The gremlin's words came back to him then. And Kevin let the trapped air leak from his lungs as he fingered the Hag stone strung around his neck, wondering if its protection was the only thing which had stood between him, and getting sucked into the fairy realm. Wondered what unintended consequences his stupid actions might still have.
Sam and Dean were going to be pissed at him when they found out. They were going to treat him like some idiot kid and never let him live it down.
Honestly, he'd probably deserve it. The only worse thing he could have done was to thank the gremlin for the spiked liquor; and effectively in-debt himself to it, as well.
While intellectually, he was worried about the consequences of his mistake, Kevin was also aware he wanted to feel more about his slip up, but couldn't quite summon the emotion.
Instead he felt strangely at peace and almost light inside.
It was the bizarrest feeling, but not altogether foreign.
When he was younger he'd sometimes talk in his sleep. One night Channing had stayed over when her parents had been away. They'd both fallen asleep as per usual, and according to his Mom, who came to tell them off for being awake, talking well past midnight. The two of them had been sleep talking to one another. Had a whole long ass conversation, which was garbled and made little sense to his Mom…
Neither he nor Channing remembered any of that conversation the next morning. But that day he'd woken feeling like he did now, somehow light and clean inside. Like he'd expressed some inner truth about his worries, fears and the things that truly mattered to him.
Now too, he felt like he'd released everything he'd been bottling up—for years— Ever since becoming a Prophet and keeper of the Word of the Lord.
Had he talked to the gremlin while he was under the influence? Was this feeling some kind of post hypnotic suggestion?
Or just the euphoria that came from having slept properly, and dreamlessly, for the first time… in … years.
Glancing at his wristwatch, Kevin was stunned to see the date, and to realise he'd slept for nearly two days straight.
Shit!
That would explain why there'd been a post-it note in Dean's handwriting stuck to his forehead.
"Kev, we're back.
Fried chicken and Prune juice in the fridge.
You reek man, worse than Sam after bean burritos. Do us all a favour and take a freaking shower.
-Dean"
There was no mention of Knights of hell, that lady, Abbadon, or what happened with those hunters, Tracey Bell, and Irv Franklin. The Winchesters weren't so great with dissemination of information.
Part of him felt that if the Winchesters couldn't be bothered sharing what had happened, then it wasn't his problem. The hunters, and whatever was happening with Abbadon, even the search for how to kill a knight of Hell, they weren't things he truly wanted to be in on. His job, the one he'd be happy to kick to the curb, was to keep and learn the Word of god. The other issues could stay Sam and Dean's problem. After all, they'd kinda been the cause of them. Okay, Crowley's words had gotten to him more than he wanted them to; but everything did feel like it came down to the Winchesters not closing the gates of Hell, in his head.
Kevin liked Sam, and he didn't want him dead. Of course he didn't! But plenty of other people had died and would keep dying because the Winchesters hadn't gone through with the trials. People like Channing… and his Mom—
Crap! Now he didn't know what to believe! Was his Mom dead?
'Oh, she wishes she was. After what I had my heavies do to her, she's begging for it. —But when have you ever known me to let anyone off easy?' Crowley had seemed so believable.
But hadn't he also believed the demon, when he talked about torturing his Mom to get his location, and how they'd just killed her in the end, and gotten the location of Fizzel's Folly and him, off his Mom's smart phone, when that didn't work.
Kevin glared down at the note in his hand in frustration again. He just didn't know what to believe anymore.
But, yeah— a shower (and peeing) was probably a good idea. Whenever he got really stuck, a shower helped him think and find a decent course of action.
oo0oo
Kevin slung his backpack over his shoulder and looked around the room he'd been using, one last time. The shower had helped. He didn't know if Crowley had been lying about his Mom being alive, and he knew he couldn't risk letting Crowley out of the dungeon to find out, but he also knew he'd never find out the truth cowered here in a hole in the ground.
Remembering Crowley's words about finding his location on Fizzel's Folly by using his Mom's smartphone had given him an idea. When the Winchesters had captured the demon king he'd had a phone on him. The Winchesters hadn't been able to unlock it or get the passcode out of Crowley, so they'd broken it instead, to reduce the likelihood it'd be used to pinpoint their location. But perhaps, something was recoverable from it.
His plan was to find someone more skilled than him or the Winchesters with such things, to get them to recover the data off that phone, and use that to find out his Mom's fate. Perhaps one of the contacts he'd made on 4chan during his year hiding from Crowley, would be able to put him in touch with someone, or he could risk using Silk Road —
He needed to find out the truth, and he needed to do it on his own, without the Winchesters interfering or deciding that hunting down some new piece of information on the tablets was more important.
He'd left the tablets, his translations and a note explaining where he was going and why. He had Crowley's phone, a hex-bag that should hide him from demons, and Crowley was locked in the Winchesters dungeon; if he'd managed to dodge everything supernatural for a year with Crowley hunting him, he could do this.
…ooo0ooo…
Dean had only just gotten Sam into his room with orders to lay down and rest. Selling Sammy a load of bull crap about cracking his head again in the elevator, and covering for when Zeke took over had been easy; as had been dealing with the spasm of guilt over lying to his brother, again. He was just relieved Sam had fallen for it.
He'd been thinking of getting something to eat, and trying to work out what ingredients they'd need for that gremlin banishing spell, when he saw Kevin heading towards the stairs, a backpack slung over one shoulder.
The kid walked straight past, ignoring him.
"Where'd You think you're going?" he asked.
Kevin's face set itself in a scowl by way of response, but he didn't stop.
"Hey, hey. Hey hey hey, whoa. Talk to me."
"You can't keep me locked in here. I'm leaving!" Kev' snapped in reply.
Whatever kind of greeting he was expecting, that sure wasn't it. What flew up his ass?
"Like hell!" he snapped back, standing in the kid's way. This had to have something to do with how Kevin had gone all Jacky Chan on Crowley's ass.
"Man, we told you not to talk to Crowley, okay? He messes with your head."
"He said my mom's alive."
Well, damn! That would do it.
"Crowley said if I let him go, he'd give her back to me."
"And you believed him?!"
Kevin turned on him, growled. "He's still in there, isn't he?!" by way of response.
"Crowley's lying." He tried to argue with the kid, and tried to reassure him.
Kevin's expression wavered. "And if he's not?"
"Well... if she is alive, then she's dead. In every way that matters, she's dead, Kevin." Damn, the gremlin was right, the kid was barely holding it together. "I'm sorry." Dean felt his heart go out to the boy. "I know you're dying to bolt, man. I get it. But out that door, it's demons, and it's angels, and they would all love to get their hands on a prophet. So even with Crowley here, this is still the safest place for you. It just is."
Kevin's shoulders slumped.
"—And we need you, man."
"Because I'm useful." Kevin muttered, eyes narrowed with teenaged resentment that reminded Dean powerfully of young Sam in that moment.
No damn it! — Well, okay yeah… but the kid had to know it was more than that.
"Because you're family." he breathed, wishing Sam was there to say the right words and talk Kevin off the ledge. "After all the crap we've been through, after all the good that you've done... man, if you don't think that we would die for you... I don't know what to tell you."
Kevin looked up at him, expression desperate and pleading, then his face just sort of crumpled, and the kid was crying.
Dean laid an awkward hand on his shoulder and patted it.
"—'cause you, me, Sam and Cas, we are all we've got." He lifted his hand back off Kevin's shoulder, feeling worn out.
"But hey, if none of that matters to you, then I won't stop you."
"Crowley doesn't know if your mother is alive, lad." The voice made both of them startle and swing towards the stairs up to the mezzanine.
It was the damn gremlin again; sat on the first step like the world's ugliest, most annoying Teddy Ruxpin.
Dean stepped between the creature and Kevin instinctively, hand going for his gun; though, he was now pretty sure guns were useless against it.
"What?" Kevin demanded, not looking nearly freaked enough for this to be his first gremlin encounter.
"Crowley didn't order her death, but still suspects, she probably is. He neither likes nor trusts the minion he left your mother with."
"—Where?" Kevin asked from behind him.
The gremlin climbed to its feet and leaned against the banister, tapping its claws against the metal idly, and shook its head. "That, I can't tell you, unfortunately."
Kevin pushed passed him and started towards the gremlin.
Dean grabbed onto the loop on the top of his backpack to stop him, but Kevin just shrugged the bag off, continuing forward, leaving it in his hands.
He dropped the bag unceremoniously, lunged forward, and caught Kevin's wrist.
"Don't," he warned the prophet, low.
Kevin tugged at his grip. "It drugged me!"
"Yeah, and I'm betting if you go chasing it up them stairs it'll send you ass over teakettle back down again. Probably crack your skull. Little asshat already messed with the lift up to the loading dock, made Sammy dink his melon again in the process. Best thing we can do is stay away from it, 'til we can banish the little prick back to fairyland." Dean turned and looked down at the boy. "You've got your answer 'bout your Mom now. And I'm sorry, man. But you know fairies don't lie, but demons sure do. Case closed, Crowley was lying to you."
Kevin shook his hand off.
"Fairies don't lie," the prophet muttered. "Yeah, not so much, it's a con-artist Dean. It acted like it was trying to help, told me the water wasn't poisoned."
"It wasn't." The gremlin said, grinning sharp-toothed at them from the stairs.
"But, the stuff in the hip flask was!"
"That wasn't poisoned either, lad. You needed a nap. To gain some perspective and calm down. Admit it, you feel better now, don't you?"
"You drugged me!"
The gremlin scoffed and rolled it's eyes at the prophet.
"Hey, hey, hey, enough!" Dean snapped at them. He'd had about enough from both of them.
"You," he pointed a finger at Kevin, "should know better than to drink something given to you by some skeevy-ass dude. Let alone a fairy one. What were you thinking, man? An' that's not even getting into what the hell you were doin' down in the dungeon with Crowley. We told you to stay away from him for a reason!"
The gremlin made a sound like a cat trying to cough up a fur-ball. Dean swung back around towards it. "And as for you, you little shit, you want help getting back to where you belong, maybe don't go round doing stuff to piss us off in the meantime, huh?"
Dean turned back to Kevin again. "Honestly, Dude, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to get you outta here for a couple a days, away from the Spielberg reject, and Crowley both, but we gotta be smart about it. No going off half cocked, tramping along Lebanon's back roads, like some damn college co-Ed waiting to get picked up in a white van and end up on a missing poster. You got me?"
-/-/-/-/-/-/-
Authors notes: Hi, hello, greetings. I'm not actually dead. I've just been having a bit of a rough patch ~ meh, it's life we all go through it, and unfortunately there's a chunk of May-June always sucks for me, but we won't go into that here.
Thank you to: Iowa Kat for your comments, I have no idea exactly what Fanfiction is doing but notifications of updates look to be hit and miss at times, hopefully this one goes through like it is supposed to. You are right about five year olds knowing better than to accept food or drink from the fae! Sam and Dean are a bit callous towards Kevin, not so much because they don't care but because they aren't emotionally equipped to see or tackle it. Like fish not being aware of water, you have to be outside of something to see it as abnormal. We are now in winter here, thunder lightening torrential rain and the odd small tornado just down the road from Hubby's parents house (very unusual) multiple lightning strikes blowing up phone systems and alarm panels. Interesting times!
Thank you also to: Guest, who shook off the veils of anonymity and silence to say they are enjoying my story. -big smile- thanks!
Ooo0ooO
Rules for dealing with the fae:
-Never eat food that they give you. Eating their food in the fairy realm traps you there, or stops you hungering for human food in our world, which can lead people to die of starvation.
-Never give them your name. Names hold power. ...
-Never stand in a fairy ring.
-Never be rude to a faerie.
-Never accept a gift from the Fae.
Seems my characters aren't great on following rules doesn't it? Guess that's how we get drama.
4Chan is a website launched in 2003 which hosts discussion boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics including tech know-how. It features in a lot of interesting YouTube stories about online mysteries getting solved.
Silk Road was an online black market and the first modern darknet market. As part of the dark web, it was operated as a Tor hidden service. Online users could browse and Barter services anonymously and securely without potential traffic monitoring. The website was launched in February 2011. In October 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did a sting on it and shut down the website. There are still other market places out there on the interwebs of the same type, but this was the biggest and best known.
Teddy Ruxpin was an animatronic children's toy that looked like a bear, from the late 80's and 90's. Its mouth and eyes moved while it re-enacted stories played on an audio tape cassette deck built into its back.