Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 32: A Talking To
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Sam ran a hand through his hair and winced. His head was still tender from being slammed against the wall by one of Abbadon's navy seals; though to be honest, it didn't hurt as bad as he'd come to expect.
He felt tired, really tired, but blessedly free of the nausea, double vision and crippling dizziness he was used to, after blacking out from a bad knock to the head.
'Course he still wasn't all there. Had forgotten his laptop was dead, dragged it out and gone to use it on auto pilot; then found, to his complete and belated amazement, that the machine was fine.
It whirred into life like the sparks and smoke had been nothing but an unpleasant fever dream.
Like the gremlin's prank with the impala, apparently, what it'd done to his laptop wasn't designed to be fatal.
Maximum impact, minimum carnage, just like Kevin had said.
Typing the names Martin Hayward and Brandon Favors into his usual search algorithms got him several hits, but they weren't recent missing persons, nor were they people wanted for obvious demonic crimes.
If the info was correct, Hayward and Favors were dead Outlaws, from back in the 1860's.
Was Crowley just making fun of them, jerking their chain?
Before the demon cure, Sam would have laid money on it. But now, since the church, there was something different about the demon. Sam was almost certain Crowley had given them legitimate names.
Perhaps, it was like he said, Hayward and Favors were dead wood, and they would be doing him a favor… Sam wasn't totally sure he liked that idea, even if it did mean two less demons. It felt a little bit too much like being used, or working for Crowley again, which in turn reminded him of being soulless. That made him feel guilty, and angry.
At the sound of Dean's unhurried footsteps, Sam turned, with his mind still chewing over the gorgon's knot of ideas and emotions.
"Find Kevin?"
Dean huffed and nodded. Thumped an empty hip flask down on the table, beside the laptop, as he leaned over Sam's shoulder to peer at the screen.
"He's fine. But he's gonna have one hell of a hangover when he wakes up."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously." Dean grimaced and slanted his gaze away with a hard swallow.
Sam knew his brother had been turning a blind eye to Kevin's drinking. He also knew, Dean would feel hypocritical confronting Kevin about it now.
Which probably left him, Sam, with the job of addressing it.
He'd get to be the bad guy, the party pooper, as usual.
Great, just great!
"Bank heists and train robberies?" Dean leaned heavier on his shoulder, running a finger down the laptop screen as he read. "Think you've got the wrong century, Sam."
"That's what I was thinking too. But—what if— Crowley didn't give us the names of their meatsuit's."
He could feel Dean frowning down at him, the tickle of a breath drawn in preparation to ask a question.
"What if, uh, Crowley gave us their true names. Who they were before they were demons? Their actual, true names."
"Well, guess then, we could hunt down their bones, burn 'em…"
"Dean, we can do better than that!
According to the lore, if you have a demon's true name, you can summon it from anywhere, even hell."
"Yeah, so what?"
"—Then, we use what we learned from Henry, devil's trap bullets.
Summon one into a trap, shoot it in the head with them, then just— "he made a stabbing gesture, "with the knife. Safe and easy. No risk."
"So—like dialing for pizza, but with demons?" Dean was grinning manically at the thought, strode a few steps round the table to face him in his excitement.
Sam smiled up at his brother.
"Not exactly, but yeah, can't see why not."
"Shooting fish in a barrel," Dean pumped his fist.
But then, his brows drew together, and his face hardened.
"Told ya keepin' Crowley round wasn't stupid." He muttered, darkly like they'd been arguing over it.
He rolled his jaw and straightened his shoulders.
"If you're good workin' up the sigils and finding the candles an' shit. I'm gonna whip up a couple batches of ' bullets." He patted Sam on the shoulder once and headed back out the door towards the lab; without waiting for a reply.
Sam looked back to the screen again and pinched the bridge of his nose.
He couldn't help feeling something was off with Dean lately.
He'd seemed almost defensive over them holding onto Crowley, which didn't make a lot of sense, considering the slimly little git had finally come through with something useful.
Maybe Dean was just worrying over Kevin's drinking, and blaming himself, which honestly, he kinda should, in Sam's estimation.
His brother had always been a hardass over him drinking underage, when they were growing up. Honestly, sometimes he almost felt jealous over how much easier Kevin had it.
Pushing up out of his chair, Sam was intent on finding the best Men of Letters text on sigil formation; to use on the names Crowley had given them. When he saw something from the corner of his eye.
His first thought was rat; chalk that up to childhood accommodations that included some pretty bad shit holes.
It might be brown and covered in fur, but it definitely wasn't a rat.
Frozen mid stride and turning only his eyes, Sam realized what the creature sitting in the armchair by the reference-card draws had to be.
It didn't resemble any of the illustrations from the RAF safety flyers Kevin had dug up on the internet; neither did it resemble a steampunk version of a garden gnome, like he'd imagined.
He supposed, staring at the monkey-like thing, that he shouldn't be surprised. Gremlins weren't a long-term invasive species; chupacabra had been draining people's stock for millennia, yet still, eyewitness accounts of them were vague and disparate enough to be practically useless in a lineup.
To make it appear, that his pause had been prompted by a sudden thought, rather than the gremlin's presence, Sam muttered the names of a few random books and turned his body away, towards one of the bookshelves. Camouflaged reaching for his gun.
"Gremlins, like most fae, consciously choose when they're seen, Sam. And that gun, it can't harm me." The clipped and articulate voice which came from the creature was a surprise.
"Yeah, well," Sam turned swiftly and leveled his gun between the gremlin's large golden eyes. "Forgive me if I don't take your word for it."
The gremlin smiled widely, showing off a mouthful of sharp teeth.
"Yes well, according to the lore— "there was something quote-like and mocking in the gremlin's emphasis on the words, "fae don't lie."
Sam just raised an eyebrow to telegraph his skepticism.
"But— "the creature continued with a slight acquiescent tilt of it's head, "we do take every opportunity to dissemble
the truth: a bit like you and your brother, so I hear."
Sam didn't deny or agree, he had no intention of getting trapped into an argument with the creature.
He simply hummed noncommittally and tilted his head.
"So, if you're choosing that I see you… To what do I owe the honor?"
"Perhaps, I simply thought it was time." The gremlin looked down as though bored, started to use one sharp claw to pick between its pointy teeth.
"And perhaps, you heard us talking about Brennan's book, and want to avoid being banished."
"As I told your brother— "
"Dean?" Dean hadn't said anything about seeing or talking to the gremlin, which left him to conclude the creature was doing just what it said, twisting the truth.
"Well, I certainly didn't mean Adam…"
Sam gritted his teeth.
"Do you remember him, Adam Milligan, your father's youngest son? The one you and Dean left languishing in Lucifer's cage?"
Blood pounded in his veins as Sam resisted the urge to pull the trigger.
"And what? You, you're going to offer to drag Adam's soulless body out of the cage, if we make a deal not to banish you?
Pass."
"Not at all!
Sadly, I don't have the magic chops to get anyone out of that cage.
And, as I tried to explain to your brother; I want to be sent back, whence I came."
"Sure, you do."
The creature laid back its ears. "Well, want mightn't be the best term." It allowed, steepling its clawed hands together.
"Need might be closer.
The fae don't have familial units, but we do entertain a certain, loyalty, to our own kinds. And from all I've learned over the past days, I'm led to assume that my kind are in a bit of a pickle.
Lord Oberon and Queen Mab are more vindictive than your pal Lucifer will ever be.
At least The Creator stuck around for a while, when he made you lot. Gave the angels a purpose, some form of structure; our plane wasn't so lucky.
The Seelie and Unseelie courts have been at war longer than your plane has been in existence; and by dint of being created different from the average fae and unwilling to choose sides in the war… my kind got it in the neck from both directions.
When everyone's practically immortal, inventive sadism is just a mildly interesting boredom buster; at least it is for the stronger things in the fae pecking order.
My kind, we have our skills, but we aren't heavy hitters, magic wise.
So, we tried to get out; only to come here and find another war raging. We thought, since humans could die, they might be different; that they might think better of it all, if they were given pause."
Sam lowered his gun slightly, frowning. "So… you sabotaged the war machines of both sides of the conflict?"
The gremlin let it's head rock back and nodded with a sigh, so wide eyed it resembled a cartoon character.
"Trying to help. All it got, was me trapped inside an reconnaissance camera, and my kind banished back into Queen Mab's clutches."
"Why do you want to be banished, then?"
"Why'd you say yes, to the devil, and jump into that cage?"
"I was trying—to fix things, I guess."
"There you go, then."
"You said it yourself, your kind are no match for the higher fae, you're just one gremlin."
"Perhaps I've read too many of Carver Edlund's books."
That made him bristle. If the thing thought it was going to win brownie points by bringing up those books, it had another thing coming.
"Reading none of Chuck's books, is one too many."
"—You were one man, yet you saved your entire species."
"After releasing Lucifer from the cage to begin with."
"Your problem Sam is you either think everything is your fault, or nothing is.
There's no middle ground with you, is there?
Your mother allowed that demon into your house, to feed you demon blood.
Dean chose to make a deal to bring you back from the dead. He also broke the first seal as a result.
So surely, you alone weren't to blame for Lucifer's release from the cage.
Conversely, how is it that you think none of what's happening with Kevin is your fault? That, it's all Dean's doing. You didn't save him. You left him there with Crowley; didn't even look for him, after SuccroCorp."
Sam raised his gun again. Fury a hard ball lodged under his sternum. "So what? I'm to blame for Kevin getting black out drunk the moment we turn our backs?!"
"Not at all. Kevin is to blame for his decisions, you are to blame for yours.
There's plenty of blame to spread around. I for example, am to blame for drugging the prophet, in an attempt to reduce all the noise from his emotional disregulation."
"What did you say?!"
"—When he wakes up, you might want to advise him against accepting food or drink from the fae in the future." The gremlin continued nonchalantly, completely unabashed. "Unless, that is, he wants to sleep for a year and a day…"
With that, the gremlin was gone; its grin seemed to linger a moment longer than the rest of it.
And its words; they would come back to Sam for a long time after.