Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 34: Intervention
Sam looked down at the dead librarian and tried not to breathe too deeply or pay attention to the blood on his hands.
I'm clean, he told himself, the trials purified me.
But the smell of demon blood still slid up his nose with that cloying scent of old pennies and gunpowder, and flooded his mouth with saliva. A memory of what it had felt like, to be powerful enough to rip demons right out of their meat-suits, tugged his mind.
Sam thrust the memory away from himself angrily.
Forced his mind to build and focus on the image of a pool of water, deep in a dark forest. To follow the rush and swirl of that river down into the chill depths with his mind, past the invasive roots of the trees, and down to where everything was numb, silent and murky. Down to the very depths, to settle there, in the silt; where want and need were only concepts.
On autopilot he helped Dean lift the body and clean up the scattered candles; eyes and nose muffled, deadened by the press of imaginary water.
"—kid needs a win, that's all."
Sam nodded, but wasn't really listening as he followed his brother back to the freight elevator.
Dean had replaced the bulbs in there so it wasn't dark anymore, but he still didn't like the thing. Something about all that warding plastered everywhere, or the way the reflective alloy made the enclosing walls seem somehow both suffocatingly close and miles away, all at once. It just… reminded him of the cage.
"—If he isn't awake yet, what the frick do we even do?"
Kevin, Dean was talking about Kevin, Sam shook himself internally and tried to pay attention. Dean was staring at him in expectation, the fluorescent light turning his dark hair and eyelashes to tarnished bronze. Making the cinnamon freckles across his nose and cheeks stand out starkly. The harsh illumination seemed to spotlight the smudge of demon blood on Dean's cheek, an inch away from the corner of his mouth. Sam realised he was staring at it, and that he had to stop. Nervously he jerked his eyes away.
"Uh, I think he'll be okay Dean. I mean the gremlin did say, 'when he wakes up,' that kinda implies—"
"Implies yeah, thing is, you said it yourself, fairies pretend like they don't lie, but the little asshats twist things."
"Like saying it talked to you."
Dean turned away, facing the leaver to move between floors. "Yeah, about that…"
Sam lifted his eyes to stare at his brother in betrayal. "Seriously?! Why the heck didn't you tell me you'd seen it, Dean."
His brother shrugged uncomfortably, still turned away, avoiding his eyes. "Well, I didn't exactly see the damn thing. Just heard, an' shot at it…"
"How didn't I hear that?"
Dean shrugged again. "Dunno. It said some stuff…"
"About?"
"How we don't talk 'bout all the crap, it was just trying to screw with my head, okay? —And I didn't want it screwing with yours too."
Sam stifled a huff of irritation. "It's not wrong, Dean, we don't talk about stuff—"
"We talk plenty, we're talking right now. 'Sides talkin' about it don't change anything, it just drags all that shit back up. It's way easier to just let it go, let the past be the past." Dean pulled the leaver decisively.
A barely perceptible hum filled the elevator, and it reminded Sam forcefully of the energy that pervaded the cage whenever Lucifer got mad. That barely there sound made him forget everything he wanted to say.
As the elevator lurched into motion, Sam tried to calm the claustrophobia making his chest feel tight. It felt as though something was gripping him with icy limbs, crushing all the air out of his lungs.
Ten seconds, Sam told himself sternly, you only have to hold it together for ten more seconds and the doors will open, and you'll be out of this metal cage and able to breathe again.
Above the lift's roof there came a skittering sound, then a metallic screech.
"Dean!"
Dean was turning towards him when the elevator lurched out from under Sam's feet, like it was going into free fall.
Then just as suddenly, the freight elevator stopped dead, with a jerk and a bang.
Sam stumbled a step toward his brother, looking around frantically at the enclosing walls. Heart hammering in his throat, lungs constricted in his chest, he tried to tell himself the walls weren't pressing in.
Dean's hand fisted in his shirt, his back a solid bulkhead against Sam's shoulder. The demon blade was back in his brother's other hand, eyes searching restlessly for some kind of threat to kill.
"Sammy, it's okay."
"Oh, it's really not." An acerbic voice answered from above their heads. The Gremlin.
'Fae,' Sam mouthed the word, trying to hold it together. Dean nodded shortly in agreement.
"Why do you say that, huh?" Dean asked the gremlin, face tilted towards the roof, drawing his gun.
"Because I'm beginning to think you two don't listen, and can't learn." The satirical voice responded from above.
Dean fired off a shot before Sam could stop him.
The report was thunderously loud in the enclosed space. It made him cower and flinch, stoked his panic.
The elevator lurched again.
"Oh I really wouldn't do that, if I was you." The Gremlin chuckled. "There's all sorts of cables up here, wouldn't want to nick one."
Grey faced, Dean holstered his weapon.
"Okay douchebag, you got somethin' to say, we're listening. What do you want? Let's talk about this."
"You'll listen now you're trapped."
'Trapped, trapped, trapped in a cage. No way out, Sammy-Sam. Trapped, trapped, trapped in a cage. Can't run or hide, Sammy-Sam,' the words echoed through Sam's head, sung in Lucifer's mocking voice to the beat of his hammering heart.
oooOooo
"Why're you doing this? What do you fricking-well want." Dean fought the urge to redraw his gun and start shooting again, no matter how freaking stupid that might actually be. At least it'd feel like some kinda action.
He could feel Sam shaking against his shoulder, lungs going like a set of bellows. Suddenly reminded of how Sam had admitted to suffering from mild claustrophobia since he'd got his soul back.
"There's nothing mild about it, Dean."
Had the freaking thing read his mind?
Did that mean it could read Sammy's mind too?
Dean swung around and stared at his brother.
Really looked at him.
Sam was trembling like a spooked horse, his usually olive skin parchment pale and glazed with sweat. Eyes huge and unseeing. Hands balled, white knuckled, into fists.
"Okay, I'm getting that." He answered the gremlin carefully with a gulp. "Sam, Sam, Sammy, stay with me." Dean reached up to cradle his brothers face in his palms. "Look at me."
Sam fixed his gaze on him with desperation.
"That's it, you're doing great. Everything's okay. What did you say, huh? Maximum show, minimum carnage? It's just another one of the little asshats pranks." He turned his gaze upwards and yelled.
"And it's not funny!"
"I know that, Dean— in my head." Sam gritted through his teeth, "but we're trapped, and it just …feels like when Lucifer, he…"
Sam sucked a breath and a tear spilled down his pale cheek. That tear scared Dean more than anything. Winchesters didn't cry.
Then, Sam's eyes flashed with neon blue light and his posture straightened.
"Zeke!" Dean breathed the angel's name in greeting. Let his hands drop away from Sam's suddenly passive face, lost to whether he was more grateful to his brother's pacemaker angel now, or during the showdown with Abbadon. "Good to see you man."
"The strain on your brother's mind and body was becoming detrimental."
"Is it that bad?"
"Enclosed spaces trigger your brother's memories of Lucifer." The angel annunciated rigidly. "Samuel Winchester is incredibly brave and strong, but the things the Morningstar did to him during those thousands of relative years in the cage— they have left his mind and soul damaged in ways which I hesitate to speak of; due in part, to your brother's fervent wish that you be spared from the knowledge. I will say no more of the specifics. I must admit however, that the damage Lucifer inflicted on him remains, despite my attempts to mute or erase it.
I regret to say I have failed your brother in this, Dean Winchester.
Lucifer carved those experiences into his very soul, marking and defacing him on the deepest level. Regrettably, your brother, Sam, will have little choice but to continue enduring flashbacks in circumstances such as these; Trapped in a box, confronted and reminded of his time in the cage. The only balm I can offer is unconsciousness, and only while I dwell here."
"Yeah well, thanks for that." Dean said awkwardly, remembering the gremlin's words about Sam earlier. "Does he, does Sammy think… that if he tells me how bad it really was, that I'll what? Make it all about me?"
The angel wearing his brother's body looked away. "It is not my place to say. Your brother loves you very much, Dean Winchester, and any knowledge he wishes to withhold is withheld out of love."
"So, that's a yes then. Look Zeke can you like— fly us outta here."
"I am afraid not," the angel grimaced, "my wings were injured, perhaps irreparably, during the fall."
"Fan-freaking-tastic, so what are our options?"
The angel tilted it's head and gazed up at the elevator roof with a thousand yard stare. "There are action movies in your brother's memory that indicate it is possible to climb up through a hatch in the ceiling of an elevator, and negotiate the cables upward until one is able to pry open the doors above."
"You're gonna do that?"
"The warding severely mutes my abilities inside this bunker, and I do not believe, with the physical damage your brother sustained during the aborted hell trials, such an endeavour would be advisable for his body."
Dean let out a breath, guts clenched with dread. "Me? You want me to climb up 30 feet of steel cable in the dark. There's a big difference between movies and reality, man. Surely that fact's swimming round in Sam's noggin too."
"Your brother has the utmost confidence in your ability to 'John McClane' or 'MacGyver' your way out of any given situation."
"Yeah well, Sam's an idiot."
A creak came from above their heads and Dean looked up with a flinch.
"There is also the option of— negotiation." The angel said.
"Yes, yes there is," the gremlin's voice piped up from above. "Zeke? Is that what he said your name was? I like you Zeke. Talking and listening, you seem good at it."
"Would you care to offer your own name by way of response, honoured fae? An even trade?" Zeke asked the gremlin stiffly as though the two of them were at some kind of freaking garden party, rather than hanging from a possibly compromised cable, in a stalled lift.
"Ohhhh, cunning. No host of heaven, I do not believe I would. I'll not be giving you or your human companions power over me. Call me what you will. I believe Dean Winchester calls me Spike or Mogwai-wanna-be, though the creature in the movie he refers to was actually called Stripe, so named for the Mohawk-like tuft of hair atop it's head."
Dean found himself gawping at the ceiling. "You've gotta be shitting me, you've watched Gremlins, seriously?"
"The fae don't sleep, I endeavour to keep myself entertained."
"Entertained, yeah, swapping out a man's meat for tofu crap and disassembling his car. You really need to find a better way to pass time, dickbag."
"Like preventing a duo of dysfunctional human hunters from irreparably damaging the only prophet of the Lord?"
"What?"
"I believe the gremlin is referring to the prophet, Kevin Tran." Zeke answered stoically from by his side.
"What do you mean, 'irreparably damaging.'"
"As I told you before. The prophet is struggling psychologically, from the weight of history and the tasks laid upon him by you and your Creator. The lad is young, wasn't raised with the same resiliency for violence, that you and your brother have. From my studies of human mental health, I believe coercing him into participation in murder, is decidedly… inadvisable."
"Murder?! They're freaking demons, the evil dead assholes that Kevin's spent the last two years ducking and hiding from. The pricks that killed his freaking Mom!"
The gremlin made a disgruntled sound. "Those demons are inside people, Dean, or have you entirely forgotten?"
Dean gritted his teeth. "They're freaking dead!"
"The Librarian, Miriam Levy wasn't dead, until you shot her."
"The gremlin is correct," Zeke cut in.
"Hey, who's side are you on? They're as good as dead."
The angel was looking at him, with Sam's face, all emotion missing from its expression. "As good as dead, like your brother was, Dean?"
"Hey!"
"I am simply pointing out the bias in your position." Zeke murmured. The slight creases of a frown dented Sam's forehead.
"No you're not!
Civilians, when they get possessed, best case scenario they end up catatonic in some nut house. Worst case— you're in Sammy's head, take a look at Jeffery from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Prick liked what the demon had him do to those women, wanted the damn thing back. It's not murder, it's freaking pest control. You ask Kevin, he'll agree."
"Your brother believes Jeffery Russell was an isolated case with a pre-existing predilection.'"
Listening to Zeke talk about Sam, with Sam's own mouth, was starting to do his head in.
"What Kevin remembers, is you, about to cut his mother's throat with your Kurdish blade, because Crowley was inside of her at the time. So no, Kevin Tran doesn't see things the way you do," the gremlin cut in.
"You told your brother you wished you'd 'slit soccer mom's throat,' because it was Crowley. That no matter what meat suit he was in you should have knifed him. Despite how much 'it would have sucked, and you would have hated yourself, because what was one more nightmare.'" The angel parroted like it was reading a script. "Yet now, the demon king is down in your dungeon, alive. Neither Kevin Tran nor I understand this, Dean. Even your brother has his doubts, though he sees some expediency in your actions."
The angel's charges just sounded worse in that wooden replica of Sammy's voice.
"Crowley thinks you're so blindly obsessed with keeping your brother alive that you'll make another demon deal to save him, again. And that's the reason you're keeping him alive." The gremlin tag teamed with the freaking angel once more.
"It's not, okay!" He argued back, voice strangled. "Crowley's an idiot. Zeke's gonna heal Sam, we're gonna find Cas and we're all gonna put the angels back where they belong, then either I or Kevin can gank that fancy suit wearing sonofabitch, and make the world a better place. End of story, right. Unless you have the balls to drop this lift. But see, I don't think you believe that'll solve anything, or you'd have done it already."
The gremlin sounded like it was doing a little dance up there on the elevators roof, and gave him a slow clap.
"It won't, and I do need you to send me back."
"So let us the hell out!
You're so worried about Kevin. We swear to keep him out of demon disposal work, 'cept Crowley, and only if he wants too.
Hell, we'll even send the kid off for some R&R, somewhere away from King douche and the tablets. We'll work it out, little geek can have as much takeout and cable porn as his heart desires.
—An' we'll send you back to fairy land. You get we're only waiting on the new moon, right? You're a giant pain in our ass, it's not like we want you here!
Sooner you're someone else's problem, the better in my book."
The gremlin chuckled. "Does insulting the thing that could kill you usually work?"
Dean was opening his mouth to say, Yeah, it usually did, fugglies made mistakes when they were pissed, when the gremlin continued.
"Brennan's grandmother, or the writer of that book got many things wrong, Dean. That banishing spell only requires a new moon if the banished fae do not go willingly. I'd perform the ritual myself, but unfortunately, banishing yourself for the fae is like tickling yourself for humans. It simply doesn't work."
-/-/-/-
Authors Note: No comments last chapter, did I upset people? Did the last chapter came across Winchester bashing? Sorry if so, that wasn't my intent, though you have to admit season 8-9 Winchesters did do and behave in some less than heroic ways… I think it was mostly due to the weight of trauma and cPTSD which is totally understandable. This chapter has some drama and some brotherly care along with another cameo by Gadreel (aka Zeke) and we addressed a few issues about Kevin. I wish I could give all these boys a good dose of counselling and a good holiday, but theres always some drama hoing on.
Im kind of wondering if my update didn't register? Fanfiction dot net seems more buggy of late, which is a pity. It holds a special place in my heart as do the readers here.
Anyway I'd love to hear from someone, anyone even if its just a "Hi," it can be a tad dispiriting thinking no one's reading or cares…
BTW I also post on my stories over on AO3 under Hobbitual_Psychick … and they have artwork there, just in case any of you is thinking of jumping ship too.
Hope you're all okay out there in your corners of the world and internet.