AN: Well, it took me forever, but here's the final chapter! The next story will be quite a bit shorter, but I probably won't be able to start it right away. In other news: bracket good, weather bad. That's all I have to say about that!
Janice beta'd this and got it back to me at o dark thirty even though I know she was tired and busy. She's awesome like that! Of course, after she was done, I went and changed some stuff, so all mistakes are 100% mine.
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Dean's ears were ringing, and he could feel that his collarbone was broken, an injury he'd had before and which was a bitch to get over. His left hand was messed up too, the pain too intense to determine how many fingers were broken or otherwise screwed up. There was a real chance he'd busted his tailbone, too. He swallowed and winced. His ears hurt enough that he suspected one or both eardrums were blown.
He was well and truly a mess. But what about…?
There were fingers poking at his cheek, probably what had woken him. Dean blinked and squinted then realized it wasn't his eyes playing tricks – there really were little bits of white and gray debris floating down all around him.
He turned his head and saw Sam looking at him. No, not Sam, not with those eerily electric blue eyes. "Zeke?" Dean asked, not able to hear his own voice.
The cold fingers slid up to his forehead and healing energy rolled through Dean. "Thanks, dude," he sighed as the pain retreated and disappeared. "Good to have you back." He was grateful for the healing, his and Sam's both, but he still really didn't like the fact that Zeke was in his brother. Right now, however, it was most definitely the lesser of two evils. "Uh, how's Sam –?"
"Poorly. But out of danger. It will take some time to regain the ground I have lost. He will be unconscious. You understand what happened with the spell?"
Dean nodded and sat up, brushing salt and snow ineffectively off himself. He didn't like the answer but at least the resident angel was back on the job. "And the 72 or whatever?" He flexed his left hand without pain and wondered again how badly Sam was damaged that an angel who could repair broken bones in an instant needed so much time to get him fixed up from the Trials.
The blue glowed a little brighter. "Completely destroyed."
"Awesome. Let's get outta here." Sam's eyelids closed over the bright blue and Dean and his unconscious little brother were alone. Relatively.
Now Dean just had to find them a ride, get Sam's heavy ass out of the snow and into it, figure out where Sam stashed his car, get their crap from the motel and get them on the road before there were some seriously uncomfortable questions.
"You couldn't've helped a little more, Zeke?" Dean grumbled, his relief tempered with a touch of annoyance. There was no answer. Figured.
WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER
Waking up without knowing exactly where he was wasn't terribly odd for Sam, sadly. There had been too many times in his life that he'd been injured or unconscious and brought to safety by others (almost always Dean). He'd even gotten blind drunk a few times and woken up with little to no recollection of of how he'd spent the previous hours. And since the Trials, he'd lost time at random moments, sometimes only a moment, sometimes significantly longer. This, he was pretty sure, was the first of those possibilities...or at least, he hoped it was. The assumption was partly based on the fact that he could smell the unique wool-and-gunpowder scent of the blanket that had lived in the Impala's trunk as long as Sam could remember. They only pulled it out when someone was fighting a fever or chills and thin motel blankets weren't enough, not using it for nastier purposes.
Sam opened his eyes and clocked the generically ugly cheap motel room. But then he saw something that he didn't see very often. Dean was sitting on the other bed – perfectly normal – but he hadn't realized Sam was awake. And therefore, he wasn't wearing his big brother persona. Instead of cocky and larger-than-life, Dean looked haggard. No, he looked haunted. Sam was used to seeing Dean tired or beat up, but this seemed different.
Sam yawned widely and Dean's attention snapped to him. He pulled on his armor in a split second, not knowing Sam had already caught him without it.
"There he is! I thought I was gonna have to bribe somebody to pick me up food," Dean said with a smile that was a shade too fond and relieved to be a smirk. "How ya feeling, Dormouse?"
"Huh?" was Sam's brilliant rejoinder. He worked a hand out of the blanket burrito just enough to scrub at his eyes, relieved to find that his joints no longer felt like they were lubricated with sand. "Are you...are you talking about Alice in Wonderland?" He was having a bit of a hard time shaking his dreams and remembering what had actually happened and the remark was a far cry from Dean's typical dated pop culture references.
He could swear that when he'd been trying to wake up, Mr. Pushkin was there supervising and telling him to stay asleep until 'more of my work is done,' but the details were dissolving by the minute. For a second, he'd thought he wasn't alone in his own mind...
"Sure. You should see the movie version I saw." Dean waggled his eyebrows.
Sam frowned, not wanting to hear about a pornographic version of the classic tale but yawned again before he could complain.
"How are you feeling?" Dean asked again. He dared to feel Sam's forehead with the back of his hand, and Sam had the impression that he'd done that before.
"Cut it out." Sam tried to swat at the offending hand but it was gone before he worked an arm free enough. He thought about Dean's question and did a quick self-assessment. "I'm...pretty good. Tired." Tired was an understatement. As for the rest, he ached a little, but nothing like the all-body throbbing he'd had when he'd gone out to face Humbaba, and he had a bit of a headache, but he wasn't dizzy or feeling like his mind was clouded. Beyond that, he didn't feel any actual injuries, and he wasn't quite sure if he was bundled in bed not knowing how he got there because he was sick or because he was hurt. "What did you do? And are you hurt?"
Dean's eyes were assessing, seeking if Sam was telling the truth. "Just killed the big bad. Blew him and his friends to smithereens! Salt and copper, dude!" This grin was a little more genuine. "It was beautiful, Sammy."
That wasn't what Sam had meant. He wanted to know if Dean had done something stupid to get him so much better in such a short amount of time. "Dean."
Dean's grin didn't dim. "Broke the curse, I guess. You were lookin' better already in the car. And as for me, not a scratch."
Sam studied his brother for a long moment, rubbing at still-bleary eyes. There was a shadow in Dean's eyes, but it didn't seem like he was lying. Sometimes...sometimes the look in Dean's eyes reminded Sam of the dark time shortly after Dad died. He hadn't understood it, had chalked it up to grief, until Dean had admitted what Dad had told him. What Sam had seen glimpses then was wariness, of Dean looking at Sam like he didn't know him. This wasn't precisely the same, but it was in the same family. It was almost as bad as Dean looking at Sam like he was fragile.
Sam had no words for what he was wondering, so instead he asked, "How'd you blow 'em up?"
"You sit up and drink somethin' while I tell you," Dean insisted. He moved toward Sam and tried to help him, hardly deterred by Sam's glare.
"I'll wait," Sam decided, having a few things he wanted more than information. Though Dean argued, he got up and used the bathroom, took a shower, and brushed his teeth.
Then and only then did he feel human enough to consume the fine vending machine fare Dean provided – grape soda, Cheezits, and a Payday candy bar. He couldn't argue with the nonexistent nutrients when it was clear that Dean didn't have anything better because he hadn't been willing to leave Sam. So Sam planted his ass on the bed and finally let Dean hover the way he wanted to. He was tired enough that it wasn't worth fighting him on it any longer.
"Talk," he directed, gesturing with the soda can.
Though he didn't stop giving Sam the assessing looks that meant he was cataloging Sam's condition for himself, Dean sat on the other bed. (Sam ignored the looks easily; he'd given Dean the same kind of once-over to see if he favored anything or moved stiffly.)
"I soaked a bandanna in booze, stuck it in the gas tank of the pickup I had full of copper pipes and lit that sucker up right in the middle of those giant bastards." Dean rubbed the palms of his hands together. "Then I ran like hell. The explosion caught your salt truck too."
"You absolutely sure that they're gone?" Sam asked. He trusted his brother's hunting abilities more than anyone else on Earth, but he wouldn't put it past Dean to leave things half done when Sam was hurt.
"Oh, yeah." Dean wasn't offended. "Not only are you gettin' better, there was nothing left there. A big-ass hole, no trucks, no salt, no copper, no ginormous asswipes." Dean fetched himself a beer and ignored Sam's open hand request for one of his own in favor of handing over another can of lukewarm soda. Sam scrunched up his nose but accepted it.
"News says a piece of the Purgatory mountain is just gone and somebody found a section of a crank shaft on a ski lift." He snickered, then quickly sobered. "Nice job gettin' all the civilians outta there, man."
Sam shook his head in wonder. "Dude, you blew up thirteen Hell-giants without one of them touching you and you didn't even get caught up in the explosion. All I did was shoot a couple ghosts." Something struck him. "Hey, do you know if the ghosts were freed when Humbaba died?"
"I think so. That salt was a nice touch. And Hayes actually helped me – buzzed around like Casper the mosquito to distract the giants while I lit the fuse. I didn't see him again afterward, so I'm assuming they were all able to move on.
"Anyway, you remember Albert who used to help with research sometimes?" He was a victim of a vampire that Dad had saved many years before. He'd never had the constitution for hunting, but he had been willing to do a little recon or research over the years. "He lives not too far and once things settle down, he promised to check it all out with an EMF."
Sam leaned his head against the wall, his eyelids feeling heavy. He could've sworn that Dean looked guilty for a second, but he was too sleepy to be sure. "Oh, good. I didn't know if that salt would be any good. I think Colorado uses calcium chloride instead of rock salt on their roads."
Dean snorted. "How do you know crap like that?" When Sam just shrugged, Dean cleared his throat like he had something unpleasant to say. "The, uh, mountains aren't mirrors of the Hell ones anymore." Dean paused. "How do you know what those look like?" It was asked quietly, and Sam knew Dean wouldn't push if he didn't want to answer. They didn't really talk about Hell. Some things never really lost their power to hurt.
Sam knew for a fact that the case had brought up some very dark memories for Dean and figured he'd give him his answer. "Lucifer," there, he didn't even stumble over the name, "sometimes showed me what Hell looked like, told me we could've ruled it together. Told me we could've made it better for the souls that were suffering if I hadn't been so selfish."
Dean growled, which made Sam smile. Sometimes he thought Dean hated the devil even more than he himself did.
"Too bad we couldn't blow him up," Dean grumbled, followed by some very creative insults.
Sam let his eyes close the rest of the way and Dean's words roll over him. He was going to wake up with teeth sticky with residue of the sweet drink, but he didn't care about that either.
He felt Dean take the mostly-empty can out of his hand and allowed himself to be half-encouraged, half-manhandled to lying down. The blanket was spread over him again, then Dean dared feel his forehead again. "Back off," Sam muttered. He almost added a pejorative...but fell asleep instead.
WINCHESTER * WINCHESTER
Two days later, back in the bunker and with Sam feeling much better, he caught Dean heading for the dungeon. "What are you doing?" he asked, curious but not suspicious.
Dean hesitated. "I thought maybe I'd use our last case for leverage with our guest." Since he'd nabbed the one-time king of Hell, he'd been reluctant to let Sam anywhere near him. It wasn't like Sam had anything but distaste for the demon so he didn't exactly mind staying away, but it was one more odd thing in a whole pile of oddness since Sam had stopped the Trials.
"Yeah, okay. I'm in," Sam answered, setting aside his coffee cup and his misgivings.
"That's – you don't have to come," Dean stumbled over his words a little, which set off a whole slew of neon warning signs in Sam's head.
Why don't you want me near Crowley? Don't you trust me? Do you think I'm too weak? Why don't you look me in the eye anymore?
Sam didn't say any of that. Instead, he rose to his feet and forcibly set it aside. Dean had his reasons for what he did, and Sam was choosing to trust him. When they didn't trust each other was when things went sideways in a big way – Sam had finally learned that lesson. Rather than reacting angrily like he would have when he was younger, Sam kept his hands passively at his sides. "Yeah, but I wouldn't mind seeing him squirm. 'Sides, I'm curious if this goes anywhere. I mean, the 72 are gone, so what's his incentive to change anything?"
Dean considered, then nodded. "Right. Yeah. Um, I'm kinda more interested in information at this point. I don't think he'll give in, but he might give us a better idea about what the hell's going on with Hell."
That's how Sam found himself in the dungeon leaning against the back wall with his arms and ankles crossed watching Dean and Crowley verbally spar.
"I'm just saying, word is that Abaddon was hoping to recruit the giants," Dean said. Kevin had not only sensed the destruction of Humbaba and co., he'd also told them that he could feel how pissed the would-be queen of Hell was, presumably because she'd thought to use the giants for her own purposes.
"That I would have paid to see," Crowley mused with a small smile. "From what I heard of them, they were uncontrollable, unpredictable, and wilier than you'd expect. They could have proved to be a major thorn in Abaddon's side. There's a reason I blocked off their section of Hell, you know."
"Well, she wasn't as scared of them as you were," Dean taunted.
"That's because she isn't as smart as I am," Crowley snapped back.
Sam was amused. Crowley was easier to rile up than he used to be.
"Where are you going with this, Squirrel? I'm not giving you the names of all the demons on Earth and you're not letting me go so…"
Sam could see the tension in Dean's posture and didn't understand it.
"I just want you to remember that you owe me one," Dean said, low and serious. "And if there's a next time we work together for something, I want you to take that into account."
That was...more than odd. Sam had to work to keep the frown off his face, not willing to give Crowley any ammunition.
Crowley's always-sharp eyes sharpened even more, his interest clearly piqued. "Reeeeally?" he drawled. "Would you care to be more specific about what we might 'work together' on?"
"Nope. Just hedging my bets." Dean slapped the table in front of the demon. "Well, have fun sitting alone in the dark." He turned and walked out. Sam stood and followed reflexively. Crowley's eyes lit on him, searching for answers, but Sam had none to give him.
"I got some of that Oswald's Whiskey that we found in storage," Dean said when they were walking back toward the map room. "Want a drink or two?"
"Cotswalds Whiskey," Sam corrected absently. He looked at the little, hopeful smile on Dean's face and considered. Things were good, shockingly so. They had a safe home and were back in sync. The Trials had stopped and Sam was feeling better again. Sure, Abaddon was running free, but they'd figure out a way to deal with her eventually. Sam decided to ignore everything for one more day and have a couple drinks of high-class booze with his brother. After all, treating problems with alcohol and suppression was practically a family tradition.
"Sounds good, Dean."
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AN: As Porky Pig says: "That's all, folks!"
The Dormouse is a creature in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. He is always falling asleep.
I looked up "expensive British whiskey" and found Cotwolds. I figured the Men of Letters might stock something like that and the Winchester boys might enjoy it.
Natylop: Okay, that made me laugh! Burn it all...or blow it up! I hope it's clear here, but Humbaba locked Zeke away, so his death freed him back up. It's a good thing, too, because Dean made a bit bigger explosion than he intended and they would've both been in big trouble without angelic help. I've always believed that Gadreel really did do his best for Sam until Metatron got to him.
ncsupnatfan: Thank you! Destruction is fun to write! *rubs hands together like a mad scientist* I really did beat them up here. I have plenty of license to do that when there's a friendly angel in residence, so to speak. I couldn't have Dean spill the beans about Zeke/Gadreel because Sam didn't know about him at this point in the show. I gave Sam some doubts but nothing concrete.
muffinroo: You know whenever there are explosions or other catastrophic events, schmoop is sure to follow! There isn't a ton here because of Sam's worries and doubts, but I did fit a little in.
Christine: Thank you! I have too many ideas about the background and usually have to curtail my tendency to write too much about it. Sorry for making you think the boys might be dead but...all better!
Kathy: I only see one review from you for the ninth chapter. Given how dark the flashbacks were in this story, I may have to write something sweet and weechesters-based soon! I decided that an explosion with copper and salt was likely to kill the giants, especially when they were still in-between, not quite fully manifested on Earth. I know you had to wait a while for a happy ending, but I finally got it done!
Spnlady: Yeah, they were both in pretty big trouble. Good thing they have an angel in their back pocket even though Cas is pretty much human. The giants really are gone (finally!). Thank you for your very kind words.