candygramme (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
candygramme) wrote2018-12-26 08:31 am
candygramme) wrote2018-12-26 08:31 am
Secret Santa gift for marietwist through SPN J2 Santa over on LJ
Wonderland Redux
Earlier:
Crowley stood in the shadows within the veil, observing. If anyone had ever dared to accuse him of caring about the Winchesters, he would have scoffed at them and then reduced them to their component atoms for their sheer temerity and yet...
Dean hadn't been the same since he'd been infested by Michael and then abruptly abandoned, and left to stew. That made Crowley sad. He was, although in his own underhanded way, fond of Squirrel, and watching him all beaten down made Crowley itch.
He figured that there must be something he could do to bolster Squirrel's confidence once more, and set about recruiting help from among the others trapped in the veil with him.
Returning to gaze upon where the sleeping Winchesters lay, curled up in each others' arms, he bent to whisper into Moose's ear.
~oo(0)oo~
A thin curl of blue hung in the sodium corpselight before evaporating in the breeze. It was two am, and not the kind of night that anyone with any sense would choose to be out and about.. Dean himself wouldn't be out there either, but he'd woken suddenly for no good reason and turned to find his brother was gone. His bed was rumpled, and there was a note on his pillow that made Dean frown. His computer had been set to show a map of the immediate vicinity with an X marked in an alley nearby.
He picked up the note that had been left on Sam's pillow and checked it out. It was certainly in Sam's handwriting, Unfortunately it made no sense at all...
Dean, it just came to me. Don't worry. If you escape before I get back, just stay here and wait for me.. I know where Crowley's taken you, and I'll make him let you go. Sam.
A moment of utter panic slithered along Dean's spine. What was going on? Sam's message was completely off the wall, and yet he'd seemed fine earlier. He grabbed his clothes and began to dress himself, intent on going to the place shown on the map and finding Sam, who obviously needed help. After all, they both knew that Crowley was dead. Cursing roundly, he grabbed his jacket and his gun before heading out to find his apparently deluded brother.
~oo(0)oo~
.
Dean flicked the collar of his jacket higher, half concealing features that seemed carved from marble and set with the kind of pain that only losing his brother could ever cause. Sam was gone, and he'd left only a completely insane message with no other clue as to where.
"Fuck it anyway." he muttered viciously. "It's too cold to be standing around out here, Sammy. Why couldn't you have waited for me? We could've gone together for whatever you needed.
**So go down there already, you moron. There's nothing else here.** The voice was the one only he could hear, one that belonged to what he thought might be his conscience. Perhaps he had finally flipped as well, and this was just some lunatic game of hide and seek he was playing. He knew from Sam's note that, somehow, Crowley was at the bottom of Sam's disappearance, even though he knew that Crowley was dead – the thought was not as comforting as it should have been.
"You know I can't stand going down holes when I don't know what's at the bottom."
**I said go, Dean! Just suck it up.** Although why he should have bothered to invent a conscience like this one was a mystery even to himself. In his mind's eye, she was a slim, immaculately turned out young woman, hair and makeup never less than perfect, with dark, glossy hair, sharp elfin features and eyes a few shades darker than his own. She was beautiful, and the last time he’d seen her, she’d been helping him learn just how hard Death’s job was. “Fucking Reapers getting all up in my business,” he growled at Tessa, and she smirked at him, just as infuriatingly obnoxious with him as he had ever been with Sam.
He cursed under his breath. This was turning out to be his worst evening since that dom had tried to discipline him back in the day. "Why the hell should I? He was dumb enough to get caught in there in the first place."
**You know where he is. You know where they'll have taken him.**
"Yeah, yeah. Sammy down the rabbit hole, lost like Alice. I feel so sorry for him." Sarcasm laced his words and he ground the cigarette he’d been smoking beneath his heel savagely. "I keep telling him not to go off on his own. We could've gone together in the morning."
**I think it's dead now, Dean.** she informed him coolly, aloof as always as she watched his foot methodically grind the remains of his cigarette down into crumbs. **A state your brother will probably share unless you get your ass in gear and go and help him.**
"Alright." Dean sighed and trudged over to the manhole further down the alley, cunningly concealed by the skeleton of a sofa and a mattress no self-respecting tramp would deign to use. "Any bright ideas as to where I should go when I get down there?"
**You're the one with a brain, sweetheart; I'm just your conscience.**
Dean grimaced, balancing precariously on the ladder in order to slide the manhole cover closed over his head, and retorted, "You're the one always telling me I don't have a brain." But she had gone.
At least she had the tact to disappear when he might need to kill someone, he reflected, negotiating the slick rungs with careful dexterity. And it was odds on that there would be guards between him and Sam, not to mention the denizens of Wonderland, or was it Hell? He was a little fuzzy about that. Savagely he pondered how to make Crowley suffer for putting him through all this as he began his descent.
The rungs of the metal ladder were slick with some kind of grease, and Dean found it harder and harder to keep his footing as he climbed. The lower he went, the harder it was, and to complicate things, he began to hear a low murmuring that only grew louder as he made his way down what felt like an endless shaft.
The heat was rising too. Dean was sweating, salt dripping down his forehead into his eyes, trickling down his back to soak the waistband of his jeans and chafe his skin as he went. It wasn't comfortable, in fact it was a short dose of hell. One more thing to chalk up to Crowley, he supposed. When he thought about it, Crowley really needed to die. Again! Sure he'd been useful in their fight against the apocalypse, and he was occasionally amusing, but, face it, he was the King of Hell, and didn't that mean he was an enemy?
There was a sudden loud chiming that made him jump. He slipped and scrabbled madly in an attempt to find his footing again, yelling as his hands parted company with the ladder and he began to fall.
~~oo(0)oo~~
Later
Sam Winchester crouched behind the dumpster and waited. He’d been shadowing Crowley for what seemed forever in search of his brother, and the tortuous path had led him here to this alley. At the end of the alley, he knew, was a door that led into a small room containing a garbage disposal chute, and little else of note.
The alley was rank, smelled moldy in the cold, damp air of the night. There was an old chesterfield lying on its back against the wall, its stuffing spilling onto the paving as though it had been eviscerated by some obscene hand. Scraps of detritus were strewn about where they had spilled from the dumpster, and the smell was that of decay as Sam huddled, collar turned up against the wind and incessant drizzle.
At least half an hour before, he was sure he had seen Crowley rush into the alley, gun in hand, pause to check his watch, murmur, “Oh, fuck, I’m late,” and disappear into the little room. Since then he had neither seen nor heard anything that might indicate what he was doing there.
He checked his own watch, and closed his eyes, wondering what to do next. It was 40 minutes now since Crowley had passed through the doorway, and he still had no idea what was going on or where the wretched demon king had taken his brother. He reached back into the waistband of his jeans and took his own gun in his hand as he stood up cautiously, stretching the kinks out of cramped calf muscles. Taking a deep breath, he slowly moved towards the room where he knew Crowley now was.
Approaching the low, narrow door, he heard nothing. After a moment or two, he moved forward to lean against the door, listening intently, but he heard nothing. He was still craning his neck, trying to hear if there was something happening inside, when he felt the unmistakable cold of gunmetal on the back of his neck.
How they’d managed to creep up on him, he didn’t know. He’d thought he was vigilant, but there was no mistaking the fact that someone was holding a gun on him. God forbid that it was Crowley. He’d die if it turned out to be Crowley. The embarrassment would kill him.
He froze, and the voice that came then was not one he’d ever heard before. He felt the warmth of relief hit him even while his muscles tensed in anticipation of what might shortly happen. When the blow came to the back of his head, he crumpled wordlessly, pain like a flashing light strobed within his skull.
He awoke a few minutes later, face in the quarter inch or so of muck that lined the alley, and choked a little as he tried to clear it from his lips. A coarse voice behind him called attention to his conscious state and he suddenly felt himself lifted from the ground. It was undoubtedly one of Crowley’s demons that had him. Its obsidian glare would have been enough to give that away, even without factoring in the incredible strength of the thing that held him so tightly.
Rough hands held him. He was carried from the place where he had lain into the room, and towards the disposal chute. Alarmed, he began to struggle, but it was to no avail. He felt himself swung, once, twice, and suddenly he was in the chute and sliding down the dirty stainless steel towards some distant garbage tip.
Only he didn’t land, he kept on falling.
Down. The chute seemed to open out, and after a while he could no longer feel its slick and greasy surface beneath him. He fell, arms and legs flailing at first until somehow he managed to achieve a position akin to that used by skydivers in free fall, and then he relaxed. The sensation wasn’t uncomfortable – that would be when he hit bottom, he had no doubt. For now, he was content to fall, in what seemed to be a vault of some kind. It was lined with filing cabinets, and he could see shelves full of CDs and tapes that were just out of his reach. He could only imagine what excitement they might contain, if he could just get to them.
When he finally reached the bottom of the shaft, he landed with a surprisingly slight impact. He found himself in a grim, grey room with little or no furniture save for a metal desk in the corner, illuminated by an angle-poise lamp. There was a pack of cigarettes on the desk, Camels of course, and written on a piece of paper beside the pack was the legend, “Smoke me.” He shrugged, and turned to examine the other item on the desktop. It was a syringe, its transparent reservoir full of a clear, straw-colored liquid. Lying beneath the syringe was another piece of paper, and on it was written, “Inject me.”
Now Sam was not a stupid fellow, whatever Bobby might have said. He knew very well that one should not inject strange substances without first ascertaining that they weren’t poisonous. And the cigarettes were, of course, the Devil's favorite brand, so he knew to be wary of them also.
Gingerly, he picked up the syringe and delicately wafted it beneath his nose. He wasn't entirely sure what he expected to smell, but decided that because he could smell nothing nasty, it was probably safe. It certainly didn’t smell of sulphur, or anything else demonic.
"What would Dad do if he were down a garbage chute with a pack of cigarettes and a syringe?" he asked himself, for the low hum of the lighting was irritating and rather accentuated his loneliness.
And his common sense, which had sneaked off for a cigarette earlier in the scene, returned, said to him, "What makes you think Dad would ever be in this situation in the first place?"
"It could happen. Extreme possibilities happen all the time around here and this was just about as extreme as you can get." But at the mention of his father he remembered his cell phone. Yes, that was what Dad would do – he would get help.
At that moment, the background hum intensified to a savage buzz, the sound of disturbed bees. There was no door. That was the first thing Sam registered, quickly followed by the realization that the noise was slowly advancing down the corridor towards him.
Unable to come up with any plan more constructive than crouching under the desk, he proceeded to do just that. Remembering the cell phone, he ripped it from his pocket, wincing at the sound of threads tearing loose.
Fingers trembling so that he could hardly hit the right button, and quelling a surge of hysterical laughter, he clutched the phone to his ear.
The voice was male, but it certainly was not his father's. Not unless John Winchester had taken up singing in his spare time anyway. It didn't sound like him; instead it was all velvet and heartbreak, singing contemplatively.
"They said someday you'll find
All who love are blind
When your heart's on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes."
A voice like that shouldn't be permitted outside of a sexual fantasy. A voice like that should come packaged with blowjob lips and brilliant green eyes framed with sinfully long lashes, lashes too long for a…
Sam froze, the cell phone slipping from his grasp to explode against the concrete floor, bright metal guts spilling obscenely. Why the fuck had his mind conjured up the image of Dean, all leather aggression and defiant submission?
And…he was almost grateful for the increased roar. The bees were too close for him to worry about his warped mind. He had to think of something fast. He could see the menacing shadow ghosting along the ceiling of the corridor, and it was growing rapidly closer,
Like a charm, it came to him borne along by the memory of that song. Beekeepers used smoke to calm their insects. Frantically, feeling the adrenaline lift him up to ride the wave in its wake, he scrabbled for the cigarettes.
Lighter. Lighter, for Chrissake. There had to be one somewhere; he always had one in his pants. Or was it in his jacket? "Shit!"
And then, mercifully, his fingers closed on cheap plastic. The flint sparked and acrid smoke soured his mouth in the instant before exhalation.
Smoke writhed from the end of the tiny tube as though from a bonfire, and in its depths, he caught suggestions of faces, or rather an endless repeating gallery of his brother’s face.
~~oo(0)oo~~
The insects that swirled around Sam were keeping their distance as he blew smoke in their direction, but he knew he was going to have to do something soon. They were beginning to fly closer, and it seemed a if it was only going to be a few moments before they decided that he posed no threat. Looking around, he could see nothing in the room itself that might serve him to get out of this predicament. Coming to a sudden conclusion, he lit another cigarette and rose to his feet, ready to make a dash for the corridor from which the insects had erupted.
Taking off his jacket, Sam was about to wrap it around his head and across his face to protect it, when one of the rather more enterprising insects finally decided to zoom in, no doubt to take a chunk out of him. It was huge, almost as large as his fist, and it had wicked looking pincers at one end, balanced by a mean looking stinger at the other. He gazed at it in horror and lashed out at it with his jacket. To his amazement, the thing burst like a bubble, emitting an utterly foul stench.
Shoving the cigarettes into his back pocket, he wafted his jacket around himself as he made his way into the corridor and set out along it to find out where it went. There were a number of doors along it, some huge and others much smaller. At the end of the corridor, he could see a blank wall. When his arm came in contact with it, he felt himself somehow sucked into it and then through it, only to fall several feet onto a surface that appeared to be blacktop.
“You should probably get off the road. I can hear them coming."
"Huh?" Sam looked around him. He was standing in the middle of a four lane highway that stretched as far as the eye could see, and in one of the trees beside it floated a creature wearing a manic grin. To be perfectly honest what he was seeing was only the creature's head, apparently floating around without a body, and the sight of it made his jaw drop. As he took in the white stetson and the string that apparently tethered the manifestation to some invisible skyhook, he found it hard restrain his laughter.
"Suit yourself if you get mowed down, boy," said the apparition, and indeed, Sam could hear the roar of engines growing rapidly closer. He ran for the tree that the disembodied head was next to and hid behind it, just in time. A race seemed to be in progress, and as the first car appeared around the bend, Sam could see the sleek black lines of a Chevy Impala.
"Yeah," he shouted. "Go, Dean!"
But as the car drew nearer, he realized that there was nobody at the wheel. He gasped, but didn't have time to really question what was going on, because another Impala ,then a third, and finally an entire fleet of them appeared, tearing past at phenomenal speed.
"What the fuck?" Sam turned to the floating face, which seemed to be flickering in and out of existence. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Search me, boy," said the face. "Looks like somebody else's dream to me."
"Is it Dean's? Where is he?"
But the creature was disappearing, fading from view until all that Sam could see was that white Stetson slowly flickering from view.
Confused, Sam fumbled in his pocket, pulling the slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket to study it. It didn't appear to contain any hallucinogens, or at least none whose name he recognised. None the wiser, he stuffed the pack away, shrugged, and began to walk.
~~oo(0)oo~~
Dean felt queasy as he began to come to. He'd landed hard on what felt like concrete and lost consciousness. Now he was being bumped and jolted in the most sickening way, and it felt as if he were on a ship at sea, unable to find his center of balance or even open his eyes.
When he finally did, he wished he hadn't. It took a while before he could make sense of what he saw. He seemed to be lying on a fuzzy orange and brown carpet – an undulating fuzzy orange and brown carpet. It took him a minute or two to realize that the carpet was made from what seemed like hundreds of large, fuzzy caterpillars running, and that he was being transported god knows where on their backs.
He had no idea just how long he'd been traveling this way, but it seemed that they were almost at their destination, because the column upon which he was riding suddenly came to a halt beside a large table. Crowley, who had been seated at the table, stepped down from his perch. Dean frowned. He didn't like Crowley – didn't care two hoots about Crowley's clothing, which was usually black and beautifully tailored – but he couldn't quite fathom why the King of Hell appeared to be dressed as the Energizer Bunny, and he was desperate to find out.
"Well done, boys," murmured Crowley, tossing a package of some sort into the seething mass of creatures. "There you go. That ought to get you as high as a kite and keep you there for a week." The caterpillars chittered for a moment, and then Crowley gestured to what looked to Dean like a gigantic teapot. "Just toss him in there on your way out," he said. "I've got a date with Mother, and I don't want him lying around looking untidy."
The chittering grew louder for a moment, and then the bugs surged over to the teapot and up the side, dumping Dean over the edge and into the teapot. In another moment, they were gone.
"Hello, Squirrel." Crowley's velvety tones made Dean jump. "Care for a pot of tea?"
"Crowley!" Dean jumped, trying to get hold of the opening at the top of the pot, but no matter how high he jumped, it remained out of his reach. "Just give me my brother, and we won't say anything about what you're wearing."
"Sorry, Squirrel. Can't talk now. I'm expecting my Mother any moment. I have to make the tea." Crowley turned away, gesturing with his left hand as he sauntered back towards the table. Dean opened his mouth to yell, but closed it suddenly as he felt liquid begin to creep up along his shins and past his knees.
He gave a surprised yell, but Crowley had evidently moved away, and he heard Rowena trill, "Good afternoon, Fergus," as the liquid passed his thighs. He thought that he heard Sam speaking and drew in a breath to yell.
"Sammy?"
A moment later, there was no more air beneath the teapot's unmovable lid, and he thrashed a little before blackness claimed him.
~~oo(0)oo~~
Sam was hurrying through what seemed to be an eternity of woodland. Occasionally a fat bee could be seen bumbling towards him, only to burst like a bubble with a loud popping sound as they touched him. His feet were getting steadily more tired, and he was thinking about stopping for a rest when he heard Dean call his name. Changing his direction, he began to shove his way through the undergrowth towards the direction of Dean's voice. It was tough going. Brambles whipped at his ankles and snagged in his hair and clothing, but at last he reached a clearing. Frowning, he could see that Crowley had beaten him to it. Crowley was dressed in his pink rabbit suit, but he'd set his drum to one side as he sat holding a china cup and saucer, pinky stuck out as he slurped from the saucer. Rowena, sitting beside him – dressed in something green and gauzy, and wearing a headdress piled with vast quantities of fruit – was in the act of dunking biscuits into her tea.
"Oh, hello, Samuel," she murmured. "Would you care for tea?"
"Another time, please," muttered Sam. "I've got to find Dean. Have you seen him?"
Rowena shook her head, no, as Crowley turned to him. "Well, as you can see, Moose, he's not here, but I did see him a little while ago. He's definitely somewhere close. He can't possibly have gone far." He whistled, and the face of the grinning creature from earlier materialized, grin first, and floated above Sam’s head.. "Here. Asmodeus, take Moose here to the courthouse. I'm sure he'll find Dean there."
"What's in it for me?" grumped the head.
""I suppose you can have your shoulders back if you do it right." Crowley shrugged. "You know I'll be watching."
Little more was said, but the head, whose name, it appeared, was Asmodeus, swooped in Rowena's direction and began browsing on her hat with every evidence of enjoyment, until Rowena picked up her parasol and began to flail at it.
After scoring a lucky hit in the weird creature's eye, Asmodeus finally began to move away. "Follow me," it said and Sam hurried to catch up with it.
They started along a pathway through the undergrowth that Sam hadn't noticed before, and made much better time than he had earlier. It wasn't long until they arrived alongside a field where there seemed to be a game of soccer going on – or at least it looked as though it should have been soccer, if only they had been using a ball.
There were a huge number of clowns on the field, and at first Sam couldn't determine if there were teams at all, and if there were, then he wondered how one could tell who was on whose team. Thankfully, it appeared that they hadn't noticed him, and as he sneaked along the side of the playing field, hoping fervently not to be noticed, he gradually succeeded in working out that one side had huge, orange wigs and red noses, along with huge big feet, and the other had conical caps, white faces and pale clothes with pom poms along the front. Every so often one of them would sound a horn, and the opposing man would fall down, before getting up and joining in the melee once more.
Sam was sidling around the field in the hopes of getting to the other end of the path. All was going well until Asmodeus sneezed. At that, the clowns all stopped and turned to look at Sam, then even worse, surrounded him and began to perform tricks in front of him. The ball they'd been playing with took advantage of the fact that they weren't looking at it, uncurled itself onto four stumpy little feet and began to creep away. By the time one of the clowns remembered it, it was long gone, no doubt running for home and mother.
"The ball! Where's the ball?" cried one of the whiteface augustes, pretending to wipe his eyes on an orange-haired hobo type's sleeve. That started a slap-fight that took some of the attention off the cringing Sam.
"Wait!" Another whiteface snagged Asmodeus's head and bellowed, "This will do." and the game, such as it was, began again.
Sam heard "Run, Sam," as he did just that, sighing with relief as he reached the cover of the trees. Turning to peer out from behind a weeping conifer, he saw one of the bozos in orange and red, with huge feet, take a mighty kick at Asmodeus and launch him the length of the playing field. The airborne head screamed as it sailed through the air, and faded out more rapidly than earlier with a very unbecoming green tinge to it. He didn't wait to see anything more, he just turned and ran.
~~oo(0)oo~~
Sam had no idea where he was going or how to track his brother down. He had a bad feeling as he wandered along. Asmodeus hadn't made a reappearance, and he knew that he was lost. It was beginning to get dark when he finally sank down on a fallen tree trunk to try and decide what he should do next.
His feet hurt, and he was contemplating taking off his shoes to check for blisters, when he heard a tramping sound. It was faint at first, but as it grew louder it seemed like the sound of many feet, marching. Getting up with a sigh, Sam turned towards the direction of the sound. Even if it was yet another weird event, at least they might be able to point the way to the courthouse that Crowley had mentioned.
As he limped towards the sound, the cause of it rounded a corner and he could see that it was caused by a group of eight camo-clad soldiers, each one wearing a mask that looked like Dean.
"HALT!" they all yelled, coming to a stop beside Sam. They turned to study Sam, and Sam was in the midst of getting the nerve up to ask the group if they'd seen Dean, but he never got the words out. The soldiers moved as one, reaching to grab him, hoist him up off his feet and stuff him into a sack. In less than 30 seconds, the platoon had set forth and begun their march once more, and Sam, cocooned within folds of burlap, was trussed so tightly that all he could do was yell ineffectually to be put down.
The squad that held him captive seemed to take off at a run, and Sam soon felt seasick, jolted as he was. He called out to no avail, and by the time they had brought him to their destination he was only able to sit where he'd been dumped and whimper.
He could feel people moving all around him, bumping him, invading his space, and he began to try and wriggle out of the sack that held him prisoner. Waves of nausea assailed him. People were pushing and shoving him, and the burlap became ever more constricting, seeming to shrink each time he moved. It was several minutes before he succeeded in fighting free of the increasingly tight fabric, and for a moment he just sat and panted as he inhaled lungfuls of clean air. When he finally got it together enough to start looking around him, he appeared to be in a courtroom. Around him sat clowns with red noses and checkered suits, all apparently waiting for something. To be honest, Sam thought, they're just pathetic. I'm not scared of them any more. They're just stupid and serve no useful purpose.
He must have spoken his thought out loud because a frisson went through the crowd around him, and the clowns began to turn towards him, menacingly. Fortunately, before any violence could occur, Crowley, weilding a huge silver mace, appeared and banged on the witness stand, shouting 'order, order!'
"I'll have a pint of Guinness," called one of the clowns, causing a general commotion. Everywhere, the others honked air horns, stomped on the floor and catcalled.
Crowley didn't seem to be impressed. Stalking over to the hapless clown that had started the ruckus, furry ears flopping as he went, the late king of hell bashed Bozo on the side of the head with his mace, while simultaneously reaching to grasp the nuisance's nose, neatly tweaking it off his face. There was a collective gasp.
"Suppress him," roared Crowley, and after a horrified pause, several of the others seized Sam's burlap sack, rolled Bozo up in it and sat on him.
Nodding in approval, Crowley returned to stand between the witness box and the bench. "All right, you lot. Behave yourselves and I won't have to hurt anyone else." He tossed the newly separated nose in the air a couple of times and then slid it into a pocket with a smirk. "Now, please rise for his honor the justice presiding."
The door behind the bench opened and Billie the Reaper entered the court, followed closely behind by the being Sam had known as Death. Sam gaped, but sat with the others when Crowley told them they could.
"Bring in the prisoner."
There was soft murmuring as a figure was hauled into the courtroom and dumped unceremoniously onto a chair . Sam couldn't see his face, but didn't have to wait very long before his identity was revealed.
"Dean Winchester, how do you plead?" asked Billie, looking up from where she'd been writing something on a scroll.
"Guilty, your honor." Dean's voice sounded infinitely tired, but it was definitely Dean. Sam felt his eyes burn with tears he knew he couldn't afford to shed.
.
"Very well." Billie wrote something else, and turned to Death. "Should we proceed to sentencing in that case?" she asked, and Death frowned. At that point, Sam had seen enough. He rose to his feet, no longer caring if he would be suppressed. At least his nose was his own, he thought, then drew in a deep breath and yelled. "He is not guilty, your honor! He's never been guilty."
Death raised his head, and it seemed as though the entire courtroom held its breath. "We find that hard to believe under the circumstances. We find your assertion interesting." Billie rolled her eyes, but after a moment's reflection, she nodded.
"Then I suppose we must have a trial after all." Looking around, she seemed to be seeking something. "Who will prosecute this case?"
There was a flutter of many wings, and the Archangel Michael stepped forward. "That would be me," he said, his eyes flashing blue as he spoke. Turning to Dean, he gave a snide grin. "I believe that I am intimately acquainted with the accused, and with the circumstances of the case." He took a seat and lounged, idly contemplating his shiny shoes
"Now hold on a minute." Sam raised his hand. "This isn't a proper trial. What's he accused of doing?" He turned to look at Dean, who was frowning, his eyes beseeching Sam to stay out, stay safe, not to interfere. "He's always taken the problems of the world on his shoulders. He's always blamed himself for everything, even when he was blameless. It stands to reason that he thinks whatever this 'crime' is must be his fault too."
Michael jumped to his feet. "I object. That's hearsay."
"I heard it from the accused himself, so it's admissible, your honor," growled Sam, who was growing angrier by the minute.
"Overruled," said Death. "However, the prisoner still stands accused."
"Of WHAT?" Sam ground his teeth.
Billie had the grace to flush a little as she banged her gavel for silence. "He said yes," she said. At this point, Michael smirked. "He did."
Death banged his gavel too, as if he didn't want to be left out. "So call your first witness."
"I call Lucifer Morningstar,"
Lucifer sauntered into the courtroom as if he owned it, and Dean, who really hadn't seemed to be paying much attention, gave a soft sob when he saw the newcomer. Sam went to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. "They don't have a leg to stand on," he murmured.
Meanwhile, Lucifer had taken the stand and was declining the bible, refusing to take an oath on it and causing something of an interruption when he demanded to take his oath on the Necronomicon.
Finally, Billie told him just to promise to tell the truth and have done with it, and Lucifer smirked as he said that would be fine and that he always told the truth anyway. Michael rose and went over to stand beside the witness box. "Okay, little brother," he said. "Tell us in your own words what happened to you. What did Dean do?"
There was a pause. Lucifer was slowly turning purple and steam had begun to come out of his ears.
"He destroyed the natural order," he bellowed.
"How?" Michael's voice was soft, but it hit Lucifer like a blow.
"He killed me! Is that what you want me to say? Well, he did. Now everything is out of balance, and it's all his fault."
"Out of balance?" Sam was the one asking the question, since Michael was merely smirking smugly. Lucifer's appearance had made him feel sick, and only the fact that the figure of Lucifer was slowly beginning to fade away even enabled him to face his erstwhile tormentor.
"If there's no evil, how can you have good to contrast it with?" It seemed that Lucifer wanted to say something else, but at that point he seemed to fade even more, and a huge black hand scooped him up, disappearing into nothingness as Sam heaved a sigh of relief.
"Hey. I thought the defense got to cross examine the witness." Sam was good and mad now. Turning to his brother, he hissed, "Snap out of it, Dean. I need you to fight."
Oh, come on now, Sam," taunted Michael. "You're outgunned, and you know it." He looked over to the judges. "Call Jack Kline."
Jack appeared, and under questioning began to relate how the fight between Dean and Lucifer had gone, and the terrible moment when Michael had taken Dean with him, refusing to leave after he'd promised to do so. Dean sighed and looked up at Sam, who was gazing back at him with his most pathetic expression on his face.
"Dean, whatever happens, I will stay with you. No matter what they say you've done, I've done it too. We're a unit from now until the end, whenever that might be." Sam was about to begin an appeal to the judges, when Dean rose to his feet.
"What's so wrong with saying yes, your honor?" he called out.
"Nothing in itself," responded Death.
"It's all about the context," said Billie, very suddenly. "Whatever made you do it in the end? You've always refused to give in before."
"Sam and Jack were going to die." Dean pointed at Michael, who had stopped questioning Jack when he'd realized that nobody was listening to him. "I couldn't let that happen. Sam's my little brother, and I love him. It's my job..."
"Love?" asked Death. "Is that what this is all about?"
The clowns all burst into cheers, whistling and stomping their feet. Even the fact that Crowley reached for the firehose that was coiled up against one wall and began to spray them with cold water didn't appear to have any effect on them. They continued to applaud.
Sam, who had put his hand into his pocket, fumbling nervously at the contents, found himself pulling out the syringe he'd started with, what seemed like a century ago. Nobody was looking at Sam. Dean and the judges held everyone's attention except for Jack's, and Jack was looking at Michael with trepidation.
The wording on the syringe's label had changed. Instead of 'Inject me', the word 'me' had been scribbled out, and the label now read, 'Inject him,' and Sam frowned as he read it. He still had no idea what the syringe's contents would do, but there was one way of finding out. He lifted his eyes to where Crowley stood and raised his brows in mute inquiry. Crowley winked and nodded at him, and one ear flopped over his eye.
Taking great pains to look nonchalant, he made his way over to where Michael lounged at his ease.
"Yeah," said Michael with a sneer. "Useless emotion. It only exists to allow the likes of Dean here to pursue his selfish ends. He just wraps it all up in a cloud of emotion as if that justifies his need to stay in control of both himself and his brother."
"I would do the same for him as he does for me," said Sam. "And I do love him. You don't understand love because you're a monster, and monsters don't love." He raised the hand holding the syringe and plunged it into Michael's neck, sending the contents into Michael's hapless meat suit.
The clowns were still clapping and stamping their feet, and had set up a chant of 'Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester.' As Michael began to smoke out, Death rose to his feet. "I stand with Dean Winchester," he said.
"I stand with Dean Winchester," said Billie, rising to stand next to him.
"I stand with Dean Winchester..." First, Jack, then Rowena, then Tessa, even Gabriel, who had been snoozing under one of the benches until the commotion woke him. One by one the people who loved Dean assembled until finally Crowley stepped forward to first boop his nose and then seize him by the ear.
"Listen to them, Squirrel. You're not alone, and you can't give up." He twitched as he saw Sam come to loom over him with a very menacing expression on his face. "Okay, Moose. He's all yours. Take him home."
Sam slipped his arms around Dean and bent to kiss him. Death banged his gavel, and the noise of approval began to fade. The world greyed out, and there was no longer anything but whirling motes of light that glowed briefly and then faded to grey.
~oo(0)oo~
There was a spring in Dean's step as he strode into the kitchen of the bunker, where Sam was brewing coffee and attempting to cook breakfast.
"Oh, God, Sammy, I see you're strangling the eggs again. Move over!"
Wordlessly, Sam handed over the utensil with which he'd been battering the unfortunate eggs. "You okay?"
"Never better," replied Dean. "Never better."
Unseen, peering from the veil, Crowley nodded his approval. His evil scheme had worked, and not only that, he'd had fun tormenting the Winchester boys., That's what he called a success!
I hope you liked. I'm not sure it's what you wanted, but... Sam and Dean against the world. Merry Christmas!
Earlier:
Crowley stood in the shadows within the veil, observing. If anyone had ever dared to accuse him of caring about the Winchesters, he would have scoffed at them and then reduced them to their component atoms for their sheer temerity and yet...
Dean hadn't been the same since he'd been infested by Michael and then abruptly abandoned, and left to stew. That made Crowley sad. He was, although in his own underhanded way, fond of Squirrel, and watching him all beaten down made Crowley itch.
He figured that there must be something he could do to bolster Squirrel's confidence once more, and set about recruiting help from among the others trapped in the veil with him.
Returning to gaze upon where the sleeping Winchesters lay, curled up in each others' arms, he bent to whisper into Moose's ear.
~oo(0)oo~
A thin curl of blue hung in the sodium corpselight before evaporating in the breeze. It was two am, and not the kind of night that anyone with any sense would choose to be out and about.. Dean himself wouldn't be out there either, but he'd woken suddenly for no good reason and turned to find his brother was gone. His bed was rumpled, and there was a note on his pillow that made Dean frown. His computer had been set to show a map of the immediate vicinity with an X marked in an alley nearby.
He picked up the note that had been left on Sam's pillow and checked it out. It was certainly in Sam's handwriting, Unfortunately it made no sense at all...
Dean, it just came to me. Don't worry. If you escape before I get back, just stay here and wait for me.. I know where Crowley's taken you, and I'll make him let you go. Sam.
A moment of utter panic slithered along Dean's spine. What was going on? Sam's message was completely off the wall, and yet he'd seemed fine earlier. He grabbed his clothes and began to dress himself, intent on going to the place shown on the map and finding Sam, who obviously needed help. After all, they both knew that Crowley was dead. Cursing roundly, he grabbed his jacket and his gun before heading out to find his apparently deluded brother.
~oo(0)oo~
.
Dean flicked the collar of his jacket higher, half concealing features that seemed carved from marble and set with the kind of pain that only losing his brother could ever cause. Sam was gone, and he'd left only a completely insane message with no other clue as to where.
"Fuck it anyway." he muttered viciously. "It's too cold to be standing around out here, Sammy. Why couldn't you have waited for me? We could've gone together for whatever you needed.
**So go down there already, you moron. There's nothing else here.** The voice was the one only he could hear, one that belonged to what he thought might be his conscience. Perhaps he had finally flipped as well, and this was just some lunatic game of hide and seek he was playing. He knew from Sam's note that, somehow, Crowley was at the bottom of Sam's disappearance, even though he knew that Crowley was dead – the thought was not as comforting as it should have been.
"You know I can't stand going down holes when I don't know what's at the bottom."
**I said go, Dean! Just suck it up.** Although why he should have bothered to invent a conscience like this one was a mystery even to himself. In his mind's eye, she was a slim, immaculately turned out young woman, hair and makeup never less than perfect, with dark, glossy hair, sharp elfin features and eyes a few shades darker than his own. She was beautiful, and the last time he’d seen her, she’d been helping him learn just how hard Death’s job was. “Fucking Reapers getting all up in my business,” he growled at Tessa, and she smirked at him, just as infuriatingly obnoxious with him as he had ever been with Sam.
He cursed under his breath. This was turning out to be his worst evening since that dom had tried to discipline him back in the day. "Why the hell should I? He was dumb enough to get caught in there in the first place."
**You know where he is. You know where they'll have taken him.**
"Yeah, yeah. Sammy down the rabbit hole, lost like Alice. I feel so sorry for him." Sarcasm laced his words and he ground the cigarette he’d been smoking beneath his heel savagely. "I keep telling him not to go off on his own. We could've gone together in the morning."
**I think it's dead now, Dean.** she informed him coolly, aloof as always as she watched his foot methodically grind the remains of his cigarette down into crumbs. **A state your brother will probably share unless you get your ass in gear and go and help him.**
"Alright." Dean sighed and trudged over to the manhole further down the alley, cunningly concealed by the skeleton of a sofa and a mattress no self-respecting tramp would deign to use. "Any bright ideas as to where I should go when I get down there?"
**You're the one with a brain, sweetheart; I'm just your conscience.**
Dean grimaced, balancing precariously on the ladder in order to slide the manhole cover closed over his head, and retorted, "You're the one always telling me I don't have a brain." But she had gone.
At least she had the tact to disappear when he might need to kill someone, he reflected, negotiating the slick rungs with careful dexterity. And it was odds on that there would be guards between him and Sam, not to mention the denizens of Wonderland, or was it Hell? He was a little fuzzy about that. Savagely he pondered how to make Crowley suffer for putting him through all this as he began his descent.
The rungs of the metal ladder were slick with some kind of grease, and Dean found it harder and harder to keep his footing as he climbed. The lower he went, the harder it was, and to complicate things, he began to hear a low murmuring that only grew louder as he made his way down what felt like an endless shaft.
The heat was rising too. Dean was sweating, salt dripping down his forehead into his eyes, trickling down his back to soak the waistband of his jeans and chafe his skin as he went. It wasn't comfortable, in fact it was a short dose of hell. One more thing to chalk up to Crowley, he supposed. When he thought about it, Crowley really needed to die. Again! Sure he'd been useful in their fight against the apocalypse, and he was occasionally amusing, but, face it, he was the King of Hell, and didn't that mean he was an enemy?
There was a sudden loud chiming that made him jump. He slipped and scrabbled madly in an attempt to find his footing again, yelling as his hands parted company with the ladder and he began to fall.
~~oo(0)oo~~
Later
Sam Winchester crouched behind the dumpster and waited. He’d been shadowing Crowley for what seemed forever in search of his brother, and the tortuous path had led him here to this alley. At the end of the alley, he knew, was a door that led into a small room containing a garbage disposal chute, and little else of note.
The alley was rank, smelled moldy in the cold, damp air of the night. There was an old chesterfield lying on its back against the wall, its stuffing spilling onto the paving as though it had been eviscerated by some obscene hand. Scraps of detritus were strewn about where they had spilled from the dumpster, and the smell was that of decay as Sam huddled, collar turned up against the wind and incessant drizzle.
At least half an hour before, he was sure he had seen Crowley rush into the alley, gun in hand, pause to check his watch, murmur, “Oh, fuck, I’m late,” and disappear into the little room. Since then he had neither seen nor heard anything that might indicate what he was doing there.
He checked his own watch, and closed his eyes, wondering what to do next. It was 40 minutes now since Crowley had passed through the doorway, and he still had no idea what was going on or where the wretched demon king had taken his brother. He reached back into the waistband of his jeans and took his own gun in his hand as he stood up cautiously, stretching the kinks out of cramped calf muscles. Taking a deep breath, he slowly moved towards the room where he knew Crowley now was.
Approaching the low, narrow door, he heard nothing. After a moment or two, he moved forward to lean against the door, listening intently, but he heard nothing. He was still craning his neck, trying to hear if there was something happening inside, when he felt the unmistakable cold of gunmetal on the back of his neck.
How they’d managed to creep up on him, he didn’t know. He’d thought he was vigilant, but there was no mistaking the fact that someone was holding a gun on him. God forbid that it was Crowley. He’d die if it turned out to be Crowley. The embarrassment would kill him.
He froze, and the voice that came then was not one he’d ever heard before. He felt the warmth of relief hit him even while his muscles tensed in anticipation of what might shortly happen. When the blow came to the back of his head, he crumpled wordlessly, pain like a flashing light strobed within his skull.
He awoke a few minutes later, face in the quarter inch or so of muck that lined the alley, and choked a little as he tried to clear it from his lips. A coarse voice behind him called attention to his conscious state and he suddenly felt himself lifted from the ground. It was undoubtedly one of Crowley’s demons that had him. Its obsidian glare would have been enough to give that away, even without factoring in the incredible strength of the thing that held him so tightly.
Rough hands held him. He was carried from the place where he had lain into the room, and towards the disposal chute. Alarmed, he began to struggle, but it was to no avail. He felt himself swung, once, twice, and suddenly he was in the chute and sliding down the dirty stainless steel towards some distant garbage tip.
Only he didn’t land, he kept on falling.
Down. The chute seemed to open out, and after a while he could no longer feel its slick and greasy surface beneath him. He fell, arms and legs flailing at first until somehow he managed to achieve a position akin to that used by skydivers in free fall, and then he relaxed. The sensation wasn’t uncomfortable – that would be when he hit bottom, he had no doubt. For now, he was content to fall, in what seemed to be a vault of some kind. It was lined with filing cabinets, and he could see shelves full of CDs and tapes that were just out of his reach. He could only imagine what excitement they might contain, if he could just get to them.
When he finally reached the bottom of the shaft, he landed with a surprisingly slight impact. He found himself in a grim, grey room with little or no furniture save for a metal desk in the corner, illuminated by an angle-poise lamp. There was a pack of cigarettes on the desk, Camels of course, and written on a piece of paper beside the pack was the legend, “Smoke me.” He shrugged, and turned to examine the other item on the desktop. It was a syringe, its transparent reservoir full of a clear, straw-colored liquid. Lying beneath the syringe was another piece of paper, and on it was written, “Inject me.”
Now Sam was not a stupid fellow, whatever Bobby might have said. He knew very well that one should not inject strange substances without first ascertaining that they weren’t poisonous. And the cigarettes were, of course, the Devil's favorite brand, so he knew to be wary of them also.
Gingerly, he picked up the syringe and delicately wafted it beneath his nose. He wasn't entirely sure what he expected to smell, but decided that because he could smell nothing nasty, it was probably safe. It certainly didn’t smell of sulphur, or anything else demonic.
"What would Dad do if he were down a garbage chute with a pack of cigarettes and a syringe?" he asked himself, for the low hum of the lighting was irritating and rather accentuated his loneliness.
And his common sense, which had sneaked off for a cigarette earlier in the scene, returned, said to him, "What makes you think Dad would ever be in this situation in the first place?"
"It could happen. Extreme possibilities happen all the time around here and this was just about as extreme as you can get." But at the mention of his father he remembered his cell phone. Yes, that was what Dad would do – he would get help.
At that moment, the background hum intensified to a savage buzz, the sound of disturbed bees. There was no door. That was the first thing Sam registered, quickly followed by the realization that the noise was slowly advancing down the corridor towards him.
Unable to come up with any plan more constructive than crouching under the desk, he proceeded to do just that. Remembering the cell phone, he ripped it from his pocket, wincing at the sound of threads tearing loose.
Fingers trembling so that he could hardly hit the right button, and quelling a surge of hysterical laughter, he clutched the phone to his ear.
The voice was male, but it certainly was not his father's. Not unless John Winchester had taken up singing in his spare time anyway. It didn't sound like him; instead it was all velvet and heartbreak, singing contemplatively.
"They said someday you'll find
All who love are blind
When your heart's on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes."
A voice like that shouldn't be permitted outside of a sexual fantasy. A voice like that should come packaged with blowjob lips and brilliant green eyes framed with sinfully long lashes, lashes too long for a…
Sam froze, the cell phone slipping from his grasp to explode against the concrete floor, bright metal guts spilling obscenely. Why the fuck had his mind conjured up the image of Dean, all leather aggression and defiant submission?
And…he was almost grateful for the increased roar. The bees were too close for him to worry about his warped mind. He had to think of something fast. He could see the menacing shadow ghosting along the ceiling of the corridor, and it was growing rapidly closer,
Like a charm, it came to him borne along by the memory of that song. Beekeepers used smoke to calm their insects. Frantically, feeling the adrenaline lift him up to ride the wave in its wake, he scrabbled for the cigarettes.
Lighter. Lighter, for Chrissake. There had to be one somewhere; he always had one in his pants. Or was it in his jacket? "Shit!"
And then, mercifully, his fingers closed on cheap plastic. The flint sparked and acrid smoke soured his mouth in the instant before exhalation.
Smoke writhed from the end of the tiny tube as though from a bonfire, and in its depths, he caught suggestions of faces, or rather an endless repeating gallery of his brother’s face.
~~oo(0)oo~~
The insects that swirled around Sam were keeping their distance as he blew smoke in their direction, but he knew he was going to have to do something soon. They were beginning to fly closer, and it seemed a if it was only going to be a few moments before they decided that he posed no threat. Looking around, he could see nothing in the room itself that might serve him to get out of this predicament. Coming to a sudden conclusion, he lit another cigarette and rose to his feet, ready to make a dash for the corridor from which the insects had erupted.
Taking off his jacket, Sam was about to wrap it around his head and across his face to protect it, when one of the rather more enterprising insects finally decided to zoom in, no doubt to take a chunk out of him. It was huge, almost as large as his fist, and it had wicked looking pincers at one end, balanced by a mean looking stinger at the other. He gazed at it in horror and lashed out at it with his jacket. To his amazement, the thing burst like a bubble, emitting an utterly foul stench.
Shoving the cigarettes into his back pocket, he wafted his jacket around himself as he made his way into the corridor and set out along it to find out where it went. There were a number of doors along it, some huge and others much smaller. At the end of the corridor, he could see a blank wall. When his arm came in contact with it, he felt himself somehow sucked into it and then through it, only to fall several feet onto a surface that appeared to be blacktop.
“You should probably get off the road. I can hear them coming."
"Huh?" Sam looked around him. He was standing in the middle of a four lane highway that stretched as far as the eye could see, and in one of the trees beside it floated a creature wearing a manic grin. To be perfectly honest what he was seeing was only the creature's head, apparently floating around without a body, and the sight of it made his jaw drop. As he took in the white stetson and the string that apparently tethered the manifestation to some invisible skyhook, he found it hard restrain his laughter.
"Suit yourself if you get mowed down, boy," said the apparition, and indeed, Sam could hear the roar of engines growing rapidly closer. He ran for the tree that the disembodied head was next to and hid behind it, just in time. A race seemed to be in progress, and as the first car appeared around the bend, Sam could see the sleek black lines of a Chevy Impala.
"Yeah," he shouted. "Go, Dean!"
But as the car drew nearer, he realized that there was nobody at the wheel. He gasped, but didn't have time to really question what was going on, because another Impala ,then a third, and finally an entire fleet of them appeared, tearing past at phenomenal speed.
"What the fuck?" Sam turned to the floating face, which seemed to be flickering in and out of existence. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Search me, boy," said the face. "Looks like somebody else's dream to me."
"Is it Dean's? Where is he?"
But the creature was disappearing, fading from view until all that Sam could see was that white Stetson slowly flickering from view.
Confused, Sam fumbled in his pocket, pulling the slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket to study it. It didn't appear to contain any hallucinogens, or at least none whose name he recognised. None the wiser, he stuffed the pack away, shrugged, and began to walk.
~~oo(0)oo~~
Dean felt queasy as he began to come to. He'd landed hard on what felt like concrete and lost consciousness. Now he was being bumped and jolted in the most sickening way, and it felt as if he were on a ship at sea, unable to find his center of balance or even open his eyes.
When he finally did, he wished he hadn't. It took a while before he could make sense of what he saw. He seemed to be lying on a fuzzy orange and brown carpet – an undulating fuzzy orange and brown carpet. It took him a minute or two to realize that the carpet was made from what seemed like hundreds of large, fuzzy caterpillars running, and that he was being transported god knows where on their backs.
He had no idea just how long he'd been traveling this way, but it seemed that they were almost at their destination, because the column upon which he was riding suddenly came to a halt beside a large table. Crowley, who had been seated at the table, stepped down from his perch. Dean frowned. He didn't like Crowley – didn't care two hoots about Crowley's clothing, which was usually black and beautifully tailored – but he couldn't quite fathom why the King of Hell appeared to be dressed as the Energizer Bunny, and he was desperate to find out.
"Well done, boys," murmured Crowley, tossing a package of some sort into the seething mass of creatures. "There you go. That ought to get you as high as a kite and keep you there for a week." The caterpillars chittered for a moment, and then Crowley gestured to what looked to Dean like a gigantic teapot. "Just toss him in there on your way out," he said. "I've got a date with Mother, and I don't want him lying around looking untidy."
The chittering grew louder for a moment, and then the bugs surged over to the teapot and up the side, dumping Dean over the edge and into the teapot. In another moment, they were gone.
"Hello, Squirrel." Crowley's velvety tones made Dean jump. "Care for a pot of tea?"
"Crowley!" Dean jumped, trying to get hold of the opening at the top of the pot, but no matter how high he jumped, it remained out of his reach. "Just give me my brother, and we won't say anything about what you're wearing."
"Sorry, Squirrel. Can't talk now. I'm expecting my Mother any moment. I have to make the tea." Crowley turned away, gesturing with his left hand as he sauntered back towards the table. Dean opened his mouth to yell, but closed it suddenly as he felt liquid begin to creep up along his shins and past his knees.
He gave a surprised yell, but Crowley had evidently moved away, and he heard Rowena trill, "Good afternoon, Fergus," as the liquid passed his thighs. He thought that he heard Sam speaking and drew in a breath to yell.
"Sammy?"
A moment later, there was no more air beneath the teapot's unmovable lid, and he thrashed a little before blackness claimed him.
~~oo(0)oo~~
Sam was hurrying through what seemed to be an eternity of woodland. Occasionally a fat bee could be seen bumbling towards him, only to burst like a bubble with a loud popping sound as they touched him. His feet were getting steadily more tired, and he was thinking about stopping for a rest when he heard Dean call his name. Changing his direction, he began to shove his way through the undergrowth towards the direction of Dean's voice. It was tough going. Brambles whipped at his ankles and snagged in his hair and clothing, but at last he reached a clearing. Frowning, he could see that Crowley had beaten him to it. Crowley was dressed in his pink rabbit suit, but he'd set his drum to one side as he sat holding a china cup and saucer, pinky stuck out as he slurped from the saucer. Rowena, sitting beside him – dressed in something green and gauzy, and wearing a headdress piled with vast quantities of fruit – was in the act of dunking biscuits into her tea.
"Oh, hello, Samuel," she murmured. "Would you care for tea?"
"Another time, please," muttered Sam. "I've got to find Dean. Have you seen him?"
Rowena shook her head, no, as Crowley turned to him. "Well, as you can see, Moose, he's not here, but I did see him a little while ago. He's definitely somewhere close. He can't possibly have gone far." He whistled, and the face of the grinning creature from earlier materialized, grin first, and floated above Sam’s head.. "Here. Asmodeus, take Moose here to the courthouse. I'm sure he'll find Dean there."
"What's in it for me?" grumped the head.
""I suppose you can have your shoulders back if you do it right." Crowley shrugged. "You know I'll be watching."
Little more was said, but the head, whose name, it appeared, was Asmodeus, swooped in Rowena's direction and began browsing on her hat with every evidence of enjoyment, until Rowena picked up her parasol and began to flail at it.
After scoring a lucky hit in the weird creature's eye, Asmodeus finally began to move away. "Follow me," it said and Sam hurried to catch up with it.
They started along a pathway through the undergrowth that Sam hadn't noticed before, and made much better time than he had earlier. It wasn't long until they arrived alongside a field where there seemed to be a game of soccer going on – or at least it looked as though it should have been soccer, if only they had been using a ball.
There were a huge number of clowns on the field, and at first Sam couldn't determine if there were teams at all, and if there were, then he wondered how one could tell who was on whose team. Thankfully, it appeared that they hadn't noticed him, and as he sneaked along the side of the playing field, hoping fervently not to be noticed, he gradually succeeded in working out that one side had huge, orange wigs and red noses, along with huge big feet, and the other had conical caps, white faces and pale clothes with pom poms along the front. Every so often one of them would sound a horn, and the opposing man would fall down, before getting up and joining in the melee once more.
Sam was sidling around the field in the hopes of getting to the other end of the path. All was going well until Asmodeus sneezed. At that, the clowns all stopped and turned to look at Sam, then even worse, surrounded him and began to perform tricks in front of him. The ball they'd been playing with took advantage of the fact that they weren't looking at it, uncurled itself onto four stumpy little feet and began to creep away. By the time one of the clowns remembered it, it was long gone, no doubt running for home and mother.
"The ball! Where's the ball?" cried one of the whiteface augustes, pretending to wipe his eyes on an orange-haired hobo type's sleeve. That started a slap-fight that took some of the attention off the cringing Sam.
"Wait!" Another whiteface snagged Asmodeus's head and bellowed, "This will do." and the game, such as it was, began again.
Sam heard "Run, Sam," as he did just that, sighing with relief as he reached the cover of the trees. Turning to peer out from behind a weeping conifer, he saw one of the bozos in orange and red, with huge feet, take a mighty kick at Asmodeus and launch him the length of the playing field. The airborne head screamed as it sailed through the air, and faded out more rapidly than earlier with a very unbecoming green tinge to it. He didn't wait to see anything more, he just turned and ran.
~~oo(0)oo~~
Sam had no idea where he was going or how to track his brother down. He had a bad feeling as he wandered along. Asmodeus hadn't made a reappearance, and he knew that he was lost. It was beginning to get dark when he finally sank down on a fallen tree trunk to try and decide what he should do next.
His feet hurt, and he was contemplating taking off his shoes to check for blisters, when he heard a tramping sound. It was faint at first, but as it grew louder it seemed like the sound of many feet, marching. Getting up with a sigh, Sam turned towards the direction of the sound. Even if it was yet another weird event, at least they might be able to point the way to the courthouse that Crowley had mentioned.
As he limped towards the sound, the cause of it rounded a corner and he could see that it was caused by a group of eight camo-clad soldiers, each one wearing a mask that looked like Dean.
"HALT!" they all yelled, coming to a stop beside Sam. They turned to study Sam, and Sam was in the midst of getting the nerve up to ask the group if they'd seen Dean, but he never got the words out. The soldiers moved as one, reaching to grab him, hoist him up off his feet and stuff him into a sack. In less than 30 seconds, the platoon had set forth and begun their march once more, and Sam, cocooned within folds of burlap, was trussed so tightly that all he could do was yell ineffectually to be put down.
The squad that held him captive seemed to take off at a run, and Sam soon felt seasick, jolted as he was. He called out to no avail, and by the time they had brought him to their destination he was only able to sit where he'd been dumped and whimper.
He could feel people moving all around him, bumping him, invading his space, and he began to try and wriggle out of the sack that held him prisoner. Waves of nausea assailed him. People were pushing and shoving him, and the burlap became ever more constricting, seeming to shrink each time he moved. It was several minutes before he succeeded in fighting free of the increasingly tight fabric, and for a moment he just sat and panted as he inhaled lungfuls of clean air. When he finally got it together enough to start looking around him, he appeared to be in a courtroom. Around him sat clowns with red noses and checkered suits, all apparently waiting for something. To be honest, Sam thought, they're just pathetic. I'm not scared of them any more. They're just stupid and serve no useful purpose.
He must have spoken his thought out loud because a frisson went through the crowd around him, and the clowns began to turn towards him, menacingly. Fortunately, before any violence could occur, Crowley, weilding a huge silver mace, appeared and banged on the witness stand, shouting 'order, order!'
"I'll have a pint of Guinness," called one of the clowns, causing a general commotion. Everywhere, the others honked air horns, stomped on the floor and catcalled.
Crowley didn't seem to be impressed. Stalking over to the hapless clown that had started the ruckus, furry ears flopping as he went, the late king of hell bashed Bozo on the side of the head with his mace, while simultaneously reaching to grasp the nuisance's nose, neatly tweaking it off his face. There was a collective gasp.
"Suppress him," roared Crowley, and after a horrified pause, several of the others seized Sam's burlap sack, rolled Bozo up in it and sat on him.
Nodding in approval, Crowley returned to stand between the witness box and the bench. "All right, you lot. Behave yourselves and I won't have to hurt anyone else." He tossed the newly separated nose in the air a couple of times and then slid it into a pocket with a smirk. "Now, please rise for his honor the justice presiding."
The door behind the bench opened and Billie the Reaper entered the court, followed closely behind by the being Sam had known as Death. Sam gaped, but sat with the others when Crowley told them they could.
"Bring in the prisoner."
There was soft murmuring as a figure was hauled into the courtroom and dumped unceremoniously onto a chair . Sam couldn't see his face, but didn't have to wait very long before his identity was revealed.
"Dean Winchester, how do you plead?" asked Billie, looking up from where she'd been writing something on a scroll.
"Guilty, your honor." Dean's voice sounded infinitely tired, but it was definitely Dean. Sam felt his eyes burn with tears he knew he couldn't afford to shed.
.
"Very well." Billie wrote something else, and turned to Death. "Should we proceed to sentencing in that case?" she asked, and Death frowned. At that point, Sam had seen enough. He rose to his feet, no longer caring if he would be suppressed. At least his nose was his own, he thought, then drew in a deep breath and yelled. "He is not guilty, your honor! He's never been guilty."
Death raised his head, and it seemed as though the entire courtroom held its breath. "We find that hard to believe under the circumstances. We find your assertion interesting." Billie rolled her eyes, but after a moment's reflection, she nodded.
"Then I suppose we must have a trial after all." Looking around, she seemed to be seeking something. "Who will prosecute this case?"
There was a flutter of many wings, and the Archangel Michael stepped forward. "That would be me," he said, his eyes flashing blue as he spoke. Turning to Dean, he gave a snide grin. "I believe that I am intimately acquainted with the accused, and with the circumstances of the case." He took a seat and lounged, idly contemplating his shiny shoes
"Now hold on a minute." Sam raised his hand. "This isn't a proper trial. What's he accused of doing?" He turned to look at Dean, who was frowning, his eyes beseeching Sam to stay out, stay safe, not to interfere. "He's always taken the problems of the world on his shoulders. He's always blamed himself for everything, even when he was blameless. It stands to reason that he thinks whatever this 'crime' is must be his fault too."
Michael jumped to his feet. "I object. That's hearsay."
"I heard it from the accused himself, so it's admissible, your honor," growled Sam, who was growing angrier by the minute.
"Overruled," said Death. "However, the prisoner still stands accused."
"Of WHAT?" Sam ground his teeth.
Billie had the grace to flush a little as she banged her gavel for silence. "He said yes," she said. At this point, Michael smirked. "He did."
Death banged his gavel too, as if he didn't want to be left out. "So call your first witness."
"I call Lucifer Morningstar,"
Lucifer sauntered into the courtroom as if he owned it, and Dean, who really hadn't seemed to be paying much attention, gave a soft sob when he saw the newcomer. Sam went to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. "They don't have a leg to stand on," he murmured.
Meanwhile, Lucifer had taken the stand and was declining the bible, refusing to take an oath on it and causing something of an interruption when he demanded to take his oath on the Necronomicon.
Finally, Billie told him just to promise to tell the truth and have done with it, and Lucifer smirked as he said that would be fine and that he always told the truth anyway. Michael rose and went over to stand beside the witness box. "Okay, little brother," he said. "Tell us in your own words what happened to you. What did Dean do?"
There was a pause. Lucifer was slowly turning purple and steam had begun to come out of his ears.
"He destroyed the natural order," he bellowed.
"How?" Michael's voice was soft, but it hit Lucifer like a blow.
"He killed me! Is that what you want me to say? Well, he did. Now everything is out of balance, and it's all his fault."
"Out of balance?" Sam was the one asking the question, since Michael was merely smirking smugly. Lucifer's appearance had made him feel sick, and only the fact that the figure of Lucifer was slowly beginning to fade away even enabled him to face his erstwhile tormentor.
"If there's no evil, how can you have good to contrast it with?" It seemed that Lucifer wanted to say something else, but at that point he seemed to fade even more, and a huge black hand scooped him up, disappearing into nothingness as Sam heaved a sigh of relief.
"Hey. I thought the defense got to cross examine the witness." Sam was good and mad now. Turning to his brother, he hissed, "Snap out of it, Dean. I need you to fight."
Oh, come on now, Sam," taunted Michael. "You're outgunned, and you know it." He looked over to the judges. "Call Jack Kline."
Jack appeared, and under questioning began to relate how the fight between Dean and Lucifer had gone, and the terrible moment when Michael had taken Dean with him, refusing to leave after he'd promised to do so. Dean sighed and looked up at Sam, who was gazing back at him with his most pathetic expression on his face.
"Dean, whatever happens, I will stay with you. No matter what they say you've done, I've done it too. We're a unit from now until the end, whenever that might be." Sam was about to begin an appeal to the judges, when Dean rose to his feet.
"What's so wrong with saying yes, your honor?" he called out.
"Nothing in itself," responded Death.
"It's all about the context," said Billie, very suddenly. "Whatever made you do it in the end? You've always refused to give in before."
"Sam and Jack were going to die." Dean pointed at Michael, who had stopped questioning Jack when he'd realized that nobody was listening to him. "I couldn't let that happen. Sam's my little brother, and I love him. It's my job..."
"Love?" asked Death. "Is that what this is all about?"
The clowns all burst into cheers, whistling and stomping their feet. Even the fact that Crowley reached for the firehose that was coiled up against one wall and began to spray them with cold water didn't appear to have any effect on them. They continued to applaud.
Sam, who had put his hand into his pocket, fumbling nervously at the contents, found himself pulling out the syringe he'd started with, what seemed like a century ago. Nobody was looking at Sam. Dean and the judges held everyone's attention except for Jack's, and Jack was looking at Michael with trepidation.
The wording on the syringe's label had changed. Instead of 'Inject me', the word 'me' had been scribbled out, and the label now read, 'Inject him,' and Sam frowned as he read it. He still had no idea what the syringe's contents would do, but there was one way of finding out. He lifted his eyes to where Crowley stood and raised his brows in mute inquiry. Crowley winked and nodded at him, and one ear flopped over his eye.
Taking great pains to look nonchalant, he made his way over to where Michael lounged at his ease.
"Yeah," said Michael with a sneer. "Useless emotion. It only exists to allow the likes of Dean here to pursue his selfish ends. He just wraps it all up in a cloud of emotion as if that justifies his need to stay in control of both himself and his brother."
"I would do the same for him as he does for me," said Sam. "And I do love him. You don't understand love because you're a monster, and monsters don't love." He raised the hand holding the syringe and plunged it into Michael's neck, sending the contents into Michael's hapless meat suit.
The clowns were still clapping and stamping their feet, and had set up a chant of 'Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester.' As Michael began to smoke out, Death rose to his feet. "I stand with Dean Winchester," he said.
"I stand with Dean Winchester," said Billie, rising to stand next to him.
"I stand with Dean Winchester..." First, Jack, then Rowena, then Tessa, even Gabriel, who had been snoozing under one of the benches until the commotion woke him. One by one the people who loved Dean assembled until finally Crowley stepped forward to first boop his nose and then seize him by the ear.
"Listen to them, Squirrel. You're not alone, and you can't give up." He twitched as he saw Sam come to loom over him with a very menacing expression on his face. "Okay, Moose. He's all yours. Take him home."
Sam slipped his arms around Dean and bent to kiss him. Death banged his gavel, and the noise of approval began to fade. The world greyed out, and there was no longer anything but whirling motes of light that glowed briefly and then faded to grey.
~oo(0)oo~
There was a spring in Dean's step as he strode into the kitchen of the bunker, where Sam was brewing coffee and attempting to cook breakfast.
"Oh, God, Sammy, I see you're strangling the eggs again. Move over!"
Wordlessly, Sam handed over the utensil with which he'd been battering the unfortunate eggs. "You okay?"
"Never better," replied Dean. "Never better."
Unseen, peering from the veil, Crowley nodded his approval. His evil scheme had worked, and not only that, he'd had fun tormenting the Winchester boys., That's what he called a success!
I hope you liked. I'm not sure it's what you wanted, but... Sam and Dean against the world. Merry Christmas!