Humble Pie [8/20]
When they finally reach a motel that Sam deems to be far enough away from the Roadhouse and the plague of police that just descended on it, it’s gone four a.m., the morning after everything went to shit. The motel is crummy and cheap and probably disgusting if you look too closely, but Dean is too tired to do much more than stumble inside their room and collapse onto the bed. In thirty seconds flat he’s dead to the world, and Sam can’t pretend that it’s not incredibly irritating and stupidly endearing at the same time.
So not much happens for about six hours while they catch some shut-eye. It’s a well-needed reprieve, and, between you and me, they’re not going to get very much of that for a very long time.
But that’s what’s known as a ‘spoiler’, m’dear. So don’t tell anyone I said that.
Fastforward six hours and eleven minutes, and Dean’s just waking up. As he usually takes a while to drag himself out of bed, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that no, he hasn’t forgotten about his little dream/nightmare/seriously-what-the-fuck last night, but he isn’t going to actively think about it either, at least not if he can help it, because thinking about his problems is never something Dean likes to do. He finds ignoring them until they either go away or turn into something he can shoot far more satisfying.
He rolls over and tries to get his mind back onto a less dangerous subject. Like … Like Castiel.
No. Not like Castiel. Like … Goddammit, every single thought he’s having right now leads right back in a circle to how much trouble they’re in, and/or how weird things are with Castiel. And he really doesn’t want to think about that, either.
So he gets up. Physical movement is always helpful when his brain is being an ass.
This motel room is literally that: a room. Two single beds, a bathroom the size of a janitor’s cupboard, and a single table at one end that doesn’t even count as a kitchenette. Castiel’s cuffed to the end of Sam’s bed, asleep.
It occurs to Dean that he’s never seen Castiel sleeping before. He looks far more peaceful than he ever does during waking hours, the tenseness over his shoulders smoothed out, the lines on his face dissolved into calm and… youthfulness. He looks young. And small. It’s weird, considering the strength he showed just the other day. He looks almost fragile like this.
Dean decides to get himself some food before he grows a massive vagina and has to change his name to Dean-etta.
Huh.
He makes it halfway across the room before he remembers that there is no food. Zilcho. Nada. They left in such a rush they didn’t pack anything, obviously, and they didn’t exactly stop for supplies on the way. Which means that if he wants to eat anything, he’s going to have to go and buy it. From a store. With money.
Oh, the day just gets better and better.
Seeing as he spent the entire night driving down the highway, Dean figures that it’s probably Sam’s turn to go out shopping, and so he chucks a pillow over at his little brother, who’s lying fast asleep on the bed, snoring slightly, giant limbs thrown carelessly every which way. Sam makes a sort of surprised half-grunt and levers himself up, blinking blearily.
“Whassat for?” he mumbles and Dean can’t help grinning, because bed-hair Sam is always fun.
“Rise and shine, Sammy. I’m tired and we’ve got no food so you need to go and get me some pie.”
Sam rolls over and tries to pretend that he can’t hear. Perhaps this will be the one morning that Dean gives in.
Five minutes later, he’s standing outside the motel room door with Dean’s orders for pie still ringing in his ears.
Ah, well. Could be worse. He could be Castiel, still cooped up with a grouchy, unfed Dean.
The thought makes him smile.
Sam tries to pay attention to the selection of pies in front of him. Dean’ll kill him if he doesn’t come back with pie, but the fact of the matter is that Sam’s brain just won’t be cajoled into thinking about anything other than the one topic he doesn’t want to consider right now.
When did his life become so complicated? But then the answer is, it’s always been ridiculously complicated. There’s never been an easy way out, not for the Winchesters.
He’d gotten out, once. A long time ago now, it feels like. This life was never one he’d wanted, never one he’d thought he’d have for himself. He’d wanted to do some good in the world, not the opposite.
But he’d gotten used to it; he’d made this life work. Dean knew that Sam wouldn’t do anything that could actually get someone innocent hurt, so Dean had always dealt with that side of things and Sam had never needed to. They’d liked it that way, it had worked for both of them. And now he realizes that he could have been hurting people all along.
Castiel said no. Castiel, who, let’s face it, should know, said that Divinity Inc. never did this. Sam tells himself that this should be reassuring.
But.
Frankly, Sam wouldn’t put it past that creepy bastard Alastair to get up to something like this. It would be just like him, in fact. And though Dean argues that it’s not as bad as some of the stuff they’ve done, it’s still pretty sick and twisted.
Sam usually tries to pretend that slavery doesn’t exist. It’s easy if you know how. Cut yourself off. Carve out your soul and put it in a briefcase. Lock it away tight.
But now he has no choice but to think about it, and as if the idea of slavery itself isn’t bad enough, the idea that someone is taking free people and enslaving them is even worse. He can only imagine the horror of losing your freedom. He felt something similar, back when he was a slave to his addiction, but even that must pale into insignificance beside this.
And he’s been helping. He’s been the one doing this.
He’s going to be sick.
You’ll be glad to hear that he is not actually sick all over the store, or indeed all over anywhere. He’s not sick at all, in fact. But he is starting to get weird looks from the other shoppers (and they are actually justified - he’s been standing by the pie stand for nearly twenty minutes now), so finally he gives himself a mental shake grabs an apple pie that looks half-edible and goes to pay. The queue is four people long, which gives him plenty of time to lapse back into Thought Land.
They’ll hole up here for three or four days, just until the coast is clear to go to Bobby’s. Sam doesn’t like running to Sioux Falls every time there’s a whiff of danger, but he’s got to admit that it’s far preferable to getting caught, and Bobby would never forgive them if that happened. He’d probably break them out of jail just to kill them himself. Bobby’s rather like a badger: gruff and blustering but kind and, well, more of a father to Sam and Dean than their real dad ever was - but a pissed off badger, fatherly or not, is not one Sam’s in a hurry to see.
The mental image of badger-Bobby is enough to keep him amused for the rest of the wait in the queue, arm filled with supplies. He’s still preoccupied as he leaves the store, and it’s because of this that he doesn’t immediately sense the danger.
It’s only when he’s halfway across the parking lot that he looks up from the ground, straight into the eyes of another man.
It takes him a moment to process just who it is. And then he realizes that perhaps they didn’t make as clean a getaway as they’d originally thought.
From the leap of recognition in Gordon Walker’s eyes, he knows it as well.
”We gotta go, man,” Sam says before the door has even closed behind him.
“What? Why? And where’s my pie?!”
Sam doesn’t even have time to tell his brother that he’s missing the bigger picture somewhat - he has no idea whether he really managed to lose Gordon or not, and he’d rather not hang around to find out (probably at gunpoint). So he gets straight to it. “Gordon Walker’s here.”
Thankfully, Dean’s on the same page in a second. “Shit.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Okay, right. Where is he?”
“The parking lot outside the store at the end of this road, but I doubt he’ll be there long.”
“He see you? No, wait, don’t answer that, of course he did, you’re practically a brontosaurus.”
Sam tries not to be offended and throws all his efforts into packing up their stuff as quickly as possible. Luckily, it doesn’t take long because they’ve only just arrived here and haven’t had much time to unpack anything, so it’s mainly just a case of collecting up the bags they managed to bring with them from their last crazy getaway.
They’re halfway out of the door before either of them remembers Castiel.
“Goddammit,” Dean swears, running back into the room and chucking the Impala keys at his brother. “You get her running. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Sam forces himself to walk slowly out to the car - the last thing they want to do is draw attention to themselves. Keep walking, slowly, confidently, it’s all fine, nothing’s wrong.
Then he sees Gordon, so fuck inconspicuousness.
It’s lucky they parked so close, because Sam makes it across to the Impala in a couple of long strides, and then he’s turning the key in the ignition viciously, slamming one hand onto the horn as he does so in an attempt to make Dean get his ass out here, and fast.
Goddammit, can they never catch a break? Gordon’s crossing the road now, he’ll be on them in less than thirty seconds, and Sam’s not willing to wait around to see how many lethal weapons the other guy is currently carrying.
“Dean!” he yells out of the window and finally, finally, Dean appears in the motel doorway with Castiel in tow. In a moment, Dean’s shoving Castiel towards the car and drawing his gun and if this turns into a shootout they’re seriously screwed to hell. They’re lucky enough as it is that no one’s seen Dean’s weapon, but if someone does and they call the cops …
Sam hears the sound of gunfire and swears. His foot is ready to hit the accelerator but Dean’s not yet in the car, and there’s nothing on Heaven or Earth that would make Sam go without his brother.
And then suddenly the back door is wrenched open and Dean pushes Castiel inside before leaping in himself and yelling “Go!” to Sam, who doesn’t need telling twice, and a bullet smashes the back window as he screeches away onto the main road, Gordon Walker running after them down the road, aiming a flurry of bullets at the car, but he’s only one man and the Impala was built for speed, so Sam leaves him far behind in a matter of seconds.
Well. Thank fuck. That’s one more thing to put on the ‘To Do List’: stay the hell away from Gordon Walker, psychotic maniac.
It just gets better and better.
They’ve been on the road for nearly two hours before Dean finally relaxes in the back seat and declares that Gordon obviously isn’t following them. Yet.
Which isn’t as reassuring as it should be.
“I suggest we drive and don’t stop until we’ve crossed the state border,” Sam says eventually.
Dean turns to check out the back window again for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes, but catches himself just in time and stops, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly instead. “Yeah. Good plan.”
There’s a pause, and they both know they’re thinking about the same thing. From experience, Sam knows Dean won’t be the one to breach the subject, so he sighs and takes the reins. “Dean-”
“Yeah, I know, Sammy.”
“Seriously, man. We’re in trouble here. We need to come up with some kind of, I don’t know, plan. Where are we even going? Bobby’s?”
“I don’t know, okay?”
Sam sighs. He knows Dean won’t be budged when he’s like this, but he really doesn’t have any choice. “Gordon works for Divinity, Dean,” he says with as much self control as he can muster. “Which means that they want us dead. There’s no way Gordon would’ve come after us otherwise. It must’ve been them. They must’ve given the order.” He’s thinking on his feet here, but the look on Dean’s face tells him he’s right. As if he needed any confirmation. It’s common sense. He pissed them off. How they found out about him opening the van he’ll never know, but it can’t be coincidence that the Roadhouse gets taken down and Gordon comes after them in the space of two days.
And now they want him and Dean dead.
Sam doesn’t really want to think about anything right now, so he just frowns and focuses on the road.
In the back, Dean’s thinking the same thing. But he’s gotten one step further.
They opened the van. They saw the shipment of slaves inside. But shipping slaves around isn’t illegal. Not even close.
So why go to all this trouble? Why send someone after two guys to kill them, unless there’s something more?
But what?
Unless.
Unless Sam was right all along. Unless Divinity really is making people into slaves. Because that is illegal. Highly illegal.
And that would mean that Castiel was lying. Wouldn’t it?
He thinks it would. But he’s not sure what that actually means.
And listen to him! He’s starting to sound like a fucking conspiracy theorist. He’s worse than Sam.
But. There’s an uneasy feeling in his gut, slimy and heavy, like an extra organ, and it’s telling him that he’s missing the bigger picture here. There’s something going on, and he and Sam have just woken up to find themselves smack dab right in the middle of it, and there’s no going back now. They’re screwed to hell whichever way you look at it.
And the way he looks at it, they have two choices: kill or be killed.
Plain, simple, easy to remember.
Dean sighs. “Right, okie dokie. I’m gonna get some shut-eye for an hour or so; hit me if anything happens.”
“Will do.”
In fact, the hitting doesn’t start until several hours later, and by that point it’s Dean who’s handing out the punches.
So not much happens for about six hours while they catch some shut-eye. It’s a well-needed reprieve, and, between you and me, they’re not going to get very much of that for a very long time.
But that’s what’s known as a ‘spoiler’, m’dear. So don’t tell anyone I said that.
Fastforward six hours and eleven minutes, and Dean’s just waking up. As he usually takes a while to drag himself out of bed, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that no, he hasn’t forgotten about his little dream/nightmare/seriously-what-the-fuck last night, but he isn’t going to actively think about it either, at least not if he can help it, because thinking about his problems is never something Dean likes to do. He finds ignoring them until they either go away or turn into something he can shoot far more satisfying.
He rolls over and tries to get his mind back onto a less dangerous subject. Like … Like Castiel.
No. Not like Castiel. Like … Goddammit, every single thought he’s having right now leads right back in a circle to how much trouble they’re in, and/or how weird things are with Castiel. And he really doesn’t want to think about that, either.
So he gets up. Physical movement is always helpful when his brain is being an ass.
This motel room is literally that: a room. Two single beds, a bathroom the size of a janitor’s cupboard, and a single table at one end that doesn’t even count as a kitchenette. Castiel’s cuffed to the end of Sam’s bed, asleep.
It occurs to Dean that he’s never seen Castiel sleeping before. He looks far more peaceful than he ever does during waking hours, the tenseness over his shoulders smoothed out, the lines on his face dissolved into calm and… youthfulness. He looks young. And small. It’s weird, considering the strength he showed just the other day. He looks almost fragile like this.
Dean decides to get himself some food before he grows a massive vagina and has to change his name to Dean-etta.
Huh.
He makes it halfway across the room before he remembers that there is no food. Zilcho. Nada. They left in such a rush they didn’t pack anything, obviously, and they didn’t exactly stop for supplies on the way. Which means that if he wants to eat anything, he’s going to have to go and buy it. From a store. With money.
Oh, the day just gets better and better.
Seeing as he spent the entire night driving down the highway, Dean figures that it’s probably Sam’s turn to go out shopping, and so he chucks a pillow over at his little brother, who’s lying fast asleep on the bed, snoring slightly, giant limbs thrown carelessly every which way. Sam makes a sort of surprised half-grunt and levers himself up, blinking blearily.
“Whassat for?” he mumbles and Dean can’t help grinning, because bed-hair Sam is always fun.
“Rise and shine, Sammy. I’m tired and we’ve got no food so you need to go and get me some pie.”
Sam rolls over and tries to pretend that he can’t hear. Perhaps this will be the one morning that Dean gives in.
Five minutes later, he’s standing outside the motel room door with Dean’s orders for pie still ringing in his ears.
Ah, well. Could be worse. He could be Castiel, still cooped up with a grouchy, unfed Dean.
The thought makes him smile.
Sam tries to pay attention to the selection of pies in front of him. Dean’ll kill him if he doesn’t come back with pie, but the fact of the matter is that Sam’s brain just won’t be cajoled into thinking about anything other than the one topic he doesn’t want to consider right now.
When did his life become so complicated? But then the answer is, it’s always been ridiculously complicated. There’s never been an easy way out, not for the Winchesters.
He’d gotten out, once. A long time ago now, it feels like. This life was never one he’d wanted, never one he’d thought he’d have for himself. He’d wanted to do some good in the world, not the opposite.
But he’d gotten used to it; he’d made this life work. Dean knew that Sam wouldn’t do anything that could actually get someone innocent hurt, so Dean had always dealt with that side of things and Sam had never needed to. They’d liked it that way, it had worked for both of them. And now he realizes that he could have been hurting people all along.
Castiel said no. Castiel, who, let’s face it, should know, said that Divinity Inc. never did this. Sam tells himself that this should be reassuring.
But.
Frankly, Sam wouldn’t put it past that creepy bastard Alastair to get up to something like this. It would be just like him, in fact. And though Dean argues that it’s not as bad as some of the stuff they’ve done, it’s still pretty sick and twisted.
Sam usually tries to pretend that slavery doesn’t exist. It’s easy if you know how. Cut yourself off. Carve out your soul and put it in a briefcase. Lock it away tight.
But now he has no choice but to think about it, and as if the idea of slavery itself isn’t bad enough, the idea that someone is taking free people and enslaving them is even worse. He can only imagine the horror of losing your freedom. He felt something similar, back when he was a slave to his addiction, but even that must pale into insignificance beside this.
And he’s been helping. He’s been the one doing this.
He’s going to be sick.
You’ll be glad to hear that he is not actually sick all over the store, or indeed all over anywhere. He’s not sick at all, in fact. But he is starting to get weird looks from the other shoppers (and they are actually justified - he’s been standing by the pie stand for nearly twenty minutes now), so finally he gives himself a mental shake grabs an apple pie that looks half-edible and goes to pay. The queue is four people long, which gives him plenty of time to lapse back into Thought Land.
They’ll hole up here for three or four days, just until the coast is clear to go to Bobby’s. Sam doesn’t like running to Sioux Falls every time there’s a whiff of danger, but he’s got to admit that it’s far preferable to getting caught, and Bobby would never forgive them if that happened. He’d probably break them out of jail just to kill them himself. Bobby’s rather like a badger: gruff and blustering but kind and, well, more of a father to Sam and Dean than their real dad ever was - but a pissed off badger, fatherly or not, is not one Sam’s in a hurry to see.
The mental image of badger-Bobby is enough to keep him amused for the rest of the wait in the queue, arm filled with supplies. He’s still preoccupied as he leaves the store, and it’s because of this that he doesn’t immediately sense the danger.
It’s only when he’s halfway across the parking lot that he looks up from the ground, straight into the eyes of another man.
It takes him a moment to process just who it is. And then he realizes that perhaps they didn’t make as clean a getaway as they’d originally thought.
From the leap of recognition in Gordon Walker’s eyes, he knows it as well.
”We gotta go, man,” Sam says before the door has even closed behind him.
“What? Why? And where’s my pie?!”
Sam doesn’t even have time to tell his brother that he’s missing the bigger picture somewhat - he has no idea whether he really managed to lose Gordon or not, and he’d rather not hang around to find out (probably at gunpoint). So he gets straight to it. “Gordon Walker’s here.”
Thankfully, Dean’s on the same page in a second. “Shit.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Okay, right. Where is he?”
“The parking lot outside the store at the end of this road, but I doubt he’ll be there long.”
“He see you? No, wait, don’t answer that, of course he did, you’re practically a brontosaurus.”
Sam tries not to be offended and throws all his efforts into packing up their stuff as quickly as possible. Luckily, it doesn’t take long because they’ve only just arrived here and haven’t had much time to unpack anything, so it’s mainly just a case of collecting up the bags they managed to bring with them from their last crazy getaway.
They’re halfway out of the door before either of them remembers Castiel.
“Goddammit,” Dean swears, running back into the room and chucking the Impala keys at his brother. “You get her running. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Sam forces himself to walk slowly out to the car - the last thing they want to do is draw attention to themselves. Keep walking, slowly, confidently, it’s all fine, nothing’s wrong.
Then he sees Gordon, so fuck inconspicuousness.
It’s lucky they parked so close, because Sam makes it across to the Impala in a couple of long strides, and then he’s turning the key in the ignition viciously, slamming one hand onto the horn as he does so in an attempt to make Dean get his ass out here, and fast.
Goddammit, can they never catch a break? Gordon’s crossing the road now, he’ll be on them in less than thirty seconds, and Sam’s not willing to wait around to see how many lethal weapons the other guy is currently carrying.
“Dean!” he yells out of the window and finally, finally, Dean appears in the motel doorway with Castiel in tow. In a moment, Dean’s shoving Castiel towards the car and drawing his gun and if this turns into a shootout they’re seriously screwed to hell. They’re lucky enough as it is that no one’s seen Dean’s weapon, but if someone does and they call the cops …
Sam hears the sound of gunfire and swears. His foot is ready to hit the accelerator but Dean’s not yet in the car, and there’s nothing on Heaven or Earth that would make Sam go without his brother.
And then suddenly the back door is wrenched open and Dean pushes Castiel inside before leaping in himself and yelling “Go!” to Sam, who doesn’t need telling twice, and a bullet smashes the back window as he screeches away onto the main road, Gordon Walker running after them down the road, aiming a flurry of bullets at the car, but he’s only one man and the Impala was built for speed, so Sam leaves him far behind in a matter of seconds.
Well. Thank fuck. That’s one more thing to put on the ‘To Do List’: stay the hell away from Gordon Walker, psychotic maniac.
It just gets better and better.
They’ve been on the road for nearly two hours before Dean finally relaxes in the back seat and declares that Gordon obviously isn’t following them. Yet.
Which isn’t as reassuring as it should be.
“I suggest we drive and don’t stop until we’ve crossed the state border,” Sam says eventually.
Dean turns to check out the back window again for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes, but catches himself just in time and stops, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly instead. “Yeah. Good plan.”
There’s a pause, and they both know they’re thinking about the same thing. From experience, Sam knows Dean won’t be the one to breach the subject, so he sighs and takes the reins. “Dean-”
“Yeah, I know, Sammy.”
“Seriously, man. We’re in trouble here. We need to come up with some kind of, I don’t know, plan. Where are we even going? Bobby’s?”
“I don’t know, okay?”
Sam sighs. He knows Dean won’t be budged when he’s like this, but he really doesn’t have any choice. “Gordon works for Divinity, Dean,” he says with as much self control as he can muster. “Which means that they want us dead. There’s no way Gordon would’ve come after us otherwise. It must’ve been them. They must’ve given the order.” He’s thinking on his feet here, but the look on Dean’s face tells him he’s right. As if he needed any confirmation. It’s common sense. He pissed them off. How they found out about him opening the van he’ll never know, but it can’t be coincidence that the Roadhouse gets taken down and Gordon comes after them in the space of two days.
And now they want him and Dean dead.
Sam doesn’t really want to think about anything right now, so he just frowns and focuses on the road.
In the back, Dean’s thinking the same thing. But he’s gotten one step further.
They opened the van. They saw the shipment of slaves inside. But shipping slaves around isn’t illegal. Not even close.
So why go to all this trouble? Why send someone after two guys to kill them, unless there’s something more?
But what?
Unless.
Unless Sam was right all along. Unless Divinity really is making people into slaves. Because that is illegal. Highly illegal.
And that would mean that Castiel was lying. Wouldn’t it?
He thinks it would. But he’s not sure what that actually means.
And listen to him! He’s starting to sound like a fucking conspiracy theorist. He’s worse than Sam.
But. There’s an uneasy feeling in his gut, slimy and heavy, like an extra organ, and it’s telling him that he’s missing the bigger picture here. There’s something going on, and he and Sam have just woken up to find themselves smack dab right in the middle of it, and there’s no going back now. They’re screwed to hell whichever way you look at it.
And the way he looks at it, they have two choices: kill or be killed.
Plain, simple, easy to remember.
Dean sighs. “Right, okie dokie. I’m gonna get some shut-eye for an hour or so; hit me if anything happens.”
“Will do.”
In fact, the hitting doesn’t start until several hours later, and by that point it’s Dean who’s handing out the punches.