Fine Print
Title: Fine Print
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Sam
Warnings: Spoilers, crack, language, cruel and unusual employment
Spoilers: 2.21 AHBL and on? Sort of S3 Story arcish, though not anything too specific.
Genres: Episode tag, Humor
Chapters: 1
Completed: Yes
Word count: 2597
Disclaimer: *SNORT* Yeah. Oh huh. Okay. Sure. I totally own them. And this was how season three really ended.
Notes: So this is as close as I generally get to crack. I'm not sure if it can really even be classified that way. Oh and, uh, spoilers for the Season 3 finale, No Rest For The Wicked. In fact, if you haven't seen this-or any of season three really-then this won't make a lick of sense.
Summary: Always make sure you read the fine print in any contract. Especially ones with a demon that aren't actually written down.
Sam spent seven months trying to find a way to get his brother back.
(The first week was actually spent trying to figure out what happened to his brother's body because he KNEW he left Dean in the backseat of the Impala and he only went inside the gas station to pay because the credit card machine at the pump was broken and Dean looked like he was asleep so, really, who would have bothered him and even if they found out he was dead shouldn't they have called the police instead of STEALING A DEAD BODY?)
If he hadn't been hell-bent (pun only slightly intended) on getting Dean back by running all over creation looking for him, this whole thing might have ended sooner.
(Also, the happy, long-awaited reunion with his brother after Dean's death might not have been cut short by a scoop of Bear Scat ice cream to the face that would leave little bits of waffle cone in his hair and cherry syrup up his nose and little sprinkles down his shirt for the rest of the day.)
But Sam had been in a hurry and he'd pushed aside the little routine that managed to make it into a Winchester's life and so it was seven months after Dean's deal came due that he was in that little town in Oklahoma that he never could remember the name of where they had one of their PO boxes.
(It always drove him nuts too, because this particular little town was like a black hole for memories. He never could remember anything about the town until he was inside the city limits and then it all came rushing back. He made a mental note to come back here with Dean and investigate it.)
He'd actually stopped for gas and lunch, but when he drove past the post office he remembered being there before and Dad getting into a PO Box.
(Granted that had been when he was about six years old, but Dad had had a habit of getting PO Boxes and forgetting about them. They were usually in such small towns that the Post Office workers themselves often forgot-or didn't care-about them as well so mail was still sent there long after the payments stopped coming for the box.)
He had almost driven right by it, but on a whim decided to check in and see if the box was still in the name of John Winchester. He'd shut it down if that was the case. Sam had no use for 183 mailboxes.
(And those were only the ones he had keys for.)
This box actually had been canceled by the prim older woman who ran the office, but there was no forwarding address so the mail was being held in the dead letter box with a couple of Potato Country magazines that appeared to be from the early 90's.
(Sam could understand why those had never been claimed. They'd had to shut down at least seven PO boxes that he could recall because they somehow made it on the mailing list for that stupid magazine. John had never been able to figure out how that kept happening. That was another one to add to the list of Things To Do After Saving Dean and Hugging Him to Death.)
Fortunately the magazines were for an Earl Spuddington-well that might explain how he had fallen under the Potato Country curse-and the rest was a bundle of postcards . . . for Sam.
There had to be at least forty of them. And they were all covered in a very familiar scrawl: Dean's.
(Actually it was John's, but Dean had spent so much of his life forging his father's signature-among other things in the older Winchester's script-that it had long since become his own handwriting style, too. Sam could reproduce it with accuracy, having been taught by Dean himself, but not with the same effortlessness that Dean was capable of.)
Sam thanked the woman, paid the bill she presented to him for nearly a decade and a half of back payments on the PO box with only a small glare, and then hurried out to the Impala to figure out what exactly was going on.
o.o
Sitting in the driver's seat Sam flipped the corners of the stack to find the earliest date.
It was two days after Dean's death. The postcard wasn't verbose, but then neither was the writer of it.
Sam,
Someone thinks they're funny. I'm not laughing. Come get me.
Dean
P.S. Bring lots of holy water. And the Colt.
P.P.S If I find a single scratch on my baby, you're dead.
P.P.S.S I told you so.
Sam's forehead bunched up in confusion.
Was this some kind of joke? If it was, Sam wasn't laughing.
The front of the card had a picture of a typical depiction of Hell, all fire and brimstone with a laughing goat-human hybrid wielding a pitchfork, and said in cheesy comic book lettering 'GREETINGS FROM HELL!'
The postmark said it was from Hell, Michigan. Sam blinked at that, then shook his head.
No way. This was just a sick joke from . . . Lilith. Or Ruby. Or one of the other Demons they'd crossed. Maybe Meg wasn't really gon? Or old Yellow Eyes. Maybe he-or one of his minions-was still around?
Whatever the case, this wasn't real. And it was only pissing him off even more.
He threw the stack of cards-after a quick flip through to confirm they all came from the same place-to the seat and gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles drained of blood. He was breathing harshly through his nose, his vision was obscured by a reddish haze, and he had a burning, bottomless, undeniable urge to shoot something.
(Preferably something with inky black eyes, but he'd was just as liable to send a bullet after the next bird that flew past. If it crapped on the car it would be scattered feathers before you could even say, “Ew!”)
He sat there, trying to calm down for the better part of a half hour. And then he looked at the spread of glossy photos on the seat next to him.
Okay, something wasn't adding up here.
(Okay a lot of things weren't adding up here, but some were definitely more important than others. The mystery of what had happened to his new socks would have to wait a bit longer.)
He stared for several long moments, debating whether he should do what he was thinking or not. His blood pressure might not be able to handle it if he was right. But curiosity at whether he was crazy just might kill him too.
Finally he picked up another of the cards-randomly taking the first one his hand touched-and looked at it.
Maybe when Hell freezes . . . uh oh! was the legend over a picture of a snow-covered sign that proclaimed one was about to enter Hell, Michigan.
He flipped it over and saw the same scribbling.
Bitch,
I'M GOING TO START TAKING HOSTAGES IF YOU DON'T SHOW UP SOON. DO YOU WANT THAT ON YOUR LITTLE EMO-GIRL CONSCIENCE? DO YOU?
Dean
The phrasing was just so very Dean-like that it startled an amused snort out of Sam.
And it sent him back to looking at the pile.
Reading through the whole stack-from oldest to most recent-took no more than fifteen minutes, most of which was actually putting them back in order. By the time he was done Sam was actually pretty sure that it wasn't a joke of some kind.
Could it really be that easy, though?
Sam thought about it, thought about demons and their idiosyncrasies and their so-not-funny senses of humor . . . and put the car into gear.
He couldn't afford to not check it out.
Even if it was a trap, if it led him to Lilith or to any other Demon who played a part in his whole screwed up life then the trip would be worth it.
One tire-squealing J-turn later he was back on the highway to Hell.
o.o
“Welcome to Screams, home of the hottest ice cream in Hell!” Dean kept the smile plastered to his face after he'd finished the oft-repeated sentence that had become a form of torture in itself.
Please, someone throw him in a lake of fire already.
He spent ten minutes trying to decipher the high-pitched, chittering sounds of seven little girls clamoring for ice cream all at once and wondering if they assumed the progressively more spastic eye-twitch was just him really getting into his job, when the door chimed again.
By ingrained habit he looked up, facial muscles frozen in the death's head grin he was required to sport-on pain of a visit from the far too perky Miss Lucy(fer), supervisor for the afternoon shift and former cheer squad leader who just couldn't LET THE PAST DIE-and prepared to call out the sadistic greeting when he realized he recognized that Sasquatch form that had just stumbled in.
He was thinner and the hair was longer, the face unshaven, but oh it was him all right.
Dean didn't even apologize for abandoning his customers as he left them squealing and yammering on about what they wanted. He just walked to the end of the counter, flipped up the section that served as a door, and headed for his long lost little brother.
“Dean!” Sam breathed, his face showing that he could hardly believe this was actually happening.
Dean's not sure what the next facial expression was because it was obscured behind a layer of ice cream and waffle cone from where he smashed the half-finished order into his brother's face.
“Um,” Sam said, but Dean just untied his apron, pulled off the dorky hat, dropped them both on the floor and with a yell of, “Lucy!” and a command to do something anatomically impossible and quite crude-and yeah he remembered the little girls there at the counter but he really didn't care AT ALL-he grabbed Sam's arm and led him back out the door.
While Sam wiped ice cream, syrup, waffle cone, and sprinkles off of his face, Dean spread his arms wide and laid face down on the hood of his beloved car.
“Did you miss me?” he asked.
“Dean, of course I-”
“Was he mean to you?” Dean said and Sam rolled his eyes and shut up.
Of course he was talking to the car.
“He better have changed your oil on time-and I don't mean take you to a Jiffy Freaking Lube-and given you the good gas and kept you clean and unscratched or I'm going to kill him.”
“The car is fine, Dean,” Sam said. “Now maybe you'd like to explain how you ended up in Hell, Michigan, instead of Hell . . . Hell.”
“Sammy this is Hell. Like, Hell Hell. I swear it is. Nothing but tourists and little demon spawn posing as children and more cheesy puns than even you can imagine. And not a single damn hot chick-or even butterface-in the whole place. I vote we rent one of those helicopters they use for forest fires, dump an assload of holy water on the place, and use a bullhorn to recite the exorcism.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sam said, completely ignoring the absurd suggestion. “Dean, how are you even alive? You were dead.”
“No, I wasn't,” Dean said. It was kind of disconcerting having a conversation with a guy who was still splayed over his car's hood so Sam grabbed his collar and yanked him upright.
“No!” Dean cried and tried to lean back down.
Sam pulled him back and turned him so he could grab Dean's arms to keep him focused on the conversation. Dean's face, however, was not cooperating and Sam didn't have a third hand to grab Dean's chin.
So he gave up for the moment.
“Let's go.”
Dean's head came around at that, his eyes lit up like he'd just been handed the deed to the Playboy mansion, and Sam yelled in protest as he was suddenly assaulted and groped in search of keys.
Having located and liberated them before Sam could shove him away Dean took the precious ring and ran for the driver's side.
Sam just curled a lip in disgust, shook his head with rueful affection and annoyance, and headed for the passenger side. He had barely shut the door before Dean executed a turn much like the one Sam had done in Oklahoma.
“Man it feels good to hear that purr,” Dean said, fingers stroking the steering wheel, then with a whoop of a man freed from Purgatory he floored the gas and they made their escape from Hell.
o.o
It wasn't until they were in Indiana and taking the exit that would put them heading in the direction of Nebraska that Sam got his answers.
“I wasn't actually dead apparently,” Dean explained. “Just some kind of demoniacally-induced coma that made it look like I was dead. Then the first time you turned your back she snatched me up and dragged my ass to Hell.”
“But why?”
Dean shook his head. “Lilith is one crazy little demon, Sammy. Like, seriously off her rocker crazy. And it seems she's so crazy that she's not actually allowed in Hell. She's not even allowed near it. But they can't take away her powers so she keeps making deals and when they come due she just sends them to Hell, Michigan, instead. Some sort of loophole because technically the contracts say she'll drag their souls to Hell. It just doesn't specify which Hell and so this Hell is as good as the other Hell.” Dean shrugged. “Besides, like I said, that place is Hell. Tourist-central and nothing-and I mean nothing to do for fun.”
“Why didn't you just leave?” Sam asked. “Or call me? Or send a letter to Bobby?”
“It's not that easy. There are a few actual demons in town. They have to watch the place as penance for helping Lilith escape from whatever prison or loony bin she was once locked up in. Cell coverage sucks-and by that I mean not even the Verizon guy could be heard from there-and if you try to walk out or hitch a ride out-and believe me, I tried everything short of digging to China to get out of that place-they stop you. If they're stuck there so are you. A deal is a deal.”
“Um, Dean? We just drove out. No one tried to stop us.”
Dean shot him a look. “Yeah, because they're going to try to stop you from doing anything.”
“What?”
“Well you were Ol' Yellow Eyes' pet project. And apparently it's well known among demons that we Winchesters stick together-not to mention we've got a bit of a reputation for sending demons back to the other Hell. None of the demons there are very powerful and as bad as being stuck there is, there's ice cream and ice water in Hell, Michigan. And the snow. Oh fuck the snow! Like ten feet high, dude! In May.”
“Which is why Bobby wouldn't have been able to come,” Sam concluded. “They would have stopped him.”
“Yup,” Dean agreed, popping the 'p'.
“Is Lilith going to be upset when she finds out you escaped?”
Dean snorted. “Lilith has the memory of a goldfish once a deal is fulfilled. She came into the shop a week after I got there and had no freaking clue who I was.”
Sam frowned and silence pervaded the car for a few miles.
“Dean?”
“Yeah, Sammy?”
“Why are our lives so very fucked up?”
Dean chuckled. He sure had missed his brother.
“Because, Sammy. We're Winchesters.”