Fic: Shadows and Dust (SPN, Gen, R) -- Chapter Four

[zara_zee]

Dean was pacing again when the guards came to get him. One of them, the one whose eyes always gleamed with unholy glee whenever anyone got hurt or humiliated, ordered him to take off his tunic.

Dean gaped at him. He couldn’t be serious. Right? No way was Dean going out there wearing nothing but underwear that would’ve looked at home on a fetish website.

Only apparently he was, because the guard’s finger was hovering over the Agony button on his wrist controller and he was almost salivating with the desire to fuck Dean up; Dean didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

So he stripped off the tunic and produced the most shit-eating grin he could manage.

“You know usually I’d insist you buy me dinner first,” he said, “but I guess this,” he gestured at himself, “is pretty hard to resist.”

The guard sneered at him. “You think you’re funny? We’re gonna make you scream, Pretty Boy.”

Dean batted his eyelashes. “Promises, promises.”

The guard’s face was going purple and Dean congratulated himself on a job well done.

Fortunately, the other guard stepped smoothly in between them and guided his colleague to take point.

“Move it, Slave,” he said, falling in behind Dean.

As Dean moved out of his cell a slow, steady drum beat started up and he rolled his eyes, because seriously?

“You guys have watched way too many Spielberg movies,” he muttered.

“Shut up,” said the guard behind him.

Dean harrumphed. “Yeah, well. There better not be a crescendo of sad violins as our hero walks to his impending doom, because I don’t do chick flick moments.”

“I said, shut up,” the guard said again, this time adding in a jolt of pain for good measure.

“Dean!” a familiar voice yelled and Dean stopped so abruptly that the guard behind him walked into the back of him.

“Sam?” he shouted.

Dean had been steadfastly ignoring the guards, gladiators and togaed douchebags gathered near the St Andrew’s cross, but now he strained to see his brother among them.

“Dean!”

Ah, there. That commotion of arms and legs. Six guards trying to hold somebody down. Dean could see at least three of them jabbing desperate fingers at the buttons on their wrist controllers too. He shuddered.

“Move it!” the guard behind Dean began to shove him forward.

“Sam!” Dean shouted again. “Stand down.”

Sam stopped fighting so abruptly that four of the guards fell on top of him.

Dean sniggered. The guard dug his knuckles into Dean’s spine and pushed.

Sam was hauled to his feet, his eyes anxiously searching out Dean’s.

“What are you doin’ at Jabba’s palace?” Dean shouted.

“Enough!” Dean’s guard snarled.

Sam quirked a smile. “I’m on Endor not Tatooine.”

Dean grinned. Take down the shields from the inside. Nice.

Dean’s guards propelled him toward the St Andrew’s cross and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam stiffen.

“Dean?” Sam called, his voice questioning and uncertain.

A meaty thwack followed and Dean turned his head to see blood pouring from Sam’s nose. They made eye contact and Sam glanced toward the St Andrew’s cross and quirked an eyebrow. Dean shook his head. Sam’s mouth became a thin line, but he nodded and the poised-for-action tension left his body.

This was good, Dean thought, as he was strapped face first to the cross, his arms and legs spread wide. Sam was here and he had a rescue plan.

Also, just knowing that Sam was out there was comforting.  Sam was the one person who Dean trusted to watch his back. And okay, it didn’t look like any amount of watching was going to save his back right now, but Dean took strength just from his brother’s presence.

For Sammy, he could be strong.

Dean swallowed as the last strap was tightened and the guards stepped away.

And even if he couldn’t, Sam wouldn’t judge him.

Master Whip moved into Dean’s line of vision. “Open,” he said, holding a black rubber bit gag in front of Dean’s face. Dean opened his mouth and clamped his teeth down on the bitter-tasting rubber. Master Whip fastened it behind his head.

“One professional to another,” the whip master said quietly in Dean’s ear, “let me reassure you that I am well versed in causing a significant amount of pain without causing any serious or permanent damage.”

Dean couldn’t respond, gagged as he was, but what would he have said to that anyway? Gee thanks?

The whip master regarded Dean intently for a moment and then added. “If you feel like you’re going to pass out, don’t fight it.”

Master Whip moved away and Dean realized that he was trembling, just a little. Fuck.

“At Ludus Caledonia,” the Lanista’s voice boomed behind him, making Dean flinch, “we only fight in the arena. Fighting among yourselves is strictly forbidden. Decimus forgot that rule and now he will be punished. Begin.”

Dean jerked and bit down hard as the first hard, heavy lash cut just under his shoulder blades. He closed his eyes and promised himself that he wouldn’t make a sound.

The second cut landed just below the first and his nerve endings were still trying to process it when the third blow landed.

Dean dug his fingernails into the wood of the cross as lash after lash seared his back with hot pain.

Light sprays of blood showered his arms.

He cried out for the first time on the twelfth lash and each subsequent strike of the whip tore a muted scream from his throat. Hot tears slid down his face.

It wasn’t like Hell, not really. In Hell the pain was greater, but at the same time less real. Somehow it was different when it was actually happening to your living body. Dean held onto that. He savored the reminder that this wasn’t Alastair; that he wasn’t on the torture master’s rack in the pit. He was out. He got out. Cas got him out.

Dean lost count of the lashes, along with the strength to cry out, somewhere in the low-thirties. His head lolled forward and his body sagged against his bindings.

Pain had become the very center of his existence; the only thing he was certain was real. He held on to it, focused on it, embraced it even, for it told him something very important; it told him that he was still alive.

Gradually, Dean’s face began to feel as hot as his back and a roaring-wooshing sound began to fill his ears. The sound of the whip faded away and its cuts no longer hurt. Slowly, gratefully, mercifully, Dean slipped into unconsciousness.

--

Dean awoke to burning agony and an overwhelming desire to throw up. He tried to raise himself on shaking arms but the effort was too much and his vision blurred.

“Lie still!” a voice instructed him. There was a sharp pain at his wrist, and then something cold crept up his arm and he felt himself slipping back into unconsciousness.

--

The next time Dean awoke the pain was more manageable and the nausea had gone.

He remembered the voice from last time telling him to lie still and he turned his head.

He was back in his cell, lying face down on his cot, and Sammy was sitting slumped against the wall beside him, his legs stretched out next to the cot.

“Sam?” Fuck, but his voice was croaky.

Sam looked up at him and oh, somebody was getting their lungs ripped out. One of Sam’s eyes was swollen shut and his nose and lips were a mess of dried blood.

“Dean! Do you… Here,” Sam held a bottle of water up to Dean’s lips and he drank greedily.

“Who?” Dean asked, reaching out a hand for Sam’s face and then thinking better of the movement when it caused his back to seize with pain.

Sam put a hand up to his bloodied lips. “Eh,” he said. “The guards. They tried to stop me checking on you after--” Sam stumbled to a stop. “Apparently I’m unusually resistant to the wrist cuffs, so they just beat me up instead.”

Dean frowned. Okay. But why was he in Dean’s cell?

Except when they were training or waiting to go into the arena, the hunters were all kept apart. It was supposed to stop them from fraternizing and plotting to escape.

“How…here?” he asked.

Sam told him that the Lanista approved it, because Dean needed to be observed for twenty-four hours and it was better to waste Sam’s time than the doctor’s.

After the flogging, Dean had been taken down from the cross and Sam had nearly lost his shit when he’d realized that his brother was unconscious. The guards had held him back and wouldn’t let him go to Dean and he’d fought them like a feral creature, until, finally, the Lanista had promised that if he stood down and went quietly they would bring Dean to him when he’d been looked over by the doctor. Sam stopped fighting immediately. He was dragged back to the cells and thrown inside what turned out to be Dean’s cell.

He’d taken stock of his injuries (cuts and bruises only, nothing sprained, strained, dislocated or broken) and then seriously considered starting the spell to take down the warding. He’d been planning to wait for the seclusion of night time, unsure how often they were likely to be checked on during the day, but with Dean so badly hurt, he wanted Cas here now. Before he’d reached a decision, the doctor had appeared. He’d given him a quick once over and confirmed Sam’s own diagnosis.

“You’ll live, son,” he’d told Sam, clapping a hand on Sam’s bare thigh and squeezing, aiming for avuncular Sam thought, but landing on creepy and lewd instead.

“Your brother’s going to be just fine,” he’d added.

He’d told Sam that Dean was sedated in the sick bay. His back was being treated to ensure that infection didn’t set in and tests were being done to make sure there had been no damage to his spine and that his internal organs were all still functioning as they should.

Bile had risen in Sam’s throat. It hadn’t even occurred to him that the flogging could have seriously injured Dean. The knowledge that it had caused him severe pain had been bad enough; he’d had to stand by and watch as his brother’s back was torn open by a whip. When Dean had started screaming, it had taken every ounce of willpower Sam had to hold himself back, and he’d only managed it because he knew that if he lost it, it would only make it worse for Dean.

He’d thanked Dr Jones for taking care of his brother and the doctor’s mouth had twisted. “He’s a valuable asset,” he’d said. “We don’t want him out of action for too long, it loses us money.”

An hour later, they’d brought Dean in, still out cold, his upper back wrapped in bandages.

Shaking his head, Sam looked at his brother, lying painstakingly still on the cot beside him.

“You want some more water?” he asked.

“Thanks.”

This time, Sam didn’t even let Dean lift his head; he’d noticed his brother’s grimace of pain last time. Instead, he cradled Dean’s head with one hand and slowly poured the water into his mouth with the other, until Dean had had enough.

“How long?” Dean asked.

“How long what? Were you unconscious? Have you been back in the cell? Until I get us out of here?”

“Yeah.”

Sam grinned.  “They kept you under for a few hours. You’ve been back in the cell about half an hour. We should be getting supper soon and then, when you think we’ll get at least an hour without any visitors, I’m gonna do some finger painting. Then we get outta here.”

--

By the time their supper arrived, Dean had managed to sit up. It hurt like fuck and caused black spots to dance in front of his eyes, and Sam said it made him bleed through a couple of the bandages, but he did it.

And now he was cold. He even shivered, which, yeah, probably better to avoid shivering.

Sam was collecting their supper from the young guy who brought the food around. Dean still wasn’t sure of his status. He didn’t have a wrist controller like the guards did, so did that mean he was a prisoner here too?

“How’s he doing?” the guy asked. Dean looked away.

“As well as can be expected,” Sam said, in the polite tone of voice Dean remembered him using on nosy teachers and social workers when he really wanted to tell them to fuck off.

Dean shivered again. Ow. Fuck.

Sam put their food down on the ground and then gently draped the grey blanket over his shoulders. It hurt a little as it settled, but everything hurt right now and at least he wasn’t cold anymore.

Sam handed him a plastic bowl and a spoon.

“What the fuck?”

“It’s tomato soup.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious. I see that.”

Dean looked at Sam’s burger enviously and Sam offered it to him immediately.

Dean shook his head. He wasn’t sure he could keep something that heavy down and the thought of how much it would strain his back if he threw up, made him pretty keen to avoid doing that.

“So hey,” Sam said brightly as Dean raised the spoon to his mouth, trying to ignore the way the movement made the blanket rub against his bandaged wounds, “do you know where you are?”

Aside from deep underground, Dean had no clue.

“The Campbell Compound. In an underground bunker.”

Dean stopped and stared, spoon half way to his mouth. Samuel was behind this? Oh well, now he was going to kill him even deader next time he saw him.

“Some Grandpa we’ve got, huh?” he said.

Sam swallowed a mouthful of burger. “Well actually, we don’t have any evidence that he knows about this. But it’s hard to believe he doesn’t, given that this is his property.”

Dean gave up on the soup half way through. Lifting his hand to his mouth just hurt too much. He closed his eyes. He felt weak and shaky and his back still felt like it was on fire. He began to slump and Sam grabbed the bowl and steadied it and then took it out of his hands.

“You okay?”

“Peachy.”

“Do you want me to…” Sam trailed off and Dean opened his eyes to find his brother holding out a spoonful of soup.

His expression must’ve said it all, because Sam lowered the spoon immediately, looking sheepish. “I just thought you might still be hungry,” he said, unleashing the sad wide-eyed expression that Dean caved to almost every time.

“Not hungry,” Dean said.

“Okay,” Sam set his half-eaten burger and Dean’s bowl of soup down on the ground and then reached out for Dean’s hand.

“Dude!” Dean jerked away and then hissed through clenched teeth when the motion pulled at the cuts on his back.

“Relax,” Sam said, gripping Dean’s wrist. “I’m just gonna check your pulse. We don’t want you going into hypovolemic shock.”

“Right. Wouldn’t want that.”

Sam put a hand to Dean’s forehead. “You lost a lot of body fluids today, Dean. But you don’t feel cool and clammy and your pulse is strong and they probably had you on a drip for a while in the sick bay. We should still make sure we keep your fluids up, though, just to be on the safe side.”

He picked up the bottle of water and held it to Dean’s lips and Dean sighed and then opened his mouth and took a drink, because it was easier than arguing about how he was perfectly capable of holding his own damn water.

When Sam finally lowered the bottle, a trickle of water scurried down Dean’s chin and Sam wiped it away with a corner of the blanket before Dean could even lift a hand.

Dean glared at his brother. “I’m gonna take a nap,” he said. “If you’re still doing this mother hen routine when I wake up, I will punch you.”

Sam obviously took that as permission to keep up the fussing until Dean fell asleep and  even though Dean protested that he didn’t need Sam’s help to lie down, being able to rely on Sam’s strength did actually make it easier and less painful to get face down on the cot.

And Sam’s fingers combing gently through his hair? Dean was just going to ignore that, because Sam was a giant girl and okay, maybe it felt kind of nice, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to give Sam shit about it later, only then he’d have to acknowledge that it had happened, and his head really was too heavy and fuzzy for thinking right now.

Dean’s breaths became deep and steady and when Sam was sure he was asleep he stood slowly. He needed Cas in here yesterday, but he didn’t want to start the spell until he was sure he wouldn’t be interrupted and Dean had recommended he wait until the rest of the hunters were taken out to the arena for the evening’s fights.

Sam began to pace.  Dean was clearly in a lot of pain. Normally, he hid it when he was hurting; his stoicism was practically legendary. The fact that he couldn’t mask his grimaces; that the hurt was showing so clearly in his eyes, spoke volumes about the level of trauma he’d been dealt. Sam hated feeling so useless.

The supper-guy came and took their trash and Sam went and sat beside his brother. He wrapped his hand around Dean’s wrist and closed his eyes-or at least, he closed the one that wasn’t already swollen shut. He matched his breathing with Dean’s and let his brother’s steady pulse thrum against his fingers.

Dean was here. Dean was alive. And Sam had a plan to get him out of here. He wasn’t going to let his brother down. Not again.

--

Dean woke up with dry fuzz in his mouth and the metallic smell of too much blood in his nostrils. And pain. So much pain. The dull shuffle of footsteps made him open his eyes. Sam was standing with his back to the cot, doing something to the wall.

“Sam?”

His brother spun fast and Dean got a good look at the rows of Enochian symbols he was finger painting on the wall in his own blood.

“You okay?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.”

“You need anything?”

“Cas’s mojo.”

Sam nodded and turned around, biting down on his forearm as he did and opening up a wound to get more blood.

“You want some of mine? It’s already leaking out.”

Sam froze, his back still to Dean. “Uh no.  The blood has to come from the one source or it could mess up the spell.”

Dean wasn’t sure he believed him, but he let it go.

Eventually, Sam stood away from the wall and made a series of hand gestures while reciting something long and complicated in Enochian. There was a flash of light and Dean blinked and when he opened his eyes again Castiel was standing in the room, his wings a black shadow on the wall behind him.

“I froze time when I came in,” he said, “and then unfroze the two of you.”

He tilted his head and peered at Sam. “You are injured.” He took a step forward and placed two fingers on Sam’s forehead and the blood, bruising and swelling was gone.

“Dean’s hurt worse,” Sam said. “You need to heal him.”

Cas turned and looked at Dean, his expression quizzical until Sam pulled back the blanket and then peeled off one of the bandages. Dean couldn’t help his hiss of pain and he closed his eyes against the inarticulate sound of outraged horror that Cas made. He felt the angel’s fingers on his forehead and the pain vanished.

“Who did this?” Cas demanded.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dean climbed to his feet.

Castiel’s eyes flicked from Dean’s face to his groin and back again and then he turned his back quickly, his face flushed.

Dean put his gladiator outfit back on because it was awesome.

“Dude, how cool are these costumes?”

Sam shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. “I didn’t know you had a gladiator fetish. You hated the movie.”

“Yeah, well, Russel Crowe’s a douchebag. But Spartacus? With Kirk Douglas? That was awesome.”

“Why are you dressed like this?” Castiel asked. “I believe it’s been a while since such clothing was in fashion.”

Dean gaped at him. “A while. Yeah. I’ll explain later. First, we need to figure out a way to get these wrist cuffs off.”

Dean explained about the wrist cuffs and the controllers and Sam shared his theory that there was blood magic involved somehow. Castiel listened and examined Dean’s cuff closely and then he vanished.

“Oh. Okay then,” Dean threw his hands up in the air. “Is it just me or is he getting flakier?”

Sam shrugged. “You tell me. You’re the one with the profound bond.”

Castiel reappeared, holding the Lanista, who was still frozen.

“You are right, Sam. These controllers run on blood magic. If I open this,” he lifted up the Lanista’s arm and flicked a button on the controller which caused the external covering to slide back, “I should be able to wipe it clean of all the blood triggers,” he touched it briefly with two fingers. “And that,” Castiel closed the covering, “should render the device ineffective.”

He pressed the Agony button and both Sam and Dean braced for pain, but there was nothing.

“Still doesn’t come off though,” Dean tugged and poked at the cuff.

“I believe that if I wipe all the control devices clean we will be able to remove your cuffs.”

“Okay,” Dean said. “You do that. Me and Sam will go and take care of the monsters. Can you angel airlift us to where they keep them?”

Castiel reached out and gripped them both by the forearm and the world went cold and black for a second. When it reformed around them, they were in a large cavern similar to the one they’d been kept in. Cas nodded at them and blinked out again.

As they walked through the silent cavern together, past guards frozen mid-task, Sam tried to decide how to raise the subject of the vampires and how they were going to have to let them go or else risk the wrath of the Alpha vamp.  Beside him, Dean was rubbing at the back of his neck, something he only did when he was feeling uncertain.

“So, uh, we got some werewolves in here, Sam, but they ain’t regular werewolves they’re pure bloods-wolf born-and they can control their shifts and keep their human minds when they’re in wolf form.”

“Huh. How come we’ve never come across any lore on them? Or even heard of them?”

Dean shrugged. “Well apparently they ain’t dropping bodies so no reason why we would know about them, I guess. Anyway, they’re not monsters so we gotta let’em go.”

Sam nodded. “I agree. If they’re not killing humans, we’ve got no cause to kill them.”

“They’ve got collars, which I figure are like our cuffs, so we’ll have to wait for Cas to get them off,” he pressed his lips together. “I dunno how the other hunters are gonna feel about this.”

“Then we do it before we unfreeze them. Dean…we’ve gotta let the vamps go too. The Alpha vamp helped me find this place and he’ll come after me if we hurt his children.”

Dean didn’t like it, but he couldn’t risk Sam.

Unlike the hunters who were kept in small single cells, the monsters were kept in larger cells, caged according to type.

They passed the wolf cell, where six werewolves were frozen in wolf form; they passed the vampire cell, where four vampires were sitting like statues on the ground, and then they liberated a bunch of keys from a frozen guard, helped themselves to a couple of machetes from a weapons cupboard and went into the cell where fiftyish zombies and a dozen revenants were being kept. They decapitated them all in short order and then moved to the next cell, which contained a couple dozen ghouls, and decapitated them too.

There were several other cells, but they were all empty, so Dean figured whatever had been kept in there had been killed in the arena.

They were both blood-spattered by the time they were done, so Dean poked around until he found the guards’ break area and adjoining restroom.

They rinsed the blood off, red splashes on white porcelain, and it wasn’t his blood, but Dean couldn’t quite contain his shudder, the crack of the whip echoing in his mind. He took his time splashing cold water on his face, his eyes closed and his hands shaking.

Cas had healed his physical injuries; he didn’t hurt anymore, but the memory of the bullwhip tearing into his flesh, the helplessness and the shame, was still shockingly fresh.

Dean leaned on the basin, knuckles white, and raised his eyes to the mirror. He focused on his chin, on the scruff darkening his jaw and then tried to meet his eyes. He shied away quickly, the fear and shock still too bright and obvious.

Sam had gone into a cubicle, giving him time and space, and Dean hated that his need for a moment alone to pull himself together was so apparent.  He closed his eyes and thought of the whip and then he locked that shit down tight, pushed it into the steel box where he kept his worst memories. When he opened his eyes, when he met his own expression again, it was mostly Dean Fucking Winchester, who stared back at him.

Close enough for now. Most people wouldn’t know the difference.

The toilet flushed.

Sam washed his hands. “You okay?” he said, not looking at Dean.

“Yeah.”

Sam turned then and leaned back against the basin, arms folded across his chest.

Please don’t, Dean thought desperately. We’ve got shit to do and I can’t, I can’t deal with this yet.

Sam cocked his head. “When we get back to Bobby’s, we’re gonna order pizza and watch old movies and make our way through a bottle of whiskey. I’ll even watch Spartacus with you, if you want.”

Dean could’ve cried with relief. Sam had always been into all that touchy-feely, talk it out, hug it out crap, but sometimes he was tuned in enough to realize that Dean didn’t need that. Right now, he felt exposed enough. He didn’t need to have any more flesh torn off; he needed help getting the mask back in place.

Dean wrinkled his nose. “I think I’ve had enough of gladiators for a while. How about we marathon some Clint Eastwood movies?”

Sam’s eye roll was epic. “Fine. But not the monkey ones. I’m vetoing the monkey ones.”

“What? Why?” Dean opened the restroom door. “Clyde is awesome!”

They found Cas waiting for them outside the werewolf cell.  He was holding a cardboard box half filled with wrist controllers.

“I have collected all of the people who were wearing wrist controllers and put them in several of the large empty cells. I have wiped all the controllers. Your wrist cuffs should come off now.” He pressed a button on one of the controllers and both Sam and Dean’s cuffs fell to the floor.

There was a series of clunks from within the werewolf cage and Dean turned his head to see that several of the wolves had lost their collars too.

“Can you unfreeze the wolves?” Dean asked Cas.

The wolves began to move and there were some startled yips as the wolves nosed at the fallen collars.

Dean pressed his face to the cell window. “Everyone’s collars should come off now,” he said and the wolves turned as one to stare at him.

“Cos that’s not creepy at all,” Dean muttered.  “Which one of you is Rowan?”

There was a ripple and then Rowan was standing naked on the other side of the cell door.

“Dean Winchester,” he said, and then looked beyond him to Sam and Cas and quirked a questioning eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “My brother Sam and our friend Cas. This is a rescue,” he rattled the keys.

Rowan stared at him. “I thought you hunted my kind?”

“My brother and me, we hunt monsters. Seems like you and yours might not be monsters. So.”

“You would let us go? Just like that?”

“Yep,” Dean unlocked the cell door and opened it. “Get out of here. Keep your noses clean, and we won’t have a problem. We’ll only ever come looking if bodies start dropping.”

A couple more of the wolves changed form.

“They took our clothes,” said a woman, “And our purses, wallets and cell phones. We’ll need those back.”

“You can’t just travel as wolves?” Sam asked.

“Oh we could,” a man said bitingly, “but having to cancel all your credit cards is a bitch.”

Cas cleared his throat. “There is an office,” he said and disappeared.

Rowan took a step back and gasped. “What…?”

“Angel,” Dean said.

“Get outta here,” said the woman. “There’s no such thing.”

“Oh there is,” Dean said. “And most of them are dicks. But Cas is all right.”

The angel reappeared carrying a large blue plastic box, full of clothes, shoes, wallets, cell phones, purses and weapons.

Dean peered inside. “Hey! That’s my gun. And that’s my shirt. No, wait. That’s yours Sam.”

While the Winchesters and the wolves got changed and found their belongings, Cas removed the vampires’ wrist bands and, at Sam’s request, he unfroze them and beamed them out of the compound.

By the time he was back he was looking pale and haggard. “You okay?” Dean asked.

Cas nodded. “Holding time frozen is exhausting, even more so when you begin to unfreeze small bits of it.”

“Yeah. I bet. You sure we’ve got all the wrist controllers?”

Cas said that he was.

“Should be okay to unfreeze time then. You and Sam go and free the hunters in the holding cell. I’m gonna go deal with the audience.”

“How are you gonna do that?” Sam asked.

Dean pulled his silver Taurus out from the back of his jeans and Sam’s brow creased. “Dean, you can’t shoot the audience.”

“Relax, I’m just gonna use my words. Although,” he frowned, “there are probably demons in the audience. Maybe witches too.”

“The demons left the moment I breached the wards,” Cas said. “They were not eager to stick around once they realized that Heaven knew of this place.”

“And witches are usually pretty big on self-preservation,” Sam added. “Once they realize that the power’s shifted, they probably won’t want to draw attention to themselves.”

Dean nodded. “All right. Let’s do this,” he turned to Rowan. “You guys get out of here. Me and Sam ain’t gonna hunt you, but I can’t speak for the rest of the hunters. Go for it, Cas.”

The audience roared and there was a lot of panicked chatter from the cells where Cas had put the guards and trainers. Dean grinned and made his way out to the arena, where Walt was doing battle with three zombies. A fourth was already lying face down in the sand with a crushed skull.

Dean shot two zombies in the head, rapid fire, and the sickening wet crunch of the final zombie’s skull as it crumbled under Walt’s axe was clearly audible in the arena’s sudden hush.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dean shouted, holding up his fake FBI badge. “I’m Agent Anderson with the FBI. Please remain in your seats. An agent will be along shortly to arrest you for participating in an illegal fighting ring.”

The audience fled en masse and Dean grinned and then turned to Walt. “Oh look,” he said. “You. Me. A gun.”

Walt didn’t look scared so much as resigned.

“Lucky for you,” Dean said, “I’m not the monster you think I am.”

Walt licked at his lips. “You sure about that?” he said. “You’re moving pretty easy for someone who just took a whipping.”

“Yeah, well. I’m on the Angel Healthcare Plan. Every hunter should have it.”

Dean pressed the release button on the wrist controller he’d brought with him and Walt flinched, his eyes widening when his wrist cuff opened and fell off.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Get out of here,” Dean said, “before I remember how much I really want to shoot you.”

“What about the monsters?”

“Me and Sam already took care of them.”

Walt looked grudgingly impressed. “You’re one scary SOB, Winchester.”

Dean responded by pointing his gun at Walt and the hunter took the hint and ran out of the arena.

Back in the holding area, the hunters were changing back into their civvies and finding their wallets and weapons.

“Omigod, Dean!” Annie said when she saw him. “How are you upright, right now?”

“It’s a miracle,” Dean said, pulling her in for a hug.

“It isn’t really miraculous,” Cas appeared at Dean’s elbow. “I am an Angel of the Lord. I have the ability to heal.”

“Cas? Personal space, dude.”

Cas took a step back and Annie eyed him with interest. “An Angel. Really? They sure do make ‘em pretty in Heaven.”

Cas shot Dean a slightly panicked look. “I, uh, this is a vessel. Although Jimmy is dead now and I recreated this body at a cellular level for old time’s sake--”

Annie linked an arm through Cas’s and led him away from Dean. “I bet you’ve seen some interesting things in your time. Maybe we could do lunch one day? Talk history?”

Grady strolled across and clapped Dean on the arm. “Damn it’s good to be back in my own clothes again. I think I’m gonna salt and burn that gladiator outfit.”

“Yeah?” Personally, Dean was planning to keep his, but he didn’t want Grady to think he had some kind of gladiator fetish so he kept quiet.

“Sam says you’ve got the Lanista and the guards and everyone in the monster cells. What are we going to do with them?”

“And what about the monsters?” asked Roy.

“They’re taken care of,” said Sam. “But we should talk about what we’re gonna do with the guys who held us all captive.”

Roy, Walt, Reggie and Tim were in favor of killing them all.

(“And you call me a monster!” Sam said.)

Tamara, Annie, Grady, Sam and Dean vetoed that idea, but they couldn’t agree what they should do with them.

“Who are they, anyway?” asked Tim. “You rescued us, Sam, you must have some idea?”

Sam and Dean looked at each other and then Sam cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. It’s the Campbell family.”

Reggie frowned. “As in the hunting family?”

Annie’s hand was over her mouth. “As in your resurrected grandfather?”

Dean smiled flatly. “As in the guy I’ve already promised to kill the next time I see him. He may be blood, but he ain’t family.”

“To be fair,” Sam said. “We don’t actually know that Samuel knows about this.”

The rest of the hunters all looked as skeptical as Dean.

Tamara turned to Cas. “Do those cuffs still work?”

“Not at the moment,” Cas launched into a detailed explanation about blood magic, which Sam and some of the others seemed to be following, but which was all just blah, blah, blah to Dean.

He tuned out for a while and started fantasizing about the epic shower he was going to take when they got back to Bobby’s-and how sad was it that he was actually more excited about the soap and the shampoo, than the opportunity to get his dick in his hand?

“Dean?” Sam said.

“Huh?”

Sam patiently explained the plan the rest of the group had just agreed on.  If it worked, as well as they hoped, they might find out if Samuel was the real ringleader behind the whole slave-fighter ring.

And even if it didn’t, it would still be a fitting punishment.

--

Dean stayed away from the branding. The screams and the smell of cooking flesh was just a little too reminiscent of Hell and a lot of those memories were close enough to the surface right now as it was.

Instead, he went topside with Sam.  They came up inside a small barn and found the young guy who’d brought the food around and emptied the toilet buckets sitting on a hay bale.

“Did you kill them all?” the guy asked.

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

Dean shook his head. The guy looked a lot younger in jeans and a tee-shirt, probably still a teenager. “What are you doing here?” Dean asked.

The kid shrugged. “Waiting for my dad, I guess. I came up here when the audience all ran out.”

“Who’s your dad?” Sam asked.

“Pete Campbell. He used to be in charge of the compound until Great Uncle Samuel came back. Now he’s just in charge of running the money-making scams. I’m in training. ”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. “So Samuel knows about this?”

The kid shrugged. “He knows there are monster fights.”

Dean put an arm on the kid’s shoulder. “You got someone waiting for you at home?”

“My mom.”

“Okay,” Dean nodded. “You should go home, then. The people your dad was forcing to be gladiators? He kidnapped them and held them captive. He’s going to prison.”

The kid’s mouth quirked and he raised his eyebrows. Dean figured he didn’t believe him, which just meant he was smart, but he appeared to accept Sam’s assurances that his dad wasn’t going to come to any harm, and he left, looking over his shoulder at them periodically until he was out of sight.

--

The guards were spread between two cells, the trainers were in a third cell and the Lanista, the doctor and two men who Dean didn’t recognize were in a fourth cell.

They were all naked.

When Sam and Dean walked into the cell area one of the men Dean didn’t know jumped up, gripped the cell bars and said, “This is outrageous!”

“Huh,” Dean said. “I guess you’re Pete Campbell.”

The man didn’t respond.

“So I’m guessing Cas explained the set up? You’ve all got Agony or Death cuffs on and we’ll be taking the controllers with us, so good luck getting out of the cavern without crossing a red line and going up in smoke. We’ll be warding the entire cavern when we leave so any rescue party’s gonna find it hard to get in. We’ve already warded your cell and the trainers’ cell to make it tough to get you out of ‘em. We didn’t ward the guards’ cells, because we figure they’re just grunts, so when the rescue party comes, they’ll probably be able to let them loose down here, give ‘em a bit more freedom.  But you? You’re gonna be stuck in that cell for quite a while.”

“We have powerful witches,” Pete Campbell began.

Sam scoffed. “Yeah? Well we’ll see your witches and raise you an angel.”

“I’m surprised you’re not looking for more direct retribution,” said Master Whip, coming to the window of his cell.

“Who says we ain’t?” Walt cracked his knuckles. “I may have got voted down on killing you, but you’re all on my shit list.”

Tamara shook her head. “Once upon a time I would’ve wanted to slaughter every last one of you too. But I let the hate go a long time ago. You have to, in this line of work,” she looked pointedly at Walt, “or you lose your mind.”

“Yeah,” said Dean, “And honestly, you guys aren’t worth the effort. I just wanna get outta here.”

“On that note,” Tamara said. “I say we haul ass.”

Dean was more than ready to do that. There was a six pack with his name on it in Bobby’s fridge and Sam had already promised him a Clint Eastwood marathon.

The hunters dispersed and Cas found where the Campbell’s had hidden the Impala.

Dean opened the driver’s side door and then took a final look around. In the distance a large white-and-grey wolf was trotting on the roadside. It paused, as if it could feel Dean’s eyes on it, and then turned and howled triumphantly.

Dean grinned and nodded and it wagged its tail and went on its way.

“You know,” Dean said to Sam as he slid in behind the wheel, “we did a good thing today.”

“Yeah,” Sam looked at him and smiled. “We did.”

“Technically,” said Cas, “you set a bunch of monsters free and locked up a large number of humans.”

“It was the right thing to do,” Sam said.

Besides, Dean mused, what was a monster, really?

A creature of stone-cold evil, lurking with intent to kill? Sure.

But sometimes what made evil truly monstrous was its banality; the college boy who shot a bunch of girls dead because he couldn’t get a date; the drunk who beat his wife and kids.

Monsters like zombies didn’t have a choice; they were brainless slaves to instinct and they had to be put down.

But some monsters-and all humans-had a choice.

And no matter whether you had fur, fangs or a corner office on Wall Street, it was the choices you made that kept you human or made you a monster.

“What do you think, Dean?” Sam asked.

Dean stared out the window at the long, dark road before him. “I think all we mortals are but shadows and dust.”

“Did you seriously just quote Gladiator?”

Dean shrugged. “Russell Crowe might be a douchebag, but Oliver Reed and Richard Harris were good in that movie.”

And maybe, when they’ve drunk all of Bobby’s beer and put a serious dent in his good whiskey, Dean will even let Sammy put the DVD on.

Dean slid a sideways look at the passenger seat, where his brother sat in his rightful place.

“We should stop for snacks,” he said. “Popcorn, nuts, licorice.”

Sam groaned. “Not this again. Licorice tastes like dirt, man.”

Dean rolled his eyes. Sam was such a girl. Everybody knew that licorice was like little chewy pieces of heaven. Maybe tonight would be the night Sammy finally conceded he was wrong; that it was a classic movie food, right up there with popcorn.

Dean grinned and began to marshal his arguments.

The End

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