Fic: Abroad (3/3)
Abroad 3/3
Summary: Dean goes to Hell. Wackiness ensues.
Warnings: Gore, language, OC (yipe!), Bela, stupidity.
Note: Crack? Yes please!
Part 1
Part 2
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Abroad (3/3)
We’re all mad here.
The food stalls near the fair entrance filled the air with the enticing scent of fried grease, and the less-than-enticing stench of various human precious bodily fluids. Dean wrinkled his nose at Gabby.
“I’m not going to drink mucus,” he snapped, hands on hips, “I don’t care what flavor it is!”
“Pussy.”
“No!”
“You eat tongue,” she pointed out in reasonable tones.
“I ate one tongue. Once.” He paused. “Yours. And that was only after you bugged me about it for almost a week. And I had to strap you down just to cut the damn thing out, if I remember right.”
“Yeah, and you totally misinterpreted what I meant when I said I wanted to s-”
“I knew what you meant!” he grabbed a handful of long, curly, slime and blood-encrusted hair and hoisted her up so her toes were dangling just above the dirt and gave her a little shake. “What part of ‘three-foot-two little girl’ are you have trouble with here?”
“I have the face of an angel,” she pouted.
“In a jar in the closet. I know. You showed it to me.” He paused. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Lemme down,” she said, scowling, and Dean gave her another shake for good measure before releasing her. She cast longing eyes at the Mucus-4-U!! stand and added wistfully, “You sure?”
“Yes!”
“They have cherry flavor…”
“Oh lord.”
“It’s fizzy….”
“Gabby, no. Pick something that’s not a bodily fluid. Seriously.”
Chewing on her lip, she glanced around, then cocked her head.
“Eyeball sandwich?”
“Eugh.”
“What-Dean, where’re you going? Dean!”
In the end Dean turned down seven other fair delicacies that had been chopped, peeled or otherwise extracted from human souls, citing insurmountable cultural differences. They settled on pistachio and death-of-joy-flavored ice-cream for Gabby, and a surprisingly tasty giant pretzel for Dean (no mustard).
“I can’t believe you got pistachio.” He wrinkled his nose at her choice. “Nuts in ice cream?”
“Well you wouldn’t let me have bone marrow!”
“It makes you gassy,” he retorted.
“And I don’t know how you can eat that. It’s totally full of carbs, y’know.”
“Mmf,” he said again, and finished stuffing the last bit of salty bread in his mouth. “’S
good. Also I’m dead. Carbs aren’t really a major worry for me anymore.”
“Yeah, well, you just stay away from my ice cream.”
“Oh come on, there’s no way you can finish all that by yourself.”
She clutched the hell-dairy to her chest. “Dean, no!”
“Just lemme have a taste. Just a taste? Come on, Gabs.” He tried his best winning smile.
“No! Get away! Get away!” She shrieked and kicked out at him, managed to claw one grasping hand before turning and fleeing, darting between two tents and under the legs of a startled giraffe-monster.
“Coward!” Dean shouted after her. He shoved his bloody fingers in his mouth and made a face. Blood was a poor substitute for ice cream. Gabby was already gone, though. Dean scowled and spun on his heel, stalking further into the midway.
Food stalls. Honestly he’d never seen so many. Of course fair-going hadn’t been a major pastime of his back when he was topside, but he did recall the occasional fourth-of-July excursion and there’d usually been wonderfully horrible fried foods, sometimes wrapped in bacon or sprinkled with sugar. Or both.
Hell had its share of Slurpee stands and hot-dog-onna-stick vendors, tucked in between booths hawking such delicacies as deep fried fingernails and corndogs-hellhounds, in this case. Scattered here and there throughout were huge steel and brass cages, each one housing its own languishing soul, and judging by the festive signs each was for sale at a special price, for the discerning demonic palate.
He ambled along, peering idly into cages, clinically noting the extent of injury on the various souls within. Most of them were just dirty, it seemed, and maybe a little bruised, but they were surprisingly free of cuts, scrapes, or evidence of recent flaying or the sorts of casual violence Dean knew was just par for the course in ordinary interactions in hell. He wondered if they’d just been left there and forgotten, or if they were being rewarded for something.
It was with some surprise that he glanced in one particularly unloved cage and saw a fall of dark hair that tweaked something in an ancient, dusty memory. He paused in his aimless rambling and squinted between the bars before drawing slowly closer. He opened and shut his mouth a few times before scurrying up to the cage, springing up the foot-and-a-half onto the edge and clutching at the bars.
“Bela?” he said, peering down at the filthy tangled hair, “Bela Talbot?”
A groan rose from the prone figure and, after a long moment, it lifted its-her-head wearily, and blinked at him from behind its hair.
“Oh my gawd!” he grinned hugely. “Look at you!”
It was definitely her. She squinted up at him, then shifted so that she could drag herself forward on bloodied fingers. Her head bobbed a bit and Dean felt his grin grow so wide his cheeks ached.
“D…Dean?” she rasped. “…Winchester? Dean Winchester?”
“Yeah! Wow, this is amazing! What’s it been, like thirty, thirty-five years? Man, Bela, you haven’t changed a bit!” Which wasn’t technically true of course-she’d changed an awful lot, what with all the blood and dirt and matted hair and everything, but whatever. He was just trying to be nice.
“What have you been up to all this time?”
Bela blinked heavily at him. She wasn’t returning his smile, but that was okay. She was probably just upset about the whole being-in-a-cage thing.
“Being tortured,” she said flatly.
“No way! Me too! Wow, small world, huh?”
She managed to hoist an eyebrow, and Dean was very impressed.
“Not really.”
Bela flopped back down on the floor of the cage, shutting her eyes briefly before opening them again. Dean settled a little more comfortably on his haunches, still gripping the bars tightly. She regarded him through her hair.
“Why are you barefoot and covered in gore?” she asked.
“I’m not covered in gore,” he retorted indignantly, “I washed my face! And my hands!”
“Uh huh.” She paused. “Are you a demon?”
“Am I a what?” he yelped, indignant. “No! What kind of thing is that to ask a person! Jeez!”
“A logical one, considering the circumstances,” she said, in surprisingly crisp tones. “I’m in here. You’re out there. Were you planning to devour my soul any time soon, or did you just stop by for a chat?”
“The second one,” he told her, and watched her blink in obvious confusion. He rocked on his feet where the metal was digging into the soles, and frowned at the scream of muscle in his legs. “It’s tough to talk to you like this. I’m gonna go see if I can get you out. Wait here.”
“Well where the hell else am I going t-wait, what? Dean?” she scrambled up on her knees as Dean hopped lightly to the ground, then clutched at the bars as he darted into the crowd, looking for the proprietor of the soul-feast. “Dean!”
It took some doing, but he managed to track down the owner of the cages, and after some careful explanations and a little bit of pantomime, Dean managed to impress on the demon that he wasn’t actually interested in devouring Bela’s soul.
“I just want to borrow her for a while,” he explained for the twelfth time.
Using Alastair’s money to rent a soul he had no intention of torturing was the sort of thing that would usually get him into trouble, but Deal consoled himself with the fact that the demon would almost certainly never know. Probably. It wasn’t like Alastair expected to see any of the money again. He wasn’t stupid. Single-minded, maybe. But not stupid.
“Easy come, easy go,” Dean said with a smile as the owner unlocked the cage and hauled the struggling Bela out by her hair. Dean winced as the demon snapped a heavy collar around her neck, but gingerly took hold of the leash anyway.
“Well,” he said, after the huge demon had pocketed Alastair’s money and stomped off to do whatever unspeakable things he had planned for the afternoon, “This is nice.”
Bela looked at him slowly.
“What are you doing, Dean?” she asked, voice edged in sweetness. Dean cringed a little, then rallied.
“Well, I haven’t seen you inages,” he said, waving his arms around, though he’d forgotten he still had the leash in one hand and was only reminded of the fact by Bela’s indignant Glurk!
“Sorry!” he blurted, looking around quickly, “Sorry. Let’s go and…uh, let’s go sit down somewhere, okay?”
“Fine,” she said, and he grinned and was a little put out when she flinched.
“You want ice-cream?” he asked, when they were seated on a bench made of rib bones. “They have destruction-of-innocence. And, uh, chocolate.”
“No,” she said, and looked at him. “What’s all over your face?”
“Paint. I was getting it done but the girls only got about halfway when Gabby-“
“Who?”
“Gabby, she-”
“Who’s Gabby?”
“She’s in charge of making my life miserable. Anyway she-”
“Dean Winchester, you dirty rotten liar!”
A heavy weight landed on his shoulders and Dean groaned and crossed his eyes, trying to see the top of his head. He heard Bela give a startled yelp and yank on the leash; his hand tightened reflexively.
“Dean!” Gabby dropped to the bench and reached for Bela’s long hair, tangling it in a fist. “You got me a snack!”
“No!” he slapped at one grasping hand and ignored her hurt look. “This one’s not for eating!”
“All souls are for eating,” Gabby snapped. Bela made a little noise. Dean sighed.
“I didn’t pay to eat her, I just wanted to talk. I knew her, Gabs. Back when I was alive, I mean.”
“Like, knew her knew her?” the demon bared her teeth in an utterly inappropriate grin. Dean’s lip curled.
“Like, ‘hated her guts, wanted to kill her’ knew her.”
“Oh, so you guys were like total BFFs,” she said thoughtfully, cocking her head.
“Yes! Exactly! So no eating her, got it?”
“Huh.” She gave Bela another razor-bright grin. “You want ice cream?”
“Um, I’m okay,” Bela pushed her hair out of her face and tried a smile. She didn’t quite pull it off.
“Really? It’s pretty good. They have-what’s the one I like that you never let me have?”
“Babies’ blood,” Dean supplied. He looked at Bela. “It’s nasty. All salt and iron. Don’t let her talk you into that one.”
“Um,” Bela said, “Okay.”
“So what are you going to do with her?” Gabby’s eyebrows danced. “I know! Let’s take her on the rides!”
“That seems kind of cruel.”
“Just the non-lethal ones.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Um,” said Bela.
“I just wanted to talk, Gabby.”
“Hello?” said Bela.
“We should take her to see the gladiators!”
“Those prancing idiots? Again? No way!”
“Guys?” said Bela.
“Hey, look,” he got up, and Bela, after a moment, stood up too. “Let’s just, y’know-Bela, what do you want to do?”
“Do?” she asked, bewildered.
“Well, we are at the fair,” Gabby said obnoxiously.
“I don’t, um….”
“Pit of Eternal Flame!” Gabby squealed, and shrieked when Dean kicked her.
“Pipe down,” he snapped.
“Let’s just…take a walk?” Bela suggested, after a startled moment where they both watched Gabby roll around on the ground in agony, spitting curses.
“Oh, how grown up of you, daaaahling,” Gabby snarled, staggering to her feet and clutching at her injured ribs. “Shall I run and fetch a gypsy violinist to serenade you?”
“Gabby,” Dean blushed and looked apologetically at Bela. “She doesn’t mean that. She’s just being a little bitch.”
“I’m on a leash,” Bela pointed out.
“Ooh! Ooh! I wanna hold the leash!”
“Gabby I swear if you don’t calm down and shut the hell up I will cut off all your fingers and toes and feed them to your precious gladiators.”
“So…uh, Gabby,” Bela said, “How do you and Dean know each other?”
Dean cringed as Gabby chirped, “I’m his bodyguard!”
“Y’whuh-huh?”
“Dean has special dispensation,” she stated, in the same tones that someone else would have said serious mental defects. “Alastair assigned me to him as protection, from other demons. So he doesn’t accidentally get eaten or whatever.”
“Alastair?”
“My boss,” Gabby said conversationally, “And Dean’s.”
“But…Dean’s not a demon.”
“Special. Dispensation.”
“Dean?” she looked at him, and he shrugged.
“It’s a living.” He paused. “Only, y’know. Not.”
“Dean doesn’t get paid,” Gabby explained.
“Bu I still have a quota. How is that fair, I ask you?”
“Well, Dean,” Gabby put her hands on her hips, “You know ‘fair’ isn’t actually in Hell’s motto anywhere.”
Dean’s lips quirked. “Yeah, but we are at the fair. Geddit? Geddit?”
“Oh my gawd I will devour your soul,” Gabby clutched at her forehead, then looked hopefully at Bela. “Pit of Eternal Despair?”
“No!” he paused, “Wait, they have that here?”
“Well, yeah. Didn’t we-”
“No!”
“Well then let’s go!”
“Wait, wait,” he took Bela’s shoulders in both hands, “Bela, we’re not gonna throw you in the pit, okay? Any of them.”
Gabby frowned. “But-”
“No, Gabby. Don’t make me kick you again.”
“Fine! But I wanna hold the leash.”
Dean flung his free hand in the air.
“Oh all right! Anything to shut you up!”
“Promises, promises,” she grumbled, but held out one slender wrist for Dean to wrap the leash around.
“Do not lose her,” he said darkly, “Or it’ll come out of my hide, and believe me when I say I will pay you back with interest.”
She smiled sweetly. “Is that a razor in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
“Maybe it’s time I started my own eyeball collection,” he sneered.
Bela said, “You have a razor, Dean?”
“Sure do.” He pulled it out, flipped it open, turning it so the blade flashed. “Used to be Alastair’s, but he gave it to me.”
“Teacher’s pet,” Gabby snarked, yanking on the leash, forcing Bela to bend uncomfortably low as they set off through the fair once again.
“Oh, please.” Dean grinned at Bela, and reached out. “Hey, look. Gimme your hand. I promise I can get all the skin off in five cuts or less-even from your fingers.”
“He really is very good.”
“Um, no,” Bela said, clutching her hands to her chest. “That’s okay.”
“Really? Well, suit yourself.” He folded the razor and shoved it back in his pocket.
“You can do my hand later, Dean,” Gabby offered, and he grinned at her.
“When I first met Gabby, she took one look at me and bit my right hand clean off,” he told Bela, waggling his fingers at her.
“It was crunchy,” Gabby volunteered.
“Was it?” Bela said faintly.
“I was pretty upset about it at the time-I’d just got off the rack and was still kind of…excited. Looking back, though…” he gave a low whistle. “It was practically surgical. And she did that with her teeth.”
“Amazing,” Bela murmured, eyes shifting from side to side.
“I know!” Dean enthused, and Gabby blushed furiously. Bela didn’t say anything else. She seemed a little distracted, actually.
They went and saw he Pit of Eternal Despair, and Dean thought it looked a lot like the other Eternal Pits, but Gabby seemed so excited to show it to them that he didn’t want to say anything and spoil her moment. Bela, meanwhile, was uncharacteristically quiet and didn’t muster much of a response, though Dean couldn’t exactly say why-she barely even smiled when Gabby whipped out her ribcage hat and plunked it on her head.
“Admit it,” the demon said, twirling a delicate pirouette. “I’m freakin’ adorable.”
“You’re a little psychopath,” he told her fondly, and looked up when Bela made a strangled little noise.
“You okay? You want something to drink or something?” He asked, and ignored Gabby’s muttered babies’ blood behind him.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Bela said quickly, not looking at the pit at all. “I um…I’m feeling a tad woozy. Do you think we could…go someplace else?”
“Gladiators!”
“No!” he snapped, then turned to Bela. “You look a little pale. You should sit down.”
“I don’t-” But whatever she’d been about to say was cut off by a sudden scream, and a noise like a herd of rocks stamping through a china factory. Dean instinctively slammed his hands over his ears, and Gabby did the same. Bela was staring upward at the sky, which, Dean realized, seemed to be shaking.
“What the shit is going on?” Dean shouted, and was barely able to hear his own voice over the wails and screams rising from the demons all around. Gabby hissed at him, and clambered up his back to sink claws deeply into his shoulders and lower her mouth to his ear.
“Angels, Dean, I told you earlier. Don’t you listen to a word I say?”
“But-what are they…?”
“We’re under attack! We have been since this morning! There’s a siege going on right now!” She sat back slightly. “Man, you really weren’t listening to me, were you?”
“I never listen to you,” he said, watching as another vibration shook the sky. A noise of clashing bronze wings rolled over them in a wave, and Dean’s eyes ran with what he hoped were tears. He wiped his face. “Dude, if there’s a fight going on why the hell are we at the fair? Can we say ‘screwed up priorities?’”
“It’s punishment detail. And anyway witnessing a fight between heaven and hell might be too much for your poor mortal soul to bear.” She rubbed her palm over his unpainted cheek, smearing whatever was spilling from his eyes all over his skin, then licked at her hand.
“Pssh. Whatever. And anyway I-uh. Hm. Uh, Gabby?”
“Hmm?” the demon looked up from her palm, which she clearly found fascinating. Dean didn’t want to know.
“Where’d Bela go?”
“What-”
“Bela, Gabby.” Dean reached up and pulled her off his shoulders, then held her out at arms’ length so that her legs dangled uselessly. “Bela, the soul I gave you to hold? That you had on a leash? That leash, in fact, that is right there tied to your hand? You remember?”
“Um.” Gabby looked down at her wrist, where the leather leash was indeed still wrapped snugly, and they both followed the length of the cord to the other end, where it was, in fact, still attached to a heavy collar. Which lay in the dust, winking in the light of the sky.
“Well,” Gabby said. Dean dropped her on her butt.
“Jesus motherfucking Christ,” he told her, and she hissed again and scrambled backwards, clutching at her ears.
“Dean! C’mon!”
He squatted on his heels, reached out and grabbed her by the ankle, then swung her up and held her, dangling, over the Pit of Eternal Despair.
“Dean!” she shrieked. “Stop it! Stop it right now you bastard!”
“Do not lose her, Gabby, I said.” He shook her and two eyeballs dropped from a pocket and went careening into the darkness. “ ‘If you lose her it’ll come out of my hide’, Gabby. Do you remember when I said that, Gabby?”
“Yes!” she shrieked. “I remember! I remember! Dean!”
She flailed, which was stupid, because Dean was only holding her with up one hand, arm straight, thrust out over the pit. Her golden locks swung wildly over the yawning abyss and the shadows and screams from below seemed to reach for her, grasping and hungry. Dean cocked his head, watched her huge round eyes fill with genuine tears, the fair skin of her face turn fire-engine red. He slowly pulled back his pinky finger, and Gabby stiffened. When his ring finger peeled away as well, she screamed.
“Dean no! Please no! It was an honest mistake! I swear I didn’t mean it! I didn’t do it on purpose! Pleasedon’tdropme please please don’t drop me Dean! Please!”
She swung back and forth from his three-fingered grip like a small, snot-nosed pendulum. She wasn’t flailing anymore, and Dean stood very still and watched as huge fat tears ran down her forehead and disappeared into her slimy, bloody, tangled hair. Her chest jumped up and down and her frame trembled with sobs. Dean felt a slow grin creeping across his face.
“You’re just adorable like this, you know?” he told her.
He managed to hold the pose for another few seconds, during which Gabby made a very passable attempt at turning purple. When the sky shook under another angelic onslaught, though, he staggered and nearly pitched forward into the pit, and it was a serious effort to prevent both himself and the demon from tumbling down into the dark. There was a confused moment of flailing limbs and claws and hair and then somehow they were both in a pile at the edge of the pit, scrambling backward and kicking dirt over the edge. Something inside gave a long, appropriately despairing wail, and fell silent.
They both regarded the pit thoughtfully for a few moments. Finally Dean got to his feet and graciously extended a hand for Gabby. She regarded it briefly before accepting, though she bared her teeth slightly and scurried backward about a foot once she was upright.
“We could still catch her,” Gabby offered, shoving her hands in her pockets and looking at him through her lashes.
“We could.” Dean folded his arms and stared down the road, at the crowd of demons dispersing, already heading back to their various lairs and slime-pits and condominiums. He sighed.
“Nah,” he said finally, and off Gabby’s look added, “Y’know it just…eh. Hell’s under attack by a garrison of angels. It kind of makes the whole ‘I owe money to a guy at the fair’ seem kind of…insignificant, y’know? Anyway if he wants to track me down I’m sure he’ll manage. Let’s just get outta here, huh?”
Gabby smiled, a little bit shyly, and sidled up closer. Dean didn’t protest when she slipped a tiny hand into his. Walking back toward the fair entrance, Dean cast one last glance at the shuddering, heaving sky.
“I wonder what it is that they want?”
-end-
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Right. That was stupid.
ALSO!! If you haven’t already, go and read Accentuating by amor_remanet, which is a truly awesome little piece in which Dean and Alastair shop for curtains. In Hell.
Finally, I would like to apologize fully and completely for this fic. I have no excuse, really.
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Summary: Dean goes to Hell. Wackiness ensues.
Warnings: Gore, language, OC (yipe!), Bela, stupidity.
Note: Crack? Yes please!
Part 1
Part 2
____________
Abroad (3/3)
We’re all mad here.
The food stalls near the fair entrance filled the air with the enticing scent of fried grease, and the less-than-enticing stench of various human precious bodily fluids. Dean wrinkled his nose at Gabby.
“I’m not going to drink mucus,” he snapped, hands on hips, “I don’t care what flavor it is!”
“Pussy.”
“No!”
“You eat tongue,” she pointed out in reasonable tones.
“I ate one tongue. Once.” He paused. “Yours. And that was only after you bugged me about it for almost a week. And I had to strap you down just to cut the damn thing out, if I remember right.”
“Yeah, and you totally misinterpreted what I meant when I said I wanted to s-”
“I knew what you meant!” he grabbed a handful of long, curly, slime and blood-encrusted hair and hoisted her up so her toes were dangling just above the dirt and gave her a little shake. “What part of ‘three-foot-two little girl’ are you have trouble with here?”
“I have the face of an angel,” she pouted.
“In a jar in the closet. I know. You showed it to me.” He paused. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Lemme down,” she said, scowling, and Dean gave her another shake for good measure before releasing her. She cast longing eyes at the Mucus-4-U!! stand and added wistfully, “You sure?”
“Yes!”
“They have cherry flavor…”
“Oh lord.”
“It’s fizzy….”
“Gabby, no. Pick something that’s not a bodily fluid. Seriously.”
Chewing on her lip, she glanced around, then cocked her head.
“Eyeball sandwich?”
“Eugh.”
“What-Dean, where’re you going? Dean!”
In the end Dean turned down seven other fair delicacies that had been chopped, peeled or otherwise extracted from human souls, citing insurmountable cultural differences. They settled on pistachio and death-of-joy-flavored ice-cream for Gabby, and a surprisingly tasty giant pretzel for Dean (no mustard).
“I can’t believe you got pistachio.” He wrinkled his nose at her choice. “Nuts in ice cream?”
“Well you wouldn’t let me have bone marrow!”
“It makes you gassy,” he retorted.
“And I don’t know how you can eat that. It’s totally full of carbs, y’know.”
“Mmf,” he said again, and finished stuffing the last bit of salty bread in his mouth. “’S
good. Also I’m dead. Carbs aren’t really a major worry for me anymore.”
“Yeah, well, you just stay away from my ice cream.”
“Oh come on, there’s no way you can finish all that by yourself.”
She clutched the hell-dairy to her chest. “Dean, no!”
“Just lemme have a taste. Just a taste? Come on, Gabs.” He tried his best winning smile.
“No! Get away! Get away!” She shrieked and kicked out at him, managed to claw one grasping hand before turning and fleeing, darting between two tents and under the legs of a startled giraffe-monster.
“Coward!” Dean shouted after her. He shoved his bloody fingers in his mouth and made a face. Blood was a poor substitute for ice cream. Gabby was already gone, though. Dean scowled and spun on his heel, stalking further into the midway.
Food stalls. Honestly he’d never seen so many. Of course fair-going hadn’t been a major pastime of his back when he was topside, but he did recall the occasional fourth-of-July excursion and there’d usually been wonderfully horrible fried foods, sometimes wrapped in bacon or sprinkled with sugar. Or both.
Hell had its share of Slurpee stands and hot-dog-onna-stick vendors, tucked in between booths hawking such delicacies as deep fried fingernails and corndogs-hellhounds, in this case. Scattered here and there throughout were huge steel and brass cages, each one housing its own languishing soul, and judging by the festive signs each was for sale at a special price, for the discerning demonic palate.
He ambled along, peering idly into cages, clinically noting the extent of injury on the various souls within. Most of them were just dirty, it seemed, and maybe a little bruised, but they were surprisingly free of cuts, scrapes, or evidence of recent flaying or the sorts of casual violence Dean knew was just par for the course in ordinary interactions in hell. He wondered if they’d just been left there and forgotten, or if they were being rewarded for something.
It was with some surprise that he glanced in one particularly unloved cage and saw a fall of dark hair that tweaked something in an ancient, dusty memory. He paused in his aimless rambling and squinted between the bars before drawing slowly closer. He opened and shut his mouth a few times before scurrying up to the cage, springing up the foot-and-a-half onto the edge and clutching at the bars.
“Bela?” he said, peering down at the filthy tangled hair, “Bela Talbot?”
A groan rose from the prone figure and, after a long moment, it lifted its-her-head wearily, and blinked at him from behind its hair.
“Oh my gawd!” he grinned hugely. “Look at you!”
It was definitely her. She squinted up at him, then shifted so that she could drag herself forward on bloodied fingers. Her head bobbed a bit and Dean felt his grin grow so wide his cheeks ached.
“D…Dean?” she rasped. “…Winchester? Dean Winchester?”
“Yeah! Wow, this is amazing! What’s it been, like thirty, thirty-five years? Man, Bela, you haven’t changed a bit!” Which wasn’t technically true of course-she’d changed an awful lot, what with all the blood and dirt and matted hair and everything, but whatever. He was just trying to be nice.
“What have you been up to all this time?”
Bela blinked heavily at him. She wasn’t returning his smile, but that was okay. She was probably just upset about the whole being-in-a-cage thing.
“Being tortured,” she said flatly.
“No way! Me too! Wow, small world, huh?”
She managed to hoist an eyebrow, and Dean was very impressed.
“Not really.”
Bela flopped back down on the floor of the cage, shutting her eyes briefly before opening them again. Dean settled a little more comfortably on his haunches, still gripping the bars tightly. She regarded him through her hair.
“Why are you barefoot and covered in gore?” she asked.
“I’m not covered in gore,” he retorted indignantly, “I washed my face! And my hands!”
“Uh huh.” She paused. “Are you a demon?”
“Am I a what?” he yelped, indignant. “No! What kind of thing is that to ask a person! Jeez!”
“A logical one, considering the circumstances,” she said, in surprisingly crisp tones. “I’m in here. You’re out there. Were you planning to devour my soul any time soon, or did you just stop by for a chat?”
“The second one,” he told her, and watched her blink in obvious confusion. He rocked on his feet where the metal was digging into the soles, and frowned at the scream of muscle in his legs. “It’s tough to talk to you like this. I’m gonna go see if I can get you out. Wait here.”
“Well where the hell else am I going t-wait, what? Dean?” she scrambled up on her knees as Dean hopped lightly to the ground, then clutched at the bars as he darted into the crowd, looking for the proprietor of the soul-feast. “Dean!”
It took some doing, but he managed to track down the owner of the cages, and after some careful explanations and a little bit of pantomime, Dean managed to impress on the demon that he wasn’t actually interested in devouring Bela’s soul.
“I just want to borrow her for a while,” he explained for the twelfth time.
Using Alastair’s money to rent a soul he had no intention of torturing was the sort of thing that would usually get him into trouble, but Deal consoled himself with the fact that the demon would almost certainly never know. Probably. It wasn’t like Alastair expected to see any of the money again. He wasn’t stupid. Single-minded, maybe. But not stupid.
“Easy come, easy go,” Dean said with a smile as the owner unlocked the cage and hauled the struggling Bela out by her hair. Dean winced as the demon snapped a heavy collar around her neck, but gingerly took hold of the leash anyway.
“Well,” he said, after the huge demon had pocketed Alastair’s money and stomped off to do whatever unspeakable things he had planned for the afternoon, “This is nice.”
Bela looked at him slowly.
“What are you doing, Dean?” she asked, voice edged in sweetness. Dean cringed a little, then rallied.
“Well, I haven’t seen you inages,” he said, waving his arms around, though he’d forgotten he still had the leash in one hand and was only reminded of the fact by Bela’s indignant Glurk!
“Sorry!” he blurted, looking around quickly, “Sorry. Let’s go and…uh, let’s go sit down somewhere, okay?”
“Fine,” she said, and he grinned and was a little put out when she flinched.
“You want ice-cream?” he asked, when they were seated on a bench made of rib bones. “They have destruction-of-innocence. And, uh, chocolate.”
“No,” she said, and looked at him. “What’s all over your face?”
“Paint. I was getting it done but the girls only got about halfway when Gabby-“
“Who?”
“Gabby, she-”
“Who’s Gabby?”
“She’s in charge of making my life miserable. Anyway she-”
“Dean Winchester, you dirty rotten liar!”
A heavy weight landed on his shoulders and Dean groaned and crossed his eyes, trying to see the top of his head. He heard Bela give a startled yelp and yank on the leash; his hand tightened reflexively.
“Dean!” Gabby dropped to the bench and reached for Bela’s long hair, tangling it in a fist. “You got me a snack!”
“No!” he slapped at one grasping hand and ignored her hurt look. “This one’s not for eating!”
“All souls are for eating,” Gabby snapped. Bela made a little noise. Dean sighed.
“I didn’t pay to eat her, I just wanted to talk. I knew her, Gabs. Back when I was alive, I mean.”
“Like, knew her knew her?” the demon bared her teeth in an utterly inappropriate grin. Dean’s lip curled.
“Like, ‘hated her guts, wanted to kill her’ knew her.”
“Oh, so you guys were like total BFFs,” she said thoughtfully, cocking her head.
“Yes! Exactly! So no eating her, got it?”
“Huh.” She gave Bela another razor-bright grin. “You want ice cream?”
“Um, I’m okay,” Bela pushed her hair out of her face and tried a smile. She didn’t quite pull it off.
“Really? It’s pretty good. They have-what’s the one I like that you never let me have?”
“Babies’ blood,” Dean supplied. He looked at Bela. “It’s nasty. All salt and iron. Don’t let her talk you into that one.”
“Um,” Bela said, “Okay.”
“So what are you going to do with her?” Gabby’s eyebrows danced. “I know! Let’s take her on the rides!”
“That seems kind of cruel.”
“Just the non-lethal ones.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Um,” said Bela.
“I just wanted to talk, Gabby.”
“Hello?” said Bela.
“We should take her to see the gladiators!”
“Those prancing idiots? Again? No way!”
“Guys?” said Bela.
“Hey, look,” he got up, and Bela, after a moment, stood up too. “Let’s just, y’know-Bela, what do you want to do?”
“Do?” she asked, bewildered.
“Well, we are at the fair,” Gabby said obnoxiously.
“I don’t, um….”
“Pit of Eternal Flame!” Gabby squealed, and shrieked when Dean kicked her.
“Pipe down,” he snapped.
“Let’s just…take a walk?” Bela suggested, after a startled moment where they both watched Gabby roll around on the ground in agony, spitting curses.
“Oh, how grown up of you, daaaahling,” Gabby snarled, staggering to her feet and clutching at her injured ribs. “Shall I run and fetch a gypsy violinist to serenade you?”
“Gabby,” Dean blushed and looked apologetically at Bela. “She doesn’t mean that. She’s just being a little bitch.”
“I’m on a leash,” Bela pointed out.
“Ooh! Ooh! I wanna hold the leash!”
“Gabby I swear if you don’t calm down and shut the hell up I will cut off all your fingers and toes and feed them to your precious gladiators.”
“So…uh, Gabby,” Bela said, “How do you and Dean know each other?”
Dean cringed as Gabby chirped, “I’m his bodyguard!”
“Y’whuh-huh?”
“Dean has special dispensation,” she stated, in the same tones that someone else would have said serious mental defects. “Alastair assigned me to him as protection, from other demons. So he doesn’t accidentally get eaten or whatever.”
“Alastair?”
“My boss,” Gabby said conversationally, “And Dean’s.”
“But…Dean’s not a demon.”
“Special. Dispensation.”
“Dean?” she looked at him, and he shrugged.
“It’s a living.” He paused. “Only, y’know. Not.”
“Dean doesn’t get paid,” Gabby explained.
“Bu I still have a quota. How is that fair, I ask you?”
“Well, Dean,” Gabby put her hands on her hips, “You know ‘fair’ isn’t actually in Hell’s motto anywhere.”
Dean’s lips quirked. “Yeah, but we are at the fair. Geddit? Geddit?”
“Oh my gawd I will devour your soul,” Gabby clutched at her forehead, then looked hopefully at Bela. “Pit of Eternal Despair?”
“No!” he paused, “Wait, they have that here?”
“Well, yeah. Didn’t we-”
“No!”
“Well then let’s go!”
“Wait, wait,” he took Bela’s shoulders in both hands, “Bela, we’re not gonna throw you in the pit, okay? Any of them.”
Gabby frowned. “But-”
“No, Gabby. Don’t make me kick you again.”
“Fine! But I wanna hold the leash.”
Dean flung his free hand in the air.
“Oh all right! Anything to shut you up!”
“Promises, promises,” she grumbled, but held out one slender wrist for Dean to wrap the leash around.
“Do not lose her,” he said darkly, “Or it’ll come out of my hide, and believe me when I say I will pay you back with interest.”
She smiled sweetly. “Is that a razor in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
“Maybe it’s time I started my own eyeball collection,” he sneered.
Bela said, “You have a razor, Dean?”
“Sure do.” He pulled it out, flipped it open, turning it so the blade flashed. “Used to be Alastair’s, but he gave it to me.”
“Teacher’s pet,” Gabby snarked, yanking on the leash, forcing Bela to bend uncomfortably low as they set off through the fair once again.
“Oh, please.” Dean grinned at Bela, and reached out. “Hey, look. Gimme your hand. I promise I can get all the skin off in five cuts or less-even from your fingers.”
“He really is very good.”
“Um, no,” Bela said, clutching her hands to her chest. “That’s okay.”
“Really? Well, suit yourself.” He folded the razor and shoved it back in his pocket.
“You can do my hand later, Dean,” Gabby offered, and he grinned at her.
“When I first met Gabby, she took one look at me and bit my right hand clean off,” he told Bela, waggling his fingers at her.
“It was crunchy,” Gabby volunteered.
“Was it?” Bela said faintly.
“I was pretty upset about it at the time-I’d just got off the rack and was still kind of…excited. Looking back, though…” he gave a low whistle. “It was practically surgical. And she did that with her teeth.”
“Amazing,” Bela murmured, eyes shifting from side to side.
“I know!” Dean enthused, and Gabby blushed furiously. Bela didn’t say anything else. She seemed a little distracted, actually.
They went and saw he Pit of Eternal Despair, and Dean thought it looked a lot like the other Eternal Pits, but Gabby seemed so excited to show it to them that he didn’t want to say anything and spoil her moment. Bela, meanwhile, was uncharacteristically quiet and didn’t muster much of a response, though Dean couldn’t exactly say why-she barely even smiled when Gabby whipped out her ribcage hat and plunked it on her head.
“Admit it,” the demon said, twirling a delicate pirouette. “I’m freakin’ adorable.”
“You’re a little psychopath,” he told her fondly, and looked up when Bela made a strangled little noise.
“You okay? You want something to drink or something?” He asked, and ignored Gabby’s muttered babies’ blood behind him.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Bela said quickly, not looking at the pit at all. “I um…I’m feeling a tad woozy. Do you think we could…go someplace else?”
“Gladiators!”
“No!” he snapped, then turned to Bela. “You look a little pale. You should sit down.”
“I don’t-” But whatever she’d been about to say was cut off by a sudden scream, and a noise like a herd of rocks stamping through a china factory. Dean instinctively slammed his hands over his ears, and Gabby did the same. Bela was staring upward at the sky, which, Dean realized, seemed to be shaking.
“What the shit is going on?” Dean shouted, and was barely able to hear his own voice over the wails and screams rising from the demons all around. Gabby hissed at him, and clambered up his back to sink claws deeply into his shoulders and lower her mouth to his ear.
“Angels, Dean, I told you earlier. Don’t you listen to a word I say?”
“But-what are they…?”
“We’re under attack! We have been since this morning! There’s a siege going on right now!” She sat back slightly. “Man, you really weren’t listening to me, were you?”
“I never listen to you,” he said, watching as another vibration shook the sky. A noise of clashing bronze wings rolled over them in a wave, and Dean’s eyes ran with what he hoped were tears. He wiped his face. “Dude, if there’s a fight going on why the hell are we at the fair? Can we say ‘screwed up priorities?’”
“It’s punishment detail. And anyway witnessing a fight between heaven and hell might be too much for your poor mortal soul to bear.” She rubbed her palm over his unpainted cheek, smearing whatever was spilling from his eyes all over his skin, then licked at her hand.
“Pssh. Whatever. And anyway I-uh. Hm. Uh, Gabby?”
“Hmm?” the demon looked up from her palm, which she clearly found fascinating. Dean didn’t want to know.
“Where’d Bela go?”
“What-”
“Bela, Gabby.” Dean reached up and pulled her off his shoulders, then held her out at arms’ length so that her legs dangled uselessly. “Bela, the soul I gave you to hold? That you had on a leash? That leash, in fact, that is right there tied to your hand? You remember?”
“Um.” Gabby looked down at her wrist, where the leather leash was indeed still wrapped snugly, and they both followed the length of the cord to the other end, where it was, in fact, still attached to a heavy collar. Which lay in the dust, winking in the light of the sky.
“Well,” Gabby said. Dean dropped her on her butt.
“Jesus motherfucking Christ,” he told her, and she hissed again and scrambled backwards, clutching at her ears.
“Dean! C’mon!”
He squatted on his heels, reached out and grabbed her by the ankle, then swung her up and held her, dangling, over the Pit of Eternal Despair.
“Dean!” she shrieked. “Stop it! Stop it right now you bastard!”
“Do not lose her, Gabby, I said.” He shook her and two eyeballs dropped from a pocket and went careening into the darkness. “ ‘If you lose her it’ll come out of my hide’, Gabby. Do you remember when I said that, Gabby?”
“Yes!” she shrieked. “I remember! I remember! Dean!”
She flailed, which was stupid, because Dean was only holding her with up one hand, arm straight, thrust out over the pit. Her golden locks swung wildly over the yawning abyss and the shadows and screams from below seemed to reach for her, grasping and hungry. Dean cocked his head, watched her huge round eyes fill with genuine tears, the fair skin of her face turn fire-engine red. He slowly pulled back his pinky finger, and Gabby stiffened. When his ring finger peeled away as well, she screamed.
“Dean no! Please no! It was an honest mistake! I swear I didn’t mean it! I didn’t do it on purpose! Pleasedon’tdropme please please don’t drop me Dean! Please!”
She swung back and forth from his three-fingered grip like a small, snot-nosed pendulum. She wasn’t flailing anymore, and Dean stood very still and watched as huge fat tears ran down her forehead and disappeared into her slimy, bloody, tangled hair. Her chest jumped up and down and her frame trembled with sobs. Dean felt a slow grin creeping across his face.
“You’re just adorable like this, you know?” he told her.
He managed to hold the pose for another few seconds, during which Gabby made a very passable attempt at turning purple. When the sky shook under another angelic onslaught, though, he staggered and nearly pitched forward into the pit, and it was a serious effort to prevent both himself and the demon from tumbling down into the dark. There was a confused moment of flailing limbs and claws and hair and then somehow they were both in a pile at the edge of the pit, scrambling backward and kicking dirt over the edge. Something inside gave a long, appropriately despairing wail, and fell silent.
They both regarded the pit thoughtfully for a few moments. Finally Dean got to his feet and graciously extended a hand for Gabby. She regarded it briefly before accepting, though she bared her teeth slightly and scurried backward about a foot once she was upright.
“We could still catch her,” Gabby offered, shoving her hands in her pockets and looking at him through her lashes.
“We could.” Dean folded his arms and stared down the road, at the crowd of demons dispersing, already heading back to their various lairs and slime-pits and condominiums. He sighed.
“Nah,” he said finally, and off Gabby’s look added, “Y’know it just…eh. Hell’s under attack by a garrison of angels. It kind of makes the whole ‘I owe money to a guy at the fair’ seem kind of…insignificant, y’know? Anyway if he wants to track me down I’m sure he’ll manage. Let’s just get outta here, huh?”
Gabby smiled, a little bit shyly, and sidled up closer. Dean didn’t protest when she slipped a tiny hand into his. Walking back toward the fair entrance, Dean cast one last glance at the shuddering, heaving sky.
“I wonder what it is that they want?”
-end-
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Right. That was stupid.
ALSO!! If you haven’t already, go and read Accentuating by amor_remanet, which is a truly awesome little piece in which Dean and Alastair shop for curtains. In Hell.
Finally, I would like to apologize fully and completely for this fic. I have no excuse, really.
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