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vail_kagamiFandom: Supernatural
Beta:
minviendhaCharacters (overall): Dean, Castiel, Sam, plus a number of angels and demons
Rating (overall): NC-17
Warnings (overall): violence, torture, drug use, insanity, mentions of rape
Spoilers: Going AU during episode 5.18: Point of No Return. No spoilers for season six.
Words (this chapter): 10,787
Summary: A man wakes up in a ruined wasteland, without memories, without a name, without knowing the strange guy who claims he used to be an angel, or that he once had a little brother. All he knows is that the world is dying, everyone is lying to him and that somehow, somewhere, something went terribly wrong. Because someone said Yes when they should have said No, and someone else paid the price.
Dean stumbles to his feet so he can take a step back. He can’t get this into his brain because it is already in there. Just hearing those words makes him realise that it is true. He said yes a long time ago, and now he can almost taste the word on his tongue.
For the first time he is grateful for the darkness that hides Castiel’s face, and his own. “But Adam…”
“Adam was resurrected from death not long ago to take your place. You never died, Dean, not this time. You were just gone.”
Castiel’s voice is softer now, as though he regrets having told Dean anything. Truth be told, Dean regrets it too. “Then Lucifer…”
“Lucifer’s vessel never consented. It was lost a long time ago. He is making do with replacements, barely. Michael could win the war in one swift strike, but he intends to play this by the book. Follow his father’s plan. He won’t confront his brother unless he’s a worthy opponent.”
It’s almost a minute before Dean finds his voice again, and the first thing he says is, “I have to get out.”
“It’s too early to move on yet,” Castiel tells him but Dean stumbles towards the exit anyway, led by the faintest shimmer of lesser darkness. Like a light at the end of a tunnel. (“It’s hellfire, Dean.”) He would have laughed at the random picture, but his voice seems to be gone.
“Just a minute, okay?” he forces out, and perhaps Cas tells him that it isn’t safe, but he’s already outside, and honestly he doesn’t give a shit.
The darkness of the valley is too close, but he can’t stop staring at it. He thinks he should hate himself now, be disgusted, feel guilty, but mostly he feels nothing at all. Shock, perhaps. And anger at Cas for lying to him. Michael, too. They told him he’d been dead, that he’d died a hero…
‘No one’s told you that,’ his mind whispers unasked. ‘They told you you’ve been gone, and you drew the conclusion yourself.’
Which is true, but the fact remains that “You were gone for two centuries” only leaves so much room for interpretation. They knew what he believed and let him believe it, both of them.
Turning his back to the valley, Dean starts climbing up the hill, away from the cave. He can’t bother with Cas now. He wants to be somewhere else. The thought of calling Michael crosses his mind and makes him laugh.
Destroyed cities. Dust and rubble. And he thought it was Lucifer who did that. He thought that when Castiel spoke of his friend who had never, never given in, he meant him.
Now he knows what the angel meant when he said that Dean had given up.
But a part of him wonders if he really did. If he really just betrayed everyone, or if his decision was motivated by more than that. Perhaps…
Perhaps it’s really been for the best.
Hell, he doesn’t even know what the world looked like that day. What thoughts were going through his head. Perhaps he had his reasons, and perhaps doing it, despite the consequences, was better than not doing it. Perhaps the world would be off even worse if he hadn’t.
Perhaps he really did doom half the world, but perhaps he also saved the other half.
Castiel’s view of it leaves no room for interpretation. Neither does Michael’s. Between the guy calling him a traitor and the guy calling him a hero… well.
He finds himself thinking, suddenly, of his brother (and then he thinks of Adam and wonders why it still doesn’t feel like it’s the same thing).
He killed his brother. Was that what Cas said? He killed his brother and then Adam was brought back to life so he could take Dean’s place. So much makes sense now. But he doesn’t know how he killed Adam in the first place and why. Was it him, or was it Michael? He has to go back and ask Cas, but he doesn’t want to. He just wants to be alone and stop thinking for the rest of the night. And if the demons find him and drag him to the fucking devil, well, right now he doesn’t really care.
-
“What happened?”
They have been walking for seven hours or more. It feels like more, but Dean’s become good at judging time by the subtle changes in the light as the day progresses. They left with the first rays of morning light, as soon as they could see enough to climb safely. Dean never got back inside; he spent the night outside without sleeping. And Cas left him alone until morning, but Dean’s sure he didn’t sleep either.
Neither of them has eaten in two days. Dean is hungry, very much so, but Cas has the food and Dean won’t ask for it.
“Cas, what happened? Why did I say yes? Why did I kill my fucking brother? Answer me!”
Cas keeps walking. For too many days Dean’s seen mostly his back as he leads the way and Dean can only run after him. Always asking. Never getting something worth his breath, and when he’s given some truths, he’s left hanging with them. “Cas!”
“We’re in Georgia,” is what Cas says in reply. It confuses Dean until he realises that this is sort of an apology, a bit of information he could use to harm them if he gave it to Michael. Not really useful, because Georgia is big and Michael won’t come for them anyway if there was any truth in what Castiel told him, but a little sign acknowledging that maybe Dean’s not going to betray him the first chance he gets. It makes him angry.
“I don’t give a fuck where we are,” he says harshly. “I want to know what happened to my brother.” His stomach nearly lurches. “Did I really kill him? Why would I do that? What did he do?”
Dean sees Cas’ hand clench around the strap of his bag, but his voice continues to be calm, almost tired. “It wasn’t you, Dean. It was Michael, using your body.”
“God, Cas!” It’s both a groan and a sigh of relief. “How can you say it like that, like I murdered my own brother in cold blood? You can’t go and throw something like that at a guy with no memories!”
“Perhaps. I’m sorry.” But Cas doesn’t sound sorry, not really. “But it was you who consented. And because of you Michael took your body and killed your brother. It would not have happened without you. I was angry.”
Dean thinks there must be more to it. As if this wasn’t already enough.
“Why would Michael want to kill him? Is it because he started the apocalypse?”
If possible, the thin hand grabs the strap even tighter. Dean thinks Cas is going to rip it off, but his voice remains as calm and steady as before. “It has to do with that, yes.” And then, in a voice that reflects pain and pleading, “Dean…”
Dean sighs, accepting that he has to offer a little kindness in return, no matter how he feels right now, because he doesn’t know if he’ll survive pushing Cas into another fight. “So, where are we going?”
The sky is beginning to darken and the vegetation is slowly, tentatively returning. Dean even feels better, with every step they take, even though his feet hurt and the hunger is killing him. It feels like they are leaving a nightmare.
“There is a shelter where I used to live for a while,” Cas tells him. “It is not the one I was originally aiming for, but it will do. I have food stored there. A river is nearby. We can rest there for a few days.”
Rest sounds wonderful. Dean thinks that perhaps he can make more sense of all of this if he gets a good night’s sleep for once, or even if he got through a day without feeling cold. “How much further is it?”
“Two days.”
Two days isn’t so bad, not after all the walking they’ve already done. But Dean is so ready to stop wandering and finally get somewhere that he just rolls his eyes and groans. “Fantastic.”
They find a creek just before it gets too dark to move on and decide to rest there. Castiel wanders off briefly to finish the edges of the rather big devil’s trap he’s drawn as protection around their camp while Dean fills their bottles with fresh, clean water. The little stream is the first movement they’ve come across in days.
He wants to ask what they are going to do after they leave Castiel’s shelter, but is afraid that the answer is going to be ‘more walking’. Sometimes he feels that the total extent of the angel’s planning is indeed to run around until the two parties in this war get bored and fuck off.
They eat what is left of their supplies, and afterwards Dean, no longer hungry but far from feeling sated, lies back and stares up to the sky. He imagines the stars, can almost see them. Remembers the constellations, and can almost hear a voice telling him about them, but it slips away again, leaving him aching inside and longing for a night sky that was lost long ago.
It’s funny that he can remember something he has never seen in his current life. That he can remember the stars, but not what his mother looked like.
Cas remains sitting, remains alert, and Dean allows himself to drift. He doesn’t think of Michael, for once. He doesn’t wonder if he has doomed more people than he has saved. “Cas,” he says after a while, quietly. “Tell me about life here. What’s it like, for everyone?”
The topic seems harmless enough, and as he hoped, after a few seconds, Cas begins to tell him. About the settlements, about how there are still enough children for new communities to be created every now and then. About daily life that lacks anything technological because power went out long ago and was never recovered, but isn’t all that different in theory from what it’d been during Dean’s days. People still have jobs – just the work has changed. They still have things they do for their enjoyment and they still love their families.
They go out sometimes and don’t come back. Sometimes a camp’s wards get damaged and before they notice it and fix them demons come and take over the bodies of every single person living there. There are so many demons on Earth now, and so few humans to possess.
There’s trade of goods and information between the settlements but with no remote way of communicating, information travels slowly and it’s dangerous to go on even a short journey outside the boundaries of home.
Inside some of the large buildings that remained intact, people keep cattle, and between their houses or around the settlements, they grow fruit, vegetables and corn.
There are not many plants, let alone edible plants, that can survive with so little sunlight and so little rain, but it’s enough. People adapted. They always do.
“Is it always so cold?”
Castiel thinks about the answer before he gives it. “It is, now. Before, for a long time, it was very warm. It will change again.”
“Like seasons, just longer,” Dean guesses and gets something like a smile in return.
“The temperature is never so extreme that it would be dangerous for a human to be exposed to it for a while. But it is always too hot or too cold to be comfortable.”
Kind of like this war, Dean thinks. It didn’t kill humanity completely yet, but it certainly likes to make it suffer.
“How about you?” he asks. “Where did you live before you decided to become a hermit?”
“We lived in various camps. Worked with hunters a lot. The camp you saw earlier was home base for a few years. We did our best to protect those people, while looking for a way to get Michael out of you. But it wasn’t… easy. Most of the time. People are difficult.”
“You tried to get Michael out? Is that even possible?”
“No,” Cas says at once. “But we had to try. It was…” He trails off.
“I didn’t think you’d want me back after that,” Dean admits.
“I didn’t, not always.” Wow. One day Dean will have to let his angel know how much he appreciates the open honesty. “Not in the beginning. I was… embittered, over your betrayal. But my friend, he needed you back. He didn’t have much else to fight for, so I indulged him. But in the end, he stopped seeking out Michael. I don’t think he ever gave up on you, but he avoided Michael where he could.”
“Why?”
“Michael did…things, while in your body, that he would rather not associate with you. Neither did I.”
Something tells Dean he doesn’t want to know.
“Why did I say yes?”
Castiel sighs. “I can only guess.”
“I never explained myself to you?”
“You didn’t even warn us. You wanted to sneak away and just do it. It was thanks to your brother that we found you in time. We tried to talk you out of it.”
“But…?”
“But you didn’t listen. You thought it was the best thing to do. You thought Lucifer would get his vessel and then Michael would have to be strong enough to stop him. You saw it as saving half the world, not as killing the other half. You already knew Adam was an alternative for Michael and wanted to spare him that fate.” Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Cas’ silhouette shrug. “You gave many reasons, didn’t listen to any of ours. Most of all, though, I think you were just tired. Fate has loaded a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. Sacrificing half of humanity or risk dooming all of it – it was a heavy burden to carry.”
Funny how he seems to make excuses for Dean now, when before he was full of blame. Perhaps he thinks he has to make amends for telling Dean in the first place when he thought he shouldn’t know.
And then Dean thinks that just because Cas is calm as he speaks, it doesn’t mean that he’s really arguing in Dean’s favour. So far he’s basically told him that he wasn’t strong enough to bear what was asked of him and ran away.
(“You gave up.”)
“You seemed pretty damn pissed earlier,” he puts his thoughts into words.
“I still am. I will never not be angry.” Again with the honesty. Why can’t Cas be as straightforward when it comes to practical questions with answers that don’t make Dean feel like a piece of shit? “I fell from grace willingly because I did not wish for the apocalypse to happen and thought you were the answer. I fell for you – you have never been able to understand what that means. When you said yes you threw away everything I fell for.”
“You believed in me,” Dean realises. “And I let you down.”
“You let everyone down.” And wow, that really makes it better. “We locked you up and tried to talk sense into you. You escaped. I found you again, and we locked you up again. It wasn’t just fear of what would happen if Michael got you that made us do that. We all loved you, Dean. We wanted to keep you from destroying yourself. And from destroying our faith in you. We needed you.”
“You really know how to make a guy feel good about himself,” Dean mutters. “If you had me locked in, how did I do it, then? Seems to me you couldn’t have been that eager to keep me if you were such lousy guards.”
“Like I said, your brother believed in you. More than me. More than anyone. He didn’t think you could go through with it. He took you along when we went to face Michael. I didn’t think you were worth his trust. You proved me right.”
Something in his words – perhaps the way he says it, perhaps a lost memory stirring at the mention – make Dean want to cry. He doesn’t feel ashamed, or guilty. He just feels sad.
He wants to argue his case. That all of what Castiel told him is true he doesn’t doubt. He feels it is true, and what he was told about his motivations goes along with what he thought about consenting since he knew he was a vessel. What he wants to protest is the accusation of having given up because he was too weak. Because he was selfish and put his own peace over anyone else’s.
He wants to argue his case, wants to defend himself and present Cas with the reasons why letting Michael in might not be the worst thing ever, but in the face of the destruction around them and with the angel’s view of things he guesses it wouldn’t go over too well. This is not the time for another fight, informative as those sometimes are. Dean is tired. He wants to sleep, and he doesn’t want to dream. He doesn’t want to think. He wants to silence the voice that keeps talking of handing control over to an archangel as a good way to escape the struggle of this life. Especially if there was no other way and death wasn’t an option because he would have just been brought back…
No one’s ever told him that, but somehow he knows that’s how it was. It is a singularly depressing thought.
After having been denied even that escape for long enough, there might come a point when anyone might be willing to pay any price for some rest. Dean just hopes that this isn’t really what he did. With no memories dating further back than a few days and not suffering anything but cold feet and an aching back from sleeping on rocks for too long, he would find it hard to forgive himself either.
-
It’s in the middle of the night when Castiel wakes Dean up, and at first Dean thinks it’s his turn to keep watch. This is the first time Cas actually has to wake him – usually he gets woken by dreams he can’t remember and takes Castiel’s place without a word, and a part of him is convinced that if he didn’t wake up on his own, Cas would just let him sleep through the night. Yet Cas is waking him now, but he does so with a hand on his shoulder and the other hand covering Dean’s mouth, and Dean knows it’s more than just fatigue driving the fallen angel.
“What is it?” he asks when the hand is removed, his voice hardly even a whisper.
“Demons. Many.”
The two words make Dean press back against the rock behind which they’d set camp, instinctively, without really noticing. Cas shifts, his wide eyes trained at the darkness stretching before them, his body between the open land and Dean. (Perhaps that’s instinct, too.)
Dean strains to hear voices, footfalls, anything, but all he hears is the soft murmur of the slowly flowing creek. “Do you hear them? How close are they?”
“I can’t hear them. They are nearby, but I don’t know how near.”
“How do you even know they are here?”
There’s hesitation, and reluctance, as if what Cas tells him is actually a secret. “I sense it.”
“I didn’t know you could, without seeing them.”
“I can’t. But I sense the angel that is near us,” Castiel tells him without turning. “Lucifer is with them,” he explains. “And he never goes alone.”
-
They run, this time, rather than walk. Their pace hasn’t sped up much, but there is a sense of urgency to it that wasn’t there before. Cas doesn’t speak anymore, and Dean asks no more questions. For the moment they are united by their common goal: avoid capture.
They don’t make good progress. There is no way to avoid these demons like they avoided the ones from the nest they came across before. They could be everywhere, anywhere, and this time they know Dean and Cas are around. Dean is sure of it. Their presence here is no coincidence.
What Cas told him about what the demons will do to him if he is caught doesn’t leave him alone. If they get him, they’ll make sure Michael can’t use him anymore – and considering the losses they have suffered through the archangel while he was wearing Dean like a cheap suit, he can imagine that they’d like some revenge on top of it all, to sweeten things a little.
They’re out of food, but Dean lacks appetite in the face of the situation anyway. By midday they come across a group of people and while they look normal enough to him, Dean wouldn’t take the chance, even without Cas signalling that they are possessed. Dean’s hand clenches around his gun in an instinctive gesture, fully knowing that the simple weapon offers no protection and wishing for a gun that could kill anything.
There are no rocks around to hide behind, just some pathetic looking trees in a meadow of yellow grass. They lie down between the trees, in the high grass, and Dean has never felt so visible. But the demons pass them by, not twenty yards away, without ever knowing they were there.
Cas can recognize them as demons when he sees them but he can’t sense them from a distance. He can sense Lucifer but that doesn’t help at all, since the devil doesn’t need to go after them personally.
The devil. For the first time Dean becomes aware that they’re up against the devil, and it seems so big and hopeless that he can almost understand why his past self threw down his weapons and invited Michael in. What chance can they have against fucking Satan?
But he keeps quiet, and he doesn’t call for any angelic help. All he needs is Castiel to guide him through this – yet he can’t help but wonder if this is going to be his life now. Running from demons. Running from angels. Fearing for his life and sanity and soul.
It’s not until night that their luck runs out. They don’t sleep, can’t afford to, but they also can’t risk moving on and stumbling around blindly and bringing attention to themselves by the noise they make. So they sit huddled together in the dark, at the edge of a cliff, the water of the river running below. It’s too far away for them to reach. They’re keeping warm by pressing together for the first time ever and listening to the dark. The dark listens back. Dean feels vulnerable and he thinks he can’t deal with this situation without having figured himself out first. There are devil’s traps carved into the earth all around them, but they do nothing to make him feel safe.
He’s right not to. Devil’s traps only protect from demons, after all.
Suddenly there are footsteps, and both Dean and Cas turn to see three shapes peel out of the darkness. One man, two women. They come towards them with sure steps. Dean lifts his gun towards them despite knowing it’ll be useless. He braces himself for the moment they reach the devil’s traps and get caught if they don’t notice them in time and stop. Maybe he and Cas can exorcise them, save a couple of poor bastards from possession.
But the three of them just keep walking. Into the traps and beyond, as if they didn’t even exist.
The sound of a gun being fired right beside him is the loudest sound Dean has heard in his remembered life. It tears though the night and he imagines it as a signal light that shines in the darkness, telling everyone who cares where they are.
Dean only knows who the shot was aimed at because one of the women glances briefly down at the hole in her far too thin shirt. When she looks up, her expression is of mild reprimand.
“Castiel,” she says with some indignation. “Seriously?”
A glance to his side reveals that Castiel dropped the useless gun. One second later a long, silver blade slips out of the sleeve of his jacket and into his hand.
At the sight of it, all three strangers stop, frowns and vague worry on their faces as Castiel adopts a defensive pose. “I see you kept that,” the man says. One second later an identical blade appears in his own hand. “But, look, so did I!”
Castiel hisses, an almost feral sound, and suddenly Dean wants nothing more than to be far away from these people and the fight he is about to witness.
“Don’t be silly, little Castiel,” the second woman says. “Did it escape your attention that we outnumber you? There’s not a trace of heaven’s grace left in you to fight with. And dear Dean is more than useless.” She turns to look at Dean, the first time one of them actively acknowledges his presence, and purses her lips. “No offense.”
Dean actually does feel offended, so he doesn’t grace that with an answer.
Beside him, Cas looks like a deer caught in the headlight. He raises his blade a little higher, take as step back as the other armed man steps closer to him. “You will not kill me,” he says angrily. “Your master does not allow it.”
“True. But I am allowed to wound you. In fact, it’s been encouraged.” All three of them step closer and this time both Cas and Dean step back. “And you don’t need arms and legs to talk to us. I don’t think I’ll be punished for cutting them off. It’ll make things so much easier for us if you can’t run away anymore.”
But for the moment, Cas still has legs, and he can still run. He just has nowhere to go with the enemy in front of him and the cliff in his back.
He also still has arms, and he can throw things. What exactly it is that he throws at the man in front of him, Dean doesn’t know. He only sees the result when it collides with the guy’s chest: There is bright light, and a scream, and when Dean can see again, the man has thrown off the remains of his shirt and his naked chest is covered in angry red marks. The two women have retreated a step, but they get closer again, their own weapons drawn. They’re advancing, but even they must have been blinded, because it is only after a couple of steps that they stop, and hiss in anger.
Dean doesn’t have to look. He heard the splash over the guys screams, but a part of him can’t believe that Cas would leave him behind like this. He wonders for a moment if he’s expected to jump after him into the river he can’t even see in the darkness, just hoping that the water is deep enough and he’ll miraculously miss any rocks.
Thinking about the alternative, it might be the better to take that chance than wait here and see what those guys will do with him. He doesn’t know if they have use for his arms and legs, but he, personally, would like to keep them.
The two women, accepting that Castiel has slipped through their grasp, turn their attention to Dean, who instinctively takes another step back. Another step closer to the edge, over which Cas jumped when he left Dean alone with these guys to save his own sorry hide. Dean still can’t believe it. It’s like his brain is two steps behind everything that happens, and maybe that’s why he isn’t able to make a decision in time, before one of the women is standing behind him and pulls him against her chest rather unromantically with an arm around his neck.
Her grip is like steel.
The man has stopped screaming, and despite the marks lingering on his skin he doesn’t seem hurt anymore. Instead, he seems predominantly pissed. In a second he’s before Dean, his rather large hand grapping Dean’s jaw with bruising force, and Dean comes to the conclusion that jumping blindly into the river would have been the smarter move after all.
“Dean Winchester,” he says. “Not the Winchester I was hoping to meet, but you’ll make an acceptable consolation price.”
Before Dean can ask what he means by that, or beg for his life, the guy raises his hand to Dean’s forehead, and then there is a snap and his vision goes dark.
-
When he comes to, he’s inside a room. A room with painted walls, a rug on the floor, furniture and a fireplace in which a fire is crackling peacefully. It’s clean and tidy and smells of wood. For a long moment, Dean isn’t sure why all this is in any way remarkable.
He groans when he moves, in anticipation of the headache that usually comes with waking up like this, in an unfamiliar place after being knocked out during an encounter with an enemy. But the headache fails to make an appearance. He feels heavy and a little sluggish, and his feet still carry the pain of forty miles a day, but other than that he’s not feeling any worse than he had before losing consciousness. In fact, he actually feels better, because for the first time in forever, he isn’t cold.
He’s also lying on a proper bed, and compared to this one the bed he slept in at Pam’s place was a bench covered in straw. The covers are soft and they smell good. There are at least three pillows, one more comfortable than the other, and the cover is thick and clean. But he’s lying on the cover, not beneath it, which reminds him that he hasn’t gone to bed here but just been put on it because they had to store him somewhere until he woke up. Still, it beats the floor.
His aching muscles demand he linger in bed, turn over and get a lot of sleep while he can, but his mind finally catches up and makes his body move before it can get any say in the matter.
It’s a moment before he realises that he isn’t alone, and when he finally notices the boy standing beside the fireplace, he is almost certain that he wasn’t there just a second before. Because Dean usually notices people who stand in the room and stare at him, but mostly because the guy is surrounded by an almost visible air of power that screams out his presence to every one of Dean’s senses.
He smiles at Dean, has to look up at him because he can’t be older than fourteen or fifteen and would still have to do a little growing before he could meet him at eye-level. Except that something tells Dean that this boy will never grow another inch. And it isn’t just because of the sickly look to him or the fact that his skin is peeling off his face.
“Dean,” he says, his voice seemingly too deep to fit his body. “It’s good to see you awake. I hope the journey here wasn’t too stressful.”
“Not the last bit, in any case,” Dean admits. He remains sitting on the bed and the boy comes over to him. Even in the light of the fire he looks like a zombie, Dean thinks. Like one of those zombies portrayed in horror movies, not an actual zombie like the ones that sometimes live in people’s basements.
“Who are you?” he asks.
The boy smiles. It looks genuine, almost kind. “Oh, Dean. You know me, don’t you?”
He doesn’t, but he can guess. “Lucifer.”
The boy smiles, as if he’d just been complimented. “In the flesh. Not at my finest, I have to admit, but it’ll do for this conversation.”
“What, so you’re raping children now?” Dean doesn’t really have a right to sound so offended. It’s the devil. Of course he’s raping children.
Even if Lucifer doesn’t see it that way. “Oh, not at all. The boy consented, after all. You should know that I can’t take anyone without their consent.”
“And did you tell him that the flesh would fall off his bones when he let you take him? Did you tell him it’d kill him?”
“Details. What does it matter?” Lucifer shrugs his bony little shoulders. “Consent is consent. You, of all people, should know that.”
“Are you trying to get personal here?” Of course he had to bring up Michael. The big brother who refused to fight him while he was weak and pathetic. “I’m not going to say yes to him just now, if that’s what you were wondering.”
“Oh, I wasn’t. I know I’ll have to wait a little for you to give in again.” And isn’t it great that even Satan finds it in him to look down on Dean? “I know you can’t remember – that’s too bad. I’d like to know if my brother told you beforehand about all he wanted to do with your body while he wore it. Did you know what you were giving consent to? I doubt it. But then, I doubt you really cared.” He lifts his eyebrows, looks at Dean though large eyes. “With this boy, it was the same. I offered. He accepted. End of story.”
Like Michael had offered once. Peace, or justice, or whatever, and Dean had taken it. “What do you want with me? If you came to talk about the good old days, I have to disappoint you – no memories at all.”
“Except you knew me, which I find interesting.” Lucifer does look interested, all open minded and eager to learn more. “But no, that’s not why I had you taken here. Sorry for that, by the way. It’s just that I didn’t think you’d come willingly if I asked you.”
“Didn’t help that your lackeys threatened to cut off my friend’s limbs. Always gives such a bad first impression.”
“Oh, your friend, right. The one who ran and left you behind to be taken. Doesn’t that sting a little?”
It does, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment. Dean is here now and Castiel is not, so Lucifer is the problem he has to deal with right now.
“I can bear it,” he says gracefully and finally gets off the bed, if only for the satisfaction of having the devil look up to him. He hopes that Lucifer doesn’t see how much being in his presence makes his skin crawl, but judging by the smile that creeps on the teen’s face, Lucifer knows. “So, why am I here? Not that I don’t appreciate the hospitality…”
“I want to show you something,” Lucifer says. He makes a beckoning gesture as he leaves the room and Dean thinks he must be crazy, because Satan just told him to follow him, and he actually does.
If only for lack of anywhere else to go.
The halls beyond the room are keeping with the décor. Painted walls, carpets and even a few plants. The countless candles that light the hall are the only reminder that they are in an apocalyptic world without electrical power.
“Where are we, anyway?”
“Oh, I think the city used to be called Atlanta. There’s not much left of it, of course. Michael levelled it a long time ago, but he was so kind to leave a couple of buildings for my faithful servants to make me a comfortable place to stay while I’m in the area.”
Dean can’t help the smirk. “Devil went down to Georgia, huh?”
“Ah.” Lucifer smirks right back. “You remember that.”
They’re still in Georgia, then. Since Cas said he could sense Lucifer nearby, they can’t be all that far from where he and Cas have been… separated.
Except that while they were walking the day before, Dean hasn’t seen a city, not even in the distance. So perhaps Castiel’s definition of ‘nearby’ was somewhat vague.
Dean refuses to be worried about his friend. Cas seemed to know what he was doing. Or he was just desperate. Either way, he decided to save himself and didn’t give a second thought about Dean, so he kind of doesn’t deserve Dean’s worry.
Right. Not thinking about that.
Most of the windows they pass are barred shut, but some of them still have glass, and through them Dean can see that they must be in a skyscraper, pretty high up. Below them are the ruins of what must be Atlanta. Most of it lies in rubble, but in between a few buildings remained more or less intact.
The sky is just beginning to brighten, so Dean can’t have been out for very long.
Provided it’s still the same night.
“Are you sure this building is stable?” Dean mutters, not really expecting an answer. He suspects that Lucifer doesn’t appreciate being buried under the remnants of a collapsed sky scraper, but he wants to express somehow that being on the thirtieth floor of a building that has somehow survived a blast that levelled the rest of the city doesn’t appeal to his survival instincts.
To his utter discomfort, Lucifer does answer. “Oh, that’s not much of a concern to me. This body won’t get me though another week anyway. I’ll just find a new one if it’s destroyed.”
Dean thinks that his thoughts must be very obvious on this face, because the fucking devil laughs at him. “Don’t worry, Dean. There’s something in here I’d like to keep safe. So no, the floor won’t break off under your feet. I’m afraid the elevator’s out of order, though.”
Very funny. Who would have thought that Satan has a sense of humour?
Fortunately, they don’t have to get on another floor, because Dean isn’t sure about the state of the stairs. Already, he’s wondering how he’ll get down again – as if he could assume that they’d just let him walk out of here.
The room Lucifer leads him to is smaller than the bedroom, and lit by oil lamps lining the walls. There’s no carpet here, but a colourful, expensive looking rug in the centre that takes up almost half the room. There is no furniture either, except for the table in the middle: a long, narrow thing covered in several blankets.
On top of the blankets is a human, lying flat on his back, not moving. When Dean walks closer, he can see that the man isn’t even breathing. A corpse, then, although the guy must have died recently. Even up close, Dean can make out no sign of decay.
The man is a little younger than him, perhaps in his mid– to late twenties, although it is hard to tell for sure, and the longer Dean looks at him, the more he wonders how he’s been able to make even a guess about his age.
The body is emaciated, almost skeletal, and the face sunken in, the eyes bruised-looking, the lips bloodless. The lines of the man’s face are deep, making him look older than he was. The scars don’t help – most of them are so small and faded that Dean has to look closely to see them at all, but two stand out as white lines against his skin, which is pale in death but used to have a darker shade, as if he’s been out in the sun all the time. (Dean didn’t think anyone could have skin like that in this sun-depraved world.)
One of the scars starts on the sunken cheek, just below the prominent cheekbone, and runs over his jaw under his left ear and half around the back of his neck. The other one starts on his forehead, splits the right eyebrow and goes all the way over the eyelid to end on the cheekbone. The scar is thin and there is no sign of stitches, but the placement of it makes Dean want to lift the lid to see if the eye below is unharmed. He doesn’t, of course, and doesn’t know why he cares. The guy is dead anyway, and Dean didn’t know him.
Probably. It just happens that his hand has taken hold of the dead guy’s hand without consulting him first. The thin hand is limp and cold, scarred and looks a little odd, looks like broken bones that haven’t healed right. Apart from face and hands, every inch of the man’s body is covered in cloth. A dark green shirt that goes strangely well with the man’s long brown hair, wide, soft black pants, even knee-high boots the guy certainly doesn’t have use for anymore. A long, black vest has been put over the shirt and secured around the waist with a board belt made of black leather. All of the fabrics are of a high quality the people outside certainly haven’t ever even heard of. Dean isn’t sure he had heard of some of these.
They seem out of place, surrounding this emaciated, sick-looking corpse.
Dean becomes aware that he’s still holding the dead hand and he puts it back quickly, feeling awkward. Looking up, he sees Lucifer standing on the other side of the table, his gaze on Dean’s hands, a slight smile of his lips and something dark and unreadable in his eyes. Dean straightens and takes a step back, embarrassed. He’s standing before Satan, and he’s feeling embarrassed. Something about all this is just weird.
“Whose body is this?” he asks, because clearly, this guy is important to the devil, if the way he’s been dressed and draped up here is anything to go by.
“Mine,” Lucifer says, and Dean has to admit it takes him by surprise.
“Come again?”
Lucifer sighs. “Didn’t you listen to anything told to you? I need a vessel to walk this earth, and this one I have right now… well, it’s not even third or fourth choice. It’s a temporary solution born out of a lack of options. It’ll fall apart shortly, and then I’ll be forced to take another and another. And to be honest, I’m tired of this. Of these weak, disgusting forms that sometimes can’t even bring me through a month.” He walks around the table, lets his fingers trail over the limbs of the dead body in a way that makes Dean uncomfortable. Eventually Lucifer stops and tenderly runs his fingertips over the scars on the corpse’s face, smooths his hair, and the look on his stolen face is nothing but tender. “But this boy, he can carry me forever. He was made for me. My perfect vessel.”
Dean remembers what Castiel told him, once, in passing. It seems so long ago, but the words never left him. The words he once thought were about him. “He never said yes. You need his consent and he never gave it. And you’re stuck in bodies that can’t contain you.”
“Yes, this whole consent thing is a little troublesome at times. I tried to convince him. Make him see reason. God knows I tried. We all did.”
“I can imagine,” Dean says dryly, though he probably can’t.
“You can’t,” Lucifer confirms. “Didn’t take much reasoning to convince you, after all.”
Dean actually has to roll his eyes at that. “Well, my angel didn’t plan to take hell a level upstairs.”
Lucifer only snorts at that. “It’s not so different, in the end. And regardless of what you think, I never hurt him. Not once. But that’s neither here nor there right now, in face of the obvious problem.”
“That he’s dead? If he’s not using the body, why don’t you just take over?”
“Oh Dean, your naiveté is so amusing. How I missed seeing you around. Michael in your flesh never quite had the same entertainment potential.”
“Get to the point.”
“What part of ‘I need his consent’ don’t you understand`? Do you think we would have had to go through so many pains if we could just kill our vessels and take their lifeless flesh? The bodies are just a shape – we need their souls to anchor us in them. Souls equal power in a way you can never understand. And he can’t give his consent if he’s dead.”
Dean tries to get over the image of having spent the last two centuries as a heavenly power-plant. “Then why don’t you just bring him back? Or is that beyond your capability in this form?”
“Don’t be silly. I don’t need any human form at all to reach into hell and draw back a soul, least of all that of my vessel.” Lucifer does sound slightly insulted. Dean doesn’t feel threatened by it, but he can’t stop wondering what would happen if he managed to truly piss him off.
“Then why?”
“Because his soul isn’t in hell. It isn’t in heaven either, before you ask. It isn’t anywhere I could find it. And that makes pulling it back into his body a little bit difficult.”
Dean sees the problem. He doesn’t see what this has to do with him. “Maybe it was destroyed?” he guesses, and suddenly fears that this is his answer: that it is gone because Michael vaporized it.
Lucifer looks at him in mild fascination. “You really don’t know about this, do you?” He sounds almost surprised and Dean rests assured in the knowledge that the devil can’t read his mind – or alternatively is a really good actor. “You can’t destroy a soul, not like that. It’s gone, because somebody took it.”
“Took it?” Dean gets it now. What happened. What Lucifer wants with him, why they were hunting him and… “You think it was Castiel?”
“I know it was Castiel. Everyone knows it was Castiel, which makes Castiel the most wanted creature on any plane of existence. You wouldn’t happen to know where he left it, would you?”
“I don’t even know who this guy is,” Dean points out, and Lucifer smirks.
“I appreciate the irony of that. Anyway, he never mentioned anything like that? ‘Oh, I got this soul which I stole and I left it in…?’”
“If he had, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
The sincerity of the question takes Dean by surprise. “Uhm, because you’re evil and want to use it to destroy the world?” he suggests.
Lucifer laughs, briefly and with real humour. “You really think I would do the world a disservice there? Look at it!”
“Guess it’s still better than hell.”
“You would know. But contrary to public belief, I’m not interested in making this hell.”
“Just in dragging all the souls you don’t have in your clutches yet down to the pit.”
“Oh, please. As if I would want them. If there’s one thing the world doesn’t need, it’s even more demons.”
Dean has to agree there, though he’d like to see what Lucifer’s loyal demons would say if they heard the contempt in his voice.
“Besides,” the devil continues, “getting his soul does not equal getting his consent. I merely want a chance to… persuade him.”
“Oh, of course. Somehow, I don’t think it would be a very humane thing to do, giving him back to you.” Dean looks down at the scarred face, the crippled hands. Thinks that this guy, whoever he may be, must truly be better off dead. Whatever, exactly, that means for him right now.
“I would never hurt him,” Lucifer says again, slowly this time, as though Dean were a child who just won’t get it. “This boy means more to me than you can possibly imagine, and it somewhat saddens me that you can’t see the irony of that. Don’t hold back on his account – even if he didn’t say yes, he’d be safer with me than anywhere else.”
“Right. I can just about see that before my mind’s eye,” Dean says dryly. It earns him a snort. “Especially with the scars, and all.”
“That wasn’t me,” Satan defends himself. “Actually, much of it was you. But let’s not go there – just rest assured, on the off chance, that for whatever reason you really care and don’t just aim to annoy me, no harm would come to him in my care. And it would be better for him to return to his body. He has been gone from it for too long, entering neither heaven nor hell – surely I don’t need to tell you what becomes of disconnected, lost souls.”
Dean knows, and shudders at the thought of another wild spirit to be taken down. Bones to be salted and burned, though he doesn’t think in this case that would have much of an effect.
“Okay,” he says. “Just assume that I don’t give a shit about this guy. Even if I could, I don’t think it would be a good idea to risk him saying yes.”
“Dean,” Lucifer sighs. “A list. Give me a list of reasons why things are better as they are now.” He comes walking around the table until he stands in front of Dean, too close, right in his personal space. A thin hand comes up to Dean’s face and he flinches away in disgust. The skin is flaking. One of the fingernails has fallen off.
Lucifer ignores his reaction, his fingers soon trailing over Dean’s cheek in a gesture that’s disturbingly tender. “Just think. I’m not a monster, Dean. I want to make this world better, not destroy it. I want to turn it into what my father had in mind when he created it. So name your arguments, before I name mine.”
Dean doesn’t move back further – something tells him it would be a very stupid thing to do. It’s creepy, having the devil so close to him, in his small, decaying body. He doesn’t really think anymore that Lucifer was torturing his vessel – just being in his presence for a while would be enough to threaten anyone into submission.
There is nothing sexual about this invasion of his personal space – in fact, more than anything else Dean is thoroughly freaked out and trying not to show it. Yet, a part of him keeps seeing beyond the devil to the motionless body on the table and imagines Lucifer in that form, those long fingers on his face in place of these crumbling ones, that strong, handsome face close to his own.
Lucifer leans in even closer. “I don’t hear you,” he says with a smile. “Why spare this world? Convince me.”
“People still live here.” It’s weak, he knows, but it’s all he’s got. “They still hang on and want to live, and without your stupid war fucking them over all the time, the world might actually become worth living in again.”
Lucifer’s only comment to that is, “Cute. Are those your words, or Castiel’s?”
More Castiel’s than his own, Dean has to admit. He doesn’t say it, but he’s rather sure the fallen archangel knows anyway. “Cut me some slack here,” he complains. “I’ve only known this world for a week, and what I’ve seen of it was mostly dust and the back of Cas’ jacket. Where exactly would my arguments come from?”
“True. But does what you have seen so far make you wish to look for arguments in their favour?”
“What, based on the back of Castiel’s jacket?”
Lucifer smiles and takes a step back, finally giving Dean some room to breathe. “I’d like you, Dean, if you weren’t so annoying. I’ll just take your refusal to answer that question as a no.”
Dean can’t argue against that. He kind of doesn’t see any real reason why this world is worth saving. It’s not like he wants it destroyed, he knows he doesn’t. It would be wrong, bad. Tragic. But apart from that, he can’t really tell. Cas’ words didn’t convince him. Perhaps if he lived here longer, he would be able to see beyond the destruction and the shadows in the eyes of the people he’s met, but so far, he can’t.
He settles for, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t destroy the rest of mankind.”
“Unfortunately, your opinion doesn’t matter, I’m afraid.” There’s just enough regret in Lucifer’s voice to sound genuine and make Dean want to punch him.
“Then why bring this up in the first place? Why take me here? Only to show me that corpse? Well, I’ve seen it. I don’t know where his soul is. So if you’d just get over with killing me already? This is getting boring.”
“I don’t plan to kill you. You’re free to go, anytime.”
Dean eyes the devil suspiciously, then turns on his heels and walks to the door. It refuses to open.
Lucifer sighs. “You’re free to go anytime after we’ve finished our conversation, I meant to say.”
“Our conversation about what, exactly?” Dean is getting irritated and increasingly certain that no matter what Lucifer told him, he isn’t going to make it out of this room with his limbs attached. Prince of Lies, and all that.
“You misjudge me.” Lucifer turns around and walks over to the wall, where he sits in a chair Dean is fairly certain hasn’t been there a minute before. “I understand that, really. Being the ruler of hell gives you a certain reputation. But contrary to what you think of me or expect me to do, I honestly only want to talk. I want you to listen, that is all. Give me a chance to present my arguments to you, before you make your decision whether I’m right or not.”
“Your arguments for what? Toasting mankind?”
“If you have to put it like that. It is true that I desire an end to your race. It has done too much damage, was unworthy of the love my father gave it. But,” – he holds up a hand when Dean opens his mouth to speak – “I don’t mean to cause your people any suffering. In fact, ending it quickly will be a mercy to them.”
“And pushing things to the point where annihilation would be a mercy was happening out of the kindness of your heart, too, I suppose?”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Dean. I won’t pretend that I have even the slightest bit of love for mankind. But neither do my brothers and sisters in heaven. And hardly anyone despises you as much as Michael does. Remember who it was that destroyed your major cities and brought down your civilisation. It wasn’t me.”
Dean says nothing to that because Cas already told him. It was Michael, who wanted to make a point. Look at me; I have a perfect vessel and you don’t!
“Mankind was killing this beautiful world. The end would have come anyway. By purging your race away, the world could have started over. But it all went wrong when Michael and his angels got the upper hand. Michael wants to create his paradise, but he’ll create it from the ashes of your world, and he doesn’t care how much suffering he causes in the meantime.”
“As opposed to your bleeding heart.”
“Why, of course.” Lucifer has that look again, like he’s surprised he actually has to mention it. “Suffering causes souls to turn into demons – you of all people should know. And I’m rather sick of demons. I don’t want the rotten leftovers off all those demons around me, waiting to lick my boots at every opportunity. Better kill them quickly and let them go to heaven.”
Well, he is honest – or at least he’s not sugar coating his opinion. “You can’t honestly believe I’m going to help you wipe out my own species.”
“Who says I want your help?”
“It’s obvious. You want me to find out where Castiel hid the soul and tell you so you can take it back.”
It gets him raised eyebrows and a quick smile, as if Satan is actually surprised he is smart enough to think this far. “Well. You do want what’s best for your people, right? That’s why you gave your consent to Michael in the first place. You wanted to save as many as you could. You didn’t think this would be the outcome. My brother never warned you. You made a mistake, but your intentions were good.” Lucifer’s voice is much gentler now, understanding and forgiving for sins he doesn’t even care about, and Dean’s heart clenches. His intentions were good. He wasn’t selfish.
“You want what’s best for them. I want them gone, and not in hell. If this goes on much longer, more and more people will damn themselves to the pit, and I simply don’t want them. So I’m not even asking you to agree with me. I just want you to understand that while our motivations are different, our goals happen to be the same. A clean snap, and most of those little souls will go to heaven where they can be happy forever. At this point, that is the best thing they can hope for.”
Dean shivers, shifting uncomfortably. He wants to protest, but he isn’t sure he can. Voluntarily or not, he is responsible for these people’s suffering. It’s his responsibility to try and make it better.
But this hardly seems like the right way. It’s not that he has a particularly good argument against it; it merely goes against every fibre of his being.
“They don’t want to die.” It’s the best he can come up with, but perhaps this is the only thing that matters in the end. Who is he, anyway, to make this decision for them?
Lucifer smiles thinly. “They don’t know what they’re missing.” He leans back further. “I don’t expect you to come up with a decision right now. Let this move through your head a little as you continue on your road trip. Oh, right, you can go now. In fact, I’d like it if you did, because I don’t actually like you very much.” He makes a waving motion with his hand. “Just remember, I’m not the worst that can happen to this world.”
“That’s not exactly what I heard.”
“Oh, and who’s your source?” Lucifer stands up and takes a step towards Dean. “Michael, who used your body to turn this world into dust when all you wanted was to make it better? He’s the one who made this place hellish, not me. Or Castiel?” He smirks. “Castiel who kept things from you, who lied to you and who lets you believe you’re worse than you are so he can control you better? Did he ever tell you about his own part in this mess? Or what he did to your brother?”
Dean thinks of Adam, resurrected for the sake of being Michael’s suit. He thinks of what Castiel told him. “He didn’t tell me much about my brother.” He swallows. “He told me I killed him.”
For a second, surprise flashes over Lucifer’s stolen face. It ends in an almost pleased smile. “Oh. Look at that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Excuse me, but didn’t you want to leave? You seemed to be quite eager earlier.”
“Just answer the damn question!”
“Dear Dean.” Lucifer sighs, presses his palms together as if in prayer as he looks at the human. “You didn’t kill him. That, at least is one burden you don’t need to carry.”
“I know. Michael killed him. That’s not a big revelation here. But I allowed him to by handing over my body so it is my burden to carry, thank you very much.”
“Wrong again. Castiel told you that? Figures. Isn’t it sad that I, of all people, am the only one who doesn’t lie to you?”
“How do I know you’re not?” Dean asks, tensely.
“Because I don’t need to. And because it doesn’t pay off in the end. People tend to turn against you once they find out you made a fool of them. No, you didn’t kill your brother. And neither did I, before you ask. Castiel did.”
After everything, that revelation doesn’t even come as much of a shock.
“Why?”
“I’m sure he can tell you.”
“I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
“I’m pretty sure he is. And if he is, he’ll find you. Now, get out. I’m getting tired of your face.” Lucifer turns away with a final wave of his hand, but Dean is sure he didn’t imagine the painful twist around his mouth that last moment, or the longing look he threw at the dead man on the table. Then the devil is gone, disappeared in the time it takes Dean to blink.
Dean draws in a deep breath. He wants to leave, wants to get as far from this place as possible and see if he actually makes it alive, because he still isn’t convinced of that. One doesn’t just chat with the devil and then walk away. It doesn’t work that way.
Whether it’s the thought of a sudden ambush that makes it so hard for him to leave the room, or something else, he can’t tell and doesn’t want to contemplate. He leaves.
Briefly, he thinks that it would be nice if the guys who brought him here could bring him back to where they found him just as quick, but the idea of being once more in the company of people who don’t mind dismembering others on a whim doesn’t sit well with him and he is glad when he is left alone.
In fact, it seems that the entire building only contains Lucifer and his corpse and currently Dean. It’s unlikely, though. Probably everyone else only has orders to keep their distance.
Finding the stairwell isn’t so hard in the end, mostly because it’s the only door that opens. The stairs are made of concrete, plain and cold and not at all going with the décor of the floor he just left behind.
The way down is long. Very long, and even though he knows how inconvenient that would be for Lucifer in his very breakable body, Dean expects the building to crumble any moment. It doesn’t seem to be very damaged, but it’s hard to tell for sure. Perhaps it’ll just crumble to annoy him.
He wonders if Michael would bring him back if he died. It seems likely. The angel wants something from him, after all.
Just like Lucifer. Just like Cas. Only with Cas, Dean still doesn’t know what exactly it is.
Around the fifteenth storey, Dean comes to the conclusion that these stairs are just another form of hellish torture. He’s hungry, he’s thirsty, his feet hurt and his bag is gone, has been left behind when he was taken. The only weapons he still has are the small gun in his pocket and the knife in his belt, everything else has gone with the bag. And the water.
The only consolation is that it would be even worse if he had to walk the stairs up instead of down.
It’s midday by the time he reaches ground level. The ruins of Atlanta are waiting for him, but the street leading up to the building he just left is mostly cleared, so he walks it down, with no idea where exactly to go.
If Cas can find him, he will.
If Cas has drowned in the river, if he hit his head on the way down or got impaled on a rock…. well, then Dean simply doesn’t know what he’ll do.
Somehow, he doesn’t think Cas is gone. He doesn’t know how fragile that not-quite-human body is anyway. Maybe Cas left him behind because he would survive the jump but knew Dean wouldn’t.
Or maybe he just wanted to save his own hide and didn’t care about Dean at all.
Either way, Dean finds he isn’t as worried about Castiel as he ought to be. He doesn’t really contemplate his friend face down in the water. Rather, he thinks about all the things Cas didn’t tell him, and even if Lucifer lied to him, it doesn’t change the fact that Cas lied too, and kept too many things from him. So Dean thinks about the angel and mostly only feels anger.
He hopes Cas finds him while the anger is still fresh. The guy really deserves a good punch in the face.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-06 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-06 08:19 pm (UTC)They're all telling the truth that suits them best - for the time being.
I'm so glad you like this!