![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Fic: In Country, Chapter III
In honor of today's Feast of All Saints...more of the All Saints Saga!
Title: In Country, Chapter 3 of 5
Genre: SPN slash, AU based upon Episode 5:04, "The End"
Pairings: Dean/Castiel
Principals: Future!Dean, Future!Castiel
Rating: Hard R for Chapter III
Warnings: Sex, language, racial slurs, violence, noncon (please check previous chapters for their ratings and warnings)
Spoilers: For SPN Episode 5:04
Word Count: 5,700 for Chapter III (~28,000 for the story so far)
Disclaimer: The Winchesters and all canon characters are the intellectual property of their creators. All original characters are mine. No money was made or sought in the writing of this story.
Summary: It's 2015 and the world's gone to hell in the Croatoan apocalypse and Dean and Castiel head to Detroit to put a lid on this mess one way or the other.
The Story So Far: Dean and Cass make it to Detroit and hook up with a new demon pal, Asher (a.k.a. Asmodeus), who is supposedly working against Lucifer. As part of the plot, Asher ships Dean off to Lucifer and puts Cass in temporary lockup. Unsettled by this turn of events, Cass busts out of Asher's digs and goes after Dean, now holed up at Lucifer's HQ in the abandoned Michigan Central train station. To Cass's horror, Dean chooses to stay with what he's convinced is still Sam, and the Prince of Darkness gives Cass the bum's rush into the frozen wasteland of Detroit.
Not caught up? Go back to Chapter II: Michigan Central
Or go all the way back to Chapter I: Cairo
III. River Rouge
When Cass got to his feet the dogs were returning. He could see them moving like sentient smoke against the walls of the train station. He backed across the arcade with the machinegun out and the dogs watched him from the shadows. The desolate hall was frozen in moonlight and the snow on the floor showed his own footprints and no one else’s. To all seeming no one but himself might ever have been there.
He crawled out of the train station through the gap in the boards where he had entered. At the chainlink fence he looked back at the tower and it stood above him as dark and derelict as it had stood for more than twenty years and there was not a soul in the place. He came to the tunnel under the railroad highline and plunged into it with no hesitation. His boots slopped through whatever vile slurry covered the floor and he scrabbled blindly over piles of trash with his arms held out before him for bearings. He had almost reached the far end of the tunnel when something grabbed his ankle.
"Hey," it said. "Hey, did you see him?"
The man was withered, insectile, barely clothed and he was no man at all. His eyes were dead black and opaque in the sepulchral light. Cass kicked out his leg to shake him off but the demon held on viselike.
"You see him? The big guy? He's up there, isn't he? Huh? He's up there?"
Cass angled the machinegun down at him.
"Get off."
"Yeah, shoot me, go ahead." He wrapped his other shriveled hand around Cass's ankle. "Shoot me, come on do it."
Without a thought Cass let off a burst of rounds and the demon let go and lay writhing in the muck.
"I knew it," he moaned. "You can't kill me. You can't kill me."
Cass turned away and walked out of the tunnel and began to mount the broken street and behind him the demon gibbered at the mouth of the tunnel as if it could not step out into even the moon's feeble light.
"I wanna die you fuckin pussy! I wanna fuckin die!" Hideously, it started to weep. "I wanna die," it sobbed. "I wanna die."
The moonlight faded but there was no sign of dawn, nor was it truly dark. The sky was black and a deep redness had risen in the south as if some immense holocaust burned just beyond the horizon but there was no sound of fire or hot gust or smell of burning other than the permanent smolder that hung over the city. In this charred darkness he made his way down Sainte Anne Street, lurching like a drunkard on his battered feet. He passed the cafe where he had seen the old man at the table and now the man was hanging from his neck by the beam over the door and his hat was on the ground and his hands hung at his sides, hugely swollen. On the corner even the steampipe had finally exhausted itself of whatever vapors it had been installed to disgorge.
So he came back at last to The Cairo. He thought for a moment of entering through the basement window where he had escaped but there was no point to that secrecy. He came around to Matthew Street and stood where he and Dean had first seen the place together months if not years ago. The night before they had come to Detroit, the night before they had ever laid eyes on The Cairo, they had made love and slept beside each other with a sound of rain at the window and the pale curtain lifting into the room.
No one was at the door and no bulb burned beside it. He looked up at the brick walls and mullioned windows and balconies and saw no light or movement or any sign of tenancy.
"No," he said. He had somehow not expected this. "Oh God, no."
He passed the fireblacked tree in its courtyard and went up the steps into the lobby. The elevator doors stood open onto a silent shaft. Neither the number three nor any light blinked above them. The quiet pressed upon his ears with such weight.
"Asmodeus!"
His own voice echoed in the dead floors above him.
"Asmodeus!"
He called to him in Latin. In Greek. In long-dead languages and tongues that had never been spoken on earth. Unanswered he began to climb the stairs that he had ascended with Dean so long ago and he remembered how he had pleaded with Dean to leave although even then it had already been too late. Below him something shifted and he spun around and saw nothing and heard nothing. When he turned back Asher stood two steps above him and for an instant they stared at each other in the coalfire gloom and then Asher raised his arm and backhanded Cass across the face so hard that he was knocked off his feet and fell end over end to the bottom of the stairs. Asher kicked him and Cass rolled onto his side and tried to get to his feet and Asher booted him in the back and the pain was so sharp and sickening that Cass nearly vomited. He kicked him again and Cass heard and felt a rib or ribs snap in his side and then Asher took Cass's throat in both hands and pulled him up until they were inches apart.
"Stupid fuck," he hissed.
Cass had no breath in him. He grabbed Asher's wrists and tried to free himself. His feet were barely on the ground.
"Stupid fuck," Asher repeated and then he bunched Cass's shirt in one fist and with the other he beat Cass in the face and then dropped him in a heap to the floor. His nose and mouth were full of blood. He rose up barely conscious onto his forearms and his blood spilled out black as ink onto the broken tiles and Asher seized him by the back of the neck.
"Get up," he said and lifted him and spun him around and pushed him to the stairs.
He staggered up the stairs with Asher's fingers clamped around his neck. Twice he fell and Asher jerked him up to his feet. The third time he couldn't get up anymore and he made the last flight of stairs on his knees with Asher dragging him by the scruff. Asher steered him down a hallway and Cass tried to look up and see where he was but he couldn't. Then he heard a door swing open and felt a damp rush of fetid air on his face and Asher pushed him into the apartment where the girl they called Phyllis had first brought him and Dean. He fell forward and couldn't get up and he knew he was going to die in this place. He lifted his head and saw the apartment unchanged. The lightbulb still hung on a wire from the kitchen ceiling, casting its gray pool of light. The filthy mattress sat on the floor. He could almost taste the air on his tongue, a noisome funk of sweat and sex and shit.
"Was it the nigger or the snatch who let you out?"
Cass turned onto his side and pushed himself up. He braced one hand onto the floor and wrapped his arm around his ribs. Asher was standing at the window, a black paper cutout on a bloodred scrim.
"Must've been the nigger. The snatch couldn't have pulled it off. Retarded little bitch." He crossed the room and came to stand over Cass. "Why did you come back here? What did you think you'd find?"
Cass looked up at him. He tried to answer but his jaw was broken and he couldn't speak.
"Dean? Did you think he was here?"
He reached down and caught Cass by the arm and dragged him over to the mattress and threw him on it.
"There's your Dean, yeah? You smell him?" He pushed Cass's face into the mattress. "You taste him?" He shoved his hand between Cass's legs. "Getting hard? Huh? Are you?"
"Listen..." Cass said at last. It was all he could get out through his clenched teeth. Asher let him go and Cass turned onto his back and Asher crossed his arms and stared down at him. The room wavered out of focus and Cass felt his eyes dip and he raised his hand and made some gesture at his jaw.
"Can't talk? You were doing plenty of talking back at the train station. And down in the basement too. You must've really been running your mouth off."
Cass shook his head. Blood slid down his throat and he choked on it and rolled onto his side and let it run out of his mouth because he couldn't cough. Asher bent over and grabbed Cass's head and Cass waited for Asher to break his neck and he closed his eyes and saw Dean so clearly, exactly as he had first seen him in hell when he had gone to raise him up, the beginning of his new life which was now at its end.
The pain all throughout his body flared into blinding agony and Cass screamed behind his teeth and almost fainted and then the pain was gone. Asher threw him over onto his back and let go of his head and stood up.
"There. Now talk."
Cass opened his mouth and closed it. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth then pushed up onto his elbows and looked at Asher.
"Lucifer said he'll be the last one left." Asher didn't respond and Cass went on. "He's going to take everything out...people, animals, demons too. Everything. Down to the last blade of grass." He stopped and swallowed. The taste of blood lingered coppery in his throat. "You won't be his servant. You won't be anything at all. You'll be dead."
Asher squatted down on his heels.
"Now," the demon said, "You begin to understand the situation."
"You knew this?"
"There were those like Azazel who thought if Lucifer were free he would raise up a kingdom where we would all be gods and all of mankind to serve us. Azazel," he said, "Was an idiot."
"Tell me what to do."
"I told you and you screwed me. What are we supposed to do about that?"
"The firstborn son is with Lucifer. The fallen angel is here. You still need me, Asmodeus. Let me go after them."
"Even unto hell, angel?"
"Yes."
Asher licked his lips. He smiled. Then he stood and turned on his heels and crossed the room and walked out of the door and slammed it behind him. Cass stayed where he was and in a short while Asher returned. The gray metal vault box was under his arm and he threw it to the floor. Cass heard the chain rattle inside and Asher heard it too and pressed the heel of his hand against the side of his head as if it ached and then he shook his head like a dog and told Cass to get up.
Cass stood up and stepped to the box and Asher stopped him.
"Take off your clothes."
Cass stared at Asher. After a moment he shook his head in disgust and started to undress and Asher grabbed Cass's chin and forced his head up to look at him.
"If I wanted to fuck you I would've done it the minute you walked in here. I would've fucked you inside out. Understand?"
"Yes."
Asher brushed a calloused thumb along his jaw.
"Maybe later, yeah?" he said. "Business before pleasure." He let Cass go. "Now get undressed."
* * *
Asher had turned to the wall as if moved by some sudden courtesy. Naked, Cass stooped and lifted the chain from the box. He stood there and held it in both of his hands and it hung to the floor in loops of copper light. The last angel to wield this had been Michael and it should have been Michael who held it again, with Dean's hands. Cass could see his own human face reflected back in each silver link. He thought of Anna at the church in Knoxville, telling him that God did not make mistakes. He thought of himself, still an angel, standing in a child's nursery in Dalhart Texas and promising Dean that he would follow him to hell itself. It seemed to him that the will of God was immovable and undeniable and that all love and joy and hope and even pain and fear existed in and because of that will. Paths taken and not taken would all and only ever lead to the place where God had always meant them to go.
"Put it on," Asher told him with his face still to the wall.
Cass bent his head and draped the chain over his neck. Immediately he felt its weight settle into his flesh and blood and bones. He took the two slack ends and crossed them against his chest and then wrapped them around himself and crossed them at his back and brought them up and over his shoulders. The only sound in the room was the soft chime of link against link. He fed the lengths of chain down between his torso and legs and wound them around each thigh and up again and behind his back and across his belly and though the chain had neither catch nor lock he knew that when he came to its end it would hold and it did. It was so heavy.
"Is it finished?"
"Yes."
"Get dressed. Tell me when you're done."
He put his clothes back on and told Asher that he was dressed and Asher turned around and looked him up and down.
"He won't be able to find you as long as you wear it. But that's the only protection it'll give you."
"Then I need a weapon."
"You can have the machinegun."
"I need the knife too."
Asher raised an eyebrow at him.
"So that you can use it against me?"
"I need you as much as you need me."
Asher reached inside his suit jacket and took out the knife. He looked down at it wistfully.
"It's a beauty. I hate to give it up."
Cass put out his hand. "Give it to me."
Asher shrugged and crossed the room and slapped the blade down into Cass's palm and Cass bent over and shoved it down into his boot where he had worn it since Dean had given it to him. He straightened up and looked at Asher and Asher said, "Lucifer has left the city and gone to the place called River Rouge. From there he travels freely between earth and hell. He may be in hell or he may still be in The Rouge."
"If he's in hell how will I find him?"
"Dean is with him. Did you have any trouble finding Dean the last time?"
"I'm not what I was before."
"Well then," Asher said. A slow smile spread across his face and then he turned away. He took one of the little blunt cigars from his pocket and popped a match with his fingernail and lit the cigar and sucked on the end. The match burned down to his fingers and he let it fall to the floor and then he looked at Cass. "I guess love will have to save the day after all."
"I thought that was my weakness," Cass said. "Isn't that what you said?"
"Yeah, that's what I said, but that was before you fucked everything up. I wanted to do this the easy way. I had Lucifer right where I wanted him, all I needed was time to get it right. Now you have no time. All you've got is that torch you've been carrying around all these years. Let it be your..." He looked up to the ceiling. "Your light in the darkness." He grinned at Cass. "Hmm?"
"What about Lucifer? I can't bind him inside his vessel."
"Don't worry about Lucifer, Sam's working that from the inside."
"Sam? Sam has no power over him."
"Depends what you call power. Sam has no control over him...Lucifer would know if he tried that shit. But see, Azazel -- idiot, like I said -- went too far. He doped that kid up with his own blood so much that he's been strong enough to hold on all these years even with King Shit running the show. So Sam knows him, and Lucifer sure don't know that. He doesn't know that Sam's been watching him. Listening to him. He probably knows Lucifer better than that fucker knows himself." Asher shook his head. "He never knew himself. Ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag."
Cass looked towards the windows. Some sort of sickly day was beginning to gray the panes.
"This is hopeless," he said. He looked at Asher. "This isn't going to work."
Asher took a step forward and put his thumb under Cass's chin and studied him. Cass could feel the coal-tipped end of the cigar burning next to his cheek. He could smell Asher's sulfurous rot.
"Yet still you must do it," he said and he smiled, almost a preterite and fallen angel himself and so freighted with the ancient knowledge and bitter wisdom of all his kind.
* * *
Dean woke up from something that was more stupor than sleep and sat in a huddle and looked around him. He was still here and here was nowhere although he knew it wasn't the train station anymore. He didn't know how long he'd been here but then he didn't know how long he'd been there, either. Since he'd been left here he hadn't once seen Lucifer and there was some small relief in not having to see Sam still looking so much like himself and yet so wholly changed, but if he never saw Lucifer there was no hope of getting him out of Sam and even if he did he had no way to kill him or bind him and so in truth there was no hope of anything at all.
He had thought at first that Lucifer had killed him in the train station after he'd sent Cass away. Though he had no memory of dying he was certain that he was in hell. He remembered the stink of it and he could sometimes hear it grinding away on the other side of these walls that stretched up to some black and shadowed height where he couldn't see anything at all. There was an iron door in one wall and once he'd gone and stood at the door and tried to listen for any sound on the other side and something had shot under the gap below the door and grabbed his ankle and brought him crashing to the floor and then wrenched at him as if it could somehow drag him whole through those few inches. His knee had jammed up hard against the doorsill and Dean had bellowed in pain and bloodied his fingers trying to find some purchase to pull himself free and then the thing had let go of him so suddenly that Dean's forehead slammed on the floor. He had pulled his leg in and spun around and scuttled backward from the door and seen his leg clawed up to the knee and spiraled around with friction burns and on the other side of the door something sniffed and sniffed and then bony fingers appeared in the gap and felt their way around blindly. Dean had gotten up and gone to the door and then stomped on the fingers with his heel and the thing had shrieked and retreated. Since then he would sometimes hear whispering outside the door and he knew that if they wanted to come in they would come in, and whatever they wanted to do with him they would do, just as they had for forty years. But no one came in.
After a while he began to understand that he was still alive because he would sleep and he had never slept in hell. At first he had also been hungry but that had passed and he knew it had passed because now he was starving. There was a tap in the wall and water or something like it came out of the tap but he'd had nothing to eat for longer than he could remember and the awareness of his own starvation made him realize he was still alive if nothing else did. With that came the knowledge that in spite of everything he had tried to do he was just going to starve to death in this nameless corner of hell while somewhere, the world went on with its dying.
His bones ached and he shifted but could find no relief. His leg burned. He was thirsty and he looked at the tap. It was on the other side of the room. High up in the wall above it was a grilled window that seemed to look out onto sky though the light neither waxed nor waned but was always the same sulfured gray. Dean sat there and stared at the tap. A drop of water appeared at its lip and hung there shimmering before it fell to the floor and slipped down the drain. He heard it descend all the way down some pipe that went God only knew where. Another one took its place and also dangled for a moment and then followed the first.
That's it, Dean thought. I'm going over there.
He thought if he stood up he would fall over but he wasn't going to crawl, not yet. He pushed himself up and waited for a wave of faintness to pass and then he made his way across the long room with his shoulder against the wall. He got down on his knees and turned the tap and it creaked and rust flaked from it and it coughed out a sudden burst and then a thin trickle of yellow water began to leak from it. He collected it in his hands and drank. It smelled and tasted terrible but it was water and he'd always heard that dying of thirst was worse than starving to death. He turned off the tap and sat against the wall and caught his breath. He thought about staying there but the tap was close to the door and he didn't want to be close to that door and from here he couldn't see the window. Such as it was, it was still a window. After a while he got up and crossed back to the other side of the room and then he just sat there. He thought about Cass and told him again that he was sorry and he hoped that Cass had listened to him and left Detroit and gone back to Amy and then he wouldn't let himself think about Cass anymore. He closed his eyes and slipped into a haze and then he fell asleep.
When he woke Lucifer was sitting next to him. Dean startled so hard that his head rapped against the wall. Lucifer didn't move. He sat there with Sam's long legs drawn up under his chin like a gargoyle and studied Dean.
"Long time no see," Dean said at last. Lucifer didn't say anything. The room was deathly quiet. Dean could hear his own pulse in his ears. "Something on your mind?"
"Why aren't you dead?" Lucifer said.
Dean pondered the question. "Nine lives?"
Lucifer narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. "Why haven't I killed you yet?"
Dean stared at him. After a moment he said, "I don't know, Sam," and Lucifer slapped him hard across the face.
"Don't talk to him."
"Sorry, Sammy," Dean said and Lucifer slapped him again. Dean smiled and put his hand up to the corner of his mouth. He was bleeding. "Touched a nerve?" he said, but when he looked up Lucifer was gone.
He came back some unknowable time later and he crouched next to Dean and picked up Dean's wrist and wrapped his hand around it until his thumb and middle finger met.
"You're starving," he said.
"Yeah, that tends to happen when you don't eat."
"What do you want to eat?"
"Oh, I don't know. Bacon cheeseburger, medium. Grilled onions. Side of fries."
"Here," Lucifer said, and there it was. On a white plate, the meat so hot it was still sizzling. Dean started to tremble. He could have wolfed down the whole thing, plate and all.
"I can't eat that," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm starving, genius. I eat that, it's gonna come right back up."
"Try it."
Dean looked at the plate. He looked at Lucifer. "Is that...what kind of meat is that?"
Lucifer frowned. "It's beef. And bacon. Pork. What do you think it is?"
"I don't know...kittens? Babies? Soylent Green?"
Lucifer raised his eyebrows. "No, it's just plain old cows and pigs. Go on." He put the plate down on the floor.
Dean looked at Lucifer for another moment and then he picked up the burger and took a bite out of it. He had to close his eyes and just hold it in his mouth because it was so good. He was nearly in tears. He chewed it very slowly and then swallowed it. He sat there and waited. In the corner of his eye Lucifer watched him. Nothing happened and then a jolt of pain hit his gut and he doubled over.
"Oh Christ," he said through his teeth. He pressed his forehead into his knees. "Oh fuck."
He sat there in a frigid sweat until the spasm passed. When he opened his eyes the plate was gone.
"Try this instead," Lucifer said and handed him a thick cup with a spoon in it. Dean took it and stirred it. Tomato soup with rice.
"Your mother used to make that when you were sick."
Dean stared down into the cup. The white grains floated and sank. His vision trebled and he blinked and nodded.
"Sam?" he said but he was alone.
The next time Dean woke up he knew Lucifer was there even with his eyes closed. He had the feeling he'd been sitting there watching him for a long time. He opened his eyes and saw Lucifer crouched in that same gargoyle pose but his hands were clamped around his knees so tight that the knuckles were white and straining and Dean sat up slowly and watched Lucifer watch him.
Finally Lucifer said, "Michael."
After a moment Dean said, "What about him?"
"You. You were supposed to be Michael's vessel. This..." He reached out and took Dean's arm. "This was owed to Michael."
"Depends who you ask."
"Why did you say no?"
"I didn't think meat suit was a good look for me?"
"Why you?" Lucifer said. He put a finger under Dean's chin. "Why this? Out of all the billions of people why did Michael want this one?"
"I don't know," Dean said. "Why did you want my brother?"
"He was claimed for me by my servant Azazel."
"Mmm, yeah. The name rings a bell."
"Who claimed you for Michael? Who prepared you?"
"You're asking the wrong guy," Dean said but Lucifer wasn't listening to him.
"Michael," he said. "Michael's vessel. Michael's chosen."
He reached down suddenly and grasped Dean's wounded leg and Dean tried to bolt up but Lucifer put his other hand on Dean's chest and stilled him and said, "Don't move," and then he looked at Dean and said, "That's better."
Dean looked at his leg. He looked at Lucifer. "Good as new," he said. He stared at Lucifer with his heart hammering. He could hear hell outside the walls. He could smell it on Lucifer's clothes. Lucifer had not killed him and had not let him starve and had kept him apart from the legions of hell and Dean was suddenly more afraid than he'd been in a long time.
Lucifer stood up so abruptly that Dean caught his breath and braced himself but Lucifer just stared down at him and then he turned and crossed the room and went out through the door and only when Dean heard the bolt hammer down on the other side did he finally let out his breath.
* * *
Dean heard him on the other side of the door and then he heard the bolt and he was already on his feet when Lucifer came in and he pressed his back to the wall as if it would protect him but before the door had even slammed shut Lucifer was across the room and he grabbed Dean by the throat and drove his head into the wall and hit him so hard his knees buckled.
"Michael's vessel," Lucifer said. He hit him again. "Michael's chosen."
Lucifer beat him until his vision swam. He couldn't feel his legs. When Lucifer let him go he collapsed on the floor and he rolled to his side and looked up and saw Lucifer bending over him and he pushed up onto his elbows and tried to get away from him but there was no place to go and he knew what was coming next. When he was face down on the floor with Lucifer on top of him he realized that he had somehow thought that because this hadn't happened already it wasn't going to happen and yet here it was and nothing he could do about it. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against the floor. It was some kind of rough concrete and he could feel it abrading his face, his legs, his clenched fists. When Lucifer was done he put his mouth to Dean's ear.
"See?" he said. "What Michael wanted, I have."
Dean looked at him over his shoulder. "Yeah? All you've got is what a whole lotta demons got for forty fuckin years. Real lowlifes too," he laughed, "Not big shots like you."
Lucifer stared at him. For a moment Dean thought Lucifer was going to kill him but he didn't and Dean hoped he would pass out this time but that didn't happen either, though it went on and on.
When Lucifer finally got up off him Dean couldn't move. He lay there and listened to Lucifer pull up his jeans and zip and buckle himself.
"It's okay, Sam," he said. "I know that wasn't you." He was shuddering and he turned onto his side with some effort and drew up his knees. "It wasn't you."
Lucifer didn't say anything and Dean thought he had gone. When he opened his eyes he saw Lucifer standing in a stoop with his arms hanging at his sides and his face blank. Dean raised himself up onto his arms.
"Sam?" he said softly. Then even more softly, "Sam?"
Lucifer turned his head and looked at him, but it was not Lucifer. It was Sam and yet not altogether Sam, a person sleepwalking through some nightmare separate from yet not heedless of the waking world.
"I won't let him, Dean, never...I won't..."
"Sam...Sam, listen..."
"Not again, I won't..."
"It's Michael," Dean said and Sam fell silent and stared at him.
"Yes."
"Michael is the way out. Michael's vessel. Me."
Sam nodded and covered his face with his hands.
Dean said, "Sam, look at me."
When Sam put his hands down Dean looked at his brother and said, "Should I say yes to him? Is that what I need to do?"
"Not yet."
"When?"
Sam clenched his jaw and swallowed hard. "Not yet. You'll know."
"All right," Dean said. "All right, Sam."
"I won't let him..." Sam made a vague gesture that took in the room, the whole awful scene. "Do this again."
"Can you stop him? Without him knowing?"
"I don't know."
"Then don't risk it."
"Dean..."
"Don't risk it. I don't care. It'll all be over soon anyway."
Sam blinked and his eyes were wet and he was shaking.
"I have to go."
"I know."
"I'm so sorry, Dean."
"I know that, Sammy. So am I. I'm sorry I..."
Sam had closed his eyes. He rose up to his full height and when he opened his eyes Dean knew that Lucifer was here. He didn't look at Dean. He turned around and walked right out through the wall. After a while Dean got up and went to the water tap and cleaned himself as well as he could. He drank handful after handful of water. Then he got dressed and went to the corner and lay down and stared at the window, up at hell's unchanging sky.
* * *
In some pale and wasting daylight Cass stood on an iron railroad trestle and looked down upon River Rouge. The air was still and very cold. Rising up on his right was the flat round hulk of a fuel oil tank and beside that a rusting blast furnace and some great pile of debris that had begun to coagulate into one solid and mountainous mass. To his left, the river half-frozen and smoking, and all before him a wasteland of railcars and sludgepits and the derelict constructions of the old complex. Nothing moved. Ashen snow began to fall. Cass took a deep breath and let it out steaming before him and he reached down and checked the knife in his boot and then straightened up and secured the machinegun on his shoulder and the weight of chain under his clothes shifted and settled. The last time he had gone down into hell for Dean he'd done so with no weapon save his own grace and no doubt that he would find the one he sought and no reckoning or even care for who that one might be. For just a moment longer he stood there and then he stepped down off the bridge and went on.
Continued in Chapter IV: Fallen and Firstborn.
Title: In Country, Chapter 3 of 5
Genre: SPN slash, AU based upon Episode 5:04, "The End"
Pairings: Dean/Castiel
Principals: Future!Dean, Future!Castiel
Rating: Hard R for Chapter III
Warnings: Sex, language, racial slurs, violence, noncon (please check previous chapters for their ratings and warnings)
Spoilers: For SPN Episode 5:04
Word Count: 5,700 for Chapter III (~28,000 for the story so far)
Disclaimer: The Winchesters and all canon characters are the intellectual property of their creators. All original characters are mine. No money was made or sought in the writing of this story.
Summary: It's 2015 and the world's gone to hell in the Croatoan apocalypse and Dean and Castiel head to Detroit to put a lid on this mess one way or the other.
The Story So Far: Dean and Cass make it to Detroit and hook up with a new demon pal, Asher (a.k.a. Asmodeus), who is supposedly working against Lucifer. As part of the plot, Asher ships Dean off to Lucifer and puts Cass in temporary lockup. Unsettled by this turn of events, Cass busts out of Asher's digs and goes after Dean, now holed up at Lucifer's HQ in the abandoned Michigan Central train station. To Cass's horror, Dean chooses to stay with what he's convinced is still Sam, and the Prince of Darkness gives Cass the bum's rush into the frozen wasteland of Detroit.
Not caught up? Go back to Chapter II: Michigan Central
Or go all the way back to Chapter I: Cairo
III. River Rouge
When Cass got to his feet the dogs were returning. He could see them moving like sentient smoke against the walls of the train station. He backed across the arcade with the machinegun out and the dogs watched him from the shadows. The desolate hall was frozen in moonlight and the snow on the floor showed his own footprints and no one else’s. To all seeming no one but himself might ever have been there.
He crawled out of the train station through the gap in the boards where he had entered. At the chainlink fence he looked back at the tower and it stood above him as dark and derelict as it had stood for more than twenty years and there was not a soul in the place. He came to the tunnel under the railroad highline and plunged into it with no hesitation. His boots slopped through whatever vile slurry covered the floor and he scrabbled blindly over piles of trash with his arms held out before him for bearings. He had almost reached the far end of the tunnel when something grabbed his ankle.
"Hey," it said. "Hey, did you see him?"
The man was withered, insectile, barely clothed and he was no man at all. His eyes were dead black and opaque in the sepulchral light. Cass kicked out his leg to shake him off but the demon held on viselike.
"You see him? The big guy? He's up there, isn't he? Huh? He's up there?"
Cass angled the machinegun down at him.
"Get off."
"Yeah, shoot me, go ahead." He wrapped his other shriveled hand around Cass's ankle. "Shoot me, come on do it."
Without a thought Cass let off a burst of rounds and the demon let go and lay writhing in the muck.
"I knew it," he moaned. "You can't kill me. You can't kill me."
Cass turned away and walked out of the tunnel and began to mount the broken street and behind him the demon gibbered at the mouth of the tunnel as if it could not step out into even the moon's feeble light.
"I wanna die you fuckin pussy! I wanna fuckin die!" Hideously, it started to weep. "I wanna die," it sobbed. "I wanna die."
The moonlight faded but there was no sign of dawn, nor was it truly dark. The sky was black and a deep redness had risen in the south as if some immense holocaust burned just beyond the horizon but there was no sound of fire or hot gust or smell of burning other than the permanent smolder that hung over the city. In this charred darkness he made his way down Sainte Anne Street, lurching like a drunkard on his battered feet. He passed the cafe where he had seen the old man at the table and now the man was hanging from his neck by the beam over the door and his hat was on the ground and his hands hung at his sides, hugely swollen. On the corner even the steampipe had finally exhausted itself of whatever vapors it had been installed to disgorge.
So he came back at last to The Cairo. He thought for a moment of entering through the basement window where he had escaped but there was no point to that secrecy. He came around to Matthew Street and stood where he and Dean had first seen the place together months if not years ago. The night before they had come to Detroit, the night before they had ever laid eyes on The Cairo, they had made love and slept beside each other with a sound of rain at the window and the pale curtain lifting into the room.
No one was at the door and no bulb burned beside it. He looked up at the brick walls and mullioned windows and balconies and saw no light or movement or any sign of tenancy.
"No," he said. He had somehow not expected this. "Oh God, no."
He passed the fireblacked tree in its courtyard and went up the steps into the lobby. The elevator doors stood open onto a silent shaft. Neither the number three nor any light blinked above them. The quiet pressed upon his ears with such weight.
"Asmodeus!"
His own voice echoed in the dead floors above him.
"Asmodeus!"
He called to him in Latin. In Greek. In long-dead languages and tongues that had never been spoken on earth. Unanswered he began to climb the stairs that he had ascended with Dean so long ago and he remembered how he had pleaded with Dean to leave although even then it had already been too late. Below him something shifted and he spun around and saw nothing and heard nothing. When he turned back Asher stood two steps above him and for an instant they stared at each other in the coalfire gloom and then Asher raised his arm and backhanded Cass across the face so hard that he was knocked off his feet and fell end over end to the bottom of the stairs. Asher kicked him and Cass rolled onto his side and tried to get to his feet and Asher booted him in the back and the pain was so sharp and sickening that Cass nearly vomited. He kicked him again and Cass heard and felt a rib or ribs snap in his side and then Asher took Cass's throat in both hands and pulled him up until they were inches apart.
"Stupid fuck," he hissed.
Cass had no breath in him. He grabbed Asher's wrists and tried to free himself. His feet were barely on the ground.
"Stupid fuck," Asher repeated and then he bunched Cass's shirt in one fist and with the other he beat Cass in the face and then dropped him in a heap to the floor. His nose and mouth were full of blood. He rose up barely conscious onto his forearms and his blood spilled out black as ink onto the broken tiles and Asher seized him by the back of the neck.
"Get up," he said and lifted him and spun him around and pushed him to the stairs.
He staggered up the stairs with Asher's fingers clamped around his neck. Twice he fell and Asher jerked him up to his feet. The third time he couldn't get up anymore and he made the last flight of stairs on his knees with Asher dragging him by the scruff. Asher steered him down a hallway and Cass tried to look up and see where he was but he couldn't. Then he heard a door swing open and felt a damp rush of fetid air on his face and Asher pushed him into the apartment where the girl they called Phyllis had first brought him and Dean. He fell forward and couldn't get up and he knew he was going to die in this place. He lifted his head and saw the apartment unchanged. The lightbulb still hung on a wire from the kitchen ceiling, casting its gray pool of light. The filthy mattress sat on the floor. He could almost taste the air on his tongue, a noisome funk of sweat and sex and shit.
"Was it the nigger or the snatch who let you out?"
Cass turned onto his side and pushed himself up. He braced one hand onto the floor and wrapped his arm around his ribs. Asher was standing at the window, a black paper cutout on a bloodred scrim.
"Must've been the nigger. The snatch couldn't have pulled it off. Retarded little bitch." He crossed the room and came to stand over Cass. "Why did you come back here? What did you think you'd find?"
Cass looked up at him. He tried to answer but his jaw was broken and he couldn't speak.
"Dean? Did you think he was here?"
He reached down and caught Cass by the arm and dragged him over to the mattress and threw him on it.
"There's your Dean, yeah? You smell him?" He pushed Cass's face into the mattress. "You taste him?" He shoved his hand between Cass's legs. "Getting hard? Huh? Are you?"
"Listen..." Cass said at last. It was all he could get out through his clenched teeth. Asher let him go and Cass turned onto his back and Asher crossed his arms and stared down at him. The room wavered out of focus and Cass felt his eyes dip and he raised his hand and made some gesture at his jaw.
"Can't talk? You were doing plenty of talking back at the train station. And down in the basement too. You must've really been running your mouth off."
Cass shook his head. Blood slid down his throat and he choked on it and rolled onto his side and let it run out of his mouth because he couldn't cough. Asher bent over and grabbed Cass's head and Cass waited for Asher to break his neck and he closed his eyes and saw Dean so clearly, exactly as he had first seen him in hell when he had gone to raise him up, the beginning of his new life which was now at its end.
The pain all throughout his body flared into blinding agony and Cass screamed behind his teeth and almost fainted and then the pain was gone. Asher threw him over onto his back and let go of his head and stood up.
"There. Now talk."
Cass opened his mouth and closed it. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth then pushed up onto his elbows and looked at Asher.
"Lucifer said he'll be the last one left." Asher didn't respond and Cass went on. "He's going to take everything out...people, animals, demons too. Everything. Down to the last blade of grass." He stopped and swallowed. The taste of blood lingered coppery in his throat. "You won't be his servant. You won't be anything at all. You'll be dead."
Asher squatted down on his heels.
"Now," the demon said, "You begin to understand the situation."
"You knew this?"
"There were those like Azazel who thought if Lucifer were free he would raise up a kingdom where we would all be gods and all of mankind to serve us. Azazel," he said, "Was an idiot."
"Tell me what to do."
"I told you and you screwed me. What are we supposed to do about that?"
"The firstborn son is with Lucifer. The fallen angel is here. You still need me, Asmodeus. Let me go after them."
"Even unto hell, angel?"
"Yes."
Asher licked his lips. He smiled. Then he stood and turned on his heels and crossed the room and walked out of the door and slammed it behind him. Cass stayed where he was and in a short while Asher returned. The gray metal vault box was under his arm and he threw it to the floor. Cass heard the chain rattle inside and Asher heard it too and pressed the heel of his hand against the side of his head as if it ached and then he shook his head like a dog and told Cass to get up.
Cass stood up and stepped to the box and Asher stopped him.
"Take off your clothes."
Cass stared at Asher. After a moment he shook his head in disgust and started to undress and Asher grabbed Cass's chin and forced his head up to look at him.
"If I wanted to fuck you I would've done it the minute you walked in here. I would've fucked you inside out. Understand?"
"Yes."
Asher brushed a calloused thumb along his jaw.
"Maybe later, yeah?" he said. "Business before pleasure." He let Cass go. "Now get undressed."
* * *
Asher had turned to the wall as if moved by some sudden courtesy. Naked, Cass stooped and lifted the chain from the box. He stood there and held it in both of his hands and it hung to the floor in loops of copper light. The last angel to wield this had been Michael and it should have been Michael who held it again, with Dean's hands. Cass could see his own human face reflected back in each silver link. He thought of Anna at the church in Knoxville, telling him that God did not make mistakes. He thought of himself, still an angel, standing in a child's nursery in Dalhart Texas and promising Dean that he would follow him to hell itself. It seemed to him that the will of God was immovable and undeniable and that all love and joy and hope and even pain and fear existed in and because of that will. Paths taken and not taken would all and only ever lead to the place where God had always meant them to go.
"Put it on," Asher told him with his face still to the wall.
Cass bent his head and draped the chain over his neck. Immediately he felt its weight settle into his flesh and blood and bones. He took the two slack ends and crossed them against his chest and then wrapped them around himself and crossed them at his back and brought them up and over his shoulders. The only sound in the room was the soft chime of link against link. He fed the lengths of chain down between his torso and legs and wound them around each thigh and up again and behind his back and across his belly and though the chain had neither catch nor lock he knew that when he came to its end it would hold and it did. It was so heavy.
"Is it finished?"
"Yes."
"Get dressed. Tell me when you're done."
He put his clothes back on and told Asher that he was dressed and Asher turned around and looked him up and down.
"He won't be able to find you as long as you wear it. But that's the only protection it'll give you."
"Then I need a weapon."
"You can have the machinegun."
"I need the knife too."
Asher raised an eyebrow at him.
"So that you can use it against me?"
"I need you as much as you need me."
Asher reached inside his suit jacket and took out the knife. He looked down at it wistfully.
"It's a beauty. I hate to give it up."
Cass put out his hand. "Give it to me."
Asher shrugged and crossed the room and slapped the blade down into Cass's palm and Cass bent over and shoved it down into his boot where he had worn it since Dean had given it to him. He straightened up and looked at Asher and Asher said, "Lucifer has left the city and gone to the place called River Rouge. From there he travels freely between earth and hell. He may be in hell or he may still be in The Rouge."
"If he's in hell how will I find him?"
"Dean is with him. Did you have any trouble finding Dean the last time?"
"I'm not what I was before."
"Well then," Asher said. A slow smile spread across his face and then he turned away. He took one of the little blunt cigars from his pocket and popped a match with his fingernail and lit the cigar and sucked on the end. The match burned down to his fingers and he let it fall to the floor and then he looked at Cass. "I guess love will have to save the day after all."
"I thought that was my weakness," Cass said. "Isn't that what you said?"
"Yeah, that's what I said, but that was before you fucked everything up. I wanted to do this the easy way. I had Lucifer right where I wanted him, all I needed was time to get it right. Now you have no time. All you've got is that torch you've been carrying around all these years. Let it be your..." He looked up to the ceiling. "Your light in the darkness." He grinned at Cass. "Hmm?"
"What about Lucifer? I can't bind him inside his vessel."
"Don't worry about Lucifer, Sam's working that from the inside."
"Sam? Sam has no power over him."
"Depends what you call power. Sam has no control over him...Lucifer would know if he tried that shit. But see, Azazel -- idiot, like I said -- went too far. He doped that kid up with his own blood so much that he's been strong enough to hold on all these years even with King Shit running the show. So Sam knows him, and Lucifer sure don't know that. He doesn't know that Sam's been watching him. Listening to him. He probably knows Lucifer better than that fucker knows himself." Asher shook his head. "He never knew himself. Ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag."
Cass looked towards the windows. Some sort of sickly day was beginning to gray the panes.
"This is hopeless," he said. He looked at Asher. "This isn't going to work."
Asher took a step forward and put his thumb under Cass's chin and studied him. Cass could feel the coal-tipped end of the cigar burning next to his cheek. He could smell Asher's sulfurous rot.
"Yet still you must do it," he said and he smiled, almost a preterite and fallen angel himself and so freighted with the ancient knowledge and bitter wisdom of all his kind.
* * *
Dean woke up from something that was more stupor than sleep and sat in a huddle and looked around him. He was still here and here was nowhere although he knew it wasn't the train station anymore. He didn't know how long he'd been here but then he didn't know how long he'd been there, either. Since he'd been left here he hadn't once seen Lucifer and there was some small relief in not having to see Sam still looking so much like himself and yet so wholly changed, but if he never saw Lucifer there was no hope of getting him out of Sam and even if he did he had no way to kill him or bind him and so in truth there was no hope of anything at all.
He had thought at first that Lucifer had killed him in the train station after he'd sent Cass away. Though he had no memory of dying he was certain that he was in hell. He remembered the stink of it and he could sometimes hear it grinding away on the other side of these walls that stretched up to some black and shadowed height where he couldn't see anything at all. There was an iron door in one wall and once he'd gone and stood at the door and tried to listen for any sound on the other side and something had shot under the gap below the door and grabbed his ankle and brought him crashing to the floor and then wrenched at him as if it could somehow drag him whole through those few inches. His knee had jammed up hard against the doorsill and Dean had bellowed in pain and bloodied his fingers trying to find some purchase to pull himself free and then the thing had let go of him so suddenly that Dean's forehead slammed on the floor. He had pulled his leg in and spun around and scuttled backward from the door and seen his leg clawed up to the knee and spiraled around with friction burns and on the other side of the door something sniffed and sniffed and then bony fingers appeared in the gap and felt their way around blindly. Dean had gotten up and gone to the door and then stomped on the fingers with his heel and the thing had shrieked and retreated. Since then he would sometimes hear whispering outside the door and he knew that if they wanted to come in they would come in, and whatever they wanted to do with him they would do, just as they had for forty years. But no one came in.
After a while he began to understand that he was still alive because he would sleep and he had never slept in hell. At first he had also been hungry but that had passed and he knew it had passed because now he was starving. There was a tap in the wall and water or something like it came out of the tap but he'd had nothing to eat for longer than he could remember and the awareness of his own starvation made him realize he was still alive if nothing else did. With that came the knowledge that in spite of everything he had tried to do he was just going to starve to death in this nameless corner of hell while somewhere, the world went on with its dying.
His bones ached and he shifted but could find no relief. His leg burned. He was thirsty and he looked at the tap. It was on the other side of the room. High up in the wall above it was a grilled window that seemed to look out onto sky though the light neither waxed nor waned but was always the same sulfured gray. Dean sat there and stared at the tap. A drop of water appeared at its lip and hung there shimmering before it fell to the floor and slipped down the drain. He heard it descend all the way down some pipe that went God only knew where. Another one took its place and also dangled for a moment and then followed the first.
That's it, Dean thought. I'm going over there.
He thought if he stood up he would fall over but he wasn't going to crawl, not yet. He pushed himself up and waited for a wave of faintness to pass and then he made his way across the long room with his shoulder against the wall. He got down on his knees and turned the tap and it creaked and rust flaked from it and it coughed out a sudden burst and then a thin trickle of yellow water began to leak from it. He collected it in his hands and drank. It smelled and tasted terrible but it was water and he'd always heard that dying of thirst was worse than starving to death. He turned off the tap and sat against the wall and caught his breath. He thought about staying there but the tap was close to the door and he didn't want to be close to that door and from here he couldn't see the window. Such as it was, it was still a window. After a while he got up and crossed back to the other side of the room and then he just sat there. He thought about Cass and told him again that he was sorry and he hoped that Cass had listened to him and left Detroit and gone back to Amy and then he wouldn't let himself think about Cass anymore. He closed his eyes and slipped into a haze and then he fell asleep.
When he woke Lucifer was sitting next to him. Dean startled so hard that his head rapped against the wall. Lucifer didn't move. He sat there with Sam's long legs drawn up under his chin like a gargoyle and studied Dean.
"Long time no see," Dean said at last. Lucifer didn't say anything. The room was deathly quiet. Dean could hear his own pulse in his ears. "Something on your mind?"
"Why aren't you dead?" Lucifer said.
Dean pondered the question. "Nine lives?"
Lucifer narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. "Why haven't I killed you yet?"
Dean stared at him. After a moment he said, "I don't know, Sam," and Lucifer slapped him hard across the face.
"Don't talk to him."
"Sorry, Sammy," Dean said and Lucifer slapped him again. Dean smiled and put his hand up to the corner of his mouth. He was bleeding. "Touched a nerve?" he said, but when he looked up Lucifer was gone.
He came back some unknowable time later and he crouched next to Dean and picked up Dean's wrist and wrapped his hand around it until his thumb and middle finger met.
"You're starving," he said.
"Yeah, that tends to happen when you don't eat."
"What do you want to eat?"
"Oh, I don't know. Bacon cheeseburger, medium. Grilled onions. Side of fries."
"Here," Lucifer said, and there it was. On a white plate, the meat so hot it was still sizzling. Dean started to tremble. He could have wolfed down the whole thing, plate and all.
"I can't eat that," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm starving, genius. I eat that, it's gonna come right back up."
"Try it."
Dean looked at the plate. He looked at Lucifer. "Is that...what kind of meat is that?"
Lucifer frowned. "It's beef. And bacon. Pork. What do you think it is?"
"I don't know...kittens? Babies? Soylent Green?"
Lucifer raised his eyebrows. "No, it's just plain old cows and pigs. Go on." He put the plate down on the floor.
Dean looked at Lucifer for another moment and then he picked up the burger and took a bite out of it. He had to close his eyes and just hold it in his mouth because it was so good. He was nearly in tears. He chewed it very slowly and then swallowed it. He sat there and waited. In the corner of his eye Lucifer watched him. Nothing happened and then a jolt of pain hit his gut and he doubled over.
"Oh Christ," he said through his teeth. He pressed his forehead into his knees. "Oh fuck."
He sat there in a frigid sweat until the spasm passed. When he opened his eyes the plate was gone.
"Try this instead," Lucifer said and handed him a thick cup with a spoon in it. Dean took it and stirred it. Tomato soup with rice.
"Your mother used to make that when you were sick."
Dean stared down into the cup. The white grains floated and sank. His vision trebled and he blinked and nodded.
"Sam?" he said but he was alone.
The next time Dean woke up he knew Lucifer was there even with his eyes closed. He had the feeling he'd been sitting there watching him for a long time. He opened his eyes and saw Lucifer crouched in that same gargoyle pose but his hands were clamped around his knees so tight that the knuckles were white and straining and Dean sat up slowly and watched Lucifer watch him.
Finally Lucifer said, "Michael."
After a moment Dean said, "What about him?"
"You. You were supposed to be Michael's vessel. This..." He reached out and took Dean's arm. "This was owed to Michael."
"Depends who you ask."
"Why did you say no?"
"I didn't think meat suit was a good look for me?"
"Why you?" Lucifer said. He put a finger under Dean's chin. "Why this? Out of all the billions of people why did Michael want this one?"
"I don't know," Dean said. "Why did you want my brother?"
"He was claimed for me by my servant Azazel."
"Mmm, yeah. The name rings a bell."
"Who claimed you for Michael? Who prepared you?"
"You're asking the wrong guy," Dean said but Lucifer wasn't listening to him.
"Michael," he said. "Michael's vessel. Michael's chosen."
He reached down suddenly and grasped Dean's wounded leg and Dean tried to bolt up but Lucifer put his other hand on Dean's chest and stilled him and said, "Don't move," and then he looked at Dean and said, "That's better."
Dean looked at his leg. He looked at Lucifer. "Good as new," he said. He stared at Lucifer with his heart hammering. He could hear hell outside the walls. He could smell it on Lucifer's clothes. Lucifer had not killed him and had not let him starve and had kept him apart from the legions of hell and Dean was suddenly more afraid than he'd been in a long time.
Lucifer stood up so abruptly that Dean caught his breath and braced himself but Lucifer just stared down at him and then he turned and crossed the room and went out through the door and only when Dean heard the bolt hammer down on the other side did he finally let out his breath.
* * *
Dean heard him on the other side of the door and then he heard the bolt and he was already on his feet when Lucifer came in and he pressed his back to the wall as if it would protect him but before the door had even slammed shut Lucifer was across the room and he grabbed Dean by the throat and drove his head into the wall and hit him so hard his knees buckled.
"Michael's vessel," Lucifer said. He hit him again. "Michael's chosen."
Lucifer beat him until his vision swam. He couldn't feel his legs. When Lucifer let him go he collapsed on the floor and he rolled to his side and looked up and saw Lucifer bending over him and he pushed up onto his elbows and tried to get away from him but there was no place to go and he knew what was coming next. When he was face down on the floor with Lucifer on top of him he realized that he had somehow thought that because this hadn't happened already it wasn't going to happen and yet here it was and nothing he could do about it. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against the floor. It was some kind of rough concrete and he could feel it abrading his face, his legs, his clenched fists. When Lucifer was done he put his mouth to Dean's ear.
"See?" he said. "What Michael wanted, I have."
Dean looked at him over his shoulder. "Yeah? All you've got is what a whole lotta demons got for forty fuckin years. Real lowlifes too," he laughed, "Not big shots like you."
Lucifer stared at him. For a moment Dean thought Lucifer was going to kill him but he didn't and Dean hoped he would pass out this time but that didn't happen either, though it went on and on.
When Lucifer finally got up off him Dean couldn't move. He lay there and listened to Lucifer pull up his jeans and zip and buckle himself.
"It's okay, Sam," he said. "I know that wasn't you." He was shuddering and he turned onto his side with some effort and drew up his knees. "It wasn't you."
Lucifer didn't say anything and Dean thought he had gone. When he opened his eyes he saw Lucifer standing in a stoop with his arms hanging at his sides and his face blank. Dean raised himself up onto his arms.
"Sam?" he said softly. Then even more softly, "Sam?"
Lucifer turned his head and looked at him, but it was not Lucifer. It was Sam and yet not altogether Sam, a person sleepwalking through some nightmare separate from yet not heedless of the waking world.
"I won't let him, Dean, never...I won't..."
"Sam...Sam, listen..."
"Not again, I won't..."
"It's Michael," Dean said and Sam fell silent and stared at him.
"Yes."
"Michael is the way out. Michael's vessel. Me."
Sam nodded and covered his face with his hands.
Dean said, "Sam, look at me."
When Sam put his hands down Dean looked at his brother and said, "Should I say yes to him? Is that what I need to do?"
"Not yet."
"When?"
Sam clenched his jaw and swallowed hard. "Not yet. You'll know."
"All right," Dean said. "All right, Sam."
"I won't let him..." Sam made a vague gesture that took in the room, the whole awful scene. "Do this again."
"Can you stop him? Without him knowing?"
"I don't know."
"Then don't risk it."
"Dean..."
"Don't risk it. I don't care. It'll all be over soon anyway."
Sam blinked and his eyes were wet and he was shaking.
"I have to go."
"I know."
"I'm so sorry, Dean."
"I know that, Sammy. So am I. I'm sorry I..."
Sam had closed his eyes. He rose up to his full height and when he opened his eyes Dean knew that Lucifer was here. He didn't look at Dean. He turned around and walked right out through the wall. After a while Dean got up and went to the water tap and cleaned himself as well as he could. He drank handful after handful of water. Then he got dressed and went to the corner and lay down and stared at the window, up at hell's unchanging sky.
* * *
In some pale and wasting daylight Cass stood on an iron railroad trestle and looked down upon River Rouge. The air was still and very cold. Rising up on his right was the flat round hulk of a fuel oil tank and beside that a rusting blast furnace and some great pile of debris that had begun to coagulate into one solid and mountainous mass. To his left, the river half-frozen and smoking, and all before him a wasteland of railcars and sludgepits and the derelict constructions of the old complex. Nothing moved. Ashen snow began to fall. Cass took a deep breath and let it out steaming before him and he reached down and checked the knife in his boot and then straightened up and secured the machinegun on his shoulder and the weight of chain under his clothes shifted and settled. The last time he had gone down into hell for Dean he'd done so with no weapon save his own grace and no doubt that he would find the one he sought and no reckoning or even care for who that one might be. For just a moment longer he stood there and then he stepped down off the bridge and went on.
Continued in Chapter IV: Fallen and Firstborn.