Fic: In Country, Chapter V of V, Part One
Mar. 28th, 2011 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oselleTitle: In Country, Chapter 5 of 5 (posted in 3 parts due to length)
Genre: SPN slash, AU based upon Episode 5:04, "The End"
Pairings: Dean/Castiel, Dean/Lucifer
Principals: Future!Dean, Future!Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Graphic violence, noncon, dubcon, sex, death, mayhem, freakish pregnancy (not MPREG) and angst (please check previous chapters for their ratings and warnings)
Spoilers: For SPN Episode 5:04
Word Count: 27,000 for Chapter V (approximately 62,000 for complete story)
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: The world's gone to hell in the Croatoan apocalypse and Dean and Castiel have to put an end to it for good.
The Story So Far: Lucifer shows Dean a hot time in New Jersey, Cass makes a dubious new friend down in hell, and everything builds to the end.
Not caught up? Go back to Chapter IV: Fallen and Firstborn
V. This Pendent World, Part One
It is that hour when the country lies nightbound from one ocean to the other and in the darkness Lucifer walks. He passes the dead towers of one city and the smoking ruins of another and there are hardly any lights left for him to outwalk and he is alone in his travels and goes forth as one long acquainted with the night.
Through the cities and towns, in the mountains and deserts and plains, he carries with him a shroud of stillness but he has left chaos in his wake in too many places to number. In New York they are burning everyone they can round up and in Memphis they are hanging witches in the name of Jesus Christ and in Los Angeles so many people have been shot for looting that their bodies are piled in the streets like dead cattle. Soon a man with special keys and special codes will decide the time has come to purify the world with fire as God once purified it with flood and this man will go under the ground and unleash that fire until the burning veils the sun forever and this pendent world once poised in the heavens like a jewel from the hand of God is nothing but a crumbling rock in the frozen silence of space. But there is still time for that.
The morning is a long way off and this sun's rising will be among the last of its race. In darkness he comes again to Detroit where Asmodeus has been commissioned and is not permitted to leave because Lucifer would know where his allies are and by his own hand so few of them are left. This Asmodeus who now calls himself Asher is a creature who tired of God so long ago that Lucifer has some peculiar trust of him and he has come to Detroit because it was Asher who brought Michael's vessel to him and who spoke Michael's name in his presence for the first time in uncountable years.
No use to you at all, Michael's vessel? Asher said as he stood on the roof in his yellow feet and shabby suit. At the end of Lucifer's arm hung this vessel of Michael, completely still and ready to die. He was wounded and Lucifer could hear his blood spattering drop by drop onto the broken pavement seventeen floors below the abandoned tower of Michigan Central.
Lucifer turned to Asher and cocked his head to show that he was listening and Asher shrugged and said, You don't want to throw out something you might need later, and then he said, The way Michael needed it.
And there were three of them on that roof, angel, devil and man. Angel, devil and vessel. Lucifer, Asher and Michael. Lucifer and Michael. Michael.
Some spark kindled in Lucifer's breast and he pulled Dean back onto the roof and stared at him and Asher also came around to look and to whisper in his ear like they say the snake in the garden once whispered to Eve while she slept and although Lucifer was not sleeping he still saw so clearly what Asher spoke of and everything Asher said was about God and Lucifer and Michael and Lucifer knew then that Michael's vessel had not come into his hands by accident. From that moment he had no rest and the spark became a slow consuming fire that burned with all of his ancient envy and lust and pride and something that might once have been love until he almost understood what men meant by madness but he knows that he is not mad.
He finds Asher in his old apartments which are now deserted and Asher sits as if he has been waiting for him and Lucifer goes to the window and looks out into the night and finally he says, "It's just like God to put in my hands the one thing I can't have."
Asher is quiet for a long time before he answers.
"Michael's vessel."
"Yes."
"Not having any luck?"
"No. But I will."
He hears the creak of Asher's chair as the old devil leans forward.
"Where do you have him?"
He looks at Asher and is so jealous of this knowledge that he tells him only that Dean is in hell and nothing else and Asher leans back and examines his filthy nails and takes a cigar from his pocket and lights it and huffs on it and the coal waxes and wanes in the gloom.
Then Asher says, "Well, it's a good thing that other one is gone. He'd have been storming the gates by now."
"Who?"
"That angel. Or was an angel."
Lucifer remembers him suddenly and asks what happened to him and Asher waves his hand in a vague fashion that points towards the city outside these walls and at the same time dismisses the subject.
"Dogs got him."
"Are you sure?"
"Has he turned up?"
"No."
"Then he's dead. He'd have to be, because he'd always come when Dean called." Asher looks at him through a veil of gray smoke. "He would always come when Dean called, wouldn't he?"
After a while Lucifer says, "Yes, he would."
"Like there was a chain between the two of them."
"A chain," Lucifer says and thinks of a chain, the chain, the unbroken chain and the sword of adamant and the thousand armies, and of Michael, prince of heaven, archangel of the Lord, vengeance of God and his brother. Once.
He starts as if something has shaken him and Asher leans forward and watches and Lucifer stands there and listens.
"What is it?" Asher says and Lucifer looks at him and a slow smile spreads across his face and then he is gone and Asher, Asmodeus once, sits back in his tattered chair in a cloud of smoke and his own stink as if he would sit there forever until the very walls of the place fell down around him and indeed there is little reason why he would not.
* * *
Mary took Cass up the stairs and they came out together onto the blacktar roof. The starless night sky had turned from black into a yellowed gray with none of dawn's soft approach and no sign of any sun and not even a shred of cloud to mark the blank dome of sky. He had no idea if he faced east or west, north or south. Below him he could see the avenues Mary had led him down in the night and the squalid slums he had come through on his own with their greasy brick walls and maze of streets, some roiling with activity and some deserted or nearly so. In one direction he saw the city taper into that wasteland he had traveled yesterday and in the other he saw only thick clouds of smoke and in yet another he saw a single black spire rising up into the sky.
Mary pointed to the spire. "That's Pandemon," she said. "The old seat of Lucifer's kingdom."
"Do you think Dean is there?"
"Do you really have no idea? Not even a clue?"
"No, I don't."
"Didn't you find him once before?"
"I was sent to rescue Dean before they could break him and open the first seal on Lucifer's prison. I was too late. We were all too late. But I did find him. I didn't need to search for him, I knew where he was. I just knew. Asmodeus thought that would work again." He stared out at the hopeless landscape. "I think he was wrong."
"Why would he even think that would work?" she snapped. "He knows you lost it all."
"He thought it would work because..." Cass looked at her and then looked away. "Because I love Dean."
"Oh. Did he think your dick would be a compass or something?"
"He thought enough of my grace remained that...that our bond would mean something here. But I don't know where Dean is. And you said that you don't either."
"Well why would I?" she laughed. "I'm not fucking him."
"We're wasting time," Cass said.
"Yeah," she said. "You're right." She nodded towards Pandemon. "Might as well start looking there. That's where my father brought me when he found me again."
"Is it guarded?"
"No. No one really wants to get in and there's hardly anyone left to get out. And even if they did, where would they go?" She pointed at the slums. "That shithole?" Towards the smoking horizon. "The mines? The factories?" She looked out in some direction that Cass might have said was south. There seemed to be nothing there at all. "Sheol? Now that place is guarded...but definitely not to keep anyone out."
"I know Sheol. I was there, before." He looked at her. "Dean could be there."
"He'll wind up there if Lucifer doesn't get what he wants out of him. But Lucifer rules hell from Pandemon and Dean will be wherever my father is."
"All right," Cass said. "We'll go to Pandemon." He took one more look around and by then Mary had crossed the roof and was waiting for him at the stairs.
"Let's go," she said and so they went.
* * *
Dean called Lucifer for a long time and there was no answer. After a while he became sure that Lucifer was playing some game with him and was going to make him wait until he had to beg.
"You know you want it, asshole," he muttered under his breath. "Now you're playing hard to get?"
Then he heard steps in the hall, the long stride that still sounded so much like Sam's and Lucifer opened the door and closed it and stood there and looked at Dean and neither of them said anything. If Lucifer knew why Dean had called, his face betrayed none of it and the silence spun out between them.
At last Dean said, "You would stop it...what you showed me. What's going on up there."
"Yes I would."
"How? You gonna snap your fingers and put everything back the way it was?"
"It won't be that simple. It's too far gone."
"Then what's the plan? I need to know that this'll work."
"The demons are under my command. I'll bring every one of them back to hell and lock them up down here. The people who are working with them will find out soon enough they picked the wrong side. I'll make sure they wind up here too. Once they're gone, the world will begin to heal."
"What about the Croatoan virus?"
"Gone."
"Gone? Just like that."
"Just like that. Anyone who has it will be cured. There will be no more outbreaks. It'll take a little time to get things back on track, but they'll get there. Years from now, these dark times will just be something they raise memorials to."
"What about you?"
"My business is with heaven and God. If you give me what I want, I'll keep it there. No one on earth will even know what's happening."
"What will be happening?"
"Nothing that will touch your kind. I promise."
"And Sam?"
"Free to go."
"I've seen what people are like after they've been possessed."
"You've seen people possessed by demons and careless, sloppy angels like Raphael. I've taken very good care of your brother, Dean. He can go on to live a full life in a new world. A world that will need leaders like him."
Dean put his head down. His hands were in fists and he shoved them under his arms and began mouthing words to himself and Lucifer said, "What? What are you saying?"
Dean looked up. "I want to talk to him."
Lucifer laughed. "What?"
"I want to talk to Sam. Now. Just him. You keep telling me you're still Sam well, you let him come out and talk to me. He'll know if you're telling the truth."
"And that will set your mind at ease?"
"Yes."
Lucifer stood there and contemplated and Dean said, ''Let me talk to him. One last time before I'm...before I'm not myself anymore."
Lucifer smiled. "Oh, Dean. You'll be so much more than yourself. You have no idea."
"Well Sam can tell me about that, too."
"All right," Lucifer said. He nodded. "All right."
"How will I know when he's..." Dean began and then stopped. "Sam?"
"Yeah, Dean. It's me."
"Where's Lucifer?"
"I don't know. He just sort of checks out. " His face shadowed with concern and he said, "Dean..." and came towards him and Dean stepped back and he said, "Dean, it's me. It's really me."
Dean hesitated another moment and then he said, "Sam..." He went to him and pulled him into an embrace. He closed his eyes and held his breath and let himself be there.
"Dean, he's telling the truth. It can all be over."
"Really?" Dean said. He curled open his right hand and looked at the bloody sigil in his palm that he'd made with his own nails and teeth.
"Yeah. And he'll let you go...after. He'll let you go and everything can be like it was before. Better."
"New and improved, huh, Sammy?" He was almost in tears.
"Yeah. New and improved." He drew back to look at Dean and Dean smiled up at him.
"It's good to talk to you, Sam," Dean said.
"You too."
"You know what would be even better?"
"What?"
"If you were really Sam, you lying son of a bitch," he said and then he clamped his bloody hand over Lucifer's forehead and began to say aloud the words he'd been mouthing to himself and Lucifer's eyes flew open and he took a stumbling step backwards and Dean followed without letting him go.
"What are you doing!"
"Something I picked up from an angel," he said and he went on with words Castiel had taught him long ago in a language he'd never heard of.
"Stop this!"
"No," Dean said and then all at once he was thrown to the floor and he raised up and saw Lucifer on his hands and knees with blood dripping from his forehead and neither of them moved and then Lucifer looked up and it was not Lucifer.
"Sam? Sammy?" He scrambled over to him and took Sam's face in his hands and Sam stared at him dazed. "It worked," he said. "It really worked..."
"You shouldn't have done this."
"I had to...Sam..."
"He'll know," Sam said. "He'll know."
"I don't care, Sam, I had to talk to you...I don't know what to do... you said not yet but all those people...the whole world...for God's sake, Sam, what am I supposed to do?"
Sam closed his eyes and shook his head violently
"Not yet."
"Did you see those barges? Do you know what's happening? Sam?"
"I know. I know, but you can't say yes, you can't trust him. This is the only thing holding him back and if he gets what he wants he'll finish it, you have to wait, Dean, you have to wait..."
"Wait? Wait for what?"
Sam opened his eyes and looked at him.
"Wait for Castiel," he said and Dean pulled back and just stared.
"Cass? Cass is alive? Sam?"
Something shifted in Sam's face. In his eyes. A thing so small it could have gone unnoticed.
"What did he say to you?"
Dean shook his head. He backed away from Lucifer slowly on his knees. As if there was anyplace to go.
"What did he say to you?"
"You wouldn't let him out, you prick."
Lucifer fell on him so suddenly there was no chance of escape and rode him to the ground and grabbed Dean by the jaw and battered his head against the floor until Dean felt his eyes roll up in their sockets.
"What did he say to you? What?
"Nothing..."
"Tell me!"
Dean grinned. "He said you fart in your sleep. Keeps him awake all night."
Lucifer roared wordlessly and slammed Dean's head again and Dean felt the hot wetness of blood begin to spread beneath his skull.
"He said..." His vision swam. "He wishes you'd brush his teeth for once."
"Get up," Lucifer said. He pulled Dean to his feet and Dean's legs stammered beneath him and the room pitched and rolled. "Get the fuck up."
"He said you like to scratch your balls and smell your fingers after," Dean laughed and kept on laughing even as Lucifer was dragging him out the door. He'd never seen what was on the other side. He was in a tunnel, dark, other doors to other cells lining it. A metal grate beneath his bare feet, cold as ice. Lucifer hurled him around and shoved him up against the wall.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?"
"I know who I am. Michael's vessel. Michael's chosen." He smiled. "Not yours."
Lucifer stared at him. The tunnel was deathly silent except for their breathing. Then Lucifer smiled. He lowered Dean to his feet and pulled him away from the wall.
"Come on, Dean. I've got something to show you."
He clamped an arm around Dean and hauled him to a flight of iron stairs and all but dragged him up them and then down a stone passage that narrowed to a keyhole arch and now there was a sound and a stench that called up such immediate and horrifying images that Dean reflexively shrank back and Lucifer laughed and pulled him onwards.
"You're not afraid now are you? Of course you're not!" he said cheerfully and dragged him towards the end of the passage where the light was red and smoking and the noise and stink were worse than ever and Dean retched from all of this and the memories that went with it. He'd been here before.
They came out onto a black gantry with a railing at its edge and Lucifer threw Dean at the railing and bent him over it and seized him by the hair so that he couldn't look away. Below him the pit writhed and burned. This was where they'd first taken him in hell, after a long time alone in the dark, they'd taken him here and left him here in an abyss of time and torment. Dean shut his eyes and put his hands over his face, his ears, and then Lucifer hoisted him up so his feet were in the air and he thought this was it and he had neither time to scream nor pray and then Lucifer was reeling him back. Dean collapsed on the gantry and Lucifer squatted down before him.
"There's still time, Dean. I haven't given up on you yet. Haven't given up on you," he repeated and then pulled him back up to his feet and they went on. Lucifer took him up and down. Through narrow passages lined with doors and behind them Dean could hear screaming and choking and garbled pleas for help and mercy that would never be answered. He'd been here before, too. They came at last to a door that stood alone at a dead end and Lucifer pushed it open and shoved Dean inside so hard that he stumbled and fell. The floor was slick with gore and in the center of it was a drain that was clogged with flesh and hair and bone. He raised up on his hands and looked around himself and it was all so much the same that he almost expected Alistair to be there waiting for him but Alistair was dead and some other demon was here to do Alistair's job. Everything else was unchanged. The walls hanging with tools of the trade. The table with its surface grilled to let the blood sluice through it. Chains and clamps and wires dangling from it. Even the yellow light hanging from the ceiling in its wire cage. All of it the same.
Playtime's over, he thought. Now we're getting down to business. He staggered to his feet and turned to face Lucifer and took a step away from him and then another.
"You remember this place, don't you?"
"Oh yeah," Dean said. "Good times."
"I didn't want it to come to this but now I know you only care about your own skin. Not about anyone else. Not even about Sam."
"You don't fucking say his name."
"Tell me what he said to you."
"Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit."
Lucifer stared at him and then he started to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to bend over and put his hands on his knees. Dean looked at him. He looked at the demon who wasn't Alistair, sitting in the corner on a metal stool with a bowl of some grisly slop in his lap and his fingers raised halfway to his mouth. The demon looked at Lucifer and at Dean and back at Lucifer and then Dean turned and grabbed the first thing his hands touched, an iron pipe some four feet in length and dull with dried blood and he spun around and raised it and just as Lucifer looked up Dean slammed it into his head.
The blow sent Lucifer reeling and the demon shot to his feet and the bowl fell and splattered its contents across the floor and Lucifer raised his hand at once and the demon flew up off his feet and crashed into the wall.
"This is between me and him," Lucifer said and then he turned to Dean grinning and straightened up. His ear was bleeding. "Do it again."
Dean stood there panting and he looked at the demon and then at Lucifer with the pipe held out in his two hands as if he were at batting practice.
"Come on, Dean, do it again." He stepped to the right and Dean followed him to the left, circling. "I've been waiting to see some of this fight you're supposed to have. Come on."
"Sam," Dean said. "Sam, talk to me."
Lucifer pulled a long face. "It's me, Dean. It's Sam. Help me, Dean."
"Sam. Talk to me."
"I am talking to you. How could you let this happen to me, Dean? Didn't you promise Dad you wouldn't?"
They circled each other like two figures bound on opposite ends of a pole.
"Sam..."
"Why won't you help me, Dean? Why won't you say yes? Just give him what he wants, Dean, I'm begging you, please, Dean, please..."
Dean stopped for a second and stared at him and then with a hoarse shout he rushed at Lucifer and raised the pipe and swung it hard and Lucifer went down and came up and then stayed down and Dean beat him wildly. He felt something tear in his shoulder and kept going and he was bellowing Sam's name and couldn't stop. Now Lucifer was on his knees and he looked up at Dean with his face battered and all bloody and he raised his arm in supplication.
"Dean...please..." he whispered and Dean caught himself in mid-swing and stared down at him and then his legs were slammed out from underneath him. He went down hard and lost the pipe and heard it clang off across the floor. He lay paralyzed on his back and watched Lucifer get to his feet. Wipe his face. Clean his hand on his shirt. Come to where Dean was sprawled out and stand over him.
"Did that make you feel better?" he said softly. He crouched beside Dean and touched Dean's face and Dean tried to turn his head away but he couldn't. He closed his eyes and waited for whatever came next and then Lucifer grabbed him under the arms and yanked him up against himself into a half-raised position and locked his arms under and over Dean's shoulders and held him there.
"You," Lucifer said. "Come over here."
The demon was still on the floor where Lucifer had thrown him and he got up and slunk over to them.
"Move it," Lucifer said and when the demon was standing next to them he said, "What's your name?"
"I got no name."
"Okay, no-name. Go over there and get that hammer."
The demon went to the wall and took down the broadhead hammer and Lucifer put his mouth to Dean's ear and said, "I need your fucking permission to get in you, but he doesn't. Funny, isn't it? It sucks being an angel sometimes. So many rules."
Dean understood what was about to happen and he started to buck and twist in Lucifer's grasp. He shoved his heels against the floor and tried to push himself away from Lucifer but his feet skidded in the gluey slime and he was held fast.
"You don't want to say yes to me? See what it's like to have this pig upfucking you. See what it's like. You'll be begging for me. I might not even want you after he's done."
"Sam, don't do this," Dean said.
"Sam can't hear you. Sammy's gone for the day."
The demon brought the hammer and held it out to Lucifer but Lucifer said, "Oh no, no-name, that's for you. See, our friend here has some graffiti on his ribs so you'll need to break them before you can get in."
The demon grinned. "You want me to ride him?"
"That's exactly what I want, no-name. Thank you."
Dean closed his eyes. "Sam, I know you can hear me."
The demon squatted down and planted his knees into Dean's thighs to hold him.
"Go on," Lucifer said and the demon raised the hammer and struck. Dean felt two ribs shatter at once and he arched back against Lucifer's chest and gasped and almost fainted.
"Keep going."
Three ribs. Four. Dean grayed out and when he came back he heard Sam's voice, Wait for Castiel. It still didn't make sense to him. Wait for Castiel.
The demon pushed Dean's shirt up and ran a hand over his torso.
"That'll do it," he said to Lucifer. "You want me to keep going?"
"No need for overkill. Just get on with it."
The demon dropped the hammer to the floor and leaned over Dean and seized his head in both hands and then shoved his mouth against Dean's and Dean screamed with that thing's tongue in his mouth and its black soul pouring down his throat and distantly he could feel his brother's heartbeat against his back and hear his own heels hammering the floor.
Then suddenly he was dropped and Lucifer was gone and the demon was gone. He rolled over barely conscious and retched a vile black slurry onto the floor and some of it evaporated like smoke and some of it turned into bugs that ran skittering off down the drain. He lay there with his eyes streaming and saw Lucifer standing with his back to him and at his feet was a pile of black ash and the demon was nowhere. He shuddered and curled up and coughed savagely and then he felt a hand on his arm and he looked up at Sam.
Dean grabbed Sam's wrists and pulled himself up. "Fight him!" he hissed. "Fight him, don't let him back!"
"No, we have to see this through to the end."
"What does that mean?"
"We take him out for good."
"How?"
"Castiel is coming. You have to call him."
"What?"
"You have to call him so he can find you. He has what we need. You can't say yes until then. Do you understand?"
"Yes...no...I don't know... "
"You do. Just call him. He'll come, he always did." He gathered Dean gently into his arms and kissed him on the cheek and buried his face in Dean's shoulder. "It wasn't supposed to get this bad. I thought he would protect you...I thought...." He laid his hand on Dean's broken ribs and Dean felt the pain fade and the bones knit themselves back together.
"That's better."
"Sam," Dean said. "Oh God, Sam, don't go."
"Call him. Pray to him."
Dean nodded and Sam kissed him again and then stood up and was gone.
* * *
They walked out underneath the bridge that Cass had passed the night before and even in that murky daylight the roadbed of the bridge was no more distinct than it had been in the dark. Stone towers rose up into the fog and the sound of wheels on the iron grid was ceaseless but he couldn't imagine whence the bridge came or where it led and when he asked Mary she answered nowhere to both questions. For some time they walked among the city's buildings, all of them black with soot and the gutters beneath their feet were clotted with wet filth. The place seemed as wholly deserted as Detroit had been and the only sounds were their own echoing steps and a wind that moaned in the alleys and empty doorways and broken windows. Finally Cass asked her why there was no one here and she only said that hell went on and on and no one knew the whole of it. Not herself, not Lucifer, not even God.
After a time the buildings became sparser until finally after passing a great pile of smoking rubble they left the city behind. A barren landscape stretched out around them as featureless as a desert of dust and bisected by a single strip of two-lane blacktop. After they'd been walking on this road for a while Cass stopped and looked ahead in dismay.
"Can't you just..."
"Can't I just what?"
"Can't you just take us there all at once?" he asked. "Demons can do that. Angels too."
"I'm neither one," she said.
"You're Lucifer's daughter."
"I have almost no power here at all. The world of men was mine, not this one."
Cass wiped his forehead. The air was not warm but it was heavy and close. His shoulders stooped with fatigue and he couldn't remember when he'd last slept or eaten and the chain had grown immensely heavy. He was still carrying the machinegun that Marcus had given him at The Cairo and he slipped it off and leaned on it and thought that he might as well throw it away for all the good it was here but he couldn't bring himself to get rid of something so valuable, given to him by a good man.
Mary studied him and then she said, "You need to rest. And eat. You should have said something when we were still in the city."
"How long before we get to Pandemon?"
"We won't reach it before dark," she said. "And nothing's left there except Lucifer's old palace."
Cass nodded and then hoisted the machinegun back onto his shoulder and started walking. He was limping on his once-broken foot, the first but far from the last of his human weaknesses. He remembered how Dean had forced him to get out of bed and walk on it so that he wouldn't be crippled and had brought him crutches in some refugee camp or hideout in those first days of the virus which now seemed to have happened in another lifetime altogether.
"There are places," she said from behind him and he stopped and turned around.
"What sort of places?"
"Waystations," she said. "You have them on earth too. I don't think you'll like them very much."
"This is hell. I don't expect to like anything at all."
"All right," she said and as she came up beside him she added, "They come and go but we should find one." She stopped and looked him up and down. "What are you going to do about that chain?"
"Why would I do anything about it?"
"There's a lot of whoring at these waystations. I don't want you taking off your clothes and showing that thing off."
"Is that a requirement?"
"What, fucking?"
"Taking off my clothes. I don't have to strip naked to fuck and I can suck cock fully dressed." She studied him and then she laughed and shook her head and he said, "If you were trying to shock me, don't waste your time, or mine. I know where I am. I know what kind of things I'll have to do."
"Okay then," she said. "Duly noted."
* * *
By the time they reached the waystation night had once again fallen and the place they were headed stood out on that scoured plain like a hot coal pulsing in the dark. Across the distance Cass could hear a saloonlike ruckus of music and harsh voices. It had become very cold and the wind was blowing hard and he was stooped over and shivering, the chain burning him while providing no warmth. Something like snow was falling and now in the light from the waystation he could see frozen and filthy patches of it on the ground among pits that were filled with garbage. The waystation itself was little more than a concrete box that squatted under the black chasm of sky above it. The door of the place opened and a figure came staggering out naked and began to run only to be pursued by others and pulled back inside screaming and he put his hand on Mary's arm and stopped her.
"No. We're not going in there."
"You're going to freeze."
"I'll be all right."
"You don't want to be out here in the dark."
He looked at her and at the waystation and couldn't imagine it would be any safer in there and his own fear and revulsion all but overpowered him. He felt very much at Mary's mercy and thought it was still possible that he might wind up trapped in such a place while Dean remained imprisoned and the world edged ever closer to its end and he didn't know what to do.
At last as if she had made up his mind for him, Mary said, "Wait outside."
He shook his head and she repeated it and led him up to the door and told him again to wait. Before he could stop her she had disappeared inside and the door had closed behind her on a clamor of noise and odors and he was left outside in the wind and the cold. As he stood there he saw shapes creeping in out of the darkness and the waste and gathering in silence all around him. Their eyes shone back the light. He could just make out that some of them were beastlike and others still nearly human in form and he wrapped his hand around the hilt of the knife and put his back to the concrete wall and watched them.
She emerged from the waystation with a tall demon that she called Clay. He wore a waistcoat and britches and he was covered in sores and had a great ring of keys on his wrist. He sized Cass up and then jerked his head and went off around the side of the building.
"Go on," Mary said.
They followed Clay to the back and he took them up stairs that were nothing but rough plankboards nailed together. With a key from his ring he unlocked a door at the top of the stairs and they passed into complete blackness. The noise from downstairs pounded up through the floor. For a moment Cass stood there completely disoriented by the dark and then a sulfur lamp flared up and Cass squinted against the sudden brightness. When his eyes adjusted he saw they were in a long windowless room that was full of trash and broken remnants of furniture. In one corner stood a mountain of discarded clothing.
"This is it," Clay said to Mary.
"It's fine," she answered and then she turned to Cass and said, "You can stay up here. No one has the key except Clay."
"Where are you going?"
"Downstairs."
"No," he said. "No you're not. And I'm not staying locked in up here."
"You don't trust me?"
"Why would I?"
She put her hand on his chest and pushed against the chain and stared at him in the yellow light.
"I need you," she said. "And you need me. You'll be as safe here as you can be anywhere in hell. Get some rest. I'll send you something to eat." She smiled. "Have faith."
Clay said to Mary, "Come on, let's go." Cass seized her wrist.
"What are you going to do down there?"
"It's nothing for me," she said, and then she turned and followed Clay out the door. Cass heard the bolt shut and lock and their footsteps going down the stairs and then there was nothing but the music and shouting and shrieks below his feet.
Cass stood there in the same cornered and helpless panic he'd felt in the basement of The Cairo. Then he began to get undressed. He'd been wearing the chain wrapped securely around his whole torso and now he unwound it and for just a moment he let himself savor the relief of having it off even though he still held it in his hands. Then he wearily wove it around himself again so that it wouldn't show beneath his waist. His hands were shaking while he did it. He thought of Dean in that squalid apartment in The Cairo saying in a dazed and hopeless voice that he knew what happened there and Cass knew what happened here, too. For all his talk of knowing what he'd have to do it wasn't lost on him what a fucking in this place by whatever was downstairs might do to someone who was only human. He was dressed again when the door opened and he turned to face what might come and it was Clay who closed the door and held something out to him.
"Take it. She sent it up for you."
Cass eyed the plate. It looked like plain bread and some kind of stew. It smelled edible. He took the plate and said, "Thank you," and Clay handed him a glass bottle with some liquid sloshing in it and he took that too.
When he turned to go Cass said, "Keep an eye on her."
Clay looked over his shoulder.
"She can take care of herself. You're the one we're keeping an eye on." Then he let himself out and locked the door.
He sat down on the floor and ate and drank a little and then he put the rest of it aside. He leaned his head back against the wall and thought he would never sleep because of the noise downstairs and his own fear but he was exhausted and he closed his eyes and slept.
In his sleep he could hear voices below him shouting and laughing and raised in vulgar song and he could hear the music and the pounding of their feet and fists and now and then shrieks and the ruckus of it thudded up through the floorboards until it merged into a flat wall of sound. He dreamed of the Crowne Plaza in Knoxville Tennessee where corrupt men drank and gambled and fucked and young girls worked the crowd nearly naked and hardly better off than damned souls in hell. The girls in his dream all bore tattoos that announced them open for business and Tanya was among them and Bethany too, her red hair clotted with the blood of her suicide. He turned from the Crowne Plaza and was at once at the freight office in the railyard and he ran up the stairs because Dean was dying and Anna had given him the power to do save him because God did not make mistakes.
In his dream the stairs changed and they were not crumbling and dirty but softly carpeted. He was no longer in the freight office but in a quiet and empty house that had somehow not been ransacked. Upstairs was a dripping sound and a spot in the ceiling from which long plaster stalactites hung and the carpet beneath it was wet and at the end of the hall was a bedroom, pale gray and cool with lace curtains over the windows and Dean was asleep in the bed under a clean white bedspread.
He stood in the doorway and felt all at once the full weight of Lucifer's chain and the scorching burn of it on him and he knew that this was more than a dream. Yet still he could only stand there and watch Dean sleep. At last he laid his gun down on the floor and took off his wet and filthy coat and his boots as well and he came into the room and turned back the white covers and eased himself into the bed behind Dean. He listened to the soft sounds of rain and wind against the house and then he put his arm around Dean and laid his cheek against Dean's shoulder and closed his eyes. Just for this moment, he thought. He lay in the warm bed and held him close. That's all.
After a while Dean stirred and took a deep breath and as if in his sleep he said, "You're right, Cass. We won't go to Detroit. There's nothing there."
Cass drew Dean even more closely to himself and said nothing and Dean repeated, "There's nothing there," and then at last Cass said Dean's name and Dean went very still, listening.
"Dean," Cass said again.
Dean turned over and looked up at Cass and Cass saw again those eyes as he'd first seen them in hell. The beginning of his long fall that had brought him at last to the very ending of the world. Dean stared at him as if dreading what he had to say and rightfully so.
"Is this a dream or real?" Dean asked.
"Both."
"I called you. I thought you were dead. Are you?"
"No, I'm trying to find you."
"Sam told me to call you."
"Sam?" Cass said and Dean nodded and closed his eyes and leaned himself into Cass and Cass wrapped his arms around him and held onto him. Then suddenly it was as if Cass were holding onto nothing but flesh and bones and Dean stank of fresh and dry blood and sickness and filth and when Dean pulled away Cass saw him skeletal and bloody and he knew that he was seeing Dean as he really was now. "Oh God, Dean...oh my God..."
Dean shook his head and pushed him away and rolled over and threw back the bedspread and when it landed there was a bloody handprint on it and he was sitting on the edge of the bed and the white sheets were smeared all crimson around him. Cass sat up and put his arms around him and Dean bent over his knees.
"It's too late. He wins. I either give him what he wants and everyone dies or I let him kill me and everyone dies. Either way it's all the same shit."
"What does he want..." Cass began and then remembered what Mary had told him. "Michael," he said. "He wants you to be his vessel because you would have been Michael's."
Dean nodded. "That's the only way to get him out of Sam but then..." He turned around and stared at Cass. "Sam said you have what we need. You have the chain?"
"Yes," Cass said. He nodded fiercely. "Yes, look..." He unbuttoned his shirt and revealed it and Dean stared at it and touched it with just his fingertips as Mary had done and then looked at Cass. "How are we ever gonna get this on him?"
"I don't know, but we will. I have help. And you have...you said Sam talks to you?"
"Yeah, but the motherfucker's catching on. He's not gonna wait much longer for me to say yes and if I don't...Cass, I'm going back in the Pit."
"Is that where you are?"
Dean put his head down and grimaced. "Yeah. Or close to it." He looked up at Cass. "I'm where you found me the last time. Where Alistair had me."
"Where Alistair had you..." Cass said and then, "You're not in Pandemon. We're going the wrong way." He took Dean's face in his hands. "Dean, you have to hold on. You can't say yes until you know I'm there."
"How will I know that?"
"You'll see me. I'm coming for you."
Dean stared at him and then he closed his eyes and took Cass's hands and bent his head. His hair was all bloody, the back of his head crusted with it.
"I promised you we'd go into this together and I lied." He looked up at Cass. "I had to."
"I lied too. I'm not going to let Lucifer have you, or kill you. I don't care what happens to me. I never have."
Dean smiled. He almost laughed.
"In all thy ways. You weren't kidding, were you?"
"No," Cass said. He kissed Dean. "Not once."
They sat together for a moment and Cass didn't think he'd be able to let Dean go and then suddenly he woke up alone against the wall in the upper room at the waystation. He sat up and looked around himself hardly knowing where he was. The place was completely silent. He could hear his own pulse in his ears.
He picked up his gun beside him and stood up in the dark and felt his way to the door and listened. There wasn't a sound. He put his hand on the doorknob and although he had heard Clay lock the door the knob turned and the door opened and he stepped out onto the plankboard stairs. Above him the black roof of sky. All around him the desert waste and the wind blowing. He went down the stairs and around to the front of the waystation and listened there for a moment and heard nothing and then let himself in. His eyes cut across the room and he saw Mary and Clay at a table, playing cards. There was not another soul in the place. Clay threw his cards on the table and stood up so suddenly his chair fell over backwards.
"You cunt," he said and he turned and stalked off. The tail of his waistcoast flapped around his britches. He gave Cass a filthy look and said, "You better be glad she's so good. We were playing for your ass."
She was shuffling the cards and she looked up at him.
"Sleep tight?"
"What did he mean?"
"What do you think he meant?"
"I thought you he was on your side."
"Demons are on their own side. That asshole wanted to raffle you off and I said anyone who wanted you would have to play me first."
Cass stared at her. He swallowed. He cleared his throat. She smiled.
"Now who's shocked?"
"Thank you...I...thank you." He looked around. "Where did they all go?"
She shrugged. "Sore losers," she said and then she stopped shuffling and narrowed her eyes at him. "What's happened to you?"
"I know where Dean is and it's not Pandemon. He's in Sheol."
"How do you know that?"
"I had a vision."
"A vision or a dream?"
"Both."
"Well," she said. "I guess old Asmodeus knew what he was doing." She set the cards down on the table. "This isn't such good news."
"Doesn't matter. We have to get there."
"I guess we do."
She stood up and straightened her coat. Her stomach was bigger as if whatever she carried had doubled its size in this one night. She combed her fingers through her hair and then she finished her drink and walked past him and out the door and when Cass turned to follow her Clay was at his side.
"I'd watch her if I were you," he hissed. "She always was daddy's girl."
"Meaning what?"
Clay grinned. His teeth were gray and crumbling. He rubbed his gut.
"Ask her what she's got cooking in there. It may not be what you think."
She was standing in the open door with smoky daylight spilling in around her and she told Cass to come on and Cass looked back at Clay but Clay only cocked an eyebrow at him and hitched up his rotting britches and turned away.
* * *
Go ahead to Part Two...
Genre: SPN slash, AU based upon Episode 5:04, "The End"
Pairings: Dean/Castiel, Dean/Lucifer
Principals: Future!Dean, Future!Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Graphic violence, noncon, dubcon, sex, death, mayhem, freakish pregnancy (not MPREG) and angst (please check previous chapters for their ratings and warnings)
Spoilers: For SPN Episode 5:04
Word Count: 27,000 for Chapter V (approximately 62,000 for complete story)
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: The world's gone to hell in the Croatoan apocalypse and Dean and Castiel have to put an end to it for good.
The Story So Far: Lucifer shows Dean a hot time in New Jersey, Cass makes a dubious new friend down in hell, and everything builds to the end.
Not caught up? Go back to Chapter IV: Fallen and Firstborn
V. This Pendent World, Part One
It is that hour when the country lies nightbound from one ocean to the other and in the darkness Lucifer walks. He passes the dead towers of one city and the smoking ruins of another and there are hardly any lights left for him to outwalk and he is alone in his travels and goes forth as one long acquainted with the night.
Through the cities and towns, in the mountains and deserts and plains, he carries with him a shroud of stillness but he has left chaos in his wake in too many places to number. In New York they are burning everyone they can round up and in Memphis they are hanging witches in the name of Jesus Christ and in Los Angeles so many people have been shot for looting that their bodies are piled in the streets like dead cattle. Soon a man with special keys and special codes will decide the time has come to purify the world with fire as God once purified it with flood and this man will go under the ground and unleash that fire until the burning veils the sun forever and this pendent world once poised in the heavens like a jewel from the hand of God is nothing but a crumbling rock in the frozen silence of space. But there is still time for that.
The morning is a long way off and this sun's rising will be among the last of its race. In darkness he comes again to Detroit where Asmodeus has been commissioned and is not permitted to leave because Lucifer would know where his allies are and by his own hand so few of them are left. This Asmodeus who now calls himself Asher is a creature who tired of God so long ago that Lucifer has some peculiar trust of him and he has come to Detroit because it was Asher who brought Michael's vessel to him and who spoke Michael's name in his presence for the first time in uncountable years.
No use to you at all, Michael's vessel? Asher said as he stood on the roof in his yellow feet and shabby suit. At the end of Lucifer's arm hung this vessel of Michael, completely still and ready to die. He was wounded and Lucifer could hear his blood spattering drop by drop onto the broken pavement seventeen floors below the abandoned tower of Michigan Central.
Lucifer turned to Asher and cocked his head to show that he was listening and Asher shrugged and said, You don't want to throw out something you might need later, and then he said, The way Michael needed it.
And there were three of them on that roof, angel, devil and man. Angel, devil and vessel. Lucifer, Asher and Michael. Lucifer and Michael. Michael.
Some spark kindled in Lucifer's breast and he pulled Dean back onto the roof and stared at him and Asher also came around to look and to whisper in his ear like they say the snake in the garden once whispered to Eve while she slept and although Lucifer was not sleeping he still saw so clearly what Asher spoke of and everything Asher said was about God and Lucifer and Michael and Lucifer knew then that Michael's vessel had not come into his hands by accident. From that moment he had no rest and the spark became a slow consuming fire that burned with all of his ancient envy and lust and pride and something that might once have been love until he almost understood what men meant by madness but he knows that he is not mad.
He finds Asher in his old apartments which are now deserted and Asher sits as if he has been waiting for him and Lucifer goes to the window and looks out into the night and finally he says, "It's just like God to put in my hands the one thing I can't have."
Asher is quiet for a long time before he answers.
"Michael's vessel."
"Yes."
"Not having any luck?"
"No. But I will."
He hears the creak of Asher's chair as the old devil leans forward.
"Where do you have him?"
He looks at Asher and is so jealous of this knowledge that he tells him only that Dean is in hell and nothing else and Asher leans back and examines his filthy nails and takes a cigar from his pocket and lights it and huffs on it and the coal waxes and wanes in the gloom.
Then Asher says, "Well, it's a good thing that other one is gone. He'd have been storming the gates by now."
"Who?"
"That angel. Or was an angel."
Lucifer remembers him suddenly and asks what happened to him and Asher waves his hand in a vague fashion that points towards the city outside these walls and at the same time dismisses the subject.
"Dogs got him."
"Are you sure?"
"Has he turned up?"
"No."
"Then he's dead. He'd have to be, because he'd always come when Dean called." Asher looks at him through a veil of gray smoke. "He would always come when Dean called, wouldn't he?"
After a while Lucifer says, "Yes, he would."
"Like there was a chain between the two of them."
"A chain," Lucifer says and thinks of a chain, the chain, the unbroken chain and the sword of adamant and the thousand armies, and of Michael, prince of heaven, archangel of the Lord, vengeance of God and his brother. Once.
He starts as if something has shaken him and Asher leans forward and watches and Lucifer stands there and listens.
"What is it?" Asher says and Lucifer looks at him and a slow smile spreads across his face and then he is gone and Asher, Asmodeus once, sits back in his tattered chair in a cloud of smoke and his own stink as if he would sit there forever until the very walls of the place fell down around him and indeed there is little reason why he would not.
* * *
Mary took Cass up the stairs and they came out together onto the blacktar roof. The starless night sky had turned from black into a yellowed gray with none of dawn's soft approach and no sign of any sun and not even a shred of cloud to mark the blank dome of sky. He had no idea if he faced east or west, north or south. Below him he could see the avenues Mary had led him down in the night and the squalid slums he had come through on his own with their greasy brick walls and maze of streets, some roiling with activity and some deserted or nearly so. In one direction he saw the city taper into that wasteland he had traveled yesterday and in the other he saw only thick clouds of smoke and in yet another he saw a single black spire rising up into the sky.
Mary pointed to the spire. "That's Pandemon," she said. "The old seat of Lucifer's kingdom."
"Do you think Dean is there?"
"Do you really have no idea? Not even a clue?"
"No, I don't."
"Didn't you find him once before?"
"I was sent to rescue Dean before they could break him and open the first seal on Lucifer's prison. I was too late. We were all too late. But I did find him. I didn't need to search for him, I knew where he was. I just knew. Asmodeus thought that would work again." He stared out at the hopeless landscape. "I think he was wrong."
"Why would he even think that would work?" she snapped. "He knows you lost it all."
"He thought it would work because..." Cass looked at her and then looked away. "Because I love Dean."
"Oh. Did he think your dick would be a compass or something?"
"He thought enough of my grace remained that...that our bond would mean something here. But I don't know where Dean is. And you said that you don't either."
"Well why would I?" she laughed. "I'm not fucking him."
"We're wasting time," Cass said.
"Yeah," she said. "You're right." She nodded towards Pandemon. "Might as well start looking there. That's where my father brought me when he found me again."
"Is it guarded?"
"No. No one really wants to get in and there's hardly anyone left to get out. And even if they did, where would they go?" She pointed at the slums. "That shithole?" Towards the smoking horizon. "The mines? The factories?" She looked out in some direction that Cass might have said was south. There seemed to be nothing there at all. "Sheol? Now that place is guarded...but definitely not to keep anyone out."
"I know Sheol. I was there, before." He looked at her. "Dean could be there."
"He'll wind up there if Lucifer doesn't get what he wants out of him. But Lucifer rules hell from Pandemon and Dean will be wherever my father is."
"All right," Cass said. "We'll go to Pandemon." He took one more look around and by then Mary had crossed the roof and was waiting for him at the stairs.
"Let's go," she said and so they went.
* * *
Dean called Lucifer for a long time and there was no answer. After a while he became sure that Lucifer was playing some game with him and was going to make him wait until he had to beg.
"You know you want it, asshole," he muttered under his breath. "Now you're playing hard to get?"
Then he heard steps in the hall, the long stride that still sounded so much like Sam's and Lucifer opened the door and closed it and stood there and looked at Dean and neither of them said anything. If Lucifer knew why Dean had called, his face betrayed none of it and the silence spun out between them.
At last Dean said, "You would stop it...what you showed me. What's going on up there."
"Yes I would."
"How? You gonna snap your fingers and put everything back the way it was?"
"It won't be that simple. It's too far gone."
"Then what's the plan? I need to know that this'll work."
"The demons are under my command. I'll bring every one of them back to hell and lock them up down here. The people who are working with them will find out soon enough they picked the wrong side. I'll make sure they wind up here too. Once they're gone, the world will begin to heal."
"What about the Croatoan virus?"
"Gone."
"Gone? Just like that."
"Just like that. Anyone who has it will be cured. There will be no more outbreaks. It'll take a little time to get things back on track, but they'll get there. Years from now, these dark times will just be something they raise memorials to."
"What about you?"
"My business is with heaven and God. If you give me what I want, I'll keep it there. No one on earth will even know what's happening."
"What will be happening?"
"Nothing that will touch your kind. I promise."
"And Sam?"
"Free to go."
"I've seen what people are like after they've been possessed."
"You've seen people possessed by demons and careless, sloppy angels like Raphael. I've taken very good care of your brother, Dean. He can go on to live a full life in a new world. A world that will need leaders like him."
Dean put his head down. His hands were in fists and he shoved them under his arms and began mouthing words to himself and Lucifer said, "What? What are you saying?"
Dean looked up. "I want to talk to him."
Lucifer laughed. "What?"
"I want to talk to Sam. Now. Just him. You keep telling me you're still Sam well, you let him come out and talk to me. He'll know if you're telling the truth."
"And that will set your mind at ease?"
"Yes."
Lucifer stood there and contemplated and Dean said, ''Let me talk to him. One last time before I'm...before I'm not myself anymore."
Lucifer smiled. "Oh, Dean. You'll be so much more than yourself. You have no idea."
"Well Sam can tell me about that, too."
"All right," Lucifer said. He nodded. "All right."
"How will I know when he's..." Dean began and then stopped. "Sam?"
"Yeah, Dean. It's me."
"Where's Lucifer?"
"I don't know. He just sort of checks out. " His face shadowed with concern and he said, "Dean..." and came towards him and Dean stepped back and he said, "Dean, it's me. It's really me."
Dean hesitated another moment and then he said, "Sam..." He went to him and pulled him into an embrace. He closed his eyes and held his breath and let himself be there.
"Dean, he's telling the truth. It can all be over."
"Really?" Dean said. He curled open his right hand and looked at the bloody sigil in his palm that he'd made with his own nails and teeth.
"Yeah. And he'll let you go...after. He'll let you go and everything can be like it was before. Better."
"New and improved, huh, Sammy?" He was almost in tears.
"Yeah. New and improved." He drew back to look at Dean and Dean smiled up at him.
"It's good to talk to you, Sam," Dean said.
"You too."
"You know what would be even better?"
"What?"
"If you were really Sam, you lying son of a bitch," he said and then he clamped his bloody hand over Lucifer's forehead and began to say aloud the words he'd been mouthing to himself and Lucifer's eyes flew open and he took a stumbling step backwards and Dean followed without letting him go.
"What are you doing!"
"Something I picked up from an angel," he said and he went on with words Castiel had taught him long ago in a language he'd never heard of.
"Stop this!"
"No," Dean said and then all at once he was thrown to the floor and he raised up and saw Lucifer on his hands and knees with blood dripping from his forehead and neither of them moved and then Lucifer looked up and it was not Lucifer.
"Sam? Sammy?" He scrambled over to him and took Sam's face in his hands and Sam stared at him dazed. "It worked," he said. "It really worked..."
"You shouldn't have done this."
"I had to...Sam..."
"He'll know," Sam said. "He'll know."
"I don't care, Sam, I had to talk to you...I don't know what to do... you said not yet but all those people...the whole world...for God's sake, Sam, what am I supposed to do?"
Sam closed his eyes and shook his head violently
"Not yet."
"Did you see those barges? Do you know what's happening? Sam?"
"I know. I know, but you can't say yes, you can't trust him. This is the only thing holding him back and if he gets what he wants he'll finish it, you have to wait, Dean, you have to wait..."
"Wait? Wait for what?"
Sam opened his eyes and looked at him.
"Wait for Castiel," he said and Dean pulled back and just stared.
"Cass? Cass is alive? Sam?"
Something shifted in Sam's face. In his eyes. A thing so small it could have gone unnoticed.
"What did he say to you?"
Dean shook his head. He backed away from Lucifer slowly on his knees. As if there was anyplace to go.
"What did he say to you?"
"You wouldn't let him out, you prick."
Lucifer fell on him so suddenly there was no chance of escape and rode him to the ground and grabbed Dean by the jaw and battered his head against the floor until Dean felt his eyes roll up in their sockets.
"What did he say to you? What?
"Nothing..."
"Tell me!"
Dean grinned. "He said you fart in your sleep. Keeps him awake all night."
Lucifer roared wordlessly and slammed Dean's head again and Dean felt the hot wetness of blood begin to spread beneath his skull.
"He said..." His vision swam. "He wishes you'd brush his teeth for once."
"Get up," Lucifer said. He pulled Dean to his feet and Dean's legs stammered beneath him and the room pitched and rolled. "Get the fuck up."
"He said you like to scratch your balls and smell your fingers after," Dean laughed and kept on laughing even as Lucifer was dragging him out the door. He'd never seen what was on the other side. He was in a tunnel, dark, other doors to other cells lining it. A metal grate beneath his bare feet, cold as ice. Lucifer hurled him around and shoved him up against the wall.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?"
"I know who I am. Michael's vessel. Michael's chosen." He smiled. "Not yours."
Lucifer stared at him. The tunnel was deathly silent except for their breathing. Then Lucifer smiled. He lowered Dean to his feet and pulled him away from the wall.
"Come on, Dean. I've got something to show you."
He clamped an arm around Dean and hauled him to a flight of iron stairs and all but dragged him up them and then down a stone passage that narrowed to a keyhole arch and now there was a sound and a stench that called up such immediate and horrifying images that Dean reflexively shrank back and Lucifer laughed and pulled him onwards.
"You're not afraid now are you? Of course you're not!" he said cheerfully and dragged him towards the end of the passage where the light was red and smoking and the noise and stink were worse than ever and Dean retched from all of this and the memories that went with it. He'd been here before.
They came out onto a black gantry with a railing at its edge and Lucifer threw Dean at the railing and bent him over it and seized him by the hair so that he couldn't look away. Below him the pit writhed and burned. This was where they'd first taken him in hell, after a long time alone in the dark, they'd taken him here and left him here in an abyss of time and torment. Dean shut his eyes and put his hands over his face, his ears, and then Lucifer hoisted him up so his feet were in the air and he thought this was it and he had neither time to scream nor pray and then Lucifer was reeling him back. Dean collapsed on the gantry and Lucifer squatted down before him.
"There's still time, Dean. I haven't given up on you yet. Haven't given up on you," he repeated and then pulled him back up to his feet and they went on. Lucifer took him up and down. Through narrow passages lined with doors and behind them Dean could hear screaming and choking and garbled pleas for help and mercy that would never be answered. He'd been here before, too. They came at last to a door that stood alone at a dead end and Lucifer pushed it open and shoved Dean inside so hard that he stumbled and fell. The floor was slick with gore and in the center of it was a drain that was clogged with flesh and hair and bone. He raised up on his hands and looked around himself and it was all so much the same that he almost expected Alistair to be there waiting for him but Alistair was dead and some other demon was here to do Alistair's job. Everything else was unchanged. The walls hanging with tools of the trade. The table with its surface grilled to let the blood sluice through it. Chains and clamps and wires dangling from it. Even the yellow light hanging from the ceiling in its wire cage. All of it the same.
Playtime's over, he thought. Now we're getting down to business. He staggered to his feet and turned to face Lucifer and took a step away from him and then another.
"You remember this place, don't you?"
"Oh yeah," Dean said. "Good times."
"I didn't want it to come to this but now I know you only care about your own skin. Not about anyone else. Not even about Sam."
"You don't fucking say his name."
"Tell me what he said to you."
"Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit."
Lucifer stared at him and then he started to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to bend over and put his hands on his knees. Dean looked at him. He looked at the demon who wasn't Alistair, sitting in the corner on a metal stool with a bowl of some grisly slop in his lap and his fingers raised halfway to his mouth. The demon looked at Lucifer and at Dean and back at Lucifer and then Dean turned and grabbed the first thing his hands touched, an iron pipe some four feet in length and dull with dried blood and he spun around and raised it and just as Lucifer looked up Dean slammed it into his head.
The blow sent Lucifer reeling and the demon shot to his feet and the bowl fell and splattered its contents across the floor and Lucifer raised his hand at once and the demon flew up off his feet and crashed into the wall.
"This is between me and him," Lucifer said and then he turned to Dean grinning and straightened up. His ear was bleeding. "Do it again."
Dean stood there panting and he looked at the demon and then at Lucifer with the pipe held out in his two hands as if he were at batting practice.
"Come on, Dean, do it again." He stepped to the right and Dean followed him to the left, circling. "I've been waiting to see some of this fight you're supposed to have. Come on."
"Sam," Dean said. "Sam, talk to me."
Lucifer pulled a long face. "It's me, Dean. It's Sam. Help me, Dean."
"Sam. Talk to me."
"I am talking to you. How could you let this happen to me, Dean? Didn't you promise Dad you wouldn't?"
They circled each other like two figures bound on opposite ends of a pole.
"Sam..."
"Why won't you help me, Dean? Why won't you say yes? Just give him what he wants, Dean, I'm begging you, please, Dean, please..."
Dean stopped for a second and stared at him and then with a hoarse shout he rushed at Lucifer and raised the pipe and swung it hard and Lucifer went down and came up and then stayed down and Dean beat him wildly. He felt something tear in his shoulder and kept going and he was bellowing Sam's name and couldn't stop. Now Lucifer was on his knees and he looked up at Dean with his face battered and all bloody and he raised his arm in supplication.
"Dean...please..." he whispered and Dean caught himself in mid-swing and stared down at him and then his legs were slammed out from underneath him. He went down hard and lost the pipe and heard it clang off across the floor. He lay paralyzed on his back and watched Lucifer get to his feet. Wipe his face. Clean his hand on his shirt. Come to where Dean was sprawled out and stand over him.
"Did that make you feel better?" he said softly. He crouched beside Dean and touched Dean's face and Dean tried to turn his head away but he couldn't. He closed his eyes and waited for whatever came next and then Lucifer grabbed him under the arms and yanked him up against himself into a half-raised position and locked his arms under and over Dean's shoulders and held him there.
"You," Lucifer said. "Come over here."
The demon was still on the floor where Lucifer had thrown him and he got up and slunk over to them.
"Move it," Lucifer said and when the demon was standing next to them he said, "What's your name?"
"I got no name."
"Okay, no-name. Go over there and get that hammer."
The demon went to the wall and took down the broadhead hammer and Lucifer put his mouth to Dean's ear and said, "I need your fucking permission to get in you, but he doesn't. Funny, isn't it? It sucks being an angel sometimes. So many rules."
Dean understood what was about to happen and he started to buck and twist in Lucifer's grasp. He shoved his heels against the floor and tried to push himself away from Lucifer but his feet skidded in the gluey slime and he was held fast.
"You don't want to say yes to me? See what it's like to have this pig upfucking you. See what it's like. You'll be begging for me. I might not even want you after he's done."
"Sam, don't do this," Dean said.
"Sam can't hear you. Sammy's gone for the day."
The demon brought the hammer and held it out to Lucifer but Lucifer said, "Oh no, no-name, that's for you. See, our friend here has some graffiti on his ribs so you'll need to break them before you can get in."
The demon grinned. "You want me to ride him?"
"That's exactly what I want, no-name. Thank you."
Dean closed his eyes. "Sam, I know you can hear me."
The demon squatted down and planted his knees into Dean's thighs to hold him.
"Go on," Lucifer said and the demon raised the hammer and struck. Dean felt two ribs shatter at once and he arched back against Lucifer's chest and gasped and almost fainted.
"Keep going."
Three ribs. Four. Dean grayed out and when he came back he heard Sam's voice, Wait for Castiel. It still didn't make sense to him. Wait for Castiel.
The demon pushed Dean's shirt up and ran a hand over his torso.
"That'll do it," he said to Lucifer. "You want me to keep going?"
"No need for overkill. Just get on with it."
The demon dropped the hammer to the floor and leaned over Dean and seized his head in both hands and then shoved his mouth against Dean's and Dean screamed with that thing's tongue in his mouth and its black soul pouring down his throat and distantly he could feel his brother's heartbeat against his back and hear his own heels hammering the floor.
Then suddenly he was dropped and Lucifer was gone and the demon was gone. He rolled over barely conscious and retched a vile black slurry onto the floor and some of it evaporated like smoke and some of it turned into bugs that ran skittering off down the drain. He lay there with his eyes streaming and saw Lucifer standing with his back to him and at his feet was a pile of black ash and the demon was nowhere. He shuddered and curled up and coughed savagely and then he felt a hand on his arm and he looked up at Sam.
Dean grabbed Sam's wrists and pulled himself up. "Fight him!" he hissed. "Fight him, don't let him back!"
"No, we have to see this through to the end."
"What does that mean?"
"We take him out for good."
"How?"
"Castiel is coming. You have to call him."
"What?"
"You have to call him so he can find you. He has what we need. You can't say yes until then. Do you understand?"
"Yes...no...I don't know... "
"You do. Just call him. He'll come, he always did." He gathered Dean gently into his arms and kissed him on the cheek and buried his face in Dean's shoulder. "It wasn't supposed to get this bad. I thought he would protect you...I thought...." He laid his hand on Dean's broken ribs and Dean felt the pain fade and the bones knit themselves back together.
"That's better."
"Sam," Dean said. "Oh God, Sam, don't go."
"Call him. Pray to him."
Dean nodded and Sam kissed him again and then stood up and was gone.
* * *
They walked out underneath the bridge that Cass had passed the night before and even in that murky daylight the roadbed of the bridge was no more distinct than it had been in the dark. Stone towers rose up into the fog and the sound of wheels on the iron grid was ceaseless but he couldn't imagine whence the bridge came or where it led and when he asked Mary she answered nowhere to both questions. For some time they walked among the city's buildings, all of them black with soot and the gutters beneath their feet were clotted with wet filth. The place seemed as wholly deserted as Detroit had been and the only sounds were their own echoing steps and a wind that moaned in the alleys and empty doorways and broken windows. Finally Cass asked her why there was no one here and she only said that hell went on and on and no one knew the whole of it. Not herself, not Lucifer, not even God.
After a time the buildings became sparser until finally after passing a great pile of smoking rubble they left the city behind. A barren landscape stretched out around them as featureless as a desert of dust and bisected by a single strip of two-lane blacktop. After they'd been walking on this road for a while Cass stopped and looked ahead in dismay.
"Can't you just..."
"Can't I just what?"
"Can't you just take us there all at once?" he asked. "Demons can do that. Angels too."
"I'm neither one," she said.
"You're Lucifer's daughter."
"I have almost no power here at all. The world of men was mine, not this one."
Cass wiped his forehead. The air was not warm but it was heavy and close. His shoulders stooped with fatigue and he couldn't remember when he'd last slept or eaten and the chain had grown immensely heavy. He was still carrying the machinegun that Marcus had given him at The Cairo and he slipped it off and leaned on it and thought that he might as well throw it away for all the good it was here but he couldn't bring himself to get rid of something so valuable, given to him by a good man.
Mary studied him and then she said, "You need to rest. And eat. You should have said something when we were still in the city."
"How long before we get to Pandemon?"
"We won't reach it before dark," she said. "And nothing's left there except Lucifer's old palace."
Cass nodded and then hoisted the machinegun back onto his shoulder and started walking. He was limping on his once-broken foot, the first but far from the last of his human weaknesses. He remembered how Dean had forced him to get out of bed and walk on it so that he wouldn't be crippled and had brought him crutches in some refugee camp or hideout in those first days of the virus which now seemed to have happened in another lifetime altogether.
"There are places," she said from behind him and he stopped and turned around.
"What sort of places?"
"Waystations," she said. "You have them on earth too. I don't think you'll like them very much."
"This is hell. I don't expect to like anything at all."
"All right," she said and as she came up beside him she added, "They come and go but we should find one." She stopped and looked him up and down. "What are you going to do about that chain?"
"Why would I do anything about it?"
"There's a lot of whoring at these waystations. I don't want you taking off your clothes and showing that thing off."
"Is that a requirement?"
"What, fucking?"
"Taking off my clothes. I don't have to strip naked to fuck and I can suck cock fully dressed." She studied him and then she laughed and shook her head and he said, "If you were trying to shock me, don't waste your time, or mine. I know where I am. I know what kind of things I'll have to do."
"Okay then," she said. "Duly noted."
* * *
By the time they reached the waystation night had once again fallen and the place they were headed stood out on that scoured plain like a hot coal pulsing in the dark. Across the distance Cass could hear a saloonlike ruckus of music and harsh voices. It had become very cold and the wind was blowing hard and he was stooped over and shivering, the chain burning him while providing no warmth. Something like snow was falling and now in the light from the waystation he could see frozen and filthy patches of it on the ground among pits that were filled with garbage. The waystation itself was little more than a concrete box that squatted under the black chasm of sky above it. The door of the place opened and a figure came staggering out naked and began to run only to be pursued by others and pulled back inside screaming and he put his hand on Mary's arm and stopped her.
"No. We're not going in there."
"You're going to freeze."
"I'll be all right."
"You don't want to be out here in the dark."
He looked at her and at the waystation and couldn't imagine it would be any safer in there and his own fear and revulsion all but overpowered him. He felt very much at Mary's mercy and thought it was still possible that he might wind up trapped in such a place while Dean remained imprisoned and the world edged ever closer to its end and he didn't know what to do.
At last as if she had made up his mind for him, Mary said, "Wait outside."
He shook his head and she repeated it and led him up to the door and told him again to wait. Before he could stop her she had disappeared inside and the door had closed behind her on a clamor of noise and odors and he was left outside in the wind and the cold. As he stood there he saw shapes creeping in out of the darkness and the waste and gathering in silence all around him. Their eyes shone back the light. He could just make out that some of them were beastlike and others still nearly human in form and he wrapped his hand around the hilt of the knife and put his back to the concrete wall and watched them.
She emerged from the waystation with a tall demon that she called Clay. He wore a waistcoat and britches and he was covered in sores and had a great ring of keys on his wrist. He sized Cass up and then jerked his head and went off around the side of the building.
"Go on," Mary said.
They followed Clay to the back and he took them up stairs that were nothing but rough plankboards nailed together. With a key from his ring he unlocked a door at the top of the stairs and they passed into complete blackness. The noise from downstairs pounded up through the floor. For a moment Cass stood there completely disoriented by the dark and then a sulfur lamp flared up and Cass squinted against the sudden brightness. When his eyes adjusted he saw they were in a long windowless room that was full of trash and broken remnants of furniture. In one corner stood a mountain of discarded clothing.
"This is it," Clay said to Mary.
"It's fine," she answered and then she turned to Cass and said, "You can stay up here. No one has the key except Clay."
"Where are you going?"
"Downstairs."
"No," he said. "No you're not. And I'm not staying locked in up here."
"You don't trust me?"
"Why would I?"
She put her hand on his chest and pushed against the chain and stared at him in the yellow light.
"I need you," she said. "And you need me. You'll be as safe here as you can be anywhere in hell. Get some rest. I'll send you something to eat." She smiled. "Have faith."
Clay said to Mary, "Come on, let's go." Cass seized her wrist.
"What are you going to do down there?"
"It's nothing for me," she said, and then she turned and followed Clay out the door. Cass heard the bolt shut and lock and their footsteps going down the stairs and then there was nothing but the music and shouting and shrieks below his feet.
Cass stood there in the same cornered and helpless panic he'd felt in the basement of The Cairo. Then he began to get undressed. He'd been wearing the chain wrapped securely around his whole torso and now he unwound it and for just a moment he let himself savor the relief of having it off even though he still held it in his hands. Then he wearily wove it around himself again so that it wouldn't show beneath his waist. His hands were shaking while he did it. He thought of Dean in that squalid apartment in The Cairo saying in a dazed and hopeless voice that he knew what happened there and Cass knew what happened here, too. For all his talk of knowing what he'd have to do it wasn't lost on him what a fucking in this place by whatever was downstairs might do to someone who was only human. He was dressed again when the door opened and he turned to face what might come and it was Clay who closed the door and held something out to him.
"Take it. She sent it up for you."
Cass eyed the plate. It looked like plain bread and some kind of stew. It smelled edible. He took the plate and said, "Thank you," and Clay handed him a glass bottle with some liquid sloshing in it and he took that too.
When he turned to go Cass said, "Keep an eye on her."
Clay looked over his shoulder.
"She can take care of herself. You're the one we're keeping an eye on." Then he let himself out and locked the door.
He sat down on the floor and ate and drank a little and then he put the rest of it aside. He leaned his head back against the wall and thought he would never sleep because of the noise downstairs and his own fear but he was exhausted and he closed his eyes and slept.
In his sleep he could hear voices below him shouting and laughing and raised in vulgar song and he could hear the music and the pounding of their feet and fists and now and then shrieks and the ruckus of it thudded up through the floorboards until it merged into a flat wall of sound. He dreamed of the Crowne Plaza in Knoxville Tennessee where corrupt men drank and gambled and fucked and young girls worked the crowd nearly naked and hardly better off than damned souls in hell. The girls in his dream all bore tattoos that announced them open for business and Tanya was among them and Bethany too, her red hair clotted with the blood of her suicide. He turned from the Crowne Plaza and was at once at the freight office in the railyard and he ran up the stairs because Dean was dying and Anna had given him the power to do save him because God did not make mistakes.
In his dream the stairs changed and they were not crumbling and dirty but softly carpeted. He was no longer in the freight office but in a quiet and empty house that had somehow not been ransacked. Upstairs was a dripping sound and a spot in the ceiling from which long plaster stalactites hung and the carpet beneath it was wet and at the end of the hall was a bedroom, pale gray and cool with lace curtains over the windows and Dean was asleep in the bed under a clean white bedspread.
He stood in the doorway and felt all at once the full weight of Lucifer's chain and the scorching burn of it on him and he knew that this was more than a dream. Yet still he could only stand there and watch Dean sleep. At last he laid his gun down on the floor and took off his wet and filthy coat and his boots as well and he came into the room and turned back the white covers and eased himself into the bed behind Dean. He listened to the soft sounds of rain and wind against the house and then he put his arm around Dean and laid his cheek against Dean's shoulder and closed his eyes. Just for this moment, he thought. He lay in the warm bed and held him close. That's all.
After a while Dean stirred and took a deep breath and as if in his sleep he said, "You're right, Cass. We won't go to Detroit. There's nothing there."
Cass drew Dean even more closely to himself and said nothing and Dean repeated, "There's nothing there," and then at last Cass said Dean's name and Dean went very still, listening.
"Dean," Cass said again.
Dean turned over and looked up at Cass and Cass saw again those eyes as he'd first seen them in hell. The beginning of his long fall that had brought him at last to the very ending of the world. Dean stared at him as if dreading what he had to say and rightfully so.
"Is this a dream or real?" Dean asked.
"Both."
"I called you. I thought you were dead. Are you?"
"No, I'm trying to find you."
"Sam told me to call you."
"Sam?" Cass said and Dean nodded and closed his eyes and leaned himself into Cass and Cass wrapped his arms around him and held onto him. Then suddenly it was as if Cass were holding onto nothing but flesh and bones and Dean stank of fresh and dry blood and sickness and filth and when Dean pulled away Cass saw him skeletal and bloody and he knew that he was seeing Dean as he really was now. "Oh God, Dean...oh my God..."
Dean shook his head and pushed him away and rolled over and threw back the bedspread and when it landed there was a bloody handprint on it and he was sitting on the edge of the bed and the white sheets were smeared all crimson around him. Cass sat up and put his arms around him and Dean bent over his knees.
"It's too late. He wins. I either give him what he wants and everyone dies or I let him kill me and everyone dies. Either way it's all the same shit."
"What does he want..." Cass began and then remembered what Mary had told him. "Michael," he said. "He wants you to be his vessel because you would have been Michael's."
Dean nodded. "That's the only way to get him out of Sam but then..." He turned around and stared at Cass. "Sam said you have what we need. You have the chain?"
"Yes," Cass said. He nodded fiercely. "Yes, look..." He unbuttoned his shirt and revealed it and Dean stared at it and touched it with just his fingertips as Mary had done and then looked at Cass. "How are we ever gonna get this on him?"
"I don't know, but we will. I have help. And you have...you said Sam talks to you?"
"Yeah, but the motherfucker's catching on. He's not gonna wait much longer for me to say yes and if I don't...Cass, I'm going back in the Pit."
"Is that where you are?"
Dean put his head down and grimaced. "Yeah. Or close to it." He looked up at Cass. "I'm where you found me the last time. Where Alistair had me."
"Where Alistair had you..." Cass said and then, "You're not in Pandemon. We're going the wrong way." He took Dean's face in his hands. "Dean, you have to hold on. You can't say yes until you know I'm there."
"How will I know that?"
"You'll see me. I'm coming for you."
Dean stared at him and then he closed his eyes and took Cass's hands and bent his head. His hair was all bloody, the back of his head crusted with it.
"I promised you we'd go into this together and I lied." He looked up at Cass. "I had to."
"I lied too. I'm not going to let Lucifer have you, or kill you. I don't care what happens to me. I never have."
Dean smiled. He almost laughed.
"In all thy ways. You weren't kidding, were you?"
"No," Cass said. He kissed Dean. "Not once."
They sat together for a moment and Cass didn't think he'd be able to let Dean go and then suddenly he woke up alone against the wall in the upper room at the waystation. He sat up and looked around himself hardly knowing where he was. The place was completely silent. He could hear his own pulse in his ears.
He picked up his gun beside him and stood up in the dark and felt his way to the door and listened. There wasn't a sound. He put his hand on the doorknob and although he had heard Clay lock the door the knob turned and the door opened and he stepped out onto the plankboard stairs. Above him the black roof of sky. All around him the desert waste and the wind blowing. He went down the stairs and around to the front of the waystation and listened there for a moment and heard nothing and then let himself in. His eyes cut across the room and he saw Mary and Clay at a table, playing cards. There was not another soul in the place. Clay threw his cards on the table and stood up so suddenly his chair fell over backwards.
"You cunt," he said and he turned and stalked off. The tail of his waistcoast flapped around his britches. He gave Cass a filthy look and said, "You better be glad she's so good. We were playing for your ass."
She was shuffling the cards and she looked up at him.
"Sleep tight?"
"What did he mean?"
"What do you think he meant?"
"I thought you he was on your side."
"Demons are on their own side. That asshole wanted to raffle you off and I said anyone who wanted you would have to play me first."
Cass stared at her. He swallowed. He cleared his throat. She smiled.
"Now who's shocked?"
"Thank you...I...thank you." He looked around. "Where did they all go?"
She shrugged. "Sore losers," she said and then she stopped shuffling and narrowed her eyes at him. "What's happened to you?"
"I know where Dean is and it's not Pandemon. He's in Sheol."
"How do you know that?"
"I had a vision."
"A vision or a dream?"
"Both."
"Well," she said. "I guess old Asmodeus knew what he was doing." She set the cards down on the table. "This isn't such good news."
"Doesn't matter. We have to get there."
"I guess we do."
She stood up and straightened her coat. Her stomach was bigger as if whatever she carried had doubled its size in this one night. She combed her fingers through her hair and then she finished her drink and walked past him and out the door and when Cass turned to follow her Clay was at his side.
"I'd watch her if I were you," he hissed. "She always was daddy's girl."
"Meaning what?"
Clay grinned. His teeth were gray and crumbling. He rubbed his gut.
"Ask her what she's got cooking in there. It may not be what you think."
She was standing in the open door with smoky daylight spilling in around her and she told Cass to come on and Cass looked back at Clay but Clay only cocked an eyebrow at him and hitched up his rotting britches and turned away.
* * *
Go ahead to Part Two...