A/N: This story was thought up long before S10 aired so 97% of similarities with the new canon are coincidental (read: me being a prophet). The story is written and chapters will be uploaded regularly until complete (68 in total).. This story is also available on AO3, check my profile for the link. Huge thank you to ScribeOfRED and InsaneAndHappyAboutIt for the brilliant beta'ing, and to willamholmes (tumblr) for the cover art! I would greatly appreciate reviews, so if you have a mo and feel like making my day, please do! If anyone is worried about triggers or has any questions about the story, please feel free to message me, my inbox is always open. Without further ado, I give you Son of Cain! Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Black Eyes
"Open your eyes, Dean. See what I see. Feel what I feel. Let's go take a howl at that moon."
Like a bubble breaking the surface of a still lake, Dean Winchester opened his eyes. For a long moment, he stayed motionless as what felt like electricity coursed through him. Power radiated from every cell in his body. He felt strong, whole. The familiar hilt of the First Blade pressed against his palm, his strength flowing effortlessly into it, joining with its power and swirling back up his arm to his chest. Had it always felt this strong? He tightened his grip and the feeling intensified. It was rapture.
He was staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, or at least, that's what he assumed it was. It looked like a ceiling, but how could he see every brush stroke in the paint? How did he know precisely where each hidden wooden support beam lay? He could feel the concrete from where he lay on the bed.
Slowly, calmly, Dean filled his lungs. The air tasted stale and his mouth of blood. An intoxicating, spicy smell tickled his nostrils as he breathed again. He blinked.
"Dean."
He turned his head – and froze.
Crowley. He could see Crowley. Not just the meat suit, but the demon inside. He saw how the dark red-black smoke filled every cell of the New Yorker he wore, could see the roiling fire-orange demon move as he shifted his weight to the other foot. He could see Crowley's face.
Dean remembered the first time he had seen a demon's face, hiding behind a police officer outside New Harmony, Indiana. Back then, the burning, twisted thing that only slightly resembled a human's face had terrified him. For thirty years in Hell the only things he saw apart from his own broken body were the faces of the demons that tortured him. Seeing them had been a torture in itself.
Crowley's true face was magnificent. For the first time, Dean understood how the simple crossroads demon became Lilith's second-in-command and then the King of Hell. Dean could see the power and intelligence in Crowley's face, in the flashes he glimpsed behind the suddenly comically small and mediocre-looking meat suit. Crowley was – there was no other word for it – handsome.
"I know, stunning, aren't I?" Crowley smiled, showing the sharp fangs behind the benign lines of white teeth. "Welcome back, Dean."
Dean sat up, noting, as he did so, how effortless and smooth the motion was. Shouldn't he be stiff? He'd been asleep for ages, hadn't he?
No, he hadn't. He had been with Sam … Metatron had beaten him … stabbed him … He put a hand to his chest as he remembered, feeling the unbroken flesh through the hole in the blood-soaked shirt. He remembered the angelblade piercing his skin, pushing through his sternum as effortlessly as though it were made of sugar glass, penetrating right through his heart, scraping his spine. He remembered the agony, the shock. He remembered seeing Sam's face fade into the blackness as he died in his arms. Welcome back.
Realization sunk like an icy stone into Dean's stomach. He looked up at Crowley smirking down at him. A prickle of fear tingled up his spine.
"What did you do to me?" he whispered in a low rasp, waiting to hear the answer he knew was coming.
Crowley's smile widened. "What did I do? Nothing. I just returned the Blade to its rightful owner. And told you a little bedtime story," he added as an afterthought.
Dean's brows pulled together. "What? The Blade brought me back?"
Crowley nodded. "And the Mark. Just like they did with Cain."
Dean looked down at the Blade still clasped in his hand. He felt it hum happily in his firm grip. "But I thought …" He swallowed and spoke again, his voice still barely above a whisper. "Cain …"
He looked back into Crowley's face – or faces. Panic was mounting in his chest, constricting his heart. Slowly, he rose to his feet in one fluid motion, marvelling again at the unusual lack of aches or stings of old injuries. Ignoring Crowley, he strode over to the sink in the corner and gazed into the small mirror above it. Coldness unlike any he had felt before seeped into every inch of his being as he met his reflection's gaze.
Black eyes.
A demon's face.
His face.
For a moment that contained an eternity, Dean stared at the monster gazing back at him. His eyes were emotionless voids in a face that, underneath the familiar flesh, was smoke and twisted bone and flameless fire. He lifted his fingers to his face and probed his healed cheek experimentally. He felt the soft, warm flesh and stubble instead of the indescribable visage whose texture he couldn't begin to fathom.
Through the pain and confusion the monstrous face instilled in him, one thought rang cold and irrevocable through his stunned mind.
I am a demon.
Azazel. Lillith. Abaddon. Ruby. Meg. Crowley. Cain. He was one of them.
I'm a demon.
He blinked, and green eyes replaced the black. He could no longer see the roiling smoke and fire beneath his skin, but his reflection still looked alien to him. He was a monster. Evil incarnate.
"It's not that bad, you know," Crowley said conversationally. "You're not dead, for one thing. That's good. All the demon gals are gonna want you – even I'll admit you're one of the handsomest demons I've seen, and I've seen a lot." He stepped behind Dean so his face was mirrored beside his. "Oh, and you're about the most powerful demon in existence."
"What?" Dean breathed, finally tearing his eyes away from his reflection to stare at Crowley's.
"You're a demon in his own original meat suit, turned on Earth, not in Hell." A cunning smile pulled at Crowley's lips, and his voice lowered to a throaty, longing whisper. "You can't imagine how strong you are. How does it feel, Dean?"
Dean blinked and looked down at the sink. How did it feel? To be a demon? It felt horrible, it felt abhorrent, it felt … amazing, a silky voice cooed inside him. He felt the power coursing through him. He felt invincible. Strong. He felt alive. Fiercely, invigoratingly, wonderfully alive.
He looked down to the Blade still clutched in his hand. He knew with complete certainty that his body could now contain its power. It swirled inside him, ready to be called to action. He glanced to the raised flesh of the Mark on his forearm. Touching it gently with his fingers, it felt a few degrees warmer than he remembered. It felt … more comfortable, somehow. It felt right. Peaceful.
"It feels …" he began, wondering if the words to truly describe this new feeling existed. "Good," he finished, somewhat lamely.
Crowley's smile widened. "Listen, Dean," he continued, raising a hand as though to grasp Dean's forearm, but halting halfway. "Sam's summoning me, I've gotta go. I'll break it to him gently, eh? Meet you back here and we'll … chat."
"Sam?"
"Yeah … I'll be right back, all right? Just … stay here." He gave Dean one last weighted look before snapping his fingers and blinking out of sight.
Stunned, Dean looked back to his reflection. He blinked, and the black voids returned. "Sam," he whispered, and a wrinkle appeared above his nose as his reflection's eyebrows pulled together.
The Blade was humming gently in his clenched fist, whispering, calling sweetly for blood. Anticipation swelled in his chest at the promise of a new high. He needed to kill. He wanted to kill.
Dean allowed himself to feel his new body once more. He'd been wrong. It didn't feel horrible, or disgusting, or abhorrent. He knew it should but it didn't. There was no pain anymore. No dull ache of grief for Kevin and all the other friends he'd burned. No desperate desire for a bottle of whiskey. No background throb of the injuries inflicted by Metatron, not even the pain of a bruise in the centre of his chest. Instead he felt a deep calm and sense of peace he had never known, yet with a rumbling thrum of energy waiting beneath it, ready to be released, like an oncoming thunderstorm waiting just behind a clear, blue horizon. It felt euphoric. Rapturous. Exciting.
And he was just standing there. Imagine how it would feel if he ran, if he fought, if he killed.
His reflection smiled. He wanted to kill.