Title: What it is to Court Chaos
Summary: During the six months in the Mystery Spot when Dean was killed and Sam was left alone... Dean's soul fell out of the Trickster's hands. An oversight, a mistake, who knows? But he remembered everything... And he didn't spend the time sitting on a cloud somewhere either.
Warnings: Dark Sam, Dark Dean... murder.
"It's actually cute," Sam tapped his knife against his bottom lip. "Or it would be if, y'know, we found you tolerable at all... that aside, it's cute, that you think you can buy your freedom like you've been trying to do." He leaned in close and teased the tip of the blade against the skin of her cheekbone, barely an inch from her eye. "Shame the dogs are waiting for you anyway," he smirked. "They're gonna come, they're gonna bark and shout and bang at your door until they break it down and then you're gonna go..." he made clicking noises with his tongue. "Down, down, downstairs and they're gonna set you up in a nice waiting room."
"You think he's safe just because you're psychotic?" she spat in his face and he laughed, taking a step back, resting his chin on his brother's shoulder as the other man just stood, silent, smirking, waiting...
"He's not safe from hell," Sam preened, his hands resting on Dean's hips, squeezing lightly. "He's gonna take it by storm," he breathed and Dean took his cue, slipping the knife from Sam's grasp and stepping up to the woman, bound as she was, strapped to a table, naked, already squirming.
"I had to make the deal!" she screamed as he advanced. "My father! He-"
"We would sympathise," Sam said. "We really would, if we could, but we can't, so..." he made a 'what can you do' face and the blade touched the skin of her navel, dipping into her bellybutton, the pressure increasing until she felt her skin give way.
"Please!" she begged and the brothers cocked their heads to the side simultaneously.
"You're not going to last half an hour downstairs, sweetheart," Sam smiled. "But that's okay, Send Alastair our love, would you?"
Her eyes were set, wide with horror, fear, pure, unadulterated terror and she screamed. Oh did she scream.
"See, we'd have just let you go on, we would have," Sam stepped up before Dean could make the final cut. She was wrung out, exhausted, barely blood left for her heart to pump, zero blood pressure but the sigils on the straps around her keeping her conscious. "But... you couldn't leave us be, could you? You just had to keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing... You might be a simple opportunist, your childhood might have been shitty, but we're Winchesters... you don't get to where you are and think it's a good idea to try get one over on the Winchester. Haven't you heard? Don't you know?" she was crying but she opened her mouth to answer.
"You're going to burn," she gasped.
"Been there," Sam said.
"Done that," Dean finished, speaking for the first time and her eyes widened at the sound of his voice, so raw, so gravely, so rough and hoarse it made her flinch with just the thought of how it would hurt to speak with it. "Tell Alastair I'll be seeing him soon," Dean whispered as the knife slid easily through her ribs and into her heart, stopping it dead.
"Salt and burn, so she can't come back..." Sam murmured and they got to work.
When Dean was finally gone and Sam was left alone, he sat in a motel room and prayed.
"I know you're here," his smile was wan. "You think you can hide from me because you're masquerading as a pagan God?"
"There's no reason you should know who I am anymore than the drunk screwing his stepdaughter down the hallway..." the Trickster was stood leaning against the wall just by the door.
"You planned this, didn't you?" Sam said and the Trickster's head tilted ever so slightly, question in his eyes. "You did, when you killed him over and over and over again, you turned me into something else, something more... then I got him back and that something... it never went away. It was still there, eating at me, eating me from the inside out, turning me into this," he held his arms out.
"Why don't you explain what you think I turned you into, Sasquatch," the Trickster's lips twitched.
"You're so powerful, beyond a god, not the God obviously, but any human gods, created by faith, created by religion, you're beyond them."
"I know what I am, Sammy, tell me what you think you are."
"We killed a woman... about two months ago? Biggest bitch to walk the planet in our lifetime, that we knew personally anyway, she kept stealing from us, she kept coming back for more and we kept letting her. Don't know why," he shrugged. "It's like we wanted to see how much she thought she could get away with before she realised it wasn't a good idea..."
"You two aren't exactly the most terrifying folk around, maybe she saw an easy mark..." he was smirking
"Maybe she did," Sam agreed. "She was screaming by the end though," he smiled. "And that's what you did... you remember, those six months without Dean... of hunting you, before I knew... I did everything, sacrificed everyone, every shred of my humanity... I did things I wouldn't have ever dreamed of before and you made that happen. At first it was just necessity, because... I needed information. Then... I took a little longer in killing a demon, I let a vampire loose for a few hours more so I could chase it, cripple it until it was writhing on the ground, begging me to tear it's head off... You knew, you saw me, didn't you? I could feel eyes on me the whole time, you saw it all..."
"I saw what you did," the Trickster agreed. "Never touched a human though..."
"Did you ever think where you might have send Dean during those six months? I mean, he was dead, it was still our timeline even if you erased it. He was gone, his contract up early..." It was clear from his expression that the Trickster most certainly did not think about where he'd sent Dean.
"I've got a bit more juice than that, Kiddo, his soul was in stasis."
"We were being watched by demons wherever we went, are you certain you kept it the entire time? What am I saying? I know you misplaced it, or it was taken from you until you reversed the spell... because when he came back... he changed too. Only, he's a better actor than I am and it took me a while to work him out, but he went to hell, he was on the racks and do you know something, Gabriel?" Sam smiled. "He didn't break, not in 60 years did he break and say yes to Alastair... not in 60 years did he get off that rack and pick up Alastair's knife. What he did do, however, was get info on the big plan."
"How do you know me?" The Trickster/Gabriel asked, curious.
"Let's just say the rack room wasn't all that far from the cage walls..."
"Do you want to go ahead with their plan?" Sam cocked his head to the side, frowning.
"Their plan?"
"Well it's not dads," he gestured to his face. "Messenger, remember your RE classes?"
"So they're rebelling," Sam laughed. "Cute."
"The last person you called cute ended up in Hell's Kitchen."
"If you went to hell, it wouldn't be to stay there... you'd go and you'd get my brother before he breaks and before heaven can send in their gang of reprobates..."
"In theory," Gabriel smiled. "I could go that. But... if you're gonna kick start the apocalypse, why should I help?"
"Who say's we're gonna kickstart it?" Sam asked. "Hey, I like Earth as it is, your daddy on high gave the Earth to the humans. Angels have heaven, Demons have hell, Earth is our garden. Your brethren can go to purgatory if they want neutral ground."
"You want me to go to hell as penance for turning you into this abomination you see yourself as, don't you?"
"I want you to go to hell because you don't want the Apocalypse to start. Dean's strong, but he already spent 60 years down there... he's been down another 10 already."
"So you think I'll go down out of the goodness of my non-existent heart?"
"You don't have a heart, you have grace and something that you manufactured to pass for a heart when you're off screwing the pagans," Sam made a face. "I hope you didn't catch anything." Gabriel gave him a long, considering look before he smiled.
"Oh you're good," he laughed lightly. "So fucking good."
"I don't know what you mean," Sam frowned but Gabriel stalked towards him, pushing him back in his chair and straddled his lap, hands grasping Sam's face tightly.
"Sammy Sammy Sammy," he clucked his tongue. "I'm older than sin," he smirked. "I'm older than man, and Lucy?" he leaned in, brushing their noses together. "I'm older than you. I taught you everything you know, don't take me for a fool." Sam stared at him, confusion still in his eyes and Gabriel sat back so he could tear Sam's shirt apart, exposing the man's chest.
"I liked that shirt," Sam harrumphed but didn't say another word as a silver blade appeared in Gabriel's hand.
"I'll listen to you, Oh Father knows how I'll listen to you until eventually He has no choice but to come home, but you're my baby brother. You don't get to lie to me, that's now how it works," he smirked, dipping his blade and settling it on the skin of Sam's chest. No pressure, just resting. "When did you get a chance to say yes?" he asked. "When did you speak to him? How old were you?"
"Gabriel-" The blade dug into his flesh, threatening to break the skin.
"I am your elder brother, you will answer me," Gabriel demanded.
"You're going to bring some unwanted attention on yourself," Sam reminded him. "Talk like that, all declarative! After the lengths you went to to hide your true self, you're going to throw it away over something as stupid as this?"
"Don't test me," Gabriel warned.
"Like you tested me? For six months? Like you forcing my hand? Like you've been a thorn in my side since-"
"The day you were created!" Gabriel hissed in Enochian and something shifted in the way Sam held himself.
"Are you going to get that blade out of my chest, brother?" Sam/Lucifer asked, smiling serenely but Gabriel didn't move it, instead using it to pin his brother in place.
"How did you get out?" Gabriel demanded. "When? And Why haven't you done anything?"
"What makes you think I haven't done anything?" Lucifer asked and Gabriel stared.
"I should kill you right now," Gabriel murmured, voice quiet as he twisted the blade, breaking the skin of Sam's chest. "It would be so easy, so simple..."
"The action, yes, the fallout?"
"I may have left after you were cast out but I still hold rank," Gabriel promised.
"I was talking about your emotional fallout," Lucifer's voice was gentle.
"I'd rather do it myself than watch you and Michael duke it out again."
"I believe you."
They stayed there for what seemed like an age, time meant little to them, they were infinite, but for this tiny little weapon between them that had God's will etched into its design, the only thing besides the ethereal being himself with the juice to shatter an archangel's grace.
"Sam was 18," Lucifer spoke after a while. "When he finally said yes to me and let me in..."
"You say finally like he'd been considering it for a time before that point."
"When my idiotic creation spilt blood into his mouth as a babe," Lucifer went on. "The connection opened. He is my vessel, the blood... turned on a beacon, as it were. If I were human we'd be called soulmates."
"Clotho always had a soft spot for you," Gabriel muttered and Lucifer smiled.
"I communicated with Sam throughout his entire life, through the walls of the cage. You see, it was given that as the devil, no one would want to accept me into themselves, so the informed, willful consent of my one true vessel was never guarded against - no one, not even our father, can stop soulmates, Gabriel, do you not think?"
"Why do you need me to go to hell if you can easily go yourself?"
"I will tip heaven off and kickstart everything, don't you think?"
"And when Sam died the first time?" At this, Lucifer blushed and Gabriel's lips twitched. "You were sleeping on the job."
"I was resting," Lucifer groused. "Do you know how difficult it is to withhold your grace so you are essentially undetectable to outside forces? For an angel is it hard enough, for us? Anyway, I didn't wake up until after Dean had made his deal and by that point, I could do nothing."
"You must have had an influence over them both growing up... Sam is too jaded for even three or four years of your presence..."
"They both thirst, if that's what you mean. They seek chaos, seek to make it their own, bend it to their will..."
"They hide it very well."
"One must keep up appearances, brother."
"What happens if he breaks?" Following the conversation shift easily, Lucifer shrugs.
"Then he breaks and he gets to put all of Alastair's lessons into practise... and I get to plan Alastair's eternal torment."
"You said they'd send an angel down? To touch a broken soul in hell? They'd order a brother to fall in the most painful way?" Gabriel was frowning but it really wasn't out of the realm of thinking, nothing was since their father abandoned them.
"I believe the task would fall to our little favourite," Lucifer's smile was bitter. "Even you must have felt it... they never let him forget the choice he made in keeping his faith in not only you after you left, but in me also."
"I felt it," Gabriel was uncomfortable, genuinely pained by the thoughts in his mind. "I could do nothing."
"Neither could I."
"I won't have him fall like that, if he's going to fall it's going to be for something worthwhile," Gabriel snarled. "He tore us apart," he calmed down. "I'm not allowing him to break our brother too."
They were silent again until Gabriel flicked his blade up, scoring a line across Sam's chest, making Lucifer gasp, pained, before the blade disappeared. "That was for making me talk myself into going into hell to retrieve your gracemate's ridiculous brother," he groused.
"Thank you," Sam returned and Gabriel's grace yearned to go after the feeling of his brother as he retreated further into Sam's soul.
"Don't thank me yet, Sasquatch. If my brother ends up falling because of this, I'm taking it out of Winchester behind, got it?"
"Are you talking about Castiel?" Sam asked quietly, almost hesitant, and Gabriel's eyes narrowed, his senses at maximum incase the other angel was listening out for his name.
"Do. Not. Speak. His. Name." Gabriel said very firmly.
"He spoke of him, said beyond you, he was His favourite."
He would, Gabriel thought to himself before he got up from Sam's lap and stepped away. "You've got something in you, kid, and I didn't put it there, I just brought it to the front. Don't con a con man, you should know better."
And he was gone.
Will he do it? Sam murmured the thought into the distant reaches of his mind and leaned back in his chair.
He will, don't worry. We'll be together and paint the entire world with red if you so desire.
Sam smiled.
Not long now...
A one shot or the start of something more...I'm not sure. But I still loved writing it. Tell me what you think :)