9 – We Die Today

Lucifer's grin was somehow empty and packed full of menace at the same time. Dean had no idea how he did it. It was like a really shitty superpower. "So what's the big plan here? You distract me with some bullshit attack, and then Crowley warps in and kills me? That about it?"

Dean shrugged. "Kind of."

Lucifer nodded. "I guess it's the only play you could make, right? Really shitty, though."

"Yeah, well, most of the books say there's no way to kill the Devil, so we had to make it up as we went along."

Lucifer's grin did not fade. "That's because there is no way to kill me. But I do like your hustle, Dean. I always have. Really, I like to imagine what would have happened if I wore you as a vessel. Tear up the world by hand? But we don't always get what we want, do we?" Lucifer snapped his fingers, and Dean's left leg broke like a twig.

He couldn't help it. He screamed in pain as he collapsed to the floor, reflexively grabbing his leg before he realized touching it made the pain worse. Dean wasn't sure, but he thought maybe Lucifer had broken it in a couple of different places.

Lucifer's grin was wider now. It looked like his entire face was about to split in half. "Although Sam has some really good points. Like knowing you and everything you might do. He knows you too well."

Dean found himself coughing, and wondered what Lucifer was doing to him now. He got his answer when he hoarked up some blood. Looked like there was some kind of tissue in the puddle too. He wiped his mouth, wondering if he could ever ignore the intense pain in his leg. Just breathing hurt. "You don't even wanna dismember me? Give me a fighting chance?"

He shook his head. "Oh, Dean, you poor, stupid fool. You will never have a fighting chance against me, no matter what you do." Without even looking, Lucifer held up his hand off to his right, and made a gesture. Crowley, whom Dean hadn't known had entered, went flying across the room, taking out a whole row of slot machines as he crashed to the ground. "You never had a chance in – excuse the pun – hell. But your entrance was fan-fucking-tastic. That's how you do it. End of the world, might as well go for broke. I do so love a good entrance."

Dean felt something coiling in his gut, and wondered if Lucifer had put snakes in his stomach. With Lucifer, you couldn't count anything out. He wondered how much longer he had to live.

Couldn't be long, but knowing Lucifer, it would seem like an eternity.


This was taking too long. Sam was sure Crowley was being deliberately clumsy about this. He probably liked torturing angels, and this was his way of dragging it out.

He and Cass had decided to loiter in the angel dungeon, to keep an eye on Crowley, and because they were impatient. Crowley should have pulled something more than Lucifer out of Simeon by now.

"This is grisly," Cass said, looking away as Crowley slid another long needle into Simeon's forehead.

"Yeah. But part of me wishes they were knitting needles."

Cass gave him a look out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing. Maybe he was thinking the same thing, as much as it pained him.

Suddenly, Simeon started saying something else. It was still Enochian, but there were many more syllables, and his intonation was slightly different.

Crowley looked at Cass, who had stepped forward towards Simeon. He appeared both interested and alarmed. "What's he saying?" Sam asked.

But there was no answer. Because Cass was just as suddenly gone.

Sam threw up his hands in frustration. Would giving him a head's up have really wasted that much time? "What's he saying?" he asked Crowley.

The demon was studying the tortured angel, like he wasn't completely following his ramblings. "It's … strange. It might be some kind of angel code, maybe a dimensional designation system. But amongst all the weird code stuff, he keeps saying 'Lucifer's won, the world is over, the dimension is collapsing'."

"The dimension is collapsing?" What the hell ..? Okay, first of all, dimensions could collapse? What did that mean? Could that kill Dean? If the dimension ceased to exist, would Dean cease to exist?

Sam didn't know, and wasn't sure Crowley would know. So all he could hope was Cass got Dean back here as fast as possible.


Lucifer started walking towards Dean, who was having a hard time keeping tears of pain from his eyes. His leg hurt so fucking much it was almost unbelievable. But it made perfect sense, right? Lucifer wanted him to suffer maximum agony. The physical pain was just racing to catch up with all the emotional pain. It might never do that. "C'mon, Dean, don't you want to man up through the pain and try something? Throw a knife? Curse me out? Throw a spell?"

"What's the point? You said it yourself. I can't fight you. Can't win."

Lucifer clicked his tongue. "Don't break on me now, Dean. I'm just getting started."

He let his body posture sag in surrender, and he was hardly faking it. The pain was enormous, and he was so tired. He'd hardly gotten any sleep since he did the Purgatory run. He got maybe forty minutes of shut eye before they headed out. He was weary from his bones to his soul. Part of Dean wanted to die just so he could rest. "Do you hafta keep wearing his skin?" he asked quietly.

Lucifer chuckled, walking closer. "Aww. Is little Dean sad because he misses his brother? Would you like to talk to him?"

"He's dead. We both know he's dead."

Lucifer crouched down in front of him, grinning like an idiot. He was having so much fun tormenting him; it was his favorite hobby in the world. Dean had known he wouldn't kill him right away. The whole plan relied on Lucifer torturing him. "But I know him so well. I could recreate conversations you've had with him. Hell, pick a time. How about Christmas, '92? We could cuddle up and drink hot cocoa, or, what did you call your creation? Irish cocoa. Boy, you hit the hard stuff early and never stopped, did you? Sam knew. You tried to hide it from him, but he always knew what a drunken, sad boy his brother was. Always lonely, always pretending he wasn't. Sam always felt bad for you. You couldn't hide how broken you were from him, no matter how hard you tried."

Dean let the tears of pain roll down his face, and idly dipped his fingertips in the puddle of blood he'd coughed up earlier. "Fuck off and die you monstrous piece of shit." He punched Lucifer right in the face.

It hurt like a motherfucker. Dean was pretty sure he broke two knuckles. Lucifer never even turned his head or reacted in any way. He just continued smiling. "See? That's what I want more of. The piss and vinegar Dean. The one who spits in death's face even as he dies. You're more fun to pin to a board and watch wriggle in vain."

Dean felt a deep, hideous pain inside, like maybe those snakes in his stomach were biting, and he doubled over, fighting the urge to scream or vomit. "You son of a bitch," he gritted through his teeth.

Lucifer laughed. "That's right, kid, keep up your dukes even as you're on the ropes. And Crowley, you think I don't hear that spell work?" Lucifer was up now, walking away from him. Dean started muttering the spell under his breath, drawing symbols in his own blood. Per the spell, the moment he sketched them out, they faded away. "You black eyed bastard, you know you never had a hope of defeating me, right? You're just a salesman who got too full of himself."

Dean heard some noise, but didn't know what had happened. Lucifer had gone back to where Crowley was, and standing slot machines blocked his view. It felt to Dean like something was trying to eat its way out of him, starting in his gut and chomping outward, and he had a terrible mental flash of the movie Alien. Maybe that's what Lucifer was doing to him. He kept up the spell, kept it to an exhaled whispered hidden beneath his pained panting for breath.

"Oh, the Purgatory sword?" Lucifer said, laughing. "Please. The Leviathans are the only things more full of themselves than you, Fergus. I'm sure it could take out lesser gods just fine, but that is nowhere near my league. Nice try, though. Say, who went into Purgatory and got that for you?"

Dean heard footsteps, and was not surprised when Lucifer entered his field of vision again. "Dean! Did you actually make a run through Purgatory?"

Dean just glared at him, feeling blood dribble out his mouth. The thing inside him was doing damage. Lucifer laughed and clapped again, a thrilled child on his birthday. "Fantastic! The hell that must have been. Humans can't survive Purgatory; it's way too ugly. So I guess it's official, huh? You're not Human. Congratulations, Dean. You finally lived up to your destiny. Monster hidden in Human skin. That's really why you were supposed to be the Michael sword. Not bloodline, not anything else. Just the fact that you were a ruthless killing machine. Michael really needed that. Adam was a poor, soft boy, and he had no killer instinct in him. Just think, if you said yes to Michael, you probably would've won, because you could have helped my brother kill me. Oops. Good job on ending the world there, sport."

Seemingly out of nowhere, Benny lunged at Lucifer, holding Godslayer. Lucifer plucked him out of midair, grabbing him by the throat, and ripping the sword out of his hand. It slid across the floor, landing several feet away from Dean, who was in no fit state to get up and get it. He couldn't stand, thanks to his broken leg, and his insides being shredded pretty much guaranteed if he moved an inch, he would be vomiting up his internal organs.

Lucifer made a noise of disgust. "Abomination. What are you even doing here, you little insect? Did you think a lowly thing like you could ever hurt a god like me?"

"No," Benny rasped, trying to pry Lucifer's hands from his throat. He even kicked him in the chest, but Lucifer didn't react at all. He was above physical damage.

"Really? So what the hell was this about?" Lucifer tightened his grip, and Dean could hear bones cracking in Benny's throat.

Dean held out the hand with the sigil on it. He felt energy in his palm, and Godslayer suddenly flew from its resting place, and slapped hilt first into his hand. He muttered the last words of the weakening spell.

"Buying time," Benny said.

Dean felt the spell move through him, a warm wave, and threw the sword.

Lucifer stumbled as the weakness hit him, and dropped Benny, turning to face Dean with blue fire boiling in his eyes. And the sword hit him dead center in the chest, skewering him like meat over a grill.

He grabbed its hilt, staring at Dean in disbelief. "What did you do?"

"That's for Sammy, you son of a bitch." Dean spit up more blood. Crowley told him the spell might hurt him physically, but Dean was beyond the point of caring. If Lucifer died too, he would die willingly.

Lucifer started to pull out the sword, but suddenly fell to his knees, the blue fire disappearing from his eyes. "No no no," he whispered. "You can't do this." He tried pulling out the sword once more, but then keeled over, falling on his face and driving the sword even further through his torso.

Fire erupted inside Lucifer, a bright white light that Dean could see even though he'd closed his eyes and covered them with his arm. He wondered if he was blind now, as it took over a minute for him to see anything but that livid whiteness. It was like being snow-blind.

But finally darkness rushed in, black spots that exploded in front of his eyes, and he could see again. He could still feel blood gurgling in his throat, and his leg was definitely still broken, but maybe that thing that was eating him alive was gone.

Benny crawled over to him, Lucifer's hand prints raw and red on his partially broken neck, and laughed, holding a hand out. "We fucking did it!"

Dean clasped his hand, and gave it a squeeze. "Hell yeah we did." Dean didn't know how much longer he'd be alive. A few minutes maybe. Was Crowley dead? He had no idea. Maybe he and Benny were the only part of the raiding party still alive. Dean didn't feel bad about that.

Benny looked beyond Dean, and he suddenly sat back, eyes startled. Dean glanced over, wondering if Lucifer had popped back up, and was shocked to his core.

It was Cass standing there, in his usual rumpled trench coat, looking nearly as startled as Benny. "Dean?"

"Cass." He was so happy to see him he could have cried. They brought him back. Maybe he wasn't alone anymore.

"You killed Lucifer." Cass said that as if it was amazing. Well, it was, wasn't it? Even Lucifer seemed surprised by it.

Dean nodded, and Benny whispered, "You know angels and you didn't call them in?"

"He was dead," Dean told him. "Until just this second."

Cass came over, and crouched down beside him. "This isn't your dimension, Dean. You're not supposed to be here."

"What?" Was it just the fact that he was dying, or did that just not make sense? But Cass met his eyes, and he knew he wasn't lying to him. God, he was so happy to see him, he didn't care if he made sense or not.

"In spite of that, you saved this dimension. Congratulations." Cass touched him on the forehead, and the world suddenly fell away.