.-.-. Falling.-.-.-.
Summary:
With the memories of what happened merely two months ago still burning freshly in Dean's mind, he's trying his hardest to make sure his biggest secret remains just that, a secret - from the entire world. But when you're the Devil himself… how long can you keep yourself and your brother safe from a demon with other plans in mind? Sequel to Lucifer.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or anything associated with the show.
Quick reminder, this takes place during Season 2 and is an AU.
Author Notes: Thank you again for reading! I'm not sure exactly how many chapters I've got left to write, but I think it's safe so say the story is finally working its way toward the conclusion, so I hope you enjoy what's to come.
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Race with the Devil
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"Lucifer…" Dean breathed out, turning to find himself face to face with his darker reflection.
Lightening ripped through the once fiery and now stormy sky, the thunder that quickly followed it threatening a downpour of rain. The wind picked up, whipping around them, feeling like claws dragging at the loose fabric of Dean's clothes. The more Dean took in, the more he felt like what little life had existed in the desert was waning, death skulking in like an imposing shadow, thick and heavy.
"Dean," Lucifer answered, inclining his head, his eyes moving beyond Dean and to whatever lay behind. "I see you brought a friend."
Dean cast a glance over his shoulder, taking in the somewhat faded image of Diego, but the younger man didn't look to him, if anything he seemed to stare ahead unseeing. "Diego, I thought you said you wouldn't be here."
"I'm just a guide, what you see is a kind of a… a metaphysical representation of your way out," Diego spoke, and though his mouth moved, it felt out of sync, as if the words weren't coming from there. Instead, they seemed to echo around Dean's head, fading in and out, like a bad connection on a phone line. "Right now, you should be at the surface of your consciousness. You need to look for a way to go deeper."
"Deeper," Dean repeated, looking around him and trying his best to ignore that grin on Lucifer's face. "I don't know what I'm looking for."
"It could be a door of some kind, something you need to pass through."
"I'm in a desert! There are no doors."
"What are you doing, Dean?" Lucifer questioned, the words a warm breath against Dean's cheek, causing him to stiffen at the sudden closeness of the fallen angel. "You think you can fix this, with Scrappy Doo over there?"
"Then a path maybe, or a road…" Diego's voice echoed again, oblivious to Lucifer's words.
Lucifer let go of a chuckle, circling Dean to come and stand in front of him. "Don't you get it? Don't you understand yet? Any path you take will always lead you back here, to me. We are one in the same, and the only way to fix this, is for you to give in to that."
"Dean? Do you hear me?" Diego spoke up, no doubt wondering about Dean's lack of response.
"Yeah, I hear you," Dean answered the young man, though his gaze was locked on Lucifer's, hard and determined.
"Have you found a way to get deeper yet?"
"Go on, Dean," Lucifer goaded, chaotic lava circling the pupils of his eyes, "dig. Dig deep, because you already know what you'll find. That hole you feel in your chest, you know what that is. You are nothing without me. You need me. So just let go…"
What Dean hated the most was the truth in Lucifer's words. He could have lived his whole life in blissful ignorance if he had never learned who he truly was. He could have gone on as Dean Winchester; hunter, brother, human. Hell, he had nearly convinced himself he could return to that after the last time. But since that bullet had ripped through his chest, since it had ripped through his soul, the worse it got, the more he could see, who he was was beyond everything he had come to believe. In his mind, he may have still been Dean Winchester, but without Lucifer, he was not whole.
"Dean?" Diego's voice drifted to him, pulling him from his thoughts and forcing him to drag his eyes away from Lucifer. When Dean didn't answer straight away, Diego tried once more, a light quiver to his tone. "Dean?"
"I'm here…" Dean answered, the words barely louder than a whisper.
"Are you sure about that?" Lucifer mocked. "I mean, you're here, but are you really here?"
Dean ignored him, hands moving up to interlock at the nape of his neck as he turned on the spot, gaze forever searching, looking for any sign of a road, or a door, or anything that would lead him out of the desert. His feet moved of their own accord when his eyes landed on the tree, pulling him towards it. That damned tree. It had to be involved somehow.
The ground rumbled as he drew nearer, the sand unsettling under his feet until he was almost upon the twisted and broken branches, a large crack forming across the dry ground that lay beneath. It stretched out across the gap between him and the tree, as if beckoning him forward. "You've got to be kidding me…"
Was that his way deeper? No doorway, no path, nothing but a crack in the ground suggesting he would have to literally dig, as Lucifer had all but said. He knelt down and touched the ground, feeling his stomach drop. Unless it actually opened up and swallowed him whole, there was no way he could dig through that.
"Hey, Diego, you got any idea how to magically make a shovel appear?"
But there was no response, nothing but a strangled silence. When Dean turned his head to look toward the image of Diego, the first thing he noticed was the wide eyes, fear and shock written there. It wasn't until his own eyes lowered toward the red stain blossoming out across Diego's abdomen that he realised why the emotions were there.
Dean was on his feet immediately, surging forward toward the flickering image as Diego coughed and doubled over, spraying blood across the sand and dirt. But by the time he reached Diego, his fingertips moved through empty air, the image gone, along with any response. He swung to face Lucifer immediately, accusation written in his eyes.
"What did you do?" The growl etched on his voice was full of warning and anger, and he strode across the ground toward Lucifer once more with purpose.
But Lucifer's attention was elsewhere, his eyes cast upward toward the sky."Oh, that wasn't me."
"Then who was it?"
Lucifer's gaze lowered and his head cocked to the side as he considered Dean. "They found you. Us. He found us. Azazel, that rat."
Dean shook his head. "How?"
"Are you really that foolish?" Lucifer smirked, looking Dean up and down before spreading his arms out and motioning to everything around them. "Don't you feel that? That raw power. The lock is broken and it's seeping out. With no one to control it, it's just floating around in the air like a beacon. Of course they found us, it was only ever a matter of time – but even you must have figured that much out for yourself."
Throat tightening, Dean could feel the skittering of his heart in his chest, like the fluttering of a hummingbird's wings, trapped and caged. He shook his head in denial, but deep down, he knew Lucifer was telling the truth, and if that was so then they were in trouble. "Sam..."
"Oh yes, of course!" Lucifer mocked. "That's right. Little brother is out there, whilst you're still trapped in here with me. But then, it's not like you would be much use to him, what with not being able to pull the trigger and all. I mean, you could glare at him – like that that you're doing now – but that won't do you much good."
"You shut your mouth, you son of a bitch," Dean forced out, hands forming fists by his sides.
Lucifer took a step forward, closing the gap between them to barely a breath in distance. "You want to kill him, don't you? You want to make him suffer for what he did to Mommy Dearest, and Daddy… You want to end this, once and for all, keep Sammy safe." He leaned forward, his eyes boring into Dean's, so close that Dean could see his reflection in them. "Then you know what you have to do."
-*-*-666-*-*-
Sam would have cleared a space on the spare chair in the room, but he was too on edge to be seated. Instead he paced the room, finding himself more drawn to the books in this one than in the room with the monitors and madness of aliens and UFOs. This room could have been mistaken for a hunter's room, or at the very least an old professor's study, with books on dead languages and ancient history, from Egypt to Greece and the early days of America. Any other time, he would have happily picked a book from one of the shelves to pore over and lose himself in. But then, any other time, his brother wouldn't have been laid on a couch, out for the count, whilst being guided through his dreams by an amateur hypnotist.
Dean mumbled beneath his breath as Diego came to number one, the single word groggy and only half there. It brought Sam to a standstill, his attention immediately returning to Dean, and he didn't miss the way Dean's body seemed to stiffen, tensing up. He was under, and Sam imagined that meant he was face to face with Lucifer.
He tried to ignore the déjà vu but no matter how much he tried to shirk it, it was a persistent itch. A faint memory of a faded dream or old movie, that was how it felt. Like something he had seen long ago, and he wasn't sure if the lines were right, but that was how they circled around in his head.
"There isn't really any reason to worry, is there?" He had asked, trepidation in his voice.
"No," had been the lie he had received in response.
"Right now, you should be at the surface of your consciousness." Diego's words brought Sam back to the here and now, the memory fading away. "You need to look for a way to go deeper."
"Deeper. I don't know what I'm looking for." Dean's response was so low that Sam found himself inching closer to hear him better. He hadn't even noticed he was holding his breath until he felt his chest starting to tighten.
Diego shuffled in his seat, edging forward, knee bouncing from barely restrained energy. "It could be a door of some kind, something you need to pass through."
The next words went unheard to Sam, his attention suddenly drawn upwards and toward the sudden flicker of the lights. There and gone. It could have been nothing more than an electrical surge, but the instincts instilled in him from a young age told him they weren't that lucky. His ears strained for any sounds outside of that room, anything that could be an indication of unwelcome guests.
At first, there was nothing, even as Sam leaned out into the hallway, gaze roaming what he could see of the monitors in the next room over. Then he heard it. A distant pop, followed by glass crunching. And another, and another, and another, all in quick succession – the monitors going dark from the sudden lack of light from the floodlights outside, before switching to a variation of night vision. But even that didn't last long, before each monitor flickered and turned to static.
The low growl from Ripper brought Sam's attention back toward the room, the hellhound looking out toward the large bay window. The hound hung low, skirting the floor like a predator waiting for the right moment to strike. Even Diego noticed the shift in the atmosphere, the young man swallowing hard and looking between Sam and the hellhound.
"Dean? Do you hear me?" he questioned, a light quiver starting to encroach in his voice.
A breath, followed by Dean's slow and sluggish response. "Yeah, I hear you."
Sam took a step back into the room, his eyes darting between possible entrances, from the window, to the hallway, and even to the open fireplace. Carefully, his hand reached behind his back, fingers caressing the metal of the colt before finally gripping it tight and drawing it from the waistband of his jeans. "Wake him up."
Diego stalled but nodded. "Dean…?"
Nothing. A sudden and deep silence, like the world had suddenly been submerged in water. A brief calm.
"Dean?"
The front door rattled, the noise short lived, but it was enough to bring Diego to his feet. Sam raised the colt toward the doorway, but despite another louder and angrier rattle, he couldn't help but notice how Ripper's attention remained on the window. In hindsight, he should have acted on the feeling sooner. He should have known the front door was a distraction and he should have already been aiming toward the window. At least then he might have seen it coming, as the window blew in, like an explosion had gone off on the other side.
Glass flew into the room, and Sam barely managed to bring himself down below one of the units to save himself from the brunt of it. Footsteps crunched on glass and he pulled himself back up slowly, aiming the colt toward the two people that had entered the room. A man and a woman, sick smiles twisting at their faces, a familiar thick black shadow passing over their eyes as they took in the room and its occupants.
Before Sam could react, he was thrown backward against the wall. He fought against the invisible grip but the most he managed to do was bring his head away from the wall for little longer than a breath before it was forced back again. "Wake him up, Diego!"
Diego opened his mouth t speak, but the only thing to make it out was a cry of pain as the male demon stretched out his arm and clenched his hand into a fist. It didn't take long before blood was spreading out across Diego's grey shirt. He hacked and coughed, bringing up more blood, and as the demon dragged his hand back in a sharp motion, Diego fell to his knees with a loud crack before slumping downward to the floor completely.
"No!" Sam cried, attempting to thrash against the control the other demon had on him, but it was useless. The only time the control lessened was when Ripper made to attack, though not enough for Sam to break free, and the hellhound was sent reeling backward by what Sam assumed was an iron pole – judging by the hellhound's reaction and the thick black leather gloves worn by the male demon.
"Don't worry, Sam," the female demon crooned, "we're not here for you."
Sam shook his head vehemently, forced to watch helplessly as the male demon began to approach Dean. "Stay away from him, or I swear to God-"
"God?" the male demon laughed, coming to stand behind the couch and the sleeping Dean that lay upon it. He leaned over the back, looming over Dean, eyes flicking between each brother before finally coming to rest on Dean's face. "I think we're a little passed God these days."
"If you lay one finger on him-" But Sam's threat was cut short, his nostrils flaring in response as the demon purposely ran his index finger down Dean's cheek.
"Relax, boy wonder," the demon said, his words spilling from his lips like venomous ink, very much like his body seemed to spill out over the couch, staying far too close to Dean for Sam's liking, "we're just here to hold onto the goods until Big Daddy arrives."
"He won't be far off," the other demon continued, "he's just making a pit stop to pick something up first."
"What?" Sam questioned, his throat tightening around the word.
The female demon shook her head, a wicked grin splitting across her face. "Oh no, that would be telling."
But Sam wasn't pay attention to her anymore. His eyes were drawn to Ripper and the way the hellhound backed away from both demons. There was a wariness about his movements that sent chills down Sam's spine, and it was in that moment that he could practically feel the electricity on the air, buzzing around them, crackling – very much like the old jukebox in the corner that chose that moment to come to life.
The mechanisms creaked and jerked, record settling into place and needle coming to rest upon it. It wasn't until the music started that both demons looked to the jukebox also, both in equal confusion.
"Turn that off, will ya?" the demon by Dean all but ordered, but there was something in his voice that hadn't been there before. Fear.
Without a word, the other demon approached the jukebox and stabbed at the buttons, pushing each in turn and earning no result, until she finally gave in and ripped the plug from the wall. The music died instantly, and almost immediately after, every single light in the house followed, as if a fuse had somehow blown.
Darkness. Silence. Stretching on. Both broken when the jukebox ticked over once more, lighting up and coming to life to continue in its song. Sam narrowed his eyes at the machine, the dim glow spreading out across what little of the room it could reach, creating a silhouette of the demon that stood between the jukebox and Sam.
A light thump sounded from across the room near Dean, just as the lyrics began, and the demon took a step away from the jukebox to allow more light to spill into the room. Sam noticed the blood first, pooling around the floor beneath the now empty couch, then he saw the corpse of what had been the male demon, eyes burned out and jaw slack and hanging open, as if broken.
The record skipped, the words of the song repeating over and over. "Better run- Better run- Better run-"
"No," the second demon breathed out, gaze locked on the fallen body of the other, feet guiding her backwards. "No… You can't… He… Azazel promised. He said you were as good as dead… Please. Please…"
"Better run from the Devil's gun." The music from the jukebox continued on, the frantic beats matching the demon's frantic movements to be away from that place.
She spun around to face the window, no doubt hoping to escape whilst she still could, but Sam saw her mistake long before she did. The shadow of the man she had attempted to plead with was already stood behind her waiting, and he greeted her with a hand to the mouth. Her scream was muffled at first, then quickly turned to a gurgle as fire seemed to spread throughout her, burning her up from the inside out until she was nothing but another empty carcass that dropped to the floor, useless and discarded, the stomach-turning scent of burning flesh lingering in the air.
"Dean," Sam breathed out, the name filled with desperation and fear because he already knew that the man before him was not his brother. He didn't need to see the chaotic crimson eyes to know as much. He could sense it, could practically feel the loss inside his chest.
"What's the matter, Sammy?" Lucifer questioned, stepping forward and into the light, "You look like you've seen a ghost."
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Authors Notes: I'm hoping to get another update done and ready to post this weekend, or at least sometime before the premiere. Fingers crossed.