*slams fist on table*
*misses table*
*raises arm rebelliously from the floor*

Finished this damn thing just weeks short of Supernatural itself and one day short of Shiro's birthday, but FINISHED IT IS! May it find peace at last, and you all have my thanks for your patience!

/Dimwit

Shirou liked storms - always had. When he was a bitter little kid that hated the world the clawing wind and hammering rain was something he could relate to. An ally. When he was older - still bitter, still hating the world, although more selectively - it would excite him, inspire that part within him that would still kick and thrash against whatever restraints he felt holding him back.

So when The Impala sped into Chicago, he was supercharged and ready to fight Death and any other horseman that felt like showing up.

You'd think people in The Windy City would be accustomed to wind. Yet the city as a whole had crawled under cover as the storm picked up and huddled low under the restless skies. Barely any people braved the streets where the wind was intent on flattening the lean, decorative evergreens against the ground. There was an air of trepidation in the greys and washed browns of the landscape, as the city seemed to know what its inhabitants didn't.

"Hey, let's stop for pizza."

Neither Dean nor Shirou could properly process that.

"Are you kidding?"

"How about a knuckle sandwich, will that do?"

"Just heard Chicago had good pizza, that's all." On Crowley's instruction they slowed their drive, crawling along the street until the demon once again leaned into the front seat space. "Up ahead: big ugly building. Ground zero. Horseman's stable, if you will." Crowley nudged his head. "He's in there."

Two slammed doors later - because Crowley considered doors below him, or whatever - they had parked The Impala out of view from the horsemen lair but still at a safe-for-quick-bailing distance. Their target looked like cityscape gone to create a monument to its conquests, concrete foundations and sheet metal leaving no room for expression of individuality. It gave Shirou a prickling feeling of a trap. It was too nondescript, too poorly guarded - there wasn't even a gate in the high wire fence, the driveway just went straight up to the building.

"How do you know?" Dean was eyeing the place as suspiciously as Shirou.

"Have you met me? 'Cause I know." Thankfully, he and Dean were still on the same side when it came to Crowley's nonchalant sassing. They would have none of it, and the demon rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Also, the block is squirming with reapers."

Whether that was true or more bullshit on his part, the humans in the group would simply have to accept it.

"I'll be right back."

Crowley vanished uncannily discreetly compared to Samael; you just blinked and he was gone.

"So what's the odds?" Shirou mumbled. He had a cigarette pinched between his lips, flicking his lighter several times in cupped hands before he got a flame strong enough to survive the wind. "How long before he pulls some asshat move to screw with us?"

Dean might not respond. The car ride had been silent, no icebreaker strong enough for an attempt to overcome it, but that did not mean Shirou accepted defeat. He only had one chance, dammit. He would run headfirst into that wall until it gave way.

Next thing he knew, Dean huffed.

"He'll wait till we go after Death, then ditch the scene", he responded flatly. "When we come back all battered to hell he's sitting in my car munching pizza, asking what took us so long."

Shirou quirked his lips around the cigarette.

"Ever tried putting holy water in a demon's drink? It's a good show."

"If Crowley stays around for more of Bobby's whiskey it's-"

"Boy, is my face red." The familiar voice and its fashionably dressed owner had reappeared – not unexpectedly – just behind them. "Death's not in there."

Crowley and Samael deserved each other. Shirou didn't know which one of them was pulling this particular dickwad joke but regardless: they deserved each other.

"You wanna cut the cute and get to the part where you tell us where he is?" Dean asked snidely.

"Sorry. I don't know." And with that, Crowley turned and walked.

Shirou grabbed hold of his arm and yanked him back around.

"Then figure it out", he growled to the demon's face. "Give us Death's coordinates, that was your end of the deal – you know how deals work."

"Why of course." Crowley swiped at the cigarette ash Shirou had inadvertently growled onto his black coat. "Merchandise doesn't talk, for one thing. And merchandise gets returned if the conditions of the deal can't be met", he added, shifting his eyes sharply onto Dean. "Don't worry, the Crossroad King delivers. We'll catch Death in the next doomed city."

"Whoa whoa whoa; what about Chicago?" Dean approached, with one hand raised before him as if hoping his fingers would bump into an answer mid-air. "What about the three million dead? The storm's gonna hit any minute."

"True", Crowley agreed sweetly. "So I strongly suggest we get out of here." Shirou didn't keep him from walking this time. His teeth clenched till his jaw hurt, but deep down he knew.

You don't waste men trying to hold a doomed fort. You fall back, regroup, and aim to win the next battle. A bitter truth to swallow, perhaps, but nothing Shirou wasn't used to. He ground out the cigarette under his boot, a vicious motion, and headed off after Crowley – only to be halted by a gruff voice behind him.

"You too?"

Dean hadn't moved from the spot. Steadfast Dean, caring Dean, self-sacrificing Dean who refused to believe hope was lost. He struck quite the image, with his scowl somewhere between defiant and betrayed, fierce against the backdrop of a city that trembled and a sky that looked ready to devour them all.

"Dean…" Shirou wished he could be that man. That one man who stood up to fate and Armageddon and whatever other thing the world threw at him and pulled through. "He's right. I know you hate it, and I hate it too, but we gotta go. If we don't live to fight another day there's gonna be hella lot more than three million dead."

He didn't know where the heck Dean got the strength – courage? faith? stupidity? – to do what he did. Or perhaps the hunter was simply made of mettle Shirou would never have.

Dean stalked past him, a fuming swirl of emotion headed for the car. Shirou trailed behind, said nothing: watched the broad, tense shoulders under the jacket. As the first rumbles of thunder rolled from the ravenous cauldron above, he wondered once again what the fuck he was supposed to contribute with.

Things were not going as planned.

Death should have been there. The coordinates were clear, the signs unmistakable - Crowley felt an impulsive, rueful laugh gnaw his ribcage. That's what you get, working with demons. Working with demons like Samael. Directions so clear a child could follow them, only to find there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow after all.

The more he thought about it the more did the design spell out Samael. Hunters chasing Death, turned into the ones hunted the moment Samael tipped his old acquaintance off about the most precious artefact Crowley had unfortunately displayed during their negotiation.

"Never try to impress Samael", he nodded to himself, most definitely not rocking back and forth in the car seat, and the smirk on his face was absolutely genuine. "Never try to show off around Samael. Never work with demons outranking yourself."

"So, what?" Ah, the Winchester, how delightful to see a face more upset than his own. "Call in a bomb threat? Call in a thousand bomb threats? I mean how the hell am I supposed to get three million people out of Chicago in the next ten minutes? There has to be something we can do!"

The eldest Winchester really did that a lot. The scowl. Why, the worrying, too, of course – impossible to miss, really – but that scowl had truly integrated itself into his person. It was hard to remember a time when he hadn't scowled; Crowley entertained himself briefly with the idea that the boy's eyebrows might slide off his face if he didn't keep a tight grip on them.

Humans look so comical without eyebrows.

"Though I have little hope you're susceptible to that kind of suggestion, I'm going to ask you to think rationally." Crowley repositioned himself in the back seat and leaned forward with fingertips pressed together – the Winchesters needed therapists, both of them, so why not strike the appropriate pose? "You're more important than Chicago. You're more important than the handful of people you could potentially save by cramming them into this car. If you die here this same thing will happen with every city in the world; if you live, however, you will have a shot at saving the next place Death shows up in. Do I make myself clear or do you need a flowchart?"

"I need some cooperation! I can't just drive off knowing I'm leaving behind three million to die! We have to do something, come up with something!"

"That restaurant…"

Stuart did not seem to notice the wind whipping leaves and old newspapers in people's faces. He didn't seem to notice the open car door, or the tension inside, or anything other than the building across the street.

"Oh great! Am I the only one here thinking three million lives are more important than pizza!?"

"There's something I gotta check. I'll be quick." Stuart slammed the car door shut and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

"Hey? Hey! Kid! Shit…"

Oh yes, slamming the car wheel always solves problematic situations – very Dean. Crowley's eyes traced the casual jog as the white-haired figure headed across the street.

"There's something off with that kid…" Not just a Natural witch. Not just a child with an odd magnetism to his eyes. He had looked at that pizza restaurant like it had been a lighthouse beacon, though perhaps not so much looked as sensed. There were witches who had that kind of ability, admittedly – even the ability to command hellhounds, it seemed. Was that why Samael had insisted Stuart go with them? Not to defeat Death but to find Death?

At a... pizza restaurant...

"There's something off with anybody who joins up with demons." The Winchester boy was blissfully unaware that he had just stabbed himself in the foot when suddenly his scowl took on a different quality. "Is that really why this Samael guy hangs around him? Like it's a thing for demons to have some human they…" Really, what was he trying to say with that gesture? It could mean anything. "Fancy? Keep? Adopt?" The grimace suggested he meant something else but the thought was too repulsive for his delicate sensibilities. "What do you even do with people you take a liking to? Except give them their legs back."

Premonition was no talent of Crowley's whatsoever, but in that precise moment he could see the future flash before him. See how jokes about bearded hunters became rumours and rumours assumed more and more solid shape until they took on a life of their own.

"I suppose you also believe Roger Rabbit was the murderer? Because in case it escaped your hawk-like attention, Bobby French kissed me."

"And you added a subclause to his contract and gave him his legs back without extra charge."

Crowley rolled his eyes – would have considered rolling them again, to emphasise just how much of an idiot the Winchester boy was.

"Do us all a favour and plug your mouth and brain back together. We're trying to stop the Apocalypse; we need all the manpower we can get. We need Bobby Singer: on foot, sober, and with a loaded shotgun."

Winchester hung his crossed arms over the wheel and was the perfect gritty Bruce Springsteen album cover right there, just snap a polaroid.

"Not gonna say I'm not… grateful, for that freebie. We all are. But I'm not trusting your motives." Stuart was peeking in through the restaurant window, and Dean watched his every move. More to himself than to Crowley, he murmured: "…And I worry about that kid."

Of course he did. Crowley knew the Winchester sob story as well as any demon: the younger brother drawn to darkness and the older going through hell and high water to save him. Of course Dean would worry about Stuart; how would he power the scowl if he didn't have someone to worry about?

He was too caring, that boy. It'd be his undoing. And seeing as he could not allow Dean Winchester to undo himself quite right now, Crowley had to intervene. Dean could not start viewing the Stuart kid as another little brother to protect.

So, he rolled his eyes once more.

"The only thing you need to worry about is how many ridiculous plans Samael will hatch to get into his pants." Dean did look worried about that. Upon re-running his words to himself, Crowley could sort of see why. "Oh the look on your face", he commented gleefully. "There's no need to worry. Samael considers himself a gentleman: proper fictional top hat and tailcoat kind. Wouldn't be very gentlemanly to rape someone, now would it? Wouldn't be very challenging either, and that's what this is all about." He nodded in Stuart's direction, for emphasis. "The more unobtainable the target the more fun for him to pursue it. Trust me, if Stuart ever ends up in Samael's bed-"

"Oh come on I'm not worried about that!" A minute variation to the Winchester Scowl: the Winchester Glare. "He's got a deal, doesn't he…? That Samael dude's got a rope around his neck: that's what I worry about."

Now that was a legitimate worry, and as such Crowley had to address it and put it to rest. Without lying too blatantly.

"Perhaps - perhaps not. As much as I love to gossip about my colleagues and their affairs, gossiping about Samael's is a tricky business. He's special." Indeed. "If there ever was a demon who genuinely liked humans, that would be Samael. To the point that in Stuart's dimension he's co-piloting a Hunter equivalent of UN peacekeeping troops. If he has a rope around Stuart's neck, the boy should count himself lucky." The boy in question would have contradicted him, for sure, had he not been busy cupping his hands to peep in through the restaurant window in a very unstealthy manner. "That makes him the only one of us who can rightfully say he's got divine protection. Samael can - and will - beat any archangel with both hands tied behind his back if they decide to harm his little witch." A bold claim, perhaps. Samael would probably approve, so long as he didn't have to actually face Michael with tied hands. "There: does that make you feel better?"

There came no reply. Dean was once again busy trying to make his scowl take on a facial expression, this time by squinting intensely at something across the street. The wind was picking up, people were pulling their jackets tighter around themselves… Ah. Stuart was waving at them.

"He's telling us to go away?"

"No." Crowley squinted, too, just to be sure. "He's telling you to come over to him."

"No, he's clearly waving us away but what's he waiting for? If we gotta scram he should get his ass over here!"

"He's from Japan. That's how they do when they wave you closer."

A face broke out of the Winchester boy's scowl and spelled what the fuck? better than he could have done in writing.

"Trust me. I have the ambiguous pleasure of knowing the world's greatest Japanophile."

Shirou swallowed one extra time as Dean crossed the street, hands in pockets and shoulders drawn high against the wind. He had committed a fair amount of burglaries but none where there were people still in the house.

Well. Technically, there were people still in the house.

Shirou opened the door, making sure to lift it slightly by the handle so the hinges wouldn't creak. The bar maid had collapsed against the liquor cabinet, bottle fallen right out of her hand. Waitresses lay scattered on the checkerboard floor, limbs twisted, restaurant guests tipped over dead in their food. Perfectly still. Perfectly quiet. Candles still lit in red and blue glass jars on the tables, not a single trace of struggle.

Demons leave a mess – Shirou could handle a mess. This? This was fucking unnatural.

He entered the room, breath held with his whole body. Zombies native to China could tell the presence of living by their breath, he recalled, and though he had no idea what to even think of the entity at the far back of the restaurant he knew it must sense him. His beating heart, his warm blood and silent lungs. It could tell he was there, he knew it. Felt it. Death may sit with its back towards the entrance but the entire room was filled with its presence, was part of its presence, as if the entity resided not just in the black-garbed man in the chair but in the chair itself, in the tables and the floor and the deafening stillness of the air.

It was like being near Samael when his essence saturated space beyond the constraints of his host.

They were going to die here.

Unless he could catch Dean by his jacket and pull him back, get the hell out of Chicago before the entity had decided what to do with them. Dean didn't sense what Shirou sensed. Dean was treading quietly towards the thing that barely fit into its black suit and human skin as if he had a chance of actually overwhelming it.

Fuck this. They had to get out before-

The sound froze Shirou mid-motion. He couldn't tell what it was, but something was happening and he needed to respond as fast as- A gasp, a metallic clank, and Dean had dropped the rattling, sizzling sickle to the floor.

"Thanks for returning that."

Shirou's breath died in his lungs.

It would have been better if its voice had been a distorted void, a multi-layered echo, a chill across the crawling skin. That way it would have matched. A human voice - well measured, well kept, a display piece spotlessly maintained - was jarringly unfit for the thing at the table. The sickle was there, too, innocently playing at being another piece of cutlery beside the knife and fork on the checkered tablecloth.

"Join me. The pizza's delicious."

It was probably Samael's fault, but whenever some creature pretended to be human, expecting everyone to play along as if they could direct the whole damn script as they pleased, the mockery made Shirou's blood boil. He would have walked straight up and kicked that table over if not for Dean's quiet motioning for him to stay.

One for distraction, one for ambush. He nodded a fraction to confirm the plan.

Shirou reached soundlessly for the gun at his hip as Dean seemed to move in slow motion before him. The tip of his tongue pleaded to be pinched between his teeth, Aria verses suggested themselves uselessly to his mind; without the sickle they had nothing save the element of surprise, if he could surprise Death enough that Dean could swipe it from the table and use it. The silence drowned in the rush of his pulse gaining speed with each wary step the hunter took towards the table. Shirou swallowed: Dean was glancing sideways, trying to catch a glimpse of Death's face.

"Sit down."

"This is it..." Shirou moved, one breathless step at a time under cover of the scraping of chair legs when Dean sat. His eyes stung. Couldn't risk blinking in case he missed the signal.

"Took you long enough to find me. I've been wanting to talk to you. Well, to one of you. Come join us – I believe Dean could use the company."
Shirou's eyes met Dean's for one brief, nauseous moment.

They were going to die here.

Strange things happen when you're about to die, when the wants and musts and learned pretenses of life shed like dirt in hot water and leave only what's at the core of you, the purest essence of your heart. In some it might bring out the best. In others, the worst.

Shirou grabbed a chair from the neighbouring table, swivelled it around and straddled it in reverse, resting an arm casually on the backrest pressed up against his chest: the other arm, while betraying a tremble, picked up the spatula from Death's pizza pan and dumped a thick slice on his own plate.

He wasn't really hungry. His heart was beating his throat and stomach raw and feeding his brain high-octane adrenaline, so it was purely for show that Shirou forked a portion into his mouth and chewed, all while maintaining eye-contact with Death.

In reality, he only lasted a couple of seconds.

It wasn't a skeleton. Part of him had expected that, and he hadn't been all wrong. Death was gaunt, with a sharpness to his angles as of skin stretched taut to fit over the bone beneath. But his eyes - his eyes might as well have been the hollow sockets of a skull. Those eyes saw everything and cared for nothing, an embodiment of the one relentless law the universe and all things in it had to bend before.

"I know who you are", Death informed him – an impersonal notice, a statement of fact without impact. "I also know who sent you. Don't get the wrong idea; you were not sent here to save the world." That, too, was matter-of-factly and impersonal. Perhaps that was why it stung. "Your contribution will be minimal, a note in the margin of a story being written by others. The one I wish to speak with, is you." Death turned his eyes on Dean, and a weight Shirou hadn't even been aware of shifted from his being.

"I got to say… mixed feelings about that." Dean tried to joke, tried to quirk a smile, but none of it managed to carry under the pressure that came with Death's gaze. "S-so this is the part where… " There was too little air in his lungs. "Where you kill us?" This one couldn't even be called a smile.

"Perhaps I expressed myself poorly. You aren't authoring this tale any more than he does: you are merely the typesetter, enabling the story to be written the way it must."

A subtle thing crossed Dean's face, or perhaps it was merely the shadow of some emotion skimming the chambers of his heart. Regardless what it was, Death saw it.

"You have an inflated sense of your importance. You all have. You want to change the script, do something that matters in the long run. You can't." Death sipped soda out of his glass with a straw. "Not in the long run." The look he gave them then suggested they had no concept of what long meant. "This is one little planet in one tiny solar system, in a galaxy that's barely out of its diapers." Rain had begun to pound on the panoramic windows, a mob of fists impatient to release the full extent of their destructive capacity on Chicago. "I'm old, Dean. Very old. So I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you and your world that's about to go under." The first wave of thunder rolled against the building and made the window glass rattle in its frames. Death didn't so much as flinch: he did shovel a pizza slice onto Dean's plate. "Eat."

Strange things happen when you're confronted with Death personified. In Dean it manifested in being too nervous to remember such a basic thing as eating. The knife and fork were unfamiliar tools he was handling for the first time, every motion tense and deliberate.

Shirou hated it. Hated seeing this done to Dean, hated the way Death toyed with them.

Hate was a much safer emotion than fear and sympathy.

"Good, isn't it?"

It itched. This polite small talk nonsense, this casual parody of a host and his guests being bad guests in need of prompts to behave properly guest-like. There was no way Death didn't think it was funny, seeing a mortal be so nervous, so anxious, over such a mundane, mortal thing as eating that he almost forgot how to do it. There may not be a single trace of humour or mockery on his face but Shirou knew it.

Dean didn't seem to have understood the question. Or maybe he hadn't actually thought to notice how it tasted. Since, you know, he was fully occupied fearing for his life.

"How old are you?" It wasn't Shirou's place to speak, Death had made that abundantly clear. Alas. Death had also toyed with Shirou's idol.

"As old as God. Maybe older." His eyebrows quirked upwards, and for a moment Shirou feared the strained skin would crack. "Neither of us can remember anymore. Life, death, chicken, egg – regardless, at the end, I'll reap him, too."

"God?" They wore identical faces of disbelief, but it was Dean who leaned forward and asked again, in case he had misheard: "You'll reap God?"

"Oh yes. God will die, too, Dean."

That, too, was impersonal. Matter-of-factly. And that, more than anything, etched their insignificance into the minds of them both.

"Well, this is way above my paygrade." Dean gave a nervous chuckle - how else would he, anyone, handle what had just been said?

"Just a bit."

Shirou stuffed his mouth full of pizza, or else he would have snarked their chances of getting out of this to the bottom of the ocean. Just a bit, hah? Making Dean sweat and stutter and jump through hoops and then mock his situation just a bit? Fuck all immortal pricks that put themselves so high above everyone else they all ought to suffocate out in the stratosphere.

But this was not the time. This was not his story, as Death had succinctly described it. This was not Samael, this was Dean's dimension and Dean's chance to save everything he cared about. So Shirou kept his mouth shut, and Dean nodded, his lips working nervously without getting sound out.

"S-so, then, why am I still breathing, sitting here with you? Uh… Wh-what do you want?"

The leash around my neck – off."

That, however. That was not impersonal. Dean didn't seem to notice, or maybe it was just Shirou who had spent enough time around the inhuman that he had developed a sensitivity for when they displayed traits that were strikingly human. Traits that could be exploited as weaknesses.

"Satan has me bound to him", Death continued - a ridiculous notion, his voice betrayed, and Shirou smirked down at his pizza. Not completely above everyone, after all? "Some unseemly little spell. He has me where he wants, when he wants." Dean's gaze darted back and forth on the table, as if mapping the situation out to himself in his mind's eye. "That's why I couldn't go to you. I had to wait for you to catch up. He made me his weapon. Hurricanes, floods, raising the dead. I'm more powerful than you can process, and I'm enslaved to a bratty child having a tantrum."
Shirou saw where this was going, and he didn't bother hiding his smile anymore. Death played with open cards, and they were going to win the round.

"And you think… I can unbind you?"

"There's your ridiculous bravado again – of course you can't. But you can help me take the bullets out of Satan's gun." Death leaned forward, and Shirou checked every impulse in his body to lean away. His right hand lay on the table, splayed, with the precious ring they had come for on his finger. "I understand you want this?"

"…yeah."

"I'm inclined to give it to you."

Shirou was sure Death felt the ripple in his heart, too. The deflation when the last of his hopes were shot down; if Death had wanted to give Dean the ring all along there really was absolutely nothing useful Shirou could do.

"To give it to me?" Dean was about as shocked by the turn of events as Shirou.

"That's what I said." No, this wasn't Samael. Samael would never have responded so politely in a situation where he could have mocked his opponent so fundamentally.

"But what about… Chicago?"

Death had not even considered Chicago, from the look on his face. And because he was a self-absorbed immortal prick, he hadn't considered that Dean would care about this speck of dirt in the galactic ocean, either.

Thunder threw itself at the walls and windows of Chicago with increasing ferocity. You'd almost think it wanted in on the negotiation over the city its master was rolling like a bargaining chip in his hand.

"I suppose it can stay. I like the pizza." The air trembled as Death removed the ring from his finger. They were going to make it. They were going to get all the rings, they were going to cage the Devil...! "There are conditions." The ring sat pinched between Death's fingers, so painfully close yet...

Shirou felt the hairs on his head rise. Not this easy. It was never this easy when you dealt with immortal pricks who didn't care what damage they did to humans.

"Okay. Like?"

Shirou heard the conversation from a distance, as if fading out of this reality and back into his own.

"You have to do whatever it takes to put Satan in his cell."

"Of course."

"Whatever it takes." The words were slow, deliberate – and at the base of Shirou's neck prickled a cold sensation that crawled from vertebra to vertebra like spreading venom.

A deal was about to go down, of the most terrifying kind. Whatever was a word that should never be uttered in an agreement; it was too vast, too deep, too full of twisted things that could pull a man into those depths and crush him.

"Yeah, that's the plan", Dean replied. He hadn't heard, hadn't understood – he was just annoyed that Death didn't seem to have grasped what he and his brother were trying to do.

"Dean, this is not a good idea", Shirou intercepted, as stiff and expressionless as the being across the table.

"Your brother", Death continued relentlessly. "He's the one that can stop Satan. The only one."

Something clicked with Dean: something in his eyes changed.

"Wait, you think-"

"I know." There was no room for doubt in Death's eyes; too vast, too deep, and full of twisted things that did not know compassion. "So I need, a promise. Your brother is going to accept his role in fate, agree to the possession, and you're going to let him jump right into that fiery pit." He held the ring out further, slowly. "Do I have your word?"

Death may not be Samael, but he was the spitting image of him. For a flashing instant, when lightning split the sky once more, Shirou could picture him with pointed ears and a carefully groomed goatee to match the gaunt, pale features and the sharp nose.

Sacrifice the world or sacrifice the one person that mattered more than the world.

A devil's offer.

That... was the talk they had had. When he went to help Bobby with the laundry. The bated sigh, the look in Dean's eyes. The talk he didn't want to have. The truth he didn't want to accept. Steadfast Dean, caring Dean, who stood up to fate and Armageddon and whatever other thing the world threw at him.

At him and his brother.

Satan's chosen.

Shirou didn't hear any more of the conversation, not after the ring dropped soundlessly into Dean's palm.

A/N
Is it just me or is that "let's stop for pizza" remark the most random thing in this whole episode? Perhaps Chicago really is known for good pizza but for me it came completely out of the blue: so here's the new deal. The weird line about the pizza is obviously a clue as to where to really find Death. But who did Crowley get that clue from…?
Me: *points*
Mephisto: "Watch me deny everything in the absence of evidence while I shape my hair curl into a halo~"