Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Forty-four tally marks, each one carefully carved after breakfast, meant he'd been there a little over six weeks now. It meant that it'd been a little over six weeks since he last saw Sam.
He wondered how Sam was holding up being trapped alone in a cell, but Dean figured he'd do better at it than him. Sam was always better at being patient. He was better at waiting and planning things out.
Dean was a man of action. He needed to be doing something. He needed to be in motion.
He had human contact (if it could be considered that) like clockwork. Receive breakfast, collect tray. Receive lunch, collect tray. Receive dinner, collect tray. The food was cold and didn't taste like much, but it was edible and that was good enough for him.
Lights out, sleep.
Simple enough. A set of rules that were easy, but so difficult, to follow.
He thought of going the Shawshank Redemption route and trying to carve his way out, but he doubted he'd be able to get his hands on anything that could remotely be used as a tool for carving.
Since the prison he was locked in apparently didn't officially exist, he doubted that carving out would be the end of it anyway. The security had to be more than he'd ever seen before, certainly more than the little holding cells he unwillingly frequented or Deacon's prison had.
They got Lucifer, but he got the last laugh.
Once the Men of Letters' egg finished doing its forcible angel exorcism, they should've gotten the hell out of that room and far, far away. But saving people was half their job, and they just had to stay behind those few extra minutes to see if Lucifer did any irreversible damage.
The Secret Service wasn't quite on the same page, and now Dean was left to pace across his cell and wonder if escape was possible this time around.
He flopped onto the thin excuse of a mattress in the corner with a groan. He was trapped by people who thought he was a psycho cultist assassin, and he would never be able to convince them otherwise.
"Castiel," he called. "Now would be a great time for you to swoop in and get us out of here."
His mom checked in via text every week or so. He wondered how she was handling the fact that he hadn't replied in six weeks. Would it tip her off? Would she try and find them, or think that something was wrong?
She'd be right, but Dean didn't want her to hunt them down. He didn't want her to get caught in the same mess they were in.
He ran a hand down his face.
Sam's presence had become such a constant over the past decade or so, and now he felt especially lonely knowing that he had no way to communicate with him. The only thing that made it better than when Sam was in The Cage was knowing that he was just in another cell. He was in the same conditions as Dean, where the worst of it was probably being bored of his mind.
"Seriously, Cas," he said. "Kind of getting bored here. There are still plenty of monsters in the world that need hunting, and I can't exactly hunt from here."
There was no flutter of wings or a monotonous 'Hello, Dean'.
Eventually, his mom would catch on to the fact that something was up. She begged for time to reorient herself, but she might get more time away from them than she bargained for. At this rate, it was death by lethal injection (that was still what was used, right? Not that this place had to follow regulations, he imagined), or rot in a lonely, filthy cell for the rest of his years.
Although, the rest of his years would probably be cut short from infection or disease. It felt like there was a layer of grime that hours in the shower back at the bunker wouldn't be able to wash away.
"Castiel," he said. "C'mon, man. It's been six weeks, can't you find a trace of us?"
These were the times that Dean wished prayers could work both ways. Even if it only served as a way to Cas to tell him to shut up. At least he'd know that Cas was hearing him at all.
He felt like he belonged in a movie's prison montage scene, where the main character worked out in their cell in preparation for the big prison-break. Dean did push-ups, sit-ups, anything he could think of that was possible with his limited resources, only there was no big prison-break in sight for him. Not unless Cas finally decided to answer his prayers.
Lunch came around, and another tray of cold mush was passed through the food slot and into his cell.
"Hey!" he yelled before the footsteps faded away. "I really don't belong here. If you gave me the chance, I could explain why."
The footsteps grew quieter and quieter. He didn't expect that to work anyway.
"At least tell me how my brother's doing!" he yelled.
Like every other day, his words fell on deaf ears.
He never knew how frustrating it would be to be seen as the scum of the earth and locked away. But they couldn't just lock him away anywhere. No, it had to be someplace that didn't even exist. Not really.
He was ready to rip his hair out strand-by-strand, but even that wouldn't take up enough time.
However, he could kill a good chunk of time by sleeping.
"It must be painful speaking to me in this shape."
Sam wore a white suit, but it wasn't Sam. He had his hair brushed back in a way that he never would. Ever since he was a kid, Sam would rather have his hair fall into his eyes than brush it away.
Dean glanced down at the grass and saw himself laying there with a broken neck, eyes still open.
"This memory used to scare me," Dean said. "When I wasn't sure that Sam would keep saying 'no' until we had no other option except for him to say 'yes'."
Lucifer tilted his head, looking more amused than anything.
"It scared me before Sam proved that he could beat The Devil."
Lucifer shook his head with a wide grin and flickered out of existence.
Dean stretched and rolled over, falling back asleep within a minute.
"I was just messing with you."
Sam closed the opening to The Cage, but it really wasn't Sam anymore.
Dean looked around, the bodies of demons mentally killed by Sam with a passing thought were on the floor and the window was frosted. It was all just like the first time.
"I know how this ends," Dean said. "It's just a memory. Sam took control when it mattered."
Lucifer put the key of Horsemen Rings in his pocket. "You say it like it's over."
"It is over," Dean said. "You lost. You got out of The Cage again, and you lost again. You will always lose."
Lucifer laughed and shook his head, both looking so wrong while he was in Sam's body. "You have a lot of talk for someone more trapped than I am."
Dean knew how to wake himself from dreams, usually the awareness of it was enough. But this time he had to concentrate to wake himself up.
He opened his eyes with a gasp. He couldn't tell if it was day or night while in his cell, but he still felt exhausted. Whatever sleep he'd gotten left him feeling less rested than when he laid down.
So he tried again.
Sam had his gun trained on him, eyes wild and confused. "I thought I was with you, Dean," he said.
This night was the beginning of a nightmare series of weeks. Sam never should have been so bad off that he had to hurt himself to be able to tell what was real and what wasn't.
Lucifer hovered over Sam's shoulder in Nick's body. "Hope you don't mind that I gave Sam some strong suggestions to drive here," he said.
"I don't remember driving here," Sam said, like he was oblivious to Lucifer talking in his ear.
"We've been through this before, Sam," Dean said. "You have a tough time for awhile, but you beat it in the end. Cas helped you, remember? He took away the hallucinations. He made it so you could sleep again."
"He can't really react," Lucifer said. "It's your mind's creation. Whatever you do here won't change what really happened, which was disappointingly nothing."
"Shut up," Dean said. "You're just pissed that you lost. You lost during the Apocalypse. You lost with the memories of you tormenting Sam afterward. You lost this time, when you thought you could do whatever you wanted. Are you seeing a pattern here? 'Cause I sure am."
"Are you sure about that?" Lucifer asked. "Because I feel like I just might win this time."
Dean didn't try to talk Sam down this time, and he didn't feel it when Sam shot at him and he didn't dodge.
Dean rubbed at his eyes. He had a feeling that his dreams would continue following the whole 'Greatest Moments with Lucifer' theme if he tried sleeping again.
He stared at the ceiling wondering why he was reliving all those moments with Lucifer now, when Lucifer had been back in The Cage for six weeks.
Author's Note: There were a few requests for this story to be continued, so I added Dean's POV and it looks like Sam isn't the only one being tormented by Lucifer. There have also been requests for a Full Circle continuation, which I'm alright with considering. For anyone following Becoming Human, I'm still working on the second chapter, I promise! It's coming along nicely, I think.
This won't be a very long story, but please take a second to review before you leave!
