Marion stared at the sulfur sitting next to the dead boy. Her mind flashed to Eve telling them that Crowley was still alive, how Marion didn't doubt it, as soon as the words hit her ears. Castiel didn't kill him. He never even thought he had. That's why he hadn't mentioned it to her that night.
She looked up to Castiel's face, anger boiling up inside of her.
"Well, he is a tricky bastard." Dean said to Castiel. He couldn't see it. He wouldn't see that he had been being tricked, likely for months.
"I'm an angel! I'll find out what happened." Castiel said, disappearing.
Marion stared at the space he disappeared from, as flashes of realization hit her. The phone call at the sheriff's station, the make-out session with the demon, him constantly being on Earth but unable to come see her. He'd been lying to her for months.
"Mare, what do you think about this?" Dean's voice cut through her thoughts. Her eyes snapped to her brother's face. A tear escaped her right eye and she shook her head. She turned and walked out the door, heading down the street, ignoring Sam and Dean shouting after her.
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Marion stopped after walking several dozen miles through woods, into the next town over and went into a small bed and breakfast. She sighed and walked in, securing a room at 'Mama Lisa's Bed and Breakfast'. She threw her phone on the counter and lied down on the bed to cry.
Eventually, she fell into a deep sleep. The room shifted and suddenly, she was laying on a metal table in a makeshift lab. She sat up, finding herself in the same room as Crowley. He didn't seem to notice her so she hopped down and looked around the room. She jumped a little as Castiel showed up in a flurry of wings.
"Why did you call for me? Have you found our way into Purgatory?"
"No. I've got Moose and Squirrel hunting down a wolf for me, though. No, we've got another problem. Your ex-girlfriend is a lot smarter than her brothers. She knows I don't have Sam's soul, knows someone from Heaven pulled Grandpa Campbell back into the game. Give her a little time and she'll figure out our whole little arrangement."
Castiel's brow furrowed. "What do you expect me to do about it?"
"I expect you to do something about 'er! What she needs is a distraction. So, why don't you go to her and push some cushion, get her off our back."
"My relationship with Marion has been terminated for more than a year and I don't believe she's forgiven me for what happened with Meg."
"So, win 'er favor back. She seems like the type to cream over a hero, go save 'er life. She's headed to a church in Tennessee where one of mine just convinced one of yours to kill 4 of her sister nuns. I'll send a demon her way, you pop in and pull 'er out. Then, you distract the bitch."
"Don't call her that." Castiel said, gruffly.
"Good, you still give a damn 'bout her. That'll make it more believable. Now, go get her off our backs. Unless you want Raphael to win."
Castiel looked down, then disappeared.
The scene changed a little, with Crowley appearing on the other side of the room, in front of a vampire who seemed right on the edge of death. Castiel popped in, looking a bit disappointed.
"She's convinced you have a kill order out for her. She seems content to just stay in her hotel rooms, kill a few monsters. She'll stay away from Sam and Dean. She'll stay out of it."
"Right, then. You just keep her distracted every once in a while, and we'll keep at it."
"I feel like… perhaps I should sever my relationship with her. Sam and Dean don't really listen to her. She's distracted. She thinks you're trying to kill her. She won't be a problem."
"You think she won't think somethin's a-bloody-wry when the angel who was gaga over her a year ago pulls 'er bleedin' 'eart out?! No. You will stick this out until we find the way into Purgatory."
Castiel blinked a few times, staring at Crowley. "Fine. I will, periodically, spend some time with her, continue to keep an eye on her."
"Nah. You don't have to put that much effort in. Here." Crowley snapped his fingers and a red rose appeared in his fingers. "Just pop right in while she's sleepin', leave this on her pillow. Little tokens to keep her mind on you and off of me."
Castiel took the flower, which Marion recognized as the rose she'd pressed into the back of her medieval studies book, then disappeared.
The scene changed a little again as Marion's rage and disgust made her jaw clench. Castiel stood in front of Crowley, his hair mussed and his clothing slightly awry. This was the night that they made love.
"Well, you finally went beast on 'er. She believe I'm dead like those idiot brothers o' hers?"
"I… was unable to tell her. But I'm sure she'll have no doubts."
"Good. She as much of a firecracker in bed as she seems?"
"I don't… is that a euphemism?"
"She seems like she'd make your toes curl, that's all."
"If that is a reference to her sexual aptitude, she… was… not quite as good as the demon Meg."
"Well, then, maybe you should try getting Meg into your bed."
"Marion is in love with me. And if any of the Winchesters were going to figure out I didn't really burn your bones, it'd be her. It'd be a better idea to keep the relationship, keep her from thinking too much about… everything."
"If that's what you want to do, Cas. All means."
The scene changed again, completely this time. She stood in a study of a mansion.
"The dragons have brought their Mother, Mother of All over from Purgatory." Castiel said.
"Good. If we can find the bitch, maybe we can find our way in."
"I'll work on it."
The scene changed to the diner, with Eve and all the Starships dead on the floor.
"Eve told them you're still alive. They think I was tricked by you, that I accidentally burned the wrong bones. They still know nothing of substance."
"Even your girlfriend?" Crowley asked, sitting at one of the booths.
"She gave no indication that she'd figured anything out." Castiel answered, sitting across from the King of Hell.
"Good. Because we're gettin' pretty close here and we don't need a damn Winchester bollocksin' it up. Like they did with her!" Crowley said, pointing at Eve's body.
"I can't see this anymore." Marion whispered, sliding to the floor and curling into a fetal position next to Eve's body.
The diner swirled into black as she cried into her knees. "I had to show you the extent of his betrayal, Marion, or it wouldn't hurt enough." Lucifer said, appearing next to her and rubbing her back.
"It hurts too much." She wailed.
"You knew this moment was coming, Mare-Bear. God warned you months ago that Castiel was going to rip your heart out. Now, Marion, is the time to act."
"Act? He's an angel… working with the King of Demons. I'm a nothing human. I can't do anything." She sobbed.
"Not alone, no. But I told you that you were special. I told you that when this moment came, when you need support, I would be here to help."
"How can you help me? You're stuck." Marion asked, sitting up, wiping at her eyes.
Lucifer smiled, sweetly. "I can't help you from the Cage, that's true. Neither can Michael, but we could both help you if we were freed."
Marion pulled away from him. "You want me to find a way to get you out?"
"Michael and I don't want to do the battle. No Apocalypse. And I have no intention of… killing all bipeds. I want to help you, being free of Hell is just a plus."
"What do you expect me to do? It took Lilith 66 seals and her death to spring you last time."
"Stop being cryptic, brother. The girl is hysteric. Speak plain." Adam's form walked up in the darkness.
Lucifer rolled his eyes a bit at his older brother. "Marion… I've said you're special, but not just because you're… willful. You are… just like Sam and Dean, you're an angel vessel."
"A match for Lucifer and myself. Not the perfect vessel for either, but an option for both of us." Michael continued.
"You want me to… be your vessel? Pull you out of the Pit by saying 'yes'?" Marion asked.
"No one has ever housed 2 angels within them, it might… tear you apart to even try." Lucifer explained, gingerly.
"All of this… the friendship, it was a ploy to get me to pull you out, wasn't it? You don't care at all about me." Marion said.
"I do care. And that's why, if you pull us out, the first thing we'll do is pay brother Castiel a visit in your regard."
Marion wiped at her eyes, standing. "I'll think about it."
"If you decide to say 'yes'…" Michael started, causing Marion to turn to him. "You know what Sam had to do before he could say 'yes' to Lucifer?"
"Demon blood. Yeah. Got it. Let me wake up, now."
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Marion took a moment to wash the salt from her cheeks and put some eye drops in to hide the redness.
"Castiel!" She growled, keeping her voice down but shouting with her mind.
A flutter of wings caused her to turn. "Are you all right, Marion?"
"I know, Castiel. I know about you… and Crowley." She tried to not show her rage.
"Marion…" Castiel seemed to try to find words but couldn't.
"And I know why. I understand. Crowley's gonna get you enough power to keep Raphael from restarting the Apocalypse. I get it… but you lied." Marion said, her hands balling into fists. "To Dean, to Sam, to me. You… you created this whole relationship as a ploy to keep me off your trail. Everything that you did, everything that I thought was proof you cared, was all from Crowley mind."
Castiel's brow furrowed. "How do you know all of this?"
"You're not the only one who's made friends of old enemies. I just have to know… before I make my decision on how to deal with you… did you ever care? Or were you really hoping I'd toss you on your ass when you made out with Meg?" Marion's nails were digging into her palms.
"Your smile still makes me happy, Marion. And the intercourse was enjoyable, of course, but…" He cut himself short.
"You don't want me. You haven't… the whole time. Not since the Apocalypse. The whole thing really was Crowley." Marion tried, in vain, to swallow away the tears popping up. "God, I should've listened. Chuck knew the whole…"
Castiel stepped forward. "Please, understand. I did this for you, for all of you."
"I know why, Castiel. That doesn't change it! And when my brothers figure this out…"
"You haven't told them?" Castiel asked, surprised.
She wiped at her eyes. "Dean would never believe it from me. He never believes me. He's gotta put it together himself. And he will, eventually."
"Marion."
She put her hand up, ignoring the blood rolling down her palm. "I'm done, Castiel. I should've walked away from you when Chuck told me to. But I was hoping it would turn out differently. I won't call for you again. No matter if you find Purgatory or not, I won't be around to celebrate or mourn with you." She shook her head and muttered, "Shouldn't have been here in the first place."
"Should just resign myself to what was written. What He couldn't rewrite." She finished with a sigh.
She grabbed her jacket and her phone and walked to the door. "Don't look so worried, Cas. I know exactly what I'm doing. Good luck with your endeavor-"
Castiel just watched as she walked out the door.
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It had only taken Marion a few days to make her decision.
She very carefully put the IV needle into her captive's arm and undid the tourniquet. She undid the kink in the tube and watched as it's blood poured into the first of many blood bags.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" The demon raged, contorting the face of the man it was riding. Marion put a rag in it's mouth.
"Exhibiting patience, unlike my brothers. They're always rushing into things, being rash. See, I have an opportunity to gain a huge advantage in the fight I have upcoming. And to do that, I'll have to drink an unprecedented amount of demon blood. I'll have to drink a gallon of the stuff, just to activate whatever strength I have, I'm sure. My baby brother had months of sucking this stuff down before he took Lucifer in. His potential was already unlocked. And he still had to down gallons of it. He had to drain 3 demons completely to get enough. Put it all in old milk jugs, lost damn near a gallon to the ground in his rush. See, I realized that your regenerative abilities would make one demon a slightly slower, but still quick, and endless supply of demon blood. And I won't have to kill your vessel to get it. A little B&E at a donor clinic and I'm set. Even got one of their little fridges."
Marion kicked the 2.5 cubic foot mini-fridge at the foot of her chair. "Then, I smoke you out of your vessel and go about my business." She leaned forward and looked at the blood bag. It was half full. "Just 31 more of these and I can get my first solo exorcism under my belt."
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5 hours later, Marion looked away from her old, tattered copy of Grimm, sticking her bookmark in between the pages of Robber Bridegroom. The demon looked pale, a little ill, but still pretty normal. She set the book down on the mini-fridge and pulled the IV roughly from the demon's arm. She was done being patient. She had to get to drinking so she could get her revenge. She pulled the needle off the end and looked at the blood in disgust. She took a deep breath and put the tube in her mouth.
At first, her mind and body reacted to the blood exactly as she thought she would. She gagged a bit at the taste, copper with a sulfur burn at the end. The thick liquid went down roughly for a few moments, but then the tingling started.
Marion had, sort of, expected it to be like her first shot of whiskey, but as her body slowly began to tingle all over and her heart rate skyrocketed, she found herself clinging to one of Dean's memories. He'd crashed a party when he was 19 and been handed a joint. He hadn't been told it was laced with speed.
Before she even realized she was doing it, Marion leaned over and grabbed another bag from the fridge. She drained four more bags in the course of five minutes, then slumped in her chair, letting the tingle crash over her.
"Ooh! Why isn't this being sold in shady back alleys? You guys could make a fortune." Marion said, breathlessly.
She rolled her eyes as her cell phone started ringing, knowing it was Dean for the fiftieth time, and she pulled it out as it went to voicemail.
"You know, you friggin' beg me to get you out of Bobby's house, take you on hunts. You claim you're a real hunter, but when shit hit's the fan, where are you? When Cas has gone dark side and he needs the woman he loves to talk him down, where are you? When Crowley stole Ben and Lisa to get me to back off- Cas broke the wall in Sam's head, and now he won't wake up. And where are you? Nowhere to be found. I swear to God, you better call me back this time, Mare, and let me know you aren't with the infant Cas. You better not be with him. Fuckin' call me."
Marion sighed dramatically, sucking on the tube of a blood bag that she hadn't realized she'd grabbed, as she typed out a text with her thumbs. "You are harshing my buzz, Dean." She whispered to herself around the tube.
'He doesn't love me, Dean. He never did. Our relationship was just a plot to keep me from figuring out his plan with Crowley. I'm sorry about Sam, but do you want me to sit next to his bed like you're doing, praying he'll wake up? Not my style, sorry. And no, I'm not with Cas… and next time I see him, I'm gonna stick an angel blade between his pretty blue eyes. Don't worry.'
Her phone started ringing again a minute later. She spit the empty blood bag on top of the quickly growing pile at her feet and answered the call. "Do you really think you can do this, Dean? He's the only friend you've ever had. You're still trying to think of ways to save him from himself. But he can't be saved. It's gonna have to take the woman scorned to stop him and teach him his lesson about loyalty and his choices affecting the people who care about him."
"You can't go up against him alone. He's a friggin' angel." Dean pleaded.
"I'm not gonna be alone, Dean. And it's not like Castiel is the strongest angel on Earth. Not by a long shot."
"Oh, come on! Tell me you aren't shacked up with angels on this, Marion! That's almost as bad as Cas getting in with Crowley." Dean scolded.
Marion laughed, giddily, the buzz running through her body more as the last bag of blood hit her system. "You have no idea, Dean."
"Are you drunk?" Dean asked, in disbelief.
She giggled again. "Would that I were, Dean. Would that I were." Marion cleared her throat. "But seriously, Dean, I've got a lot to do, a lot to drink and an exorcism to perform so I'm gonna have to get off the phone. Hopefully…"
She sighed deeply and cleared her throat again, a sudden lucidity hitting her as she remembered that taking 2 angels into her might tear her to pieces and this might be the last time she spoke to her brother. "Hopefully, my plan doesn't blow up in my face, Dean, but if it does… I love you… and Sammy. Remember that." She said before turning the phone off and grabbing another bag of blood.
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As Marion drank the last of the final blood bag, her attention focused on the demon, already looking less pale. She started to speak the exorcism, then changed her mind, instead reaching out to the demon inside and pulling it out with her mind. The demon smoked out and down to Hell with ease. So, Marion considered, momentarily if she even needed Michael and Lucifer. But as powerful as she felt, she knew she wasn't angel strong.
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Marion fell asleep in the back seat of the car she'd stolen to get out of town, pulled onto the shoulder of the road. She came to dreamland in the vast darkness that she'd seen last time.
"I can see you've made your choice. How much did you drink?" Lucifer asked, appearing next to her.
"Four gallons." She said, turning to him. "So, how's this work? I just say 'yes' to you and you pop out of the Pit into me?"
"There's a bit more ritual to it. Were we not in this Cage, it would be that easy." A familiar voice said, walking up beside her. She immediately realized that Michael had shirked the visage of her brother, Adam, and now appeared as the attractive barista she'd flirted with at her college.
"But we're going to have to attach to your soul to ride you out of the Cage." Lucifer continued.
"We'll have to mark you, claim your soul for our own."
She looked between the angels. "It's not a coincidence that you used 'ride', 'claim', and 'mark' all to describe one ritual, is it?"
Lucifer smirked. "You are a wonder with subtext, Marion."
"So…" She swallowed hard, as her mind wrapped around what she'd have to do in order to get her revenge. "…both of you? Together?"
"No. Not at all. We both must mark you before you wake, though." Michael said.
"Unless you want to." Lucifer quipped.
"Well, I'm thankful for that. Also, thankful you stopped looking like my brother. That would've been weird. So… who's up first?" She asked, determined. She'd come too far.
"Completely up to you, Mare-bear. Michael's more of a Minute Man. He'll get done and move on. Me…" Lucifer leaned in next to her ear and whispered, "I learned to love this game when I was on Earth last time. I'll take my time."
Just the simple sentence made Marion's mind for her, as a shiver went down her spine. "I'll get Michael out of the way first."
"Good choice." Lucifer said, winking, then disappearing.
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Marion felt a bit like a whore as Michael thanked her and disappeared in the dark. Prostituting herself to get what she wants. A film of dirt seemed to be on her soul as she adjusted her skirt.
"I'm sorry you feel that way. I know Mikey's not the most amorous lover, but…" Lucifer began, appearing next to her on the ground. "I appreciate what you're doing here. And I have no intention to make you feel any dirtier."
Lucifer lightly caressed her cheek as the dark ground became a king-size bed. "I intend to lavish you with all the respect you deserve for your sacrifice." Lucifer brought his lips to hers and brushed them together.
"Together, we'll teach Brother Castiel how to treat a good woman."
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AN: Okay, this chapter is not as long as the last one, but I think it's one of my favorite. Kinda shows that fucking up like this is a universal Winchester trait.