All Roads Lead To Hell
By: Paraflymore
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Supernatural and if I did I would be way nicer to them all.
Summary: It wasn't long til it all caught up to them...
Fighting For Nothing
Chapter Eight:
"Seven"
Dean Winchester was a shot of whiskey and the scratch of motel sheets on your bare skin. He was the smell of gunpowder and smoky bars. He was scarred and messy and sometimes he scared her. So different than the boy she knew when they were kids. Sometimes she looked into his eyes and wondered if that boy still existed underneath all the rubble that he was. Sometimes he let him slip through, fleeting whispers of moments, over with before she even got to enjoy them. Dean Winchester was a broken man. but that didn't stop her from loving him.
Especially when he was inside her – God – that man knew how to make a woman's toes curl.
It had become a fuck-fest. A let's pull over here for a quickie, Sam is in the backseat passed out, be fucking quiet. Bathrooms, closets, they even did it on a park bench...
It was just so damned good.
They were currently in some sleazy motel that rented by the hour, he was on top of her, whispering words of encouragement into her ear in a raspy voice. "Come on baby, cum for me..."
It made her fucking toes curl when he said shit like that.
And she knew, she was fucking done for...
"Dean, Bobby's got something..." Sam's voice comes from the doorway and Lila is all but writhing under his brother and god dammit if Dean doesn't have the nerve to chuckle. "Crap." He says shutting the door behind himself.
"I could literally kill you." She says, smacking Sam on the shoulder because she can't reach his head without standing on a stool. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?"
Sam blushes, and rubs his arm innocently. "I honestly thought y'all were finished."
Lila scowls, and Dean comes out of the motel smirking, grinning from fucking ear to ear. And she wants to punch him now. "I'm mortified."
"Its a beautiful, natural act." He winks at her. "And at least you got to finish."
She smacks his arm, "let's get on the road before I die of embarrassment right here."
Dean wraps his arm around her shoulder and kisses her temple, he pulls her around to the trunk of the Impala with him. "I guess that's what we get for not locking the door."
She wants to laugh. "Yeah and I guess seeing your bare ass will scar him enough for the both of us."
He kisses her, tangling his hand through her hair. "You know, I am kind of enjoying having you on the road with us..."
She smirks, "oh yeah, I'm sure its a lot easier than having to troll for a hook up."
"Hey, you started it this time baby." He playfully squeezes her ass. "I could get the room for another hour."
Lila pulls away, pushing his chest playfully. "I need food." She whines.
"And that is why I love you."
…
The sound of cicadas is thick in the air as they pull up to the old farmhouse. It reminds Lila of Georgia summers and how her momma always said that the cicada noise is what heat would sound like – if it made a sound. She also told her that those fucking things were demons and to stay the hell away from them.
She steps out of the car, into the sweltering heat, her black t-shirt draws the heat and she is instantly regretting her choice in wardrobe. She eyes Dean and Sam, both of them in their jackets.
"Y'all do realize its like a hundred degrees out here don't you?"
Dean shrugs, taking a bite of his cheeseburger. "Yeah..."
"Hear those cicadas?" Sam asks, looking at Dean from the other side of the Impala.
"That can't be a good sign." Dean says, looking at the both of them and then taking another bite of his burger.
"No, it can't." Sam says.
Bobby comes from his truck, eyeing Dean with a disapproving look. "So,we're eating bacon cheeseburgers for breakfast, are we?"
"Well, I sold my soul. Got a year to live. I ain't sweating the cholesterol."
Lila flinches and it seems to go unnoticed by him.
"So, Bobby, what do you think? We got a biblical plague here or what?" Sam asks, trying to change the subject. That flinch didn't go unnoticed by him at all.
"Well, let's find out. Looks like the swarm's ground zero."
Dean bangs on the farmhouse's door and screams. "Candy-gram!" at the top of his lungs.
There is no answer but cicadas chirping. So Dean picks the lock and opens the door; they cover their noses in disgust. The smell smacks them all in the face. And that's how they know something is definitely wrong here...
"That's awful." Sam says, scrunching his nose up in disgust.
"That so can't be a good sign."
Dean enters first, Sam behind him with a gun drawn. Lila follows him with her own gun and Bobby brings up the rear. They creep through the house; stopping in the second room, they can hear what sounds like panicked screams.
"You hear that?" Lila says, grabbing Sam's arm.
They kick open the next door; the sounds turn out to be coming from a television set some old dramatic TV show is playing full blast and a family of three is seated on the couch, they appear to be several days dead. They all recoil in disgust and Lila holds her hand over her noise, thinking she might be sick.
"Oh, my god." She says, looking at Dean.
"Bobby, what the hell happened here?" Sam asks, looking behind him.
"I don't know."
"Check for sulfur." Dean says, looking at all of them.
Lila makes a show of saluting him and Sam chuckles despite the situation.
The four of them investigate the room; Dean hears a noise out front and whistles quietly, then signals to the others that he's going to go check it out. Bobby, Sam and Lila circle around the other direction.
Out front, Dean exits cautiously, gun drawn, and looks around. As he comes around the house he is knocked to the ground by a man with a shotgun:
"Isaac? Tamara?" Bobby says, coming around the other side of the porch.
"Bobby." The woman says, her British accent is thick. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same." Bobby says.
"Heya, Bobby." Isaac greets him with a smile.
Dean raises an arm pitifully from the ground, waving it for attention. "Hello. Bleeding here."
Lila comes around the front of the porch with Sam, both of them with their guns drawn, but when they see that Bobby seems to know these people they put them away. Bobby helps Dean up off the ground and Lila notices the blood coming from his nose right away.
"What happened?"
"Little misunderstanding." Tamara says, holding her hand out for Lila to shake. "I'm Tamara, this is my husband Isaac." Lila shakes her hand, but she is weary of them, she doesn't trust hunters she's never met before. But Bobby sure does seem to know them well.
"Dean here has a way of finding himself in those from time to time." Lila says, feigning a smile at their new friends.
Everyone chuckles, except Dean.
Lila takes his arm and pulls him off the porch, "lets get you some ice..."
…
They end up where Isaac and Tamara seem to be squatting, a run down old shack that looks like it has seen way better days. Dean is on the phone in the back room and the rest of them are standing around, waiting. Her and Sam have had four staring contests since they got there and she was starting to get very bored.
"Honey?" Isaac says in a soft voice. "Where's the Palo Santo?"
"Well, where'd you leave it?" Tamara quips back at him.
"I don't know, dear. That's why I'm asking."
"Palo Santo?" Sam asks, stepping away from the wall.
"It's holy wood, from Peru. It's toxic to demons like holy water. Keeps the bastards nailed down while you're exorcising them." Tamara explains to them. She was growing on Lila she seemed genuine and she kind of reminded her of Del.
Tamara digs in a bag and pulls out a large, pointed stake. She hands it to Isaac with an affectionate smile.
"Thank you, dear." He tells her, returning her gaze.
"You'd lose your head if it wasn't for me."
"So, how long you two been married?" Lila asks them. She had never really seen a hunter couple before, especially one that seemed to get a long so well and love each other despite everything.
She was more than a little envious.
She might never get that with Dean...
"Eight years this past June." Tamara tells her with a smile.
"The family that slays together..." Isaac tells them.
"Right." Sam chimes in. "I'm with you there. So, how'd you get started?"
An awkward silence ensues Tamara and Isaac exchange a hard look. It hurts to look at. Lila nudges Sam with her elbow.
"I, uh, you know... I'm sorry. It's not – that's none of my business."
"No, no. It's – it's all right." Tamara says, tears still in her dark eyes.
Dean comes walking back into the room, phone pressed to his ear. "Well, Jenny, if you look as pretty as you sound, I'd love to have an ... "appletini'." He makes a face at the others at the word "appletini" that makes Lila want to gag. "Yeah. Call you... Oh yeah I am writing it down right now..." He hangs up quickly and addresses the group. "That was the coroner's tech."
"Poor girl." Lila says, rolling her eyes. Some times it bothered her how good he was at flirting and how easily his charms seemed to work.
"And?" Sam asks.
"Get this – that whole family, cause of death? Dehydration and starvation. There's no signs of restraint, no violence, no struggle. They just sat down and never got up."
"But there was a fully stocked kitchen just yards away." Bobby finally chimes in.
"Right." Lila says, looking at the group. "What is this, a demon attack?"
"If it is, it's not like anything I ever saw, and I've seen plenty."
"Well, what now? What should we do?" Dean asks.
"Uh, "we're" not gonna do anything." Isaac speaks up suddenly, looking at them all with wide eyes.
"What do you mean?" Sam asks, sounding confused.
"You guys seem nice enough, but, this ain't "Scooby-Doo," and we don't play well with others." He tells him in a hard voice.
"Well, I think we'd cover a lot more ground if we all worked together." Sam says in a harder voice.
"No offense, but we're not teaming with the damn fools who let the Devil's Gate get opened in the first place."
All of them flinch.
"No offense?" Dean asks, raising an eyebrow.
Tamara eyes him, "Isaac. Like you've never made a mistake."
"Oh yeah," he says, "yeah. Locked my keys in the car, turned my laundry pink. Never brought on the end of the world, though."
Dean chuckles. "All right. That's enough."
Lila grabs his arm, she can tell he is about 2.5 seconds away from mopping the floor with Isaac's smug face and she is not really in the mood for a fight. "Guys, this isn't helping. Dean..." She says his name in a quiet, stern voice.
"Look, there are couple hundred more demons out there now. We don't know where they are, when they'll strike. There ain't enough hunters in the world to handle something like this. You brought war down on us – on all of us." Isaac says.
Tamara pulls Isaac away. "Okay. that's quite enough testosterone for now."
Lila nods a silent thank you to her and the two of them leave the room.
…
Dean of course is chatting up a witness, a young blonde woman, who is hanging on his every word. Lila walks into the store, her eyes boring into him as he rests a hand on the lady's shoulder..
"What happened outside makes you realize how fragile life really is. You got to make every second count."
She nods.
Lila approaches, clearing her throat.
"Excuse me a minute, would you?"
"Sure." She says, walking away from them.
"Dean, what are you doing?" Lila asks, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I'm questioning a witness. What are you doing?"
"Workin'. Dead body, possible demon attack – that kind of stuff." She resists the urge to smack him, FBI agents don't really go around swatting at each other.
"You got a thing for blondes?" She asks in a low voice.
He smirks. "Are you jealous?"
"I'm territorial. And you, you don't even freaking realize that all you have to do is smile at a girl and she swoons." Lila crosses her arms over her chest and looks away from him.
"Yeah, well I only have eyes for you okay?" He leans in closer, not caring if he blew their cover. "You know that right?"
She rolls her eyes. "Don't make it a thing," she scoffs.
He smirks. Bobby enters the store then - in a suit. His hair is slicked back. Dean and Lila look at him, impressed.
"Whoa." Dean whistles. "Looking spiffy, Bobby. What were you, a G-man?"
"Attorney for the D.A.'s office." He says, adjusting his tie. "I just spoke to the suspect."
"So, what do you think? Is she possessed or what?" Lila asks him.
"Don't think so. There's none of the usual signs – no blackouts, no loss of control. Totally lucid. Just, she really wanted those shoes. Spilled a glass of holy water on her just to be sure; nothing."
"Maybe she's just some random whack job."
Bobby shakes his head. "If it had been an isolated incident, maybe, but first the family, now this? I believe in a lot of things. Coincidence ain't one of them. Did you boys find anything around here?"
"No sulfur, nothing." Lila says, sounding disappointed.
"Well, maybe something." He nods to a security camera in the ceiling. "I got Sam looking at the tapes right now."
Sam is seated in the security room, eyes glued to the small screen, watching the security footage, the three of them hover over him, making the small room feel even smaller.
"Anything interesting?" Dean asks.
"I don't know yet. Might just be a guy..." They watch ta red headed man approach the suspect and whisper something into her ear. "Or it might be our guy."
Lila lets out a whistle. "Real incriminating evidence we got here."
"I think its how the demon is controlling them." Sam says, stopping the tape on the man's black eyes.
"Can a demon even do that?" Dean asks, raising up to look at Bobby.
"He just walks up to someone,touches them, and they go stark raving psycho?"
"Those demons that got out at the gate – they're gonna do all kinds of things we haven't seen." Bobby tells them.
"You mean the demons we let out..."
…
Much later that night Dean, Bobby and Lila are staking out a bar, sitting in Bobby's car.
"What time is it?" Bobby asks with a yawn.
"Seven past midnight." Dean says, sounding annoyed.
"Exactly seven minutes since the last time you asked." Lila chimes in from the backseat. They had been sitting here for almost three hours now and nothing at all had happened, and her legs were cramping up and her ass was asleep.
Bobby gives her one of his infamous looks over his shoulder.
"Sorry, I'm hungry."
"You sure this is the right place Dean?"
"No. But I spent all day canvassing this stupid town with this guy's stupid mug, and, supposedly, he drinks at this ... stupid bar."
"We should have ate before we came..." Lila whines from behind him.
There is a loud pounding on the window; all of them jump, and Lila lets a small squeak escape her. It's Sam, who thinks he's fucking hilarious all of a sudden. He chuckles loudly as he slides into the backseat next to Lila.
"That's not funny!" Dean tells him angrily.
"Yeah." Sam says, ignoring him. "Uh, all right, so – so, John Doe's name is Walter Rosen. He's from Oak Park, just west of Chicago. Went missing about a week ago."
"The night the Devil's Gate opened?"
"Bingo."
Dean looks out the window, something catching his eye. "Guys."
Walter, whatever his name was gets out of his car and walks towards the bar.
"All right. Showtime." Dean says, getting excited.
"Wait a minute."
"What?"
"What'd I just say? We don't know what to expect out of this guy. We should tail him till we know for sure."
"Oh, so he kills someone and we just sit here with our junk in our hands?"
"Speak for yourself..." Lila qualms. She was ready to pound on some demons, and she was tired of sitting in this car for God's sake.
"We're no good dead." Bobby tells him in a stern voice. "And we're not gonna make a move until we know what the score is."
"Hey, Bobby?" Lila says, noticing Tamara and Isaac walking into the bar from her window. "I don't think that's an option."
"Why not?" He scoffs, probably still sour for her remark to him earlier.
"The whole Scooby gang is here."
"Damn it!" Bobby says, slamming his fist down on the steering wheel.
…
They settled at a table, the bar seemed normal enough to them. Tamara's eyes scanned over the patrons, her eyes landing on their demon. It should be cut and dry she tells herself. It should be no big deal. So why does she feel so nervous about it?
A woman puts a song on the jukebox; the bartender slides a beer towards the demon, who is sitting at the bar. A waitress comes over to their table and sits their drinks down.
"Thanks a lot." Isaac tells her.
"You're welcome." She says with a wink and a flip of her hair.
Isaac pulls out a flask of holy water from his pocket and Tamara eyes him, she almost asks him to just leave. The demon walks past them towards the bathroom.
"Pull the car in back. We'll be right out."
"I love you." She says to him.
"I know." Isaac almost looks surprised by her words, or maybe it was the way her eyes were wide with fear.
He chooses to ignore it, chalks it up to adrenaline and heads towards the bathroom, the bartender grabs his arm and stops him. Tamara stands up alertly.
"What do you think you're doing?" He seethes, his fingers tightening on his arm.
"I'm just hitting the head." He says with a chuckles.
"No." He grabs the flask of holy water and tosses it aside. "I mean, what do you think you're doing here?" His eyes flash black and Tamara recoils in fear behind her husband.
"I don't like hunters in my bar."
They turn to see the waitress stalking towards them, and see that the rest of the employees and patrons have turned towards them. The demon walks back out of the bathroom. He and everyone else in the bar close in around them; all have black demon-eyes.
There is a loud pounding on the door and everyone turns towards it.
Outside Bobby and Dean slam themselves against the door, trying to force it open.
"Man, you really walked into the wrong place." the red headed demon tells them with a smirk.
The waitress steps out of the crowd, eyes on Tamara like she is a piece of meat. "Hold on. I like the girl."
"Wish I had me a girl like that." One of them cat calls.
"I can think of about a thousand things I'd like to do to her." the waitress says with black eyes.
"You're not gonna lay one filthy finger on her!"
Another demon approaches Isaac, he lifts a large bottle of drain cleaner and holds it out to him."I got something for you." The waitress grabs a hold of Tamara, keeping her from getting to Isaac.
"Here. Have a drink on me, hmm?"
"Isaac?" Tamara yells frantically at him.
"On the house" The original demon says, laughing.
"Isaac!" She yells, all the energy draining from her body.
Isaac takes the bottle and begins pouring its contents down his throat, as Tamara screams behind him and the demons cackle wildly, obviously pleased with the show.
"Isaac, no! Baby, please!" She begs, nearly falling over on her knees from the weight of what she had just seen.
He drains the bottle, shaking, and drops it to the floor. He gags in agony, foamy liquid and blood come bubbling out through his mouth. He chokes and collapses to the floor.
Tamara watches in horror, in so much agony that she hopes they just finish her off quickly
"Oh, he's down!" He smirks at her, "All right, honey. Your turn."
With a screech of tires, Bobby's car bursts through the front door of the bar. They all get out, armed with holy water, which they fling violently into the crowd of demons. They back up and Sam grabs Tamara, who is still screaming frantically for Isaac, she's in shock, Lila can tell and her heart aches for her.
And she couldn't help but think she might share that same fate; watching the love of your life die right before your eyes with no way to stop it.
One of the demon's almost gets a hold of her, the guy from the surveillance tapes, the guy they had been tailing all night, but Dean swoops in night in shining armor and all and pulls him away from her. Lila helps Sam get Tamara in the car.
"Come on, we got to go! He's dead! Get in the car!" Sam yells, seeing Dean still immersed in the fight. "Dean, come on!"
Lila touches Tamara's arm as she tucks herself into Bobby's backseat. "Dean!" She screams, over all the noise in the bar she manages to be louder, a skill she got from her mother. "Let's go."
Dean opens the trunk just as he runs out of holy water, and the redheaded demon smirks at him with black eyes. Dean overpowers him when he lunges at him and stuffs him in the trunk, which has a devil's trap inscribed inside. Once the demon notices he screams.
And somehow by some dumb stroke of luck he manages to tumble into the front seat of the car before the other demons reach him.
"Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!" He yells as Bobby's tires squeal out of there.
Close fucking call.
Lila smacks him in the back of the head. "What the hell are you doing?"
He eyes her, "Why are you so pissed at me?"
"Because you could have been killed."
And they all fall silent.
...
"... And I say we're going back – now!" Tamara yells at Sam, her voice is full of tears and Lila can't help but feel her pain too. Dean was standing beside her but he might as well have been a million miles away from her. His knuckles are bloody from the fight and he has a hard set to his jaw, the one he gets when he is going to do something stupid.
"Just hold on a second." Sam says, trying to diffuse this bomb before it blew up.
"I left my husband bloody on the floor..." She screams at him.
"Okay, I understand that, but we can't go back."
"Fine. Then you stay. But I'm heading back to that bar."
"I'll go with her." Dean says, pushing off the wall next to her.
"It's suicide, Dean." Sam yells at him
"So what? I'm dead already."
Lila winces, and walks out of the room. She couldn't stand around and listen to this crap. She can't sit and watch him kill himself. She fucking refused to do it.
"We don't even know how many of them there are."
Bobby, catches her arm on her way out. "Yeah, we do. There's seven. Do you have any idea who we're up against?"
"No. Who?"
"The seven deadly sins, live and in the flesh."
Lila's breath catches in her throat.
Dean grins with pleasure. "What's in the box?!" and they all just look at him like he's crazy. "Brad Pitt? "Se7en"? No? Lila you know what I'm talking about."
"Not a good time Dean." She says waving him off.
Bobby tosses him a book
"What's this?"
"Binsfeld's Classification of Demons." He tells him, "In 1589, Binsfeld ID'd the seven sins – not just as human vices but as actual devils."
"The family – they were touched by Sloth. And the shopper..." Sam says, and it all clicking into place now
"That's Envy's doing – the customer we got in the next room. I couldn't suss it out at first, until Isaac. He was touched with an awful Gluttony."
"I don't give a rat's ass if they're the Three Stooges or the Four Tops! I'm gonna slaughter every last one of them!" Tamara says, with tears and anger in her voice.
"We already did it your way." Bobby yells, because she isn't listening to reason. "You burst in there half-cocked and look what happened! These demons haven't been topside in half a millennium! We're talking medieval, Dark Ages! We've never faced anything close to this! So we are gonna take a breath..." He takes a deep breath and shouts. "And figure out what our next move is!"
The two of them have a staring competition
"I am sorry for your loss." Bobby says in a softer voice, his eyes softening.
Tamara storms out of the room, leaving them all to stare at each other.
Lila's hand reaches out for Dean. He wasn't listening to reason either. And this whole kamikaze thing was getting old. She wasn't going to let him go, she would knock his ass out and tie him a chair if she had to.
"Can we talk for a minute?" She asks him sternly.
He nods and follows her into the other room.
"What are you doing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Back at that bar..." Her voice cracks. "Why would you keep risking your life like that?"
He scoffs. "Lila I risk my life everyday."
"Yeah, well you're just being reckless now. Its freaking me the fuck out Dean."
He reaches for her but she sidesteps his hand, looks up at him with tears in her eyes.
"I mean I know your head's on the chopping black but why do you want the blade to fall any sooner?"
Dean shrugs. "That's not how it is..."
"I'm not going to watch you die." She yells, regretting the words as soon as she speaks them. But every time she closes her eyes she thinks about all that blood that was around Isaac's body and how broken Tamara was now after what had happened. And she knows that the fate that awaits him will be so much worse. "I'm sorry." She runs her fingers through her hair and looks up at him.
This time she lets him touch her. "Don't be sorry..."
She wraps her arms tighter around him. "I need you okay."
God did he know exactly what she meant.
Someone knocked on the door, Sam walks slowly in the door way and smirks at them.
"Glad you finally learned to knock Sammy." Dean tells him sarcastically.
Lila smirks, letting her arms fall from around him. The demon's screams can be heard from the other room and it makes her nervous not knowing whats going on. "I'm gonna go see if they need any help." As she turns to leave Dean catches her wrist, pulling her back in for a quicl peck on the lips.
"Love you." he tells her with a small smile.
"Love you too." She pats Sam's arm on her way out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.
Sam shakes his head and looks at his brother with a smirk.
"Whats so funny Sam?"
"Nothin," he chuckles. "Just getting used to the fact that you actually have emotions."
Dean playfully punches him in the gut on his way out. "Fuck off..."