The Man Who Knew Too Little

Ch 9 by Jokers

Lucifer was back in the Cage.

Logically, he knew that wasn't true, but the thought held little comfort while the fires of Hell burned around him. He heard the human boy (Alan? Andrew? Adam? Yes, Adam was his name) screaming, and he wondered why. Michael was too righteous to torture the human, and Lucifer wasn't doing anything, so there was really no reason for him to be in pain.

Lucifer looked around, but he couldn't seem to find either his older brother or the human. All he could see was the cage and the flames that were steadily climbing up toward it. The boy's screams grew louder, causing Lucifer to clap his fingers over his ears. The guilt which had been plaguing him for the past few days melded with the noise, turning it into a deep ache which spread through his entire being. The flames grew higher.

The fire reached the bottom of the cage. Lucifer shut his eyes, but the inferno continued to blaze behind his lids. Gabriel would come get him. He wouldn't be left behind, not like last time. His brother would save him.

The Morningstar's scream joined Adam's.

"Alright you emo pansies, I can't stand your angsting anymore. You're going on a hunt." Dean barely caught the thick file Bobby threw at him, wincing when he remembered that his right hand was sprained and catching something with it was a bad idea. He flipped it open after a moment of swearing, looking over the documents in it while Sam watched over his shoulder.

"Fifty year old male, died from symptoms that matched black widow poison exactly…only there was no bite…Twenty year old woman starts freaking out about how she was falling while she was on the ground. She had a heart attack twenty seconds later…fourteen year old male starts choking and screams that he's drowning. There's no water anywhere near him…Bobby, do you have any idea what this could be?" Dean narrowed his eyes at the file, trying to think of something that operated like that. He could only think of one thing, and it was standing right next to him, sucking on another one of Lucifer's ridiculous lollipops.

"Well, at first I thought it might be a Trickster. But…you aren't the first Hunters on this case. When they did legwork they weren't able to find anything these people did worth that sort of punishment. And those two were pretty thorough. A week ago though, the two of 'em dropped off the radar. The cops found their bodies yesterday." Bobby frowned, and Dean felt a moment's sympathy for the older Hunter; he had obviously known the two well. Bobby wasn't done talking, however. "They did find something weird, though. The one that died from the spider bite, he was afraid of spiders. The girl was afraid of heights. The kid…"

"Scared of water?"

"Bingo. Now, I tried searching for any monsters that magnified fears, but all I got were cheesy horror blogs and some comic book thing. Which, as it turns out, is about the only monster Marvel didn't nick from mythology. Nothing in my books either."

"So you want me and Sammy to go looking for this thing?"

"No. I want you, Sammy, and our two feathered friends to go looking for this thing. Their moping is even worse than your moping. Now get, I have more research to do." Lucifer opened his mouth to argue, but Gabriel stopped him with a hand on the shoulder.

"Where do we go?" The Messenger asked

"A town called Weston, in Illinois." Before he finished speaking, the two angels were gone. Dean groaned.

"Well, we'll be taking the longer route. Call you when we get there, Bobby." Bobby grunted in reply, already on his way back to the library. The Winchesters left the Singer household and got into the recently recovered and repaired Impala, setting off toward the East.

After the most uneventful car ride in all the Winchesters' time as Hunters, Sam and Dean reached Weston. It was a tiny, unremarkable town, the likes of which many a feel-good boy-meets-girl chick flick had probably been set in. Dressed in their black "FBI agent" suits, the two brothers exited the car, simultaneously shutting the doors.

It didn't take them two seconds to find Gabriel. The archangel was in front of them as soon as they stepped out of the car, a worried expression on his face. Dean frowned.

"Dude, what the hell? You can't just appear like that! It's kind of hard to keep a low profile when you're doing your Houdini thing." Gabriel ignored him, words rushing out of his mouth.

"Lucifer's gone."

"What do you mean? That he flaked on us? Doesn't surprise me, little bastard was probably looking for the first opportunity to cause trouble."

"Dean!" Sam scolded, putting on one of his favorite bitch-faces. This one, which he used a lot, usually meant "Dean, you're being an insensitive jerk again". The elder brother rolled his eyes, but Sam continued. "Clearly that's not what happened here. Gabriel doesn't look like he's worried about Lucifer, he's worried for him. And besides, what would Lucifer gain by sneaking off other than, you know, a lack of allies whenever God finally decides to track him down?" Dean still didn't look entirely convinced. Sam sighed. "Look, I might be a little angry at the guy, but seriously? That's just ridiculous." Dean mumbled something incoherent, the last words of which may or may not have been sorry. Sam, not completely satisfied with Dean's remorse but unwilling to waste any time, turned his attention back to Gabriel, "What happened?"

"Lucifer and I decided to snoop around while we waited for you two to get here, so we visited the first victim's home. There wasn't anything interesting there; the guy was so boring I didn't know how he even existed. But there was a noise coming from the cellar, and Luce went to investigate. I…I heard a scream, and when I went down to see what was wrong, he was just gone." Dean swore.

"So whatever's doing this has an archangel now? Fuck all." Sam's brow furrowed thoughtfully.

"Let's go back to that house and see what we can find."

"This is the least helpful house I have ever been in. I mean, normally there's occult signs, or dead hookers, or...or something. This guy might just be as nice a dude as they make him out to be." Dean flipped through the envelopes on the man's desk. Bills, bills, bills, a letter from one of those programs that sponsors starving children in Africa, bills…all boring as fuck.

"There's nothing helpful up here. Let's go down to the cellar." Sam suggested, pulling a flashlight out of his pocket. Dean nodded and followed him, Gabriel close behind.

The cellar was dark and nearly as boring as the rest of the house. There were a few shelves filled with cans, one with wine bottles, and a few dusty boxes shoved into a corner, but nothing truly remarkable. Dean pulled out his own flashlight and looked around one part of the cellar while Sam examined the other. Gabriel made his way to a corner and began examining it intently. Dean made his way over to the angel.

"What is it?"

"Something took him." Dean could pull a world's worth of meaning from those words: "I'm going to find him", "I'm going to save him", "I'm going to rip whoever or whatever did this into little tiny pieces." He, being Dean Winchester and therefore hardly possessing a shred of empathy, would have snorted, but he had to admit he had used that tone before. He could relate to the hidden messages within it. The hunter examined the wall. There was a set of fingernail marks dragging down it, fresh and deep.

"I can sense his Grace on the wall. It's everywhere. He came to this spot, and then he disappeared. But he didn't leave on his own. Something took him." Hearing the worry in Gabriel's voice, Dean suddenly felt the need to reassure him.

"We'll find him."

"I hope so."

"Hey Sam, we found where Lucifer disappeared," he called behind him to his brother. There was silence. "Sam?" Dean looked up, and immediately felt a coil of panic settle into his stomach.

Sam was gone.

Sam shined his flashlight around the cellar. Something felt wrong about this, but he couldn't identify what.

He hadn't found anything that could tell him what had happened to Lucifer, which was troubling. Usually when someone disappeared without a trace, it was a bad sign. At least he hadn't found any wing marks. Yet.

Sam turned to tell Dean he hadn't found anything when his eye caught a scrap of cloth caught in a stack of boxes. It probably had little to nothing to do with Lucifer, but at least it was something. Sam crouched down to retrieve it.

A pair of hands grabbed him, pulling him into the shadows between two shelves. Sam tried to cry out, but one of the hands clapped over his mouth. He thrashed, but he seemed to be restrained by one of the few people stronger than him and he couldn't break free. The Hunter felt a needle pierce his neck, and the dark cellar somehow got even darker.

"Fuck."

"Now's not the time for that, Dean-o." Gabriel attempted to joke, but there was no humor in his voice. Dean growled at the nickname, but didn't bother arguing with it beyond that.

"We're calling Bobby."

"He won't know what to do."

"Yeah, well, do you have a better idea?" Dean didn't wait for a reply, pulling out his phone and dialing the familiar number.

"What is it Dean? You figured out what it is yet?" Bobby took a sip of his beer as he waited for Dean's reply.

"No. Bobby, Lucifer and Sam are missing. Whatever this is took them." Bobby frowned.

"You sure this isn't just the Morningstar being a dick?"

"No, Bobby. I don't think Lucifer is behind this. You need to step up the pace on that research."

"Dean, I-"

"Bobby, I don't want to find my brother's body at the end of this."

"I will, Dean. But-" Bobby didn't get to finish his sentence, as the sound of something heavy hitting the wood floor of the nearby kitchen distracted him.

"What is it Bobby?"

"I think someone's here. I'll call you back." Bobby hung up, reaching for a shotgun which he had left leaning against the couch. Cautiously, he entered the kitchen.

What he saw was not what he expected. Crowley was lying against the refrigerator, apparently unconscious. Bobby approached him slowly, cocking the shotgun. At the noise, Crowley stirred and opened his eyes.

"Hello, mate."

"I don't think you have a right to be calling me that anymore, Mr. King of Hell." Crowley looked confused. Bobby almost bought it.

"King of Hell? Why would I want to be King of Hell? That's a horrible job!" Bobby was skeptical.

"I don't know, maybe its cuz you're an idjit."

"I am truly wounded, Robert. I thought we got along well."

"You sort of ruined that by breaking our deal."

"Breaking our deal? I didn't break our deal-"

"No, you just wrote a loophole into it." Bobby interrupted.

"Oh come on now, have a heart. We just sealed Lucifer, I haven't had time to give you back your soul. I can't do things instantaneously." Crowley attempted to sit up without the assistance of the fridge and failed, falling back against it with a groan. Bobby's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Just sealed Lucifer? Try again buddy, it's been over a year. And I know you weren't going to keep the deal. You told me you weren't going to keep it. I had to threaten you with burning your bones to get you to give it back." Crowley frowned.

"You're just pulling my leg, aren't you? I would never do that," At Bobby's stony expression, Crowley began to look panicked, "What's going on here?"

"I'd like to know that too."

"Look, whatever you think I did, it wasn't me, I-" Crowley stopped abruptly, eyes widening in shock before he doubled over, clutching his head and screaming.

"What's wrong?" Bobby asked. Not that he cared or anything, but it was rather curious.

"God."

"What?"

"God is what's wrong. Bastard."

"He screw with you too?" Bobby's grip on the shotgun loosened slightly, but he didn't lower it.

"The last thing I remember is you sealing Lucifer. Then…"

Crowley was not in Hell anymore. Of that much he was certain. There was no part of Hell that was quite so…bright as this, this expanse of blinding light that spread in every direction as far as he could see. He tried to close his eyes, to shut out the light that was burning into his brain, but it was failing. It was as though he had no control of his movements anymore.

"Hello Fergus McLeod." A deep voice filled the air, causing Crowley's chest to vibrate like someone had turned the base up far too much on a bad techno song. Crowley smirked.

"Sorry, Love, but I don't go by that name anymore." The voice chuckled.

"Very well then, Crowley. But it won't be that way when I'm finished with you."

"Who are you?" The chuckle morphed into a full on cackle. Suddenly, he was nothing but pain, every inch of his body set ablaze by the same light that surrounded him. Black spots began to appear in his vision, and Crowley found that he could think of nothing but how nice it would be when he lost consciousness.

"You should be honored that I'm going to tell you. The humans won't know for a very long time. They'll think I'm you, but we'll both know better, won't we? Hehe, I've always wondered what happens when you possess a demon."

"Who are you?" Crowley repeated, almost against his will. His voice wasn't as enraged as he'd like, instead coming out drowsy and almost euphoric, like a junky who had just gotten his fix. He wanted to feel angry about that, but he couldn't: despite the agony coursing through his veins, his rage was being quickly replaced by a sleepy bliss. The only part of him that remained unaffected was the part that panicked at what was happening.

"I'm God." That made sense, Crowley thought as the panicked part of him was devoured by the high. The pain was still there, but Crowley realized what it was. God's power was filling him up, driving out all the impurities of his evil, evil soul. God was going to make him better, was going to use him for something holy. Crowley remembered distantly that he shouldn't want this, but he didn't care. What he wanted was irrelevant.

A lazy grin spread across Crowley's face, and then everything went black.

"So he gave you Divine Weed?"

"Screw off, Singer." Crowley scowled.

"And you don't remember any of what happened?"

"After Lucifer? No…How long has it been?"

"About a year. Plus a few months."

"Damn. Would it be too much to ask for a recap?" Bobby considered that for a moment, then dropped the tip of the gun down to the floor. After a second's hesitation, he held out his hand to the demon, who accepted it and was pulled to his feet. He blinked.

"My back hurts." Bobby frowned at him.

"Cry me a river."

"No. You don't understand…" Crowley put a hand on his back, then removed it. His look of surprise slowly morphed into one of panic when he noticed a smear of dark red on his hand. "Demons don't feel extended pain when you stab them. They either ignore it or it turns out it was a demon knife and they either feel it for a few seconds, or they die immediately. There is no such thing as aching or feeling pain after being wounded." Crowley glanced down to the fridge where he had been lying. There was a rather substantial pool of blood on the floor.

"Demons don't…" Crowley, to Bobby's surprise, then proceeded to fall to the floor unconscious.

"Bobby, don't...fuck. He hung up." Dean tried Sam's number next, and was completely unsurprised when it went straight to voicemail. "He said he'll go as fast as possible, but something distracted him, so 'as fast as possible' could be a while."

"New rule: always stay where we can see each other."

"Sounds fantastic." Dean moved over to where Sam had last been. Once again, there was nothing remarkable about the area. He looked closely at the walls. Nothing. The ground. Nothing. A stack of boxes…there. A scrap of cloth. Dean leaned down and pulled it free from the boxes. It was a thick canvas, colored army green and rolled into a ball. Dean unrolled it carefully. Inside was a half empty glass vial, clear and containing a translucent blue liquid. He turned back around, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw Gabriel still behind him. He held up the vial, "I haven't got a clue what this stuff is, but when you find mysterious liquids in a dead person's basement it's never good."

"Unless it's moonshine," Gabriel agreed. Dean snorted and slipped the vial into his pocket, taking care not to break it or spill its contents.

"Let's get out of here."

Dean sat in the Impala, driving to the second crime scene. Gabriel was sitting in the passenger's seat, following the newly created eye-contact rule. They would have just teleported, but then they wouldn't have had all their weapons. You have to have all your weapons when you don't know what you're dealing with.

It was very warm outside: when they arrived at the scene, Dean thanked the air conditioning in his baby for saving him ten minutes of agony. The two men entered the second victim's apartment. It was, once again, one of the most boring places either of them had ever seen. Dean wiped the sweat from his brow as he stood in the stairwell. After a few seconds, he noticed that the vial was becoming extremely hot. He removed it from his pocket and stared at it. The blue liquid had evaporated, apparently leaving an empty bit of glassware behind. Dean swore. They had lost their only lead.

Then the warm vial became even hotter, suddenly rising to a burning temperature. Dean dropped it, cussing and examining his hand. Fuck him for injuring it twice in one day.

The vial shattered on the ground. Dean stared down at it for a few seconds, then forced himself to take a deep breath and calm him down enough to figure out what the fuck just happened. The air smelled like peanuts, Dean thought.

Then, he abruptly realized that Sam, his little brother Sammy, was gone. He was gone and that was horrible. Oh god, he was probably dead in a ditch somewhere and it was all Dean's fault because he was supposed to protect him and Cas was possessed by God and that was his fault too and everything was terrible and wrong and he was such a failure…

When Dean started having what appeared to be some sort of mental breakdown, Gabriel wasn't quite sure what to do. He wasn't good at dealing with his own emotions, much less someone else's. He tried to get Dean to look at him, and the human didn't resist, just stared at him hopelessly.

"They're dead and it's all my fault. Why? Why couldn't I save them?"

"Who's dead?" No response, only helpless whimpering. "Dean, who's dead?" Dean looked at him like the world was ending. Again.

"Everyone. Always. I kill everyone. Everything is always my fault. I should just do the world a favor and die."

"What do you mean? Dean-" Dean began to shake, all the while continuing to mutter about death and his responsibilities. Then, his eyes slid shut and he fell limp. For a moment Gabriel was worried that he might be dead, but a quick pulse check dispelled that fear. Shit. Fear. Gabriel reached into Dean's pocket and pulled out his phone. Eventually he found the contact list and quickly located Bobby's name.

"Bobby. Whatever this is caught Dean."

"Shit." That was really all Bobby could say. He had a demon with an unexplained, newly stitched wound on his back that somehow knocked him unconscious and a monster that was messing with his boys. It was not a good day.

"Yeah. He was just fine, and then he started talking about how everyone was dying and it was his fault, and then he fainted. Do you have any leads yet?"

"No. Not yet." Bobby logged into the FBI data base and typed in "fear" and "Weston, Illinois." He scrolled down, then his eyes grew wide, "Fuck."

"What?"

"I think I figured out what this is."

The first thing Sam noticed upon waking was that his head hurt.

The second thing Sam noticed upon waking was that it was bright.

The third thing Sam noticed upon waking was that Lucifer was in the room with him.

The archangel didn't seem to be doing very well. He had drawn his knees up to his chest and clapped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut so hard it likely caused him pain. Sam looked down at himself. He wasn't tied up, which surprised him. Sam stood up and moved over to where Lucifer was sitting. He was hesitant to touch him, so instead he spoke to him.

"Hey. Lucifer." The archangel screamed, pressing himself against the wall. He looked at Sam. Well, not really at Sam, more like just in his general direction. He looked…scared…Sam reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

"What's wrong."

"It burns."

"What do you mean, Lucifer, it's freezing in here." Lucifer laughed, eyes shining far too brightly.

"It's always burning in the Cage. Burning and freezing. Contradictions don't matter. Not here." Shit. He thought he was in the Cage. That was not good, Not Good with capital letters.

"Listen, Lucifer. You're not in the Cage."

"I told myself that when I first got back here. But now I see. I'm just coming home. Gabriel isn't going to rescue me. This is where I belong."

"No. Lucifer. You're not in Hell, you're in Illinois. You just have to pull yourself together long enough to get us out of here. Everything is going to be fine." Lucifer laughed, a strangled, terrified sound, and Sam knew that what he said hadn't made a difference.

"Don't bother trying Mr...Plant. Hmm. That's a horrible alias." Sam turned around. Standing in a doorway that Sam hadn't noticed before was a tall, thin man in a white lab coat, "He can't hear you anymore. He's mine, and he will be until he dies. Which won't be long, by the way. His fears seem to be particularly nasty ones." The man grinned, light glinting off his glasses and hiding his eyes.

"What did you do to him?"

"You wouldn't understand. No one ever did. But soon it won't matter if they understand or not. They'll have to listen to what I have to say."

A/N: so, I need to finish this hunt myself, which means I'll be writing the next one too.

Dundundun. What's wrong with Crowley? And what's wrong with the mysterious lab coat man? He obviously has some issues.