Supernatural and its associated characters belong to Eric Kripke (who should be reported for abuse and have his mind-children turned over to me!)
Author's Note: My little space markers STILL aren't working! Sorry people, if you've been confused this whole time as to where one segment began and another ended...grrr, !
Warning: AViewer discretion is advised: some fairly dark stuff goin' on in here (well, it's dark for me).
Also...is anyone else getting sick of Faith at this point? I'm trying to keep her out of Mary-Sue realm, but I'll let you decide whether or not I failed.
Warehouse
He shudders back into consciousness when Lucifer tips the razor edge of his blade into the scarlet welt on Dean's shoulder, murmuring something about impossibilities and grace and Dean couldn't care less because that's Castiel's and goddamn Lucifer shouldn't be anywhere near it. He can almost feel Castiel agreeing with him, his angel, all midnight and ocean and snow, fire and water and sunlight and something like a man rolled into one stuffily dressed package. Castiel; the faintest flutter of wings, the soft smell of rain and chocolate and something deliciously organic in the rough, shadowed curve of his jaw, the deepest register of thunder buried in his voice... if Dean were ever to write a book of things he knew, the angel would be the second entry, right behind Sam (aka World's Biggest Pain in the Mother-Lovin' Ass). He wonders when Castiel became so important.
Dean! He thinks he hears the roll of thunder, the light crinkle of a tan trenchcoat; he thinks he feels warm hands on his chest, pressing life and strength and will into the weary heart Lucifer had gripped in his frostbitten fingers days, weeks, hours before and he reaches for it with everything he's got left, straining against his chains and praying for a miracle. Then the knife slides under flesh and maybe scrapes bone as the Devil strips away Castiel's mark, and there are no words spoken in Heaven or Hell that describe the pain; it's physical, spiritual, emotional, visceral, insurmountable, something felt with body, mind, and soul.
"There there," Lucifer's breath is icy-hot, singing and freezing bruised and ruined skin and the tears Dean hadn't felt on his cheeks. "Isn't that better?"
He can't even scream.
Seattle, Washington:
Michael's not quite used to Adam Milligan's body yet. It's very different from Dean's, thin and hollow where Dean was thick and muscular, soft and pale where Dean was scarred and tan; it's smaller too, and the hair is thick and summery gold, the eyes a delicate powder blue. It's such a dramatic shift he can't believe Adam's even related to Dean, much less the hunter's abnormally tall brother.
"Adam?" Samuel Winchester's voice is rough, slurred by alcohol and sleep. "Faith, what the hell is going on?"
"Sam, I-" The human girl at his side shakes, her fingers wrapped tightly around Adam's; a force of habit that makes Adam's freshly resurrected soul tingle. It recalls giving chocolates and flowers to this girl, remembers nights and days and in-betweens where they kissed and fought and planned a future...
"Michael." Castiel says firmly. His little brother appears in the doorway, fingers closing warningly around Samuel's wrist, and there's something very lost and human in his eyes, beautiful even on Earth. "You've found a new vessel."
"Yes, but I'm afraid I left the other behind." Adam's voice is higher, sweeter than the roughened slide of Dean's voice; another change he's going to have to adjust to. "With Lucifer."
"Dean," Sam whispers, his face stricken and bloodless. Michael can see the anxious flicker of Castiel's wings, hear the soft pop of an exploding lightbulb as his brother all but surges out of his vessel, screaming Dean's name in languages that burn Sam and Faith's ears. Castiel's Grace is laid bare in an instant, and Michael finds nothing of Heaven or the Host in it; he sees Dean Winchester at 6 years of age, 10, 18, 26, 30, sees the terrible explosion and heat that ended Dean's second life as both man and angel knew it. You're in love with him, Michael throws a neat twist of thought into Castiel, sees the lesser angel absorb it and turn his vessel's cheeks pink. Brother, this is forbidden.
I know. But still Dean Winchester's name echoes in each throb of the borrowed heart.
He is with Lucifer, Castiel. He presses memories into Castiel, memories of twisting blades and rupturing flesh and blood flowing more freely than wine; the damned vessel's face, peeling and burnt and blistered beyond repair, the eyes as deep and cold and merciless as the Pit from whence the Devil came. There is no hope for him now.
Castiel straightens, tethers himself to Jimmy Novak's body once more and speaks over Sam's soft whimpers of pain, the crunch of breaking glass.
"So long as I walk this earth, Michael, I will follow my orders." His brother's shoulders tighten as wings fold neatly back into them, the fabric of his vessel's coat knitting together over the slick black feathers and impressive span. "And my orders are to protect Dean Winchester, by whatever means necessary."
He reaches out and grasps Adam Milligan's shoulder, curling his fingers into unblemished flesh.
"Take me to him. Now."
It's safe to say she's got a pretty major guilt complex, and it's only getting larger when she sees the warehouse where Lucifer is keeping Dean; it's literally abandoned, sporting all the shattered windows and crude graffiti one comes to expect on a condemned building, and she thinks maybe she hears Dean screaming, bleeding, dying inside. She wonders if he's as cold as she is, or if Lucifer's got a great big ol' Hellfire in there, like some kind of Ninth Circle Satanic A.C.
"Castiel," she whispers, pounding her feet against the rough pavement. A low fog swirls whimsically around her ankles, as chilly and damp as north-western rain, and for the sixteenth time she wishes she'd never asked to ride shotgun on this 'mission' in the first place. "How are we getting in?"
"We can't," the angel says. "The building's covered in Enochian warding magic."
"So you're going to send Sam?"
"And hand Lucifer his vessel?" Castiel frowns. "No, Faith. Sam can't go in either."
"What the hell do you mean I can't go in?" The tall hunter limps over, his paralyzed leg scraping painfully over the ground. Michael watches him go with some interest, but it's in more of an Analyzing-Your-Weaknesses-So-I-Can-Smite-You way than in a concerned Angel of the Lord way. "Cas, my brother's in there."
"Precisely. Do you think your judgment will remain unimpaired? That the Devil doesn't already know we're here, that he's not waiting for you to go running after Dean?" Michael snorts through Adam's nose. "He'll take you and keep Dean, and he'll torture you both until you say yes."
A tight, throbbing silence spans between them, an unlikely blend of Heaven, Hell and Earth compacted into a space too small to fit towering Grace and blackened blood and jealous, mortal spirit. Sam's fingers shift towards the Glock he's got stuffed through his belt, worn and battered and blazing with some Winchester anti-demon additions, and she can tell he's thinking about running in; he might even hand himself over to Lucifer in exchange for Dean. Castiel's hands thrust themselves into the pockets of his trenchcoat, seamless and flawless as it must have been the day he took the vessel and its clothes, his eyes fixed on a rudely-drawn caricature, and she knows he's willing to die, to throw himself against the sigils until Dean walks free. Michael stretches lazily, looking for all the world like Adam after he'd finished a run, but his young-old gaze flickers expertly over barriers undetectable on the mortal plane and she can see he's hoping Lucifer will come out, come to the battle destiny had chosen for them. Faith touches her collarbone, feels the smooth thud of a heart that doesn't quite know who or what it wants anymore; Castiel, Adam, the salvation of Dean Winchester...
"It's my fault," she says. "I'm the one who jacked things up. I'll go in and get Dean."
"D'you think the Devil's not gonna have bodyguards?" Sam says derisively. He's got every reason to hate her now; she's the one who signed his brother's death warrant, and she can't quite bring herself to hate him back anymore. "Jesus Christ Faith, you can barely shoot."
"Give me your girlfriend's goddamn knife," Faith says. "And I won't have to."
In the end, it's Castiel who has to fish the knife out of Sam's jacket pocket and hand it to her, his face impassive; he must hate her as much as Sam does, now. The thought makes a small corner of her heart crumble and flake away, so many ashes in the whip of desert wind, and before she goes she leans forward and kisses him, just once. He doesn't quite know what to do with his mouth, and he's tense and tastes for all the world like a freshly minted penny, but Faith takes it because it's all she's ever going to get. Ever.
"I love you," she tells him. But this time, the first and last time, she doesn't really mean it.
Warehouse
It's bigger on the inside!
She remembers watching "Doctor Who" with her room-mate once and hearing the same punchline over and over again; she remembers thinking that it was impossible, improbable for a spaceship bigger than the Enterprise to be squeezed into a 1960's Police Box, and getting up and walking out after the first three episodes because she couldn't suspend her disbelief. Now maybe she thinks she understands what all those lost girls were talking about.
It's not so much the size of the warehouse- it's probably not much bigger than one floor of an office building, when all's said and done- but the care with which she has to go through it. Each shadowed, each rotting box and click of rodent nails could be a demon; hell, it could be the Devil himself. And all she's got is one demon-killing knife and roughly half a year of hunting experience. Swell.
She slides through a shattered doorframe, very nearly tripping over a large chunk of cement and the remains of some unlucky clerk's writing desk; only sturdy shoes and good balance save her from an unpleasant fall, and Faith gasps out a fuck and turns to survey the space...
"Oh my God."
There's a man hanging from the ceiling, his chin tucked against his chest, toes a good six inches from the floor; blood streams silently over his flesh, and Faith thinks it'll be a miracle if the poor guy is alive at all. She slinks towards him, pressing the knife into her jacket pocket and surveying the damage. Her fingertips skim over the flesh of his arm, ripped and purpling with the muscle strained and knotted underneath; she exhales as her hand finds one of the iron cuffs around his wrist, takes his dead weight on her shoulder and feels his warm breath against her collar, assurance that there is life left in him yet. She closes her fingers around his wrist, finds the painfully simple catch of a cuff and opens it; elated, she fumbles for the next cuff and tries not to wrench his arm out of the socket in the process, digs one hand into the weeping flesh of his forearm and pulls sharply on the metal latch. He's free.
The man hisses like a deflating balloon and slowly lifts his head away from his chest, his neck popping and creaking; he's young, younger than Castiel's vessel and there's something familiar about the feminine shape of the lips and the line of the nose and recognition curls anxiously in the back of her head as his thick black eyelashes flutter away from the clearest green eyes Faith's ever seen.
"Oh Jesus," she gasps, and Dean Winchester's split mouth curls up into a mockery of a smile.
Then his whole body slumps forward, damp with sweat and blood and God knows what else and it's all she can do to keep them both upright, but somehow she manages. Good, she thinks, We're going to make it. Then she shifts, grips the crook of his elbow and too late feels the overripe squish of a drug addict's bruise. He gasps in pain.
"Well," someone says, and she can feel the weight of his presence crawling at the edges of her soul; Lucifer. "I expected Castiel, not you. Not this soon."
"Please," she whimpers, like a complete and total idiot. Like Satan cares whether or not she gets Dean home alive and in (mostly) one piece, to a place where Sam, Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and Castiel can treat him, love him.
"Hmm. Since you said please-" Silver flashes in the twilight and she only has time to marvel at the Colt's reappearance before it claps and blood mists over her clothes, the side of her face. Dean Winchester's breath rattles in his throat and he rolls out of her arms, forest-green eyes emptying and she can almost feel the velvet wings of his soul and the chill embrace of a Reaper a moment after the gunshot's echo fades. A slow, lazy stream of blood empties itself from the ragged gap in Dean's temple, sticky and warm against her boots.
She stands alone in an empty room and neither Lucifer, the Colt, nor the soul are ever to be seen there again.
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