Chapter 14: No Rest For the Wicked. (Part 1)
Jean looks at Gabriel in astonishment, "Wait...so, what you're saying is that I'm meant to be the Devil's bitch?"
Gabriel nods his head, "You're meant to be his mate, yes." A look of confusion appears on his face, "What I don't understand is how Luci got his grace inside of you in the first place. Usually the ugear places a small amount of his grace inside his etam when she's born, but Lucifer has been locked away for a few millennia." Gabriel is now looking at Jean like she's an important mystery that he absolutely must solve. "So how did he manage to get his grace inside of you when he's trapped powerless inside of the cage?"
Jean shrugs, "I don't know. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm meant to be Lucifer's etam."
"Did you ever find something or did anyone ever give you something with strange symbols on it?" Gabriel asks her, looking her in the eyes.
Jean shakes her head, "My dad would've torn me a new one if I had ever picked up anything like that without knowing what it was or what it did. And the only gifts I've ever received have been from my brothers, my dad, and Bobby Singer, but they would have known better than to give me anything strange like that. Why?"
Gabriel hums, thinking to himself, before answering her. "I was thinking that maybe his grace entered you through an object."
Jean remains quiet for a couple of minutes, thinking hard. Suddenly, a vague memory pops into her mind and she asks him, "Could it be any object? Even a doll?"
Gabriel looks at her curiously, "Yes. Why?"
"Mr. Grumpy," Jean says while walking towards the bed she was sleeping in before Gabriel showed up.
He raises an eyebrow, "I like to think of myself more as Dopey than Grumpy. Maybe even Bashful."
Jean stops and looks over her shoulder at the archangel, "If you were one of the seven dwarfs you would be named Tricky or Sweets...maybe even Pervy, because something tells me that you would be constantly trying to get into Snow White's pants."
"I wouldn't have to try, sweetheart, she wouldn't be able to resist me." He moves his eyebrows up and down in a suggestive manner.
Jean rolls her eyes, but chuckles a little before continuing to the bed. "I wasn't talking about you or the dwarf." She picks up her duffel from beside the bed, places it on top of the mattress, then begins to search through it. "Mr. Grumpy is the name of the angel doll that a man gave to me when I was four."
"Angel doll?" Gabriel asks, "What did the man look like?"
Jean shrugs slightly, "He looked like an average man...average height, brown hair, brown beard, kind blue eyes. There would be no way that I would be able to recognize him again."
Gabriel looks a little disappointed, but he expected as much. "Describe to me, as much as you can remember, what happened when the man gave you the doll."
She pauses for a moment trying to recall that day more clearly before telling him, "I don't remember very much. I remember that it was Dean and my fourth birthday and our parents took us to a toy store because we ended up spending the biggest part of the day at the doctor's office. I wandered away from my family and found a shelf of angel dolls. A man appeared and told me that I could have one. I picked up several dolls before choosing Mr. Grumpy."
Gabriel's curiosity peaked, "He let you choose? What other angels did you pick up?"
"I remember almost picking one that was wearing a little trench coat and looked like he had absolutely no idea what was going on. He was so adorable and reminded me of a lost puppy." Gabriel snaps his fingers making a chocolate bar appear in his hand. "Another one had six white wings and was holding something in his hand...a sword, I think. He also looked like he had a fairly large stick shoved up his ass." Gabriel coughs a little as he chokes on a piece of chocolate that tries to make its way down the wrong pipe from surprise when he hears Jean describe a doll that could only be his oldest brother, Michael. "And the last doll had six blue..." Jean suddenly stops in the middle of her sentence and turns around to face Gabriel, who has just taken another bite out of his candy bar. She looks at him in amazement and states, "The last doll looked exactly like you. It even had a little candy bar in it's hand."
Gabriel is taken by surprise, "Interesting." Jean returns to searching through her large duffel, "So he gave you a chance to choose who your ugear would be and you obviously chose Lucifer." Gabriel is deep in thought, "I wonder if the angels you picked up are still possible ugears since Luci hasn't bonded with you yet?" He says more to himself than to Jean.
"Aha!" Jean exclaims as she pulls Mr. Grumpy out of her bag. She turns him face up and is shocked by the uncanny resemblance to Nick. "Holy fuck!"
Gabriel slightly scowls, "Let me guess...Mr. Grumpy looks like your brother Sam."
She turns to look at him with a puzzled look on her face and a small dirty-blonde angel doll in her hand. "No. It actually looks like Nick, the man I've been kinda dating. Why would it look like Sammy?"
Gabriel shakes his head and holds out his hand for the doll, "Never mind. So you have a boyfriend now?" he asks her and his wings droop in disappointment.
"I don't know what the hell we are, to be honest with you. I really care for Nick, but I can't be in a steady relationship since I'm a hunter and he's still mourning the loss of his family." Jean tells him before reluctantly handing him the angel doll.
As soon as he sees the six sparkly hot pink wings, Gabriel's suspicions are confirmed. Lucifer's grace entered Jean through this doll, Gabriel can even feel a very small residue of Lucifer's grace inside the doll. "Jean, have you been...intimate...with this Nick guy?"
Jean's face turns red, "I don't see why that's important."
"You may not see why it's important, but it is." He waits for her to answer, but all she can do is nod. Gabriel's gaze softens and he reaches out then cups her cheek in his hand. He turns her head to look at him and strokes her cheek with his thumb. "You need to be careful, sweetheart. I know my brother very well and he's ruthless when it comes to getting what he wants."
Jean is confused, "I don't understand. Lucifer is locked away and you said he can't get out of his cage, so why are you so worried about this, Gabe?"
Gabriel's hand that's on her cheek drops to his side, "Because Lucifer's cage can be opened and when it is I have no doubt that he will head straight for you." He hands her back the Lucifer doll then tilts his head to the side, like he's listening to something. "You'll have to excuse me, sweetheart, but I believe that your brother has learned his lesson." Gabriel then disappears and for about ten minutes nothing happens, so Jean puts Mr. Grumpy back inside of her bag. Suddenly, she feels extremely disoriented for a couple of minutes, her stomach lurches, and she feels like she's about to throw up.
"Jean?!" She hears Sam's voice from behind her and starts to turn around but is prevented from doing so by someone hugging her tightly from behind. "Oh my God! Jean! Where have you been?! I've been through like a hundred Tuesdays and I could never find you!"
Jean pats Sam's arms in a silent gesture of comfort, "I'm fine, Sammy. Loki didn't hurt me. Now let me go before I throw up all over my stuff." Sam releases her from his bear hug and Jean takes off for the bathroom, heaving into the toilet.
"Loki? Wait...I had to die a hundred times in a row while Sam had to watch, but you get off scot-free? This dude's carrying a serious thing for you, Jeanie." Dean pipes up. "And since when are you on a first name basis with this dude?"
Jean scoffs as she flushes the toilet and walks out of the bathroom, "Or maybe he left me alone because I was the only one who didn't try to kill him back in Ohio." She cocks an eyebrow at her twin, "What did you expect? For me to always refer to him as Trickster and for him to call me Woman?"
Sam stops the oncoming fight between his siblings by telling his sister, "Hurry up and gather your things and let's get out of this town before something else happens to Dean." He looks around, rather paranoid, like at any second some unseen threat is going to appear and kill Dean.
Jean chuckles, "Wow, Sam. You look incredibly like a very skittish moose right now."
Dean laughs and the three pick up their bags before leaving the motel. They climb into the Impala and drive away from the town. After an hour of being on the road, Jean lets out a loud yawn then lays down in the backseat to take a nap.
Lucifer is pissed. No...he is beyond pissed...he is in a murderous rage.
When he first felt Gabriel's grace inside of Jean he was very surprised, after all his little brother is supposed to be dead. Gabriel was Lucifer's favorite little brother and he was always very lenient with him. But the instant Gabriel's grace brushed up against Jean's soul, he lost any leniency he may have once had for his brother. Lucifer became enraged and he began physically lashing out at the bars of his cage, trying to bend them with his bare hands and escape, but he was prevented from doing so by the holy fire that surrounds the cage. The fire burned the skin from his hands, but at the time Lucifer couldn't have cared less; he had to get out and protect his claim to Jean. While he tried physically to get out of the cage, Lucifer pushed his grace through the special connection that he shares with the female Winchester and attacked Gabriel's grace with his own. Only when Gabriel's grace was gone did Lucifer finally start to calm down.
Currently, Lucifer is sitting down and watching as his hands slowly begin to heal while thinking about when he felt the connection between him and Jean form almost twenty-five years ago.
At the time, he was extremely angry at his Father for forcing an etam on him. Lucifer hated humans and tried to show his Father that they are flawed and murderous, so why would Dad give him a human as a mate? Lucifer chose to completely ignore the connection at first and he spent his time plotting revenge against Heaven and the filthy hairless apes that his Father loved so much. It was at this point that Lucifer realized that when she gets older, he could use the female to create his own angelic offspring to use against Heaven.
His plans of just ignoring the connection between him and Jean suddenly changed when one night, when Jean was eight years old, Lucifer was forcefully pulled into her dreams for the first time. The dream wasn't a very pleasant one: it was very dark and a small red-haired girl was sobbing uncontrollably and tugging at the pants leg of a dark-haired man while she cried out, "Daddy! Daddy! Why don't you love me anymore? All I want is for you to love me like you used to." But the man just kicked her out of his way before walking away. Much to Lucifer's surprise, he found himself wanting to comfort the small human girl, but her soul wasn't strong enough to sense him yet, so the gesture would be useless. It was because of this dream that Lucifer realized that Jean is similar to himself in that they both feel abandoned and unloved by their fathers.
Lucifer quickly learned that not only did going into his etam's dreams allowed him to learn more about her, but it also allowed him to temporarily escape from the cage. Of course, he could never use his powers or leave her dreams and when she would wake up, he'd find himself shoved back inside of the cage. So he continued to visit Jean's dreams going unnoticed until her eighteenth birthday; the day her soul became strong enough to sense his presence; and then she started appearing before him outside of the cage.
Suddenly, Lucifer is pulled out of his reminiscing by a familiar tug on his grace that only occurs whenever Jean is nearby. "Oh, hello Jean," he says in a sing-song voice.
"Lucifer," she replies and moves closer to the bars.
Lucifer stands up and turns to face Jean. Pouting he declares, "Gabriel just had to go and ruin all of my fun." He looks her up and down, checking her over. He then sniffs the air to catch her scent and make sure Gabriel's scent isn't on her, but when only her own pleasant smell reaches his nostrils, he hums in contentment. "So, what do you think?" He makes a sassy pose and spreads all six of his wings to their fullest extent, "Am I everything you humans imagined me to be?"
"Well...you seem to be missing the red skin, horns, spade tail, and goat legs that most people seem to think you have," Lucifer snorts in disgust, "but I could be wrong since I can't see you very well, even though I'm inches away from you. Why is that?"
"This," he gestures at himself, "is merely an illusion that I am using for your safety. You can't see any of my features because I've never had a vessel."
"What's a vessel?" Jean asks him, her curiosity peaked.
"Vessels are humans that angels use to walk around on Earth."
Jean is alarmed by this piece of information, "Angels possess people like demons do?"
Lucifer shakes his head, "No. Unlike demons, angels need permission from a human to enter their body. Like when Gabriel entered his grace into you," Lucifer's feathers bristle at the reminder, "you had to give him permission to do so. Which, for his sake, I advise you not to let happen again, kitten. Or I will pluck every single feather from his wings before breaking them."
"Kitten?" She questions him on his new nickname for her.
Lucifer grins like he just won something priceless, "For the adorable little mewling noises you make during your sex dreams. You sound like a little kitten."
Jean's face turns bright red in embarrassment and she quickly changes the subject. "So you will need my permission to bond with me?"
Lucifer wraps his left hand around one of the bars of the cage, "Yes."
A plan is forming in Jean's mind, but she needs time to think about the possible consequences. "What do you really look like?" She asks Lucifer, partly because she really wants to know and partly to buy her some time to think.
Lucifer raises an eyebrow at her, "Why?"
"I'm curious."
"I believe you humans have a saying: curiosity killed the cat."
"So what you're saying is, if I were to see your true appearance I would die?"
"Possibly. Human senses are overwhelmed by the brilliance of an angel's true form and their eyes are burned out of their skull." He says casually, like it's no big deal. "There are a few humans that can see an angel's true form and hear their true voice, but they are very rare."
"But if I can see an angel's wings doesn't that mean that I should be able to safely see their true form?"
"Maybe...but I'm not willing to risk your life on a maybe."
Jean thinks for a moment, "I think I may have seen the silhouette of your true form a couple of times before."
Lucifer tilts his head in curiosity, "I've always used an illusion when you come to visit me, kitten."
"Hmm, you seem really cramped when you're in your other form, like you're almost too big for the cage. Your body itself seems to be long and slender almost like a snake's."
Lucifer's eyes flash in astonishment, clearly his etam can very vaguely see his true form even when he's using an illusion. "How very curious. You may be able to see my true form after all."
Jean excitedly asks, "So will you show me?"
"Maybe some other time." Lucifer grabs her left hand and a jolt goes through her body once again. He pulls her hand between the bars of the cage and kisses the pulse point on the inside of her wrist. Lucifer's wings fully extend and the feathers fluff up in a mating display.
Jean pouts in disappointment, "Fine." She then takes a deep breath before saying, "I wanna make a deal."
Lucifer has been wondering if Jean would try something like this and he leans up against the bars of the cage, keeping a hold of her hand. He begins to trace the lines of her palm with his index finger as he asks, "You literally want to make a deal with the Devil?"
She nods, "I'll be your bitch..."
"Don't ever say that again," Lucifer growls.
"What?"
"Don't ever call yourself a bitch in my presence ever again. You are my mate not my bitch. To refer to yourself as such is disrespectful to both of us."
Jean softens towards him and nods her head, "Okay. As I was saying...if you can get my twin brother, Dean, out of his demon deal, I will agree to bond with you without any problems. When you get out of this cage and come to me to bond your grace with my soul, I will agree to it no matter what. Just, please, save Dean." She begs him.
Lucifer knows a golden opportunity when he sees one and he would've been more than happy to make this deal with Jean if Dean wasn't an essential key to unlocking the cage. He carefully considers what he should tell her without actually lying to her, "Unfortunately, there is nothing that I can do." Her face falls in disappointment and heartbreak. Lucifer's wings fall at the look on her face and he kisses her pulse point again before continuing, "I'm not even in charge of Hell at the moment." Both of these statements are true: Lucifer can't break Dean's deal because he is vital to opening the cage and, technically, Lilith is in charge of Hell right now, even though she's receiving orders from Lucifer.
"So there's no way to get Dean out of his deal?"
"I'm afraid that there isn't, kitten." Lucifer begins to place kisses up her arm, his wings fully extended in a mating display again, the feathers even more ruffled. The taste of Jean's skin is intoxicating to the fallen archangel and he finds himself wanting to taste her plump, full lips, but because of the bars he won't be able to reach her lips with his own. So he decides to settle for something else. He tugs on her hand, pulling her entire body flush against the cage. Lucifer's long blue, forked tongue flicks against her left cheek then against her lips. The feeling of his icy breath against her heated skin causes Jean to gasp and Lucifer takes advantage. He slides his tongue through her parted lips and into her mouth. Jean moans as the ice cold appendage explores her mouth and down to the back of her throat causing her to gag slightly.
All of a sudden, Jean disappears as she's shaken awake by one of her brothers causing Lucifer to growl in frustration and irritation.
A couple of months pass and Dean's time is almost up; he only has thirty hours left. For the past month Sam, Dean, and Bobby have been researching for hours on end, looking for any way to save Dean or locate Lilith. They only stop when they end up falling asleep on one of Bobby's ancient tomes. Meanwhile, Jean is doing her own research on Lucifer and angels in general, however, there is very little information that doesn't seem to be utter nonsense.
Currently, the Winchester siblings and Bobby Singer are staying in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. Jean is stretched out on a dilapidated couch reading a thick book on demon and angel myths while Dean has fallen asleep at a table, his head resting on the open pages of a book.
Dean suddenly jerks awake and lifts his head off of the pages of the book. "Bad dream?" Jean asks her older twin brother.
He turns his head to look at her from over his shoulder, "Yeah. I dreamt that I was on an episode of Maury and I must have heard 'You ARE the father' at least a hundred times."
Jean chuckles slightly as Sam enters the room and walks over to Dean. "Dig up anything good?" He asks.
Dean closes the book, "No." He clears his throat then continues, "Nothing good."
Sam looks happy as he tells his siblings, "Well, Bobby has, finally."
Dean blinks in surprise and Jean shuts her own book while sitting up on the couch. "Yeah?" They ask at the same time.
"Yeah, a way to find Lilith."
"Wow, and with just, uh, thirty hours to go." Dean shakes his head, "Hey, why don't we just make a TJ run, you know?" He smirks at his little brother, "You know, some seƱoritas, cervezas. Uh, we could...What's Spanish for 'donkey show'?"
Sam chuckles, "So if we do save you," he pauses for a moment before continuing, "let's never do that."
Dean shrugs slightly, "Yeah."
Sam crouches down beside Dean so that they're eye level with each other. "Hey, hey, Dean, um..." He says, the smile now gone from his face. "Look, we're cutting it close, I know. But we're gonna get this done. I don't care what it takes, Dean. You're not gonna go to hell. I'm not gonna let you." Dean looks over at Sam, who gives him a small smile. "I swear. Everything's gonna be okay. Right, Jeanie?"
Jean stands up and walks over to her brothers. She places a hand on both of their shoulders and lightly squeezes them. She gives them a small smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Of course."
Dean's eyes widen as they dart from Sam's face to Jean's and then back again. "Yeah, okay."
Jean looks at her twin in concern and when Sam stands up and leaves the room, she asks Dean, "Have the hallucinations started?"
Dean nods his head and stands up, "Come on. Let's go see what Bobby has found."
Jean follows Dean through the old house until they reach the room where Bobby is. The Winchester siblings watch as Bobby unfolds a map of the United States, lays it flat upon a large table, then he picks up an old pendulum-type device and sets it up over the map. "See, a name. That's the whole kit and caboodle. With the right name, the right ritual, ain't nothing you can't suss out."
"Like the town Lilith is in?" Sam eagerly asks. Jean exchanges a look of concern with Dean; she's starting to worry about how obsessed with hunting down Lilith Sam is becoming. Judging from the similar look on Dean's face, she's not the only one who's worried.
Bobby nods his head in confirmation, "Kid, when I get done, we'll know the street." He happily tells Sam and then bumps the top of the device to start the pendulum swinging. He starts to recite a ritual in Latin and when he finishes the chant the end of the pendulum stops over a city. "New Harmony, Indiana. And we have a winner."
"All right," Sam exclaims, excited. "Let's go."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Holster it up there, Tex." Dean tells him.
"What's the problem?"
Dean looks at Sam, "'What's the problem'? Come on, where do I begin? I mean first of all, we don't even know if Lilith actually holds my deal." Dean starts to get angry, "We're going off of Bela's intel."
Jean scoffs, "When that bitch breathes, the air comes out crooked."
Dean nods in agreement, "Precisely."
"Of course, if you two had let me snap her neck when I had the chance we would still have the Colt." Jean states with her arms folded over her chest.
Dean turns and glares at her, "You're not helping!" He then turns back around to face Sam again.
Jean shrugs, "There's also the fact that, even if we get to Lilith, we don't have a way to kill her."
Dean jerks his head in her direction, "Jean's right. That's two." Sam's mouth drops open in disbelief, "Third, isn't this the same Lilith that wants your giant head on a pike? Should I continue?"
"Ha. Ain't you two bringing down the room?" Bobby says.
"Well, it's a gift." Dean replies while Jean doesn't say anything.
"I'm sorry, what are we supposed to do, Dean?"
"Look, just because I gotta die, doesn't mean you guys have to. Okay? We go in smart or we don't go in at all."
"Okay, fine, if that's the case, I have the answer."
"You do?"
"Yeah, a sure-fire way to confirm it's Lilith. And a way to get us a bona fide, demon-killing Ginsu."
The twins realize just what Sam wants to do and both simultaneously tell him, "Damn it, Sam, no." Dean turns and walks closer to Jean.
"We are so past arguing. I am summoning Ruby."
Dean turns to face Sam again, "The hell you are, we've got enough problems as it is!"
"Exactly," Sam walks over to where Dean and Jean are standing. "And we got no time and no choice either."
"Come on, man, she is the Miss Universe of lying skanks, okay? She told you that she could save me, huh? Lie. She seems to know everything about Lilith, but forgot to mention, oh right, Lilith owns my soul!"
"Okay, fine, she's a liar. She's still got that knife."
"Sam," Jean says while walking to stand beside Dean. "Just because the knife has killed a few weaker demons, that doesn't mean it will kill a demon as powerful as Lilith." The three men look at her in confusion as she closes her eyes and tries to recall everything that Lucifer told her about the demon when she asked him about Lilith in one of her recent 'dreams'. "Lilith was the very first demon that Lucifer ever created. He stripped her of her humanity thousands of years ago as a kind of 'fuck you' to God." Dean snorts and rolls his eyes in disbelief, but Jean just ignores him and continues, "Imagine how much power she has gained over thousands of years, maybe she's so powerful that the knife won't have any effect on her."
Sam scoffs, "This knife was made to kill demons, I doubt that any will be immune to it."
"Yeah. And holy water is supposed to hurt all demons, but Azazel was immune to it! So who's to say that Lilith won't be immune to the demon knife?" Jean points out.
The three men are now looking at Jean like she's in the process of growing another head. Then Bobby asks her, "How'd you know that about Lilith? I've been researching for damn near a year and never came across that information."
Jean just shrugs because there's no way in hell that she's going to tell them that she's been dreaming of the fallen angel and that she asked him herself. "I've got my own sources besides it doesn't really matter where I learned about it. What does matter is; if the knife really can kill Lilith why does she let Ruby, a demon she knows wants her dead, run around with it? Why isn't there any of Lilith's loyal demons trying to kill Ruby and get that knife?"
Sam becomes angry, "Maybe Lilith has tried to kill her! We don't know for sure!"
"It certainly doesn't seem that way! Think about it, Sam! Every time we see the demon bitch she's in the same fucking body! If that knife could really kill Lilith and Ruby really was trying to kill Lilith, Ruby wouldn't be able to walk around as freely as she has been! She would have to fight off demons left and right!" Jean yells at Sam and he looks at her in shock. He's used to Dean yelling at him, but Jean barely even raises her voice at Sam.
"Dean, Jean," Bobby tries to tell the twins his opinion on the matter, but is ignored.
"I agree with Jean. For all we know Ruby works for Lilith." Dean says, siding with his twin.
"Then give me another option, Dean, tell me what else."
"Sam's right," Bobby states, raising his voice to be heard over the bickering siblings.
"No, damn it!" Dean yells, looking from Bobby to Sam. "Just no. We are not gonna make the same mistakes all over again. You guys wanna save me? Find something else." He then turns his back on them and walks over to a desk covered with open books and sits down in a chair.
Sam looks over at Jean and glares at her angrily, "Jean, how can you be okay with this!? Do you even want to save Dean!?"
"Of course, I do!" She practically snarls at her little brother, "But I'm not going to be a damn idiot about it! Sam, what if I had suggested going to Loki for help?"
Sam's face twists into an expression of revulsion, "I would rather burn in hell myself than accept that bastard's help."
"That's how Dean and I feel about you wanting to go to a demon for help, Sam!" Sam's face falls as he finally sees the reason why his older siblings are so against Ruby helping them.
"Loki?" Bobby asks, confused.
"The trickster that we managed not to kill back in Ohio." Dean clarifies for the older hunter. "He's got a major thing for Jean."
"And just why aren't we asking him for help?" Bobby suggests and Sam glares at him.
Jean shakes her head, "I'm pretty sure he has already made it clear that he won't help Dean when he made Sam experience Dean's death over and over again."
Sam huffs as Bobby grabs his vest and puts it on. "Where're you going, Bobby?" Sam asks him.
"I guess to...find something else." He tells Sam before leaving the house.
