fic: Interrogation [Supernatural]
Title: Interrogation
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: OCs, Demon!Dean
A/N: AU after season 9 finale. For the prompt, "Supernatural; Demon Dean…in the end, you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
Mack coats an iron blade in holy water and begins slicing. He makes superficial cuts that won’t permanently harm the host if the poor bastard is still alive, and the demon in him screams as its blood sizzles. Three parallel cuts across each bicep and the demon finally yells, “Alright!”
Its chest heaves while it breathes through bared teeth, ineffectually flexing against the ropes binding it to its chair. Unnatural black eyes slit in anger and pain. Jerry steps towards the edge of the devil’s trap and Mack backs off, standing outside of the demon’s field of vision to keep it anxious about where and when he might strike. They’ve run this play on dozens of demons by now. Mack keeps the demons talking and Jerry maneuvers the conversation to get what they need to know.
“Who’s your leader?”
“Jolly old Saint Nicholas,” the demons hisses.
Mack steps forward, grabbing a handful of hair to jerk the demon’s head back. He makes sure the demon can see the knife coming towards his cheek, holding steady against its efforts to wrench its head free.
“Lies don’t count as talking,” Jerry tells it. He makes sure to step away audibly, boot thudding down on decrepit floorboards.
“No,” the demon grunts as Mack presses his blade against its cheekbone. “No, n-ah!” It screams when Mack cuts across, nearly to its ear. Mack rests the blade against the cut, listening for the sizzle beneath the demon’s yells. A few times before demons had tried to cover up the fact that the holy water had been diluted enough to cease effectiveness. But the sound is still there, this time.
“Who’s your leader?” Jerry asks again.
“No,” the demon chokes out, trying to resist. Mack tugs its hair, bending its head so far back the demon’s voice changes from the stress on the possessed man’s trachea.
“I,” it tries again, gurgling.
Mack looks at Jerry, who nods slightly. He releases the demon’s head and walks over to their table while it whimpers, picking up their jug of holy water and coating his blade once more. The demon watches him until Jerry steps between them, making it focus on him instead. “Who’s your leader?”
The demon pauses, so Mack makes sure to splash the holy water loudly.
“Cain!” The demon grits its teeth once the name comes out, like it physically pained it to admit. Then it sighs and lets its head fall back to stare at the devil’s trap in the ceiling. It knows that it’s lost the resistance part of the struggle.
“Not Crowley?” Jerry asks. They’ve found that the best information comes from acting like they’re two steps behind. That way the demons underestimate them, volunteer information they don’t think hunters are capable of linking together.
The demon snorts and rolls its head from shoulder to shoulder. “Crowley? If you think that sludge is still running things you’re even dumber than I thought - which was pretty damn dumb in the first place.”
Mack steps forward but only cuffs the demon, letting it know he’s happy to continue if it gets too lippy.
“Crowley’s the King of Hell,” Jerry argues.
“Crowley could never control what he dug up.” It sneers. “He wormed his way to the top but he’s too weak to stay there. Trying to juggle all his deals and keep everyone in line. That’s what you get when a crossroads demon takes the top seat.” The demon leans forward, smiling now. It’s ready to brag about its allegiance so it can pretend it has any power in this situation.
“Cain is real power. He doesn’t have to cut deals. He just takes it. He’s a real kind of leader, the kind that’s going to make all you sacks of meat wish you’d never been born. Digging him out was the best thing Crowley’s ever done for his own kind. Of course,” the demon laughs, “Cain is still going to kill him slowly. Just because he can. He’ll kill you slowly too, peel all the skin off your body while you scream.”
The demon jerks at its restraints, throwing its shoulders forward and flexing its knees. Talking about his side has brought back some of its defiance. Jerry plants his hands on either armrest of the chair and gets in the demon’s face. “I’m not scared of some little knife,” he jeers, “but you sure are.”
Mack knows his cue and lets the knife slide gently down the side of the demon’s neck. Holy water sizzles at the contact, but the demon manages to keep itself from making any noise.
“Your knife won’t touch Cain,” it snarls. “And he’s got one of his own that will rip you to shreds.”
“I doubt that,” Jerry laughs, which is why Jerry gets to talk while Mack is the torturer looming out of sight. Mack knows the anticipation is showing on his face, where Jerry looks entirely unconcerned. One of the keys to Cain’s power is whatever he’s using to kill everything from demons to angels. Angels and demons killing each other has been old news for years, but however they’ve done it in the past is different from what Cain’s doing to them now. What he’s doing scares them all, makes them flee in terror and refuse to speak his name. If they can find a weakness to the Blade or some way of separating Cain from it, they might have a change at defeating him.
“Everyone knows about the Blade except you two assclowns. I bet the only time you’ll ever see it is when Cain buries it in your identical thick skulls!”
Jerry turns away, pretending to be uninterested. “Let’s talk about something more interesting than an imaginary knife. Like where your boss is.”
“I’ve seen it!” it snarls. “That donkey jaw. I’ve seen him use it.”
Jerry sighs and turns back towards the demon, crossing his arms as if unconcerned.
“Cut up this real pretty angel.” The thing smiled and licked its teeth, leaving a streak of red from where it must have bitten its tongue earlier. “Screamin’ like it was judgment day again. That blade can kill anything, but Cain knows how to make it last. I almost thought I was downstairs again, watching him work.”
“Yeah? How’d you like to go back for real?”
The demon laughs. “I’ll be out of there in a day. You think demons are the only things Cain controls now? He’s thrown away the rule book for us.”
“Christo,” Jerry says, and smiles when the demon flinches away. “Looks like some rules still apply.”
“Cain-“
Jerry talks over the demon, putting it back into its place so they can start with a new line of questioning before it catches on to their real intentions. Some simple reverse psychology and all the demon will do is turn every conversation back to the mythical Blade, mocking their supposed disbelief. “Blade or not, I doubt Cain cares about a piece of trash like you. I think he’ll leave you in Hell to rot. You’re weak and pathetic, and all you can do to defend yourself is whine about a demon that doesn’t even know you exist.”
Instead of knocking it down a peg, Jerry’s words seem to pierce through the façade of unconcern the demon had managed to maintain while captive. It seethes visibly, fighting the restraints once more. “He does!” it growls, like it’s an argument he’s had to make dozens of times already. “He does know me! I was his first!” The demon thrashes so hard blood starts dripping from its torn wrists.
Jerry flicks his eyes up quickly to look at Mack. Mack shakes his head and shrugs. He has no idea what the demon is talking about, and Jerry definitely doesn’t if he was willing to subvert his confident demeanor to check with Mack.
“His first prom queen?” Jerry prompts, intentionally dismissive. It riles up the demon more, as no doubt intended. It leans forward so much that the body’s shoulders creak in protest, close to dislocating.
“His first slice!” it shouts. “When there was a plan and he wasn’t Cain yet, I was the one they chose for him to slice into first. He climbed off the rack and took Alastair’s razor and sliced me open from belly to chin. I was the one! He cut on me for days and days and Alastair bathed him in my blood! He knows me! He made me!” The demon thrashes and roars wordlessly, enraged. Despite the devil’s trap the lights in the room flicker.
Jerry looks at Mack again but keeps pushing when Mack doesn’t call him off. Mack digs in his pocket and takes out the page with the exorcism, ready to bail out his partner if necessary. From their experience, the older a demon is the more powerful and insidious it gets. Mack has to be prepared.
When the demon has finally expended its rage and subsides, breathless, Jerry insinuates himself into the quiet. “Cain was born thousands of years ago. You really claim you’re as old as he is?”
The anger simmers back to narrow-eyed loathing, the demon reeling in its anger as it inhales. “The old Cain, was, you morons.” It leans forward again, so far this time that one of its arms pops out of its joint with a crack. “I told you,” it says with over-exaggerated enunciation, “this Cain threw out the book. It’s a new game, fellas, and you’re already behind.”
“So they tell us. But you’re the groupie of a demon who can’t even think of an original name.”
It laughs and sinks back into its chair, as if only moments ago it hadn’t been raging at them. It looks over Jerry from the crown of his head to his feet. Jerry stands quietly and waits for it to finish its theatrics, so Mack twists the tip of his knife against the palm of his opposite hand but submits to the same treatment when the demon cranes its neck to look at him. They’re on the back foot now, out of their depth like they’d only been pretending to be earlier, and the demon can smell it in the air.
When hunters had banded together to investigate the reason why demons were again becoming more aggressive and openly destructive, they learned about the rising leader who was destabilizing the reigning King of Hell’s control. Demons on either side of the conflict considered him to be a walking legend, powerful and terrible and merciless. They spoke his name as if it would summon him into the room, gore dripping from his hands and murder in his Hell-blackened eyes.
It wasn’t long ago that interrogated demons were speaking of other legends, and Lucifer himself walked the earth. The reemergence of Cain from whatever oblivion he had been locked away in since his last appearance in Lore seemed perfectly plausible. In addition, what other kind of reputation could have garnered such awe from such evil creatures? Those who would deride both Crowley and Lucifer without a moment’s hesitation feared Cain too greatly to do the same to him.
No hunter had considered that Cain might be a title more than a name. Would the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities, painstakingly researched and none yet tested out on the monster itself, still be effective? Their options were terrifyingly limited already. Would killing off the current Cain would only leave an opening for some other demon to assume the mantle?
The demon licks its lips clean of its own blood and smiles. “He made me,” it reasserts. “With Alastair looking over his shoulder, he sliced into my flesh a hundred times that day.” Mack hasn’t struck it but it convulses in the chair, breath stuttering in its throat. “Hell laughed that day,” it gasps, “and the First Seal rang like a bell as it broke. Angels charged at the door but Hell howled in triumph.”
Mack realizes abruptly that the demon’s convulsions are from amusement, alien and cruel. “I screamed and screamed but I heard the name Alastair called him, too. The name of the righteous man in Hell.” It giggles, mockingly. “Do you know it? Do you know the name? So few demons do. They didn’t know him before, not like I did. He’s just Cain to them, but I remember when he wasn't.”
Jerry has read all of the Lore that Mack has, but he doesn’t speak up. So Mack does, clutching his knife tightly as he says the name as legendary to hunters as Cain himself. “Dean Winchester,” he says. Dean Winchester who broke the First Seal and faced down Death with its own Scythe, who was raised learning how hunters track and fight. Dean Winchester who was rescued from Hell, broke out of Heaven, and fought his way through Purgatory. Dean Winchester whose sporadic contact with other hunters had suddenly stopped completely.
They need to regroup, to call someone - anyone - and adjust their strategies to refocus the research on everything they can dig up on the Titan legend of the Winchesters. Jerry retreats from the room and Mack follows.
The demon throws back its head to laugh. As they slide the heavy iron-barred door shut it yells to them, “You all are gonna wish Lucifer had won when he’s done!”
Mack feels a shiver travel down his spine and is afraid it might be right.