Fic: Ask him how much of your mind, baby
A/N: Just a quick ~2300 word AU tag for episodes 11.18 and 11.17 that I couldn't get out of my head so I had to write it down. I read somewhere that 11.18, "Hell's Angel," was originally supposed to come before 11.17, "Red Meat." For the purposes of this fic I'm pretending things did actually happen in that order.
(The title is from Let's Go Crazy by Prince. For reasons.
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby)
AO3 version
...
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Sam was still on doctor-ordered, post-werewolf bedrest. Dean had a call for help from a hunter in Tallahassee. Sam had an irrational hatred of the entire state of Florida. Amara was hunkered down somewhere off their radar, and Lucifer was under her control. There really didn't seem to be a good reason for Dean not to go help Buck out. One day down, one day to gank the monster, one day back. Even Sam insisted he'd be fine, that he wouldn't even leave the bunker.
God, it was a stupid idea.
The hunt itself took more like three days, which wouldn't have been a big deal except on day 1, Sam admitted he'd slipped and fallen and "bumped his head a little" and Christ, Dean was stupid. Because instead of turning around and heading home, he ignored that feeling of dread in his gut and just called Sam every hour for a concussion check. And Sam was chipper and lucid and awake every time, so that had to be good, right? He was okay, right?
The next time Dean says the word okay, someone needs to slap some sense into him. Because now the monster's finally dead and Dean's looking forward to a good night's sleep and a good long drive tomorrow, except. Except he's on the phone with Sam and his brother just seems... disjointed somehow. Insisting he's fine and yet clearly not fine at all. Slow and mumbly and if Dean were in the same room with him, he'd be checking his pupils. There's not a lot he can do on the phone except bitch at him and oh, wait.
"Skype, Sam. Now. Or I swear to God, I'm calling the police."
"The police don't even know where the bunker is. Jesus." Sam hangs up the phone and a minute later there's the familiar ding of a Skype notification on Dean's phone.
"Here I am," Sam grumbles into the webcam on his laptop. "Happy?"
No, Dean's not really happy at all. The video is grainy and dim, and occasionally freezes for a second, but he can see well enough to realize that Sam looks like shit. He's pale and unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes, and when he pushes his hair aside to show the massive bruise on his forehead, his hand is shaking.
"Fuck, Sam."
"It's not really that bad. I'm fine."
"No, you're not. I've seen you fine and this is not fine. Now, tell me what the fuck is going on."
Sam sags a little, like he's been working really hard to hold himself up and now he can drop the pretense. "Okay, listen. I was going to tell you, I swear I was, but I didn't want to make you worry when there's nothing you can do about it right now."
"Oh, you're doing a bang-up job there," Dean growls. "I'm not worried at all. So what am I not worrying about?"
"Um. I told you I fell." Sam looks away. "I didn't tell you that I fell because... because Lucifer's in my head again. He sent me a vision."
"Shit. What kind of vision? What's he trying to get you to do now?"
"I don't know. It's like, Heaven or something. And he shows me Cas. He's, ah. Jimmy. Cas. He's not strong enough. He's starting to degrade. He wants me to know that. I'm sorry, Dean."
Dean scrubs a hand over his face. Of course Lucifer wants him to fucking know that. Of course he knows what it's going to do to Sam. He sits there a minute, thinking about how stupid he was to think any of this was a good idea, and then the video freezes. Only for a second or two, but it's enough for him to get a good long look at Sam flicking his gaze toward something off to his left. And Dean knows that look. He knows that quick glance at something you're trying your hardest not to look at. He's seen it on Sam's face too many times.
"Sam?" He doesn't want to ask, doesn't want to make it real. "Are you... are you seeing him again like you were before? In the bunker, not just in a vision?"
Sam sighs. "It's okay, Dean. I know he's not real. I can handle this - "
"What the fuck, Sam?" Dean bolts to his feet, knocking the chair over. "When were you gonna tell me? Were you gonna let me drive around Florida for a week while you're hallucinating the fucking devil? Is that what you call handling it?" Fear clenches in his chest. "Are you even sleeping? That's why you look like shit, isn't it? How long has it been since you slept?"
"A couple of days, I guess." Sam runs his hands through his hair. "I don't know. I guess I haven't really slept since I fell, I don't think. So maybe four... I don't know. It all runs together."
"Jesus. Jesus." Dean drops his head info his hands. "Okay. I'm on my way home. I'm leaving right now. You just hang in there, okay? And I'm gonna call Jody and see if she can come down."
"Dean," Sam groans. "There's nothing she can do. There's probably nothing you can do. It'll be fine. I just need to -"
"You just need to shut the hell up and sit tight and don't fucking hurt yourself again and just. Just. I don't know. Lock the door and get in bed and stay there. I'll get home tomorrow."
Dean hangs up and starts throwing things in his duffel as he calls Jody and puts her on speaker. But it turns out she's in Florida too - took the girls to Disneyworld for Alex's spring break, and isn't that just a peachy little coincidence - so she can't there any faster than Dean can. And how did this even fucking happen? How has Dean not learned his lesson by now? The last time he told Sam he'd be okay, the last time he left him unguarded, someone fucking murdered him. Because Dean left him alone.
...
One flat tire on the way back to Lebanon is just bad luck. Two flat tires means a tow, and an hour-long wait while they attempt to fix two tires, and another hour-long wait while the shop sends someone out to pick up a new tire since one can't be fixed, and before it's all done, Dean's seriously considering the merits of just stealing a car and coming back for the Impala later. And also wondering if it's possible that his two flats are entirely coincidental.
...
By the time he pulls up outside the bunker, it's been 24 hours since he left Florida. And 6 hours since Sam last answered his phone. Dean's been calculating furiously in his head. Take the 24 hours since Sam admitted he wasn't sleeping, add the four days since his head injury, and it adds up to... way too fucking long. No wonder he's hallucinating. And Dean has no idea how he's going to fix it. It's not like Cas is going to ride in and save the day again.
When he opens the door, the place is almost oppressively quiet. Almost like there couldn't possibly be anyone alive in there.
He finds Sam in the library, with books scattered carelessly on the table in front of him and the floor around him, and thank fuck, he's upright. He's breathing. But he's not okay. If nothing else was wrong, the state of those books alone, torn pages and broken spines flecked with blood, would tell him that Sam is in distress. But everything else is wrong too. Sam is pale and shaky, with bruised circles under his bloodshot eyes. His shirt is spotted with dried blood, and fresher blood covers a recent injury on his left arm. But most alarming is that he's carving wobbly lines into the skin of his right arm with a small silver knife.
"Sam?" Dean wants to run, to scream, to slap the knife out of his brother's trembling hand. Instead, he forces himself to walk slowly to the table, approaching Sam gently, like he's a trapped animal, and it's scary how accurate that is, because he's been trapped here for days with fucking Lucifer in his head, and he may as well be in a cage. In the cage. Dean kneels in front of Sam and takes his wrist. He's so weak and shaky that takes almost no effort to restrain him. "Sammy? Watcha doing there?"
Sam's voice is low and slurred from fatigue. Or something else that Dean would prefer not to think about right now. "It's supposed to help. But I think I'm doin' it wrong." He holds out his left arm, freshly scabbed from an elaborate tracery of cuts. "This one. This one was supposed to protect me. It's a... it's a... Sumerian? Sumerian glyph?" He looks at Dean with teary eyes. "No. It's not Sumerian, but I don't. I don't remember the word, Dean. I'm losing all the words."
"It's okay, Sammy. It's okay." No, stop saying okay. It's never okay. Dean stands up and puts the knife on the table, out of Sam's reach. "Let's go get you cleaned up, all right?"
Suddenly Sam's eyes widen in panic. "Shhh," he whispers. "Don't talk about it. I don't do it when he's here. Don't want him to know what I'm doing."
Fuck. Fuck. "It's okay, Sam. He's not really here. He's in your head, remember?"
"Are you sure?"
Dean whirls at the sound of the voice. Cas - no, not Cas, not fucking Cas - is standing in the doorway. His lips are spread in a too-wide grin that would never appear on Cas's face. Lesions dot his face and hands, as if his skin is spread too thin, as if he's burning up from the inside.
"Lucifer," Dean spits. "You don't look so good."
Lucifer chuckles and looks down at his borrowed body. "No, I don't. But that's okay. I'm about to get a better vessel. One that was custom-made, just for me. Whaddya say, Sammy? We've been dancing around this for a few days. You finally ready to say yes?"
Sam turns to Dean, wild-eyed. "You see him too? He's real?"
"Yeah, Sam, he's real. Don't -" Dean's voice is cut off as he's slammed against the wall. Lucifer grins at him again and then turns to Sam.
"Now or never, Sammy boy. This is your chance to save your friend Castiel. What's it going to be, buddy? Yes or no?"
Sam lurches to his feet, wobbles a bit, and puts his hand over his bloodstained shirt. "Yes."
Dean's voice has been silenced but every other part of him, his heart and his brain and his soul, screams NO. It's not fair, it's not fair, Sam doesn't know what's he's doing, he hasn't slept for days and he's out of his mind and oh god, Lucifer did that on purpose, kept him awake just to make him crazy and it shouldn't count, the consent of someone you've tortured and driven fucking mad shouldn't be good enough, but Dean knows better than anyone that an angel doesn't require informed consent, that you can trick your brother into saying yes and so any kind of yes counts. He watches in horror as a blinding cloud of light forms around Cas. Cas slumps to the floor, eyes glazed and jaw slack, and Dean feels the pressure on his own body release. The cloud coalesces around Sam but it doesn't disappear into him; it surges and flattens itself against him like a moth futilely battering its wings against a lighted window. Sam reaches for the knife and holds out his left arm, and Dean suddenly recognizes the wobbly lines Sam carved into his own flesh as the beginnings of an angel-banishing sigil.
"Cas," Sam says. "You have a choice. Lucifer's mission to defeat Amara failed. If you want to be his vessel again, say yes."
Cas starts at the sound of his name and peers up at Sam and Dean with his familiar puzzled squint. "No," he finally says. "I no longer wish to serve as your vessel, Lucifer."
Sam takes the knife and tries to finish the sigil on his arm as the glow around him intensifies angrily, and what the fuck, it's not like it's the first time Dean's carved his little brother up in one way or another, so he grabs the knife and finishes the sigil, slicing his own palm for the final smack of his hand against Sam's bloody arm. Lucifer flashes even more brightly and then vanishes.
Sam's knees buckle and Dean grabs him before he can hit the floor. "What the fuck, Sam?" he gasps. "What just happened here?"
Sam slowly unbuttons his shirt with trembling hands, exposing a bloody mess of looping patterns carved into his torso. "This one," he grins. "This one I do remember. It keeps angels out. Even if you say yes."
"Oh, Jesus." Dean deposits Sam in one of the chairs and then falls into one himself. "Jesus Christ."
He looks over at Cas, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor in a confused puddle of limbs and trenchcoat. "Cas? You okay, man?"
Cas looks at Dean, with that odd birdlike head tilt, and says "Yes. I believe I'm unhurt. But we need to talk."
"Oh, you're damn straight we need to talk. But not right now. Wait. How are you still even here? Why weren't you banished too?"
And Sam, who is still woozy and semi-lucid, manages to point to the bleeding sigil on his arm and say "No, look. Special sigil thingy right here, see? It's Lucifer's. It only sends him away."
Dammit, Sam. How the hell? But now isn't the time to pry that out of him. Dean gets up and holds out a hand for Sam. He's shaking almost as much as Sam is. He hauls his bloodstained brother to his feet. "Right now I'm gonna get Sam to bed."
"Yeah," Sam mutters quietly. "I think I'm gonna sleep for a week." He looks down at Dean's unsteady hand. "This part is real, right? It's really you? And really Cas? And you're really okay?"
Dean laughs a tiny bit. Because yes, just this once, everyone really is okay.
(The title is from Let's Go Crazy by Prince. For reasons.
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby)
AO3 version
...
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Sam was still on doctor-ordered, post-werewolf bedrest. Dean had a call for help from a hunter in Tallahassee. Sam had an irrational hatred of the entire state of Florida. Amara was hunkered down somewhere off their radar, and Lucifer was under her control. There really didn't seem to be a good reason for Dean not to go help Buck out. One day down, one day to gank the monster, one day back. Even Sam insisted he'd be fine, that he wouldn't even leave the bunker.
God, it was a stupid idea.
The hunt itself took more like three days, which wouldn't have been a big deal except on day 1, Sam admitted he'd slipped and fallen and "bumped his head a little" and Christ, Dean was stupid. Because instead of turning around and heading home, he ignored that feeling of dread in his gut and just called Sam every hour for a concussion check. And Sam was chipper and lucid and awake every time, so that had to be good, right? He was okay, right?
The next time Dean says the word okay, someone needs to slap some sense into him. Because now the monster's finally dead and Dean's looking forward to a good night's sleep and a good long drive tomorrow, except. Except he's on the phone with Sam and his brother just seems... disjointed somehow. Insisting he's fine and yet clearly not fine at all. Slow and mumbly and if Dean were in the same room with him, he'd be checking his pupils. There's not a lot he can do on the phone except bitch at him and oh, wait.
"Skype, Sam. Now. Or I swear to God, I'm calling the police."
"The police don't even know where the bunker is. Jesus." Sam hangs up the phone and a minute later there's the familiar ding of a Skype notification on Dean's phone.
"Here I am," Sam grumbles into the webcam on his laptop. "Happy?"
No, Dean's not really happy at all. The video is grainy and dim, and occasionally freezes for a second, but he can see well enough to realize that Sam looks like shit. He's pale and unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes, and when he pushes his hair aside to show the massive bruise on his forehead, his hand is shaking.
"Fuck, Sam."
"It's not really that bad. I'm fine."
"No, you're not. I've seen you fine and this is not fine. Now, tell me what the fuck is going on."
Sam sags a little, like he's been working really hard to hold himself up and now he can drop the pretense. "Okay, listen. I was going to tell you, I swear I was, but I didn't want to make you worry when there's nothing you can do about it right now."
"Oh, you're doing a bang-up job there," Dean growls. "I'm not worried at all. So what am I not worrying about?"
"Um. I told you I fell." Sam looks away. "I didn't tell you that I fell because... because Lucifer's in my head again. He sent me a vision."
"Shit. What kind of vision? What's he trying to get you to do now?"
"I don't know. It's like, Heaven or something. And he shows me Cas. He's, ah. Jimmy. Cas. He's not strong enough. He's starting to degrade. He wants me to know that. I'm sorry, Dean."
Dean scrubs a hand over his face. Of course Lucifer wants him to fucking know that. Of course he knows what it's going to do to Sam. He sits there a minute, thinking about how stupid he was to think any of this was a good idea, and then the video freezes. Only for a second or two, but it's enough for him to get a good long look at Sam flicking his gaze toward something off to his left. And Dean knows that look. He knows that quick glance at something you're trying your hardest not to look at. He's seen it on Sam's face too many times.
"Sam?" He doesn't want to ask, doesn't want to make it real. "Are you... are you seeing him again like you were before? In the bunker, not just in a vision?"
Sam sighs. "It's okay, Dean. I know he's not real. I can handle this - "
"What the fuck, Sam?" Dean bolts to his feet, knocking the chair over. "When were you gonna tell me? Were you gonna let me drive around Florida for a week while you're hallucinating the fucking devil? Is that what you call handling it?" Fear clenches in his chest. "Are you even sleeping? That's why you look like shit, isn't it? How long has it been since you slept?"
"A couple of days, I guess." Sam runs his hands through his hair. "I don't know. I guess I haven't really slept since I fell, I don't think. So maybe four... I don't know. It all runs together."
"Jesus. Jesus." Dean drops his head info his hands. "Okay. I'm on my way home. I'm leaving right now. You just hang in there, okay? And I'm gonna call Jody and see if she can come down."
"Dean," Sam groans. "There's nothing she can do. There's probably nothing you can do. It'll be fine. I just need to -"
"You just need to shut the hell up and sit tight and don't fucking hurt yourself again and just. Just. I don't know. Lock the door and get in bed and stay there. I'll get home tomorrow."
Dean hangs up and starts throwing things in his duffel as he calls Jody and puts her on speaker. But it turns out she's in Florida too - took the girls to Disneyworld for Alex's spring break, and isn't that just a peachy little coincidence - so she can't there any faster than Dean can. And how did this even fucking happen? How has Dean not learned his lesson by now? The last time he told Sam he'd be okay, the last time he left him unguarded, someone fucking murdered him. Because Dean left him alone.
...
One flat tire on the way back to Lebanon is just bad luck. Two flat tires means a tow, and an hour-long wait while they attempt to fix two tires, and another hour-long wait while the shop sends someone out to pick up a new tire since one can't be fixed, and before it's all done, Dean's seriously considering the merits of just stealing a car and coming back for the Impala later. And also wondering if it's possible that his two flats are entirely coincidental.
...
By the time he pulls up outside the bunker, it's been 24 hours since he left Florida. And 6 hours since Sam last answered his phone. Dean's been calculating furiously in his head. Take the 24 hours since Sam admitted he wasn't sleeping, add the four days since his head injury, and it adds up to... way too fucking long. No wonder he's hallucinating. And Dean has no idea how he's going to fix it. It's not like Cas is going to ride in and save the day again.
When he opens the door, the place is almost oppressively quiet. Almost like there couldn't possibly be anyone alive in there.
He finds Sam in the library, with books scattered carelessly on the table in front of him and the floor around him, and thank fuck, he's upright. He's breathing. But he's not okay. If nothing else was wrong, the state of those books alone, torn pages and broken spines flecked with blood, would tell him that Sam is in distress. But everything else is wrong too. Sam is pale and shaky, with bruised circles under his bloodshot eyes. His shirt is spotted with dried blood, and fresher blood covers a recent injury on his left arm. But most alarming is that he's carving wobbly lines into the skin of his right arm with a small silver knife.
"Sam?" Dean wants to run, to scream, to slap the knife out of his brother's trembling hand. Instead, he forces himself to walk slowly to the table, approaching Sam gently, like he's a trapped animal, and it's scary how accurate that is, because he's been trapped here for days with fucking Lucifer in his head, and he may as well be in a cage. In the cage. Dean kneels in front of Sam and takes his wrist. He's so weak and shaky that takes almost no effort to restrain him. "Sammy? Watcha doing there?"
Sam's voice is low and slurred from fatigue. Or something else that Dean would prefer not to think about right now. "It's supposed to help. But I think I'm doin' it wrong." He holds out his left arm, freshly scabbed from an elaborate tracery of cuts. "This one. This one was supposed to protect me. It's a... it's a... Sumerian? Sumerian glyph?" He looks at Dean with teary eyes. "No. It's not Sumerian, but I don't. I don't remember the word, Dean. I'm losing all the words."
"It's okay, Sammy. It's okay." No, stop saying okay. It's never okay. Dean stands up and puts the knife on the table, out of Sam's reach. "Let's go get you cleaned up, all right?"
Suddenly Sam's eyes widen in panic. "Shhh," he whispers. "Don't talk about it. I don't do it when he's here. Don't want him to know what I'm doing."
Fuck. Fuck. "It's okay, Sam. He's not really here. He's in your head, remember?"
"Are you sure?"
Dean whirls at the sound of the voice. Cas - no, not Cas, not fucking Cas - is standing in the doorway. His lips are spread in a too-wide grin that would never appear on Cas's face. Lesions dot his face and hands, as if his skin is spread too thin, as if he's burning up from the inside.
"Lucifer," Dean spits. "You don't look so good."
Lucifer chuckles and looks down at his borrowed body. "No, I don't. But that's okay. I'm about to get a better vessel. One that was custom-made, just for me. Whaddya say, Sammy? We've been dancing around this for a few days. You finally ready to say yes?"
Sam turns to Dean, wild-eyed. "You see him too? He's real?"
"Yeah, Sam, he's real. Don't -" Dean's voice is cut off as he's slammed against the wall. Lucifer grins at him again and then turns to Sam.
"Now or never, Sammy boy. This is your chance to save your friend Castiel. What's it going to be, buddy? Yes or no?"
Sam lurches to his feet, wobbles a bit, and puts his hand over his bloodstained shirt. "Yes."
Dean's voice has been silenced but every other part of him, his heart and his brain and his soul, screams NO. It's not fair, it's not fair, Sam doesn't know what's he's doing, he hasn't slept for days and he's out of his mind and oh god, Lucifer did that on purpose, kept him awake just to make him crazy and it shouldn't count, the consent of someone you've tortured and driven fucking mad shouldn't be good enough, but Dean knows better than anyone that an angel doesn't require informed consent, that you can trick your brother into saying yes and so any kind of yes counts. He watches in horror as a blinding cloud of light forms around Cas. Cas slumps to the floor, eyes glazed and jaw slack, and Dean feels the pressure on his own body release. The cloud coalesces around Sam but it doesn't disappear into him; it surges and flattens itself against him like a moth futilely battering its wings against a lighted window. Sam reaches for the knife and holds out his left arm, and Dean suddenly recognizes the wobbly lines Sam carved into his own flesh as the beginnings of an angel-banishing sigil.
"Cas," Sam says. "You have a choice. Lucifer's mission to defeat Amara failed. If you want to be his vessel again, say yes."
Cas starts at the sound of his name and peers up at Sam and Dean with his familiar puzzled squint. "No," he finally says. "I no longer wish to serve as your vessel, Lucifer."
Sam takes the knife and tries to finish the sigil on his arm as the glow around him intensifies angrily, and what the fuck, it's not like it's the first time Dean's carved his little brother up in one way or another, so he grabs the knife and finishes the sigil, slicing his own palm for the final smack of his hand against Sam's bloody arm. Lucifer flashes even more brightly and then vanishes.
Sam's knees buckle and Dean grabs him before he can hit the floor. "What the fuck, Sam?" he gasps. "What just happened here?"
Sam slowly unbuttons his shirt with trembling hands, exposing a bloody mess of looping patterns carved into his torso. "This one," he grins. "This one I do remember. It keeps angels out. Even if you say yes."
"Oh, Jesus." Dean deposits Sam in one of the chairs and then falls into one himself. "Jesus Christ."
He looks over at Cas, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor in a confused puddle of limbs and trenchcoat. "Cas? You okay, man?"
Cas looks at Dean, with that odd birdlike head tilt, and says "Yes. I believe I'm unhurt. But we need to talk."
"Oh, you're damn straight we need to talk. But not right now. Wait. How are you still even here? Why weren't you banished too?"
And Sam, who is still woozy and semi-lucid, manages to point to the bleeding sigil on his arm and say "No, look. Special sigil thingy right here, see? It's Lucifer's. It only sends him away."
Dammit, Sam. How the hell? But now isn't the time to pry that out of him. Dean gets up and holds out a hand for Sam. He's shaking almost as much as Sam is. He hauls his bloodstained brother to his feet. "Right now I'm gonna get Sam to bed."
"Yeah," Sam mutters quietly. "I think I'm gonna sleep for a week." He looks down at Dean's unsteady hand. "This part is real, right? It's really you? And really Cas? And you're really okay?"
Dean laughs a tiny bit. Because yes, just this once, everyone really is okay.