Big Bang Fic: Oadriax (12/13)
Title: Oadriax (12/13)
Author: daksgirl
Artist: terrorinyertub
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural, au, sci fi, drama
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Side pairings: Sam/Gabriel, past Sam/Jess
Rating: NC-17 (violence, adult situations, language)
Word Count: 80,668
Warnings: Graphic violence and warfare, adult themes including sex, canon character deaths, demon xenophobia, swearing, gore (in a war situation), PTSD and an attempted non-con situation.
[Fic Masterpost]
[Art Masterpost]
Dean couldn’t keep track of the fighting.
Sam was out there somewhere, riding with Gabriel, and Dean hoped his brother would be safe. They had barely managed to rally the angels together, gathering what weapons they had, before the demons descended.
Battles had erupted everywhere, the metallic spitting of bullets ripping through the trees. In the skies, helicraft whirred and screamed as angels attacked with a barrage of arrows and fists, wings slicing through the air sharply as they were met with artillery fire. The ground shook with the pounding of Levithmong, the creatures thundering towards the advancing demon lines that were beginning to surround the soul tree. The air was sharp with smoke and chaos, and for a moment, Dean thought he could smell sulfur.
A helicraft exploded overhead and Dean blinked, drawn back by cool fingers touching his face.
“You are not there, Dean,” Castiel said firmly, looking up at him. Chevy shifted beneath Dean’s thighs, muscles coiled and thrumming with energy as the angel stood beside her. “You are here. With me.”
Dean nodded sharply, and Castiel released him.
A loud screech vibrated through the air, and the teloch swung into view above them, slamming into the side of the huge warbird. Dean could just make out Uriel’s dark shape on its back, firing arrows at the hard glass that covered the cockpit. Castiel glanced up towards the scene, eyes hard.
“I will assist Uriel. Be careful, Dean.”
Dean nodded. “You too, Cas. You come back, you hear?”
He caught a glimpse of Castiel’s smile, felt the brush of fingers against his, but then the angel was gone, pushing off from the ground and rising into the sky with powerful sweeps of his black wings.
Chevy brayed expectantly, and Dean turned away, urging her forward with a squeeze of his legs. Judging by the shouts and roars up ahead, the angels on the ground had already challenged the advancing demons.
“C’mon Chevy. Let’s show them what pain really is!” he growled, and the Levithmong barked in agreement, bounding forward with a flick of her tail.
Dean almost flipped right over her head as Chevy suddenly slammed to a halt, snorting fearfully. With a honk of alarm, she reared, body twisting as something spooked her from the forest. Dean hung on to the reins hard, the rope searing painfully into his palms as he shouted at her to calm down.
The trees rustled in front of them, a figure pushing the vines aside. She held her hands up in surrender as she noticed Dean, a smile slowly spreading across her blood splattered face.
“Easy there John Wayne!” she shouted, and Dean pulled Chevy back under control.
“Ruby!” he called back, Chevy prancing agitatedly beneath him.
The demon smiled tiredly, her dark hair wild and messy. A thin line of blood oozed across her cheek, dribbling sluggishly from a cut. “The one and only, hot stuff. I’ve been running through this stupid forest looking for you for fucking hours.”
Dean frowned, glancing suspiciously behind her. No other demons came running to her side. “You’re not fighting with Azazel?”
Ruby laughed. “You kidding me? I’ve had more fun with you guys than I ever had with my own kind. Team human all the way, baby.”
She noticed Dean’s wary glance, and rolled her eyes impatiently. “Look, Crowley made me keep an eye on you. Didn’t want Alistair messing you up and I played my part. But guess what? I actually ended up kind of liking you for some weird reason. So here I am. Bobby said you ‘idjits’ might need help.”
Dean grinned down at her. He couldn’t believe that without his say-so, he had accidentally formed a friendship with a demon.
“You know for a demon, you’re not half-bad.”
Ruby winked, and the smile in her black eyes was genuine. “Could say the same about you. Now,” she slid a pistol free from her waistband, cocking it with flourish. “Let’s go kick some Azazel ass!”
Mortar went flying as a bullet pinged over his head and Bobby swore, ducking low around the corner. The base was a mess, filled with squabbling humans and demons alike, but the scientist had managed to fight his way up towards the PR offices with Jo and Ash by his side. His little girl was all grown now, he noted proudly, watching as Jo leant out of cover to fire at the demons down the hall, hitting one dead on and sending the others scrambling for cover.
Bobby had figured there was only one man on base who even had a chance at stopping the fighting, and it seemed the demons had had the same thought.
Crowley’s office was swarmed with demons, Alistair among them. Bobby had seen the slimy bastard just minutes before, darting into the office with a machine gun, and the scientist knew it was only a matter of time before Alistair killed the red eye.
“We can’t keep firin’ at ‘em and hope they just surrender!” Ash ground. The marine was bleeding from a graze to the arm, and had one hand clamped over the wound to stop the bleeding. “And I sure as hell ‘aint waitin’ around for ‘em to group up again.”
Jo ejected her empty clip, snapping another into place easily.
“I say we take the party to them,” she said calmly, cocking her pistol. “’Aint no party like a Singer party, Mom used to say.”
Bobby threw his step-daughter an affectionate smile. “That she did, honey. But we don’t know how many of those slimy bastards are in there. There’s only three of us and about a dozen of ‘em.”
Jo cocked an eyebrow, leaning out again to fire two shots. She ducked back to cover as the demons replied in same, and winked up at her step-father. “Well that’s one less at least.”
Suddenly the floor beneath them trembled, a loud roar shaking the walls. Bobby’s eyes widened as he lunged forward, knocking Jo to the ground.
“Down!” he bellowed towards Ash, recognizing the sound from his days back in the service. “Get down, it’s-”
A tunnel of flame erupted down the corridor, and the demons caught in it didn’t stand a chance. They screamed shrilly, and Bobby clamped his hands over Jo’s ears, trying to spare her the horrifying sounds. Heat razed at them from above, before disappearing back where it came from, sucked back into the office.
Smoke spilled out from the destroyed door, and Bobby sat up, coughing. Jo looked dazed, hair disheveled as she stared down the blackened corridor.
“Holy moly, what was that?”
Bobby got to his feet, and the other two followed him cautiously as he started down towards the office.
“That’s why red-eyes weren’t allowed on the battlefield,” Bobby said grimly, stepping over the charred corpse of a demon. “Too volatile.”
Crowley’s office was in ruins, the expensive mahogany singed and glowing. Melted holos stuck to the floor, and the still smoldering corpses of a few demons slumped against the walls, gleaming skulls blackened by flame.
Alistair lay in the center of the room. What was left of him. Bobby grimaced at the charred, smoking heap, inching his way into the room with a hand over his mouth. There, lying motionlessly against the far wall was Crowley, untouched by the fire around him.
A nasty cut bled sluggishly across his forehead, and the demon didn’t stir, even when Bobby hissed his name. The scientist shuffled over, kneeling beside the fallen demon as his joints popped and clicked.
Goddammit he was too old for this fighting shit.
“Dad!”
Jo’s voice rang out worriedly as a blacked ceiling tile fell down, shattering against the carpet. The whole room was in danger of collapsing, and Bobby motioned for her to stop.
“Stay back, baby,” he warned. “Stay by the door where it’s safe.”
Jo nodded, but her eyes were worried. Bobby turned his attention back to the prone demon, fingers searching out the pulse point of Crowley’s neck. The skin beneath his fingers was clammy and cold.
No pulse.
“Shit.”
Bobby set his gun down, crouching low to press his ear to the demon’s chest. The damn idiot was still wearing his stupid suit, but now it was singed and torn. Bobby's head didn’t rise, and he couldn’t hear anything.
Crowley wasn’t breathing.
“Goddammit, Crowley!” Bobby swore, pressing two hands just over the demon’s chest. He knew demon’s had two hearts, but god knew where the bastards actually were. He did a series of compressions, muttering words of encouragement.
Crowley didn’t move.
Bobby struggled out of his grimy coat. “If you survive this,” he ground, glaring down at the apparently dead demon. “I’m going to kill you.”
He tilted Crowley’s head back, hesitating for a moment before leaning down and locking his mouth over the demon’s, pressing his lips into an airtight seal as he tried to breathe life into the still demon.
“Come on!” Bobby snarled as he pulled away, feeling ribs creak under his hands as he began compressions again. He could hear Jo behind him, the panicked hitches in her breathing that told him she was crying.
Bobby pounded furiously against Crowley’s chest. “Live dammit! I’ve lost too many goddamn friends!”
Another deep breath, and then, just as Bobby was ready to sink back and have a bit of a cry himself, there was a gust of air against his lips. Crowley’s chest heaved, a dry gasp rattling as his lungs began to work. Hurriedly, Bobby pressed his fingers against the demon’s neck, and exhaled shakily as he felt two strong beats kick against his fingertips.
“Oh,” Bobby breathed, ridiculously relieved. “You son of a bitch.”
Jo was laughing, lunging to hug Ash fiercely as Crowley slowly opened his eyes, staring up at Bobby dazedly.
“Never thought I’d be happy to those blood red peepers!” Bobby grinned, eyes crinkling.
Crowley blinked at him, awareness seeping into his gaze. Slowly, Bobby helped him sit up, and the demon winced, clutching his chest.
“Never thought I’d be snogged by you either,” the demon rasped shakily, shooting him a half-hearted smirk. “Friend.”
Bobby slung one arm over his neck, helping the demon limp from the room. As they reached the hallway, Jo grabbed his other arm, tucking herself stubbornly into Crowley’s other side.
“Good to see you decided to stay and haunt us in the flesh, Crowley,” she said affectionately, still teary.
Crowley chuckled at her, red eyes softening. “What would you do without me? You Singers wouldn’t have anyone to bitch about.”
Ash peered towards the destroyed office.
“Alistair?” he asked worriedly and Crowley snorted.
“Not a problem anymore.” He winced at the rasp in his voice, looking over at Bobby beside him. “But I take it Azazel…”
“Is still somewhere wreckin’ havoc,” Bobby confirmed grimly. “But those Winchester boys are on ‘im. If anyone can stop that lunatic, it’s them.”
“What happened?” Jo asked desperately, wiping her still damp eyes with one hand. “I mean, we all knew Azazel was crazy but-”
“Got new orders in yesterday,” Crowley cleared his throat with a wince as the two humans helped him down the now empty hallway. “Roman Enterprises has decided to remodel. The company is going to become a research facility. They were so impressed with Dean’s success with the angels that they realized it’s more profitable to churn out scientific papers than mineral.”
Bobby and Jo gaped at him.
“But, that’s wonderful!” Jo gushed, squeezing him slightly. “That’s what we’ve been hoping for!”
Crowley sighed. “Yeah, for you lot. Kind of makes Azazel’s position a bit meaningless though, don’t it?”
The group lapsed into silence and the sounds of battle could be heard from outside.
Bobby frowned. “You mean to tell us, that all o’ this, all the, fightin’ and killin’, this is all a demonic tantrum ‘cause he was gonna be fired?”
Crowley shrugged as best he could. “To be honest, this happens all the time on Hel. Pretty normal reaction really.”
He smiled tiredly, giving a weak chuckle. “You should see our weddings.”
They turned down another corridor, and Jo glanced out a cracked window worriedly. “So Azazel is going to wipe out the angels? Like a final, ‘fuck you’?”
Crowley shook his head. “No. Azazel has one specific person in mind. The rest is just, a distraction.”
Sweat stung his eyes as Dean slammed into the ground, pain erupting in spasms across his back. Chevy howled as she went down as well, the earth shaking as she smashed into the undergrowth, body slumping motionlessly amongst the now crushed flowers.
Azazel smiled, eyes glittering through the smoke of his gun.
“You’re a tough man to find, Winchester.”
Dean struggled into a crouch with a wince, mind scrabbling to figure out how the demon had managed to jump him. A quick glance around the small clearing, and he spotted the crumpled sheet of fabric a bit further away, the strings caught on the plants around it. The warbird had gone down in a plume of flames only minutes before, seemed the Captain had decided not to go down with the ship.
“You parachuted down just to try and kick my ass?” Dean snorted, getting to his feet. His gun had been lost when Chevy had reared at the first blast, but his combat knife would do just as well. He slid it free of his boot, holding it in front of him threateningly. “I’m honored.”
The demon shrugged. “What can I say? I like to make an entrance.”
Dean eyed the gun in the demon’s hands, fingers tightening around his knife. The fighting around them was loud, and he could hear Ruby’s battle cries over the din. He was on his own.
“So now what? You gonna kill me?”
Azazel laughed. “Oh, definitely. But not with this.”
He tossed the gun away from him, and it tumbled into the bushes, lost from view. The demon smiled as he pulled a knife from his boot as Dean had done. “I always preferred the more hands on approach.”
They circled each other, Dean rolling his shoulders to lessen the pain that still throbbed in his back.
“You gonna tell me why?” The battle continued around them, a helicraft turret thundering overhead. “Why you’ve done this and why, you seem to have it in for me?”
Azazel pushed his bottom lip out in a parody of a pout, straightening his shoulders. “Poor, Dean. You really don’t understand, do you? All these years and you still just don’t get it.”
The helicraft drunkenly tilted overhead, a group of angels in hot pursuit. Dean glared hatefully at Azazel, despising how calm and self-assured the demon looked.
“So explain it,” he ground. “Enlighten me.”
Those bright yellow eyes bore into him as Azazel pointed the knife towards Dean with a smirk. “I wasn’t lying when I said I read your file. Quite the list of psychological trauma. Still, I suppose daddy dearest didn’t intend to have his throat torn out, right?”
Dean froze, crouched low. “You shut your goddamn mouth,” he snarled, adrenaline flooding his veins.
Azazel looked pleased. “Oh, did I hit a sore spot? Good. You see, Dean, you have a habit of blaming yourself for other people’s deaths. As well you should.”
Dean lunged forward then, vision blurring. Azazel dodged him with a laugh, catching Dean’s shoulder with the knife. Dean stumbled, feeling the sting.
Azazel cocked his hip, eyebrow arched as Dean swung back around. “First it was mommy, then poor old dad. Who’ll it be next? Sammy boy? Or that pretty little angel of yours?”
“Shut up!”
Dean tried to overwhelm him, to force the demon to drop into a protective crouch, but Azazel was like smoke, slipping past him easily. The demon’s pitying laughter made Dean’s ears ring and his blood boil.
“I admit Dean, I’m not usually one for, theatrics.” Azazel tapped his lip thoughtfully with the knife, the tip slightly bloodied from the cut on Dean’s shoulder. “I think I got a tad carried away with the whole fire thing.”
Dean seized up, and Azazel looked back at him, a slow cruel smile spreading across his face. “I mean, the only reason I killed the bitch was to get your sorry ass out here.”
Time seemed to stop. Dean was a frozen statue, unable to move.
“Wh-what?” his voice was strangled, disbelieving. No, it couldn’t be. It had been an accident, they said. Just, just an accident…
Azazel shrugged dismissively. “I told her it wasn’t anything personal. She was just my means to a very interesting end.” The demon spread his arms, reveling in the chaos around them, the shouts and screams of the dying.
“And what an ending it’ll be!”
The earth shook as a helicraft crashed nearby, the heat searing through the trees. Dean didn’t even flinch, still staring at the creature in front of him.
“I, I don’t understand.” The forest was spinning around him, his lungs drawing in air but suddenly too empty.
“I’m stuck out here, Dean,” Azazel’s voice was cold as he advanced, eyes predatory. “Too damaged to rejoin society they said. I got stuck on security detail in the asshole of the galaxy until the day I die.” He paused. “Or get fired. But you know who just happens to be here when I arrive?”
Dean could only stand there dumbly as the demon drew up close to him, knife glinting in the fires around them.
“The mother of the guy I’m just dying to meet,” Azazel whispered. “What luck! And would you look at that? Her other son just happens to be the only one who can complete her work if something bad would happen to her.”
The demon grinned. “And the forest is so very dangerous for such a fragile thing.”
That snapped Dean out of it, his legs finally pushing forward as he slashed outwards with an enraged shout. Taken by surprise, Azazel hissed as the knife cut a thin red line across his chest. He backed away, but his eyes were still triumphant.
“You’re right to feel guilty, Dean,” the demon murmured. “She died for you. Because of you.”
“Why?” Dean snapped, his knife slicing through the air as his vision blurred. “Why?”
Azazel was on him then, knocking the knife from his hands easily. Fingers dug into Dean’s neck, hauling him up, and Dean struggled, grabbing at the hands around his throat. Azazel glared up at him hatefully, Dean’s boots scrabbling in the air as he struggled to breathe.
“Why? Why?” Azazel’s fingers tightened, and Dean’s lungs burned. “Like you don’t know, you little shit. Like you don’t remember what you did on Hel. I am going to kill you, Winchester. And it is going to be messy, and bloody, and by your absent God, will it be painful.”
Dark tendrils of promised oblivion were curling around his eyes, the sky growing dark as Dean stared up sightlessly. Blood roared in his ears as his lungs struggled to inhale, heart pounding a panicked gallop against his ribs.
Suddenly Azazel let go with a bark of pain and Dean hit the ground hard. He was barely aware of it, could barely hear the shouting or feel the feathers that trailed across his face before his world went black.
The shattering booms of the aircraft overhead alarmed him, made his feathers jostle and his heart race.
This was not what he had planned. Not what he had wanted.
Lucifer glanced up fearfully, automatically crouching low to the ground as the teloch screamed overhead. The burning husk of a helicraft smoldered nearby, the charred remains of the pilots slung from the cockpit and half draped over the glowing metal.
A voice called his name, and Lucifer looked around dazedly. Raphael emerged from the smoke, her brown eyes wide and wrecked. Like the males, she had donned stiff battle armor, her long black hair woven into a long braid down her back.
“Lucifer,” she fluttered to his side, her wings anxious and disheveled. “Lucifer, you must come. It is Michael.”
His heart lurched, and Lucifer nodded dumbly. He didn’t protest as she took his hand in hers, dragging him through the smoke and fighting. The iadnamad’s palm was slick against his, fingers thrumming with adrenaline.
They ducked past a group of injured demons, Raphael tugging him forward through a canopy of vines. The vegetation pulled on Lucifer’s wings, and as he struggled to free himself, Lucifer could see where Raphael had dragged Michael away from the fighting. The grass was slick with blood, mixed with the ash from the home tree.
Michael had led the first assault in a blaze of glory that had rallied the angels forward, his wings held proud and high as they had forced the demons to scatter before them. But leading the assault had demanded a heavy price, and Michael had paid it.
The leader of the clan lay on the grass, skin pale and sickly, eyes glazed. A gaping wound opened along his chest, and Lucifer could hear the sucking that accompanied each torturous breath as Michael’s fingers twitched in the crushed grass.
Michael was dying.
Lucifer stared blankly at the scene. There was a panicked roaring in his ears, his mind rebelling at the reality before it, even as his voice spoke, calm and collected.
“You must go to the human’s complex, Raphael,” he murmured, turning to the female angel. “I sense the humans are in need of our help.”
Raphael looked lost, like a fledgling separated from her mother. Her hand dropped from his, and her wings shook unhappily. “But Lucifer-”
“I will take care of Michael,” he continued softly, his wings brushing against hers. It was the only kindness he had ever shown her, but in that moment, it was genuine. “I promise, sister. His passing will be painless.”
Raphael searched his eyes, but knew the truth as well as he did. Michael would not survive this battle. She swallowed, eyes fluttering shut, and nodded.
“Yes, brother,” she whispered, her brown eyes wet when she looked at him again. “I, I will speak with him.”
Lucifer watched as she knelt by Michael’s side, her whispered words too quiet for him to hear. Michael groaned, and she shushed him, pressing a desperate kiss to his sweaty brow. Lucifer looked away then, allowing them privacy as his own mind shouted, fear and anger echoing in the empty spaces of his skull.
It was not long before Raphael was back at his side.
“Geiad be with you, brother,” she said quietly, touching his face lovingly. Her fingers smoothed along his cheeks, and Lucifer swallowed, nodding once.
Raphael pulled away, straightening her shoulders. “Michael asks for you.”
She was gone then, disappearing in a flurry of dusky brown feathers. Lucifer looked over at his ruined brother, beginning to shake.
Michael’s eyes were pained, his wings twitching uselessly beneath him. Lucifer slowly approached, looming above his older brother, as a slow stain of red spread along the grass beneath Michael.
“Lucifer,” Michael gasped, in obvious pain. “It is…good to see you.”
This is my fault. Oh Michael, what have I done?
“Rest, brother,” Lucifer whispered, kneeling at Michael’s side. The grass beneath his knees was warm and sticky. “Reserve your strength.”
Michael smiled weakly, and Lucifer’s heart clenched.
“I think we both know my strength is now waning. I…”Michael winced, air rattling in his lungs. “I am… counting on you brother, to…lead our people.”
Emptiness clawed at Lucifer with spiteful claws. He could feel the darkness within him, a corruption that had been planted years ago. It whispered to him, pulsing and gleeful.
This is what you wanted, it cackled. What you planned for. You can rule.
“No!”
Lucifer pushed the voice down, denying it. It laughed hollowly as Lucifer’s fingers found Michael’s blood slicked ones, pressing their palms together. “I will get you to a healer, Michael. You will survive, I-”
He was taken aback by the flash in Michael’s eyes, the sudden tightening of Michael’s fingers around his.
“No,” Michael ground, wings twitching. “No, brother. I know we…have not always seen eye to eye.”
Lucifer winced, watching as a bubble of blood formed in the corner of Michael’s mouth, bursting and dribbling down his chin.
“But…I love you, brother,” Michael’s voice was pained. “And Geiad now calls me home. To…to our father, our mother.”
He was wheezing now, and Lucifer quaked as the smell of death grew stronger.
Michael gazed up at him pleadingly. “Promise me, Lucifer. Promise me… you will look after our clan.”
Lucifer could barely feel the beat of his own heart, the rush of blood in his veins. Was this how demons felt? Empty and hollow, with nothing left within because they had sacrificed it all. Given it all away for something so foolish as power. How could he have been so blind? So full of greed?
Lucifer swallowed as Michael gazed up at him hopefully. How could he have done this? How…how could…
What is one more broken promise? Lucifer thought bitterly. Your soul is filled with broken vows and dreams. What is one more?
Lucifer nodded, squeezing his brother’s hand. “I promise, Michael.”
Michael smiled tiredly, lips flecked with red. “Thank you,” he murmured quietly.
The fingers laced between Lucifer’s grew frailer, Michael’s half-lidded gaze distant and far away.
“I can see them, Lucifer,” Michael whispered, and his body shuddered. “Father…they have missed us so.”
Lucifer swallowed the emptiness rising in his throat. “Go to them, Michael. Be at peace, brother.”
Michael was smiling, goofily and wide, as he had used to back when he and Lucifer were mere fledglings, running wild through the forest. Lucifer leant down to kiss his cheek, eyes clenched shut as Michael murmured quietly to himself.
When Lucifer pulled away, his brother was still. Michael looked upwards into eternity, and Lucifer pulled his hand free, closing his brother’s eyes and pressing a kiss to each eyelid.
The fighting around them continued, but Lucifer did not move. He was weary, soul sick and tired. His deceptions had cost him everything in the end, and Lucifer could feel nothing but sadness. Azazel’s madness had become Lucifer’s own, had become his undoing at the very end.
The teloch screamed once again, and Lucifer glanced up to see the largest ship tilt in the sky. It was on fire, spiraling downwards as the planet’s pull latched onto her huge metallic hide. The war-bird descended, trailing fire and sparks with a deafening roar, huge and wrathful as if an embodiment of Geiad herself in all her fury.
Lucifer watched it above him, fire dancing in his eyes. He swallowed, wings trembling, and took Michael’s limp hand in his own again. He squeezed the cool skin, steeling himself as judgment rained down on him from above.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, as flames erupted around him, the ship blotting out the sun as it tore through the trees above. “Forgive me, Mary.”
Dean ran.
He was always running, boots slapping against the slick ground as the metal on his uniform clinked against the cold rifle in his hands. John was yelling at him, voice growing fainter as Dean ran on, quieter and further away.
Good.
The battle had been lost, and he was going to die, but he was going to take down every son of a bitch demon with him.
His legs burned as he struggled over the crest of a small hill, red dust rising in clouds at his feet. Dead human and demon bodies littered the ground in stiff clumps, and it wasn’t until Dean leapt over a thick spiky line of wire that he realized he had stormed through the demon line. Most of the demon assault had dispersed down and into the human camp already, but a few remained, and they stared at him with surprise as he forced his way into their flank.
She saw him first.
She was strikingly beautiful, bent over the fallen form of one of her comrades. Like Dean, her face was smudged with dirt and sweat, her dark hair wild and messy. She looked like she belonged on a fashion holo, not a battlefield, her crimson lips parted to show the tips of perfectly polished teeth as she stared him down.
And those eyes. Those wide and bright eyes. Yellow, they were a sulfuric contrast to the bright red splattered across her face, the burgundy that dripped down her chin. She was no mere soldier, her stiff black armor boasted several metallic pins of varying colors. He knows a Commander when he sees one.
By dumb luck, Dean had managed to stumble upon the leader of the assault.
The surprise wore off as he swung his rifle around, and she screamed at him, lips stretched wide. Clearing the space between them in the blink of an eye, she hooked her fingers into claws. His gun was slapped from his nerveless fingers, and a hot pain burst across his belly.
Blood sluiced down the front of his uniform, sticky and hot. She raged at him, words he didn’t understand. She’s wanted to devour him whole, to swallow his body and soul until there wasn’t even a memory of him left to bury.
The sudden boom of a rifle was deafening. A bloody chasm disintegrated across the right side of her face, the cheekbone gone in a spray of blood and gristle. She backed away for a moment, just a precious moment, and strong arms grabbed Dean from behind, pulling him back from the brink of destruction and back into the pain of living.
He recognized the gruff tones, though he couldn’t understand the words through the ringing in his ears.
Dad.
The demon returned, her remaining eye blazing as she grabbed for Dean’s legs. He watched her numbly, body frozen as his veins seized up in shock.
Another explosion of rife fire, and she fell back once more.
Others were coming, with eyes as black as death itself. Fingers dug into his arm, pulling him away from John and into a roiling mass of demons with hungry eyes and slavering teeth.
He was going to die.
He knew he would, that he’d die on a battlefield so far from home, and he accepted it. Dean tried to embrace death as it rose before him, closing his eyes against the sharp sting of teeth in his arms.
John knew it too. His rifle had only one round left, and the Commander must die. The battle may be lost, but they can still win the war. The loss of a high ranking demon would be a blow, the slight chink in the demonic armor that the humans had been fighting so desperately for.
They could win this, and all she had to do, was die.
Demons swarmed over him, blotting out the red sky above as they pressed Dean into the dirt. His lungs heaved, struggling to pull in air.
There was only one round left. His father, the toughest, most stubborn son of a bitch the universe had ever seen, knew it. John Winchester, who’ll get a chest full of medals no matter what way the war might go. John Winchester, the man who had sent countless men to their deaths, who had sacrificed so much for his planet, and was always ready to sacrifice more.
Dean was honored to be such a sacrifice.
Dirty fingers gouged a bloody trench in his stomach, peeling apart his skin easily, and all Dean could feel was pride. The son was proud he could finally be of use to the father, could at last sacrifice something worth losing.
Dean would die for John, for the chance to finally win. And he would do it proudly.
The rifle sounded one last time, Dean’s toll of judgment. But it wasn’t the Commander that fell to the ground in a spray of death, it was the demon on top of Dean, trying to claw its way into his insides.
It fell back, its twitching corpse startling the others who immediately retreated, hissing and fearful.
The rifle clicked on empty.
Dean twisted, struggling to sit up. The empty rifle clattered to the ground, and Dean turned wide eyes towards his father. He had witnessed the impossible, the sacrifice that could never be made. There was only ever one thing John Winchester could never stand to lose.
And it was Dean.
The Commander, bleeding and furious, lunged at the older man. Her nails dug into the exposed skin of his arms, her perfect teeth snapping at his throat.
Dean struggled to get up, but his body was tired, too wounded. He could only watch, mouth opening and closing as the demon finally sank her teeth into the grimy line of John’s throat. She tugged her head back sharply, a grim parody of the pretty models that flirted in holos back on the Citadel. A spray of dark blood arced across the sky, her gore slicked hair slapping wetly against her cheek as the demon tore John’s throat out.
Everything was suddenly muffled. An enraged roar built and built in Dean’s chest until it was a searing pain, a physical fire he had no hope of controlling. The knife in his boot cut his fingers as he drew it, but Dean couldn’t feel the pain.
She didn’t hear him coming. The demon was too concentrated on gorging herself, too focused on her own rage and pain. Torrents of red dripped down her chin and Dean couldn’t see anything else, couldn’t think. The Furies were with him, giving him wings to clear the yawning distance between him and the demon, and the Furies sang a dirge of vengeance that Dean was helpless to resist.
She looked vaguely surprised as he sank his blade into her ruined eye socket, mouth parted in surprise. Splashes of rubies were dotted along the plump swell of her lips, jewels that she had no right to claim, and he twisted the blade deeper, bone cracking.
She shuddered, a long sigh rattling in her throat as her one perfect yellow eye rolled upwards as if praying to God. Dean twisted harder, throwing his weight against the blade as he screamed into her face, bone shattering beneath his grip. Shards of it pierced his hand, sliced his palm open and severed the tendons beneath.
“Dean.”
Like a swimmer breaching the surface of water, Dean reared back, gasping. Hel faded around him, the demon shimmering into nothing. He could hear the distant shouts of marines, the shots that rung out signaling the victory of Serpent’s Pass.
It was a memory. An echo of something that had happened long ago. An empty greyness now swirled around him, and Dean cast around in it, lost for a moment.
“Dad?”
The grey cleared, and John sat in front of him, cross legged and serene. Which couldn’t be, isn’t what happened. The gaping abyss gouged into his father’s neck had killed him instantaneously, robbed Dean of the chance of a goodbye.
But there John sat, whole and intact. He still wore his army uniform, but it was clean and pristine, the I.D tags dangling around his shirt, present and shiny.
“Good to see you, Dean.”
Dean shook his head, his hands trembling. He could feel the phantom pain in his palm, the last revenge of a demon long dead. “What, what is this? You’re dead.”
John smiled at him. “Sure am, kid. That demon got me good.”
This wasn’t right. Even in his half remembered dreams, John never spoke. Someone was breaking the rules.
“But I, I don’t,” Dean floundered. “I don’t understand.”
John’s eyes were warm. Dean remembered them looking like that when Mary had still been with them.
“I know. It’s not something I can explain easily. But I’m here. I’m here, Dean.”
It made no sense. It was a trick, something sick thought up by a demon to punish him. Punish him for failing, for letting people he loved die.
John rose to his knees, shuffling closer. The hand he laid on Dean’s shoulder felt real, heavy and warm. “I never told you enough Dean, but, I’m proud of you. I always have been.”
Dean stared, throat working but no words forming.
“And I wanted you to know that I, I uh,” John’s face twisted. “Aw hell, I’ve never been good at this, but dammit boy, I love you. You and Sammy, you, you were both my world. Didn’t treat you like I should’ve but, I tried. God help me, I tried.”
Dean’s head was spinning, and John squeezed his shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Dean. None of it, you hear me?”
Dean finally forced his tongue to form shapes, letters that he dragged out of mouth, kicking and screaming.
“But I, I got you killed. I got Mom killed. I don’t…”
John made a rude sound, and Dean almost cracked a smile at the familiar sound. “Bullshit. I died because there was no other choice. It was only ever you, Dean. Only you. And Mary-”
“Shouldn’t have trusted the smooth words of a yellow eye,” a voice interrupted.
Out of the swirling grey, came Mary. She was wearing the clothes Dean had seen her wear in Castiel’s shared memory, gold hair shining. John smiled as he saw her, hand dropping from Dean’s shoulder to reach towards her. She took it in hers, sinking down to her knees beside the two men.
“Don’t you go blaming yourself for that too, baby,” she murmured, reaching out to touch Dean’s cheek. “Don’t you dare.”
Dean was smiling, eyes watery as he looked at both his parents. He didn’t understand anything, but found he didn’t really care. “I miss you guys.”
The two parents glanced at each other, sharing twin smiles.
“We miss you too,” Mary said gently. “You and Sam.”
“But it’s time, Dean,” John added firmly, hand squeezing Mary’s as she smiled at him.
Dean looked at both his parents, confused. “Time? For what?”
John’s rough hand found his shoulder again, squeezing tightly. “To let go, son. To let us go.”
The grey around them swirled, and Dean could see Hel. Could see the dead body of his father, his own form bent over it, crying. It was pulling on him, wanted to keep Dean there in that dark place of loathing.
He swallowed heavily. “I, I don’t think I can.”
Mary leant forward, palm flat over Dean’s chest. “We love you, Dean, and we always will. But you don’t need us anymore.”
She hugged him then, and Dean clung to her desperately, nuzzling his nose into her hair and trying to remember her smell. John’s fingers curled around Dean’s shoulder protectively.
“Let us go, Dean,” he said quietly. “It’s time.”
Mary pulled away, and Dean felt the emptiness of his parent’s death return. But it felt, different this time. Less painful.
Mary took John’s hand again, and they smiled at each other, just like they used to once upon a time. They were fading, Dean realized, disappearing back where they truly belonged. They didn’t belong here, trapped on Hel in Dean’s mind. They deserved to be at peace.
And Dean, Dean did too.
He breathed out shakily. “Okay. Okay, Dad. Mom. I’ll, I’ll let go.”
His parents were smiling at him.
We’re so proud of you, they whispered, fading from sight. Always.
The greyness closed in on him. Before he faded completely from Hel, Dean could hear the voices again, the awareness.
Geiad was pleased.
Something was nudging him, a sticky wetness slavering along his cheek. Dean groaned, trying to shift away from it, as his brain tried to pound its way out of his skull. Opening his eyes, he clutched his throat, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light again.
Chevy stood over him, long tongue retreating back into her beak as she noticed him move. The Levithmong held one leg up against her belly, and whined, shifting her weight. Dean could see dark blue blood oozing along her injured leg, and winced sympathetically.
“Ch-Chevy?” he asked, and the Levithmong huffed air at him, helping Dean sit up with nudges of her head.
Someone was shouting, and Dean looked around him dazedly, confused for a moment where he was. Trees swam into view, blackened with ash and soot, loud voices and screams nearby. A blurry figure was crouched a little in front of Dean, and he struggled to get his vision to focus.
After a few sharp blinks, he could make out dark feathers and a mess of black hair. Dean’s heart pounded worriedly.
Castiel didn’t move from his crouch, black wings spread and feathers rattling as he faced down Azazel. The demon was trying to flank the angel, but every time he tried to dart in, Castiel would force him back with a warning flap of his wings.
“Stay away from him!” Castiel shouted. Rage was etched into his very being, his wings agitated and furious. “Filth! Abomination!”
Azazel crouched low in front of the angel, blade ready and eyes blazing. He looked more like an animal than a man, teeth bared in a snarl.
“So you want to join your little boyfriend do you?” the demon spat. “You angels. Your daddy did the same thing, sacrificed himself for some worthless whore. Like father, like son.”
Castiel was shaking, hands balled into fists, his voice low and resolute. “You are evil itself. And I will destroy you.”
Dean struggled to his feet, body aching. Chevy supported him, Dean keeping his arm around her thick neck.
“No, Cas,” Dean ground. “He’s not worth it.”
Both creatures jerked towards him, Castiel’s wings drooping with relief. “Dean!”
Azazel sneered, blade glinting in the dim light. “So sleeping beauty awakes. Just in time to see me pluck your little pet.”
Dean swayed tiredly, Chevy warm against his side. “Give it up, Azazel. You’ve lost.”
The demon laughed loudly, but his eyes were wild. “Oh really? ‘Cause I think I’m doing pretty good.”
“Look around!” Dean gestured around them with one arm. The sky was silent, all the ships having been brought down. Even the screams and fighting seemed far away, quiet and unimportant. “You call this victory? It’s over.”
“It’s never over!” Azazel glared at him hatefully, face twisted. “You hear me? I won’t lose! Not again!”
Castiel hurried over to Dean’s side, eyeing the demon warily.
“You have already lost,” the angel said gruffly, examining the cut on Dean’s shoulder. “You were doomed from the start because of your hatred.”
Azazel laughed, one hand pressed to his stomach. “Would you listen to the hippy! Are you telling me true wuv will save the day?”
Dean ignored the demon’s gloating.
“Who was she?” he demanded, a dark part of him enjoying the sudden shift in Azazel’s demeanor. “At Serpent’s Pass. Dark hair, pretty face. She had eyes like you.”
Dean hadn’t understood until now. Hadn’t understood why he had been haunted for so long by messages he hadn’t heard, too hurt and too guilt ridden to truly see them.
Azazel’s eyes flashed but the demon stayed unusually silent. Dean shrugged one shoulder dismissively.
“Fine. It makes no difference to me. The bitch is dead anywa-”
“My daughter!” Azazel hissed, eyes glowing with anger. “My pride, my joy, my whole world.”
The trees behind Azazel shifted. Something moved amongst them, separating from the shadows.
The demon didn’t notice. He was shaking, his previous calm smugness forgotten as grief and rage battled within him.
“They couldn’t even send me her body because you slashed her to pieces you sick fuck!” Azazel bellowed, knife trembling in his hand. “I couldn’t bury my daughter!”
“It was war,” Dean said flatly. “I’ve carried enough guilt to last me a lifetime and I’ve had enough.”
“You killed my child!” Azazel screamed at him, coming unhinged.
The trees behind him shuddered.
Dean watched him emotionlessly, Castiel pressing closer against his side. “She killed my dad.”
“I lost everything because of you,” Azazel took a step forward, teeth bared. “Everything.”
“No,” Dean shook his head, sliding his hand into the warm weight of Castiel’s wing. He could feel the angel’s muscles twitching, straining to break free and fight Azazel. At Dean’s touch, Castiel relaxed slightly, wings dropping.
“This is your doing Azazel,” Dean continued. “But you can put an end to it, you can stop this. Call off your demons and come with us. We can-”
“No!” Azazel screamed. “I came to claim my vengeance, Winchester. And I will have it!”
The demon lunged towards them, raising his knife up to chest level. Castiel cried out, trying to push Dean behind him as Chevy snarled warningly, but a pistol blast silenced them all, echoing in the eerie silence.
Azazel froze mid charge, looking down in shock at the bloody chasm yawning in his stomach. The knife slipped from his numb fingers, thudding harmlessly onto the grass. Azazel sank to his knees, pressing his hands to his abdomen tightly.
“Wh...what…” he bit out with confusion.
Emerging from the forest, came Sam.
One cheek was smudged with blood, his hair grimy and wild. A pistol was held in his hand, still warm, and Sam gazed at Azazel unafraid. The demon looked over at the younger Winchester with slowly dawning understanding, and Sam snorted, tossing the now empty pistol away.
“That’s for my mother, you son of a bitch,” Sam said coolly. He ignored Azazel’s wide eyed stare, turning towards Dean.
“The demons have surrendered,” Sam nodded towards Castiel. “Everyone’s heading back to base.”
Dean reached out to touch his brother gratefully as Sam walked over. “Man, I am so happy to see you right now.”
Chevy bleated as well, bumping Sam happily with her head. Sam smiled tiredly, stroking his hand down her neck.
“I fell off Hershey after a helicraft almost landed on us. Been looking for you guys and Gabriel ever since.”
A low moan from Azazel drew their attention back to him, and the demon glared at them all hatefully.
“Be done with it then,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Kill me as you did the rest of my family.”
Castiel murmured warningly, the angel looking towards the trees. Plants shivered, and Dean at last recognized the head that pushed its way through the ferns, the sharp curve of teeth and bright gleaming eyes.
Dean’s old friend the cat monster, padded into the clearing, tail flicking. Chevy whinnied in alarm, but the cat creature didn’t even glance their way. Its eyes were solely trained on the bleeding Azazel, and it paused at the edge of the trees, pacing and growling.
Dean looked back at Azazel. “What was her name?”
Agony flitted across the demon’s face, though his eyes still blazed with malice. “Why should I tell you?” he snarled. “Murderer.”
That was rich, coming from a demon.
“What do you have to lose?” Dean asked. “You said it yourself, you’ve lost everything.”
Azazel looked away sullenly, watching the cat monster pace.
“Meg,” he finally said quietly. “My daughter’s name was Meg.”
Dean nodded. “I’m sorry she had to die. I’m sorry war made me do what I did.”
He looked over at Sam, finally seeing the man his kid brother had become. Dean had struggled all his life to keep Sam safe, to keep him from the horrors of worlds beyond theirs, but in the end, it was Sam who had saved him. What else had he lost, spending so many nights wrapped up in his own self-imposed hell?
Dean shook his head. “This ends now. Too many people have died for your revenge. Let her go.”
Azazel snarled at him, but his eyes were uncertain, torn between Dean and the cat monster.
“We can get you to a healer,” Dean continued, ignoring Sam’s shocked protest. “We can save you, Azazel. But you have to let her go.”
Some of the anger leeched out of those yellow eyes. Blood stained Azazel’s front, his hands red where they struggled to stem the flow. The demon tilted his chin proudly, and Dean recognized the look in his eyes.
Azazel had made the same choice John had all those years ago, and it was just as easy.
“No,” the demon said firmly, sealing his fate proudly. “I can’t.”
Dean nodded. It was his right to choose, and the demon had chosen. “So be it.”
He turned away, Chevy staying pressed against him. Sam went with him, helping his brother limp away from the scene.
Only Castiel remained, and the angel watched the demon closely. Azazel’s bloodstained fingers left his stomach long enough to grab the knife lying in the grass, his hand shaking as the cat monster licked its lips. The angel dipped his head towards the fallen demon, feeling a surge of pity for the broken creature.
“You killed my father, demon,” Castiel murmured. “But I bear you no ill will that you have not already wrought upon yourself. May you find your daughter waiting for you with Geiad.”
He stepped away, respectfully lowering his wings as the cat monster growled at him. “Then may both your spirits find the peace in death that they could not in life.”
Azazel said nothing to him even as the angel turned away and trailed after the Winchesters.
Behind them, the cat monster howled.
<
| Next>>
Author: daksgirl
Artist: terrorinyertub
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural, au, sci fi, drama
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Side pairings: Sam/Gabriel, past Sam/Jess
Rating: NC-17 (violence, adult situations, language)
Word Count: 80,668
Warnings: Graphic violence and warfare, adult themes including sex, canon character deaths, demon xenophobia, swearing, gore (in a war situation), PTSD and an attempted non-con situation.
[Fic Masterpost]
[Art Masterpost]
Dean couldn’t keep track of the fighting.
Sam was out there somewhere, riding with Gabriel, and Dean hoped his brother would be safe. They had barely managed to rally the angels together, gathering what weapons they had, before the demons descended.
Battles had erupted everywhere, the metallic spitting of bullets ripping through the trees. In the skies, helicraft whirred and screamed as angels attacked with a barrage of arrows and fists, wings slicing through the air sharply as they were met with artillery fire. The ground shook with the pounding of Levithmong, the creatures thundering towards the advancing demon lines that were beginning to surround the soul tree. The air was sharp with smoke and chaos, and for a moment, Dean thought he could smell sulfur.
A helicraft exploded overhead and Dean blinked, drawn back by cool fingers touching his face.
“You are not there, Dean,” Castiel said firmly, looking up at him. Chevy shifted beneath Dean’s thighs, muscles coiled and thrumming with energy as the angel stood beside her. “You are here. With me.”
Dean nodded sharply, and Castiel released him.
A loud screech vibrated through the air, and the teloch swung into view above them, slamming into the side of the huge warbird. Dean could just make out Uriel’s dark shape on its back, firing arrows at the hard glass that covered the cockpit. Castiel glanced up towards the scene, eyes hard.
“I will assist Uriel. Be careful, Dean.”
Dean nodded. “You too, Cas. You come back, you hear?”
He caught a glimpse of Castiel’s smile, felt the brush of fingers against his, but then the angel was gone, pushing off from the ground and rising into the sky with powerful sweeps of his black wings.
Chevy brayed expectantly, and Dean turned away, urging her forward with a squeeze of his legs. Judging by the shouts and roars up ahead, the angels on the ground had already challenged the advancing demons.
“C’mon Chevy. Let’s show them what pain really is!” he growled, and the Levithmong barked in agreement, bounding forward with a flick of her tail.
Dean almost flipped right over her head as Chevy suddenly slammed to a halt, snorting fearfully. With a honk of alarm, she reared, body twisting as something spooked her from the forest. Dean hung on to the reins hard, the rope searing painfully into his palms as he shouted at her to calm down.
The trees rustled in front of them, a figure pushing the vines aside. She held her hands up in surrender as she noticed Dean, a smile slowly spreading across her blood splattered face.
“Easy there John Wayne!” she shouted, and Dean pulled Chevy back under control.
“Ruby!” he called back, Chevy prancing agitatedly beneath him.
The demon smiled tiredly, her dark hair wild and messy. A thin line of blood oozed across her cheek, dribbling sluggishly from a cut. “The one and only, hot stuff. I’ve been running through this stupid forest looking for you for fucking hours.”
Dean frowned, glancing suspiciously behind her. No other demons came running to her side. “You’re not fighting with Azazel?”
Ruby laughed. “You kidding me? I’ve had more fun with you guys than I ever had with my own kind. Team human all the way, baby.”
She noticed Dean’s wary glance, and rolled her eyes impatiently. “Look, Crowley made me keep an eye on you. Didn’t want Alistair messing you up and I played my part. But guess what? I actually ended up kind of liking you for some weird reason. So here I am. Bobby said you ‘idjits’ might need help.”
Dean grinned down at her. He couldn’t believe that without his say-so, he had accidentally formed a friendship with a demon.
“You know for a demon, you’re not half-bad.”
Ruby winked, and the smile in her black eyes was genuine. “Could say the same about you. Now,” she slid a pistol free from her waistband, cocking it with flourish. “Let’s go kick some Azazel ass!”
Mortar went flying as a bullet pinged over his head and Bobby swore, ducking low around the corner. The base was a mess, filled with squabbling humans and demons alike, but the scientist had managed to fight his way up towards the PR offices with Jo and Ash by his side. His little girl was all grown now, he noted proudly, watching as Jo leant out of cover to fire at the demons down the hall, hitting one dead on and sending the others scrambling for cover.
Bobby had figured there was only one man on base who even had a chance at stopping the fighting, and it seemed the demons had had the same thought.
Crowley’s office was swarmed with demons, Alistair among them. Bobby had seen the slimy bastard just minutes before, darting into the office with a machine gun, and the scientist knew it was only a matter of time before Alistair killed the red eye.
“We can’t keep firin’ at ‘em and hope they just surrender!” Ash ground. The marine was bleeding from a graze to the arm, and had one hand clamped over the wound to stop the bleeding. “And I sure as hell ‘aint waitin’ around for ‘em to group up again.”
Jo ejected her empty clip, snapping another into place easily.
“I say we take the party to them,” she said calmly, cocking her pistol. “’Aint no party like a Singer party, Mom used to say.”
Bobby threw his step-daughter an affectionate smile. “That she did, honey. But we don’t know how many of those slimy bastards are in there. There’s only three of us and about a dozen of ‘em.”
Jo cocked an eyebrow, leaning out again to fire two shots. She ducked back to cover as the demons replied in same, and winked up at her step-father. “Well that’s one less at least.”
Suddenly the floor beneath them trembled, a loud roar shaking the walls. Bobby’s eyes widened as he lunged forward, knocking Jo to the ground.
“Down!” he bellowed towards Ash, recognizing the sound from his days back in the service. “Get down, it’s-”
A tunnel of flame erupted down the corridor, and the demons caught in it didn’t stand a chance. They screamed shrilly, and Bobby clamped his hands over Jo’s ears, trying to spare her the horrifying sounds. Heat razed at them from above, before disappearing back where it came from, sucked back into the office.
Smoke spilled out from the destroyed door, and Bobby sat up, coughing. Jo looked dazed, hair disheveled as she stared down the blackened corridor.
“Holy moly, what was that?”
Bobby got to his feet, and the other two followed him cautiously as he started down towards the office.
“That’s why red-eyes weren’t allowed on the battlefield,” Bobby said grimly, stepping over the charred corpse of a demon. “Too volatile.”
Crowley’s office was in ruins, the expensive mahogany singed and glowing. Melted holos stuck to the floor, and the still smoldering corpses of a few demons slumped against the walls, gleaming skulls blackened by flame.
Alistair lay in the center of the room. What was left of him. Bobby grimaced at the charred, smoking heap, inching his way into the room with a hand over his mouth. There, lying motionlessly against the far wall was Crowley, untouched by the fire around him.
A nasty cut bled sluggishly across his forehead, and the demon didn’t stir, even when Bobby hissed his name. The scientist shuffled over, kneeling beside the fallen demon as his joints popped and clicked.
Goddammit he was too old for this fighting shit.
“Dad!”
Jo’s voice rang out worriedly as a blacked ceiling tile fell down, shattering against the carpet. The whole room was in danger of collapsing, and Bobby motioned for her to stop.
“Stay back, baby,” he warned. “Stay by the door where it’s safe.”
Jo nodded, but her eyes were worried. Bobby turned his attention back to the prone demon, fingers searching out the pulse point of Crowley’s neck. The skin beneath his fingers was clammy and cold.
No pulse.
“Shit.”
Bobby set his gun down, crouching low to press his ear to the demon’s chest. The damn idiot was still wearing his stupid suit, but now it was singed and torn. Bobby's head didn’t rise, and he couldn’t hear anything.
Crowley wasn’t breathing.
“Goddammit, Crowley!” Bobby swore, pressing two hands just over the demon’s chest. He knew demon’s had two hearts, but god knew where the bastards actually were. He did a series of compressions, muttering words of encouragement.
Crowley didn’t move.
Bobby struggled out of his grimy coat. “If you survive this,” he ground, glaring down at the apparently dead demon. “I’m going to kill you.”
He tilted Crowley’s head back, hesitating for a moment before leaning down and locking his mouth over the demon’s, pressing his lips into an airtight seal as he tried to breathe life into the still demon.
“Come on!” Bobby snarled as he pulled away, feeling ribs creak under his hands as he began compressions again. He could hear Jo behind him, the panicked hitches in her breathing that told him she was crying.
Bobby pounded furiously against Crowley’s chest. “Live dammit! I’ve lost too many goddamn friends!”
Another deep breath, and then, just as Bobby was ready to sink back and have a bit of a cry himself, there was a gust of air against his lips. Crowley’s chest heaved, a dry gasp rattling as his lungs began to work. Hurriedly, Bobby pressed his fingers against the demon’s neck, and exhaled shakily as he felt two strong beats kick against his fingertips.
“Oh,” Bobby breathed, ridiculously relieved. “You son of a bitch.”
Jo was laughing, lunging to hug Ash fiercely as Crowley slowly opened his eyes, staring up at Bobby dazedly.
“Never thought I’d be happy to those blood red peepers!” Bobby grinned, eyes crinkling.
Crowley blinked at him, awareness seeping into his gaze. Slowly, Bobby helped him sit up, and the demon winced, clutching his chest.
“Never thought I’d be snogged by you either,” the demon rasped shakily, shooting him a half-hearted smirk. “Friend.”
Bobby slung one arm over his neck, helping the demon limp from the room. As they reached the hallway, Jo grabbed his other arm, tucking herself stubbornly into Crowley’s other side.
“Good to see you decided to stay and haunt us in the flesh, Crowley,” she said affectionately, still teary.
Crowley chuckled at her, red eyes softening. “What would you do without me? You Singers wouldn’t have anyone to bitch about.”
Ash peered towards the destroyed office.
“Alistair?” he asked worriedly and Crowley snorted.
“Not a problem anymore.” He winced at the rasp in his voice, looking over at Bobby beside him. “But I take it Azazel…”
“Is still somewhere wreckin’ havoc,” Bobby confirmed grimly. “But those Winchester boys are on ‘im. If anyone can stop that lunatic, it’s them.”
“What happened?” Jo asked desperately, wiping her still damp eyes with one hand. “I mean, we all knew Azazel was crazy but-”
“Got new orders in yesterday,” Crowley cleared his throat with a wince as the two humans helped him down the now empty hallway. “Roman Enterprises has decided to remodel. The company is going to become a research facility. They were so impressed with Dean’s success with the angels that they realized it’s more profitable to churn out scientific papers than mineral.”
Bobby and Jo gaped at him.
“But, that’s wonderful!” Jo gushed, squeezing him slightly. “That’s what we’ve been hoping for!”
Crowley sighed. “Yeah, for you lot. Kind of makes Azazel’s position a bit meaningless though, don’t it?”
The group lapsed into silence and the sounds of battle could be heard from outside.
Bobby frowned. “You mean to tell us, that all o’ this, all the, fightin’ and killin’, this is all a demonic tantrum ‘cause he was gonna be fired?”
Crowley shrugged as best he could. “To be honest, this happens all the time on Hel. Pretty normal reaction really.”
He smiled tiredly, giving a weak chuckle. “You should see our weddings.”
They turned down another corridor, and Jo glanced out a cracked window worriedly. “So Azazel is going to wipe out the angels? Like a final, ‘fuck you’?”
Crowley shook his head. “No. Azazel has one specific person in mind. The rest is just, a distraction.”
Sweat stung his eyes as Dean slammed into the ground, pain erupting in spasms across his back. Chevy howled as she went down as well, the earth shaking as she smashed into the undergrowth, body slumping motionlessly amongst the now crushed flowers.
Azazel smiled, eyes glittering through the smoke of his gun.
“You’re a tough man to find, Winchester.”
Dean struggled into a crouch with a wince, mind scrabbling to figure out how the demon had managed to jump him. A quick glance around the small clearing, and he spotted the crumpled sheet of fabric a bit further away, the strings caught on the plants around it. The warbird had gone down in a plume of flames only minutes before, seemed the Captain had decided not to go down with the ship.
“You parachuted down just to try and kick my ass?” Dean snorted, getting to his feet. His gun had been lost when Chevy had reared at the first blast, but his combat knife would do just as well. He slid it free of his boot, holding it in front of him threateningly. “I’m honored.”
The demon shrugged. “What can I say? I like to make an entrance.”
Dean eyed the gun in the demon’s hands, fingers tightening around his knife. The fighting around them was loud, and he could hear Ruby’s battle cries over the din. He was on his own.
“So now what? You gonna kill me?”
Azazel laughed. “Oh, definitely. But not with this.”
He tossed the gun away from him, and it tumbled into the bushes, lost from view. The demon smiled as he pulled a knife from his boot as Dean had done. “I always preferred the more hands on approach.”
They circled each other, Dean rolling his shoulders to lessen the pain that still throbbed in his back.
“You gonna tell me why?” The battle continued around them, a helicraft turret thundering overhead. “Why you’ve done this and why, you seem to have it in for me?”
Azazel pushed his bottom lip out in a parody of a pout, straightening his shoulders. “Poor, Dean. You really don’t understand, do you? All these years and you still just don’t get it.”
The helicraft drunkenly tilted overhead, a group of angels in hot pursuit. Dean glared hatefully at Azazel, despising how calm and self-assured the demon looked.
“So explain it,” he ground. “Enlighten me.”
Those bright yellow eyes bore into him as Azazel pointed the knife towards Dean with a smirk. “I wasn’t lying when I said I read your file. Quite the list of psychological trauma. Still, I suppose daddy dearest didn’t intend to have his throat torn out, right?”
Dean froze, crouched low. “You shut your goddamn mouth,” he snarled, adrenaline flooding his veins.
Azazel looked pleased. “Oh, did I hit a sore spot? Good. You see, Dean, you have a habit of blaming yourself for other people’s deaths. As well you should.”
Dean lunged forward then, vision blurring. Azazel dodged him with a laugh, catching Dean’s shoulder with the knife. Dean stumbled, feeling the sting.
Azazel cocked his hip, eyebrow arched as Dean swung back around. “First it was mommy, then poor old dad. Who’ll it be next? Sammy boy? Or that pretty little angel of yours?”
“Shut up!”
Dean tried to overwhelm him, to force the demon to drop into a protective crouch, but Azazel was like smoke, slipping past him easily. The demon’s pitying laughter made Dean’s ears ring and his blood boil.
“I admit Dean, I’m not usually one for, theatrics.” Azazel tapped his lip thoughtfully with the knife, the tip slightly bloodied from the cut on Dean’s shoulder. “I think I got a tad carried away with the whole fire thing.”
Dean seized up, and Azazel looked back at him, a slow cruel smile spreading across his face. “I mean, the only reason I killed the bitch was to get your sorry ass out here.”
Time seemed to stop. Dean was a frozen statue, unable to move.
“Wh-what?” his voice was strangled, disbelieving. No, it couldn’t be. It had been an accident, they said. Just, just an accident…
Azazel shrugged dismissively. “I told her it wasn’t anything personal. She was just my means to a very interesting end.” The demon spread his arms, reveling in the chaos around them, the shouts and screams of the dying.
“And what an ending it’ll be!”
The earth shook as a helicraft crashed nearby, the heat searing through the trees. Dean didn’t even flinch, still staring at the creature in front of him.
“I, I don’t understand.” The forest was spinning around him, his lungs drawing in air but suddenly too empty.
“I’m stuck out here, Dean,” Azazel’s voice was cold as he advanced, eyes predatory. “Too damaged to rejoin society they said. I got stuck on security detail in the asshole of the galaxy until the day I die.” He paused. “Or get fired. But you know who just happens to be here when I arrive?”
Dean could only stand there dumbly as the demon drew up close to him, knife glinting in the fires around them.
“The mother of the guy I’m just dying to meet,” Azazel whispered. “What luck! And would you look at that? Her other son just happens to be the only one who can complete her work if something bad would happen to her.”
The demon grinned. “And the forest is so very dangerous for such a fragile thing.”
That snapped Dean out of it, his legs finally pushing forward as he slashed outwards with an enraged shout. Taken by surprise, Azazel hissed as the knife cut a thin red line across his chest. He backed away, but his eyes were still triumphant.
“You’re right to feel guilty, Dean,” the demon murmured. “She died for you. Because of you.”
“Why?” Dean snapped, his knife slicing through the air as his vision blurred. “Why?”
Azazel was on him then, knocking the knife from his hands easily. Fingers dug into Dean’s neck, hauling him up, and Dean struggled, grabbing at the hands around his throat. Azazel glared up at him hatefully, Dean’s boots scrabbling in the air as he struggled to breathe.
“Why? Why?” Azazel’s fingers tightened, and Dean’s lungs burned. “Like you don’t know, you little shit. Like you don’t remember what you did on Hel. I am going to kill you, Winchester. And it is going to be messy, and bloody, and by your absent God, will it be painful.”
Dark tendrils of promised oblivion were curling around his eyes, the sky growing dark as Dean stared up sightlessly. Blood roared in his ears as his lungs struggled to inhale, heart pounding a panicked gallop against his ribs.
Suddenly Azazel let go with a bark of pain and Dean hit the ground hard. He was barely aware of it, could barely hear the shouting or feel the feathers that trailed across his face before his world went black.
The shattering booms of the aircraft overhead alarmed him, made his feathers jostle and his heart race.
This was not what he had planned. Not what he had wanted.
Lucifer glanced up fearfully, automatically crouching low to the ground as the teloch screamed overhead. The burning husk of a helicraft smoldered nearby, the charred remains of the pilots slung from the cockpit and half draped over the glowing metal.
A voice called his name, and Lucifer looked around dazedly. Raphael emerged from the smoke, her brown eyes wide and wrecked. Like the males, she had donned stiff battle armor, her long black hair woven into a long braid down her back.
“Lucifer,” she fluttered to his side, her wings anxious and disheveled. “Lucifer, you must come. It is Michael.”
His heart lurched, and Lucifer nodded dumbly. He didn’t protest as she took his hand in hers, dragging him through the smoke and fighting. The iadnamad’s palm was slick against his, fingers thrumming with adrenaline.
They ducked past a group of injured demons, Raphael tugging him forward through a canopy of vines. The vegetation pulled on Lucifer’s wings, and as he struggled to free himself, Lucifer could see where Raphael had dragged Michael away from the fighting. The grass was slick with blood, mixed with the ash from the home tree.
Michael had led the first assault in a blaze of glory that had rallied the angels forward, his wings held proud and high as they had forced the demons to scatter before them. But leading the assault had demanded a heavy price, and Michael had paid it.
The leader of the clan lay on the grass, skin pale and sickly, eyes glazed. A gaping wound opened along his chest, and Lucifer could hear the sucking that accompanied each torturous breath as Michael’s fingers twitched in the crushed grass.
Michael was dying.
Lucifer stared blankly at the scene. There was a panicked roaring in his ears, his mind rebelling at the reality before it, even as his voice spoke, calm and collected.
“You must go to the human’s complex, Raphael,” he murmured, turning to the female angel. “I sense the humans are in need of our help.”
Raphael looked lost, like a fledgling separated from her mother. Her hand dropped from his, and her wings shook unhappily. “But Lucifer-”
“I will take care of Michael,” he continued softly, his wings brushing against hers. It was the only kindness he had ever shown her, but in that moment, it was genuine. “I promise, sister. His passing will be painless.”
Raphael searched his eyes, but knew the truth as well as he did. Michael would not survive this battle. She swallowed, eyes fluttering shut, and nodded.
“Yes, brother,” she whispered, her brown eyes wet when she looked at him again. “I, I will speak with him.”
Lucifer watched as she knelt by Michael’s side, her whispered words too quiet for him to hear. Michael groaned, and she shushed him, pressing a desperate kiss to his sweaty brow. Lucifer looked away then, allowing them privacy as his own mind shouted, fear and anger echoing in the empty spaces of his skull.
It was not long before Raphael was back at his side.
“Geiad be with you, brother,” she said quietly, touching his face lovingly. Her fingers smoothed along his cheeks, and Lucifer swallowed, nodding once.
Raphael pulled away, straightening her shoulders. “Michael asks for you.”
She was gone then, disappearing in a flurry of dusky brown feathers. Lucifer looked over at his ruined brother, beginning to shake.
Michael’s eyes were pained, his wings twitching uselessly beneath him. Lucifer slowly approached, looming above his older brother, as a slow stain of red spread along the grass beneath Michael.
“Lucifer,” Michael gasped, in obvious pain. “It is…good to see you.”
This is my fault. Oh Michael, what have I done?
“Rest, brother,” Lucifer whispered, kneeling at Michael’s side. The grass beneath his knees was warm and sticky. “Reserve your strength.”
Michael smiled weakly, and Lucifer’s heart clenched.
“I think we both know my strength is now waning. I…”Michael winced, air rattling in his lungs. “I am… counting on you brother, to…lead our people.”
Emptiness clawed at Lucifer with spiteful claws. He could feel the darkness within him, a corruption that had been planted years ago. It whispered to him, pulsing and gleeful.
This is what you wanted, it cackled. What you planned for. You can rule.
“No!”
Lucifer pushed the voice down, denying it. It laughed hollowly as Lucifer’s fingers found Michael’s blood slicked ones, pressing their palms together. “I will get you to a healer, Michael. You will survive, I-”
He was taken aback by the flash in Michael’s eyes, the sudden tightening of Michael’s fingers around his.
“No,” Michael ground, wings twitching. “No, brother. I know we…have not always seen eye to eye.”
Lucifer winced, watching as a bubble of blood formed in the corner of Michael’s mouth, bursting and dribbling down his chin.
“But…I love you, brother,” Michael’s voice was pained. “And Geiad now calls me home. To…to our father, our mother.”
He was wheezing now, and Lucifer quaked as the smell of death grew stronger.
Michael gazed up at him pleadingly. “Promise me, Lucifer. Promise me… you will look after our clan.”
Lucifer could barely feel the beat of his own heart, the rush of blood in his veins. Was this how demons felt? Empty and hollow, with nothing left within because they had sacrificed it all. Given it all away for something so foolish as power. How could he have been so blind? So full of greed?
Lucifer swallowed as Michael gazed up at him hopefully. How could he have done this? How…how could…
What is one more broken promise? Lucifer thought bitterly. Your soul is filled with broken vows and dreams. What is one more?
Lucifer nodded, squeezing his brother’s hand. “I promise, Michael.”
Michael smiled tiredly, lips flecked with red. “Thank you,” he murmured quietly.
The fingers laced between Lucifer’s grew frailer, Michael’s half-lidded gaze distant and far away.
“I can see them, Lucifer,” Michael whispered, and his body shuddered. “Father…they have missed us so.”
Lucifer swallowed the emptiness rising in his throat. “Go to them, Michael. Be at peace, brother.”
Michael was smiling, goofily and wide, as he had used to back when he and Lucifer were mere fledglings, running wild through the forest. Lucifer leant down to kiss his cheek, eyes clenched shut as Michael murmured quietly to himself.
When Lucifer pulled away, his brother was still. Michael looked upwards into eternity, and Lucifer pulled his hand free, closing his brother’s eyes and pressing a kiss to each eyelid.
The fighting around them continued, but Lucifer did not move. He was weary, soul sick and tired. His deceptions had cost him everything in the end, and Lucifer could feel nothing but sadness. Azazel’s madness had become Lucifer’s own, had become his undoing at the very end.
The teloch screamed once again, and Lucifer glanced up to see the largest ship tilt in the sky. It was on fire, spiraling downwards as the planet’s pull latched onto her huge metallic hide. The war-bird descended, trailing fire and sparks with a deafening roar, huge and wrathful as if an embodiment of Geiad herself in all her fury.
Lucifer watched it above him, fire dancing in his eyes. He swallowed, wings trembling, and took Michael’s limp hand in his own again. He squeezed the cool skin, steeling himself as judgment rained down on him from above.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, as flames erupted around him, the ship blotting out the sun as it tore through the trees above. “Forgive me, Mary.”
Dean ran.
He was always running, boots slapping against the slick ground as the metal on his uniform clinked against the cold rifle in his hands. John was yelling at him, voice growing fainter as Dean ran on, quieter and further away.
Good.
The battle had been lost, and he was going to die, but he was going to take down every son of a bitch demon with him.
His legs burned as he struggled over the crest of a small hill, red dust rising in clouds at his feet. Dead human and demon bodies littered the ground in stiff clumps, and it wasn’t until Dean leapt over a thick spiky line of wire that he realized he had stormed through the demon line. Most of the demon assault had dispersed down and into the human camp already, but a few remained, and they stared at him with surprise as he forced his way into their flank.
She saw him first.
She was strikingly beautiful, bent over the fallen form of one of her comrades. Like Dean, her face was smudged with dirt and sweat, her dark hair wild and messy. She looked like she belonged on a fashion holo, not a battlefield, her crimson lips parted to show the tips of perfectly polished teeth as she stared him down.
And those eyes. Those wide and bright eyes. Yellow, they were a sulfuric contrast to the bright red splattered across her face, the burgundy that dripped down her chin. She was no mere soldier, her stiff black armor boasted several metallic pins of varying colors. He knows a Commander when he sees one.
By dumb luck, Dean had managed to stumble upon the leader of the assault.
The surprise wore off as he swung his rifle around, and she screamed at him, lips stretched wide. Clearing the space between them in the blink of an eye, she hooked her fingers into claws. His gun was slapped from his nerveless fingers, and a hot pain burst across his belly.
Blood sluiced down the front of his uniform, sticky and hot. She raged at him, words he didn’t understand. She’s wanted to devour him whole, to swallow his body and soul until there wasn’t even a memory of him left to bury.
The sudden boom of a rifle was deafening. A bloody chasm disintegrated across the right side of her face, the cheekbone gone in a spray of blood and gristle. She backed away for a moment, just a precious moment, and strong arms grabbed Dean from behind, pulling him back from the brink of destruction and back into the pain of living.
He recognized the gruff tones, though he couldn’t understand the words through the ringing in his ears.
Dad.
The demon returned, her remaining eye blazing as she grabbed for Dean’s legs. He watched her numbly, body frozen as his veins seized up in shock.
Another explosion of rife fire, and she fell back once more.
Others were coming, with eyes as black as death itself. Fingers dug into his arm, pulling him away from John and into a roiling mass of demons with hungry eyes and slavering teeth.
He was going to die.
He knew he would, that he’d die on a battlefield so far from home, and he accepted it. Dean tried to embrace death as it rose before him, closing his eyes against the sharp sting of teeth in his arms.
John knew it too. His rifle had only one round left, and the Commander must die. The battle may be lost, but they can still win the war. The loss of a high ranking demon would be a blow, the slight chink in the demonic armor that the humans had been fighting so desperately for.
They could win this, and all she had to do, was die.
Demons swarmed over him, blotting out the red sky above as they pressed Dean into the dirt. His lungs heaved, struggling to pull in air.
There was only one round left. His father, the toughest, most stubborn son of a bitch the universe had ever seen, knew it. John Winchester, who’ll get a chest full of medals no matter what way the war might go. John Winchester, the man who had sent countless men to their deaths, who had sacrificed so much for his planet, and was always ready to sacrifice more.
Dean was honored to be such a sacrifice.
Dirty fingers gouged a bloody trench in his stomach, peeling apart his skin easily, and all Dean could feel was pride. The son was proud he could finally be of use to the father, could at last sacrifice something worth losing.
Dean would die for John, for the chance to finally win. And he would do it proudly.
The rifle sounded one last time, Dean’s toll of judgment. But it wasn’t the Commander that fell to the ground in a spray of death, it was the demon on top of Dean, trying to claw its way into his insides.
It fell back, its twitching corpse startling the others who immediately retreated, hissing and fearful.
The rifle clicked on empty.
Dean twisted, struggling to sit up. The empty rifle clattered to the ground, and Dean turned wide eyes towards his father. He had witnessed the impossible, the sacrifice that could never be made. There was only ever one thing John Winchester could never stand to lose.
And it was Dean.
The Commander, bleeding and furious, lunged at the older man. Her nails dug into the exposed skin of his arms, her perfect teeth snapping at his throat.
Dean struggled to get up, but his body was tired, too wounded. He could only watch, mouth opening and closing as the demon finally sank her teeth into the grimy line of John’s throat. She tugged her head back sharply, a grim parody of the pretty models that flirted in holos back on the Citadel. A spray of dark blood arced across the sky, her gore slicked hair slapping wetly against her cheek as the demon tore John’s throat out.
Everything was suddenly muffled. An enraged roar built and built in Dean’s chest until it was a searing pain, a physical fire he had no hope of controlling. The knife in his boot cut his fingers as he drew it, but Dean couldn’t feel the pain.
She didn’t hear him coming. The demon was too concentrated on gorging herself, too focused on her own rage and pain. Torrents of red dripped down her chin and Dean couldn’t see anything else, couldn’t think. The Furies were with him, giving him wings to clear the yawning distance between him and the demon, and the Furies sang a dirge of vengeance that Dean was helpless to resist.
She looked vaguely surprised as he sank his blade into her ruined eye socket, mouth parted in surprise. Splashes of rubies were dotted along the plump swell of her lips, jewels that she had no right to claim, and he twisted the blade deeper, bone cracking.
She shuddered, a long sigh rattling in her throat as her one perfect yellow eye rolled upwards as if praying to God. Dean twisted harder, throwing his weight against the blade as he screamed into her face, bone shattering beneath his grip. Shards of it pierced his hand, sliced his palm open and severed the tendons beneath.
“Dean.”
Like a swimmer breaching the surface of water, Dean reared back, gasping. Hel faded around him, the demon shimmering into nothing. He could hear the distant shouts of marines, the shots that rung out signaling the victory of Serpent’s Pass.
It was a memory. An echo of something that had happened long ago. An empty greyness now swirled around him, and Dean cast around in it, lost for a moment.
“Dad?”
The grey cleared, and John sat in front of him, cross legged and serene. Which couldn’t be, isn’t what happened. The gaping abyss gouged into his father’s neck had killed him instantaneously, robbed Dean of the chance of a goodbye.
But there John sat, whole and intact. He still wore his army uniform, but it was clean and pristine, the I.D tags dangling around his shirt, present and shiny.
“Good to see you, Dean.”
Dean shook his head, his hands trembling. He could feel the phantom pain in his palm, the last revenge of a demon long dead. “What, what is this? You’re dead.”
John smiled at him. “Sure am, kid. That demon got me good.”
This wasn’t right. Even in his half remembered dreams, John never spoke. Someone was breaking the rules.
“But I, I don’t,” Dean floundered. “I don’t understand.”
John’s eyes were warm. Dean remembered them looking like that when Mary had still been with them.
“I know. It’s not something I can explain easily. But I’m here. I’m here, Dean.”
It made no sense. It was a trick, something sick thought up by a demon to punish him. Punish him for failing, for letting people he loved die.
John rose to his knees, shuffling closer. The hand he laid on Dean’s shoulder felt real, heavy and warm. “I never told you enough Dean, but, I’m proud of you. I always have been.”
Dean stared, throat working but no words forming.
“And I wanted you to know that I, I uh,” John’s face twisted. “Aw hell, I’ve never been good at this, but dammit boy, I love you. You and Sammy, you, you were both my world. Didn’t treat you like I should’ve but, I tried. God help me, I tried.”
Dean’s head was spinning, and John squeezed his shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Dean. None of it, you hear me?”
Dean finally forced his tongue to form shapes, letters that he dragged out of mouth, kicking and screaming.
“But I, I got you killed. I got Mom killed. I don’t…”
John made a rude sound, and Dean almost cracked a smile at the familiar sound. “Bullshit. I died because there was no other choice. It was only ever you, Dean. Only you. And Mary-”
“Shouldn’t have trusted the smooth words of a yellow eye,” a voice interrupted.
Out of the swirling grey, came Mary. She was wearing the clothes Dean had seen her wear in Castiel’s shared memory, gold hair shining. John smiled as he saw her, hand dropping from Dean’s shoulder to reach towards her. She took it in hers, sinking down to her knees beside the two men.
“Don’t you go blaming yourself for that too, baby,” she murmured, reaching out to touch Dean’s cheek. “Don’t you dare.”
Dean was smiling, eyes watery as he looked at both his parents. He didn’t understand anything, but found he didn’t really care. “I miss you guys.”
The two parents glanced at each other, sharing twin smiles.
“We miss you too,” Mary said gently. “You and Sam.”
“But it’s time, Dean,” John added firmly, hand squeezing Mary’s as she smiled at him.
Dean looked at both his parents, confused. “Time? For what?”
John’s rough hand found his shoulder again, squeezing tightly. “To let go, son. To let us go.”
The grey around them swirled, and Dean could see Hel. Could see the dead body of his father, his own form bent over it, crying. It was pulling on him, wanted to keep Dean there in that dark place of loathing.
He swallowed heavily. “I, I don’t think I can.”
Mary leant forward, palm flat over Dean’s chest. “We love you, Dean, and we always will. But you don’t need us anymore.”
She hugged him then, and Dean clung to her desperately, nuzzling his nose into her hair and trying to remember her smell. John’s fingers curled around Dean’s shoulder protectively.
“Let us go, Dean,” he said quietly. “It’s time.”
Mary pulled away, and Dean felt the emptiness of his parent’s death return. But it felt, different this time. Less painful.
Mary took John’s hand again, and they smiled at each other, just like they used to once upon a time. They were fading, Dean realized, disappearing back where they truly belonged. They didn’t belong here, trapped on Hel in Dean’s mind. They deserved to be at peace.
And Dean, Dean did too.
He breathed out shakily. “Okay. Okay, Dad. Mom. I’ll, I’ll let go.”
His parents were smiling at him.
We’re so proud of you, they whispered, fading from sight. Always.
The greyness closed in on him. Before he faded completely from Hel, Dean could hear the voices again, the awareness.
Geiad was pleased.
Something was nudging him, a sticky wetness slavering along his cheek. Dean groaned, trying to shift away from it, as his brain tried to pound its way out of his skull. Opening his eyes, he clutched his throat, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light again.
Chevy stood over him, long tongue retreating back into her beak as she noticed him move. The Levithmong held one leg up against her belly, and whined, shifting her weight. Dean could see dark blue blood oozing along her injured leg, and winced sympathetically.
“Ch-Chevy?” he asked, and the Levithmong huffed air at him, helping Dean sit up with nudges of her head.
Someone was shouting, and Dean looked around him dazedly, confused for a moment where he was. Trees swam into view, blackened with ash and soot, loud voices and screams nearby. A blurry figure was crouched a little in front of Dean, and he struggled to get his vision to focus.
After a few sharp blinks, he could make out dark feathers and a mess of black hair. Dean’s heart pounded worriedly.
Castiel didn’t move from his crouch, black wings spread and feathers rattling as he faced down Azazel. The demon was trying to flank the angel, but every time he tried to dart in, Castiel would force him back with a warning flap of his wings.
“Stay away from him!” Castiel shouted. Rage was etched into his very being, his wings agitated and furious. “Filth! Abomination!”
Azazel crouched low in front of the angel, blade ready and eyes blazing. He looked more like an animal than a man, teeth bared in a snarl.
“So you want to join your little boyfriend do you?” the demon spat. “You angels. Your daddy did the same thing, sacrificed himself for some worthless whore. Like father, like son.”
Castiel was shaking, hands balled into fists, his voice low and resolute. “You are evil itself. And I will destroy you.”
Dean struggled to his feet, body aching. Chevy supported him, Dean keeping his arm around her thick neck.
“No, Cas,” Dean ground. “He’s not worth it.”
Both creatures jerked towards him, Castiel’s wings drooping with relief. “Dean!”
Azazel sneered, blade glinting in the dim light. “So sleeping beauty awakes. Just in time to see me pluck your little pet.”
Dean swayed tiredly, Chevy warm against his side. “Give it up, Azazel. You’ve lost.”
The demon laughed loudly, but his eyes were wild. “Oh really? ‘Cause I think I’m doing pretty good.”
“Look around!” Dean gestured around them with one arm. The sky was silent, all the ships having been brought down. Even the screams and fighting seemed far away, quiet and unimportant. “You call this victory? It’s over.”
“It’s never over!” Azazel glared at him hatefully, face twisted. “You hear me? I won’t lose! Not again!”
Castiel hurried over to Dean’s side, eyeing the demon warily.
“You have already lost,” the angel said gruffly, examining the cut on Dean’s shoulder. “You were doomed from the start because of your hatred.”
Azazel laughed, one hand pressed to his stomach. “Would you listen to the hippy! Are you telling me true wuv will save the day?”
Dean ignored the demon’s gloating.
“Who was she?” he demanded, a dark part of him enjoying the sudden shift in Azazel’s demeanor. “At Serpent’s Pass. Dark hair, pretty face. She had eyes like you.”
Dean hadn’t understood until now. Hadn’t understood why he had been haunted for so long by messages he hadn’t heard, too hurt and too guilt ridden to truly see them.
Azazel’s eyes flashed but the demon stayed unusually silent. Dean shrugged one shoulder dismissively.
“Fine. It makes no difference to me. The bitch is dead anywa-”
“My daughter!” Azazel hissed, eyes glowing with anger. “My pride, my joy, my whole world.”
The trees behind Azazel shifted. Something moved amongst them, separating from the shadows.
The demon didn’t notice. He was shaking, his previous calm smugness forgotten as grief and rage battled within him.
“They couldn’t even send me her body because you slashed her to pieces you sick fuck!” Azazel bellowed, knife trembling in his hand. “I couldn’t bury my daughter!”
“It was war,” Dean said flatly. “I’ve carried enough guilt to last me a lifetime and I’ve had enough.”
“You killed my child!” Azazel screamed at him, coming unhinged.
The trees behind him shuddered.
Dean watched him emotionlessly, Castiel pressing closer against his side. “She killed my dad.”
“I lost everything because of you,” Azazel took a step forward, teeth bared. “Everything.”
“No,” Dean shook his head, sliding his hand into the warm weight of Castiel’s wing. He could feel the angel’s muscles twitching, straining to break free and fight Azazel. At Dean’s touch, Castiel relaxed slightly, wings dropping.
“This is your doing Azazel,” Dean continued. “But you can put an end to it, you can stop this. Call off your demons and come with us. We can-”
“No!” Azazel screamed. “I came to claim my vengeance, Winchester. And I will have it!”
The demon lunged towards them, raising his knife up to chest level. Castiel cried out, trying to push Dean behind him as Chevy snarled warningly, but a pistol blast silenced them all, echoing in the eerie silence.
Azazel froze mid charge, looking down in shock at the bloody chasm yawning in his stomach. The knife slipped from his numb fingers, thudding harmlessly onto the grass. Azazel sank to his knees, pressing his hands to his abdomen tightly.
“Wh...what…” he bit out with confusion.
Emerging from the forest, came Sam.
One cheek was smudged with blood, his hair grimy and wild. A pistol was held in his hand, still warm, and Sam gazed at Azazel unafraid. The demon looked over at the younger Winchester with slowly dawning understanding, and Sam snorted, tossing the now empty pistol away.
“That’s for my mother, you son of a bitch,” Sam said coolly. He ignored Azazel’s wide eyed stare, turning towards Dean.
“The demons have surrendered,” Sam nodded towards Castiel. “Everyone’s heading back to base.”
Dean reached out to touch his brother gratefully as Sam walked over. “Man, I am so happy to see you right now.”
Chevy bleated as well, bumping Sam happily with her head. Sam smiled tiredly, stroking his hand down her neck.
“I fell off Hershey after a helicraft almost landed on us. Been looking for you guys and Gabriel ever since.”
A low moan from Azazel drew their attention back to him, and the demon glared at them all hatefully.
“Be done with it then,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Kill me as you did the rest of my family.”
Castiel murmured warningly, the angel looking towards the trees. Plants shivered, and Dean at last recognized the head that pushed its way through the ferns, the sharp curve of teeth and bright gleaming eyes.
Dean’s old friend the cat monster, padded into the clearing, tail flicking. Chevy whinnied in alarm, but the cat creature didn’t even glance their way. Its eyes were solely trained on the bleeding Azazel, and it paused at the edge of the trees, pacing and growling.
Dean looked back at Azazel. “What was her name?”
Agony flitted across the demon’s face, though his eyes still blazed with malice. “Why should I tell you?” he snarled. “Murderer.”
That was rich, coming from a demon.
“What do you have to lose?” Dean asked. “You said it yourself, you’ve lost everything.”
Azazel looked away sullenly, watching the cat monster pace.
“Meg,” he finally said quietly. “My daughter’s name was Meg.”
Dean nodded. “I’m sorry she had to die. I’m sorry war made me do what I did.”
He looked over at Sam, finally seeing the man his kid brother had become. Dean had struggled all his life to keep Sam safe, to keep him from the horrors of worlds beyond theirs, but in the end, it was Sam who had saved him. What else had he lost, spending so many nights wrapped up in his own self-imposed hell?
Dean shook his head. “This ends now. Too many people have died for your revenge. Let her go.”
Azazel snarled at him, but his eyes were uncertain, torn between Dean and the cat monster.
“We can get you to a healer,” Dean continued, ignoring Sam’s shocked protest. “We can save you, Azazel. But you have to let her go.”
Some of the anger leeched out of those yellow eyes. Blood stained Azazel’s front, his hands red where they struggled to stem the flow. The demon tilted his chin proudly, and Dean recognized the look in his eyes.
Azazel had made the same choice John had all those years ago, and it was just as easy.
“No,” the demon said firmly, sealing his fate proudly. “I can’t.”
Dean nodded. It was his right to choose, and the demon had chosen. “So be it.”
He turned away, Chevy staying pressed against him. Sam went with him, helping his brother limp away from the scene.
Only Castiel remained, and the angel watched the demon closely. Azazel’s bloodstained fingers left his stomach long enough to grab the knife lying in the grass, his hand shaking as the cat monster licked its lips. The angel dipped his head towards the fallen demon, feeling a surge of pity for the broken creature.
“You killed my father, demon,” Castiel murmured. “But I bear you no ill will that you have not already wrought upon yourself. May you find your daughter waiting for you with Geiad.”
He stepped away, respectfully lowering his wings as the cat monster growled at him. “Then may both your spirits find the peace in death that they could not in life.”
Azazel said nothing to him even as the angel turned away and trailed after the Winchesters.
Behind them, the cat monster howled.
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