Fic: The Man In The Long Black Coat (1/?)
Title: The Man In The Long Black Coat (1/?)
Rating: R for language and violence
Pairings: Brief Dean/Castiel, Crowley/Aziraphale
Word Count: 4991
Warnings: Violence, some language, probably blasphemous concepts
Author’s Note: A triple crossover between Supernatural, Good Omens, and the Lucifer comics by Mike Carey. Set during Supernatural’s 5th season, and has elements of AU for all of it that’s been shown so far, and will definitely be AU for the eventual ending. Set after the events of Good Omens and sometime between Lucifer #44 and #46. Here for a basic rundown of what you need to know about Lucifer
Summary: For all their dealings with pagan gods and monsters from mythology, Sam and Dean ought to know by now that there are more powers in the world than Heaven and Hell.
Chapter One
This was meant to be a simple salt and burn. Just in and out, dig up the grave of the old guy who had been drowning young men like the one who had knocked up his daughter fifty years ago, and that would be that. As Dean wipes the last traces of dead flesh and goo he’d rather not think about from his face, making an exaggerated expression of disgust, he thinks he ought to have realised by now that nothing goes quite to plan any more. God, but he and Sam stink to high heaven right now, and there’s no way he’s going to get bits of zombie on the Impala’s upholstery. Luckily they keep a tarp rolled up and stuffed in the back seat foot-well for times like this; it’s a lesson they learned a long time ago.
“Do you think this is another sign of the Apocalypse?” Sam asks, inspecting his ruined shirt mournfully. It’s no loss, Dean thinks, it was ugly anyway. “I mean, this is the second group in two weeks, though at least they weren’t acting human this time around. More like the kind of zombies we’re used to hunting. But I bet Death is behind this as well.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, not that he really gives a damn at this point in time. He’s tired, okay, and he thinks he’s got good reason to be. If this is Death’s work, they can deal with it in the morning. Right now he just needs a shower, and its half an hour’s drive back to the motel, and he can’t deal with any of this apocalypse bullshit right now. “We’ll think about it tomorrow, okay? I’ll call Cas and see what he thinks.” He wipes the blade of his shovel clean on the grass before shouldering it, sighing.
Sam nods, looking about as tired as Dean feels. He’s practically swaying on his feet, so Dean guesses there’s no question about who’s going to be driving the Impala. He’s just started to head down the path when he sees Sam isn’t following him. Instead he’s staring off across the cemetery at a point in the trees near the boundary wall, and tension is knotting his shoulders. Dean turns, his hand going to his gun instinctively before he remembers he ran out of ammo sometime in the past half-hour. He curses under his breath.
There is a man standing in the shadows of a laurel, leaning against the trunk and smoking casually, as if the whole cemetery hadn’t been swarming with the legions of the undead ten minutes ago. Dean exchanges a look with his brother, a non-verbal question, you got ammo? Sam shakes his head slightly. Looks like they’ll be bashing the guy over the head with the shovels if it comes to that. But so far he’s done nothing, not even moved. He’s just watching them, raising the cigarette to his lips in long, slow breaths.
“Fuck this,” Dean says. “I’m going to see what he wants.”
“Dean,” Sam says, his tone cautious, but as he puts out an arm to block his movement forward the man looks up, smiles at them, and vanishes, quite literally, into thin air.
“Oh come on!” Dean says, throwing one hand up in a vicious gesture. “Fucking angels.” As if their night wasn’t bad enough already. They drag themselves home, and Dean tries not to think what it means that Heaven has managed to find them again.
------
The first thing Dean does the next morning, after sending Sam out for breakfast, is call Castiel. The Enochian carved into their ribs has done a pretty good job of hiding them until now, and change, considering it’s the Apocalypse and all, isn’t a good thing. Dean wants to know if the sigils have actually stopped working, or if the whole thing was just a coincidence. Yeah, he wouldn’t put money on it being the last one. But it’s bad enough that they ran into Michael in the 70s without the smug bastard showing up to bleat destiny at him in the here and now. Luckily Castiel picks up after the first ring.
“Cas,” Dean says. “We need to talk. Get your feathered butt over here right now.”
“I don’t know why you persist in using these metaphors when you are aware that the view of angel’s wings being similar to birds is...”
“Cas!” Dean cuts him off sharply. They’ve not seen him since Famine, and what, is he sulking or something? Understandable, yes, but life sucks for all of them right now, and they don’t have time for that. “We’ve got a problem here. We need your help.”
There is a pause, then, “Tell me where you are Dean.”
Dean gives him the address and room number of their shitty little motel, and with a flutter of wings, there Cas is. Dean would never admit it, but it’s good to see him. Even with his powers draining away Cas knows his shit, and he’s still not exactly bad in a fight. And it’s nice to know they’re not alone on Team Free Will.
“There was an angel watching us in the cemetery last night,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “Is there any way that dick Zach could have found a way past your carvings or something?”
Cas gets this deep and thoughtful look on his face. “It should not have been possible for an angel to find you,” he says finally. “Describe this being to me.”
“Well we didn’t get a good look at him,” Dean says. “But he vanished into thin air, and as far as I know only dicks with wings have that little power.”
Cas does his head tilt-y thing, and his eyes rake over Dean’s body in a way that makes him feel kind of uncomfortable, like he’s looking at him naked or something. He’s about to make some kind of protest about it when the angel speaks. “The sigils are still working. I will investigate, but it may have been a coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing in our line of work buddy.”
“The rising was the work of a Horseman. Since you and Sam are often in the vicinity of these events, perhaps Zachariah has decided to attempt to find you by having a.... stake-out.”
Now that’s not a pleasant thought at all, Dean thinks sourly. But it sounds all too possible, and actually he’s kind of surprised neither side has thought of it before now. He sighs audibly. “So what now? We can’t not get tangled up in these things, it’s part of the job. We can’t afford to have angels and demons on our tails every time we go near something freaky.”
“We do not have enough information yet Dean,” Cas says, calm as ever. “I will accompany you on your next hunt and see who this angel is working for. In the meantime...” He twists his hand in a peculiar way, and the angel-killing blade drops into his hand, “take this for protection.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, reaching out for it carefully. “I’ll go check in the trunk for more holy oil when Sam gets back.”
“Good,” Cas says, and then he’s gone again, the sound of his wings loud in the silence. Dean slumps down on the bed, holding the knife up to eye level. They’re fighting this thing with the equivalent of sharpened sticks, but what else can they do? Even if it’s hopeless, Team Free Will has to keep fighting on. It’s the only option.
-----
The next hunt is Death’s work as well, a little town in the middle of Ohio where there has been a wave of suspicious heart attacks, RTAs and inexplicable deaths from ‘natural causes’. The guy is fucking everywhere they turn, he swears, but at least it isn’t zombies again. He’s fucking sick of zombies. True to his word, Cas is with them, armed with another angel sword from somewhere or other, though Dean doesn’t want to ask where he got it.
It turns out the Horseman is already on the road by the time they get there, but there’s a crowd of demons to take care of who were tagging along in his wake like sick groupies, and that’s not exactly going to be an easy task. There must be about thirty of them for a start, and Cas can’t burn them out anymore, so it looks like they’re going to be doing this the old fashioned way. For all things have been a bit rough around the edges lately, the three of them make a damn fine team; Dean with the demon-killing knife, Sam with the Colt, and Cas with his sword and a head full of ancient exorcisms.
They plan is to lure the demons into a trap, but things don’t quite go to plan. These sons of bitches are smarter than your average hell-spawn, and so it turns into pitched battle in the streets. The three of them are more than holding their own though, putting the demons down quickly and efficiently, Sam taking headshots from the cover of a parked car while Dean and Cas watch his back and deal with the ones who get too close. Everything seems to be going well until the big fucker rushes Dean.
It happens fast; there’s a sudden surge as a whole group of demons charge them at once, and Dean finds himself cut off from Sam and Castiel, barely holding his own against this monster of a man, easily as tall as his brother and built like a tank, strong enough to take his head off even before he got possessed. The fucker backs him up against the side of a building, brandishing one motherfucker of a knife, and lunges at him. Dean twists, stabbing at his side with the demon-killing knife, but the big bastard blocks it with his free hand, grabbing his wrist and twisting it until he’s forced to drop the weapon. For a moment he thinks he’s in real trouble, the machete heading straight towards his stomach, when a solid body slips in between them, taking the knife to the gut without a flinch. The stranger grabs the demon by the throat and burns it out with a nonchalant elegance, a single finger to the forehead. It’s a flare of crackling power, half blinding him. Dean blinks his vision clear.
“Holy fucking shit,” he says, almost shaking with how close that was. He looks up at the man, and the recognition is instant. It’s the angel from the cemetery. The angel turns to face him, dropping the faintly smoking corpse carelessly like it weighs nothing. In the light, Dean can finally get a good look at him. He has unruly strawberry blonde hair and he’s wearing all black, something that looks expensive, not that Dean’s really the guy to judge that. And. And he’s got fucking yellow eyes. Dean tenses, but that demon is long dead, and it’s not the same kind of yellow anyway. That was sick and sulphurous, and it didn’t have a pupil. This guy has eyes like fire.
“You should be more careful Dean Winchester,” the angel says, his voice dark and warm like velvet, sending a shiver up Dean’s spine. “This isn’t the first life-debt you owe me.” And then he’s gone again, not giving Dean the chance to ask who the fuck he is, or what the fuck he’s on about.
He’s just fished Ruby’s knife out of the gutter when Sam comes running up brandishing the Colt, Cas at his heels. The rest of the demons, as far as he can see, are dead or gone, bodies littering the street.
“Nice fucking timing Sammy,” he says, stepping over the burned out guy. “You get a read on that angel Cas?”
“Wait... he was here?” Sam asks, at the same time as Cas nods, and grabs their shoulders to zap them out of there.
“We will discuss it back at the motel,” Cas says, and Dean feels the uncomfortable sensation of compression he always gets when they fly Angel Air, and they’re in the room.
“He is not in Zachariah’s employ,” Castiel tells them as soon as they get their bearings.
Dean stares at him. “Oh yeah?” he says, “how do you know that?”
“Because he is not a full angel. He is... fallen, or something like it.” He looks down. “I’m sorry I cannot be more precise. But Zachariah would never ally himself with such a being.”
“But he’s the kind of fallen you and Anna are, right?” Dean asks. “Not the Lucifer kind of fallen.”
“I didn’t recognise him,” Castiel says. “He has not been in Heaven since my birth, or I would have known him.”
“But you didn’t recognise Gabriel at first,” Sam points out.
“That is different,” Cas says. “He was hiding his power, masking it as that of a Trickster. This being was doing nothing of the sort. Although he was...” He hesitates, probably searching for the right way to explain tricky angel concepts to clueless humans. “Muted, would be most accurate.”
“But you’re sure Zach didn’t send him.” Dean isn’t actually sure this is a good thing; better the devil you know, after all. The unknown is rarely pleasant for them.
“No. He seems to be a free agent.” Castiel doesn’t look any happier about it than he is. “Unless...”
Dean gives him a questioning look. “Unless?”
Cas shakes his head. “It is no importance.”
Dean is pretty sure it is of importance, but he knows Cas won’t tell them anything if he doesn’t want to. “He said something to me about owing him a life debt.”
The angel looks displeased. “Do you?”
“Cas, I don’t even know what that is,” Dean says with a certain amount of exasperation. It’s been a long day, and he just wants to flop back onto the bed and fall asleep.
“Did he save your life?”
“Well, yeah, I guess.”
Sam rounds on him. “What? You didn’t say anything about that!”
Dean rolls his eyes at him. “What, you thought that burnt out demon at my feet just dropped dead by itself?”
“I thought you stabbed it with the knife.”
Castiel gives them both his I-am-very-disappointed-in-you look. They shut up. “You owe him a debt for saving you. The usual terms are a life for a life, but you are obligated to pay him back in any way he chooses. Usually you would save his life, but I do not see how you could, in this case, being human.”
Dean shifts uncomfortably. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“That depends on what he asks of you. You are mortal, so it cannot be anything too unreasonable.”
“Well great,” Dean says in disgust. Next to him Sam sighs.
“There’s no way to get out of it?” he asks.
“Only by paying it, otherwise Dean’s life would be forfeit.”
“Why does this shit always happen to me?” Dean says to the heavens. “I must have been a real bastard in a past life.”
“You mean all the time,” Sam says, smirking. Dean whacks him lightly on the back of the head.
“Everyone in the fucking car,” he growls. “We can deal with it in the morning.”
-----
The third time the angel shows up, about a week later, Castiel is out looking for God again. He had said he wanted to use what little time and power he had left to search for his Father - ‘before my wings no longer carry me’ - and the pained expression on his face had made Dean want him to find something more than ever. He’s still feeling a little down about it when they get back to the latest motel, and Sam’s picking up on the bad mood, so he thinks he can be forgiven for not noticing straight away that they’re not alone.
“Good afternoon,” the fallen angel says, making them jump, and reach for the nearest weapon. Not that realising who it is makes them relax any, even though their guns and knives aren’t going to be worth jack squat against this guy.
“What the fuck do you want?” Dean says. His nose twitches with the sharp smell of cigarette smoke. The angel is smoking, lurking in the corner of the room like a very high class sort of stalker, a glass of something blood red on the windowsill beside him. Dean’s pretty sure they didn’t have that ashtray earlier, or the wine. He’s just not sure if the angel brought them from somewhere else, or if he can materialise objects like Gabriel. He hopes it’s the former. He doesn’t like the idea of owing anything to someone with as much power as an Archangel.
“To talk.” Their supernatural stalker blows a smoke ring at him.
“About this life-debt crap, right.” Dean glares at him. “You could at least tell us who I’m going to be paying it too.”
He smiles tightly. “That’s not a simple question at the moment. But for now call me Samael.”
“Samael.” Sam repeats the name slowly. “As in, the Angel of Death?”
“Dude, what?” Dean says, at the same time as Samael replies, “That depends on who you ask. But not in the way you are thinking.”
“And you think we’re going to trust a guy who says he’s the Angel of Death?” Dean says.
“I don’t require your trust. I do require your help. I don’t think you’ll object though. Our interests align in this matter. We both want to stop the Apocalypse.”
“Oh yeah,” Dean says warily. “And how are we going to do that?”
Samael flicks his cigarette away. It disappears into thin air before it hits the ground. “So far your plans to stop... Lucifer have not been very successful.” Dean doesn’t miss the slight hesitation before the devil’s name. His glance at Sam shows he saw it too.
“But you’ve got a plan?” Sam asks hopefully.
“I do,” Samael says. “But I need both of you.”
------
Nine months ago.
Here is a lesson Heaven never learnt; angels gossip, if you leave them to their own devices, and you never know who might be listening in. Perhaps this pair think that they can walk into Lucifer’s territory with impunity because he has a new creation to tend, not to mention the innumerable other plans he is spinning into his web at any one time, but they are wrong. Foolish of them to think they would not be overheard not a block from his stronghold, but they are Third Sphere, and those have never been known for their critical thinking.
“They say there are only a few more seals left before he is loose,” one whispers to the other. They are squeezed into human vessels, wings constricted. Younglings who know no better. They were not around for the War or for the Fall, so how can they appreciate who he is? They only know of him from stories, as the Adversary, and then... as no-one. But ignorance is no excuse to the Morningstar.
“Lilith will not succeed,” the second angel says firmly. “The power of Heaven is more than a match for her.”
It is the mention of Lilith’s name that stays his hand. It would take but a touch of his Grace to scare them off, but now Lucifer wants to hear what they have to say to each other. He knew Lilith, a long time ago. Without her, he suspects it would have taken him much further to find his own independence, but it has been half a billion years since he last saw her. It seems strange that she could come out of hiding without his hearing of it before, and if it is not her, then whoever the imposter is must be very brave or very stupid to take on her name. The Lilim would not take very kindly to it.
“I do not doubt our orders,” the first says, “but this demon is wily, as you know.”
“True, but we have the Righteous Man, and we have his brother, and you know the final seal cannot be broken so long as that abomination does not use its powers.”
“I do not understand why we allow him to live,” the angel says, sneering. “He cannot break anything if he’s dead.”
“The Righteous Man loves his brother,” the other says patiently, “and he would not cooperate if we did that. Castiel has been given charge of them, and you should not question his decisions.”
“Castiel is but a Principality, and he has been given the power of a Dominion! And Uriel himself I hear is as near as taking orders from him. I have never heard of such a thing, and why? Is he that virtuous a soldier? Are we not all virtuous in doing God’s work?”
“Perhaps it is because he does not question our Father’s wishes?” the other says sharply.
The Morningstar lets them go. He has heard enough, and this intrigues him. It is clear that the angels were referring to the sixty-six seals that once held him in Hell, before he took the metaphorical back door out. They are without purpose now, and he cannot imagine why anyone would go to the bother of breaking them. If they wanted to free a Duke, there are easier ways. But clearly someone is doing it, and this bothers him. There is always a reason, and usually one which does not take a great deal of effort to divine, but not this time. Something is off here, and he doesn’t yet know what. He will have to make some enquiries.
----
Lucifer has had whole eras of the Earth to amass knowledge of every corner of creation, to have allies and contacts in every pocket dimension and planet with sentient life. With Yahweh gone, he has power besides to work with too. However it would be foolish to start asking around before exploring the most obvious option; the Lilim themselves. Though Mazikeen is not perhaps on the best of terms with him at the moment, their deal is square, and he is prepared to owe her a favour. Better than trying to ask angels, or lowering himself to admit ignorance to Michael. The demon in question is with her people in his own universe, as expected. Her brothers and sisters turn to watch him cautiously as he passes through their camp.
“Have you heard news of your mother recently?” he asks when he finds her, straight to the point. There has never been any need for idle pleasantries with Mazikeen, something he had enjoyed about her company.
“No lord,” she says, “not for a long time. You wish to find her?” She frowns a little, visible only on the side not hidden by her mask. It is as he expected, but it would be asinine not to ask and thereby miss a simple and obvious answer.
“Not as such,” he replies. “There is a being using her name, breaking the sixty-six seals. You may wish to look into it.”
Mazikeen inclines her head. “Yes,” she says, with no small venom. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention lord. The imposter shall be found, and we shall take great care in dealing with it.” Her smile is cruel, and he likes it.
It will take a little while for her to make any progress, and in the meantime the Morningstar has many other things which require his attention. He will leave this with Mazikeen for now. It is not urgent, and it will wait.
----
A week passes without news from Mazikeen, and in the meantime Lucifer has tuned his awareness back in to the seals for the first time in several decades. It both worries and surprises him that only eleven remain before that magic number is reached. This is proceeding far faster than he had expected, which makes him suspect there is more to this than the overheard conversation led him to think. It is not as if the seals are unprotected, though it is possible the chain of command in Heaven is somewhat uncertain these days. There was chaos enough the last time he visited. In any case, he needs more information, and since the Lilim have found nothing, he must turn to other sources. The rumour mills of Heaven and Hell are fertile gardens for gossip, and if anyone knows what is going on, the word will filter out from them. He needs only to tap into it.
The angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley occupy interesting positions in their respective hierarchies. After the last aborted Apocalypse both Beelzebub and Metatron have known the pair had something to do with stopping it, but as the actual act itself had been all the work of the Antichrist, it was impossible to find something that they had exactly done wrong. As massive bureaucracies are wont, neither side wanted to upset the status quo, and the whole business was quietly swept under the rug. Not forgotten, however, which meant they were left to their own devices for the most part, in the hope of providing enough rope for them to hang themselves. The most important factor, from Lucifer’s point of view, is that no-one lower than the Seraphim or the Dukes actually knows any of this. Crowley and Aziraphale are free to walk their respective homes and talk to whoever they want. Just what he needs.
The Morningstar does not anticipate having to work hard to convince them to play along. He may not rule Hell anymore, but he was there at the time, playing his role in the end of the world, and he had seen the potential for something... unusual. An angel and a demon standing side by side against the storm, working together. A rare sight indeed. He has kept an eye on them, even after his retirement, and there have been some interesting developments since then. The sort of thing that wouldn’t be overlooked, not when both sides were just itching to take them down for something. You expect pettiness from Hell, from Heaven it just proves a sanctimonious point.
Lucifer does not announce his arrival, but he has the taste not to simply materialise right next to them. It would be bad manners, not to mention - depending on what they were doing at the time - arouse a not inconsiderable amount of embarrassment and anger. While he may want them off guard, that would be counter-productive. Instead, he walks through the front door of Aziraphale’s dusty bookshop in downtown Soho, London, ignoring both the lock and the ‘Closed’ sign, letting the bell jingle into the muted silence that all such stores seem to carry around them. Angels, he finds, tend to have a fondness for books, although Aziraphale’s interest in prophecy is at least more useful than Meleos’ collection, though he disapproves of any method of predestination on principle. Still, threatening the books will probably not be necessary in this case.
“I’m afraid we’re closed for the evening, there was a sign...” Aziraphale’s voice trails off as he comes out of the back room and sees who is waiting for him by the counter. “Oh. Oh dear.”
Lucifer smiles, taking note of the angel’s ruffled hair, open collar and flushed face. “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he says, coughing pointedly, and looking expectantly back the way Aziraphale came. The angel blushes even harder and turns his head.
“Crowley,” he calls, “I think you’ll want to be out here for this.”
The demon is in an even worse state of undress, which has the interesting effect of highlighting just how pale he turns on seeing the Morningstar. He manages to miracle his shirt back on after the second try, and stammers out a respectful greeting.
“I’m assuming you’re here for a reason Morningstar,” Aziraphale says coldly, drawing himself up to his full, if rather unimpressive, height and folding his arms, positively crackling with angelic energy. Lucifer has never made the mistake of underestimating him despite his less than fearsome appearance. He does not forget the angel was once a Seraph, and no matter how diminished his rank may be now, that is not power that ever truly fades, though it may lie dormant. Aziraphale may have forgotten what the taste of his full Grace really feels like, but given sufficient stimulus, Lucifer has no doubt he would be able to find it again. Even though the angel would be no real challenge, he has never taken by force what he could get through words instead.
“I am here for information,” Lucifer says crisply. “Or more precisely, rumours.”
Crowley visibly relaxes at this. He has always been understandably nervous around the once-ruler of Hell, and the Morningstar doubts that will ever change. Sometimes he thinks Crowley something of a coward, but he always manages to do something to surprise him. It is probably due to all the time spent on Earth, but the distorting nature of Hell has had less effect on him than most other demons he could name. “We can do that,” the demon says thankfully. “I like to think I’m still well up in the water-cooler gossip, especially with the ex-humans.”
“Age has its advantages there I’m sure,” Lucifer replies smoothly. “I want to know about a being calling itself Lilith. Not the genuine article.” His gaze flickers over to Aziraphale. “And a Principality turned Dominion named Castiel.”
The angel nods firmly, still in his wary stance. Perhaps he heard about what happened to Meleos. Angels are so touchy about their belongings. “I’ll ask around,” he says. “The name sounds a bit familiar, though I’m sure he’s not in my garrison.”
“I’ll be back in a week,” Lucifer says, and leaves, slipping through the space of infinity into one of the doors only he can see, back to his own Creation.
Rating: R for language and violence
Pairings: Brief Dean/Castiel, Crowley/Aziraphale
Word Count: 4991
Warnings: Violence, some language, probably blasphemous concepts
Author’s Note: A triple crossover between Supernatural, Good Omens, and the Lucifer comics by Mike Carey. Set during Supernatural’s 5th season, and has elements of AU for all of it that’s been shown so far, and will definitely be AU for the eventual ending. Set after the events of Good Omens and sometime between Lucifer #44 and #46. Here for a basic rundown of what you need to know about Lucifer
Summary: For all their dealings with pagan gods and monsters from mythology, Sam and Dean ought to know by now that there are more powers in the world than Heaven and Hell.
Chapter One
This was meant to be a simple salt and burn. Just in and out, dig up the grave of the old guy who had been drowning young men like the one who had knocked up his daughter fifty years ago, and that would be that. As Dean wipes the last traces of dead flesh and goo he’d rather not think about from his face, making an exaggerated expression of disgust, he thinks he ought to have realised by now that nothing goes quite to plan any more. God, but he and Sam stink to high heaven right now, and there’s no way he’s going to get bits of zombie on the Impala’s upholstery. Luckily they keep a tarp rolled up and stuffed in the back seat foot-well for times like this; it’s a lesson they learned a long time ago.
“Do you think this is another sign of the Apocalypse?” Sam asks, inspecting his ruined shirt mournfully. It’s no loss, Dean thinks, it was ugly anyway. “I mean, this is the second group in two weeks, though at least they weren’t acting human this time around. More like the kind of zombies we’re used to hunting. But I bet Death is behind this as well.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, not that he really gives a damn at this point in time. He’s tired, okay, and he thinks he’s got good reason to be. If this is Death’s work, they can deal with it in the morning. Right now he just needs a shower, and its half an hour’s drive back to the motel, and he can’t deal with any of this apocalypse bullshit right now. “We’ll think about it tomorrow, okay? I’ll call Cas and see what he thinks.” He wipes the blade of his shovel clean on the grass before shouldering it, sighing.
Sam nods, looking about as tired as Dean feels. He’s practically swaying on his feet, so Dean guesses there’s no question about who’s going to be driving the Impala. He’s just started to head down the path when he sees Sam isn’t following him. Instead he’s staring off across the cemetery at a point in the trees near the boundary wall, and tension is knotting his shoulders. Dean turns, his hand going to his gun instinctively before he remembers he ran out of ammo sometime in the past half-hour. He curses under his breath.
There is a man standing in the shadows of a laurel, leaning against the trunk and smoking casually, as if the whole cemetery hadn’t been swarming with the legions of the undead ten minutes ago. Dean exchanges a look with his brother, a non-verbal question, you got ammo? Sam shakes his head slightly. Looks like they’ll be bashing the guy over the head with the shovels if it comes to that. But so far he’s done nothing, not even moved. He’s just watching them, raising the cigarette to his lips in long, slow breaths.
“Fuck this,” Dean says. “I’m going to see what he wants.”
“Dean,” Sam says, his tone cautious, but as he puts out an arm to block his movement forward the man looks up, smiles at them, and vanishes, quite literally, into thin air.
“Oh come on!” Dean says, throwing one hand up in a vicious gesture. “Fucking angels.” As if their night wasn’t bad enough already. They drag themselves home, and Dean tries not to think what it means that Heaven has managed to find them again.
------
The first thing Dean does the next morning, after sending Sam out for breakfast, is call Castiel. The Enochian carved into their ribs has done a pretty good job of hiding them until now, and change, considering it’s the Apocalypse and all, isn’t a good thing. Dean wants to know if the sigils have actually stopped working, or if the whole thing was just a coincidence. Yeah, he wouldn’t put money on it being the last one. But it’s bad enough that they ran into Michael in the 70s without the smug bastard showing up to bleat destiny at him in the here and now. Luckily Castiel picks up after the first ring.
“Cas,” Dean says. “We need to talk. Get your feathered butt over here right now.”
“I don’t know why you persist in using these metaphors when you are aware that the view of angel’s wings being similar to birds is...”
“Cas!” Dean cuts him off sharply. They’ve not seen him since Famine, and what, is he sulking or something? Understandable, yes, but life sucks for all of them right now, and they don’t have time for that. “We’ve got a problem here. We need your help.”
There is a pause, then, “Tell me where you are Dean.”
Dean gives him the address and room number of their shitty little motel, and with a flutter of wings, there Cas is. Dean would never admit it, but it’s good to see him. Even with his powers draining away Cas knows his shit, and he’s still not exactly bad in a fight. And it’s nice to know they’re not alone on Team Free Will.
“There was an angel watching us in the cemetery last night,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “Is there any way that dick Zach could have found a way past your carvings or something?”
Cas gets this deep and thoughtful look on his face. “It should not have been possible for an angel to find you,” he says finally. “Describe this being to me.”
“Well we didn’t get a good look at him,” Dean says. “But he vanished into thin air, and as far as I know only dicks with wings have that little power.”
Cas does his head tilt-y thing, and his eyes rake over Dean’s body in a way that makes him feel kind of uncomfortable, like he’s looking at him naked or something. He’s about to make some kind of protest about it when the angel speaks. “The sigils are still working. I will investigate, but it may have been a coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing in our line of work buddy.”
“The rising was the work of a Horseman. Since you and Sam are often in the vicinity of these events, perhaps Zachariah has decided to attempt to find you by having a.... stake-out.”
Now that’s not a pleasant thought at all, Dean thinks sourly. But it sounds all too possible, and actually he’s kind of surprised neither side has thought of it before now. He sighs audibly. “So what now? We can’t not get tangled up in these things, it’s part of the job. We can’t afford to have angels and demons on our tails every time we go near something freaky.”
“We do not have enough information yet Dean,” Cas says, calm as ever. “I will accompany you on your next hunt and see who this angel is working for. In the meantime...” He twists his hand in a peculiar way, and the angel-killing blade drops into his hand, “take this for protection.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, reaching out for it carefully. “I’ll go check in the trunk for more holy oil when Sam gets back.”
“Good,” Cas says, and then he’s gone again, the sound of his wings loud in the silence. Dean slumps down on the bed, holding the knife up to eye level. They’re fighting this thing with the equivalent of sharpened sticks, but what else can they do? Even if it’s hopeless, Team Free Will has to keep fighting on. It’s the only option.
-----
The next hunt is Death’s work as well, a little town in the middle of Ohio where there has been a wave of suspicious heart attacks, RTAs and inexplicable deaths from ‘natural causes’. The guy is fucking everywhere they turn, he swears, but at least it isn’t zombies again. He’s fucking sick of zombies. True to his word, Cas is with them, armed with another angel sword from somewhere or other, though Dean doesn’t want to ask where he got it.
It turns out the Horseman is already on the road by the time they get there, but there’s a crowd of demons to take care of who were tagging along in his wake like sick groupies, and that’s not exactly going to be an easy task. There must be about thirty of them for a start, and Cas can’t burn them out anymore, so it looks like they’re going to be doing this the old fashioned way. For all things have been a bit rough around the edges lately, the three of them make a damn fine team; Dean with the demon-killing knife, Sam with the Colt, and Cas with his sword and a head full of ancient exorcisms.
They plan is to lure the demons into a trap, but things don’t quite go to plan. These sons of bitches are smarter than your average hell-spawn, and so it turns into pitched battle in the streets. The three of them are more than holding their own though, putting the demons down quickly and efficiently, Sam taking headshots from the cover of a parked car while Dean and Cas watch his back and deal with the ones who get too close. Everything seems to be going well until the big fucker rushes Dean.
It happens fast; there’s a sudden surge as a whole group of demons charge them at once, and Dean finds himself cut off from Sam and Castiel, barely holding his own against this monster of a man, easily as tall as his brother and built like a tank, strong enough to take his head off even before he got possessed. The fucker backs him up against the side of a building, brandishing one motherfucker of a knife, and lunges at him. Dean twists, stabbing at his side with the demon-killing knife, but the big bastard blocks it with his free hand, grabbing his wrist and twisting it until he’s forced to drop the weapon. For a moment he thinks he’s in real trouble, the machete heading straight towards his stomach, when a solid body slips in between them, taking the knife to the gut without a flinch. The stranger grabs the demon by the throat and burns it out with a nonchalant elegance, a single finger to the forehead. It’s a flare of crackling power, half blinding him. Dean blinks his vision clear.
“Holy fucking shit,” he says, almost shaking with how close that was. He looks up at the man, and the recognition is instant. It’s the angel from the cemetery. The angel turns to face him, dropping the faintly smoking corpse carelessly like it weighs nothing. In the light, Dean can finally get a good look at him. He has unruly strawberry blonde hair and he’s wearing all black, something that looks expensive, not that Dean’s really the guy to judge that. And. And he’s got fucking yellow eyes. Dean tenses, but that demon is long dead, and it’s not the same kind of yellow anyway. That was sick and sulphurous, and it didn’t have a pupil. This guy has eyes like fire.
“You should be more careful Dean Winchester,” the angel says, his voice dark and warm like velvet, sending a shiver up Dean’s spine. “This isn’t the first life-debt you owe me.” And then he’s gone again, not giving Dean the chance to ask who the fuck he is, or what the fuck he’s on about.
He’s just fished Ruby’s knife out of the gutter when Sam comes running up brandishing the Colt, Cas at his heels. The rest of the demons, as far as he can see, are dead or gone, bodies littering the street.
“Nice fucking timing Sammy,” he says, stepping over the burned out guy. “You get a read on that angel Cas?”
“Wait... he was here?” Sam asks, at the same time as Cas nods, and grabs their shoulders to zap them out of there.
“We will discuss it back at the motel,” Cas says, and Dean feels the uncomfortable sensation of compression he always gets when they fly Angel Air, and they’re in the room.
“He is not in Zachariah’s employ,” Castiel tells them as soon as they get their bearings.
Dean stares at him. “Oh yeah?” he says, “how do you know that?”
“Because he is not a full angel. He is... fallen, or something like it.” He looks down. “I’m sorry I cannot be more precise. But Zachariah would never ally himself with such a being.”
“But he’s the kind of fallen you and Anna are, right?” Dean asks. “Not the Lucifer kind of fallen.”
“I didn’t recognise him,” Castiel says. “He has not been in Heaven since my birth, or I would have known him.”
“But you didn’t recognise Gabriel at first,” Sam points out.
“That is different,” Cas says. “He was hiding his power, masking it as that of a Trickster. This being was doing nothing of the sort. Although he was...” He hesitates, probably searching for the right way to explain tricky angel concepts to clueless humans. “Muted, would be most accurate.”
“But you’re sure Zach didn’t send him.” Dean isn’t actually sure this is a good thing; better the devil you know, after all. The unknown is rarely pleasant for them.
“No. He seems to be a free agent.” Castiel doesn’t look any happier about it than he is. “Unless...”
Dean gives him a questioning look. “Unless?”
Cas shakes his head. “It is no importance.”
Dean is pretty sure it is of importance, but he knows Cas won’t tell them anything if he doesn’t want to. “He said something to me about owing him a life debt.”
The angel looks displeased. “Do you?”
“Cas, I don’t even know what that is,” Dean says with a certain amount of exasperation. It’s been a long day, and he just wants to flop back onto the bed and fall asleep.
“Did he save your life?”
“Well, yeah, I guess.”
Sam rounds on him. “What? You didn’t say anything about that!”
Dean rolls his eyes at him. “What, you thought that burnt out demon at my feet just dropped dead by itself?”
“I thought you stabbed it with the knife.”
Castiel gives them both his I-am-very-disappointed-in-you look. They shut up. “You owe him a debt for saving you. The usual terms are a life for a life, but you are obligated to pay him back in any way he chooses. Usually you would save his life, but I do not see how you could, in this case, being human.”
Dean shifts uncomfortably. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“That depends on what he asks of you. You are mortal, so it cannot be anything too unreasonable.”
“Well great,” Dean says in disgust. Next to him Sam sighs.
“There’s no way to get out of it?” he asks.
“Only by paying it, otherwise Dean’s life would be forfeit.”
“Why does this shit always happen to me?” Dean says to the heavens. “I must have been a real bastard in a past life.”
“You mean all the time,” Sam says, smirking. Dean whacks him lightly on the back of the head.
“Everyone in the fucking car,” he growls. “We can deal with it in the morning.”
-----
The third time the angel shows up, about a week later, Castiel is out looking for God again. He had said he wanted to use what little time and power he had left to search for his Father - ‘before my wings no longer carry me’ - and the pained expression on his face had made Dean want him to find something more than ever. He’s still feeling a little down about it when they get back to the latest motel, and Sam’s picking up on the bad mood, so he thinks he can be forgiven for not noticing straight away that they’re not alone.
“Good afternoon,” the fallen angel says, making them jump, and reach for the nearest weapon. Not that realising who it is makes them relax any, even though their guns and knives aren’t going to be worth jack squat against this guy.
“What the fuck do you want?” Dean says. His nose twitches with the sharp smell of cigarette smoke. The angel is smoking, lurking in the corner of the room like a very high class sort of stalker, a glass of something blood red on the windowsill beside him. Dean’s pretty sure they didn’t have that ashtray earlier, or the wine. He’s just not sure if the angel brought them from somewhere else, or if he can materialise objects like Gabriel. He hopes it’s the former. He doesn’t like the idea of owing anything to someone with as much power as an Archangel.
“To talk.” Their supernatural stalker blows a smoke ring at him.
“About this life-debt crap, right.” Dean glares at him. “You could at least tell us who I’m going to be paying it too.”
He smiles tightly. “That’s not a simple question at the moment. But for now call me Samael.”
“Samael.” Sam repeats the name slowly. “As in, the Angel of Death?”
“Dude, what?” Dean says, at the same time as Samael replies, “That depends on who you ask. But not in the way you are thinking.”
“And you think we’re going to trust a guy who says he’s the Angel of Death?” Dean says.
“I don’t require your trust. I do require your help. I don’t think you’ll object though. Our interests align in this matter. We both want to stop the Apocalypse.”
“Oh yeah,” Dean says warily. “And how are we going to do that?”
Samael flicks his cigarette away. It disappears into thin air before it hits the ground. “So far your plans to stop... Lucifer have not been very successful.” Dean doesn’t miss the slight hesitation before the devil’s name. His glance at Sam shows he saw it too.
“But you’ve got a plan?” Sam asks hopefully.
“I do,” Samael says. “But I need both of you.”
------
Nine months ago.
Here is a lesson Heaven never learnt; angels gossip, if you leave them to their own devices, and you never know who might be listening in. Perhaps this pair think that they can walk into Lucifer’s territory with impunity because he has a new creation to tend, not to mention the innumerable other plans he is spinning into his web at any one time, but they are wrong. Foolish of them to think they would not be overheard not a block from his stronghold, but they are Third Sphere, and those have never been known for their critical thinking.
“They say there are only a few more seals left before he is loose,” one whispers to the other. They are squeezed into human vessels, wings constricted. Younglings who know no better. They were not around for the War or for the Fall, so how can they appreciate who he is? They only know of him from stories, as the Adversary, and then... as no-one. But ignorance is no excuse to the Morningstar.
“Lilith will not succeed,” the second angel says firmly. “The power of Heaven is more than a match for her.”
It is the mention of Lilith’s name that stays his hand. It would take but a touch of his Grace to scare them off, but now Lucifer wants to hear what they have to say to each other. He knew Lilith, a long time ago. Without her, he suspects it would have taken him much further to find his own independence, but it has been half a billion years since he last saw her. It seems strange that she could come out of hiding without his hearing of it before, and if it is not her, then whoever the imposter is must be very brave or very stupid to take on her name. The Lilim would not take very kindly to it.
“I do not doubt our orders,” the first says, “but this demon is wily, as you know.”
“True, but we have the Righteous Man, and we have his brother, and you know the final seal cannot be broken so long as that abomination does not use its powers.”
“I do not understand why we allow him to live,” the angel says, sneering. “He cannot break anything if he’s dead.”
“The Righteous Man loves his brother,” the other says patiently, “and he would not cooperate if we did that. Castiel has been given charge of them, and you should not question his decisions.”
“Castiel is but a Principality, and he has been given the power of a Dominion! And Uriel himself I hear is as near as taking orders from him. I have never heard of such a thing, and why? Is he that virtuous a soldier? Are we not all virtuous in doing God’s work?”
“Perhaps it is because he does not question our Father’s wishes?” the other says sharply.
The Morningstar lets them go. He has heard enough, and this intrigues him. It is clear that the angels were referring to the sixty-six seals that once held him in Hell, before he took the metaphorical back door out. They are without purpose now, and he cannot imagine why anyone would go to the bother of breaking them. If they wanted to free a Duke, there are easier ways. But clearly someone is doing it, and this bothers him. There is always a reason, and usually one which does not take a great deal of effort to divine, but not this time. Something is off here, and he doesn’t yet know what. He will have to make some enquiries.
----
Lucifer has had whole eras of the Earth to amass knowledge of every corner of creation, to have allies and contacts in every pocket dimension and planet with sentient life. With Yahweh gone, he has power besides to work with too. However it would be foolish to start asking around before exploring the most obvious option; the Lilim themselves. Though Mazikeen is not perhaps on the best of terms with him at the moment, their deal is square, and he is prepared to owe her a favour. Better than trying to ask angels, or lowering himself to admit ignorance to Michael. The demon in question is with her people in his own universe, as expected. Her brothers and sisters turn to watch him cautiously as he passes through their camp.
“Have you heard news of your mother recently?” he asks when he finds her, straight to the point. There has never been any need for idle pleasantries with Mazikeen, something he had enjoyed about her company.
“No lord,” she says, “not for a long time. You wish to find her?” She frowns a little, visible only on the side not hidden by her mask. It is as he expected, but it would be asinine not to ask and thereby miss a simple and obvious answer.
“Not as such,” he replies. “There is a being using her name, breaking the sixty-six seals. You may wish to look into it.”
Mazikeen inclines her head. “Yes,” she says, with no small venom. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention lord. The imposter shall be found, and we shall take great care in dealing with it.” Her smile is cruel, and he likes it.
It will take a little while for her to make any progress, and in the meantime the Morningstar has many other things which require his attention. He will leave this with Mazikeen for now. It is not urgent, and it will wait.
----
A week passes without news from Mazikeen, and in the meantime Lucifer has tuned his awareness back in to the seals for the first time in several decades. It both worries and surprises him that only eleven remain before that magic number is reached. This is proceeding far faster than he had expected, which makes him suspect there is more to this than the overheard conversation led him to think. It is not as if the seals are unprotected, though it is possible the chain of command in Heaven is somewhat uncertain these days. There was chaos enough the last time he visited. In any case, he needs more information, and since the Lilim have found nothing, he must turn to other sources. The rumour mills of Heaven and Hell are fertile gardens for gossip, and if anyone knows what is going on, the word will filter out from them. He needs only to tap into it.
The angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley occupy interesting positions in their respective hierarchies. After the last aborted Apocalypse both Beelzebub and Metatron have known the pair had something to do with stopping it, but as the actual act itself had been all the work of the Antichrist, it was impossible to find something that they had exactly done wrong. As massive bureaucracies are wont, neither side wanted to upset the status quo, and the whole business was quietly swept under the rug. Not forgotten, however, which meant they were left to their own devices for the most part, in the hope of providing enough rope for them to hang themselves. The most important factor, from Lucifer’s point of view, is that no-one lower than the Seraphim or the Dukes actually knows any of this. Crowley and Aziraphale are free to walk their respective homes and talk to whoever they want. Just what he needs.
The Morningstar does not anticipate having to work hard to convince them to play along. He may not rule Hell anymore, but he was there at the time, playing his role in the end of the world, and he had seen the potential for something... unusual. An angel and a demon standing side by side against the storm, working together. A rare sight indeed. He has kept an eye on them, even after his retirement, and there have been some interesting developments since then. The sort of thing that wouldn’t be overlooked, not when both sides were just itching to take them down for something. You expect pettiness from Hell, from Heaven it just proves a sanctimonious point.
Lucifer does not announce his arrival, but he has the taste not to simply materialise right next to them. It would be bad manners, not to mention - depending on what they were doing at the time - arouse a not inconsiderable amount of embarrassment and anger. While he may want them off guard, that would be counter-productive. Instead, he walks through the front door of Aziraphale’s dusty bookshop in downtown Soho, London, ignoring both the lock and the ‘Closed’ sign, letting the bell jingle into the muted silence that all such stores seem to carry around them. Angels, he finds, tend to have a fondness for books, although Aziraphale’s interest in prophecy is at least more useful than Meleos’ collection, though he disapproves of any method of predestination on principle. Still, threatening the books will probably not be necessary in this case.
“I’m afraid we’re closed for the evening, there was a sign...” Aziraphale’s voice trails off as he comes out of the back room and sees who is waiting for him by the counter. “Oh. Oh dear.”
Lucifer smiles, taking note of the angel’s ruffled hair, open collar and flushed face. “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he says, coughing pointedly, and looking expectantly back the way Aziraphale came. The angel blushes even harder and turns his head.
“Crowley,” he calls, “I think you’ll want to be out here for this.”
The demon is in an even worse state of undress, which has the interesting effect of highlighting just how pale he turns on seeing the Morningstar. He manages to miracle his shirt back on after the second try, and stammers out a respectful greeting.
“I’m assuming you’re here for a reason Morningstar,” Aziraphale says coldly, drawing himself up to his full, if rather unimpressive, height and folding his arms, positively crackling with angelic energy. Lucifer has never made the mistake of underestimating him despite his less than fearsome appearance. He does not forget the angel was once a Seraph, and no matter how diminished his rank may be now, that is not power that ever truly fades, though it may lie dormant. Aziraphale may have forgotten what the taste of his full Grace really feels like, but given sufficient stimulus, Lucifer has no doubt he would be able to find it again. Even though the angel would be no real challenge, he has never taken by force what he could get through words instead.
“I am here for information,” Lucifer says crisply. “Or more precisely, rumours.”
Crowley visibly relaxes at this. He has always been understandably nervous around the once-ruler of Hell, and the Morningstar doubts that will ever change. Sometimes he thinks Crowley something of a coward, but he always manages to do something to surprise him. It is probably due to all the time spent on Earth, but the distorting nature of Hell has had less effect on him than most other demons he could name. “We can do that,” the demon says thankfully. “I like to think I’m still well up in the water-cooler gossip, especially with the ex-humans.”
“Age has its advantages there I’m sure,” Lucifer replies smoothly. “I want to know about a being calling itself Lilith. Not the genuine article.” His gaze flickers over to Aziraphale. “And a Principality turned Dominion named Castiel.”
The angel nods firmly, still in his wary stance. Perhaps he heard about what happened to Meleos. Angels are so touchy about their belongings. “I’ll ask around,” he says. “The name sounds a bit familiar, though I’m sure he’s not in my garrison.”
“I’ll be back in a week,” Lucifer says, and leaves, slipping through the space of infinity into one of the doors only he can see, back to his own Creation.