Chapter 11: The Grass Won't Be Greener When I Set it on Fire
Dean expected to get some satisfaction out of Metatron’s death. Okay, he didn’t think the heavens would open, confetti would fall and all would be well with the world, but he at least thought he’d be able to stop thinking about killing the sonofabitch. Maybe that’s the problem. He didn’t kill him. Crowley and his fucking pet hellhounds did. He pulls his current car over, some modern hatchback piece of crap that has a speedometer that goes up to 105 and an engine that can barely make 70, and thinks about calling the King of Hell.
It’s not that he wants to fulfill his end of their deal, you understand. It’s that he has an obligation hanging over his head, and the sooner that’s gone the sooner he can wipe Crowley off the face of the planet. That might mean he has to take his place as King of Hell though, and like fuck does he want that. Demons probably have some dumb succession by combat rule. Whoever kills the King of the heap gets to take his place. Big whoop. Sounds like an awful lot of responsibility and probably eternity spent having to watch your back. No. Thank. You.
Fuck it, he’s just going to drive until he gets bored. It’s not like Crowley has any real power over him anyway. There wasn’t a time frame on this deal, so long as he stays clear of the limey prick and doesn’t get given a direct order he should be fine.
He drives for three days, taking a long, looping route through small towns and along dusty abandoned roads. He backpedals frequently, because he feels like it, and eventually ends up stopping at a crowded little dive someplace outside Taos where the booze flows freely, and after a while so do the fists.
Dean doesn’t start it, some twelve year old jerkoff spilling beer on his crotch and making a joke about incontinent old men starts it.
He decks the kid with a solid punch and then of course all his fucking prepubescent friends join the party. One sneaks up behind Dean and tries to lock his arms together. All he gets for his trouble is a swift stamp to the instep before Dean moves on to the others. He might have been exaggerating when he called them thirteen, but there’s no denying they’re all kids. Not a single one touching the drinking age. That doesn’t stop Dean tearing through them with the fury he’d usually reserve for a monster hunt.
He goes for the biggest first, figures you get him and the rest will back off. Somewhere along the way forgetting that maybe the locals might be inclined to side with their kids as opposed to the stranger whaling on them. He gets the kid to the floor and is battering away at his ribs when two burly trucker looking types hook him up by the arms, holding him steady while a third weighs his fist.
“Impala.” Dean grins up at them.
“The shit you mean by that?”
“S’my safeword. Let’s get this party started, handsome.” He winks lasciviously.
As expected, they lose their shit.
The guys holding him jerk away, like they think they’re going to catch screaming bender off him and the guy in front stops bouncing his fist and starts throwing it. Dean ducks down and charges forward, grabbing him by the waist and hurling him onto the ground. He spins around and, finding the arm of one guy snaking around his head and trying to squeeze, he does what comes naturally and bites down, mouth coming away bloody as the guy wrenches back.
“You’re a fucking psycho.”
Dean just grins, crazy eyes and bloody teeth. Before he was just fighting for shits and giggles, but now the blood in his mouth is singing out to the demon inside him. It still hasn’t had its quota of flesh and it’s getting impatient. Dean tamps it down. He’s on the run from the terrible twosome, one of whom might now have some renewed angel powers; the last thing he wants is to paint a bright fucking target on his head. So he’s not going to kill anyone, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have some fun.
He lobs a few glasses at people who aren’t looking, grins when the guys targeted whip around and launch themselves at the first thing they see. Within a few minutes he’s got a full on bar brawl rocking and he ducks and dives throughout the crowded mass, throwing punches and kicks and receiving quite a few in return. This is it. His fucking element.
By the time he gets thrown out, with a warning to never step foot in Podunkville, The Ass-End Of Nowhere, NM again, lest he be rent limb from limb, he’s bleeding freely from numerous places. He probably has two black eyes, his face feels like so much ground beef and his knuckles are scraped practically to the bone. He gets himself a few miles away before he heals up. It’s all very well feeling the adrenaline scream through his guts but he can do without the niggling aches bringing down his high.
He finds himself driving out east. He tells himself it’s because he feels like it, but he’s lying. He feels a pull. He’s still driving in a haphazard, back and forth loop, but for some reason every time he comes to an intersection or a fork in the road there’s a little voice niggling at the back of his skull: East, East, East. He listens to it more often than not, sometimes deliberately striking out to the southwest and churning up hundreds of miles in the other way. These fits of rebellion never last for longer than a handful of hours though, that nagging feeling always coming back to him, driving him steadily towards Missouri.
With his meandering route it takes Dean nearly a week to cross the state boundary. In this time the itch under his skin deepens, develops into a clawing, burning ache. The last hundred miles take him nearly a whole day. He keeps having to pull the car over and wait out the shaking in his hands, his twitching, spasming legs. The only thing that soothes him is the Blade. His hand strays towards it more frequently, casual little touches at first, migrating to full on coveting as time passes.
By the time he reaches Cain’s bee farm he can barely sit still. He screeches to a halt and barrels out of his shitty car. He hammers on the door, running on the spot, punching out at the air and then the wooden paneling when no-one responds. He jogs around, swearing when he realizes that the only car here is his own. In a fit of temper he throws a vicious punch through the wall and then sprints, back and forth from the car to the house, throwing all his speed and strength into it in an attempt to burn out some of his overflowing energy.
He runs like this for hours, until the sun is setting and he’s starting to think that maybe Cain has moved. He decides to give it until full dark and then he’s gonna have to rip a fucking cow in half. Just do something, anything to soothe that fucking howling need in him to kill something, someone, anything.
He sees headlights in the distance and he abandons his back and forth to run towards them. It’s Cain. He doesn’t seem at all surprised to see Dean haring down the track towards him, but he doesn’t roll down his window or come to a halt. He drives down the muddy path at an infuriatingly slow pace, forcing Dean to jog alongside him at less than walking speed.
He doesn’t say a word as he parks up, shushing Dean as he tries to speak, and pointing at the bags on the back of his truck.
It’s only when everything has been unloaded and he’s sitting in his living room with a beer, having handed Dean one which he doesn’t drink, just jiggles rapidly against his leg, that Cain speaks.
“Didn’t think you were coming back.”
“Didn’t think I was either. I just ended up here.”
“Hmm. You’re looking jumpy.”
“I can’t stop.”
“The Mark likes to be fed.”
“The Mark can bite me.”
He thinks he feels a twinge in his arm at that, but it’s hard to tell when the whole rest of his body is vibrating.
Cain slugs down the rest of his beer and then stands and stretches.
“To business?”
“Sure.”
“You made me a promise last time.”
“I did.”
“So?”
“How’d you wanna do this? Gonna bend over or do you want to go out fighting?”
“What makes you think you’d win if we went toe to toe?”
Dean smirks.
“Kid, you can’t even stand straight.”
“I’ll be fine once I warm up.”
“Your funeral.”
Cain throws his bottle at Dean. He whips out the First Blade and smashes it, sending shards of glass flying everywhere.
“You’re going to kill me with my own weapon? Poetic.” Cain sneers.
Dean ignores the remark. He’s not shaking now, every muscle is tuned and ready as he sizes Cain up, eyes on the center of his chest as he looks for any of the telltale twitches that’ll telegraph his movements. If they were fighting fair he’d let Cain get to the kitchen, grab one of the knives so he at least has a weapon to match against Dean’s Blade. As is, Dean backs him away from it, keeping his body between his opponent and any chance of arming himself.
Cain is the first to break. He lunges forward, ducking under Dean’s wide swing of the Blade and snicking a line along his ribs with a dirk drawn from his boot. It doesn’t do any real damage, but it’s enough to remind Dean to take this fight seriously. He’s matched against the Father of Murder. Just because the guy is retired and farming bees doesn’t mean he’s no longer deadly as fuck.
Dean goes on the attack after that, launching himself forward and cleaving the Blade down where Cain’s head should be. He misses by a hair’s breadth as Cain jerks out of the way. The movement off-balances both of them, Cain stumbling backwards and Dean pulled down by the strength of his own blow. Dean recovers first, kicking out at Cain’s knee. Cain falls onto his back, hands scrabbling for purchase on the ground and being cut by the broken glass from earlier.
He grabs a fistful and throws it at Dean’s face. Dean’s hand gets up in time to block most of it, but a sliver gets in his eye and he howls, momentarily blinded. Cain seizes his chance while Dean’s healing himself, propels himself to his feet and tackles Dean to the ground. Their weapons are abandoned in favor of close quarters grappling. Cain grabs Dean’s head and slams it against the ground again and again, until Dean’s flailing hands find Cain’s eyes and he gouges his thumbs in.
Cain lets go with a scream and Dean kicks him off. The adrenaline and bloodlust and fighting fury are coursing through him. This is better than any bar fight, better than any monster hunt. Here he is well matched, but still utterly confident in his own skills, knows he is going to come out top. He can feel it as they wrestle, the raw power coiled up in his own muscles just waiting to be unleashed.
His foot connects with Cain’s diaphragm and he can feel the sharp punched out exhale as he knocks the wind out of him. Dean lunges for his Blade, grasping hold of it and slashing at Cain. It connects, slicing into the meat of his thigh as he backs away again.
The sight of blood seems to heighten Dean’s senses. Suddenly he feels like Cain is moving in slow motion. Every time Cain lunges towards him Dean flows out of the way, more dancing than fighting. He starts to toy with him, can see the pain and frustration in Cain’s eyes. He wants to shout at Dean, tell him to stop this, fucking finish him off, but he doesn’t. His pride keeps him lunging and twisting out of the way, barely missing being skewered each time.
And just like that Dean’s jitters and shakes come back. He nearly flings the Blade from his hand, has to tighten his grip on it at an unnatural angle just to keep hold of it. Cain grins at him, all teeth and menace, and Dean curses himself for getting cocky again. He’s new to this demon shit; his powers seem to come in uncontrollable ebbs and flows. He should have taken his chance and gutted Cain when he was on the up, now he can barely hold his weapon.
Cain lunges at Dean and knocks the Blade out of his hand. Dean tries to focus, center himself, but all he can concentrate on is the scent of blood, thick and heavy in the air. He remembers this, back from when he was a vampire. It’s a little different this time, though. When he was a vampire, it was the urge to drink blood that he was consumed with. Now he just wants to shed it, rip Cain in half and watch as his juices flow and dribble out onto his fancy fucking carpet.
He ducks a blow, fumbles for his Blade again. His fingers connect with something. Cain’s dirk. He’ll take it. He lunges up with it, drawing a thin line across Cain’s outstretched arm. He hisses in pain and withdraws, giving Dean enough time to arm himself with both Cain’s blade and his own.
He rolls his shoulders, eyes on the center of Cain’s chest, and then he throws himself into a headlong attack, all caution abandoned. He lashes out with the dirk from one side and the First Blade with the other. The dirk misses, but the Blade finds its mark. It bites into Cain’s side, slicing a path through his ribs like they’re made of butter and coming to rest in the center of his chest.
Cain looks at Dean, something unreadable in his eyes, and then he dies. He doesn’t explode, or spark out. Instead bright reddish-pink light dribbles out of his pores like smoke, gathering, fog-like in the room. It lingers there for a moment, coalescing and growing brighter with each moment until it locks onto a target. Dean.
The Mark glows a sympathetic red as the fog starts to whip around, gathering speed until it’s spinning in a funnel tornado. With a last crackle of blazing energy it pours itself into Dean’s arm.
It lights him up from the inside, branching network of bones and arteries and nerves sparking under his skin. He throws back his head and screams at the sky. The clear night is broken by a pulse of lightning that illuminates Dean, casting a grotesque shadow on the wall. It towers above him, thickly muscled body framed by spread draconic wings, battle-axe spined tail whipping back and forth, its stag’s skull head warped by jagged sabre fangs.
Dean roars, and his roar is the thunder that didn’t come with the unnatural lightning. It carries for miles, and everywhere it’s heard a sickening, pervasive sense of dread settles.
And then Dean vanishes.
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