Fic: The Dragon That Speaks Like A Lamb
Author: randomfandom93
Beta: Unbeta'ed because my Beta ran off to Canada
Pairing: Sam/Dean Established Relationship
Rating: R
Warnings: Torture, Boy!King, Slight Tweaking of Revelation
Spoilers: Extremely AU after AHBL
Wordcount: 9,500
Summary: Dean is the Antichrist, but Sam is his False Prophet.
A/N: Written for dreamlittleyo at sammessiah for Antichristmas 2011 for the prompt: "“Hell got it wrong. Sam's not the Antichrist after all...Dean is. Or course, Sam's more than willing to play the part and front for his brother.”
*****
If any man have an ear, let him hear.
-Revelation 13:9
*****
This has been one of the worst weeks of Dean's life.
...Which, when you actually consider the rest of his life, is a fairly impressive feat.
And considering too that he only has...what, fifty-one of them left? He's pretty damn determined to make sure the next one is a hell of a lot better.
...Okay, maybe a poor choice of words.
But really, this should be a high point for him! He killed the demon. Shot right between the eyes. Dad had seen it, Sam was going to be okay, and he had a year of total freedom.
So it was kind of pissing him off that everyone else was bringing him down.
They'd left Bobby and Ellen at the Devil's Gate, and just started driving. It was the best feeling Dean knew.
That rush of adrenaline and relief that mixed after a hunt, when you knew you'd killed some evil son of a bitch and that someone was going to go home to their family tonight when they might not have before. With Sam in the passenger seat making snide comments as Dean blasted Metallica, totally disregarding posted speed limits, rushing down the road with the rumble of the Impala vibrating through the steering wheel into his fingers, and the knowledge that, for the next little while at least, they were going to be okay.
It took him about an hour to come down off the high enough to realize Sam hadn't spoken the entire time. He was just staring out at the passing fields, with his bitchy little frown reflecting in the window at such an angle it seemed to stare directly at Dean.
Whatever. So he needed some time to adjust to the situation. Dean could give him that. He'd be fine.
It's already nearing dawn, but Dean doesn't want to stop for another crappy motel, just waiting for Sam to confront him with another chick flick moment. So they drive on, straight through Montana, until they almost hit the Canadian border. Around two in the afternoon, they swing through a fast food place and head west. Sam still hasn't said a word.
Dean finally gives into the exhaustion settling into his bones, high long since dissipated, and they pull into a motel in some small town in east Idaho around seven.
He gets them a room, flirting a little longer with the check in girl than he genuinely wants to, and finally accepts that the sooner he gets the inevitable argument with Sam over, the sooner he can finally get some sleep.
They go through their usual routine for new hotel rooms. Pick a bed, unpack, salt lines by window and door, holy water under the bed...
Sam takes the first shower, and Dean's too tired to argue. He kicks off his boots and lies back on the crummy mattress, staring at yet another cheap popcorn ceiling, and waits for the flow of water to stop.
About ten minutes later, it does, and Dean hears Sam's footsteps falter a moments before the door opens.
Sam walks out, frayed and ridiculously tiny towel wrapped around his waist, held in place by one of his gargantuan hands. He'd forgone drying his hair after the fiftieth time Dean complained he was using up all the towels on his stupid girly mop, and drops of water were falling in near perfect counterpoint down his chest and back, sliding down the grooves made by near-perfect muscle definition until they slid into or under the ludicrously disproportionate piece of terrycloth.
Dean unconsciously licked his lips. Somehow he'd forgotten that these days their arguments more often than not ended in truly fantastic make-up sex.
He wasn't really that tired.
Sam finally opened his mouth, and he braced himself for the epic bitching out he'd been avoiding all day.
“Shower's yours.”
Dean blinked, waiting for more. But Sam just pushed passed him, pulled on a pair of raggedy old sweats, climbed into the opposite bed, turned off his lamp, and rolled over.
Dean sat in the dark, dumbfounded.
Huh. Maybe Sam's dealing with this better than he expected.
He really didn't have the energy to start the argument himself, just to get the last of the tension out. He didn't even know if he had the energy to take a shower.
Looking down at himself, he grimaced. Besides the sweat and dirt of a marathon drive, his skin was covered in miniscule flecks of dried blood. He didn't know how long he'd had them, or where the blood had come from.
He didn't even know if it belonged to Sam or the Yellow Eyed SOB.
All he knew was that he had a sudden, burning desire to be clean again.
Pulling himself to his feet, he stumbled into the steamed up bathroom, pulling off his t-shirt as Sam continued to pretend to be asleep.
***
Four days later, Dean had to admit that everything was not fine, nor did it have any indication of becoming anything resembling fine in the near future.
Sam still barely spoke a word to him, except to ask him to pass the salt or to mention that there was a library in the next town over they should check out.
He'd been making them stop at any library that looked like it might house a book that was published before the 70's. He'd go in, flash his shy geeky grin at the unsuspecting librarians, explain he was new in town and ask for a library card.
He'd then check out any book on lore or demonology he hadn't seen before, and even some he had with different editions.
The useless books and the library cards went in the trash at the next diner they stopped at.
Dean would have refused to keep doing this, but it wasn't like there was anything else to do.
They hadn't had a demon sighting or so much as a whiff of an omen since the Gate opened.
Every day Bobby called and delivered up a negative report before Sam motioned for the phone and started questioning him about the latest piece of nothing he'd found in his books.
It wasn't like they were going to find anything, so why not let Sam feel like he was doing something?
Plus, he admitted to himself, it was a bit easier to ignore the fact that Sam wasn't talking to him when he continuously had his nose in a book.
So every day they drive in ever increasing circles around Wyoming, stopping at libraries, talk to Bobby, and eat diner food in silence, Sam's face often hidden behind the volume leaning against the ketchup bottle. And every night, Sam goes to sleep in his own bed. back turned against Dean, a clear sign to stay away. He's having nightmares again, but refusing to answer when Dean asks if they're the same as when he was seeing things.
By the end of the week, Dean decides that something absolutely has to give.
He really needs Sam to talk to him, hit him, fuck him. Anything.
Or he needs to kill something.
Anything.
The next day they're halfway through Utah, and Dean let Sam take Bobby's call. Even if he wasn't talking to Dean it was at least reassuring to know that he could speak if he wanted to. It's even worth giving up the only direct conversation with a human he'll have that day that includes more than his lunch order.
“Hey, Bobby. I was looking through this old version of the Grimoire and I wanted to ask you what you thought of...what? You did?”
Dean looks over, trying to stay calm. Sam sound slightly too excited for comfort. They couldn't have actually found something, could they?
Sam listens another moment, before jotting down notes on the inside cover of his book, frowning.
“We were just there. Okay. Thanks, Bobby. Talk to you later.”
He hangs up and turns to Dean.
“Demon signs showed up in Bryce Canyon City.”
“What?” Dean's initial shock and excitement, dims for a moment.
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Because that's where we stayed two days ago. About 200 miles south. ”
Nodding, Dean pulls a sharp U-Turn in the middle of the interstate and guns the gas pedal, and just like that, they're back.
Only when they get to Bryce Canyon, little more than a hotel with a gas station, all they find are some confused and freaked out civvies, and enough sulfur to fertilize a field.
They scour the town until dawn, questioning almost everyone in the population of 60, and they're still going when they get another call from Bobby.
Dean answers this time, and the news makes him pale slightly.
“Charleston. 400 miles north.”
And that's how it starts.
No matter where they follow the omens, they always seem to arrive just a few hours too late, a single town over.
Eventually, it become obvious that the Demons are following them, as if that wasn't a thought to chill the blood in your veins.
Every town they stay in gets hit a day or two later, only to vanish on their arrival.
Once Sam suggests they stay in one town a few days, see if they can bring the demons to them.
A family of five is slaughtered in the town where they stopped for gas and a burger run.
They don't try it again.
When Bobby's calls start coming three or four times a day, and the map in the glove box starts showing a ring of demons surrounding them, they start to get desperate.
But the ring doesn't close. They aren't attacked. The ring just keeps a perfect circumference around them, about sixty miles in any direction they move. They're prisoners, Dean supposes, but the way the circle moves seems oddly...deferential. Less like they're afraid to attack, and more...respectful of them.
Good. After all the bastards they've sent packing back to the pit, they deserve a little respect.
They're halfway through the Great Plains, trying to find a place where the circle won't hit anywhere majorly populated when Ruby shows up.
She actually strolls into the diner where they're eating, plops down in the booth next to Sam, lets her eyes slide to black, starts eating Dean's french fries and babbling on about how she's going to help them.
Sam just sits there, listening and staring at her. If he wasn't equally freaked out, Dean would have been horrified at his brother's complacency sitting six inches from a demon, even if she is pretty damn hot.
It's obvious what she's building up to: offering them a way out of Dean's deal. And even though the past few weeks Sam's put the books aside to focus on their more pressing demon troubles, it's clear he's actually going to listen to her.
She gets a sneaky smile on her face right as she's about to throw her big pitch. Dean doesn't let her, and throws a glass of salted holy water in her face.
She shrieks and collapses on the table. Sam starts, moving his gaze from her to Dean and back, as if he'd suddenly remembered what she was.
The rest of the restaurant patrons are starting to stare, so Dean flashes them all a grin and says something loud about allergic attacks as Sam carries her out over his shoulder.
They bind her with rope soaked in holy water, and toss her in the back seat. Sam keeps giving her regular douses when she starts to come out of it as Dean drives like hell for the abandoned grain silo they saw last night, cursing what the salt water must be doing to his leather.
An hour later they've got her in the strongest Devil's trap they know, reinforced by a half a dozen salt lines and sopping wet from head to toe.
Her reassurances that she's only there to help them die down after a while. Eventually she lies on the floor, murmuring choked lines of Latin, smiling serenely at the ceiling in a way that's really fucking creepy.
Dean only catches a few words, and turns to Sam for translation.
“What's she saying?”
“I think she's quoting from the original translation of Daniel.”
“A demon's quoting scripture? Why the hell is she doing that?”
Sam frowned, and kept listening to the frenzied words falling from her lips.
“Sam?”
“I think she's talking about the rise of the Antichrist.”
“Well why's she doing that? What is it, the Demon version of praying to god to get you out of trouble?”
Ruby stopped reciting abruptly and laughed, high and loud.
She turned her head to meet Sam's eyes and continued in English.
“And I saw his head as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed.”
She smiled again, less pleasant this time, a fanatical look in her eyes. “And all the world marveled and followed the beast.”
Dean fought the urge to cross the circle to slap her, shake her, anything to get her to shut up.
Sam walked up to the edge of the trap, and crouched down to see her eyes better, fascinated.
Her smiled deepened, taking on that serene, blissed out quality again.
“Everyone knows what you did at Cold Oak, Sam. And we're ready to follow.”
Dean manages to resist pulling Sam away from the hell bitch, and instead did the next best thing to shut her up.
She gasps as another bucket of holy water lands over her, but the scream Dean had been hoping for doesn't come, and she's still maintaining that peaceful fucking look on her face.
Sam still hasn't moved, eyes fixed like he's trying to stare straight through her.
Dean has had enough of this bitch. As he begins to recite the first exorcism to come to mind, she finally began to move. The screams and stunted writhing in her bonds is so satisfying it's almost a little scary.
He's halfway through the exorcism when she lets out a choked cry and arches off the floor higher than he though was humanly possible. As her jacket gapes, he sees a glint of metal, stuck in the back of her pants.
Without thinking, he reaches through the lines of the Devil's Trap, and pulls it out.
It's a hunting knife, with jagged edges for bleeding, inscribed with symbols he didn't recognize.
He'd stopped chanting, and when he glances back over to the demon, he sees something in her eyes that has been entirely too absent throughout these whole proceedings.
Fear.
Sam and Ruby are both staring at him now, waiting to see what he does next.
He does the only logical thing.
He stabs her in the chest, up and under the ribs until he feels the tip of the blade pierce her heart, staring into her eyes as the fear is replaced by a light he recognizes as the shadows of hellfire, making sure she understands the last message she'll ever get.
He's Mine, you bitch. And you're never going to get him. None of you are ever going to get him.
It's the best Dean's felt in weeks.
Sam doesn't say anything when Dean straightens up, and for a moment he worries he's going to go back to giving him the silent treatment.
He's quiet while they clean up and dump the body, but on the way back to the motel where they're staying tonight, he speaks up.
“I was stabbed in the back.”
Dean nearly runs them off the road, he's so jumpy, then winces at the memory.
“Yeah. I know. I was there.”
He carefully avoids adding, 'You died in my arms, you bastard. You died and left me alone and now we're here.'
He doesn't think it would help the situation much.
“Yeah, but the line she was quoting about the signs of the Antichrist? He's supposed to be struck down with a mortal head wound and survive. She didn't know I was stabbed in the back. She just knew I came back.”
“Well there you go,” Dean snapped. “She was a psychotic religious fanatic demon and now she's dead.”
“Yeah, but Dean-”
“That's it. End of story.”
Sam fell silent again, and for the rest of the ride the only noise was the rhythmic rumble of the Impala's engines, as they both try to forget the sound of a heart monitor, beeping away in a lonely hospital room with a Ouija board on the floor.
*****
And the False Prophet had horns like a lamb, yet spake as a dragon.
-Revelation 13:11
*****
The next few days continued in much the same way as the weeks before.
The ring of demons holds around them, though no more emissaries are sent to contact them. Dean sleeps with his new knife under his pillow.
Sam goes back to spending his nose buried in old books, but if Dean was paying attention instead of willfully ignoring them, he would have noticed the topics were slightly changed.
They still weren't talking much, and Sam would barely even touch him to pass him the motel key, but every once in a while Dean would catch Sam staring at him in the corner of his eye, before returning his attention to the endless tomes he'd dredged up.
After three days of this nothingness, with that dead bitch's words, rattling around inside his head, Dean cracked.
Sam went out to pick up the pizza from the one tiny joint in this town, and for once, didn't take the books and notepad he now carried with him everywhere, instead hastily burying it under a pile of other books and papers when he thought Dean wasn't looking.
Dean pulled out the book, carefully noting the order of disarray it had been placed under, because Sam was just the kind of obsessive that would notice something like that, and flipped it open to first page marked.
It wasn't that old, or that obscure. It was just a 18th century biblical interpretation by some old fogey in London.
Sam had marked a couple of the passages in Daniel, but a large chunk of Revelation was nearly completely covered in notes in Sam's neat little handwriting that was far too tiny for the size of his hands.
Dean let his eyes fall on the first paragraph.
Between Revelation 13, Daniel 7-8, and several of the apocrypha declared obsolete by the Catholic Church during the purges of the 13th Century, several clues about the mannerisms and personality of the Antichrist, or the First Beast, are given. He will be Atheistic, often blaspheming against God in his speech. He can trace back his lineage to many noble men, for it written 'He is a king, and his father was a king'. He is described as a fierce warrior, yet will exhibit Abnormal Inclinations. He is charismatic, as the serpent, deemed the Prince of Lies. He shall ignore or flout the laws of Man, yet for many years he shall save and be loved by many in secret. This may perhaps refer to the miracles the he and the Second Beast, provide to the people...
Sam couldn't really be buying into this, right? Panicking slightly, Dean flips to the next marked passage. It focused mainly on the second beast mentioned before.
The Second Beast will rise after the First, and is known as the False Prophet. He is described in Revelation 13 as a Lamb that spake as a Dragon. As this refers to the Lamb of God, the False Prophet shall believe in God, yet act against him. The Second Beast exists to aid the Antichrist, by exercising his powers for the aim obtaining control over Hell and Earth for him. Together, the Antichrist and the False Prophet will travel the world, performing miracles for the people in secret, to gain their trust and belief, before journeying to Hell to receive the throne-
Dean slams the book shut.
When Sam comes back ten minutes later with the pizza, he doesn't comment on the fact that the book was three feet from where he'd left it, or on the lamp thrown against the wall, shattered into cheap, porcelain pieces.
They sit on opposite beds and watch the second half of Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2.
*****
And The Prophet exerciseth all the power of the Beast, and causeth the earth to worship...
-Revelation 13:12
*****
They've had enough of doing nothing.
Sam wakes up screaming one night in Colorado, and while Dean's helping him spill his guts to the toilet finally admits he's been having visions again.
There's a demon two towns over that seems to have broken off from the group to terrorize an elementary school.
It's a success, for them.
They get all the kids out safely, and they're about to go back for Miss Hastings, the preschool teacher when they hear an earsplitting scream coming from the gymnasium.
Leaving a nervously deputized crossing guard with a salt gun behind with the kids, they run towards the voice.
There's Miss Hastings alright, with Vice Principal Chapman holding her halfway up the wall by her throat.
He spins to greet them, the teacher desperately trying to catch her breath as tears squeezed past her tightly shut lids, to run down her cheeks, not enough air left in her lungs to do anything else.
“Well, well, well,” Chapman purrs, eyes sliding to black. “Look who we have here.”
His fingers tighten warningly as Dean makes a move towards the knife behind his back, but his eyes stay fixed on Sam.
“The Messiah Arrives, does he?”
Sam raises his hands, dropping the holy water on the well waxed floor, palms open.
“I'm not your messiah.”
“Damn straight, you're not,” the demon hisses. “The others are all cowering, singing your praises, Winchester, but I see what those pious idiots can't.”
Sam catches Dean's eye as he starts, more slowly to reach for the knife again.
“And what's that?”
“That you're weak. You're nothing. You're no more the Boy King than this, he shook the sobbing woman slightly, nearly tearing her throat out in the process, piece of human garbage.”
Dean's fingers wrap around the handle as Chapman sneeringly continues.
“I will never bow to you. You're nothing. And once I show the others your mangled, broken corpse they'll know it too.”
His eyes nearly dart back to Dean before Sam distracts him from the blade in his hand.
“I never claimed to be the Boy King. Your lot came to me.”
He snorts. “Cheap tricks. A bit of psychic power here, a dash of moral ambiguity there. You have no real power.”
Dean's never practiced throwing this blade before, but it seems fairly balanced. But if it's off, even just a little, he could hit the hostage...
“What can you even do? You can't even keep your own, precious brother from the Pit.”
Bad choice for last words.
Dean throws the knife...and misses.
It doesn't hit Miss Hastings, but it lands a good two feet to Chapman's left to bury itself to the hilt in the wall.
The concrete wall.
What the hell? There's no way he missed by that much.
Dean looks over at Sam and knows he didn't.
Sam's so far beyond angry, he doesn't even know what to call it. Enraged, Livid, Infuriated...
they all seem to fall short. His eyes are boiling, churning seas of frothing blood, fixed on Chapman with an intensity that nothing will break. But the rest of him...
He's calm.
Very, very calm.
He casually raises a hand, and the vice principal falls to his knees, the preschool teacher a moment later, her gasps and cries loud in the deafening silence that seems to have fallen.
She immediately starts thrashing and clawing her way along the wall, trying to gain enough coordination in her oxygen deprived limbs to make a getaway.
It's a good thing she hasn't looked up. There is no option of escape in Sam's eyes.
The demon, on the other hand, hasn't moved, hasn't even twitched since it fell. His hands are flat on the floor, his head bowed. Dean looked closer and saw he was actually vibrating with intense strain, but any results were miniscule.
A glance at Sam, on the other hand, showed no effort at all.
Dean can't seem to do anything but watch either. He can hear the roaring of blood in his ears, and every nerve in his body is suddenly on high alert, amplifying every sensation. Movement in this state seems insane, like throwing himself naked into a briar patch.
And then there's that little voice in his head, telling him he has to let this happen, that it would be suicidal to throw himself between Sam and anything in his path.
No. Worse. It's telling him he should let this happen, that he needs to let this happen. That it's exactly as it should be.
Sam's lowered his hand, and slowly strides across the gym floor. The slick loafers of his F.B.I. costume echoing loudly.
He reaches the kneeling figure, and looks down.
“What was that you were saying about never bowing to me?”
His voice is just as calm, not a trace of amusement lurking anywhere.
But then again, Dean isn't sure he wants to see this version of his brother smile.
Chapman opens his mouth to speak, but Sam waves a finger dismissively and it snaps closed immediately. He thinks he may have heard his jaw bone crack.
“Rhetorical question. I don't actually want to hear anything from you.”
Sam begins a slow walk around the prostrate demon, talking as he goes.
“Now, you're right about a few things, I'll give you that.”
He steps on his right hand as he passes him, and Dean suddenly knows that there are 27 bones in the human hand and that every one is now broken in at least two places.
“I haven't had much power before now, but the past few weeks...” he chuckles. It sounds like flesh crackling on a spit.
“You'd be surprised at the things I've learned to do. I've always been a very quick study.” He runs his fingers down Chapman's shoulders, over his back.
“Like how to break down internal tissue without external damage.” He cocks his head.
The demon coughs up a puddle of blood, shaking more violently now.
Sam tuts. “Dear me, without any stomach lining, that gastric acid will burn right through your intestines. I can't imagine how slow and painful that must be. Here, let me help you get it over with.”
This time he screams, loud and clear, echoing across the bleachers and around the empty gymnasium until it was amplified a hundred times.
“Shhh. Keep your voice down.” Sam was directly behind hims now, leaning over to whisper clearly in his ear. “There are children outside. Wouldn't want to scare them. Now, as I was saying...”
Dean can't see anything, but he knows Sam just ripped out Chapman's Achilles' tendons and is slowly flaying them, each layer only a fraction of a millimeter thick.
“I've learned a lot of things over the past few weeks, but one thing I've always known...”
He spins around to the front and grabs the demon's face by the his broken jaw. He coughs blood on the front of Sam's shirt, but this doesn't seem to faze him.
“I will never, ever let him in the Pit without me. Is that clear?”
His eyes are unfocused, but he gains enough coherence to nod.
Sam smiles. “Good.”
And breaks every vertebrae in his spine simultaneously.
Dean feels a rush of adrenaline hit him, and the blood in his ears gets louder. But Sam isn't finished.
Sam turns to the quivering, terrified woman huddled in the corner.
“Get up.”
After only a few attempts, she makes it to her feet, sobbing silently, her shoulder shaking uncontrollably, her eyes on the bloodstained floor of the gym.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes snapped forward immediately, focusing on the top button of his shirt.
“Tell the others what happened here, and never try to test me again.”
Shocked, she meets Sam's eyes for a moment, before a funnel of black smoke blasts out of her, leaving nothing but a crumpled body behind.
Dean stares at it, uncomprehending.
Something important just happened, he knows that, but he can't for the life of him figure out what it was.
He feels drained, emotionally and physically, although all he'd done was stand by. Stand by and let this happen.
Sam comes up from behind and wraps his arms around him. Dean jumps as his shirt grates against his skin, his nerves still singing, but it dissipates into a quiet hum where Sam's skin touches his.
There are things he has to do. He's sure of this. Important things. Things that have to do with Sam and Hell and the mangled bodies now bleeding on the floor.
But he's tired. So tired.
And Sam is strong and warm behind him, and really, whatever it is can't be important after what he just saw, and Sam is there to take care of him.
Sam will always be there to take care of him.
He doesn't know how they get back to the hotel room, but soon they're stumbling through the door, and Dean is trying to gain enough coordination to put one foot in front of the other until he can reach the bed.
Sam nearly carries him the last few feet, before gently depositing him on the bed and turning to pull off his bloodstained clothes.
Dean squirms. The cheap comforter scratches, far too much on his skin. Now that Sam's warm calm isn't there anymore his skin is humming again, almost unbearable against the assault of rough sensation. He can't hear the blood pounding in his ears any more, but it's been replaced by a pounding headache instead. He feels like he's just run a marathon, a painful high of adrenaline, aching muscles, fear, sensation, confusion, power, and bone-deep exhaustion.
He whimpers. He needs it to go away, needs more of it, needs it never to have existed to so he couldn't know what it is to have it.
A quiet voice shushes him, and guides him under the covers before sliding in after him, gently tugging off his t-shirt. Sam strips him down and pulls him close, the skin on skin contact soothing away the tremors, the pain and the worst of the confusion.
Warm, calmed and protected, Dean curled into the Sam's arms, still frowning slightly.
There was something wrong. Something he needed to remember. Some reason he couldn't just give into this wonderful feeling of peace.
But a gentle hand was stroking though his hair, lulling him towards the sleep every cell in his body seemed to be crying out for.
Whatever it was, they'll figure it out in the morning.
*****
And the Prophet doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.
-Revelation 13:13
*****
After Sam's little display at the school, their entourage ring broke, scattering, before regrouping in a small town in Ohio.
In a matter of weeks the subdued mining town has refashioned itself as a Midwest Las Vegas, bringing together every vice known to man.
After a few hours of discussion, (including Bobby, with a few details omitted), they decide since they have no other leads, for hunt's or Dean's deal, to walk right into the hornet's nest, poke it with a stick and see what comes flying out.
It's pretty easy to tell who the Demons are. Half the town shies away, or stares at them in fascination. One poor girl, with the good fortune not to be possessed walked up to them and asked if they were movie stars the way everyone kept reacting.
Officially, they're looking for information on the Demon who holds Dean's contract.
Unofficially...they have no idea why they're doing this. It just seems like the only natural thing to do.
They walk into the bar in the heart of town where nine out of ten people are possessed, and sit down at the counter.
Everyone gives them a wide berth except for the bartender, who actually cheerfully comes up to take their drink orders. If she stays ever so slightly out of arm's reach, it's not noticable.
“There you go,” she says, serving up their drinks. “I always found the quickest way to get on someone's good side was to supply their liquor.”
“And we're someones' whose good side you want to get on?” Dean asks.
“Heck yes, sugar.”
“Who around here would know the most?” Sam interrupts, abruptly.
Her smile vanishes, turning serious to focus on Sam.
“Depends what you want to know about, I suppose. The guy in Trotter is the highest up the food chain, but Pastor Gil is one of the oldest.”
Sam excuses himself, disappearing into the crowd to find the demons he was looking for.
For a demon, the bartender, (who introduces herself as Casey), isn't so bad. She keeps serving him up free drinks, seems to prefer to stick to banter rather than the herd of elephants in the room, and when the stares in the back of his head get to be too much and Sam still isn't back yet, she invites him back to her place. He hesitantly accepts, after flagging down Sam and letting him know where he's going.
He's got two flasks of holy water, a salt gun and the knife on him just in case, but she doesn't try anything funny when she gets him alone.
“There, that ought to put them off our trail for a while.”
At least not in the way he was expecting.
Dean blinks. “Sorry, what?”
“I know who holds your contract.”
He waits for the catch. “And...what?”
“And nothing. I told you,” she grins. “You and your brother are the people whose good side I want to be on when the bill comes due.”
“All right. Talk.”
“Lilith. The Queen of the Pit.”
“Of course. Never heard of her.”
“She doesn't get out much... Also...Dean? I know.”
“Know what?” Dean griped, exasperated.
“I know it's you, not Sam.”
“I don't know what you're talking abo-”
“Lilith knows. That's why she made that deal with you. If she just killed you, you'd end up in the Pit and eventually take your rightful place. I guess she figured if she holds a contract on your soul, she can control you.”
Dean laughs, not quite knowing what to say to that.
“My 'rightful place'?”
“On the throne. We were prepared to follow Sam, but he's just the instrument, your tool.”
Dean snorted, panicking slightly. “Listen, lady...I'll be the first to admit that Sam can be a tool, but I really think...”
“Casey?”
They look up to see the Pastor entering the room, followed closely by Sam.
She greets him with a kiss as Dean assures Sam he's all right.
Casey grins excitedly, and starts talking to her lover a mile a minute.
“It's him, it really is. We can join him and help lead the new order...”
His reaction is less than ideal.
“Darling, we don't need a new Messiah. It's been tried before. There's nothing but chaos down below, and you know it.”
She looks confused. “But he can change that. I know he can. We talked about this.”
He strokes down her hair, and shushes her. “I know, my love, but I'm sorry.”
The next five seconds are utter chaos. The demon in the Pastor has pulled out a gun from somewhere and leveled it at Dean, while simultaneously pulling Casey in to stand directly behind him, as if that would shield her from the butchery about to ensue.
Dean's reaching for the knife, but it's not there.
Sam's already started the pull of power Dean recognizes from the school. He feels the blood beginning to pound in his ears, his nerves beginning to light up...
And he remembers the carnage that had ensued, an almost staged look to the twisted remains splayed across the waxed parquet basketball court.
He shouts out at the memory as much as the current scene.
“NO.”
Sam starts, and the power recedes at the same second the Demon's finger starts
Casey stood behind him, Ruby's knife buried to the hilt in his back, tears in her eyes but holding steady.
When he fell, she pulled out the blade, knelt down and presented it to Dean, head bowed.
“I'm sorry. You seemed jumpy when you first came. I got nervous.”
Dean took it, numbly, and started laughing.
Of all the crazy shit that had happened to him in the past few months, almost being assassinated by a demon who wanted an end to the monarchy in order to form a more perfect union of democratic demons was probably in the top three.
Sam hands him a jacket and takes him outside, where the sleek, smooth lines of the Impala and the early morning air serve, at least, as reminders of reality.
Casey follows, hanging back at a safe distance.
“So, I guess that answers a few questions,” Sam says.
“Really? Because I'm just as lost as ever.”
“My abilities clearly come from you, and you can control them when you want to.”
“Oh. That.” Dean says. Because really, what else could he say.
“For the record,” Sam says, “I could have obliterated him without harming a hair on her head.”
“Is that what you were going to do?” Dean asks.
Sam's silence is answer enough.
They stand in the cool air in silence a moment, drinking in the fact that once more, somehow, they're alive.
“Casey?” Dean says, staring out at the dark outline of the town.
“Yes, Dean?”
“If I ever decide I need a democratic cabinet, you are definitely on it.”
She smiles faintly. “Thank you.”
“And Casey?” Sam addresses her for the first time, voice nonchalant.
“Yes, m'lo-Sam?”
“He tried to touch Dean. That meant he was mine, and he forfeited any rights you had to him. Remember that. Most people wouldn't get a second chance.”
Casey nods and bows gratefully, barely waving goodbye to Dean before disappearing.
Sam came to lean against the side of the Impala next to him, and look out over the town, his hand twining in Dean's squeezing a little harder than necessary.
“I don't care who else is in the way. I don't ever want you to deliberately stop me from saving you again.”
The sun is beginning to rise, fire streaking across the sky of the city, painting it gold and red, greed and violence, and Dean suddenly knows what he wants.
“Sam?” he asks softly.
“Yes, Dean?”
“Burn it down for me?”
“Are you sure?”
He is the Beast, the Pit is his domain, all Demons his minions, and the Souls of the Corrupt his property.
This town falls squarely into all three categories, and he wants to see it burn.
“Yes.”
Sam nods, and raises a hand. Dean feels the fire flow through him into his Prophet, and together, they send Lilith a message.
*****
...Descended The Beast, and with him the False Prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf.
-Revelation 19:20
*****
Three months later, they decide it's time. Dean's started having nightmares about the Pit, and though he calms down the minute Sam wakes him up and wraps him arms around him, Sam's not keeping Dean under this damn deal any longer than he has to.
No one else owns a Winchester.
They explain as best they can to Bobby without telling him the whole truth, which ends up mostly convincing him they're running off to commit suicide. They leave the Impala with him, grab a bus to the next town over and check into a cheap motel room one last time.
Sam leans over and plants a gentle kiss on his lips, before they close their eyes and slip into Hell.
Hell, as best as Dean can describe it, seems to be located two feet to your left and half a second in front of you.
They appear just outside the Gates, swung wide open for the new arrivals. The mass of confused newly dead, part around them, continuing on the last leg of their journey.
Casey's there, as she said she would be, though she definitely doesn't look happy about it. She waits for the two of them to orientate themselves before starting through the gates.
Sam placed his hand on the small of Dean's back, and a warning thrum of power hung heavy in the air around them.
When Sam was six and just learning to read, he'd force any book he thought was 'brilliant', (pretty much all of them), at Dean, insisting he read it too.
He remembers there was one about this magical kingdom that finally died and was lain waste, only to be replaced by a bigger, more spectacular version of itself, in which the deeper into it you went, the larger it got.
And then it went and ruined itself by saying that the whole book was only the beginning of the story, but when he went and asked Sam about it he told him it was the last of the series.
What a gyp.
Hell does seem to be structured like that, though, with every ring, deeper and larger than the last. Past the gate, the Pit itself stretches on to infinity, sloping ever downwards.
But in the middle, rising from the deepest part of Hell, is a mountain.
It's immense, yet dwarfed by its surroundings, Sheer black cliff faces, of a material darker than coal yet sharper than granite rose up to level off suddenly with flat surface.
It's pretty obvious that that's where they're headed.
A lone staircase stretches to the top, an ornate,a bright, ivory white in contrast to the pitch black behemoth and the dull red glow beneath, some twenty feet across.
Dean's got a good idea of what it's made of, but keeps his eyes on Sam, on Casey's retreating back, on the unending cliff face.
Just don't look down.
Other people pass them on the stairs, in both directions, humans and demons alike.
Dean notices that only about one out of every ten demons has a host, yet the rest aren't the billowing, choking smoke they are above, but more like...ghosts. The dead, tormented souls they are.
They keep a human form, yet when Dean looks closely, he can see small bolts of that bright light that boils over when they die forming on their skin. If he looks closer still, he can notice the incongruities. A nose the keeps changing shape, a foot, dissolved into nothingness, yet still walked readily upon... The disappearing remnants of their past lives, as they forget their forms, age, even genders.
There is no visible light, but the glow from below, yet every face is sharp and clear as they pass, no veil of darkness to protect one from the truth of their situation.
The smell isn't what he expected, a burning, over powering smell of sulfur and the copper bite of blood.
It's gentler, but maybe more disquieting. A sterile, clean smell to the air, that holds just a promise of...
Something Dean can't quite catch. It's maddening.
The thing that may throw him the most is the noise.
He was expecting screams, maniacal laughter, tormented sobs of women and children, the clank and groan of metal and fire.
When they entered there had only been the sound of crowds, the dull roar of hundreds of people, talking amongst themselves, with the occasional sob, quickly swallowed by the mob.
And now, on the stairs...he feels, no. He knows that if he wanted he could hear every scream, harsh breath and drop of sweat to hit the floors in the pit, but the higher they climb, that quiet calm he's come to associate with Sam and his new powers seems to settle heavy.
He suddenly realizes he has no idea how long they have been climbing. It could be anywhere from thirty minutes to thirty years, and they're still not yet halfway to the top.
Sam's hand is still warm on his back, but the flow of power around them has changed. When Dean looks over at his brother, he sees he's not the only one affected by their surroundings. Sam's breathing is labored, and while his eyes stay fixed on Casey, they've gone back to reflecting those churning rivers of blood. The souls and demons are actively trying to get out of their way now, flinching as they pass, and even Casey is trembling as she leads on.
Watching Sam, Dean suddenly realizes that he feel incredible. No wonder his Prophet is overflowing, this is
all consuming. He views his surroundings in a whole new light. The noise is glorious, loud even over the overpowering roar of blood in his ears. The smell he couldn't identify before suddenly resonates as his, the physical imprint of his ownership on the very air. Every molecule of dust is his to shape. Every crackle of energy along of a damned soul his to use as he sees fit. His fingers twitch excitedly as he imagines the possibilities.
And Sam will do it all for him.
He stops walking, and Sam stops with him.
He wants to be at the top, to stop demeaning them with this slow trudge up a hill. And that's all it is. A hill. Should he ever want a mountain Sam could make him one a thousand times greater.
They are here to claim their rightful throne, and they will not waste time doing it.
He looks at Sam, his Prophet, his brother, his lover, and without so much as a flick of the fingers, the world reshapes itself around them, so that they stand at the top of the cliffs, viewing their domain.
There's a small, polite noise of someone clearing their throat behind them, and they turn, in their own time.
What they see seems more a Gothic re-envisioning of the Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland than the throne room of hell.
An ornate metal table, silver hues reflecting the firelight visible even from here stretches the length of a courtyard, lined by twisted iron trees and paved with polished black marble.
Dean looked on it, and knew that every particle of metal in the table was from a blade that had drawn human blood, and the trees were melted and shaped out of bullets that had taken men's lives.
A lone figure sat at the end of the table, delicately holding a bone china teacup and saucer, eyes demurely fixed on the table.
Lilith had no host right now, and her image flickered seamlessly back and forth between a ethereally fragile child and a tall, curvaceous redhead with violet eyes.
“Would you care to join me, gentlemen?” she asks eyes still not meeting theirs.
“No.” Dean replies and her cup crumbled to ash with the word.
She wipes her hands smoothly, as if barely aware that she had been holding something, before rising to her feet.
“Why are you here? Your contract is not for another six months.”
“We're not waiting,” Sam lashes out, and the trees melt where they stand, folding in and becoming gross caricatures of themselves before puddling on the floor.
“Killing me won't void Dean's contract,” Lilith tells them. “It will just mean someone else picks it up in my place.”
Sam smiles, and it's not calm. “I'm counting on it.”
Dean feels the inferno within him, come bursting out through every pore, every spark carefully collected by Sam, and channeled.
He doesn't want him to take his time. He wants this bitch gone. Now.
When Sam's finished there is no body, no blood, no pile of dust.
That would be evidence she ever existed in the first place, and from this moment on, she didn't.
Dean grabs Sam and kisses him, deep and long, and thinks he can almost feel the fire within them.
When Casey and the others arrive, the pavilion is reformed, with two simple thrones standing tall in the middle.
Dean crowns Sam the King of Hell, holder of all contracts, and ruler of the Pit before he takes his seat, at Sam's feet to his left.
No one notices that it's actually meant to be Sam who's sitting just behind Dean at his right hand side.
And so begins their reign.
*****
And by peace he shall destroy many, he shall stand up to the Prince of princes...
-Daniel 8:25
*****
They've ruled for two years, in Hell time, when Casey informs them that they want to send an ambassador.
It doesn't surprise Sam as much as it does Dean. In two years they've made major... modifications, to the inner workings of hell.
Dean spends most of his days wandering the inner circles, meeting the souls trapped there in the various stages of their transformations to demons. Dean always did like meeting new people.
And the saying is true. Go to Heaven for the Climate, but Hell for the Company.
He's even overcome some of his basic prejudices, and is able to admit, that yes, one of his best friends is a Demon, and that most of the people in the Pit are there for extremely good reasons. The fact that he and Sam just kept stumbling into it is more of an exception than the actual rule.
He's finally stopped viewing the world in black and white, and started to see the infinite shades of gray Hell specializes in.
Dean leaves most of the bureaucracy to Sam, but he's made some extremely creative suggestions for the child molesters and the mass murderers.
But on the day the first ambassador is due to arrive, Sam calls Dean in from his wanderings, a bizarre mixture of Dante and Henry the Fifth, to greet him as co-ruler.
They're sending an Archangel, something which makes Casey nervous, Dean annoyed, and tells Sam how seriously they're treating this new regime.
The Archangel's name is Zachariah, and within the first ten minutes of his arrival he's managed to annoy, insult, infuriate, irritate, disrespect, exasperate and prove himself egotistical, prejudiced, conceited and generally dickish.
Dean stabs him in the face with his own blade after twelve minutes, and tells the rest of the heavenly host they're welcome to try again.
A few days later they send Castiel.
He makes Dean laugh within five minutes, and stays.
Sam watches at the way he looks at Dean and gives it a month before he starts to fall.
*****
The Dragon gave the Beast his power and his throne and great authority.
- Revelation 13:2
*****
About five years later, Dean happens to run into the theologian who wrote the book he and Sam had found their true roles in, and sits down to have chat.
The man can't actually speak back, his mouth's been sewn shut (spreading lies against his neighbors) and he's buried up to his neck in hot tar (beat his wife and cheated on her), but Dean's gotten pretty good at reading faces over the past few years.
“You know, I always like that quote about Sam. “The Lamb that Spake like a Dragon.” Really sort of suits him, especially in the early days.” He chuckled. “You should have seen him. Biggest geek you ever saw.”
The man's eyes are pleading.
Dean sighs. That's the problem with new arrivals. Without special treatment it takes them about three hundred years to say anything more interesting than 'Please God, No, Please, Why?”
He slices through the man's nose to make sure he's paying attention.
“But when I went back and reread it later, I realized you didn't have a really cool name for me.
“Well,” he amends, “You had a lot of names for me. 'Prince of Lies, The First Beast, Antichrist, Son of Satan...' But nothing that really fit like Sam's does, y'know?”
He idly starts scalping the man as he talks.
“So I started thinking. What is my really cool title? And you know what I realized?”
The man shook his head as much as he was able, blood dripping down his face and into his eyes.
“My title,” Dean continued, “Would naturally be the inverse of Sam's. What's the mathematical term for that? Complementary?”
A muffled groan agrees.
“So,” Dean smiles, surveying his handiwork. “I guess that makes me the Dragon that speaks like a Lamb.”
Sam walks out of the nothingness, and wraps his arms around Dean, twining him around for a kiss.
“You called?”
“Mmm. Sam, you remember Mr...”
“Ah, yes,” Sam smiles. “I'm a big fan of your work.”
“I know,” Dean grins. “So I was thinking we could do something special for him by way of appreciation. Something nice.”
“Of course, You're so generous, Dean. Should we let him out of the Pit?”
The man's eyes widen, not daring to hope...
“I think that would be appropriate.”
Sam waves his hand, and the man rose out of his bath of tar, all his wounds vanishing.
And with another, he crumpled into dust.
Sam and Dean both shivered as the remnant energy from his soul flowed into them.
After all, those stitches would eventually break, and aside from Casey and a select few, Hell wasn't ready to hear the truth just yet.
“You coming home tonight?” Sam asked, dropping a kiss on the back of Dean's neck.
Dean stretched luxuriously, and nuzzled into the embrace.
“Yeah, Cas has to go topside to make a report, so I should be home early.”
“All right. I just have a few things to wrap up, and I'll see you later.”
With a final peck on the lips, Sam turned and vanished into the dark.
Dean surveyed the empty spot a moment more, before continuing along the path, humming Zeppelin as he went.
*****
So they worshiped the Dragon who gave authority to the Beast; and they worshiped the Beast, saying, “Who is like the Beast? Who is able to make war with him?”
- Revelation 13:4
*****
The tradition scriptures prophesize that the Antichrist and the False Prophet will rule Hell (and maybe Earth), for 1600 years, before an Angel of the Lord would cast them for all eternity into a lake of fire and brimstone.
But seeing the look of fondness on Castiel's face, as he bickers with Dean over the philosophical and theological meanings of Star Wars III, Sam thinks he might not just be being optimistic in thinking they have a little longer than that.
***
The End?
***
A/N:
Originally Posted on sammessiah fordreamlittleyo for Antichristmas 2011.
When I got this prompt I freaked, both because I had no idea what to do with it, and because the requester was one of my all time favorite authors. So I read Revelation about four times, came up with the premise and did nothing with it until Sunday, when I sat down and wrote the whole thing in a couple marathon sessions over a 24 hour period! HECK YEAH PROCRASTINATION!
I actually liked Ruby, especially in Season 3. I just think she's overused in fic, and that Casey was awesome and is mostly ignored.
Cookies for anyone who recognizes where I stole Vice Principal Chapman from.
Beta: Unbeta'ed because my Beta ran off to Canada
Pairing: Sam/Dean Established Relationship
Rating: R
Warnings: Torture, Boy!King, Slight Tweaking of Revelation
Spoilers: Extremely AU after AHBL
Wordcount: 9,500
Summary: Dean is the Antichrist, but Sam is his False Prophet.
A/N: Written for dreamlittleyo at sammessiah for Antichristmas 2011 for the prompt: "“Hell got it wrong. Sam's not the Antichrist after all...Dean is. Or course, Sam's more than willing to play the part and front for his brother.”
*****
If any man have an ear, let him hear.
-Revelation 13:9
*****
This has been one of the worst weeks of Dean's life.
...Which, when you actually consider the rest of his life, is a fairly impressive feat.
And considering too that he only has...what, fifty-one of them left? He's pretty damn determined to make sure the next one is a hell of a lot better.
...Okay, maybe a poor choice of words.
But really, this should be a high point for him! He killed the demon. Shot right between the eyes. Dad had seen it, Sam was going to be okay, and he had a year of total freedom.
So it was kind of pissing him off that everyone else was bringing him down.
They'd left Bobby and Ellen at the Devil's Gate, and just started driving. It was the best feeling Dean knew.
That rush of adrenaline and relief that mixed after a hunt, when you knew you'd killed some evil son of a bitch and that someone was going to go home to their family tonight when they might not have before. With Sam in the passenger seat making snide comments as Dean blasted Metallica, totally disregarding posted speed limits, rushing down the road with the rumble of the Impala vibrating through the steering wheel into his fingers, and the knowledge that, for the next little while at least, they were going to be okay.
It took him about an hour to come down off the high enough to realize Sam hadn't spoken the entire time. He was just staring out at the passing fields, with his bitchy little frown reflecting in the window at such an angle it seemed to stare directly at Dean.
Whatever. So he needed some time to adjust to the situation. Dean could give him that. He'd be fine.
It's already nearing dawn, but Dean doesn't want to stop for another crappy motel, just waiting for Sam to confront him with another chick flick moment. So they drive on, straight through Montana, until they almost hit the Canadian border. Around two in the afternoon, they swing through a fast food place and head west. Sam still hasn't said a word.
Dean finally gives into the exhaustion settling into his bones, high long since dissipated, and they pull into a motel in some small town in east Idaho around seven.
He gets them a room, flirting a little longer with the check in girl than he genuinely wants to, and finally accepts that the sooner he gets the inevitable argument with Sam over, the sooner he can finally get some sleep.
They go through their usual routine for new hotel rooms. Pick a bed, unpack, salt lines by window and door, holy water under the bed...
Sam takes the first shower, and Dean's too tired to argue. He kicks off his boots and lies back on the crummy mattress, staring at yet another cheap popcorn ceiling, and waits for the flow of water to stop.
About ten minutes later, it does, and Dean hears Sam's footsteps falter a moments before the door opens.
Sam walks out, frayed and ridiculously tiny towel wrapped around his waist, held in place by one of his gargantuan hands. He'd forgone drying his hair after the fiftieth time Dean complained he was using up all the towels on his stupid girly mop, and drops of water were falling in near perfect counterpoint down his chest and back, sliding down the grooves made by near-perfect muscle definition until they slid into or under the ludicrously disproportionate piece of terrycloth.
Dean unconsciously licked his lips. Somehow he'd forgotten that these days their arguments more often than not ended in truly fantastic make-up sex.
He wasn't really that tired.
Sam finally opened his mouth, and he braced himself for the epic bitching out he'd been avoiding all day.
“Shower's yours.”
Dean blinked, waiting for more. But Sam just pushed passed him, pulled on a pair of raggedy old sweats, climbed into the opposite bed, turned off his lamp, and rolled over.
Dean sat in the dark, dumbfounded.
Huh. Maybe Sam's dealing with this better than he expected.
He really didn't have the energy to start the argument himself, just to get the last of the tension out. He didn't even know if he had the energy to take a shower.
Looking down at himself, he grimaced. Besides the sweat and dirt of a marathon drive, his skin was covered in miniscule flecks of dried blood. He didn't know how long he'd had them, or where the blood had come from.
He didn't even know if it belonged to Sam or the Yellow Eyed SOB.
All he knew was that he had a sudden, burning desire to be clean again.
Pulling himself to his feet, he stumbled into the steamed up bathroom, pulling off his t-shirt as Sam continued to pretend to be asleep.
***
Four days later, Dean had to admit that everything was not fine, nor did it have any indication of becoming anything resembling fine in the near future.
Sam still barely spoke a word to him, except to ask him to pass the salt or to mention that there was a library in the next town over they should check out.
He'd been making them stop at any library that looked like it might house a book that was published before the 70's. He'd go in, flash his shy geeky grin at the unsuspecting librarians, explain he was new in town and ask for a library card.
He'd then check out any book on lore or demonology he hadn't seen before, and even some he had with different editions.
The useless books and the library cards went in the trash at the next diner they stopped at.
Dean would have refused to keep doing this, but it wasn't like there was anything else to do.
They hadn't had a demon sighting or so much as a whiff of an omen since the Gate opened.
Every day Bobby called and delivered up a negative report before Sam motioned for the phone and started questioning him about the latest piece of nothing he'd found in his books.
It wasn't like they were going to find anything, so why not let Sam feel like he was doing something?
Plus, he admitted to himself, it was a bit easier to ignore the fact that Sam wasn't talking to him when he continuously had his nose in a book.
So every day they drive in ever increasing circles around Wyoming, stopping at libraries, talk to Bobby, and eat diner food in silence, Sam's face often hidden behind the volume leaning against the ketchup bottle. And every night, Sam goes to sleep in his own bed. back turned against Dean, a clear sign to stay away. He's having nightmares again, but refusing to answer when Dean asks if they're the same as when he was seeing things.
By the end of the week, Dean decides that something absolutely has to give.
He really needs Sam to talk to him, hit him, fuck him. Anything.
Or he needs to kill something.
Anything.
The next day they're halfway through Utah, and Dean let Sam take Bobby's call. Even if he wasn't talking to Dean it was at least reassuring to know that he could speak if he wanted to. It's even worth giving up the only direct conversation with a human he'll have that day that includes more than his lunch order.
“Hey, Bobby. I was looking through this old version of the Grimoire and I wanted to ask you what you thought of...what? You did?”
Dean looks over, trying to stay calm. Sam sound slightly too excited for comfort. They couldn't have actually found something, could they?
Sam listens another moment, before jotting down notes on the inside cover of his book, frowning.
“We were just there. Okay. Thanks, Bobby. Talk to you later.”
He hangs up and turns to Dean.
“Demon signs showed up in Bryce Canyon City.”
“What?” Dean's initial shock and excitement, dims for a moment.
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Because that's where we stayed two days ago. About 200 miles south. ”
Nodding, Dean pulls a sharp U-Turn in the middle of the interstate and guns the gas pedal, and just like that, they're back.
Only when they get to Bryce Canyon, little more than a hotel with a gas station, all they find are some confused and freaked out civvies, and enough sulfur to fertilize a field.
They scour the town until dawn, questioning almost everyone in the population of 60, and they're still going when they get another call from Bobby.
Dean answers this time, and the news makes him pale slightly.
“Charleston. 400 miles north.”
And that's how it starts.
No matter where they follow the omens, they always seem to arrive just a few hours too late, a single town over.
Eventually, it become obvious that the Demons are following them, as if that wasn't a thought to chill the blood in your veins.
Every town they stay in gets hit a day or two later, only to vanish on their arrival.
Once Sam suggests they stay in one town a few days, see if they can bring the demons to them.
A family of five is slaughtered in the town where they stopped for gas and a burger run.
They don't try it again.
When Bobby's calls start coming three or four times a day, and the map in the glove box starts showing a ring of demons surrounding them, they start to get desperate.
But the ring doesn't close. They aren't attacked. The ring just keeps a perfect circumference around them, about sixty miles in any direction they move. They're prisoners, Dean supposes, but the way the circle moves seems oddly...deferential. Less like they're afraid to attack, and more...respectful of them.
Good. After all the bastards they've sent packing back to the pit, they deserve a little respect.
They're halfway through the Great Plains, trying to find a place where the circle won't hit anywhere majorly populated when Ruby shows up.
She actually strolls into the diner where they're eating, plops down in the booth next to Sam, lets her eyes slide to black, starts eating Dean's french fries and babbling on about how she's going to help them.
Sam just sits there, listening and staring at her. If he wasn't equally freaked out, Dean would have been horrified at his brother's complacency sitting six inches from a demon, even if she is pretty damn hot.
It's obvious what she's building up to: offering them a way out of Dean's deal. And even though the past few weeks Sam's put the books aside to focus on their more pressing demon troubles, it's clear he's actually going to listen to her.
She gets a sneaky smile on her face right as she's about to throw her big pitch. Dean doesn't let her, and throws a glass of salted holy water in her face.
She shrieks and collapses on the table. Sam starts, moving his gaze from her to Dean and back, as if he'd suddenly remembered what she was.
The rest of the restaurant patrons are starting to stare, so Dean flashes them all a grin and says something loud about allergic attacks as Sam carries her out over his shoulder.
They bind her with rope soaked in holy water, and toss her in the back seat. Sam keeps giving her regular douses when she starts to come out of it as Dean drives like hell for the abandoned grain silo they saw last night, cursing what the salt water must be doing to his leather.
An hour later they've got her in the strongest Devil's trap they know, reinforced by a half a dozen salt lines and sopping wet from head to toe.
Her reassurances that she's only there to help them die down after a while. Eventually she lies on the floor, murmuring choked lines of Latin, smiling serenely at the ceiling in a way that's really fucking creepy.
Dean only catches a few words, and turns to Sam for translation.
“What's she saying?”
“I think she's quoting from the original translation of Daniel.”
“A demon's quoting scripture? Why the hell is she doing that?”
Sam frowned, and kept listening to the frenzied words falling from her lips.
“Sam?”
“I think she's talking about the rise of the Antichrist.”
“Well why's she doing that? What is it, the Demon version of praying to god to get you out of trouble?”
Ruby stopped reciting abruptly and laughed, high and loud.
She turned her head to meet Sam's eyes and continued in English.
“And I saw his head as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed.”
She smiled again, less pleasant this time, a fanatical look in her eyes. “And all the world marveled and followed the beast.”
Dean fought the urge to cross the circle to slap her, shake her, anything to get her to shut up.
Sam walked up to the edge of the trap, and crouched down to see her eyes better, fascinated.
Her smiled deepened, taking on that serene, blissed out quality again.
“Everyone knows what you did at Cold Oak, Sam. And we're ready to follow.”
Dean manages to resist pulling Sam away from the hell bitch, and instead did the next best thing to shut her up.
She gasps as another bucket of holy water lands over her, but the scream Dean had been hoping for doesn't come, and she's still maintaining that peaceful fucking look on her face.
Sam still hasn't moved, eyes fixed like he's trying to stare straight through her.
Dean has had enough of this bitch. As he begins to recite the first exorcism to come to mind, she finally began to move. The screams and stunted writhing in her bonds is so satisfying it's almost a little scary.
He's halfway through the exorcism when she lets out a choked cry and arches off the floor higher than he though was humanly possible. As her jacket gapes, he sees a glint of metal, stuck in the back of her pants.
Without thinking, he reaches through the lines of the Devil's Trap, and pulls it out.
It's a hunting knife, with jagged edges for bleeding, inscribed with symbols he didn't recognize.
He'd stopped chanting, and when he glances back over to the demon, he sees something in her eyes that has been entirely too absent throughout these whole proceedings.
Fear.
Sam and Ruby are both staring at him now, waiting to see what he does next.
He does the only logical thing.
He stabs her in the chest, up and under the ribs until he feels the tip of the blade pierce her heart, staring into her eyes as the fear is replaced by a light he recognizes as the shadows of hellfire, making sure she understands the last message she'll ever get.
He's Mine, you bitch. And you're never going to get him. None of you are ever going to get him.
It's the best Dean's felt in weeks.
Sam doesn't say anything when Dean straightens up, and for a moment he worries he's going to go back to giving him the silent treatment.
He's quiet while they clean up and dump the body, but on the way back to the motel where they're staying tonight, he speaks up.
“I was stabbed in the back.”
Dean nearly runs them off the road, he's so jumpy, then winces at the memory.
“Yeah. I know. I was there.”
He carefully avoids adding, 'You died in my arms, you bastard. You died and left me alone and now we're here.'
He doesn't think it would help the situation much.
“Yeah, but the line she was quoting about the signs of the Antichrist? He's supposed to be struck down with a mortal head wound and survive. She didn't know I was stabbed in the back. She just knew I came back.”
“Well there you go,” Dean snapped. “She was a psychotic religious fanatic demon and now she's dead.”
“Yeah, but Dean-”
“That's it. End of story.”
Sam fell silent again, and for the rest of the ride the only noise was the rhythmic rumble of the Impala's engines, as they both try to forget the sound of a heart monitor, beeping away in a lonely hospital room with a Ouija board on the floor.
*****
And the False Prophet had horns like a lamb, yet spake as a dragon.
-Revelation 13:11
*****
The next few days continued in much the same way as the weeks before.
The ring of demons holds around them, though no more emissaries are sent to contact them. Dean sleeps with his new knife under his pillow.
Sam goes back to spending his nose buried in old books, but if Dean was paying attention instead of willfully ignoring them, he would have noticed the topics were slightly changed.
They still weren't talking much, and Sam would barely even touch him to pass him the motel key, but every once in a while Dean would catch Sam staring at him in the corner of his eye, before returning his attention to the endless tomes he'd dredged up.
After three days of this nothingness, with that dead bitch's words, rattling around inside his head, Dean cracked.
Sam went out to pick up the pizza from the one tiny joint in this town, and for once, didn't take the books and notepad he now carried with him everywhere, instead hastily burying it under a pile of other books and papers when he thought Dean wasn't looking.
Dean pulled out the book, carefully noting the order of disarray it had been placed under, because Sam was just the kind of obsessive that would notice something like that, and flipped it open to first page marked.
It wasn't that old, or that obscure. It was just a 18th century biblical interpretation by some old fogey in London.
Sam had marked a couple of the passages in Daniel, but a large chunk of Revelation was nearly completely covered in notes in Sam's neat little handwriting that was far too tiny for the size of his hands.
Dean let his eyes fall on the first paragraph.
Between Revelation 13, Daniel 7-8, and several of the apocrypha declared obsolete by the Catholic Church during the purges of the 13th Century, several clues about the mannerisms and personality of the Antichrist, or the First Beast, are given. He will be Atheistic, often blaspheming against God in his speech. He can trace back his lineage to many noble men, for it written 'He is a king, and his father was a king'. He is described as a fierce warrior, yet will exhibit Abnormal Inclinations. He is charismatic, as the serpent, deemed the Prince of Lies. He shall ignore or flout the laws of Man, yet for many years he shall save and be loved by many in secret. This may perhaps refer to the miracles the he and the Second Beast, provide to the people...
Sam couldn't really be buying into this, right? Panicking slightly, Dean flips to the next marked passage. It focused mainly on the second beast mentioned before.
The Second Beast will rise after the First, and is known as the False Prophet. He is described in Revelation 13 as a Lamb that spake as a Dragon. As this refers to the Lamb of God, the False Prophet shall believe in God, yet act against him. The Second Beast exists to aid the Antichrist, by exercising his powers for the aim obtaining control over Hell and Earth for him. Together, the Antichrist and the False Prophet will travel the world, performing miracles for the people in secret, to gain their trust and belief, before journeying to Hell to receive the throne-
Dean slams the book shut.
When Sam comes back ten minutes later with the pizza, he doesn't comment on the fact that the book was three feet from where he'd left it, or on the lamp thrown against the wall, shattered into cheap, porcelain pieces.
They sit on opposite beds and watch the second half of Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2.
*****
And The Prophet exerciseth all the power of the Beast, and causeth the earth to worship...
-Revelation 13:12
*****
They've had enough of doing nothing.
Sam wakes up screaming one night in Colorado, and while Dean's helping him spill his guts to the toilet finally admits he's been having visions again.
There's a demon two towns over that seems to have broken off from the group to terrorize an elementary school.
It's a success, for them.
They get all the kids out safely, and they're about to go back for Miss Hastings, the preschool teacher when they hear an earsplitting scream coming from the gymnasium.
Leaving a nervously deputized crossing guard with a salt gun behind with the kids, they run towards the voice.
There's Miss Hastings alright, with Vice Principal Chapman holding her halfway up the wall by her throat.
He spins to greet them, the teacher desperately trying to catch her breath as tears squeezed past her tightly shut lids, to run down her cheeks, not enough air left in her lungs to do anything else.
“Well, well, well,” Chapman purrs, eyes sliding to black. “Look who we have here.”
His fingers tighten warningly as Dean makes a move towards the knife behind his back, but his eyes stay fixed on Sam.
“The Messiah Arrives, does he?”
Sam raises his hands, dropping the holy water on the well waxed floor, palms open.
“I'm not your messiah.”
“Damn straight, you're not,” the demon hisses. “The others are all cowering, singing your praises, Winchester, but I see what those pious idiots can't.”
Sam catches Dean's eye as he starts, more slowly to reach for the knife again.
“And what's that?”
“That you're weak. You're nothing. You're no more the Boy King than this, he shook the sobbing woman slightly, nearly tearing her throat out in the process, piece of human garbage.”
Dean's fingers wrap around the handle as Chapman sneeringly continues.
“I will never bow to you. You're nothing. And once I show the others your mangled, broken corpse they'll know it too.”
His eyes nearly dart back to Dean before Sam distracts him from the blade in his hand.
“I never claimed to be the Boy King. Your lot came to me.”
He snorts. “Cheap tricks. A bit of psychic power here, a dash of moral ambiguity there. You have no real power.”
Dean's never practiced throwing this blade before, but it seems fairly balanced. But if it's off, even just a little, he could hit the hostage...
“What can you even do? You can't even keep your own, precious brother from the Pit.”
Bad choice for last words.
Dean throws the knife...and misses.
It doesn't hit Miss Hastings, but it lands a good two feet to Chapman's left to bury itself to the hilt in the wall.
The concrete wall.
What the hell? There's no way he missed by that much.
Dean looks over at Sam and knows he didn't.
Sam's so far beyond angry, he doesn't even know what to call it. Enraged, Livid, Infuriated...
they all seem to fall short. His eyes are boiling, churning seas of frothing blood, fixed on Chapman with an intensity that nothing will break. But the rest of him...
He's calm.
Very, very calm.
He casually raises a hand, and the vice principal falls to his knees, the preschool teacher a moment later, her gasps and cries loud in the deafening silence that seems to have fallen.
She immediately starts thrashing and clawing her way along the wall, trying to gain enough coordination in her oxygen deprived limbs to make a getaway.
It's a good thing she hasn't looked up. There is no option of escape in Sam's eyes.
The demon, on the other hand, hasn't moved, hasn't even twitched since it fell. His hands are flat on the floor, his head bowed. Dean looked closer and saw he was actually vibrating with intense strain, but any results were miniscule.
A glance at Sam, on the other hand, showed no effort at all.
Dean can't seem to do anything but watch either. He can hear the roaring of blood in his ears, and every nerve in his body is suddenly on high alert, amplifying every sensation. Movement in this state seems insane, like throwing himself naked into a briar patch.
And then there's that little voice in his head, telling him he has to let this happen, that it would be suicidal to throw himself between Sam and anything in his path.
No. Worse. It's telling him he should let this happen, that he needs to let this happen. That it's exactly as it should be.
Sam's lowered his hand, and slowly strides across the gym floor. The slick loafers of his F.B.I. costume echoing loudly.
He reaches the kneeling figure, and looks down.
“What was that you were saying about never bowing to me?”
His voice is just as calm, not a trace of amusement lurking anywhere.
But then again, Dean isn't sure he wants to see this version of his brother smile.
Chapman opens his mouth to speak, but Sam waves a finger dismissively and it snaps closed immediately. He thinks he may have heard his jaw bone crack.
“Rhetorical question. I don't actually want to hear anything from you.”
Sam begins a slow walk around the prostrate demon, talking as he goes.
“Now, you're right about a few things, I'll give you that.”
He steps on his right hand as he passes him, and Dean suddenly knows that there are 27 bones in the human hand and that every one is now broken in at least two places.
“I haven't had much power before now, but the past few weeks...” he chuckles. It sounds like flesh crackling on a spit.
“You'd be surprised at the things I've learned to do. I've always been a very quick study.” He runs his fingers down Chapman's shoulders, over his back.
“Like how to break down internal tissue without external damage.” He cocks his head.
The demon coughs up a puddle of blood, shaking more violently now.
Sam tuts. “Dear me, without any stomach lining, that gastric acid will burn right through your intestines. I can't imagine how slow and painful that must be. Here, let me help you get it over with.”
This time he screams, loud and clear, echoing across the bleachers and around the empty gymnasium until it was amplified a hundred times.
“Shhh. Keep your voice down.” Sam was directly behind hims now, leaning over to whisper clearly in his ear. “There are children outside. Wouldn't want to scare them. Now, as I was saying...”
Dean can't see anything, but he knows Sam just ripped out Chapman's Achilles' tendons and is slowly flaying them, each layer only a fraction of a millimeter thick.
“I've learned a lot of things over the past few weeks, but one thing I've always known...”
He spins around to the front and grabs the demon's face by the his broken jaw. He coughs blood on the front of Sam's shirt, but this doesn't seem to faze him.
“I will never, ever let him in the Pit without me. Is that clear?”
His eyes are unfocused, but he gains enough coherence to nod.
Sam smiles. “Good.”
And breaks every vertebrae in his spine simultaneously.
Dean feels a rush of adrenaline hit him, and the blood in his ears gets louder. But Sam isn't finished.
Sam turns to the quivering, terrified woman huddled in the corner.
“Get up.”
After only a few attempts, she makes it to her feet, sobbing silently, her shoulder shaking uncontrollably, her eyes on the bloodstained floor of the gym.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes snapped forward immediately, focusing on the top button of his shirt.
“Tell the others what happened here, and never try to test me again.”
Shocked, she meets Sam's eyes for a moment, before a funnel of black smoke blasts out of her, leaving nothing but a crumpled body behind.
Dean stares at it, uncomprehending.
Something important just happened, he knows that, but he can't for the life of him figure out what it was.
He feels drained, emotionally and physically, although all he'd done was stand by. Stand by and let this happen.
Sam comes up from behind and wraps his arms around him. Dean jumps as his shirt grates against his skin, his nerves still singing, but it dissipates into a quiet hum where Sam's skin touches his.
There are things he has to do. He's sure of this. Important things. Things that have to do with Sam and Hell and the mangled bodies now bleeding on the floor.
But he's tired. So tired.
And Sam is strong and warm behind him, and really, whatever it is can't be important after what he just saw, and Sam is there to take care of him.
Sam will always be there to take care of him.
He doesn't know how they get back to the hotel room, but soon they're stumbling through the door, and Dean is trying to gain enough coordination to put one foot in front of the other until he can reach the bed.
Sam nearly carries him the last few feet, before gently depositing him on the bed and turning to pull off his bloodstained clothes.
Dean squirms. The cheap comforter scratches, far too much on his skin. Now that Sam's warm calm isn't there anymore his skin is humming again, almost unbearable against the assault of rough sensation. He can't hear the blood pounding in his ears any more, but it's been replaced by a pounding headache instead. He feels like he's just run a marathon, a painful high of adrenaline, aching muscles, fear, sensation, confusion, power, and bone-deep exhaustion.
He whimpers. He needs it to go away, needs more of it, needs it never to have existed to so he couldn't know what it is to have it.
A quiet voice shushes him, and guides him under the covers before sliding in after him, gently tugging off his t-shirt. Sam strips him down and pulls him close, the skin on skin contact soothing away the tremors, the pain and the worst of the confusion.
Warm, calmed and protected, Dean curled into the Sam's arms, still frowning slightly.
There was something wrong. Something he needed to remember. Some reason he couldn't just give into this wonderful feeling of peace.
But a gentle hand was stroking though his hair, lulling him towards the sleep every cell in his body seemed to be crying out for.
Whatever it was, they'll figure it out in the morning.
*****
And the Prophet doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.
-Revelation 13:13
*****
After Sam's little display at the school, their entourage ring broke, scattering, before regrouping in a small town in Ohio.
In a matter of weeks the subdued mining town has refashioned itself as a Midwest Las Vegas, bringing together every vice known to man.
After a few hours of discussion, (including Bobby, with a few details omitted), they decide since they have no other leads, for hunt's or Dean's deal, to walk right into the hornet's nest, poke it with a stick and see what comes flying out.
It's pretty easy to tell who the Demons are. Half the town shies away, or stares at them in fascination. One poor girl, with the good fortune not to be possessed walked up to them and asked if they were movie stars the way everyone kept reacting.
Officially, they're looking for information on the Demon who holds Dean's contract.
Unofficially...they have no idea why they're doing this. It just seems like the only natural thing to do.
They walk into the bar in the heart of town where nine out of ten people are possessed, and sit down at the counter.
Everyone gives them a wide berth except for the bartender, who actually cheerfully comes up to take their drink orders. If she stays ever so slightly out of arm's reach, it's not noticable.
“There you go,” she says, serving up their drinks. “I always found the quickest way to get on someone's good side was to supply their liquor.”
“And we're someones' whose good side you want to get on?” Dean asks.
“Heck yes, sugar.”
“Who around here would know the most?” Sam interrupts, abruptly.
Her smile vanishes, turning serious to focus on Sam.
“Depends what you want to know about, I suppose. The guy in Trotter is the highest up the food chain, but Pastor Gil is one of the oldest.”
Sam excuses himself, disappearing into the crowd to find the demons he was looking for.
For a demon, the bartender, (who introduces herself as Casey), isn't so bad. She keeps serving him up free drinks, seems to prefer to stick to banter rather than the herd of elephants in the room, and when the stares in the back of his head get to be too much and Sam still isn't back yet, she invites him back to her place. He hesitantly accepts, after flagging down Sam and letting him know where he's going.
He's got two flasks of holy water, a salt gun and the knife on him just in case, but she doesn't try anything funny when she gets him alone.
“There, that ought to put them off our trail for a while.”
At least not in the way he was expecting.
Dean blinks. “Sorry, what?”
“I know who holds your contract.”
He waits for the catch. “And...what?”
“And nothing. I told you,” she grins. “You and your brother are the people whose good side I want to be on when the bill comes due.”
“All right. Talk.”
“Lilith. The Queen of the Pit.”
“Of course. Never heard of her.”
“She doesn't get out much... Also...Dean? I know.”
“Know what?” Dean griped, exasperated.
“I know it's you, not Sam.”
“I don't know what you're talking abo-”
“Lilith knows. That's why she made that deal with you. If she just killed you, you'd end up in the Pit and eventually take your rightful place. I guess she figured if she holds a contract on your soul, she can control you.”
Dean laughs, not quite knowing what to say to that.
“My 'rightful place'?”
“On the throne. We were prepared to follow Sam, but he's just the instrument, your tool.”
Dean snorted, panicking slightly. “Listen, lady...I'll be the first to admit that Sam can be a tool, but I really think...”
“Casey?”
They look up to see the Pastor entering the room, followed closely by Sam.
She greets him with a kiss as Dean assures Sam he's all right.
Casey grins excitedly, and starts talking to her lover a mile a minute.
“It's him, it really is. We can join him and help lead the new order...”
His reaction is less than ideal.
“Darling, we don't need a new Messiah. It's been tried before. There's nothing but chaos down below, and you know it.”
She looks confused. “But he can change that. I know he can. We talked about this.”
He strokes down her hair, and shushes her. “I know, my love, but I'm sorry.”
The next five seconds are utter chaos. The demon in the Pastor has pulled out a gun from somewhere and leveled it at Dean, while simultaneously pulling Casey in to stand directly behind him, as if that would shield her from the butchery about to ensue.
Dean's reaching for the knife, but it's not there.
Sam's already started the pull of power Dean recognizes from the school. He feels the blood beginning to pound in his ears, his nerves beginning to light up...
And he remembers the carnage that had ensued, an almost staged look to the twisted remains splayed across the waxed parquet basketball court.
He shouts out at the memory as much as the current scene.
“NO.”
Sam starts, and the power recedes at the same second the Demon's finger starts
Casey stood behind him, Ruby's knife buried to the hilt in his back, tears in her eyes but holding steady.
When he fell, she pulled out the blade, knelt down and presented it to Dean, head bowed.
“I'm sorry. You seemed jumpy when you first came. I got nervous.”
Dean took it, numbly, and started laughing.
Of all the crazy shit that had happened to him in the past few months, almost being assassinated by a demon who wanted an end to the monarchy in order to form a more perfect union of democratic demons was probably in the top three.
Sam hands him a jacket and takes him outside, where the sleek, smooth lines of the Impala and the early morning air serve, at least, as reminders of reality.
Casey follows, hanging back at a safe distance.
“So, I guess that answers a few questions,” Sam says.
“Really? Because I'm just as lost as ever.”
“My abilities clearly come from you, and you can control them when you want to.”
“Oh. That.” Dean says. Because really, what else could he say.
“For the record,” Sam says, “I could have obliterated him without harming a hair on her head.”
“Is that what you were going to do?” Dean asks.
Sam's silence is answer enough.
They stand in the cool air in silence a moment, drinking in the fact that once more, somehow, they're alive.
“Casey?” Dean says, staring out at the dark outline of the town.
“Yes, Dean?”
“If I ever decide I need a democratic cabinet, you are definitely on it.”
She smiles faintly. “Thank you.”
“And Casey?” Sam addresses her for the first time, voice nonchalant.
“Yes, m'lo-Sam?”
“He tried to touch Dean. That meant he was mine, and he forfeited any rights you had to him. Remember that. Most people wouldn't get a second chance.”
Casey nods and bows gratefully, barely waving goodbye to Dean before disappearing.
Sam came to lean against the side of the Impala next to him, and look out over the town, his hand twining in Dean's squeezing a little harder than necessary.
“I don't care who else is in the way. I don't ever want you to deliberately stop me from saving you again.”
The sun is beginning to rise, fire streaking across the sky of the city, painting it gold and red, greed and violence, and Dean suddenly knows what he wants.
“Sam?” he asks softly.
“Yes, Dean?”
“Burn it down for me?”
“Are you sure?”
He is the Beast, the Pit is his domain, all Demons his minions, and the Souls of the Corrupt his property.
This town falls squarely into all three categories, and he wants to see it burn.
“Yes.”
Sam nods, and raises a hand. Dean feels the fire flow through him into his Prophet, and together, they send Lilith a message.
*****
...Descended The Beast, and with him the False Prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf.
-Revelation 19:20
*****
Three months later, they decide it's time. Dean's started having nightmares about the Pit, and though he calms down the minute Sam wakes him up and wraps him arms around him, Sam's not keeping Dean under this damn deal any longer than he has to.
No one else owns a Winchester.
They explain as best they can to Bobby without telling him the whole truth, which ends up mostly convincing him they're running off to commit suicide. They leave the Impala with him, grab a bus to the next town over and check into a cheap motel room one last time.
Sam leans over and plants a gentle kiss on his lips, before they close their eyes and slip into Hell.
Hell, as best as Dean can describe it, seems to be located two feet to your left and half a second in front of you.
They appear just outside the Gates, swung wide open for the new arrivals. The mass of confused newly dead, part around them, continuing on the last leg of their journey.
Casey's there, as she said she would be, though she definitely doesn't look happy about it. She waits for the two of them to orientate themselves before starting through the gates.
Sam placed his hand on the small of Dean's back, and a warning thrum of power hung heavy in the air around them.
When Sam was six and just learning to read, he'd force any book he thought was 'brilliant', (pretty much all of them), at Dean, insisting he read it too.
He remembers there was one about this magical kingdom that finally died and was lain waste, only to be replaced by a bigger, more spectacular version of itself, in which the deeper into it you went, the larger it got.
And then it went and ruined itself by saying that the whole book was only the beginning of the story, but when he went and asked Sam about it he told him it was the last of the series.
What a gyp.
Hell does seem to be structured like that, though, with every ring, deeper and larger than the last. Past the gate, the Pit itself stretches on to infinity, sloping ever downwards.
But in the middle, rising from the deepest part of Hell, is a mountain.
It's immense, yet dwarfed by its surroundings, Sheer black cliff faces, of a material darker than coal yet sharper than granite rose up to level off suddenly with flat surface.
It's pretty obvious that that's where they're headed.
A lone staircase stretches to the top, an ornate,a bright, ivory white in contrast to the pitch black behemoth and the dull red glow beneath, some twenty feet across.
Dean's got a good idea of what it's made of, but keeps his eyes on Sam, on Casey's retreating back, on the unending cliff face.
Just don't look down.
Other people pass them on the stairs, in both directions, humans and demons alike.
Dean notices that only about one out of every ten demons has a host, yet the rest aren't the billowing, choking smoke they are above, but more like...ghosts. The dead, tormented souls they are.
They keep a human form, yet when Dean looks closely, he can see small bolts of that bright light that boils over when they die forming on their skin. If he looks closer still, he can notice the incongruities. A nose the keeps changing shape, a foot, dissolved into nothingness, yet still walked readily upon... The disappearing remnants of their past lives, as they forget their forms, age, even genders.
There is no visible light, but the glow from below, yet every face is sharp and clear as they pass, no veil of darkness to protect one from the truth of their situation.
The smell isn't what he expected, a burning, over powering smell of sulfur and the copper bite of blood.
It's gentler, but maybe more disquieting. A sterile, clean smell to the air, that holds just a promise of...
Something Dean can't quite catch. It's maddening.
The thing that may throw him the most is the noise.
He was expecting screams, maniacal laughter, tormented sobs of women and children, the clank and groan of metal and fire.
When they entered there had only been the sound of crowds, the dull roar of hundreds of people, talking amongst themselves, with the occasional sob, quickly swallowed by the mob.
And now, on the stairs...he feels, no. He knows that if he wanted he could hear every scream, harsh breath and drop of sweat to hit the floors in the pit, but the higher they climb, that quiet calm he's come to associate with Sam and his new powers seems to settle heavy.
He suddenly realizes he has no idea how long they have been climbing. It could be anywhere from thirty minutes to thirty years, and they're still not yet halfway to the top.
Sam's hand is still warm on his back, but the flow of power around them has changed. When Dean looks over at his brother, he sees he's not the only one affected by their surroundings. Sam's breathing is labored, and while his eyes stay fixed on Casey, they've gone back to reflecting those churning rivers of blood. The souls and demons are actively trying to get out of their way now, flinching as they pass, and even Casey is trembling as she leads on.
Watching Sam, Dean suddenly realizes that he feel incredible. No wonder his Prophet is overflowing, this is
all consuming. He views his surroundings in a whole new light. The noise is glorious, loud even over the overpowering roar of blood in his ears. The smell he couldn't identify before suddenly resonates as his, the physical imprint of his ownership on the very air. Every molecule of dust is his to shape. Every crackle of energy along of a damned soul his to use as he sees fit. His fingers twitch excitedly as he imagines the possibilities.
And Sam will do it all for him.
He stops walking, and Sam stops with him.
He wants to be at the top, to stop demeaning them with this slow trudge up a hill. And that's all it is. A hill. Should he ever want a mountain Sam could make him one a thousand times greater.
They are here to claim their rightful throne, and they will not waste time doing it.
He looks at Sam, his Prophet, his brother, his lover, and without so much as a flick of the fingers, the world reshapes itself around them, so that they stand at the top of the cliffs, viewing their domain.
There's a small, polite noise of someone clearing their throat behind them, and they turn, in their own time.
What they see seems more a Gothic re-envisioning of the Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland than the throne room of hell.
An ornate metal table, silver hues reflecting the firelight visible even from here stretches the length of a courtyard, lined by twisted iron trees and paved with polished black marble.
Dean looked on it, and knew that every particle of metal in the table was from a blade that had drawn human blood, and the trees were melted and shaped out of bullets that had taken men's lives.
A lone figure sat at the end of the table, delicately holding a bone china teacup and saucer, eyes demurely fixed on the table.
Lilith had no host right now, and her image flickered seamlessly back and forth between a ethereally fragile child and a tall, curvaceous redhead with violet eyes.
“Would you care to join me, gentlemen?” she asks eyes still not meeting theirs.
“No.” Dean replies and her cup crumbled to ash with the word.
She wipes her hands smoothly, as if barely aware that she had been holding something, before rising to her feet.
“Why are you here? Your contract is not for another six months.”
“We're not waiting,” Sam lashes out, and the trees melt where they stand, folding in and becoming gross caricatures of themselves before puddling on the floor.
“Killing me won't void Dean's contract,” Lilith tells them. “It will just mean someone else picks it up in my place.”
Sam smiles, and it's not calm. “I'm counting on it.”
Dean feels the inferno within him, come bursting out through every pore, every spark carefully collected by Sam, and channeled.
He doesn't want him to take his time. He wants this bitch gone. Now.
When Sam's finished there is no body, no blood, no pile of dust.
That would be evidence she ever existed in the first place, and from this moment on, she didn't.
Dean grabs Sam and kisses him, deep and long, and thinks he can almost feel the fire within them.
When Casey and the others arrive, the pavilion is reformed, with two simple thrones standing tall in the middle.
Dean crowns Sam the King of Hell, holder of all contracts, and ruler of the Pit before he takes his seat, at Sam's feet to his left.
No one notices that it's actually meant to be Sam who's sitting just behind Dean at his right hand side.
And so begins their reign.
*****
And by peace he shall destroy many, he shall stand up to the Prince of princes...
-Daniel 8:25
*****
They've ruled for two years, in Hell time, when Casey informs them that they want to send an ambassador.
It doesn't surprise Sam as much as it does Dean. In two years they've made major... modifications, to the inner workings of hell.
Dean spends most of his days wandering the inner circles, meeting the souls trapped there in the various stages of their transformations to demons. Dean always did like meeting new people.
And the saying is true. Go to Heaven for the Climate, but Hell for the Company.
He's even overcome some of his basic prejudices, and is able to admit, that yes, one of his best friends is a Demon, and that most of the people in the Pit are there for extremely good reasons. The fact that he and Sam just kept stumbling into it is more of an exception than the actual rule.
He's finally stopped viewing the world in black and white, and started to see the infinite shades of gray Hell specializes in.
Dean leaves most of the bureaucracy to Sam, but he's made some extremely creative suggestions for the child molesters and the mass murderers.
But on the day the first ambassador is due to arrive, Sam calls Dean in from his wanderings, a bizarre mixture of Dante and Henry the Fifth, to greet him as co-ruler.
They're sending an Archangel, something which makes Casey nervous, Dean annoyed, and tells Sam how seriously they're treating this new regime.
The Archangel's name is Zachariah, and within the first ten minutes of his arrival he's managed to annoy, insult, infuriate, irritate, disrespect, exasperate and prove himself egotistical, prejudiced, conceited and generally dickish.
Dean stabs him in the face with his own blade after twelve minutes, and tells the rest of the heavenly host they're welcome to try again.
A few days later they send Castiel.
He makes Dean laugh within five minutes, and stays.
Sam watches at the way he looks at Dean and gives it a month before he starts to fall.
*****
The Dragon gave the Beast his power and his throne and great authority.
- Revelation 13:2
*****
About five years later, Dean happens to run into the theologian who wrote the book he and Sam had found their true roles in, and sits down to have chat.
The man can't actually speak back, his mouth's been sewn shut (spreading lies against his neighbors) and he's buried up to his neck in hot tar (beat his wife and cheated on her), but Dean's gotten pretty good at reading faces over the past few years.
“You know, I always like that quote about Sam. “The Lamb that Spake like a Dragon.” Really sort of suits him, especially in the early days.” He chuckled. “You should have seen him. Biggest geek you ever saw.”
The man's eyes are pleading.
Dean sighs. That's the problem with new arrivals. Without special treatment it takes them about three hundred years to say anything more interesting than 'Please God, No, Please, Why?”
He slices through the man's nose to make sure he's paying attention.
“But when I went back and reread it later, I realized you didn't have a really cool name for me.
“Well,” he amends, “You had a lot of names for me. 'Prince of Lies, The First Beast, Antichrist, Son of Satan...' But nothing that really fit like Sam's does, y'know?”
He idly starts scalping the man as he talks.
“So I started thinking. What is my really cool title? And you know what I realized?”
The man shook his head as much as he was able, blood dripping down his face and into his eyes.
“My title,” Dean continued, “Would naturally be the inverse of Sam's. What's the mathematical term for that? Complementary?”
A muffled groan agrees.
“So,” Dean smiles, surveying his handiwork. “I guess that makes me the Dragon that speaks like a Lamb.”
Sam walks out of the nothingness, and wraps his arms around Dean, twining him around for a kiss.
“You called?”
“Mmm. Sam, you remember Mr...”
“Ah, yes,” Sam smiles. “I'm a big fan of your work.”
“I know,” Dean grins. “So I was thinking we could do something special for him by way of appreciation. Something nice.”
“Of course, You're so generous, Dean. Should we let him out of the Pit?”
The man's eyes widen, not daring to hope...
“I think that would be appropriate.”
Sam waves his hand, and the man rose out of his bath of tar, all his wounds vanishing.
And with another, he crumpled into dust.
Sam and Dean both shivered as the remnant energy from his soul flowed into them.
After all, those stitches would eventually break, and aside from Casey and a select few, Hell wasn't ready to hear the truth just yet.
“You coming home tonight?” Sam asked, dropping a kiss on the back of Dean's neck.
Dean stretched luxuriously, and nuzzled into the embrace.
“Yeah, Cas has to go topside to make a report, so I should be home early.”
“All right. I just have a few things to wrap up, and I'll see you later.”
With a final peck on the lips, Sam turned and vanished into the dark.
Dean surveyed the empty spot a moment more, before continuing along the path, humming Zeppelin as he went.
*****
So they worshiped the Dragon who gave authority to the Beast; and they worshiped the Beast, saying, “Who is like the Beast? Who is able to make war with him?”
- Revelation 13:4
*****
The tradition scriptures prophesize that the Antichrist and the False Prophet will rule Hell (and maybe Earth), for 1600 years, before an Angel of the Lord would cast them for all eternity into a lake of fire and brimstone.
But seeing the look of fondness on Castiel's face, as he bickers with Dean over the philosophical and theological meanings of Star Wars III, Sam thinks he might not just be being optimistic in thinking they have a little longer than that.
***
The End?
***
A/N:
Originally Posted on sammessiah fordreamlittleyo for Antichristmas 2011.
When I got this prompt I freaked, both because I had no idea what to do with it, and because the requester was one of my all time favorite authors. So I read Revelation about four times, came up with the premise and did nothing with it until Sunday, when I sat down and wrote the whole thing in a couple marathon sessions over a 24 hour period! HECK YEAH PROCRASTINATION!
I actually liked Ruby, especially in Season 3. I just think she's overused in fic, and that Casey was awesome and is mostly ignored.
Cookies for anyone who recognizes where I stole Vice Principal Chapman from.