Lay This Body Anywhere, (Gen, R) 3/4
Continuation of Lay This Body Anywhere
Written for the ohsam commentfic me for this prompt
Post S7/Pre-S8: Sam finds out he can use his powers to bust Dean and Cas out of purgatory. He falls off the demon blood wagon. He tries to break them out, but it's a huuuuuge strain and he can only manage to grab Dean, and maybe the effort scrambles Sam's eggs a little, and he wasn't doing so hot with his magic mental health cure locked in Purgatory anyway. So basically, Dean comes back from Purgatory (in whatever state of wear you see fit) to a twitchy, hallucinating, migraine-plagued, babbling mess of a reluctant demon blood junkie. What little of a lucid Sam remains is convinced that he can rescue Cas too if he just has ONE MORE TRY.
back to part 2
Dean is still sitting in the blood-stained room hours later. He’s just not capable of panicking -- mentally or physically. For starters, he’s in shitty physical condition - mostly due to not having eaten anything since he returned to Earth (the last thing he ate had six heads and tasted like rotting seaweed). More than that though, he just feels so damn powerless.
There’s only one place Sam could have gone, and it’s not somewhere he can follow. He knows exactly who to summon to try to get him back, but he has zero leverage. The worst part though - the very worst part - is that even if he does get Sam back, there isn’t a damn thing he can do to help him. Cas is powerless, and Dean doesn’t have anyone else with massive amounts of healing mojo up his sleeve, which means that even if he did get Sam back he’d have to keep him on a constant IV of demon blood and then…then what? Sam locked himself up - tried to detox permanently, until somewhere along the line he’d figured out it wasn’t going to work. Sam had given up. So why should Dean think they stood a chance?
He pulls out his pocket-knife and starts picking absently at his fingernails. They’re filthy. Blood, dirt, skin, scales, and everything a monster could spew…it’s all there. A microscope-slide of the gunk under his nails would be a biologist’s find of the century. He cleans one after the other, and nicks himself when he gets to his pinkie finger. His blood wells up cherry red and forms a perfect bead. The dim light of the morning is starting to come in through the tiny, barred window behind him. It passes through the blood on his finger, making it glow and he flicks his hand, sending the drop down into the criss-cross of red spray-painted devil’s traps and demon-blood covering the rest of the cement floor.
He doesn’t look up when the air in front of him stirs and a pair of highly-polished, expensive shoes appears in front of him.
“You don’t call, you don’t write,” Crowley says, sounding not the slightest bit aggrieved. “I’m starting to think you don’t treasure our friendship anymore.”
Dean ignores him, and moves to clean his other hand, which is even grimier.
After a minute of complete silence, Crowley taps his foot against the floor. “You’re not even going to ask? No ‘Where’s my brother you son-of-a-whore, give him back or I’ll pull out your spleen’?”
“I know where he is,” Dean says.
“Do you?” Crowley crouches down low, the edge of his coat brushing against the floor. “You know the exact floor and room number?”
“Hell is Hell,” Dean says.
“Normally, you’d be right…but then you two are very special customers, aren’t you? We can’t just put your brother up in a regular non-smoking room. No. We’ve got a special suite reserved just for him. It’s got a magnificent view, round-the-clock room-service. No cable though. I mean, it is Hell.”
Dean looks at the demon and tries to figure out what he’s getting at.
“Matter of fact…he’s right next to the royal suite.” Crowley adds, winking as he stands up.
Within two seconds, Dean has Crowley up against the wall with his knife-blade pressed into the demon’s throat. “The Cage? You put him back in the Cage?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have the keycard to that.” Crowley smirks and pushes his head off the wall an inch, pushing the knife deeper into his neck, causing a thin line of blood to well up under the metal. “But…I did make sure there was a window between the two rooms. Sam can see Lucifer, and Lucifer can see Sam.”
Dean growls, pushing his blade further in. He knows it isn’t hurting the demon in the slightest, but at the moment, with no other weapon to speak of, he’s going to have to settle for making him bleed. “You son of a bitch.”
“There’s the Dean I know and love.” Crowley grins. “Don’t worry. We’re taking good care of your brother - making sure he gets what he needs. Just enough to stay alive, not enough to do any real damage. He’s developed quite the nasty habit, you know. It’s sad, really. He can barely string a sentence together.”
Dean pulls back from Crowley just far enough to punch him, hard. The way his hand hurts afterwards, he knows he’s broken a knuckle or two. Crowley looks even more smug. “So that’s why you’re here? To rub it in?”
“Yes. But that’s not the only reason,” Crowley puts his hands in the pockets of his coat and straightens as he walks away from the wall. “I’m here to negotiate the terms of Sam’s release.”
“Negotiate?”
“Yes - that’s where you give me exactly what I want, or your brother stays where he is.” Crowley tilts his head at the sound of a door opening from upstairs.
“We’re down here!” Dean yells.
Crowley’s smirk drips with satisfaction. “Well isn’t that nice, we can check one item off the list already.”
Castiel makes his way into the room a minute later. “Both men will be fine. They had insurance. I’m not sure what that means, but it seems very important.”
Dean glances at his watch and back at the angel. “It took you three hours to get to the hospital and back? I thought it was like...five miles away!”
“I had to help them with paperwork.” Castiel looks at Crowley like he’s noticing him for the first time. “Also, that was only my third time driving. Well - fourth time on the way back I suppose.”
Crowley walks next to Castiel and drapes his arm around the angel’s shoulders. “For starters, I’m going to take our fine feathered friend with me as an advisor.”
“He’s powerless,” Dean says automatically. “In Purgatory, they-“
“Yes, how unfortunate for you,” The demon squeezes Castiel in a half-hug. “I won’t hold that against you, no worries.”
“Then why do you want him?” Dean asks.
“Because Heaven is in tatters, and our little flightless bird here has all the blue-prints in his head.Now on to your part." Crowley lets go of Castiel and points at Dean. "You’re desperate for a way to save Sam, naturally. I may know someone who knows someone who could make him all better. And I’ll tell you who that is if you do exactly what I say.”
Now Dean’s interested. He racks his brain trying to think who Crowley could be talking about, but comes up empty. “I’m listening.”
“His brain-” Crowley points at Castiel. “…has all the information I need to navigate Heaven. But he can’t get me in.” He turns so his finger is pointing at Dean. “But you can.”
“Me?” Dean scoffs, “I’m not sure what you’ve been smokin’ but the only time I’ve ever been up there is when I was dead.”
Crowley smiles sweetly. “An unfortunate pre-requisite, yes. Of course, when has death ever been permanent for the two of you?”
“You want me to die because somehow that gets you into Heaven, and in exchange you’ll let Sam out of Hell and heal him?” Dean says, realizing the plan sounds even more stupid out loud.
“Sam is in Hell?” Castiel asks.
“I assure you, all his needs are being attended to.” Crowley smirks, holding his hands up in a gesture of mock-innocence.
“Sam is in Hell.” Castiel repeats, and his expression shifts into something bordering on amusement. “And I suppose you put him right next to Lucifer’s cage?”
“Of course.” The demon frowns, confused by Castiel’s line of questioning.
“And Meg- she’s in Hell too?” The angel says, his smile growing wider.
“If you want her back as well, we’ll need to negotiate further-“ Crowley starts to say.
“Meg, to whom Lucifer is a god- and you have her down there with the Devil’s true vessel just inches away. Doesn’t that seem like a remarkably bad plan to you?” Castiel honest-to-God giggles, and Dean wonders if his eggs got even more scrambled down in Purgatory. He’d seemed better for a while there.
And then Dean gets it. “Lucifer still has followers in Hell, doesn’t he? True believers.”
Crowley pales visibly - even in the dim light.
“Are you sure that whoever you’ve got watching Sam and Meg is one-hundred percent Team Crowley?”
“I'm their king, dammit,” the demon growls.
“I’m sure that means a lot to demons.” Dean snaps his knife shut and tucks it into his pocket. “I’m thinking you might want to check on your hotel - see if there were any unexpected departures.”
Crowley vanishes, leaving Dean and Castiel in the dark, blood-stained room.
*******
on to part 4
Written for the ohsam commentfic me for this prompt
Post S7/Pre-S8: Sam finds out he can use his powers to bust Dean and Cas out of purgatory. He falls off the demon blood wagon. He tries to break them out, but it's a huuuuuge strain and he can only manage to grab Dean, and maybe the effort scrambles Sam's eggs a little, and he wasn't doing so hot with his magic mental health cure locked in Purgatory anyway. So basically, Dean comes back from Purgatory (in whatever state of wear you see fit) to a twitchy, hallucinating, migraine-plagued, babbling mess of a reluctant demon blood junkie. What little of a lucid Sam remains is convinced that he can rescue Cas too if he just has ONE MORE TRY.
back to part 2
Dean is still sitting in the blood-stained room hours later. He’s just not capable of panicking -- mentally or physically. For starters, he’s in shitty physical condition - mostly due to not having eaten anything since he returned to Earth (the last thing he ate had six heads and tasted like rotting seaweed). More than that though, he just feels so damn powerless.
There’s only one place Sam could have gone, and it’s not somewhere he can follow. He knows exactly who to summon to try to get him back, but he has zero leverage. The worst part though - the very worst part - is that even if he does get Sam back, there isn’t a damn thing he can do to help him. Cas is powerless, and Dean doesn’t have anyone else with massive amounts of healing mojo up his sleeve, which means that even if he did get Sam back he’d have to keep him on a constant IV of demon blood and then…then what? Sam locked himself up - tried to detox permanently, until somewhere along the line he’d figured out it wasn’t going to work. Sam had given up. So why should Dean think they stood a chance?
He pulls out his pocket-knife and starts picking absently at his fingernails. They’re filthy. Blood, dirt, skin, scales, and everything a monster could spew…it’s all there. A microscope-slide of the gunk under his nails would be a biologist’s find of the century. He cleans one after the other, and nicks himself when he gets to his pinkie finger. His blood wells up cherry red and forms a perfect bead. The dim light of the morning is starting to come in through the tiny, barred window behind him. It passes through the blood on his finger, making it glow and he flicks his hand, sending the drop down into the criss-cross of red spray-painted devil’s traps and demon-blood covering the rest of the cement floor.
He doesn’t look up when the air in front of him stirs and a pair of highly-polished, expensive shoes appears in front of him.
“You don’t call, you don’t write,” Crowley says, sounding not the slightest bit aggrieved. “I’m starting to think you don’t treasure our friendship anymore.”
Dean ignores him, and moves to clean his other hand, which is even grimier.
After a minute of complete silence, Crowley taps his foot against the floor. “You’re not even going to ask? No ‘Where’s my brother you son-of-a-whore, give him back or I’ll pull out your spleen’?”
“I know where he is,” Dean says.
“Do you?” Crowley crouches down low, the edge of his coat brushing against the floor. “You know the exact floor and room number?”
“Hell is Hell,” Dean says.
“Normally, you’d be right…but then you two are very special customers, aren’t you? We can’t just put your brother up in a regular non-smoking room. No. We’ve got a special suite reserved just for him. It’s got a magnificent view, round-the-clock room-service. No cable though. I mean, it is Hell.”
Dean looks at the demon and tries to figure out what he’s getting at.
“Matter of fact…he’s right next to the royal suite.” Crowley adds, winking as he stands up.
Within two seconds, Dean has Crowley up against the wall with his knife-blade pressed into the demon’s throat. “The Cage? You put him back in the Cage?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have the keycard to that.” Crowley smirks and pushes his head off the wall an inch, pushing the knife deeper into his neck, causing a thin line of blood to well up under the metal. “But…I did make sure there was a window between the two rooms. Sam can see Lucifer, and Lucifer can see Sam.”
Dean growls, pushing his blade further in. He knows it isn’t hurting the demon in the slightest, but at the moment, with no other weapon to speak of, he’s going to have to settle for making him bleed. “You son of a bitch.”
“There’s the Dean I know and love.” Crowley grins. “Don’t worry. We’re taking good care of your brother - making sure he gets what he needs. Just enough to stay alive, not enough to do any real damage. He’s developed quite the nasty habit, you know. It’s sad, really. He can barely string a sentence together.”
Dean pulls back from Crowley just far enough to punch him, hard. The way his hand hurts afterwards, he knows he’s broken a knuckle or two. Crowley looks even more smug. “So that’s why you’re here? To rub it in?”
“Yes. But that’s not the only reason,” Crowley puts his hands in the pockets of his coat and straightens as he walks away from the wall. “I’m here to negotiate the terms of Sam’s release.”
“Negotiate?”
“Yes - that’s where you give me exactly what I want, or your brother stays where he is.” Crowley tilts his head at the sound of a door opening from upstairs.
“We’re down here!” Dean yells.
Crowley’s smirk drips with satisfaction. “Well isn’t that nice, we can check one item off the list already.”
Castiel makes his way into the room a minute later. “Both men will be fine. They had insurance. I’m not sure what that means, but it seems very important.”
Dean glances at his watch and back at the angel. “It took you three hours to get to the hospital and back? I thought it was like...five miles away!”
“I had to help them with paperwork.” Castiel looks at Crowley like he’s noticing him for the first time. “Also, that was only my third time driving. Well - fourth time on the way back I suppose.”
Crowley walks next to Castiel and drapes his arm around the angel’s shoulders. “For starters, I’m going to take our fine feathered friend with me as an advisor.”
“He’s powerless,” Dean says automatically. “In Purgatory, they-“
“Yes, how unfortunate for you,” The demon squeezes Castiel in a half-hug. “I won’t hold that against you, no worries.”
“Then why do you want him?” Dean asks.
“Because Heaven is in tatters, and our little flightless bird here has all the blue-prints in his head.Now on to your part." Crowley lets go of Castiel and points at Dean. "You’re desperate for a way to save Sam, naturally. I may know someone who knows someone who could make him all better. And I’ll tell you who that is if you do exactly what I say.”
Now Dean’s interested. He racks his brain trying to think who Crowley could be talking about, but comes up empty. “I’m listening.”
“His brain-” Crowley points at Castiel. “…has all the information I need to navigate Heaven. But he can’t get me in.” He turns so his finger is pointing at Dean. “But you can.”
“Me?” Dean scoffs, “I’m not sure what you’ve been smokin’ but the only time I’ve ever been up there is when I was dead.”
Crowley smiles sweetly. “An unfortunate pre-requisite, yes. Of course, when has death ever been permanent for the two of you?”
“You want me to die because somehow that gets you into Heaven, and in exchange you’ll let Sam out of Hell and heal him?” Dean says, realizing the plan sounds even more stupid out loud.
“Sam is in Hell?” Castiel asks.
“I assure you, all his needs are being attended to.” Crowley smirks, holding his hands up in a gesture of mock-innocence.
“Sam is in Hell.” Castiel repeats, and his expression shifts into something bordering on amusement. “And I suppose you put him right next to Lucifer’s cage?”
“Of course.” The demon frowns, confused by Castiel’s line of questioning.
“And Meg- she’s in Hell too?” The angel says, his smile growing wider.
“If you want her back as well, we’ll need to negotiate further-“ Crowley starts to say.
“Meg, to whom Lucifer is a god- and you have her down there with the Devil’s true vessel just inches away. Doesn’t that seem like a remarkably bad plan to you?” Castiel honest-to-God giggles, and Dean wonders if his eggs got even more scrambled down in Purgatory. He’d seemed better for a while there.
And then Dean gets it. “Lucifer still has followers in Hell, doesn’t he? True believers.”
Crowley pales visibly - even in the dim light.
“Are you sure that whoever you’ve got watching Sam and Meg is one-hundred percent Team Crowley?”
“I'm their king, dammit,” the demon growls.
“I’m sure that means a lot to demons.” Dean snaps his knife shut and tucks it into his pocket. “I’m thinking you might want to check on your hotel - see if there were any unexpected departures.”
Crowley vanishes, leaving Dean and Castiel in the dark, blood-stained room.
*******
on to part 4