Unexpected Destinies Chapter 51
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 2,554
Summary: Dean feels sorry for Lilith as he reads "A Treatise on the Origin of Demons."
PAST
Dean felt sorry for Lilith.
The more he read about what had happened to her, about what Lucifer had done to her, the more he felt sorry for her. Well, for the human that she had once been, not for the demon that she had become. The further into "A Treatise on the Origin of Demons" he got, the more that he started to really think about the difference between the two. Back before Ruby had told him about the fact that demons were human souls who'd had their very humanity tortured and burned right out of them in Hell, he'd just hated them all, pure and simple. They were nothing but evil creatures that thrived on hurting others and deserved to be sent back to Hell- and later when they had the means to do so, killed- for all that they had done.
After he'd learned the truth, he'd been far too preoccupied with the sheer horror that particular revelation had evoked within him to really think about the issue too much. Dean snorted at the understatement of that thought. Horror didn't even begin to describe what he'd felt upon learning that if he didn't find a way out of his deal, that he'd become the very thing he hated so much and had spent most of his life fighting against. He'd wanted to ignore it or deny it, but he hadn't been able to. The knowledge that he wouldn't be strong enough to avoid that fate had tortured him long before he'd ever entered Hell and just look, though Castiel had saved him before he could become a demon, he'd still been right.
He'd broken.
The reminder made Dean close his eyes and swallow hard as memories from Hell and of Alistair flashed before his eyes. It had been so long since his last true nightmare about what had happened down there that the reminders were all the more potent. Funny how he hadn't really noticed the passing of the nightmares until now. It wasn't like it had happened overnight, instead it had been a gradual thing until they were just hardly there anymore. Even during his time with Lisa, away from the hunt and the majority of the reminders of what had happened to him, he hadn't been free from those nightmares. He'd woken up both Lisa and Ben on countless occasions when he'd screamed or cried out when in the midst of one and that had greatly added to the tension between them as he'd refused to tell Lisa what was going on and why couldn't sleep properly.
The nightmares and memories of Hell were, of course, the reason why Dean had avoided thinking too much about how demons were created. Now, however, this book was forcing him to do so and the irony of it all was that he'd had to practically fight Raphael for the opportunity of reading it. The archangel had wanted to be the one to study this particular find and he'd been able to tell from the looks in the eyes of Michael and Castiel that both of them wanted to do so as well. All of them wanted to have a look at the book that had somehow vanished from Heaven's library and seemed to be so relevant to the issue at hand. In the end, his lover had sided with him though he'd been able to see the tension in Castiel's eyes. He hadn't understood why right away, but now he realized that his angel was worried about how the contents of the book might affect him.
Dean smiled at the thought, but it quickly left him as he realized that Castiel had been right to worry. Though his lover hadn't known the contents of the book, he was sure that Cas had been able to take a pretty good guess as to at least some of it. Though he didn't want to relive anything of what had happened to him in Hell, he did think that it was a good thing that he was confronting it now in some manner. What was it that Sam always said? He had to deal with this shit, right? Somehow he doubted that this was what his little brother had meant- the angel who had written this book spared no details- but that was just though shit for Sammy. Beggars couldn't be choosers after all.
So, yeah, this book was making him really think about what it meant for demons to have once been human souls. Lucifer had originally chosen Lilith as she intrigued him and he was curious about what would happen if he so completely twisted one of his Father's precious humans so that nothing that made her human remained. Well, the devil had gotten his answer all right and it had pleased him so much that he'd started doing it to others with the help of his new creation. And the rest, as they said, was history.
He snorted at the thought. It was simple to say it like that, Dean knew, as it somehow managed to completely gloss over the countless deaths demons had been responsible for in the millennia since. Not to mention all of the lives that they had touched and ruined in addition to those they'd killed. He was only all too aware of the so called collateral damage that could result from demon activity, his whole life from the tender age of four had been nothing but that. Where would he be now if Azazel had never visited their home all those decades ago? What would he have chosen to become? A mechanic? Something else? Would his parents still be alive? Would they all be living in Lawrence still? He shook his head to clear it from those types of thoughts. They were pointless, he knew, pointless and dangerous as they had the ability to cause deep wounds that could take precious time to heal. Besides, there was one thing he knew for sure about his life if the yellow eyed son of a bitch had never been; it wouldn't have had Castiel in it.
That sobering thought was enough to make Dean focus on the book once more. It said that the conversion of a human soul into a demon was inevitable if the demon had the soul where it couldn't get away. It said that no matter how strong the soul was or might once have been, it couldn't stand up the demon forever. It said that souls simply hadn't been created for that and thus didn't make it. This made his jaw and hands clench even as most of his being cried out to deny this. That couldn't be true, it just couldn't and had to be right. Nothing was ever that certain, surely all someone had to do was be strong enough, to not give in, in order to remain human. He tried to resist the flashes of exactly all the types of things demons- and himself!- did to those unlucky enough to end up on their rack, but couldn't. For the first time ever he began to doubt. He'd always felt that if he'd just been stronger, better, that he'd have been able to keep himself from breaking and giving in to Alistair. Now, though, he wasn't so sure.
"A Treatise on the Origin of Demons" spoke about the different lengths of time it had taken various souls to be broken and though they varied widely, they all had. It didn't mention a single soul that had successfully been able to hold on and save itself from this monstrous fate. Dean wanted to convince himself that it was due to the fact that the author was biased, but it was written in Enochian, so surely the angel that had written it would have delighted in recounting the triumph of one of his Father's children being able to resist demonic corruption. All that he could see was that some held out for longer, for impressive amounts of time according to the author, though he didn't think twenty years was particularly great.
Interestingly enough, all of Lucifer's early corruptions had taken surprisingly little time. Dean's first thought was that Lilith and her ilk simply hadn't been all that tough, but the author seemed to think that it was due to their near absolute lack of experience with darkness and evil. That their sheltered and privileged life made them all the more vulnerable to the devil's manipulations. If that were indeed the case, then he couldn't help but find it amusing that the more demons that were created, the harder it made it for them to create more. As they spread destruction and death through the world, people became more jaded and inured to evil and thus harder to demonize themselves as it wasn't such a shock to them that such depravity could exist.
"Dean."
The sudden uttering of his name, started Dean and he jumped in his seat even as his initial tension faded away as the voice registered. "Shit, Cas, you scared the crap out of me!"
"My apologies, that was not my intention."
"Yeah, I know, s'okay."
If Dean had hoped that would placate his lover, he was wrong. Castiel still stood next to him, a box in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, head tilted slightly with a displeased frown on his face.
"What?"
"You are greatly disturbed."
"Yeah," Dean admitted because what else could he do?
The material was getting to him and he knew that it was useless to try and deny it, his lover simply knew him too well. Besides, Dean found that he didn't want to snow Castiel even if he could. He sighed contentedly when his angel put down what he was carrying and moved his hands to his shoulders instead, talented fingers knowing exactly what to do to get at least some of the tension to drain from his muscles.
"Ugh," Dean muttered as he let his head fall forwards. "That's good."
"You should take a break."
"Already did."
"Then perhaps take a different book for a while," Castiel suggested ten minutes later as he stopped the massage he was giving.
"No," Dean stated, a hand coming up to keep the book where it was when his lover moved to take it away. "I gotta do this, Cas."
His angel didn't look pleased but after a moment of staring at him, Castiel pulled the room's other chair closer and sat down, opening another book. Relieved, Dean relaxed a bit and returned to his reading, smiling when his lover's hand settled on his thigh a moment later, squeezing once before just becoming a comforting warmth as they focused on their research.
/
A few hours later, Dean had just finished the fruit cup he'd found in the box when he'd finally opened it- it had made him smile even if he still didn't have much of an appetite and found it easy to ignore the doughnuts- when he stopped, frowned and re-read the sentence.
Although there is no equivalent to the Rite of Contressa for demons, there nonetheless exist several means to forcible expel a demon from a human meatsuit. The first is an exorcism-
Despite the fact that the rest of the paragraph really interested Dean as it mentioned more then one way to cast out a demon that he hadn't ever heard of before, his eyes kept getting drawn back to that first line.
Although there is no equivalent to the Rite of Contressa for demons, there nonetheless exist several means to forcible expel a demon from a human meatsuit.
To him that clearly implied that this Rite of Contressa could do more then merely expel a demon from a human.
Although there is no equivalent to the Rite of Contressa for demons
It took Dean another moment to realize what it was about that first part of the sentence that had subconsciously drawn his eyes.
for demons
As opposed to what? Angels was the only logical answer that Dean could come up with to that question. The author was clearly an angel, so it made sense that he or she was talking about angels in phrasing the sentence like that. So what did that mean? A part of him wanted to get excited because, surely, the way that the sentence was phrased implied that this Rite of Contressa was something that was more effective then exorcising a demon if it could be used on demons. The rest of him, though, was far more cautious, not wanting to believe that something like what was being implied was possible. And yet... surely it had to mean that-
"Cas, what is the Rite of Contressa?"
"Excuse me?"
"The Rite of Contressa."
It wasn't until he said it the second time that Dean realized that he was saying it in Enochian instead of English, not quite sure what Contressa translated into as it didn't seem to be a word, more like a name or something. Not that it really mattered.
"I have never heard of it."
Dean frowned. "Really? Well, look at this and see if you get the same thing out of it that I do."
Never one who was able to sit still well, Dean found himself fidgeting as Castiel read the paragraph and then seemed to start reading the whole page. To distract himself, he grabbed one of the doughnuts and bit into it. It was clearly a Krispy Kreme and one of his favorites and he suddenly found that his appetite had returned with a vengeance and he quickly finished it off, grimacing slightly as he took a sip of the coffee only to find it stone cold. Oh well, it was his own fault really.
"Dean," Castiel finally said looking up at him, cautious excitement in his eyes. "Dean, if this is what it implies..."
"You've really never heard of this rite before?"
"No."
"If it's supposed to be able to something that's worse then forcing a demon out of a meatsuit to angels, then how is that possible?"
"I do not know, but it may be that the Rite of Contressa is difficult to perform."
"Hey, I'll take difficult, I'll even take extremely difficult, if it means that it's something to use against Lucifer," Dean stated.
"Mmm," Castiel replied, reaching out and touching the cup Dean still held.
Dean blinked as he felt the sudden heat and realized his lover had mojoed his coffee. "You spoil me."
Those ethereal blue eyes were suddenly focused on his and Dean felt captured and laid bare before them. "Not nearly as much as you deserve."
Before Dean could protest, there was a rustle of wings and Michael and Raphael were in the room.
"Have either of you heard of the Rite of Contressa before?" Castiel questioned.
"No," Michael replied.
"The Rite of Contressa?" Raphael repeated thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I recall Jophiel and Simiel speaking about it once. They were discussing the need for its existence as neither of them could think of a situation that would call for its use."
"But do you know what it actually does?" Dean asked, hardly daring to breathe.
"No."
"Damnit!"
"Why is this rite important?" Michael questioned.
"Here, see for yourself," Castiel said.
Chapter 52
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 2,554
Summary: Dean feels sorry for Lilith as he reads "A Treatise on the Origin of Demons."
PAST
Dean felt sorry for Lilith.
The more he read about what had happened to her, about what Lucifer had done to her, the more he felt sorry for her. Well, for the human that she had once been, not for the demon that she had become. The further into "A Treatise on the Origin of Demons" he got, the more that he started to really think about the difference between the two. Back before Ruby had told him about the fact that demons were human souls who'd had their very humanity tortured and burned right out of them in Hell, he'd just hated them all, pure and simple. They were nothing but evil creatures that thrived on hurting others and deserved to be sent back to Hell- and later when they had the means to do so, killed- for all that they had done.
After he'd learned the truth, he'd been far too preoccupied with the sheer horror that particular revelation had evoked within him to really think about the issue too much. Dean snorted at the understatement of that thought. Horror didn't even begin to describe what he'd felt upon learning that if he didn't find a way out of his deal, that he'd become the very thing he hated so much and had spent most of his life fighting against. He'd wanted to ignore it or deny it, but he hadn't been able to. The knowledge that he wouldn't be strong enough to avoid that fate had tortured him long before he'd ever entered Hell and just look, though Castiel had saved him before he could become a demon, he'd still been right.
He'd broken.
The reminder made Dean close his eyes and swallow hard as memories from Hell and of Alistair flashed before his eyes. It had been so long since his last true nightmare about what had happened down there that the reminders were all the more potent. Funny how he hadn't really noticed the passing of the nightmares until now. It wasn't like it had happened overnight, instead it had been a gradual thing until they were just hardly there anymore. Even during his time with Lisa, away from the hunt and the majority of the reminders of what had happened to him, he hadn't been free from those nightmares. He'd woken up both Lisa and Ben on countless occasions when he'd screamed or cried out when in the midst of one and that had greatly added to the tension between them as he'd refused to tell Lisa what was going on and why couldn't sleep properly.
The nightmares and memories of Hell were, of course, the reason why Dean had avoided thinking too much about how demons were created. Now, however, this book was forcing him to do so and the irony of it all was that he'd had to practically fight Raphael for the opportunity of reading it. The archangel had wanted to be the one to study this particular find and he'd been able to tell from the looks in the eyes of Michael and Castiel that both of them wanted to do so as well. All of them wanted to have a look at the book that had somehow vanished from Heaven's library and seemed to be so relevant to the issue at hand. In the end, his lover had sided with him though he'd been able to see the tension in Castiel's eyes. He hadn't understood why right away, but now he realized that his angel was worried about how the contents of the book might affect him.
Dean smiled at the thought, but it quickly left him as he realized that Castiel had been right to worry. Though his lover hadn't known the contents of the book, he was sure that Cas had been able to take a pretty good guess as to at least some of it. Though he didn't want to relive anything of what had happened to him in Hell, he did think that it was a good thing that he was confronting it now in some manner. What was it that Sam always said? He had to deal with this shit, right? Somehow he doubted that this was what his little brother had meant- the angel who had written this book spared no details- but that was just though shit for Sammy. Beggars couldn't be choosers after all.
So, yeah, this book was making him really think about what it meant for demons to have once been human souls. Lucifer had originally chosen Lilith as she intrigued him and he was curious about what would happen if he so completely twisted one of his Father's precious humans so that nothing that made her human remained. Well, the devil had gotten his answer all right and it had pleased him so much that he'd started doing it to others with the help of his new creation. And the rest, as they said, was history.
He snorted at the thought. It was simple to say it like that, Dean knew, as it somehow managed to completely gloss over the countless deaths demons had been responsible for in the millennia since. Not to mention all of the lives that they had touched and ruined in addition to those they'd killed. He was only all too aware of the so called collateral damage that could result from demon activity, his whole life from the tender age of four had been nothing but that. Where would he be now if Azazel had never visited their home all those decades ago? What would he have chosen to become? A mechanic? Something else? Would his parents still be alive? Would they all be living in Lawrence still? He shook his head to clear it from those types of thoughts. They were pointless, he knew, pointless and dangerous as they had the ability to cause deep wounds that could take precious time to heal. Besides, there was one thing he knew for sure about his life if the yellow eyed son of a bitch had never been; it wouldn't have had Castiel in it.
That sobering thought was enough to make Dean focus on the book once more. It said that the conversion of a human soul into a demon was inevitable if the demon had the soul where it couldn't get away. It said that no matter how strong the soul was or might once have been, it couldn't stand up the demon forever. It said that souls simply hadn't been created for that and thus didn't make it. This made his jaw and hands clench even as most of his being cried out to deny this. That couldn't be true, it just couldn't and had to be right. Nothing was ever that certain, surely all someone had to do was be strong enough, to not give in, in order to remain human. He tried to resist the flashes of exactly all the types of things demons- and himself!- did to those unlucky enough to end up on their rack, but couldn't. For the first time ever he began to doubt. He'd always felt that if he'd just been stronger, better, that he'd have been able to keep himself from breaking and giving in to Alistair. Now, though, he wasn't so sure.
"A Treatise on the Origin of Demons" spoke about the different lengths of time it had taken various souls to be broken and though they varied widely, they all had. It didn't mention a single soul that had successfully been able to hold on and save itself from this monstrous fate. Dean wanted to convince himself that it was due to the fact that the author was biased, but it was written in Enochian, so surely the angel that had written it would have delighted in recounting the triumph of one of his Father's children being able to resist demonic corruption. All that he could see was that some held out for longer, for impressive amounts of time according to the author, though he didn't think twenty years was particularly great.
Interestingly enough, all of Lucifer's early corruptions had taken surprisingly little time. Dean's first thought was that Lilith and her ilk simply hadn't been all that tough, but the author seemed to think that it was due to their near absolute lack of experience with darkness and evil. That their sheltered and privileged life made them all the more vulnerable to the devil's manipulations. If that were indeed the case, then he couldn't help but find it amusing that the more demons that were created, the harder it made it for them to create more. As they spread destruction and death through the world, people became more jaded and inured to evil and thus harder to demonize themselves as it wasn't such a shock to them that such depravity could exist.
"Dean."
The sudden uttering of his name, started Dean and he jumped in his seat even as his initial tension faded away as the voice registered. "Shit, Cas, you scared the crap out of me!"
"My apologies, that was not my intention."
"Yeah, I know, s'okay."
If Dean had hoped that would placate his lover, he was wrong. Castiel still stood next to him, a box in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, head tilted slightly with a displeased frown on his face.
"What?"
"You are greatly disturbed."
"Yeah," Dean admitted because what else could he do?
The material was getting to him and he knew that it was useless to try and deny it, his lover simply knew him too well. Besides, Dean found that he didn't want to snow Castiel even if he could. He sighed contentedly when his angel put down what he was carrying and moved his hands to his shoulders instead, talented fingers knowing exactly what to do to get at least some of the tension to drain from his muscles.
"Ugh," Dean muttered as he let his head fall forwards. "That's good."
"You should take a break."
"Already did."
"Then perhaps take a different book for a while," Castiel suggested ten minutes later as he stopped the massage he was giving.
"No," Dean stated, a hand coming up to keep the book where it was when his lover moved to take it away. "I gotta do this, Cas."
His angel didn't look pleased but after a moment of staring at him, Castiel pulled the room's other chair closer and sat down, opening another book. Relieved, Dean relaxed a bit and returned to his reading, smiling when his lover's hand settled on his thigh a moment later, squeezing once before just becoming a comforting warmth as they focused on their research.
/
A few hours later, Dean had just finished the fruit cup he'd found in the box when he'd finally opened it- it had made him smile even if he still didn't have much of an appetite and found it easy to ignore the doughnuts- when he stopped, frowned and re-read the sentence.
Although there is no equivalent to the Rite of Contressa for demons, there nonetheless exist several means to forcible expel a demon from a human meatsuit. The first is an exorcism-
Despite the fact that the rest of the paragraph really interested Dean as it mentioned more then one way to cast out a demon that he hadn't ever heard of before, his eyes kept getting drawn back to that first line.
Although there is no equivalent to the Rite of Contressa for demons, there nonetheless exist several means to forcible expel a demon from a human meatsuit.
To him that clearly implied that this Rite of Contressa could do more then merely expel a demon from a human.
Although there is no equivalent to the Rite of Contressa for demons
It took Dean another moment to realize what it was about that first part of the sentence that had subconsciously drawn his eyes.
for demons
As opposed to what? Angels was the only logical answer that Dean could come up with to that question. The author was clearly an angel, so it made sense that he or she was talking about angels in phrasing the sentence like that. So what did that mean? A part of him wanted to get excited because, surely, the way that the sentence was phrased implied that this Rite of Contressa was something that was more effective then exorcising a demon if it could be used on demons. The rest of him, though, was far more cautious, not wanting to believe that something like what was being implied was possible. And yet... surely it had to mean that-
"Cas, what is the Rite of Contressa?"
"Excuse me?"
"The Rite of Contressa."
It wasn't until he said it the second time that Dean realized that he was saying it in Enochian instead of English, not quite sure what Contressa translated into as it didn't seem to be a word, more like a name or something. Not that it really mattered.
"I have never heard of it."
Dean frowned. "Really? Well, look at this and see if you get the same thing out of it that I do."
Never one who was able to sit still well, Dean found himself fidgeting as Castiel read the paragraph and then seemed to start reading the whole page. To distract himself, he grabbed one of the doughnuts and bit into it. It was clearly a Krispy Kreme and one of his favorites and he suddenly found that his appetite had returned with a vengeance and he quickly finished it off, grimacing slightly as he took a sip of the coffee only to find it stone cold. Oh well, it was his own fault really.
"Dean," Castiel finally said looking up at him, cautious excitement in his eyes. "Dean, if this is what it implies..."
"You've really never heard of this rite before?"
"No."
"If it's supposed to be able to something that's worse then forcing a demon out of a meatsuit to angels, then how is that possible?"
"I do not know, but it may be that the Rite of Contressa is difficult to perform."
"Hey, I'll take difficult, I'll even take extremely difficult, if it means that it's something to use against Lucifer," Dean stated.
"Mmm," Castiel replied, reaching out and touching the cup Dean still held.
Dean blinked as he felt the sudden heat and realized his lover had mojoed his coffee. "You spoil me."
Those ethereal blue eyes were suddenly focused on his and Dean felt captured and laid bare before them. "Not nearly as much as you deserve."
Before Dean could protest, there was a rustle of wings and Michael and Raphael were in the room.
"Have either of you heard of the Rite of Contressa before?" Castiel questioned.
"No," Michael replied.
"The Rite of Contressa?" Raphael repeated thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I recall Jophiel and Simiel speaking about it once. They were discussing the need for its existence as neither of them could think of a situation that would call for its use."
"But do you know what it actually does?" Dean asked, hardly daring to breathe.
"No."
"Damnit!"
"Why is this rite important?" Michael questioned.
"Here, see for yourself," Castiel said.
Chapter 52