The Book of the Giants, for immortal_jedi
Title: The Book of the Giants
Recipient: immortal_jedi
Rating: PG13
Word Count: ~6,500
Warnings: Some swearing
Author's Notes: A huge thank you to my wonderful beta, who improved this story enormously. Any remaining errors, inconsistencies, etc. are all mine.
Summary: From the prompt - It wasn't Sam or Dean that the world needed to worry about if they turned - it was John. After the fire John turned to the demon faction that opposed Azazel. And he raised the boys to become demon generals.
The Book of the Giants
Chuck hadn’t dreamt about the Winchesters for years. Not since he’d had that last, bizarre dream about the life story of Dean’s Impala that had ended with Sam flinging himself into Lucifer’s cage to save the world. On a purely personal level Chuck had thought at the time that it was his weirdest Winchester vision yet, having seen himself not only writing their story but somehow directing it - as if his early forebodings about having some kind of godlike powers were actually true. Then he’d woken up, and everything was back to normal. Well, as normal as Chuck Shirley’s life ever was, that is.
He’d been an emotional wreck for several days afterwards of course, still shaken by the trauma of seeing Dean beaten nearly to death by the Devil wearing Sam, and by the depth of Dean’s grief at losing his brother. Chuck had mourned alongside the elder Winchester, but given all the shit the prophet had lived through with the Winchesters over the years, there was nothing new there. Sorrow and terror walking hand in hand was par for the course.
What was new was the blessed calm and the lack of compulsion to record anything that followed that final vision. The inside of his head was blissfully silent; his subsequent dreams empty of incident and completely devoid of anything even vaguely supernatural. A month went by, then a year, and Chuck finally started to relax. He had a haircut, trimmed his scraggly beard into a neat goatee, and actually managed to get and hold onto a job as a journalist for his local newspaper.
So the last thing he expected was to suddenly start dreaming again, let alone to find that these dreams were completely rewriting the story that he knew. It was traumatic enough living through the Winchesters’ miserable lives the first time round. Chuck had no desire whatsoever to start all over again with the same story set to a different tune. Or perhaps it was a new story set to the same gloomy Wagnerian soundtrack, but to be honest, Chuck didn’t want to find out.
It looked like he wasn’t going to have any choice, though. He sat staring at his blank laptop screen, blunt fingers shaking like he’d gone back onto the bottle-a-day whiskey habit that hadn’t helped him through his last sojourn with the Winchester Saga. He pressed the on-button with a reluctance that couldn’t be quantified, and the jolly electronic tones of Windows 7 warming up sounded like the knell of doom. His shoulders slumped in resignation. Seriously, fuck his life.
Chuck started typing from the beginning, all over again.
When Azazel burned Mary he miscalculated. Sure, her death set Dean and Sam Winchester on a dark and lonely path, but unfortunately it was not the one that Azazel and his Master had counted on when they plotted out their course. The reason? Two factors - one being luck, chance, fate - call it what you will. The other was much simpler. Azazel underestimated John Winchester.
John wasn’t supposed to find out about Mary’s hunting legacy. He was meant to take his boys and leave Lawrence, grieving and bewildered. The plan was for him to gradually discover random facts about the evil underworld that surrounds everyone. They would feed it to him in tiny, tempting morsels that would lead him down a path to ruin - like the antithesis of Hansel’s trail of breadcrumbs leading the hero out of the perilous forest. John should have been kept largely ignorant and ineffectual, remaining on the margins of the story until the time came to send him to Hell to be broken.
John was not supposed to burst in on Mary’s uncle, Eric Campbell, performing an exorcism on a minor demon, and demand to know what was going on. He was not supposed to instantly understand that what had been done to Mary must have some link to Hell and to demons, and to press the Campbells for explanations. He was not supposed to discover Mary’s deal, or the name of the demon responsible for signing her up. Azazel - the scapegoat, fallen angel, leader of the rebel Watchers, teacher of war. Above all, he wasn’t supposed to find out about Sam and Azazel’s blood. The only good thing to come out of this situation was the Campbells’ point blank refusal to offer John Winchester any help.
However, all that achieved was a relatively small delay in proceedings while John went on a quest for information that took him nearly ten years to track down. Fortunately for Hell, the man was relentless but slow.
Chuck stopped typing. This was so confusing, damn it. If they - whoever ‘they’ were, the jury was still out on that one - were going to rewrite history, they could at least have made it a completely different story. Instead all they seemed to be doing was rehashing the same tale with just enough differences thrown in to add uncertainty as to the outcome, and mess with Chuck’s head at the same time.
He’d forgotten how writing made his head ache and reawakened cravings for strong alcohol and cheesy chips. These visions had been extra confusing too, taking great leaps in time and leaving gaps in the narrative Chuck had no desire to fabricate filler material for this time round. Whatever fun Chuck had had writing the books before had been lost somewhere along the way - probably around about the time he found out this wasn’t merely fiction he was describing. Having an angel blow up in his face had been a sobering experience too.
He sighed and continued, “Some years later…”
Dean gritted his teeth and widened his stance. The demon pushed even harder, and Dean could feel his ribs creaking under the strain. Just as the pressure on his chest and throat became unbearable and his vision sparked, the demon’s vessel started to cough. The psychic grip that was freezing all Dean’s limbs relaxed a fraction, just enough so he was able to move again, though he could still taste his own blood where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek. That tiny amount of leeway was all Dean needed. He brought the knife up and plunged the blade deep into the demon’s meat-suit. With all Dean’s compact muscle behind it, the serrated steel punched though muscle fiber and cartilage straight into the heart. The demon lit up like volcanic magma under the skin as it died.
Dean would never have admitted it, but it was a relief to feel how sluggish the blood flowed out of the human body and over his hand. From that he knew the vessel was most likely already dead. He hated killing the innocent alongside the evil, however necessary that might be.
Dean’s vision slowly cleared from the afterglow of the demon’s death throes, and he took a relieved breath through his bruised throat. He glanced over the dead demon’s shoulder as he lowered the body to the floor, just in time to catch his Dad’s eye as John turned away. Dean wished he’d been a fraction slower so he hadn’t seen that expression of disappointment on John’s face.
“That was slow, Dean. You let it get the drop on you,” John was saying, even as he clasped Sam’s shoulder in approval. “If Sammy here hadn’t loosened that demon’s hold on you, you’d have been dead meat.”
Sam flashed him an apologetic glance, but Dean just ducked his head, muttering a quick yessir. Dad was right, if that had been a real battle situation, Dean would have been a goner. But worse, he could have put Sam in danger too. Sam was the one with the demon blood; the one John was grooming to lead. Dean was supposed to be Sam’s shield, to stand between his brother and Azazel’s army, and he wouldn’t be worth a damn in that final fight if he got himself ganked by some minor demon when they were just practicing their moves.
Chuck fingers stilled over the keyboard. Really? This was just too fucking depressing. Here was the chance for John and his boys to change everything, and yet things were still the same.
“ Always with the self esteem issues, Dean.” Chuck muttered.
He stood up and stretched, wincing when his back cracked. And that was another thing. He was too old for this shit. He glanced at the computer clock and winced again. Gone midnight and he was wired, still buzzing with his dreams, visions, nightmares, whatever you wanted to call them. He staggered to the kitchen, searching the cupboards until he found what he was looking for, a half empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. He unscrewed the lid and took a long swig straight from the bottle. Chuck knew all too well how this went, and that half a bottle was nowhere near enough to stop the dreaming when he finally fell asleep again. But it might at least help dull the senses enough to make things bearable. He sat back down and stared as the first touch on the keyboard dismissed his screensaver into oblivion. He wished he could follow it.
John watched over his boys on their return to the motel without making it obvious he was doing it - something he’d become very good at over the last ten years. He waited until he was sure Dean had no serious injury from his demon encounter, and that Sam was taking care of his eldest’s bruised ego, before he left the motel to find the nearest bar.
He didn’t allow his shoulders to slump until he had his fingers clenched around his shot glass so tight he thought he might shatter it. Weariness ran through his veins in place of blood these days. He could only cling to the hope that all of this was going to be worth it in the end, that he would live to feel some satisfaction when Azazel was lying dead at his feet. Whatever happened to him then, he neither knew nor cared. He couldn’t see beyond that single moment of vengeance.
He ran a hand over his face, rasping over two days’ worth of stubble, then raised the glass to his lips, more ready than he wanted to be for the burn of pure spirit down his throat. Someone jostled his elbow, causing the amber liquid to slosh onto the counter. John turned, whip-fast, more than ready for a fight, only to find himself face to face with probably the last person on earth he wanted to see.
“Easy, John Boy,” Crowley said “You want to watch that hasty temper of yours, you could get yourself into trouble one day.” The King of the Crossroads smiled and John gritted his teeth. “Oh wait, you’re already in trouble, aren’t you?”
John set the glass down with exaggerated care avoiding the spilt liquid on the counter top, face impassive.
“Crowley.” he said. “What are you doing here? There’s still two days before you can collect on our deal... In fact, you know what? I don’t care why you’re here. Unless you’ve brought Azazel bound, bloody and begging for mercy before I kill him, I’m not interested.”
He turned back to pick up his drink only to freeze at Crowley’s next words.
“Oh don’t worry, I will deliver on my end of the bargain. But I’m just wondering how you think you are going to kill Azazel, when it comes to it? Or are you going to leave it to little Sammy’s powers to do your dirty work? How’s Ruby getting on with her ‘enhancement program’ by the way? I hear the boy is shaping up nicely.”
John refused to rise to the not very heavily veiled taunts. “We…I have the knife Ruby gave Sam. I’ll gut Azazel with that.”
“Ah yes, the magic knife. That works very well on lesser demons, but I think you’ll find it singularly ineffectual when it comes to a demon of Azazel’s pedigree. Now, now, settle down, John Boy.” Crowley said, lifting a hand when John visibly bristled. “That’s why I’m here. I need you to lend me one of your boys to help me secure the only weapon that will work. The Colt.”
John sat back with his arms crossed, ready to scoff. “The Colt? I’ve heard of that old wives tale - but it’s just a hunters’ legend. If it existed, it was lost a long time ago.”
“That’s where you are wrong, my morose American friend. It exists, and I know where it is. A hunter by the name of Elkins has it. The man’s a recluse, keeps himself and his property so heavily warded no demon can come within a mile of it. Hence, I need a human to appropriate it for me. For us.”
John pinched the top of his nose, feeling numb. He thought about the wounded look in Dean’s eyes today when he’d refused to give the boy the praise he deserved. John wished his oldest boy wasn’t such a decent man. He’d tried so hard to toughen Dean up, to get him ready for the day John would have to leave his boys behind, but Dean loved too much and too deeply, and that made him vulnerable.
“Fine,” John said, not looking around. “Take Dean.”
He didn’t need to turn to know Crowley had gone the moment Dean’s name had passed his lips. Fucking demons. He reached for the whiskey, downed it in one gulp and ordered another. Sometimes John thought Crowley had already taken his soul, way back when the deal was first struck, he felt so fucking empty.
Chuck ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. He hadn’t thought John Winchester could mess up his sons any worse than he’d managed first time round, but it seemed Chuck was mistaken. John was a genius at finding new ways to do the wrong things for the right reasons, and vice versa.
More demon deals? Working with the King of the Crossroads to get his revenge, and pushing Dean away because he thought the boy’s life wasn’t hard enough? That was bad enough but was Chuck seeing this right? John Winchester was also supervising getting Sam hooked on demon blood, and allowing Ruby free reign with his youngest boy?
Knowing how all that turned out last time, Chuck had to wonder if Ruby was playing a double cross against both the Winchesters and Crowley, acting under Lucifer’s direction again. Of course, he’d been shown nothing about the angels as yet, so maybe it was a safe bet to assume John knew nothing about Heaven’s agenda for his boys. Whatever, there was no way this was going to end well.
The whole thing was giving Chuck the biggest headache ever, and what was worse - he knew that he couldn’t even publish this one, as it totally contradicted the story he’d already told. No publisher was going to print an AU like this, even one written by the original author. Which just sucked big hairy balls.
He wondered whether he should post it on one of Becky’s fan-sites under a pseudonym, just to see what reaction it got…Nah. No point in stirring up that particular nest of vipers again. Chuck turned back to his screen and the new adventures of the Winchester boys.
Dean hated Crowley with a full-bodied hatred that ran through his body like blood. He hated Crowley even worse than he hated Ruby, and that was saying a lot. Dean had been old enough and stubborn enough to argue with his Dad when John first started working with the demon. At fourteen, Dean already had ten years experience in fighting monsters and thought he knew what was right and what was wrong. It was his dad who’d taught him that, alongside the prime directive of taking care of his little brother. Yet here John was, listening to that lying bastard demon. Doing stuff that a demon suggested. Things that, in Dean’s eyes, got progressively worse.
Crowley came between Dean and his father, which was bad enough. Dean missed that approving sparkle in Dad’s eye when Dean had done something good - hit a target first time dead center, ran fast enough to beat his previous personal best, ganked his first ghost. But worse than that, Crowley came between Sam and Dean, something Ruby had been less successful in doing, and that was the one thing Dean could never forgive or forget.
Now, Dean stood with a guaranteed demon-killing weapon in his hand, and the object of his hate leaning against the gatepost at the edge of Elkin’s property, where Dean had left the Impala. Crowley’s smug grin was firmly in place, and Dean couldn’t think of a single good reason not to test the Colt’s powers on a perfect target.
“I know what you’re thinking, squirrel,” Crowley said, the smile on his lips not reaching his eyes.
“I doubt that,” Dean replied.
He was watching the King of the Crossroads with a finely honed attentiveness that did nothing to stop his start of surprise when Crowley vanished and reappeared right at his elbow.
“I could give you lots of good reasons not to use that Colt on me, but let me give you just one.”
Crowley was close enough that Dean could feel the puff of the demon’s dead breath on his cheek, and he couldn’t repress a shudder. He tried telling himself it was just the chill of the mountain breeze, but even he was hard pressed to believe his own lie.
“That gun has only got three of Samuel Colt’s special bullets left, and who’s to say you won’t need more than one to kill Azazel?”
There was another puff of air, accompanied this time by an eye-watering stench of sulphur, and then Crowley had moved from Dean’s left elbow to straight in front of him. Only two steps away and such a tempting, easy target, Dean surely couldn’t miss. Almost of its own volition, Dean’s right arm came up, and he palmed the Colt’s cocking mechanism with his left hand. Crowley stretched out both arms, standing there like a parody of Christ crucified.
“That’s right, squirrel. I’m standing right here. How could you possibly miss? Take me out and Daddy will love you again, just like he used to. Maybe you can kill Ruby too, and then our dear Moose can go on a detox program. So what if Azazel then leads his demon army out of Hell to ravage the earth? That’s just fine, as long as Dean Winchester is happy.”
Dean’s outstretched hand trembled. His finger curled around the trigger without putting any real pressure on.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Three bullets. One for Crowley, one for Ruby, one for Azazel. It sounded perfect. It sounded right. Crowley stepped forward. One pace. Two. Until the demon’s chest was pressed up against the muzzle of the Colt and Dean could no longer breathe for imagining the way the demon would light up when the magic bullet drove through bone and organs and exited the other side. Dean didn’t think he had ever wanted anything so bad in his entire life.
He squeezed the trigger.
Chuck sighed and saved the document, though he wasn’t sure why he was bothering. Of course Dean didn’t kill Crowley, and Chuck didn’t know how he felt about that.
The demon had dematerialized even as Dean was squeezing the trigger and had completely disappeared even before the ‘B’ of the bang. The young hunter was left alone in the woods, cursing not only his failure to kill Crowley but the loss of a precious bullet.
Chuck had a horrible feeling that John Winchester was going to have a few things to say about that when Dean put the gun into his father’s hands. Only two bullets left.
Chuck wandered into the kitchen, the ties of his dressing gown trailing forlornly behind him. The yellow glow of the fridge light mocked him as it lit up a gaping emptiness echoed by his stomach’s loud grumble. He realized he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten. He didn’t even know what time of day or night it was. The curtains were still drawn, and the room was dimly lit and smelt of must and ancient take-out cartons.
He didn’t recall the writing process being this intense last time, but then he’d been living the story in the same time frame as the Winchesters. Now he and the story seemed to be getting compressed, the Winchesters’ lives being fed into his aching brain in concentrated doses. He was so fucking tired, but though even his uncomfortable couch was looking appealing, he was afraid to sleep.
Bitter experience told him that, like the Borg, resistance was futile, but that didn’t stop him wishing. Wishing he had never met these boys; that he’d never started to like them; that he’d been able to hang onto some modicum of detachment. Seeing them having to deal with this fucked up shit again when they were so much younger this time just made it even harder to handle.
He was thinking that the really mind numbing part was knowing what was to come, the fact that the re-enactment of some events seemed to be inevitable - but as it turned out, Chuck didn’t know as much as he thought he did.
John’s time was up. Ten years to the day he’d made his unholy alliance with the King of the Crossroads, against all the advice of his good friends Bobby and Ellen, and it was time to pay his dues. He was almost ready to accept his fate. He’d tried to slip away without his boys knowing, but Dean was too sharp. John had trained him too well. Dean had been twitchy for days, tense as a violin string, jumping at shadows, so there was no chance John could have gotten away unseen. The net result was John Winchester stood face to face with his own personal devil flanked by his two sons - Dean solid and dependable on his right, Sam a slender but deadly presence on his left.
John could feel both his boys seething with anger. He wished there had been an easier way for them to find out there was no escaping from this deal. More than anything, John wished they didn’t have to witness his surrender.
Crowley’s right hand was dangling in mid air, scratching at something John assumed was one of the demon’s hellhounds. John frowned slightly, momentarily puzzled as to why he couldn’t see the creature. All the lore had said the veil would be thin for days before the deal was due, but John had seen nothing out of the ordinary.
“So John Boy, time to pony up, eh? Nice to see you brought Moose and Squirrel along with you. I expect they wanted to be here to say goodbye. That’s sweet.”
“I didn’t come here to listen to you monologuing like a sixties Bond villain,” John growled. “just get on with it, will you? Take my fucking soul and go.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow in exaggerated distaste.
“Your soul, John? What would I want with that piece of garbage? No. I’m here for something much purer, much more valuable.” Crowley stopped scratching his hound and beckoned to Dean. “Time to go, Squirrel. I’ve got work for you in Hell.”
John felt the blood drain out of his face. His and Sam’s shouts of ‘No!’ were in perfect synchronization, but Crowley didn’t stop smiling. The demon’s face did harden around the edges of his grin though, reminding John this was the King of Hell’s Crossroads they were dealing with, not an innocuous-seeming short British guy in a smart suit.
He felt Dean’s flinch when the invisible hellhound growled loud enough so that even John could hear. Then his son took a step forward. Why did Dean always have to be so fucking obedient.
“Don’t pretend you never knew the terms of the deal, John. I know you’ve been training Dean, getting him ready for this moment,” Crowley said.
John felt the pressure of Sam’s glare on him at that, but couldn’t take his eyes off the way Dean’s shoulders tensed then sagged just a fraction at Crowley’s words. Because it was true, of course John had been training both his boys for this difficult time, but only so they would be strong enough to carry on and face Azazel without him. And of course John had thought he needed Dean in particular to be tough, so he’d be able to look after Sam when John was gone.
He remembered how Dean had yelled at him, ten years ago. It was the first and only time Dean had ever done that, and the boy’s timing had sucked. It was when Bobby had confronted John about his deal.
Bobby had been so furious. He’d stood in that crazy house of his, that was more occult library than a place to live, red faced and incredulous, waving his arms around because mere words were not enough. John had been conscious of Dean, but only peripherally, his defensive anger all focused on his friend - how dare Bobby judge him? What gave Bobby the right to berate him and question his decisions?
John had been caught up in the fight, the two of them getting more and more furious, words being flung about that were sharper and more damaging than any weapon. Then Bobby had told John to get out and never come back, and John had been only too happy to comply.
He’d been taken completely by surprise when Dean refused to get in the Impala. None of John’s blustering, pleas or threats had any effect. It was only the sight of ten-year-old Sam’s shocked and tearful face staring out of the car that had finally broken the deadlock. Silent and pale, Sam’s look had persuaded his eldest to throw his bag into the trunk and slide into the back seat.
John never knew if Dean had forgiven him, because the boy would never talk about it again. Certainly Sam never had. Now, faced with losing Dean, John didn’t know if he’d ever be able to forgive himself.
“This was not in our agreement, I never…” John sputtered. “You were meant to take me!”
“You should always read the small print, Johnnie, even a Hollywood bimbo knows that golden rule. Don’t try and tell me you are more stupid than Lindsay Lohan. She checked every line when I signed her up.”
John could see it clear as anything. Crowley was taking his boy from him in more ways than one. The look of hurt and betrayal in Dean’s eyes was more than John could bear. The rage washing over him did nothing to dull the overwhelming pain of watching, helpless, while Crowley grabbed Dean by the arm and vanished. John closed his eyes and fell to his knees.
Sam’s howl was more terrifying than any hellhound could ever aspire to.
Chuck didn’t want to watch Dean suffering in Hell all over again, but the way things were going, it looked like he wouldn’t have a choice. So he was surprised when his first dream following Crowley’s consummation of John’s deal was harrowing, but not in the ways that Chuck had expected.
In fact, after Crowley took Dean, the path of Chuck’s dreams changed. They never once followed Dean into Hell, as if there was a veil being drawn between the surface of the earth and what lay beneath. The underworld with all its horrors was closed against Chuck’s sight and he was so grateful to be spared the horror this time, he never thought to question why that might be.
He had been familiar with the sons’ grief for their father in the previous version of events, but now he got to experience a different creature, John’s grief for his son. For both his sons, in fact, as Sam barely spoke to John after Dean’s departure, disappearance, call it what you will. Chuck hadn’t really taken to this version of John Winchester - his life choices seemed to have been even more ill-advised than the version of the man Chuck was familiar with - but it was hard to see John fall apart so completely now.
Witnessing the warmth fade from Sam’s earnest hazel eyes as he turned to Ruby for help was even harder. The kid was only nineteen, but he looked ten years older.
Dean’s gone gone gone gone…. It was the catchiest chorus from the worst song ever heard and Sam couldn’t shake it. All the times Sam had contemplated leaving, going to college, getting a real job, escaping from this destiny that John Winchester had always told him was inescapable, Sam had never once thought that Dean would no longer be there to stop his compass needle spinning round and round and never stopping.
Dad was disintegrating, but Sam had no capacity to deal with that right now because Dean was gone gone gone.
After a couple of days, Sam shoved John into Dean’s Impala (it would always be Dean’s car, whatever universe they were in) to South Dakota, intending to leave his dad there with Bobby Singer. It felt right - a broken man in a scrapyard full of broken things. But once he arrived at Singer’s Salvage, Sam ground to a halt. He didn’t know what to do next, so he stayed a while, researching.
Bobby’s library was second to none. The old hunter had copies of virtually every occult text ever written, and Sam figured if there was a solution to be found, he’d find it here.
At first he tried finding out everything he could about Crowley, but that proved harder than he expected. The King of the Crossroads was a title that had a long history in Hell’s hierarchy, but Crowley had only taken the crown relatively recently. Before that, Crowley’s origins were obscure. One version said he was the corrupted soul of a sixteenth century Scottish crofter, but there were also rumors that he was a vastly older and more dangerous creature.
After a few frustrating weeks, Sam decided he was taking the wrong route. He needed something more direct. Coincidentally, that was when Ruby turned up in Sioux Falls. Like a bad penny, she left a bitter coppery after-taste in Sam’s mouth.
“I need a way into Hell,” Sam said. Even John, who spent all his days sitting silent and morose in a dark corner of Bobby’s living room, took notice at that. He, Bobby and Ruby’s chorus of ‘what?’ was only missing a lead to sing the melody and make a perfect barbershop quartet. Sam wasn’t impressed by their sudden harmony.
“You heard me. I need a way into Hell and she is going to give it to me.”
He pointed at Ruby, who shook her head. “That’s not part of the plan,” she said.
“Whose plan is that, Ruby? Yours? Azazel’s? Crowley’s?”
“I…”
“You know what? Don’t bother. You’ll only lie. It’s what demons do.”
Sam ignored Ruby’s pathetic attempt to look offended. He knew it was an accurate assessment.
“You can’t get into Hell, son. Not while you’re still alive, anyhow,” Bobby said.
“I won’t allow it,” John added, sounding more petulant than authoritative.
Sam stared at his father in disbelief. “You won’t allow it. I think you’ll find you gave up any right to tell me what to do any more, when you allowed Crowley to take Dean from us. You’ve been priming me for some big demon battle since I was six months old; well, I’m tired of waiting for the demons to come to me. I’m taking the fight to them and I’m going to get my brother back.”
Ruby approved of Sam’s proposal, which made Chuck feel a little bit ill. Sometimes the prophet had been waking up crying, other times he’d awaken mid shout. It was mostly through trying to warn Sam that it was a very dark road he was walking down, and that holding hands with a demon was never a good idea.
When Ruby offered Sam her body as well as her blood, her seduction seemed complete. Chuck had a moment where he wondered if he could or should try and track this Sam down and talk to him, face to face, manno a manno, as Dean would have said. But Chuck was the same person he’d always been, and he couldn’t find the extra morsel of courage that was required to take that step.
Then on May 2nd, when Dean Winchester had been with Crowley for two months, Sam Winchester celebrated his twentieth birthday by storming Hell.
Sam wasn’t sure who or what he was any more. He had so much demon blood fizzing through his veins he felt his skin was on fire, but he didn’t care. It made him powerful and gave him what he needed, and that was all that mattered. He drained every last drop of Ruby’s sulphurous blood and, as a special bonus birthday treat to himself, he burned her black smoking soul into oblivion. Dean would have been - will be - proud of him.
Now all Sam had to do was enter Hell and pull his brother out. It wasn’t going to be easy, but dear departed Ruby had shown him the door. All Sam needed was to walk through, and he would take care of the rest himself, using his powers just as the late demon had taught him. He chuckled a little, though without much humor, at the thought that Ruby had never once realized that Sam was using her as a means to an end, not the other way round. It was an object lesson she wasn’t given time to appreciate.
Never underestimate a Winchester.
Sam harrowed Hell like a supernova, his rage as incandescent and destructive as the heart of a star. He incinerated everything in his path, even Azazel. Sam utterly destroyed the yellow-eyed demon that had murdered their mother and obsessed their father for so many years, and he did it with such ease it seemed that nothing could stand against him.
Until he came to the inner circle.
There Sam’s irresistible force was met by an immoveable object. In the darkness of the shadows he cast, Sam could just make out the outline of what looked like a man holding a curved bone that was studded with jagged teeth.
“Cain,” Sam said. He knew his lore. “This is not your fight. Leave now and I won’t hurt you. I just want my brother back.”
“Hey, Sammy,” said the shadow.
0x0x0x0
The little girl’s finger painting was somewhat abstract at first, but gradually a pattern became clearer as her pudgy hands gleefully smeared and smudged the glistening red across the previously pristine shine of the kitchen tiles. It looked like signs and portents, like the end of the world.
“Mom’s going to be very cross at me for making all this mess,” she declared.
The stout middle-aged man, who was sitting at the dining table watching her play, gave a snort of laughter. The little girl glanced across the kitchen and smiled at her mother, the bright happy smile of an innocent four year old whose hands were red to the wrists with her father’s blood.
The woman gave a choked horrified sound but could manage nothing more, held as she was in the grip of Lilith’s power.
“John Winchester was the righteous man, wasn’t he?” she said, the question more of a statement, but still addressed to the stout man, who nodded agreement. “And he is quite broken, is he not?”
Again, Alastair - for it was he - nodded, but more slowly this time, his borrowed face taking on a contemplative expression.
“I think you’ll find the first seal is broken too, even though this was not how we had planned it.”
Lilith pointed to the bloody symbols on the floor and Alastair stood up to take a closer look. The smile that crossed his face then made the captive woman whimper. Lilith didn’t give her time to regret drawing the attention of the two demons. With a bored flick of a small hand, Lilith snapped her meat-suit’s mother’s neck.
“What about this alliance between the Blade and the Boy King? They’ve already laid waste to half of Hell, and are well on the way to subjugating the other half. Crowley’s on the run from them, and even Abaddon capitulated last week,” Alastair said.
Lilith giggled, unconcerned. She’d abandoned her artwork and had climbed ont0 one of the kitchen chairs, where she perched, swinging her legs. The blood droplets that scattered from the wet bottoms of her patent leather shoes made a pleasing pattern as she swung her feet.
“All pieces on the board, there to be toyed with until our Father is free. Then, if they survive the game, our Lord will decide their fate. I expect Lucifer will need a pair of new hounds when he walks the earth once again. He will take pleasure in bringing the Winchesters to heel.”
Chuck shivered. He closed his eyes, opened them and wondered why he didn’t wake up.
So the Seals were breaking, the Apocalypse clock was ticking and all the players were back in the game. He wondered when the angels were going to show their hand, and what difference it would make to have Heaven’s precious vessels Lords of Hell, working for each other and no one else.
Chuck wondered if he could survive another turn on this merry-go-round. He sighed. If he was a betting man he’d put money on Sam and Dean defying Death, but he wouldn’t like to see the odds for anyone else, be they demon or angel. Perversely, that cheered him up. Perhaps the next part of the story wouldn’t be so bad. Seeing Lilith and Alastair frustrated again might make a lot of the pain worthwhile.
Chuck was smiling when he turned back to the white glow of the computer screen.
Recipient: immortal_jedi
Rating: PG13
Word Count: ~6,500
Warnings: Some swearing
Author's Notes: A huge thank you to my wonderful beta, who improved this story enormously. Any remaining errors, inconsistencies, etc. are all mine.
Summary: From the prompt - It wasn't Sam or Dean that the world needed to worry about if they turned - it was John. After the fire John turned to the demon faction that opposed Azazel. And he raised the boys to become demon generals.
The Book of the Giants
Chuck hadn’t dreamt about the Winchesters for years. Not since he’d had that last, bizarre dream about the life story of Dean’s Impala that had ended with Sam flinging himself into Lucifer’s cage to save the world. On a purely personal level Chuck had thought at the time that it was his weirdest Winchester vision yet, having seen himself not only writing their story but somehow directing it - as if his early forebodings about having some kind of godlike powers were actually true. Then he’d woken up, and everything was back to normal. Well, as normal as Chuck Shirley’s life ever was, that is.
He’d been an emotional wreck for several days afterwards of course, still shaken by the trauma of seeing Dean beaten nearly to death by the Devil wearing Sam, and by the depth of Dean’s grief at losing his brother. Chuck had mourned alongside the elder Winchester, but given all the shit the prophet had lived through with the Winchesters over the years, there was nothing new there. Sorrow and terror walking hand in hand was par for the course.
What was new was the blessed calm and the lack of compulsion to record anything that followed that final vision. The inside of his head was blissfully silent; his subsequent dreams empty of incident and completely devoid of anything even vaguely supernatural. A month went by, then a year, and Chuck finally started to relax. He had a haircut, trimmed his scraggly beard into a neat goatee, and actually managed to get and hold onto a job as a journalist for his local newspaper.
So the last thing he expected was to suddenly start dreaming again, let alone to find that these dreams were completely rewriting the story that he knew. It was traumatic enough living through the Winchesters’ miserable lives the first time round. Chuck had no desire whatsoever to start all over again with the same story set to a different tune. Or perhaps it was a new story set to the same gloomy Wagnerian soundtrack, but to be honest, Chuck didn’t want to find out.
It looked like he wasn’t going to have any choice, though. He sat staring at his blank laptop screen, blunt fingers shaking like he’d gone back onto the bottle-a-day whiskey habit that hadn’t helped him through his last sojourn with the Winchester Saga. He pressed the on-button with a reluctance that couldn’t be quantified, and the jolly electronic tones of Windows 7 warming up sounded like the knell of doom. His shoulders slumped in resignation. Seriously, fuck his life.
Chuck started typing from the beginning, all over again.
When Azazel burned Mary he miscalculated. Sure, her death set Dean and Sam Winchester on a dark and lonely path, but unfortunately it was not the one that Azazel and his Master had counted on when they plotted out their course. The reason? Two factors - one being luck, chance, fate - call it what you will. The other was much simpler. Azazel underestimated John Winchester.
John wasn’t supposed to find out about Mary’s hunting legacy. He was meant to take his boys and leave Lawrence, grieving and bewildered. The plan was for him to gradually discover random facts about the evil underworld that surrounds everyone. They would feed it to him in tiny, tempting morsels that would lead him down a path to ruin - like the antithesis of Hansel’s trail of breadcrumbs leading the hero out of the perilous forest. John should have been kept largely ignorant and ineffectual, remaining on the margins of the story until the time came to send him to Hell to be broken.
John was not supposed to burst in on Mary’s uncle, Eric Campbell, performing an exorcism on a minor demon, and demand to know what was going on. He was not supposed to instantly understand that what had been done to Mary must have some link to Hell and to demons, and to press the Campbells for explanations. He was not supposed to discover Mary’s deal, or the name of the demon responsible for signing her up. Azazel - the scapegoat, fallen angel, leader of the rebel Watchers, teacher of war. Above all, he wasn’t supposed to find out about Sam and Azazel’s blood. The only good thing to come out of this situation was the Campbells’ point blank refusal to offer John Winchester any help.
However, all that achieved was a relatively small delay in proceedings while John went on a quest for information that took him nearly ten years to track down. Fortunately for Hell, the man was relentless but slow.
Chuck stopped typing. This was so confusing, damn it. If they - whoever ‘they’ were, the jury was still out on that one - were going to rewrite history, they could at least have made it a completely different story. Instead all they seemed to be doing was rehashing the same tale with just enough differences thrown in to add uncertainty as to the outcome, and mess with Chuck’s head at the same time.
He’d forgotten how writing made his head ache and reawakened cravings for strong alcohol and cheesy chips. These visions had been extra confusing too, taking great leaps in time and leaving gaps in the narrative Chuck had no desire to fabricate filler material for this time round. Whatever fun Chuck had had writing the books before had been lost somewhere along the way - probably around about the time he found out this wasn’t merely fiction he was describing. Having an angel blow up in his face had been a sobering experience too.
He sighed and continued, “Some years later…”
Dean gritted his teeth and widened his stance. The demon pushed even harder, and Dean could feel his ribs creaking under the strain. Just as the pressure on his chest and throat became unbearable and his vision sparked, the demon’s vessel started to cough. The psychic grip that was freezing all Dean’s limbs relaxed a fraction, just enough so he was able to move again, though he could still taste his own blood where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek. That tiny amount of leeway was all Dean needed. He brought the knife up and plunged the blade deep into the demon’s meat-suit. With all Dean’s compact muscle behind it, the serrated steel punched though muscle fiber and cartilage straight into the heart. The demon lit up like volcanic magma under the skin as it died.
Dean would never have admitted it, but it was a relief to feel how sluggish the blood flowed out of the human body and over his hand. From that he knew the vessel was most likely already dead. He hated killing the innocent alongside the evil, however necessary that might be.
Dean’s vision slowly cleared from the afterglow of the demon’s death throes, and he took a relieved breath through his bruised throat. He glanced over the dead demon’s shoulder as he lowered the body to the floor, just in time to catch his Dad’s eye as John turned away. Dean wished he’d been a fraction slower so he hadn’t seen that expression of disappointment on John’s face.
“That was slow, Dean. You let it get the drop on you,” John was saying, even as he clasped Sam’s shoulder in approval. “If Sammy here hadn’t loosened that demon’s hold on you, you’d have been dead meat.”
Sam flashed him an apologetic glance, but Dean just ducked his head, muttering a quick yessir. Dad was right, if that had been a real battle situation, Dean would have been a goner. But worse, he could have put Sam in danger too. Sam was the one with the demon blood; the one John was grooming to lead. Dean was supposed to be Sam’s shield, to stand between his brother and Azazel’s army, and he wouldn’t be worth a damn in that final fight if he got himself ganked by some minor demon when they were just practicing their moves.
Chuck fingers stilled over the keyboard. Really? This was just too fucking depressing. Here was the chance for John and his boys to change everything, and yet things were still the same.
“ Always with the self esteem issues, Dean.” Chuck muttered.
He stood up and stretched, wincing when his back cracked. And that was another thing. He was too old for this shit. He glanced at the computer clock and winced again. Gone midnight and he was wired, still buzzing with his dreams, visions, nightmares, whatever you wanted to call them. He staggered to the kitchen, searching the cupboards until he found what he was looking for, a half empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. He unscrewed the lid and took a long swig straight from the bottle. Chuck knew all too well how this went, and that half a bottle was nowhere near enough to stop the dreaming when he finally fell asleep again. But it might at least help dull the senses enough to make things bearable. He sat back down and stared as the first touch on the keyboard dismissed his screensaver into oblivion. He wished he could follow it.
John watched over his boys on their return to the motel without making it obvious he was doing it - something he’d become very good at over the last ten years. He waited until he was sure Dean had no serious injury from his demon encounter, and that Sam was taking care of his eldest’s bruised ego, before he left the motel to find the nearest bar.
He didn’t allow his shoulders to slump until he had his fingers clenched around his shot glass so tight he thought he might shatter it. Weariness ran through his veins in place of blood these days. He could only cling to the hope that all of this was going to be worth it in the end, that he would live to feel some satisfaction when Azazel was lying dead at his feet. Whatever happened to him then, he neither knew nor cared. He couldn’t see beyond that single moment of vengeance.
He ran a hand over his face, rasping over two days’ worth of stubble, then raised the glass to his lips, more ready than he wanted to be for the burn of pure spirit down his throat. Someone jostled his elbow, causing the amber liquid to slosh onto the counter. John turned, whip-fast, more than ready for a fight, only to find himself face to face with probably the last person on earth he wanted to see.
“Easy, John Boy,” Crowley said “You want to watch that hasty temper of yours, you could get yourself into trouble one day.” The King of the Crossroads smiled and John gritted his teeth. “Oh wait, you’re already in trouble, aren’t you?”
John set the glass down with exaggerated care avoiding the spilt liquid on the counter top, face impassive.
“Crowley.” he said. “What are you doing here? There’s still two days before you can collect on our deal... In fact, you know what? I don’t care why you’re here. Unless you’ve brought Azazel bound, bloody and begging for mercy before I kill him, I’m not interested.”
He turned back to pick up his drink only to freeze at Crowley’s next words.
“Oh don’t worry, I will deliver on my end of the bargain. But I’m just wondering how you think you are going to kill Azazel, when it comes to it? Or are you going to leave it to little Sammy’s powers to do your dirty work? How’s Ruby getting on with her ‘enhancement program’ by the way? I hear the boy is shaping up nicely.”
John refused to rise to the not very heavily veiled taunts. “We…I have the knife Ruby gave Sam. I’ll gut Azazel with that.”
“Ah yes, the magic knife. That works very well on lesser demons, but I think you’ll find it singularly ineffectual when it comes to a demon of Azazel’s pedigree. Now, now, settle down, John Boy.” Crowley said, lifting a hand when John visibly bristled. “That’s why I’m here. I need you to lend me one of your boys to help me secure the only weapon that will work. The Colt.”
John sat back with his arms crossed, ready to scoff. “The Colt? I’ve heard of that old wives tale - but it’s just a hunters’ legend. If it existed, it was lost a long time ago.”
“That’s where you are wrong, my morose American friend. It exists, and I know where it is. A hunter by the name of Elkins has it. The man’s a recluse, keeps himself and his property so heavily warded no demon can come within a mile of it. Hence, I need a human to appropriate it for me. For us.”
John pinched the top of his nose, feeling numb. He thought about the wounded look in Dean’s eyes today when he’d refused to give the boy the praise he deserved. John wished his oldest boy wasn’t such a decent man. He’d tried so hard to toughen Dean up, to get him ready for the day John would have to leave his boys behind, but Dean loved too much and too deeply, and that made him vulnerable.
“Fine,” John said, not looking around. “Take Dean.”
He didn’t need to turn to know Crowley had gone the moment Dean’s name had passed his lips. Fucking demons. He reached for the whiskey, downed it in one gulp and ordered another. Sometimes John thought Crowley had already taken his soul, way back when the deal was first struck, he felt so fucking empty.
Chuck ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. He hadn’t thought John Winchester could mess up his sons any worse than he’d managed first time round, but it seemed Chuck was mistaken. John was a genius at finding new ways to do the wrong things for the right reasons, and vice versa.
More demon deals? Working with the King of the Crossroads to get his revenge, and pushing Dean away because he thought the boy’s life wasn’t hard enough? That was bad enough but was Chuck seeing this right? John Winchester was also supervising getting Sam hooked on demon blood, and allowing Ruby free reign with his youngest boy?
Knowing how all that turned out last time, Chuck had to wonder if Ruby was playing a double cross against both the Winchesters and Crowley, acting under Lucifer’s direction again. Of course, he’d been shown nothing about the angels as yet, so maybe it was a safe bet to assume John knew nothing about Heaven’s agenda for his boys. Whatever, there was no way this was going to end well.
The whole thing was giving Chuck the biggest headache ever, and what was worse - he knew that he couldn’t even publish this one, as it totally contradicted the story he’d already told. No publisher was going to print an AU like this, even one written by the original author. Which just sucked big hairy balls.
He wondered whether he should post it on one of Becky’s fan-sites under a pseudonym, just to see what reaction it got…Nah. No point in stirring up that particular nest of vipers again. Chuck turned back to his screen and the new adventures of the Winchester boys.
Dean hated Crowley with a full-bodied hatred that ran through his body like blood. He hated Crowley even worse than he hated Ruby, and that was saying a lot. Dean had been old enough and stubborn enough to argue with his Dad when John first started working with the demon. At fourteen, Dean already had ten years experience in fighting monsters and thought he knew what was right and what was wrong. It was his dad who’d taught him that, alongside the prime directive of taking care of his little brother. Yet here John was, listening to that lying bastard demon. Doing stuff that a demon suggested. Things that, in Dean’s eyes, got progressively worse.
Crowley came between Dean and his father, which was bad enough. Dean missed that approving sparkle in Dad’s eye when Dean had done something good - hit a target first time dead center, ran fast enough to beat his previous personal best, ganked his first ghost. But worse than that, Crowley came between Sam and Dean, something Ruby had been less successful in doing, and that was the one thing Dean could never forgive or forget.
Now, Dean stood with a guaranteed demon-killing weapon in his hand, and the object of his hate leaning against the gatepost at the edge of Elkin’s property, where Dean had left the Impala. Crowley’s smug grin was firmly in place, and Dean couldn’t think of a single good reason not to test the Colt’s powers on a perfect target.
“I know what you’re thinking, squirrel,” Crowley said, the smile on his lips not reaching his eyes.
“I doubt that,” Dean replied.
He was watching the King of the Crossroads with a finely honed attentiveness that did nothing to stop his start of surprise when Crowley vanished and reappeared right at his elbow.
“I could give you lots of good reasons not to use that Colt on me, but let me give you just one.”
Crowley was close enough that Dean could feel the puff of the demon’s dead breath on his cheek, and he couldn’t repress a shudder. He tried telling himself it was just the chill of the mountain breeze, but even he was hard pressed to believe his own lie.
“That gun has only got three of Samuel Colt’s special bullets left, and who’s to say you won’t need more than one to kill Azazel?”
There was another puff of air, accompanied this time by an eye-watering stench of sulphur, and then Crowley had moved from Dean’s left elbow to straight in front of him. Only two steps away and such a tempting, easy target, Dean surely couldn’t miss. Almost of its own volition, Dean’s right arm came up, and he palmed the Colt’s cocking mechanism with his left hand. Crowley stretched out both arms, standing there like a parody of Christ crucified.
“That’s right, squirrel. I’m standing right here. How could you possibly miss? Take me out and Daddy will love you again, just like he used to. Maybe you can kill Ruby too, and then our dear Moose can go on a detox program. So what if Azazel then leads his demon army out of Hell to ravage the earth? That’s just fine, as long as Dean Winchester is happy.”
Dean’s outstretched hand trembled. His finger curled around the trigger without putting any real pressure on.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Three bullets. One for Crowley, one for Ruby, one for Azazel. It sounded perfect. It sounded right. Crowley stepped forward. One pace. Two. Until the demon’s chest was pressed up against the muzzle of the Colt and Dean could no longer breathe for imagining the way the demon would light up when the magic bullet drove through bone and organs and exited the other side. Dean didn’t think he had ever wanted anything so bad in his entire life.
He squeezed the trigger.
Chuck sighed and saved the document, though he wasn’t sure why he was bothering. Of course Dean didn’t kill Crowley, and Chuck didn’t know how he felt about that.
The demon had dematerialized even as Dean was squeezing the trigger and had completely disappeared even before the ‘B’ of the bang. The young hunter was left alone in the woods, cursing not only his failure to kill Crowley but the loss of a precious bullet.
Chuck had a horrible feeling that John Winchester was going to have a few things to say about that when Dean put the gun into his father’s hands. Only two bullets left.
Chuck wandered into the kitchen, the ties of his dressing gown trailing forlornly behind him. The yellow glow of the fridge light mocked him as it lit up a gaping emptiness echoed by his stomach’s loud grumble. He realized he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten. He didn’t even know what time of day or night it was. The curtains were still drawn, and the room was dimly lit and smelt of must and ancient take-out cartons.
He didn’t recall the writing process being this intense last time, but then he’d been living the story in the same time frame as the Winchesters. Now he and the story seemed to be getting compressed, the Winchesters’ lives being fed into his aching brain in concentrated doses. He was so fucking tired, but though even his uncomfortable couch was looking appealing, he was afraid to sleep.
Bitter experience told him that, like the Borg, resistance was futile, but that didn’t stop him wishing. Wishing he had never met these boys; that he’d never started to like them; that he’d been able to hang onto some modicum of detachment. Seeing them having to deal with this fucked up shit again when they were so much younger this time just made it even harder to handle.
He was thinking that the really mind numbing part was knowing what was to come, the fact that the re-enactment of some events seemed to be inevitable - but as it turned out, Chuck didn’t know as much as he thought he did.
John’s time was up. Ten years to the day he’d made his unholy alliance with the King of the Crossroads, against all the advice of his good friends Bobby and Ellen, and it was time to pay his dues. He was almost ready to accept his fate. He’d tried to slip away without his boys knowing, but Dean was too sharp. John had trained him too well. Dean had been twitchy for days, tense as a violin string, jumping at shadows, so there was no chance John could have gotten away unseen. The net result was John Winchester stood face to face with his own personal devil flanked by his two sons - Dean solid and dependable on his right, Sam a slender but deadly presence on his left.
John could feel both his boys seething with anger. He wished there had been an easier way for them to find out there was no escaping from this deal. More than anything, John wished they didn’t have to witness his surrender.
Crowley’s right hand was dangling in mid air, scratching at something John assumed was one of the demon’s hellhounds. John frowned slightly, momentarily puzzled as to why he couldn’t see the creature. All the lore had said the veil would be thin for days before the deal was due, but John had seen nothing out of the ordinary.
“So John Boy, time to pony up, eh? Nice to see you brought Moose and Squirrel along with you. I expect they wanted to be here to say goodbye. That’s sweet.”
“I didn’t come here to listen to you monologuing like a sixties Bond villain,” John growled. “just get on with it, will you? Take my fucking soul and go.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow in exaggerated distaste.
“Your soul, John? What would I want with that piece of garbage? No. I’m here for something much purer, much more valuable.” Crowley stopped scratching his hound and beckoned to Dean. “Time to go, Squirrel. I’ve got work for you in Hell.”
John felt the blood drain out of his face. His and Sam’s shouts of ‘No!’ were in perfect synchronization, but Crowley didn’t stop smiling. The demon’s face did harden around the edges of his grin though, reminding John this was the King of Hell’s Crossroads they were dealing with, not an innocuous-seeming short British guy in a smart suit.
He felt Dean’s flinch when the invisible hellhound growled loud enough so that even John could hear. Then his son took a step forward. Why did Dean always have to be so fucking obedient.
“Don’t pretend you never knew the terms of the deal, John. I know you’ve been training Dean, getting him ready for this moment,” Crowley said.
John felt the pressure of Sam’s glare on him at that, but couldn’t take his eyes off the way Dean’s shoulders tensed then sagged just a fraction at Crowley’s words. Because it was true, of course John had been training both his boys for this difficult time, but only so they would be strong enough to carry on and face Azazel without him. And of course John had thought he needed Dean in particular to be tough, so he’d be able to look after Sam when John was gone.
He remembered how Dean had yelled at him, ten years ago. It was the first and only time Dean had ever done that, and the boy’s timing had sucked. It was when Bobby had confronted John about his deal.
Bobby had been so furious. He’d stood in that crazy house of his, that was more occult library than a place to live, red faced and incredulous, waving his arms around because mere words were not enough. John had been conscious of Dean, but only peripherally, his defensive anger all focused on his friend - how dare Bobby judge him? What gave Bobby the right to berate him and question his decisions?
John had been caught up in the fight, the two of them getting more and more furious, words being flung about that were sharper and more damaging than any weapon. Then Bobby had told John to get out and never come back, and John had been only too happy to comply.
He’d been taken completely by surprise when Dean refused to get in the Impala. None of John’s blustering, pleas or threats had any effect. It was only the sight of ten-year-old Sam’s shocked and tearful face staring out of the car that had finally broken the deadlock. Silent and pale, Sam’s look had persuaded his eldest to throw his bag into the trunk and slide into the back seat.
John never knew if Dean had forgiven him, because the boy would never talk about it again. Certainly Sam never had. Now, faced with losing Dean, John didn’t know if he’d ever be able to forgive himself.
“This was not in our agreement, I never…” John sputtered. “You were meant to take me!”
“You should always read the small print, Johnnie, even a Hollywood bimbo knows that golden rule. Don’t try and tell me you are more stupid than Lindsay Lohan. She checked every line when I signed her up.”
John could see it clear as anything. Crowley was taking his boy from him in more ways than one. The look of hurt and betrayal in Dean’s eyes was more than John could bear. The rage washing over him did nothing to dull the overwhelming pain of watching, helpless, while Crowley grabbed Dean by the arm and vanished. John closed his eyes and fell to his knees.
Sam’s howl was more terrifying than any hellhound could ever aspire to.
Chuck didn’t want to watch Dean suffering in Hell all over again, but the way things were going, it looked like he wouldn’t have a choice. So he was surprised when his first dream following Crowley’s consummation of John’s deal was harrowing, but not in the ways that Chuck had expected.
In fact, after Crowley took Dean, the path of Chuck’s dreams changed. They never once followed Dean into Hell, as if there was a veil being drawn between the surface of the earth and what lay beneath. The underworld with all its horrors was closed against Chuck’s sight and he was so grateful to be spared the horror this time, he never thought to question why that might be.
He had been familiar with the sons’ grief for their father in the previous version of events, but now he got to experience a different creature, John’s grief for his son. For both his sons, in fact, as Sam barely spoke to John after Dean’s departure, disappearance, call it what you will. Chuck hadn’t really taken to this version of John Winchester - his life choices seemed to have been even more ill-advised than the version of the man Chuck was familiar with - but it was hard to see John fall apart so completely now.
Witnessing the warmth fade from Sam’s earnest hazel eyes as he turned to Ruby for help was even harder. The kid was only nineteen, but he looked ten years older.
Dean’s gone gone gone gone…. It was the catchiest chorus from the worst song ever heard and Sam couldn’t shake it. All the times Sam had contemplated leaving, going to college, getting a real job, escaping from this destiny that John Winchester had always told him was inescapable, Sam had never once thought that Dean would no longer be there to stop his compass needle spinning round and round and never stopping.
Dad was disintegrating, but Sam had no capacity to deal with that right now because Dean was gone gone gone.
After a couple of days, Sam shoved John into Dean’s Impala (it would always be Dean’s car, whatever universe they were in) to South Dakota, intending to leave his dad there with Bobby Singer. It felt right - a broken man in a scrapyard full of broken things. But once he arrived at Singer’s Salvage, Sam ground to a halt. He didn’t know what to do next, so he stayed a while, researching.
Bobby’s library was second to none. The old hunter had copies of virtually every occult text ever written, and Sam figured if there was a solution to be found, he’d find it here.
At first he tried finding out everything he could about Crowley, but that proved harder than he expected. The King of the Crossroads was a title that had a long history in Hell’s hierarchy, but Crowley had only taken the crown relatively recently. Before that, Crowley’s origins were obscure. One version said he was the corrupted soul of a sixteenth century Scottish crofter, but there were also rumors that he was a vastly older and more dangerous creature.
After a few frustrating weeks, Sam decided he was taking the wrong route. He needed something more direct. Coincidentally, that was when Ruby turned up in Sioux Falls. Like a bad penny, she left a bitter coppery after-taste in Sam’s mouth.
“I need a way into Hell,” Sam said. Even John, who spent all his days sitting silent and morose in a dark corner of Bobby’s living room, took notice at that. He, Bobby and Ruby’s chorus of ‘what?’ was only missing a lead to sing the melody and make a perfect barbershop quartet. Sam wasn’t impressed by their sudden harmony.
“You heard me. I need a way into Hell and she is going to give it to me.”
He pointed at Ruby, who shook her head. “That’s not part of the plan,” she said.
“Whose plan is that, Ruby? Yours? Azazel’s? Crowley’s?”
“I…”
“You know what? Don’t bother. You’ll only lie. It’s what demons do.”
Sam ignored Ruby’s pathetic attempt to look offended. He knew it was an accurate assessment.
“You can’t get into Hell, son. Not while you’re still alive, anyhow,” Bobby said.
“I won’t allow it,” John added, sounding more petulant than authoritative.
Sam stared at his father in disbelief. “You won’t allow it. I think you’ll find you gave up any right to tell me what to do any more, when you allowed Crowley to take Dean from us. You’ve been priming me for some big demon battle since I was six months old; well, I’m tired of waiting for the demons to come to me. I’m taking the fight to them and I’m going to get my brother back.”
Ruby approved of Sam’s proposal, which made Chuck feel a little bit ill. Sometimes the prophet had been waking up crying, other times he’d awaken mid shout. It was mostly through trying to warn Sam that it was a very dark road he was walking down, and that holding hands with a demon was never a good idea.
When Ruby offered Sam her body as well as her blood, her seduction seemed complete. Chuck had a moment where he wondered if he could or should try and track this Sam down and talk to him, face to face, manno a manno, as Dean would have said. But Chuck was the same person he’d always been, and he couldn’t find the extra morsel of courage that was required to take that step.
Then on May 2nd, when Dean Winchester had been with Crowley for two months, Sam Winchester celebrated his twentieth birthday by storming Hell.
Sam wasn’t sure who or what he was any more. He had so much demon blood fizzing through his veins he felt his skin was on fire, but he didn’t care. It made him powerful and gave him what he needed, and that was all that mattered. He drained every last drop of Ruby’s sulphurous blood and, as a special bonus birthday treat to himself, he burned her black smoking soul into oblivion. Dean would have been - will be - proud of him.
Now all Sam had to do was enter Hell and pull his brother out. It wasn’t going to be easy, but dear departed Ruby had shown him the door. All Sam needed was to walk through, and he would take care of the rest himself, using his powers just as the late demon had taught him. He chuckled a little, though without much humor, at the thought that Ruby had never once realized that Sam was using her as a means to an end, not the other way round. It was an object lesson she wasn’t given time to appreciate.
Never underestimate a Winchester.
Sam harrowed Hell like a supernova, his rage as incandescent and destructive as the heart of a star. He incinerated everything in his path, even Azazel. Sam utterly destroyed the yellow-eyed demon that had murdered their mother and obsessed their father for so many years, and he did it with such ease it seemed that nothing could stand against him.
Until he came to the inner circle.
There Sam’s irresistible force was met by an immoveable object. In the darkness of the shadows he cast, Sam could just make out the outline of what looked like a man holding a curved bone that was studded with jagged teeth.
“Cain,” Sam said. He knew his lore. “This is not your fight. Leave now and I won’t hurt you. I just want my brother back.”
“Hey, Sammy,” said the shadow.
0x0x0x0
The little girl’s finger painting was somewhat abstract at first, but gradually a pattern became clearer as her pudgy hands gleefully smeared and smudged the glistening red across the previously pristine shine of the kitchen tiles. It looked like signs and portents, like the end of the world.
“Mom’s going to be very cross at me for making all this mess,” she declared.
The stout middle-aged man, who was sitting at the dining table watching her play, gave a snort of laughter. The little girl glanced across the kitchen and smiled at her mother, the bright happy smile of an innocent four year old whose hands were red to the wrists with her father’s blood.
The woman gave a choked horrified sound but could manage nothing more, held as she was in the grip of Lilith’s power.
“John Winchester was the righteous man, wasn’t he?” she said, the question more of a statement, but still addressed to the stout man, who nodded agreement. “And he is quite broken, is he not?”
Again, Alastair - for it was he - nodded, but more slowly this time, his borrowed face taking on a contemplative expression.
“I think you’ll find the first seal is broken too, even though this was not how we had planned it.”
Lilith pointed to the bloody symbols on the floor and Alastair stood up to take a closer look. The smile that crossed his face then made the captive woman whimper. Lilith didn’t give her time to regret drawing the attention of the two demons. With a bored flick of a small hand, Lilith snapped her meat-suit’s mother’s neck.
“What about this alliance between the Blade and the Boy King? They’ve already laid waste to half of Hell, and are well on the way to subjugating the other half. Crowley’s on the run from them, and even Abaddon capitulated last week,” Alastair said.
Lilith giggled, unconcerned. She’d abandoned her artwork and had climbed ont0 one of the kitchen chairs, where she perched, swinging her legs. The blood droplets that scattered from the wet bottoms of her patent leather shoes made a pleasing pattern as she swung her feet.
“All pieces on the board, there to be toyed with until our Father is free. Then, if they survive the game, our Lord will decide their fate. I expect Lucifer will need a pair of new hounds when he walks the earth once again. He will take pleasure in bringing the Winchesters to heel.”
Chuck shivered. He closed his eyes, opened them and wondered why he didn’t wake up.
So the Seals were breaking, the Apocalypse clock was ticking and all the players were back in the game. He wondered when the angels were going to show their hand, and what difference it would make to have Heaven’s precious vessels Lords of Hell, working for each other and no one else.
Chuck wondered if he could survive another turn on this merry-go-round. He sighed. If he was a betting man he’d put money on Sam and Dean defying Death, but he wouldn’t like to see the odds for anyone else, be they demon or angel. Perversely, that cheered him up. Perhaps the next part of the story wouldn’t be so bad. Seeing Lilith and Alastair frustrated again might make a lot of the pain worthwhile.
Chuck was smiling when he turned back to the white glow of the computer screen.