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amberdreamsTitle: Allotropes of Sulphur
Words: ~2300
Rating: R (just for swearing and dark themes)
Summary: Coda to 9:23. Dean starts to learn what it means to be the kind of demon that bears the Mark. So does Sam.
Warnings: unbeta'd!!
After the initial shock of finding out that he was not, in fact dead, and then having to revise that to - actually, yes, he was dead but he was still around and kicking - Dean was quick to see the bright side to his situation. The kicking part being a big bonus, for starters. Seeing Crowley turn pale and literally run away when Dean threatened to gut him with the Blade from belly button to sternum – well that was pretty fucking awesome. The boot he landed on Crowley’s fleeing butt was an optional extra he was happy to take advantage of.
The whole black eyed thing was disturbing, sure, but somehow not as bothersome as Dean might have expected, had he ever seriously considered becoming a demon again. Old nightmares hadn’t re-awoken. The memory of seeing himself in demon form way back when, that had terrified him so badly he’d dreamed about it nightly until he’d sojourned in Hell for real, that memory didn’t resurface. He didn’t even find himself thinking about the things he’d done under Alastair’s tutelage. There were no inappropriate cravings to slice and dice, no uncomfortable desires to hear people scream in pain – well other than Crowley, of course, but that was normal.
In fact, Dean was feeling pretty good for a dead man walking. It was a shame he was having a hard time convincing Sam of the silver lining to this demon cloud.
“At least I’m not dead, huh? Surely that’s a good thing, Sammy?”
Sam’s frown just grew even more portentous. Dean wished that his new demon-hood came with centuries of wisdom just so he could figure out how Sam did that without even moving his facial muscles.
“Don’t call me Sammy.” Sam said, and that hurt, where nothing much else had done, since waking up on his memory foam mattress with obsidian-black eyes. It hurt more than the hole in the centre of his chest where that irritating prick, Metatron, had tried to turn Dean into a kebab. Dean was kind of hoping that his demon powers would do something about healing that eventually. It was a bit disturbing being able to stick two fingers into a body cavity that shouldn’t be there, let alone the fact that he couldn’t even reach the bottom of the hole.
“I’m still me,” Dean said, letting the pain show, just a little, but Sam didn’t notice. Or worse, didn’t care.
“You’re a demon, Dean,” Sam said with utter finality.
“Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious, I had kinda got that memo.” Dean gestured towards his eyes with the Blade, then let his hand drop when he saw Sam flinch. Shit. Maybe he should ditch the Blade. Waving around an infamously lethal, foot-long jaw-bone was probably not the best way to get his brother to forget what had happened and welcome him back from the dead (again).
Sam shook his head, then he was turning and walking away, as if he couldn’t bear to deal with Dean right now, and Dean was helpless in the face of the unbreachable barrier presented by those broad shoulders. In spite of the feelings of futility, Dean could do nothing but follow, tugged by indestructible strings that were all the stronger for being invisible.
“Sammy…” Dean was pleading. He recognized it but wasn’t too proud to hide it. Sam had to know, in spite of everything – hell, because of everything – Sam was still the only thing in Dean’s universe that mattered. Dean didn’t even notice that the Blade was still firmly in his hand, even though he’d been resolved but seconds ago to ditch it. If Sam had stopped him and asked, Dean would have sworn he’d put the damn thing down on the table and left it there.
Sam led, and Dean followed, because Dean trusted Sam. So it was a total shock to find Sam had walked him right into the Men of Letters’ dungeon. Dean couldn’t believe he’d been so naively unobservant as to step over the edge of the Devil’s Trap that had so recently held Crowley. He stared at his feet where his boots intersected the lines that now bound him in place, then looked up to see Sam slowly back out of the other side of the circle. His brother’s expression was unreadable.
“Sammy…”
“I told you before, don’t call me that,” Sam’s voice hitched, just a little, which gave Dean a sliver of hope, but then Sam turned his back and walked away. The sound of the doors being secured behind him was a death knell of sorts for Dean.
Dean leaned forward until he was pressed against the invisible edges of the trap, not caring that touching the unseen barrier actually fucking hurt, sending dull aches through his limbs like an infected tooth. He pressed his forehead into the pain and tried not to breathe. Surely now he was a demon he didn’t need to breathe any more.
0x0x0x0
Sam didn’t know where he was going, just that he had to get out of that room, away from the creature that had stolen his brother’s face.
The bunker was dark and quiet. No Kevin complaining about the crick in his neck from being bent over the angel tablet for too long. No Castiel stirring the air with invisible wings. No Crowley calling Sam a moose. No Gadreel inside Sam’s head, not even Lucifer singing one of those annoying little ditties.
No Dean making his constant annoying noises; belching, chewing too loud, swearing about football or making disparaging remarks about Canadians, singing off-key Zeppelin songs…
There was just Sam and a silence that couldn’t be filled by the sound of his own footsteps. His head was as empty as the Bunker, so he just kept walking aimlessly. He really shouldn’t have been surprised to find that his route round and about the many rooms and corridors took him back to where he had started. He stood and stared at the closed doors to the dungeon as if waiting for a sign.
0x0x0x0
Dean didn’t think he’d fallen asleep, but he must have at least zoned out for a while before the pain brought him back. He hesitated to call it pain, because compared to Hell or even some of the injuries he’d had in the past, this was nothing. More of a vibration, a background hum running through his bones like distant traffic noise on a busy freeway, which once noticed was impossible to ignore.
“Enjoying the accommodation, are you?”
“Fuck! Crowley. How the hell did you get in here?”
Crowley ignored Dean’s question in favour of taking a stroll round the perimeter of the devil’s trap, just rubbing in the fact of Dean’s captivity, the smug son of a bitch.
“Do you know how long you and our dearly beloved Moose kept me locked up in here? No? Too long, that’s how long.”
“Too many longs in that sentence, man. You’ve lost me.” Dean stood up slow as an old man, wincing internally at the constant ache the devil’s trap was sending through his body. Crowley was still talking, so Dean reluctantly tuned back into what the King of Hell was saying.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Crowley asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Every minute I spent in here I thought I was going to come out of my skin. Literally.” Crowley grinned and Dean gritted his teeth. “You won’t have the same problem, of course. You are firmly anchored into that pretty meat suit, squirrel.”
On his feet, Dean kept turning to keep Crowley in view. Slippery fucker. Dean wouldn’t trust him as far as he could throw him, and what a stupid phrase that was, when right now Dean didn’t know whether being a demon had come with benefits, like super throwing powers and shit. He did know whatever powers he might have weren’t going to get him out of this devil’s trap though. Which brought him back to his original question. How did Crowley get in?
Dean got his answer almost the moment his thoughts circled back to the question, and it came with an unpleasant price. Crowley stepped forward, seemingly grown careless for a second, and clipped the edge of the devil’s trap. Dean had the briefest of moments to note that Crowley’s figure wavered and flickered like ghost static at the contact, before the ripple effect hit him. It was like standing inside a giant bell just as it was struck. The dull ache that had been with him since Sam had walked him into the dungeon intensified from a three point five on the decibel scale to a nine point eight. The hole in the centre of his chest felt like Metatron’s angel sword was still stuck in there. Dean just managed to suppress a scream, but only by biting the insides of his cheeks until his mouth filled with blood. It tasted of sulphur instead of iron.
By the time the vibrations had died down to their previous, more bearable level, Dean was sweating and his hands were shaking.
“Hurts like buggery, doesn’t it?” Crowley’s tone was conversational, bordering on amused. He put out a hand as if to touch the trap again, and Dean couldn’t help it; he flinched and almost growled when Crowley outright smirked.
“I thought so,” Crowley continued, resuming his stroll around Dean’s prison like he owned the place. But Dean understood now how Crowley could be here – because the demon King wasn’t actually, physically in the room with him at all. What Dean didn’t know was how Crowley was managing to project his image into the Bunker. Now that was a trick and a half.
“So you’ve finally worked it out - I’m not really here. Well done squirrel, the Mark must have given your brain cells a much needed booster shot.”
Dean opened his mouth to make some sort of witty retort but Crowley ruined his moment by talking over him.
“It’s a shame your IQ was so low to start with though, or you might have worked out how to get yourself out of here by now.”
Dean glared at Crowley’s simulacrum. Get out of there? What the fuck was he talking about? How was Dean supposed to find a way out of the most heavily warded room within the most heavily warded building in the world? After all, the King of Hell had been imprisoned here all that time and hadn’t been able to escape, so… “What makes you think I can get out, when you can’t even get back in here to bore me to death?”
Crowley just gave Dean that look that said it was just as well Dean had no children as he was clearly on course for his fifth Darwin Award.
“I don’t have the Mark, do I, genius. If I tried to walk out of a key of Solomon like that one, my meat-suit would die and my demon self would disintegrate in the most painful way possible. You, on the other hand, are not a demon possessing a human body – you are a different creature entirely, and these traps aren’t designed with something like you in mind.”
Now Dean did feel as stupid as Crowley had said, because why hadn’t he thought of that earlier?
“Oh, and if you are going to try to escape, better do it soon, before little brother makes up his mind and does what he has to do. You know he’s going to end you, don’t you?”
Yeah. Dean did know that. He felt it deep in his bones, and it was a worse ache than standing in this trap could ever cause. Sam would have no choice. Dean was a monster now, and who knew what damage he could do let loose in the world with Mark and Blade? Dean himself didn’t know, so how could Sam take the risk?
The Dean he was before? That Dean would have stayed and bared his neck to Sam’s blade. But that Dean was a martyr and a fool, and it was probably a good thing he was gone. The Dean he had become? That Dean didn’t want to die. He didn’t know what he did want out of this new existence, but he did know that he needed to be alive to find that out.
Love, self pity, empathy – when Dean examined himself they were all burdens he didn’t carry anymore. So why he was still standing in this trap ruminating about his next step as if a conscience was still weighing him down was beyond him. He didn’t even notice Crowley had disappeared as he faced the edge of the circle and walked forward. The pain grew to a crescendo of agonies so piercing it was like being back in the Pit, but just when Dean thought he couldn’t stand anymore, he was through the barrier and the sensation that swept over him in the wake of the hurt was a distillation of pure pleasure.
Freedom.
Dean twisted the air with a thought and willed himself elsewhere. Atmosphere and time obeyed and he found himself outside a roadside diner, the breeze redolent with the smell of cooking bacon and pie. Perfect. If the pie was as good as it smelled and the service was up to scratch, Dean might even let the diner staff live afterwards.
0x0x0x0
When Sam finally screwed up his courage and opened the dungeon doors, the room was empty. If it wasn’t for the lingering scent of sulphur on the air, he would have questioned his own sanity. But no. He wasn’t crazy and Dean had been there, and had escaped even though it should have been impossible for him to do so.
Sam walked into the devil’s trap, every line of it still intact, and sat down on the floor, his legs suddenly lacking the strength to hold him up.
What was he going to do now?
On to Part 2
Words: ~2300
Rating: R (just for swearing and dark themes)
Summary: Coda to 9:23. Dean starts to learn what it means to be the kind of demon that bears the Mark. So does Sam.
Warnings: unbeta'd!!
After the initial shock of finding out that he was not, in fact dead, and then having to revise that to - actually, yes, he was dead but he was still around and kicking - Dean was quick to see the bright side to his situation. The kicking part being a big bonus, for starters. Seeing Crowley turn pale and literally run away when Dean threatened to gut him with the Blade from belly button to sternum – well that was pretty fucking awesome. The boot he landed on Crowley’s fleeing butt was an optional extra he was happy to take advantage of.
The whole black eyed thing was disturbing, sure, but somehow not as bothersome as Dean might have expected, had he ever seriously considered becoming a demon again. Old nightmares hadn’t re-awoken. The memory of seeing himself in demon form way back when, that had terrified him so badly he’d dreamed about it nightly until he’d sojourned in Hell for real, that memory didn’t resurface. He didn’t even find himself thinking about the things he’d done under Alastair’s tutelage. There were no inappropriate cravings to slice and dice, no uncomfortable desires to hear people scream in pain – well other than Crowley, of course, but that was normal.
In fact, Dean was feeling pretty good for a dead man walking. It was a shame he was having a hard time convincing Sam of the silver lining to this demon cloud.
“At least I’m not dead, huh? Surely that’s a good thing, Sammy?”
Sam’s frown just grew even more portentous. Dean wished that his new demon-hood came with centuries of wisdom just so he could figure out how Sam did that without even moving his facial muscles.
“Don’t call me Sammy.” Sam said, and that hurt, where nothing much else had done, since waking up on his memory foam mattress with obsidian-black eyes. It hurt more than the hole in the centre of his chest where that irritating prick, Metatron, had tried to turn Dean into a kebab. Dean was kind of hoping that his demon powers would do something about healing that eventually. It was a bit disturbing being able to stick two fingers into a body cavity that shouldn’t be there, let alone the fact that he couldn’t even reach the bottom of the hole.
“I’m still me,” Dean said, letting the pain show, just a little, but Sam didn’t notice. Or worse, didn’t care.
“You’re a demon, Dean,” Sam said with utter finality.
“Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious, I had kinda got that memo.” Dean gestured towards his eyes with the Blade, then let his hand drop when he saw Sam flinch. Shit. Maybe he should ditch the Blade. Waving around an infamously lethal, foot-long jaw-bone was probably not the best way to get his brother to forget what had happened and welcome him back from the dead (again).
Sam shook his head, then he was turning and walking away, as if he couldn’t bear to deal with Dean right now, and Dean was helpless in the face of the unbreachable barrier presented by those broad shoulders. In spite of the feelings of futility, Dean could do nothing but follow, tugged by indestructible strings that were all the stronger for being invisible.
“Sammy…” Dean was pleading. He recognized it but wasn’t too proud to hide it. Sam had to know, in spite of everything – hell, because of everything – Sam was still the only thing in Dean’s universe that mattered. Dean didn’t even notice that the Blade was still firmly in his hand, even though he’d been resolved but seconds ago to ditch it. If Sam had stopped him and asked, Dean would have sworn he’d put the damn thing down on the table and left it there.
Sam led, and Dean followed, because Dean trusted Sam. So it was a total shock to find Sam had walked him right into the Men of Letters’ dungeon. Dean couldn’t believe he’d been so naively unobservant as to step over the edge of the Devil’s Trap that had so recently held Crowley. He stared at his feet where his boots intersected the lines that now bound him in place, then looked up to see Sam slowly back out of the other side of the circle. His brother’s expression was unreadable.
“Sammy…”
“I told you before, don’t call me that,” Sam’s voice hitched, just a little, which gave Dean a sliver of hope, but then Sam turned his back and walked away. The sound of the doors being secured behind him was a death knell of sorts for Dean.
Dean leaned forward until he was pressed against the invisible edges of the trap, not caring that touching the unseen barrier actually fucking hurt, sending dull aches through his limbs like an infected tooth. He pressed his forehead into the pain and tried not to breathe. Surely now he was a demon he didn’t need to breathe any more.
0x0x0x0
Sam didn’t know where he was going, just that he had to get out of that room, away from the creature that had stolen his brother’s face.
The bunker was dark and quiet. No Kevin complaining about the crick in his neck from being bent over the angel tablet for too long. No Castiel stirring the air with invisible wings. No Crowley calling Sam a moose. No Gadreel inside Sam’s head, not even Lucifer singing one of those annoying little ditties.
No Dean making his constant annoying noises; belching, chewing too loud, swearing about football or making disparaging remarks about Canadians, singing off-key Zeppelin songs…
There was just Sam and a silence that couldn’t be filled by the sound of his own footsteps. His head was as empty as the Bunker, so he just kept walking aimlessly. He really shouldn’t have been surprised to find that his route round and about the many rooms and corridors took him back to where he had started. He stood and stared at the closed doors to the dungeon as if waiting for a sign.
0x0x0x0
Dean didn’t think he’d fallen asleep, but he must have at least zoned out for a while before the pain brought him back. He hesitated to call it pain, because compared to Hell or even some of the injuries he’d had in the past, this was nothing. More of a vibration, a background hum running through his bones like distant traffic noise on a busy freeway, which once noticed was impossible to ignore.
“Enjoying the accommodation, are you?”
“Fuck! Crowley. How the hell did you get in here?”
Crowley ignored Dean’s question in favour of taking a stroll round the perimeter of the devil’s trap, just rubbing in the fact of Dean’s captivity, the smug son of a bitch.
“Do you know how long you and our dearly beloved Moose kept me locked up in here? No? Too long, that’s how long.”
“Too many longs in that sentence, man. You’ve lost me.” Dean stood up slow as an old man, wincing internally at the constant ache the devil’s trap was sending through his body. Crowley was still talking, so Dean reluctantly tuned back into what the King of Hell was saying.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Crowley asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Every minute I spent in here I thought I was going to come out of my skin. Literally.” Crowley grinned and Dean gritted his teeth. “You won’t have the same problem, of course. You are firmly anchored into that pretty meat suit, squirrel.”
On his feet, Dean kept turning to keep Crowley in view. Slippery fucker. Dean wouldn’t trust him as far as he could throw him, and what a stupid phrase that was, when right now Dean didn’t know whether being a demon had come with benefits, like super throwing powers and shit. He did know whatever powers he might have weren’t going to get him out of this devil’s trap though. Which brought him back to his original question. How did Crowley get in?
Dean got his answer almost the moment his thoughts circled back to the question, and it came with an unpleasant price. Crowley stepped forward, seemingly grown careless for a second, and clipped the edge of the devil’s trap. Dean had the briefest of moments to note that Crowley’s figure wavered and flickered like ghost static at the contact, before the ripple effect hit him. It was like standing inside a giant bell just as it was struck. The dull ache that had been with him since Sam had walked him into the dungeon intensified from a three point five on the decibel scale to a nine point eight. The hole in the centre of his chest felt like Metatron’s angel sword was still stuck in there. Dean just managed to suppress a scream, but only by biting the insides of his cheeks until his mouth filled with blood. It tasted of sulphur instead of iron.
By the time the vibrations had died down to their previous, more bearable level, Dean was sweating and his hands were shaking.
“Hurts like buggery, doesn’t it?” Crowley’s tone was conversational, bordering on amused. He put out a hand as if to touch the trap again, and Dean couldn’t help it; he flinched and almost growled when Crowley outright smirked.
“I thought so,” Crowley continued, resuming his stroll around Dean’s prison like he owned the place. But Dean understood now how Crowley could be here – because the demon King wasn’t actually, physically in the room with him at all. What Dean didn’t know was how Crowley was managing to project his image into the Bunker. Now that was a trick and a half.
“So you’ve finally worked it out - I’m not really here. Well done squirrel, the Mark must have given your brain cells a much needed booster shot.”
Dean opened his mouth to make some sort of witty retort but Crowley ruined his moment by talking over him.
“It’s a shame your IQ was so low to start with though, or you might have worked out how to get yourself out of here by now.”
Dean glared at Crowley’s simulacrum. Get out of there? What the fuck was he talking about? How was Dean supposed to find a way out of the most heavily warded room within the most heavily warded building in the world? After all, the King of Hell had been imprisoned here all that time and hadn’t been able to escape, so… “What makes you think I can get out, when you can’t even get back in here to bore me to death?”
Crowley just gave Dean that look that said it was just as well Dean had no children as he was clearly on course for his fifth Darwin Award.
“I don’t have the Mark, do I, genius. If I tried to walk out of a key of Solomon like that one, my meat-suit would die and my demon self would disintegrate in the most painful way possible. You, on the other hand, are not a demon possessing a human body – you are a different creature entirely, and these traps aren’t designed with something like you in mind.”
Now Dean did feel as stupid as Crowley had said, because why hadn’t he thought of that earlier?
“Oh, and if you are going to try to escape, better do it soon, before little brother makes up his mind and does what he has to do. You know he’s going to end you, don’t you?”
Yeah. Dean did know that. He felt it deep in his bones, and it was a worse ache than standing in this trap could ever cause. Sam would have no choice. Dean was a monster now, and who knew what damage he could do let loose in the world with Mark and Blade? Dean himself didn’t know, so how could Sam take the risk?
The Dean he was before? That Dean would have stayed and bared his neck to Sam’s blade. But that Dean was a martyr and a fool, and it was probably a good thing he was gone. The Dean he had become? That Dean didn’t want to die. He didn’t know what he did want out of this new existence, but he did know that he needed to be alive to find that out.
Love, self pity, empathy – when Dean examined himself they were all burdens he didn’t carry anymore. So why he was still standing in this trap ruminating about his next step as if a conscience was still weighing him down was beyond him. He didn’t even notice Crowley had disappeared as he faced the edge of the circle and walked forward. The pain grew to a crescendo of agonies so piercing it was like being back in the Pit, but just when Dean thought he couldn’t stand anymore, he was through the barrier and the sensation that swept over him in the wake of the hurt was a distillation of pure pleasure.
Freedom.
Dean twisted the air with a thought and willed himself elsewhere. Atmosphere and time obeyed and he found himself outside a roadside diner, the breeze redolent with the smell of cooking bacon and pie. Perfect. If the pie was as good as it smelled and the service was up to scratch, Dean might even let the diner staff live afterwards.
0x0x0x0
When Sam finally screwed up his courage and opened the dungeon doors, the room was empty. If it wasn’t for the lingering scent of sulphur on the air, he would have questioned his own sanity. But no. He wasn’t crazy and Dean had been there, and had escaped even though it should have been impossible for him to do so.
Sam walked into the devil’s trap, every line of it still intact, and sat down on the floor, his legs suddenly lacking the strength to hold him up.
What was he going to do now?
On to Part 2
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 01:29 am (UTC)And poor Sam...
no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 07:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 11:38 am (UTC)I'm sooooo ready for season 10 now. I'm scared but excited, and I just want to see which direction they're going to take us. Bring it on!
no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 11:43 am (UTC)It is a long long time until October....!
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Date: 2014-07-29 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 04:13 pm (UTC)ETA: cool title too.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-30 11:21 pm (UTC)"If the pie was as good as it smelled and the service was up to scratch, Dean might even let the diner staff live afterwards."
no subject
Date: 2014-07-31 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-31 02:50 pm (UTC)You, on the other hand, are not a demon possessing a human body – you are a different creature entirely, and these traps aren’t designed with something like you in mind.”
I hope that they really explore this concept. They didn't really get into what the mark made of Cain but it can't be a ordinary demon.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-31 07:11 pm (UTC)