FIC: Apocrypha

Still messing around with demons/dogma. Here, have some fic.

Title: Apocrypha
Summary: In hell, Dean screams for his brother, and Sam comes to see him.
Pairing, Rating, etc: Dean/Lucifer, R, around 2000 words, um… dark (see, "in hell", above)
Thanks for looking it over for me, nu_breed and backinblack!




And so it came to pass that unto the children of men were born beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them.

And Samyaza, who was their leader, said unto the angels: 'Come, let us choose wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' And his brothers answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and bind ourselves to do this thing.'

And the daughters of men bore them sons. They were giants, the heroes of old, the men of renown.

And Azazel taught men to make swords and ornaments, and made known to them the metals of the earth, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all coloring tinctures, and Samyaza taught enchantments and herbs and resolving of enchantments.

And Raphael and Gabriel and Michael said to the Lord: 'King of kings, Thou seest what Azazel hath done, who hath revealed the secrets of heaven, which men were striving to learn, and Samyaza, to whom Thou has given rule over his associates. Thou seest these things and Thou dost suffer them, and Thou dost not say to us what we are to do to them in regard to these.'

And the Lord spake, and said unto Gabriel: 'Destroy the children of the angels from amongst men, and set them to battle against one another.'

And the Lord said unto Raphael: 'Bind Azazel hand and foot, and make an opening in the desert, and cast him therein, and cover his face that he may not see light.'

And unto Michael said the Lord: 'Bind Samyaza and his associates, and when they have seen the destruction of their sons and beloved ones, bind them for generations in the dark of the earth, to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever till the day of judgment.'

---

When you wake, it's to a voice screaming your name.
Sam
Sam
Sam, raw and hoarse like he's been calling you for hours. Maybe for days. Throat straining, clumsy tongue and broken mouth working through the sounds over and over like it's the only word he knows.
You do not know him.

When you wake, it's to fires burning, and the sharp smell of sulfur.
Sam, he calls, Sam, and for a blink, you let yourself think Brother, strong and stubborn and golden-eyed. Sword resting at his feet as he let the women paint kohl and ochre across his face, his smirking, sharp-toothed mouth. Strong and sinuous as you lay tangled on the mountaintop, under the stars, whispering to each other of names and secrets and binding oaths. Still defiant when the Dogs tore him from you and bound him in the desert, and you in the dark and deep.
When you wake, flames eat at the dark all around you, and the voice that calls you is not your brother's.

You wander the halls, twisted and unfamiliar, the cry – not your brother – your only compass as you drift through the swarm. There are multitudes of them, a never-ending legion; demons, they call themselves, as they push and writhe and scream.
Demons.
They are nothing but ruined men, and Azza is not among them.

There are more of them than you ever thought possible. Men tattered and torn, and none of them give you a second glance as you pass through, unable to see you're not made of the same stuff. They are nothing like you remember, your brother's laughing girls, pink-cheeked and doe-eyed, lusty hale boys sparring with the weapons he fashioned for them. The keen, knowing ones that drew to your tent and sat with you over vials and scrolls and the thick smell of incense, whispering, "teach me" with their clever mouths.
They didn't kneel when the Dogs came.

"Old Yellow Eyes," one of them calls him, when you learn that Azza is dead. "Got too big for his britches, caught a bullet in the face."
"When," you growl, clawing into its guts. "How? Who?"
"Winchester," it croaks, dripping black ichor down your arms, "Winchester," like it means something.
"Winchester," you repeat, twisting your fingers in its smoky flesh, and it sinks to its knees, mewling.
"Dean… Winchester… and his… his b-brother, Sam."
You let it drop and watch it crawl away, murky fluid slicking the jagged stones in its wake. There is no purpose to hurting it further. It has no idea who Azza was, no more than it understands what it just said, and pain seeps through every pore, every crack of this place, already.

"Sam Winchester? You don't want to say that name out loud," one of them cautions you, and you nod absently, already seeking out another.
"I've seen him. Wasn't impressed, let me tell you. Demon king? Come on, he's only human."
"You mean you don't know? They say he's Lucifer reborn," the next one says, leaning in.
"Who's Lucifer," you mutter, and it laughs, clapping you hard on the shoulder.
"Lucifer, Baal, Iblis, Shaitan…What rock have you been living under? He is our god, the Shining One. The father of us all, that ring a bell?"
"God? The Father?" you question it, feeling the earth tremble under your feet.
It shakes its head. "Not God. There is no God."
"Lucifer, the Morning Star. He refused to bow down before humans; he was the first of us to defy God and fall from the heavens. He's dead, but he'll be reborn, as was foretold."
"Pfft. Sam Winchester, he ain't Lucifer. He's Azazel's get, one of 'em little half-breed bastards. If he was anything else, you really think he'd let his brother end up in here?"
"Lucifer's just a story. We are all The Devil there is, and there never was any other."

Dean Winchester is still screaming. Like that one thing, that name – Sam Sam Sam – gives him the strength to say it, and you wonder how much longer it will take before he bites his tongue. When you come to him, he does not know you any more than the rest of them do, but you can see inside him, straight to the scars your brother marked him with. Thick, twisted gouges within his chest that should have made him gurgle and choke and die, blood frothing from his ruined meat.
The prints of your brother's hands; you want to – you must – reach into him and touch them.

He spits a mouthful of blood, licks up the stray flecks from his lips with a wince. You want to tell him it isn't real, his green eyes, the ache in his bones, the half-healed gash in his side. Here in this place, he has no flesh, no form. His body is whatever he makes of it, just like the rest of them, and the sooner he understands that, the sooner he can will the pain away.
You think of his hands grasping a borrowed weapon, the crackle of thunder, enchanted bullet sinking between your brother's eyes, and say nothing.

Later, he remembers other words, other names.
"Crawl… back to Lilith and tell her you c-can't… break me," he rasps as you trail soft fingertips across his bruises, trace your mouth around the hook piercing his shoulder.
"I don't care if you break," you whisper into his hot skin, lick the sweat from the hollow of his throat. "Tell me about Lilith."
When you tongue the pink swell of his lip, he remembers some more.

Lilith isn't here; she is above, where you cannot go. This place was always meant to be your prison, and you can't leave it without a summons, but in the meantime, you stroke and rub and pull at him until he remembers more yet.
"Ugly… bitch, covered in blood, know she sent you," he moans, and you think of her, Lilith the beautiful, running naked through the night. When the Dogs came, she fled to the sea, but they caught her and held her amidst the waters, drowned her daughters in the waves, one by one.
"Does Lilith think you so important, Dean Winchester?"

"What do you want? Why are you here?" he asks when you come back, and you silence him with a hand, stifling his mouth and nostrils until he bucks and struggles to bite into your palm.
"Why are you here?" you ask him as he's catching his breath, huge noisy gasps of hot, sulfurous air.
"Sold my – uh – soul to Satan. Turned out Lilith's the one holding all the markers. What're you, the fucking new guy?" he manages finally, his longest speech yet.
Sold his soul, you repeat to yourself as you pull his legs apart, and he twitches, tries to arch away from your hands.
"Hold still."
The Dogs didn't put you here to punish humans for their transgressions. That was His domain. Your only task was to suffer. What could collecting a menagerie of dead men do against that?
You slip a finger inside him and push.
"What did you get in return?"
"My brother," he grunts; you give him another finger and another still, slick, heated muscle grasping you tight.
"So you don't blame God," you query, and his eyes narrow, thin slits of green above the purple staining his cheeks.
"There is no god," Winchester says, and you twist your fingers abruptly, crook them and rub.
God is more of a myth than you are.

You're tired. You've slept for more ages than men can count; they've changed tongues and numbers and calendars and added months to the year. They built cities that rose and fell, worshipped gods that rose and fell, and still, you are not rested. You are not meant to rest while your punishment still stands, even if there are no Dogs left to enforce it.
"Angels? Yeah, sure, whatever," he says, turning his face away. The bruises on his cheek are fading yellow-grey stains, and you haven’t given him more, yet.
"Was it not their bidding you did, when you brought down Azazel?"
"Never seen one. Someone tell you they have, they're lyin'. You gonna get started, or what? I'm getting old, here."
You make him watch you as you tongue your way down his belly, next to the pink lines of healing scar, scrape your teeth over the taut muscle and mouth over the bleeding marks.
"If it wasn't His bidding, then why?" you ask, and suck him into your mouth.
"Why? 'cause Azazel was an evil bastard, just like you," he moans, curling his hands into desperate fists, twitching against the flicks of your tongue.

Every hour, it seems like there are more of them – men – demons – black-eyed and angry, railing at the walls of your common jail. You pick out voices in the din, listen to the cries of "Boy King" and "salvation" and "Lilith", and you wonder if they'll ever learn to exist on their own. If they'll ever stop consigning themselves to this place or fill it to bursting, break through and spread back out across the earth in a tide of smoke and ash.
If that'll be enough to get His attention or if He's forgotten about them, just like He's forgotten about you.

Another time, another sweet slide between his legs, and Winchester says, twisting in his chains, that he's been keeping a count.
"I was going crazy, before. You're my calendar," he grins, "my fuckin' clock. If you are trying for me to go demon, you're gonna be waiting for a long time."
You brush the hair out of his defiant green eyes, lean in to suck on a small, tender nipple, feel it stiffen under your tongue. "I know."
"Unh, keep doing that," he directs, the shackles rattling. "So, what, gonna feed me a line about how you still remember something about being human? Tell me we got some great big purpose together?"
You shake your head, leave a glistening trail of spit across his chest as you move to the other nipple, and sink your teeth in. "No."
"Why, then? Why are you doing this? Fuck, fuck… again, do that again. Why do you keep coming?"
"You called my name," you tell him, hips snapping forward, hard. "You called my name, and I heard you. And here I am."
"I didn't – I… Your name is 'Sam'," he gasps, body going tense, back arching, muscles corded. "Your name is Sam? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"It's what my brother called me," you nod, and Winchester throws his head back, laughing, loud and long and shrill.

It can't be a coincidence, your name, his. Dean Winchester screaming for him and getting you, instead.
Sam, the Boy King; Sam, only human; Sam, Azazel's get, one of his half-breed bastards; you think you are sure, but you'll need to see him for yourself.
It won't be long, now. Soon, he'll move mountains and break open the earth and come for his brother – safe here, in your keeping.
And you will talk then, of brothers and fates and judgments, without the meaningless names these men assign you, devil and antichrist, the first and the last. And then the world will change. And then, together, you will finally get God's attention.