Dealing with the Devil (evil!Dean genfic, 3296 words, pg-13)
For Ponderosa. Not only did she draw something from something I'd written but she has always been very lovely to me and I am most grateful to her for her friendship. ♥
This piece, which is written in 2nd person (flee, people, flee!), was inspired by this awesome piece of art by pond, featuring the most insanely gorgeous evil!Dean.
Dealing with the Devil
(evil!Dean genfic but with some Dean/OMC, 3297 words, pg-13)
There's a stranger at the bar, dealing cards and doing deals.
Two weeks you’ve seen him coming into this bar and you’re one of the few people he’s not invited over for a game.
Truckers have sat down with him, boys from the nearest town, bikers, even the girl from behind the bar. They’ve all sat down with him once. Just once. There’s a new girl tending bar now, since the other one, the one who sat down at his table to play, never showed up for work the next night. A roadhouse like this, sitting snug in the corner of a dusty crossroads, it picks up everyone who passes through. Doesn’t matter that the floor’s little more than dirt or that there are shadows in the bar that don’t ever leave, it’s a place to escape from the road, just for a few hours, where no one’s gonna ask questions.
No one asks questions but you think maybe they should. Not many regulars in a place like this so it took a while for you to catch on to the disappearances. Still, a good hunter trusts his intuition and you’ve had this area on the map circled for a few months. It took a while for you to narrow it down to the roadhouse but the minute he walked through the door, you got that feeling low down in your gut.
You can’t make out what he is. You haven’t seen his type before. The way he carries himself, the way he scans the bar for trouble before he sits down, you’d almost have him down as a hunter. Still, you’d’ve thought if he was, someone would’ve messed up that pretty face of his a long time ago. Besides, there’s been nothing about the people who’ve gone missing that’d make you think he’s on a hunt.
No, not a hunter. You do a quick jump from hunter and settle comfortably on predator.
Tonight when he comes in, you think it might be your turn. His gaze sweeps the room and picks you out, where you’re slumped over at the bar, playing the drunk with years-long experience to drawn upon. His eyes are green, except, when the shadows catch him just right, and then they’re not. He smiles at you, a smile of recognition and comradeship, a smile that tells you you’ve been spotted.
There’s an indolent warmth about him, a lazy sensuality that has you toying with the idea of incubus before you throw it aside. He’s too human for that. When he brushes up against you at the bar to get himself a drink, you smell his skin, his sweat, aftershave and engine oil. Something burnt and black beneath it all.
Besides, he’s too solidly built for an incubus, all compact muscle and twitching sinew. His jawline is too strong, too definitely masculine. When he wipes a hand over his mouth, you hear the rasp of stubble even as your eyes are drawn to the lush swell of his lips. He takes the bottle the bartender gives him and wraps those lips about it like he knows just how obscene it looks.
Hunting doesn’t leave you much time for sex so you take in the sensation of arousal with detached interest, minus any angst about your preconceived ideas of your own sexuality. Straight, queer, willing to stick a dick in any hole that might present itself, you have other things on your mind than figuring out a label for your non-existent sex-life.
“Howdy,” he says. “Seen you here before, haven’t I?”
“Frank,” you say. You’ve been saving Frank, used up the rest of the Rat Pack on hunts that came before. This guy, whatever he is, he deserves Frank. You hold out your hand, at an awkward angle due to the way your body’s propped up against the bar, but he takes it all the same. Grins that crooked grin of his. His grip is strong, but it’s not a handshake that’s trying to prove anything. He’s not trying to break the bones in your fingers, just meeting what you’ve offered.
“Dean,” he says. “Or were you just commenting on my direct approach?”
You smile, more at the quirk of his eyebrow than the joke itself. The bar is a quiet, churning hum around you tonight. If you could glance around, check out the other patrons tonight, you might be able to judge your chances of being the one chosen, but you don’t want to look away from him. This is the most attention he’s ever paid you and you need to file away every look, every word, every tell for future reference. People play cards with him and are never seen again. Later, in your room at the motel, you’re going to need to take this apart until it offers up his secret.
“So, Dean, reckon we’re fellow regulars. Regulars in a place no one but the staff comes to twice. What’s your story?”
Dean shrugs and smears the pad of his thumb through a trail of foam that’s sliding down the glass side of his beer bottle.
“Just picking up a few things for my brother. He don’t come to this part of the world much these days. Me though, I like to stretch my legs now and again. How ‘bout you?”
“Yeah, just stretching my legs.” The answer doesn’t satisfy. Dean goes on looking at you, expectant. Up close, you see there are shadows around his eyes, moody and purple, like bruises almost. “Business. Can’t stand the atmosphere in the place over in town.” You wave a carefully unsteady hand about. “Prefer this joint.”
And you’ve lost him. He smiles and nods but he’s looking at someone over your shoulder. He claps you on the shoulder and says, “Good talking to you, buddy.”
A creak of leather, rattle of chains, and a biker takes a table. Dean’s head turns to watch him pass and then he’s gone. You watch him cross the bar, watch his approach. Whatever he says to the biker bypasses the customary aggressive boundaries that everyone carries in a place like this. He sits down and there’s the deck of cards, moving between Dean’s hands like a flickering skein of wool. Clubs and hearts, spades and diamonds, living things jumping between Dean’s fingers in red and black and white
You strain to hear the conversation but it’s not for you. You can have Dean’s full-lipped smile, the tilt of his head and the graceful sprawl of his body in his chair. And you can even have the biker’s incredulous expression, the look on his face that says he’s not sure whether to laugh at Dean or punch him. But the words spoken stay between them.
The stakes are set. Dean deals them each a hand and the game is played.
The biker loses. You think you already knew he would. Of the many things you suspect you’re dealing with, a hustler is definitely one. Defeat doesn’t seem to sour the interaction between Dean and the biker. The game is important, sure, but you wonder just how important it is. When does Dean go from pretty guy slumming it in this dive of a roadhouse to the thing that’s taking these people away? When the stakes are set, when the game is on? Or now, when he stands up, throws off a friendly, sympathetic line and walks out?
Dean leaves the biker gazing after him. There’s something uneasy about the set of his face, as though he’s trying to hang onto a joke but it’s slipping away from him. He drains his glass and slams it back down onto the table then gets to his feet and heads out after Dean.
You follow, of course. What else are you gonna do? You’ve seen this happen before, seen it played out. You’ve watched people walk out after Dean and apparently walk clear off the face of the planet. You always follow and this time, you see it.
The night is empty but not silent. Insects sing in the swaying grass and a warm breeze picks at the dust on the roads that stretch out in four directions. Your gun is cool in your hands, cooler than the humid air that slicks you over with sweat. The muffled thud of music from the roadhouse seems strangely distant. It’s just a door between you and the steady grunge of the normal world. But it’s never like that, not really. You’re a hunter and you don’t get the normal world. You get Dean and his lucky streak at cards that’s so very unlucky for the people he plays with.
Dean is at the centre of the crossroads. He’s watching the biker move nervously towards him. The muted glow from the lit-up windows of the roadhouse and the moonlight up above paint him in garish orange and silver. And he’s still oh-so very pretty but there’s something twisted about it, shadows where there shouldn’t be, a quirk to his eyebrows that is all amusement and contempt at once. His head is cocked towards the biker, the collar of his brown leather jacket half-shielding his face.
You think, as the biker finally reaches Dean, that maybe you should do something. Call out a warning. Fire at Dean. Something. But you don’t know what you’re dealing with. And to act without knowing what you’re up against is a good way to get yourself killed. No, the biker’s a dead man walking but maybe you can learn something from the way he goes.
“So, man… what now?” says the biker. He sounds younger than he looked in the bar, an edgy shiver in his voice.
Dean’s lips twist and curl into a smile that is nothing but black-velvet malice. He inclines his head, friendly but firm.
“You agreed to the stakes. And you played… and you lost.”
He takes a step forward and closes the distance between him and the biker and your voice swells up in your throat because even though you know how it goes, it doesn’t make it easier to watch an innocent victim go down. But Dean just lays his hand on the biker’s cheek, draws him towards him and kisses him. You’re as surprised by it as the biker, your breath leaves your body in a whispered hiss. There’s a moment when the biker tries to jerk free but Dean clings on and the struggle dies away.
It’s a good thing you don’t have any hang-ups about your orientation because there’s no way you can deny that watching them kiss makes your cock twitch in your pants. Dean’s jaw works fiercely, mouth pressing slick and dirty against the biker’s. His hips are canted towards the biker and the biker goes from surprised to thoroughly into the kiss with one lazy grind from Dean. His hands flail briefly and then settle one at the nape of Dean’s neck and the other on the small of his back.
You can see the very second that the driving force behind the kiss switches from Dean to the biker. Once again, you turn over the lore regarding incubi and sex entities in your head. That the biker can go from wanting to pull free from Dean to all but devouring his mouth makes it a very real possibility. But Dean doesn’t look like he’s getting high off a feed. He’s taking the biker’s kiss, sure, but his hand is slack on the biker’s face and it’s the biker who's hauling him closer. It’s just a kiss. A very hot kiss, but just a kiss.
Dean’s the one to break it. His lips are swollen and glistening and it somehow manages to make him look all the more dangerous. The biker staggers on his feet as Dean removes his hands from him.
“What the fuck was that?” the biker says breathlessly.
There’s a sudden dark fluttering, a rushing of shadows around Dean, soft and black and whispering.
“Just sealing the deal,” he says. “Time to go, buddy-boy.”
“I don’t…” The biker tries to take a step back but somehow can’t. You can’t see what’s holding him there ‘cos Dean’s just standing there. His smile’s a little impatient, like he doesn’t wanna waste any more time on the biker. “Don’t understand. What the fuck are you talking about?”
There’s another heave in the air, a cool rush over your face and you see the fucking wings, the big black goddamn wings. They quiver around Dean, symmetrical and perfect curves, high and elegant. Each rustle of the feathers - that shine iridescent like oil rainbows on rainwater puddles - makes the sudden, faint stench of sulfur stronger in the night.
“Don’t worry, Sammy’ll explain it to you,” says Dean. He claps the biker on the back and adds with cheery good nature, “You belong to him now. Make sure you’re real polite to him, don’t want him to think I’m sending any old gutter-trash soul to him, now do I?”
You should do something. Screw gathering details, s’goddamn demon out there, sending some poor sucker down into the Pit. Urgent desperation wells up inside you, shaking your very bones. You take a step forward and Dean looks straight at you, eyes a razor-sharp red in the moonlight and his expression is one of mild rebuke, you’re a kid stepping out of line in class.
And then those fucking wings unfurl, curling outwards like two huge grasping shadows and they’re so goddamn massive they black out the sky. They beat, once, hollow like the rush of a heartbeat. Sweat breaks out on your skin as intense heat flares up in the crossroads.
Then it’s gone. All gone. The heat, the biker and Dean. Just you and the roadhouse left. A single black feather drifts down in front of your face and you can barely dare to touch it but once you do, you can’t let go of it.
You don’t sleep that night. How the fuck are you supposed to? You lie on your bed, the feather on the pillow beside your face, and you wait for dawn.
When the sun rises, your heart stops trying to batter a hole in your chest. You try to do some research to get a clearer idea what you’re dealing with but you keep thinking of how Dean brushed up against you at the bar last night, how you chatted together, how those shadows wreathed into wings and his green eyes fixed on you and turned red.
The day passes in a watery haze. Can’t face leaving the motel room. You shower but the smell of sulfur’s stuck in your nose, in your hair, on your clothes. You sit on the edge of the bed and roll the shaft of the feather between your thumb and forefinger. It’s incredibly beautiful. It makes your blood go cold just looking at it but it’s fucking beautiful. You scroll through the contacts in your cellphone, imagine how the conversation would go with each of ‘em and realise none of them can help you. You came here alone and you’ll figure it out alone. Once you know what you’re dealing with.
Noises filter in from outside, the rumble of trucks and the rattle and slam of doors as people check in for the night. You pick up a few bottles of holy water, check over your guns for a last time. Not sure how much good either are gonna be. Big black fucking wings.
On the drive to the roadhouse, you keep the radio turned up loud and try to catch glimpses of the faces of the drivers going the other way. Away from the roadhouse. You tell yourself he might not be there tonight. Maybe he'll have been spooked by having a witness. Or maybe, more likely, he'll have taken all he wants from this particular patch of dead land and have moved on to fresh fields.
He's there.
He looks up when you walk in. He's got two truckers pretty much eating out of his hand but he flashes you a smile before going back to the conversation.
You don't go straight over to him. You don't throw holy water in his face and haul him into a Devil's Trap while he's still reeling because you don't know what the fuck he is and your hands are shaking and your breathing keeps coming in short little pants.
Instead, you go to the bar and order yourself something good and strong, something that'll kick you in the head, burn your throat and give you what passes for nerve.
Laughter, his laughter, catches your ears and you stoically keep your eyes on your drink and wait for the place to empty some. Can't have all these civilians around when you finally get your act together enough to take him on.
In the end, he comes to you.
Your glass has already been refilled twice when he leans up against the bar beside you. He cocks his head at you and grins, as if expecting you to acknowledge the hilarity of the prank he played last night. His eyes are bright - greengreengreen, except when they're not.
There's still alcohol in your glass, thin and gold at the bottom, and you know better than to get drunk when you're hunting something but goddamn you need it. Just try wrenching your gaze away from him though. He won't let you.
"Wanna play?" he says. "You know the game, right?"
You nod and then almost break your neck to kill it so quick. He asked two questions and you've got to be clear which one you're saying yes to.
"Think I do. Only know half the stakes though." Dean raises an eyebrow at you and you stutter over the words as you rush on to explain, your tongue thick in your mouth. "I know what you get if you win. What do I get if I win?"
He stares at you and it’s the first time you've ever seen him slightly uncertain. A fleeting vulnerability that makes him look soft and innocent. And then it's gone because he's laughing in your face. Laughing so hard you think he might be in danger of snapping a rib.
"Well here's the thing," he drawls, "it's never really come up. I've just about got the luck of the Devil, so to speak. So I guess you can have just about anything you get it into your head to ask for."
Hustler doesn't begin to cover it. Even the best hustler, the cockiest, doesn't have this kind of confidence. It's breathtaking, literally. This man, this hellish thing with black wings and green eyes - green except when they're not - plays a game that isn't. There are odds in a game. Always. They may be stacked, but they're there. Zero probability of winning doesn't count as 'odds'. This isn't a game.
"Anything?" you ask. "Anything at all? In return for my soul?"
Dean shrugs and his smirk is obscene, suggesting all the things your awakening your libido can dream of and more in a simple curve of lips.
"You win and I'll do anything you want me to."
"Even go back to Hell? And stay there?"
He leans in close and you feel the warmth of his breath on your sweat-damp skin. His eyes are not green. There are scorched shadows in his voice, his tone makes your cock hard and your blood freeze all at once.
"Baby, you can even throw me a going-away party." He smiles down at your drink, a sweet, rueful smile that's not for you. "You just have to win first. So, you wanna play?"
You know what you're dealing with now. It's not a game. You won't win.
But you have to try, don't you? And so you let him deal the cards.
~end
This piece, which is written in 2nd person (flee, people, flee!), was inspired by this awesome piece of art by pond, featuring the most insanely gorgeous evil!Dean.
Dealing with the Devil
(evil!Dean genfic but with some Dean/OMC, 3297 words, pg-13)
There's a stranger at the bar, dealing cards and doing deals.
Two weeks you’ve seen him coming into this bar and you’re one of the few people he’s not invited over for a game.
Truckers have sat down with him, boys from the nearest town, bikers, even the girl from behind the bar. They’ve all sat down with him once. Just once. There’s a new girl tending bar now, since the other one, the one who sat down at his table to play, never showed up for work the next night. A roadhouse like this, sitting snug in the corner of a dusty crossroads, it picks up everyone who passes through. Doesn’t matter that the floor’s little more than dirt or that there are shadows in the bar that don’t ever leave, it’s a place to escape from the road, just for a few hours, where no one’s gonna ask questions.
No one asks questions but you think maybe they should. Not many regulars in a place like this so it took a while for you to catch on to the disappearances. Still, a good hunter trusts his intuition and you’ve had this area on the map circled for a few months. It took a while for you to narrow it down to the roadhouse but the minute he walked through the door, you got that feeling low down in your gut.
You can’t make out what he is. You haven’t seen his type before. The way he carries himself, the way he scans the bar for trouble before he sits down, you’d almost have him down as a hunter. Still, you’d’ve thought if he was, someone would’ve messed up that pretty face of his a long time ago. Besides, there’s been nothing about the people who’ve gone missing that’d make you think he’s on a hunt.
No, not a hunter. You do a quick jump from hunter and settle comfortably on predator.
Tonight when he comes in, you think it might be your turn. His gaze sweeps the room and picks you out, where you’re slumped over at the bar, playing the drunk with years-long experience to drawn upon. His eyes are green, except, when the shadows catch him just right, and then they’re not. He smiles at you, a smile of recognition and comradeship, a smile that tells you you’ve been spotted.
There’s an indolent warmth about him, a lazy sensuality that has you toying with the idea of incubus before you throw it aside. He’s too human for that. When he brushes up against you at the bar to get himself a drink, you smell his skin, his sweat, aftershave and engine oil. Something burnt and black beneath it all.
Besides, he’s too solidly built for an incubus, all compact muscle and twitching sinew. His jawline is too strong, too definitely masculine. When he wipes a hand over his mouth, you hear the rasp of stubble even as your eyes are drawn to the lush swell of his lips. He takes the bottle the bartender gives him and wraps those lips about it like he knows just how obscene it looks.
Hunting doesn’t leave you much time for sex so you take in the sensation of arousal with detached interest, minus any angst about your preconceived ideas of your own sexuality. Straight, queer, willing to stick a dick in any hole that might present itself, you have other things on your mind than figuring out a label for your non-existent sex-life.
“Howdy,” he says. “Seen you here before, haven’t I?”
“Frank,” you say. You’ve been saving Frank, used up the rest of the Rat Pack on hunts that came before. This guy, whatever he is, he deserves Frank. You hold out your hand, at an awkward angle due to the way your body’s propped up against the bar, but he takes it all the same. Grins that crooked grin of his. His grip is strong, but it’s not a handshake that’s trying to prove anything. He’s not trying to break the bones in your fingers, just meeting what you’ve offered.
“Dean,” he says. “Or were you just commenting on my direct approach?”
You smile, more at the quirk of his eyebrow than the joke itself. The bar is a quiet, churning hum around you tonight. If you could glance around, check out the other patrons tonight, you might be able to judge your chances of being the one chosen, but you don’t want to look away from him. This is the most attention he’s ever paid you and you need to file away every look, every word, every tell for future reference. People play cards with him and are never seen again. Later, in your room at the motel, you’re going to need to take this apart until it offers up his secret.
“So, Dean, reckon we’re fellow regulars. Regulars in a place no one but the staff comes to twice. What’s your story?”
Dean shrugs and smears the pad of his thumb through a trail of foam that’s sliding down the glass side of his beer bottle.
“Just picking up a few things for my brother. He don’t come to this part of the world much these days. Me though, I like to stretch my legs now and again. How ‘bout you?”
“Yeah, just stretching my legs.” The answer doesn’t satisfy. Dean goes on looking at you, expectant. Up close, you see there are shadows around his eyes, moody and purple, like bruises almost. “Business. Can’t stand the atmosphere in the place over in town.” You wave a carefully unsteady hand about. “Prefer this joint.”
And you’ve lost him. He smiles and nods but he’s looking at someone over your shoulder. He claps you on the shoulder and says, “Good talking to you, buddy.”
A creak of leather, rattle of chains, and a biker takes a table. Dean’s head turns to watch him pass and then he’s gone. You watch him cross the bar, watch his approach. Whatever he says to the biker bypasses the customary aggressive boundaries that everyone carries in a place like this. He sits down and there’s the deck of cards, moving between Dean’s hands like a flickering skein of wool. Clubs and hearts, spades and diamonds, living things jumping between Dean’s fingers in red and black and white
You strain to hear the conversation but it’s not for you. You can have Dean’s full-lipped smile, the tilt of his head and the graceful sprawl of his body in his chair. And you can even have the biker’s incredulous expression, the look on his face that says he’s not sure whether to laugh at Dean or punch him. But the words spoken stay between them.
The stakes are set. Dean deals them each a hand and the game is played.
The biker loses. You think you already knew he would. Of the many things you suspect you’re dealing with, a hustler is definitely one. Defeat doesn’t seem to sour the interaction between Dean and the biker. The game is important, sure, but you wonder just how important it is. When does Dean go from pretty guy slumming it in this dive of a roadhouse to the thing that’s taking these people away? When the stakes are set, when the game is on? Or now, when he stands up, throws off a friendly, sympathetic line and walks out?
Dean leaves the biker gazing after him. There’s something uneasy about the set of his face, as though he’s trying to hang onto a joke but it’s slipping away from him. He drains his glass and slams it back down onto the table then gets to his feet and heads out after Dean.
You follow, of course. What else are you gonna do? You’ve seen this happen before, seen it played out. You’ve watched people walk out after Dean and apparently walk clear off the face of the planet. You always follow and this time, you see it.
The night is empty but not silent. Insects sing in the swaying grass and a warm breeze picks at the dust on the roads that stretch out in four directions. Your gun is cool in your hands, cooler than the humid air that slicks you over with sweat. The muffled thud of music from the roadhouse seems strangely distant. It’s just a door between you and the steady grunge of the normal world. But it’s never like that, not really. You’re a hunter and you don’t get the normal world. You get Dean and his lucky streak at cards that’s so very unlucky for the people he plays with.
Dean is at the centre of the crossroads. He’s watching the biker move nervously towards him. The muted glow from the lit-up windows of the roadhouse and the moonlight up above paint him in garish orange and silver. And he’s still oh-so very pretty but there’s something twisted about it, shadows where there shouldn’t be, a quirk to his eyebrows that is all amusement and contempt at once. His head is cocked towards the biker, the collar of his brown leather jacket half-shielding his face.
You think, as the biker finally reaches Dean, that maybe you should do something. Call out a warning. Fire at Dean. Something. But you don’t know what you’re dealing with. And to act without knowing what you’re up against is a good way to get yourself killed. No, the biker’s a dead man walking but maybe you can learn something from the way he goes.
“So, man… what now?” says the biker. He sounds younger than he looked in the bar, an edgy shiver in his voice.
Dean’s lips twist and curl into a smile that is nothing but black-velvet malice. He inclines his head, friendly but firm.
“You agreed to the stakes. And you played… and you lost.”
He takes a step forward and closes the distance between him and the biker and your voice swells up in your throat because even though you know how it goes, it doesn’t make it easier to watch an innocent victim go down. But Dean just lays his hand on the biker’s cheek, draws him towards him and kisses him. You’re as surprised by it as the biker, your breath leaves your body in a whispered hiss. There’s a moment when the biker tries to jerk free but Dean clings on and the struggle dies away.
It’s a good thing you don’t have any hang-ups about your orientation because there’s no way you can deny that watching them kiss makes your cock twitch in your pants. Dean’s jaw works fiercely, mouth pressing slick and dirty against the biker’s. His hips are canted towards the biker and the biker goes from surprised to thoroughly into the kiss with one lazy grind from Dean. His hands flail briefly and then settle one at the nape of Dean’s neck and the other on the small of his back.
You can see the very second that the driving force behind the kiss switches from Dean to the biker. Once again, you turn over the lore regarding incubi and sex entities in your head. That the biker can go from wanting to pull free from Dean to all but devouring his mouth makes it a very real possibility. But Dean doesn’t look like he’s getting high off a feed. He’s taking the biker’s kiss, sure, but his hand is slack on the biker’s face and it’s the biker who's hauling him closer. It’s just a kiss. A very hot kiss, but just a kiss.
Dean’s the one to break it. His lips are swollen and glistening and it somehow manages to make him look all the more dangerous. The biker staggers on his feet as Dean removes his hands from him.
“What the fuck was that?” the biker says breathlessly.
There’s a sudden dark fluttering, a rushing of shadows around Dean, soft and black and whispering.
“Just sealing the deal,” he says. “Time to go, buddy-boy.”
“I don’t…” The biker tries to take a step back but somehow can’t. You can’t see what’s holding him there ‘cos Dean’s just standing there. His smile’s a little impatient, like he doesn’t wanna waste any more time on the biker. “Don’t understand. What the fuck are you talking about?”
There’s another heave in the air, a cool rush over your face and you see the fucking wings, the big black goddamn wings. They quiver around Dean, symmetrical and perfect curves, high and elegant. Each rustle of the feathers - that shine iridescent like oil rainbows on rainwater puddles - makes the sudden, faint stench of sulfur stronger in the night.
“Don’t worry, Sammy’ll explain it to you,” says Dean. He claps the biker on the back and adds with cheery good nature, “You belong to him now. Make sure you’re real polite to him, don’t want him to think I’m sending any old gutter-trash soul to him, now do I?”
You should do something. Screw gathering details, s’goddamn demon out there, sending some poor sucker down into the Pit. Urgent desperation wells up inside you, shaking your very bones. You take a step forward and Dean looks straight at you, eyes a razor-sharp red in the moonlight and his expression is one of mild rebuke, you’re a kid stepping out of line in class.
And then those fucking wings unfurl, curling outwards like two huge grasping shadows and they’re so goddamn massive they black out the sky. They beat, once, hollow like the rush of a heartbeat. Sweat breaks out on your skin as intense heat flares up in the crossroads.
Then it’s gone. All gone. The heat, the biker and Dean. Just you and the roadhouse left. A single black feather drifts down in front of your face and you can barely dare to touch it but once you do, you can’t let go of it.
You don’t sleep that night. How the fuck are you supposed to? You lie on your bed, the feather on the pillow beside your face, and you wait for dawn.
When the sun rises, your heart stops trying to batter a hole in your chest. You try to do some research to get a clearer idea what you’re dealing with but you keep thinking of how Dean brushed up against you at the bar last night, how you chatted together, how those shadows wreathed into wings and his green eyes fixed on you and turned red.
The day passes in a watery haze. Can’t face leaving the motel room. You shower but the smell of sulfur’s stuck in your nose, in your hair, on your clothes. You sit on the edge of the bed and roll the shaft of the feather between your thumb and forefinger. It’s incredibly beautiful. It makes your blood go cold just looking at it but it’s fucking beautiful. You scroll through the contacts in your cellphone, imagine how the conversation would go with each of ‘em and realise none of them can help you. You came here alone and you’ll figure it out alone. Once you know what you’re dealing with.
Noises filter in from outside, the rumble of trucks and the rattle and slam of doors as people check in for the night. You pick up a few bottles of holy water, check over your guns for a last time. Not sure how much good either are gonna be. Big black fucking wings.
On the drive to the roadhouse, you keep the radio turned up loud and try to catch glimpses of the faces of the drivers going the other way. Away from the roadhouse. You tell yourself he might not be there tonight. Maybe he'll have been spooked by having a witness. Or maybe, more likely, he'll have taken all he wants from this particular patch of dead land and have moved on to fresh fields.
He's there.
He looks up when you walk in. He's got two truckers pretty much eating out of his hand but he flashes you a smile before going back to the conversation.
You don't go straight over to him. You don't throw holy water in his face and haul him into a Devil's Trap while he's still reeling because you don't know what the fuck he is and your hands are shaking and your breathing keeps coming in short little pants.
Instead, you go to the bar and order yourself something good and strong, something that'll kick you in the head, burn your throat and give you what passes for nerve.
Laughter, his laughter, catches your ears and you stoically keep your eyes on your drink and wait for the place to empty some. Can't have all these civilians around when you finally get your act together enough to take him on.
In the end, he comes to you.
Your glass has already been refilled twice when he leans up against the bar beside you. He cocks his head at you and grins, as if expecting you to acknowledge the hilarity of the prank he played last night. His eyes are bright - greengreengreen, except when they're not.
There's still alcohol in your glass, thin and gold at the bottom, and you know better than to get drunk when you're hunting something but goddamn you need it. Just try wrenching your gaze away from him though. He won't let you.
"Wanna play?" he says. "You know the game, right?"
You nod and then almost break your neck to kill it so quick. He asked two questions and you've got to be clear which one you're saying yes to.
"Think I do. Only know half the stakes though." Dean raises an eyebrow at you and you stutter over the words as you rush on to explain, your tongue thick in your mouth. "I know what you get if you win. What do I get if I win?"
He stares at you and it’s the first time you've ever seen him slightly uncertain. A fleeting vulnerability that makes him look soft and innocent. And then it's gone because he's laughing in your face. Laughing so hard you think he might be in danger of snapping a rib.
"Well here's the thing," he drawls, "it's never really come up. I've just about got the luck of the Devil, so to speak. So I guess you can have just about anything you get it into your head to ask for."
Hustler doesn't begin to cover it. Even the best hustler, the cockiest, doesn't have this kind of confidence. It's breathtaking, literally. This man, this hellish thing with black wings and green eyes - green except when they're not - plays a game that isn't. There are odds in a game. Always. They may be stacked, but they're there. Zero probability of winning doesn't count as 'odds'. This isn't a game.
"Anything?" you ask. "Anything at all? In return for my soul?"
Dean shrugs and his smirk is obscene, suggesting all the things your awakening your libido can dream of and more in a simple curve of lips.
"You win and I'll do anything you want me to."
"Even go back to Hell? And stay there?"
He leans in close and you feel the warmth of his breath on your sweat-damp skin. His eyes are not green. There are scorched shadows in his voice, his tone makes your cock hard and your blood freeze all at once.
"Baby, you can even throw me a going-away party." He smiles down at your drink, a sweet, rueful smile that's not for you. "You just have to win first. So, you wanna play?"
You know what you're dealing with now. It's not a game. You won't win.
But you have to try, don't you? And so you let him deal the cards.
~end