SPN BigBang: Above and Below, Part 3
See masterpost for summary, rating and further information.
Dean is scary. The demon called Asmodeus always knew that, and not only because he saw him with a sniper rifle in his hands when they were both still alive. He’s scary because he is a demon with a temper who will stop for nothing to ensure his brother’s safety. And nothing means nothing in this case. Asmodeus isn’t usually scared of him, but that’s only because he’s not stupid enough to threaten his brother.
Not that he could, even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t. In fact, he’d tear out his own leg for that guy if he had to - even if he wouldn’t get it back. But that’s not the point. The point is that Dean is pretty single-minded when it comes to his brother, and even those not hurting him have to jump out of the way if they don’t want to be run over.
And now Dean’s brother is being held hostage by a half-crazy angel-turned-God, surrounded by the natural enemies of all demons and absolutely out of Dean’s reach. Since this started, his scariness has reached formerly unimaginable heights.
Now, generally Dean isn’t so bad as a leader. Even pissed to all Hell - literally - he doesn’t randomly tear apart his underlings or go and find a poor soul on the rack to take his anger out on. Still, it’s not a good idea to get on his nerves when he is like this, because Dean hasn’t been the most well-balanced guy even before he was a demon, and he’s always armed.
Ever since Sam got taken, it’s dangerous to even breathe in Dean’s presence. Fortunately, his loyal subjects don’t have to breathe, even though most of them still do so out of habit.
All of them, in fact. Because they are, actually, Sam’s loyal subjects when their beloved boy king has the grace of being present and not held hostage elsewhere, and Sam strongly encourages breathing.
It reminds them that they are still human at heart.
This demon was there from the very beginning of this particular disaster and somehow managed, through years of experience in surviving Hell, to be completely ignored by everyone important through all of it. Admittedly that wasn’t too hard since everyone important would be Sam and Dean, and both of them were far too preoccupied with being worried about the respective other to pay attention to anyone else.
Asmodeus remembers even the moment Dean was send topside by his brother on some important mission or other, with hardly two words and a gesture. He’s been sitting with Sam at the time, talking about nothing important at all, when Dean announced he would leave now and Sam merely acknowledged the information.
Then Dean didn’t return. Sam was just beginning to get worried when they received the message that he had been taken by Heaven and Sam was to meet with an angel near their gate for further instructions. That was actually the word they used: further instructions, as if they had any right to tell the boy king of Hell what to do.
Asmodeus had bristled a little at the wording. Sam had bristled a lot because the demon they’d used to pass on the message was badly mangled and had done nothing to deserve such treatment except being associated with the wrong people. Sam hasn’t saved him from the rack to have the humanity tortured out of him by the fucking angels, he’d cursed, but altogether he had remained calm, thoughtful even. He hadn’t mentioned Dean once, which was a little frightening to everyone around him but only meant there was nothing to say on the matter.
There was never any doubt that Sam would follow the summoning where his brother was concerned.
Some of the newer members of their happy little off-the-rack family complained behind closed doors that Sam shouldn’t go, that he is more important to them than Dean. The older, more experienced ones strongly discouraged mentioning anything like that to their leader because in the end, Dean is so much more important to Sam than they are.
The time Sam was supposed to meet the angels was given in surface hours. It left their leader with plenty of time to give orders that felt to many like he was sorting his business before going off to die. Most likely in a hopeless battle.
The orders are simple. Their corner of hell is small, though growing. It’s not located in a deep circle of hell but close to the surface, and Sam is tolerating no racks and mindless torture in it. Regardless, not every soul deserves their protection simply by being within their borders. Those who have lost all humanity without hope of ever restoring it and revel in their sadistic urges have no place here, and they can be lucky if it’s not Sam himself who finds them. His followers merely drive those demons away, usually leaving no desire to ever return. Sam is the only one who can destroy them with ease.
They not only keep their territory clean but also work on expanding it. Many souls on the racks surrounding them can still be saved and no one here likes to listen to their screams without doing something about them. It does help that Sam’s powers keep the sound out, but that only works within a certain radius.
So expansion it is. If only to have some silence. Asmodeus in particular doesn’t see it quite that selfishly, but he knows a lot of the others do. Sam knows it as well. There are varying levels of trust being handed out around here.
But right now, all expansion has been put on hold. Everything has been put on hold. Sam ordered them to stay within the territory. To defend the borders but not do anything beyond that. He appointed temporary leaders in charge of the defence lines - the usual suspects, the ones who earned his trust - and told them they are to remain passive until he or Dean returns to take over.
Then he left. He refused to take anyone along, but those who followed him to the gate caught glimpses of Sam talking to two heavenly assholes in suits before disappearing with them.
Not long after, a small group of demons with no personal ties to the boy king got the idea the boss being gone would be a good time to take over. They did not expect Sam to have so many followers who are actually loyal. Admittedly, Hell is a rough school to go through and lesson number one is ‘To avoid backstabbing, stab first’. (They have the absolute expert on that in their inner circle, after all.) Unlearning that takes time, but these ones won’t have the chance anymore. Someone will have to tell Sam when he returns, though Asmodeus is pretty sure he’ll understand.
If he ever returns. There is always that.
Dean does come back, not along after Sam left. He’s steaming. He’s yelling a lot. He’s pissed at everyone and everything for allowing his brother to go and save his ass. Likely, he’s mostly pissed at himself for getting captured and get put in a position where he needed saving in the first place. Smart people stay away from him at that time.
Reports still have to be made, and pity those who have to make them. Unfortunately, Asmodeus is one of them, being in charge of the border to the area most swarming with asshole-demons on this level. Fortunately, he can tell Dean something that re-directs his anger.
A demon called Tim has been trying to expand his own territory for a while and naturally he got wind that both Sam and Dean had left the nest for a while. So he sent his lackeys to attack, and they bounced off the border again and again. It was not really a threat - and seriously, what can be expected of someone who thinks ‘Tim’ is a cool name for a demon? - but it was annoying and they could never take their eyes off the little fuckers.
Now all’s quiet on that front again. Tim will need a while to restock his army and Dean got a bit of anger management out of it.
It wasn’t even a waste of time because it was necessary and because time passes faster here than on earth, which allows Dean to stray from the mission given to him by his old friend Castiel ever so slightly every now and then. Still using time for mundane things like slaughter is not something he wants to do.
He wants to get his brother back. And if possible hurt some angels in the progress.
Then the time comes he does get to hurt an angel, and naturally that doesn’t make anything better. Asmodeus is there, though, when it happens, and he’s of the opinion that the attack was more than justified.
Especially since it saved him from being toasted like Melanie only seconds before him.
Melanie was a rather young demon who was probably more human than anyone else who runs around below the surface, including Asmodeus himself. Sam, too. And Dean goes without saying. When it comes to existence in Hell, Mel was pretty damn lucky, even though in life she kind of drew the short straw - if the short straw meant a nice but short life and a one-way-ticket to Hell due to absolutely no fault of her own.
Apparently, Mel’s mother was a loving woman, but sadly she had more than one child she loved and sold Mel’s soul to a demon while she was pregnant in order to save her firstborn son. The contract said the demon wouldn’t get the soul before the girl died, no matter how long that took. Unfortunately, it didn’t forbid him to throw a car on her.
So she ended up in Hell by the time she was twenty-four. On the rack. Ironically, this was where her luck set in. Due to her not having committed any unforgivable sins in life, the demon wasn’t allowed to pull her under very deep, and she was being tortured (lightly, in comparison) close to the surface, where time didn’t move quite as fast as deeper below. Sam happened to find her within days of her arrival, vaporized her demon and freed her. That was almost ten years ago, in Asmodeus’ personal perception, and she quickly proved herself as a clever, compassionate and loyal alley to Sam. He trusted her enough to pair her with Lily for protecting the gate, and Dean trusted her enough to take her along when he went on the task presented to him by Castiel.
And then some asshole-angel comes and destroys her in a second because he’s of the opinion Dean should better work alone since demons can’t be trusted anyway. She’s gone before anyone realises what happened. To Asmodeus’ incredible luck, Dean has a quick mind when it comes to danger and good reflexes Asmodeus himself never quite managed to achieve to this extent. He attacks the angel before he can hurt anyone else and doubtlessly would have killed him if he didn’t have to keep his brother’s safety in mind. As it is, Dean leaves it with a warning.
The angels react with a warning of their own. No one knows what to expect when Dean is summoned to Heaven, and no one but him gets to find out. Asmodeus is there when he returns, though, and he can guess.
Dean is raging, absolutely furious. “He screamed,” he hisses through grinded teeth. “They made him scream!”
Asmodeus winches, knowing what that means.
The furniture of the small hall has to die that day. Afterwards Dean leaves again, barking at everyone to “stay and protect the fucking place”. His eyes are flashing black as he runs toward the devil’s gate.
Lily, charged with keeping it safely in their hands, looks after him, then back at Asmodeus. Dean never appointed a replacement for Mel in order to help her but she’s capable of independent thinking and known best who she can work with anyway. She’s going to make her pick when she does.
Her eyes are black. They almost always are, as if she can’t be bothered to keep up appearances. Or wants to flash a warning flag. Or maybe she just thinks it suit her mood. Fact is, Asmodeus doesn’t really get Lily. She’s too quiet, generally too pessimistic and cynical. Sam is the only one who can really connect with her. He got her off the rack, and for a very long time he was the only one she would talk to.
Apparently she got along well with Melanie, though. Considering that, it’s no surprise she’s recently returned to her general aura of joylessness.
Admittedly, there isn’t a lot of fun going on right now.
It’s not just the worry about Sam. It’s also the worry about themselves. They need Sam and Dean to keep them together, but also to protect them from the much more evil demons who constantly try to take control of the devil’s gate. It doesn’t help that this one used to be easily accessible and one of the most frequented by demons trying to go topside for some fun and mayhem.
On of the first rules Sam established when they set up permanent camp before it was that no demon gets through who can’t maintain their own form on earth and has to possess someone else. It didn’t make him popular even with some of those already following him because not all of them are fresh off the rack. There are old demons among them, ones that don’t have an inch of humanity left but have gained something else in its place over the course of centuries. They are the ones who are loyal to Sam because they believe in him and have been waiting for him since before he was born. He is, in the end, their prophesised messiah.
Which means they expect him to bring them paradise, not forbid them to move out of Hell at all. But Sam never moved one step backwards and the few demons who tried to illegally smoke outside dearly regretted it.
Sam never wanted to be anyone’s messiah anyway.
Asmodeus doesn’t mind the rule. He’s as human looking as they come, except for the black eyes none of them are able to hide on earth. Not even Dean. Asmodeus, like Lily, usually keeps them even in Hell, but unlike her he’s doing it simply because it looks so much cooler.
Now Lily looks over to him with her own black eyes and says, “Andy.”
“It’s Asmodeus,” he protests. And he’d swear she only turned her eyes back to normal so he can see her roll them.
“You’re name’s Andy,” she insists. “Fucking deal with it.”
“Andy’s a stupid name for a demon.” They’ve had this discussion before. Actually, he had the discussion with pretty much everyone. Some of them he was able to convince that as demons they have a reputation to uphold and managed to make them change their names as well.
He wishes he could have this conversation with Tim.
Besides, he’s pretty sure Azazel-the-asshole-demon-who-damns-you-to-Hell-as-a-baby wasn’t actually called Azazel either. He was probably called Bob.
Or Steve.
Now, Ansem was a lucky one. Ansem is a name no one has to be ashamed of if they’ve got back eyes and an ego, but Ansem also is a psychopathic asshole and Sam never even tried to save him.
Andy doesn’t miss him at all. Fucking psycho-freak.
There are others who got fucked over by destiny and still didn’t make it here because of decisions they made freely and character faults that were there even without any demonic influence. Lily just got fucked over and Asmodeus doesn’t deny that she deserved to be freed, but that doesn’t mean he necessarily likes her.
Even though he has to admit she’s pretty hot. Unfortunately, she’s also not interested and thinks he’s a bit of a loser.
“What if Dean doesn’t come back?” she asks, in the straight forward way she has. Asmodeus gulps a little, because it’s not something he likes to think about.
“Let’s discuss that when we have to,” he therefore suggests.
“Oh, I just knew you’d say that!”
“What’s the point in planning for things that haven’t happened yet?”
“Not being caught by surprise and overrun by our enemies before we had time to figure out what to do without a leader, for one!” she snaps.
“So? You think we should just appoint a new one? Like, you?”
“Don’t be an idiot. But it would have been great if Dean had set the hirachy in order before fucking off. We need some kind of structure so we won’t fight over each and every decision.”
“You’re pretty quick to bury Dean. And Sam. Do you really think they won’t came back? They are more badass than all of Heaven put together.” And that’s true all the way, even though Asmodeus can’t forget the look on Dean’s face when he told them the angels made Sam scream.
“Meg, Crowley and all the others must know we’re on our own,” Lily reminds him. “They won’t miss this chance.”
She has a point. Asmodeus hates that. He starts walking towards the exit of the fortress and Lily follows him.
“So, you have someone in mind to take over as the second in command of our second in command?” he asks after he accepted he won’t get rid of her.
“There already is one,” Lily reminds him.
Asmodeus freezes, then snorts. “Yeah, Dean is just going to love that.”
“Dean isn’t here. That’s the point.”
“He’ll come back.”
“As will Sam. And Sam is the one who appointed him in the first place.”
Though no one knows exactly why and Dean is spitting gall whenever the guy is near. Sometimes, their leader’s decisions are hard to analyse. So, yeah, that guy is smart and good at giving orders as well as following them. He’s been something like Sam’s personal bodyguard ever since Sam got him off the rack after a comparatively long time. And so far he’s given him no reason not to trust him.
Except everyone, most of all Dean, is constantly expecting him to go and stab Sam in the back the moment he sees his chance. He’s proven himself to be the type.
“Well…” Asmodeus doesn’t like the thought because he thinks the guy is an asshat who’ll sell them out as soon as it seems convenient, but he doesn’t really have an argument beyond that. “Do you even know where he is? I haven’t seen him in ages.”
“Dean banned him from the fortress as soon as Sam was gone.” Lily pauses, then she sighs. “Someone should probably tell him it’s safe to come back now.”
*+*+*
Tim tries another attack much too soon after the last one. Much too soon for him - his pitiful little advance guard is scattered to the wind within an hour, and those who aren’t have been send down to the deeper layers of Hell where they’ll need centuries to fight their way back up and probably won’t remember they ever served a demon called Tim when they do.
Time moves faster the deeper the circle, so up here it probably won’t be centuries. Just five or six decades.
The demon who has a hard time convincing anyone to call him anything other than Andy isn’t terribly worried about them at the moment.
He’s more worried about Tim. Well, not about Tim as such, but about the forces that control Tim. Because Tim is serving one of the higher demon lords that seek control of the devil’s gate, and the fact that he attacked before he was ready proves that those are putting a lot of pressure on their lackeys to seize the moment.
Asmodeus and the others have never felt how much they depend on the boy king for protection as strongly as they do now.
Fortunately, Dean comes back only days after the attack. Even better, he found some of the weapons Castiel send him out to search, and even though he already handed some over to Heaven, he managed to keep two that were small enough to hide in his pocket.
One of them is a whistle made of the bones of seven saints-turned-heretics that Sam and Dean had been searching for even before Castiel knew it had been stolen. It’s a very useful thing to have for someone who’s constantly attacked by armies of demons. Dean tests it by making a little trip to Tim’s hideout. He comes back only hours later splattered with blood and wearing a wide but very grim smile on his face. For the first time he radiates something like optimism, as if he had a plan.
He loses the smile the next time he is summoned to Heaven, and when he comes back he gets the weapons he kept and takes them topside without a word to hand them over to an angel waiting there for him. Asmodeus can imagine what happened in Heaven.
Well, actually he can’t, but he can imagine enough to know that he doesn’t really want to.
He wants to know how Sam is doing. They all do. But Dean is angry beyond words, snapping and yelling at everyone nearby, and no one dares to mention his brother to him. His behaviour is telling enough. He’s worried out of his mind and blaming himself for what happened to Sam. It is evident in the way he goes about spitting accusations at everyone but himself.
For all Sam’s sensitivity, Dean is generally much easier to read.
Eventually, Dean locks himself into the chambers he shares with Sam, doubtlessly to quietly break down for a moment. On his own. Because he won’t let anyone else get that close, and Sam isn’t here.
Asmodeus stands before the closed door, staring at it for a long time. The door is rarely closed, and that it’s locked is even rarer. He knows he isn’t the only one who ever walked in on Sam and Dean rocking against each other under the sheets or above them, only to be met by a smirk from Dean and the order to wait until they are done unless it’s something really fucking important.
They aren’t the only ones Asmodeus walked in on either, nor were they the only ones to ever walked in on him and whoever he was with at the moment. Back in the day, when he was alive, he probably would have revelled in the outrageousness of it all. Here in Hell… well, Hell has different morals, and their little kingdom’s perception on sexuality is considered pretty lame compared to the rest of it - if only because no one is ever tied to a table and pierced with sharp objects while being fucked.
Asmodeus shudders at the thought. He was spared that particular torture before he was freed, but he knows many of his companions weren’t.
Once a group of low ranking demons did just that: They fond a hapless victim, pinned her down and had their way with her while she was screaming. They were new and didn’t get the rules. Didn’t even try to silence her.
It was Dean who found them. Oops.
Asmodeus doesn’t know if Sam ever even learned about it. Probably - he likes to know what happens in this kingdom he never wanted but feels responsible for none-the-less. On the other hand, Dean likes to protect him from things he considers… triggering.
The demon shudders once more. The only good thing about Sam’s absence is that his seizures and flashbacks and episodes of insanity no longer have an influence on the general environment.
Sam’s fits are the only time that the door to their lord’s chambers is ever locked - and even that only if everyone is lucky and Dean is with Sam at that time, not to mention them being anywhere near their chambers. Since it sometimes hits Sam far from here, with no protection from prying eyes, Asmodeus once got to see Dean try to reach his brother and calm him down with touches and words. He has never seen something so gentle, or so desperate.
He almost felt ashamed for watching; an entirely unfamiliar emotion. In the end he had to retreat hastily because something unpleasant shot out of the ground and tried to tear him apart.
Now everything is quiet on the other side of that door. In a while Dean will come out and get back to business and there will be no indication what he did in that room. He’ll do his job, find those weapons, get back his brother. And then he’ll tear Castiel a new one. Or thirty.
If Castiel is very lucky.
+*+*+
General rule has it that Dean being summoned to Heaven is never a good thing. The angels never call him up to say “Good job, here you have you brother to take home!” Actually, Asmodeus is pretty convinced they are never going to give Sam back. They’ll use Dean until he’s done all he can for them and then kill them both. It’s what angels do to demons. They’re not friends by nature.
Dean must have had similar thoughts. He’s a suspicious bastard. Maybe he even has a plan. If so, Asmodues hopes it doesn’t involve the weapons he tried to keep for himself, because that kind of backfired.
Maybe Dean’s just too busy keeping Sam alive and unmaimed to plan very far ahead. Asmodues doesn’t know. He’d ask, but Dean isn’t exactly talkative even if he’s actually present for a change.
He’s a bit of a sucky leader these days. Too single-minded. A worried Dean is something of an impatient asshole.
But it’s still better with him that without him. They all feel that when one day Dean leaves and doesn’t come back.
He’s been working himself to the ground since Sam handed himself over to the angels for him, and after his latest visit in Heaven it only got worse. Asmodeus actually dared approach him and ask to be taken along on his missions so Dean wouldn’t have to do everything on his own, but Dean declined. The angels don’t want any more demons involved. Asmodeus could have pointed out that he’s not actually a real demon because he doesn’t torture souls for fun or smoke around possessing people. Even his black eyes are little more than a side effect of Hell and he still feels pretty human by and large, thank you very much. But that’s not an argument that would impress Dean, who’s a little more demonic than most of them, and it certainly wouldn’t impress the angels.
So Dean leaves alone. And he doesn’t come back.
They don’t even notice, at first. Dean’s been gone for long stretches of time before and there are enough stray, mindless demons with barely enough of their old self left to maintain an intellect gnawing their way into their territory to distract them for a while.
They first notice how long Dean was gone when the fortress starts to fall apart. When they smell the sulphur in the air for the fist time in ages.
They’ve been hearing the screams of the damned all the time since Sam left, but they are louder now, as if the damned are getting closer.
Then the angels send message that Dean is supposed to come to Heaven once more. But Dean is nowhere to be found. Not for them, and not for Heaven. That’s when they get worried.
Frantic searching ensues. Both Hell and earth are razed for clues. They find out what happened from a farmer in Iowa who saw the whole thing and will be scarred for life.
It only gets worse after that.
NEXT
Dean is scary. The demon called Asmodeus always knew that, and not only because he saw him with a sniper rifle in his hands when they were both still alive. He’s scary because he is a demon with a temper who will stop for nothing to ensure his brother’s safety. And nothing means nothing in this case. Asmodeus isn’t usually scared of him, but that’s only because he’s not stupid enough to threaten his brother.
Not that he could, even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t. In fact, he’d tear out his own leg for that guy if he had to - even if he wouldn’t get it back. But that’s not the point. The point is that Dean is pretty single-minded when it comes to his brother, and even those not hurting him have to jump out of the way if they don’t want to be run over.
And now Dean’s brother is being held hostage by a half-crazy angel-turned-God, surrounded by the natural enemies of all demons and absolutely out of Dean’s reach. Since this started, his scariness has reached formerly unimaginable heights.
Now, generally Dean isn’t so bad as a leader. Even pissed to all Hell - literally - he doesn’t randomly tear apart his underlings or go and find a poor soul on the rack to take his anger out on. Still, it’s not a good idea to get on his nerves when he is like this, because Dean hasn’t been the most well-balanced guy even before he was a demon, and he’s always armed.
Ever since Sam got taken, it’s dangerous to even breathe in Dean’s presence. Fortunately, his loyal subjects don’t have to breathe, even though most of them still do so out of habit.
All of them, in fact. Because they are, actually, Sam’s loyal subjects when their beloved boy king has the grace of being present and not held hostage elsewhere, and Sam strongly encourages breathing.
It reminds them that they are still human at heart.
This demon was there from the very beginning of this particular disaster and somehow managed, through years of experience in surviving Hell, to be completely ignored by everyone important through all of it. Admittedly that wasn’t too hard since everyone important would be Sam and Dean, and both of them were far too preoccupied with being worried about the respective other to pay attention to anyone else.
Asmodeus remembers even the moment Dean was send topside by his brother on some important mission or other, with hardly two words and a gesture. He’s been sitting with Sam at the time, talking about nothing important at all, when Dean announced he would leave now and Sam merely acknowledged the information.
Then Dean didn’t return. Sam was just beginning to get worried when they received the message that he had been taken by Heaven and Sam was to meet with an angel near their gate for further instructions. That was actually the word they used: further instructions, as if they had any right to tell the boy king of Hell what to do.
Asmodeus had bristled a little at the wording. Sam had bristled a lot because the demon they’d used to pass on the message was badly mangled and had done nothing to deserve such treatment except being associated with the wrong people. Sam hasn’t saved him from the rack to have the humanity tortured out of him by the fucking angels, he’d cursed, but altogether he had remained calm, thoughtful even. He hadn’t mentioned Dean once, which was a little frightening to everyone around him but only meant there was nothing to say on the matter.
There was never any doubt that Sam would follow the summoning where his brother was concerned.
Some of the newer members of their happy little off-the-rack family complained behind closed doors that Sam shouldn’t go, that he is more important to them than Dean. The older, more experienced ones strongly discouraged mentioning anything like that to their leader because in the end, Dean is so much more important to Sam than they are.
The time Sam was supposed to meet the angels was given in surface hours. It left their leader with plenty of time to give orders that felt to many like he was sorting his business before going off to die. Most likely in a hopeless battle.
The orders are simple. Their corner of hell is small, though growing. It’s not located in a deep circle of hell but close to the surface, and Sam is tolerating no racks and mindless torture in it. Regardless, not every soul deserves their protection simply by being within their borders. Those who have lost all humanity without hope of ever restoring it and revel in their sadistic urges have no place here, and they can be lucky if it’s not Sam himself who finds them. His followers merely drive those demons away, usually leaving no desire to ever return. Sam is the only one who can destroy them with ease.
They not only keep their territory clean but also work on expanding it. Many souls on the racks surrounding them can still be saved and no one here likes to listen to their screams without doing something about them. It does help that Sam’s powers keep the sound out, but that only works within a certain radius.
So expansion it is. If only to have some silence. Asmodeus in particular doesn’t see it quite that selfishly, but he knows a lot of the others do. Sam knows it as well. There are varying levels of trust being handed out around here.
But right now, all expansion has been put on hold. Everything has been put on hold. Sam ordered them to stay within the territory. To defend the borders but not do anything beyond that. He appointed temporary leaders in charge of the defence lines - the usual suspects, the ones who earned his trust - and told them they are to remain passive until he or Dean returns to take over.
Then he left. He refused to take anyone along, but those who followed him to the gate caught glimpses of Sam talking to two heavenly assholes in suits before disappearing with them.
Not long after, a small group of demons with no personal ties to the boy king got the idea the boss being gone would be a good time to take over. They did not expect Sam to have so many followers who are actually loyal. Admittedly, Hell is a rough school to go through and lesson number one is ‘To avoid backstabbing, stab first’. (They have the absolute expert on that in their inner circle, after all.) Unlearning that takes time, but these ones won’t have the chance anymore. Someone will have to tell Sam when he returns, though Asmodeus is pretty sure he’ll understand.
If he ever returns. There is always that.
Dean does come back, not along after Sam left. He’s steaming. He’s yelling a lot. He’s pissed at everyone and everything for allowing his brother to go and save his ass. Likely, he’s mostly pissed at himself for getting captured and get put in a position where he needed saving in the first place. Smart people stay away from him at that time.
Reports still have to be made, and pity those who have to make them. Unfortunately, Asmodeus is one of them, being in charge of the border to the area most swarming with asshole-demons on this level. Fortunately, he can tell Dean something that re-directs his anger.
A demon called Tim has been trying to expand his own territory for a while and naturally he got wind that both Sam and Dean had left the nest for a while. So he sent his lackeys to attack, and they bounced off the border again and again. It was not really a threat - and seriously, what can be expected of someone who thinks ‘Tim’ is a cool name for a demon? - but it was annoying and they could never take their eyes off the little fuckers.
Now all’s quiet on that front again. Tim will need a while to restock his army and Dean got a bit of anger management out of it.
It wasn’t even a waste of time because it was necessary and because time passes faster here than on earth, which allows Dean to stray from the mission given to him by his old friend Castiel ever so slightly every now and then. Still using time for mundane things like slaughter is not something he wants to do.
He wants to get his brother back. And if possible hurt some angels in the progress.
Then the time comes he does get to hurt an angel, and naturally that doesn’t make anything better. Asmodeus is there, though, when it happens, and he’s of the opinion that the attack was more than justified.
Especially since it saved him from being toasted like Melanie only seconds before him.
Melanie was a rather young demon who was probably more human than anyone else who runs around below the surface, including Asmodeus himself. Sam, too. And Dean goes without saying. When it comes to existence in Hell, Mel was pretty damn lucky, even though in life she kind of drew the short straw - if the short straw meant a nice but short life and a one-way-ticket to Hell due to absolutely no fault of her own.
Apparently, Mel’s mother was a loving woman, but sadly she had more than one child she loved and sold Mel’s soul to a demon while she was pregnant in order to save her firstborn son. The contract said the demon wouldn’t get the soul before the girl died, no matter how long that took. Unfortunately, it didn’t forbid him to throw a car on her.
So she ended up in Hell by the time she was twenty-four. On the rack. Ironically, this was where her luck set in. Due to her not having committed any unforgivable sins in life, the demon wasn’t allowed to pull her under very deep, and she was being tortured (lightly, in comparison) close to the surface, where time didn’t move quite as fast as deeper below. Sam happened to find her within days of her arrival, vaporized her demon and freed her. That was almost ten years ago, in Asmodeus’ personal perception, and she quickly proved herself as a clever, compassionate and loyal alley to Sam. He trusted her enough to pair her with Lily for protecting the gate, and Dean trusted her enough to take her along when he went on the task presented to him by Castiel.
And then some asshole-angel comes and destroys her in a second because he’s of the opinion Dean should better work alone since demons can’t be trusted anyway. She’s gone before anyone realises what happened. To Asmodeus’ incredible luck, Dean has a quick mind when it comes to danger and good reflexes Asmodeus himself never quite managed to achieve to this extent. He attacks the angel before he can hurt anyone else and doubtlessly would have killed him if he didn’t have to keep his brother’s safety in mind. As it is, Dean leaves it with a warning.
The angels react with a warning of their own. No one knows what to expect when Dean is summoned to Heaven, and no one but him gets to find out. Asmodeus is there when he returns, though, and he can guess.
Dean is raging, absolutely furious. “He screamed,” he hisses through grinded teeth. “They made him scream!”
Asmodeus winches, knowing what that means.
The furniture of the small hall has to die that day. Afterwards Dean leaves again, barking at everyone to “stay and protect the fucking place”. His eyes are flashing black as he runs toward the devil’s gate.
Lily, charged with keeping it safely in their hands, looks after him, then back at Asmodeus. Dean never appointed a replacement for Mel in order to help her but she’s capable of independent thinking and known best who she can work with anyway. She’s going to make her pick when she does.
Her eyes are black. They almost always are, as if she can’t be bothered to keep up appearances. Or wants to flash a warning flag. Or maybe she just thinks it suit her mood. Fact is, Asmodeus doesn’t really get Lily. She’s too quiet, generally too pessimistic and cynical. Sam is the only one who can really connect with her. He got her off the rack, and for a very long time he was the only one she would talk to.
Apparently she got along well with Melanie, though. Considering that, it’s no surprise she’s recently returned to her general aura of joylessness.
Admittedly, there isn’t a lot of fun going on right now.
It’s not just the worry about Sam. It’s also the worry about themselves. They need Sam and Dean to keep them together, but also to protect them from the much more evil demons who constantly try to take control of the devil’s gate. It doesn’t help that this one used to be easily accessible and one of the most frequented by demons trying to go topside for some fun and mayhem.
On of the first rules Sam established when they set up permanent camp before it was that no demon gets through who can’t maintain their own form on earth and has to possess someone else. It didn’t make him popular even with some of those already following him because not all of them are fresh off the rack. There are old demons among them, ones that don’t have an inch of humanity left but have gained something else in its place over the course of centuries. They are the ones who are loyal to Sam because they believe in him and have been waiting for him since before he was born. He is, in the end, their prophesised messiah.
Which means they expect him to bring them paradise, not forbid them to move out of Hell at all. But Sam never moved one step backwards and the few demons who tried to illegally smoke outside dearly regretted it.
Sam never wanted to be anyone’s messiah anyway.
Asmodeus doesn’t mind the rule. He’s as human looking as they come, except for the black eyes none of them are able to hide on earth. Not even Dean. Asmodeus, like Lily, usually keeps them even in Hell, but unlike her he’s doing it simply because it looks so much cooler.
Now Lily looks over to him with her own black eyes and says, “Andy.”
“It’s Asmodeus,” he protests. And he’d swear she only turned her eyes back to normal so he can see her roll them.
“You’re name’s Andy,” she insists. “Fucking deal with it.”
“Andy’s a stupid name for a demon.” They’ve had this discussion before. Actually, he had the discussion with pretty much everyone. Some of them he was able to convince that as demons they have a reputation to uphold and managed to make them change their names as well.
He wishes he could have this conversation with Tim.
Besides, he’s pretty sure Azazel-the-asshole-demon-who-damns-you-to-Hell-as-a-baby wasn’t actually called Azazel either. He was probably called Bob.
Or Steve.
Now, Ansem was a lucky one. Ansem is a name no one has to be ashamed of if they’ve got back eyes and an ego, but Ansem also is a psychopathic asshole and Sam never even tried to save him.
Andy doesn’t miss him at all. Fucking psycho-freak.
There are others who got fucked over by destiny and still didn’t make it here because of decisions they made freely and character faults that were there even without any demonic influence. Lily just got fucked over and Asmodeus doesn’t deny that she deserved to be freed, but that doesn’t mean he necessarily likes her.
Even though he has to admit she’s pretty hot. Unfortunately, she’s also not interested and thinks he’s a bit of a loser.
“What if Dean doesn’t come back?” she asks, in the straight forward way she has. Asmodeus gulps a little, because it’s not something he likes to think about.
“Let’s discuss that when we have to,” he therefore suggests.
“Oh, I just knew you’d say that!”
“What’s the point in planning for things that haven’t happened yet?”
“Not being caught by surprise and overrun by our enemies before we had time to figure out what to do without a leader, for one!” she snaps.
“So? You think we should just appoint a new one? Like, you?”
“Don’t be an idiot. But it would have been great if Dean had set the hirachy in order before fucking off. We need some kind of structure so we won’t fight over each and every decision.”
“You’re pretty quick to bury Dean. And Sam. Do you really think they won’t came back? They are more badass than all of Heaven put together.” And that’s true all the way, even though Asmodeus can’t forget the look on Dean’s face when he told them the angels made Sam scream.
“Meg, Crowley and all the others must know we’re on our own,” Lily reminds him. “They won’t miss this chance.”
She has a point. Asmodeus hates that. He starts walking towards the exit of the fortress and Lily follows him.
“So, you have someone in mind to take over as the second in command of our second in command?” he asks after he accepted he won’t get rid of her.
“There already is one,” Lily reminds him.
Asmodeus freezes, then snorts. “Yeah, Dean is just going to love that.”
“Dean isn’t here. That’s the point.”
“He’ll come back.”
“As will Sam. And Sam is the one who appointed him in the first place.”
Though no one knows exactly why and Dean is spitting gall whenever the guy is near. Sometimes, their leader’s decisions are hard to analyse. So, yeah, that guy is smart and good at giving orders as well as following them. He’s been something like Sam’s personal bodyguard ever since Sam got him off the rack after a comparatively long time. And so far he’s given him no reason not to trust him.
Except everyone, most of all Dean, is constantly expecting him to go and stab Sam in the back the moment he sees his chance. He’s proven himself to be the type.
“Well…” Asmodeus doesn’t like the thought because he thinks the guy is an asshat who’ll sell them out as soon as it seems convenient, but he doesn’t really have an argument beyond that. “Do you even know where he is? I haven’t seen him in ages.”
“Dean banned him from the fortress as soon as Sam was gone.” Lily pauses, then she sighs. “Someone should probably tell him it’s safe to come back now.”
*+*+*
Tim tries another attack much too soon after the last one. Much too soon for him - his pitiful little advance guard is scattered to the wind within an hour, and those who aren’t have been send down to the deeper layers of Hell where they’ll need centuries to fight their way back up and probably won’t remember they ever served a demon called Tim when they do.
Time moves faster the deeper the circle, so up here it probably won’t be centuries. Just five or six decades.
The demon who has a hard time convincing anyone to call him anything other than Andy isn’t terribly worried about them at the moment.
He’s more worried about Tim. Well, not about Tim as such, but about the forces that control Tim. Because Tim is serving one of the higher demon lords that seek control of the devil’s gate, and the fact that he attacked before he was ready proves that those are putting a lot of pressure on their lackeys to seize the moment.
Asmodeus and the others have never felt how much they depend on the boy king for protection as strongly as they do now.
Fortunately, Dean comes back only days after the attack. Even better, he found some of the weapons Castiel send him out to search, and even though he already handed some over to Heaven, he managed to keep two that were small enough to hide in his pocket.
One of them is a whistle made of the bones of seven saints-turned-heretics that Sam and Dean had been searching for even before Castiel knew it had been stolen. It’s a very useful thing to have for someone who’s constantly attacked by armies of demons. Dean tests it by making a little trip to Tim’s hideout. He comes back only hours later splattered with blood and wearing a wide but very grim smile on his face. For the first time he radiates something like optimism, as if he had a plan.
He loses the smile the next time he is summoned to Heaven, and when he comes back he gets the weapons he kept and takes them topside without a word to hand them over to an angel waiting there for him. Asmodeus can imagine what happened in Heaven.
Well, actually he can’t, but he can imagine enough to know that he doesn’t really want to.
He wants to know how Sam is doing. They all do. But Dean is angry beyond words, snapping and yelling at everyone nearby, and no one dares to mention his brother to him. His behaviour is telling enough. He’s worried out of his mind and blaming himself for what happened to Sam. It is evident in the way he goes about spitting accusations at everyone but himself.
For all Sam’s sensitivity, Dean is generally much easier to read.
Eventually, Dean locks himself into the chambers he shares with Sam, doubtlessly to quietly break down for a moment. On his own. Because he won’t let anyone else get that close, and Sam isn’t here.
Asmodeus stands before the closed door, staring at it for a long time. The door is rarely closed, and that it’s locked is even rarer. He knows he isn’t the only one who ever walked in on Sam and Dean rocking against each other under the sheets or above them, only to be met by a smirk from Dean and the order to wait until they are done unless it’s something really fucking important.
They aren’t the only ones Asmodeus walked in on either, nor were they the only ones to ever walked in on him and whoever he was with at the moment. Back in the day, when he was alive, he probably would have revelled in the outrageousness of it all. Here in Hell… well, Hell has different morals, and their little kingdom’s perception on sexuality is considered pretty lame compared to the rest of it - if only because no one is ever tied to a table and pierced with sharp objects while being fucked.
Asmodeus shudders at the thought. He was spared that particular torture before he was freed, but he knows many of his companions weren’t.
Once a group of low ranking demons did just that: They fond a hapless victim, pinned her down and had their way with her while she was screaming. They were new and didn’t get the rules. Didn’t even try to silence her.
It was Dean who found them. Oops.
Asmodeus doesn’t know if Sam ever even learned about it. Probably - he likes to know what happens in this kingdom he never wanted but feels responsible for none-the-less. On the other hand, Dean likes to protect him from things he considers… triggering.
The demon shudders once more. The only good thing about Sam’s absence is that his seizures and flashbacks and episodes of insanity no longer have an influence on the general environment.
Sam’s fits are the only time that the door to their lord’s chambers is ever locked - and even that only if everyone is lucky and Dean is with Sam at that time, not to mention them being anywhere near their chambers. Since it sometimes hits Sam far from here, with no protection from prying eyes, Asmodeus once got to see Dean try to reach his brother and calm him down with touches and words. He has never seen something so gentle, or so desperate.
He almost felt ashamed for watching; an entirely unfamiliar emotion. In the end he had to retreat hastily because something unpleasant shot out of the ground and tried to tear him apart.
Now everything is quiet on the other side of that door. In a while Dean will come out and get back to business and there will be no indication what he did in that room. He’ll do his job, find those weapons, get back his brother. And then he’ll tear Castiel a new one. Or thirty.
If Castiel is very lucky.
+*+*+
General rule has it that Dean being summoned to Heaven is never a good thing. The angels never call him up to say “Good job, here you have you brother to take home!” Actually, Asmodeus is pretty convinced they are never going to give Sam back. They’ll use Dean until he’s done all he can for them and then kill them both. It’s what angels do to demons. They’re not friends by nature.
Dean must have had similar thoughts. He’s a suspicious bastard. Maybe he even has a plan. If so, Asmodues hopes it doesn’t involve the weapons he tried to keep for himself, because that kind of backfired.
Maybe Dean’s just too busy keeping Sam alive and unmaimed to plan very far ahead. Asmodues doesn’t know. He’d ask, but Dean isn’t exactly talkative even if he’s actually present for a change.
He’s a bit of a sucky leader these days. Too single-minded. A worried Dean is something of an impatient asshole.
But it’s still better with him that without him. They all feel that when one day Dean leaves and doesn’t come back.
He’s been working himself to the ground since Sam handed himself over to the angels for him, and after his latest visit in Heaven it only got worse. Asmodeus actually dared approach him and ask to be taken along on his missions so Dean wouldn’t have to do everything on his own, but Dean declined. The angels don’t want any more demons involved. Asmodeus could have pointed out that he’s not actually a real demon because he doesn’t torture souls for fun or smoke around possessing people. Even his black eyes are little more than a side effect of Hell and he still feels pretty human by and large, thank you very much. But that’s not an argument that would impress Dean, who’s a little more demonic than most of them, and it certainly wouldn’t impress the angels.
So Dean leaves alone. And he doesn’t come back.
They don’t even notice, at first. Dean’s been gone for long stretches of time before and there are enough stray, mindless demons with barely enough of their old self left to maintain an intellect gnawing their way into their territory to distract them for a while.
They first notice how long Dean was gone when the fortress starts to fall apart. When they smell the sulphur in the air for the fist time in ages.
They’ve been hearing the screams of the damned all the time since Sam left, but they are louder now, as if the damned are getting closer.
Then the angels send message that Dean is supposed to come to Heaven once more. But Dean is nowhere to be found. Not for them, and not for Heaven. That’s when they get worried.
Frantic searching ensues. Both Hell and earth are razed for clues. They find out what happened from a farmer in Iowa who saw the whole thing and will be scarred for life.
It only gets worse after that.
NEXT