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Tweak says, "outta my outta my head"

Dean Winchester hugs baby trees (withgunsdrawn) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2011-03-10 18:26:00

Entry tags:

dean winchester, it's lucifer bitches!

Who? Dean & Lucifer!
What? Dreaming, taunting, angst, etc.
Where? Dean's dream: in Hell!
When? Tonight!
Rating? Probably highish, because a) most of Dean's dreams are crazybloodyhellish, and b) Lucifer is involved.

Nightmares from his time in Hell hardly surprised Dean anymore - especially not lately. For the last week, he’d dreamed of nothing but Hell, nothing except the heat and pain and screams and rotting-burning sickly-sweet smell of flesh and blood and the illusion of death. It was like that dark part of him wanted to remember, used the memory to get stronger, pulled up the most horrible images he had in his head and played them back at him, over and over, until he was back there, until it started to be hard to tell what was real and what was memory.

Sometimes he was on the rack, skin flayed away, muscles and tendons shredded, bones being carved away. Sometimes there were Hellhounds, and sometimes tiny little demons climbing all over him, eating at his flesh... and sometimes Alistair was back, taking the time to work him over properly, knife flashing as he moved, talking all the while, telling Dean how he was proud of him, he was learning so well, he hardly even begged anymore unless he did this, or that, he was starting to actually become a challenge.

Sometimes, he wasn’t the one on the rack. He was the one with the knife in his hands, the one with a crooked smile and blood all over his body, the one listening to the screams and enjoying them, letting them wash over him like the music he could hardly remember down there. In Hell, the sounds of agony were the only music, and he had quickly become a master musician, an artist in the sights and sounds of torture. He was the best, and he was proud of himself. Alistair would whisper hints and praises to him, over the sounds he was drawing out of the soul on the rack in front of him, and he was the closest to happy he remembered how to feel, in moments like that.

Most of his dreams, he wasn’t aware they were dreams until he woke up, found himself back in a bed or in the car, stretched awkwardly across the seat. He’d follow the pattern of the dream, a week or two in Hell in one night, either taking the torment he deserved, or handing it back out the way his burning rage wanted him to, and then he’d wake up and he was back where he belonged, and the dream faded back to a memory, compressed like most dreams did, and he’d go on his way.

This time, though, it felt different. Something was different, and he knew, immediately, this was a dream. He was standing between the empty rack and a table of blades, and it was silent... that was the part that threw him off, the part that made him wary, because Hell was never silent. There was always the distant sound of screaming, mindless babbling pleas for freedom, for help, for God to forgive them for whatever had sent them here. There were always Hounds barking and growling, the voices of the demons. Even when those things lapsed for a moment, there should have been roaring flames, rattling chains, breaking bones. Something.

This, though. This silence was wrong in a different sort of way than everything else about Hell.

His hand closed around the handle of a knife on the table, and he stepped away. Waiting. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, just that he was. He felt a little like he was being preyed upon, circled, but there was nothing and no one there, just the familiar heat and scent, and the new, oppressive silence.

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callmelucifer
2011-03-11 01:15 am UTC (link)

Dean Winchester's mind had called to him that night. As vulnerable, angry, and loud as Dean's soul felt at the moment, it was very hard for Lucifer to look away. What better time to personally speak with the man than during the moments in which he appeared to be at his weakest? The spell that his demons had played around with had changed everyone in Lawrence. Their abilities were not their own and, by association, that meant that their minds were not their own either. To a certain degree, Lucifer found that beneficial, but beyond that the result of their actions had served to be nothing short of inconvenient. His demons had acted out on their desires to obtain the powers that they seemed incapable of stealing away through possession and, because of that, Lucifer had personally ensured that the demons responsible were punished for their foolishness (how could they have been so naive as to think that he would stand by and do nothing when they were tampering with his and Michael's vessels?). If they wanted the power, they would retrieve it the old fashioned way. Magic tricks gone wrong were not acceptable in his book, nor were they necessary. But, Lucifer supposed, that was what he got for entrusting such a responsibility to creatures who were made of anger, greed, and stupidity. Like the human race. Like Dean Winchester, who had been tampered with enough through the spell that Lucifer knew he couldn't resist dropping in to make matters all the more worse. After all, if he was going to get his vessel, Sam was going to have to willingly let go. If that meant pushing every little piece of Sam's life at him in all the wrong ways, then Lucifer was more than happy to oblige. Breaking Dean in half was, without a doubt, one of the best ways to handle the situation. No one knew Sam better than Dean. More importantly, no one looked up to Dean more than Sam. If Lucifer were to destroy that bond, that would give Sam all the more reason to break when the time came for him to do so. And, oh, it would come. Lucifer was more than certain of that.

That didn't mean that he wasn't allowed to throw in a bit of leverage to spice up his odds a bit. For security purposes, of course. Lucifer had spent far too long cowering away inside the cage to leave anything to chance. He may well have had his confidence, but Lucifer had far from lost his wits. If he had to push at the hairless apes to get what he wanted, then so be it.

Dean's dreams weren't of the pleasant kind. Nothing quite as simple as relaxing in bed with his wife, like his brother had experienced during Lucifer's past visit to Sam. No, Dean's dream was far more complicated. The images riddling his mind were chaotic and dark. In fact, if anyone else were to describe the scene, they would suggest that it was more of a nightmare than a dream in itself. Lucifer believed that, on some level, Dean felt differently about the definition. Some parts may well have been a nightmare, but certain aspects - like picking out his next tool for his turn at playing with some twisted soul on the rack - were appealing. Ripping flesh from bone, spilling bucket after bucket of blood. Every little bit of getting to play the role of the monster, rather than the poor victim, was something that Lucifer knew some dark part of Dean enjoyed. That was why Lucifer had decided to stick to this moment. To intrude upon Dean's mind here, rather than elsewhere. Because as much as Dean may have enjoyed the thrill of becoming his own monster, Lucifer knew well enough that he was ashamed of what his time in the pit had turned him into.

It only seemed right that Lucifer shove that shameful side of himself into his face.

Appearing behind him, Lucifer spoke calmly, yet matter-of-factly, as if he were entirely certain of himself. Which, for the record, he very much was. "You have nightmares of this place often, don't you?" Nightmares. For the moment, he would call them that.

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withgunsdrawn
2011-03-11 08:08 am UTC (link)

“Every night,” he responded, almost on automatic somehow, like it was a question he was asked again and again until he’d learned the best way to respond to break off the conversation, like how sometimes he had to respond to Sam with simple things like because I said so when they were kids, until Sam grew up and decided that Dean’s say-so wasn’t good enough anymore, poking holes in everything, but this was different, because this wasn’t Sam and this wasn’t someone he was familiar with.

This was Lucifer.

Dean didn’t recognize the voice, had never heard it before, but he didn’t have to turn around and look to know who stood behind him. He just knew. Here, who else would it be, making all of Hell fall silent in his presence?

All of Hell except for Dean, anyway.

“What’re you doing in here?”

In here, because here was clearly a dream, which meant they were in his head, which... he didn’t think was right. Why would Lucifer be coming after his dreams? He wasn’t anything to the Devil, was he? Michael, sure, he’d have understood the Archangel’s presence in his head, but Lucifer? They were at opposite end of the big Cosmic Showdown that was supposed to go down. Wasn’t saying ‘no’ to Michael only helping Lucifer along a little longer? So then why come bug him, and make him want to say ‘yes’ more than he already did?

It didn’t make sense, and if he’d trusted Lucifer at all in the first place (which, no; hello, he was the Father of Lies, right?), he wouldn’t, at this point. Not with him standing there in Dean’s head like he belonged there, all smug satisfied certainty and Dean wanted to hit him, beat his stolen face in.

Wanted to cut him open and watch him bleed. Hear him scream.

Deane turned around, arms staying at his sides - knife in one hand staying steady and still, even as his grip on the handle tightened, shifted; he was ready for action, but not initiating it. Not yet. He had no way of knowing whether or not Lucifer’s powers were strong enough to do him any damage, here. He knew the Devil standing before him wasn’t just a part of his dream, though - if he were, it wouldn’t feel wrong, here. Like Hell itself going still and silent for it’s lord. For now, he wasn’t going to test the Devil’s power.

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callmelucifer
2011-03-12 12:47 am UTC (link)

The anger that Dean felt upon realizing that Lucifer had made his intrusion made the Devil inwardly beam with delight. It wasn't simply the look on the man's face that told him how furious Dean was. He could feel it, all around them. Raw anger, burning hungrily at a man who was struggling to keep his restraint. He would keep struggling. But for how long? How long until Dean Winchester broke? From what Lucifer knew, it hadn't taken him much time to crumble on the racks. All Alistair had to do was pick up his knives. Lucifer couldn't help but wonder how much more quickly the process would have gone if he had been the one torturing Dean instead.

"I thought we could talk," Lucifer confessed, shrugging. "Especially since your presence has grown much louder ever since you acquired these new abilities of yours."

Lucifer tilted his head to the side curiously. "All that power and you still can't shut these memories from your mind." Lucifer walked over to the table and examined the scatter of blades waiting to do their work. He smoothed his fingers over the surface of a particularly jagged looking knife, decorated with various hooks that looked as though they'd cut a person in all the wrong places. But the wrong places were right. They would rip anyone who was unfortunate enough to end up on their sharp end apart. Lucifer considered the blades for a moment, then he passed his attention back over to Dean all too calmly. "Do you want to shut them out, Dean?" He couldn't lie to Lucifer. He would know if Dean was, now that he was inside of his mind. Somehow, though, Lucifer thought that Dean wouldn't. He didn't seem like the type of person to deny something when his hands were obviously smeared with the blood of his crimes. "Because I think, especially lately, that you wish you could get away with doing this sort of thing more. Correct me if I'm wrong: are you not tempted?"

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withgunsdrawn
2011-03-21 06:26 am UTC (link)

The idea that Lucifer was able to tell that he was getting darker unnerved Dean slightly. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t actually surprised, though - why shouldn’t Satan himself know when there was something dark and wrong inside a person? It was a little more surprising, though, that Lucifer had singled him out - had been able to sense him enough to pick him out of a crowd in Lawrence, and come visit him in his dreams to harass him about it.

About his dreams of Hell, no less.

>"All that power and you still can't shut these memories from your mind."

Dean watched as Lucifer examined the blades laid out for him - he wondered, absently, what it meant that Lucifer went for the most dangerous, yet the one that required the least skill to deal out damage. The equivalent of a bomb, in the world of knives; one step away from a chainsaw, tearing away flesh messily. Dean’s own blade was thin, small, but he knew how to use it, to make the most of the razor-sharp metal. It was probably unwise to be analyzing the Devil, dangerous to make assumptions based on little details like which blades he was drawn to, though - things weren’t always as clear as they seemed to be, especially not in dreams.

>"Do you want to shut them out, Dean?"

And that was a complicated question, wasn’t it? Because ordinarily, yes - he wanted to have them gone more than almost anything. In retrospect, maybe he should have used his wish on that. But right now, with this darkness in him magnified, these parts of the dreams - the parts where he had the power, the parts where he was the one in control - were appealing. He enjoyed them, and he didn’t even feel sick about it when he woke up in the mornings, anymore.

“Depends on the day,” he answered eventually. Truthfully, because he didn’t feel like dealing with a condiscending Satan in his face telling him he was lying, prying at him and breaking through to his secrets. Better to let the little things out, distract from everything else that was there yet to be discovered.

>"Because I think, especially lately, that you wish you could get away with doing this sort of thing more. Correct me if I'm wrong: are you not tempted?"

“Of course I am,” was probably not an appropriate response to a question like that, most of the time. To Lucifer, though, it felt ...oddly fitting, to admit that sometimes, all he wanted was warm blood on his hands, working his magic with cold steel and listening to the song he was creating with their screams.

It was a stronger temptation, now - normally, he only felt that way when he woke up from a dream of Hell, ghostly pain from what he remembered happening to him turning to anger that made him want to lash out and hurt someone else, get some kind of payback, make them all pay for what had happened to him.

Those were the nights he would drink himself back to sleep, the reason he kept a bottle or a flask in easy reach, and the reason he'd stopped sleeping with a knife under his pillow. He couldn't trust himself with it, not anymore, not when the first thing he thought on waking was of finding someone to use it on.

Now, though.... now, it was all the time, a dull little buzz at the back of his mind that had nothing to do with the Force and everything to do with the monster he was slowly realizing he had become.

"What does that have to do with anything, though?" Defiant tone, smirk on his face, Dean didn't look like a man staring down the Devil, maybe didn't feel like one, either. Lucifer wouldn't hurt him, he was sure - surely Michael would be keeping an eye on his favorite vessel, right? Besides, it was just a dream. As real as they got, sometimes, he knew there would be no permanent damage. Probably.

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callmelucifer
2011-03-28 01:10 am UTC (link)

Dean seemed so very sure of himself. That, Lucifer found, was both a complication and a weakness. It complicated matters because face-to-face, it was going to be harder for Lucifer to crack his shell. At the same time, that newfound confidence Dean was carrying now was only being formed because of that darkness inside of himself. It had latched onto a greater power, one that fueled his deepest, most terrible inhibitions, and it was bringing out the very thing that Dean had chosen to hide from the world upon his return from Hell. Him. The real Dean Winchester. He was quite the little monster. Right now, in the dark, with it only being just the two of them? It was probably very easy for Dean to openly portray the side of himself that he had kept hidden away for so long. But in front of someone else? Someone that he cared about? Someone who had an opinion that Dean greatly cared about? Well.

Fingers lacing among one another, Lucifer presented Dean with a calm smile. Then he vanished. Behind Dean, someone else appeared. The tall frame of Dean's younger brother emerged from the shadows and, with his dark hair falling into his eyes, Sam staggered out from behind one of the blood soaked tables with an uncertain look dancing in his eyes. It wasn't really Sam. Nowhere near the real thing, in fact. However, Lucifer had managed to get a firm imprint of the personality that Sam had shoved his way when he had paid the man a visit. He could play the part.

"Everything," the Sam illusion replied breathily. "It has to do with everything. Look at what you've turned into. This isn't you. You're not you. You're nowhere near the brother I watched die all those years ago." Sam stepped around the table and moved into the dark room, his eyes pinned on no one but Dean. Lucifer wanted Dean to acknowledge his darkness. More importantly, he wanted to make sure that the darkness he felt twisted into something painful. Because right now? Lucifer could tell that he was enjoying it far too much. "I don't even know how to talk to you anymore. And it's not the stupid Sith crap that's making it so hard. It's you. Look at you. Look what you've done. All this time, Dad was so worried about me being the one to turn into a monster." Sam shook his head, gaze dropping downward to meet Dean's eyes. "And in the end, it turned out to be you."

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withgunsdrawn
2011-03-29 05:50 pm UTC (link)

The lack of a response, and the smile - that freakishly calm smile - made Dean’s skin crawl, and he opened his mouth to speak - but then Lucifer was... not there. Not gone, but not there, either, presence lingering in this space, all of Hell still silent and cowed around him. He spun to find the Devil’s new location, and froze when he saw the familiar shape of his brother coming closer.

“Sammy?”

Sam shouldn’t have been here. Sam was never here, even when it looked like he was. It was just another way the dreams mimicked Hell so precisely that sometimes he wondered if he was back there, whenever he slept. Demons got a kick out of making him think his brother was there - in Hell with him, on the rack beside his or on the one he was meant to work on that day. Sometimes it had been Sam’s shape they used while they tore him apart. They liked to try to break him that way, but he’d learned how to know the difference quickly. Black eyes didn’t belong in Sam’s face, and demons were crap at hiding, in Hell.

This, though, this looked like Sam - eyes and all. It threw him off for a moment, gave the words being said a chance to slip in deep. Sam was always his weakness - someone else could say the same things to him, and their words would bounce right off, but coming from Sam they turned to knives, to missiles honed in on just the right spots inside to break him. Sam was the one person who could make him feel safest, but he was close enough that anything he had to say that could have been harmful was, because there’s being cut on and then there’s having your heart cut out, and Dean’s been through both and he knows the difference now.

So, it doesn’t register, at first, that this is a trick. Not until Look at what you've turned into and You're nowhere near the brother I watched die all those years ago and I don't even know how to talk to you anymore - until Look at you. Look what you've done. All this time, Dad was so worried about me being the one to turn into a monster... And in the end, it turned out to be you words like knives carving out his heart and putting it on display for him so he would watch as it tried uselessly to keep him alive.

By the time he managed to choke out a harsh “You’re not Sam,” it was already too late - even if this wasn’t Sam, what he was saying was true. All of it. He and Sam, they weren’t the same anymore. This was why, he realized - because Sam didn’t know him anymore, and for once it wasn’t because Sam had changed. He had, and he’d become the monster not-Sam had said he was, even before this powers thing had screwed with his head.

And it had to be hurting Sam, seeing him so different. Being there and caring about someone who had gone so wrong.

If Sam didn’t care, Sam wouldn’t hurt.

Dean’s smirk was back, but it was a little twisted, a little broken. His hand tightened around the knife in his hand. Maybe this looked like Sam but it wasn’t Sam, and he’d long since gotten past his aversion to cutting open something with his brother’s face. “Nice try.”

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callmelucifer
2011-04-07 06:50 pm UTC (link)

Getting Dean riled up had been all too easy. All he had to do was throw on a familiar face, say a few bitter words, and watch the man react. And, oh, he did. He tried to hide it, Lucifer could tell, but there was nothing that could be hidden from him. He was too old, too wise, and too clever for Dean Winchester, so he merely stood by and watched him spit out words of denial until that nasty, confident, little smirk was back on his lips. He was hurting, even if he wasn't letting it show. Lucifer wanted him to. He wanted Dean to unleash that monster that he had tucked away inside, the one that he had to hide every single day, in spite of his attempts at being normal.

Using Sam's face, Lucifer sneered at Dean triumphantly. His game wasn't over just yet. He wanted to see how far he could push Dean. See if he could get the man to unleash the monster on his own flesh and blood. "You know I'm right," Sam snapped coldly, "I see it in your eyes, big brother. You're nothing more than a walking timebomb and we're all just waiting for you to explode. Why don't you do us all a favor and end it already? Do whatever the hell it is you're gonna do and let us be. Dad's sick of you, Mom doesn't even know what to do with you, except play the sympathetic, caring mother card and God -" Lucifer felt an annoying twinge erupt inside him at the mere name, but he kept on for the sake of his game. "- only knows how much longer she'll be able to pull it off before she snaps and tells you to get away from her. And then there's me." Sam's face twisted cruelly, a disgusted smile forming on his lips. "I can't wait until you give me the excuse to bury a bullet into your brain. I spent years terrified that you'd be the one to do me in and now it's you. You're the one that has to die."

"You're not the brother I grew up with," Lucifer-Sam continued harshly, "you're some twisted freak that I want gone. I can't stand to look at you anymore. Every second of my life that I waste with you is just another second that I have to remember everything that you put me through. Hell? Watching you die?" He laughed. "That self-righteous heroic bullshit you pulled on me, because you're a greedy son of a bitch who's too pathetic to leave well enough alone when it's right?" Lucifer-Sam moved in closer, more than content to get right up in Dean's face. He wanted Dean to snap. To break. Use the knife, he urged him, looking down on him cruelly as though he were nothing more than the dirt at the heel of his shoe. "What are you waiting for, Dean? We don't want you. You were dead and you should have stayed that way."

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withgunsdrawn
2011-04-19 09:47 am UTC (link)

It didn’t seem to matter that Dean knew that the Sam-shaped being before him wasn’t really his brother - even though the initial it’s Sam reaction has worn off, and he’d realized it couldn’t possibly be, it was hard to disconnect the words coming at him from his brother, voice and face and stupid floppy hair all Sam. But this wasn’t Sam.

Still, Dean had to wonder - that morbid curiosity like watching a car accident happen, you don’t really want to see but you don’t want to look away, imagination will fill in the gaps you miss, weave stories and endings that could be much worse than what you’d really see - how much of this was true? How much of this had Lucifer just pulled from Sam, somehow, stolen from his brother’s head and spilled back out in front of Dean?

All of it, Dean decided, fury bleeding out where the words wounded him, and he took a step backwards, one hand scrubbing across his face, half-turning away, trying one last time to pull everything in, keep it locked away, keep it controlled. Controlled anger, anger he could feed into a purpose - that was useful. He had to let it out with a purpose in mind, or he was no better than a child throwing a tantrum, just a lot more dangerous.

“We don't want you. You were dead and you should have stayed that way” and he lost that control he’d been trying so hard to build, whirling back, expression twisted into something that probably made him look almost inhuman, and there wasn’t even a second of hesitation before he was lashing out with the knife.

Maybe later he would take his time, stretch this not-Sam out on a rack and cut him apart, peel his skin away until he stopped looking like Sam - until Dean could get to whatever was underneath his brother’s image, make it hurt like it’s words were hurting him. For now, though, it was completely lacking in his usual finesse, no skill or style, just a quick slash, meant to make it stop.

[ooc: reposted for typingfail. D:]

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