It started with Jack. My cousin. And the only real, albeit shitty, friend I'd had since I was thrown into all this. Chuck snapped his fingers, and Jack was howling and falling to his knees in pain. His eyes and mouth were drowned out by a stark-white burning light. Just like the light I've seen Castiel smite demons and monsters with. For once, Chuck managed a look of almost-sympathy.
"Jack," Castiel uttered, not believing his eyes. I was in the same boat. "Jack!" he repeated, kneeling down next to our dying friend.
My vision tunneled and all I could focus on was the sound of blood roaring in my ears and the glow emitting from Jack's eyes and mouth. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen this way, if at all! Chuck was supposed to restore his soul, make him better. Get my cousin back to his normal self, whom I'd never even gotten the chance to meet! And now he was being smote by God Himself.
"Stop it."
Dean's voice snapped me out of my stupor. I looked away from Jack in time to see Dean repeat the phrase and lunge towards Chuck. Chuck, who simply flicked his wrist, sent Dean flying back into a headstone, snapping it in two.
"Dean!" I acted on instinct, sprinting to the oldest Winchester and pulling him off the ground. "Dean, you okay?" He shrugged me off and, in a sick moment of realization, I remembered Jack, who was still groaning in pain. Cas was trying to heal him, and Sam was glancing around in bewilderment. Or so I thought.
Sam found what he was looking for. His eyes locked on the "Equalizer", and he snatched it off the ground, pulling himself up and levelling it at my grandfather, who had been walking away. "Hey Chuck," Sam snapped. Chuck turned around just in time to see the younger Winchester fire the gun, hitting the both of them square in the shoulder.
Chuck glared at his coat, where what looked to be a bullet entry hole was engraved in the fabric, but no blood was found. He rolled his eyes and sighed in annoyance.
"Fine! That's the way you want it?" Finally, a shred of real emotion was creeping into his voice. Just enough anger to really make you squirm. I stood stone-still. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Cas not moving either, and Sam was clutching his shoulder with a fearful look in his eye. Chuck shook his hands, as if clearing the air. "Story's over. Welcome to The End."
---
What happened next all sort of blurs together, but I'll do my best to recall. For one thing, Chuck was gone. Disappeared into thin air. As was the Sun. And the stars. The Moon, too. Every source of light you could think of, gone. It wasn't as if it just suddenly became nighttime, there was no lights whatsoever. Yet none of us had any trouble seeing. The graveyard was as clear as day, just without the day part.
Dean pulled himself up off the ground with a grunt, and made his way to Sam, checking, "Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah," Sam nodded, picking himself up as well. "Yeah, I'm good." It was a lie, but I didn't really pay attention to it.
All that mattered to me was the body of my cousin laying at my feet, with burnt-out eyes and Castiel kneeling solemnly at its side. I fell to my knees as well, and heard Dean mumble in confusion, "Wait, I thought Chuck said that the gun was the only thing that could..." he trailed off, nodding to Jack's corpse.
Cas let out a shaky breath. It was clear he was trying to keep tears out of his eyes, but no one noted them. "He's a writer. Writers lie."
It was only then that I realized I was sitting on the silhouette of Jack's wings, burned into the ground.
With no warning, no buildup, nothing, my brain seared. It felt like my head had split open, like an iron rod was being driven through my skull. And no sooner had it started, than I had blacked out, hoping only death could follow it. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in a crypt.
I sat bolt upright. I don't know what woke me, or why I had gotten that pain in the first place, but I was positive it had something to do with Chuck.
"Lucas?"
I turned to Dean and used the support of a nearby pillar to help myself up. "Yeah?" I was shocked at how raspy it sounded. I tried again, clearing my throat this time. "Yeah, Dean?"
"Hey kid, you okay?" He held a hand out, an offer for me to let him help, but I waved him off.
"Yeah, fine." Even I knew how fake it sounded. But he didn't push. "Where are we? What happened?"
Sam stopped his pacing, and finally looked to me. "Squatting in a mausoleum, if you'll believe it." I could. "Chuck figured he'd leave us some parting gifts," he scoffed, with a nod to the sealed door at the top of some steps, which I now realized was being pushed against from the other side. And with that realization also came the sound of grunting and snarling, muffled by the wood. "Guess you finally got to fight your zombies, Dean," Sam sighed.
I ignored the look the older Winchester shot him, and frowned at Jack, who had stood silently, still with his burnt-out-eyes. "So what happened with you, man? How're you still kicking?" I shrugged with a scoff. "I mean, I know you roll with the punches, but... God? I honestly thought you were a goner."
Sam, Dean, and Cas slowly turned to look at Jack, disbelief and horror clear on their faces.
Sam breathed, "Jack. You're alive."
"It's not Jack," Cas snapped. "It's a demon."
I flicked my eyes on and, sure enough, the face underneath my cousin's was marred and flayed with cuts and scars and countless burns. "Whoops," I muttered. "Sorry, didn't mean to mis... well, I guess not really misgender since you're --" I cut myself off due to Dean's glare. "Yeah, n-nevermind."
"Yeah," the demon grimaced with a shrug. "Sorry about that."
Dean deadpanned, "How in the hell?"
"Look, I just got here, and uh. I needed a body, so."
"So you're a demon."
"Yeah. Look. I-I'd do the whole eyes thing, but, uh, yeah. No eyes." He waltzed over to a corner where a pile of garbage and blankets lay, much to everyone's confusion.
"Hey," Dean snapped. "What are you doing?" I needed to peer over Cas's shoulder, due to being shoved to the back.
The demon stood, producing a pair of sunglasses and slipping them on. "Blending," he said simply. I barely held in a laugh. He looked exactly like the kid from that chip reader vine.
Cas snarled, "Get out of him."
"Uh, look, uh, I know it's weird. Okay, uh. Where do I start? Like at the first day of school. Uh, hi. My name is Belphegor. And, I'm, uh, here from -- ooh, woah!" He was cut off by Cas shoving him into the wall.
He held an angel blade up against the demon's throat. "I said get out of him."
"Woah. Woah. Hey," Belphegor chuckled.
"I'm not going to ask again."
"No, I can help. Okay," he looked to Dean, Sam, and me. "I can help!
"Cas," Dean sighed. "Let him speak."
"He's an abomination!"
"You're an abomination," Belphegor shot back. "With that stupid, dumb trench coat."
That time I couldn't hold in my laughter, even as Dean had to step in to stop Cas from killing the demon in his adoptive son's body. Sam elbowed me. "What," I chuckled. "You can't tell me you've never wanted to see what Cas looks like for a week or something without the trench."
"Cas," Sam ignored me, chiming in to Dean's argument. "He's right. Alright," he looked to Belphegor. "So we are --"
"The Winchesters," he interrupted. "Ah, I know. Well, plus one 'son of the Host.' I read the papers."
"You have newspapers in Hell?"
"Yeah, the Wi-Fi sucks. Anyway, I'm guessing this whole Hellmouth thing is kind of, how do I put this, you?"
"No," Dean sighed. "It was God."
"Yeah, sure," he laughed. Seeing everyone's serious faces though, he looked shocked. "Oh, you're serious."
"It's a long story."
"Okay, okay. Look. I'm not some crossroad demon. I'm not even one of those black-eyed goons who crawled up here to eat, you know, virgins or puppies, and, uh, virgin puppies." He looked proud of himself with is little joke, and I'll admit, I cracked a smile. He sighed. "Look downstairs, I punch a clock. A soul comes in, I torment it. I-It's what I do.
"What's your point," the oldest Winchester snapped.
"The point is, I like my job. I like Hell the way it is -- or, was. So, all those bad guys? You want them back where they came from, right? Well, me too. Okay? We're -- " he nodded at me and pulled me away from the three men, slinging an arm around my shoulders. "We're twinsies, guys!"
I frowned, and sent the demon my best deadpan, "What the fuck?"
"Oh we are not twinsies," Cas snarled, and yanked me back in line.
"Can you fix this?" Sam pointed at the door, which didn't look like it would hold much longer.
"Um, no, but I can get you out of here."
"How?"
"Ohh, little spell. You know, nothing major. Alright, uh. Just need some graveyard dirt... and some, uh, angel blood," he pointedly looked to Castiel.
"Cas."
Belphegor held his dirt-filled hand out, and Cas reluctantly sliced his palm and squeezed the blood onto it. The demon stepped back with a sigh, and clapped his hands together. All at once, the pounding and snarling noises stopped. He tapped his ear with a prideful smile. "Huh?" Dean and Sam rushed to the doors, and Cas followed them, stopping to glare at Belphegor.
"You're welcome," he sighed, looking at the retreating angel.
"Don't take it personally," I advised him. "Castiel's probably more pissed at your choice of meatsuit than you in general."
He frowned. "I don't see much of a difference."
Well, I tried. I shrugged at the demon. "Not much you can do about it."
A/N: Hello! Sorry for the super long breaks in between updates, just got hit with a sudden burst of motivation, and, despite it being my brain, I don't have any say in when that happens. So.
Also, heads up, next time I update this it's probably not gonna be this story, but a teaser of another crossover I've got going, which is Teen Wolf meets The Magnus Archives! One of my favorite shows meets one of my favorite podcasts! If you don't want to stick around and read the next chapter, that's fine, but if you DO read it and want more of that story, lemme know!