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Dean might only have a GED but he knows he’s a smart guy.
Smart enough to know that this is a very stupid idea.
“Lucifer has Sam. He has Jack. Cas, I don’t have a choice!”
His throat still burns from where Michael had been crushing it but nothing compares to the tight bands around his chest at the thought of Sam alone with Lucifer. More than that: alone with a Lucifer juiced up on Nephilim grace. He can’t help but think of Sam in those tunnels, Sam dying, Sam being brought back guilty and hunched in on himself. And further back: Sam nearly dying under the weight of his memories from the Cage, Sam reduced to a pale shadow of himself, jumping at things only he could see. Dean’s been to hell, he knows torture. He’ll do anything to save Sam from that.
Anything.
So when he weighs a powered-up Lucifer against the archangel slumped against a column in the bunker, he makes the call.
“If we do this, it’s a onetime deal. I’m in charge. You’re the engine, but I’m behind the wheel. Understand?”
Cas is protesting behind him, but what could the angel say to change his mind? Dean already knows this is a terrible idea.
Michael grins and then there’s light and he’s standing in the eye of a hurricane. Michael is heat and power and beauty. There’s a moment where he’s lost, but he has a brother to save so he pushes and then everything clicks into place.
The power of an archangel is his.
It feels natural, like an extension of his body, like the Impala feels after a long drive when his senses expand to encompass several tons of American steel.
He stretches that power out and feels for Lucifer’s grace. He touches it and with a thought Dean is there.
As he lands he feels parts of himself unfurl. The power stretches out and he draws himself up like he’s running a hustle, like he has a hit at the bar, like he’s just bulls-eyed a monster.
“Dean?” Sam breathes. He’s alive, looks to be in one piece. Dean feels the tightness in his chest ease. He wasn’t too late.
“Hiya, Sammy.”
“You let my brother in.” And there’s the devil, crossing to stand across the nave from Dean.
“Well, turns out, he and I have something in common,” Dean drawls. Because Sam is in one piece, but with the grace coursing through him he can sense the fresh bruises under Sam’s skin. “We both wanna gut your ass.”
And then the fight is on. Power courses through Dean. His body, the vessel, is just the tip of the iceberg. His wings stretch out into other dimensions, his power along with it. It feels natural, but also huge and unwieldy and has a bit of a learning curve.
Not so for Lucifer, who gains the upper hand.
Lucifer has him by the jacket, fists driving into Dean’s face with a power that could rend steel. He’s talking, but Dean’s not listening.
“Dean!” Dean feels Sam more than he hears him. He reaches out just as Lucifer gets his hand on Dean’s forehead, as he feels the devil’s power start to burn him out. He moves, lunges, and the archangel blade slides easily into Satan’s chest.
And then Lucifer is screaming and there’s fire and even with Michael’s power it’s hard to look into the Morningstar’s supernova.
When the screaming and flames stop, Lucifer’s meatsuit is stretched out across the tiled floor, surrounded by the cooling embers that were once his wings.
"Is he...?" Jack asks.
"He... he's dead," Sam breathes out.
“Holy crap." Dean glances down at his hand, the hand that had held the blade. He's done it. It's like there was an itch under his skin, an itch that started maybe even before Sam went to hell, that intensified after he came back broken. He's always wanted to fix it for Sam and now he has.
“You did it,” Sam says.
“No,” Dean says, before looking up. Jack and Sam, alive. “No, we did it.”
Sam’s smiling, laughing like Dean hasn’t seen since before the Cage. Hell, since Sam died in his arms in Cold Oak. Maybe since before he left for Stanford, before Jess.
Dean would give everything he has to keep that smile on Sammy’s face.
This is it. They’ve won. They’re both here, alive. Jack, too. Soon they’ll leave the church, make their way back to the bunker, where Cas and Mom and Bobby are waiting. It’s… good.
And then the fire roars up within him.
“Dean?” Sam asks from far, far away. “Dean!”
It’s the power of a nuclear bomb, of the sun itself. It’s the initial rush of power Dean felt after saying yes, but so much more. Only then does he realize how he’s been tricked. He’d thought that he had control.
“We had a deal!” Dean grinds out.
But there’s roaring in his ears.
A fire is rising in him and he is so small.
The storms swells and Dean
is
gone