Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2007-03-23 03:29 pm
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2007-03-23 03:29 pm
Dean - The Devil Within
Fandom: Supernatural/Jesus Hopped the A Train
Title: The Devil Within
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iluvroadrunner6
Rating: FRM/R
Characters: Dean Winchester, Lucius Jenkins
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
we_take_five Prompt: here
Content Warning: Mild spoilers for "Skin," "Crossroad Blues," "Nightshifter," (SPN) and the play, as well as mentions of child torture
Summary: He had gone too long not sleeping back in general that he stopped sleeping at night when he was in solitary too, and he listens to the walls, wondering what it would take for Lucius to come in and do the same to him. He knew the guard wouldn’t lament the fact that Dean had become victim number nine. That was just the way things were.
Author's Note: Thanks toiamentheos for the awesome beta job. This interpretation of Lucius is based on an excellent performance by an MFA actor named Bjorn DuPaty at my school, and I hope I did his performance justice. There can also be considered a slightly crossover with CSI:NY if you squint.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Supernatural. They're owned by the CW. Any characters related to Jesus Hopped the A Train are owned by Stephen Aldy Guirgis. However, any and all original characters are mine, so please don't use them without my permission.
They had taken everything he owned when he came in. Clothes, weapons, anything personal were gone, and he was fairly certain he was never going to see them again. Getting sent to Rikers, especially for the crimes they said he committed, tended to do that. When they were locking you up, they were locking you up for a long time. And he wasn’t likely to be staying long there either. They were probably going to extradite him out to St. Louis to stand trial, if not first sending him to stand trial in Federal Court. After all, he was a fugitive from justice and on the FBI’s most wanted list. It only made sense that they should get a crack at him first. That’s what his lawyer had told him.
Other than that helpful bit of information—his lawyer wasn’t worth shit.
He was convinced that Dean was guilty, just like everyone else was. He wasn’t interested in how Dean could explain his innocence. OK, yes, technically he was a fugitive from the law, but he didn’t commit the crimes they accused him of. And now he was probably going to wind up rotting in jail for the rest of his life, or worse, if he and Sam didn’t think of something—fast. He had started out in general lock-up with all the other cons, but then got transferred to solitary when he learned one of the first rules about prison life—you don’t fight back when Emmanuel Ramirez decides that you’re his newest bitch. It had gotten him a broken nose, some broken ribs and internal bleeding, and a free pass to solitary confinement. Now all he saw all day, every day, was the concrete walls of his cell, with the only exception of the one hour of daylight he got outside in the yard. He got to spend an hour outside sitting in a ten by ten foot patch of concrete surrounded by a chain link fence. But he was beginning to realize that what Lucius was telling him was true.
“Take your hour—enjoy your hour,” He’d say. “Enjoy your moment in the bright sunshine, in God’s warm, brilliant light. Your hour is the one thing that those hardasses in there can't take from you.”
It was moments like that where Dean actually liked the guy. Upon talking to him in a normal everyday conversation, Lucius wasn’t all that bad. Dean might even go so far as to say he was a good guy. But that’s when Dean has to make himself take a step back, distance himself a bit. That’s when Dean has to remember that Lucius killed eight people—and he liked it.
Lucius had that way about him. He drew you in with his charm, his blind faith, his easy going attitude. When Dean was feeling particularly morbid, he would wonder if that was how he got his victims. Drew them in with a playful conversation, and a bit of charisma, before chopping them up—or occasionally worse. He had gone too long not sleeping back in general that he stopped sleeping at night when he was in solitary too, and he listens to the walls, wondering what it would take for Lucius to come in and do the same to him. He knew the guard wouldn’t lament the fact that Dean had become victim number nine. That was just the way things were.
“Why you always sittin’ down and sleepin’, brother?” Lucius said to him one morning with a wide smile. “Why don’t you—get up and exercise? Enjoy this great sunshine that God gave us.”
Dean opened his eyes slightly and gave him a sleepy smile, “I am enjoying the sunshine. Helps me sleep.”
“Helps you sleep?” Lucius smirked as he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches out of his socks, “What those lumpy standard issue mattresses don’t lull you off to dreamland like they should?”
Dean chuckled slightly, watching as Lucius lit up, before taking the pack and matches and tossing it over the edge of the cage and into his own side. Dean reached for them once they landed, and then quickly lit up, inhaling deeply, before getting up and tossing them back. He sat back down again, resting his forearms on his knees and leaning back into the sun. Lucius watched him with the eyes of a hawk, resting his forearms against the fence as he smoked. Dean wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the predatory gaze he was being watched with, but he chose to ignore it, closing his eyes againand focusing more on the sun sinking into his skin, letting it remind him that he was still alive.
***
His first encounter with Lucius was his first day in solitary. The man hadn’t spoken to him much right off the bat. Just studied him for the first five to ten minutes before holding up the pack in his hands.
“Want a cigarette?”
Dean had never been a serious smoker, but he knew that this kind of thing was a gesture of friendship, and he had learned his lesson the first time around. He wasn’t going to piss this guy off when he didn’t know who he was or what he had done.
“Sure, dude.”
He watched carefully as the pack and book of matches soared into the air and landed on the inside of his gated enclosure. He picked it up and pulled one out.
“Don’t forget to pass that back my way when you’re finished, now?” the man said with an easy smile. Dean returned it before lighting up, afterwards tossing them back his way. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled, moving slowly so not to irritate his sore body more than he already had.
“So, kid,” the other man sighed as he prepared to light up himself. “What’s your name?”
“Dean,” he stated before taking another drag. “You?”
“Lucius,” the other man replied on the exhale, smoke billowing around his face like a wreath. “Lucius Jenkins.”
Dean pretended to react like he didn’t recognize the name, but it had been in every paper up and down the East Coast when they collared him. He had killed eight people in as many cities, and when they sat him down he confessed to every single one. They said he didn’t have a pattern, a type, a signature, he just—killed. That was what he did. When he was reading about him, Dean hadn’t been sure that he was human or if he was possibly supernatural himself. But when he remained in jail for more than a few days and wound up standing trial for his crimes, Dean decided he had been wrong.
As Lucius started to trust him more, chat with him more, Dean thought that this couldn’t be the same man. This couldn’t be the man who murdered all those people. He preached his faith in God like he had seen the Man himself. His faith, from the way he talked to Dean, was just as strong, if not stronger, than Dean’s belief in what he and his father had hunted every day since he was four years old. Dean couldn’t figure this guy out, and he didn’t intend to. He would sit there, listen to him talk, and occasionally talk back when required. But other than that—he just listened.
***
“Do you believe in God?”
Lucius was watching him with that look again, the one that Dean wondered if he had given his victims when he was back on the street. The one that said if you didn’t answer the question, you’d better hope you were faster than he was. Dean ashed his cigarette before bringing it back to his lips again.
“Nope.”
Lucius cocked his head to the side and studied him again, “Now why the hell not?”
“Seen too much evil for anyone to talk me into it,” Dean said, before giving him a small smile. “Even you, Lucius.”
“But this is what you don’t see, my brother,” Lucius replied, extending his arms, and rotating a circle as if opening himself to the sun. “God—he forgives. He wipes the slate clean, and all you have to do is just open yourself to His awesome, awesome love.”
Dean shrugged before taking another drag. “Good thing I haven’t done anything that needs forgiving.”
“You haven’t now?” Lucius said, moving back over to the fence and looking at him hard. “Then what the fuck are you doing here?”
“They think I’m their guy,” Dean replied, tossing the cigarette away. “But I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
“Nope.”
“Well then—” Lucius grinned. “—Aren’t you just shit out of luck?”
“Guess so.”
“God’s good for that, too. Having someone to go to when you’re shit out of luck.”
“Is he now?” Dean looked at him as he got to his feet, looking the man dead in the eye. “I wish I had your faith, man, I really do. But I’m just not buyin’ it. I’ve lost too much.”
“Don’t you think I’ve lost too, man,” Lucius replied, sliding his fingers through the chain link. “Don’t you think I’ve had my ups and downs. Fuckin’ look at me! I’m a goddamn serial killer. I killed eight fuckin’ people. And God still opened his arms to me and told me that everything was going to be alright. He took me back into his lovin’ embrace and I have never been more happy or content in my life. I have made peace with what I’ve done. And you should too.”
“I have,” Dean replied. “But I’m not like you, Lucius. Not even close.”
“Oh, I think you are,” Lucius replied. “You think I don’t know the eyes of a killer when I see ‘em? I can see it in your eyes, brother.”
“You aren’t my brother,” Dean said coolly, the look on his face unmistakable. “So don’t pretend like you are.”
“Don’t pretend?” Then he laughed, a deep, chilling, haunting laugh that would ring in Dean’s ears for the rest of the day, as well as the words right afterwards. “Man, in here—I’m the closest thing you’ve got.”
***
The other twenty-three hours he usually spent on his bunk, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t like being caged like this, he never had. And no human contact—it was killing him. Usually when he had been in close quarters like this, at least Sam had been there. But this time, he wasn’t. He was in here, by himself, and there were some moments where he could feel the walls closing in on him, and those moments were when he heard the words of the detective in his head.
The guy had been a bottle rocket of energy; he could barely sit still for the entire interrogation. Well, it wasn’t really an interrogation; it was more like a meeting. He wanted to talk to Dean. Not about his case, but about a different one. Lucius’s.
“Look, guy killed eight people right? He copped to all eight when we finally got ‘im, but we never found that eighth victim.”
“So what do you want with me?”
“Your CO tells me that you and Lucius are getting close—that he feels like he can talk to you.”
Sure, Lucius was talking to him. He was telling him things Dean never even wanted to know. About his victims, the way he killed ‘em, the reasons why. And the way he talked, it was more like he had spent a Sunday golfing with them. The more Lucius told him, the more scared Dean became, yet he couldn’t help but get himself sucked in, so he kept sitting there. Kept listening.
One day, he told Dean about his sixth victim. Little boy, Lucius had said, barely eight years old. He talked about how he mutilated this kid, just tore the kid apart. Dean managed to not be sick in front of him when he was describing how he had taken the knife and cut off the kid’s dick and then fed it to him—and that it had felt good.
He’d also managed to hold himself together for the rest of the time outside, but Dean puked everything he had eaten once he got back to his cell. He couldn’t eat for two days, and all he could see in his nightmares was a faceless little kid, body broken and blood everywhere. After that, though, he was sure he was ready for anything Lucius could dish out. He had told him his worst. He wondered if that kid’s spirit had had the strength to hold on, the will not to cross over. He knew that it probably wasn’t likely, but he then wished that when they finally sent Lucius over to the great beyond, he’d be burning in that special corner of hell, because, fuck, he deserved it.
“Yeah, he talks, but that doesn’t mean he’s tellin’ me anything.”
“Look, Dean. If you can get him to talk to you, to tell you where the girl is—I can help you. I can pull some strings, get them to lessen your sentence, take the needle off the table.”
“What can you really do for me, dude? They’re extraditing me to St. Louis.”
“How ‘bout you think about her?”
She was starting to haunt him now, too. This time though, the victim had a face. A pretty face with long dark hair and a bright smile, lips painted ruby red. She had an arm around some guy’s shoulder, and she seemed so alive. Dean could see her in his sleep now, and this time it was like some girl he had met in a bar. She was the one in the middle of a crowd of friends, sitting at a table in the corner, making slow eye contact with you before looking away and blushing, a giant smile on her face. The kind of girl you do shots with before taking her home, whose kisses start out shy just before you push her just a little and she completely opens to you, body and soul. He didn’t meet many girls like her on the road, but when he did—God, he loved it. It was a step towards the normal that Sam had always craved, and on some level, sometimes, Dean did to. When he was with girls like her, it felt normal.
She suddenly became personal. She became someone he could have saved from a monster, but couldn’t, because the monster wasn’t supernatural and cold, he was warm with flesh and blood and a heart beat. He was completely fucked up in the head, but he still had a heartbeat. He was still human—as far as Dean knew, anyway.
Back when he was still talking to this detective, before his brain started getting carried away, he tried to stay cool, unaffected. This guy wasn’t going to be able to do jack shit for him, just like his lawyer. So why should he try to pry something he really didn’t want to know out of Lucius?
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why should I get you this information? Why don’t you just go and ask Lucius yourself?”
“Damnit, don’t you think we’ve tried!”
The man looked exhausted, tired, like a man at the end of his rope. Dean could tell he had been looking for her for a long time, and he couldn’t put his finger on why. Usually the cops would just write her off, but this guy—he was pushing. And he was pushing hard.
“Why do you want to find her so bad?”
It was a simple question, but the man had seemed taken aback, surprised. That usually wasn’t a question asked by prisoners when they were being asked something of them. Dean figured that they usually asked what’s in it for them. Dean was asking why.
“I want—I want to give her family closure.”
“You’re not working on the record, are you?”
“No—no, I’m not.”
“So how do I know that you’re gonna come through for me then?”
“You don’t. Guess you’re just gonna have to trust me, and pray I pull through. If I don’t, you’re just going to have to live with the warm fuzzy feeling that you helped the family of a girl who died a horrible death finally put her to rest.”
That was what struck a chord with Dean: putting her to rest. That was what he understood. He didn’t let the detective know that, though. He kept his face straight, and his eyes looking straight ahead.
“I’ll see if I can help. You know, it’s not like I can just ask him about it, and he’ll open up to me like a book.”
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“I’m a piece of work? Dude, I’m just telling you the fuckin’ truth.”
“You know for a guy who claims he’s innocent of all that murder, you sure act like a criminal.”
“I didn’t kill those people.”
“Then do the decent thing, Dean. Be the bigger man.”
It was particularly that last sentence that stuck with him. He knew the guy was right, and he knew that even if this detective couldn’t help him, personally, he could still help. He got up then, wandered down to the door of his cell, and spotted his CO standing at end of the hallway.
“Yo! Yo, Valdez! I wanna see my lawyer.”
***
He opened his eyes again and focused on the man across from him. He didn’t have a lot of time, so he was going to have to prod. He didn’t know how Lucius was going to take to the prodding, but he knew that if there was one thing he loved to talk about, it was his kills. From the first one, where he had killed the man for letting the sunlight in, to the seventh, where he had strangled a man in a back alley and chopped him up before dumping him unceremoniously in the dumpster of a restaurant.
“So—Lucius,” he began, getting up and starting to walk towards the fence. “You’re one short.”
“One short with what, my brother?” Lucius replied, turning and giving him that smile that had started to tear Dean’s insides to shreds every time he saw it.
“Your bodies,” Dean said, smirking slightly. “You told me about one through seven—what about number eight?”
“You been keepin’ track, Dean?” Lucius replied, his grin turning slightly wicked.
“I ain’t got nothin’ better to do,” Dean replied, the smirk widening to a smile. Play it friendly, and he’ll eat it up.
“You are right there, my friend,” Lucius laughed. “So you wanna hear about Number Eight?”
“If you can’t think of something better to talk about,” Dean said, leaning against the chain link of the fence.
“Well—I don’t think I can,” Lucius sighed, that smile widening. “Now, Number Eight, she was a beauty. Her lips were this rich red, like strawberries in the summertime. And when she started choking and sputtering—the blood ran over her lips like berry juice dribbling down her chin—”
Title: The Devil Within
Author:
iluvroadrunner6Rating: FRM/R
Characters: Dean Winchester, Lucius Jenkins
we_take_five Prompt: here
Content Warning: Mild spoilers for "Skin," "Crossroad Blues," "Nightshifter," (SPN) and the play, as well as mentions of child torture
Summary: He had gone too long not sleeping back in general that he stopped sleeping at night when he was in solitary too, and he listens to the walls, wondering what it would take for Lucius to come in and do the same to him. He knew the guard wouldn’t lament the fact that Dean had become victim number nine. That was just the way things were.
Author's Note: Thanks to
iamentheos for the awesome beta job. This interpretation of Lucius is based on an excellent performance by an MFA actor named Bjorn DuPaty at my school, and I hope I did his performance justice. There can also be considered a slightly crossover with CSI:NY if you squint.Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Supernatural. They're owned by the CW. Any characters related to Jesus Hopped the A Train are owned by Stephen Aldy Guirgis. However, any and all original characters are mine, so please don't use them without my permission.
They had taken everything he owned when he came in. Clothes, weapons, anything personal were gone, and he was fairly certain he was never going to see them again. Getting sent to Rikers, especially for the crimes they said he committed, tended to do that. When they were locking you up, they were locking you up for a long time. And he wasn’t likely to be staying long there either. They were probably going to extradite him out to St. Louis to stand trial, if not first sending him to stand trial in Federal Court. After all, he was a fugitive from justice and on the FBI’s most wanted list. It only made sense that they should get a crack at him first. That’s what his lawyer had told him.
Other than that helpful bit of information—his lawyer wasn’t worth shit.
He was convinced that Dean was guilty, just like everyone else was. He wasn’t interested in how Dean could explain his innocence. OK, yes, technically he was a fugitive from the law, but he didn’t commit the crimes they accused him of. And now he was probably going to wind up rotting in jail for the rest of his life, or worse, if he and Sam didn’t think of something—fast. He had started out in general lock-up with all the other cons, but then got transferred to solitary when he learned one of the first rules about prison life—you don’t fight back when Emmanuel Ramirez decides that you’re his newest bitch. It had gotten him a broken nose, some broken ribs and internal bleeding, and a free pass to solitary confinement. Now all he saw all day, every day, was the concrete walls of his cell, with the only exception of the one hour of daylight he got outside in the yard. He got to spend an hour outside sitting in a ten by ten foot patch of concrete surrounded by a chain link fence. But he was beginning to realize that what Lucius was telling him was true.
“Take your hour—enjoy your hour,” He’d say. “Enjoy your moment in the bright sunshine, in God’s warm, brilliant light. Your hour is the one thing that those hardasses in there can't take from you.”
It was moments like that where Dean actually liked the guy. Upon talking to him in a normal everyday conversation, Lucius wasn’t all that bad. Dean might even go so far as to say he was a good guy. But that’s when Dean has to make himself take a step back, distance himself a bit. That’s when Dean has to remember that Lucius killed eight people—and he liked it.
Lucius had that way about him. He drew you in with his charm, his blind faith, his easy going attitude. When Dean was feeling particularly morbid, he would wonder if that was how he got his victims. Drew them in with a playful conversation, and a bit of charisma, before chopping them up—or occasionally worse. He had gone too long not sleeping back in general that he stopped sleeping at night when he was in solitary too, and he listens to the walls, wondering what it would take for Lucius to come in and do the same to him. He knew the guard wouldn’t lament the fact that Dean had become victim number nine. That was just the way things were.
“Why you always sittin’ down and sleepin’, brother?” Lucius said to him one morning with a wide smile. “Why don’t you—get up and exercise? Enjoy this great sunshine that God gave us.”
Dean opened his eyes slightly and gave him a sleepy smile, “I am enjoying the sunshine. Helps me sleep.”
“Helps you sleep?” Lucius smirked as he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches out of his socks, “What those lumpy standard issue mattresses don’t lull you off to dreamland like they should?”
Dean chuckled slightly, watching as Lucius lit up, before taking the pack and matches and tossing it over the edge of the cage and into his own side. Dean reached for them once they landed, and then quickly lit up, inhaling deeply, before getting up and tossing them back. He sat back down again, resting his forearms on his knees and leaning back into the sun. Lucius watched him with the eyes of a hawk, resting his forearms against the fence as he smoked. Dean wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the predatory gaze he was being watched with, but he chose to ignore it, closing his eyes againand focusing more on the sun sinking into his skin, letting it remind him that he was still alive.
***
His first encounter with Lucius was his first day in solitary. The man hadn’t spoken to him much right off the bat. Just studied him for the first five to ten minutes before holding up the pack in his hands.
“Want a cigarette?”
Dean had never been a serious smoker, but he knew that this kind of thing was a gesture of friendship, and he had learned his lesson the first time around. He wasn’t going to piss this guy off when he didn’t know who he was or what he had done.
“Sure, dude.”
He watched carefully as the pack and book of matches soared into the air and landed on the inside of his gated enclosure. He picked it up and pulled one out.
“Don’t forget to pass that back my way when you’re finished, now?” the man said with an easy smile. Dean returned it before lighting up, afterwards tossing them back his way. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled, moving slowly so not to irritate his sore body more than he already had.
“So, kid,” the other man sighed as he prepared to light up himself. “What’s your name?”
“Dean,” he stated before taking another drag. “You?”
“Lucius,” the other man replied on the exhale, smoke billowing around his face like a wreath. “Lucius Jenkins.”
Dean pretended to react like he didn’t recognize the name, but it had been in every paper up and down the East Coast when they collared him. He had killed eight people in as many cities, and when they sat him down he confessed to every single one. They said he didn’t have a pattern, a type, a signature, he just—killed. That was what he did. When he was reading about him, Dean hadn’t been sure that he was human or if he was possibly supernatural himself. But when he remained in jail for more than a few days and wound up standing trial for his crimes, Dean decided he had been wrong.
As Lucius started to trust him more, chat with him more, Dean thought that this couldn’t be the same man. This couldn’t be the man who murdered all those people. He preached his faith in God like he had seen the Man himself. His faith, from the way he talked to Dean, was just as strong, if not stronger, than Dean’s belief in what he and his father had hunted every day since he was four years old. Dean couldn’t figure this guy out, and he didn’t intend to. He would sit there, listen to him talk, and occasionally talk back when required. But other than that—he just listened.
***
“Do you believe in God?”
Lucius was watching him with that look again, the one that Dean wondered if he had given his victims when he was back on the street. The one that said if you didn’t answer the question, you’d better hope you were faster than he was. Dean ashed his cigarette before bringing it back to his lips again.
“Nope.”
Lucius cocked his head to the side and studied him again, “Now why the hell not?”
“Seen too much evil for anyone to talk me into it,” Dean said, before giving him a small smile. “Even you, Lucius.”
“But this is what you don’t see, my brother,” Lucius replied, extending his arms, and rotating a circle as if opening himself to the sun. “God—he forgives. He wipes the slate clean, and all you have to do is just open yourself to His awesome, awesome love.”
Dean shrugged before taking another drag. “Good thing I haven’t done anything that needs forgiving.”
“You haven’t now?” Lucius said, moving back over to the fence and looking at him hard. “Then what the fuck are you doing here?”
“They think I’m their guy,” Dean replied, tossing the cigarette away. “But I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
“Nope.”
“Well then—” Lucius grinned. “—Aren’t you just shit out of luck?”
“Guess so.”
“God’s good for that, too. Having someone to go to when you’re shit out of luck.”
“Is he now?” Dean looked at him as he got to his feet, looking the man dead in the eye. “I wish I had your faith, man, I really do. But I’m just not buyin’ it. I’ve lost too much.”
“Don’t you think I’ve lost too, man,” Lucius replied, sliding his fingers through the chain link. “Don’t you think I’ve had my ups and downs. Fuckin’ look at me! I’m a goddamn serial killer. I killed eight fuckin’ people. And God still opened his arms to me and told me that everything was going to be alright. He took me back into his lovin’ embrace and I have never been more happy or content in my life. I have made peace with what I’ve done. And you should too.”
“I have,” Dean replied. “But I’m not like you, Lucius. Not even close.”
“Oh, I think you are,” Lucius replied. “You think I don’t know the eyes of a killer when I see ‘em? I can see it in your eyes, brother.”
“You aren’t my brother,” Dean said coolly, the look on his face unmistakable. “So don’t pretend like you are.”
“Don’t pretend?” Then he laughed, a deep, chilling, haunting laugh that would ring in Dean’s ears for the rest of the day, as well as the words right afterwards. “Man, in here—I’m the closest thing you’ve got.”
***
The other twenty-three hours he usually spent on his bunk, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t like being caged like this, he never had. And no human contact—it was killing him. Usually when he had been in close quarters like this, at least Sam had been there. But this time, he wasn’t. He was in here, by himself, and there were some moments where he could feel the walls closing in on him, and those moments were when he heard the words of the detective in his head.
The guy had been a bottle rocket of energy; he could barely sit still for the entire interrogation. Well, it wasn’t really an interrogation; it was more like a meeting. He wanted to talk to Dean. Not about his case, but about a different one. Lucius’s.
“Look, guy killed eight people right? He copped to all eight when we finally got ‘im, but we never found that eighth victim.”
“So what do you want with me?”
“Your CO tells me that you and Lucius are getting close—that he feels like he can talk to you.”
Sure, Lucius was talking to him. He was telling him things Dean never even wanted to know. About his victims, the way he killed ‘em, the reasons why. And the way he talked, it was more like he had spent a Sunday golfing with them. The more Lucius told him, the more scared Dean became, yet he couldn’t help but get himself sucked in, so he kept sitting there. Kept listening.
One day, he told Dean about his sixth victim. Little boy, Lucius had said, barely eight years old. He talked about how he mutilated this kid, just tore the kid apart. Dean managed to not be sick in front of him when he was describing how he had taken the knife and cut off the kid’s dick and then fed it to him—and that it had felt good.
He’d also managed to hold himself together for the rest of the time outside, but Dean puked everything he had eaten once he got back to his cell. He couldn’t eat for two days, and all he could see in his nightmares was a faceless little kid, body broken and blood everywhere. After that, though, he was sure he was ready for anything Lucius could dish out. He had told him his worst. He wondered if that kid’s spirit had had the strength to hold on, the will not to cross over. He knew that it probably wasn’t likely, but he then wished that when they finally sent Lucius over to the great beyond, he’d be burning in that special corner of hell, because, fuck, he deserved it.
“Yeah, he talks, but that doesn’t mean he’s tellin’ me anything.”
“Look, Dean. If you can get him to talk to you, to tell you where the girl is—I can help you. I can pull some strings, get them to lessen your sentence, take the needle off the table.”
“What can you really do for me, dude? They’re extraditing me to St. Louis.”
“How ‘bout you think about her?”
She was starting to haunt him now, too. This time though, the victim had a face. A pretty face with long dark hair and a bright smile, lips painted ruby red. She had an arm around some guy’s shoulder, and she seemed so alive. Dean could see her in his sleep now, and this time it was like some girl he had met in a bar. She was the one in the middle of a crowd of friends, sitting at a table in the corner, making slow eye contact with you before looking away and blushing, a giant smile on her face. The kind of girl you do shots with before taking her home, whose kisses start out shy just before you push her just a little and she completely opens to you, body and soul. He didn’t meet many girls like her on the road, but when he did—God, he loved it. It was a step towards the normal that Sam had always craved, and on some level, sometimes, Dean did to. When he was with girls like her, it felt normal.
She suddenly became personal. She became someone he could have saved from a monster, but couldn’t, because the monster wasn’t supernatural and cold, he was warm with flesh and blood and a heart beat. He was completely fucked up in the head, but he still had a heartbeat. He was still human—as far as Dean knew, anyway.
Back when he was still talking to this detective, before his brain started getting carried away, he tried to stay cool, unaffected. This guy wasn’t going to be able to do jack shit for him, just like his lawyer. So why should he try to pry something he really didn’t want to know out of Lucius?
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why should I get you this information? Why don’t you just go and ask Lucius yourself?”
“Damnit, don’t you think we’ve tried!”
The man looked exhausted, tired, like a man at the end of his rope. Dean could tell he had been looking for her for a long time, and he couldn’t put his finger on why. Usually the cops would just write her off, but this guy—he was pushing. And he was pushing hard.
“Why do you want to find her so bad?”
It was a simple question, but the man had seemed taken aback, surprised. That usually wasn’t a question asked by prisoners when they were being asked something of them. Dean figured that they usually asked what’s in it for them. Dean was asking why.
“I want—I want to give her family closure.”
“You’re not working on the record, are you?”
“No—no, I’m not.”
“So how do I know that you’re gonna come through for me then?”
“You don’t. Guess you’re just gonna have to trust me, and pray I pull through. If I don’t, you’re just going to have to live with the warm fuzzy feeling that you helped the family of a girl who died a horrible death finally put her to rest.”
That was what struck a chord with Dean: putting her to rest. That was what he understood. He didn’t let the detective know that, though. He kept his face straight, and his eyes looking straight ahead.
“I’ll see if I can help. You know, it’s not like I can just ask him about it, and he’ll open up to me like a book.”
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“I’m a piece of work? Dude, I’m just telling you the fuckin’ truth.”
“You know for a guy who claims he’s innocent of all that murder, you sure act like a criminal.”
“I didn’t kill those people.”
“Then do the decent thing, Dean. Be the bigger man.”
It was particularly that last sentence that stuck with him. He knew the guy was right, and he knew that even if this detective couldn’t help him, personally, he could still help. He got up then, wandered down to the door of his cell, and spotted his CO standing at end of the hallway.
“Yo! Yo, Valdez! I wanna see my lawyer.”
***
He opened his eyes again and focused on the man across from him. He didn’t have a lot of time, so he was going to have to prod. He didn’t know how Lucius was going to take to the prodding, but he knew that if there was one thing he loved to talk about, it was his kills. From the first one, where he had killed the man for letting the sunlight in, to the seventh, where he had strangled a man in a back alley and chopped him up before dumping him unceremoniously in the dumpster of a restaurant.
“So—Lucius,” he began, getting up and starting to walk towards the fence. “You’re one short.”
“One short with what, my brother?” Lucius replied, turning and giving him that smile that had started to tear Dean’s insides to shreds every time he saw it.
“Your bodies,” Dean said, smirking slightly. “You told me about one through seven—what about number eight?”
“You been keepin’ track, Dean?” Lucius replied, his grin turning slightly wicked.
“I ain’t got nothin’ better to do,” Dean replied, the smirk widening to a smile. Play it friendly, and he’ll eat it up.
“You are right there, my friend,” Lucius laughed. “So you wanna hear about Number Eight?”
“If you can’t think of something better to talk about,” Dean said, leaning against the chain link of the fence.
“Well—I don’t think I can,” Lucius sighed, that smile widening. “Now, Number Eight, she was a beauty. Her lips were this rich red, like strawberries in the summertime. And when she started choking and sputtering—the blood ran over her lips like berry juice dribbling down her chin—”
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(Anonymous) 2007-03-23 10:45 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
i'm glad you liked it.
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i was aiming for it to be uncomfortable. and i don't write uncomfortable often, so i was really worried that i was missing my mark.
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I look forward to more.
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this is actually much more description than i usually write (i'm more of a dialouge girl), so i'm glad i can still get the imagery across.
i'm glad you liked it.