And i will walk on water

Chapter seven

Dean was standing on the edge of a cliff, and from this far up, the city below looked deceptively unlike Hell. Buildings stood tall and proud, their lights bright and steady while traffic bustled around them from thousands of people driving thousands of cars to where they needed to be, each with their own lives and their own agendas. It didn't look like a city in which hundreds of demons were shedding the blood and tears of innocents and tearing families apart in shadowed corners, but Dean knew better. He knew they were there even though he couldn't see them in the blackness of the night, and he knew people were suffering even though he couldn't hear their cries.

"I can still hear their prayers," a smooth voice said behind him, and Dean started, whirling around to see who it was even though he already knew. Even if he might have eventually been able to forget Lucifer's voice, Dean would never mistake the chill it sent through his body for anything else. Lucifer stood a few feet away wearing the same vessel Dean had seen him in last time, but his gaze was sharper than Dean remembered because no memory could reproduce their terrifying intensity. Lucifer went on calmly, "You can't hear them, but so many are praying to God right in this very instant."

It was as if he knew exactly what Dean had been thinking, but then again, that was probably true. "This is a dream, isn't it?" he asked suspiciously, trying to push down his instinct to back away because the edge of the cliff was behind him. Dean was terrified of heights in his sleep, too.

"Yes," Lucifer conceded. "But the city is real. The people are real. And their prayers are real."

"Why are you telling me this?" Dean asked warily, feeling alone and exposed like this with Lucifer in his head and no Sam or Castiel by his side.

"Because you can save them," Lucifer replied as if this was obvious. "Remember my offer?"

Dean gritted his teeth. He'd been waiting for this with a certain sense of dread for a couple of weeks now, although he was no more prepared to deal with the consequences now than he had been the last time they'd spoken. He decided it probably didn't matter. "You can take your offer and shove it--"

The ground beneath Dean's feet crumbled suddenly, and he pitched backwards with a yell of alarm. There was nothing there to catch him, and his alarmed yell turned into a panicked scream as he fell through empty air, away from the cliff and hurtling down toward the lights below. It didn't matter that this was a dream, because it felt too real -- everything from the sickening weightlessness in his stomach to the wind stinging his skin and drowning out even the sound of his own scream as it whipped around him -- and Dean was too far gone in his sheer, paralyzing terror to remember logic.

He might have screamed for Castiel, or it might have been just a wordless scream, Dean had no idea, but a moment later he was no longer falling but already on the ground, standing on his own two feet, intact and unhurt. There was a moment of blind shock before it registered, and then Dean's relief was so great he might have collapsed to his knees with a grateful sob if a strong hand hadn't gripped him by the arm to keep him upright. Dean turned his head to see Castiel beside him, and his relief doubled at the familiar sight of the angel in his stupid trench coat because his first thought was, I'm saved.

But Castiel shook his head slightly, and then Lucifer was there again, in front of them and eyeing them with amusement. Dean unconsciously leaned into Castiel's touch, pressing closer. "Nice trick, Castiel," Lucifer said, drawing out Castiel's name on his tongue like he was savoring it, "but what will you do now that you've lost the element of surprise?"

Castiel stared him down without even the slightest flicker of fear, and that reassured Dean even though he knew Castiel wouldn't stand a chance against the devil. He just hoped Lucifer couldn't hurt Castiel since they were inside his head. "Get out of his head, Lucifer," Castiel ordered, voice deeper than usual and impressively threatening.