And that was how Dean Winchester, the artist currently known as God (he had just thought of that one and it cracked him up every time it popped into his head) came to find himself on the top of a mountain in the Alps in the middle of a lightning storm accompanied by a very small, very cute deity with a meat cleaver in her hands.  “What’s that for?”  He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know.

“You probably don’t want to know.” Ah, crap.

Jovi had known where they were going and was wearing jeans and hiking boots and a puffy black coat trimmed with pink fake fur.  Her hair was up in braids like a milkmaid.  Dean hadn’t, and was dressed in his normal clothes.  His vessel was freezing its ass off.  He still felt sick and awful and weak and now he was gonna catch a chill on top of it. Luckily, it wasn’t far to where they were going, which was some kind of an old temple that hadn’t been attended to for a very long time by the looks of things.  Unluckily, it was up a steep narrow mountain path and his heart beat hard and fast from the exertion and he saw spots before his eyes.  He breathed hard because he needed to breathe to sustain himself, that’s how bad off he was.  He needed to breathe.

The ornately carved marble of the temple looked like it was melting; the faces of the statues that had once adorned it were worn away to featureless nubbins.  Jovi looked at them in dismay as they passed.  She clucked her tongue disapprovingly.  “It’s the acid rain that does that.”

“What?”  It wasn’t that he’d not been paying attention, he just literally felt like he was about to keel over dead at any moment and had been focusing all his energy on maintaining consciousness.

“The pollution.  This world used to be so nice, Dean.  I wish you could have seen it when.”  She didn’t wait for a response.   She just walked off, left him there desperately trying to catch his breath, and descended a set of steps to the center of the temple.  Looking at it from above Dean could see it had at one time been a clock, the floor of the temple had; a clock with no hands.  The numbers were worn away but there were faint indentations where they had once been.  In the center was a pillar with an oxidized copper bowl on top.  Jovi stopped and looked down inside it.  

His curiosity piqued and his breath at least somewhat restored, Dean stumbled down the steps to peer down inside the bowl.  It was filled with some kind of opaque, oily liquid.  It seemed to be both colorless and all colors at the same time which he knew was a trite and overused sort of description but it was the most apt.  He knew who they had come to call upon for help, but he didn’t know how they would do it, since Jovi hadn’t exactly revealed that part of the plan.  Sam had said that she needed part of his energy, which was more than a little worrying since Dean felt like he had absolutely none to spare.

The meat cleaver worried him even more though.  How did one extract energy, anyway?   Gabriel had said something about…chopping….

“I need your pinky, Dean.”

My what?  “My what?”

“Your pinky.  I am SO sorry?”  While Dean was digesting this tidbit of information, Jovi slid a very large hunting knife out from her coat pocket and slapped it into Dean’s palm.  He pulled out the blade with his thumbnail and contemplated it.  The blade was 7 inches long and sharp – wicked sharp.  The metal gleamed as lighting flashed above.  Before he could think about it too much, he lopped off the pinky on his left hand.  The knife slid right through the bone, no problem.  The digit dropped down into the liquid in the bowl with a plurp and the liquid started to bubble.  It barely even hurt…oh wait, yes, yes it did.  Took a second to kick in was all.  Phew, boy, did it ever hurt.  Hurt like a bitch.  Hurt more than you would even think it did.  Considerably.  He grunted without meaning to and his knees, which were already like jelly, nearly crumpled.  Jovi’s eyes were wide, scared.  “Wow you did that really super fast.  I thought maybe you’d have to work up to it or something.”

“Nah.  I figured it was better not to think about it too much.”  His voice shook and he flushed with embarrassment, but to his relief Jovi didn’t even notice.

“Oh.  You’re smart.”  Jovi slipped out of her coat and tied it around her waist.  Then she gulped and fidgeted and blew out some air from her cheeks, trying to get psyched up for whatever it was that she had to do.  The cleaver was for her, he realized with a chill, as she raised it in her fist.   And she was scared.  She set her left hand on the edge of the bowl.  Her hand.  He got off with a pinky, he had got off light, but she had to give up her entire hand.   He thought she was going to do it, but then she stopped.  Definitely scared.  “Should I go up, or down, do you think?”

“What?”

She demonstrated with the cleaver to indicate her meaning.  “Should I strike up, or down?”

“Oh.  Down, definitely.  If you went up, you might end up hitting yourself in the face.”

“Oh, of course.  Ok.  Down it is.”  But she still waited.  He could see her lips move…one, two, three…and then she hesitated.  She did it several times and the knot in Dean’s stomach relaxed a little bit thinking maybe she wouldn’t go through with it after all, but then she did it all of a sudden unexpectedly without counting and he cried out without meaning to.  She did too though.  The hand fell into the basin along with a river of blood and the liquid swirled and roiled but nothing more happened.  “Oh, that wasn’t enough, I guess.  Oh.”

“I can…I can…” He didn’t wanna he didn’t wanna he didn’t wanna…

“No…” She breathed the word so faintly he could barely hear it.  She moved the stump of her arm forward so the bloody edge rested on the rim of the basin and with all her might brought the cleaver down again, just below her elbow, and her forearm fell into the turbulent liquid.

This time, the spell took.  They were thrown back by a gushing gust of power and Dean even slid a ways across the frigid marble, the chill soaking through his jeans like he had sat in a puddle of water. The bowl cracked down the middle and two halves fell to the temple floor, but the liquid remained, still swirling, wilder than ever.  It began to solidify to the consistency of Silly Putty, less liquid, more elastic, and Dean watched in amazement as it rose into a column and then the column took on the shape of a man.  The goo stretched out and down from the pillar, depositing the man on the floor of the temple and then the rest of it absorbed into him with a slurp.  “Hey, Mom.”

“Chronos, I’ve told you like a jillion times, I am not your mom.  You’re like my toenail clipping.”  Dean was dismayed to see a spreading crimson pool forming around her as blood gushed from her severed arm.

“Looks like you need a hand.”

“Ha, ha.”   Chronos tilted his head and Jovi held up what was left of her arm.  A smooth flap of skin had grown over the stump.  “Tch!  Is that the best you can do?”

“On short notice.”  And then, with meaning.  “I’m hungry.”

“Of course you are.”  Jovi climbed to her feet and the pool of blood around her disappeared.  She held a goblet in her hand.  “Will this do?”  

Chronos took the goblet and raised it.  “Cheers.”  Down the hatch it went.  Dean managed to fend off a surge of nausea and climbed back to his feet.   The activity attracted the demigod’s attention.  “You?”  He cast an eye at Jovi.  “What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t even know any more.”

“All those times you told me to leave the sexy humans alone and now look at you.”

“We’re just friends.  Not even that, really, I don’t think.”

“We’ll see what I see in the future.  What do you want, Mother, because I know you want something.  You wouldn’t have resurrected me without some horrible request.”

“We need you to hunt Lucifer for us.”

“Lucifer?  Oh, heh.  Sure.  I’ll get right on that.”

“He’s loose in time.  It’s kind of your area of expertise, I figured?  Go with a pro!”

“And what would I do if I found him?”

“You’d come get me, and I would deal with him.”  Dean was cold and exhausted and he had no pinky and the place where his pinky had been was throbbing and bleeding.  He wanted to just cut through the crap, get Chronos on board, get healed, and sleep for another 3 weeks.

“Because you were so effective against him the last time?”  Chronos snorted.

“Things are different now, Chronos.”  Upon hearing Jovi speak, Chronos peered at Dean through narrowed eyes as if trying to discern his nature.  

Chronos burst into laughter when he realized.  “You have got to be freaking kidding me.”

“No joke.”

“Thanks, but no.  I will fix the damage he causes in time, inasmuch as I can, no promises, no guarantees, but Lucifer and I are two ships, passing in the night.  As are we.  Farewell, Mom.  And thanks for my existence back.”  And with that, he vanished.

“Well, I guess that didn’t exactly work out.”

Jovi sighed and looked defeated.  “We used to have a thing.  It’s complicated.”

Dean felt the rage flare up again and he almost called her a whore before he stopped himself.  Jealous, so jealous.  “He was your ace in the hole, Jovi.  So now what?”  

“We can bind him.  We can make him.  But not tonight.   I need rest, and so do you.”

Before Dean could protest, before he could mention anything about trying again or pizza, he had been dropped off unceremoniously like a package outside the bunker and Jovi was nowhere to be found.

**********************

Oriphiel had nearly worn a hole in the carpeting from pacing.  He had wanted to go, asked to go, begged and pleaded to go but she wouldn’t have him.  Said he’d be a distraction and ordered him, ordered HIM to stay behind.   The only one that was on her side.  When she appeared the feeling of relief was so great that he felt tears pepper his eyes.  No crying, not now.  Not again.  She needed for him to be strong.  She was so sick and weak and fragile.  He swallowed hard, twice, and was infinitely thankful when his emotions fell into line with his intentions.

Her arm was gone.  She had warned him that she might be missing a piece when she came back but she’d made it sound like nothing, like the tip of a finger, her eyelashes perhaps.  But her arm was GONE.  Oriphiel knew that Dean Winchester, given the state he was in, could not have sacrificed so much, that it hadn’t been 50-50 like Sam had promised.  And as he drew her a bath and made her warm milk flavored with vanilla beans and cinnamon and just a hint of orange peel, he fantasized about all the different ways he could kill Dean.  

Today had been a missed opportunity.  Dean had been so weak, if Oriphiel had only been left alone with him for a mere moment, a pillow to the face could have done, but he knew that if he committed the murder in anything less than the most final and magical way, that Jovi would simply resurrect Dean once again and be made even weaker for having done so.  He needed a way to kill a god and a way to make it permanent.  

Patience, patience.

She came to him then, wrapped in a fluffy crimson robe, her hair damp and curling.  She looked beautiful, she always looked beautiful.   He thought for the seven-millionth time that Dean was a fool.  He took her arm, her upper arm, since that was all that was left, and gazed at it.  He thought for a long moment about what it had looked like, the rest of it, freckles and pores and a faint layer of soft fuzz.  A hand with five slim fingers attached.  He imagined what it felt like to wrap his own fingers around her delicate wrist.  He knew as if it was his own arm by then; even better, for what sort of tosser sat around gazing at their own arm well enough to memorize the bloody thing?  

It took him a great effort but he managed to regrow that lovely arm once again and when he had, she laid the warm palm against his cheek in appreciation and he asked a very stupid question.  “Do you love me?”

As the words escaped his lips he knew he’d made a mistake and longed to call the words back or perhaps to douse himself with gasoline and light a match before she could respond.  “I love everything I ever created, silly.”  His guts twisted and his heart ached as if she had squeezed it like it was a damp sponge, as if she had wrung it entirely dry.    He willed his face to stay still and not move, not one little bit, other than a faint smile about his lips, pretending as if that terrible reply had been in any way enough to satisfy him.

Dean had to die.  It was just that simple.  

*********************

Once the object was safely hidden away under Sam’s bed in the bunker he had Castiel help him cast a spell that would hide it interdimensionally as well so no one would sense it was there.  All good.  But then after the spell was done, Castiel got weird about it.  “But…but Sam…I don’t want to kill Dean.”

Sam sighed.   Sometimes it was as if Castiel was being deliberately dense instead of just his normal level of accidental denseness.  Some of the angels could understand things like schemes and gambits and ploys – Gabriel was a master of the art – but Castiel seemed to have a giant black hole where his conspiracy center was located.  The plan was necessary.  The plan was obvious.  The plan should not need to be explained.  We hold this plan to be self-evident.  It was like, super annoying, because the more they talked about it, the likelier it was that Dean would overhear them and then all would be lost.  Or that Jovi would overhear them and then all would be awkward.  Sam needed Castiel to just understand something intuitively for once and get on board without having to have it explained to him repeatedly in exhausting detail as if he was a retarded squirrel that spoke only Japanese.

Dean having been out of commission for the past few weeks had been, for lack of a better term, a Godsend as far as Sam was concerned.  He’d been worried out of his skull, of course, so worried, but the upside was that he’d had a lot of free time unsupervised by either God to track down one of the ancient weapons rumored to kill deities.  During Dean’s absence and Jovi’s distraction over Dean’s absence, he and Cas had procured a certain mystical device without ever talking openly about it, operating almost as if they were connected psychically.  As if, had either one of them spoken the words, the magic would have dissipated, their silent pact would have been shattered, they’d have gotten cold feet and refused to consider what felt more and more to Sam to be inevitable.

Or so Sam had thought, but Castiel was blinking that confused vacant blink of his.  Really.  Really?  Now that both Gods were back in the game and ostensibly paying attention, apparently now he wanted to debate the necessity?   Loudly?  Sam sometimes wondered whose side Castiel was really on.  “It’s just a backup plan, Cas, that’s all.”

“But I don’t WANT to kill Dean, Sam.”

Sam gave Castiel a look, the kind of look that any human would have immediately comprehended.  It was the kind of look that was meant to communicate volumes without speaking.   He willed Castiel to fall into line without any further discussion that Dean or Jovi might overhear and tried to keep his own words as cryptic as he possibly could just in case any holy ears were tipped his way.  “That’s not…that’s not what we’re doing here, Cas.  Right?  You understand that, right?  That is not.  What we are doing.  We aren’t…Dean?  No. This is just…worst case scenario, that’s all.  Nuclear option.  If all other options have been exhausted, there’s this.  In the one in a million chance…one in a trillion chance it comes down to it, we’ll have this in our back pocket.”

But Castiel was apparently unable to understand the intent behind Sam’s expression.  “I won’t kill Dean, Sam.  I will not do it.”

Agh, he would not stop saying it!  Sam sighed and figured it was too late anyway.  The words had been uttered and anyone who had been listening already knew.  He stared at the ceiling a moment before meeting his friend’s eyes.  “Who says it’s meant for Dean?”

“Oh…OH!”  Castiel’s eyes went wide.  Finally he got it.   Geez.  It was so obvious – they simply had to be prepared to kill Jovi if need be.  Not like he wanted to, he didn’t, but maybe they needed to.  To Sam’s way of thinking, Jovi was the problem, so killing her very well may be the solution at some point.  At least having the ability, if they needed to.  It was like a check and balance, that was all.

“It’s just a backup plan, Cas, that’s all.  Just in case.”  Sam sucked in a breath, preparing for an argument, readying the list of indisputable, anti-Jovi facts and figures he had ever ready on the tip of his brain.  “I mean, we’d be stupid not to be prepared, all things considered.  Knowing what we know…about history, and in light of, the dangles, and everything…I mean, things just aren’t right, Cas, you know it and I know it.  Making angels out of demons is not right.  Things as they are, are not RIGHT.”

“You’re right, things aren’t right, but…but…Sam…”

“Now maybe they can go on this way, and maybe things will be ok, and maybe everything will work out in the end, happily ever after just like we all want here, and of course we all hope for that, of course we do, but knowing what we know, given her mysterious ways and everything, we’d be stupid not to be, you know, I don’t know, prepared.”  Sam had the vague impression he was talking too much and too fast and was repeating himself in a pretty unconvincing manner but couldn’t stop himself, he had to make Castiel see reason.  “I mean, it’s entirely possible that she could be working with Lucifer, Cas, entirely possible!  And even if she’s not, I mean, come on, she’s not exactly the most balanced entity we know, and Dean…well, we can’t rely on Dean to do what needs to be done, if it comes down to that.”

Much to Sam’s relief, Castiel didn’t put up a fight.  He simply nodded solemnly.  “Only if we need to.  Only if we absolutely NEED to.”

“We will probably never need to though.  For reals.”

“Probably never.  Of course probably never.”

“Just a backup plan.  That’s all.”

“A backup plan.”  Sam willed Castiel to stop talking about it.  “I have to think for a while.”  The angel blinked a few more times and disappeared, and while Sam didn’t think it had gone entirely well, it could have been worse.  Castiel could have refused outright and Sam could be in it alone, trying to save his brother singlehandedly yet again.

************************

After another few days in bed eating anything that wasn’t nailed down, Dean started feeling better.   He was sort of surprised that Jovi hadn’t called, or swung by to check on him, to make sure his pinky had grown back again the right way.  The more he thought about it, the more outrageous it seemed that she hadn’t even bothered to check up on him, to see if he needed to be healed, to see if he needed any help learning to use his powers, since Lucifer was on the loose and all.  It was like she didn’t even care about him.  Well, screw her, and so he decided to get out of the bunker and get some fresh air.

Dean didn’t sneak.  So he wasn’t sneaking.  He was just walking, strolling, meandering, really, on the totally public lands that just so happened to lie just outside of the grounds of Jovi’s castle.  He wished she didn’t have a castle; it seemed so silly for her to live in a castle, juvenile and all that. God shouldn’t live in a house, of course, it was beneath the dignity of the title – “Oh I’m going over to God’s house to borrow a cup of sugar”, that just didn’t work – but a castle just seemed so over the top.  Now, he thought he might want some sort of a castle-ish-structure of his own eventually, but a more tasteful one. More like, a compound, or, or, a fortress. Maybe a lodge.  Jovi’s castle was a castle castle, all froufrou and princessy.  It was made of pink marble and looked like something Barbie or Strawberry Shortcake might live in.   Dean’s fortress would be solemn and Germanic and dark and respectable, like the castle of a guy who could get some crap done.

Extending out from Jovi’s castle ran an elaborate system of landscaped grounds, and Dean felt annoyance to see that she had been wasting time and energy on gardening when she should have been helping him, or else resting.  Being God seemed way too much about her sometimes. Yeah, sure, ok, when he had first gotten his powers he had effed around with them and screwed off with the gambling and stuff but that was understandable, anybody would’ve needed to to play around with that kind of thing at first, to get it out of their system.  But she’d been God for like, ever, since the very beginning, you’d think she would have been used to it by that point and known that defeating Lucifer was more important than having a nice yard.

Dean felt a pop, like when you yawn on a plane and the pressure in your ears releases, only this feeling wasn’t just in his ears, it was in his whole body.  A tension outside of him formed suddenly and released. And it wasn’t a good feeling or a relief, this was a pop of badness. Something that hadn’t been there before, was there, and it was an unpleasant something.   A demon, maybe or, or…Actually Dean realized with a start that he knew exactly what it was, or who. Lucifer was there, somewhere nearby, he must’ve come in from whereever in history he’d been hiding out in. And where had he come, but here, to Jovi.  Of course. Dean hesitated, knowing he didn’t have but a fraction of his strength back, knowing that what he really ought to do was run away, but he simply had to know what was going on. Because it was obvious they were plotting against him, Lucifer and Jovi were, meeting up to talk and plan and scheme and God only knows what else, only God didn’t know what else.  Talking, talking about him no doubt, laughing behind his back and making plans on how best to wipe him off the map.

That was the original assumption, anyway, but much to his surprise, he came upon Lucifer doing pretty much the same thing he had just been doing.   Lurking. Well, Dean hadn’t been lurking, but that’s what Lucifer was doing. Lurking in the bushes like the snake he was. Apparently even though Dean really tried to keep quiet like an Indian scout Lucifer already knew he was there the whole time.  Because as Dean crept up behind him, he spoke without even looking Dean’s way, just kept staring at Jovi’s castle the entire time. “You know, there are flowers in that garden that are unseen by the human eye, that no human has ever seen or ever will see.  There are fruits no one will taste and fragrances that none shall ever smell.”

“You don’t say.”

“Some of her creations only last for a day, an hour…she tries them to see if she likes them, and if she doesn’t, she destroys them.  It seems a little unfair, doesn’t it?”

“How so?”

“Why does she get to decide what things live and what things die?  Why does she get to decide that there should be beauty in the world that no eyes shall ever get see but her own?”

Dean thought about his dodo project with irritation.  Why did she, anyway?  “Somebody has to, right?  I mean, doesn’t there have to be some kind of…vetting process?”

“You haven’t even walked with her in the garden.  You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”

“Maybe not, but I guess she has a good reason why she does things the way she does them.”  Dean certainly hoped that this was the case.

“She doesn’t though.  That’s the thing. She just gets off on it.  She creates beauty, she creates love and light, she gets you hooked on it, and then she takes it away.  She’s like a drug dealer. She gets you addicted to her gifts but it’s all just to control you. If you don’t toe the line, she’ll take it away.  It happened to me and it will happen to you, too, mark my words.”

“You know how I can tell you’re lying, Lucifer?  Your lips are moving.”

“I used to be her favorite, don’t forget that.  And look where it got me.”

“Things are different now.”

“I know, and…heh.  I must admit that was a twist I did not see coming.   But there’s a failsafe somewhere, I assure you. A back door.  An escape hatch. She can destroy you. She wouldn’t have created you if she didn’t have a way to destroy you.”

“She doesn’t have a way to destroy you.”

“Are you sure?  I’m not.”

“What do you…what do you mean?”

“Haven’t you ever wondered, Dean?  Why does God simply not destroy Lucifer?  The humans have been wondering that for ages.  I’ve been wondering, for ages. And the answer is, the only possible answer is, she doesn’t wanna.  I still serve some purpose for her, so she allows me to live, to plot and scheme and feel like I’m even making some progress sometimes, but all along she has her finger on the button that could end me. Have no doubt of that. I exist because she allows me to.”

Even though Dean knew that Lucifer was a master manipulator, THE Master Manipulator, he could feel those words buzzing hot as they entered his ears, echoing inside the arched, empty halls of his already troubled mind.  “Maybe she created me to destroy you.” Take THAT.

“Maybe she allows me to live to destroy YOU.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Doesn’t it?”  Dean turned it around in his head and it didn’t make sense, naturally it didn’t, since Lucifer had been around for thousands of years and Dean had just been created but the whole thing with Lucifer was, even when you knew what he was saying was 100% pure unadulterated BS it still gave you second thoughts, and third ones too sometimes.  ‘“Time paradoxes can be a real bitch sometimes, can’t they?” Dean pondered the implications of that cryptic statement while Lucifer peered at him with his hooded eyes. “I couldn’t help but notice you’re looking a little…worn out, Dad. Frayed around the edges. Have you been burning the candle at both ends?” Lucifer grinned and Dean had the chilling thought that since Lucifer had been traveling through time, for all Dean knew he had been gone a hundred million years and eaten all the lesser gods and that the only reason why they were even having this conversation was because Lucifer was toying with him before he ate him, too, like a cat with a mouse.

“Yeah, I been working too hard.  But it doesn’t mean I don’t have enough left in me to end you.”

“Augh, that’s so tempting.   Even if I don’t win this time, and I’ll admit I probably won’t, not yet, I’d so love to take a nice juicy bite out of you.”

Dean grinned challengingly but the hackles on his neck were standing at full attention.  He had brought an angel blade, of course, he wasn’t a complete moron, but Lucifer could only be killed by an archangel blade.  Dean hadn’t trusted himself to bring one of those in case he ran into Crowley and his borderline uncontrollable jealousy issue flared up again.  He had enough of his glory back to finish off a darkangel, he was pretty sure; the darkangels didn’t seem to have quite as much oomph as the archangels and they had practically nothing compared to the massive power of Lucifer.  But if he did it, if he fed Crowley an archangel blade point first down his fat freaking face, then Jovi would get all pissy and it would be this big freaking thing.  So he had left the archangel blade back at home in a trunk under his bed because stabbing Crowley seemed like a crime he would enjoy committing in a moment of weakness. “The feeling is mutual.” He’d only be able to fight Lucifer using whatever scraps of power he could scrounge up and his limited skill with the angel blade.  But what could he do, back down now? That would only encourage Lucifer; would send a message that it was possible to psych him out, to bully him. Then it would never stop till one of them was dead. “Ok.”

“Are you saying we should try this?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Because I’m gonna beat you like I beat you the last time.”

“Well, I’m gonna make you wish you were still a snake.”

“That’s actually a common misconception.  I was never a snake. The snake worked for me.  As an employee. And it wasn’t an apple, either, by the way, it was a pomegranate.  Haven’t you ever read a book? Are you illiterate or simply slow witted?”

Dean punched him in the face, his fist imbued with glory, and was greatly satisfied to feel a crunch of cartilage as the fallen angel’s nose broke.  They exchanged a few blows and Dean was pleased to see he was at least holding his own or maybe even better, the way Lucifer’s head snapped back hard when he made contact.  He was stronger yet. But fatigue was already settling in, he could feel it, the way his bones shook every time Lucifer hit him. And not even the bones where Lucifer was hitting him, all his bones right down to his little baby toes reverberated with every strike.  Sometimes he had dreams where he’d have to jump from a cliff or a really tall building and when he’d land his whole body would vibrate with the impact and that was exactly the feeling he was getting right now from Lucifer’s fists. Only way, way realer.

Lucifer managed to get in a couple body shots to his flank and then an uppercut that really rang his bell and Dean went from feeling ok with the way things were going to realizing that he better get his ass out of Dodge sooner rather than later.  But how? Lucifer would just follow him wherever he went and then whoever was where he fled to would be in danger too. Sam, or Jovi. Jovi, or Sam. Where to go? Jovi, at least, had a chance of defending herself, but Dean had a sneaking suspicion that Lucifer would enjoy hurting Jovi even more than he enjoyed hurting Sam.  Then there was the whole “former vessel” thing and Lucifer might be able to worm his way back into Sam’s head again if he got too close.

He was just about ready to flip a damn coin when Chronos, of all the unexpected saviors, appeared behind Lucifer and grabbed him in a headlock.  Dean saw a red glow come from the godlet and realized that Chronos was draining time itself away from Lucifer, attempting to give Dean a head start. He hesitated because he knew that it was probably a death sentence to leave the poor guy there locked up with Lucifer and just like with most of the lesser gods Dean had encountered, he hadn’t been entirely bad, at least, not pure evil like Lucifer was.  He was just a morally ambivalent predator born to hunt humans and he couldn’t help that. Plus, he’d been made out of Dean’s pinky and all, so he felt a little protective. But Chronos urged him on. “If you don’t go right now, you’re not gonna like the future!”

And that was all the encouragement Dean needed.  He was gone like a shot back to the bunker and while he felt terrible since he was abandoning the demigod to certain death and an unpleasant stint inside of Lucifer’s belly he didn’t want the sacrifice to have been for nothing.