nextinline (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nextinline) wrote2013-04-12 08:53 pm
nextinline) wrote2013-04-12 08:53 pm
so fucking out of my head; i was running at full steam...
It doesn't take any sort of super-sensory perception to realize when they've made it to Vegas. The billions of lights on the buildings make it nearly as bright as daytime, and the noise itself is sufficient to wake the dead. Stark fights wakefulness for a few moments, but eventually gives in to the inevitable and straightens up from where he's been reclining in the spacious backseat. Naturally, the first thing he does is light a cigarette. Then he clambers over the front seat and drops into the passenger position, peering around curiously for landmarks. It doesn't take long.
"Take the second left, up there." Stark waves with his cigarette in lieu of pointing, then continues scoping the place out. After a moment, he adds, somewhat nonsequitorially: "You really gotta admire a man bold enough to take huge amounts of acid in a place like this."
With further terse directions, he leads Winchester to a parking garage beneath a hotel with which he's familiar. It's, expectedly, gaudy and bright and something like twenty stories high, hidden behind a French Quarter facade. Once the Lincoln is parked, Stark opens his door and rolls out into the glamor-less garage with an absurd sort of grace, stretching. He unfolds the back door, as well, to heft out the bags from the floorboard.
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Not surprisingly, Lucifer knows of said mission. More surprisingly, the infernal majesty doesn't disapprove. In fact, he endorses it, and instructs James to carry on, and offers some further information on the Winchester duo, and requests updates on the progress. Stark is grateful that he left Kas back in LA - at least he can choose, personally, what information passes along to Lucifer instead of having a dismembered head spying on him. To seal the deal, Lucifer gives Stark a bottle of Aqua Regia, Hell's favorite moonshine, and sends him off.
It's very late when Stark returns to Vegas, but the town is more active than ever. He steps out of the Room and into the parking garage, not wanting to poof into the hotel room in case Winchester is back from his roving.
Reaching their suite, Stark opens the door with his key-card. The place is dark, darker than when he left it, and there's something playing on the surround-sound stereo that he's uncomfortably certain is AC/DC. 80's rock? Really?
Stark stalks further into the room, fully intending to change the music and berate Winchester for having no taste, but his train of thought is derailed by the sight he's met with on the balcony. Winchester is in the hot tub with a girl who probably just walked off the stage of some burlesque show, judging by her overdone make-up and topless state. Those have to be fake. James spends a moment staring, debating several remarks, but eventually interrupts them with a brusque: "Get a fucking room. This one's mine."
Of course, of course, Stark has been back from Hell for nearly a year and the closest he's come to getting a piece of ass was a kiss from a Jade; meanwhile, this Harlequin-Romance-Cover-Model isn't even back for a whole day and he's already got a stripper on the hook. Fucking typical.
Turning away, Stark stalks towards the bedroom of the suite, fully prepared to do his best at emptying Lucifer's bottle of Aqua Regia. He's nowhere near prepared to be attacked from behind by a mostly-naked, slippery, surprisingly strong Tempest Storm - but that's what happens, because his life just works that way.
Grasping the wrist of the arm wrapped unexpectedly around his throat, Stark removes it by main force and pulls the woman off his back, twisting at the same time. Not wanting to be too rough with the girl, who is obviously on some major drugs judging from her inhuman strength and eyes so blown that the black pupils seem to engulf them, he shoves her into the recently-scorched table and traps her there. His right hand still holds her arm captive, but the left presses against her sternum to pin her against the table. Good thing she's flexible; Stark's maneuvering has her bent at an almost 90-degree angle.
"What's the deal, sugar, 's it two-for-one night?" The stripper predictably tries to knee him in the crotch, but he quickly evades, turning his hips sideways and shoving the closer one into her lower stomach for further security. "Not saying I don't like it rough, but a little foreplay would be nice."
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He does and he's not disappointed. She's wrapped around him as he leads her back to the motel, murmuring how impressed she is and yeah, she's a good actress, this one. But he takes it because he needs this distraction for now. Inside the hotel room they move toward the hot tub, filled up and steaming, clothes being torn off as they make their way over, hands and lips roaming. She straddles him once they're seated in the water and he's got his hands all over body, squeezing her ass as she moves over him, mouth at her breasts as she tips her head back.
Dean hears the door but it doesn't quite register until he hears James' annoyed voice and he can't help but laugh. The girl, however, has a completely different reaction. Her eyes go black and Dean swears loudly but before he can do anything she headbutts him hard as she scrambles up off of him. He curses again, rubbing his head where she hit him. Stumbling up out of the tub he at least snags his boxers to tug them back on before following her only to see her attack James, watching as the man pins her down to the table.
"What the fucking, fuck!"
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His mind might be shocked and bewildered, but his body reacts without any input from upstairs. Transferring the hold from her chest to her throat, Stark shoves the girl down, hard, her head making a hollow noise against the heavy wood of the table. He leans with her, eyes narrow and colder than ever. "Sure you've got me at a disadvantage, darlin'. Have we met?"
"Didn't expect you to still be with Dean," the girl-demon goes on. "I guess it is two-for-one, after all. Imagine how pleased my new master will be when I can hand over both of you."
Stark curses to himself. He expected to encounter Hellions somewhere along their road, but this is sooner than he'd hoped for. "Your new master?" Though speaking as if casually, his mind is all over the place. He can't get to the knife in his boot right now, not without releasing her, and that's undoubtedly a bad idea.
"Yes, you killed my previous one. Under orders, from your previous master. You thought no one was watching, but I was there." Any playful tone the stripper had is gone, now; she's furious, but nowhere near as calm as Stark is. "I was there, and I saw exactly what you did. So when Dean here, and his friends, opened a gateway to Earth, I took my chance. I was going to find that girl of yours, and give her an instant replay."
Whatever Stark's face was doing before, it's worse now; harder, more intent, and he's maybe losing his cool, too. His teeth are clenched so hard that he can't reply, and the hand around the girl's throat is so tight that, were she human, she would have been fully asphyxiated by now.
"How disappointed I was to find that Mason had already done away with her. But this is okay, this is better. Do you think Alice will be waiting for you back in Hell?"
And that's enough. It's too much. Stark's mind shuts down somewhere around hearing Alice's name, and he jerks the girl off the table by the chokehold. Once she's in the air, her feet off the ground, Stark barks a single Hellion word that sends her flying across the room to crash through a pane of glass and onto the balcony. Once's she's landed, Stark is crouching to bring the black blade from his boot, fully intending on leaving her body in small, undead chunks, to suffer eternally. As he takes measured steps across the room, he doesn't appear to even see Winchester.
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That name sets off all sorts of warning bells though he's not too keen on why. He knows he's heard it before but he can't remember where. In the Pit? The ring? On the Rack? He's not sure but right now isn't the time for trying to figure it out. He'll do that when there's not a demon in their hotel room aiming to kill one of them - possibly both.
He can't just stand there, needs to do something but he's got no salt, no weapons of any kind that could kill a demon and the Colt's probably locked up in the Impala which is with Sam, whom he can't even locate. But before he can even come up with a plan, James' has her up in the air and across the room in a blink, crashing through the wall of glass and onto the balcony.
Nope. James is certainly not human and that makes him more nervous now that he knows. The guy is either a demon like the bitch over there or he's a witch - though with how pissed the guy had been at the mention of being one, he's gonna go with demon. Fucking demons. Fuckers looked like everyone else.
Seeing the knife flash, Dean's at his side in a second and grabs his arm to stop him. "There's a human in there, man, she's being possessed!" And the only thing that works on a demon to get them out is an exorcism, and that's just what he does. He exorcises the bitch back to hell.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica," Dean starts, voice rough and full of intent. He watches as the woman thrashes and screams but doesn't stop. "Ergo, draco maledicte. Ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos."
The screaming ceases as she throws her head back and black smoke erupts from her mouth, billowing down where it seems to seep into the ground, the demon returning to hell. The woman lays there, unconscious but alive if the rise and fall of her chest is anything to go by.
"Christ," he huffs out. "I can't even get laid without everything going to shit."
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How long are these bastards (by which, he means the ENTIRE world) going to use Alice to get to him?
Probably as long as he keeps letting it happen.
The rapid-fire burst of Latin catches Stark off guard, and he stops halfway between Winchester and the demon bitch, watching with the same dark, blank expression as the woman shakes and screeches and eventually vomits up what looks to be a years' worth of LA smog in a manner of seconds.
And then Stark is left with an unconscious, nude burlesque dancer; a seemingly only mildly disgruntled hunter; and a fury that's still making his limbs tremble. He can't quite force his jaw to unlock itself yet, so he simply glares at the stereo console, which dies in the middle of AC/DC's "Going Down" with a pathetic warble and a couple of sparks.
Looking from the stereo to the stripper, then to Winchester, confused but much too angry to admit it, Stark exhales a forceful huff and stalks back across the room to reclaim the bottle of Aqua Regia he'd set down. He uses the black blade to spear the cork out of its pretentious cut-glass resting place and swallows the liquid down like it's water. A few moments of this, and he can finally speak.
"I'm going to sleep. When I wake up, we're leaving." With his tone, it's clear Stark is still pissed, and if it's not directly at Winchester, the guy at least comes in as a misdirected outlet.
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"Yeah, sure, you do that. I'll go clean up the... mess," Dean says, gesturing to the woman on the balcony. When the guy walks off, Dean doesn't even wait for a reply and looks for his shoes and puts them on, then goes out onto the balcony to get the woman, carefully picking her up out of the broken glass and gently puts her in one of the chairs. He haphazardly dresses her and goes to open the door to the room, then moves back to retrieve the girl.
Taking her out of the room there's a small seating area where the elevators are and he gently sets her down, then hits the down button on the elevator. He leaves her there for the moment and goes down to the front desk, not even caring he's in his boxers and boots. The little weasel from before is still there and at the desk Dean leans in close.
"There's a woman on my floor that needs lookin' after, might do good to get to hospital and have her checked over or somethin'," he says, making a motion with his hand. "Now, I want a canister of salt, some red chalk, a bottle of holy water and a rosary, all in a canvas bag. You have exactly ten minutes." The little asshole just smiiiiles at him. "Of course, sir." Fucking creeper. Dean pushes off of the counter and goes back up to their floor, shoves into the room and starts getting dressed. He half-ass cleans up the glass and by the time the ten minutes are up he's back downstairs again.
He's only a little surprised to see the bag sitting there and he checks the contents. They're all there. "Thanks," he mutters, taking the bag back upstairs. He knows he won't have long, so he'll make it quick.
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Slamming the door with unnecessary but not quite breaking force behind himself, Stark drops the duffel bag and carves some protective runes against demons, angels, and Lurkers in general, into the door one-handed. He's not really tired enough, physically, to sleep, but knows from experience that the Aqua Regia will help with that. By the time he sets the bottle down to strip off his (miraculously not-yet-ruined) clothes, it's nearly half empty.
By the time the bottle is empty, Stark is sprawled amongst the satin sheets and has stopped picturing the varied ways in which Mason might have killed Alice, in favor of dreaming about her mostly-imagined reproaches. It never makes for the most restful night, as he also knows from experience, but he'll currently take what he can get.
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He takes a silver knife, something that looks like a clever, stuffing both in his own bag. Then he finds a gun that looks remarkably like the Colt they had in their possession. Shrugging, he shoves it in the bag as well. When enough time has passed, Dean goes into the man's room, makin sure he's asleep.
Then, very, very carefully he painstakingly draws a devil's trap on the ceiling. It takes a lot of manuevering so he doesn't wake him and takes a lot longer than he'd like, but he gets it done, pleased with his work. Then as an afterthought he sprays some of the holy water on him, frowning when it doesn't sizzle or he doesn't wake up screaming. He looks at the bottle and wonders if it's even holy water to begin with.
Dean doesn't have enough time to bless the water so he leaves, shutting the door again and tosses everything into his bag. He grabs the bottle of booze he'd been drinking, as well as some others and shoves them in the bag along with anything else he deems useful, then heads out of the room. He exits the hotel by way of the back entrance, not wanting the weasel at the front desk to say anything.
It takes him about twenty but he finds an abandoned for the moment car and hotwires it in a few more, shoving the bag in the passenger seat. Getting in he shuts the door and pulls out of the spot, heading out onto the street. It's late enough that there's not too much traffic on the roads so he easily heads for the interstate to get the hell outta Dodge.
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It's early morning, early enough that the sun is barely hinting its way through the window drapes, and the city beyond is as quiet and sleepy as it ever is. Flat on his stomach, face buried in pillows, Stark can still sense a weird disruption in the aether in his direct vicinity. At first, he thinks this is the cause of the uncomfortable itching sensation that's manifested on his left side, arm, shoulder, and neck.
Shifting around to sit up, Stark pushes away post-binge fuzziness to try to locate or at least identify the weird, tuneless, high-pitched sort of feeling in his sinus cavities. It warbles and it's messy and whoever did it, they're obviously a complete rube at magic. He peers around the room suspiciously, but can't spot anything or anyone out of place, and absently scratches at his arm.
Only when the light starts to strengthen does he notice that the skin he's scratching at is reddened and somewhat rough. A quick inventory shows that the itching definitely has a corporeal cause, though he's not sure what the hell caused the rash. He doubts it's Lucifer's top-grade sheets bringing him out in hives. With any luck, it'll go away with the usual speed of any other wound, but for now, he does his best to ignore it, which is peculiarly difficult.
That sloppy magic trail he can sense is still unanswered as well, but he gives up on finding the reason in favor of getting dressed. He stated his plan of leaving as soon as he wakes up, and will stick to that. Lacing his boots up in his usual half-assed way, he grabs the duffel to head out and collect the rest of his artillery, and the hunter.
Only, when he stands from the bed, something tugs at him. It's a subtle thing, a snap followed by a tingle in his vertebrae, like popping his spine. He takes a careful step away from the bed, as if testing whether he can, before turning to look over the rumpled bedclothes. His gaze finally travels up and spots the configuration haphazardly painted on the mirrored ceiling. It takes a moment for Stark to work out the sigils and what they mean, and once he does, he can only laugh grimly. "Oh, you son of a bitch."
It requires checking, but Stark is completely unsurprised to discover that Winchester is gone from the suite, and has taken part of Stark's luggage with him. What a pain in the ass. With resignation, Stark calls the front desk and requests the materials he needs to perform another locator spell.
About twenty minutes later, Stark steps out of a shadow and onto the sunlight-washed pavement of a mostly abandoned highway on the west side of St. George, Utah. He takes up a position smack in the center of the two-lane road and crosses his arms, waiting. It's only a couple moments before he spots the car coming his way - a bright red, classic 70's Stingray, as if that's going to improve his mood. Once the vehicle is close enough for him to make out Winchester's features through the windshield, and for Winchester to make out Stark's, he tilts his head and raises one eyebrow expectantly.
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He's well on his way to Bobby's, though he hasn't tried calling him again, not since the first time. He stops off once at a bar to hustle up some money, pleased those skills haven't gotten rusty, then hit the nearest diner for some grub to go. He's on the road again in no time and reaches over to adjust the station as the one he's been listening to goes static-y.
Thankfully he looks up when he does to catch sight of the man in the middle of the fucking road. "Son of a bitch!" Dean exclaims, hitting the break to the floor, the tires screeching to a halt and the car stopping a miraculous foot from James.
"Mother fucker."
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Yanking open the passenger-side door, Stark drops into the low bucket seat as if this were all a pre-arranged pick-up. He stuffs the duffel into the tiny backseat and belts up before sitting back, not looking once at Winchester.
"Ya know, Wobbles...I'm kinda mad at you." He doubts Winchester will get the joke, but that's nothing new. Digging in the pocket of his jeans, he procures his slightly battered pack of Maledictions and lights up.
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But he doesn't and Dean snorts a soft laugh and shakes his head as he eases his foot off the break and back on the gas to start up down the road again, lucky there'd been no one else on the road but him.
"Time sure flies," he says. "It's already past twelve."
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"You really thought I was a demon?" It's very little a question; obviously, Winchester did think he was a demon, what with the containment circle. Presumably he knows better now.