Title: Fields of Paper Flowers

Chapter: 3

~~~~~~~~~~

He would never again see out of his own eyes without the angel’s focus. If by chance Lucifer left his body, Sam would cease to have any awareness at all. He’d be a complete vegetable, unable to process anything. Sam knew this as surely as he knew that Jo was just as damned as he was and for the same overall reason: family.

While Sam had eventually let the angel in because of Dean’s abandonment, Jo made her deal to save her mother first and Dean second. Having not been awake during that portion of the afternoon, Sam didn’t know if Ellen and Dean had really been in danger or if Lucifer had lied to her. His money was on a partial truth, something engineered just for Jo’s benefit.

He was awake off and on these days, more than he’d been at first and usually to witness something concerning Jo. Today, he watched Lucifer pick out a dress for her and then….

Sam was pleased that Jo had gone hunting even if it had ended in her being hurt for doing so. She’d done a bit of good despite her situation. Lucifer wasn’t pleased by that thought, forcing Sam to stay awake for the rest of the night and watch everything he did to her.

Anything Sam thought, the angel knew. It was also true in reverse when he was awake. What Lucifer thought, Sam knew.

Lucifer had a plan for breaking Jo and a plan for a broken Jo. Her independent streak had to go first. The rest would follow. Eventually. It wasn’t like he didn’t have all the time in the universe to work on her. She’d given him that of her own free will. Her choice.

~~~~~~~~~~

The dress -- if it could be called such a thing -- was dark blue and spaghetti strapped, the front draping low across her breasts and the back draping low along her lower back. The only thing keeping it on her really was the velvet ribbon trim tie that ran across her back at her shoulder blades. The dress was knee length, yet slit to such a degree on both sides, that if she walked with anything but mincing steps she’d be flashing panties. Not that she could figure out how to wear underwear beneath it anyway, reluctantly giving up on the task when she saw she only had minutes left before he wanted her ready. It felt weird to be naked beneath the dress

Jo left her hair down, grabbed up a pair of earrings and a necklace, and reached for the lowest of the high heels that were in the closet. None of them were anything she’d picked out and the lowest had to be four inches. Mascara and tinted lip gloss were all the make-up she had time for.

Meg opened the bedroom door and looked in. “Don’t you look slutty.”

“That’s the idea apparently.”

“Attending an orgy? Have fun!”

Brushing past her without comment, Jo made her way down the hall and into the living room. He was waiting, also in dark blue, turning at the tap of her heels in the hallway. My, she thought, aren’t we the match-y twins tonight? Is that a silk shirt he’s wearing?

Strange to see something like that on Sam’s body. She recalled Sam in cotton and denim, both things this angel was slowly phasing from his wardrobe.

“Prompt. Excellent, Jo. I should give you points for that.” He held out one hand to her, beckoning and inviting her to take it.

Half afraid she was going to topple over in the heels, Jo picked her way across the carpet to him, hesitating a fraction before setting her hand in his. “So how are we getting to this --”

In a blink, they were in another location, standing in the entry of another apartment. For a few seconds, Jo thought she was going to throw up and swallowed hard to stave off such an occurrence. “Next time, could you warn me?” Placing one hand on her stomach, she gulped down a breath.

“I’ll consider it.”

In only a few steps, they were in the middle of the festivities.

She hated parties like this. Stupid, arrogant people mingling with other stupid, arrogant people, talking about how great they were, or in this case, how great he was. These were among the elite of his human followers and they all looked at her like she was a pretty thing on his arm. In their eyes were glints of envy, lust, and pride.

What am I, the trophy girlfriend, Jo asked herself. Weird.

Why was he even playing along with them? They were like ‘worshippers light’, believing some bizarre, romantic view of him that had little to do with the real thing. These people had watched too many movies, read too much fiction. She watched him work through the gathering, smirk in place, thanking each one for their unswerving devotion. Jo wondered how soon until each one was murdered.

She was tugged along with him, his arm about her and hand warm on her waist until they reached the far end of the room. Then, quiet descended. They were waiting for him to speak, she realized. What he said was not what she was expecting.

“Beautiful, is she not?” He touched her hair, fingers a caress on the side of her face. “An excellent choice.”

Licking her lips, she tried to keep from flinching away from him. A clammy sweat coated her palms and she blotted them against the fabric of her dress.

The men and women answered with an affirmative. In Jo’s opinion, they looked like a herd of sheep pausing in their grazing.

“Shall I disclose her full beauty?” Slowly, he moved behind her, fingers hooking in the spaghetti straps, the touch tickling.

Jo caught the dress before it could fall, hands pressing it to her breasts. He turned her to face him. “What are you doing,” she hissed. His head bent to hers, mouth at her ear.

“Giving them what their salacious imaginations believe I’m here for: to show off the royal concubine. Most here think my reign will be orgies and rewards for my faithful human followers.”

“That’s absurd.” His fingers glided up her back to the tie. It loosened until her hands were the only thing keeping the dress up. Jo was beginning to hate being right. Trophy girlfriend indeed. “How could they think that?”

“Do you believe any of them really have a grasp of the whole of me?”

“No.” She knew they didn’t. It was all over their faces and posture. They had no idea the power he had and the fullness of the horrors they’d eventually find in him. For that matter, she had yet to plumb the depths of him and knew now that she didn’t want to sink further than she already had.

“Their concept of me is quite a human one. Drop the dress.” He moved his mouth to her other ear. “Close your eyes and think of Nebraska.”

“You’re lying to them.”

“I’m simply choosing to let them continue believing what they do. How is that lying?”

He gave a tug, the dress slipping from her grasp, a silky slithering down her body to the floor, leaving her naked in a room full of strangers. Her own belief that he’d only humiliate her in private was a naïve one that was wholly wrong. She should have known better.

Jo swallowed her tears and promised herself she would cry later.

The freaks he was showing her off to inspected her, looking her over like a prized cow, murmuring about her pretty skin and lovely figure. None touched her at least. A small mercy. His hands were the only ones on her body, turning her, leaving her no remaining portion of modesty. It seemed to take forever before he held the dress up for her to put back on. Jo’s face felt hot and when she pressed a trembling hand to it, she discovered she’d been crying after all.

And then she had to stand around, drink funny tasting fizzy water, eat hors d’oeuvres that she couldn’t identify, and make small talk with those same people until he was ready to leave them. There wasn’t even any alcohol to dull her mortification.

Snatches of conversation reached her as she walked about the room playing the waiting game and trying to avoid direct contact with any of them. A high proportion of those talks she heard seemed to center around children. Had a child been conceived or would it be soon? Jo didn’t listen too carefully, more concerned with keeping herself together than in their banal banter.

At last, he indicated it was time to take their leave. Jo never would have thought she’d be glad to see him, but she was, if only to get away from this place and these people.

He wanted her willing when they returned, pinning her to the wall in the living room and sliding the hem of the dress up her thighs. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms about his shoulders and tried to pretend he was Sam.

“Uh-uh, Jo. Open those pretty eyes.” His lips brushed her temple.

“Screw you,” she snapped, turning her face aside. That bit of bravado was an attempt to hide her ever-present fear of him.

“We’ll get to that in due time. First,” he shifted her a little so that he held her up with one arm. His free hand stroked her face, pushing her hair back, “I want you to look at me.”

Lips tight, she did as he told her, loosing a sob as she met his gaze with her own.

“Such defiance,” he commented. “Such an independent spirit. So much of you to explore still.”

It was a very long night.

~~~~~~~~~~

He didn’t particularly like sex. It was a human thing and was, as such, grotesque. But having used it in the terms of the deal with Jo -- to belittle and demean her rather successfully -- he had to stick with those terms. Even he had some rules to follow, irksome though it was. Human bodies, human urges. Sam’s body roused easily enough in response to Jo and more so once he decided to tease Sam with her. When he visited Jo, he let Sam wake to experience all he put her through whether pleasant or no.

Occasionally, he took direction from Sam’s thoughts, touching and kissing her as Sam wanted, investing Sam in the ‘relationship’. Sam enjoyed being with Jo and Lucifer enjoyed hurting both of them in various ways. It was a win-win situation.

Jo Harvelle interested him. He’d expected her independence to split in two with little effort, yet here she was still fighting, while giving the illusion of submission. The choices she kept making intrigued him. What would it take to finally fully break her will?

~~~~~~~~~~

“Why did you pick me?” The question was one she’d been thinking about a lot since that party he’d taken her to. Three weeks had passed since then. He’d been in the apartment most of the time, forcing her to spend her days and nights with him, to be on-call so to speak for twenty fours hours a day, seven days a week. Jo was exhausted. Being around him for so many hours at a time took a lot out of her, especially when he decided to be attentive in a human fashion. She couldn’t eat much with him watching her and her hands had developed a nervous tremor that didn’t stop. A few times, Jo’d found herself sitting with her knees drawn up and arms about them, rocking back and forth over and over.

Constant fear was draining.

During those weeks, Meg made herself scarce. Jo didn’t particularly care where Meg went as long as she was gone. She despised having that one watch over her all the time. “Weren’t there other women out there?”

“It couldn’t be just any woman, Jo. It had to be you.” His hands arranged a vase of flowers. The act looked absurd: his hands gently moving the delicate flowers into one of the most pleasing arrangements she’d ever seen. He had a good eye for color and beauty. Strange that pure evil could appreciate beauty.

“But why?”

He considered her a moment, probably gauging her weakness for the day, then said, “Emotional connections are extremely important for the proper functioning of human beings, wouldn’t you say? Consider Sam’s relationship with Dean, that main emotional connection. He needed it, needed the affirmations and what-not, and in the end, that same connection damaged him. I’d guess Dean was damaged from it as well. As close as they were….”

She watched him begin adding greenery to the flowers next, tucking a bit here, a bit there, and drew her legs up, wrapping her arms about them. Jo rested her chin on her knees, waiting for him to continue. She wanted answers on so many things, but he was slippery, never quite telling her enough to end her curiosity, only to whet it further.

“Sam had very few women in his life that were somewhat close to him and that he had feelings for. Connections. Jess would have been ideal. Sam truly loved her. However, Azazel killed her. I’m not faulting him, he did what he thought was necessary to bring us to where we are today. One crack in Sam’s psyche was accomplished with her death. He never quite recovered.” Arrangement completed, he took it to the dining table and set it there before returning to the living room. He poured two glasses of water from a carafe, brought her one and sat in the chair across from the couch with the other.

Jo drank half the water, then set the glass on the mahogany coffee table. She didn’t bother with a coaster. Was he going to get to the point anytime soon? Not for the first time, Jo noticed he liked to talk and be the one talking.

“Madison would have been second. She and Sam had a quick, deep connection. Sam killed her himself though. She was a werewolf. She was dangerous and it had to be done. Crack two in the psyche. That woman Sarah, the one who died right over there by the fireplace,” he pointed towards it, “was not ideal. More feelings on her part than his, though he tried to convince himself otherwise. He did like her, but not enough. That left you, little Jo that he liked and wanted to protect.”

Now he pointed at her, the beginnings of an unpleasant smirk upon his lips.

“You see, that friendship you began in Philadelphia, while Dean lay sleeping in that chair, could have grown into more long-term. The seeds were there. In a different world, where my plan didn’t come to fruition and the end was averted, you easily could have gravitated to one another. You never would have been another Jess, but you could have been close -- under the right circumstances.”

“I’m third best. You just said. Third best after two dead chicks and one dead not-so-right chick.”

One hand waved. “And?”

“That still doesn’t tell me why. Why not pick some random woman?” She shrugged. “I mean, you’ve taken Sam over, so this walk through Sam’s emotional connections means nothing. This isn’t about Sam and connections. You picked me for some other reason.”

“Are you so sure about that, Jo?”

No, but she nodded anyway. “Yes. You’re just screwing with me right now, trying to mess with my head.”

Cool amusement glinted in his eyes. “I let him wake up sometimes so he can see you here with me. With us. Does that tell you what you want to know?”

Not completely. It told her some without fully answering the question. He’d picked her partially to torture what remained of Sam inside him.

“You see, Jo, I’m not just screwing with you. I’m screwing with Sam as well.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Sam pressed a kiss to her neck, breathing in the scent of her perfume. Due to Lucifer’s distaste for intimate physical contact, Sam was allowed to experience the brunt of each physical encounter with Jo, while Lucifer still pulled all the strings of his body. He had no control and never would again, but he had all of the physical sensation and the occasional illusion of control when Lucifer would touch Jo as Sam wanted to.

He was ashamed to admit that Jo there with him was a torture and comfort at the same time. Torture because he couldn’t interact with her unless Lucifer let him. He couldn’t be himself. Comfort because, when he did interact with her, her voice and warmth soothed some of the ache of loss he felt. He had the emotional connection Lucifer liked to talk about humans needing. In the dark of night, or light of day, he enjoyed her against him, hands traveling her curves in slow sweeps.

In a moment, he’d kiss his way down her, drag his tongue across her belly and feel it quiver. He’d cover her body with his and pretend he’d never given in that day long ago. Sam would live a fantasy until Lucifer forced him to sleep once more.

~~~~~~~~~~

While she didn’t recall any history of depression in her family, Jo suffered from terrible bouts of it as the days stretched into weeks, coming up on five months since she’d made that deal with him. There were days where she could barely crawl from bed and days she did nothing but stare at the walls. Didn’t she have a right to be depressed? She was a prisoner now, going nowhere outside the apartment without Meg at her side. Not to mention every aspect of her life when Lucifer wasn’t there was dissected for him by both Marta and Meg upon his return, which seemed pointless to Jo. Didn’t he already know this stuff? Why would he care if she ate or didn’t, or if she stayed awake for three days without sleep? What point was there in telling him how many days her period lasted or when she wore the same jeans five times in one week without washing them?

Maybe that was the point. There was no point. Just screwing with her head again. She thought he would have gotten tired of that by now. Didn’t he have humanity to destroy?

“What do you have to be depressed about?” Meg spat the words at her. “You get his attention, which is more than most of us get. You should feel honored he chose you, that you get to spend eternity with him.” She eyed Jo with disdain. “You’re so not worthy for that. You’ve no idea the full magnitude of the privilege bestowed upon you, a mere human woman. It’s sad really.” She shook her head. “I just don’t get why he’d choose a human. It makes no sense. With all of us willing to be his companion why choose a thing he has nothing but hatred for?”

Jo flipped through a gossip magazine with no real interest in the stories or pictures. It was one of Meg’s purchases. Several of the female celebrities had eyes and teeth blacked out with blue ink and Heidi Klum sported a dragon’s tail, two extra arms and legs, and a jester’s hat. Meg’s version of a coloring book she supposed. “Are you complaining about his decision? Because I could tell him you were.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Two of his immediate followers had already been dispatched due to rumblings of displeasure regarding how things were progressing. He did it as one would swat a pesky gnat -- without concern or care. She’d witnessed both. Mildly interesting to watch a demon implode. Jo shrugged. “No skin off my back. Possibly yours though. He doesn’t care much for any of you complaining I’ve noticed. You follow his orders or else. Half of you are so eager to be in his entourage that you’ll question nothing and the other half are very careful he doesn’t hear your dissent.”

Meg’s hands clenched into tight fists. “I could give you such pain, sweetie, that --”

Jo flipped the magazine closed and tossed it aside. She yawned so wide that her jaw popped. “Please. You’re pathetic, Meg, if you think you can do anything to me. No one plays with Lucifer’s toys but him and if you do…bye-bye.” She waved at Meg.

“Bitch.”

“I just know where I stand in his scheme of things. He wants to be the only one to hurt me, to break me. You touch me with one finger and he’ll blast you to oblivion for daring to touch his toy.” She could hear the weariness in her own voice, not quite despondency, yet damn close.

“I’m not going anywhere. I plan on being here when he breaks you. Every time. You think you’re so strong, Jo, but I’ve got news for you. He broke you once already when you made that deal with him. Cracked you in two like a brittle bone, sucked out some marrow, left you weak. He can break you again and again, anytime he wants, and keep it going until the end of all time.”

“And that’s no reason to be depressed?” Turning on the couch, Jo put her feet on the coffee table. “Toss me the remote, will you? Oprah’s on in five. She’s discussing that new strain of mad cow disease today.” Jo glanced up at Meg’s angry features. “Since you are a mad cow, want to stay and watch it?”

Meg turned on her heel and stormed from the living room. Within seconds, Marta appeared, shaking her head. Of course she’d heard the entire exchange. She always did and reported what Meg didn’t.

“You should not bait her like that. He would not like that, Ms. Harvelle.”

Jo reached for the remote, turning on the tv and flipping channels until she found the right one. “Like he cares about any of them really. They’re disposable to him. I don’t see him doing anything for anyone but himself.”

“You didn’t learn your lesson from the last time you hurt one of them?”

Marta’s tone sent an icy chill along her spine. While the words were ones Marta would say, the entire way she’d said them was wrong. Off. Jo swallowed hard, then licked her lips and pretended she hadn’t noticed that Lucifer was playing games again.

“Oh, I learned it, but baiting Meg isn’t exorcising her from that body. It’s not like I’m slapping down a devil’s trap, circling her with salt, and practicing my Latin. I’m baiting her. Verbal sound bites designed to get her riled. Pushing her buttons cheers me up because she reacts so predictably. I get the upper hand.”

“You enjoy fighting with her?”

“Verbal sparring breaks the tedium. Besides, she’s a horrible card player and I always win at Monopoly. There’s no challenge in that.”

“You want a challenge, Jo?” His voice now, not Marta’s. She didn’t turn her head to see if he’d morphed back to Sam’s body as well. “I could take care of that.”

She raised the volume on the tv, ignoring the question. “Oprah’s on. Shh.”

He touched her shoulders, massaged them a moment, then leaned down, voice in her right ear. “That’s what I thought. Tease Meg if you like, but if I do catch you slapping down a devil’s trap, you know the consequences.”

He would carve her up on the inside until she bled from her nose, ears…any place that could ooze out blood. Once he was done there, he’d move to her outer body, drawing his sigil over and over on her skin until she could barely see flesh between the cuts. Then, as she started to slip into death, he’d heal her.

Yeah. Jo knew the consequences. She’d lived them a couple times already. Terror had become commonplace in her life until it was just another thing she endured. Her hands had quit shaking and her appetite returned somewhat. Jo lived with her fear every hour of every day. She dreaded the day she’d realize she no longer feared at all, for when that day came, she’d be broken.

She watched tv all afternoon and evening, flipping channels from one program to another, trying to find something that appealed. She ended up watching a Project Runway marathon only because Meg wouldn’t stay and watch it with her.

Boredom in her circumstances had set in quickly. Without hunting or a job, what was there to hold her attention? She worked her way through Netflix, read. Jo went online to pass the time, searching out information that might help her, and when that didn’t turn up anything, she dragged Meg to the library to search out rare books. Meg was willing to translate for her, making snarky commentary as she did so. All Jo learned depressed her more. The mark on her wrist was his sigil, just as she’d thought. She wondered if it was the mark of the beast mentioned in The Bible. There was no triple six on it anywhere, so maybe not? Maybe, just maybe, there would be some way to escape? The evidence she’d found pointed against escape, however.

Deals made with him were hardly ever broken. In the tales she’d poured through, welching on a deal with him was the worst thing a person could do -- aside from entering into one to begin with.

As for her demon bodyguard…. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told him Meg was a lousy card and Monopoly player. Meg also sucked at Scrabble, Clue, and Boggle. Her skills at pool and darts were marginal. She did, however, excel at Battleship and chess. Didn’t that just figure? And she was a poor loser. Out of all the poor losers Jo had seen in her time, Meg took the prize. She’d throw a tantrum, throw things around and act like the basic three year old.

Jo sighed.

She’d already spent hours wandering the nearly empty stores to pass time. People were beginning to be scared to go outside for fear of catching the disease, so Jo and Meg had the sales to themselves. Occasionally, Jo would buy clothes for Meg and tell her she needed to trash the smelly things she wore and take a shower because she stank to high heaven. It wasn’t true, but it did produce a curling of the demon’s upper lip. Jo noticed Meg never refused the clothes, even wore the newest pieces when he visited.

How sweet. Meg had a crush on Lucifer.

If the whole situation wasn’t so tragic, Jo would laugh at that.

She’d been pushing the limits with Meg, very aware that there’d be some point eventually where the demon would lose control of her temper and Lucifer would send her away like he had others. She just had to find the point.

Unfortunately, Meg knew both what Jo was attempting and Lucifer’s tendencies. Made it all the harder, if not darn near impossible. Still, Jo persisted. Ellen had always said her stubbornness was a gift and a curse.

Jo missed her mom. Their relationship had it’s ups and downs over the years, yet Jo had always known Ellen would be there for her no matter what happened. She knew that Ellen would tell her she’d been stupid for making a deal, maybe yell at her a good long while, but then she’d get down to the business of freeing Jo from that deal if possible. She kept trying the phone, getting voicemail. Was her mom getting the messages? Was she even now trying to figure out how to help? Or did she think it was a trick, that Jo was safe with Sam somewhere?

She wanted Ellen to come in, take her in her arms, and tell her it was going to be okay, even if it wasn’t.

Lucifer told her Ellen knew she was safe and was glad of it. He said it over and over.

Sometimes, a girl just needed her mom and his assurance didn’t negate that.

Curling on the couch cushions, she stared at the tv and cried. She was sliding into numbness when her phone rang. It hadn’t made a sound in weeks. She’d kept it charged just in case. Jo sat up, reaching for it, drying her eyes with a hand as the number registered in her mind.

~~~~~~~~~~

After having spent those months with his dad’s phone charged, checking it every so often for messages, Dean should have been doing that with Ellen’s phone. The thought occurred to him one night as he waited for Cas and Bobby to arrive. He plugged it in, pleased he’d picked a place that still had some juice to it, and waited for the phone to charge.

Ellen had messages. They were static filled, scratchy, and all from Jo. He listened to them, trying to piece together information from the few clear bursts of her voice. The last one was from earlier that day.

Heart pounding fast, Dean called the number.

“Mom?” Her voice was husky, as though she’d been crying and Dean could hear something in the background. A tv? Other people? “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Regret in her tone.

“Jo, it’s Dean.”

Static and then, “Dean? Dean is…”

“Can you tell me where you are? I’ll come get you. ”

“…Illinois…can’t leave…he’s…”

“Where in Illinois?”

“…help me, please…”

The call went to full static.

Dean made a noise of frustration and looked up to see Castiel and Bobby in the doorway watching him. “Jo’s alive,” he told them.

“Great to hear, Dean, but we’ve got problems,” Bobby announced, wheeling inside the room and stopping in front of him. He jerked a thumb at Cas. “Tinkerbelle here has lost all his powers. Every last one.”

“And that means what exactly?”

Castiel looked for all the world like a lost little boy as he shook his head. “I don’t know what it means. Not yet, anyway.”

“Great. So what do we do now?”

Cas had been their advantage. A small one, an edge. Without his powers what did they really have besides three guys with guns and attitude?

~~~~~~~~~~

It was no more than twenty seconds at most. A few brief seconds of Dean’s voice in her ear. Jo had never heard anything so beautiful as him asking where she was and saying he’d come get her. She suspected the static had kept him from hearing her location, but even if it had, his voice had bolstered her.

He gave her hope she had fast been losing.