[fic] through a mirror, dimly
Title: Through a Mirror, Dimly
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R
Characters: Dean, Meg, Sam
Spoilers: 6.10
Warnings: Language, violence, allusions to non-con and torture
Word Count: 1300
Summary: Sam isn't Sam anymore, Cas isn't Cas anymore, Lisa doesn't even want to know him, and even though he's got back everything he thought he'd never have again, Dean's never been more alone.
Notes: Something of a departure from what I usually write, but this idea has been niggling at me ever since Caged Heat aired. Title is paraphrased from St. Paul.
Through a Mirror, Dimly
Dean doesn’t give much thought to his cousin as he sinks the knife into Christian’s flesh, relishing in the wet sizzle of the demon inside being snuffed out, orange-gold flare lighting the dank space they find themselves in. Torture chamber, he thinks, and he’s back in a place he never expected to return, a place that he left behind for good almost four years ago now.
Only that’s not quite true, is it? Still he keeps going back in his darkest moments, again and again, like a moth to a fucking flame. It was pure instinct that had him tearing into this room and knifing one of the few relatives he has left, even though the cackle that rose from Meg’s throat at the sight of him was pure demon, belying the frailness and neat, compact curves of her pretty human host. The demon he just stabbed might have been one of Crowley’s lackeys, but in his mind’s eye he saw nothing but Alastair himself, and the feral thing inside of him that still resents Sam for taking that satisfaction away from him rears up in victory.
He glances at Meg, still breathing hard; angry red lines stand out starkly against her pale flesh -- no, not hers -- blood seeping stickily from between her thighs to pool on the grimy steel table she’s strapped to. He swallows hard and has to look away, stomach threatening to twist itself inside out.
It’s an odd thing to feel pity for someone you despise, especially when the urge to tear them limb from limb is more familiar. But he’s been in her place: strapped down and spread open at Alastair’s dubious mercy, used and degraded and violated. Difficult to wish that on anyone, when you’ve known the kinds of agonies that would send most men to stark raving insanity, that have Dean disappearing inside liquor bottles and the tight, wet holes of faceless women, throwing himself in front of gun barrel after gun barrel, all in a vain attempt to forget, forget, forget.
Then again… this is Meg, and if anyone deserves it, she does. Images chase each other through his head like a goddamn slideshow on acid: hellhounds at Carthage, my father wants to see you; Ellen and Jo giving their last stand in that hardware store, fierce until the very end. Pastor Jim and Caleb before them, both dead for the purpose of sending a freaking message. Steve Wandell, the hunter she killed with Sam’s body, Sam’s hands; his little brother’s voice breaking as he begged Dean to kill him.
His hand tightens reflexively around the knife, something violent and hateful burning in his stomach. God knows he’s fantasized about this day often enough, thought about this particular demon helpless and completely at his mercy more times than he can count. It’s a headtrip, a rush of power he hasn’t felt since the last time he cut a soul into ribbons, and he’d almost forgotten how it felt. To be the one with the power, the one who can maim and torture and kill, and that last one is a novelty because there could never be anything so merciful as death in Hell. Only mindless, enduring agony, looping on eternal repeat .
It’s a welcome, familiar feeling. Sam isn’t Sam anymore, Cas isn’t Cas anymore, Lisa doesn’t even want to know him, and even though he’s got back everything he thought he’d never have again, Dean’s never been more alone.
But this -- this he knows, feels it settle into his bones like an old friend. This is who he’s supposed to be. Oh, he’s tried to hide from it, to deny, but deep down he’s always known that Alastair was right. He might have escaped the flames, but he’s still just a killer at the end of the day. Good for nothing but cutting throats.
“We should go,” Sam says from somewhere behind him -- emotionless, detached -- and Dean can’t tell whether he’s suggesting they should take Meg with them or leave her here to rot. This version of Sam -- RoboSam, as Dean’s taken to calling him within the relative privacy of his own mind -- couldn’t give less of a shit about whatever the possessed Campbell did to her, but he seems to think they need her to get the goods from Crowley. Dean thinks, recklessly, to hell with that. She isn’t the only one here who majored in torture, and Dean wouldn’t mind cutting a slice of that smarmy bastard for himself. See how smug he is when he’s wearing his own intestines like a lei.
The thought would make him ashamed, if not for the fact that nobody in this room is in a position to judge him for it. No-one knows what Dean was like back in the Pit, black-eyed and feral; certainly not Sam, not Bobby. He thinks Cas knows more than he lets on, but they don’t speak about it and it’s a status quo Dean has no desire to change.
Meg let something slip earlier, and he hasn’t been able to get it out of his head all day, the words ringing in his ears clear as a bell: I apprenticed under Alastair in Hell. He finds it really fucking ironic that the person -- the thing -- currently strapped to a metal torture table in front of him, the one he’s been fantasised about killing for the last six years, probably understands that dark, ugly side of him better than anybody on the planet. Alastair’s pets, the both of them; so much so, they might as well have his name carved into their skins, a single Hell-forged thread tying them together no matter how much Dean might rail against it.
He wonders perversely how long she spent on the rack before she picked up the knife for herself. Probably not long, knowing Meg; but then, Dean didn’t know her before. Maybe her biggest crime was making a deal, just like his own. He doubts it, but stranger things have happened. He wonders if she even remembers her previous life; Ruby told him once that most demons forget they were ever anything like human. And Ruby talked a lot of bullshit, but Dean’s never shaken the feeling that sentiment was maybe the only honest thing she ever said to him.
Fact is, Dean knows that if it wasn’t for Castiel’s divine intervention, he’d just be another Meg; a broken, depraved shadow living for nothing but bloodshed and madness and chaos.
Hell, he’d probably be worse.
He allows himself to look at her face for the first time since entering the room, and there’s some pleading expression in her eyes that he’s never seen before, one that gives him a sick thrill of satisfaction even as he tries to suppress it. There’s challenge there, too, because she wouldn’t be Meg without that harsh, defiant set to her jaw, and he has to grudgingly respect her tenacity. She’s not the most powerful demon they’ve faced, not the smartest or the biggest or the strongest; but she’s the only one that got away, the only one that’s kept on coming back all these years. Like a goddamn cockroach.
His hand twitches where it holds the knife. It would be so fucking easy: he could just slit her throat right now and be rid of her once and for all, one less demon in the world. Sam would be pissed at Dean wrecking his plan, but he’d get over it.
With a sigh, he puts the knife away, steps forward and gets to work unfastening the leather cuffs around her arms, ignoring the gratitude she tries to hide. This changes nothing: the next time they cross paths after this whole fiasco is done with -- and he’s sure they will, at some point -- he won’t hesitate to run her through. But he’s never been a coward, and finishing someone while they’re already helpless isn’t his style. Not anymore.
Besides. In his mind, it isn’t Meg he’s setting free.
[end.]
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R
Characters: Dean, Meg, Sam
Spoilers: 6.10
Warnings: Language, violence, allusions to non-con and torture
Word Count: 1300
Summary: Sam isn't Sam anymore, Cas isn't Cas anymore, Lisa doesn't even want to know him, and even though he's got back everything he thought he'd never have again, Dean's never been more alone.
Notes: Something of a departure from what I usually write, but this idea has been niggling at me ever since Caged Heat aired. Title is paraphrased from St. Paul.
Through a Mirror, Dimly
Dean doesn’t give much thought to his cousin as he sinks the knife into Christian’s flesh, relishing in the wet sizzle of the demon inside being snuffed out, orange-gold flare lighting the dank space they find themselves in. Torture chamber, he thinks, and he’s back in a place he never expected to return, a place that he left behind for good almost four years ago now.
Only that’s not quite true, is it? Still he keeps going back in his darkest moments, again and again, like a moth to a fucking flame. It was pure instinct that had him tearing into this room and knifing one of the few relatives he has left, even though the cackle that rose from Meg’s throat at the sight of him was pure demon, belying the frailness and neat, compact curves of her pretty human host. The demon he just stabbed might have been one of Crowley’s lackeys, but in his mind’s eye he saw nothing but Alastair himself, and the feral thing inside of him that still resents Sam for taking that satisfaction away from him rears up in victory.
He glances at Meg, still breathing hard; angry red lines stand out starkly against her pale flesh -- no, not hers -- blood seeping stickily from between her thighs to pool on the grimy steel table she’s strapped to. He swallows hard and has to look away, stomach threatening to twist itself inside out.
It’s an odd thing to feel pity for someone you despise, especially when the urge to tear them limb from limb is more familiar. But he’s been in her place: strapped down and spread open at Alastair’s dubious mercy, used and degraded and violated. Difficult to wish that on anyone, when you’ve known the kinds of agonies that would send most men to stark raving insanity, that have Dean disappearing inside liquor bottles and the tight, wet holes of faceless women, throwing himself in front of gun barrel after gun barrel, all in a vain attempt to forget, forget, forget.
Then again… this is Meg, and if anyone deserves it, she does. Images chase each other through his head like a goddamn slideshow on acid: hellhounds at Carthage, my father wants to see you; Ellen and Jo giving their last stand in that hardware store, fierce until the very end. Pastor Jim and Caleb before them, both dead for the purpose of sending a freaking message. Steve Wandell, the hunter she killed with Sam’s body, Sam’s hands; his little brother’s voice breaking as he begged Dean to kill him.
His hand tightens reflexively around the knife, something violent and hateful burning in his stomach. God knows he’s fantasized about this day often enough, thought about this particular demon helpless and completely at his mercy more times than he can count. It’s a headtrip, a rush of power he hasn’t felt since the last time he cut a soul into ribbons, and he’d almost forgotten how it felt. To be the one with the power, the one who can maim and torture and kill, and that last one is a novelty because there could never be anything so merciful as death in Hell. Only mindless, enduring agony, looping on eternal repeat .
It’s a welcome, familiar feeling. Sam isn’t Sam anymore, Cas isn’t Cas anymore, Lisa doesn’t even want to know him, and even though he’s got back everything he thought he’d never have again, Dean’s never been more alone.
But this -- this he knows, feels it settle into his bones like an old friend. This is who he’s supposed to be. Oh, he’s tried to hide from it, to deny, but deep down he’s always known that Alastair was right. He might have escaped the flames, but he’s still just a killer at the end of the day. Good for nothing but cutting throats.
“We should go,” Sam says from somewhere behind him -- emotionless, detached -- and Dean can’t tell whether he’s suggesting they should take Meg with them or leave her here to rot. This version of Sam -- RoboSam, as Dean’s taken to calling him within the relative privacy of his own mind -- couldn’t give less of a shit about whatever the possessed Campbell did to her, but he seems to think they need her to get the goods from Crowley. Dean thinks, recklessly, to hell with that. She isn’t the only one here who majored in torture, and Dean wouldn’t mind cutting a slice of that smarmy bastard for himself. See how smug he is when he’s wearing his own intestines like a lei.
The thought would make him ashamed, if not for the fact that nobody in this room is in a position to judge him for it. No-one knows what Dean was like back in the Pit, black-eyed and feral; certainly not Sam, not Bobby. He thinks Cas knows more than he lets on, but they don’t speak about it and it’s a status quo Dean has no desire to change.
Meg let something slip earlier, and he hasn’t been able to get it out of his head all day, the words ringing in his ears clear as a bell: I apprenticed under Alastair in Hell. He finds it really fucking ironic that the person -- the thing -- currently strapped to a metal torture table in front of him, the one he’s been fantasised about killing for the last six years, probably understands that dark, ugly side of him better than anybody on the planet. Alastair’s pets, the both of them; so much so, they might as well have his name carved into their skins, a single Hell-forged thread tying them together no matter how much Dean might rail against it.
He wonders perversely how long she spent on the rack before she picked up the knife for herself. Probably not long, knowing Meg; but then, Dean didn’t know her before. Maybe her biggest crime was making a deal, just like his own. He doubts it, but stranger things have happened. He wonders if she even remembers her previous life; Ruby told him once that most demons forget they were ever anything like human. And Ruby talked a lot of bullshit, but Dean’s never shaken the feeling that sentiment was maybe the only honest thing she ever said to him.
Fact is, Dean knows that if it wasn’t for Castiel’s divine intervention, he’d just be another Meg; a broken, depraved shadow living for nothing but bloodshed and madness and chaos.
Hell, he’d probably be worse.
He allows himself to look at her face for the first time since entering the room, and there’s some pleading expression in her eyes that he’s never seen before, one that gives him a sick thrill of satisfaction even as he tries to suppress it. There’s challenge there, too, because she wouldn’t be Meg without that harsh, defiant set to her jaw, and he has to grudgingly respect her tenacity. She’s not the most powerful demon they’ve faced, not the smartest or the biggest or the strongest; but she’s the only one that got away, the only one that’s kept on coming back all these years. Like a goddamn cockroach.
His hand twitches where it holds the knife. It would be so fucking easy: he could just slit her throat right now and be rid of her once and for all, one less demon in the world. Sam would be pissed at Dean wrecking his plan, but he’d get over it.
With a sigh, he puts the knife away, steps forward and gets to work unfastening the leather cuffs around her arms, ignoring the gratitude she tries to hide. This changes nothing: the next time they cross paths after this whole fiasco is done with -- and he’s sure they will, at some point -- he won’t hesitate to run her through. But he’s never been a coward, and finishing someone while they’re already helpless isn’t his style. Not anymore.
Besides. In his mind, it isn’t Meg he’s setting free.
[end.]