SPN Story: A Good Day in Hell
Title A Good Day in Hell
Author Laurie
Fandom Supernatural
Rating PG-13 (Teen) (for some gory images)
Characters John Winchester, St. Michael. Small glimpses of Castiel and Dean Winchester.
Genre GEN
Word Count 3,535
Acknowledgments My thanks and gratitude go to janedavitt and neurawkward for beta'ing.
Story Notes AU. In this version, John did not escape Hell through the Devil's Gate that Jake opened. However, Dean did shoot Azazel with the Colt and killed him. One year later, Dean went to Hell to fulfill the crossroads deal he made to save Sam's life.
Summary There's a reason why John is able to withstand being tortured in Hell. Dean doesn't have the same protection, and John is determined to save him. Somehow. Someday.
A Good Day in Hell
John could hear them sometimes, the demons who tortured him. He puzzled them, even Alistair, who delighted in informing him how his boy had finally broken, and had taken the blade offered to him. The son-of-a-bitch, his words slithering into John's ears, the knife separating John's skin from his muscles, had boasted of how good a student Dean was, how he excelled at bringing pain to those damned souls on the rack before him.
When Alistair had finished with him for what passed for a day here in Hell, he would make John the same offer he did every time, the same one that Dean had accepted. John refused, each time.
And the demons didn't know why.
John knew. Knew why he was able to resist Alistair's offer, and if he could hug his son, he'd tell him there was no blame in Dean's capitulation. No human soul could hold out against what Alistair and his ilk were capable of inflicting.
But then, John's soul wasn't entirely human.
When he'd traded his soul for Dean's life -- died -- memories long buried had surfaced. He remembered all the times he'd been possessed, not just the time Azazel had taken his body, leaving him to watch helplessly as his sons were tricked into believing the demon was their father.
He'd been possessed by a demon - and also by an archangel. Michael had descended from Heaven to rescue Mary when Anna - an angel - had come back in time to kill Mary and himself, all so that Sam would never be born. Michael had asked for his permission to take over his body, and bewildered and desperate to save Mary he'd given it. An incandescent, brilliant light had surrounded him, had filled him. Afterward, when Michael had departed, he'd made John forget he'd ever been an archangel's vessel.
A shadow of Michael's grace still lingered within his soul, protecting him from the horrendous actions of his torturers. They couldn't truly touch him, no matter how much they tore at his body. Perhaps if they knew how he was protected they'd change how he was tortured, pull out that imprint of Michael's grace.
He'd been a soldier and then a hunter, and while he hadn't been born to that life, not like Mary, he'd learned it well enough. He played the demons, made them think he was in pain and torment. He waited patiently for the right moment to come so he could make his escape. He'd come close once, when a minor gate to Hell had been opened, and he'd managed to palm the key to his manacles when Alistair had leaned over the rack, blade in hand, to damage his body. But after freeing one hand, he was discovered and the keys taken from him. Demons had run for that gate, looking for their chance to be free of Hell, because even for demons, Hell was a terrible place to be.
He was somewhat protected, although he wasn't immune to the effects of being in Hell. There was a miasma of misery that he could feel, wet and sticky as blood on his skin, and he could see and hear the damned as they writhed and shrieked out their agony.
He'd felt such intense despair and sorrow when Alistair had shown him his boy, his image bloody and gored, and his eyes full of horror. Dean had given his soul so his brother could live; he might prove to be the righteous man, the demons whispered, instead of that title belonging to John Winchester. John didn't know what that meant, but this was Hell and so it had to be something very, very wrong.
Seeing his boy in torment was the first time he prayed to Michael, the words learned from exorcism rituals learned from Jim Murphy.
Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio, contra nequitiam, et insidias, diaboli esto praesidium. Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur: tuque, Princeps militiae caelestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute, in infernum detrude. Amen.
Silently he chanted the words, the Latin a mantra that kept him from going bat-shit crazy. He was pinning all of his hopes for Dean on vague memories from his time as Michael's vessel, that his soul held a connection to Michael, that somehow Dean was important to Michael.
He prayed for years, never stopping even after Dean began torturing those other damned souls. Alistair gave him a daily report on how well trained Dean was showing himself to be with a knife, and thanking John for teaching Dean his initial skills with a blade while John would scream in pretend pain as he was flayed open. Alistair would smile, and slide his hand through John's entrails, and whisper words that made no sense to John. The first seal is broken. Soon, very soon your son will pay you a visit. I'm looking forward to watching my apprentice do his master's work on you.
Doggedly, stubbornly, John kept beseeching Michael for Dean's deliverance; he asked nothing for himself. He dreaded the day that Dean would bend over his body, his son's eyes no longer the green of the living earth but instead the color of the abyss.
Then came a time that Alistair failed to appear at his side, as he lay chained on the rack. Faintly, he heard singing and he strained to hear more, because this music was not the song of mortals. He felt his soul, protected by the memory of St. Michael's grace, bloom with joy at the sound of it, the sound that he knew had first been heard at the dawn of creation, and demons fled past him, terrified and gibbering.
He dared to hope then that Michael had heard him, and had come to save Dean before he was lost forever as a demon. The singing of the Heavenly Host and the sounds of what he recognized as the clash of angelic swords became louder and louder. All of Hell shook as Michael shouted aloud, as he led his army of angels to open Hell's gate. He heard Michael speaking to him, although John was too far down in Hell to see the gate where doomed souls were delivered to their fate.
“Hello, John. I came as soon as I could about Dean.”
From the rack where his body was stretched in a bow, John saw a streak of white, brilliant, whirling, descending from far above him, magnificent and winged and shaped in a form almost too beautiful to look upon. Despite his instinct to turn away, he did dare to look upon it, and the light from the entity did not burn his eyes out. Somehow he knew it was not Michael.
But it was an angel, and the angel fought its way past demons who were bold enough to stand in its way. The angel slashed with a sword that shone like ten million suns, dispatching enemies, and kept plummeting through the dark circles of Hell until the angel disappeared from his sight.
John watched and listened during this respite from torture, a respite that seemed to last for years, although time was an odd thing in Hell. Mostly he had judged the passing of hours and days and years by the cycle of torment Alistair visited upon him. Taking advantage of being left to himself since the demons neglected their torment of him, the angel in their midst causing chaos and fear, John worked on freeing himself from his chains, banging them ceaselessly against the rack.
He would have sold his soul all over again for just one of the lock-picks he had carried when he was alive.
Maybe God, or just plain luck, was with him for drifting slowly down to him were feathers. Incandescent, long, beautiful feathers -- multi-colored if looked at one way, and perfectly white if he blinked his eyes and looked at them again -- torn from an angel who was fighting far above him, beyond his sight in the gloom of Hell.
Dozens floated past his outstretched hands before one came into his reach; it burned his palm, but he didn't let it go. Instead he turned it and inserted it into the lock mechanism - Alistair preferred traditional looking accessories while he sliced and diced the flesh images before him - and felt a fierce determination swell within as his manacle clicked open.
He would go down lower into Hell, once he was freed, and he would find Dean. If the angel had failed to save his son, he would.
He'd had many years to think over all of the mistakes he'd made in his life, and how he had failed Sam and Dean and Adam as a father was at the top of his list of regrets. Despite how he'd screwed up, somehow his boys had grown up to be good men. Adam wanted to be a doctor, and John wished that he had been able to know the boy when he'd been a small child. At least he'd been able to spare Adam from the hard life he'd given his oldest boys.
Dean, when he was little, had wanted to go wherever his daddy went, had cried as a toddler when John left in the mornings to go to work. Sometimes Mary would bring Dean to see where daddy worked, probably starting Dean's life long determination to be just like his dad. He'd been touched, although he'd never told Dean, that Dean's favorite things were things that said 'Dad' to Dean: the rock and roll music, the silver ring he'd taken to wearing since John wore one, 'borrowing' John's leather coat until he'd off-offhandedly given it to Dean, and the Impala. Sammy though, he'd argued with John since he'd been little. Sammy and him were like two peas in a pod, and they clashed because of it. His younger boy had never had the chance to see his dad fixing cars in the old shop. By the time Sammy was old enough, he'd already taken his boys on the road, hunting that bastard of a yellow-eyed demon who'd killed his Mary.
Dean had ended Azazel with the Colt. He'd heard demons talking about it before Dean's deal had come due.
Dean and Sam had succeeded where he had failed. But he wouldn't fail Dean now.
With the last ankle manacle opened, he got off the rack, for the first time in probably over two hundred years, and he held the feather in front of him, like a beacon. It shone and the light showed him a pathway that spiraled further into the heart of Hell.
He descended downward, listening, looking for his son.
He rejoiced when he found him, because coming up from the depths the angel was gripping his son's limp body with one hand, that terrible bright sword in the other. John could hear the powerful beat of the angel's wings as it brought Dean closer to the gates of Hell with each flex of the enormous wings that shone brilliantly in the darkness.
The angel holding Dean flew higher and John turned and followed in their wake. The angel was quick and dodged attacks and then smote those ancient and powerful demons bold enough to try and force an angel into submission and keep it in Hell. This angel seemed determined to save Dean, and that shadow of Michael's grace within his own soul blazed with wrath and righteousness in accompaniment with the angel's maneuvers.
But the angel was struggling now, his wings beating slower as John ran after them, the way cleared for him by the angel's sword strokes, the minor demons fleeing in fear.
Onwards, always onwards, the angel flew upwards and John did not know if he followed him for hours or for years, but the Winchester stubbornness kept him on his feet. It was, he reflected with a tinge of hunter humor, his legacy to his boys.
Sometimes more feathers floated down past him, but he didn't add them to the one he still clutched. The peals and notes of those heavenly voices grew louder, and he felt the power of it - like strong vibrations - thrumming through him. Renewed energy filled him and he moved even faster, because the angel carrying Dean seemed to get its second wind and John could feel the gusts created by the steady, fast beat of its wings.
More time passed. The beat of wings was a counterpoint to the beat of his heart - well what passed for his heart while he was in Hell. He didn't know what would happen to this image of himself when he left Hell. He didn't know what would happen to Dean.
Maybe he would be a ghost, trapped on earth? Would he go to Heaven? Purgatory? Limbo? Anything was better than Hell. Perhaps he and Dean would be together. Maybe he would be able to tell him of those regrets after all. He had a little, in the hospital before he'd died, but not nearly enough.
The sounds of battle and music were deafening now. The dead bodies of demons - in Hell they weren't the black smoke they were on earth - were littering the path he followed and he jumped over their carcasses, still running, still with his eyes on Dean as the angel carried his boy up to where he could see other angels skirmishing with terrible, huge, winged demons. Or were they fallen angels, those who chose to follow Lucifer and who were damned to Hell along with the Morning Star?
One of the demons that he thought destroyed grabbed his ankle as he jumped over him and pulled him down but John drove the calumus, the hard end of the feather, into the demon's eye and he shrieked and let go.
John ran on, his heart pounding, and Dean's angel put on a burst of speed and flew past the battle, the other angels protecting him and his burden. The angels' music changed to one of victory and hosannas as they began to retreat and the view of stars that John could see past the battlefield began to shrink.
Dean was out, he must be out and the angels were leaving. The gates of Hell were closing again. Michael! he called out. But Michael didn't answer him.
John dismissed any help from Michael from his thoughts. He'd learned to rely on himself, and pretty much only himself, during his time as a hunter, and he'd get himself out of Hell without Michael lending a hand. He'd only asked for Dean's rescue, after all.
The circumference of the view of the stars continued to grow smaller and smaller, and John moved like his life depended on it. Or rather, his soul. For who knew how long the imprint of Michael's grace could shield him, if he was caught and dragged back down to the rack and Alistair's sharp knife. Maybe Alistair would catch on that there was something protecting John and dig it out of him. Dean had eventually said yes. Without Michael's grace as a shield, John was under no illusions that he would be able to withstand the torture forever.
Dean's angel was gone from sight now. Dean was saved. Joy flooded him and tears of gratitude and happiness flowed in rivers down his face.
He dodged several more demons who tried to grab him, but the feather, when held with the shaft out, worked well as a weapon, and he slashed at the grasping hands and left them behind.
He was almost there now. The fabled Gates of Hell were before him and almost closed. They were not the seven doorways he'd read about, but more like the very top of a dome, that could open and close. The pathways of Hell were to the outside and the inner space open, all the way down to the very lowest level of Hell, where a lake of fire burned and noxious fumes rose to poison the air.
The spiral pathway led to the very top, and he ran for the gate, intending to dive through, if he had to, but instead he saw that a long sword, blazing with power, blocked the eye of the gate from closing entirely.
He climbed out of Hell and the sword was withdrawn from the entrance way and Michael, glorious and beautiful and shining with the purest light stood before him, sheathing his sword.
“John. Come with me now. You were instrumental in the rescue of your son, for as my former vessel your prayers came to me and the Host were able to act. I'm sorry that we were unable to save him earlier, but he will be re-clothed in flesh and returned to the earth. He still has his role to play; it's his destiny. I will escort you into Heaven myself. You have earned your peace, John.”
Michael touched his forehead and the stars shifted.
///
John looked around him, and realized that he was in Lawrence. He was in his shop, a wrench in his hand from fixing a carburetor. The door was opening and a small blond boy ran for him, and he automatically picked up Dean, whose arms went around his neck in a hug, before wiggling and squirming until John lowered him to the floor.
Mary came in, her belly swollen with the baby that would be born in the next month. She smiled, warmth and happiness in her expression. “Dean wanted to see his daddy, so we brought lunch.” She showed him a large sack and came closer, turning her face up for his kiss.
He kissed her, his sweet Mary, and laid his hands on her belly, taut and firm, and felt his baby kick out at his hand. He laughed. “This one's going to give his old man a hard time, I can tell already.”
Mary smiled again, and Dean came back from where he'd been looking at the tools laid out near the car John had been finishing up, and tugged at John's jeans. John bent down so that Dean could whisper in his ear. This was an old game with them. He grinned at his oldest because Dean couldn't keep a secret to save his life. He always told John what was in the sack when Mary brought him lunch.
“Daddy!” Dean's whisper was loud enough that it could have been heard across the room, but then that was his little boy - loud and energetic and sweet as sugar.
“What, kiddo?”
“Mommy brought pie!”
“You don't like pie, do you, Dean?”
More of the game. Dean loved his mother's pie. Dean liked pretty much everything Mary made, except vegetables. But he ate them for his mother, his little face scrunched up in disgust.
“I love, love, love pie! Daddy, eat your samich, so we can eat the pie!”
John chuckled and obediently walked over to the table at the far end of the room, Dean hanging onto his hand and telling him about how Sarah, the five year old next door, had tried to kiss him this morning while they were playing, but he'd run away. He made his “I hate vegetables face', when John told him that someday, he'd want to kiss a girl.
“Yuck, Daddy.”
John and Mary exchanged amused looks and John couldn't keep from laughing because Dean was already a charmer. His boy would be kissing plenty of girls someday. Mary sat the sack on the table and John boosted Dean onto the tall chair. They held hands to say the blessing, and Mary recited her favorite prayer.
Bless this food, and guardian angel from Heaven so bright, watching beside us to lead us aright, fold thy wings round us, and guard us with love, softly sing songs to us of Heaven above. Amen.
John kissed Mary again, and laid his hand for a moment on her belly. Dean watched with anticipation as Mary removed the pie from the sack, and John thought to himself that he was a very, very lucky man. He had his Mary, and his son, and soon there would be a new child to add to their family. Life didn't get any better than this.
The end.
Author's note: This is the translation for the prayer to St. Michael.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
The title is from the Eagles song, A Good Day in Hell.
The picture is of St. Michael by Guido.