Fic: Behold, I am Vile
Title: Behold, I am Vile
Author: lunasky3
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural
Pairing(s): Dean/Castiel, Dean/Alastair
Rating: R
Warnings: dubcon & noncon situations (non-graphic), hell, explicit torture, mind-games
Summary: After Castiel declares himself god, he's determined to capture Dean's love by any means necessary.
Notes: Okay, first a super crazy thank you to salacious_newt for inspiring this entire thing and letting me run wild with a bunch of her words. Next are my two wonderful betas, princess_aleera for making sure I was actually on a track, and sgmajorshipper for using her magical red pen to make everything pretty and actually readable. And to both for taking care of my freak-outs ♥♥♥.
And to my artists daeos Art Post & dizbil Art Post for their fantastic work.
4
Sam wakes up in a car.
Sam wakes up on the side of the road.
Sam always comes to in the middle of nowhere, at the best of times, alone. There's barely a second before the twin panic sets in, a shit, shit, blood? I- Did I- and the simultaneous No, Dean, nononono not again, shit-
Today he's alone, but there's caked blood on his jeans and under his fingernails. He's in a field somewhere, surrounded by wildflowers and possibly at the top of a hill. Sam stands, easing himself up as not to disturb the scene or his own legs. He can't tell whether its morning or evening (the sun at the edge of the horizon, a fantastic red-orange that's hard to look at) until he finds his phone in his back pocket. 7:00 am. Thursday. It's been a week.
His fingers shake as he scrolls down to Bobby's number, punching the call button with more force than he means to. The other hunter answers on the second ring.
Sam says, "I don't know where I am, but there's- I'm alone. But I did something." Bobby sighs.
"It wasn't you, kid."
"No, but I-"
"That ain't you. Okay, Sam?" Sam notices he's on the ground again, knees folded up against his chest. He can smell the blood on his clothes better this way, but he doesn't unwind, doesn't chance the movement.
"Dean?"
"Not yet."
"Okay. I'll go- we were in Michigan. I might still be." Sam lets out a huff of breath that might have been the beginning of a laugh, but Bobby doesn't comment.
"I'll start making calls," he says, "come by-" he trails off, but Sam fills in the blanks.
When you find Dean.
If you don't find Dean.
"Yeah," Sam says, and hangs up. He finds his (not his, he repeats, not his) path up and traces it backwards, finding an abandoned car at the edge of the ravine. The keys are still in the ignition, and Sam uses his shirt to wipe down the handle, steering wheel, seat, and trunk door, ignoring the urge to look inside. The car has a Michigan plate, but that means nothing. He leaves it there and starts walking.
About a mile up the road he finds himself in a forest preserve parking lot. Their plates say Michigan too, but Sam doesn't know whether this is any kind of a comfort. He was missing for a week.
The motel takes him another hour to find based only off the key still in his pocket, and Sam notices the Impala is still parked outside their room. Means Dean isn't back yet. Means he hasn't taken off to leave Sam in a panicked race back to South Dakota.
Means Dean's still in Hell.
Sam enters the room and makes a dash for the toilet, emptying his stomach of acid and food he doesn't remember eating in the first place, then turns the shower on the hottest setting, peeling off his clothes. He spends an hour scrubbing at the dead skin under his fingernails, and then another drinking down some of the whiskey Dean keeps in his pack.
He still isn't drunk enough when his brother arrives, fists fused to Castiel’s trench coat as the thing soothes Dean's whimpers.
7
Bobby has as many phones as bottles of whiskey scattered around his house, though most are centered around the kitchen for easy access. He's had two cell phones over the years, the first bought after the Winchester boys managed to drag him into active hunting again. They tend to have that affect on people- get you marching behind them so carelessly you'd think it was your own idea.
Sam had bought him the first one after John died, handing over the small thing before he and Dean hit the road again, mumbling something about keeping in touch. Bobby had called him an idjit, but the thing came in handy when Sam was saddled with the demon and cut his landline. That phone had lasted him until Lucifer snapped his neck, and he crushed it on a rock when he fell.
Bobby bought his next phone himself before a Rugaru case, and the simple purchase hurt a little more than it should.
That same phone wakes him up a few hours after midnight, cutting into his dreams like a quick knife. He squints awake and rolls over to grab the thing before it goes to voicemail and flips it open without noting who's on the other end. He's met with silence, and Bobby thinks he might have missed it, when a muted, wrecked breath filters across the speaker. Dean, then.
He waits silently, one leg thrown off the bed and free hand bracing his body as the breaths soften and slow.
"I'll- three hours," says Dean, and drops the call. Bobby closes the phone and pockets it, sliding all the way out of bed with a few calming breaths of his own. He stumbles down the stairs without bothering to turn on the lights, almost amazed then, like a sleepwalker, to find himself in the kitchen.
Taking a bottle out of a cabinet and two glasses out of the sink, Bobby pours a good finger into one of them for himself. He leaves the bottle and the empty glass in easy reach for when Dean pulls in, then settles in at the table next to the army of phones attached to the wall. He takes a sip and mentally scrolls through his dwindling list of contacts, keeping all thoughts of prayer from his mind.
1
He wakes up in a room with pink, fleshy walls that tremble like taut muscle, and he can't help choking on his first couple of breathes because, fuck Dean remembers it well. It's claustrophobia and, well, whatever's the equivalent of being terrified of being naked in a big open space and not being able to watch your own back. Sam would know, if he were here. But that's the problem, isn't it?
Fucking, crazy-ass angels.
"Cas!" Dean yells, tugging at the thick hooks jabbed into his wrists. There are two more poking out of his thighs, and a fifth chain tucked under his chin, tight enough to keep his head still. He tries to look up anyway, into the weird spotlight hanging above him. "You son of a bitch! Get down here and face me!"
He's not in Hell because this new Cas is a crazy asshole, but he's still Cas. Still has the dirty trench coat and the weird, unblinking gaze, like the pictures with the eyes that follow you everywhere. And he's sure as hell not a god- not Dean's god, anyhow.
"Cas!" He’s really starting to feel the strain on his limbs now, the way the hooks rub against his bones. “Great joke, man. Just great. Now let me show you how funny I find it!”
But the angel doesn’t respond.
Dean keeps screaming until his throat is scraped up from all of the ash and bone dust in the air, swearing and panting until it’s only the latter as his licks his broken lips, exhausted.
“I do hope you’re not done,” mutters a voice; chipped, dirty, and familiar as the figure it belongs to wanders casually into the light.
The Alastair-illusion is enough make his heart shudder again, the way it circles Dean like he's a piece of meat. The thing gives each chain a little tug to test their flexibility, and Dean holds his tongue as his muscles give under the strain and pull further from his bones.
"All hail our new savior," it murmurs, running a hand down Dean's naked flank. He bucks away from the touch and the illusion reveals a sharp-toothed grin. "And how I have missed thee, Dean-o. I've just been pulled from oblivion and I feel like a brand new demon. Now I've got you to sweeten the deal."
The thing licks its lips and steps around Dean, trailing its fingers along his back until Dean has no idea where it went.
"What deal?" Dean asks, trying to turn his head against the chokehold.
"Your friend wants to play a little game. An experiment, call it." He hears a leather bag unravel against a hard surface, a table maybe, and Dean stills, remembering. He knows everything that’s in that bag, up close and personal.
But it's not real, he reminds himself. Alastair's dead, and Cas is just fucking with him, trying to make him- Dean's breath shortens, and he realizes he'd been trying to pull against the chain around his neck. He does his best to relax into the hold, to focus.
"I truss you up and make you nice and pretty- remember how pretty you could be Dean?"
"Fuck you," he spits, and the thing chuckles.
"You've gone so soft since I've been gone," it scolds; laying a burning hand against his left ass cheek, thumb stroking the skin above his crack. Dean twists but the thing holds him tight, stepping right against his backside and pressing each of its searing limbs into his own. The figure chuckles against his ear as Dean flinches at the intimacy of the move, hissing.
"I missed the way you taste," it says, and peals a strip of skin off his neck with its teeth, nosing his way inside. It strokes his veins with its tongue, his voice box and Dean whimpers, even as the thing seems to enjoy the vibration of each soft wail.
"Cas," he says. "Cas-"
It growls and chews deeper inside, snapping its jaw at his jugular. "Scream for me," it says into his neck, and Dean chokes on his own blood before he can comply.
He wakes again with Alastair's favorite knife pressed against his nose, and he knows it then, knows the smell of that blade too intimately to confuse it with replication. It's carved from human bone; Alastair's own. Dean remembers the demon telling him this proudly while he sawed through Dean's ribs.
Real, Dean thinks, beginning to tremble. Real, real, real. Oh god, Cas-
Alastair trails the tip down Dean's middle, past his lips and all the way down to his belly button, leaving a bleeding line in its wake.
"You have too much skin," the demon says, turning the blade flat against his stomach and sliding it inside the pouch, carving the muscle away.
And Dean screams, blood leaking into his mouth. Alastair massages his intestines with both hands, long nails scratching backwards until his fingers burst through Dean’s back. The demon squeezes his arms together, pulling Dean towards him in a hug. "Welcome home, Dean," he says.
There's a burst of white light then, cutting through the blood-soaked air, and Alastair pulls away from him, leaving Dean bleeding and exposed. "Sorry kiddo," he says with a sigh, raising his red painted arms in a shrug, and for a moment Dean thinks they look like gloves, long and elegant.
The light grows brighter and nearer, and Dean flinches away from it until a hand grips his head and pinches open his eyes.
It's Castiel, glorious, glory be Castiel, burning like a star with electric wings. Dean's bonds fall away as he collapses into the angel's arms, squirming against him as the Castiel knits his body together and heaves him up, wringing out the hellfire. It's too severe a cleansing, and Dean howls as the stain is torn from him. The angel grips his shoulder and Dean feels the mark shudder as the brand deepens, burning into his soul.
Then Dean feels the tremor of life returning to him as he's hurled back into the motel room. He misses the bed by mere inches and sprawls naked against the carpet. Two hands reach under and tug him up by his armpits, and Dean sees Castiel, a peaceful smile stretched across his lips.
"Cas," he whispers, voice still hoarse from soot and flame. He searches the being for any recognition, any spark of his friend, but finds its eyes remote, roving, like it's impossible for it to look anyone in the eye.
Dean shakes as the angel's arms tighten around his torso, pressing their bodies into each other. "Cas," he tries again, and Castiel strokes Dean's head with one hand, runs another down his bare back. "Wait-" he tries, as he's lifted and laid across the bed. His limbs are numb as Castiel straddles his waist, touches his cheeks.
"Dean," Castiel says with such fondness that Dean sees Cas, sees the stupid, half arched smile he'd only show around Dean.
“Cas?” His own voice is thick and distant, and he reaches up to grab the angel’s arms but merely brushes them.
"I saved you, Dean,” the angel says, running his thumbs over Dean’s eyebrows, “do you love me now?" Dean's face must fall as the illusion is shattered, because the angel frowns and pulls away from him.
"Wait, Cas," he says, and Castiel pins his shoulders to the bed with his hands. “Don’t-”
“Why do you deny me?” Castiel wings unfurl like clouds of fiery smoke, and Dean closes his eyes reflexively. “I am your Lord, and you will obey me.”
“I can’t-” Dean chokes out, squirming against the weight of the angel’s body pressed against his own. “Cas, just- ” Castiel growls, pressing their foreheads together and holding them both still. “Please-”
Out of the corner of his eye Dean sees the angel lean back then, and then he slides off Dean completely. Dean doesn’t dare move, just lays back and lets the angel press a light kiss to his mouth. Castiel tastes like electricity.
“Love me,” says the angel. “You will love me.” And with a fluttering of wings, he’s gone. After a moment Dean’s breath comes back, and he can still feel the spark against his lips.
5
Alastair doesn't have access to Hell outside his little room, but he's never been interested in the politics anyway, preferred to keep his hands full of flesh instead, keep them clean with fresh blood. While the others rolled and scratched around like puppies over a single bone, he had mountains of them to himself.
Besides, Alastair liked to keep his promises. Even more so, his possessions.
So he knows how to please the little godling that dragged him up from the dark nothing. Alastair can play nice with the bully who takes his toys and makes him grovel for permission to play. Dean knows who he really belongs to- he can see his masterpiece even under the angel's taint, and knows how to retrace the lines and fill in the empty spaces with fresh color.
Alastair is an artist.
In the short periods he's allowed to work, while the Boy-King wanders unteathered upstairs and Castiel watches the world, he'll whisper to Dean. Alastair is old, a regular veteran when it comes to uppity creatures who don't play nice, and Dean knows that Alastair doesn't lie. Alastair knows rituals, dark and primal, scratched into the deeper places that most hellions never dared to venture.
There are ways, he tells his wayward apprentice. He sketches the runes for binding spells out in Dean's skin, orchestrates the melody of a draining ritual in Dean's screams. The rules of Hell still apply, and Alastair can still make trades, all of them sealed with mandible movement. A kiss. A word.
Dean hasn't given in yet, but there's still time. Alastair was patient enough to survive death twice. He can afford to wait.
2
When Sam stumbles back to the motel room Dean's already showered, dressed, and licking the bottom of his flask, so he courteously lets his brother drag them to South Dakota. It's an automatic reaction to run back to Bobby's, like the kickback of a shotgun, leaving familiar bruises in its wake.
He grabs a bottle of something when they get there and bypasses the older man’s stares to disappear into the spare room, figuring Sam can fill him in well enough, maybe even work through his own shit while Dean gets barely, blissfully wasted. When Sam comes in a bit later with a peanut butter sandwich Dean sees he’s still as pale as he was when they got there. He takes a seat way too close to Dean, Sam’s big arm resting lazy and heavy by Dean's thigh but Dean doesn't move- just takes the food and turns back to look at the wall.
"When I- last year," Sam starts, nice and slow like he’s trying not to spook either one of them. "Did I- did he- like killing people?" Dean takes a breath. Lets it out.
"That what..." He trails off, squeezing the soft bread. His hands feel too big, and the thought feels even stupider, even as he lays lines of bruises into the sandwich.
"I don't know. It was like being possessed. I woke up with blood- and bits of memories, but I don't know..." Sam’s tapping his hands against his legs now, scraping his fingers up his jeans then tossing them back towards his knee with a slick, even sound. "So, soulless me? Psychopath? Because, it- I was smiling. When I woke up."
"Sure," Dean says, even though the robotic dick didn’t seem to enjoy anything. But working on that theory is better than anything else that could have gotten dragged up out of Sam’s subconscious.
Sam shrugs the shoulder closest to Dean and runs his hands across his pants again, and Dean would put a stop to all of this fidgeting if his own hands weren’t glued together with peanut butter. "He's just messing with us," says Sam.
"That's one way of putting it." "Dean-"
“Sam.” Eyes open, he’s double checking every casually cast shadow, and eyes closed it’s Cas and his stupid blue eyes, so he keeps his vision trailed on his hands and the gunk oozing out his fingers. "One of the first days I was back he dream-walked me and threatened to throw me back into Hell if I wasn't respectful. Sonofabitch finally got the balls."
"Dean-"
"We don't talk about this,” he says. “Tell Bobby what you need, but we don't talk about this."
He doesn't mention the kiss or how Dean can still feel him watching through the sigils on their ribs and the scar still tingling on his arm.
0
The first time it happens, Sam's in the bathroom brushing his teeth when he hears something clatter in the other room. He spits into the sink and wipes his lips with the back of his hand, then rinses it alongside the brush. There's silence when he turns off the water, not even the late night television Dean had been flipping through. The lack of sound shouldn't make him suspicious but it does. Everything does.
"Dean?" He calls out, opening the door like the hairs on his arms aren’t raised, like he's not so aware of his own heartbeat. He steps out of the bathroom and is hit with a rush of steam, like someone was running a hot shower in the main room. Dean's not on either bed, and there's a shadow in the far corner of the room, billowing dark clumps full of fire and electricity, and Sam's mind automatically goes to demon, but the salt lines are still intact at the door and window.
The black things flutter and push away from the wall, and Sam spots the top of a head and his brother's face, Dean's eyes squished closed, cheeks flushed and trembling. A hand reaches from inside the clouds and curls against Dean's chin, thumb pressing into his lips, bruising them.
"Dean?" Sam says again, voice cracking, and he feels ten again, the same helplessness when his brother got hurt and there was nothing to do but sit by his bed. At the last syllable the black things snap inward and the room brightens at their loss (he hadn't even noticed the dimming,) and Castiel turns away from Dean, keeping his hold on the other man's face.
"Sam," Castiel says, tilting his head like he'd forgot he'd be in the room, confusion briefly flickering over the angel's face, and Sam recognizes the expression and wants to both laugh and throw up. Sam darts over to their bags instead, for a gun, a knife, anything, when he's thrown against the wall with a rush of power. He grunts, and Dean tugs away from Castiel's grip to the surprise of everyone.
"Cas- don't, okay? We can- let Sam go, and we can- whatever. We can talk, and stuff. Whatever you want," Dean wheezes, bravado wavering as he pats the angel's shoulders, touches his neck, turning his attention away from Sam.
"Dean, no!" He grunts. Castiel snaps back to Sam and suddenly the angel is in Sam's space, eye to eye, and Sam stupidly wonders when Cas gained an extra couple of inches. Dean runs over and tries to put himself between Sam and the angel.
"Cas, stop! You don't-" He yells, tugging at the trench-coat.
"He is a distraction," Castiel says touching his hand to Sam’s forehead. Sam’s vision swims and something sloshes inside his head as he struggles to focus, stay in the moment. He wrenches his head forward, room still blurring as Cas moves back to his brother.
“Cas-” "Dean Winchester," he whispers, barely loud enough for Sam to pick up.
"I am your God. You should show me some respect." When Dean chuckles Sam cringes, struggling against his invisible bonds.
"Feared or respected, Cas? What do you want from me?"
"I want you to love me." Dean goes silent at that one, and Castiel crowds him against the wall again. "You loved me once. You will do it again. Yes, Dean," he says, black wings crackling out of his back, shielding Dean from Sam's line of sight. "I will show you."
And then they're both gone. Sam slips off the wall and lands face first in the burn mark left on the carpet, breathing in the ozone and fire as he slips into unconsciousness.
9
They're five months in to whatever this is when Bobby has to go pick up a hysterical Sam from Kansas. He sticks the strangely compliant boy in the panic room when Dean shows up and collapses on his front porch. So he has one upstairs and one below, and neither of them asks about the other until they've both detoxed.
After that, there's silence.
Dean doesn't leave the house and neither of them let Sam, all three pouring over the library instead, alternating coffee and anything stronger. They paint the walls with symbols that are even more worthless than they look, practice irrelevant rituals- anything to keep Sam and Dean from sleeping more than a couple hours every night, to keep them from dreaming.
Food in the house lasts them a week and a half, alcohol a little longer, and Bobby reluctantly leaves for a supply run after drinking the last cup of coffee. He comes back with his trunk all filled up with instant everything, sandwich fillings, and an apple pie, hoping to bribe a smile out of either one of them.
Hands full of grocery bags, Bobby doesn't question the silent house until he makes it into the kitchen and spots Crowley leaning against his refrigerator that he nearly drops the bags. A cold fear cuts through his bloodstream, his heart sinking as he notes the smell of ozone twisting its way around his house.
"A message from his Lord on high," the demon says before Bobby has a chance to shoot him. The demon's face is covered in stubble, and his eyes are as bloodshot as Bobby's own.
"Yeah?" Bobby sets the groceries on the floor and looks around for the nearest weapon, keeping his distance.
"You tried to keep him away from me," he says in a dull voice, and it takes Bobby a good second to find the context. "You are not his savior."
"Nope," Bobby says, "got it." The demon relaxes visibly, as if something had been holding onto his strings, and he'd finally been let go. Bobby supposes this might have been the case.
"Right," says Crowley, easing back into himself. "May I have something to drink?"
"No."
"Figures." The demon starts towards Bobby and the exit, then grabs the hunter’s arm and hisses in his ear. "With all this tug-of-war, our former feathered friend is wearing a hole in the fabric of Hell. Do you get that? Holes, Singer. The tall one's alter-ego is tearing at it too, and I don’t know..." He trails off, and Bobby swallows when the demon releases him.
"We need a tailor then."
"We need something," says Crowley, and disappears. Bobby collapses into the nearest chair and buries his face in his hands.
The pie goes uneaten.
10
Cas asks if Dean loves him, and he does, Cas don't, I swear I do, I swear, let me show you Cas, I can do it, I do-
8
Sam wakes up in a graveyard that he shouldn't recognize, but he does. He knows the rotting headstones, the dead weeds under his feet. He's woken up there before.
Stull is unchanged from his last visit, just as dusty and empty of life. The smell of sulfur is new though, he notes, checking his hands and finding them covered in yellow instead of the customary red. It'd be a welcome change if the smell weren’t just as sickening. But there's no visible blood anywhere else, and no bodies save for the ones already underground.
Sam feels good. For the first time in a while, (who knows how long, this time,) he feels comfortable, not feeling any of the residual headaches or auras from the hallucinations. His mouth doesn't taste like something died in it, or that he hasn't slept in a week.
He smiles, and the shape almost feels strange against his face.
Sam feels around his pockets for his phone. He finds it, along with the triangle design of the four Horseman rings wrapped in a piece of cloth. According to his phone, he's been gone three weeks. There are multiple missed calls from Bobby.
Sam punches the redial button so hard he almost drops his phone.
"Bobby, I'm in Stull," he stutters, "I have the rings, and I don't- I don't-"
"Sam-" Bobby breathes, "you, uh. It."
"What did I do, Bobby?"
"You got about half of them." Sam's tongue sits heavy in his mouth, and he squeezes his free hand into fist, shaking.
"Half of what."
"The seals." A headstone behinds Sam explodes, showering his back with gravel. He licks his lips then closes his eyes and starts to laugh, a nervous energetic giggle. "Sam?"
"I think," Sam says, "you're going to want to come get me.”
6
The worst times are when Cas leaves him just a bit too long. It's easy to start to forget, when the meat hooks are taut against his skin and blood and ash are fresh in his mouth.
Everything becomes hazy, blurred together, and sometimes Dean begins to think that he'd never escaped Hell at all. That he's always been here, that Castiel and the seals and Sam and Ruby and all of it, Lucifer's rise and Michael wanting to ride his ass, Adam and Lisa- that it's all been just a clever ploy, yet another trick from Alistair, master of deceit. Or maybe Alastair's the lie and Castiel has been the one pulling his strings all along.
The idea grows in his mind, wormlike and tempting. It would be so much easier, if the whole damn thing had all been a lie. If he'd never broken to torture others. If he'd never lost Sam to regain him and lose him again.
If Castiel hadn’t become Cas and then this thing that’s somewhere in between, cruel and unrecognizable and the hint of something bright that makes this whole thing ever more confusing.
Sometimes they forget Cas entirely, fall back into old routines and exchanges, and Dean wakes up whole each day, surrounded by brimstone and blood and grime. Alastair dissects him piece by piece, consuming him with the snap of sharp teeth, one organ at a time until Dean feels lighter every day. Alistair sings as he works, makes promises and offers deals, carves ancient symbols over and over into his skin for Dean to memorize.
Dean feels himself, slip, slightly. He watches Alistair lay out his knives and saws and prods, sees the razor Alistair made him take from his hand the first time Dean slid off the rack. Sees Alistair pick it up. They both laugh when Dean thrusts back into the stab wound in his stomach.
Sure, Dean thinks about breaking, when Alistair ties a ribbon of intestines through his esophagus, but mostly when Castiel comes down as a hot, white light that he can't help but choke a thank god to, before squirming in between the two who have touched him the deepest, completely unsure which one he's aiming at.
When the angel comes to get him Dean screams and screams, and when they've returned and Castiel cups his damp cheeks Dean says nothing at all, not trusting himself or his words as Cas coos, asking again and again for Dean’ love.
Dean curls against the cool bathroom tiles and traces where Alistair carved the ruins and mouths their names (there are a few he can't reach- sliced into his liver and stomach lining, accessible only if Dean asks, if he says that fucking word.) His skin is pink and parched and free of any scaring, save for the handprint on his shoulder, which burns brighter and brighter with every rescue.
Alistair isn't allowed to touch it; Dean, beneath his own screaming can always hear the happy hum of wings pulsing through it.
12
The phone's been silent a month, short for the occasional buzz of another hunter passing on a hunt or a rumor. Bobby stopped calling in the second week, after their answering machines ran full. On the thirty-second day Crowley shows up at his front door, barely raising an eyebrow to Bobby's heightened heartbeat when he answers. Bobby lets him in without a thought, and follows the demon back to his own kitchen, taking a seat across from him at the table.
"Well, they've done it," Crowley says with a tight sigh, "dug back down to the deepest down. Some sort of trade in the works- two for the price of one- knight and pawn for the king, you see. And the psychotic beanstalk is welcoming back the one with open arms." The demon looks out the window, tapping his fingers against the wood.
"Or both kings get out. It’s all broken, so I wouldn’t pass that. End game's the same. And you and me Singer? Fucked Every which way." Bobby scratches his beard to keep his breath steady.
"Well," he says, and that's about it. Crowley keeps his eyes at the outside, clenching and unfolding his fists. "I'll take that drink now," Crowley says, and Bobby brings back two glasses and a new bottle, leaving his cell phone on the counter on the way back
3
They've barely started a salt and burn when Cas shows up at the library where Dean's making copies of birth announcements in a small room off in the corner of the building, and Dean flinches when the angel flutters in, ignoring the way he still sends out a mental thank fuck that’s Sam's off interviewing someone at the hospital.
"Jesus,“ he mutters, hunching his shoulders over the machine. “What are you doing here?"
"Don't blaspheme." Dean sets down the remaining papers and steps away as the machine finishes the final copy, definitely not thinking of his bag in the corner of the room and the handgun inside it. He spares a glance up at the angel- Cas is frowning, looking at Dean like it’s the only thing he came there to do. Right.
"Fuck you. I'm not- how about you leave me the fuck alone, alright?"
"I need you to understand that I'm doing this for your own good."
"You're a sick sadist, that's why you're-" Dean bangs his fist against the wall so he doesn’t lunge forward, doesn’t fuck everything up further. "Cas, come on, I know you're- you don't want to do this." Cas sighs, and Dean spins back around in time to see the angel shake his head.
"I only do what's needed." Dean falls back against the wall because Cas is blocking the door anyway, rubs his forehead and tries to ignore how his hands are shaking.
"Cas- this isn't worth it. Not for me."
"You are worth it, Dean. Why can you never believe that?"
"It can be okay, you know? You and me, working everything out, cards on the table." And Castiel smiles and closes the small distance between them, resting his hands against Dean's hips and his chin over Dean's shoulder. His nose twitches as it brushes over the angel's soft hair, and he reluctantly lets himself fall into Cas' embrace. The angel is warm at his ear.
"It will, Dean," Cas says, "It will all be so much better." The room starts to crumble, and he twists his shoulders, cries out as Cas just holds him closer.
"Don't worry Dean, I will save you. I will always save you."
11
This time the change isn't fluid, when Castiel taps his forehead; instead he can feel a sluggish creep sliding around his brain. His muscles go lax and he stumbles to the floor, but he stays conscious as his brother kneels before the angel, whimpering prayers to its feet. They disappear and Sam stays on the floor, waiting to black out, but the peace doesn't come. Instead he stands and cracks his neck, rubs his face.
His brother’s just been dragged to hell, but Sam knows that Cas will bring him back, like clockwork. There’s nothing he can do about it, so it’s not worth smashing a lamp over. Though he doesn’t really know why he’d do that. He’s not angry at all. Sam doesn't really feel anything.
That's a lie. He feels kind of hungry. Thirsty.
Sam finds one easy enough the next town over, trapped inside a single Dad of two and waiting for him on the side of the road as Sam pulls past the area's shadowed welcome sign. When Sam steps out of the car he pulls the man towards him and flattens him against the passenger door, nicking its neck with the edge of a knife.
He lets the blood dribble down his throat at first, and then starts to suck as the flow wavers. He touches his tongue to the demon’s veins and for some reason, he thinks of Dean.
His head feels even lighter when he licks the last bits from his teeth. The demon slumps to the ground and Sam steps back into the car, barely registering the thump of body against pavement. When he drives away, he’s tuned to the buzzing in his ears, an easy, electric smile falling on his lips.
The cold fire in the pit of his stomach smiles back.
13
Alastair snaps a second rib from his chest and leans it against the other, the two curves completing a heart over the missing bones in his arm.
"Tada!" The demon sings, presenting the shape to him. Without his bones (humerus, radius, ulna,) Dean's arms pull against the hooks without any resistance, flopping around with a wet squelch. He wiggles them, spattering blood across the floor.
Alastair steps over the array of bones and slips his arms into Dean's skin flaps, the shallow cuts allowing him to stretch and hold their shape. Alastair sighs against Dean's light moans, tonguing the vibrations from his neck and lips, pressing against Dean’s open chest, nudging his exposed heart.
"I am going to crawl inside you," he hisses against Dean's ear, chewing at the soft skin. "You were made to be worn and I will have you." Dean pants and thrusts back against the pressure, his arms pulsing with the intrusion. "Let me in, Dean. Let me." Dean wets his lips, his chin falling open at the jut of the demon’s shoulder.
Then the world ignites around them. Flames jump from the walls and curl upwards like they're being sucked up by a vacuum, and Dean can almost feel the difference in pressure pulling at his skin. Alastair's tools and Dean's bones go up in the fray, and the demon laughs against his lips.
"They've done it," he says. "Oh sweet Lord, they've done it."
What? Dean wants to ask. The walls crack around them and start to melt to the ground, leaving matte negative space in their place. Light bursts down from above them, and Dean screams as the demon is ripped from his arms, evaporating into mist in the light. The chains fall away as their origin collapses, and they coil against the ever breaking ground. He falls against it and brushes his fingers against the ever-growing oblivion.
The light takes him instead.
He grows new bones and blood on the journey up, feels the light sparking against his stomach, his eyes, his heart. The movement into life is easier than it's ever been, or maybe he doesn't try to tell the difference.
Dean wakes up in a field, and the sky is red and bright, and he curls his naked body against Castiel, tries to crawl under the angel's clothing. His face is damp and hands that aren't his wipe it clean. He says, "Cas," and trembles when the hands lift his chin, because he shouldn't know His face. None can see His face and live.
But his Lord is bright and a blinding blue, shining with power and glory. Dean feels his eyes catch fire and laughs, reaching for the face with his fingers. Dean prays. Dean loves the Lord and the Lord loves him, the Lord takes Dean into his arms and lets the man worship him.
Glory, glory, glory.
Author: lunasky3
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural
Pairing(s): Dean/Castiel, Dean/Alastair
Rating: R
Warnings: dubcon & noncon situations (non-graphic), hell, explicit torture, mind-games
Summary: After Castiel declares himself god, he's determined to capture Dean's love by any means necessary.
Notes: Okay, first a super crazy thank you to salacious_newt for inspiring this entire thing and letting me run wild with a bunch of her words. Next are my two wonderful betas, princess_aleera for making sure I was actually on a track, and sgmajorshipper for using her magical red pen to make everything pretty and actually readable. And to both for taking care of my freak-outs ♥♥♥.
And to my artists daeos Art Post & dizbil Art Post for their fantastic work.
4
Sam wakes up in a car.
Sam wakes up on the side of the road.
Sam always comes to in the middle of nowhere, at the best of times, alone. There's barely a second before the twin panic sets in, a shit, shit, blood? I- Did I- and the simultaneous No, Dean, nononono not again, shit-
Today he's alone, but there's caked blood on his jeans and under his fingernails. He's in a field somewhere, surrounded by wildflowers and possibly at the top of a hill. Sam stands, easing himself up as not to disturb the scene or his own legs. He can't tell whether its morning or evening (the sun at the edge of the horizon, a fantastic red-orange that's hard to look at) until he finds his phone in his back pocket. 7:00 am. Thursday. It's been a week.
His fingers shake as he scrolls down to Bobby's number, punching the call button with more force than he means to. The other hunter answers on the second ring.
Sam says, "I don't know where I am, but there's- I'm alone. But I did something." Bobby sighs.
"It wasn't you, kid."
"No, but I-"
"That ain't you. Okay, Sam?" Sam notices he's on the ground again, knees folded up against his chest. He can smell the blood on his clothes better this way, but he doesn't unwind, doesn't chance the movement.
"Dean?"
"Not yet."
"Okay. I'll go- we were in Michigan. I might still be." Sam lets out a huff of breath that might have been the beginning of a laugh, but Bobby doesn't comment.
"I'll start making calls," he says, "come by-" he trails off, but Sam fills in the blanks.
When you find Dean.
If you don't find Dean.
"Yeah," Sam says, and hangs up. He finds his (not his, he repeats, not his) path up and traces it backwards, finding an abandoned car at the edge of the ravine. The keys are still in the ignition, and Sam uses his shirt to wipe down the handle, steering wheel, seat, and trunk door, ignoring the urge to look inside. The car has a Michigan plate, but that means nothing. He leaves it there and starts walking.
About a mile up the road he finds himself in a forest preserve parking lot. Their plates say Michigan too, but Sam doesn't know whether this is any kind of a comfort. He was missing for a week.
The motel takes him another hour to find based only off the key still in his pocket, and Sam notices the Impala is still parked outside their room. Means Dean isn't back yet. Means he hasn't taken off to leave Sam in a panicked race back to South Dakota.
Means Dean's still in Hell.
Sam enters the room and makes a dash for the toilet, emptying his stomach of acid and food he doesn't remember eating in the first place, then turns the shower on the hottest setting, peeling off his clothes. He spends an hour scrubbing at the dead skin under his fingernails, and then another drinking down some of the whiskey Dean keeps in his pack.
He still isn't drunk enough when his brother arrives, fists fused to Castiel’s trench coat as the thing soothes Dean's whimpers.
7
Bobby has as many phones as bottles of whiskey scattered around his house, though most are centered around the kitchen for easy access. He's had two cell phones over the years, the first bought after the Winchester boys managed to drag him into active hunting again. They tend to have that affect on people- get you marching behind them so carelessly you'd think it was your own idea.
Sam had bought him the first one after John died, handing over the small thing before he and Dean hit the road again, mumbling something about keeping in touch. Bobby had called him an idjit, but the thing came in handy when Sam was saddled with the demon and cut his landline. That phone had lasted him until Lucifer snapped his neck, and he crushed it on a rock when he fell.
Bobby bought his next phone himself before a Rugaru case, and the simple purchase hurt a little more than it should.
That same phone wakes him up a few hours after midnight, cutting into his dreams like a quick knife. He squints awake and rolls over to grab the thing before it goes to voicemail and flips it open without noting who's on the other end. He's met with silence, and Bobby thinks he might have missed it, when a muted, wrecked breath filters across the speaker. Dean, then.
He waits silently, one leg thrown off the bed and free hand bracing his body as the breaths soften and slow.
"I'll- three hours," says Dean, and drops the call. Bobby closes the phone and pockets it, sliding all the way out of bed with a few calming breaths of his own. He stumbles down the stairs without bothering to turn on the lights, almost amazed then, like a sleepwalker, to find himself in the kitchen.
Taking a bottle out of a cabinet and two glasses out of the sink, Bobby pours a good finger into one of them for himself. He leaves the bottle and the empty glass in easy reach for when Dean pulls in, then settles in at the table next to the army of phones attached to the wall. He takes a sip and mentally scrolls through his dwindling list of contacts, keeping all thoughts of prayer from his mind.
1
He wakes up in a room with pink, fleshy walls that tremble like taut muscle, and he can't help choking on his first couple of breathes because, fuck Dean remembers it well. It's claustrophobia and, well, whatever's the equivalent of being terrified of being naked in a big open space and not being able to watch your own back. Sam would know, if he were here. But that's the problem, isn't it?
Fucking, crazy-ass angels.
"Cas!" Dean yells, tugging at the thick hooks jabbed into his wrists. There are two more poking out of his thighs, and a fifth chain tucked under his chin, tight enough to keep his head still. He tries to look up anyway, into the weird spotlight hanging above him. "You son of a bitch! Get down here and face me!"
He's not in Hell because this new Cas is a crazy asshole, but he's still Cas. Still has the dirty trench coat and the weird, unblinking gaze, like the pictures with the eyes that follow you everywhere. And he's sure as hell not a god- not Dean's god, anyhow.
"Cas!" He’s really starting to feel the strain on his limbs now, the way the hooks rub against his bones. “Great joke, man. Just great. Now let me show you how funny I find it!”
But the angel doesn’t respond.
Dean keeps screaming until his throat is scraped up from all of the ash and bone dust in the air, swearing and panting until it’s only the latter as his licks his broken lips, exhausted.
“I do hope you’re not done,” mutters a voice; chipped, dirty, and familiar as the figure it belongs to wanders casually into the light.
The Alastair-illusion is enough make his heart shudder again, the way it circles Dean like he's a piece of meat. The thing gives each chain a little tug to test their flexibility, and Dean holds his tongue as his muscles give under the strain and pull further from his bones.
"All hail our new savior," it murmurs, running a hand down Dean's naked flank. He bucks away from the touch and the illusion reveals a sharp-toothed grin. "And how I have missed thee, Dean-o. I've just been pulled from oblivion and I feel like a brand new demon. Now I've got you to sweeten the deal."
The thing licks its lips and steps around Dean, trailing its fingers along his back until Dean has no idea where it went.
"What deal?" Dean asks, trying to turn his head against the chokehold.
"Your friend wants to play a little game. An experiment, call it." He hears a leather bag unravel against a hard surface, a table maybe, and Dean stills, remembering. He knows everything that’s in that bag, up close and personal.
But it's not real, he reminds himself. Alastair's dead, and Cas is just fucking with him, trying to make him- Dean's breath shortens, and he realizes he'd been trying to pull against the chain around his neck. He does his best to relax into the hold, to focus.
"I truss you up and make you nice and pretty- remember how pretty you could be Dean?"
"Fuck you," he spits, and the thing chuckles.
"You've gone so soft since I've been gone," it scolds; laying a burning hand against his left ass cheek, thumb stroking the skin above his crack. Dean twists but the thing holds him tight, stepping right against his backside and pressing each of its searing limbs into his own. The figure chuckles against his ear as Dean flinches at the intimacy of the move, hissing.
"I missed the way you taste," it says, and peals a strip of skin off his neck with its teeth, nosing his way inside. It strokes his veins with its tongue, his voice box and Dean whimpers, even as the thing seems to enjoy the vibration of each soft wail.
"Cas," he says. "Cas-"
It growls and chews deeper inside, snapping its jaw at his jugular. "Scream for me," it says into his neck, and Dean chokes on his own blood before he can comply.
He wakes again with Alastair's favorite knife pressed against his nose, and he knows it then, knows the smell of that blade too intimately to confuse it with replication. It's carved from human bone; Alastair's own. Dean remembers the demon telling him this proudly while he sawed through Dean's ribs.
Real, Dean thinks, beginning to tremble. Real, real, real. Oh god, Cas-
Alastair trails the tip down Dean's middle, past his lips and all the way down to his belly button, leaving a bleeding line in its wake.
"You have too much skin," the demon says, turning the blade flat against his stomach and sliding it inside the pouch, carving the muscle away.
And Dean screams, blood leaking into his mouth. Alastair massages his intestines with both hands, long nails scratching backwards until his fingers burst through Dean’s back. The demon squeezes his arms together, pulling Dean towards him in a hug. "Welcome home, Dean," he says.
There's a burst of white light then, cutting through the blood-soaked air, and Alastair pulls away from him, leaving Dean bleeding and exposed. "Sorry kiddo," he says with a sigh, raising his red painted arms in a shrug, and for a moment Dean thinks they look like gloves, long and elegant.
The light grows brighter and nearer, and Dean flinches away from it until a hand grips his head and pinches open his eyes.
It's Castiel, glorious, glory be Castiel, burning like a star with electric wings. Dean's bonds fall away as he collapses into the angel's arms, squirming against him as the Castiel knits his body together and heaves him up, wringing out the hellfire. It's too severe a cleansing, and Dean howls as the stain is torn from him. The angel grips his shoulder and Dean feels the mark shudder as the brand deepens, burning into his soul.
Then Dean feels the tremor of life returning to him as he's hurled back into the motel room. He misses the bed by mere inches and sprawls naked against the carpet. Two hands reach under and tug him up by his armpits, and Dean sees Castiel, a peaceful smile stretched across his lips.
"Cas," he whispers, voice still hoarse from soot and flame. He searches the being for any recognition, any spark of his friend, but finds its eyes remote, roving, like it's impossible for it to look anyone in the eye.
Dean shakes as the angel's arms tighten around his torso, pressing their bodies into each other. "Cas," he tries again, and Castiel strokes Dean's head with one hand, runs another down his bare back. "Wait-" he tries, as he's lifted and laid across the bed. His limbs are numb as Castiel straddles his waist, touches his cheeks.
"Dean," Castiel says with such fondness that Dean sees Cas, sees the stupid, half arched smile he'd only show around Dean.
“Cas?” His own voice is thick and distant, and he reaches up to grab the angel’s arms but merely brushes them.
"I saved you, Dean,” the angel says, running his thumbs over Dean’s eyebrows, “do you love me now?" Dean's face must fall as the illusion is shattered, because the angel frowns and pulls away from him.
"Wait, Cas," he says, and Castiel pins his shoulders to the bed with his hands. “Don’t-”
“Why do you deny me?” Castiel wings unfurl like clouds of fiery smoke, and Dean closes his eyes reflexively. “I am your Lord, and you will obey me.”
“I can’t-” Dean chokes out, squirming against the weight of the angel’s body pressed against his own. “Cas, just- ” Castiel growls, pressing their foreheads together and holding them both still. “Please-”
Out of the corner of his eye Dean sees the angel lean back then, and then he slides off Dean completely. Dean doesn’t dare move, just lays back and lets the angel press a light kiss to his mouth. Castiel tastes like electricity.
“Love me,” says the angel. “You will love me.” And with a fluttering of wings, he’s gone. After a moment Dean’s breath comes back, and he can still feel the spark against his lips.
5
Alastair doesn't have access to Hell outside his little room, but he's never been interested in the politics anyway, preferred to keep his hands full of flesh instead, keep them clean with fresh blood. While the others rolled and scratched around like puppies over a single bone, he had mountains of them to himself.
Besides, Alastair liked to keep his promises. Even more so, his possessions.
So he knows how to please the little godling that dragged him up from the dark nothing. Alastair can play nice with the bully who takes his toys and makes him grovel for permission to play. Dean knows who he really belongs to- he can see his masterpiece even under the angel's taint, and knows how to retrace the lines and fill in the empty spaces with fresh color.
Alastair is an artist.
In the short periods he's allowed to work, while the Boy-King wanders unteathered upstairs and Castiel watches the world, he'll whisper to Dean. Alastair is old, a regular veteran when it comes to uppity creatures who don't play nice, and Dean knows that Alastair doesn't lie. Alastair knows rituals, dark and primal, scratched into the deeper places that most hellions never dared to venture.
There are ways, he tells his wayward apprentice. He sketches the runes for binding spells out in Dean's skin, orchestrates the melody of a draining ritual in Dean's screams. The rules of Hell still apply, and Alastair can still make trades, all of them sealed with mandible movement. A kiss. A word.
Dean hasn't given in yet, but there's still time. Alastair was patient enough to survive death twice. He can afford to wait.
2
When Sam stumbles back to the motel room Dean's already showered, dressed, and licking the bottom of his flask, so he courteously lets his brother drag them to South Dakota. It's an automatic reaction to run back to Bobby's, like the kickback of a shotgun, leaving familiar bruises in its wake.
He grabs a bottle of something when they get there and bypasses the older man’s stares to disappear into the spare room, figuring Sam can fill him in well enough, maybe even work through his own shit while Dean gets barely, blissfully wasted. When Sam comes in a bit later with a peanut butter sandwich Dean sees he’s still as pale as he was when they got there. He takes a seat way too close to Dean, Sam’s big arm resting lazy and heavy by Dean's thigh but Dean doesn't move- just takes the food and turns back to look at the wall.
"When I- last year," Sam starts, nice and slow like he’s trying not to spook either one of them. "Did I- did he- like killing people?" Dean takes a breath. Lets it out.
"That what..." He trails off, squeezing the soft bread. His hands feel too big, and the thought feels even stupider, even as he lays lines of bruises into the sandwich.
"I don't know. It was like being possessed. I woke up with blood- and bits of memories, but I don't know..." Sam’s tapping his hands against his legs now, scraping his fingers up his jeans then tossing them back towards his knee with a slick, even sound. "So, soulless me? Psychopath? Because, it- I was smiling. When I woke up."
"Sure," Dean says, even though the robotic dick didn’t seem to enjoy anything. But working on that theory is better than anything else that could have gotten dragged up out of Sam’s subconscious.
Sam shrugs the shoulder closest to Dean and runs his hands across his pants again, and Dean would put a stop to all of this fidgeting if his own hands weren’t glued together with peanut butter. "He's just messing with us," says Sam.
"That's one way of putting it." "Dean-"
“Sam.” Eyes open, he’s double checking every casually cast shadow, and eyes closed it’s Cas and his stupid blue eyes, so he keeps his vision trailed on his hands and the gunk oozing out his fingers. "One of the first days I was back he dream-walked me and threatened to throw me back into Hell if I wasn't respectful. Sonofabitch finally got the balls."
"Dean-"
"We don't talk about this,” he says. “Tell Bobby what you need, but we don't talk about this."
He doesn't mention the kiss or how Dean can still feel him watching through the sigils on their ribs and the scar still tingling on his arm.
0
The first time it happens, Sam's in the bathroom brushing his teeth when he hears something clatter in the other room. He spits into the sink and wipes his lips with the back of his hand, then rinses it alongside the brush. There's silence when he turns off the water, not even the late night television Dean had been flipping through. The lack of sound shouldn't make him suspicious but it does. Everything does.
"Dean?" He calls out, opening the door like the hairs on his arms aren’t raised, like he's not so aware of his own heartbeat. He steps out of the bathroom and is hit with a rush of steam, like someone was running a hot shower in the main room. Dean's not on either bed, and there's a shadow in the far corner of the room, billowing dark clumps full of fire and electricity, and Sam's mind automatically goes to demon, but the salt lines are still intact at the door and window.
The black things flutter and push away from the wall, and Sam spots the top of a head and his brother's face, Dean's eyes squished closed, cheeks flushed and trembling. A hand reaches from inside the clouds and curls against Dean's chin, thumb pressing into his lips, bruising them.
"Dean?" Sam says again, voice cracking, and he feels ten again, the same helplessness when his brother got hurt and there was nothing to do but sit by his bed. At the last syllable the black things snap inward and the room brightens at their loss (he hadn't even noticed the dimming,) and Castiel turns away from Dean, keeping his hold on the other man's face.
"Sam," Castiel says, tilting his head like he'd forgot he'd be in the room, confusion briefly flickering over the angel's face, and Sam recognizes the expression and wants to both laugh and throw up. Sam darts over to their bags instead, for a gun, a knife, anything, when he's thrown against the wall with a rush of power. He grunts, and Dean tugs away from Castiel's grip to the surprise of everyone.
"Cas- don't, okay? We can- let Sam go, and we can- whatever. We can talk, and stuff. Whatever you want," Dean wheezes, bravado wavering as he pats the angel's shoulders, touches his neck, turning his attention away from Sam.
"Dean, no!" He grunts. Castiel snaps back to Sam and suddenly the angel is in Sam's space, eye to eye, and Sam stupidly wonders when Cas gained an extra couple of inches. Dean runs over and tries to put himself between Sam and the angel.
"Cas, stop! You don't-" He yells, tugging at the trench-coat.
"He is a distraction," Castiel says touching his hand to Sam’s forehead. Sam’s vision swims and something sloshes inside his head as he struggles to focus, stay in the moment. He wrenches his head forward, room still blurring as Cas moves back to his brother.
“Cas-” "Dean Winchester," he whispers, barely loud enough for Sam to pick up.
"I am your God. You should show me some respect." When Dean chuckles Sam cringes, struggling against his invisible bonds.
"Feared or respected, Cas? What do you want from me?"
"I want you to love me." Dean goes silent at that one, and Castiel crowds him against the wall again. "You loved me once. You will do it again. Yes, Dean," he says, black wings crackling out of his back, shielding Dean from Sam's line of sight. "I will show you."
And then they're both gone. Sam slips off the wall and lands face first in the burn mark left on the carpet, breathing in the ozone and fire as he slips into unconsciousness.
9
They're five months in to whatever this is when Bobby has to go pick up a hysterical Sam from Kansas. He sticks the strangely compliant boy in the panic room when Dean shows up and collapses on his front porch. So he has one upstairs and one below, and neither of them asks about the other until they've both detoxed.
After that, there's silence.
Dean doesn't leave the house and neither of them let Sam, all three pouring over the library instead, alternating coffee and anything stronger. They paint the walls with symbols that are even more worthless than they look, practice irrelevant rituals- anything to keep Sam and Dean from sleeping more than a couple hours every night, to keep them from dreaming.
Food in the house lasts them a week and a half, alcohol a little longer, and Bobby reluctantly leaves for a supply run after drinking the last cup of coffee. He comes back with his trunk all filled up with instant everything, sandwich fillings, and an apple pie, hoping to bribe a smile out of either one of them.
Hands full of grocery bags, Bobby doesn't question the silent house until he makes it into the kitchen and spots Crowley leaning against his refrigerator that he nearly drops the bags. A cold fear cuts through his bloodstream, his heart sinking as he notes the smell of ozone twisting its way around his house.
"A message from his Lord on high," the demon says before Bobby has a chance to shoot him. The demon's face is covered in stubble, and his eyes are as bloodshot as Bobby's own.
"Yeah?" Bobby sets the groceries on the floor and looks around for the nearest weapon, keeping his distance.
"You tried to keep him away from me," he says in a dull voice, and it takes Bobby a good second to find the context. "You are not his savior."
"Nope," Bobby says, "got it." The demon relaxes visibly, as if something had been holding onto his strings, and he'd finally been let go. Bobby supposes this might have been the case.
"Right," says Crowley, easing back into himself. "May I have something to drink?"
"No."
"Figures." The demon starts towards Bobby and the exit, then grabs the hunter’s arm and hisses in his ear. "With all this tug-of-war, our former feathered friend is wearing a hole in the fabric of Hell. Do you get that? Holes, Singer. The tall one's alter-ego is tearing at it too, and I don’t know..." He trails off, and Bobby swallows when the demon releases him.
"We need a tailor then."
"We need something," says Crowley, and disappears. Bobby collapses into the nearest chair and buries his face in his hands.
The pie goes uneaten.
10
Cas asks if Dean loves him, and he does, Cas don't, I swear I do, I swear, let me show you Cas, I can do it, I do-
8
Sam wakes up in a graveyard that he shouldn't recognize, but he does. He knows the rotting headstones, the dead weeds under his feet. He's woken up there before.
Stull is unchanged from his last visit, just as dusty and empty of life. The smell of sulfur is new though, he notes, checking his hands and finding them covered in yellow instead of the customary red. It'd be a welcome change if the smell weren’t just as sickening. But there's no visible blood anywhere else, and no bodies save for the ones already underground.
Sam feels good. For the first time in a while, (who knows how long, this time,) he feels comfortable, not feeling any of the residual headaches or auras from the hallucinations. His mouth doesn't taste like something died in it, or that he hasn't slept in a week.
He smiles, and the shape almost feels strange against his face.
Sam feels around his pockets for his phone. He finds it, along with the triangle design of the four Horseman rings wrapped in a piece of cloth. According to his phone, he's been gone three weeks. There are multiple missed calls from Bobby.
Sam punches the redial button so hard he almost drops his phone.
"Bobby, I'm in Stull," he stutters, "I have the rings, and I don't- I don't-"
"Sam-" Bobby breathes, "you, uh. It."
"What did I do, Bobby?"
"You got about half of them." Sam's tongue sits heavy in his mouth, and he squeezes his free hand into fist, shaking.
"Half of what."
"The seals." A headstone behinds Sam explodes, showering his back with gravel. He licks his lips then closes his eyes and starts to laugh, a nervous energetic giggle. "Sam?"
"I think," Sam says, "you're going to want to come get me.”
6
The worst times are when Cas leaves him just a bit too long. It's easy to start to forget, when the meat hooks are taut against his skin and blood and ash are fresh in his mouth.
Everything becomes hazy, blurred together, and sometimes Dean begins to think that he'd never escaped Hell at all. That he's always been here, that Castiel and the seals and Sam and Ruby and all of it, Lucifer's rise and Michael wanting to ride his ass, Adam and Lisa- that it's all been just a clever ploy, yet another trick from Alistair, master of deceit. Or maybe Alastair's the lie and Castiel has been the one pulling his strings all along.
The idea grows in his mind, wormlike and tempting. It would be so much easier, if the whole damn thing had all been a lie. If he'd never broken to torture others. If he'd never lost Sam to regain him and lose him again.
If Castiel hadn’t become Cas and then this thing that’s somewhere in between, cruel and unrecognizable and the hint of something bright that makes this whole thing ever more confusing.
Sometimes they forget Cas entirely, fall back into old routines and exchanges, and Dean wakes up whole each day, surrounded by brimstone and blood and grime. Alastair dissects him piece by piece, consuming him with the snap of sharp teeth, one organ at a time until Dean feels lighter every day. Alistair sings as he works, makes promises and offers deals, carves ancient symbols over and over into his skin for Dean to memorize.
Dean feels himself, slip, slightly. He watches Alistair lay out his knives and saws and prods, sees the razor Alistair made him take from his hand the first time Dean slid off the rack. Sees Alistair pick it up. They both laugh when Dean thrusts back into the stab wound in his stomach.
Sure, Dean thinks about breaking, when Alistair ties a ribbon of intestines through his esophagus, but mostly when Castiel comes down as a hot, white light that he can't help but choke a thank god to, before squirming in between the two who have touched him the deepest, completely unsure which one he's aiming at.
When the angel comes to get him Dean screams and screams, and when they've returned and Castiel cups his damp cheeks Dean says nothing at all, not trusting himself or his words as Cas coos, asking again and again for Dean’ love.
Dean curls against the cool bathroom tiles and traces where Alistair carved the ruins and mouths their names (there are a few he can't reach- sliced into his liver and stomach lining, accessible only if Dean asks, if he says that fucking word.) His skin is pink and parched and free of any scaring, save for the handprint on his shoulder, which burns brighter and brighter with every rescue.
Alistair isn't allowed to touch it; Dean, beneath his own screaming can always hear the happy hum of wings pulsing through it.
12
The phone's been silent a month, short for the occasional buzz of another hunter passing on a hunt or a rumor. Bobby stopped calling in the second week, after their answering machines ran full. On the thirty-second day Crowley shows up at his front door, barely raising an eyebrow to Bobby's heightened heartbeat when he answers. Bobby lets him in without a thought, and follows the demon back to his own kitchen, taking a seat across from him at the table.
"Well, they've done it," Crowley says with a tight sigh, "dug back down to the deepest down. Some sort of trade in the works- two for the price of one- knight and pawn for the king, you see. And the psychotic beanstalk is welcoming back the one with open arms." The demon looks out the window, tapping his fingers against the wood.
"Or both kings get out. It’s all broken, so I wouldn’t pass that. End game's the same. And you and me Singer? Fucked Every which way." Bobby scratches his beard to keep his breath steady.
"Well," he says, and that's about it. Crowley keeps his eyes at the outside, clenching and unfolding his fists. "I'll take that drink now," Crowley says, and Bobby brings back two glasses and a new bottle, leaving his cell phone on the counter on the way back
3
They've barely started a salt and burn when Cas shows up at the library where Dean's making copies of birth announcements in a small room off in the corner of the building, and Dean flinches when the angel flutters in, ignoring the way he still sends out a mental thank fuck that’s Sam's off interviewing someone at the hospital.
"Jesus,“ he mutters, hunching his shoulders over the machine. “What are you doing here?"
"Don't blaspheme." Dean sets down the remaining papers and steps away as the machine finishes the final copy, definitely not thinking of his bag in the corner of the room and the handgun inside it. He spares a glance up at the angel- Cas is frowning, looking at Dean like it’s the only thing he came there to do. Right.
"Fuck you. I'm not- how about you leave me the fuck alone, alright?"
"I need you to understand that I'm doing this for your own good."
"You're a sick sadist, that's why you're-" Dean bangs his fist against the wall so he doesn’t lunge forward, doesn’t fuck everything up further. "Cas, come on, I know you're- you don't want to do this." Cas sighs, and Dean spins back around in time to see the angel shake his head.
"I only do what's needed." Dean falls back against the wall because Cas is blocking the door anyway, rubs his forehead and tries to ignore how his hands are shaking.
"Cas- this isn't worth it. Not for me."
"You are worth it, Dean. Why can you never believe that?"
"It can be okay, you know? You and me, working everything out, cards on the table." And Castiel smiles and closes the small distance between them, resting his hands against Dean's hips and his chin over Dean's shoulder. His nose twitches as it brushes over the angel's soft hair, and he reluctantly lets himself fall into Cas' embrace. The angel is warm at his ear.
"It will, Dean," Cas says, "It will all be so much better." The room starts to crumble, and he twists his shoulders, cries out as Cas just holds him closer.
"Don't worry Dean, I will save you. I will always save you."
11
This time the change isn't fluid, when Castiel taps his forehead; instead he can feel a sluggish creep sliding around his brain. His muscles go lax and he stumbles to the floor, but he stays conscious as his brother kneels before the angel, whimpering prayers to its feet. They disappear and Sam stays on the floor, waiting to black out, but the peace doesn't come. Instead he stands and cracks his neck, rubs his face.
His brother’s just been dragged to hell, but Sam knows that Cas will bring him back, like clockwork. There’s nothing he can do about it, so it’s not worth smashing a lamp over. Though he doesn’t really know why he’d do that. He’s not angry at all. Sam doesn't really feel anything.
That's a lie. He feels kind of hungry. Thirsty.
Sam finds one easy enough the next town over, trapped inside a single Dad of two and waiting for him on the side of the road as Sam pulls past the area's shadowed welcome sign. When Sam steps out of the car he pulls the man towards him and flattens him against the passenger door, nicking its neck with the edge of a knife.
He lets the blood dribble down his throat at first, and then starts to suck as the flow wavers. He touches his tongue to the demon’s veins and for some reason, he thinks of Dean.
His head feels even lighter when he licks the last bits from his teeth. The demon slumps to the ground and Sam steps back into the car, barely registering the thump of body against pavement. When he drives away, he’s tuned to the buzzing in his ears, an easy, electric smile falling on his lips.
The cold fire in the pit of his stomach smiles back.
13
Alastair snaps a second rib from his chest and leans it against the other, the two curves completing a heart over the missing bones in his arm.
"Tada!" The demon sings, presenting the shape to him. Without his bones (humerus, radius, ulna,) Dean's arms pull against the hooks without any resistance, flopping around with a wet squelch. He wiggles them, spattering blood across the floor.
Alastair steps over the array of bones and slips his arms into Dean's skin flaps, the shallow cuts allowing him to stretch and hold their shape. Alastair sighs against Dean's light moans, tonguing the vibrations from his neck and lips, pressing against Dean’s open chest, nudging his exposed heart.
"I am going to crawl inside you," he hisses against Dean's ear, chewing at the soft skin. "You were made to be worn and I will have you." Dean pants and thrusts back against the pressure, his arms pulsing with the intrusion. "Let me in, Dean. Let me." Dean wets his lips, his chin falling open at the jut of the demon’s shoulder.
Then the world ignites around them. Flames jump from the walls and curl upwards like they're being sucked up by a vacuum, and Dean can almost feel the difference in pressure pulling at his skin. Alastair's tools and Dean's bones go up in the fray, and the demon laughs against his lips.
"They've done it," he says. "Oh sweet Lord, they've done it."
What? Dean wants to ask. The walls crack around them and start to melt to the ground, leaving matte negative space in their place. Light bursts down from above them, and Dean screams as the demon is ripped from his arms, evaporating into mist in the light. The chains fall away as their origin collapses, and they coil against the ever breaking ground. He falls against it and brushes his fingers against the ever-growing oblivion.
The light takes him instead.
He grows new bones and blood on the journey up, feels the light sparking against his stomach, his eyes, his heart. The movement into life is easier than it's ever been, or maybe he doesn't try to tell the difference.
Dean wakes up in a field, and the sky is red and bright, and he curls his naked body against Castiel, tries to crawl under the angel's clothing. His face is damp and hands that aren't his wipe it clean. He says, "Cas," and trembles when the hands lift his chin, because he shouldn't know His face. None can see His face and live.
But his Lord is bright and a blinding blue, shining with power and glory. Dean feels his eyes catch fire and laughs, reaching for the face with his fingers. Dean prays. Dean loves the Lord and the Lord loves him, the Lord takes Dean into his arms and lets the man worship him.
Glory, glory, glory.