A Match Made in Hell: Dean/Alistair (Supernatural)
Title: A Match Made in Hell
Author: amaresu
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Alistair
Spoilers: Assumed general knowledge of the series with specifics for I Know What You Did Last Summer, Heaven and Hell, Death Takes a Holiday, and On the Head of a Pin
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Warning: If you have any major triggers this is not the pairing for you. You could probably read this essay, but I would recommend staying away from the pairing.
This is not a happy ship. This is a pairing that makes the more traditional foe yay pairings look like sunshine and butterflies and happy puppies. This is not a pairing that produces fluff, schmoop, or curtain!fic. (Although if you happen to write Dean/Alistair curtain!fic I'd be most grateful for a link.) This is a ship filled with pain, blood, obsession, and anything else that comes from twisting romantic love inside out. As I said, this is not a happy ship.
So why ship it?
Because it's fun. Because it's a pairing that let's you look at the darker aspects of Supernatural canon and play with them. Because Dean spent 40 years in hell and that should have consequences.
But first a character introduction.
The ship in question
Dean Winchester
Dean has always liked to present himself as a typical easy going ladies man, who fights evil. As anyone who's watched more then a few episodes of Supernatural can tell you though, that's just the surface. Underneath the shiny exterior is a man with Issues. He has many Issues, but they all seem to stem from the fact that he has a self-esteem at about the level of the Marianas Trench. The end result of this being that when Sam dies at the end of season 2 Dean goes out and sells his soul to bring Sam back. In exchange Dean gets one year to live and really, if the crossroads demon had pushed it, I think he'd have settled for less time. He then spends half of the next season denying that there is anything wrong with the deal, half a season before he finally admits to Sam that he doesn't want to die and go to hell.
So, Dean has Issues. At the end of season 3 Dean died and went to hell. Which is where he met the other half of this pairing, Alistair.
Quick note on Alistair v Alastair. I think the official spelling is Alastair, but I prefer Alistair. No one is going to throw a fuss over it though and the spelling will be either/or depending on which site you're on.
Alistair is a demon. Not just any demon though, Alistair is the guy in charge of the torture division of hell. So essentially he's the type of person that makes the Joker look like a nice person to watch the kids. He's spent a lot of time torturing people. He likes it. He likes hell.
“Go to hell.”
“Oh, if only I could, but they just keep sending me back up to this arctic craphole.”
-Sam and Alistair, Death Takes a Holiday
That missing summer, or 40 years, depending on how you look at it.
As previously stated Dean died at the end of season 3, No Rest for the Wicked, but is resurrected at the beginning of season 4, Lazarus Rising. The burning question in most fans minds was: What happened to Dean in hell?
This is not a subject that Dean likes to talk about. At all. At the end of Heaven and Hell though we learn several interesting things about his time there.
40 years in hell. That's longer than Dean was alive. He spent more time in hell then he did doing anything else, ever. That's big. That's huge. That's the area where Dean/Alistair finds it's grounding. Before we can really get into this though we need to look at the canon.
After the resurrection
The first time Alistair shows up is in I Know What You Did Last Summer. The brothers Winchester, with the help of Ruby, are attempting to find/rescue a girl who can hear angels talking. Just when they've found her Ruby come bursting into the room yelling at everyone to leave. A big scary demon is coming and oh, yeah, the statue of Mary in the corner has started to cry blood. Ruby is clearly freaked out, especially since it's too late to run.
Enter Alistair.
In no time flat he's taken Sam out, claiming that it “tickles” when Sam tries to use his mind powers. He's also the first demon since Lilith we've seen with white eyes.
Dean goes after him with the knife, to which Alistair responds by picking him up and saying “Hello again Dean” before slamming him into a support pillar. He then proceeds to punch the crap out of him before making sure Dean knows who he is.
“Don't you recognize me? Oh, I forgot, I'm wearing a pediatrician. But we were so close. In hell.”
“Alistair.”
-Alistair and Dean
Dean doesn't guess, or even think about it, once Alistair says the above quote. He knows it's Alistair and Alistair seems almost friendly, while beating the crap out of him. He even laughs a little once Dean puts two and two together.
Sam then proceeds to save Dean by stabbing Alistair with Ruby's knife and while Alistair's distracted they jump through a window and run away. The rest of the episode is a summation of what happened to Sam while Dean was dead (he learned to use his mind powers and have sex with Ruby) before they go to meet up with Ruby and Anna.
The interesting part about this whole bit is that Dean never tells Sam that he knows who Alistair is. This is of course because if he did he's have to say how, but it's still an interesting thing to note.
The episode ends with Sam and Dean meeting back up with Ruby and Anna and then having Castiel and Uriel literally blow the door open to come join them. Only they want to kill Anna.
Next up is the second half of the two-parter, Heaven and Hell.
In this episode Anna discovers she's a fallen angel, Ruby makes some fun and exciting hex bags, and every one figures that they're screwed. The brilliant plan they come up with is to get the angels to fight the demons and get out of the way. This works surprisingly well.
During the big showdown though we get some rather nice interaction between Dean and Alistair.
But first Dean hits Alistair with a tire iron. He looks something between apprehensive, surprised, and scared while doing it too. Almost like he can't believe what he's doing and knows that he won't like the consequences.
“Dean, Dean, Dean. I am so disappointed. You had such promise.”
-Alistair
Alistair then proceeds to attempt to kill Sam and Dean again. Anna saves everyone by becoming an angel again. Before the end of the episode there's a small exchange between Ruby and Dean. Dean asks what took her so long and she replies that she's sorry, but she was being tortured. The look Dean gives her is one of understanding, he knows what it's like to be under Alistair's knife.
We don't see Alistair again until Death Takes a Holiday.
Alistair is kidnapping Reapers to break a seal by killing death twice. The important bit is that he manages to capture Sam and Dean while they are spirits. And shoots them with rock salt. Dean first. To which he replies, with a knowing grin:
“Alistair, you bastard.”
There's a bit of exposition followed by Alistair shooting Sam and then sidling up as close to Dean as he can without touching the iron surrounding Dean.
“By the way, it's umm, good to see you again, Dean.”
There is another exchange between Dean and Alistair after this, but the important bit isn't so much the words, but how they're said. Even though Sam is standing right there, Alistair is clearly talking to Dean, not both of them. They also talk with a level of familiarity that isn't normally seen in human-demon interaction on Supernatural.
Towards the end of the episode, after stopping Alistair from breaking the seal, there's one more exchange. Dean is by himself in an alley when Alistair shows up. Dean backs away slowly, most of his normal bravado gone now that there's no one else there.
“You can't run, Dean. Not from me. I'm inside that angsty little noggin of yours.”
And Alistair is suddenly taken prisoner by the angels.
This leads into the next episode On the Head of a Pin, perhaps the best episode for Dean-Alistair interaction. Of which there is a lot. Angels are dying and they want Dean to torture the information on how out of Alistair. Dean doesn't take this well.
There's a bit too much to quote, so I'll make a nice ordered list of fun facts we learn in this episode.
In a lot of ways the entire torture seen has a very domestic undertone to it. They trade jibes and talk shop, as it were. They are without a doubt two people who know each other and know each other well.
I think my favorite exchange is one that happens at the beginning:
“I'm here aren't I?”
“Not entirely. You left part of yourself back in the pit. Let's see if we can toy you back together again. Shall we?”
“You're gonna be disappointed.”
“You've not disappointed me so far.”
Alistair eventually breaks free and is well on his way to beating Dean to death before Castiel shows up and stops him.
“You've got a lot to learn boy. So, I'll see you, back in class, bright and early, Monday morning.”
This implies what a lot of people think, Dean's going back to hell once he dies again.
Unfortunately Sam kills Alistair at the end of this episode. Bastard.
Bringing it all together
So, going back to that 40 years in hell. Clearly this is time that had an impact on Dean. 40 years and at least a large portion of that was spent with Alistair. Enough for Alistair to take the torture Dean underwent as his own personal accomplishment and enough for Dean to be considered Alistair's student. This is a not an insignificant amount of time.
This is time with meaning and weight and as I said above, this is the time where Dean/Alistair is really born. We don't know much about Dean's time in hell. We have an outline at best. Everything else is extrapolated from canon. We know it exists though. It adds that extra bit of weight to all of their interactions. That 40 years sits back gives us all the possibilities.
Given everything we know and everything we can guess it's easy to think that Alistair may know Dean better than anyone else around. Better than John, Bobby, or even Sam. Alistair probably knows things about Dean that Dean has made damn sure Sam never found out.
This is why I ship Dean/Alistair. There are so many possibilities when it comes to this pairing.
Dean/Alistair is all about the dark places inside Dean. It's about the ways Dean has changed from his time in hell and just what that might mean. It's exploring a relationship that the canon hinted at, but failed to provide a whole lot for.
realpestilence said it best (so I will quote them):
You got your various shades of consent, your bloodplay, your is Dean faking it/he's angry at being stolen away from his master themes, your "rescuing" of Dean back to Hell, competition between Castiel and Alistair, between Alistair and good!Sam/evil!Sam...you could throw in a little bondage here, a little waxplay/toys/gangbangs and what not. There's a LOT of room in this pairing for fun that doesn't require the poked out eyes and peeled off skin and so forth.
Where to go from here
spn_suchpromise is the Alistair community here on LiveJournal.
comment_fic will have the occasional Dean/Alistair piece pop up.
Also the kink memes will have the random Dean/Alistair prompt.
The fic itself runs the gambit from a mentor-(reluctant and bitter)apprentice to father-son (found most often in Dean/Castiel fics as a past/background thing) to lovers. Of course given the nature of the pairing any of these (rather rough) categories can have all sorts of fun overlaps.
Mentor-like
Reclaim, Restore, Release by keerawa
Truth by 9_of_clubs
Sense Memory by entangled_now
Paternal
The Climb by numbaby
Untitled by andrea_deer
Seeking Redemption by birddi
Lovers
Promise by ginzai
Untitled by earthquakedream
Untitled by kristories
It's the Capital of Sweden, Dean by strangeandcharm
That Which Exists by entangled_now
Untitled by andrea_deer
Now come talk to me in the comments, yes?
Author: amaresu
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Alistair
Spoilers: Assumed general knowledge of the series with specifics for I Know What You Did Last Summer, Heaven and Hell, Death Takes a Holiday, and On the Head of a Pin
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Warning: If you have any major triggers this is not the pairing for you. You could probably read this essay, but I would recommend staying away from the pairing.
This is not a happy ship. This is a pairing that makes the more traditional foe yay pairings look like sunshine and butterflies and happy puppies. This is not a pairing that produces fluff, schmoop, or curtain!fic. (Although if you happen to write Dean/Alistair curtain!fic I'd be most grateful for a link.) This is a ship filled with pain, blood, obsession, and anything else that comes from twisting romantic love inside out. As I said, this is not a happy ship.
So why ship it?
Because it's fun. Because it's a pairing that let's you look at the darker aspects of Supernatural canon and play with them. Because Dean spent 40 years in hell and that should have consequences.
But first a character introduction.
The ship in question
Dean Winchester
Dean has always liked to present himself as a typical easy going ladies man, who fights evil. As anyone who's watched more then a few episodes of Supernatural can tell you though, that's just the surface. Underneath the shiny exterior is a man with Issues. He has many Issues, but they all seem to stem from the fact that he has a self-esteem at about the level of the Marianas Trench. The end result of this being that when Sam dies at the end of season 2 Dean goes out and sells his soul to bring Sam back. In exchange Dean gets one year to live and really, if the crossroads demon had pushed it, I think he'd have settled for less time. He then spends half of the next season denying that there is anything wrong with the deal, half a season before he finally admits to Sam that he doesn't want to die and go to hell.
So, Dean has Issues. At the end of season 3 Dean died and went to hell. Which is where he met the other half of this pairing, Alistair.
Quick note on Alistair v Alastair. I think the official spelling is Alastair, but I prefer Alistair. No one is going to throw a fuss over it though and the spelling will be either/or depending on which site you're on.
Alistair is a demon. Not just any demon though, Alistair is the guy in charge of the torture division of hell. So essentially he's the type of person that makes the Joker look like a nice person to watch the kids. He's spent a lot of time torturing people. He likes it. He likes hell.
“Go to hell.”
“Oh, if only I could, but they just keep sending me back up to this arctic craphole.”
-Sam and Alistair, Death Takes a Holiday
That missing summer, or 40 years, depending on how you look at it.
As previously stated Dean died at the end of season 3, No Rest for the Wicked, but is resurrected at the beginning of season 4, Lazarus Rising. The burning question in most fans minds was: What happened to Dean in hell?
This is not a subject that Dean likes to talk about. At all. At the end of Heaven and Hell though we learn several interesting things about his time there.
- Hell time is different then Earth time.
- Instead of spending four months in hell Dean spent 40 years.
- He was tortured for 30 of those years.
- He was the one torturing people for the other ten years.
40 years in hell. That's longer than Dean was alive. He spent more time in hell then he did doing anything else, ever. That's big. That's huge. That's the area where Dean/Alistair finds it's grounding. Before we can really get into this though we need to look at the canon.
After the resurrection
The first time Alistair shows up is in I Know What You Did Last Summer. The brothers Winchester, with the help of Ruby, are attempting to find/rescue a girl who can hear angels talking. Just when they've found her Ruby come bursting into the room yelling at everyone to leave. A big scary demon is coming and oh, yeah, the statue of Mary in the corner has started to cry blood. Ruby is clearly freaked out, especially since it's too late to run.
Enter Alistair.
In no time flat he's taken Sam out, claiming that it “tickles” when Sam tries to use his mind powers. He's also the first demon since Lilith we've seen with white eyes.
Dean goes after him with the knife, to which Alistair responds by picking him up and saying “Hello again Dean” before slamming him into a support pillar. He then proceeds to punch the crap out of him before making sure Dean knows who he is.
“Don't you recognize me? Oh, I forgot, I'm wearing a pediatrician. But we were so close. In hell.”
“Alistair.”
-Alistair and Dean
Dean doesn't guess, or even think about it, once Alistair says the above quote. He knows it's Alistair and Alistair seems almost friendly, while beating the crap out of him. He even laughs a little once Dean puts two and two together.
Sam then proceeds to save Dean by stabbing Alistair with Ruby's knife and while Alistair's distracted they jump through a window and run away. The rest of the episode is a summation of what happened to Sam while Dean was dead (he learned to use his mind powers and have sex with Ruby) before they go to meet up with Ruby and Anna.
The interesting part about this whole bit is that Dean never tells Sam that he knows who Alistair is. This is of course because if he did he's have to say how, but it's still an interesting thing to note.
The episode ends with Sam and Dean meeting back up with Ruby and Anna and then having Castiel and Uriel literally blow the door open to come join them. Only they want to kill Anna.
Next up is the second half of the two-parter, Heaven and Hell.
In this episode Anna discovers she's a fallen angel, Ruby makes some fun and exciting hex bags, and every one figures that they're screwed. The brilliant plan they come up with is to get the angels to fight the demons and get out of the way. This works surprisingly well.
During the big showdown though we get some rather nice interaction between Dean and Alistair.
But first Dean hits Alistair with a tire iron. He looks something between apprehensive, surprised, and scared while doing it too. Almost like he can't believe what he's doing and knows that he won't like the consequences.
“Dean, Dean, Dean. I am so disappointed. You had such promise.”
-Alistair
Alistair then proceeds to attempt to kill Sam and Dean again. Anna saves everyone by becoming an angel again. Before the end of the episode there's a small exchange between Ruby and Dean. Dean asks what took her so long and she replies that she's sorry, but she was being tortured. The look Dean gives her is one of understanding, he knows what it's like to be under Alistair's knife.
We don't see Alistair again until Death Takes a Holiday.
Alistair is kidnapping Reapers to break a seal by killing death twice. The important bit is that he manages to capture Sam and Dean while they are spirits. And shoots them with rock salt. Dean first. To which he replies, with a knowing grin:
“Alistair, you bastard.”
There's a bit of exposition followed by Alistair shooting Sam and then sidling up as close to Dean as he can without touching the iron surrounding Dean.
“By the way, it's umm, good to see you again, Dean.”
There is another exchange between Dean and Alistair after this, but the important bit isn't so much the words, but how they're said. Even though Sam is standing right there, Alistair is clearly talking to Dean, not both of them. They also talk with a level of familiarity that isn't normally seen in human-demon interaction on Supernatural.
Towards the end of the episode, after stopping Alistair from breaking the seal, there's one more exchange. Dean is by himself in an alley when Alistair shows up. Dean backs away slowly, most of his normal bravado gone now that there's no one else there.
“You can't run, Dean. Not from me. I'm inside that angsty little noggin of yours.”
And Alistair is suddenly taken prisoner by the angels.
This leads into the next episode On the Head of a Pin, perhaps the best episode for Dean-Alistair interaction. Of which there is a lot. Angels are dying and they want Dean to torture the information on how out of Alistair. Dean doesn't take this well.
There's a bit too much to quote, so I'll make a nice ordered list of fun facts we learn in this episode.
- Dean was Alistair's student.
- Alistair can't help but offer constructive criticism while being tortured. Why exactly he does it is up for grabs, but he does it.
- Alistair knows how to push Dean's buttons.
- Turns out Dean started the apocalypse, a fact that Alistair uses to twist the metaphorical knife.
- Dean really likes torturing Alistair once he gets into it.
- Alistair did torture Dean in hell.
In a lot of ways the entire torture seen has a very domestic undertone to it. They trade jibes and talk shop, as it were. They are without a doubt two people who know each other and know each other well.
I think my favorite exchange is one that happens at the beginning:
“I'm here aren't I?”
“Not entirely. You left part of yourself back in the pit. Let's see if we can toy you back together again. Shall we?”
“You're gonna be disappointed.”
“You've not disappointed me so far.”
Alistair eventually breaks free and is well on his way to beating Dean to death before Castiel shows up and stops him.
“You've got a lot to learn boy. So, I'll see you, back in class, bright and early, Monday morning.”
This implies what a lot of people think, Dean's going back to hell once he dies again.
Unfortunately Sam kills Alistair at the end of this episode. Bastard.
Bringing it all together
So, going back to that 40 years in hell. Clearly this is time that had an impact on Dean. 40 years and at least a large portion of that was spent with Alistair. Enough for Alistair to take the torture Dean underwent as his own personal accomplishment and enough for Dean to be considered Alistair's student. This is a not an insignificant amount of time.
This is time with meaning and weight and as I said above, this is the time where Dean/Alistair is really born. We don't know much about Dean's time in hell. We have an outline at best. Everything else is extrapolated from canon. We know it exists though. It adds that extra bit of weight to all of their interactions. That 40 years sits back gives us all the possibilities.
Given everything we know and everything we can guess it's easy to think that Alistair may know Dean better than anyone else around. Better than John, Bobby, or even Sam. Alistair probably knows things about Dean that Dean has made damn sure Sam never found out.
This is why I ship Dean/Alistair. There are so many possibilities when it comes to this pairing.
Dean/Alistair is all about the dark places inside Dean. It's about the ways Dean has changed from his time in hell and just what that might mean. It's exploring a relationship that the canon hinted at, but failed to provide a whole lot for.
realpestilence said it best (so I will quote them):
You got your various shades of consent, your bloodplay, your is Dean faking it/he's angry at being stolen away from his master themes, your "rescuing" of Dean back to Hell, competition between Castiel and Alistair, between Alistair and good!Sam/evil!Sam...you could throw in a little bondage here, a little waxplay/toys/gangbangs and what not. There's a LOT of room in this pairing for fun that doesn't require the poked out eyes and peeled off skin and so forth.
Where to go from here
spn_suchpromise is the Alistair community here on LiveJournal.
comment_fic will have the occasional Dean/Alistair piece pop up.
Also the kink memes will have the random Dean/Alistair prompt.
The fic itself runs the gambit from a mentor-(reluctant and bitter)apprentice to father-son (found most often in Dean/Castiel fics as a past/background thing) to lovers. Of course given the nature of the pairing any of these (rather rough) categories can have all sorts of fun overlaps.
Mentor-like
Reclaim, Restore, Release by keerawa
Truth by 9_of_clubs
Sense Memory by entangled_now
Paternal
The Climb by numbaby
Untitled by andrea_deer
Seeking Redemption by birddi
Lovers
Promise by ginzai
Untitled by earthquakedream
Untitled by kristories
It's the Capital of Sweden, Dean by strangeandcharm
That Which Exists by entangled_now
Untitled by andrea_deer
Now come talk to me in the comments, yes?