Fic: Repo Men: The Upside-Down Apocalypse 6/?

[tahirire]

This fic is the flashback/followup/presickle/longfic spawn of REPO MEN. READ REPO MEN HERE.
Repo Men: The Upside-Down Apocalypse
Author:
tahirire 
Rating: R
Wordcount: 4652 (This chapter)
Beta: blacklid
Genre: Gen. Angst. H/C.
Spoilers: Goes a/u from 3.16, but there will be spoilers for all episodes through 5.22.
Warnings:  My generic major character death fic list.  This fic contains *dark imagery, *excessive gore, language, *violence, torture, memories of torture, and gleeful pretzelfication of canon, WIP.

*** This particular chapter is extra bloody, you have been extra extra warned.

Chapter 1: Hell | Chapter 2: The Book | Chapter 3: Burn the Ships | Chapter 4: War and Peace | Chapter 5: Death and Taxes

Occam’s Razor

One last drop of blood spills onto the basement floor, and the struggling golden light of Sam’s soul fades out.

Dean pulls Sam into his lap as best as he can. He rocks backward gently, ticking off the seconds by timing his own breaths. The lyrics to every song he ever knew are inaccessible, buried under a darkness far worse than this. In, that’s five. The heels of his boots slip in the blood, and he can’t pull their combined weight far enough to reach the support of the wall. Sam’s head falls against Dean’s chest, out for six, and his skin is freezing where Dean’s arms are wrapped protectively around his body.

As Dean’s count rises, it becomes more difficult to breathe. He briefly wonders if he could actually suffocate but he disregards the idea, remembering how Benton had survived even after John cut out his heart. Four minutes. Still, the sensation is getting uncomfortable and to top it all off, his whole left side is going numb. The only thing that makes it easier is imagining that the rise and fall of Sam’s chest in the circle of his arms isn’t due entirely to his own faltering efforts.

Dean squeezes his eyes shut against the hallucination of Sam’s blood leeching across the floor and spreading up the walls in long, malignant reddish-black tendrils, flames of power hovering and licking above them. His own soul stirs with heat, as if the Disciple within him is hailing a kindred spirit, and he grits his teeth in revulsion. Without Sam to wield the flames, Hell’s power is a dark, malicious poison. In for five. He pulls Sam closer, resisting the urge to shake him awake. Out for six. Dean’s fingers tighten over Sam’s still heart. “Come on,” he whispers through clenched jaws, “don’t make me beg.”

In for five. Several more long moments pass with no sound except the occasional tapping of muted footsteps overhead and the wheeze that echoes somewhere to Dean’s left whenever he exhales. Out for... He stops, a sinking feeling telling him that it’s been far too long. There doesn’t seem to be a point to counting now.

He doesn’t know if it is night or day, but the temperature in their prison has dropped significantly since they first arrived. An uneasy chill settles into Dean’s spine. The flames are freezing, whispering icy notes across the back of his neck and drifting down to caress his legs, and he’s about to start yelling obscenities at the ceiling when Sam jerks out of his arms, his sudden gasp of breath nearly deafening in the swarm of silence.

“Sam! Hey, it’s okay, I got you.” Dean keeps Sam balanced as he curls forward, coughing the stale air from his lungs. He thumps Sam on the back with his good hand. “Took you long enough,” he grumbles, suddenly grateful to be surrounded by darkness. He swallows the lump of relief in his throat. “You okay?”

He feels Sam nodding, and then Sam clears his throat and answers, “Yeah, mostly, I think. You?”

Dean feels his way around to face Sam, steadying himself on Sam’s broad shoulders as Sam pulls himself up onto his knees. “Livin’ the dream.”

Sam snorts faintly. The chain clangs against the D-ring as he tries to roll his shoulders, and Dean can feel the fine tremors that mark the first stages of shivering. “You figure out where we are yet?”

“No, not yet.” Dean retrieves his jacket from around Sam’s wrists and shakes it out. Satisfied that Sam isn’t going to fall over, he moves back around behind him and checks his arms. Sam’s skin is still cool, but the only scars that Dean can feel on his wrists are the old ones, the ones the devil chose to let his brother keep. Dean massages Sam’s wrists and forearms to restore circulation, and then drapes his jacket over Sam’s shoulders.

“Thanks,” Sam sighs. His fingers search behind him and his wrists rattle in the cuffs. “Can I reach the wall with these?” Dean blinks a few times, pushing away the image of black tangles emerging slowly from the crevices in the wall and scuttling closer. He helps Sam shift over the chains to settle his back against the wall. More rattling accompanies Sam’s shoulder rotating under Dean’s palm as he tries to reach his front pocket. “M’guessing they took my lock pick.”

“Yeah.” Dean rests his hand briefly on the top of Sam’s head before standing to feel his way around the room.

“How’d you get loose?”

“Broke my hand.” Dean moves left, reaching up as high as he can with his good arm, but he can’t quite reach the ceiling.

Sam says, “Oh.” He falls silent as Dean follows the edges of the room, cold fingers rasping over crumbling seams in the concrete. He tells himself the prickling sensation as he passes is only his muscles battling with his guts for what little circulation he has left. He drags his left foot under him and leans forward again, step by step. From the opposite corner, Sam stirs and asks thoughtfully, “Which part of your hand?”

Dean chuckles. “Hey, you’re not breaking anything on my watch. ‘Sides, it won’t work for you. We’ll figure something else out.”

“’Kay.”

Dean grimaces at the lack of argument. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Tired,” Sam answers briefly.

“You lost a lot of blood,” Dean says, completing his frustrating circuit around the basement. There are no doorways, not a single window, nothing. He reaches Sam and sinks down next to him, wondering if the result of his search is obvious from his clipped sigh. “By the way, don’t pull that shit again. ‘Trust me’? What am I supposed to do with that?” Sam shrugs and groans briefly, and Dean notes with a frown that Sam’s shivering has gotten worse.

“Not my blood,” Sam ignores Dean’s question, his voice tight with fresh pain.

Not shivering, not cold. Shaking. Dean kicks himself. He closes his eyes, searching for Sam’s heartbeat, and he can barely sense him there. Soft air brushes his face as he concentrates, and his eyes snap open. He could have missed a vent, but then again, he should have felt it before. A faint crackle drifts from the far reaches of the room, a hissing sound, a warping and splitting that is growing louder. He shouldn’t see it, but he does. The flames, the loosened reddish coils of dark power that were mounting the walls have shifted, sucking on the thin air to float back again, gathering to Sam like vultures circling around rotting meat, crawling all over him, clawing for a way back into his soul.

“I’m gonna get us out of here,” Dean promises, keeping his voice steady. He puts a hand on Sam’s knee. The sickly fog shies away from his touch, but it leaves his hand tingling. He can taste sulfur in the back of his throat and his stomach rolls uncomfortably. He grits his teeth and slings his good arm around Sam, pulling him back against his chest. The blackened tendrils recoil, a static spark in the freezing cold, and then creep upward again. Dean rubs Sam’s arms and chest, brushing them away. If Sam can sense it, he doesn’t say so.

“Need to take care of that bullet,” Sam mumbles. “Can you even move your arm?”

Dean tries to flex the fingers in his left hand. He can’t. “Just try to stay awake, okay?”

“He comes into my dreams,” Sam whispers. “He pretends to be … did you know that Jess…” Dean blinks at hearing Jessica’s name. Sam sighs heavily, sinking deeper into Dean’s grip. “She used to always write these notes and stick them to everything. Like, 'don't forget the garbage' on the trash can, and 'call Deb' on the phone. You know?"

Dean nods against the side of Sam’s head even though he doesn’t know. Sam’s voice is fond and gentle, as if he is afraid of driving the fragile memory away. He laughs softly. “Like I wouldn't have to already be doing that in order to find them." He tenses and his tone turns bitter. "He used her first. Came to me in a dream, and I thought …” Sam shakes his head to knock the counterfeit loose and send it scattering with the rest of his dreams. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t even remember what she looked like."

Something deep inside of Dean flinches. “Sammy -”

Sam cuts him off, quiet but firm, and none of the gentleness remains, only implacable determination. “I always try to stay awake.”

Dean realizes then: Sam is a cornered animal, stronger than his captors, dangerous and waiting for the chance to fight back. For an instant, he almost feels sorry for the devil.

Time stretches out in the dark. The hunters guarding their prison are content to leave them alone, and hour after hour ticks by with no hope of a change in situation. When Sam lapses into silence for the third time, Dean decides to let him rest. His steady breathing and the warmth of his skin where he lays curled under Dean’s good arm lulls Dean into a weariness of his own. He closes his eyes to rest them for a moment and he drifts away, too.

A low groan jolts him awake. Sam’s breathing is shallow and erratic, and he is twitching in his sleep, fighting nightmares. “Woah, hey. Sammy, wake up.” Dean places his palm over Sam’s forehead and Sam flinches violently. Dean swears under his breath; Sam might as well be a furnace. “Sam, wake up. Talk to me,” he commands, giving his brother a gentle shake.

Sam grows increasingly panicked and starts to thrash. Dean tightens his grip and shifts his hold into a restraining posture so that Sam won’t dislocate a shoulder in the struggle. “No,” Sam protests suddenly, his voice sharp with fear, “stay away from me!”

“Sam -“ and then Dean sees. The sulfuric fog that was surrounding Sam before must have returned while they were sleeping, and now Sam is suffocating beneath the weight of it. Dean tries to tear it away, but it has already burrowed deep beneath Sam’s skin, tightening poisonous claws around the dim light of his soul.

A quick search of the rest of the room confirms Dean’s worst-case scenario: what remains of the freed demonic power is turning on Sam.

The rest of the hovering flames swirl and coalesce, folding in on each other to take on a form that emerges from the darkness to step into Dean’s second sight. A sudden surge of adrenaline floods Dean. Even without the demon nestled inside its human wrapping like a withered, skeletal pupae, Dean would know that smirk anywhere. Sam begins to plead incoherently, words tumbling end over end, and he scrambles as far away from the encroaching form as his cuffs will allow. The world shrinks to just the three of them as the mirage gains strength, and Dean lays worried eyes on his brother.

“Sam, listen to me, he’s not real. Sam!” Dean rises shakily and crouches between them, trying to fill Sam’s field of vision, but Sam’s eyes are wide and unfocused. He is completely trapped in the hallucination, too weak to fight it off, and he’s dragging Dean along for the ride. “Sam, look at me, dammit…he’s not real,” Dean repeats the words again, willing them to have power even as he looses touch of who they are intended for. “He’s not here, it’s not real, it’s not -”

Then Dean feels a tap on his shoulder. “No, no don’t... don’t,” Sam pleads. Dean squeezes Sam’s hand and swallows hard, his throat as dry as sandpaper.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Dean whispers, and he slowly stands to face Alastair.

Alastair smiles dismissively. Then he tilts his head, looking over Dean’s shoulder to regard Sam. The gesture is so intimately familiar that for an instant Dean hates Sam for taking his place, his right, his master’s affection.

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” says the whisky colored voice, lilting into a reproachful tsk and a small shake of the head. “This inherent failure of yours, this weakness, was always so difficult for me to forgive,” Alastair touches Dean’s throat and instantly Dean is gasping for air, his lungs burning from the lack of oxygen. Black spots dance at the edges of his vision, and he is just aware enough to mentally curse his earlier curiosity about suffocation. Alastair sighs. He’s got that disappointed look in his eyes. “You should know by now, your reach can never exceed your grasp.”

The tip of his finger slides up Dean’s neck and soon Alastair’s hand is cupping Dean’s jaw and lifting, removing him as an obstacle. “I believe your brother,” he continues, depositing Dean on the floor to gasp and cough, “is a good student. Surely he knows this lesson. Maybe he can teach you some new tricks.” Dean doesn’t have to look to know the smile his master is wearing now, all dripping blood and quivering flesh between his fangs. “What do you say, Dean,” he taunts, “should we ask him?”

Sam’s boots scrape frantically and the chain slams hard against the D-ring as he tries to lurch away. Alastair’s long razor, his favorite pet, reaches out to caress Sam’s face. As Sam starts to scream, the tiny basement prison fractures and blows away. Sulfur and fog wrap around Dean like chains, and he plummets into Hell still reaching for his brother.

Alastair is peeling off his skin all in one piece, taking his time around the edges, being careful not to tear it as he pries his fingers under the dermal layer, pushing, prodding, loosening what holds Dean’s body together with his hands, prying at what holds Dean’s soul together with his words. “My offer still stands, Dean,” he says, soothing, caressing, pulling back the skin of Dean’s upper thigh with the utmost care. “Just say yes, and you can feel this for yourself. It’s like nothing else, Dean. Humans really are exquisite creatures, on the inside. So many layers in those minds of yours. Don’t you want to know yourself?”

Sweat pours off of Dean, and his mind defies the ability to explain it. It’s been months, decades since he tasted moisture, since he breathed air. Blood flows down his throat, a seemingly endless supply, bubbling from the twisted stump of muscle left over where his tongue used to be. This is Alastair’s favorite game; asking an endless flow of rhetorical questions while Dean is helpless to utter even the single word he most longs to say, the one he’s been screaming with his mind for days now: Yes.

One leg undressed, Alastair slides his right hand up Dean’s side, slowly separating the skin from his ribs, wending a slow, lavishly attentive trail to his heart. His left hand slides across Dean’s stomach and down, skimming sensitive nerves and igniting them to searing fire, wringing out faint pleasure masked by wild, untameable pain. Dean screams Yes with all of his mind, his entire soul, but the only thing that escapes his lips is the sound of frothy bubbles popping as he gurgles, choking on the infinite supply of blood. He growls in frustration, wishing he could move, nod, anything.

“You’ll say yes to me, Dean. It’s in your blood to be a killer.” Alastair holds up one dripping, gore-stained hand. “See?”

Dean closes his eyes, and Alastair chuckles and pats him the way one would soothe an agitated pet. Hate and jealousy flood Dean. He wishes, more than anything, with his entire being, to turn the razor on his teacher, to show what he has learned. To see him bleed.

Alastair continues to strip him, time as meaningless and implacable as ever, inch by inch until the job is done. When he is finished, he holds up the skin proudly. It’s perfect, completely intact, an empty wrapping for a shattered soul. Alastair’s eyes gleam, and he tilts his head as though he means to speak. Yes, Dean thinks, please yes.

“How about it, Dean,” Alastair inquires thoughtfully, and Dean’s exposed heart jumps in anticipation. Tears of relief stream from his lidless eyes as cell by cell, his tongue begins to regenerate. Hope, an alien emotion, sparks to life in his chest. Finally, today, maybe Alastair will give him the chance to answer. “You really don’t need this old thing anymore, do you? Let’s put it to good use.”

The demon holds out his free hand, and in his palm appears a soul. Made of pure light, it flutters in terror like a flame buffeted by the wind. Alastair places the soul against the empty skin and the skin begins to glow, morphing to encompass its new tenant. Dean swallows roughly, gulping down saliva instead of blood. The answer perches on the tip of his tongue. He is ready, he’ll say anything, do anything.

Alastair drops the soothing tone. “Time to choose, Dean. Say yes, and I’ll heal you. I’ll take you off the rack - and he will take your place.” The demon shoves the ensouled remnant toward the rack. The blinding glow fades quickly, and Dean’s eyes, unable to close, struggle to see.

Alastair’s voice slithers snake-like into his ears, worming into his brain as he stares at the macabre effigy of his brother; his determined, frightened eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw. “Last chance for today, Dean. What’s it going to be?”

Dean can’t even turn his head away. His answer dissolves into the ether, replaced by a sob of all-encompassing heartache. The soul isn’t really Sam. It can’t be, he’d know if it was, he knows he would, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t do it. He won’t.

“No,” he rasps. The word barely makes a sound. He is overcome with sudden terror that Alastair might not have heard, or that he might have mistaken the answer, and he thrashes, pulling his wet wrists against the restraints until the gleaming white tendons begin to fray. “No, you hear me? No!”

The demon’s eyes glitter with amusement. “Ah, well. There’s always tomorrow.” The soul encased inside the skin vanishes, and the skin folds in on itself like a worn, overused blanket. Alastair drapes it over a hook in the wall, and it hangs bizarrely crooked, winking at Dean from one gaping eye-hole. “Sleep tight, Dean.” He sweeps out the thick metal door, taking salvation with him.

Dean weeps bitterly, and the salt from his impossible tears stings his bare cheeks while he whispers again and again through his sobs, yes, but there is no one there to hear.

He is writhing against the wall on numb legs, dull fingernails scratching at the parts of his body wracked with throbbing pain, unnameable tremors that he hasn’t felt in ages. The blistering edges in his mind break loose and slip down the sides of his face. The thick phlegm in his throat drips from his open mouth as he yells to drown out the sound of his brother’s begging.

”That derision deep in your guts, Dean? That’s what your brother did for you. Your hero. He stole a nearly perfect armor, made a mockery of my greatest gift. Stealing is a sin, Dean.”

“Fuck you.” Dean spits and wipes at the moisture, cloying blood and pus, keeps his eyes on the demon so he won’t have to watch Sam thrash against the chains of the rack, see the way his back arches as the demon’s blade sinks deep again and again; hear the way he screams with everything he has, a harrowing sound of despair.

”He brought you here, didn’t he? He stuck you in that stretched out skin-suit. He cut you apart and tore out all the rot.” Alastair waves the razor and it snicks shut. “He smiled when it worked. He laughed, just like I did.”

“No.” Dean staggers forward.

”Oh, yes. You love him for it. Don’t you. He’s trying so valiantly to make you a real boy again. But we both know better, don’t we, Dean? You said yes. A new beating heart down your gullet won’t change what you are. You know there is no going back.”

The words fall like a death sentence.

“No, please! Please stop, don’t, don’t! No!” Sam’s cries break through, hauling Dean forcibly into the present, and he swallows hard and blinks his watering eyes. Alastair is leaning over Sam, carding long fingers lazily through his guts. Cold fury engulfs Dean, and his twisted bond to the demon snaps. Without thinking, he grabs for Alastair.

His fingers connect. A sickening, burning cold chases up Dean’s good arm. He watches transfixed as the threads of Hell forming Alastair’s ghost stutter and collapse, falling from the air to seep into his skin. Sam’s screams choke off and he crumples, falling limply to the basement floor. Sam’s strength is drained, nearly gone, but Dean can feel the rise in temperature all around him. Instinctively, he understands. No going back.

Dean throws down his guard and beckons the demonic power home, letting the Disciple inside of him draw it like a magnet from the air. It fills his lungs with acid as it flows inside, black smoke and sulfur and ash, and for a moment he is screaming, burning; but then he’s soaring, his chest swelling with the feel of it.

Power, absolute in its white-hot rage, rushes through Dean. It surges to the tips of his fingers, and he curls his broken hand into a fist. Suddenly the roof of the basement feels like a cage, and he can sense the thin lines of spray paint marking wells of gravity, pushing down on him from above. Dean growls from deep in his gut, feral, and lashes out against the walls themselves.

“Let us go!”

The building rumbles on its foundation, and a deafening crack like a shotgun sounds. Plaster and earth rain from the ceiling. The sound of footsteps on the floor above them seem oddly loud and clear. Dean peers through the house, stretching his senses, and pinpoints six bright souls. As he focuses on each one, images of their memories flood his mind. He sifts through the hunters quickly, snuffing out each light with a thought as soon as he confirms their names. He finds the one he wants and breaches the soft spot in the hunter’s armor, letting his power settle around the man’s soul. When his grip is firm enough he drags it forward, pushing and prodding until the hunter is exactly where Dean wants him. He sends his command with a thought, and the trapdoor above them slides open.

Light spills into their prison and reveals Sam, bound and trembling against the frozen floor. His clothes are stiff with his own blood, which has long since dried and is starting to flake. The rust stains everything. It looks like there’s been a massacre, but Dean feels the void inside, hears it whisper for more. He sends a second command, and the hunter above them lowers the ladder down.

Dean fumbles for Sam’s wrists and the rolling wave of energy leaps from his fingers, tearing the cuffs off of his brother as if they were nothing more substantial than paper. Sam immediately curls in on himself, shivering from shock and pain. Thankfully his eyes are tracking, and Dean crouches down, speaking softly. “Hey, Sam. It’s okay. Come on. Let’s go up. Come on.”

Dean untangles Sam’s rigid limbs and manages to get him upright, then situates himself under one of Sam’s shoulders, lifting him gently. They shuffle forward. He places Sam’s hands on the rails and steadies him, following a few steps behind.

Sam barely manages to reach the top. He stands upright unassisted for only a second before dropping to his hands and knees. He topples and lands hard against the wall, narrowly missing the hunter lying rigid on the floor. Dean can see Hell’s power lingering inside of the man who had lowered the ladder. It took refuge in the depths of his body, hoping to be overlooked, but Sam’s starved senses notice and the scent is overwhelming. He stares hungrily as he struggles to catch his breath. Bobby stares back, eyes bulging with fear.

Dean catches Sam’s gaze and shakes his head minutely; the scrap of power lurking inside of Bobby isn’t enough to get Sam back on his feet, and Dean has other plans for that.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii.”

Dean turns his attention down the hallway to the man with bad teeth and worse manners, knees bent like a linebacker with a crucifix in his hand and an open book of rites in the crook of his arm. Dean regards him placidly. “You killed my brother.”

The man snorts, glaring at Sam with hateful eyes. “Apparently not.”

Dean feels the wild storm settle, a grounding weight inside of him. He lets his eternal patience show in his eyes. He reaches for the man’s memories, unsurprised to find the answer he seeks right at the surface. Dean’s voice is quiet but commanding as he advances. “You’re Kubrick’s brother.” He tips his head in recognition and his lips twitch up at the edges. “I’ll be damned.”

“In the name of God, get behind me, demon,” snarls the man defiantly. He retreats into a room at the end of the hallway and picks up a larger volume.

“I’m not a demon,” Dean retorts, suppressing a flinch at the rasping feel of the man’s words. He pursues slowly, choosing his words with care as he turns the man's thoughts over in his mind. “You think we’re even now, is that it? Newsflash - you mixed up your monsters. Sam didn’t kill your brother. Gordon Walker did.” Dean smiles flatly. “Ripped his heart right out of his chest,” he says, and he taps the bloody hole in his own shirt suggestively, “Just like I’m gonna do to you.”

Slight tremors in the hunter’s hands are the only clue that Dean’s words have hit home. He narrows his eyes and snorts out a clipped laugh. “Demons lie.”

“I’m not a demon,” Dean snaps. He presses the man into the hallway, and he feels a slight resistance in the air. He glances quickly up at the drab spray-painted scrawl of a devil’s trap on the ceiling.

The man stands up straighter, flipping the pages of his book with trembling fingers as he resumes his chant. “Ergo, draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica-”

The words feel like electricity against Dean’s skin. He looks at Sam, watching with wide eyes, and at Bobby, still immobilized by Dean’s command. Dean stretches out his arm and Ruby’s knife flies from Bobby’s belt and into his hand. Dean raises the knife and lets his eyes drift across the hunter’s chest in clinical assessment.

“I told you. I’m not a demon.” He lowers his eyes and welcomes the refreshing coldness that floods his vision. He advances through the trap with a shrug, and all of the color drains out of the hunter’s face.

The man’s chant stutters and dies as he stares at the edge of the blade. “Then what the hell are you?” he whispers.

Dean relieves him of his book and flips through until the correct summoning sigil lays sprawled across the pages. He nods in satisfaction before answering, “A guy who could use one.”

Chapter 7: One Dream Rush