SPN Big Bang: In the Darkness (With You) - Part V
See masterpost for summary and further information.
He knows Sam is at the top of the building, but when Dean finally finds the entrance to the tower after days of circling it, the stairs only lead down. He goes down, then, and still feels that he is getting closer.
It gets hotter the farther down he goes. The whole time on this circle, Dean has been puzzled by the almost pleasant temperature that is so unlike Hell. Now it quickly becomes so hot his skin sizzles. After a day or so, his hair catches fire. For a while he has to walk blindly.
But Sam is close. So close that now, Dean can hear his screams not only in his mind. So he goes on, not sure if he’s lucky not to have run into anyone yet or if someone is playing with him.
He hears Sam scream for ages as he feels for the next step and feels the wall with fingers that have been reduced to charred bone. His lungs should have stopped existing long ago, but somehow they are still there to create the illusion of agonized breaths. Fortunately, Dean has no air to scream.
Then, as quickly as the heat came, it disappears. When Dean can see again, he finds himself standing, panting, at the foot of the stairs, facing a long narrow hall that is lined with stone tables. There’s a smell in the air that is partially burned flesh (his own?) and partially something else. The end of the hall is lost to darkness.
Sam stopped screaming long ago. There’s only silence waiting for Dean at the end of his journey.
Lined neatly on the tables are instruments of torture. There is no recognizable order to them. From tiny to large - as long as it is small enough to fit on a table, it’s here. There are the classic ones: thumb screws, branding irons, whips, flaying knifes and a hundred more that man has thought of for whatever reason. And there are those that only exist in Hell because they can only be used on a thing that can’t die. Dean knows many of them intimately, from using them as well as having them used to him. There are others that he has never seen before; he doesn’t dare speculate upon how they’re used.
Dean walks past them. The tables are packed, and there’s one after another after another. He wonders if all of these things have been used on Sam and feels sick. There are things he knows are specifically meant for the torture of women, but demons are nothing if not inventive.
Sam is still silent. He’s still there, though. Dean can still feel him, and Sam still doesn’t know anything about his coming. His loneliness is crushing. The longing for Dean.
“I’m here, Sammy,” Dean whispers and speeds up his steps. There’s no point inspecting everything that’s lined up here. This hall must end eventually, and all that matters is what’s awaiting him past it all.
Sam’s agony is dull now, steady. Without ups and downs. They are taking a break, it seems, and maybe impaled Sammy on a stake for it, or cut off his limbs and left him lying on a grill roast to suffer on his own while they are doing something else. Dean doesn’t know if he welcomes that because it means no one will be present that he has to go through to get to Sam, or if he’s disappointed because he wants his chance to tear them apart.
Then, finally, there is a door. It’s dark like the walls, so in the dim light Dean only sees it when he’s already close. For one second he stops to take a deep breath and steel himself for what he might find behind it. And in that second, something behind him lets out a deep growl.
Dean freezes. All his instincts scream to run, but before he can comply, it jumps and it’s pure instinct that makes him throw himself down so it flies over him instead. When he gets up, the deep red glow of its eyes are before him and he can see the teeth, so much like the teeth that once tore him apart. (Maybe they did.)
It’s huge, the largest hellhound Dean has ever seen. Thick muscles play underneath the hard, leathery skin and thorns are protruding from its back, along the spine, curving inwards. Its head and neck are lined with tiny tentacles that each end in a tiny head, like a snake’s. The paws end in claws and the skin hangs off the thing in decaying flaps. Its glowing eyes stare at Dean hungry and terribly knowing. Waiting for him to run.
But there’s only one thing it needs to know: It’s standing between Dean and the door. Between Dean and Sam.
And Dean will not run in the opposite direction.
He grabs his knife tightly with one hand and takes something unpleasant off a table beside him with the other, and when the hound lets out a growl that sounds like there’s another Hell deep inside its guts, Dean growls right back.
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Behind the door is a throne room. Dean hadn’t expected that. It’s small, as throne rooms go, but still large. There are smears of blood on the floor but they are few and far between, and no accurate reflection of what must have gone on in here not too long ago. The walls are lined with thorn racks that look dry and dead upon first observation, but are actually moving softly as if having a mind of their own. The room is bare but for the small pedestal at the end and the throne standing on it: a massive thing made of steel and sharp edges.
Sam is sitting on it like a king, except there is something wrong with his posture. He’s sitting straight, yet his head is hanging low, like he has no strength to keep it up. One of his knees is twisted at the wrong angle. There is a bone protruding from his arm just above the elbow.
He doesn’t look up when Dean enters. Neither does the demon sitting beside him, his head resting on Sam’s hand and his fingers curled lovingly around Sam’s calf. The only one who notices when the door falls shut behind Dean is the demon that might have once been female, who’s lying curled up at Sam’s feet like a cat. She opens her unevenly sized eyes upon the noise and sits up in surprise, making a hissing noise full of disgust and contempt. Dean can’t help but notice the mass of writhing hands in the gaping wound that would have been her stomach or the thick, spiked tail twitching in annoyance, and he understands that she’s hissing because human words have long since lost all meaning to her.
He throws the severed head of the hellhound at her feet and that shuts her up.
It also alerts her companion who turns towards Dean as well, only to jump up the next second, standing as a shield between him and Sam. It’s perverted and wrong and makes Dean sick. “Sammy,” he calls, but Sam doesn’t move. He’s not unconscious - oblivion does not exist here - but Dean senses no reaction to his voice, none at all. Sam is lost in his agony, out of reach.
Dean hisses back at the two demons. There are more around here, about to return any moment, but right now there’s just the two of them, and he doesn’t care how powerful and evil they are. Not as long as they are in his way.
The tail of the female (female?) one grazes Sam’s leg, tearing open the skin. Sam doesn’t react, but the other demon does. Dean momentarily forgotten, he suddenly punches her in the face and sends her flying, and when she jumps back to her feet with an angry shriek, he curls his claws around Sam neck and shoulders in a possessive gesture that leaves Sam’s skin in shreds.
That’s when Dean understands: the creatures, lying at Sam’s feet in what looked like submission, were really in gestures of adoration and twisted worship. It’s not a coincidence that they placed Sam on a throne in the deepest pit of Hell. He suddenly remembers Casey, the demon he was trapped with in a basement so very long ago, who told him how ready she was to follow Sam should he ever chose to lead them.
Some demons are still waiting for Sam to come and be their Boy King. He is the ruler they have been longing for, and now he finally came to them but is still unwilling to take on his role. So they took him where they think is his rightful place and nailed him to the throne.
These things love Sam in a twisted, perverted way that left him broken and starved and abused, and it makes Dean want to throw up.
Sam still doesn’t know he’s here. He barely knows anything that’s going on around him - Dean can feel his exhaustion, knows that even opening his eyes seems like too much effort when all he will see is the promise of new pain.
Dean is not at his best right now. His wounds have healed but he is dirty and bloody, his clothes in shreds, his feet bare and bleeding. There’s a hellhound’s blood all over him. He stinks of burned skin and hair and he wants nothing more than for his brother to look at him.
“Sammy,” he whispers again, and maybe there’s something in Sam that he reached. But it’s not enough. Sam doesn’t believe Dean is really here. Dean needs to get to him, and if those demons give him trouble, he will end them.
To his considerable surprise, they step aside, watching passively yet alert, as he climbs the stairs and reaches out with a trembling hand to cup his brother’s face. Sam is thin, even thinner than he was when he died emaciated and sick on the floor of Castiel’s prison. There are metal bolts going through his body, through his hands, his arms, his torso. His stomach and thighs. Through his feet, fixing them to the floor. They are rusty and the flesh around them red and inflamed. This is them taking it easy. This is Sam getting a break.
His head lolls limply in Dean’s hands, blood dripping from his parted lips. Dean runs his thumbs ever so softly over the hollow cheeks, leaning in, whispering the word, “Please” against Sam’s lips as tears stream down his face.
Sam opens his eyes, and they are full of recognition.
“No,” he whispers.
“Sam, it’s really me.”
“No, please.”
“Sammy, I’m here.” Dean wants to pull him against his chest but the bolts prevent it. He kisses the top of his head instead as Sammy whispers “Don’t be,” against his skin.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Dean promises and reaches for the first bolt. It sits tightly and Sam jerks as Dean tries to move it. Someone snickers. But Dean keeps pulling and eventually the thing comes lose, the ripped surface tearing out flesh and skin as he pulls it from Sam’s arm.
One down.
Sam keeps trying to talk; he doesn’t know he doesn’t have to. Dean can tell without words that Sam never wanted him here. He wants Dean, but he doesn’t want Dean to actually be there. “You’re an idiot,” Dean tells him as he pulls free the second nail, starts with the third. “I’m not gonna let you rot any more than you would me. When you said we’d go down together, did you think that didn’t count for you?” Sam’s left arm is free, and he moves it weakly to paw at Dean’s body. Dean can feel his pain. “Shh,” he whispers, pressing a kiss into Sam’s hair. “Just be still. I’ll get you out. Gonna take care of you.”
There are the demons to consider. Dean doesn’t have to look to know that there are more, now. The room is slowly filling with creatures watching him struggle, but he doesn’t care. Only Sam matters. In the face of having to get his little brother to safety, not even hurting them for hurting Sam takes precedence.
It takes hours, maybe a day. Time has no meaning here. Dean measures it in the wounds that break open in his palms from the nails that refuse to budge, from the fingernails he loses and gains back. His own wounds come and go. Sam’s stay open longer, and when they close they do so incompletely, leaking blood and yellow puss.
The nail in Sam’s stomach is the last one. It is hooked, he realizes too late, and when he yanks it free, intestines are pulled out right along and he has to pick them off the hook and stuff them back. Sam would be far past unconscious from pain alone, if he could be. He falls against his brother when Dean is done, boneless and sobbing.
It’s then that there is movement behind him. It’s then that Dean turns and sees the dozens of demons in different states of degeneration and humanity gathered around them. They are blocking the exit and there is no way, no way in Hell that he can get through all of them.
He ever so gently leans Sam’s limp form against the arm of the throne, making sure he won’t fall down, and turns to face the music.
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It’s a short fight, in the end. Dean never stood a chance, and he only lasts three rounds because the demons are toying with him, attacking one by one instead of all at once. By the time number four, five and six decide to gang up on him, the first one he defeated is already standing again. Dean never stood a chance, and he knew it before he had Tessa deliver him to Hell.
But he couldn’t possibly have not tried. And now, at least, he is with Sam, even if that only means they can watch each other be torn apart for all eternity.
Starting now. While Dean is distracted fighting one demon off, another grabs his broken arm and the third one tears its claws through Dean’s back. He can’t hold off a scream, and the last thing he thinks when he sees the sharp nails of the first demon’s hand go for his eyes is ‘Sammy, don’t watch!’
But the pain he waited for doesn’t come. The exact moment those fingers should have ripped out his eyes, the word “Stop!”, spoken in Sam’s voice, freezes everything. And Dean almost doesn’t notice, because something changes that moment, Sam changes, and sensing that leaves little room for anything else.
He turns around, eventually, and the demons just let him. Sam is standing before the throne, naked and wounded, and all the demons before him are cowering in awe.
There has been something Sam has been fighting for after all, even when he was all alone in Hell with no hope of ever getting out: he struggled, through torture and degradation, to remain himself, to hold on to his humanity and not become what they wanted him to be. What he was always meant to be. (Maybe what he was all along.)
And one minute of watching his brother get hurt made him give it up.
“Oh Sammy,” Dean whispers. He shakes the demon’s claw off his arm that is just now knitting itself back together and makes his way up the steps towards his brother, slowly, either afraid of scaring Sam or just afraid; he doesn’t know. Sam follows every of his steps with his eyes, looking at the same time controlled, demanding, and lost.
Dean cups his face and his little brother look at him with eyes full of pain, grief and determination. They are yellow.
The next second they roll back and Sam falls into Dean’s arms. Something inside Dean snaps; the presence that has accompanied him for so long disappears as Sam’s consciousness, for the first time in maybe decades, gets to leave his tortured memory of a body.
Dean hoists him into his arms and starts down the stairs and towards the door. No one tries to stop him.
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Nothing and no one tries to stop them, ever, all the way back up through the ninth, eighth and seventh circle. Dean never even sees any other creature and even the screams of the damned seem further away than they used to be. It is as if everything is making an effort to get out of their way, which is kind of funny, considering that Dean is unarmed and Sam is unconscious.
Still, Dean cannot get up fast enough. He never rests even though he’s carrying his brother in his arms or on his back all the time. Maybe it’s a good thing that while Sam’s wounds slowly closed, he remains as emaciated as he was when Dean found him. Dean still doesn’t like the look of him. He would rather carry several pounds more.
(He doesn’t even know what he’s carrying. If this is even his brother anymore.)
Dean goes back the way he came because he doesn’t know any other. He’s not sure what he’ll do when he gets as far up as he can go.
Somewhere on the sixth circle, he stops. The emptiness inside him that Sam’s unconsciousness caused is beginning to fill again, so he carefully places his brother on the ground and waits.
It takes another day or so for Sam to open his eyes, and they are still yellow. Although, now that Dean has the time to look closely without them closing on him, he sees that they are more golden than yellow. And different than Azazel’s eyes; they don’t look like marble but just like normal eyes. Except they are golden. And just maybe glowing ever so slightly.
They are beautiful.
Which isn’t to say that Sam’s eyes haven’t been beautiful before. But it was a beauty that Dean was used to all his life. This is something new.
And yet, as he looks into his brother’s strange yet familiar eyes and feels his presence resonate deep within his own soul, he understands that this is still Sam.
He cups his brother’s face and Sam fists his hands in Dean’s hair and they just gravitate towards each other, the way gravity had Dean falling towards Sam ever since he entered Hell. Their lips meet in something that might have been a long time coming and Dean is almost glad, almost relieved, because he has no words to express what he’s feeling, all his fear and doubt, longing and love, in a way that makes sense. But this kiss, the desperation and need and joy in it, this is something they both can understand.
When they break apart, Sam says “Dean” like it’s a prayer. It sends a shiver down Dean’s spine.
“It’s gonna be okay, Sammy.” The mantra of his life. “Can you walk?”
Sam can. On the fifth circle, the way leads past a recently abandoned prison where fresh souls were locked in and allowed to listen to the screams of the tortured in anticipation of their own turn. All the cells are empty, the doors ajar. In one, they find a pile of plain, black clothes. Sam puts them on, obviously relieved to be able to cover his body that has not been any less abused for all that the marks are gone, and when Dean sees how perfectly the clothes fit him, he can’t help but wonder if this was Hell giving Sam a gift.
He glances over for the hundredth time, catching another glimpse of those slanted golden eyes that he might never get used to.
It’s testament to how long he has been down here that he hasn’t made a James Bond joke yet.
In the fifth circle they reach the point from which Dean started. It doesn’t offer any way for them to get out of Hell, but he didn’t expect that. They just keep moving, looking for a way farther up.
Altogether, the way up here seemed shorter than it was in the other direction, and that’s a bit of a surprise, considering that there were passages Dean has been certain could only be walked in one direction, including one very long free fall. But they always found a way. They rest more than Dean did on the way down, but they do so because it actually has an effect and they are less tired after they take a break. For the first time in months (years?), Dean sleeps.
One of them always keeps watch, but nothing ever comes close to them. “It won’t always be this calm,” Sam tells Dean somewhere on their way from the third to the second circle. “It’s like everyone’s in shock, but they are coming out of it now. They’ll come after us soon.”
“How can you tell?”
Sam shrugs helplessly. “I just know.” He won’t look at Dean, afraid of his own nature. Ashamed for being different, a freak.
That much hasn’t changed. What exactly did change when Sam accepted his place as a king of Hell in order to save his brother, Dean suspects only time can teach them.
What he does know is that Sam can’t sense Dean the way Dean senses him. Why, they can’t begin to fathom, especially since Sam’s senses have been attuned to Hell so much it seems to react to him rather than him reacting to it. He knows when demons are nearby, he knows just how rotten they are or aren’t. So far the demons don’t dare to get near them, but that’ll change, Sam says. Well, Dean will be ready.
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Dean’s never been on the first circle before. It’s a place of light punishment, considered hellish only by those who have never been any further down. Time moves much slower here, one year in one month.
One level down it’s two years, another down four, then eight, sixteen, thirty-two … always twice as much as above. Sam has been down at the bottom for a very long time before Dean even got Tessa to bring him here. (He never found out how fast time moved in the cage, but Sam once checked out for a few minutes and later said his flashback felt like a week. Dean can do the math.)
And yet here Sam is, still creepily skinny, not exactly healthy looking but in one piece and no more insane than he had been as a ghost. In fact, he seems better, mentally. Dean feels a calmness in him that he’s pretty sure his brother didn’t have before falling into Hell, and he knows this unsettles Sam as much as it does him. He tells himself that it’s because he’s finally gone to a (if not his) final destination, no matter how badly it sucks, instead of lingering in the mortal world where the pull of the afterlife drives every ghost crazy in the end. The theory is easier to accept than the thought that maybe Sam’s soul is soothed by this place because he simply belongs here.
That doesn’t mean that Sam is okay now. He’s been having nightmares almost every time he sleeps, though most of the time Dean was able to soothe them away with gentle touches. Only once did Sam jerk awake, and Dean saw the last impressions of new scars quickly fade away.
Sam is not well. He might not yet have been saved, even though Dean doesn’t know where he should fall this time. (The cage is still below them.) But he’s better, even after all the torture he’s been through. He’s letting Dean touch him despite the recent rape, leans into his touches and feels better for them and it’s a win after all the losses. It counts for something. There’s another way for them to go but down.
Though for the moment, metaphors aside, they have reached the end of the climb. There’s no more Hell above them. In fact, there is nothing else above them since Hell is not, in fact, hidden somewhere beneath the crust of the Earth. Dean still looks up when he thinks of the world they left behind and is presented with a sky the colour of sulphur.
It’s hot. It stinks. But aside from that it looks kind of like the world topside, though based on a yellowed photograph taken after the end of the world. There’s dead grass beneath their feet. Bare trees and an empty river bed. “This is where the devil’s gates are,” Dean says. “Only this circle has direct access points to the world of the living. Let’s find one and get out of here.”
Sam doesn’t reply, but Dean senses his doubt and worry. It’s gotten stronger since they are together, this one-sided bond between them. “What’s wrong?” he asks, concerned. “You know they can’t all have been blocked from the outside. Enough demons get out all the time.” Which might be a problem. They are trying to avoid demons, after all, and the gates might be crowded. Or protected, somehow. There must be a reason why only a few demons make it to the outside every year.
“That’s not it.” Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know if I can leave.” And fuck, he’s afraid. Hell held its breath because he told it to and the thought of never getting out of here still terrifies him. Dean pulls him close because a simple gentle touch does so much here.
“We’ll see. I’m not going anywhere without you. If we have to turn Hell into paradise to get there, we’ll do that.”
Sam snorts softly. “Bobby deserves to know we’re not being tortured for eternity. If you can make it out, you need to tell him.”
“Sam.” Dean rolls his eyes. “We’re either getting out of here together or not at all.” Seriously, does the kid think Dean only came here because he was bored?
“We still need to tell Bobby. Before he does something stupid like try to bring us back.”
“Don’t think that’ll happen. He never did before, remember? And quite right, too. At least one member of the family has to have some sense.” Even as he’s speaking, Dean pulls Sam closer, since having common sense just doesn’t compete with having his brother.
“And yet he’ll be miserable for the rest of his life, thinking we’ll be on the rack forever.”
“Stop worrying about that, bitch!” Dean smacks Sam’s head lightly, partially annoyed, partially guilty because Sam’s right, and he worries himself. Until Sam mentioned Bobby, though, Dean never even remembered the old guy existed. “We don’t even know if you’re stuck here. Even if you are, we’ll send a demon out with a message.”
“Yeah, because demons are so forthcoming. What would I do without your brilliant plans?”
“It that a house?”
“Don’t change the subject!”
“No, really, that’s a house.”
Sam finally looks and yeah, really, there’s a house. It’s standing on a plateau and appears run down and dirty, not to mention that it is very small, but it’s got four intact walls and a roof and promises at least the illusion of shelter.
So they go there. It’s not a difficult climb up and Sam assures Dean that the house is empty, so they aren’t very careful. Dean still goes in first, half-expecting to find the inside packed with instruments of torture and lopped off body parts. But there’s only a plain, bare room, insufficiently lit by the dirty yellow light falling in through the dirty windows. They step in, and while the house is too small to allow for more than this one room, they find a door leading to another room in the back. The brothers exchange a glance but wordlessly accept that the building is bigger on the inside. They’ve seen stranger things in here.
The room in the back is a bedroom with only a tiny, very high window. Dean recognized the room’s purpose because there is a bed in it. A king-sized bed with a mattress on it. The mattress is old and worn and there are no sheets, but its sight is still baffling.
An object meant for comfort in Hell. This shouldn’t be happening.
“Are we safe here?” Dean asks quietly and beside him, Sam wordlessly nods.
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Later, on the mattress of the bed, in the weak twilight of the room, Dean makes love to his brother for the first time. It starts with a kiss and moves to hands sliding over whole and unhurt bodies in reverence and amazement. Then it’s Dean on top of Sam, shielding him, protecting him even as he’s taking, and Sam opening up to him, presenting his throat and his chest and opening his legs to slide them around Dean’s hips and draw him close. Dean senses his vulnerability as much as he sees it, and his absolute trust and love.
There is a reason why he never thought about Bobby so far: Everything that used to be real is so very far away. This should feel wrong but now that’s only an intellectual knowledge. Dean can’t even tell if this is new or if he has always wanted it. He only knows that it is right. It’s theirs. It’s them.
Sam falls asleep in Dean’s arms afterwards and doesn’t have a single bad dream.
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The house has grown. They walk around it and it’s definitely bigger than it was when they entered. Dean doesn’t even know if it really ever was bigger on the inside or if it spontaneously added another dozen feet in length when they needed a place to sleep. Also, it used to be made of wood, and now it’s stone. Bare stone, admittedly, and the roof still looks like it’ll have to be redone completely in order not to collapse on them, but it’s definitely getting more sturdy.
When they go back inside, they find sheets for their bed and furniture that hasn’t been there before. It’s not in a good shape but Dean is almost convinced that it will be, eventually. Just because they want it to be.
Correction: because Sam wants it to be. This is all about Sam. This is Hell fucking courting Sam.
This is Sam deciding that they will stay here. His explanation: “The place won’t reject us.” No shit, Sammy. The place built you a fucking house.
And it has just added another room while they were checking out the neighbourhood.
They don’t have any neighbors, which is just as well. Dean has had his share of guys who would - and did - skin him alive. Sam says there are demons around, but they haven’t gotten any closer for a while. Maybe the two of them are the only ones the place doesn’t reject.
There’s a devil’s gate not far from the house. They will go there soon, see if they can use it - or even find it. So far they only have Sam’s weird knowledge that it’s there for a map.
Funny that Sam can feel demons and exit points, but not Dean. When Dean sneaks up on him to wrap his arms around him from behind, Sam jumps in a moment of panic before melting into Dean’s embrace in relief. He has no idea how guilty Dean feels for scaring him, now that Dean can actually feel his brother’s justified fear.
He’s not really used to it yet. Sometimes, Dean fears he might get lost in Sam who is overwhelmed by his own new senses and the fact that Hell itself has expectations of him. Sometimes there’s something Dean can’t grasp and he nearly panics because it feels like Sam is slipping away.
The window shows a barren, dried-out landscape that might never change and Dean closes his eyes as he nuzzles his face in his brother’s hair. Sam has always been the psychic one and Dean never envied him for that kind of power. It seems like a joke that now they have this psychic connection that can be felt only by him.
But then, he thinks as together they sink onto their new, creaky couch, perhaps this is just Hell’s way of reminding Dean what his job is going to be in the grand scheme of things: The same as it’s ever been. “Watch over Sammy.”
As it happens, he’s okay with that.
April 29, 2012
MASTERPOST
He knows Sam is at the top of the building, but when Dean finally finds the entrance to the tower after days of circling it, the stairs only lead down. He goes down, then, and still feels that he is getting closer.
It gets hotter the farther down he goes. The whole time on this circle, Dean has been puzzled by the almost pleasant temperature that is so unlike Hell. Now it quickly becomes so hot his skin sizzles. After a day or so, his hair catches fire. For a while he has to walk blindly.
But Sam is close. So close that now, Dean can hear his screams not only in his mind. So he goes on, not sure if he’s lucky not to have run into anyone yet or if someone is playing with him.
He hears Sam scream for ages as he feels for the next step and feels the wall with fingers that have been reduced to charred bone. His lungs should have stopped existing long ago, but somehow they are still there to create the illusion of agonized breaths. Fortunately, Dean has no air to scream.
Then, as quickly as the heat came, it disappears. When Dean can see again, he finds himself standing, panting, at the foot of the stairs, facing a long narrow hall that is lined with stone tables. There’s a smell in the air that is partially burned flesh (his own?) and partially something else. The end of the hall is lost to darkness.
Sam stopped screaming long ago. There’s only silence waiting for Dean at the end of his journey.
Lined neatly on the tables are instruments of torture. There is no recognizable order to them. From tiny to large - as long as it is small enough to fit on a table, it’s here. There are the classic ones: thumb screws, branding irons, whips, flaying knifes and a hundred more that man has thought of for whatever reason. And there are those that only exist in Hell because they can only be used on a thing that can’t die. Dean knows many of them intimately, from using them as well as having them used to him. There are others that he has never seen before; he doesn’t dare speculate upon how they’re used.
Dean walks past them. The tables are packed, and there’s one after another after another. He wonders if all of these things have been used on Sam and feels sick. There are things he knows are specifically meant for the torture of women, but demons are nothing if not inventive.
Sam is still silent. He’s still there, though. Dean can still feel him, and Sam still doesn’t know anything about his coming. His loneliness is crushing. The longing for Dean.
“I’m here, Sammy,” Dean whispers and speeds up his steps. There’s no point inspecting everything that’s lined up here. This hall must end eventually, and all that matters is what’s awaiting him past it all.
Sam’s agony is dull now, steady. Without ups and downs. They are taking a break, it seems, and maybe impaled Sammy on a stake for it, or cut off his limbs and left him lying on a grill roast to suffer on his own while they are doing something else. Dean doesn’t know if he welcomes that because it means no one will be present that he has to go through to get to Sam, or if he’s disappointed because he wants his chance to tear them apart.
Then, finally, there is a door. It’s dark like the walls, so in the dim light Dean only sees it when he’s already close. For one second he stops to take a deep breath and steel himself for what he might find behind it. And in that second, something behind him lets out a deep growl.
Dean freezes. All his instincts scream to run, but before he can comply, it jumps and it’s pure instinct that makes him throw himself down so it flies over him instead. When he gets up, the deep red glow of its eyes are before him and he can see the teeth, so much like the teeth that once tore him apart. (Maybe they did.)
It’s huge, the largest hellhound Dean has ever seen. Thick muscles play underneath the hard, leathery skin and thorns are protruding from its back, along the spine, curving inwards. Its head and neck are lined with tiny tentacles that each end in a tiny head, like a snake’s. The paws end in claws and the skin hangs off the thing in decaying flaps. Its glowing eyes stare at Dean hungry and terribly knowing. Waiting for him to run.
But there’s only one thing it needs to know: It’s standing between Dean and the door. Between Dean and Sam.
And Dean will not run in the opposite direction.
He grabs his knife tightly with one hand and takes something unpleasant off a table beside him with the other, and when the hound lets out a growl that sounds like there’s another Hell deep inside its guts, Dean growls right back.
+|+|+
Behind the door is a throne room. Dean hadn’t expected that. It’s small, as throne rooms go, but still large. There are smears of blood on the floor but they are few and far between, and no accurate reflection of what must have gone on in here not too long ago. The walls are lined with thorn racks that look dry and dead upon first observation, but are actually moving softly as if having a mind of their own. The room is bare but for the small pedestal at the end and the throne standing on it: a massive thing made of steel and sharp edges.
Sam is sitting on it like a king, except there is something wrong with his posture. He’s sitting straight, yet his head is hanging low, like he has no strength to keep it up. One of his knees is twisted at the wrong angle. There is a bone protruding from his arm just above the elbow.
He doesn’t look up when Dean enters. Neither does the demon sitting beside him, his head resting on Sam’s hand and his fingers curled lovingly around Sam’s calf. The only one who notices when the door falls shut behind Dean is the demon that might have once been female, who’s lying curled up at Sam’s feet like a cat. She opens her unevenly sized eyes upon the noise and sits up in surprise, making a hissing noise full of disgust and contempt. Dean can’t help but notice the mass of writhing hands in the gaping wound that would have been her stomach or the thick, spiked tail twitching in annoyance, and he understands that she’s hissing because human words have long since lost all meaning to her.
He throws the severed head of the hellhound at her feet and that shuts her up.
It also alerts her companion who turns towards Dean as well, only to jump up the next second, standing as a shield between him and Sam. It’s perverted and wrong and makes Dean sick. “Sammy,” he calls, but Sam doesn’t move. He’s not unconscious - oblivion does not exist here - but Dean senses no reaction to his voice, none at all. Sam is lost in his agony, out of reach.
Dean hisses back at the two demons. There are more around here, about to return any moment, but right now there’s just the two of them, and he doesn’t care how powerful and evil they are. Not as long as they are in his way.
The tail of the female (female?) one grazes Sam’s leg, tearing open the skin. Sam doesn’t react, but the other demon does. Dean momentarily forgotten, he suddenly punches her in the face and sends her flying, and when she jumps back to her feet with an angry shriek, he curls his claws around Sam neck and shoulders in a possessive gesture that leaves Sam’s skin in shreds.
That’s when Dean understands: the creatures, lying at Sam’s feet in what looked like submission, were really in gestures of adoration and twisted worship. It’s not a coincidence that they placed Sam on a throne in the deepest pit of Hell. He suddenly remembers Casey, the demon he was trapped with in a basement so very long ago, who told him how ready she was to follow Sam should he ever chose to lead them.
Some demons are still waiting for Sam to come and be their Boy King. He is the ruler they have been longing for, and now he finally came to them but is still unwilling to take on his role. So they took him where they think is his rightful place and nailed him to the throne.
These things love Sam in a twisted, perverted way that left him broken and starved and abused, and it makes Dean want to throw up.
Sam still doesn’t know he’s here. He barely knows anything that’s going on around him - Dean can feel his exhaustion, knows that even opening his eyes seems like too much effort when all he will see is the promise of new pain.
Dean is not at his best right now. His wounds have healed but he is dirty and bloody, his clothes in shreds, his feet bare and bleeding. There’s a hellhound’s blood all over him. He stinks of burned skin and hair and he wants nothing more than for his brother to look at him.
“Sammy,” he whispers again, and maybe there’s something in Sam that he reached. But it’s not enough. Sam doesn’t believe Dean is really here. Dean needs to get to him, and if those demons give him trouble, he will end them.
To his considerable surprise, they step aside, watching passively yet alert, as he climbs the stairs and reaches out with a trembling hand to cup his brother’s face. Sam is thin, even thinner than he was when he died emaciated and sick on the floor of Castiel’s prison. There are metal bolts going through his body, through his hands, his arms, his torso. His stomach and thighs. Through his feet, fixing them to the floor. They are rusty and the flesh around them red and inflamed. This is them taking it easy. This is Sam getting a break.
His head lolls limply in Dean’s hands, blood dripping from his parted lips. Dean runs his thumbs ever so softly over the hollow cheeks, leaning in, whispering the word, “Please” against Sam’s lips as tears stream down his face.
Sam opens his eyes, and they are full of recognition.
“No,” he whispers.
“Sam, it’s really me.”
“No, please.”
“Sammy, I’m here.” Dean wants to pull him against his chest but the bolts prevent it. He kisses the top of his head instead as Sammy whispers “Don’t be,” against his skin.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Dean promises and reaches for the first bolt. It sits tightly and Sam jerks as Dean tries to move it. Someone snickers. But Dean keeps pulling and eventually the thing comes lose, the ripped surface tearing out flesh and skin as he pulls it from Sam’s arm.
One down.
Sam keeps trying to talk; he doesn’t know he doesn’t have to. Dean can tell without words that Sam never wanted him here. He wants Dean, but he doesn’t want Dean to actually be there. “You’re an idiot,” Dean tells him as he pulls free the second nail, starts with the third. “I’m not gonna let you rot any more than you would me. When you said we’d go down together, did you think that didn’t count for you?” Sam’s left arm is free, and he moves it weakly to paw at Dean’s body. Dean can feel his pain. “Shh,” he whispers, pressing a kiss into Sam’s hair. “Just be still. I’ll get you out. Gonna take care of you.”
There are the demons to consider. Dean doesn’t have to look to know that there are more, now. The room is slowly filling with creatures watching him struggle, but he doesn’t care. Only Sam matters. In the face of having to get his little brother to safety, not even hurting them for hurting Sam takes precedence.
It takes hours, maybe a day. Time has no meaning here. Dean measures it in the wounds that break open in his palms from the nails that refuse to budge, from the fingernails he loses and gains back. His own wounds come and go. Sam’s stay open longer, and when they close they do so incompletely, leaking blood and yellow puss.
The nail in Sam’s stomach is the last one. It is hooked, he realizes too late, and when he yanks it free, intestines are pulled out right along and he has to pick them off the hook and stuff them back. Sam would be far past unconscious from pain alone, if he could be. He falls against his brother when Dean is done, boneless and sobbing.
It’s then that there is movement behind him. It’s then that Dean turns and sees the dozens of demons in different states of degeneration and humanity gathered around them. They are blocking the exit and there is no way, no way in Hell that he can get through all of them.
He ever so gently leans Sam’s limp form against the arm of the throne, making sure he won’t fall down, and turns to face the music.
+|+|+
It’s a short fight, in the end. Dean never stood a chance, and he only lasts three rounds because the demons are toying with him, attacking one by one instead of all at once. By the time number four, five and six decide to gang up on him, the first one he defeated is already standing again. Dean never stood a chance, and he knew it before he had Tessa deliver him to Hell.
But he couldn’t possibly have not tried. And now, at least, he is with Sam, even if that only means they can watch each other be torn apart for all eternity.
Starting now. While Dean is distracted fighting one demon off, another grabs his broken arm and the third one tears its claws through Dean’s back. He can’t hold off a scream, and the last thing he thinks when he sees the sharp nails of the first demon’s hand go for his eyes is ‘Sammy, don’t watch!’
But the pain he waited for doesn’t come. The exact moment those fingers should have ripped out his eyes, the word “Stop!”, spoken in Sam’s voice, freezes everything. And Dean almost doesn’t notice, because something changes that moment, Sam changes, and sensing that leaves little room for anything else.
He turns around, eventually, and the demons just let him. Sam is standing before the throne, naked and wounded, and all the demons before him are cowering in awe.
There has been something Sam has been fighting for after all, even when he was all alone in Hell with no hope of ever getting out: he struggled, through torture and degradation, to remain himself, to hold on to his humanity and not become what they wanted him to be. What he was always meant to be. (Maybe what he was all along.)
And one minute of watching his brother get hurt made him give it up.
“Oh Sammy,” Dean whispers. He shakes the demon’s claw off his arm that is just now knitting itself back together and makes his way up the steps towards his brother, slowly, either afraid of scaring Sam or just afraid; he doesn’t know. Sam follows every of his steps with his eyes, looking at the same time controlled, demanding, and lost.
Dean cups his face and his little brother look at him with eyes full of pain, grief and determination. They are yellow.
The next second they roll back and Sam falls into Dean’s arms. Something inside Dean snaps; the presence that has accompanied him for so long disappears as Sam’s consciousness, for the first time in maybe decades, gets to leave his tortured memory of a body.
Dean hoists him into his arms and starts down the stairs and towards the door. No one tries to stop him.
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Nothing and no one tries to stop them, ever, all the way back up through the ninth, eighth and seventh circle. Dean never even sees any other creature and even the screams of the damned seem further away than they used to be. It is as if everything is making an effort to get out of their way, which is kind of funny, considering that Dean is unarmed and Sam is unconscious.
Still, Dean cannot get up fast enough. He never rests even though he’s carrying his brother in his arms or on his back all the time. Maybe it’s a good thing that while Sam’s wounds slowly closed, he remains as emaciated as he was when Dean found him. Dean still doesn’t like the look of him. He would rather carry several pounds more.
(He doesn’t even know what he’s carrying. If this is even his brother anymore.)
Dean goes back the way he came because he doesn’t know any other. He’s not sure what he’ll do when he gets as far up as he can go.
Somewhere on the sixth circle, he stops. The emptiness inside him that Sam’s unconsciousness caused is beginning to fill again, so he carefully places his brother on the ground and waits.
It takes another day or so for Sam to open his eyes, and they are still yellow. Although, now that Dean has the time to look closely without them closing on him, he sees that they are more golden than yellow. And different than Azazel’s eyes; they don’t look like marble but just like normal eyes. Except they are golden. And just maybe glowing ever so slightly.
They are beautiful.
Which isn’t to say that Sam’s eyes haven’t been beautiful before. But it was a beauty that Dean was used to all his life. This is something new.
And yet, as he looks into his brother’s strange yet familiar eyes and feels his presence resonate deep within his own soul, he understands that this is still Sam.
He cups his brother’s face and Sam fists his hands in Dean’s hair and they just gravitate towards each other, the way gravity had Dean falling towards Sam ever since he entered Hell. Their lips meet in something that might have been a long time coming and Dean is almost glad, almost relieved, because he has no words to express what he’s feeling, all his fear and doubt, longing and love, in a way that makes sense. But this kiss, the desperation and need and joy in it, this is something they both can understand.
When they break apart, Sam says “Dean” like it’s a prayer. It sends a shiver down Dean’s spine.
“It’s gonna be okay, Sammy.” The mantra of his life. “Can you walk?”
Sam can. On the fifth circle, the way leads past a recently abandoned prison where fresh souls were locked in and allowed to listen to the screams of the tortured in anticipation of their own turn. All the cells are empty, the doors ajar. In one, they find a pile of plain, black clothes. Sam puts them on, obviously relieved to be able to cover his body that has not been any less abused for all that the marks are gone, and when Dean sees how perfectly the clothes fit him, he can’t help but wonder if this was Hell giving Sam a gift.
He glances over for the hundredth time, catching another glimpse of those slanted golden eyes that he might never get used to.
It’s testament to how long he has been down here that he hasn’t made a James Bond joke yet.
In the fifth circle they reach the point from which Dean started. It doesn’t offer any way for them to get out of Hell, but he didn’t expect that. They just keep moving, looking for a way farther up.
Altogether, the way up here seemed shorter than it was in the other direction, and that’s a bit of a surprise, considering that there were passages Dean has been certain could only be walked in one direction, including one very long free fall. But they always found a way. They rest more than Dean did on the way down, but they do so because it actually has an effect and they are less tired after they take a break. For the first time in months (years?), Dean sleeps.
One of them always keeps watch, but nothing ever comes close to them. “It won’t always be this calm,” Sam tells Dean somewhere on their way from the third to the second circle. “It’s like everyone’s in shock, but they are coming out of it now. They’ll come after us soon.”
“How can you tell?”
Sam shrugs helplessly. “I just know.” He won’t look at Dean, afraid of his own nature. Ashamed for being different, a freak.
That much hasn’t changed. What exactly did change when Sam accepted his place as a king of Hell in order to save his brother, Dean suspects only time can teach them.
What he does know is that Sam can’t sense Dean the way Dean senses him. Why, they can’t begin to fathom, especially since Sam’s senses have been attuned to Hell so much it seems to react to him rather than him reacting to it. He knows when demons are nearby, he knows just how rotten they are or aren’t. So far the demons don’t dare to get near them, but that’ll change, Sam says. Well, Dean will be ready.
+|+|+
Dean’s never been on the first circle before. It’s a place of light punishment, considered hellish only by those who have never been any further down. Time moves much slower here, one year in one month.
One level down it’s two years, another down four, then eight, sixteen, thirty-two … always twice as much as above. Sam has been down at the bottom for a very long time before Dean even got Tessa to bring him here. (He never found out how fast time moved in the cage, but Sam once checked out for a few minutes and later said his flashback felt like a week. Dean can do the math.)
And yet here Sam is, still creepily skinny, not exactly healthy looking but in one piece and no more insane than he had been as a ghost. In fact, he seems better, mentally. Dean feels a calmness in him that he’s pretty sure his brother didn’t have before falling into Hell, and he knows this unsettles Sam as much as it does him. He tells himself that it’s because he’s finally gone to a (if not his) final destination, no matter how badly it sucks, instead of lingering in the mortal world where the pull of the afterlife drives every ghost crazy in the end. The theory is easier to accept than the thought that maybe Sam’s soul is soothed by this place because he simply belongs here.
That doesn’t mean that Sam is okay now. He’s been having nightmares almost every time he sleeps, though most of the time Dean was able to soothe them away with gentle touches. Only once did Sam jerk awake, and Dean saw the last impressions of new scars quickly fade away.
Sam is not well. He might not yet have been saved, even though Dean doesn’t know where he should fall this time. (The cage is still below them.) But he’s better, even after all the torture he’s been through. He’s letting Dean touch him despite the recent rape, leans into his touches and feels better for them and it’s a win after all the losses. It counts for something. There’s another way for them to go but down.
Though for the moment, metaphors aside, they have reached the end of the climb. There’s no more Hell above them. In fact, there is nothing else above them since Hell is not, in fact, hidden somewhere beneath the crust of the Earth. Dean still looks up when he thinks of the world they left behind and is presented with a sky the colour of sulphur.
It’s hot. It stinks. But aside from that it looks kind of like the world topside, though based on a yellowed photograph taken after the end of the world. There’s dead grass beneath their feet. Bare trees and an empty river bed. “This is where the devil’s gates are,” Dean says. “Only this circle has direct access points to the world of the living. Let’s find one and get out of here.”
Sam doesn’t reply, but Dean senses his doubt and worry. It’s gotten stronger since they are together, this one-sided bond between them. “What’s wrong?” he asks, concerned. “You know they can’t all have been blocked from the outside. Enough demons get out all the time.” Which might be a problem. They are trying to avoid demons, after all, and the gates might be crowded. Or protected, somehow. There must be a reason why only a few demons make it to the outside every year.
“That’s not it.” Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know if I can leave.” And fuck, he’s afraid. Hell held its breath because he told it to and the thought of never getting out of here still terrifies him. Dean pulls him close because a simple gentle touch does so much here.
“We’ll see. I’m not going anywhere without you. If we have to turn Hell into paradise to get there, we’ll do that.”
Sam snorts softly. “Bobby deserves to know we’re not being tortured for eternity. If you can make it out, you need to tell him.”
“Sam.” Dean rolls his eyes. “We’re either getting out of here together or not at all.” Seriously, does the kid think Dean only came here because he was bored?
“We still need to tell Bobby. Before he does something stupid like try to bring us back.”
“Don’t think that’ll happen. He never did before, remember? And quite right, too. At least one member of the family has to have some sense.” Even as he’s speaking, Dean pulls Sam closer, since having common sense just doesn’t compete with having his brother.
“And yet he’ll be miserable for the rest of his life, thinking we’ll be on the rack forever.”
“Stop worrying about that, bitch!” Dean smacks Sam’s head lightly, partially annoyed, partially guilty because Sam’s right, and he worries himself. Until Sam mentioned Bobby, though, Dean never even remembered the old guy existed. “We don’t even know if you’re stuck here. Even if you are, we’ll send a demon out with a message.”
“Yeah, because demons are so forthcoming. What would I do without your brilliant plans?”
“It that a house?”
“Don’t change the subject!”
“No, really, that’s a house.”
Sam finally looks and yeah, really, there’s a house. It’s standing on a plateau and appears run down and dirty, not to mention that it is very small, but it’s got four intact walls and a roof and promises at least the illusion of shelter.
So they go there. It’s not a difficult climb up and Sam assures Dean that the house is empty, so they aren’t very careful. Dean still goes in first, half-expecting to find the inside packed with instruments of torture and lopped off body parts. But there’s only a plain, bare room, insufficiently lit by the dirty yellow light falling in through the dirty windows. They step in, and while the house is too small to allow for more than this one room, they find a door leading to another room in the back. The brothers exchange a glance but wordlessly accept that the building is bigger on the inside. They’ve seen stranger things in here.
The room in the back is a bedroom with only a tiny, very high window. Dean recognized the room’s purpose because there is a bed in it. A king-sized bed with a mattress on it. The mattress is old and worn and there are no sheets, but its sight is still baffling.
An object meant for comfort in Hell. This shouldn’t be happening.
“Are we safe here?” Dean asks quietly and beside him, Sam wordlessly nods.
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Later, on the mattress of the bed, in the weak twilight of the room, Dean makes love to his brother for the first time. It starts with a kiss and moves to hands sliding over whole and unhurt bodies in reverence and amazement. Then it’s Dean on top of Sam, shielding him, protecting him even as he’s taking, and Sam opening up to him, presenting his throat and his chest and opening his legs to slide them around Dean’s hips and draw him close. Dean senses his vulnerability as much as he sees it, and his absolute trust and love.
There is a reason why he never thought about Bobby so far: Everything that used to be real is so very far away. This should feel wrong but now that’s only an intellectual knowledge. Dean can’t even tell if this is new or if he has always wanted it. He only knows that it is right. It’s theirs. It’s them.
Sam falls asleep in Dean’s arms afterwards and doesn’t have a single bad dream.
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The house has grown. They walk around it and it’s definitely bigger than it was when they entered. Dean doesn’t even know if it really ever was bigger on the inside or if it spontaneously added another dozen feet in length when they needed a place to sleep. Also, it used to be made of wood, and now it’s stone. Bare stone, admittedly, and the roof still looks like it’ll have to be redone completely in order not to collapse on them, but it’s definitely getting more sturdy.
When they go back inside, they find sheets for their bed and furniture that hasn’t been there before. It’s not in a good shape but Dean is almost convinced that it will be, eventually. Just because they want it to be.
Correction: because Sam wants it to be. This is all about Sam. This is Hell fucking courting Sam.
This is Sam deciding that they will stay here. His explanation: “The place won’t reject us.” No shit, Sammy. The place built you a fucking house.
And it has just added another room while they were checking out the neighbourhood.
They don’t have any neighbors, which is just as well. Dean has had his share of guys who would - and did - skin him alive. Sam says there are demons around, but they haven’t gotten any closer for a while. Maybe the two of them are the only ones the place doesn’t reject.
There’s a devil’s gate not far from the house. They will go there soon, see if they can use it - or even find it. So far they only have Sam’s weird knowledge that it’s there for a map.
Funny that Sam can feel demons and exit points, but not Dean. When Dean sneaks up on him to wrap his arms around him from behind, Sam jumps in a moment of panic before melting into Dean’s embrace in relief. He has no idea how guilty Dean feels for scaring him, now that Dean can actually feel his brother’s justified fear.
He’s not really used to it yet. Sometimes, Dean fears he might get lost in Sam who is overwhelmed by his own new senses and the fact that Hell itself has expectations of him. Sometimes there’s something Dean can’t grasp and he nearly panics because it feels like Sam is slipping away.
The window shows a barren, dried-out landscape that might never change and Dean closes his eyes as he nuzzles his face in his brother’s hair. Sam has always been the psychic one and Dean never envied him for that kind of power. It seems like a joke that now they have this psychic connection that can be felt only by him.
But then, he thinks as together they sink onto their new, creaky couch, perhaps this is just Hell’s way of reminding Dean what his job is going to be in the grand scheme of things: The same as it’s ever been. “Watch over Sammy.”
As it happens, he’s okay with that.
April 29, 2012
MASTERPOST