Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from writing this.
Warnings: Mentions of violence and alcohol. Post-Hell!Dean Some swearing. (Not yet proof-read.) Rather open ending.
Rating: PG-13.
Characters: Dean, Sam. Bobby, Castiel, Ruby and Alastair.
Pairing: None intentional, but if you squint, you can see all sorts of things, I'm sure.
Summary: Dean spent forty years of constant change – creativity flowing and floating – and everything seems dull once he's back above the ground. He wants to go home.
The Clockwise Witness
Written by oneofyourfrenchgirls
Liquid warmth, unbearable heat and soft ash against his sore skin. The stench of rotting meat, urine and smoke swirls taints the steamy air. Looking up, there is nothing but black fog looming, unreachable and thick. One minute, everything seems yellow and orange – flames, fire, disease – and the next, everything is burgundy and red – wounds and bruises. Nothing ever stays the same, it changes every single day. Forty years, new colours and contusions.
Dean Winchester wakes up in the real world, and everything seems dull. Here, everything is the same. The sky is blue, the asphalt is grey and everything tastes like salt. It stays that way all week long, and Dean wonders if it was always like this before he went down. Sam doesn't seem to mind the consistency, doesn't seem to mind anything at all now that Dean is back. Dean should be glad to see his kid brother smiling, joking, trying to make up for lost time.
When Dean meets Ruby in her new meat suit – pretty brunette, wide mouth, comatose patient – he hates her once more. Not because of her manipulative persona or demon soul, but for the stench that her skin bathes in and her ugly face under her actual skin. He can see her so clearly now, everything that she is and isn't, and it makes him feel at unease for reasons he can't fully comprehend.
She smells of more than human sweat and girly shampoo – there is an air of Hell around her, something that she will never be able to shake off. The same smell that Dean carry, the smell he tries to scrub away and contain at the same time. After forty years, it feels real.
"Oh, Dean," Ruby says when they have the pleasure to meet again. Sam stands in the background, unsure if he should be ready to interfere and whom – in case a fight breaks out – he should restrain. "Don't worry. Alastair will come and take you home as soon as the grown-ups are done."
Dean wants to feel hate and anger, but he can't recognise anything but a spark of annoyance at being mocked, and a sliver of something he doesn't want to name grows in his chest. Really, he wants to ask, but he keeps the word sealed inside, afraid to sound like an eager school boy.
Alastair obviously picked his meat suit with great care: stylish clothes, silver hair well-kept and a fine row of teeth. The taint of his soul (lack of soul, long since burned into black crisp) smells much stronger than Ruby's. Dean's stomach bubbles with excitement and hope, much like back in high school when he was sure to score with a cute girl in the janitor's closet.
"Dean-o," Alastair says breathily.
Sam looks disgusted. Dean doesn't know what to think, but he sets his face in an angry grimace and hopes no one will call him in on it. Alastair stares with white eyes, threatening, but Dean isn't as scared as he should.
He just wants something to change. Forty years of constant change – red days, orange days; stench of vomit or piss; bones cracking under his naked feet or ash flowing around in the air – and now he's stuck in reality. Nothing ever changes, not even the colour of Sam's undershirt. Black or white.
One day, Dean stands by his beloved car and stares. Apocalypse, demons and angels: Dean wonders if there is something seriously broken inside of him when he doesn't think of it as exciting or terrifying. Instead, he stares with blank eyes at the black lacquer and considers scratching her with his keys. He imagines her covered in irregular scrapes, thick and thin and long and short, but it would soon turn into normalcy as well.
"What're you doing?"
Dean doesn't answer. He honestly doesn't know.
He plays with his knife, drops it in his lap once or twice, wondering which would hurt more – bleeding out or just pushing the sleek metal in his chest. He knows his anatomy all too well to miss. He knows bodies so well (abstract, concrete, does it matter?) that he can't miss. Couldn't, even if he tried, because he's well-trained.
He knows what would hurt the most, though, when Sam walks out of the bathroom with a hesitant smile on his face. The motel room shrinks and Sam looks guilty-glad-relieved. Dean watches his little brother put on his socks and a flannel shirt on top of his undershirt. He knows that he is being too quiet – he should say something, joke or burp out a meaningless word. Instead, he takes another gulp of whiskey and heads out for a drive.
He can't really find the comfort he seeks, not even in his favourite baby girl, but he keeps driving around town for at least a few hours. He tries not to think of Sam – what would Sam say? – but it's nearly impossible.
Dean can't think of anything without relating it to his brother. What they should eat for dinner and should he make a copy of the car keys in case he forgets to hand them to Sam before he leaves?
Leaving is never easy.
Dean's attempt is genuine and futile. Castiel finds him easily, beating him into a pulp before taking him to Sioux Falls. Bobby swears and hits him over the head, hiding all the alcohol. He even clears the pantry from ten-year-old Arrack Punsch. Sam is there, angry with worry in the same way that Dean usually is. Used to be.
The Impala is parked in the junkyard, and Dean heads out for some solitude. It doesn't work out to well, though, because Bobby's rabid dog takes a liking to him the moment he steps out on the porch. Dean sits down on the dirty ground, scratching the huge canine and wondering when someone last dared approach him.
He stares at the dog's leash, a heavy chain to ensure there is no escape.
He wakes up in Bobby's sofa. Everything is the same.
Sam sits in an armchair closer to the desk, a book in his lap but his eyes trained on Dean. It's obvious that he hasn't slept much, but it doesn't seem to bother Sam. Dean wonders what he sees – perhaps a coward. Perhaps that's true. Dean doesn't know what he's afraid of this time; it's not dying and it's not Hell.
Dean knows what it's like being thrown around. If anyone knows what it's like being thrown around, it's Dean. He can tell that, if he stands in Bobby's living room, it would take him about two seconds before the windows would crash under his weight. One second if Castiel throws him.
Dean isn't small. He isn't short. His body is mostly lean muscle, heavy from years of training, but he's always being thrown around. If it isn't ghosts or poltergeists, it's angels or his little brother.
Sam practically lifts him up and pushes him down on the hood of a car in the junkyard, big hands holding him still, and Dean struggles for show. Really, this is getting old. Everything is getting old, including Dean himself.
He wants to go home, he realises. Sam holds him down and yells, but Dean just wants to go home. Back to the place where he did unspeakable things and felt nothing but agony. It was home. It is home.
Forty years. Dean has never stayed in a place that long before, and not even Sam holding him completely still can stop him from wishing that it didn't have to be this way.
Underneath his skin, there's something resting. Tingling and prickling, restless in the way Dean used to be. It only comes out now. His knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel, and this is abnormally final. Ahead looks empty and promising, just a few meters and they will be in the air.
If he brings her with him, maybe they'll think that he escaped, just left. To say yes. He isn't stupid – they will find out and they will try to bring him back. He hopes that it will take them years. Years to find his body and the Impala (total mash, unable to be restored). Give him time to relish in the feeling of Hell. Helplessness, hopelessness – nothing to do about anything, just stay and obey. Follow orders and everything will be fine.
Dean's dreams are colourful and vivid. Hot and wet, tastes of iron and sulphur. Someone is always there to watch over his shoulder, usually Alastair, an approving air around his rotting form. Pride would be the demon's biggest sin, Dean knows.
Everything shifts and changes. Impossibly dry and tight, smoke looming above and ash floating below. Dean doesn't like it more than he likes reality, but then it changes and everything is good again. Alastair smirks and tells him to do just so, and Dean obeys.
The End