TV SHOW: SUPERNATURAL
PAIRING: N/A
SYNOPSIS: Right after Dean reveals all that he did while in Hell he has a conversation that helps him come to terms with what he did. And it is not with Sam.
* * *
Dean had just shared his deepest, most dark secret with Sam. Now how was he supposed to go on? He knew
Sam was still leaning against the hood of the Impala. Just staring, watching, listening. Doing exactly what Dean needed
him to do. He didn't think he would be able to do any of this if he actually had to face somebody and come clean about it.
Dean stood up and took a few steps away from the car. He knew Sam was still watching.
"I'll be back in a little bit." Dean said. He wasn't sure if Sam would try and follow him. This was the closest Dean let himself get to actually asking Sam to leave him alone right now.
"Sure" was the one word reply that he received.
Dean began to walk. He didn't plan on going very far. There were still Angels and Demons running around. He wondered how Anna was doing. In a way she was in the same predicament as him. He wondered how God was going to handle Anna getting her grace back. If he was the God that everybody claimed for him to be he would accept her, right?
And if God accepted Anna back then he for sure had the ability to accept Dean. This is what Dean still did not understand. He understood how it was noble and pure of him to sacrifice himself to get his brother back. But, and this thought had been getting to Dean, where had his brother ended up when he died? If he had been in hell would he have remembered it? Because he didn't have any idea what happened did that mean that he had been in heaven? Dean didn't know. What if Dean had sacrificed himself just to drag his brother out of heaven? That would make him a bad person. Wouldn't it? He just didn't know. Maybe because he didn't know he would be let off the hook.
Then there was everything that he had known about. Everything that he had done for that bastard Alastair. Everything that he had willingly done just to get himself out of some pain. Here, he prided himself on being able to take any amount of pain. Maybe he wasn't as strong as hey thought that he was, and now, the demon world knew it to.
That was one of the weapons that the Winchester borhters had in their arsenal. The demons and any other creature didn't know the brothers threshold for pain. Virtually it was unlimited. Now it was not the case.
"They used to talk about you all the time."
Dean spun around reaching for his gun at the same time. There was Ruby. Standing there against a tree he had just passed.
"What do you mean?" He put the gun back in his waistband. Even though Ruby was a demon, she had saved Sam a few times already. He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"Down in Hell. You were the hottest item in town." Ruby quit leaning against the tree. She tensed a little and the seemed fine. She must have still been sore from what Alastair did to her. Dean would have to find out how much she actually went through for Sam, Anna, and himself, someday.
"I don't know if I quite catch your drift." Dean was wary. What she was saying could actually be taken a few ways.
Ruby rolled her eyes and took a few more steps away from the tree. "I'm talking about what you actually did in Hell."
It took everything in Dean's willpower to stay where he was. To keep up the facade. He hadn't told anybody except Sam what he had done in Hell. He had even been vague in the details on purpose. Now Ruby knew about it. If Sam had told RUby anything, Dean was prepared to give a beating. However, Dean highly doubted this was the case. That only left a few other options, and all of them had Ruby conversing with other demons. That itself was not a highly comforting thought. So, trying to find comfort in the fact that he could be wrong he feigned ignorance.
"How do you know anything about what happened down there?"
"Lilith sent me back to Hell, remember? Hell is a big place and word gets around, and I didn't make it back to Sam immidiately."
So she and had been down there at the same time. Well that was just a creepy thought. How many times had he talked
down to Ruby because she was a demon and had been in Hell. Now they had both been there at the same time. His
arsenal of sarcastic and witty commebacks was depleting rapidly. He tried to keep it together, but even to him his retort
sounded weak and half thought out.
"So, you're gonna gloat on how you knew you were right. Talk about how hypcritical I sound when I talk about all the
bad demon things you've done when I've done the same, or worse. Sooner or later everyone breaks. That's what you're
going to say isn't it?
Hopefully with this he could elicit a response from Ruby that required her to not say anything. That was the optimal response that he was looking for. However, what he got was completely different from anything he had expected her to say.
"Yes. In Hell, everyone is broken. That is the point of Hell, that's its entire purpose of being. It exists to show pain, to give pain, to spread it. When you're down there, the stuff you are made to do, all of a the bad feelings that you have are magnified."
Ruby paused t o let this sink in. She wouldn't go into detail about Hell because Dean had already been there, and it was
a waist of breath for the poinnt she was trying to get him to see. So she continued. This time with a feeling of earnest,
almost as if it were a matter of life and death.
"First let me tell you this. I wasn't down there the entire time you were. Only half the time, then Lilith let me out." Dean shot her a look that she couldn't quite interpert, so she continued on. "Alastair has a reputation. He is the best in his field." Dean face contorted into a grimace that he tried to hide. "I don't know if they sought him out or if he sought them out, but both wanted the same thing. To say they want to break you quickly was an understatement."
"Why exactly are you telling me all of this? I don't see a point to this story anywhere in sight." Dean was getting upset by how nonchalantly Ruby talked about what had gone on in Hell. After all hadn't she once told him that the reason she was helping him and Sam was because she remembered what it was like to be human? If that was the case then she shouldn't be confronting him with his time in Hell.
"My point," Ruby sighed, "is that you had Alastair talking about how long you had been on the wrack. He was trying his hardest to get you to come off. I had never seen him try that hard before." Ruby suddenly quit talking. Dean looked up, a questoin on his face. "Not even with me. Not even in the end."
This last line Ruby whispered; it was almost like she didn't want Dean to hear. But he did and he was stunned. He had no words for what Ruby had just revealed to him.
"You. . .you're. . .you're saying. . ." Dean couldn't form a coherent sentence.
Ruby gave a slight shudder as if she had just gotten cold, then brought herself back to the same sarcastic Ruby that Dean had always known. "I'm saying that until you, I held the record on the rack for Alastair."
She began to walk away. Her path carried her behind Dean. He turned his head to follow her, but then she stopped. He quickly brought his head back to the front. He had no intention of letting her how much of what she said affected him.
"I lasted 17 years Dean. That was the longest anyone had been on there. Even then Alastair was not trying his hardest or being his most sadistic. Toward the end yes, but not the entire time. In all the history of Heaven and Hell the lonest anyone had been on there. Then you came along. I got out before you got off, but everyone knew that you had him frustrated. I don't know how long you did last but nobody expected you to last that long, not with him trying so hard to get you to come off."
After Ruby left Dean stood in the clearing for what seemed like years, but was actually only a few seconds. He didn't know what to make of this information. He supposed Ruby had meant it as a comforting thought. In a way he knew that was her purpose. In fact he found himself smiling. He took that back, not really smiling, more like smirking at the thought that now came to him
Even in Hell he had a been a pain in the ass of all the demons.