Title: Libra
Rating: T
Summary: From the beginning, there were both Good and Evil, maintaining a careful balance. Two vessels, so close, but so different, were chosen by the major players to keep that balance. So, what happens when one of them dies? One-shot. NOT a deathfic.
A/N: The last line of this story is what made me write it. It's actually kept me up at night, probably because I'm just a hopeless Dean fan and want it to be (somewhat) true. Anyway, I hope the stories better than the summary (I can never write those things!), and I hope you enjoy it.
Reviews: Are like love and make the world go around!
Disclaimer: Supernatural isn't mine, and I'm not making any money off it. Too bad, too, 'cause I could use the cash.
Libra
Darkness surrounded him on all sides, closing in, choking him. He was miserable, dizzy, his world clouded with black confusion, rending him incapable of logical thought or reasoning. And he was scared.
He wondered if this was it, if this was his eternity, his punishment, his Hell. Doomed to spend forever in he suffocating darkness, alone and isolated, tormented by thoughts of what could have been, of what would be.
Of what would happen to Sam.
That one name swam to the surface of his muddled mind, one nagging thought. Sammy. He'd been so broken when Dean had left for the final time, his eyes so dark-almost evil. Almost black. Black like Dean's would be in only a matter of time, driven mad by abandonment and the absence of light.
He closed his eyes to fight off the tears that stung there, tears that he would never let these damned things, wherever they were in the darkness, see. He'd made his choice, his deal. He'd dug his grave. It had been his one selfish act in life, the single thing that he'd done solely because he wanted it.
He wanted Sam.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard what sounded like door hinges squealing under strain. He wanted to call out, wanted to shout, to be rescued for once in his life.
He fought the urge. They wanted him to scream, to cry, to beg for God's Mercy in the only place that It could never reach. They would revel in his torture, his pain, his hopelessness.
Another door-sound, this one closer, at his feet. He was suddenly aware that he was lying on his back. Or, that was what he thought. The darkness was deceptive, disorienting. He was lost.
He moved. Not of his own free will, but by some unknown force. His body shook as he was pulled from his place, though the blinding darkness remained.
There was more squealing, some rattling, his form vibrating as the hard slab he could feel pressing against his back protested its movement.
Something touched his face. It was cool, solid, metal surrounded by something else, something that forced its way toward his lungs as he inhaled, threatening to stop the breath he no longer needed from giving him life that he didn't deserve.
He relied on sounds now to discern what was happening. He was blind, terrified, solitary in his new home, but he knew sounds. Sounds like the zipper.
Dean blinked against the harsh white light that flooded his vision. For a brief moment, the briefest in his eternity to come, he believed that he had been saved. Good had triumphed for once. He could finally have his family, have peace and rest, belonging and love.
Then he saw her. She swam before his shocked field of vision, her face blurry as his eyes protested his saving light, the glow of hope.
Her eyes were as black as coal, as black as what had once been his soul, dark as his eyes would one day be, as dark as Sam's once had been. He turned away.
"Wakey, wakey," she cooed, all red lips and amber hair and eyes so dark that he feared he would lose himself, his tarnished soul, within them.
He sat up, head spinning. His eyes stopped fighting the light and allowed him to see his new, eternal home.
Metal drawers lined the whitewashed walls, keeping the air deceptively chill. In the center of the room was a single table covered by a white sheet that lay over something lumpy. Dean looked down at himself to see a large scare striping his bare side, his legs covered by a black body bag.
He looked back at the demon. "This is Hell?"
She smiled, a warm expression, warmer than any of her kind- his kind now- had ever bestowed upon him before. "No," he voice was like music, death bells, ringing in his ears. "This is the morgue at Amber Creek Hospital."
"So, I am dead?" he asked, needing to get his bearings, to find if the hound ripping into him, separating intestines from body cavity, had been reality or just a sick dream.
"Not anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"Dean," she said, stepping forward and grabbing his hand. He didn't pull away. She gave him no reason to, didn't have that threatening air about her that most demons did. She simply led his hand toward his chest, placing it over his heart before retreating to the center table and leaning gently against it. "Do you feel that?"
His fingers thrummed to the beat, the familiar rhythm. "Yeah." He pulled his hand away, staring at it, amazed. He was alive. Alive and…
Something was off. A small scar marred the center of his palm, a scar that hadn't been there before the Hellhounds had attacked. He could vaguely remember running from the hounds, leading them away form the motel, desperate to keep Sam away, to keep him from seeing. His bare feet had pounded over sharp rocks until he fell at the dogs' mercy, his fingers splayed, tiny trees rushing up toward his outstretched hands.
"Then you're alive."
He shook his head, pulling his eyes from the scar. "How?"
"Daddy."
"My dad? How did he… I mean he couldn't have…"
"You're not thinking of the right Father." She slid from her spot to glade across the floor toward him. "You're special, Dean. Too special to lose."
"What are you?" Because suddenly, he wasn't so sure. She spoke like an angel, apparently meant him no harm, but her eyes betrayed her true nature.
"I'm a friend," she said. "I'm Sam's."
Dean snorted, trying on a smirk for the first time since waking up. "Sammy doesn't associate with your kind."
"He doesn't have to. There are still some of us willing to follow him to the center of the earth if he commands it. Which is convenient, considering that's where he's going."
"No," Dean said, his eyes narrowed to mere slits, "I saved him. He can't-"
"But he can. And he will. Without you."
"What are you talking about?"
"He has a plan, Dean," she said, staring him straight in the eye, "he's going to get you back. He's going to gather his troops and march into Hell to do it."
He couldn't believe his ears, could believe her. Not Sammy. Never Sammy. Not his brother. He'd worked too damn hard to keep destiny from swallowing the kid whole like that. "How long have I been out?"
She smiled, a knowing smile, but not arrogant. Sweet. Almost pitying. "Three days."
"And how come I came back?"
She hopped onto the metal slab he'd been placed on and began swinging her legs under it. "The balance had to be kept."
He turned, letting his legs, still covered by the body bag, drape over the side. "What balance?"
"The balance between Good and Evil." She sighed, taking a moment to catch her breath before a long explanation. "See, ever since the beginning of time, there have been two major opposing forces in the world: that of Good, and that of Evil. Good is full of love, intent upon making things safe, keeping them orderly. Evil is full of chaos, hate, and destruction."
Dean nodded. "Nothing I couldn't have figured out on my own."
"There were two major forces at work when the world began. God and Satan kept the balance. When one gets too grabby, the other steps up and checks him. It's always been that way."
"OK?"
"But Good is different than Evil. Good believes that pride is a sin, while Evil welcomes it, embraces it. Satan is proud, Dean. God wanted to check that. He believed that He was too powerful to keep the balance, that he would tip it in Good's favor."
"And that's bad?"
She nodded. "It is. Too much Evil in the world would mean all the chaos and destruction previously mentioned, but too much Good could kill, too. When people are too good, they tend to get a little batty. They murder for the smallest offences. That's why the balance must be maintained."
"All right. So God steps down and lets Satan take over? Not much of a balance there."
"Oh," she grinned, "God had a plan. He always has a plan, Dean. Especially for you. He had a Son. God became a casual observer in all things great and small, and His Son took over the seat of power."
"Sounds familiar."
Her smile faded, her voice suddenly grave. "God isn't the only one who plans. Satan matched him, step for step. He was just a little late out of the starting gate. He missed the bell by a few millennia."
"You saying the devil had a kid?"
"He chose his most trusted followers to find him a suitable vessel. The vessel was to be strong, athletic, intelligent. Preferably male. And in order for him to be possessed by this force of Evil, he was to die at the hands of someone trusted."
Dean shook his head, his heart sinking in his chest as her words echoed through the room, stirring up buried memories, memories if the worst day of his life, the last real day of his life. "No."
"He was to be resurrected. But he was never to be the same."
"You're lying. You lie, all of you-"
"But God countered," she said loudly, drowning out his protests. "He matched Satan point for point. He chose the balance of the devil's vessel, someone just as intelligent, athletic. Someone willing to give everything and more for those he loved. He was a vessel for good, saved from the fires that Satan planned for him at the last minute by his Father, rising on-"
"Shut up!" He jumped from the metal slab, tripping over himself as his feet tangled in the body bag. "You're lying. This is Hell. Any minute, the walls are gonna fall and the flames are gonna rise and Ashton Kutcher's gonna pop out laugh in my face."
She gazed down at him in pity, her brow creasing as she watched the pathetic thing on the floor struggle to free himself. "The balance must be kept, Dean."
"My brother is not the devil!"
"No," she slid from the slab and reached out a hand to help him up. "He's not. Not as long as you're around. Not as long as you can keep him in check, just like you always have. You just never realized that you were doing it before, balancing him so perfectly, your whole family on a scale, sometimes tipping. You righted it. It won't be hard."
He stared at her hand, refused to take it. He pushed himself off, stripping the bag from his legs and glaring with disgust at the white boxers someone had slipped onto his body. "I'm gonna find Sam."
The demon nodded. "You do that. Just remember what I said. You're part of the balance, the grand design. You keep him in line-"
"You're wrong about us," he muttered through clenched teeth as he headed for the door, the skin on his bare feet recoiling at the cool touch of the cement floor. He reached for the doorknob, so close to freedom, to his brother, to a life that he wasn't supposed to have that he could actually taste it.
"Don't you want to know?"
He stopped, his fingers grazing the frigid metal handle, and turned toward her. "Know what?"
She smiled that knowing smile of hers again as her eyes took on that blackness that he so despised. "If Sam is the Anti-Christ, then what does that make you?"
The End.
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