"Dean," Sam said, "does something feel wrong to you?"
"We just got done killing frigging Eve, Sam. I think the place is supposed to feel wrong."
"I guess," he said softly. "That makes two of Adam's wives we've killed."
"What - your mind is weird, man." He reached forward to turn up the radio.
"I know," Sam said softly, thinking of how Lilith had been Adam's first wife. He wondered absently if Adam was still around to hate them for killing the women he'd loved once. If Adam even cared about them anymore. If he'd ever cared, or if he just did what he thought he was supposed to do because they were the only ones around, the way Sam and Dean did what they were supposed to because they were the only ones who could.
Dean suddenly stopped. "You hear that?"
"Hear what?" Sam asked.
"Dogs," Dean said. "Oh, shit, Hellhounds."
"Was that a scream?" Sam reached for the gun in the glove compartment.
Dean pulled over to the side of the road when he heard the scream burned into his memory: the first soul he'd ever tortured. "Shit. Sam. Something's wrong with my head."
"Mine too," Sam said, becoming overwhelmed with flashes of his own stint in Hell.
They were the last words either of them managed before they lost consciousness.
Dean was in Hell. Again.
He'd spent more than enough time here, in reality and nightmares both, but every time, it got him riled up. Smelling the blood on his body, feeling the flames lick his feet, listening to the cracks of whips and sounds of instruments that existed only in Hell coupled with the constant screams of the damned - it was horrible.
This time wasn't a nightmare, though, he knew that much. Nightmares still had a dreamlike quality to them, time skipping and jumping around and showing him his greatest hits. This time, he knew what was going on. This was a full-on memory.
Not that telling himself he was out helped when the skin was being flayed from his back. His eyes met those of the woman across from him, and he felt the sight like a blow to the stomach, because now he knew what memory this was. This was the day he broke. The woman across from him had sold her soul to keep her toddler from dying of leukemia. He hadn't cared back then; he had only cared about getting a respite from the pain. He'd told himself then that he would only do it to one soul, and then he'd quit and they could string him back up, but he'd known even then it was a lie.
The first time he picked up the knife, it was almost like picking up a paintbrush, and the woman's guts spilling out of her belly was his masterpiece.
After her, there were others, and he'd learned quickly. He learned the nerve centers. He learned how to nick an organ so it would bleed slowly and painfully. He learned how wrong he'd been to believe a hasty slash was a masterpiece. He learned to enjoy causing pain.
He was Alistair's Apprentice, and his talents gained him respect.
Unlike the last time he was here, though, the thought didn't give him pleasure. It didn't fill him with pride. The nearly-fond way Alistair looked at him sometimes didn't have his breath quickening with giddiness at pleasing him; it just made him sick.
Still, he couldn't stop. He moved the way he moved then, spoke the way he spoke then, tortured the way he tortured then. Every soul that had ever been on his rack flashed before his eyes. Every demon he'd screwed - this was Hell, after all, everything but rape was fair game, and nobody here was vanilla.
And then it all stopped, and there was a pretty blonde beside him and laying a hand on his arm, and it was the first time in the memory he felt something real. He jumped, and the cat's claw fell from his hand. It vanished before it hit the ground, and Hell melted into inky blackness.
Minutes later, he realized the blackness was the inside of his eyelids and there was chocolate in his mouth. He pried his eyes open and made himself sit up with a body that felt weaker than it had any right to.
Hospital, his mind informed him. Regulation beds, identical clothing, and a bunch of unconscious people. The blonde who had broken into the memory was sitting next to him, flanked by a skinny man with dark hair who narrowed green eyes at him.
"Sam?" Dean asked.
"No, honey, he's not Sam," the woman said gently.
Dean snorted. "No shit. Where's Sam?"
"The man that came in with you?" the woman checked. Dean nodded. "He's right next to us. We're going to be working on him next."
"What do you mean, working?" Dean snapped. "What's wrong with him?"
"Dementor attack," she said blandly. "You're lucky the Aurors were so close."
Dean stared at her. "Dementor? Aurors? Are you just making things up now?"
She sucked in a breath. The man behind her looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Are you a wizard?" he asked, the first time Dean had heard him speak.
"You know about wizards?" Dean blurted out. "You're a hunter?"
"Hunter?" the woman asked blankly. "What's a hunter?"
"You know, killing things that kill people? Hunters? Maybe you call them something else over here?" Even now he'd noticed their accents.
"Oh. You're one of them?" The woman suddenly looked unreasonably terrified, and the man reached into his - was that a dress?
Dean suddenly felt a wave of panic. "Please, please, please tell me you're not Satan-worshipping crackpots."
"Satan-worshipping, no," the woman said.
"Magical? Yes," the man continued.
Dean groaned. "Great. Can you just get the killing over with already?"
"Killing?" the woman asked.
"Never met a witch who didn't try to kill us," Dean said. "What, you guys are special?"
"The witches you hunt - they're not the only kind of witch," the man said. "Susan, why don't you go help the brother. We have a lot to talk about."
Sam was in the Cage.
"Sam, Sam, Sam," Lucifer crooned. "Don't you ever learn?" A long strip of flesh getting peeled off his arm, like a skinwalker changing forms. "You're not getting out of here." He could see the bone now. "You shouldn't have stopped me, Sam." A knife flashed and blood was dripping from his ruined eye. "You should never deny me anything." Sam was on his stomach, still bleeding, lying there helplessly with Lucifer straddling him.
"Hello?" a new voice said just as Lucifer's hand gripped his hair and shoved his head down.
Sam tried to jerk his head to the side and failed. "Who's there?" he asked, trying to ignore the blows raining down on his back and neck.
"My name's Susan Bones. I'm a Healer."
"You need to get out of here," he said urgently. "However you got in, you gotta leave before they - ah! - before they notice you're here."
"Your name's Sam, right?" she asked.
"Ye-Yeah," he groaned. Lucifer was twisting his vertebrae, and if he were still alive, he wouldn't be breathing.
"Sam, you and your brother were attacked," she said. "You know about witches?"
Her only response was a moan of pain. She flinched, and Sam was suddenly stretched with his wrists and legs nailed to the four corners of an open square. A man she hadn't seen before appeared behind him, wielding a thick metal cone.
She continued, "Well, there's more than one type. There's the 'Satan-worshipping crackpots', as your brother put it, and then there's us. We're born with magic." Sam moaned. "You got attacked by dementors. They make you relive your worst memories. None of this is real, Sam."
Sam groaned and looked at her dully. "Get out," he mumbled. "Get out or they'll get you too."
"They can't get me, Sam," she said. "This is your head. You're in a hospital. It's a memory."
The man who had been on top of him suddenly morphed to look like his brother. "I never wanted you, Sam."
"You promise?" he asked, ignoring whoever it was next to him and sounding young and vulnerable even with blood pooling at his feet.
"I promise." She stepped forward and put a hand on his cheek. "Your brother's waiting for you," she told him. "He's in the bed next to yours."
"Dean's hurt?" Sam asked, alarmed. "What happened?"
"I'm right here, Sammy," Memory-Dean cooed. "This is payback for all the times you hurt me."
"Dementor attack. Come on, Sam. Focus on me. Only on me."
"Kinda - yah! - hard," he panted, but his eyes zeroed in on hers.
"I never wanted you, Sam," rang in his ears even as the Cage dissolved around him.
"Dean?" he asked, opening his eyes and jackknifing to a sitting position.
"Right here, Sammy," came his brother's voice. Sam sagged in relief. "No chick flick moments," Dean warned. "Death and resurrection, remember?"
Sam laughed weakly. "Yeah. I remember."
"Eat this," the blonde woman said brusquely, pushing a chocolate bar into his hand. Sam shot a bemused glance at Dean and saw the man behind him.
"Who's your friend?" Sam asked, breaking a piece off the bar and putting it on his tongue. Damn if he didn't start feeling better.
"I'm an Auror," the man said. "Wizard cop. Can you remember anything about the attack?"
"Just hearing…" Sam trailed off. "I didn't even see them."
"You wouldn't have," the man said tiredly. "Muggles - that's non-magic folk - can't."
"Oh, but we can be affected. Real nice, God!" Dean yelled at the ceiling.
Sam's lips twitched in amusement. "Dean, if God were in Heaven, Cas wouldn't've spent months looking for him."
"If God isn't in Heaven, then where is He?" the woman - Susan - asked. Sam knew that tone; it was the tone of someone getting ready to call up the psych ward.
"No idea," the brothers chorused.
"Okay, back on track," Dean said, "how do we protect ourselves from the dementors?"
"I don't know that you can," the man said after a beat. "It's a fairly complicated spell, and neither of you can do magic."
"Little Sammy's psychic when he's juiced," Lucifer taunted from the corner. Sam pressed the scar on his hand and tried to focus on the Auror.
"...what they were doing in America, they're rarely seen outside Britain," he was saying.
"Probably Eve," Sam said, guessing at what the first part had been. "We took down a lamia in Wisconsin a while back, and a friend of ours bagged an okami in South Dakota."
"Who's Eve?" the man asked, pulling a notebook out of his pocket.
"You read your Bible?" Dean asked. "That Eve. We killed her already, things should be going back to normal soon."
"Biblical Eve pulled dementors out of Britain," the man deadpanned.
"That came out a lot more insane than you meant it to, Dean," Sam said calmly.
The next few hours were spent convincing the two of them that they were sane (or, in Sam's case, only a little insane), getting the details on why they were in England (the only hospital in the world who could handle severe dementor attacks), trading contact details ("Just in case," the Auror had assured them, but really, Sam thought it was more likely he just wanted to keep tabs on them), and convincing them to not erase their memories (and Sam would really, really go for that if it meant getting Hell out of his head, but he'd learned the hard way about taking the easy road).
And then they were shipped back to America by something called a Portkey, landing not five yards away from the Impala.
A/N: The thing about 'rape is not allowed in Hell' is a reference to the Fifth Satanic Rule: Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
Hope you enjoyed! This is the first in a series of one-shots (and possible multi-chapter fics).