Author Note: Watched "On the Head of a Pin" on the plane a few days ago, and started having thoughts for this missing scene. Once I let my little cohort know what I was up to, she demanded more chapters. So this is one of those was-gonna-be-a-oneshot-but-will-now-likely-be-at-least-two-chapters things. I'm telling you, I have no control over any of this. So stay tuned for more OTHOAP fallout from Dean's POV. I've done a couple of tags from Sam's POV, but not Dean. Also sorry. This is pretty dark.
Casualty
Chapter One
The first hit sends him straight to the unforgiving concrete, and Alastair never allows him to find his feet after that.
Dean's ears are ringing, vision fuzzing and strobing as he struggles to collect himself, fingers scrabbling for purchase against the cold, hard ground. A shadow falls over him, and a cruel chuckle echoes over his head. He gets his hands under him, spits a mouthful of blood as he levers up a few inches on trembling arms. He rotates his head, tries to put as much defiance as he can muster into the glare he levels at Alastair.
It's a futile effort, doesn't mean a damn thing. He's dead already, knows it with a sudden, sickening certainty. Some part of him was doomed to die the moment he crossed the threshold of this room. He told the damn angels that.
They didn't even give him a chance to say goodbye to his brother. Whisked him off and then left him here. Sacrificed his soul to Alastair like it's theirs to do what they want with.
And now they're nowhere to be seen. No one's coming to his aid. He knows it, and the demon knows it, drives the point home as he takes his time before delivering the next hit.
The rock-hard fist to the temple tells Dean all he needs to know. Alastair might have given him a chance to escape, might have gone the slow, torturous route, if Dean hadn't just done so himself. There's no sense of savoring the moment in the vicious, perfectly-placed blows raining down on his face and head. Only rage.
Maybe he showed the son of a bitch that the student learned a little too well from the teacher.
That's what it is, what lives in the brief respite between blows. Pride. Alastair is beaming, grinning around blood-stained teeth as he beats the crap out of him. Because Dean earned this.
He tries to fight back, because he doesn't know how not to. To block the next hit, at least, protect his head the way he was taught. He manages to gets an arm up between them only to have it wrenched back. Only to have a foot connect with his ribs with a crunch that empties his lungs as it flips him to his back. Still, he shoves up, coughing blood, maybe because it goes against everything his father instilled in him to lay down and take it, maybe trying to get back to Sam. Maybe just wanting it to be over already.
A punch cracks his head against the concrete, stunning him, and he loses track of himself for a moment. He feels the snap of his skull against the ground, the pain, but the next round of kicks land dully along his ribs and back. He knows that they hurt more than he feels them hurt.
He never stood a chance, not really.
The first time you picked up my razor, the first time you sliced into that weeping bitch...that was the first seal.
Alastair's words left him vulnerable, open and unguarded, and he'd just stood there. Just taken that first hit when he could have ended the son of a bitch.
As he breaks, so shall it break.
Demon knife in his hand, but muscles like putty. Will like putty.
When we win, when we bring on the apocalypse and burn this earth down, we'll owe it all to you, Dean Winchester.
If that's true, then he more than earned this.
He deserves it.
He lies still, breath coming thin and wet and shifting things inside of him. He has no sense of the time that has passed, as his body reels from sensory overload, traitorously limp and unresponsive. He blinks, and maybe gets a finger to move. Nothing really hurts, but there's warm wetness on his face, his neck. Tracking from his temple and following the curve of his eyebrow. Streaming from his ears and bubbling at his lips, running down his rapidly clogging throat.
Alastair grabs him by the shirtfront, hauls him up from his sprawl across the concrete with frightening ease. The pathetic croak that escapes his lips seems amplified, rebounding throughout the room like the blood rushing loudly in his ears. He takes two more hits to the face, and everything on the left side of the room goes hazy and red-tinged.
An iron grip locks around his throat, and the toes of his boots skip across the concrete as his feet leave the ground. Suddenly he can't fucking breathe, begins to panic.
He tries instinctively to raise his arms and break the demon's hold, but they won't obey, just hang uselessly at his sides, heavy and wooden as Alastair squeezes what's left of his life out of him.
He's saying something, but Dean can't make out the words. Can't do much of anything, except hang there. He's not pulling in any air, and he can't move. His vision goes from red to gray as the pain radiating through his body begins to dull.
He's got just enough sense left to know that's a bad sign, but not enough to care.
Dean's more gone than not when he crumples to the ground. With no hope of softening the fall he lands hard against his hip and shoulder, little sparks of agony exploding as his starved lungs strain reflexively for oxygen.
There's commotion over his head, fast-moving blurs of action as the cavalry finally rushes in, but it's a futile effort, doesn't mean a damn thing.
Some part of him was doomed to die the moment he crossed the threshold of this room.
To be continued...
