Title: The Pain Still Grows
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Summary: He couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't stand the flashes of red, the need to kill. He could practically taste the blood.
Rating: R
Warning: Talk of torture, attempted suicide, and S and M. in other words, dark themes. Also, spoilers through 4.11.
A/N: Written for the Rockin' The 80's challenge. The song was In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Title and some lines in the fic are from the song.
Disclaimer: I don't own the show or the song. And thank goodness if this is what the combination gets :)
The Pain Still Grows
The air around him was charged with anticipation, with mad skill. The feel of warm blood on his hands, coating his soul. The pure ecstasy derived from another's pain.
Moonlight glinted off the blade in Dean's hand. He'd been waiting for this. For Sam to leave him to himself for a simple moment.
He couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't stand the flashes of red, the need to kill. He could practically taste the blood.
His hands ached to carve innocent flesh. Sammy couldn't see this, couldn't know what his brother had been forced to become to satiate his own selfish needs.
Dean put the blade to his wrist and sliced. Steel cut flesh and he was happy. Red liquid coated his arm, dripped onto his jeans, slid into his hand and it was like he was home.
Home, where he'd belonged. Where he'd had promise. Where he'd been praised. Where things had made sense and people stayed and played with him forever.
He slipped the knife into his other hand. Hell had a way of making people ambidextrous, and Dean had been one of the fast learners. The hilt squelched against the blood, and he smiled. He wanted to feel it again, just once more. He wanted to die happy.
He set the blade to his flesh, and stopped.
A cool hand had clamped around his wrist. Dean looked up, snarling at the familiar face. "What?"
"Suicide is a sin."
A grin spread across Dean's face. "Great. I'm going home."
The angel sighed, his grip tightening on Dean's wrist until it was perfectly painful. "You don't belong there, Dean."
"Then why'd you let it happen?"
Castiel cocked his head. "Let what happen?"
Dean jerked his wrist away from the angel's grasp and shoved it under the other man's nose. "This. You turned me into a monster, you bastard."
"You're not a monster," Castiel said, his voice an even monotone. That was when Dean noticed his wrist, really looked at it for the first time since cutting into the delicate flesh. There was no blood, no thin line of fresh art marring tanned skin.
"What did you do?"
"I was there, and I saw what you did. I saw it with my own two eyes, Dean."
"You knew. This was your plan all along, wasn't it? Bring me back and torture me with this shit until I snap and kill Sam? Was that it?"
"You feel the need to torture? Very well. I'm here to help."
"How? Got a town you want me to carve up?"
"I'm offering myself." Castiel shrugged out of the trench coat, pulled off the suit jacket, loosened his tie, and began unbuttoning his shirt.
"You've gotta be kidding me."
The angel sat down on the other bed and pulled off his tie before moving on to his shoes. "You need release before you can be useful. You believe that your only purpose now is to harm your brother. This is wrong." Socks, pants.
Dean was staring, his grin gone, mouth hanging open at the sight of the boxers-clad angel sitting on the opposite bed. "You want me to torture you?"
"That would be preferable to you killing yourself, or Sam, or any other innocent, so, yes." He laid out on the bed, spread-eagle and staring. "I'm waiting."
Dean sat, his gaze now directed at the knife. The knife that he'd imaged sticking into his brother's soft flesh. The knife that he'd been planning on using to end his own miserable life. He swallowed hard.
"This man is dead, Dean. Long dead." Castiel closed his eyes. "Do your worst."
Licking his lips in anticipation, the hunter rose. The angel was right there, prone on the bed and waiting for him.
Dean began to work.
He started with the hands, worked up to wrists and elbows and shoulders. He carved lines and patterns and symbols meant to keep the demonic hordes away. It made him feel whole again.
He worked down the chest to the stomach, cutting slowly, savoring the feeling. He sliced skin and organs, slicked blood across himself and the whimpering form below him as his needs were met.
He carved legs, cut feet, and when he was finished with the body, he moved upwards.
Necks had always been his favorite, with tendons and arteries and that wonderful windpipe. They were the most amazing when they were done, painted red, whistling wind, bubbling blood.
And that face, already pretty by human standards, could be made beautiful. He cut and carved, sheared away at the skin until he hit immaculate bone.
Dean stabbed his knife into the heart, still miraculously beating. He stopped it. He finished it. His masterpiece.
He stepped back and looked at his work, the mutilated man lying on the motel bed. Something had happened while he was carving and cutting and slicing so meticulously. The need to torture was gone, melting away with the dripping of blood from Castiel's borrowed body. He wondered if it would come back, that twisted desire born from Hell. He felt better than he had in months, but it was already starting to creep back up on him.
The figure on the bed gasped, lungs rising behind exposed ribs. A blue eye snapped open, the other a gaping pit where Dean had plucked it from its socket, and settled on him. The angel rose into a sitting position, leaking blood and organs onto the sheets as he swung his legs over the side and - impossibly - stood.
Castiel approached, stumbling across the room on broken feet and tattered legs, Dean's prized handiwork. He reached out with a shattered hand, sliced through to the bone, and caressed Dean's face.
His other hand moved, wrapping around Dean's back and pulling him close. The hunter tried to pull away, but it was useless.
Bloody lips connected with his own, and that sick desire faded from Dean's system completely.
The air cleared.