Hell burns, burns beyond imagination and measure and reality. It burns hot and it burns cold and it burns pain that twists your body into knots and pulls you so close to seeing the pleasure in dying that you loop around and are born anew into the endless flames.
The flesh-tearing pull of the rack.
The succulent squelch of the hook.
The snicks-snick-snick of the scalpel.
Mallets, tongs, hammers, drills, forceps, screws, spears, knives, daggers, swords, clubs, whips, the demons have it all.
Maniacal laughter echoes in his ears, and Alistair's smile is seared upon his brain, revolting him like the twisted corpse that it is. And every day, that face turns to him, eyes earnest and forehead dipped down and up close so that his blurry vision can't miss a single twist of the papery skin or ripple of the cruel lips: "Would you like to come down now, Dean? You would, wouldn't you? I can see it, I can hear it, I can smell the longing. Tell me, what shall our dear prince say today. We are all so very, very anxious to hear. Tell, do tell," the voice purrs.
And every day Dean gives the same answer, hoarse and cracked and thin and cut and abused but not beaten: "No."
No, he won't stoop so low. No, he won't soil his already blood-soaked hands any further. No, he will not let his brother down.
He holds out, holding on even as Alistair plucks the sinews of his chest like a harp, strokes the tendons in his leg like a violinist would his instrument.
But the sound is so sublime, the blood so rich, the colors so deep. And the harmony so agonizingly powerful, he can't resist.
So he does it, by God he does it. He steps down off that rack, brittle hands fluttering feebly in the air like a great maestro before a concert.
He steps down off that rack, and does he subjugate himself? Does he run? Does he escape? Does he plead?
Dean doesn't escape from Hell, he doesn't climb out from the Pit. He doesn't run away.
Hand in hand, black eyes dancing, Dean and Alistair tilt their heads and sway side to side in tandem as if to a tune only the can follow. They clasp fingers, entwining muscle and veins and flesh into an unbreakable cord.
And together, they watch the world go down in flames, up in smoke, and feel the earth-shattering crash as the last, the greatest, Goliath finally topples.
Dean laughs.