Author's Note: I didn't want to write a tag to episode 4.22, but this idea screamed to be written. I'm not enitrely sure how it will end, but the next part will be up shortly. Please let me know what you think, love it or hate it.
The menacing white light in the convent was unearthly bright, and as it grew stronger and more vivid, there was a maddening drone beneath it, quite at first, but it rapidly swelled to a sonic screech that rattled Dean's teeth and catapulted a dazed Sam to act. Dean clawed at his brother's collar as the light sparking from the floor filled spread out, a reverse shadow of brilliant apocalyptic gloom. Dean pulled until Sam was running out of the vestibule and down the stone corridors. The ground began to shake and roll, rocks pouring down like destructive rain. Sam slowed down, so he could concentrate as he lifted his right hand towards his brother's retreating form, used the last of his demonic strength and pulled from that dark place inside of him. The pain in his head was excruciating and as he stopped completely, and focused on the telekinetic push. Dean's form lifted slightly, the tips of his toes scuffing over the floor. If the end of the world wasn't mere seconds away, it would have been the funniest sight he'd ever seen: his brother hovering in the air, feet flailing for purchase. Encouraged and determined, Sam strained harder, tendons taut, face red. With wide eyes, Dean glanced back as he bodily flew out the door of the convent and into the steps below. Sam stumbled, as he felt his skull crack and splinter like the shell of an egg. He heard Dean's voice around the rumbling and shattering of century's old rock, and he stumbled forward, as the white-hot heat of Lucifer himself licked at his back, hotter than fire but colder than ice. Sam's heart pumped, adrenaline and terror pushing him forward as the humming became a primitive scream of freedom, and the white light breathed and laughed and sang.
Just as Sam passed through the threshold of the church, just before could taste fresh, earthly air, there was a blasphemous explosion and the world fell away.
Hell, Sam supposed, was a Jupiter red sky, and scalding wind that cut the skin.
Hell was the inexplicable pain in your chest and a voice that wasn't your own, laughing manically.
Hell was the metal chain that wrapped itself around your wrists, dragging you into a factory made of iron and steel and blades, stringing you up until your feet barely touched the ground and your shoulders literally popped from the weight of your own body.
Hell was not knowing if your brother, or anyone else, was alive, but knowing their deaths were your fault.
**
Dean knew Hell, and wherever he was, this wasn't it. He felt whole and warm and clean. He wasn't howling with pain or shuttering as his own soul was flayed away. Dean blinked, eyes fluttering as he once again was met with white light. But this illumination was radiant and good, and sparkled like glitter. He was floating, arms and legs wafting like he was in an invisible pool, treading water. He wasn't tired and felt no pain. Dean could only see white and prisms of color as he tried to figure out where he was. For a moment, he hoped he was dreaming and Castiel's stoic face would appear to ominously deliver the biggest "SIKE" in history, but then he heard footsteps, purposeful and measured. The echoed in the cavern and soon, he could hear the squeaking of leather and the echo of footprints. Zachariah emerged as the light parted and shimmered behind him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and smiled smugly at Dean.
Dean dubiously wondered if this undefined mass of radiance was Heaven. "Where's St. Peter, the pearly gates?" Dean asked, his voice echoing off unseen walls.
Zachariah rolled his eyes. "You're not dead, Dean."
Dean flashed with disappointment, but recovered quickly. He was sick of carrying the fate of the world. "I've died a few times now. I'm not THAT slow on the uptake, Chuckles. Besides, Heaven just can't be a giant marshmallow. I mean, there are rides at Disneyland that are funner."
"Heaven is what you make it, Dean. But you may never see it."
"Color me surprised," Dean deanpanned.
The archangel laughed and pointed at Dean from his undefined perch. "You may be uncouth, disobedient little puppy, but you are funny."
"Glad to keep you entertained, Chuckles. If you don't mind," Dean gestured with his arms that rippled slowly. "I'd some, you know, gravity."
"I'm sorry, I'm a terrible host," Zachariah said.
There was no flutter of hands or significant movement, but suddenly Dean was moving without his control and drifted to sit in a soft black armchair that was painfully comfortable.
"Sam? Where is he?" Dean asked with a cautious slant of his head as he experimentally moved his limbs. There was no twinge or pain or drop of blood. They weren't even stiff.
"Oh, we'll get to that in a minute. First, I have to congratulate you. Bang up job you did stopping Lucifer's rising. All that talk about the power of humanity, I almost believed you could do it. Guess you're no David." He sneered.
"Left my slingshot in my other pants," Dean scowled and crossed his arms. "If you angels weren't sitting in your big white rooms with your wings up your ass just letting Lilith break the seals all willy nilly, he never would have risen in the first place! Now where is my brother?!"
"Not fair!" Zachariah stuck out his tongue with all the petulance of a five-year old. "You started it!" He sat down in a matching chair that appeared seamlessly from the nothingness around them. "That wasn't our plan, Dean. I already explained to you why he had to rise again, and you just went off half-cocked to try to save the landfill called earth. Disobeying Heaven is NOT something the company rewards," he said, his eyes flashing with darkness. "So, Deano, it's time for you to atone. And I'm sorry, kiddo, but I don't think you're gonna like it much."
Dean leaned forward, snarling at the angel. "I hate to break it to you, Roma Downey, but I've been to Hell and back, and there's nothing you can throw at me that I haven't already suffered. So you can bring your knives or your ball-gags or whatever you do, but it won't do a bit of difference. I'm not sorry."
Zachariah clapped a hand on Dean's shoulder winningly. "We don't torture people, Dean, this is Heaven after all. Well, it's an embassy of sorts." Zachariah amended. "As for teaching you a lesson, I think I'll give it the old college try. But you just hang tight while I go find my favorite ball-gag and get my game face on." He stood up. And the chairs disappeared. "It might take awhile, so hang tight."
And Dean was ebbing again, floating lightly in a place with no windows or walls, colors or sounds. His heart began to beat wildly and his mind whirled with thoughts of Sam and the world they'd left behind. He had no power, no control, no distraction, and worst of all, no gun. Dean started to panic.
**
Sam was burned out of his delirium, throat sizzling un unseen acid. The chains he was suspended by clinched and snapped taut. His mouth was pried open, and in the undulating darkness, he saw the sinister streak of demon black funneling into his mouth. It was like drinking pure cyanide, acid liquefying his esophagus. He gagged and retched, choking on pure evil as the tattoo on his chest prevented it from entering him and taking over completely. The mist surrendered, rolling back and away. Sam coughed and gurgled, spitting and hacking on residual evil. His instincts screamed at him to escape, to find Dean, but he was hanging, body swaying over the ground, vulnerable and weak. He could feel the muscles in his arms quivering; the chains that were knotted around his wrists digging into the flesh; the bones in his shoulders and elbows slipping and seperating from the weight. He panted in the darkness that hummed a demonic red, saliva dripping down his chin. The only sounds he heard was the steady drip of his own blood seeping from a deep gash in his thigh. The limb itself sparked with fiery pain that made him grit his teeth and shift his weight entirely to his left leg. He was dirty and terrified, wondering where Dean was, if he was alive. If his older brother even had a world to live in.
Sam felt hundreds of unhuman eyes on him, and he licked his lips and knew the shadows and the eerie black mist that smothered the light were disembodied demons, watching him, ghosting over his skin and face like a nefarious prayer. He wanted to pass out, but the adrenaline of the unknown kept his mercilessly aware of everything from the mounting thirst in his throat to his left shoulder that was slowly and agonizingly slipping out of the socket to the name on this lips that he mumbled over and over. And because of that, he tried to fight. His hands gripped the chain that held him and he took in a few steadying breaths and closed his eyes and concentrated on the chain that held him. He pushed himself up on the tip of his toes, tightening his muscles. The controlled movement caused agony to spark and pulse through his body, but Sam was doggedly focused. If demon blood did anything for him, it made Sam unimaginably strong-minded. The pain it caused was a not-so distant hum all over his body, but Sam needed to freedom, if only to see what he'd done to the world. The young Winchester used the tips of his fingers to examine his manacles, fingers cursorily feeling the length of the chains, searching for the lock or the hook that held him. If he knew was it was, he could free himself.
But he was thinking in the concrete terms of earth. He'd only realized that as his fingertips brushed over a smoothed chain tethered both of his wrists before spiraling upwards into nothing. There was no lock, no hook, no end to the chains that bound him. It was one solid piece, soddered together, branding him in steel.
A white-hot pulse dashed across his back, rocking the chain, crackling like thunder. Sam was breathless from it, mouth opened, lungs working for air as his body shutdown from the intensity of pain. It lashed out again, cleaving away the skin. Sam gripped the chain, knees buckling as he was whipped. Refusing to scream, Sam rocked and writhed, arched and hissed, waiting until he passed out, died, and it all started again. His entire body was burning with the invisible flares of black misery. He counted the cracks against his back and nearly laughed with relief when the lancing whips became controlled, measured blows to his thighs and calves. He saw a blurred silhoutte, free-formed and alien. It looked at him with empty eyes and a vicious smile.
"I know I'm being punished," Sam whispered, raw and weak, braced against pain. "Gimme all you got," he barked in a voice that was not unlike his brother's.
The figure leaned forward, hand sinking through his skin and around his heart, squeezing and squishing until his vision greyed and his eyes bulged and his blood streaked with evil. There was a slither inside his head, a litany of voices bundled into one. And it was then, as he heard what it said, that Sam scream, raw and loud.
**
Dean was nauseous and twitching from days without sleep or movement or sound. He was crying a bit too, tears falling down his chin before float off to join in the mind-searing shimmer of what could only be purgatory. His psyche was the scariest place he knew of, and it had been rattling perpetually. Grateful his experience on long stakeouts in silence, he knew when to shutdown. He mumbled under his breath, first Metallica songs, how to make silver bullets, all the words he could remember his mother saying, the rules of hunting, then it was just a name, a one-word prayer that he'd said his entire life, that pulled him back from stab wounds and infections and fevers and grief. Sam. Sam. Sam.
He could see him too, without concentrating too hard: Sammy as a baby, fat and happy, laughing with their mother. Sam as a child with a too big backpack and dark blue eyes. Sam as a spidery-limbed teenager, all angsty sighs and stupefying intelligence. Sam's sour face as Dean gave him his first shot of alcohol as they camped in Bobby's junkyard. Sam, wherever he was, was still his sanity.
"Aww, I hate to interrupt your walk down Winchester Lane , but I believe you owe me some atonement, bucko." Zachariah said jauntily.
Dean began to sink down and he lifted his left hand, middle finger extended.
The angel exploded into laughter. "I thought you'd lose your mind without any leather or machetes or threats to make. I'm impressed, you are a hard nut to crack, Winchester."
Dean suppressed a groan as he was once again seated in the buttery soft leather armchair. He rolled his neck and wiggled his toes. He blinked and there was an antique television in front of him, resting on an ornate wooden table. Zachariah plopped down in the chair next to him, crunching on a bowl of buttery popcorn. Dean gawked at the angel, his stomach rumbling with hunger. "Chuckles, you better watch those love handles."
"I know, I know," Zachariah agreed, mouth full. "I've been working out, but this, my friend, this will be worth an extra pound or two." He produced a remote out from nothing. "This movie is a fantastic drama filled with laughter and tears. And, Mr. My-Dog-Ate-My-Homework, pay attention, because I will expect a detailed report after the screening."
"Don't get your hopes up, Teach, I was terrible at English…too busy oogling the girls. Great at detention, though," Dean muttered as Zachariah flipped on the television. "Some things never change, I guess."
"You say detention; I say penance for betraying Heaven. Tomayto, tomahto."
The screen was fuzzy black with snow, but soon focused in a dark warehouse. The color was pristine and the camera began to focus in, on a blurry figure in the middle of the frame. Dean's stomach dropped. He gripped the sides of the chair, fingers cutting into the leather. He squinted, then cursed at the mop of brown hair.
"You see, Dean, you were right. You've taken and survived everything that's been thrown at you, except, well, those snarly little hellhounds, but you got an A for effort on that one," Zachariah said, patting Dean's shoulder. He leaned forward to menace in Dear's ear, "So, the only way we could truly make you sorry was to make your brother atone."
His head snapped up, eyes darkening, stomach fluttering with undeniable fear. "What? No! NO!" Dean's eyes reflexively filled with tears as he watched Sam, bloody and delirious, and bound in chains. His lips moved almost imperceptibly and his head lulled. He whimpered and shook from what had to be excruciating pain. "You said you didn't torture in Heaven." Dean hollered. "Stop! Let him go!"
Zachariah's eyes flashed. "He's not in Heaven. We picked up a practice from your kind, and out-sourced. Demons got 'em now."
He tore his eyes away and smoldering at the angel. "Let him go, Zachariah! NOW! He did what you wanted him to do, he killed Lilith. Do whatever you want to me, but please, let him go!"
"Oh, you big quitter, it's only beena few seconds. Keep watching, it'll get better."
Bloodshot green eyes turned back to the screen as Sam passed out, head dropping forward, knees bueckling. The telltale swirl of demons materialized into an ebbing form of a man and he plunged his hand into Sam's chest. His brother's gurgling screams sent Dean into a realm that was even worse than his time in Hell. Because while he was there, he was fortified by the fact that Sam wasn't. It was how he held on for thirty years of indescribable torture. He wrapped his arms around himself, feeling the scorching agony that caused Sam's eyes to roll back until they were nothing but milky white and his teeth to chatter.
In pitiful rebellion, Dean closed his eyes and refused to watch. He heard Zachariah's impatient sigh, and Dean sucked in a shocked breath when he once again lost control. The archangel bound him with that infuriating magic, rending his body so rigid, he couldn't blink or take a deep breath. He watched his brother writhe and whimper, pass out only to be carted back to consciousness by gruesome supernatural pain. And not being able to vocalize or even externally made it all the harder to take internally. His muscles were locked and his throat burned with bile that pooled in his throat. He choked on his own vomit, his brother's pain and his own glaring failure.
**
He hung there for eternities, spine stretching painfully, body weakened, eyes fluttering. But they wouldn't let sleep. Whenever his vision grayed and his head lulled with impending unconsciousness, Sam was jolted awake by an electric shock behind his eyes or a ghostly hand squeezing his heart or tugging on his organs. He would fly awake, tremoring or gagging from the visceral pain that gnawed so deep, it branded his soul. He knew what was happening, knew what they were doing and knew why. They shrieked with delight when shadows lashed out, striking him with their iron limbs, whipping him with linked chains, slapping him with hand made of knives.
All he could do is zone out and try to focus, hang on until he knew Dean wasn't back here, as soon as that happened, he could break, shatter into molecules that made up the biting wind. So he mumbled the name over and over. It was his Buddhist chant. It was his life-saving mantra. It was his water, his nourishment. Dean. Dean. Dean.
**
He was forced to watch for hours, imprisoned in his own flesh and bone. A gleeful Zachariah changed the channel on the old television set, and he saw Sam with a gun in his mouth, sitting over his mangled corpse; Sam dragging himself out of a burning house, bloody and broken on a hunt alone; Sam, drunk and raw wirh grief, being seduced by Ruby, her eyes flashing beetle black as Sam kissed her neck; Sam willingly drinking her blood.
Just as quickly as the paralysis descended, it lifted. Leaving Dean to tumble out of the chair, clutching his stomach, tearing at his hair. He was hysterical, nerves frayed like the ends of a raveled rope.
He whirled around, shaking, as he glared at Zachariah sat in his chair munching on popcorn. "I'm atoned, okay. I should have listened. I get it. Let my brother go."
"Nope," the angel sat back and licked the butter off his fingers.
"Please…you're killing him."
He waved him off. "Don't be so dramatic."
Dean risked a glance back at the screen. He had to see if Sam was alive, but he felt gutted as he watched him sway lifelessly, legs too tired to hold him up. The camera was now far way, blurring Sam's face, and the sound that had echoed throughout the space was suddenly gone. He couldn't see or hear if Sam was breathing, only that he was painted in his own blood. Dean gripped the sides of the television, clawing at the knobs. "Please, please, please."
"Look at that, you do have manners."
"How long has it been?" Dean asked, desperate. "How long as he been like that?"
"The standard sentence for a crime of this magnitude," Zachariah beamed. And said a word that wasn't English nor earthly. He rolled his eyes at Dean's bewilderment. "Three days, give or take. It doesn't convert exactly."
"Oh my…" Three minutes without air. Three days without water…
"God?" Zachariah supplied. "Sorry, he's mine."
Dean went ballastic, unleashing all of the venom he could muster onto the angel. In less than a second, he had his hand s around the angels throat, squeezing with wonderful, life-ending pressure. "And Sam is MINE. Let him go." He seethed.
Zachariah seemed bored by his violence. Dean waited, hoped for his face to darken with the cherry-hue or his eyes to bug out from strangulation, but he wasn't human. And beings—human or otherwise—tended to take attempts to end their lives pretty badly. With all of the strength Dean had in him, he let the angel go and even brushed the wrinkles out of his suit jacket.
Zachariah smile smugly, eyes glinting with victory. "Have you learned your lesson, Dean?"
"Yes! I'll write it in my own blood if I have to, Zachariah." He dropped his gaze downward submissively.
He crossed his arms and stood like a father scolding his son. "How do I know you're serious?"
Dean felt himself darken, the feral pitbull within him growl to the surface, but he reigned it in as much as he could, and played the last hand he had. "You still need me to kill Lucifer. And I won't do it without him. I don't care if the whole world burns up around me, I won't do it!" Dean raged.
"Spitfire! Gumption!" He yelled with a theatatrical flurry of jazz hands before his face molded into snarling disgust and flashed with hatred. "The fact that you, Heaven's warrior, stand by your demonic vampire of a brother is confounding."
Defiant and miltant, Dean stood up, feet firmly planted and all fear gone. He was the pawn in a gigantic war between Heaven and Hell and all he was asking for was his brother's life, and he would not be denied. "The fact that THIS is heaven is a little unsettling to me too, but I've dealt," he snarled. "And if you weren't holed up in your marshmellow tower gettin' your kicks watching the world END, you would've seen that my brother used his mojo to save my LIFE AKA your shot at killing Lucifer! I want my brother free, and I'm done waiting!"
Zachariah paused, tapping his fingers again his chin.
"My brother, Zachariah."
Dean barely noticed the angel roll his eyes before he was punted back into a world with visible walls and gravity and psychics that made sense. He was first aware of the weight of his body, the heft of his limp arms and head was made even heavy by a full-bodied throb of pain and the early pull of gravity. But there was a comforting smell—gun powder and sun-warmed vinyl—that had followed him around his entire life, following by the steady rocking and the luxurious rumble of his Impala.
"Dean?"
He felt the car shudder unevenly over the shoulder of the road and he was squinting at Bobby's haggard face, backlit by the light of the day.
Bobby placed a weathered hand on Dean's face, cupping his chin. "You with me, boy?"
Dean nodded, weak. "We gotta get to Sam," he croaked from his slumped position in the back seat.
Bobby's eyes widened with shock. "I'm workin' on it. First, I had to make sure you didn't kick the bucket."
Dean sat up and gazed out of the dusty windows of the Impala. The sun shined and there wasn't a cloud in the blue, blue sky. It was a beautiful day.
"When you Houdini-ed out of my house, I started putting out feelers with other hunters. After, well, ya know, it didn't take long to find you."
"Where are we?"
"New Jersey. You were out cold in a shed few miles from where the convent…used to be," Bobby supplied, handing him a bottle of water. "You were able to get into a clutch of trees, so no one found ya right away," he explained quickly. "I've been followin' omens to try to track down Sam. Think some demons got him. What the hell happened?"
Dean drank greedily and finally stopped when he needed air. His head pounded in the glinting sun, there was blood crusted in his right ear and his left leg was scraped and swollen. "Hell happened," he said, scanning the pastures and farmlands. "We have to find Sam, Bobby. Now."
He climbed out of the back seat and hobbled behind the wheel, an image of a factory pressed to the front of his brain. It was no place he'd even seen or ever been, but somehow, he knew where he was.
**
Dean bolted into the abandoned warehouse, heedless of Bobby's warnings, and complete unarmed, save for the exorcisms he spouted in-between screaming for Sam. He heard the scurrying of rats as he plummeted into the darkness. He was aware of nothing, but the massive empty space that didn't contain his brother. He kicked down rusted doors and crawled through eroding walls through muck and cobwebs and grime, until he reached a cavernous room where the ceiling was threaded with chains, the walls bedazzled in graffiti, the floor covered in dirt. Dean literally felt his heart stop as he laid eyes on Sam, hanging from chains just as he was in the television. He'd hoped it had just been a bit of angel trickery, but no, it was the will of Heaven.
And suddenly the psychics and planes of earth that had been so comforting were torturous, because Dean could only move so fast no matter how hard he pumped his arms and kicked his feet. Finally, he was inches away from his brother and Dean whimpered piteously. He'd seen Sam's corpse before, laid out on that dirty mattress in Cold Oak, and he looked better then. His skin was dusky gray, thin and brittle. And he seemed impossibly gaunt, the skin of his cheeks stretched over the bones of his face. His shirt had gone, his body was slicked with sweat, soiled with blood, mottled with bruises. Even though Sam didn't seem to be breathing, Dean lifted a shaking hand to his throat, pressing for a pulse. He needed one there, but everything he'd suffered and learned knew it wouldn't be. It had been too long.
Sam heaved a rattling, hitching breath. Before Dean could register movement, he was wrapped around Sam's torso, lifting up to release the pressure from his arms. He hollered for Bobby as he blindly reached to unchain him. His fingers didn't feel any discernable lock or hook. The entire length of the chain was continuous.
Dean Winchester bit his lip, digging in, and lifted until he heard the inexplicable jingle of chains and felt Sam's bound hands limply fall, thudding against his back. He staggered beneath his brother's weight, knees buckling as he struggled with his body. Stubbornly, he refused to fall. "We can do this, Sammy. Me and you."
He nudged Sam's bound arms over his head until the threaded around his neck. He cautiously shifted his body beneath Sam's until his head was resting on his shoulder. Sam was nearly four inches taller than Dean, and he was forced to backpedal, dragging Sam's feet behind him. Somehow, he balanced all two hundred and thirty pounds of Sam as he traipsed the yards out of the enormous factory and into the sun. He walked forward, propelled by adrenaline and the never-ending desire to keep his brother alive. It was a familiar feeling but one that had never been as explicit and unyielding as he was now.
Dean was sweating, knees and back aching, by the time he found Bobby, but he kept going, until he reached the car. Bobby ran ahead, pushing back the seats and helping Dean angle Sam into the backseat. Once they were both inside, Bobby sped down the highways, searching for a place to hole up. The older Winchester clutched his brother to his chest, hand over his heart that beat too fast under his palm. Sam's dry, cracked lips were still moving as they had with Zachariah and Dean leaned forward trying to hear was he was muttering. He finally broke when he heard it, felt Sam's breath on his ear as he intoned, "Dean, Dean, Dean."
"I'm here, Sammy. I'm right here," he said brokenly. "You did a good job getting me out. Who would have thought that juice of yours was a good thing, huh?"
Dean rubbed Sam's cheek, ignoring the blood that trickled down his legs. For no reason at all, Sam reared against him, arching and gasping. His entire body was as taut as a guitar string. Dean closed his eyes, holding Sam through it, lifting him up, and pulling him in tight, like he did when Sam was a child, scared of the monsters in the darkness. "It's okay, Sammy. It's okay."
Sam's body sagged, deathly still for the longest moment of Dean's life before his eyes slid open, and he stared dumbly at Dean's face. Dean immediately snatched the bottle of water Bobby had given him, and gently propped Sam up, coaxing him to drink. He dribbled a bit in his mouth, but Sam only sputtered and let it fall down his chin. "Swallow, Sammy, please."
"Here!" Bobby barked, handing Dean a cooler. Dean had forgotten he was there.
The cooler was filled with ice made from holy water. Dean grabbed a tiny piece with his fingers and rubbed it over Sam's lips. He smiled tearfully when Sam's swollen tongue threaded through his teeth, taking the piece. Dean fed him more, as much as Sam would take.
Sam's eyes locked on Dean's, and they were dulled with surrender, with indifference—something Dean had never seen before. He smiled down at his brother, unable to comprehend anything but this moment and pulling Sam with him into the next. "I got you, little brother. I got you."
**
Sam knew the moment he'd escaped Hell. The abyss, built on torture and fortified in steel, crumbled into one with achingly bright sunshine, and colors that dripped and gleamed like jewels. Light glinted off Dean's amulet, kaleidoscoping before him. His heartbeat thumped pleasantly against this cheek, strong and hard, just like Dean. He shifted, closing his fingers around his thread-bare tee-shirt, anchoring himself to the only thing he believed in. Blanketed by the sun of the day, the power of the Impala, and his arms of his brother, Sam Winchester let go.