A/N June 1, 2008: Since I decided to continue this story (in fact, turn it into a series), I thought that reorganizing the first two stories into two chapters of a WIP was a better format for fanfiction dot net. Sorry if this reorganization is confusing! Emrys
SPOILERS HERE!: Specifically for "No Rest for the Wicked", but all of seasons two and three are fair game.
A/N: I hated the whole deal thing. Hated, hated, hated it. I've been tense all this past season. And then, when the season ended, I got inspired and wrote a fic. Unbelievable. Lots of bad language in here—just to warn you. And again, major SPOILERS!
Enjoy the burn!
:)
Emrys
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the television program Supernatural. That all belongs to the CW and Eric Kripke, and whole bunch of other people who are lucky enough to be involved with this show. I'm not receiving any sort of revenue for this fic.
Coming Back
Sam's crying. Crying, bright tears that glisten in the glow of moonlight. It's a shame he saw the dogs take his brother that way; it's just too much for him.
He shivers and moans as he takes his brother's bloody body into his arms. The tears mix with the red rivers that drain from Dean. It's as if his blood is trying to follow him into Hell.
Sam shivers and moans and shakes with the energy that fought off Lilith and which now coalesces into an invisible fire. Invisible, but warm and soothing, nonetheless.
And powerful.
The power grows, but Sam barely notices. He knows why Dean sold his soul, because he'd be doing it now if the right situation presented itself.
Lucky for him, those individuals capable of presenting the right situation are too busy slavering over Dean's soul to bother with Sam right now.
Anyway, the power grows and grows until it pushes out of Sam and into Dean. Sam cries out, because he finally notices that something weird and unusual is happening.
The lifeless body in his arms rolls and rocks with the strength of the power being forced into it. Sam can't bear to see the abomination of Dean departed, so he closes his eyes and bends his head low into the soft leather of his recently deceased and Hell-bound brother.
The leather still smells of Dean, and Sam just can't stand it because it smells of iron-rich blood as well.
The power grows, and Dean's body rocks, and then there is a silence and blankness that Sam doesn't try to understand. It's like what happened, very recently, when Lilith tried to attack him. But this time he blacks out completely and for several minutes.
When he wakes up, he's disoriented. Confused. So when he sees Dean looking at him—quietly staring—when he sees that soul looking at him from out of eyes no longer lifeless, it doesn't hit him at first that he's just performed a miracle.
It takes another few beats of his rapidly beating heart for a particular impulse to cross the critical synapse in his brain. When it does, it feels as if he's been struck by lightening. It feels surreal, and fantastical and oh, so joyous all at the same time.
"D—Dean?" he whispers. He barely breathes, waiting for the impossible to become that way again.
It's not until Dean chokes out the precious name, not until Sam hears the word that has made his life real for as many years as he's been alive, that he begins to believe what he sees.
"Sammy?"
The word is choked and painful, but blessed and best. Sam screams and laughs and cries all at the same time. He practically scampers to lift Dean's still-broken body into the embrace of his arms.
He doesn't question the miracle.
Such optimism.
Such foolishness.
But he doesn't question, because he thinks he's just saved his brother from a fate worse than death, saved him from eternal hellfire and all that shit. It's written over his entire face.
Sam loves Dean, so Sam saves Dean.
Simplicity.
Stupidity.
Because he didn't just save his brother from the torture of brimstone. Not by a long shot. Dean's soul has been crumpled and burned, torn open and sewn together with its pieces out of place, gouged and scraped, bitten and plucked.
I know, because I saw it all happen. Down there in Hell, I swung by, on occasion, to watch interested parties take, well, interest.
oOo
Time in Hell is variable. Pockets of that nightmare realm move slowly, and others move fast. Time is a tool used to expedite pain or to slow down the procedure of its occurrence. It allows the single-minded devils to relish drawn out, exquisite agony of an unmentionable nature, while it simultaneously lets other more creative demons take their enjoyment from a wide variety of tortures applied in an efficient way.
It's Hell, after all. Time is irrelevant when eternity stretches in all directions.
Dean's time in Hell, though only moments in Sam's reality, expanded across two decades. Maybe even three decades. Like I said, time is hard to figure down there in the afterlife of evil. But it most definitely was a long time, and he wasn't saved no matter how much Sam wants to believe otherwise.
When Lilith took me out of my pretty body, she did send me away, just like she told Sam. Far away. But then Sam got her, and it didn't take me long to escape after that sweet exorcism. She was still around, but weak, scared, and easy to avoid. And that's just what I did, even though I was weaker than she was.
So I managed to visit Dean, when he was still stuffed with hooks, stretched by chains, and screaming Sam's name. I snuck up behind him and hollered, "Boo!"
He jumped, and his soul bled a little more. His soul, so new and shiny and oh, so terribly pretty. But it bled, then, like so much meat at a slaughterhouse.
"You'll forget him," I warned. "They'll flay him from your soul here in the dark."
"Ruby," he said, all panic and rolling eyes.
"It's funny how everyone in that other place thinks Hell is full of fire," I mused, ignoring him for the moment. "I never understood it, considering just how dark this place actually is."
I studied him, and he stared at me, disbelieving and sick. I decided to humor him, well, as much as you can in that bad place.
"Yep, it's me," I said, acknowledging my demon self to him.
"Fuck off," he whispered, hanging his head.
Half angry, half amused, I laughed sharply.
"You don't fool me, baby, not here where all souls are purified straight down to their soft, gooey centers. You don't fool me for a second. You're happy to see a familiar face."
He was fresh meat trying to be tough there in Hell. He still remembered enough of his humanity to insult me.
"Dream on," he spat.
"Whatever. You just hang out here for a while," I said, the sound of pretty pouting and fluttering eyes in my voice. "Here's where they start stripping your memory away. Sam's not even gonna be a candle smoke of thought by the time they're done with you."
He tried to look fierce and failed. He knew I was right.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, devastated. He was so tasty looking, and the demons were going to have fun with him, no doubt about it.
I leaned in and smacked my lips close to his bloody ear.
"You need to remember him. No matter what, remember Sam," I whispered, barely a breath as I tried to hide my words in a place where everyone and every thought is stripped to become open and naked.
"What?" he asked, shocked. He tried to move his head so he could look at me, but I stayed close and wouldn't let him see.
"Let them take everything else. They're going to get it anyway. Let them think they've even taken Sam. Believe it yourself if you can. But don't forget him. Not really, not where it counts. Push his spark deep and down where it will take time for them to touch it. Do what I say."
"Will it save me?" he asked, a small flicker of pathetic hope escaping him. "Will it keep me from turning into a demon?"
I backed away to consider him and his stupidity. I blinked and shook my head in disgust.
"You'll become a demon, there's no stopping that," I said, shattering his fragile foolishness into ash. "But if you're strong enough, you could turn like me," I added.
He closed his eyes, shook his head. The true and yawning demon in me wanted to laugh, but I didn't set it free. Instead, I pulled his head back by tearing at his hair, and I forced him to look at me.
"Sam," I said. "Keep his memory close. Keep that. They'll be nothing else."
oOo
Sam's fire cauterized the wounds plaguing Dean's body. The bleeding stopped instantly, but Dean's still weak, practically unconscious. He can't speak, not really. All he seems capable of is muttering one word, over and over.
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy."
Sam's obviously disconcerted. Even I can see it, weak as I also am. I'm forced to watch from a dark corner of the room. Forced to stick to the shadows, because I'm too frail to participate in events.
"Shhh, shhh, shhh," Sam soothes. He lifts Dean in his arms as if his brother is a small child. Dean's not small, and Sam, so recently bereaved, stumbles under the very real weight of his brother. He smiles, actually smiles, when he realizes that the burden of flesh means Dean's back and alright and a-okay.
The fucking idiot. If I was given more time, if I was stronger, I'd punch him in the face for being so ridiculous.
I'd punch him hard.
Sam carries Dean outside. He ignores the corpses in the house, ignores the traumatized living. He's born enough responsibility for these strangers, and it's time to take care of his own. He leaves the house, and through a cracked windowpane I glimpse him gently carrying Dean away, up the street somewhere past my seeing.
I can't follow them any further. Not now. I'll find them later after I've rested up.
I have plans.
oOo
When I found him later, he wasn't totally gone, not yet. But he was in the pit.
Here's a newsflash: I don't like the pit. Too many bad memories simmer there.
Most demons relish a chance to thrash at a soul in the pit. Every soul there is defenseless, feeble, drooling on itself in pain and self-pity. That's the best kind of soul for a demon.
Demons eat that shit up. Lick at the sweaty edges of the pit's torn souls. Lick and grunt and feed their need.
Dean was being fed upon when I snuck to the pit's edge. Four demons nibbled at his hands and the skin on the back of his thighs. They were enjoying themselves.
He was just screaming.
A lot.
I waited until the demons got bored and then made my way down to him. Part of me wanted a taste, because he was still a bit shiny and pretty. But I restrained myself and drew near.
"Ruby," he said. It was a simple statement with no emotion behind it. He had lost his faith long ago and no longer saw me as hope's vessel.
"Yep, me again. Having fun, killer?" I asked coyly.
He ignored the question but struggled in doing so. His soul was scraped raw, and its dredges were exposed. He was so prettily, prettily wrecked.
"Where'd you go? After Lilith took you, I mean?" he asked between painful gasps.
"What a silly question," I said, almost surprised. "Why would you want to know something like that?"
"Curious, I guess. There's not that much to do but think while they're having their fun. I was just wondering what happened to you."
"Awww, ain't you sweet. You actually care." I ventured to be sarcastic.
"Don't get all worked up, darlin'. I still hate your guts, but I could use the distraction."
I laughed.
"Honey, when some bitch high up in the food chain is gunning for you, you don't get sent to anyplace pleasant here in the underworld," I said, feeling my eyes harden.
"Did it hurt?" he asked, face blank and pale.
"A little," I said, shrugging.
"Good," he replied, biting.
He smiled at me to blunt the sharpness of his words. That smile was a miracle. A smile. In Hell. Wonders will never cease, I suppose, and wasn't this Winchester turning into something interesting?
"How'd you get here?" he asked, grunting the words out. He was obviously in pain from some torn piece I couldn't see.
"I know my way around," I said, not willing to hand out any of my secrets.
"Why're you here?" he asked as the sweat began to pour from his body. From the increase in his discomfort, I knew the others were coming.
"I've come to ask you a question," I said, businesslike and purposeful.
"Fire away."
He was trying hard not to scream, and his eyes were beginning to roll in their sockets again.
"What's the name of your brother?"
"What?" he asked. "What are you talking about?"
He was irritating me. I wanted to make sure he remembered, so I grabbed his fire-lashed shoulders and shook him.
"Your brother. Dean, what is the name of your brother?" I asked, shaking him hard enough to force out the scream he was still trying to keep in.
"SAM!" he yelled, and then said, more quietly, "My brother's name is Sam."
He sobbed, and I watched him for a little while. I saw that he wasn't as strong as he was pretending to be, that parts of him were missing even though he remembered me and remembered Sam.
I left when a greasy creature with many heads began to scrabble its way down the pit to have its own sort of fun. I recognized it and its crab-like claws from my own first years in Hell.
It's hard to forget something that can cause quite so much pain.
oOo
Bobby Singer, the redneck, comes to the small, abandoned house where the Winchesters stay. I'm still lurking in the dark corners, peeking and trying to see what comes next. Bobby's competent but irritating. I try to stay out of his way, because he knows too much. I don't think he'd appreciate my presence.
He brings blood with him. Type specific, whatever that is. Blood is blood, to me. It doesn't matter what type it is, all of it is red and shiny and smelling of metal. Yummy and sweet to my demon tongue. I could use some now. If only I could swallow a little of it down, my strength would be appeased. At least somewhat.
But Dean needs blood, a lot of it. His body is dry from the lack. His lips are cracked from dehydration, his skin is bleached white. There are dark circles, like bruises under his eyes. Bandages cover his torso, his legs, and his arms. He looks like a mummy.
The bandages hide the scars. Dean's wounds, terrible as they were, are practically healed. That's Sam's doing. Sam's power did all that healing, and it's still working, even now.
I knew what could happen when I whispered Sam's name in Dean's tormented ears down in the crushing weight of Hell. I knew what Sam's power might do. But even I didn't expect this much so fast.
Two days, and the hounds' work has been undone.
Beautiful.
Dean even managed to escape his demonic fate, and quite frankly, it's truly unbelievable how lucky some assholes are.
Dean's tense and his eyes wander about. He's conscious but not quite cogent. He refuses to look at the damage to his body. Whenever Sam is close, he relaxes, yet if Sam attempts to remove the bandages Dean panics.
The devastation of his body only reminds him of the worse devastation of his soul. He can't look at himself and stay sane.
Knowing what I know, of what's been done to him, I'm not sure how he's managing it—staying sane—even now. Despite being forced to crawl around in the shadows, I'm still a demon. Hell isn't pleasant, but I've learned how to maneuver through its dark corridors. Dean was just turning truly evil down there in the shady realm when he was saved by Sam. Now he's turned human again, and I don't know how he's keeping his mind at home in his pretty, pink brain.
Sam's special. And I know why. That's my secret for right now. I won't share.
But the more I see of Dean, the more valid I find my suspicions.
Dean's special. I don't know why. That's his secret for right now.
Maybe one day he'll share.
oOo
When I came back the next time, Dean wasn't talking anymore. With a wave of my hand, I forced away the creatures that were crawling over him and chomping on his remaining juicy spots. The monsters were smaller than the demons, but warped with cold fish heads and fat rat bodies. They were big enough to get in my way. With them gone, I was able to lean in closer.
"Dean?" I asked, not totally concerned but curious anyway. Dean interested me then, and he still does now. But he only makes reaching my goals easier; they're still attainable without him.
"Dean?" I asked again. He stared blankly, not recognizing me, not recognizing his own name. "Hey, anyone in there?" I asked in a sing-song voice.
I tapped him cruelly on his forehead. There was no response, not even an eye twitch.
"Didn't think it would happen to you, did you, you stupid fuck?" I asked him.
I was inexplicably angry with him but couldn't be too harsh. Sooner or later, this sort of thing happened to everyone here. It had happened to me, long ago. I even remember most of it. It's not a pleasant feeling when your soul is slowly, inexorably twisted and chucked inside out so that all the vital, tasty bits are vulnerable to attack.
His edges were stripped clean, and he was down to the bareness of bony humanity. It wasn't going to take much longer to blacken his soul completely and turn it into a sooty demon cloud.
I leaned in until I was brushing against the hellfire still caressing him.
"Sam," I whispered, and my curiosity peaked.
He came back then, for a little while. I could see him there around his own eyes. But it wasn't long before he went away again.
"That's right, baby," I said, slapping his soul and adding to the burn. "You remember Sammy."
oOo
Lilith surely did take a lot from me, so I'm still crawling in the shadows many months after Dean's returned to his brother's tender clutches. This is why night is the best time for me to spy on my pet project. There are plenty of shadows to curl and twist in, to peer and pry from.
Dean's lying on a broken cot, covered by a moth-holed, army blanket. His pillow is so flat, it's basically useless. But his bed is better than Sam's, because little brother had to be happy with the floor. Down there on broken boards, Sam's large frame is bunched up inside a sleeping bag.
It's quiet, so quiet I can almost hear the moon drifting its way across the nighttime sky. Its pale light shines in through a small window and casts the boys' faces in silver and shadow.
The quiet breaks when Dean begins to moan in his sleep.
Soon, he's writhing on the cot, pulling at his hair, groaning and drooling. It's not long before he starts screaming. He sits straight up in bed, and his eyes are open but he's not seeing anything other than whatever images his nightmare forces on him.
He screams and screams and screams and isn't about to stop anytime soon.
Sam is awake and beside his brother before Dean's spittle can even fall to the floor. He crushes Dean against him, but Dean still keeps on screaming.
Bobby runs into the room with pure panic on his disheveled face. He shares a desperate look with Sam, who shakes his head and continues using physical contact to try drawing Dean out of his stupor.
Bobby comes closer. Sam's way isn't working, so the older hunter reaches over and grabs Dean's ear. He twists it, and Dean flails against Sam's chest. The screaming stops. Dean's eyes open, and he's awake. Sort of.
I can see by the look on Sam's face that he wants to voice an objection to Bobby's harsh treatment. But he doesn't get a chance, because Dean suddenly flops to the side of the cot and heaves bile and more spit to the floor. A perverse part of me laughs at his weakness, and Singer's attention is suddenly fixed on my dark corner.
I control myself and sink further into the shadows, beyond the reach of the old man's senses.
In the meantime, Dean's upchuck ends. Sam draws his hand through his brother's damp hair.
"C'mon, man. Let's get you up."
Sam and Bobby maneuver Dean's body so that he's lying on his back again (Dean's shivering is going to be the end of that dilapidated cot, I can tell). Dean starts repeatedly moaning Sam's name again, and the sound reminds me of my first conversation with him in Hell. He was screaming then, but it was still Sam's name.
"Calm down, Dean. It's okay," says Sam.
Dean snaps out of it completely then and realizes where he is and who he's with.
"God, sorry," he whispers. He sits up. One hand clutches at Sam's shoulder, but the other supports his own body.
"No problem," Sam and Bobby say, almost simultaneously.
"I'll be all right in a minute," Dean says. His breathing is harsh, but it's slowing down.
"Not a problem," says Bobby.
"Take your time," says Sam.
Dean follows Sam's advice, but it only takes a few minutes before he's lying down again, fast asleep. Bobby leaves, and Sam watches over his brother.
It's then when I realize I have faith in these two Winchesters. I have to laugh at the sick joke that is me. The fact is that even though demons take pride in their lies, we always recognize the truth. And the truth really is that I have faith in these two sorry fucks. Me, a faithless demon, discovering faith in the most fallible of creatures. That's just fucking hysterical.
I study Sam who is studying Dean, and I know for sure Dean will come back from this. Despite the circumstances, Dean's soul has been touched by a speck of angel's power. And when a soul—no matter its torment—is touched by that sort of thing, it's soothed and healed and strengthened.
Dean's been smashed by the hottest flames of all, but he'll be tempered under Sam's numinous influences. When all is said and done Dean will be a weapon, and the first of his kind.
He's not ready yet, but he will be soon. And then, maybe then my plans will bear fruit.
My plans. Are you curious about them? Well, it's too bad for you, then isn't it? Because there's no law, natural or supernatural, that compels me to tell the likes of you.
Besides, the trite say patience is a virtue. Just this once, take their advice. Try to be virtuous. If you're very unlucky, you'll see, eventually, what my scheming brings.