Between Angels and Demons

by Kaiyo no Hime

I own no part of the Supernatural franchise. All characters belong to their respective owners.

He remembered hell. After all that had happened, that was still happening, he tried to avoid telling anyone that he still remembered hell. He remembered finally caving in and stepping off the rack. Of picking up the knife and carving into the next victim in line, of enjoying the feel of flesh parting and muscles snapping as he played with their still screaming forms.

Oh, he remembered hell, and he still dreamed of it. It was not a comfortable escape, it was hell after all, but it was nearly pleasant in how predictable the dreams were. The torture a finely crafted art form, the pleading voices a chorus, and bodies a canvas upon which he practiced his skill. It was not a good thing to become so used to, but it was one of the few things that remained the same as time changed around him.

He had tried to adapt to suburban life with Lisa and Ben, and had done well at it. But every night the rack had been there, waiting for him. The faces were not usually faded memories, but people he knew and loved. He had carved and tortured Ben while his mother watched on, screaming long after Ben was nothing but a mutilated corpse. Sometimes, before Sam had really come back, his brother would join him in the new family practice.

Two brothers in hell, trained by the finest. He could almost imagine John being proud. If they weren't evil sons of bitches that were too busy torturing people to save them. But, outside of that, they worked well together, he thought. Their hunter training coming far more handy there than it ever had in the real world.

It was easy to hide the nightmares from Lisa. He had saved the world and lost his brother. His entire life had been hunting and killing monsters. She understood his thrashing sleep and his sudden rise to wakefulness, and didn't ask questions about it. She had explained, once, when he had asked in the beginning, that the look in his eyes after he woke up wasn't human. That it was frightening the things he had carried over from the other side with him. So she didn't ask, and he never told. They just knew.

The first time he had dreamed of Castiel had been pure torture. While he could face putting the humans he knew in life against the wall, there was something so wrong about torturing an angel, even one who had fallen as far as he had. He was still pure, still a bright light against the darkness, that it was more torture to Dean than to Castiel to make those cuts. He had made the death nearly painlessly quick that night, a quick gutting of the abdominal cavity. His organs spilling out around him, and Dean's trembling hand on the knife.

But, unlike the other souls, he never screamed. He just looked on at Dean, sadly, and nodded. No begging, no words, no chorus. Just those sad blue eyes going dark in the trapped hell of Dean's mind.

Dean had nearly refused to sleep for a week after that, it had unhinged him so. He had found solace in Lisa's medicine cabinet and foreign Latin names that promised rest without remembering. He should have sought them out earlier, he told himself. He should never have gotten used to thinking that dreaming of hell was a normal thing. Shouldn't have had to wait until his subconscious carved up an angel until he sought help.

The pills had worked, for a little while, and life had seemed better. No more reminders of what he had gone through, he only had to think about life in the present. Worry about cooking dinner on time, getting to work, helping out with the bills. The normal, suburban issues that did not cross paths with vampires or werewolves or the apocalypse.

And then Sam had come back, and it had started all over again. He couldn't risk taking sleeping aids while out hunting, he never knew when he might need to be alert and awake in a second. He couldn't risk the side effects on the job. Couldn't risk letting Sam die, again, while out on a hunt.

So the nightmares had returned. And Sammy, the new, more improved, soulless Sammy standing right there with him. The family business was going strong in both Dean's head and the real world, and he was beginning to wish something would just kill him. This tortured dual life was getting harder to hide; where Lisa had accepted it, Sam did not. He poked and prodded and tore at Dean because, deep down, he didn't really have a conscious to care with when Dean said no.

And Castiel, beautiful, tortured, silent Castiel was showing up on the rack more and more often. And it was getting harder and harder to wonder why he didn't turn and just stab Sammy instead, and let the angel go. He didn't want him there, even at the very edge of psychosis, he didn't want his blue eyes staring back at him. He knew it was wrong, against every bone and fiber of his being, for him to just take the punishment the brothers doled out. Carving wicked words into his skin, stripping flesh layer by delicate layer, carving out his eyes.

Anything to make him look away and scream. Anything to make Dean stop feeling like the nightmare demon he was. But nothing ever worked. Not even the breaking of his wings, the delicate bones snapping like tiny twigs under his deft fingers. Just silent pity. Even a tear, once, when there had been no eyes with which to look down upon him.

He longed for the days when he could kick back a medical combo with a whiskey chaser and lose himself to the world. Lose himself from himself. He knew the nightmares were what he really was, an animal. He had been pulled unjustly from hell as a way of leading Sam to breaking the last seal. If the angels had really been against the apocalypse they would have left him to burn and rot, and eventually he would have been ended by a hunter's blade.

But now, now he was flesh and bone in a world where his brother was worse than him, and the angel, his angel, was miserable. The civil war in heaven was torturous, he could tell. While Castiel never said anything, he could see it in those haunted eyes, could hear it in his voice. And then he would turn away as he helped himself to a glass of whatever liquor was lying around before flying away. The old, righteous, pious Castiel would never have drunk and flown. But he had been killed as well, brought back, and had lost faith in everything. Even Dean was a torture to him, he could tell.

Nothing more than a reminder of what he had believed in and had lost. Why he bothered coming back at all Dean would never know. It certainly wasn't to receive help or compassion. It wasn't a good day, and there was no whore to kill.

The dream was different this time. Instead of the smokey darkness in the never ending caverns there was a wrought iron patio table. With two chairs, facing each other, and nothing but a soft glow of white. It might have been hell, but Dean wasn't familiar with this form of torture. He was more of a hands on man than a psychological killer, though there were art forms enough between demons.

"This isn't hell," a voice behind him said softly, and he turned to see Castiel behind him.

Soft, sad, pitiful Castiel. It was the first time he had heard his voice in his dreams in ages.

Dean just stared as he walked past, and sat down in the far chair, motioning Dean to take a seat as well. Carefully, and cautiously, Dean sat, looking around for the fire and brimstone that was sure to follow. He had had the same dream saga for over a year, there was no way it was going to simply end now. Not like this, not with an apology from his own mind over tea and biscuits.

"Dean, I do assure you, this is not hell," Castiel repeated.

With a brief gesture a bottle of fine liquor and two crystal tumblers appeared. Dean scoffed, and then laughed at the liquor. Of course it wouldn't be tea and biscuits in his head, he was always a drinking man. Not well balanced, but always well fed.

"Dude, there's nothing else in my head but hell," Dean reminded him, pouring himself a large drink and throwing it back in a single gulp. He snorted, even in his head the whiskey tasted cheap.

Castiel frowned at him, his eyes as sad as they always were in his mind, holding the tumbler gently in his hand. It was an easy tell that it wasn't the real Cas invading his dreams. The real Cas, not this mental projection of Castiel, would never bother to be delicate with his liquor. He preferred straight from the bottle when he drank. No need for the formalities of a cup, it wouldn't hold enough to do more than annoy his throat anyway.

So this is what his own mind had stooped to; torturing him instead of letting him put the knife to others. What need was a human host to someone as insane as himself, after all? It would be better to kill the physical form and drop back down to where he really belonged. To let himself be true to his nature, to revel and enjoy the animal within.

"Stop it," Castiel snapped, slamming the delicate glass down and glaring at him, "You are not a demon!"

"Take a knife to you to prove otherwise," Dean shot back, pouring another drink. No hangover in dreams, right?

"Dean Winchester, I did not pull you from the grasping fires of hell only to watch you throw yourself back in," Castiel growled, "I pulled you back out not only because those were my orders, but because you were a righteous man!"

Dean didn't bother pouring a third drink and just went straight from the bottle instead. The screaming torment of his nightmares had unnerved him, but this touched him in a far more deep and painful way than he could ever imagine. Seeing Cas so earnest in a false belief was worse than all the salt in the world. It was wrong to think of the angel this stupid, this head strong. It was wrong to watch him think that Dean truly was a righteous man.

"What will it take to get through to you," Cas snapped, grabbing the bottle from Dean's hands and throwing it to the side.

He could hear the sound of it crashing, but there was no evidence it had ever existed. Even the burnt taste on his tongue had disappeared. He glared back at Cas for that. It had been a cheap liquor, but at least it had been something.

"I already stepped down off the rack, I don't see the point of all this," Dean snapped back.

What was his mind trying to tell him with this new insanity? White rooms and angry angels weren't his vision of hell, no matter how badly it hurt. He had already known he was a demon, there was no point in rubbing it in. Was he supposed to torture the other man here and now? Supposed to roar and rage and prove his inhumanity in this odd setting?

"Dean, please," Cas sighed, "You can't keep doing this to yourself night after night. It's killing you."

Dean snorted at that.

"It's killing me watching you."

His eyes were sad again when he said that. No longer angry, no longer glaring, just sad. Those same sad eyes that looked down upon him as he drove knives into his skin, those eyes that still cried long after they were burned and carved out. Those blue eyes that would haunt him long after he woke up and looked into the mirror to tell himself it was all just a dream. Those same sad blue eyes that did more damage to him than anything he could inflict upon another soul.

"Then just let me die already," Dean whispered, looking away.

Cas didn't say anything, but the white expanse and the table began to fade away. Dean Winchester didn't dream for the rest of the night, the first dreamless sleep he had had in months.

Sam stared at him oddly when he woke up in the morning, analyzing him as he yawned and stretched. Having him sit around the room, not needing any sleep, disturbed Dean far more than he would ever admit out loud. He didn't like the idea of anything watching him sleep, least of all the same man that stood beside him in his nightmares, that shared the same torture gene.

"No dreams," Sam finally asked.

"No dreams," Dean replied sleepily, heading for the bathroom. No need to clue anyone in on his real nightmares. Not when the normal ones were just so much more fun.

A quick splash of cold water on his face and already he was feeling better. What was there to say, that he dreamed of people he knew? That wasn't unusual. Cas angry with him over something wasn't new. His mind had just decided to settle into another routine at night, that was all.

"I meant every word of it," Castiel said, startling Dean as he appeared behind him suddenly.

Dean looked at his eyes in the mirror, those same blue eyes that still haunted him in the waking world, and sighed.

"I know you do, Cas," he replied, "But so do I."

Castiel stared back at him, reaching out slowly, and then pulling his hand back as he disappeared in a flurry of wings. They both meant what they said, and that was the problem. There was no relenting in the real world, not between angels and demons.

This was a little darker than I usually write, but it was floating around in my head for a day or two. Any comments or reviews about the piece would be most appreciated.