Dean looked through the barred slot toward Sam (the thing that looked like Sam) and tried to envision a world where he killed his brother. He knew what he had to do, logically. Knew that there were lines this Sam was willing to cross— had already crossed— that made him a danger. He tried to imagine slitting Sam's throat, and that made the tattered edges of his own soul curl up and whimper. He couldn't kill Sam. He just. Couldn't.
He closed the window and walked out of the panic room. He closed the door to the stairs behind himself and spent a long moment staring it down; it felt like running away. When he turned around and saw Death sitting at Bobby's table, a spread of hotdogs and pop resting within easy reach, hope surged within him before suspicion took its place.
"Dean," Death greeted him, far-too cheery for Dean's peace of mind. He gestured at the chair next to him. "Join me."
Dean crossed the distance between them as Death moved one of the wrapped dogs in front of Dean. "Brought you one from a little stand in Los Angeles known for their bacon dogs." Dean hesitated, staring at the spread on the table as Death chewed his food. "Sit," Death ordered, uncompromising. He took another bite of his hotdog.
Dean sat. "Wow, what's with you and cheap food?" he asked, trying desperately to lighten his mood.
Death raised his eyebrows. "I could ask you the same thing," he said, unflappable. He looked at Dean. "' thought I'd have a treat before I put the ring back on." Dean took the ring out of his pocket and stared at it. It looked harmless, the white of its stone dull in the dim light. "Heavier than it looks, isn't it? Sometimes you just want the thing off. But you know that." He might as well have been talking about the weather, for all the emphasis he gave his words. He poured his beer into a plastic cup, tilted carefully to prevent foam. The bottle clinked against the table when he put it down. "Not hungry?" he asked when Dean made no response.
Dean was sick of playing around. "Look. I think you know that I flunked." It hurt to say the words, to admit to his inevitable failure. He put the ring down on the table, well within Death's reach. "So there. Oh and by the way, I uh, I sucked at being you. I screwed up the whole natural order thing, but I'm... sure you knew about that too." He couldn't look at Death as he spoke, but he felt the power of his gaze. Dean looked down at the table; all he could think about was the fact that he'd messed up Sam's last chance for salvation. Damned his soul to an angel gangbang for all eternity.
"So if you could go back, would you simply kill the little girl, no fuss, no stomping your feet?" It was the same tone of voice Dad had used when asking Dean to report on a hunt, like Death already knew the answer but wanted to hear Dean say it.
"Knowing what I know now, yeah." Dean stared Death full in the face. He couldn't hide from the truth of that: it was his own stupidity, his own lack of foresight, which had made him fail. He wouldn't hide from that.
"I'm surprised to hear that." Death took a long pull on his beer. "Surprised, and glad."
Which wasn't comforting at all. "Yeah, well, don't get excited, I would have saved the nurse, okay, that's it." His explanation trailed off at the end, the force he'd put into the words unable to hold up under the weight of his guilt. He stared at the table.
"I think it's a little more than that." The pull of Death's gaze had Dean meeting it again. "Today, you got a hard look behind the curtain. Wrecking the natural order's not quite such fun when you have to mop up the mess, is it? This is hard for you, Dean. You throw away your life because you've come to assume it'll bounce right back into your lap. The human soul is not a rubber ball. It's vulnerable, impermanent, but stronger than you know. And more valuable than you can imagine. So. I think you've learned something today." Death had leaned forward during his little speech, earnest. He sat back once he was finished and finished the last of his beer with a satisfied air of a lesson well taught. He might as well have wiped his hands together in completion.
Which was bullshit. "You wanna know what I think?" Dean said, voice gathering the strength it had been missing before. The best defense was a good offense, and Dean's offense was a skill he'd honed for years. "I think you knew that I wouldn't last a day." He stared at Death, but now Death was the one unwilling to meet his eyes.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said. For an immortal cornerstone of the universe, he was a shit liar.
Dean kept pushing. "I lost, fine. But at least have the balls to admit it was rigged from the jump."
Death didn't buckle under the pressure. His neck was straight, chin raised with pride, as he turned and looked at Dean. "Most people speak to me with more respect," he said quietly, the threat behind his words palpable.
Dread ripped down Dean's spine. "I didn't mean—"
Death raised a finger and silenced Dean. "We're done here." Bitterness flooded through him, another opportunity lost. "It's been lovely," he said, wiping his hands and standing. "Now, I'm going to take you to Hell so you can get your brother's soul back."
Dean's eyes bugged out, stunned almost to the point of silence. "What are you talking about? I lost the bet."
"I don't need to explain myself to you, Dean. I have my own reasons for wanting Sam back— enough to let you try your hand at it."
"I thought— can't you just go get him?" Dean furrowed his brow and stood up from his seat, adrenaline surging through his veins and making it impossible to sit still.
"The box is not like anything else in this universe, Dean. To get your brother out in one piece, without letting those bickering angels out —well, even Death needs a key for that. Unless you want Lucifer and Michael to start up their little spat again?" Death raised his eyebrows at Dean. Dean couldn't help but wish that Death were more menacing. There was nothing about him that said Horseman of the Apocalypse. He was so subdued, so innocuous.
"No," Dean muttered, jaw clenched. He looked away, hope mixing with fear as his stomach roiled. He steeled himself and turned his eyes back to Death, looking at him straight on, shouldering the mantle of someone strong. Someone who could save his brother. "What are you waiting for? Let's go." He wasn't going to let this chance slip through his fingers.
"One more thing, Dean— you won't be going to Hell as you know it. Lucifer's box is... irregular. It changes people. If you find your brother inside, I'll come to bring you home. But I won't come for you if you fail: this is your task."
"I'll be stuck in the box with Sam?" Dean asked, unable to crush the twisted surge of joy he felt at the thought. It should have made him worried, but knowing he'd be with Sam in just a few minutes was the best news he'd heard since he found out Sam was (mostly) alive.
"Not just Sam. The archangels, your brother and anything else that's gotten sucked into the box over the millennia."
"I can deal with it. Just send me in," Dean said, anxious to go. Being so close to getting his brother back was making his skin itch.
Death looked at him and shook out his shirt-cuffs from his jacket sleeves. "Do not think to rush me, Dean."
Dean rocked forward on the balls of his feet. "Just do—"
Death didn't fuck around with rituals. The annoyingly-familiar feeling of vertigo brought on by instant transportation he'd learned from exposure to Castiel swept over him. His eyes rolled back in his head; he stumbled, and by the time he had regained his balance he was somewhere else.
Dean's skin tightened into goosebumps and the air condensed until his lungs couldn't expand. For a too-long moment it felt like he was suffocating, bright lights on a black background, and then he opened his eyes. The pressure against him fell away, reversed, and instead his insides were pressing out against the barrier of his skin. A scream built up in the back of his throat, but he swallowed it down. He clenched his gut and a small burst of air forced its way out from chest. The air seemed to pop the moment he opened his mouth, and just like that, he was fine. He sucked in a long breath and released it; there was no pain, as though he'd imagined the whole thing. A shiver worked its way up from the small of his back.
The first thing he noticed was that he felt like he was somewhere dead.
It was no Hell; there was a sky, for one. It was pure black: empty space without the comforting twinkle of stars, but it was there, a clear cut of definition from the horizon. He was standing in a desert, the sand red-stained and perfectly flat, with no sign of the mountainous dunes Dean knew to expect from Earth's deserts. Dean was no expert, but he knew dunes were formed by wind, and there was no wind here. No lines in the sand. Nothing to make him believe that anything had ever moved at all.
Dean tilted his head back and drew in a deep breath, reveling in the sound of air moving through his lungs. He counted his breath in and held it, then released it in a sudden puff when the sound of his breath didn't stop with his inhale. He sniffed the air again and wrinkled his nose in surprise when it didn't dry out. It didn't fit with the scenery, but the air was humid. Sweat broke out on his skin and the air grew thick as the humidity rose, dense and cloying. It was the same feeling of suffocation he'd felt before, though it was intensifying much more slowly. It was strong enough now it was making his head throb with its persistent demands for attention. He turned in a circle, and his ears popped, but there was no sign of anything but more sand.
There was light despite the lack of sun, moon or stars, but there were no shadows on the ground. The light was red, and stained everything a subtle shade of crimson. There was nothing he could use to orient himself, nothing to tell time, just him, standing alone in an ocean of sand.
A box was a box was a box: it had limits, no matter how it seemed. He found the idea of searching endlessly for his brother strangely comforting. He'd spent the last few months stagnating, desperate to fix whatever was wrong with his brother but paralyzed by the lack of options. He'd gotten used to the feeling of inertia after the year playing house with Lisa and Ben, but now he had a direction to go in, real progress within his reach. It loosened the noose that had been steadily tightening around his neck ever since Sam had sacrificed himself to stop the apocalypse.
This was his chance. He'd messed up every other thing in his life, but Sam had always been his shot at redemption, his road to make things better. Sam had been on the right track until Dean and the Yellow-Eyed Demon had dragged him back into their mess of a life, and had stayed above water until Dean abandoned him to Ruby's influence. Sam was a good kid, one who deserved a second chance— and a third, a fourth, as many as Dean could give him.
If he could get Sam home, it wouldn't matter so much that Dean was a monster. It wouldn't matter that everything he touched turned to shit when he stuck around for longer than the duration of a hunt. Sam had always been able to thrive in the shadow of his darkness.
A bump on the horizon caught his eye and Dean squinted. He squeezed his eyes shut and looked again and it was still there: something was jutting out from the horizon. Dean broke into a light jog and was relieved when the lump got closer, more than a mirage, something real rather than a false inkling of hope that would never get any closer. The air pressure rose sharply as he closed his eyes as they began to ache. He kept running; there was nothing but clear ground and whatever the lump was for as far as he'd been able to see.
As suddenly as it rose, the air pressure dropped down again, and between one blink and the next, the stench hit him. The air in his lungs burned with the scent of rotting meat, rank and foul. Dean forced down his gag reflex and barreled on, but eventually the rancid smell was too much and he covered his mouth as he gagged. The smell settled into his stomach like a bad shot of tequila and he curled as his stomach cramped. The smell was so distracting it came as a surprise when he stepped onto something other than flat sand.
Dean breathed through his sleeve and backed up, then was vomiting before the sight in front of him fully processed.
He had stepped on Sam's corpse.
The body was twisted in on itself, left arm flung out across Dean's path, the knees tucked in close to the chest. It was naked, skin black and swollen at the joints, ever so slightly bloated against the ground where the blood had pooled. There were dark holes in the skin of its cheeks, belly, groin, dug out as though crows had been picking at it. The mop of Sam's hair fell lazily over his face, familiar against a cut so deep the white of cheekbones shone through, crisscrossed with thin strands of tissue.
Dean took a step back and stumbled. He fell, but he didn't hit the ground; he'd landed on another body, its long legs twisted at an impossible angle away from its hips. He rolled off it with a cry and pushed himself to his feet and stared, fighting back a sudden influx of tears.
He was surrounded by dead bodies, all of them Sam's. The air was filled with the smell of putrefaction, overriding the smell of his bile, and around him were Sams of all different ages, strewn about carelessly like broken toys. He could see what looked like an eight-year old Sam with his entrails spilling out on the ground, steaming in the air, hands clutched around one of the coils. There was a pimply faced Sam of his teenaged years with the bottom half of his jaw missing, and Dean stopped looking, shut his brain down. He snapped his eyes down to the ground and started walking. He'd seen worse, in Hell as well as topside. If he could just convince himself that the tiny curl of a baby's hand—God— wasn't Sam's, he'd be able to walk out of here.
They weren't real. There were no bugs flying around, no flies laying their eggs in the dead meat, and this shit wasn't real. Dean just had to keep that thought in mind until the bodies went away, just one more taunt that didn't work. His heartbeat pounded in his temple and bile rose up in his throat, the sight of a Sam with his chest broken open, ribs shining in a bright row of red against the black sky catching his eyes, and without warning the ground dropped out from underneath him. Dean yelped and he could taste the rot on his tongue, and that was it. Game over, he was vomiting even as he tumbled, bent in two as he slid down the slope.
The bodies weren't so dense here, but the smell was worse, sulfurous and cloying. He squeezed his eyes shut against the burn in the air and clenched his fingers against the sand. He breathed through his mouth and pretended he didn't taste anything. The sand was cold against his fingers; he opened his eyes and stared down at the wet furrows that marked where his fingers had been. Dean looked up.
He was on the edge of a river. The air smelled toxic, but the water shone clear, bright with light that wasn't there. He pushed himself up and moved to the edge of the bank; the smell got worse, but he couldn't see any bodies in the water. The riverbed fell almost straight down from Dean's position, clear like acid until the darkness swallowed it up. There didn't seem to be any bodies in the water, but he wouldn't be surprised if there were, given the smell.
The opposite bank looked empty and Dean wanted to be there, away. He refused to look behind him.
He crouched down and dipped a finger in the water and left it there. His skin tingled, as though the water was actually slightly acidic, but it wasn't so bad he was worried about swimming in it. There had been no rivers in Hell, despite what the myths said. That there were rivers here, in the Cage— he didn't know what that meant.
But there was no way he was going back, so that left crossing the river. There was no boatman to ferry him across, which was fine. Even if the water had burned the flesh from his bones, he'd have swum through it to get away from this side of the river.
Dean untied his boots and kicked them to the side, then stripped off his jeans and shirt in a series of practiced motions. The water shone at him, deceptively bright, clear and empty. Topside, he'd take that as a sign to stay out of it.
Here, Dean dove down into the water and didn't look back.
oOo
Dean flips through the pages of his book. He stares eagerly at the pictures and spends a minute wishing he could read. "What's this one, Mom?" he asks. Mom says he has the voice of an angel, high and pretty. Dean thinks that Mom is nice to pretend he doesn't sound like a girl.
Mom peers over his shoulder to where he's pointing and runs a hand through his hair. "That one's an eagle," she says and presses a kiss to the top of his head. She steps back and the sound of her low humming fills the room, brightening the room better than the sun.
Dean stares at the pictures on the page, then at the letters. He can sing the alphabet song, but he can't remember what they all look like. He stares at the word next to the picture of the eagle and tells himself, That is the letter E. E is for Eagle. E is also for elephant, but Dean can't remember any of the other examples from his alphabet book.
Dean flips the page and screws up his nose at the picture of the ugly bird that confronts him. "Mom, what's this one? It's ugly."
The sounds of Mom making lunch stops again, and whatever song she's singing cuts off, too. She gives him a hug and looks over his shoulder at his book while she squeezes him. "That one's a vulture, Dean. Their heads have no feathers because they'd just get messy." She sounds happy, like Dean is telling her the best bedtime story in the world instead of bugging her about birds just to spend time with her.
"I like getting messy," Dean declares firmly. He turns his head and sticks his nose into Mom's cheek, glad it's not runny. He likes rubbing noses with his mom, likes that she calls them Eskimo kisses. Dean wants a kind of kiss to be named after him one day.
Mom laughs and stands up again. "You should never judge something on face value," she says, smart as only his mom could be.
Dean isn't sure what face value is, but he's pretty sure he'll figure it out eventually. If not, he can always ask Mom.
"This vulture's face is pretty ugly, though," Dean can't help but point out.
Mom laughs again and Dean smiles back. Moms are the best. "Would you tell me if I were ugly, Dean?" she asks, and there's something in her voice Dean doesn't recognize. "I would still love you if you did. Still protect you." Her eyes look flat, like they sometimes do when she and Dad had been fighting.
Dean reaches out and catches a lock of his Mom's hair. "Don't be silly, Mom," he sighs out. "It wouldn't matter if you looked like a witch— you'd still be the bestest, prettiest Mom in the world!" He's sure of it, more sure of that than he is of anything.
Dean closes his eyes and breathes in through his nose over his mom's hair, hoping to catch a scent, but the usual smell of fresh food and soap doesn't greet him. He opens his eyes to an empty kitchen.
"Mom?" he asks into the dark. "Where are you?"
oOo
Dean woke with a start, disoriented at a brief, fading feeling of weightlessness. Nausea roiled through his stomach; he felt like he'd been on the bender of a fucking lifetime, which made shit sense since he'd just been— somewhere else. With Sam? His head was pounding.
He rolled from his side to his front, and his clothes were wet and clung to his skin. He coughed and water splashed out on the ground; he stared at it, uncomprehending, as it sank into the sand in front of his face, darkening the sand to scarlet. His hair dripped water down his forehead and into his eyes, and he licked his lips; the water was thick and so metallic tasting that he gagged and spat out onto the ground. It was clear, not red like Dean was half-expecting—not blood, no matter what it tasted like. Dean shivered and pushed himself up off the ground to look around and— there was Sam.
Sam was wet, too. He was laid flat-out on his front, head cradled in his arms, wheezing hard. He looked up, his eyes glazed and unfocused. He seemed to come back to himself under the weight of Dean's gaze. "Dean?" he asked, voice hoarse, tired.
"You okay, Sammy?" Dean asked. He got himself into a crouch and pushed himself to his feet, and blinked against the rush of vertigo.
"I think so," Sam answered. He took Dean's hand when it was offered and pulled himself up; Dean blinked at him, still slightly dazed, as Sam grew so quickly upright— like twenty years time-lapsed right in front of him, every time.
Dean resisted the urge to give his brother a pat down and took in their surroundings. They were outside; the sky stretched out above them, dark and empty, limitless black lifting up from the horizon. There were no stars, and the lack of them made it feel like there were holes punched through the sky, waiting to suck them in. He spun around but there was nothing but flat, barren desert spread out around him on all sides, the earth dry and cracked. The air was cold, so dry the water on their clothes was already evaporating into the air. Dean could feel his lips chapping and sucked them into his mouth to moisten them, but gave it up as useless when they immediately dried out again. He could see, but it was the deceptive light of twilight, right on the edge of true darkness. They had shadows, but they were barely there, nothing more than faint impressions on the ground.
"Where are we?" Dean breathed out. A shiver lanced its way down his spine, like someone was walking over his grave. Nothing about this was right. It was more than the empty sky, more than the endless desert— they'd woken up drenched, but they were already mostly dry, and there was no sign of water anywhere nearby.
Sam looked at him oddly, then with horror as comprehension dawned. He stepped up close enough to stand on Dean's faint shadow, and his proximity leeched the darkness out of the air. Sam's features were clear, distinct and familiar, home in a world where nothing else seemed right. He grabbed Dean by the upper arms and stared into his eyes. "Don't you remember, Dean?" His eyes snapped back and forth, intent on Dean's face.
Dean twisted and shrugged out of Sam's grip. "Not where the fuck we are, no." He took a step back, until he didn't have to crane his neck up to look at Sam. Fucker seemed to be getting bigger every day.
Sam cursed and spun away, head snapping back and forth as though searching for something. "Shit." He looked back at Dean and his forehead was shaped into his compassionate bitch face. "This is— this is Hell, Dean. We just crossed the River Lethe."
Dread clawed at the edges of Dean's mind. "Are we dead, Sammy?" He could only hope his voice wasn't shaking as much as it felt like.
Sam blinked, and then laughed, and it was one of relief rather than hysteria. "No. Shit, no, Dean— we're here for Dad."
Hope surged through Dean, sudden and sickening. His throat closed up; he wavered on his feet, suddenly dizzy. He searched Sam's face and the hard knot of tension he'd been carrying around since the hospital came loose, but numbness crept in to replace it almost immediately and he welcomed the feeling. A quiver tried to start up in his chest, but the emptiness chased it back. "That— that's great." He blinked, and looked out over the flat, red line of the horizon. "And this— I didn't have to make a deal?"
Sam's eyes darkened from hazel to muddy brown. "No, we didn't have to make any deals. Deals never work out, Dean— you should know that by now."
Dean shifted in place, uncomfortable. "Whatever. If you remember so much, what just happened?"
"Do you ever do ANY reading, Dean?" Sam sighed in exasperation. "I just said, Dean— we just crossed a river. It must have been the Lethe."
"Keep talking, Sam." Dean rolled his eyes and rocked forward on his heels. His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. Dean was no rookie— he knew that no matter the signals his body was trying desperately to send his brain, if he were in Hell he'd be able function indefinitely. Souls didn't need sustenance to continue existing; they needed substance.
"The River Lethe, Dean— the River of Forgetfulness?" He stared at Dean as though that was supposed to jog his memory.
"Well, it didn't seem to make you forget, now did it, Sam?"
"I don't get it, either," Sam frowned and combed his hands through his hair— it had dried and poofed up, so cowlicks sprung out from his head every which way. "Maybe," he paused, then frowned. "Did you drink the water?"
Dean couldn't remember shit about the river. "I coughed some up when I woke up," he offered, the closest he could come to an explanation.
"So you probably swallowed some," Sam nodded, theory confirmed. "Well, what do you remember?" He let his legs collapse out from under him and sat down on the ground. He gestured at Dean to do the same and Dean did, reluctant. Time for a sharing circle, whether he liked it or not.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Dean working his memory forward. "I remember helping out Deacon," he said eventually. "Everything after that gets— hazy."
A look of pain crossed Sam's face and he moved as though to reach out and grab Dean's hand. Dean tucked his hands between his legs and stiffened up; Sam sighed and gripped his arm for a moment and then pulled back out of Dean's space.
"That's... more missing than I thought," Sam confessed. "We worked a few cases after that; a poltergeist, a woman in white." He paused, uncomfortable. "You got attacked by a djinn— that wasn't fun. Then Bobby called."
"And?" Dean demanded, desperation making a hard edge creep into his voice.
"And he found a spell— the Orpheus loophole. It gives us one chance to find Dad and bring him back with us."
"Orpheus— that's Greek, yeah?" Dean remembered Orpheus; Orpheus came back from Hell empty-handed.
"So are the rivers," Sam agreed. "There're supposed to be five of them, but I don't know if that's going to be true— the River Lethe was supposed to be one of the last things we hit."
Dean perked up. "Did we get a boatman?" he asked.
Sam laughed. "No, Dean— no boatman. No boatman, no boat— that's why we swam across." He paused. "We've been alone the whole time. No damned souls, no demons. Just you and me and the river."
Dean couldn't remember the river, let alone swimming across it, and there was no river anywhere around them now. If he hadn't woken up wet and choking, he wouldn't have believed it. "So where'd the river go?" He didn't want to touch the subject of them being alone. Alone meant nothing to go off of. Alone meant no Dad.
"I dunno." Sam looked over his shoulder as though the river would magically appear if he stared hard enough. "Maybe all you can do here is move forward."
"Better press on," Dean quoted and laughed at himself. "Did we even have a plan? All I see is a whole lotta nothing with no signs to follow." Sam probably wanted to talk more, but Dean wasn't going there. They were in Hell: crying on his brother's shoulder was asking too much.
Sam studied Dean and eventually nodded, letting the subject drop. "You didn't miss much— this is the first level. There's supposed to be close to a dozen of them, but that's just myth. There's no way to know what we'll face for sure." His attention shifted, turning out toward the horizon. "The books said souls are drawn toward the center, so there might not be much to see until we get closer."
The ground didn't slope down, and there was nothing to indicate the way down toward the center. Dean shifted until his shoulders nudged against Sam's. "Is there a stairway I'm not seeing, Sam?"
"No stairs," Sam said, eyes distant. Fucking creepy, when Sam looked like he was touching that part of himself that Yellow-Eyed bastard was responsible for. "But..." He shook himself, eyes clearing. "It looks flat, yeah. But we can't trust anything here, Dean, it's Hell. Nothing is going to be what it seems."
"If you start quoting that David Bowie movie I'm gonna leave your ass here," Dean quipped, then trailed reluctantly behind Sam as his brother stood up and jogged over to a lonely outcropping of rocks; standing alone on the barren landscape made him nervous. Sam crouched down and dug into the rocks; with a small, pleased noise, he pulled out— "Is that coal?" Dean asked, flabbergasted.
"It's a lodestone," Sam said smugly. "If this place has any sort of magnetic field, it'll act like a compass." He waved the rock over his sleeve, and the cuff lifted into the air to follow it. The metal snap on his shirt waved back and forth and brought the cloth with it, drawn to the rock.
"That's convenient," Dean muttered, and stared as Sam placed the black stone on the ground and stepped back. It stayed in place, stubbornly unhelpful for a long, drawn out moment before it seemed to make up its mind and rolled slowly to the left.
"See?" Sam said, smug in his success. "We just have to follow where it goes." He bent down, impossibly long body folded in half, and picked up the lodestone again. He seemed bigger than Dean remembered, somehow. Like being in Hell had pumped him full of fuel. Dean wasn't going to dwell on it: wasn't thinking about what part of Sam would thrive in these conditions.
"That doesn't even make sense," Dean said. "Fucking magnets."
Sam shrugged his overly-broad shoulders and smiled, then tossed the lodestone to Dean. He caught it automatically, but he almost fumbled it; it was heavier than it looked and something about it sent shocks running up his arm. He brought the thing up to his face to inspect it. It was a shiny black, almost polished— completely out of place against the red landscape. His heart beat erratically against his ribs as though trying to escape, and Dean pocketed the stone. He struck off in the direction indicated: there was time for dealing with Sam's shit later, when they weren't in fucking Hell, standing around like a pair of pigeons just waiting for someone to mark them out. Just because Sam had walked over to that pile of rocks and picked the thing out like he knew it would be there— it didn't have to mean jack shit. "Come on, Sam. Dad's not going to find himself."
"He might," Sam said, never one to let things go. "If anyone could, it'd be him."
"Let's just hope we can find him," Dean muttered. He didn't want to think about what it would take to find their Dad if he wasn't where Sam expected him to be, what it would mean if he was loose and running around Hell.
They struck off toward the horizon.
oOo
There was no gradual shift in the scenery. Dean felt like they'd been walking for hours with no progress, no sign they were doing anything but walking in circles. Even Sam'd gotten quiet, hunching in on himself as his strides got longer, eager to eat up the distance.
Dean tossed Sam's little magic marble back and forth between his hands, glad to have something to fidget with. "Any ideas for what we'll to do once the demons start showing up? We haven't got the Colt, we've got no knives— all we have is your pet rock, here."
Sam smoothed his hair from his face, too-long sideburns peeking out briefly. "Sucks you can't remember," he sighed, and raised his eyes to the sky before peeking at Dean from the side of his eye. "Our working theory is that this isn't going to be like back home— anything we meet down here is going to be," he waved his hands, struggling to find the words. "It's not going to be possessing anything— it'll appear as itself. No human body for them to hide behind."
"So we can put them down," Dean concluded, grinning. He tossed Sam the lodestone and clapped his hands together, then paused. "We still don't have anything better than our hands to take 'em on, though."
Sam had his mouth opened to answer when the world around them... changed. The desert melted away; the ground, solid and dry up to that point, sagged under their weight. Dean grimaced and lifted up his boot to inspect the mud that clung to its underside, and then looked around.
They were in the middle of a mud field. The desert was gone without a trace, like it had never been there. Instead, wet ground stretched out on all sides, as unending and bland as the dried desert they'd just left. The mud was tinted red, like everything here seemed to be, as though someone had just dumped water onto the desert they'd been walking through.
"I guess we were going the right way, huh?" Sam said, smiling at Dean.
Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed the lodestone back from Sam. He tossed it up in the air, letting it fall straight down to land on the ground with a splat. Of course, with the ground muddy, the lodestone stayed stubbornly in place. "Great. Your compass doesn't work in the mud." He bent down and picked up the stone, wiping it off with his sleeve before he put it into his pocket.
Sam frowned at Dean, lips pursing. "We could try digging a hole— this whole place is supposed to be slanted toward the center, and if we're going down, the water should show us which direction to head in."
Dean grimaced at the thought— the air here was just as chill as it had been in the desert and digging in the mud would only make it worse— but nodded. "Better than nothing," he agreed.
Sam rolled his eyes and squatted down, perched lightly on his feet. "You gonna help me dig a hole or what?"
Dean dropped into a squat next to his brother and dug his hands into the wet ground. His fingers sunk into the mud easily— it was cold, more than he'd expected. It was so cold it felt like the mud should have been frozen solid. He cupped his hands together and scooped out a handful, and tossed it over his shoulder with his fingers loose, and smirked when Sam yelped in protest.
They dug mostly in silence, fingers brushing together occasionally as they worked the same hole. Sam's hands stayed hot despite the cold muck, radiating heat like the human furnace he was. Dean shivered in his jacket and hunched his shoulders. When he pushed his fingers into the ground again, the tips of his fingers brushed against something sharp.
Dean furrowed his brow and pushed his fingers in deeper— the mud gave way easily no matter how far he pushed down, belying its cold temperature. He heaved the wet earth upward and it separated with a wet squelch.
"You found something?" Sam asked, eyebrows climbing high on his forehead.
Dean nodded and spread out the mud on the ground, searching. It didn't take long; the mud seemed to fall away, like whatever he'd found was repelling it. With a few deft flicks of his fingers, a bird skull took shape through the mud.
"Weird," Dean muttered, scooping out the mud from the eye socket with the edge of his thumbnail. He turned his eyes on the pile of mud they'd already dug up, and drew in a hissing breath when he saw it was dotted with little white flecks, dozens of tiny shards of bone. It was the first sign they'd had that life of any kind had ever been here, dead and buried beneath the surface though it was. Hopefully, it was a sign of their changing luck.
"The ground's full of bones?" Sam asked quietly, half to himself, even as he lifted out a delicate ribcage from the mud, the tiny line of its spine swinging idly. "Damn," he cursed, as the tiny ribs fractured apart under the press of his fingers.
"Looks like," Dean agreed. He shivered but pocketed the skull before he started digging again, trying to ignore the brittle slivers of bone his fingers occasionally landed on.
They spent a few more minutes digging in silence, and the hole they were working on got deeper, while the pile of mud and bone grew higher. Dean threw down a handful of mud in disgust and rubbed his dirty hands on his jeans, trying to warm his numb fingers. "This is getting us nowhere," he growled in frustration. "The water we're digging for isn't here. We dig and we dig but all we get is more mud."
"Don't forget the bird bones," Sam said tiredly.
Dean shoved himself to his feet and shook out his legs, stiff after spending so long crouched on the cold ground. "We need a new plan," he said, pacing around his brother. Sam watched him with calm, steady eyes, hands resting easily between his knees; he didn't seem to notice the cold.
"We could just start walking," Sam suggested, and ran his hand through his hair. His fingers, covered in mud, caught on the strands and he grimaced then he lowered it to brush off some of the dirt. His eyes flicked up to Dean and he stretched, arms extended upwards toward the hungry sky.
Dean blinked. "Leave it to blind luck? In Hell? I don't think so." He dropped down next to his brother and slid his hand down the side of the hole they'd dug. The mud slicked his fingers, thick as clay— but there was no sign of the water that should have started to separate.
Dean sighed in exasperation. "I wish I could remember our research before coming here," he said. "You've always been better at that stuff, but I feel like I'm running blind."
"You and me both," Sam agreed. "Nothing I read said Hell was anything like this."
"No demons," Dean agreed. "Hell, still no damned souls at all— just you and me and a whole lot of dead birds." The lack of progress rankled; their dad wouldn't have gotten hung up on this trivial shit. He always knew what to do, always found a way, even when that meant killing himself for a son who'd have been better off dead.
Sam looked pensive. "You don't think— do you think God saved them?"
Laughter burst out of Dean, harsh and disbelieving. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"
Sam's face snapped into a scowl like a switch had been flipped. "It's in the Bible— Jesus? The Harrowing of Hell?"
Dean scoffed. "Don't be naïve, Sam. Even if there was a God, you'd better hope he hasn't sprung a spring cleaning on this place, or else we're down here for nothing. If all the souls are gone, then that means Dad is gone, and we're down here chasing our tails."
"Just because you don't believe—"
"I don't want to talk about this," Dean said. This conversation wasn't going anywhere, and he was going to shut it down. "If you can't think of anything, then I'm going to take a nap. You keep watch. If you see an angel, then you wake me up."
Sam drew in on himself, his expression tight and unhappy, blinking rapidly. Dean was filled with sudden guilt. He didn't want to make his stupid, girly brother cry. "Fine. We'll just take a break; you rest and I'll take first watch," Sam said, voice tight.
Dean let his head fall back and stared into the empty sky. "I hate wasting time," he confessed, disheartened.
"We're not making any progress no matter what we do," Sam pointed out, settling himself in with his knees drawn up tight to his chest. He cradled his head on his arms, with his face toward Dean. "You're right, we should get some sleep." He smiled, the expression wan. "Things always look better in the morning, right?"
Dean grunted at Sam and leaned back against the cold mud; he grimaced as the back of neck touched the ground. "Wake me up in a few hours," he sighed as he closed his eyes.
"Sure, Dean." Sam's fingers brushed against Dean's arm; it was comforting, being so close to his brother. Lethargy tugged at his limbs, sudden and surprising. He closed his eyes.
oOo
The Impala smells of leather, gun oil and home.
Dean stretches on the back seat, face chilled from the cold window. Frost has formed on the inside of the glass, but there's a clear patch he can see through to the passing landscape from where his cheek has melted the ice. He inspects the car and smiles at Sammy, who's got his too-long legs hooked over the passenger side seat, elbows tucked in close as he reads from— yeah, Dean's old history textbook from two states back. Dean can never feel guilty about stealing books from school given how happy they make Sammy.
"Yo, twerp, you keep reading like that and you'll get a hump."
"Keep reading like that and you'll get a hump," Sammy parrots, not looking up from his book.
Dean gives his brother the stink-eye. "Did you and Dad manage to get into it without waking me up? Colour me surprised."
"Colour me surprised," Sammy says, scowling at his book.
"Don't be such a bitch," Dean mutters. He crosses his arms and resists the urge to kick at the back of Dad's seat. If Dad and Sammy'd been fighting he wasn't going to make it worse.
"Bitch," Sammy mutters, just barely audible.
They sit in silence, listening to the roar of the Impala's engine. Dad taps one finger against the steering wheel but doesn't say anything. It must have been a bad fight; Dad doesn't usually shut down like this unless he and Sammy'd really gotten into it and that is not something anyone could sleep through.
"Where we goin'?" Dean asks their Dad, the silence digging at him. He wonders where the box of tapes is.
Dad doesn't answer, his expression in the reflection of the rear-view mirror unchanged.
"Dad?" Dean asks, leaning forward. Beside him, Sammy doesn't say a word but flips the pages of his textbook. He kicks the seat in front of him.
"What's wrong with you two?" Dean's starting to get freaked at the silent treatment— Dad and Sammy didn't shut down like this, especially not at Dean. They'd talk to him even when they'd ignore each other, using him as a buffer to make sure the family kept working.
They don't answer. Frustrated, Dean leans forward over the seat and grabs his dad's shoulder. "Seriously, what's—"
The thing in the front seat turns to look back at Dean, bone gleaming white in the light of the sun. The skull seems stark against the dark of his dad's hair, too clear, too real. Dean rears back and grabs at his brother's arm, dragging him close to his side when
When