TIME IN HELL -Chapter 1

Said I wouldn't write another one, but I am a big liar. I don't own the characters, just the situations I thrown them carelessly into.

This is actually set at the beginning of Season 4, when Dean returns from hell. Ruby is not going to be part of this story, because when I write the Winchesters, I refuse to have them cheating on one another in any way…I have issues, I am aware.

Its Wincest, Baby

DEAN

Dean Winchester has a secret that niggles at his skull, scratching at him from the inside out, willing itself to break free. Dean rubs his own scalp a lot, hoping it will somehow ease the constant buzzing sound from his secret, but he knows it won't work.

Dean lies to pretty much everyone, always has, and he often tries to lie to himself. Don't get him wrong, he knows that's stupid, but when you are a Winchester, your life is a gigantic cosmic fucking joke, and so lying to your own head kind of makes sense in a strange way. He knows the lie he is chanting in his brain is one that is keeping him sane, well on the edges of sanity, like a man falling off the edge of a building, toes scraping helplessly against concrete, while your fingers cramp in the ultimate pain of just HOLDING ON.

So, Dean sits beside Bobby as they fly down the highway towards Sam's location, and he thumps his fingers against his own thigh mindlessly, in time to the chant that has taken over his cognizance. NOT TRUE NOT TRUE NOT TRUE, and it beats like a drum in time to his own heartbeat, and Dean is desperately trying to will this thought into reality. He tries to just HOLD ON.

It isn't working.

(break)

Sam flings open the motel room door, and Dean sees him for the first time in four months or forty years, depending on whose view you are looking through. Sam spots Dean instantly, their eyes burning into one another's and Dean registers that Sam's face is a mask of pain, confusion, fear and relief, all jumbled together in one expression like he is a Picasso painting.

Sam does what Dean expects him to do. He jumps him and tries to kill him, and Dean is so weak, he almost lets him. That is what self loathing and self disgust get you, he thinks blindly, trying to steady himself. Bobby is there to hold Sam back, shouting at Sam that its actually Dean.

Sam's face crumples into an expression of relief and love that is so profound, Dean is dizzy from it, and when Sam pulls Dean into a tight embrace, Dean can do nothing but HOLD ON for dear life, despite his every impulse telling him to let go, with NOT TRUE NOT TRUE NOT TRUE fading so fast from his head that is might disappear completely if Dean doesn't get out of the embrace. He pushes back against Sam, holding his little brother at arms length and even though the pit of his stomach has fallen out, and even though his chanting lie has faded for the second, Dean looks at his brother, and just feels relieved for a moment that they are together again.

Dean has just returned from hell. Only he is aware that hell followed him back. Because what happened to him in hell has changed him in such a profound, elemental way, despite his self lying, Dean is crushingly aware of the reason hell has followed him back. In hell, he saw the truth. A truth he never would have admitted to or acted on. That's what hell does. It breaks you. That's the whole point of it.

(break)

Dean vaguely remembers the screaming, horrific, pain of the hell hounds claws and fangs on his body, until everything went black.

He woke up tied to a rack, in what can only be described as the most cliché version of hell ever. Fire dancing on the walls, the pungent smell of brimstone filling his nostrils, moans of pain and agony from every direction, and despite the fact that Dean is tied to a fucking rack in hell, he manages to think in his head sarcastically, Seriously? This is what they came up with?

The first few days of hell are the getting to know you phase. The demon in charge of Dean, Alistair brings a new meaning of pain into Dean's existence. The guy looks like your dentist, or your postmaster, or maybe a motel clerk, but he is a perfectly evil, torture tool.

So Dean's first ten years in hell are spent tied to the rack, while Alistair filets him over and over again, piece by piece. Dean's screams so many times, his screams lose all meaning, and he discovers a new appreciation for the meaning of pain. Because the pain in hell has so many layers, each one fresher and sharper than the last, and Dean's mind is trying to name them, but realizes it's no use. There are no descriptive words in his mind that can really explain the pain that he is in.

Every night, before he leaves him to heal in the dark, Alistair asks Dean a question. And no matter how much pain he is in, how much he has suffered, Dean always says no. That no at the end of his tortured filled day is the one thing that Dean can hold on to.

(break)

The worst thing about hell, besides the fact it is hell, is that the demons there can read your mind. Dean doesn't know this at first, because Alistair is a sneaky bastard who doesn't ever let on he knows what is going on inside of Deans head. So, Dean retreats inside in his own head, away from the torture and agonizing pain as much as possible, reaching into his own brain for memories that will keep him going.

Like the first time he ever drove the Impala, the sleek black beauty of the car under his fingertips, as he jerked the gas too hard and his Dad cuffed him upside the head.

Or the time when he was twelve and he and Becky Jane Frinkle had gone into the coat closet during 7 minutes in heaven and she had touched him there.

The first time he ever killed a monster, and the rush of adrenaline that followed directly after, his Dad clamping him on the back hard, his own chest puffed out in pride at Dean's actions.

Most of Dean's memories are of Sam. Its to be expected, they do spend almost every waking second together. Most of the sleeping ones too.

Sam, chubby cheeked and hazel eyes, dark curls on his forehead, two years old and playing with mud in the front of Bobby's house.

Sam, 8 years old, sprawled on a threadbare sofa, leafing through a comic book, while his foot bobs aimlessly to the music Dean has cranked up.

Sam, 14 years old, all hands and feet, laughing hysterically because Dean is on top of him tickling the shit out of him.

Sam, 15 years old, shoving his whole hand into the peanut butter jar and smearing it on Dean's jacket, because Dean stole $10 from him and spent it on beer.

Sam 18 years old, determination staining his still little boy features as he walks out the door, headed for a new life at Stanford.

Sam's surprised face when Dean shows up to get him at Stanford.

Millions of memories of Sam that Dean has trapped inside his head, and with little to do but be in agony, Dean watches them all over again, like the Sam Channel is on in his brain all day and all night in hell.

(break)

Ten years of torture and every night Dean has told Alistair no when he asks the same question at the end of the torture day.

But Alistair is crafty, and he changes tactics. Even when he does, Dean still doesn't fully realize that it means Alistair is reading his mind, no, that will come later.

Alistair arrives for work like its any other day, but instead of going to town on Dean with all his neat instruments he flicks the rack upright for the first time. Dean gulps because he has no idea why things are changing, but he is innately afraid of the change. He should be.

The walls suddenly morph, no longer on fire and the hard rocky floor changes into a regular floor, the moans fade into the distance, and all the while, Dean is terrified, because he doesn't know what's coming, but this is hell, and it won't be good. That much he does know.

Dean's eyes adjust to the new surroundings, and he sees his father standing in front of him, and his heart jumps for a moment, because it has been so long since he laid eyes on the old man. The second he feels a nanosecond of joy, the scene changes. John Winchester is tied to a chair, and now Alistair is working on him, and John is screaming for Dean to help him, begging in broken sobs, and Dean can't turn away, and the helpless horror in his heart is dragging him so far down, he can't breathe anymore.

Even after watching his beloved father be tortured six ways from Sunday all day long, being forced to watch Alistair slice and dice him, Dean's answer is still no, when Alistair asks him. It's a weaker no, but its still no.

So, for years, Dean endures the pain of watching his father be tortured and slowly die in front of his eyes, and he still says no every night.

He feels some pride in that, despite Alistair's best attempts, Dean is holding. Dean doesn't know it, but Alistair is just getting started.

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