A/N: This one is a bit weird and bleak, I can give it that. The closing scene of the latest episode (6.10 'Caged Heat'), with Dean calling and calling after Sam got me reeling, let alone heartsick. So thisemotional vibe, compiled with the dilemma of Sam's soul and assorted mentions of Dean's tenure in Hell, speckled through the episode and previously on, aligned into this queer little drabble.
Set through the final moments of 'Caged Heat' (s6), but dwells heavily Dean's experience in Hell.
Disclaimer: None of the characters, plot-points, inherent to the show, belong to me.
Benedicite
He had a child in Hell. The soul he'd eased into demonhood, five years into his apprenticeship under Alastair. The first creation of his own. A kid, no more than late teens. Such a young spirit. The closest he'd ever come to putting down the razor. The closest he'd ever come to going back on the rack.
He asked 'What for?' What sins could have been possibly committed in so brisk an instance – in a flash of a life - to ordain eternal atonement. Alastair smiled at that, knowing, patient. Oh so patient around him, once Dean croaked the tearful 'yes' the day no memory was left for him to cling to, but pain, no hope but of yet more to come. The day they finally stripped away everything else of him for the sick pleasure of watching him sate his newfound hunger. On the day they finally brought him to crave pain more than ever he could deliverance.
"No Hell is unearned, my dear boy," – Alastair's inflection was pensive, words born of experience to make Dean's form chill on its tracks still at times, amidst the blistering heat, his own arms elbow-deep in searing blood.
"Each soul, deep down, is well aware what it endures for, in our most attentive care." – Alastair's smirk shadowed with the closest to fondness Dean was yet to witness, ensuing another shiver.
He would've argued. For his father, were he able to wrap his sanded tongue around the man's name down there. He would've argued for himself. Thirty five years ago. He would've argued for that kid he was about to carve into malice. He didn't.
The newly-born demon's eyes spelled wonder and admiration, directed at him, whereas Dean longed for rage. Hadn't Dean taught him well? Hadn't Dean sliced and burnt, and torn him well? Hadn't Dean forfeited enough, mutilating the kid into oblivion? Into hatred. Into bliss…
The thud of Sam's retreating steps tolls a hollow echo to the name Dean keeps calling out. He needs to argue for Sam's soul too, even if angels and demons know better. Even if he knows better. He needs that one chance in a thousand billion to repent what he'll never forget. What he has no way to undo. He needs Sammy's soul to prove Alastair wrong. For God help him, Dean himself can't, as he's left standing there, in an empty street, a brother lost tenfold to him now, the way not even the Devil's Cage could claim him. He's left standing there, all alone in the frigid void of Sam's determination, the purpose Dean held on to for dear life just crumbled to dust in his hands. He's left standing there, desperation all too familiar, the kind to leave no room for release, the kind to have been an intimate acquaintance of his for thirty endless years, draping freezing coils around his heart. And Dean knows it for a fact: no Hell is unearned.