He had to admit: he had been terrified.

At first, he had been.

The Hellhound had scared the living shit out of him, and he was sure he must have screamed himself raw as it shredded him with its claws, and no way he could have held back when it crushed his shoulder in that putrid maw.

Then again, Dean knew better than most that pain could make you breathless, so maybe he hadn't yelled too much.

He hoped for Sammy's sake that he hadn't.

But when he found himself in that completely alien space of criss-crossing cables, enormous meathooks impaling and immobilizing him, no other being, human or otherwise, to be seen or heard or felt or sensed -

He had panicked.

Screamed in a way that he would have been embarrassed to admit to top-side.

Out of control, hysterical.

Weak.

So not Winchester-worthy.

It was exhaustion that silenced him eventually, and he added a raw throat to his list of physical insults.

And then came hours or days or weeks or years of….nothing.

Hanging there.

That pain, nothing more.

No sounds, no scents, nothing to taste.

Nothing to see except the cables and empty space that he had already studied and studied and studied until his eyes ached and he thought his head would explode.

He tried to move, of course. Rocked and pulled and jerked; grunted, swore, and raged.

It didn't do anything, and he wondered what would have happened if it had. There was no pull of gravity to detect while he was suspended, so if he had, by some miracle - mentally, he sneered at the word - freed himself, would he have fallen? Risen, maybe to find himself topside?

Or would he have simply floated there, no longer impaled, but still, and now hopelessly, immobile?

He sang. Every song he knew and many he didn't. Made up words when he couldn't remember the lyrics. Invented songs when he grew bored with the ones he knew.

Laughed, the mania of it lost on him, when he imagined the look Sam would give him if he ever heard his big brother's imitation of Miley Cyrus.

And then he'd cried, sobbed, howled at the thought of never seeing his brother again.

He talked. Told everyone he cared about all of the things he'd never said. Told Sam how much he loved him. How proud he was of his brother: his height, his strength, his intelligence, the way he stood up to their father.

Told Sam that he really meant it when he told his brother to give up hunting and make a life for himself. To move on, forget Dean and really live.

He told Bobby how sorry he was if he'd ever let the older man down. How much he loved him, thought of him as a father, admired him, appreciated all he'd ever done for both boys. Begged their surrogate father to help Sam find a life, and to find one of his own, too.

Begged them both to keep on living.

And then it was his father he spoke to. Pleaded with John to forgive him, because his dad had sacrificed himself for Dean, and Dean had thrown that away in order to save Sam. But he thought his father would understand, needed him to understand, because it was Sam, and Dean had tried to let him go, tried to let his baby brother's death stand, but he just couldn't. Because as bad as this was, hanging in this nothingness with a pain his mind no longer bothered to acknowledge, it was nothing compared to the agony of trying to envision a life without his brother in it.

When the pain had been a constant for so long that his mind was numb to it, when he could no longer tell when his voice was projecting and when it was only in his head, when he was seconds away from madness, they came for him.

He cried with relief when he saw their demonic faces, thanked them over and over between agonized screams as they slashed at his flesh, tearing the hooks from his body, freeing him from his bonds.

This pain was new, their faces were new, there was something new invading that sameness, and he wept with joy, unheeding of the monsters' pity and disgust.

Then came Alistair, and the level of horror was also new.