Chapter 2 -- The Offer

Dean swallowed, his jaw clenching and unclenching, stomach acid rising the his throat. It was yet another sensation he would never have expected to be able to feel in this form. "If you want me back in Hell so bad, why don't you just kill me and get it over with? Why all the monologuing?"

Alastair smiled wryly.f "I would, but it's too chancy. You fulfilled your contract when you went to Hell the first time, my boy. Even with everything you've done, all the marvelous sins you've committed, there's no guarantee where you might wind up when next you die, especially with those conniving, untrustworthy angels sticking their noses into business that doesn't concern them." The demon's lips curled back, baring the slightly yellowed teeth of the poor bastard whose meat he was wearing. "They'd keep us apart out of spite alone. No, the only way that I can be sure of getting you back is if you sell your soul to me."f

Dean gawped at Alastair, his mouth opening and closing in a way that he just knew made him look like a particularly dumbass fish. Was he joking? He had to be joking! "You're out of your twisted mind!" Dean exclaimed, actually stepping away from the wall and advancing on the demon, anger forgotten in sheer outrage. "After forty years of Hell, forty years of playtime with psychopaths, why would I ever willingly go back to that? Why would I go back to the rack? Not to mention the whole being ripped apart by hellhounds again is slightly less than appealing. I thought Meg was whole bucket-loads of crazy, but you… you take the cake!"

"Tut tut," Alastair said, his tone dripping with patient condescension. "You entirely misunderstand me, Dean. I could almost believe that you do it deliberately. First off, the hellhounds are entirely optional. Lilith was always a melodramatic, sadistic little bitch. Not that there's anything wrong with a little healthy sadism. I'm sure you remember how much fun that can be." He smiled darkly, beginning to walk around Dean in slow circles. "No. No hellhounds. This time, it doesn't have to hurt at all. And as for the rack… your time on the rack is over. It has been from the moment you first picked up my razor, from the moment you first stood in your rightful place at my side. That's where you belong Dean, at my side. Hell isn't punishment and agony, not for you. Not anymore. I carved you into a new animal, but the carving is over. My work on you is done. But our work, our work together, that's just beginning."

Alastair crept to a halt just behind Dean, making the skin between his shoulder blades crawl. Though he could not see him, Dean knew that the demon had leaned in close because he could feel the bastard's hot breath on nape of his neck. He shuddered, but when he tried to turn and face his tormentor, he found that he was held in an invisible vice, helpless to defend himself. Not that he'd had much success with that in this form to begin with. Alastair's will was strong, so very strong.

"Dean, hell is where you belong now, where you've always known you belong. Hell is your true home, as it is mine. Think of it Dean, an eternity of safety, of love, of knowing just how much you're wanted. No more fear, no more pain, no more loneliness and doubt. No heartless angels making impossible demands, no loving family tying you in unforgiving knots. Just peace and security and the work. And all you have to do, is say yes. Just say yes, Dean."

Once again, outrage conquered fear, and Dean found himself spluttering as he searched for words scathing enough to convey his disbelief and disgust. "Let me get this straight, you're asking me to sell my soul in exchange for… what? A one way trip to Hell? Somehow, I always thought Hell was the consequence, not the freakin' reward!"

Alastair came back around to face him head on. "Depends on your point of view," the demon replied. "But as it happens, I do have something to offer you. Something to sweeten the pot, to ease the guilt of leaving dear little Sammy behind. I can offer you far more than any pathetic piss-ant crossroad demon ever could. The one thing you really want."

"Oh yeah, and what's that?" he scoffed.

Alastair's eyes rolled upward and the whites shown as if afire when he leaned in and whispered his damning offer: "Sammy, whole, healthy and completely free of demon taint."

The world spun crazily and for a moment Dean lost the ability the breathe. His vision grayed over. Everything was dim and distant. My God, he thought. My God. He did nothing. He said nothing. He could barely think as Alastair's monumental proposal slowly sank in. Dean's soul for Sammy's… salvation? Was it even possible? And if it was possible, what then?

"How? Why? Why would you…" He trailed off, unable to finish a coherent thought.

Alastair's forged onward. "Because I know you Dean, I know you better than you know yourself. After all, we spent forty years together, and all that time, all those long, agonizing years on the rack, what was the one thing you used to comfort yourself? Let's face it, he was all you could talk about."

Gray gave way to red as a bloody ire suffused Dean. Rage gave him power, and the spells holding him fast shredded like so much tissue paper. His hands, solid as any noose, wrapped around the demon's throat. "NEVER! I never talked about Sam in Hell! I never betrayed him that way! Never!" His fingers tightened, tightened, and they fell entwined to the alley floor. Dean lost track of everything but the rage pouring out of him, the rage pouring into Alastair as he clawed at the demon's throat, his eyes, anything he could reach. Then Alastair laughed. He laughed, and Dean lost track of even his rage as the world spiraled in upon him and darkness took him.

Awareness returned slowly. With it came a weakness so profound that Dean labored even to remember his own name. Sight, hearing, all sense of where he was returned reluctantly. Putting himself back together after being shot by the rock salt had been like fitting the bits of a puzzle back into place. Piecing himself together now was like trying to rebuild the Impala out of wet cardboard. Nothing would hold its shape. Nothing would bear any weight. His very existence teetered on the brink. Reality wavered. Then, as his sense of his surroundings grew, Dean knew immediately that Alastair was still there, hovering beside him. The demon was, in fact, using his own immense powers to help Dean's form regain its semblance of life. Help. From a demon. Where was Sam? Where the hell was Pamela? Why hadn't she called him back to his body? This last confrontation with Alastair had exhausted Dean, had literally shattered the fragile bonds holding his ghost self together. He didn't believe he would survive another.

Part of him wanted to beg, wanted to plead with Alastair, not for his life, but for the torment to simply stop. But when he could finally speak, no pleas nor prayers would come, only one hot denial. "I didn't talk about Sam. I didn't."

Alastair raised his hands in a placating gesture. "No, no you didn't, Dean. That's true. You may have screamed his name till your throat tore itself to shreds and your ears bled, but you never talked about him." Smiling gently, the demon patted the place where Dean thought his shoulder might be. "Still, he was always right there in your thoughts. And I told you, I'm inside that angsty little noggin of yours, so you might as well have been whispering every word straight into my ears, sweet nothings, like a lover. It was all that mattered to you, that Sammy was safe, that you'd saved him, that he would be okay. Sure, he was still in peril, still tainted by demon blood, still hunted by Lilith, but you'd saved him, and somehow you knew he'd be okay. Your sacrifice would make everything okay because it had to. Even in Hell, you had hope because Sammy, well, he was your hope of Heaven. Wasn't he? The one truly good thing in your nightmare existence."

Dean trembled, taking an unwilling comfort in the demon's reassurances. What Alastair thought of him shouldn't matter, yet, somehow, it did. And that terrified Dean more than all the rest of it put together.

"He was your hope of Heaven," Alastair repeated, "your one shining light. But then… then the angels rescued you from Hell. They dragged you back to this craphole, and that's when hope finally died. Turns out that little Sammy, well, I guess he wasn't saved after all. Or very grateful for that matter. I mean, you died for him, damned yourself for him, and the one thing you asked was that he stayed human, that he rejected his demon powers and all the dark delicious temptation that came with them. You sold your soul to save his, and the moment your back was turned, the very moment, he threw it all away. He tossed your sacrifice aside like it was nothing, less than nothing."

Dean realized abruptly that silent tears had begun to ghost down his cheeks, but he couldn't find even the desire to brush them away. What did it matter if Alastair saw him cry? The demon had seen it before, had seen far worse. No part of Dean's pain held any mystery for Alastair, as his words proved again and again.

"Sam, he chose a demon and demon power over his own brother. And then, when you came back, he just kept right on choosing her. No matter what you did, no matter how much you begged and pleaded, no matter how much he was hurting you." Dean cringed away as Alastair cupped his face in his long hands and brushed at the tear tracks on his cheeks with his thumbs. "I guess your pain just never meant that much to Sammy after all, Deano. I guess you never meant that much. All you ever were before you died was the shield at his back. Then, after your resurrection, you became the thing holding him back. And poof, no more hope for Dean. But I can fix it."