Mirror Image

Hell, No Less

Flesh.

"How many strikes does it take to get to the centre of a Winchester?" the demon bitch asked in a sing-song voice. Sam's back was turned to her, tied to posts by his hands and ankles so his back was completely open and bare to her torture. "One?" A strike came down, but it wasn't that hard. Well…comparatively, since most whips could go right to the bone in a single hit. "Two?" Another, harder this time, and Sam could feel the fire running along the edge of sharp metal and burning rope. "Three!"

The third cut all the way to his spine, and his scream echoed in the cavern she'd placed them in.

Abruptly the vision changed; he was no longer tied upright, didn't have to rely on his own two feet to keep him upright – if he sagged at all, he suffocated like some mockery of Jesus Christ on the cross, and his air was forced out of his lungs.

He liked the sensation of breathing just enough to want to avoid that.

Bone.

His skin, being flayed off his body in such deep, cruel strokes he had to wonder his guts didn't spill out with every single one. The rack cranked another spoke and his body stretched, pulling sockets from themselves and he screamed loud and long, his voice joining the chorus of other tortured, damned souls.

The demon holding the brutal cat-of-nine-tails, made crueler by the fire that singed along it with every movement, magnesium igniting with oxygen, laughed and tossed her blonde mane of hair back. He knew the bitch had taken this specific shape to screw with him more – his ex-girlfriend, Jessica.

She stepped more closely to his beaten and bruised almost-corpse, her malevolent smirk of triumph increasing as another demon stepped forward with a scalpel and a butcher's knife. Sam knew whose form this one had taken, and he couldn't bear it. Day by day, hour by hour his memory was fading, but he knew this person had meant the world to him. A name repeated over and over in his head, becoming confused and echoing over itself so that the word didn't even make sense anymore;

Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean!

Dean…why? He cried out as the first incision was made; a brutal cut to his thigh from a swing of the butcher's knife, and it severed tendons and nerves so that he lost all feeling in the limb, but he still managed to sense the blood gushing from the wound. It made his head spin, the smell of it.

"Come on, break. No one's waiting for you up there. All it takes is a kiss, lover."

It took all his effort, but he managed to swing his head around to look at her. His tongue had long ago been removed with a pair of red-hot tongs, blood dripped from his lips that had been sliced open and his mouth that was currently trying to rid his body of as much blood as possible.

She puckered up, prepared for him to break. He merely spit a mouthful of blood into her face and laughed. The laugh turned into another scream as the knife in his gut twisted.

"I'll make you pay for that, Winchester."

--

"Who…Who are you? Who was that?" Memories, oh-so-vivid and terrifying swirled in the Hunter's head as that black-haired stranger crept towards him, silent and cautious. A strange pull in his chest made Sam gasp, as he leant forward by instinct to better sit up, to get closer to the creature that he knew wasn't human, but wasn't a demon either.

Hell, he would be able to smell a demon if it came close to him.

"My name is Castiel," the thing said, and again that strange pull made itself known. Sam looked down; half-expecting his heart to burst from his chest at the creature's voice, but what he saw was equally surprising; a hand print had been seared onto his skin. The flesh was blackened so it looked more like a tattoo than a burn, but he knew it for what it was; he also knew the other occupant of the room wasn't what gave it to him. "Sam," he looked up at the sound of his name, "do you…remember anything?"

The young Winchester shuddered; "Just…well…Hell," he said, somehow managing to smile despite the memories that assaulted him, images he would never unburn from behind his eyelids, things he would never be able to unsee, or unfeel. His body burned and trembled from its remembered torture, as though expecting for it to begin again at any moment.

The demons had gotten creative sometimes; sometimes they had sent Sam to alternate realities, to torture him of things he never could have had;

--

The worst was when he'd said 'Yes'.

It was awful…because he saw himself doing these awful things…torturing, killing…and yet smiling all the way. A true vessel, his obedience never faltered, and he never once tried to cast Lucifer out of his body, even when the Archangel had lain dormant in his mind, for Lucifer could do that; like a demon, the Devil had perfected the art of letting Sam have free reign over his body, and yet not actually leave it.

Bobby was unprepared for the two gun-shots to his torso, and Sam left him bleeding in his wheelchair for the past tense Dean to find. He resurrected Ellen and Jo from whatever plane they had fled to, just for some extra torture and rendering by the Hell Hounds that they had managed to escape from before.

Lucifer slaughtered demons, humans, Angels alike, having no care or qualm about anything he might touch, how it burned with every press of his fingertips. He didn't see point mourning over the destruction of the world…despite how he had preached of its beauty. For it was beautiful…and he would make it beautiful again once the cockroaches that were humans were rid of.

His brother never saw it coming when Sam sent a blade through his heart.

Or when he dislocated Dean's neck, snapping his head almost completely from his shoulders.

Or when Sam aimed and fired, putting a bullet right between his eyes.

Or when he used his psychic powers to collapse a building on top of Dean.

Over and over again the demons tortured him with images of his brother's death, until Dean ceased to mean anything to Sam. When that happened, Dean turned into a torturer himself. A demon took on his shape and met Sam blow-for-blow, doing everything that Dean himself had confessed he'd done when he'd broken in Hell. Sam knew there was significance, but eventually the face of his beloved brother became just another torturer.

When the work was done for the day, Sam chanted. He didn't pray, for there was no one to hear him. He didn't say 'Yes', and he didn't break. He just repeated the words given to him by…someone…important…significant…

But it was hard.

Over and over he repeated them, every night, until they ceased to mean anything. Until they stopped seeming so important and repeating those out of necessity became repeating them out of habit.

Sometimes he spoke it in Latin.

Sometimes he couldn't speak it at all, but held desperately to the remembered words he refused to forget; forgetting them would be worse than the torture. It was the only thing keeping him sane.

It was the only thing keeping him human.

The only thing that kept him from breaking.

--

Castiel brought Sam out of whatever yesterday his mind had sent him to with a soft touch to his forehead. Sam closed his eyes, the pull in his chest intensifying until it became almost painful. His heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest, but not from adrenaline or love or anything he would normally associate it with…

It almost seemed like, to him, the feeling he had after Jess had died.

Heartbreak.

On that revelation he shied away from Castiel's touch. The Angel didn't look hurt; he understood. Although Dean had initially fought it, Castiel was meant to be a calming influence to his charge, a protector and guardian and, most of all, a balance. Just as Castiel's nature balanced out the hotheaded, trigger-happy, tortured, broken Winchester, Sam's Angel would balance him out.

Castiel had no business touching what was no longer his.

"Who was that?" Sam asked again, once his heart rate had calmed down as Castiel had moved himself away from the bed, towards the window. The Angel stood silent, watching the outside ebb and flow of traffic in and out of the hospital for a moment before he turned back to look at the risen Hunter.

"Do you remember anything?"

--

"Well, Hello Dean."

Within a moment Dean had turned, slamming the speaker up against the wall, rage painting his expression dark and ominous. His words were all but snarled to the smaller man; "You have three seconds to give me a good reason I shouldn't have myself an Archangel Barbeque."

Gabriel smiled, shaking his head lightly, and suddenly Dean was holding onto nothing. He turned around, knowing the man would be right behind him, and he wasn't disappointed. "Answer me, damn it!" he growled, fighting the urge to just…hit something…preferably Angel but he didn't want to break his hand right then. "What did Sam sell his soul to you for, huh? What was it?"

"And why should I tell you? Ever heard of something like Confidentiality?" Typical response from the Trickster, it did nothing but fuel the fire in Dean's heart. His hands clenched and unclenched beside him. Gabriel sighed. "Look, I can't actually tell you; that was a thing of the Deal. Sam's the only one allowed to tell you – or one of the demons that tortured him – and that's only if he remembers. I take it that since you're out here and not in there having a nice family reunion that he doesn't know you."

"Oh, he knew me alright." Dean looked away, remembering the look of horror and fear on his little brother's face. It was worse than…well, anything. Dean couldn't ever remember Sammy being so afraid, and to see that look directed at him, like he was the Devil Incarnate. It was awful. "But not as me. I'd bet money those bastards used my face to torture him."

"Likely." Gabriel nodded, folding his arms across his chest as, at once, both he and Dean's eyes travelled to the door of Sam's room. At that moment Castiel emerged, looking tired and, worse, hopeless. It was the first time Dean hadn't seen faith in the Angel, and the effect was staggering.

"He doesn't remember anything," he said once he'd come up on the two, not looking the least bit surprised to find Gabriel there. Of course he would know anyway, but still. "Not even the damned tribute."

"Wait, what? Tribute?"

"Like a sacrifice," Castiel explained quickly, ignoring Gabriel as he moved towards the entrance to Sam's room. Dean cut off further reply by stepping in front of the Archangel.

"Wait a minute there, skippy. You're not going anywhere near my brother."

"Dean, he has to."

"Yeah? And why is that?"

"Because I'm the one who pulled him out, genius." Gabriel rolled his eyes. "And I'm probably the only one that can make him remember. Now, if you don't mind I'd like to get back to saving the world now, if it's all the same to you, or you can continue stopping me whilst time runs out and the only hope for the world slowly starts forgetting everything, if he hasn't already." Without another word Gabriel swept past Dean, ignoring the glare of contempt he received.

If looks could kill…

Finally, Dean directed his gaze back towards Castiel, figuring he might as well get information from someone who was a little more likely to tell him something; "So what was that about a tribute?"

"A sacrifice. Goes right back to the beginning of the Old Testament; anyone who made a Covenant with God or one of his Angels had to first serve his part of the bargain, and then up to forty days afterward a sacrifice would have to be made. Used to be simple things, like animals or a random person, but over the years we've had to get more specific. No one enters into contracts with Angels anymore, hardly, and so…well…Sam has to give a sacrifice to God before forty days, otherwise he will get tossed back into the Pit and the Deal is off."

"And you're telling me he doesn't remember what it was he had to sacrifice? I mean…we can't by any chance just go and shoot a goat or something?"

Castiel shook his head, Dean's lame attempt at humor rolling off of him like water off a duck's back. "No. It's very specific to each person. Gabriel will have told him it, but if Sam forgets it in the Pit it's not Gabriel's fault. I will try and help him remember, Dean, and you must as well."

"How can I? He practically jumped out of the window last time he saw me! I'm telling you, Cas, those demons did something to him. Something awful. He doesn't even get to remember why he ended up in the Pit? All he knows is that somehow he's back and he has no contacts, no friends, doesn't even remember his own family?"

"The outlook does look bleak."

Dean sighed heavily, running both hands through his hair and then over his face. Why, Sammy…why did you have to do this? I just want to know why…. His eyes travelled back to the open transparent door. If he listened very closely, he could hear Sam speaking, and Gabriel must be in there too.

"Understatement of the century, Cas."

Author's Note: I didn't really check this one either. Sorry, my beta doesn't really do Supernatural - I'm trying to get her to watch it, but the going's tough. She freaked out at the Woman in White. I can't imagine how she'll handle the rest of it - and there's only so many times I can proof-read my own work. Stuff's happening...sigh, mostly I'm just annoyed that this seems to be the only thing I'm capable of writing at the moment. Oh well, it's not going to last long.

Loves. Review if you want.

HigherMagic x