Idea…so what would have happened if Osiris had taken Dean's tongue in episode 'Defending your Life' From Season 7.

Supernatural does not belong to me, although I wish it did. I am simply playing Kirpke's sandbox for a bit. All rights and ownership are the property of Kripke and the CW network. I am not making any money from this; it is for my own personal pleasure.

Please Review: They help shape the story. I do not have a Beta, all mistakes are mine...and unintentional.

This chapter contains VERY graphic imagery throughout, to include hell!torture. Don't like...don't read. Could have a slightly AU feel to it, if you squint.

Not Slash. Rating may need to be upgraded to M in reflection the graphic nature of this chapter.

Chapter 10

Living in Hell

Dean's first coherent thought was of pain…nothing more than pain. It was everywhere inside of him, at an almost cellular level, he struggled to push his leaden eyelids open and glance around the room. But his stubborn body refused to cooperate. The pain was keeping him somewhat focused, but it was also causing his mind to wander simply to get away from the tortured flesh. The second thing he noticed was the rancid smell that seemed to permeate his senses. It was like he was in a sulfur factory and they were pumping the yellow substance into the air…like oxygen or something. He had no clue where he was and this fact caused his training to start kicked in without him even thinking about it, causing him to listen more intently to the noises around him, trying to discern exactly where he was and what he would likely be waking up to. He heard screams in the distance, awful hopeless sounds that filled his body with anguish, and the rolling thunder that was somewhere off in the distance…he heard chains clinking as they swayed above him in the heated wind. There were bright flashes of light that lit up his closed eyelids and caused him to clench his lids together even tighter to avoid the harsh and rapid flickers of what appeared to be lightning.

One single thought kept repeating itself through his head and it made him force his eyes open…Save him…savehimsavehimsavehim….

Dean struggled and finally convinced his body to listen to him enough to get his eyes opened. They slid apart and he was immediately assaulted with brilliant hues of color and intense white light. He slammed his lids closed again and inhaled the acrid air, steadying himself again and cracking his eyes open once more.

"I see you're awake, Winchester. About time. I was getting verrrry bored." A voice muttered…and there was a sudden burning along his abdomen as something smooth slid effortlessly across his naked flesh. That was the first time that he noticed that he wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing on his upper half. That realization caused his eyes to flicker down, looking at his naked torso, as he fought the burning slices of pain as the blade was being drawn over the taunt flesh and the blood that spilled down and soaked into his jeans waistband, the pants were hanging low enough on his hips that the top of his ass was exposed to the heated air and the muscles of his lower abdomen were visible above the drooping jeans.

His feet were also naked of both shoes and socks; he felt the heat from the air seeping into his flesh and tickling feel of the sweat that was rolling down his chest and into the wound, burning and sending flashes of agony through his tortured system. His eyes flashed up and connected with an uknown man's…he was tall with a harsh face, but it was the eyes that really caught Dean's attention…they were a brilliant white…no pupils, no iris…just the white of the sclera. He would have shrunk back from the man if he could move, but he was hooked to the rack he was laying against. No like literally hooked to the damn thing. There were iron meat hooks through his wrists and his ankles, which certainly explained the extreme amount of pain he was in. But it wasn't the physical wounds that were tearing him apart…it was the thought that he had failed…he had failed to save someone…but for the life of him he couldn't remember the name...and that name was important.

Okay, so the whole having holes in his memories was really starting to piss him off, Dean ground his teeth in frustration as he tried to grab a hold of the floating information. The intense throbbing pain wasn't helping him focus by any means. The man tilted his head and glared at Dean's apparent disregard for his words. He reached forward and suddenly dragged the sharp curved blade across the hunter's chest again, splitting the skin and watching with pleasure as more of the young man's blood covered his chest, sliding down until it was dripping from his toes into a rapidly forming puddle beneath the rack.

"Arghh…." Dean managed to bite off his cry as he clenched his eyes shut and allowed the white hot agony to subside somewhat before he forced them open again and stared daggers at the man in front of him.

"What…do you…want…freak?" he ground out through his teeth as he tried to focus on the intense hatred for the man standing in front of him. Dean still had no idea who the man was or why he hated him so much…but he did. Down to the very marrow of his bones Dean hated this man.

"You agreed to be here Dean…you did it to save him. Do you remember?" The man said, his voice held a slight hint of an accent that Dean couldn't place and the man's body was relaxed with the absolute assuredy that he couldn't be hurt here...not in this place.

Dean was getting flashes of memories…he saw a man in a bed…a hospital bed and he was dying. He saw a deal being struck and the complete and utter devastation of that knowledge rampaged through his mind. He felt the emotions flood through him as he watched how easy the decision to suffer for an eternity to save that dying man had been. How there had simply been no other choice for him. He had to save this man…the dying man. He had an important purpose in life…he was the protector of another…Sammy. The name slammed into his pain wracked mind and made him groan with the force with which it implanted itself in his head.

"Sammy…." He whispered as the man rammed a white hot poker through his left shoulder, singeing muscle, sinew, and scorching the bone black as he nodded at Dean. Dean couldn't hold in the cry of agony this time…he howled his horror and his rage into the red tinted atmosphere; his head falling forward onto his chest in utter defeat. This was the deal that had had to be struck to save Sam…his protector had to live, and no matter what the cost he would make sure that happened. Dean knew that this was the price for his brother's survival…an eternity in hell. It was a price that he would pay a thousand times over if it meant saving Sammy.

XXXX

Sam rushed along the walls of the hospital, Lucifer in tow. He was talking about the cage and all the fun that they had had and how he intended to torture the shit out Dean as soon as he was able to. Sam growled at the man to 'Shut the hell up!', but it hadn't mattered the son of a bitch just kept talking. Sam ran faster, his ankle throbbing in pain as he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway and found himself face to face with the gates of hell. He stumbled to a halt and stared at the massively twisted black iron gates…his eyebrow's coming together in anger as he noticed that a key was required to enter the realm. Of course there would be key…Dean wouldn't allow just anyone to access these memories…particularly me. Sam thought as his shoulders slumped slightly in a moment of despair.

"See, I told you Sam. There's nothing you can do to save Dean." Lucifer shrugged his shoulder in indifference and went back to singing 'Stairway to Heaven'. Sam used to like the song too…now it just made him want to vomit. Of course the smell that was wafting through the gates might have had something to do with the nausea as well. His nose wrinkled in disgust as the putrid stench increased with each step he took into the 'hell-realm'. Sam's arm came up and covered his nose and mouth in an attempt to breathe easier.

"That won't help you Sam." Lucifer said with a laugh. He was getting a real kick out of watching Sam suffer and he wasn't trying to hide that fact. And it was pissing Sam the hell off.

"Why don't you just leave!" Sam cried in frustration as his eyes met the mocking blue gaze of the fallen angel.

Lucifer shrugged and leaned against the mangled iron, "Where's the fun in that? I told you before, it's not like we have cable in the pit. All I have is you." He stood up and leaned into Sam, causing the younger Winchester to stumble back a few steps to put some space between them. "I think this is one of my best scenarios though…don't you?"

Sam's eyes narrowed in confusion, "What do you mean?"

Lucifer smiled back at him, "Oh you'll see soon enough Sam. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise."

"What the hell does that mean!" Sam was losing patience with all this cryptic talk. He just wanted to see Dean, he didn't want to keep playing these bullshit games. His eyes flickered around the iron gate and then fell on a shiny object in Lucifer's left hand. The man shrugged his shoulders again and tossed the shiny key at Sam. Sam caught it deftly in the air and stared at the obnoxiously shiny object. It was so out of alignment with this place that he stared for a moment before he realized that he was holding the key to the gate and with that he could find Dean.

He stumbled the few steps to the gate and thrust the key into the shifting lock and watched as the gate started to twist and writhe as it pulled apart and 'opened' to him. Sam glanced over his shoulder and was gratified to see that the angel wasn't behind him. He released a breath of air and rushed forward as quickly as his injured ankle would allow. He was just past the gate when it twisted closed again and he heard a sound that would echo through his soul for the rest of his natural life…it was a sound of pain and terror and the utter devastation of the righteous. It was the sound of his brother crying out in agonizing pain…and it was coming from the area directly in front of him.

XXXX

Dean felt the whip as it fell across his shoulders, the jagged metal attached at the ends of the many leather straps ripping into the tender flesh. He had lost count after fifteen, his body struggling to simply remain conscious. The man was picking up speed and strength as the whip continued to snap back only to fall again, this time across his lower back. The blood was splattering across Dean's cheek as the leather snapped back and then fell again tearing swaths of material out of his jeans across his hamstrings. Dean had lost the ability to cry out because before the whip had been brought out, the man had thought that it would be funny to cut out Dean's tongue. That had triggered a memory…but he couldn't quite work out the fuzzy images…then he had lost the thought completely as the black whip with numerous pieces of shiny jagged metal attached to the many strings of leather had been shown to him with loving reverence. The man had then described with great detail the many different things that it would do to his body; before he was subjected to the ministrations of that same whip.

Dean just wanted it to be over, he was trying to figure out why none of this had killed him yet…when he suddenly realized that that was what Hell was…it was not dying. His head had fallen forward onto his chest, the blood dribbling down his chin between his pectoral muscles and sliding down until it disappeared below his waist. One thought was repeating in his mind at this point…like a mantra…save the protector. Save Dean… He felt his eyelid's shutter open at that thought. Save Dean? How could he save himself? A voice pierced his hazy thoughts and the whip stilled instantly as the man's eyes were drawn to the tall figure of the youngest Winchester.

Dean pulled his head up and peaked through the slits of his eyelids, seeing his brother's horrified expression, making him wish that he hadn't even made the effort. Sam's face was a sea of rage and terror as he took in the scene in front of him.

Dean was chained…no skewered, to a metal rack. The tattered remains of his jeans were barely hanging on his thighs, having slid down from his waist as they had been ripped apart by the ruthless use of the whip that now hung loosely in an unknown man's hands. The man tilted his head to the side and smiled at Sam. In all his life Sam had never seen someone turn a smile into something so sinister before…

"Sam, so glad you could make it." He tilted his head and drew the whip up one last time and sent it flying out, it connected with Dean's body and he arched at the fiery slash of pain that rippled through his already abused body. What had been left of his cloths now slid to the ground leaving him hanging naked and exposed on the hot iron of the rack, his skin burning where it touched the molten metal. Dean's eyes slid from Sam's as humiliation and agony warred within his haunted green gaze, the blood was now his only refuge from the tortured and prying eyes of his little brother. "Go ahead Sam. Convince Dean he doesn't deserve to be here…that he isn't the reason that his father suffered this fate for 120 years…" With that said the man dropped the whip and simply evaporated into the air, like smoke in the wind.

Sam had started to cry out when the whip slashed forward that final time to strike his brother's prostrate form, but the horror of what he was witnessing had pulled the sound from his lips with nothing more than a soft… "No…Dean…"

Sam rushed forward and looked at his brother. He wanted to remove Dean from the rack but he couldn't see how the hooks were attached, it was like they were a solid circle that entered Dean's flesh and then melded back into the metal completing the circle. There was no way to remove Dean without pulling the iron through his flesh and bone. Tears slid silently down Dean's bowed head, his body shaking with pain at the realization of what exactly his father had suffered to save his miserable life. Sam reached under Dean's chin and gently lifted his head so that he could look into Dean's eyes, the level of anguish and despair that was reflected out of those glassy green pools caused Sam's heart to stutter along. "Dean?" he asked quietly.

Dean's eyelids flickered open and he connected his gaze with Sam's, suddenly finding that he could talk again…this world makes no sense. He thought. "S'mmy?"

Sam nodded as more tears cascaded down his face. "Yeah Dean. It's me." He gently ran his fingers over Dean's bloodied face, trying to wipe away the tracks that his tears had made in the blood. "Dean, do you remember why you're here?"

Dean's eyes drifted closed again as he thought, "Mem'br." He managed around the pain.

Sam nodded and squatted down so he could see into his brother's eyes again. "Dean…" his voice broke as he tried to tell Dean that he didn't know how to free him. "I…can't free…you." His brother nodded his understanding and Sam cringed when he saw nothing but blind acceptance in that battered face. Dean wasn't blaming him for not being able to help him. Sam's head fell forward and he found himself staring down the length of Dean's tortured form…he snapped his gaze back up and howled his frustration, watching as the wind whipped it away into the blistering heat.

"My….f'lt…S'my…" Dean whispered, tears dripping off his nose.

That brought Sam slamming back into the moment at hand and he gently lifted Dean's head again and shook his head in denial. "No Dean. It wasn't." He tried to smile at his brother, but the smile wouldn't form on his lips. "Dad made his choice to save you. It was the most unselfish thing that dad ever did Dean." Sam hiccupped in a breath and continued. "Don't take that from him. He did it for you and he isn't suffering anymore…hasn't been for a long time…all because of you. What you did. Dean."

Dean groaned deep in his chest as he tried like hell to accept that fact. His head was telling him one thing and his heart was shouting something completely different….his body was screaming something totally in contrast with both of his other parts.

Sam nearly dropped Dean's head when Lucifer suddenly appeared right behind Dean, leaning suggestively against his brother's naked back, his hand resting in the wounds on Dean's shoulder, causing the blood to flow more quickly. His chin was resting on the other bloodied shoulder of the older Winchester, "I told you. You can't save him Sam…because he doesn't want to be saved." He pushed his thumb into the seeping wounds on Dean's back and watched with pleasure as agony shot through the young man, his eyes snapping open and his back arching away from the angel, the uncomfortable feeling of someone that close to his bare ass making him arch into the metal of the rack.

"Get the hell away from him you son of a bitch!" Sam cried as he lurched forward to physically move the man. His hands coming up to grab the asshole by his blonde hair, but Sam found that he was clutching only air…and he and Dean were once again alone. A voice sounded like thunder from the clouds that were currently swirling above their heads…you need to hurry Sam…he only has so much time accept this fate…or you know what his future will hold…hurry Sammy….hurry Sammy…tick...tock...tick...tock... The taunting voice faded into the background and Sam turned back to Dean. He was looking at Sam, his eyes frightened and desperate as he waited for his little brother to address him again.

"Dean, I need you to understand once and for all. None of this is your fault. Shit just happens and it seems that in the Winchester family it happens way more often and with greater ramifications than other families. Dad wanted to save you; it was his fault that you were dying in the hospital bed in the first place. His inability to stop hunting for the thing that killed mom…he almost lost you because of his own selfishness. All this guilt that you two carry around…it's killing you Dean…just like it killed him." Dean's head lolled forward at that and Sam mentally kicked himself, this was not going the way that he had pictured it. He was driving his brother further into this paranoid dimension, when he was supposed to save him…that's when it suddenly occurred to him. The one sure-fire way that he could save Dean. Convince his older brother that by living and surviving he could save Sam.

Sam inhaled slowly and forged ahead. "Dean…if you can't accept what he did…really accept it. Then you are going to die…and so will I." Sam watched with morbid fascination as his brother's head snapped up and his fury filled green eyes crashed into Sam's wounded gaze.

"No! Sammy…I'm gonna save you." He growled out between clenched teeth, his body nearly vibrating with the intensity with which he felt this one 'order'. The one mantra that he had lived his entire life by… 'protect Sam'.

Sam looked sad as he looked past the anger into Dean's soul. "Then do it." He said in a whispered voice, his own body shaking with repressed emotions.

Dean's eyes fell away from Sam's as he thought of all the things that he wouldn't have been there to do for Sam if he hadn't been saved that night. Deep down he knew, had always known, that his father would have walked away from Sam the moment that the funeral was finished. Once Dean had been buried and was gone, his father would have simply gone back to his quest for vengeance and continued in his search for revenge against the yellow eyed demon…he would have left Sam…and Sam would have died in Cold Oak, North Dakota. His father's sacrifice had made it possible for Dean to save Sam…well kinda…he had gone to hell and saved Sam…after his own failure to protect his little brother. Dean finally felt a warm acceptance slipping through his system and suddenly he was falling forward into the surprised arms of his baby brother.

Sam's hands shot out to catch Dean, pain lancing through his body as he felt his forward momentum halted by the strong arms. Dean felt his body being slowly and carefully lowered to the ground, his wounds mixing with the red dust that littered the rocky slope they suddenly found themselves on. The rocky surface bit into his fillet flesh, the air was suddenly cold and Dean found that his naked body was shivering as it pierced him; the pain in the open wounds on his wrists and ankles adding a new level to his suffering. Sam was looking down at him, the relief and the love that was nakedly exposed in his blue-green gaze was matched by the mirrored expression in Dean's own glassy emerald colored eyes. Dean nodded and then turned away from the onslaught of emotions. "Too much chick-flicking here dude…now I know this is hell." He whispered.

Sam barked a laugh, so glad to hear his brother make a bad joke that he was unable to react any other way and found himself pulling Dean closer to his body, trying to impart some of his own immense body heat to the shivering man in his arms. "This is your head Dean…" he quipped.

Dean nodded. "Then why don't I know how we get out?" he asked quietly as he looked at the expanses of rolling and jagged rocks in all directions. It all looked exactly the same.

Sam shook his head. "I have no idea Dean. Like I said this is all in your head."

Lucifer's voice resounded through Sam's brain like a megaphone. "You have to beat me to get out here Sammy…good luck" Sam's head snapped in several directions while he looked for the source of the voice, when his eyes settled back on his brother's he was surprised to find that Dean was staring at him with horror. "What Dean?"

"He's in your head Sam…Lucifer? And he isn't going to let us leave is he…?" Dean's voice was hoarse and edged in fear as he stared into Sam's worried eyes. Dean's body started to shake violently and he pulled into a ball to try and alleviate the pain.

"We are leaving big brother…right now!" Sam said as he employed the power of the dream-root…

TBC…

Author's Note: Sorry for the graphic nature of the chapter…but while I can't say for certain, I'm assuming that any version of Hell would be graphic, painful, bloody, humiliating…and any other word that would demean a person. So now they are trying to escape the Osiris created world…but will Sam be successful in getting them out or will Dean be doomed to suffer while they try to escape. Next chapter soon. Thanks for sticking with me through this odd little fiction.

Please Review: I find them motivating…