Chapter 13: I will Fight till the Flag Waves White, Until my Dying Days

Blood painted his small hands, running through his fists like warm water; it was thick, coating him like a well applied varnish. The final choked gasps of the body hanging from his grip evaporated like the soul formerly occupying the body before Dean's hand let the carcass hit the ground without his consent. Try as hard as he might, he couldn't get any part of his body to obey his commands. Instead, the world came into sharper focus, highlighting all the blood he had spilled since emerging from the shadow darkness he had awoken in.

He stared at his blood-stained hands as though they belonged to someone else. They were no longer familiar; the weapons his father had been crafting to protect innocents, to protect the family, had now been the cause of malevolent destruction. His stomach rolled violently as the sheer terror that'd pierced his victim's eyes flashed before him. There was so much death packed into the few days since he had last told Sam to run, before staring down the evil that had forced its way into their motel.

"You can fight it all you like, but you're not the one in charge here," came a voice. It was laced with malice and seemed to come from every molecule surrounding Dean, and yet there was no one around: just the echo of his stuttering breaths.

His heart pounded in his chest. It was some kind of nightmare; he'd fallen asleep in front of the TV watching horror movies after Sammy went to bed again. He just had to wake up.

"You're not dreaming. You're mine and we're going to have so much fun together, Dean. Oh the things we'll do, the people we'll kill. You're about to become important. Put those killer instincts your daddy gave you to good use. Maybe we'll try some out on Sam?"

"Who are you?" choked out Dean, his breath ragged with fear. Something pulled tight deep within his chest. It was his job to protect Sam, to keep the kid safe, and while his track record for the last fourteen years hadn't been without tarnish, Sammy was fine. Now something was threatening to destroy that and do it with Dean's complacency.

"I'm Dean Winchester," replied the maniacal voice, with firm conviction.

The world began to swim again, darkness flooding in and drowning him. Just for a moment, like a distress beacon launched in the night, he thought he saw his father storming into the room. Dad would make everything alright, take the darkness away. Dad always cleaned up his messes.

Dean could feel the soft blankets surrounding him; it was like the world was right, that his last thoughts of blood and a voice whispering in his ear were a distant and bad dream. It was quiet in a comforting way. He could feel Dad's presence constant and reassuring beside him in a beat up old chair and Sam curled up asleep on the bed next to him. There was a sense of calm that washed through him, replacing the gut wrenching fear and terror that permeated every inch of him before.

The hospital room went watery, a ripple sprawling out through the room, moving everything away from peaceful and safe. Everything was too bright, too sharp, like over exposed film. The simple act of breathing felt like he was encased in honey; not painful to pull in breaths, but somehow more effort than the simple act should have been.

"... in Chicago for a little while. You always liked that city, right Dean?" Asked John, without raising his head from his hands. He was hunched beside Dean's bed, too cowardly to look at what he had let happen to his boy.

Dean wanted to answer, even had a reply on the tip of his tongue, but his lips wouldn't move. He couldn't even turn his head to look at his father. Fear shot through him like a railway spike, compounded by the fact that John didn't even seem to expect a response from him. He just continued his one-sided conversation.

"Little time to recuperate and you'll be good as new." John's voice wavered, a hot and aching tremor pulling at his voice. "Doctors don't know everything, buddy. And I promise, Dean, I'll find something or someone to help. You just gotta hang tight for me. Can you do that?"

Of course he could, Dean could follow orders with the best of them. He'd seen firsthand what happened when he didn't, seen the terror breaking his father's stoic mask as he rushed to Sammy's slumped form after sending the Shtriga hightailing it out of their bedroom.

"Of course we can, can't we, Dean?" posed the dark voice. "We can wait patiently for our opportunity to slowly choke the life out of Sam. Maybe we'll slit Daddy's throat while he sleeps?"

Dean's breath hitched as pure panic washed across his face. He carefully watched his dad out of the corner of his eye for any sign that John heard the vicious threats being thrown at the family. There was none.

Fear wrapped around Dean like an octopus, curling tightly around every inch and stick with a fierceness that was never going to let go. "No!" he screamed, without the sound ever leaving his throat. "Don't you touch them."

"What are you going to do about it?" The voice taunted, filled with mild amusement and an overconfidence just begging to be punch.

Sitting beside him, the man that had made it his mission to protect not only his children but innocent people across the country, behind him, the brother that would do anything for him, and Dean couldn't reach out to either of them. He was surrounded by the people that mattered most and yet he was alone and completely, utterly on his own. He tried to reach out and grab his father's arm, gain some attention to the problem brewing. Dean had never put so much effort into such a small movement, his pinky finger twitching on his left hand. Slowly his ring finger followed suit, breaking the mysterious hold with the sheer motivation of Dean's unrelenting glare.

"You're not going to touch my family, you bastard," snarled Dean.

"What are you going to do Dean? I have control of your body."

"Not my mind. I'll find away to tell them and then you'll be finished," he countered, his sureness growing with each millimeter of motion he gained in his hand.

"You're going to save them Dean-o?"

"Yes."

"Like you saved your mother?"

His hand slid off his thigh, moving towards his dad with an agonizing slowness. He could do this, he could make his dad understand how much danger they were all in...

Everything went black. The floor creaked beneath Dean's feet, letting out a low groan that cut through the silence. He glanced down at the carpet beneath him, the light color coming off as grey in the murky darkness. His forehead scrunched in confusion, this wasn't right. He was laying in a hospital bed.

A soft orange glow flickered against the wall, compelling Dean to move towards it. Obediently, he put one foot in front of the other, moving closer. The light became brighter, building in intensity along with the sound and billowing smoke. It clogged his lungs, burning him from the inside out and stealing his breath. Still, he moved cautiously closer down the familiar hallway, feet silently shuffling along the carpet, the heat building around him.

He stopped close to the door, near enough to catch a glance into the small bedroom but not close enough to get a complete visual. It was enough though. The fire danced up the walls clawing hungrily to the person on the ceiling. "Mom." The word escaped his lips before the horror of what he was witnessing even registered.

Tears, almost as hot as the flames that had consumed his whole world ten years ago rolled down his cheeks. "This isn't real," he breathed.

John's anguished cry made Dean flinch. He had to do something; he couldn't let her die, not again. Everything in Dean told him to move, to take action, but he stood there frozen in fear just outside the door to Sam's nursery. Frozen: just like he had been in the hospital room, in the warehouse when the demon was using him to kill all those people. He finally snapped out of it when John thrust a precious bundle into his arms, ordering him to get outside.

Dean ran. He ran fast and as far as he could from the grisly sight burning itself into Sammy's ceiling. Standing there in the front yard, watching his life go up in flames, he realized he didn't have Sam in his arms. He wasn't four years old either. A firm hand clamped down on his shoulder, providing everything but reassurance and comfort.

"Couldn't save mommy; hell, you didn't even try. Ran the first chance you got," crowed the ominous presence beside him.

Dean watched as the firemen rushed into the burning house. Despite their bravery and dedication, they were going to be too late, too late to save Mary and too late to suck the poison out of Dean's life.

It was an endless loop of every failure, every horrible thing Dean had witnessed in his short and deadly life. It was a storm raging in his mind, pounding at his battered defenses that he had had no warning to fortify before the onslaught. Ever failure he was forced to relive was a fresh cut, burrowing deep in his soul and psyche.

He'd lost count after the two hundredth time he'd watched his mother burn. It was one nightmare after another, flashes of the real world few and far between and certainly not a long enough respite to recover. The calming motion of the Impala helped ease the trembling that seemed to become a constant part of Dean's inner self. If Dad could see him now; a raggedy mess in the face of his own personal horrors.

He'd tried to fight back, but it was too much, the demon too strong. He'd gone so far as to actually attack the demon, throwing punches. The end result was a terrifying realization that he had actually gained control of his own body, but instead of fighting the demon, he'd given his father a broken nose. The demon had done a thorough job of warping any sense of reality and nightmare Dean had been left with.

The torment had continued on for forever. There wasn't a time Dean could remember when he wasn't engaged in an internal battle against an unfair foe.

"Do you understand now?" asked the malevolent presence. "You tell John or Sam anything about me, and what I've put you through the last two months will be nothing compared to what I'll do to them."

Dean believed the threat, had witnessed firsthand what the demon was capable of. He'd only been enduring his own personal hell for two months and not the lifetime it seemed like. Finding his voice, his fight, he demanded, "Then why don't you do it?"

There was a stretch of silence in which Dean thought he wouldn't get an answer. Demon's didn't negotiate, they destroyed everything in their path. No matter who the demon had control of, John wasn't going to let it hurt anyone else, making the leader of the Winchester clan a threat. John was a threat the demon seemed to be leaving alone.

The demon had a stranglehold on Dean, but perhaps it wasn't as complete as he originally thought. If he could keep it together under the demon's relentless focus, maybe he could find away to warn his family. Dean just had to be strong.

"Maybe you don't have as much control as you claim," challenged Dean, with a defiance most of his teachers had warned him against.

"Maybe," conceded the demon. "Want to take that chance? Because if they even suspect that we're still together, Dean, I will gut both of them with your bare hands and make sure you're present enough to watch the whole thing. See, I really just need to torture something to find my bliss. You, them, it's all interchangeable. Someone is going to be on the end of my knife, and I'm kind enough to let you decide who. Do we have an understanding?"

It felt like giving up, like rolling over and dying. His father had taught him to fight with all he had and to never give up… but he was so worn and frayed already. He wasn't sure he could continue to wage war against something so powerful without knowing for certain he would gain any ground. Dean thought of Sammy, the little brother that was going to pay dearly if Dean couldn't win this war. He thought of his father, who had already lost the love of his life, how would he handle having to stop Dean from killing him and Sam? "Yes."

"Who do I get to play with then?"

Dean had never been surer of anything in his short life. "Me."

"Good. Remember, mum's the word, Dean." The darkness wrapped its heavy hands around his shoulders and whispered in his ear, "You're better off with me anyway kid. They were all going to leave you anyways."

Darkness had become Dean's friend. When the darkness settled, the demon was sated. There was an uneasy pattern to everything. The demon would have its fun, pulling Dean apart from the inside out, followed by vast periods of nothingness. Dean coveted the nothingness.

Odd pinpricks of light would often penetrate his dark cocoon, moments where the real world would slip into his consciousness. It was like being underwater, things were distorted and slow coming across as garbled. Safety and family came through like a sharp spear even if Dean couldn't comprehend the rest.

The frequency in appearance of the spots heralded the return of the demon. Still, Dean enjoyed every feeling, every emotion he could pull from them. Sam and Dad were fine and that's what mattered. He'd take the reassurance and use it to motivate him to endure.

He had the most control just before the demon started his tortures again. Never enough to force anyone into action before the demon could make good on its threats. Being able to move his hand, hell, his arm in good instances, was enough to bring tears to his eyes. The best days were when he could actually wrap his arms around Sam or Dad, feeling their warmth and life for himself.

He'd settle for the simple act of picking up a crayon, though. The ability to do something for himself was not a rush to be ignored. He started by drawing things he could hold onto, happy memories that gave him hope. Sometimes his frustration would get the better of him and images would become darker, closer to the truth. Dean looked at his handy work and realized subtlety could be his greatest weapon.

He gave his word he would never say anything to tip the demon's hand; Winchester lives hanging in the balance. He never said anything about not leaving innocent clues lying around, so subtle, the demon never noticed. Dean drew his pictures, hope renewed that he could get a message to his family. He just had to be patient and endure his living hell for as long as he could.