Alive, beating. Sky bleeds acid and tears and don't know which one it is till it's on your tongue. So thirsty throat split open, still wanna drink. Valleys full of trees and they scream and shake cause they're people cut into that shape, a hundred years, try and talk to them but can't move cause you're one of them, maybe always have been.
…
In your head and in your soul, mouths behind your eyes, always chewing. Edges all brittle and frayed (can't be both at once but they are). It's you and you're it and maybe it's him talking to you but it itches like you wouldn't believe and cutting somebody else is only way to make it better. Just a little.
…
Sharp little things crawling on the walls, pieces that fell off you and everybody else while they were carving, all of them know things they shouldn't. Bite and laugh and herd you back to the racks and the chains, and then you go down again. When you get back up, you've got horns and the points snag on the roof, drag down loops of gut that wrap all around you and you feel like something you know you're not ever going to be able to remember again.
…
Won't go back. Won't go back. No matter who asks, can't go back.
Personal "journal" of Dean Singer/Knight Dantalion, c. 2003 [inscribed on separate pieces of stationery from the homes of multiple murder victims]
Sam stumbled when he hit the ground, Dean immediately steadying him. The cold air was a shock in his lungs and on his face. For a second, Sam thought he'd gone blind, then realized that it was night. Or...no. His eyes adjusted, and he realized the sky was just smothered in clouds so black they blotted out almost all light, what bled through here at the end of the day weak and distant.
"What - " Sam threw a bewildered glance at Dean. "What're you doing? What's going on?"
Dean's eyes were blacker than the sky, shoulders hunched, and he wouldn't look at Sam. Wouldn't answer him, either, apparently. He was still squeezing his arm damn near hard enough to leave bruises.
They'd landed out in front of a building, and Sam looked up at it. He couldn't see it properly until a skeleton of lightning threw itself across the sky, etching pictures on his retinas. Huge, clearly abandoned, and had something bad rolling through him. The place just looked haunted.
Church? No, too big, had to be a convent or a monastery.
He swallowed. "Where...where are we?"
"Maryland," Dean answered tensely, and Sam's eyes snapped to him.
"Are you kidding me?!" he exclaimed. "Dean, we can't be here, this entire state's crawling with demons."
"Yeah." Dean looked at Sam, expression blank as it'd been when Sam woke up. "I know." His fingers shifted. "Stay close to me. You got your knife?"
"O-of course I do." His backpack was nowhere to be found, though.
"Good. Keep it handy. Might have to use it."
Sam's tongue felt like carpet in his mouth as he just stared at Dean. Tight pain lanced up his calf, drawing it hard and twitching, and a grunt slipped out of him. He was just about to rub it when something quick and sharp sliced through his skull, like he'd just smacked his head against a wall. It curled in through his temples like claws, and the vision set in, clearer than any he'd had in weeks.
Dean, kneeling in front of a white-eyed demon standing behind an altar, head bowed, not moving. Black-eyed demons yanking Sam's knife out of his hand and pinning his arms behind his back. He could see himself shouting, but there wasn't any sound.
Their clothes, the scenery, the absence of light...it was only hours away. If even that.
Sam was still swimming in the dregs as he wrested himself away from Dean, ripping his knife out of his coat and aiming it at him. He automatically fell into the crappiest defensive position he'd ever pulled, weight on his right leg, teeth bared in a snarl as a hair-thin trail of blood ran down over his upper lip. Dean just looked at him, a smudge of tiredness around his eyes. Everything felt so damn wrong and Sam's instincts were brawling inside him, and he could almost swear he heard his dad. But he had no idea what he was saying.
"You're gonna tell me what's going on right now," he told Dean quietly, voice even as he could get it.
"I'm trying to help you, Sammy," Dean replied, not moving. "Don't you trust me? Don't you at least owe me that much after everything you kept me in the dark about lately?"
Sam swallowed, blinked. And then there were demons on the steps of the building. Half a dozen, men and women running through a broad age range, eyes wet black. The one closest to them, a guy in a suit, smiled.
"There you are," he greeted Dean. "About time you showed up. Daddy's waiting...let's get that precious cargo delivered, shall we?"
The demons surrounded them, moving in tandem, and there were too many for Sam to have a hope against even if he'd been in fighting shape. He kept his knife out, though, as they herded the two of them into what he'd decided was a convent.
It was dark, darker inside than out, and Sam honestly wasn't sure how he was seeing. There were leaves and trash and dust all over the floor, Sam's boots scuffing through it. Graffiti, but not as much as he might've expected. Plants twisting up out of cracks in the walls and floors.
The place was also absolutely teeming with demons. They leered out of doorways, stood against walls, and when Sam lifted his head, he saw ropes of smoke running along the ceiling in the world's ugliest spiderweb, zipping in and out through cracked windows. The air reeked of sulfur, overpowering, somehow different from Dean, and it was a constant effort not to gag. This was obviously Hell's home base on Earth, the nerve center for their entire operation.
And Dean had brought him here.
Sam gripped his knife, tried to take everything in, stamp exits on his mind. But he was way worse off inside than he'd been out there. They could do whatever they wanted with him, and if he was really lucky, the best he could hope for was to kill one or two before he was dead or disarmed. He only had the one weapon, and might not be able to...who was he kidding, probably couldn't count on Dean to back him up.
Sam's leg hurt worse. Between the sulfur and the dust, he could feel a coughing fit coming on, but the last thing he wanted was to show any weakness in front of these things. Dean reached for him, tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Sam shook it off without even thinking. The demon leading them glanced back over his shoulder and smirked.
"I'd heard you were the greatest supernatural power couple since Jesus and Judas," he commented. "Trouble in paradise? Maybe I ought to leave the two of you alone to hash out your issues." They'd come to a pair of huge double doors. The demon raised his hands, and they swung open. "In here should be good."
He stepped aside. Sam walked in without any other choice, Dean beside him. None of the demons followed.
"The Lord should be with you any second." The demon smiled beatifically when Sam turned to look at him. "Until then, just sit tight."
The doors slammed shut with a bang that crashed off the stone walls. Sam pulled in as deep a breath as he could manage and took a look at their brand-new prison.
It was the sanctuary, pews lining an aisle. Faded, rusty stains covered the floor, like somebody had spilled blood here decades ago and tried to scrub it out of rock that'd already absorbed it. A particularly large mark draped itself over the altar. Stained glass windows, most of their panes shattered, let in the lightning flickering outside and the roar of distant thunder, striking everything flat and silver when it flashed.
Sam remembered his first vision. A black-eyed Dean wrestling him to the floor in a church, an abandoned church.
Had it been this place? He couldn't remember.
Sam looked at Dean, who raised his hands. "I can explain."
"Can you?" Sam demanded. "It better be a hell of an explanation, Dean, 'cause what it looks like is you tricking Castiel and dragging me out to the East Coast, which we've been going out of our way to avoid for months, so you can serve me up to Hell."
Dean didn't reply for a long time, hands still up. Eventually, carefully, he said, "Okay."
Sam felt something in him snap, and for the first time in a while, it wasn't because he'd coughed it loose.
Hours, days, weeks, months of tension, hundreds of arguments, a dozen major. A thousand little slights and lies and hurts and guilts. Travel and tiny rooms and stiff boots and short hair. An illness that hollowed and ravaged and stole and refused to leave. A rubber band breaking after being stretched too far, zipping ends cutting and stinging and raising welts that felt permanent.
Sam's bones rang.
"What the fuck is going on?!" Every demon in the convent could probably hear him, but Sam honestly couldn't have cared less. "What did you do, Dean? Do they know what's going on with me?"
"Uh, yeah, they definitely know." Dean cut Sam off before he could start yelling again. "I didn't tell them, they figured it out months ago. And it was Castiel's fault."
"What are you talking about?" Sam demanded, shaking his head.
"Hell felt him, I don't know, coming down from on high." Dean was talking fast, low, determined. "Of course they did. And with everything they wrung outta Kevin, they knew the next Messiah was popping up soon, and they knew no angel would be palling around with a person unless they were it. So they took a look at Castiel, and they found you. And me."
Dean laughed, just a little, and it was harsh and sounded like he couldn't control it. "I was out, man, I was free. No more hooks in me, you the only thing I was bound to. And yeah, Hell was looking for me. They don't let their property go that easy. But they weren't having any luck finding me, it might've been decades. Forever, if I was smart." Something in his face twitched, eyes still black. "And then Castiel showed up. They knew it was you, they knew I was with you, and...Alastair got ahold of me."
"When?"
"Right after Castiel touched down."
It clicked, a months-long unknown falling into place. "The beach house. You came back and - "
"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Just going for a walk and outta nowhere, seagull bashed itself into a rock in front of me and the blood started talking. Jury-rigged infernal goblet."
"So...what?" Sam asked, bitter. "Alastair told you to bring me to him and you asked when?"
Dean had been thrown so far off when he got back and forced them to leave. Sam barely even knew the tip of the iceberg that was his relationship with Alastair, and what he'd seen was ghastly. But it still seemed like a fair question when it felt less like Sam had been stabbed in the back just now, and more like someone was carving out his spine.
"How the fuck could you even think that, Sam?" Dean snapped back. "After everything that I've done for you? Seriously?"
Sam, silent, looked around the sanctuary.
Dean bared his teeth. His hands trembled for a second, and every pew in the sanctuary rattled against the floor. Might've been Sam, might've been Dean. The green tinge to the lightning that suddenly struck something on the convent's roof was definitely Dean. But then Sam literally saw him hold himself back, lash his anger down inside, and maybe it should've scared him or touched him, but mostly it just made his own fury flare hotter.
"You gotta understand that this...ain't what happened," Dean started slowly. "I didn't know you were a Messiah 'til Castiel told us both. I never wanted anything but to be with you. How many times have I told you that? But Alastair, he…" He shook his head, looked away. "When he called, he acted like I figured out who the next Messiah was before anybody else. Like I was working the long game this whole time, winning your trust."
Dean's face was a mask of disgust as he was talking, lines carved in so deep Sam could see what he would've looked like as a bitter old man. It didn't feel fake. But a tiny, scarred part of Sam at the back of his mind doubted.
"What, did he think that was what was going on?"
"No. Alastair's not stupid, he knew I was off the reservation. It was just his way of...inviting me back into the fold."
Now it was Sam's turn to be disgusted. "Did you want back in?"
"Hell, no." Dean glanced around, but they were completely alone, not even any other demons running across the ceiling. "Getting away from all this was the best thing that ever happened to me, and it took me too damn long to realize that. You saved me." The last three words landed raw. "This? It was Alastair reaching out and telling me he knew where you and me were. That he could do whatever he wanted to either of us at any time, but there was still a place in the story for me. So long as I played my part."
"So you decided to play your part," Sam repeated flatly.
"Don't you get it? I didn't have a choice!" Dean exclaimed. "They'd've killed me and taken you right then and there, angel or not. Me playing along meant I could be involved. That I had a chance to get us both outta this mess."
"And you didn't tell me? All this time?"
"Are you kidding? With everything else you'd just had dumped in your lap right then?" Dean shook his head. "It was my problem and I was gonna deal with it. You didn't need to freak out about Hell being miles closer than you thought. And then we found Bobby, and I wasn't gonna ruin that for you, and then...you got sick."
Sam was quiet for a long time, then pointed out, "If you're telling the truth, that's exactly what you were mad at me for doing. What you've been mad at me for doing a dozen different times for...for months."
"This is different," Dean replied, and looked at Sam, every inch of him. "You're just human."
Sam's jaw set, and his leg seared like there was a hand twisting at the healed meat of it.
"So...what?" Sam asked. "This is just you playing the part so you have a say in what Hell does to me? 'Cause I'm too damn weak to take care of myself."
"You know I didn't mean it like that, Sam. And no, not just that." Dean looked away. "Not anymore. I've been working on this a long time, trying to keep them all off our backs without us getting killed or worse. Originally, I never planned on you ever being here. Or knowing about it, even. But - "
Sam coughed then, couldn't hold it in any longer. At least he got it under control fast. But he felt Dean watching him struggle to recover, heard him quietly say, "Things have changed."
"Like what, Dean?" Sam knew the answer, but he asked anyway once he could breathe again, spreading his arms. "Me getting closer to closing the Gates once and for all?"
"You're dying," Dean said flatly. "And I'm sorry, I get it's your choice and all, but I'm not just gonna stand back and watch you do this to yourself. I've spent long enough doing that."
"So, what, the demons are gonna heal me?"
"That's exactly what they're gonna do. Heal you on good faith, no strings attached. Peace offering to win you over."
Sam stared. "D'you really believe that?"
Dean snorted. "Course not. But we don't have any other choice. Just look at what Heaven's offering."
"What reason have you got to trust them even this much, Dean?"
"Well, they got rid of the Prince when I asked. Back in Georgia."
Sam's mind scrambled for the name of Dean's Prince. "Was that Azazel?"
"No. Dagon. Kinda her own separate can of worms, but I got in contact with Azazel, and he cleared her right out." Dean strode forward suddenly, grabbed Sam by his biceps, and Sam's knife hand jerked but he couldn't stab him. Not like it'd do much good on a Knight, anyway. "Hell wants you safe, alive, and healthy. And we can use that."
"Okay." Sam swallowed. "Okay, say they heal me. Then what?"
"They'll try and sell you on the master plan."
"I - "
Dean cut him off. "Just a sales pitch. You can say no if you want."
"And they'd really let me go?"
"Can't risk killing you." Dean shrugged. "At your stage, Messiah soul's pretty much useless. Can't risk driving you off, either, 'cause they might be able to win you over later. And besides. Always gonna be more in the future."
"But what if they don't let me say no?"
"Then I'll get you out," Dean ground. "You got my word. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."
It seemed a little late for him to make that kind of promise, but there were plenty of other issues cropping up for Sam to focus on. "Healing's gonna undo the Trials…"
"Yeah, but when we leave, we can figure out a way to close the Gates that has no chance of killing you," Dean assured. "Or we can just walk away from everything. Heaven, Hell, hunters. Everything. Like I originally wanted." His mouth twitched. "I'll keep saying that 'til you hear me."
"Dean…" Sam started.
"I know. I know. Whatever you want, it's up to you, and all you gotta do is listen to Alastair for an hour or two." Dean took a deep breath, and started talking faster, tripping over his words, twitching through his sentences. "B-but if you do agree, it won't be that bad, honest. They'll teach you how to control your, uh - y'know, your powers better than Castiel ever could, and you'll be strong. Have all the power you want. And you'll be like me. Strong, and...no risk of dying. Ever."
Once again, Sam pried himself free and backed away, knife up again.
"What are you doing?" he asked, more desperate than before.
"Whatever I have to do to save you and keep us together," Dean replied. "Unlike you." Sam tried to say something, but Dean spoke over him. "You told me, Sam. Just now. You promised. You said, that if you had to choose between the Trials and me, you'd choose me." He stared at him, hard, and lightning backlit him, highlighted the dust floating in a cloud around him, edges spiking like a soundwave. "And I'm not even asking you to choose. Just to listen."
"But I don't want this." Sam started to shake his head. "I never would've agreed if you'd told me."
The doors suddenly swung open behind Sam, and he could swear that Dean's eyes darkened.
"Guess your own medicine doesn't taste that good," Dean said, a second before he came after Sam again, arm tight around his shoulders, standing between him and the open door as they turned to face it. Grainy dust hit Sam's face, rained down on his hair like ash. Dean somehow radiated both protectiveness and deference at the same time, a jagged divide in him, and Sam was both glad for and terrified of the oppressive touch. The lone man walking down the aisle towards them was bad news.
He was older, balding, dignified and well-dressed. As the doors slammed behind him, he smiled pleasantly at Sam and Dean and spread his arms wide.
"Dantalion," he greeted with a slightly nasal voice. "Finally home to roost, huh? And you brought the light of your world with you." He stopped a couple yards from them, looking fondly at Dean, and Sam felt Dean stiffen even more. "Such a good boy. My good boy."
"Uh huh," Dean grated. "Let's just get this over with, he's in rough shape."
The other demon laughed. "Oh, I can definitely tell. That's why you're here, isn't it?"
He walked around them, Dean turning and taking Sam with him so this new demon didn't get behind the two of them. The demon went up the few steps that led to the altar, leaning on the stain that covered it like a vesperal cloth. He looked down at the two of them to address Sam.
"Can I just say, it's an honor to finally meet you? The last Messiah, mm…" He made a face, wiggling his hand a little. "Let's just say it didn't go so well. For anybody. But you. Oh, I've heard you're something really special. I mean, you have to be, to catch my boy's little black eye. He usually doesn't give anybody the time of day unless their insides are on their outside." He smiled. "Azazel and Lilith can't wait to meet you. We all see a lot of potential in you, son. A lot of potential."
Sam didn't say anything, and the demon laughed. "Where are my manners? Let me introduce myself, Sam. I'm Alastair." His eyes rolled back in his head, ghost white, no veins. "Lord of Hell, and Dantalion's main master. Although we share him around a little. Have to, you know. Only Knight and all."
Sam stayed quiet, but squeezed his jaw tight enough to hurt his teeth, and fisted his free hand in Dean's jacket. His other still held his knife.
"Dantalion," Alastair ordered after a second, eyes returning to normal, "sit him down. I'm not sure how much longer he's gonna be able to stay on his feet, and this might take a while."
Silently, Dean moved them over to the pews, settling them down in one without taking his arm off Sam. Once they were sitting, Alastair continued.
"I thought I was Dantalion's main owner, at least. And I wasn't all that thrilled with the way you collared him." Sam could feel the pale, disapproving weight of Alastair's eyes on Dean's amulet, and he wasn't even the one wearing it. "But I guess I can let it slide. He did find you, and after all, a King of Hell probably deserves his own Knight."
"I'm not your king," Sam said quietly, spitting the last word.
"Of course not," Alastair agreed. "At the very least, we're gonna have to fix you up. Looking a little bit like a ragdoll over there, Sammy." The nickname needled. "One that's been picking out its own stitches and stuffing for a few months...y'know, Dantalion's told me all about your suicide mission. Second Trial under your belt. Probably why I could break you with a snap of my fingers right now, Messiah or no."
Next to Sam, Dean shifted, and Alastair scowled at him.
"Down, boy, you knew how this would happen going in. I'm a thing of my word. I'll pinch off all his bleeds, even if it's the opposite of what I normally do. But first, he's gonna hear my sermon. After all, I worked so hard on it."
Smirking, Alastair straightened up and spread his hands wide, and Sam could literally feel Dean holding himself still next to him. Dean swallowed a couple times, spoke after a few seconds.
"All you gotta do is listen," he stressed, but Sam didn't look at him.
"Now, Sam. What do you know about Hell?" Alastair asked. When Sam didn't respond, his eyes rolled white again, and he glanced over at Dean. Who suddenly grunted and doubled over, folding up fast as a mousetrap.
"Dean?!" Sam turned to him. Dean's arm slid off his shoulder, so Sam put a hand on his back, tried to get a look at his face. Up at the altar, Alastair laughed.
"So he really is under your skin...he's good at that. Though he usually gets there with a razor."
"I-it's where demons come from," Sam said as fast as he could, head whipping around to look up at Alastair. He'd seen Dean's eyes, black but bloodshot white around the edges, drool running out from between clenched teeth and face a rictus. "Human souls get tortured, they become demons. And the Cage that holds Lucifer is down at the very bottom, where nobody can reach it."
Dean sucked in a whooping, whistling gasp, rigid muscles going limp under Sam's hand. As he hauled himself slowly upright, Alastair's eyes rolled back down, and he clicked his tongue.
"I'm disappointed," he told Sam. "Aren't you the Charles Darwin of monsters or something? I'd expected something a lot more in-depth, but I guess you're not exactly at peak performance right now."
Dean's entire face shone slick, tears, sweat, spit, snot. Sam wasn't sure he'd ever seen him sweat before, and he definitely hadn't heard him breath this loud. Like he needed it. As he slumped back against the ancient pew with a creak from the wood, still angled protectively towards Sam, Sam grabbed his shoulder tightly and squeezed.
"You're right about Lucifer," Alastair went on. "He was our first King, before he was locked away. When we first started gunning for Messiahs, not long after God stamped the first one, our original goal was just to find somebody powerful enough to spring Lucifer. But we're not so sure we want that anymore." He clasped his hands in front of him. "See, we need new blood. A visionary. And if that visionary just happens to want to break Lucifer out into an advisory role or something, more power to him, but honestly, I wasn't ever that fond of the guy. Unlike Azazel." Alastair rolled his eyes. "I'm not even all that invested in the master plan. I just like the idea of doing my job, which I love, trust me, on a...larger stage."
"So you just want a ruler?" Sam asked, after Dean had stopped breathing and straightened up. Didn't they already have plenty? Lords and Princes.
"Oh, no. We want you to trigger the apocalypse," Alastair explained like it was perfectly reasonable. "Armageddon, Ragnarok, the End of Days. Picture it: a massive struggle between Heaven and Hell, winner-take-all, and with a Messiah leading our armies, calling our shots…" Alastair was damn near beaming. "We've got it in the bag."
"You don't have to do any of that," Dean cut in, voice rough. "You can just keep a handle on Hell, if you wanna."
"Sure you can." Alastair smirked. "But once you spread your wings and get your horns on, Sammy, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that you get a little more ambitious than that. Just imagine, this entire world, a paradise! Or. Well. Our version of paradise."
He leaned on the altar. "We're going to heal you, teach you, help you unlock your full potential, and don't worry, we'll keep Heaven far away. Of course, as an added bonus, the angels aren't gonna want anything to do with you anyway, by the time we're through with you." There almost seemed to be too many teeth in Alastair's grin. "Understand. There's a little bit of Lucifer, a little bit of Hell, pulsing through the smoke of every demon ever born. You take enough of our blood into you, you won't have to worry about anything hurting you ever again. And you and Dantalion will have more in common than ever before." Alastair tossed a hand at Dean. "You can even drink from him, if you want! As much as you need. My clever boy's gotten so good at healing lately, it shouldn't be a problem at all."
Something heavy and rusty was settling in Sam's aching stomach, and the coppery tang of nausea on his tongue was just making him sicker. Dean put a hand on his thigh but that didn't help, because there wasn't any anger in the gesture, just misguided comfort and a desperate kind of hope.
"It might even be for the best if you drink from him," Alastair commented. "After all, he put this whole thing together. Did you know? Not only tracked you down, but thought up plenty of bells and whistles all on his own with no nudging from me or everybody else." Alastair shook his head, marveling. "Telling hunters where you were and that you weren't human? All to isolate you and drive you straight into our arms? Absolutely genius! Wish I'd thought of it myself, honestly."
Sam's entire body washed cold. He couldn't feel his hands, his feet, his face. He looked at Dean, ripped his leg free of his hand, and his own voice sounded muffled and echoed distant as he demanded, "It was you? Was it actually you?"
"I…" The same pained look as when Alastair had been torturing him, just a fraction of it, was back on Dean's face. "Yeah."
"You let me think it was Jo." The harsh breaths Sam was pulling in ripped at his lungs. "You forced us all out of our home. Bobby, Bela, Vaughn...you put everybody in danger."
"I didn't know so many would show up! Not like that. I never would've done it otherwise, I thought that I could keep you safe. Me and Castiel, even." Dean's hands were on his own thighs, clenched into fists. "Sam, you needed to understand. To remember what kinda people you'd completed the Second Trial and fucked yourself up for. 'Cause you'd real obviously lost sight of that." More greenish lightning. "Also obviously. It didn't work."
Sam struggled up even though exhaustion had clawed into him the second he sat down, backed fast away from Dean when he reached for him.
"Sammy - "
"No, you. You've been playing with me this entire time. Lying to me." Sam stabbed a finger at Dean. "I can't trust anything you've ever said to me."
"That's not true."
"You want Hell on Earth, Dean!" Sam's voice rang off what remained of the windows. "And you want some twisted version of - of me ruling over it! You're every bit as bad as the angels."
"I don't want that," Dean started. "Sammy, look, I - "
"Fuck you," Sam spat.
He turned to Alastair, looked up at him trembling, teeth bared. Benevolently, Alastair asked, "So do you have an answer for me?"
"Eat me," Sam replied.
Once again, Alastair's eyes changed, and he smiled, predatory, too large.
"If you insist."