Chapter 1 – The Reunion
Dean hurried through the alley, making his way back to his and Sam's hotel room. He didn't like this. He didn't like this at all. Where was Sam? Where was Pamela? Why hadn't she woken him up? They'd saved the seal. They'd saved one of the reapers, luckily the one Dean actually gave a damn about, and Tessa was back on the job reaping souls and sending them on to… whatever awaited them on the other side of death. He hoped for Cole Griffith's sake that whatever came next was good, that he hadn't played a part in sending the kid on to something worse. Still, Cole was beyond his reach and no longer his problem. His only problem now was how to get back into his body. They'd finished the damn mission, so why was Dean still all Patrick Swayze? Why was he still astral? And why in the hell was he alone? Sam had vanished, presumably going back to his body. At least, that's what Dean hoped had happened. If Alastair had captured Sam again, well, that wasn't precisely a happy thought, now was it. Then nothing associated with Alastair was ever –
Dean's thoughts stuttered to a halt and he froze in his tracks as he passed a side alley and saw Alastair just standing there, waiting for him with a serene patience that reminded him eerily of Castiel. A hint of a smile played around the demon's lips. "You can't run, Dean," Alastair said with that inhuman calm that characterized the oldest and most powerful demons. "Not from me." Dean began to back away as Alastair stalked slowly toward him, the smile now open and blood chilling. "I'm inside that angsty little noggin of yours."
Dean turned to run, but Alastair was simply there, in front of him again before he'd gone three feet. "You can't get away, Dean. You're all alone, and there's no one to interrupt our little reunion this time." Alastair reached a hand toward him and Dean backed away hastily, nearly tripping over his own feet in his blind urge to distance himself from his former mentor. Sam, where are you? Cas? Pamela? Somebody…
"He's not coming, Dean. None of them are. Your friends have more pressing engagements at the moment."
"What'd you do to Sam?" Dean demanded, his alarm growing as he realized that, somehow, in this form, Alastair could see into him, could literally read his thoughts. Or maybe it was just forty years of intimacy talking. After all, who knew him better than Alastair? Who really knew him?
Dean tried to use his nifty new ghost powers, tried to fling a milk crate at Alastair's head as he backpedaled, but he couldn't think straight, couldn't concentrate on anything but his terror as a hand clamped onto his shoulder, halting his backward progress. He tried to vanish, tried to blip out of there, but nothing happened and his panic grew, making his heart pound – something he shouldn't even be able to feel in this form. But then, Alastair shouldn't be able to grab him, either. Cas!
"Relax, my boy. Relax. I only want to talk."
Dean shoved at Alastair, struggling to get away. Though his panic made it impossible to concentrate, that same panic lent strength to his ghostly form, lending him corporeality as he shoved at the demon. But it was no good. Alastair was stronger than Dean when he was in his own human body. In this form he didn't stand a chance. In a second he'd been backed against a wall of the alley and pinned there.
He gasped for air, his nonexistent lungs straining in his equally nonexistent chest. He vision tunneled in and out of focus. He hit, clawed, even tried to bite. And still Alastair held him in place, one hand clamped to his shoulder, the other held almost gently around his throat. Gradually, the panic receded though the fear remained. He stood there, shaking. It took every ounce of will he had left just to meet Alastair's eyes, just to stay locked on that hellish gaze when all he really wanted to do was close his eyes and pray for it to be over. But he wouldn't drop his gaze from the demon's. He wasn't weak. No matter what had happened in Hell. No matter what Sam thought, he wasn't that weak. He couldn't be.
"There," Alastair said when the shaking had died down to a slight tremble. "There, there, all better now." His squeezed Dean's shoulder ever so slightly. His tones were low and even. Calming. The kind of voice that a human might use to soothe the fears of a wild animal. Dean bristled, anger driving away some of the mind-numbing horror.
"What the Hell do you want, you son of a bitch?"
"I told you, Dean. I want to talk to you."
"Oh yeah, because that was real obvious the way you kept shooting me full of rock salt before," Dean snarled.
"Well, you would hardly expect me to stop in the middle of breaking a seal for a private little chat." Alastair grinned. "They may be lemmings, but those reapers are quite slippery, difficult to hold onto. Still, I do apologize for not giving you my entire focus, dear boy. I know how much you crave my – undivided – attention." Dean gulped, the movement causing Alastair's hand to shift roughly across the skin of his throat. "You have my whole and unimpeded attention now, however. I assure you." The demon smiled, a strangely fond look coming into his stolen eyes.
Dean's anger found new focus as he thought of the dead reaper. They didn't deserve to be slaughtered any more than anybody else did. They might be obstinate to the point of stupidity, but so were most ordinary people. Reapers weren't evil, just working stiffs doing a necessary, if unpleasant, job. "Guess things didn't go quite according to plan this time," he growled. "Looks like this is one seal you lost, you slimy bastard!"
The demon shrugged. "True, but the situation's not a total loss. After all, son, it reunited our happy little family."
"I am NOT your SON!" Dean screamed. Rage broke from him a one massive psychic punch, knocking Alastair away. The demon laughed as he stumbled back a few steps before regaining his balance.
"That's my boy," he said, evident satisfaction in his raspy voice.
"I am not your boy!" Another psychic punch rocked Alastair back on his heels, but it moved him no further. Worse, the expenditure of energy left Dean feeling enervated, utterly drained. He sagged back against the alley wall, gulping for air, his whole body shaking once more.
The demon merely grinned. "No, I suppose you think not. I suppose you think of yourself as John's boy. Daddy's little soldier."
"Shut up," Dean demanded, but he could get no force behind the words, just an aching desperation that even he could hear and that the demon would savor. "Shut up, damn you."
"But you're not his boy, son. Not really. Just a little soldier in a larger war. Daddy's blunt little instrument."
Dean flinched hearing his own words echoed by the master torturer. But then, that was what the torturer did best, inflicting the most pain with the least effort. Pain, more often than not, brought on by the subject's owns flaws, own fears, own secret desires. It was the first rule of the rack – know your subject better than you know yourself. And Alastair was a master.
"Did you ever genuinely believe that he loved you, Dean? Were you ever foolish enough to think that you were more to him than Sammy's devoted watchdog? Come now." The demon smiled knowingly, his eyes pools of mockery, and Dean felt his own gaze drop involuntarily. It was getting harder and harder just to stand. To meet Alastair's gaze as an equal, unafraid and unashamed, that was an ability Dean had lost more than a decade earlier. Lost the very moment he picked up the razor.
Alastair closed the gap between them. A hand caressed Dean's jaw, surprisingly gentle, and Dean felt himself beginning to tremble again, like a bird held fast in a small boy's unpredictable and deadly grip. Still, he could not raise his eyes. Could not speak. Alastair had no such handicap.
"John Winchester loved Sam, was devoted to Sam, spent every waking moment trying to find a way to save Sam from his destiny. You were just a tool, just one more weapon he could use to protect the son he really loved. Even when he sold his soul to Azazel to save your life, well, he did that for Sam. He knew that losing you would destroy whatever tenuous connection he and Sam still had, that he'd lose all influence over Sam. You were his only hope, Dean. You were the only one who stood a chance of reaching Sam, of stopping the boy from embracing his demon powers. And you failed. You failed Sam, you failed your daddy, and you failed yourself. You failed."
Unbidden, images flashed through Dean's mind. Watching Sam exorcize a demon with his mind. Watching Ruby do his brother's bidding. The look on Sam's face when he said that Dean was holding him back. Waking up in motel room after motel room alone, knowing that Sam was out there somewhere using his demon blood to fight a war he considered Dean too weak to fight anymore. Oh yeah. He'd failed Sammy. And if his dad had thought that Dean could keep Sammy from going down that road, then he'd failed Dad too. Damn Alastair for being right about so many things.
The demon had paused while Dean's emotions roiled and bubbled just beneath the surface, but now he went on. "John never really loved you, and even you mother… well, maybe she did love you when you were little. But who can ever really know, and she wasn't exactly little miss innocent in all of this. She made the deal after all."
Dean bristled, his head snapping up, He jerked his chin out of Alastair's grip and swung at the demon, only to have his arms grabbed and pressed tight to the wall on either side of his head. He growled wordlessly, his anger almost too great for expression.
"Now, Dean, don't be that way. You know it's true." Alastair's eyes rolled up in their sockets, rolling over white like some insane counterfeit of a great white shark going in for the kill. "Mary set in motion the events that destroyed your childhood, that made a ruin of your whole life. And in the end, when she had one last chance to tell you how much you really meant to her, well, she really said nothing at all, did she?"
"Shut up." It was hardly more than a whisper. Almost a sob.
"Yes, yes, touchy subject, I know. Still, I suppose there have been other women in your life. Lots of them. And yet, did any of them actually want you, really want you? No. Not Cassie, to whom you bared your soul and told the unvarnished truth. Not any of the scores who came before or after her. Hell, even angel-radio girl forgot all about you the moment she didn't need your help anymore. I mean, you might have expected her to at least pop in for a quick hello, a thank you, even just to let you know that she was okay. After all, you'd been willing to go back to Hell for her, a practical stranger, and what did you get? One night of passion and then… nothing."
Dean was far more disturbed than he wanted Alastair to know by the silence from Anna. He closed his eyes, desperate to escape from Alastair's searing gaze. The demon saw so much. Too much. It was what made him Hell's master torturer. And he wasn't finished, not by a long shot.
"But I suppose none of that matters, none of that really hurts as much as knowing that your own brother doesn't really want you around. Sam, for whom you died, Dean. Sam, who claimed he'd do anything to save you. He abandoned you as soon you were out of Hell and safe. Looks like all that crap about how much he needed you with him was just guilt talking. I mean, once the threat of Hell was gone, he couldn't care less. You hadn't even been back a day, hadn't even been back with him for twelve hours, when he was already sneaking off to meet with his demon slut. Never mind that you were alone and unprotected. Never mind that you were weak and disoriented after your time in Hell. Never mind that you needed him for a change. He didn't care. He didn't even hesitate, because you just didn't matter that much." Every word was like a physical blow, and Dean felt himself shuddering under the onslaught. "No, the only one who's ever really wanted you, who's ever really stuck by you is me. Even the angels just want to use you."
"What are you talking about?"
"Didn't your little angel buddy tell you, Deano? Didn't Castiel let you in on the big secret? It's about you, after all."
Dean knew he shouldn't respond, shouldn't react in any way to the demon's taunting, but this – damn it, this hit far too close to home. The angels kept saying they had work for him, that God had work for him, but… why him? Why had they saved him? He didn't deserve it. He was just… he didn't deserve it. Dean stared up at Alastair with wide eyes, barely breathing, trying to not to let his desperate need for the truth show, but his silence was all the answer that the demon needed.
Alastair leaned closer. Dean cringed away, but the demon didn't stop until they were cheek to cheek, his lips caressing Dean's jaw and ear in a revolting parody of a kiss. "Dean, the angels snuck into my bower and spirited you away because you were a seal, my boy. You were a seal."
Dean reeled under the impact of Alastair's words. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. Why would he be a seal? He was just a guy. Sure, he was a hunter, but aside from that he was just an ordinary guy. How could he possibly be a seal? It didn't make sense, but neither did God sending an angel into Hell to rescue someone who'd sold their own soul. Selling your soul was like slitting your own throat, and wasn't suicide supposed to be the ultimate sin? The only unforgivable sin?
"You're lying," Dean said, his voice gone gravelly in his fear and confusion. "No way I'm a seal."
"Oh, but you were, dear boy," Alastair said, drawing back far enough to look Dean in the eyes. "You were."
"You're insane," he insisted, but a quiver in his lips and a tremble in his voice betrayed his doubts.
Alastair's smile was a strange juxtaposition of the predatory and the sympathetic as he seemed to drink in Dean's pain. Here, it was a metaphor. In Hell, it had been literal fact. His hands tightened on Dean's biceps, the nails digging in like razor-tipped claws. Then he raised his eyes to the night sky just visible above the alley walls and intoned, "By his deeds shall you know him. By the strength of his love shall he come. For the righteous man shall march willingly into the maw of the beast. He shall fall into damnation and break his back upon the wheel of eternal torment. Rivers of blood shall flow from his wounds. His spirit shall drown in blood, and the seal shall be rent asunder."
Dean was shaking violently by the time Alastair was done. He felt sick, ill down to his core, and he had a feeling he was about to find out whether or not it was even possible to throw up in this form. He sagged in the demon's grip, those claw-like hands the only thing holding him up. No. God, no. He wanted to protest, to deny the demon's claims. He didn't want to believe, but he'd known Alastair just as long as Alastair had known him. He recognized the truth when he saw it, the rapturous delight on the demon's face. Dean had done it. When he'd broken in Hell, he'd broken one the sixty-six seals. They were halfway down the road to Armageddon because of him. That was why the angels had come for him. Not because he deserved salvation, but because they were trying to save a seal. They'd failed.
"Why?" he asked, meeting the demon's once-more human eyes with his own. "Why did they bother pulling me out? Why didn't they just leave me there?"
Alastair shrugged, seeming supremely unconcerned. "Who can understand the minds of God's bully boys? Who could possibly want to? They're nothing but vermin, holy rats with wings." The demon sneered. "They probably just expected you to help clean up the mess that they really created in the first place when they cast my Father out of Heaven. They used you, Dean, and they're still using you. They'll use you up, if you let them. Don't let them. Don't be Heaven's patsy anymore. Stand up for yourself. Tell Heaven to go screw itself!"
The words rang frighteningly true. Dean had felt used, had felt threatened, had felt betrayed – even by Castiel. From where he stood right now, from this vantage point in time, Heaven didn't seem so much better than Hell. Certainly no less ruthless, no less violent and unforgiving. And where did that leave humanity? Where did it leave Dean? Answer: nowhere. As so often was the case, fear and uncertainty fed Dean's anger. He wouldn't have believed it was possible to hate Alastair more. He had been wrong.
"And what makes you so different? You say they're using me, but if you're telling the truth, then that's all you did too. You used me to break one of the seals, used me for your own personal chew toy, damn it! So what makes you any better than the holy rats with wings?" To Dean's astonishment, Alastair released his hold on his arms and took three measured steps back. But being released so abruptly was not nearly as shocking as what the demon had to say.
"Because, my boy, I still want you."
Dean gaped at him. "What? What the hell are you talking about? That you want to torture me some more? So what! A demon wants to torture a hunter, that's hardly shocking."
Alastair clucked his tongue like an exasperated mother, sounding eerily like Dean's vague memories of his own mother, in fact. "Son, don't you see? You broke the seal. You fulfilled your destiny. You've already done everything I needed you to do, every last thing. So I don't need you anymore. By all rights you should just be one more bug to squish on my highway back to Hell. But you're not. Because, even though I don't need you anymore, I still want you Dean. I still want all that bright promise and ingenuity at my side. I want you. And I know what that means to you, to be wanted, to be loved, to be truly desired."