Disclaimer All recognizable characters/settings belong to their creators. The stories listed here are transformative works, from which I've made/am making no financial profit.

Warnings Language; references/allusions to torture and non-con.

12. A Dry and Waterless Place

Hell is a vision of flame orange and red, everlasting fire that consumes Dean mind and body, and smoke wreathes up from the sizzling flesh of the damned, who have no rest in their flaming tombs.

Dean writhes, and cries tears of blood, and shrieks out his anguish while Alastair comes to him wearing his brother, rips him apart, rearranges him, reconstructs him, reanimates him as some twisted, freakish monster, and calls it free expression. Right at the end Sam whispers in his ear, I've got a little freakiness inside, Dean, and you know that a man's got to deal with it, and Dean gurgles and drowns in his own blood, but as he fades and dies, he sees movement.

Some guy is staring at him from the corner, and Dean finds he is mesmerized by cool blue in this world of scorching heat and coal-black eyes. He lifts up his hand, and the man reaches towards him, grips him by the shoulder and draws him close; he lifts comforts, and soothes Dean, and Dean basks in a flood of warmth, love, raised from perdition. And then he's whole again, manacled and gazing up to where Sam is staring cruel, lethal affection down at him as he bends closer, licking his lips in anticipation, putting his hands where they never should go. Dean cranes his head, looks beyond his brother that was, and the blue-eyed man is still rising, higher and higher, fading into the smoke and ash.It doesn't happen that way, that's not how it went down, Dean thinks, and he fights, kicks, screams into the searing heat, "Don't leave me behind, you bastard! That isn't what happened! Come back! Cas! Come back! Cas! Cas!"

He's still screaming when he wakes.

"Yeah, thanks Ellen. I'll be in touch." Bobby snaps his phone shut, throws it down on the table. "She thinks the second part might be Druidic. And since we don't have the Enigma machine handy, where the fuck we're going to find a translation for it is beyond me." He makes an exasperated noise and scratches at his beard. "You said Ruby worked some kind of magic spell to track Dean down in Shoshoni? Was it like what we did before New Harmony?"

Sam shakes his head. "No… she did this thing with flames. I don't know exactly." Because I was too busy jonesing for my fix, he thinks dully, but even his self-disgust doesn't stop his gaze from drifting to his jacket, to the pocket, the hidden flask. "But she said if Lilith put a hexbag on him, that wouldn't work."

He forces his eyes back to his laptop, pulls up another browser, starts trawling the net but the twitch in him is impossible to resist. He stands up after a minute, crosses to the bed, sits down and lets it explode out of him, punching into the pillow, a fusillade of blows. He can feel his face burning red hot as his hair rat-tails into his eyes, and his jaw is clamped so tight closed he can feel the nerves in his teeth tingle. When it's out of his system, he stares at the split, torn pillow slip through a cloud of feathers floating down like a lazy winter snowfall, and they tickle his nose and land on his eyelashes, making him blink.

A swish to his left, and Bobby's hand is there, bottle of beer held loosely between thumb and forefinger.

"Look like you could use a drink."

Sam doesn't take the beer. "My brother might be dead," he gasps out instead.

The old man sits down heavily next to him, and he's blunt. "What are you going do if he is?"

Sam's mind is suddenly clear. "The smell of napalm in the morning springs to mind," he hears himself snarl. "I'm thinking jihad, scorched earth policy, fireball, mushroom cloud. Flash blindness will be the least of that bitch's worries, and when I—"

"That isn't going to happen, son," Bobby cuts in, and when Sam glances sideways at the old man, his eyes are pink and watery.

"There isn't going to be any revenge quest this time," Bobby continues. "No Ruby. Because that isn't what your brother wants, Sam. He told me. And if he—" Bobby stops, swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand, clears his throat. "You owe him this. So that means you're letting go of this and coming back home with me. And we take it from there, and we do this one together."

Sam looks away, breathes through the anger tightening his chest. "I want to, Bobby," he says. "God I want to. To let go of this. He asked me to. But this isn't just about revenge, it's about redemption. For my failure. He's my brother. My brother, Bobby. He made that fucking deal for me, and I couldn't save him from it. I told him I would, but I couldn't. And you don't know what it's like… how it feels, to know." He looks back again then, and sees it all there in Bobby's eyes: everything his brother said about Hell, because Dean's halting words sparked and flared into an unforgettable fire that burns out of control in Sam's imagination, a wall of crematorium flames forty feet high, curling and licking around wraith-like fluttering forms, faces featureless apart from black-hole eyes and wide-open Munchian mouths wailing their own funeral dirge, the souls of the damned suffering for all eternity and his brother lost among them. The image is so vivid, so palpable, that Sam can smell the stench of burning flesh and hair, and he knows Bobby can too.

Bobby nods slowly, and his voice cracks as he replies. "You're right Sam, I don't know, never will. The loss was different for me, and maybe I don't feel the same sense of guilt you do. But this obsession with revenge – it's doing something to you, son, and it isn't redemption. It's damaging you. Dean is worried about you. Worried about you spending time with Ruby."

"I know," Sam mutters.

"Do you?" Bobby says sharply. "And do you know what you're doing with her? Really?"

That annoyance swells again, the feeling that nobody else really gets it but him. Sam controls it, clenching his fists. "I'm using her," he insists. "She's useful. She's helping me track Lilith."

"So she says," Bobby retorts. "I'm not denying she's helped us out, Sam, but at the end of the day you can dress a hog in a tux and stick a cigar in its mouth and underneath it's still a hog daydreaming about wallowing in the mud. She's a demon."

Sam bristles and gets right down to the reality of this. "She may be a demon, Bobby, but she's been doing way more to put a spoke in the Dean versus Lilith smackdown than Castiel. Who apparently wants to put my brother in the ring with no way to defend himself. And it's—"

Fucking typical, he thinks, as the angel materializes right in front of him, and in the same instant it registers that Castiel is blank-eyed, dazed, and swaying on his feet. Sam is already standing up and reaching out as Castiel loses his legs and slumps forward right into Sam's arms.

"Dean," the angel chokes out, and his eyes are closing, his head lolling. "I saw him."

"Castiel!" Sam barks, and he shakes the angel, once, twice and then again, harder.

"Sit him down," Bobby clips out tersely, and he's pouring whiskey into the glass on the nightstand, crowding close and putting it to the angel's lips. Castiel takes a draught, grimaces and splutters most of it back out, before goggling up at Sam, and just like he did back in Shoshoni Sam thinks the look in Castiel's eyes is eerily similar to Dean's post-nightmare thousand-yard-stare.

He puts the memory out of his head, snaps, "Well, where is he?"

"He's in Hell," Castiel whispers.

Sam thinks he hears Bobby cry out, but he isn't sure because of the roar in his ears and the stir in his belly, a pulse of heat, despair, grief, fury. He feels his heart start to race, his muscles tense, the hairs on his arms stand up and salute, but when he manages to speak he finds he can keep his voice low and controlled. "And what the fuck is your plan for getting him out of there?"

Castiel comes to his senses sufficiently to look puzzled, quirking his eyebrows and cocking his head to one side, but he doesn't answer, so Sam rampages on. "You do have a plan for getting him out, yes? Given it was pretty obvious that this is how it would end if he went up against Lilith?"

Castiel shakes his head just barely. "No, Sam, you don't understand—"

Sam's control is failing him bit-by-bit, he can feel it shredding. He bends down, grips the angel's shirt and tie in his fist, pulls him up and closer, so they're eye to eye. He hears Bobby's warning only faintly, slaps the old man's hand away as it rises, and now he can feel his anger boiling inside him, a volcano of power, and he thinks he can smell sulfur on his own breath as it gusts out.

Castiel frowns, and his hand comes up and bats feebly at Sam's where it grips his clothing. "Stop," he protests faintly. "Now. And listen. Your brother dreams of Hell, Sam. He dreams of it."

And just like that the rage is gone, punctured by relief, and Sam deflates with a tangible hiss of tension escaping, so that he feels ragdoll-limp. He lets go of the angel, reels back until his legs make contact with the other bed, and sits down. "He's dreaming," he chokes out. "He's alive."

And Castiel is smiling as his eyes roll up into his head and he falls backwards.

Hudak arrives to find Sam staring intently at the unconscious figure, and Bobby supplies a redundant, "Still nothing," as she pulls out a chair and sits.

"Have you tried smelling salts?" she suggests. "There's a pharmacy back up on the highway." She shrugs at Bobby's look. "You never know."

"It's like he's comatose or something," Bobby grouses. "We've tried everything bar firing off a round into the pillow right next to his ear."

Hudak huffs. "But he reckons Dean is alive? How sure can you—"

"Dean is alive," Sam cuts in, sharp. "He's dreaming, so he must be. And we need to find him instead of chatting, so how can you help?"

Hudak glances across at him, finds his eyes fixed so intently on her it's unnerving for a second. "I can't put any kind of BOLO out on him because the department has his FBI file," she offers. "There were no reports of anything suspicious at any of the drop sites last night, but it's too soon anyway."

Sam nods. "How long do you think he has?"

"Based on the others?" Hudak returns, and Sam nods again, his focus still steely. "Seems to have been around seventy-two hours or so between them being reported missing and the bodies showing up," she goes on. "But it was quicker with the last guy."

Something flickers in Sam's regard then. "And you think that means something?"

It does, though Hudak confirms it only reluctantly. "Theory is whoever's doing this could be stepping it up, maybe even reaching the point when they might get sloppy."

Cocking his head, Sam says, "In what way?"

Hudak is brutally honest. "They might get caught out dumping the body."

Bobby pushes his chair back, the slide of wood loud and harsh, and before Hudak can stop him he's upright and striding away. At the same second, Sam's stare finally falters, drifting back to the angel's lax form.

A beat of time passes, and Hudak glances over towards the door Bobby disappeared through, hears the sound of running water. "I'll go see if he's okay," she ventures, and Sam makes a noncommittal humming noise at her.

In the bathroom, Bobby is wiping his face with a towel, and he rolls his eyes at Hudak in the mirror. She ignores the deflection. "I'm sorry," she says, and she tamps her own fear and anxiety down as it threatens to surge up again. "I'm finding this… it's easier for me if I try to maintain some – professional distance from this. And it's. Uh. It's—"

Bobby cuts in himself, gentle. "I know. I know." He jerks his head towards Sam, out in the motel room. "Shit'll hit the fan in ways I don't even want to think of if this goes badly. We need to find him, or Sam won't cope very well."

Hudak pushes the door half-closed as surreptitiously as she can, recalls a whispered conversation in the dark. "Dean told me. About the whole Hulk smash deal, and the demon zapping. It scares him. I don't know all the details, but it scares him."

Bobby sighs. "This thing of Sam's, it isn't natural. Something happened to him when he was a baby to make him like that. But it isn't good."

"Dean says it's changing him, he kept rambling on about Annakin Skywalker," she whispers, and Bobby snorts. "He was drunk," she concedes, but even so the memory of Dean's slurred-out words chill her. "He said Sam has powers that come from Hell."

Bobby raises an eyebrow. "Cliffs Notes version," he says, and he motions to the toilet seat. "Sit down, I'll fill you in."

Castiel doesn't come around so much as snap alert and sit bolt upright, eyes clear and bright as they rest on Sam.

"My apologies," he says, and Sam notes that he's back to his usual steely calm. "I was taken by surprise and unprepared for Hell."

"A dream, you said it was a dream," Sam pushes urgently, and the angel nods.

"It was, but although it was an illusion Hell is like an infection to the Host, it… is remote from God and starves us of His light." Castiel pauses briefly, and Sam thinks he sees a tremor shake his frame before he goes on. "The dream… it was also very real to Dean."

Isn't that the truth, and, "It always has been," Sam mutters. "It's like he's back there. Suffering through it all again." He bites his lip. "Fuck. Isn't there anything you can say or do so he knows it isn't real? I just… I don't want him thinking he's there when he isn't. It's bad enough without him thinking he's back there."

Bobby and Hudak have appeared from the bathroom, their whispered conversation forgotten. "This dreamwalking you do," Bobby ventures. "You can talk with him, tell him what he's experiencing isn't real? And find out where he is, where she's keeping him?"

Castiel shakes his head, somber. "It's his dream. He controls it. Within the dream I can observe, communicate, but I can't influence where or what he dreams about once he is in the dream. He can tell me as much as he knows but no more than that."

"So if he was knocked out, he isn't going to know where he is unless they drop clues?" Hudak offers.

"Exactly," the angel nods. "Moreover, if his dreams are nightmares he may wake from them abruptly if I try to steer him… but if he is caught too deeply in the dream, he may not realize I'm not a part of it."

"Even if you weren't ever there with him before?" Sam says, and then he remembers, huffs out. "You were there with him before. When you pulled him out."

Castiel taps his hand on his leg, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "This could confuse matters, particularly if Lilith is responsible. Her presence will convince him even more… but if I push too hard he may become aware and wake." His fingers move faster as he deliberates. Then, "Sam, is there anything I can say to your brother that he might remember when he wakes? Something that could possibly shake the illusion?"

And then it hits Sam, the solution, and he shoots to his feet. "Bobby," he races out. "Dream root. The dream root… if we could get some. There's bound to be some hair on Dean's pillow, I can get in the dream, maybe convince him it isn't real."

Bobby shakes his head, scowling. "It's not a case of going to the local whole food market, Sam, it could take days to find a source and your brother might not have time."

"Well we can still look, for Christ's sake," Sam barks back at the old man. "We could get lucky, track down a…" He trails off, because Castiel is gazing up at him and there is a look of profound sadness in the angel's eyes that Sam knows is somehow significant. "It could work," he insists. "I was never in Hell with him. He'll realize that, it could jerk him back into reality, and – what? Why are you staring at me like that?"

"You were in the dream with him, Sam," Castiel says softly. "Because you were in Hell with him, back then. Alastair made it so. And Dean's memories of your company are not good ones."

Sam gapes, baffled for a moment. "What do you mean by that? Not good ones? What does that mean?" But even while he's saying the words, he can hear his brother, he makes me see people that aren't really there, and suddenly Sam knows. I never want to see black eyes looking back at me from your face, Dean had said, and, "He used me," Sam gasps. "Alastair made himself look like me."

"I saw you," Castiel confirms quietly. "Both of you."

"What was I doing?" Sam chokes out.

"You don't want to know," Castiel says bluntly. "Trust me on that, Sam. And I'm sorry, but I can't betray your brother's confidence by revealing what he endured."

Suddenly Sam wants to scream, wants to tear the room apart, rip the world to pieces. But he feels Bobby moving to stand next to him, feels the old man's hand reassuring on his shoulder, and he breathes out deep. "Funky town," he says, low and steady. "In the next dream, tell him it's a funky town. It's a code word we use when something's up."

Rising to his feet, Castiel nods. "Thank you for watching over me, Sam," he says, and glances over at Bobby. "I hope to have more news for you soon, when Dean sleeps again."

Hudak's phone is trilling and she rummages it out of her pocket. "Hang on a second… hey, Castiel?" She starts, stops, starts again, cheeks pinking a little. "This is going to sound really juvenile, but when I had bad dreams as a kid, my dad used to tell me to think happy thoughts before he switched the light off. So maybe you could, you know, tell Dean to think happy thoughts." She shrugs. "Or to try to, anyway. He might remember that when he wakes."

Castiel inclines his head, considering. "Think happy thoughts," he parrots, and then he's gone.

Sam sinks back down on the bed, leans forward to dip his face into his hands and hide in the darkness there, and from behind his shield, he hears Bobby grunt.

"Think happy thoughts?" the old man says acidly, but Hudak ignores him.

"That was Coop." San comes out from behind his barricade to see her grabbing her jacket. "Got something," she says, as she strides to the door. "Could be something, anyway. I'll be in touch."

Now Dean has been promoted Hell is his Sistine Chapel, his and Alastair's, and he paints such beautiful pictures with the hopeless.

He stalks them, and trails a fingertip up their quaking flesh, and he hisses in their ears, don't fear what kills your body, don't fear the reaper… fear the one who can destroy your soul in Hell, and hey buddy, that's me, and this fire won't ever be quenched. And you can weep, and gnash your teeth, and wail and whine, but I'm controlling the transmission, I control the horizontal, I control the vertical, I can roll the image or make it flutter, I can change this to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity, but whatever I do you are about to participate in a great adventure, and you are about to experience the awe and mystery that reaches from the inner mind to the outer fuckin' limits…

He cavorts around them, a slash here, a slice there, a strip there. He pares, and rends, rips and tears, carves them into new animals, while Alastair hoots, cheers, turns handsprings of sheer joy, and then caresses, and overwhelms, and fills him; and he screeches and sobs his ecstasy while he inflicts hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, of second deaths.

He throws his arms up to Heaven and he cackles in sickly glee, I found my niche. He wears their blood like warpaint, their entrails like a scarf, and their hides like a cloak, and the dark-haired man in the trenchcoat stands and watches him with blue, blue eyes.

Stumbling to a halt, he cocks his head, because the man is clean, cleaner than anything he ever saw down here, and the flames cower from him. "What are you?" he blurts out, and his voice cracks, smoke roughened and atrophied with disuse because the lower registers are unheard here, everyone screams in Hell. "What kind of creature are you?" he asks as he circles, studies, reaches out to touch. It burns, and he yelps, springs back.

"What are you?" the man asks, and there is an expression in his eyes that might be disgust. "What kind of creature are you?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," he smirks. "Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste—"

"So I see," the man says primly, and his eyes range up and down, unimpressed.

He looks down at his bare chest, the rags that might once have been jeans. "I'm real sorry," he snakes out. "I didn't dress for the occasion but you know, like the man said, we like to keep it informal down here. As well as infernal."

The dark-haired man smiles, just barely. "What are you?" he repeats.

"I am the wicked," he sings, "the vile sinner who broke His commandments, the transgressor, who is without hope. I am the devil."

When the man smiles now, his eyes are soft. "You're not that. You're Dean. Hello, Dean. And enough with the sermon on the mount crap. You sound like the Reverend Ike."

Dean…

"I'm a child of Hell, you fuckin' asswipe," he snaps indignantly. "I worked hard to make something of myself down here, so have some fuckin' respect. I'm the real deal, not the fuckin' electronic evangelist." He considers. "Though having said that, well. Prosperity now and all that crap… I can go with that."

The man watches him, relaxed, casual. "None of this is real, Dean," he says.

He smiles, jerks his head. "Oh yeah? Beg to differ, pilgrim. See my rack? That's real… solid fuckin' mahogany, man, none of that flatpack crap down under." He backs away, smoothes the woodgrain with a loving hand. "Alastair – he's my boss, sugar daddy, fuckbuddy, mentor, whatthefuckever, more like my mental, well he likes to go antiquing. He got this one in a mom-and-pop store somewhere in Maine, I do believe…" He bares his teeth, sneers, "you feel like a rest? It's real comfy, I can vouch for that. I slept like a baby on it many a night myself." He wrinkles his nose. "Well. Like a baby being disemboweled with a plastic spoon."

The man stares at him. "I'm not tired, Dean. I don't sleep."

"Well maybe you haven't been rode hard enough, dude," he leers. "Maybe I can fix that. Ride you hard and put you away wet. Right now… if you'd just like to drop 'em and assume the position…"

He lifts his cleaver, starts to shimmy and slow dance his way back over there, and cool air fans his face and chest. He stops in his tracks, closes his eyes and revels in it. "Breeze," he marvels. "I haven't felt the breeze on my skin since the second circle, dude. Man, that feels good… the wind there was too much, cussin' weather just like she said, but this…"

He cracks his eyelids, feels a thrill of fear, drops to his butt with a cry at their shadow, black against the red sky, twenty-foot wingspan, but then he can't help his whimper or the way he scrabbles forward, closer, until he huddles there at the man's shoes. "Shade," he murmurs. "The sun never sets here, and it burns me. This fuckin' sand melts my feet. My skin peels. Blisters, see? And fuckin' freckles everywhere, look. Look!" He stabs at his chest aggressively. "I bet that bitch is up there tannin' even now while I fry down here," he says bitterly. "I'm getting skin cancer for sure. It's not fair."

"This isn't real, Dean," the man cuts in gently. "This is a Hell of your mind. Do you know where you really are?"

Dean…

He blinks, concentrates, searches what's left of his brain. "Got nothing," he says mournfully. "Those corrosives do their magic slowly and sweet, man, it's mush up there." He wraps his arms around his knees, leans against the man's leg. "Dark," he whispers. "If it could just be dark, for a little while. So I wouldn't have to see." He buries his face in the fabric of the man's pants, feels light pressure on the top of his head. The man's hand, and his voice is gentle again.

"Dean. Do you know where you are?"

He stays in the dark, rocks back and forth. "I would not be just a nothing, my head all full of stuffing and my heart all full of pain," he sings, soft. "I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry, if I only had a brain."

The man nudges him with his foot. "The Wizard of Oz."

He looks up, glances around him. "He's here too?" He throws up his hands. "I'm not surprised. We get all sorts down here. Was he one of mine?"

"It's a movie. With Judy Garland." The man raises an eyebrow. "She flies somewhere over the rainbow. With her dog. You told me this, Dean."

He nods slowly. "Somewhere over the rainbow," he ventures. "Like me I guess. No pot of gold though, huh? No dog either. Except I got hellhounds, yep. Got plenty of those babies." He smiles. "Judy isn't here," he confides. "Turns out it was an accident after all. Damn shame. But get this…" He beckons and the man squats down opposite him. "Lilith tells me Kurt Cobain is. She says he's still in the middle ring."

The dark-haired man tilts his head. "The middle ring?"

He nods enthusiastically. "Yeah. See, this is the seventh circle. I made a lot of progress, dude, I'm climbing the ladder, I'm talking company car and gym membership, stocks and shares. I'm Alastair's black-eyed boy and he's taking good care of me, he broke me out of the first ring end of year twenty-four." He shudders. "Thank the Maker, because rivers of boiling blood do not me a happy camper make, you know what I'm saying?"

"Violence…" the man murmurs.

He clicks his fingers together. "You said it. Seventh circle. Violence. Poor old Kurt, he's still stuck in the middle ring." He huffs out ruefully. "Suicide. Lot of rock stars in there, actors too. Almost makes me wish I hadn't been promoted, though I hear it isn't much fun in there." He whistles out. "They get turned into trees. Can you believe that? And harpies live in there and tear pieces off them. Still. I might get the chance to meet him one day. Ask him what Courtney's really like."

The man stands, gazes around him. "The inner ring," he muses. "Where the violent against God are cast, and the sodomites wander." He cocks his head. "It's a funky town, Dean."

"You got that right, buddy," he whispers. "Sodomites…" He looks around him, peers at the shimmering horizon. "Don't remind me. Still, at least I can usually see them coming." He smiles. "It's like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia. They start out a little speck in the distance and get bigger and bigger. So sometimes I have time to dig into the sand and hide. Sometimes. But sometimes they—"

"Dean, do you know who brought you here?"

He shivers. "Her. Lilith. She found me. She waited for me and searched for me for years and she knew she'd find me one day… knew it was me when she saw this." He closes his fingers around the amulet resting on his chest, tarnished and dull with blood and soot. "After all these years." He looks up then, to where the wings still spread out, like a canopy. "Shelter," he murmurs. "Give me shelter." He reaches up. "Stay," he pleads, in a broken whisper. "I know I'm not clean, I know I don't deserve forgiveness, or comfort. But stay. I'm so tired, but I can't sleep because it's never nighttime here. The dust rains from the sky all the time, and it's fiery… it gets in my eyes and it burns them till I can't see any more, and then I can't see them coming, can't see to hide. Don't leave me. The ghosts of my life are here with me. Stay."

But the picture is flickering and jumping, and the man is fading and his blue eyes are sad, and his voice is distant and faint. This isn't real, Dean… think happy thoughts. And then there is only bright, searing sun scorching him as he sits alone in the desert of flaming sand, and he—

—Jolts awake with a cry, bright light shining in his face, and just as quickly it snaps off again. Then someone has hands under his armpits, drags him upright and Dean slumps against the wall while pain pummels him everywhere, like he's the bounce house mom and dad rented for the party and little Josh and his buddies are pogo-ing up and down on him. He throws his hand up to his mouth as acid bile rises and his guts twist unhappily.

"I splinted your leg."

It's a man's voice, and Dean freezes, stutters, "Al-Al—"

"Yup, that's me buddy."

It's reflexive, automatic. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas—"

"Shut the fuck up, retard," the man cuts in harshly. "Grub's up. Down there, to your right. Sub. From Subway. She ain't such a good cook so I got you take-out."

He forgot, it doesn't work in Hell. And he's starving through his nausea, and he pats the ground, feels his hand fall on something soft. He grabs it, stuffs it in his mouth, bolts it down in great, barely chewed lumps, and in the back of his mind roughly half his brain cells are puzzling over the fact they never fed him this kind of food the last time he was here.

"There's water too," the meatsuit says, and Dean feels a plastic bottle pressed into his hand.

He guzzles down a few mouthfuls, the liquid blessedly cool lubrication for his raw throat, then squints into the dark. "Where am I?" he whispers. "Is this still Violence? I can't see where I am… there's no sand. Did you move me?"

The man cackles. "Violence is right," he sneers. "Holding pattern. That's you, Dean."

Dean forces himself to think, but perceptions, impressions, suppositions and theories divebomb his brain like kamikaze wasps at a summer picnic, veering off before he can swat them into submission. "I don't understand…"

"You ain't supposed to."

He hears the crack and crash of thunder again, flinches. Storms, and that makes some kind of addled sense. "Is this the second circle?" he croaks. "Am I back in the second circle?"

"The fuck?" It's irritable, and Dean feels something kick out at his leg, and thank God it's the good one. "You're in the fuckin' elevator. Sheesh."

"Express elevator ride to Hell," Dean breathes out.

A hollow chuckle follows. "You could say that. But heck, she likes you. Maybe she'll keep you round longer than the others."

"The others…?"

"Yeah. They weren't the right one, none of them. But she says you are. And that makes her real happy." The meatsuit hacks in his throat, spits. "Whatever works."

Dean hears bones snap, crackle and pop and light suddenly streams in, from where? There's a grinding sound, and then it's dark again.

And Dean wants to shout for help, but he can't remember who to shout for.