AN: A huge thank you to all my lovely, generous reviewers for their wonderfully inspiring words. babyreaper, silent howler, cyenthia30, maddie, mickeygirl20; thankyou so much.
Onwards with Chapter 18, back to the Winchester brothers...
Chapter 18
The door banging shut behind Alistair left the constricted prison room dark and hollow. The only light in the room was the dull rectangular slivers on the floor puncturing the darkness through the iron bars on the minuscule window.
Two silhouettes could barely be distinguished leaning heavily against the concrete walls. Neither dared to break the crushing quiet, their labored breathing the only noise to fill the silent chasm. Their faces were concealed by the curtain of darkness, leaving both of them ignorant of the other's countenance.
It was strange…so strange…for two people who were celebrated for sharing a single soul, to be so disconnected from each other. Never before had there existed a gaping abyss between them. Never before had they questioned their familiarity…their absolute faith in each other.
They were brothers. They fought, they yelled, they accused, they threw punches…but they never questioned their loyalty…their trust. They never questioned the fact that they knew each other better than they sometimes knew themselves.
Their relationship was one that was based on faith; ever more so than trust. That is not to say that they did not trust each other; their trust was forged and reforged time and time again, despite the breaks.
But it was the faith that they had in each other that was the core of their bond. Their faith in family, their faith in their brotherhood, their faith in each other made them who they were, that made them Winchesters.
Trust is something that is earned. Faith is freely given. Trust requires sacrifice, is born from evidence, is based on verification. In a sense, you trust someone when they have proven their worthiness, their dependability. But faith is an unconditional gift that requires no proof or substantiation. It is awarded with no strings attached. Having faith in someone is believing in them…trusting them. Faith breeds trust. If you have faith, then trust is created on its own.
And the Winchesters lived on faith; faith in each other. They had never asked for testimonies or evidence. They had never even asked for trust. They had simply had faith.
They had faith that their bond as brothers would never be severed, faith that their love would keep them together, faith that they would always have each others back, faith in each others word, faith in the others strength and integrity, faith in the others capabilities, faith in the others character and goodness of heart…
They had never questioned or doubted; they didn't need to. They had faith in each other. And that was enough. Faith had helped them through a rough childhood, faith had helped them survive the supernatural world, faith had kept them together even through their deaths, faith had given them courage to stand up against Lucifer and try to stop the apocalypse. They were Winchesters. They were alive and sane because of faith. Faith was all they had. Faith that everything would be alright, that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that they would find their way back to each other in the end.
Most of all, they had faith in each other; in what they knew of each other.
But what happens if this faith shatters? What happens when the unthinkable happens and takes away the one constant that they had in the world; each other? What happens when everything they thought of each other becomes a lie?
A tense silence followed Alistair's departure. For a while, neither brother dared to break the fragile atmosphere fearing the inevitable consequences that would follow.
Finally, Sam's voice penetrated the rigidity of the air causing the elder brother to involuntarily flinch at the sound.
"Dean…?"
"Dean…say something…please…"
"What, Sam? What do you want from me?" Dean questioned in reply. His voice was hoarse, almost tinged with fright that left Sam even more confused.
"The truth, Dean. I want the truth. What…What did…he mean?" Sam glanced over his brother, straining to glean something…anything…from his brother's expression. But Dean resolutely kept his eyes shut and his face in the dark.
"Dean?"
"…Dean…?"
"What are you expecting, Sam?" The anger and frustration in Dean's voice caught Sam off guard. He jumped a little at the intensity of the words but bravely bared on.
"I…I just don't…..what…I…I don't understand…"
The confusion glazing Sam's eyes could only be genuine. Alistair's words circulated his mind but refused to settle into some meaningful semblance. He couldn't understand what they meant. He refused to understand.
The words reiterated themselves in his brain. But they were just that; words, just words. He couldn't integrate them to form a meaningful sentence, because the sentence did not have a meaning. The idea that it communicated was so utterly absurd, so ridiculous, so illogical that it could just not exist. It was unreasonable, irrational and therefore impossible. And thus, it was false. It could not exist. Sam was a master of analytical thinking. His brain did not respond to anything else.
And so Sam sat, confused and bewildered, his thoughts a convoluted mess, waiting for his brother to shed some light of reason that would solve the chaos in his head.
His brother, however, did no such thing. Dean just sat there, his eyes tightly shut, face a mere shadow of his impassive mask.
"Dean?"
"Just…just shut up Sam…just…shut the hell up…"
"But…I…I don't…"
"You don't understand, Sam. You can't. You've no idea. Hell…the things I saw, the things I did….." The words drifted towards the end, swallowed by the darkness.
Sam waited silently, confused, bewildered and curious of his brother's pain.
"Then explain it to me, Dean." He whispered softly. "Make me understand."
He watched in astonishment as tears trickled down his brother's face, the trails silently voicing the tales of unadulterated agonies. He wondered and prayed that he was strong enough to bear the truth that would be unleashed from his brother's mouth.
The moment was finally here. The worst had happened. There was no stalling, no stopping it. Could he do it…could he really tell his brother the abominable truth? Could he make himself utter the repulsive words?
There was no stopping it now. The ball was rolling and it was impossible to stop. He had to tell the truth and unleash the avalanche that would certainly bury them and their brotherhood. The inevitable dark day was here.
He had been foolish to think that he could have prevented this, that Sam would never have to know. So foolish.
He had wondered many times how his ruin will play out. For this would ruin him, he was sure. Would Sam be angry, shocked, disgusted…? Would he run away from him in fear? Would Sam call him a demon and bring out the holy water?
He wouldn't be wrong to react this way. Sam had every right…and he deserved it. Those were the words that lit a fire of shame inside his body and boiled his blood. He deserved it.
He was supposed to be a hunter, a protector against the evil forces of hell. And he used to be proud; proud to be a hunter, proud to be his father's son, proud to be a Winchester, proud to be a brother.
And now, he was none of those things. He couldn't call himself a hunter for he had come so close, so close to becoming the very thing he hunted. He couldn't call himself his father's son after breaking down where his father had held strong. He was a taint on the Winchester blood.
And most importantly, he couldn't claim to be the brother he used to be for Sam. He was no longer that strong, invincible guy his brother had loved and respected. He was no longer the kind, compassionate and good brother that Sam deserved. In fact, he was the very opposite of that.
He was now the same as those vile, evil monsters that Sam had been taught to hunt. He was a monster undeserving of the second chance that Castiel had bestowed upon him. He deserved to die, he knew he did. He deserved to burn for the things that he had done.
He wondered if Sam would be the one to gun to his head. If his death would come by Sam's hand. He wondered if he felt frightened or relieved at the thought.
He knew that he would end up in hell again. There was no other place for a soul as dark and corrupted as him. After everything, escaping from hell, spending time with his brother, seeing Bobby and having new members join his mismatched family, he would end up in hell again; back to the fires, back to the pain, back to Alistair.
Was it really too much to ask for to be able to spend just a little more time with his family? He had wanted just a little more time, just a little more time with his brother before being cast into hell for eternity. Just a little more time like the old days. Just a little more time…
Ever since his resurrection, he had felt as if he was living on borrowed time. He had been given a rare and unexpected gift, a last wish, if you will. And he had tried to make the most of it. He had spent every single moment feeling grateful for each measly second he had with his loved ones. He had known that it would end soon, this blissful dream that had been bestowed upon him. Yet he had hoarded each second like a miser, ever fearful in the knowledge of its transitivity.
His fantasy had come to its inevitable end. It had not been enough. It could never be enough…His time had run out. The last grains of sand were slipping through the time-glass. Lucifer had yet to unleash hell on earth but his apocalypse had already arrived. Sam was going to know the truth and that would be the end of his fleeting, yet precious jaunt in heaven.
Knowing, with a heavy heart, that there was no delaying the inescapable confrontation, Dean bared his tortured soul to his brother. He told Sam everything, leaving nothing out. He did not bother sparing the humiliating details, he didn't care to embellish the merciless facts.
With an air of tired resignation, he told Sam every little detail from his trip down to hell that he had tried to previously conceal. He narrated his initial phase of defiance. He explained how hard he had tried to fight, how he had attempted to overcome the unconquerable pain. He disclosed how often he would think of Sam in his darkest moments, how his little brother inspired him to stay strong for thirty long years before he had finally broken down.
He divulged details of the assortment of tortured that he had been subjected to, his desperate attempts to cling to his humanity, his hopeless endeavors to win a losing battle. He narrated Alistair's cruelly tempting offers of respite and his dark desires of giving in just to cease the monumental pain.
He exposed his darkest moment, the moment of his surrender; his shattered humanity, his broken mind, his unrecognizable soul that had forgotten all that he was, all that had made him Dean Winchester, under the unforgiving onslaught to pain.
He hesitated for a moment, but in accordance to his quest to be truthful, he delved into the last ten years of his stay in hell. He described to shrieking cries of his victims as he carved them, the feel of the bloody blade in his hand, the guilty relief of being the giver of pain instead of the receiver.
He confessed how close he had come to falling of the ledge of insanity, to surrendering to hell and losing his humanity. He described his hatred of the blood that he had shed, the screams he had elicited, the praises that Alistair murmured in his ear and most importantly, his hatred of himself.
He admitted how in the dark hours of night, when memories would haunt him like nightmares and disrupt his sleep, he would consider ending his life once and for all; his only inhibition being that it would lead him to Alistair that much sooner. He acknowledged that he believed himself to have no hope of redemption and that it was only the guilt of having disappointed Sam that urged him to even try.
As his narrative neared its end, Dean finally dared to glance at Sam, though he did not have the courage to meet his brother's eyes. His apprehensive mind belatedly realised that Sam had yet to speak a word since Dean had begun talking.
He feared Sam's reaction, braced himself for the angry words and scathing reproaches but knew in his heart that he would never be able to bear Sam's rejection. He yearned to read Sam's mind, to know his silent thoughts and yet lived in terror of being on the receiving end of his precious brother's hate and wrath.
This fear restricted him from disturbing the spell of silence that had befallen Sam until his hammering heart threatened to explode in the anticipation of the unknown.
His hoarse voice enunciated a timid question. "Sam…?"
He reluctantly raised his gaze and finally met his brother's eyes only to feel his heart shatter in response to the emotions in his brother's eyes; shock, horror, anger, disgust, hate…
AN: I'd love to hear your comments and views. Do review!