Fifty shades of red; that's what Hell was—fifty shades of dark red leaching from perpetual cellblocks for miles on end and fifty shades of noxious smells he would never identify. He remembered a time when it was all disconcerting—a time when he had actually loathed the thought of being confined to a single block, stooped in the darkest corner and feeding off of who-knows-what from the cold floor, scheming of ways to burn the place and everyone in it to the ground (figuratively, of course).
The place still felt the same—and smelt the same at that—but Dean hadn't felt the same. He was no longer slumped over, passed out in a corner somewhere (that's what he was doing when he wasn't scheming of ways to slaughter everyone); Dean was the ringleader. For so long, he's wanted to be in charge of something, feel the power flowing through his veins like currency. He needed this.
"So, how is it? Is it up to par since the apocalyptic era?"
It was almost as if the King of Hell read his mind… could he do that? He was still fairly new to this demon thing. The last coherent thought he had had was prior to his Turning—something along the lines of tasting rich metallic between his teeth—or maybe it was a hankering for human flesh. That one scared him the most at first because he was looking at his brother while envisioning his calloused hands plowing into his chest. He saw Sam's soul, could almost taste the kinks and scars aplenty, stitched and sown together by the meagre handiwork of Death and a curious rubicund imprint of a large hand adorned by a severed handiwork of God: Castiel.
"You gave us order, Castiel, and we gave you our trust. Don't lose it over one man. This is justice."
"No. I can't."
He had to smile; my angel. He'd certainly love to test his loyalty now. He would love to take a bite—if not just run the brim of his nose over his skin once more—of him. Imbibing in Sam's battered soul, he had to digress, wouldn't be nearly as much fun. Sam was broken, fragile… weak. Cas was strong—both psychically and cerebrally—angry, passionate; all of the things that he would love to feel withering away in the palms of his hands as he destroyed him. And if he couldn't, then he would try again; beat him down like a dog with a tether, each time harder and with less humanity.
Humanity, he had to laugh at that too.
"Definitely," he said. He scoped the bordered-off walls once more. It hit him. "Well, there is one thing missing; it kind of wanes on the whole ambience…"
"What's that?"
Dean rolled his head around his neck. "The son of a bitch that dragged me down here, Alastair, where is he?" His eyes flashed back to black. He had done that to the prisoners—some of them hunters he recognized from ages ago—in the cells when he and Crowley filed in. They would give Dean a repulsive look. Most of them probably thinking something along the lines of what the hellisa Winchester doing back in hell, hasn't he seen enough? Dean would return their piqued stares by smiling impishly and violently shaking the metal bars they inhabited, revealing his black pupils. It shut them up fairly quick.
"Why?" Crowley stopped in his tracks to eye the younger man interestingly.
Dean shrugged, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "I want to see if he's the same worthless piece of shit he taught me to be. You know, I read somewhere that a good percentage of people never change, even under intense circumstances."
"I guess you're living proof of that."
Dean's smile came out. "I guess so. But you know when they do change, when they expose who they really are? It's when they've got one foot in the grave." He paused, his smile fading slightly. "I don't really have much experience as a demon yet, but that's when uh—when Sammy's died, or Cast—"
Crowley cut him off swiftly, temper rising. "Look, I'm not your grief counselor, capiche? And don't walk around here thinking that you own the place now that you went dark side. Hello, I'm Crowley, King of Hell." He gestured to his face. He had more scruff than Dean last remembered now that he really looked at him. "And especially, don't scare the bullocks out of my detainees. That's my job."
Crowley strode ahead, leaving Dean to catch up. "Oh c'mon, not even a commemorative t-shirt?"
"You have more important matters to attend to," Crowley said. He came to rest at the end of the straight-shot corridor to two massive doors, heavily chained on each end. It was somewhat eroded, but considering the place that it was, it didn't come as a surprise. Unhinging the deadbolt on the doors revealed a group of men and women—all demons, judging by their black auras. They all shared a commutative stare at Dean.
Dean narrowed his eyes. "Who are they?"
Crowley's thin lips pointed into a smile. "Dean Winchester, say hello to your army."
It was always astounding to Sam how quickly one click turned into a seven hour drive. It wasn't like he could complain; at least he finally had his hands on the Impala's smooth leather coxswain without his brother smacking them severely off. Dean's persona changed like the seasons, but if there was one aspect about him that hadn't, it would be his adherence to the vehicle—Baby. He hadn't heard Dean call it that since, well, yeah. He didn't want to admit that he missed Dean professing his love to an inanimate object as much as the next guy. But he did, immensely. He doesn't care how weird it sounded—he would sell his soul to hear Dean talk to his car again. But that would be redundant.
Cas had sat in the backseat—he couldn't handle sitting in the front; the only time he was permitted to ride shotgun was when he and Dean were alone together.
When they arrived at their destination, Cas said that he should be a pace ahead of Sam. Said he didn't exactly know how stable a man was after years of "self-contained incarceration".
Sam went along with it, but couldn't help but feel a tinge of sadness sidling through his body. He knew that Cas knew Sam could manage himself. He had endured Perdition after all; longer than Dean even. The only reason that Cas's defenses were up was because of said man. Dean was his everything; his reason for reason, his partner in crime. He probably felt the need to defend the younger hunter because he was all that he had left if Dean really was gone forever. And yeah, Cas loved Sam. And yeah, Sam would be there for him—always—but damn, he didn't want to imagine not only him going on without his brother, but Castiel too.
The weight of the world has always been on their shoulders—the Devil's Gate, the apocalypse, Leviathan—but when one of them died, that was truly the end of everything.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Sam asked warily, glancing around the countryside.
Cas replied sharply to the inquest, "I am an angel of the Lord."
Sam raised his arms in defense and said no more. A swift knock and the door swung open momentarily, almost as if the proprietor was expecting them. But he wasn't.
"Who the hell are you?" The door was barely open enough for a fly. Sam forged a smile—which took just about everything in his power to muster—and began with his postmortem examination.
"Hi, sir, my name is Sam Weston"—he didn't want to use his real last name in case he was hunted down after this—"my brother um—he paid you a visit a couple months back regarding—"
"Why are you talking like that?"
Sam's eyes tightened on the faint illumination of the figure behind the doorframe. "What do you mean, sir?"
"Cut the 'sir' business, Sam Winchester," he said shortly, "I know who you are."
Sam tried to maintain his eyes from widening in shock. "I—uh—I'm sorry, how to you know me?"
"You and your brother—Dean—right?" The door stilled on his foot, unmasking a little bit more of his face. His gray beard was far from kempt and his eyes—or one eye from what he could see—was dark charcoal. "I usually can't remember names but he wouldn't stop talking about you. I wish I could say the same about my brother before I killed him."
Sam shifted his stance. "Right, th—that's him. So you remember giving him the Mark?"
"Of course I remember," Cain retorted bitterly, "you think I just hand out my burden like a sweepstakes giveaway? I just didn't want to be reminded. I'm in the middle of churning my honey."
"Look, would you please just listen to me; my brother's in danger—"
Cain scoffed. "Of course he's in danger, he bares the Mark!"
Cas stepped in, nudging Sam to the side. "Let me handle this before he cuts out your tongue," he whispered. Sam gawked from the two of them. "Cain, my name is Castiel; I am an angel of the Lord. My friend here, he just wants some answers to his pathetic inquires,"—Sam tossed him his famous bitch face—"if you could spare us that we would be happy to let you get back to your honey."
Whatever Cas had said differently, it caused the ex-Knight to swing the door open. "Castiel," Cain said, testing the name rolling off of his ancient tongue, "I know you, too. A fallen angel, if the pants fit. I've heard much about the war in Heaven, how you were the one who started the whole thing, built a chain of command to take down the rest of the cherubs."
The angel coughed. "I guess so, I mean—"
"Don't guess; please, humor me. 'Rebel angel'—would have looked good on a Knight's nameplate."
Cas smiled. Sam couldn't tell if he was actually flattered or just feigning his belief in the words. "Well thank you, but like I said this isn't about me, this is about Sam. Dean is very…"—he settled for an ambiguous word: "ill."
"Castiel, I like you, but don't take me for an idiot. Don't think I haven't heard about your… fondness for that human." He laughed flavorlessly. "And here I thought it was all talk—an angel sacrifices his vessel for an ape? Please. But here you are, at my doorstep asking what you can do to save his undersized life. Now I'm definitely a believer."
Cas's temper rose. "The Mark, it's turned him into this, I don't know—"
"Cold-blooded killer?" Cain said, gesturing to his rags. "Yes, I'm familiar with the concept of what the Mark does."
Sam jumped in even angrier. "Then why didn't you tell him before you 'handed' it to him?" Cas rested his hand firmly on his shoulder.
"You must not know your brother as well as he thinks, Sam," he stated, "because I tried to tell him, but he didn't accept the warning label. Said he would rather just have the Mark and deal with whatever came after."
"That does sound like him," Cas said quietly.
Cain exhaled exasperatingly. He spoke to the both of them but kept his eyes trained on Cas, whom he obviously liked more. "Look, I didn't force Dean to do anything, he chose to take on my burden," he explained, "and it's not turning him into a killer, it's only enhancing what he is."
"He's not a demon!" Sam spat. Cain ignored him.
"It's enhancing a guise that he's always had. He probably thinks that the Blade is making him stronger, correct?" Sam nodded reluctantly. "Well it's not. It's doing just the opposite: it's poisoning him. There's no cure, and there's no impediment. I don't envy the weight that he carries, I truly don't." Sam exchanged a jaw-clenched expression with Cas, who remained, well, expressionless. Cain shut the door. They began walking back to the car.
"Son of a bitch," Sam cursed, once an earshot away from the bordered house.
"Yes, I'm afraid that's Cain for you."
There was a long silence between them until they reached the Impala when Sam paused on pulling the handle. "Hey, Cas…?"
"Yes, Sam?" he replied from the other side.
"We were just at Cain's house, you know, like, the Cain, Father of Murder."
Cas nodded. "Yes, I believe we've established that."
"Yeah, I mean—why weren't you more scared?" he asked curiously.
Cas gave him probably the most shrewd response that the Winchester would ever hear: "Sam, I've died three times, one of which case I had Leviathan souls writhing inside me—Cain is nothing."
Sam chuckled, actually chuckled for the first time since the recent turn of events. "Touché." He was about to step in and start the car when another thought hit him like roadkill. It ceased his short-lived laughter. "You know what?"
"What's that?"
"Both of the demons that we've talked to have claimed that they didn't 'force Dean to do anything'; that he took on everything all at once because he wanted to."
Cas knitted his eyebrows together. "Well, is that really that surprising? I mean for as sacrificial as you two are, I'm surprised that God hasn't stopped trying to save you."
"Cas, you save us," Sam corrected.
"Even so," he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Sam shifted again. "No really, though, I mean yes, Dean is a stubborn ass. But I feel like there's more to this story, like there's something we're not seeing…"
"Could it be me?" a voice loomed from behind.
Sam turned around swiftly to find Dean, same smile strewn in the same measly fashion from hours ago across his face, waving at him. Sam was prepared this time, prepared to take him down with everything he had left in him. He dove in for a swing, but something was wrong. He wasn't swinging anymore—let alone at anything and Cas wasn't beside him.
Everything was as it had been when his brother had died: dark and alone.