Dean stood in a clearing, surrounded by creaking pines straining against gusts of wind that sent them twisting and thrashing, trying to escape something he could not see. The sickly pallor of the low-hanging clouds leaked through the whipping branches as Dean turned in a circle, disoriented, counting the trunks that closed in around him like the bars of a cage. His wide eyes reflected the mossy coloring of his surroundings. The wind and the trees roared and wailed, and Dean could hear their warning. Suddenly, the ground dropped out from beneath him and he was falling, falling, down, down, through blackness, and then silence, and then he was there.
The Pit.
The sounds of the storm had transmuted into the sound of electricity, roaring and crackling, punctuated with agonized screaming and pleading in the distance. The sound of rending limbs and tearing flesh filled his ears. The cold, wet air that had been blowing across Dean's face turned into a dry blistering heat, and he could feel his skin sting and crackle, flake off and blow away. Just as fast as he disintegrated, his body renewed itself. The cycle of Hell was one of destruction and rebirth. Just when you thought the suffering was over, it would begin again just as torturous as when you first arrived.
Sammy.
Sam was strapped down to a table directly to Dean's left, his steaming body crackling with electricity, struggling desperately against the thick chains and rusty hooks that tethered him to the table. His long, chestnut hair was matted to the sides of his face with dried blood, his eyes wide and terrified. He whimpered as the tears streaming down his face vaporized in the charged air, the sweat steaming off his body rose into the air on a thermal current, illuminated by a soft blue glow without a source, up toward a ceiling that didn't exist and out toward walls that neither began nor ended. In the distance, lightning flashed and a crack of thunder shook the table.
Dean looked down at his right hand and was unsurprised when he saw the long, rusted razor blade clasped in his palm. He enjoyed the weight of the handle. His green eyes flashed as he slowly moved his hand back and forth, savoring the balance of the blade and the warm, tingling familiarity of its electrical charge. It felt bonded to him, merely an extension of his arm rather than a tool. The corner of his mouth turned up into a barely perceptible smirk.
He was home.
As he walked closer toward Sam, he could hear his brother sputter, "D-dean… p-please… you don't have to do this…"
"Do what, Sammy?" Dean's voice intoned. Another smirk. This felt good, better than he remembered. He savored his brother's panicked desperation. He began slowly walking around the table, looking over his shoulder and down at his brother, trailing the fingers of his left hand along the length of the chains that bound and stretched Sam.
How pathetic , thought Dean. "When I'm done with you," he growled, "you'll wish your soul was back in the cage, on fire, with Lucifer." He bent down and leaned into Sam's face, tracing the edge of the blade along the contour of his brother's jaw, and whispered, "When I'm done with you, you won't remember how to scream."
Another crack of thunder, much closer this time, caused Dean to jump back and drop his blade. The air around him tingled with ozone. He felt a strong grip of a hand on his shoulder, spinning him around so that he was face-to-face with a dark silhouette, with piercing blue eyes glowing from under a furrowed brow, and the shadow of two huge wings crackling with static, stretching at least 8 feet wide behind. Darkness emanated from the silhouette, obscuring the blue glow that lit the room as it closed in on Dean, surrounding him.
"You don't have to do this, Dean," growled a low voice that emanated from the dark shadow, its timbre burning deep into Dean's guts. "This is not you." The blue eyes glowed brighter, two gas flames that burned brightly into Dean's mind until all he saw were those flames against the darkness.
It was Dean's turn to cry. Waves of emotion, of guilt and rage and shame, self-loathing, cowardice, and spread across all a deep and endless loneliness. The tears steamed off his face, as quickly as they fell, and Dean dropped to his knees.
"You don't understand," he said, choking back a sob. You don't know what I've done. Those I've hurt. I fuck up, and I push everyone away." He swallowed hard, glancing desperately around, trying to make out something other than the blackness and the blue flames boring into him.
There, on the floor, he saw the blade he had dropped. He lunged for it and brought it up to his neck, pressing it against his carotid artery until he could feel it start to break the skin. "You don't know how this feels!" he screamed at the figure. "You aren't in my head!"
The voice replied calmly with a flat affect and barely perceptible growl, "Of course I do, Dean. I am there right now." Just then, the silhouette raised its arm and laid two fingers gently against Dean's temple.
Dean was pulled violently up through a dark void and slammed back into reality, jerking awake to find himself alone in the living area, upright in the armchair, a late night infomercial for earrings serving as the only illumination. He could feel his heart beats crashing in his ears, his palms were sweating and ice cold.
"What the fuck, what the fuck?" he rasped as he choked on fresh-flowing tears that streamed down his face and down the back of his throat. He rocked back and forth, his head in his hands.
He remembered Hell, what he'd done, what he was about to do. He remembered the angel, and the angel's words.
"This is not you."
Another dream , he thought. A nightmare.
Dean tipped his head backwards against the chair. He covered his face with his hands to block out the light from the muted television, trying to steady his breath and slow his heart.
If that isn't me, then why do I keep going back? Why do I want to go back? he thought desperately. The tears kept coming, soaking the front of his shirt.
This was Dean's seventh night terror in two weeks. He was petrified of sleeping, staying up well past Sam every night, and since his dream of Lisa and Ben, he'd been avoiding his bed altogether. He'd murdered Ben, mangled Bobby with a tire iron, let Benny be torn apart by Leviathans, set fire to his mother, cast his father into Purgatory, and flayed the skin off of Charlie's arms, laughing as she begged him to stop. Tonight, exhaustion had won out, and he succumbed to the comfortable chair in the livingroom.
Sammy, I'm so sorry.
Dean let his hands slowly drop into his lap. He rubbed his eyes and sniffed, and then reached for the remote to unmute the infomercial. Sleep was no longer an option. He did not see the figure in the shadowy corner of the room behind him, a dim blue light emanating from eyes firmly locked on Dean's shaking body. The angel watched until his friend could breathe normally again, and then he vanished with a crackle and fluttering of feathers.