A/N This chapter takes place in between s04e05 Monster Movie and s04e06 Yellow Fever. (I'm not altering either of those episodes because 1 - Sam's powers have no impact and B - you don't screw with perfection.)
Pretty much the entire chapter screws with the timeline, moving action from several different episodes forward. I don't want to give anything away but more info is at the end of the chapter.
Also, this is a really short chapter, but it was either that or a SUPER loooong one. Originally, what is going to end up being Chapter 44 was Chapter 43, then I realized I needed to deal with this first. Then, I thought I'd also deal with what is going to be Chapter 45 in the same chapter, but on reflection, realized that Chapter 44 had to come next, for… reasons.
For a brief time I thought that Chapter 43 would be ALL of this chapter PLUS 44 AND 45, and then… now, too much. So, here we are.
And here it is.
Enjoy.
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Half Moon Motel
US-30
Plymouth, IN
October 7, 2008
3:35 a.m.
It felt so good to be back at it.
The unending screaming stopped — or at least, he only heard the screams of the individual soul on the rack in front of him, instead of the laments of every soul in Hell.
The knife fit so easily in his hand —
"Dean?"
— like it had been made for him.
He scraped the blade carefully down the arm he held, slicing off the skin to reveal the raw connective tissue and nerves beneath
And the smell of the blood that dripped on his hands —
"Dean, stop!"
— was as sweet as ever, as intoxicating as the best drug, liquor and sex all rolled up into one.
How had he done without this? How had he ever left this behind? This, right here, THIS — the production of pain, of agony, of blood and screams. Oh, the screams. The purest music he'd ever heard. Better than Zepplin's best.
He knew that scream, though. That wasn't the scream he should be hearing, not in this place.
"Dean, please!"
He shifted his grip on the knife, grabbed hold of the soul's chin — funny, they usually didn't feel that SOLID — and began pressing down on the lower left eyelid.
"DEAN!"
He woke from his dream when his back hit the base of the dresser across from the foot of the matching motel beds, causing the knife in his hand — the one he kept under his pillow — to drop from his hand.
Dean looked around the room, confused, as reality slipped back into place. Right. I'm not in Hell. Castiel got me out. I'm — we just finished a hunt — weird hunt — and we're on our way to Bobby's, me and Sam…
His brain came to a dead stop as he took in the blood on his hands and on the knife that lay at his side.
"Sammy?" he whispered and forced himself to look at his little brother — the brother he'd sworn to protect, the brother he'd gone to Hell for in the first fucking place — whose arm was dripping blood onto the bed, as a single drop of blood slid slowly down his cheek from his eye.
"Nightmare?" Sam guessed, his voice even and steady and surprisingly mild as he hovered his left hand over his half-dissected right forearm.
Dean nodded slowly, watching as his brother's hand glowed a soft purple as the arm Dean himself had fucking skinned slowly began to heal.
"Tell me about it."
Dean shook his head frantically. He couldn't tell Sammy. He couldn't. Couldn't bear to have Sam know how weak, how cowardly, how fucking depraved Dean really was.
Sam chuckled softly and stood up from his bed, walking over to crouch in front of Dean and pick up the knife. He turned the blade slowly side to side, inspecting the blood that coated it.
"That wasn't a request, Dean," he said simply and settled himself, cross-legged, in front of his brother.
"Sammy…"
"NO!"
Dean winced at the word and felt himself shrinking back against the dresser as he watched Sammy's eyes slide from confused, muddy green-blue to pure Witch Blue.
"I've been patient," Sam continued, his voice granite hard. "I know you remember Hell, Dean. I sleep three feet from you, and I hear you, Dean. I hear the moans of pain; the panting from fear; the desperation when you say Stop and No and Please god, in your sleep. I've put up with the fiction that you 'don't remember anything' out of respect for your privacy. And your trauma. But, Dean," he continued and held his half-healed arm under Dean's nose.
Dean closed his eyes and tried to turn away, but when Sammy used his good hand to grab his chin and turn him back to look at him, Dean had to look, could only stare at the damage he'd caused as tears began to fall from his eyes.
"Sam…" he breathed.
"You skinned my arm, Dean," Sam said flatly and Dean full-body winced. "And you tried to pop my eye out," and now his brother's anger — and fear — were both fully on display in his tone. "And my patience is done. You ARE going to tell me what happened to you. And you're going to do it. Right. Now."
"Sammy," Dean begged — practically sobbed and what a weak, useless thing he was — "I, I can't. I don't…. I can't, Sammy. I can't tell you this! Don't ask me, man. You don't want to know!"
Sam nodded. "I get that," he said gently. "I'm probably the last person you want to tell, and you're right," he laughed nervously, "I don't fuckin' wanna know. But we crossed a line, here, tonight, Dean, and I can't…" He took a long, steadying breath and wiped away the tears that were threatening to fall from his own eyes. "You could've killed me, Dean," he said quietly.
Dean shook his head. "No." The word was somewhere between a breath and a full-on a whimper.
"If you'd gone straight for my neck," Sam continued, his voice implacable, even as it shook, "or my heart…"
"I wouldn't," Dean vowed.
"Yeah? Well, when we went to bed last night, I'd've sworn you'd never peel my skin off, either, man," Sam pointed out. "But here we are."
"Sam…I'm so…"
"I know, I know," Sam assured him. "I know you're sorry, Dean. I know you didn't mean it. I know you didn't know it was me," he shrugged. "But I'm still the one bleeding, here. I'm still the one mending my own nerves, and if — I don't know what I could've done if I didn't, if, if I weren't…" A breath exploded from him. "Dammit, Dean! The only way I got you off me was to use my telekinesis to toss you across the fucking room. If I couldn't do that… I… I don't know…"
"Fuck," Dean breathed and stared at the stained carpet between them.
"I'm not mad, man," Sam assured him and Dean looked up, honestly surprised. "But… dude, we're on our way back to Bobby's, and…" He shook his head and looked away for a moment, before forcing himself to look into Dean's pain filled eyes. "Bobby can't defend himself," he said, his voice suddenly steady and firm. "And we're not going home until we've talked about this. We're not. And Bobby's expecting us. He's makin' his chili, man, and I know you don't want to miss that," he added with a crooked smile.
Dean actually chuckled at that, unbelievably. "Aw, Sammy…"
"Listen," Sam continued, all serious again. "I know… Okay, I don't know," he admitted, "but I'm guessing that you… that things… I figure you maybe had to… do things in Hell, just to survive. Hard things. Maybe terrible things. And I figure that, knowing you, you're afraid to tell me, because… well, because you have the incredibly fucked up idea that anything that happened to you in Hell would make the slightest bit of difference to how I feel about you." Sam shook his head and slipped his hand behind Dean's neck. "You couldn't be more wrong, Dean," he promised. "Nothing you can say, nothing you could, or did, do could ever change… well… US," he concluded. "You're my big brother. And the best friend I ever had, or ever will have. That doesn't change. Ever. For any reason."
"Sammy, you don't understand…"
"I know," Sam nodded. "I know I don't. I doubt I can, I haven't been through whatever the fuck you went through. But I don't have to understand it to help you. I have to know, but…"
"Help me?" Dean breathed and burst out laughing, pushing his brother away to scramble to his feet, because suddenly sitting still was simply impossible. "HELP ME?" He shook his head in amazement. "There's no helping me, Sam! There's not… This isn't something your, your powers can heal, Sam! This isn't something we can talk through and fuckin' 'hug it out'!"
Sam got gracefully to his feet and stepped in front of Dean, grabbing him by both shoulders when his brother would've turned away. "I know that," he snapped. "I'm not a moron, Dean! You were in Hell for four months. I can't take that away, and I can't make it hurt less, and I can't make it any fucking less traumatic! But I can LISTEN. And you can talk, and start to, to…"
"So help me, if you say process, or some other hippy-dippy crap, I will punch you in the face."
"Dean," Sam said firmly. "You're hiding from it, Dean, and that's a trauma…."
"Stop calling it trauma," Dean muttered.
"You got a better word? World's Most Fucked Up Reality? Mindfuck? Soul pain? Pick one!"
Dean sighed. "No, yeah. Trauma works."
"You're not dealing with it," Sam insisted. "And until you do, you'll keep having these nightmares."
Dean raised both his hands between his brother's arms and swung his forearms out, breaking Sammy's hold. "The fuck d'you know about it?!"
Sam went still. "It's how I got over what Dad did in Asheville," he admitted quietly.
Well that just brought Dean's thought processes to a screeching halt. "What?!"
"I lied to you," Sam said evenly. "That therapist I told you about? I didn't see her for a class — I mean, yeah, that's how it started. But it worked for me. It HELPED. Talking to someone helped me, so I kept doing that. Kept talking to somebody. Even after you came to get me." He shrugged at his brother's amazement. "I didn't tell you, because therapy is Not What Winchesters Do, and I didn't want you teasing me, or making a deal of it. But I'm still seeing her, Dean."
"Are you… Are you shittin' me, right now?" Dean demanded. "Tell me you're shittin' me, Sammy, and you're not talking to some, some civilian head shrinker about our lives!"
"I'm not," Sam said. "I'm not 'shitting you' and no, Dean, I'm not stupid enough to talk to a civilian doctor about any of this. After the class ended, when I realized that I missed — no, that I needed to have someone to talk to, I called the KnightMed Doc who gave me your messages. He helped me find a therapist in the network, and I started seeing them. And I see them to this day. On the phone, every couple of weeks."
"Jesus," Dean shook his head. "You can't ask me…"
"I'm not," Sam promised. "I know you won't do that — even though there is nothing wrong with it, Dean, not a fucking thing! But Dean… man, when I tell you it helped? I mean it helped. Like, I stopped looking for Dad coming to kill me around every corner. And I stopped believing all the crap he said about me."
Dean leveled a really? look at him and Sam blushed slightly.
"Mostly," he amended, and Dean nodded once in acceptance. "Most importantly… Dean, once I started to talk about it, to really get so it wasn't just stuck in my head… I mean, yeah, it's still in my head, it'll always be in my head, what Dad did in Asheville and every other time he whaled on me, and all the shit he said to me and pretty much everybody in the life that we ever met."
"Like fuckin' Travis," Dean muttered.
"The rougarou got him for you, Dean, let it go," Sam rolled his eyes. "Point is, once I started to talk about it, it wasn't just in my head, and once I got it outa me, and could really look at it, for what it was, for what he was, and for my own part in it," he continued and raised a hand to stop Dean's knee-jerk not your fault Sammy response, "because I didn't deserve what he did, but I wasn't exactly the perfect kid, either, and I know that. Once I did all that… Dean, it got better. A lot better."
Dean frowned, suddenly considering. "A lot, how?"
"Well, I still have nightmares about him," Sam admitted.
"Yeah, I know," Dean agreed with a snort.
"But I don't have them as often," Sam continued as if Dean hadn't spoken, "and when I do have nightmares, they're just nightmares, not the night terrors I used to get."
"Night terrors?" Dean breathed.
"Yeah," Sam sighed. "After you had to leave, after I sent you to hunt with Dad? That's when they started. Joey — she's my therapist — Joey says it's because, for the first time, I didn't feel protected. You were gone, and you had to be, and I wasn't mad about it, or upset about it… Okay, a little upset about it," he admitted with a shrug, "but it was the right thing to do. But… Dean, my whole life," he continued, his voice shaking slightly, "you took care of me, man. Kept me safe from Dad, from literal monsters, from everything bad in the world, and when you left… I guess part of me didn't feel safe, anymore."
"Geez, Sammy."
"Not trying to make you feel guilty, Dean, you got nothin' to feel guilty about. None of which is the point," he added, pulling himself back on track. "Point is, once I knew why I was having them, I could deal with it. I made myself feel safe. I made sure I knew what had always been true — even if Dad showed up, he couldn't hurt me anymore. And once I knew it was only dreams, however crappy, then I couldn't hurt me, or — anyone else."
"What… What does that mean?"
"It means," Sam said dryly, "that after you left I started actually dating more, and that the first time I had someone spend the night, I had a night terror. And when they tried to wake me, I damn near broke their nose."
"Shit! Talk about a mood killer."
Sam chuckled. "Shut up. The point is, Dean, once I talked about what I was remembering in my terrors, they stopped." Sam put his hands on his brother's shoulders. "And if you talk about Hell, maybe the same thing can happen for you. Because what happened here, tonight? That was a night terror, Dean. You were so deep in your memories, that I couldn't pull you out until I threw you across the room. Thing about night terrors? They're not dangerous in and of themselves. But… they fuck up your sleep patterns, and that can be dangerous, it can fuck up your heart. And you're clearly sleepwalking with it, 'cause you sure weren't on your own bed."
Dean looked away, and Sam grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at him again.
"Dean, if this goes on, man… What if we get to Bobby's and you start sleepwalking there, huh? You could fall down the stairs. Or out the window. Dean, these night terrors could kill you."
"That's bullshit," Dean protested and pushed Sam's hands off him, again. "You're trying to scare me into doing what you want."
"That's not trying to scare you, Dean," Sam assured him. "That's just stating facts. 'Cause it could happen. You could kill yourself. Or," he said slowly and Dean flinched, knowing what was coming next, "you could kill Bobby. Or me."
"I couldn't. I'd never…"
"You almost did," Sam said firmly. "And it's not your fault, man. But it happened, and if it hadn't been me — if it had been Bobby, or… or Rick, or, or just some chick you went home with one night? They couldn't have stopped you. And Dean? I don't know what you would've done to me next. Maybe nothing, maybe that's as far it would've gone. I can't know that. But you. Can. So," he said calmly, summing up like the fucking great lawyer Dean knew he could've been. "Big brother. You tell me. What's worse? Keeping it inside, and risking hurting me again, or maybe maiming or even killing somebody else? Or just telling me what happened, when you know — Dean, you know nothing, NOTHING, can change Us. Can change the fact that you're my awesome big brother, who I will do anything for, and who I will always, always forgive. No matter what." Sam crossed his arms and took a step back. "What's it gonna be?"
Dean looked away, his head turning away from Sammy and toward the blood-covered bed his brother had been sleeping in. We're losing that cleaning deposit for sure, he thought, desperate to distract himself from what he knew was the truth.
Because Sam was right. If the kid hadn't thrown him across the room, Dean would've kept going and going. Plucked out an eyeball next, moved on to dislocating the jaw, then down to the abdomen where he'd… where he… Oh, Fuck, I almost killed Sam.
His knees gave out and would've slammed into the floor if not for Sammy's strong arms grabbing him by the elbows and lowering him to the floor.
"Okay," Dean whispered. "Okay. You made your point. I'll… I'll tell you. But… My way, okay?"
"Okay," Sam agreed. "What's your way?"
"Don't look at me, man," Dean whispered. "You can't look at me."
"Dean…"
"NO! Dammit, Sammy, I'm not getting this out if I… if you…"
"Okay! Okay, okay," Sam agreed and settled himself down, cross-legged on the floor, putting his back to his still kneeling brother. "We'll just sit here. Back to back. Will that work?"
Dean nodded, and settled himself as a mirror image of his kid, facing the other way, their spines barely touching. "Yeah. Yeah, this works, this is good."
"Okay. Take your time," Sam encouraged. "There's no rush. Just take as long as you need. I'm no going anywhere," he assured and Dean wasn't sure if that was a promise or a threat, under the circumstances.
Both probably.
Dean was silent a long time, just taking deep breath after deep breath.
He didn't want to tell Sammy. It was literally the last thing he wanted to do, but… Maybe Sam was right. Maybe talking about it would help, at least a little. He was neither hopeful nor delusional enough to believe it would make it go away — he was reasonably certain nothing would do that, would make him forget, would even make him stop dreaming about it (every night and, if he were honest, damn near every time he closed his eyes, even for a second, it was there, right there, every horrible moment, every second on the Rack and — worse, so much worse — every second off it. But maybe, just maybe... Maybe Sammy was right, and not keeping it locked up would make it… not better, never better, but just… more manageable.
Maybe.
He kept trying to find the right words, and time spun on, and he was amazed and grateful that Sammy kept his word and just… waited, with more patience than he'd've credited the kid with.
More patience than Dean would've had, if the situation were reversed, that was for damn sure.
But where to start?
Well, dispel the myth, to start, he supposed.
"It wasn't four months, you know," he said softly, and felt the way Sam's spine stiffened.
"What?"
"I mean, sure, it was four months up here. For you. And… I don't know how you did it, Sammy," Dean admitted. "I didn't last two days without you."
Sam scoffed. "I only lasted because you made me promise. And I… I didn't exactly live, Dean," he admitted darkly, images of what he'd been starting to become without Dean — again — flitting through his head. "I… I just survived."
"Better than I did," Dean said quietly.
"Yeah, don't count on it," Sam breathed. "Anyway, four months. Wait, what do you mean up here?"
Dean took a deep, slow breath. "Time is different. In Hell. Runs, I don't know. Longer."
Sam leaned lightly into his back, anchoring him and Dean closed his eyes, soaking in his brother's presence.
"How much longer?" The words filtered into his brain through the darkness behind his lids. Through the flashes of blood and screams and…
He opened his eyes suddenly and now his breath was stuttered and shallow. He pushed back against Sam's spine, grounding himself again.
I'm out. I'm out. Sam's here. I'm out.
"Dean?"
"Forty years." He tried to make it come out as a flat statement, a statistic, nothing to do with him. It came out as a sob.
"My God," Sam breathed and shifted, sliding his hand back to lie palm up by Dean's hip.
Dean took the hand, grabbing onto Sammy's wrist, like a lifeline, reveling in the strong hold his wrist received in return. It's Sam. It's Sam. I'm out. I'm out. It's over.
His voice was shaking when he was able to continue, long minutes later during which Sam didn't twitch, didn't move, just waited and — oh, thank god — held on.
"They, uh… They put me on a rack. And they… They sliced and carved and tore at me in ways that… Until, there just wasn't anything left. And then suddenly… I'd be whole again… like magic… just so they could start in, all over. And there was this demon… He's like the head torturer… Alastair…" Against all reason, Dean huffed a laugh. "Said he was the Picasso of torture. I don't know, maybe he was. He made torture, into a fuckin' art form. Anyway. At the end of every day… every one… he would come over. And he would make me an offer. To take me off the rack… if I put souls on… if I started the torturing. And every day, I told him to stick it where the sun shines. For 30 years, I told him." He shook his head, closing his eyes in shame, and when he spoke again, his voice was as broken as his soul. "And then I couldn't do it anymore, Sammy, I couldn't. And I got off that rack. God help me, I got right off it, and I started ripping them apart. I lost count of how many souls," he admitted, and didn't bother wiping away the tear that fell. "The — the things I did to them…"
"Dean."
He winced at Sam's voice, waiting for the censure, the condemnation he surely deserved.
"Dean, look, you held out for 30 years, man. That's longer than anyone would have. Longer than I could have, that's for fucking sure. You…that… Dean, it's not your fault."
"I… I'm the monster, Sam," he sobbed, "not you. Me. I just… Angels came for me and I don't deserve…"
The support at his back was gone so quickly he nearly fell backwards, but caught himself, let go of the wrist when Sam's hand fell away, and curled in on himself, keeping his eyes on the stained, threadbare carpet, not willing to look up and see his brother walk out on him.
Not that he would blame Sammy, not for a second. He was dirty, filthy, depraved, and Sammy should go, before he was stained by Dean's….
He jumped when two huge hands cupped his cheeks with a touch so gentle it both broke and healed something in his chest.
"You're no monster, Dean," Sam's voice caressed him. "You're just… you're just human. And man, I can't…"
Thumbs slipped beneath his chin, tilted his head up to meet the soft sunflower eyes he knew so well. Eyes still filled with softness and compassion and love. For HIM.
"Dean," Sam whispered. "Anybody would do what you did. And you came out of it, and you're still… you're still you, man. You're still human."
"Ha!" Dean shook his head. "HUMAN. Is that what you think I am?"
"Dean…"
"Because I… I'm not so sure."
"Of course you are."
Dean shook his head, slowly. "No. I'm… I'm a monster." He saw the frustrated look on his brother's face and knew he had to tell Sammy all of it. To show him what he was living with, to maybe get Sam to go.
To Save Sammy.
From him.
"Sammy," he said, his voice suddenly dead and cold and for the first time, Sam looked concerned instead of sympathetic.
Dean looked down again, staring at the wrists in front of him, at the slowly healing skin he himself had peeled away, unable to look into those familiar eyes and see the sympathy turn to condemnation. "I liked it," he admitted, tonelessly. "I enjoyed it, Sam. They took me off the rack, and I tortured souls… and I liked it," he admitted. "All those years, all that pain. Finally getting to deal some of it yourself. I didn't care who they put in front of me. Because that pain I felt, it just slipped away. I can't… I'm a monster," he repeated. "Me, not you."
He felt the hands shift, flinched, braced himself to lose that contact, to accept the blow — physical or verbal — that was sure to come.
It was nothing less than he deserved.
But the hands didn't leave, and they didn't shake him roughly, and they didn't turn from comfort to pain.
Instead, they slipped into his hair, cupping his neck and the back of his head and he was pulled — gently, so gently — into a broad, warm chest to be cradled and rocked with a tenderness he knew, he knew he didn't deserve.
He doubted he ever had, and he knew fucking well he didn't now.
"It's okay," he heard Sam's voice drift down like snow from above, felt it reverberating beneath his ear, along with the steady, strong heart beating under him. "It's not your fault, Dean."
He tried to pull away, to shake his head, but the hands holding him close — still so gentle, so fucking tender, like he was made of fragile spun glass, like he was cherished, like he deserved to be cherished — just held him tight and his own arms (fucking traitors) wrapped around the slim waist, claiming the comfort, even as his brain shouted how he didn't deserve it.
"Wanting to hurt somebody like you've been hurt," that sweet, deep voice continued, "that's not a monster, Dean. That's just human."
It sounded so simple, so easy, when Sammy said it.
But it wasn't. It wasn't at all.
"No…" he moaned against the soft flannel. "Sammy, I'm not… I'm… I can't…"
"It's okay," Sam repeated. "Just let it go, Dean. It's okay,," the soft, sweet voice continued and Dean let it go, sobbing into his little brother's chest, wrapping his arms tighter around his brother, clutching the back of the flannel shirt under his cheek, holding on with his entire tattered soul.
And still, the comfort of that voice, reverberating through his skull from beneath his ear. "I've got you. It's okay, now. Just let go."
Dean gave himself over to Sammy's care, letting go of the guilt and the pain, there in the warm safe arms around him. He smiled at the gentle touch of lips in his hair.
"It's okay, Dean. This time, this one time — I've got you, big brother. I've got you."
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A/N
Princess of the Fae - As I mentioned in the summary of the story, I actually like the series' version of John — yes, crap father, but that was out of fear and genuine love for his boys. He was doing what he thought was best to keep them safe (he was pure-D wrong, but he did his best.). THIS John — 100% bastard, and I regularly think, in the words of Dean Winchester: I'll rip his lungs out! Glad you're still with me, dear!
Why I did it
This chapter takes the last scenes of both s04e10 Heaven and Hell and s04e11 Family Remains forward. Why? Because in my opinion, there is NO WAY that, traveling and living in each other's pockets 24/7, Dean didn't show some signs of what happened to him in Hell, beyond the basic nightmares both boys are used to. Once that occurred to me, well… you saw where that thought went. Sorry, not sorry.
Explanations
Description of Ruby's Knife having an antler blade is taken from the Supernatural wiki at , a site is a masterwork of vital Supernatural information.