A/N: This begins shortly after 3.16 when Dean is dragged to hell. I own nothing, just playing in the Supernatural sandbox.
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Chapter 1: The Dark Night of the Soul
"The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.
When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the
new life and all that is needed." - Joseph Campbell
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"Dude, you're drooling."
Sam jerked awake to the echo of Dean's voice, glancing around the silent, empty room, before collapsing back on the bed. A visceral, sharp slice of pain cut through him as the realization hit him afresh that he was alone. Not the 'Dean must be out grabbing breakfast,' alone, or the 'got on his everlasting nerve last night so he slept in the car' alone, but the 'my brother is being tortured and burned in hell for saving my life because I couldn't return the favor' kind of alone. There were no words to describe such complete emptiness, no greeting card to cover such a loss. It was agony and then beyond that…maybe I can coin a new word for such all-encompassing…desolation…hollowness…loneliness…
He knew on some vague mental level he should be grateful. '...no greater love than a man lay down his life…' and all that. But all Sam felt was numb. Except when he woke up…that first moment of waking, when the dreams faded and reality set in. Then he felt flayed alive by a thousand tiny blades, the truth of his situation sinking in afresh. He avoided sleeping as much as possible as a result. Except, he had started dreaming again...memories of times past shared with his brother, twisting into bizarre fantasy worlds where they killed beasts that even they never encountered. Giant winged birds, leviathan-like serpents, even a rogue unicorn…and every time they vanquished the beasts Dean stood triumphantly over the remains sharing a look of wild joy of the hunt with him. The remembered feeling of working in tandem, knowing what move the other would make before they did it and adjusting in an instant to complement the motion... They were quite the team, he and Dean.
Sam wasn't sure if the relief of sleep and dreams were worth the waking moments or not. In the moments where he was forced to live in a world that kept turning, where people went about their lives and no one was screaming the words seared on his brain 'my brother is DEAD and in HELL.' He certainly didn't want to be here, but there seemed to be no viable escape. He would follow Dean in death in a heartbeat if he had any assurance he would join him in the afterlife. Certainly that existence, as horrific as hell had to be, still had to be better than the one he was forced to live now. And yet, the fear that he would close his eyes to this empty world only to open them in another such place was enough to keep him alive and clinging to the moments of relief he could retreat to in his mind.
He hunted alone. Ate when necessary. Slept when his body demanded or his loneliness hit so strong it paralyzed him and stole his breath and he sought the solace that now only his dreams gave him. He knew this wasn't the life Dean had wanted for him. If he had to guess, Dean had convinced himself that Sam would cheerfully return to school, meet Jessica 2.0, get married and have kids, a beer belly, and a mortgage. Maybe that would be a better way to honor his brother's memory. Yet he couldn't do it. There was no moving on from this. How do you move on when your life has effectively ceased?
It was as if he was a living ghost. He mused on that thought for some time. Ghosts were the spirits of people who had died but were unwilling or unable to move on. If that wasn't the very definition of who he had become, he wasn't sure what was. He went through the motions of existence, but was already dead in every way that mattered. There was no purpose to be found on this mortal coil, and no hope to be seen if he shuffled off.
When Ruby found him, he had reached a crossroads. Not a physical one…that he had visited the night of Dean's burial. And again several weeks later, that time broken and drunk and left holding the tattered remains of a life that wasn't worth the flesh encapsulating it. Hell didn't want him, while heaven - if it even existed - was beyond his pleas and earth-shattering cries. He had searched fruitlessly for answers. He had screamed at the universe in general, cried until his body was drained dry like a desert. Demanding, begging, bargaining and swearing till he was blue in the face but there was never an answer, never a sliver of hope or help. Dean had charged him with living, of fighting the good fight, so he could not in good conscience end himself. The will to live had died with his brother though, and so he went through the motions of carrying on, unconsciously hoping that the next beast or monster he encountered might be the one he failed to stop and would take the fight from him, once for all. He was reckless, ruthless, and at the end of each hunt found himself perhaps bleeding and wounded, but sadly always still standing.
Ruby saw how shattered he was. She knew his life meant less than nothing to him and that death was both a solace and a horror that was merely one blade edge away. She was nothing if not crafty…demon, hello!...and bided her time, watching and waiting until she knew there was truly no fight left in him. Nothing to combat her attack or repel her lies. She had to admire the plan…really, there was nothing that could have been more effective at destroying the giant larger-than-life hero. No wound so lethal, no mind games half as effective. In taking Dean to hell the demons had struck a mortal blow to their most lethal enemy and left him ripe for the plundering. He would be hers, and all hell would honor her as the one who tamed the beast, the great Sam Winchester.
So she came to him at his lowest, his weakest, his most broken. She craftily weaved her web, holding out the one possible thing that might entice him. Giving him Dean back was not possible, nor would it have serviced her plans. No, but she could offer him the next best thing. Revenge. She laid it before him and let it percolate, knowing in his emptiness and isolation he would not, could not help but fixate on this lifeline she had thrown. He wanted to die, but loyalty to Dean's memory and the fear of the unknown kept him here in this half-life of existence. So to give him a purpose…that was the key her plan held that could not fail.
Slowly, bit by bit, she laid the groundwork for her unsuspecting prey. Did he want revenge? Did he want something good for the world to come out of his loss and devastation? A legacy that honored Dean's noble sacrifice? This was that path for him. She let him come to his own conclusions in his own time. This was a slow roasted meal, it could not be rushed, but the taste at the end - it would be her own version of heaven. It was worth the wait. He was worth the wait.
Her patience in time was amply rewarded. He quit drinking himself into oblivion every night. He wasn't quite so quick to push her out of the door when she came knocking. Slowly, without him realizing, he began to act on her advice when he hunted, coming back less injured of body, though still broken in mind and heart. He began to yield to her teaching, becoming more eager to learn as the successes started piling up. The turning point was the first time he vanquished a demon and discovered the host still lived. In his mind he had done something good with this evil hand he'd been dealt, but when his eyes flashed joyfully to hers to share the victory of the moment she knew she truly was the one winning.
Hook set, she reeled him in, seducing him with her body and teasing his mind with the feeling of power and control her blood gave him. Rewarding his successes with adoration, holding him when the inevitable moments of grief held sway, she convinced him to convince himself that she was trustworthy - even for a demon - and could give him what his heart now craved more than anything. Revenge became as all-encompassing for Sam as his headlong pursuit of following Dean to the grave had been all the preceding months. Silently she congratulated herself, truly she was a master of manipulation and all hell would see her for who she really was…and pay for their dismissal and derision of her.
The gaping hole left by Dean was not filled - never would be filled. Sam still woke from dreams of chasing monsters with his brother by his side to that cold frisson of reality and gut-wrenching sorrow that nothing could quench. But his waking moments were now filled with purpose. Ruby thought he was her bitch, but he was no one's anything. He would vanquish as many demons as he could and save as many lives from the terrors of possession along the way. He would do what was necessary to be strong enough to reach the final goal and destroy the demon who had destroyed his life. There was nothing to see beyond that and he refused to think further than that ultimate goal. It consumed him, and there were no lines drawn that could not be crossed in his pursuit of that final battle. What came next…that was pointless to conjecture. There was no next, only now.
So they played their game, each thinking the other was unaware of their schemes and manipulation. Using each other as a means to an end, they both missed the moment when they bought into the lie…the lie that they cared, that they were doing wrong things for right reasons, that it was worth it. There was the exhilaration of conquest, the heights of passion, the escape of sleep, and the devastation of waking. Sam reveled in feeling something beyond the numbness that had consumed his days and months, even if it was tinged with hate, guilt, and shame if he examined it too closely. All the while telling himself he was in control, not the bitch that thought she was leading him by the nose. She would be surprised one day, but for now, he needed her. Meanwhile, Ruby watched as he fell more and more under her spell. Her blood was an aphrodisiac of power and passion to him, and he was slowly but surely becoming addicted…the poor sap didn't even realize it, he thought he was the one in charge! She let him believe the lie, fed it with words and actions, even as she pulled the puppet strings that were going to ensure she was royalty one day.
A knock on the door after a particularly delicious evening of taking what they wanted heralded the pizza they had ordered. Without thought Ruby answered the knock, only for her mind to stutter to a complete halt. There, standing in front of her, whole and healthy and alive was none other than the Achilles heel himself…Dean Winchester. She could do nothing but stare as the house of cards she had built tumbled in that moment. What the hell Alistair…? She thought, but out loud she said something inane about pizza…scrambling to think of some way to stop the inevitable….
Behind her, Sam mumbled something and then she knew…she knew the exact moment he saw his brother and everyone else ceased to exist. She heard a quick indrawn breath, sensed as he stood suddenly motionless. They were all stuck in a silent, frozen tableau, pieces on a chess board with no moves being made. Then Dean smiled and said, "Hiya Sammy," and everything fell apart.
Sam, his physical needs met, had been ready for rest and solitude. He had no need or interest in the pizza Ruby had insisted on ordering. He had long ago lost any pleasure in the usual things of living. Going through the motions of life to pursue his goals were all he had left. So he paid no attention when she answered the knock, only registering after a moment that her stance seemed off. Curious as to why a delivery man could garner that sort of reaction from a demon, he rose and stepped toward the door, only to have everything suddenly stop, as if he had walked across a veil into another universe. Because there, standing just past the demon whore he had allowed to dirty his soul and blood, was his brother. Or something that looked like or was wearing his brother. In that moment all the emotion he had left behind months ago flooded his system, threatening to shut him down completely. It was the ultimate travesty in a long line of awful in his short-yet-long nightmarish life. So he did the only thing his hunter mind and body could think to do - he attacked.
Bobby stopped him, breaking through the haze that had engulfed his mind, assuring him as only Bobby could that this was really, truly his dead-but-now-alive brother, Dean Winchester. His breath hitched again, and he almost took the knife to himself, wondering if he'd somehow encountered a djinn or was just trapped in a very realistic dream. This felt real though, too real to be a dream. He stared, willing it to be real.
"I know, I look fantastic."
It was really Dean. Flinging himself into his arms, he held on desperately as his own dead heart began beating again for the first time in four months. Emotions they never showed threatened to drown him as color flooded back into the world. Comprehension was slower, as they drew apart so he could stare hungrily at the face he thought he would never, ever see again in this life or the next. Remorse, shame, guilt - those all would come later, but for now there was just this one truth: His. Brother. Was. Alive. Nothing else mattered.
Ruby made her exit. Awkward.
Dean was alive.
What comes next? Who the hell cares. He was alive again, because the other half of himself was alive. The world could burn, so long as that truth remained. Hell - the physical one Dean endured and the emotional one Sam lived - were over, and the next chapter that a moment before had never existed, was incredibly, miraculously, about to be written.