Chapter Text
Hell: 5 years
Sweat rolls down Dean’s face and onto his neck making his skin itch. He rolls his shoulder trying to wipe some of it off, but it doesn't do much good. Slowly, he scans the room he’s in, and dread pools in his stomach. He can’t remember how he got here, but he must be on a hunt. That’s the only reason he’d be in this creepy ass house.
“Dean!”
Sam’s yell wakes Dean from his thoughts, and he quickly runs out of the room and down the stairs to the first floor. He skips the last couple of steps and jumps on the ground, feet nearly slipping out from under him, and turns a near 360 not sure where Sam had called him from. It sounded like it was in the house, but Dean doesn't even know where this house is much less where Sam would be in it.
Dean tries to calm himself as panic sets in. He needs to find Sam.
“Dean!” Another yell comes from the back of the house, and Dean, now oriented, pulls his knife from his jacket and follows it.
He’s momentarily confused when he sees the knife. It’s strangely familiar and not in a nostalgic kind of way. A whisper in the back of Dean’s mind tells him he shouldn’t be touching it. Something very bad is going to happen if he doesn’t put it down. Dean desperately wants to sling it across the room, but he needs this knife. He has to protect Sammy, and for some reason, he can’t find his gun.
Dean holds the knife to his side and slowly enters what looks like a kitchen. Judging from the dust gathering on the counters, it hasn’t been used in a long time. Dean glances at the floor and stops. The only trail of footsteps in the dust is his. No one has been in this kitchen in ages. Sam isn’t here.
Dean tightens his hand on the knife and finds some comfort in its weight. The whisper in his mind gets louder, insisting he drop the knife, but Dean pushes it back. He needs this knife. He needs to find Sam.
“Sam?” Dean doesn’t know why he’s being so quiet. If Sam is in another room, he probably won’t hear Dean. That’s if Sam is here at all. Where is here? Why can’t he remember why he’s here?
“Sorry, Dean. Not quite Sam, but close.”
Dean whips around and stares. Something that looks like him is leaning against the kitchen doorway and smiling. It’s identical to him even down to holding the same knife. A feeling of déjà vu ripples over Dean. What is happening?
“Did you bring me here? A shifter?” A shifter would make some sort of sense although Dean isn’t sure how he’d forget hunting one. He doesn’t even remember waking up.
“No, and no. Don’t you remember, Dean? I’m your future.” The doppelganger flips his knife in the air and gives Dean a toothy grin as he catches it.
Dean raises his own knife and points it at the fake. “My future what?” This is wrong. Old memories are itching at the back of Dean’s mind, but he can’t remember what they are or why they’re important.
The thing takes a step towards Dean and gives him a mocking sad look. “Don’t you remember Dean? Don’t you remember your future?” The thing screams and plunges its knife into its stomach and rips the knife up its torso laughing as blood and organs pour out of it. Dean backs up till his back hits one of the kitchen counters and quickly scrambles around it as the pool of blood begins to reach towards him. Vomit rises in his throat. The thing that looks like him continues to laugh even with a now gaping whole in the middle of its stomach and chest. It raises a hand and wiggles its fingers at Dean before sticking it in its wound, and sighs happily, closing its eyes, when it brings the hand up and sucks the blood and gore from its fingers.
“W-what the hell are you?” Dean could have a gone a whole lifetime without seeing what he looks like doing that. He prays to whoever’s listening that Sam doesn’t walk in to see this. Where is Sam? If he were here, surely he would have heard all this.
The thing pulls out his fingers with a loud slurp and smiles. “Oh, Dean. Didn’t I tell you you couldn’t escape?”
Dean stares at the thing’s face knowing he’ll see black before it blinks its eyes. The knife falls from Dean’s hand before he realizes he’s let go. He remembers where he is now.
The doppelganger takes a few steps closer, splashing as it sloshes through its own blood. “Take a good look Dean and remember. This is what you’re going to become. You couldn’t escape Hell, and you can’t escape your future here. Don’t forget that.”
The thing reaches Dean and stares into his eyes, jabbing its knife into Dean chest. Dean doesn’t have the strength to fight back. “I am not just who you’re going to be, I am who you are. I am what will end your suffering.”
The thing slides the knife down Dean’s body and tries to put the handle into Dean’s hand. “You just have to take this and say yes, Dean. Then you can be free.”
Dean closes his eyes and shakes his head no. He knows what’s coming.
The thing growls and wrenches the knife away from Dean’s hand and stabs it into his heart. Dean screams at the pain, and the room begins to spin. Distantly, he can hear the doppelganger echoing his screams.
Dean’s eyes fly open, fear pulsing through his veins, as screams from other souls echo into his room. He desperately wants to reach down and make sure there isn’t a hole in his chest, but the chains attached to his wrists prevent him. More than anything he’d like a mirror to check his eyes. He knows he’s not a demon, but still.
Trying to ignore the screams, Dean stares blankly at the floor. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he must have drifted off sometime after Alistair left. It’s dangerous to sleep in Hell, and, even when you do sleep, the dreams are never peaceful. Lucky for him, there’s always at least one soul screaming like a fucked-up alarm clock.
Looking up, Dean takes a deep breath and gives a sharp tug on the chains that keep his wrists and ankles anchored to the wrack. Unsurprisingly, they haven’t weakened since the last couple of thousand times he checked. When he’s honest with himself, he knows he doesn’t really expect them to, but he has to at least attempt to escape. If he stops trying that will mean he’s given up, and once he does that Alistair’s deal would just become more tempting.
Warily, Dean looks around Alistair’s workshop worried something might have changed while he slept. The walls are decorated with various torturing instruments some Alistair invented himself. Dean shivers. The demon loves showing off his creations and especially loves demonstrating them on Dean.
One of Alistair’s inventions is sitting on a workbench by Dean’s wrack. Dean feels his mind shutting down just looking at it and squeezes his eyes shut.
The screams of Hell are getting louder and a particularly harsh shriek makes Dean jump. Thoughts of Alistair’s deal flits through his mind again, but he stops that thought process fast. He isn’t going to become a demon, and he isn’t going to become a torturer. Sam will save him before he ever comes close to that.
Dean’s body sags further in his chains. He shouldn’t have thought of his brother. The possibility of Sam ever freeing him was slim to none. Maybe Sam is even happy now. Now that Dean is gone, he can go back to a somewhat normal life. Maybe even have the whole picket fence dream.
Dean knows time goes faster in Hell and what feels like years is probably only a couple of months on Earth, if that. Sam is probably still trying to save him, but he’ll eventually give up. As much as demons love to lie, Dean knows that neither Alistair nor his “interns” are when they say there is no way they’ll let him leave Hell still human.
The only way to leave Hell is to take Alistair’s deal. It isn’t difficult. All he has to do is pick up knife and cut into a soul just like Alistair cuts into him. It’d be easy, and eventually, the carving he does to the souls of Hell would carve him into another being entirely. Then he could leave Hell. Then he could see Sam.
“And kill him,” Dean whispers. He knows what he’ll be capable of as a demon, and there will be nothing to hold him back. The things other demons do will seems like kid stuff next to Dean, and Dean’s greatest fear is that Sam will be his first target.
They say demons forget their humanity in Hell, but Dean knows he can never forget Sam. All of Dean’s love for his brother will be corrupted, and once on Earth, he’ll shoot towards Sam like a bullet.
“Talking to yourself now, Babydoll?”
Dean jerks up and sees a demon standing in Alistair’s doorway. In hell, demons can look like whatever they want, and this one has chosen the form of a young girl of around 16. She looks innocent except for the black eyes and a smile with too much teeth.
She moves closer. “Don’t want to talk? You know, it’s rude to ignore company.” Dean stares. He’s too tired for this. Alistair had just finished with him not too long ago and his body while healed still hurt, and that dream had completely drained him.
Dean glances down and grimaces. He’d forgotten Alistair had left him completely naked on the wrack. Sometimes Alistair likes to start Dean’s day out clothed to give him a sense of security before he shreds that from him. That had not been today. Today had just been a lesson on who owns Dean. It’s a lesson that makes Dean want to tear his skin off.
Trying to hold his head up, Dean says, “You shouldn’t be in here without Alistair’s permission. He gets jealous.”
Saying it makes Dean nauseous, but he’s tired and he knows nothing can make a demon leave faster than the truth. It’s a truth Dean tries to ignore.
“Oh, I don’t think Alistair’s going to mind,” she says and takes what looks like a set of keys out of her pocket. Within less than a minute, Dean finds himself crumpled on the floor chain free.
“I don’t know if you’ve been huffing the brimstone or something, but you’re going to regret freeing me,” Dean growls trying to get up from the floor. His legs are numb and not cooperating.
“I wouldn’t use the word free.” She yanks Dean from the floor and ties his wrists together, shoving his back against a wall before he can react.
Dean struggles to break the chains on his wrists, but stops when he sees the demon’s face. It looks like pity. A chill runs up his spine.
Gripping his face in her hand, she says, “It's your lucky day, Dean. I’m afraid Alistair will no longer require your services because someone with way more power wants them instead. And he wants them right now."
Her hand tightens painfully, and the catlike smile returns, “Don't look so down, Babydoll. I'm sure if this guy doesn't like you, Alistair will take you back in a heartbeat. You are his special project, after all.”
She releases his jaw, and before Dean can say anything, he sees her arm swing and blacks out.
Dean holds back a shout and tries again to pull his hand through the chains. He’d broke his hand earlier trying to slip his wrist out of one of the cuffs, but he swears there is some sort of magic on the chains that make them shrink any time he gets close to breaking free.
Dean stills when he hears the singing. Alistair is getting close.
Dean always hears the demon before he sees him. Alistair loves to sing as soon as he is in range of Dean’s hearing. He says it’s a gift to Dean, so Dean can prepare himself before he enters the room. Alistair never gives out gifts to his projects, but Dean is special.
Dean’s movement becomes more frantic. Alistair’s voice is getting louder and louder, and Dean can feel panic setting in.
Alistair is going to be mad that Dean broke his hand. He’s going to know that Dean tried to escape, and he’ll be punished for it.
Dean tries to calm himself but doesn’t manage to hold back a yell this time when he tries to pull his hand through the chain. The pain is blinding, but it is nothing compared to what Alistair will do to him if he sees Dean like this.
Dean ignores the thudding pain but realizes too late the singing has stopped.
“Boy, what have you done to yourself?”
Dean doesn’t answer. Speaking won’t change anything.
The demon gives an exaggerated sigh and walks over to Dean. “Can’t leave you alone for too long can I boy? Start getting crazy ideas without a reminder of who you belong to.”
Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the floor. He hears Alistair pull something off the wall. It sounds sharp.
Alistair stands in front of Dean and grabs his hair roughly pulling his head back and making Dean look at him. Dean wants to close his eyes, but he’d tried that once and it’d taken a long time for his eyelids grow back.
Alistair isn’t like any demon Dean has ever seen, more reptile than anything. At least with the others, Dean could tell they’d been human once. With Alistair, Dean isn’t sure what he was before he came to Hell. Part of Dean, believes the demon was born here.
Eyes yellow and wicked, Alistair smiles at Dean. “Don’t worry boy. I’ll give you a reminder.” Alistair holds up his tool for Dean to see, and Dean begins to shake.
“You won’t forget again when I’m done with you.”
Dean screams as the pain breaks his body apart, and Alistair leans closer, lips nearly touching Dean’s ear. “This is merely foreplay Dean. Can’t wait till you get off this wrack. Then the fun will really start.”
On the verge of hysterical, Dean wakes and violently jerks on his chains. His world twists around, and he hits the stone floor hard, knocking the wind out of him.
Confused, Dean shakily stands up and looks at his wrists. He has no chains. The demon moved him here but hadn’t bothered to put him on a new wrack.
Goosebumps forming on his skin, Dean shivers and rolls his eyes. Of course, she’s left him completely naked, but he’ll take that any day for no chains.
Wondering what he’d been lying on if it wasn’t a wrack, Dean looks behind him and stares. He’d been lying on a bed, and, not something that passed for a bed, but a real bed. A fancy king sized bed. Dean knew Hell was twisted but this didn’t make any sense. He’s in a bedroom. What kind of demon has a bedroom and would put him in it?
Dean’s jaw clenches. There are plenty of demons that might prefer a bedroom to a dungeon, and it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what they’d do with it. A bed is just a different type of wrack.
Dean bitterly tears his eyes away from the bed and surveys the rest of the room, more questions popping into his mind than answers. The room looks like something out of a Lord of the Rings’ castle with the walls and ceiling made out of the same grey stone as the floor, and a gold chandelier hanging high above Dean’s head. Even the bed seems out of place. It’s a four-poster complete with a canopy and a curtain that can be wrapped around it. Dean vaguely remembers seeing one in some princess movie he watched with Sam when they were kids. Not that he’ll ever admit to that.
Dean flexes his toes as the cold floor begins to numb his feet, and his eyes roam back to the bed. The blankets and curtains are a deep red with embroidery designs sown in them in white. Hesitantly, Dean takes a step closer to the bed and peers at the designs, and vaguely, he can see feathers. The frame of the bed is metal and solid black, and Dean doesn’t need to touch it to know how cold it is.
Slowly, Dean presses his hand down on the bed and sighs. He might not have much room for comparison having spent most of his life sleeping on motel beds, but even he can tell that this is a fantastic bed. Dean would love nothing better than to crawl back in the bed and sleep, and he hates the bed for tempting him, but he needs to stop wasting time. He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be alone.
More alert, Dean takes a step back and drags his eyes away from the bed. Looking around, he sees that the only other item in the room is a chair on the opposite end of it right by a wooden door, the room’s only exit.
A small thrill runs through Dean as he looks at the door. If the demon chick hadn’t bothered to put him on a wrack or even chain him maybe she also didn’t bother to lock the door? He doesn’t know how far he can get through Hell before he gets caught, but if there is any chance he can escape, he has to try. Dean takes a step towards the door but stops when he hears noises on the other side. Hope sinking, Dean watches as the door opens.
A demon walks through and turns around to shut the door with an audible click and turn of a lock. The first thing Dean notices is that he’s dressed weird. Most demons choose to dress very casually in jeans and t-shirts or to go completely nude, but this guy is in a navy suit complete with a blue tie, black dress shoes, and a brown trench coat that Dean can tell even from his back is slightly too big for him.
Dean slowly starts easing himself further away from the bed hoping not to draw attention. The demon hasn’t noticed him standing yet, and from this angle now all Dean can see is the messy dark hair on top of the demon’s head. The guy dresses like a tax accountant but doesn’t bother to brush his hair? Being naked, Dean supposes he doesn't have much room to judge.
Dean takes another quick scan of the room, but there is nothing except for the bed, and the chair that is out of his reach. The only way for Dean to defend himself now is to throw a blanket at the demon.
The demon turns and stares when he sees Dean standing. “You’re awake.”
Dean doesn’t know what to say to that, and after years of listening to Alistair, Dean can’t help but notice how different this demon sounds. As much as Dean hates to admit it, Alistair’s voice is charismatic in way that draws Dean to him, but it’s also edged with a promise of violence that makes Dean want to run. It’s the closest he’ll ever get to hearing a snake talk. This guy just sounds like he’s been gargling rocks for a few centuries.
He makes to move closer to Dean, and Dean backs up till his back hits the wall with a loud crack. Something isn’t right.
Dean looks at the eyes of the man in front of him and can’t tear his gaze away. They aren’t demonic. They’re blue like the sky. And they’re glowing.