#hell!dean

Day 24: Nightmare

You get a gen drabble with Dean. Hope you like it. :P

Water. Liquid. Dry mouth. Drink. Rain. Anything.

Why had he emerged on a hot, sunny day?

Hell had been unbearably hot. That three letter word couldn’t adequately describe what the heat felt like, how it sunk into his skin and made his bones into conductors, baking everything from the inside out. But hot was the only word he had. His tongue could only utter groans; his brain wasn’t faring much better. The primal instinct to drink was loudest. 

Months after that day, he liked the rain better. Particularly hot days bothered him. Sam wondered why he preferred to stay indoors so much, but he couldn’t articulate it. Not without tears, and he really disliked crying. 

Once during a thunderstorm in Oklahoma, he walked outside the motel room and stood in the middle of the parking lot. He imagined the rain purging the heat and stench of hell, the memories and the pain washing out like ink on paper, running into the storm drain. He imagined his skin sizzling as the cool water hit the hot surface until all the heat had been extinguished. He stayed until he was shivering.

Pairing: Dean x reader

Word count: 556

Warnings: Mentions of hell and being tortured by Dean, nothing really graphic.

A/N: I should not be allowed to write in the middle of the night. This is a weird one, set right after 4x01.

Laying on the rack, the harsh bite of metal stabbing your back, or maybe not your back it is hard to tell what is a true feeling and what is more of an idea. It’s strange, at once most painful experience of your have ever known, but also far removed somehow. A flicker of a shadow passes over you, then eyes pierce through the haze of fog that washes over everything, the color of a forest, and grass in summer time. Even though he cuts into you so perfectly, you can feel the pain even with no blood to lose, there is something loving in his movements.

"So beautiful."

The voice is in your head but you know it is a projection of the man destroying you. If you were able you would touch him, comfort him somehow, you knew you would discover why he is so lost and sad. But you are bound and useless as he takes out a new instrument. You can feel your skin bubbling under the heat. Screaming, but the sound goes no where, the man winces so you force yourself to stop.

You calm your mind, trying to see past the agony to let him know its not his fault, “I forgive you,” again no real sound can penetrate the thick air but the brief pause in his punishment is enough to let you know he understood.

A brief flash of white, it takes over everything for only a second. Then it becomes a scene of fireworks. Everything stops, there is no feeling or sense of the man who was breaking you apart. Someone is freeing you, helping you off the cold slab, standing you up on your feet.

"I am Castiel, I am Angel of the Lord and you must come with us." It isn’t a person, you wonder if this is what angels are like in heaven, nothing but pulsing sensation of light and sound.

Lost for words you slowly nod a yes, then the question pops from your mouth even though you hadn’t been expecting it, "why me?"

This sentient light engulfs you, more than surrounding your being, you can feel it in new lungs and the blood in the freshly made veins. Its creating you, blocking out the screams and clanks and the smell of sulfur. Through newly sculpted ears you hear your first sounds, "Dean he will need you, you are going to save the world." You were floating.

It was dark, so pitch black you were in a complete void, but the smell was no longer a far off sense. It was visceral, the wood and moldy earth. Sucking in a stale gulp of air, it dawned on you, you were buried. As you began kicking at the lid of the coffin it easily gave way, the rot making it softer. You were glad you had no one to make a fuss about your death. Clawing into the surface you pulled yourself up, that first breath of air hitting you and causing you to inhale faster, wanting to taste reality. Sitting in the loose mind of dirt, noticing the deep stains on the white satin of your burial dress only one word came to mind, "Dean."

There’s been a lot of discussion about Toni and her torture methods, and someone (can’t remember who, dash too fast, please speak up if it’s you!) mentioned the irony of her trying to torture the guy who got torture lessons from one of Hell’s most creative torturers, and I started to think.  

Which, yes, I take it as read, shut up.  *G*

CW for graphic descriptions of torture under the readmore.

He’s bloody when Sam shows up, covered in the guts and entrails of souls. He doesn’t know why he always thought of souls as ghost-y insubstantial things. There’s nothing more gritty and substantial than a soul when you’re pulling out its viscera one chunk at a time. 

He’s covered in his own blood too, stuff that stained his skin so dark those first few decades it hasn’t come off since. He’s not sure that skin regenerates in hell. Probably not. 

‘Dean,’ he hears, and then Sam’s there and he’s never seen Sam like this, not with eyes like this and not with a body like this either, power before and behind and underneath and power in his fingertips and in every one of his new muscles. Dean stares at his brother and doesn’t know if he wants to see Sam like this. He does know, in some caved-in part of his mind, that he doesn’t want Sam to see him like this. 

‘Sammy,’ he says, and then Sam does the thing that he never did before, not even on that last night in the last motel. 

Sam’s breath is caught in his throat - he can barely make a sound as Dean lightly drags the tip of Ruby’s knife over his throat. His hands are bound behind his back, tied with his own over-shirt. His jeans are open and his grey t-shirt is pushed up.

“You lied to me,” Dean says softly - but dangerously. “Tell me you aren’t practicin’ that psychic shit, and what do I see? You doin’ just that. And - not to mention - bangin’ Ruby.” He suddenly grips Sam’s hair hair and jerks his head toward his ear. “You’re a liar and a slut.”

Sam swallows hard, closing his eyes tightly, heart pounding in his chest, and his face flames at the derogatory term. “You don’t understand.” He can already feel tears forming. “You don’t understand, Dean.”

Dean slams his hand into the wall opposite Sam’s head. “Then make me understand!”

"I tried everything,” Sam’s voice is weak. “I tried everything to get you back. And no one wanted me. No one. I was too fucking dirty for even the demons in Hell.” He opens his eyes and looks at Dean. “Knowing that I’d done something in my life that made bargaining my soul useless - it - it just broke me, Dean. And then Ruby came along with a solution: get revenge. Kill Lilith. If I couldn’t have you, then at least I could kill that fucking bitch.”

Dean looks at his little brother, and honestly? Seeing him so open and vulnerable drains some of the anger from him. “I never asked you to do that for me, Sam.”

Sam’s lip trembles. “And I never asked you to save my life at Cold Oak, Dean.” His scar seems to throb at the memory.

Dean swallows hard. As much as it pains him to admit it, Sam is completely right. This thing between them? It’s not…normal. But it’s them. “Fuck, just —” He moves to untie Sam’s hands.

Sam shakes his head, looking down. “No,” he whispers. “Please. I need this. I need you to punish me.”

Dean’s eyes widen. “S-Sam, no - look. It seemed like a good idea before, but now I don’t think —”

"I need this, Dean. You need this. I can take it.” He lets out a shaky breath. “It’s okay. I want you to.”

Dean leans forward, cupping Sam’s face. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at him for a few moments, and then nods.