ARC 9: Hell, PART 1: Realer than Dreams

"Okay, Sammy," Dean said, "Okay…"

Pain struck him like a knife to the gut. He was freezing, air was rushing into his lungs like they hadn't breathed in weeks, and his entire body throbbed as if he actually had space left on his body for new wounds. He wasn't alone. He was never alone. Never free.

It had been so long since he dared pull a weapon like this, but it was too much. Dean didn't care about consequences. It was supposed to be over. He had promised him. He promised.

"Dean, wait! Stop!"

Like Hell.

The knife was right where it should be, tucked neatly under his pillow—a bad habit he had never been able to break. His vision blurred in front of him as he swayed on his feet, having leapt from the bed he woke up on. The room could spin all it wanted; he knew where to point the blade.

"W-Why…?" his teeth were chattering, "Y-You…p-promised me. W-What did you…d-do to me?" Dean felt awful, sick even. Everything ached. His body didn't even feel like his own anymore. "You s-said you'd…take it away. I gave you what you w-wanted. You said you'd take it away!" he shouted finally at the indistinct figure of his brother. Sasha was there too, wearing his human guise. That almost made Dean falter, but he knew it was a lie.

"Dean, please!" Sam was saying.

"It's okay! You're okay!" called Sasha.

Did they think he was a fool? "S-S-Stay away from me," he backed towards the corner of the room, knife brandished shakily, "Why? Why are you…d-doing this? I did what you wanted. I did everything you wanted! Please…" His knees were weak, everything was weak, he was weak. Why wouldn't they stop torturing him?

"Dean, it's us," Sasha tried to say more calmly, inching closer to Dean with held up hands as if to appear nonthreatening. Sam was the same.

What a joke, Dean thought. He knew he had to be a pitiable sight with that weakly held knife, but he'd use it, damn it, he would. Somehow he'd use it. His back hit the corner of the room. "Playing that game?" he scoffed, "I know better. I haven't seen them in…in so long, I…I don't even…remember. I don't remember…" He really didn't. How long had it been since that night when everything shattered?

"Dean," Sam said with confidence, moving ever closer, one hand outstretched now as if to take Dean's. He looked so strange, almost believable with those hazel eyes so caring and his old layered shirts and jeans. "I can't imagine what it must have been like, but it's over. You're not in Hell anymore. We got you out. You're safe. With us."

"Please believe us, Dean," Sasha joined in, "Just look at us." He gestured to himself, to Sam. Sasha too looked so normal, so honest and how Dean remembered him. "It's really us. You're safe, Dean. Please recognize us."

He recognized them alright. But it had to be a trick. Another damn trick like all the others that bastard had come up with when he was bored and wanted to hurt Dean more. "I gave you what you wanted," Dean said again. He was so cold. Nothing looked right. Nothing felt right. He couldn't understand why they were doing this when he had finally given in.

"Dean, it's us," Sasha said more firmly, like maybe Dean just couldn't hear them.

"Malak took you and we're so sorry, Dean," pleaded Sam, "We wish we could have gotten you out sooner, but you have to know us. Please tell me you still know us…" Sam trailed off on a…a sob? And what were they talking about?

"Malak…?" He glared at the false images before him, knife still held firm, warning them not to get any closer. "It had nothing to do with that, you know that, you know. I didn't…I didn't go to Hell." It had only felt like it. Worse.

Sam and Sasha stopped their progression towards him, their eyes wide and disbelieving. They shared a pained look, not knowing what to say until finally Sam spoke slow and gentle, "Dean, don't you remember? Lilith wasn't the final demon. It was a trap. Malak had it all planned. The last demon was Dad. You're the one who figured it out. That's why we couldn't win, why we couldn't save you. You went to Hell, Dean. You've been in Hell. But you're out. I don't know what Malak did to you down there, but we got you out."

It almost made sense, as if a second reality were trying to push into Dean's mind, memories of what Sam was saying, memories Dean knew weren't fabrications and yet…how could he remember things happening two different ways?

Hell…? Had that been Hell? To him it had felt like life.

"Dad…" he breathed, almost remembering, "It was…Dad. The girl…she was okay. And Malak…Malak touched my shoulder." Dean looked up, seeing Sam and Sasha's faces the way they were meant to be. This didn't feel like a trick. Oh god, let it not be a trick.

Sasha was nodding, moving closer to Dean, and Sam was too, reaching out in hopes that Dean might give up the knife. "That's right. And you fell," Sasha said, "Right that second, Dean. You were gone. But now you're back. You're okay. Everything's gonna be okay," the incubus insisted with the same sobbing voice as Sam with tears in his eyes too.

Both of them had said that to him so many times, but this was the first time he had been able to believe them since that awful night. The knife felt limp in Dean's hand. He was still on guard, still waiting for them to reveal the lie. But when Sam's hand closed around his to take the knife, he just couldn't be strong anymore.

Dean sunk forward against Sam, boneless, feeling the strange and forgotten comfort of his brother's arms holding him up. He didn't realize he was crying until he lifted his head just enough to speak and saw wetness on the shoulder of Sam's shirt.

"Sammy…" He tried to hold onto Sam, to cling and not be such dead weight, but he didn't have any strength left. Sam had to hold all of him, and he did, as if it were the meagerest burden. It was Sammy. It was really him. Dean breathed in and it even smelled like Sam, the way he hadn't known his brother in years.

Then another thought, equally impossible crossed his mind. Sasha. Suddenly remembering that the incubus was there also, Dean found the strength to look up to where he last remembered Sasha being, and he was immediately scooped away from Sam into similarly strong and enveloping arms. He sank against Sasha just as eagerly, but when lips brushed his without warning, he flinched. There was a gasp in his throat as he looked up and saw blue, so beautiful, and that face gazing at him with all the emotions he had so deeply missed.

He wanted to banish the startled and pained look that flickered across Sasha's face because of that flinch. He hadn't meant to. It had just been so long since he wanted such things. Since it mattered what he wanted. Tilting his head up, Dean reconnected with those lips, kissing as deep and as desperately as he ever had. Sasha, loving him through skin, had those traitorous tears streaming down Dean's cheeks like he was four years old all over again and the world would never be the same.

"Oh…yeah," Dean choked out, "That's what that's s'pposed to feel like."

"Dean…?" Sasha questioned in a breathless voice.

"Dean," then Sam, sounding angry and determined, "What did that bastard do to you?"

No. Dean couldn't bear for them to know the truth. He opened his eyes, hands clenching too tight at Sasha's biceps with most of his body still leaning against that stronger form in front of him. He shook his head, "Don't…you don't…get to ask that. I…I can't talk about that. P-Promise me…you w-won't…ask me that." Dean's teeth were chattering again as the chills returned and wracked through his body. He shivered closer into Sasha's arms.

"God, Dean, you're freezing," the incubus said, neither him nor Sam acknowledging that plea for a promise they couldn't give, "Guess we already knew Hellfire's a buncha bullshit though, right?" he tried to joke, weak smile pulling at his lips.

Dean remembered just what Sasha was referencing, that time Malak played with his mind and showed him images of Sasha torn apart, and Dean had shivered in Sasha's arms just like this. It seemed so long ago now—ages. "Yeah," he breathed into the familiar soft skin of Sasha's neck, and that smell, that Sasha smell untainted. When he looked again at Sasha's face, he expected it to look like how he always remembered it. But Sam's face looked the same too, and it shouldn't, should it? "You don't…look any different," he said.

They stared at him strangely for a moment. "Dean," Sasha said, "Why would we look different, it's only been…" then he trailed, his eyes wide this time when he turned to meet Sam's, "Damn, the time difference. Dean, it's…it's only been a week for us. I guess it would have been…three or four years for you," he realized.

Three or four years. Dean didn't have the heart to tell them that it had been at least double that. Maybe Malak's special place in Hell for him had different rules. The bastard certainly knew how to set a stage. "Yeah," Dean said, what did it matter if it was really seven years instead of three, "Guess I forgot it'd be…so short for you. Just a week, huh? Barely had time to miss me." He hoped the grin he mustered looked something like his old one. He couldn't quite remember how to form it.

"I could…make up a hot bath for you, get you warmed up," Sasha suggested.

Oh how he missed the love of this man. His incubus. "That'd be awesome."

"I should go tell everyone. They're waiting downstairs," Sam said, causing Dean's head to snap up again as he looked around at their surroundings.

They had kept the room dark for him, only a small lamp on and the light from the bathroom. Dean wasn't sure he knew where they were. "Are we…at a hotel?" he asked.

"Uhh," Sam faltered, exchanged a look with Sasha, "No, Dean. We're at the Roadhouse."

"This is the room we stayed in before, remember?" Sasha said.

Maybe Dean would have remembered eventually, but it had been so long since then. "Yeah…right. Did you say…everyone's downstairs?" he asked then, not exactly liking the idea of meeting a crowd. He anticipated a minor meltdown involving tears and many other unmanly things he would never live down.

Like that even mattered.

But it did matter, Dean thought. It had to matter. They would expect it to.

"Don't worry, Dean," Sam smiled tightly in assurance, "We knew you wouldn't want to be bombarded. That's why it's just us. Everyone wants to know you're okay, but you don't have to see anyone until you're ready. You can stay in this room all week if you want. I'll go let everyone know you're, umm…awake. Maybe we can order a bunch of pizzas or something. If you're hungry?"

Dean felt like he hadn't eaten the entire time he'd been gone. "Heck yeah, Sammy. I'm starved. Get some with everything on it, will ya? And I mean everything. Even the crap I usually pick off."

Sam laughed, Sasha chuckling hesitantly with him, both sounding relieved, so relieved. Of course they were; their first experience with a saved Dean Winchester had been him threatening them with a knife and speaking nonsense they didn't understand.

That sounded wrong. A saved Dean Winchester. He didn't feel very saved.

'Just give into me, Dean, and everything will be fine. Choose me and you can have everything. Just say the words, Dean. Say them…'

Those eyes, those awful eyes looked at Dean with all the seven deadly sins shining beneath the surface.

'You belong to me, Dean. Only me.'

"Dean?"

Dean snapped out of his daydream. He wasn't there anymore, he reminded himself, in that nightmare world created by Malak—his own personal Hell.

But every detail had been so real, so tangible, so…possible.

"I'm okay, Sammy. Just a little…shaken up," he attempted to grin again, his cheeks twitching from the unfamiliar effort, "Need time to…adjust to all this again, ya know. I'm fine. Go…spread the good news…or whatever." It was probably obvious by the way his hands were still knuckle-white gripping Sasha that he was none of those things he'd just said—except for the shaken up part.

Sam didn't press. "Okay. I'll be back as soon as things are settled." His body gave a slight lurch then like maybe it didn't know where to go, like it wanted to embrace Dean a second time but didn't want to smother him.

Dean was half in Sasha's arms still, needing that contact, and he knew he would welcome any extra from his brother. He wanted to tell Sam that. He wanted to tell Sam that he didn't have to be strong; he could hug Dean if he needed to. Dean needed it, he did, he needed touch that comforted instead of hurt. But he couldn't ask for it. He didn't want to scare Sam anymore than he already had.

Sam settled on a firm squeeze of Dean's shoulder and he was out the door, closing it behind him for Dean's sake. Dean would be eternally grateful for that, for not having to face the others just yet. The others, who he had let down so horribly...

Dean pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead. It wasn't real, he told himself. It wasn't real.

"Dean…? Let's get you into the tub. I can get the water going. Can you walk okay?" Sasha was doting on him and mother-henning him like…just like he was supposed to.

"Little stiff. I can make it. What am I wearing?" he asked as they made slowly for the bathroom, Sasha's arm hooked around his waste to offer help Dean hadn't asked for but cherished. It looked like he was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. They were huge on him, the fabrics different color greys and soft, well-used.

"They're Bobby's I think," Sasha said, "We just grabbed for something, sorry. We wanted you to be comfortable when you…woke up." His voice was so tender and soft, like he was trying not to spook a kitten.

Oh how Dean had missed his bleeding heart of a boyfriend. He had almost forgotten what Sasha was really like after all those years—days. God, it had only been days. That was going to be hard to get used to, knowing that so little time had passed when it felt like years to him.

Then he saw his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

The image transfixed him, Sasha moving away carefully towards the tub to turn on the taps and plug the drain for his bath. While Sasha stayed crouched to the side, Dean just stared, his own image centered in the glass. He stepped closer, the reflection moving with him. He knew it was no illusion. That was him.

But he looked so young, so untainted. His face was smooth and unscarred save that old one he didn't mind so much that went through his eyebrow. He pulled up the sweatshirt to look at his chest and found it also free of so many scars and marks he remembered from his time in…Hell. There were only the barest remains of the scars from Sasha's claws way back in the beginning, and the pellet marks from Kubrick's shotgun.

It was as if someone had taken a giant eraser to the last decade of his life and he was left less marred, less broken. He could see the tattoo, smooth and perfect. His hair was mussed, but his, not sprinkled with the beginnings of grey. Only his eyes betrayed how he was haunted.

"Dean?" Sasha asked gently, head tilted up at him.

But when Dean turned to look, he didn't see Sasha.

'Dean,' came a very different voice as this new figure rose from the ground, his smile terrible, 'Trying to hide from me? You know better than that,' he said.

Dean back-peddled, trying to escape, knowing he never could. His shoulders hit the wall first, his body unbalanced in his haste. 'I-I…wasn't. I swear. Please…don't,' his voice hitched, it always did, and the figure laughed at him for his weakness, for how he shook and pleaded and couldn't ever win, couldn't even fight anymore.

He had fought in the beginning, sneered in their faces, said 'do your worst', but he couldn't go on like that forever.

'Please... No!'

"Dean!" the real Sasha said firmly, hands on Dean's shoulders, eyes serious but pained as he shook him, "Dean, it's just me."

Blinking out of that unfair vision, anchored by Sasha's voice, Dean saw that he had indeed backed himself against the wall, huddled low in the corner of the bathroom. But Sasha wasn't looming, wasn't promising brutality and horrors that went so much deeper than skin. Sasha was there to help, wanting and needing to help him.

"Dean, come on…" Sasha begged, dampness soaking his words, "Tell me you're still with me."

Dean was shaking again. "I-I'm…still here. S-Sorry. Sorry," he said again, making his voice sound stronger for Sasha, "It's just…hard…to…" he didn't know what to say. Live. It was hard to live. "I'm okay. I'm okay," he nodded, probably sounding like some mumbling mental patient. Sasha helped him back to his feet and Dean drank in the sight of him. His Sasha. "I'm okay," he said once more, "How's the water coming?"

Frustration passed over Sasha's face, old frustration, familiar, because Sasha always looked like that when Dean was refusing to admit how wrecked he was. "It's…it's almost ready, Dean. Might be kinda hot. Better check it before you get in," he said without pressing Dean for more.

But Sasha's words had Dean gripping the front of the redhead's T-shirt. "You're…not gonna go, are you?" He hated sounding so unlike himself—fragile, needy, scared. But he had grown so used to feeling like that and not being able to hide it.

Again, emotion splayed across Sasha's face. This time it was concern, worry, even fear of his own. "I…I can stay, Dean. Of course. I just thought you'd want your privacy."

Privacy? What the fuck was that, Dean thought. He cracked a crooked grin. "Not like you haven't seen it all before. I just, uhh….don't…wanna be alone right now," so weak, always weak, weak, "…okay?" He knew his voice cracked again, shook—he was still shaking.

Sasha nodded, holding Dean steady with large hands on his shoulders. "I'll stay," he promised.

It might have been erotic a different time, a different life—Sasha undressing Dean with careful tugs, his soft hands running up Dean's chest and down his thighs as he removed the sweats—but this felt more like charity, like Sasha was helping poor incapable Dean so he wouldn't do something stupid like trip, or hurt himself, or smash face-first into the mirror, ramming the glass over and over again until there was nothing left of him but jagged lines.

It wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't…

Dean didn't have anything on underneath the sweats, not even shorts or socks. His body didn't feel dirty, his hair wasn't greasy, but he felt so unclean. Part of him hated the reflection he could see so clearly as they passed the mirror to reach the tub. He didn't deserve to look that fresh and new.

"Is it okay?" Sasha asked when Dean first stepped into the water.

The heat was immediate and intense. His foot had been cold before he stepped in so the wayer was probably too hot, tingling his skin with little needles that felt both hot and cold, back and forth like frostbite. "It's fine," he said, bringing the other foot in too. Sasha helped him sit down, lie back, submerge.

"Awesome tub, huh?" the incubus forced a smile, "We only used it for the shower last time, but being an old Bed and Breakfast this thing's practically like a Jacuzzi. Bet I could fit in there with ya."

"That'd be nice," Dean hummed, liking the feel of the too hot water warming his cold skin, even if it stung a little. He thought of how good it would feel if Sasha joined him, wet skin sliding against his with no threat or fear involved. "Sometime...maybe," he amended since he wasn't sure he could keep that nice train of thought without falling prey to another bad memory.

The bathroom was nicely dim, the curtain of the shower pulled out of the way so Dean didn't feel too cocooned in the tub, and Sasha was right, it was a big tub. He could stretch out fully, sink down into it with only his head above the water, and actually relax, breathe, be okay and safe for the first time in…

Okay, thinking about it was a bad idea. Dean needed to not think. Not think about anything. He wanted that pizza. And a drink. A hard drink.

"Dean…about…how we got you out."

"Don't," Dean cut the incubus off, not even opening his eyes that had closed, "I don't wanna know."

"But…Dean," Sasha sputtered.

"I know what I need to. Someone made a deal. Only way it coulda happened. Just tell me…tell me no one's going where I was." Dean wouldn't be able to stand it if someone had started the whole damn thing over and traded their soul for his. Again.

"No," Sasha said, "It's not that, Dean. Malak didn't want that. Not that I wouldn't have given him my soul if I thought—" As soon as Dean opened his eyes to look at the incubus, Sasha stopped. He looked away, guilt filling his face as he sighed, maybe reading just what Dean was feeling, and feeling it as clearly as he could see it on Dean's face. "Dean…eventually I'm going to have to tell you."

"I know." Dean did, he understood that. "But not now. Not tonight. I don't wanna…know what I'm worth...when I don't...feel like I'm...worth…" Anything. If he had ever been worth something once before, he wasn't now.

Damn it. He had to stop thinking about it. None of that mattered now. He was with Sasha, and everything was okay, and it didn't matter that he had betrayed everything he ever believed about himself. It had just been a very long, very bad dream.

It wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't…

Sasha's hand was cool on Dean's forehead. He opened his eyes, saw forget-me-not blue close and concerned. Forget-me-not. Forget me, please.

He hadn't realized that he had sunk low enough that his mouth was below the water. Pushing up a little, he bucked into Sasha's hand like a cat pleading for further attention. Sasha grinned crookedly at him, stroking through the wet strands of hair. He was on his knees just outside the tub. He was stunning really in the dim light with sadness mingling with devotion on his face, his red hair a mess, his T-shirt rumpled like he had slept in it.

The incubus leaned over the tub, replacing his cool hand with cool lips just beneath Dean's hairline. "You're worth everything," he said.

It would definitely be unmanly to cry again. "Enough with the sap, huh?" Dean managed, swallowing a sob.

He had to get it together. They didn't know and they weren't going to know just what Dean Winchester's perfect Hell had been. He needed to forget too, needed to suck it up, move on, get over it—preferably in the next thirty seconds.

After a minute he gave up thinking it would be that easy.

"Hey, guys?" It was Sam, back from his trek to the assembled masses. He pushed on the half-open bathroom door and came right in, startled when he saw that Dean was still naked in the tub.

It took Dean a moment to remember that he was supposed to be upset by this. "Dude," he said as he sat up to pull in his legs and hide his nakedness, "Not exactly putting on a show here." There, he could do this. He could pretend until it came naturally again. It would happen. It had to. Eventually he'd snap back and he wouldn't feel like drowning was a better option than trying to live.

"Sorry," Sam put up his hands, turning so that he was facing the main room, "Pizza's on its way. A truckload full. Good thing they're open til two. It's after midnight, ya know. Malak is a stickler for the rules."

Dean figured that was Sam's way of testing the waters, seeing whether or not Sasha had gotten around to telling Dean what had happened. That made Dean positive of what he had already guessed. It wasn't just someone who had made a deal to bring him back.

It was Sasha.

"Dean, uhh…sorta wants to keep a low profile about all that tonight," Sasha explained, "We can eat and then go to bed whenever you want, Dean. You're probably tired."

He was exhausted, body and mind wiped. But he didn't want to sleep. He knew what that would bring. "Nah, I…don't think I'm gonna hit the hay tonight. Been asleep a whole week, ya know. Feel more like staying up. You could…fill me in on the continuing adventures of The Hunting Party—pun intended. I assume 'everyone' means everyone who was there that night." That would mean Sarah, Jo, Bobby, and Ellen were all downstairs somewhere. And Wally of course.

"And Shiarra," Sasha added with a bite at his lip, "She sorta freaked, met us here, hasn't left since. If she drives you crazy I swear I will tell her to leave."

Dean actually cracked a smile at that, real and unintentional. It made his cheeks feel numb. "More the merrier. Tomorrow. I'm sure they're all going out of their minds, but…I'm fine. You told them I was fine, right?" he looked at Sam.

Slowly, Sam turned his head, gaze lingering now that it wasn't really peeping with Dean's legs pulled in. "Yeah," he said with too much gauging for that to be the whole truth, "I told them, Dean. I also said you pretty much crashed up here and would barely be awake for the pizza. Figured they'd push less to see you if they thought you were asleep."

"Thanks, Sammy." It had been so long since he had said those words but they fit his lips like always.

His brother didn't realize it but he was always taking care of Dean, just as much as Dean tried to take care of him. Even though it seemed like years ago to him, Dean remembered well how much Sam had tried to make things up to him after the Devil's Gate—for how Dean had practically raised him, was honest when Dad wasn't, saved his ass so many times it was ridiculous, and how he trusted Sam when so few trusted a thing that was supposed to be evil.

Of course, Dean had given up that trust, given up all hope so long ago, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe he could have hope after all. He was free from all that torture and the people he loved were with him. There had to be room for hope.

"So tell me…what'd you guys do all week?" he asked.

When the pizza arrived, no one came to their door, but Sam's cell phone buzzed from a text. He left, came back a little later with cans of soda and a couple boxes just for them. Dean had wanted to ask for a beer or maybe something harder, but he didn't want to bother Sam with that.

As it turned out, the group hadn't done much of anything the past week, just waited for Dean to wake up. Dean was able to surmise that whatever the deal was to save him it meant he only had to serve those seven days—his seven years. He figured Malak must be the center-point in Hell so his time difference was greater. Another damn loophole that didn't break the rules if never mentioned.

He also was able to figure that his body had been preserved somehow. Maybe it didn't breathe, didn't have a pulse, but it hadn't been rotting up in this room for a week, and it certainly hadn't been buried. Dean supposed he could thank Malak for being that kind about it, not that he ever would.

He tried to imagine all his friends trying to occupy themselves, pacing around downstairs while his not-quite corpse was lying on a bed up here. It was almost kind of funny.

He didn't laugh.

There was only one bed in the room, but Sam had brought in a sleeping bag. Dean tried to say that that wasn't necessary but Sam just shrugged like it wasn't a big deal. They were three twenty-something guys having a sleepover. Nothing weird about that. Right.

Sam and Sasha must have assumed or seen how tired Dean was because they kept trying to get him ready for bed. Maybe they were just tired too. They still talked even when the lights were off, Sam from the floor, Sasha next to him, lying on their backs touching only along the line of their bodies. Actually, Dean wasn't doing much talking, which he knew would seem strange to them, but he just liked hearing the sound of their voices, going on about nothing and laughing and being them. He didn't want to wreck it.

He tried so hard to stay awake after the others fell asleep. Tried so hard. He thought of leaving, thought of walking around a little or going downstairs, but he couldn't bear the thought of running into anyone else and having to interact. He wasn't ready for that.

So he snuggled against Sasha's side, the incubus' arm draped lazily over him in sleep. The sound of Sam's snores were comforting, the closeness of both of them making him feel warm and safe. But Dean knew that if he fell asleep he would be vulnerable. He just had to stay awake a little longer.

It wasn't real, he told himself for the millionth time, his eyes so sore and heavy. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. It. Wasn't. Real.

But he knew that was a lie.

He had never gone to Hell.

The hellhounds were closing in on him. He could see them coming from over the top of the hill like great black German Shepherds made of shadow and hellfire.

But then they flew past him, wind coming in a great rush as they shot down the hill straight for Sam. They leapt, diving right through Sam like mist onward into Lilith. The lead dog come out of the girl on the other side with black smoke swirling in its mouth, but the hellhounds did not immediately vanish back down to Hell.

Alive and very frightened, the little girl collapsed into Sam's arms, seeking comfort and a strong hold to support her. But something was wrong. When Sam stood up from his crouched position, the girl fell back to the ground limp and wide-eyed—dead.

And Sam was laughing…

He didn't know where he was. Maybe a hotel. Maybe an emptied house. He didn't want to think about what had happened to the owners if that was the case. He had only seen Sam. He didn't know what became of the others that survived. Sasha…

He couldn't even sit on the bed, not that he wasn't allowed to. He sat on the floor beneath the window, wishing that every night wasn't filled with screams.

Then Sam would be there. Always there. "I want you to choose me, Dean."

Even having the freedom to go where he pleased inside the house—it was definitely a house—there was no real freedom. He knew he couldn't leave, knew that unspeakable things were happening behind each door.

Sam came out of one of them while he was passing by, covered in blood. "I lost my temper," he said.

He didn't want to know what that meant.

"What have you done to Sasha?" he demanded. He asked that everyday.

The day Sam finally showed him, he wished he had kept his mouth shut. "He wouldn't join me. So I had no choice, you see. But you can end this, Dean. So easily. You know what I'll do to him if you don't."

He did. Blade in his hand, he started to raise it.

But he couldn't bring it down. He couldn't give the incubus release.

It was a trick. It was always a trick. He should know by now. The pain was everywhere, filling up the pores in his body as if salt had been pressed into every wound. When he healed he wouldn't be able to count the many new scars.

The sobbing beside him only made it worse.

"I told you this would happen, didn't I, Sasha? Will you choose me now?"

Sam took Sasha. Changed him. Sam took everything. He didn't even recognize his own reflection anymore. Everything was twisted, every failed attempt at escape written on his skin.

The door opening always made him flinch.

"Dean…" growled Sasha—so changed, so different.

That wasn't the voice he loved.

When he was finally allowed to leave the house his first instinct was to run back inside. The world echoed his hollow reflection—barren and black and burnt. Behold Sam's kingdom.

There were still people fighting. Still people surviving. Sam did horrible things to them and begged for him to join in too. The pain would be less for them if he submitted. But he couldn't submit. He couldn't give in.

He could never give in.

The worst was at night. He remembered struggling the first time. Maybe many times. But he didn't struggle anymore. Not for himself. His struggles had to be saved for others, even though everyone that mattered was gone.

So he would just lay there, the nightmare made real. Sasha wasn't gentle. And Sam was always there to hold him down.

"We can make it, Dean! We can get away from him! Together!" Sasha would scream when Sam's influence faltered enough that he remembered who he was supposed to be.

But it never lasted long. Nothing hurt more than hope and Sam crushed him with it, toying with him on purpose only to take everything away again.

"Dean!"

Eventually, he just stopped listening.

"It can be like it was," Sam would lie, passing a gentle hand over his hair, "I can take all the pain away, Dean, if you'll only say the words. It'll be okay. It'll all be over."

"No…"

Sam's wrath was always terrible.

Less and less could he recognize the face in the mirror as time passed. He knew now what he hadn't been able to accept before.

He was home.

Sometimes he would go for walks. It didn't matter. There was no place to escape to now, and none of the things that lived in this new world would dare touch him. He tried to goad them, tried to trick them into attacking him, but they never did. The times he tried to do the job himself, Sam would always be there.

"You know where release can be found, Dean."

He never gave in. He didn't. At least not the way Sam wanted. But the day he found that little boy hiding in an old house, a boy who pleaded with him and begged for help, he knew he couldn't make the same mistake again.

It was mercy. He believed it had to be mercy, it had to be, even though Sam had robbed him of the meaning.

"Did you think you were going against me, Dean?" Sam taunted after what must have been years, "You've become everything I could have wanted."

He didn't want to believe it. But the stains on his hands had grown so dark from the countless people he had 'saved' that he finally understood what Sam kept trying to tell him.

"Just say it, Dean. Just say it and this will all be over."

Hands everywhere. Sasha's. Sam's. The feeling of being surrounded, trapped. He didn't try to move away when lips pressed to his neck.

Sam's words fell hot on his ear. "All the pain, Dean. The remorse. The guilt. I can take it away. Don't you want it to be like it was? Just the three of us. Unstoppable. I can give you anything, Dean. I saved you, didn't I? And I will give you everything you ever wanted. Release. Finally release if you'll just say the words."

He wished he couldn't feel anything. He wished he couldn't feel a god damn thing.

"Okay, Sammy," he said, "Okay…"

Dean didn't wake up screaming. He woke up drowning, his tears so thick, soundless as they were, that he had soaked the pillow. He was shaking again, but there were arms to hold him, too many arms that weren't too many when it was the Sam and Sasha he loved.

He shook and sobbed as they held him, clinging wherever he could get a tight hold and not caring how or when Sam had crawled into bed with them. It was like Maine when Sam and Sasha were five years old in adult bodies and they had slept all curled together. Now Dean was the little boy. Now Dean was the one who needed this comfort.

He couldn't tell them. He could never tell them how much he had longed for the strength to hate them.

If it had been anyone else, any other bastard demon torturing him with every device known to man or beast, Dean could have bore it, could have stood his ground and told the fucker to stick it where the sun shines. But not Sasha. Not Sam. Not when it was real. Not when it was them. They had always been his weakness. And Malak had used that to beat him.

Dean didn't fall back asleep after that. He pretended to so Sam and Sasha would think he got some decent rest, that he was okay, but if the past seven years could haunt him while he was awake then he knew it would be like reliving them all over again every time he slept.

Feigning a groggy awakening, Dean waited until both Sam and Sasha were out of bed the next morning before he stretched, sat up blinking and said, "There gonna be breakfast down there?"

Several minutes later he was alone in the bathroom, dressed, clean, teeth brushed. He couldn't seem to get his hair right. It was all smushed to one side of his head from his restless sleep. He couldn't remember the last time he had cared to style it.

He had left the door slightly ajar for his sake as well as the others. They were waiting for him, being so patient with him. It would have been the type of thing to get on his nerves once upon a time. All they knew was that they had rescued him from Hell. They didn't know Hell had been them.

Part of Dean thought that it should have been obvious, that he should have been able to tell the difference. But as much as the real Sam and Sasha soothed him, being back wasn't enough to even feel that difference now. He still found himself flinching at the initial sight of them, waiting for a blow, an order, a word of false, perverse love.

"Dean…?" It was Sam, hand on the door as he peeked inside, "You know…you don't have to do this now. If you want to take another day…" he trailed to give Dean the chance to take the out.

But he couldn't. If he did then he might never step foot outside this room again. "Head first, Sammy. I'm okay. You guys go ahead. I'll be right down."

"You sure?" Sasha asked, his disembodied voice coming from beyond Sam.

"Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I just…" Dean couldn't stop staring at his reflection, "I just need a sec." And Sam and Sasha agreed because they didn't want to push him anywhere but towards the direction he wanted to go. Only Dean didn't know where that was. So he took his second, his minute, five. Any longer and they would be back to get him.

Staring pained into his own eyes, Dean felt immediate hatred boil up inside him. What happened, what he had been through and done, it wasn't real. But it was, and what would they think of him if they knew? If they knew how easily he had been broken? Seven years. What was seven years? He should have been able to last longer.

Dean pushed away from the sink and went back to the main part of the room. Their life was strewn about him. Sam's duffle. Sasha's. A pair of Sam's jeans in the corner. Sasha's jacket left on the hastily made bed.

The jacket. Dean picked it up in his hands, held the lining to his face and breathed in. It still smelled so new, sweet and musky from the leather but also so much like Sasha. In moments Dean was back in that damn mall in Denver, remembering the day they had bought the jacket together.

Smell was the best sense for being transported. Dean had hoped that being so close to his incubus last night, and later when Sam was there too that the familiar smell of them both would ground him. But it hadn't been enough.

Glancing up, Dean saw a closet on the far side of the room. It was open. His own leather jacket—his father's jacket—was hanging up next to the clothes he had been wearing the night Sam…no. The night Malak took him.

But it looked wrong. There wasn't any blood on it. There had been blood. Dean remembered so clearly. He remembered it. So much blood. There had been blood everywhere when Sam—

"No."

No, it wasn't real, it wasn't real.

Dean closed his eyes tight, Sasha's leather still in his hands. He tried so hard to stay here, be here. But when he opened his eyes again…he was there.

Sam was laughing. Laughing. Like there was something funny about that little girl having been alive one moment and then dead at his feet the next. And why were the hellhounds still back there, hovering, waiting for further orders?

"Sam?" Bobby braved the question first, "What's with you, boy? What happened to that girl?" She was just lying there, still, as if something had…stopped her heart in her chest.

"Sam?" came Sarah's voice next, strong with concern. She tried to move towards Sam but Sasha held her back, shaking his head, knowing what Dean knew but the others didn't.

Something had gone wrong. Tapping fully into his powers, defeating Lilith, taking up her mantle as master of the hellhounds, maybe it had even been the act of saving Dean from Malak. Whatever the final catalyst had been, Sam wasn't Sam anymore.

Dean didn't want to believe it. Not for him. Sam couldn't have turned because of him.

Sprinting down the hill, Dean finally joined the half circle the others had formed around Sam and Lilith, just in time for his brother to turn and face them all. The white eyes Dean expected, even the sneer, but there was something far darker than he could have ever predicted burning strongly within Sam now.

"What's wrong, Dean," Sam said with a grin, "You should be happy. You should be thanking me. Malak can't have you now."

Something shuddered deep in Dean's gut at the sight of Sam glowing with power like that, at the sound of those words. It was the cave all over again. "Sammy…"

"Don't worry, Dean," Sam said as if his voice were soothing and not so horribly tainted, "Don't you remember what I keep telling you? You don't understand now. But you will." Those blank white eyes looked to the side, to Sarah and Bobby and Sasha. Then he turned, looking at Ellen and Jo as well. His grin widened. "No time like the present. Right, big brother?"

"Run!" Dean shouted at the others, knowing he had to stand his ground, he had to, but they could still get away. "Run!" he called again. They weren't moving. They were faltering, hesitant steps barely taking them away. Sarah and Sasha hadn't moved at all.

But it was Dean's folly to tell them to go; running couldn't save them.

Ellen and Jo broke away first. Maybe if they hadn't, if they had hesitated just one moment more like the others things wouldn't have ended so horribly for them. As soon as they started off, Sam's arm rose after them, white light gathering just like it had with Lilith. This light burned hotter, brighter, until once again Dean had to look away. When the light faded, Ellen and Jo were still alive, but Dean wished for their sake they weren't.

Sarah was screaming, Bobby and Sasha both pulling their weapons while Dean could only stand and stare. It was because of him. It was all because of him.

"Sam, stop!"

"What did you do!"

"Oh god…Sam."

If only Sasha had used the Colt that moment, right then when he had his chance, but just as Dean knew it would have been the same for him, the incubus couldn't fire. A moment later the demon-killing gun, the gun that could kill almost anything, body and soul, was in Bobby's hand, swiped away easily as the elder hunter pointed the Colt in Sasha's face. His eyes were dull, his motions mechanical.

It was Sam.

"Run?" Sam said mockingly, stepping slowly towards Dean and leaving his puppet Bobby to keep Sasha at gunpoint. He didn't bother with Sarah as she was still hurt, and stunned now as well as she looked on and couldn't do anything. "Dean, why would they need to run from me? If they stay, if they follow me and do as they're told by choice, I'd never hurt them. Don't you know that?" He was practically on top of Dean, walking up almost flush to him without reservation. "That's all you need to do too, Dean. Malak can't have you because you're mine. In time I'll be even stronger than him. I can give you everything, Dean, and no one will ever be able to hurt us again. No one will ever be able to leave us. Don't you want that? All you have to do is choose me, Dean. Choose me and I promise…I won't have Bobby blow off Sasha's pretty face."

This wasn't happening. This wasn't Sam. Dean tried to back away but Sam's arm grabbed him at the waist, holding him close in a half kind of hug. "Sam," he pleaded, "Don't do this. It's Sash, damn it, you're having Bobby point the Colt at Sasha! And look what you…what you did to Ellen and Jo..." he still couldn't believe it, "They're…they're family." And they were still struggling to stay alive, burnt or melted to almost nothing on the now red and tissue-covered grass as if their skin had been peeled away. Dean could barely look at them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw Sarah make a break for the dying Harvelles, maybe only to offer some reprieve with use of the gun she still had tucked in her jeans as backup for her sniper rifle. She was almost to them when Sam said, "I wouldn't do that," soft enough to be a deadly warning but loud enough that Sarah heard him, paused, turned to him in horror.

"Sam," Dean tried again.

"Family? You call them family?" Sam scoffed, "I'm your family. I know you need Sasha. I know how you love him. I love him too. And if Sarah joins us like a good girl I might even keep Bobby around," he said, glancing to the side as if he could see Sarah perfectly even though she was behind him, "But it's all up to you, Dean. Choose me. Just say it. Say you belong to me."

What horror was this? Why would Sam want this? Had the demon blood twisted him so much finally that all he saw were his basest desires and a sense of possession? This was the part of Sam that wanted to claim the world. Not to save it or even control it, but to make it pay for everything he had ever had to suffer through. Dean could understand that, he really could, but he couldn't let Sam do this.

Without fear or reservation, he leaned right into Sam's face, pleading with whatever gods may exist that Sam wasn't too far gone to bring back.

His gaze was steady, his voice a rock of resolve as he said, "I don't belong to anyone."

How wrong he was.

Sam's eyes flashed brightly, his sneer growing into a snarl that made him look ugly in his viciousness. He didn't say anything, he didn't need to. Bobby cocked the gun. Then too swiftly for Dean or ever Sasha so close to stop it, the Colt was to Bobby's temple and he fired.

"No!"

"Bobby!"

Sarah was screaming again.

"Do you understand yet, Dean?" Sam spat through clenched teeth as he wrenched Dean's arm and forcefully led him back towards the others where too much blood was on the grass and more would follow. The hellhounds were already taking off to find the bodies of the family they had tried to save.

And Dean could do nothing. He didn't have the strength to match Sam's, didn't have a weapon that would ever be enough. Even if he could get to the Colt, Sam could just control him to put it down again. Why hadn't they foreseen this? Why hadn't they tried to stop it before it was too late? Sasha and Sarah were equally helpless.

As the weight of what was happening struck Dean, fully and horribly, realizing all he might have done to prevent this once but couldn't now, Sam made a promise close against his ear, "Next time, brother…I won't be so kind."

Dean was shaking so hard that Sasha's jacket had fallen from his hands and was draped over his lap. He was on the floor now, head and shoulders back against the frame of the bed. The room spun and refocused in front of him. He wasn't there anymore, he was here, he was here, but 'there' would always be with him. He knew that now.

He had to go downstairs, had to show everyone that he was fine, he was okay, he was back just the way he had left them. Even though all of that was a lie, he had to make them believe it. He tried to get up off the floor, but his hands had clutched again the smooth black leather of Sasha's jacket, so like his wings, Dean thought, and he couldn't loosen his grip enough to get a grip on himself.

He couldn't have understood before. He understood now. He had been dead. Dead, gone, in Hell. That's why this was so hard. Living. Living was hard. And as much as he knew he had to get up, had to keep going, he wasn't sure he wanted to anymore.

tbc...

A/N: Ta da! So did I throw you for a loop? If you're confused about everything that happened in Hell, you should be a little. Those snippets from Dean's montage dream will get longer scenes like this last one throughout the arc. Dean is in for a Hell of a recovery. :-P I will be really interested to know what people think of this compared to just physical torture for 30 years with 10 years of being the torturer. In my version, Dean thought he was just living his life; he didn't even know he was in Hell. Thoughts?

After careful consideration, the winner of the 'presents' drabble contest is: Rhys-the-Redeemed from right here on FF! Woohoo! It was much harder this time as so many of them were good, so I chose Rhys on points of creativity. He was definitely the most original. Also, bonus request goes out to deangirl1 who is struggling with real life bombardment and deserves a prize for using both 'present' and 'presence' in one of her drabbles. Get in your requests, guys, when you can!

The drabbles will be up at the site later today hopefully, as will be an idea Blueeyesgreen had for what would happen next after Dean went to Hell. She was wrong, granted, but it was just so good that I have to share it with you all. Also, there will be a link to Dianna Wickam's new "Incubus" fanfic "Dream a little dream of Incubus" that can be read right here on FF. Very hot, tells how that episode would have gone if Sasha was involved. Naughty Dean...

Oh! Shoutout for Deangirl1's "T Minus 60" about the end of the deal that she wrote way back then. Remember, dear, how I said we were working mojo but I couldn't tell you how? Well it was the similarity of the seven days, seven years thing! Finally you can know. :-) The rest of the story is vastly different but a great take and in need of being finished, not that I want to pressure that woman into writing any more than she already has on her plate.

Happy Supernatural Thursday!

Crim