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The Hanged Man: this is the card of ultimate surrender, of being suspended in time and of martyrdom and sacrifice to the greater good.
When Dean opened his eyes, he knew he wasn’t in Heaven.
For one thing, he was in his bedroom in the Bunker. He’d been to Heaven; this ain’t it.
Secondly, Crowley was sitting in the chair in the dark corner by the door, looking as close to nervous as Dean had ever seen him look, and if the King of Hell was around, this definitely ain’t Heaven.
Somehow, though, he knew it wasn’t Hell either. He’d been there too, and while it was certain to have changed since his sojourn there (Hell was like that, always changing and never for the better), this wasn’t it.
It was just his room in the Bunker; his guns and knives mounted on the walls, his headphones resting on the desk where he left them, his dirty shirt tossed haphazardly over the back of the chair. The only things out of place, the only things that were wrong, were Crowley still hovering in the corner, uncharacteristically silent, and the fact that the last thing he remembered was a splintered mess of memories. Metatron, the warehouse, the feeling of the angel blade sliding mercilessly into his flesh, and Sam’s face, tight with worry, above him; warm hands on his face, warm tears on his skin, as he grew more and more cold.
Dean didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge Crowley; a fact he knew made the demon king more uncomfortable. Instead, he took silent stock of his body, his limbs. He felt...okay. Better than okay, actually. No pain in his side from where Metatron had shanked him like the little bitch he was. No pain from his face where the angel had beaten the holy hell out of him.
The lack of pain was not comforting, though; who had healed him? Crowley? Could he even heal humans? Was that why he was hanging around like a bad painting? Here to extract whatever payment he’d want for that, no doubt. Well, he could stuff that.
Dean could feel something in his right hand, the hand that lay on his chest, and he flexed his fingers around the hard...handle? No, more of a hilt, curved to fit perfectly into his hand.
A sharp shock of pain lanced through his arm, streaking down from where the Mark suddenly burned, and sizzling through his fingers. “Son of a bitch,” Dean hissed, and from the corner where Crowley was lurking, he heard a sharp intake of breath and a rustle of fabric as the demon rose to his feet. Still ignoring him, Dean lifted his head to squint down the line of his body, to where his hand rested on his sternum, and his own gasp echoed Crowley’s.
The First Blade was clutched in his grasp.
He was on his feet instantly and the feeling of wrong increased. Not only was the fucking Blade in his hand, but his body felt strange. His movements were too fluid, muscles too receptive, even after being healed from his Metatron-inflicted injuries.
Crowley. He had the answers and Dean knew it.
Tossing the Blade onto the bed like a live snake, he whirled on the King of Hell watching him with a mixture of fear and interest. “What did you do to me?” Dean demanded, and his voice sounded strange to his ears.
“Saved your life, as always,” Crowley replied, words not quite slick enough to counteract the way he was watching Dean like he would a tiger in a cage. “You're welcome.”
“Save it,” Dean snarled. “Something's wrong. I feel weird. And that.” He gestured sharply to the Blade, lying on his bed. “I'll ask again. What did you do to me?”
“What needed to be done,” Crowley answered in his usual non-answer way.
Dean turns sharply and snatched up the Blade, rounding back on the demon with murderous intent. “I will end you here and now, you double-talking asshole. What did you do? How did you heal me?”
Crowley’s eyes were on the Blade then, watching carefully. He knew Dean was not bluffing. “I didn’t heal you,” he said slowly. “You healed yourself.”
“How?” Dean barked.
“Look in the mirror, Squirrel.”
Dean took a threatening step. “I’m not interested in your games, Crowley. Answer me.”
“I’m trying to, you imbecile,” Crowley snapped. “Go look in your mirror, Dean.”
He lowered the Blade and stalked across the room to the mirror mounted over the sink, but what he saw in the reflection stopped him in his tracks.
His face was perfectly healed, clean and smooth as ever. No blood, no split lip; no wounds at all.
No black eyes; just black eyes.
The cold, empty orbs burned back at him from the mirror, and he remembered, years ago, a black-eyed version of himself snarling words of damning prophecy.
“You’re gonna die. And this - this is what you’re gonna become!”
The Blade was shaking in his grip, hands quivering with rage, as he turned slowly back to face the King of Hell.
He slipped through the Bunker on silent feet, more stealthy than he’d ever been before. He felt like one of the shadows, dark and shifting.
Crowley was somewhere, no doubt poking his nose into things he shouldn’t be, but Dean found it hard to care. He felt empty, removed, dull and uncaring about pretty much everything. It was like vines, black and strong, twisting through his head and smothering all the little voices that whispered to him. Silencing them. The only thing he could feel was the Mark, throbbing on his arm, and the cold emptiness of his own eyes.
Sam was asleep - passed out, actually - when Dean slid into the room. A bottle of whisky was tipped over on his bedside table, amber liquid pooled on the wood. Dean looked down at his little brother, taking in the anguished creases in his forehead, even in sleep, and the fading tear tracks on his stubbled cheeks. He willed himself to feel something, to feel the rush of love that washed over him whenever he looked at Sam, to care that Sam was here, drunk and unconscious because he believed Dean was lying dead on his own bed, still and cold.
He could wake Sam up, let him know what had actually happened. Show him the black eyes, hand over the Blade, let Sam lock it up and lock him up in the dungeon, pump him full of consecrated blood until his eyes bled back to green. They knew how to cure demons. They could cure him.
But what would their sacrifice mean then?
Dean might not have been dead, but he was still and cold.
He traced one finger over Sam’s parted lips, and turned and left the room.
He stopped by the open door to his bedroom, hesitating just for a second at the threshold before walking over to his desk.
“Dean, really,” Crowley drawled from the doorway, “time to go. You don’t belong here anymore.”
“Eat me,” Dean replied, ripping a piece of paper from the spiral notebook on the desk. He grabbed a pen and paused, hovering over the blank page. There was nothing he could write that would stop Sam from chasing after him, he already knew it, and every second that he lingered, those black tendrils twisting through his mind, choking out the part of him that still cared, grew thicker and thicker.
He scrawled four words onto the paper, haphazard capital letters in black ink - how fitting - and dropped the note onto his bed, where Sam was sure to find it.
Sammy let me go
Sam wouldn’t, so Dean would have to make him.
He followed Crowley out into the hall, and the demon snapped his fingers, whisking them out of the Bunker.