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The handcuffs dug ravines into his wrists from where they were bound against the arm of the chair, ripping closer to bone and causing more warm blood to drip off his finger with each indignant yank he gave them. He flicked his hair away from his eyes and narrowed them, unable to stop the smirk crawling over his face.
After everything, Sammy was still good.
Dean glared at the demon trap surrounding him, willing it to break, willing the handcuffs to shatter, willing for Crowley to get his pathetic ass in here and free him.
Dean hated being stuck, sitting still, waiting when he was human, and that hatred didn’t waver when he became a demon.
He looked up at the camera in the top corner of the room. The blinking red light told him that Sammy was watching, and he rolled his eyes with a laugh.
“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy.” He smirked. “Never one to face your demons upfront, were ya?”
No voice came through the mic, and Dean simply rolled his eyes again in mild irritation. “Come ooon, Sammy! Don’t leave me hanging! It’s boring in here, hour after hour.” He licked his lips. “In fact, your little visits to junk me up with humanity are the only thing keeping me sane.”
The red light flickered off. Sammy was gone.
Dean sighed, closing his eyes and fighting the annoyance bubbling in his gut, the mark whispering to kill whatever got in his way of relieving that irritation.
Without the ability to check his watch, Dean had no way to tell how long it was until the door to the storeroom was opened, but it felt like days.
“Heh, heh, hey! Sammy returns!” He couldn’t help the relieved grin of final change spread across his face. Finally, something different than the four same fucking walls.
Sam didn’t talk. He already had the syringe of torture in his hand and wasted no time in crossing the demon trap.
Dean yanked on his restraints with a growl as his younger brother approached. “You can’t do this forever, Sammy. It’s clearly not working and-” He was cut off with his own grunt of pain as the human blood entered his own stream like scalding water, burning him up on the inside.
“Whoo!” He whooped as Sam stepped back, blinking hard to hide the pain. “That’s the good stuff.” He winced as the fire reached his chest. “I could do this all day.”
“Good.” His brother sounded tired, exhausted even. A weak smile met Dean’s “Because in another hour, there’ll be plenty more where that came from. And the hour after that. And every hour it takes until you give my brother back.”
“That’s the thing, Sammy!” He spoke at his brother’s back as he left the room. “I am your brother! And I like this version of me! He’s stronger, smarter-”
The door slammed shut, and he was alone once more.
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A few minutes in and Dean was about ready to kill himself.
He started whistling the first tune that came to mind. He couldn’t even remember where the tune came from, just one he’s always known, like something he invented as a kid and it carried on in his long term memory, just out of reach of remembering.
The acoustics in the room were pretty crap but he continued to whistle, any sound over the top of the thick silence. He even tapped on the edges of the arms of the chair, the wooden thunk adding to the tune. A lazy smile spread on his face, cutting off his whistling.
Music was still one of his loves.
He began to hum Highway To Hell - cliche, he knows, but one of the classics. His father was the reason his favourite band was ACDC.
God, his dad was an asshole.
“You never knew, did you, Sammy?” He took advantage of the blinking red light. “You have never had any idea how much of an abusive dick Dad really was.”
He laughed at how painless the once excruciating memories of his father were. “You always thought he was an ass, but you only scratched the surface at his abuse. And it only got worse once you left me, Sammy. You left me to deal with him and he took advantage of the fact that I was weaker without my purpose to protect you.”
His glare at the camera hardened. “He only got a year of abuse in on you before I was able to permanently draw his attention to me. You were so young that I’m not surprised you don’t remember. He would hit you to shut you up and, well, I couldn’t allow that.” Talking about this stuff when he was human was so much harder, with all the stupid emotions and memories getting in the way. “So every time you’d fuck up, I’d fuck up harder, make him more angry at me so he’s leave you alone. And I kept up the facade of the cool brother who hadn’t a single worry in the world so you could focus on yourself.”
He readjusted his position on the chair. “When you left, I had no one to protect, but Dad still had someone to beat. It became pointless to me, his relief, his execution of repent onto me. Life became pointless besides the hunt.”
He cleared his throat - stupid human blood letting in stupid human emotions. “I was twenty-two when I first tried to take my life. Everything just had no meaning.” He sighed, blinking hard. “Bobby pulled me down just in time, and I made him swear never to tell Dad or you.” He forced a smile on his face. “You have no idea how many times I’ve relived the ‘Dean Winchester Suicide Tour’, Sammy.”
Dean shook his head, a humourless laugh escaping his lips. “Damn human blood got me feelin’ my feels, Sammy.”
The mic remained dead.
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Another few hundred years or whistling and tapping and recounting his ‘favourite’ childhood memories later and Sammy was back with another agonizing hit of humanity.
“Hey, look, it’s my favourite brother!” He smirked as Sammy, needle in hand, approached him and injected the fire into his veins.
Despite his greatest effort, Dean grunted, scrunching his eyes against the pain that flowed through him. His breathing grew heavier and he let out a cry when the substance reached his heart. The pain pulsed, his entire body like a throbbing headache, each throb sending wave after wave of dizzying agony.
Dean whistled. “That..that’s some good shit.” His laugh was cut off by another pained groan.
“Good.” Sammy’s smirk was blurred. “‘Cuz there’s plenty more where that came from.”
Dean rolled his eyes at his brother’s receding back. “You gotta get a new line, buddy. It's boring enough over here without your repetitive cliche-ness!”
The door closed with a slam.
Dean’s fingernails dug into his palms. Goddamn it, this hurt .
Thankfully the fire only lasted a few minutes, and was already fading. In some ways it was a shame, the pain was a great distraction for what was back to being the dullness of the same four walls, the same time interval between the red blinks of the camera light, the same tiny hole in the corner of the room with the same twenty-seven individual grains of rock surrounding it.
Dean sighed, letting his chin hit his chest and eyes close in relief as the last of the pain washed away. With each shot of humanity came the consequences he’d grown used to not having to deal with as a demon - hunger, thirst and, evidently, fatigue.
However, he wasn’t there yet. With the demon still inside he was left with what he could only describe as constant morning-head. He was tired, as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep, and yet couldn’t fall asleep himself. It was almost like dozing, he supposed.
His neck began to ache from its position so Dean lifted his head and stared at the ceiling, resting the nape of his neck between his shoulders.
The ceiling wasn’t any more interesting than the rest of the room - a single dim bulb hung from the dull concrete, which had patterns of mould dancing across it. Dean stared at the mould, making shapes of animals and people, patterns of mountains and forests and used these to picture wars, endless battles of blood and metal and entertainment waging across the ceiling.
It was almost disappointing when Sammy came back.
“‘Sup, Sam.” He muttered, his neck stiff from lack of movement as he watched his brother come in, stick the needle in his arm and stand back as the fire coursed through again.
Dean didn’t have the energy to stop the cries of pain escaping his lips as he writhed in his chair, the fiery pits of fucking hell running through his very veins.
He looked back up at the ceiling, staring at his wars as the dizziness hit him like a brick, momentarily thrusting his vision into darkness.
“Dean?”
He laughed, blinking the room back into focus and looking at Sammy.
“You’re killing me, Sammy.” He smirked, barely able to see his brother in his blurred vision. “You’re killing me.”
When the darkness came, Dean accepted it with open arms.