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Dean’s in Hell for so long that time eventually runs into itself and loses all meaning. He can’t tell if it’s been weeks, months, years since hellhounds dragged him into the Pit. Can’t tell if it’s been weeks, months, years since he last saw Sam.
Sam.
The thought of Sam, working diligently to free Dean from the clutches of Hell, has been the only thing keeping him from just letting go of that last thread of sanity. If anyone had a right to go mad, it was probably Dean. Hell did that to people. He’s sure they wouldn’t think any less of him if he gave in. Not that he really cares what demons think of him anyway.
The one thing that disappoints him is that Hell isn’t a place of surprises. It’s the same thing every day, has been since the day he arrived. Wake up. Writhe on the meathooks. Scream for Sam. Go to sleep. Wake up. Writhe on the meathooks—you get the picture.
When you get down to brass tacks, Hell is actually kind of boring.
That’s why, when he wakes up in a white room with padded walls, he’s almost relieved. Nothing like a change of scenery to revive and invigorate a flagging spirit.
Dean walks carefully along one of the padded walls, one foot in front of the other, feeling for a door, a secret window, something. He makes three laps around the room before he decides a door or a window isn’t just going to pop open to beckon him to freedom. That would be too easy.
A door opens and Dean cocks his head.
Well, would you look at that.
Dean steps toward the door.
The door vanishes, and Dean swears he can almost hear Hell laughing in his fucking face.
Sadists.
*
Dean wakes up in a ridiculously comfortable motel bed, sunlight slatting in through plastic blinds. He sits up slowly, rubbing at grit in his eyes that won’t go away.
The room is painted a nauseating shade of green. Makes him think of Linda Blair, vomiting buckets of pea-soup. Dean shakes his head, catches a glimpse of someone else in the other bed, still sleeping.
Sammy? Sammy? Is it really you? Dean slides a hand under his pillow, fingers come in contact with a knife he’s pretty sure he never had when he was alive.
Sam—Not-Sam?—stirs in the other bed.
Dean crawls out from under the covers, plants his feet firmly in the thick carpet, curling his fingers tightly around the wooden handle. Sam smacks his lips in his sleep and shifts a little. The rustle of fabric against fabric sounds so loud in Dean’s ears.
Sam raises his head off the pillow, squinting into the mid-day sun peeking in through the blinds, and offers Dean a slow, sleepy, Sam smile. Dean’s chest aches hollowly for Sam, the real Sam, not this facsimile, and he thinks: Damn. Have to give you demonic fuckers a little credit here.
Sam’s eyes widen. “Dean, what are you doing with the knife?”
Dean raises the knife with an unsteady hand. “You’re not Sam.” First words he’s spoken in, shit, weeks? Months? Years? He sounds rough-hewn, parched and dry, and he tastes dirt on this tongue. Smells it too, earthy, thick and overpowering. Gravedirt, his mind tells him.
“Dude, I’m definitely Sam.” Not-Sam sounds almost amused.
“This isn’t real.” Dean points the blade of the knife at the impostor in his brother’s skin.
Not-Sam sounds choked off, like he’s been broken into a million tiny pieces, smashed too small to be put back together. “Dean.”
Dean drops the knife. It clatters noisily on the hardwood before finally coming to a stop.
The fragile, broken look in Sam’s eyes—that’s Hell.
The edges of Dean’s vision blur, and everything goes black.
*
Dean wakes up to a cool washcloth on the forehead.
Whispers assault his eardrums but, thankfully, he’s still too out of it to make out what they’re saying. He’s gotten good at tuning them out. Mind partitions itself. When the demon voices start to whisper, Dean’s mind seals itself off. The demons hadn’t anticipated him being this strong—this unbreakable. He figures they were expecting to break him pretty easily, matter of days, weeks.
Fuckers. He showed them. He showed them all.
“Dean.”
Now the demons were on a first name basis?
“You’re awake.”
Demons that sounded eerily like Sam?
“Sam?” Dean manages to croak.
Sam lets out a relieved whoosh of breath against Dean’s forehead and his face suddenly snaps into focus, bright like the sun, smile blinding in its radiance. “You really freaked me out there.”
“Why? What happened?”
Sam’s smile softens at the corners. “You had an episode.”
“Episode? That sounds vaguely—” Dean furrows his brow. “—Southern belle-ish.”
Sam laughs. “Good to see you’ve got your sense of humor back.”
Dean traces the lines of Sam’s mouth with his eyes. “How long was I—out?”
“Couple hours,” Sam says, picking at the washcloth and dabbing Dean’s forehead. “No longer than the last time, I guess.”
“Last time?” Dean allows Sam to fuss with the washcloth. “Whaddaya mean the last time?”
Sam’s expression shifts, guilt practically written in the lines on his forehead and at the corners of his mouth. “It’s nothing—”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Dean interrupts. “What’s you mean by that?”
“You—have these episodes from time to time,” Sam explains without really explaining anything, hands fluttering like nervous birds.
“What kind of episodes?” Dean asks, suspicious, treading carefully.
“You black out. You lose track of time,” Sam says.
“You mean, like, psychotic episodes?” Dean sits up with a jolt and immediately regrets it.
“You should be lying down—” Sam starts fussing again and Dean whacks his hands away.
“Answer my question, Florence Nightingale,” Dean barks.
Sam drops his hands. “Okay, okay. Ever since you came back, you’ve been blacking out. Completely cataleptic.”
“Cata-whats-it?” Dean raises an eyebrow in a perfect arch.
“Cataleptic,” Sam repeats. “Completely unconscious and stiff as a board.”
Dean processes this as he slumps back against a pillow—oh, hey, he’s in bed. He tries not to imagine Sam hauling him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carrying him off to bed. Under normal circumstances, Sam’d never let him live that down. He’s almost sad going to Hell gives him a Get Out of Jail Free card for that.