About 50,000 years late, here is the ninth fic for the 50-follower-thing, written for my 600th follower, @acrushonesmeralda
Prompt: There’s a prompt I saw on Tumblr that I’ve been wanting someone to fill for ages: so, basically, Dean came back from Hell a demon, but he doesn’t know it, and Sam and Cas don’t know how to tell him, but occasionally whenever he gets really worked up over something (angry, happy, lusty, whatever) his eyes flick black. If you could work Destiel into this, I would love you forever, but if it doesn’t crunch, you can make it gen.
I would like to add a disclaimer that this doesn’t follow the prompt exactly, whoops. Starting it was a spur-of-the-moment decision bc there was a blackout last month and I couldn’t use my laptop, so the first part of it was handwritten based on what I remembered of the prompt. This past weekend I finally got around to transcribing it to the computer, and then I finished it up (I mean, sort of??? it feels vaguely unfinished but i can’t think of anything else o.o)
Anyhow. As you were.
------
Hell is supposed to be the end.
You make the deal, you get ripped to shreds by hellhounds, and you rot away in Hell for eternity. That’s what’s supposed to happen.
But nothing ever goes the way it’s supposed to, not for you. Things never went the way they were supposed to when you were alive, so it figures that they wouldn’t when you were dead.
Forty years of torture: thirty years on the rack, ten off. Those last ten years, you forget who you were before Hell, because remembering makes it worse. Mom, Dad, Sam, none of them was real. All figments of your imagination on slow days, when Alastair sets you aside and has you watch him work instead. When your hands twitch for a weapon, for action. When you aren’t covered in blood and ash.
You’re supposed to be there for eternity, and you deserve it. You relish in it.
Then comes the day. Panic spreads through the ranks, blistering heat and white light everywhere. It’s startling because it’s different. Because nothing ever changes, in Hell. You look to Alastair to gauge his reaction, to mimic it, but he’s not there, off somewhere else on the rack, and you don’t know to run away when the light reaches you.
You wake in a pine box, lying flat on your back, and your first breath of air is stale, dry, makes your parched throat hurt. You dig your way out of your own grave and find out that eternity only lasted four months, and you’re disappointed.
Of course you couldn’t have your way. You’re Dean fucking Winchester, and you’ve never gotten your way. Not in life, and apparently not in death, either.
------
Sammy is the only plus to being topside again. Well—Bobby, too. They doubt you’re you at first, of course, but after you clear things up with them, shit goes back to normal. You’re one of them again, one of the good guys, as trusted as ever.
Except you know what you’ve done, what you did, what you are.
You remember, and you can’t bring yourself to forget. You dream about the rack and tell yourself that they’re nightmares, only they don’t scare you at all.
You wake after one of your Hell dreams and find the angel watching you, something knowing in his gaze, and you wonder whether he’s got the juice to read your mind. If even demons can, you figure the answer is yes.
“Hello, Dean,” he says, voice like shards of glass, flaying into you. If only. “What were you dreaming about?” he asks, as though he doesn’t already know.
And after that, he stars in your dreams constantly. You take him apart every way you know how. You’re thorough like that. Alastair was a good teacher, and you were his best student. If you’d disemboweled the angel when he came for you, you’d still be back in the pit, right where you belong.
“You deserve to be saved,” he says through a mouthful of blood, eyes shining, and you rip his tongue out to stop him talking.
------
No one is there for your first kill since you climbed out of the hole.
It’s just as well, because you don’t stop swinging until blood drenches your hands and arms, splatters all over your torso. Until the thing beneath you looks more like ground beef than a vamp’s face.
You get back to the hotel before Sammy and clean the blood off, trying to tell yourself that it was a fluke. That you didn’t enjoy it.
In the mirror, your eyes look black. You don’t know when you fell asleep and started dreaming.
------
It happens one day when you’re telling a joke. Before the punchline, you wink, and as you begin delivering it, you notice something’s off, ‘cause Sammy looks stunned.
You hate stopping mid-joke, but there’s no point finishing the punchline if Sam’s not gonna pay attention to it. So you ask, because you can’t not.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Sam blinks rapidly, one-two-three-four, and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, and you frown, curious. “Nothing,” he repeats, more sure of himself this time, and you wave it off.
Back to the punchline.
------
But it’s not nothing.
Sammy gets all secretive, and it’s not Ruby, because you already know about that shit. You went postal on that bitch, and she and Sam have got wounds to show for it, since Sam jumped in the way at the wrong moment.
Serves him right, really, working with a demon behind your back. The jury’s still out on angels, but you know demons, know them inside and out, and whatever shit Sam’s got cooking with Ruby is not gonna end well.
You catch him praying one night at Bobby’s, which is strange, seeing as you’ve never seen him do it before.
“I just don’t know what to do. I… I need a little help here,” he’s saying, kneeling before the bed in Bobby’s guest room, head bowed, shoulders slumped.
“Need a little help with what?” you ask, and he actually yelps, leaping to his feet and spinning around, the very definition of deer in the headlights.
“Dude. Not cool,” he says, and slams the door in your face.
Bitch.
------
Two kills later, you give up telling yourself you’re not enjoying it.
You’re enjoying it.
Immensely.
------
Sometime after, Bobby starts acting strange too. You can’t put your finger on what’s changed, but it’s something in the way he looks at you. It’s in the way Sam looks at you too, these days.
Maybe they’ve finally seen past the flesh and blood of you, seen into your head, seen what you’ve done, what you are.
Maybe they’re scared.
They should be.
------
The angel pops up more often, all righteous declarations and penetrating stares, and you come to dread his visits as much as you look forward to them.
You want those blue eyes to see you, see all the way into the heart of you, and sometimes you imagine they can. Sometimes you imagine that Cas sees it all, what you’ve done, what you are, and that he chooses to come back anyway.
But that’s not possible, because if Cas could see it all, he’d smite you on the spot.
He appears on this night, and you’ve had like five drinks too many to be navigating any sort of dialogue with him. Fuck. He stares down at you, eyes ancient and knowing, searing. For a second, you think he’ll show his true self and burn your eyes right out of their sockets. Or maybe he’ll just put his almighty hand on your forehead and smite your ass.
Instead, he sits down to your right, apparently content with the silence.
For all his powers, all his knowledge, he knows nothing.
Fucker.
“Hello, Dean,” he says, but when you look at him, he’s not looking back. Disappointing.
Seen. You want to be seen, even if it gets you smote.
His eyes meet yours, and they seem softer now, but maybe that’s the whiskey talking.
“Dean,” he says.
He keeps looking at you, and you can’t look away.
“I do.”
You don’t even register the words at first. “Do what?”
“See you,” he says. “I do see you,” he says, and you can’t breathe, can’t attack, can’t run. Still can’t even look away.
“Fucker,” you choke out, nonsensical.
But then, you’re still breathing, and that doesn’t make sense, either.
Now that Cas sees you, you’re done for. You’ve got nothing left to lose, so you grab that stupid fucking face of his and shove your tongue down his throat, counting the seconds ‘til the smiting starts.
Cas makes a surprised sound, and you get to ten, then twenty, then thirty, and your lungs are burning but your heart’s still beating, and Cas is kissing you back.
You kiss until you’re lightheaded and then some, and when you pull back, Cas is right there, panting with you, lips red and swollen, slight indents in them where you bit down.
“What the fuck,” you gasp, because he’s an angel, and you’re you, and this shit cannot possibly be okay with the man upstairs.
“Please,” Cas says, “stop thinking that.”
His forehead presses against yours, warm but not scalding, no holy fire to burn you up, send you right back to Hell, where you belong.
“You deserve to be saved,” Cas says, and you’re already looking for the blood coming out of his mouth when you realize this isn’t a dream.
“You deserve to be saved,” Cas repeats, present tense, because he has seen you, all of you.
He knows that you haven’t been saved yet.
------
Cas is constantly there after that. Sam relaxes. Bobby relaxes.
It makes no sense. You’re still you, and that ain’t gonna change just because a member of the god squad decides to hang around.
You catch your eyes in the mirror again, black, but this time they don’t change back immediately when you blink.
This time, you know you’re awake.
You drag the collar of your shirt to the side, and the tattoo is there, unbroken, yet your eyes are still black. Then again, the tattoo only wards against possession. You’re not possessing anyone, seeing as you’re you.
Is it getting worse?
You aren’t sure, and then you aren’t sure whether you even care.
------
It’s surreal, being back in Alastair’s vicinity. You lock the door behind you even though it won’t keep the angels out, because you feel more alone that way.
You want him all to yourself.
But he was your teacher, is still your teacher, and even as you carve into him, you learn.
He talks to you like you’re still his star pupil, his eyes alight with pride even when he’s groaning in pain, and you want to go home with him. Back to where you were born, where you belong.
It’s a relief when he breaks free and straps you up. On earth or in Hell, it really doesn’t matter, as long as there’s a rack and one of you is doing the carving.
You’d almost forgotten what it was like to hurt this much, this deep.
Later, when you’re lying in a hospital bed, Cas comes and says that the archangels have seen you. That they can fix you, but only if you ask. He’s sorry, but please, will you ask?
You tell him to fuck off, and for once, he does. It hurts more than you expected it to.
------
In bizarro world, you forget who you are. You forget everything.
When you remember, you wish you could go back.
Some dickbag angel tells you to ask for help, tells you that you can be fixed. But you didn’t ask Cas, and you sure as hell won’t ask this shithead.
------
More seals break. The end is coming; you can feel it in the air, can practically taste it.
Sammy has a close run-in with Lilith, but with a tip from Cas, you’re able to stop anything from going down.
Cas sticks around after, and you convince him to go out and have a couple beers with you. He accepts, but he’s quiet and sad tonight, so you get into the Impala early, ready to head back to the motel. Cas just follows, the way he always does, and when you drive off the road and out into a field in the middle of nowhere, he doesn’t question you.
He probably knows exactly what you want. You wonder whether you’ll even have to ask.
“No,” Cas says, meeting your eyes, and he almost looks shy. “And yes.”
You try out his mouth up front and find out that angels don’t have gag reflexes.
Then you fuck him the backseat, fast, rough, deep, hips snapping forward relentlessly, forehead pressed into his back between the wings of his shoulder blades, ragged breaths and the slaps of skin on skin echoing in your ears, obscene.
You’ve never felt anything like it in life or in death, and you’re not sure if it’s so good because it’s so blasphemous, or if it’s blasphemy because it’s so good.
The angel cries out your name when he comes, untouched, and you swear his skin glows.
------
The next time you see him, something’s deeply wrong. You never did ask why he was so quiet, so sad, before. He needs to tell you something, but your own goddamn head apparently isn’t safe enough anymore.
Not that it was ever safe. Private is probably a better word.
You hurry to meet him, but by the time you get there, the angel is gone, and all that’s left is an empty husk, only—
Well, you would’ve called this empty husk a man, once.
Now his eyes seem too dull, faded. When they look at you, they dart away quickly, like they’re afraid.
You look at him and see the same face, yet the eyes are wrong, the nose, the mouth, the cheeks, the jaw, all of it is wrong, and you hate it vehemently.
Fucker.
“I was awake for parts of it,” the husk says, chowing down on his nth burger. His eyes land on you for just a second before sliding away, the same fear in them as before, and he adds, “I remember you.”
“Yeah?”
“You stabbed him. Me. I mean—I didn’t feel it, but I was awake for that part.”
You don’t ask whether he was awake when you fucked Cas. You don’t want to know, because if you find out he was, you’re gonna wanna rip him limb from limb for intruding. But you can’t, because Cas needs a body to come back to.
He runs away, but you know you’ll find him.
Cas needs a body to come back to.
------
You next see Cas in the body of a little girl, smiting demons left and right.
Smiting them like he could you.
His—her?—eyes land on you for a split second between all the smiting, impassive, and you flinch.
It’s just the vessel. You’re not used to Cas’s intensity looking out at you from those eyes.
You’re distracted because Sammy’s drinking demon blood and getting fucking powers from it. He’s been acting strange for a while, and now the pieces have come together. Son of a fucking bitch.
When it’s all over, the husk lies bleeding on the floor and begs for Cas to take him instead of his daughter. Silently, you want Cas to take the offer, and you’re relieved when he does, when the light passes from daughter to father.
Cas gets to his feet and turns around, and you think he’ll see you, think he’ll come to you.
He sees you, all right.
He sees you, and he flinches. Looks away.
“Cas,” you say thickly, and he actually starts walking away. “Hey—Cas, hold up. What were you gonna tell me?”
He turns toward you, and somehow, somewhere deep inside, you hope he’s still there.
You didn’t even know you still could hope.
His eyes are as bright as you remember, his stare as intense and penetrating, but where it was warm before, it is ice cold now.
“I learned my lesson while I was away, Dean,” he says, face inexpressive, almost fucking bored. “I serve Heaven. I don’t serve man, and I certainly don’t serve you.”
He stalks away, and you’re left there with a couple dead bodies, a broken family, and your brother, half his face covered in demon blood.
Everything has gone to shit, but then, it always does. You don’t know why you’re surprised.
------
You can’t get the flinch out of your head. It happens four dreams in a row, and after that, you start ripping his eyes out first thing so he can’t look at you, so he can’t see you and flinch.
And then there are the other dreams, the ones where he still looks at you with warmth, the ones where he lets you throw an arm across his shoulders and steer him wherever you wanna go.
Those are the worst.
------
As Sammy breaks, you break.
He cries and shouts, has fits of delirium, talks to people who can’t possibly be in there with him, and you just can’t be in the house anymore. You don’t miss Bobby’s sympathetic eyes on your way out, but he’s smart enough not to say a word.
Outside, among all the junkers, you break.
You need help. You need help, because no matter what happens to you, what you’ve done, what you are, one thing remains constant: you have to look after Sammy.
And of course, Cas is the one to answer.
He looks at you with cold eyes, with something almost like disgust, and it hurts, and you’re furious.
“Are you looking down at me now, Cas?” you demand, because you’re too raw right now to dance around it. “Is that what this is? What you learned upstairs?”
“You’re corrupted,” Cas says, mechanical. “You’re corrupted, and you refuse help.”
You step closer. “Yeah, I’ve refused help. Maybe I like myself this way.”
“You don’t,” he replies.
“Like hell I don’t.”
“I know what you think of yourself, Dean. I’ve seen your thoughts.”
Another step closer, and you watch his eyes, watch them closely. “Yeah, you have,” you say with a nod, voicing it like a concession when it’s anything but. “You saw it all, Cas, and you kept coming back for more.”
Something flickers in those blue, blue eyes, and you go for the home run.
“You knew what I am, and you let me fuck you anyway.”
Sam has broken. You’ve broken. It’s high time Cas broke, too.
“Dean,” he says, and maybe his face is still inexpressive, might as well be a mask, but his eyes shine, and his voice wavers.
You’ve got him.
No matter what comes next, no matter what you’ve done, what you are, what you’ll have to do, you’ve got him.
6: Age you get mistaken for- most recently, about a week after my 22nd birthday, I got asked if I was still in high school
25: My idea of a perfect date- ideally, skydiving off a dragon. More realistically, popcorn, a shot or two of something sweet and alcoholic, fire in the fireplace, Anna and I snuggling, and rewatching Leverage
42: The last thing I ate- A cod sandwich and small fries from Wendy’s.
I heard you write fic, and I saw your Captain America movie thing, but when I went to see if you'd written any full-on fanfiction, I couldn't find it. Can you point me to it?
Wow, hi! All of my fic is on AO3 under the name tears_of_nienna, although there are various pseuds within that account because I have been on the Internet for a while.
If you're looking specifically for Marvel fic, what I have is here. :)
