Exit Night, Enter Light

Hell burns hot, but the Devil and all his demons burn cold.

Ice crystals spread their tendrils and frost the edges of souls, the bitter cold keeps the heat at bay. The heat, it’s unbearable. Indescribable. The vitriolic fuel of violent, uninhibited passions feed the hell-fires.

It scorches like molten lava, snaking through the veins of your soul. The only way to endure it is to welcome the cold into your being, numb yourself from all emotion. Only then are you free of the torment. Only then can you enjoy passing that torment onto others. Dean learned this long ago.

He doesn’t recall when exactly it happened, he can’t recall much of anything here.  There’s a smog in his mind, a haze of apathy, that keeps him memories at bay. It's all smoke and screams and a buzz of horror that's so consistently present it's become almost second-nature.

But he knows that one day he was engulfed in blistering flames, sickening whispers taunting him, urging him to take up the knife and then the next thing he knows there’s a brumal sensation of calm washing over him.

He finds a blade in his hand,dull and wickedly serrated, lathered in blackened soot and crimson blood. When he glances down at the table below him he finds a mangled mess that was once a soul and he knows that he’s the one who put it there.

A glacial smile twists his face, because there’s nothing tugging at his heart, nothing screaming from his soul like there once was. It’s peace. He waves a careless hand over the soul, restoring it to it’s former wholeness and picks up the blade again.

Days pass, weeks blaze by, months turn to years and disintegrate into decades and it’s all the same. Frigid placidity accompanied by a cacophony of agonized shrieks. Nothing changes. He doesn’t want it to.

A new soul is being delivered to his care today. A thrill of something that was once known as pleasure passes through him for a brief moment, before disappearing like a wisp of smoke.

He sharpens his blade as one of the lesser demons arranges what was once a man on his table. He glances at the tall form and a strange shadow passes over his mind. Somewhere, in the depth of his soul, where a shred of humanity lays hiding he realizes he knows this man. But the sensation quickly passes and he raises his blade to begin the first incision.

There is no scream. He looks sharply down at the form and finds the man staring at him, his brow furrowed as if he’s searching for something. Another brutal slice and there’s still no sound. “Dean!?” the soul on his table sobs out in a broken whisper and a violent pain wrenches through him.

Dean. That was his name. Dean Winchester. And this form, bleeding on his table, from gashes made by his own hand is his brother. A wailing scream erupts and it takes several moments to realize it's coming from him.

A wrenching agony twist at him and he hurls the knife away. An agonizing rush of memories surges forth as if a levee has broken in his mind and the pain is dizzying, sickening and through it all he hears a voice calling out to him “Dean! Dean! DEAN!!”

There’s a tangle of cheap sheets at his feet and a dark room spins before his eyes. A nightmare. Dean draws deep breaths as images flash through his mind. He can’t tell if they’re actually memories from hell, or merely the result of his sadistic imagination.

A soft hand is on his  sweat-drenched shoulder and he flinches from it, trying to fight it off before a voice says to him “Dean - Dean it’s me. It’s Sam. You’re okay, man. You’re out.”

Dean cringes at the voice, as images of Sammy on his carving table parade through his mind. He’s gripping the sheets so fiercely that his knuckles are white.

“Hey, Dean - shh - It’s okay.” The hand moves from his shoulder to wrap around him as Sam repositions to rest beside him.

“It- it was you, Sammy” Dean grits out, horrified. “It was you on my slab.” He chokes on the last word, as if it’s painful to speak and then falls silent.

“No it wasn’t, Dean.” Sam says, his voice calm and firm. “It was a nightmare and I’m fine and you’re fine. You did what you had to while you were down there and no one blames you for it. Just take a deep breath, man.”

Dean shakes his vehemently and he wants to argue, to hurl details of his torture methods at Sam because he’s twisted and broken and he keeps waiting for Sammy to see that. But he can't even begin to put this into words.

“Dean, an angel pulled you out of Hell. A freakin warrior of God, protector of the true and pure, rescued you from the Pit.” Sam reminds him, as if he knows what Dean was thinking.

Dean doesn’t respond and Sam lets out a sigh. “Come on, lay back down.” He says, gently pushing Dean down as he speaks. Dean complies and lies back, his breaths still haggard as he watch the fan on the ceiling whirl.

Sam slides down beside him, their shoulders resting together and the contact settles Dean a bit. It's warm and firm and real. No fire, no ice, no screams. After a few moments of silence Dean hears Sam murmuring tunelessly under his breath “Exit light- Enter night, take my hand, we're off to never-never land...

It takes a moment to sink in, but when it does Dean manages a weak laugh and asks “Dude, are you singing Metallica?” incredulously. Sammy has never been a fan of them. In fact all he ever does is complain about them, along with most of Dean’s other bands.

Sam shrugs and answers “It calms you down.” then continues singing quietly.

With a roll of his eyes Dean mutters "You're such a girl." and smirks when Sam lightly kicks him in irritation before saying "And you're an asshat."