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“It’s funny.” She starts with a sarcastic tone that makes Dean regret not shooting a bullet right through her head the first time he saw her. “How easy it is for hunters to throw the word monster around.”
Sam huffs, he fucking hates that word. It’s one of those things that stays engraved in the back of your brain, it’s the kind of word you never forget once it’s thrown your way, once someone shoots it to you and you just know they’re right. “Can’t help it, it fits you so well.” Dean smiles at her, hint of anger hiding behind the curve of his lips.
The rope is digging in his skin, fingers running around to find something, anything to get him the fuck out of this situation. The witch laughs throwing something else in whatever potion/mixture she’s preparing.
Sam doesn’t understand why he’s handcuffed to the wall, hands secured above his head, while his brother is tied up to a chair a lot closer to the witch than he is. The younger man tugs harshly at the cuffs like he thinks they’ll just magically open. “Doesn’t it fit you too?”
Sam freezes and feels his heart hammering against its cage suddenly afraid that she’s talking to him.
Dean simply huffs loudly, shaking his head like he used to do after grounding little Sam. The younger Winchester wonders if it’ll ever go away, this little habit he has of remembering every little thing about Dean. “No?” She answers to her own question, annoying smirk still hung up on her face. “Because if I understand correctly, for you, monsters are creatures killing innocent humans right?”
She stays silent for a few seconds like she’s expecting them to answer though she knows they won’t. “But, you know, humans killing humans are also seen as monsters among others of their kinds.” What the hell is she talking about? “I’m not talking about people you couldn’t save or self-defence. I’m talking about good old murder.” Her fingers dip in the bowl in front of her taking a small amount of the powder in the palm of her hand. Sam’s thoughts are going a thousand miles an hour, what the hell is this? What the fuck is she going to do with it? Who’s killing humans?
It becomes a lot more urgent as she moves to stand in front of Dean, his older brother still struggling against his bonds. “Maybe a little bit of torture and begging.” She hums, proud of herself.
Dean would laugh if he wasn’t so fucking scared. Not of the witch, he’s not scared of her, he’s scared of what she’s implying, of what she knows. Her hand opens in front of his face yellow powder shinning brightly and Dean can’t look away before the bitch blows it in his face. “Dean!”
The older Winchester can’t escape it, breathing in the concoction, eyes watering and throat itching at the contact. “What the fuck is that?! What did you do to him?!” Sam panics pulling at the handcuffs.
The girl spins on her heels, facing the younger brother with a smile pulling at the corner of her lips. “Don’t you worry Samuel. A little bit of truth never killed anyone.” She looks so damn proud of herself that Sam would give anything just to shoot her in the head and erase that expression from her face.
Truth.
Like a truth spell.
It can’t be that bad right?
Dean’s shaking and cursing, trying his best to get the substance out of his system though he knows his lungs are already full. Fucking witch. “What’s your name?” The witch asks him, tone suddenly back to a serious one.
“Dean Winchester.” The older of the two answers in a heartbeat. His own voice surprises him, he didn’t mean to answer.
Yeah, ok. Fuck. Truth spell.
Dean’s hands are shaking where they’re tied behind his back. He’s scared, a thousand times more scared than he was minutes before because, though he swore he would keep his mouth shut, right now he fucking can’t. “Truth spell. Really?” Sam frowns, clearly unimpressed.
The witch presses a finger in front of her lips, signalling to his prisoner to just shut up. “Do you think I’m a monster?” She asks the other man.
“Yes.” He answers without much of a thought or a fight. This isn’t exactly a surprise to neither of them nor really the information she’s looking for.
“Do you think Sam’s a monster?” His hands are so slippery he could probably slip them through the cuffs, maybe dislocate his thumb and pull hard enough to free himself. Anything, fuck, anything not to hear Dean’s answer, to not hear the answer he fears so desperately.
“No.” Relief and confusion mixes inside of Sam’s chest. Dean’s always been too good for him, always putting him on a pedestal when Sam knows really well that his brother’s better than him in every way.
“Do you think you’re a monster?” That’s when the smile on her face turned into something a lot more evil. The hunter traps his own bottom lip between his teeth, fighting against everything to keep his answer to himself.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
He bites down until he tastes the blood on his tongue, until the burning feeling in his chest become unbearable. “Yes.” His head is spinning, eyes locked on his own feet though everything looks blurry. The image of the two men is burned inside his eyelids, lifeless faces with blood spilled everywhere. He can still see them, hear them scream and beg and…
“What the hell are you doing?!” Sam pushes between his teeth, struggling even harder as he feels the blood slowly drip down his wrists.
“Having fun.” She simply answers, winking smugly at him. “How come Dean?”
Dean fucking hates that game, hates the improvised truth or truth the witch seems to like playing with him so much. “I’m a killer.” The memories are so vivid it makes him want to throw up.
Images, sounds he thought he forgot comes to him so clearly that he almost starts sobbing in his chair. Why does it feel like that so many years after when it’s something he did, something he chose to do?
There’s so many things Dean could be talking about, so many wrongs he did like all the monsters he killed, all the collateral damages of the apocalypse or the murders the mark pushed him to do. There’s a list, a too long list of those that would still be alive hadn’t they been on their paths.
But that doesn’t make Dean a killer.
Sam knows that, he knows that and believes that more than anyone. “Oh, you are?” The girl chuckles, looking at the man with false surprise on her face. “Humans right?”
“Yes.” His eyes are scanning the room, half listening to what Dean’s answering. There’s nothing his brother can say that he doesn’t know or doesn’t suspect. The priority is finding a way to get out of that place.
He hopes Sam can’t see the tears he tries so hard to swallow back up. “Why kill them?”
“They deserved it.” The younger Winchester’s breath stays stuck in his throat, gaze finding his brother who’s desperately trying to look everywhere but at him. He expected something else, something like ‘the mark of Cain’ or like ‘I didn’t have a choice.’ ‘I didn’t mean to.’
But no.
They deserved it.
Which means that somewhere, somehow, Dean, being completely himself, killed innocent people. That he killed humans, because he thought they deserved it. It hits Sam like a ton of bricks. Did he ever know his brother at all? His brother that has the biggest superhero complex he’s ever seen, that brother killed some humans behind his back. How? Wh…What?
Dean can feel the weight of Sammy’s stare on him, can feel the pressure on his lungs and the anxiety rushing through his veins. “When and how many?”
Sammy’s going to hate him, going to be disgusted by the sight of him. He’s going to leave. He’s going to leave.
He’s going to leave.
“More than ten years ago. Two.” The words are barely falling off his lips that the door just beside Sam breaks down. Woods flying around the room, some pieces coming to pierce the skin just under Sam’s eye.
Within seconds the girl’s face turns from shocked to just… dead, lifeless. Her body falls to the ground letting some air infiltrate Dean’s lungs. “Cas.” The older hunter chokes, the taste of blood suddenly stronger on his tongue.
*************************************************************
The angel lets them drive back to the bunker before taking his own car to go… Sam doesn’t know, doesn’t remember half of the words Cas told them before leaving. It’s hard to hear over the loud buzzing in his ear, hard to focus with all of the thoughts and doubts pushing each other in his head.
“Sit.” Dean forces him to move and sit on the chair in front of him. Sam does as he’s told, letting his big brother clean the cuts that’s staining his face a deep and dark red.
There’s a silence between them, a much heavier one than what they’re used to. “What happened?” Sam barely miss his brother flinch as the words reach his ears.
“Did you hit your head Sammy? The witch.” The younger brother rolls his eyes, palm coming in contact with the table in a loud bang. Dean flinches once more pulling his hands away like Sam’s skin burned him.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” He doesn’t remember the last time he saw his brother shake this badly.
Dean’s head is spinning, heart beating so hard in his chest that it hurts.
What he did that night he’ll never be proud of. He’ll never get to clean it off his skin, blood still dripping down the length of his fingers, gravity pulling it drop by drop. He can still feel the warmth of the liquid though it’s been years, still feel the horrible and disgusting feeling of…Happiness.
Of pride.
Of relief.
Nothing two cut open corpses should ever make him feel. “What do you want to know Sammy?” It’s the last thing he ever thought he would tell his brother, the last thing he ever thought he would talk about. To anyone.
“Everything! Who were they? What’d they do to deserve that? Did you torture them, like she said you did? Why didn’t you tell me?” Somewhere deep deep inside of his mind he knows that if Dean never told him is because something wasn’t right. That it’s because, somehow, Dean knew Sam would try to talk him out of it and his brother desperately didn’t want him to.
Because he was ashamed.
“Sammy.” He chokes on his own sob. “I regret it. I swear on my life Sammy that now I do but at the time I… I was so fucking angry at, at the angels, at Cas, at myself, at you. At, at them for, for having the audacity to lay even one finger on you.” The scene he remembers isn’t pretty, he’s seen a lot of shit in his life, but this image is probably the worst thing he’s ever seen and he was the author. Just thinking about it now almost makes him throw up all over Sam’s shoes.
Sam searches in all the corners of his brain but the number of people that tried to hurt him is pretty long. “I don’t even have an excuse I’m just… A fucking monster.”
*****************************************************
When I come back, I’m gonna be pissed.
It took a few days before he came back to his senses. He met hunters at a bar, hunters who told him word was going around that they were dead, that two others of their kind just murdered them.
Dean laughed it off, drank the rest of his beer and said something sarcastic with a pretty smirk tugging the corner of his lips. He looked normal and composed while inside he was boiling with a mix of anger coming from every part of his fucking life.
He was angry. Angry at god for getting the hell out, angry at Cas for giving up, angry at all the fucking angels for wanting to use him and his brother, so fucking angry at Sam for being happier when he’s not around, when neither of them are around.
Above all he’s fucking angry at himself for believing that he wasn’t alone in this world, for believing people cared about him, that he just…
He exploded.
He wasn’t lying when he said that he’d be pissed when he’d came back, he just didn’t think he’d be this pissed.
He used the chloroform hidden in the back of his car for the first time that night and the new knife he found a few hunts back. He’d waited for the both of them to wake up before moving, hand firmly wrapped around the black handle and waving around the sharpest blade he’s ever owned. “Look who’s awake.”
The look on their faces was probably the best thing that happened that night. The mix of surprise and disbelief and… fear. God. They had been so scared of him.
“That’s not possible. You…We…” Dean laughed at that. That laugh, that sound, was so close, too close to the ones he hears when he’s hunting but that thought didn’t even cross his mind at that time.
“You killed me, didn’t you Walt.” The man nodded, nails digging in the wood of the chair he was tied on. “I told you I would come back and that I would be pissed.” He said those words through his teeth, knife cutting a perfect line in his flesh.
He watched, mesmerized, the blood dripping down the pale skin. “Dean, man, please.” Roy never regretted his words more than when Dean turned his head to look at him.
“Oh, you want some too. I’m so sorry. Here.” That hit was a lot more violent that the one he laid on Walt, knife digging deep in his thigh just inches above his knee.
That night he listened to them scream and beg until their vocal cords were raw, until they could barely talk anymore. He watched them bleed, bleed so much all of the colours painting their clothes was gone, everything red. Red. Red. So much fucking red everywhere.
Everywhere from their clothes, to the ground, the walls and even the fucking ceiling.
The puddle on the ground was so deep the blood got inside of his boots. It stained his hands and his forearms, his clothes that he had to finally throw away.
That knife could cut through fucking anything. He still threw it in the trash with the rest of the evidences.
When he walked away there wasn’t an inch of their skin untouched, not an inch that wasn’t bruised or cut open. Just like they taught him in hell.
He used to say he was scared of the length he would go for to save Sammy. Maybe it wasn’t just for Sam in the end, maybe he was just a fucking monster. Maybe he did deserve to go to hell, maybe that’s where he’s going when it’s finally the end.
He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.
‘Please, Dean. Just… Please. We’re sorry, we didn’t…’
‘Please, please, please, we thought we were saving people, protecting them.’
‘Dean, please.’
He didn’t even flinch, not once. Like he was possessed by the mark but he fucking wasn’t, that was all him. Blade cutting tendons and muscles, breaking through skin and bones just to… Just to what in the end?
He came back to the hotel room and scrubbed the remnants of dead people off him before simply going to sleep like nothing special happened, like nothing was keeping him awake.
And you know what.
When he read about the murders in the newspaper the next morning, he didn’t even fucking flinch. He just… Smiled as he read the psychological description of what the police thought was a new serial killer.
The guilt, the shaking, the fear only came months later. MONTHS. Once the apocalypse was over, once everything settled down and everything was finally… Normal.
Sometimes he still feels the blood dripping down his hands, or the warmth of the liquid accidently hitting his cheek. Sometimes he still feels the weight of the knife or hear the sound of their screams and it makes him throw up. It makes him rush to the toilet and give back everything he’s eaten until there’s nothing left in his stomach.
What the fuck went through his head?
**********************************************************
Dean’s already crying, and he wasn’t even to the bad part. “So, I used the chloroform, brought them in an abandoned building and tied them up.”
Sam’s hanging on to every one of Dean’s words. He knows what’s coming and though he doesn’t approve he can forgive his brother for shooting people that literally killed them. “We took a knife from a coven one time after killing all of the witches, I don’t know if you remember. It was all black and long, with a sharp point. I told you I lost it a few weeks after.” Sam’s seen the weapon once if he remembers correctly but that knife had been scary looking and dangerous, so he didn’t really care when his brother said he lost it.
Dean screws his eyes shut, trying so hard to stop the images from invading his brain. “I…” He takes a deep breath before opening them back up to look at Sam. “Everything was blurry and hot, just like… Just like it had been when I was in hell. I could hear Alastair like he was standing right behind me, looking over my shoulder and telling me what to do where to… Where to cut.” The older Winchester looks away, he can’t bear his brother’s wide and disappointed eyes looking back at him.
“I didn’t… ‘Wake up’ or like understood or felt guilty until months after. When everything settled and I was standing in my house and Lisa was holding my hand… and all I could see was blood pouring down my fingers and onto hers. Like I was sleeping or… I just fucking killed them and forgot about it.” Dean’s breath is short, like he’s going to hyperventilate, eyes so red you’d think he hasn’t slept in days. “I spent two days throwing up. I told Lisa that it was probably a bug, something I caught.”
Sam doesn’t know what to think, what to say, how to react. He’s never seen his brother so messed up about something, feeling so broken and guilty. On the other hand, what he did to those guys is just…
Disgusting?
Atrocious?
Monstrous?
There’s a difference between causing people’s death because you were careless, late or simply not good enough and choosing to end a life. There’s a difference between causing collateral damages and torturing two persons until they die of blood loss.
That’s probably what’s worse about it because he would’ve understood a bullet through each of their heads, it wouldn’t have made it ok, but he would’ve understood.
But torture.
Really.
Dean can’t even stare at his back as Sam storms out of the room.
****************************************************
Internet has always been his friend but, really, Sam should’ve stayed away.
He googles Roy and Walt. He just wants to see the article, see how bad it is, if Dean makes it worse than it really is.
Let him hope, ok.
There aren’t pictures, which he’s kinda grateful for but there’s an article.
‘Psychotic serial killer’
‘Played with his victims’
‘Blood decorating the room from the ground to the ceiling.’
‘Psychopath.’
‘Broken bones, ripped up flesh, cut out muscles.’
God, he wanted to throw up too.
He slams his computer shut. Nothing about that article helped even a little. He remembers that day vividly, the one Roy and Walt shot them. Those bastards.
Don’t get him wrong, he wanted to kill them too. Fuck, he really wanted to. But as the time went by he just… Never heard of them again so he thought… He just thought that somehow karma had gotten them.
It has, only this karma was called Dean Winchester and he was definitely worse than the real one.
He doesn’t know what to think.
He really doesn’t because even though right now he’s pissed, he’s disgusted and he can’t fucking believe that Dean could’ve done something like this, he knows his brother.
This is the same brother that raised him, that sacrificed everything for him. This is the same brother that went to hell to save him, the same one that brought back his soul and fought by his side all those years. The same one he killed all those monsters with, those fucking angels with, that he killed God with.
The same one that refused to shoot the kid that killed his mother, that was ready to lock himself in a box for eternity with an archangel to save the world.
Because even though he’s done this awful thing more than a decade ago, the good Dean’s done largely outweighs the bad.
It also helps that Dean’s so fucking broken up about it. Sam’s never seen him so… wrecked. He’s never seen him shake so bad, cry so hard, feel so guilty.
His brother’s punishing himself enough, he doesn’t need Sam to do it too.
*******************************************************
When he goes back into the room Dean hasn’t move even a little from where Sam left him. He’s still shaking and sobbing, still tearing himself down though it’s been hours since the younger Winchester left. “Dean?” He breathes out, sitting back on the chair.
Dean doesn’t even have the strength to look up. Doesn’t have the strength to see the disgust in the corner of Sam’s mouth or the disappointment in his eyes. If he was strong enough he would’ve left by now, would’ve ran away, would’ve taken Baby and just left but he doesn’t trust his legs to take him anywhere. “Hey.” Sam tries again but there’s still no answers from his brother other than the ups and down his shoulders do every time a sob shakes his body.
Dean flinches as Sam’s fingers press delicately against his knee, at the exact same place he stabbed Roy for the first time. “Dean, it’s fine, it’s ok.”
******************************************************
He helps his brother get back on his feet day by day, try to convince him that it’s fine, that it’s ok. Try to make him see that Sam forgives him, that he doesn’t think he’s a monster and that he still loves him. “How?”
“Hmm?” The younger brother wonders, turning around to look at Dean.
“How can you even look at me?” Sam chuckles lightly at the question making Dean frown.
The boy shrugs, moving his gaze from the floor to the man in front of him. “You’re my brother and I love you.” The older Winchester rolls his eyes with anger, teeth clenched together.
“What’s the real reason Sammy?” He pushes, not settling for the bullshit answers Sammy was so good at saying.
“We’ve proven to each other that we would do anything, or well, almost anything for each other. They shot me in front of your eyes, it was like a year after you came back from hell, you were angry… Believe me when I say that I get it. I get what all of the anger mixed with the trauma can do. I…” Sam takes a deep breath before continuing, not letting Dean cut him off in his explication. “I fucking drank demon blood when you died. We’re known for taking drastic decisions when it’s regarding one another. And they weren’t… At least… Well, at least they weren’t civilians you just killed for fun.”
Oh, well, that makes it so much better. That’s what Dean wants to say but their bond feels so fragile, so breakable that he just shuts up and nods. He shuts up and smiles, thankful to still have Sam by his side, no matter how long it’ll last.
Sam doesn’t say that he understands the darkness inside of Dean. Doesn’t say that he feels it too and that he came so fucking close to doing messed up things like that too. He doesn’t say that close means, really fucking close to doing shit like that, so close that the only thing keeping him from doing so was Dean himself. Is having Dean’s eyes on him and not knowing how to escape and what lie to tell to be believable.
Codependency they call it.
Codependency to a point of murder, to a point of torture.
There’s a feeling Sam’s never quite been able to identify since Dean told him the story. It was hidden under a few others, hidden underneath the ones he’s been conditioned to feel but now that he’s digging around, now that he’s pushing those to the side, he knows exactly what this feeling is.
It’s pride.
And that feeling, yeah, that one pushed to the side, the one he’s mistaken earlier.
It’s disappointment.
Disappointed that Dean didn’t bring him to watch the show, that Dean kept all the fun to himself.
Maybe he can make Dean break again. He’s sure his brother never lost the skills he gained in hell.
Maybe he can make Dean break again. But maybe this time he can sit there and watch. Watch pearls of blood slide down his brother’s jaw, watch the dark red liquid stain the length of his brother’s fingers.
Maybe he can make Dean break again. Make him put his tainted hands on Sammy’s skin, make him leave marks, red on his flesh and blue underneath.
Yeah, he can probably make Dean break again, in all the ways he’s ever dreamed of.
A hint of black flashes through Sam’s eyes and Dean sure as hell doesn’t miss it.
Does his own reflect the same flaw, reflect the same passion, the same need. His teeth pull at his injured lip forcing another drop of blood to slide down his chin.
The way Sammy’s eyes track the red liquid makes Dean smile.
Or, well, Dean can probably make him break first.
He always knew lying and pretending would take him somewhere.