InsaneJournal

Who: Dean Winchester (both of him), Cas and Sam Winchester.
What: Shit is going down.
Where: Future Dean’s crazy torture cave.
When: After this and this.
Rating: R for violence and language.
Status: Complete

Dean was pretty sure he broke every speed limit ever, and pushed his baby to her limit, trying to get to his future self in Sam. Somehow, and he wasn’t even sure how, he got there in mere minutes. He supposed it helped that he’d been driving around when he’d texted Molly, and hadn’t been far from the edge of the city. He got out as soon as he reached the cave, grabbing a gun and a knife. He didn’t want to kill the guy, just stop him, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared.

He entered the cave, and didn’t waste any time when he saw his brother. His little brother who was broken and bleeding. “Hey!” he shouted, grabbing his future self by the shoulder and swinging him around to face him. He immediately punched him hard in the jaw. “You keep your hands off my brother, you sonuvabitch!”

Sam lay limp on the table. He’d been stabbed a dozen times, Dean had carved a Devil’s Trap on his chest. He’d smeared Sam’s blood on his face, though that was likely an effect of the work he’d done and not a deliberate act. It would be hard to say what color his shirt had been when he started, it was black from the blood he’d soaked up.

The fact the cave had no door betrayed him. He hadn’t heard Dean come in. In hindsight, he’d heard the rumble of the car’s engine, but he hadn’t identified it as the Imapala; he was too engrossed in what he was doing. He had a battery operated electric probe in hand, intending to use it to jolt Sam back to consciousness. Despite his brother’s very human response to the torture, he wasn’t convinced that Sam’s body was Lucifer free.

His younger self punched him before he could even react to his presence. The probe fell to the floor, thudding dully in the dirt. Dean growled and swung at the other man, and because he missed, his arms swung out wildly and in an over exaggerated arc.

The punch missed, and Dean ducked down to grab the probe off the ground, swinging it and smacking Dean hard in the face with it, simultaneously shocking him and hitting him. He tossed it aside, reaching for that place inside him that held all the things he’d been in hell. He didn’t open the box, not completely, but this was Sam and for him he’d peek a little. He needed it to take on this older, stronger version of himself. But unlike the other Dean, he controlled it. Then he moved to punch his older self again, hitting him hard in the stomach.

Cas, meanwhile, appeared at the cave and stared in shock at what was happening. It was only his angelic composure that kept him from completely freaking out. But Sam was badly hurt and, much as he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the other man, he did not deserve to suffer because of his Dean’s issues with Lucifer. It wasn’t right. Resting his hand on Sam’s forehead, he healed him in an instance, then made it so that clothes were on him before picking him up and transporting him back to Claire and Dean’s apartment. He would come back to sort out the Deans once Sam was settled.

Dean was wild, like an animal somehow out of its cage. He swung with no real purpose, focus lost and unattainable. He forgot everything he knew about planning, this was a wrench in his plans. He hadn’t expected this, hadn’t foreseen this, and thus hadn’t prepared for it.

Preoccupied with fending off his younger self, frenzied in his attack, he barely noticed Cas. He was much more concerned with eliminating the threat that was his younger self. Not stronger, but certainly more focused. Everything happened so fast, and it really only took a couple of well placed blows to render Dean immobile,

He went down, sinking to his knees. He didn’t really even register the fact that Sam was gone. One eye was swollen shut, and his vision blurred with the other. He didn’t care anymore what the other Dean did to him. He almost welcomed it.

It was almost sad how out of control his older self was. Dean knew how that felt, had fallen prey to that recklessness and loss of control before himself. He knew that this could have been him if he had let it. But he hadn’t. He had focused on the important things and he had a family to keep him grounded, a wife who loved him, two beautiful kids, and a brother who he would do anything for.

And that was why he didn’t finish it, as much as he wanted to. He looked at the broken man in front of him and just shook his head. He was done here. Sammy was gone and safe and this bastard wasn’t coming near him again. “You’re pathetic,” he said coldly. “And we’re done. If you ever come near me or mine again? You’ll regret it. Simple as that.”

And with that, he turned to walk out.

But the older Dean wasn’t done. He might have been ready to give up the fight. He could almost feel the tension slipping out of him. But then younger version of himself headed toward the entrance to the cave, and not toward the table, not toward Sam, because Sam wasn’t there. He vaguely remembered Cas swooping down and then out again, he’d thought it odd, but he hadn’t taken the time to consider what was going on. He’d been more interested in the current fight, against Dean.

He hauled himself up, and surged forward, rushing at the man he could have been. He growled a cold, vicious growl. His feet made almost no sound on the dirt floor, but he felt each step keenly. Everything else felt like it was suspended in time and space, like this was happening to someone else. It wasn’t quite the same sensation as watching it happen to someone else, but he was detached enough that it didn’t feel like it was his reality.

He slammed in to Dean’s back. His hands grabbed and groped, pushed and pulled and punched all at once. His legs propelled him with a wild, desperate, untamed strength. His only goal was to take the other man down, decimate him by whatever means necessary. he’d lost his weapons along the way, he had only his hands and his raw, unchecked energy to work with. It had to be enough.

Okay, turning his back on other-him had been a really fucking dumb move, but it wasn’t like he was going to walk out of the cave backwards. That was just retarded. And anyway, his older self had looked pretty well beaten. And now he was on the ground, scrabbling to fight back against Dean and - Ow! Fuck, he was going to have a busted lip. And probably a black eye.

He landed a solid punch to the older man’s kidney, trying to hit him in the jaw with his other hand. He kicked at Dean’s legs to try and get out from beneath him, and he was seriously starting to reconsider the not killing the guy thing. “Get off me, you fucking psycho,” he snapped. “What the everloving fuck is wrong with you, man?”

Reaching down to his belt, he grabbed his knife, and stabbed it into the other man’s leg, hoping that would be enough to drive him back and off of him. Maybe he should have felt a little bad about effectively stabbing himself, but he figured the circumstances kind of called for it. Besides, this bastard had hurt Sammy, and that just wasn’t kosher. Hell, his was a version of him that had hurt Sammy and that obviously meant he was as far from human as you could get.

Dean was driven back, initially. He stumbled, hissing in pain. Dean had pulled the knife out, denying Dean a weapon he could potentially use in retaliation. He had nothing but a gaping hole and blood rushing from the wound. He felt dizzy, and it would be so easy to drop down again, and just lay there until all the blood seeped out of the hole.

Giving up and giving in right then would have been the easy way out. it would have been best for everyone if he just lay there, rolled over and died. He wasn’t about to do that. His eyes flickered and flashed, scanning the scene. His tackle box was too far away to get to easily. Dean could retreat, get away, before he could get to it, much less get a weapon. Making sure Dean didn’t get away was suddenly more important.

He rushed forward, lunging and lurching at his younger self. The sounds he made were unintelligible. If he tried to form words, the sounds and syllables were erratic, disjointed. He was somewhere outside of himself, lost in his frenzied need to destroy something. Sam’s body was no longer strapped to the table, Lucifer must have managed to teleport himself away, despite Dean’s precautions to make sure that didn’t happen.

Somewhere in the deeper, darker trenches of Dean’s mind, he was driven by the thought that he had to kill his younger self in order to pursue Lucifer. The younger Dean would never let him near Sam’s vessel again. He screamed in frustration, self anger, and determination. He finally managed a word that made sense, and the word was “Kill”. Fire burned in his eyes.

Holy shit! The crazy sonuvabitch actually wanted to kill him. Okay...not entirely surprising, since he was absofrigginglutely insane, but still heavily on the Not Cool list. Not like he was going to let that happen. Dean was a firm believer in the doing what you can to not die school of thought, and he’d always had a knack for kill or be killed situations. Not that he’d kill the other man if it wasn’t necessary, but he wasn’t going to let himself be killed to be a nice guy. He had two kids at home, who he wanted to see grow up, and the most awesome wife in the known universe. Like hell was he going to get killed by his batshit crazy future self. No thank you.

He still had his knife, so he stabbed again, this time getting Dean in the arm. Maybe if he hit him enough time, the bastard would give up. After all, only one of them was armed here. And it sure wasn’t Lord Crazypants of Psychoville over there. “Give it up, asshole,” he said harshly. “Just fucking give it up.”

Dean stopped. He went still, and just looked at his not quite mirror image. His eyes were empty, devoid of any emotion, save the physical pain from the stab wounds. Twice. He’d been stabbed twice. His leg and his arm both throbbed, he could feel the beat of his pulse, unsteady and way too fast, at each wound.

And just as he was about to collapse and give up, he saw it. The bulge of a gun at the other man’s waist. He must have forgotten about it himself, because he hadn’t drawn it out. Dean met Dean’s eyes, locked there, and hoped to distract the younger man just long enough to make a successful grab.

He knew what he was doing, and yet he didn’t know what he was doing. He was driven by an insane need to kill which was founded in his need to rid the world, and Sam, of Lucifer. This man, this younger version of himself, stood in his way. And he had a new found focus, dead set on eliminating the obstacle.

The sound of the gun going off echoed in the cave. The force of the shot, combined with his existing injuries caused Dean to lose his footing. He went down hard, and he knew he wasn’t getting up again. He had the thought that he should turn the gun on himself now, but first he needed to know if he’d taken the other man out.

There was a burning pain in his thigh, and Dean dimly realized he had been shot. It hurt and there was blood soaking his jeans, but his main focus was still on his older self. Turning his attention away from him at this point would likely prove fatal, so he kept his eyes on him. Thankfully the gun had only had one bullet in it, in case he had no other options, so he wasn’t going to get shot again. But he was still stuck here with the other man, unable to get up because he’d just been shot. Unsure of what to do, he dropped his knife and kept his hands pressed over his thigh to try and lessen the blood flow.

Thankfully, Cas returned just in time to hear the gunshot. Goddamnit. Couldn’t he go five minutes without someone trying to kill someone else. With a sigh of frustration, he approached the two and touched his fingers to Dean’s head, sending him back to his apartment. Maybe he could have healed him first, but he’d been focused on getting him away from his Dean and to safety. Besides his wife could take care of that. He had to smack some sense into an idiot Winchester.

“What the hell were you thinking, Dean?” he growled in a decidedly not-to-be-fucked-with tone, grabbing the other man’s still bleeding arm in a bruising grip and jerking him to his feet. He didn’t give a fuck if it hurt his injured leg. Maybe that would be a good object lesson. “Answer me, Dean! What the hell were you thinking, you stupid son of a bitch?” He was pissed, beyond pissed. “You attacked an innocent man, tortured your brother and shot your past self. So please, enlighten me, what the fuck was going through your head?”

“Liked you better when you didn’t have the mojo,” Dean muttered. The words were slurred, mostly from pain. Cas’ grip on his arm, the weight forced on his leg to keep him upright, he could feel his consciousness swaying, threatening to give out and plunge him in to darkness. It would be welcome.

“Alastair is not innocent. Lucifer is not innocent, and he got in my way!” He’d dropped the gun when Cas jerked him to his feet. He’d very nearly slid to the floor again, but Cas’ grip held him painfully upright. It was sobering enough to give him another wave of focus, determination. He squared his jaw, forcing his breath out his nose. “Let me go, Cas. Let me go so I can finish this! Where is he? What did you do with Lucifer?”

“I honestly don’t care what you like better, Dean.” Cas wasn’t playing around. Dean had fucked up majorly, and Cas knew he was about the only one who could make him see sense. When Dean started talking about Alastair and Lucifer and demanding to be let go, Cas didn’t even blink. He just backhanded the man hard across the face, putting just the slightest bit of heavenly force behind it. “Shut up.” His voice was cold and hard like steel. Dean clearly couldn’t be trusted to think for himself, so Cas would just have to do that for him.

“You don’t get to talk, Dean,” he said quietly, his voice low and dangerous. He knew what Dean needed right now was a firm hand to help him get his head back on straight. “You get to listen and that’s it.” Dean often forgot that, even when he had been human and a drugged up mess, he was a millennia old warrior of god. He was more than Dean could ever hope to be. And Dean would respect that. “I am an angel, Dean,” he said slowly and carefully. “I would sense a demon. I would sense my brother. You attacked John Druitt who, while certainly intriguing, is human. You attacked Sam. You attacked your brother. You know I will never lie to you Dean. You know that. So obviously, that is the truth, not whatever is in your head.”

He made sure Dean was looking him in the eyes before he continued. “There is no reason,” he said, “and no excuse for your actions. Now, whatever the hell it is that has you so messed up, I am telling you to get the fuck over it. Because I’m not putting up with this bullshit from you. Is that clear?”

Dean blinked at Cas. He felt sticky and gross, heavy and hurt. His arm and his thigh throbbed. his heart wanted to pound right out of his chest. He felt like he couldn’t catch his breath. The cave had faded into the back ground, though he knew where he was he almost couldn’t process it.

“Cas...” he dropped his head, dropped his gaze. He brought his good hand up to try and cover his face. Everything Cas said made sense. Cas would have known, once he got his Grace back. he would have known if Druitt was in fact Alastair. He would have known if Lucifer was hiding out in Sam’s body.

Sam. He’d tortured Sam. He had no idea how long he’d worked at purifying his brother’s body, trying to flush Lucifer out. An hour? Two? He’d stabbed, he’d cut, he’d carved and dissected. He’d filled wounds with salt and holy water, and whenever Sam had threatened to lose consciousness, he’d poked and prodded him with significant jolts of electricity. He could still hear the screams, the begging, pleading. Sam. Oh Sam. What had he done?

“Sam...” Dean lifted his head, looked to Cas for reassurance he knew he didn’t deserve. He felt small and worthless. “Did I...Is he...” He shook his head, unable to form the words to ask if he’d managed to kill his brother.

He’d gotten through to him, thank...someone, because his faith in God was pretty lacking for an angel. For all his harsh treatment of the man, Dean was still the most important person in his life and he needed him to get through this. The fact that he had seen the truth in his words was a step in the right direction. That wasn’t to say that Dean didn’t have a lot to answer for, but at least they were on the right path now. It was a small victory, tiny in the larger scheme of things, but it was a victory nonetheless.

“Sam is fine,” he said, then reconsidered his statement. “Physically he is, anyway. He was just tortured by his brother, after all. I imagine that has something of a lasting impact.” He didn’t have to imagine, not really. He had been tortured and killed by his brothers and he knew the sort of agony that could cause, the scars it could leave on a person’s mind and on their soul. He didn’t want that for Sam. He didn’t want Dean to bear the guilt of causing that pain. But it didn’t matter what he wanted.

“I healed him and took him somewhere safe,” he said. “It really isn’t your concern. I’d say you’ve gone and burned that bridge. With Sam and Dean and their family. Maybe you’ll be able to rebuild it one day, but you fucked up, Dean. You’re going to have to live with the consequences of that.” He tightened his grip on Dean’s arm for just a second, wanting to get his attention. “Next time it gets like this?” he said firmly. “You come to me. That is not a suggestion. I don’t trust you to think for yourself right now. So you come to me and I’ll sort it out for you. Alright?”

Cas didn’t trust him to think for himself, and Dean didn’t trust himself to speak. He’d done horrible things to Sam. Never mind Druitt, and then shooting his younger self. He’d probably come very close to killing Sam. Cas had healed the physical side, but Dean knew there was no healing the rest. And he also knew he had no right to ask Cas to heal him of his pain. He deserved every bit of it.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall forward, chin to chest. He admitted defeat in his posture. He wanted to ask Cas to at least take him home, but he felt he deserved to be left there in the cave. He didn’t deserve Cas’ attention, his support. Dean gave a little shake of his head, and it was all he could do to keep from sobbing. He wouldn’t give in to tears, he held it all in, and after a moment he felt the fire in him burn itself out. He just wanted, needed, to sleep, even though he knew the second he closed his eyes, he’d relive Sam’s agony as if it were his own.

Cas wasn’t going to let Dean self-flagellate like some sort of martyr. His wounds healed, but not like what Cas had done for Sam. It was like human healing, just majorly fast-forwarded. So it hurt like hell and there were scars, but the wounds themselves were taken care of. “We’re going home now,” he said. “And you are going to eat something. And then you’re going to take a shower and rest. And tomorrow we will talk more about this. In the meantime, I am not letting you out of my sight, since you’ve obviously proven you do really stupid things when I’m not minding you.”

“And Dean,” he said, his voice becoming dangerous. “If you ever lay a hand on Parker like that again? I will make it so you wish I would kill you.”

Dean’s response was a weak nod. He vaguely remembered his encounter with Parker earlier in the day. He felt sick, thinking about it. Druitt, other!Dean, Sam, and Parker. He actually did feel sick, and he twisted away from Cas as much as he could to retch. He had nothing in his stomach, only bile that came up somewhere between green and brown, and smelling like ass. Dean gagged on the smell, the burn of it ripping at his throat.

He held still, forced himself to breathe through it. “The box. Don’t leave it for someone to find.” He knew he was probably never going to see it again. He was okay with that. He’d used the tools in that box to torture Sam. He didn’t ever want to see it again, but he couldn’t leave it behind.

He just wanted to get the hell out of the cave. He wanted to forget this night ever happened, but he never would. He would force himself to remember it if he ever started to forget. He was pretty sure he’d never forget. Something like this, it would stay with him, haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Take me home, Cas.” He accepted Cas’ terms. He would shower and sleep as best he could. And tomorrow, he’d face the harsh facts of what he’d done.