Title: The Shape of Things to Come
Rating: probably PG-13?
Spoilers: through the end of season 7
Warnings: panic attacks and vague descriptions of mutilation/freaky Purgatory-beings

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Here is the first thing you learn in Purgatory: nothing is normal, and nothing is safe.

The whole two eyes, a nose, and a mouth formula generally stuck to on Earth, at least nowadays, at least to the mortal eye? Apparently a recent and not entirely popular development.

Also, nothing takes a recognizable form in Purgatory. Those sweet demons and angels with their reanimated humans as their living dolls? Yeah, not a luxury available to the souls and spirits of the no man's land.

But after a while you get used to seeing creatures with thousands of eyes, no eyes, eyes on their tongues, things that might be eyes but don't look like anything a human has ever even imagined before. You get used to faces that aren't, and bodies that make no sense. Your brain stops shorting out when it sees trillions of tiny arms that wave like uncut grass in a field, sprouting from a body that seems to be one enormous mouth, a mouth full of teeth so big you can see the chunks of other monsters stuck between them.

Whatever was left of Jimmy Novak began to fall apart, and though Cas did his best to hold everything together he soon began to twist and mutate too, until he became something undefined, half human and half angel, broken and tangled. His words stopped making any sense, the skin around his mouth cracked and split like desert earth, and his flesh began to erode like Lucifer's vessel's had done so many years ago. That was in the beginning. Later, long after a time when every word out of Castiel's mouth became a riddle, Dean began to discern the shadows of wings when Cas moved, started hearing these desperate, near-metallic groans and clanks that turned out to be the sounds of unhealthy wings. Dean stopped looking too hard at Castiel after that. It hurt his head, and he didn't want to accidentally burn his eyes out. Awareness was all he had.

And in this manner, mutilation became Dean's normal.

Now, of course, he's back, and he can't quite recall the exact description of some of the darker things he saw. In his dreams they float forward from the mist, along with those wing shadows and the one time Dean ever saw his reflection—in a clear pool he'd stumbled upon once, and he'd jerked back, thinking the thing in the water was out to attack him. It had taken him a drawn-out, heart-pounding moment to realize that those overlarge green eyes were his own. Staring at himself, he found the slope of his shoulders, the shape of his face and hands, to be strange and alarming. At the time, he thought little of it, concerned himself more with his emaciated form and the way he couldn't get his limbs to stop quivering. All those years a hunter, and now he was prey, and knew how to think like a small and largely defenseless animal. He was becoming something inhuman as well, and he was grateful, if it meant he might live.

Sam doesn't ask, not really, and Dean's happy for it, because there aren't human words. That's the point. That's what makes this better. Mostly. Thing is, the shape of people isn't what Dean knows anymore. The shape of Sam isn't a problem, of course—quite the opposite. It was the image of Sam that he clung to, in his exact proportions—his height, his long limbs and hard jaw, his sweet eyes and floppy hair. That was it, that was people, that was home. That was right.

But people that aren't Sam—they're something of a problem. They don't look right anymore. Dean even shies from his own reflection, even after Sam sat him down on the edge of a bathtub in a motel in Ohio, of all places, and shaved his face with the kind of earnest, excruciating gentleness that made Dean's heart threaten to explode, made him ache for lost times and for a little boy he was supposed to protect, made him want to cling to his brother and never let go. Even after Sammy washed his face and cut his hair and made him eat and made him sleep, the face in the mirror looked alien and made him flinch.

It's not a problem, not really. Dean is nothing if not talented where it comes to swallowing down his fears, and anyways they're not hugely social people, the Winchesters. And if Dean can't watch TV anymore, if they rarely go out to eat and Sam orders when they do, well, it's okay. It's odd to be robbed of his confidence, to feel no urge to flirt with a pretty waitress, to be terrified by the idea of getting rough with a mouthy human-he can fight monsters with a ferocity that startles even Sam, but people are beyond his ken now. It's not a problem.

And when the itch comes back and they drive up to Missoula to find out what's taking twins, Dean's okay. He's hunting again, he reminds himself savagely, again and again, not hunted. And if the terrified mother of two missing six-year-olds reaches for his arm and he skitters back, heart pounding, it's alright, because Sam flashes her a tight little what-can-you-do smiles and takes her hand instead. And if the cop they talk to makes Dean want to throw up, with his fleshy lips and his strange fingers and the oddly terrifying junction between his neck and shoulder, where there's a bug bite and he keeps scratching and he's going to scratch that skin right off, and, and, and-

Well. It's okay. They function. Dean does okay. He has Sam, and he can talk to Jody, in bits, even if her eyes and the way she bobs her head when she talks, the way her hair swishes around her chin, scares him senseless. He can listen and nod for a few minutes, and then he'll turn to Sam and drink him in, safe Sam, that face and body, the memory that reminded him how to be human back in Purgatory, and if he can just hold to Sam, it's all alright.

And then, of course, it all goes to shit. It always does.

They're in an office building, investigating a haunting in Cambridge, and Dean already hates this day. He barely slept, his head is pounding, he's hot, and everything seems overloud and over bright. People seem to be walking incredibly loudly on the polished floors. Everyone is talking in the lobby, and their voices rear up and blend into one awful, alien language. Dean feels sick and shaky before Sam even gets through asking the receptionist where they're supposed to be going, and then the elevator is crowded and Dean ends up crushed between the corner and two people, a man and woman, and they are both so wrong. They look wrong, they smell wrong. The woman's hair is thick and dark, pulled into a tight pony tail that is swinging back and forth minutely in front of Dean's face. It is unspeakably awful, reminds him of tentacles and of spider-like limbs that go on forever, and there are far too many of them, and the man smells like cologne and it chokes him, such a totally unnatural smell, and he has a cold sore and it's right up close to Dean, reminding him of the infections and bites and scabs he amassed in Purgatory, reminding him of the way poor Jimmy Novak's skin began to rot and erode, so far from any hint of Castiel's grace and protection, the way it stretched too thin over Cas's back, which seemed to twist and expand to make room for the wings that ached and broke and made Cas scream, and Dean had fled when Cas shed the last of his borrowed humanity, and that was the last of humanity he'd seen or needed, and the woman's shining hair was glistening as his vision blurred and he remembered with sudden and awful clarity something fanged and sharp-edged, with nails that were black and sharped to an exquisite point, with lips unlike anything on earth, hundreds of them, and as her ponytail bobs all Dean can think is that it's so wrong—

And then there's a little pingand then Sam is extracting him from the elevator and he's trying to get his breathing under control, but his heart is pounding in his ears and he's sweating and shaking and can't really pick out what Sam's saying to him.

It's important that he pull himself together, though, so he takes a big shuddering breath and tugs his arm out of Sam's grip, says, "I'm fine, Sammy," and then nods the okay-you-lead-the-way nod, which Sam thankfully recognizes. Dean forces himself to tunnel his vision, to watch Sam and Sam alone, to trail behind him until he can quell the urge to be violently sick, here in this slick upscale office building absolutely surging with people, their sounds and smells and the strange, frightening way they bend and gesture and walk, their cadence and laughter, the way they eat, and, and, and—

Damn it, Winchester. He hears his dad's voice in his head, tries not to linger on the obvious question (would he even be able to handle looking at his dad right now?) and forces his focus back to Sam, who is strolling confidently forward, always so happy to be normal. Dean squares his shoulders and tries to match Sam's gait. They're just people. There's no need to be afraid of people.

And then a petite lady with little patches of ache on her cheeks flashes him this utterly blinding grin, all square perfect shining teeth, and it feels like something huge and clawed has gathered up Dean's insides and it's trying to rip them out. No. No. There is something inside of him and it's scrambling to get out, and he's shaking and he might even be talking, but it doesn't matter because all he can see is her teeth and her eyes and it's all entirely wrong, so completely fucking wrong and every shape in this office is terrifying and alien and closing in on him, trapping him, and he can't breathe or speak or think, and the lights are too square and bright like the teeth, everything is measured and exact and horrible, and he can hear people walking so loudly and then running and no, no, no—

"Dean!"

He hears a voice, thevoice, Sam's voice, but as though through a wall, and he can't get out from under the glaring lights and the smells of all these people, with their gleaming teeth and their rough-smooth skin and their patches of horrible acne and their mutated language and their cold sores like decaying angels—

"Dean, Dean, please—"

Someone is holding him upright, and there is a muffled shuffling and more footsteps, but from farther away. There's a hand in his hair, on his face. Someone's talking and someone is making high, keening noises, like an injured animal. He wishes they'd stop. He can smell Sam and pitches forward, desperate, and then his nose is crushed into Sam's slippery cheap suit but underneath there is Sammy, all scrubbed and perfect, and he burrows as far into his brother as he can, just as the whining noise stops—

Oh. Oh. Oh.

He makes to pull away from Sam, but his brother is holding the back of his head like he's a child, and it's better here anyway, pressed into Sam, who is still talking softly, keeping up a string of it's okay you're okay I'm here it's over Dean it's okay you're safe I swearwith all his painful earnestness, trying so hard to help. It makes Dean's chest ache and he nestles against his lost-again-found-again brother and listens.

And then dignity catches up to him in a wave of hot shame and he yanks himself away from Sam again. Sam looks at him for a moment, then stands and tugs Dean to his feet as well. With one hand on the small of his back, he leads him to the end of the hallway and to the stairs, which are cool and deserted. Dean feels his heart speeding up as they cut back across the lobby, but Sam keeps his hand on Dean's back and Dean resists the strong urge to grab Sam's other arm. They make it to the car and Sam deposits Dean in the front seat as gently as if he were a child.

They don't speak on the drive back to the motel, through the crowded hot city streets, lined with so many more people Dean can't look at. They make it back eventually, though, and again Sam helps Dean from the car and into the room and then onto the bed, and the protest rises to his lips—Sam, it is not even happy hour, I do not need to be tucked in—but Sam is already making his way to the kitchenette, probably to make tea. Somewhere along the line, Sam began setting great store in tea. Dean suspects Jody.

He watches his brother bustle around, plays with a comment about Sam being a good little housewife but doesn't feel like he can really pull it off right now. Sam is pouring the hot water into the mug, and his every movement is fluid and right, as calming as a lullaby. This, this is what he held onto, back in no man's land, back when he was near-feral and alone. The geometry of the world no longer made any sense to him, but the planes and angles of his awkward, oversized kid brother were exactly right.

The shapes of Earth might do well, he thinks, as Sam lumbers over, holding the brimming, steaming mug with both hands, careful not to spill, to mold themselves around Sam Winchester.