Into the Dark

a small 'supernatural' fanfic

Into the Dark

The first thirty years Dean Winchester spent in Hell are fragmented in his memory. Hell itself returns to him in nightmarish flashes of scarlet and lightning, brief visions streaking across his eyeballs like radiation. But there is nothing solid for him to latch onto, only thick, choking blossoms of heat, pain, and unending -- utterly unending -- despair. The place is featureless, no landmarks, simply smoke and fire. 

Late at night, drunk or after a particularly hard hunt, he vaguely remembers being strapped to cables of bone and human hair. His body was stretched tight, his limbs ready to give in and snap off his trunk if pulled just -- one -- more -- inch. He remembers trying to force himself to breathe in the sulfurous air, his lungs rebelling against the cruelty of the act by a nasty smoker's cough, spewing up mouthfuls of blood and sputum. The demons jeered at him, their beetle-black eyes the only vivid spots in the haze. Alistair's chuckle was intermittently interrupted by the cracks of the bullwhip he handled; with infinite precision, he reduced Dean's chest and back to pulpy shreds.   

In those first thirty years, Dean felt his soul shrink. He was, after all, only human. He could only withstand so much torture before he started to crack. But he tried to keep himself sane and good, he really did. Though his life on earth had been brutally cut short, there were a lot of good memories he clung to with all the desperation of the damned man he was. 

While Alistair and his minions systematically tried to tear his body and soul apart, Dean focused on the soft light of his mother's face, Mary Winchester's unearthly blond goodness, the delicate upturn of her smile. As Alistair drew a long gash across his cheek with the scalding, rusted edge of a Bowie knife, Dean's mind jumped to the first time his father clasped his shoulder and said with a gravelly laugh, "Good job, son, you really saved my a*s back there!" And when Alistair had the surrounding demons come and kick "the famous Dean Winchester" to a bloody, godforsaken mess, the only thought left in his mind was his brother. 

Three ribs broken: Sam's eyes. Dislocated shoulder: the time he stayed up all night helping Sam cram for that dumb geometry test. Crushed femur: a brooding, teenage Sam ignoring John for a month. Broken hipbone: the stupid way Sam whistled while he shaved in the mornings. Cracked skull: the heartbreak he felt when Sam received his acceptance letter from Stanford. Sam. Sam. Sam. Sam. 

When Alistair dealt the final blow, his gnarled foot connecting with Dean's face, Dean's last coherent thought was that he didn't regret his decision. Even though every nerve ending in his entire body was screaming in pain, he did not repent selling his soul for Sam's life. If given a do-over, nothing would change. Sam was his little brother and it was his job to take care of him. He loved him and that love meant always, always putting Sam first, no matter the cost. It was as simple as that.

The exact day Dean became a torturer is unclear. He does not recall saying "yes," but he does remember cutting into that poor weeping woman, her red, red blood splashing violently over his hands. Those ten years he spent inflicting pain instead of receiving it are nothing but a steady stream of his victim's faces: a wrinkled old man, a beautiful blue-eyed woman, an Asian guy with a scar across his brow, an overweight black man who sweated drops of blood. And, always, the same repetitious pleas from them -- 

"Stop, please stop!" 

"I'll do anything!" 

"G-g-god help me!" 

"No! No! Nooooo!"   

Boredom combined with the sickening thrill of power, Alistair watching over his progress with a self-satisfied smirk. Dean's favorite instrument was a sharpened scalpel because he enjoyed how meticulous it let him be. Eventually, he grew familiar with the soft give of flesh and the low whimper of the defeated. He learned to take pride in his work. 

***

Full of heavenly echoes that frightened the demons away, Castiel finally arrived in a too bright, too blue acre of light. But by then Dean knew it was too late, he was past redemption. Though his mortal body might be restored, there was nothing left to put inside it. Every ounce of goodness he had once possessed had been burned out of him, his green eyes now darkened to an ugly, tar-like grey. He begged Castiel to leave him -- how could he ever go back? He was no longer a man, only a monster, a charred corpse bereft of its humanity. He was no longer one of God's creatures. Dean Winchester now belonged to Lucifer, the fallen, and the devastating, disturbing darkness underneath the earth.