Genre: Gen, Angst
Rating: R
Word Count: 666
WARNINGS: Hell, Torture (Non Explicit)
Spoilers: Early Season 5
Summary: Time means something very different in Hell.
Author Notes: Title from the quote "Time is a figure eight, at its center the city of Déjà Vu" by Robert Brault
It was Saturday.
Or it was Wednesday.
It was definitely night.
Though, technically, it was always night.
Dean found it helpful trying to remember the days. But it was impossible.
And that was the point.
If you were aware of the passing of time as you'd known it in life, you could feel alive. If you could count the days, you could hope.
It was control. Without time, a day could last a week. Or a year.
Oh please. Tell you what, give me just ten little seconds of that delicious silence and I'll stop. I promise.
He constructed clocks and calendars in his mind. From stone sundials to blinking digital displays to grandfather clocks with carved wood and brass fixtures. He tried creating flip clocks that released their monochrome numbers with sharp plastic clicks; even a Rolex or two.
He made small desk calendars, ring bound diaries, and wall calendars - the days crossed out with a mental sharpie.
Blue.
Not red.
Dean tried it all. He poured as much detail as possible onto the canvas in his head.
But with nothing but guesswork to keep them ticking, the little distraction they provided rapidly became pointless.
Thought you would have lasted longer than a minute, Winchester. What a splendid surprise.
Counting the number of new bodies Dean was given proved equally useless. He might need a new one every hour. Or one might last him a week, depending on the experience of the demon currently taking its turn.
It's only been hours, Dean. A wee bit sensitive today, are we?
Some demons were new. Inexperienced. Dean likened them to trainees, and they were some of the worst. Fresh off the rack themselves, they had no finesse, no creativity. Just pure rage and relief at finally being on the other side of the razor. It was quick - always so eager to do the most amount of damage in the least amount of cuts or blows. Excruciating barely came close to describing the pain – but at least it was quick.
Let's try another week, shall we, hmm?
The older demons, the more experienced ones, well, they were different. They had their plans. Strategies. They'd had decades, centuries, or even millennia to perfect their art. And their sessions lasted…
Well, Dean only knew they weren't short.
You know, it's been a month now. I can keep going as long as I have to. It's my favorite move, after all. Don't worry, we've got time.
Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months – they were only concepts here. Just words holding significance in the human mind, but without an anchor. They became indefinable, meaningless.
Again, it was just one more piece of control they took away. But they allowed the concept. Used it to taunt and frustrate and confuse.
It was deliberate. The knowledge of time remained - the means to measure it taken away.
Sam died today. Only thirty nine… such a shame. I hope they burned his body like the good little hunter he was. Pity his big brother couldn't be there.
They used everything in the Pit. Blades were just the tip of the iceberg, as incongruous as that metaphor might be. The worst weren't even physical, but they still cut deep to the bone. Words themselves were a form of torture. Letters and sounds transformed to scalpels and ropes and acid. And worse.
When every act against his body became mundane, when Dean became more adept at escaping internally – those weapons followed.
It's been seven hundred years up top now, Dean-y. Say, I wonder what became of that little tiff in the Middle East, mmm?
And of all the weapons they could use against him, all the emotional wounds at their disposal: Sammy, Dad, Mom, Guilt, Anger, Loneliness…
Funny, I could have sworn Sammy would be around here somewhere by now, y'know? It's been such a long time! Guess he took a different elevator back then, eh Dean?
In the end, the most effective weapon was time.
~end