Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Kripke and company do. The opinions expressed in this particular fic also do not represent the opinions of the author.
A/N: Hello there! This is totally not a small diversion from my other, bigger fics, which I swear I will finish. Really, I will. Each of these shorts is based loosely on the lyrics of the AC/DC song it is named after. They all take place in season four or, in the case of this one, shortly before it. There are two incredibly vague references to my other SPN fic, but they won't smack you over the head. In fact, you might get them without reading my other fic. Updates should be vaguely frequent, since I'm a few chapters ahead. Anyway, enjoy!
"No, no, no..." the young blonde sobbed, head hanging low against her chest. Tears rolled hot down her cheeks, in no way a relief from the scorching heat. He watched her momentarily, a smirk breaking his otherwise daunting features. She was pathetic–they hadn't even started, and already she was crying. Pushing the flat of his blade under her chin, he forcefully pushed her head up, the evident pain on her face pulling the corners of his lips up further.
"Why the tears, Jenny? Aren't you glad to see me?" he asked, feigning concern. When his question was met with only deeper sobs, his smile dissolved, replaced by an intense frown. "Look at me." He withdrew the blade from under her chin, and while her head didn't fall back, neither did her eyes meet his.
Growing quickly frustrated, he took hold of a portion of her flaxen hair and yanked her head up. "Jenny, look at me," he said, sounding almost reasonable but with frustration tinging his voice. To the other souls on the rack, he was almost being merciful compared to their own torturers. They, though, had never personally experienced the torture inflicted by Alistair, or the select few he had trained over the centuries, and therefore had no idea what the young girl was truly in for.
He gritted his teeth together, hand wrapping tighter around his glimmering blade, and let her hair go, face almost expressionless. Her head fell wearily back to her chest, and he stalked away momentarily, apparently showing mercy. Then, on the heel of his boot, he spun around, arm swinging in a low, precise arc to bury the blade in the meat of her gut.
"Look at me!" he growled, voice rumbling through the cavernous Pit. Even the other demons looked up, close to startled by the fury in the resounding words. Her eyes darted up, breath becoming ragged as shock was overlapped by pain; her brown eyes finally met his dark pair. A satisfied smile crossed his face. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" He twisted the knife to punctuate his words, drawing a sharp gasp from her. "Now say my name."
"D-Dean," she managed, voice barely more than a rough whisper. He pulled the knife out, shaking her blood off onto her own face, and smiled wider. Walking back, he wiped the rest of it clean as he let the heat sear her now exposed innards and plotted his next move. He placed the weapon back with the vast array of others, sizing up the multitudes of options before him.
It was almost a shame, doing this to her day in and day out. Jenny was his type of girl, he could tell: pretty, not a genius, but not stupid, and with just enough spirit in her to make her interesting. While most of his human life was fading away, he could remember a few more important things–things like his family, his friends (few as they were), his favorite beer, the taste of pie and, in this case, his type of woman. If they'd both been up top, hanging around some skeevy dive bar, he would have hit on her shamelessly, and probably bedded her by the end of the night.
But down here, things were completely different. He felt no remorse as he chose a weapon, a shiny silver corkscrew that was calling out to him, and turned to face her again. No, down here, he was in charge, second-in-command among legions of demons older than he, and he reveled in drawing out her anguish. It was the only thing that made him feel better now, made him forget all the pain inflicted upon him.
A voice in the back of his mind, faint and golden, rustled softly, telling him that he should not be enjoying this, but he forced it down, like biting back bile. Sometimes, his conscience nagged at him like that, a lingering dreg of the humanity he still couldn't quite shake. Part of him knew that was a good thing, but as he felt the terror surging through the girl strung up behind him, all that disappeared with the resurgence of joy that came with each scream he envisioned.
"Jenny, Jenny, Jenny," he murmured, turning slowly to look at her once more. "We've been at this for weeks now. Don't you think it's time you learned some obedience? It would make this so much easier for both of us, you know." Through her sweat-matted bangs, she watched him, not so much as a hint of insurrection in her eyes. He was close to breaking her, he knew it.
"Go t-to--" She struggled with the words as sulfur swirled around her, and through her oozing wound. "Go to He..." The words died on her lips as the agony overtook her. Dean smiled, moving closer to her.
"What was that? 'Go to Hell,' is that what you were going to say?" A sharp smile crossed his face, contorting his once handsome features into a terrifying, almost diabolic, visage. He ran the shining corkscrew from one shoulder to the other, drawing an unbidden shudder from her as it crossed her collarbone. "Honey, you're already there. But me? I'm in Heaven." He drew the metal back to her collarbone, just to the left of her neck and right above her beating heart and, with a vicious smile, twisted the tip into her soft flesh.
A gratifying scream pierced the air; he lingered, not driving the weapon in any further than the few centimeters it already punctured. Savoring her desperate pleas, intermingled with hopeless weeping, he drove it in another few centimeters, loving the resistance her muscles put up as they tensed and eventually gave way. He leaned in closer, lips brushing her ear in a way that would have been seductive if he hadn't been holding the corkscrew immersed in her skin, and if they hadn't been in Hell.
"Tell me, why are you here?" He already knew the answer, of course, but every day she was made to repeat it, to drive home exactly why she deserved this for eternity. Enjoying her struggle to speak wasn't beyond him, either. It was a sick pleasure, one that he reveled in, just as Alistair had with him.
Sometimes, he was ashamed of the decision he made, his conscience very clearly telling him that this was wrong, so wrong, that he was on his was to becoming one of the very monsters he and Sammy spent their entire lives putting down. But as soon as any feelings relating to his faltering humanity arose, another soul appeared before him, ripe for torture, and all humanity vanished in lieu of duty. He was a soldier up top, and that didn't change down here.
"For, for committing suicide," the young girl stuttered, words quiet but full of despair. Dean nodded, as if helping a particularly dim child along, and twisted the corkscrew in a fraction of a centimeter, just enough to unleash another wave of agony.
"That's right. And do you know what happens to people who commit suicide?" Rasping breaths were his only answer for a moment, and her lack of immediacy drove the silver in a little further. "What happens?" Dean pushed, less and less congenial with every moment she wasted.
"They," she began, drawing in a long breath, "they go to Hell." He grinned, an expression that would have been considered playful if it hadn't been accompanied by his dark eyes, only a few shades away from no longer being hazel.
"That's right." The weapon twisted in a little further, hooking underneath her collarbone. "And why do people who commit suicide go to Hell?"
Her breathing erratic now, but death no closer than it would ever be, she answered, "Because God thinks p-people who commit suicide are rejecting the gift of, of-" She drew in a rattling breath and continued. "-of life that God gave them, and won't let them into Heaven."
"It's about damn time you learned," he sneered. "And now you can see why scum like you ended up here, right?" He watched her break a little bit as that thought sunk in, and twisted the corkscrew in further; now, her screams were punctuated with intermittent sobbing. "You're here because you're weak, because you chose the easy way out. Aren't you glad you did? Isn't this so much easier than living up top?" When she didn't reply, he drove the weapon up to the end of the screw and left it there, stepping back from her.
"Well, I know I'm enjoying myself," he chuckled darkly, corners of his mouth quirking up in maniacal delight. Then, expression turning hard on a dime, he told hold of the corkscrew handle and pulled mightily. A sickening crunching noise filled the air as her collarbone snapped; this time, no sobs pierced her drawn-out screams. The rest of the corkscrew pulled out with a wet slurp, and Dean stood stoic for a moment to take in her suffering, holding the uncommon weapon as it dripped with her blood. It assuaged his own distant memories of the rack like nothing else could–well, not everything, but he had long abandoned those already distant hopes when he picked up the knife.
Now, he was a creature of Hell's own creation, slowly being carved from the man he once was into a beast he could scarcely recognize. And, as he picked the bloody meat from his weapon, he knew that he relished it too much to ever be the man he had once been. Dean Winchester, a name he clung to as one of his last dregs of humanity, was dying, and he didn't seem to mind.
Instead, he licked the blood from his fingers, turned away from his current victim, and began sizing up the weapons in his vast array.
"Now, Jenny, where do we go from here?" he grinned, hands drifting over the weapons until a small hammer drew his attention. He picked it up, weighed it in his hands experimentally, and grinned. Turning back to her with a deliberate slowness, he said, "Because I know I'm just having too much fun to stop now."