A/N: Written for week 11 of SPN Hiatus Creations on tumblr. Prompt: antagonists.
WARNINGS: Graphic depictions of violence, torture, murder, abuse, a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, mind rape, thoughts of rape, the killing and eating of an infant, and heavy religious themes.
Abaddon had started growing used to Hell. The day would start, a demon who refused to give her his name would torture her till she had no blood left and she was a mess of scraps. Then she was made whole and it would start over again. She didn't mind the routine, thought some part of it kept her from losing what little bit of her sanity she had left. But then when she got used to it, the routine started getting broken up. Sometimes she'd see herself hurting her, sometimes she was left there alone all day, and occasionally a different demon would come into her cell to hurt her. She thought maybe she was losing it now amongst all the darkness and pain and anguish because she liked him. He was tall, had graying hair and a full beard and piercing gray-blue eyes. Those eyes weren't kind, but that's what she liked about them. There was a fever burning in them, and Abaddon saw his pleasure when he tore her apart, ripped her skin from her flesh, and then her flesh from her bones. He broke her, staring at her with those beautiful eyes.
Through her screams she'd asked him his name once, curious to what she should think of him as, curious to hear his voice.
He cut her tongue out.
Abaddon had learned her lesson.
Some days the torture made her angry, but she understood it. She'd tortured a few people during her time as a human, knew how to make things hurt. But it was killing that she liked the most. Watching the light leave someone's eyes was close to orgasmic, and in some cases, with certain kills, it was.
She saw that passion in that particular demon's eyes.
On one of the days he was torturing her instead of the other nameless man, she saw something on his forearm, reddened and raised like a scar. When she asked him about it he took her eyes. He'd slowly carved away at them with a small, silver knife, till torment owned her and she was screaming. He held her face to keep her steady as he did it, and his grip only grew harder as her skin became slick with blood.
So Abaddon learned to not ask about the strange mark, and remembering the pain she'd felt kept her from thinking about it.
Years passed, and she grew no closer to the demon with the strange mark, learned nothing more about him. Though he learned her, every day when she was put on the rack for him, laid bare. He knew where she was most sensitive, knew where to dig the knife in, where to tear. He knew what parts of herself she was most afraid of losing. And he always took advantage of that knowledge, tortured her till nothing held her together, till her mind was drawn taut and snapped.
And then she didn't see him. For years and years it was just the other nameless demon, the one who smiled when she screamed, his eyes empty. Then she saw him again, and the lively sin in his eyes was like a breath of fresh air in the hot furnace that this place was. He didn't pick up a knife. He didn't put her on a rack. Instead he took her hand and led her out of her cell. Abaddon couldn't remember ever being out of her cell in the time she'd been there. She'd only seen the rough dark stone they walked on as she'd been led there. Miniscule streams of lava, the thickness of them no more than a millimeter, ran through the ground in some places, heat wafting up from it.
It was always hot in Hell. It was like something she could physically reach out and touch, sometimes nearly seeming like a wall in front of her.
She wanted to ask where she was being taken, why this change in the daily routine, but she knew not to ask questions. Still, it burned in her mind.
He led her through a metal door with grates on it to see through. There was another demon there, this one older looking, much less appealing. He introduced him, "This is Agmon."
Abaddon nearly jumped upon hearing him speak, and it was hard to keep her eyes on Agmon, wanted to make sure that he really had said something. He had a strong, clear voice. She hadn't known what she'd expected, but it seemed just right coming from him. A part of her wanted to hear him scream with that voice as she ripped his guts out. But the other part wanted to keep him around so she could look at his eyes. Maybe she could take them from him one day like he'd once done to her.
"He's going to train you."
"Train me?" Even as she asked the question she wanted to keep her mouth closed so no one would rip out her tongue for speaking.
"Yes. You, my dear, are going to torture souls."
That was how the next stage of Abaddon's time in Hell started. She didn't see that other man again. It was just she and Agmon. She learned that humanity was still so young, and that there weren't many souls in Hell. Each soul was put in front of her multiple times, day after day. The first day, Abaddon had been allowed to do as she wished with the soul, to show Agmon her potential. She'd done her best, had gotten the woman to a wailing, bloody pulp, but he said nothing, just calmly walked up to her and ripped her throat out with his hand, Abaddon getting splattered in a red spray of mist.
The next day he showed her what to do, told her what she'd done well with, what she needed to work on. Abaddon loved it.
She didn't just love this for the absence of pain. She loved it for the suffering that she was causing. It made her feel powerful, something to revel in, to enjoy. She looked forward to it each day, and with each drop of blood spilled by her hand, she could feel her soul darkening and twisting. It wasn't a heavy darkness like she'd felt surrounding her when she'd been getting tortured. No, it was beautiful and thrilling, filled with rage and a violent desire to hurt, to kill, to bathe in blood and tears. It was within her, it was her. Abaddon loved it, and wished to darken herself further.
For a year she was allowed to torture on her own, and the only other demon she saw in that time was Agmon. It was lonely, isolating. But it welded her into an even darker being, one who was experimenting with pain and the human body, experimenting with her own limits.
Then, one day when she was going to go see Oda, her favorite victim, she was waylaid by the demon with the mark.
"You won't be torturing anyone today," he told her.
Abaddon pouted. "Oh, but their little whimpers are just so fun."
He grabbed her arm, started leading her down the dark hall, which led to a staircase that descended deeper into Hell.
"Sorry to take you from your work, but we have more important things for you," the demon told her.
"Can I at least get your name?"
"In due time," he answered before going on to explain, his fingers still holding her so tightly she had a feeling she'd bruise, "Lucifer has been watching your progress. He sees great potential in you."
Abaddon sensed that the time for not being allowed to ask questions had long since passed, so she asked, "Potential for what?"
"To join us, to join me. We have a lot of work ahead of us."
Abaddon liked the deeper parts of Hell. It was open to the void down there, almost made it feel like there was a sky outside the stone walls. Lightning flashed through the void, sometimes less than a hundred feet overhead, making her hair stand on end, the air thick with the smell of ozone.
She remembered her first day down there.
She'd been led to a large open space, and then a blindfold had been put over her eyes as she was shoved to her knees. There were others around her, other demons, more powerful than the one who had taken her down here. She could feel them, could feel their tainted souls near her. And then she felt something else, someone else, much more powerful than any of them slowly approaching. She shivered in the wake of that power, and bowed her head when she felt its focus on her.
"My lord," the demon with the mark began, "I've brought her to you as you requested."
A voice rang out through the air, seeming to penetrate her skull, and she couldn't stop herself from crying out: "Thank you, Cain."
Then that evil was slithering along her skin, tilting her head up, and there was light shining through the blindfold. The deep well of sin slid inside of her, into her mind. Her memories of her humanity that she'd forgotten flashed by in a rush, but they were gone as soon as the Prince of Darkness viewed them, as if he was carelessly tossing them aside. Then came her memories of being a victim to the nameless demon and to the one known as Cain. She fell forward, unable to hold herself up as pain took her. Cain's hands on her shoulders tried to keep her steady. And then came her glorious moments learning to torture and unleashing the knowledge that had been given to her, hurting souls beyond human comprehension just as had been done to her. He looked at everything, at all she had been, all she was, and perhaps saw all she could become. There was nothing Abaddon could hide from him, and she wasn't even given the chance to try. He invaded her entire mind, her entire being, and she smiled once the pain stopped. Smiled because this malicious being was everything she could've wanted, was everything she wanted to be.
Lucifer withdrew from her, and she was left panting and gasping for breath, Cain still holding her up.
Again, the Devil spoke, his voice so sharp and beautiful her ears began to bleed, "She is ready. Train her. I want her as one of my knights."
"As you wish, my lord."
And Cain had been training her, training her hard. He taught her many forms of hand-to-hand combat, taught her how to use various weapons, taught her different powers: how to scour the minds of others like Lucifer had done to her, just on a smaller level, how to cause small earthquakes, how to throw people across a room with a wave of her hand, how to cast powerful spells. Her favorite by far was how to exorcise a demon by strangling them. Abaddon loved to do that when the situation arose while she and Cain were on Earth for her training. She'd done it to Agmon a few times out of pure spite. He would sometimes tail them on their practice missions, and once Cain had found him and had ripped his arms off right then and there with his bare hands. That's when Cain had taken her hand and put it around his throat, had taught her how to squeeze the right way, her nails nearly digging into his flesh, had taught her the command to think in her mind, the intention she was supposed to have. As the life of Agmon's vessel bled away into the dusty ground, making it into a thick red mud, black smoke shuddered from his mouth, descending to the puddle below him. Fire, heat, the smoke still being strangled from his body, and then Agmon was gone.
Abaddon greatly enjoyed the suffering of others, but she was hungry for a decent kill. So she crushed the vessel's throat in her hand and watched who he was fade away into nothing, green eyes becoming empty and dead. Abaddon wondered where he'd end up, if his soul would ascend to be watched over by the pathetic angels Cain had taught her about, or if he would end up down below as someone's unfortunate playmate.
"Very good," Cain praised, rubbing his hands over her arms as he watched over her shoulder. "You're growing stronger. And you're just as eager to kill as I am."
She turned to him, tried pressing herself against him, but he shuffled back, somehow managing to make it look like it'd been unintentional. Maybe it had been. But Abaddon wasn't a little girl. She could tell that Cain didn't feel for her the same way she did for him. She liked to think that now nothing could sadden her, but this did.
"What will we do next?" she asked, knowing the day's trip outside of Hell wasn't over.
"Next, we get some lunch," he answered, eyes turning as black as his damned soul.
Abaddon's stomach quivered with excitement at the promise of it. He always had good things planned when he showed her his eyes like that.
They walked to a small town that was nearby, doing their best to see how many travelers they could get to make the sign of the cross on the way there. Showing their black eyes usually did the trick, but sometimes Cain implemented her learning into it as well, taught her about Lilith, and Dagon, and Azazel, and Ramiel, and Asmodeus, talked about what whispers he'd heard, of trouble with Heaven, and God being unhappy with Lucifer. Abaddon thought God sounded like a pretentious, arrogant son of a bitch. Why should he get to control everything? Why was it his duty to smite down others for just being as he created them? Abaddon knew how demons had been created, knew that it was Lucifer's fault, but now it was just the natural order of things. Wasn't it God's duty to let that natural order happen?
They discussed this heatedly as they walked, Abaddon intentionally raising her voice whenever she dared to mention Lucifer and someone was on the road near them. People would duck their heads, make the sign of the cross and hurry on their way, and she would laugh at them.
With their conversation, Cain had informed her that they were probably drawing Lucifer's attention, but that did not bother her. She wanted his attention. She wanted him to keep his eye on her, to see how good she was becoming.
Once they made it into town, Cain simply walked into a small, squat building on their left, the pale stone worn smooth from rain. A woven mat served as a door and he shoved it aside. Three people were in the pathetic excuse for a house: a man, a woman, and an infant. The woman scooped the infant up into her arms, the man rising to his feet.
"Who are you?"
"Cain," he answered, and then gestured to Abaddon as she stepped in beside him, "and this is my apprentice Abaddon. We have been traveling for some time and were wondering if you could offer us anything to eat."
"Cain? As in-" he began to ask, face already drawn with fear.
"Yes, that Cain," he interrupted. "Now, lunch. We're hungry."
"We don't have any extra food to offer," the woman said quietly, not meeting their eyes.
Cain looked down at the infant, and Abaddon gazed at him questioningly. "Oh, I think the baby will do quite nicely."
Then there was screaming, the man rushing at them, and Abaddon threw him against the wall and held him there. It took almost nothing now to do so. It was as simple as brushing a strand of hair off of her clothes. She didn't kill him right away, wanting him to watch what would ensue, and Cain gave her a pleased smile. He stepped towards the woman, who was up on her feet now, backing up into a corner, crying out, praying.
The baby was now crying from all the commotion. Most people would want a crying baby to shut up, but Abaddon felt alive listening to its high-pitched wails, nearly her whole body tingling from it.
Cain wrenched the baby from the woman's arms, and once he was clear, Abaddon also pinned her to the wall up beside her husband.
"What a beautiful child," Abaddon commented as she came forward, Cain handing the baby to her now. She smiled at the baby, rocking them as she shushed them. "Don't worry, little one, this is all going to be over very soon."
She had never eaten a baby before, but the idea didn't frighten her, didn't bother her in the least. If Cain wanted her to do it it was probably for the best, might even be delightful.
The parents were still screaming at them, and Abaddon let them. She liked hearing them cry no, liked hearing them beg and plead to show mercy. Mercy wasn't in her vocabulary.
As she took her first bite, the infant's blood running down her chin as it screamed and screamed and screamed, she heard the parents crying out for God.
By the time she had finished God had never showed. She knew he wouldn't have. Maybe he wasn't even watching. She licked the blood from her lips, letting the blanket, bones, and scraps drop down to the floor. The parent's faces were streaked with tears, eyes red and puffy from crying. With a wave of her hand Abaddon broke both their necks, heads turning to the side, bones popping out and tearing skin.
She smiled at Cain, feeling sheer ecstasy running through her veins. "That was wonderful," she told him. "Absolutely wonderful."
"Good, because you're not going to enjoy this next part of your training."
Before she could question it he was dragging her out of the house.
"I wanted to do one last good thing for you before we began," he told her. "I do like you, Abaddon, so I will get no pleasure from this as I used to from hurting you."
The next part of her training consisted of pain. It was a different kind of pain than she'd first experienced once her soul had descended into Hell. It was breathing with the essence of God. Cain was careful with everything he did so he wouldn't be hurt. He doused her in holy water, burned her with holy fire, covered her in salt. He did it over and over again, listening to her scream as he told her to fight it. She didn't know how to fight any of it. It burned and smoke rose from her vessel's skin.
But then she would repair her young, beautiful vessel as Cain had told her to. She had been such a sweet thing, had never done anything wrong, and though she had died off years ago, Abaddon letting it happen, she kept the body. She loved how tall she was, how slender, her hair soft and dark. Sometimes she thought Cain liked the vessel as well.
Other times she doubted it.
And now she was beginning to doubt he had ever liked her. Though there was none of that wild pleasure in his eyes as there had been centuries ago as he tormented her, she still hated this happening to her. Abaddon had thought she had learned to accept pain, but this was different.
After trapping her in a Devil's Trap and chaining her to the floor with chains doused in salt, he threw buckets of holy water on her, and she was gritting her teeth, trying not to scream as tears leaked from her stinging eyes.
"Why are you screaming?" he asked her like a taunt. "It's just water."
"Just water?!"
"That's what it can be to you if you let it."
Abaddon had thought he'd been being careful to not be hurt, but as he took his glove off, and then dipped his hand into the bucket with no effect she realized he had been doing it just for show.
Abaddon imagined that she was like him. That it wouldn't hurt till it was incapacitating.
They kept at it for a weeks on end, until it wasn't. The holy fire, and holy water, and salt still hurt immensely but she could still function. In small amounts it felt more like a weak slap in the face than the burning, devouring thing it had been before.
The night she had proven to be stronger than those instruments of God, Cain took her out on a murder spree.
Afterwards, covered in blood, breathing heavy in the dark night, Abaddon had kissed him, and he had pushed her away.
"No, Abaddon."
"Why not?"
"You're my apprentice."
"Oh, it would be wrong?" she teased, sidling closer, still desperate to feel him against her. "We've done worse."
She tried to reach out for him and he grabbed her wrist, snapping it. She held in her scream as throbbing pain sparked through her. His eyes were black now.
"I don't care for you in that way."
A second passed in which Abaddon planned how to subdue him so she could have him anyway, but his eyes turned back to that gray-blue that she loved so much, glittering in the dark, and the idea transformed into smoke and dissipated. She knew of demons who did such things to people, and she supposed in a way she had when her vessel had still been alive and she'd used her body for such pleasure, but she could never do so to Cain. She cared for him too much.
The rejection stung, and she pulled away from him, already focusing on fusing her bone back together.
"Tomorrow I will take you to Lucifer," he said, and for a second Abaddon thought she would be punished for her advances, but then he continued, "and he will give you one final task. If you succeed you will join me as a Knight of Hell."
Even with the pain in her heart from his rejection, Abaddon still smiled. The moment she'd been training for would soon be upon her.
She was going to succeed. She was sure of it.
God had locked Lucifer away in a cage since the last time Abaddon had been brought to him. She had to leave her vessel behind in order to get as close to the cage as possible, and his Grace dripping with malice reached out to her, as if she was a child that he was eager to welcome home.
In this form she did not have ears to bleed when he spoke, did not have eyes that would burn when she looked at him. She had never looked at him before, but she had heard rumors. Even now, with all her power he was nearly impossible to comprehend. Something twisted and evil and so beautiful she thought she would burst. And his eyes glowed a lovely blood red. She thought she might've enjoyed his eyes even more than Cain's. They were the eyes of her lord, of her father, of the one, true power that she believed in. They were the eyes of the Devil and she wanted to sink into them, forget the way Cain had rejected her.
She was given her task, and once Abaddon made it back to her vessel, she set to work.
She was alone for this task, and she didn't mind. Seeing Cain made her want to rip his throat out with her nails. Maybe one day she would.
Once she'd made it to Earth as required of her she sought out a church. It wasn't very large, the structures in Hell far grander than any human minds could yet come up with, but there were at least thirty people she could see when she looked in through the wooden doors that had been left ajar.
It was difficult to admit, but she was nervous to attempt entering the church. She had been taught, had been shown that demons could not enter consecrated ground. Cain and Lucifer had told her it would not stand true for her. Even though she swore that if she ever met God she would murder right in front of him, would laugh in his face and ask him what he was going to do about it, the church was still daunting. This was where people gathered at the same time, on the same day, repeating the same rituals over and over, to pray. Prayer had power to some extent. She knew that, just as thoughts of Lucifer used to have their own power before he'd been locked up.
She took in a deep breath, and stepped into the church.
Abaddon had expected to feel a wall of some sort, a shield between herself and God's people. But there was nothing. And she laughed with abandon at it.
They had been in the middle of singing, and they stopped upon hearing her laugh. Abaddon's eyes were already black, alerting them to what she was.
"How- You can't be in here!" the priest shouted, a wizened old man in a white robe with gold trim.
"Oh, but I am. What does that mean for you, hmm?" she asked, confidently striding down the aisle to stand before him, before the altar, before the son of God on the cross. "What does that mean about God?"
The priest began to chant an exorcism, and Abaddon only gave him a chilly smile throughout. He was sweating and shaking with fear by the time he finished and realized she was still there.
"That tickled," she lied, and then she reached over the altar.
People screamed as she grabbed him. With a triumphant cry she ripped his head off, blood spurting onto her pale skin. The others in the church tried to run, but Abaddon threw out her hand and slammed the doors shut with a resounding bang, sealing their doom.
What happened next was a blur for her. Bliss radiated throughout her body, the darkness in her soul pulsing with delight. There were screams and cries and tears and blood, and one by one she broke each body, tore each person apart, quick and fluid and elegant, just the way she liked it. Why torture when you could relish in the quick stabbing burst of pain in the victims before the end? Seeing them die made her laugh, made her shriek with joy. Just as she killed the last person, hand ripping out their guts, a ringing sound began to drill its way into her head.
She screamed, falling to her knees, hands covering already bleeding ears. Light blinded her, stained glass windows shattering, the wooden door blowing to splinters and smashing to bits. The candles in the church blazed bright before going out, leaving her in shadows. And then a small woman was walking in, her long blonde hair in a braid thrown over one shoulder.
"Enough, Abaddon."
"W-who are you?" she asked, gazing upon this bright being. Looking at her didn't hurt as she had thought it would, even as her eyes glowed a radiant blue and wings showed in black shadows against golden brilliance.
For the first time in a long time Abaddon was afraid.
"My name is Tamiel. I'm a servant of God, and I've been sent to kill you."
Abaddon forced herself to laugh at that, tried to remember what she had promised herself she'd do if God ever showed. Surely this angel deserved the same taunting, dismissive behavior.
Her laugh was broken off as she was suddenly tossed into the air, slammed against the ceiling of the church, and then it felt like her body had been scraped against each wall in the panicked, pained seconds that passed. She fell to the ground, bloodied hair in a disarray about her face. She gasped, trying to catch her breath through the agony in her body. Tamiel stepped forward, a silver, elegant blade in her hand, and Abaddon pushed herself back, eyes wide with fear.
But she wouldn't beg. She wouldn't do that.
Then she realized she still had a fighting chance. She hadn't gone through all of Cain's training just to be thrown around like she had, for her life to be ended by one of God's boring, do-good angels.
She didn't bother climbing to her feet, just threw out both her hands with a screech, and Tamiel went flying through the church wall, plaster and wooden boards bursting into splinters and dust. Abaddon stood now, and stepped over the dead bodies, over the rubble, to where Tamiel lay on the ground.
She laid her hands out flat over Tamiel's body as if trying to press down on her without touching her, and she forced her will upon her, forced it till Tamiel was choking, till the earth was shaking and cracking around them. She drew power from deep within her, from the darkness that she had become. It burned through her, and she screamed now, blood flowing from one of her nostrils, her head aching immensely, her entire body beginning to ache.
Tamiel's light grew brighter and brighter, the ringing of Enochian stabbing at Abaddon's head, and then the angel simply burst, becoming a splash of blood and torn apart organs. Abaddon fell to her knees in the gore, catching her breath.
Lightning flashed, accompanied by the deep, wonderful boom of thunder. And then the sky opened up. Abaddon let herself get drenched, let herself calm down from all she had just done.
She'd completed her task to massacre a church.
And she'd killed an angel.
Abaddon was radiant with pride when she returned to Hell, and she even let Cain hug her as he beamed down at her. She had decided that now he wasn't worth it. She was going to be working with him as an equal now, nothing more, nothing less.
He led her to Lucifer as he had that day many years ago when her training had begun. And once more she was gifted with the Devil's presence.
Abaddon filled with joy, with pleasure, when Lucifer finally said the fateful words that changed her forever, his voice drenching her in radiant sin:
"Rise, now, Abaddon, a Knight of Hell."