A/N: Written for week ten of SPN Hiatus Creations on tumblr. Prompt: locations.
WARNINGS: Mentions of torture, and implied rape.
When Dean thought of Hell he thought of a knife in his hand.
He knew the knife well. Alastair had given it to him after he'd torn him apart with it for thirty years. Thirty years of blood, of losing himself, of agonies so deep and raw that all he could do was scream and wish the next day wouldn't come.
And then in thirty years he gave up. The demon torturing him had won. Dean was weak. So he took the knife, and he got off the rack. And he forged his despair, his terror, his own agony, into a weapon as sharp as the knife the demon had given him. He wielded it on each victim that was put in front of him, until they were screaming, and he was screaming right back, so filled with hurt that he knew no other way to release it. Even then he was begging for it all to end. Their tears, their tormented voices, their blood, haunted him with each new day. And each day there was a new face, a new body. And he hurt them, too.
For ten years he hurt them.
Dean had done the math. He knew how many people he'd tortured, and that was worse than Alastair's knife in his flesh.
3,650.
And each time he'd gotten better at it, knew where to put the knife to make it hurt more, knew just the right places to drag it along bare skin to tease with fear. All the while Alastair had coached him, had watched, proud of what he was turning into. With each slice, whether it be into him, or into someone else, Dean told himself he'd done it for Sam. He was being torn apart for Sam. And it was worth it. Sam was alive. And in Dean's lowest moments he prayed to God - if he even existed - that Sam wouldn't have to experience anything like this.
Those moments were easily twisted into darkness by pained cries and torn skin, twisted till he was cursing God, cursing the very idea of him. As his blood ran till he was dry, he wanted God to suffer just like he was suffering. But he kept on. For Sam, he kept on. Even when he was no longer the victim the tortures continued. And still he kept on, turning himself into a monster worse than any he'd ever seen, twisting himself into something he didn't even recognize. And as he did so he told himself he was fixing the broken mess that Alastair had turned him into. But there was no fixing the scared little boy he was inside. Dean had been forced to grow up too fast, but that child was still in there, still crying out for help, still missing his brother with every beat of his heart, with every tear that rolled down his cheek.
When Dean thought of Hell he thought of the screams, of the blood, and of 3,651 people begging him for mercy.
When Sam thought of Hell he thought of blood on his thighs. That had been a far too common occurrence, and had always been accompanied with cold hands on his body, cold in him, till Sam was shivering and yet alight with fire. He remembered the fire too, the flames hungrily licking at his flesh, burning him into nothing. With each day Lucifer did his best to flay his soul alive, to make him nothing. But he wasn't nothing. He became living agony, whether it was hooks, or hot coals, or a knife, or a bone saw, or a chain wrapped around his throat, it was all agony. If he was nothing he wouldn't have felt pain such as he had.
It'd been dark down there, the only light coming from the lightning that struck through the void, the air thick with the smell of ozone. The tension and crackling had been ever present, as had the ice that stole the breath from his lungs, and the heat that burned his flesh.
Each day had been something new. At first Lucifer's torture lacked precision, was filled with fury so powerful that Sam's mind felt like it was being crushed while subject to it. And then that fury had turned into something else, a cruelty and malice that was sickening and unfathomable; evil that tore into his soul and dripped inside of him till it filled him up and he was screaming.
The sound of his own screams was very familiar to him, as was the wetness of tears on his cheeks, and the taste of his own blood in his mouth. But with each new way Lucifer hurt him, he was glad that he was the one suffering and not Dean.
Some days he figured he deserved to suffer.
After all, he had started the Apocalypse. The deaths it had brought about, the deaths from all the things that the angels and demons said had to happen, had surely filled Heaven. But he didn't think of Heaven. No, he thought of bodies, torn and bloodied littering the ground at his feet. He saw them, their faces non-existent in his mind since he'd never known them. He saw them in each drop of blood, in each touch. And in it he saw his ruin. He saw it in the Devil's eyes, and when those eyes truly stared back at him, he saw more bodies, more hurt, until he was looking upon his torturer's true face, his soul shrieking in agony from it, wishing it could hide from the crushing, clawing darkness. But Sam couldn't hide, and he was the ruined thing the Devil was looking upon, the ruined thing that the fallen archangel sang to. And Sam sang back, his horrified and agonized voice scraping his throat raw.
When Sam thought of Hell he thought of red eyes, of evil so thick he choked on it, of the man he used to be and the shattered one he now was.
When Castiel thought of Hell he thought of the man he'd saved and the man he'd failed.
The battle to save Dean Winchester had cost the lives of many of his brethren. But Castiel had not been able to stop to mourn them. He was leading the charge, and it was bloody; angels and demons falling at his feet, bursts of golden-blue and hellish orange filling his vision. The blood-curdling screams of the damned and the ringing of Enochian was like dissonant music, the chords striking in the wrong places, the chaos rampant around him. Each battle took on a life of its own, lived and breathed and died in its own way, and Hell didn't just pulse, and beat, and breathe. It cried and it screamed and thrashed and raged, light and dark clashing together in a vicious, desperate dance for dominance, for some semblance of control over the chaos.
When Castiel found the Righteous Man the both of them were drenched in the blood of sinners. He didn't know him then, only saw a mission. But as he held him, gripped him tight, raised him from perdition, he began to see who he was. Dean became more than an assignment for a battle weary soldier of the Lord. He became a friend, the man who changed him and taught him free will. And when Castiel was with him, he was glad he had been able to save him, but the cost of it still lingered and ached, the angels that had died living on in his memory.
Then Sam, another man he'd grown to love like family, had cast himself into Hell; a beautiful, heartbreaking sacrifice to save the world.
Castiel decided he was going to save him.
So he descended into the deepest, darkest depths of Hell after his bright soul. Despite the abomination that the demons had attempted to turn him into, Castiel still saw a man. A man who was kind, a man who was selfless and every bit as brave as his brother.
He had pulled him up. Or he'd thought he had.
Castiel had left the most important piece. His soul.
Even as he fought the war in Heaven, he anguished over the suffering of his friend. He was filled with poisoning, rotting guilt knowing that with each second Sam suffered for what must have seemed like an eternity to a pained, human soul. He imagined journeying into the blood-soaked realm again, killing all who stood in his way and saving him. But he couldn't. He wasn't strong enough. Castiel had failed him.
Saving Dean and losing Sam tore at him, ripping and shredding, the two memories at odds with each other. Spending time with them was the only remedy he knew of, but he still looked into their eyes and saw all he'd done; he saw the memories of their torment heavy in their depths.
When Castiel thought of Hell he thought of the Righteous Man, of the Boy With the Demon Blood, of the Winchesters.