-d-
"So what did you in?" A female called from the cell beside him, crawling out of the dark corner she seemed to prefer. Dean had seen the woman be taken for her time with their jailer, but had never actually spoken to her. The thick collar around her neck redden as the chain behind her became taunt. With a quick hiss she backed up a few inches. Sitting half between the light and the dark. "Better yet, why are you in hell?" Dean couldn't help but watch as the skin around her neck slowly healed from the burns. The charred skin turning a smooth brown once again.
"You can at least buy me a drink first." Dean sat as close as he could get to the bars separating their cells. "Why do you have a collar?" Her hazel eyes narrowed for a moment before her plump lips pulled back into a small that was almost too big for her face.
"Because... i'm a runner." She said it as if it were a victory. The woman began laughing hysterically before her chain suddenly went taunt, the collar turning a bright orange. Her laughter died and turned into terrifying screams. Her collar burned brighter as she tried crawling backwards only to have the chain to stay taunt. Her body began to convulse, her screams turning into gurgles. As suddenly as it happened everything became still.
Deans stomach twisted as he came to the realisation that the woman was dead. He had watched her die and there wasn't a single thing he could do about it. Maybe this was a new punishment for him. He couldn't stop staring at her body, the line between her dark corner and the rest of her cell giving her body a gruesome halved look. Dean stared at her bare legs for so long he thought he was going mad as they started twitching. When suddenly she sat up and gasped for breath. Without looking at him she slid back into her dark corner where he couldn't see her but he could hear her soft sobs.
"I sold my soul to bring my little brother back. I got a year to live and when my time was up I was torn apart by hellhounds." It wasn't the most cheering thing he could think about to make her feel better but it was the only thing that didn't sound fake. "If I hadn't have sold my soul and died god knows how, I would have ended up here any way." There was a wet sniffle before she whispered out a quiet.
"How?"
"Lets just say if I was a deadly sin, I'd be Lust." He felt the first genuine smile he'd made in the three years he's been in hell stretch across his face. "I can't help it if the ladies love me." The woman gave a small chuckle before her collar turned bright orange illuminating a painful smile on her face before she was plunged back into darkness. "What punched your meal ticket?"
"Heat stroke. I had a friend who turned out not to be a friend; he locked me in his truck. I made it from Tennessee to Texas before I died." Slowly once again she came out of the darkened corner and sat halfway into the light. "I'm here cause i'm a witch." Dean tried to keep the disgusted look off his face, but knew he failed when the woman scoffed at him. "What's with the sour patch face, tough guy?"
"No offence." Dean raised his hands in surrender. "Hell, we both ended up in the same place in the end." He couldn't fault the woman for what she had done, said one part of him. The other part of him couldn't help but wonder what horrible act her kind was known for that she committed that deserved to be sent to hell. Or was being a witch an automatic one trip ticket.
"How long have you been here?" She asked, absentmindedly picking the charred skin off her black feet. "Not that it really matters, they all break in the end. I've seen them come and go. Come and go."
"Three years. Wait, how long have you been here?" The woman stood from her sitting position and Dean noticed for the first time how short she really was. As she walked towards the far side of her cell, the collar on her neck heating to a dull red, she pointed to a wall much rougher than the ones in his cell. "Those are...marks? Days?" Dean pushed himself against the bars separating their cells to get a closer look. Every wall he could see was covered in the small thin lines.
"I ran out of space and lost count soon after." Her voice was becoming rough as the heated metal around her neck burned into her vocal cords. "This torture is better than what's on the other end of saying Yes." Alistair had asked him to take up his blade to torture the souls that came into his path, he wouldn't say Yes either. Dean had so many questions, questions that have been brewing since… forever and with one shot of luck he had wound up beside the one person who may be able to give them to him.
The woman walked over to the one thing they shared in their cells. A small window in the back, cut in half by the cell bars between them. It was just close enough that the chain connecting her to her cell had the slightest bit of slack. She waved him over, pointing to something in the distance.
Hell was a big hole and along the walls were thousands of souls. Some reaching out their own windows begging for mercy or forgiveness, their hands reaching upwards towards the bright light shining down. Below them lay endless darkness, inhuman screeches and winged creatures sprue out on gusts of rotten air.
"They scream for heaven but that is only the light from the big-bads play rooms." She pointed to various areas over the next hour, answering his questions as best she could. "I've tried to escape 375 times, this place goes on forever." She turned to him then, her hand reaching out as far as it could go without the collar burning into her. A familiar gesture that neither of them had preformed in a long time. Dean reached out through the bar, their fingers touched only slightly but it was enough for the both of them. Neither had come in contact with another friendly touch in so long that the soft brush of finger tips almost brought them both to tears.
"Evelyn Bryre. It's nice to meet you." Dean felt something build up in his chest and tried to push down the tears wanting to spill over. The absolute relief that washed over him as their finger tips continued to brush together was nearly to much. He had gone so long begging to be brought out of hell. For God or Sam to hear him calling, but each time he was met with torture and disappointment. He didn't … couldn't have imagined how nice it would feel to have someone touch him with kindness.
"Dean Winchester." He managed to choke out. Evelyn gave him a watery smile before pulling back and walking into her dark corner once again. Dean wanted nothing more than to beg her to come back, to touch him for just a moment longer; but he couldn't make himself say the words and Evelyn seemed to be finished talking for now.
Dean tried to occupy himself with anything other than staring into Evelyn's dark corner, but the more he tried to look away the more he thought about it. But no matter how long he looked over there and how many times he tried to talk to her, he received no response. Almost like the woman was never there. It wasn't much longer before a demon appeared at the end of his cell, a wicked smile across its face.
"Goodmorning Dean. Let's go for a walk." The short 'walk' was really just a small torture as he was forced over razor blades and into Alastair's waiting room. Thick hooks were pushed into his skin before he was lifted high into the air, each hook close to ripping him apart. Not for the first time he screamed for his brother.
Over the next couple years Dean got to know Evelyn and hell a little better. She taught him how to tell the time by which soul was being tortured. She taught him which torture was easier to block out and which ones to watch out for. When he came back more broken than when he left she would gently hum to him, their bodies laying across their cell floors, stretched out as far as they could go, as their fingertips brushed together. He had told her stories about the monsters he hunted, and about his brother Sam. He had figured out how her collar worked and tried to keep from making her laugh but it seemed to woman was content on defying their torturer any chance she got and would stretch, laugh, and fight whenever the urge came to her. No matter how many times she died.
She did something to piss Alastair off. Something bad enough that her screams could be heard over the constant roar of voices that Dean would never be use to. She had been antsy the last couple days, her emotions swinging wildly from one extreme to another. At one point she even tried ripping her own head off, to remove the collar around her neck. Dean had watched her die seven times that day. She only stopped once a demon came to take her to her time with Alastair. She had been wild, even from where Dean had sat in his cell he had seen the crazed look in her hazel eyes.
Evelyn had fought the demon off, jumping on the man as if she were a monkey, digging her nails into its eyes as she screamed against the white hot collar burning into her throat. She didn't stop her assault on the demon until her body was limp on the floor, her head rolling to a stop against the slowly healing mans foot. Deans stomach emptied as the demon stomped it in until there was nothing left but a pile of mush.
He waited for her to come back, he wanted to scream and curse at her for being so stupid. For putting herself through more pain than she needed to be in. It was a conversation they had plenty of times before. He could already see her wide smile as she would lean forward enough to activate the charm on her collar.
"Fuck that." The fire in her eyes as she would hiss the words at him would always send a spark of fire through his spine. "I'm no ones bitch." That fire to fight no matter the cost reminded him of why he was in hell, that being in hell didn't mean he lost. Sammy would find a way to get him free, he just had to keep fighting.
Dean listened for the end of Evelyn's screams wanting nothing more than to cheer her on, to give a little of the strength she gave to him but when her screams stopped and she didn't return to her cage; the small victory that had bubbled in Deans chest popped.
When the demon returned Evelyn wasn't with him, instead he came for Dean. For the first time Dean followed after the demon willingly, if only to try and get a glimpse of his only friend. Their walk to Alastair's waiting room had filled Dean with a deep sense of dread, he had yet to see Evelyn and the one time he had broke down and asked; his demon escort simply pushed him down onto the razer blade floor and kept walking.
"Throw her in the Pit!" Dean had never heard Alastair lose his composure. The demon was a stone when it came to the jibes he had thrown at him. Yet, as the demon came storming out of his workshop, throwing a bloody and smiling Evelyn at his escorts feet; that bubble in Deans chest returned. "We'll see if time in the Pit will wipe that fucking smile off your face!"
Alastair didn't take a second look at Dean before he disappeared and three other demons took his place. He only had enough time to take a quick look at Evelyn before they were pulled into two seperate ways. Her wild eyes and frantic bucking against her captures renewing the fight in Dean that had been slowly slipping away. If a small town girl from Tennessee, who had never hurt a single person in her life could fight for countless years against these assholes, so could Dean fucking Winchester.
He fought tooth and nail for the next three years waiting for them to bring Evelyn back from the Pit. He marked the days she had been gone on his cell wall and stared at her empty collar until his eyes burned. He gritted his teeth a little harder when Alastair's blade cut into him and screamed a little less. He spent three years trying to give Alastair the same hell Evelyn had but no matter what he did the demon never broke. He never sent Dean into the Pit.
-e-
The ninth circle was always changing, always switching its form. One day a labyrinth, one week a hellscape worse than anything she could have imagined. There was no order down there, no time of rest like in the third circle, only chaos. Evelyn fought and died until her mind went numb. It was an endless horror, running from monsters that wanted nothing more than to devour her soul.
She had almost fallen prey to one, its wings carried it faster than her legs could run. It's hideous claws had sunk into her chest, pulling at soul. Crushing it inside of her but it stopped just as she thought she would finally find oblivion. It held her to its chest, hissing and screaming at something in the darkness. Something that filled the air around it with the bitter taste of rage. The creature gave one last pitiful howl as it dropped her twenty feet onto the rocky ground, killing her instantly.
When she woke up next, the darkness around her was penetrated by a bright light coming out of a small crack in the stone floor. Evelyn tried breaking through, but nothing she did ever widened the crack, never let her through. There was a madness down there that clawed at her mind, whispering dark secrets in her ear. Sweet stories that filled her heart with darkness and knowledge. She sang to the small crack in the floor where the madness seeped out. Whispered her sins into its fission and told it stories when it asked. It told her it was an angel, trapped here by its enemies. Promised her glory and riches.
Her heart had no use for such things.
Then it told her it was a king and would let her rule by it side, if she would only unlock the door. Still she refused. It promised everything it could think of, trying to sway her heart into opening the door for it, just a little. Just a window for it to look through, but even though Evelyn's mind began to unravel her heart did not.
Instead it gave her power, showed her what real darkness was and laughed at the petty games the demons above were playing. With every secret it demanded to be let free, wanted to stretch out and devour everything in sight. Wanted her to open its cage but she refused everytime. Instead she told it more stories, distracting the monster inside while she learned its secrets. Yet, it was stronger than her, the longer she stayed by the glowing crack that kept the monsters at bay the weaker her mind became.
As time went on the small crack started to heal itself and the madness inside could no longer speak to her. The rage she felt at being left alone in the endless black on the Pit overwhelmed her. The magic she had learned from the darkness taunting her with images of revenge, nearly consuming her entire soul.
Frank, the reason she was dead in the first place. She could stomach the thought of his blood on her hands but the madness pushed. It would give her Frank, show her a way out of hell so that she could find him and bleed him.
Evelyn had been so close to giving into the darkness, to saying Yes to Alastair if only so that she could seek out her revenge. How close had she been to becoming a demon herself? Whatever darkness that stayed locked in that cage, that leaked out though that crack had taught her beautiful and horrifying things, it had shown her a whole new world of magic that she never dreamed existed.
Evelyn had never felt magic like that. Powerful, hungry magic that grew with each creature she killed. Until she found herself, wrist deep inside the chest of another lost soul, their scream penetrating the evil that surrounded her. She watched in those final moments as the woman whose soul she was crushing begged her to stop. Begged for God. Evelyn left the woman, half dead on the ground.
