Hellfire burns. Dean forgets this.
Somewhere between the clang of the rack and the screams of the victims, the throwback of heat from the flames gets lost. Somewhere in the callouses on his hands and the clang of the chains in his hands, somewhere in the sight of the blood and the smell of the iron. Somewhere. Dean forgets.
(He'd argue otherwise. Dean doesn't forget, he doesn't run. Dean adapts, because that's what you do, isn't it? You face the son-of-a-bitch head on and you charge until there's nothing left, but was there ever, really? Was there ever any denying it, when it was in you all along?
Somewhere, deep inside, drowning in blood and gray matter, Dean screams.)
He stands there now, scalpel in his hand, tapping the flat side against his palm, rhythm steady. A slice from there, a stab here, a smear, a spread of blood across the woman's thighs. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? A morbid drip-drip of watercolor across that pale skin.
(Nice. Not a word in his vocabulary. Alistair's rubbing off on him, and Dean's stomach twists. He holds it in, holds it together, can't break now when he's the one with the knife.)
She's spread out on the rack and she takes him in, lips curling into a smile as she says, "Hello, Dean."
Dean blinks. Once. Twice. He straightens, squares his shoulders, taps that scalpel hard against the palm of his hand. Feels the blade against the roughness. Frowns.
(Don't show confusion, don't show doubt. You're always the one with the upper hand. You're the one with the weapon.)
So he walks, instead. He walks across the platform, pacing with slow steps, winds his way around the rack, hands drumming an old beat on the iron bars. What is that, some old guitar riff, slid across the frets from before he was born?
Dean forgets.
And this one. Oh, this one.
She watches him with every step he takes, those doe-eyes following him till Dean wonders if they'll roll back in her head. And that's a fun thought, isn't it? Would he gouge them out with the blade, maybe, or pluck them out with his fingers? And it's been so long since he had himself knuckle-deep in some kind of monster's guts and she laughs.
She laughs. It's a gentle shake, but one that moves her body in the restraints. Dean glowers, pacing across the rack to the other side.
"You got something to say?" he finally asks.
"I suppose you'd want to hear something about your reputation," she says. Against the screams and the crackle of the flames below their platform, the woman's voice is smoother than whiskey and ice, goes over easier than a silk gown.
Dean peers at her. The fire flickers, he sees diamonds. Her hair falls across her face; he sees her fainting.
Dean forgets.
The woman watches.
He turns the scalpel in his hands, feeling it warm, hot. He flicks it outward, over the edge of the platform, holds it against the heat of the flames. She won't see the sharp quake of his hand that way.
The woman blows a lock of that light brown hair out of her face. She tilts her head as best she can, some show of confusion.
"You don't remember, do you?" And she scoffs. "I'm sure that's the only thing barring your pride."
"Shut the hell up," Dean says, and he charges forward, blade thrust outward. She's smirking at him and he stops short, that blade so close to her skin. It would be so easy.
(Too easy.)
"You won't hurt me, Dean," she tells him. "We're too alike."
Dean's fingers squeeze the handle of the scalpel and she isn't right, she can't be right, he doesn't want her to be right.
(She's right. Just this once.)
"The hell do you know about me?" he growls at her. That mouth of hers twists into a frown and she closes her eyes, exhaling from her belly.
"I sold your gun," she says, eyes fluttering open. "Surely you remember that."
Dean remembers.
He remembers humid nights, gas pedal to the floor, he remembers his phone pressed against his ear and his voice a twisted snarl in his throat.
He remembers.
"Bela?"
It comes out like a question, raw and high from his chest and then it's all the heat from the flames, all the screams and the clangs of iron, all the sulfur burning in his eyes and the smoke in his lungs and he pitches forward, coughing, swears his lungs are trying to burst forth through his esophagus.
The scalpel clatters to the ground, ringing as it hits concrete, and Bela's all huffy sighs and tight smiles and rolled eyes.
"The least you could do is untie me," she tells him. There's a lilt to her voice that Dean doesn't like, those newfound instincts of his scream at him to strangle it out of her. "The bruises aren't exactly the most fetching."
(Or maybe that's Alistair's doing. Dean searches his brain, all darkness and blood.)
"Seriously?" he spits. "They gave you to me?"
"The afterlife has a strange sense of humor," Bela says, and Dean notes the way she shies away from the word cruel.
Dean's fingers flex, curl at his sides. A repetitive motion, something to ground him, but how can he be grounded in a place like this? Escape. That's natural, isn't it? Escape versus adapt. Dean never has time to weigh the options.
He breathes. In, out. Over and over, that smoke and ash burning in his throat, fighting him all the way down, but he fights better. That's all he knows, all he's ever known. And Hell is no different. Make a home on the road, make a home with everyone's worst devils. It's all the same to him.
He rounds on Bela again, newfound fury in his eyes.
Her eyes, however, roll. "Come now, Dean. You knew I was headed for the same fate as you. You wished it on me."
He wonders how the hellhounds closed in on her, where they finally found her. He says, "I thought they'd rip you limb from limb," delights in the way her face goes pale.
"Who says they didn't? " is her response.
Dean kneels, plucking up the scalpel from the dusty floor, blowing the debris from the metal handle. Once mirror-shiny, it's stained with blood, thick with the torture of the others he's had.
It would suit her, he thinks, the way she wormed around, the way she twisted her words. She knows the way off the rack, doesn't she? She's held a gun to his head, and after death, she's shy?
(He doesn't know a thing about her.)
He picks himself up, walks to the edge of the platform, dips his blade into the flames, watch the blood turn black. Hellfire. It burns, doesn't it? Dean remembers.
When he saunters back, his eyes are dark. Hers are wide open.
"I knew you had it in you," she says.
He raises the blade, slices into her forearm.
(She doesn't know a thing about him.)