I guess I understand the urge. I mean, on some level. One of those things killed my dad and pretty much ruined my leg - I've got just about as much right to be pissed as anybody. And I suppose that it's better to take that kind of anger, the kind I feel every once in a while, out on a monster instead of a human being. The first one makes you a hunter, and the second one just makes you a sadist.
They're disgusting. Some of them are, and I get that pretty damn well, since I've probably talked to more than anyone else out there. They talk about what babies taste like, how they made somebody scream when they slowly pulled them apart, how much they love sleeping in a nest lined with human skin. It takes everything I've got to stay professional with those ones.
They're not all like that, though. I can count on one hand the number of really decent monsters I've met, but they do exist. They don't deserve to be hunted or hurt or killed. And...I don't know. I guess that my point here is that if you carve up one really bad monster and you like it...where do you draw the line?
- Personal journal of Sam Winchester
A loud and heavy knocking on the front door startled Sam's stomach up into his mouth His spine snapped itself ramrod straight, and every muscle in his body tensed, setting off a firestorm in the leg that had been mercifully free of pain for the last hour or so. He groaned, blinking stickily as he realized that, somehow, he had dozed off. It would have surprised him a lot more than it did if his hunting days hadn't taught him that his body would eventually take what it wanted no matter how he felt.
He pushed himself up out of the chair that he'd moved into when the floor had started to hurt his back. The rest must've been good for his leg, because he didn't need to grab his desk to help himself to his feet, and it took his weight the first time. Despite the pain, he was barely limping at all when he walked over to the door and yanked it open, finally getting the pounding to stop.
Gordon stood on the other side, hand still raised. He was an imposing, solidly-built black man. He didn't quite surpass Sam in height, but not many people did. He eyed him critically as he folded his arms over his chest.
"See you cleaned up for company," he said.
Sam just blinked, his brain still partially mired in sleep. He wasn't exactly overdressed, in his worn, baggy clothes and bare feet, and he probably didn't look too clean, since he hadn't shaved in a couple of days. He hadn't cut his hair in a while, either. Or brushed it. Or really done anything with it besides slapping shampoo onto it every morning and then rinsing it off. He might actually deserve the disapproving look that Gordon was giving him right now.
"Do you have the Knight?" he asked. Gordon snorted.
"What d'you think?" He pushed past Sam, into his house. His boots were muddy (Sam's front walkway was packed dirt, and it was the foggy/frosty/rainy season), but he didn't take them off, or even scrape them clean. Sam rolled his eyes and muttered, "Come on in," under his breath. Gordon glanced at him over his shoulder. "You say something?"
"No." Sam followed Gordon over to his new and improved demon cell, which the older man was examining with a raised eyebrow. He gripped one of the bars on the gate and shook it. Everything held, which sent a flicker of relief through Sam. He definitely wasn't a carpenter. "D'you think it'll hold him?"
"I think you did a pretty good job," Gordon admitted, grudgingly. "Think I'm gonna leave some of my gear with you, though. The handcuffs, the collar - I've got a chair I think you could use, too. I'm gonna have to…" There was a loud clanking of metal behind them, from the doorway. They turned in unison (much to Sam's annoyance). "Ah. Well, there he is."
Sam had left the door open, and two men who must be members of Gordon's party took advantage of that, supporting a third man between them. At first, Sam thought that he was unconscious, because his head was bowed so low and he wasn't moving his feet - then he realized that he was awake, unmistakably open eyes glittering in his face, and was just refusing to walk to make things difficult for the men on either side of him. He was weighed down with silver manacles on his wrists, a heavy metal ring around his neck, and thick chains that pinned his arms against his upper body and hobbled him. A bolt of freezing lightning ran up Sam's spine, and every hair on his body prickled as the realization hit home - he was in the same room as a Knight of Hell.
He wasn't entirely sure what he'd been expecting from the demon's vessel. Maybe an older man, strong, dark, and very imposing. Someone a legion of demons would feel good about following. But those vague, watery expectations definitely weren't met. The Knight was powerfully built, sure, and tall (still not as tall as Sam), but he fell short of "dark" and "imposing." He was a blonde, first of all. Pretty dirty, but still fair-haired - and fair-skinned, too, which translated to a boatload of freckles scattered over every piece of bare flesh. His legs were bowed slightly, which Sam could tell even though he wasn't walking on them at the moment, and he had a startlingly clear set of bright green eyes.
He was attractive. Symmetrical, at least. Sam felt suddenly uncomfortable with that realization.
He was also badly hurt. Sam took clinical stock of all of his injuries as Gordon opened the door to the cell and the two men - both heavily armed, Sam noted - dragged the demon past him. Blood was matted and crusted into his close-cropped hair, probably from the mess of ugly bruises and cuts that puffed out the left side of his face. His neck and throat were mottled with more bruises. Blood covered the front of the T-shirt that he was wearing, mostly dry but still sticky and black in a few spots. Fingers on both of his hands were twisted and misshapen and obviously broken. His right knee was hideously swollen, enough to make his jeans painfully tight around it, and Sam felt an involuntary pang of sympathy.
Gordon's men, average hunters Sam didn't bother paying much attention to, dragged the demon into the cell. Another appeared in the doorway, wrestling with a large, solid, antique-looking wooden chair, covered with runes and scarred leather straps. And what had to be bloodstains. Sam followed that guy through the doorway and into the Circle of Solomon, Gordon right beside him. The chair went into the very center of the room, and the demon was unceremoniously dumped into it. Sam hugged himself as the three hunters went to work strapping him in, then shot an accusing look at Gordon.
"Why'd you bother with the cage?" he asked, struggling to keep anger out of his voice. Gordon did not respond well to being yelled at, which Sam knew from tiring experience. "You just could've drug him behind whatever you came up here in. Probably would have done less damage."
Gordon squinted at Sam, who glared back and refused to give so much as an inch. He might not be "out on the front lines," as Gordon had put it, but he was good at his job, this was his house, and he wasn't going to praise someone for bringing him a damaged subject.
"He wouldn't talk, he wouldn't die, and he wouldn't leave," Gordon said, after a short-lived staring contest that Sam assumed he'd won. "What you're looking at is just the end results of us trying to make him do one of those things."
Sam's only response to that was another accusing look. He knew how to interrogate - how to torture, if all his other tactics failed. Nothing he'd put a knife to had ever come out looking like the demon in front of him did.
"It's a demon," Gordon continued. Somehow, he managed not to sound defensive. "Why hell're you so damn protective of these things, Winchester? You think he doesn't deserve to have a broken leg, or a black eye? He's a Knight of Hell. We don't know what he's done." Gordon crossed the Circle, testing the straps that now held the demon to the chair with two fingers. Sam followed. The demon didn't react, though that might have been because of the two sawed-offs and one knife pointed at him - Sam recognized the knife as one of those that he'd made himself. He looked at the other hunters, trying to judge if they'd had anything to do with the wounds littering the Knight's body, as Gordon added, "But I assume that's one of those things that you're gonna try and get outta him."
"It's not about whether or not he deserves it," Sam said. He pulled his eyes away from the three nameless hunters that Gordon had brought with him, knowing that he wouldn't get any help from them. Not if they were working with Gordon, taking orders from him. "It's about me being able to get anything useful from him. I'm guessing that he hasn't been too chatty since you beat him into the ground."
Gordon, apparently satisfied that his Knight wasn't going to break the straps anytime soon, turned to Sam with an unreadable expression on his face.
"And what about his vessel?" Sam continued. He waved a hand at the laconic Knight, the gesture a little more aggressive than he'd actually wanted it to be. "There's a human being in there. However mad you were, you took it out on that guy. Not the demon. Not really."
This time, Gordon laughed, the sound low and derisive. It seemed to grate against his ears.
"You think you can save whoever's in there?" he asked with a grin. "You can't exorcise this demon. Not even you know a ritual that can get rid of him." He shook his head, then turned away, leaving the cell. Sam followed him again, and heard boots on cement as the other hunters did the same. "And even if you did - well, how d'you know that there'd be anything worth saving once the demon was gone?" Sam took hold of the gate, standing outside of it as Gordon's posse filed out, and never took his eyes off of the older man. "Knights are old. Cain and Abel old. You said so in your book, didn't you?" Sam lifted his chin a little instead of answering. "Imagine that that thing's been wearing him since then. No human soul could make it through that. Not intact, at least."
Sam very firmly put his back to Gordon as he locked the gate, sealing the demon into his cell. He - it - didn't seem to mind, but Sam had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. He turned to Gordon again when the gate was secure, one hand still on the bars.
"Can't hurt to try," he pointed out, then cleared his throat. "You got a name for me?"
Gordon chuckled. "A name. Yeah, you always gotta have a name, don't you?" His amusement was clear as he said, "It never really came up. Maybe you can just refer to him as 'Sir Knight,' huh? Show him the respect he deserves?"
Sam exhaled explosively through his nose, then glanced up at the ceiling. He crossed his main room, doing his absolute best not to limp, and reached his still-open front door. He put a hand on the knob and squeezed hard enough to make the metal creak a little.
"You brought me the Knight," he said. He sounded civil, and counted it as a personal miracle. "Or something that you think is a Knight, anyway. Do you need anything else?"
Gordon grinned and shook his head, as one of the other hunters who had come with him stretched, groaning, and headed outside. He didn't so much as glance at Sam, but honestly, Sam couldn't care less about that. He was focused on Gordon, who was easily the biggest threat to him and what he did here.
"Nope." He walked past Sam, the other two hunters following him out. "Be sure and call me as soon as you figure out anything about him, all right?"
Sam nodded stiffly in answer, and the second that the room was once again empty of anyone but him, he closed and locked the door. He was pretty tempted to slam it, but he felt like he'd sent enough messages for one day. He blew out a deep breath that he must have been holding, then reached up and tangled his fingers in his long hair, taking large handfuls of it. He'd never thought of himself as an introvert, but face-to-face social interactions were taking more and more out of him every time that somebody visited him. Maybe it was because he spent most of his time almost completely alone up here. But, then again, he would've been willing to bet that his current exhaustion came mostly from the fact that it'd been Gordon visiting him.
He let his hands drop, and stared at the door as an engine, probably that of a van, started up. He didn't move until about a minute after it faded away, half-expecting another loud, obnoxious knock on his door, even though he knew it wouldn't come. He finally turned around and made his way back to his desk, where he dropped into his chair.
Sam started to reach for his pencil and the sketches that he'd been working on earlier, hesitated on the way, then gave up with a slight huff of defeat. The supposed Knight was here now. He didn't have to stress about its arrival. He should have been able to go back to work - in theory. But he could tell that any effort he expended right now would be completely useless before he ever even touched pencil to paper. He was too worn out and too strung out; both at the same time, if that was even possible.
He turned slightly in his chair, and found a pair of green eyes fixed right on him, one partially obscured by the swollen and purpled flesh around it. He couldn't read anything in them, and if it weren't for the shine of moisture, he'd think they belonged to a corpse. But, then again, that was what a demon was, wasn't it? A dead person, a soul that'd had all of its humanity tortured out of it. He assumed that the thing staring at him right now was the same, even though he actually didn't know too much about how Knights were born as opposed to ordinary demons.
The staring was beginning to make him a little uncomfortable, even if it was just because he knew what was behind those eyes. He almost got up to close the door, then realized that it was already closed - the demon was staring at him through the bars. With the gate in place, there was no solid wood to block his gaze. Sam groaned softly.
"I've made a huge mistake," he muttered to himself.
The demon moved when he spoke. Not very much; it was just a little twitch of his head, but it was enough to make it clear that he'd heard Sam's voice, even if he hadn't caught exactly what he'd said. Sam stood up, swallowing. He tore his eyes away from the demon as he gathered up everything that he'd been working on or with lately. Everything he might need for work for at least the next few days: his banshee notes and sketches, pencils, pens, extra paper, his laptop, the phone, and the wireless router, which was a top-of-the-line high-speed model that he'd dropped about four hundred dollars on. He carried two loads into his bedroom, and the second one was just the stupidly-expensive router, because replacing the damn thing after breaking it was pretty high on his list of things that he didn't want to do anytime soon.
He knew the demon was watching him the entire time. Sam could practically feel his gaze burning a hole through his bedroom door after he'd closed it, but he did his best to ignore him, focusing instead on plugging in, setting up, and organizing everything he'd brought in. It wasn't easy. His bedroom was tiny, and even though the window over his bed might have helped it to look bigger, it certainly didn't give him any extra space.
Once he'd found at least a temporary place for everything, he left his new, much more awkward office and returned to his main room. He'd used his leg way too much today, and it was definitely letting him know, waves of weakening pain thudding their dull way up to the base of his spine. He needed to sit down, or at least go easy on it. But he forced himself not to limp at all when he crossed back into the demon's line of sight and went to his chair.
He was going to regret this, he realized as he lowered himself into it. That little display of pseudo-strength had likely cost him his mobility for tomorrow, and he had the sneaking suspicion that it had been worthless. But, hey, at least his inner alpha male Neanderthal was satisfied.
Sam sat in his chair. The demon stared blankly at him. His leg throbbed. It was a routine that he was content to let continue for a few minutes, just so that he could get his breath back and let the pain ebb. Then he started taking stock of the demon's injuries all over again. The bruised face and neck, the broken fingers, the damaged knee. There were probably a dozen more wounds that he couldn't see because of his clothes and his skin. He still couldn't tell where all that blood on his shirt had come from - oh. Wait. Yes, he could. Gordon had stabbed him in the solar plexus and then twisted the knife. Now that Sam looked closer, he could see a slender rip in the demon's blood-stiffened shirt. Anyone would bleed profusely from that.
But none of these bruises and cuts and broken bones belonged to the demon. They probably didn't even cause him all that much pain. The one who'd really been hurt was the man he was wearing, and Sam would have to try to remember that.
His eyes flicked towards the bathroom, where he kept a large and thorough first aid kit. One of his methods was to establish a repertoire with the things that were delivered to him, to show them kindness and at least treat them decently. He had learned a long time ago that demons weren't nearly as appreciative of that as, say, werewolves were, but he was really caring for the vessel. Diminishing whatever pain the demon was in was just a side effect of that.
Sam was about to get to his feet when he remembered what Gordon had said to him while he was here. About the demon's vessel. Sam really doubted that the guy he was looking at right now dated all the way back to Biblical times, but...how long, really, could a human mind and soul last with a demon rubbing up against them and controlling their body? Five years? Ten? Definitely no more than that, and even then, there'd be deep and lasting effects.
That brought him to the points that Gordon had made about the fact that it was a demon, and that they didn't know what it or he had done. Sam knew plenty of people - decent people - who would think that simply the act of leading a demonic army against humanity (and it kind of sounded like that was what he had been doing when Gordon had nabbed him) was more than enough to condemn him to suffering and death.
It's a demon.
Sam closed his eyes. He remembered being twelve, staring at a girl only a few years older than him where she crouched in a devil's trap with black eyes and dirty hair, the ancient book in his hands trembling slightly. His father's hand came down heavily on his shoulder and his voice rumbled through the murk: "These things killed your mother."
When Sam opened his eyes again, the demon's had gone black.
He got to his feet, making his leg hold him, and limped to his bedroom instead of the bathroom. He closed the door behind him with a quiet click, shielding himself from the demon and its blood and bruises, and just focused on taking slow, deep breaths for a long time.
