Sorry for the long time between updates, I still have no internet at home. On the plus side, I've been turning out chapters a lot faster lately, so you guys will have more to read at once. The title of the last chapter was a line from the song "24" by Jewel. Please read and review!

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from Supernatural or Buffy the Vampire Slayer; I only own Erin and this story.

Chapter 10: Pitiful Creature of Darkness

It's rather difficult to pass out when someone keeps waking you up with a cattle prod. After all these years, Erin had nearly mastered the art of blocking out pain in order to keep from passing out, but everyone has their limits. She had been in and out of consciousness so many times she'd lost track of how long she had been held captive. Every time her brain would slip into nothingness she would be rudely awakened by six-thousand volts of electricity coursing through her body. She was pretty sure her heart could break dance now. On the bright side, most of her body had gone numb at this point.

Dean had decided that having her tied to a chair wasn't fun enough not long after she had awoken. He had then proceeded to hang her from the ceiling with the meat hooks he'd brought with him. Erin had long ago stopped wondering where he had acquired the torture tools and switched to wondering how much damage her body could take before it shut down entirely. At the moment, she had a hook through the flesh between her shoulder and her neck, on each side, a couple hooks in her back, a hook in each thigh, and a hook in the hollow of each wrist. She probably would've died from blood loss by now, had Dean not cauterized the wounds with a hot fire poker in order to keep her alive longer. Maybe one day the Blue Fairy will come and I'll be a real girl, Erin thought dryly. It was amazing how much of her sense of humor she retained, regardless of her bleak situation.

Despite everything he had done, at least the demonic Winchester had left her clothes on. Erin shuddered to think about what he could do and hoped he would be too preoccupied to think of those things.

Currently, Dean was outside chopping wood to add to the fire he had started in the fireplace; it was the only way he'd been able to heat his torture instruments enough to burn Erin, who had long since stopped feeling the warmth the fire provided in the chilly October night.

Erin opened her eyes, straining to make out the details of the room through her blurred vision. Dean had closed the curtains and no light showed through, indicating that it was still dark outside. She lolled her head back, staring up at the chains that had her suspended from the ceiling. She tried to make her brain work, tried to think of a way to get down, but nothing came to mind.

She had long ago told Dean that she honestly had no idea how she was supposed to save him; only that Sam had found a prophecy about a key to Hell and a saviour of the damned—whoever "the damned" were—and used the summoning spell that accompanied it. She wasn't sure whether Dean thought she was lying or if he had another motive for keeping her alive.

What does he want with me? Erin thought over and over. She knew he didn't want to be saved. She knew that he planned to kill her so that Sam and Castiel couldn't use her for that purpose. Sam and Castiel…

At that moment, Dean entered the cabin, his arms full of wood. He closed the door behind him with his foot and went over to feed the fire. The entire time, he never even glanced up at Erin, who was watching him with renewed curiosity. As he fed the fire he whistled a tune; it was one that she found familiar, though she couldn't place the song. She found his whistling odd as he seemed to take no enjoyment in his task. For that matter, he seemed to have no feelings towards his task at all.

This intrigued Erin. She knew that demons were people who had sold their souls, either before death or as the result of torture in hell, but it never really occurred to her what it meant to be a demon beyond that. Demons seemed to have some range of emotion; they seemed to take enjoyment in the things they did and she'd seen them become angry and frightened. Of course, according to Sam, Dean was more than your average demon—he was a Knight of Hell.

Erin wondered exactly what that entailed. She began to wonder if she had ever seen Dean show any real emotion. She closed her eyes and thought back to the way he looked at her when he had first brought her to the cabin. At the time, she thought she'd seen malicious glee in his eyes. When she thought about it now she realized that, although there was indeed malice in his eyes, there was no happiness in them; maybe mild amusement, but no real joy.

She thought back to every time he had tortured her; to every time he had made her scream. Sometimes he would grin, but the action never reached his eyes. Erin would scream in pain and the mark on Dean's arm would glow an angry red, but the demonic Winchester never seemed to get much out of it otherwise. He also never seemed to sleep or eat. Even though demons didn't need to eat, Erin had seen plenty of them enjoy food and drink from time to time. She had seen Dean take a swig from a whiskey bottle every now and then, but he never seemed to enjoy the drink—it was almost seemed like he did it out of habit.

Even now, as he whistled what Erin finally recognized as the Beatles' "Hey Jude", he did everything automatically and with complete indifference. It was then she realized that the emotions that made humans what they were had all but vanished from the twisted soul that was Dean Winchester. She opened her eyes, tilting her head to the side quizzically. In that case, why in the hell did he care if he was saved or not? What was the driving force behind his actions? Surely, he had one?

Dean chose that moment to look up. He caught Erin staring at him and smirked, his eyes cold and empty. He stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans and walked over to stand in front of her.

"Oh good, you're awake already. I've been debating and I think it's time to change things up a bit," he said. Erin didn't have the energy to raise an eyebrow at him.

"Oh goody," she mumbled sarcastically.

"That's the spirit," Dean said. Without another word he reached over to her left wrist and proceeded to take out the meat hook.

It was a painful process, but it was over soon. The hole in her wrist barely bled, but Dean burned it shut anyway. He the repeated the process with the hooks in her right wrist and both of her thighs. When he took the hooks out of her shoulders she dropped suddenly, putting more strain on the hooks in her back. Erin hissed in pain, but refrained from crying out. She noticed the mark glowed a bit at the sound of her suffering, almost as if it was reveling in it.

Dean reached around her to remove the hooks from her back, his chest pressing up against her. He smelled like sulfur, whiskey, and wood smoke. As soon as her back was free of the meat hooks Erin collapsed forward, held up only by Dean. As she fell she reached out to stop herself, one hand landing lightly on his chest…the other landing right on the mark on his arm.

Instantly, the older Winchester cried out in pain as the Mark of Cain began to burn, steam rolling off of it like dry ice. Erin might have cried out, but she was too distracted by the slew of memories that assaulted her psyche.

A woman, gutted and burning on a ceiling as someone screamed "Mary!"… A small boy with a baby in his arms…"Dean, take your brother outside!"… A beautiful blonde woman in a white nightgown, protecting Sam and Dean from some unknown force…"Mom?"…Dean saying, "I drew the short straw," as he lay in a hospital bed, looking rather awful…Dean standing next to a hospital bed, staring down at an older man…"Dad?"…Dean looking on the verge of tears as he said, "He said I might have to kill you, Sam."…Sam, looking much younger and significantly less muscular, unconsciously in Dean's arms as the older brother cried, "Sammy!"… Dean conversing with a red-eyed demon…"You've got a deal."…Dean getting ripped apart by some unseen creature, which Erin recognized as a hellhound… Dean clawing his way up from somewhere dark, through dirt, to see the sky above…Castiel telling Dean, "I gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."…A bloodied, blonde teenage girl and an older brunette woman on the floor of what looked like a hardware store, saying goodbye to Sam and Dean…That same store exploding…Castiel exploding gruesomely next to the Impala…Sam falling into a hole in the ground with another man…Castiel looking downright insane as some black spread up his neck…Castiel with some strange, silver blade sticking out of his torso…"Cas!"… A pretty, brunette woman and a dark-haired boy in danger…"Lisa!"…"Ben!"… Dean watching the woman and the boy in the hospital, as if he'd never see them again…"I'm the guy who hit your car."…"Take care of your mom."… An older man with facial hair in the back of a van, blood running down his head…The same older man in the hospital, dying…"Bobby!"… Sam dying again and again…"Sam!"…"Sammy!"… A red head girl being killed by something resembling a hag…"Charlie!"… A teenage boy dying as white light burned through his eyes…"Kevin!"…Dean, bloodied and dying, telling Sam, "It's turning me into something I don't wanna be."…

Erin's eyes were rolled back in her head and her body trembled as memory after memory hit her like a ton of bricks. If she thought her life had been bad before, she felt grateful now that it hadn't been as bad as Dean's. She could feel his pain and smell the blood, sweat, and tears behind every tragic moment. She could smell the salt, sulfur, dirt, gasoline, gun powder, and burning remains behind nearly every mission…behind every loss.

Finally, Dean managed to wrench her hand off of his arm. He pushed her to the floor and examined the mark. It was an angry red, but it was only slightly redder than the hand print around it. It looked very similar to the hand print Castiel had left on him years ago when he had raised him from Hell.

Erin lay on the dusty, blood-spattered floor of the cabin, unable to feel the wood beneath her as she reeled from the things she'd just witnessed. She felt as though she had gone through those moments first-hand. Suddenly, everything made sense. Demon Dean—as she saw fit to call him, since he was no longer the Dean everyone else knew—was afraid. Out of all the emotions that eluded him, fear was not one of them.

He could still feel negative emotion to an extent, maybe not sadness, but most definitely fear and anger. Although the demon couldn't feel the loss, it could most certainly remember it and it was fighting tooth and nail to keep from going to back to the life of a human—a life filled with pain and suffering.

Erin had never truly hated Dean, for she was well aware that the man who was hurting her was not who he really was, but now she understood him. In her stupor her thoughts were brought to Brendan. Although she'd always known that it wasn't really Brendan that had hurt her, she had never let herself realize it to the full extent until now. It wasn't the man that had hurt her, it was the demon—a demon that had once been a normal human being.

Erin didn't know what happened to cause that man to sell his soul, she supposed she never would, but it wasn't important. For the first time, she found herself able to forgive the one who had caused her so much pain. She no longer hated him; rather she took pity on him; very angry pity, but it was a start.

She opened her eyes, turning her gaze to Dean, who was staring at her quizzically, hesitant to touch her again. Instead of the demon, she saw the man who was pleading for the pain to end; she knew he wasn't there anymore, but something was and that something was terrified of pain.

It suddenly dawned on her why he hadn't killed her yet—he was projecting all of his pain on her, whether he realized it or not. What started as a method to get information had become a way for the monster to punish someone for Dean's pain. Although Erin herself had not caused him any, she represented everything that Dean had stood for. She was a hunter and she was supposed to save him and many others from damnation.

That was the very responsibility that the older Winchester had placed upon himself so long ago; the responsibility that made him feel like he could never have a normal, apple-pie life, like he was forever a failure. He didn't deserve any of the hurt, despite what he thought. It occurred to Erin that, although God had punished humans for the first sin, He didn't actually want them to suffer. It seemed like it most of the time, but in truth, everyone in the world was just dealing the hand they were dealt. Who the dealer was—the Fates, the angels, whoever—didn't really matter. What mattered was that few people deserved the pain and suffering that occurred so often.

She stared at Dean and her heart ached for him. She had no reason to forgive him for the horrors he had inflicted upon her. She didn't really know Dean and the man standing before her was a demon, a spawn of Hell for all intents and purposes. 'Pitiful creature of darkness, what kind of life have you known? God give me courage to show you, you are not alone.' Erin managed to smile bitterly at the thought.

"What have you done to me!?" the demon standing beside her growled in sudden rage.

Erin didn't answer. Instead, she forced herself to roll onto her stomach and began trying to stand. It was a fight to make her limbs work and it was only with the support of the wall that she was able to get upright. She leaned against the wood, using all her strength. She looked Dean in the eyes for the first time since they met and noted that it made the demon nervous.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she whispered to him, her voice unable to go any louder.

This only served to enrage the monster further. He grabbed a knife from the nearby table and charged at her, slamming her up against the wall and plunging the knife into her abdomen in the soft spot just below her sternum. Erin barely felt the pain, but she knew where the blade had hit and she knew what it meant. She looked into the eyes of the furious demon in front of her.

"I forgive you," she said softly. The demon looked confused a split second before it gave an inhuman shriek of agony.

Erin's world went dark.