Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 16
Please note this chapter is kinda gory, can't say I didn't warn you.
Crowley jerked his wrists against the manacles binding him to the chair; the debilitating ache from resisting the anti-demon warding making him bare his teeth in a shark like grin.
Thanks to Sam, and all that blood he had poisoned Crowley with, he also felt a second kind of pain whilst jerking a wrist.
Call it somatic pain.
Feedback that danced zingingly outward from all those little nerve endings clustered under the frail, bruised, and abraded skin of his meatsuit.
It was a sensation the demon king hadn't truly felt for hundreds of earth-years, and he gloried in it.
A demon invaded every cell of the meatsuit they possessed. But, what said demon experienced, even in a meatsuit, was always perceived from a step back. Muffled, and dull by comparison to what a living human felt.
Any topside demon could take a knife to the meat it inhabited.
Carve the still beating heart from it's chest, mutilate it in any number of inventive ways, and the sensation elicited by all that creativity, could be, at best, described as discomfort.
Even fully enmeshed in a meatsuit, a demon didn't truly feel.
Still, demons did contrive a lot of satisfaction from causing sin, destruction and degradation. They could syphon off some secondhand emotional impact from a meatsuit's suffering and get a nice buzz going. Which was why demon's would scheme, claw and fight their way to the top of the pile for the chance to visit topside and have an opportunity at being inside a meatsuit. Of feeling something.
Because of the suspended demon cure, Crowley found he had begun to perceive physical sensation from his meatsuit more keenly.
Humans were creatures awash in a sea of sensation. Pleasure and pain, the seeking and avoidance of them, were what push-pulled your average human around it's mortal coil.
When they died, and got sent down stairs, they were cut adrift from all of that.
Eyes, ears, taste buds and nerve endings, were all somewhat lacking when one gave up the ghost.
A spirit could sense things, true, but such sensations were diffuse, dilute; more a lingering memory of how things had been in life than true tactility.
In the beginning, when a spirit plunged down into hell, it existed in a muffled form of sensory deprivation. Left alone and starved of everything that constituted life. Tormented by the memory of, and hunger for, all those sensations they had been cut off from.
Your average new Hell recruit languished like that, a spirit with a muddied soul still attached, alone in their cell or hanging from chains in a void of their own making.
They were left there, to marinade in their darkest thoughts, regrets and memories, for a long time. Before ever seeing a demon or the racks.
Then came the racks, where the soul was painstakingly driven off and peeled away. The torment of the racks only came to an end if a spirit relinquished it's hold on its soul, giving it up to Hell.
Leaving only the individual's spirit, now curdled and twisted into black smoke.
While it happened, the torment of the racks appeared never ending, a sea of pain with no shores; bereft of even the hope, or promise, of death.
It was not, however, the same as pain felt whilst alive. Of course, very few suffered enough during life to notice, or comprehend how their mode of existence differed from their previous one.
A physical body suffered in graduations, it had a finite capacity to endure, before inevitably fleeing into unconsciousness or death.
A spirit in Hell had no such escape … But neither did torture in hell have any true, concrete ramifications. If you ran a metal blade through water, you did no true harm to the water, you simply forced it to take on a new shape.
Rack demons did not need to wait for their charges to heal, before beginning anew. Very few recruits retained the presence of mind to notice such, in the thick of things.
They experienced the torture as their lost bodies and years of human experience led them to expect and anticipate.
Hung on the rack, one existed in the eternal now. Soon enough, forgetting such concepts as past, present and future. But for all that, once hung on the rack, you were allowed to feel something, after so long held with no external stimulus.
The experience would laser focus a recruit into an eternal moment, which in itself was a kind of clarity, the pain burned away the dross and every other petty concern, leaving only pure, mailable metal.
When the soul finally left, so did all those God inspired feelings of empathy, love and conscience; they fled along with the soul, taking with them any lingering aftertaste of humanity, all those preconceived notions of sensation. It left the spirit twisted, scoured out and numbed.
It was then, a spirit became truly demonic.
Many demons had an interesting relationship with what remained of their dulled, divorced version of pain. Crowley counted himself in that number.
For most, pain was the last true memory of what it was to feel anything. And something was better than nothing.
Crowley jerked his wrist against the manacles, again, harder.
He hadn't spared a thought for such things in a long, long time.
They didn't concern him, he'd been in acquisitions, and then management. Thinking of such things, now, unsettled him.
Ruminating on the process of demonization made him ponder what other things the supposed cure had done to him.
He couldn't deny the change, he was feeling things, the cure had made him more physical, more human.
But how could that be? He didn't have a soul, it was gone, wasn't it?
He couldn't pretend he didn't notice things, such as changes of temperature, or the small discomforts he had long been accustomed to not feeling. The crusty feel of his ruined socks and boxers adhered to his meatsuit annoyed him. Physical sensations nagged at him when ever he allowed his thoughts to grow unfocused.
But the change that truly bothered him was the memories, the overlay of emotional sensation which he could have sworn were expunged from his psyche long since.
Before Moose shot him up, his backstory had been either blank or similar to reading dry history, written by an author with a penchant for telling rather than showing.
Now, the hazy un-focused memories of his human life, as Fergus Macleod kept surfacing; like so many gas bloated corpses, rising to bob on the surface of the swamp they were disposed in.
His fractured memories of the time he hung on the racks, came back flavoured with all the petty weakness and simpering cowardice that typified the erstwhile tailor.
One such memory that visited Crowley often in Moose and Squirrels dungeon, was the first time Fergus saw Lilith.
He'd been hunched over, using twisted strands of hair, hair he had wrenched from his own scalp, to thread a needle fashioned of splintered bone. The bone he had been forced to extricate from his own right foot for the task.
These materials he used to create stitches into a fabric made of his own flayed skin.
It was a task Fergus had cursed himself with. An attempt to fashion a garment as an appeasement for the demon assigned to torment him. He had been grateful of the chance to do so. Even if he was using the only material he had on offer. His own flesh.
Crowley remembered how his brutalised fingers had cramped and ached endlessly, holding onto that small tacky, blood slicked bone fragment.
The frustration and despair that near crushed him every time he pulled too hard and made the flimsy strands of hair unravel or snap.
How difficult it had been to force the shard of bone again and again through his own flaccid, quivering flesh and create the required, tiny regular stitches.
All the while strung taut, fearfully aware of the demon in the corner of his cell. Perhaps ignoring him, perhaps not, while he stitched away.
Fergus had been smart enough to realise, his respite could end at any moment, and then he'd be back on the rack.
Lilith must have been promenading through the pit, taking in the ambiance of the racks, looking for a new game to play.
She had seen him at work, and paused. Asked what he was doing in a sweet little girl voice.
Shocked by any attention that didn't involve agony. Fergus had explained it to her in a cracked, barely there whisper. Not daring to glance up at her or pause his task, for fear of alerting the rack demon to the presence of his visitor.
Foolish Fergus had felt a wane flicker of pride as he whispered his tale to her. Explaining how he had talked his way down off the rack, by suggesting to the demon that such a garment would make him the envy of all the other demons in their particular section of Hell.
It had been then, that the rack demon became aware of the little girl's presence.
To Fergus's shock, things hadn't proceeded as he expected.
The demon had near fainted in abject terror. Scrambled to its feet to stand ramrod straight in front of the child; who giggled at it's reaction, then began to skipped to and fro before Fergus's tormentor, interrogating it.
The repellent creature had folded to the ground, and grovelled at the child's feet. Replying to all the child's questions with the fearful simpering of a sycophant.
Fergus had observed proceedings in dumbfounded bewilderment.
The faux child had been most interested in how he had talked his way down off the rack. But also, mildly intrigued and delighted by how he had willingly taken on the task of torturing himself.
Even in life, Fergus Macleod had been a masochist. Of course, then, he wasn't cognoscente of the fact.
The German novelist, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was yet to be born in Fergus Macleod's era.
The writer wouldn't originate the term for another 163 years.
Freud, Jung, Pavlov, Adler and the whole concept of psychology, were likewise yet to suckle their mothers teat, when Fergus Macleod lived and died in his Scottish backwater; drunk and choking on his own vomit, in that ditch. Just as his abdicated, witch of a mother had prophecied.
Fergus had been a man well acquainted with turning his anger and contempt towards the world inward, gleaning a certain grim satisfaction, and justification from the resulting affliction.
Yet, he had foolishly hoped the child's enterance signalled a reprieve in his damnation.
But the monsterous child, Lilith, had dashed those hopes. Proclaiming Fergus would modify the unfinished garment for her. Tailor it into a 'pretty' dress, adorned with a bow, made from the flayed skin of his own demon deal augmented manhood.
She had insisted he flay the skin for the bow himself.
Using only his shoddy bone needle.
It had taken him a long time, with Lilith watching him work avidly. Her queer milky eyes fixated on his every motion, appearing to enjoy every wretched bitten off whimper of pain passing from his lips, rosebud mouth curved into a salacious smile.
How the horrid child had clapped her tiny hands, delighted, and excited by each agonised whimper and stinging torrent of tears.
And when finally, the dress was done, Lilith had donned its suppurating, flaccid folds, twirled on the spot in delight and let loose a peel of childlike giggles.
Then, flung herself into his flayed arms, ignoring his bitten off curses of pain, to hug him in a bone crushing embrace.
Lilith declared the dress to be her favourite while showering his raw, bloody cheek with biting little kisses; a sick parody of childlike exuberance.
Lilith was no child. Bar that she was Lucifer's first born, and liked to play at the role of being Daddies little girl.
She had been a full grown woman when Lucifer turned her. The child-form was just another pretty dress to play in. She simply enjoyed the depravity of appearing to be something small, vulnerable and innocent looking. It fucked with expectations and enhanced the horror of her atrocities.
Lilith honed psychological torture long before humanity even invented the term.
He learned all that later.
After the chance encounter, Lilith developed a minor interest in him. She came to play with him again. More than once, and earmarked him as one of hers, to be diverted towards the crossroads.
Crowley supposed he had been attached to Lilith. Lucifer's first born had been a monster, true, (the things she had done to him on the racks and after, he supposed were abjectly horrific) but she had given him a chance, taught him important lessons.
Surviving and learning from her games had made him stronger, better at his job.
He had climbed many a rung in Hell's highrache because of her patronage and lessons.
When Liliths star had risen high, so had his. That reason alone excused any semblance of attachment he may have formed.
He had never liked Azazel. So, when they discovered that the whole scheme to free Lucifer from the cage hinged on Lilith's demise, Crowley had questioned a good many things.
After Sam Winchester broke Lilith's seal wide open, he had once again pondered the ramifications of Lucifer's grand master plan, for bringing about the appocalypse. He'd found himself doubting the depth of Lucifer's investment in the continuation of the demonic species.
And so he had begun his own scheme, to undermine Lucifer's plan for overturning the apple cart.
In it's way that plan had led him here, chained in a devil's trap waiting on the Hardy boys pleasure.
He tugged against the manacle once again, jerked it harder, savoured the double hit of physical and spiritual pain.
Meanwhile here he sat, with nothing better to do than to keep jerking himself off. Crowley smiled to himself at the double entendre and made a note to work that particular turn of phrase into the next conversation, when Moose and Squirrel finally saw fit to visit.
….-….-….-….-
Authors note: Thanks to everyone who has read followed and commented on my story.
I truly appreciate feedback and attempt to reply to all comments I receive, since we are unable reply to guest commenters via PM I figured I would thank all of those good people here and now.
Also I thought I'd let you know that this story is cross posted on AO3 under my other penname Hobbitual_Psychick
Over there DFAM and my other stories contain illustrations, I believe they enhance the whole experience, I'd love it if you'd like to check them out. fanfiction if my first writing home and many of you reviewers keep me from giving up.
You are the all best -hugs- because of that, it always makes me sad you get the budget text only experience.
-MC2
P.s. Some of you may have heard, after being clear of Covid 19 for over 100 days the virus has got back in to New Zealand and parts of the country are back in level 3 lockdown. At this point my region is not affected, my kids are very annoyed that they will continue having to go to school, when kids in Auckland are getting time off again.
I pray for all of you out there that are way more impacted, and I hope you stay safe and well in your corners of the world.