okay, as i said before this chappy is a little brutal...well, i guess more than just a little brutal so fair warning. thanks for reading and for reviewing!! as always, let me know wwhat you think as it is the only way i know i'm getting it right!! bambers;)
Chapter Six
Dean knelt very still inside his cell, even the slightest movement causing him excruciating pain. A tremor of anger and humiliation flared within him as Curly once again shaved his head clean of any growth of hair, but it quickly ebbed as he was just too damn tired and sore to put up any sort of real resistance.
Flecks of dark hair showered down over his eyes like blackened snow to cover the ground around him. His heart and spirit shattered a little more with each tiny strand of hair that fell away from his head. No one was coming for him. No one cared that he was alone and dying inside.
His stomach rumbled and clenched painfully as he stared at the remains of the food that had been once again placed just out of his reach. Earlier in day, or maybe it was the night, Dean had watched a huge black rat scurry across the cement floor, sniff the food on the plate, and then began gnawing at it. In his wildest imaginings he'd never thought he'd be envious of a rat, but as his mouth watered hungrily at the sight of the food being devoured, he sadly realized that he was. The damn little creature was free, it could eat or sleep whenever it wished too, and it didn't care if anyone loved or needed it.
The best Dean could figure at least two more days had past since he'd been abducted. He'd been trapped in a cell for at least five days, and yet his brother or father hadn't even bothered to try and find him. He could almost understand his father's reasons for not searching for him. Finding and killing the yellow-eyed bastard that had killed their mother always came first. Period. It had always been that way and always would be. Dean understood that, although the constant ache in his heart belied his attempts to excuse the fact that his father hadn't come for him.
Sam was another matter entirely. Dean had foolishly pinned all his hopes for escape on his younger brother, but Sam never showed. In fact, he had probably gone back to college. That was where Sam truly wanted to be, he'd made that point quite clear several times. Without Dean around to drag him from town to town on some damn hunt, Sam had more-than-likely headed straight back to Stanford, glad to be free of Dean. And that thought was the knife that plunged so deeply into Dean's heart, he could scarcely breathe and wished that the Father would just kill him and get it over with.
"You know no one is coming for you, don't you?" Curly said as he finished shaving off Dean's hair. "No one cares if you live or die."
"Th-they'll come." Dean licked his dried cracked lips, finding it hard to speak as his throat was so parched, and once again his eyes were drawn to the bowl of water near the entrance of the cell.
"Thirsty?" Curly asked with a chuckle. "Bet you could really use a drink right about now."
"Naw, I'm good," Dean muttered in a hoarse scratchy whisper.
"Really?" Curly said as he ground his opened hand down into Dean's back, eliciting a deep throaty groan from Dean. "Bet if I set that bowl of water down in front of you, you'd lap it up like the lowest of mangy dogs." And as if to prove his point, Curly stood, walked the short distance to the water, and bent to grab the bowl. Turning, he placed it down directly in front of Dean. "Go ahead, it's right there in front of you now. Prove me right."
Dean tried his damnedest to look away from the water, but his gaze kept being drawn back to it. His Winchester resolve to suck it up and deal with the pain, to not give in or give up faltered and died away as he watched the tiny ripples in the water. He knew his father wouldn't understand, would think him weak and pathetic, but he was just too damn thirsty, and was glad at that moment that his father wasn't there to see how far he'd fallen.
Closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the gloating look on Curly's face, Dean leaned over and lapped greedily at the cool water. He hadn't had more than a few swallows before Curly snatched the bowl away, spilling the remainder of the water on the floor in front of Dean.
"See, just like a mangy dog," Curly taunted cruelly, and then turned as he heard someone clear their throat from behind him.
"Thought I said he wasn't to have anything to eat or drink until I said so?" the Father questioned, quirking a brow as he stared at Curly.
"Didn't really give him much of a drink," Curly quickly defended his actions. "Was just tryin' to prove how weak he was."
"Who is the head of this family," the Father said as he took a slow deliberate step toward Curly, and placed his hand on the shorter man's shoulder.
"You are, Father," Curly hastily replied, and Dean could almost detect a tremor of fear in the man's voice.
"And are my words law?"
"Yes, Father." Curly trembled as the words tumbled from his mouth.
"And you understand that I cannot have people disobeying me or the family would suffer for it?"
"I was jus — " Curly abruptly stopped speaking as the Father yanked him forward and plunged a knife into his stomach, jerking upward to tear through the man's flesh. Curly dropped to his knees, blood spilling from the gaping wound. Weakly he grasped onto the Father's robes, trying to steady himself as he gasped for breath.
"You are forgiven," the Father said as he grabbed a hold of the man's head, yanked it back and drove the blade into Curly's throat. Pushing the dying man aside, the Father looked to Dean, and smirked. "No one disobeys me, do you understand that, Child?"
Dean gave a subtle nod, and then lowered his head.
"I asked if you understood," the Father asked a second time, kneeling beside Dean as two of his men silently dragged Curly's body away. "The correct response is, yes, Father, I understand," he hesitated for a moment, his grin deepening, "now let me hear you say it."
"I understand," Dean murmured, a tight knot forming in his throat at having to do as the crazed man had commanded.
"Say, I understand, Father," the Father said as he gripped a hold of Dean's chin, and forced him to look the older man square in the eyes.
Dean jerked his head away, not about to call the man Father. "Have a father, you're not him."
"Still the stubborn insolent child, aren't you?"
"An' you're still a freakin' sonuvabitch."
The Father chuckled as he gestured for one of his men to come forward. "See, that might actually hurt my feelings if you didn't look so damn pathetic while saying it. But then again, you don't actually know how weak and childlike you look, do you?" The man who the Father had motioned to handed him a large mirror, and the Father placed it in front of Dean. "How can I possibly take anything you say seriously, when you look like this?"
Dean looked at the image in the mirror, for a moment not recognizing it as his own reflection. The bald man in the mirror wasn't even a pale comparison of what Dean knew he looked liked. Lifeless hollow eyes that seemed to be drowning in sadness stared back at him. Dark shadows rimmed the man's eyes, his ashen haggard face making the shadows seem all the more predominant. Dean licked his dried, cracked lips and watched as the man groveling naked on the floor did the same.
The man just couldn't be him. This man's walls were crumbled and broken, his shattered heart laid bare for all to see. There was no strength or determination to survive in his dull lifeless green eyes. This man had realized that no one was coming to find him. He knew that no one cared if he lived or died. This man knew that everything the Father had said about him was true. He knew he was weak and pathetic, and realized that everyone else knew it as well.
"This is what everyone sees when they look at you, Child," the Father taunted, "this is why no one cares about you. You are nothing . . . have always been nothing. If you died this very moment, no one would even care."
Dean's face crumpled as he looked from the Father to the image in the mirror again, and knew the madman was right. Sam didn't care. His father had never cared. They'd both left him. He'd given them everything that he had to give, and they'd left him.
"Of course it doesn't have to be that way." The Father set aside the mirror and lifted Dean's chin so he was once again looking the man in his pale blue eyes. "In my family there would always be a place for you," he coaxed, his voice soft and placating, "we would always look out for you and care for you."
Dean tried his damnedest not to listen, but his aching soul yearned for what the father offered. He tried so freakin' hard to be what his family needed, and they'd cast him aside without so much as a second thought. He needed them desperately and yet no matter how hard he'd tried they'd never needed him in the same way.
"The family would love you totally and completely, and would never leave you to doubt that, Child. Don't you deserve to be loved?"
"St-stop this," Dean muttered weakly, turning his head away from the man, not wanting to contemplate what he'd offered any longer or he knew he would give in. "My family . . . they care about me."
"And yet they left you. Doesn't really sound like they care about you at all. I would never leave one of my children alone."
"Y-you're tryin' . . . you're jus' . . . st-stop tryin' to confuse me." Dean squeezed his eyes shut, in an attempt to block out what the man was saying, but couldn't quite manage it. "Have a family . . . Sam . . . ." his voice trailed off as he thought once again how Sam had left him to go to college, and had completely alienated Dean from his new life. Sam hadn't wanted him around, had run off to college to be as far away from Dean as possible.
"You know," the Father began as he withdrew a long, thin sharpened rod from the pocket of his robe, "a person can endure a helluva lot of physical pain, but crush the heart and they will be lost."
He motion for the man who had brought him the mirror to unlock one of Dean's cuffs. The man quickly complied with the Father's orders. Once he'd released Dean's wrist from the shackle, the man grabbed hold of it and twisted it around so Dean's palm faced upward.
"I can torture a man in gruesome, despicable ways," the Father said in a low menacing voice as he slowly pierced the skin of Dean's forearm with the sharpened rod. Dean clenched his teeth as he tried to yank his arm away, but the man holding it, tightened his grip, forcing Dean to endure the pain. "Can kill him if I desire, but I have learned that with intense pain comes clear understanding." With agonizingly slow speed, the Father drove the rod all the way through Dean's skin, until the sharpened end poked out on the other side. "You will learn that as well," he said as he forcefully jerked on the steel rod and it ripped through Dean's flesh, blood dripping out to cover the floor.
Dean squinched his eyes closed tight, breathing hard against the searing pain. Somehow he'd managed not to scream out, and was thankful that he hadn't given the madman the satisfaction of knowing how much pain he was in.
Surprisingly, the Father just laughed in response. "You see, I just proved my own point," he said as he motioned for several more men to come forward into the cell. "And now we are going to see just how much pain you can endure, Child. I am curious as to how long it will take you to break physically."
As the man unlocked Dean's other shackle, two beefy looking men grabbed hold of him by his arms, hauled him into a kneeling position, and held him firmly there. Another shorter man, stepped forward, carrying what looked like large sharpened fishing hooks in his hands. He knelt beside Dean, and before Dean had a chance to prepare himself, he drove the first hook through the skin of Dean's chest just about his right nipple.
"Guhh . . . you freakin' sonuvabitch. Gonna kill you." Dean breathed hard as he glared at the shorter man, who was about to insert the other hook into his chest. With muscles straining, he fought against the men who held onto his arms, but was no match for them, and they quickly subdued him. Wincing, Dean groaned as he felt the other hook pierce his flesh just above his left nipple.
When the man was finished piercing Dean's flesh with the hook, he expertly tied them off to thick rope rigging. The men hauled Dean to his feet and dragged him out of the cell toward the far side of the room, and he noticed for the first time that there was a some sort of weird suspension gear hanging from it.
Horrible understanding struck him as the shorter man began to attach the two ropes to the suspension rigging. "No, freakin' way," he growled as he redoubled his efforts to break free, but once again his lack of strength made it impossible to fight his way out of what was about to happen.
Once the shorter man with dark blue eyes was finished with the task at hand, the two others yanked on the ropes. Dean's feet lifted off the floor, the skin on his chest stretched taut, bunching and pulling away from his body as his full weight was suspended by his skin alone. A cry of pain burst from his lips as he slowly swung back and forth several feet above the ground.
"In many Native American cultures, suspension was a right of passage. It is the same here as well," the Father said as he came to stand beside Dean. "With pain comes startling clarity. No one cares about you, Child. The sooner you realize that the sooner all the pain will stop."
"G-go to hell, y-you freakin' sonuvabitch," Dean snarled through gritted teeth. In response, the men pulled harder on the ropes. Another scream tore from his lips as his overly-taut skin stretched even further, and he felt it tear, blood trickling down his chest from beneath the hooks.
"What is my name? Think hard before you answer, Child," the Father cautioned as he quirked a sardonic brow. "Because if your skin rips away, we will just start over. And I can promise you that we will do it over and over again until you get the answer right."
Every lesson Dean's father had ever taught him screamed for him not to give in. But his father wasn't there. In fact, he'd never been there when Dean had needed him most. He'd never cared. He'd never loved Dean. In so many ways he'd proven that time and time again.
Dean was fairly certain he could endure more of the Father's torture to protect whatever remnants were left of his shattered heart. He was no stranger to suffering, but in the end he was just too damned broken to even care anymore. "Father."
"Who's Father am I?"
Dean lowered his head, lips quivering as he mumbled, "My Father."
"Good." the Father smiled with satisfaction. Turning on his heel, he strode away, calling back over his shoulder, "He's to stay that way until tomorrow, and then we brand him."