dappered | do you remember standing on a broken field

do you remember standing on a broken field

It starts the moment Dean Winchester makes the first cut.

Abaddon does not flinch, does not hiss, her eyes black and bright and steady on him as he works, his own hands professional and ungentle as he methodically dismembers the limbs of her vessel.

He's good at this in a way that strikes her as familiar. Even his hesitations are familiar, subtle pauses where he searches for a tool and cannot find it, or seems to expect something of her-- and then she understands, and her smile is wide and brilliant.

Dean is one of Alastair's. She would know that precise craftsmanship anywhere.

He doesn't answer when she asks him about it, of course (as well he wouldn't, he's treating her like a soul on the rack, and the gibbering filaments of tortured souls aren't worth a demon's dedicated time), but she has her answer when his pupils dilate at the mention of his old mentor's name.

Alastair may be long dead in this timeline, his old apprentices dead or scattered or traitors, but entirely by accident she'd managed to find one still remaining.

Of course he's currently imprisoning her, but Abaddon is not one of the Seven for nothing. She waits in pieces, conserving her energy, before calling on a dreaming human nearby, whispering into his head for several nights until he sleepwalks to her location and goes about putting her back together. His stitches are sloppy and she promises herself another chance at Henry Winchester's grandson, as soon as she opens the time rift again to get back to the moment of her arrival in the future. This time, she wants all of them. Henry, Sam, and precious skillful Dean.

The rift doesn't oblige, imprecise thing. It sends her back but too far, past Henry's arrival, all the way to the previous year, and she storms down into an unoccupied corner of Hell in frustration, choosing to give up time travel and focus on a secondary task in the meantime: ousting Crowley. That, she muses, will occupy her time nicely while she waits for January 2013 to roll around. Hell is a patchwork of chaos now, small groups of demons controlling territory like feudal lords, others fleeing for the surface. Crowley is an oily weasel but he's also a very smart, very paranoid oily weasel, and taking over Hell isn't about deposing him in open combat, it's about commanding the loyalty of his demons. She carves out her own little kingdom, absorbing or destroying others that come to face her. Most of them believe she's just a minor demon using the name of something long extinct. Others remember her, or remember her reputation, and offer their fealty immediately.

From them she gets the full story of everything she's missed, the Winchesters, the Apocalypse, Azazel and Alastair and Lilith. And angels. She hasn't had a proper battle with angels for centuries.

They let her know that Dean Winchester has been lost to Purgatory for a year, but she knows he'll manage to crawl his way out somehow (he must, if she had happened upon him on Earth in 2013), and eventually her patience is rewarded. Rumors start to fly of a terrible vicious creature lurking in one of the forgotten corners of Hell, a place full of cracks and rifts and the awful things that come slinking through sometimes. Even in Hell there are things that eat demons, and many of them come from Purgatory. Reports come to her of the creature's bloodlust, the precise lines of the injuries it leaves with blades, how it cuts through demons and damned souls with equal passion. How it recognizes some of them, sometimes, and asks for its master like it doesn't understand that Hell has changed.

Abaddon dons her black armor, reforged and polished, and goes to see Alastair's last apprentice in his natural habitat. ]

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[ It's by accident that he ends up in Hell. No deals, no plans, no plots, nothing but an accident, where Benny ends up spat out onto one side, and Dean, tainted from the bits of Benny he'd carried over, from the jumble of his memories in Purgatory, from the dashes of rage and disgust and self-loathing at losing his angel, ends up spat out on the other side.

He remembers, at first.

There's panic, all-consuming and sickening as he stares at the walls of Hell, inhales and smells the taint, the sweat and piss and blood and tinge of fear above everything else. No no no no oh god Cas Cas. Dean scrambles back, gripping the weapon he'd brought with him from Purgatory, and tears into flesh and bone like it's the easiest thing in the world when some of the demons come at him.

A hook grasps his jacket, catches and tears it and Dean makes a pitiful sound, thin and panicked as he stares, remembers them grasping and clutching and tearing his flesh so easily back then, remembers Alastair's smile above him and then beside him as he'd taken up the blade

Cas!

There's no answer, of course, so Dean does what he can, he survives. He slices and rips through Hell, locks down what precious things he can remember, and loses the rest, because it's mechanical, down here. It's all one-two-three, slice and kill and defend, and it's nothing like Purgatory. Purgatory is pure, it's good, it's penance - this is something else entirely.

Time passes too differently down there - twenty years later is a blink of an eye, and Dean picks up the knife halfway through, because he remembers this. He can't fix whatever he was trying to fix, can't find the thing (bright, shining, familiar) that he needed to bring with him, but he can do this.

He settles souls on the rack like it's nothing, age, sex, race, none of it matters. All that matters is that he does his job, that he does it well, because it's easy, it's familiar.

He's slicing into a soul - old, black with everything it did wrong, flaking and peeling as he digs his fingers into the mess of blood and pulls, watching it scream and flail and rip itself apart on the hooks - when Abaddon comes. Barely any attention is paid to her - knights, demons, he doesn't particularly care. At first some had tried to challenge him, whispering about getting their hands into a Winchester, about tearing flesh from bone, scraping the insides to the outside and all he can think is been there, done that. He takes them apart instead, until no one tries to challenge him - those that survive, he sends to look for someone, someone he called Master once. It doesn't matter if he finds him or not, Dean knows what he's doing here, understands it in the gleam of the knives and the screams of the damned.

He collects Hellhounds, too - the panic at seeing them had faded after year six, and they stick around like mangy, half-starved thing as he feeds them pieces of the souls he's splitting open.

When Abaddon arrives, Dean's wrists-deep in the guts of the soul, pulling out parts and pieces, the cuts neat and precise, as he rips out their insides and tosses them to the dogs. ]

What?

[ Oh, and isn't this a special sight. The grandson of a Man of Letters, the Michael-sword, gore-spattered and methodical with hellhounds fawning around his feet and a soul on his rack. Abaddon smiles beneath her helm and draws her massive barbed greatsword, settling its blood-caked tip into the ground and leaning on it casually. ]

If it isn't Alastair's boy. You've made quite a reputation for yourself down here.

[ Not important, then.

If she doesn't have anything to do besides waste his time, he's not interested. He turns away, back to the soul, and curls his fingers in its intestines, pulling them out slow and methodical, to feed them to one of the dogs. ]

What do you want?

I've come to take you home, Dean.

[ She glances at his self-made workshop, bare rock and instruments of torture he'd either stolen from fallen enemies or created himself. It speaks to his work ethic that he wouldn't allow the constraints of his environment to hinder his practice, but Alastair had been carving artists out of his proteges, not just hack and slash amateurs that couldn't tell the difference between one knife and another. ]

Home?

[ Dean has brief flashes of a leather interior, an engine humming under him, black, sleek curves, and then it's gone just as quickly.

He swallows, staring at her a moment, and leaves the soul to the dogs, his forearms covered and caked in blood and guts. ]

Lady, you don't know where my home is.

Don't I?

You've been working a little too hard, honey. Too much focus and you start to lose the rest of the details.

[ She watches him intently. ]

You don't even know how long you've been here, do you. Or even where you are. This part of Hell isn't where you belong.

[ One of the dogs, scrawny, still coming up to his chest, but all bones, pushes up against his chest and smears gore over his already dirty jacket. ]

I don't lose the details. I know what I'm doing.

[ Unimpressed, Dean stares her down. ]

Which part of Hell do I belong in, then? It's all a shithole, from what I've seen.

The part that I own. [She hefts the sword effortlessly, resting it on her shoulder.]

Don't make me drag you by the hair. Alastair's not coming back for you, since he's gone and gotten himself dead, but I'll take care of you now.

[ no let him show u how unimpressed he is.

Dean sweeps his eyes over the soul, and flicks the switch that sends the bindings undoing themselves, leaves it twitching and bleeding all over the floor while the dogs tear into it.

He wipes his hands off, tilting his head at her, curious. ]

I don't need you to take care of me.

[ Except he does, and it shows in the way he's coming toward her, not unlike the dogs that he's been having follow him around. ]

[ She smiles fondly down at the pile of snarling dogs. He's just like them, even if he doesn't know it yet. ]

You don't have the faintest idea what you need.

[ She reaches out a gauntleted hand to seize his face as soon as he's within range, squeezing just enough to feel bones grate under her grip. He's not a full demon, not just yet, still clinging to mortal conventions of bone and flesh when everything here is really just malleable energy. ]

Like you do.

[ Dean snorts, dismissive but lets her hand squeeze at his jaw, feels the bones creak in protest, feels her push bruises into his skin like a fruit that's too ripe, and the noise he makes is borderline dirty.

He wants this - he's wanted this, even if he'd never be willing to admit it. Alastair had seen it in him when he'd taken him apart and rebuilt him into the monster he'd wanted, and it was always there, lurking dark and inky under his skin. Hell felt like coming home more than it should have, and the flush of pain under his skin is grounding. ]

Do I get to work?

[ Because that's what he knows how to do. He knows there are other things he needs to do - find the thing, the bright, shining, burning light that he sees when he closes his eyes, or the too-tall body that makes him think family, but all of it is locked down so tightly that it's only flickers. ]

[ She lets the clawed tips of her gauntlets dig into skin, pricking tiny holes in a pattern. ]

I know how much you've missed this. You've carved your way through every soul and demon that you've come across, I hear. None of them ever got the chance to return the favor.

[ But she will, her smile promises. ]

Of course you'll get to work. There's a war on. You'll have souls and even demons to fillet-- if you can handle them. I've got a lot of enemies to punish.

[ Dean inhales, smells the stench of hell and under that, the low warmth of her metal, of the armor she wore pressing holes into his skin. Dean exhales, and feels some of the tension bleed out of him.

He thinks, idly, that that isn't the response he should have to a demon that close to his throat, but he knows that look. It's the same way Alastair had looked at him near the end, pleased and giddy, like he was a tool that he knew just how to use. Her look isn't far off. ]

I'm bringing them.

[ Dean gestures to the hounds, feels one slide up behind him, a low growl rolling out from the massive muzzle as it butts its head against Dean's side. ]

If you need something to keep you warm at night.

[ She lets the greatsword slip from her shoulder and dig into the rock, freeing her other hand and making the hound whine. ]

Keep them in line. I don't need dogs howling at all hours.

You deal with people screaming at all hours and you're worried about dogs.

[ Dean rolls his eyes, unimpressed, and pulls away from her, shoulders squaring up again. ]

Are we going?

[ His tone is low, dismissive, gathering his tools up in a quick, easy movement, rolling them into the leather holder and strapping it to his back for the time being. ]

[ She dimples at him, although the effect is somewhat marred by her helm. ]

I like the sound of screaming.

[ There's a shuffling noise from the long dark stone corridor behind her at that moment, though, and she turns her head slightly as a couple of the hounds begin growling. Abaddon flexes a gauntlet but seats herself on a nearby stone outcropping rather than draw her sword from the ground. ]

We'll go when we're done here. I was followed, it seems.

[ She tilts her head at the corridor. ]

I'd like to see your handiwork, actually. Call it an audition.

[ Truthfully, he can't recall the last time someone challenged him. For the most part, the demons keep to their side of things, and Dean keeps to the souls on his rack.

They stopped coming after him some years in, and now watch, waiting for a moment of weakness to take their bitterness out on his flesh. They haven't had a chance yet; Dean doesn't intend to let it happen.

The demon is a spindly thing, all arms and legs in the meatsuit it's possessing, and it stares at Dean, then at her, and goes for Dean, which is really insulting, honestly, because Dean thinks he's much more fucking scary than the knight.

When it's all said and done, he's got blood spattered all over his face, dripping into his eyes, nearly, but the demon is gurgling from a hook he'd slammed up through it's neck and into it's mouth, hanging there limply. He turns to her, knife in hand, and raises his eyebrows. ]

Your call.

Edited 2013-06-24 06:35 (UTC)

[ As if there was any doubt that she wanted him under her wing. She watches the battle critically, wishing vaguely that someone had bothered to teach him how to use a real blade. Scalpels and hooks and knives are the toys of a torturer or assassin, and there's a time and place for them, certainly, but she has memories of swords and spears and shields ringing in the skies, when angels had fought against angels. That's what war is supposed to be.

She tips her head at the greatsword still embedded in the rock. ]

Finish it.

[ It's neat, the way he does it. He toys with them at first, every slice angled to hurt, not to maim or kill. It's goddamn artful, if he does say so himself, and the hook is really just to hold them there, since it's not like they can die from it that easily.

Dean shifts his weight easily at her permission, and smiles blankly at the demon that gurgles in a panic, thrashing. ]

You heard the lady.

[ One smooth strike, neat and precise and a gush of blood floods the ground as Dean sidesteps it neatly, watching her with his pupils blown wide, riding the high. ]

Well?

Mm.

[ She rises in one fluid motion and pins him to the rough stone wall, her armor melting away into smoke to reveal the form she's become rather fond of. He's shivering, tense muscle against her, warm in the chill of Hell, and the blood on his skin is still so fresh it steams. She licks a hot stripe along his jawline, savoring the taste of iron and sweat. ]

Maybe there's something to you after all, boy.

Neat parlor trick.

[ Dean tips his head back, accommodating, because he remembers this, too, remembers a low, rough voice telling him good boy, as he breaks him apart and puts him back together just how he's supposed to be.

Dean allows it for a moment, and then pushes her back, eyebrows raised. ]

Are we going, or not?

[ It's the fact that he doesn't remember any of it that makes her smile. Not his grandfather's dying face, or the way she'd captured his precious baby brother. He doesn't even remember cutting her vessel into pieces. She steps back, satisfied, her armor re-shaping itself around her body as she retrieves her swords and slings it across her back once more. ]

There's going to be a lot more where that came from.

[ One piercing whistle later and her direhorse trots up in full armor, a hulking creature with fangs and blood-encrusted hooves and tiny interlocking scales instead of a mammal's coat, more reptile than equine. A relic of an older version of Hell. It snaps at the pack of hellhounds and comes to Abaddon, kneeling down to let her mount.

HOPE U LIKE WALKING DEAN. ]

I'm all aflutter.

[ Dean licks his lips, spits blood out of his mouth to get rid of the taste, and eyes the horse with a little interest. It's overkill, but hey, who is he to question that, whatever floats your boat, princess.

Dean moves up to her horse, giving it a once-over, half amused as he starts walking, the dogs whining after tearing apart what's left, and then following. ]

[ It's almost eight days of travel to return to Abaddon's corner of Hell, at least keeping to a pace that Dean can manage. Abaddon's steed has wings when it wishes and frets irritably over the snubbed pace, and exacts revenge by tearing out chunks of anything that gets too near, be it hellhounds, enemy demons, or the other creatures they encounter. Hell has become wild in the years following the Apocalypse, ancient creatures stirred up for the end of the world now left to wander their prison and feast on anything that moves.

It reminds Abaddon of the beginning, when Hell hadn't been so different from the world above, full of angry gods and monsters and even demons wore armor made from dragonscale.

She lets Dean handle the demons that hunt them, and the lower level creatures, ordering him forward dismissively with his dogs to pick off the strays. He takes prisoners at her command and carves out information about Crowley, about the other factions, about troop movements and the chaos occurring in Heaven (oh, civil war, another old familiar song, and sometimes it makes her wings of fire and ash and bone ache to remember). Dean is as skilled an interrogator as his mentor ever was, although his artistry doesn't inspire the same kind of awe with her as it might a lesser demon and he sulks, just a little bit, when her black gaze glosses over his careful work. Watching him tear off pieces from the victims and toss them down to his dogs, she dimples and asks for prime cuts for her Apollyon, feeding him daintily. Souls in Hell don't really require nourishment but the creatures that inhabit it do, or at least remember the instinct to devour red meat.

She offers Dean apples. Not conjured, not illusions, but real and sweet from the surface. They wither at his touch, though, as they would for any demon not yet disciplined enough to control his own energies. The only way to keep them fresh for him is to accept slices from her fingers.

When a Behemoth rises against them and the dogs scatter, terrified, and all of Dean's tricks with small blades and his small demonic willpower are useless (for it is old and its hide is thick, encrusted with bone and rock formations that have grown over the top of its form) she steps in, allowing her own wings to manifest as she draws her sword and sweeps down her helm. Her Grace might be corrupted but she is still an angel and she shines like a dying star in the red gloom, blinding the creature when it tries to bite at her.

After it's finished she hauls Dean up by the scruff of his neck and shoves him flat against the Behemoth's dying bulk, her wings mantled and her armor burning bright silver under all the blood with her own remaining Grace. Dean had sinned, she hisses, her voice still echoing with an angel's harmonics and done deliberately to hurt his ears. He had failed to defeat an enemy. He had spoken to her of his own skill, his worthiness as a warrior, and had been knocked flat by one sweep of the Behemoth's tail.

A whip coalesces in her hand. ]

[ He doesn't get tired, not the normal way, doesn't need sleep but the pace she makes him keep is something that he questions. It's a test, he's sure, but he can pass it.

He lets her feed the horse the prime cuts of the souls, gives his dogs the scraps, and isn't surprised when something bigger and badder confronts them. It's not surprising when she shoves him back against the beast, cuts off his airflow, makes him kick at her, snarling like an animal. It's part anger, part fear, because she used to be an angel, and she reminds him too much of the thing he's been trying to find, the angel whose glow was far brighter than her own.

He curls his hands into her armor and jerks, baring his teeth in a snarl, because no matter what, she's not him. She doesn't get to shine that brightly, doesn't get to remind him of the angel he needs to find. ]

I was down, I wasn't out.

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