Of Four Infernal Rivers
Here is my summergen offering for 2012!
Title: Of Four Infernal Rivers
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: about 1,000 words
Warnings: some references to torture, some non-con Dean/Alastair subtext.
A/N: Thanks to my beta wave_obscura, and to my recipient chasingtides for her prompts (I had a hard time choosing!). Quotes in italics are from Paradise Lost, Book 2, by John Milton.
Summary: Prompt - “The worst part of Hell, for Dean, wasn't the torture. It was when Alastair stopped.”
Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge into the burning lake their baleful streams-
It’s a cycle. He’s not really sure how he knows except that he does, the knowledge is there, impossible to escape - it’s a cycle of pain and oblivion and it has been going on forever, or so close to forever that it doesn’t make a difference.
He doesn’t know anything else. Now that the pain has stopped he’s floating, wandering like a corpse drawn by the current of a river. He should be sinking, really, he doesn’t know what’s keeping him afloat because the darkness is calling him from the bottom, he can hear it, feel it crawl over his skin like a colony of cockroaches, pulling him down, black tendrils around his wrists.
Hey Jude don’t make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better… A woman’s voice, singing, and he knows - for once, it’s good to know something - he knows it isn’t real because it smells of comfort and longing. There are no such things, and if there were, they would only get drowned in the river.
(then how, how does he know?)
The moment stretches almost to the rupture point, and he’s lost.
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
He’s never really alone - that’s another thing he knows. They’re side by side watching him float by, and he feels the burn of their anger, their mocking, their loathing of him, of themselves, of the bottomless pit they’re all trapped in. Their feelings follow him until he doesn’t know where he ends and where they begin. They’re poisoning him, smearing his thoughts with blackness and despair, and all that remains is distorted, ugly.
They want him gone; he wants to be gone - not gone from here, because there’s nowhere else to be, but to have never existed at all. The cries of the baleful beings reach him and cut him deep, with a will to destroy him that stems from a hate so pure it consumes itself. They cackle as he despairs, crumbling under their attacks.
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
There’s an emptiness, right in the middle of him. A voice is calling for him, an echo. Him? There’s nothing here for anything to call, nothing of him. He’s dissolving, little bits of him trailing behind in the water. Losing himself, he’s lost, separated from everything with nothing left on his side.
It’s the separation that aches. It’s a black hole. Pain has lost much of its meaning because it simply is, most of the time, but the loss of himself causes this unbearable longing and keeps pulling him along instead of letting him sink under the surface. He mourns; the sound of someone sobbing desperately accompanies him all the way. For a moment he thinks it’s him, but it doesn’t seem right, as he wants to reach out and provide comfort - but then even that is taken away. He can’t hold onto anything.
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud heard on the rueful stream;
He’s aware that the cycle is coming to an end because the others, he can hear them now, the chorus of their cries getting louder and louder, resonating inside him until his own voice joins them in a never ending howl of meaningless pain. A hollow sound, devoid of substance for lack of anything to be compared with, as there is nothing but suffering.
They weep; he sighs. They moan; he whimpers. They’re him and he’s them, one indistinguishable mass of eternal grief, a music as familiar as the sound of his own screams. On the banks of the river there are walls of black stone, oozing with something liquid that may be blood or tears - and the walls themselves are writhing with a slow, excruciating pulse of pain.
Fierce Phlegeton, whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Lights and shadows moving around in a lascivious dance of seduction and aggression. They form huge shapes, of black, orange and yellow, that come alive with claws and fangs, horns and tails joyously whipping, reaching out to him and promising hurt and fury. The smell of sulphur, strong and pungent, the screams of the damned are welcoming him; and the fear jabs its teeth into him, tears savagely at him, making the agony that was and the agony to come seem almost sweet in comparison.
He comes to a stop as hands grab him by the shoulders and haul him out of the water. It is startling, that touch, after the long, long time of being nothing, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. It feels as if he’s taking shape again, his body, he can sense the heat of the fire and its agonizing contrast with the icy water. He has legs, wispy things that can’t hold him up, can’t help him run even if he could form the want; he has arms, with bones stretching the thin, pale skin; his head lolls again something solid, a shoulder, and a warm breath tickles his earlobe - at that moment, this feels like the entirety of an universe in itself. It’s a carnal sensation, toeing that line between pain and pleasure, between destructive oblivion and absolute bliss.
Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks forthwith his former state and being forgets-
“Hello, Dean,” a voice says, colder than ice and yet cheerful, oily with sick pleasure. “I’m back.”
It is so full of promises, that voice - the peeling of his skin, with delicious patience, the taste of his own flesh, the burn of fire, the smell of himself rotting away, of his intestines uncoiling on the ground. Dean’s breathing itches, his hearts stutters in his chest.
It almost doesn’t matter.
Dean.
Forgets
His name. He remembers, now, and other memories start gnawing at his consciousness.
both joy and grief
He’s himself again, in mind and body, handed back his identity like a reward or a treat, as if it isn’t really his.
pleasure and pain.
It lasts for one whole and ecstatic moment that stretches to infinity. Then it’s Hell again.
Title: Of Four Infernal Rivers
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: about 1,000 words
Warnings: some references to torture, some non-con Dean/Alastair subtext.
A/N: Thanks to my beta wave_obscura, and to my recipient chasingtides for her prompts (I had a hard time choosing!). Quotes in italics are from Paradise Lost, Book 2, by John Milton.
Summary: Prompt - “The worst part of Hell, for Dean, wasn't the torture. It was when Alastair stopped.”
Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge into the burning lake their baleful streams-
It’s a cycle. He’s not really sure how he knows except that he does, the knowledge is there, impossible to escape - it’s a cycle of pain and oblivion and it has been going on forever, or so close to forever that it doesn’t make a difference.
He doesn’t know anything else. Now that the pain has stopped he’s floating, wandering like a corpse drawn by the current of a river. He should be sinking, really, he doesn’t know what’s keeping him afloat because the darkness is calling him from the bottom, he can hear it, feel it crawl over his skin like a colony of cockroaches, pulling him down, black tendrils around his wrists.
Hey Jude don’t make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better… A woman’s voice, singing, and he knows - for once, it’s good to know something - he knows it isn’t real because it smells of comfort and longing. There are no such things, and if there were, they would only get drowned in the river.
(then how, how does he know?)
The moment stretches almost to the rupture point, and he’s lost.
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
He’s never really alone - that’s another thing he knows. They’re side by side watching him float by, and he feels the burn of their anger, their mocking, their loathing of him, of themselves, of the bottomless pit they’re all trapped in. Their feelings follow him until he doesn’t know where he ends and where they begin. They’re poisoning him, smearing his thoughts with blackness and despair, and all that remains is distorted, ugly.
They want him gone; he wants to be gone - not gone from here, because there’s nowhere else to be, but to have never existed at all. The cries of the baleful beings reach him and cut him deep, with a will to destroy him that stems from a hate so pure it consumes itself. They cackle as he despairs, crumbling under their attacks.
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
There’s an emptiness, right in the middle of him. A voice is calling for him, an echo. Him? There’s nothing here for anything to call, nothing of him. He’s dissolving, little bits of him trailing behind in the water. Losing himself, he’s lost, separated from everything with nothing left on his side.
It’s the separation that aches. It’s a black hole. Pain has lost much of its meaning because it simply is, most of the time, but the loss of himself causes this unbearable longing and keeps pulling him along instead of letting him sink under the surface. He mourns; the sound of someone sobbing desperately accompanies him all the way. For a moment he thinks it’s him, but it doesn’t seem right, as he wants to reach out and provide comfort - but then even that is taken away. He can’t hold onto anything.
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud heard on the rueful stream;
He’s aware that the cycle is coming to an end because the others, he can hear them now, the chorus of their cries getting louder and louder, resonating inside him until his own voice joins them in a never ending howl of meaningless pain. A hollow sound, devoid of substance for lack of anything to be compared with, as there is nothing but suffering.
They weep; he sighs. They moan; he whimpers. They’re him and he’s them, one indistinguishable mass of eternal grief, a music as familiar as the sound of his own screams. On the banks of the river there are walls of black stone, oozing with something liquid that may be blood or tears - and the walls themselves are writhing with a slow, excruciating pulse of pain.
Fierce Phlegeton, whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Lights and shadows moving around in a lascivious dance of seduction and aggression. They form huge shapes, of black, orange and yellow, that come alive with claws and fangs, horns and tails joyously whipping, reaching out to him and promising hurt and fury. The smell of sulphur, strong and pungent, the screams of the damned are welcoming him; and the fear jabs its teeth into him, tears savagely at him, making the agony that was and the agony to come seem almost sweet in comparison.
He comes to a stop as hands grab him by the shoulders and haul him out of the water. It is startling, that touch, after the long, long time of being nothing, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. It feels as if he’s taking shape again, his body, he can sense the heat of the fire and its agonizing contrast with the icy water. He has legs, wispy things that can’t hold him up, can’t help him run even if he could form the want; he has arms, with bones stretching the thin, pale skin; his head lolls again something solid, a shoulder, and a warm breath tickles his earlobe - at that moment, this feels like the entirety of an universe in itself. It’s a carnal sensation, toeing that line between pain and pleasure, between destructive oblivion and absolute bliss.
Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks forthwith his former state and being forgets-
“Hello, Dean,” a voice says, colder than ice and yet cheerful, oily with sick pleasure. “I’m back.”
It is so full of promises, that voice - the peeling of his skin, with delicious patience, the taste of his own flesh, the burn of fire, the smell of himself rotting away, of his intestines uncoiling on the ground. Dean’s breathing itches, his hearts stutters in his chest.
It almost doesn’t matter.
Dean.
Forgets
His name. He remembers, now, and other memories start gnawing at his consciousness.
both joy and grief
He’s himself again, in mind and body, handed back his identity like a reward or a treat, as if it isn’t really his.
pleasure and pain.
It lasts for one whole and ecstatic moment that stretches to infinity. Then it’s Hell again.