This is a companion piece to "King Takes Knight," but can be read independently.

Knight Moves

It was painless.

Painlessness, something alien to his body for more than three decades.

It was—perfection.

Clarity of purpose.

To rise.

To be.

Something other, something more, than he'd been.

The days of flesh, of fragile human flesh, were banished.

He was more.

He was greater.

"Listen to me, Dean Winchester . . . what you're feeling right now—it's not death. It's life—a new kind of life."

He was young, and he was old. He was all, and everything.

Primordial. Primeval.

First. Earliest.

Ancient.

"Open your eyes, Dean. See what I see. Feel what I feel. And let's go take a howl at that moon."

The moon ruled the tides. Ruled the primordial ocean.

Upon its waves he swam, buoyed by currents running hard, running fast within him. He was carried by those currents, thrust upward above the waves, and he entered life again; was, again, an infant.

He drew breath. Took in air and oxygen, prepared to utter a first cry, the first scream of a newborn.

But he did not scream. Nor did he cry.

He roared.

"And there it is," said the voice, with infinite lightness couched in delicate irony. "The first outraged howl. Embrace that outrage. It's you, Dean. It's always been you, hasn't it? The Mark, and the Blade have simply refined it."

The First Blade, so old, lay within his hand. And the Mark of Cain upon his arm, a symbol more ancient yet, bound up more than flesh but also bone. Wholly indivisible, Mark from flesh. That which was born of God, of his fallen son, to be gifted to the first man who ever killed his brother, now was his.

Now was him.

Cain created the Knights of Hell. Dean Winchester, merely a hunter, yet called a worthy man by the Father of Murder, had slain the last one. Had taken her place.

A very different kind of legacy than the Men of Letters intended.

The voice said, "Time to go. This is no place for you now."

No. It was not.

The human might have said the demon profaned it. But he was human no longer.

This was home no longer.

"Rise, Dean. Rise from your deathbed and learn to live again."

He knew what he was. Knew what he had been. Knew what he had lost.

He should be angry.

He should be angry.

Even terrified.

He was not.

Because he knew, in that loss, what he gained.

He rose up from the bed. Stood beside it.

"We've always had a special relationship," the voice told him. "And that's how I knew what to do. I cultivated you, Dean. I manipulated you. Just as Lilith, through Ruby, cultivated your brother. That plan was successful. As was this one."

He blinked long, and slow. His hand tightened upon the Blade.

He knew the man, now. Recognized the body, the vessel, that housed the voice.

"I don't underestimate you, you know," Crowley said. "The very thing that made you so stubborn remains. And I value you for it, because it's what will make you a superb Knight of Hell. So I offer this as a suggestion, not an order."

The newborn demon waited.

Crowley smiled faintly, and a spark of dry humor flickered behind his eyes. "Do your brother a service," he said. "Leave him a note. And then we'll go."

His brother.

No. He had no brother.

Not one who would claim him.

Not one who could.

Not one who should.

"Now," Crowley said; and that was an order.

The Knight of Hell slid the Blade into a back pocket, turned, took up pencil and paper. He sought, and found, the words.

He didn't feel them. Nothing of fondness lay within him, nothing of love, of affection. It was memory merely, fast-fading, of what they once shared, and he felt it going, felt it slipping away, felt it dissipating into utter absence of meaning.

Into nothingness. Painlessness.

Humans were emotional beings. It made them weak.

He no longer was weak. He no longer was burdened. He no longer felt, because it wasn't necessary.

Because it didn't matter.

He wasn't required to care.

Release from all burdens. From all memories.

The loss of those, he welcomed. Because of what he gained.

Freedom.

Something he'd never known since the age of four.

Release.

Painlessness.

Freedom.

He set pencil to paper. Wrote the name, then three simple words.

Directive, or appeal.

He didn't care. It wasn't in him to care. He could lay down that burden.

It was time to go.

"Just remember," Crowley said, "you are my Knight, and you serve at the King's pleasure. You serve me."

The new-born demon, as he walked from the room where his brother had placed his body, felt a familiar twist upon his lips.

Sam would call it a smirk.

Sam.

For a moment, the merest moment, he recalled what he'd felt as he'd written those words, the reasons for those words.

SAMMY LET ME GO.

Because if he did not, if he ever found the demon, Cain's new Knight of Hell, one of them would die.

Sammy. Let me go.

~ end ~

I was fascinated by the whole concept of Demon Dean, and certainly by Jensen's portrayal of him, which was chilling and unsettling, an emotional trainwreck from which I couldn't look away. The theme of good being tempted, or made over into evil, and then redeemed, has always appealed to me, and I love exploring that theme in books, TV shows, and movies. I didn't want Dean Winchester to become a demon, but it was a gut-punch of a development and incredibly effective as a season finale. As noted in my A/N for "King Takes Knight," I loved Crowley's monologue just before DD roused, and I enjoyed exploring Crowley's POV in that story. But of course on the show we got no explanation for what happened between the moment DD roused and his first appearance in a roadhouse in the S10 premiere. Plus it was followed by a very fast cure, which always left me feeling cheated. Yet I was quite moved by the brief lines Cas said to Sam in explanation of why DD would prefer not to be cured. It was the only time Dean's ever been free of the terrible burdens he himself assumes, and that was what I wanted to touch on in my companion piece. Demon Dean wasn't torn. But he didn't forget.