"Cas! Thank God, I finally found you," he panted triumphantly as he stumbled into the small cell, covered in gore from head to toe.
The prisoner hung from the low ceiling, bound by sigil-covered chains. The impotent vessel was no more than exposed stretches of gaping muscles and sharp cracked bones, hardly recognizably human. From the clotted mass of blood that was its face, a blue eye opened, glassy and keen. It was the only thing that remained whole and untouched in the ruin. The other eye hid under a putrefied bruise.
"Hello," said the former angel. The voice was low. It did not betray any emotion, good or bad.
"Jesus, Cas…" He choked, fingers brushing lightly on a heavy metal link that smelled of rust and decay. "They really did a number on you, huh? Don't worry, I'm here. I'm finally here. We're gonna get you out this place, man." He accompanied his words with what he hoped was an encouraging grin.
The angel appraised him silently, then shook its head. "You're not Dean Winchester."
"What?" the demon asked, feigning hurt. "C'mon, it's really me. It's Dean. I fought my way in to get to you." He had spent quite some time working on his Righteous Man costume, hoping to toy with the victim's head for at least a few minutes. It was easily good enough to fool even the most observant soul, he was sure of it.
The angel, strangely, began to smile. Or at least tried to, as much as its mangled lips allowed. "They created thousands of Deans in heaven, and every one of them was a better imitation than your kind can duplicate. Your name was Ichiro Sasaki, and you were a fisherman from Hokkaido. You sold your soul to cure your wife's illness. You are now a low-level demon, and you've come to torture me."
Half-repressed memories from a former life stirred unbidden to the surface of the demon's mind. Shaken, he hurriedly tamped them back down. He finally understood why nobody wanted to be around the angel anymore. At first, the king himself had stayed in the small cell day and night in an attempt to work out his rage. After he eventually grew bored, the volunteers had flooded in, eager to take revenge on the divine fallen who had trapped them all downstairs forever. Most came back tight-lipped and uneasy, each adamant in their refusal to ever step back into the angel's presence. Lately, demons had to be drafted in as a form of punishment. Stripped from its grace, trapped in the deepest bowels of enemy territory, the seraph nevertheless seemed to retain a few vestiges of ineffable divinity. Yet, for all intents of purposes, the creature was one hundred percent human. It made the staff nervous.
The demon tightened the grip on his knife for reassurance while he shrugged off the disguise. The spirit inside might be holy, but the body itself was nothing more than an unremarkable vessel. It would peel and bleed under a blade just like any other, he hoped.
He sighed in mock defeat. "All right, you got me. I'm not really your little hunter boy. So how about we skip straight to the good old-fashioned flaying?" he taunted, attempting to imitate the tones of crueler, more experienced torturers.
"There isn't much skin left for you to flay," the angel replied, unfazed. The one good eye fixed him with polite interest.
He grazed the tip of the knife along the angel's flank. "Oh, I'm sure we'll figure something else, then." Anticipation and restraint were the best tools for inspiring fear in the damned souls. When done right, it was more effective than physical pain. At least so he'd been taught. But if he were to be completely honest with himself, he was uncertain on how to proceed with the torture. He'd never encountered a victim who didn't fight or weep or pray before this one. More importantly, he had never met anyone who single-handedly pulled Lucifer's vessel out of the cage, or who came back from the dead multiple times, or who briefly became God. The lingering angel magic was also extremely troubling.
Perhaps, he thought bitterly, he had bitten off more than he could chew when he'd accepted the job.
"You must be so afraid of me, you poor little thing," he said more brashly than he felt. "You're completely at my mercy. If I were you, I would start begging right now. I might be more lenient with…"
"No," the angel said flatly. "Now get on with it, please."
"…What… did you say to me?"
"I said get on with it."
Though the demon was used to his captives being rather more hysterical, he nonetheless recognized it as a challenge. A jeer. The angel was trying to act tough. Now that was much more in line with his expectations. He may not have a lot of experience with heavenly mind tricks, but a damned soul giving him lip? It was routine. He could definitely handle that.
"Well, well. I like your enthusiasm, Castiel." He let the angelic name roll off his tongue like a slur. "But keep in mind, you and I've got all of eternity to have fun with each other. I don't want to rush our relationship. No, I'm going to treat you right."
Exquisitely slowly, the demon ran a finger down the angel's shattered ribs until he found a particularly deep wound in its gut. He tentatively pushed his knuckle inside the wet gash. The angel's eye briefly fluttered shut. Aside from a small shiver, there was no other reaction.
High pain tolerance, then. It was to be expected from a warrior of God. Maybe, when the angel's psyche had reached its limit, he would try out some of the acid tortures that were making such a comeback. But all in due time.
"How does it feel to land so low, angel?" he drawled in its ear. "You were just a rat with wings, and yet you tried to play God. Did things far above your paygrade for that little human of yours, isnt that right? You even ripped out your own grace because he needed it to lock our gates. And what did you receive in return? Now you're permanently trapped with us, and I think we both know this is where you truly belong. This is what you deserve." The tip of the knife had replaced the knuckle, carving away at the tender flesh ever so satisfyingly.
He wanted insults. Tears. Anger. He wanted a reaction that made sense. Instead, he heard the angel murmur, "Yuka Takahashi."
The demon froze.
The immaculate blue eye drilled into his murky secrets, stripping him naked with its stark limpidity. It was far too blue, he realized. It gleamed unnaturally bright in the darkened bowels of hell. The demon could swear he had not seen anything like it in all the years of his eternal torment, had not felt such confusion in his tainted soul since the endless freedom of the sky, the capricious embrace of the sea, the graceful creases of faded blue cotton on soft skin, the flowers hidden in thick black hair…
"You still remember, don't you?" the angel asked not unkindly. "Centuries of torment could not erase her completely. You tried everything within your power to save her, and yet her condition worsened. When you finally sought out the woman with the eyes of ink, you were more worried about sealing the deal with a kiss than about the fate of your immortal soul. You didn't wish to be unfaithful. When you arrived home, she sat up, touched your cheek, and said 'Ichiro, I feel better now. It is a miracle.' You only spent ten more years with your family afterwards. They were good ones."
The demon realized with horror that there was compassion in the depths of the gaze. The ancient angelic spirit had been made to suffer the very worst of hellish torture, yet it chose to feel sorry for him.
He roared in rage or shame, and madly plunged his blade into the soft liquid blue. He needed to blot it out. The angel wouldn't be able to see into him without the eye, wouldn't be able to use its treacherous powers. The angel's body arched and spasmed in agony under the blade, its jerky movements curbed by the swinging chains, but it didn't let a sound escape its throat.
"Nothing can save you," the demon growled. He twisted the knife cruelly before ripping it out of the eye. The wound made a sickening noise. The vile emptiness he left behind filled him with savage pleasure. "You will never escape. You're going to suffer and break just like the rest of us, and someday soon you'll become nothing more than the newest demon in our ranks."
The angel chuckled. Its lacerated eye socket, now unremarkable amid the carnage that was its face, gushed darkly with viscous blood. But it wasn't the maniacal sound of a man turning insane. In hell, such laughter was par for the course. Instead it was a faint, amused little laugh, head bowed as if remembering a private joke. The demon shrunk away, slightly confused.
The captive raised its hollow red gaze to meet the demon's.
"Dean is coming for me." The angel Castiel proclaimed. His voice rang with absolute certainty, clear and resonant like a bell in the endless shadows. "He will raise me from hell. Nothing in God's creation has stopped him before, and nothing in your pitiful little realm can stand against his will. If you ever have the misfortune of laying your eyes on him, I advise you to flee for your life. Because he's going to kick your fucking ass."
The demon had not, in his many years inside the pit, witnessed unshakable faith. Faith couldn't survive. Hell corrupted love, and hope, and everything that was good inside a soul, and faith generally died within the first month or so. And this, this stubborn, inhuman thing wasn't clinging onto its Father for rescue. That may have been understandable. Angels were hardwired to do that. No, this one was putting its celestial trust into a human. Dean Winchester. The man who inspired unbelievable rumors and tales, hushed whispers telling of his exploits during the apocalypse, of how he pushed Lucifer and Michael into the cage, of his victories against the leviathans and the Mother of monsters, of his year-long rampage through purgatory, of the way he had slaughtered and maimed every sentient thing unfortunate enough to cross his path as he'd bellowed, "Where is he? Where's the goddamn angel?"
Dean Winchester, who was every abomination's nightmare. Dean Winchester, who was always accompanied by his brother the giant demon-slayer. Dean Winchester, who was the rightful sword of Michael, who fought against heaven, hell, and God, and emerged impossibly victorious against a destiny written before the dawn of mankind. Dean Winchester, who owed his life to the very same bundle of raw meat and crushed bones that faithfully waited for him inside the underworld's loneliest cell.
The angel's eye kept on leaking, an awful broken sphere that bore into the demon's open soul. He thought he could feel the ghost of the divine blue he had destroyed. He swore he could still see its shine. It pierced him. Judged him. Pitied him.
No, it was impossible. The gates were closed. They were all doomed until the end of time, and no one could come back in.
But for a second or two, the demon believed.
And he was frightened.
.