CHAPTER THREE

Weightless, he floated in a white void. Time was fluid, or motionless, passing in instants and eons while remaining still.

There was nothing. He was nothing. Emptiness surrounded him and consumed him.

Thoughts formed slowly, rising in his mind before drifting away on a non-existent breeze. The intangible concept of identity ebbed and flowed like the tide. Sometimes, he knew who he was. Other times, he knew he was no one.

There was peace, here. Wherever here was. He did not know, and he was untroubled by his ignorance.

Fragments of memories bobbed past him, riding an invisible current into the ether. Once or twice, curious as a child, he grasped at them.

The flood of images assaulted his mind. His gut clenched as sickening waves of reality crashed over him. In those moments he knew fear and became aware of the terrible danger he was in.

But then it would become too much. He would recoil, and let go.

He floated mindlessly. Blissfully. Unharmed, harming no one. Tranquil.

Until out of the void, or perhaps from beyond it, there came a hand with lacquered nails, reaching for him. Tension roiled through his body, reminding him he had a body just as the hand closed around his throat.

There was no such thing as air, but suddenly he needed it.

The instinct to fight came clawing up from deep within. He kicked and struggled, scrabbling at his neck to loosen the unrelenting grip that was choking him, dragging him like a fly through treacle. He was powerless.

The unending white that stretched forever in every direction began to recede. Greys entered the world. Black next. Tainting streaks of colour that painted four stone walls in close quarters around him. The hand continued to pull and then he was turned and pushed back against a shockingly solid surface. Fingers withdrew to be replaced by the slither of cold metal encircling his neck. His hands were raised and pinned above his head, manacles snicking into place around his wrists. He tried to kick out against his unseen attacker, only to find that his ankles were similarly restrained.

He was trapped. A fly in a spider's web.

The spider materialised in front of him, but rather than a creature with eight legs, it was a woman clad in impeccable business attire.

Not a woman. Raphael.

Dean snapped back into his mind like a rubber-band on rebound. He remembered that he had been taken captive by angels and he realised that, this time, he was in real trouble.

"Hello, Dean."

She – he – was staring at him with the same intensity Dean was accustomed to receiving from Castiel, but there was a smirk twitching at the corner of her lips and the way her gaze swept over his body made his flesh crawl.

He hated to be vulnerable. Chained to a wall in a spread-eagled position with no weapon in hand and no clue where he was, he had never been more so.

Except once. In Hell. On the rack.

He jerked his mind away from the lock-box of forbidden memories and focused on the matter at hand.

"Raphael. I haven't seen you since you were running away from Cas and his new collection of super-weapons with your tail tucked between your yellow-stained legs."

She leaned in, peering into his eyes. "You do not sound afraid."

"Sorry, pal, but you are not enough to scare me."

"No? I think you should reassess my threat level. I have you alone here, where no one will find you or even think to look."

"And where is, here, exactly?"

Raphael smiled, but did not answer. "No one is coming to save you, Dean Winchester. I have you completely at my mercy. And if you think you have known pain at the hands of others in the past, I promise you, you will believe otherwise before I am done."

"No offence, lady, but I have been tortured by the best Hell had to offer, and somehow I don't think you'll measure up."

"You mean Alastair?" Her laugh was pure malice. "He was an unimaginative, uninspired little whelp. He did not have the tremendous power that I do, and his only motive to hurt you was that it was his job to do so. But I want to hurt you, Dean Winchester. I want to see you suffer. You made the fatal mistake of crossing me and, worse, fraternising with my enemy. You will be made to pay in the most creative, exquisitely painful ways possible."

Dean layered his voice thick with sarcasm. "I'm trembling in my boots."

"Not yet," Raphael said. She leaned in so close that he could feel her breath ghosting over his skin, and whispered into his ear, "But you will be."

With those words, the archangel vanished, leaving him alone in the tiny cell.

Dean shuddered.

ooOOoo

Castiel was engaged in a fierce battle when the call came through.

The ground beneath his feet was soaked with the blood of his brethren, the grass scorched by the shadows of their wings. Shredded vessels were strewn across the field, vacant eyes staring in silent judgement as angels fought and the carnage multiplied.

The ultimate destructive force, Castiel cut a bloody swath through the ranks of his enemy. His sword was an extension of his body, practically fused to his hand after days of endless combat. Light glinted off the razor-sharp edge as it arced through the air. Droplets of ruby splattered in its wake.

He was single-minded in his purpose and ruthless in its execution. Dozens fell before him. While every death of a brother or sister was a wound that could never heal, he did not hesitate, and he would not relent. Any scant inch of ground they gained was crucial; every one they lost brought the Earth one step closer to annihilation.

He parried, slashed, blocked and stabbed, moved forward, slashed again.

In the instant before his blade would have separated the head of Raphael's second-in-command from his shoulders, Castiel froze at the sound of a voice he never thought he would hear again.

Cas?

His focus hurtled inwards, seizing the faint prayer line and amplifying it tenfold.

Cas, it's Dean. You got your ears on? I-

"Castiel, watch out!"

A body slammed into him, knocking him out of the way a split second before his skull would have been cloven in two. He had barely hit the ground before he was being dragged to his feet again, the concerned face of Mattathias appearing suddenly in his vision. "What is wrong with you, Castiel? You cannot zone out like that in the middle of a battle; you are going to get yourself killed!"

Before Castiel could reply, his lieutenant roughly shoved him aside and plunged his sword deep into the chest of an enemy soldier who had come out of nowhere.

The sights and sounds and blood of war swirled around him, overwhelming and disorienting. He scrambled to make sense of it, even as Dean's prayer tugged on his mind.

-think I'm in deep shit this time, Cas-

"Snap out of it, Castiel! We need our leader!"

His army was taking up formation around him, defending him, fending off attacks that would have taken advantage of his distraction. He was humbled by their loyalty and knew they were counting on him-

-need your help-

They were being pushed back, losing any progress they had made.

-don't think I can make it out of this one my own-

His soldiers were bleeding, dying.

Please, Cas.

"I'm sorry," he blurted. "I have to go."

Ignoring the expressions of stunned disbelief on the faces around him, Castiel spread his wings wide and launched into the sky.

"Retreat!" Mattathias yelled.

Castiel felt a pang of regret, but pressed resolutely onwards.

It was not until it was already too late to turn back that he realised – he could hear Dean, but he could not follow the prayer line back to his location. The connection was distorted, bouncing him across the globe without granting him a definitive fix on Dean's whereabouts.

He banked sharply, coming to an abrupt halt on the highest peak of the Himalayan Mountains. He cast his senses far and wide, touching, for a fraction of an instant, the minds and souls of every creature and human on the face of the planet, seeking the one he knew more intimately than any other.

His search turned up nothing. Dean remained beyond his reach.

Frustration bubbled up within him, molten lava exceeding boiling point within his veins until it found physical manifestation in the most devastating avalanche the world had ever seen, set into motion by a shriek that threatened to tear apart the very fabric of reality.

"DEAN!"

ooOOoo

Time had no meaning here.

In Hell, Dean had been excruciatingly aware of every second that passed. The days of torture were as regular as clockwork. The beginning of the pain was the sun that rose, blood blooming across his skin like the first colours of a dawn sky. The zenith was reached when the heat was most intense, burning him away to cinders and ash until there was nothing left. The sun would set as he was made whole again, piece by agonising piece, injuries slipping away like fading rays of light. Alastair's offer was the last thing he would hear before total darkness fell. And then it would start all over again.

Here it was different. The silence would last years, or hours, or months, or moments. He would be left in isolation, trapped and confined in a cell with no windows or doors for all of eternity, but within seconds Raphael would appear.

With no concept of time, Dean was unable to predict when the pain would return. The tense anticipation, the fear – they were worse, so much worse, than anything Hell had managed to do to him. But, somehow, his tormentor would only come in the hesitant moment when he dared to relax his guard. Then the torture would be swift, brutal, and his screams would reverberate through the tiny cell until they echoed within his skull and made him wonder whether the sound had only ever existed in his mind after all.

By all rights, he should have drowned in a pool of his own blood by now. He should be nothing but a pile of shredded flesh and shattered bone and bits of exploded brain matter. But in the impossible moments when he was able to force his eyes open and look down at himself, he saw a body that was whole and unmarked. There was no trace of the terrible wounds he could feel the archangel inflicting upon him. It was as though the torture was not real, like he was trapped in a bizarre game of make-believe.

But the pain he felt, the sheer agony, could not be imagined. It was incomprehensible, beyond compare, all-encompassing, all-consuming… and never-ending in the place that time forgot.

If he could, if it were possible, he would pray to Cas every night. It would be a ritual composed partly of hope, primarily of desperation, and it would be an attempt to retain some small degree of sanity. As it was, with no natural cycle of days and nights to be his guide, he might have prayed less than he meant to. He might have prayed more.

Castiel. Testing, testing, one, two, three. Come in Castiel.

Cas. Castiel! What the hell, man; is there something wrong with angel radio? Can't you hear me?

Cas, I need you to hear me.

Castiel who art in heaven, I'm sure you're very busy, but do you think you could spare a damn minute to listen to me?

Cas, I'm not usually one to beg, but I really need your help.

C'mon, Cas, you've never let me down before. I believe in you.

You're coming for me soon, right, Cas? As soon as you can?

Please tell me you are fighting your way to get to me. Laying siege to – well, wherever the hell I am. I don't know. I hope you know.

Still waiting for a rescue, man. But I know you haven't forgotten about me.

Cas? Have you forgotten about me?

Cas, I'm rotting down here. Please come get me.

I can't do this. I'm trying to be strong, but… It hurts, Cas. It hurts.

Are you… mad at me? Is this punishment for doubting you? I get it, man, angels make mistakes too. So you burned the wrong bones, so what? It doesn't mean you're working with Crowley. I shouldn't have listened to Sam and Bobby; I should have gone with my gut and trusted you. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, Cas.

Okay, I've had enough; I've learned my lesson. Forgive and forget, right, Cas?

Please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…

Cas, please.

Oh god, it hurts. I can't – I can't – oh god, PLEASE. Please.

I'll do anything.

Cas, it isn't true, is it? Don't let it be true. I don't want it to be true. Tell me you haven't gone dark side. Tell me there is still some good inside you.

So Sam was right about you, after all. You have turned dark. I hope he is hunting you, you son of a bitch. I would hunt you myself, if I could.

You evil BASTARD, Castiel. How could you leave me here?

When I get out of here, I'm coming to kill you.

It just doesn't stop. It never stops. Hell wasn't hell, Cas. This is hell.

I'm so tired.

Is Sam okay? And Bobby? You're looking out for them, right? I know I am never getting out of here, but if you ever cared about me even a little, will you do this one thing for me? Keep my brother safe?

Cas? You still there?

I don't even know if you are hearing me, man… Maybe I've gone crazy. Maybe all this time I've just been talking to myself.

I wish I could die. Raphael won't let me.

I miss you, Cas.

I'm burning away. I can feel it. I don't think there is much more that Raphael can take from me. But if there is, he'll find it.

Cas? Cas is short for – Cast- Cas- It's a name. Isn't it? Not my name, though, not mine, that's silly, because my name is- is- What is my name? Do I have one?

Cas, she's hurting me. Burning and ripping and cutting and tearing, and it hurts. She's bleeding me dry, but I'm not bleeding, but I am bleeding. So much blood. It hurts, Cas, it hurts.

Making it stop hurting. Please, Cas.

Cas?

Cas?

Cas.

Cas. Cas. Cas. Cas. Cas.

Cas…

ooOOoo