Chapter Seven
Dean knew exactly where he was, but that didn't mean he wanted to believe it. Seriously, he was pretty sure that he wasn't dead (he hoped he wasn't dead), so there was no way that he could be where he thought he was. Right? He was tied down, wherever he was. So he wasn't getting up any time soon. But God, was it ever hot wherever he was. Hot as Hell.
That thought made his breath come quicker and he struggled even more. There was no way, right? He started to hyperventilate a little bit, the last thing he remembered was Gabriel screaming at him, about what he'd done (what exactly he'd done, he still had no clue), pain and struggling, and now he'd woken up here. In this white room, with black curtains; he chuckled to himself at that. "Next thing I'm gonna hear is a train, just wait." He mumbled to himself and he gradually started calming down as he hummed the Cream song.
"Sorry to burst your bubble sweetheart, but you're not going to be hearing a train anytime soon." Dean's head snapped up to look at the woman in front of him, head tilting to the side and eyes squinting in an expression that could only be categorized as 'you have got to be kidding me.'
"Cassie?" She laughed and crossed her arms, curly black hair bouncing as she moved her head a little bit. He shivered at the manic sound.
"Actually this is just her meat suit anymore…" She smiled and slid her tongue around her teeth in a manner that could only be called smug. "Guess again." He now glared at her.
"Meg." She grinned. "Awwh man, please tell me that it was not you when…" He was now pressing himself against the wall, body language showing nothing but absolute disgust.
"I wasn't too happy about that part either. But it was necessary to my plan." She smiled wickedly. "You're the one that couldn't figure out that she was possessed." Dean was now a visible shade of green. "You might want to concentrate on keeping that food in your stomach. It's the last you're going to have for a while." He swallowed.
Maybe if he hadn't been so distracted by Castiel, by his feelings for him; the feelings that he had tried to forget by going with who he thought was Cassie, he would have noticed that she was possessed, saved her, saved himself. Saved Castiel, because now he couldn't search for a cure for the angel, he wouldn't be able to save him. But that wasn't to say that no one would save him, Gabriel and Sam were still free, they could save him, and then maybe, if they thought he deserved it (which he decidedly didn't) they could possibly try and find him.
His head was snapped to the side, "Pay attention when I'm talking to you, Dean." There was force in her voice, and he rolled his jaw around a little bit.
"Where am I?" She laughed and trailed a fingernail down his arm, digging in roughly.
"Don't you recognize it, Dean?" Her voice was sickly sweet and carried a sing-song quality. "You're in Hell." He looked up, green eyes wide as she walked away from him.
"But.. that's not possible. I'm still alive." She turned around, a red-hot piece of metal in her hand.
"That's easily fixed." She shoved it through his shoulder.
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"How did we not notice that he was gone?" Sam asked in an incredulous voice, staring at the spot where his brother had been crouched only moments before.
"We were busy, it happens to me all the time. He's probably fine." Sam looked at the archangel exasperatedly. "Claw marks on the floor? Oh, come on. I killed him hundreds of times, and he never ever left claw marks anywhere, even when he was being dragged away." Sam ran a hand over his face. "Let's just check around town, and if he's not there, I'll ask around upstairs. Okay?" Gabriel seemed almost happy that Dean was gone, and Sam wasn't sure he even wanted to know why.
"How about you ask Castiel? You said you know where he is now, right? Just go ask him, I'm sure he keeps tabs on him, and if he doesn't, their bond should tell him anyways." Gabriel's expression darkened.
"No." His tone left no room for discussion and Sam flinched at the anger that was coming off of the smaller man in waves. He decided he wouldn't ask again, at least until it was necessary.
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"Castiel. He needs you." The angel looked sharply over at his Father.
"He does not." The Lord looked upon Castiel with all of his unconditional patience and spoke once again.
"He's in Hell." The angel was gone before anything else could be said.
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"What happened?" Castiel's face was red and showed clear anger, and his voice reached a new level of low as he growled out the words. Gabriel and Sam glanced at each other.
"What do you mean?" Sam looked down at Castiel, his eyebrows steadily climbing into his hairline.
"You mean to tell me, that Dean died, and you're so unaffected that you don't even know what I'm talking about?"
"Dean died?" Gabriel turned around to look at his brother and Castiel threw him into the nearby alley before pressing him up against the brick wall.
"You were supposed to protect him. I trusted you." Gabriel could see Castiel's wings spread out behind him menacingly, but was drawn away from the sight by the pressure that was on his neck, and terrifyingly enough, he couldn't shake the younger angel's hold. "That was a mistake I will not be making again."
Before either of the stunned men could react, Castiel gave one last great shove against Gabriel's throat and disappeared. "Dean's dead?" Sam sounded lost, and looked it too; Gabriel wrapped his arms around his mate, trying to calm him, and brought them both back to the hotel room in a heartbeat.
"Let's hope that he's not."
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"Are you… going to kill me or not?" Dean panted out as he slumped against his restraints. He didn't know how long he had been in this godforsaken room, and he was past the point of caring. He knew that no one was coming for him, and once he died, he would most likely be forced to endure the same kind of pain for the rest of eternity.
For all the talk about how he was the "righteous man" that was meant for greater things, it seemed that he always ended up back in hell. He chuckled to himself as he watched the person who had previously been Cassie walk around him twirling a spiked mace before slamming the ball into him once more, he wasn't sure, but he believed that this was probably better than torturing other people. That's what had driven him insane. Until Castiel had found him.
He didn't remember everything from his time in Hell before, but he did know that he had been close to losing it. He did know that he had valid reasons for believing that he didn't deserve to be saved; and he did know that Castiel had done something to ease the hurt, to take away the worst of it. But Castiel wasn't coming for him this time; after the first few hours of pain and punctures, of lacerations and burns, he knew that Castiel wasn't going to come for him, no matter how much he prayed or begged.
Everyone else was finally realizing what he had known for years, he didn't deserve to be saved, he wasn't any better than anyone else, he didn't deserve to be sacrificed for, and he accepted it. Castiel had always claimed that he was wrong, everyone deserved to be saved.
But Dean had finally gone too far, fucked it all up. Because when even Castiel couldn't help him? He knew he was done for.
With that thought he gritted his teeth and braced himself for the next swing of the mace.
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After a few hours of searching on his own, Castiel had decided to ask Uncle Bobby for help. The man was an expert in, well, almost anything, and if Castiel needed help, he could go to the man. Gabriel and Sam were obviously useless, and as far as Castiel was concerned, this was their entire fault. He had trusted them with the care of his mate, and within just a few hours of leaving him for the final time, they had allowed him to be killed and dragged to hell.
"Bobby." He stepped into the hunter's house and stood back as the man regarded him with suspicion. "I need to find where exactly Dean is."
"Can't you just do that through your freaky bond thing?" He griped out at him, walking into the kitchen and casually reaching in the fridge to get a beer.
"Dean's in Hell." The bottle that had previously been in his hand dropped to the floor and he looked up in shock.
"He's where?" The man spluttered out in disbelief, he'd thought that they were idjits before, but he couldn't believe that they had let this happen to one of their own.
"My Father alerted me that he was in Hell, but I was quick to verify what he said for myself and did not ask for his exact location." He stared intently at the hunter. "I'm sure you can find his location so that I may find him again?"
"How'd he die?" Castiel sighed at the question.
"I am not sure." Bobby squinted at him.
"Are you sure he's dead?" Castiel scoffed at his question.
"He's in Hell there's almost no way that he could be sent there unless he was already deceased." He was getting frustrated very quickly but he checked the bond anyways, it would be gone if Dean was dead, especially in the weakened state it had already been in. His eyes widened and he looked up at the hunter standing in the kitchen.
The bond was still there.
Bobby shook his head and decided that he needed to call Sam, and maybe visit him. Knock some sense into him. He and Castiel had spent the last hour deciding exactly where Dean was and how to get to him quickly and safely. Then Castiel had relocated his angel blade and armor, and finally, he was ready for battle with whatever had taken Dean.
All the older hunter could hope was that the newly dubbed archangel would get there in time.
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Dean woke up once again after falling unconscious from the sheer strength of his pain. He bit back a groan and tried to fall back asleep, not wanting Meg to know that he was awake. But he was not a lucky man, and Meg was too tuned into his life signs to not notice the increase in his heart rate.
"You're awake! Good. I wanted you conscious for this next bit." Dean didn't move, didn't open his eyes. There was no point in looking or not, he was going to feel just as bad either way, and he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.
Her hand hit him across the face, "Look at me while I'm talking to you!" he opened his green eyes and glared at her defiantly before closing them again.
"Why you little-" She was cut off by a commotion outside. "Ugh. I'll be right back. I just have to take care of a little problem." She opened the door and walked out, leaving Dean alone in the room for the first time since he got here. There was screaming outside the room, but he decided to not pay much attention to that as he needed to take this time to size up just where he was and how he could get out.
He was cuffed to the wall at his legs, arms and waist, making it impossible for him to bend over, or reach the lock pick set that he could feel was still hidden in his collar. His only options left for escape was to break his wrist and possibly his fingers to get it out of the cuff, reach the lock pick set, and somehow pick the other lock with a broken wrist. He was just about to pull hard on the left cuff when his door burst open.
Meg was covered head to toe in blood, ectoplasm and various other liquids that he did not want to learn about. Her eyes were frightened and the first thing she did was grab the key off the wall. "We have to get out of here." Dean nodded his head, smiling. He could probably, maybe, take her if she let him out of his restraints, so he was all for being moved.
She opened the cuff around his waist, then his hands, and his feet, and he punched her squarely in the face. She came back up and set her jaw, "Look, I know you might not be happy with me, but you don't want to be here when he comes for you, that's worse than anything I could do to you. C'mon." Dean just laughed and punched her again.
"I'm not sure about what you think, but I know one thing for sure, and that's that demons lie. And just between you and me? I'd rather take my chances with whatever is out there, because with you I know I'm a goner. That thing is killing demons, and in my book? That's a damn good thing." She set her jaw angrily and glared at him before grabbing his arm and yanking him along, reopening every wound she had given him.
He fell to the ground with a cry and pulled his arms around him while she tried to hoist him up and carry him out of the room. She dropped him though when a bright light filled the room and a screeching sound could be heard. Dean's first instinct when he heard the screeching was to cover his ears to avoid the eardrums being blown, but he soon found that the voice he heard was not offensive to him and was actually calming. He looked up to see Castiel standing in the doorway.
"How dare you touch him." Meg backed up against the wall, shaking her head desperately as though she was being pressed there by just his presence. "How dare you hurt him. Do you know. Who he is?" Castiel moved away from the door and stalked closer to the tan woman that was trying to hide from him, pushing the devices she had tortured Dean with in front of herself, trying to stop him from getting to her. Dean could only watch in awe as the angel's wings spread out behind him, the golden feathers rippling in the wind that could only be described as supernatural. "You, are going to die for what you did. You are lucky that I'm in a merciful mood." The blade that Castiel had previously kept hidden swept through the woman, the body slumping and the black ash signifying what was left of the demon poured out of the cut.
"Castiel." The name fell out of Dean's lips in a gasp as he tried to prop himself up on the floor.
"Relax, Dean. We're going to get out of here." If it would have been any other situation, and his eyesight hadn't been fading, Dean would have protested about flying as far as he was sure they were going to have to, to get out of Hell. But as it was, he was only barely conscious, and he could tell that Castiel wasn't exactly in the mood to banter.
The hallways that they walked through were littered with demons and other creatures, all of which were almost beheaded, or their heads were a few feet away from them. Dean turned away from the sight, not willing to throw up on Castiel after the angel had saved him. Instead he distracted himself by threading his hands through the feathers on the angel's wings.
Castiel jumped when Dean first touched them but after that continued walking as if nothing different. "You're such a girl." Dean pressed his face into Castiel's shoulder and laughed as much as he could with the way it was becoming difficult to draw air into his lungs. Dean didn't have to look up to know that Castiel was definitely looking at him with a confused expression. The hunter snorted once again and slumped into the angel's arms. "Even your wings are pretty."
Castiel looked down at the hunter that was in his arms and with alarm realized that he was no longer conscious. "Dean? You have to stay awake." He shook the man, but got no response.
Unfurling his wings even farther Castiel began a furiously fast trip out of hell, he needed to heal Dean, and he couldn't do it here.
With everything happening so quickly, he didn't get the chance to think about what was implied by the fact that Dean could see his wings.
I made you guys wait forever for this. I'm soo sorry. Was it worth it? Hahaa. Umm. Where should he take Dean? I had some ideas for the next chapter, but you guys always give the best inspiration and ideas. (: