I left you all over Christmas, I'm sorry but I couldn't get the time to finish writing my chapter. Finally got it done yesterday while everyone else slept off their huge Christmas dinner and then I fell asleep over my laptop. So, yeah. Also, any suggestions for how I'm going to get the boys out of this mess would be greatly appreciated, I have a vague idea, but it's not quite enough.

Chapter Eleven.

Castiel does not know how long he has been held captive in a ring of burning holy oil. It could be only minutes, it could be hours or days or even weeks, Zachariah, after all, is far more skilled at manipulating time than he ever was. What he does know is that every now and again the cell phone in his pocked will trill and each time he has to force himself to resist answering. He knows that it is Dean on the other end of the line, checking up on him and trying to convince himself not to worry about the renegade angel.

Fact of it is, Castiel cannot bring himself to answer anyway, he cannot risk it for fear that by doing so one of two things will happen. Either Dean will tear him a new one, as he believes the saying goes, for participating in his dreams in the first place, or Zachariah and his lackeys will use it to find the hunter. Neither outcome is overly desirable and so he keeps his hands by his sides and his back straight. Gradually, however, as the seconds tick by and the flames continue to bathe his body with their uncomfortable warmth, he begins to realise that the only one he is deceiving with this display of false confidence is himself.

They have imprisoned him in an old warehouse and have left four guards to watch over him, stone faced men in ill fitting suits whose duty it is to make sure that he does not use his ingenuity to escape Zachariah's clutches. Periodically his former superior will come to him and demand the location of Sam and Dean Winchester so that they might go to them and convince them that it is in their best interests to play their roles. Castiel finds it more than a little disturbing how alike Zachariah and Gabriel are in this instance.

Nevertheless, every time the more powerful angel makes the demand, Castiel shakes his head, refuses to give him what he wants and each time he wonders if this will be the last moment of defiance that he will be allowed to display. Deep down, he knows that Zachariah cannot let him continue to behave in this way in front of the others without there being some form of consequence and so he has to wonder why he is allowing it now. It makes little difference, he is still trapped within the ring of holy fire and unable to contact Dean to warn him of the danger that he is in.

Eventually he realises that the reason Zachariah has not hurt him, has not punished him physically as he should, is that his superior has every intention of using him against Dean, of using his feelings and Dean's apparent desire to push Dean into doing that which the hunter has sworn he will never do. This is the reason that the superior is keeping him alive and this is the reason that he has been allowed to get away with his defiance, because they need him in one piece to get Dean to say yes.

Castiel knows that as soon as Dean agrees to accept Michael into himself, he will be dead because the archangel will not stand to have such a reminder of disobedience in existence. It will not stop them from lying to Dean to try and convince him to do what they want him to. The angel hopes that the hunter will realise that and continue to refuse.

He has not had any fantasies or feelings of unbearable desire for the hunter since Zachariah took him captive and it is the first confirmation that he has received that, while he does care deeply for Dean, the events of the last two months have not been all down to his mind. He is now certain that someone has been manipulating him and still it does not change how he feels about the hunter. The fact that he wants the hunter, needs the hunter, has never been in question, he fell from Heaven for Dean after all and even though at the time he was not sure about the meaning behind all the feelings that being around the man brought forward, he knows now that it was something more and something deeper than simple affection.

For the first time in weeks his driving thought has not been, find Dean, keep Dean safe, have lots of sex with Dean. Even though he is in immediate danger, he knows that he is in trouble, he is aware that over the last few weeks not even a threat to his person has prevented him from imagining the things that he could be doing with Dean. Now that he is trapped in this way, knowing that he is going to die, he finds that the images and desires that have brought so much comfort and frustration to him over the last couple of months are no longer there. At least, not in the way that they were.

He still imagines things, of course he does, because that sort of feeling and sensation does not just go away, does not just stop simply because he is in danger. With no obvious way of escape and all possible routes blocked by flames and a distinct lack of water, Castiel has a lot of time between visits to kill. Where the products of his imagination seem to have once been filled with nothing but lust, desperation and darker desires than he has always been comfortable with, now they have become little more than a need and desire for a loving form of companionship.

There is still the consuming need and the want, he does not believe that will ever leave him, ever really diminish, it is simply that the visualisations that came with them have lessened, have become more loving and less frantic. The need he feels now is simply that need to return to Dean's side, the desire to see Dean's face in that time of bliss when Castiel is able to bring him to that fleeting moment of completion that all humans strive towards. He wants to return to the hunter and apologise for his strange behaviour, take the man in his arms and convince him that such feelings and needs for each other are not frowned up on, that they should act upon it in the real world and not hide it.

Instead he has to content himself with his own watery fantasies, his dreams of escape and his fear that by the time that he achieves it, Zachariah will already have managed to kill Sam and force Dean to take Michael in. The angel is under no illusions, he knows that Zachariah and his ilk will not allow the younger brother to live when Lucifer is already in an inferior vessel that will limit his ability as a warrior.

Truthfully, the angel wants to see this end as much as any of the rest of his kind, any that he has been accused of betraying and failing, except that he does not want to see his Father's most wondrous creation destroyed by angels who have no real claim to it when they have heaven.

Instead all he can do is stand as wait, allow himself to dream of the day that Dean will come through the door to his rescue and hope that he will have found a way to defeat the angels who stand guard. Otherwise all the rescue attempt will do is hand both Winchesters to Zachariah. Castiel conveniently ignores the fact that Dean will have to find out where he is first.

The angel's gaze never wavers from Zachariah's now, where he used to look away, he is now neither ashamed nor afraid to look into the stolen eyes of his superior and read the contempt there. One evening, once Zachariah has left him to the silent companionship of brothers who will no longer recognise him, Castiel allows himself a moment to close his eyes and picture Dean's face. When he opens them again he recognises the landscape he sees beyond the flames, recognises the red of the dirt and the chains across the skies.

This is Dean's mind, and Castiel knows that this can only mean one thing. Zachariah has gotten tired of waiting and has decided to go invade Dean's mind outright.

Happy late Christmas everyone!

Artemis