Disclaimer: Supernatural and all its affiliates belong to Eric Kripke.
They say that only when confronted with the icy grip of death do men reveal their true natures. No matter how egotistical or confident a man seemed to be, no matter how much machismo he harbored or whatever guise he put on for appearance's sake- all one had to do to see what a man was made of was observe how he reacted when staring the gruesome and the unthinkable straight in the eye. Some broke down and cried like children, others ran like cowards and some offered up anything and everything for bargaining, caught up in the throes of stark desperation.
Sam Winchester had seen his fair share of strange and idiotic, he'd tasted the horrific and could handle what would have terrified most, and had what he'd like to think of as a pretty strong will. After all, how many led a life as a shotgun-toting, holy water wielding hunter who traveled all over the country, hunting down that which the majority of the population thought only appeared in folklore and legend?
The first time he fired a gun, he had been seven years old. He spent his entire childhood melting silver down into bullets for his father and living in shitty motel rooms. He'd witnessed his own mother's murder in the cradle. He had died once and been brought back, he'd exorcized evil spirits through an unnatural ability granted to him by a demon; he'd seen his brother get dragged down to Hell and pulled back out.
He'd shaken the hand of an angel.
But now as he stood there in the brash spotlights of the operating room, he felt his stomach bottom out as he stared in horror at the angel's barely recognizable tortured form. But he couldn't bring himself to feel repulsion. This wasn't some enemy or a stranger who was strapped down on the table, lying there all but broken, surrounded by sneering demons and the red of his own blood; it was Castiel, the strong, steadfast angel of the Lord who was supposed to be more powerful than the scum that danced around his limp frame, the angel who had gone through Hell (literally) for the soul of a man that wasn't nearly devout or pious enough to have caught the attention of God.
The crisscross mass of lacerations, abrasions and burns deliberately inflicted by the brutal hands of evil were sickening to even glance at but Sam could do nothing but gape and involuntarily, he felt his feet moving, legs carrying him in long, furious strides toward the helpless victim, trying to suck in all the air his lungs refused to accept in that one frozen instant of shock. You worthless scum of the earth, get the hell away from him!
"Castiel!"
Unsurprisingly, multiple hands grabbed for him and he was shoved away by an invisible hand, back hitting the drywall with such tremendous force that it felt like someone had just dropped a car on top of his chest. Grunting with effort, he tired to pull away from the all too familiar feel of iron bands wrapping around his torso and attempting to wrench his entire body through the plaster he was pressed up against. A trickle of sweat slid down his temple.
"You know this priggish ass?" One of the demons drawled out, quirking an eyebrow upward in surprise and amusement. The response garnered was a low growl as Sam fought with all his might to get to the angel, wanting nothing more than to mop up all the blood and pretend that he'd never seen the warrior of the Lord in his most vulnerable state, trapped inside a human vessel and reduced to a punching bag for the twisted pleasures of the savages from down below.
"I'm inclined to think he has a fancy for our angel," A proper-looking young man dressed to the nines in a dapper suit observed, pompous accent made all the more ridiculous by the bestial curl of his lip. Sam literally bared his teeth. Their angel? They had no right to lay claim to Castiel. He was an angel, goddamn it! No one was supposed to have the upper hand on angels except for God Himself.
The young man's pupils expanded and the whites of his eyes turned black as he held Sam's incensed glare. "You're just in time then, old sport," he said pleasantly, beckoning to someone in the corner of the room. "We're all having a jolly time, and you came in at just the best part."
Castiel, for all intents and purposes, looked dead and Sam grew cold at the thought. Urgently, he scrutinized the angel's torso, trying to see whether or not the mangled chest was moving while attempting to not look at the mutilated flesh. Someone passed in front of his line of vision and he blinked in confusion before demons that had suddenly congregated in a tight ring around the table drew back, eager to turn up the heat now that they had an audience.
Shit. No! Sam couldn't bring himself to steadfastly fix his eyes straight ahead; he had to look away and though he couldn't move, he cringed as the crackle of electricity filed the room, as thousands of volts of charged particles surged into the angel's limp body that seized in a convulsion up off the table before falling lifelessly back down.
The 1967 Chevy Impala streaked through the still night, a blur of midnight against the greater blackness that was the darkness. Its driver had not removed his foot from where it was pressing the accelerator to the floor of the car since he turned the key in the ignition some hundreds of miles ago after leaving a gas station and it was a wonder that the old car was managing to hold out.
Dean was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were turning white and his back was ramrod straight, shoulders tense. His cheek was set tightly, squaring his jaw even more and his mouth was set in a thin, hard line. Silence filled the car when given another time and another place, the radio would have been blasting AC/DC and it would've been Sam sitting in the seat next to him, complaining about the music or perhaps sleeping as they drove on toward their next job, looking for a cheap motel where they could unpack and set up camp.
Instead here he was stuck with a demon and goddamn it, he was going to make her scrub the stench of rotten eggs out of his car with a toothbrush. He flicked a glance at her, sharp as a knife and noticed with a slight feeling of satisfaction that there was fear etched firmly onto her face and her hands were taut, bracing herself the dashboard as she hung on for dear life.
Ruby caught his brief look and she glared. "You drive any faster and this bucket of bolts is going to fall apart."
Bucket of bolts? Dean glowered and spitefully pumped the accelerator several times, inducing several unsavory words from the demon. "What, you expect me to start slowing down 'cause you say so? Nice try. You don't like how I drive, then get out."
She seemed to take the threat to heart and it was good that she did so because he was serious. She sat back, exhaled slowly and resorted to gripping the door handle with both hands instead. "Dean, look. They probably haven't even started the ritual yet-"
"Don't think you're gonna get off on bullshittin' me 'cause I'll slap that smartass right outta your mouth and dump you on the side of the road."
"The ritual started at three o'clock, as a mockery to the time when the Son took his last breath and gave up his spirit," Ruby said slowly and nodded at the digital numerals glowing bright red. "It's barely four-thirty now; it's only the second hour. So you can stop driving like a maniac; you've been on the road since one this morning and we're already into Wyoming."
The glower Dean sent in her direction was so cold that it burned with the heat of a thousand promises of death and was enough to make Ruby shrink back against the passenger side door in fear. "What're you saying?" he ground out slowly, voice low and hostile. " 'It's only the second hour'," he mimicked, taking one hand off the wheel to wave it around in a girlish manner before scoffing bitterly. "Bitch," the hunter hissed venomously. "I've memorized every single part of the freakin' ritual. I know what happens during the second and third hour. Do you?" was the hurled accusation.
Ruby winced at his tone, she winced. Quickly, she turned her face away and stared out the window, hands twisting nervously in her lap. "Yes."
"So what happens then?" Dean goaded. "Since you seem to have all the information and are always so sure of yourself, enlighten me on why I shouldn't want to get there as soon as possible. Why don't you tell me what happens during the second and third hour?" When only silence met the provocation, he slammed his fist against the steering wheel, making the demon jump at the abruptness of his movements. "Say it!"
"No," came the barely audible whisper and the hunter breathed deeply, letting his rage simmer and slowly settle. His molars ground together, a terrible habit he'd picked up from his father and slowly, Dean forced his jaw to relax lest his face somehow got stuck in its current contorted, pained expression.
Inhale, count one-two-three. Exhale, one-two-three. Inhale, exhale. Breathe. And repeat.
An ex-girlfriend who was a yoga instructor had once told him that he needed anger management classes but since he barely had time to take her out to the movies without getting called out on some random job that took him halfway across the country, she had to settle with teaching him respiration patterns to release the pent up energy in his chakra or whatever. He never did tell her the truth about what he'd dubbed "business trips" but for his credit, she never really pressed the matter. Even though he'd never admit it for he felt like an idiot for having to be taught something as mundane as breathing, the exercises worked.
His thoughts inevitably grew grim and his expression soured again as his eyes flickered uneasily toward the car's clock. 4:21 AM. Four minutes and thirteen seconds since he last checked. Four mintues and thirteen minutes until Castiel's situation became hopeless. Four minutes and thirteen seconds closer to the fulfillment of the horrific happenings of the third hour, in which the angel's grace would be ripped from his being and his soul would be banished to the depths of Hell forever.
"Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?"
If he had been taken aback by Castiel's words indicating that he actually gave a damn about innocent human beings (or the Father's creations, as he called them), Dean had been nearly floored by the simple sentence that had come out of the angel's mouth afterwards. It was more than a question; it was a tentative extension of an open hand, the first initiative toward more than curt orders from Heaven and the ever-looming threat of the breaking of the sixty-six seals: it was an offering of confidentiality. Of trust.
After having the image of cherubic, winged beings sitting atop fluffy clouds and strumming harps banished abruptly from his mind by the appearance of this somber-looking holy tax accountant, he hadn't thought that angels were capable of anything beyond acting as a couple of hammers. The compassion, infinite wisdom and kindness evident in Castiel's voice as he spoke to Sam, as he tried to reason with Anna and as the angel confided in Dean about his doubts made him seem more than the initial appearances resonated. Those qualities measured against Uriel's battle-hardened, arrogant persona and Gabriel's cool, frosty indifference and blank features made Castiel seem all the more approachable and more… real? More human? The descriptors still didn't quite match but Dean didn't really care.
Castiel had once demanded respect from him in the aftermath of the raising of the witnesses and what must have been a difficult battle for Heaven's forces as well. Now though, Dean Winchester realized that he didn't have to be threatened with the possibility of being thrown back into Hell for him to regard the angel as worthy of his admiration and deference. This rescue mission was as much for him as it was for Sam, and it wasn't being carried out begrudgingly in the least.
He wasn't driving ninety along the interstate, heading toward what would probably prove to be one of the hardest battles of his life out of duty. It wasn't guilt either, though the dark feeling was still gnawing at the edges of his conscience. In all honesty, Dean couldn't really put a name to the reason why he was so adamant on saving the angel, but he'd never really been that great of an orator anyway.
Hang in there, Cas. Stay strong, Sammy. I'm coming.
4:27 AM.
He was hanging suspended in a sea of darkness, limbs outstretched and fettered with unbreakable restraints. Or perhaps it was simply because he felt so weak that he was unable to break the bonds, too weak to even lift his head. An icy chill rippled through his frame and he shivered. The cold was spreading slowly across his chest to the rest of his body when suddenly, the frost turned to fire and pain blazed across his consciousness. Time slipped and rational existence disintegrated into nothingness.
His mind whirled and his trembling lips tried to form words but no sound would come from his parched throat. The environment surrounding him was clouded and hazy at best and he couldn't recall much that had transpired during the last couple of hours, days, weeks, even. However, there were some things that he recalled with vivid clarity.
Twin flames shot through his back and Castiel's already erratic breathing hitched in his chest. His eyes shut firmly and he tried to dissociate a part of his consciousness from the pain, trying to ignore the stabbing as the hellfire-forged metal gouged into his flesh, twisting deep.
The demon crouched behind him chuckled nastily, pulling the spokes out with a sickening squelching sound and circled around to face his victim. "Oh, pardon me. Was that so terrible? I was just looking for the wings. I lost mine a while back you know, when Daddy dearest tossed me out and I was wondering if you would happen to have the graciousness to let me borrow yours."
Castiel lifted his eyes, dulled by exhaustion and the torment inflicted upon him but gazed steadily nonetheless at this Duke of Hell who wielded power over forty infernal legions in the Pit, this beast with the body of a wolf and a serpent's tail, the head of a raven and teeth of a canine. From his mouth the demon vomited flames of fire and the angel of the Lord drew in his strength, staring into the black soul of his foe and not flinching.
"Vade draco, hostis humanae salutis… humiliare sub potenti manu Christo-"
With an enraged shriek at the mentioning of the Son of God, the demon brought his hand back and whipped it forward, slashing the angel deeply across every inch of vulnerable flesh, frothing at the mouth in anger at Castiel's lack of an outward reaction. Grabbing the angel's throat in one hand, claws clenched inwards until they were in danger of crushing the trachea and vertebrae altogether.
"Mindless fool," Amon hissed. "Who do you hold out for? What's the purpose of this façade of bravado? You're all alone now, why don't you lift up your voice along with the choir of the damned here? No one cares if you scream. In fact, I'd like it very much. Oblige me, angel."
"I… I am not alone," Castiel wheezed out against the grip around his throat. "My Father is always with me. And you, fallen one… you have no power over the Lord."
The demon sneered. "You're even blinder than I thought. Look around you!" He roared in laughter. "You'll never be welcomed back into God's graces, not after you've been here." Amon seized his victim's jaw, bringing his face an inch away from Castiel's and blew sulfurous breath into the angel's features. "You're dirty now, angel. You've been touched and contaminated by the fires of Hell. Why else do you think your caring, loving Daddy hasn't sent any of your block-headed brethren after you? He doesn't want you back."
Castiel jerked his jaw forcefully out of the demon's grip. "You lie, Amon," he rasped out with effort toward the demon that he himself had defeated in the battle against Lucifer and his fallen angels before the earth was created. "You and your kind always lie."
The demon laughed maliciously and uproariously. "Then why is there doubt and fear in your eyes?" Castiel struggled, turning his face away as Amon leaned in close. "Get comfortable here," he hissed. "Soon, you're going to be just like all the rest of us wallowing down here in the Pit."
He could feel himself rising, slowly but he knew not by what means for his mind was distant from his vessel; separated, weightless, and for the moment, free from all sensation. Castiel hung limply against his restraints, no longer bearing the strength to continue fighting. This is God's will, his own words resounded heavily in his mind. It is just.
Sam pulled at his invisible restraints with all his might, shouts muffled by the gag that had been carelessly shoved in his mouth after he had started shouting all the excerpts from exorcisms he could remember, botching quite a few of the Latin words but hoping to buy some time before the demons really went overboard in their sick, twisted game of seeing which one of them could make the angel bleed more.
Castiel had been moved from the operating table to a gurney, strapped down and now the stretcher was lying vertically against the wall to allow more demons access to the body at the same time. The young demon-possessed Brit picked up a scalpel, flipping the sharp medical instrument over and over his fingers, from knuckle to knuckle. "Let's see those pretty blue eyes now, shall we?" He lowered the blade to Castiel's closed eyelids, pressing down ever so slightly…
"Hands off of the angel." The command was hissed in the voice of a snake and all heads turned toward the door, where a very familiar individual stood, cool and collected as he surveyed the scene before him with pupil-less, colorless iris.
"Alastair, you old sod." The scalpel was immediately tucked away and out of sight with a little slight of hand. "Come around for a visit?"
"Step away if you know what's good for you, Belial. This one is mine." The white-eyed demon approached the standing gurney, casting an interested by somewhat distracted glance at Sam on his way over. Alastair crooked a finger under the angel's chin and lifted Castiel's head, placing one finger against the branded symbol while muttering under his breath.
"Postestas Inferna…"
Castiel's eyes flew open and the angel jerked his head back and as far away as possible from the demon's touch, suddenly in full consciousness and experiencing the pain that came along with it. He knew Alastair's darkness and knew it was Hell's Chief torturer with just one touch, in the way the demon had started to call upon the powers of the abyss. Panic lay within the depths of his weary gaze and blood welled from the cut along his eyelid, dripping crimson into his vision but when the angel saw Sam pinned against the wall, he sagged limply against the straps, head hung low in helplessness.
"Evening, kiddo." Oil and honey was all that was mixed into the demon's voice, but beneath it lay the fires of Hell and the screams of the thousands upon thousands of souls he'd tortured since death became known. Castiel knew. He knew.
Father, forgive me. I have failed you.
There were no bells tolling in the distance this time. It was a distinct change in the atmosphere, in the feel of the night air and it took form in the glee that lit up the demon's faces and the sinking feeling in Sam's chest.
5:00 AM. The third hour had struck.
A/N: Thanks for hanging in there with me, guys. Your reviews mean a lot. March has been terrible so far and I've got so much to do… but I've got two or three more chapters, so bear with me a little longer!