There is one more chapter after this one, then we'll be onto the next installment where, hopefully, I'll be less sporadic, depending entirely on how much more insane my social life can possibly go
You broke a promise and made me realize.
It was all just a lie.
Could have been forever.
Now we have reached the end.
Katie screams when Dean grabs her from the shower, kicks and bites, writhes and struggles and scratches at his arms while he drags her from the bath and Castiel grabs a towel to wrap around her. He flinches as Dean bangs her head against the sink, effectively knocking her out, silencing her shrieks and Castiel can already feel the shame at his actions in this, his inactions too, because coerced or not, he has still participated in this because Dean's continued safety, relative safety, his life, such as it now is, should not be as dependant on the lives and obedience of others as it has become, should not be the reason that Castiel will aid in the loss of everything for this girl.
They are alone, however, and while Dean is distracted with lowering the sudden dead weight in his arms Castiel pulls up a sleeve and slashes at his arm with the knife, which he shoves deep into the pocket of the jacket he still wears underneath the robe, before scooping the thick, warm, liquid that flows out of the wound into one hand and pressing it to Deans mouth, forcing it between marginally parted lips, preventing him from shouting, and praying, for the first time since he disobeyed, that this will be enough to over ride Lucifer's control.
"Remain silent," he hisses, moving his hand away and stooping to pull the towel he had dropped tight around the unconscious woman, seeing the blood on his palm mingling with water and her own blood from the head wound Dean has given her, almost missing the tingle of remembered power as her skin brushes his. To his relief, Dean does as he commands, the minute tremors that had been racing through him lessening enough that they are no longer noticeable. "Until I tell you otherwise, continue to obey Lucifer's commands," he whispers, sees Dean nod then pick the girl up from the floor, his face completely blank once more, his eyes almost unseeing and Castiel whispers an apology before he follows him from the room.
Lucifer is still searching, still hunting for whatever else it is that has brought him to this place, tells them to put her down without looking at them. He is preoccupied enough that he does not see Dean glance at Castiel, see the other angel's sharp nod to indicate that the human should do as he is told, should lay Katie on the bed as Lucifer instructed. Both stand to one side, Dean still staring ahead, unseeing, unmoving, Castiel watching his brother keenly, following his increasingly aggravated searching until he reaches the satchel that Castiel took book and knife from and the angel tenses, watches for any hint that Lucifer knows what he has taken, but the fallen one simply smiles, pulls out several sheets of paper and flips through them.
The smile becomes one of triumph after a moment and with mounting horror Castiel realises that Lucifer had not come to take the girl for a vessel, really had no idea of Katie's significance, he had simply wanted whatever was written on those papers, papers which have burst into flames and turned to ash in his hands, ash which drops to the floor and takes all hope that Castiel has dared to allow with it. Lucifer then turns to the girl on the bed, going to her and sitting by her side, trailing a hand down her face and neck, long fingers brushing her loose, wet, hair to one side and if Castiel did not know better, did not know that Lucifer despises humanity and all that it is, blames them for his imprisonment, jealous that they had become the favoured in his Father's eyes, he would think that Lucifer were curious about her. Curious about the female form that is so much smaller and so much more delicate than the body he inhabits.
"Interesting," Lucifer's voice is a low purr, one that sends shivers even through Dean, his fingers tracing the perfect, raised flaw that is the scar given to her by Zachariah. "Bring her." He orders and Dean does, because there is nothing else that he can do, he has been told to follow orders, he is a good soldier, he obeys, carries Katie to the car and lays her gently on the back seat as Castiel slides in the other side. Then they drive, back to the warehouse, back to imprisonment and uncertainty and not for the first time since Lucifer took them, Castiel hopes to be killed.
They are returned to their cell, Katie is taken from them and Castiel finds himself oddly grateful that she remains unconscious, that she does not have to see this terrible thing that Lucifer has caused Sam to become, that he has forced all of them to become. Dean is ordered to his corner, his dark hiding place where he stares at nothing and awaits his next order and Castiel is once again imprisoned in the remade trap, where he falls to his knees in something like despair and tries desperately to think of their next move. He needs to get Katie away from Lucifer, needs to get Dean away from Lucifer because that man is their only hope, a hope that cannot work with the blood of angels in his veins and the very enemy he is to defeat living inside the stolen body of a brother that means more to him than his own life.
Whilst inside the trap, his movement is restricted, with just enough room for him to kneel so that he can, as Lucifer said, 'pray to a Father who neither hears nor cares about the cries of his most deserving children'. Castiel does not pray, not because he does not believe in his Father any longer, but because he is afraid that the others will hear, that they will come for Dean and abandon him to Lucifer's tortures, is ashamed of the fear and understanding of it, convinces himself that it is as much for Dean's sake as for his own, for the sake of mankind. The others will force Dean to recover from the effects of Lucifer's blood alone, locked away and forgotten until he is needed, and then they will force Dean to kill him with no thought to who he inhabits, the effect it will have on Dean or the wishes of the man, his desire to save all of humanity.
He knows he has to save them both, prevent Lucifer from taking a vessel that no one will be able to force him to leave and killing the one man who can defeat him. He does not have a plan, but sometimes not having such a thing is the better way.
This world may have failed you,
It doesn't give you reason why.
You could have chosen a different path in life.
Reviews are little Castiels that fly above our heads and mini Deans under the bed. A small Sam in hand and a tiny John by the chair, a review that can show how much you care.
Artemis