Did any of you really think that I was going to resolve this quickly? It's going to be short, sharp, chapters for the moment. I've got another fic that I should be working on as well and there is so much with Dean and Raph that I'm going to need to work through that I have to get my head around it a little (not only because my childhood adoration of TMNT makes me want to write Raphael as a good guy not a jerk angel).
"I won't call him," Dean spits blood from his mouth as he struggles to form the words through swollen lips. In the back of his mind he reminds himself that Alistair did much worse to him, that he survived thirty years of Hell and that Castiel will have thought of a solution long before that. If not by that point Dean will be dead anyway and the hunter is remarkably alright with that thought.
"Your loyalty to Castiel is terribly misplaced," Raphael comments, gesturing to one of his minions who backhands the hunter with something like relish.
Really, Dean would have thought that they would have been less about the physical violence and more about the psychological techniques. Knowing Cas for as long as he has he wonder why he ever allowed himself to think that.
"He'd do the same," Dean grinds out against the pain that floods through him. Castiel has died for him, twice, Dean knows that the angel would do the same again.
"You always have to play the martyr, don't you?" The archangel sneers. "You sacrifice yourself for friends and family but what has it ever brought you?"
As he speaks Raphael comes forward and glares down that him, then plunges his hand into the hunter's chest. So far nothing that the archangel and his goons have done has had all that much of an effect. Dean has taken more than his share of beatings in the past, but this… this is the worst kind of agony that the hunter has experienced.
All of his nerves feel like they are on fire, his clothes seeming to tear across his skin as his heart tries to beat it's way out of his chest. It is not only the physical agony that pulls an anguished cry from his lips, it is the graze of the archangel's touch against his soul. Even after everything that he went through in Hell, even knowing what he had set himself in store for, this is agony and cruelty and the deepest, darkest, kind of violation that he has ever experienced.
His soul has been touched before, of course, in Hell as he was tortured, but this is different. No matter that they have become blackened and twisted by evil and pain in Hell, the demons are still essentially human souls. There is a bleak humanity there, twisted and vile though it is, and even the touch of the knives that they created was nothing like this.
The archangel's touch is the blaze of a thousand brilliant suns, a twisting and coiling of everything that Dean experienced in Hell for thirty years all meshed into one. The touch of a demon is something dark and oily and disgusting against his soul, something that he knows, but the touch of an angel who means him harm is something terrible. It cuts into him and draws tears that he refuses to shed from his eyes. For the first time in his life he is aware of the space that his soul fills, for the first time he feels it writhe inside him as it attempts to escape the crushing grip of Raphael.
His body begins to twist to match the torment of his soul, begins to pull and jerk against the restraints that hold him against the chair. The rope that binds him jerks and creaks, the wood beneath him begins to splinter as desperate strength tries to tear apart everything that holds him in place. Ultimately it is the hand in his chest that keeps him in place, the fist that crushes his soul that pins him and prevents him from escaping.
"I can feel it, you know," Raphael's tone is almost conversational. "I can feel it in your soul, the despair and the pain and the agony that your sacrifices have brought you. All those betrayals, everything that you have given up for your family and for the world and all the nothing that you have received in return."
"Shut up," the words are ground out from between clenched teeth.
"I can see all that blackness and despair and abandonment that fills you. All that pain," there is a glee in the archangel's face as he speaks. "Look at everything that you've given up, look at how much you've done. What has anyone ever given you in return? What has Castiel ever given you in return?"
Dean wants to answer, wants to brush away the words and accusations of the archangel. Except that he cannot because with every twist of Raphael's fingers Dean feels every emotion that he has experienced in thirty years of his life, every black moment and every moment of bleak despair. It makes his breath catch in his throat and his heart clench in his chest. He cannot move, he cannot scream, he cannot breathe. Everything hurts and burns, it is all too tight and all too close and he wants nothing more than to give in to the demands of the archangel if only to lessen this agony. He will not, he cannot, because he refuses to betray the friend who continues to come for him no matter the desperation of the situation in Heaven.
"You'll call for him eventually," Raphael hisses as consciousness begins to finally slip from him. "Your kind always do."
oOo
Castiel does not know what to do. Dean needs him, probably now more than he ever has, and the angel does not know how to help him. To go to Raphael now, without back up and without a plan, would be suicide. Raphael will kill him as surely as mankind needs air. Except that Castiel knows that he will have to go eventually. There is a bond between Dean and he, and that bond is screaming for help. It is being torn and shredded and Castiel can fell his very grace rebelling against it.
Raphael is there, in it all, the feeling of his grace and his fire. Archangels are absolute, Heaven's most terrifying weapon still. He can feel the archangel searching for him through that bond, can feel the way that Raphael's grace slips and slides against the barriers that Castiel has kept in place for so long that he is barely aware of them any more. They protect him, they hide him from those that he does not wish to be able to locate him and he does not know if they will stand up to Raphael's probing.
He prays that they will.
The bond has never been useful for locating Dean, the sigils on the hunter's ribs hiding him from all forms of searching spell. The only way for Castiel or any other angel to find Dean without calling him for his location is through prayer and he knows that this is a less than secure method of communication. There is a reason that he has rarely responded to the prayers of the Winchester brothers. It has nothing to do with liking Dean more than Sam, or with having a deeper bond, it has more to do with knowing that he poses a danger to them. Poses a danger to Dean. It has always been Dean that is his main concern. He suspects that it will always be Dean who is his main concern.
This is not the way that things were meant to be, this desperate rush to find a way to save his closest friend while trying to remain hidden. This was supposed to be simple and when it became less simple it was never supposed to involve Dean and Sam. Castiel supposes that with this bond to Dean there was no way that his problems would not crossover with those of his friends. Now that crossover has had the worst possible outcome. Now it has led to Dean's capture and Raphael can do almost anything that he likes to Castiel when he catches him, but Dean should be off limits.
As to do what Raphael is doing, to touch a soul when it is still within a body in this way, is one of the greatest violations that an angel can commit. Castiel has been forced to do it more than once over the last year and it is something that he feels a great deal of regret for. To touch a soul with permission is almost as bad, to push someone into accepting a touch in a place where they should never be reached. That it has been necessary this last year is something that Castiel had hoped he would never exist long enough to see, let alone do.
There is a reason that he has kept this particular skill from the brothers, a reason that he never told them that he could read truths from people in their souls. It is a matter of trust and if his friends were aware that he could take every truth from them purely by holding them in place with his mind and his hand he doubts that they would have been so open and welcoming of him. Now it has come back to haunt him in the slip-slide of Raphael's seeking grace against the barrier between them.
He dare not tell Sam and Bobby about this, dare not tell them about the way that Dean is being violated by his enemy. He dare not tell them because he knows that if he does they will push for him to act as rashly as every instinct in him is screaming for him to. Every part of him wants to run in with the few allies that he has and try to take Dean back, he wants to hold the hunter to him and proclaim "Mine" to the Heavens. It takes everything that he has left to squash that instinct and take the time to think.
"Lover boy not here, then?" Balthazar's voice cuts through the air, crisp accent muted by the wind that buffets their vessels. He ignores the implications behind his brother's words. "I'd heard Raphael took him, wish I could say I was disappointed to find out that it's true."
"Balthazar," Castiel growls the name, a warning. There is no debt between them any longer and Castiel is the more powerful angel now. "Are you here to offer help or here to gloat?"
"I'm here to find out if there is any truth to the rumours about you and Dean," the other angel is leant against an aged oak tree. "I'm here to see if you're really as deeply bonded to him as they say."
"And what have you concluded?" Castiel asks, eyes resting on the blade strapped to Balthazar's hip. It is not the normal blade of an angel, this one is black, seeming to absorb rather than reflect the light and Castiel has to wonder where his brother got it from.
"That you are in a great deal of trouble, my friend," Balthazar grins, "and that you're going to need my help to get your boyfriend back."
Even though he knows that this is probably the truth, even though he can feel the agony of Dean's soul as Raphael continues in his search, Castiel cannot help but worry about what Balthazar is going to ask for in return.
I love cliffies, and I'm going to aim for short weekly bursts. Tell me what I'm doing right? But if you don't like it, don't tell me, I've had a bad few days and nice things make it better.
Artemis