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Castiel blinked his eyes open, weary and numb. A single lightbulb flickered overhead, hanging from the low, crooked ceiling beams that looked one howl of the wind away from collapsing.
Something was dripping in the distance, a light tap tap tap of what scented like gasoline pooling on the floor. Cas tried to see where the leak was coming from. But the rattle of chains forced him to snap his head towards two pillars towering over each other, his wrists stiffly tethered to each of them. He can feel the cuffs obstructing his powers, like an immovable barricade that severs the ichor that runs through his veins.
Whoever has him must know what they're doing, which is to say, whoever has him must know who he is—and what they are getting themselves into.
Cas jolted the restraints that curbed his strength, violent twitches threatening to gurgle underneath his skin, one he'd learned to suppress years ago. Binded, just like this. Lost, just like this.
He was missing the rest of his usual ensemble, leaving him in just his crumpled dress shirt and pants. They still held the distinct smell of sulphur from the last hunt he had carried out. But he was left barefoot, and the smoothened tiles beneath him throttled him cold, like an ignorant jest towards the fire that had decided to settle inside of his chest.
Delicate footsteps shook the dust that placidly rested near the sealed entrance. Trembling cobwebs, fissures of light, not a sound but a dissonant ruffle of wings and an overcoat tracing abrasions upon the air.
Castiel glared at the silhouette that comported itself with such sophistication. The face was the only thing that was familiar to some degree. Everything else—his demeanor, his expression. Those weren't.
(His mind kept screaming Dean's name. Cas knew it wasn't him.
It couldn't be.)
“Michael,” Cas said stoically, letting the name strangle itself within his own throat.
“Hello, Castiel.”
“My apologies. I meant–” he cleared his throat. “Hey, Cas,” Michael greeted him how Dean always does. Tranquil, it was, and far from hustling. Taking all the time in the world smiling idly with the face of the man Cas loved most.
The archangel inched towards him, twirling a blade—an angel blade—in between his fingers. Cas was ready for anything. This was nothing compared to what he has already been through. But then, Michael slowly tucked the blade away, safe inside his pocket.
The look on his face grew kinder, heartbroken. “Cas? Hey, it's me, Dean,” he whispered in such a soft tone.
Cas eyed him with confusion. He knew it wasn't possible. Michael wouldn't allow it to be possible. Because Dean would clench his jaw, tighten his fists. Lead himself off the edge of terror and trepidation in a way the archangel does not. Save the avalanche of concern for later and get to the untethering. Right now, Michael has decided to dramatise how the hunter would act if he were here. If, Cas had to remind himself.
“Fuck, did he do anything to you?” Not-Dean asked, stooping down to meet Cas‘s gaze. “God, I'll kill that son of a bitch.”
Cas gritted his teeth. “I did not volunteer to take part in your twisted games, Michael.”
Michael pushed closer, their cheeks brushing terrifyingly. “You don't have a choice,” he murmured into his ear.
He cleared his throat again, shifting his guise once more. Dean's eyes—oh, Castiel hasn't seen them in forever—no, no. This wasn't Dean. This wasn't Dean.
“Sammy and I have been so worried about you,” Not-Dean furrowed his eyebrows, palming the side of Cas‘s face. It made him want to rip his vessel to shreds. But, it also made him want to melt into the touch, the touch he will always yearn for. “I'll get you out of here soon, alright?”
Cas flinched away from his hold. Glaring at the barren palm as much as he detested the loss of it. “Michael, stop this,” he urged.
“I know how you feel about me, Cas,” Not-Dean said with a quiver of his lips. His eyes loiter across the entire room, anywhere but on the angel's tense form. “I know I'm what you want most.”
“You wanna know what I think?” Not-Dean tilted his head, stroking his knuckles over the angry creases on Cas‘s temples. “You are no more than a menial. Fitted for neither angel, nor human. But that's what makes you special, right?” It sounded almost rehearsed.
Cas wanted to chuckle. Howl at Michael's words, how far they are from what his hunter would truly say. Hell, Dean would not even know the definition of a menial. But Cas knew that the things he was being told did not differ much from how he truly saw himself, and there was no point in trying to defend a miserable cause.
Not-Dean smirked, once again cradling his head. Cas wanted, needed to flee from the warm, ruthless hands.
And then he felt it. Sharp metal, winter-laden drawing marks on his skin. He winces away from the singing feeling of the blade. But he was frozen, locked in place as Michael, in Dean's body, caressed his face with such gentleness that it sickened him—all that whilst he dragged his weapon in an untroubled, calculated motion.
Cas hadn't figured what Michael wanted. Whether it was to draw a scream out of him, or for him to fold under his disgusting pantomime, or both. Cas bit his tongue anyways, the warmth from Dean's– Michael’s hand and the chilling agony of the angel blade coming in interchanging torrents and overwhelming him.
“You are just your function.” Not-Dean derided, slicing through his ribs. “You are just your promises, your drudgery, your failures.”
He bent down until Cas could feel breathing on his neck. “You are just the things you do, what you can offer to the grand battle, never who you think you are. Never what you want yourself to be.”
And with that, the angel blade is pinned into his shoulder. Cas’s eyelids snap shut. From the pain and from the sympathetic look plastered on Dean's face. Both.
“But that's what I love most about you, Cas,” Not-Dean smiled sadly, carefully lifting the angel's chin. “You always come when I call. You've fought wars for me. Hell, you've rebelled against everything you've ever known for me. And all that, because you love me. I know. And I do too. Yes, Cas, I do. I love you,” Not-Dean let their foreheads touch. Cas did not break away from it, and he willed himself to believe that it wasn't because he desired more, but because he was too held-in-place wounded to do anything about it.
“But not in the way you do,” Not-Dean cupped the back of his neck. He retrieved the blade from where it had caused a rapid trickle of blood down Cas‘s arm. The angel gasped, faltering, a shine of sweat shared between the two of them.
“I would have loved you,” Not-Dean hacked clean across his chest, the squelching blood staining his suit. “If it didn't mean loving my best friend.”
“I would have loved you.” A groan escaped Cas‘s mouth, curling into pinched, shadowy features as lacerations were painted all over his collarbones. “If it didn't mean loving a man.”
The blade made its mark, buried in his gut, and was quick to be recouped and brought back to its owner. This time, Cas couldn't help but force out a small, staggered scream as the weapon was slipped into and seized from his vessel, blood sputtering down his chin.
“I would have loved you, if it didn't mean loving you.”
Cas did not dare recoil as Dean's lips—not Dean not Dean not Dean—joined his. Tender, yet solicited. Castiel was at his mercy now, vulnerability seeped into his clothes as much as his own blood was.
A cruel thing it was, the kiss. It felt so real.
But it was wrong. It was everything he ever wanted, but it was wrong. So Cas withdrew and shrunk further into himself. “No,” he growled, his voice betraying him when it cracked almost noticeably. “I won't allow Dean to become a prop for your nauseating...your sadistic school play.”
Michael shuffled close to him again. “Why would I listen to you? See, I've been told my acting skills are quite above average.”
“Your acting skills are atrocious,” Cas snapped, spiteful.
Michael held a finger to his lips. “I never asked you for any kind of feedback. I have an audience of my own, Castiel.” He tapped at his temple. “I can assure you, Dean Winchester is enjoying what he is witnessing.”
“To make you suffer,” Michael fiddled with his angel blade. “As much as you did him. Because, for what it's worth, you’ve honestly done more damage than good.”
Then, a fleeting moment, Michael's face contorted, discomfort and then agony as he turned away to hide the sour all over his face. It must be Dean, Cas thought. He's still in there. He's still in there.
“Dean?” Cas called out. “I know you're in there. You can fight this. You can fight this, Dean. I know you can-”
Michael cut him off with a furious grunt before turning back, irate but steadier. He smoothens out his suit, holding his head up high. “Seems like our audience was particularly fond of our last act.” he scoffed. “He couldn't keep himself to his seat.”
“Let go of him,” Cas bellowed.
“Let go of him?” Michael's face was wrong in all the right ways again. Twisting back to the hunter he knows so well, but a version whose edges were blurred back into the uncertainty of the brutal imitation. “Oh, Cas, there's nothing to let go of. I'm already here. It's okay, baby. It's me, it's Dean. No one else. I'll bring you home. We're going home to the Bunker, alright?”
Michael mimicked the pout that Dean would always have, like it was something sure and permanent. Cas had his hair fondled away from where it stuck to his forehead. His ribs throbbed and pounded against ripped skin. All the while, the green of the hunter's eyes was a forest to get lost in. Cas wondered if he'd rather that—giving into the deception—than this. This anguish. This torture. That than this.
He felt a tear run down his cheek, one that Not-Dean swiftly wiped away with his sleeve. “Don't cry, alright? I'll keep you safe. It's over now, hm? You hearing me, Cas? It's over now.”
Not-Dean leaned in for an embrace. Arms tight around the small of his back which left Cas breathless from the sudden pressure on his gashes, some of which had begun to fade, some of which had streamed into a puddle below his feet.
His head rested on his hunter's shoulder—no no no no no no it's not Dean it's not Dean it's not Dean-
“Yes, it is. It's me. Always was.”
The words were whispered into his hair. He must have been speaking out loud.
“Shh. You're okay. I love you. You're okay.”
Castiel was hushed, even when the blade was brought up to slash deep into his cheek, like torment was a necessity that came with this odd sort of comfort.
He was being held, quietened even when the cuts reached his back, turning it into loose ribbons that could never be stitched back without skin tearing away.
Cas grabbed a fistful of Dean's shirt, whimpering when he couldn't take it anymore and just had to, too encompassed in the fog of delirium convincing him that this was all a big, pardonable mistake. That even if it hurt, he was safe in his hunter's arms, where he'd always belonged.
Michael faded into the background. There was a slight acceptance that came with Cas‘s involuntary surrender. There was nothing he could do now, no struggle that could untether him. He let himself believe that with the suffering, came the love.
It continued on for days. The archangel got bored of him eventually. Moved onto another play or reenactment. Leaving Cas bleeding and broken with the ghost of his and Dean's first kiss still haunting his lips. Everything else was numb. The affliction, the wounds, the bruising on his wrists. Numb. Except for that. That he cannot let go of. Not that kiss.
He prayed—he did, no matter how ironic it was—someone would find him. Get him out of this place. Out of his thoughts. Michael was in the wind again now that he was done serving as his plaything, his marionette. Dean was still in there. So long as Dean was still alive, Castiel breathed.
One day, the oblivion shunned him out and the light dawned on his skin. It must have been his consciousness playing tricks on him. Cas was sure of it. His grace tried and failed to brawl most of his injuries. It never really healed him from what Michael had seared into his brain either.
His name was being yelled, he could tell. The voice was familiar, but everyone familiar had either passed on or abandoned him. It couldn't be Dean, so it must be Sam. Cas chortled at the thought. Another Winchester saving sad, pitiful him.
It did not really register that the cuffs were being detached from the chain on the walls at long last. He could not even figure if the hands that were faintly shaking him fully awake was another one of Michael's ploys.
He laughed once more, head tipping forwards pathetically and gracefully all the same.
Something filled with worry was being shouted over and over again, he could feel his ears bleeding. The archangel had probably carved into him there as well. Cas didn't care.
He was being carried out—rushed and panicked—just when he'd gotten used to the world turning slowly.
And maybe, he could have been real against Sam's weight. And the fingers that tended to his wounds, those could have been real too. But he cried out for Dean, his hunter now gone and adrift, and Castiel would never feel real again.