Work Text:
Some people say that there is no greater love story than Castiel and Dean Winchester, that’s why the Winchester Gospels have such a cult following. The angel of the Lord who saved the righteous man from the fiery pits.
I mean, it’s a hell of a story, if you pardon the pun. What most people don’t know, what Dean himself doesn’t remember, is how they actually met the first time.
If you try to get Dean drunk, as I might have endeavoured a few times in the past, he might tell you that Castiel was a dorky little guy in a trench coat popped up in a sea of electric sparks in the middle of a barn. And If you give him more booze, he might confess that he saw a soldier of the Lord with terrifying blue eyes that seemed immune to bullets walking toward him and changed his life forever. That’s generally when he would fall asleep or barf on yours, well my oxfords...
I always wondered if I should tell Dean about it, and fill in the gaps, after all we're practically best friends. I mean, the temptation was there, especially when he played for our team, and started sporting black eyes. It could have been a real bonding moment, but I could sense that even then he wasn’t quite over the angel. And it would have been giving up one of my trump cards with Castiel, he really really doesn’t want squirrel to know. It has been useful leverage over the years.
You know, it’s weird, people think hell is only perpetual fire, fury and brimstone. A sea of fire, perpetually burning in the underworld. Sure.
But Hell is vast. It has nooks and crannies, it has its levels and its fiefdoms. Yes it has the cage for the VIPs of course..the cells, and the racks for the plebe, the hooks, the common demons. Those are classics for a reason Poor souls are tortured for eternity... blabla.. yes, sure. The only problem is that some of the inmates are a little bit too into it. It loses efficiency.
Sometimes, hell, like the pretentious french asshole said, is other people. You should see our real housewives set-up, it's delightful. You just need to leave horrible people to their lowest instincts and you get miracles. Bravo wished they had our producers.
If you ask me, I still think that my queuing system was the most efficient method for torture. No one wants to queue, it’s simple and it’s just work. Sure it’s less impressive, less showy.
Anyhow, where was I, yes... levels in hell, thoses are the places for normal guests, for souls that meant to be there, that could be easily tortured by their own guilt or egos. That’s not where hell would bring an angel. Sometimes Hell is just the absence. The total absence of what makes life worth living. It’s the utter disappearance of sound, absence of love, of warmth, the absence of colour, the deepest, scariest part of hell is a perpetually dark frozen barren tundra. White snow and ice without any trace of life...
It’s freezing and terrifying, it’s only used for the hell’s great catches. For the exceptional prisoners, people that shouldn’t be there. That’s where they brought Gandhi, actually. Did you know that?
That’s where they brought the angel. He was the only one of the commandos that survived...Hell needed information so they brought him their best torturer, Alastair.
I don’t know exactly how long Castiel was down there. Never cared enough to ask, to be honest, but long enough for his wings to be frozen solid. Time is odd at that layer anyway. Almost as if time freezes or maybe it just stops existing.
Knowing Alastair, you he is, was , a bit of a purist, he thought that insolation and sensory deprivation were always best to break people... Castiel was kept on ice for.. forever actually. They would have taken the good restraints, the ones Lucifer had ordered in case any of his family members would show up unannounced for dinner.
They hadn’t quite figured out how to hack an angel yet, their methods were primitive,
All blunt force and gore. Don’t get me wrong, it’s enjoyable for some, but not quite effective on celestials, they are tougher.
So when Allastair couldn’t get the angel to talk, despite his best efforts, that involved ripping each frozen feather off his wings, flaying his skin and choking him. Hell needed a new plan.
With Alastair, the angel didn’t talk... at all.. not a single word... He just looked sullen and pouted. You know the face.. with the brow..
Someone with a sense of humour and some strategy might have suggested to Lilith that having hell’s newest torturer would be devastating for the angel. To see the righteous man he came to save, raise a razor against him, after having been not only too late to prevent the opening of the seal. It would break the angel’s spirit, and he might talk.
Hell information at the time was patchy. They had underestimated Dean’s importance, they didn’t realize that he was Michael’s sword. If they had, they might not have left him alone with the angel.
After thirty years being flayed on the rack, Dean Winchester had finally accepted and picked up the razor himself. The kid was talented if you believed the rumours, enthusiastic too, someone who really loved his job. Alastair wouldn’t have taken any soul under his wing, but Dean was obedient, a good soldier, good at following orders, and pretty, so very pretty. You should have seen Dean Winchester in hell, a broken pet, following Alastair obediently, that was a sight to behold. I honestly think the boy has daddy issues, the way he took to Alastair, almost like a son really..
Initially it seemed to work, Dean got Castiel to talk. After the first session, Castiel told Dean his name. Dean was creative and patient. He made sure to hang the angel by his wings on meat hooks with similar enochian sigils as the restraints, and gave the angel hope that not everything was lost, that he just needed to share something with Alastair.
During the second session, Dean got the name of Castiel’s unit, the Garrison, again, he kept the angel on the hooks, playing up how intimidated he was by Alastair.
During the third session, Dean learned about Cas’s mission. The angels were sent to save a righteous man. Dean had started to carve into the angel flesh...with gusto …
During the fourth session, Dean started flaying Castiel. The angel told him that the man to be saved was worth saving... that he deserved it.. Dean had laughed.
“Are you freaking kidding me? Have you seen the souls here, buddy, no one is worth saving down here.”
During the fifth session, the angel just repeated his orders, saving a deserving righteous man. Someone worth being saved, someone that deserved it. When Dean asked for a name... Castiel almost smiled.. but remained stoic and quiet while Dean ran his razor slowly on the angel's ribs.
During the sixth session it looked like the angel broke, whispering a name of the righteous man meant to save from hell.. Winchester. Winchester repeated the angel like a prayer. And our little dutiful Dean never had a moment of doubt. He knew that the man that needed to be saved was righteous, that his father was indeed a man deserving to get out.
During the seventh session, Dean figured out how to unlock the restraints. The angel must have been too weak, I am pretty certain that Dean must have let him use his soul to recharge the angel. That would explain how this profound bond was created, through Dean’s sacrifice. I don’t think Dean ever expected which Winchester would be saved. There was much speculation, how Cas escapted. A few demons were interrogated and died in the process. At the end only Cas knows the full story, how he got Dean to turn, to free him of his restraint, how he bound their souls.
Cas ended up zapping Dean’s memory. He is always so protective. But if you ask me, putting Dean back in a coffin, he could have brought him back anywhere, but no Cas had to stick him in a coffin in the middle of nowhere. That was Dean’s fucking pushiment for what he did in the pit. You know Cas sometimes, he gets all sulky, ah idiots in love.