thelockbox | Castiel

Castiel stopped at the top of the steps, preparing himself for the walk down, before he finally swung open the door. It had been three weeks since he'd been freed from Lucifer's influence, the archangel ascending and leaving him behind. He'd absconded ostensibly over the fact that he was exhausted from the experience, but Dean and Sam both knew the truth about what Castiel had done - or at least what Lucifer had done, while wearing him - and he wasn't anywhere closer to forgiving himself.

He couldn't stay away forever, though, not despite his best efforts. Dean called him, and Cas knew that despite the claim that it was business, he knew he was going to get cornered when he turned up, that this was going to be a confrontation - an ambush - of some kind.

He held his nerve as he pushed open the door, though his heart was going a million miles an hour, and walked slowly down the stairs.

"Sam? Dean?"

Castiel wasn't really much of a hunter. Quite the opposite, really. When it came to subtle things like this, he missed most of his cues, and this nightclub seemed to be pretty much be all about those subtle changes in character, in sensuality and temptation; not a language that the angel knew well. He watched the humans dancing, sensual women in tightly clad outfits, rubber and leather and silver, equally sensual men grinding up against them, or against each other. Others were copulating in the dark corners, and one was even being masturbated by the writhing dancer behind him, boldly, out in the open.

For all Castiel knew, this behavior was normal, places like this were normal. Of course, he was also overdressed, complete with his coat, shirt, and tie. He had a drink in front of him, which he hadn't touched--after all, if he drank it, he would only have to buy another. He was out of place, without a doubt, not that he wasn't drawing the odd inviting look or touch that went right over his head. One young woman had sat with him for a few moments, sliding his hands across his chest. She'd left not more than a minute later, crying.

Castiel was here looking for a god, after all, sent on a mission by Heaven to clean up their mess. Apparently, the man - or at least he resembled a man, presently - had been seen here. Loki. The real one. He wasn't even sure what to expect, but, watching a young woman clip her companion's collar with a leash, leading her over toward the bar. It was definitely interesting, if unusual, and Castiel found himself wondering what this god was like; certainly a creature of depravity.

What would he be like?

Too bad that Castiel would have to put the witchhazel stake he'd brought with him through his chest.

[ Castiel spared one last glance around him, toward the piles of toys in all their colors and sizes, and then edged just the slightest nod back toward Dean. Yes. Yes, he would. He tipped his head down, agreeably, then pulled himself up onto his knees, already visibly half hard considering the fact that he'd stripped down to nothing before even so much as heading out on his shopping trip. ]

Perhaps all of them, [ He mused, with the lightest growl, and then he reached his hand out toward Dean. ] Perhaps only half. Come here.

Okay, so it took an awful lot of booze to get Castiel drunk, He was trying as hard as he could, drinking shots as fast as they could be lined up, but it seemed to take forever even to take the edge off the room, nevermind the positive riot of noise that was the inside of his head.

His thoughts were all over the place, wound up in circles with Crowley and Raphael and Sam and Dean, but he was trying to drink all thought of them away, to just exist in the moment with Balthazar, not as an angel, or a rebel, or a leader, or any of the things he didn't think he was worthy of being any more. It was all falling apart, and he had no intention of dwelling on any of it--if only he could drink enough to wash it all away.

Raising his hand, he stilled the endless pouring.

"Just pass me the bottle," he directed. Bottle to mouth. Skip the middle man. Classy.

[ Demons had very quickly become part of the problem, which wasn't wholly a surprise. They had been left to pour their filth over the Earth for far too long, unchecked by their own kind. Angels remained in Heaven, after all. All of them except for Castiel's garrison, who were not themselves intended to interfere. They watched...until the orders changed. Until they were asked to watch no more, and instead throw themselves into the fray.

The demons, though, were more organized than any of them had imagined they could be. And then there was Ruby, acting alone, undoing everything with her wicked, whispered temptation, poisoning Sam for some kind of reason that Castiel barely understood. Castiel blamed himself. He should have seen it sooner, interfered sooner, not been so wretchedly entangled with his own devotion to Heaven that he had all but betrayed himself as well as the humans he'd come to care for. Now he knew what they were doing to him, now he knew what Ruby was doing to Sam, and why Heaven desired it to be done that way...

He had needed to tell them. Stop. Interfere. He was ready to betray Heaven, and that was when they had come for him.

Angels could not be trusted. Case in point: Castiel had been thrust out of his vessel, and - unable to protect his family - it had been abducted, carried off. And then...then the demons had summoned him, forced him to take his vessel all over again. Cas didn't know quite what the angels had been doing to him while he was gone, but his head already felt like it was in a thousand pieces, long before they began to torture him.

His pain spilled out into the world, tore into the universe itself, the demons trying to probe his weaknesses, trying to find the answers that would give them the victories they wanted. Whatever it was they did, they found the right switch, forced his grace to materialize, wings opening against his will; all power made vulnerable. They shackled him by them, chained him helpless and sweating, half naked, from the ceiling beams.

Castiel was barely listening when the conversation began to change, when the demons remarked on the approach of another, someone that they didn't trust for whatever reason. He wasn't paying attention, trying instead to contain what energy he had left. If he could just stay strong, then he could get loose. Somehow. Somehow.

The voices changed. There were screams. Someone was being killed... It had to be... ]

Dean? Dean, is that you?

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continuation from tfln

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