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Castiel is in the middle of telling Dean off. Dean had questioned why Castiel hadn't helped out with the witnesses so now he's getting an earful from the angel. Dean's listening to what he says but he can't help but let his mind drift to think about the future and the impending apocalypse. Although he listens and reacts, he's also considering what to do next in the grand scheme of things.
Dean reacts to something Castiel is telling him by rolling his eyes. Castiel moves closer to Dean standing right in front of him. As he continues talking, Castiel stares right into Dean's eyes. An intimidation tactic. Dean stares right back, willing himself not to feel intimidated even when he's backed up to the kitchen counter.
"Our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of heaven should just follow you around. There's a bigger picture here."
Dean wants to say that he's been thinking about the bigger picture but allows Castiel to finish speaking. Castiel moves a little closer and Dean finally has to take his eyes off him.
"You should show me some respect."
There's a beat.
"I don't want to respect a heavenly army full of dicks," Dean spits out at him.
An abrupt movement ends with Castiel's hand gripping his left arm. The sensation feels intense, like a phantom sensation during a dream.
"I can make you respect me. The angelic way."
With that, Dean's sleeping body disappears from Bobby's living room.
Dean wakes up from the dream to find himself in a warehouse, apparently teleported. There are many warehouses that he's visited and this one looks similar to warehouses he's been to on hunts. A long row of shelving units are on his right. A wide expanse is in front of him, loading docks for trucks on his left. Based on what he sees in front of him, he guesses that the nearest wall is behind him. He is kneeling on the ground, knees and ankles respectively bound to each other, and tied behind his back are his wrists in chains.
The warehouse doesn't share one thing with the others Dean has been in. It has definitely been populated in the past twenty-four hours. For now, though, he's alone with Castiel, who, standing behind him, has his arm in a vice grip.
Dean struggles against his captor who is now dragging his ass on the floor to the middle of the mostly empty area in front of the shelving units. The strong grip on his arm is impossible to wriggle out of. He tries to pry Castiel's hand off of his arm. No luck. At the snap of Castiel's fingers, he finds himself kneeling on the ground with his arms stretched out above him. Ties around his wrists are held up by a long chain connected to the ceiling joist.
"Even if you were to escape, I could snap my fingers and you would be tied up again," he is warned.
Dean stops wriggling and starts yelling at him, "Hey, what the hell is all this for?"
"You've aggravated, infuriated and spited me," Castiel says simply.
"Oh, okay," Dean asks with some sarcasm. "How did I aggravate and infuriate you into dragging me to a warehouse?"
"Would you like a list? You've questioned me, my orders, heaven, even the existence of God. You don't seem to understand why you shouldn't. What's more, you don't even seem to feel a sense of obligation to me after I raised you out of hell. You stabbed my vessel's chest with a knife the first time that you saw me."
Some guilt creeps into Dean at the last two sentences. He hasn't really wanted to think about hell so he hasn't thought about being raised from hell either. Or thought about the one who did it.
He pushes aside the guilt to focus on the rest of what Castiel is saying and pretends like he shouldn't atone for it.
"I don't expect you to venerate and worship me-that's for God and God alone." Castiel starts to speak more slowly, "But you should show me a little respect."
"Who are you, Aretha Franklin?"
Castiel blatantly ignores the reference. He's studying Dean and he's deciding what to do to him. His angel blade slides down his sleeve and into his hand, pointed in his direction. Dean honestly panics.
"Are you going to kill me?' He asks.
"No." Castiel contemplatively tilts his head and adds, "Not today."
Dean's eyes widen staring at the weapon in his hand.
"So what are you going to do?"
Castiel's eyes move to stare into Dean's and Dean chooses to look away.
"When I put you back on Earth, perhaps I didn't give you as much information as I should have. With the way you act, it's almost as if I didn't raise your common sense from perdition with you. But it's not to late to fix that."
"That's one way of telling me you're going to knock some sense into me. Good luck. Other people have tried for years."
Dean's smiling even though he can guess what's coming, that he's going to be tortured.
"They don't know torture like a soldier from heaven does."
There it is, Dean thinks to himself. At the same time, he notices there's something Castiel is both revealing and concealing in that statement.
"How are you gonna hurt me without killing me?"
"I can torture you infinitely and I can heal you infinitely. You lack reverence. I can change that. And I will bring you back to health as many times as it takes to fix you."
Dean gulps.
Looks like Dean's in it for the long haul. At that moment, he finally accepts that he can't escape and he will be here until Castiel is through with him. Unless the guy gives up on him because Dean is too stubborn and impossible to fix. Either way, he decides he might as well take it like a man.
So it begins. Using the angel blade, Castiel cuts across Dean's forehead, roughly grazing his skull. Five more gashes touching the same bone cause Dean to grunt through the agony. He wants to keep it together but he's already reminded of being in hell. Maybe that's the point, he thinks. Maybe this is part of the threat, to remind him of where he could end up if he's not careful.
Dean has to wonder how he got here. Here he is, held captive by an angel of the Lord and being cut into by him. Is this a dream? He wonders. Do I secretly fantasize about this crap? Does Castiel? Is it his fantasy? The guy doesn't seem like the type to have fantasies like this. (He is an angel, after all.) Or like he feels anything towards him other than anger while he does this to him.
The sleeves of Dean's shirt are already rolled up and the angel starts cutting inch-deep lines into Dean's right forearm. Veins burst and Dean exhales sharply, loudly groaning. Castiel transfers the blade down to Dean's neck.
"Please don't cut my neck, please don't kill me," Dean begs him.
Castiel slices a shallow gash into his neck anyway. Dean moans. When he opened his mouth he was expecting a quiet grunt and he has no clue where that came from. Wait. Why am I begging for my life? Why can't I keep it together? Why am I acting weaker than normal? He wonders. What the hell did he do to me while I was knocked out?
"I said I wouldn't kill you and I won't," Castiel says, "But you don't get to choose your own mode of penance. I do, because you're mine tonight."
Three more vertical slices each deeper than the last are added to Dean's neck making Dean whimper like a bad dog in response.
"Stop making noise," Castiel orders Dean. "It's annoying and it lacks dignity. I have tortured demons with more of it than you."
"Well, when you cut into me, it really hurts," Dean pouts with an attitude.
"Focus on how well you can keep quiet."
It sounds like a serious threat so Dean tries. Mostly, it's because he sees that Castiel holds something in his hand that can hurt him if he disobeys.
Something in the way Castiel has been speaking to him holds true authority over Dean. But it also sounds like something out of a specific kind of porno he tried watching once. Dominance is sounding real good to his dick and Dean makes notice of the fact that he's turned on right now. There's an embarrassing tent in Dean's pants which Castiel has either noticed but doesn't understand or that he has chosen to ignore.
A flash of realization shoots through him as he pieces together that this is why he's reacting with moans and whimpers. And that's why he can't keep it together as well as he could have if it was a demon or some other monster trying to hurt him or to get to him in an interrogation rather than an angel who wants to punish him and act like he owns him. Truly, the angel seems to have decided to have his way with him, rather violently. The sudden ambivalence Dean has is made up of the positive pleasure at being handled this way, having things done to him and his body, leaving the control up to Castiel as he speaks down to him with dominion over him, and the negative: the horrible pains that are far more than he would ever want replicated inside the bedroom. He's still being tortured, and if he was able to decide which things he wouldn't want to be done to him by a partner it would be a good half of them. Yet, the other half turns him on. And he wonders if he should read into that. At least Castiel hasn't noticed Dean's ambivalence and he wonders if that could be a good or bad thing.
The blade carves a few red stripes in Dean's left forearm. It reaches the part of his wrist where there is a cluster of many veins. The tip pokes him there. Dean squirms and breathes quickly as his wrist is held in place against the sharp metal. Part of the collection of veins bleeds profusely down onto the back of his head. Dean only whimpers so as not to scream. Castiel takes this as permission to pull out the blade and move it to a different part of the collection of veins. The tip pokes, then digs deep through layers of skin and veins and muscle and Dean just knows without it being said that it's because he couldn't keep quiet. Again, Dean breathes heavily through the agony.
Next, Castiel moves back to Dean's face. Angel blade raised to Dean's cheek, Castiel cuts into him hard and Dean tries not to give out a very unmanly whine or yelp. The sound comes out gurgled as he doesn't want to give Castiel the satisfaction. Internally, Dean swears he hit bone that time. His face is painted with lines that bleed red around his eyes, giving him the appearance of crying many lines of dark tears. Dean certainly would like to cry, but he would swear that he wouldn't and he won't. If you were to stand there and see his face, you would be able to see through to bone as his cheek bones are visible through the tear-slits in his face.
So they continue on playing the quiet game, with Dean forcing himself not to make noise, and Castiel continuing to find new ways to hurt him hoping he will make noise. At the end of it, Castiel disappears into thin air and comes back with a pitcher of water. He pours it over the cuts causing each of them to sting and burn.
"This water is from a spring," he tells him.
Mouth agape, Dean silently screams as steam flows up around him.
"A hot spring," he adds, and Dean swears he smirked.
Fully in control of Dean and the situation, Castiel stands there feeling powerful. He likes looking down his angel blade at a Dean rendered powerless by his actions and his actions alone. They watch one another's eyes for a moment. Dean's eyes are filled with a fearful anticipation.
Good, Castiel notes. He will be pliable enough.
An idea formulates in Castiel's mind. Humiliation should be a part of the punishment, not just pain. If he stripped Dean of his clothing, then it might humiliate the hunter with the idea that he can see Dean naked. (Even though, personally, he feels neutral about what humans look like underneath their clothing and isn't bound by human social rules which create a sense of shame or embarrassment over looking at someone who's naked or being naked.) It might also make Dean feel that at any moment someone could wander into the warehouse and see him like that. All he wants is for Dean to feel humiliation because of his general lack of respect towards towards Castiel and the major aspects of Castiel's life and all he knows. Dean really should feel something bad about that, but he doesn't and it's been driving him up the wall.
First round ends. A pair of fingers reaches down to his forehead and Dean is healed. That's a neat trick. Relief comes over him, but anxiety sets in. He knows there's more, there has to be more. The pair of fingers never left Dean's forehead and from them he feels a jolt. Everything goes dark for Dean.
Dean is awakened by the unpleasant feeling of metal against the bare skin of his back. Face towards the floor, he can tell that he is prone and suspended in the air by about three feet. Suspended from what, he's not sure, but there are chains digging into his thighs, ankles and wrists. What he can't see is that the chain wrapped around his thighs is connected to the ceiling above. He lifts up his head to see where the chains around his wrists are attached to. The chains stretching his limbs away from each other are strung around columns next to the walls. He drops his head back down.
Repulsion fills him as he notices that he's also fully naked. With repulsion, there is also embarrassment. Castiel had to have seen his hard-on when he undressed him, right? Stronger than the embarrassment, however, is the anger. He's really done gone and stripped me, Dean thinks. You don't fucking do that to a man. That damn angel son of a bitch had better watch himself when he lets me go. Whenever that is.
The right edge of Dean's spine begins to feel cool like metal. Quiet sounds of flesh tearing scare Dean almost as much as the near-blinding pain he feels, yet cannot see the cause of. Blade of spine meets blade of angel with the odd sound of metal meeting something hollow sounding-bone.
Forgetting the rule from earlier, Dean screams into a cloth gag-Wait, he gagged me? Why?-That he didn't realize was in his mouth. It tastes of sawdust and Dean doesn't want to guess what else. Without regard to whether or not it hurts worse when it leaves his body, the blade is removed at an angle. Another scream leaves Dean's lips. Footsteps can be heard moving around behind Dean's head and they stop in front of Dean.
"You're awake," Castiel observes.
Dean tries to talk through the gag until Castiel finally takes it off. Dean has to look up at him from an uncomfortable angle.
"Alright," Dean begins. "I'll admit I didn't expect this setup from you. Didn't know you had it in you. But what do you want from me? How long are you going to keep me here?"
"We will be here as long as it takes."
"Is this some fetish for you? Do you get off on this crap?"
"I don't know what you mean," Castiel says, genuinely confused.
He puts the gag back in Dean's mouth as Dean is swearing at him, "You bastard! You fucking perverse-"
Castiel stands up and crosses over to Dean's left side. A red paint-stripe of pain crosses Dean's shoulder. Dean groans loudly into the gag. In his left ear, he can hear Castiel stoop down next to him.
"I may have gagged you but I would still prefer if you were quiet. If you're too loud and you disobey, I'll cut you here, at my discretion."
Castiel pokes Dean's lips like he's kissing them to the blade. A few steps away later and Castiel is back at it again, cutting deeper and faster lines across Dean's back. Dean thinks he might be trying to flog him across his back with the angel blade.
He focuses on his breathing and not making a sound for the next ten minutes. As he experiences slash after slash after slash, he bites as hard as his jaw can bite into the gag. He starts counting the slashes, which go deeper every time. 40, 41, 42... He loses count around eighty.
Finally, it stops and Dean has a brief thought that maybe he has learned his lesson enough for the angel to let him go now. Maybe he's been good enough. He hasn't made noise. He didn't disob-
Castiel's angel blade slices cleanly through his skin about an inch above the top of his ass crack.
"Mmph," Dean says rather loudly through the gag.
Oh god. Castiel definitely heard it. At a moment's notice, he's in front of Dean, leaning down but not over. The gag is taken out of Dean's mouth and set on the floor. One hand holds the weapon, the other holds Dean's head up. As he was told, the blade gives him a kiss in the middle of his lips. It's morbidly sweet and sour. The sharp edge is pulled down slowly until the tip of it reaches Dean's mouth.
"Open your mouth," Castiel commands him.
Dean obeys. The long hard metal shaft goes into his mouth. Eyes widening, Dean tries to say no when he realizes what's happening. It becomes clear to him that it is too late to back out now, so he stays still. The foreign object makes its way straight into his throat.
"Close your mouth."
Dean does as he is told and attempts not to bite. It rests on his tongue, which he tries not to cut on its sharp edges.
"Don't move," Castiel warns him.
Mouth bloody, Dean looks up, quiet and helpless. They look into each other's eyes as Castiel seemingly waits for something. Castiel stares for so long, Dean wonders what he's doing. A few minutes pass like this. It's kind of nice.
For some reason, Dean is now reminded of being turned on. He sincerely hopes that Castiel hasn't noticed what's been going on in his nether regions. But, considering the fact that he has been naked for a long time and Castiel must have seen when he was stringing him up with chains, it's very likely he saw.
"Open."
Dean does as he is told. Castiel removes the object from Dean's throat and mouth. The gag is replaced. The moment they had is over and Dean tries not to miss it.
The next phase of punishment begins. The strokes from the blade begin anew but this time they're focused on Dean's lower half. The first cut starts at the top of Dean's ass cheek. From there, the line is drawn down Dean's ass. The line stops there and starts again on the other side of the chain wrapped around his thigh and goes down the thigh, the calf and finally reaches his ankle. A shiver from Dean causes the chains to clink together. The line is repeated on the other leg, then five more times-Dean counted-on either side. Tiny cries come through the gag, seemingly unnoticed by Castiel.
On impulse, Castiel takes the blade and stabs it deep into Dean's right ass cheek.
"Oh!" Dean yells into the gag but it sounds more like, "Mmm."
How he hates to sound like he likes it, especially when, this time, he doesn't.
Castiel stands before Dean once more. He holds his head up to force Dean to look at him. Dean knows what to expect. He's struck by the blade's edge on his lips. A second kiss, a third, a fourth. Blood drips down from his lips and travels down his chin.
Castiel travels, too, back to where he was next to Dean's backside. Four deep and bloody X's mark a few spots on both his ass cheeks. Imaginative shapes are carved out into flesh. What feels to Dean like a tic-tac-toe board-but definitely isn't- is carved into his left cheek.
The top point of the blade drags down from Dean's neck, over his clavicle, across his chest and over his very sensitive left nipple.
"Sweet mother of-"
Blade raised to eye level, Castiel interrupts him by yanking the hair on the top of his head.
"God?" He asks threateningly.
Dean wonders to himself, I'm not allowed to take God's name in vain?
"Sweet mother of all that is holy," Dean breathes out.
Castiel raises an eyebrow and sighs. Dean's head is let go of and he allows it to hang down. Although he can't see Castiel move from here, he can sense that he has and that he's preparing to mark Dean's ass. He seems to really like it back there.
A quick shallow X is made with the blade near the top of Dean's already bloodied rear end. It's not enough to make him bleed much and certainly not enough to make him make a sound. It's a message that says, "I'm here and it's about to get worse for you."
A creative move is made in short stages. End of blade tears into flesh.
"Oh-"
It moves sideways through the buttock.
"Oh-Oh, fuck!"
Finally, it reaches the other side of the cheek in the center of Dean's ass crack, the tip of the blade just above his hole, before the blade is yanked out in a fluid motion.
"Fuck, Castiel!"
The angel whose name has just been called out decides to cut a stripe upward from the top of Dean's ass crack. A shrill yelp escapes Dean's lips. The sound is followed by another short yelp when he receives a repeated bludgeoning over the most recent wounds. He's flogged into screaming several times. Chains clink together whenever he writhes at the discomfort and lacing and sharpness. Rather than cut on the edge slowly, his ass is hit with the edge of the angel blade in strokes, holy metal against apparently unholy ass.
Slash after slash reforms Dean's skin.
"Fuck, Go-Fuck, fuck, fuck! Dean exclaims loud enough for the neighbors to hear, if the warehouse had neighbors, that is.
Another round of flogging has tears coming to Dean's eyes. It might be more humiliating had he been in a position where Castiel could actually see his face.
"Ah, shit! Oh-Oh shit, shit!" Dean cries, panting.
A pause. Another two fast slashes. A groan, a whimper, a deep exhale.
Dean's ass is very bloody now. Scratches, crimson drawings and markings carved in skin tissue, things that might bruise and scar if not healed by a certain angel, cover the entirety of Dean's backside and back. Very little space is left uncovered by their injuries. So little white pale skin is bare. Both mentally and physically, Dean is wrecked.
Light-headedness and dizziness have become the norm for Dean at this point. Dean can sense that the blood loss is getting to him. Senses also tell him that the torturer is coming round again. Brief thoughts of pleading to make it stop cloud his mind. They are pushed away when he decides he should still take it like a man.
Until Castiel has the bright idea to straight up stab him in the neck.
"C-C-Cas-Castiel," he begs, as blood comes up his throat, "I don't think I can keep going like this. You're going to kill me."
Castiel rolls his eyes, something he watched Dean do earlier and is now copying. He presses his fingers to Dean's forehead, but only to reverse the damage on his neck.
"Thank-"
Castiel stabs right into his throat again.
"Ugh!"
"I decide when you've had enough," Castiel says quietly.
Dean sputters and struggles to breathe, each inhale feeling less satisfying than the last. This is worsened when Castiel widens the new hole in Dean's throat. The agony is far worse than the cuts he's been given. Those feel like papercuts now compared to the horrible gape in his throat that feels like it affects his whole body at once. Blood rushes through his veins to the gap in his throat. A throbbing that comes from his heart begins to give Dean a headache. He's really feeling the blood loss now.
Castiel's angel blade disappears and he rolls up his left hand sleeve. He grabs hold of Dean's jaw with his right hand. Dean is forced to stare at Castiel's face as he stares back. The other hand comes up and for a second Dean thinks he will hit him. But he doesn't. Instead, the other hand reaches through the orifice in his throat. As he feels the hole widen, Dean's throat gurgles and he tries not to cough. The arm reaches inside and stops when his elbow meets the edge of the hole.
Their eyes meet during the action, fear and arousal coloring Dean's, while Castiel just looks into Dean's eyes intensely and without emotion. Too shocked by the action, Dean remains quiet even though he is no longer bound by the quiet rule. But when Castiel removes his arm quickly, suddenly, he has to cry out a short whining cry, both from shock and the new lack of pressure inside his throat.
Dean feels the hand and the wrist and the forearm dive back into his throat. He has to cough this time. Although Dean feels like he's dying, he feels a connection between himself and the angel, and he tries to enjoy this moment. Despite all the hurt, he remains strong, staring back at Castiel.
Bloodstained, covered in mucus and unknown substances from Dean's insides, Castiel's left hand leaves Dean's body. Everything covering his arm is gone in the blink of an eye and his angel blade is back in his hand. Upon seeing the angel blade, Dean mentally prepares for the next round.
Right hand still gripping the sides of Dean's jaw, Castiel holds him in place as he creates a new, smaller orifice in Dean's neck, right below the other one. He watches as Dean's eyes glaze over. The blade is pulled out. The angel isn't sure why he does it, but on impulse he cuts into his own fingers. The blade disappears from his hand again.
Castiel studies Dean's face closely. He might be too out of it to react much at this point. While he won't get the reactions he did before or any more pleading, he's aware that Dean can still feel and suffer. Maybe if he removes all of the other injuries Dean's mental focus will move to the newest wound and he will feel it more intensely.
Castiel presses two bloodied fingers to Dean's forehead. The last wound left bleeds less than any of the others did but that soon will change. The two fingers Castiel cut touch Dean's throat. This time he doesn't hold his jaw, rather he cradles his cheek. Dean still stares up curiously, steeling himself for what comes next.
Two fingers go into Dean's throat. Dean gasps. Then the fingers move back out, then back in. Blood from Castiel's vessel meets Dean's blood like a morbid sort of mixed drink as the fingers repeatedly slide in and out.
Dean's panting. He feels like there's something to look forward to at the end of this, like it reminds him of something entirely different, something which he can't quite put his finger on. Like a happy ending at the end of a massage. (Speaking of, his cock is still hard, something he and Castiel have seemingly wordlessly agreed to ignore. It twitches at each thrust into his throat.) He wonders if Castiel, the soldier from Heaven who is used to and meant for violence, is into this, as fingers are jolting into Dean's throat. The angel seems to be watching and waiting for something imperceivable to Dean.
In a roundabout way, maybe Dean does respect him a little for sticking to his plan to force Dean to respect him. It's a sudden change, a new mental surrender for him. He feels a buzz and an eagerness for something from Castiel that only Castiel can do, although he has no idea what that might be.
Castiel senses this feeling before he senses that Dean does. But he allows this-whatever this is that they have going on right now to go on a little longer, enjoying this connection and odd time spent with his charge. And wanting to reinforce the respect Dean feels, of course.
Fingers leave Dean's throat for the last time and meet his head instead. A cooling sensation washes over Dean and heals his yonic neck wound. Chains are individually unwrapped and untied. Two final chains are loosed, making Dean sigh and fall pitifully into a kneeling Castiel, naked but too exhausted to care that his dick is touching that damn trench coat. When Dean falls against him, he wraps his arms around him unintentionally, arms hanging limp over Castiel's shoulders at the bend of his elbows, unable to move. He's been pushed past his limit. He's turned on. He wants a nap.
At first, Castiel starts to lift a burnt-out Dean off of him. But to Dean's surprise, he holds him first, fully wrapping his arms around him, holding them there. This hug, if you want to call it that, is the closest thing to aftercare Dean is going to get. The moment is gone as quick as it came over them with Dean shoved onto the floor before Castiel, forced onto all fours.
"Dean."
Dean tilts his head back to see him standing before him. He hadn't noticed him leave the floor.
"Have you learned the cost of your irreverence?"
The way Castiel phrases that sentence is so pretentious it borders on silly but Dean knows better than to say that out loud.
"Yes, sir." It's spoken with enthusiasm and a certain sarcastic disrespect that Castiel must not be wise to.
Castiel leans down and for a moment Dean wonders if he actually is wise to it.
"Good. Because I will use the same means and worse if you don't show me respect." He whispers close to Dean's ear, "I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in. Understood?"
"Yes, sir. Dean answers and this time he means it.
Two fingers meet his forehead and he is out cold.
Dean wakes up in a cold sweat, disoriented and with something enlarged in his pants he has to take care of. He's back in Bobby's living room.
"Shit," he mouths, looking at the bulge in his pants. He gets up to go to the bathroom to take care of his somehow still hard dick. While he's in there, he checks, and sure enough, there are markings on his body left behind from the chains. It was actually real.
He returns to the living room with a clearer head. Lying down, Dean ponders the end of the-Dream?-Fantasy?-event of the night. He wonders if he should start questioning why any of it made him feel that way and if he should start questioning what he knows about himself.
As he lies there drifting off to sleep, he realizes, There ain't no time for awakenings when you're being punished by an angel of the Lord.