Chapter Text
"Castiel."
A voice echoes through space, infinite and powerful. An angel moves to listen, eagerly ready for his waiting to be over.
"Yes, brother?"
There is a pause before the response, heavy and thunderous, as the voice of the heavens so often is.
"It is begun." comes the order, and Castiel feels himself straighten, his eyes heavy, the feeling of purpose something like holy fire that steels his nerves.
He has his orders.
"Dean Winchester will be raised from Hell." He replies with confidence, yet there is a feeling of hesitation in the air.
It is static, and Castiel pauses as he prepares to move, sensing there is more to the command.
"There has been a complication." continues the voice, sounding almost hesitant to share the news with the seraph, who blinks and faces the sky in a wordless gesture asking for elaboration.
"The knight of hell, Azazael, is holding Lucifer's vessel. You must free him."
Castiel processes the news for a moment, before throwing his voice to the wind in a question he knows will not be answered.
"Why?"
He does not elaborate. He only thinks.
Is it not easier for him to break the final seal under watch of a demon? Would he not be cared for as the true vessel?
All of these things he thinks, but he does not say. He dares not crowd the question with any air of disobedience. Rare enough that any simple thing he asks might be answered, nonetheless one which so clearly demands the purpose of heaven's order.
He waits for a moment, but unsurprisingly, the voice is silent, and Castiel resigns himself to being kept in the dark once again. He had not been so foolish as to expect that the high command would explain itself to a simple solider such as himself, yet the curiosity does not cease it's itch, and he finds himself wondering silently, though fruitlessly.
But just as he is ready to break the connection, he is shocked by the swell of the thunderous sound as it tentatively continues.
"...The demon holds far too much power in such a position. He must be eliminated. The righteous man will be able to reach the corners of hell that we cannot- you must use him, Castiel, and your mission will be possible."
There is a rush of grace as the eyes of the messenger leave him, and he knows the orders are finished.
Castiel rises with renewed faith, a journey and a destination mapped out in front of him, and he takes the words in stride.
Find him, Castiel.
And somewhere between Earth and the layers of hell, an angel descends, it's wings alight with all the fury of heaven.
-
Quite frankly, Sam Winchester is damn tired of being the King of Hell.
"King" is a generous term, anyway- Azazael is the king, for all intensive purposes. The demons fear him, he makes all the choices, and he oversees every soul that he condemns. Sam is just his poster boy. The attack dog, who's stuck half the time in some dark and dingy backroom being whipped into shape, as though Azazael thinks that if he kicks hard enough, he can punt Sam's soul from his body, shove him into the mold of Satan 2.0.
At the moment, he feels about a thousand miles from regal, slumped over on a hard, cold, rough-edged imitation of a throne and facing down a dark entryway where demons crouch to catch glimpses of him from the warded shadows, the glint of their eyes turning his stomach. He feels like a zoo animal, gawked at, only a pane of glass preventing him from ripping through their flimsy bodies. Had he not been half-starved and aching from the jagged corners of the throne poking into his sides, he would muster up the courage to stare them down until they scurried from sight, but it's all he can do to just sit upright, the cold bite of metal chains on his feet leeching energy from his body. It's almost laughable to think they're meant to scare the demons, as though they're protecting the flock, and not tying him down like a rabid dog.
"How are we feeling today, Sammy?" a familiar voice calls out, slimy and dripping with malice, and yet Sam can hear the ever-present smile on Azazael's face just before he slips into view.
The demon strides through the doorway with a snap of his fingers, and there's a hiss in the air as his lesser subjects scatter at his feet.
"Bite me." Sam snaps back, like always, but the familiar boiling rage in the pit of his stomach is weak.
Azazael ignores the retort, as he's long since gotten used to doing.
"Hm. Not feeling so hot, huh?" he continues with disgustingly false sympathy, glee barely concealed in his face.
His voice never gets less disquieting. He slips over his conjunctions and hisses out vowels with a snake-like tone, always so self-assured that it's impossible to shake the feeling he always knows the next words out of your mouth.
Sam hopes the demon can see the absolute loathing in his eyes.
"Never fear! I come in peace."
Sam almost laughs, but he's pretty sure he'd vomit if he did.
'When has that ever been true?" he snarls, and Azazael chuckles.
"Always so critical." he clucks, rummaging through a burlap sack that's slung over his shoulder. "I do want what's best for you, you know."
Sam is too tired to roll his eyes.
"Yeah. That's why you dragged me to hell and starved me for three days, right?"
Azazael gives him another poisonous grin, pulling a vial of dark liquid from the depths of the bag with a triumphant sound.
"No hard feelings, Sam. This'll just be so much easier if you're hungry." he croons, and Sam feels cold all of the sudden, his hair standing up on end.
"The hell are you talking about?" he hisses, sinking back into the hard surface of the throne as though he could shy away from Azazael's reaching hand.
"Oh, relax. You'll enjoy this soon enough." he huffs ominously, fiddling with the cap on what Sam, to his dismay, recognizes as blood.
Before Sam can truly appreciate the horrifying implications of that fun tidbit, his attention is grabbed by the clattering of chains and muffled cries coming from the shadowy doorway. Moments later, a figure collapses through the warding, a demon wrapped in iron chains and gagged with a devil's trap cloth. He's young, heavyset, and his black eyes are strained with pure terror as he meets Azazael's gaze.
Sam groans.
"I'm exhausted, y'know." he mutters. "Four months of this and you think one day I'm just gonna snap and be your bitch?"
Azazael glances at him, a happy gleam in his sickly yellow eyes that turns Sam's stomach.
"It's in your blood, Sammy. We've spent quite a bit of time toning your skills, and now, you just need... a little... motivation."
Then his dirt-encrusted fingernails are digging into Sam's face who's too weak to fight off the hand that presses the glass vial to his lips. The lesser demon struggles with renewed intensity against his shackles, screaming himself hoarse against the muffle, and Sam can only watch and choke as Azazael forces the blood down his throat, thick, rusty, and sweet, and feel his heart pound louder and louder until it drowns out the world.
-
Dean Winchester's hand breaks the surface of the earth.