Chapter Text
“We have a special treat for the guests tonight!” Balthazar declared, boot heels striking the polished wooden flooring as he bounded up onto the dais. He struck a heavy ring on his finger against his cut-crystal glass for attention.
The chime of it sent a frisson through Castiel that ruffled his feathers. He carefully recomposed himself and made sure the drape of his wings along the back of the divan was elegant and dramatic.
It felt ludicrous to him, but he had learned, in the days of his captivity, the consequences of displeasing Sergei.
“Our host has acquired a specimen for his collection that I think you will all like a great deal,” Balthazar went on, his voice boisterous and charming, so different from the gentle-but-assured murmur he used when he tried to soothe the creatures that came under his charge. “Take care with the flooring just there and step back a bit,” he said.
Castiel couldn’t see anything through the curtain, but he’d been shown the mechanism earlier and he knew that Balthazar was pointing out the seam in the floor just in front of the stage.
“Lovely, there we are. Now, everyone take your seats, though I imagine you won’t be able to stay there for long,” he said, chuckling in private amusement since no one could yet understand his joke.
There must have been a signal of some kind, for the curtains parted and the gleam of lights fell onto Castiel. Castiel didn’t move at first, waiting for the thick glass pane to finish rising from the floor just in front of the stage and completely cut him off from the rest of the room.
An appreciative murmur cascaded through the guests like a burst of chatter through a flock of birds. Castiel assessed them and found that they all looked alike to him, in their evening finery and their crystal glasses filled with drinks in expensive hues of amber and gold.
Balthazar had coached Castiel on how to arrange himself to be pleasing to look at, apologizing for it when Castiel couldn’t help but look especially aggravated. Unnecessary, wasted apologies: Balthazar was just as much a prisoner as those who had been put in his charge, and one could not meaningfully apologize for what one could not choose.
The drawn curtain revealed how Castiel lounged upon a wine-dark velvet divan, one leg sprawling toward the floor and his wings draped over the back to brush against the polished flooring. His hair had been artfully tousled to look windswept, while the hair on the rest of his body had been waxed off. His only clothing was a historically-accurate chiton that covered him from shoulder to knee in simple linen. It looked ridiculous compared to the evening gowns and dinner suits worn by the guests, not to mention the cold.
Castiel wanted none of this, but the collar around his throat didn’t care what he wanted. Sergei, sitting in the front row with cronies to either side and a smug smile on his face, didn’t care what Castiel wanted at all.
“My guests,” Sergei said, standing up, his voice proud and warm, “no doubt you assumed that sirens were all female, but as you can see, this is not so. This specimen was discovered on a small island near Capri, trying to live in great squalor and isolation on a diet of nothing but fish, the poor creature, which is ill-suited to his species. He is much healthier and better-cared-for now that he’s come into my keeping, I assure you.”
Castiel’s species was nearly extinct, in fact, and trying to live on fish rather than human flesh was the only reason his colony had survived rather than being slaughtered by hunters. Cow meat might provide more adequate nutrition, but he’d go back to being half-starved in a heartbeat if it meant he could be free again.
“The glass here is for your own protection. His song will entice you to lose your minds completely, and it’s only this barrier that keeps you from walking right into his terrible teeth and claws.”
The glass was there for Sergei’s protection, more than anything.
Castiel’s collar had been explained to him. The needle was already buried in his skin, and the poison needed a mere touch of a button to be delivered. If he made a move on Sergei, he would die. The glass wall between them was an obvious sign that Sergei knew how little Castiel cared about dying. He had nowhere to go and no way to get there if he did. What he did still have was sharp teeth and a will to use them. The minute or two before the poison did its work would be long enough.
Still, he was grateful for the glass. There would be other opportunities to die while killing his captor, and he didn’t want any of the guests to touch him.
Sergei sat down again, seemingly content to let his emcee take back the floor, so Balthazar made a great flourish with his hands as he stepped to the side, saying,
“So, ladies, gentlemen, other distinguished guests, I give you: the siren Castiel.”
Balthazar moved to stand off to the side and watch the guests in case any of them might hurt themselves; his ever-changing role as Sergei’s right hand now required less showmanship and more vigilance.
Castiel took a breath, and sighed as his fingers plucked the first notes of his song on the lyre that rested on his thighs. He knew that none of them could understand his song anyway, so he allowed himself to let the music lead him into a lament. The crowd was already looking wistful and grieved just by the music of lyre.
He opened his throat and began to sing.
His voice swelled to fill the available space and crept into the minds of the guests. It was blue and silver breezes, salt of tears and ocean tides. It lapped at their ears like water on the shore and stirred hidden sorrows in their hearts. He sang of the home he’d never had, of the skies that had never been open to him, and let his wings flex and widen in a useless, flightless display.
Castiel didn’t want to look at the listeners as they sobbed and fell from their chairs to the floor, but his eyes were caught by a figure who was standing near the back. He had broad shoulders hugged by a finely-crafted suit of dark blue, a tanned neck framed by a crisp and spotless white shirt, and his eyes were as sharp and green as cypress needles. He watched Castiel not with sorrow, but a frown of concentration and curiosity.
The song couldn’t be stopped once Castiel freed it, and he had to sing it to its conclusion. But he kept his eyes on the strange man at the back of the room, ignoring the people who threw themselves, weeping, at the glass wall. Sergei and Balthazar always wore ear protection when Castiel was out of the soundproof room he was kept in, and they were able to simply watch the proceedings without being so dramatically effected. Castiel wondered if the strange guest wore it, too—
—and how he’d even known to do so.
Castiel was supposed to be a surprise.
As he sang, he watched. Sergei didn’t seem to think anything of the man, or even realize he was there. But Balthazar, half-hidden in a shadowed corner, was watching the man quite closely. And the man was watching Balthazar. Balthazar looked at the man, and gave him a tiny nod.
Castiel looked back at the man with the green eyes, his own eyes narrow as he studied him. The man looked away from Balthazar and back to Castiel himself. The man gave him a tiny, secretive smile, and winked.
Castiel’s fingers faltered on his lyre.
No matter, his song had enthralled them all, and his voice could cover the error. All except Sergei, who seemed to notice now that something was wrong, something in the way that Castiel and the party guest watched each other. He stood suddenly, his self-satisfied smile draining away, said a sharp word to one of his cronies, and abruptly headed for the door.
As Castiel reached the end of his song, the handsome man with the green eyes stalked forward and cut Sergei off, arm slamming out to block the door.
“Mr. Priestly, excuse me,” Sergei said, strident over the chorus of sighing, moaning, and sobbing from the enchanted guests who piled up against the glass. “Whatever business you have with me must wait, I’m afraid. I have an urgent matter to attend.”
“Well, buddy, wouldn’t you know it, but my business takes precedence,” the man said, cracking a smile. “This may come as a shock to you, but my name isn’t Priestly.”
“I would be more shocked if I knew the real name of a single one of my guests,” Sergei scoffed.
“I’ll have to try harder: my name is Dean Winchester.”
That had Sergei going quite pale, as well it should. Castiel scrabbled to his feet, biting back cries of pain as it shot up from his abused feet. Every collector in the world – and every monster – knew that name.
HunterCorp was here. And that meant Castiel had to run. Never mind that there was nowhere to go and he’d been crippled by his captor. If he stayed, he died.
He had to at least try.
There was a thick glass wall between himself and escape, and there was only one way he knew how to break it. He threw his head back, took a deep breath, and he screamed.
He pitched his voice as high, loud, and long as he could, a piercing and ringing shriek that sirens only used as a last line of defense. Castiel saw everyone in the room curl up on the floor with their hands clamped against their ears, crying out.
The glass cracked.
Castiel saw Sergei’s hand move, and he felt the curious, sickening trickle of liquid, warmed by his own body heat, spread like a blush under the skin of his neck.
The poison had been administered.
His attempt at escape meant nothing, from here. Castiel had no more than a minute or two to live. But he had no intention of simply going quietly.
He screamed again, feeling as though his throat would tear open. The glass cracked enough that he risked throwing himself against it. It shattered, sending him sprawling among the guests he’d enchanted and who were only just beginning to recover. He scrambled up and ran at Sergei, who was attempting to wrest free of Winchester’s grip.
Castiel slammed into his back, flapping his useless wings wildly to counteract the force of Sergei’s attempts to break free of him. He sunk his teeth into Sergei’s throat and tore.
They went down together in a heap. There was a chaotic chorus of shouting, and someone dragging Castiel off his captor, bravely taking the blows of his wings as they beat about the face of whoever was pulling him.
“How?” Sergei choked, hand pressed to his torn-open throat, blood bubbling underneath. He was looking at Balthazar, who’d come forward and wore a proud smirk. “You cannot disobey me. I have your name.”
“You told me that my highest priority was the well being of the creatures in your collection, did you not?” Balthazar asked diffidently. “You of all people ought to know you have to be more specific with the fey.”
There were several people in blue jackets with gold lettering swarming the room, picking people up to arrest them. Castiel couldn’t make out much more than that, sagging limply in the hands that held him and vomiting onto the parquet. His ears were ringing.
“Victor!” Winchester was shouting. His voice was tinny and distant. “Antidote, here, now!”
Castiel couldn’t breathe. He was very cold. Drool and bile hung in thick strings from his chin.
There was an odd pinch in his arm, hardly worth noting considering that his heart felt like it was being crushed under a rock.
“Breathe!” Winchester shouted in his face, and a hand thunked painfully hard against his back, between his wings.
He choked, spat, and then a breath came to him. It hurt going in, and it hurt coming out. His vision was narrow and tunneled. He couldn’t make out what any of the sounds around him meant.
The hand punched into his back again. Another painful rush of air.
“Come on, Castiel,” Balthazar’s voice begged.
Castiel took another breath. Then another. He nodded at the man who knelt beside him, who braced him with one hand on his back and the other on his chest. It was Winchester. The bogeyman that children of Castiel’s decimated colony had been warned about.
Another man stood to the side, wearing one of those blue-and-gold jackets. He had a little plastic cylinder still clutched in his hand, and must be the one who’d delivered the antidote.
“Nice, Victor,” Winchester said. He grinned up at the other man and lifted his arm to bump it against the stoic Victor’s, but Castiel heard the waver of relief in Winchester’s voice. “Any losses downstairs? The rest of the creatures are in custody?”
Victor inclined his head. “We’ll debrief later. In the meantime, we’d better get Big Bird here secured before he goes for any more throats.”
Castiel saw someone trying to staunch the blood pouring from Sergei’s torn-open neck, and saw that it was pointless. Sergei was gray and lifeless. Dead.
“If I swear that I won’t hurt anyone,” Castiel rasped, “will you leave my wings unbound? They are still sore from being bound on the journey to this place.”
Winchester laughed, gruff and unamused. “Oh, if you promise,” he said in a sarcastic voice.
“They’ve been clipped,” Castiel said. “You can see for yourself. I will never fly again.”
“It’s not flight I’m worried about,” Winchester said dryly, gesturing to his face as it slowly darkened from a handsome tan to mottled purple and red. “I’m worried about getting hit in the face some more.”
Castiel looked at Sergei again. Those who’d attended him had given up on trying to save him and had turned to help with crowd control instead.
“He is the first man I’ve ever killed,” he said. “I don’t expect you to believe me.”
“Hey,” Winchester said, shuffling an inch closer, and now Castiel realized there was still a hand on his back. “I do believe you.” He looked down at his pants and sighed with a pouting expression. “Damn, I liked this suit.” Then he shook it off, and gave Castiel a soft half-smile. “I know this will sound nuts to you, but we don’t actually hate non-humans. We only neutralize active threats.”
Castiel scoffed, wincing at the ache in his chest and throat.
Winchester gave him a challenging look in return. “We’ve known about your colony for years, and we’ve left you alone because you’ve never given us a reason. We’re not here to arrest you; we’re here to help you. You’ll be taken to a facility for medical treatment and processing, but you’ll be released to go home later. Well, that was the plan before you killed Sergei. That’s gonna complicate things. We’ll have to loop Sam in.”
Castiel shuddered with anger, and pulled away from the man. “I can’t go home anyway, don’t you understand?” He gestured to his feet, which must look strange to all these shoe-wearing monkey-footed ground dwellers. His toes were inflamed and blunted after the talons had been ripped out. “I cannot cling to the cliffs, I cannot fly, or hunt my meals.” He shuddered again. “You shouldn’t have wasted your antidote on me.”
Balthazar was the one who knelt down beside Castiel and patted at his cheek. “I lost a lot of sleep making sure you got rescued, my fierce one. I’d hate to think I look this haggard for no reason.”
If Balthazar was telling the truth, there were a dozen other creatures saved tonight, and the loss of one would still be a noble outcome. Castiel turned his face to the side, and Balthazar stood up, then was pulled away by the man called Victor.
“Can I ask you something?” Winchester asked, still crouched at his side.
“While I’m fluent in your language, I fear I may miss idioms,” Castiel replied. “The question itself seems redundant, so I assume it’s an idiom.”
Winchester looked flummoxed, then delighted, and he threw back his head and laughed. It was deep and resonant, as pleasant to hear as his voice.
“You got me,” he said. “Well, how’s this: I’m going to ask you something, and you’ll either answer it or you won’t.”
Castiel quirked an eyebrow.
“Why’d you do it?” Winchester asked, gesturing to where Sergei was being zipped into a body bag. “You said you’re not a killer. We had him; he was under arrest. We wanted to question him about his contacts.”
“He’d already killed me,” Castiel said, hand rubbing over the collar that still choked him. “I had no interest in dying passively in my cage. I’m sorry if that inconveniences you.”
“Hey, Cara,” Winchester said, flagging down one of the scurrying jacketed people. “Do we have bolt cutters?”
“Yeah, we needed ‘em downstairs to get the cages open,” they replied.
“Can you bring me a pair?”
“On it,” they answered.
Castiel was shivering, whether from the cold or the aftereffects of his near-death, he couldn’t be certain. Winchester picked up a discarded shawl from a chair, something left behind by a detained guest, and this was draped around his neck and shoulders, care given to avoid having it snag in his wings. It was black and gold, soft as morning mist, and helped more than Castiel cared to admit.
“You’re not what I expected,” Castiel muttered.
“I know, I’m much prettier in person,” Winchester replied with a cheesy, over-the-top grin.
Castiel rolled his eyes, but found himself fighting a return smile. That seemed to just encourage Winchester, who smiled even more broadly and said,
“I’m gonna get you to laugh before we’re done here, I swear.”
“Why?”
Winchester’s smile turned a bit melancholy, and Castiel noticed all over again that his face was badly bruised by the blows he’d taken from Castiel’s wings. “What we do is necessary, and it sucks a lot of the time. But tonight I get to do something that doesn’t suck, and it went better than I expected, so yeah – I guess I’m just in a good mood.”
The errand-runner returned with bolt-cutters in hand, and Winchester held them up with a questioning look.
“Think you can hold real still for a second?”
Castiel eyed Winchester carefully. He was kneeling on the floor, lamenting the ruin of his doubtless very pricey suit, face battered but fixed with a friendly smile. He wasn’t anything like Castiel had expected a hunter to be, especially not one with his reputation.
“We gotta get you looked at by the medical team,” Winchester said in a quieter, calmer tone. “I know you have a healing factor, but your liver might not be in great shape right now. I figured you’d feel more comfortable if we could get this off you first, but we can leave it for now.”
In answer, Castiel bent his head forward and gave Winchester the back of his neck. He took only tiny, controlled sips of air as warm, blunt fingers slid over his neck, cupped the outer edge of the bolt cutters for no other reason than Castiel’s comfort. The blade slid under the collar, and the knuckles of the cupped hand pressed against Castiel’s skin as Winchester squeezed the tool.
There was a short creak and an undramatic snap, then the metal was pulled away with infinite care, ensuring the needle came out whole and unbroken. Winchester’s thumb pressed down on the tiny wound it left behind.
“You’re bleeding a little,” he said. His voice was a private thing in this grand room, almost lost in the shuffling and shouting. “There’s some chafing, but it doesn’t look too bad, all things considered. Probably won’t scar.”
Castiel remained sitting on the floor with his head bent forward and Winchester’s thumb pressed to his throat, only snorted in response. He’d already had his wings and claws mangled. Why should he care if his neck scarred?
“I’ll get a stretcher over here for you,” Winchester said. “No way you can walk with your feet all fucked up.”
Castiel lifted his face at that. “I can and I will,” he said. The idea of being carried out of this place disgusted him. He would not allow that.
“You’ve been poisoned.”
“There is a vehicle outside that you’ll use to transport me to the new prison?”
“It’s not a…” Winchester trailed off, and sighed. “Yes. We have vans.”
Castiel nodded, and got to his feet. Each step was a throbbing fire, and he had to keep his wings spread in order to keep his balance. He was weak and his head ached fiercely. But he was upright, and determined to get to this van under his own power.
Winchester stood with him and seemed set on staying at his side.
“Dean!”
Victor was nearly jogging as he hurried over, face set in a scowl of disapproval. Castiel instinctively puffed out his feathers.
“Why is he not in restraints?”
Winchester put a hand on Victor’s shoulder, leaned in and murmured something in his ear that just made Victor scowl deeper. Winchester was still holding the cut-open collar, and gestured with it a little before pushing it into Victor’s hands and stepping away, back to Castiel’s side.
“Let’s go,” Winchester said as he steered them through the paneled door and into the corridor that would lead Castiel to wherever he was going next. “We gotta get out of here before Victor mothers me so hard he shits out adoption paperwork.”
Winchester’s charm and humor were like a beacon in this awful place. And Castiel, with blood in his teeth and his future uncertain, somehow found himself laughing.