tracy_loo_who | Fic: The Forty-First Year (Dean/Castiel, NC-17)

Been awhile, huh? I am still not 100% happy with this, but I've been working on it since last night and now I'm headed out, so I officially wash my hands of it. Big Bang calls. :">

Title: The Forty-First Year
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Dean was not nice in Hell. There's non-con and torture and all sorts of nasty things.
Word Count: ~4,500
Notes: With love and thanks to

ibroketuesday for practically forcing me to write this and helping me work it out, and to

strangeandcharm for wanting to read it and giving it the Whump!Queen Stamp of Approval.
♥♥♥: I AM SO IN LOVE WITH PEOPLE.

eggblue wrote her own fic about this one, Keep Only One of Us Free,

joyeee drew fanart for one of the scenes (it's linked to in the story), and

kitsu84 made a fanmix! (It's called My Whole Existence is Flawed, it comes with gorgeous cover art and matching icons by

gembat,

nilsi_pilsifan, and

x5649, and it absolutely complements and completes this fic.) Also,

remkaz2y5 made a fanvid based on this fic. I can't even describe how utterly floored I am by all of this. Utterly.
Summary: For every thing Castiel tells Dean, there is a world of things he doesn't tell him.

"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition," Castiel tells Dean, and only the barest lift of eyebrows hints at anything less simple. Dean doesn't notice because he isn't meant to notice.

***

He isn't meant to know about the war waged between the armies of Heaven and the forces of Hell, so Castiel doesn't tell him about the thirty years he and his brothers and sisters spent burning a path through that endless sea of black smoke only to have it thicken around them with every demon felled. Ten more always took its place, and even angels could be suffocated and ripped apart and charred. They could also be depraved, and that was always the worst.

Castiel prayed for every single one of them, their names drifting through him even when he himself dimmed before Hell's fires, sure of his end until the white of Uriel's vengeance came to outshine the red. He prayed for them when he crushed demons out of existence, and he prayed for them when he forgot what Heaven looked like. But mostly, he prayed for Dean, the boy who loved pie and beer and his car and Sam, the one Castiel had watched grow into a man who still loved pie and beer and his car and Sam. The one who God Himself had deemed worth saving.

He prayed for Dean when the others stopped, when thirty dark years had passed and so had eighty-nine angels, when they finally drove the last demon away from Dean's rack only to find it already empty. Uriel's grace erupted with a wrath that quailed demons and angels alike, but next to him, Castiel drew on his to pray for Dean.

He was the last one to leave the place still littered with three decades of Dean's entrails, some of it red and fresh, most of it mangled and burnt. (Hundreds of tongues shredded into flowers, thousands of eyes flayed open flat.) Castiel didn't join Uriel and the others in cursing Dean, and when the orders came to keep searching, he was the first to venture deeper into Hell.

The others followed, of course, but none save Castiel ever prayed for Dean again. Those that complained loudest were picked off first, aside from Uriel. He didn't need faith to sustain him; wrath would do just as well. As for the rest... Castiel was never the brightest nor the fiercest of Heaven's warriors, but year after year, his brothers and sisters faded around him until he was. In the ninth year after the breaking of the first seal, only Castiel and Uriel were left.

"It's just you and me now, brother," Castiel said, but Uriel shook his head. No human soul was worth two hundred angels, and if Castiel wanted to be the hundred-and-ninety-ninth, so be it, but Uriel wasn't going to be the two-hundredth. That's when he turned back and left Castiel alone in the middle of Hell.

Fate was what let an ordinary, lone angel slip unnoticed past demons that could swallow ten of him, Castiel knew. None of them saw him because none of them expected to see him; the siege was long over and there were souls to be played with, seals to be broken.

So it came to be that forty years after Castiel left Heaven with a host of two hundred, he came to the source of the loudest screams alone, weary and small, to look upon the righteous man he was sent to save. He had watched Dean Winchester before, from afar, but up close, there was not a shred of righteousness to be seen anymore, none of that man who loved pie and beer and his car and Sam. Dean's eyes were black and his lips were red as he tore out his victim's lungs so he could feast in peace, but Castiel said a prayer for him. Then, in the sudden quiet of screams cut short, Castiel shaped himself into a human form and stood between Dean and his victim. "I'm Castiel, an angel of the Lord," he said, and Dean stabbed him in the heart.

What should have been the end of Castiel's long, trying journey was actually the beginning, he discovered when he looked at Dean in pained surprise and told him, "I'm here to raise you from perdition so you may save the world."

Because when Dean replied, his words were, "I don't want to go."

Reasoning about seals and the fates of three worlds and even Sam was lost upon Dean, and Castiel's threats were empty because forty years of Hell had smeared sulfur and ash into his grace and he hadn't thought to save any of himself for a fight. It hadn't occurred to him that the man he had so much faith in would have none of his own, so when Dean refused to go with him, Castiel had but one choice.

He stayed. He could have fled, then, and Dean called him a fool for not doing so, but Castiel said a prayer and stayed. This time, he prayed for both that man who'd once loved pie and beer and his car and Sam, and for himself.

So Dean threw away what was left of the girl (or maybe it was a boy, Castiel couldn't tell) and put Castiel on his rack. "If you're going to stay, then let's get started," he said in a way that made Castiel shiver. When Dean grinned, his features twisted into something monstrous and the light of Hell's fires glinted on his teeth. There was no matching glint in his eyes, because those were soullessly black.

***

Those first minutes on the rack almost made Castiel regret his decision. He'd thought he'd known pain before, but the oppressing burn of Hell was dull compared to the poison of demon blood injected into his own, eating into his grace like acid, and even the sharp pain of that knife in his heart was tame compared to the slow agony of skin and flesh being scraped away from his bones bit by bit. Castiel had possessed human vessels on Earth before, but the rules of Hell were different. Here the body was his own, shaped into real bones and real blood and real flesh because he hadn't wanted to burn Dean's eyes out, and now he was chained to the rack and powerless under the human's hands.

For the first time in Castiel's existence, he was terrified. It wasn't fear of dying, because he lived or died as God willed. It was fear of pain.

But then he thought of those hundreds of tongues and thousands of eyes that had been carved from Dean's face, thought of those thirty years, and said another prayer. If Dean could stand the pain for the sake of others, then Castiel could stand the pain for Dean's sake, and for the world's.

Standing it didn't equate to not screaming when Dean skinned off one of his fingernails with a knife, though.

***

At the end of the day, Castiel was delirious from pain and his throat was bloody from screaming, but when Dean dug his fingers into the pulverized bone of his jaw and leaned in close, Castiel focused his one remaining eye.

"Why did you stay?" Dean asked.

"Because I have faith in you, Dean," Castiel managed to say before he choked on his own blood.

Then Dean sneered, dug up one of Castiel's arteries, and fed more blood into his mouth because he wasn't choking enough.

***

The next day, Dean cut a slit through his right nipple and watched it slowly heal. "You really are an angel, aren't you?" he asked, black eyes narrowed to slits. "None of the others get a new body unless I give it to them."

"I am," Castiel said, and the hope that flared died when Dean smiled.

"That's why the demon blood hurt you so much," he said slowly, and when Castiel shuddered in reply, his smile widened.

It turned into one of Dean's favorite things to do, because an injection of blood took so little effort and then the rest of the time he could just watch. Castiel writhed and moaned so artistically, he was told.

***

The first time he got bored of watching, Dean took scissors and snipped into those tender webs of skin between each of Castiel's fingers and toes. He liked to take his time, draw out the anticipation, so by the time he got through all sixteen, the first ones would be healed already.

"Please," Castiel said softly, fingers clenched into as small and tight a fist as possible, but Dean pried them open and started all over again.

***

The second time he got bored of watching, he carved demonic sigils into Castiel's calf. When the tendons on the undersides of Castiel's knees went taut with pain, Dean sliced through them and laughed at the surprise in the angel's scream.

He did the same to Castiel's other leg. This time there was no surprise, but the scream was even louder.

***

The third time Dean got bored of watching, he asked Castiel, "Why did you stay?"

Castiel slowly uncurled himself from his fetal position of agony and terror and said, "Because I have faith in you, Dean." He was surprised that it was still true.

In reply, Dean cut open a hole in Castiel's soft belly and poured a thousand fire ants into it. They didn't all fit, so the ones that didn't go crawling and stinging their way through his insides overflowed onto his skin. They covered every inch of him, and many eventually found their way into his body anyway, through other holes. (One even got into his urethra.) Dean unchained Castiel's wrists so he would be free to flail and claw at his eyes and mouth and skin.

***

"You don't have to do this," Castiel told him, begged him, when Dean approached with a cheese grater.

He sliced Castiel's tongue into ribbons so he couldn't talk anymore, and then he used the cheese grater anyway.

***

Everything else varied, but the tongue thing became a habit. Every day for a month, the first thing Dean did was try to best his own record of how many little strips he could slice Castiel's tongue into without accidentally hacking any of them off.

Once, Castiel tried to turn his head and keep his mouth shut tight. Dean peeled the muscles from his neck and tore off his jaw. He broke his record that day, and decided that Castiel's tongue was much easier to get at and work with when Castiel couldn't move his head or snap his jaw. He started doing that every day.

***

"Don't you miss it?" Castiel asked one day, desperately, before he couldn't talk anymore.

Dean didn't ask him what he meant, but Castiel answered anyway. "The sky."

For a brief, rare moment, Dean looked straight at him, black eyes meeting blue, and it struck Castiel just how few times that had ever happened. Dean almost never looked at him, but before he could wonder why, his eyes were ripped from their sockets and ground into pulp beneath Dean's feet. It sounded squelchy. Castiel wondered, through his whimpers, if his eyes reminded Dean of the sky.

***

"You must be special," someone new drawled, and Castiel couldn't see him, but the smell of demon would have made him wretch if he'd had any intestines left. "Dean's never bothered with anyone else for more than two days, and yet you've had him all to yourself for four months. I think I'm getting jealous..."

There was a pause, and Castiel knew this was his end. The demon would recognize him for an angel, however blackened and rotted his grace was, and he would be exterminated. Eyelids closed over empty sockets, and Castiel sent a silent prayer of apology to his Father for failing in his mission. Please forgive me, he thought, and please forgive Dean. He wasn't sure if he was more glad to be done with the pain or more sad that he never found the man who loved pie and beer and his car and Sam.

"He's no one important, Alastair," Castiel heard Dean say, and if he'd still had a heart, it would have beat faster. "Just a pretty face."

When Alastair was gone, Castiel asked, "Why didn't you tell him?"

And Dean asked, for the first time in over three months, "Why did you stay?"

"Because I have faith in you, Dean," Castiel replied, and his voice wavered on every word except Dean's name. He waited for the blow, the sizzle of hot iron against tender flesh, the slip of a blade between his ribs, but none of it came. Castiel held his breath and wished he could see.

When Dean touched his leg, Castiel flinched involuntarily, but it didn't hurt. "Dean--" he started, thinking maybe and finally and a thousand other wild thoughts, but Dean clamped a hard hand over his mouth and leaned in.

"I'm going to change your mind, angel," Dean hissed into his ear. "I'm going to make you say you had faith in me."

He yanked Castiel's legs up and apart, and that was the first time Dean forced himself in, tearing flesh and rubbing himself into the wounds. Castiel cried out in horror and pain and despair beneath him and tried to squirm away, but Dean wrapped his fingers around Castiel's exposed ribs and thrust even harder. When one rib broke off, he simply reached for the next. It didn't end for a long, long time, but when it did, Castiel almost didn't have the capacity to notice.

***

"Still have faith in me?" Dean asked mockingly the next day.

And though he trembled with dread, Castiel answered with, "Yes." He didn't know how to not have faith in Dean, because that was what he lived on.

There was another one of those rare moments, when Dean looked straight into his eyes as though looking for the lie there. When he didn't find it, he wrapped a hand around Castiel's neck and jerked him up so he could snarl into his face, "Why?"

Castiel didn't flinch, but just barely. It had taken so long for Dean to ask. "Because I know you, Dean."

Dean laughed at this, an evil, shrill sound. "You don't know me," he spat, and planted a wooden stake on the rack so that when he threw Castiel back down, it drove all the way up through his chest. Castiel did flinch at that.

"When you were one year old, one of the first things you ever said to Mary was the word pie," he gasped with his one lung, begging Dean to hear him, begging Dean to remember the taste of pie. But Dean only fucked him again, for hours. Castiel didn't even writhe in pain when his entire bottom was a mess of blood and patches of flesh fell off because every time he did, splinters would get lodged inside his chest.

***

Dean didn't speak to him for many days after that. But every day, Castiel spoke to him.

"You stole your first beer from John on your fourth birthday," he said, and Dean flipped him over so that his chest and stomach ground into barbed wire as Dean forced his way in.

***

"You killed Anderson when you were twelve," he said, and Dean yanked him back so hard when he thrust into him that Castiel's spine snapped. It didn't stop him from feeling a thing.

***

"I watched you kiss your first girl," he said, and Dean tied ropes to both his ankles and had them pulled in opposite directions. Castiel's left leg tore off first, and then Dean sawed his right one off with something dull. Just for kicks, Castiel's arms went, too, and only after that, when Castiel was only head and torso and bottom and pain, did Dean grab hold of him and fuck him.

***

"You bounced on the balls of your feet the first time John let you drive the Impala," he said, and Dean set up a constant IV of demon blood because he liked the way it made Castiel writhe. On that day, it was hardest for Castiel to remember why he'd stayed, hardest to remember why he didn't hate Dean, but Dean didn't leave the IV in after he was finished, and Castiel didn't forget.

***

"Then you took a tire iron to it when he sold his soul to this place so you could live," Castiel said, and this time, Dean hesitated because he couldn't get it up. So he fucked Castiel with a knife instead, double-edged. This time, it lasted even longer than usual. Castiel's voice died hours before the end.

***

Castiel was too broken and mad with terror to say anything the next day. He shook uncontrollably even before Dean pushed himself in from behind, but he took it quietly, and Dean didn't hurt him too much. For the first time in five months, Dean moaned when he came.

"You don't actually enjoy hurting me," Castiel said softly as Dean panted beside his ear. Dean jerked away and punched him in the side of his jaw, but his heart wasn't in it.

***

He didn't hurt Castiel too much the next day, either. He was actually slick enough to slide in easily, and Castiel looked up at his face in guarded surprise, but Dean didn't look back once as he rode him. "Why won't you let me save you?" Castiel asked softly when Dean came, when his twisted features went slack with pleasure.

And then Dean did look at him, and his eyes were still black, but they reflected Hell's fires now. "Because I don't want to go back," he said.

"Sam--" Castiel began, and when Dean flinched violently, he understood.

But before he could say anything more, Dean pulled away, grabbed two knives, and slammed them into both of Castiel's knees. He twisted cruelly and snarled, "Don't you dare talk about Sam."

Whatever Castiel wanted to say got lost in his screams.

***

"Sam doesn't have to know," Castiel told him as Dean walked in the next day, with more than a little trepidation. Dean's steps faltered just a bit and a muscle in his jaw twitched, but he said nothing. He was slick again when he turned Castiel around and sank into him, and Castiel couldn't see him back there, but he kept talking. "I'm sorry we were too late. But I'm here now, and I can take you from this place. You can breathe fresh air again and see colors that aren't red and black."

"Shut up," Dean growled, but he didn't hurt him, so Castiel didn't shut up.

"You can listen to AC/DC and drive on long, winding roads--"

"Shut up!" Dean repeated, but he thrust harder, deeper, like he was starving for it, and Castiel gave him more.

"You can feel the warmth of the sun on your back when you wash the Impala--"

Dean came suddenly, with a small cry that was half pleasure and half despair, and Castiel finished quietly, "You can save that world."

"No, I can't," Dean spat, and Castiel tensed, squeezing his eyes shut and bracing himself against the pain he knew would come.

What happened instead was Dean's hand slid between his legs and grabbed his penis. Castiel started, but it didn't hurt, and in fact when Dean started stroking it made his breath hitch. "What--" he began, but Dean covered his mouth with his other hand, and Castiel fell silent as he felt his body respond to the touches. Terror and bewilderment didn't stop him from swelling in Dean's hand, the sensation completely new and strange and good, and Castiel's breaths turned into soft, surprised gasps. He didn't understand why he felt more violated by this than he did when Dean used him, but the more Dean stroked, the less Castiel cared. He writhed helplessly, as he so often had before, but this time, caught between Dean's solid weight at his back and Dean's tight grip in front, Castiel writhed in pleasure. It was so different from the pain, just as intense and just as relentless in making Castiel need so desperately he was almost sobbing from it and begging for it, but instead of making Castiel need for it to stop, it made him need more, whatever it was, and more, and more. And Dean gave it to him until he was blind and bucking wildly and completely lost.

Castiel screamed when he came, and fell apart as utterly in Dean's hands as he did when Dean hurt him, but this time Dean held him together with those hands and didn't let go until Castiel stopped shaking. Then he pulled out, wiped off his hand, and left Castiel alone on the rack without a word.

In the silence that followed, Castiel closed his eyes in shame and prayed.

***

He prayed for six days because that's how long it was before Dean came back.

"Dean," he said, a little bit hopefully but mostly fearfully and not knowing at all what to expect.

He certainly, certainly didn't expect Dean to whisper, "I'm sorry," before sinking to his knees between Castiel's legs and using his mouth to make an angel scream again.

***

Over the next few weeks, or maybe it was months, every time Castiel tried to say something, Dean shut him up with a hand or a mouth around his penis. It was a world more preferable to the pain, and at one point, Castiel realized the sight of Dean no longer made his heart race with panic and his stomach sink with dread, and he no longer flinched away when Dean touched him because it had been so long since those hands had brought him anything but pleasure and comfort. Funny how the same wrong and disgusting thing could hurt so badly one day and feel so good the next. Castiel even found himself shamefully looking forward to it, sometimes, but it frustrated him all the same. He didn't understand, and when he tried to ask, Dean only touched him again, even if Castiel was already too tired and too sensitive and tried to squirm away. Dean always took his time in those cases, and he never relented until Castiel came again.

Dean became as good at pleasuring Castiel as he'd ever been at hurting him. And he became more obsessed with pleasuring Castiel than he'd ever been with hurting him. But whatever it was that he was looking for in the way Castiel arched greedily into his mouth when he sucked, in the sound of Castiel's moans against his neck when he pressed into that spot, whatever it was he needed, Castiel could tell he wasn't getting it.

He always got the impression it hurt Dean to look at his eyes.

***

"Stop, Dean," Castiel commanded one day, when they were still tangled together breathlessly but Dean was already stirring again inside him. To his surprise, Dean stopped. He looked at Castiel as though he'd been slapped, and there was a tinge of green in his eyes. "Tell me what you want from me," Castiel said, more gently.

And Dean blurted, "I want to be worth the way you look at me." He took a deep breath, and then it was endless. "I wanted to make you stop looking at me like that, I wanted to make you hate me, because you should, fuck, you shouldn't be here, but you are, and you shouldn't look at me like that, but you do, and you won't stop, I couldn't make you stop, I even carved out your fucking eyes but you always grew them back and kept looking, and your fucking faith, I couldn't, so instead I had to try--" Dean broke off, shaking and looking away and trying not to cry.

Castiel touched his shoulder, but his stunned silence was broken only when Dean made him moan again.

***

"You are worth everything," Castiel breathed the next day, when Dean climbed on top of him, and he must have shone with hope.

It was Dean's turn to flinch. "How can you even say that? After everything I've--"

"Your worth isn't judged by how much pain or pleasure you dole out," Castiel told him patiently.

"Then what is it judged by?" Dean asked, and the question was so desperately haunted it made Castiel ache.

He shook his head. "I am not here to judge you, Dean."

"Why are you here?" Dean asked harshly, before he whispered, "Why did you stay?"

"I told you. I have faith in you, Dean."

Dean shook his head once, furiously. "You keep saying that. I don't even know what it means."

Castiel's smile was small enough to miss in a blink, but Dean didn't blink. "This is your problem, Dean," Castiel told him. "You have no faith." And for the first time in a year, he rolled his shoulders and let his wings unfold slowly behind him. They were black now, and the cramped bones creaked in protest, but it felt glorious to finally stretch them out wide. Dean looked both impressed and intimidated as his glance darted from one massive wingtip all the way to the other. "They won't grow back if you cut them off," Castiel said quietly. "And then neither of us will ever leave this place, and the world will crumble. This is faith."

Dean swallowed hard, and just before he kissed Castiel for the first and last time, the angel saw green. For all the anger and lust and desperation that had defined everything else Dean had ever done to Castiel, his kiss was surprisingly sweet. The desperation was still there, but it was tempered by a sort of chaste tenderness, as if Dean wanted to say I'm sorry and thank you all at once, and Castiel would never forget any of the things he'd done to him, but he knew that it wasn't Dean who had done them. This was Dean now, the man who loved pie and beer and his car and Sam and Castiel, and here, in the bottom of Hell with blood and fire all around them, Castiel kissed him back and thought, I found you.

The chains fell away from him, and so did Dean. "Go," he said. "Please."

Castiel tilted his head. "Come with me."

"And what, save the world?" Dean shook his head and took another step back. "I can't do it, Cas. It's too big. I'll fail and then you won't look at me like that anymore and I can't--" He shook his head again. "You'll find someone else to save the world. It's not me. Go."

Castiel sighed. There was nothing he could say that would make Dean believe him yet, so he said nothing. That could come later, when Dean was ready. So Castiel decided it would be easier on Dean if he didn't remember his forty-first year in Hell, and for now, it was enough that he had let Castiel go. Dean didn't fight him when Castiel pressed two fingers to his forehead, so when he slumped forward into the angel's arms, Castiel gripped him tight and raised him from perdition.

***

Castiel doesn't tell him any of this, only nods once and almost, almost smiles when Dean thanks him with a knife to the heart. At least it doesn't hurt, this time.

fin.

In case anyone is interested, I wrote commentary on this fic here.