Woop! My first intended multi-chapter fic in far too long (One Thing doesn't count, that was completely unintended.) Chapters for this one will be short, it's angsty and I just can't sit and write huge chunks of angst at a time. I depressed myself with his one. There might be a little bit of Dean/Cas in this, if you have a glass of wine, tilt your head to the side and hang from a door frame (I can't help it, it's so deeply ingrained in me that I write it without thinking).

Lyrics at the beginning and end of each chapter are from Within Temptation's Hand of Sorrow. I was listening to it when I started the fic.

Reviews are loved, flames keep me warm at night.

Disclaimer: I don't own the song, I'm borrowing it for my own twisted creative purposes, the same goes for Castiel and the boys. I'm borrowing them. All I own is my hug picture with Misha, it is the most precious thing to me.

The Hand Of Sorrow.

The child without a name grew up to be the hand
To watch you, to shield you, or kill on demand
The choice he'd made he could not comprehend
His blood a grim secret they had to commend

Light had flooded the cramped, cluttered kitchen, all but blinding the terrified prophet at Castiel's side. The prophet who has begun to mutter and babble wildly about how Castiel and Dean are doing the right thing, about how humanity should not be damned just because a few of the higher up angels have said that it shall be so. Castiel fights, he fights so hard to give Dean the time that he needs, the time to reach Sam and to stop the Apocalypse before it has a chance to really begin. He tries but the sheer number of angels that have been brought to the battle, numbers that Castiel had not thought could be spared from the false lines of the front, those numbers are simply overwhelming. So naturally, no matter how desperate he is, they defeat him, Castiel has no wish to kill his own kind and it proves a weakness that is his undoing. They defeat him and drag him, vessel and all, back to Heaven in chains, Castiel thinks that is the worst of it, chains and then death, but they go one step further. They rip Jimmy Novak's soul from his battered body, a soul that kicks and screams and all but bites to go back where it belongs, to help Castiel fight an unwinnable battle and once that is done, once Jimmy is gone forever, they bind him to the vessel.

"If you wish to save the humans that badly, Castiel, then it is only fitting that you should be as one of them," Zachariah's mocking words fill the angel's head, echoing painfully and carrying the promise of future agony and torment. With the echos of the words filling his mind and nothing to look at but the four stone walls coated in the bloody symbols designed to bind his kind and their grace, Castiel has nothing to take his mind away from the unfamiliar sensation of pain. His wrists are shackled, connected to chains that keep him suspended above the floor, the shoulders of what is not his body screaming with fire and his heart filling with despair. Castiel has never felt more alone, and all because one man, one, asked him to sacrifice his very being, sacrifice everything for him.

So Castiel hangs in his stone walled prison in Heaven, the lungs that are now his filling with blood and fluid, his breathing degenerating into the simple, laboured gasp of the damned and he thinks that this might be it, that his end has finally come. He is wrong. His superiors, former superiors, do not want him dead too quickly. They want to use him as an example to the others, an example of the punishments that treachery will bring. Time, Castiel knows, moves differently in Heaven. He could have come close to his death a thousand times before Dean even realises that something is wrong, before Dean realises that he is missing or brings himself to care.

Castiel is not allowed to die, day after day one of his brethren will come, look him over and if they decide that he is too close to death, or that his current agony is simply not enough, they will heal him until the pain of living makes him scream. Sometimes there is fear in the eyes of his keepers, mostly there is just disgust. Between bouts of anguished cries and pained sobs, Castiel wonders what they were told, wonders if Zachariah and those who have sided with him have blamed Lucifer's rise on Castiel's actions alone, washing their hands clean of it even if they will never be able to remove the stain of it from their souls. When he is not thinking about the deceptions of his superiors, Castiel thinks about Dean, reaches out for Dean and every now and again he can almost fool himself into thinking that he has made contact, fool himself enough that he asks his charge for help.

Eventually, his keepers seem to grow tired of keeping Castiel suspended above a trap, tire of the need to heal him every few days so that the torment they believe he deserves can continue, annoyed with the way that they keep having to heal him to make sure that the body, Jimmy's body, his body does not die. Castiel feels it now, all of it, where before it was just a shell, he feels everything, each little movement, hears the pounding of what is now his blood in ears that are just as much his. He is left to lie, pained and exhausted, injured, in the cold and the damp while they try to think of his next punishment and Castiel thinks that this is almost punishment enough, except they need to make an example of him and nothing is too harsh when making an example of a disobedient soldier.

"You failed, Castiel," Zachariah tells him one day. Castiel does not open his eyes, does not move from the corner that he has managed to drag himself into, propped up in the corner so that he can finally breathe without choking, head tipped back and eyes closed. "Lucifer is risen and Dean is ours to command." Castiel still does not move, tries not to allow Zachariah see him flinch at the thought that Dean is once more under the thumb of the angels. It would seem that his former superior does not care if Castiel reacts or not, he is here for another reason. "I thought you should meet your replacement, and her you," that does make Castiel open his eyes and he is horrified to realise that he recognises her, wishes that he did not, because she was as deeply involved with the angels who knew the truth and wanted to stop the prophecy from coming to pass as he was. Behind Zachariah she shakes her head, the superior angel does not know, does not know that after Anna had fallen, this one had become Castiel's confidant. Is so absorbed in his own private panic that he does not notice Zachariah pick a hot brand from the air, does not realise it is there until it is pressed against his chest and he howls with the pain, a howl that is quickly joined with her voice as Zachariah treats her to the same thing. It makes Castiel realise something, this is about control, this is about her not being able to come for him should the Winchesters try to convince her of the truth that she already knows.

In his agony, Castiel reaches for Dean again, only to be stopped by the branding iron once more. The fear he feels now is crippling. He knows that this will be the last time that he sees this room. That no matter what he may wish or want, his replacement is not going to be the one to save him, to help Dean save him. After time immeasurable, his own cries of agony stop, and she has fallen mercifully silent long before that, the branding iron is removed and he feels Zachariah move closer to him.

"Remember this, Castiel, this reprieve, it is the last that you shall receive for a long time." The reprieve turns out to be oblivion and Castiel welcomes it.

When he comes too, Castiel is bound to a table, one that reminds him of the racks in hell and it is not there that the similarities end. Castiel is not alone in the room and it is with another wash of horror that he realises that he knows the one who is with him, one that he had trusted. Understands now why it is that Dean cannot ever seem to trust. Castiel has been betrayed and even when the torture starts, it is that thought that hurts him the most.

He's torn between his honor and the true love of his life
He prayed for both but was denied

Reviews are little Castiels that fly above our heads and mini Deans under the bed. A small Sam in hand and a tiny John by the chair, a review that can show how much you care.

Artemis