Smoke

Castiel strained his senses, but the sigils on the chair, which trapped and bound him, also essentially blinded him. Dean turning to dark smoke had changed the texture of the man’s thoughts, the colored edges and shifting shapes Castiel could sometimes glimpse, but the chair had cut them off entirely.

Bela sprawled on a low bench by the far wall, inspecting some blade she’d picked up and casting looks his ways when she seemed to think he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t see her smoke, either.

“You can’t think this will end well,” Castiel said, not bothering to pitch his voice louder than he would if Bella were standing right by his chair. She may or may not deign to reply in any case. She was either sticking to her cover or had really decided to follow Dean’s new demonic lead. Castiel tried hard not to feel sick. “Either Dean is playing them, in which case going along with it too well could end with you creating a rope for you own neck, or he’s actually been corrupted. If that’s the case-”

“Then I’ll survive, angel,” Bela said. “I’ve survived worse.”

Castiel was less than sure of that. Dean as a demon the last time seemed to be mostly drinking and singing and killing whoever was thrown at him, right up until he decided to go after Sam. Dean as a demon was terrifying because Dean was terrifying. Dean without his empathy and his sense of justice was more dangerous than most things Castiel had hunted in his long life.

He opened his mouth to try again, but a crack and flash of light rocked the cavern, and Bella was on her feet and across the space before it was done with.

She vanished outside and Castiel made a fresh attempt to get loose.

He stopped when Bela reappeared, leading two familiar figures into the cavern.

“Sam,” Castiel called out. “Hannah. What-?”

“A spell, Castiel,” Hannah said, arriving by his side with worry in her eyes and her blade in her hand. “We need to get you out of here. Now.”

“Not without Dean,” Sam said, and Castiel had heard that note in the man’s voice before.

“Of course not without Dean,” he said. “But Hannah, these sigils, I can’t-”

“Let me,” Bela said, rolling her eyes and sliding up next to Hannah. Something in her posture had relaxed, for all she’d been practically lounging before. On the surface, at least. “Dean’s lost his mind, what there was of it,” she went on, running a hand over the sigils by Castiel’s forearm as she spoke over her shoulder to Hannah. “Either he really has gone for the whole new Monarch of the Fell Lands thing or he’s playing them, and if he’s playing then he’s got a lot better at it over the years.”

“Where is he now?” Sam asked. “He might need back-up.”

“Please,” Bela said, smirking. “If anything, he has more help than any one demonic king could need. And they’re out hunting down any of Dean’s remaining enemies. I have to say, Dean as leader of all Hell could be a real prospect, whatever anyone might feel about it. Ah, there we are. Hold on a tick.”

Castiel felt it as the binding gave, gasping and pulling his arm free as soon as it was released.

“What did you do?” Sam asked.

“And why didn’t you do it sooner?” Castiel asked.

Bela just stared at him.

“And I thought you were a tactician,” she said. “Weren’t you playing along as well? How would it have looked to Dean, if he fetched back up and found you wandering about free as a bird. He’d skewer me, if I was lucky.”

She possibly couldn’t help the fact her smirk looked suggestive. Possibly.

“I wasn’t exactly as convincing as you were being,” Castiel said. “You were just acting until Sam and Hannah could arrive?”

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Bela said, turning to Hannah with an almost apologetic look on her face. “I hoped, of course. Besides, for all I knew, you were testing me, Castiel. Dean could have turned you. Knights of Hell have all sorts of powers, and that’s before we get to the power he has over you just by being Dean Winchester. But now Sam and Hannah are here, any plans to play along aren’t needed. By either of us.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Sam said, and reached out a hand to stop Bela before she could reach down to undo the sigils on Castiel’s left ankle. “Cas, how sure are you Dean is acting?”

Castiel closed his eyes and sighed. He felt the muscle in his jaw tic, the one that never used to do that. Since being human, or close to human, he’d lost some of his control of his vessel. His body. Irritation was a much more physical thing than it used to be, as was panic.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Bela’s right. Dean’s either acting at his best, or he really has been swayed. That doesn’t mean we can’t sway him back. But…”

Sam frowns, crouching down and setting a hand over Castiel’s right hand, the one still bound.

“But what, Cas?”

“If he is acting, it’s for a reason. And he locked me here. I can’t help but think…”

“If it’s part of Dean’s plan, he might need you to stay here,” Sam said. “Yeah, I had the same thought. But can we adjust it, so you aren’t actually stuck? Can we make it look like you are? Loosen the ropes, kind of thing?”

“With demonic sigils of this kind?” Bella asked. She looked at Sam and at Castiel as though they were stupid. “Demonic sigils of angelic origin, no less? You think it will be as simple as…as loosening the ropes?”

“Can you do it or not?” Sam asked.

Hannah put out a hand and rested it on Bela’s shoulder, and Bela tilted her head as though she wanted to lean down and press her cheek to it.

“Fine. I can do it,” she said. “But the four of us need an actual plan. Dean might run on instinct and charm and a bull-headed belief his word shapes the universe, but the rest of us need something a little more concrete.”

But she worked on the sigils as Castiel and Hannah discussed options, Castiel tamping down on the hope that had flared when he saw his human brother and angelic sister stride in. He’d been fighting to free himself, because on his own, without even the dubious support of Bella, he’d needed to be able to fight to the full. But now he had two people he could trust, and he could afford to stay in the chair. To an extent, he could.

As Sam threw in ideas and debated the ones put forward by the angels, Bella worked on, undoing and redoing each set of bindings until Castiel felt the pull but also the weakness. He could only hope she was as good as she seemed at this, and that Dean, and the other demons, wouldn’t notice it as soon as they came back.

He dearly needed to get to the point where he wasn’t having to think of Dean as a demon. He hopes he wouldn’t have to instead get used to it, because Bela, for all her self-serving ways and smirking, had a point: if it came to it, Castiel wasn’t sure he could turn on Dean. Saving Dean was his preference, but if it came down to destroying him or joining him? Castiel only hoped he had the resolve to do what had to be done.