Chapter Text
(2,853 words)
Time passes differently in Heaven—it's a lot like Hell in that regard, alongside countless other similarities that are becoming more and more apparent every day. Forty years in Hell is a mere four months on earth. Three days on earth is a whole year. Time is much slower, and drags on much longer.
Sometimes, this is an advantage. Other times, this only allows for a greater capacity of violence and suffering in a shorter period of time. In hindsight, he can't help but think during one of the long stretches of deafening silence ringing around in his head, it was foolish to think he could make a difference at all, that he could warn the Righteous Man of something that could be so detrimental to Heaven's plans. The Apocalypse is to start, and Sam Winchester will be the one to start it, just as Dean Winchester will be the one to stop it as Michael's vessel; there is no room in such a perfect plan for one rebellious angel. Their own personal opinions or reservations on the matter could not be of less import.
He…he knows this, deep down, but sometimes, when he sits just on the realm that humans cannot see and watches silently from a distance as Sam and Dean smile and interact and act in a way he privately wishes his own brothers would…he forgets. He can only see them happy to have one another—the last possession either of them really has—even as tensions arise with Sam's…less than desirable habits and as his relationship with the demon becomes deeper and more detrimental.
It was foolish—stupid, as Dean would say. He was just being selfish, gazing at the warmth in both Sam and Dean's eyes and the love in their hearts and just…wanting. Wanting what was neither his to want, nor to have. Angels don't need love or warmth or people to rely on beyond basic necessities and what is practical for battle. Angels are a unit, working together and moving forward to pursue their latest motive. They don't do it out of love because they don't have emotions—not that they would love him even if they did, seeing as how he's Heaven's most notorious…'screw-up'.
This time, however, Heaven will not stand by and watch the waves of Castiel's destruction wash over both Sam and Dean, who, unlike himself, are important parts of the future. To think he could go against all of Heaven so easily, to meet with the Righteous Man and properly warn him of what was to come after realizing that what was to come was not what Dean wanted to happen by any means…
He deserves the punishment that follows. Most of the time, it's not even physical—or as physical as it can be when he's a multidimensional wavelength. Angels talk to each other constantly in their heads, always there to be heard by any and all who know how to listen. During punishments, that contact is temporarily severed and the guilty individual is forced into silence and solitude until the other angels are ready to address their actions once more.
Castiel has heard that humans on earth go mad when all contact with humanity is ripped away from them, similar to how he was ripped away after a drawn out battle in the warehouse he'd asked Dean to meet him at and dragged back to Heaven to be confronted with his actions. He's not a human, but he must be becoming one, because everything is…far too quiet and desolate for him to feel comfortable, locked in a tiny cell in the corner of Heaven.
This is far from the first time he's been sent to the cell, and it is likely not the last. Still, he finds himself scratching viciously at any patch of skin he can find sometimes, if only just to finally feel something after being alone for so long. He heals up quickly enough, anyway, so it's not like anyone will see it.
It's been months in Heaven. It hasn't even been a day on earth.
He was confronted and heavily scolded both verbally and physically when he first arrived before being sent to wait in a cell. It allowed his initial injuries a chance to heal and gave him a chance to think. Sam and Dean are merely human, and their lifetimes are nothing compared to his. Whatever good they can do in their short lives is nothing compared to what he could do if he follows Heaven's orders.
And yet, he wants to protect their lives more than he values his own. They're important and are destined to save the world. He's just another angel, and not even a decent one at that, hated by his own kind and thought of as 'weird' among the humans he longs to be close to.
The door that's been sealed for months screeches open haltingly—the first sound that wasn't from his own throat that he's heard since he was dragged here. Zachariah steps through with a sneer already plastered on the manifestation of his vessel's face.
(Why he chose a vessel so aged and unattractive was still beyond Castiel, especially in a world where those things are valued even above personality, though he'd possibly selected that vessel because the man was desperate to make his life mean something—just like Zachariah. The two are a perfect match.)
"It's time," Zachariah's voice booms in the tiny, echoing cell, and Castiel quickly stands to follow the older angel, fearing what might become of him if he doesn't. After all, he needs to get back to Dean. "C'mere."
Zachariah grabs onto his arm and pulls him into a room that looks like it might belong more in Hell—manacles hanging from the ceiling and an array of weapons arranged on a nearby tray. He doesn't protest as his wrists are brought through the chains and he's dragged upwards until his bare toes barely scrape the hard floor. Heaven is supposed to be perfect and beautiful; Castiel can't find beauty in the heavy chains or the blood painting the floor, sure to be joined by a new coat shortly.
"So, what were you trying to do, Castiel?" Zachariah begins, pacing the room in a crisp suit as Castiel wears next to nothing—a technique used to establish who in the room has all the power. "Trying to warn the Winchesters? Tell them the ending before they're even through the book?"
Castiel remains silent, which earns him a scoff and a slap.
"Don't plead ignorance now, Castiel, after we've gone through all the trouble of bringing you up here." He still remains silent, not even looking at the older angel. Seeing he's not going to respond, Zachariah continues, "You're just lucky I volunteered to take on your punishment and not Naomi. She thinks your brain needs to be fixed. I think you just need a little persuasion to go on the right path again."
Castiel can't do anything more than shudder, not sure which option he prefers. It's not like he had a choice, anyway.
"Oh, come on. You think we don't know, Cas?" Castiel looks up sharply at that, which makes Zachariah smirk. "Yes, we've been watching you live it up with the Winchesters for a while now. You watch them with such longing. It's disgusting," the older angel spits. "Tell me, do you serve God, or them?"
"And who do you serve…Zachariah?" He's slapped again for that, but Castiel continues, "You can't sit back and claim you serve God when you know what is coming, Zachariah. This was not His plan and you know it."
The older angel is quiet for only a second before growling, "Enough." Zachariah picks up a blade Castiel has only seen Uriel wield before, running a finger down the edge. Catching his gaze, the older angel smirks again. "Like it? It can kill angels. Hurts like a bitch, too, as your precious Winchesters would say."
With that, the blade is quickly plunged into his lower abdomen and then yanked free just as suddenly before Castiel can even let out a gasp. The pain is excruciating as the blade punches through the manifestation of his vessel and sinks into his true form, marring it as his grace tries to rush past all the blood spilling from the wound to stain the floor.
"Enough games. That's just a warm up." Zachariah leans closer. "You knew exactly what you were doing. I'm here to make sure it doesn't happen again." The blade sinks somewhere between two of his ribs. "You do not obey man," he hisses in Castiel's ear, withdrawing the blade only to push it into his lower side, just below his floating ribs. "You do not serve man." It's yanked free and goes into his hip, just barely missing the bone. "And you do not serve Dean Winchester."
This goes on for hours until he's let down and brought back to the cell, more sliced flesh than intact and covered in blood and his own grace. The door is slammed shut behind him as he sinks to the floor and shakes violently in the corner of his cell, trying to heal as many of his injuries as he can before he's brought back.
-
Three days later, he's hauled back in. This time, he's beaten. It's almost better, because the bruises don't go down to his true form. He is returned to his cell two hours later. Two days later, he's brought back and this process is repeated, Zachariah hissing each time for as long as the session drags on about how he is an angel and he does not serve Dean Winchester.
After a month of this and one brief visit from a scowling Naomi (which Castiel likely was not supposed to see, as the blade went in his eye a moment after she had appeared) later, Zachariah seems to realize he's only experiencing pain and no life-changing revelations to go with it, so he changes tactics.
The next time Castiel is pulled into the room and hooked up to the manacles, he's ordered, "Take out your wings." Castiel can't help but freeze, tensing in his confines. He should've pretended to change— "Now, Castiel."
Unable to do anything else, Castiel summons his wings into the physical plane, his vessel's back immediately straining at the added weight it's unaccustomed to carrying, let alone while his feet can't even reach the ground to brace for the weight. Still, wings are the most sensitive part of an angel. Surely Zachariah wouldn't—
The blade is sunk deep into the flesh of his left wing and he cries out, the limb jerking even as Zachariah tightly grips the place where it connects to his vessel and forces it to be still as he hisses, "You don't serve Dean Winchester." An arcing slice is made as Castiel writhes in his bindings. "You don't serve man. You serve us."
A feather is yanked free, and then another one quickly joins it in a fresh pool of blood on the floor. For the first time in as long as Castiel can remember, an angel cries.
-
Six days later, Zachariah has manacles for his wings waiting for him, too, even though they're still not even close to healed from the first time. The older angel focuses all his attention on that area every time after that, and there is less and less time for him to recover in between. At some point, Zachariah had stopped trying to educate him and started just enjoying the brutality of the torture—not that anyone stops him, either way.
Castiel's just glad Zachariah prefers cutting into things instead of cutting off things. That said, Castiel doesn't know why Zachariah has decided manually holding him down was more effective than chaining him up. He suspects the older angel must just like feeling him squirm under the hold he's been too weak to break since his wings were first attacked.
Finally, ten months after he was first hauled back into Heaven, when his wings are more blood and cuts than feathers and flesh, he grits his teeth against a new slice and screams, "I do not serve man!"
Zachariah stills with the blade that's still buried in what remains of his wing, eyes big and bugged out. "What…what did you say?"
"I don't serve man," he manages to get out. "I don't…I don't serve Dean Winchester." He swallows. "I serve Heaven, and I always will."
Blood dribbles down from a mark somewhere on his head and runs into his eye as he pants, trying to catch his breath. The blade is withdrawn from his wing as Zachariah wordlessly hauls him upright and drags him back to his cell before leaving without another word. Days pass. No one comes to see him again, and he uses the time to attempt to heal the worst of the damage.
Two months later, he still hasn't recovered nearly enough to fly. That doesn't matter, however, as a knock comes to his door. An angel he doesn't recognize simply tells him, "It's time."
He's then permitted to leave Heaven for the first time in nearly a year. He wants to stretch his damaged wings and give them a chance to feel the warm rays of the sun again. Instead, he has to go save the Winchesters from a group of demons that are threatening Heaven's newest tools—ironic that he is sent, considering he had just escaped Heaven's persuasion for doing this exact thing. He suspects they're testing him for…something.
He does not disappoint. Castiel barely addresses the Winchesters beyond what he needs to, he reclaims Ji—his vessel, the name is no more important than the man's righteous and kind personality—and he leaves before Sam or Dean can hardly say anything.
That's when Dean stops him and commands his attention with only a few words, as he's always somehow been able to do. "Cas, hold up. What were you gonna tell me?"
Castiel tenses, the action causing his damaged and bloody wings to shift in another plane of existence. He clenches his jaw, turns around, and replies, going for a firm tone but ending up with a quiet and strained one, "I learned my lesson while I was away, Dean. I serve Heaven, I don't serve man. And I certainly don't serve you."
He clenches his jaw again and forces his head up high, walking away with a swagger he doesn't quite pull off as he leaves behind a devastated little girl who has just lost her father again and two betrayed hunters uncertain of how to process this chain of events. It's what had to be done.
Jimmy talks to him, later, but Castiel doesn't respond. Jimmy asks in horror what happened to his wings, because after everything—after Castiel had ripped him from his family once more after intending to take his own daughter instead, leaving Jimmy to be the one to suffer for however long he had to until Castiel let him go again eventually, alone until his death because all his family will surely be long dead by then—Jimmy is a good person. Castiel only wishes the same could be said about him. But he isn't even a person, let alone a decent one.
-
Castiel wishes he could just stay away from the Winchesters, but he's naturally told to interfere. Dean calls him down and, amidst his true worry about his brother, seems genuinely concerned with him, though a brief selection of questions quickly confirms Castiel's original conclusion—Dean is concerned about whatever he was going to tell him and certainly not about his unimportant well-being.
Castiel should be accustomed to it after millennia spent calling the angels that would rather see his destruction than see him prosper 'family'. He ruins any even small chance that Dean might not hate him when he releases Sam from the panic room, as per Heaven's unusual orders. He then tarnishes the strong relationship he used to have with Anna when he turns her in and watches her be taken away, knowing the fate that awaits her and trying not to care.
A few days later, he makes possibly the stupidest decision of his life when, damaged wings from his most recent torture session and all, he defies Heaven's orders yet again and sends Dean to Sam to try to avert the Apocalypse before he faces off against an irate Raphael and is exploded, once and for all.
But then he's not dead (although Jimmy is, regrettably), and he sees this new life as a gift from God (though he's privately a little upset that He had not fixed his damaged wings). He uses this gift to help Sam and Dean fight against the Apocalypse as much as he can, though with his powers waning and his wings getting worse with time spent away from Heaven, he fears he's not as helpful as he should be…
His 'saving grace,' so to speak, is that Sam and Dean (and Bobby) are human and cannot tell what state his wings or grace are in. It's not of import, anyway.