Chapter Text
Cas is strong. Cas is one of the best fighters in the garrison, ask anyone. Cas needs to win this fight, to warn the Winchester brothers about the angels’ real endgame.
Unfortunately, Cas’ opponents are strong, they are also two of the best fighters in the garrison, and they need to win this fight to prevent Cas from contacting the Winchesters at all.
Two to one. Ultimately, Cas cannot win. He does not.
Ripped from Jimmy Novak’s body, Cas is dragged into the sky, higher and higher, higher than humans can understand. Cas doesn’t watch the world fall away from him, as he sometimes does in flight. Cas closes his eyes, to prepare for what is coming.
Cas has heard the whispers of what is done to angels who disobey. Death, of course, or doomed to fall, but that does not come first. The whispers say death is only delivered once it has been asked for.
And Cas is afraid.
Where are you, Father?
It was that part that frightens Cas most about what he learned through eavesdropping, through old favours, through Anna. The angels using the Winchesters—disturbing, but nothing new. That the angels intended to betray humanity…that was not all that surprising. The endgame did, of course, allow for Paradise on Earth, but only if they won. Still, angels were more proud than they liked to admit, and they could not, would not consider the possibility of loss. The Lord will provide.
Except the Lord isn’t there anymore. He could have been gone for years, decades, even centuries of mortal time, and only a few would have known.
Cas should have known. He was a young angel, but he had fuzzy, bright memories of his Father’s presence, before the Fall of Lucifer, before the Fall of Man. His Father was closer to them then, and though they didn’t see Him Cas remembers His love. Now there is only silence and fear in the halls of heaven, some afraid to speak too loudly, others too blind to see how far they have strayed.
What has happened in Heaven, that they have become so close to demons?
Cas shudders. Blasphemy. Blasphemy. BLASPHEMY.
Cas doesn’t mean to be blasphemous. He doesn’t want to believe that Father is gone, that the chain of command has a new head, that people and angels are dying for nothing.
What you’re feeling? It’s called doubt.
But it isn’t doubt any longer. It’s cold certainty, and Cas wishes he didn’t know.
That kind of regret won’t help.
They enter Heaven seconds later and if Cas was human, he would describe the feeling as being ‘on his knees’. His true form doesn’t have knees, but the feeling is the same. He looks up into Zach’s face, and hates him.
“Castiel, explain yourself.”
“What am I explaining?” Cas looks straight at Zach, though he’s pulsing with rage.
“You have been doubting. You have gone against orders. You have tried to tell the Winchesters our plan. Do you have any justification for these actions?”
Cas does, but it won’t help. Zach would not have gone this far if he himself had any doubts.
“I serve the Will of God, and continue to do so,” was all he said. “I serve his Word of Right and Wrong. What you are doing is wrong, Zachariah, and you know it.”
Zach makes a sign. Cas is dragged up, slammed against a wall harder than mortal steel, and he can no longer move. He braces himself. This will hurt, this will test him, but they will not break him. He has to stay strong, keep fighting. For humanity…for the Winchesters…for Dean’s sake.
Zach comes closer, until he and Cas are almost touching. He isn’t wearing his vessel, but his smile is very much the same.
“I am doing wrong, Castiel? I am doing my best to take over for our Father, who saw fit to abandon his post, abandon us all—”
“You don’t know that!” Cas spits.
“And save as much of humanity as I can, that we can,” Zach continues. “We will win this war, Castiel, and those who die will be saved, I guarantee it.” He heaved a great sigh. “Whereas you…Castiel, you are committing the worst damage you can.”
Cas doesn’t understand.
“We are supposed to aid humanity and give protection to our charges, and what have you done to Dean Winchester?”
He still doesn’t understand.
Zach smiles again, and Cas tenses. “Dean Winchester has a great destiny, he will stop the apocalypse by…well, you know his role. And you had your orders. Save him from Hell, although you could have gotten there faster—” he pauses long enough for Cas to wince. He had done the best he could, but the hunter had broken just before he got there.
“His guilt is on my hands, his shame. I understand that, I am trying to make him understand that!”
“Don’t you understand?” Zach’s smile is gone, and he looks Cas up and down, probably looking for the best place to start carving with the knife now in his hands. “I don’t care about your failure to stop the breaking of the seal—if you understood what you know to be happening, you know that seal had to break! Your orders were to get Dean Winchester out of Hell. That was it.” He comes closer to Cas, rests the knife near his eyes. “They said nothing about making a bond with him.”
Cas doesn’t answer. The knife is not frightening anymore.
“Nothing about aiding him, about taking his side, about trying to show him that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ angels. Nothing about reaching out to comfort him when his brother is off with the demon bitch…”
Cas doesn’t want to hear any more.
“Nothing about falling in love with him.”
“I am not in love with him.”
“You were always a terrible liar, Castiel.” Zach tuts, steps away from him, twirling the knife. “How can you deny it? You want him to succeed so badly you risked everything to gain knowledge of his true fate. You have defied the highest authority—well, you thought you did, and you don’t truly regret that. You’re Cas, now, not Castiel, and you like it.”
Cas—because he is Cas, damnit—can’t speak. Where is this going?
“And the worst part is you cannot see how you will break him.”
“I would fall before I hurt Dean.” Cas speaks before he thinks, but he means it.
Zach laughs. “Can’t you see, Castiel? You have already begun to destroy him.”
Cas glares at him.
“Don’t believe me?” Zach hums. “Perhaps I should show you.” He brushes his essence against Cas, directly over his Grace, and the world splinters.
********************
Dean cradles Sam’s dead body, weeping desperately. All around them angels and demons fight, but his world extends only to his little brother, who died trying to protect him from Lucifer.
“Sammy, I told you, I wasn’t mad,” Dean chokes out. He’s bleeding, he’s wounded, he doesn’t care. “You didn’t have to die to fix this. I was supposed to do this, I wasn’t strong enough.” He looks up at the sky and screams, “you were supposed to help me! You were supposed to protect him!”
Cas stares in horror as no one answers Dean’s accusation.
“Oh wait, I forgot,” Dean says bitterly. “Angels can only help humans so far, right? I can’t depend on you forever?” He draws a knife from his belt, and takes his brother’s hand. “I should never have depended on you at all.”
The blade sinks into Dean’s throat, and he slumps down, choking on his own blood.
****************************
They’re sitting in a diner, and Dean is calm and happy across from Cas. He’s staring at him with utter adoration, the way Amelia looked at Jimmy.
“We’ll hit the road tomorrow, look for new leads,” Dean is saying.
“That sounds good,” Cas hears himself say.
Where is Sam?
“We’ve got to bring him down, Cas,” Dean says. His eyes cloud. “I know he was my brother, but damn, he’s lost it.”
“Lucifer was once my brother,” the other Cas says matter-of-factly. “We will fight them both, and we will win. Heaven will reward us.”
Dean tries to smile. “You know, I used to be mad for you making me choose between Heaven and Sam, but I see why now.” He takes Cas’ hand in his. “I have you.” And in his eyes Cas can see the angelic control, not enough to wipe Dean out, but enough to skew what was most important. The other Cas flicks his hand, and the glow flares briefly.
“Of course Dean,” the other Cas says to the man he has to control every day to stop him from breaking away from him, from Heaven, from the Plan. “You have me.”
**************************************
Cas is in a house, watching himself read a bedtime story to a tiny girl with Dean’s eyes and Jimmy Novak’s dark hair—how did that happen?—while Dean stands in the doorway and smiles. He looks older, closer to John Winchester’s age than Bobby, but still with more gray hair and lines than Cas honestly expected him to have. He looks at peace.
This Cas has no wings.
He kisses the child goodnight, murmurs a name Cas cannot hear, and turns out the light. Dean kisses ‘sweetheart’ goodnight too, and takes Cas’ hand, draws him into their bedroom.
A demon lies in wait.
Cas runs for the child, but that’s what the demon wants. It chases him, and he and the child die screaming while Dean lies helpless. Cas knows this will break the man, that he cannot recover from this loss, it is too much. Dean will never be happy again.
**************************************
Dean is young again, but dead.
He stands in a wide field, surrounded by other heroes just like him. Some of his family is here, though not all of his blood, but he does not stand with them. He looks towards the sky, and waits.
An angel lands—Sera, the guardian of the dead. She speaks with a few of the dead, but she avoids Dean’s gaze. He walks over to him anyways.
“Did you see him?” Dean asks.
Sera nods. “He tells you that he loves you.”
Dean pauses. “Can I see him?”
“He is busy, Dean,” Sera says gently. “He has much to do, and time is strange up here.”
“I know,” Dean says, and he’s so polite despite the yearning in his eyes.
“Your loved ones are here,” Sera whispers.
Dean shakes his head. “Not all of them.” And he stands in Heaven, with everything and everyone he wants except for the lover who cannot die, who will never join him, who will make him bereft even in this place of peace.
***********************************
Cas screams and writhes under Zachariah’s spell. The visions grow more terrifying, more painful as the time goes on, until there are no words in any human tongue, no words even in Enochian to describe Dean’s pain.
His pain.
That is when he starts to beg for death.
*******************************************
It stops and Castiel looks up. Angels cannot cry, but there would be no tears now anyways. He understands. He has made a terrible mistake. It may be too late to undo it.
"I am sorry,” he whispers, voice nearly gone. “Forgive me.”
Zachariah smiles kindly. “Of course, Castiel. You did not understand the consequences of what you did. But you know now, don’t you?”
Castiel nods.
“You know that nothing can change Dean’s fate, no matter what you do.”
Castiel nods again.
Zach waves his hand and the restraints fall away. “You know that you must follow this plan, follow our lead, or Dean will die.”
Castiel straightens. He looks Zach dead in the eye. “I understand.”
And he does. And he plunges into Claire Novak’s body, protects Jimmy Novak, honours his dying wish because this human has suffered for him and he will be kind. But he turns away from Dean, because Dean cannot suffer for Castiel.
He is not worthy of that. He is not worthy of Dean’s love. He is not worthy of Dean’s pain.
Castiel is an angel of the Lord, and that will have to be enough.