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Castiel has lived across a thousand plains. He’s fought in battles against the worst demons, formed stars, built animals with nothing but willful intent and some grace. He is a leader, a follower; an angel and a man.
Castiel, angel of Thursday, ally to the golden vessels and his closest friends. He is a father, he is a brother and a sister. Castiel is more than a simple angel of the lord, he is a caretaker, a protector, and a friend.
The angel has been through time, back and forth across the muddled lines that flowed through his universe. He has been a part of the past, present, and future; not in that order on occasion.
He finds himself getting lost in it. To a being such as he, time finds itself slipping from his grasp like sand between his fingers on a wayward shore. He has memories, sometimes they fog in his age, but other times they are clear behind his eyes as the day they happened. He wastes by a treeline, reminiscing on his past.
He misses when things were simpler, 'Don't step on that fish Castiel; big plans for that fish,' simple. He had a goal, follow the heavenly order until you can no longer, and then once you could no longer you would die. He was alright with that.
Looking back, it was likely the systematic brainwashing that allowed for simplicity. Nonetheless, it was accompanied by a certain level of peace. Afterall, when you are sure you are right, when things turn out bad there is something to look back to. Some overarching scheme to fall toward when he trips, a grand net to catch him and scoop him back to his feet so he can fly again.
Now, after having made more mistakes than he can count, Castiel is lost. He yearns for forgiveness, the biblical kind. He wishes to be washed of his sins, cleansed of his pain, of his hurt. So desperately he wishes he could hold and comfort and fight like he was created to. Castiel wants nothing more than to be able to protect the ones he loves; human, angel or otherwise.
Yet here he sits, lost between one moment and the next, a grain of sand against a mountain in an hourglass, a drop of water in the ocean. He fights to stay in the present, but a being of the ancients can only hold on to each second so tight. They seem to both stretch eons and disappear in a blink. He's found himself skipping forward hours at a time, simply thinking and not thinking at all. Pleasantly numb to the things around him while acutely aware of anything he might need to be looking for.
He is an angel, but lately, he is also simply a man.
He will sit within seconds, watching as the world moves in slow motion while his mind runs laps, a hummingbird's wings against a snail's slow gait, his mind wanders as he feet do. He can no longer fly himself to any destination, but still he often finds himself places he hadn't intended to go, without a clue of how long it may have taken him to arrive.
The angel will come back to himself from a half daze to missed phone calls and voicemails from his friends, sometimes calling for help, more often than not just simple check-ins and updates and inquiries as to why he has been ignoring them.
Castiel will grumble out excuses, following a lead, or forgetting to charge his phone; truthfully he just can't make his mind stop rushing. His thoughts flow with a speed he is no longer capable of keeping up with. His grace has been stretched thin, he is strong, but not in his prime; and the capacity he once had for multidimensional, overlaying thought processes has dwindled with his power.
One track mind, multi-goaled, multi-functional, but only able to put that energy in one place at a time. It was frustrating, to lose himself in such a way. Watching his strengths turn to hindrance before his very eyes.
But, there is nothing he can do to change the past, not without kicking the future so far off track it would be borderline unrecognizable. He knows firsthand the consequences of messing with the timeline, but that does not stop the blind, child-like hope from flickering in and out of his mind as he wanders.
Fruitless thoughts and what-ifs twitch behind his eyelids as he blinks, hours passing between each second, and vice versa. Castiel, oh, how the mighty have fallen.
And fallen he has. He's doomed his brethren to extinction, his siblings have fallen in his name, he has cursed the world over and over with his decisions. He has let the Devil himself taint his own holy vessel, Jimmy did not deserve such a fate, to have an evil etched into his eyes or corrupt his smile lines.
Castiel has stripped a girl of her father, a husband from his wife. He has stolen life and all for what, he is cursed, an angel of the lord and a hindrance on those around him. An unholy-holy being, unknowing and trapped behind his bright ideas that only fall dimmer as he tries harder. He aches to spin himself a web of security for those he's ruined, but his wings are no longer soft nor wide enough to spread like a shield.
He has lost the sword to his sheath; the world has changed and he with it.
Castiel is something, and he is also nothing. Created to fit between and above reality while keeping a watchful eye and standing for what he was taught as right. Castiel thought he knew the beginning, but he had no idea of the end.
Castiel is-
"Cas? When the hell'd you get here?"
The angel blinks out from his daze and glances around from where he is standing at the top of the bunker stairs. "Oh-" he begins, half of his mind still catching up from his inner monologue, the other half placing a simple smile across his face at the sight of his friend, "-not long i'm sure."
Dean hums, arms crossed as he squints across the room, "Okay... Well, are you just going to stand there or are you gonna get your feathery ass down here?"
Cas nods, "Right, yes; I'm coming down."
"You're acting weird, dude," Dean says as Castiel descended the stairs, tracking the movement with skeptical eyes, "What're you doing here anyway? You didn't say anything about dropping by."
Contemplating Dean's words, Cas responds slowly, "I just, ending up here I suppose," Not even fully sure if he's lying or telling the truth.
"Oh,sure," Dean scoffs, a small smile on his face, "Mr. 'I don't answer phone calls because I'm too busy studying trees in a forest I found,' and 'I can't stop by even though I'm only an hour away because I'm following a trail to nowhere,' just happened to show up here to what? Visit dear old Sam and little ole' me? Come on!"
Cas returns the smirk, understanding at least Dean's particular flavor of sarcasm after all these years was one of his greatest accomplishments, "I find that it's easy to end up where I need to be when I need to be there."
A jabbing elbow meets the meat of Castiel's bicep as Dean lightly shoves him and rolls his eyes, "Alright, we get it, you're entwined with fate or whatever."
They fall into step as they unconsciously make their way further into the bunker, the sudden silence a comfort rather than a weight as it had been only moments ago.
It baffles Castiel how much brighter his world seems with the humans in his charge, like the vignette around his gaze suddenly disappears, no longer encroaching on his vision and clouding his sight. Like the box he'd been trapped inside of for so long was simply gone and he was free. That hummingbird fluttering in the wind, the snail no match for its confident flight.
And yet, there was no rush, he was settled in his skin, comfortable, peaceful. Mind that once overlayed like a ridiculous wedding cake reduced to its one focus. Weights fallen from his shoulders, rock lifted from his head.
He doesn't deserve this. Castiel is a mistake, he brings harm trailing in his wake like acid. A bad luck charm with no counter-curse.
Castiel is-
"Look who decided to grace us with his presence!" Dean's words interrupt his downward spiral as they find themselves in the kitchen where Sam was standing by the counter washing a bowl of fruit in the sink, "Hey, get it? Grace?"
Sam ignores the pun in favor of greeting the angel, throwing the words over his shoulder, still focused on his task, "Hey Cas! I thought you didn't need to drop in for another few days, what's with the early visit?"
Dean cuts in before he could respond, "He said, 'The wind leads me like a gentle leaf along the breeze to wherever I may need to land',"
"I did not say that, Dean." He moves a half-step closer to Sam, simple body language to cut Dean off if he chooses to start speaking nonsense again, "I said that it was easy to end up where I need to be when I need to,"
"That's basically the same thing!"
"No, it is not. Your summarization makes me sound overly complex and philosophical."
"You are literally an angel!"
"I-"
Sam places his fruit bowl on the counter, interrupting the petty argument with a cough, "Alright, if you guys are going to keep fighting like an old married couple, I'm kicking both of you out."
"That won't be necessary," Castiel says, throwing both hands up in a placating manner, a gentle smile on his face, "We will stop, Right Dean?"
Dean, never one to back down from a challenge, "Of course, we're all good! Perfect even! The Best!"
Sam rolls his eyes and grabs his bowl, beginning to walk out of the room, "Okay, good; I am going to watch a movie and eat my grapes. You're welcome to join if you don’t start up again."
"I'm not eating that shit," Dean says, "But I'll make some popcorn and watch something as long as it's not some lame serial killer documentary."
"They are not lame, they are interesting!"
"No, they're not. They are creepy."
"Like we haven't done worse!"
"That was so different!"
Maybe Castiel is not as cursed as he thought, not if he was so gifted as to have friends like this. A safe space to call his home, to return to when his mind becomes a battleground of its own and his doubts become seemingly unbeatable waves determined to drown him.
No, here he is forgiven, over and over because he is loved. Family, friends, near and far, he is surrounded by a love he could've never even hoped to feel just a decade or so ago. So truly wrapped and consumed in the unyielding truth of his kind, never able to break out.
Yet, he lives on, just so as it is he moves through the days. Not on wings, but on his own two feet and on four wheels. He is not a guest in Jimmy Novak's vessel, he is his own. He is no longer simply an angel of the lord, a blind soldier in an eternal war against an invisible enemy.
Castiel is a brother and a sister and a sibling, he is a mother and a father and a guardian. Castiel is not a curse, he is not just the fourth day of the week, he is not a sword nor a shield. Castiel is an angel, yes, but in a million ways he has learned the appeal of being human.
Castiel is not weak, despite his dwindling grace, and he is more than his power, his family has promised.
Castiel is.