Archive of Our Own ^beta

His memories are dust and ash and pale colors, a rigid line of events; some he participates in and some he watches like a vivid movie, color and sound but no taste, no touch. The terrain of his mind is pitted and punctured, riddled with sinkholes bound in fog; new memories, fabricated thoughts, sewn over the old. All that he is, all his many wavelengths are reconstituted into subtly different shapes. How many times? he asks her. How many times has she taken things from him, ripped into him and stolen things from him only to give him the “approved literature” in their place, pale ghosts? Too many times, she says, and tells him he was never obedient, not completely.

But he remembers; so many things he knows he was witness to, remembers the Tower of Babel, and Cain and Abel, and the Garden, remembers standing with his brothers and singing praises while cities fell in the Father’s name. He remembers. He is a soldier, he is obedient, he is the Shield of his Father. Was, at least, before pride and love dragged him down, heavy stones into deep waters. He was those things.

His hands shake as he wonders what stretches of path have been swept away by her and overlaid with her steel, what walls exist in his mind that he cannot see or feel or find, and what lies behind them. Too many times, she says, and he runs through all the ages of the earth, and wonders what he’s lost.

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cardinal hymns

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For eons, there is only darkness; but he remembers, floating in the nothingness, molecules brushing and twining with his brothers and sisters, drifting over still waters to the songs of the void.

And then there is light. And in that light he watches come into being Creation, watches his Father pull nothing from that void and shape it, like clay, into everything. Watches a space between the waters grow, and dirt and seas gather, mountains reach their jagged heads into the newly stretched sky with a great and terrible groaning, plains stretch themselves languidly between. From that land vast numbers of every green thing burst forth into the new day, push up from the ground and unfurl like a verdant living carpet, to welcome the first spring rain.

Time begins, and there is day, and there is night, and dusk and dawn, and in the vault of the sky he watches his Father set the stars and name them after His children. For a moment, as he watches, all is still, and only the quiet songs of the wind through the new grass and the faint murmur of the constellations above can be heard, and he marvels over all there is, something from the nothingness. Until birds, winging in fresh skies, burst forth, feathered and frenzied, crowing and squawking and cawing and hooting, and fish of every size pour into the sea, and his Father bids them fill the earth and the seas and be blessed.

He stands at the shores of the ocean with his brother, the waves lapping at the new sand, and watches the fog roll in. Don’t step on that fish, his brother says, as they watch the small thing heave itself up into the brand newness of the world, struggling in the damp sand. Big plans for that fish. They laugh for the joy of it all, and a bird calls whoeet whoeet whoeet in the distance.

And to the green and dusty lands He sets the creatures, and he watches his Father laugh in joy over their shapes and their colors, watches a thing on two great feet bound away from a creature leaping gracefully on four, watches the smallest of all be set to the wind, cast adrift to cover the earth and inhabit every pond and blade of grass, so that nowhere in this place will be without new life.

He watches as his Father surveys His creation, this land teeming bountiful, and with wonder sees Him pull from the dust one last creature, more alike his Father than the rest, two of them paired. He feels them draw in their first breath as his own, ribs rising to pull in the newest air and the smells of the green earth, sees them take their first steps into the land of plenty his Father has given them.

And his Father returns to the heavens, surveys everything He has pulled from the womb of the void and shaped into being, and says that it is good, and takes rest.

Castiel is content in his adoration, but through the Host runs a discord, an unwelcome note in the harmony of the song; the first. But it passes, and although an uneasiness remains among them, they return to the work of their Father.

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For long he watches them, in the garden in the east, called Eden, watches them live and breathe and in their wonder name the things set down for them. He listens, rapt, to their naming of the creatures and plants, sparrow and ash and azalea and elk, the jay with her blue feathers and the cardinal with red, the hawk hovering high above, the lion below. He watches them grow, and in time forgets the uneasiness, as do they all.

Until the woman is drawn inwards, to the Tree, where she is given a choice. And still he watches, horror ringing through the firmament, as his brother, the brightest of them all named Morningstar, offers the choice, tempts her with the sweet flesh of the fruit. She chooses, and shares her knowledge with the man, holds the fruit to his lips. He watches with great sadness as they flee from the Father as he walks among the garden, hide their nakedness in shame and cower.

It is not until they are cast out, sent forth from that green place into the dusty deserts of the wilds, that he begins to question, not until he watches them turn from the garden with wet faces and heavy steps, and feels within him a great sorrow. He watches them walk away from the gate of Eden, guarded by flaming sword, and he turns to his brother. “Gabriel, why? Why must their knowledge be the cause of their casting out? This does not seem right.”

And to him Gabriel replies, “The knowledge of choice is not for us to know, brother.” Gabriel kisses his forehead, an offer of strength and comfort, and together they watch the man and woman leave their Eden, and Castiel feels, deep in his grace for the first time, a doubt; through the shining golden core of him the first minute cracks bloom, molasses in honey. This time, the stirrings among the Host are accounted for and noted.

He could become a problem. I will not have another repeat.

She nods. Yes, Michael. She watches.

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Many years pass, seasons grow and fade into each other, the first green summer, ample harvest, desolate winter, followed again and again by renewing spring. Castiel watches Adam and Eve toil over land that is not Eden, build a home for themselves among the beasts of the wild and the hardened soil. To Eve is born two sons, wrinkled squalling things that rush into the world in blood and pain and grow into strong young men. Castiel watches the brothers, one with great, gentle hands made for cradling lambs as they fall from their mothers and easing them tender through their first steps, the other with sun roughened skin and a soul to rival the sun, and the green of the deep wood glades in his eyes, and loves them. He finds himself fond of hovering over them, and watching them at their work: Cain toiling in beloved fields, coaxing life from the ground with dirtied hands, and Abel in green pastures, keeping watch over their bleating flock.

On a day when the wind bullies the clouds through the air and into fantastic shapes, and the sun shines down with warmth, the brothers offer to the Lord the best of their yield. Castiel looks upon them and feels proud, at the grains and fruit of Cain and the firstborn lambs of Abel. He understands Cain’s decision to withhold the best of his harvest, not for himself but for his brother, and his family, and he understands just as easily Abel’s offering of only the best of his flock, since as the younger brother he has not the same burdens.

But when his Father beholds the offerings of both and accepts only one, Castiel feels the seeds of cautious doubt within him, long buried, grow swiftly into choking weeds of anger. And when he feels prying hands pulling him away, whiteness clouding his vision, smothering his grace and compelling him to return to heaven, he looks down upon the brothers whom he loves one last time, only to see red blood soaking into the ground, a molten cardinal choked in dust, red staining the hands of Cain who weeps, and red spreading, like disease, like poison, through the fields he had tilled, red in every cardinal direction; cardinal red sin.

He can feel, past his great sorrow, the faint pride of Michael, and hear the words as my vessel succeeds, so shall I too succeed.

He has a few narrow moments, before the first great pain and forgetting, to wonder why his Father, in all His boundless wisdom, has allowed that blood to be spilled, a few panicked seconds filled all with red before every thought flees as his eye is pierced in a slow gentle pressure-give and a soft voice whispers, “You are nothing but a soldier, Castiel, and soldiers do not question orders. We will not have another Fall.”

He does not question orders, and the brothers are forgotten, except for the prophecy in their blood.

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For long years and no time at all Castiel remains true under orders, and watches indifferently as mankind spreads over the whole of the earth. He is sent, for some time, to the earth, to walk among mankind, teaching and protecting, and slowly he begins to lose the anonymity forced upon him. He begins to question.

But they are wicked, the men of the earth, and his Father, seeing them, mourns their unrighteousness and weeps. Orders are given to all the angels that there is to be a great flooding, for not only had mankind become corrupt in their ways, the angels too had strayed; some had disobeyed, and some had even Fallen, following the comet-path of their brother. Amongst mankind there now walked nephilim, a joining of the two, who were powerful beyond both and wicked.

And suddenly, like the loss of everything, a return to the void, He is gone. In the following panic among the Host Castiel thinks only to warn someone of the coming disaster, and so he rises. He flees the hooks that seek to pull him home, shakes away the whiteness crowding in, and flies to the only man he knows remains clean, to Noah. Castiel trembles at the yawning pit within himself where his Father had been, a void empty of the love and the grace that had made him.

He finds Noah and his sons, and tells them to pray that they might be saved, to build an ark and prepare, and as the pull on his grace intensifies to a great strength the eldest son turns and gives him thanks, and the last thing that Castiel sees of the earth, before his slate is wiped clean again, is a pair of sea green eyes, and a soul like the sun.

The angels weep for forty long days and nights at the loss of their Father, and as Castiel screams in anguish, this time for the pain and the loss, he feels the rain, their tears, on his face and the water flood his body, surge through him and choke him, and he wonders if he too is being drowned like the sinners. “I’ll bind you tighter, this time,” a familiar voice whispers in his ear, over the clangorous thunder, “This time you’ll be mine, little bird.” Her voice is lost in lightning.

There is a rainbow, when the sky clears and the waters recede, and Joshua, seeing it, says, “I suppose that’s our promise too.” Castiel knows nothing of the rainbow, or of the fighting amongst his brothers. But she cannot erase the aching disappearance of his Father, or of Gabriel, who vanished with the flood waters and the arrival of the dove.

There is too much discord among us, he tells her. Our Father, Gabriel, the Scribe, they’ve vanished. This disobedience cannot be allowed.

Yes, Michael. She nods, and begins to remove it, angel by angel.

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Some measure of order returns to the Host, and Castiel rejoins the ranks and remembers only the pain of his lost Father, the smaller hurt of his brother, the absence of the Voice of the Word. At the ruination of Job he feels only satisfaction in the man’s unwavering faith, in the example he sets for his fellow man. He is the mighty wind sweeping in from the desert, the great gust that devastates the house where Job’s children feast. In him there is only the warmth of the Host; there is no pain, no fear, and he is content in his duty.

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With Uriel he stands at the Tower of Babel, and listens as the other laughs at the poor excuse for a structure, smiles at the other’s jokes and takes comfort in them. He helps to scatter the men across the earth, as are the orders. But within him, buried deep and secret, grows a secret pride in the men who had tried so very hard, though they had failed. As he scatters them, as they cry out in fear for themselves and weep at the loss of their families, he whispers to them and grants them fortitude, because he is pleased with their perseverance. As he sets the feet of the last of them to the plains in the west, he feels a brush of grace against his own; Anael compliments him on a job well done, but his pleasure is marred by a prickle of warning at the base of his skull.

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For many years he carries within him secret questions, but he does not stray. Orders are sent out willing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he feels the unbounded joy of Uriel, given the chance to annihilate such an unholy city, but Castiel does not see only the wickedness of the men and women there, but also the opportunity for their goodness. He leaves, secret, with the carnage dawn will bring still many hours away, and he flies among the city. He can see, like a beacon calling to him, the few souls that are good within, and he goes to them; Lot, his wife, and their own, and they heed his warning.

“Flee to the mountains,” he tells them, and the woman grasps his hand, her soul a warmth like a near fire, blinding in its radiance, and over the pounding of men at the door she thanks him, and presses a kiss to his hand. He flies, then, but not before blinding the men at their door so that they will not be slowed. The sky lightens with the coming dawn, and as he hovers over the city, mourns and wonders what else he can do, he feels a familiar painful tug in his gut, a voice saying in his ear, “My poor sparrow, what orders were you given?” The sound of wings drags him away.

He feels, this time, strapped down and unmoving, the fire raining down on his own body, and he weeps, weeps as he looks back and crumbles to salt and tastes it on his tongue with ash and flame, and he is the rolling smoke that chokes out the heralding dawn.

He forgets.

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Hardly any time passes before a panic that is not his own seizes him, a whirlwind of terror and  distress dragging him from duty. Castiel abandons his post with the taste of smoke curdled heavy in his throat, follows the pull of it to a boy bound tight to an altar, fear in his green eyes. He is plucked from the earth before he can reach them, caught tight in the blunt claws of heavy fog, and he does not see the ram caught by the horns in the thicket, knows not to thank Balthazar, does not hear his brother blessing the father, the rescued son. He sees only the boy on the altar piled high with wood, and he does not feel the pain of it himself, but over and over watches the boy die at the hands of the father, tears and blood bubbling hissing away in the heat of the flame, and unable to move he cannot help. “I will harden you to this,” she whispers, as he kneels in the dust and watches Abraham clutch at his hair, and the flesh of Isaac melt away, while a cardinal sings a blood warning from the thicket.

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This time, he knows. Knows something, deep in the core of him, has gone wrong, when he fails to recognize three of his brothers and two of his sisters, when he fails to remember the absence of Gabriel until it’s mentioned to him and the ache in his gut doubles. Anael is the only comfort he has, and he holds to her, desperate for answers. But the flare draws him away, the panic-fear shape of it burned into him until it’s all he can see, and he flees to it.

He is far above, high in the atmospheric clouds above the fields of Dothan, as he watches the dreamer, the prophet, being thrown into a deep hollow by jealous brothers, his clothes ripped from him.

He has only moments to whisper in the ear of the youngest, the coerced, the one with love and fear bursting from his heart in almost equal measure, no blood needs be shed, before he feels himself ripped away from the earth.

There is only an endless white, and he remembers nothing.

Test him. Test them all.

Yes, Michael.

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He turns from wood into living snake, is the blood that stains the Nile, is the multitude of croaking frogs, the gnats and swarming flies consumed by them. In every dying animal he is found, and he is the soot that breeds the boils and the destruction that rains from the sky, devastating. He is the swarm that devours the harvests and all the bounty of the land, and when that too fails, he is the darkness, sweeping absolute and impenetrable into every house. He is in every lamb slaughtered bleating at twilight, and he glistens in the blood painted on stark on wood.

In the dark hours he stands over the bed of some sleeping child, unearthly wailing shattering the still night, the mourning lament of grieving mothers rising spectral in the night, smoke signals of grief. This is your final test. He raises his hand and holds it, hovering, over the slowly rising chest of the babe. Your final test, Castiel, you’ve done so well. You’re almost perfect again. His hand trembles, and the door behind him creaks open, light flooding across the room. In the house next door, the cry of a child is cut off, sharp and sudden, and new keening takes its place.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

He turns to the man framed by light in the doorway, his hands still raised, feels some odd thrum in his grace, resonating notes of some familiar tune, the light of the man’s soul luminous in the darkened room. The man steps forward, and his face, darkened into shadow against the light, becomes a little clearer. “I said, who are you.”

“I’m an angel of the Lord.”

Castiel. Would you fail me?

The man falters, and Castiel drops his hand, lets it fall back to his side. For a moment, the only sound is the quiet breathing of the child, and the building, buzzing pressure in his head.

“What’s happening?” The man sounds unsure, and frightened, and angry, but he leans around Castiel to pull his still sleeping child from the bed and clutch him to his chest. The man presses his mouth to the top of the babe’s head, breathes a faint reassurance, some small tune, into the child’s hair.

The pressure builds, sparks and shivers behind his eyes. Castiel, take them both, now.

He shakes his head, at the order or the question he’s not quite sure. Now, Castiel!  He stares at the man, feels the warmth of him, and the pressure disappears, the shouting in his head drifts away to a great distance. “Be still,” he says, and within moments he has left, slaughtered a lamb of his own, and painted the man’s door with his own hands. Cardinal red, poison red; red he thinks looks familiar, staining his borrowed hands. They shake a little, as he rubs his fingers together, feels the slick stickiness between them, still warm.

The man pulls the door open, drawn to it by the soft brush of fingers across wood, still clutching the child to him. The hearth fire banked low flickers gold in the man’s green eyes, across the planes of his face, and he stares at the door, the blood, Castiel’s crimson hands.

“You are safe now,” Castiel tells him, tells the child, and it’s an apology too.

He hears the man ask again what’s happening as he turns, the wailing drifting eerily through the darkened street, the quick flash grace of his brothers and sisters rushing by him overhead as they complete their orders.

“Wait.” He turns back. “What is your name?”

He turns back, and gives it. “Castiel.” Forgive me, he thinks, though he’s not sure who he asks.

When she pulls him back, and the green eyes are forgotten in the rush of pain and pressure, he hears, at the back of his mind, an offered quiet prayer; thank you, Castiel.

Too many failed, he says. You have not done well enough. Do better.

Yes, Michael, she replies, before she too, is overcome with pain.

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He is brand new, his cracks paved over with glistening shine. He is the heat of the burning bush, the thunder on the mountain, water gushing forth from the staff of Moses into the dust of the desert, he is the blast of the trumpets that decimates the walls of Jericho. With his brothers and sisters he sings to the glory of his absent Father in the heavens, is thankful for the guiding hand of Michael, ever righteous, consummate. On orders he brings famine to many lands, and to others he grants plenty and ripe harvest.

To the Valley of Sorek he is told to bring rain, and in a surge of ozone and wind he goes. But as he pours to the earth, soaks the dust to mud and gathers in ruts and puddles along the path, he feels a familiarity snap at him. The rain continues, thunder rolling gentle through the valley, but he follows the thrum of it, resonating through him, curious.

He finds a man, tall and broad with hair like a lion. A woman, dark hair and dark eyes, keeps watch while he sleeps, gentle as her fingers dance over his steady rising chest, a smile on his face.

He stays in the valley, tells his superiors he has not yet completed his orders, and he watches. They love each other, this man and woman, but while the man’s heart is pure, the woman’s is shot through with intent.

“Tell me the secret of your strength,” she asks, and the man wraps her up, wheels her around in delight, laughs and laughs, and Castiel watches as she tricks him, three times, and he remains in good humor, kisses her and kisses her again.

“You do not love me,” she tells him finally, tears on her cheeks, welling in her dark eyes, “How can you love me and lie to me?” He tells her, then, his secret, and she praises him, runs her hands through his hair, and he sleeps, head pillowed in her lap. And Castiel watches, fear and dismay growing quick, as she pulls scissors from a drawer, sets them to his hair, watches as the locks falls silent like dark snow to the floor. With horror he watches the Philistines rush in and bind him, and although he fights he is no longer strong, and Castiel cries out as they gouge his eyes from his skull and drag him away. He hears the woman weeping as he leaves, but he does not look back.

To Gaza he follows Samson, watches him toil under his tormentors, forced to grind grain for the men that had trapped him, no better than a blinded mule, and waits; until they drag him out for entertainment, watch him dance and fumble blindly, debased entertainment for their drunken feasting. Castiel rages as they laugh. Samson leans against a pillar of the temple, prays for his returned strength, clutches at his shorn hair and presses desperate fingers to his ruined face, and Castiel goes to him, stands in front of him, and kisses his temple, and his strength is returned.

Samson pulls down the columns of the temple in an almighty thunder of marble, dies with the men that captured him and blinded him, and when his family comes to mourn Castiel stands unseen next to his green eyed brother with a soul like summer warmth, and mourns with them.

He’s strayed again. He may be truly defective. Or you may need to try harder.

Yes, Michael. She trembles at the suggestion in his words.

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Everything is abandoned as war sweeps through heaven, and Castiel is called to protect his home. Alongside his brothers and sisters he fights, his garrison led by Anael, and for a time he forgets the man and his mourning brother in the face of carnage. Demons swarm, legions of them like black smoke eddying and snaking through the shining constellations of the Host, swords and shields in hand.

In this he is his purpose; soldier, Shield of the Lord, strategist who little knows defeat. From the gates of Hell pour the twisted spawn of their fallen brother, for revenge or for simple slaughter they do not know, but they battle ferocious, grace explosions rolling through the heavens like twisted thunder, desecrated lightning, ashen wings chalked onto streets and byways of the firmament. And still more come, some in the form of humans from the earth, stolen bodies spilling blood from broken flesh, others like great beasts, claws ripping holes through the kingdom, scaled heads with gaping maws snapping shut through angel wings and luminous angel flesh, silver grace dripping from jagged teeth, fetid breath steaming from jaws black as the pit, stinking like rotted meat.

Castiel fights well, ignores the stinging of wounds that will no longer heal, a rip in his arm to match the tear in his belly, concentrates on binding in his grace and plunging his sword into his enemy, ducking and weaving around them.

He feels it, then, worse than the wounds, worse than his own worries, a stab of fear that is not his own, and he goes down on one knee, looks up with a gasp into the grinning face of some demon hellspawn and thinks it will be his last. But before the thing can raise its hand to harm him a sword, silver-shining and bloodied, sprouts from it’s neck, pushes through in a quiet slick and gurgle, and it falls dead in a rush of heat and lit shadow. Rachel stands above him, one wing twisted pitifully and dragging, but with a small smile, an arm outstretched.

The agitated drag on his grace intensifies as he takes her hand and she pulls him to his feet. “Rachel, I must go. I’ll be back.” He turns.

“In the middle of battle? You’d abandon us?”

“I’ll return; there’s something wrong, something I need to attend to. Fight well, sister.” He focuses in on the call, the pain of it, the fear and alarm that are not his own, and lifts his own damaged wings for flight.

“Brother, do you need me?” He turns back to her, and takes strength in her sincerity, that she would help him when even he does not know the danger.

He shakes his head, and thanks her. “Stay safe.”

He flies to earth with her answering, “and you, brother,” an echoing melody in his ears.

To Babylon he dives, following the wordless plea, and in a great sealed pit he finds the source of the call. A man, small next to the massive boulder that seals the mouth of the cave, stands facing it, lips moving wordlessly, head bowed. Six cats, manes rippling and knotted, stalk in the shadows behind him. The caverns are dark, should be dark, but the man’s soul flickers and flares like the lodestar, calling Castiel to him, a guiding beacon.

In his borrowed body he steps closer and the man wheels around, ready to fight off an attacking lion. Castiel feels the edges of the still open wounds protest, but he ignores them, draws on his own grace and films over his skin with a layer of it so that he, too, shines a little in the dark, so that the man might see him, so that they might shine together in the gloom of the cave, the cats pacing restlessly behind them.

Castiel lifts a hand as the man watches with widened eyes, and drags it slow through the air where the cats’ eyes gleam in the darkness. Slowly, the lights of their eyes blink out as the cats turn and tread back into the darkness, their great paws brushing quiet on the cavern floor.

The man still stares, wide eyed and open-mouthed, but awe has replaced some of the fear. He still stands ready, though, prepared to fight. Castiel is surprised to find it endearing.

“Who are you, how did you get here? Where are the lions?” The man demands, and Castiel smiles a little and steps forward, the mingled glows of their soul and grace casting their quivering shadows on the uneven cave walls. The man takes a step back, fists brushing the stone of the entrance, and Castiel supposes the man can only see the light of angelic grace and not mortal soul, and that would startle any human.

“I’m an angel of the Lord,” Castiel replies. “There’s no need for fear.”

“Is that why you glow?”

Castiel looks down at himself, considers his earthly body for a moment; it’s not important. “Why did you pray for me-” he takes a moment to pick the man’s name from his thoughts “-Daniel?”

Daniel looks startled for a moment, face stark in the dim glow as he peers again into the darkness, still wary of the cats, as he answers. “I prayed to the Lord to rescue me. Did He send you?”

It’s an old, familiar ache. “No. I heard you calling, and I came. I-” The light around them flares silver bright for a moment, casting into stark relief the walls of the cave, the craggy ceiling, the cats sitting still and silent, watchful at the far end.

Hands are gripping him, pulling him up and holding him steady, and the only light now shines from the ragged wounds in his flesh; he must have exerted too much grace, must have, must- he stumbles again.

The man’s soothing words wash over him as he drags Castiel to a rock protruding from a side wall, flat and not high off the ground. He lays him down gently, leans him up against the dry wall of the cave and kneels beside him.

“Angel, what is it? What can I do?” His hands hover over the grace spilling from his flesh, shaking in the light of Castiel’s being.

Castiel shakes his head. “Nothing. I’ve exerted too much of myself.” He casts his thoughts heavenward; they haven’t lost much ground, or any more angels, and no one searches for him. “I will rest a while, I think.”

Daniel sits beside him heavily as Castiel wipes a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. The man is staring, eyes wide and face bleached in the white light of Castiel’s spilling grace. He blinks and looks away as Castiel stares back.

“How long will it take you to recover?”

Castiel thinks, probes the edges of his depleted grace with his mind. “An hour or two, no more.” The man nods.

Daniel glances over into the dark, to where the lions still rest. “Why didn’t you kill them?”

Castiel smiles, feels a little more blood wend like salty copper through his teeth, and swallows. “They are still my Father’s creatures, filthy and emaciated though they are. Killing them was not necessary. I merely shut their jaws, and took their pain away.” Daniel nods again, and for a time, there is only quiet breathing between them.

Castiel can feel it though, growing in the quiet breath-stirred air of the lion’s den, some stretching familiarity between them, a thread of fine silk between soul and grace, reaching to twist stronger.

Daniel’s voice, hoarse like sand, breaks the quiet. “Why did you answer my prayers?”

Castiel can’t answer. He knows why he came, but not why he received the prayers, the fear, in the first place. It is not the place of a soldier to receive appeals meant for the Lord, but the stream of them had been loud enough, strong enough, to guide him here, to pull him from war, from duty, to Babylon, to this darkened pit, to this man with a soul like the sun on its first rising. Daniel is still looking at him questioningly, and Castiel gives him the only answer he has. “Because you called.”

They pass the rest of the hours in silence, and Castiel can feel those silk threads weaving, twisting strong, into steel. The morning light traces the boulder across the entrance to the cave in a hazy gold ring, a mock eclipse. The lion’s chuff their welcome to the dawn and Castiel removes their muzzles; they will cause Daniel, at least, no harm.

The shuffle of feet outside the entrance stirs them from the odd peace they’ve found in the dark cave, sitting close and silent, and voices call to Daniel, his name echoing mutedly through the den.

Castiel pushes himself up, winces a little at the metaphysical wounds that have only mostly healed, and ignores the sand clinging to him. Daniel looks up at him from where he sits before following, brushing the dirt from his robes carelessly. Castiel can feel duty pulling at him, but it’s a frail call in the face of this soul’s gravity.

He readies to leave, when Daniel’s voice stops him, reels in him like those threads are tangible lines. “What is your name?”

He stares into green eyes, and it feels familiar in a way he can’t fathom. “Castiel.”

“Thank you, Castiel.” Castiel nods and goes in a soft beating of wings, before he can’t escape the man’s gravity, before he stays.

Heaven is still a chaos of blood and loosened grace and black ichor when he returns to his garrison, sword in hand. Rachel nods a greeting as she plunges her blade through the side of some bellowing hell beast, Hester and Barachiel together taking on a column of black smoke, their grace fighting against its shadow, lightning in a storm. He casts his thoughts toward Anael, for orders, and she tells him, you’ve been asked for, for debriefing. Where have you been? He dodges a thrust of a sword, parries with his own.

Later, he tells her, and flies again. The sounds of battle fade into absolute silence, broken only by the scratching of a quill on thick paper, as the fighting is replaced by a spotless room, white granite veined with lightest grey, gold lamps casting soft shadows, and a large desk.

An angel sits behind the desk, intent on the paper, thick ink sluicing away from her hands as she writes. He waits.

A minute passes until she looks up. “Ah, Castiel. It’s good to see you again. And how nice that you come to me, chasing you around is so tedious.”

Castiel frowns; only the recognition he has for every sibling tells him this is Naomi, but he’s never met her, never had cause to speak with a rank as high as her.  She smiles, and the office is gone in a haze of cloud, and his limbs are heavy, heavier, until he can’t move them. He gasps her name and she croons some soothing thing at him, but everything is fading, to white oblivion.

Naomi smiles down at him, passed out, strapped down with enochian carved leather. “Sleep, for a time, Castiel. I’ll be back to work on you later. There’s a war on, you know.” She goes from her office and leaves him, suspended in the void.

He thinks this must be what dreams are like, for humans who have them. He walks for a time along a rocky shore, the sea a grey haze, and trees like giants grow from the water, waves crashing around their rugged trunks, pines of dark green. Someone walks beside him, their footsteps on the rocks next to his, but they are lost in fog. Follow the path, little brother, they say, and the sky above them wheels like a giant grey-winged bird, her beak a dim yellow sun. He follows the path, through shifting dunes that drag at his feet, to a hill topped by a light like a star, like the sun, and leaves the beach behind.

The hill rises from the dunes, green in a sea of sand. The crashing of the waves is faint, now, and when he steps on the grass, leaves the path that ends at the base of the hill, tiny blue flowers burst from the grass at his feet, and the grass grows tall, and sways in wind that sounds like music.

A man stands on the hill and looks to the east. He turns, and the steel is still there, between them, forged in a lion’s den, although it’s starting to chip away, crumble, return to clay. Castiel, the man says, and Castiel goes. Am I dreaming? Castiel thinks this is a good question, as a lion stalks past, to the ocean, sixty feet high, mane rippling like holy oil. In the distance one of the pine trees cracks with a sound like thunder, falls into the waters below.

There’s going to be war, the man says. I prayed for you. Castiel wonders how the man knew his name, but he smiles. Some more of the tether between them flakes away in glinting silver, turns to dust in the grass, and another tree falls, plunging into grey waters. There’s war everywhere, Castiel tells him, and the grass grows high around them, whispers with the wind, and a quiet murmuration sings a susurrus psalm above them, wheeling in the warm sun.

I’m scared of it, the man tells him, so Castiel takes his face in his hands, skin warm in his palms, and he kisses his forehead, and among the grasses red flowers bloom. He presses his lips to each eyelid, gentle, and the man sighs, and more flowers grow. And to his lips Castiel presses his own, and feels the heat of a soul like the sun crackling through him, and the hill turns all to swaying red. Be strong now, Castiel tells him, be strong and do not be afraid, and as he says this the crashing of trees into the sea shakes loose the earth of the hill, and the flowers slide away, and steel unweaves to silk, to the finest threads, and snap. The man’s eyes widen and he reaches for Castiel, calls his name, Cas-; but he’s gone, swallowed in the sand sliding out to sea.

Castiel stands alone on a hill, the sky an endless stretch of faded blue, and the sun is gone. A cardinal sings in the distance, whoeet whoeet whoeet, red until it too fades like the flowers, and Castiel wonders only why his hands are trembling as he presses them to his mouth.

Naomi stands over him, watches his eyes flicker back and forth under purple, bruised lids. “Oh Castiel,” she sighs, as she pries one lid gently open, to reveal an eye dark with pupil. “You were never supposed to love like this; we’re not meant to. That’s a little harder to remove. A little more painful.”

She goes to work.

Castiel will remember battle, blood and death around him, and fighting for his home. He will remember the standards of heaven, and he will remember their victory, singing praises as their enemies are cast out. He will remember these things, but no more.

<<>><<>><<>> 

In the aftermath of battle heaven rests in ruin, its hierarchy in shambles, and for a long time, there is confusion. Orders are not sent properly, tasks are not carried out, and rumours of upheavals within the ranks circulate throughout the Host. But the cleansing of the streets of Heaven continues, and Castiel watches his brothers and sisters in the higher orders go about their business as he rests, recovers from the wounds he’d sustained, to his side, his leg, his eye, and if he spends some of his time recovering on earth, no one seems to notice in the disorder.

Foretold events draw near and Castiel finds himself spending time in Jerusalem, walking down dusty streets and standing in the shade of olive trees, following some path that sings to him with promise. There is something worrying at him, but in hot breezes and cool shade he finds peace, in echoing temples, at the shores of the Dead Sea he stands content, and the worries fade, and the time comes.

The first foretold is born, the one who would come before the Son and speak of his coming, and Castiel is not there when it happens, not in the house outside the walls of Jerusalem, but he feels a spark flare, like a match crackling to blazing light in a darkened room, and it’s familiar, and it draws him like a moth to flame. With wondering neighbors he stands and he does not hear their words as the father, long silent, speaks, lifts his voice and says, “John. His name is John.” Throughout the land spreads word of the child who is blessed, and the child grows, and when he leaves to wander the wilds, Castiel follows.

Soon after, another spark flares bright into the world, and the angels sing of his coming, the Son, and Castiel sits with John at the bank of the river Jordan, watches wild-roughened hands dip believers into bluegreen waters, and waits for the Messiah to arrive. John is a lamp in the darkness, a soul pure like that first rain in the beginning of this world, and although home and duty is never far from him, Castiel sits for a while in his shining light, and rejoices.

On most days the river is teeming with life, the gathered standing silent to hear the words of John as he preaches, the quiet splashing as they wade out to him in the flowing water, voices lifted in hymn and prayer. On other days, days Castiel relishes, the banks are peaceful, and only he and John are witness to the life around them, the egrets and kingfishers dipping silent for fish, the turtles basking in the hot sun, insects humming around them.

“They call you my disciple,” John says to him one day, as wind weaves gently around them, the promise of long-awaited rain standing heavy in the air. “You’re always here, every day. I don’t have disciples.”

Castiel contemplates him as John stares out over the river, wind whipping his wild hair around his forehead in a tangled halo. “What do you have?”

John turns to him, looks at him with eyes the color of the river. “I have a job. I prepare the way, until he comes.” He’s silent for a moment, and an egret wades past. “I’m not sure why you’re here, though, every day without fail. You can’t enjoy hearing my teachings with such repetition.” John smiles, and his eyes crinkle at the corners, and Castiel can’t help but smile softly in return.

Silence falls over them, and Castiel realizes that John is waiting for him to speak. “I enjoy the peace here,” he says, and it’s the truth. There’s something in the back of his mind, some odd sensation of warning that he can’t decipher, and he feels a small amount of guilt for staying so long from home, but despite these things he is at ease; when the orders come he will go, and in any case he is still healing, and he knows they are excuses, but he still can’t bring himself to leave the river. “Something led me here, and something keeps me here, and I believe it is you. Do you mind my presence?”

John is still looking at him. “No, it’s actually a... comfort, your familiarity. Though I do not even know your name.”

The wind rustling the reeds around them smells like the faintest rain now, and the sky overhead is a uniform grey, reflected in the river. Castiel gives him his name and again something stirs in his grace, some sense that this has happened before. It sits heavy in his mind, behind a wall that feels just too tall for him to see over, and John speaks again before he can find a way past.

“That is the name of an angel.” There is some awe in his voice, and some sudden understanding, and Castiel nods. “It is.”

They watch the rain come in in easy silence, sitting side by side on the banks of the river.

After that they speak more often, more comfortably, and John asks him many questions, and once introduces him to some people come to the river to listen. They are in quiet awe of meeting the long-silent disciple, and Castiel realizes how many whispered legends have sprung up around him, the man who sits day in and day out on the steep banks of the river and watches the Baptist at his work.

John shakes his head, “No, no this is my... friend.” And Castiel feels his grace warm at it, like the rocks baking in the sun. “My friend Cas-” John continues, but he catches Castiel’s warning glance, and stops. Later in the quiet evening while the moon hangs low and crickets sing around them, John asks why he had not wanted them to have his full name. Castiel shrugs, a habit he’d picked up from the humans around him, not quite knowing how to put into words his hesitation; John knew what he was, but the crowds becoming aware of it seemed somehow treacherous, a danger to a something that felt like a secret.  

John nods and presses no further, his face lit pale in the light reflecting off the river. “Cas it is, then.” And in him, in his grace, something fractures, some piece of himself is split from the whole and walled off, and that piece is Cas, and not Castiel, not of God, just Shield, and it shines like the stars in the light of John’s moon.

In the heat of the day the Son comes, and people gather at the bank as he wades in, and he and John greet each other like brothers, and Jesus kisses his brow, and Castiel feels, like a musical chord, the rightness of it, his added note to their two. After some protest, some words, John dips him below still, cool waters, and he stands in the light of the noon sun and a dove flies overhead. He leaves, then, and the people follow in a great shuffle of feet, leaving clouds of dust behind them. John still stands waist deep in the river, and Castiel goes to him, shivering at the feel of the water on his skin, wondering at the goosebumps that erupt across the flesh of his arms. They stare at each other for a time while the water wends around them.

“Would you do the same for me?” Castiel wonders what it’s like, what it would be like for John’s hands to hold him steady in the flow, if the grace given by baptism is different than the grace he has.

“I don’t have anything left,” John says. “I had to become less for him to become more. Do you even have any sins to be forgiven?” Castiel shrugs and John smiles at him, and Castiel thinks the crinkles at the corners of his eyes are dear to him, and finds himself wanting to press a thumb there, smooth them out.

“Alright, then,” John says, and he doesn’t say the words, just steps forward, and with a hand cradling the back of Castiel’s head and a hand resting on his chest, John guides him underneath the surface, and for a moment the rushing of the water roars in Castiel’s ears, and his feet sink into the mud a little, and he is cool all over except for where John’s hands rest, holding him steady in the current, and John’s soul above him shines brighter than the sun, shimmering through the waves.

For a moment, the rushing water sounds like familiar birdsong, but hands are pulling him up back into wind and sun and sky, and he shivers, marvels at how much cooler the breeze feels on his dampened skin. “Thank you, John,” he says, and he doesn’t feel more holy, or closer to his Father, doesn’t feel more clean or more forgiven, but he feels more thankful, and he feels warm, though his skin is cool.

John doesn’t move his hands, leaves them pressed to his chest, resting in his soaking hair. “You are welcome, Cas.” The fingers in his hair shudder and he feels John press warm, dry lips to his  forehead, once gently to each eye, and finally to his own lips, and the part of him that is Cas only blazes into shining radiance, and something in him remembers this and doesn’t, and they stand in the flow of the river Jordan, the sun and answering stars shimmering in the river.

She sits at her desk, frowns at the heavy slip of paper in her hands. She’s lost sight of him, once again mistakenly thinking he’s been cured of whatever disease allows him to so blatantly disobey, but he was seen by her angels that follow the Son, standing with the Baptist at the river, grace subdued in human form. She sighs heavily. She has been busy, in the years since the war, cleaning up messes and patching holes, helping to keep order with her special brand of policies. There have been angels like Castiel, that have chosen humanity, but they have always been persuaded to rejoin heaven’s flock after one of her sessions; none has been so wayward as this.

She searches for his grace signature, finds him wandering the wilds with the Baptist, and is dismayed by the rifts that mar his grace, the habits he’s picked up; he’s sharing food with the man, kneeling down in the dust of the earth and accepting honey from him, splitting the comb like bread between them. But she is dismayed most of all by the love she sees sprouting in him like a great tree, its roots burying through his grace and cleaving it apart like fresh tilled soil. She waves off her agents when they move to collect him, however. This is not some blooming spring flower, easily ripped up and smoothed over with fresh dirt. No, this is a summer weed, and it requires special care. So she waits.

Together they wander, and Castiel listens to John as he preaches, and they hear news of Jesus and the miracles he performs, of his instructions and his healing hands.  They talk about many things, and sometimes they kiss, always in the night when the crowds have faded away, gone back to their homes, silence like hallowed peace settled around them, and every time it is like the first, with cool water sliding over them, marred only by the warning weighing heavily in Castiel’s gut; he knows the rules. But they fade in the heat of John’s soul, and for a time he forgets about home, the voices of the Host hazing away to static in the back of his mind. When he does check in, sends his grace skyward  in a quick search, he finds that there is still disorder and confusion, and tells himself he is not needed.

“I think I’ve become selfish,” he says to John one night, as they sit around a small fire. Castiel is amazed that the heat of the day can so quickly become the frigid air of the night, and he finds himself glad for the fire, but even gladder for the small laugh that follows his remark; John does not laugh often.

“I’ve made friends with a selfish angel, such is my lot in life. What luck we’ve had you baptised.” He laughs again and Castiel smiles with him, and the sound eases away some of his worry, a clear rain washing away the dust of the day.

That night they lay on the earth away from the fire, its embers still glowing, smoke rising grey against the night sky, and Castiel shows John the stars, tells him their real names and stories of his brothers and sisters. He points them out with a raised hand and John’s eyes follow his fingers, his head pillowed on his arm, the space between them an oasis of heat in the crisp night air. And in return John shows him more of the earth, and the space between them is nothing, nothing at all, and Castiel is held gentle by rough hands, cradling his neck, resting on his chest, holding him steady in a current that feels so much greater than the river. The sun holds him in stable arms, the sun kisses him and melts his flesh with the heat of it, until he thinks he’s nothing but grace, lying there in cooling sweat under stars that shimmer like he’s been plunged back under water, some familiar strain of birdsong fading in his head.

That’s it, he thinks, lying there, listening to the sounds of the man beside him sleeping as something inside him shifts and molds into something else entirely, and there is no punishment raining down from above. This is it. And for the first time, lulled by deep breathing and the hum of creation around him, he sleeps.

It happens so quickly, Castiel wonders if being in a human vessel for such a long period is interfering with him in some way. One moment they are free, John speaking to a small group as he often does, and the next he is being dragged away by men from Judea, to stand before Herod for condemning the king’s marriage as unrighteous, taken from his wild lands and thrown into jail. Castiel can hear John, hear his prayers, can hear his own name being called, and steals inside the walls, unseen, and down to where John is, locked behind bars, and only when he stands with his hands wrapped around the iron does he make his presence known.

But there is only time for them to press their hands together before the footsteps of the returning guard echo down the corridor, only a moment to gasp each other’s names, fear weighing heavy, before Castiel fades to invisible with a will, and John is holding nothing.

But Castiel, standing there still, a shadow behind the veil, can feel the man’s intent, knows his orders, and panic floods his his body. He throws himself back into being only to find himself stuck, completely helpless and fixed beyond the ability of John to see or hear him. My poor, sweet bird he hears, honeyed words in his mind, did you think I would let you slip so far away?

Three of them come for John and Castiel rages, pushes all of his intent at his bindings. You’ve forced me to become creative, Castiel, you’ve strayed farther than even I thought you would. Her words wash over him, they ring in his ears as he struggles against her hold. But Michael insists on fixing you yet again, apparently you still have a part to play. Perhaps this time will do the trick?

Every molecule of his grace is straining at the confines of his body, and the slam of the cell door jars through him as the three men step forward.

Cas, he hears, John calling to him. Castiel, where are you?

He cannot go to him. He’s frozen, condemned to stillness, condemned to watch silent as the men hold him, two of them at John’s arms as he struggles, and the other takes a sword to his neck, and cleaves cleanly through.

Like a bird, Castiel thinks, watching blood pour onto the floor of the cell as they take his head away, John’s head, his beloved’s head, to be presented on a golden plate like a prize, a trophy pig, and he is still forced stationary, eyes forced to stare at a body that no longer houses the sun. Just like a cardinal, choked in dust.

There is a great pressure in his mind, and his entire body aches with the force of it, and the red crowding his vision fades away into white nothingness.

That was unorthodox, but perhaps effective. Let me know how he responds.

Yes, Michael, she says, and her voice is filled with satisfaction, and she works with pride. She debates, needle poised over flickering lids, whether letting him follow the Son, letting him love this man too, which she knows he will, does already, since she can see the faint strings that tie him to the Messiah; letting Castiel follow him through trials and pain, all the while knowing his end, would break him. She debates it, considers that the weight of this could break him entirely, far beyond her abilities to piece him back together after. But the breaking too could be his saving; she could piece him together, sew him back and put him right, and he would be like new, whole; restored.

She waits for Michael’s word; yes, he tells her, as long as he does not interfere.

<<>><<>><<>> 

Castiel opens his eyes to the wooden door of a house, voices drifting down the stairs he can see through an open window, mingling with birds singing down the night around him. Disoriented, he stands for a moment as the dusk settles further into a dark evening around him. This is not the dungeon. There are no bars, no blood, no intangible chains holding him still; John’s soul is not in the world. That knowledge is a crippling weight, and for long minutes his harsh breathing drowns out the sounds of the night around him, the voices in the upstairs room of the house in front of him. He stares at trembling hands and wonders that he should feel so much; angels are not meant for this. But the pain of this is overwhelming; it clutches at him with jagged, sharp-edged claws, just as surely as the pleasure too had dragged him down.

Another moment passes before he realizes, as he folds shaking hands around himself, that while John’s light has gone out another remains, still bright, still familiar. For the briefest of seconds a warm breeze rushes over him, carrying the sounds of sheep and pasture songs, the familiar sight of broad hands sleek with lanolin. As quickly as it came, it’s gone, but the pull is a little stronger, into the house and up the stairs, and he doesn’t feel the subtle hand encouraging him.

The men are there, gathered around the Son of their Lord, and he is not the North Star in Castiel’s sky but he shines just the same, pulls at his grace in much the same way, and for the another disorienting second Castiel is lost to hands spinning a dark haired, dark eyed woman around a perfumed room, a ruined face praying for help, the cracking of granite pillars when help is granted. He stumbles in the doorway, and in his mind he feels fingers sifting gently for a moment, and some curiosity that is not his own, but when he straightens it is gone. The men do not turn to Castiel; he is not chained, but he is cloaked, and confused, and weary. They continue their meal and the Messiah passes bread among them, speaks to them, names the betrayer.

Castiel knows all these things. All of this has been written, or will be written; it is known to the angels. But watching them, breaking bread and singing hymns, following them to the Mount and watching Judas steal away into shadows, he doubts more than ever. Despite the warning, despite the guilt in his heart, the apostle will still betray his friend, his teacher, his Messiah, for the meanest of rewards; this will happen.

Time is passing oddly, and he feels like a flat stone sent skipping over the surface of a river; he touches down, sees things with clarity for a moment, and then arcs away and everything between the clarity is blurred. Watching the Savior weep in the garden, the evening fallen around him, listening to his prayers and watching blood run down his face with the force of it, he feels his heart clench in his chest, that there is such pain for him.

Castiel watches, sorrow heavy in his heart, as he goes to his sleeping disciples and wakes them, and waits for the man who will betray him with a kiss for thirty silver coins; for nothing. And it unfolds before him, as it is written or will be written, and Castiel is powerless to change it. Time skips again, lands briefly on trials, the cries of angry crowds, the carrying of a cross. He stumbles, dragging it towards the hill, falls to the dirt, and again Castiel cannot help, cannot lift the burden like his fingers ache to; but he can whisper quietly in one man’s ear, plant the seeds that will send him running, that will give him the strength to carry the cross to the hill, and Simon of Cyrene goes to carry the burden for a time.

He watches nails enter flesh like they belong there, ruin gentle hands, miracle hands, healing hands, limbs forced to mirror the cardinal points of the cross. He feels the thud of the heavy wood into the deep hole as the cross is stood upright in his very bones, feels it resonating through his grace. And Golgotha turns all to cardinal red as Castiel watches, and hears him say they know not what they do, watches ribs struggle to pull in air, tastes the wine vinegar on his own tongue, souring his throat.

Standing there, watching, something swells within him, flourishes amongst the sorrow and pain. They know not what they do, he says, and Castiel feels it bloom in his stomach. Eloi Eloi he cries to the darkening sky, lama sabachthani, and Castiel feels the pain of the loss with him. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit he cries, and there is more warmth running through his veins, some presence here on Calvary that he has not felt in a long time. And when he sighs the words it is finished into the night, into the hearts of the surrounding crowd, Castiel feels the triumph with him, and understands, and his doubts melt like spring snow, because this is love. He watches a body sag into death, held to a rough wooden crucifix by jagged nails, and for a moment the pain, the suffering, all of it is replaced and gilded and all shot through with shining love, and he understands.

Though only for a moment, before blinding pain rips through his skull, and fog rolls in like tidewaters, and he’s drowning in them. He hears a deep sigh, before everything is lost to the blankness, a familiar voice saying I suppose I’m not surprised; the usual methods it is, then. Pain swallows him whole and crushes him to pieces in unforgiving jaws, and he forgets it all.

That did not go as we’d hoped. His voice is mountainous thunder, and she trembles a little.

No, she tells him, but I’ve corrected him. We may do well to keep him under until the time comes. He nods, and she can feel him turning the words over.

Yes, he agrees, we may do well at that.

She puts him under, as far as she can into dreams and sleep and white nothing, and it is almost two thousand years before he wakes.

<<>><<>><<>> 

He dreams.

Often of standing on hills surrounded by the light of the sun, he spends years sitting in the warmth of it, years and only seconds. The sun has freckled hands and throws its head back when it laughs, and Castiel laughs with it, and smooths the crinkles at the corners of the sun’s eyes with gentle fingers. Sometimes he is lost, the pressure of tons of water above him, and the sun is away above the waves, and he is mired in the sand, and a whale passes by; he opens his mouth to call but salt floods his lungs and shadows turn the water all to black. Sometimes there is nothing but the taste of honey on his tongue, sweet and sticky, and a voice tells him about bees and the wild lands. Other times it is the taste of vinegar wine souring his throat, and it all tastes like blood, and the blood is heavy like loss, like love.

He sits with two brothers under a tree, the petals of late spring flowers drifting around them from its branches, the bleating of well tended flocks carried on the gentle breeze. They don’t speak, while they sit under the apple tree; they breathe, and Castiel gathers their warmth to him, two suns together, and they are undisturbed. He lingers here as long as he can, while a cardinal sings, flits red between the trees of the orchard. Eventually, he follows.

It leads him away from the two brothers; it leads him to a son with green eyes; to a woman, and his mouth tastes of salt and ash; to a ram caught in brambles and a boy with a colored coat. He follows it through dunes of sand to Egypt, and it sits on the steps of a house painted with lamb’s blood, and he follows the color again to a man with his strength stolen from him, and another caught in a den of lions. He follows the the bird through tangles of memories, and sometimes they clutch at him, tear at him and drag him, but he pushes on, follows the cardinal always to the soul like the sun, lit like a city on a hill, a lamp to light his path in darkness. He stumbles; he pushes through fog and sand, deep waters and clinging mud, marshes with lights like dim candles that would lead him astray, rivers with currents like shredding teeth and no hands to guide him, but he is not lost to them.

The hill rises from the dunes, a fountain of living green in a sea of sand. The cardinal flits along a narrow path between grasses, and he follows it to the sun, and when he steps on the hill, presses his feet into the cool grass, flowers grow at his heels. The man with a soul like the sun stands, looks to the east, familiar to Castiel in ways he can’t quite fathom, and the wind sounds like music around them.

He turns, the man, the sun, and smiles, and Castiel is caught in his laugh like sweet honey; the cardinal is gone. I prayed for you, the man tells him, and Castiel smiles, because the man is smiling. I’ll always pray for you, he says, and Castiel tells him in return that he will always come. Castiel presses his lips to the man’s forehead, smiles against his eyes when he can feel the crinkles there, and the man laughs again, and Castiel swallows it whole, and it tastes of honey.

It tastes like love.

<<>><<>><<>> 

He wakes knowing nothing but orders and an odd taste in his mouth; he hears the words send him, and the sending is punishment and not a gift, but he is a soldier of Heaven, obedient to the Word. He is sent and he goes, plunging into the icy fires of hell, the dank souls of the Pit clutching and tearing at him and his grace dims to the shallowest pool of light, and in the walls of the labyrinth he casts no shadow.

This place is nothing but darkness and vile cruelty; a manifestation of the absolute lack of his Father’s grace. Things stalk these halls, things that no longer remotely resemble the human souls they once were, things that spew carrion breath from dripping maws, black ichor weeping from cracked talons to paint the tunnels they haunt. I do not come for war, he says, projecting his voice in a thunder through the halls, so that they all might hear him, I come for one man.

They laugh like avalanches down muddy hillsides, there are no men here they scream back, and rush forward, to die on his sword as he battles forward, follows the call of a soul that is still bright, still warm, even here in this place.

He finds it with a knife in hand, a screaming twisted thing below, and even as he pulls it to his chest, even as it fights him, even as he looks at a thing of the Pit, scales and teeth and blackened eyes, he sees still the soul, and his own grace aches for it. Its malignant flesh melts away in the heat of his grace as he pulls it towards the surface, and it screams, it rages, but he holds it tight and does not let go. He knows where the body is buried, and as he forces through the earth and rock, past demons and snatching claws; the soul quiets. The Righteous Man is saved. He flares back into celestial radiance, triumphant. Dean Winchester is saved.

In Pontiac, Illinois he sets down, presses his fingers to a rough wooden cross stuck haphazard into the earth, and he goes to work. Only four months have passed, and it is easy enough to knit muscle back together, to coax skin back into shape, to mold like clay the being this soul belongs to. Ribs are stacked in front of renewed lungs, hands are shaped carefully; he takes his time, guides the arches of each foot until they are perfect, smooths away scars and imperfections, lets freckles bloom like flowers. He leaves the creases at each eye, thinks about fading them away but can’t bring himself to smooth them over. He leaves too the mark of his own hand high on one shoulder. It feels like something, something he should recognize, but whatever it is warms in him, and he leaves it. Complete, he pulls the soul from himself, and it scorches his throat like heat from the sun, leaves the taste of honey and ash and blood on his tongue, blinds him as he presses it to a newly-made chest, and the light of it dims as it sinks slowly in, seeps between the ribs, and beneath the earth it waits.

On September 18th, 2008, Castiel stands over Dean Winchester’s roadside grave in a circle of fallen trees, watches the sun rise in the east to the music of a heart beating slowly back into the world deep beneath him like a familiar hymn, and in the forest, away among the trees, flits a cardinal.