Chapter Text
An eerie silence filled the air, only to be broken by cautious footsteps. Dean rounded the corner, careful not to make noise. He was in the middle of the room, dark with blank walls. He had nowhere to turn for safety. After a few minutes of walking, unsure of what he's actually looking for, he heard a ruffle of feathers. Out of habit, he turned around, only half expecting what he saw.
“Cas.” Castiel looked down, sad eyes meeting Dean’s gaze only momentarily.
“Hey. What’s wrong? I haven’t heard from you in weeks. Missed you, man.” Dean put his hand on the angel’s shoulder, trying to comfort him.
“I…” Kill him, Castiel, the voice said.
“You, what? Talk to me.” Dean stepped closer, and Castiel raised his head to look at him.
But he didn’t see Dean. Instead, he saw a woman with mahogany brown hair and a gray suit, a button-up white shirt underneath. Her hair was in a bun and her eyes, blue. Not as blue as his own, maybe a shade duller, he thought.
“Castiel, there is something terribly wrong with you, and that’s the reason you’re here.” She sat in the chair behind the white desk, glass on top of it. He stood in the doorway; nothing but white light shone through the windows and the room was empty besides Naomi’s desk and chair, with two other white chairs facing her.
“I can’t do it.”
“That’s why we’re training you. Listen to me; do what I say and all would go back to normal.”
“What… what is normal?” his eyebrows scrunched up as a frown appeared on his face.
“Do you not remember what you’ve done to Heaven?” she proceeded to stand in front of her desk, her arms supporting her weight as it rested on the glass surface.
“I do.”
“You are going to do this to make amends. You don’t understand what you’ve done to your home.”
“That’s true. You haven’t let me take a step outside. I haven’t even gotten to Heaven on my own free will.”
“What use do angels have for free will? We’re meant to be soldiers. Soldiers of God.”
“God is gone, he’s left! He isn’t here! I looked for him, and I didn’t find him anywhere!” he shoved the chair on his left to the side, walking closer to Naomi, clenching his fists.
“Don’t say that!” She raised her voice, her arms falling to her sides. “Is that why you decided on your own accord to lead Heaven? To put it into ruins by your hasty decisions?!”
“Raphael was to lead you if I didn’t step in. We’ll be pulled back into an era that many of us have chosen to walk away from!”
“We ostracized them, we cast them out! It was not their choosing!”
“They chose not to follow the Draconian laws imposed on us!” Naomi's eyes, which were flashing just moments ago, went back to how they always were. Cold, calm, uncompromising.
“We will continue your rehabilitation, Castiel. Look at what you’ve become.” In a blink of an eye, he was strapped to a chair, a metal drill-like contraption in her hands.
“Hold still.” She said as she held the contraption closer to poke at his eye.
After a while, his screams died out, and Castiel’s wounds healed. He sat in the white chair, and Naomi was at her desk again.
“I hope things are clear to you now, Castiel. I did not want to do this, but…”
“I understand. The circumstances, the way I was acting—“
“All is forgiven. You are free to leave, but you are still obliged to come back for your rehabilitation.”
“Yes.”
“Welcome back, Castiel.”
He spent time on Earth, believing he'd never left, looking at the stars and watching humanity. He had this strange feeling, as if something was off, but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. He felt a peculiar emptiness in his heart and an odd fondness for humanity— as if he loved them but he never did; as if they meant something to him, when in fact, they don’t. Confusion seemed to overrule all his senses, as if his mind was tricking him, creating some kind of twisted paradox.
“Is that what we are? You save a vampire by making me believe that the woman I love might be dead?”
Sam. Castiel watched the brothers from the safety of invisibility— being an angel of the Lord has its perks.
“What do you want to hear, Sam? That I was wrong? Fine. I was wrong. Okay? But if you'd have just heard me out, if you'd have trusted me, all of this could have been avoided.”
“You didn't want me to trust you. You wanted me to trust Benny, and I can't do that.”
Dean. Castiel treated the Winchesters like family, as humanity liked to call it. It pained him to see them fight, which they often did. He felt the urge to stop them, but he couldn’t. He felt a force stopping him. It nagged at him endlessly and he wanted to shake it off, but it refused to leave. He was helpless.
“Right. Okay, well, then, what the hell do we do now?”
“That depends. It depends on you. On whether or not you're done with him.”
“Well, honestly, I don't know.”
Dean walked out the room, grabbing more than a few beers at the convenience store to drink the guilt away. Castiel followed him, unnoticed.
Haha, you fuck everything up.
Nice going, Dean. The one person you have, and you’re pushing him away.
You’re a fucking genius.
He sat in the Impala, driving off to around ten minutes from the motel. He pushed the door open, along with one of the three six-packs he purchased, and leaned against the hood. Half-way through the second pack, he was already mumbling drunk nonsense.
“It’s not just Sam, right?” he asked himself, toying with the bottle in his hand. “I have Cas, don’t I?” he stopped talking, a small smile on his face while he looked at the illuminated pavement.
“Cas, haha, Cas. Where the hell are you?”
“I miss the frickin’ apocalypse, Cas!” he started to shout. It was around 2am. Everyone’s asleep anyway.
“I miss how even when Sam hated my guts, I wasn’t alone.” He took a swig of his beer every time he paused.
“You were there, you used to be there, but now where the hell are you?!” he finished ninth bottle and went onto his tenth.
“I fuck eveything up.”
“I need you.” As he finished his tenth bottle, he smashed it against the road, amber shards glowing in the moonlight. “I fucking need you, Cas.” He whispered, getting into the Impala, his eyes glassy from holding back his tears. Castiel sat quietly in the passenger’s seat, still hidden from Dean's sight. A whisper escaped from Castiel’s lips.
“I need you, too.”
The angel spent the next morning on the playground. He noticed a woman sitting on the bench with a crying baby.
“She's been crying for two days. The doctors missed something. It's called an inguinal hernia – very hard to detect.” He touched the baby’s forehead, and she stopped crying. He disappeared in an instant, and he was brought back to the strange, white room.
“Castiel, we have a situation. Samandriel has been captured.”
“I thought Samandriel was dead.”
“He's been missing, and now we know – Crowley has him.”
“Where?”
“His distress call cut out before I could pinpoint his exact location, but you will find him and you will bring him home.”
“Crowley will have warded against angels this time. I'll need help getting in.”
“Take whatever you need. But you will be certain, Castiel, it was your idea to rescue Samandriel, not mine, not Heaven's. Do you understand?”
“I don—“
Dean was asleep on the couch in a cabin, it belonged to someone dead, perhaps, holding a beer probably from last night’s drink. Cas stood there, staring at the sleeping hunter, still in shock from being zapped from Heaven to Earth way too fast.
“Damn it, Cas! How many times I got to tell you – it's just creepy!”
“Dean, I need your help. The angel, Samandriel…”
They discussed Samandriel, how Castiel knew about his distress call, and the signs pinpointing where they could find him. Something felt different— Castiel felt as if he was lying, but that can’t be right.
Angels do not lie.
“...and that kind of pain, it creates a ripple effect of strange incidents. Where's Sam?” he asked, trying to veer away from something amiss inside of him.
“Sam's gone. It's all right. We'll, uh, find Alfie ourselves.”
They walked out the door and into the car. On the road to Nebraska, Dean decided to break the silence.
“Cas?”
“Yes, Dean?”
“Did… did you hear me last night?”
“What do you mean?” Castiel put on a puzzled look, as if trying to hide the fact he’d been spying on Dean last night.
“Like… Uh… I said that I missed the apocalypse and…” Dean said, glancing at the angel beside him.
“And..?”
“You know what? Never mind, man.” His eyes focused themselves on the road again, afraid to let down his guard.
“The answer is yes.”
“What?”
“I heard you. I actually saw most of it, too, starting from the motel room.” He replied, his head down, embarrassed and shy.
“Damn. You are one hell of a pervert. Watching me all night.” You could have just showed up.
“That… is… I was not being voyeuristic, Dean.” You would have shunned me away.
“Oh, really?” Dean smirked at him, and he felt his cheeks grow hot. Are you sure that I would have?
“Yes.” Because you’ve done so before. “Can we ride in silence?”
“You want to ride silently? I thought you liked screamers.” You always just fly away, not talking about anything, thinking it would magically fix themselves.
“Dean, please.” You’re not that different from me.
Dean met Castiel's gaze one last time before turning his attention back on the road. They spent the rest of the trip in complete silence, as Castiel wished.
Sam was stuck in the motel room, not wanting to follow or talk to his brother at all. Who would actually appreciate a prank text telling you the girl you love is dead?
"Hey, Sam." Amelia wore a white labcoat over a light blue summer dress, and black closed heels. Her hair fell perfectly to the sides of her face as the sunlight emphasized her brown eyes.
"Amelia. Hey. What are you doing here?" Sam started to sit up, rubbing his eyes and stretching. He was sore in all the wrong places.
"What am I doing here?" Sam looked around to see glass windows and white walls, a desk near the front and a small bell on the top of the doorframe. "You spent all night on that sofa, here in the waiting room."
"Oh. Right." He replied while rubbing the back of his head. It hurt sleeping on a sofa— a sofa much too small for him, too.
"Your dog's going to be okay." She folded her arms and smiled down at Sam. "He just needs some rest. You can probably check him out after an hour or so."
"Tha— That's good. Thanks." He stuttered; his head throbbed and his limbs ached. He desperately needed painkillers.
"You're not looking too good." She started to walk towards Sam, sitting on the sofa beside him.
"I'm fine. Just didn't have a peaceful night, that's all."
"Sofa's worn-out, sorry. We do have softer beds in the kennel, though." Sam chuckled and looked down momentarily on the floor. When he brought his head up, he was met with the warmest smile he's seen for months.
"I didn't expect him to get sick again."
"It happens. A few days after an injury like that, he must have been stressed. He'll be okay though."
"Yeah." A long silence followed. Sam thought of the many times that Dean told him he'll be okay, but Dean wasn't there anymore. He was probably dead. He looked for him everywhere. He asked all the hunters he knew, tortured demons, prayed— but nothing. Nobody knew where Dean was. He eventually just gave up. He felt immensely guilty for giving up on his brother like that, but Sam was never one to be dependent on family. That was always Dean. Dean, who was nowhere to be found.
"Coffee?"
"Would be great."
"Come on." She said cheerfully, waving at Sam to follow her.
He was brought back to reality by knocks on the door.
"Look, last night at the bar, I just wanted to make sure it was you. You know... peeping in my window."
"Peeping. You make it sound so, uh..."
"Stalker-ish? Anyway, I ran out because he was leaving. He travels a lot since he's been back."
"Right, n-no, I– I get it. You had someplace..."
"I had to be, yeah. Are we gonna have a whole conversation with me finishing your sentences? So, why are you here?"
"It's not what it looks like. I– I thought you were in trouble– that you had– It doesn't matter. You're okay."
"I was okay. You know, settled in... content. But here you are. What am I supposed to do with that?"
"Give me five seconds, and I'll be gone. I didn't come here to make trouble for you. I– I came because..."
"You cared? See that? I just did it again– finished your sentence."
"Yeah, I care."
Sam was sitting on a park bench the following morning, watching kids play with other kids or have a picnic with their parents.
"Think about this. Okay. How about two days from now, around 7:30? I'll be off work then. One of us will be here, and we'll know. Neither of us will be here... and we'll know. Or both of us will be here... and we'll know."
Would've been nice to have a family.
Jess. He thought he could have it with Jess; the pretty, long-haired blonde girl he met at college. The pretty girl who baked him cookies. The pretty girl who'd run her fingers through his hair until he falls asleep. The pretty girl who kisses him on the cheek and tells him good morning when he wakes up. The pretty girl who knew nothing about hunting and the monsters inside the closet.
The beautiful girl he fell in love with.
To be honest, Sam has never loved anyone else as much as he loved Jess. It was and always will be Jess. Sam knew that. But he had to move on— dwelling on the fact that demons killed his girlfriend the same way they did his mother ate him up from the inside. He felt broken in ways that cannot be healed.
Then, Amelia came. She was a lot like Jess— quirky, intelligent, beautiful. She wasn't Jess, but she sure was enough. There were problems, though. Amelia was married. Her father didn't like him too much. Her dead husband came back and was with her again, and Sam went back to hunting because they needed to. Maybe he could have the normal life he's always wished for. Maybe...
Maybe if they close the gates of Hell forever. Maybe then, he'll have a family, complete with a white picket fence and pies on the windowsill.
"Watching humanity— it never gets old, does it?"
As the Winchesters and Castiel tried saving Samandriel, Castiel remained troubled. He remembered everything that the brown-haired woman did and a throbbing ache in his head made him fall to his knees. He didn't know if it was the part of him trying to fight some kind of unknown influence, or if it hurt because of the metal contraption in the woman's hands. He didn't even know if he actually did remember anything.
They successfully saved Samandriel, and for a moment, Castiel felt relief and concern flood through his veins, maybe even compassion. Samandriel leaned against the Impala— all blood and bruises.
"It's okay. You're safe now. I'm taking you home."
"No. You can't take me back there, Castiel."
"Why not?"
"You don't understand. I told Crowley things – things he shouldn't have known. He got to our coding, our secrets – secrets I didn't even know we had!"
"What secrets?"
"Heaven, Naomi."
"No. W-who's Naomi?" Naomi. The name rang a bell, but he didn't know where he met her. In fact, he doesn't even remember meeting a Naomi.
"Who is – listen to me. Listen to me closely. I've been there. I know! They're controlling us, Castiel!"
"What do you mean?" Castiel was sat in a white chair, a woman with mahogany brown hair in a gray suit hovering above him.
"Kill him!"
"What does he mean, they're controlling us?"
"Castiel!" the unnamed woman screamed.
"Who is controlling us? Why did I see your face? Why was I so afraid? What did you do to me?" Naomi pulled Castiel up forcefully.
"This is a direct order! Kill him!"
He killed Samandriel.
He was compromised. He came at me. I killed him in self-defense. My vessel must have been damaged in the melee. I have to go. Samandriel's remains belong in Heaven.
A perfectly sound explanation, tame compared to the other things that he'd done. The words left his mouth easily. Perhaps a little too easily.
"What... What did I do?" Castiel sat down on the white chair, his hands clutching his face. The blood from his right eye that dripped down to the bridge of his nose still remained, cold and dry.
"You did as you were told." Naomi replied from her desk.
"I killed my own brother... I killed my little brother... I killed... for a tablet." He repeated himself, over and over again, like a mantra of guilt. "You've killed more than one of your own, Castiel. Samandriel was nothing to that vast amount ."
"I... I was trying to make amends." His voice trembled, his hands shook. He felt, in all ways, wrong. He felt broken, in ways that cannot be fixed.
"You are, by following orders without question, without doubt. You have to trust me, us, Castiel."
"I don't..."
"Those Winchester boys..." Naomi said, scornful in her tone.
"What about them?"
"Look at you. We tried fixing you, but here you are again; full of doubt, uncertainty. They ruined you, Castiel."
"You can't say that..." he raised his head to look at Naomi, his eyes pleading.
"You are subject to re-training." Naomi said, standing from her chair and stepping closer to Castiel. "Starting, now." She pressed her fingers to Castiel's forehead and he was back to the abandoned room with white walls.
He heard Dean, calling out his name.
Kill him, Castiel, the voice said.
Kill him, now.
And so, he did.