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and-stir-the-stars · 2 years

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These Tears Dry

summary: Au where Cas says goodbye to Sam post 15x03, intending to go back to Heaven

ao3

Notes Please note that what Sam and Dean call "angel radio," angels call "receiving revelation" Takes place a month and a half after Cas leaves the Bunker in 15x03

...

Sam had pushed himself too hard on his run this morning.

His entire body was sore and aching, there was a cramp in his side like he hadn't gotten since he had first started going on runs years ago, and he was still half-panting even as he dug through his wardrobe for a change of clothes. His running clothes were plastered to his skin, which was itchy and damp from sweat. He was desperate for a shower.

Sam had been going farther and farther on his morning runs lately, spending longer and longer away from the Bunker. He liked that jarring feeling of his feet slamming into the ground, one after the other in a predictable and familiar pattern. He liked the way everything seemed to fade away as he ran and his world got reduced to the bare simplicities: the feeling of concrete and hard-packed dirt under his feet, the whoosh of air through his hair and fingertips, and the burning in his lungs. Nothing else mattered as long as he was running. He didn't have to think about anything.

There were a lot of things he didn't want to think about these days.

No.

Sam grabbed a t-shirt and jeans at random and made his way to the bathroom. He had almost closed the bedroom door behind him when the ringing of a phone froze him in his tracks.

Sam ran back into his room so fast he tripped over his feet and almost slammed face-first into the floor. His eyes shot wildly around the room-- where had he left his phone? -- before the phone rang again and his gaze snapped to the nightstand. He was across the room before the second ring finished, but his heart sank when he saw the caller ID flashing on the screen.

It was an unfamiliar string of numbers.

He could have thrown the damn phone into the wall. It had been a month and a half since Dean had told him that Castiel had left the Bunker. A month and a half of texting Cas every single day, a month and a half of unread messages and unanswered calls, and Sam still expected Cas' name to flash across the screen every time he got a notification.

Glaring down at the stream of numbers as though they had personally offended him, Sam snatched up his phone and hovered his finger over the decline call button, but stopped himself from hitting it at the last second. The general rule of thumb for hunters was always answer your phone. You never knew whether a friend, or even a friend of a friend, who needed help might be on the other end.

Sighing, the hunter answered the phone. "Yeah?"

Silence on the other end. Then, right as the hunter was about to hang up, a voice spoke. "Hello, Sam."

The breath caught in Sam's throat, and he clutched at the edge of the nightstand so hard his knuckles went white. "Cas?" Sam pulled the phone away from his ear long enough to check the caller ID again like he might have somehow missed the angel's name and number, but of course he hadn't.

A million questions reared their heads from where they had been simmering non-stop in the back of his mind.

Where are you? Are you okay? Why haven't you been answering the phone? Why the hell did you leave without saying goodbye? Are you hurt? Are you coming back? Did you not realize that leaving would fucking crush me? Did you ever stop to think about that? Do you even care?

Sam didn't say any of them. "Cas, it's-- it's good to hear from you again."

He waited, but there was nothing on the other end. "Uh, Cas? Are you…"

"I'm here," the angel interrupted, and Sam could have cried hearing Castiel’s familiar rumble after so long of silence and fear and uncertainty. And to think that he had almost ignored the call.

Suddenly Sam's knees gave out and he half-sat, half-fell onto the bed behind him.

Oh, God. He had almost ignored the call. And if Cas had called fifteen seconds later, Sam would have been already down the hall and never would have heard the phone ringing. Cas was right here and Sam had almost missed him.

"Cas," Sam repeated, trying to keep the panic out of his voice, but why was Cas calling now? What had changed? "Are you okay?"

"I'm… fine, Sam. I'm better than I was, at least. Uh. How are you and… how are you, Sam?"

"I'm good," Sam said and ignored the way the lie wrenched his stomach. "I've missed you, though, Cas. A lot." The hunter bit his lip, wanting to ask Cas why he hadn't been replying to any of Sam's texts or calls, but fearing what might happen if he pushed. "I didn't recognize the number when you called…"

"I'm using a payphone. I had my cell phone, but I… broke it," Cas said, but Sam could tell there was something the angel wasn't saying there. Something about Castiel’s tone made Sam wonder if the broken phone had truly been accidental.

Sam had tried tracking Cas through his phone two weeks ago. He hadn't wanted to invade Cas' privacy initially, but after a month of silence and not knowing what had happened to his friend or if Cas was okay and of getting only non-answers every time he asked Dean about what had happened, Sam had broken. But the website hadn't worked. None of the phone tracking websites or apps had worked.

It hadn't been lost on Sam that Cas had known him and Dean long enough to know some of their most basic tracking methods. To know to ditch his phone if he didn't want to be found. And his car. Sam had tried tracking that, too, before concluding that Cas must have changed trucks after he left.

"Oh." Sam opened his mouth to offer Cas one of their spare phones-- that was a reasonable way of getting Cas to come back, right? -- but that wasn't what came out. "I prayed to you."

A heavy sigh came over the phone, and Sam felt it like a blow to the chest.

"I turned those off, Sam. My head, it's-- it's been loud enough without adding prayers on top of it. And I needed time to think."

The ache spreading through Sam's chest eased. For a second, he had thought Cas just hadn't cared. Then Sam immediately felt guilty for being relieved, because Cas sounded so goddamn tired and there was clearly something going on with him. Cas wouldn't have left otherwise. Or called.

"I get that. I mean-- I mean, I wish you would have said goodbye, at least, but I get it. Needing space to clear your head."

"I wish…" Cas' voice was quiet on the other end. "I wish that I could have been there for you after what happened with Rowena. But I-I couldn't. And I don't regret leaving, Sam. I don't."

"I don't understand." Sam's eyes were stinging.

"You never even asked me if I was okay," Cas whispered. "I know Mary was your mother, but she was my friend, she was my friend and I lost her, then my father, and--and Jack. And then when that demon--"

There was a static warbling sound like the rush of air when you moved a phone away from your face too quickly.

"You just expected me to be okay with it," Cas continued when the warbling had finished. "To be able to look that-- that thing in the face every day like it didn't tear me apart every time, like you didn't care. Both of you. Neither of you said a goddamn word."

"That's not true," Sam said, horrified. They did care, there was just-- so much going on--

Cas laughed. It was harsh and bitter, but mostly, it was just empty. Sam had never heard Cas like that before, and it made the blood burn cold in the hunter’s veins.

"I suppose you're right. Dean said something, at least. He told me it was my fault."

"What?" Sam asked, horrified. "When?"

"It doesn't matter. This--this isn't why I called you. I didn't mean to say any of that," Cas said. "Not after… not after Rowena."

"What, do you…" Sam swallowed hard. "Do you think I blame you for her death?" How the hell could he blame Cas for that when it was his hands that pushed a knife into her gut? "I don't, Cas."

There was that warbling sound again, and this time, Sam thought he heard Cas let out a sigh or a shaky breath in the background.

"I meant that you deserve time to grieve," Cas said, though Sam noted that he didn't answer Sam's question."Time to heal without me laying that burden on you."

Sam said nothing. He didn't know what to say to that. He had always known that Cas must have left for a good reason, but that hadn't stopped the voice in Sam’s head from whispering that it was his fault Cas had left, that Cas just didn't care about someone as pathetic as him.

But this? This was worse. Because Cas did care, but Sam-- him and Dean-- they had made Cas feel like he had to leave anyway. They had made their best friend feel like he couldn't be around them anymore. And despite that, Cas was still trying to protect him, in his own way.

"You said--" Sam had to clear his throat to speak around the lump painfully lodging itself there. "You said that this wasn't why you called?"

"No. I wanted to let you know," Cas said. "That I'm going to Heaven."

Sam blinked, and for a terrifying second, he thought Cas meant he was going to kill himself.

"I'm not far from the Gate," the angel continued, and Sam finally realized what he meant.

"You're what?" Sam asked, alarmed. Heaven was nowhere near as powerful as it had once been, but it was still bad news. What the hell was Cas thinking?

"I told you," Cas said. "I've been thinking. And I realized that I don't know if any of the angels up there know. About--about Chuck, about what he did, the real reason why my brothers and I were even created."

"But can't you just, I don't know, leave them a message over angel radio?"

Cas was quiet for a long moment. "You would have me tell my siblings through a--a voice mail that our father never cared about them?"

"That… that wasn't what I meant."

"I need to do this in person, Sam. Chuck has ripped my family apart enough. I need-- I need to take the time to put whatever is left of my family back together again."

Sam had heard Cas refer to the angels as his siblings, as his brothers and sisters, but the hunter wasn't sure he had ever heard Cas call them family before. Not like this. "But-- but we're your family, too," Sam said, just stopping himself from adding a wobbly 'right?' at the end.

"Don't," Cas said, his voice quiet but firm. "I have spent the last decade fighting for your cause and trying to be a part of your family. I have sacrificed more for you than you could ever know. Now, after everything, I need to be with my people again. That's why I called you. Once I'm in Heaven…" Cas hesitated. "I might not come back."

Sam's breath caught in his throat. "But…"

"I thought you deserved to know," Cas said quietly. "I can turn your frequency of revelation back on if you want, for if you ever need anything, but-- but I won't keep it on if all you do is try to change my mind. So much has happened in Heaven, and when I tell them about Chuck--"

Cas sighed. "We'll need time. Time to piece ourselves back together, to make sense of everything. And I don't know how long we'll have left before Chuck makes his next attack, so I need to do this, and I won't be moved."

Sam pressed the back of his hand against his mouth as a wave of anger and despair and self-pity washed over him and a sob burned the base of his throat. "You're not worried that the angels will turn on you? Attack?"

"I would have been, once. But not anymore. Heaven has changed. There's… there's just not many of us left."

"But I--I might never see you again?"

A pause. "...I wasn't sure you would care."

"Of course I care!" Sam's voice broke. "You're my best friend!"

"Then why weren't you there for me?"

Sam flinched.

"Why did it take me leaving for you to finally reach out to me?"

"I…"

"Because there was too much happening," Cas murmured. "Because you needed to focus on the mission. Fixing Hell. Stopping Chuck. There's always another mission that's more important than me."

Sam said nothing. Cas might as well have ripped open the hunter's chest and completely hollowed him out. There were no words inside him, no way to argue. The angel was telling the truth, and Sam knew it.

"That's why I need to go back to Heaven. Why I want to go back. I've spent too long placing other things above my family there."

Sam picked at a chipped part on the edge of the nightstand, feeling the edges of the wood press into his fingertips. "You should do it," he said quietly.

A pause on the other end. "You… agree with me?"

The hunter nodded, then belatedly realized Cas wouldn't be able to see. "Yeah. I think you're doing the right thing. Just-- just be safe, please?"

"I will," Cas said. "And, Sam? Thank you."

"Of course."

Sam swallowed hard, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say next.

Before he could, Cas cleared his throat. "I think it's time for me to go."

"Cas? Cas, wait."

"Yes?"

"Before you go, I want you to know…" Sam took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady. "I want you to know that I've missed you, that I still miss you. I know that-- that you need time, and I'm okay with that, but it means the world to me that you called." Sam pulled his hand away from the nightstand to rub at his eyes again. "I love you, Cas."

Castiel went silent on the other end, but Sam could hear the angel's shaky breaths coming across the phone speaker. The silence kept going and Cas' breathing became more and more uneven, more and more like crying, and Sam wondered if his words had been too much.

"I…" Cas started, but his voice shattered.

"You don't have to say anything. I didn't say that because I was expecting something back, okay? You don't owe me anything. I just wanted you to know."

"O-Okay."

"I hope you find what you're looking for."

"I do, too," the angel murmured. "Thank you. Goodbye, Sam. Look after yourself."

"Bye," Sam whispered.

There was a shuffle and a click as Cas ended the call.

Sam reached up, rubbed the dampness away from the skin under his eyes, and told himself it was nothing more than sweat.

#castiel #sam winchester #spn #spn fic #spn fic rec #sam and cas #cas and sam #spn s15 #katswrites #spn fic recs

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and-stir-the-stars · 2 years

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Honey and the Bee

Summary: An insight into Castiel's relationship with bees, torture, and humanity.

tw: description of blood, brief insanity, and heavily implied torture.

Notes: Pre-series. Rewritten version.

...

‘The interesting thing about bees,’ Castiel thought, ‘is that they are everything I am not.’

The thought sat unwelcome in the angel's mind. It was an absurd and nonsensical idea, a meaningless thought, and he felt his Grace curl away from it on instinct.

Perhaps he had spent too much time in a vessel and dwelling amongst the mortals, for it seemed like their quirky abstraction was beginning to influence him in unseemly ways. Angels were not meant to be so hazy or poetic.

Castiel paused to look at the bee that had landed on his vessel’s hand and caused the sudden, unruly drift in his mind.

It was an incredibly foolish mistake on the honeybee’s part. Did it not know how easily he could kill it? Even a mortal would have very little trouble swatting and crushing the insect into nothing. And there was little to be gained on his vessel’s hand, either-- not a morsel of food, water, or stimulation that would justify taking such a risk. And the bee could have at least taken the initiative to land in a place where it would not be so easily noticed, yet it had chosen to make itself vulnerable willingly.

No angel would dare make such fatuous oversights. Angels were fearless warriors with God’s righteousness burning and radiating within them. Any mistaken, disobedient, or ill-prepared act on an angel’s part would be to directly flout God’s image, and such action, of course, would be severely and justly punished.

Castiel watched as the bee flexed its wings, the transparent appendages twitching before it took to the air. He wondered where the bee would find itself next-- on a flower? Landing on some other mortal? Within the walls of its hive?

It must be a horrible existence, Castiel decided, living a life in which you did not know what was expected of you. To live not knowing where you were going or how you were meant to get there.

Bees weren’t anything like angels. That must be what his previous erratic thought had been meant to convey.

...

Castiel was not sure he would ever get used to how small everything in the Earthly plane of existence was.

When angels were created, they grew and grew with every second that they were alive. The concept of being alive was synonymous with being in a state of growth; you could not have one without the other in Heaven.

That was not how it worked on Earth, however. Most of the mammals, the dominant animals on Earth after so many extinction events, simply stopped growing after only a few years of life. It was hard to comprehend that the creatures on Earth were truly alive after they reached their so-called ‘maximum height.’ When a mortal stopped growing, were they nothing more than a dead shell roving across the Earth?

Perhaps that was why some of his brothers and sisters held little remorse for the creatures on the mortal plane: you couldn’t kill or hurt what was already dead.

Castiel wasn’t sure he completely agreed with the sentiment, though. Yes, it was very odd that mortal bodies stopped growing, but mortal souls continued to shine with light just as bright and warm despite the physical deficiency. He had to admit that he was not an expert in the connection between the body and soul, considering he had neither, but Castiel was certain there must be some significance there.

Still, though. The things of Earth were so small. Underdeveloped. So frail, ephemeral, fleeting. So weak.

It made sense when you stopped to think about it. Heaven might be an infinite transdimensional plane, but there was only so much space available on Earth's habitable surface. Sacrifices would have to be made to ensure the large variety of life on the planet could continue to survive.

But how could something be alive and not growing?

It felt like it should be a grave dishonor for God to have given his most cherished creatures a trait associated in Heaven only with death and weakness. Castiel would never say it aloud, but he did doubt the practicality of this aspect of his Father’s Creation.

Castiel wondered if he would ever truly understand his Father or His earthly Creations.

...

Castiel’s wings were still burning. The throbbing pulses rocketing from the tips of his wings and past his scapulas were just as constant a presence as the buzzing of the bees currently surrounding him. Pain was singing throughout his wings; it was sharp and biting and angry as it disrupted the frequency of his Grace and wrenched his wavelengths into something twisted in agony.

He knew that he should feel lucky. He should be praising God that he was still alive and repenting his insolence which had led him here.

He didn’t regret what he had done, though. He was only sorry that he had failed.

New creations were roaming the Earth now, and they had not been made by God. There were only a small number of them so far, but they were swift, large, and brutal. Their jaws were strong, their teeth were sharp and broad like blades, and they were driven by a relentless and fearless fury.

Castiel supposed they must be terrifying to the mortals, whose eyes could not see the gnashing teeth and claws of the faceless terrors that chased them and exposed nerve and bone and sank deep into their souls. Angels could see the newly made creations with no difficulty, which might have made the hounds less unsettling if it weren’t for the saliva that seared and dimmed an angel’s Grace.

There weren’t very many of Lucifer’s hounds roaming the Earth, but they were causing a lot of trouble. Heaven had decided that the creatures needed to be banished into Hell.

It was supposed to be a simple affair, except their superiors had also decided that the best way to do so would be to use humans as bait.

Castiel had been aware there would be casualties-- he had been in enough battles and operations to know that humans, and even angels, would often be lost in the fruition of Heaven's endeavors-- but the casualties would be an honorable sacrifice as long as it meant Lucifer’s hounds would be stopped.

But when Castiel’s garrison arrived at the battlefield, they were immediately informed that their orders had changed. Their superiors had decided to let the hounds run rampant for now, thinking the carnage might attract all of the hounds to one location so the abominations could be banished all at once, rather than one by one.

They had been ordered to wait until all the hounds had been lured in, but there was a tension among the gathered angels. The new orders must have been just as unexpected to the rest of the army as they had been to Castiel. The evidence was a subtle thing, barely there: the Grace of one soldier curled almost too close into their core like they wanted to withdraw, another soldier's eyes angled just away from the cities being ripped into bloody shreds before them, the wings of another soldier fluffed and twitching as though in dread. Among individuals, it would be inconsequential and unnoticeable, but the actions of so many angels all gathered at once magnified each other into a force so physical it was suffocating.

But no one moved.

They were like icicles hanging from the limbs of a tree: there was a vague sense that they should move, like the tug of gravity; a vague sense that they should do something, but they all remained suspended in their places nonetheless.

This was where they were meant to be and they had been put here for a reason, even if for a reason they could not quite comprehend from where they stood listening to the screams and sobs and desperate prayers of the dying.

Castiel stood his ground as well, though he did try to filter out the humans' prayers as best as he could without also filtering out the frequency on which their superior officer would give the order to attack.

Castiel had been among the angels trying not to look at the slaughter unfolding before them. Then he saw a movement in the corner of one of his peripheral eyes.

It was a human. Screaming and so small, like a newly created fledgling. Humans hardly ever lived to be older than a hundred years, and their species had known a mere few thousands of years of existence. They were practically children. And children deserved to be cared for, they deserved to have a safe place to live and learn, not... not this. Castiel knew he would be able to extricate the human easily. Just a few flaps of his wings there, a hand on the human’s shoulder, and with a few more flaps he could deposit the human at a safe distance and be back in position before anyone even noticed he was gone.

Castiel hadn't seen the approaching hound until it was too late. Its claws had raked across his wings, ripping out feathers, gauging a few of his ventral eyes, and scraping at his bones as it knocked him to the side.

Continue on ao3

#castiel #spn #spn balthazar #cas and balthazar #cas and bal #spn fic rec #spn fic #katswrites #pre-series #naomi trauma #castiel and balthazar

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and-stir-the-stars · 3 years

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Cas would have gotten an I love you if Meg hadn't died

"Idiotic," Castiel said, his eyes locked onto Meg's bare shoulder. It hurt like a bitch; Crowley had managed to throw her during their fight, and Meg was certain it was dislocated.

"It was a foolish and asinine mistake, one that was very unlike you," Castiel growled, but his hands were gentle as they settled on her shoulder.

"I got the better of him, though, didn't I?"

The angel huffed at her, and Meg fought to keep her eyes from rolling. "Barely," Cas said with that pissed off grind still in his voice. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for wha--" Her voice faded into a strangled gasp as Castiel's hands jerked, shoving her dislocated shoulder back in place. She covered up the pain with a laugh. "Whew. Those hands got any other skills, Clarence?"

"Yes," Castiel grumbled. "Particularly maiming and smiting."

"Sexy." Meg slapped Castiel's hand away when his fingers reached up to her bloody face, and ignored the way her spine shivered as his fingers ghosted over her skin. "But you should really ask a girl to dinner first."

"I don't understand why you did that." Cas folded his hands in his lap, white knuckling like his hands would flutter free up he didn't keep them pinned down, and his eyes continued to look Meg up and down like he was anxious to make sure there were no other wounds that needed treated on her person. "What purpose could getting yourself killed have possibly served?"

Meg stayed silent for a few long moments, her eyes locked on the desperate and frightened gleam in her angel's eyes as he looked at her like she might disappear if he took his eyes off her.

"When you were in Heaven, way back before the Apocalypse was even a twinkle in Lucifer’s eye," Meg started.

Castiel frowned at the abrupt change in topic, his back going rigidly straight as he looked at her.

Meg's tongue darted across her lips as she looked at him, waiting. "Did they make you wear a dunce cap?"

"A--what?" Cas stammered, taken aback.

"You know, the pointy kind of hat with 'dunce' written down it? Did they slap your hand with rulers and force you into the corner at the back of the classroom? Because you're a goddamn idiot. Why the hell do you think I did it?"

Cas just stared at her, head shaking in something akin to confusion.

Dear God.

"I did it because when it comes down to either you or me making it out alive, I know which one I'll pick, every time."

He was still just staring, that puppy dog look of confusion on his face making her want to slap him. For a being with more eyes than she had hairs on her head, the dumbass sure was blind.

"I did it because I love you."

"You..." Cas whispered.

"Yeah." Meg had meant for her voice to come out teasing and even slightly annoyed, but that hadn't worked out. She swallowed hard at the way her voice shook with actual sincerity. "I know. I love you, okay?"

"But... why?"

"Because you're you. That's the only reason that matters." Any other reason would cheapen it, wouldn't it? Caring about someone for a reason wasn't love, it was exploitation. "Because we've spent a lot of face time together, Clarence, and I know you. And you're-- you're worth it. God, you're worth it."

"I'm worth dying for?" Cas asked, voice shaking as his blue eyes looked up at her. "But not worth living for? I would have lost you forever. If you-- if you really felt that way about me, I don't understand why you would-- why you would put yourself in a situation where you would leave me behind."

Meg's throat went dry. "You'd figure out a way to live without me, Clarence."

"I don't want to." Castiel's voice broke as he searched her eyes.

Meg sighed softly as she moved to sit beside him. Castiel's arms wrapped around her as sure as the tide as he held her close. There was that tingle running down her spine as his hands found their way onto her hips, as his head buried into the locks of bloody blonde hair tucked behind her ear.

"You don't have to," Meg murmured to him as his breaths hitched against her.

"I love you, Meg," Cas whispered into her skin as she ran her fingers through his hair.

Eventually, Meg would carefully pull away from him. She would say that he really ought to ask her to dinner, preferably to the very specific delivery meal that they both loved so much, and he would look at her with that birdlike head tilt of his until she wagged her eyebrows at him and he finally caught her drift.

But for now, she closed her eyes and tilted her head to rest on top of his.

#i did a thing #:)#megstiel #castiel #meg masters #katswrites #i'd tell you god's name if you asked #spn

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and-stir-the-stars · 2 years

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Between Desperate and Divine

Summary: Young Castiel tries to escape Naomi in Heaven.

/ The air burned in Castiel’s throat, and he only just managed to muffle his sob. The fingers tightened around his chin as the other angel heard it. He tried to look away from the angel's eyes, but he couldn't. He just couldn't.

"And Castiel? I can make the pain go away. But you have to want it. You have to choose it." \

tw: child abuse & gaslighting, blood

ao3

...

Castiel’s wings were lying limp against his back, the tips of his black feathers curling uncomfortably against the pristine white floor.

His face was wet, and there was a smell in the air. Something thick and electric and strong. Something coppery. One day Castiel would come to be familiar with that smell in the way only a soldier could be, but not yet. One day the smell of blood would thrill Castiel as much as it frightened him– one could not reign victorious in battle without spilling blood, after all– but now, the smell only made the young angel's head spin.

Through the blood stinging his eye, Castiel could make out a door in front of him with a door knob within reach, but he didn't reach for it. Just the thought put a throbbing in his head, one so powerful he was half-afraid his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets from the unceasing pounding.

For a while, Castiel just stood there. Trembling, crying softly from the pain in his head. He couldn't even remember where this door was supposed to lead anymore, or how he had gotten here or why.

A feathery rustle sounded behind him, followed by the click of approaching footsteps. Castiel still could not move, though the air itself seemed to stiffen at the newcomer's approach.

"Castiel." The newcomer's voice was sharp, controlled, crisp. He knew that voice, though he couldn't quite remember how he knew it. His head was pounding too much.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" The newcomer moved so they were standing right beside Castiel, but the fledgling still could not drag his gaze away from the door. It felt important, somehow; so important that he couldn't bring himself to look away despite the throbbing it brought unto his head.

The newcomer kneeled down. Their gaze on him felt like a hand wrapped tightly around his wrist, even though no one was actually touching him.

Castiel bit down on his cries, though the pain was so intense he could feel it throughout his body, wrenching at his Grace and ripping a great hole in his chest and reverberating through his fingertips.

"Do you know what it is, Castiel?"

Castiel tried to answer, but the words all felt wrong in his head, like a misshapen, clunky, unwelcome thing. The most he got out was a choked off, meaningless sound.

"It's not the feeling of a headache, or a tear in your Grace, or even of a broken wing. It's the feeling of doing wrong."

Castiel blinked hard, trying to clear the blurring out of his eyes as he realized that the angel was right. He'd felt a similar feeling before, right after the time he had told Balthazar he didn't want his brother around anymore if he was going to continue dragging Castiel into trouble and disrupting his training. This was the pain of going too far in a fight, of watching tears stream down your loved one’s face at some cruel thing you said and knowing you could never take it back or make up for it.

The angel wrapped their fingers around Castiel's chin, lifting up and forcing the fledgling to meet their stern eyes. "It’s the pain of a mother who told herself she’d do anything to protect her child but stands frozen in fear as she sees her child torn to shreds by a merciless beast. It's the pain of turning and fleeing and abandoning your siblings to die in battle behind you. This is the pain of doing something so egregiously wrong, you betray yourself and everything you stand for."

The air burned in Castiel’s throat, and he only just managed to muffle his sob. The fingers tightened around his chin as the other angel heard it. He tried to look away from the angel's eyes, but he couldn't. He just couldn't.

"And Castiel? I can make the pain go away. But you have to want it. You have to choose it."

Castiel wanted it to stop. Oh, Father, he wanted the pain to stop so much; he wanted everything to stop. But the pounding in his head was so strong he could feel his very wavelengths quivering before it, threatening to collapse; he couldn't think straight, and his chest was a gaping, all-consuming hole that numbed his entire body from his fingers to his wingtips. Nothing could stop it, no more than anything could stop a black hole. This was all that was left of him now.

"I can make it stop," the other angel murmured as though hearing his thoughts. "All you have to do is move away from the door."

The… door? Why did the door matter? For all Castiel knew, it could lead to something useless, like a closet or to a storage room or to… to… to something, something important. No. He couldn't leave the door, even if he didn't understand why, even if so much as looking at the door made him want to collapse from pain.

But why would he go to something that was only hurting him?

No… no, this didn't make sense. The door, how he had gotten here and why– it was a blur of confusion and hurt. The one thing that made any sense of it all was this angel, who had looked at him and somehow knew exactly what he felt when even Castiel could barely figure it out for himself. Castiel had thought the angel was familiar when they first appeared, and this must be why: this angel understood him in a way Castiel had not known was possible.

Castiel moved. One step away from the door, one step closer to her. Her. Not them.

The newcomer's wings arced up behind her as though in invitation.

Another step closer and the angel was wrapping her wings around him like a warm, safe cocoon. Her soft feathers brushed against Castiel’s wavelengths and entangled themselves against Castiel’s feathers as the fledgling buried his head against her. The pounding in his head eased slightly and Castiel sobbed from the sheer relief as Naomi wrapped her wings around him. Naomi. Naomi. Naomi.

"You're improving," Naomi murmured. "There was a time once when you would have escaped through that door without a thought."

Castiel tried to speak. The words were like barbs prickling inside Castiel’s head; it hurt trying to string all those sounds together and assign meanings to such abstract concepts. But Castiel tried anyway. "I-I did good?"

Naomi looked down at him like she was surprised the croak had left his lips at all. "I didn't say that. You still tried to escape."

"I was afraid," Castiel whispered. He could still feel the blood on his face. It was drying now, caking against his skin so thick that it tugged in all the wrong ways every time he moved the muscles of his face.

Naomi's mouth twisted. "You cannot be afraid." Disgust dripped from every word, and the nails of her hands dug painfully into Castiel’s flesh. "Everything an angel does or endures is a part of God's will, and to be afraid is to express doubt in His will. To be afraid is to distrust and disavow God Himself."

"I didn't mean to–" the words were blades shredding the insides of his throat, and Castiel cut himself off with a pained cry. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Naomi wrapped her wings even tighter around him as Castiel started to sob again, harder than before. "You will learn," she whispered. "One way or the other, you will learn."

#katswrites #castiel #fledgling castiel #spn naomi #spn fic #spn fic rec #spn #tw childhood abuse #tw gaslighting #castiel in heaven #pre series #pre canon #young castiel #child castiel

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and-stir-the-stars · 2 years

Text

Thy Right Hand Offend Thee

Summary: Killing Balthazar was always one of Castiel's greatest regrets. Now, years later, it comes back to haunt him when he's forced to relive it, over and over and over and...

word count: 21,320

tw: depictions of violence, vomiting, blood, self-harm and self-mutilation, body horror, dissociation, bugs

Created for Day Four of @angelfishofthelord's creator event. Prompt: Destruction/Creation. Congrats on the 600 followers!!!

Cas knew something was wrong the second he opened his eyes. They fluttered open slowly and he spent several long moments just blinking away the heavy soreness dragging his eyelids down. There was a dull ache buzzing through his head, but the angel pushed the pain aside as he used a wall to rise to his feet.

Where was he? He didn't know. Nor was he certain of how he had gotten wherever here was. There was only a blank. A hole in his memory that his consciousness immediately tried investigating, brushing against the blank like a tongue rolling over the space where a tooth had been pulled. It didn't do any good, of course. Didn't fill in the gaps, just accentuated that the gaps were there in the first place.

Grinding his teeth, Castiel blinked hard to get his vessel's eyes reaccustomed to being used now that he had woken from unconsciousness. He was sick of not being able to trust his own memories, of looking at his own past and seeing nothing there. He hated how used he was to this-- to not knowing what had been done to him during those blanks, or worse, what he had done during them...

'No. It isn't the time to think about that,' Cas thought, annoyed with his befuddled mind. If there had been a hostile nearby, he surely would have been captured or killed by now; the fact that he hadn't been was testament that his immediate vicinity was clear of the enemy, but that didn't mean he had the luxury to be slow or reckless. He didn't know his location or situation, didn't know if he had reinforcements who might come to his aid; he certainly couldn't hope for any aid and would need to be able to get himself out of whatever situation he had found himself in. And he didn't know where the person or people who had brought him here-- had he been brought here?-- were currently at.

Cas forced his eyes to fully adjust and saw he was in a large room with concrete floors and walls, a high ceiling arching over his head that was supported by rusting metal support beams, and tables with wheels like you would expect to find at a hospital, only these tables were filled not with medical instruments but with instruments of torture and jars of blood and spell ingredients. His mouth went dry, and he realized with a jolt that he knew exactly where he was.

His eyes immediately flicked to the side, to a portion of the wall where the concrete was stained with dark patches and mold grew in between the bricks. The wall was free of the bloody symbols that had once lay stark against the pale gray concrete, but it was still plainly recognizable. It was the place he had opened the gate to Purgatory and consumed all those souls, all that power, all that madness.

Castiel’s throat tightened and the angel took a wary step backward. He could almost feel it again: black sludge oozing up his lungs and throat, filling the empty space in his head, pressing against his skull and brain and the backs of his eyes until he felt like he might explode; a primordial evil scraping on the fringes of his mind, moving under his skin, slowly hollowing him out.

And there was another thing that had happened in this room that he always avoided thinking about at all costs. The soft fabric of a black coat brushing against one palm, the cold bite of his angel blade in another, the sound of his name being whispered in a weak gasp and punctuated by the loud slap of a body hitting the floor.

Cas took another step back. Whoever, or whatever, had brought him here must have researched his past, must have known that this room would rattle him. He wondered if it was those British Men of Letters. This seemed like something they might do, though Cas couldn't imagine why.

Shaking his arm, Castiel's blade slipped from his sleeve into his waiting fingertips. Perhaps it wasn't the Men of Letters after all. He hadn't thought they would be foolish enough to leave him armed.

He needed to get out of here. Perhaps there would be hostiles outside, but the angel was confident he could deal with them. Even if he couldn't, he would prefer to see his captors face to face rather than give them the advantage of being a faceless enemy, a blank canvas for him to needlessly project fears onto.

And anything would be better than being in here.

Cas turned to head for a staircase he knew would be on the far side of the room and practically crashed into someone standing behind him. Jerking away from the threat before he could process what it was, Castiel raised his blade, and immediately froze.

A sharp black coat hung off of the wiry frame of the figure before him. Under it was a gray v-neck shirt, with twin black strings of a necklace disappearing beneath the gray fabric. The skin around his gray eyes crinkled as his lips quirked in a casual, playful smirk, and a shock of blond hair lay expertly tousled upon his head.

It wasn't the physical form that caught Cas' attention, though. Earthly amalgamations-- things like bone structure or hairstyle or eye colour-- were fickle, and could all be mimicked or stolen so easily that the amount of shape-shifting and possessing creatures on Earth were plentiful. No, it was something else, something simmering beneath the surface, that hit Cas like a punch to the gut.

It was the Grace that took Cas' breath away. He would recognize that Grace anywhere; he had known that blend of smoke and salt and the tangy aroma of dark matter, and the way the reverberations of it slunk in and out of the ether like a feline creeping through underbrush and shadow, for longer than he had known the feeling of earth beneath his feet.

"Balthazar…" The name slid off Cas' tongue as easily as air slides through the sleek curvy vanes of feathers.

The smirk on Balthazar's face grew wider, playful. "Why so surprised?"

"You're… you can't be here," Cas whispered. Phantom pains shot through his fingers: the feeling of his skin boiling and bubbling where he had pressed his hands too close to Balthazar's burning scapulars. Castiel had been able to heal his vessel well enough, but his true form had been scarred with burn marks for weeks after he had… after he had left his friend behind years ago.

Balthazar narrowed his eyes for a few seconds, looking Cas up and down. "Oh." The blond angel huffed out a laugh, though it sounded more disappointed and forlorn than humorous. "You don't want me here."

"No!" Cas blurted. "Balthazar, of course I want you here. But I don't understand, I thought… I thought you were…"

None of this was making much sense. How had he gotten here? The last thing Cas could truly remember was being in a motel room looking for… something. Castiel shook his head, trying to fend off the headache that was steadily getting worse. He had been searching for something angelic in nature; Cas was sure of it. Had… had he brought Balthazar back? Maybe he had found some spell, something that required him to be in this room for the spell to work. Maybe a spell was why his memories were so mixed up and tangled.

"Not useful enough?" Balthazar finished Cas' sentence for him with a touch of bitterness hidden behind a strained smile. "I get it, Cas, don't worry. There's a lot going on in Heaven, and it won't do to surround yourself with the wrong company. It's not as though I'm the best Heaven has to offer."

Castiel’s stomach twisted as he looked up at the other angel. "Balthazar, no. Don't say that. You're my brother, and it's an honor to have you by my side-- an honor that I could never hope to repay."

Balthazar scoffed. "Good one, Cassie."

"Bal, wait!" Cas called as Balthazar turned his back on him and started to walk away.

Cas lurched forward, reaching out to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, to hold him back and tell Balthazar not to be foolish; of course he was more to Castiel than just whatever he had to offer, and Cas certainly wasn't throwing his best friend to the side. Not now, not ever.

Except when Cas reached out, his hand didn't settle onto Balthazar’s shoulder. Instead, the blade he had completely forgotten he was holding tore through the clothing and into the soft flesh of Balthazar's back.

"Cas," Balthazar gasped out as Cas twisted the tip of his blade through the other angel's spinal cord.

A strangled sound tore from Castiel’s throat and, for a second, he stared dumbly down at the blade protruding from his brother’s back and his own blood-speckled hand grasping at the hilt before Balthazar hit the floor with a dull thud like the bang of a nail being hammered into a coffin.

Continue on ao3

#castiel #spn balthazar #spn fic #spn fic rec #cas and bal #castiel and balthazar #balthazar and castiel #sam and castiel #sam and cas #dean and cas #supernatural #dean and castiel #castiel and dean #angelfish600 #castiel whump #katswrites #naomi trauma

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and-stir-the-stars · 3 years

Text

Don't look for shooting stars

summary: Jess comes out to Sam as asexual

tw: none

ao3

...

They were scouring the non-fiction section of the library when Sam asked about it the first time.

Jessica’s fingers danced lightly against the edges of the spines that jutted out from the bookshelves. Sam was on the other side of the aisle, searching for the specific edition of a book on organic chemistry Jessica needed for a tutoring session she had scheduled with a freshman. She sends an offhand glance in Sam’s direction as though to check his progress, see if maybe he’s found the book she’s looking for. Instead, she catches him leaning against the heavy bookshelf and staring at her with a contented gaze, like she’s a work of art he’s seeing for the first time.

She raises a brow at him, corners of her lips quirking in amusement, and embarrassment flashes across Sam’s face as he realizes she noticed him.

Sam clears his throat, quickly turning away from her as his eyes latch firmly onto the labels on the spines of the books in front of him. “Any luck?”

Jess abandons her bookshelf in favor of drifting closer to Sam. She situates herself beside him, her shoulder pressing against his as she absent-mindedly ghosts her fingers along the book spines. “No,” she says. “What about you?”

“No,” Sam says. Then, a pause. “What’s that ring on your finger?”

Jess blinks at that, taken aback. She takes her hand away from the shelf and twists the black metal ring round and round on her finger as she looks Sam up and down. Considers it. Balances the risks.

She already knows Sam doesn’t have a problem with the LGBT community in general. She and Sam have had a few conversations about gay and trans issues in the year and a half they have known each other; none of those talks had included asexuality, though, so Jess really couldn’t be sure what his stance was on it. If he knew what being ace was at all. If he accepted asexuality, or if he thought it was just some “internet sexuality” people used when they were desperate to seem special, or god knows what other bullshit people came up with to attack asexuals. If she came out, what would she do if Sam didn’t react well to it? Except Sam didn’t seem the type of person to do that. He wasn’t so closed-minded.

“You’ve worn it every day for as long as I’ve known you,” Sam continues. “An all-black ring, always on your right middle finger. Does it mean something? Was it a gift?”

For a second, Jess just looks at him, at the openness and sincerity lighting his eyes beneath the sweeping brown of his bangs where they dangle in his face. “It’s an ace ring.”

Sam’s head cocks to the side, his brows furrow, and Jess knows he has no idea what she’s talking about.

“Ace?”

“As in, short for asexual,” Jessica says. She studies his expression for a flash of recognition, thinking maybe he’s at least heard asexual in this context before. But when it doesn’t come, she continues on her own. “It’s a sexuality. Part of the LGBT community.”

There’s a slight change in Sam’s face now, like this wasn’t the direction he had figured this conversation would go in.

“This ring is a reminder,” Jess continues. “That what I am is worth being proud of. That I’m not alone, and there’s a community of people just like me, somewhere out there.”

The corners of Sam’s lips tug upwards, like the contented pride in Jess’ voice is contagious. Jessica has noticed that about him: that he always seems to smile when she talks about things that are important to her like he just can’t help himself.

Sam nods. “And what does that mean? Asexual?”

“Well…” Jess sighs through her nose. There goes the vague hope that Sam already knew about asexuality and she wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of explaining it. “There are some people who experience sexual attraction to the opposite gender, right? Heterosexuals? And some people experience sexual attraction to genders like their own, and some experience sexual attraction to multiple or all genders. And some people experience little to no sexual attraction to any genders–asexuals.”

There’s a second and a half where Sam doesn’t react. He just keeps staring at her, his eyes narrowed as he thinks that through. “Oh. Oh, wow– I didn’t even know that was an option.”

“Yeah. Not a lot of people do.”

Jess turns away and runs a finger down the line of books on the shelf without really seeing any of the numbers or titles plastered across the spines. There’s a sinking feeling in her chest, a bitter ache as she’s reminded of just how invisible she is. It’s been, what, three years now since she realized she was ace, and the number of people she has stumbled across in her day-to-day life who have even known what that part of her identity meant in all that time was slim. She hasn’t even come across someone who was openly ace before. If it weren’t for online forums, Jess could have believed she was the only person in the world like herself. Even with the forums and chat rooms, it’s not that difficult to believe she’s alone.

Jess had assumed that the conversation was over, so it takes her by surprise when Sam speaks up.

“So, you don’t experience sexual attraction. That sorta implies– I mean, does that mean there are other types of attraction than just sexual?”

And then Jess is laughing softly. She hadn’t meant to, of course, but the sudden reminder that not everyone knew something that seemed so simple to her had caught her off guard. The idea that asexuality existed and there were many different types of attraction was so fundamental to her life and her understanding of the world that it was strange for Jess to imagine there were people without that fundamental knowledge; Sam might as well have just asked if there were other languages than just English.

Sam is staring at her with that look he gets– his brows lifted, eyes wide, head tilted to the side. It’s an adorably pathetic expression that makes him look something like a kicked puppy, trying to work out what just happened.

For a brief moment, it makes her laugh harder. Then she looks away, runs the hand closest to Sam through her hair, blocking her view of him so that puppy dog expression doesn’t set her off again, and clears her throat. “Yeah.” She finally turns back to him after a pause. “There’s a lot, Sam.”

“Like what?”

Jess doesn’t say anything. She just stares, chewing at her lip and shaking her head, enjoying that feeling of knowing something that Sam doesn’t. Sam reads the amusement in her expression and sends her a mild bitch face in response.

Trying not to get caught up in another laughing fit, Jess can’t quite keep herself from smirking at him. She loves getting under Sam’s skin, getting a reaction from him.

“Well,” Jess continues when she’s had her fun. “To name a few. There’s platonic attraction– the desire to form a close platonic bond with someone. Aesthetic attraction: an appreciation for the way someone looks or presents themself. Romantic attraction: the desire to be in a romantic– but not necessarily sexual– relationship with someone. Should I keep going, or do you want all this in writing, lawyer boy?”

Sam doesn’t seem to notice the teasing remark at the end. “Wait. If romantic and sexual attraction isn’t the same thing, that means asexuals still want to date, just like any other person. Right?”

Jess cringes. All at once, the playful mirth drains away.

She hasn’t come out to a lot of people (not since freshman year, when she got repeatedly told she was “too hot to be asexual” so much that she had decided to stop sharing her sexuality so freely), but every single time she had, that same thing Sam just said would always come up, one way or another.

You’re asexual, but at least you can still have relationships and date.

As though she had to compensate for being asexual by still falling in love. As though asexuals were only worthy of acceptance on the condition that they could prove they were ‘normal’ and ‘human’ enough to fall in love.

That implication alone was enough to rub her the wrong way, to make Jess’ blood boil. But there was the added sting that Jess didn’t know if she was capable of falling in love that made the innocuous comment's bite personal. Yes, Jess had dated in the past, but never as often as everyone else around her, and her past dating partners had all been close friends before Jess had dated them. Looking back, Jess wondered if she had really been in love with any of them, or if her feelings toward her ex-partners had actually been of the platonic variety all along.

Sam’s question struck a nerve, and when she spoke next, she found herself speaking harsher than she had meant to. “Wanting to date doesn’t make you ‘like any other person.’ It’s not like wanting to date is the default way to be human. My asexuality and my validity as a person aren’t defined by an ability–or inability– to form or desire romantic relationships. Romance and asexuality are different issues entirely; they’re not intertwined like that.”

Silence. Sam stares at her, looking surprised by the sudden shift in the tone of the conversation.

“I-I’m sorry,” Sam stammers. “I didn’t mean to imply that at all, I just–” He broke off, floundering for words.

And just like that, the overwhelming wash of frustration melts away. “No, it’s okay.” Jess sighs before shooting him an apologetic smile. “I shouldn’t have snapped; you just wanted clarification. I keep forgetting that not everyone is up to date on the struggles and issues ace people face. It’s a touchy subject, though– people conflate asexuality and romance all the time, and doing so can lead to a lot of hurt for a lot of people.”

Sam smiles back, and relief flutters through Jess at the assurance that there are no hard feelings between them. “Then I guess it’s better if I learn more about ace issues now rather than later, huh?”

Jess laughs through her nose at that. Then she reaches for the bookshelf, grabs the book she had noticed earlier during their conversation, and holds up the organic chemistry book she needed for her tutoring session. “Then you better be glad I’m such a good teacher.”

...

"I always wanted to get a cat," Jess says absently-mindedly as she puts some finishing touches on the flier on her desk. The flier is an elegant pink, and on it is information for a fundraiser; she and Sam had offered to help out where they could for a fundraiser being hosted by a local animal shelter downtown.

"Really?" Sam is sprawled out across the hardwood floor at her feet as he works on his own posters. She had told the guy he could use the desk on her dorm mate's side of the room– she already knew Rebekah wouldn't mind— but Sam had steadfastly, and perhaps just a tad over politely, refused. "I've always been more of a dog person myself. "

"Cats are fierce little bastards," Jess says affectionately. "They speak to me."

"If that's the case, you might wanna go see a psychiatrist," Sam teases.

"Oh, shush." Jess picks up a marker and throws it at him half-heartedly; bouncing harmlessly off his back, the thrown marker only succeeds in making Sam laugh. "You know that's not what I meant."

"You never know with cat people."

Jess rolls her eyes. "Dog people," she says it like an insult.

The conversation lulls after that. For a while, the only thing that fills the silence is the scratch of markers and pens on paper and the occasional rustle of fabric as Sam shifts around, trying to get into a more comfortable position on the hard floor.

Eventually, Jess finishes her flier designs and sits back in her chair, watching Sam work. When he finishes, they'll head to the library and print off some copies, drop them off at the shelter, and then Jess should really get to work on her humanities project. She couldn't stall forever, after all.

Jess looks down at her hands and realizes she's been twisting her ace ring around and around on her finger. There's a white splatter of paint on the metal band that she hadn't noticed before, most likely put there during her art class she had attended a few hours before. She'll have to clean that paint splatter off later, but the white addition on the ring makes her think.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

Jess twists the black and white ring on her finger once more. "I think I might be demiromantic."

The idle scratching of markers on paper goes quiet as Sam puts his utensil down and looks up at her.

A few months ago, Jess would have been more hesitant to tell Sam this revelation about herself that she had been gradually unveiling. Coming out to someone could be difficult enough, but it was even worse when you had to take the time to explain what your identity is to someone who hasn't heard it before. It’s painfully nerve-wracking, and when the person you're coming out to doesn't have a good understanding of your community, it makes it frighteningly easy—almost inevitable, really– that the person might speak an insensitive comment or question simply because they don't have the knowledge to know that it's insensitive.

In the last few months, however, Jess had ended up telling Sam quite a lot about the asexual and aromantic communities; and Sam had researched asexuality and aromanticism on his own as well, with his determination to learn about the subjects being equal to– if not greater than– Jess' determination to teach him.

Now, as Sam peels himself up off the floor and situates himself next to her, leaning with an air of comforting casualty against the desk, Jess knows that she doesn't have to worry about giving any detailed explanations or definitions, or about the distant concern that Sam might not see the validity of aspec identities.

She remembers coming out as asexual to him, how disastrous it had felt at the time, and knows it'll be easier. More smooth, this time around. Safer. Somehow, though, that doesn't take away the sharp edge of nervous energy she always gets when coming out.

"You know, that fits you really well."

Jess looks up at him in surprise. No, that wasn't quite the right word. It wasn't surprising, just… not quite the reaction Jess had been expecting. "You think so?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "I mean, as far as I've known you, you've always been more drawn to…" Sam breaks off, gnawing on his lower lip as he searches for the right word. "Personalities. To who others are as people, the connections you can have with others."

Of course, Jess had already known in advance that Sam wouldn't have a problem with her identity, but there is something about hearing that validation out loud, from an outside source and said directly to her, that calms the nervous edge making her heart pound.

A smile works its way onto Jess' lips as she sees the thoughtful look on his face. It's—weird, and oddly touching, to think that Sam has picked up on those details about her. On things that have taken even her a long to understand about herself.

"I've been thinking about it for a while now," Jess admits. "And I really think that it– that it fits ."

Sam laughs softly. "I'm happy for you, then."

"Me, too."

"And it's kinda funny that you mention it, because– well–"

Jess looks up at him with an inquisitive mien, and Sam flashes a smile with just a touch of nervous awkwardness.

"I honestly think I might be demisexual," Sam continues. "I've been in a few relationships before, but entering high school, there always seemed to be some… I dunno, some disconnect that I couldn't put to words, could never really explain or talk about with anyone. Looking back, I think this might have had something to do with it."

Jess sighs, sending a tuft of blonde bangs floating in the air before it settles back against her forehead. "Yeah," she says. "I get what that's like. Not knowing how to explain yourself, feeling like there's something the matter with you that can't be worked through or fixed because you don't have the tools to explain it. To yourself or anyone else. There's not, though--" Pausing for emphasis, Jess raises her right hand, wiggling her fingers to draw attention to her ace ring. "Anything wrong with you."

"Thanks, Jess."

"For what?"

"For giving me the tools. It means more than I could ever have known."

Time freezes, and there's nothing but the two of them, smiling at each other warmly like they're basking in a secret that only the two of them share.

...

When Rome's in ruins,

We are the lions

Free of the coliseums.

The grass is soft where it bends back from beneath Jessica's feet as she dances around the dips in the earth and the stones and twigs saturating an abandoned field. Her laughter floats up into the night and mingles with the idle purr of a car engine, the chirping of crickets and birds, and the flare of Fall Out Boy's 'Young Volcanoes.'

From where he is silhouetted against the bright gleam of headlights, Sam is laughing too. His voice as he dances is light and erratic-- the kind of laugh you make when you know you should be embarrassed but don't really give a damn.

In poisoned places,

We are anti-venom:

We're the beginning of the end.

Sam's moves are jerky and disorganized but have a certain air, a sense of being organic and genuine like Sam has never learned to dance and is not entirely sure of what he is doing, but is simply letting his body react to the music in whatever way feels right. The smile gracing his face is thrilled–- wild, almost. Manic.

That smile is infectious. Jess can feel that smile just as surely as she can feel the music thrumming through her veins: pure and electrifying and freeing. It feels like release, like home.

Jess glides over toward him. Her movements are more fluid and methodical than Sam's: two steps forward, a spin, and a sidestep as she raises her arms in a circular motion over her head, and repeat. It's a dance that a high school friend taught her a long time ago, a dance that's nameless and half-forgotten by now.

Tonight,

The foxes hunt the hounds

And it's all over now

As she comes close, Sam grasps for her hand. His fingers are gentle against hers as he lifts their hands over her head and twirls her in his arms. Blonde hair tickles against the skin of her tank-top clad back as she whirls. For an instant, there's nothing but the feeling of Sam's hands, warm and secure in her own; nothing but Sam's voice singing along to the lyrics and the wind caressing her hair and face. Jess closes her eyes, head tilting up to the sky, basking in it all.

And then, Sam slips. He goes down, hand holding tight to Jess' and tugging her down with him.

Before it has begun,

We've already won.

Jess hits the ground with a winded gasp. The two lie there in silence for a long moment, stunned. Then, giggling, Jess punches Sam in the shoulder. "You're on my foot, you asshole!"

He blinks up at her before comprehension sets in. "I'm sorry," Sam blurts when he realizes they've landed in a tangle of limbs on the cold, hard ground, though he doesn't sound very sorry. He's laughing too much for that.

Sam shifts enough for Jess to free herself, and she fixes him with a playful glare.

We are wild,

We are like young volcanoes

They're still within the pool of light streaming forth from the headlights and it pours over Sam from behind, the white light glinting off his hair like a halo. His eyes are wide and concerned as he looks her over, but the shadows flickering and dancing between them do nothing to obscure the goofy smile splitting his face in two.

Jess isn't sure exactly how it happens or why, but suddenly she can tell that they're both leaning towards each other, ever so subtly. Jess' eyes flick down, tracing the curve of Sam's lips right before she moves forward. As their lips meet, Sam's hand runs through the tangled lengths of her hair, and Jess feels herself melt into the touch. Into him. At that moment, there isn't anywhere else in the world she'd rather be.

We are wild,

Americana exotica.

Don't you wanna feel a little beautiful, baby?

Jess pulls away from him, but keeps her forehead pressed against his like she can't bear to move any farther. "Sam," she whispers, breathless. The ecstatic gleam in Sam's eyes, the feel of his chapped lips on hers, the vanilla aroma of his body wash– it's intoxicating. But Jess needs to make sure of just one thing.

"Sam," Jess repeats. "I need to make sure you know– I'm ace, and if we do this, I'm not going to change for you."

Sam gives her an odd look then. It takes Jess a second to realize that it's odd because, usually, she's the one aiming it at Sam– the look that says 'I love you, but you just said the stupidest thing I've ever heard.'

"I don't want you to change. I don't want you for that , I just want you. Just you."

#jessica moore #asexual jessica moore #demiromantic jessica moore #demisexual sam winchester #asexual sam winchester #samjess #sam winchester #stanford era #pre-series #pre-series spn #spn #supernatural #spn fic rec #katswrites #ignore the anachronisms plz </3 #on an emotional level i *needed* them to dance to young volcanoes. doesn't matter that the song didn't exist in stanford era.#aspecnatural

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and-stir-the-stars · 3 years

Text

My Peace I Give Unto You

Summary: Four times Castiel had to deal with trauma to his true form alone, and one time he didn't.

A what-if scenario based on the idea of Earth not being angel-friendly. Every time Castiel uses his powers to heal or smite on Earth, he has to sacrifice a piece of himself to do so, and it might just be the death of him.

...

Dean was angry with him, Castiel noted as he lowered his hand from the air, still glowing a faint gold hue from smiting a vampire that had been hovering over Sam’s fallen form.

The hunter panted as he rushed to Sam’s side, his machete falling as he collapsed to his knees. He pushed Cas aside to do so, hands ghosting over the bite wound in the space between his younger brother’s shoulder and the tender skin of his neck as though he had any power over the blood steadily escaping there. “It’s okay, you’re okay, Sammy,” the hunter murmured before turning his gaze onto Castiel. “Heal him!”

Castiel had been about to do so before Dean had shoved him away, but Cas didn’t say that out loud. The angel quickly moved to kneel beside the younger Winchester and placed a hand over the wound.

The same golden hue from earlier poured from his hand, flickering imperceptibly underneath Sam’s pale skin. Cas clenched his vessel’s teeth as his true form shuddered at the sensation of being in the earthly plane where it didn’t belong. Castiel felt each modicum of power flowing through his wavelengths to reach his Grace, which in turn ripped the smallest portion of himself from the ether and forced it into something physical so it could travel through Sam’s veins, healing as it went, but the tendrils of his true form were changed by the time they had flowed back to the rest of Castiel’s being. They vibrated faster than they should have, having abandoned the steady frequency that his body normally maintained and instead thrummed at a pace much closer to that of Sam’s soul. The wavelengths themselves were different as well, their edges rounded and twisted into a vague double helix, like strands of DNA. The tendrils settled uncomfortably back into the intricacy of Castiel’s being, like mismatching pieces of a puzzle. The unnatural structures of the wavelengths obstructed the flow of energy through his body and into his Grace, reducing it from the indomitable cascade of a river rushing down a great waterfall to a stagnant marshland, lying flat and directionless and without any banks to guide it.

Castiel bit back the discomfort from body parts that didn’t quite fit and the exhaustion that accompanied it as he asked Sam if he was alright.

“Yeah,” Sam rasped as he struggled to sit up, Dean at his side. “I’m-- I’m good. Thanks.”

“Why the hell didn’t you try smiting them earlier?” Dean ground out, although his eyes never left Sam. “If you could have done it this whole time?”

Castiel shook his head, silently asking Dean to meet his eyes. “You don’t understand,” Castiel started. Didn’t understand what it was like to shatter your very essence and force your fragmented self into a world that wasn’t designed to suit it. It was like ripping off an arm and trying to do reattachment surgery after it had already started to decay; it set everything off balance and made it harder to access his powers... and it just felt wrong. What was worse than that, though, the part he truly wanted his humans to understand, was that it was getting increasingly difficult for his Grace to smooth his wavelengths back into what they were supposed to be. Every smiting and every healed wound of the brothers' on every hunt left his true form changed. It took more and more time and effort to return his body to homeostasis each time, and Castiel worried there would come a day when he was unable to do so. Despite his reputation for it, Castiel didn’t like to tempt fate.

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” Dean interrupted before Cas think of a way to put any of that to words. “Just help me get Sam to the Impala.”

Cas moved to Sam's side to brace the human while Dean followed suit.

“Guys, I’m fine,” Sam protested, but it was made less effective by the way he stumbled as he tried to walk.

Dean chastised his brother as the three dragged themselves forward, out of the old house that had hosted the vampire nest before depositing Sam onto the passenger seat. Dean immediately started inspecting his brother for further injuries, worriedly wiping away the blood still on his neck and staining his shirt.

The hunter didn’t need to worry. Cas had healed everything, from the bite wound and the bruises he had gotten during the fight to a day-old paper cut on the young Winchester’s pointer finger. Castiel let Dean fawn over his brother anyway, knowing Dean would need some outlet from the horror of watching Sam bleed out on the ground and not being the one who had made it better.

“Dean.” Guilt pulled Castiel’s head toward the ground and lumped itself inside his throat. He cleared his throat in an attempt to expel it. “If you need healing too, I can help. I should have been paying more attention.”

“It’s fine, Cas,” Dean said. Castiel wondered at the way the Winchesters used the term 'fine' when they really meant 'not fine at all.'

“We’re done here," the hunter continued.

Castiel disappeared with a flap of wings.

He stayed in the ether for a few days, struggling to coax his Grace to smooth his wavelengths back into the elegant curves he was used to so his body would feel like his own again. But Heaven’s power kept getting tangled in the parts of himself that had been changed, clotting the flow so only a trace of power could reach his Grace and be catabolized into energy his celestial body could use.

The rest of the primordial power remained ensnared behind the coagulation like blood in a clotted wound, and the pressure that built up as the energy was unable to continue its natural flow grew agonizing as the hours, then the days dragged on. He ended up taking multiple flights across the Earth then throughout the galaxy to take his mind off it, and by the time his body returned to homeostasis and the unbearable pressure ceased, he praised his Father for the miracle.

In all of his 5,432,618,079 years of existence, Castiel had never once felt cold before. He had always been surrounded by the explosion of light and chatter and loud commands that were his angelic siblings, and he had always been able to feel the harmony of Heaven resonating proudly within his core. He had flown across the vacuum of space in places where the nearest star was millions of light-years away, had moved across the bottoms of oceans where the sun could not penetrate, and strode across glaciers at the dawn of the Earth’s ice age, but he had never felt the bitter bite of desolation like he did now.

Sam Winchester was gone. He had given himself unto the Cage in the ultimate sacrifice, saving the world but rendering so many hard-fought battles to keep both brothers alive pointless in the process.

Castiel had been disconnected from Heaven. He had been reborn, turned from a low-ranking angel into a seraph. He had been stronger than he had ever been before for one shining second. But he had healed Dean and brought Bobby back to life, and soon he realized that the actions had tainted his true form, just as they had before his death. Heaven’s song was still within him, but it was frighteningly faint now that he had officially chosen humanity over Heaven’s wish for the Apocalypse. Heaven’s power still resounded faintly within him, but it continued to get lost within his tangling wavelengths and the newfound cavity within himself.

He couldn’t feel his siblings anymore. All angels had an echo of Heaven’s song built into their core like the frame for a collection of houses that would all get different facades overlaid on top of them. Angels were supposed to be able to trace their echo back to the throne room in the center of Heaven, where the song and the psychic link among angels originated. Castiel could follow his link to the throne room, barely, but he couldn’t seem to sync into the shared awareness of his siblings’ consciousnesses. He couldn’t feel his siblings through their psychic link, nor could he talk to them through it. Castiel had sunk into despair at this revelation, but after some experimentation had discovered he could still communicate with his siblings if he bounced his connection off of the channels humans used when they prayed. Perhaps the messages didn’t come through as clearly as they could have, and Castiel could not feel the full depths when attempting to transmit nonverbal feelings and ideas through the connection, but the fact that it had worked at all was enough for Castiel to rejoice. Or, it would have been, if his siblings had been willing to talk to him.

Most surprising of all was how empty Castiel felt without James Novak’s soul sharing this vessel. Jimmy had mostly stayed unconscious, but Castiel had always been aware of the bright warmth of the man’s soul. Sometimes, Jimmy had woken long enough to converse. Castiel missed those talks about how the fight against Lucifer was going, he missed being asked how Heaven operated and what the dynamics between angels were like, and he even missed the sarcastic if not bitter comments made in regards to the Winchesters and himself. Now there was nothing but a gaping darkness Castiel’s form was having a hard time ignoring. He didn’t understand how it could make him feel so cold.

Castiel wished he could ask someone if it was normal to feel so cold when alone in a body. But this had never happened to an angel before, as far as Castiel was aware, so even if his siblings had been willing to discuss it with him they would not have an answer. Castiel could not ask Dean or Bobby if it was normal, either. He had the feeling neither of them would be happy to see him after Sam had given himself to protect the world from his kind, so he stayed away.

There was another consequence of Jimmy’s soul being gone, one that Castiel tried in vain not to think about: without Jimmy’s soul to act as a buffer, Castiel’s true form was exposed to the earthly plane of existence even more easily than before, and his body could be so easily twisted and his access to his powers diminished.

Castiel wandered aimlessly across the Earth for a while after being reborn. Eventually, Castiel had found himself outside an abandoned gas station with a beige exterior and broken windows, glimmering shards of glass strewn carelessly about the ground. Castiel recognized it instantly as the gas station to which Dean had run before they had met for the first time on the Earth’s surface, when Castiel had mistakenly been under the impression Dean would be able to hear his true voice. It was then that Castiel realized: he had raised one brother from Hell, why then, could he not raise the other?

And so he had. He didn’t have much left to lose, after all.

By the time he had raised Sam from Hell, Castiel discovered Dean had sworn off everything to do with the supernatural and had settled down with a woman, Lisa, and her child, Ben. The angel decided not to tell Sam what he had done. He left Sam on Earth to join up with his brother, because if he hung around Sam or even Bobby, then Dean would inevitably be dragged back into a world he wanted nothing to do with. Castiel could not do that to him.

And so Castiel had roamed the Earth once more. He tended to the wounds he had received from his venture to Hell and went around healing and helping those in need, ignoring how it wrenched his true form into something painfully other because the act of healing eased the emptiness inside him. But eventually, the coldness that assaulted his true form could not be ignored anymore. Angels were not meant to be solitary creatures, and so he had returned to Heaven. There, he had found that his eyrie had been destroyed as collateral damage by Raphael as the archangel prepared to start the Apocalypse anew.

Castiel’s fears were realized as he dealt with a demon.

He had been doing ‘mandatory dirty work’ to keep himself ‘out of trouble’ while the King of Hell pretended to be actively searching for the gates to Purgatory. Crowley wanted him to extract information from the demon, and extract information Castiel did. Crowley waltzed into the room soon after the angel had succeeded, and it was while he was bickering with the King of Hell that the lower-level demon somehow got free from its restraints and attacked. Castiel smote the demon with no problem, except that the tendrils of his true form came back into him changed. Again. This time their frequencies had been altered so dramatically that there were almost no vibrations coming from them whatsoever.

Castiel remembered wanting to explain to Dean how smiting nowadays left him feeling like he had ripped apart his true form and tried to put together the decaying pieces; the tendrils of his true form that had been tainted by the demon were so stagnant and lifeless that Castiel was left wondering if his analogy had literally come true. And now that Jimmy was gone, he had to endure yet another change. Not only had the act of smiting the demon changed the fabric of Castiel’s being, but some of the tendrils of his true form had also had an adverse reaction to coming into contact with the air itself in the split second before Castiel had put his hand on the demon’s head. Similar to how healing the Winchesters frequently led to chunks of Castiel’s true form forgoing their natural pattern in favor of resembling DNA, the tendrils of true form reattached themselves looking remarkably like nitrogen, oxygen, and other molecules commonly found in the composition of Earth’s atmosphere.

Ignoring Crowley’s witty remark about turning his back on the enemy, Castiel withdrew back into the etheric plane. He wished he could go back to his eyrie, a sort of home in Heaven that every angel had where they could safely go when they needed to ‘lick their wounds,’ so to speak. But his eyrie had been destroyed in Raphael’s civil war, and even if it hadn’t, Castiel would have surely been attacked by Raphael's army there. The ether was the only other safe place he could think of. So the angel stayed and let the ethereal wind currents pass over him and carry his pained groans away as he waited for his Grace to return him to homeostasis.

After five days had passed and the demon’s taint was still keeping his true form bent out of shape, obstructing the flow of energy to his Grace, Castiel started to genuinely worry. Two weeks later, and the only change that had occurred was that the pressure building up behind the coagulation of power in the veins of his true form was keeping him near-paralyzed on the ground from the pain. Castiel tried to force his Grace into action, but it simply did not have the energy to undo the damage from touching the demon’s twisted soul nor from touching the molecules of the atmosphere. This time, the damage was irreparable.

The pressure continued to increase, slowly at first but picking up speed the longer the process went on. Castiel had no idea how to fix it; the only angels who had fallen before were Anna and Lucifer, but Lucifer was an archangel who had been thrown into Hell, not Earth, and Anna had cut her Grace out entirely. There was no solution to this, and Castiel had waited for too long anyway. He was in no condition to leave and seek help, nor did he have anyone he could ask. The pressure kept increasing, so much so that soon it took up all the focus in his mind and he couldn’t keep himself from screaming any longer. Then, something happened.

Almost as though his Grace had consciously understood that there was nothing it could do to smooth out the demon’s taint that was blocking his system, Castiel’s Grace suddenly stopping trying to remove the contagions and instead switched its focus to the healthy wavelengths comprising his true form and wrenched them away from the tainted wavelengths. Doing so widened the pathways Heaven's energy was meant to flow through, and it was agonizing, like reaching one’s hands inside an open wound and tearing at both sides. It felt like being ripped apart.

But it did give his power more room to flow freely through him once more, and though the energy still wasn’t enough for his Grace to get rid of the tainted parts of himself, it did numb the pain.

Crowley was waiting with more withering comments when he finally came back, complaining about Castiel being an ‘unreliable business partner,’ and was he really so hasty to nullify their deal, because didn’t he know that no matter how attractive the offender, the King of Hell didn’t have the tolerance for this kind of disrespect?

Castiel ignored him. He was too busy thinking that one day, inevitably, he would reach out with the last piece of himself to heal someone or smite an enemy on the earthly plane, and when that piece of his true form returned, it would be irreversibly changed. One day, he would have given everything he had to protect God’s beloved creations, and there would be nothing of the real him left.

keep reading on ao3

#just reread this yesterday and i decided its really good #and i made this before i created this tumblr so like. might as well make a post. raise awareness and whatnot.#obviously its not perfect #and by its not perfect i mean balthazar should DEF be in it. why didnt i write him in it. wtf.#no jk. the reason i decided not to write bal in is bc he would have taken care of cas and i need this to be pure angst.#but yeah #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #tfw #spn #spn fic #cas angst #cas whump #katswrites

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and-stir-the-stars · 2 years

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to anyone tracking me on ao3:

casuallycausingchaos -> softpaperwings

#feeling soooo changable #it's a weakness of mine #but to be fair to me. it's my *only* weakness ;)#katswrites

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and-stir-the-stars · 3 years

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Mind You, I Quite Like Hope

Summary: When the gang goes to the Apocalypse World, Castiel finds that world's Balthazar.

tw: mentions of suicide ideation and descriptions of character death

ao3 (part 1 + epilogue)

Castiel was alone when he saw it. A flicker of movement just a second out of sync with the rest of the rhythm of the physical universe.

He was the only one who saw it, but then again, he was one of the only ones who could. Its existence was too dull for humans to be able to register it. That was the whole point. Gabriel and Lucifer were too busy bickering to see the blip in the etheric plane, and Jack was talking to refugees with Sam and Dean.

Castiel’s blade slid from his sleeve, the cold alloy resting but ready for action in his palm.

He didn’t call out to raise the alarm, although he probably should have. At the very least, he should have told someone what he was about to do, but he didn’t. He was tired of seeing that look on the refugees’ faces. Biting and bitter and afraid, the look that reached under his vessel’s skin to dig into his Grace, ripping until he was inside out with all of his sins laid out for judgment. And judge they did. Castiel deserved it, of course. But he had gotten into the habit of being treated better than he deserved, and he ran every time one of the refugees looked him in the face.

Perhaps he could have gone to Gabriel. There were no refugees around his older brother, but that was equally as bad a decision, or perhaps it was a worse one. He couldn’t look anyone he knew in the face, not if he wanted to forget about that other him, the one with the cloudy eye and the bad accent and the broken wings. They would take one look at him and they would know what had happened, Castiel was sure of it. And they couldn’t know. He especially didn’t want Lucifer, of all people, to know.

So Castiel moved toward the perimeter of the refugee camp alone, slipping from light into heavy darkness like the vile degenerate he was. It wrapped around him eagerly, caressing him gently but with the tacit promise that it could elicit pain from him at any moment, like walking into the arms of a so-called friend he should know better than to hang around. He scanned the trees and the gaping dark wounds between them, but his ethereal eyes weren’t as good as they once were, especially not with the anti-angel sigils that the refugees had carved into the trees out of habit.

“You.”

Castiel whirled around, his blade rising. In the brief instant before he had completely assessed the situation, he considered flicking his wrist and letting the blade break through the air like a falcon diving at its prey, but decided against it. There had been one voice, but that didn’t mean there was only a single enemy, and he couldn’t afford to lose his one defense.

His eyes drifted upwards and he froze upon seeing the owner of the voice. “You,” Castiel whispered, little more than a broken echo as the memory of flaring, Grace-filled eyes and burning feathers pounded inside his head.

The other angel stared Castiel up and down with empty eyes, a different kind of empty than the eyes Castiel remembered staring at nothing after an explosion of light that had practically stripped the skin of his true form down to his nerves, leaving it so sensitive it had ached at every movement for weeks afterward. Bonds between angels were strong, after all, and the breaking of a bond by the very participants of that bond always released an immense storage of energy.

“I heard whispers that a group of warriors had come from another dimension.” The other angel looked up now, the lines around his eyes as sharp and hard as the ice glazing over the gray irises of his human face. “But I hadn’t expected this.”

Castiel swallowed hard, his blade still raised at the ready even as his hand started to tremor. “Balthazar.” The name slipped from his tongue breathlessly, a long-winded confession jammed into the space of one word, packed in so densely it was an even tighter fit than an angel trying to cram their expansive true form in the puny confines of a human vessel.

Castiel’s throat tightened. He couldn’t do this again. He needed to stay alive; he needed to keep Jack safe from his own curiosity and biological father, needed to get Gabriel back to Heaven to keep the place from breaking down, needed to keep the Winchesters safe now that they had finally been reunited with their mother and Bobby and other old friends. If he died now, he could never set things right, but he couldn’t see those charred remains of wings again, or the explosion that resulted from an angel killing their bondmate. Not that this Balthazar was his, but there were too many humans nearby to risk it.

“The way you look at me,” Balthazar muttered in that lilting English accent. “What is that?”

“You should know better,” Castiel ground out around his closed-up throat. “Than to fraternize with the enemy.”

“Is that what we are?” Balthazar scoffed. “It’s all so convoluted, isn’t it? Angels working with demons and vampires and whatnot to exterminate humans, all while shoving blades into their own brother’s and sister’s backs.”

Castiel couldn’t hold back his flinch, the memory of the way Balthazar-- his Balthazar-- had gone rigid under him as he braced against Balthazar’s back with one hand and stabbed him with the other shoving itself into the front of the angel’s mind.

“Touched a nerve, didn’t I? You always wore your emotions on your sleeve, right where everyone could see them. Even when you were trying to hide.”

“Balthazar, please. Don’t…” But Castiel didn’t know what he was asking for, so his voice trailed off into nothing.

“I have to say, I can’t think of a better word than dread for that look in your eyes. What happened in your world to make you fear me so, Castiel? You can hardly look at me without going doe-eyed.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Castiel wasn’t sure if he was talking to Balthazar or himself, but it wouldn’t matter either way. Nothing would change what was to come. One of them was going to die, and Castiel couldn’t let it be himself.

“Do what? I thought we were only fraternizing.”

“Michael,” Castiel said. The only thing he could force from his broken throat, but the only thing he really needed to say to get his point across.

Something dark passed over Balthazar’s gray eyes, the first flicker of emotion that had shown. “You think I’m with him?”

Castiel stayed silent, pouring too much effort into keeping his sword arm steady to respond to the question or process what it meant.

“The me in your world must have been quite the little ponce for you to even consider that possibility,” Balthazar continued after a pause.

Something was wrong. Balthazar was stalling. Castiel risked a glance backward, towards camp, suddenly afraid the other angel was nothing more than a carefully placed distraction so other soldiers could infiltrate undetected.

Balthazar followed his gaze. “It’s been a while since I saw you defending humans instead of torturing them.”

A bitter taste worked its way onto Castiel’s tongue. He recalled forcing his way into Donatello’s mind. He had tortured a man here, too, had put his hands on the human’s head and forced his Grace inside him because Sam and Dean needed information. Don’t think that you are better than me, the other him had said.

Castiel bit it all back. “I could say the same about you.” The Balthazar he had known had bought up human souls without a thought to serve his own convenience. That Balthazar had brought about the existence of entire generations of souls so Castiel could swallow them up; he had done it just because Castiel had asked him to. And then Castiel had skewered him anyway. ‘It would be oddly fitting,’ a part of him thought, ‘to die here at Balthazar’s blade. A poetic kind of penance after what I did to him.’

It wasn’t until that moment that Castiel realized Balthazar didn’t have a blade. Balthazar’s hands were hanging loosely at his side, as lifeless as the rest of him. Castiel’s brows turned down. Balthazar would be able to fight even without a blade, true, especially if he had the might of Heaven on his side, but why?

You think I’m with him?

“What are you doing here?” Castiel barked out. If Balthazar had wanted to attack the camp or him, the angel could have done so already.

But Balthazar just rolled his eyes. “All you ever talk about is work, dearie. It’s dreadful.”

“You’re dead in my world,” Castiel said, figuring it would get a rise out of the other angel.

“Sounds like a personal problem. Why should I give a rat’s arse?”

“Because I’m the one who killed you.” Castiel’s voice was steadier than he had thought it would be.

Balthazar tensed immediately, his gaze snapping to look Castiel in the eyes. And was he imagining it, or was Balthazar focusing more on one eye than the other?

“And I can tell you why, but only if you answer my questions. Why are you here?”

Balthazar stared at him for a few seconds. His gaze wasn’t cold, exactly, but it was hard and blank, a work of ceramic that had been left to fall to the unforgiving ground before having the chance to be painted. “Michael,” the angel answered, voice dripping with something angry and smug over his equivocal response before faltering into something almost hesitant. “Was it Naomi?”

Just hearing the name was enough to make his eye twitch, pulsing with remembered pain. “No. What does Michael have to do with anything, if you’re not ‘with him,’ as you say?”

Balthazar’s eyes narrowed, his gray ones still locked onto Castiel’s blue. “He’s coming. How long ago?”

“Six years, ten months, and three days.” He didn’t even have to think about the answer. “And don’t lie to me. Why are you here?”

Balthazar cocked his head. “I didn’t lie.”

“Why would you care to warn a group of ‘hairless apes’ if Michael were approaching? And if you truly did care, you wouldn’t be wasting time playing twenty questions.”

“Because Michael is a twat, and if I can keep him from getting what he wants, then good.”

Castiel’s grip on his blade tightened. He knew how to tell when Balthazar was lying. It was the whole reason the angel, the original one, had died in the first place. Castiel took a step back, mouth opening to alert the camp about the intruder.

“Wait!”

Castiel did. He shouldn’t have, but he did.

“Fine, you got me. I’m not doing this for the mud monkeys.”

Castiel waited, trying to ignore the way his Grace pinged at the familiar phrase. He had always told his siblings not to call humans that. Had told Balthazar that more than the rest, although it had always been with less severity in his tone when he chastised his bondmate for the infraction.

Balthazar’s jaw tightened, his teeth grinding together for a few seconds. “I felt him die, you know.”

“Who?” But Castiel already knew the answer to that.

Balthazar responded even though it technically wasn’t his turn to answer. “You. Not-You. However the hell you want to say it. He’s dead now.”

“I know. I killed him, too.”

Balthazar tried to hide his surprise, but Castiel could see it in the way he drew his shoulders back. “The funny thing is,” the angel said with a tone lacing his words that Cas didn’t know how to identify. “He would have wanted that.”

Don’t think that you are better than me.

Well, we are the same.

Yes, we are.

It was how Castiel knew that the other him would have wanted to be put down. If he was so far gone, so far under Heaven’s control, he would want a mercy killing, too.

But none of this explained why this Balthazar was here now.

Castiel shook his head. “So you’re here because…”

He trailed off. It just didn’t make sense. Balthazar coming here without a weapon, to a place where there were sigils to weaken him, risking his life over a bunch of humans no version of him would ever care about enough to do. And now this Balthazar was bringing up the death of Castiel's alternate self.

He would have wanted that.

Castiel looked up, his eyes wide.

Balthazar tilted his head at him again. “Ah, now you’re getting it.”

“You’re doing this because,” Castiel struggled for the words. “Because your Castiel would have wanted you to help them?”

The angel shrugged. “I haven’t exactly been sitting idle. I just like pulling the strings from behind the scenes-- it’s where I work best.”

“And now that he’s dead, this is, what, a suicide mission?” Cas snapped, his voice growing louder as something ground and tore at his chest. “You walk into the camp and get killed, so the humans will be spooked and leave the area before Michael shows up? You think your Castiel would have wanted that?”

“Well, it hardly matters what he wanted anymore,” the angel replied icily.

Somewhere during the conversation, Castiel realized, he had lowered his angel blade so it hung limply at his side, an icicle dangling from his fingertips and ready to slip at any second.

“You don’t get to do that!” Cas’s voice broke. Of course it did.

Balthazar shook his head. “I wondered for a long time. About how you got captured while I managed to get myself gone. The answer is obvious, though. I may be the dictionary definition of anti-social rebellion against authority, but I knew when to hide it and when to save my own skin. But you, you feel too much. You could never hide it and you could never stop to care about your own skin when there were other things at stake.”

“What is that supposed to be? A last confession before you get yourself killed? An apology?” Castiel snapped. “You’re alive. You don’t get to throw that away!”

“I’d lower your voice if you don’t want the humans to hear you.”

Castiel glared at him, chest heaving, lungs clawing for soot-tinted oxygen that he didn’t actually need but craved anyway.

“I get it now. You weren’t afraid of me, earlier, you were afraid of yourself. Was it cathartic to kill the version of you that I knew? Did it make you feel like you were expelling all the pain you’ve caused, transferring all the blackness lurking within you into him and destroying it for good? Did you enjoy wiping what you could have been off the face of the Earth?”

Cas shook his head. It wasn’t an answer, but more of a why are you doing this?

“There are some parts of yourself that you can’t get rid of, Castiel. No matter how hard you try.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas said quietly. About what happened to Not-Him. To the original Balthazar and the one standing before him now. Balthazar was one of those parts of himself Cas would never be rid of, and he knew this Balthazar felt the same way about his Castiel. His Balthazar had felt the same way about him, once.

“Seven years is a long time to be afraid of yourself. Was it worth it?”

Cas couldn’t bring himself to meet his gaze. He didn’t know. If he hadn’t killed Balthazar, his brother would have helped Sam and Dean stop him from opening the gates to Purgatory. Opening the gates had turned out to be a flood of misery and death, but he had defeated Raphael because of it even as he tainted himself in the process. What was Balthazar worth? Sam and Dean? The Earth and all the love, redemption, and creation humanity had to offer?

“There’s another way.” Castiel just couldn’t help himself.

“What?" Balthazar scoffed "Following you and the naked meat sacks into a brave new world?”

Cas stared at the space just over Balthazar’s shoulder, but he could feel his tired gaze trying to droop further to stare at the ground instead. “I thought you were priding yourself on knowing when to run and save your own skin.”

“You’re not my Castiel. He’s been gone for a long time, since way before you killed him.”

“And you’re not my Balthazar. He’s been gone for a long time, too.”

Balthazar made a ‘humph’ sound. “It’s a perfect match, in a pathetic sort of way.”

Cas looked up. He tried to beat the flicker of hope back, or to at least keep it off his face before the inevitable disappointment came, but as Balthazar had said: he had never been very good at that in any universe. “You’ll-- you’ll come?”

Balthazar was silent for a long time. Something numb slipped over Castiel, folding over him like a blanket. He had almost taken the silence for a ‘no’ when Balthazar spoke.

“I can give it a shot. If I don’t like what I see, well, I suppose your universe will be as good a place as any to die.”

Castiel’s Grace froze in his veins at the words. And there it was. But it was fair enough, given the circumstances, and probably the best either of them was going to get.

Balthazar moved closer, and Cas hesitantly put his blade back up his sleeve. He wondered how to explain the angel’s appearance to Sam and Dean and the rest, but he honestly couldn’t bring himself to care.

The angel came within arm’s length and Castiel panicked. He wasn’t sure why. Part of him thought maybe it was some elaborate trick and this alternate Balthazar had been playing him the whole time, and was now about to stab him or break his neck or kill him in any number of ways. Another part worried it wasn’t Balthazar at all, but an illusion that would disappear under the right pressure.

Castiel had been keeping the aura of his Grace locked down tight, safe and away from prying eyes, for a long time now. He didn’t mean to, but before he even knew what was happening, Cas’ Grace had lurched forward, desperate to touch Balthazar and know that his brother was there with him.

Balthazar’s head whipped toward him, and Castiel flinched back. His cheeks warmed and he floundered, searching for something to say to make this better. If Balthazar left now , because he had made another dumb mistake and pushed too far--

But then Balthazar’s Grace was slowly edging toward him. It was so familiar. Smooth and vivid like a shard of sea glass. Cas had always thought Balthazar smelt distinctly like smoke and salt, and even now, his Grace was heated and strong like the light of a fire on a cool night. But this wasn’t his Balthazar. The Grace was familiar, but not exact. Instead of bringing to mind the image of a campfire on a breezy night at a salt-slickened shore, this Balthazar’s Grace reminded Castiel of a hunter’s funeral pyre and the tears that streamed down faces as it burned.

But it was still Balthazar, and Castiel felt himself gasp brokenly as their Graces made contact.

“Oh, you never change, do you?” Balthazar said although they both knew it was a lie. The Castiel that had died only hours before was evidence enough of that. Balthazar stepped forward, placing a hand on Cas’ shoulder somewhat awkwardly but still sincerely. Tears were building up in his eyes, and he could see them in Balthazar’s, too, but they didn’t have time for that.

“Michael is truly on his way?” Cas asked, flicking his gaze up to meet Balthazar’s gray eyes.

The angel cleared his throat before nodding grimly. “Yes.”

“Then we don’t have time left to lose.”

The two angels turned and strode into the camp.

They had work to do.

part two // epilogue (it's out of order on ao3; don't worry about that)

#katswrites #spn balthazar #castiel #calthazar #cas and balthazar #balthazar and cas #cas and bal #balthazar spn #spn #spn fic rec #apocalypse world #spn angels

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and-stir-the-stars · 2 years

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hello! I have been obsessed with the lighting-up-holy-oil-in-the-hollow-of-angel-wing-bones concept for torture since I read that particular fic of yours. It's delicious and I think about it SO often. So question: how'd you come up with that?

SO glad that you enjoyed that concept, fellow angst lover :)

Angel wings having hollows in them like bird wings is an idea I've been rotating in my mind for a while now. I remember a few months back I was ranting to angelfishofthelord about Cas trying to make sure he never loses any of his memories to Naomi again, and how horrifically cool it would be if Cas did things like snap his wings and hide notes to himself in the hollows of his bones where she would never think to find them (until, unfortunately, she does).

That fic (Safe and Sound, if anyone's curious) was ofc written for angelfish's birthday. Initially I wanted to gift her a different fic, but it didn't end up working out, and by that point there were like two days until her birthday, so I had to root through the depths of my brain for old fics ideas in order to get something written in time.

One of those old ideas was a scene that I had been wanting to write for a long time: Cas begging Sam not to look at him after his wings have been forced out because Sam doesn't know how violating it is for Cas. But I still needed something for the fic to build up to, aka, the torture that makes Cas snap and Sam comforting him afterward.

I was sort of pressed for time, so I decided to go with the iconic torture method for angels: holy oil. But I wanted to make it a bit more unique and memorable than just "the captors throw holy oil onto Cas" (even if that trope is both fun to read and extremely traumatic for Cas all on its own). So I was thinking about old fic ideas, and my brain sort of stumbled across my old ideas about angel wing bones being hollow, and then suddenly it clicked and my brain went "hey, you know what would be really angsty...?"

In that moment when I first thought of the idea, I actually did plan for the holy oil to be lit on fire, but I realized about .3 seconds after I actually started writing it that maybe it was a bit too angsty, especially for a birthday fic lmao. (Also, I listened to a million songs while trying to find a good title for the fic; as I was listening to Coldplay's 'Fix You', I heard the lyric "ignite your bones" and almost died ahdkjfaskfhs. I was very tempted to make that the fic title but didn't end up following through).

And there have been some very kind and amazing people in the comments of that fic who informed me of some practical aspects of that torture idea that I wasn't aware of, including:

1) that bones have their own pain receptors that feel pain more intensely and for a longer period of time than muscle pain receptors, which would make Cas' wing bones being lit on fire excruciating even if the holy fire didn't burn through his bones and ignite his actual skin and muscle

2) that birds actually use the hollows of their bones as a part of their respiratory system to store oxygen

And this next part is slightly off topic, but I made a post a while back about how if an angel were to actually manifest their wings, it would probably kill them because their human heart wouldn't be able to efficiently pump blood throughout their entire body with the addition of two large appendages to their circulatory system (although this depends on whether an angel's Grace is strong enough to compensate, I suppose). But now I'm thinking about number 2 above,, if maybe angel wings are designed for them to be able to store oxygen in their wings while in vessels to keep their vessel's hearts from exerting themselves trying to pump oxygen-rich blood to the angel's manifested wings, and about how this would affect Cas after getting holy oil dumped into the hollows of his wing bones--

#cas slowly drowning + his heart over-exerting itself after all the blood he just lost...#I do want to write a second chapter for Safe and Sound‚ but so far the hardest part #is trying to come up with a way for the characters to get the oil out of his wing bones #me not knowing how to fix the problems I created 🙄#anywayyyyy. my ask box and dms are always open if you have any other questions or cas angst ideas you'd wanna share 👀#thank you so much for the ask!!!! it really made my day :))#i'd tell you god's name if you asked #katswrites #bri dont look #castiel

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