"Next to Sam"
Mystic25
Summary: After leaving Dean in: "The Man Who Would Be King." Castiel reflects on Dean's words, and the meaning of them, and of it all. Obvious spoilers to the end of aforementioned named episode.
Rating: T for imagery and language.
Disclaimer: "Supernatural" belongs to Erik Kripke and the CW. Any thoughts here are my own, as well as my coffee….which is very good and tastes of hazelnut and bold roast...*sipping sounds*.
A/N: Wow, okay this episode kept me up all night, kept me up until one a.m., furiously scribbling this story down in my notebook, and I only saw half of it. For all of Castiel's lies I felt for him, because we got a glimpse into the ticking works of an angel. So I wrote this to try and explain what I felt about a particular moment. This will contain views that I don't apologize for. So whatever you want to tell me, bring it on, I can't change how I feel.
A/N #2: Oh my lord, I went online to get the name of this episode and I saw a summary of the Season Finale (happy to say Season Finale, CW renewed our boys for Season Seven YAY! ) and GAH! Why did I do that to myself? First off it will be two hours, two hours, and the stuff that happens…dear god, how can fictional characters kill me so much? I'm sure I will compensate by writing massive amounts of fan fiction to combat my pain and withdrawal.
Okay, onto the story at hand though, can't have author notes longer then my actual writing…
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"Look, next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest thing I have to family…that you are like a brother to me."
-"Dean Winchester" "Supernatural" Episode: "The Man Who Would Be King."
"But she trusted to her flesh, and to the strange thing she learned about angels…lacking flesh, they coveted it and longed for contact with it."
-Phillip Pullman The Amber Spyglass
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"Next to Sam."
Castiel had heard these words come from Dean. The Being that was so ancient, living inside a body that would turn to dust had his real age been allowed into it, heard this, and after hearing it, something crept inside him, something classified as human.
It was feeling.
Dean Winchester hadn't known it, but he had given his truest form of compliment to Cas – the claiming of family.
It would always be a "next to Sam" thing for Dean. He and his brother were- humans would call it co- dependant, suffering from over aged separation anxiety – but Heaven would only refer to it in its true definition: soul mates.
There were those angels that were once man, and had ascended the rank of one of Heaven's army, "given wings" was the human coined phrase. It was a rarity, but it happened to those that had done something so meaningful to God that they were called to serve at his side. And, none of them, not one, forgot about being human.
Castiel wasn't that kind of angel. He had been born of the dust of heaven, forged by God's own hand. He had never wanted nor desired human feeling.
But, after knowing Dean, to be considered next to a bond like what Dean had with Sam, something so sacred –the angel felt that desire spark into him.
And Castiel couldn't go back from it, because now he wanted to feel. Wanted something he never knew about until he heard it spoken beneath Dean Winchester's words. To feel what it felt like to laugh at stupid jokes because he understood their meaning. "The Tower of Babel is a load of crap," was a joke worthy of Dean when Crowley had told him after breaking into his musings, but Castiel hadn't understood. He also wanted to feel that he wasn't connected to something unless he had established that bond himself, out of his own will, not someone elses. That way he could have his own damn mind without 50,000 angels breaking into it every five minutes:
"Castiel, Sam Winchester will end our days, he must be stopped!"
"Castiel, Dean Winchester is a threat, and he must be treated as one, not befriended!"
"Castiel, why in our Father's name are you picturing a naked human woman in leather who looks like Eve? How dare you let Dean Winchester influence you so much!"
"Castiel, you CANNOT return Sam Winchester's soul, his body knows where Purgatory is, but his soul only knows pain. With Death's Wall guarding he will FEEL, cloud his brain with humanity again. If you put it back the location will never be found! This is civil war! We are not Human! We do what we must, we do not FEEL for humans, especially not Dean and Sam Winchester!"
Dean had no idea of Castiel's perception of him when they had first met. How incredibly young the human man had appeared to a being whose age wasn't measured in years, but in millennia. But, throughout his "assignment" down on Earth; among man; Castiel had seen things that had altered his perception about this particular man.
It was the way Dean loved. More specifically, the way Dean loved one other – Sam.
Castiel had watched Sam fall, race towards hell so fast that he was certain he was doomed to damnation the minute he had learned of his path. But Dean had fought off, stood between, and fought Sam himself in order to save him.
And, when Sam had willing sacrificed himself to end Armageddon, to save everyone, when he was gone, Dean had still loved him. Castiel had heard the man's thoughts as he observed him raking up leaves at the woman's house in the cold late fall air; it was what kept him from calling Dean back to the battlefield. Because it all sounded so broken that he couldn't put his friend through that kind of torment:
"This fucking hurts Sammy; I'm raking up leaves; and it fucking hurts. Because I can't do this, I can't do anything without it hurting. Not without you. But I'm here, I promised. I'm trying, for you, I'm trying Sammy I'm really, really trying, I'M TRYING!"
He had then seen Dean cry without a sound, wiping the evidence of it away when Lisa had come out to check on his progress with coffee and a bottle of water.
Castiel, next in line to be head Regent of Heaven, beloved of his Father wanted to feel; what Dean felt that day towards Sam, to drink Dean's compliment from that night in Bobby Singer's house like water and have it absorb. Because human love; as fierce and as strong as this; was the secret envy of the angels.
Angels held infinite power; strength so incomprehensible to human thought, that to even imagine it would kill them instantly from sheer neuron overload. But, angels, for all this power and authority, did not have souls. Even those that had once been human had them stripped away so it could be filled with what Heaven called "the Divine." The entity that brought power and closeness towards Heaven, that could not reside with a human soul still in place, because both were too powerful to exist in one form at once. Heaven had to have its vessels too. Whether this was a design flaw from God; only the highest ranking angel in heaven would know, but it was something that was never told. The Higher Ups, the ones closet to God, felt that to know the real reason angels were created this way would cause "unrest" because a soul was- what Uriel had told Castiel 200 years ago – "messy."
But, without soul, there was no love – not the kind man knew.
The holiest and most devout angels in the garrison– the ones who had been born like Castiel - scoffed at the "weakness" of human emotion, human soul. To them, man was dirty, and primitive. Flawed with earthly life that would end like a blown out candle flame.
But, to all those Watchers who had been human, and the others dared to watch with them, had secretly observed when Heaven's guard was elsewhere, and those watchers included Cas, they knew the truth. That love and soul of man was strong because it was flawed, and dirty, and gritty. Because it would end and humans knew it, and they loved liked they knew it.
Each moment Castiel observed Dean and Sam, many times without their awareness of it, he could see why many of his brethren had chosen to fall because of this. Because a soul was created in heaven, but found its purpose among man. Because it was truly forged, and could only live by the flaws that made up humanity.
Watching Dean having doubts about Sam's soul returning to his body. Hearing his agonizing thoughts that he had killed Sam when Cas has placed it back in because he wasn't waking up. Seeing him hesitate before Sam "attacked" him in a bone crushing hug, scared that it would be taken away, but holding onto his brother when he realized it wouldn't.
Hearing Sam threaten their grandfather with a piece of hot lead to his brain if anything happened to Dean, hearing him scream for his brother when they were separated because his thoughts were all screaming too: "No, no, no, don't close me off again damnit; not from him!"
"Next to Sam" Dean labeled Castiel as his brother, even in anger Dean had spoken these words. He had known their full weight, but not their true impact. Because, in that candle flamed human moment, Cas had remembered why he had disobeyed in the first place.
Because of that feeling of absoluteness which Dean spoke about Sam's place. And he didn't know it, but each word of the human voice could be broken down by angels into its purest components. And all Castiel heard after Dean's voice was at base level was: love, love, love.
Castiel remembered talking with Raphael as they both had stood on the shores of an island on Earth, observing the people, silent, watching. The Arch Angel had sneered at the "sanctity" of human souls while they watched the civilization. Raphael had been granted full power eons ago for "handling" Earth when conflict arose. And what he saw, over population, corruption, greed, lust, all in such a small, singular area made him wave a natural disaster on the people so fast that they were all dead in a matter of hours.
Castiel had watched Pompeii melt under Vesuvius that day, erasing an entire civilization off of the map. "Damage control, my young apprentice." Raphael had said to Castiel who was then only 100 years old in heaven. But in the chaos, after Raphael had left once his deed was guaranteed to the end the way he wanted, Cas saw what his superior hadn't. Mothers screaming, throwing their bodies over their children to protect them from smoke and hot lava. Strangers pulling other men out of fishing boats, trying to escape Pyroclastic flows even as they were being consumed by them themselves. Lovers holding to each other, kissing, embracing, only seeing each other's reflections with each kiss that was closer to the end. And when there was nothing left but an ash filled smoky silence, they were immortalized that way, trapped in the bare essence of what made them human – love, love, love.
Thousands of years later it was still true. One human soul that whose lifespan was an eye blink compared to creation, but who talked about his brother not as 'him' but as 'us' or 'me'. It was the forging that Cas had never known. And, because it was an eye blink short, because it was too brief, it was fierce, it was beautiful.
And Castiel knew that when Sam and Dean finally died – died for real without any resurrections or spells said over their graves by human, demon or angel, they would die together. And neither one of them would allow God to make them angels, not when they learned the price, they would fight God himself if they had too. Because, even in heaven, they would need their souls to be together.
It made the angel feel – feel something, which if he had been human would be described as "lonely."
But, Dean called him a brother – "Next to Sam". That was a feeling into itself. It had made Castiel vanish to that park, to question his Father. Made him rage against him as to why, why he didn't have what made mankind love like that. Why God had given power to the angels to command souls when they had none of their own, and could never truly understand it.
Sitting there, Castiel wanted a soul, so bad was this new desire that it hurt inside him where a soul would have been, but where there was nothing but power, power and emptiness.
Mankind would never desire Heaven if they knew the truth. That countless angels desired here. The good earth, the wind, the rain, the stars, the sun, the loudness of laughter, the warmth of sex, the love – humans never knew the beauty of what they really held.
Cas could fall, fall to Earth at 10,000 miles an hour the way Anna had, be reborn as a wailing human, feel, be granted a soul. But, there was a war in Heaven, and there was Dean to protect because he had sworn an allegiance to him years ago, and through him, to Sam as well. Castiel couldn't fall, not when he had to be an angel to save what he was starting to realize he valued.
Cas returned to Bobby's house, hours later – though he perceived time differently from humans, so he couldn't really use human time tables. He didn't reveal himself as he watched.
He watched the morning rituals of human beings. Washing, preparing food, whiskey in Dean's case. He watched Sam place eggs in front of Dean that Bobby had made, taking away the half empty amber colored Jack Daniels in the glass bottle and replacing it with a white porcelain mug filled with black coffee.
Watched Bobby sit down with his own plate, ask how Dean was "holding up."
Watched Dean laugh gruffly, and merely sip his coffee without any form of real reply.
Watched Sam sit in the chair next to Dean, consoling his brother about Castiel's betrayal in a simple: "I'm sorry about Cas, Dean." Even though Sam's thoughts were screaming at Cas' radar that he had wandered around soulless for a year because of him, Sam still made Dean's concern a priority over his own tortured mind.
Listened when Dean said: "It doesn't change that he started this whole craptastic mess, with Eve, Purgatory, with you." Dean's thought: Especially with you Sam.
Listened again as Sam said: "I know, I'm sorry man. I know he meant something to you."
Watched Dean look up, giving Sam a look that only humanity could pull off, the short life of something that only lived once, so it was penetrating. "Not as much as you Sammy. I can't forgive him for what he almost did-"
"He gave me back my soul." Sam said.
"He was the reason you were without it in the first place Sam!" Dean yelled back. "He's the reason I was without you for an entire fucking year!"
"He didn't know that I didn't have it Dean! You saw his face-"
"I saw yours first Sam- I saw what that revelation did to you."
The words ended, Cas heard Sam's next thoughts: "I know, and it scares the hell out of me Dean. We were supposed to be friends, how could he do that to me? Why did he leave my soul down in the Cage for so long? Why did he make Death have to create a Wall? And when it finally breaks how long will it take for me to die again? Will going insane hurt? Where will I go? I don't want to go back to Hell. Why do I have to go anywhere when I just want to stay here, Dean, with you?"
But Sam's words were protective of his brother: "He was still your friend Dean."
Sam had taken to laying a hand on Dean's shoulder to console him since he had gotten his soul back, and it was what he did then. And Castiel could see Sam's soul inside him, radiating like a blinding light each time it touched its mate. Each time it felt what it had screamed for, for 180 years.
Cas watched the next look of Dean Winchester, the intensity of earlier still there when his next words were spoken: "I know he was Sammy. Why do you think I'm here drinking damn whiskey at 10 in the morning?"
The angel then saw the purely human emotion on Sam's face, the hurt because Dean hurt. The shoulder squeeze, the need for no other words after that.
Castiel watched what Dean had spoken of, but could never really know, could only observe. Because, he wasn't doomed, wasn't flawed, messy, or short lived. He was immortal, powerful, wrathful, and, awe inspiring.
And he was, powerfully, hauntingly, achingly, and, terribly alone.
Because he wanted to be where he could never really be.
Next to Sam.
Dean's brother for real.
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That scene between Cas and Dean at the end, it was very intense, given their history. For Dean to call him a brother, even after the face of such a big betrayal, especially concerning Sam. And for Cas to have doubts about what he was doing was right, to question, it meant something.
Also, I love Cas, but I couldn't help the happiness bubbling inside of me when Dean referred to Sam first, then everyone else second, I was jumping up and down with a So True! Mentality.
I claim a lot of inspiration to this fic from The Amber Spyglass. That whole series ["His Dark Materials."] broadened my perspective of heaven and earth so greatly. That if you spent your entire life wishing for Heaven, and finally die and go there without living on earth, you can't get that back, to quote The Amber Spyglass: "You can't wish yourself alive again."
Review whatever you want. I write they way I feel.
Peace,
Mystic.