Stories
Summary: Metatron doesn't understand how a lowly seraph who never cracked a book could have defeated him. After all, Castiel never learned how to tell a good story. Set at the end of Season 9.
Metatron sits in his prison cell and fumes.
How could Castiel have emerged victorious? How is it that Castiel is free, hailed as a leader of angels, while he sits trapped in this prison cell? He wrote the story. He was supposed to be the hero who led the heavenly host back into Heaven. Castiel was supposed to be the villain, the failure, permitted to live only by his gracious forgiveness. How did the tables get so turned?
How did an angel who never learned to tell a good story, who never understood a good story, never reads, defeat him with all he knows, all he has read and understood?
How does an angel, whose reputation is as tarnished and twisted as some of Heaven's worst, defeat him? How does someone who was so obviously the easy dupe, the perfect storybook villain and fallen idol, emerge in shining glory, while he is relegated to the depths of the dungeons?
Metatron doesn't understand.
Castiel would say it is because he has done the right thing. Because he has done what should be done. Because he is honest. Or perhaps Castiel would simply shrug and say that it is God's will, and Heaven's.
But God is silent. And Castiel's attempts to do the right thing have been so often met with scorn, derision, even violence that it cannot be the answer. And Heaven's will...not so long ago, Heaven's will would have seen Castiel bound, tortured and humbled before all the angels, before his execution. Heaven's will is more changeable than a human's mood.
Sam Winchester might have an answer, but even if he wanted to consult the man, it's uncertain that Sam could put it into words. He only knows that Castiel's victory comes from the same things that made an angel pull a needle from his neck.
Chuck Shurley might have an answer, if he were available to ask. He wrote Castiel's beginning in the story, when the Angel of the Lord first seized Dean Winchester from Hell and returned him to Earth. Chuck, who wrote the beginning, might yet know the end, the twist of the plot that allows so fallen an angel to rise above them all.
But perhaps he might tell Metatron that the answer is simple, buried in an often quoted (and equally often forgotten) human maxim.
Actions speak louder than words.
And there, in truth, may lie the secret of Castiel's victory.
Metatron knows how to write a believable and exciting villain, a villain everyone can hate. Or love, or even be frustrated with.
Castiel has been a villain. He has committed acts so atrocious that he will never be free of their shadow. That even if all creation forgave him, he will never truly forgive himself. He who carried the darkness of Purgatory and used to it to wreak untold havoc on Heaven and Earth, he who for a time was the greatest and most terrible of beings, perhaps more dangerous even than Lucifer...Castiel has been a true villain. He knows the terrible things he is capable of, the dangerous and corrupting influence of power, and what kind of nightmares he could truly create, given the means.
He also knows he does not want that fate, that power. He knows enough of true evil, has steeped himself in it's darkness, to know how to avoid it, and why he wishes to. He knows the cost of evil, and carries forever it's taint.
Metatron knows all the prose to describe thrilling battles and heart-wrenching sacrifices. Captivating scenes of both joy and despair.
Castiel has fought in battles. He has felt the thrill of adrenaline, the wild fury of combat. The exhilaration of victory. And he knows the aftermath, the horror of mourning the dead, the weariness that comes from taking life. The pain of wounds, and of loss.
He has felt overwhelming joy, in the presence of those humans he has claimed as his own. Seeing them live, and love. He has felt despair, at all the tangles of Heaven, the never-ending stream of crises. He has felt despair, watching the death and destruction that has come to the world he so cares for, to his heavenly family and the humans he protects so devoutly.
He knows all about heart-wrenching sacrifices. He wept, shaken to his soul, when Sam gave himself to Lucifer in a last ditch effort to stop the apocalypse. Dry-eyed he might have been, but the pain of the moments when he has watched the Winchesters throw themselves into danger for each other and the world...that will always remain with him, so deeply engraved that even his vessel, immortal as he is, bears the lines of grief upon his face. And he has seen the devastation in the Winchester's eyes when he sacrifices himself.
Dean's eyes when he stood against Raphael. Sam's grief at beholding his madness, endured when he claimed the younger Winchester's suffering as his own. Deans nightmares when he sent him away in Purgatory. The way both brothers looked when they watched him cut a banishing sigil into his own flesh, in a desperate attempt to save their brother.
Metatron can describe scenes of suffering deep enough to wring tears from stone. He could tell a story of epic romance to rival Romeo and Juliet. He could tell a story of such triumph as would lift the hearts of man.
Castiel has suffered. Suffered everything from basic hunger and thirst to agonizing, paralyzing grief. Not least of these the grief of discovering that his months long search for God was worth nothing to a Father who did not care. Or the pain of his broken bond to the Winchesters, so deep he would rather thrust a sword into his own breast than do anything like that again. Would rather be a failure once more than risk the life of anyone in his care.
Castiel has loved. With no memory, no sense of self, he loved a human woman. He has experienced passion in it's raw form, reckless and unbridled. He has loved more honestly, and perhaps most startlingly, when he loved the demon Meg. If ever there was a star-crossed relationship, this unexpected union of Heaven's Fallen and Hell's Almost-Redeemed would have been it. That nothing ever came of it makes it all the more poignant.
There is no describing the bond he has with the Winchester boys. No conventional words would cover the depth of emotion that passes between them. There is no description that would do justice to what Sam and Dean mean to him.
He has faced Lucifer and Michael. A poor triumph, perhaps, to burn Michael with Holy Fire and be destroyed for it, but more than any other can claim. Perhaps Raphael once beat him, even slew him, but no one can claim to have truly broken him. Failure he has known, but none has ever defeated his spirit. Even Heaven's most powerful have never done anything more than temporarily bind him. Even the King of Hell recognizes him as a foe strong enough to bargain with, rather than simply attack. And for all the disasters it has led to, one cannot help but call that a triumph worthy of recognition.
Metatron knows all the adjectives that describe a proper hero. Strong. Humble. Righteous. Courageous. Honesty. Integrity. Helpful. He knows all the character attributes, the mannerisms.
Castiel would say he has none of them. Really. Only that he desires to help his family, and his friends, and to make amends for his mistakes.
Others would say that an angel who can so freely admit his mistakes and his need to atone is certainly honest. They would say his integrity is unquestionable, for he has never denied his guilt, nor his shame, nor anyone's right to blame him or take payment from him.
Many have said they are humble servants. But when Castiel says 'I am nothing', the sincerity in it is overwhelming. This seraph who has been God, led the armies of Heaven into battle, and now says 'I am no leader' has learned humility the hard way. It is etched into his very being, a willingness and humbleness so deep he will die before he spills blood in his own name.
The Winchesters would say that an angel who can rebel against Heaven, who can fight for what is right, even after all the attempts to change him is courageous. And strong. When it comes down to it, even all the denizens of hell, and certainly those of Purgatory, would say Castiel is the strongest warrior they have ever seen. Even with his depleted Grace and dying body.
Castiel would say he is no hero, no leader, and a poor example of even an angel. But he leaves in his wake an earnest desire to help, to make things right. And for all his failings, no one can say he did not try. Misjudged at times, perhaps, but he has always tried.
Castiel would say he is a sinner. Truly Fallen. And there is no question that he has broken Heaven, more than once. But neither is there any question of his motives. His desire to protect. His purpose, to protect and bring harmony to Heaven and Earth, a purpose so pure and bright and unwavering that no one can deny it. Bartholomew was not the only one who hates Castiel, not for his sins, but for the strength of his conviction, his absolute resolution to obey the Father's last command, regardless of whether God is there to care or not.
Metatron knows how to write a good plot twist, an evolution of character, that one moment when everything changes and the story goes in a new direction.
Castiel's life is a never-ending change. The script was thrown out the window and twisted out of shape from the moment he took Dean Winchester's arm and took him from Zachariah.
He is the unexpected Rebel, the angel who helped derail the Apocalypse, an event that has been in the making since Lucifer's Fall.
He was Heaven's Commander. He was God. He was destroyed by the Leviathans. He was resurrected. He was insane. He was captured and stripped of his will. He regained his will. He has been mortal, and he is again an angel.
There are enough twists in Castiel's existence to make one dizzy, and he has weathered them all. And even with the bewildering, frightening turns his life has taken, the changes he has experienced, he continues on, rewriting the story. Each evolution of his character, of his essence, has become a game changer, and no one has written a plot yet that he has not altered. Dramatically so.
Metatron can classify any story as tragedy, comedy, drama. A thrilling saga. Pulp fiction.
Castiel has experienced tragedy, with all his losses and all his griefs. The drama he endures with the Winchesters alone is a story. His life as a human was both a comedy of errors and a tragedy of destitution. He would not think the story worth the telling, but the whispers of his existence, of his Fall and everything he has done since will be legends for the rest of eternity. A story worthy of the greatest of wordsmiths, even if the only one to write it so far has been a man whose writing Metatron would dismiss with a sniff, whose works never even got into the top 50 list.
And so it comes to the true difference between Metatron and Castiel. The final mark that has led Castiel to victory once more. The twist that no one could truly explain, but all instinctively understand as they watch the drama unfold.
Actions speak louder than words.
Metatron knows how to write stories. But Castiel….
Castiel knows how to live them.
Author's Note: I watched the final scene in Metatron's office, when Metatron made the comment 'you never learned to tell a good story', and this just wrote itself.