And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the abyss and holding in his hand a great chain..."You have persevered and endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary."
And they sang a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God members of every tribe and language and people and nation."
- Revelations
The angel that had been given the name of Castiel moved like the flickering shadow of a light puppet through the annals of hell. They had never told him it was like this. They had never told him that the dark, which should have been only privation, had substance. They had never told him that the shadows fought back.
Nobody had said anything about their teeth.
He felt the pressure of Uriel at his back, forcing him onward as the front line of offence. "Forward, my brother!" came the cry, and the demons fell away in terror. "Forward! We must find the righteous man! Raise him to the light of the Lord, Castiel! Raise him!"
Castiel held his blade in his right hand and dragged it across a demon's blackened heart. The amber light flickered for a moment, drowned out by the sheer light of the angels, as the demon died, and one of its kin launched itself, screeching, at Castiel. They were desperate, surely, if they were attacking angels in their true form. They could not hope to win but only slow them down, like the Lacedaemonians at Thermopylae who fought for death and as told to them by their fates. Castiel had been at Thermopylae. He had seen the blood of the human warriors. He hoped to his father that he would not see any more of that blood today.
If the demons were sacrificing themselves like this, then they must have been close. He could taste the sin of Alastair on the air as they neared his chamber, but the light of his brothers and sisters was lessening as the black hordes became thicker. Castiel longed to turn back, to the safety of the mass, but he could still hear Uriel's command ringing through him like divine will. Forward! Raise the righteous man! But what if the first seal had already been broken, what if blood had already been spilled? Raise Dean Winchester, Castiel! Dare you to question the word of the Almighty? Dare you question your intertwined fates? Raise him!
The door was black iron, slick with red. He could hear Alastair's laughter, although they had said the demon would not be there. Castiel tore out the lock and pushed the door open to reveal… one moment it was a cell, the next a chasm filled with chains, then a scene from the Bastille only to flicker an infinite moment later into a suburban lounge…
Only one thing remained constant in the flashes of torture chambers. A figure curled up on its left side in the centre, a figure that did not smell of demon but distinctly, inarguably human, even after all this time. Dean Winchester smelled to Castiel like rain-dampened clothes and cheap food, like cracked leather and cordite, and it was the most imperfectly perfect thing that he had ever perceived. The smell would stay with him, he knew, for the rest of time.
"Dean," said Castiel. "Dean Winchester. You are Dean Winchester."
The figure stirred. "Five more minutes," it mumbled, waving a hand.
"We cannot wait five more minutes, Dean! The demons are about to overrun my garrison! My brothers and sisters are dying for you, Dean! For what is that worth an extra five minutes?"
Dean Winchester grunted. "Do I look like I give a damn?" he said, and started snoring.
So this is your righteous man, Castiel. See how he has fallen? See how flawed the human is? Leave me him, Castiel. Return to your garrison and leave me the son of John Winchester. You see, now, don't you, little drummer boy? You see that he is not worth saving?
"Alastair," said Castiel. "Where are you? Show me your yellow guts and face me, damn you! I have no drum!"
Oh, you stupid little bullet on your stupid little suicide mission. I am long gone. Dean Winchester is a failed cause, Castiel. Your father knows that.
"Keep my father out of your filthy mouth!" Castiel roared, gripping his angel blade and spinning, trying to locate Alastair in the ever-morphing chamber. "This is His divine plan! Not even you may question it, you wretch!"
Oh, oh, oh. So loyal, Castiel. So unquestioning, so blindly faithful. When was the last time you heard your father's voice? When was the last time you heard a revelation from something other than your, ah, immediate superiors? I can see the truth in your pretty bauble light, Castiel. Do you know anything at all? Or are you just that misguided, bloody-minded faith that you and your siblings were formed of like sculptures out of shit and clay on the riverbank?
Castiel knelt down. Alastair was not here. His blade was unneeded. The soul of Dean Winchester slept fitfully, and Castiel ran his fingers across the lines of his jaw. He looked like he smelled; human, beautifully flawed and ever so weary. His skin glistened in the light of the angel, and he slumbered on obliviously. There was blood on his hands. Castiel felt his heart shatter.
He has failed. The first seal has been broken. Lucifer rises, Castiel. Are you looking forward to seeing your big brother again? He has failed. You have failed. The word of God means nothing. Fate means nothing. What do you know?
"What do I know?" Castiel asked, looking upwards. "What do I know that is not faith or fate? What do I know independent of heaven or hell?"
What is infallible? What is not a dream, nor hallucination, nor the manipulations of an evil deceiver? What you know is that which you cannot doubt, Castiel. What do you truly know?
"I know," said Castiel, "that Dean Winchester deserves to be saved."
But that is his fate!
"No. His fate is to be raised."
No! Stop! STOP!
Castiel gripped Dean's right arm with his left hand and rose, wings beating against the walls of the chamber and shattering them into a million incandescent shards. He left the shadows of perdition and the light of his brothers and sisters behind, fighting ever upwards to the soft soils of earth. Dean was struggling beneath his fingers, kicking and scratching to get back down to the hole he had made for himself in hell, and Castiel had to pour every fiber of his being into lifting him. Demons flickered around them like bats, unable to touch them. The smell of earth was getting closer, calling for her fallen son. The righteous man's bones awaited him.
The soul met the body with an energy so fierce it had a field of devastation as bad as a nuclear weapon. Castiel screamed, still rising, still searing his grace into the man and making metaphysical meet physical, feeling the flesh regrow beneath his fingers as the sun rose above him –
The connection broke with a bright white heat and Castiel felt mortal life pulse once more from the chosen man's form. Was this what the humans had felt when they talked of salvation? The angel spiralled into the heavens with a triumphant cry.
"Dean Winchester is saved!"
A/N man, I miss the old seasons. The cover is Fall of the Rebel Angels by Gustave Dore, which seemed fitting, and the title is a bastardised quote from Paradise Lost: "freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell."