Oh, sweet catastrophe
Where have you been?
I've looked for you so desperately
Inside of this pen
You're the answer I've needed
The question I've feared
I know light is your mother
But darkness I fear
"Oh Catastrophe" by Crown the Empire
They'd been fighting for days now. Monday had been a day to prepare, the hunters gathering their weapons of choice, but nobody knew how to kill an Angel. Tuesday had been been chaos. The front line, gone. Caleb and Mary and Jim. John was quiet that night. In his tent, they could all hear it, a gaping hole in the noises of war. And then he was unbearably loud. Whiskey. That was his cure.
Wednesday was deathly. The second line fell too. Hundreds of them, mostly nameless, mostly unknown. But a few were close to heart–there was Cassie, dead near a battered car. And Andy, crumpled nearly into a ball. The ground was leaf strewn and blood painted and the smell of smoke hung for hours.
Thursday was silent. A lull in the fighting. The hunters huddled together in their scattered tents, praying. The last bottle of Hunter's Helper was passed around, and many drank from it with scrabbling, hopeless fingers and sour, bloody mouths. Their teeth tasted like death. Their skin was rank with it. And on this day, the battlefield was surreal with silence.
Friday was time standing still, time ripping out lungs, time stomping with heavy feet on the hunter's until they bled. They were only human. They could not stop it all.
They buried the dead in hurried trenches. They could not stop. The enemy was coming. The enemy was coming.
The hunters had only one hope.
At twelve o' five Saturday morning, Dean Winchester turned to his brother, and forced a smile. The tent was cold. He held a silver dagger in his hand.
"Ready, Sammy?" he called over his shoulder, arm tensed.
Sam nodded.
The next fight had begun.
...
Castiel was a good soldier. Castiel was a good son and a good brother and a good soldier, but he was not a good believer.
"Why are we fighting, brother?" He asked Uriel this even as they fought and won. They were gathered in Heaven after the initial beginning, the first day of the human week that Castiel so curiously memorized. "What did the humans do wrong?"
Uriel curled the lips of his vessel into a flat frown.
"They have done nothing wrong, Castiel," (he said his name like he would a correcting adult to a trouble-making child). "They have only sullied the name of our Father, if inadvertently. They have forced the Fall of the Morningstar, and we must then make them pay."
Castiel had felt the wind blow him them, the cries of anguish from the humans below a steady sharpness in his mind. If he was an Angel, than he was an Angel of Death for sure. It was his sword that had slain the souls below. It worried him.
"I don't understand," he began, but Uriel had cut him off with a stern glare and a threat to report him to Michael for blasphemy. Those Angels (the blasphemous ones) were not usually seen after. They simply vanished, sunk below into the Earth like a plague of rats after a great disease.
The second human day was a strange one. He'd been ordered to slay the infamous John Winchester with his own blade, but something cold and foreign inside him forced his hand. He staggered back, feet sliding in the mud of the battlefield, the blurs of his brothers and his enemies swaying around him like a moving picture.
Castiel clutched his chest, eyes dry from lack of blinking. Before him John Winchester stood, inferior in every way. His arms were hacked, his face bleeding, his eyes narrowed in such a human sign of defeat and pain that Castiel unconsciously muttered a "forgive me, Father, for I have sinned". But yet he stood, legs bent slightly as he held his own useless weapon in his hands.
"You leave here, and you never come back!" John Winchester hissed. "I ain't about to let you take nobody down."
Castiel tilted his head, and that surge returned like a wave beating against a hollow shore. He beat his wings behind him–visible and vast, they took him away.
That night, he heard tales of his failure, spread like wine over the table of the Archangels. They summoned him to their own place of rest.
Raphael and Michael were the only ones left. There were no interims for Lucifer's spot, or Gabriel's. There were only their empty chairs, high-backed and plain. Castiel knelt down on one knee to approach his holy brothers.
"Castiel," Raphael began. "I am ashamed of you,"
His heart a quickly beating machine, Castiel raised his head to stare.
"But why, Brother? Father has implored me to save. All I can see is destruction."
At this, Raphael rose himself, wings stretching out great and electric behind him. His face was contorted in rage, his hands mere inches from Castiel's throat. Instead of choking him (a disgustingly human reaction), however, he placed a hand on Castiel's forehead.
"I'm truly sorry for this," Michael spoke up from behind them, as Castiel forced himself to be still, be silent. "But Raphael is right. Punishment is in order."
"Michael, no–"
But he was silenced by the sudden jerk of his Grace being dragged out through Raphael's hand.
By the time he had left, Castiel, Angel of the Lord, had been stripped of half hs Grace, and his middle-rank soldier status.
The next three days, he followed orders blindly, the ache of half his powers sore and raw like a still-bleeding wound. He killed humans, watched their souls leave their bodies in plumes of color and distorted, cloudy light. This time, Castiel ignored the guilt in his chest. This time, he followed orders.
The final day of battle was set for Saturday, at twelve o' five in the morning. Castiel stood behind with the lesser-rank Angels, his sword ready and his wings kept close to his back for warmth. It was cold, and everything smelled like burning flesh.
"Remember your duty, Brothers and Sisters," boomed Raphael from before them, Michael close behind. "You are to eliminate the humans. All of them." He sent a careful, dark-eyed stare towards Castiel. "Failure is not an option. May God be with you."
"May God be with you," the Angels echoed. "May God be with you."
But Castiel knew He had left a long, long time ago.
…
Dean Winchester stood before the small circle of hunters, sweat already gathered under his hairline. It was chilly, but he was anxious, his mother's death a violent, fuming cloud above his head.
"Okay, people," he barked over the gathered. "This is it. The war is almost over. All we gotta do is summon one feathery son of a bitch."
Kevin Tran raised his hand. His hair was ruffled and unruly, and a long bruise crossed his cheek.
"How are we gonna do that, Dean?" He said, tiredly. "We're dying. This isn't going to do anything."
"Look, Bobby and Rufus have a plan. We summon an Angel, they sent a liason to negotiate a short rest. It's almost Christmas, anyway,"
Kevin blinked. He raised his hand again.
"It's March second," he offered, confused. Dean sighed. The end of days, and he was stuck with a teenager.
Without another word, he organized the hunters; a few gathered supplies, a few drew the appropriate symbols on the floor of the metal shack they'd found in the field. It was a new ceremony, not the usual one they used. This one was found by Sammy's research.
"We find out their battle tactics, we kill it. Then we go, got it?" Dean barked again. His heart was pounding. It was dark outside, the sky broiling. The Angels were already gathering. He had to work fast.
Sam stood near the back, a lighter already balanced in his palm. He'd already prepared a holy oil circle, ready the catch the Angel when it came.
The other hunter scurried, weary, to the four corners of the shack, taking out their own weapons; daggers and guns and an occasional sword.
"Okay," Dean breathed. He flicked his eyes over to where his brother stood. Grief was painted in colors of sweat and blood over Sam's face. Jess and Mary had hit him hard. "Ready, guys?"
A succession of hesitant nods. Outside, thunder clapped.
Dean squeezed his eyes shut. His breath was sharp and controlled, and in his mind he saw his mother's eyes staring unseeing at a gray, bleeding sky.
"As I, uh, stand here," he muttered, cautiously. "I pray to the Angel of Thursday, to come and lay the soul of Mary Winchester, born on a Thursday, to eternal rest."
He opened a single eyes. There was a silence. It was heavy and tepid, and in it, Dean could hear the beginnings of rain drum against the thin sheet metal of the shack.
Kevin Tran and Garth exchanged worried glances. Next to Sam, Charlie Bradbury coughed hesitantly.
"Dean, this isn't work–" Sam began, but just then, something large and dark blinked into existence on the floor, smudging the lines of chalk and blowing out the fires lit in bowl of carefully collected herbs.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean shouted, cocking his own gun, (a Colt, given to him by his father). "It's happening, guys!"
Everyone was silent as the shape became more and more visible. A head. A torso. Two arms, two legs, and a pair of broad, almost-invisible wings spreading from it's back.
It stared at Dean with a pair of bright blue eyes. They were the only part of it's face visible.
He had caught an Angel.
"Now, Sam!" He shouted, and behind the Angel, Sam's hand jerked into action. John Winchester's training had done him well, and he dropped the lighter quickly even as his jaw dropped in awe. A ring of brilliant, ruby-red light erupted around the Angel, and it yanked it's wings upward, trying desperately to get away from the sudden flames.
Dean leaned forward, training his gun. Behind him, Ash and Jo Harvelle did the same.
"Charlie and Garth, go get Bobby," Dean shouted. "Kevin, go help Sam with the other spells."
They did not immediately follow his orders, eyes flicking disbelievingly (hatefully) at the creature in front of them.
"Right, Dean," Jo finally said, her voice husky and strained with fear. "Just..be careful. These things bite."
They left through the front door. Kevin and Sam followed, muttering quietly about some Latin ritual.
And Dean was left alone in the room with the Angel.
(He remembered the slow slide of mud-slash-blood across his mother's cheek. He remembered a red-haired Angel standing over Mary's body, it's female face twisted into a smile).
He stepped forward.
"So," He said, almost too loudly. Outside, rain whipped the shack. The Angel was fully visible now. "You're the Angel of Thursday, huh?"
It did not reply. Dean did not speak either–he'd learned from Alastair that silence was almost as evil as pain.
Instead, he watched it stand. It was unmoving, eyes flickering, and Dean took a moment to note it's appearance.
Male. Dark hair, tossed by wind. Under six feet tall, but not short, really, with an average build and a thing frame. The blue eyes from before looked darker now, controlled.
Dean knew that Angel's weren't always pretty, weren't always handsome. This one, however, was. His heart jumped a little, but he ignored it. He could not get distracted. He needed this information.
"What's your name," he began, hoarsely, because he had nothing else to say.
The Angel shifted slightly on his–it's–feet.
"I am under no orders to converse with you," it said, bluntly. Dean was slightly taken aback by the dark tone, the power behind it. "Release me or be punished, human."
Dean forced a laugh.
"No can do, man," he said, tossing his gun between his hands. "That's holy oil. Can't be taken down by you, and I'm not willing to do it for you. So tell me. What's your name."
For a moment, the Angel just glared, it's fists curling at it's side. It wore a trench-coat, beige, and a suit jacket.
Finally, it spoke.
"Castiel," it said. "My name is Castiel."
A/N: This a completed story which I will update in chunks. There will probably be one per week, but...I get distracted easily. Thanks for reading!
-chaoswalking