He tried to make all the right choices.
He tried his hardest to make everything right.
He really did.
He started out with the best of intentions. Golden intentions. Great intentions. The best of the best intentions imaginable.
He started out that way, and he tried to keep it that way. Tried.
But then he started making the wrong decisions. Then worse decisions. Then the worst decisions.
But he always had good intentions behind it all, he really did.
Always meaning good, he did, always meaning to make everything better. He was going to save everyone, bring peace both above and below. He would be the one to prevent any more of these horrors. It wouldn't happen again, no more of these things would happen, and, in the end, they'd be happy.
Most importantly, he'd be happy.
He might have been one of the main reasons behind this string of events. That one man, that mere mortal, the one so often referred to as the favourite pet.
He certainly had a large impact on the situation, a colossal one in fact.
He was the right choice. The perfect choice. The choice that Castiel favoured.
But, no, asking Dean was too much, he thought.
He already went through so much, he thought.
He sacrificed much more than any other, he knew, and asking more of him would be too much, he thought.
Castiel thought so many things, and not all of them were well thought out.
And soon God's star angel started spiralling down, flying to Hell, making all the wrong turns as he looked for Heaven. That was what he wanted to save, after all. He wanted to save Heaven from Raphael, and in turn save the Earth from another apocalypse.
He told himself that he was going to have to do it at "whatever cost" but at the same time he avoided the one expense he never wanted to pay. He wanted to keep him locked up in a safe and out of harm's way, but soon found him tangled up anyway.
Dean couldn't be kept out of the loop forever; it was only a matter of time before he found out.
Until he found out he was working with Crowley, the lowest of the low. Until he found out that he lied, violating his trust. Until he found out everything, straining their profound bond.
And whenever the chance came to explain, nothing got through.
It was too late by the time he found it all out.
The regret just kept piling as he watched the boy with hair of honey and eyes of olives went on, fighting to save the world from the opening door. He had good intentions too, Castiel knew, and he would've probably changed so much if he was called on from the start.
But, no, that was too much then.
Then again, it was too much more when he got involved.
And there was too much he didn't understand. And the rest he wouldn't.
Dean was stubborn like that, he wouldn't rest until he set things right. He was a regular soldier, much like Castiel, and wound up on his own path after his father left him. He managed to stay on the right one somehow. He was chosen by God for a reason, though.
And yet, if God's chosen mortal did so well, why not the chosen angel?
Because Dean was a man, Castiel figured, Dean was a man who had been to Hell and back—literally—and still managed to keep it all together. And then Castiel was, as Dean called him, just a baby in a trench coat.
It only hurt so much when he first heard the name because, deep down, it was true.
Castiel was inexperienced and treated freedom poorly. For one who knew so much, he remained naive, innocent even. He didn't know any better, he just didn't understand some things.
Before, he understood less, so much less.
And then he met Dean and, for the first time, began to see the human world in a better light.
He began to feel it.
Feel human.
And it wasn't as terrible as the other angels made it sound. It was nice to feel. Some of the feelings he didn't understand at first—he still couldn't fathom a lot of them—but each one had its own charm. Some were positive, others negative, and then those that were just plain confusing.
There were lots of feelings about Dean, though, that was where many originated. A majority of these feelings were, in some way, associated with Dean.
Some positive—admiration, trust, comfort.
Other's negative—annoyance, impatience, aggravation.
And then those that were just plain confusing—what were they called exactly?
Balthazar once said that he was 'madly in love' with Dean, but he wasn't sure what that meant.
Even now, he was a tad uncertain.
It may have just been a joke, but there was some alien feeling inside, one that acted as a veil over Dean Winchester, one woven from all their time together and all they'd built. They built it together, all from the strongest material known to Creation.
Supposedly, it was love.
Love.
Castiel didn't entirely like the sound of that, which was likely why he never wanted to think of himself as in love with Dean. He knew he was but he knew that, with it, came many troubles.
No, he was just Dean's guardian. Even though a little bit of help from him would have been nice, Dean had to be out of harm's way.
Because he was important, right?
Important to everyone, not just Castiel.
How he bought the lies and cries of denial, Castiel did not know. He managed to string himself along on ideas, but in the end he knew that the odd feeling—love or whatever it was supposed to be—was blinding him.
It did blind him, in the end. He knew that after the fact.
Perhaps, in all that effort to make things right, he let selfish urges sway his judgement. He took things too personal and put that above the greater picture. He made mistakes that angels shouldn't make.
Because of some silly little feeling.
Backed by good intentions, naturally.
There were always those good intentions.
Those good intentions meant little to Castiel now.
He went out of control and it cost everything.
All of it thrown away.
He lost himself.
He thought he was lost for sure.
But they still helped him.
His friends did help him.
Sam, Bobby, and most importantly, Dean.
They still cared, despite the hell Castiel caused with his secretive attempt to set it all right the wrong way.
And, just for a moment, everything seemed to be alright. Just for a moment, he thought he could really make amends, and really make it up to Dean. Just for a moment, he thought he could be more than just a fallen angel with unexpressed good intentions.
Maybe, just maybe, he would've kept everything together, made amends, and finally made up with the man he owed so much to.
It didn't last though, and all those good intentions meant nothing again.
They were just shards of a shattered vase, laying in scattered pieces before him, reminding him of what he could not fix, each piece reflecting the same image of the same person he owed it all too.
He was somewhere else, just somewhere.
Perhaps this was where angels went after they died.
He didn't quite know.
But it was most certainly not Heaven.
There was none of that for the Fallen, he assumed.
No private dimensions of ideal happiness. No realm of peace and comfort. No illusionary land where the ones you love would never abandon you and these things that were impossible to express could be for once.
No, none of that for Castiel.
Just a lot of broken pieces.
A lot of unspoken feelings.
A lot of foolish dreams.
A lot of haunting memories.
And a lot of good intentions.
A/N: Well hello, SPN fandom, nice to meet you. First time writing for this fandom, so I hope I didn't make anyone too terribly unhappy because of my characterisations. It's not like all that much really happened regardless.
My good friend got me into the show (and influenced my fondness of Destiel not that I'm complaining) and so I dedicate this to her. God what has she done to me. I just about caught up and seeing what happened to Castiel die made me cry. So I wrote this to express my feelings of sadness and brokenness.
Is this the last you'll be seeing of me? Perhaps. I enjoy these characters, so maybe I will mix it up a little and try my hand at more SPN.
Thank you for reading! I'm a newbie, so yeah. Leave a review, too, that'd be nice. Either way thank you! Hope you enjoyed, fair reader. ~CQO