Title: Hallowed Ground
Summary: Dean could've sworn he'd forgotten how to feel awe for the supernatural.
Warnings: Up to S5. Possible blasphemy. Pre-slash DC.
Notes: I wonder how long I can straddle the divide between being a biblethumper and a bibleslash-fangirl. Arrgh, *conflict*.
The case is a regular haunting, rather than an offshoot of the apocalypse, and Dean was looking for the grave of their possible perp when Sam texts him to head off a witness after mass.
Churchgoer, it figures. End times had upped attendance to Twilight-premiere levels and their MO had been like this since Lucifer popped out of the box.
It doesn't take long to reach the church, which is built very near the cemetery, old and small and imposing. Dean slips in quietly, shuffles beside a nice-looking mommy-type, asks hey, 'scuse me, but do you know a Mary –
She points him an old lady sitting at the very front pew, then shushes him.
Thanks, he mouths and crosses his arms to wait.
Gray light from the early winter outside falls in shafts through the stained glass windows. It's then he notices the image, a wall-spanning depiction of a fiery being in flight, its face androgynous, benevolent and untouchable and distant. A sword raised high. A scorched earth below its feet.
Dean whistles. "Who's the dude?" He can't help but ask. Michael? Gabriel (oh that would be so wrong)?
An slightly-annoyed glance. "That's the angel Castiel."
Of course, Dean has to look again.
Castiel's image seems to shine down then, and there's none of Jimmy Novak's pretty in the powerful lines, nothing human or familiar. Even the eyes, a vivid oceanic blue, hold a different, more terrible light. Cas, for all his shows of smiting ammo and intensity and rocking of the holy tax accountant look, wasn't this off the radar, wasn't this otherworldly, wasn't a being in charge of millions. This was Castiel: angel, soldier, warrior of the Lord, a visage held sacred.
I'm the one who gripped you tight and pulled you from perdition. Laid siege to hell and saved you.
People worhipped Castiel. People prayed to Castiel. For lifetimes and centuries and millenia. So many people: nuns, churchgoers, little girls. People prayed to his nerdy unsmiling trench-angel and they still do.
A part of him goes hell yeah, that badass motherfucker is my angel, but that part is hushed. Dean's vaguely aware of the choir starting praise as awe, lowly and simple, wells up inside him. The kind humbles and makes him want to bow his head and bend his knees.
Dean's confronted Heaven and Hell and Death up front, and he could've sworn he'd forgotten how to feel awe for the supernatural. But, in this place, in this church, amid believers and at the periphery for once, he remembers before – before Azazel and hunting and apocalypses, before hell – when he'd imagined without resistance the tenderness of faith to be like his mother's hands, her voice saying angels are watching over you. The kind of feeling most people get when looking up to nightskies or skyscrapers or huge-ass churches or whatever scenery porn like what Sammy would appreciate.
Amazing, isn't it, says someone who catches him staring. Not many's heard of him but we, in this town, well I can't really explaining why – The voice peters off as the lady turns to her own contemplations.
Dean continues to look up, watching the icy spread of wings, keenly aware for the first time of walking – hell, trespassing, for months now – on hallowed ground. Dean remembers You should show me some respect. He will forever deny ever feeling a lump in his throat, but the handprint on his shoulder suddenly seems to burn. Famine would be wrong if his hell-beaten soul could still feel the singing in his bones.
The end of mass and cacophony of bright-eyed churchgoers shakes Dean out of his staring. The people there are belly, bone and sinew. Solid, not ethereal at all, here and that's what Dean really cared about wasn't it? Dean suddenly can't be bothered anymore by the metaphysical abstracts behind Cas – there are enough problems in the physical plane, thank you Sam – and freaking faith's not really a welcome addition to his life.
Dean ate supernatural and monsters and evil for breakfast; a glassy dude pandered as church decoration shouldn't even have jolted him.
(But, oh my god, shit. Shit.)
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First experimental fic and I do not know how to write "holy" *cry*. Just trying to tease out what little faith Dean has because, otherwise, it's too sad y'know? And, holy hell, very recent fan but Dean/Castiel owns me. They are clearly my OTP forever.