A Gross Miscalculation
He's been Falling for a while now; he's not entirely sure when it started. Sometime after Hell, after Dean, but he's not really sure. It doesn't really matter, and it doesn't explain why he's baking a pie.
Cas picks up the first apple and slowly peels off the green skin in one, long strand of peel. He always peels apples that way, in one long movement. He isn't sure why he's making apple pie, except that he always makes apple pie. The recipe came from a book he found at Ellen's; Jo was trying to explain the wonders of food.
Secretly, Cas thinks he would like apples, if he ever got up the courage to try one. They remind him of the erroneous, human bible and the story of Eve and the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. He wonders why humanity picked the apple to be the symbol of the first scene.
What had the apple ever done?
What had Cas ever done?
He puts down the peeler and picks up the knife. It's a good question, one he thinks about frequently. He did what Heaven had commanded. He went into the depths of Hell, he rescued Dean Winchester, watched over him, helped and guided him. And, as much as he tried to ignore it, Cas wondered just why Heaven assigned him this role. Because, was not the Righteous Man deserving of a higher rank, an Archangel perhaps? Was Dean not so different from a prophet?
Castiel puts down the knife and picks up a handful of apple slices. His fingers feel slightly sticky even after he drops the slices into the bowl of sugar and cinnamon.
This is the messy part, the part where his fingers and hands get soaked in apple juice and the cinnamon and sugar sneak under his finger nails. Jo called it the best part, but Castiel hadn't understood the appeal.
All of humanity was messy; bloody, painful, tangled, euphoric.
And with Dean it was all seeping fluids and spitting blood, licking ketchup or sugar or pie from fingers, laughing too loud and fighting too hard. Mess and love and pain and hope and need spread liberally all over his skin.
It was what Zachariah failed to see, the beauty of the mess. How, as Jo put it, the best part was licking it off and then going in for seconds, all dirty and delicious.
It's always at this point, as he stares at his fingers, that Cas has two thoughts. The first is always complicated and damning. Had he really Fallen? Or did he just stumble a little right before someone pushed him?
The second is simple, but just as damning.
What does it taste like?
The pie is almost complete. Cas puts the apple slices (now covered in messy sugar/cinnamon) carefully into the pre-made frozen pie crust. Real pie crust is very complicated and beyond his meager skills. He sprinkles on the last of the cinnamon and sugar and puts more pie crust on top. He puts the pie into the oven and waits.
The first time Castiel ever saw Dean eat pie, he had an epiphany. It would have been much easier to get Dean out of Hell if he had known to bring pie. Why no one had thought to mention it, Cas decided was a gross miscalculation.
And the more Castiel thinks about pie, the more he makes pie, the more he thins he understands humanity. It is messy, and awkward, difficult, precise and imprecise. It is the collection of contradictions that make up humanity.
It is why, in the end, Zachariah will fail.