It almost hurts, having so much good in him. He can do so much that it is as if each and every soul is calling out for a different direction to be taken, a different person to be helped and it is overwhelming and he needs to go, go now and let the world know that their new God is benevolent. But he cannot.
Even now, as God, even with this power roaring inside him like a solar flare, he is still tethered to the spot by these humans in a way that should be impossible.
The souls hush him; do not allow his mind to dwell on the whys. He can help them. He can forgive their transgressions and take away their pains. He can give them salvation and that makes him great, they say.
Sam, the boy with the demon blood, the one who had looked at him as if he were something great when they had shaken hands so long ago, now looked at him in horror. Something within him twisted and he fights for understanding. He is a kind God. He has forgiven Sam. Even when the blade had dug into Him (torn through flesh and scraped bone, landing in the empty hollow where his grace should have been. Now there were only souls and He struggled to remember a time when that wasn't so, the souls everywhere within him, but it is hard and he stops), He had already forgiven Sam. Sam had done much folly and He has forgiven him. Sam had looked at Him like He was great. Now He is great, so, so great and Sam will look at Him like that again, He is sure.
His eyes move, stop on the man that is at once so much and so profoundly useless that the souls move in agitation, urging Him on. But even as a God, He cannot escape the gaze of the man that had so confused Him as an angel. But now, now that He can see every atom, every thought, desire, feeling, everything of the man, surely he is no longer a mystery.
He had put him together from nothing. And just as then, when He had lifted this man from the ashes of hell and then saved him from his own hell, his eyes were the same. Those eyes that were so suited to showing love held only defiance and pain.
He did not cause pain! The rage within Him was not entirely His own. He made things better, made people happy. How dare he! It was not He that had put that pain there, in those green eyes that He had come to lo—the souls quickly came, distracting, lead him away from his heavenly rage and He wondered distantly, what it was that Dean (Dean) saw in His eyes.
(Dead. They were dead. Brighter than ever before, shiny and shimmering and beautiful, glowing with a light that was not their own, but dead all the same. Like an exploding star, the light is brighter for moments or millennia to the naked eye but there is nothing to it. Whatever planets had been around it were violently destroyed and whatever life it could have had or would have had is gone, gone, gone.)
His eyes caught on the faint glow on Dean's shoulder, the sight of the last of His grace and it is as if the sword is going through Him again. The feelings He should not have had as an angel, and certainly not as a God, arise. Now the last of His grace is left on the man who will not bow to his very creator.
That feeling, the one feeling of helplessness that the souls do not share in as they do his anger and hurt, rise swiftly as a high wave meant to drown. They need to bow to Him, show Him their love for He is God and He is right. And why can't they see that?
With…with all this power inside Him, all these lights of purpose and divinity they should see it, see how He is right and that they need to love Him for He is all. They need to love Him so He can save them.
Love me, love me, love me, loveme, loveme, lovemelovemelovemelovemelovemeloveme
The souls shower Him in it, love and affection and attention, more than He has ever had before, but His chest still aches where the vessel's heart still beats and so the souls smother that too, strangle the organ until no more blood flows through His veins, only the quicksilver of souls.
Better? Better? They soothe, calming and caressing the tattered remains of what is Cas like a mother bringing their child to their breast, threading their fingers through His hair and telling Him that everything is all right now.
It still hurts this unending and incomprehensible swirl of desperation and need and loneliness, but He does not think of it and the souls tuck it away in the un-beating heart, protecting Him from the pain.
The souls and He, they are friends, He supposes. They take what He has left to offer. They do not get mad that it is little, that He has already given so, so much that there is very little left. They take and take, but they do not spurn him. They follow His path. They help Him. They trust Him. They believe in Him. They understand that He is right. But best of all, they don't hurt Him. And they don't send Him away.
Reminder, this is the continuation of Souls but this story can certainly be a stand alone. I hope you're enjoying it!
