Title: Thursday Angel
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/warnings: Spoilers for season 4 and 5.
Summary: All that Castiel knows is that he does not know who he is, and that whatever has been done to him, it is terrible.
Author notes: I'm going to re-use this idea later in a longer fic, but for now… here it is. Credit to zekkass for partial inspiration.
Thursday Angel
Castiel has always tried to be the perfect soldier, the obedient little seraph he was made to be. He is dutiful and follows orders, and doesn't dream of something greater. This is as it should be.
It is easy for angels to do as they are supposed to; they are set to the task they are made for, so that it is difficult to imagine doing anything else; even if they tried, they would soon become dissatisfied and miserable.
Castiel knows this to be true.
But somehow, despite this, his assignments and the orders he is given never feel quite right; little flaws point themselves out to him, and little doubts and questions wriggle their way out from underneath his implacable determination to do as he is supposed to. This is wrong. This is not the right strategy. Why are things being done this way?
Castiel shoves them all to the back of his mind and tries to forget that they are there.
It is not for a lowly little Thursday angel to question things.
A little voice whispers almost without sound not a Thursday angel but Castiel is paying too much attention to other things to really hear it.
When Castiel meets Dean Winchester, the slight discomfort blossoms into unease, and even worse, doubt.
The human is brash and obtuse and brazenly without respect, but he is also strong and fiercely convinced of what is right and wrong, and protective of this world. It is his purpose, to protect humanity from that which is dark and unclean; his righteousness shines from his soul, and blazes in unison with his ire as he protests the actions of angels and demons alike, and something in Castiel responds in a way that it should not.
Castiel is disturbed and shaken, but nevertheless, the more he interacts with the Dean, the more he comes to identify with his views.
Something in him gathers strength and grows, a sense of tenacious resolve and rightness that feels elusively familiar, but when Castiel reaches for it, it slips from memory and leaves his mind blank and frustrated.
This is part of what I am supposed to be doing/my purpose/who I am.
Castiel is beginning to suspect that something is very wrong, but he cannot conceive what it might be, and he has no more than vague suspicions.
In the moment before Raphael kills him, Castiel has a moment of crystal clarity; he is too rebellious, too driven in the face of Heaven's wrath (I know that this is right, no matter what they tell me) too different from his function to be a mere low-level seraph.
In the instant of his death, Castiel feels a misplaced sense of betrayal that is tired and well-worn, as though he has felt this way towards Raphael for too long to accurately gauge.
When Castiel blinks back into existence, he knows that he was right; there is something wrong with the way that he does not fulfil what he has been told is his purpose, and with the fact that Heaven seem eager to destroy him in a way that is disproportionate to the threat represented by one of the lowest of the seraphim.
Because, after everything else that has happened and been done, why would God himself see fit to resurrect an insignificant little Tuesday angel?
As Castiel feels his Grace sliding away from him the further he falls from the rest of the Host, little inconsistencies in his memories and knowledge start to pop up. Castiel does not sleep and therefore does not dream, but if he did his nights would be filled with impressions not his own, and recollections of things he cannot ever remember happening.
It is as though a wall somewhere in himself is developing little cracks and stresses without the full power of his Grace to strengthen it, and Castiel's true self is beginning to slip through.
Castiel does not know who he is (not yet), but he can feel the strength and the grim certainty of who he once was.
He still does not know what they have done to him, but he no longer has any doubts that it is terrible and profane.
When the Trickster looks at him with that bright-eyed, wounded smile and says "hey, Castiel," he knows instantly that the creature sees beneath to what he really is, beneath what hides him from himself.
There is a sense of recognition that Castiel cannot explain, as he glares in alarm at the capricious, mysterious being whose apparent identity does not match up with his capabilities; something in Castiel shrieks with fury and loss and betrayal as he is flung back into the Trickster's make-believe worlds among the myriad constructs.
Cas gathers himself and continues to fight, because all that matters are his two human charges and the cause they champion, and he does not care what injury he may sustain as long as they are undamaged.
When he suddenly finds himself standing in the warehouse where the Winchesters had vanished, to the sight of a sulky despairing archangel within a prison of holy fire, there is a surge of something hot and painful deep inside him.
"Gabriel," rises to his lips, bitter and certain, because no matter what he is now, there is no way that Castiel could ever fail to know him.
Gabriel tries not to look at him, and when he does it is with such a weary ache in his eyes that Castiel understands that Gabriel knows all about what has happened to him and it is this, as much as everything else put together, that set the archangel running.
The more time passes, the closer to the truth Castiel gets; by the time Sam makes the decision to say yes to Lucifer, Castiel knows that he has almost broken through.
He can feel his true name sitting like a heavy shadow in his soul, just able to make out the straight unyielding edges and the sharp loops and corners of it, able to feel the overall shape of who (and what, the voice in his mind whispers, so much stronger than when it first spoke) he really is, even if he can't quite make it out yet.
Castiel isn't sure which will come first, the return of his memories, or the apocalypse; but his true nature sits coiled just beneath the surface, waiting for the moment when it can finally break through.
It comes when Lucifer turns and smites Castiel with cold, murderous rage.
A wall of pure, unfettered Grace hits Castiel with a force and might more comparable to a nuclear explosion than a freight train.
But instead of shattering beneath the force of the blast, instead of his Grace and Vessel being blown to pieces under the onslaught, Castiel feels something give and twist and finally break.
He begins to glow, as long-restrained Grace explodes from the remnants of their bindings, and in a moment he is –
The little Thursday angel is gone completely.
Zarachiel allows his wings to shift and move and re-settle, adjusting to their return, feeling the ebb and flow of his Grace spilling out into their swirling feathered shapes.
His mind is clear, unclouded, for the first time since Raphael and Michael trapped and betrayed him; his gaze is cool and assessing as he meets Lucifer's look of wide-eyed astonished horror and dawning understanding.
Michael manages to reconstitute his Vessel at that moment in a whirl of Grace.
Lucifer turns on him instantly.
"Michael, you didn't." Lucifer has never once looked at Michael with contempt before, but now his features are seething with it beneath the horror and anger, and Michael recoils at the shock of it.
"He did," Zarachiel says levelly. "Remiel. Chamuel. Myself. Those of us who didn't agree with his goals and aims. Raphael twisted our minds and memories and bound our Grace, so that there was no one left to oppose he and Michael. Heaven has become a broken pinnacle of corruption and unthinking obedience."
Dean Winchester opens his mouth, and Zarachiel snaps his fingers before he can say a word, sending he and Bobby Singer back to Bobby's house, where they are safe from harm and unable to interfere.
"I will not stand for this." Zarachiel glares at both of them – Lucifer, proud and bright and yet still a rebellious child at heart, and Michael, stalwart and stoic and yet tainted by despair and lost hope. It is because of the two of them that Heaven has fallen so far from what it was. "I will not allow both of you to destroy a world our Father held dear because of adolescent impulses."
Michael gives Zarachiel a stern, affronted stare, while Lucifer's brow wrinkles in insulted outrage, but Zarachiel is a swift blur of action before they know what he intends.
Lucifer's expression alters to one of confusion as Zarachiel achieves his aim and steps back.
"What –" he starts, but Zarachiel throws the key to the Cage at their feet, and before either archangel can say any more the ground opens up beneath them.
Zarachiel watches as they flail and try to step back too late; Michael grabs at Lucifer's arm unsteadily and Lucifer overbalances, and without ceremony both of them fall straight into the Cage together.
Zarachiel simply stands in observation as the Cage closes again, the ground healing over as though the deep chasm never existed.
Perhaps, shut up alone with only each other for company, Lucifer and Michael will overcome their differences and grow up a little.
Zarachiel isn't going to depend upon it, but hope is always permissible.
He turns away from the patch of ground that hides his brothers' prison, and spreads his wings in preparation of flight.
He will have to find what has been done with Chamuel, and release him; if Zarachiel is right, Remiel is already lost, smote by Michael without ever regaining awareness of who she truly was. Zarachiel will need Chamuel's help to hunt down Raphael and deal with him, both for the crimes perpetrated by him against his fellow archangels, but also for allowing Heaven to reach its current perverted state.
But first, Zarachiel has a hunter to return to, and to offer some form of explanation.
He owes Dean Winchester that much, at least.