"Castiel." the tone of sharp, exhausted reprimand is enough to make him tear his eyes away; the hand on his shoulder terrifies him. "There is work for you, Castiel." His brother finishes, softer.
Castiel turns immediately from watching the young boys, not wanting to offend, or worse, unintentionally disobey; but they stay in his mind a long time after, their faces red with mirth, flushed still with cold, the elder holding the younger's hand, helping him to roll snow. The boy, young, freckled, tells his brother 'swear-words' and earns himself a hefty gasp from the younger – revels in it, grinning, rocking back on his heels; and Castiel grins, too, watching.
This is the Righteous Man.
His face falls in dismay when their father returns, heavy with misery, hands rough; from this distance Castiel can see every detail and yet also the whole of them; the sadness in the father, the guilt in the youngest, the sorrow and difficulty that knits them all together even as it breaks them all apart.
This is the Righteous Man, developing even before Castiel, who feels reduced, unworthy; though he is a child who has lived not even a fraction of Castiel's many, many years – and a difficult, recalcitrant child, at that. His superior says nothing as they walk away and Castiel wants the silence to remain, his head buzzing, blazing with knowledge. This is the righteous man, so young but still the source of so many whispers, a legend among even the angels. The man who Castiel will one day raise from Hell, and whose soul will one day be his.
He thinks of the youngest, the boy with the demon blood; how he grinned up at his brother, his limbs long and awkward, his face aglow with pleasure at his brother teaching him to play, helping him to roll snowballs, to make angels. He thinks of the way that The Righteous Man stands in front of the youngest when their father returns, a tiny barrier but a barrier nonetheless, offering his flesh in exchange for the other, even when no danger was present. The way he stands at his side, the way he holds his shoulder, the way he calls him Sammy, soft, the word less a name and more a gift, a way of saying I love you without the true words, though the youngest hardly knows it.
Castiel's heart twists to think of how this will end, though it shouldn't at all, and it is in apprehension and shame.
XXX
He is nothing and everything that Castiel expected, in the Pit; he is strong, but he is broken, too, veined with cracks, his soul a patched-together, wavering thing, hard yet faded in places, its cracking, crumbling hands no longer able to hold.
It's alright.
Castiel takes that soul in his arms and carries him out of hell; whispers it reassurance in what passes for 'night', and when he gets to the surface, after long, long, heated years, he rebuilds the body with his own hands, knits fibres together, whispers the love of God – and his own love, too – into every cell.
He is unsurprised when Dean doesn't remember him, but that doesn't mean he isn't disappointed.
XXX
He wants to tell him but knows, as well as he knows Dean himself, that the words would be too much.
He has learned from humans that sometimes even the words we need, the words that would fix us, are still too many syllables to take.
You are everything, is too much for Dean Winchester, a weight, rather than a promise. So Castiel tries to learn his language; to say it in action, to trace the shell of his ear with love, to press close and breathe grace against his skin, to touch the hand print, His, to trace Mine, trace Beloved, Dearest, Best, in Enochian on his back, though the words ache with disuse, though he hardly remembers the symbols. He has never written them before but he writes them now, not binding but asking, asking always, and hoping beyond hope that Dean will understand.
Sometimes Castiel thinks that he does; sometimes he knows he does not. He does it still.
XXX
Dean asks him, once, if he would return to heaven, had he the chance, and Castiel looks at him. His eyes are wide, his face drawn tight, bracing, and Castiel cannot answer truthfully, cannot break him even a little, so he lies. "No, Dean." He says, and kisses his eyelid, though Dean flinches away.
"Good." Dean mutters, and Castiel kisses his mouth, then, his nose, then the small, flat line of flesh before his ear. He feels Dean whisper against his shoulder and draws away to ask him, but thinks better of it.
Sometimes Castiel feels that it isn't Dean who was broken and put back together, but himself. He feels pared open, split somewhere at his edges, leaking out. But there is no one who will sew him back together, no God now to hold the flesh, no heavenly chorus in his head, no words under his tongue. He feels tired, he feels hungry, but he does not eat; he does not sleep.
He leans his forehead against Dean's, and feels as if the world is turning without him.
XXX
"Cas, are you God?" he says, hoarse.
His chest lurches unpleasantly – Dean's rapt, broken face asks him wordlessly to say yes, and he wants to, and beyond that he wants to say Dean Winchester you have been forgiven, you are everything, Dean Winchester, everything, but he can't lie, brought back so soon, so undeservedly, so instead he says "That's a nice compliment. But no. Although, I do believe he brought me back. New and improved."
He goes to heal Bobby, to bring back Dean's adoptive father, but the pain, the questioning in Dean's desperate eyes does not abate.
In the car, Castiel wordlessly joining him though he should be gone already, back with his brothers, Dean says little. He doesn't have to.
Castiel watches the silent world pass by the windows, a whole world asleep, never knowing what this man has done for them. What he has given up.
He says nothing.
XXX
It's winter. It's been months.
He stands on the edge of the garden, not looking down now but merely looking, and Dean is usually so mulish, so reluctant to act, so tired and lacklustre, though he tries; but today he is new, for once, as he sometimes can be. Castiel watches him constantly, leaves Heaven to watch him, stands invisible in the corners of Dean's life. He remembers, of course, what it is to love that man, what it is to touch his face, to breathe on him and have him breathe right back, human and lovely, a pleasant weight.
Today he takes Ben and he puts him on his shoulders; he builds forts, which quickly fall down, out of snow, he pelts Lisa with snowballs and earns her laughter, her joy, and Ben's giddy, childish excitement. The three of them, together, are happy, and Castiel (not for the first time) decides that this Dean is not the one he knew, but he is worth it. That maybe he is 'out', as they used to say; free, if not at peace.
When evening descends he is again the one Castiel knew; terribly small, like Atlas, this great blue globe his responsibility, which he bears, always, alone. He crouches at a desk and Castiel knows, from experience, that he is looking for his brother. And Castiel wants to touch him, wants to tell him, but knows it would be counterproductive.
XXX
"You're just a man. I'm an angel." And he is just a man, not Righteous anymore, not special, not part of God's plan; just a man who he loves, just another body, another soul of the millions and millions that cannot be saved, or that can, or that don't deserve to be. And Castiel could ball his fists in rage at his insolence, could scream and howl, though it wouldn't become him. Though it wouldn't help. Dean, bastard child that he is, never behaves how he was supposed to, always refuses, denies, stamps his tiny feet until they find another way, even when no way presents itself. Even when everything else is dead and there is only Dean Winchester left, throwing a tantrum at the ends of the earth. His insides surge with frustration, even as Dean regards him coolly, face drawn.
"I don't know. I've taken some pretty big fish."
He bites his tongue, then, though it hurts him to do it, because somewhere he believes – somewhere desperate - that there is still hope. That somewhere in that thick, unmovable skull Dean will start to understand why he is doing this, why he has to. "I'm sorry, Dean."
"Well, I'm sorry, too, then."
XXX
He remembers little.
No; that's not right.
He remembers everything. All the time.
A madness is a welcome break, so much so that he gives in to it, lets it come, because it is preferable even to still feel guilt when there is no hard, jagged edge of reality to supplant it. He lets them care for him, lets them worry, loves them desperately, both the Winchesters, though he doubts they'll ever truly know it, his words vacant and sloppy, his mind a mess.
Things used to be simple; or, at least, the way he remembers them, they were. He has no way of knowing if it was ever true. He suspects that it's just another fantasy; another game, perhaps.
XXX
"Then I'll go with you." And he smiles.
Dean doesn't smile back but he is bright in this moment, brighter than the sun; and all this wanting, all this waiting, all this holding back seems foolish, seems ridiculous, in the face of that light. He is light, he is wanting, he is everything, and Castiel knows still that the words are too enormous, still too much; that they always will be; but something in the air has changed, something in them both has changed, something human and soft and hopeful, so unfamiliar that Castiel barely knows its name.
Faith, he thinks numbly, the word floating quietly to the surface. Faith. But not in God, because this is Dean's faith, slowly taking root, a far more organic and gentler thing, greater.
Faith in him.
Castiel remembers a morning that he woke, a morning that he slept, when he was steadily losing his grace. So long ago, though not by span of years, by span of action, of consequence, of change.
He'd pressed sun-blurred hands against his own flesh; woke light-streaked and rapturous, filled with joy, though the room was filthy, it smelled, the sheets worn with use. And Dean woke beside him and laughed because he was stretching, uncoiling like a creature from his very edges, and it was as if he could feel his wings unfurl in that room for the last time, their great weight dropping slow over the walls and then his feathers stripping themselves away, curling up at the edges and then peeling from their frame, the hollow bones attached to his back turning pure, purest white and then crumbling quietly to nothing, dropping shards like dust, like stars, all over the brown, stained carpet.
A silent change, huge in significance but little to anyone but himself, though his brothers would surely have closed their eyes and recoiled in horror to see it.
But all that Dean saw was him; and as he slipped, effortless, into the last space of humanity, he'd shuddered against the pillows, warm, and felt uneasy, clawing, desperate bliss.