Tag following episode 10x22 Prisoner. Dean beat Castiel leaving him in the bunker wounded. Castiels perspective on his history with Dean.
Castiel lay there unmoving on the floor. He had no basic need to breath but felt the urge to do so. He shifted groaning as pain blossomed across his body.
Why had he not healed yet?
He thought he didn't know the answer. That he was somehow malfunctioning due to the Mark of Cains effect. But he knew, that deep inside he wanted the pain. He needed penance, for he had failed the one human he had sworn to protect against all evil. Dean.
So as he lay their writhing, he let tears escape his eyes. Something so undeniably human that he questioned his validly as an angel once again. Closing his eyes he felt his own essence, the inner being beyond the meatsuit of James Novak, whom vacated long ago. His broken wings huddled against his being, now unused and very much useless appendages. A reminder of what he used to be.
Castiel tried to remember the first time he encountered Dean. In hell.
It had taken weeks to reach the soul for Lilith had dragged his soul in deep, confident that she would break the righteous soul sooner rather than later. It was unbearably hot and the shear quantity and volume of the torturous screams made his very being tremble. It was the first time any such expedition had taken place, and it was obviously a place angels weren't supposed to be.
But it was worth it. For Deans soul although trapped so deeply shinned so bright. He was a drop of heaven in the abyss of nightmares. But they had not planned that he would be tarnished, that he would break under torture. The first seal was broken.
When his brothers and sisters suggested leaving him for they had failed, he flew down without a word and grasped the man raising him up. It was no debate in his mind. He was meant to be saved.
Cradling his soul so intimately was something an angel wasn't supposed to do. However he held on, breaching the Gates of Hell back to earth.
On his fathers word he placed the soul in his decaying corpse and renewed his body, bringing life to every sinew and molecule. Until he was whole.
And since then Dean made he question all he thought was right. In the short years that have passed, a drop of time considering his own age, he had broken ranks and lost his identity. Lost his place in heaven and the respect of many of his own species. And made plenty of mistakes. But despite that he felt more fulfilled in his own existence.
He had stopped Raphael from scorching the earth and killing of humanity. Extinguished the Leviathans on earth, which was truly his own fault. Became human and saw what was so desirable about humanity. Stopped Metatron and reopened heaven.
All thanks to Dean.
And now he lay there on the cold wood floor, thanks to Dean. Thanks to his own failure to protect this single soul. The soul that changed everything since the moment he touched his being.
He would save Dean. Even if it meant the end of his own existence.
He owed him that much.
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