Wings
Wings. Angelic appendages, a sign of power and might, of authority over all else. Badges of honor, pledging service to God.
Born white, unscathed. Crisp, clean, like snow. Soft and smooth like satin. Unfolding into the heavenly glow, basking in the holy light. Innocent and elegant, fresh and mature all at once.
Millennia later, battles of Earth come to pass and death and destruction wrought, those white beauties are flecked with grey. They have seen much, but still have forgiveness of God, because a murder in the name of God is one worthy of praise and adoration, of songs in the high heavens. Because following the orders of the Lord is expected, but also to be rewarded.
But in so much time, when the grace of the beauties has done so much, it compares not to the rage of Heaven. A war in the clouds, brothers and sisters fighting for Daddy's approval. One devoted son sent away for loving too much. His glory torn off, ripped to shreds. Made an example of. Holy humiliation, no questions asked.
One suffered openly, but others were stained by the shadows left behind. One of many, the lost and confused Angel of Thursday, his own darkened by silent rebellion, uncertainty. Questioning the word of his missing Father, the one never to be questioned. An exile of his own. Feathers tinted a shade darker.
Lost but not alone, the Angel of Thursday seeks comfort in a friend. The Righteous Man. But human emotions, they can be so strong, confusing, misleading. What is freedom? What is a man made for orders to do with it? Wandering astray, trying to make up for lost leadership, one angel against heaven and Earth.
Trying not to look at the Righteous Man's breaking heart, the angel notices his feathers are looking singed at the ends. Black, seeping through them like the blood of a Leviathan, like a disease spreading, making the appendages painful to carry. Another burden for a burdened man.
A deal with the devil (or worse), a trip to Purgatory and back, and another broken heart later, Castiel finds himself wondering how it all went wrong. Wondering what brings an angel such as he, one so loyal and devoted for so long, to commit such awful crimes. What does it take to throw himself so far off the tracks that those holy creations, once so pure, become beacons of his failures? Without looking he knows what color they've become, just like so many siblings before him whom he'd once looked down on with such disdain.
How did I get here? is thought silently as the broken shell of a man, the face of a devout Christian with the soul of a rebellious warrior to God, collapses onto the concrete, the charcoal outlines of wings burned into the ground.