Shaken Faith

Maybe Joshua was lying.

I'm sorry.

You son of a bitch.

I believed.

Believed. Believed in what, and for what? Weeks ago, even days... Castiel wouldn't have been asking himself that. Days ago, he had believed, believed with every single fibre of his being. Believed in God, believed in his absolute orders, believed that there was a way to save humankind. The ones who were always God's favourites, the ones who were beautiful, and perfect in even in their most flawed ways, the ones who all of Heaven fought to protect and guide.

But God... God was gone. Raphael might have had been lying when he had said that God was dead, but he was right in his declaration that God was gone. Because God was gone. God was done. God wouldn't lift a finger to help his most favourite of races.

Castiel shoved his hands deep into his trenchcoat's pockets. He didn't look away from the blank spot he was staring at. Shoulders kept brushing against his own; humans that were destined to die in the battle between angels and demons that was about to go down.

Thoughts of things that he did and things that he should have done kept stabbing into his mind. Following blind orders for so long. Should have rebelled sooner. Relying on pure faith. Should have had more questions. Trying to be the perfect example of an angel. Should have said screw it and joined with the Winchesters without hesitation. Followed someone he had never even seen with his own two eyes. Should have followed his gut feeling... shouldn't have worried about the repercussions.

Castiel glanced up, up and over his left shoulder, for no reason other than some little voice in the back of his head telling him to look up. It was a liquor store. Castiel came to a stop.

He knew the human ideal that drinking helped to ease pain. Dean drank enough, so there must be some truth to it. Humans wouldn't do something if it didn't make them feel pleasurable; they were incredibly self-aware in that respect. There had to be truth to it.

Castiel just wanted to forget.

He grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it open easily. The metal was cool beneath his fingers. The bell tinkled as he stepped inside.

Was he in the wrong for having believed for so long, after all of the other angels had rebelled? Had he been... naïve to believe that God was there, just awaiting the perfect moment? Was Dean... right to feel like saying The Lord works in mysterious ways was a very good reason for an unprovoked, irritation-fueled attack? And, if Dean was right... that meant that the rest of it was true. Castiel hadn't been loyal. He'd just been stupid. So very, very stupid.

How could he be so stupid?

He curled his fingers around the neck of a bottle of beer, pulling it out of the six pack. He popped off the cap, let it fall to the floor with a bouncing tap-tap-tap of metal against linoleum, and put the bottle to his lips.

So, the apocalypse was nigh, and no help was on the way. The four horsemen were riding, and Lucifer walked the earth. The same earth that was destined to be cast into the feud between two brothers, between Michael and Lucifer, and there was no one to stop the world from dissolving.

No one except Dean and Sam, of course.

"Oi, you can't just-!"

Castiel reached out and pressed two fingers to the man's forehead. The man crumpled to the ground, asleep but unharmed.

It was funny. He reached for the second bottle in the case. He didn't even like to drink. He didn't like the taste. He didn't like alcohol; even Jimmy, when he had been human and prior to becoming an angel's vessel, he hadn't drank much, either. A glass of wine at a function or a small amount of scotch after a hard day.

Castiel hated the taste. It was acrid, and burning, and it tore a path of pain from his tongue straight down his throat, settling heavily into his chest. He couldn't swallow it away, just like he couldn't dislodge the pain of betrayal.

Betrayal. He wasn't even supposed to feel that. That was a human emotion, and human emotions were not something that came entirely easily to angels. They were supposed to be unemotional, unattached. But Castiel was neither of those. He was emotional because he was attached. Attached to the Winchesters, attached to humans, and in pain over the loss of billions of lives that were about to be taken because the one person that he had expected to help, the one person that he had put his whole being into believing... it was all a lie. It was all for naught.

Unless Dean said yes.

Despite the fact that Castiel didn't want Dean to say yes. He wanted mankind to be saved, he wanted to avert the war. He didn't want to hurt anybody in the process, and he definitely didn't want that person to be Dean or Sam. He wanted to save everyone he could, because that was what he was supposed to do. That's what angels were meant to do. Save those who were meant to be saved. That was the long and short of it. And... yes, quite of few of his friends were human. Actually, his only friends were human.

Why was it so wrong to want to save those people?

He was starting to feel a little tingle in the back of his head. The tingle turned to a buzz, which started to hum, and the vibrations spread throughout his body. Was this what being intoxicated felt like?

He heard his phone ring. He ignored it.

When he left the liquor store, he was a little unsteady on his feet. They was a slight sway to the world; he put his hand against the wall for support. The world looked different under this mask. It looked a little less bleak, which was a conundrum in itself, considering the situation that had gotten him into a liquor store to begin with. He sighed. He could smell the alcohol on his breath, but he no longer felt the tang of it against his tongue. He tasted nothing through the alcohol that he had consumed, only air, and saliva, and nothingness. But he could smell it, and he could feel it in his body.

Best yet, it made everything a little less sharp. The apocalypse wasn't so demanding when he wasn't looking at it with angel crystal-clear clarity. God's betrayal didn't sting so bad when he'd grown numb to the sting from the alcohol. Angels didn't seem so bad when one was reduced to this, a muddled, muffled mess of invisible wings and heaven's powers, foolishness rebelling against the holy land itself, covered with a thin layer of alcohol.

Castiel staggered back onto the sidewalk and straightened up. He couldn't stay here. He had nowhere to go, but he couldn't stay here.

... So...

What was he meant to do now? When he didn't have heaven to return to, but when he didn't belong in the human realm? When neither option was a safe haven and where tragedy was a certainty no matter whatever he did?

Castiel didn't know.

This had to be why humans drank. He wished that he hadn't drank that liquor store dry; he could have done with some more to take that final edge off. If there was just something else to hide away the problems, then maybe he could find the answers in the solace that followed.

But, right now, he didn't have the answers, and he didn't have more alcohol. He wasn't sure that he had a place in life now and, if he were honest, he really didn't have a clue, about any of it, to begin with. Human emotion was confusing. The whole thing was confusing.

Castiel sighed and put his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes closed. If he tried hard enough, he could figure this out. But... maybe the easier option was to simply forget.

He didn't know.

He didn't know anything anymore. Or maybe he just never had to begin with.