I wasn't planning on there being any more to this series, but the new season (despite being all kinds of awesome) has been rather depressing, and this just came out whilst watching 7x02. I'm kinda ambivalent on what they've done with Castiel, because it all depends on what they do next and where they take the story, but I had to get this down.
And Now For Pain;
Castiel knew pain. After being human, or as human as it was possible for a fallen angel to be, it was one of the things he'd gotten used to. Damaging yourself caused you pain, so you didn't harm the area further and learned not to do the same thing next time. Even as an angel he'd known pain- looking down on Earth he'd seen centuries and centuries of it, but now something was ripping him apart from the inside, and he couldn't fight it.
He couldn't fight the Leviathan. He knew it even as he tried, even as he pushed the souls back into purgatory with all the Grace he had left, but they wouldn't go, sticking to him like oil on his insides, black and insidious and in control. They had him, and so they took him, forcing him to smile at Dean as they threatened death with his mouth, as they took Jimmy's body and made him lurch out of the door and away from Dean.
And even though he didn't have eyes anymore, lights were exploding behind them, because limbs he didn't possess were being devoured as the Leviathan fed on his Grace. Because time goes differently inside a body, and years can pass in seconds, but the pain of his Grace was nothing to the pain in his soul, and so he was content to sit, to sit and wait as he was consumed.
And Castiel, no longer a God, no longer even an Angel, thinks about pain.
He thinks about the agony on Dean's face when he was drunk on power, when all he'd wanted to do was help, and the souls had been a cushion between him and that anguish. He remembers the priest as he chokes on his own flesh, all the while claiming to be like Father, and his heart aches at his presumption. His pride is gone now, swallowed up by shame, and even as the Leviathan withdraws because there is endless time for them to torment him, and there is no torment sweeter than hope denied. But now he can feel the agony sliding through him like a knife; he remembers seeing Sam fade, slowly but surely, he remembers how Sam fell apart and Dean couldn't save him, he remembers his own torment, when Dean had looked through him in the hospital, and he had known then he couldn't fix them.
He can see Dean's face as he tore down Sam and broke his mind, and if he still had his vessel he would vomit, being the focus of all that hatred and despair.
He remembers, as the water closes over his body and Jimmy's body begins to dissolve like sugar, something Gabriel had said to him once.
The road to Hell is paved by good intentions. Or that's what the humans say.
And it was true. Because his intentions had become more important than the brothers, the brothers he swore to protect, the brothers he Fell for, the brothers who were family. And he'd hurt them, as surely as plunging a dagger into their chests and twisting it.
Dean won't forgive him. He'd almost admitted it, back when he'd had control and the souls were still shrieking at him, back when he'd needed it so desperately he could taste it. And lo and behold, he's surprised himself again, because he hadn't thought anything could hurt more that breaking Sam, but another wave of agony rips through him, that Dean will not mourn his death.
And then he thinks his last coherent thought; no wonder Hell is a place of torture, because nothing is worse than pain. It obliterates everything, till all you are is the drive to escape it, to do anything to just make it stop.
And then it does.
I can only apologise for this piece of angst- if they bring Cas back there may be more ficlets, hopefully happier, but unless they do, I think this'll be the final one.
Was it any good?