Pontiac, Illinois, September 2008
Castiel stood on the grass verge, staring at the red-roofed barn on the other side of the two-lane asphalt road. A summoning. For him.
He sighed softly. Obedience to Heaven, to his Father, in all things, in all times. This was his assignment and he would see it through, as he had all the others, even when he'd been sure he would not survive them. Faith was a strange abstract. It gave as it took. And he was still alive.
He approached the doors, feeling the men inside, their fear and their doubts. He was, as yet, imperfectly enclosed by his vessel, and the energies that should have been dormant and quiescent inside the flesh and bone and nerves still escaped. Above him the loose sheets of the tin roof began to bang and lift, slamming against the rafters as that energy shot out in different directions. He felt for the bar that held the doors shut and watched it slide free, the doors transparent to his gaze.
In earlier, simpler times, he could have manifested as a light, or a fire. Mankind's ability to process the fantastical appeared to have shrunk as the millennia passed, however. And as he became aware of the seething emotions filling the men at the end of the building, he acknowledged that the human vessel was a less threatening visage in which to introduce himself.
The nimbus of energy surrounding him overloaded each of the overhead lights as he passed under them, walking steadily forward. He could see them now, with his vessel's eyes, two men clutching at their puny weapons. He could hear their hearts accelerating in their chest cavities, their breathing rasping in and out of their lungs. He was aware of the shots that they fired at him, the small pieces of metal tearing up the fabric of his vessel's garments but disintegrating before they penetrated the inner layers.
When they looked at each other, and dropped their guns, he thought they might have given up. It was a forlorn hope really. After two thousands of watching humankind, he should have realised that they weren't ready to give up just yet. Mankind had ever been tenacious. And optimistic.
"Who are you?" Dean Winchester circled around, and Castiel turned with him, his back to the other man.
"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition." He looked at the man in front of him, seeing fear in his eyes. Why was he so afraid? He stood there, alive and in his body because of what had been done for him.
"Yeah. Thanks for that."
He pulled his arm back and the knife hissed through the air, ending its downward plunge in the angel's chest. Man and angel looked down at the knife hilt, incongruous against the waterproofed material of the coat, for a long moment.
Castiel raised his head and looked at Dean, his hand curling around the bone hilt and pulling the knife free, letting it go. He could, perhaps, understand the impulse. Fear was a powerful driver and he hadn't been able to establish contact with his charge until now.
Dean stared at him as the metal clanged on the concrete floor. He exchanged a brief glance with the other man, standing behind the angel. The older man swung the crowbar. Without turning to look, Castiel caught the end, turning and inexorably drawing the older man to him. He touched his forehead with his fingertips and the old man crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
"We need to talk, Dean," Castiel said quietly, glancing down at the still form on the floor briefly. "Alone."
He watched Dean as he walked warily around him, going to the other man. Turning away when he realised that the human was merely checking the state and health of the older man, he looked at the nearby table, noting the bowls and herbs they'd used to summon him. Cantrips and granny magic, he thought. Efficacious, but so primitive.
Crouching beside Bobby, his fingers resting on his neck, Dean turned his head and watched the angel, standing by the table, flicking through Bobby's journal incuriously, the air of someone waiting in a doctor's office and idly looking through a magazine so strong he had to forcibly shut it out.
"Your friend's alive." The tone left no doubt that it was only by the angel's mercy that was the case.
"Who are you?" Dean asked.
"Castiel."
"Yeah, I figured that much," he said, a little sourly. "I mean – what are you?"
Castiel turned to look at him. "I am an angel of the Lord."
Dean was silent for a long moment, getting slowly to his feet as he looked at the angel. "Get the hell out of here. There's no such thing."
It might have been slightly funny, in other circumstances, the angel thought. Brought up as a hunter of the supernatural, tortured by demons, raised from Hell … and the man didn't believe in the powers of Heaven, only those of evil.
"This is your problem, Dean." Castiel stared into his eyes. "You have no faith."
Lightning coruscated through the open door, accompanied by a peal of thunder. The eyes of the human widened as the light filled the building and he saw the shadows behind the angel, the shadows of wings extending up and outwards, wings that spanned the width of the barn and lapped around the walls. The lightning died and the shadows disappeared.
Castiel watched Dean's bravado disappear for a moment, watched him accept, for the moment, the proof of his own eyes. He was surprised and disappointed to see that acceptance buried a moment later.
"Some angel you are." Dean's mouth twisted. "You burned out that poor woman's eyes."
Castiel bowed his head. The woman had persisted. It was unfortunate. "I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be ... overwhelming to humans, and so can my real voice. But you already knew that."
"You mean the gas station and the motel." Dean remembered the intensity of the sound – not even a sound, really – that had drilled into his brain. "That was you talking?"
The angel nodded slightly. It had been disappointing to realise that the soul he'd saved, had drawn from the fires of Hell, had only been traumatised and injured by his attempts to speak to him.
"Buddy, next time, lower the volume," Dean advised.
Castiel dropped his gaze, acknowledging the error. "That was my mistake." He looked back to Dean. "Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong."
He thought it would reassure the man in front of him, calm him. Unfortunately it seemed to have the opposite effect. Castiel watched him drag back the shreds of his earlier confidence, his earlier anger. After Hell, this man's armour against what he didn't want to know was thinner. He couldn't hide himself so well. And that made him more afraid.
"And what visage are you in now, huh?" The words were almost spat out. "What, holy tax accountant?"
The angel sighed inwardly, looking down at the body he wore, his fingers rising to the lapels of the trenchcoat. Jimmy Novak's body, his soul nestled safely in the lattices of Castiel's mind. "This? This is... a vessel."
"You're possessing some poor bastard?" Dean stared at him incredulously.
Castiel made an effort to soften his expression. He could feel the man's unease, the choice of words showing all too clearly how close his thoughts of Hell were.
"He's a devout man," he told the human. "He actually prayed for this."
"Yeah? Well, I'm not buying what you're selling, so who are you really?"
Watching him, seeing the jaw muscles clench and twitch, the tension in his body increasing as the conversation continued, Castiel realised that his initial assessment of Dean's fear had been an underestimate. He didn't believe the man was afraid of him. Not physically, at least, but his fear of the unknown quantity that he represented was obvious. He couldn't imagine what the human thought he might be.
He looked at him, brows drawing together slightly. "I told you."
"Right." There was a world of sarcasm in the short word. "And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?"
The angel saw that he was almost shaking now, confused, not knowing what to believe, not knowing what to think. Castiel walked to him slowly, attempting to project an ambient harmlessness as he wondered how he could get through to this man, who believed in demons, but not in their opposites.
"Good things do happen, Dean," he spoke gently, looking into his face.
The man was silent, and Castiel's attention sharpened on him, attempting to see the thoughts flowing through his mind. He watched as Dean's face tightened, hardening at some memory.
"Not in my experience."
"What's the matter?" For the first time, Castiel looked carefully at him. Under the taut repression of his feelings, edged about with a defensive anger, the angel could see doubt. Uncertainty. And fear.
There was so much pain in this man, he realised, recognising the dark shadows that lay behind the green eyes. So much shame. So much … self-hatred. He knew everything this soul had done, down in the pit. Winchester had been in agony when he'd raised him.
"You don't think you deserve to be saved."
Memory crowding the darkened eyes. A heart accelerating wildly in the chest. He watched Dean struggle for control over his feelings, over his thoughts. Was it just that he'd been in Hell, and the experience was still fresh in his mind, Castiel wondered? Or did it go deeper, to a lifetime of doubt? No soul could completely resist the effects of the Accursed plane.
"Why'd you do it?" The words came out fast, as if the man was barely holding himself back from screaming.
Castiel remembered the summoning, remembered the archangel standing beside him, and the gathering of the Host, and the dark and confusion and the stench of Hell.
"Because God commanded it." The angel's dark blue eyes bored into the man's, and again the muscles in Dean's face twitched and jumped, his fear palpable beyond the paper thin control he had over himself.
"Because we have work for you."
He watched fear turn to disbelief, and understood. A little more anyway. Torture and pain. The human imagination. This man's imagination. He wondered if Dean would ever be able to trust in anything again. If, to him, things would always get worse, never better. The man – the soul – standing before him had been waiting to hear that this was a reprieve, not an end to the torture. That he had some task he was needed for on earth, some Hell-related job, his imagination working with what he knew to produce scenarios of ever-lasting damnation.
Plainly, Castiel considered, he had never imagined that another power might require him. Watching Dean's face, seeing disbelief chased by doubt, the expressions flitting across lightning fast, the angel saw that inside, much deeper, there was denial. A powerful denial.
Outcast. Unclean. Unworthy.
He knew what had been done to this man. And he knew what he had done to others. He was not one of those of his kind who believed that this soul was irredeemable. His Father had commanded this soul to be raised. That meant only one thing. The soul of Dean Winchester had remained pure.
Acceptance of what has been done. Contrition. Penance for the wrongs to restore the balance. These things were essential for forgiveness and redemption. From the moment he'd touched the soul, he'd seen that Winchester had moved through that process, driven, perhaps, by his conscience, by the inborn knowledge of right. He was, still, a righteous man.
But Dean had no faith, no belief in anything other than the strong moral code he'd been born with and the love for his family that had withstood everything he'd been through. Neither of those things were enough, Castiel saw. Not enough to convince that he had been forgiven. Had been … cleansed. What he'd done, in his eyes, had forever marked him. Had blackened his soul. Had damned him beyond the possibility of redemption.
It wasn't true. But he could see that it would take a lot more than words to convince this man of that.