Title: Not Your Father
Prompt: Written for elfinmouse on livejournal: Supernatural, Castiel, His first fledgling died.
Note: Title borrowed from Castiel's line in Supernatural: "The Rapture."
It didn't live long enough to bear a name, but it had been beautiful and it was his.
His.
When Castiel takes a vessel, there are options. Claire of course, but Jimmy Novak also had a brother, and there's a fourth cousin out in Wisconsin. No prophecy limits the angel's choice, but Castiel is drawn to Jimmy.
Jimmy the faithful.
Jimmy the father.
Castiel wins the human over with promises, because he understands. He has been faithful without reward even when others have turned away. He has watched mate and child taken from him in the war that never ends. Castiel knows intimately the feeling of futility, and he takes Jimmy's form out of pity.
And perhaps a bit of longing.
Except in those moments of adjusting to a vessel, he feels Claire's presence. He hears her plaintive call.
Claire is beautiful, sweet, faithful, and everything that Jimmy has boasted. Her father loves her more than life itself, and Castiel registers Jimmy stirring within . . . but Castiel feels nothing.
"I am not your father."