Chapter 4: "Guardian" Angel
Dean Winchester was dead.
And it was his fault.
Castiel sat in Metatron's office, at his desk, staring at the now-empty typewriter in front of him. It was so obvious in hindsight: of course the Tablet had been there, of course that was how Metatron was tapping into its power. It should have been the first place he looked. It was so obvious.
But he hadn't found the Tablet in time, and now Dean Winchester was dead.
He remembered vividly the moment he had finally reached Dean in Hell. He hadn't known the man butchering the screaming soul, and had he not had his orders, he might have been tempted to leave him to burn. But the fear in the broken man's eyes had captivated Castiel, and he knew that every cut the eldest Winchester boy made only added to his own torment. The hideous sneer on his face was a lie. He had been tortured for three decades and yet his soul still shone. Perhaps not as brightly as it had once done, but Castiel had known this desecrated man deserved to be saved, regardless of Heaven's orders. And so he had reached out his hand and gripped the young man's shoulder with all his strength, and together they rose out of the flames and the screams and the darkness, into the light.
Dean Winchester is saved.
He had cried the words with pride and joy for every angel to hear, and for the first time in centuries, no other words were heard nor spoken. Hope had been returned to the angels. Dean Winchester was saved.
"Ahh … so Gadreel bites the dust. And the Angel Tablet – arguably the most powerful instrument in the history of the universe – is in pieces and for what again? Oh, that's right. To save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right? Well, guess what? He's dead, too."
The words galloped around and around through Castiel's mind, getting heavier and heavier with each repetition. It didn't matter that Metatron's voice had been magnified on the angel radio, or that the words themselves had been spoken softly; for Cas, they were more absolute than anything he had ever heard.
"He's dead, too."
Dean Winchester is dead.
Cas sunk forward in the armchair, covering his face in his hands, collapsing in on himself. He should have found the Tablet sooner. He had failed. Again.
More intensely than ever before, Castiel wished he could be a true angel again. To have big, strong wings to fly away and find Dean in Heaven, to have the power to bring him back, to not feel.
The space in his chest that had always been filled like a lake by his Grace was smaller now, depleted. He knew the stolen Grace was killing him. It wouldn't be long now. A few months maybe, if he didn't use his powers. He knew he should care more that his life was drawing to a – hopefully – final close, but he simply … didn't.
But that did not mean he was going to give up.
Heaven still had to be saved. Billions of souls waited in agony in the Veil, lost, confused, and very afraid. Hundreds of angels were still wandering, equally devastated, longing to return home, away from the strangeness that was humanity. Even the angels in Heaven weren't safe yet. They were effectively trapped, wingless, and with a moving portal none but Metatron knew how to operate. They could not return to their task until Heaven was reopened.
And each of them was looking to Castiel to show them how to do it. Expecting him to remind them of their long forgotten purpose.
A weight settled itself onto Cas's shoulders, seeming to mock the missing pressure of his broken wings. He did not want to lead. Never before had he so wished he could just follow someone else's orders, let someone else decide his fate and the fate of every other angel. He wished he had someone to tell him what to do.
For a long moment, Cas just sat there, hunched over with his palms pressed painfully against his closed eyes. Eventually, with a deep sigh, he straightened and turned to rise from the chair.
The sight that greeted him threatened to push him back down onto it.
Metatron's blade was lying at the edge of the desk, covered in Dean's blood.
He's dead, too.
Cas closed his eyes against the fresh wave of shame and grief and guilt. His life was a catalogue of failures, of misplaced trust and betrayals. The one man who had always stood by him, forgiven him his unforgivable crimes, the man who had taught him what family truly was ... was dead. Cas couldn't bring him back. He couldn't even pass into the Veil to find his soul, to deliver it from the confusion and pain of the ancient Doorway and into the safe paradise of his perfect, angelless, Heaven. He could never beg his forgiveness for letting him down yet again.
Castiel's heart was no stranger to pain. It had hardened and shrunk behind carefully constructed walls to cope with each new scar. But his heart had never hurt so badly. Not when he rebelled against the only family he had ever known, not when he learned his Father had abandoned him, not when he realised the carnage he had wrought in Heaven and on Earth with the souls from the Poisoned Garden, not each minute spent in Purgatory hating himself for his crimes, not when Metatron tricked him into sealing Heaven. It was as though each past agony had been resurrected by this new failure and coalesced into a burning ache so acute and endless he wondered how the muscle continued to beat.
Oh, what wouldn't he give to feel nothing? To feel hollow? To feel anything but this boundless agony that was worse than any torture?
To be an angel again.
Taking a deep breath, Cas opened his eyes and picked up the weapon that had been used to kill the best friend he had ever known. He wiped the dried blood from it slowly with a discarded handkerchief, and stowed it carefully in his coat. He would not allow himself to forget this newest mistake, or the pain it rightly caused him.