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pinknatural · 3 years

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CASTIEL, YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN, Michael says. YOU WILL JOIN THE ELITE GARRISON--LED BY ME, OF COURSE, TO RETRIEVE MY SWORD FROM HELL.

YES, MICHAEL, Castiel says.

“Are you sure you wanna go by yourself?” Sam asks.

“It’s gotta be me,” Dean says. He looks between Sam and Eileen and Jack and Claire and Kaia, tries to memorize their faces. He smiles weakly. “I’ll be back soon.”

He turns around. Michael lifts his hands. Dean takes a moment to commit his youngest brother’s face to memory. “Ready?”

“Yes,” Dean says, and Michael opens the portal.

Hell is loud. Screams from the tortured souls fill the air. Cries from demons fill the sound, and overtop are wails from the Cage. Castiel shudders at the sound of angelic screeching, grating and unexpected against his grace. He grips his blade tighter and dives between a layer of racks.

He has his orders--fight the demons. Find the Righteous Man. Call Michael, allow him to retrieve his sword. Losses of angelic lives are unfortunate but perhaps necessary. Castiel recites them like a mantra, and a swarm of demons leaps for him. He flares his wings wide and bares his teeth and turns the full force of his hundreds of eyes onto them, and he fights.

The Empty is quiet. Eerily so. Every footstep Dean takes is muffled. He cannot hear himself breathe, cannot hear his heart, beating against his chest. For a moment, he’s certain he is dead, but when he puts his palm over his breast, he feels it, a steady tattoo against his ribcage. Dean tightens his grip on his angel blade, and he keeps walking forward.

In the distance, Castiel spots Sarah fall. He dives sideways. He has always been smaller than his siblings, has always been a bit faster, and he slips between the cracks of the first circle, and descends deeper into the pit.

OOHH...LITTLE HUMAN, a voice, slimy and awful, says, curling around him like the worst kind of hug. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

“I’m here for my angel,” Dean says. He stares up at nothing, defiant. He’s glad he can hear his own voice.

THAT’S WHERE YOU’RE WRONG, the voice says. HE IS MY ANGEL NOW. SLEEPING BESIDE HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS, TUCKED IN A LINE, DREAMING OF HIS GREAT REGRETS. AND OH, LITTLE HUMAN, HE HAS MANY.

“I ain’t leaving without him,” Dean says, clenching his fist. His shoulder feels like it’s burning.

LITTLE HUMAN, YOU ARE NOT MEANT FOR THE EMPTY. NOT WHILE THAT HEART BEAT-BEAT-BEATS INSIDE YOUR CHEST. LEAVE. YOU MAY RETURN WHEN YOU DIE. YOU WERE PROMISED TO ME, YOU KNOW.

“You don’t want me stuck inside you forever,” Dean says, then he winces because okay, that was kinda dirty. “I’m kind of an expert at being annoying. I’m also an expert in tearing up afterlives.”

OH, HUMAN. YOU POOR THING. HOW EMBARRASSING. YOUR DESIRE FOR THE ANGEL LEAKS OUT OF YOUR PORES.

Dean snarls. “Who are your greatest prizes?” he asks. “Which angels and demons do you have the most pride in keeping here? And who handed them directly to you?”

Castiel isn’t sure where Michael is. He isn’t even sure where he is. He assumes the Righteous Man is in the seventh circle, but he’s been through so many, been pushed back and pulled forward, and he could be anywhere.

Angels do not get tired. Castiel thinks that if he could be, he would be. He feels another of his brothers die. A hoard of demons is attempting to sneak up on him. Castiel whirls around, flaring his wings, and he smites them all.

There are millions of angels. There are billions of demons.

This will take a while.

HERE’S THE DEAL, LITTLE HUMAN. IF YOU FIND YOUR ANGEL, YOU CAN DRAG HIM OUT OF HERE AND NEITHER OF YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO RETURN. BUT IF YOU CHOOSE THE WRONG ANGEL, I WILL TAKE YOU TODAY AND NEVER LET YOU GO. BUT DON’T WORRY--I’LL MAKE SURE TO PUT YOUR SLEEPING RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR BELOVED ANGEL.

“Deal,” Dean says, because of course he knows who Cas is, of course he does, but all of a sudden the darkness of the Empty is lit up in a brilliant white light, and thousands and thousands of--shapes--are before him. Angels, Dean realizes. In their true form. And he has to find one specific one, that he’s never seen before.

This will take a while.

Castiel sneaks into a new circle. He will be found, sooner or later, but for now he is undetected. He inspects his surroundings--blood and fire and souls writhing on their racks. His grace brightens for a moment before he tampers it back down. This is the seventh circle! The Righteous Man could be any of these souls. Castiel creeps forward.

Rows and rows of angels, floating before him, all blue-white with grace, all dormant and asleep. They are hard to look at, too bright and too confusing, constantly twisting and shifting. They look like something outta Escher, or a Mobius strip, or maybe just a tangled mass of wires. Four or five animal heads or no heads at all, thousands of eyes or maybe just a mass of wings, tucked over and over each other. Dean can only really look at each one with a glance. And he’s sure none of them are his.

The Righteous Man’s soul burns bright, brighter than any human soul Castiel has ever seen. He is doing the torturing, not being tortured, and the cheeks of the humanoid shape the golden soul has taken shine with tears. He is in agony, and he loves what he does as he carves into the soul before him.

There’s a smaller angel than the others. When Dean looks at it, it looks kind of like a conch shell, curling and swirling, and kind of like a bird, and kind of like a knot, twisted and tangled. It is small, but it is bright. Blue-white with grace but braided with other colors too, red and orange and yellow and green and purple and pink and colors Dean’s never even heard of. His left shoulder throbs painfully, and Dean stares at the angel with awe.

Castiel knows he is supposed to call Michael. He knows Michael is supposed to lift his sword from perdition. But--

the Righteous Man is so beautiful. So brilliant. Castiel cannot help it.

Dean’s shoulder is painful and the angel shifts and changes and Dean has to be 100% sure, but this angel is the most beautiful thing Dean’s ever seen. He can’t tear his gaze away.

Castiel reaches out.

Dean reaches out.

When Dean wakes up, he is alone.

When Cas wakes up, he has only time to inhale before he’s tucked into Dean’s arms, face pressed into his neck, held tighter, and tigher, and Cas reaches his arms around Dean and digs his fingers into his jacket and inhales Dean’s scent and breathes, breathes.

#why did i put dante references in this........? no clue byee #castiel #dean winchester #deancas #happy lazarus rising dayyyy #writingtag

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