Fic: Beautiful Things Seen by the Astronauts
Title: Beautiful Things Seen by the Astronauts
Author: elfladyarwen
Pairings/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Joshua, Balthazar, Rachel, OC
Spoilers: Season 6
Word Count: ~7,200
Warnings: temporary character death (don't worry nothing permanent), canon divergence/possible unseen backstory
Rating: PG-13 (for some descriptions of violence and war)
Author’s Note: Written for the spn_reversebang challenge to illustrate this prompt from the amazing usarechan. As a long time fan of her work, I was very excited to have a crack at writing something for her wonderful art. She was extremely encouraging of all my ideas and even though we got separated due to web issues for a while, it was a lot of fun bouncing ideas back and forth with her.
What mattered was Dean Winchester was dead.
A sharp, small gasp from the universe and a pin prick along the outskirts of his interdimensional focus- quiet and easily overlooked compared to the rage and slash of battle all around him, but Castiel felt it as sure as a blow from his own blade.
And he found he was infuriated by it.
He was angry at whatever monster that had been forced to defend itself from attacking hunters, stopping the pulse of it’s human enemy. He was angry at himself for being caught between worlds, the howls of his dying brethren all around, and therefore unable to prevent such things from happening in the first place. But most of all he was angry at Dean. Dean Winchester - who took for granted the light of the hundred angels whose graces were currently being diminished to preserve his right to reject destiny. Dean, with his callous and glorious way of twisting the all sacrificing love of one rebellious angel into some useful tool for his cause and reasoning. Green-eyed, smart-mouthed, bright-souled Dean, who Castiel hated more than anything in this moment for allowing himself to be killed. And for making him give a damn about it.
With a snarl, better suited for a rabid animal then something celestial, he took his rage out on the sister within closest reach. He would remember later that her name had been Nithandriel, a pretty angel who loved to style her vessel’s chocolate brown curls and thought dolphins to be the most graceful of all God’s creatures. But at this moment, he knew nothing but the way her mouth twisted in pain as his sword cut through her chest, leaving only a pool of blood and an ashy smear of wings on the ground.
He cleaned his weapon on her shirt tail, jaw set as he walked stiffly toward where the remainder of his garrison huddled closeby in the meager shelter offered by a pile of corpses.
“Get down, you fool,” Rachel hissed upon spotting his approach. There was a shallow line of grace leaking from a wound on her temple, but she paid it no notice as she reached up to tug him down by his vessel’s trenchcoat.
“Yes honestly, Cassy,” Balthazar drawled from his crouch next to her, tone long suffering and unamused, “it doesn’t seem the most advantageous move to offer up our commanding officer like a pig ripe for slaughter. Do try not to help the other side as much as possible.”
Castiel ignored them both, taking a quick survey of surrounding battle and trying to calculate where holes of opportunity might spring up to allow him quick leave. “Dean Winchester has been killed,” he informed them seriously.
Balthazar snorted and immediately winced as if the gesture pained his ribs. “Good riddance.”
Castiel flashed him a warning glance. “I have to go to him,” he sighed, the initial fury burning away and leaving in it’s place a core deep weariness. Angels were not made to handle stress, they lacked the capacity to worry. Yet since sparing the world from Armeggedon at Dean Winchester’s side and in turn ripping Heaven into separate loyalties, Castiel had been smothered beneath both and more. And though he had never spoken of it, he had a feeling from the way his comrades were staring holes into him, they were privy to the subject of the majority of his everyday worries.
“Oh for Father’s sake,” Balthazar groaned, with a roll of his eyes.
“Castiel, you can’t be serious!” Rachel cried simultaneously. “We’re losing, we cannot afford to spare a single soldier-”
“And here I thought you just had a little crush, Cassy. I hadn’t realized you actually hit your head somewhere along the way hard enough to bounce all the sense away-”
“-Our commanding officer! What will your army think, to see their captain once again flit away at the beckon call of a good for nothing human who relies on the glory of Heaven as if it was his personal butler!”
“I mean, really. He must be the best lay in the universe to inspire this kind of loyalty. I should take lessons so I can be so popular.”
He waited, letting the two of them vent their disbelief and disgust for a full half a minute before pinning each of them in turn with another fierce glare that few would be brave enough to interrupt. “Dean Winchester is necessary to what we’re fighting for here,” he said sternly. “He is a soldier, the same as we are, and I will not leave him to the clutches of my brothers who would use him as a weakness against me. Just as I would leave none of you behind.”
“Except that’s exactly what you’re doing, Castiel,” Rachel snapped, eyes shining with hurt. “You’re choosing sides again, and this time you are wrong! It’s all wrong!”
“This is not up for discussion,” he said, already tensing his wings in preparation for flight. All the while, he let a sliver of his consciousness ping the far corners of Heaven, searching for the beacon that was Dean’s soul. Heaven was massive and though it was his home, it was an ever-shifting thing with secrets and mysteries too numerous for any angel to ever fully chart. It might take some time for him to locate Dean. “I will return as soon as I’m able. Until that time, Rachel, you are in command. Don’t let them flank us and be prepared to retreat if necessary. This isn’t the deciding battle. I need you both to live to fight another day.”
Rachel stared at him hard, a threat of mutiny swirling in the depths of her eyes. Castiel met it, never once blinking as he ordered her to stand down without words. Eventually she cracked under the weight of his gaze and sighed, drawing up her sword to once again charge into the heat of battle. “Godspeed then, Castiel,” she said in a clipped tone, nodding once in respectfully before disappearing in a fluid leap over their corpse lean-to.
Another pang of worry tightened his gut, this time for his garrison, so many of which would never see the light of another day. He shook it off, regathering his focus and concentrating on finding Dean. His wings stretched their full span, coiled to push him into the air.
But he never made the take off, as a hand snaked out to forcefully grab him by the arm. “And what about you?” chimed Balthazar. “Do we come and save your sorry hide if you’re captured by dear old uncle Raphy’s forces or just let them string you up like a feathery pinata?”
“Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing,” Castiel said, unable to meet his friend’s eye.
“You’re hiding something, Cassy. You think I don’t see right through you after all these eons? I see it in your eyes, the fear for your ape man. What’s really going on?”
Castiel was silent, debating whether or not to tell his closest friend of the worry most aggressively gnawing at his mind. “I’m having difficulty pinpointing Dean’s soul.”
Balthazar shrugged. “There must be several billion souls amassed here now. That’s a big pile of needles to go hunting for your needle.”
“No, it’s more than that. I can’t feel him like I should. I think- I think he might be stuck.”
“Caught by Raphael?”
Castiel looked down at the ash smeared ground. “Or by something else,” he admitted softly.
Balthazar hissed, drawing back in wide eyed horror. “The Others.” He scanned Castiel’s face for a sign of contradiction, but Castiel kept his expression indifferent, which was all the answer Balthazar needed to explode.
With enough force to snap human bones, he grabbed hold of Castiel’s shoulders and shook him once, twice like a rag doll. “Are you mad!?” he spat. “They’ll obliterate you before you even have time to cry out for mercy!”
Castiel slapped his friend’s hands away with a grunt, his wings bristling. “They’re not prone to violence. I have no intention of starting a second war I cannot win. I’ll make it clear my coming is peaceful.” Knowing an argument was impending, he shouldered past his friend, hoping to send the message that the subject wasn’t up for debate.
Balthazar, persistent, dogged his heels, pulling at whatever body part he could reach. “You can’t make anything clear to them, they won’t understand you. You can’t reason with them, no one knows if you can even communicate with them! And you certainly can’t take back a soul once it’s slipped past the veil and been claimed, everyone knows this.”
“We know nothing but speculation, Balthazar,” Castiel countered, shoving his friend out of the way in attempt to take flight. “I won’t know until I try.”
“Castiel,” Balthazar said, a genuine air of desperation now coloring his tone, “they. will. destroy. you. They can do it without even meaning to. They’re too unstable. Even Michael knew better than to mess with that kind of power. If you’re positive about committing suicide, stay here and do it in your fight against Raphael. Don’t waste yourself on him.”
Castiel spun, meeting his friend’s pleading look with a terribly dark one of his own, warning Balthazar to once again back down, that he’d gone too far. “Enough,” he growled, flaring his wings wide in a gesture used by angels to signify dominance and aggression. Balthazar flinched at being so blatantly challenged and blinked several times in rapid succession, but to his credit, he did not submit.
“Please, Cas,” he begged quietly. “He’s not worth your life.”
Castiel lowered his wings a fraction, softening. “I appreciate your concern, Balthazar,” he said, voice gentle this time. “But that’s my decision to make.”
And before either angel could say anymore, Castiel threw himself into flight. Away from war and towards certain death.
*****
The Others were to be feared. To be avoided at all costs.
Every angel was taught this fact soon after their creation, with little reason why and even less definition of what. Like the antagonist in a scary story told to human children, they were a nameless threat looming at the edges of existence, better off forgotten. There were no written records about them, only legend and hearsay passed through ranks of foot soldiers and archangels alike.
There were stories of massive bodies of pure energy, more powerful than even Michael the Firstborn and The Lightbringer, Lucifer. Thousands, millions in number, they hung suspended in a dimension beyond Heaven and were isolated in the cold of space. They were wild, feral things, lacking all sense of right and wrong and good and evil. In this ignorance, they were the most dangerous things ever created.
They had no names or identities, although the humans had at some point in history dubbed them ‘stars.’
Some said they had been prototypes for angels, a rough draft created by Father and then deemed imperfect, missing some necessity, and then cast aside to make way for his real children.
Some said they were extensions of God himself, divided, yet functioning as a separate hive mind entity. This would explain their ethereal glow, always visible, even through the veil that kept them in their isolation. They could create and destroy themselves, needing no Alpha and Omega to keep their numbers in balance.
Some said they were capable of thought, but it was primitive, child-like, with no deductive reasoning and no ability to take orders or problem solve. Thought was black and white with no middle ground and happened only when they craved something they did not have. They served no God, only the pull of their own survival and could accidentally shred an angel’s grace and scatter it to the far winds of the universe in a tantrum. Like chimpanzees to humans, they were unevolved, unrefined and raw.
And a very few speculated that mostly, they were just lonely. Forever alone in their corner of space, they rotated and spun and thrashed colors beautiful beyond the imagination of even angels. But they never touched, save the moment when one of them would grow old and weak and the others pounced upon it, tearing it to pieces before it could die and leave the rest of them brokenhearted. Despite it’s raw edges, this is the version of the story Castiel had always prefered. He hadn’t realized it until he met the Winchesters and experienced humanity, but he could relate to feeling alone amongst a multitude of his own kind.
And though Dean would have most certainly called him childish for thinking it, he hoped this small kind of sympathy would be enough to convince whatever power held Dean to release him. If it was not - Castiel tried not to focus on the overwhelming possibility of failure.
Over the centuries, a few handfuls of souls had been lost, never reaching their piece of paradise in Heaven’s multitudes. It was taboo to speak of it, but all angels knew where they had disappeared, and in turn knew why a single new star would appear in the black of space a short time later. There was no pattern to the souls the stars claimed for themselves, so there was no way to intercede and prevent the detour taken from earthly body to rightful resting place. But once it was done, it was done. No one had ever ventured through the veil to try to retrieve a soul lost to the Others. There was no point in trying to find something that no longer existed.
Castiel couldn’t think of what might happen if he failed to locate the veil in time. He would go crazy if he let the fear buzzing at the edges of his brain overtake him. To lose Dean...
It was unacceptable. He would not fail.
*****
Castiel landed in the garden. It was like landing in the past. Or a memory that refused to take full shape. He did not remember the particular shade of green of this place, only that it was grander than before, fuller and more expansive. But then, it was safe to assume a good many plants could grow in several centuries time. Especially under Joshua’s hand.
He sought the gardener out not for his gift to make all things flourish. But because of all the angels left in Heaven, Joshua was the oldest, and therefore Heaven’s Secretkeeper. If there was anyone left who could help him locate Dean, he would be in this place.
It was a jungle that likes of which humans could not possibly imagine. Colors without names burst from every angle, trees taller than his natural form casting half the gardens into shadow. Not just plants, but animals and insects and all manner of wonderous creatures tracked his path through Eden. Each of them leaned to the other to pass secrets along to their master, who was waiting patiently by an enormous fan-leaved bush of some kind, already aware of who had ventured here in search of answers.
“He’s not here, Castiel,” Joshua said in way of greeting. When he raised his head from the enormous Bird of Paradise plant he was tending, his smile was small and sad. “But you know that already.”
“Where is he?”
Still smiling, the older angel just shook his head fondly and ran a loving hand through the leaves of the plant that tracked and leaned into his touch like an adoring pet would a master’s touch. Castiel had never fully understood Joshua’s quiet grace, so unlike the militant rationality of a soldier, yet somehow just as strong. Angels and souls alike were drawn to his steady presence, comforted by his honest smile and deep, dark eyes. Standing before Joshua was as humbling as standing before an archangel, but it lacked the fear of power and wrath. If he had to choose a word to describe it, it was...soothing. It was little wonder the plants beneath his fingers flourished so.
“You ask questions you already know the answer to. A very human thing to do, really,” the gardener chuckled.
Castiel bit back a frustrated retort, knowing full well harshness would not work on someone like Joshua. “Please,” he said through gritted teeth, “I need to know how to locate the Veil. You are the last who knows how to reach it.”
“Yes,” Joshua sighed, “I suppose I am the last to remember many things. So much effort is put into reshaping and controlling things nowadays. What use is memory to those determined to live in the future?”
“I don’t understand what that means,” exclaimed Castiel with a wave of his arms. “I just need you to tell me how to get there. Now.”
Joshua raised a silver brow, chiding the outburst with just a look. He did not withdraw his gaze until Castiel had calmed and dipped his head in deference. Then, the old angel went mute, moving only to trim a few yellowed leaves from the Bird of Paradise which cooed it’s thanks into the tense silence. It dragged on, until Castiel was anxiously shifting back and forth, about to smite all plants within a one mile radius.
“I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say to convince you to change your mind,” Joshua said finally, just as Castiel’s patience was on the verge of collapse.
“There isn’t,” Castiel confirmed.
“And you’re sure that you’ll find what you’re looking for once you get there?”
Castiel hesitated, unsure if the question was meant to be a trap. “If you’re implying I’m too late to save Dean, you are wrong.”
Joshua shook his head, a smile, although somewhat rueful, returning to crease his face. “Believe it or not, Castiel, as fond as I am of Dean Winchester, it’s your well being that concerns me. Not his. You may not return from this endeavor. In fact, I’d say it’s unlikely at best. So you’ll understand if I’m hesitant to speed a kinsmen to his death. There have been too many angels lost as of late.”
“No, you don’t understand. I am already lost if he is,” Castiel whispered almost inaudibly. When brave enough to lift his head and meet Joshua’s eye again, he was surprised to see approval shining there instead of the disgust shown by his comrades.
“You know, I thought I would loose this beauty not too long ago,” said Joshua. He laid a weathered hand on the top leaves of the Bird of Paradise, which promptly curled around his fingers and purred happily. “I was so sure it was a goner, but even when logic told me give up, I tried every trick I knew of to save it. I think the hope was, if I poured enough love into it, it would recognize how much I needed it to live and bounce back. Silly, I know. But would you believe it - the very next morning, the darned thing was all perked up and demanding, quite insistently, to be fed! It almost knocked me off my feet in it’s enthusiasm. ”
He laughed quietly to himself, though Castiel wasn’t sure what was funny.
“I don’t understand what this has to do with Dean,” he said, growing impatient again at watching the Bird of Paradise plant shiver in it’s own version of a laugh.
“Oh, I never said it did. I was just making the observation that sometimes, it’s the most spirited creatures - the ones that refuse to give up - that are really worth all the fuss. Sometimes, the ability to love something stubborn is the saving grace one is looking for.”
Castiel tilted his head, trying to make connections between his current predicament and Joshua’s words. “Dean is stubborn,” he reasoned, but thinking this fact very far down the list of why one might love Dean Winchester.
Joshua threw back his head and laughed. “A good thing too,” he said when he’d gained control enough to speak. “Or else what a mismatched pair you’d be.”
“So you’ll help me?”
“I don’t know how you boys always figure I’m going to be the one to cave,” Joshua sighed, not unkindly. “I must be getting soft in my old age. But then, I had a soft spot for you, Castiel, long before Dean Winchester was born. And I pity the likes of anyone who tries to stand in your way of reaching that man.”
*****
Part II
Author: elfladyarwen
Pairings/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Joshua, Balthazar, Rachel, OC
Spoilers: Season 6
Word Count: ~7,200
Warnings: temporary character death (don't worry nothing permanent), canon divergence/possible unseen backstory
Rating: PG-13 (for some descriptions of violence and war)
Author’s Note: Written for the spn_reversebang challenge to illustrate this prompt from the amazing usarechan. As a long time fan of her work, I was very excited to have a crack at writing something for her wonderful art. She was extremely encouraging of all my ideas and even though we got separated due to web issues for a while, it was a lot of fun bouncing ideas back and forth with her.
What mattered was Dean Winchester was dead.
A sharp, small gasp from the universe and a pin prick along the outskirts of his interdimensional focus- quiet and easily overlooked compared to the rage and slash of battle all around him, but Castiel felt it as sure as a blow from his own blade.
And he found he was infuriated by it.
He was angry at whatever monster that had been forced to defend itself from attacking hunters, stopping the pulse of it’s human enemy. He was angry at himself for being caught between worlds, the howls of his dying brethren all around, and therefore unable to prevent such things from happening in the first place. But most of all he was angry at Dean. Dean Winchester - who took for granted the light of the hundred angels whose graces were currently being diminished to preserve his right to reject destiny. Dean, with his callous and glorious way of twisting the all sacrificing love of one rebellious angel into some useful tool for his cause and reasoning. Green-eyed, smart-mouthed, bright-souled Dean, who Castiel hated more than anything in this moment for allowing himself to be killed. And for making him give a damn about it.
With a snarl, better suited for a rabid animal then something celestial, he took his rage out on the sister within closest reach. He would remember later that her name had been Nithandriel, a pretty angel who loved to style her vessel’s chocolate brown curls and thought dolphins to be the most graceful of all God’s creatures. But at this moment, he knew nothing but the way her mouth twisted in pain as his sword cut through her chest, leaving only a pool of blood and an ashy smear of wings on the ground.
He cleaned his weapon on her shirt tail, jaw set as he walked stiffly toward where the remainder of his garrison huddled closeby in the meager shelter offered by a pile of corpses.
“Get down, you fool,” Rachel hissed upon spotting his approach. There was a shallow line of grace leaking from a wound on her temple, but she paid it no notice as she reached up to tug him down by his vessel’s trenchcoat.
“Yes honestly, Cassy,” Balthazar drawled from his crouch next to her, tone long suffering and unamused, “it doesn’t seem the most advantageous move to offer up our commanding officer like a pig ripe for slaughter. Do try not to help the other side as much as possible.”
Castiel ignored them both, taking a quick survey of surrounding battle and trying to calculate where holes of opportunity might spring up to allow him quick leave. “Dean Winchester has been killed,” he informed them seriously.
Balthazar snorted and immediately winced as if the gesture pained his ribs. “Good riddance.”
Castiel flashed him a warning glance. “I have to go to him,” he sighed, the initial fury burning away and leaving in it’s place a core deep weariness. Angels were not made to handle stress, they lacked the capacity to worry. Yet since sparing the world from Armeggedon at Dean Winchester’s side and in turn ripping Heaven into separate loyalties, Castiel had been smothered beneath both and more. And though he had never spoken of it, he had a feeling from the way his comrades were staring holes into him, they were privy to the subject of the majority of his everyday worries.
“Oh for Father’s sake,” Balthazar groaned, with a roll of his eyes.
“Castiel, you can’t be serious!” Rachel cried simultaneously. “We’re losing, we cannot afford to spare a single soldier-”
“And here I thought you just had a little crush, Cassy. I hadn’t realized you actually hit your head somewhere along the way hard enough to bounce all the sense away-”
“-Our commanding officer! What will your army think, to see their captain once again flit away at the beckon call of a good for nothing human who relies on the glory of Heaven as if it was his personal butler!”
“I mean, really. He must be the best lay in the universe to inspire this kind of loyalty. I should take lessons so I can be so popular.”
He waited, letting the two of them vent their disbelief and disgust for a full half a minute before pinning each of them in turn with another fierce glare that few would be brave enough to interrupt. “Dean Winchester is necessary to what we’re fighting for here,” he said sternly. “He is a soldier, the same as we are, and I will not leave him to the clutches of my brothers who would use him as a weakness against me. Just as I would leave none of you behind.”
“Except that’s exactly what you’re doing, Castiel,” Rachel snapped, eyes shining with hurt. “You’re choosing sides again, and this time you are wrong! It’s all wrong!”
“This is not up for discussion,” he said, already tensing his wings in preparation for flight. All the while, he let a sliver of his consciousness ping the far corners of Heaven, searching for the beacon that was Dean’s soul. Heaven was massive and though it was his home, it was an ever-shifting thing with secrets and mysteries too numerous for any angel to ever fully chart. It might take some time for him to locate Dean. “I will return as soon as I’m able. Until that time, Rachel, you are in command. Don’t let them flank us and be prepared to retreat if necessary. This isn’t the deciding battle. I need you both to live to fight another day.”
Rachel stared at him hard, a threat of mutiny swirling in the depths of her eyes. Castiel met it, never once blinking as he ordered her to stand down without words. Eventually she cracked under the weight of his gaze and sighed, drawing up her sword to once again charge into the heat of battle. “Godspeed then, Castiel,” she said in a clipped tone, nodding once in respectfully before disappearing in a fluid leap over their corpse lean-to.
Another pang of worry tightened his gut, this time for his garrison, so many of which would never see the light of another day. He shook it off, regathering his focus and concentrating on finding Dean. His wings stretched their full span, coiled to push him into the air.
But he never made the take off, as a hand snaked out to forcefully grab him by the arm. “And what about you?” chimed Balthazar. “Do we come and save your sorry hide if you’re captured by dear old uncle Raphy’s forces or just let them string you up like a feathery pinata?”
“Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing,” Castiel said, unable to meet his friend’s eye.
“You’re hiding something, Cassy. You think I don’t see right through you after all these eons? I see it in your eyes, the fear for your ape man. What’s really going on?”
Castiel was silent, debating whether or not to tell his closest friend of the worry most aggressively gnawing at his mind. “I’m having difficulty pinpointing Dean’s soul.”
Balthazar shrugged. “There must be several billion souls amassed here now. That’s a big pile of needles to go hunting for your needle.”
“No, it’s more than that. I can’t feel him like I should. I think- I think he might be stuck.”
“Caught by Raphael?”
Castiel looked down at the ash smeared ground. “Or by something else,” he admitted softly.
Balthazar hissed, drawing back in wide eyed horror. “The Others.” He scanned Castiel’s face for a sign of contradiction, but Castiel kept his expression indifferent, which was all the answer Balthazar needed to explode.
With enough force to snap human bones, he grabbed hold of Castiel’s shoulders and shook him once, twice like a rag doll. “Are you mad!?” he spat. “They’ll obliterate you before you even have time to cry out for mercy!”
Castiel slapped his friend’s hands away with a grunt, his wings bristling. “They’re not prone to violence. I have no intention of starting a second war I cannot win. I’ll make it clear my coming is peaceful.” Knowing an argument was impending, he shouldered past his friend, hoping to send the message that the subject wasn’t up for debate.
Balthazar, persistent, dogged his heels, pulling at whatever body part he could reach. “You can’t make anything clear to them, they won’t understand you. You can’t reason with them, no one knows if you can even communicate with them! And you certainly can’t take back a soul once it’s slipped past the veil and been claimed, everyone knows this.”
“We know nothing but speculation, Balthazar,” Castiel countered, shoving his friend out of the way in attempt to take flight. “I won’t know until I try.”
“Castiel,” Balthazar said, a genuine air of desperation now coloring his tone, “they. will. destroy. you. They can do it without even meaning to. They’re too unstable. Even Michael knew better than to mess with that kind of power. If you’re positive about committing suicide, stay here and do it in your fight against Raphael. Don’t waste yourself on him.”
Castiel spun, meeting his friend’s pleading look with a terribly dark one of his own, warning Balthazar to once again back down, that he’d gone too far. “Enough,” he growled, flaring his wings wide in a gesture used by angels to signify dominance and aggression. Balthazar flinched at being so blatantly challenged and blinked several times in rapid succession, but to his credit, he did not submit.
“Please, Cas,” he begged quietly. “He’s not worth your life.”
Castiel lowered his wings a fraction, softening. “I appreciate your concern, Balthazar,” he said, voice gentle this time. “But that’s my decision to make.”
And before either angel could say anymore, Castiel threw himself into flight. Away from war and towards certain death.
*****
The Others were to be feared. To be avoided at all costs.
Every angel was taught this fact soon after their creation, with little reason why and even less definition of what. Like the antagonist in a scary story told to human children, they were a nameless threat looming at the edges of existence, better off forgotten. There were no written records about them, only legend and hearsay passed through ranks of foot soldiers and archangels alike.
There were stories of massive bodies of pure energy, more powerful than even Michael the Firstborn and The Lightbringer, Lucifer. Thousands, millions in number, they hung suspended in a dimension beyond Heaven and were isolated in the cold of space. They were wild, feral things, lacking all sense of right and wrong and good and evil. In this ignorance, they were the most dangerous things ever created.
They had no names or identities, although the humans had at some point in history dubbed them ‘stars.’
Some said they had been prototypes for angels, a rough draft created by Father and then deemed imperfect, missing some necessity, and then cast aside to make way for his real children.
Some said they were extensions of God himself, divided, yet functioning as a separate hive mind entity. This would explain their ethereal glow, always visible, even through the veil that kept them in their isolation. They could create and destroy themselves, needing no Alpha and Omega to keep their numbers in balance.
Some said they were capable of thought, but it was primitive, child-like, with no deductive reasoning and no ability to take orders or problem solve. Thought was black and white with no middle ground and happened only when they craved something they did not have. They served no God, only the pull of their own survival and could accidentally shred an angel’s grace and scatter it to the far winds of the universe in a tantrum. Like chimpanzees to humans, they were unevolved, unrefined and raw.
And a very few speculated that mostly, they were just lonely. Forever alone in their corner of space, they rotated and spun and thrashed colors beautiful beyond the imagination of even angels. But they never touched, save the moment when one of them would grow old and weak and the others pounced upon it, tearing it to pieces before it could die and leave the rest of them brokenhearted. Despite it’s raw edges, this is the version of the story Castiel had always prefered. He hadn’t realized it until he met the Winchesters and experienced humanity, but he could relate to feeling alone amongst a multitude of his own kind.
And though Dean would have most certainly called him childish for thinking it, he hoped this small kind of sympathy would be enough to convince whatever power held Dean to release him. If it was not - Castiel tried not to focus on the overwhelming possibility of failure.
Over the centuries, a few handfuls of souls had been lost, never reaching their piece of paradise in Heaven’s multitudes. It was taboo to speak of it, but all angels knew where they had disappeared, and in turn knew why a single new star would appear in the black of space a short time later. There was no pattern to the souls the stars claimed for themselves, so there was no way to intercede and prevent the detour taken from earthly body to rightful resting place. But once it was done, it was done. No one had ever ventured through the veil to try to retrieve a soul lost to the Others. There was no point in trying to find something that no longer existed.
Castiel couldn’t think of what might happen if he failed to locate the veil in time. He would go crazy if he let the fear buzzing at the edges of his brain overtake him. To lose Dean...
It was unacceptable. He would not fail.
*****
Castiel landed in the garden. It was like landing in the past. Or a memory that refused to take full shape. He did not remember the particular shade of green of this place, only that it was grander than before, fuller and more expansive. But then, it was safe to assume a good many plants could grow in several centuries time. Especially under Joshua’s hand.
He sought the gardener out not for his gift to make all things flourish. But because of all the angels left in Heaven, Joshua was the oldest, and therefore Heaven’s Secretkeeper. If there was anyone left who could help him locate Dean, he would be in this place.
It was a jungle that likes of which humans could not possibly imagine. Colors without names burst from every angle, trees taller than his natural form casting half the gardens into shadow. Not just plants, but animals and insects and all manner of wonderous creatures tracked his path through Eden. Each of them leaned to the other to pass secrets along to their master, who was waiting patiently by an enormous fan-leaved bush of some kind, already aware of who had ventured here in search of answers.
“He’s not here, Castiel,” Joshua said in way of greeting. When he raised his head from the enormous Bird of Paradise plant he was tending, his smile was small and sad. “But you know that already.”
“Where is he?”
Still smiling, the older angel just shook his head fondly and ran a loving hand through the leaves of the plant that tracked and leaned into his touch like an adoring pet would a master’s touch. Castiel had never fully understood Joshua’s quiet grace, so unlike the militant rationality of a soldier, yet somehow just as strong. Angels and souls alike were drawn to his steady presence, comforted by his honest smile and deep, dark eyes. Standing before Joshua was as humbling as standing before an archangel, but it lacked the fear of power and wrath. If he had to choose a word to describe it, it was...soothing. It was little wonder the plants beneath his fingers flourished so.
“You ask questions you already know the answer to. A very human thing to do, really,” the gardener chuckled.
Castiel bit back a frustrated retort, knowing full well harshness would not work on someone like Joshua. “Please,” he said through gritted teeth, “I need to know how to locate the Veil. You are the last who knows how to reach it.”
“Yes,” Joshua sighed, “I suppose I am the last to remember many things. So much effort is put into reshaping and controlling things nowadays. What use is memory to those determined to live in the future?”
“I don’t understand what that means,” exclaimed Castiel with a wave of his arms. “I just need you to tell me how to get there. Now.”
Joshua raised a silver brow, chiding the outburst with just a look. He did not withdraw his gaze until Castiel had calmed and dipped his head in deference. Then, the old angel went mute, moving only to trim a few yellowed leaves from the Bird of Paradise which cooed it’s thanks into the tense silence. It dragged on, until Castiel was anxiously shifting back and forth, about to smite all plants within a one mile radius.
“I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say to convince you to change your mind,” Joshua said finally, just as Castiel’s patience was on the verge of collapse.
“There isn’t,” Castiel confirmed.
“And you’re sure that you’ll find what you’re looking for once you get there?”
Castiel hesitated, unsure if the question was meant to be a trap. “If you’re implying I’m too late to save Dean, you are wrong.”
Joshua shook his head, a smile, although somewhat rueful, returning to crease his face. “Believe it or not, Castiel, as fond as I am of Dean Winchester, it’s your well being that concerns me. Not his. You may not return from this endeavor. In fact, I’d say it’s unlikely at best. So you’ll understand if I’m hesitant to speed a kinsmen to his death. There have been too many angels lost as of late.”
“No, you don’t understand. I am already lost if he is,” Castiel whispered almost inaudibly. When brave enough to lift his head and meet Joshua’s eye again, he was surprised to see approval shining there instead of the disgust shown by his comrades.
“You know, I thought I would loose this beauty not too long ago,” said Joshua. He laid a weathered hand on the top leaves of the Bird of Paradise, which promptly curled around his fingers and purred happily. “I was so sure it was a goner, but even when logic told me give up, I tried every trick I knew of to save it. I think the hope was, if I poured enough love into it, it would recognize how much I needed it to live and bounce back. Silly, I know. But would you believe it - the very next morning, the darned thing was all perked up and demanding, quite insistently, to be fed! It almost knocked me off my feet in it’s enthusiasm. ”
He laughed quietly to himself, though Castiel wasn’t sure what was funny.
“I don’t understand what this has to do with Dean,” he said, growing impatient again at watching the Bird of Paradise plant shiver in it’s own version of a laugh.
“Oh, I never said it did. I was just making the observation that sometimes, it’s the most spirited creatures - the ones that refuse to give up - that are really worth all the fuss. Sometimes, the ability to love something stubborn is the saving grace one is looking for.”
Castiel tilted his head, trying to make connections between his current predicament and Joshua’s words. “Dean is stubborn,” he reasoned, but thinking this fact very far down the list of why one might love Dean Winchester.
Joshua threw back his head and laughed. “A good thing too,” he said when he’d gained control enough to speak. “Or else what a mismatched pair you’d be.”
“So you’ll help me?”
“I don’t know how you boys always figure I’m going to be the one to cave,” Joshua sighed, not unkindly. “I must be getting soft in my old age. But then, I had a soft spot for you, Castiel, long before Dean Winchester was born. And I pity the likes of anyone who tries to stand in your way of reaching that man.”
*****
Part II