The Bird that Feels the Light (Master Post)
Title : The Bird that Feels the Light, written for the deancasbigbang
Artist: daggomus_prime
Beta: pkwench
Pairings: None. Dean, Cas, mentions of Sam. Gen.
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 37,726
Warnings: General spoilers through Season 5. Show-levels of violence, angst, swearing. Human!Cas (do I even need to warn for that?).
Summary: AU from 5.18 (or thereabouts). Castiel awakens in the middle of a smoking crater, stranded and very much human. According to the people who have discovered him, it’s six months to the day after Michael and Lucifer faced off on the field of battle outside of Detroit, and Castiel isn’t the only one to have returned. When, at his insistence, they take him to this other person, he finds a child -a little boy- and realizes that, contrary to all his expectations, he has been reunited with Dean Winchester.
The world has changed in their absence, and not for the better. Sam is gone, whether dead or simply missing is uncertain. Castiel is given the name of a man in Idaho who may have answers for him. He is faced with the task of travelling cross-country with Dean, who is dependent on him now in ways he never was before, in order to discover the truth. But along the way, as he and Dean learn to know and trust each other once more, Castiel begins to realize that the answers he thought he wanted might not be the ones he needs.
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
~Rabindranath Tagore
Very Brief Author’s Notes:
There will be a long, long post at the end of all this in which I thank a bunch of people and lavish well-deserved praise upon all the people who helped. Nonetheless, pride of place on this master post must go to the spectacularly talented daggomus_prime, who not only created art for my story, but created something so beautiful it quite took my breath away. Be warned, one of the pieces of art is a MASSIVE spoiler for the end of the story, but it moved me to tears, to see it illustrated. I’m not kidding. daggomus_prime put up with my enthusiastic flailing and constant PMs and IMs with grace, and deserves extra cookies for being a very good sport indeed. :)
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my patient and long-suffering beta, pkwench. She brainstormed with me and helped me pull the story together. Some of the best scenes from the story are the direct result of her suggestions and prodding and poking. She fixed my grammar and syntax, pointed out typos, told me where my fic was veering off-course, and has basically helped mould this into a much better story than it started out as. She did all this and more, all the while working AND studying and producing her own fantastic fic to boot. I bow to her awesomeness.
[Link to Art]
[Part 1: Visitation]
[Part 2: Eye of a Hurricane]
[Part 3: Pontiac]
[Part 4: The Individual Language of God]
[Extra Thanks and Author’s Notes]
And, by request, here is a pdf file available for download.
Artist: daggomus_prime
Beta: pkwench
Pairings: None. Dean, Cas, mentions of Sam. Gen.
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 37,726
Warnings: General spoilers through Season 5. Show-levels of violence, angst, swearing. Human!Cas (do I even need to warn for that?).
Summary: AU from 5.18 (or thereabouts). Castiel awakens in the middle of a smoking crater, stranded and very much human. According to the people who have discovered him, it’s six months to the day after Michael and Lucifer faced off on the field of battle outside of Detroit, and Castiel isn’t the only one to have returned. When, at his insistence, they take him to this other person, he finds a child -a little boy- and realizes that, contrary to all his expectations, he has been reunited with Dean Winchester.
The world has changed in their absence, and not for the better. Sam is gone, whether dead or simply missing is uncertain. Castiel is given the name of a man in Idaho who may have answers for him. He is faced with the task of travelling cross-country with Dean, who is dependent on him now in ways he never was before, in order to discover the truth. But along the way, as he and Dean learn to know and trust each other once more, Castiel begins to realize that the answers he thought he wanted might not be the ones he needs.
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
~Rabindranath Tagore
Very Brief Author’s Notes:
There will be a long, long post at the end of all this in which I thank a bunch of people and lavish well-deserved praise upon all the people who helped. Nonetheless, pride of place on this master post must go to the spectacularly talented daggomus_prime, who not only created art for my story, but created something so beautiful it quite took my breath away. Be warned, one of the pieces of art is a MASSIVE spoiler for the end of the story, but it moved me to tears, to see it illustrated. I’m not kidding. daggomus_prime put up with my enthusiastic flailing and constant PMs and IMs with grace, and deserves extra cookies for being a very good sport indeed. :)
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my patient and long-suffering beta, pkwench. She brainstormed with me and helped me pull the story together. Some of the best scenes from the story are the direct result of her suggestions and prodding and poking. She fixed my grammar and syntax, pointed out typos, told me where my fic was veering off-course, and has basically helped mould this into a much better story than it started out as. She did all this and more, all the while working AND studying and producing her own fantastic fic to boot. I bow to her awesomeness.
[Link to Art]
[Part 1: Visitation]
[Part 2: Eye of a Hurricane]
[Part 3: Pontiac]
[Part 4: The Individual Language of God]
[Extra Thanks and Author’s Notes]
And, by request, here is a pdf file available for download.