FIC: Divine Grace (Supernatural - Sam/Castiel/Dean - FRT - 1/1)
The fix it fic sequel to Broken Wings...
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Title: Divine Grace
Author: Sam-Tony
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Castiel/Dean
Rating: FRT - slash, angels, angst, violence, technical death!fic
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Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.
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Summary: Sometimes what has been lost can be found again.
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A/N: Sequel to Broken Wings because I had to fix it.
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Divine Grace
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He doesn’t remember when it happened; when his faith was torn from him, leaving his world cold and barren of the very good they were fighting for.
Yes. He does. It was the moment Sam and then Dean Winchester fell to the demons that had overran them. Sam had been overwhelmed and Dean had seen it; watched it happen, screaming in denial as his brother died in front of his very eyes, again. He hadn’t been able to get there, neither of them had. There had simply been too many.
There had been a sharp, agonizing pain in his heart - or at least in the area where his heart would have rested if angels actually had such a thing - and then…
Nothing. Just a cold, lifeless numbness as Dean had taken down the demon that had taken the life of the man Dean had loved, only to be struck from behind by another; but then demons rarely, if ever fought fair. That was one of the reasons they were demons instead of angels.
The numbness spread from his chest to his arms, his legs rooted to the very ground he fought to hold…some small industrial town outside of Detroit. All he had fought for - all he had wagered had been lost, not because the brothers had fallen - but because they had…because they were gone.
Castiel had roared in fury then; not the righteous fury of an angel ready to do battle against the enemies of Heaven, but the unholy fury of an angel who had nothing left of faith holding him back. He tore into the enemy line, angelic sword aflame with his anger and pain cutting through Alistair, through Naberius, through dozens of others he never even saw coming. He cut through Lillith, his borrowed body adjusting for the height difference as steel and fire flew in a smooth arc, taking her head even as he kept moving, stumbling but not stopping until he reached the crumpled bodies of the two Hunters that had gotten past his angelic indifference to warm his lonely, tired existence. He had watched in silence, alone, for so long…
He ran until he was the only angel this far into the line, the only thing of Heaven to stand between Sam and Dean and Lucifer, the Prince himself sneering down his nose at the lone servant of God and the two broken, empty shells he stood protecting. Feet braced apart, settled with practiced ease in grass made slick with ashes and blood, Castiel manifested his holy armor, standing with raven-black wings unfurled, sword up and ready as the Morning Star made as if to crow his victory to Heaven, standing on the bones of his enemies.
And that was something that Castiel was not going to let happen. Not them. Blasphemy enough that Lucifer should get this far, Castiel would *not* allow that final indignity to fall upon Sam and Dean, even if it cost him his life.
He had loved them; watched over them and kept them safe, when he could. Sometimes when he shouldn’t, when he should have been watching over others, or searching out the Seals…sometimes he would steal away to watch them; touching, loving, holding on to each other, or just trading jokes and brotherly punches while bonding over beer under the hood of Dean’s car…
Now they were gone and Castiel felt nothing of the joy of Heaven in this heart that he had never been meant to have. He was ready to go Home.
“Not today, brother,” Suriel told him, hand resting briefly on his arm. Its presence registered on the skin under his robes, but he felt no warmth from it.
Knot of grief in his throat, he nodded once to his brother, noting the small line of angels that were left to stand with him, Uriel and Gabriel with Michael in the middle to sound the charge. Let them fight this war without him; the only battle Castiel was interested in was saving the bodies he protected behind him.
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A bird singing pulled him from his grief back into the sunshine of the old oak tree he had taken shelter under, green leaves waving with no concern for angels or demons in a living canopy above his head. The grass on which he sat was unsullied by either blood or ash, the bodies he held still broken, empty shells with nothing of life or love in them. He should get them to Bobby Singer, the old Hunter wounded with a broken leg and lacerated shoulder but otherwise…otherwise alive…he should, Castiel should…
Cas leaned over the cold bodies in his lap and keened out his pain and grief, rocking gently so as not to disturb their rest. He had failed them; they had looked up to him - *Sam* had looked up to him, believed him to be something *good*, something worth fighting for - worth *dying* for...and he had, they *had*…
And Castiel had lost them….
Ignoring the pain, accepting it as only the smallest pittance of what he was due, Castiel ripped off his wings, placing one over each of the humans that had come to mean so very much to him. For a time his eyes got lost in the myriad of colors that reflected back at him from the black feathers that shone in the brilliant light of a human sun, his tears blurring and turning them fuzzy before they would fall to splash, unnoticed and unlamented in the smooth feathers.
When Uriel had come to urge victory on him, to urge him away from this place, Castiel had turned on his fellow angel - had pushed and allowed his pain to hurl him away, somewhere where Cas didn’t have to look upon the victory that had cost him so very much.
He was Castiel no longer; now there was only Cas, the nickname Dean and later Sam had come to call him, making him one of them, if only for the short time it took to utter the name.
When Uriel came back it was on the tip of Cas’s serpentine tongue to send him away again; he only wanted to mourn in peace. The hand that touched his face, that came away with his tears was *not* that of Uriel, though he stood uncertain a few feet away.
Startled, Casti - Cas looked up into the sympathetic eyes of Ariel, Raphael on his other side, the pair shining bright and pure in their robes of white, their armor of gold.
“Let us help you, brother?” Raphael asked.
But - but that was too much. There was nothing left they could do for Cas but to allow him to die. And to hopefully follow those that he had loved into whatever afterlife his Father would allow him. “You - you can’t. They are gone and I…only wish to follow.”
“You are an angel of God, Castiel - “
“No longer,” Cas looked up at his brother, eyes once again blazing with fury and emotion. “I tore off my wings; they deserved them much more than I do. I am now only human.”
“He has rejected your resignation, brother,” Ariel denied with a smile. “It would seem that you have far too much work ahead of you left to do.”
Please - oh Father, please, no more - and not alone…he couldn’t do this alone…
“No, Castiel,” Raphael told him kindly. “Not alone.”
It was then he felt the weight had been lifted from his body, his legs cold despite the sunlight that now fell where the brothers had rested. The first thing he felt was an immediate wave of betrayal that they would take them from him - that they would once more call him into service with no consent from his weary heart; the second was that there was no way he could do what they demanded of him. He was just too weary.
“Be at peace, my friend,” Raphael comforted him gravely. “Our Father knows this and only asks of you that which you are willing to give…” With those words, the angel pointed up to the hill in front of them…to two figures making their way down into the little valley…silhouetted by the sun…
Rising slowly from where he had sat for far too long, Cas peered into the light, refusing to believe what his eyes were telling him. But he had watched and studied those movements far too long for them to be any mystery to him now.
Sam and Dean Winchester. Alive.
He turned to the angels, awe and gratitude seizing up his throat and making it impossible to speak. But this - it wasn’t fair to drag them back into this fight; the part of Castiel not reeling in either lingering grief or profound joy understood that all too well…
“They, too have been burdened with no more than they choose to carry. They came back, not for the fight, but for you. Will you join them?”
Straightening back into the angel he had so recently rejected, Castiel felt the wings flutter against his back and gave the only possible answer he had in him. “Yes.”
Standing in front of him, alive and with green eyes free of worry and grief, Dean Winchester cupped his face in one hand while Sam did the same on the other side. “Right answer.”
End