Fic: They Withered All
Fandom: Supernatural
Title: They Withered All
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Castiel
Category: Gen, Horror
Rating: PG13/T
Warning: ( skip) Gore, insanity.
Spoilers: General through S5
Summary: Castiel plants in the Garden.
Word Count: 838
Author’s Note: For a prompt from slinkymilinky at sharp_teeth. Many thanks for the first fic I've finished for months.
They Withered All
They said Father was dead, and finally, after a long time, Castiel believed them. He knew quite well that he was mad now. It didn't much trouble him.
His mind had once been as expansive as a star, ever growing and ever full, sending and receiving all the light of the universe. Now it was narrowed, collapsed, crowded within like the bookstore on a quiet street in a dirty city where he'd visited while looking for God. Crammed with books and papers on every shelf, dusty and disorganized, some upside-down, some falling apart. He could never find what he was looking for in there, and eventually he stopped trying.
Bits of tarnished memories rose as they wished, information faded and worn, useless. He let them come as they might. Scraps of old conversations, images of battles eons gone, worthless poems and rhymes of silly, human extraction.
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?"
To angelic eyes, the Garden was a vast space full of worlds. It was all of Creation laid out to be tended, bright and beautiful, fountains of golden light and blue shadow and red darkness-there Earth, there Heaven, there Hell. All full of humans. It was all for them. Joshua had been charged with the tending of the Garden, keeping the seasons on Earth rolling one after the other with enough storms keep the planet well-aerated without destroying it utterly. He made sure Hell got plenty of heat and kept Heaven in partial shade, blooming best in moonlight. There were many other worlds, too, of course. Their Father had been endlessly creative, when He'd been alive and caring.
"Silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row, a row, a row, a row, a row..." The rhythm of those two words pleased Castiel, and so he repeated them again and again, untiring. He said them in English and Greek and Farsi and Enochian and several other languages that didn't have names. His voice was the only one he heard, so he might as well use it.
The Garden was rotting now.
Joshua watched with flat accusing eyes, distant but always watching, always open, as Castiel planted his new seeds. Blackened and bloody, he tore them out like crumbling coals, from this wing, that wing, this wing. Castiel had six wings. He had many feathers.
He planted them in swirling, viscous nebulae, the once-rich soil of his father's nurturing will. It had grown fallow in time, depleted by the worlds grown out of its bosom. But enough power was left, swirling, dark, corrupted, to nourish Castiel's seeds. Soon he would see a crop. A vicious, beautiful crop, one fit to end the endless.
Gabriel and Michael and Raphael and Zachariah and Anna and Uriel all watched with their flat, empty eyes. He could feel them watching, and he sang to keep them company.
"A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket. I wrote a letter to my love and on the way I dropped it. I dropped it, I dropped it, and on the way I dropped it. I wrote a letter to my love and on my way I dropped it. A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket..."
He thrust a finger into the soil to make room for his seed and pushed it, hard and strong, twisting the broken feather until it broke even more. "He dropped it, he dropped it, and on the way he dropped it, I gave a letter to my love and on the way to Hell he dropped it..."
The angels watched him with their dead, twisted eyes in the shells of their empty flesh, the black smoke wings outlined behind their vessels, the sword wounds in their chests still dripping, dripping, dripping, just like the blood off Castiel's wings, everywhere he'd pulled out another feather.
"He dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it..."
Still Castiel sang as he worked and planted and patted and nurtured and grew. He worked beside Heaven and Hell and Earth and a thousand other universes, planting his feathers tenderly around each corrupted, life-filled world, a wisp of grey-blue smoke rising to mark every planting. And behind him, in the light of darkened blue stars and bloody moons, sprouts began to twist upward from the planted feathers. First one, then another, then two more, then a dozen and more and scores and hundreds and thousands and all.
Castiel's crop was growing. Soon it would be mature, ready for the harvest and the black, bitter winter. Soon, soon enough.
"A tisket a tasket, how does your garden grow? I would give you a violet, but they withered all. They withered all when my father died. I wrote a letter to my love and on the way he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it."
Castiel worked and sang and bled, and around him the Garden grew and rotted, glowed and faded. And the angels watched with their dead, dead eyes.
(End)
Title: They Withered All
Author: Maychorian
Characters: Castiel
Category: Gen, Horror
Rating: PG13/T
Warning: ( skip) Gore, insanity.
Spoilers: General through S5
Summary: Castiel plants in the Garden.
Word Count: 838
Author’s Note: For a prompt from slinkymilinky at sharp_teeth. Many thanks for the first fic I've finished for months.
They Withered All
They said Father was dead, and finally, after a long time, Castiel believed them. He knew quite well that he was mad now. It didn't much trouble him.
His mind had once been as expansive as a star, ever growing and ever full, sending and receiving all the light of the universe. Now it was narrowed, collapsed, crowded within like the bookstore on a quiet street in a dirty city where he'd visited while looking for God. Crammed with books and papers on every shelf, dusty and disorganized, some upside-down, some falling apart. He could never find what he was looking for in there, and eventually he stopped trying.
Bits of tarnished memories rose as they wished, information faded and worn, useless. He let them come as they might. Scraps of old conversations, images of battles eons gone, worthless poems and rhymes of silly, human extraction.
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?"
To angelic eyes, the Garden was a vast space full of worlds. It was all of Creation laid out to be tended, bright and beautiful, fountains of golden light and blue shadow and red darkness-there Earth, there Heaven, there Hell. All full of humans. It was all for them. Joshua had been charged with the tending of the Garden, keeping the seasons on Earth rolling one after the other with enough storms keep the planet well-aerated without destroying it utterly. He made sure Hell got plenty of heat and kept Heaven in partial shade, blooming best in moonlight. There were many other worlds, too, of course. Their Father had been endlessly creative, when He'd been alive and caring.
"Silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row, a row, a row, a row, a row..." The rhythm of those two words pleased Castiel, and so he repeated them again and again, untiring. He said them in English and Greek and Farsi and Enochian and several other languages that didn't have names. His voice was the only one he heard, so he might as well use it.
The Garden was rotting now.
Joshua watched with flat accusing eyes, distant but always watching, always open, as Castiel planted his new seeds. Blackened and bloody, he tore them out like crumbling coals, from this wing, that wing, this wing. Castiel had six wings. He had many feathers.
He planted them in swirling, viscous nebulae, the once-rich soil of his father's nurturing will. It had grown fallow in time, depleted by the worlds grown out of its bosom. But enough power was left, swirling, dark, corrupted, to nourish Castiel's seeds. Soon he would see a crop. A vicious, beautiful crop, one fit to end the endless.
Gabriel and Michael and Raphael and Zachariah and Anna and Uriel all watched with their flat, empty eyes. He could feel them watching, and he sang to keep them company.
"A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket. I wrote a letter to my love and on the way I dropped it. I dropped it, I dropped it, and on the way I dropped it. I wrote a letter to my love and on my way I dropped it. A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket..."
He thrust a finger into the soil to make room for his seed and pushed it, hard and strong, twisting the broken feather until it broke even more. "He dropped it, he dropped it, and on the way he dropped it, I gave a letter to my love and on the way to Hell he dropped it..."
The angels watched him with their dead, twisted eyes in the shells of their empty flesh, the black smoke wings outlined behind their vessels, the sword wounds in their chests still dripping, dripping, dripping, just like the blood off Castiel's wings, everywhere he'd pulled out another feather.
"He dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it..."
Still Castiel sang as he worked and planted and patted and nurtured and grew. He worked beside Heaven and Hell and Earth and a thousand other universes, planting his feathers tenderly around each corrupted, life-filled world, a wisp of grey-blue smoke rising to mark every planting. And behind him, in the light of darkened blue stars and bloody moons, sprouts began to twist upward from the planted feathers. First one, then another, then two more, then a dozen and more and scores and hundreds and thousands and all.
Castiel's crop was growing. Soon it would be mature, ready for the harvest and the black, bitter winter. Soon, soon enough.
"A tisket a tasket, how does your garden grow? I would give you a violet, but they withered all. They withered all when my father died. I wrote a letter to my love and on the way he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it, he dropped it."
Castiel worked and sang and bled, and around him the Garden grew and rotted, glowed and faded. And the angels watched with their dead, dead eyes.
(End)