Application for Castiel from Supernatural (End of Season 5)

[nerdofthelord]

((Application approved by the Winchesters and Bobby! *Waves paperwork stamped APPROVED*))

---

"I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have? Peace--or freedom?"

It was a disheartening way to say good-bye.  But Castiel, his recent 'upgrade' nothwithstanding, was tired of shouldering the responsibility that should rightfully have been borne by the

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[callmewednesday]

A fellow looking to be at the very tail end of late middle age (Hogwarts was treating him well) sauntered into the Sorting Room and looked over the application. He wore a dark gray suit, white shirt, gray tie, silver tie pin fashioned to resemble a leafless tree with visible roots. His eyes, too, were gray. His hair was reddish-blondish-gray with emphasis on gray.

He was carrying a steaming coffee mug that read #1 Grandpa.

He grinned at the application and set it down. Only now did he address the newcomer:

"It's not a joke. We haven't got Gabriel here at all. The archangel Michael is the school librarian, however. Perhaps he could set your mind at ease."

[nerdofthelord]

Castiel frowned at the newcomer, not in unfriendly fashion but now even more perplexed and confounded. "That's not possible. It can't be the Michael that I know. He's imprisoned in Hell, along with Lucifer." And Sam and Adam, his mind supplied automatically, but that was the last thing he wanted to think about right now. "And he's not the scholarly type. What is this place?"

[callmewednesday]

The man sighed. "Dumbledore still hasn't produced his vaunted 'orientation brochure', has he. Well. I never do mind imparting knowledge, if the seeker asks politely. This is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a former boarding school for adolescent magic-users, now become something of a haven for visitors of all ages and species. By the by, your true name won't make my ears bleed, I assure you."

[nerdofthelord]

Cas blinked at him. "A school for witchcraft?" How that had managed to elude Heaven's attention (or that of the Winchesters and their hunter colleagues) for any length of time was beyond him, but compared to the sorts of problems he'd been dealing with lately, witches didn't even make the priority list.

The man's tactful allusion to his manners (or lack thereof,) however, diverted his attention from that question. "My apologies," he said, "I'm still not very good at these things." He thought for a moment, and added tentatively, "May I ask your name? ...I would introduce myself properly, if you're certain it wouldn't harm you, but I'd have to abandon my vessel to do it." There was no way he was going to wake Jimmy up and subject him to a situation he wasn't sure he could handle himself.

[hunter_returns]

Sam had taken to wandering the corridors of Hogwarts in the early morning hours. Nightmares still plauged his sleep and it was the only way he could clear his mind. The return of his brother had helped, but some nights when he closed his eyes, he could still see it all.

When he heard a familiar, if somewhat flat voice, he stopped in his tracks and turned back to the Sorting Room.

It couldn't be.

"C..Cas?"

[nerdofthelord]

Castiel froze in his increasingly frustrated examination of the Sorting Room. A lethal-looking silver blade appeared without transition in his hand, and he turned toward the unexpected voice, falling into a coiled half-crouch as he did so.

He didn't attack immediately. Lucifer had never addressed him as Cas, and the tone was all wrong for the Morningstar. But there was no trace of temporal distortion about the boy's aura, and he couldn't think of any other possible way this person could actually be who he appeared to be. And he was accustomed to dealing in miracles.

Still...

"Sam?" he queried uncertainly after a moment, fighting down an irrational surge of hope, his blue eyes boring into the young man in search of some irrefutable evidence that it was indeed Sam Winchester who stood before him.

[hunter_returns]

Sam fell back a step at the sight of the silver weapon. The last time they had met, he had been posessed, screaming inside his own body while Lucifer used him to kill Bobby, beat Dean nearly to death and destroy Castiel's host utterly.

So he could hardly blame the angel for the move.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me Cas. It's just me."

[nerdofthelord]

Cas stayed as he was for a few endless heartbeats, debating.

Then he lowered his sword-hand to his side, straightened up and strode right up to Sam, craning his neck slightly to peer searchingly into the young man's eyes at close range, his face unreadable.

And then he smiled. To anyone who didn't know the angel well, it would have seemed a cool, subdued expression. But for him, it was the equivalent of an ear-to-ear grin.

"It is you," he said, quietly wondering. "How?"

[junkyard_hunter]

"Anybody else starts showing up it's gonna feel like a damned family reunion," a gruff voice said from the doorway. Bobby Singer walked into the Sorting Room and gave the confused angel a crooked smile.

"Yeah, I know. Weird. Get used to it, Cas. 'Cause it's gonna get weirder."

[nerdofthelord]

Still a little off-balance (despite, or perhaps partly because of, the revelation of Sam's miraculous escape from Hell,) Cas was relieved at the appearance of the solid, uncomplicated older hunter. "Hello, Bobby," he said about as warmly as he ever addressed anyone. As best he was able to judge, he'd never thought the man liked him very much. But he held Bobby in considerable respect.

"I'm surprised to find you here as well." He looked around the room. "But then, I'm surprised to find me here. Do you know what's going on?" Aside from having clearly arrived here first, Bobby's knowledge of occult lore surpassed his own in certain respects.

[junkyard_hunter]

He gave a half-shrug, "I ain't entirely sure. This place seems to exits outside of time and most worlds. I ain't sure how or for what reason just yet. I do know that once you're here, you ain't gettin' home anytime soon."

Bobby didn't sound particularly distressed at this concept. He had finally started to settle in, and with the sudden influx of adopted kin - which included the angel, even if he was unaware of how Bobby felt, was beginning to make Hogwarts feel like a new home.

"But it's not so bad. The boys are here and a damn sight better than they've been in a long time."

[nerdofthelord]

Castiel nodded. "I've spoken with Sam. He seems to be in remarkably good shape, all things considered." If ever he had been guilty of understatement

[i_shot_a_dick]

Dean was about to think maybe he had been sent to his own personal heaven, all the beer, pie and cheeseburgers he could want. Sammy alive and Sammy, Bobby right down the hall and it all came together when he heard all too familiar voice from the sorting room.

Dean stepped in to the doorway as Cas laid out his mengarie of pocket items and cracked up laughing "Man, Cas only you would offer up crap to try and get in. I think they want more of that angel mojo than any thing else you got to offer." Stepping in he clapped a hand to the Angel's shoulder "Well, looks like heavens gonna have to get along with out their good lil' soldier, less you're lookin' to head straight back." He didn't mean to sound as sarcastic or hurt as he did, he knew none of it was Cas' fault, but it would have been nice to hear from his friend during the last few months he had spent on Earth before being brought to Hogwarts.

"Guess they figured we need the whole team."

[nerdofthelord]

"Hello, Dean." Cas brightened, subtly but noticeably, at Dean's appearance. That lasted precisely as long as it took for the human to open his mouth.

Castiel held Dean Winchester in great esteem and no small affection; moreso, these days, than he did most of his fellow angels. His virtues aside (and there were more of those than Dean himself might suppose,) for reasons still largely unclear to Cas, he simply liked the man

[i_shot_a_dick]

Dean would have guessed he could count his virtues on one hand, but that was a conversation that wasn't happening right now thankfully or he would have probably only opened his mouth and inserted his foot even more than he already did. When Cas got defensive Dean laughed "Chill out, Cas, can't you take a joke. These guys ain't gonna turn down an angel, don't think they're gonna make you give up your collection

[nerdofthelord]

Castiel nodded, still troubled, but it did appear as though he had no choice but to stay. And he couldn't deny it: he did want to. Though he hadn't been parted long from his friends--especially by immortal standards--he had felt their absence powerfully, all the same.

"Your teacher?" he repeated. "I'm not sure I'm qualified to teach in a school of witchcraft." Which was to say, he possessed a great deal of valuable knowledge, both supernatural and mundane; but both his ability to impart that knowledge effectively to assorted strangers, and the wisdom of doing so, were very much in question.

Well, leave that for later, if the matter arose. "What's a Gryffindor?"

[drunkexguardian]

((FYI, Lee is a former guardian angel. She's not so much the evil type of fallen as she is just... kicked out XD And he might be able to tell: according to her canon, "There is something of the divine about [Lee]. But rather than suffusing [her], it hangs over [her] like a shroud." Do (or don't do) with that what you will!))

Good fucking god.

"You have got to be motherfucking kidding me," she said, rubbing at one of her temples with her hood as far forward as she could manage. "It's a goddamned infestation. Someone should be called in to spray for you sanctimonious pieces of shit."

[nerdofthelord]

Castiel raised his eyebrows slightly, but his reply was calm (and a good bit more respectful than the woman's greeting had been.) "I assume that means I'm not the only angel you've met here."

At one time he might have taken offense, but he had learned the hard way that 'sanctimonious pieces of shit' was all too accurate of many of his kin--possibly giving some of them too much credit. (As for Cas himself, well...he was trying.)

He took a cautious step closer to the woman, studying her carefully. At first glance, he might have taken her for an angel herself; the energy that played about her, though faint, felt familiar. And the Fallen he had known (had actually been, briefly, for practical purposes) bore little remaining trace of the divine about them. On closer inspection, though, there was something distinctly off about her that he couldn't put a name to

[drunkexguardian]

"Some days it's like you can't turn a corner without getting their bubbly good graces all over your shoes," she snarled. Metaphorically speaking; she went around as usual barefoot but for cloth wraps, and so long as there was nothing more substantial between her skin and the ground she hovered off of it like one magnet repelled by another.

She crossed her arms in front of her, not stepping back. Let him gawk. Everybody point and laugh at Lee, kicked out for not following the rules. "Lee," she said, giving the name she'd been going by here for over two decades.

[nerdofthelord]

If she was an angelic being of some sort, she was a very odd one, but he could appreciate Lee's blunt honesty after dealing for so long with the backstabbing insurrectionists he had once called brothers. "Castiel," he replied, and after a moment's hesitation, stuck his hand out rather awkwardly. "I'm...not very bubbly," he offered.