Pairings: Can be read as Gen or slight Destiel

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Not Mine, Supernatural belongs to Erik Kirpke

EDIT March 2020 – Corrected some Grammar :0

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Of the many hundreds and thousands of lore books that describe angels in their passages, noting down their traits or supposed hierarchical structures, it can safely be said that every single one is wrong.

Angels of God are not fearless.

At least, not in the way ancient texts pronounce as boldly as they do. To an angel, nothing in creation compares to the flat terror of Holy Fire. It's a closely guarded secret, the host containing the weakness from their enemies for further fear of being at its mercy in battle. Every single angel has an internal, instinctual terror of Holy Oil and the devastating effects it brings when struck to fire and used as a weapon. It's an unbearable torture against their Grace, and the fear instilled into them was for good measure.

Though not much compares to this fear. There is something that comes close.

Hell fire.

Leagues beneath the surface of Hell, the very air itself twists and pulls like a living entity, consuming all in its path like a pungent breath of poisonous sulphur. There's nothing like it anywhere else in creation. Black and all encompassing, mercilessly swallowing up all light and emotions, bar those of an animalistic fury that seem to lurk in the bottom of a human's soul.

It's an enormous, cavernous place. Brimstone lining the burning walls, the embers the only other light except the dreaded flames licking from their deep pits. Black mountains of colossal size rise up, chains of the damned littering the peaks and everywhere between like discarded pieces of human rubbish. It's a dark twisted maze, the land broken into levels of jagged rock, sealing entire landscapes beneath each other like an enormous forsaken stack of shelves. Each plunge to a new depth slowly crossing the gap to the bottom of the pit.

It's into this filthy, evil place that a breach occurs.

The very atmosphere rips and tears at him as he plunges deeper into this forsaken place of ruined creatures. His bright light, his roaring essence, his everything; is being pulled and dragged at from all angles, little fragments of himself being scratched away from his core, the beating of his wings being made to bare greater burdens with every heavy flap.

This place. It's hateful, crushing, stifling.

It's evil. And every instant that he's here is tearing him to pieces. This is not the land of his brethren. This is a place for the unholy, the sinful, the evil. The damned. He doesn't belong here; his being is pure and opposite in nature to all that's here. It's killing him.

But none of that matters; the ripping of his light, the weeping battle wounds littering him, the crushing exhaustion darkening his blaze.

None of it.

Because he's here for a reason, his own desire propelling his wing beats further down into the abyss. This place is swallowing him whole, but he will die before he turns back. Let it try. He has a purpose.

This was his choice. Not God's. Not Hells. Not Heavens.

His.

Angels may not be fearless. But they are warriors.

It aches that his once unflinching faith in God is no longer impenetrable to doubt, no longer gives him buoyancy and direction. It's a festering wound that had surrounded him these past few months, infecting him like a virus and testing his resolve with every conscious action. His faith was still there, but meeker than it had been before, shaken by a force like an earthquake to a building.

It's damaged, yet still standing. It needs repair. Some loving input from somebody who cares enough to patch up the created fissures and soothe the cracks in his faiths' foundations. But, from what he's just witnessed on Earth, he's beginning to doubt that such a thing could ever occur again.

But he will not fail. He will not. Exhaustion, injury, fear, all of it be damned like the rest of this world trying to tear him to pieces.

Pushing himself harder, the light descends into the bowels of this deep place, constantly pitching away from the screeching demons that are trying to pierce into his light like venomous snake bites. Many of the putrid beings flee before him, terrified by the force and sheer willpower that's flooding into the darkness from his radiance, smothering the glow of the hated Hell fire with a luminosity unseen in Hell.

It's absolute. Holy.

The brave or the stupid risk themselves to propel towards him as he crashes through their dark haven with cataclysmic force. Weaker ones are incinerated as they approach, the strongest meet his blade, cut down before they can deal a fatal injury. He has no time for them, an angel is a prize above all others for the demons of this pit, and they can't have it. He has to retrieve something first; or die trying.

Days pass, sliding into one another without end or notice. The further down he plunges, the denser the black cloud seems to pool around him, constricting him, choking his power and attacking him desperately; with such raw fury that even the Morning Star himself would be impressed by his creations.

He's never known that his wings could hurt so much, exhaustion rippling through him like a wave on the shore, every beat taking away more of his strength. Leaving him weak and fading. But his won't waver, he's taken a vow since he first started falling. Never again will something touch his willpower, never will he let someone bend his freedom. Never. He is no hammer; he is an angel. Not a creature shackled by blind obedience.

He is so much stronger than the last time he set foot in this evil place, oh how long ago that seems. It's a strange feeling for a creature as old as himself; but the last time feels so, so distant. Yet, he remembers it so well: the garrison a constant roar at his back, wingtips brushing against allies. A blinding streak across Hell's skies. Pouring into the deep like a floodlight into the night. It had been terrifying and exhilarating, a display of force and power such as the like hasn't been seen for thousands of years.

This time is so much harder.

It's just him, panting and fighting through the dark. His brothers and sisters have no idea of his intentions. He's utterly alone, with no rest, with no respite. Just the vile creatures that would do him harm, and loyalty and courage as his weapons to help drive him downwards against them. His target this time is far, far deeper than the last. His chances are dismal. Despite his shocking new level of revived Seraphim power, he will be lucky to ever see the light of Heaven again.

He will try anyway. There is no worthier cause in his mind than this to die for.

He wants to do this. It's his choice, his freewill.

The two other members of the so-called Team Free Will had taught him about much choice and fate these last hectic months.

And the Team is currently a member down.

It doesn't matter to him that this decision was partially influenced by another being. He wants his friend to be happy, wants it so much it aches through him with every instant that passes separated from his side as the angel closes down to his target. God knows, that if anyone deserves a happy ending to this catastrophic apocalypse, then it is Dean Winchester. The angel will do anything to give it to him, will fight through everything he needs to, to make it so.

Even invading Hell and taking on its armies by himself.

But oh, it hurts.

The blackness circles him menacingly as he cascades ever lower, like he's the eye of a dark storm, the peace at the centre of destruction, capable of engulfing entire hell bound civilisations. The constant pressure is thick and suffocating, too many hits are not being dodged, and there are too many creatures to kill them all.

He forces his way through, nonetheless.

He's chosen his timing well, though it would be fairer to say that it's been more luck that has lead him this far.

The entirety of Hell is a mass of smoking chaos. Demons fighting amongst themselves as they try to overthrow each other, battling for kingship, warring for power. Thunderstorms that are not entirely his own doing rain lighting down from the darkness above him, earthquakes violently giving the mountains cause to tremble. He couldn't be more pleased about this. Their distraction has his break-in throw even more confusion into their chaos, and the blinding light of his power have them confusing him for another Heavenly host, and many of them scream and scatter.

Smashing through the shrieking ranks of demons, he follows his senses to the only other tiny glimpse of light in this foul pit. Despite the thick, cloaking layers of Hell-spawn; Sam Winchester's soul, although agonisingly polluted, is just about still there. Muffled crushingly by the evil separating them. He can feel it. It's not the glaring star of torn energy that had been Dean Winchester's righteous soul, but there's still a purity to it, the type that had made the angel fall in love with his Father's creations in the first place. It was dim and faint, but beautiful and wonderfully human. The angel will not leave it here alone. He will save it or die trying.

After all, hadn't that been the last thing God had entrusted the angels to do? Protect the humans?

Not that that matters at all. The angel is doing this for himself and his friends, his make-shift, broken little human family. Not his Father. Not for Heaven.

Delving deeper still, the angel pants in blessed relief, even despite the fury that greets him as he closes in on the famed Cage. He's here, finally, after just over a hundred days of constant fighting.

This part, above all other parts of this suicide mission so far, is the most likely to kill him. At least there's a slight reprieve outside the jaws of Lucifer's abode. Even the strongest demons are too scared to penetrate this far into the pit, and as the angel blazes towards it's confines he accepts that if this was how he ends his life, he is at peace with it.

The whole thing happens in less than an instant, even by Hell's screwed up time-lines. The angel's true voice rips its way through the area as a roared war cry. I am here. I am power. Do not challenge me. It's a warning to all of the depths of Hell, the noise raking all the way up to the breached entry point and through the blazing walls of the cage. Archangels be damned. He is coming through and they will not interfere.

The noise had barely begun to echo as he tears his way through the cage wall, it was designed to hold Archangels not Seraphim, and he shoots through it like a cascading flood of fire and ice. The jagged edges of the walls rake nastily down his Grace as he hurtles through. His older brothers' powers scream towards him, but they are hesitant, confused, they do not recognise this Seraph as him. He could be their salvation, their rescue. He could be here for them.

Fools.

The Seraph's grace thunders to the cowering, tortured, Winchester soul in the encasement and barrels straight into it. Propelling them both screaming from the Cage's confines. Keeping the wall from killing the soul swallows up the most power that the angel has ever expelled at one time in his entire life.

Cradling the delicate thing to his Grace the angel and his charge smash into the surrounding ragged brimstone slabs just as the Cage walls shake violently at the impacts of his brothers' wrath; they've realised their deceit, screaming betrayal and death to the angel that's leaving them behind. Agonised, but flooded with relief, the angel gently brushes the human's soul with his aching wings. Delicately healing it, physically and mentally, as best as he can. He's deeply mournful that Adam was left behind, but to take both would be to kill all three of them, the angel wouldn't survive the Cage wall twice.

The enormity of what he's done crashes down on him like an oceanic rogue wave. He's breached The Cage, The Cage. With his quarry still alive. Trembling and weary, but alive. Alive and safe.

Despite the small thing he's cradling carefully, he doesn't become hopeful of success. The rescue has injured him with greater severity than he was hoping. His wings are suddenly heavier than Heaven itself, his Grace exhausted, his power waning like a mewling kitten. Fatigue rushes him all at once and despite the earth shattering screams of fury at his back, the angel can't find the strength to take off. Utterly spent, he's paralysed by enervation.

The tiny creature huddled against his depleted warmth burrows closer, it doesn't understand who he is, or that he has been trying to save him, but even the small spark of the once encompassing light of the angel's Grace is a soothing blanket to the torture of the human's soul. And even as the angel watches on, the human's once polluted soul begins to clear, becoming brighter and gentle. Healing.

The angel smiles, his Grace brightening. Dean Winchester had been struck with the heart of his Grace and thus had unintentionally been branded at the same time. The angel had been younger, and weaker then, but the Righteous man's soul had latched onto him at that moment in a way that his younger brother was not doing.

If they escaped from this evil land, Sam Winchester will not have the same connection to the angel as his older brother. The angel was more careful this time, and Sam's soul is not as potent against his Grace as Dean's had been.

But there is something inexplicably gentle about it. Soft and soothing. It sighs against him, relaxing as if it can finally rest from the torture. Ignorant of the return trip the angel no longer has the strength to make. His whole mortal life up until this point has been filled with agony, but now it's finally all over and the Grace protecting him is hushing his pains like a fire on a cold winter night. It's relief and surrender at its purist. The angel feels a raging surge of protectiveness flare inside of him.

This is part of what was his new family. The angel is the boy's only saving grace, if he fails now; they will both be tortured for eternity. And Sam doesn't deserve that. Lord help him, Sam doesn't deserve that. Something scalding and immense blinds the angel all at once, determination flooding his centre like a dam has burst.

A second grating roar leaves the angel, resounding through the abyss like a hundred thunder-claps.

I am coming.

I am your end.

This soul is mine.

His warning seems to shake the foundations of Hell itself, rippling its way through the demonic ranks as the angel launches itself upwards, instinctive need to protect the human powering his wing beats from the burning floor. The demons pooling above the cage scatter at the angel's ire, terrified of the sudden tinge of danger licking in the angel's Grace. Perhaps a new form of Holy Fire.

The call of warning was not completely heeded, and days later as he heads through the racks of the tortured, where he had once grabbed the Righteous Man himself, demons flood him en-mass.

The human shielded beneath his Grace bucks violently at the demonic presences rushing them, and the angel explodes his power outwards in response, the nearest demons screaming as they are engulfed and destroyed. Distracting the others, the angel pushes on, desperation beginning to infiltrate his determination, there's barely anything left he has to give. Seraphim or not. He is an angel alone in Hell.

Pain. Pain everywhere. Absolute and agonising, choking his light and triggering falters in his flight. Every single wing twitch and sword swing has the raging burn of exhaustion rocketing through him as he forces his wings to continue their beating movements. Finding some solace in getting the beats to match the human's delicate heart beats. The boy's salvation was weakening, and the Winchester seemed to feel it, his now clean soul brushing against the angel's Grace, the two energies, for a single moment in time, harmonising. The angel's Grace ignites like it's been struck by Heaven's lightning.

It feels like a violent whip strike, lashing the angel viciously with a sense of purpose and new determination, and it powers his strength across the blending time to reach the breach he made to break his way into this accursed place so long ago. And as he does so, the demons underneath bellow and howl, the pure creature was escaping with their father's downfall. Shrieks of mourning and vengeance boom through the angel's essence like poison.

The tortured wails continue to bay against the angel's senses as he hurtles through the dimensions, crashing back onto Earth with the force and violence of a meteor impact, and, with a mighty lunge, he throws the Soul and body of Sam Winchester to the only safe place he knows. Echoing a message into the immediate area surrounding the newly resurrected Soul.

Sam Winchester is saved

This time there's no cheering army of victorious soldiers to welcome his return with a Winchester Soul, no praise, no honour. And as Castiel clambers back into his vessel, heavy, injured and exhausted beyond all measure, he lets himself sigh with weary triumph and relief. And then falls into oblivion.

There is no ulterior motive behind this, not destiny, not fate.

Just a battered angel's Free Will.

A/N: This story is what the other series of one-shots Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds were originally based on. They were just written out of order. I'll get on re-writing them asap to bring them into correct relation again. But Chapter 4 parallels heavily with Chapter 1 of Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds.

Also, I'm a bit new to this whole reply to review things. (I get a bit anxious answering because I know some people don't like it). But I'll try my best. :)

Thanks for reading!