Written for HC Bingo 2014 - square: Secret identity revealed.

Trinity

God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God was divided and had forgotten himself. Now he has been revealed and it is not Good.

For when we are the embodiment of our worst fears and didn't even know it

0x0x0x0

There was a human maxim that said you often only find what you are looking for when you stop looking for it. Castiel had never expected to be in a position to prove this saying was true, and yet here he was. Years after he had given up all hope of finding God, Castiel stood face to face with what he'd sought. God. Or at least, part of him.

Castiel wasn't too stunned to see the irony. Dean's God-detecting amulet was long lost, thrown into the trash along with a chunk of Dean's heart. Though Dean being Dean, he'd never admit to that part. Castiel knew it though, he had been able to see the damage to his friend – the loss of faith just another wound on top of all the many scars Dean carried. So many that Castiel often wondered how the man was still functional.

Except that now, perhaps, Castiel had discovered the answer to that mystery.

Frozen in a shocked cycle of random thoughts, Castiel stared into the hard gleam of Dean's obsidian-black eyes. Receiving Revelation at a time like this, in the midst of discovering your best (only?) friend had become a Knight of Hell, was inconvenient, to say the least. Added to which was the humiliating realisation that surely he should have seen this earlier. How could he have missed God's presence all this time, even so divided?

Castiel's self-recrimination was misplaced, of course. The fact was that nobody could have envisaged the possibility that God could have existed splintered like this, least of all an angel who had been created to serve and not to imagine anything.

Distracted, Castiel barely escaped from under the descending path of the First Blade, the angel's belated sideways lunge leaving jagged teeth tangled in the flapping sleeve of his new raincoat. Better that than his arm, Cas supposed. The Knight – Dean – growled through his perfect white teeth and tore the blade free, ready to come at Cas again.

"Stop."

Only the sound of that curt command halted the demon dead in his tracks. Cas assumed he should be grateful. Castiel was sure Dean had been about to rip his vessel to shreds, and that this time there would be no coming back for him, but somehow gratitude was the farthest emotion from his heart right now.

"So." Cas said, breathing hard. This borrowed grace was not refuelling him like his own would have done. He turned slowly, reluctantly, to face the owner of the voice. "God. The Father?"

"I think of myself as more the avuncular type really, but yes." Said Crowley.

"And Dean?"

"He's like a son to me," Crowley smiled and Castiel had to look away before he screamed. This was wrong in so many ways it was hard to bear it, and his human body was tense as a clenched fist. "The boy hates me, of course, but that's just par for the course in these familial relationships, isn't it. Kids like to push their boundaries, you know."

"Where does Sam fit in to all this, then?"

"Ah, Sam. Now he's special, is my mighty Moose. You might call him Our Spirit."

"Sam the Holy Spirit," Dean said, then laughed. It was unpleasant to hear such a natural, happy sound in this context. It jarred Castiel's teeth with its absurdity.

Castiel's eyes hurt. It felt as if someone was pushing needles into his eyeballs, pricking them into burning. Dean, newly quiescent under the force of Crowley's command, reached out a hand and ran his thumb, ever so gently, underneath Castiel's left eye.

"What's this, Cas? Tears?" Dean said. His voice sounded rough, broken, and Castiel looked up.

Dean's own eyes were clear green again, no trace of demon-black, and somehow, this made Cas feel worse instead of better. He took a deep breath that shuddered in his chest. So this is what crying felt like. Part of Castiel's brain still found the time to analyse, even though the pain being cradled by his ribcage was almost crippling.

"I don't understand." Cas hadn't meant to say anything, but the words just slipped out. There was so much he didn't understand; it was hard to encompass it all.

"How…?" His question trailed off into nothing, because it was overwhelming. There were just too many questions that were crying out for answers.

How long had Crowley been God, or God been Crowley? How did that work, anyway? How could God be a demon, even if Crowley was only the receptacle for a portion of God's essence? How could Dean be God too, and how long had that been the case? Was the reason Dean had still shone so brightly in Hell because he had always been the Son? Did that lessen his humanity? And what was Sam's part in this?

"You're thinking too loud." Crowley said, a note of complaint colouring his tone. The injustice of Crowley daring to be pissed at him made Castiel mad, and he was grateful for it. The anger served to distract him from the sorrow and sense of betrayal that was threatening to engulf him.

"It's quite simple really. The Catholic Church have libraries full of theological musings on the subject. You know, the nature of God, the Trinity, the Three in One, all that bollocks. But let's be honest. It wasn't in their interest to explain it so that a layman could understand it. The Church had centuries to make it as complicated as they could, and I – We – weren't in a position to put them right."

Castiel was backing away as Crowley spoke. This whole situation was making his head pound. He glanced over at Dean, who had gone very quiet since wiping away Castiel's tears, as if they'd contained some magical ingredient that had broken a spell. It didn't look like Dean was coping all that well with developments either. Dean's face was pale, and Cas could see his hands were unsteady as he watched Dean set the Blade down on the big mahogany table and grip the back of one of the chairs instead. Of course, the pallor could be down to Dean being dead (again), but Cas thought it was more than that.

"You never answered Castiel's question."

When Sam's voice came from close behind him, Castiel couldn't help starting, and only just supressed an unmanly (unangelic) yelp of surprise. Crowley, smug and insufferable as always, just grinned as he looked over Castiel's shoulder, while Dean looked relieved to see his brother.

"What question is that then, Moose?"

"How."

Castiel turned around to gaze up at Sam, and almost flinched. Crowley and Dean might be the demons in the room, but it was Sam Castiel was most afraid of in that moment. Sam's banked anger was volcanic. It just remained to see whether the eruption when it came would be Plinian, or whether Sam would be able to keep the magma contained, just seething below the surface.

"How what?" Crowley was asking, seemingly impervious to Sam's barely contained rage. Dean on the other hand, had his gaze fixed on his brother and appeared unable to look away. Cas knew how Dean felt. Sam like this was compelling. Crowley continued, oblivious.

"How does it all work? How do we use our powers? How…"

"How long have you known." Sam interrupted and Crowley's mouth snapped shut. For the first time since Revelation, Crowley looked uncomfortable. Uneasy, even. Dean's head whipped round so fast Cas heard cartilage crack, and now Dean was staring at Crowley, his eyes once more a shuttered and expressionless glittering black.

Because Sam had hit on the right question. It might even be the only one that mattered. The one that would tell the Winchesters just how much of their tragic lives was down to Divine manipulation. The machinations of the Heavenly Host in the apparent absence of God's guidance - arranging for the Winchester brothers' births, creating vessels for Michael and Lucifer, trying to kick-start and then stop the Apocalypse, their various deaths and rebirths, the losses they had suffered along the way - all of it might be laid at the feet of this vertically challenged, self-appointed King of Hell, depending on the answer to this single question.

Castiel forgot his own pain, even forgot his vessel's need to breathe while he waited for God the Father's answer.

0x0x0x0

Sam waited, tamping down the flames that raged inside him.

He refused to think of Crowley as God, let alone that Sam himself as well as Dean being somehow part of this farce. An unholy trinity indeed. It was too ridiculous. Too fucking wrong. He didn't want to remember of all the years he'd prayed, how he'd clung to his faith in the face of Dean's constant disbelief together with all the evidence that showed over and over that either God was dead, or uncaring, or had never existed.

Instead he focussed on the way Dean's hands were trembling, now that his brother's fingers were no longer clasped around the leather-wrapped handle of the First Blade. His dead brother, the demon and new-made Knight of Hell, still fighting against his destiny with every fibre in his body.

The terrible thing was, Dean as the Son made perfect sense.

Dean as the sacrifice; the one who was betrayed but forgave, who suffered for others, who offered himself up so that everyone else could be saved. The one who thought he was worthless and yet was at the heart of everything.

Sam stared at Crowley's mouth opening and shutting while the demon tried to think of some lie that would satisfy, when in reality, nothing would. Nothing could. Sam touched the sharp jagged edges of himself, testing them. It was that irresistible urge to run your tongue over the rough edges of a broken tooth. He thought about burning, and breaking glass.

"You know what," Sam said. "I don't fucking care about you and your games. It doesn't matter."

He stepped forward, laid a hand on Dean's arm. Dean quivered under Sam's touch then stilled, and Sam could feel some of the tension leak out of Dean's muscles as his brother relaxed his grip on the chair. When Dean turned to look at Sam, his eyes were clear green again. Sam's fingers tightened on Dean's arm at the naked trust in that look, and his heart skipped a beat.

"Cas, you coming?" he said. The angel started and looked at Dean, who nodded at the unspoken question, then smiled, wide and happy. The three remaining members of Team Free Will headed for the Bunker's exit, shoulder to shoulder. They didn't look back as Crowley shouted after them.

"Hey! Where are you going? We are partners, us three; we have to work together! You can't just walk out on me and go buggering off with that pathetic excuse for a seraphim."

Sam knew this was probably true. God divided was dangerous, probably more so than God whole, and perhaps all those centuries ago the Psalm had described their predicament correctly – there would be nowhere they could go to escape. But Sam was the Spirit, and he was the part that bound them, just as he was the element that freed them. And until Dean was free of the curse of Cain, Sam was not going to rest.

Psalm 139:7–10

7 Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in 1Sheol, behold, You are there.

9 If I take the wings of the dawn,

If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,

10 Even there Your hand will lead me,

And Your right hand will lay hold of me.