Title: Lonely Little Statue
Author: destial
Pairing: Pre-Dean/Cas
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Vaguely Biblical language?
Spoilers: Up to 99 Problems
Word Count: 731
Notes/Prompt(s): Written for my H/C Bingo Card for the prompt ostracized from society.
Summary: Castiel needs family and for the first time in two millennia, he is without.

Lonely Little Statue

If men were molded by God's hand from clay, then angels had been carved from marble. As much works of art as everything else God had crafted, but never touched by the fire of passion. So they were cold and beautiful and constant but little else. Each one a pillar of Creation, it was their job to hold everything up when God finished.

Then their most beautiful fell and so the plan of Creation fell with him. Men learned of sin and cracked under its strain. The Morning Star learned how to break these men and reform them into clumsy mosaics of what they once were.

He was so clever in his ways that God was forced to return His creations to silt and sediment. He promised never again to unforge any creation and so He carved more angels to fulfill His plan. These, He carved from the warm mesas of His earth and when He placed them upon it, He joined them and walked the earth as a man, so they, at least, would understand.

And so Castiel was borne into Creation. And he loved and sought his Father, but, more than that, he sought to prove himself to his Father who lived as a man. And died and entered into hell as a man. And conquered hell and rose as a man. And so Castiel understood the resilience of men and loved them dearly.

Then, he was allowed to enter heaven.

For nearly two millennia as the earth kept time, Castiel waited. And then a man lived. And then a man died and entered into hell. And then he was ready to conquer hell and rise.

He was a righteous man, tested by his father as Abraham was tested with Isaac. While he failed his test, Castiel's Father still loved him for this man's own capacity for love was great. And so Dean Winchester was saved.

That is the story of how Castiel raised Dean Winchester from perdition and the prelude to how Castiel, finally, fell.

He is not sorry for any of it. Even though Sam and Dean Winchester failed, he knows it was the right thing. God would not have brought him back otherwise.

But knowing he is right does not soothe the ache of loneliness filling him up these days. His brothers and sisters – beings he stood beside for his entire existence – have shunned him. He's had to take their lives and they have tried – and once succeeded – to take his. Even now, when he thought he could not be more abandoned, he is shunned by the only one he thought would never forsake him. His Father does not want him; He will not help.

Castiel needs family and for the first time in two millennia, he is without.

"That headache still bothering you?"

Castiel looks up, letting one of his hands – Jimmy's hands, he is an angel in a vessel and cannot forget – fall from where it had covered his eyes.

"I don't think your pills are as effective as you made out," he says and his voice is a low rumble that sets off tinges of pain in this temples. He drops his head back down and rubs tiredly at them, long, thin fingers moving instinctually.

Dean sits down next to him.

"We could always get you drunk again," he says in that tone he uses when he thinks joking is appropriate.

He glares at the hunter and Dean sends him an empty little half grin.

Castiel remembers an evening where Dean had laughed so hard, his amusement bending him over at the waist with its enormity, and his smile had been full and radiant. Though he had taken an angel of the Lord to a brothel, the righteous man had shown so brightly in that moment and Castiel had felt hope sorely needed.

Now he is merely Dean Winchester and Castiel doubts.

"What did you do, Dean?" Castiel asks with a suddenness that surprises even him. "When your father forsook you?"

"I went and found Sam," Dean responds instantly. "Every time after that, too. I made sure Sam was still there."

"And if your siblings aren't there?"

Dean looks at him a long, searching look.

"Cas, family doesn't end in blood," he finally says.

They sit together until it is time for them to move out and Castiel wants very desperately to believe.