The Empty is very quiet. Not quiet like the soft fluttering of the wind in the trees or quiet like an undisturbed desert at night, but quiet like the space between galaxies, a stillness absolute.
Castiel feels a kind of peace here.
His work is done. His duties have been fulfilled. He has lived a life of wonder and exploration, and he has learned to feel a happiness more profound than he could imagine - the happiness of loving another more than yourself, without any expectation of recompense. He is satisfied.
If he strains, he can just about hear words. They are prayers, but not prayers to any god. Instead, they are the desperate whispers of the doubting, of the questioning, of the uncertain. The humans who do not yet know who they are but know that the path set before them is not the one they want to walk.
They speak of fear of judgment and retribution, of rejection by family, of a world where they are an aberration. Religions which call them monstrous and a god who calls them grotesque.
And still, they speak of a love so strong that they risk this rejection all the same. The drive to be free, to be who they are, to love who they want, this is stronger than their fear of hate.
Cas remembers that feeling well. He does not want these humans to be alone, those who struggle so. So he whispers back from the Empty: I see you. I accept you. Be as you are. Love as you will.
He does not know if they can hear him, but he loves them all the same. This is his role now: the patron saint of the dispossessed, of the doubtful, of the queer.
There is one voice in particular he listens for but never hears. But thatās ok. Humans are complex. Their feelings run deep. If he reaches out with everything he has, he can feel a kind of amorphous yearning reaching back in his direction. It fills him with hope. Itās enough.
Then, suddenly, a shape appears in the void. There is a human hand, clasping his shoulder, dragging him from this place of nothingness.
Color and light and sound burst all around him, almost blinding after being wrapped in shadow for so long.
He sees only the vague outline of the figure holding him. But he knows every line of this hand. He knows the scent and the textures and the shape of this being. Across the millennia, this touch is one he will never forget.
It grips him tight and raises him up.
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