I wanted to make a piece centered around Castiel on a hunt with his two children, Claire and Jack. I was very happy with the end result.
The talented @friendofcarlotta claimed my art and wrote a story that was everything I wanted (Claire and Jack siblingism, found family, Castiel being a great dad) and more (compelling worldbuilding, angel/human partnerships, halo kink).
If anything I mentioned piqued your interest, I’ll highly recommend checking out the story: After the Rapture.
Castiel: Benjamin is always very careful. Long ago, he found a powerfully devout vessel in Madrid, and her faith, it... she gave him everything – her trust and her body.
Dean: Wait. So Benjamin's a woman.
Castiel: Benjamin is an angel. His vessel is a woman. But it's more than that. She's not just his vessel.
Sam: She's his friend.
Castiel: Benjamin would never put her in unnecessary danger.
Benjamin in Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: SPN POC [77 / ?]
[ID: screenshots and script/transcript portions from spn 12x10 and spn 13x19: benjamin the angel with a transcript that reads “dean: wait so benjamin’s a woman” and “castiel: benjamin is an angel, his vessel is a woman” / naomi saying “we are the last men and women and divine waves of light still standing” / ishim saying “but you castiel --- I liked the old you better” over a screenshot of castiel’s woman vessel /end ID]
In no particular order, reasons to love Benjamin gamer angel of 12x10 Lily Sunder fame:
- had roughly three minutes of screen time, and was interesting for every second of it
- actress hot, character genderweird
- extent of his goals for life appear to be hanging out with his vessel, playing video games, and generally being unbothered (respectable and relatable)
- appeals to me on a different scale, but in the same way and for the same reasons, as midam and (at least in my heart) samifer do (powerful celestial entity chooses to lead pleasantly humdrum earthly life because they acquired a fondness for Some Guy (gn))
- delicious postcanon au potential for camaraderie with midam over being two guys who are one guy
So, to celebrate the birthday of the lovely @heaven-ecologist - have some angel content. :D
Prompts of the day: True Form/Powers/Vessel
Note: My angel of the day is Benjamin. Since we never learned his vessel's name (shame on you, canon), I didn't use one for her, so she's just referred to as 'she'.
It was a beautiful day.
There had been a lot of those lately, she thought idly as she sat on the front steps of her parents' house. Squinting upwards, she could not see a single cloud in the sky, everything bathed in bright sunlight. The fields her parents and her uncle worked. Their cat, who was sleeping on the low stone wall surrounding the main house. The flowers her mother had one day found in the fields and, instead of simply tearing them out, had re-planted them here, in the front yard.
They were red. Her favourite colour, like her Sunday dress. She was sure her mother had thought of her when she'd first seen them.
Truly a beautiful day. A beautiful life. It was like there were only happy days, nothing ever went wrong. Even when it rained or when it was cold, that just meant they could huddle around the fire, could drink tea and listen to her uncle tell his stories.
And yet, despite all this perfection, she felt like something was missing. Someone was missing. A friend, a dear one, someone she knew she had known for a long time, if only she could remember-
There was a rumble and she looked upwards, but the sky was still perfectly blue. Another rumble, as if a storm was coming, except at the same time the sun was getting brighter, brighter, until she had to avert her gaze, pressing her eyes closed.
Be not afraid, a voice called. A terrible, thunderous, frightening voice – and yet so, so familiar that she felt as if a weight was lifted from her chest.
“Benjie?” she asked, and when she stood up, suddenly she wasn't seven years old anymore. Instead she was twenty, or perhaps a hundred and twenty.
How old was she really? Did it even matter? Benjamin was here.
Hello, my friend, he said softly, or as softly as a being his size, a being of his magnitude and power could ever achieve.
Flooded by relief, longing and curiosity in equal measures, she carefully blinked her eyes open, only to be faced with the strangest form she had ever seen. She could not make heads or tails of it, had not been able to do it the first (and last) time she had seen it. Too many eyes, too much light, too little substance. Benjamin looked nothing like any other creature she had ever seen before, nothing like a human or a cat or even a horse. He was something completely different, something special. That much, she had understood from the very beginning, when he had started speaking to her in her dreams. The safest way for an angel to interact with a human, if only not to overload their brains with all their magnificence.
“Benjie, where have you been?” she asked, hearing her voice shake. It had been a long time since he had been gone, that much she knew. How long, she had no idea. But too long, for certain.
I'm sorry, miame. Continuance – his name for her ever since they had decided to stay together. She smiled.
“Don't fret, piripsol,” she replied with her own nickname for him. Of the Heavens – that he truly was. “I just missed you.”
As have I you. In my dreams, you appeared often.
It was a sweet, and yet confounding thing for him to say. “Dreams?” she questioned. “But you don't sleep, how can you dream?” It had also been tinged with some sadness, perhaps even regret. This was just getting curiouser and curiouser.
Where I was, even angels dream. Not always of good things, I'm afraid, but- He broke off, radiating hesitation. How odd. In all the years that she had known him – over one hundred, if her memory didn't fail her – she had rarely, if ever, seen him hesitate.
“They were bad dreams?” she asked gently. “Are you alright?”
I am now. I see that you are happy, and this makes me glad.
More sadness, dripping off him like molten sunlight.
“You say that, but then why are you so melancholic?”
Ah. You know me too well, miame. His appearance hardly changed, but she got the impression of a sad smile directed at her. My mood is subdued because I could not protect you. Could protect neither of us. We promised not to part, and yet we had to.
“We died, didn't we?” Slowly, all the memories came back to her. Benjamin had been using their body at the time, and once the danger had been apparent, he'd mostly kept the images away from her. But she had still been able to see flashes. Of a face. Of a blade.
Lily Sunder enacted her revenge on me. On us.
“The woman with the nephil daughter,” she remembered.
Yes. Well, no. We thought so at the time... It turns out Ishim lied to us. It also turns out that nephilim aren't forbidden by Heaven anymore. Something like a sigh sounded across the yard, making the house rattle a bit.
“I don't understand,” she admitted.
Neither do I, my friend. Not yet, anyway. It's only been a few short years, and yet so much has happened, I'm still trying to catch up.
She huffed out a laugh. “If you're having trouble, no wonder I'm not getting anything.” Shaking her head, she sat back down on the steps. “This is Heaven, right?”
Yes. Your individual Heaven, where you get to relive your happiest memories.
“No wonder everything has been so perfect,” she mused. “Except for one thing, of course.”
Somehow, she felt Benjamin stiffen. Oh? he asked carefully.
She smiled, dropping her eyes to the ground, suddenly shy. “You haven't been here,” she said quietly. “I know angels aren't supposed to visit the souls, but how could I be truly happy without my best friend?”
The following silence was heavy in the way that emotional moments often are. If he were a human, she might have thought that Benjamin was holding back tears. But of course, he was an angel, and his true form had no tear ducts.
I'm sorry it ended that way. You deserved better.
“Hey, I lived more than a lifetime. And with an angel, to boot – I got plenty.”
Still-
“No.” She shook her head. “You deserved better. I- Where did you go, anyway? And how did you come back?”
I went to the Empty. Benjamin seemed thoughtful. It's pretty much what it sounds like. A vast, empty space, where angels and demons slumber forever. Dreaming about our greatest failures, and our biggest regrets.
“And you dreamed about me.” She tried not to let that get to her, but it was hard.
Because I failed you. That's my greatest regret.
“Oh Benjie.” Sighing, she reached out for him, and after slight hesitation, he moved closer. “You were killed. And unlike me, you went to a dreadful place. So stop it with the self-flagellation, I'm not the victim here and you're definitely not at fault.”
You're too kind-hearted, my friend.
“Excuse me, I'm ferocious! Remember that guy who tried to sell us those sugar cubes as medicine?”
Even though he didn't have a mouth in this form, Benjamin still managed to smile. I do.
She smiled back at him. “So you know I'm not just being nice. But anyway.” Her expression turned more serious. “Since I'm dead, I guess that means I don't have a body anymore, huh. This is just what my soul looks like in Heaven?”
It's how you see yourself. How Heaven lets you see yourself.
“Right. In any case, I can't be your vessel anymore if I'm without a body, right?”
That's true.
“Bummer.”
Yeah.
They were both silent for a moment. She wasn't sure if it was awkwardness or simple sadness that sat between them. Maybe both.
Does that mean I can't be your friend anymore? Benjamin asked eventually, sounding anxious.
“Oh, you ridiculous angel!” She threw her hands in the air. “Of course it doesn't mean that. Why would we stop being friends? I mean, you probably won't have much time to visit little old me and I doubt I'm allowed outside my Heaven, but... we can make it work. And by the way, even if you never showed up anymore, we'd still be friends. You're not getting out of this, buddy.”
Maybe it was her imagination, but Benjamin seemed to shine even brighter at her words. Of course I will visit you. The new God is much more lenient than the old one.
“Wait, hold on. A new God?!” She stared at him in horror.
Ah, yes. See. This is one of those confusing things I talked about earlier. So what I have been told is-
It would take a while for her to understand what Benjamin told her that day, and then some more time to accept it. But in the end, she had to admit that however strange the concept of a new God might be, His plans seemed kinder than those of the previous management. He didn't mean to end the world, which was nice, she supposed. It also meant that Benjamin had hopes that he could play his favourite arcade game again at some point. And if Benjie was happy, well, then no matter how much it upset her religious beliefs, the new way of things couldn't be so bad, right?
