There Must Be Some Kind of Way Out of Here - pre-13x03, 2K, G. Cas in the Empty.
Castiel comes to in a place neither hot nor cold, neither beautiful nor ugly. The sky stretches above his head, constellations sparkling in the sky, but the ground he’s lying on is plain dirt with a few withering sprouts of grass poking up here and there.
Someone grips his shoulders and hoists him up. “You’re here, I see,” he says. Castiel recognizes the voice – because it’s his own.
“Yes.” Castiel takes in the image of the other Castiel, once he’s moved around to his front. He has a different coat, and his hair looks more wind-swept. The lines on his face, the smudges under his eyes, they’re less deep. But other than that, it’s the same face. And he has always looked tired.
In the distance, just barely close enough to make out his features, is another version of himself. This one sits on the ground and hugs his knees, pressing his face between him. He has no coat on, just his suit jacket and button-up shirt, and looks very small without it.
“Don’t mind him,” the other Castiel says, looking out the same way as Cas. “He’s been here a long time and he isn’t ready to go back.” He looks back toward Cas. “Then again, neither am I.”
“What happened?”
The other Castiel sighs. He stands up and pulls Cas up. “Judging by what happened to me, and the others,” he says, “I’m guessing you died.”
“I –” Cas couldn’t remember much when he first woke up, but now he does. A blade in his heart, light and grace streaming out his eyes and mouth. The last thing he saw, the horrified face of – “Well. You’re right.”
“It seems less than an exemplary situation.”
“Correct. But it’s happened before, and we came back, and –”
The other Castiel clamps a hand on his shoulder. “What?”
“I’ve come back to life before,” Cas tells him, already feeling impatience worm its way through his body. Does he even have a body here? Always a very complex discussion to have in theoretical realms. “I don’t know how, but if I’ve done it before, I can do it again.”
“Oh.” The other Castiel’s face is nearly white. “I – I didn’t know. This is the first time I’ve died.”
What a sad sentence. Even sadder, then, that Cas must think for a minute to remember just when that was. “When Raphael killed you, right? That was the first time.”
“Killed is a nice euphemism for it.”
Cas remembers how it felt to be undone, every grace atom burnt to nearly nothing and flayed, scattered among the stars up above him, and shudders. “I could give you a list of other words for it, if you’d like.”
“No.” The other Castiel turns away from him and strides forward. “I’m with you. I need a way out of here.”
For the first time since he woke up, Cas smiles. There is hope for – himself – after all.
“Who’s he?” The other Castiel interrupts his thoughts, and nods roughly toward the sitting Castiel. By now, he has tucked himself so deeply into a ball, Cas can barely see any flesh. Just the black of his hair, suit jacket, and pants.
Cas doesn’t look at that other Castiel, the one all but grinding himself into the dirt, for very long. He can’t. It hurts too much. He remembers it too poignantly. He walks on, and the other Castiel, the one standing, he follows. For that, he’s grateful.
“You don’t know this,” Cas says, “but this is just – the beginning. Of everything.”
“It is not,” the other Castiel volleys. “No one was there for the beginning of everything but God.”
Cas has to fight off the eyeroll. “For you, not the universe. You are going to do terrible things. You think you have gone through doubt now, but it will be nothing compared to what you’re about to experience. The other angels are going to hate you. You will nearly cause an apocalypse of your own.
“By the time you reach that point,” he says, gesturing backwards to the third Castiel, who’s now rocking in place, “you aren’t going to want to come back. You’re going to tell Dean that coming back is a punishment, that it gets worse every time.”
The other Castiel has stopped walking. There’s a very long pause. No crickets, no birds, no air in this darkness to fill the silence here. “Then why do I go back?”
Castiel keeps walking. He hears footprints behind him now, the other Castiel racing to keep up. Good. “You tell me why you are going back this time.”
“The world’s in danger –”
“I’m afraid that won’t change.”
“How is such a place even so fragile?”
Briefly, Cas thinks of the babies he’s healed when he’s looking for some kind of redemption, even if he knows he’ll never find it. He thinks of the way he’s made Dean’s face crack along the seams with his own hands, some of the worst regrets of his life, part of why he looks for that redemption. “Because the most precious things have to be, or else we wouldn’t value them so.”
The other Castiel nods. He understands. “I have to help Dean,” he says, in a tone of voice that sounds more like an admission than an assertion. “I left him alone, and –”
Dean would be fine without him, Cas has convinced himself. But there’s something in the way even this Castiel has to stop again, has to put his palms on his knees and breathe the not-air in so deeply, that he wonders. In his stomach, he can feel a deep tug, an enormous maw of pain that is not his own. He keeps wondering, so long that it flips over to hope.
It is dangerous. It keeps him walking, the other Castiel running to keep pace. The edge of this place, it’s almost in sight now.
“Dean,” the other Castiel practically wheezes. Cas hadn’t realized he was going so fast. “Is he – are you still – friends?” The word is a question on his tongue.
Now it’s Cas’ turn to stop. He takes the shoulders of the other Castiel in his hands. They feel so strong, not worn down by the universe like he is. “You take what you feel for Dean,” he says, “and you use it. It’s what makes you different. What you feel for Sam, and the others who will become your family.”
Cas realizes now what Jack showed him. It wasn’t a world without pain; such a world couldn’t exist. It was this place, the Empty, devoid of everything but himself. A place where words and feelings came clearly like they never could in the real world.
A simpler place. But not the place where he belongs.
The other Castiel offers something like a smile. “That’s what the other – the other versions of you, of me, said. They were in a rush to get out of here, too. One looked like you. The other had on something – I believe it’s called a hoodie.” He lets out a bark of laughter. “What is going to happen to me?”
Cas thinks of Jack again. What he did to him, they should discuss it. When he gets back. But there was no malice there, and he isn’t only here to lead himself through the wilderness of life. “I can’t tell you that,” he says, “but you will see. And the world is worth it. Dean is worth it. A family is worth it.”
The other Castiel nods. He walks next to him. He keeps pace this time.
“I have not seen any other version of you from past your time,” the other Castiel says. “Just the times you tell me happened in the past. Well, your past. My future. I am still confused about the – the hoodie, but I suppose it all works out. I guess what I’m saying is, try to make this time count.”
“I will.” Cas reaches out his hand, and grasps on to that of the other Castiel. Their palms are both warm and smooth. Many humans used to read palms, and talk about lines of fate. Cas comforts himself with the fact that that humans, those vessels of free will, they felt a need to believe in a preordained future too. Knowing you are the one that makes the future is a terrifying prospect, but it’s the one he needs. “You, too. You most of all, maybe. Make this time count.”
They both inhale deeply, even if they don’t have to. They walk up to the end of this world, where the cliff drops off into nothingness. No sky, no stars, no night, just nothing and black.
Cas looks at himself. He smiles. He jumps.
**
Castiel comes to in John Winchester’s lock-up. It’s a dull place, concrete walls mildewed with the years. And it’s beautiful.
He vaguely remembers jumping off – a cliff into some darkness somewhere, but even as he remembers it the memory snaps out of his grace. Now all he remembers is Raphael’s white-hot fury, all of it focused on him.
He swallows. Sam and Dean are in front of him, as well as Zachariah. Zachariah has radically reconfigured their internal organs, and Sam’s soul hangs on to his body with desperate claws. But Dean – Cas must not let himself get too distracted by Dean, by the way his soul still sweeps in and out gently across his neurons like a wave upon the shore. Even now, Dean gags and coughs out blood.
Castiel must make his surprise reappearance count. Around a swallow that slides down his throat, he pulls out his sword. The only thing that will kill another angel – and there are three of them in this very lock-up, threatening Dean. Threatening Sam too, threatening the very fabric of existence.
This is the first time he will kill a brother of his. He suspects it will not be the last.
He strides forward. He will make it worth it.
**
Castiel comes to on the beach. It’s low tide and the water smells brackish. The house looks more ramshackle than it did the day of Jack’s birth.
It’s beautiful.
He could go back into the house, but he can tell that no humans – nobody at all – has been here in weeks. Instead he climbs into his truck, still there outside the house.
The mix tape is still in the tape deck. He exhales in gratitude and pushes the play button.
He does nothing but sit there for what might be an hour. He breathes in the air, the salt and the breeze filling his lungs up. The bird cries sound lonely and sad, but they are alive, and for that he’s grateful. For them and him alike.
The tape is on its last song. If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you, the man’s voice sings, much slower and sweeter than the other songs on the tape. When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.
Castiel’s phone is still on the passenger’s seat. He picks it up, goes to recent calls, and dials the first number there without even bothering to look at who it was. He already knows.
The voice that picks up is so rough it sounds like it’s been grated over rocks. It – no, he – speaks in more of a choke than words. “Man,” he says, “I think you have the wrong number –”
Castiel leans back. He smiles with all his teeth. The sun is setting, the sky getting swallowed up by darkness, and he’s never been more grateful to be alive. “No, I don’t think I do. Hello, Dean.”
