(Art By The Talented Euclase).

(Art by the talented euclase).

Once, long ago, Anael said that humans understand many things, but they do not truly understand war.

Castiel has bled upon thousands of battlefields, because there was not just one battle to force Lucifer back into the cage. Day after day, he would clash blades with the twisted forms of angels and humans which once were whole. And, at the end of those seemingly endless days, he would help carry the broken bodies of their dead to where they would be laid to rest.

(His genocide of the angels, under the name of a new God, did not even come close to the body count of those battles. He would sit among the bodies of thousands, the ashes of their wings left to disintegrate in the vast corners of Hell. And he would feel nothing.)

It is not in the days of peace when brotherhood is formed. Brotherhood is born in fire and blades and blood. Brotherhood is born in loss, in the mutual, terrible decisions one must make. 

Castiel fought beside Anael, Uriel, and Balthazar, thousands of years on end. The words they spoke eventually faded from his mind - everything does, especially in times like those. But he remembers those moments clearer than anything, those moments when their fates were tangled.

Anael. The moment when the flames of Hell had risen, burning half of his feathers to crisps. He’d fallen, hard, his armor dented, his eyes unseeing. He was sure he was going to die, until her arms had wrapped around him, and they were together, one, brother and sister under the eyes of all who understand. 

(He didn’t see her die. He knows, with her blood on his hands, that he should have.)

He and Uriel, fighting side by side, their blades one. Uriel’s wings had been beautiful. Golden, like the sun. The war had hardened him, just like it hardened everyone.

According to Heaven, the replacement of laughter for pain was a price that must be paid. For the greater good. 

(Anael had stabbed Uriel, for him. Uriel had made his choice. Staring down at his body, Castiel had thought that the price that Heaven had asked was much too high.)

Balthazar had thrown himself upon a blade for Castiel. Castiel remembers this, clear as day. The day after Lucifer had been forced back into his cage, Balthazar had left Heaven. And Castiel had let him.

(Castiel’s blade had slid into Balthazar’s back easy as anything. Castiel had felt Balthazar’s Grace slip away, and didn’t think twice about the decision at the time. Now, it’s on a list of regrets which extends for miles, regrets forged in good intentions.)

Humans have war. But it does not last as long, and nowhere near as bitter. Demons and angels, two sides of the same coin, would fight and kill forever, in the name of a greater purpose. Humans cannot understand wars in the ways that angels fight them. 

(“We’re expected to kill,” Anael had said. “We’re expected to kill, and then we’re expected to feel nothing.”)

He does not feel nothing.