Dizzojay's Dean Dreams

Here's a little introspective Castiel for theymp, honorary Hunter Girl and dear friend.

THE RIGHTEOUS MAN

Rating: T
Genre: Friendship
Characters: Dean Winchester, Castiel
Warnings/Spoilers:  Vague spoilers for the end of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4.  Could be taken as mild Destiel, or could be taken as completely platonic friendship, depending on which way you squint ...
Word Count: 490
Diclaimer: Don't own!

Castiel's POV.

When my father first created mankind, he commanded us to bow down and adore them; they were his greatest creation, he said.

Many of my brothers disagreed. They could not understand why our father had sullied this Earth, his most magnificent creation, with these creatures. They were small, weak and utterly insignificant. They were flawed.

To command an angel to pay homage to these – insects - was an insult of the highest order. Our kind encapsulated all the purity of Heaven and the crushing might of goodness and virtue over evil. The celestial lumiscence of one angel could burn each and every one of these human specks to ash.

Many of my brothers rebelled.

I, however, did not; I wanted to be a good son. I had not always been so in the past, so I devoted my existence to protecting my father's creation. It wasn't my duty to like them, and I had no intention of doing so.

But that was before.

Before the day I stormed Hell to free 'the Righteous Man'. On that day I found a man broken in every way it is possible to be broken. Broken in body, broken in spirit, and most of all broken by what he had been forced to become.

Broken because of his sacrifice for one he loved.

At first, I saw in this only weakness. But now I know different.

Over the years I have watched that righteous man fight and bleed for those he loves, for those he barely knows, and those he has never met.

I have watched him endanger himself again and again, and I know that it is that very weakness that I first despised that makes him stronger than me. He risks pain and the destruction of his fragile human body with every hunt he undertakes, and yet he faces danger without pause, without complaint and without a care for his own welfare.

I watch him now as he sleeps. His bruised face is temporarily at rest; one bandaged arm cradled over broken ribs. The faint odour of sweat, of grime and gunsmoke still hangs over his exhausted body.

He is broken once again, but soon he will mend, and he will do it all over again.

I know now how wrong my brothers and I were. Humans are not small or weak or insignificant; and Dean Winchester is the best of his kind. He is a titan.

That day in Hell, it was my sworn duty to find and liberate the righteous man; I had no obligation to like him.

Nor was it my duty to love him.

xxxxx

end