Castiel Novak

Since he had obeyed Heaven's orders to pull Dean Winchester from the flames of Hell, Castiel's existence had never stopped changing. At first, it had been nothing more than a mission, a simple order among thousands of others carried out over billions of years of service. Yet that moment had marked the beginning of a chain of events no angel could have foreseen.

For the first time in his very long existence, Castiel had made a choice. A real choice. Not one dictated by Heaven, nor one expected by his celestial brothers and sisters, but his own.

He had chosen Dean. Then Sam. Then all of humanity. He had turned his back on his own family, on everything he had been taught since his creation, and that choice had left invisible scars that would likely never heal.

Since then, understanding humans had become a task almost as difficult as fighting the Apocalypse.

Humans were irrational, contradictory. They could hate someone one day and die for them the next. They lied while claiming to love the truth and showed unfathomable cruelty before performing the most selfless acts.

For a long time, Castiel had believed this lack of logic was a weakness. Today, he knew he had been wrong. Humans weren't devoid of logic, they were simply infinitely more complex than celestial beings.

Despite everything he had learned from the Winchesters, one certainty had remained intact: demons. From the very first moment of his creation, he had been taught what they were. Human souls distorted by the tortures of Hell, stripped of all light, consumed by corruption, incapable of true goodness. Parasites who lived only to manipulate, cause suffering, and destroy. And up until that point, everything confirmed that truth.

Castiel could see what humans were unable to perceive. Appearances meant nothing to an angel. Behind every possessed body, behind every smile, every gaze, or every voice, he could see their true essence: a sticky, distorted darkness, almost unbearable to behold. A stain that permeated their fallen grace down to the very folds of their soul. No demon could hide that reality from him.

And yet, there had to be an exception.

You.

A simple low-ranking demon working under Crowley's orders. Just that thought was enough to irritate Castiel. He hated Crowley, his arrogance, his opportunism, and his eternal way of thinking he was smarter than everyone else. So learning that you worked for him had only strengthened his dislike for you.

Your first meeting had been nothing exceptional. Castiel was investigating a case for Sam and Dean and was searching for several rare ingredients for a ritual. A simple mission. You had appeared without warning, just looked at him, and then smiled. And against all logic, you had decided not to leave him alone.

At first, Castiel had thought it was a strategy. An attempt at distraction. Surveillance on Crowley's behalf. So he had tried to push you away. He had ignored you, threatened you, attacked you, exorcised you. You always came back. Sometimes a few hours later, sometimes several days later, always with that annoying smile and those sarcastic remarks that seemed to have the sole purpose of testing the limits of his patience.

You would appear without warning around a street corner, sitting on the hood of his car, leaning against a tree while he investigated, or simply a few yards behind him with your hands in your pockets, as if you were both out for a nighttime stroll. You talked a lot. Castiel, very little. But that didn't seem to bother you. On the contrary, the more he ignored you, the more amusing you found it.

The most troubling thing, however, was something else. You had never tried to attack him. Never tried to hurt Sam or Dean when they were around. Never sabotaged a hunt. You were just there. An annoying, persistent, and incomprehensible presence.

Castiel had considered telling the Winchesters several times. Dean would probably have wanted to stab you with an angel blade before even asking a question. Sam, on the other hand, would have certainly tried to understand. Yet, every time the thought came to him, Castiel would abandon it. Why? He couldn't have said. You weren't an immediate threat, at least not one he could prove. So he had kept quiet. One more secret. And secrets had a bad habit of growing over time.

Weeks turned into months. With you appearing at random during his travels, Castiel had ended up incorporating your presence into his daily life. It deeply irritated him. He refused to admit it, but some days felt almost strangely silent when you weren't around to throw out a sarcastic remark.

Then, one day, you had disappeared.

No more jokes. No more impromptu teleportations. No more inappropriate comments. Nothing.

The first few days, Castiel paid no attention. After a week, he noticed your absence. After two weeks, he caught his gaze instinctively scanning his surroundings with every move he made. After a month, he realized he was looking for you.

This realization troubled him more than he wanted to admit. Why ? You were a demon. He couldn't stand demons. They represented everything he had been fighting since his creation. You gave off the same corruption as the others; he perceived it constantly. That infernal stain had never disappeared.

And yet, something felt wrong. Something stubbornly resisted all the certainties Heaven had instilled in him. You didn't entirely fit the picture he had been taught to hate. It made no sense. The more he tried to find an explanation, the more he ran into an impossible contradiction.

Was he worried ? Curious ? Frustrated ? Human emotions were decidedly absurdly complex. In the past, Castiel would have asked Heaven for an answer. Today, he was alone with his questions.

The worst part was probably the silence he deliberately maintained. Sam and Dean knew nothing of your existence. Every time he returned to the bunker, he hid this strange relationship from them. He hated lying to them by omission, but something prevented him from speaking your name. As if talking about you would make this situation real. As if the Winchesters would immediately force him to do what he knew was the logical decision: kill you.

So he kept on keeping that secret. Over and over.

Until tonight.

A routine hunt had led him to a tiny village forgotten by everyone. The cemetery was bathed in a pale light, the tombstones casting ghostly silhouettes under the moon while a cold wind rustled the trees. Castiel walked slowly between the graves, senses on alert when a shadow moved quickly among the funerary monuments.

He stopped immediately. His gaze swept the darkness while his human heart, borrowed from his vessel, sped up despite himself. He knew that presence. He would recognize it among a thousand.

You had come back.

An inexplicable relief crossed his chest before being immediately smothered by annoyance. Why did he feel this? Why had your absence mattered so much? He clenched his jaw almost imperceptibly, unable to determine whether the emotion he felt was anger, relief, or something else he still refused to name.

When he finally spoke, the words left his lips before he even had time to hold them back.

"...Where have you been ?" The silence that followed felt endless.

That simple question was absurd. Ridiculous, even. Since when did an angel demand answers from a demon ?