The Year of Redemption

Chapter 27: Dark Side

Dean could tell when he wasn't going to like what he found on the other side of the bright white light. He could tell when he was entering one of Castiel's darker memories, one that he'd buried deep down and hardly ever drudged up.

For these memories, the light burned like fire.

And Dean didn't feel like he was falling through the vortex. He felt like he was swimming through it, drowning, struggling to surface for air. Except he didn't know where the air was. So he kept swimming, exhausted, suffocating, on and on for what seemed like ages, not even knowing if he was going in the right direction, until a hole would suddenly open up in front of him and suck him through.

These memories always started dark. It took Dean a couple of minutes to get his bearings in them. Almost every time, though, he wished he could go back to suffocating in the vortex – because that would have been easier than facing the memory. Dean didn't want to see the things he found there, but he had no choice.

In these memories, Dean experienced all of Castiel's thoughts and feelings too. He knew exactly why these were Castiel's darker memories, and as soon as he saw them, all he wanted to do was forget.

In one memory, Dean watched Castiel trick Anna. She had thought he was on her side. She trusted him. And she ended up in jail. Cas had sent angels to take her away. He had deceived her. And he hated it. He didn't understand why he was having so much trouble obeying orders lately. He didn't know why he felt so empty even when he had such a huge purpose assigned to him by Heaven. Dean collected a leg engraved with the word "Betrayal;" he turned it around in his hands, feeling guilty, feeling lost, feeling basically like crap.

An earlier memory showed Castiel and Dean trapping another angel, Raphael, in a ring of holy fire. They left him there. They left Castiel's brother, not knowing how he would escape, or even if he would escape. Cas walked away without thinking twice about it. How could he turn his back on his own family so easily? What was wrong with him? Castiel's mind filled with doubt. He didn't trust anyone anymore. He didn't even trust his father. But most of all, he didn't trust himself. Dean felt all this swirling around in the angel's mind. He reached down to pick up another leg that read "Betrayal" and brought it back to the cavern.

Then, Dean was in an abandoned warehouse. It was daylight, and the room was bright. Bright enough to see the expression of disbelief and distrust that came over an angel's face when Castiel stabbed her in the gut. Bright enough to see the angel's wings splayed across the concrete floor when Cas pulled his knife out and let her collapse. Bright enough to illuminate the pool of blood that quickly formed around the body. It was angel blood. It was the blood of his family. It might as well have been Castiel's own blood. And it was spilt because of a war Castiel had started. It was spilt by Castiel's own hand. He had turned into a killing machine. Castiel hated what he had become.

Cas was struggling to suppress the doubt, the pain, the fury, the guilt, the emotions all simmering deep down in the far-off parts of his mind and body. All the time, he felt them growing. He didn't know how much longer he would be able to control them. But he did know that this war was as good as over if he couldn't. He knew more of his brothers would die. He knew Earth would be gone. He knew how much of a twisted, paradoxical, Catch-22 situation it was. And he knew he was too deep in it to turn back now. Dean picked up an obsidian neck and read "Disloyalty" to himself out loud.

There was another warehouse. This one was dark and foreboding. Alastair was tied up in a devil's trap in the back room. Castiel remained outside the door. He listened to the screams coming from the room, and he knew exactly what was going on in there. He thought about what Dean must be doing behind that door, but he couldn't bring himself to watch. So he stayed outside, waiting, pacing, deliberating.