Title: Proclamation

Summary: And the angel Castiel proclaimed that Dean Winchester is saved.

AN: This story was written after episode 6.03. Who could ignore the "profound bond" comment? Certainly not I. My slash goggles were in their proper place and this, like everything else, was written accordingly. It doesn't have to be taken like that of course, but I find it rather hard to ignore. I would define it as not-slash if you squint, but my beta informs me that there is a difference between being objective (yeah, that would be her) and completely shameless (um, that would be me). Either way, enjoy. Oh, right, and a great thanks to my beta, Delu.

Fire swirled around him, twisting with the screams of the tormented as he plunged deeper into hell. He rushed past all of it with something that might have been called desperation in a human, but for the angel was only a stubborn determination to carry out the will of his Father. Through the blackened souls of the damned that stretched to a seemingly endless distance in front of him, the angel thought he could see the small spark of the righteous soul he sought.

As he drew closer, denizens of Hell rose up to meet him, to keep him from reaching the soul in time to save it, and he noticed that his brothers had fallen back, leaving him alone to face the wrath of Hell. This realization quickly fled as he met the demons, clawed hands tearing at his Grace in futile attempts to take it for themselves. The angel whirled away from their grasping hands, throwing his Grace behind the first swing of his holy sword.

How the battle with the demons continued, he did not know. He only knew that he drew nearer to the soul he was searching for. The angel ceased motion abruptly as the last of his enemies fell, staring with abject horror at the scene before him.

The soul that he was charged with saving, the soul that he was supposed to protect from this very outcome, slumped on the ground before him, the tortured and mangled soul of his latest victim at his feet. Blood coated his hands and dripped down his face. Smiling with pure malicious satisfaction, he made said victim scream in agony as he shoved a hand into one of its many open wounds.

The angel couldn't believe what he was seeing. He had failed. The righteous man had broken the first seal.

He approached the broken soul of the righteous man cautiously and called out to him, telling that he was to be raised, that he would be free from torment, that he was saved. The man looked up at the sound with no recognition of his own name, but the angel's words seemed to trigger something, because he started to back away from him in what appeared to be terror. Unsure of what to do, the angel extended a hand and latched on to the man's left shoulder. Only God could have seen what was coming next.

The soul in his grasp twisted away from the angel, screaming in agony, laying bare all of the reasons the righteous man felt that he deserved to stay in Hell, but the angel tightened his grip on the soul and refused to heed the man's self-recriminations, instead spreading his wings to take flight. As they ascended, however, the angel felt a strange sensation growing stronger, originating at the point where his Grace was gripping the soul. It felt… warm, and peaceful, like… Home, the angel thought with barely suppressed shock.

The sensation continued to travel up his arm, finally settling in his chest and then circulating to the rest of his body. His soul, the angel realized. He jerked his head over to where his hand was joined to the human's arm and was confounded by what he saw. The human's soul was swirling together with his Grace, binding them together in an irreversible manner.

The angel had no more time to contemplate this, however, and swung his head back around to face forward as they plunged through the uppermost boundary of Hell and into the field where the human's body was buried. As they burst from the ground, the pure creative energy of his Grace caused trees hundreds of feet tall to grow as far as the eye could see, while the concussive energy released by their exit from Hell nearly simultaneously knocked them down.

And the angel Castiel proclaimed that Dean Winchester is saved.