"When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost."

When those words are spoken, the moment they leave Esther's mouth, Castiel is in two places at once. He's in the present, functioning as best as he can, reacts accordingly because everything he is doing feels mechanic, but mentally, he is elsewhere.

Mentally, it is four years ago. It is September. Castiel is nothing more than light with a gentle touch that burns. He has no substance to him because he has yet to take a vessel. He will, more than likely, have to take one as a result of this mission. Jimmy's name means something to him, it has since the day the man was born, but he doesn't realize how important that body will be to him. Not yet at least. A devout man is a wondrous thing in a time of faithlessness and darkness, of looming pandemonium. It is a beacon of light.

It's early September and he's in Hell. It's not a fiery pit as most people perceive it, but it smells like the devil, a fact that will never change or be altered. It reeks of sulphur, the substance that courses through the veins of all the evil beings that dwell in the pit. Madness lurks beyond the brimstone gates of Hell. Everything down there is smoke and mirrors, and each turn taken by the angel is more dangerous than the last.

Castiel passes souls that beg to be restored to their bodies, sobbing and screaming that they'll never make a deal ever again, that they'll take this as a chance to re-embrace life and to start anew. To make amends and to right all their wrongs. Castiel listens to them, as sympathetic an ear as there ever was, but he keeps going. He has not been charged with their release, never will be because they are damned, and the man he is about to set free from his chains the most damned of them all.

It takes him some time to find Dean Winchester in the pit, but he does, and Castiel nearly weeps when he sees the atrocities committed by the hunter. The things he has seen and done are unspeakable, and were this upstairs, he'd be on trial for crimes against humanity. Down here, in this murky blackness, he's considered a war hero.

"No more, Dean Winchester," whispers Castiel as he places a hand on his upper arm. His grip is vice-like and unrelenting. Warmth unlike any other floods him at the feeling, and he doesn't know what to do or say for a brief moment. "You have a family who desperately misses you and a God who needs you. No more of this, Dean, no more."

Hazel eyes turn on him, dead and tired and cold. His face is splattered with blood that is not his own and he is coming undone at the seams, falling apart like a rag. Through the chopper so many times. It is a wonder there was anything left for the angel to grip. The warmth he had felt moments before filled him all over again, a strange sensation unlike any other he had experience before. It took him by surprise, mounting him and wrapping around him like he had been given a new set of wings that would take him places his current ones would never reach. He ran his fingers over Dean's face and they came away sticky and rancid. Dead hazel eyes continued to watch him, fascinated. He would not remember this.

"You're coming with me."

No, when Castiel first laid a hand on Dean Winchester in Hell, he was not lost.

When Castiel first laid a hand on him in Hell, he was found.

(And even now, on his knees and staring at Meg as she removes the blade from Esther's back, he realizes that if Dean had never been his assignment, he would still be as lost as a homeless child. And despite everything, Castiel is eternally grateful for his presence, now and always.)