Okay, I promise to comment every time I love something about this fic, but these two paragraphs are so much heartbreaking perfection:
Jimmy dies on a Thursday. His body is intact, stitched perfectly together with Castiel's omnipotent grace, but his spirit has been ebbing for months now, subjected to every shift and skirmish in the turmoil of souls stuffed into his meat suit, and a man can only endure so much. A year ago, Castiel might have released him deliberately in an attempt to spare him further suffering. Castiel, a year ago, was wholly love, enough steadfast power in him to help avert the apocalypse. That Castiel would not have clung to Jimmy any longer than he had to, not if he had felt his energy failing. Jimmy has paid his dues over and over, after all; enough to warrant the highest place in the heavenly kingdom. Jimmy is a good man, and he deserves to be released.
As it happens, Castiel does not release him willingly, because he is, for an aching three-month span, no longer Castiel. Instead, he is buoyed up on the energy of thousands of souls, a twisted parody of God growing stronger on their light. Jimmy must have been in agony from the moment it began, but the idea of relinquishing even one single soul is anathema to this Castiel, half-crazed with the rush of it, strung out like an addict. It is Dean, in the end, who defuses him; Dean who talks him down, always Dean, as it always has been. When Castiel throws back his head to vomit out the life-force of a million nameless things, he feels relief, and that part, too, is Dean's doing.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-10-03 04:55 pm (UTC)Jimmy dies on a Thursday. His body is intact, stitched perfectly together with Castiel's omnipotent grace, but his spirit has been ebbing for months now, subjected to every shift and skirmish in the turmoil of souls stuffed into his meat suit, and a man can only endure so much. A year ago, Castiel might have released him deliberately in an attempt to spare him further suffering. Castiel, a year ago, was wholly love, enough steadfast power in him to help avert the apocalypse. That Castiel would not have clung to Jimmy any longer than he had to, not if he had felt his energy failing. Jimmy has paid his dues over and over, after all; enough to warrant the highest place in the heavenly kingdom. Jimmy is a good man, and he deserves to be released.
As it happens, Castiel does not release him willingly, because he is, for an aching three-month span, no longer Castiel. Instead, he is buoyed up on the energy of thousands of souls, a twisted parody of God growing stronger on their light. Jimmy must have been in agony from the moment it began, but the idea of relinquishing even one single soul is anathema to this Castiel, half-crazed with the rush of it, strung out like an addict. It is Dean, in the end, who defuses him; Dean who talks him down, always Dean, as it always has been. When Castiel throws back his head to vomit out the life-force of a million nameless things, he feels relief, and that part, too, is Dean's doing.
*swoons*