On A Lonely Street

[thursdays_angel]

These orders are wrong, and you know it.

The demons aren’t doing the hits. Something else is killing your soldiers.

Something is wrong up there. I mean, can you feel it?

Castiel can feel it, and it shakes him from the inside out.

They are in the middle of a war. Of the war. And now they may be facing enemies from the inside as well as the forces of Hell.

If they can’t trust their orders from Heaven, Castiel thinks, what can they possibly trust in? What recourse do they have?

At the moment, at least for himself, Castiel can think of only one. Someone who knows the chain but is no longer a part of it.

Whether or not calling on her will prove to be a wise thing to do will remain to be seen. But it’s all he knows to do.

Castiel stands on a deserted street under the light of a single lamp post. Not that she’ll need light to find him. He’d wager she’s not wandered far away since they first took Dean to that warehouse. Castiel takes a deep breath that he does not need and calls into the darkness.

“Anna? Anna! Anna, please.”

Comments

[hear_the_voices]

No, she doesn't need the light.

Still, its flickering does a nice job of heralding her arrival.

"What, no Peter Gabriel on a boombox held over your head?"

[thursdays_angel]

See? It's quite possible that this was a very bad idea.

Castiel knows he should probably not rise to the bait. And yet.

"....what?"

[hear_the_voices]

Oh, but the best ideas are possibly very bad ideas, aren't they?

Anna regards her Little Brother Who Could for a moment.

"What do you want, Castiel?"

[thursdays_angel]

What's the human saying? In for a penny, hung for a sheep?

That's not quite right, but either way it's spliced, it's the point Castiel has reached. Bringing Anna into this, any further than she already is, will either help or harm.

There is no neutrality in this situation.

"I am in need of your counsel," he says.

[hear_the_voices]

"My counsel?

"Is that so?"

He didn't seem all that impressed with it, the last few times she offered it.

"What happened to bring that on?

"Wait, let me guess.

"You gave her your heart, she gave you a pen?"

[thursdays_angel]

Castiel may gape slightly.

Briefly.

Just for a moment.

"This has nothing to do with Meg."

He resists the urge to add, And it's not even remotely like that.

[hear_the_voices]

Oh, but it's ever so interesting how quickly and often he makes things about that particular Canadian brain trapped in the body of a game show hostess, isn't it?

Anna's smile is very slow and a very neat response to the statement Castiel didn't actually add.

[thursdays_angel]

To stick out his tongue would only be too human. And juvenile. And to detract from important matters at hand.

So it's just heavily implied in the second or two before he launches directly into the current problem.

"Do you hear anything of the goings on in the Garrison? Are you privy to any sort of information?"

He does not know of any higher ranking angels who might be helping Anna. But then, when has he ever really known his sister?

[hear_the_voices]

"You all still have orders to try to kill me, right?

"I'm not exactly on anyone's Christmas card list."

[thursdays_angel]

"So far as I know," Castiel admits. "But we both know that there are limits to what I hear."

For all the special projects that have been coming his way lately, Castiel's rank hasn't advanced.

"Do you know anything about the murders of the other angels? The ones from our Garrison?"

[hear_the_voices]

"I thought you were asking for counsel, little brother.

"This sounds a lot more like you're asking for information."

[thursdays_angel]

"I can't do both?"

Since when has she been so one thing or the other?

[hear_the_voices]

Anna shrugs.

It's a fair point.

"Like I said, I don't exactly chat with our colleagues over coffee, Cas."

Which isn't to say that she doesn't hear things.

Just that, like the good little journalism student she used to be, she has learned to protect her sources.

[thursdays_angel]

"But you are aware of it?"

He'd be highly surprised if she wasn't.

A corner of his mouth quirks up in a humorless smile.

"I know there are some who consider you a prime suspect."

[hear_the_voices]

"Is that so?"

Interesting.

"I'm aware," Anna says, shortly.

"I take it Dean didn't get an answer of that demon that was all you hoped, then?

"Tell me, just how badly did you dull that particular blade?"

[thursdays_angel]

Castiel steadfastly ignores the third question.

"I think that they aren't being killed by demons."

Alastair had laughed outright at the notion.

"I think something may be wrong in the Garrison. And I don't know what to do."

"I'm considering disobedience," he adds after a moment.

He just has no idea who he's considering disobedience against at this point.

[hear_the_voices]

"Good."

[thursdays_angel]

"No. No, it is not good, at all."

An angel is obedience. Without that certainty, Castiel feels as if he has no solid ground under his feet.

Add to that a loss of trust in his orders, and he might as well be spinning through space.

"For the first time, I feel..."

It's difficult to even articulate. Even with all he's seen and done--even at the End of the Universe--he'd still been following orders after a fashion.

[hear_the_voices]

"It's going to get worse."

It's not gentle, but there is something like compassion in her eyes. Or at least not wholly unlike.

She takes two steps toward him.

"It's going to get much worse."

She's been there.

"Choosing your own course of action, even thinking about it, it's . . . terrifying."

[thursdays_angel]

That's not helping.

Oh, he has no doubt but that it's honest and accurate. That it will get worse. But it's really not helping Castiel's mental state.

"I don't know how to do this," he says, the lines of his face going rather tight.

"If I don't know who to trust, if I don't know if they are truly communicating God's will..."

"I don't know what to do. Please, tell me what to do."

After all, she's the only disobedient angel he knows.

[hear_the_voices]

"Like the old days?" Anna asks, and then shakes her head. "No."

He can't just replace the angelic high command with his rogue older sister.

"It doesn't work that way.

"I'm sorry, Castiel.

"But it's time to think for yourself.

"To trust yourself, your instincts, your emotions."

And maybe that is, technically speaking, telling him what to do.

Bit paradoxical, but what isn't, for the two of them?

And when it comes to specifics, well . . . it's not her place -- it's not anyone's place, to tell him.

[thursdays_angel]

In other words, do everything that thousands upon thousands of years of conditioning have always discouraged.

"What if I can't?"

He has plenty of doubt. And a fair portion of it is directed at himself at present.

[hear_the_voices]

"Then you have not learned the lessons that were set before you."

Anna regards him.

"The world is full of guys, Castiel. Be a man. Don't be a guy."

[thursdays_angel]

In spite of the fear and the doubt, a small smile tugs its way into existence, if only briefly.

"Will there ever come a day when you make sense?"

It's easier than focusing on the question of lessons.

It's frightening to think that he might not be as well schooled as he'd thought.

It's even more frightening to think that he's learned those lessons.

[hear_the_voices]

"Well, that is the question, now, isn't it?

"And I suppose it remains to be seen.

"Good luck, little brother."

And with that, Anna is gone.

[thursdays_angel]

Castiel takes a deep breath, blowing a cloud of fog into the cold night. He's about to take his leave of this place himself, when his gaze falls on something.

A water fountain with a slowly dripping faucet.

Castiel frowns. His mind goes back to the old warehouse where they had imprisoned Alastair.

How had Alastair escaped that devil's trap?

In the space of a breath, Castiel is gone.

He has a lot of answers to seek. He might as well start there.