Playground of a very volatile Mind

So, yes, I want to see Castiel all inked up and ready to go. Season 9, people! Who’s excited!? (Also, yes, Dean totally inked up Cas in the same place he has the handprint. Payback’s a bitch, baby!)

Echo - a Castiel fanfic/fanart

Spoilers (sort of) for season 8 finale.

Author/Artist note: So an idea came to me and I felt the need to draw it, and as a sort of explanation, I wrote a simple fic to go with it. Hope you like it!

Dean had told him about the future Castiel he had seen when Zachariah zapped him to that reality, but he never thought much about it. It felt too dramatic, too much of an exageration. Being human couldn’t possibly be that hard.

He had no idea.

He remembered vaguely how liquor had felt, but he had been an angel then. The first sip of the beer as a human had been heavenly. He started seeking more before he could remember this is exactly how it started, so he stopped, but the damage was done, somehow. Castiel felt human, and he craved to feel heavenly again. Alcohol made it happen, although it was a pale reflection.

When he hurt his hand in one of the hunts with the brothers, and Dean gave him some painkillers, the buzz was too good. He didn’t try to find drugs, but the ache and the impulse was there. He tried not to hurt himself after that. The temptation was too great.

He was trying hard not to become that Castiel, but the truth remain. Being human felt lacking. Feeling tired was awful. He couldn’t keep up with all the needs. Most of all, it wasn’t what he gained as a human, but what he lost as an angel. The power, the vastness.

Most of all, he missed the presence of his wings at his back. There was nothing there, and it made him crazy with need. A solid energy at his back that had been always there, always a part of himself, gone. Two limbs too short.

The ache to seek that heavenly feeling and his refusal to turn into that Castiel was starting to be too much, and when he felt like he was going to go insane, the answer came unexpectedly.

One day, after a close call with some demon confrontation, Dean realized they could posess Cas now. They went to get him inked.

The first pierce of the needle stung and he recoiled, but he held his ground.

And then it felt good. It felt more than good.

The constant buzz on the skin mixed with the pain that brought numbness, it felt as if it was himself that was vibrating with energy. When it was done, the most wonderful thing happen.

Even after days, when the pain was gone and the buzz was erased, there was still something there. He didn’t have to look at his chest to know the sigil was there, he could feel it. He knew it wasn’t the power of the magic that he could feel, but the ink. The knowledge and the memory of the pain and the buzz. He knew it was there, so he could feel it. The echo of something long gone.

It wasn’t long untill one day, he stole money from Dean’s jacket and went back.

He got the whole bone structure inked first. It was going to be just that. Just the bones, to make them feel like they where there. There was no power in him left, so the feathers didn’t belong yet.

It was later, when he started learning how to be human, step by step, that he started adding them.

One feather for each ache to drink. One feather for each time he reached out to the bottle of painkillers. One feather for each time he felt like weeping for a power gone.

And each time another one was added, he felt a tiny bit whole again.