aesc: (castiel)
aesc ([personal profile] aesc) wrote2009-01-12 10:04 am
Entry tags:

.fic/art: Castiel wallpaper (1 + variants); Dialogus angelorum (Castiel, Uriel) PG

So apparently, as I told [profile] smilla02 last night, I really really like SPN's Castiel a whole lot. I'm not sure why, maybe because SPN angels would totally smite the inspirational angel literature section in WalMart, or maybe because, as Eric Close and David Hewlett demonstrate, I am a hopeless sucker for men with pretty, pretty blue eyes. *is sad*

Anyway, I spent some of yesterday and part of last night hopped up on cold medicine and parts of SPN S4. Here is what came of it:

[art] Castiel
A wallpaper (1024.768), with textless and textful variants, as well as a b&w set because, well, it seems like if you have a guy in a trenchcoat, you need to be thinking in greyscale. The text in the second version is from an 11th century poem by Yishaq ben Mar-Saul. Clicking on the thumbnails will take you straight to the large version.*







*If you have a widescreen computer and want something that fits your screen resolution, I still have the .psd files and can change the image size up to about 1200-1300px wide.

Credits: screencap from [personal profile] oxoniensis; stock and brushes by [personal profile] elli, [profile] blimey_icons, [profile] discolore (that's me!), [profile] sanami276, and others.


[fic] Dialogus angelorum (Castiel, Uriel G) ~1,000
Just a tiny bit of Castiel character study, because I like him a lot but still need to figure him out. Takes place at some point after 4.10.


Dialogus angelorum

"You," Uriel says in the voice he saves for pronouncing doom upon the sinful, "have been thinking again, Castiel."

"I suppose I have." There is, he thinks, no denying it. Looking at Uriel in the corner of his vision, Castiel sees a pillar of flame, slowly revolving and, even to an angel, beautiful and terrible, and violent against the peace of a warm afternoon.

Across the flagstones, children play in the wide marble bowl of a fountain. Above them, fat infant angels – Castiel smiles to himself, angels, really, come now – pour water out of vessels shaped like fish, and dolphins spout water from the holes on the tops of their heads, and a stone girl with seaweed in her hair towers over angels and dolphins alike. Jets of water rise from the three scallop shells in her tiara. The copper used to work her eyes and gild the angels' tiny, useless wings has corroded away to green.

What angels – even imaginary, inaccurate ones – would have to do with a sea nymph and dolphins, Castiel has no idea. The children, unbothered by this difficulty, shriek and splash while their parents take pictures. Pigeons patrol the edges of the courtyard, looking for scraps.

"Pride whispered in Lucifer's ear," Uriel says. Like Castiel, he watches the children in the fountain, only with irritation and dissatisfaction and the messiness of it all, water and mud shining on the stones and the air thick with laughter. Castiel fights the urge to get up and walk over to the fountain, to cup water in his hand, as much for the silky slide of water as for the chance to confound Uriel into silence. "Pride whispered," Uriel says again, "and Lucifer fell."

"You say this as though I don't know what happened." Castiel leans back against the bench, tilts his head back and his eyes up to the autumn sun, still hot in Florida. When he allows himself to feel, the world rushes in on him all at once: the hard slats of wood against his back, the sun on his neck and his shuttered eyes, the air cool on his face but hot under his jacket and suit, the scratch of the fabric, the pressure and pulse of human life and creation swirling around.

When Castiel opens his eyes, it's to Uriel glowering at him in silent disapproval.

"Lately, ever since you brought Dean Winchester up from the pit, you have been acting as though you don't." Uriel shifts, an ominously dark shape and a dangerously brilliant one both at once.

He, Uriel, had stood guard over the eastern side of Eden and guarded divine knowledge from humanity and then the earth-roaming demons with his fiery sword. His hand has wrought destruction upon the earth and turned the cities of nations to dust and the prideful to nothing at all.

He's one of the Four, the elect, the archangels, one who has seen the face of God.

And his orders, so far as Castiel can work them out, had been to obey him, him, Castiel, and Castiel's orders had been to draw Dean Winchester up from Hell. That, he supposes, has earned him some measure of respect from Uriel, who has never before been down to the depths. But if Uriel had known what Castiel had seen there, in the desperate, age-long minutes he'd spent looking for Dean Winchester's tortured, torturing form, and what Castiel had thought once he'd had Dean up and in his body, that respect would flicker and vanish like a town under Uriel's sword.

My Father's creations, all of them, Castiel thinks, to remind himself. A little girl climbs clumsily over the lip of the fountain and slips on the stones. Blood blooms on scraped-raw knees and she screams, almost as overpowering as an angel's voice, until her mother rushes up to console her. Next to him, Uriel sighs impatiently. Even the ones in the pit, the ones that have forgotten their humanity... Those too are God's children.

"Are we," Uriel rumbles, "going to sit here staring all day?"

"You can, if you want," Castiel tells him. Uriel grunts irritably. "I'm going to talk to Dean Winchester... alone." The stress he places on the last word gets Uriel's back up, has him turning with a fierce glare and words that should put Castiel in his place. "He hates me a bit less than you, I think; if we want to persuade him to anything, you're not the one to do it."

Ever since Anna he's become more difficult, more evasive, and is harder to pin down when Castiel needs him closest. That Ruby and Azazael have had as difficult a time with Sam does not comfort him much.

"We shouldn't have to 'persuade' him." Uriel gets to his feet, and his shadow falls long across the stones; Castiel half-expects to see wings rising from Uriel's back, and maybe the sword at his hip. "I could place a compulsion on him. You could." You should, is what Uriel doesn't say.

"True obedience is born of free choice and free will," Castiel says, mouth twisting around the ashy taste of the words. How much choice do we have, really? How much will? The question rides uncomfortably new against an infinity of faith, of joy in the Lord's service. "And true obedience is freedom."

"It seems that I should be reminding you of that," Uriel says, gifting him with a last disdainful look, and disappears almost with the words.

He can, Castiel knows, do what Uriel did and vanish, and manifest again at Dean's side. Only the slight effort of a thought would do that, even wrapped in a human body as he is. And, what's more, he should go, right now, time being precious. He almost laughs at that - and then does laugh, surprised by the newness of humor and laughter - because, in former days he'd had eons and eons and eons.

Castiel doesn't vanish, doesn't find his wings to fly again.

He stands and turns in the direction of the Bonefish Motel, and walks, walks to feel the odd, uncertain pleasure of concrete under leather soles.

-e-

[identity profile] thunder-nari.livejournal.com 2009-01-12 04:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Nice! Great interaction between these two, their dynamic and voices are perfect. :)

[identity profile] aesc.livejournal.com 2009-01-12 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you kindly! I have to confess I do love Castiel, but I kind of like Uriel too, even though we're really not supposed to ;)