#we&dm

Castiel is far from an expert on human behaviour though, so if the Winchesters insist such gathering is standard 'cop behaviour' necessary for their cover, he can get his hands a little dirty. It's just...unpleasant. He, as an angel, is far more accustomed to dealing with carnage of the metaphysical. That of the physical sort is... a lot slimier, he's finding. 

And staining, he thinks, mourning his once clean trench coat as its edges start absorbing the blood where he kneels. 

Swiftly capping said container and vanishing it into his coat, Castiel is quick to move on. 

Hoping to feel a lingering soul, rather than the admittedly more likely residue of an ascended or stolen one, he reaches out with his Grace only to be met with nothing. There's no sign of a soul anywhere in the blood splatter; even the body's remains, where the soul's touch lasts longest, are devoid of its echo. Castiel is perplexed—while he may have struggled to feel the soul properly earlier, needing far more time than usual to even find the crime scene, that's because it was too weak to pick up at such a distance and his companions were distracting, wasn't it?  

There shouldn't be any other reason why he, an angel of the Lord, would have difficulty tracking a mortal soul or its remnants. Even when devoured or stolen away, a soul's echo lingers on whatever it touches with no exceptions.

This seemingly normal body shouldn't be reading as empty mere hours after the murder. Not when he is so close to it, and looking so hard. Just once during this trip through Amity, Castiel would like things to work how they're supposed to.

The very town itself is strange, begetting caution the instant Dean's precious Impala crossed the boundary. Castiel had immediately done a precautionary sweep of the city, vanishing from the car and letting his Grace flow through the ground and homes as he explored the streets. He’d found nothing of particular interest during his search, aside from a weird number of men in white and a building bearing some sort of spaceship, but he did note an excessive straining of his abilities given the ease of his task upon his return to the impala.

Whatever the reason, the faith of God and His is fainter here.

But, again, not so faint that the soul of a child so brutally murdered should evade him so completely.

Regardless of what his Grace is telling him, Castiel knows the soul is there. He felt it, if intermittently, as they approached the school. No matter it's fragility, or what Dean speculates about the ghoul devouring it alongside most the victim's body, there should still be some sign of it and the soul being devoured is extremely unlikely. The soul, while innocent, was...off-putting...unappetizing...in a way that repelled his Grace. Castiel couldn't explain why—it didn't burn like the demonic, or harmonize like the angelic, energies he'd previously encountered influencing souls. It felt like something new all together, a hypothesis as exciting as it was worrisome to a being as old as he. 

It was a child's soul, that was for certain, and mortal in that it Died rather than Ended, but that same something kept Castiel from confidently claiming it as such. It had registered as a normal mortal's soul, looked and felt the part, but he couldn't shake the feeling he'd missed the full picture. Like there was a lingering of energy after his acknowledgment of the soul that didn't quite fit, as if some part of the soul wasn't being seen, escaping his Grace. Dean would liken it to discovering a peculiar 'aftertaste' in a once familiar food. Not that Castiel is in the business of eating souls. 

Either way, what he's attempting to rationalize is impossible; a soul incomplete, splintered so thoroughly it registers as different energies opposed to as a shattered whole, would not have felt as entirely intact as this one had in the glimpses Castiel caught of it previously. He also would have been able to properly separate the energies, and feel the soul’s pieces individually, without one remaining firming only in his metaphorical peripheral. 

Reaching out again, both physically now as well as with his Grace as if being closer yet may help, he closes his eyes to better focus on what he recalls of the soul from his earlier brief brushes with it. He still can't find it, but this time he registers a firm resistance in the space between him and where the soul surely rests.

Is that...a wall?

He gently probes the 'blockage', Grace sliding smoothly across the invisible surface. Akin to cool glass, whatever it is is perfectly smooth and contact brings with it an eerie chill. It surrounds not the corpse, but Castiel himself, beginning right where he, his true self rather than his physical incarnation, ends. It swells and shrinks with him when he flexes his true self, 'separating' him from outside energies but not at all restricting. 

Perhaps less of a constructed wall, and more a concentration of Nothing gravitating toward the Lord of Creation's Light? 

It does not ensnare, but isolates all the same.

Mentally branching out, he can't feel Dean's Wild Fire or Sam's Pending Tsunami either, despite their closeness. He can, however, register flickering souls loitering outside the school once his Grace seeps through the school's brickwork. 

The hallway, home to a presumably powerful Unknown, has suddenly become a dead zone for Grace. There's no way Castiel wouldn't have noticed if it was like this when they first arrived. 

The heart in his vessel's chest skips a beat, the hairs on the back of its neck standing on end. His borrowed body is confused, like Castiel, and has chosen to react as prey. A rarity, for angelic vessels protected by divinity. 

He chooses to prioritize his companions' safety over finding the missing soul or solving the hallway mystery, turning his full attention back to the nearby brothers to issue a warning—

Oh. So that's what's blocking me. 

Towering over Sam is something Castiel can only describe, in human terms, as Darkness. Not the Nothing he compared the void surrounding him to before, but something that may as well be for all his Grace can feel it.

Whatever it is, this Unknown he has now met, it fortunately doesn’t seem inherently malevolent. Not one of Hell's many horrors, or earth's own twisted mutations like the potential ghoul they're hunting. 

It's pure, innocent like a child yet Whole as the universe itself. It is Space, one of God's many dominions, yet It knows not of His control. It permeates the dimensional plane itself, yet exists outside of it even as It impossibly interacts with its inhabitants, the mortals beside It and Winchesters before It, on a physical level.

It Is, and It Isn't, not staying the same long enough for Castiel to get a stable reading on It. Him? 

Castiel won't pretend to know the being, but then, he doesn't need to. The being is telling him, much in the same way as Father would, much about Itself. Not through speech, concepts and truths crammed into clumsy, ill-fitting sounds that always fail to encompass the whole message, but through Knowledge. 

Simply by Knowing of It, Castiel is Learning. 

The being is a boy; young, male and a mortal of the human variety.   

Yet Castiel Knows the opposite too. 

The being simply Is; unmeasurable by time, whatever it wishes to be, and the furthest thing from mortal. 

Both are true, a certainty that grows the longer Castiel observes. 

Danny—Fenton—Phantom—Young—Male—Human—Ghost—Protector—Student—Son—Brother—Friend—Template—Dangerous—

—radiates outward, the being exuding Its essence for all to Know—

Amity—Home—Crowned—Space—Bridge—Death—Life—

As his Knowledge grows, Castiel puts together a complicated picture. Despite his status as one working under the Lord, accustomed to receiving Knowledge this way when the world was new, he is unable to properly recall the Knowledge being passed on when he tries to review it. He can get close, but Knowledge is still lost. Further simplifying the being into human words, English none the less, would even further water-down the understanding. 

The best Castiel could translate for his companions would have so much imperative nuance lost that there may as well be no information being passed on at all. There's no point in attempting translation of what he has Learned. Knowledge of It cannot be crammed into the boxes humans understand. Especially not when there is Knowledge even Ennochian has no translation for. Already, the Knowledge is diluting itself, slipping from his memory and leaving behind only vague renditions. King—Bridge—Other. The Knowledge too much for even angels to retain in completion.  

Dean and Sam can pester him all they like, but if it comes up, Castiel will not be explaining how he knows what he does about the child. 

What is it humans say? 

It's complicated? A long story?

Explaining would be a dreadfully complicated and tedious process. It wouldn't be a lie, and having them draw their own conclusions based off what they perceive is probably for the best. The being would likely prefer that, and Castiel would rather It be pleased than upset. 

Squinting, Castiel tries to focus on the physical half of the being: Danny. The human boy the being considers itself to be above all else. 

At first glance, he isn't anything special. Ratty sneakers, blue jeans, an oversized white tee, fair skin, black hair, blue eyes—

FEARCONFUSIONPAINRUNDANGERLOSSFEARPANICWHATWRONGWRONGWRONGDEATHFADINGPROTECTRUNGHOSTZONEPANICRUNDESOLATEWORSETHANTHEHOTDOGSHOPELESSLOSTWHYANGERDEFENDPANICBITTERINTRUDERMINEWRONGSCAREDRUNMONSTER—*

Castiel braces himself against the emotional onslaught—nothing like the neutral and calm aura from before, instead a direct and violent in-pour of negative emotion—wrapping himself tightly in his Grace and withdrawing his Sight in an effort to protect the body he inhabits. Castiel knows what happens to mortal bodies that lay eyes upon the Other, can already feel the permafrost beneath his skin and shattering of slumbering spirit. Danny may not be of God, but he is undeniably of Something...possibly even Danny Hisself. 

This reaction—am I his first sight of Divinity? The implications—

Is God aware of him? So like Himself, but so terribly young and lost? 

He isn't part of the Plan—

It hurts, where it hurts when Dean is sad, that Castiel would strike such depthless fear into a youngling. 

Was God like this once, young and terrified of the unknown despite the power within him begging to be used? To rend the world to ashes, or deliver unto it salvation, at the hands of a wielder fearful of what mere slivers of power they've seen? 

It is a blasphemous thought process, but not one he can stop. Not when the Being, Danny, reminds him of his 'friends' as much as he does of Father. 

The passionate emotions, spontaneous nature, and ability to exist in ignorance of the Plan, are all tell tale marks of 'humanity'.

Was the sharing of Itself, the projection of Its feelings, even intentional? Is It aware that It is screaming Its identity as something Foreign to Castiel, to God, for all who can listen to hear? 

Castiel turns himself further inward, grasping for a message from his Father and doing his best to keep his physical body disconnected, sheltered, from the war of wills. He's so caught up in his tasks, that he doesn't even notice that what he's battling is the being's residue, the boy long gone.

*Spaceless text: FEAR CONFUSION PAIN RUN DANGER LOSS FEAR PANIC WHAT WRONG WRONG WRONG DEATH FADING PROTECT RUN GHOST-ZONE PANIC RUN DESOLATE WORSE-THAN-THE-HOT-DOGS HOPELESS LOST WHY ANGER DEFEND PANIC BITTER INTRUDER MINE WRONG SCARED RUN MONSTER—