“In the beginning,” Castiel tells Dean as the snap of crunching twigs sound beneath them, “there was the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep.” The angel does that, Dean discovers, from time to time- recite things to him, things that matter and things that sometimes don’t. But as the two tread through a wet and heavy mush of muddy soil, Dean understands. Dead stalks of groaning weeds impale the air about them- dead though they are, they creak and shiver at the touch. Dean pretends he does not hear them, or feel the icy breaths they let off. 

“Is that what this place is supposed to be like?” he asks, reaching for the end of Cas’ coat sleeve when the fallen angel begins to slip forwards. They hold each other in place, now. It does not bother either one of the two, they have grown past definitions or dissections of what stirs between them. They exist, now, as the arms of a compass do- relative, always conjoined; together, that is, even in distance. 

“Yes,” the angel affirms. “I imagine everything in this place is meant to parallel your world before the spirit of God hovered over its waters.” 

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