Exile's End
There is something to be said about a grateful woman with loose morals and tight-fitting jeans. However, Cas just couldn't put what that thing was into words as he looked over to the young girl sleeping beside him. She couldn't have been more than nineteen years old, and if this were a perfect world, he knew she'd be off at college somewhere, with a minimum wage job, or married to some high school lover, living a much better life than this. She wouldn't be here, that's for sure. She wouldn't be giving her body up to some hunter who was just doing his job.
But this wasn't a perfect world – far from it. Perfection had never existed, he knew. Not even in Heaven. But now this planet was further from perfection than it had ever been ever since the Winchesters' final death.
He had prayed for years for his Father to send them back as he had so many times before. He had even tried to make a deal at a crossroads or two. But Chuck had told him that their part of the story was done.
And no demon wanted to make that deal with an angel, leastways not Castiel, who had always been so loyal to the Winchesters and to Heaven.
He was given the option to come home, to take his seat in his Father's house with his brothers, who had, all but one, finally come home to live in relative peace and harmony.
It was his own decision to say no. He loved people too much, even after the last men who made living truly worthwhile had gone home, and he vowed to continue their work, for the sake of humanity. That was the least he could do after all that had been done for him.
Beside him, the girl stirred, rolling over onto her side, putting her back to him and going immediately back to sleep. He was glad that she was comfortable now, for when he had found her, she had been crying, trembling in a corner with a knife in her hands. She had put up a good fight but she was obviously no match for a demon. So he did what he knew to do. He stepped in front of her – seemingly out of nowhere – and he took it on for her. It was gone in under a minute, and its vessel lay bloody and hollow on the concrete floor in front of them.
"Oh, my God," she had murmured, and he almost laughed. "Who are you?"
"A hunter," he had said simply.
"Yeah, me, too – well, sorta – but what kind of hunter can pop out of nowhere and do…that?"
She had looked horrified as she pointed at the discarded vessel lying crumpled on the floor. He shrugged.
"I've been doing this a long time."
"What's your name?"
"Castiel." It was a common enough name now, he no longer had to hide it. As the legend of the Winchesters and their angel-companion grew and the business gained more demand, it was almost a tradition among the hunter community to name your children after the great heroes.
"My name's Mary. Let me buy you a drink to say thanks and then you can tell me how you learned to do that."
He couldn't refuse. He didn't want to be rude, so he accepted. After a few beers and a little quiet conversation back at his motel room, he didn't really have to tell her much of anything anyway.
He sat up now, running a hand through his hair. It was down to his shoulders now. Dean would have told him he needed to cut it. Maybe that's why he let it grow out in the first place, so he could imagine Dean telling him to cut it off. So he could imagine Dean telling him anything, really. If he could just imagine his friend's voice and the things he might say, that would be enough to keep him going just a little longer. It reminded him of Sam, too. Sam Winchester, the man who saved hundreds of people hundreds of times but who never thought himself worth saving, though he did that, too, hundreds of times; Sam Winchester, who fought long and hard his whole life, who only wanted to be normal and who never really got that, but who always had hope and dedication to helping people.
Cas exhaled deeply, closing his eyes, trying to push the memory away for just a minute as he got out of bed, careful not to wake the sleeping girl beside him. He dressed in silence, and he grabbed his things, throwing the duffel bag which had once belonged to Dean over one shoulder and carrying his trench coat in his hand. He didn't wear it anymore, but he always had it with him, to remember, to feel at ease. With his free hand, he fished his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled a small wad of cash out to place on the nightstand. It wasn't much, but it was all he could spare. Maybe it could buy her a hot meal or a ride out of town. He didn't know. He didn't care. He just wanted to help.
Father, please watch over this girl, he prayed as he let his hand touch her shoulder one last time, and he headed out the door.
With no set destination, he dropped into the driver's seat of the old '67 Chevy Impala, and he tossed his things into the backseat. He would do what he always did, drive until the road ended or he got a call. For the last hundred years or so, that's what he's done, and it's what he'll continue to do.
He stopped for gas at the edge of town where he knew just a few blocks over were the dusty remains of an old safe house. He parked by the street and got out just to walk through, to pray, and to pay homage to his fallen brothers and sisters. He was sure it would have looked pretty suspicious had anyone seen him go in, a big guy with long, slightly greasy hair and dark clothing going into a condemned building. But like the hunts, this was something he had to do
In the place where the kitchen used to be, he found a small altar of sorts on the counter, littered with candles and jewelry, keys and coins, and weathered photographs and notes, all from hunters who came, as he did, to honor the ones who had died. He pulled a wrinkled Ziploc from his pocket and from it he brought out a faded square of cloth from one of Sam's shirts and a few inches of cassette tape. Led Zeppelin, one of Dean's favorites, and since it no longer played, he knew Dean wouldn't mind. He also left an old Post-it note with some of Bobby's handwriting on it and a beer bottle cap from Harvelle's. It was a pitiful offering, an unworthy bit of rubbish memorabilia, he thought, but his friends would think it more than enough.
He took a moment of silence before heading out the door again and down the crumbling cement driveway.
"Cassie, really," a voice said behind him and to his right, and he turned around to see his brother Gabriel leant against a tree just outside the house. "Leaving trinkets on some hunters' shrine again? Thought you didn't believe in all that."
"It's more about the memory than the offering," Cas said.
"Right."
Castiel narrowed his eyes at him. "Your vessel…" he started to say.
"I know," Gabriel sighed, and he pushed himself off the tree with his foot. "What can I say? I like this one. It's comfortable." He looked Cas over, and he added, "You still have the same one, too. So why the judgement, little bro?"
"That's not what I meant," Castiel replied, and he continued walking back to the Impala. "I meant the new look."
"What about it?" Gabriel asked, stroking his beard, a smug grin on his face.
"Long hair, beard," Cas smirked, glancing over his shoulder. "You look like Jesus. Well, the Western interpretation of him anyway. What does he think of it?"
Gabriel laughed. He had to jog a few paces to catch back up to Cas.
"Cassie, again, you're one to talk," Gabriel said. "Oh, Jack says hey, by the way. He misses you."
"How have you been?" Cas asked him casually, ignoring that last part; he didn't want to think about how much he missed that boy, too.
"Can't complain," Gabriel said with a shrug. "Heaven's a blast. You should stop by sometime."
"Who knows, when this is all over, I might," Cas said. "What's it like now that Dad's back?"
"Great," Gabriel nodded, his hands in his pocket as he walked alongside his brother. "Only problem I have with it is now that I've moved back in, you seem to get laid more down here than I do."
"That so?" Cas chuckled.
"Yeah, a lot of the chicks upstairs aren't as keen on that as they are down here," he said. "Atmosphere's a little different, I guess."
"Hm." Cas pushed his hair back out of his face with one hand.
"Hey, one question."
"Sure."
"You ever get used to 'em saying Dad's name when you –"
"Yeah, no, that's still weird," Cas said with a disgust-tinged laugh.
"Still weird," Gabe nodded in agreement. "Thought so."
"Why are you here?" Castiel asked, stopping on the driver's side of the car and looking over it at his brother. "It can't be to talk about the commonalities of the female orgasm."
"Can't I just be here to see you?" he asked, his face falling.
"You have a message. Don't try to lie to me; I can sense there is more to your visit than this," Cas said.
Gabriel rolled his eyes and straightened up. "Alright, fine. I do."
Castiel opened his car door. "Make it quick then."
"Cas –" he started to protest.
"Listen, brother, I don't have time for this."
"No, you listen, dipshit," Gabriel said, and in an instant he was standing on the same side of the car as Cas, looking up at him quite seriously. "Don't 'I don't have time for this' me. You've chosen exile, so I think you've got plenty of time."
"Gabriel," Cas said darkly, narrowing his eyes again as he looked down at his older brother.
"Cas," Gabriel countered, smiling again. "Please. No more arguments. I just want to talk to you." Castiel backed off, closing the door and leaning against it with crossed arms. "Good. Um, Dad just wanted me to ask you one more time if you would like to come back home. He wants you to know that the door is always open, and that your seat will always be waiting for you when you decide to come home."
"My job isn't done here," Castiel said with a sigh.
"Yes, it is," Gabriel said quietly. "It ended when the Winchesters died. A hundred and fourteen years ago, man. You should have come home a long time ago."
Cas stood up straight, letting his hands fall to his sides. "If my job is done, then why is it still Hell on Earth down here? Why is it only getting worse by the day?"
"Dad wanted me to talk to you about that, too," Gabriel said. "He says you can choose to stay here if you want, but that it will only continue to get worse until you finally let go."
"That isn't fair," Castiel said. "My job is to keep people safe, to make the world a better place for them, to love them. That means my place is here. How can our Father keep putting them in danger like this just to make me want to come back home?"
"Look at the people he's doing it to," Gabe said. "Preachers, widows, children, hunters. All good people, Cassie – all people who He doesn't want to suffer here anymore; all people He wants to come home, just like he wants you to come home."
Cas made a quiet but disgruntled noise, and just as he was about to respond, his phone started to ring in his back pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. It was someone out in what used to be West Texas.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait," Gabe said with a laugh, raising his hand to stop Cas from answering. "One sec. Before you answer that, where did you find that relic?"
"Relic?" Cas asked, raising an eyebrow.
"That's gotta be a what, seventh generation iPhone?" he laughed, taking it and looking it over. "Shouldn't this thing be in a museum somewhere?"
It was still ringing in his hands.
"Eighth," Cas corrected, taking it back. "And it belonged to Dean Winchester. I'm not just going to give it away to some collector." He sighed exasperatedly, closing his eyes briefly. "Just…let me get this and then you can continue your speech if you want."
"Fine," Gabriel said, giving in. He leaned back on the Impala and pretended to groom his fingernails as he waited.
"Hello," Cas said quietly, sounding so professional it almost made Gabriel laugh aloud. "Yes, this is he. Who am I speaking to? Alright, where are you? – An exact address, please, if you can. Right. Thanks. Be there as soon as I can. Might be a few hours. Can you wait that long? Alright, try to hang in there. Bye." He hung up and shoved the phone back into his pocket. "Get in. You can finish talking on the way."
"Wait," Gabriel said. "Who said I was going with you on this little dog and pony show?"
Cas shrugged, opening the door.
"You can't just expect me to hitch my wagon to yours every freakin' time you get a call and I happen to be there," he muttered. Though he pouted and acted as though it were a huge inconvenience, he still snapped his fingers to put himself in the passenger seat. "You know, I don't know why you don't just zap yourself there. It sure would save a lot of time compared to this clunker."
"Taking Baby," Cas said, pausing after calling the car by Dean's name for it; it had been so long since he used that name, "keeps the memory alive. Also keeps the feeling within the job. If I stopped taking her, then it wouldn't mean as much and I might forget why I'm still here."
"Yeah, but how much grace are you using to keep her up and running?"
Castiel didn't answer, but slammed his door and cranked the car.
Three hours passed and they were still not even halfway to where they needed to be. They had ridden in almost complete silence which was only interrupted by Gabriel's impatient sighs and restless fidgeting. Cas turned the radio on to see if there was any chance of catching a signal from one of the two dozen radio stations still in business in the U.S., but he had no luck, so he shut it off again. He pulled out a flask – one of Dean's – and took a long swig from it before passing it to Gabriel.
"Jesus Christ, man," Gabriel said, taking it from him.
"He isn't here," Cas joked, his face remaining serious as ever. He cut a glance over to his brother, the slightest bit of mischief in his blue eyes. "Unless you're referring to yourself as such now?"
"No, Cas, this," Gabriel said, unamused, holding the flask up.
"What about it?"
"How do you think Jimmy Novak would feel about how you're treating his body?"
"Do not talk to me about how I treat my vessel, brother."
Gabriel rolled his window down and dumped the contents of the flask out onto the road. Then he tossed the flask into the backseat.
"Hey!" Cas shouted.
"Nope. This is an intervention, Castiel, and a long overdue one," Gabe said. "Castiel, you aren't taking care of your vessel. You are running Jimmy into the ground, and if he were still in there, I don't think he would be thanking you for what you're doing to his body."
"I don't want to talk to you about this," Cas said defiantly.
"I get that you're depressed," Gabriel said, earning a scoff and an eye-roll from his younger brother. "You lost your two best friends. You lost everyone who you risked everything to be here with and to save. I get it. I lost a lot, too.
"Don't talk to me about loss. You –"
"No, shut up because you need to hear this," Gabriel interrupted. "If you really miss them that bad, don't just sit here crying and moping and drinking and screwing and doing everything short of killing yourself. Let it go. Come home and you can see them all again. They're happy now, and don't you think they'd want you to be happy with them?"
Castiel pulled the car over and threw it into park on the side of the road. He looked at Gabriel, thinking out his response before he said anything.
"Memory, I know," Gabriel said. "Memory, memory, memory. 'Someone needs to keep their memory alive! Someone needs to tell their story!' Cas, they are the biggest heroes the Western Hemisphere has ever seen. Not just among hunters, but among the rest of the population as well. Everyone knows their names, and generations to come will still tell their stories. Hell, at least half of all hunters' kids are named Sam or Dean. There's at least a hundred Castiels out there, too. Maybe a score of Jos, Ellens, Ashes, Charlies, Rufuses, Kevins, Bobbies, Jacks, and Gabriels, too. I've even met a Balthazar and two Crowleys – how bizarre is that? My point is, you don't have to carry that on your shoulders for all eternity. People will remember them without you."
Castiel looked down at his lap. He sighed. "I know. I just…"
"You're worried," Gabriel said softly. "I get that, Cassie. It's alright. Everything'll be okay down here. The world will continue on as it always has. Hell, might even get a little better once Mr. Angel Grace leaves and takes all that weight with him. I promise. They'll be okay."
"And what if Heaven isn't what I remember?"
"Oh, it definitely isn't," Gabe said. "I'll admit that. But it's still pretty damn great. And we're all there. Now that Dad's home, he brought us all back, and we've all settled our differences."
"Really?"
"Well, Lucifer hasn't come home, you know," Gabe laughed. "So if you're dying to see him, you might be a little disappointed."
Cas shook his head. "I've done so much wrong. No matter how much right I do, I don't think I'll ever deserve Heaven's forgiveness, brother."
"I felt the same way," Gabriel said. "But you remember the story about the Prodigal Son? It's true, Cas. It's all true."
A small smile played at the corners of Castiel's lips, and soon faded away. "Alright. Let's just work this case at least."
"Then you'll come home?"
He nodded. "Then I'll come home."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I cannot take full credit for this story. It is loosely based on the Tumblr post:
"What if. . .
"When the Winchesters finally get to rest, in heaven, Castiel is still exiled?
"Left to wander the world forever, without his family. And as the years pass a legend grows within the Hunter community.
At first, they thought it was just a lone hunter who kept to himself. But he never ages, never sleeps, always drinks.
"He appears the same; dark clothes, dark glasses, leather & plaid. The rumble of the impala he drives is the sound dying hunters pray for.
"And pray to him they do.
"They pray to this Patron Saint of Hunters. This Angel of solitude and tears. To come when they call. To heal their wounds and banish the evil that befell them.
"Sometimes he will visit the haunts of Hunters, roadhouses and safehouses. Leaving small gifts in payment, weapons, talismans, and lore.
"He rarely speaks, and when he does, he tells the stories of his family, long gone.
"His price is always the same.
"To speak their names. To tell their stories. To offer their thanks and prayer; to Sam & Dean; to Mary, John, Bobby, Jo, Ellen, Charlie, Jody, Claire . . . and many more.
"So that the prayer will reach them where he cannot.
"So they know he is safe, he goes on.
"That he will protect their kin, their hunters. That he will make sure no one forgets their names & their sacrifices."
I do not know whose post this is, as I found it on Pinterest and the URL had been cut out. If this is your post, credit for inspiration for this story goes to you. Thank you so much. To the rest of you, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Please feel free to let me know what you think, good or bad. If it is well-received, I may consider continuing it to show Cas and Gabe's hunt, as well as their return to Heaven, if that's something you guys would like to read. Thank you again.