Title: Choices
Author: storm_rain
Pairings/Characters: Castiel, Gabriel
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 404
Warnings: dark themes,
Spoilers: For Season 7, 7x01 (Meet the New Boss), and Season 5, 5x19 (Hammer of the Gods).
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural and make no money from writing this story.
Summary: Gabriel stayed behind in Castiel's vessel when the Leviathan took over. He and Cas have a talk.
Notes: I'm still blank as I write this, not feeling too much; I'm crying a little because of Gabriel, but not Cas. I'm still numb to him. This is just a small coda that I needed to write.

"It's all about choices, Cas."

The angel (but is he really an angel anymore?) looks over at his brother. The archangel (yet not—who knows what they are here, trapped inside Castiel's vessel?) is laying on his back, looking up into the black nothingness that makes up Castiel's mind. Before, it had been crowded; millions upon millions of souls all crowded together, and the monsters, the Leviathan growling and curling over them all...

Castiel had seen other angels, too; Anna, Uriel, Zacariah, Rachel, Balthazar... They had all looked at him so...disappointedly, hatred on Zacariah's part, betrayal and hurt on Balthazar's face, simply sadness on Anna's and Uriel's. Gabriel had been quiet then, choosing only to observe. He had first appeared with a gaping hole in his chest from the angel blade that had killed him, but it had vanished eventually.

Castiel likewise had still had lesions and blood on his face when he appeared as the Leviathan appeared, but they are gone now.

"Choices?" Castiel repeats. The smaller man nods.

"Mm-hmm. Choices. You made the wrong ones."

A thread of irritation, then resignation and shame curl around Castiel, and he hangs his head. He hears a sigh, and suddenly Gabriel is there sitting next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

"Everyone makes mistakes, Cas," says Gabriel quietly. "Look where I am now. Dead."

"But you made the right choice, in the end," Castiel says softly.

"And so did you!" exclaims the archangel. "You went back to the Winchesters and agreed to let out the souls, you want to make it up to Dean—"

"And look where I am now," Castiel repeats his older brother's earlier words pointedly, and shifts away from his touch. Gabriel frowns, but draws back and lies back down. He's not sure what to do for his little brother; he could have gone back into Purgatory with most of the other souls, but he had sensed that his little brother had needed him, and had stayed. Now that he's here, he isn't sure where to go from here.

So he jolts a little when Castiel is suddenly on his back next him, wings out and reaching towards his own. They may or may not be real; the sensations either, but Gabriel manifests his own ethereal wings and lets them brush against his brothers'. A hand reaches out, and he takes that too.

Whatever comes next, they'll face it together, as brothers.

The End