"Oh, Mr Sandman…" he sings, swaggering down the dock, hands in pockets, his footsteps one twisted in front of the other, clicking surely against the thick wooden slats that make up its length. Castiel, at the end, is sitting with his long coat spread out behind him like a blanket, the breeze moving his hair, eyes turned towards the water that stretches out in front of them, a sheer-glass plateau of endless, darkest blue. "So?" he says, the grin evident in his voice. "Is he the cutest you've ever seen?"
"Gabriel." Castiel says darkly, but he doesn't move. Gabriel knows well enough that your younger siblings always seem much, much smaller than they truly are, but even knowing that, here Castiel looks like a sparrow, tossed away, his wings folded around his shoulders, a gesture Gabriel remembers from their short time together in Castiel's childhood. Castiel has always been - different. He was the only brother who did things like this; pulled his wings around himself protectively, watched the humans for days at a time, searched for warmth or comfort before he was told, firmly, no. He evendreams, so say the rumors, and Gabriel's mouth twists at the thought. He goes all the way to the end of the dock and throws himself down, making it jump, and Castiel looks at him in horror. Gabriel grins back.
"Wow." he laughs. "You are so far gone, little brother. Visiting his dreams? When he's not even here?"
Castiel shuffles uncomfortably, hands clasped together, his wings pressed flat to his arms, their flight feathers trailing on the dock. He is staring at his shoes, still shiny after all this time, wet from where Castiel has dipped them in the water. The water sluices off immediately, spreads out into thin, webbed marks and then drips slowly off the ends of his soles like it was never there in the first place. "I like it here." he says calmly, though the embarrassment in his voice is clear. "It is often far more peaceful in Dean's head than in anyone else's."
"Weird." Gabriel says, the only thing he can think of, following Castiel's eyeline off the dock and into the distance, where the thin fringe of a forest lies, green and still, just on the edge of a water. To his left, a fishing boat creaks below the dock, presumably Dean's.
He's fond of his little brother, though 'fond' in their family often doesn't match the human equivalent. He and all his brothers and sisters have had their share of skirmishes, and he doesn't feel bad about sending little Cassie off to get whaled on so that he could deal with the Winchesters - but he remembers standing with Castiel on the edge of another endless ocean, back when mud soup was the closest thing to human, and he remembers, even now, the wonder in Castiel's eyes when he saw those creatures for the first time. Gabriel holds no such fascination with humanity; he has learned them, he has lived with them, and he knows that they are worth protecting, but he has never loved them like Castiel has. Not truly. To an extent, it's mostly because they're too much fun to mess with. Castiel never had much of a sense of humor.
"He'll be dead, soon." Castiel says contemplatively, not looking at Gabriel, his words firm. "I won't be able to come here any more." His wings flex and ruffle, catching the air on purpose, tilting in the soft wind, duller than when Gabriel last saw them, but bigger, too.
Gabriel feels a strange, sad twinge to hear him say it. "Guess so. You don't think he can get around it?"
Castiel turns those wide, sad eyes on him and Gabriel almost laughs at how forlorn he looks, though he thinks maybe that would be a little bit cruel. "He's the Righteous Man." is all he says by way of reply, and Gabriel shrugs.
"True that. Can't fight the Big Plan."
"Apparently not." Castiel breathes out, more an affectation picked up from his human companions than a necessity. "Gabriel, why are you here?"
Now it's Gabriel's turn to become uncomfortable. To tell the truth, he doesn't really know; Castiel is much younger than him, much lower down in the ranks, not even an archangel; he's small fry, too weak, by comparison, for most of the other angels in the garrison to even know his name. But, all the same, Gabriel has missed him. He laughs. "I heard you called Raphael a little bitch."
To his surprise, Castiel chuckles, too. "That may have been foolish of me."
"Own it, little bro." he touches Castiel's shoulder, going for brotherly camaraderie, but only succeeds in making them both feel awkward. He withdraws his hand quickly. "That took some guts."
"It was necessary. That's all."
Gabriel hums his appreciation, all the same. Raphael had needed taking down a couple of pegs for millennia, and little Castiel having done it would have been a huge wound to his ego. He's almost sorry he left the garrison, if only because he'll miss the look on Raphael's face. He smiles, tapping his hands on his knees restlessly. "Oh, Cassie." He says, endeared to his little brother, at least for the moment; still the same blue-eyed son of a bitch who always looked like butter wouldn't melt. "You've changed." and that was true, too. Castiel looked at him and frowned, his brows drawing together.
"I know." and then he looked up suddenly, across the lake, and Gabriel followed his eyes. "He's fallen asleep." Castiel says, and nods at where the shape of Dean Winchester is rowing out, leisurely, his broad shoulders unconcerned by the weight of the boat, or of the water, pulling through the blue, fast, sending ripples across its surface so long that they dip and splash at the bottom of the dock.
"He doesn't know you're here?" Gabriel asks him, surprised, and Castiel shakes his head."Why do you bother?"
"I maintain the dream. Sometimes. I feel that he needs-" Castiel's voice grows small and distant, "Peace. On occasion. As do I."
Gabriel watches him row out onto the lake. The Righteous Man, the human with whom Castiel has thrown so much of his lot that he barely even realizes it. It's hard for him to tell if Castiel believes more in God right now than he does in Dean fucking Winchester, the self-loathing, painfully human, pissy asshole Gabriel has definitely not come to love.
But his brother is a different story; his wings lift, uncurling from around his body, so big that they might blot out the sun, were Castiel not invisible to the dreamer in this moment. They are nothing compared to Gabriel's, fly's wings by comparison, tiny and frail, but he spreads them, leisurely, against the sky, and with his hands in his lap, watches Dean like there is nothing more important in the world than this man and his small taste of peace. And for all Castiel's words, his apparent lack of faith, there isworship on his features, riding high on his face, blazing as bright as anything that Gabriel has ever seen before.