While Dean winged fast and sure through the fires of the deep, Castiel traveled the road.
For Castiel, finding himself at the wheel of the Impala roused more anger than confusion. He could sense what Gabriel had wrought, the crude twining of human soul and angelic Grace. His brother, once trusted, once loved, had bound Castiel within the memories of another, a violation more invasive than any breach of mortal flesh.
The road rolled out dark and empty, a thin swath cut through fields of sepia grains. The Impala's vibrations shuddered up sweet and aching through the bones of his legs. The hum was a comfort, as familiar and dear as a mother's heartbeat, offering strength for the trial ahead.
Castiel shied back from the swell of mingled hope and fear. What Castiel felt, he felt wholly, his faith untempered by doubt, his despair monochrome gray. Dean felt in shadowed shades, emotions rising up flash bright and fading as quickly. All of it centered on the end of the journey, on Stanford and Sam, on finding the words he would need to bring his brother home.
Anger first, that this should be necessary, that two years of silence had been so easy for his brother to endure. Softened by pride, in Sammy for making himself anew, for becoming more than they were given. Bitterness that Sam dismissed Dean's work as a child's game of imitation, a mewing cry for approval instead of a choice made with eyes wide open.
And always that dreadful fear, that awful hope. Fear that his brother would refuse the call to arms. Fear that he would step without qualm back into the fold, would make Dean responsible for the unmaking of all that Sammy had built for himself.
Hope that he would find his brother happy, fulfilled by his life of books and law. Hope that he would find Sam unsatisfied, missing something deep inside himself he could not name. Missing Dean.
Beneath it all, that slick mess of want indistinguishable from need, unexpected faith. Not in Sam, not in his missing father. In the road, cracked asphalt and broken yellow lines, the same long stretch that waited outside every small town, that would wait for himself outside Stanford whether he left alone or with a brother. It belonged to him and he belonged to it, his fate tied to choices made at crossroads under the light of the autumn moon.
Curse you, Gabriel. Why show me this? I did not want to know.
Did not want to feel it, that unquestioning faith so like his own. The wind rushing through the Impala's open window was turbulent and chill, and when Dean turned his face to it, Castiel remembered joy.
Gabriel, given dominion over the powerful things of Heaven, the armies of Seraphim and Host. Castiel, given nomads, vagabonds, guardian to all who traveled lonely and lost. He had forgotten that, who he was, what he was meant to be. Long before the first seal was broken, Dean had been his charge, a fellow wanderer who knew the road for what it was, a living thing that loved its children.
Castiel's own days of roaming across vast distances had ended. He could feel his true self through the distance of time and Grace, could sense the ruin of wings that had borne him up over frothing seas. But the journey had not yet ended and there was still work to be done.
But for now, this precious little while, Castiel allowed himself to sink further into Dean and together they rambled on.
His vessel burned.
Lancing heat, melting skin and boiling blood, turning his mortal shell into a contained inferno. Castiel shivered with it, forcing open eyes crusted with secretions.
He sensed Dean before he saw him, the last tie between them stretching taunt and snapping with a tearing that made Castiel wince. The human slept, curled awkwardly on a straight backed chair, neck flopped over at an angle that would ensure stiffness on waking. The righteous man, drooling on his cheek like a child, fingers twitching as he moaned in lustful dreams.
"Our savior," Gabriel said, "We should turn ourselves over to Lucifer right now. I think you impressed him- maybe he'll be merciful and kill us off quick."
The archangel stood at the foot of the bed, posing in the dawn light streaming through the window. Castiel's Grace quaked at his presence, pulling back tight and bristled. Gabriel dropped the posturing, spreading his hands wide to show them as empty.
"Castiel...I'm not…I wouldn't…"
But he had, when last they met, trapping Castiel in darkness, punishing his sins with wounds and blows. Castiel had accepted it without protest, knowing it was far less than what he owed. He carried the weight of his slain brothers, bearing him down low to the earth. The discipline, little as it was, had been a comfort, an acknowledgment of his transgressions against his own.
Gabriel growled, a sound that resonated like the Impala's purr. He snapped his fingers when Dean started to stir, pushing the human down into deeper slumber. Castiel bowed his head, submitting to judgment, needing it, the scouring of the taint of stolen life. It could not be erased, but perhaps if Gabriel hit hard enough, long enough, it could be lessened enough for Castiel to recognize himself again.
He felt the first brush of Grace against his own and opened to it. Gabriel pulled him closer, away from his damaged vessel, surrounding him on every side with power green and humbling. 'I'm sorry,' Castiel said to him, 'For what I've taken, the ones we've lost. I'm so sorry.'
And then Gabriel did a terrible thing. Crueler by far than any lash of Grace, brutal in a way Castiel had forgotten he could be.
He forgave.
Castiel crumbled beneath it, ripped wide, hemorrhaging grief. And Gabriel caught him, whispered words of comfort and absolution. He shared memories of those he himself had cut down in battle, spoke their names with reverence and urged Castiel to do the same.
Aftiel. Gamidoi. Samyaza. Varcan.
On and on, their voices overlapping, making of the names a song. Remembering each for their beauty, honoring the enemy as they would lost friends.
Sachluph. Gadal. Charbiel. Baraqel.
An accounting, both of sins and courage, a burden shared if not lessened. When it was over Castiel pressed closer, grasping greedy at the comfort he had been so long without. Gabriel met him halfway and his love was bright, blinding, healing wounds Castiel had not realized he carried.
'Oh, Gabriel, I missed this. I missed you.'
Gabriel's laugh was honey, thick and golden, his Grace curled along Castiel's until they flowed together at the edges. 'My brother. My own.'
They stayed woven until Castiel weakened, the forgotten hurt of his wings flaring vicious and muddy. Gabriel pressed him back into his vessel and when Castiel gasped at the separation kissed his forehead, his own borrowed body's lips rasping dry against Novak's skin.
"You know what I have to do," he said against the fevered flesh.
Castiel looked over his vessel's left shoulder, seeing through dimensions to where his wing trailed open. What had been bone overlaid by strong muscles now so much useless meat, twitching fitfully with the impulses of ruined nerves. "Don't let Dean wake."
"Close your eyes."
When Castiel obeyed Gabriel pressed a gentle kiss against each lid, then one to his lips, deeper and probing. Physicality wasn't something Castiel had explored, but now he understood the comfort of touch, so different from the blending of Grace, so much more present. The lingering taste of Gabriel gave him something to focus on when the archangel withdrew.
He waited in the silence, full of sweet gratitude to his brother for making this a choice, for waiting until Castiel could feel it. He screamed when the blade came down and sliced through the remnants of his glory, but the pain was precious, the last sensation he would ever know from the wing that had carried him above the fields of Heaven.
Gabriel's lips were on his again, swallowing the last quivering note of his cry, licking away his tears. His right wing spread wide and it was so strange, to have that movement go unechoed. He grappled with the archangel, kissing back with frantic strength, wanting to climb up inside Gabriel's skin, into his Grace, anything to leave behind the ruin of his self.
And he saw that his journey with Dean had not been a punishment, not a lesson, but Gabriel's gift, given with Grace deep understanding of what flight meant to Castiel. It gentled him, to be known so well, so fully, to have his sacrifice respected.
Castiel pulled back, just far enough to look Gabriel in the eye, seeing behind the vessel to the Grace that had greeted him on the day of his birth. "I forgive you too," he said, catching the archangel's chin when he tried to turn from the words. "For all of it. Everything."
He pressed his lips to the high forehead, wound his Grace tight around his brother's, absorbed into himself the first shudder of Gabriel's sobs. 'If I be yours, then you be mine. My Gabriel, my brother, my own.'
He held his brother while Dean snored nearby and realized what had been made here would soon be sundered, one or both of them lost in the final stand against Lucifer. And he knew, quite suddenly, what he had to do.