Chapter Text
(XIV). December 9
Castiel
It’s the first time he’s tended a bonfire that isn’t burning a body. He’s fascinated. Cas spent the first few hours of the party meeting or reacquainting himself with Sam and Dean’s friends. It’s humbling, how many lives they’ve touched. How deeply they are felt. There are hunters and friends in the bunker and up on the hill above it. There’s a clearing, and that’s where Donna made the fire.
At some point Cas dragged some logs over but so far has been the only one to remain by the fire’s side for more than a half hour or so. Everyone else wanders in and out. Cas likes watching the flames, though. It’s not quite the same sort of dancing movement that human souls do, but the flicker reminds of it all the same.
“So, officially boyfriends now, huh? Doesn’t seem like a strong enough word actually.” Claire slides in next to him. Cas can feel a strong source of love from her, it’s easy to see why Dean’s cherished her so much among his friends and family.
“No, it doesn’t.” Cas leans forward and tosses in another piece of firewood. “I don’t know if there is a word for what we are. What do you call two people who have fought and died for each other? Two people who crossed worlds together? Two souls who want to build a single life?”
Claire’s face hardens the way it does when she’s trying to mask something. Her love for Kaia speaks for itself, and the fact that she brought Kaia along today is a good sign. Castiel wants a life of love and safety and joy for Claire. Wants their bond to strengthen and deepen. He smiles. They have time.
“My parents used to do a firepit in the yard in the summers. Sometimes we’d make s’mores but usually we’d just sort of sit and watch. It’s soothing, you know?”
Cas smiles. “Yes. It reminds me of the early humans. They would gather around a large fire whenever they needed to express themselves as a collective group. To celebrate, to mourn, to strategize, or just to be. It was their first real mastery over nature, you know. They had tools, of course, and early language, but they weren’t alone in utilizing those things. It was fire, your mastery of fire, that let you all progress.”
Claire looks thoughtfully at the fire. “I think I’ve heard that before, better nutrition, more protection from predators, better brain development, gave us an evolutionary edge or whatever.”
“And that’s all true, but humans are…insatiable. Once you had mastery of fire, there was no more thought of limitations. Humans imagined everything, and you’ve done it all. You had ancestors who worshiped the Moon, and mere decades ago you claimed it for them.”
“So a small step with fire, then a giant leap to the moon?” Claire asks through her smile.
Castiel scrunches his face. “I think it was over for Michael, for Lucifer, even for Chuck once you picked up those wildfire embers. Because, yes, a small step to a giant leap. If the beasts of the forest can climb out to the grasslands and tame fire, what can’t you do?”
“I was there, actually,” a warm but nasally voice says, “when the first human gathered fire. It never occurred to me that you’d try to do that. It wasn’t until after you brought embers back to your caves that Dad grabbed Metatron and worked out the tablets, you know. And then, later, he wrote the names of the prophets on the angel’s eyelids. I think before the move with the fire, it was still just a little experiment. Even he wasn’t sure how it would go.”
Gabriel.
Many emotions move through Castiel at once. It feels very human.
Claire watches for a moment, then shifts in her seat. “Right…I’m gonna let you two catch up…go find Kaia.” She gives Castiel a quick hug. “It’s good to have you back.”
Cas’s smile relents as Claire walks away. He turns and holds his brother’s gaze for a long time.
“You asked him to save me.” Gabriel says it simply. Not with gratitude, or understanding, or love. Really, not even with curiosity. Just a statement of fact.
Cas turns back to the fire, watches it dance. “You sacrificed yourself for Dean. And Sam.”
They pass some time like that, sitting side by side at the fire. Cas can hear Dean’s laughter from across the clearing. He thinks he wants to move somewhere else with Dean. The bunker has been a measure of home and safety, but it’s fortified, it’s cold. They have to come up to the hill to see the stars. Cas wants to find a cabin like the one by the lake. A place where they can see the stars from their bed. He wants Dean to always have the stars. He smiles at the thought.
“I can feel them, you know,” Gabriel says after a while. “Lucifer, and Raphael, and Michael. Well, their essence anyway. It’s everywhere now, diffused, or something. It’s funny, what the kid did, it makes Earth feel more like heaven, doesn’t it?”
Jack took all the powers slumbering in the Empty and reintegrated their power, their essence back into the structure of reality. There were a few exceptions, like Gabriel. A few fallen friends that Jack resurrected, angels and demons alike. Jack felt those who had sacrificed in the battle against Chuck deserved a chance to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
“And I suppose heaven must feel a bit more like Earth, now, too.”
“Ain’t that something,” Gabriel sighs.
Cas throws more wood onto the fire, there’s something hypnotic about watching it burn, evidence of their movement forward through time.
“He didn’t really create souls, you know. I know he claimed he did, but I was there.” There’s pride in Gabriel’s voice, something sincere and real. “It really was just a happy accident. I mean, he created all the right conditions, I guess. He created life and self-awareness, but the soul was more than he could have done I think. A human soul is…”
“It’s perfect,” Castiel agrees.
“Jack said that my grace will, um, it’ll transform if I stay on Earth. I can go to heaven, keep my wings, keep my power, or I can slowly become–”
“Something even more,” Cas finishes.
Gabriel turns and looks at him. “Do you really believe that? Humans, souls? They’re better than us?”
“Of course I do. You do too, or you wouldn’t be here. But you’re scared?”
“Terrified,” Gabriel exhales. “I figure I got a few centuries, maybe? I’m fully powered now and I guess I got time before it dwindles, yeah? I’d appreciate it if you let me know how things go with you, because I must have, what? Five times, ten times as long?”
Cas laughs. “You and I both started our transformation long ago, Gabriel. There are others. Balthazar, Anna, Samandriel. But I imagine our brothers’ transformations will be slower than ours. It’s not an hourglass ticking down. It’s a process built of choices, of changes.”
“Well, regardless, little brother, I’m not going to waste whatever time I have left as a demi-god at a hunter bonfire. Just wanted to say thanks. And congrats on the marriage or whatever! Keep in touch, eh?”
“Of course.” Cas’s voice was warmer and more genuine than he’d have imagined. He was surprised to find he loved his brother. Loved him dearly. Loved everyone they’d saved from the Empty. Even creatures like Crowley, or Benny. Castiel was so full of love and gratitude it was almost a cliche.
Dean Winchester loves me.
The Righteous Man and the Broken Angel had traveled together on every road imaginable. They’d traversed heaven, hell, purgatory, the Empty. They’d wandered through alternate realities, through dream states, through twisted prisons of their own minds. Castiel had finally, finally confessed his feelings for Dean and had found that Dean was open to them, welcomed them, craved them, even.
There’s the sound of wings fluttering and then Gabriel is gone. Cas remains on his log, watching the fire burn. Eventually, Dean finds him. He sits next to Cas, and hooks his arm around Cas’s waist. “Gabriel find you?"
“Yes, I think he’s going to enjoy having a soul. Someday.”
“Well, I still think he’s a bag of dicks, but I guess a soul never really excluded that. Hell, look at me.”
Cas’s fingers move across Dean’s face. So beautiful. So full of light, and defiance, and that oh-so-human trait of hope. “I am.”
Cas plants a kiss on Dean’s temple and feels himself smile, wings quiver, eyes and flames blazing within.
Dean shivers next to him. “God, Cas, that smile, I swear. If I’da known that was something I could feel, something I could cause, I would have gotten over my own shit years ago. Come here.”
Dean leans in and kisses him again and Cas feels them shiver together. Grace and soul mirroring a spark. It’s overwhelming, what Castiel feels. He wonders if it’ll get worse the more his grace transforms into a soul. If he'll ever get used to the feeling.
He knows he still has much to learn about love. Much to learn about free will, about humanity, about how one soul can become so entwined with another that there is no way forward but together. He thought he’d be desperate for it. Unable to do anything else but want and consume. Like a starved man sitting down to a feast. But he’s not. It’s the wildest, boldest patience he’s ever known. This ability to just sit and see what their love will bring him, see what shape their future will take. Cas flutters his wings again, grants Dean another smile, and realizes that they have all of eternity to discover this road together.