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He’s standing on the roof, a lit cigarette between his fingers. The smoke swirls lazily in the air, creating fantastical patterns that look almost as beautiful as the stars to Gabriel. It fills his lungs, and he can feel every single atom, giving him much more of a rush than the nicotine would in human lungs. Gabriel hasn’t smoked for a long time, not since humans invented the first pipes, made of rough-hewn clay in places whose names and people have long since turned to dust. Gabriel remembers the way the smoke felt, the way his inexperience made his vessel cough even as his grace reacted curiously to the new feeling, smoke and light curling around one another in a frenzied dance. Bath then Gabriel had made the smoke taste like spun sugar and his favorite cardamom cakes.
Now though, he lets the natural acrid taste run through his grace like burnt rubber. He likes the bitterness of it, and the way it somehow carries all the grief and anger that he has to hide. It’s been slipping, of course. After Asmodeus, after the straw that broke the camel’s back, Gabriel just hasn’t been the same. There are cracks in his grace now, hairline fractures that can never be fused back together. Gabriel often wonders if the cigarette smoke can curl through them, like darkness and shadows curl past slivers of light. It’s not very long after this thought that he hears the rustle of wings, whose cadence are all too familiar to Gabriel.
“Castiel, shouldn’t you be down there with lover boy?” Gabriel asks. His voice is a sad imitation of his usual cadence. There’s no true humor behind it, none of the mocking tone that he had perfected throughout the years. He’s tired and old and feeling every second of the millennia he has been alive.
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” Castiel’s voice is as gravelly as ever, and for a moment Gabriel thinks that he would be far more suited to cigarettes, but the thought flies away as soon as it arrives.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, baby bro,” Gabriel lies. He takes another drag of the cigarette and smoke billows out of his mouth like a chimney.
“You know, Gabriel. Don’t play dumb with me. You’ve received His word again, haven’t you?” Castiel asks. His eyes are too discerning, and Gabriel hates it, hates the way his kind have splintered from one another yet remain so connected in certain ways. Of course, it’s all the will of his father, and at this point the angels have so little left of Him that Gabriel is sure that Castiel knows he received the Word purely because the two of them know each other so well. After all, Gabriel practically raised Castiel.
“I’ve sure as hell received something ,” Gabriel says, and his laugh is more bitter than the taste of nicotine. “It’s not really the Word though, not like it used to be. It’s more like a warning. Maybe Dad actually felt guilty enough to give me a little heads up,” Gabriel says. Ha, as if. Chuck knows his sons, knows all four of them enough to know that when Gabriel is serious about something, there’s no running away from it. Gabriel may be a coward, but he’s not a total bastard, and years of torture and debasement have taught him that running won’t do shit anymore. Besides, there’s too much to lose now. Gabriel has Sam, he has a support system for the first time since Michael decided to be too much of a goody two-shoes and push Lucifer off into the abyss instead of making his own damn choices.
When Gabriel thinks of his true brothers, he wishes he had a true heart of his own, just to feel it ache between his ribs, so that he doesn’t have to feel the agony of his grace calling out desperately for a family that has long since been destroyed. Gabriel has always been the soft one, though, no matter how many people he’s killed or how many layers of deceit and deception he has wrapped himself in. Now here he stands, unable to wash the stain of it all of of his grace, and all he can do is face it with the acceptance he should have had at the start of it all.
“Gabriel-” Castiel cuts himself off for a moment and closes his eyes, leaning against the eaves of the roof. He looks so much like a fledgling that Gabriel aches, and wants to take him into his arms and tell him that everything will be alright. It won’t though, and Castiel hasn’t been a fledgling in a long time.
“It will destroy Sam,” Castiel finally says, his voice quiet.
“Sam’s lived through worse. Besides, it’ll give him a chance to be with someone who deserves him,” Gabriel says, pushing aside images of a white picket fence and a house that is both ostentatious and practical at once. It’s a pipe dream and Gabriel knows it, no matter how desperately he wants it.
No matter how desperately he loves Sam, it’s not enough to keep him from this battle. Gabriel has been running too long, and if he turns back again he might just crumble like a house of cards.
“Well, far be it for me to change your mind if you’ve made your decision,” Castiel replies. His voice is icy now, almost venomous, and Gabriel laughs, though his vessel’s eyes shine with tears that he can never shed.
“Come on, Cas, don’t start a fight now, one of us could die tomorrow,” Gabriel said with a wink, then puts out his cigarette against the roof and pats Castiel’s shoulder firmly. To Gabriel’s credit, his hand only shakes a little.
Castiel calls out to him, but Gabriel is already gone. After all, if he’s going to have one last night on earth, he’s going to spend as much as he can with the person he cares about the most.