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Castiel lands flat on his back in the Mojave Desert, the sky above him fading from ruddy periwinkle to the indigo tones of twilight. For a moment he can do nothing but shake on the ground, racked by the force of the banishing sigil; his spine contorts of its own volition and he gasps soundlessly, fingers scrabbling in the sand. It fades in a moment, though molecules that make up his body still tremble in the wake of the last few dissipating motes of power.
Sam, he thinks, horrified. Part of his mind churns furiously, planning, strategizing, cataloguing every detail of the past sixty seconds: the prim voice, the woman's blonde ponytail and tailored clothes, the gun clasped in her right hand. But the other part of him knows that it's pointless—whatever is playing out in the Bunker right now will be long over by the time he can make his way back to Kansas. He's angel enough to know where he is—angel enough to taste and identify the balance of quartz and feldspar in the dust coating his lips, angel enough to smell the unique tang of amphibole in the sand, angel enough to determine the direction and distance of his displacement from the position of the sinking sun—but not enough to spread wings and fly. Not enough to blink back to the Bunker and help Sam, who might be captured by now, or injured, or—or—
Useless. He's useless.
The first few stars are beginning to peep out, small diamonds in the deepening gloom of the sky. Dean Winchester had died to save the sun, but night came anyway. And would come again. Night after night, day after day, a world still turning despite Dean's absence. Castiel feels his heart contract, a painful reminder that he's more human, more knitted into the flesh and fabric of his vessel, than any celestial being ought to be. He can still feel the warm solidity of Dean in his arms, still remember how Dean had smelled in those last moments before he marched off to die—leather and smoke, holy water and gunpowder. The remembrance is a sharp and aching thing, but still he wants to curl up inside it, wants to lose himself indefinitely in the last memory he has of Dean. But part of the memory is an order, insistent and earnest, threaded down deep into his bones and mind by Dean's rough voice. Sam. Look out for him. He wants to close his eyes and rest—he's so tired—but Dean's words are sleepless, prowling around inside his head, a request that Castiel can't ignore, an unspoken passing of the torch that Castiel can't disregard. Take care of Sam.
Naomi had called him disobedient, but Castiel knows the real truth—knows that he'd merely traded the will of Heaven for the will of one man. Given up the deity who'd later turned out to be a lie anyway, sworn his oaths to someone utterly human and utterly flawed, and yet holier for all that. He'd fallen for many reasons and yet none of them had been more powerful than because Dean Winchester had asked him to. And he'd kept falling, down through the years, gladly, all for the will of that one man.
He hates Dean for it, suddenly, hates Dean for commanding him even beyond life. I could go with you, Castiel had said, curling his hands into fists to keep from pleading. He'd wanted it to be over. Broken, expendable, unable to do anything but hurt the world further no matter what he tried to sacrifice, he'd wanted it to end. Nothing had been enough, not his body nor his grace nor his choice, but he still had his life and he'd used that as his last offering. Ignored the god leaning against the window of the Impala and made his offertory to the one standing before him, instead.
But Dean had never accepted sacrifices from anyone but himself, and so Castiel had been left standing alone with Sam in the cemetery, the two of them silent, reeling from the loss, surrounded by people who were nothing to them compared to the man who had just been whisked away.
There's warm wind in his face, sand in his hair, a clump of sagebrush under his left palm. The stars are cold and uncaring. It's too much, suddenly—all of it continuing on, emptily. A world whose creator is dead, a world devoid of Dean, a world where Castiel can't even protect the last living person that he cares for. He's angry and afraid and alone and he can't do anything right, and it's too much. "Lucifer," he whispers, before he knows what he's doing. And then, louder, "Lucifer," and then before he can stop himself he's shouting, roaring it to the blank heavens.
"LUCIFER," he shouts, and feels something inside of him cracking and shattering. Why does it matter? Why does anything matter anymore? "LUCIFER, COME DOWN HERE, COME THE FUCK DOWN HERE. I'M RIGHT HERE. YOU WANT ME? YOU WANT A VESSEL? COME AND GET IT! I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. YES. YES, YES, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
He screams himself raw, calls the Devil every foul name in the book, swears with words that taste strange on his tongue and yet blessedly familiar because they're all words that Dean used first, and still there's no Lucifer. No searing rush of light and wind tunneling down from the sky to overwhelm him, no bright torrent of archangel's grace to crush and bury him in the depths of his own vessel, no excuse for slumping in the back of his mind and letting someone else take up the fight.
His voice breaks in the middle of a curse and he finally has to stop, squeezing his eyes shut and heaving in a ragged breath that he's no longer sure he doesn't need. The anger drains out of him as suddenly as it came, and shame floods in to take its place. What is he doing? What is he saying? What the fuck, Cas, he imagines Dean saying, every syllable taut with scorn.
I didn't mean it, Castiel thinks, and he isn't sure if that's a lie or not, but he tries to make it true. He puts his hand up, finds that his face is wet to the touch. Dean, I'm sorry. He wonders when he became so weak. When his capacity for self-pity overwhelmed his sense of duty, of loyalty. As it is doing now. He tries to shake it off, clenches his hands in the sand and forces down the ugly thing that had made him call out to the Devil. Sam is in trouble, Sam is his friend, he owes loyalty to Sam even aside from Dean's last wish.
He can feel the lure of oblivion still, the siren song that urges rest and peace and nothing and Lucifer, that tells him to shut his eyes, shut it all out, let his vessel turn to stone, to quartz and feldspar and then to sand in the arid Mojave. But the angels were right about at least one thing—he's always chosen the Winchesters. They were the first choice he ever made, the first exercise of the free will that he'd later twist into wrong after wrong, always well-meaning, always wrong.
Castiel sits up. The sand is rapidly losing the day's heat and turning as cold as the sky; he can feel it beginning to chill his legs through the fabric of his trousers. Grains of it are falling from his hair, into the collar of his shirt. He lets the sand run through his fingers and tries to push away the aching emptiness, the gap where Dean should be. He sets his jaw in thought, forces himself to play through the scenarios. Sam may be dead—something clenches in the base of Castiel's chest—but he may also very likely be alive. Castiel can pick up the trail at the Bunker, help Sam if he's injured, find him if he's been taken. Sam is smart, quick-witted, strong-willed. A survivor, Castiel thinks, reassuring himself, though he remembers the hard, deadened look in Sam's eyes as they'd driven back to the Bunker and feels a twinge of doubt.
A flash of light catches his eye and he turns his head to see the headlights of a car, far in the distance, carving a bright line through the darkened silhouettes of the low-lying dunes. A road.
Another memory resurfaces: Dean in the Impala, telling him that he was the best friend the Winchesters had ever had. Castiel feels the corner of his mouth twisting in something that's a smile or a grimace, he can't tell which. He's quite sure that in terms of total harm done, he's the worst friend the Winchesters have ever had. And yet their trust remains. It's a gift he doesn't deserve, but it's there, holding him together, tugging him onward. It lingers longer than the warmth of the sun, insistent like the starlight, like Dean's voice in his head. Castiel is weak and he's failed more times than he should be able to count (except he's angel enough that he can and does count them, repeatedly) but despite his best efforts he still has his body and his life. He gets to his feet, slowly, feeling his grace settle into his vessel, so newly reclaimed as his own. Sand rains down from his clothes, pattering to the desert floor.
He thinks to himself that in the long line of bad choices he's made, the endless array of poor decisions and false steps, it's the first choice he made which is the one he's never regretted.
Castiel sets his feet in the direction of the road, and walks.