lt_indigo

lt_indigo

Gabriel was almost impressed, if he was honest. How Castiel was able to scowl at him through a blindfold he wasn’t sure, but his little brother was managing it just fine.

“It tastes of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.”

Impressed went out the window. “No, no, no!” To take the sting out of his exasperated tone, Gabriel stroked Castiel’s cheek gently. It wasn’t his fault; it really wasn’t. “You’re concentrating too much. Or not enough, maybe: one or the other. Just… let your vessel do the work for you. Food is awesome, but you need to stop tasting all of it. Just… try relaxing.”

“That is easier said than done,” Castiel said, his voice dry. “Perhaps you would prefer to be the one being force-fed unknown substances whilst being deprived of the majority of your senses?”

Gabriel stared at him for a moment. This definitely was not the same, meek little kid he remembered from home. How had the Winchesters done this to him so quickly?

“Are you sassing an archangel, Castiel?”

There was a barely perceptible twitch of Castiel’s forehead. Gabriel suspected he was raising his eyebrows.

“No,” the kid said carefully, “I am ‘sassing’ a pagan trickster god."

Gabriel couldn’t help himself – he laughed; something pure and joyous that he had not truly felt for a long time. And it had taken no effort on his part at all, only a little brother who had grown some balls over the last few thousand years.

“You can hardly blame me for being wary,” Castiel continued once Gabriel quietened. “I recall your penchant for pulling wings.”

“Oh, Cassie,” Gabriel breathed, regaining control of his vessel and regarding his brother with unexpected tenderness. “Not you. Never you.”

“Not after Sodom,” Castiel agreed, his voice distant, pained by the memory.

Gabriel took his hand and pressed a kiss to Castiel’s forehead gently. “No, not after that. You were too broken by it. I’m so sorry: I should never have taken you.”

Castiel reached out and echoed Gabriel’s earlier, tender action, running soft fingers over Gabriel’s cheek. “I believe I understand why you did,” he said. “You were not at fault. Now, I believe we were in the middle of an experiment?”

Gabriel slid the blindfold from Castiel’s eyes, unbinding the senses that had been muted by the embroidered sigils on it. As Castiel blinked, Gabriel folded himself into Castiel’s lap and hugged his brother tightly.

“Forget the experiment,” he said, burying his head in Castiel’s neck. “It was vinegar anyway; it would have been a nasty shock if you’d actually tasted it properly. I should never have taken you to Sodom, Cassie: I knew you were too sensitive. I nearly ruined humanity for you.”

Castiel, once his initial surprise wore off, reciprocated, pulling Gabriel tightly to his chest. “But you did not,” he said softly. “My love for them has not waned, and I have grown since then. Neither of us is the same as we were when we left Heaven.”

There was a pause, a silence in which Gabriel wondered how his baby brother had ended up so much wiser than him; than any of their brothers. The seraphs had been right; Castiel had always been a bit different as angels went, but Gabriel had never thought of him as ‘wrong’ like they did: the kid was like him, that’s all, but a far better, far more selfless creature than Gabriel would ever be.

“We are both here, now, because of the same reason we were chosen to go there then,” Castiel said gently. “We see the best humanity has to offer, and wish to protect it.”

“Hmm.”

Damn, the kid was perceptive: that was exactly the reason Gabriel had chosen Castiel. Had there been a single person worth saving in that city, Castiel would have found and rescued them. He had tried so, so hard to find the ten pure souls they needed to save the rest, and had wept bitterly when they had returned to Heaven. And now look at him: sitting here and comforting Gabriel over something they had done millennia ago.

“I forgave you long ago, brother,” Castiel said, pulling on Gabriel’s shoulders so that they could look each other in the eye. “Perhaps you should do the same, and forgive yourself.”

The intensity in those blue eyes was hard to ignore, and Gabriel found himself compelled to nod in compliance as if he were the lower ranked of the two of them. “I’ll try, brother,” he said, finding his voice shakier than he would like. “In the meantime…” He picked up a square of chocolate from the selection of things he had been planning to feed to Castiel. “… try this.”

Obediently, Castiel took the chocolate in his mouth and closed his eyes in concentration. “It… OH!”