Lightkeeper /Destiel//Sabriel//Michifer

Engulfed

*tw: violence and mentions of blood*

Cas could still hear the echoes of a scream ringing in his ears.  The sound seemed to buzz as if he was hearing it through a far off speaker: broken and distorted.  Nothing around him felt real.  The nightmarish quality still lingered.

Even though John had gone.

Even though he'd left Gabriel to fall.

Even though he'd driven away.

"Cas!"

Taking a slow breath in, Cas forced himself to remain upright.  His body felt numbed, and yet he felt a nagging feeling to throw up or, alternately, to throw something. 

"Cas!"

He could hear someone calling - no - shouting for him. 

He did nothing. 

He still couldn't move, hell, he could barely see.  His eyes were swimming with tears and his whole head with dizziness.  And he was screaming.  No words would come out, but he was screaming.  With all his might, he would scream. 

Distantly, Cas was aware of something moving: hurtling towards him from somewhere beyond.  And then he did something completely unexpected.  Without thinking, without knowing what it was, without meaning to: he caught it.  Just like that. 

And suddenly everything seemed to snap back into focus.

He was stood in the shell of the Winchester's living room, some way from the shattered window, with Dean's torn shirt hanging from his body.  His right arm was outstretched in a perfectly horizontal line.  His hand was clamped tightly around the soft material of a cushion.

"Told you so."

The voice was strained and yet there was a sort of empty laugh to it. 

Gabriel was lying awkwardly on the floor, broken glass digging into his back and legs.  His left arm was soaked in crimson blood from the top of the elbow joint all the way down to his wrist.  His greyed face held a crumpled smile, but even that was incapable of banishing the utter terror from his dark eyes. 

"Cas?" 

A different voice this time.  The one he'd heard first.

"Cas?"  Elsa insisted.  "Can you help me lift him?"

The youngest Winchester was knelt beside Gabriel in the glass, pressing the black material of her hoodie firmly against the Novak's arm with one hand, whilst the other still lingered slightly in the air from tossing the cushion across the room. 

Gabriel had been right.  That did get Cas' attention.

Dropping the cushion, Cas felt a flood of adrenaline as he ran over to join the Winchester. 

He'd gone from feeling lost and useless to feeling - what was this feeling?  It didn't matter, he decided.  As long as he could help.  He might not have been trained for this, not like Dean or Sam or Elsa, but Gabriel was his brother and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to help him.

"We need a car," Cas ordered, sliding an arm under Gabriel's shoulder and readying to lift him.

"The truck's out back," Elsa remembered.  "You can drive, right?"

Cas nodded. 

Glancing at Gabriel's face, it was clear he was slipping from consciousness: either due to the pain or the loss of blood.