-- Castiel --
Gabe.
Tears were truly streaming down his face now, as he ran, Garth behind him, to find the other hunters who had accompanied them. He had to be okay. He'd get out of there alive, and in one piece. He couldn't lose his brother. He couldn't lose someone he could never replace.
If Gabriel never made it out of there, it would all be on him.
It's all my fault.
Castiel truly wished he'd never brought his family and his friends into this mess. He wished he'd gone alone.
"Hey, Castiel. There's no point crying about it now. What's done is done. Gabriel will be fine, I'm sure he'll make it out of there. What's important now is finding the others and making sure they're all okay, and that they've got rid of the other vampires. They'll probably need assistance, as there was four of them against seventeen vampires. We need to aid them before we go back to rescue Gabriel."
Castiel hated every word Garth said, but he knew he was right. He shook his shoulders, gripping his blade tighter, and carried on along the corridor. They were now in the part of the barn that Johnny and Gwen Campbell had been tasked with clearing- but they couldn't see either hunter anywhere.
"Where are they?" Castiel wondered aloud.
"I don't know. This is strange. They might be hurt. We need to find them." Garth replied- and at that moment, someone screamed. It wasn't too far from them, and it was a woman's scream- and the voice sounded familiar.
"Gwen." Garth realised. He set off running towards the source of the scream, Castiel on his heels. They arrived at another door, and without waiting to hear how many vampires there were in the room beyond, they burst through.
There was blood everywhere. Some of it belonged to the two headless vampires sprawled on the floor- but not all of it was theirs.
Crumpled in a heap on the floor, blood pouring from an open wound in his neck, was Johnny Campbell. Gwen was hunched over his body, holding his head in her hands, shaking him, as if he was only asleep and she was trying to wake him. She must have known it was useless. Johnny could not have survived a wound that deep, and a considerable loss of blood. But still she tried, she herself shaking with wracking sobs.
Excluding the two dead vampires on the floor, there were eight vampires left in the room- which meant that the other seven were fighting Rufus and Jo. They were advancing on Gwen- but Garth yelled something unintelligible at them, and they averted their attention from the dead hunter on the floor and its mourner. As the eight vampires closed in on Castiel and Garth, Castiel thought,
You sons of bitches. This is for my family.
Without waiting for them to reach him, Castiel ran forward, swinging his blade, not caring where it hit, and he didn't wait to see where the head fell, as he spun to face another vampire- but there was no vampire there to greet him. The seven vampires still alive in the room were still running, yes- but away from Castiel, not towards him. Before Castiel or Garth could do anything, they crashed through the door the two hunters had just entered through, and they were out of sight. Castiel made to follow them, but a hand gripping the blood-splattered trench coat he wore pulled him back.
"Not now, Castiel. Gwen needs our help. We need to get Johnny out of here." Garth said.
"But we're letting them get away! I can't let them get away!"
"Castiel. We'll find them again, I promise, but right now that's not our priority. Come on."
Garth knelt beside Gwen, murmuring something to her that Castiel couldn't hear, but was probably some reassuring nonsense. He felt guilty for thinking it, but right now he didn't care about helping the Campbells. All he wanted was to chase down the rest of those vampires and butcher them for what they did to his family.
And find Gabriel. He had to find his brother. He couldn't leave here without him. Chuck would never forgive him.
Garth helped Gwen stand up, and lead her towards the door, and Castiel took that as a cue to follow, carefully picked up Johnny's body in his arms, and carried him out. The literal dead weight in his arms was another reminder to him of his failures.
I did this. I killed Johnny.
When they emerged from the barn, the sun was on its way down the sky, turning into late afternoon, and- there were two figures up ahead that weren't vampires. Upon hearing the door shut behind Castiel, they turned around- Rufus and Jo.
Rufus limped towards them, carrying Jo in his arms, whose shirt was covered with blood.
"Jo?" Castiel's heart became a leaden weight in his chest.
"She's alive." Rufus assured them. "But she's severely injured. She needs to get to a hospital as soon as possible. I called Ellen, and she'll come to pick Jo up at the Shurley house in about half an hour- or as soon as she can get there. We had to run, leave the other vampires. We only managed to kill three."
"So there's still twelve vampires left." Castiel sighed, shifting Johnny's body in his arms. Rufus stared at Johnny, and Castiel, following his gaze, said in monotone, "He's dead. This is all my fault. I shouldn't have brought you guys into this."
"Hey kid, stop that. That's just how it is- the oldest rule of hunting- you can't save everyone. And these vampires aren't just your business. They refuse to step down, so we have to end them. That's a responsibility of all hunters."
With that, he turned his back and walked on, back to Chuck's truck, taking care not to jostle Jo. Johnny was heavy in Castiel's arms, and he tried not to show his discomfort as they slowly made their way back to where the truck was parked. It took them twice as long to walk back, and as they walked, the shadows of the trees around them bent and twisted, and either Castiel was hallucinating- or they seemed to reach out for him. Their thin, pointy fingers, and gnarled arms seemed to grab at him as he walked past, trying to drag him into their depths, to consume him, to punish him. Oh, he wanted to let them take him. He wanted to fade away into the shadows, and never have to face anyone again. He wanted to be nothingness.
---
Throughout the whole journey back, Castiel kept thinking of the body that was covered in a white canvas sheet in the back of the truck. The image was stuck in his mind with superglue and no matter how much he scrubbed at it, it wouldn't go away.
Did Heaven exist? Castiel wasn't sure he'd belong there anymore.
Castiel's chest heaved in a sob he tried to supress. Garth reached his hand out to lay it reassuringly on his shoulder, but Castiel shrugged it away, and turned to look out of the window so that nobody could see the tears running down his face.
Gabriel had driven the truck on the way there, but since he hadn't returned yet, Rufus had volunteered to drive. And when the Shurley home finally came back into view, it was too soon. Castiel wasn't ready to face his family again.
When the truck ground to a halt in the driveway, Garth got out from his side and helped Gwen down, bringing her inside the house, and Rufus went around the back of the truck to carry Johnny's body inside. Castiel stayed in the car for a few moments more- and then, mustering what shreds of strength he had left, he opened his door and stepped out. The front door was open, and somebody was walking towards him- but he couldn't see who it was through the tears blurring his vision. When Chuck wrapped his arms around his adopted son, and led him inside, Castiel couldn't stop himself as he began to properly cry.
They'd made it only a few steps into the kitchen when Michael said,
"Hey, where's Gabriel?"
Chuck stiffened, and Castiel extricated himself from his grip. He could only look at the floor as he said,
"He's gone."
"What do you mean, he's gone?" Michael demanded.
"I said, he's gone. The vampires took him. I don't know where he is, if he's even still alive. He could be dead- or worse. I don't know where he is and this is all my fault. He said he would catch up, but he hasn't."
"Gabriel is strong and brave, and intelligent. I know he'll get out of it. He'll come home soon." Amara tried to reassure Castiel- and he knew she was trying to reassure herself too. In the silence that followed her words, was the unspoken that nobody wanted to hear.
"Well. Gabriel will come home soon, I know it." Chuck spoke up, breaking the silence, trying to relieve the tension in the room that had rocketed. "We should hold a funeral for Johnny. Castiel, why don't you help Michael and Raphael build a pyre?"
Castiel followed his two older brothers in clockwork movements, not really paying attention to what he was doing, and went to and fro from their firewood pile carrying logs, handing them to his two older brothers, not speaking a word.
And when Ellen arrived to take Jo to hospital, she yelled at Jo for endangering herself and she yelled at Chuck for letting her go along, and she yelled at Rufus for not protecting her daughter, and she stormed from the house with her daughter cradled gently in her arms. She didn't yell at Castiel because he was nowhere to be seen.
He sat on the floor of his bedroom, his back to the door. He kept hearing his brother's footsteps walking down the corridor, and kept waiting to hear Gabriel call out to him to come out and join the family, and he could almost taste the cherry lollipop that his brother would have given him. And when someone finally did come down the corridor to fetch him for Johnny's funeral, he knew it wasn't Gabriel, but he wished with all his heart that it was.
The whole ceremony was very solemn. Each hunter gathered around the pyre, with Johnny's wrapped body atop it, and each hunter said a few words, none of which Castiel heard through the haze in his mind. Castiel was the last in the line, and when came his turn to speak, he found his tongue had been glued to the roof of his mouth.
I'm so, so sorry, Johnny. This is all my fault. Please forgive me. You didn't deserve this- you didn't deserve to die today.
It should've been me in your place.
The unspoken apologies and confession echoed through his head, but he could not bring himself to voice them, instead he stood with his hands folded in front of him, his mouth opening and closing with each breath like a fish out of water. He just couldn't speak.
His sister Hannah and his brother Balthazar came to stand on either side of him, and both wrapped their arms tight around him, while he stood staring at the pyre. The other hunters waited a few moments, and when it became clear that Castiel wouldn't say anything, Rufus handed a burning torch to Gwen, who slowly lowered it to Johnny's body, all the while her tears never ceasing.
"Goodbye Johnny." Castiel could barely hear Gwen's whisper as her kin's body was set alight.
---
Long after Rufus, Gwen and Garth had departed, the Shurleys sat together around the dining table, bare of plates and food. Just like Castiel's, it seemed everybody's appetites had vanished after what had happened today. The sun was rapidly setting, the ground outside washed with a fiery orange light.
And still, Gabriel hadn't returned.
Castiel was anything but still. His restless fingers tapped out whatever random rhythm came to mind, and his legs bounced, his feet tapping the floor.
"Will you please be still, Castiel?" Raphael demanded, clearly growing impatient with Castiel's constant movements.
Castiel let out a long sigh, and slumped down in his chair. "Please, Dad, just let me go after him. He can't have gone far. Please. It's my responsibility."
"No, Castiel. It's not just your responsibility anymore. He's my son. I must find him."
"He's my brother. And I endangered him and everyone else, so I bear the blame for the events of today, for Johnny's death, for Gabe's disappearance. I should go out and look for him. Everyone else needs you here, Dad. I can find the vampires and rescue Gabriel, or die trying."
"Castiel. Is that really what you think- that you're not needed?" Castiel didn't even need to nod, for Chuck to realise. "Why in God's name do you think I adopted you? You're my son, too. We're all family. We all need you- we all need each other, because each other's all we've got."