Chapter Text
“How long are you gonna be gone?”
Dean hates the note of worry in Sam’s voice. It makes him sound too much like himself when they were kids, when Dean would go hunting with Dad and Sam would get stuck in a motel room by himself for way, way too long.
Even through the tinny connection, Dean can tell his little brother hasn’t stopped worrying in the twelve hours since Dean took off without a word to anybody.
“I’m not running, Sammy,” he promises, rolling his weight on the balls of his feet as if getting ready to do just that.
He isn’t running though, not by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, Dean is doing whatever the opposite of running is. Which he supposes would mean he’s technically the one doing the chasing now...
Huh.
“I’ll be home in a few days,” he tells Sam firmly. “Do me a favor though, will you -- have Jack get a hold of Amara?”
“What -- why? Dean, seriously, man, what are you doing? This better not be some kamikazee mis-”
“I’m not suicidal, Sam. Unclench.”
Dean leans back into rough brick, kicking one boot up to prop against the wall of the hoodoo shop behind him. Sweat trickles down the line of his throat, nowhere to evaporate in air pudding-thick with humidity. He shifts his shoulders uncomfortably, wishing he'd thought to lose another layer when he'd peeled off his jacket back in Oklahoma.
“Just keep an eye on things. And tell Rowena to answer her damn phone.”
“She isn’t here,” Sam informs him, like that doesn’t throw one hell of a monkey wrench in Plan A. “Gabe either. They were gone when we got up this morning.”
Well, when has anything worth having come easy -- especially to a Winchester.
A loud snap startles Dean and he swings around, rolling his eyes when he finds the source.
“Alright, Sammy, I gotta jet. I’ll call you later.”
“Dean, wait-”
Dean stuffs his phone back into his pocket and jerks his head toward the rear of the building and the parking lot where he left the car.
“Can we get this freak show on the road now or do you have a few more errands to run first?”
Gabriel cocks a brow, signature smirk firmly in place. “Watch those pretty lips of yours, lover boy, lest they get you into the kind of trouble even they can’t talk you out of.”
He walks off with a flourish, leaving Dean to play catch up once he’s finished pulling a face at the back of Gabriel’s head.
“Did you get what you needed?”
“Sure did!” Gabriel smacks a weighted roll of cloth into Dean’s chest without missing a step.
The bundle makes a tinkling sound, like it contains a pile of shattered glass and maybe something metal, but Dean doesn’t want to check in the great wide open, so he just holds it more securely and looks up in time to see Gabriel waiting impatiently beside the Impala.
“We’ve got one more stop to make and then we’re ready to do the damn thing,” he chirps, thrumming his fingertips against the window while he waits for Dean to lean across and pull the lock up.
Dean settles his cargo between them on the bench and lifts one of its flaps. What he thought were shards of glass turn out to be a few handfuls of half-dollar size gemstones in a rainbow of vibrant colors. The metallic sound appears to originate from an ornate pewter mortar and pestle, intricate knotwork etched into its surface.
“Seriously? You made me drive all the way down here for a pile of junk we could have gotten at literally any New Age shop in Kansas?”
Gabriel's eyes flash.
“As usual, you're not looking at the big picture here, Deano,” he retorts.
He swats Dean's hands away and dutifully rewraps the objects, bending forward to carefully tuck them beneath his seat before he straightens up and points a judgy finger at the tip of Dean's nose.
“Getting into the Empty without all that pesky death as a prerequisite is no walk in the park, mon frere. And given my current -- ahem -- situation... Well, let's just say the park is flooded, and there's an angry clusterfuck of alligators hiding under the slide, just chomping at the bit for a piece of your friendly neighborhood me.
So, no, you absolute knob, we cannot just hit up the local Wiccan and find what we need to yank baby brother's feathery ass back onto this plane.”
The sarcastic reminder that Cas is gone, while completely unnecessary, triggers an avalanche of grief that makes Dean’s lungs ache. He’d managed to successfully stow his emotional baggage for the time it took to formulate a plan and then rope Gabriel into helping, but hearing it laid out like that, almost flippant, makes an ugly snarl of grief and temper rise up in Dean’s throat. He’s already exhausted, his default set to anger out of sheer lack of sleep, but the long drive from Lebanon to a small parish outside Shreveport hasn’t done his disposition any favors.
Gabriel pretending this is just some run-of-the-mill cataclysmic event has amped Dean’s baseline up to only slightly less than murderous.
“Do you even care at all that he’s gone?”
Dean can feel the pulse of Gabriel’s enervated Grace trying to lash out, but it doesn’t prevent him from reaching across the car to snatch him up by the collar, mouth twisted in an angry sneer.
“Your brother is dead, Gabriel. He died saving my life -- saving your nephew’s life. If you think I’m gonna let yo--”
“Whoa whoa whoa, hey, big guy,” Gabriel protests, throwing both hands up protectively between their bodies though the glimmer of cockiness never leaves his eyes. “I’m here, right? I’m helping!”
“You’re being a pain in my ass,” Dean growls, expression thunderous. He doesn’t release the death grip he has on Gabriel’s shirt, just leans further into the other man’s space and lowers his voice. “This isn’t a game, Gabriel.”
Gabriel’s hands descend to his sides slowly, like he’s wary of moving too fast and startling Dean into further physical recourse. His eyes soften and Dean instantly knows he isn’t going to like whatever is about to come next.
“I get it, okay? I get that you’re pissed. I know you and Cas--”
Dean shoves Gabriel hard enough to propel him back into the door. The Archangel lets out an indignant squawk and flails his limbs defensively, but Dean is already moving away, a muscle in his jaw ticking. He ignores Gabriel’s muttered tirade of halfhearted curses, turning over the Impala’s engine and aggressively shifting into gear while Gabriel delicately assesses the lump no doubt forming on the back of his head, where it connected with the window.
And yeah, maybe taking out his worst impulses on the only person in existence willing to entertain this half-baked idea isn’t the best way to go about things, but Dean can’t deny he feels better for it. It’s twisted -- gaining any sort of peace from violence is fundamentally wrong by most people’s definition of the word -- but, then again, Dean’s always known he was flawed in this particular way.
Breaking shit is just easier than trying to face what’s already broken.
Always has been.
They’re back on the interstate by the time Dean bothers to ask where they’re headed this time. Gabriel side-eyes him, rubbing at the crown of his head with his mouth turned down in a pout. Dean is just getting ready to snap out something colorfully vulgar when Gabriel gestures vaguely to the endless blacktop visible through Baby's windshield.
“Keep heading southeast.”
“Jesus, it's like pulling teeth,” Dean grunts, twisting around so he can keep one hand on the wheel while groping blindly in the backseat for his discarded jacket. Digging around the pockets, he finds the plastic bag he was looking for and flings it over the seat.
“Here, ya big baby.” A half-empty bag of Rolos lands in Gabriel's lap with a crinkle and his spirits visibly lift. “Where are we going?”
Already stuffing an unwrapped chocolate into his maw, Gabriel hums, “Crescent City,” and peels the foil from another candy. “You know, the Big Easy. Heavy on the hedonism, light on the sobriety? If you hit Mississippi, you’ve gone too far.”
Dean rolls his eyes, slouching more comfortably down in the driver's seat. He's less than excited at the prospect of yet another hours-long drive, not to mention the disappointment of having to wait that much longer to even begin attempting to reach Cas, but being behind the wheel has always felt like a rudimentary form of meditation.
Dean forces himself to focus on that, rather than the crushing weight of grief he can’t outrun no matter how fast he drives.
***
New Orleans hasn’t changed a bit in the pair of decades since Dean last drove its streets.
Sure, the façade of the city has morphed over the years -- storefronts stand empty where booming businesses once thrived, and Dean counts several more abandoned tenements than he did before -- but underneath, she’s the same bluesy southern enchantress she’s always been.
Even as the Impala rumbles down Poydras Street, Dean is opening his window and sucking in the saltwater air, heavily perfumed with hibiscus and oleander, layered in with exhaust and booze and a whole ménagerie of food smells.
He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but Dean would swear, even as a kid, that the breeze in New Orleans carried with it the scent of magic.
That hasn’t changed either.
The time they spend in New Orleans proper is almost negligible. They stopped in the French Quarter just long enough for Gabriel to duck inside a seemingly abandoned storefront only to reappear a few seconds later, disheveled but grinning triumphantly. Dean didn’t ask about the singed hair smell funking up Baby’s interior, just grit his teeth and followed Gabriel’s directions to the next location.
Midnight strikes before they get where they're going, blanketing the world in a suffocating shroud of darkness, brilliant pinpricks of starlight peppering an oil slick sky. The heat doesn't break with fallen shadows. If anything, it creeps in closer, emboldened by the night.
Gabriel guides Dean down a nearly overgrown lane carved through parallel thickets of Silverbells, Baby's headlights illuminating what the new moon leaves black. At the end of the road, there's an ancient-looking building, hardly more than a shanty. Dean pulls up alongside the decrepit porch clinging to the shack’s algae and mildew-stained façade, silencing the engine but leaving the headlights on.
“That it?” he asks, frowning in consternation at what is supposed to be the Holy Grail of interdimensional Greyhounds. The place looks like a stiff wind could level it, and Dean's supposed to believe this is how they're gonna get to Cas?
Gabriel, completely unbothered, retrieves the supplies he'd stashed beneath his seat and begins climbing out of the car.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters, moving to follow.
Outside the Impala, Dean is engulfed by the musical chords of the bayou. Cricket chirps and bullfrog croaks tangle together in a steady melody, woven through with the occasional mournful hoot of a solitary owl. By the time Dean rounds the back bumper, Gabriel is murmuring a short string of words so quietly that Dean only manages to catch the final few syllables. Almost immediately, the background hum of the swamp falls silent, leaving Dean with nothing but the ringing in his ears.
With a rumble that sounds like it worked its way up from the Cage itself, the ground shifts beneath their feet and Dean has to pull out his best windmill impression just to stop from being upended. Gabriel extends a hand, reaching out for dead air, but his fingertips meet resistance a good twenty feet from anything solid, like they butted up against a forcefield of some kind. Reminiscent of a pebble disturbing the serene surface of a lake, the air itself shudders beneath Gabriel's touch and a cascade of ripples chase one another outward until they echo back around, appearing to absorb up into the Archangel’s skin.
“Gabe?”
If he hears the waiver of uncertainty in Dean's voice, he doesn't exploit it the way he normally would.
“You worry too much, you know that? We’re good, I've got this completely under contr--”
A wave of energy erupts from the palm of Gabriel’s hand and collides with the invisible barrier, sending arcs of electricity spidering out and around the entire circumference of its bubble-esque surface. A crack like lightning striking a goddamn Sequoia thunders overhead and Dean flinches, but he doesn't have time to retreat before he feels a sharp tug behind his belly button. He lurches forward, pulled by an invisible hook somewhere uncomfortably deep inside, and tips headlong into darkness.