Always Little Cassie

Painful Reminder

Gabriel knelt down beside his brother and used his legs to support his head, running a hand through his almost black hair that was stuck to his forehead in cold sweat. Cas had fallen unconscious and who could blame him? A stab wound from an angel blade was nothing short of agony. Even though Gabe knew his brother had been through much worse...
Destroyed by Lucifer in a half assed attempt in averting the apocalypse, which had somehow worked. Gabe knew that when his body had been ripped apart fiber by fiber, atom by atom, Cas had felt it all. Every ounce of pain would have shot through his nerves and hit his brain within the nanosecond of his physical body being totally annihilated. Rumor even spread that he had been put back together by God; their father.
Though Gabe didn't hold onto much hope with that idea.
He hadn't believed it...
But Gabe had evaded death numerous times, he really shouldn't be surprised.

Gabe watched as the physical wound healed as the grace brought together the ripped cells and blood vessels and made the body as good as new. Well, physically, that is.
Angel blades cut into the very grace of an angel, this is what made it excruciating. And even after the healing had been done, these types of wounds left a lasting effect.

Gabe had always thought of it like a plate.
You ask someone to drop a plate onto the floor and it breaks, usually.
Then you gather up the pieces of the broken plate and glue and tape them back together. But no matter how hard you try, some pieces are too small to stick or to broken to fit and you discard them. Leaving an incomplete plate.
Now think of it as grace. You keep hacking bits off or "breaking the plate" then more and more gets thrown away and eventually you're left with something you can barely recognise.

And in this context, Cas' "plate" had been dropped from such a height that Felix Baumgartner was jealous.
Cas was a mess.

"Dont worry, Cassie." Gabe whispered to Cas' unconscious form, hoping it would bring him around. "Nothing will hurt you, not whilst I'm here."
Gabe laid down and placed Cas' head carefully onto his chest, a calming gesture for the both of them.

When Cas was a fledgling in Heaven he would always seek out the sound of Gabriel's grace that swam beneath the vessel that he had at the time.
Like a heartbeat to a human baby.

Both lay in that position for a long while, one couldn't move and one decided not to.
"Cassie," Gabe said, breaking the silence. "I should have been protecting you... And for leaving you, I'm sorry."