It was the production draft of 14x09 (and a few other colored drafts; Cas and Dean were always in the truck, and Sam and Jack were always in the impala until the actual episode). Actually in season 14, Cas does all his own driving and drives Dean and Sam in most episodes, too, Byzantium, The Spear, Peace of Mind.
He could feel the stolen grace catch right away; a flood of restorative energy healed him in an instant. The destructive impulse, however, he could not account for, except perhaps as a lingering corruption from the lower angel's essence. Whatever it was, it pained him to destroy the new human he had himself made; not even Metatron had acted so shamefully.
He had to get to Dean. He sent out feelers, sought him in all of the usual spaces, and felt relief to find him in the bunker. Just a short hop-
Hmm.
Grounded.
Castiel probed until he found the fault in his wings and attempted a remedy. Nothing. He'd have to wait until the grace in him was strong, sure enough to handle wounds of that magnitude.
As he surveyed the fallen, a comrade of the torturer surrendered his final secret, a set of keys concealed in his inner pocket. Cas fished them out, along with a wallet containing $20 and a photo of a woman and two young boys, taken at Christmas time. Years ago, to judge by the creases in the paper.
Outside again in the free air, Cas briefly wondered how he would claim his new ride. He found a half dozen vehicles, none new. Human, he’d have spent some minutes shuffling from car to car, attempting to make a match. Now, though, his reawakened senses could intuit the lock from the key. Convenient.
Castiel slipped his hand around the handle of the passenger door out of habit, then allowed himself a half-chuckle at the mistake. How long had it been since he’d sat in the front seat of the Impala? Weeks. And he’d learned to drive since then.
As he made his way around to the driver’s side, he thought of the 1979 Toyota Corolla hatchback, way too tiny for his frame, no shocks to speak of, brakes almost shot, and a hole, an actual hole, in the floorboard on the passenger side. When he’d overheard “Steve” asking Nora about obtaining a vehicle, Jim, one of the Sunday morning usuals, had offered it to him, free and clear. Been trying to get rid of it for years, he’d said. Wouldn’t entertain the idea of “taking a young man’s money” for it. Insisted that to give it to someone who needed it would be an honor.
~~~
Cas stared at the man, humbled and awestruck, finally murmuring a hushed “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. It runs, enough for getting around town. I’ll have my daughter follow me out here, and it can be ready for you to drive home after your shift.”
And it was ready, as promised. Clean, tidy interior; freshly washed exterior; all the fluids topped up and a full tank of gas. But Cas discovered that he was not ready. He was terrified.
He stood awhile, appraising it, walking slowly around the periphery, hesitating to actually open the door, fold himself in. He knew that, as ridiculous as Sam looked as he contorted his long limbs to sit in the Impala, this, this would be infinitely more humiliating. He was not proven wrong. On the third try (after realizing that the seat moved and figuring out how to maneuver it), he sat not too uncomfortably behind the wheel and assessed the instrument panel. Some made sense, some did not; he assumed that all would become clear when he saw the needles in action. Looking around, he took in the windows, the mirrors, the oh shit bars, the visors, anything that may be put to good use in the operation of a motor vehicle.
He took a deep breath, palmed the key, held it tight for a moment of silence. It had been so long since he’d last prayed like this, to no one in particular, just breathing his doubts to the universe.
Go time. He fumbled the key into the ignition and turned it; he’d seen Dean do it often enough to know this part of the ritual. He arranged his feet, left knee knocking against the door, right foot on, um, one of the pedals. Which one? The big one seemed to do nothing; the smaller one made the engine whine. Small one go fast, big one stop (he hoped). It didn’t feel quite right, though. He extended his left leg; if it had no role in driving, he could let it relax into a more comfortable position. His hands slid along the outside of the wheel, feeling the grip. Probably not original equipment- the material of the wheel seemed newer than the part that attached it to the dashboard. His fingers wrapped in such a way that his thumbs settled into the crooks where the thick rubber-coated spokes met the wheel’s frame. He moved his right hand to the knob that engaged the gears. Gearshift. It didn’t budge. His eyes drifted over the instruments, retraced their earlier paths. “What am I missing?” he mumbled.
Someone tapped on the passenger side window, and Cas jolted. He turned his head to find Nora making an odd circular gesture with her hand. He couldn’t hear her, so he reached across the cab and rolled down the window. “You’re still here?” she asked. “Everything okay?”
Cas glanced at the clock on the dash. His shift had ended an hour ago, and he had yet to leave the parking space. “Yes, just, um, absorbing the, um. It seems the gearshift won’t go.”
Nora peered in, as if she would be able to diagnose the problem from outside of the car. “Is your foot on the brake?”
“Um.” Cas pressed his foot down firmly on the wider pedal; with very little pressure, the lever dropped smoothly to R. He scowled briefly, but thanked Nora with sincerity. To be safe, he moved the stick back to P.
“You have driven before, right, Steve?”
“Yes.” He meant to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t stop his mouth from twisting into a frowny smile. Great. He thought he’d learned how to hide his tell. At least this time he wouldn’t be snapped out of existence.
Glancing at her watch, Nora said, “I’ve got fifty minutes before I have to pick up baby Tanya at daycare, if you want a refresher.”
“That’s not necessary,” he began, as she pulled up a knob beside the open window and let herself in. “Okay,” he murmured.
She buckled in. “There’s an old airstrip about a mile or two from the high school. It’ll give you some space to practice.”
Cas threw her a look of mingled discomfort and frustration. Uncomfortable with having a witness to his incompetence; frustrated that she should insist so incontrovertibly on intruding into his personal space. Still, he could not be angry at the generosity she showed him, now as always, in offering her assistance so freely. He braked, shifted into reverse, slowly lifted his foot. As the car rolled backwards, he jerked his head around to peer out the back window. Almost unconsciously. Likewise, his arm rose to the backrest to stabilize the motion, and Cas studiously avoided contact with Nora’s head. Dean did not always manage to avoid touching the back of his head during this maneuver. Cas set that thought aside; it would only distract him. He pulled out, shifted to D, paused. Switching cautiously from brake to accelerator, he managed a far smoother transition than he had hoped for. Somehow, he got them out of the Gas-n-Sip parking lot and onto Main Street with minimal consternation. From there, it was a simple matter of obeying the traffic signs and not striking the car ahead.
The airstrip proved to be accessible, and Nora was kind enough to stay more or less silent as Cas drove in careful, strategic configurations, based on the sort of driving conditions that he had experienced in the Impala. Perhaps she got bored: she tapped a few buttons on the radio, bringing it to life, adjusting the volume, tuning to 106.3, the same station that played constantly in the store. At first, the liberty shocked Cas, trained as he was to believe that it was the lot of shotgun to shut their cakehole and leave the musical selections to the driver. Whenever the topic arose, Sam had been fond of reminding Cas that the backseat passenger had even less say.
Cas missed that. The easy camaraderie with Sam and- Well, nothing about his time with Dean was easy. In fact, the more he heard of the maudlin, saccharine love songs on the radio, the more he missed him. He rolled his eyes at this train of thought and attempted to unclench his fingers from their white-knuckle grip on the wheel. He couldn’t deny that he experienced emotion much differently now, and that the way he felt about Dean had changed rather drastically. Seeing him had-
“You okay?” Nora asked.
Cas drew a deep breath before replying. “Yes. Sorry. I was, um, just thinking.”
She pointed at the radio. Cas recognized the tune: “That you’re half of the flesh / And blood that makes me whole…”
“Is this about him?”
“Um.”
“Steve, I know it’s none of my business, but a guy like that… A guy who’ll hurt you once will do it again.”
“He doesn’t mean to,” Cas replied softly, confusing her meaning.
“I know. But it’s as true for someone like me as it is for … someone like you,” she said, as delicately as she could. “Even men with female partners can find themselves in abusive situations, and I-”
“You think he- My wrist? No, that was-” a rogue angelic healer bent on destroying the pain of humanity. No, try again. “That was an accident. Besides, he’s not my … partner.”
She nodded. “But now that you have a car,” she guessed, “you’ll be thinking of going home. Back to him.”
“I wish I could,” voice far weaker than he would like.
“Do you want to leave?”
“I haven’t decided,” he lied.
She said nothing for a moment. Then: “If you think you might leave, I’d appreciate a little notice, so I can have time to hire and train someone new. But Steve?”
“Yes, Nora?”
Smiling reassuringly, she replied, “You’re irreplaceable,” and he knew she was not referring to his position as a sales associate.
“I’ll be careful,” he promised.
Her tutoring time was nearly up, so Cas drove them back to the Gas-n-Sip. “Nora?” He rolled down the window to call her back as she made her way towards her vehicle. She turned, expectant but silent. “I’m giving you notice.”
She sighed, nodded, sad but not in the least surprised. “You have to make your own choices.”
A week later, he was gone, a sleeping bag, a small duffel of secondhand clothes, a $20 suit, and his angel blade in the passenger seat. And a box of thawing Uncrustables, which Nora had insisted were out of date. The last evidence of his life in Idaho.
~~~
He liked driving the large tan Continental better than the tiny Corolla. He liked driving the tan Continental infinitely better than hunkering in the backseat, babysitting the erstwhile king of Hell, who, for all his wiles in the Purgatory debacle, was acting like a spoiled five-year-old human child. Dean had threatened to pull over and turn the car around and so help me I will beat you both if I have to stop this car. Cas did not appreciate being nudged, and angel patience can only be pushed so far before even the holiest of seraphim will draw their blades and scream for a little peace and quiet.
It was some consolation to note that Dean had not changed the station.
Down long, lonely roads, Cas had hesitated to touch the Corolla’s, and then the Continental’s, radio. Nora might take the initiative, but it didn’t seem his place. He found some measure of calm in the serendipitous arrangement of the songs being broadcast, songs which never failed to lead his thoughts to Dean. In the intervals of static between active stations, he could hear the faintest echoes of the harmonics of the spheres, and he occupied himself with reciting snatches of Neanderthal poetry. He had exerted too much influence on the universe for the time being, and he was happy to drift quietly along in the moment, reveling in the odd soothing lyric. Making his way back to Dean, whose prayers he could once again receive. And maybe his methods were shameful, but it was hard to feel too closely with the familiar voice in his head.
And if he neglected to monitor the instrument panel when the idle chatter morphed suddenly into ugly, urgent, indistinct pleas, he’d never admit to a soul either the humiliation of running out of gas or the exquisite agony of flying to his friend on broken wings.
