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Fandom: Supernatural.
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel. (With a smidge of Dean/Castiel)
Rating: R
Word count: 9858
Spoilers: 7x2.
Warnings: Some bad language.
Feedback: Yes please.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything even remotely related to Supernatural.
Beta:
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Notes: This was written for the Sabriel Everlasting Birthday Challenge. For
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Summary: Prompt: "S7. God resurrects Gabriel to fight the Leviathans. S/G romance ensures." Which became a story where the leviathans are tentacle monsters, God's back at the wheel and Gabriel realizes in hindsight that being dead for real sucks big time. Picks up just after Castiel dragged his leviathan-y ass into that lake.
PART 2/2
There was light. So much light. The brightness should have hurt Sam's eyes, but somehow it didn't. Weirdly, it hurt his heart more than his vision. The shine was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.
Lucifer.
The whisper floated through his mind and brought with it so much love and admiration that he wanted to curl up and cry. It was unlike any sort of emotion he'd ever experienced. And it felt like a spear through his heart when the light suddenly flickered, and then descended like a meteor through the darkness.
There were flashes of memory, changing from one to the other like someone channel surfing through Sam's mind. Dean. Dad. Jess. Hunting. Stanford. The Impala. Only every now and then there was a memory that wasn't his. Couldn't be his. Beings of pure light. Love so powerful he felt like he would burst from it and hurt so intense that it rivaled his time in the cage. So much pain.
Everything happened so fast Sam couldn't keep up. He just let himself ride along on the waves of feelings and images, while vaguely thinking that Anna had been wrong about angels being emotionless. At the tail end of that thought there was laughter, the voice familiar and yet so different. Like silver bells in moonlight. Sam had never been very poetic, but that's what it felt like in his head, completely unlike the razor blades of Lucifer's insane guffaws.
The pleasant laughter sounded again when the memories that flickered by featured a short janitor winking and making lewd jokes at Sam, or when Dr. Sexy morphed into a golden eyed trickster in a lab coat and tennis shoes. Weirdly, at those memories there was an extra layer that hadn't been there before, and Sam felt a little dizzy with how another impression of the scenes was superimposed over his own. He saw himself and realized he must be seeing the memories through Gabriel's eyes. And not only that, he was clearly able to feel what Gabriel had felt at the time. It was brief, but there was amusement, curiosity and awe. Actual awe. Sam watched through Gabriel's eyes how his and Dean's souls burned, how they lit up the room and made Gabriel's heart swell with hope he hadn't felt in eons. So much hope.
Hope for what exactly Sam wasn't sure, but as the images zoomed by he saw himself in so many new ways, and none of them were anything like what he saw in the mirror. In Gabriel's eyes Sam wasn't the dark, tainted, broken mess he felt like. He was vibrant, strong and beautiful. Worth saving.
The darkness descended upon him again to the sound of silvery bells and fluttering feathers.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Dean waited for four hours before he couldn't stay away any longer. He went upstairs and knocked briefly before pushing open the door. He stopped in his tracks when he took in the room. Sam was sitting in bed, half upright, half slumped back onto the pillows. Gabriel was sitting astride his lap with both hands cradling Sam's head and their foreheads touching. It looked uncomfortably intimate to Dean and he cleared his throat awkwardly.
Gabriel took a deep breath and slowly pulled away from Sam, not letting go of his skull, but carefully rubbing his temples instead of holding it steady.
“Yes, Mr, Winchester, how can I help you?” Gabriel's tone was mocking, but his voice was thin, which worried Dean more than he cared to admit.
“Uh... everything okay?”
“Just peachy. But this is actually pretty difficult, so I would really appreciate to be left in peace until we're done.”
Considering that Gabriel was literally holding Sam's brain in his hands, Dean felt he couldn't really argue with that. Even though he wanted to. So very badly.
“Okay, fine. Just... any idea how long this might take?”
“No clue,” Gabriel replied shortly. Then he paused and cast a strange glance at Dean. “Although, actually, maybe you can help.”
Dean stepped closer. “Sure, anything.”
Gabriel looked like he was tempted to smirk, but stopped himself. “This is draining as fuck for both me and him, so I'm guessing we'll be hungry and tired by the end. I'll let you know when it's over.”
With that he turned away and let his forehead lean back in to touch Sam's. And either his breathing was really quiet or he stopped breathing all together. Dean was a little disturbed by it all, but hell, if Sammy was going to be okay, then Dean could be the fucking meal service, no problem.
“Right. I'll just... uh... right,” Dean muttered and closed the door behind him. Only later did he realize what Gabriel had said, and then spent a confused couple of minutes being simultaneously worried and grateful that Gabriel would spend enough energy on Sam that he would actually feel hunger and fatigue eventually. Bobby just grumbled “idjit” at him and sent him to the store for decent food.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
When Sam slowly regained consciousness, the first thing he noticed was a serious crick in his neck and a heavy weight on his lap. He forced his eyes open, only to blink them a couple of times in surprise. Gabriel was straddling Sam's thighs, but slumped forwards against his chest, snoring softly into his collarbone. Sam couldn't quite tell from that angle, but he greatly suspected there was some drooling involved as well.
For moment he just sat there, a little confused and very groggy. But then he finally started putting together the last few hours. Not that he'd been awake at the time, but he remembered the whole experience a lot more clearly than he'd expected. The feeling of Gabriel inside his head was still very vivid, and his chest felt tight from residual emotion. Whatever else this healing had been, it had certainly been deeply moving for both of them, and Sam found that he understood Gabriel on an entirely new level.
He'd already liked Gabriel to some degree, despite his outrageous behavior. Or maybe even partly because of it. But suddenly knowing how deeply Gabriel felt things was something of an eye-opener for Sam. He'd more or less jumped onto the wagon of thinking that all angels were heartless dicks, perhaps with the exception of Castiel, who at least seemed to gain some understanding for human emotions over time.
But now there was an entirely new Gabriel in his mind. Before, there had been a weird mash-up of Bible passages, church decorations and a lewdly charming janitor with a dash of asshole trickster on top. Someone to be tolerated at best and avoided at worst. But with this new mass of sense memory etched into Sam's brain, it was like Gabriel was a completely new entity. Someone who cared about things. About people. Someone ancient and holy. And yet... he'd never seemed more human.
“Someone get the number of that truck,” a groggy voice mumbled.
“What truck?” Sam asked stupidly, still not quite alert yet.
“The one that ran me over, numbnuts,” Gabriel grumbled, his face still mashed into Sam's t-shirt.
Sam couldn't help but snicker, feeling a little drunk from exhaustion and the sensation of his brain still being a little wobbly. “Sorry, man. It got me too.”
“Bastard. As soon as I'm juiced up again, I'm gonna feed that fucker his own headlights until they shine out of his ass,” Gabriel complained, the movements of his lips tickling Sam's collarbone.
Laughing even more from the colorful threat, Sam let his head fall back against the headboard. “I seem to recall you volunteered for this gig.”
“I was probably drunk at the time.” Gabriel finally disengaged his face from Sam's shirt, but immediately scrunched his eyes shut. “Ugh. I hate being low on power. How do you people stand these meatsuits? It's like all they ever do is bring you pain and inconvenience.”
“It's not like we have a choice,” Sam snorted. “But there are perks, you know.”
“Yeah, like what?” Gabriel whined, digging the heels of his hands into his eyeballs.
“Sex. Chocolate. Fiendishly good looks,” Sam mused.
“All right, wise ass, you win,” Gabriel grumbled, finally daring to open his eyes, if only the tiniest slits. “Damn, it's too bright in here. Screw this. I'm going back to sleep. It's been a couple of decades since my last nap and I was recently dead. I think I've earned a lie-in.”
Sam was taken aback when Gabriel simply leaned back in, rubbed his cheek lazily against Sam's chest a couple of times and settled down for sleep in exactly the same position he'd woken up in. His arms rested loosely around Sam's torso and he hadn't ever even taken his jacket or boots off.
“Uhm... Gabriel?” Sam asked cautiously.
“Mmhmm?”
“Are you - I mean... wouldn't you be more comfortable... I dunno... somewhere else?”
Gabriel snuggled in closer, clearly utterly indifferent to Sam's discomfort. “Nope. You're warm and this vessel absolutely sucks at retaining heat when I'm down on angel mojo.”
“Oh,” Sam replied vaguely, unsure of what to do with himself. He had to admit that he wasn't exactly uncomfortable as such, but the idea of snuggling up with the Archangel Gabriel for a nap was a little far out for him.
“Stop thinking so loudly, Sasquatch,” Gabriel murmured. “Don't forget, I've been in your brain.”
“Yeah, but -”
“You're making this shit complicated. I'm tired, you're tired. You like cuddling, I fucking adore cuddling. It's a win-win if you ask me.”
Sam couldn't really argue with that, his brain still fuzzy and his body heavy. He hesitated for a few moments before finally putting his arms awkwardly around Gabriel and settling down for sleep again.
“That's the ticket,” Gabriel sighed and Sam smiled to himself as he drifted off. This wasn't half bad.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Sam reconsidered his opinion when he woke up hours later with an even worse crick in his neck and Dean yelling at them. Or, more accurately, at Gabriel.
“Seriously?! I've been pacing a goddamn groove in the living room floor for the last three hours, worrying that whatever you were up here doing would make Sam's head explode, and you couldn't at least let me know before heading off to snooze-ville?!”
“I didn't do it on purpose, jackass!” Gabriel shot back. “And don't act all high and mighty! I'm willing to bet my halo that you've also dozed off right after the money shot a couple of times!”
“Argh! For the sake of my sanity, please do not bring up sex while you're sitting on my little brother!”
“Fine!” Gabriel huffed. “It's not like I've got enough juice left right now to fix your head too.”
“Yeah, about that...” Dean trailed off, a calculating look in his eyes.
Gabriel pointed a stern finger at Dean. “Don't even think about it! Whatever prank you're stupid enough to try on me will be unleashed on you tenfold once I'm powered up again!”
“You never know, it might just be worth it.”
“Can it wait until after breakfast?” Sam grumbled, suddenly feeling like he hadn't eaten in days.
“More like dinner,” Dean informed him. “But okay, sure. I got sandwiches in the kitchen and Bobby's cooking... something. I'd stick with the sandwiches, though.”
“I heard that,” Bobby growled, coming through the door. “Everybody still alive up here?”
The promise of food had finally made Gabriel move off the bed and thereby Sam, who suddenly realized that his legs had probably been asleep for hours. They prickled and burned when he rubbed the feeling back into them. “Alive and... well... not kicking just yet.”
“But your head's screwed back on right?”
Dean looked like he'd swallowed his tongue and cast Sam a nervous glance. It was obvious, at least to Sam, that Dean had been afraid to ask. So, being who he was, Dean had instead opted for shouting at Gabriel. Bobby on the other hand liked to know the state of things right away. Not that he couldn't be delicate when required to be, but he wasn't about to coddle Sam either, and Sam appreciated his direct approach more than ever.
“Yeah. I feel like I could sleep for a few weeks, but yeah.”
Sam really did feel okay. There were no voices or visions and apart from feeling mildly scrambled in the brain, everything felt like it was where it should be. He could call up memories of his time in the cage, and while they were still horrifying and made his stomach clench, he could deal with them.
“You need to take it easy, though, kiddo,” Gabriel added. “Kick back for at least a week. No hunting, no research and no freakin' family drama!” The last part was directed at Dean who rolled his eyes, but still nodded.
“Oh, and uh... while we're all here,” Gabriel continued carefully, “I'll probably have to stick around for a while.”
“What, why?” Dean asked suspiciously.
“Well first of all, I'll need to check in on Sam a couple more times and make sure everything is all right upstairs. I patched up what was broken, but even the brain needs time to heal properly. And secondly, this was draining as hell, so I'll need at least a day or so before I can snap out of here. I suppose I could walk, but I was sort of hoping that fixing Sammy's marbles would buy me a couple of hours of hospitality at least.”
Bobby glared at him, but sighed. “Fine. But you'd better not break anything.”
“I promise, I'll be on my best behavior, sir!” Gabriel said, saluting with a flourish.
“Somehow that doesn't make me feel better,” Bobby mumbled before heading back down to the kitchen.
Dean stood awkwardly for a moment, just looking from Sam to Gabriel. He seemed to be having some sort of internal struggle and Sam could at least hazard a guess as to what might be on his mind. And apparently, so could Gabriel.
“Oh, for cryin' out loud, Dean, stop being so emo. I don't expect you to suddenly like me or even be nice to me over this. In fact, that'd be boring as fuck. So stop trying to decide whether to thank me or not, and show me where the damn food is.”
Snorting, Dean flipped Gabriel the bird and then headed down the stairs. But he did seem to have a lighter gait than when he arrived, so Sam didn't think it could have gone much better.
“You do know he's going to prank the shit out of you in the next twenty four hours, right?” Sam said with a smirk.
“Oh, I'm counting on it, Sammy boy!” Gabriel replied gleefully. “But for now, I could eat a horse!”
Sam froze by the bed, suddenly remembering something from his research on tricksters. “I thought you dated horses,” he snickered.
Gabriel hung his head and groaned. “Ugh, why do people always bring that up?!”
“Because it's funny as hell.”
“If you tell Dean about that, I'll tell him about the nipple clamps and the butter.”
Sam choked mid-laugh. “Jesus, Gabriel... you don't just blurt out stuff like that! Plus, he can just look up the horse thing!”
“Like he ever will on his own steam? Please.”
“Okay, fine,” Sam gritted out. “But for the record, I think we're both better off not blackmailing each other with this. Besides, you promised to keep my goddamn secrets.”
“Oh, the butter thing was a secret? Too bad. It was really fucking hot.”
Sam rolled his eyes and wondered what he'd done to deserve Gabriel knowing every single deviant thing he'd ever done. But he supposed that if Gabriel was going to bring anything ugly to the surface, Sam would really prefer it was his sexual adventures. Being labeled kinky he could live with. Being called a monster he would really rather not.
As it turned out, Gabriel wasn't exactly kidding about his appetite. He waited just long enough for Sam to declare he was full before promptly eating everything that was left, which amounted to at least ten sandwiches, every morsel of meat in Bobby's kitchen, including the entire questionable stew Bobby had made, and then he had the gall to ask for dessert. Bobby was torn between feeling annoyed at being pretty much eaten out of the house, or gratified that someone actually seemed to like his cooking. So when Gabriel promised to restock as soon as his mojo was back, Bobby dug out some ancient candy canes for him and let him dissolve them in mug after mug of bitter coffee with only a minimum of grumbling.
Sam watched it all from the sidelines, content just observing his brother bicker with an archangel, while enjoying the peace in his skull. He sat on the couch in the living room, idly thumbing through an old Reader's Digest he'd found in Bobby's clutter, while Gabriel puttered around, trying to look like he didn't very well know that Dean was setting him up for some kind of prank. When Dean finally did carry out his plan, Gabriel was actually taken by surprise. He'd been watching out for trip wires or elaborate traps all evening, so he was completely unprepared when Dean ambushed him on the stairs and poured a huge amount of itching powder down his collar.
The prank was classic, simple and succeeded in driving Gabriel absolutely crazy with discomfort. Dean laughed for about ten minutes, until Gabriel decided the itching was too much and promptly stripped naked right in front of them all. Bobby shouted some very colorful things when he found a naked angel using his bookcase as a back-scratcher. Dean looked like he was ready to crawl under a rock, and when Gabriel decided to complete the embarrassment of everybody present by offering a naked dance display that looked an awful lot like MC Hammer's “Can't Touch This” routine, Sam simply couldn't take it any longer. It started as a choked off snicker but within seconds he was howling with laughter, clutching his stomach and wiping his eyes.
Dean looked at him weirdly, but that only made it worse. Sam hiccuped and gasped, while Gabriel did an encore, and bowed with a flourish and a shit-eating grin. Dean glared at Gabriel, who only offered an innocent: “What?!” in return. Sam laughed and laughed, almost sliding off the couch, until Bobby decided that enough was enough. He sent Dean to the basement to look for something he most certainly didn't need very urgently, and told Gabriel sternly to stop behaving like a mental case. “And put some goddamn clothes on!” he hollered before slamming the door behind him and fleeing to the yard.
Gabriel stole a pair of Dean's sweatpants and a t-shirt, looking almost like a kid wearing them, since everything was at least two sizes too big for him. He plopped down on the couch next to Sam, who started chuckling all over again when Gabriel had to roll up the cuffs of the pants at least four times to avoid falling over. But eventually he did finally calm down and melted into the couch, feeling sore but immensely relaxed. Gabriel ignored any sort of personal space Sam might have had by planting his bare feet in Sam's lap and letting his arm hang off the side of the couch.
Sam was feeling so comfortable he truly didn't care for once. And in the middle of it all, he was suddenly overcome with gratitude. Both towards the God who'd finally answered all their prayers, and to Gabriel personally, just for being there when he could easily have sent someone else to fix what Lucifer broke.
“Thanks, man,” he said quietly. Gabriel just hummed and wiggled his toes against Sam's thigh. But Sam could see out of the corner of his eye how Gabriel's face relaxed around a pleased smile. For the first time in longer than Sam cared to remember, everything was good.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Predictably, they fell asleep on the couch. Sam woke up before dawn to a quiet house and a lumpy blanket tossed over him, still sitting like he had been the night before. Sometime during the night, Gabriel had turned around and was now yet again snoring against Sam, cuddled up against his side under the blanket. Sam took a moment to consider how he felt about that and realized that he actually liked it. Quite apart from the current unusual circumstances, he was normally honest enough with himself to admit that he often longed for someone to be with. Not sex, necessarily. Sex you could find in any bar. No, what he truly missed, living on the road with only Dean for company, was the simple companionship of a long-term partner. He pretty much only had Jess to compare with, but she'd been a tough act to follow.
Sam had grown up with very few displays of affection, and even those were only given when emotions were running high for some reason. So it had come as something of a surprise to him when Jess had made a habit of casually touching him just because she'd felt like it. Sam had been utterly addicted to it from the start, and he had missed it horribly when he'd lost her. Gabriel was in no way comparable to Jess, apart from the fact that he seemed to relish physical contact as much as she did. Where her touches had been gentle and sweet, Gabriel's were exaggerated and occasionally uncomfortable, but Sam just could not help welcoming them.
He also admitted to himself, there in the pre-dawn darkness, that he actually liked Gabriel. Just for who he was. Their history was beyond complicated, but if nothing else, the past day or so had convinced Sam that Gabriel truly didn't mean them any harm. In fact, he was pretty sure that Gabriel would die for them yet again if he had to, and that thought made his stomach churn. He really didn't want Gabriel to die. He hadn't wanted it the first time, but even less now that he finally understood Gabriel better.
As if realizing that Sam was thinking about him, Gabriel suddenly stirred, but instead of moving away, he wriggled in closer. Sam's arm had been resting laxly across Gabriel's shoulders, and without really thinking about it, he wrapped it around Gabriel instead, hugging him close. Gabriel made a happy little noise and relaxed again, his own arms snaking smoothly around Sam's waist. Sam smiled to himself and enjoyed the contact. It was mildly strange to have Gabriel so close and so vulnerable, but Sam was also moved by how much Gabriel clearly trusted him. He was mildly shocked when it hit him that he trusted Gabriel too. With everything. Despite his mocking and his attitude problems, and all that he'd put Sam through, Sam trusted Gabriel.
Sam sat for a long time thinking, while sunrise slowly crept closer. And by the time the first rays of light beamed through the gap in the curtains, making Gabriel's hair shine gold, Sam was barely even surprised that he found it incredibly beautiful. Even when asleep and low on power, Gabriel's true nature still glowed through his unassuming vessel, as soon as you knew it was there. Even before Gabriel had left an impression of his true self inside Sam's mind, Sam had been able to look past the flesh in a lot of ways, but now, with the light of Gabriel's true form teasing his mind's eye, it was almost impossible for him not to see it.
Not that he'd seen Gabriel's true form, exactly, but he hadn't really needed to. The sense of Gabriel's entire being had been so strong that whatever Sam's eyes could have added to the image would have been inconsequential. And just like that, something clicked for Sam. The beautiful entity with the wonderful laughter in his head was actually the same person currently clinging to Sam like a burr. Logically, he'd been aware of it, of course, but somehow, he hadn't really been able to reconcile his memories of Gabriel as the Trickster and pagan demi-god with the ethereal creature who flowed through his mind the day before.
But suddenly it was all there, and Sam unconsciously hugged Gabriel closer, wanting to be nearer to that light again. Gabriel sniffed and blinked awake from the pressure, but he didn't move. He just rested his cheek against Sam's chest and breathed slowly.
“What's up, Sammy?” he asked carefully.
Sam couldn't really explain what was going through his head just then, so instead he wound his other arm around Gabriel as well, and pulled him into a full hug. Gabriel tightened his arms around Sam too and for a while they just sat there, clinging to each other. Unlike the last time they were so close, Gabriel was the warmer one, and he felt soft and pliant under Dean's well worn sleep clothes. Sam soaked up the feeling of another body so close to his and the urge to get even closer was only getting stronger.
However, Gabriel feeling so nice and uncharacteristically human against Sam brought something else to mind, which hadn't been something Sam could sense during the purely spiritual healing.
“Gabriel?” he asked softly.
“Yeah?”
“Your vessel... is the original owner still in there?”
Gabriel chuckled. “Nope. Hasn't been for centuries.”
“Good.”
There was silence for exactly thirty seconds before Gabriel huffed gently. “Okay. I'll bite. Why is that good?”
“Because then this won't feel half as skeevy.”
Gabriel managed a confused “What won't-” before Sam nudged Gabriel's head off his chest and captured his lips in a soft kiss. Sam pulled back, intending to give Gabriel a chance to decide what to do with Sam's wordless declaration, but Gabriel followed him and didn't let their lips separate for more than a couple of short seconds. He swung his knee over Sam's legs, straddling him again as he had earlier, and Sam sighed happily as the kiss deepened.
Sam felt lightheaded with it, and swallowed every little noise Gabriel made. He was apparently unable to keep quiet, even while his mouth was occupied, but Sam found he truly enjoyed that.
“How did I not know,” Gabriel whispered between kisses, “that you felt like this? I was in your damn brain...”
Sam just pulled Gabriel closer and buried his face in the soft skin of his neck. “You couldn't have known. I didn't even know until just now.”
“Oh,” Gabriel breathed into Sam's ear. “Better late than never, I suppose.” He then captured Sam's lips again and made it downright filthy with an eager tongue and scraping teeth. Sam couldn't decide where to put his hands, so in the end, he only managed to slide them vaguely up and down Gabriel's sides and back. Gabriel, for his part, seemed to have hands everywhere, and Sam snickered slightly when he realized that if Gabriel was getting his mojo back, it could actually be true.
“Aw, dudes, seriously!?” The indignant shout from the doorway made Sam jump, but Gabriel didn't let him break the kiss. Instead, he just held Sam close by his hair and flipped Dean off over his shoulder. There were a few muttered curses and a very distinct snarl of “friggin' angels” before Dean went to the kitchen and slammed the door behind him.
Only then did Gabriel let the kiss end, in favor of a burst of laughter. “Oh, fuck, that was hilarious!”
Sam let his head fall back on the couch. “I will never ever hear the end of this,” he whined.
Gabriel leaned in until they were nose to nose. “Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that. See, I had a little chat with baby bro before I came here, and I have very good reason to suspect that Dean-o will be revising his opinion on friggin' angels very soon.”
“What... Cas is gonna come by?”
“Mmhmm,” Gabriel nodded smugly. “And if he listened to me at all, he'll be bringing a six-pack and an apple pie. Everything you'll need to woo Dean Winchester.”
“Woo? Seriously?!”
Gabriel shrugged. “Well, it was either that phrase or something lewd. And since he's your brother, I opted for the PG rated version.”
“Thank God.”
“Nope,” Gabriel smirked. “All me, baby.”
Sam snorted and then decided there had been enough talking. He shoved Gabriel sideways onto the couch and crawled on top of him, just in time for Bobby to enter the living room and start shouting. Gabriel whined loudly about cockblocking, Bobby roared about his couch, and Sam laughed and laughed.
End.