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I meant to get this done ages ago, but ... *shrugs sheepishly*
Bond
[First, I should note that this is almost a completely different draft from the original that was on my old computer. When I lost it, I restarted from scratch and, as usually happens for some reason, the story started flowing in a different direction. A lot of the same points reappear, naturally, and the same ending, but the shape of the story is different from what it almost was. *smiles sheepishly* My brain objects to repeat-performances, obviously]
Sometimes Gabriel couldn't believe the things that came out of his own mouth. He really couldn't. "He is rather luminous at the minute, isn't he?" Honestly. [I think this tends to happen to him a lot. He'll say the first thing that pops into his head, slant it into a joke, and then blink a bit and hope no-one notices his slips. He seems to balance precariously between amusement and panic under stress]
In his defense, though, he hadn't known. He hadn't known. He hadn't had time to look, not really, not in between panicking and freaking out at Dean Winchester. He hadn't had a chance to look close, to study and understand. To see.
Now, while Dean explained what had happened to a somewhat frantic Sam, probably badly and wildly inaccurately ... now he had time. And that was going to change in a minute, when Sam -curious, intelligent Sam- stopped trying to get answers out of his bewildered brother and started trying to get them out of him, but Gabriel didn't care. He didn't care. [When Sam's on form, he does seem to be good at that - picking up on the flaws and the odd-things-out - Dean's more the zoom-in-on-the-weakness-while-in-combat type]
He is rather luminous at the minute, isn't he? [Before I wrote Bond (any version), while I was still riding the high of writing Storm, that line actually was just a joke. Cas glowing like a Christmas tree. It was meant just as a joke. And then I had to continue the story, and I started thinking about why he might be glowing, and what Grace looked like, and the logical end to that train of thought ... What? You honestly think I plan things out? *shakes head* Nope. Things float around my subconscious, make their way into a story, and then turn out to be hugely important while I wasn't looking. Oi vey!]
To human eyes, to pagan eyes, an angel's Grace was light. For human eyes to see that light while the angel was in a vessel ... that could only happen if that Grace was torn open, bleeding out, fraying out into the ether. Gabriel had thought it was residue, stains, like dried blood over a human injury. It wasn't. Oh, it wasn't.
The brother cradled in his arms along the bed, the brother glowing serenely beneath him, Castiel ... was currently all but the angelic equivalent of a bloodied corpse. And Gabriel hadn't seen it. Gabriel had let him steadily bleed. More. Gabriel had offered, out of some ridiculous sense of honour, to take away what was holding him together. Even as barely as it was. He'd offered to pull free all that was barely holding some of those wounds closed. [He's not really attached to the Winchesters for their own sake just yet, not in this. He offered to give Dean back the pieces of his soul because Cas would have wanted it, and also largely as a whim, as a gesture, because Gabriel likes gestures, likes the hints of story around them. And, too, because there is some lurking sense of honour in him, something he does his best to hide]
He could see them now. See the wounds. So many, a myriad. Not jagged rents, not the marks of swords or saws or jagged Grace. Surgical. Savage. Neat. The mark of true skill, a Healer's skill, a surgeon turned against his patient. A Healer turned Executioner. Raphael. [Okay. Again, the idea with Raph, he was a Healer. He was also Biblically the archangel sent for fairly heavy-duty single combat jobs, like Azazel (Enoch) and Asmodeus (Tobit? I think?). Michael is a soldier. Raphael is ... an executioner, almost, and I think the fact that he is a Healer is what makes him so effective that way. He knows, intimately, how angels are put together. He knows, intimately, how to take them apart again. As a weapon -not a person, because I think he's too damaged now- but as a weapon, Raphael is frikking terrifying. When Cas was talking about 'Heaven's deadliest weapons', I'm pretty sure this was who he was talking about]
And through them, over and around the savage tears, woven layer on layer in desperate, ragged patchwork, Castiel's attempt to stop it. The bright, glimmering threads of Gabriel's own Grace, rich and vibrant with power, still threaded back to him, still touching him so he could feel along them to the mauled Grace they feebly held. The deeper, more solid lines of a human soul. Dean's soul. And those ... those were used so sparingly. So barely there. Only pushed into the largest, most terrible gaps, pressed desperately close, as little as Castiel could possibly have taken. A stopgap. Nothing more. [That said, though, Cas is the kind of angel who takes an end-run around Zach to point Raphael as his own weapon, or lay traps in holy oil counting on an archangel's arrogance to make him fall for it, or chuck a holy-oil Molotov cocktail at Heaven's general (though we're too AU to see that one in this story). If there was any angel, any angel, who could work out a panicking stopgap, it's Cas]
Because Castiel had never intended more. Even if he'd been capable of it, which Gabriel doubted. Castiel had never intended to survive. His one aim, his only aim, had been to hold together power and Grace long enough to escape, long enough to get Dean clear. Long enough to throw them both clear, so he could bleed out secure in the knowledge that he had kept his human free. The bloody stupid self-sacrificing little idiot ...[Gabriel, as much as he admires his little brother's sneaky-awesome abilities, still thinks Castiel's priorities really, really need work. Gabriel's been surviving away from Heaven for a long time. The aim of the game is not to make heroic gestures (though he can when pushed). The aim of the game is to stay alive, little bro!]
"Gabriel? Gabriel? Dammit man, if you don't answer me ... GABRIEL!"
He blinked, looking up to find two angry and mildly fearful faces looking down at him. The Winchesters, side by side and glaring down at him in unison. Dean more belligerent, Sam more confused and worried, but both of them leaning towards him with the kind of intensity best reserved ... best reserved for people like Castiel. Like his ferocious little brother. [Castiel has taken a lot from Dean and Sam. Mostly unconsciously, maybe, and maybe too they've been taking a lot from him, because if you've gotten stared into by Cas more than once, if you've had to meet his eyes, you start finding other people that little bit easier to stare down ...]
"It's not enough," he told them, shakily. Barely realising what he was saying. Again. "I didn't see before. It's not enough." [Gabriel ... Didn't expect to be so affected by it. Didn't expect, even after the events of Grace, to be so attached to Castiel. To be so shocked when his brother is hurt. And, too, he's an archangel. He's a Trickster and an archangel, and he's not used to problems he can't just snap away. He's not used to being helpless, especially not with something he actually values on the line, and it scares the CRAP out of him. Cas could die. Cas could die, and suddenly he doesn't know if he can stop it]
"What? What's not enough?" Dean leaned in, ripe with fear, and almost tried to grab Gabriel's jacket, pull him up, but stopped himself because of Castiel. Stopped himself because Gabriel was holding Castiel, and Dean was not, now or ever, going to hurt Cas. [Slightly shippy of me, maybe, but mostly this was 5x04, and present!Dean's absolutely horror that future!Dean would send Cas to die. Send anyone to die, really, but it was Cas that hit him. Dean's not the best at showing he cares, but he really doesn't like the idea of Cas being hurt, especially if it's because of him]
Not that he'd get the chance. [Neither does Gabriel, these days, and I think ... I wasn't quite expecting it, but Gabriel got awfully possessive about Cas, in this. Cas is HIS brother, his responsibility, from the moment he gave his Grace. Somehow, I think he gave more than he planned to, doing that. Connected more deeply than he meant to, but there's no going back now]
"Gabriel?" Sam asked, more softly. Request to Dean's demand, but no less forceful. No less real. [Poor Sam. He's really out of the loop on this one, more than a little lost with only Dean's halting explanations and Gabriel's presence to go on. I don't ... see, Grace was Cas & Gabe, and Storm actually started life as an aborted Dean/Cas fic, that turned very, very Dean & Gabe, about Cas, and poor Sam is really only coming in at the tail end, here]
"It's not enough," he repeated distantly, looking down at Castiel. "What he did. My Grace. Dean's soul. It's not enough. He's ... he's bleeding out. Breaking down. There's not enough ..." [He doesn't get it. It's all distant and far away, and he doesn't get it. Cas isn't supposed to die. Cas isn't supposed to be lying there, bleeding out, with nothing he can do about it. Things like that don't happen, not to him, not since the first War, and dammit, he wasn't supposed to have to care like this. Not again. He wasn't supposed to have to go through this again. That's why he left, dammit!]
There was a second, where they didn't get it, didn't understand, and then ... Dean looked stricken, terrified, hurt. The hunter's face went blank, horrified. Then he pulled it back. He pulled it back, yanked himself savagely back under control, and looked to Gabriel. Demanded tightly, carefully. "Can't you give him more, then? Can't we ... Can't you give him more? Can't you do something?"
Shouldn't you be doing something already? [Winchesters don't react well to family dying on them ...]
Anger surged, harsh and snapping, and Gabriel wanted for a second to hurt the human again, to smash him against the wall for daring that, daring to question, to think that Gabriel would let his brother die, that he'd watch Castiel bleed out and do nothing, but ... But he couldn't afford anger. He couldn't afford it, however cathartic it would be, and besides. The human was right. He was right. Gabriel had to do something, and quickly, he knew that, but ... [And Gabriel doesn't react well to being questioned when he's already under stress. It makes him do things like slam pushy humans into walls]
He didn't know how to do this. He didn't know how to ... he wasn't a Healer! He'd never been a Healer, and yes, he'd put Cas back together once before, but only after the fact, only after Dad had done all the real work resurrecting him, and all Gabriel had had to do was top him up and soothe the angry lines of scars. This ... If he touched this, if he tried and got it wrong ... and he didn't even know how to try. He didn't know how you were supposed to fix what amounted to an attempted annihilation. Raphael was the Healer in the family, and hey, look, guess who'd done this in the first place ... [I think ... Gabriel's first response to something he can't fix seems to be running away. But if he runs away now, Cas dies, and he doesn't know what to do. He's really, really panicking]
"I could," he whispered. "I could pour enough Grace in to fill him ten times over. But it would be like pouring water into a sieve. He's just ... If you could see ... Raphael's torn him to pieces. There's tears, they go down to the soul, into it ... All that's holding him together is your soul. He's shoved it into the worst, a pressure bandage, bound it in with my Grace ... he's been very fucking clever, my little brother, but he was only trying to make it another minute, another second, enough to get you out, he wasn't trying to fix himself, and I've no idea how to stop this, how to stop him unravelling ..." [I think he's actually angry at Cas for that. Over the terror. He's actually angry at Cas for not doing better, for not making it all the way, for not staying alive. Not ... not really, not exactly, but ... you know when you see your sibling or your kid or your friend fall or get hurt or scare the crap out of you by looking like they're going to do one of those things, and your first reaction is to want to yell at them for it, for scaring you? Like that]
"Wait, wait!" That was Sam, cutting through Gabriel's babbling, and he was sort of shocked to realise he had been babbling. Mouth on auto. Stupid. But Sam went on, and it was an intelligent question, wonder of wonders ... "Dean's soul? Dean's soul is helping? It's working?" [Dean and Gabriel are panicking like hell right now. Sam, since he doesn't really know what's going on, beyond the basics, and is therefore a little removed from it, has to be the voice of sanity. Which he's also rather good at, when pushed]
Gabriel blinked at him. Well, yes, the soul was working. Sturdy things, souls, usually, and Cas hadn't actually damaged Dean's, hadn't torn it, only pulled some of it into himself ... [This ... I was working out the actual mechanics of what they're doing on the fly, literally line for line, with only a general idea of where it was supposed to end up. But this is the basic idea of the bond. Cas didn't cut bits of the soul off and stick them in himself, like a human transplant. He ... sort of metaphysically stretched them from Dean into himself, so it's still connected at both ends, between him and Dean. And him and Gabriel, with the Grace] not much, either. Castiel hadn't taken much at all, and what had gone had gone willingly. In fact, without realising it, Dean had already been sustaining him as best he could. Unconsciously, instinctively, much as Castiel had reached for him in the first place. If Dean had known how, he would have already been feeding Cas more. [Seriously, Dean should really take a look at that instinct of his. Once he's given someone a little, he can't seem to stop himself from keeping giving] Which was good, yes, but Gabriel wondered why they weren't slightly more concerned about it. Wondered why Sam wasn't slightly more concerned that angels were using his brother's soul as a glorified band-aid.
But he didn't have time to ask, because Dean was already leaping on the question, eager and desperate. "Then can't you take more of that?" he demanded quickly, harshly. Not even hesitating for a second, what was wrong with these two? You'd think, of all people, they'd realise the value of a soul ... [Look, the important thing about souls, yes? Is that once you have one, you don't go around giving it away. And after selling your soul to a demon, you should REALLY have figured this out, boys and girls ... It's not that Gabriel doesn't appreciate the sentiment, not when it's Cas. He's just mildly amazed and a little horrified by how cavalier the boys have gotten about sacrificing really important shit]
"Do you know how much that would take?" he snarled. Because it was him that would be doing the patching, and he was so far from an expert, or even an amateur, and if he was going to be working with a bloody soul ... "I don't think Cas would thank me if he woke up and found I'd fixed him by leaving you an empty husk, and most of your soul floating around his Grace like the grisliest bandage in history!" [Which ... didn't bother me while I was writing it, because I was too caught up, but when I actually reread it later, and thought about it ... *flaps hands* My brain needs to not do that to me. My brain needs to not come up with shit like that]
No. Castiel would never forgive him for that. Never trust him again. Never. And Gabriel remembered, remembered Castiel reaching for him on a beach in Santa Barbara, terrified and trusting and so fucking gentle ... remembered Castiel reaching literally without thought when he was dying, trusting Gabriel absolutely ... and the thought of that, the thought of losing that ... [This was ... I don't know what this was. The thing about trust, having someone's trust, especially when you have just about nobody at all who does, is that the thought of losing it ... Castiel reached out, while Raph tore at him, without thought, for both Dean and Gabriel. Now, part of that is Cas' particular ruthless approach to problem-solving, in that once he has an answer, he does not hesitate, but the trust it showed ... Nobody trusts Gabriel like that. Not now. Not anymore. He's a coward and a traitor and he ran, and nobody trusts him, no-one in his family, and he can't suffer that again. He can't lose that again]
"He'll deal with it!" Dean snapped back, cutting across the thought, anger and terror. No care at all for the costs to himself, or to Gabriel. All he cared about was Cas. "He'll be alive to deal with it, and that's all that matters! It's not like it's the fucking first time I've sold my soul to manage ..." [Anyone else slightly worried by the Winchester tendancy to not actually care how their family survives, so long as it does? Demon-infected, vessel-for-Lucifer abomination with powers? So long as you're alive, we'll live with that. Undead zombie-type thing? No worries, we can manage. Just. Don't. Die]
He stopped, trailed off, as Gabriel stared. In outright shock, outright amazement. Because yes, Dean had sold his soul, but that had been for Sam, for his brother, for someone he cared about to frankly terrifying levels, and this was for Cas ...
"He means that much?" he asked, very, very quietly. Stunned. "As much as family?" For a Winchester, that was well nigh blasphemy. Dean stared back, mute and defiant and determined and almost ashamed, and he didn't say anything, but he didn't retract anything either, and then ... Then Sam spoke up. [Gabriel has seen that scary Winchester determination, from Sam, mostly, during the Mystery Spot incident, but ... Dean and Sam are largely a family of two. More, with the likes of Bobby and Jo, but ... mostly a family of two. A really intense family of two. Gabriel's right. For them to let somebody else in, it nearly IS blasphemy, for them]
"Castiel is family," the younger Winchester said simply. Quietly. Looking down at the angel spread out between them, at the pale, slack features of a dying Castiel, and his own expression went as hard and determined as his brother's. Sam looked down at Castiel, and then up at Gabriel, and his eyes were hard as agate. "Cas is family." [I like the Sam/Cas friendship from the show. I mean, it's mostly Dean and Cas that get all the intense parts, but a lot of the time when Cas needs actual looking after, it's Sam who's there (Dean has a slight tendency to get caught up in his own -admittedly very pressing- problems sometimes), and Cas returns the regard by the end of it. I like that. I like how Cas really was, for a while there, a part of their family]
Gabriel blinked at him. At them. At the whole bloody lot of them. And there was a flare, brief and deadly, possessive, saying that Cas was his family, not theirs, Castiel was his little brother, how dare they ... [He has no other family, by now. And Cas reached for him. Cas reached for him. Cas is his, in a way I don't think even he understands. His little brother] Except. Except. Castiel had reached for Dean, and been answered. Castiel had picked a fight with an archangel three bloody times, for them, and died for them twice. Castiel had stood on a beach with a sword in his hand and broken Gabriel's shields and lies apart from the ground up, for them. For them, and for Gabriel, and that was because Dad had made Cas to pull angels from the sky and humans from Hell and fine. Bloody fine. [If Cas hadn't chosen the Winchesters, if Cas had stood up to Heaven and Hell and Raphael and Gabriel ... Cas wouldn't be Cas. Cas wouldn't be Cas, and he wouldn't have been able to do what he did in Grace, and fine. Fine. Gabriel can ... can accept that, mostly. Sort of. He has to]
But Castiel was dying. Whatever Dad had made him for, he was dying, and Gabriel didn't know how to stop it, and he was not using Dean. He was not destroying his little brother's family to save him. It would kill Castiel more surely than Raphael already had. [It's not because of them. Not because of Sam or Dean. Push comes to shove, Gabriel will sacrifice them if he has to, and 5x08 proved that, but ... Gabriel's lost family. He's lost family, and he's not letting Cas do the same. Or him, all over again, because if Cas fails then ...]
"What about mine?" Sam said, suddenly. Quietly. "Could you use mine?" [Right. This was ... this was always in the plan, ages ago, because Sam ... and then the season finale comes around and you see that Sam really is prepared to go that far. It's ... not quite as personal with Sam as it is with Dean, there's a wider circle of things he will sacrifice himself for. Sam will sacrifice himself for principle as much as for the people on the ground, while Dean is more personal about it. Sam wants redemption. And this here ... Cas is an angel. A bad example of one, maybe, one who's nothing like the angels he once hoped for, but Cas is still the best of those he's seen. And Cas is Dean's friend, and his own, too, to an extent, and this is a strange mix of principle and personal for Sam. This is saving an angel, and saving his family, all at once. This is Cas]
Gabriel stared at him. Surely not ... "Use your what?"
Sam didn't look away. "My soul. If you could take from both of us, use just enough of each ... could you do it then? Could you fix him then?" [It's also very, very practical. In a suicidal sort of way. Winchester speciality, perhaps?]
Aaannnnddd obviously Castiel was getting all his suicidal habits from hanging around with this lot. Grace, soul, life, limbs, here, have 'em all. Just leave the others alone. And the others saying exactly the same thing. Was there anyone here with any sense? [Again with the giving away of really important shit, people! Cas, little bro, I know you love these people, but they seriously have rocks for brains!]
"Unless ..." Sam said suddenly, watching Gabriel's face. Gabriel froze, wary, waiting for anything. Bargains, prices ... he remembered the Mystery Spot [from Gabriel's POV, the Mystery Spot ... Sam went suicidally, homicidally obsessed with hunting Gabriel down and making him give his brother back, and I've a feeling that rather ... unnerved him a little. It was his own fault, but he didn't expect ...], after all, but Sam ... Sam ducked his head. Suddenly pained. Suddenly shamed. "Unless it's not ..." He stopped, pulled in a deep breath, and avoided everyone's eyes. "Will the demon blood ... will it affect Cas, if you use my ... Will it affect him?" [Poor Sam. Look, I came into SPN for Cas, and that meant focusing on Dean a lot, of the two brothers, but there is something still about Sam ... Winchester angst is not my favourite part of the show, but there is a reason they react the way they do]
... Nope. Not a scrap of sense. Not in any of them.
"Sammy," Gabriel murmured, somewhere between exasperated and awed. "Sam Winchester. There is nothing wrong with your soul, you idiot. At least, nothing that isn't wrong with every human who's ever sinned, anyway."
Sam's head snapped up, shocked and confused and disbelieving, and just a tiny, tiny bit hopeful ... "But ... the blood ... my powers ... I'm an abomination. That's what ..." [I don't think Cas realised exactly how much Sam takes that kind of thing to heart, those times ...]
Gabriel sighed heavily, cutting him off. Partly because they didn't have time, partly because this was just too painful to listen to. "Kid, you have free will. That means choices. That means until you actually die, until you choose finally and for always, you've always got a chance. Your soul gets a bit stained, a bit battered, maybe a few lumps knocked out of it ... but as long as you keep making enough good choices along the way, you don't count as demon yet. So no. You won't poison Castiel. All clear?" [Little bit of personal belief slipping in, there]
A second, while Sam's face lit up, and Dean tried not to be too obvious about grabbing his brother's arm and squeezing it. Then both brothers switched right back to business mode.
[Okay. This is the part where things start to go radically different from the original draft before my computer died. Up to this point, the story was moving in mostly the same direction, with just different phrasings and stress on different aspects. But here the actual action (such as it is) starts going in a different direction from the original. Because, apparently, my brain simply cannot do the same story twice. Even when it IS the same story. *growls at it*]
"So it will work?" Dean asked, his other hand pressed against Castiel's knee, clenched white. "You can fix Cas, with both of us? You can help him?" And had he one scrap less of pride, if he'd been anyone but Dean Winchester ... there would have been an audible 'please' in there. If it had been anyone but Dean. Since it wasn't, the please was only there behind the words, silent and unspoken. But it was still there. [... It's ... There are a lot of people in SPN who have tried to break Dean to the point of begging. A few, too, who succeeded. I ... I sort of admire that he's come back from that, as much as he has. Belligerent and fragile and rude as hell about it, but you understand that. You understand why. He doesn't say please unless he has to, because that's something too many people have forced out of him, but he still means it, sometimes, even if he can't say it]
"You don't know what that will do," he whispered, cradling Cas' head. "I don't know what it will do. He barely took anything, spared you everything he could. If I do this, if I take you in properly ... and it will have to be me, he's too far gone ... you'll be bound to him. To us. Both of us. Both of you. If one of us falls ... we'll all feel it. If one of us is in pain, we'll all be. You'll feel ... you'll feel me, feel him, each other ... it's a bond. I don't know ... I don't even know if it will work, there has never been anything like this. Even angels don't bond this way. Not soul to soul. I don't know ..." [Gabriel, suddenly caught in the middle of that sort of terrifying complication of issues that are the Winchesters, is still caught up on the brother dying in his arms. But ... what it would mean, for him, to suddenly have three people as part of him, after being alone so long ... Cas is already in, of course, but that terrifies him as it is, and these two ... he doesn't know enough, can't see far enough, and these two scare him. And yet ... he sort of longs ... he's been alone a long, long time ...]
"Will it save him," Dean interrupted. Flat and terrified and trusting. Exactly like. Exactly like ...
"Maybe," he said. "Probably. I think ... I think yes."
"Then we try it." Sam, heavy and dark, and he had begged for his brother with that expression, pleaded with a cruel Trickster with those eyes. He had begged Gabriel once before, that way. [Mystery Spot ... I think it did more of a whammy on Gabe that we saw. I mean, looking at it in light of Changing Channels, in light of who Gabriel IS and what he's done, what he's lost ... And Sam scared the crap out of him. And shamed him, too. Gabriel ran from his brothers. Sam single-mindedly fought to get his back. And now ... Sam and Dean have Gabriel's brother in their hands ... Gah! There was a lot running under this. I think it's part of the reason this took so damned long to rewrite. There were too many trains of thought in my head, and in the end I just went as minimalist as possible, and hoped something managed to show through -_-;]
Well. It wasn't like he had a choice, was it? It was his little brother, after all. And these two ... these two ... willing to go soul for soul ... "I can try," he said quietly. "I don't know how much I can do. I'm not Raphael. But I can try."
They looked at each other, weighing him up between them, and Gabriel wanted to growl at them, to snarl that Cas was his brother, if they thought he wasn't good enough to try ... but then Dean, of all of them, nodded quietly, and looked back at him.
"Good enough," the hunter said softly. "Good enough."
So it was. It would have to be.
---
[There was a long sequence here, in the original draft, where I actually showed the bonding, the actual making of it. But ... in the time between the system crash, and my actually managing to rewrite ... like I said above. I'd been thinking about it too long. Too many trains of thought came in, mostly involving Sam and Dean, and it all got just too ... cloggy and baroque and stiff and stalled-out, so ... well. So I just chopped out the entire sequence, and went straight for aftermath instead. I sort of wanted to get the focus back to Gabe and Cas, because ... well, because they're what the trilogy is hung around, the relationship it hinges on, and I wanted to get back to that. I love the boys, Sam and Dean, but it was always the angel brothers, for this story ...]
Castiel woke, a long time later. A long time. The other two were asleep, worn quite literally down to the soul, only human after something that would kill a lot of angels. They were asleep, curled down on either side of Cas, clinging close to him while Gabriel sat behind them, Castiel's head in his lap, and kept watch. [I liked that. That image. It shows up a lot, in my stories, actually. Mostly Gabriel, cradling one of his brothers in his lap, but others too. It's just ... protective and warm, that gesture. I like it]
Castiel woke slowly. Fearfully, achingly. Feeling his way towards consciousness through Grace torn raw, stitched clumsily together. As best as Gabriel could manage, but that wasn't really saying much. His little brother woke slowly, and in agony. But alive. Oh, alive. That was the important part. Gabriel was clinging to that part. [He really wasn't kidding about being an amateur, about being scared shitless he was going to do it wrong, and he can't actually fix Cas this time. Not the instant, snap-of-the-fingers he's used to, and Cas is in pain, and it freaks him out. So ... he clings to the part of it that actually DID work. His brother is alive]
He watched Castiel wake. Watched will and consciousness trickle back, watched him climb laboriously to the surface. Watched him encounter the souls inside him, the Grace, watched him touch the threads leading back, leading out to all of them. Watched him realise what they had done. Watched him freeze. There was a moment of stunned stillness, of quiet, frozen horror. Of agony and silent distress, and Gabriel flinched inside, waiting. [It ... look, imagine it. Imagine almost dying, not knowing what happened, and when you wake up you realise you have parts of your friends, your family, floating around inside you. Imagine feeling that, and not knowing what they'd done, how badly it had damaged them ... not knowing if they were dead or husks and all that was left of them was forever seared into you, part of you, inescapable, after they'd died to give it to you ... Sweet heaven, I didn't think about that when I wrote this, not really, my mind skimming over it, but reading back I think that was honestly one of the most horrifying subconscious thoughts I've ever had. No WONDER Gabriel was shit-scared of it!]
But Castiel didn't reject them. Gabriel had been more than half afraid that he might, not even consciously, but on pure instinct. The way human bodies sometimes rejected transplants. The instant rejection of the foreign. Gabriel had been afraid of that. But Cas didn't. He didn't. [Because once he realised they weren't dead, Cas is pragmatic enough to realise they would have had little choice, and there's nothing he can do about it now except accept their sacrifice in the spirit it was made]
Instead, though his spirit dimmed in pain and guilt, Castiel curled up around them. Cradled them clumsily, carefully. So achingly careful. The vibrant wonder of a curious spirit, the pained grief of a friend and brother as he saw what they had done, and tried to soothe them for it. Tried to protect them, wrapping them in Grace that could barely move, as once he had shielded another soul. The soul of a man named Jimmy Novak. A soul that had been torn from him. [I have no idea what happened to Jimmy, but the theory I've been working under is that when God brought Cas back after 4x22, it was only Cas he brought back. Raphael's attack ripped Jimmy from him, and I've a feeling ... I've a feeling that scarred Cas a lot more than he let on. And now that he has other souls inside him, now that he's bearing them ... his instinct is to shield them, and learn from them, and wrap around them, because he knows what can happen to them if he doesn't]
Gabriel knew that. Gabriel had touched the scar. And feeling it, seeing it ... he had never been more glad that he had never had to bear a human soul. Never had to lose one. His vessel had not been born, but made. Mud-puppet golem. Not exactly fitting for the majesty of an archangel, but then that had kind of been the point ... Anyway. He'd never touched a human soul. Not the way Castiel had. Not until now. [Again, another completely different theory on Gabe and his vessel. I seem to switch them every time I start a new verse. Not out of preference, really, but ... I don't know. I like exploring the possibilities? Gabe and Crowley, mostly. I just ... do that]
Not until them.
"Gabriel," Castiel said at last. A tiny whisper.
"Hey," he answered softly. Gently. Looking down as exhausted blue eyes flickered open between his hands, as Castiel looked dazedly up at him. "Hey, little bro."
"Gabriel," Castiel said again, lines of pain and guilt scoring across his face. "Gabriel. What have I done?" [He didn't reach for Sam, but he did reach for Gabe and Dean, and I think ... he doesn't know how far he might have gone, in extremis. He's afraid ... he did this himself, without giving them a choice ...]
Quiet and crushed. Like the little idiot thought any of it had actually been his fault. Like he thought he had somehow forced them, while lying helpless and open and fucking dying at their feet. Like he thought they'd been unwilling. [Which is just the kind of idiocy that Gabriel is NOT in the mood for, right now]
Well, screw that.
"What have you done?" he growled sharply. "I'll tell you what you did, you little moron. You died. You bloody went and died on us! Rather spectacularly, I might add. I know. I felt it." [This is part of what I think he did when he left Heaven. He cut himself off so he wouldn't have to feel that again. Feel it, see it. He cut himself off so he wouldn't have to be helpless all over again. And ... he's sort of mad at Cas for making him care, and then dying on him, forcing him to feel that again. He's genuinely angry]
Castiel flinched a little, shrinking between them. "I'm sorry?" he whispered. "I didn't know ... I didn't realise you would have to. If I had ..."
Oh no! No, Gabriel could see where that one was going. "If you had, you'd have done exactly the same," he snarled, resisting the urge to shake the little twerp with great difficulty (or so he told himself - actually, he was hard pressed not to wrap himself around Castiel and cling for dear life). "Or else, little brother. I am not ... I am not losing you. Not again. Not ever. Clear?" [The problem with cutting yourself off from them, though ... is that you're cut off from them. No comfort, no connection, not even the knowledge they're alive. And Cas is in now, so ... Gabriel could probably have picked a less suicidally inclined brother to care about, but he has Cas now, so all he can do is try and make sure the kid stays alive, and deal with the panic it causes]
Castiel blinked at him. Still more than a little dazed, maybe. "Ah. Yes?" All soft confusion, too tired and hurt to really bear being yelled at. Gabriel felt a flash of guilt. The bloody angel was just about the one being in Creation who could make him do that. [That is so not fair, that kicked-puppy look Cas has ...]
"Yeah, well. Just remember it, alright?" he grumbled, smoothing a hand through Castiel's hair absently. "And stop getting killed, will you? It's becoming a really bad habit of yours, little bro. A really bad habit." [Not quite at Winchester levels, yet, but still]
"I didn't want to," Castiel offered quietly, carefully, tilting his head as far as Gabriel's legs would allow. "Raphael ... I had to see that Dean was safe. I did ... try." [To be fair to Cas -and the boys, I guess- they aren't usually aiming to get killed. They just keep getting into situations where it's a very, very strong likelihood]
"I know," Gabriel interrupted softly. "I know, Cas. Believe me, I know. But you could have ... I mean, pretty good for a first try, in zero seconds, but couldn't you at least have aimed for long-term survival instead of just the next few seconds? It took me a half-hour to realise you were still dying around those patches!"
Castiel was silent for a second. "Is that why ... Dean? Sam? I ... I can feel them ..."
Gabriel sighed. "They weren't all that happy with the idea of letting you up and die on them, no. And before you say anything, I didn't ask them. I told Dean what you'd done the first time, what you'd asked, and they figured it out on their own from there. I wasn't going to let them, but you were dying, and the Winchesters practically invented the word 'stubborn' all by their lonesomes ..." [It's not all my fault, they made their own minds up, I didn't make them, don't blame me - I've a feeling most people tend to automatically assume the worst with Gabriel, and not exactly without cause, most of the time ...]
Castiel frowned at him, his Grace stirring sluggishly, feeling around the threads of soul and Grace woven through it. Sounding them out, as gently as possible, whispering soothingly as the boys stirred a little. Touching the threads of Gabriel's Grace, and he had to shudder a little at that. Had to quake around the sensation. It had been so very, very long ... [It's going to take him a long while to get used to that again, even without the bond on top of it]
"You brought them in," Cas whispered, awed. "You let them be bound to you. Not just me. You. You bound yourself ... to all of us." [And Cas never expected Gabriel to do that, never expected him to let them in - Gabriel's not exactly a welcoming personality by this stage]
Gabriel flinched, a little. Curled away from reproach, before it was even voiced. "It was an emergency," he muttered defensively. "And they let me!" A pause, a little thread of his own wonder, the shock that still lingered. That he'd been allowed. That he'd even been welcomed, after a fashion. He remembered them. Remembered feeling them.
Remembered feeling Dean, determined to give everything, anything, all that he had, because it was all he knew, all he cared about, being able to give enough to protect those he loved. Castiel. Sam. Here with him. Part of him. And Sam, too. Sam, too long alone, too long abandoned, too long drowning in pain and sin, desperate for everything, yearning for the trust that lived at this level, soul to soul. Yearning for that stained, fragile purity. The innocence of trust. Both of them, reaching out to each other, to Castiel, to Gabriel. Giving, offering. Accepting, taking. Drowning in the bond, the touch between them. Awed by a communion no human had ever felt. And he had been awed by them. By the way they gave, simply because he asked. By the way they trusted. [This paragraph in particular is a left-over from the bonding scene I chopped out]
"They let me," he whispered again. "Despite everything ... everything I've done to them. They let me. I asked, and they gave. Not just for you. You can't ... you can't fake it, that deep. Soul to soul, you can't fake anything. They ... trusted me. Because you did. They trusted me."
Castiel smiled at him, looking horribly smug for someone who'd been dying only hours ago. His little brother smiled at him. "No," he whispered, struggling for a second to lift a hand, to reach up feebly and let Gabriel catch it. Hold it. "Not because of me. Because you asked, Gabriel. Because you gave them a choice." He closed his eyes, pained remembrance. "That's all they ever wanted. A choice. I told you. There isn't anything they won't give, if it's of their own free will ..." [*frowns* It does seem ... if you try to force something out of them, they will fight you every damn step of the way. If you ask out of genuine need, they will give you anything. It's ... almost worrying]
"Yeah," Gabriel said softly. "Beginning to see that, little bro. Beginning to see that. And ... If it's any consolation? Your little ... misadventure ... may have given them more of a choice that you think."
Castiel froze, opening his eyes again to blink up at Gabriel, wide and desperate and shining with such hope, such trust. What Gabriel would have given, all those years ago, to have something like that again ...
"Angels need consent to take a vessel," he said quietly. He hadn't thought of it at the time. There had been at least one rather more pressing issue, after all. It had only been afterwards, after they had slipped into sleep, as he sat holding his little brother and watching the pained ebb and flow of Grace between them, between all four of them ... "The consent of a living soul, otherwise they'd just take any old corpse lying around with the right genes. Mike and Luci need them to say 'yes', right? Thing is, though ... they've already said yes. Soul and Grace, and that's what counts, right? They said yes. Just not to who they were supposed to." [It just seemed to make sense ... If they can just resurrect anyone with the right bloodline ... they had to resurrect Dean and Adam's souls, too, to make it work, so if the soul is already bound to another angel ...]
Castiel stared at him. Putting it together, like the clever little bastard he was. Trying, very, very hard, not to hope too soon, not to believe too quickly, but oh, how very bright those pained eyes suddenly were. How very alive.
"They've said yes to us, Cas," Gabriel finished, with maybe more of a note of triumph in his voice than was really warranted, considering how late to the party he was, and the fact that it wasn't like he'd planned this or anything. Whatever. They were his now. He was allowed to enjoy their victory. [*smiles* I've a feeling Gabriel does a lot of that - do things on the fly and then congratulate himself if they happen to accidentally work] "The fact that we happen to have a body apiece already doesn't really matter. We have their souls, they have our Grace, and short of destroying both of us, and a rather large chunk of the boys' souls in the process ... There's fuck all my brothers can do about it. And since the chances of getting a Winchester to agree to anything once you've killed a member of their family are pretty much zero ..."
Castiel frowned suddenly, around his small, sneaky little grin of triumph. Which, incidentally, was sort of cute on him. "Family?" his little brother asked, just gently confused, and Gabriel realised he didn't know. They'd never told him. [Well, they wouldn't. Winchesters never do. You're supposed to figure it out yourself]
"You," he said softly, carding his hands through Castiel's hair. "You, Cas. They called you family." A small smile. "What? You think a Winchester would offer his soul for anything less? And I don't know why you're playing innocent, you sneaky little bastard. It's not like this is the first time you've wormed your way into someone's heart ..." [Gabriel is probably never going to forgive him for that. Luckily, this is mostly because it doesn't need forgiving]
Castiel smiled, so very gently, surprised and happy and just a little bit smug, and then ... He reached up, curled his hand around the back of Gabriel's neck and tugged him down carefully, face to face, until Gabriel was curled over his little brother. Castiel tugged him down, closer than anyone had been in a long time who hadn't been trying to kill him, and smiled.
"Then you are family too, Gabriel," he said quietly, into Gabriel's wide-eyed expression. "You are my family. And theirs. You are family." [I think ... as far as Cas is concerned, that should have been obvious from the moment Gabriel chose to share his Grace, and definitely from the moment Cas trusted him enough to reach for him in extremis. Once Cas knowingly gives his loyalty, gives it knowing who and what you are, what you are capable of (which he didn't with Zachariah), then you can't budge it with an Apocalypse, end of story. You can fail him, and he'll still die for you. Gabriel should probably have figured this out by now, but Gabriel isn't used to people trusting him, not when they know what he's done]
Gabriel swallowed, feeling something shake in his chest. "Sneaky," he managed. "I did tell you you're a sneaky little bastard, right?" [Hopefully, though ... he can learn]
And Castiel smiled. His little brother smiled. [He does that, when he's proud of himself. Like after 5x04, at the end there. *grins* It's a smug little thing, but it's not mean. It's also adorable, but that may be just me ;)]
[End]
[First, I should note that this is almost a completely different draft from the original that was on my old computer. When I lost it, I restarted from scratch and, as usually happens for some reason, the story started flowing in a different direction. A lot of the same points reappear, naturally, and the same ending, but the shape of the story is different from what it almost was. *smiles sheepishly* My brain objects to repeat-performances, obviously]
Sometimes Gabriel couldn't believe the things that came out of his own mouth. He really couldn't. "He is rather luminous at the minute, isn't he?" Honestly. [I think this tends to happen to him a lot. He'll say the first thing that pops into his head, slant it into a joke, and then blink a bit and hope no-one notices his slips. He seems to balance precariously between amusement and panic under stress]
In his defense, though, he hadn't known. He hadn't known. He hadn't had time to look, not really, not in between panicking and freaking out at Dean Winchester. He hadn't had a chance to look close, to study and understand. To see.
Now, while Dean explained what had happened to a somewhat frantic Sam, probably badly and wildly inaccurately ... now he had time. And that was going to change in a minute, when Sam -curious, intelligent Sam- stopped trying to get answers out of his bewildered brother and started trying to get them out of him, but Gabriel didn't care. He didn't care. [When Sam's on form, he does seem to be good at that - picking up on the flaws and the odd-things-out - Dean's more the zoom-in-on-the-weakness-while-in-combat type]
He is rather luminous at the minute, isn't he? [Before I wrote Bond (any version), while I was still riding the high of writing Storm, that line actually was just a joke. Cas glowing like a Christmas tree. It was meant just as a joke. And then I had to continue the story, and I started thinking about why he might be glowing, and what Grace looked like, and the logical end to that train of thought ... What? You honestly think I plan things out? *shakes head* Nope. Things float around my subconscious, make their way into a story, and then turn out to be hugely important while I wasn't looking. Oi vey!]
To human eyes, to pagan eyes, an angel's Grace was light. For human eyes to see that light while the angel was in a vessel ... that could only happen if that Grace was torn open, bleeding out, fraying out into the ether. Gabriel had thought it was residue, stains, like dried blood over a human injury. It wasn't. Oh, it wasn't.
The brother cradled in his arms along the bed, the brother glowing serenely beneath him, Castiel ... was currently all but the angelic equivalent of a bloodied corpse. And Gabriel hadn't seen it. Gabriel had let him steadily bleed. More. Gabriel had offered, out of some ridiculous sense of honour, to take away what was holding him together. Even as barely as it was. He'd offered to pull free all that was barely holding some of those wounds closed. [He's not really attached to the Winchesters for their own sake just yet, not in this. He offered to give Dean back the pieces of his soul because Cas would have wanted it, and also largely as a whim, as a gesture, because Gabriel likes gestures, likes the hints of story around them. And, too, because there is some lurking sense of honour in him, something he does his best to hide]
He could see them now. See the wounds. So many, a myriad. Not jagged rents, not the marks of swords or saws or jagged Grace. Surgical. Savage. Neat. The mark of true skill, a Healer's skill, a surgeon turned against his patient. A Healer turned Executioner. Raphael. [Okay. Again, the idea with Raph, he was a Healer. He was also Biblically the archangel sent for fairly heavy-duty single combat jobs, like Azazel (Enoch) and Asmodeus (Tobit? I think?). Michael is a soldier. Raphael is ... an executioner, almost, and I think the fact that he is a Healer is what makes him so effective that way. He knows, intimately, how angels are put together. He knows, intimately, how to take them apart again. As a weapon -not a person, because I think he's too damaged now- but as a weapon, Raphael is frikking terrifying. When Cas was talking about 'Heaven's deadliest weapons', I'm pretty sure this was who he was talking about]
And through them, over and around the savage tears, woven layer on layer in desperate, ragged patchwork, Castiel's attempt to stop it. The bright, glimmering threads of Gabriel's own Grace, rich and vibrant with power, still threaded back to him, still touching him so he could feel along them to the mauled Grace they feebly held. The deeper, more solid lines of a human soul. Dean's soul. And those ... those were used so sparingly. So barely there. Only pushed into the largest, most terrible gaps, pressed desperately close, as little as Castiel could possibly have taken. A stopgap. Nothing more. [That said, though, Cas is the kind of angel who takes an end-run around Zach to point Raphael as his own weapon, or lay traps in holy oil counting on an archangel's arrogance to make him fall for it, or chuck a holy-oil Molotov cocktail at Heaven's general (though we're too AU to see that one in this story). If there was any angel, any angel, who could work out a panicking stopgap, it's Cas]
Because Castiel had never intended more. Even if he'd been capable of it, which Gabriel doubted. Castiel had never intended to survive. His one aim, his only aim, had been to hold together power and Grace long enough to escape, long enough to get Dean clear. Long enough to throw them both clear, so he could bleed out secure in the knowledge that he had kept his human free. The bloody stupid self-sacrificing little idiot ...[Gabriel, as much as he admires his little brother's sneaky-awesome abilities, still thinks Castiel's priorities really, really need work. Gabriel's been surviving away from Heaven for a long time. The aim of the game is not to make heroic gestures (though he can when pushed). The aim of the game is to stay alive, little bro!]
"Gabriel? Gabriel? Dammit man, if you don't answer me ... GABRIEL!"
He blinked, looking up to find two angry and mildly fearful faces looking down at him. The Winchesters, side by side and glaring down at him in unison. Dean more belligerent, Sam more confused and worried, but both of them leaning towards him with the kind of intensity best reserved ... best reserved for people like Castiel. Like his ferocious little brother. [Castiel has taken a lot from Dean and Sam. Mostly unconsciously, maybe, and maybe too they've been taking a lot from him, because if you've gotten stared into by Cas more than once, if you've had to meet his eyes, you start finding other people that little bit easier to stare down ...]
"It's not enough," he told them, shakily. Barely realising what he was saying. Again. "I didn't see before. It's not enough." [Gabriel ... Didn't expect to be so affected by it. Didn't expect, even after the events of Grace, to be so attached to Castiel. To be so shocked when his brother is hurt. And, too, he's an archangel. He's a Trickster and an archangel, and he's not used to problems he can't just snap away. He's not used to being helpless, especially not with something he actually values on the line, and it scares the CRAP out of him. Cas could die. Cas could die, and suddenly he doesn't know if he can stop it]
"What? What's not enough?" Dean leaned in, ripe with fear, and almost tried to grab Gabriel's jacket, pull him up, but stopped himself because of Castiel. Stopped himself because Gabriel was holding Castiel, and Dean was not, now or ever, going to hurt Cas. [Slightly shippy of me, maybe, but mostly this was 5x04, and present!Dean's absolutely horror that future!Dean would send Cas to die. Send anyone to die, really, but it was Cas that hit him. Dean's not the best at showing he cares, but he really doesn't like the idea of Cas being hurt, especially if it's because of him]
Not that he'd get the chance. [Neither does Gabriel, these days, and I think ... I wasn't quite expecting it, but Gabriel got awfully possessive about Cas, in this. Cas is HIS brother, his responsibility, from the moment he gave his Grace. Somehow, I think he gave more than he planned to, doing that. Connected more deeply than he meant to, but there's no going back now]
"Gabriel?" Sam asked, more softly. Request to Dean's demand, but no less forceful. No less real. [Poor Sam. He's really out of the loop on this one, more than a little lost with only Dean's halting explanations and Gabriel's presence to go on. I don't ... see, Grace was Cas & Gabe, and Storm actually started life as an aborted Dean/Cas fic, that turned very, very Dean & Gabe, about Cas, and poor Sam is really only coming in at the tail end, here]
"It's not enough," he repeated distantly, looking down at Castiel. "What he did. My Grace. Dean's soul. It's not enough. He's ... he's bleeding out. Breaking down. There's not enough ..." [He doesn't get it. It's all distant and far away, and he doesn't get it. Cas isn't supposed to die. Cas isn't supposed to be lying there, bleeding out, with nothing he can do about it. Things like that don't happen, not to him, not since the first War, and dammit, he wasn't supposed to have to care like this. Not again. He wasn't supposed to have to go through this again. That's why he left, dammit!]
There was a second, where they didn't get it, didn't understand, and then ... Dean looked stricken, terrified, hurt. The hunter's face went blank, horrified. Then he pulled it back. He pulled it back, yanked himself savagely back under control, and looked to Gabriel. Demanded tightly, carefully. "Can't you give him more, then? Can't we ... Can't you give him more? Can't you do something?"
Shouldn't you be doing something already? [Winchesters don't react well to family dying on them ...]
Anger surged, harsh and snapping, and Gabriel wanted for a second to hurt the human again, to smash him against the wall for daring that, daring to question, to think that Gabriel would let his brother die, that he'd watch Castiel bleed out and do nothing, but ... But he couldn't afford anger. He couldn't afford it, however cathartic it would be, and besides. The human was right. He was right. Gabriel had to do something, and quickly, he knew that, but ... [And Gabriel doesn't react well to being questioned when he's already under stress. It makes him do things like slam pushy humans into walls]
He didn't know how to do this. He didn't know how to ... he wasn't a Healer! He'd never been a Healer, and yes, he'd put Cas back together once before, but only after the fact, only after Dad had done all the real work resurrecting him, and all Gabriel had had to do was top him up and soothe the angry lines of scars. This ... If he touched this, if he tried and got it wrong ... and he didn't even know how to try. He didn't know how you were supposed to fix what amounted to an attempted annihilation. Raphael was the Healer in the family, and hey, look, guess who'd done this in the first place ... [I think ... Gabriel's first response to something he can't fix seems to be running away. But if he runs away now, Cas dies, and he doesn't know what to do. He's really, really panicking]
"I could," he whispered. "I could pour enough Grace in to fill him ten times over. But it would be like pouring water into a sieve. He's just ... If you could see ... Raphael's torn him to pieces. There's tears, they go down to the soul, into it ... All that's holding him together is your soul. He's shoved it into the worst, a pressure bandage, bound it in with my Grace ... he's been very fucking clever, my little brother, but he was only trying to make it another minute, another second, enough to get you out, he wasn't trying to fix himself, and I've no idea how to stop this, how to stop him unravelling ..." [I think he's actually angry at Cas for that. Over the terror. He's actually angry at Cas for not doing better, for not making it all the way, for not staying alive. Not ... not really, not exactly, but ... you know when you see your sibling or your kid or your friend fall or get hurt or scare the crap out of you by looking like they're going to do one of those things, and your first reaction is to want to yell at them for it, for scaring you? Like that]
"Wait, wait!" That was Sam, cutting through Gabriel's babbling, and he was sort of shocked to realise he had been babbling. Mouth on auto. Stupid. But Sam went on, and it was an intelligent question, wonder of wonders ... "Dean's soul? Dean's soul is helping? It's working?" [Dean and Gabriel are panicking like hell right now. Sam, since he doesn't really know what's going on, beyond the basics, and is therefore a little removed from it, has to be the voice of sanity. Which he's also rather good at, when pushed]
Gabriel blinked at him. Well, yes, the soul was working. Sturdy things, souls, usually, and Cas hadn't actually damaged Dean's, hadn't torn it, only pulled some of it into himself ... [This ... I was working out the actual mechanics of what they're doing on the fly, literally line for line, with only a general idea of where it was supposed to end up. But this is the basic idea of the bond. Cas didn't cut bits of the soul off and stick them in himself, like a human transplant. He ... sort of metaphysically stretched them from Dean into himself, so it's still connected at both ends, between him and Dean. And him and Gabriel, with the Grace] not much, either. Castiel hadn't taken much at all, and what had gone had gone willingly. In fact, without realising it, Dean had already been sustaining him as best he could. Unconsciously, instinctively, much as Castiel had reached for him in the first place. If Dean had known how, he would have already been feeding Cas more. [Seriously, Dean should really take a look at that instinct of his. Once he's given someone a little, he can't seem to stop himself from keeping giving] Which was good, yes, but Gabriel wondered why they weren't slightly more concerned about it. Wondered why Sam wasn't slightly more concerned that angels were using his brother's soul as a glorified band-aid.
But he didn't have time to ask, because Dean was already leaping on the question, eager and desperate. "Then can't you take more of that?" he demanded quickly, harshly. Not even hesitating for a second, what was wrong with these two? You'd think, of all people, they'd realise the value of a soul ... [Look, the important thing about souls, yes? Is that once you have one, you don't go around giving it away. And after selling your soul to a demon, you should REALLY have figured this out, boys and girls ... It's not that Gabriel doesn't appreciate the sentiment, not when it's Cas. He's just mildly amazed and a little horrified by how cavalier the boys have gotten about sacrificing really important shit]
"Do you know how much that would take?" he snarled. Because it was him that would be doing the patching, and he was so far from an expert, or even an amateur, and if he was going to be working with a bloody soul ... "I don't think Cas would thank me if he woke up and found I'd fixed him by leaving you an empty husk, and most of your soul floating around his Grace like the grisliest bandage in history!" [Which ... didn't bother me while I was writing it, because I was too caught up, but when I actually reread it later, and thought about it ... *flaps hands* My brain needs to not do that to me. My brain needs to not come up with shit like that]
No. Castiel would never forgive him for that. Never trust him again. Never. And Gabriel remembered, remembered Castiel reaching for him on a beach in Santa Barbara, terrified and trusting and so fucking gentle ... remembered Castiel reaching literally without thought when he was dying, trusting Gabriel absolutely ... and the thought of that, the thought of losing that ... [This was ... I don't know what this was. The thing about trust, having someone's trust, especially when you have just about nobody at all who does, is that the thought of losing it ... Castiel reached out, while Raph tore at him, without thought, for both Dean and Gabriel. Now, part of that is Cas' particular ruthless approach to problem-solving, in that once he has an answer, he does not hesitate, but the trust it showed ... Nobody trusts Gabriel like that. Not now. Not anymore. He's a coward and a traitor and he ran, and nobody trusts him, no-one in his family, and he can't suffer that again. He can't lose that again]
"He'll deal with it!" Dean snapped back, cutting across the thought, anger and terror. No care at all for the costs to himself, or to Gabriel. All he cared about was Cas. "He'll be alive to deal with it, and that's all that matters! It's not like it's the fucking first time I've sold my soul to manage ..." [Anyone else slightly worried by the Winchester tendancy to not actually care how their family survives, so long as it does? Demon-infected, vessel-for-Lucifer abomination with powers? So long as you're alive, we'll live with that. Undead zombie-type thing? No worries, we can manage. Just. Don't. Die]
He stopped, trailed off, as Gabriel stared. In outright shock, outright amazement. Because yes, Dean had sold his soul, but that had been for Sam, for his brother, for someone he cared about to frankly terrifying levels, and this was for Cas ...
"He means that much?" he asked, very, very quietly. Stunned. "As much as family?" For a Winchester, that was well nigh blasphemy. Dean stared back, mute and defiant and determined and almost ashamed, and he didn't say anything, but he didn't retract anything either, and then ... Then Sam spoke up. [Gabriel has seen that scary Winchester determination, from Sam, mostly, during the Mystery Spot incident, but ... Dean and Sam are largely a family of two. More, with the likes of Bobby and Jo, but ... mostly a family of two. A really intense family of two. Gabriel's right. For them to let somebody else in, it nearly IS blasphemy, for them]
"Castiel is family," the younger Winchester said simply. Quietly. Looking down at the angel spread out between them, at the pale, slack features of a dying Castiel, and his own expression went as hard and determined as his brother's. Sam looked down at Castiel, and then up at Gabriel, and his eyes were hard as agate. "Cas is family." [I like the Sam/Cas friendship from the show. I mean, it's mostly Dean and Cas that get all the intense parts, but a lot of the time when Cas needs actual looking after, it's Sam who's there (Dean has a slight tendency to get caught up in his own -admittedly very pressing- problems sometimes), and Cas returns the regard by the end of it. I like that. I like how Cas really was, for a while there, a part of their family]
Gabriel blinked at him. At them. At the whole bloody lot of them. And there was a flare, brief and deadly, possessive, saying that Cas was his family, not theirs, Castiel was his little brother, how dare they ... [He has no other family, by now. And Cas reached for him. Cas reached for him. Cas is his, in a way I don't think even he understands. His little brother] Except. Except. Castiel had reached for Dean, and been answered. Castiel had picked a fight with an archangel three bloody times, for them, and died for them twice. Castiel had stood on a beach with a sword in his hand and broken Gabriel's shields and lies apart from the ground up, for them. For them, and for Gabriel, and that was because Dad had made Cas to pull angels from the sky and humans from Hell and fine. Bloody fine. [If Cas hadn't chosen the Winchesters, if Cas had stood up to Heaven and Hell and Raphael and Gabriel ... Cas wouldn't be Cas. Cas wouldn't be Cas, and he wouldn't have been able to do what he did in Grace, and fine. Fine. Gabriel can ... can accept that, mostly. Sort of. He has to]
But Castiel was dying. Whatever Dad had made him for, he was dying, and Gabriel didn't know how to stop it, and he was not using Dean. He was not destroying his little brother's family to save him. It would kill Castiel more surely than Raphael already had. [It's not because of them. Not because of Sam or Dean. Push comes to shove, Gabriel will sacrifice them if he has to, and 5x08 proved that, but ... Gabriel's lost family. He's lost family, and he's not letting Cas do the same. Or him, all over again, because if Cas fails then ...]
"What about mine?" Sam said, suddenly. Quietly. "Could you use mine?" [Right. This was ... this was always in the plan, ages ago, because Sam ... and then the season finale comes around and you see that Sam really is prepared to go that far. It's ... not quite as personal with Sam as it is with Dean, there's a wider circle of things he will sacrifice himself for. Sam will sacrifice himself for principle as much as for the people on the ground, while Dean is more personal about it. Sam wants redemption. And this here ... Cas is an angel. A bad example of one, maybe, one who's nothing like the angels he once hoped for, but Cas is still the best of those he's seen. And Cas is Dean's friend, and his own, too, to an extent, and this is a strange mix of principle and personal for Sam. This is saving an angel, and saving his family, all at once. This is Cas]
Gabriel stared at him. Surely not ... "Use your what?"
Sam didn't look away. "My soul. If you could take from both of us, use just enough of each ... could you do it then? Could you fix him then?" [It's also very, very practical. In a suicidal sort of way. Winchester speciality, perhaps?]
Aaannnnddd obviously Castiel was getting all his suicidal habits from hanging around with this lot. Grace, soul, life, limbs, here, have 'em all. Just leave the others alone. And the others saying exactly the same thing. Was there anyone here with any sense? [Again with the giving away of really important shit, people! Cas, little bro, I know you love these people, but they seriously have rocks for brains!]
"Unless ..." Sam said suddenly, watching Gabriel's face. Gabriel froze, wary, waiting for anything. Bargains, prices ... he remembered the Mystery Spot [from Gabriel's POV, the Mystery Spot ... Sam went suicidally, homicidally obsessed with hunting Gabriel down and making him give his brother back, and I've a feeling that rather ... unnerved him a little. It was his own fault, but he didn't expect ...], after all, but Sam ... Sam ducked his head. Suddenly pained. Suddenly shamed. "Unless it's not ..." He stopped, pulled in a deep breath, and avoided everyone's eyes. "Will the demon blood ... will it affect Cas, if you use my ... Will it affect him?" [Poor Sam. Look, I came into SPN for Cas, and that meant focusing on Dean a lot, of the two brothers, but there is something still about Sam ... Winchester angst is not my favourite part of the show, but there is a reason they react the way they do]
... Nope. Not a scrap of sense. Not in any of them.
"Sammy," Gabriel murmured, somewhere between exasperated and awed. "Sam Winchester. There is nothing wrong with your soul, you idiot. At least, nothing that isn't wrong with every human who's ever sinned, anyway."
Sam's head snapped up, shocked and confused and disbelieving, and just a tiny, tiny bit hopeful ... "But ... the blood ... my powers ... I'm an abomination. That's what ..." [I don't think Cas realised exactly how much Sam takes that kind of thing to heart, those times ...]
Gabriel sighed heavily, cutting him off. Partly because they didn't have time, partly because this was just too painful to listen to. "Kid, you have free will. That means choices. That means until you actually die, until you choose finally and for always, you've always got a chance. Your soul gets a bit stained, a bit battered, maybe a few lumps knocked out of it ... but as long as you keep making enough good choices along the way, you don't count as demon yet. So no. You won't poison Castiel. All clear?" [Little bit of personal belief slipping in, there]
A second, while Sam's face lit up, and Dean tried not to be too obvious about grabbing his brother's arm and squeezing it. Then both brothers switched right back to business mode.
[Okay. This is the part where things start to go radically different from the original draft before my computer died. Up to this point, the story was moving in mostly the same direction, with just different phrasings and stress on different aspects. But here the actual action (such as it is) starts going in a different direction from the original. Because, apparently, my brain simply cannot do the same story twice. Even when it IS the same story. *growls at it*]
"So it will work?" Dean asked, his other hand pressed against Castiel's knee, clenched white. "You can fix Cas, with both of us? You can help him?" And had he one scrap less of pride, if he'd been anyone but Dean Winchester ... there would have been an audible 'please' in there. If it had been anyone but Dean. Since it wasn't, the please was only there behind the words, silent and unspoken. But it was still there. [... It's ... There are a lot of people in SPN who have tried to break Dean to the point of begging. A few, too, who succeeded. I ... I sort of admire that he's come back from that, as much as he has. Belligerent and fragile and rude as hell about it, but you understand that. You understand why. He doesn't say please unless he has to, because that's something too many people have forced out of him, but he still means it, sometimes, even if he can't say it]
"You don't know what that will do," he whispered, cradling Cas' head. "I don't know what it will do. He barely took anything, spared you everything he could. If I do this, if I take you in properly ... and it will have to be me, he's too far gone ... you'll be bound to him. To us. Both of us. Both of you. If one of us falls ... we'll all feel it. If one of us is in pain, we'll all be. You'll feel ... you'll feel me, feel him, each other ... it's a bond. I don't know ... I don't even know if it will work, there has never been anything like this. Even angels don't bond this way. Not soul to soul. I don't know ..." [Gabriel, suddenly caught in the middle of that sort of terrifying complication of issues that are the Winchesters, is still caught up on the brother dying in his arms. But ... what it would mean, for him, to suddenly have three people as part of him, after being alone so long ... Cas is already in, of course, but that terrifies him as it is, and these two ... he doesn't know enough, can't see far enough, and these two scare him. And yet ... he sort of longs ... he's been alone a long, long time ...]
"Will it save him," Dean interrupted. Flat and terrified and trusting. Exactly like. Exactly like ...
"Maybe," he said. "Probably. I think ... I think yes."
"Then we try it." Sam, heavy and dark, and he had begged for his brother with that expression, pleaded with a cruel Trickster with those eyes. He had begged Gabriel once before, that way. [Mystery Spot ... I think it did more of a whammy on Gabe that we saw. I mean, looking at it in light of Changing Channels, in light of who Gabriel IS and what he's done, what he's lost ... And Sam scared the crap out of him. And shamed him, too. Gabriel ran from his brothers. Sam single-mindedly fought to get his back. And now ... Sam and Dean have Gabriel's brother in their hands ... Gah! There was a lot running under this. I think it's part of the reason this took so damned long to rewrite. There were too many trains of thought in my head, and in the end I just went as minimalist as possible, and hoped something managed to show through -_-;]
Well. It wasn't like he had a choice, was it? It was his little brother, after all. And these two ... these two ... willing to go soul for soul ... "I can try," he said quietly. "I don't know how much I can do. I'm not Raphael. But I can try."
They looked at each other, weighing him up between them, and Gabriel wanted to growl at them, to snarl that Cas was his brother, if they thought he wasn't good enough to try ... but then Dean, of all of them, nodded quietly, and looked back at him.
"Good enough," the hunter said softly. "Good enough."
So it was. It would have to be.
---
[There was a long sequence here, in the original draft, where I actually showed the bonding, the actual making of it. But ... in the time between the system crash, and my actually managing to rewrite ... like I said above. I'd been thinking about it too long. Too many trains of thought came in, mostly involving Sam and Dean, and it all got just too ... cloggy and baroque and stiff and stalled-out, so ... well. So I just chopped out the entire sequence, and went straight for aftermath instead. I sort of wanted to get the focus back to Gabe and Cas, because ... well, because they're what the trilogy is hung around, the relationship it hinges on, and I wanted to get back to that. I love the boys, Sam and Dean, but it was always the angel brothers, for this story ...]
Castiel woke, a long time later. A long time. The other two were asleep, worn quite literally down to the soul, only human after something that would kill a lot of angels. They were asleep, curled down on either side of Cas, clinging close to him while Gabriel sat behind them, Castiel's head in his lap, and kept watch. [I liked that. That image. It shows up a lot, in my stories, actually. Mostly Gabriel, cradling one of his brothers in his lap, but others too. It's just ... protective and warm, that gesture. I like it]
Castiel woke slowly. Fearfully, achingly. Feeling his way towards consciousness through Grace torn raw, stitched clumsily together. As best as Gabriel could manage, but that wasn't really saying much. His little brother woke slowly, and in agony. But alive. Oh, alive. That was the important part. Gabriel was clinging to that part. [He really wasn't kidding about being an amateur, about being scared shitless he was going to do it wrong, and he can't actually fix Cas this time. Not the instant, snap-of-the-fingers he's used to, and Cas is in pain, and it freaks him out. So ... he clings to the part of it that actually DID work. His brother is alive]
He watched Castiel wake. Watched will and consciousness trickle back, watched him climb laboriously to the surface. Watched him encounter the souls inside him, the Grace, watched him touch the threads leading back, leading out to all of them. Watched him realise what they had done. Watched him freeze. There was a moment of stunned stillness, of quiet, frozen horror. Of agony and silent distress, and Gabriel flinched inside, waiting. [It ... look, imagine it. Imagine almost dying, not knowing what happened, and when you wake up you realise you have parts of your friends, your family, floating around inside you. Imagine feeling that, and not knowing what they'd done, how badly it had damaged them ... not knowing if they were dead or husks and all that was left of them was forever seared into you, part of you, inescapable, after they'd died to give it to you ... Sweet heaven, I didn't think about that when I wrote this, not really, my mind skimming over it, but reading back I think that was honestly one of the most horrifying subconscious thoughts I've ever had. No WONDER Gabriel was shit-scared of it!]
But Castiel didn't reject them. Gabriel had been more than half afraid that he might, not even consciously, but on pure instinct. The way human bodies sometimes rejected transplants. The instant rejection of the foreign. Gabriel had been afraid of that. But Cas didn't. He didn't. [Because once he realised they weren't dead, Cas is pragmatic enough to realise they would have had little choice, and there's nothing he can do about it now except accept their sacrifice in the spirit it was made]
Instead, though his spirit dimmed in pain and guilt, Castiel curled up around them. Cradled them clumsily, carefully. So achingly careful. The vibrant wonder of a curious spirit, the pained grief of a friend and brother as he saw what they had done, and tried to soothe them for it. Tried to protect them, wrapping them in Grace that could barely move, as once he had shielded another soul. The soul of a man named Jimmy Novak. A soul that had been torn from him. [I have no idea what happened to Jimmy, but the theory I've been working under is that when God brought Cas back after 4x22, it was only Cas he brought back. Raphael's attack ripped Jimmy from him, and I've a feeling ... I've a feeling that scarred Cas a lot more than he let on. And now that he has other souls inside him, now that he's bearing them ... his instinct is to shield them, and learn from them, and wrap around them, because he knows what can happen to them if he doesn't]
Gabriel knew that. Gabriel had touched the scar. And feeling it, seeing it ... he had never been more glad that he had never had to bear a human soul. Never had to lose one. His vessel had not been born, but made. Mud-puppet golem. Not exactly fitting for the majesty of an archangel, but then that had kind of been the point ... Anyway. He'd never touched a human soul. Not the way Castiel had. Not until now. [Again, another completely different theory on Gabe and his vessel. I seem to switch them every time I start a new verse. Not out of preference, really, but ... I don't know. I like exploring the possibilities? Gabe and Crowley, mostly. I just ... do that]
Not until them.
"Gabriel," Castiel said at last. A tiny whisper.
"Hey," he answered softly. Gently. Looking down as exhausted blue eyes flickered open between his hands, as Castiel looked dazedly up at him. "Hey, little bro."
"Gabriel," Castiel said again, lines of pain and guilt scoring across his face. "Gabriel. What have I done?" [He didn't reach for Sam, but he did reach for Gabe and Dean, and I think ... he doesn't know how far he might have gone, in extremis. He's afraid ... he did this himself, without giving them a choice ...]
Quiet and crushed. Like the little idiot thought any of it had actually been his fault. Like he thought he had somehow forced them, while lying helpless and open and fucking dying at their feet. Like he thought they'd been unwilling. [Which is just the kind of idiocy that Gabriel is NOT in the mood for, right now]
Well, screw that.
"What have you done?" he growled sharply. "I'll tell you what you did, you little moron. You died. You bloody went and died on us! Rather spectacularly, I might add. I know. I felt it." [This is part of what I think he did when he left Heaven. He cut himself off so he wouldn't have to feel that again. Feel it, see it. He cut himself off so he wouldn't have to be helpless all over again. And ... he's sort of mad at Cas for making him care, and then dying on him, forcing him to feel that again. He's genuinely angry]
Castiel flinched a little, shrinking between them. "I'm sorry?" he whispered. "I didn't know ... I didn't realise you would have to. If I had ..."
Oh no! No, Gabriel could see where that one was going. "If you had, you'd have done exactly the same," he snarled, resisting the urge to shake the little twerp with great difficulty (or so he told himself - actually, he was hard pressed not to wrap himself around Castiel and cling for dear life). "Or else, little brother. I am not ... I am not losing you. Not again. Not ever. Clear?" [The problem with cutting yourself off from them, though ... is that you're cut off from them. No comfort, no connection, not even the knowledge they're alive. And Cas is in now, so ... Gabriel could probably have picked a less suicidally inclined brother to care about, but he has Cas now, so all he can do is try and make sure the kid stays alive, and deal with the panic it causes]
Castiel blinked at him. Still more than a little dazed, maybe. "Ah. Yes?" All soft confusion, too tired and hurt to really bear being yelled at. Gabriel felt a flash of guilt. The bloody angel was just about the one being in Creation who could make him do that. [That is so not fair, that kicked-puppy look Cas has ...]
"Yeah, well. Just remember it, alright?" he grumbled, smoothing a hand through Castiel's hair absently. "And stop getting killed, will you? It's becoming a really bad habit of yours, little bro. A really bad habit." [Not quite at Winchester levels, yet, but still]
"I didn't want to," Castiel offered quietly, carefully, tilting his head as far as Gabriel's legs would allow. "Raphael ... I had to see that Dean was safe. I did ... try." [To be fair to Cas -and the boys, I guess- they aren't usually aiming to get killed. They just keep getting into situations where it's a very, very strong likelihood]
"I know," Gabriel interrupted softly. "I know, Cas. Believe me, I know. But you could have ... I mean, pretty good for a first try, in zero seconds, but couldn't you at least have aimed for long-term survival instead of just the next few seconds? It took me a half-hour to realise you were still dying around those patches!"
Castiel was silent for a second. "Is that why ... Dean? Sam? I ... I can feel them ..."
Gabriel sighed. "They weren't all that happy with the idea of letting you up and die on them, no. And before you say anything, I didn't ask them. I told Dean what you'd done the first time, what you'd asked, and they figured it out on their own from there. I wasn't going to let them, but you were dying, and the Winchesters practically invented the word 'stubborn' all by their lonesomes ..." [It's not all my fault, they made their own minds up, I didn't make them, don't blame me - I've a feeling most people tend to automatically assume the worst with Gabriel, and not exactly without cause, most of the time ...]
Castiel frowned at him, his Grace stirring sluggishly, feeling around the threads of soul and Grace woven through it. Sounding them out, as gently as possible, whispering soothingly as the boys stirred a little. Touching the threads of Gabriel's Grace, and he had to shudder a little at that. Had to quake around the sensation. It had been so very, very long ... [It's going to take him a long while to get used to that again, even without the bond on top of it]
"You brought them in," Cas whispered, awed. "You let them be bound to you. Not just me. You. You bound yourself ... to all of us." [And Cas never expected Gabriel to do that, never expected him to let them in - Gabriel's not exactly a welcoming personality by this stage]
Gabriel flinched, a little. Curled away from reproach, before it was even voiced. "It was an emergency," he muttered defensively. "And they let me!" A pause, a little thread of his own wonder, the shock that still lingered. That he'd been allowed. That he'd even been welcomed, after a fashion. He remembered them. Remembered feeling them.
Remembered feeling Dean, determined to give everything, anything, all that he had, because it was all he knew, all he cared about, being able to give enough to protect those he loved. Castiel. Sam. Here with him. Part of him. And Sam, too. Sam, too long alone, too long abandoned, too long drowning in pain and sin, desperate for everything, yearning for the trust that lived at this level, soul to soul. Yearning for that stained, fragile purity. The innocence of trust. Both of them, reaching out to each other, to Castiel, to Gabriel. Giving, offering. Accepting, taking. Drowning in the bond, the touch between them. Awed by a communion no human had ever felt. And he had been awed by them. By the way they gave, simply because he asked. By the way they trusted. [This paragraph in particular is a left-over from the bonding scene I chopped out]
"They let me," he whispered again. "Despite everything ... everything I've done to them. They let me. I asked, and they gave. Not just for you. You can't ... you can't fake it, that deep. Soul to soul, you can't fake anything. They ... trusted me. Because you did. They trusted me."
Castiel smiled at him, looking horribly smug for someone who'd been dying only hours ago. His little brother smiled at him. "No," he whispered, struggling for a second to lift a hand, to reach up feebly and let Gabriel catch it. Hold it. "Not because of me. Because you asked, Gabriel. Because you gave them a choice." He closed his eyes, pained remembrance. "That's all they ever wanted. A choice. I told you. There isn't anything they won't give, if it's of their own free will ..." [*frowns* It does seem ... if you try to force something out of them, they will fight you every damn step of the way. If you ask out of genuine need, they will give you anything. It's ... almost worrying]
"Yeah," Gabriel said softly. "Beginning to see that, little bro. Beginning to see that. And ... If it's any consolation? Your little ... misadventure ... may have given them more of a choice that you think."
Castiel froze, opening his eyes again to blink up at Gabriel, wide and desperate and shining with such hope, such trust. What Gabriel would have given, all those years ago, to have something like that again ...
"Angels need consent to take a vessel," he said quietly. He hadn't thought of it at the time. There had been at least one rather more pressing issue, after all. It had only been afterwards, after they had slipped into sleep, as he sat holding his little brother and watching the pained ebb and flow of Grace between them, between all four of them ... "The consent of a living soul, otherwise they'd just take any old corpse lying around with the right genes. Mike and Luci need them to say 'yes', right? Thing is, though ... they've already said yes. Soul and Grace, and that's what counts, right? They said yes. Just not to who they were supposed to." [It just seemed to make sense ... If they can just resurrect anyone with the right bloodline ... they had to resurrect Dean and Adam's souls, too, to make it work, so if the soul is already bound to another angel ...]
Castiel stared at him. Putting it together, like the clever little bastard he was. Trying, very, very hard, not to hope too soon, not to believe too quickly, but oh, how very bright those pained eyes suddenly were. How very alive.
"They've said yes to us, Cas," Gabriel finished, with maybe more of a note of triumph in his voice than was really warranted, considering how late to the party he was, and the fact that it wasn't like he'd planned this or anything. Whatever. They were his now. He was allowed to enjoy their victory. [*smiles* I've a feeling Gabriel does a lot of that - do things on the fly and then congratulate himself if they happen to accidentally work] "The fact that we happen to have a body apiece already doesn't really matter. We have their souls, they have our Grace, and short of destroying both of us, and a rather large chunk of the boys' souls in the process ... There's fuck all my brothers can do about it. And since the chances of getting a Winchester to agree to anything once you've killed a member of their family are pretty much zero ..."
Castiel frowned suddenly, around his small, sneaky little grin of triumph. Which, incidentally, was sort of cute on him. "Family?" his little brother asked, just gently confused, and Gabriel realised he didn't know. They'd never told him. [Well, they wouldn't. Winchesters never do. You're supposed to figure it out yourself]
"You," he said softly, carding his hands through Castiel's hair. "You, Cas. They called you family." A small smile. "What? You think a Winchester would offer his soul for anything less? And I don't know why you're playing innocent, you sneaky little bastard. It's not like this is the first time you've wormed your way into someone's heart ..." [Gabriel is probably never going to forgive him for that. Luckily, this is mostly because it doesn't need forgiving]
Castiel smiled, so very gently, surprised and happy and just a little bit smug, and then ... He reached up, curled his hand around the back of Gabriel's neck and tugged him down carefully, face to face, until Gabriel was curled over his little brother. Castiel tugged him down, closer than anyone had been in a long time who hadn't been trying to kill him, and smiled.
"Then you are family too, Gabriel," he said quietly, into Gabriel's wide-eyed expression. "You are my family. And theirs. You are family." [I think ... as far as Cas is concerned, that should have been obvious from the moment Gabriel chose to share his Grace, and definitely from the moment Cas trusted him enough to reach for him in extremis. Once Cas knowingly gives his loyalty, gives it knowing who and what you are, what you are capable of (which he didn't with Zachariah), then you can't budge it with an Apocalypse, end of story. You can fail him, and he'll still die for you. Gabriel should probably have figured this out by now, but Gabriel isn't used to people trusting him, not when they know what he's done]
Gabriel swallowed, feeling something shake in his chest. "Sneaky," he managed. "I did tell you you're a sneaky little bastard, right?" [Hopefully, though ... he can learn]
And Castiel smiled. His little brother smiled. [He does that, when he's proud of himself. Like after 5x04, at the end there. *grins* It's a smug little thing, but it's not mean. It's also adorable, but that may be just me ;)]
[End]
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